[How To Survive Series] The Media Shitstorm Hurricane
The media news cycle is a torturous and abusive cycle that seeks to swirl its audience up into a ball, dribble them against a hardwood court of propaganda, and hurl them at their next fiscal goal.
Far too many times are there people who, after a year of constant vigilance of the news, find themselves worn out and feeling chronically dejected. You might be thinking that means there is something wrong with you for being affected by the news to that degree but I’m here to tell you…..
THAT’S A FEATURE OF THE NEWS MEDIA, NOT A BUG!
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By design, the MSM found out that it could instantly generate greater click throughs, hit KPIs, and have a much better advertisement portfolio to show off and net juicy ad revenue from parasitic brands if it began to present news in a manner that actually got people “In Their Feelings” so to speak. The reason why this works is the same reason that drugs are extremely effective, being in a state of excitement (in the clinical sense) creates a release of hormones & signaling agents like neurotransmitters in the body in a massive dump, some of this action is dopaminergic or creating dopamine in function. (Dopamine is the stuff that influences several bodily functions and mental processes that can lead our decision-making.)
Often times, this spike in dopamine caused by certain emotional stories as well as drops in dopamine as a result of constant demoralization create a natural reward & punishment system which leaves individuals hooked to news stories looking for that natural payoff of the good story. Fundamentally humans crave closure after all. This is the major tool that the media found was a great aid to their business model as they could instantly begin hacking their reader’s brains by using provocative “clickbait” titles that would create a spike in dopamine depending on if it was meaningful to the readers. From there they’d engage in a predatory feasting of energy that can only be described as vampiric in nature:
THE CYCLE:
After hooking the individual with the title, the article’s author will begin using highly flowery and descriptive language to try and create some sense of immersion. Usually this is overdone and tends to border on pretentious but to the average layman it seems prolific and like good writing.
They’ll then proceed to FRAME the article to set up the reader to have a moral side to take based on the argument deepening the emotional attachment to the story, thus loosening the mental restraints that usually allow them to be further manipulated into allowing their body to generate guttural reactions as opposed to using sound reasoning. Once you’re in this frame of mind where your morals and moral associations with what is being presented take over, there’s no going back. This is key to get you to attach a moral position on the content and by association the site/channel.
With that framing, they can begin to slowly but surely omit key details without having their entire work be erroneous. This allows the outlet to now have consistency of narrative as well as morality on their side. This right here is the massive payoff of endorphins for a programmatic set of actions. They want to reward you with the false sense of being ‘informed’ whilst giving you a moral impetus to hate a side and associate them with the arbiters of truth creating the vicious cycle of dopamine manipulation.
Now that they have created a biochemical reaction within your brain by manipulating a powerful neurotransmitter, they can begin pumping out stories that become increasingly depressing but with the promise of a silver-lining or form of dopamine release that never comes until maybe about 3 articles later or in the case of shows and segments, AT THE END. (See the leaked Project Veritas clip of the #ExposeCNN feat. Charlie Chester.) This is the payoff Except….. …….Its never enough. Much like with using drugs for a Dopamine hit, the first time you get the spontaneous release and end up on the cycle, the subsequent releases are never enough which can lead to several mental imbalances.
Typically, when something makes a person feel happy, a signal is sent to the VTA (ventral tegmental area), and it travels to the nucleus accumbens and then to the prefrontal cortex, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) explains.The hippocampus then records the memory of this event, and the amygdala creates a conditioned response, encouraging a person to repeat the behavior. Addictive drugs create a shortcut to reward by sending a flood of dopamine to the nucleus accumbens, Harvard Health Publications reports.
While this is typical of a person using drugs with addictive properties it is also present with activities, foods, and other external influences. The cumulative effect of this ends up, rather than being deleterious withdrawals which would result from an overload of dopamine from say drugs, but instead a slow wearing down of the victim resulting in burnout and possibly depression. This is in essence where the Media comes in with their employing of the model. Rather than simple straight reporting of the facts, they’ve developed complex ways to mask and employ these strategies through:
"Opinion” Columns/Segments (Some of which lack that designation altogether.)
Round-Tables with the same opinion and messaging being echoed with only minor variance
Interviews w/ guests that “take the bait”
Deceptive chyrons
Etc.
Its all meant to create these emotional peaks and valleys, which in general shows and dramas is fine…. But in the news, this is downright scummy at best and evil at worst. People tune into the news to learn about things that happened in the world around them and then make their own decisions based off of an objective presentation of the facts, not be led by the nose and held emotionally captive by capped tooth, gel slathered, suit-wearing politicos and business execs. Maybe some people like that, but that is another form of emotional Stockholm syndrome that I don’t care to tackle in this article at the risk of compromising my already scant amounts of brevity.
That being said….
What are some of the things that you can do to finally break free of this cycle if you’re already stuck?
Find independent commentators, usually Twitter is the best source for fledgling politicos, but there are some big hitters like Jack Posobiec, Raheem Kassam, DiscloseTV, Ian Miles Cheong etc that work for large networks, have large platforms, or publish mass amounts of stories but still maintain enough integrity to the truth.
Make sure to follow their twitter profiles and click the notification bell so that you can get PUSH Notifications to your phone when news breaks.
Use as many local news sites as you can for stories rather than massive media aggregators and conglomerates. While there may be some spin present, you’re usually going to find more straight reporting on these sites.
Use and popularize youtube channels as a source of news. You’d be surprised at some of the grade A commentary and analysis that you can find buried beneath Susan Wojcicki’s memory hole. They won’t always be on page 1 or even 2… Just find a story that you want to follow and when you find actual commentary on the topic that fits the bill of reliable straight reporting, then roll with them for future content.
Repeat these steps and get away from big TV news except in rare cases and you may just survive the media shitstorm.
When I use terms like the “News” “Media” and “MSM” I am referring to the corporate news apparatus as well as large digital media organizations that have given way to “Clickbait” news.