• BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    this wasn’t a normal thing until after Columbine.

    Things that are relatively new, circa Columbine

    • the 24-hour news cycle

    • rage-farming as a genre of syndicated media (think: Limbaugh, Hannity, InfoWars)

    • selling fear becomes huge moneymaker for opinion programmers (Limbaugh, Hannity, Carlson, etc)

    • politics as a staple on social media comment threads

    • offshore groups (like troll farms, etc) posing as domestic political actors, targeting particular demographics

    Ready access to guns is of course a problem, but it’s probably made worse when all those folks with ready access to guns are bathed in fear and loathing 24/7 by millionaires making lots of money telling them things to make them or their families afraid or angry. Just a thought