John Mark Mines

Do It for the Vine

Double Dare

Everyday people act stupid for attention. Whether it’s viral “challenges,” “fail” videos, or even leaked sex tapes, visceral content is a powerful tool in the contest for attention. Social media didn’t spark this trend out of nowhere; it merely opened the door for millions to finally obtain their 15 minutes of fame.

Have you ever tasted a Tide Pod? I hear they’re delicious. Also, I heard a spoonful of cinnamon helps the medicine be no longer required. Of course, nothing compares to blacking out. That one was the most fun; or, at least I think it was. I don’t really remember.

sell·out /ˈselˌout/
noun : a betrayal of one’s principles for reasons of expedience.

We can’t really blame them. Viral videos can change your life, just ask Justin Bieber, Rebecca Black, or Kate Upton. Businesses, too, know that going viral is good for the bottom line. Democracy itself is little more than a popularity contest. Whether we like it or not, popularity matters.

I was never very popular. Popular kids don’t get dead animals thrown at them or their shoes doused in urine. Like Aesop’s dog, I conflated popularity with notoriety. My idol was Henry David Thoreau, who lived in the woods by himself just for fun. In fact, he actively evaded the need for popularity. In Walden he tells the story of a man who handcrafted baskets before realizing nobody wanted to buy them.

“I too had woven a kind of basket,” says Thoreau, referring to his writing, “but I had not made it worth any one’s while to buy them.” Undeterred, Thoreau went a different direction. “Instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.” And off to the woods he went.

Coincidentally, I’ve become more like Thoreau than intended. When it came time to publish my own piece of writing, no one wanted it. Foolishly, I had spent years crafting the perfect basket, and forgot the most important part: making it worth any one’s while to buy it.

I’m Lovin’ It

“I’m tired of people acting like they’re better than McDonald’s,” Jim Gaffigan quips in his stand-up special Mr. Universe. Gaffigan uses fast food as the embodiment of convenience at the expense of quality. Or, in his words: “Momentary pleasure followed by incredible guilt eventually leading to cancer.”

According to Gaffigan, everyone experiences this tension, even if you don’t eat fast food. “You may have never set foot in a McDonald’s,” he says, “but you have your own McDonald’s.” Maybe it’s gossip magazines, or incredibly caloric Frappuccinos. To Gaffigan, it doesn’t matter. “It’s all McDonald’s… McDonald’s of the soul.”

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

Lily Tomlin

In a more serious exchange, Jon Stewart discussed the selling-out of news organizations with Bob Iger on his Apple TV+ show The Problem with Jon Stewart. Ironically, this show was canceled shortly thereafter. Apparently, his candid conversations threatened Apple’s popularity.^{2 3}

Iger is a self-made man: he started at ABC doing menial labor in 1974, before climbing the entire corporate ladder to become the CEO of Disney in 2005 (Disney purchased ABC in 1999). Over his tenure, ABC News reported to Bob Iger for some 30 years. If anyone knows the ins and outs of the news industry, it’s him.

“Can you do a profitable news organization,” asked Stewart, as the two sat alone in something that looked like an upscale hotel hallway, “that also has the strength to cut through the noise in this media environment?” Stewart wonders whether the entire business model of modern news is based on selling out.

“It’s almost impossible,” Iger responded. “I don’t think you can create a subscription news service that would generate the kind of revenue you’d need to cover news right.” It’s too expensive to do a good job, and the revenue isn’t enough to justify the cost. Spin stories are less expensive and more popular than unbiased investigation. In the news world, quantity matters more than quality.

Fact or Fiction: An Even Split

Whether it’s fast food or evening news, the content we consume matters. Bias, spin, and fake news pollute our perspective just as empty calories expand our waistline. Obesity might be easier to measure, but fake news matters too: when we compare our worldview to cold hard facts, we know less than chimpanzees.

That’s the demeaning comparison Hans Rosling uses in his book Factfulness.⁴ When quizzed on simple matters like poverty, life expectancy, and deaths due to natural disasters, we perform worse than random guessing. Even the “most powerful and influential political and business leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, activists, journalists, and even many high-ranking UN officials” are biased. According to Rosling, “Everyone seems to get the world devastatingly wrong.”

Rosling’s ire isn’t aimed at ignorance, but rather skewed skepticism. Several instincts, like fear, negativity, and blame, are manipulated by modern media. “Fears that once helped keep our ancestors alive, today help keep journalists employed,” writes Rosling. “It is pretty much a journalist’s professional duty to make any given event, fact, or number sound more important than it is,” because they “must compete for their consumers’ attention or lose their jobs.” Iger would certainly agree.

News organizations need clicks, views, and scrolls to survive. Popularity is their lifeblood. Hijacking instincts is expedient; it’s their shortcut to profitability. It’s fast food: convenient, gratifying, and, ultimately, more than marginally malnutritious.

Stewart and Rosling were on the same mission: to sell without selling out. To provide quality content that successfully competes with gratifying noise, to drive clicks without using clickbait. It’s an honorable quest, but Stewart’s show was cancelled and Rosling died before his book was published. Meanwhile, the McRib is back at McDonald’s for a limited time only.

Replaceable Parts

Selling out extends far beyond journalists and fast-food chains. More than ever, life is one big popularity contest. “There’s a marketplace for finding friends, business partners, and marriage partners,” says Joseph Henrich, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.⁵ In the old days, we were stuck with the folks in our proximity: relatives, neighbors, and schoolmates. Today, our reach is unlimited. We can choose anyone we want… and so can they.

The result is cutthroat competition. “You’re cultivating a unique self,” says Henrich, “so you’re trying to emphasize those traits which will make you interesting to possible friends, possible mates, and possible business partners.” With apps for dating, job hunting, and socializing, we fight for friends like businesses fight for market share or politicians for votes. Popularity matters more than ever.

Win the Crowd

Without popularity, you are just one among billions. Like the 100,000 new songs added to music streaming services every day, no one has time for you.⁶ There’s just not enough limelight to go around.

My all-time favorite song could be a needle in that haystack. But I’ll never hear it. And yet, I know Rebecca Black’s Friday abomination by heart, reminding me of the way the world works: it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to sell.

To be heard, we need attention. We have to be like Captain Jack Sparrow: he might be the worst pirate you’ve ever heard of, but at least you’ve heard of him.

Popularity is the great curator that whittles down the masses into a few manageable options. The inconvenient truth is that if Thoreau hadn’t gained popularity decades after his death, I wouldn’t even know his name. Being good is simply not good enough: we need to be popular, too.

“I wasn’t the best because I killed quickly,” Proximo said to Maximus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. “I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd and you’ll win your freedom.”

And so this is the sole mission of this website: to win the crowd. To sell without selling out. Then, one day, I can be like Maximus: courageous enough to have a story to tell, and a crowd to tell it to.

1. http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/perry/332.htm ↩︎
2. https://deadline.com/2024/06/jon-stewart-apple-different-agenda-canceled-the-problem-show-1235974672/ ↩︎
3. https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jon-stewart-explains-apple-exit-why-streamer-canceled-the-problem-1235907986/ ↩︎
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness ↩︎
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-transcript-joseph-henrich.html ↩︎
6. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/there-are-now-120000-new-tracks-hitting-music-streaming-services-each-day/ ↩︎