I attended a really fun Super Bowl Party at my next-door neighbor’s house on Sunday. I would say about 30 adults attended and maybe fifteen kids. As usual, I had some drinks, watched about half the game, barely heard the halftime show and missed most of the commercials. We also had lots of good food and the interactions with the guests were enjoyable. I probably knew about 2/3 of the attendees but got to know a bunch of new people as well. Overall, I had a great time and so did my wife and kids.
I woke up Monday morning and as I usually do, I went on Twitter (I am Boomer level stubborn, so I refuse to call it X) and scrolled my timeline. As predicted, the discussion about the Super Bowl was a dumpster fire that was so inapposite to my experience. I write this piece because I feel the juxtaposition between my in-person experience and the online discourse is emblematic of the fake division in this country today.
I was telling a friend a few weeks back who is heavy in the political scene in Washington that everything written or spoken regarding the “divide” in this country is overstated. It’s basically made up. I wagered that if you disregard the 10% on the far right and left, the remaining 80% of folks are aligned on most everything else that is important.
My point is punctuated by the Superbowl, because the manufactured outrage machines take the opinions of a few jerks or bots and elevate those opinions to levels that appear much more intense than actual reality. The media also plays a role, pretending that some small online momentum is somehow newsworthy.
The obvious example is the Taylor Swift coverage. The right-wing blog universe (Tim Pool for example), which Twitter heavily promotes, would have you think that half the country hates Swift. Most people don’t care and no one cared at the Super Bowl party I attended. If anything, most of the attendees enjoyed the shots from the suite. If nothing else, we can at least all pretend that Brittany Mahomes was seething from the lack of attention she was getting in her suite throughout the game. The absurdity around Swift was so palatable that some Twitter accounts were suggesting that the 49ers were “Jesus’s team” I guess because Taylor Swift wasn’t rooting for them. I cannot think of a city, or state for that matter, that fits less into the right’s priorities and vision for urban culture.
On the left, there was outrage over RFK Jr.’s ad that I believe was similar to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 political ad. People nervous about RFK’s 1% in the polls were apparently angry about that. RFK’s cousin who might also be related to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-wife Maria Shriver was also mad. I saw his Tweet like a dozen times. I did not see the ad until the next day. It was fine. I guess there was a Pfizer ad about treating Cancer that like six people were angry about too. I also missed that one probably because I was talking to a real human at the party while the commercial aired. Shucks! I missed another opportunity to be angry at “Big Pharma!”
I say all of this because my next morning scroll through Twitter painted a much different picture than my personal experience the day before. I am reminded every day that I leave the house that most Americans are really good people. I almost never have a negative encounter. At a Super Bowl Party that large, you might expect a negative interaction given the online perception that hate, angst and vocal frustration at least appear to be everywhere. But those things are mostly missing from my life.
I believe my eyes and ears more than something I read on Twitter. If we can all agree that online is not real life, I believe that we’ll get back to being the greatest country on the planet. More positivity, less hate.
The Reasonable Man Standard 