The reason they feel that way (more) is because of those videos. Just like most people who watch Alex Jones probably didn’t start by believing all the crazy things.

We can chicken/egg about it all day, but at some point if people didn’t want it - they wouldn’t be doing it.

Depending on the definition of ‘want’ of course. But what else can we use?

I don’t think anyone would disagree that smokers want cigarettes, eh? Or gamblers want to gamble?

I think most people have experienced relatives of theirs falling down these rabbit holes. They didn't seek out a reason to be angry; they watched one or two episodes of these shows because they were on Fox, or because a friend sent it, or because they saw it recommended on Facebook. Then they became angry, which made them go back because now it became a moral imperative to learn more about how the government is making frogs gay.

None of these people said to themselves, "I want to be angry today, and I heard that Alex Jones makes people angry, therefore I will watch Alex Jones."

> "They didn't seek out a reason to be angry"

A lot of people really do, and it predates any sort of media too. When they don't have outrage media they form gossip networks so they can tell each other embellished stories about mundane matters to be outraged and scandalized about.

> When they don't have outrage media they form gossip networks so they can tell each other embellished stories about mundane matters to be outraged and scandalized about.

But again in this situation the goal is not to be angry.

This sort of behaviour emerges as a consequence of unhealthy group dynamics (and to a lesser extent, plain boredom). By gossiping, a person expresses understanding of, and reinforces, their in-group’s values. This maintains their position in the in-group. By embellishing, the person attempts to actually increase their status within the group by being the holder of some “secret truth” which they feel makes them important, and therefore more essential, and therefore more secure in their position. The goal is not anger. The goal is security.

The emotion of anger is a high-intensity fear. So what you are perceiving as “seeking out a reason to be angry” is more a hypervigilant scanning for threats. Those threats may be to the dominance of the person’s in-group among wider society (Prohibition is a well-studied historical example), or the threats may be to the individual’s standing within the in-group.

In the latter case, the threat is frequently some forbidden internal desire, and so the would-be transgressor externalises that desire onto some out-group and then attacks them as a proxy for their own self-denial. But most often it is simply the threat of being wrong, and the subsequent perceived loss of safety, that leads people to feel angry, and then to double down. And in the world we live in today, that doubling down is more often than not rewarded with upvotes and algorithmic amplification.

I disagree. In these gossip circles they brush off anything that doesn't make them upset, eager to get to the outrageously stuff. They really do seek to be upset. It's a pattern of behavior which old people in particular commonly fall into, even in absence of commercialized media dynamics.

> In these gossip circles they brush off anything that doesn't make them upset

Things that they have no fear about, and so do not register as warranting brain time.

> eager to get to the outrageously stuff.

The things which are creating a feeling of fear.

It’s not necessary for the source of a fear to exist in the present moment, nor for it to even be a thing that is real. For as long as humans have communicated, we have told tales about things that go bump in the dark. Tales of people who, through their apparent ignorance of the rules of the group, caused the wrath of some spirits who then punished the group.

It needn’t matter whether a person’s actions actually caused a problem, or whether it caused the spirits to be upset, or indeed whether the spirits actually ever existed at all. What matters is that there is a fear, and there is a story about that fear, and the story reinforces some shared group value.

> It's a pattern of behavior which old people in particular commonly fall into,

Here is the fundamental fear of many people: the fear of obsolescence, irrelevance, abandonment, and loss of control. We must adapt to change, but also often have either an inability or unwillingness to do so. And so the story becomes it is everyone else who is wrong. Sometimes there is wisdom in the story that should not be dismissed. But most often it is just an expression of fear (and, again, sometimes boredom).

What makes this hypothesis seem so unbelievable? Why does it need to be people seeking anger? What would need to be true for you to change your opinion? This discussion thread is old, so no need to spend your energy on answering if you don’t feel strongly about it. Just some parting questions to mull over in the bath, perhaps.

Thank you for raising this idea originally, and for engaging with me on it.

The opposite question - why so insistent that people wouldn’t seek it out, when behavior pretty strongly shows it?

Why are you so insistent that people don’t do what they clearly seem to do?

Why is that hypothesis so unbelievable?

Is it the apparent lack of (actual) agency for many people? Or the concerning worry that we all could be steering ourselves to our own dooms, while convincing ourself we aren’t?

> Why are you so insistent that people don’t do what they clearly seem to do?

I’m not rejecting the idea that people fixate on stimuli that produce anger. The question is why they do that, and the answer is unlikely to be “people just want to be angry”.

> Why is that hypothesis so unbelievable?

Because it runs counter to the best available literature I am aware of and is a conclusion based on a superficial observation which has no underlying theoretical basis, whereas the hypothesis I present is grounded in some amount of actual science and evidence. Even the superficial Wikipedia article on anger emphasises the role of threat response here. Mine isn’t, as far as I can tell, some fringe position; it is very much in line with the research. It is also in line with my personal experience. “People just want to be angry” is not.

It is important to understand that the things people try to avoid through gossip, exaggeration, and expressions of anger are not all mortal threats. They can also be very mundane things like not wanting to eat something that they just think tastes bad. So make sure not to take the word “threat” too narrowly when considering this hypothesis.

I don’t have any skin in the game here other than an interest in the truth of the matter and a willingness to engage since I find this sort of thing both interesting and sociologically very important. If you or anyone have some literature to shove in my face that offers some compelling data in support of the “people love feeling angry” hypothesis, then sure, I would accept that and integrate that into my understanding of human behaviour.