‘Was Will Smith’s slap a sadly perfect example of toxic masculinity? Proof of Hollywood’s double standards on bad behaviour? A radical act of civil disobedience against ableism and misogyny? Evidence for structural racism? A metaphor for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?’‘Was Will Smith’s slap a sadly perfect example of toxic masculinity? Proof of Hollywood’s double standards on bad behaviour? A radical act of civil disobedience against ableism and misogyny? Evidence for structural racism? A...
But given so many of us now take our moral instruction from things we see on variously sized screens, the slap heard around the world quickly became the world’s least interesting mass exercise in applied ethics and whataboutery. It was no longer just a bit of lurid celebrity gossip – it was an expression of everything good and bad in the world all at once.
What began as an on-stage biff between two celebrities over a disrespectful gag quickly became a Thunderdome for increasingly irrelevant arguments, as millions of users experiencing the internet equivalent of a sugar high tried to cram it into whatever their pet issue was at that moment.
I could make a broader point here about the perverse incentives of the modern internet and the resulting toxic effect on the discourse. In the early days of mass uptake of social media, some theorists turned to an academic term from the world of media studies to capture the profound social weirdness these new platforms brought with them.
You misspelt assault. Why are you not defending a black man attacked at work?
I blame Critical Race Theory and the White Privilidgeseses.