Click Bait. It’s annoying, it’s everywhere, and we’re not getting rid of it anytime soon.
YouTube has become notorious for clickbait-- because of the recent algorithm changes that make it hard for creators to have their work seen or suggested without it.
This is really just another way to garner attention-- but is it really always a bad thing to want or even need attention?
It seems that when it comes to social media, we forget that attention isn’t just about vanity or narcissism. When someone posts a concerning status, or a photo captioned “I’m so ugly ):”, and we feel it’s obvious they’re gorgeous, we call them “attention whores.”
Yet attention is absolutely necessary for us to function as humans. It’s immoral and illegal to neglect a child. Would anyone argue otherwise? No, because it’s obvious children need love, care, and yes-- attention.
If (older) men don’t find a new spouse two years after theirs’ dies, they are highly likely to die within the next two years and not reach their life expectancy. Touch and attention are important to live. It can be life or death to not be given attention.
Now, back to YouTube. Okay, so maybe it isn’t life or death. But attention is still necessary if YouTube is the creators primary source of income. If they don’t get attention, they don’t get money, and don’t get to live a life that everyone deserves. It is hard to be happy and healthy (mentally), if you are constantly worrying about how you’re going to afford living.
In the age of social media we’re incredibly quick to shutdown anything that just “begs” for attention-- when really-- even outside of the scope of social media it is completely natural and necessary to want.
Why is it wrong to want to be told that you are beautiful? And why is it wrong to need money to live; when everyone else also needs and wants these same things?
It is interesting how the Huffington Post views the “attention whore” label. Seemingly, it’s supposed to be “gender neutral” but really it is just another term to bring women down. Think of famous “attention whores”: Trisha Paytas, Tana Mongeau, The Kar-Jenners, Lady GaGa (at the beginning of her career). However, male counterparts like Shia Labeouf, David Dobrik, Logan and Jake Paul, and Ricegum are considered more annoying than anything; or “trolls”. They don’t get the sexist label that women who do the same things (if not even less!) than them. It seems as though we as a society apply the label to women more often (either consciously or subconsciously), despite men being known for equally attention grabbing behavior. (Did you forget the Kardashians have a brother? Me too! And he had a long, drawn out scandal with Blac Chyna! Bet you didn’t forget her though.)
"Clickabait-y" Titles for Comparison
It’s with the internet and our apparent internalized sexism we should consider the ethics of the cyber world. Is it possible that, like in real life, our unconscious biases lead us to unethical behaviors?
Is it ethical to treat or label women and men differently based on the same behavior? While of course, if we wanted to be “kumbaya” with our definition of ethics-- we’d argue that we shouldn’t really be calling anyone a whore in the first place. But if we’re going to be calling people whores, shouldn’t we at least be calling everyone or noone a whore?
Ethics is supposed to essentially mean making everyone’s life a little bit less horrible. But, if we’re going to be distributing cruelties to people regardless, shouldn’t we be making everyone’s life equally horrible? Or is that thought in itself an unethical one? Should we be allowing the maltreatment of women to continue while men get told “boys will be boys” for their gimmicky, attention grabbing behavior?
Will we continue to be unethical beings simply because of internal biases? It sure seems that way. If we look at law, for example. The person most likely to do drugs in America are young white males. The people in jail for drugs are brown and black men, though.
It seems we can’t ever truly be ethical because we already have decided our own twisted version of ethics-- one where what we believe our right is right and therefore ethical, and what we believe is wrong is wrong and therefore unethical. Should we instead be working to come up with some universal standard of “ethical”?
Is it possible to ever achieve that standard when we are all raised completely differently with different belief systems, or is that far too abstract to expect from us as people and as a society? If that’s the case, should we perhaps be making our own, personal codes of ethics and try our best attempts at following our own guideline of what we believe is ethical?
But if we allow that, too many people live in extremes that would allow them to behave unethically (ex: My ex girlfriend cheated on me, so I'm going to post her nudes! It's only karma/ethics!"), but if that, to them is ethical, how do we say that it's not? With law, we attempt to reach a point of ethics and have rules everyone should be able to simply follow. (Ex: Don't steal, do drugs, or murder people).
But to many, drugs aren't that bad, or bad at all. And sometimes you have to steal to survive, and maybe that person tried to murder you first!
So, what can we do about ethics? Do we keep giving attention and wasting our attention on the internet if we truly believe that is ethical? Or do we try to take in what others consider ethical and apply that to ourselves; like law? Are ethics as a concept even real? Or are they meant to be disagreed upon to reach a optimal ethical abstract?
Who knows?
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