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Technology's Legacy: the 'Loser Edit' Awaits Us All
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times Magazine has an insightful article putting into words how I've felt about information-age culture for a while now. It's about a phenomenon dubbed the "loser edit." The term itself was born out of reality TV — once an outcome had been decided while the show was still taping, the producers would comb back through the footage and selectively paste together everything that seemed to foreshadow the loser's fall. When the show actually aired, it thus had an easy-to-follow narrative.
But as the information age has overtaken us, the "loser edit" is something that can happen to anyone. Any time a celebrity gets into trouble, we can immediately search through two decades of interviews and offhand comments to see if there were hints of their impending fall. It usually becomes a self-reinforcing chain of evidence. The loser edit happens for non-celebrities too, using their social media posts, public records, leaked private records, and anything else available through search.
The worst part is, there's no focal point for the blame. The news media does it, the entertainment industry does it, and we do it to ourselves. Any time the internet gets outraged about something, there are a few people who happily dig up everything they can about the person they now feel justified in hating — and thus, the loser edit begins.
But as the information age has overtaken us, the "loser edit" is something that can happen to anyone. Any time a celebrity gets into trouble, we can immediately search through two decades of interviews and offhand comments to see if there were hints of their impending fall. It usually becomes a self-reinforcing chain of evidence. The loser edit happens for non-celebrities too, using their social media posts, public records, leaked private records, and anything else available through search.
The worst part is, there's no focal point for the blame. The news media does it, the entertainment industry does it, and we do it to ourselves. Any time the internet gets outraged about something, there are a few people who happily dig up everything they can about the person they now feel justified in hating — and thus, the loser edit begins.
Look, it all makes sense!" is a comfortable place in a chaotic World.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Because they can find a handful of things in a sea of evidence and then construct a narrative of guilt around it.
It's why the EU right to have old, irrelevant search results is so important. Society has to forgive and forget, otherwise lives are ruined by one or two mistakes. It's great that machines remember everything for us, but also terrible.
I would say it's the opposite - that if everyone has their mistakes on parade, then it' makes it easier for others can admit that they too aren't perfect. Instead of trying to appear what we're not, we should be more interested in being who we are, warts and all, and encouraging others to do the same.
It wasn't that long ago that a woman who was raped was considered "ruined for life." By speaking out about it instead of trying to hide it, that is no longer the case. Same with gays and lesbians that used to have to hide in the closet. We can't go on wasting lives with some false idea that if you can get people to forget about it, you don't have to deal with it.
We simply can't advance, either as individuals or a society, if we actively "forget" anything that society labels a "mistake." Imagine a world where everyone can't throw rocks because everyone else knows the rock-throwers are also not so perfect.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Remember Fatty Arbuckle? He was a bigger star than Charlie Chaplin in his day. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope.
Then he threw a party where a hooker got sick and later died. Months later, the jury at his final trial actually gave him a formal written statement of apology from the jury, because of the grief he had gone through for no good reason.
His films were banned and his career was over: And all the publicity was edited and picked to ensure the narrative justified his destruction.
It's called "yellow journalism" these days but it's been around since speech was invented.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
You can find "proof" of anything you want to on the internet, whether it be that the Queen of England is really a lizard or that Steven Harper is a bible-thumping arsehole. You can "prove" Obama isn't really an American, that Kanye West is gawd or that Kanye West is the biggest ego to ever hit the planet.
The internet is just chock full of articles, forums, blogs, and other sources you can cite to support your pre-determined outcome.
It has always been this way -- there is no "fact checking" required to post something. On the other hand, there is no "editor" on a "mission" to change what you post, either.
At the core of it, the problem is not the internet nor the history it exposes, but the viciousness and old-fashioned nastiness of people who want to destroy others, often just because they can. Add that in to the human stew that just loves to hear and read nasty gossip about people they're jealous of, and you have a recipe for the "loser edit."
Where the internet differs from reality TV, though, is that with "reality" TV, all the episodes are subject to "loser edits" because that's what builds "characters" out of hours and hours of otherwise useless footage into something the general public will suck back like sweetened pablum.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You're misconstruing the argument in the article. They're not saying that we should try to whitewash people who have done bad things, and a person's bad reputation may often be well deserved. They're warning against falling into the trap of, once someone happens into bad circumstances, of creating a narrative for that person that tries to assign their circumstances as a predestined result of fate. The most insidious example I see of this is when someone contracts a serious disease such as cancer. Often the first questions asked by medical staff are regarding their lifestyle choices, which builds into the narrative that they're sick because of the way they lived.
During the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic, for example, the first questions asked to those diagnosed were often whether they lived a promiscuous lifestyle, took drugs, or engaged in gay sex. All activities which were frowned upon, and fed into the dominant societal narrative at the time that the people who were contracting AIDS were losers who contracted the disease because of their loser lifestyle. I'd argue in that case the loser edit was applied to a whole category of people, and held back progress in addressing a serious health issue.
Would they be doing this if they couldn't remain anonymous? Doubt it very much.
Exactly what steps did Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Dean Buntrock, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, Mark Swartz, Richard Scrushy, David Glenn, Leland Brendsel, Vaughn Clarke, Robert Dean, Nazir Dossani, Hank Greenberg, Bernie Madoff, David Friehling, Frank DePascalli, and Ramalinga Raju take to remain anonymous? They were named officers of corporations that committed financial fraud and cost many people billions of dollars, and there was no way any of them thought they'd have anonymity as a shield.
It's a shame that most people want the benefits of the fight waged by their predecessors, but are unwilling to pay it forward.
It's a shame that there are people on this planet who think they know better than the people who have something they want to hide for social reasons.
Living in fear every day of losing your job because someone outs you is not a life,
It isn't your responsibility to make that decision for them, nor should you be using this as an excuse to defend those who do "loser edits" of people who want to keep their private lives somewhat private. Your example of people who speak out about their rape experiences living happier lives than those who don't missed one critical factor: they are speaking out VOLUNTARILY, not as the result of some arrogant know-it-all who decided they'd be happier if their lives were made public.