The Demographics of Outrage
A pop-up window interrupted my web browsing. It was from market research firm Angus Reid Forum (ARF) and it posed a question which I think is fundamental and each of us should ask our selves. What was interesting was the 20 options I had too chose from. It seemed there’s a tremendous number of disparate important issues facing the world today.
“What do you think is the most important issue facing the world today?”
TERRORISM
CRIME
GLOBALIZATION
EDUCATIONAL ISSUES
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
UNEMPLOYMENT
WARS&CONFLICT
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
POVERTY
HUMAN RIGHTS
CORRUPTION
HIV/AIDS/OTHER DISEASES
DRUGS AND DRUG ABUSE
OTHERS [PLEASE SPECIFY]
This was followed up with a series of questions which asked me to rate my opinion from “highly agree”, through to “highly disagree.” Essentially the questions were composed of a variety of “Left wing” ideas and the purpose of the survey was to see how much I believed in each given idea, giving them a rating of how liberal or conservative I am. Next up they wanted to rate how much I consume media: through what media do I get my news, what kind of gadgets do I have, and what is more important to me, sports or entertainment. Then of course they got personal and asked for my income, if I have kids, if I rent, how much I pay. Essentially they built a full profile but I stopped short of giving them my name and address. It was typical stuff but their offer of $1500 prize in exchange for my name and address didn’t seem worth it. They already had enough pure demographic gold.
Not that I’m their target victim audience. They only discovered in me an obvious consumer outlier. Hardly worth having my head hacked into by marketing demagogues. I’m sure they’re not terribly upset that I didn’t sign up for a user account but they do wish that their carrot $1500 prize could have swayed me to give over my identity.
The reason I filled out the survey is because I wanted to see what they would ask. I wasn’t surprised but I thought it would be interesting because they invite users to “participate in forming Canada’s public policies, shaping consumer products and defining our nation’s values.”
What struck me about the 20 choices which started this survey is how many different outrages there are in the world. My goodness! With all these “separate issues” facing us how ever are we to find the unity to face the root of these issues? Is it not possible that these various outrages have a root cause? Anyway, as suggested in a conversation with my girlfriend, the best answer from the 20 above is probably “Educational Issues” which we agreed would do the most to solve the other important issues. Or if you’re like me you selected “other,” my little pet issue, “9/11 truth,” but it could be argued that said issue is actually educational, specifically political and historical education.
What caught my ire in this survey is the idea of what I’ve termed the Demographics of Outrage: If you can nail people down into their demographics you then can sell it right back back to the angry consumers. Promoted as separate problems with separate solutions, you can sell laws, products and programs to people on their ability to solve crime, fight corruption, end poverty, enhance education, save the environment. etc. You can offer unique options to distinguish yourself. You can get passions involved and get people committed to your cause. As one person fight for one thing, and someone else fights for another, neither fight together.
Why? Because each cause has it’s own final solution which can be alienating to the other causes. These are walls that separate action groups from dropping all their petty issues and working together to, for example, dethrone King George W. Bush or to drag the bankers and CEOs out into the street by their socks with the demand that the workers get their fair shake, that the environment stops getting destroyed, and that honest, clever, sustainable solutions are much more preferable than dirty profits, polluting lifestyles, and injustice…
Injustice. Is that the word which we could latch onto?
The way we treat each other is an injustice. The way we treat the planet is a potentially apocalyptic injustice. The way 9/11 is used as justification for the erosion of civil liberties and the waging of wars is certainly an injustice. That one per cent of the world’s population owns 90 per cent of the world’s wealth is an injustice. All of these things may be solvable, but only through education and patience, and we have large deficits of both.