Molly Jong-Fast: Kanye, Elon, Trump: Why the News Cycle Is Trapped in a Narcissist Vortex

[Celerity]

Is there any way to escape the attention-seekers dining in Mar-a-Lago or the one heading to Mars?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/kanye-west-elon-musk-donald-trump-media-news-cycle



On October 6, the GOP House Judiciary Committee Twitter account, which tends to mimic the thoughts and tweets of one jacketless culture warrior congressman, Jim Jordan, tweeted out three names, “Kayne. Elon. Trump.” The message seemed clear: These three men represented today’s Republican Party. Well, on December 1, the Judiciary GOP Twitter account finally deleted the tweet. The deletion occurred at around the time Kanye West, now known as Ye, appeared on Alex Jones’s streaming show Infowars, where he told the conspiratorial host, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.” At one point during the livestream, it seemed like Jones was trying to temper West’s antisemitic rhetoric, perhaps fearing another lawsuit. Jones is currently on the hook for $1.5 billion for lying about the dead elementary school kids of Sandy Hook.

The time between the midterm elections and the New Year should be a relatively slow news cycle, as political passions cool and Congress winds down—that’s why it’s called the lame-duck session. But not this year, as we’ve been subjected to a stream of scandals and controversies involving West, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. Last week, I wrote about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago dinner with West, which was a scandal that involved both West and Trump as well as white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump still hasn’t apologized or disavowed white supremacism since the incident, but he did call for the termination of the Constitution this past weekend, a democracy-threatening scandal that might eclipse his dining with two antisemites scandal. The news cycle has already seemed to shift away from asking Republicans about the former president breaking bread with bigots to him musing about suspending the Constitution. Amid the recent Trump-West drama, there has also been a West-Musk imbroglio, as the Twitter chief—who just reinstated West to the platform—suspended his account for tweeting a swastika inside a Jewish star.

The media is trapped in a narcissist vortex. It’s easy to see similarities between the three men propped up by the House GOP, and, sadly, inescapable on the internet. They each seem to have a deep existential hunger for attention, and just as gratified by negative as by positive headlines. Trump was the king of the outrage cycle in 2016. He literally rode the reams of free media that accompanied his countless negative news cycles into the White House. Even Trump would admit that, without Twitter, he might never have won.

Since Musk bought Twitter, he’s become the main character of the site. Musk has sort of occupied the Trumpian space—making news, trolling liberals, and amplifying the far-right. And Musk has an army of protectors ready to battle his critics. I, myself, have tangled with Musk; he once responded to a story about the cost of my apartment by sharing a SpongeBob SquarePants meme. This past weekend, another right-wing-adjacent account posted a screenshot of one of my tweets laughing about Hunter Biden’s laptop and asked why I had blocked them as if it was some kind of gotcha. Musk tweeted back, “Good questions,” and I was immediately flooded with trolls and bots just like I was when Donald Trump Jr. tweeted at me in the past.

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[GusBob]

1. Those 3 are common topics everywhere it seems

Even DU

I myself am sick of hearing about them

They seem to thrive on the attention no matter how jerky they have to be to get it