Portrait of an Outrage Episode

• Lena Dunham, an actress and author, is for some reason considered to have important opinions.
• Lena Dunham makes and posts a weird little video where she interviews her father about “How are you feeling about the extinction of white men?” Aside from the title, it doesn՚t actually seem to be about extinction.
• Internet shit-fountains like Fox News and Breitbart immediately latch onto this, doing their best to link it to Hillary Clinton:

Milo pointed out the similarity between Lena Dunham’s support for the “extinction of white men” and Hillary Clinton’s goal to import potential ISIS members … announcing “Here’s a taste of Hillary’s America. It’s Lena Dunham talking about the “extinction” of white men.”

• Other, lesser internet presences decide that because Lena Dunham said something stupid, that is a perfectly reasonable justification for violent white nationalism.
• Actual white nationalists take the occasion to attack “Hillary-Supporting Kikess Lena Dunham”

Frankly I hate everyone involved in this. I have managed to remain pretty ignorant of Lena Dunham՚s work and character, I assume like many celebrities she is motivated mostly by attention-seeking. Others involved seem to be motivated because outrage feels so damn good. But I՚ll reserve my strongest hate for Dunham, the others have the excuse of being partisans of inherently shitty worldviews. She seems to be doing her best to demonstrate that the other side – my side – is equally shitty, and maybe she՚s right.

I՚ve recently been trying to defend the very idea of politics against people who want to avoid it. Still think I՚m right, but starting to see the merits of their attitude. So much of it is shitty people flinging shit at each other. Why enter into it, all you will accomplish is getting it on yourself?