Cashing in on the outrage economy

"They can gas me, but I am famous. I have achieved in one day what it took Robert Kennedy all his life to do."

The quote that, for me, defines modern celebrity was not uttered by a reality-TV performer, an ephemeral pop star or even Andy Warhol, but by Sirhan Sirhan, the man who killed Robert Kennedy.

What he grasped is that fame is easy to obtain if you do not care what price you must pay for it. Happily for would-be celebs there are options other than murder, which is just as well, because the rewards for fame are limited in San Quentin.

Now the only requirement is a preparedness to be hated. The digital world has created an outrage economy where there is money to be made if you can stand the heat. There have long been "shock-jocks" and their newspaper equivalents. But once those people were restrained by editors and advertisers. In the outrage economy, commercial considerations are reversed. People are building careers out of being so unpleasant that a plethora of websites cannot resist giving them the publicity they so crave. It is fame without shame.

Take two current examples. Josie Cunningham is, well, actually, I have no idea what she is. Purportedly a model and former escort, she starts rows on Twitter, secured a breast enhancement on the NHS and is regularly written up on news websites for stunts and views designed to enrage. In spite of there being no obvious reason to care what she says or does, she commands media attention by being unpleasant, perhaps because she plays up to a press stereotype of a working-class wastrel, narcissist and sponger.

Another making outrage pay is Katie Hopkins, a one-time contestant on The Apprentice who has made herself a media personality by supposedly saying the unsayable. Like Cunningham, she happily plays the pantomime villain. Her overt appeal is to the lazy prejudices of snobbish little Englanders but, again, her real attraction is to those media organisations that thrive on low-cost, high-click emotional journalism.

Sadly, the rules of the outrage economy mean everyone is behaving rationally. The outragers have identified a market and are supplying it; the media organisations, which rely solely on advertising for revenue, know these cheap-to-produce stories secure hits. The more reaction they garner, the more alluring they become. Every denunciation is a win, every furious comment stream proof of their power to engage and enrage. This, in turn, leads to more attention, newspaper columns and TV appearances.

The media may feign disapproval of these people but it is an utterly complicit relationship. As the dog returns to its own vomit, the news sites return to the professional outragers.

The only problem with dealing in outrage is that one needs to be ever more outrageous to retain interest. Last weekend, in a column in The Sun, naturally followed by the free sites, Hopkins described the Mediterranean boat people as being "like cockroaches", adding: "Show me pictures of the coffins, show me bodies floating in water . . . I still don't care." The same day, up to 800 people were drowned. Twitter, naturally, was seething. A petition was started. She and The Sun were, inevitably and pointlessly, reported to the police. For this economy does not just serve professional outragers. It offers opportunities to the professionally outraged as well.

The chances are Hopkins is thrilled at her week's work. But it means that she must be even more outrageous next time. She has two options: carry on being ever more offensive until she goes too far and self-destructs or settle for being merely unpleasant and risk losing attention. Ultimately, this is the worm that eats itself.

But it matters little. There are countless others waiting to take her place, ready to be even more horrible and hated because there is money to be made. The outrage economy demands endless inflation; as we become harder to shock, its merchants must become ever more shocking. This is one financial crash that cannot come soon enough.

[email protected]; Twitter: @robertshrimsley

Illustration by Lucas Varela

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