AOL, like most ISPs, is basically a whore when it comes to the news.
They will stand on an internet streetcorner and say anything lurid or fake-salacious or grotesque to get your attention.
The model is not network news. The model is clearly tabloidia.
What's funny is they constantly start out with teaser headlines and then I notice when you don't click on them, they later turn into grabber headlines for the same story.
So the "You Won't Believe What they Pulled Out of this Woman's Stomach" didn't lure me in and a few hours later the same photo is there with the headline "51 Pound Tumor Removed from 120 Pound Woman's Stomach."
I'm sure they are constantly stockpiling advertising demographic gold in the form of statistics letting marketers know what words and images, what modes of presentation increase the all-mighty clicks, which are not quite dollars--probably more cents. But cents add up to dollars. Ugly dollars by the way, if you've seen the new Lincoln dollar coin. Ugh! What an ugly thing. Such poor design. I asked the person who gave me one if it was released as a promotion for that probably terrible movie in which Lincoln is a vampire hunter as well as the Great Emancipator.
Anyway, all of this was a way of contextualizing the following paragraph, which AOL placed on my home page tonight and which seems calculated to jingoistically generate online lynch mobs for an "uppity" (I'm using this word, trying to imagine AOL-reasoning and deduce the words AOL would use if it could speak) Chris Rock, after he tweeted something sarky on Independence Day.
Here's what AOL posted tonight below his pic: "While everyone was tweeting Happy 4th of July all morning, Chris Rock used the social media site to vent his Independence Day frustrations. He writes, Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but Im sure they enjoyed the fireworks. Harsh words for a country that has provided Chris Rock with a net worth of 70 million dollars."
What Chris Rock said was a joke. Not the funniest joke for a very funny guy like him, but a joke with a point. Words don't always mean what they seem to nominally mean. He was visualizing Independence Day when the country still had slavery in place as an institution. It's a valid image. How can it be an Independence Day if there are still slaves. This is a statement that can lead other places or cast light on other political and human rights "paradoxes.' Maybe the message is too heavy-handed and that's why the joke isn't as funny. Maybe you need to hear the joke in Chris Rock's deliciously raucous voice, with Chris Rock inflections and loudness.
But it's a dirty little snipe and clearly intended to be a manipulation of kneejerk patriotism. It's meant to penalize Chris Rock's brand and leave a tarnish that could have some mild economic repercussions. The easily manipulated and prone to ire reader is told exactly how to feel about the celebrity. It's as annoying as movie music that plays on your heartstrings and normalizes human emotions by the hundreds of millions at once.
I guess I should see it as funny but I see it as annoying.
The real AOL subtext is clear: "A rich black man shouldn't make jokes about slavery."
Why not?
Presumably he should lose his historical empathy because his country has given him a large amount of money. Or rather because he earned all that money with his talent. But I think AOL sees it more as a "gift." And that would mean he should have more gratitude.
And somehow telling the ugly truth about American history (even as an attempt to make people laugh) is wrong and censurable.
Especially if you're rich.
"You got paid off, so why aren't you shutting up?"
That's what I really get from the AOL jibe.
It's an ugliness wrapped in an ugliness.
News should not be blackmail.
