Happy Monday, everyone! Hope y’all had a nice weekend. As always on Monday, post by Stephen Hall. Thanks, Stephen!
Have you noticed an odd thing about the teenie boppers being paraded in front of the cameras in a renewed effort to push gun confiscation, in particulare the image of David Hogg? While the leftist media promotes the notion that sixteen year olds are mature enough to vote, and decide complex political and legal issues of society, no one below the age of twenty one is mature enough to own one of those guns as a first step towards a broader confiscation.
As often as Mr. Hogg’s face, which was safely tucked away in an entirely different building, has been plastered across the tv, one is left to wonder about the faces and images of the seventeen young adults who were actually murdered and their families, which seem conspicuously absent from the television monitors.
It was not long ago then the people paraded before the public to elicit sympathy were predominantly the parents of the murdered children, not their classmates, and even then the campuses were not so large that the victims appear to be all but unknown to the spokesmen held up by the media.
So, why David Hogg?
The answer is as obvious as the face on his face. That is to say, it is because he presents a sympathetic, youthful, clean cut image of innocence. Videos have shown him rehearsing for the interviews being reminded not to swear or curse. He has stated on Twitter that he will not even engage people who criticize him.
Why?
That would ruin his image.
The media is selling an image for a cause, young Mr. Hogg is just that, a spokes model for the gun control cause. It is not relevant whether his is informed or knowledgeable, the important part is whether he continues to come across as an innocent victim.
There is an old maxim in advertising that “sex sells”, which is true but highly overstated. There is also a maxim for news broadcasting that “if it bleeds, it leads”, which is a way of saying that their business is selling violence and tragedy. Advertisers and media types, however, know full well, though they never would admit it publicly, that cute and innocent sells far better than sex or violence.
An example of this is the contrast between the T-Mobile advertisements featuring an attractive girl in pink and black emphasizing the speed of their product, versus Lily, the AT&T Wireless girl, Milana Vayntrub. See, you remember her name, you feel connected to Lily because of the portrayal of the character almost as a friend’s younger sister.
Compare the two photos of her above in reference to what type of image AT&T knows will affect the buying public more. Milana is fully capable of pulling off the sexy image, but AT&T promotes the image of sweet, innocent, and somewhat nerdy, because it is approachable and relatable to the audience.
The image most people have of Trayvon Martin is the image of him at twelve years old when he was a bright-eyed and optimistic youth, and not the more muscular, angry, and cynical images of a troubled and increasingly violent seventeen year old that he has grown to become. Many people noted this deception at the time, but the deception was based in the same principle as the AT&T girl.
It is upon such basis that the news media seeks out stories of innocent victims to promote their causes, and avoids stories where the victim has a more sullied past. There are always victims from which to choose, it is the media’s decision to highlight not only which crimes to make national news but to select the witnesses and images to spin the narative.
Remember the story of the abduction of Elizabeth Smart from her bedroom at age fourteen? That was a perfect story for the media to highlight because she was the quintessential innocent victim, along with the unusual hook that she was abducted from inside her home and not off the street.
Most missing and exploited children are runaways. Their stories are not highlighted. The fourteen year old innocent who is abducted garners more of our sympathy and concern than the fifteen year old who has a fake id, getting into bars, dating older men, and would generally be classified as a troubled youth.
We are all guilty of this to some extent, the innocent victim tugs at the heartstrings. I myself am more inclined to help a doe eyed hapless young lady than I would be to help some young punk with his pants hanging down and an angry attitude.
We recognize that often a person’s misfortunes are brought about by their own bad judgment and foolishness, not that they may not be the innocent victim of another’s criminal act, but that they placed themselves in that situation to become a victim. Our empathy erodes inversely with the innocent nature of the victim.
Media people, advertisers and newscasters, recognize this and exploit this judgmental tendency within us to manipulate and advance their causes.
The immigration poster children of the left, the DACA examples, are those young people brought into the country by their parents when they were young who are innocent and trying to make something of their lives. It is not the young people who were brought into the country by their parents who grew up to be MS-13 gang members with face tattoos and prison records.
On the other side of the immigration issue, it is Kathryn Steinle, the young sweet innocent victim of violence at the hands of an illegal immigrant. It is a public image contest of innocent victim verses innocent victim to control the narrative and propaganda.
This is not a new phenomena, a hundred years ago it was an innocent thirteen year old Mary Phagan, raped and murdered who became the face of a cause. There is a biblical story where ten tribes of Israel all but obliterated one of the other tribes because of an attack upon a priest’s concubine. The Trojan war launched a thousand ships to avenge the seduction of a king’s innocent and beautiful wife.
People always rally around the innocent victim, and the innocent looking find employment as the spokes people for causes.
As articulate, intelligent, and informed as Dana Loesch is, it is not some gruff ex-marine who is held up as a spokesman for the NRA. It is not an accident that some cretin on Twitter recently posted pictures of her beside a similar looking porn star.
Just as it is not an accident that those videos indicating David Hogg was coached were put forth. If you attack the spokes person’s innocence, you attack the empathy and connection people have with them, it undermines their credibility and effectiveness.
As a student of mathematics, I prefer to have arguments presented to me in a dry, logical, objective fashion which can be independently evaluated, not some emotional tug at the issues through some innocent looking marionette spouting mindless talking points.
However, I recognize the effectiveness of image, and the influential power of a tightly controlled narrative presented by an oligarchic leftist media. Frankly, as much as I wish they would peddle their innocents elsewhere, many people buy into such images.
