"It's like tabloid news programs that talk about how horrible something is, while at the same time they're glorifying it as their top story"
About this Quote
Daisy Berkowitz nails the sleight of hand that keeps modern outrage media humming: condemnation as a delivery system for promotion. The line turns on a deliberately simple contradiction - “how horrible” versus “glorifying it” - that mirrors the viewer’s own split-screen experience. You’re invited to feel morally superior while being fed the same spectacle everyone else is consuming. That’s not hypocrisy by accident; it’s a business model.
The specific intent is diagnostic, not preachy. Berkowitz isn’t clutching pearls about tasteless TV; she’s pointing at the perverse incentive structure where attention is the real currency. Calling something “horrible” becomes a kind of packaging, a way to frame lurid content as public service: we’re not enjoying this, we’re “covering” it. The subtext is a critique of complicity that spreads beyond producers to audiences. If you keep watching the “top story,” you’re voting for it, even if you’re watching in disgust.
Contextually, it lands in a post-’90s landscape where tabloid TV and later cable news learned to weaponize emotional intensity - fear, disgust, shock - because those emotions stick. For a musician, especially one shaped by alternative culture’s suspicion of mainstream narratives, the observation doubles as a warning about branding: scandal isn’t the enemy of fame; it’s often the engine. The quote works because it exposes the trick without overexplaining it, letting the uncomfortable realization click into place: outrage is just another form of applause.
The specific intent is diagnostic, not preachy. Berkowitz isn’t clutching pearls about tasteless TV; she’s pointing at the perverse incentive structure where attention is the real currency. Calling something “horrible” becomes a kind of packaging, a way to frame lurid content as public service: we’re not enjoying this, we’re “covering” it. The subtext is a critique of complicity that spreads beyond producers to audiences. If you keep watching the “top story,” you’re voting for it, even if you’re watching in disgust.
Contextually, it lands in a post-’90s landscape where tabloid TV and later cable news learned to weaponize emotional intensity - fear, disgust, shock - because those emotions stick. For a musician, especially one shaped by alternative culture’s suspicion of mainstream narratives, the observation doubles as a warning about branding: scandal isn’t the enemy of fame; it’s often the engine. The quote works because it exposes the trick without overexplaining it, letting the uncomfortable realization click into place: outrage is just another form of applause.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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