If you’re any kind of Internet user, you’ve likely come across these types of headlines:
“Doctors Are Sounding the Alarm: The Surprising Health Crisis You Can’t Ignore!”
“This Simple Trick Could Save You Thousands on Food”
“Stop Wasting Money on These Habits That Actually Hurt You!”
“Elon Musk is Cashing In on the Climate Crisis—Here’s How You Can Too!”
“The Shocking Connection Your Diet and Social Media Influencers —What You Need to Know Now!”
Yes, this is the lovely click-bait designed with a call to action, which is: click the ‘effing link! That’s because clicks = money. This is the hyper-commercialized world we live in. Influencers? They are today’s infomercial stars. Don’t remember infomercial stars? They were people like Lori Davis, Susan Powter, Ron Popeil, or Don Lapre who figured out a pay-to-play investment in a long-form TV commercial could make them rich. What can I say? It was the ’90s, and my friend bought me Hair in a Can (aka GLH or Great Looking Hair) for my balding pate. But what are commercials if not propaganda designed to influence your behavior?
If you're going out tonight
I won't wait up
Reading "Das Kapital"
Watching "Home Shopping Club"
While you're flogging a dead horse
All the way down Pony Street
--Elvis Costello, "Pony Street"
And what is social media but a giant mechanism where we willingly give marketers data for free so they can sell you stuff? In return for our paltry contribution, we are rewarded with likes, hearts, comments, and reshares as payment for the free stuff. But we’re competing with millions (if not billions) for that sippy cup of attention from our posts. So, the amount of “engagement” (i.e., rewards for our free data) varies. Indeed, most folks get less than five percent of their “friends” reacting to posts – in reality, it’s probably less than that. But we post and post and post because…why? Do we want that validation that what we share about our lives matters? It seems so.
Communication through a social media platform is tailored the suit the norms of the platform. If you’re on X, and you want attention, start shitposting and @-ing at random people to spark a reaction. Facebook? Get real sad, or mad, or share a photo of yourself where you’re doing something interesting. Instagram? Maybe twerk on Reels? Once you’re rewarded, you’re going to want another hit. That’s why people keep coming back. Either as voyeurs or addicts seeking another rush from the attention.
All this “content” is gold for social media companies. Without our billions of posts, these companies are nothing but bankrupt entities that someone in the future will say to their group of friends: “Hey, remember Facebook? (Laughter) What were we thinking?”
These are the kinds of things that were swimming in my head after listening to The Ezra Klein Show the other day. He was talking to Chris Hayes from MSNBC about a book he wrote called The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.
It’s an interesting discussion, but one that feels dated — or, I should note, it feels somewhat dated. That’s because we’ve lived with film and TV for decades, and the Internet has been around for over 25 years. If there’s anything to be learned about media, it’s all about attention, influence, and power to shape opinion — and for its viewers or users to take action. Whether it’s about tuning in to be entertained by a television show, driving to a local theater to be entertained by a film, or scrolling through social media feeds to be entertained by those who contribute to the sites, if it leads to eyeballs stuck on screens, it means a particular company has a captured an audience they can influence. When it comes to politics, as Chris Hayes notes, attention is more valuable than money in politics. But attention plays out in other areas — and has been for decades.
Years ago on this very blog, I wrote about a re-watch of the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High and how it was a very different film from what Hollywood was previously churning out. While the subject of teen jobs was front and center of my post, I also noted that sales of Vans checkerboard shoes and Chevy Camaros saw a spike after the film’s release. That was because those products were featured in the movie. Kids with cash wanted those things, and Vans and Chevrolet were happy to sell them what they wanted — provided they or their parents had the money.
Ah, the ’80s…it was all so innocent back then. But back to Klein and Hayes’ conversation. Early on in the discussion, Hayes had this analysis of the attention economy and labor:
“When Marxists would say labor is a source of all value, they were right.
In the aggregate, take away all the workers, and the industrial revolution doesn’t happen. But to the individual worker in the sweatshop, the little slice of labor that you’re producing is both everything you have as a person and worth nothing in the market. Almost nothing.
And I think we have the same thing with attention, where it’s… really valuable, pooled and aggregated. Each individual part of it that we contribute is essentially worthless, it’s pennies. And then subjectively to us, it’s all we have.
I think attention is now to politics, what people think money is to politics. Certainly at the high levels, right? There are places where money is very powerful, but it’s usually where people are not looking.
Money is very powerful when there’s not much attention. But Donald Trump doesn’t control Republican primaries with money, he controls them with attention.”
Hayes is not wrong on this point — and I think at some level people know about how the attention economy works. For example, take boycotts, unplugging, deleting, or canceling subscriptions to newspapers, these actions by everyday folk hit these companies where it hurts: denying them attention. Sure, money is a big factor, but media is built on attention. So is politics.
I think this is partly why the right wing of this country hates Hollywood’s left-leaning stars. Because Hollywood and their stars used to grab all the attention, leaving right-wing leaders and followers looking like squares and scolds who couldn’t compete with the beautiful people.
But here’s what changed: Trump showed his followers how to use Hollywood techniques to control the political narrative by sucking up all the attention.
Just think about when he was losing the debate to Harris. What did he do? He launched the “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets” bullshit. You could see Harris say “Oh, c’mon” but for Trump, the ridiculousness worked. That’s all people were talking about after the debate. Ask most folks who won that debate and most would say Harris did. But if you were to ask who grabbed all the attention after the debate, most would say Trump. Trump has known about the attention economy for decades because he’s a tabloid aficionado. He knows what captures the spotlight. The more extreme the image, video, slur, or political position, the more you grab the public’s attention, and the more you hold that attention to mold opinions that lead to a call to action: In politics, it’s voting.
To put a fine point on it, try this experiment: Let’s say you’re in the checkout line at the supermarket, and you see these two publications on the magazine rack, which one would you look at first?
And that, my friends, is why the attention economy holds so much value for those in power. Those who control attention don’t always get what they want—but when they do, they often defy long-standing norms, laws, and other barriers. Are we at a point where the only option is “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”? I don’t think so. People still value choices and authenticity. Simply calling out nonsense doesn’t always work, but a clever meme paired with a clear, relatable message—like, “Here’s what I want to do for you”—can make a big impact.
Take Tim Walz as an example. Despite his campaign shortcomings, when he labeled Trump, Vance, and other MAGA figures as “weird,” he successfully reframed the conversation. By doing so, he shifted attention away from MAGA’s attention-grabbing antics and toward Democrats’ plans to address the needs of everyday Americans. Strategies like this can help us move beyond the current era, where the tech-industrial complex is overridding the democratic will of the electorate.
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