Are we allowed to be happy?

[Tamas]

Maybe one aspect is that monetising fear and hate is far easier - one fearmongering article/news report is guaranteed to  grab clicks and attention from a fairly predictable and large subset of people. Now try and engage the same amount of people with one particular happy article/news. What makes us afraid, and, even more, angry, is much less specific to the individual, I think.

Especially since in case of political news, the negative crosses boundaries. For example: "right wing douchebag complains about brown people raping white women" - the rightwingers will click to be outraged and thus reinforced in their racism. People on the left will click because they are outraged at this racist generalisation. Etc.

[grumbler]

Maybe one aspect is that monetising fear and hate is far easier - one fearmongering article/news report is guaranteed to  grab clicks and attention from a fairly predictable and large subset of people. Now try and engage the same amount of people with one particular happy article/news. What makes us afraid, and, even more, angry, is much less specific to the individual, I think.

Especially since in case of political news, the negative crosses boundaries. For example: "right wing douchebag complains about brown people raping white women" - the rightwingers will click to be outraged and thus reinforced in their racism. People on the left will click because they are outraged at this racist generalisation. Etc.

I think that this is a big part of it.  It is far easier to spark hatred than to spark compassion or joy.