There are two questions that continue to ember in the wake of Roseanne Barr’s sudden disappearance from prime time TV.
One is the speed of her firing. Within hours of her tweet describing a black woman as a cross between the Muslim brotherhood and Planet of the Apes, ABC ruled she was done. Gone.
We have seen this warp-drive character melt before. Surely there is an island where people like Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and others must be gathered to commiserate their fates sans trials. It might even be an entertaining Survivor-esque show.
But don’t expect networks to line up for a bidding war. The assumption of guilt on matters of conduct is that latest byproduct of the steroid issue facing the U.S. economy, which has become so powerful on the Darwinian scale it has surpassed politics. That the U.S. government does not believe in global warming would be more ominous if U.S. businesses agreed. But they don’t. Donald Trump may not believe in the benefits of solar power. But Apple does. Which do you think will have a greater impact on your life?
Same with social diplomacy. American businesses have decided that it’s not affordable to offend customers. So they have contorted themselves into the least-offensive costume possible, one made of Nerf as to prevent bruising. Jemele Hill was suspended and later left ESPN for tweeting that Trump was a white supremacist. Laura Ingraham was forced to take a week’s vacation and issue an apology for a tweet offending a Parkland high school student. Alec Baldwin issued an apology and deleted his Twitter account after he publicly eviscerated a flight attendant who asked him to turn off his Words with Friends game for takeoff.
The upside is that an economy can’t afford to see race — unless that race is Mint Green. The downside is finding any nuance in that hue. For all the Sturm and Drang that followed Roseanne‘s cancellation — including a valid argument of the double standard afforded Samantha Bee — not a single major network swooped in to pick up the series. Including Fox, the most vocal critic of the cancellation. Perhaps morality extends only as far as a purse string.
Secondly, why does Twitter seemingly exist solely within the confines of complaint? You never hear of a sage tweet sent by a public personality. Or a pearl of wisdom tweeted from a politician. Instead, anger trends. Perhaps that, too, simply reflects a nation that has so much wealth but still feels swindled. Despite its P.R.-guided mission statement to give voice to the masses, Twitter is like any other media: driven by celebrity.
Which makes the recent phenomenon so befuddling. The very people taking the most heat for dumbass tweets are the people who already have a platform. The internet’s societal explosion in 2008 made the prima facie case that Americans, as a people, are dying to be heard.
And it turns out tweeting celebrities are people, too. Petty, aggravated, attention-starved people.
