Sensationalism as standard

Election results are still, somehow, being finalised, but that hasn’t stopped perspectives flowing from everyone with a mouth or a keyboard. Brain cells optional.

It’s a buffet of half-baked analysis  - it was the voters who were wrong (so much for democracy), it was the influencers that won it (TBC, as much as they’d love you to believe it), it was Dutton that lost it (to an extent, although the Libs are currently proving there’s plenty of blame to share around), it was Trump’s fault (uncertainty seems to have broken the global incumbent curse at least), it was a vote for kindness (if only).

Election nights are a microcosm of our obsession with instant, definitive analysis. If you’re not saying something instantly interesting, you’re irrelevant. Even Senator James McGrath turned offering absolutely nothing into a meme that outlasted the event.

But it’s not just elections. Sensationalism is now standard. Clickbait has gone from low-brow embarrassment to quiet aspiration. 

The subject line of this email is proof that no one is immune. 

Imagine if we’d used ‘The importance of restraint, an uneventful Met Gala, and Trump’s threat to Canada’. Would you have so readily opened it? I guess we’ll never know, mainly because we’re not paying Hubspot enough to do A/B testing. 

We’re not here to criticise hot takes. But the need to balance restraint and evidence with speed and virality can’t be ignored. 

The void is there to be filled, but filling it with something considered does more than improve the quality of the debate. It builds credibility and makes you the grown up in the room.

Which, after all, is probably what the Australian public really just voted for.