008 - I hate sensationalized news. Also, some academic research into the link between power, narcissism, and sadism.
You know that part of Idiocracy where the electoral cabinet are watching the news and Fox News in the stupid apocalypse of 2505 has been turned into a pornographic sensationalized rundown of current events? That’s how watching any national news channel feels, sans the nudity. Fox News is pretty much right-wing propaganda rotting the brains of the boomer elite and their gibbering fanbase of geriatric bigots.
Celebrities and politics have become intertwined, meaning we can hardly have one without the other. That means we have to endure the daily vitriol of a certain turnip-colored ex-president. His latest tirade is equally misogynistic and disgusting, claiming women should thank him for returning the abortion law decisions to the state. Yes, thank you, Orange Hitler, for packing the Supreme Court with soulless pronatalists who overturned Roe v. Wade and subsequently dug the mass grave for the women who desperately needed reproductive healthcare.
Sean Diddy Combs’ sexual assault charges have taken up most of online discourse. One news source released a clickbait title, claiming Kevin Hart was seen in a “freak off” video. Something that would potentially land Hart in deep waters, yes? Upon closer inspection, the video just appears to be him attending a party, not engaging in any lewd acts. Reeeeeal classy, sensationalizing a story like that and possibly committing libel against Hart just to sell a story.
Diddy is currently under suicide watch at the Metropolitan Detention Center, which is notably the prison that R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell stayed at for some time. Many people are making predictions that Diddy will be “Epstein’d”, meaning that he’ll possibly be murdered but have it set up like a suicide.
I don’t know. I think death is too good for Diddy. He needs to suffer for a bit like his victims did. That being said, I don’t condone prison violence because it happens far too much to prisoners who haven’t committed such sadistic acts as Diddy.
All of this news coverage of evil people in power makes me wonder. Like…is there a causative link between amount of privilege and lack of humanity? That’s not something you can perform an experiment on. You can’t measure privilege or humanity empirically. There is a study explaining the corrupting effects of power. It’s very technically written, though. I might be an undergrad but I’m not a psychologist. I’ll try my best to understand, but don’t expect miracles.
Here’s something interesting. “High testosterone has been identified as a factor that promotes the development of the socially destructive component of narcissism in powerholders.” This quotation is cited from another paper on how high testosterone is linked to social dominance. We know perfectly well that the most powerful and most notorious blowhard billionaire egotists are men. Further on in the paper, there is a psychological condition called power abuse disorder and its effects can be - new word time - dopaminergic, which means “relating to dopamine”. “Evidence suggests that areas of the brain linked with addiction including the amygdala and dopaminergic neurons play a major in responding to social rank, and hierarchy signals". Fascinating.
There is also research to support why powerful figures often engage in highly hypocritical behavior despite their public image as a bastion of morality. “Being in a position of power with the discretion to apply punishment or reward to others allows the powerholder the freedom to do as they like or act inconsistently in so far as it serves their interests. This means powerholders are in a position to not necessarily practice what they preach with little or no consequences.” I personally believe some powerful figures do what they preach against because, well…they can. They have the power and wealth to get whatever they want and to pay for the silence of any onlookers and they enforce their own squad of problem-solvers to threaten, assault, and even murder people who snitch on them.
In terms of empathy, there’s evidence to suggest that powerful people feel less compassion towards people and such power promotes unethical behavior. That is how figures like Diddy can engorge themselves on a hedonistic lifestyle of sadism and luxuriate in the suffering of others. This ties into the forced drug use, because it’s one more layer of power Diddy exerted over his victims, taking away their ability to consent. I’ll put the citation of the article down even though I linked it above. Call it my college essay-writing OCD. Signing off.
Tobore TO. On power and its corrupting effects: the effects of power on human behavior and the limits of accountability systems. Commun Integr Biol. 2023 Aug 24;16(1):2246793. doi: 10.1080/19420889.2023.2246793. PMID: 37645621; PMCID: PMC10461512.