The Princess of Wales may rise above the drivel that engulfed her illness, but the ignorance that pervades social media is likely incurable
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Henry L. Mencken was a well-known journalistic grump of wide influence whose low opinion of the general public was equalled only by his contempt for the politicians they chose to lead them.
He invented the term “booboisie” a century ago to describe a populace he considered hopelessly ignorant and endlessly foolish. Some day, he prophesied from his perch in Baltimore, “the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
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Perhaps his most cited (and misquoted) observation stated that: “No one in this world … has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
Mencken died long before the advent of social media but he’d almost certainly have viewed it as vindication of everything he ever said or wrote. That he’d have good reason to do so has been demonstrated by the monumental level of ignorance put on public display over the health of the Princess of Wales.
Kate, we were assured by a legion of ill-informed online windbags, temporarily dropped from public view because she’d undergone a hysterectomy. No, no, insisted rival dimwits, she was suffering from diverticulitis. Wrong again, it was bulimia, the same disorder that plagued Diana, mother of her husband William, heir to the throne.
As her absence endured, we were told it had nothing to do with her health: in truth it was all about the affair William was having with a fellow blueblood, who had even presented him with a secret child, whose identity poor Kate had just become aware of even though, nudge nudge, one glance at the kid and you could tell who the father was.
This bilge poured out for weeks, scraping bottom when the world discovered that Kate, who likes to take pictures of her kids, is no better at editing than any other amateur. Hysteria ensued. There was something suspicious about Charlotte’s hair! One of Kate’s hands looked different than the other! Cue the apocalypse, it’s the End of Days!
All drivel. Kate, as we learned Thursday, has cancer. She needed time to deal with the shock, and, understandably, to sort out how to tell her kids she wasn’t going to die. Instantly, online experts put away their sneers and shifted faultlessly into sombre expressions of concern.
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A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales pic.twitter.com/5LQT1qGarK
The world has known for some time that social networks are anything but sociable. Something about them brings out the worst in people. Cluelessness is rampant, but it’s the lack of civility that really pervades. It’s been a long time since you could hope for a civilized online discourse anywhere outside a closely monitored circle of like-minded friends.
Brian Mulroney, who was laid to rest on the weekend amid an outpouring of respect and praise, endured an unprecedented level of vilification during his latter years in office. Lyin’ Brian, they called him. A hot bestseller of the time was titled On the Take — Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years. But nothing Mulroney faced rivalled the everyday fare typical of Twitter/X or its online cousins.
Justin Trudeau is paying a high price for coming along a couple of decades of technological change after Mulroney. Mulroney may have been just as unpopular, but I don’t recall him being chased out of restaurants, forced to dodge rocks, or requiring the level of security that envelopes a prime minister who can’t even be certain it’s safe to speak at a fundraiser.
The degree to which online aggression has become normalized seems to have encouraged a rise in its performative equivalence. It’s no longer enough for protesters to chant and wave signs, now they feel free to blockade buildings, hurl paint at masterpieces, smear swastikas on synagogues, or stomp through shopping malls in masks, chanting and threatening onlookers. Or storming the U.S. Congress in hopes of hanging the vice-president.
Any significant change in public appetite is bound to inspire efforts to make a profit, and sure enough Truth Social, the social media company launched by Donald Trump after he was kicked off Twitter and Facebook, could earn him billions this week when it begins stock trading, enabling him to pay the massive fines imposed on him for defamation, fraud and sexual assault. Trump’s ability to make a buck off online malice suggests that in terms of business savvy he’s one up on Elon Musk, who paid US$44 billion for Twitter and has since seen an exodus of users and advertisers, cutting its value in half. He now appears to be restructuring the network into something cruder and less civilized, so maybe it will work out for him in the end.
It would be naive to suggest any of this is likely to change, no matter how many anti-hate measures countries like Canada put into law, though it’s possible that — given the change in tenor Kate’s prognosis has brought about — she can probably expect more sensitive treatment in future online postings, at least for a while. My guess is that the Princess, who has shown herself to possess both decency and resolve, will rise above the internet in any case and soldier on in the manner her mother-in-law, the late Queen, did for so long. Not that the booboisie deserve it.
National Post
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