A 26-year-old influencer recorded herself starting a kitchen fire, throwing dishes into the flames, and pouring hot wax on herself and her children. Perez Hilton, a notorious career gossip, took a blade to himself during a TikTok livestream. Individuals like these, and their followers, have shifted the public square online, causing an inversion of etiquette and moral norms. What the social fabric used to disavow—attention-seeking, irrationality, narcissism—is now anyone’s game. Push those to the end and you get a society that can’t distinguish virtue from vice—sure to crumble.
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Mia Downing
With academic interests in psychology and criminal justice, I am passionate about evaluating the way politics and culture shape each other. My writing focuses on the ethics underlying political debates, and critiquing both sides of the aisle.
