Watch out, they're gaslighting you for attention

It’s a common occurrence these days. Whether with family or friends, you find the conversation shifting to a politically charged topic. It’s like someone has pushed the detonation button. The mood shifts and the tension rises. Speech becomes more rapid and opinions more rigid. We’re parrots regurgitating the narrative we’ve heard, in the hope of … what exactly?

Look around and you’ll find no shortage of polarising conversations about the state of the world, the people who influence it, and the devastation that lies ahead. It’s like there’s nothing to look forward to if you accept everything you hear.

How did we get to such a depressing and polarised world?

Is it just that we’ve started to mature from being young and care free, and now the political issues are suddenly relevant? But yet the younger generation seems more politically invested than when I was their age.

Personally, I lay the responsibility at the foot of Social Media. It changed the nature of the echo chamber away from the main stream media and into the self inflating algorithmic bubbles. The feedback loop took engagement and fed us more of it. And being fallible humans, we were drawn to the strange, the outrageous, and the ever slightly more fringe opinions.

We have now entered the engagement economy. With social media moving the attention away from the traditional media outlets—whose mere existence is under threat from dwindling viewership—they needed to adapt.

2016 sees a shift. The term gaslighting starts to enter the world consciousness with it’s popularity peeking in 20231. This is no coincidence. Something is happening, and it’s happening at scale. World changing politics with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the #MeToo movement grips the attention popularity contest.

To gaslight means to deliberately manipulate someone into questioning their own memory, perception, or sanity—often by denying facts, minimising experiences, or twisting the truth.

As the dynamic plays out, the mainstream media adapts. We see the rise in talk panels where we’re being told what to think and to feel outraged. In turn they gain attention, which is what feeds their existence.

What manipulation techniques do the media use?

As viewers who are susceptible to being manipulated—whether we believe we are or not—we must start to question the narrative behind the narrative.

Pay attention to the tactics used by the media which we’ll explore here.

1. False Equivalence & Performative “Balance”

This is where both sides of a debate are equally represented, where in reality the consensus of the opposing side usually represents a small portion. By having these positioned as equivalent, it makes you the viewer, over value the counter points. Often there will be misinformation packaged with reasonable sounding logic. This is designed to gently nudge you towards a less grounded and more extreme position.

2. Deliberate Provocation & “Bad-Faith” Debate

When guests are invited to speak on behalf of a viewpoint, they aren’t necessarily selected to provide valuable insight, but in fact are selected because they spark outrage and drama. This helps stir the pot and gets us more opinionated and heated on the topic, fuelling desire for the attention machine further.

Pay attention to the talking over, interrupting, and stonewalling. It leaves us, the poor viewers, disorientated rather than informed.

3. Normalised Gaslighting Language

More so than ever we’ll hear guests say things like “you’re being emotional”, or “that never happened”, or “you’re imagining things” within debates. It’s a technique used to invalidate real experience, or to reframe facts to suit a narrative.

4. Spectacle over Substance

Ever felt like you’re being encouraged to pick a side rather than to critically engage with the content? It’s like watching a drama where it’s not about truth finding but entertainment and tribal loyalty. They’re charged with emotionally manipulative storytelling rather than rational and balanced discussion.

5. Psychological Warfare Disguised as Discourse

Conversations in the media may appear to be rational debate, but in reality are designed to manipulate, confuse, exhaust, and emotionally destabilise us.

We see the onslaught of logical fallacies that aims to diffuse and confuse. These include:

• Whataboutism—Shifts focus and deflects blame, or implies a hypocrisy where there isn’t one.
• Goalpost Shifting—It creates a never-ending argument where facts no longer matter, only rhetorical agility. We’re left lost with no clear sense of the truth.
• Extremes to Represent Opposing Views—Puts the more reasonable party into a defensive emotional labour. It creates a toxic spectacle and paints the issue as inherently “controversial”.
• Loud Voices drown out the Thoughtful Ones—Intellectual discussion is drowned out opening the door for emotional manipulation rather than logical conclusion.
• Misinformation through “Just Asking Questions”—By strategically asking questions that imply some underlying scandal, it can sow the seeds of doubt and fear in the viewer.
• Selective Framing—Misquoting or clipping footage and create a powerful narrative to support a misleading viewpoint. This reframing the narrative triggers real fear, suspicion, or resentment in the viewer—bypassing rational understanding and creates emotional shock.

It’s not all doom and gloom

If you find that you’re emotionally drained and less hopeful for the future after doom scrolling your social media feed or watching the news. Ask yourself this question:

What if they only want me to think it’s worse than it really is?

I hope that by outlining the above you’ll start to see the tactics used by the attention hungry media.

I like to reframe this problem as a set of questions. Difficult questions to answer nonetheless, but questions that can help piece together the puzzle and find a lasting solution for the future.

My goal is to discover what creates healthy discourse, positively impacting decision making, and optimism for the future.

The questions I will start to seek an answer to are:

1. How do we know if the news or discussion is being misrepresented for attention, rather than for healthy discussion?
2. Are the people presenting the news or discussion acting in good faith? How can you identify if they are or not?
3. Do the people presenting the news or discussion even know themselves, if they are causing more harm than good?
4. What approaches can a good faith contributor add the discussion so that balanced, truthful, and selfless goals can prevail?
5. How can we, the viewer, navigate the chaos to find a more truthful, and peaceful understanding of the world’s issues?
6. How can we, the viewer, share this with our friends and family so that they can step outside of the attention machine that’s sucking them in?

I hope that this post has been insightful and given you optimism for the future. If you want to explore more of this then do consider subscribing and sharing the conversation so that we can continue to learn together.