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SYNDICATED COLUMN: The Malicious Mallard and Me

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Ted Rall

How Online Popularity Contests Are Killing Politics

Luddite? Not me.

I like tech.

Played Pong, loved Space Invaders. Was obsessed with the TRS-80, Commodore 64 and Apple II. One of my first jobs, as a traffic engineer for an Ohio suburb, had me programming a Honeywell 77 computer the size of a small car; I loved those crazy punchcards (“do not fold, spindle or mutilate”), FORTRAN and the green glow of the LED terminal.

I was among the first cartoonists to put my email address on my work; I loved the instant audience feedback. Still do.  So I blog and I’ve embraced social networking. I tweet. I post to Facebook. And Google Plus, though I’m not sure why. LinkedIn has the dumbest business model ever–in the middle of a Depression, it’s where jobseekers meet nonexistent would-be employers—but I use it anyway (to connect to other underemployed losers).

So. Note to people who are reading this online: I’m one of you.

Anyway, when a friend told me I should post my cartoons and columns to Reddit, I did.

Reddit, which was owned by the Condé Nast media conglomerate from 2006 to 2011 and is now its sister company, is a bulletin board whose registered users (“redditors”) post items to various categories (“reddits”): links, images, thoughts, whatever. As these entries appear, redditors can “upvote” or “downvote” them. Each reddit has a front page where posts with the highest net number of votes (upvotes minus downvotes) appear first.

“Officially, votes are intended to indicate importance and relevance to the topic, and not popularity (i.e., a Downvote is not a Dislike, it merely indicates that the redditor thinks that the submission is not worthy of making it to the front page,” according to Wikipedia. From Reddit’s FAQ: “Well written [sic] and interesting content can be worthwhile, even if you disagree with it…If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it.”

Nice theory.

Like capitalism, it doesn’t work so well in the real virtual world.

First I posted under my name. There’s no rule against it, but it turns out Redditors dislike self-promotion.

So I created an anonymous handle.

Here’s the thing: What makes the top listings at Reddit is usually dumb. Really really dumb. Rock-bottom low-brow. Stoopid.

As I write this, here are the top three:

No matter how old I get, I will always put my fingers in these (A link to a photo of rolls of Christmas wrapping paper in a store, with the shrinkwrapping punctured on each.)

So I went diving with sharks recently but this guy couldn’t help but smile for the camera (A link to a photo of a shark that appears to be smiling.)

Malicious Advice Mallard on marriage (A link to a “meme,” a joke photo of a duck with the caption “Marriage failing? Have a baby that will fix it.”)

This is a typical mix: Fluff, fluff, fluff. Yeah, I’m biased. Whatever; I think my stuff deserves as much play as a photo of a smirky elongate elasmobranch. Thus my fake handle.

The good news is that hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Reddit readers follow the links to each of my cartoons and columns.

Then an interesting pattern occurs.

There’s an initial flurry of upposts. The item climbs. Then there’s a flood of downposts.

This mirrors what I’ve seen elsewhere online. Left or right, political content often gets an initial burst of positive responses posted by people who agree with its point of view. Popularity-based metrics like Reddit’s bring the item to wider attention, which includes people who disagree with it. Who then vote it back down.

Usually to zero.

I’ve seen the same phenomenon on other sites but it’s particularly pronounced on Reddit because of its upvote/downvote scheme. I’ll watch my cartoon soar through upvotes only to come crashing down to zero as the downvotes come in.

It’s not just my stuff. Most content with a strong political point of view gets crushed by downvoters who evidently don’t know or care about Reddit’s “vote it up if it’s interesting, even if you disagree with it” admonition. The result: political content is vanishing down the cyber memory hole. It’s still there—if you can find it. But most people won’t bother. They’ll go to Reddit’s main page, click on the funny animal photos, and leave.

It’s not just the specific political content that’s disappearing. It’s the idea of politics itself. When politics isn’t part of the dialogue online, the idea that we can and should argue about the laws and ideas that govern our society disappears from our national consciousness. People simply stop thinking about it. Those who remember to look for political content take note of the disappearance of politics and draw the conclusion that they are alone, that politics aren’t popular. If you like politics but no one you know does, you probably won’t bug others with the subject. Soon the subject starts to fade from your own brain.

What’s crazy is, politics are popular. Reddit readers read my political cartoons. They vote them up. But you wouldn’t know that from looking at Reddit.

Should you care?

As the crisis of print media continues to shrink mainstream reporting, analysis and opinion, sites like Reddit are supposedly poised to step in to fill the void. A clunky transition is inevitable.

The problem is, Michael Barthel wrote in Salon, too many online consumers and gatekeepers think they’re already awesome: “One of the weirdest things about the Web is its eagerness to obsessively criticize every other form of media except the Web itself. Traditional journalism is dying, and it’s just a matter of time before the Internet figures out a new and improved form that will make everything perfect forever,” Michael Barthel wrote in Salon in July.

Barthel was criticizing “citizen journalism.” But his web skepticism can also apply to social media’s unwitting contribution to depoliticization: “The Web seems neutral, because it is an open platform that anyone can use. But just because anyone can does not mean everyone does. The stories that get covered are the ones citizen journalists care about most, and these citizen journalists tend toward a certain social-cultural-economic orientation.”

The Internet is exciting. Old media is stodgy. But democracy will suffer unless the Web gets better at politics.

Thanks to the social-cultural-economic orientation of too many Redditors, it’s the Malicious Advice Mallard’s world. We only live in it.

Not that you can see us on Reddit.

(Ted Rall’s website is tedrall.com. The author of “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” he is working on a new book about the war in Afghanistan to be released in Fall 2013 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.)

COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL

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4520 Main St., Kansas City, Mo. 64111; (877) 682-5425 / TED RALL ONLINE: rall.com

RALL     12/5/12

Shoutout: Who Sent the Dragon Dictation Software & the Ink Cartridges?

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Ted Rall

To those of you who are brightening my holiday season by sending me stuff from my Amazon Wish List, thanks! I’ll be dropping you a little something in the mail.

Two item, however, appeared at my door minus a shipping tag: the awesome Dragon Dictation for Mac software! I can’t wait to start using it to help save my poor hands. I have several books I plan to use it for. To the person who sent it, if you’re reading this, please email me via the “contact” link above with your mailing address so I can say thanks properly.

Same thing with the Rapidograph cartridges. Essential! I want to thank!

New eBay Cartoon Auction

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Ted Rall

Get a gift for the political junkie who has everything: original cartoon art! I’ve just posted a new eBay Cartoon Auction. Simple rules: I draw three cartoons a week. Next week, you choose your favorite. I send you the original artwork!

LOS ANGELES TIMES CARTOON: Hate is Hard Work

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Ted Rall

I draw cartoons for The Los Angeles Times about issues related to California and the Southland (metro Los Angeles).

This week: The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to take up the issue of gay marriage in California as soon as Friday morning. The moment has prompted nervous debate within the gay-rights movement about the best path to achieve gay marriage. If the justices opt not to hear the Proposition 8 case, then a federal appeals court ruling that found the 2008 state ballot measure banning same-sex marriage unconstitutional would stand, clearing the way for marriages to begin. If the justices take up the case, a ruling would not come until next year and gay marriage would remain on hold until then, or longer depending on how the court rules.

Wish List

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Ted Rall

In case you’re wondering, yes, I have an Amazon Wish List. So if you appreciate what I do, and wonder what you can do to keep me doing it, this might be something to consider.

Not to whine, but as a self-employed cartoonist I don’t get a Christmas bonus. Or benefits of any sort. I haven’t seen benefits since 1995, when I got fired from my last day job. As you probably know, newspapers are shedding cartoonists right and left (well, mainly left) but an economically viable online model has yet to emerge. I’m committed to cartooning and writing, and will continue to do it whether you help or not, but it’s often tempting to throw up my hands and walk away from a vocation where you mostly hear from people when you make them angry.

So if you are so moved to make my holiday a joyous one, I would much appreciate it. Anything from the list would be amazing, of course, but the Dragon Dictation package would come in handy to help me stave off carpal tunnel syndrome while I work on my next book. Shoes are nice. Drawing paper is useful. So are those Rapidograph pen nibs; I break them sometimes and they’re not cheap. My sad old Third Generation iPod is showing its years—ten—and could stand replacing.

(I currently have two proposals for major prose books out to my agent, not including the cartoon book proposal. The Afghanistan book is scheduled for release in Fall 2013, is finished and awaits edits, but is definitely coming out—and looking great!)

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Shoot First, Justify Later

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Ted Rall

Our Police State Does What It Wants, Then Writes a Memo

Imagine that you were the president of United States. Now think what you would do if you or one of your advisers proposed an idea—a great idea, one that solved a big problem—that was radical to the point of possibly crossing the legal line into unconstitutionality.

You’d want to lawyer that sucker, right? After all, the last thing you would want to do is break the law. You wouldn’t want to be accused of running off half-cocked in violation of your inaugural oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. You wouldn’t want to risk a scandal, an investigation, or even impeachment.

Now imagine that you were a chief of police. Again, imagine that you or one of your officers came up with a great new approach for tracking down bad guys, but that the idea was so novel that you couldn’t be sure that arrests made using your new tactic would hold up in court. What would you do? I know what I’d do: I’d consult legal counsel. You probably would too. You’d want to know where you stood so that you and your policemen wouldn’t get into trouble, and your prosecutions would hold up in court.

Check first, act second. Logical. But that’s not how presidents or cops do things in today’s might-makes-right, do-what-you-feel-like-and-come-up-with-a-justification-for-it-later era.

Case in point: Since 2009 President Obama has ordered the CIA and the military to launch more than 300 drone strikes against people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries, killing more than 2500 people–98% of whom were innocent, and the other 2% of which posed no threat whatsoever to Americans. (Obama killed those 2% as a favor to the U.S.-backed dictatorships they were fighting. According to The Times: “For at least two years in Pakistan, partly because of the CIA’s success in decimating Al Qaeda’s top ranks, most strikes have been directed at militants whose main battle is with the Pakistani authorities or who fight with the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan.”)

All of these bombings and murders were committed minus the thinnest veneer of legal justification. However, now it has come out that during the final months of the 2012 presidential campaign, when polls showed that Mitt Romney had a chance of winning, Obama and his advisers gathered to begin work on a legal framework for the drone program, a set of rules that would determine how targets are picked.

“There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands,” an Obama official told The New York Times, speaking on condition of anonymity (always a good idea when gossiping about a boss with an itchy drone joystick).

“The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace,” the leaker said.

Obama referenced his retroactive drone legalization project on October 18. “One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making,” he told Jon Stewart.

Two-thousand five hundred dead men, women and children in, and that’s when they start hanging the legal window dressing? Isn’t this the sort of thing Obama should have thought about back in January of 2009? For that matter, shouldn’t George W. Bush, who originated the drone assassinations after 9/11, been required to put forward some sort of constitutional and legal basis before firing missiles at Afghan wedding parties?

You’d think Congress would take an interest in investigating such a radical expansion of presidential power. But no, in what passes for a democracy that’s supposedly protected from extreme behavior by a system of checks and balances and a separation of powers, the legislative branch took no interest whatsoever in a president—make that two presidents—who secretly claimed the right to murder anyone they please, even a U.S. citizen on American soil, without any accountability whatsoever?

This post-9/11 culture of top-down lawlessness has filtered down to local police departments, many of which have begun routinely searching the cellphones of suspects they arrest. During the Occupy Wall Street protests of fall 2011, many activists reported having their smartphones hooked up to police department computers and drained right in front of them, presumably to mine them for contact information and other data.

Phone companies told Congress that they turned over 1.3 million records in 2011 alone to police departments seeking location data, e-mails, text messages, phone records and other data about their customers—i.e., you and me.

It’s easy to see why cops would want to collect as much information as they can from those they deem to be criminals—although, under the system of laws we used to have, suspects are legally innocent until proven guilty—but how can they possibly justify enacting such a radical new policy before first obtaining authorization from the courts?

Most people want to think their political leaders and law enforcement authorities mean well and are using their powers wisely. And that’s what they want us to believe. In January 2012, for example, President Obama described the drone killings as “a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists.” But, according to The Times, the program has broadened into something far more sinister and cynical that few Americans would support. For example, “the CIA and the military have carried out ‘signature strikes’ against groups of suspected, unknown militants…for instance,

[Show as slideshow]
young men toting arms in an area controlled by extremist groups.”

Unchecked power runs wild. Cellphones are one example. When New Yorkers file an NYPD police report that their phone has been stolen, the cops routinely subpoena your records beginning from the day of the theft. Cops are supposed to use the records to find the culprit.

In reality, however, New York’s Finest aren’t exactly pounding the pavement to find your nicked iPhone. What’s they’re really after, reports The Times, is a building its Enterprise Case Management System database, “a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose.”

No wonder the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice—which is charged with protecting your rights—says cellphone users have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Why are these guys getting away with murder—literally? Because we’re letting them.

(Ted Rall‘s is the author of “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt.” His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL

Informal Survey: Should I Crowdfund a Book?

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Ted Rall

I’m thinking of putting out a collection of my cartoons, along with essays (some of which have never appeared online), dating back over the last eight years or so. But I need your input.

Of the various types of books I do or want to do, there’s one that has become basically impossible to do through a publisher: a collection of cartoons. Cartoonists have more fans than ever, many of whom would buy a cartoon collection if they knew about it, but the book marketplace no longer supports the genre—so publishers don’t want them.

There are several reasons for this. Bookstores have stuck the humor section in dark, dusty corners by the men’s room where serendipitous purchases are unlikely to occur. Book critics, those who haven’t gotten laid off, don’t review cartoon collections anymore. When cartoon collections do get published by the big houses, they wind up a single copy, spine out, in some invisible part of the store, for three to six months, before getting returned. And the cartoonist winds up with zero royalties.

The only way to go is to self-publish, distributing through your website and in person at conventions and other events. But that requires substantial cash outlay for design, layout, printing and distribution.

So here’s the question y’all: If I were to launch a Kickstarter or Indieagogo campaign, could I raise at least $20,000 (of which roughly half would go to direct expenses)? Please post below (a) whether you’d be interested in a book collection and (b) how much, if anything, you’d be willing to contribute. (There would be premiums for various levels, such as books for lower amounts, original art for higher amounts, etc.)

People often tell me they want a collection of cartoons, but then they don’t sell very well, so I need to take your temperature before I start anything.

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