Coup-ing for the ’Gram ⇥ buzzfeednews.com

Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Buzzfeed News:

The siege was no doubt terrifying to watch, and doubly so especially for the legislators and staff trapped in the building by raging QAnon followers and Trump dead-enders. Rioters wore shirts glorifying the Holocaust; some shouted what sounded like racial epithets and paraded Confederate flags. Guns were drawn. A woman was shot to death by police. It was a tense, perilous, violent assault on democracy.

But it was also quickly apparent that this was a very dumb coup. A coup with no plot, no end to achieve, no plan but to pose. Thousands invaded the highest centers of power, and the first thing they did was take selfies and videos. They were making content as spoils to take back to the digital empires where they dwell, where that content is currency.

Social media did not cause us to give undue influence to public figures with little concern for the weight of their words and actions, but it surely amplifies and exacerbates it.