How We Distract Ourselves

Jim Carrey has been replaced by a clone. Timmy Chalamet hates ballet. Despite all the real awfulness going on the world right now, these are the stories clouding my feeds the last week. Jim Carrey got some work done and people lost it. A young celebrity said something ignorant in public? Not exactly a surprise.

But we focus on these things, probably because the consequences of these stories are less impactful than other world events. It’s akin to watching comfort TV, I guess. The stakes are low and familiar. We don’t have to tune into the news.

I fully understand this instinct. The world is terrifying at the moment. Giving our attention to trivial things means we don’t have as much attention left to give to something more serious. We all do this. But is this drive to distract ourselves from what’s going on the reason it continues to go on? Because we look away from it in discomfort. It’s not the entire reason it keeps going, of course, but someone I get the sense that distracted and divided is the ideal state for us to be in from the perspective of those with all the power.

Distracting ourselves is something we’ve done for eons. It helps us to cope. But it’s different now. Because this urge to be distracted for a little while is being weaponised. It’s being used against us. There’s nothing being said about the Epstein files because of this illegal war. And stories of Jim Carrey being cloned are trying to distract from the war. And around we go.

Pure speculation, but I do be wondering.