Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking

by Ashley 'Dotty' Charles

Presenter and DJ Ashley Dotty Charles explores our age of outrage, and how it's debasing civil discourse.

'Funny, nuanced and wonderful' Jon Ronson

We're living in a post-modern utopia of sorts, where thanks to our resolute predecessors, we've checked a bunch of items off our outrage shopping list. Slavery? Abolished. Apartheid? Not anymore buddy. Women's suffrage? Nailed it. But what do you do when you keep winning your battles? Well, you pick new ones, of course.

Ours is a society where many get by on provocation, the tactless but effective tool of pedalling outrage – and we all too quickly take the bait. If outrage has become abundant, activism has definitely become subdued.

There is still much to be outraged by in our final frontier – the gender pay gap, racial bias, gun control – but in order to enact change, we must learn to channel our responses.

This is the essential guide to living through the age of outrage.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Audiobook, Sociology, Psychology, Society, Social Media

138 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 14, 2020

Reviews

[Tyra · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Make outrage great again"

Much like the misguided and obtuse words of Donald Trump, Dotty Charles seems to miss the point of what she is saying and even contradicts herself throughout much of this book. Although it is relatively short, I found it quite hard to get through. I picked this up initially because I had seen the outraged cancel culture machine in motion online and thought it would be good to get another perspective on it. However, the message came through to me as being very confused, especially in the middle. I found myself wondering frequently But what is your point? as I trawled through endless cherry-picked cases I'd never heard of, such as a Target greeting card. By the end, Dotty seemed to have come back to her original locus; make outrage great again, channel outrage into something productive. However, I personally feel that she misses the bigger picture here, while also coming across as pretty hypocritical; Ashley 'Dotty' Charles was so outraged about outrage culture that she decided to write an entire book about it.

From what I understand, Dotty is a Radio 1 presenter with the BBC whose inspiration for writing all of this was simply that she thought it was pointless for people to get so angry over seemingly minuscule issues online, be that a black boy wearing a monkey shirt in a H&M ad or Rachel Dolezal bizarrely claiming herself to be 'trans racial'. I feel that she has a good point in that these case studies do become overblown and often, people do take these situations too far. One need only reflect on the suicide of Caroline Flack to remember that while 'cancelling' people is justified in theory, online bullying is a real thing and grabbing for torches before starting a conversation is unlikely to lead anywhere positive.

However, I don't think you really need a whole book to say this and the structure of this one tells me that Dotty struggled with the task fulfilment of getting her publisher's minimum word count in. We are taken through poorly-structured, meandering chapters where Dotty gets ahold of controversial figures Katie Hopkins and Rachel Dolezal, patronisingly writing up her interviews with them and covertly labelling both as narcissistic arseholes. She also writes about her groundbreaking theories around mob mentality and people liking to follow others opinions, as though Nietzsche didn't cover this topic in the 1800s already. While she astutely points out that many people jump on the twitter outrage bandwagon out of narcissism and boredom, she incorrectly ascertains that 'clicktivism' as she has branded it, or 'slacktivism' as everyone else has, has no discernible impact in the wider scope of activism at all.

Perhaps this is just me, but I profoundly disagree with this stance. As someone with "little to no protest experience", Dotty over-romanticises past activism movements such as Martin Luther King's civil rights movement, seemingly just because they took place before the internet age and people had to walk around putting posters up to advertise their civil-rights conferences. She waxes at length about how "before the internet age, activism was truly active" (not something she would exactly know from personal experience), a one-sided take on activism that almost entirely ignores the way that social media has transformed the landscape of activism and made spreading the message far easier. For example, there are a number of movements such as Reclaim the Night that started on social media and moved into the physical landscape once they had gained sufficient following. That is to say, activism hasn't 'died' as Dotty seems to think it has, but changed its platforms.

Dotty hyperfocuses on seemingly minute instances of internet outrage, such as the H&M scandal, conflating outrage with modern social justice, without really offering a balanced outlook. This scandal was not necessarily about the 'racism' of a black boy wearing a monkey shirt, but that H&M's hiring policies clearly excluded anyone who would have told them this was an insensitive idea, denoting institutional racism. Most of the nitpicky cases she lists off in the book are in truth coming from this same angle. I'm sure that there were people who thought that Rosa Parks was being dramatic when she refused to move her seat on the bus in 1955, but just because an issue seems small does not mean that there isn't a wider sentiment behind it.

Also, as someone who is part of a couple of campaigns to widen diversity/address sexual harassment and assault, I found her sweeping accusations of 'clicktivism' irritating when she has already admitted herself that she does very little for activism overall. There is nothing wrong with not being an activist, but I find her virtue signalling on this topic of outrage to be a little presumptuous as all she seems to be doing is sitting doing very little at her desk, telling everyone else not to get angry and getting annoyed when they do. I feel that Dotty herself could have put the energy she used writing this book into a movement that would have actually enacted the change she talks about.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from a few small anecdotes this pretty much told me everything I already knew about Twitter - it's always the small inconsequential things that gain the biggest outrage on the app.
The Radio Dj cites the twitterstorm surrounding the Peter Rabbit movie with it's food allergy plotline as people were told to 'boycott' the film.

I actually deleted the blue bird app earlier this year and aside from the odd news story of interest passing me by, I've not really missed it.
It's true that the most outlandish takes are the ones that gain traction whilst me usual dull tweets wouldn't get a single reply, it really is the case that the more controversial you are the better.

I actually remember the H&M 'outrage' of a young black boy wearing a monkey shirt that gave the author the inspiration for this book.

Despite not following the likes of Hopkins and Morgan I still found their views always seemed to appear on my timeline.
I'm amazed that people still give them the attention they so desperately crave.

Social media could be used in such a positive powerful way, some of the points raised were certainly interesting takes.
Though I'm not sure of using your anger elsewhere is the best way in getting the message across...

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was all set up to be annoyed by this, as I don't think 'cancel culture' is a real thing (why not just call it 'consequences for your actions'?), but Ashley Charles isn't saying that we shouldn't hold people responsible. It's more that we should hold them responsible in a focused way that could actually change things: "Imagine if we took the efforts we were investing so freely in the takedown of people and focused them into the destabilisation of power structures."

One useful takeaway is to hit people where it hurts: their income. As in, report racist, sexist, and transphobic content to advertisers: "ultimately we want to make hate unprofitable".

It's not about NOT being outraged, it's about being outraged with purpose: "Get as angry as you possibly can. But do it with an ambition that extends beyond social media kudos."

(As an aside, the cover put me off as on a thumbnail I thought it was a scale (as in to weigh yourself), and when it was enlarged it looked like the 'engaged' sign on a toilet. Neither of these seems to fit what the book is actually about.)

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stop!! You are probably are in a bookstore, you see the blurbs on the book, you are now checking to see what others think about the book. It seems very middle of the road from the reviews, some write their reviews as a 1 star but still give it 2 or 3 stars (Clearly the publisher had read the section on Asch’s Experiment when designing the blurbs, which why it’s scoring well)

This is not a good book, “Dotty” is a closet millennial and she outraged that people are outraged and do nothing about it apart from writing a few words……
I know ironic I guess the difference is that I paid for the privilege of her view. Note: if I had come upon the section where the author admits to trying to find a “free copy of someone’s research on the dark web” during my skim read I would have just pirated this book. As the author seems to be ok with that.

There is nothing new in the book that most people haven’t thought of already.
She goes of on massive rants that have no direction other than she’s pissed.

She touches on the drivers of what drives this outrage without digging into it, because it would appear that if the research wasn’t on page one of her Google searches then it was simply too much time to invest.
Even her rules and the detailing them doesn’t fit a full page, as of the whole thing was too much hassle to do, but she was pissed and people should know! Like when someone posts an outraged post on social media.

And that’s the ironic thing about this whole book, it’s a book about people being outraged on social media, written with an outraged social media mentality.

[heidi ♡︎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so excited when I came across this book because the efficacy of social media activism and online outrage is something that, after watching hot take after hot take on tiktok, has been interesting me a lot recently.

It started off strong, with the first couple of chapters bringing in some interesting points and establishing her central argument: that we don’t need to sweat the small stuff online when we could be mobilising our outrage in more productive ways to enact meaningful change.

But honestly, from chapter 3 onwards this book absolutely fell apart. She seemed far more sympathetic towards alt-right figures like Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins (giving both significant space in chapter 3) than she did towards the people she was supposedly trying to write for, making it feel like she was preaching to the converted; like she was trying to appeal to those already outraged by other peoples outrage, rather than actually open the conversation to those who could benefit from a more measured discussion. And in the mean time she repeatedly dismisses all social media activism as simple performance and virtue signalling, sparing just a single paragraph towards the end of the book to acknowledge people who genuinely care about these socio-political issues but find them incredibly overwhelming because we’re so oversaturated with bad news all day every day that we don’t know how we can possibly start to help, so resort to social media activism because sharing resources that may reach even just a couple of people that read them and are better educated for it ever so slightly alleviates this feeling of absolute helplessness and powerlessness in the vast, ever worsening worth we live in.

(… and breathe …)

This is all to say she never meaningfully sympathised with people who engage in social media activism. Rather than interviewing Katie Hopkins, who really doesn’t need any more air time (which she herself admitted - contradictory much?), she could’ve interviewed some of the people she is supposedly writing this book for to get deeper to the root of the issue here.

But no, instead she goes on a ‘holier than thou’ rant because the things that offended other people didn’t offend her. It wasn’t an objective book by any means, and was steeped in her own personal judgements as to what can be considered worth getting outraged over.

And yet, after all of her talk about not being ‘snowflakes’, she goes and insinuates that the Charlie Hebdo attacks can on some level be justified because, in the words Vladimir Putin who she herself quotes, ‘did those cartoonists need to offend Islamic believers?’ She’s just spent a whole book telling us not to get so offended about microaggressions, only to then argue that maybe a small satirical magazine should’ve been more careful about who they offended. I thought ‘really, are you kidding me?’ She goes from saying people should stop tweeting because they’re getting offended too easily, to saying she agrees with Putin that perhaps Hebdo should’ve been less outrageously offensive? Her argument looses all integrity!

The middle section on the whole was actually very uncomfortable to read, as her writing took on an increasingly ranty tone and became absolutely drenched in boomer-esque rhetoric about ‘infringing free will’ and ‘snowflakes’ and ‘mob mentality’. I gritted my teeth and tried not to hurl the book to the ground when she called Jamie Oliver’s wife a ‘foetus factory’ 🤢 - say what you like about her and her husband as people, but please let’s not shame a woman for her reproductive choices or reduce her to a human incubator.

She regained some semblance on sense by the final three chapters, suddenly dropping the tone of the last couple of chapters and bringing back a more reasoned discussion, finally interviewing someone who wasn’t absolutely despicable, and briefly introducing an alternative form of protest in our digital age - Stop Funding Hate. This organisation attempts to hit media publications in the wallet by encouraging brands not to pay for advertising space if they are writing or promoting hateful content. Now I do absolutely agree with what this organisation aims to do, but after she’d spent a whole book telling us we should go back to the good old days of protesting irl (as if people have stopped doing this entirely?) and take our activism offline, this sort of contradicts everything’s she’s already been saying, particularly when this organisation also relies on people putting pressure on brands to drop their advertising spaces, which is often done through social media outrage? And I also fail to see how this helps with the more serious issues across the world that she’s telling us we should be using our outrage to fight, when this activism is still primarily about changing the way people express themselves and their hate online.

So I’ve barely said a good word about this book, why am I giving it two stars and not just one? Well it did make me think. Much of my thought was in disagreement with her, but it was still a fun (albeit also frustrating) experience reading this book. She attempted to frame a much needed conversation and I genuinely think she was on the right lines, she just failed to form her points with much coherence, contradicting herself over and over again, and wrote in such a ranty, provocative and, dare I say, outraged tone that I can’t say this was it.

[rebecca | velvet opus · Rating 4 out of 5]

"it is in that commitment to change, that unwavering belief in our outrage, where revolution is born"

This book is an easily-accessible, thought-provoking read on outrage in a digital age with real-life examples, case-studies, academic findings and influencer interviews from those at either end of outrage and vitriol. It most importantly provides insight into how we can focus on important issues and how we can effect real, lasting change.

Thank you to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley

[Ali Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a thought provoking book.

It didn't tell me a whole lot that I hadn't already considered, or pondered myself, with regards to all the anger and outrage that is out there on social media. However, it did shine a spotlight on it in a very quick and accessible format.

The writer's style is conversational and easy to read, but the topic is not dumbed down as a result. She has clearly done her research and her tone is witty and astute.

That said, some of the middle section felt a little aimless and unstructured. The ending had some good recommendations which redeemed this somewhat.

I think this will be essential reading for anyone who has found themselves swept up into online outrage. It is not something that generally bothers me (until recently with so much anger about various issues and I have felt a little overwhelmed) so I may not have taken as much from this as others might.

I'll definitely be getting a copy for my school library as I think it will be appreciated by my pupils.

[alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like this particular book should be compulsory reading for anyone in possession of any kind of social media account.

thought-provoking, conversation-starting, insightful, accessible.

Please, just read this, if you too are tired by the torrent of 'cancel culture' and social media callouts and want to redirect justice to a more productive form.

[Alex Bond · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every now and then a book comes along that didn't need to be written. What an utter waste of paper.

'Dotty'... where to begin. This is pathetically lazy journalism. Or maybe it wasn't meant to be researched? Perhaps that would have involved scrolling past the first page of google, or doing more than a half-assed search for a “free copy of someone’s research on the dark web.” Maybe it's okay to steal if you're writing a book to cash in on the very culture you're deploring?

Gripe 1 - nothing is substantiated. This is her outraged, shouty opinion on how others' outrage is directed wrong, but how we should all be outraged, but seemingly only by the things that matter to her at the time. Confused yet? I was. There's no central premise or argument to be found - only a few interviews to pad out this pamphlet of a book. She speaks vaguely to a couple of actual experts in social sciences, but quickly moves on - and you'd do better to read works by any of them instead.

Gripe 2 - It's short but a real struggle to get through.

Gripe 3 - Okay, so maybe this is a saving grace - she's amusingly not self-aware. In the audiobook for example, she goes on a shouty, sweary rant about how other people are wrongly outraged by t-shirts - outraged at their outrage. Ah the irony.

If you read between all of the lines, you arrive at the conclusion you already knew before starting the book - direct outrage into real causes that matter to you. Pick your battles and think up real means of changing the status quo. There you go - 2 sentences 'Dotty'. But I guess that wouldn't have sold well.

[Linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirja someraivosta ja yhteiskunnallisesta vaikuttamisesta aika kärkkääseen sävyyn. Ilmiöstä puhuminen on mielestäni tärkeää, sillä väitän, että jos on koko ajan raivoissaan, ei välttämättä kykene olemaan riittävän raivoissaan silloin, kun siihen oikeasti olisi syytä ja sitä tarvittaisiin. Jatkuvaan raivoon turtuu. Sen sijaan pidin itse kirjailijan teräväsanaista tyyliä aika uuvuttavana, mikä aiheen vuoksi tuntui myös tosi jännältä valinnalta.

Joka tapauksessa ilahduin, että Rebekka Kuukka luki tämän!

[Jemysieni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aloitetaan sillä, että teoksesta on kaivettavissa hyvä ydinsanoma: maailmassa on suuria ongelmia, joten kannattaa valita taistelunsa. Raivoamalla kaikesta saa tuskin muutoksia aikaan mihinkään.

Odotin tämän lukemista innolla, mutta jälleenhän sieltä iski pettymys. Teos on suorastaan paradoksaalinen: Dotty raivoaa siitä, että kaikesta raivotaan. Ja siitä, ettei hän ymmärrä, miksi kaikesta täytyy raivota. Hän painottaa, että esimerkiksi rasismin suhteen on edelleen oikeita ongelmia (missä hän toki on oikeassa), joihin mikroaggressiot eivät hänen mukaansa kuulu. (Toki valkoisena lukijana minulla ei ole oikeutta määritellä, millaisesta rasismista tulisi loukkaantua tai sanoa värillisen kirjoittajan olevan tästä asiasta väärässä.) Kirjailija sortuu myös menneiden vuosien "oikean" aktivismin romantisointiin samalla someaktivismia vähätellen ja pilkaten. Eniten minua ehkä häiritseekin se, ettei toimittaja tunnu ymmärtävän kielen roolia todellisuuden kuvaajana ja rakentejana.

Analyysi keskustelukulttuurista on hyvin pintapuolista ja vinoutunutta. Kirjailija pyrkii todistamaan oman pointtinsa poimimalla sitä tukevia tapausesimerkkejä, enkä kokenut hänellä olevan pyrkimystäkään pohtia omaa tulokulmaansa kriittisesti. Lisäksi ajatuksia/ideoita esitetään omina, vaikka samoja teorioita on käsitelty vaikka kuinka paljon ennestään (mm. lauma-ajattelu). Rivien välistä välkähti välillä hyviä pointteja, mutta tekstiä ei nivota yhteen eikä niitä sijoiteta isompaan kuvaan. Kirjailija taisikin myöntää jossain vaiheessa, ettei jaksanut kunnolla kaivaa lähteitä. Kirjan uskottavuus ja relevanssi olisi aivan toista luokkaa, jos tämän tunteenpurkauksen sijaan kirjailija olisi nähnyt vaivaa nivoakseen pointtinsa teoreettiseen keskusteluun asianmukaisesti.

En voi suositella tätä, jos on halua ymmärtää syvemmin somekohuja ja polarisoitunutta keskustelukulttuuria. Sen sijaan jos haluaa kuunnella lyhyehkön ja jäsentymättömän rantin aiheesta, siihen tämä sopii vallan mainiosti. Raah.

P.s. Havaitsin syyllistyneeni kevyeen raivoamiseen tässä arvostelussa, mutta sopii teemaan.

[Catalina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only did I agree with many of the ideas presented in this book, but I've very much enjoyed the writing stile: alert, engaging and hilarious.
I've read this on ThePigeonHole(many thanks for the opportunity) and as others have pointed out at times it felt more like a colloquial essay rather than a book, full of ideas that may have been already explored elsewhere. Towards the end, the author almost lost track of what she was saying and forgot to take her own advice, but luckily the conclusion was in the same vain as most of the book: let's pick our battles instead of wasting our energies with false or unimportant outrage.
But this book is not just its shortcomings, it is much more than that. I believe it's going to be a good starting point for the outraged generation of social media, if they want to open their mind and ears and listen. It is also good for those who would like to see a reality check being applied on the outrage trends & the 'new' cancel culture or for those who would like to see what they already think/feel presented in such an accessible way, all in the same book. I personally fall in this last category and despite being "in the know" - so to speak, I still learnt a thing or two.
I don't want to close my review without mention that I've been pleasantly surprised to see the author looking at the personages she presented as case studies from so many sides, really exploring all possible causes and scenarios showcasing how any situation is so complex and not the black and white approach many on social media take today. Also the sciency bits: I will make sure to check out Molly Crockett's work!

[Jen Tidman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first saw the title for this book I thought it might be some right-wing pundit complaining about the 'snowflake' generation, but thankfully it's a really powerful call to action for us to focus on what is an important issue and effective activism, rather than getting caught up in clicktivism and dragging/cancelling culture.

Ashley "Dotty" Charles is a BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter (also known as Amplify Dot) who ticks a few intersectional boxes as a Black gay woman. She became interested in mob outrage after the public shaming of Rachel Dolezal (the white American woman who claims that she is 'transracial).

In her fascinating, well researched and powerful book (which brings to mind Jon Ronson's 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed'), Charles actually manages to interview Dolezal, as well as right-wing troll Katie Hopkins, sociologists, and Richard Wilson from the Stop Funding Hate campaign, in order to consider why it is we're sucked into mass movements on social media and whether this actually does anything to foster long term change (spoiler, the answer is 'not often').

Charles cautions that if we don't change the way we get involved in social justice issues then we are likely to get outrage fatigue and become apathetic. Instead, she encourages us to make sure we pick our battles as well as returning to old school protest and direct action.

I absolutely loved reading this book, which I think is essential in the current climate of Black Lives Matter and the erosion of trans rights. Rather than vilifying one woman in a park or one children's book author on Twitter, we should be writing to our politicians, targeting business and advertisers, staging demonstrations, and setting up picket lines, to work towards dismantling deep-rooted systemic prejudice.

Buy this now and feel incentivised to make some real change.

[Cassandra Marie Darling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came off Facebook about 6 years ago. This book resonates massively to me. All that misdirected outrage... Could be doing good else where. Honestly this needs to be rolled out as an educational resource. It wasn't perfect, but it was such a stop and think piece of literature. A must read in today's age.

[Toby Philpott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A warning to the performative “activist”

Says a lot of things that need to be said about performative “activism” on social media and its ineffective nature. More seriously it warns about the dangers of the throwaway ill informed comment and the ease by which misinformation gets shared. It certainly helps to put some of the lunacy of social media “outrage” into context.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can only agree with the Bella Mackie quote on the back: Everyone with a social media account should read this book.

[Briony · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so contradictory and felt really misinformed.
“Be angry! But not about that.”
I think what the author failed to realise is that outrage about the “smaller” things has 3 purposes:
1) it’s accessible. Not all of us have the platform of the knowledge or the voices (or the privilege!!! Or the safety!!!) to take down the big dogs. I can’t right not make a difference in terms of more black people being hired in large businesses. I can express my dissatisfaction with a company’s poorly worded and ‘unintentionally’ racist advertisement.
2) the smaller things are symptoms of the bigger things. We have every right to be angry about people like Katie Hopkins spouting her shit on the internet. It’s evidence of a wider problem which (see above) most of us don’t have the ability to make a difference in.
3) it’s cathartic! The world right now is a fucking hellscape. Let us be angry. We can’t bottle it all in for fear of being called a “snowflake”.

I get where she’s coming from. I get the point she was trying to make. I just think it was done really, really badly.

[Hettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief study of the power we hold when we compare our outrage to currency and choose to spend it wisely. Are we investing our outrage into the right social justice issues or are we just using social media to virtue signal our moral high ground on issues without affecting real change by pursuing performance over progress and trends over truth?

It was a refreshing insight into how to place the rage we live with from the injustices we find in our everyday lives and a lesson in learning how to pick your battles to ensure that we don’t lead to burnout; resulting in no real effective progression to end systemic oppression.

I also found it insightful to realise that although micro-aggressions faced by minorities as a form of subjugation are in no way acceptable to receive, it can cause us outrage fatigue which doesn’t lend itself to tackling large scale systemic suppression. I believe smaller scaled instances build up to the bigger picture and understand that challenging these instances can be important, but if it is to the detriment of the wider picture and caring for yourself to prevent burnout, maybe our strategies need to adapt to be persistent, intentional and sustained to ensure our protest for better change is actually attainable.

[Ted Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me really angry.

[Ophelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUPERB. Brilliantly and thought provoking. This wasn't just an eye-catching title with a few wise statements, there was real depth and analysis and brilliant reflections on society. 5 star read and recommendation.

[paul nevertoolatetostart · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you tweet, re tweet, share, comment or like, you need to read this. Brilliant, wise, thought provoking and inspiring.

[Sarah M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe a 4.5

So so good, definitely got some new perspectives with this one!

[Aoife · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting … def did not agree with a lot of what was said (why throw in that you think katie hopkins is an ‘evil genius’ after an entire interview where you seem to humanise her bigoted actions??) however it still gave me a lot to think about. also why call jamie oliver’s wife a ‘foetus factory’ in a book about offending people !!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Insightful and funny, and very accessible.

[S.Ach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose this book because its title, subtitle, and blurb resonated with my frustration over the relentless outrage, hypersensitivity, cancel culture, and hyper-activism from easily offended Twitter folks.
The author nails it in parts, especially the prologue, but loses me with the Gen-Z social media slang. I'm outdated, there and also, ignorant about some of the recent social outrages in US perhaps.

P.S. Don't suggest quitting Twitter—I want to stay engaged with social media, just with less noise. If city traffic annoys me, the answer isn't moving to the countryside.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think Tyra and Heidi's reviews just about sum up my perspective on this book. Frequently contradictory and ironically so outraged about outrage that she wrote a book about it. It falls into that extremely annoying trap of romaniticising the pre-internet era, particularly activism of the 20th century. She veryyyy briefly acknowledges that she has done barely anything activism-wise herself and that there have been powerful uses of the internet and hashtag activism... but MAKE OUTRAGE GREAT AGAIN?!?

I will say there are couple good takeaways buried underneath this muddled mess of a not-so-hot take. 1, that outrage has no further place to go once an individual or entity has done a u-turn apology; they can't be held accountable if they're already chastising themselves, and 2, that being outraged by everything is impractical and exhausting.

But the flippant disregard for things Charles calls 'trivial missteps' is just... ick. People have the capacity to care about a 'faux pas' and the big stuff, which are often connected in the tangled web of heteronormative capitalist white supremacy patriarchy. For example, she dismisses the outrage about the beauty industry using the word 'nude' to refer to peachy colours for white people. She implies that this is trivial but in reality this normalises white skin by making it the default, which is part of the wider privileging of white bodies that results in police brutality, imprisonment, etc., which Charles says we should be outraged about instead.

Ultimately this is a fairly hypocritical exercise in tone-policing from the perspective of someone who doesn't really have much basis for doing so.

Also please do not call anyone a 'foetus factory'???

[Kira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was really apprehensive when going into this book as it's incredibly easy to take the wrong end of the stick when this book begins by talking about outrage especially on social media. As someone who spends waaaaaay too much time on the internet and sees a lot of these things that blow up on the internet and so called internet celebrities who've grown to fame by being controversial such as Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan.

This book touches the surface of these issues and talks about how we should be using our time to stop being outraged online, and do something to find a solution to the problem, to spend our time being 'outraged' more proactively which do think is an incredibly important thing for us as a community to do online, to make an actual difference. I'm giving this book an overall rating of 3 stars because, yes, I agree with this point and we do use a lot more of our energy tweeting than doing and that I did enjoy reading this book. I just didn't love the repetitiveness in parts of this book as at times it felt like the same thing was being told to me, but just in a different situation. This book is a really short read, and I think those few pages are used really well and I'm definitely glad I got to read this and feel it could be a motivational read for the internet generation.

[Eliska · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book during the aftermath of the death of George Floyd when the world is ruled by #blacklivesmatter #blackouttuesday and many others. In the times, when I knew my couple of followers on Instagram would lynch me if I dared to post something during blackout Tuesday, and when I was afraid I will get lynched for not posting the black square. Despite knowing, most of these people posting black squares actually don’t care and are racist themselves. Not saying I agree with police brutality, just drawing parallels.
Great use of case studies, interviews, different opinions, and humour. I don’t think I have agreed so much with a book I have read, and I felt like I should highlight a lot of things I read. This book made my laugh, made me nod, made me try to remember to excerpts of it and discuss the power of online movements with my friends.
Wonderfully written, saying things just the way they are, this book is a must-read for everybody getting outraged just about everything and sharing each social movement hashtag on social media. It’s for everyone blindly reposting and not actually thinking about the issue, and for everyone like me, who gets annoyed on people blindly reposting.

[Melora · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago, Charles began looking at how outraged people were becoming over relatively minor problems then becoming too worn out to effect deep, systemic change, while the bigger issues raged on. She wrote an article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, titled, “Currency of Outrage,” which was published on January 25th of 2018 and it grew into this book.

“Outrage used to require more than a caption under a reposted picture. It required action and intent. It was the train that aimed to move protest towards progress.”

She calls this book, “an outrage intervention for anyone who has gotten high on indignation.”

As I’ve worked on building my author platform on Facebook and Twitter, this is an issue I’ve become more and more aware of. Recently, I saw people expressing outrage in a variety of ways about Melania Trump’s renovation of the White House Rose Garden. The crab apple trees and most of the rose bushes were removed. I wondered, how long do crab apple trees last? My research suggested 40 years seemed to be the average but these were planted nearly 80 years before. What about roses? Some older varieties might live indefinitely, but many rose bushes decline after 40 years. Furthermore the crab apple trees were said to be transplanted somewhere else on the grounds and not all the roses were removed. So, inept? Perhaps. Maybe just different. Criminal and worth our energy? I don’t think so. Not when there are true threats to our environment that need to be combated.

Charles says, “If outrage is currency then think of your expression of outrage as an investment…. It goes beyond simply ‘taking offence’. You are outraged because you seek growth, change, evolution; a return on your investment.”

She provides ample cases with a higher than reasonable response by the public. Was it a slow news time and they need something to put out? Are they really so desperate for ratings that media is amping up the hype surrounding stories? Are they just getting better at creating “clickbait” headlines? Is it the social media “influencers” looking for something to latch on to get their likes and shares up?

Charles delves into the Rachel Dolezal case, a white woman who claimed to be black and how people, rather than being perplexed or mildly annoyed by the situation, jumped to outrage. She doesn’t let herself off the hook either. She admits that she added to the noise surrounding it as a radio personality. “I had deliberately contributed to the noise by reveling in her vilification. The whole thing was beginning to feel regrettable.”

Charles can be a bit acidic, but she has a wonderful sense of self-deprecating humor. “I scrolled past the video because online algorithms aren’t the boss of me, then scrolled back up to it and pressed play, because who am I kidding?”

“Our digital fits of rage aren’t necessarily coming from a place of genuine concern; they might just be manifestations of our own vanity, a prop to boost our performance on the world’s biggest stage. Of course! Why intervene during a racial attack on a flight when you can quietly record the footage from three rows away and broadcast your outrage to the whole matrix?”

People on both sides of the aisle need us to feed their ratings, so they feed our outrage.

Charles takes on the talking heads of media and how they sell outrage. She points out that we seem to think that we are morally obligated to engage and refute the outrageous statements that some of them make. But, we’re doing what they want, we’re feeding their ratings. It’s like engaging with trolls online, that’s exactly what they want. If ignored, they eventually go away.

However, I have to say, that while I appreciate her points, I’m not completely convinced. People who offer dehumanizing statements about immigrants or make other suggest statements to poke the public and get them to engage or click, are always going to have their audience who believes what they do and are just confirming their own beliefs. But what about our friends and family who are being swayed by twisting of facts because they are listening to less than scrupulous sources? Do we have an obligation to engage in order to help them see the truth? And when and where do we engage?

Charles discusses Twitter boycotts or hashtag activism to show support but questions how much they really change things? She suggests that most people do not follow through to see that the politicians follow through on their promises to “investigate” much less actually make a change. She believes that if we don’t show up in person, we’re never going to effect real change. She may be right. Has activisim been appropriated into cheap sound bites?

She does allow that “Viral activism can have its uses by mobilizing outrage and making resistance both visible and accessible for a number of worthwhile causes.”

As a librarian, I am a strong advocate for fact checking. Charles maintains that by and large, “…we are habitual conformists, willing to follow the crowd off a cliff. We don’t fact-check or question. We repost and agree.”

In the final chapter, Charles talks about ways she has reduced her social media presence and footprint on the Internet. She has “retired from posting hot takes.” I think that’s a wise policy for all. We need to be more careful and deliberate in our research and responses to issues, decide where to expend our time and energy.

There are so many issues out there that truly need our time, care, and attention. Do some research, pick one, or two. Then, Charles says, “…by all means get angry. Get as angry as you possibly can. But do it with an ambition that extends beyond social media kudos.”

I think this book presents some truly fantastic advice in a very readable, and compact, selection. It probably ought to be required reading in a host of college classes. Hmm, how many college professors do I know?

[chooksandbooksnz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outraged - Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles

Summary (long review ahead): 100% Recommend. Everyone who uses any social media will get something (or many things) out of this book. At well under 200 pages it packs a huge punch in a short amount of time. Very thought provoking. Insanely interesting. Wow.

This review is generally speaking because it’s impossible to cover every topic specifically in an Instagram caption.

Outraged is an analysis of social media behaviours. Dotty talks to people who have been ‘cancelled’, professional social media villains, those who have been victims of a movement and those who have started movements (intentionally and unintentionally).

Dotty humanises those who have acted heinously reminding us they aren’t just a Facebook status or an infamous tweet but an actual person. She does this without condoning questionable, distasteful, oppressive and offensive actions so we can really understand outrage from all perspectives.

Some reviews say she contradicts herself a lot. I say this is less of a contradiction and more of an unbiased/balanced analysis without telling anyone right from wrong or pushing her own agenda. She is not saying we should stop outrage or that it’s ineffective or that we should care less/be ignorant. It’s more about how we should treat outrage like currency, invest it wisely with expectations of what return we want on our outrage investment.


Outrage and ‘clicktivism’ has so many advantages. Thanks to social media we have the power to amplify our voice and speak out about what really matters reaching more people than ever before. Online movements are accessible and easy to get involved in. When these movements are well targeted we can really apply pressure to make positive change where needed. Throughout there are some good examples of productive outrage. Well planned, targeted and leading to action.

On the flip side of this social media is also a cesspit of harmful, hurtful and despicable behaviour and outrage can stem from almost nothing. We can anonymously or openly publicly attack anyone for anything. We have the ability to literally ruin a total strangers life from anywhere in world with very little information by spending 5 minutes starting a movement and getting others on the bandwagon. This is a really terrifying concept where often the ‘crime’ doesn’t match the punishment.
We can feel qualified to weigh in on issues and join the bandwagon when we have seen an someone else’s stories or an infographic on Instagram stating ‘facts’ without feeling like we need to back this up with our own research.


Some big issues have a really important place in outrage (e.g. racism, sexism and gender equality, human rights, hate crimes, terrorism, genocide to name a few). Sometimes we can miss these bigger issues, meaning they are swept under the rug while ‘trivial missteps’ or ‘throwaway comments’ end up taking the spotlight on our newsfeeds.

When is it better to fuel the online fire or let it die a natural death from lack of attention? Is so much outrage causing those desperate for attention to purposely stir the pot to stay relevant?

At the end of the day everyone’s feelings are valid and we have the right to form our own opinions. It’s up to us as individuals to decide what outrages us and how we channel that outrage. Using our voice is so important. Being an ally is so important. Standing up for what truly outrages us so important.

I completely agree that there is a mental and emotional drain when being overexposed to outrage. Invest your outrage wisely and READ THIS BOOK!

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️