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Marc Andreessen argues that viral outrage is nothing new—what’s changed is the speed and visibility, not the human impulse. The internet swapped duels and riots for meme wars and comment section battles.
If you only read one thing
Andreessen’s claim: Outrage cycles aren’t a modern invention—they’re an old reflex, now running at internet speed. What’s really changed is how fast and public it all is.
Andreessen draws a sharp line between what’s reported and what actually matters: 'the news is called the news, not the importance.' He traces today’s viral outrage to CNN’s 24-hour 'randemonium'—the relentless hunt for the 'current thing,' no matter how trivial. The internet, he says, has only cranked this up, turning every event into a meme that explodes for two and a half days before vanishing. Despite the endless online tribal warfare, actual political violence in the West is at historic lows—unlike the duels, riots, and labor strikes of the past.
The Jesse Smollett case, for Andreessen, shows how facts barely matter in these cycles; what matters is how quickly people split into moral tribes. The real shift isn’t in our appetite for conflict, but in the medium and speed: 'If it’s on the internet, it’s a viral social media meme.' The era from the Cold War to 2014, he argues, was an anomaly of 'suppressed volatility,' with centralized media muting the natural chaos of public discourse. Now, with the internet, we’re back to the historical norm—just with fewer broken noses and more broken comment sections.
Andreessen reframes the panic about social media: it hasn’t made society more violent or divided, it’s just made our tribal instincts more visible and less physically dangerous. For anyone trying to understand modern politics or media, the real insight is that outrage cycles are a feature, not a bug—and they’re not going away. Knowing that the 'current thing' will be forgotten in 60 hours is a powerful antidote to getting swept up in the panic of the day.
CNN’s Reese Schonfeld pushed for nonstop coverage of whatever was most outrageous or interesting, even if the facts were fragmentary. The internet took this model and sped it up: now, the 'current thing' changes every 2. 5 days, with platforms like X and YouTube fueling the churn.
Online tribalism and outrage are at all-time highs, but measured political violence is at historic lows. In the past, political and social conflicts often led to duels, riots, and even machine-gun battles during labor strikes.
Andreessen argues that people crave novelty and outrage, not substance. If newspapers only reported what was important, nobody would buy them; people want the hot, outrageous story, not the dry facts.
Events like the Jesse Smollett case show that online outrage forms moral tribes, regardless of the underlying truth. Outrage cycles are driven by emotional activation, not facts, and personalized stories often generate more outrage than large-scale events.
Each viral social media meme explosion is like a two and a half day panic cycle.
Marc Andreessen
The news is called the news, not the importance.
Marc Andreessen
At any moment in time there's the current thing.
Marc Andreessen
If it's on the internet, it's a viral social media meme.
Marc Andreessen