With the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle and the ever-growing influence of social media, the average American is exposed to over 500 new news stories in a day. This has led to many people feeling confused and estranged regarding how they should maintain a steady level of outrage over socially relevant news stories.
One group called “Angry AM” has attempted to solve this problem by developing an app that sends subscribers a concise list of what they should passionately support or oppose that morning.
“Before Angry AM I felt so overwhelmed.” states California resident Paula Gruden, “I can’t believe I used to only get outraged about one thing every week, now I’m able to concentrate all my woke Twitter posts on a few concise issues that change every 24 hours.”
Recent recommendations motivate users to display their angry reaction to a variety of news stories ranging from Saudi Arabia’s continued missile strikes in Yemen to criticism of J.K. Rowling’s tweets about characters in the beloved Harry Potter series. With so many recommendations going out every day, the Angry AM recognizes that they will not always grasp the full breadth of some issues despite even the most diligent skimming of headlines.
“We work hard to ensure that Angry AM subscribers are never short of reasons to start their day off with an irrational display of rage.” says content manager Jocelyn Willis. “But we realize that we sometimes accidentally direct their attention in the wrong direction.”
A recent example of this sort of mistake is Tuesday morning’s recommendation to protest and oppose all new land development in the Australian province of Victoria on the grounds that new construction could threaten local koala populations. Later in the day, Angry AM sent out a notification retracting their earlier statement and instead instructing its followers to support the new developments as it was recently discovered that most koalas are in fact homophobic.
“Mistakes are made occasionally, but we pride ourselves on our ability to quickly change our minds to end up on the socially expedient side of any issue, regardless of how staunchly we recently supported or opposed it.” comments Willis
After its launch in early 2019, “Angry AM” quickly rose to near the top of both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store downloads list. Despite this meteoric success, the company has fallen under some scrutiny after reports surfaced that it was paying female employees less than males with the same jobs. A foundation dedicated to remembering the victims of “Angry AM” came together within minutes after these reports surfaced, but it was ultimately dissolved when posts were found on one member’s social media account showing that in 2012 he listened to R. Kelly while watching reruns of the Cosby Show.