Pigs at the Trough: The Attention Hog at the Attention Economy
Welcome to the Attention Economy where eyeballs are dollars, engagement is leverage, and the most successful grifters, politicians, and tech overlords have figured out how to monetise your conscious.
The world has always had attention hogs - your loud uncle at Thanksgiving, the class clown who loves a cheap laugh, the one friend who miraculously makes every conversation about themselves. In the Digital Era, attention isn’t just an annoying habit - it’s an asset, a currency, and the key to real power.
Once upon a time content was King! Media moguls - think Hearst, Murdoch, the TV networks, Ben Bradlee, Anna Wintour, Tina Brown - controlled what you saw, when you saw it, and how long you lingered. But today, the overlords of attention are Silicon Valley’s most cunning disruptors. Meta (Facebook), X (formerly Twitter under Elon Musk’s erratic command), Google, and TikTok own the infrastructure of attention, feeding you a never-ending scroll of dopamine-laced content that never saw the hand of those vaunted editors.
How did they come to own it? Simple: They didn’t build the content; they built the algorithm. Instead of telling you what to watch, they let you tell on yourself - watching your every click, like, and linger time.
They turned your behaviour into their product, selling your distractions to advertisers, politicians, and movements vying for dominance. And because algorithms don’t have human values like fairness, accountability, or transparency, the result is a Wild West where the most outrageous figures win.
It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to translate attention into real world influence. Enter Donald Trump. A natural born attention hog, Trump didn’t need to learn the Attention Economy - he instinctively understood it. From his early days plastering his name on skyscrapers to his tabloid antics in the ‘80s, “The Apprentice” in the 2000's, and his Twitter rampages in the 2010's, Trump mastered the art of keeping eyes glued to him. Whether you loved or loathed him, you were talking about him. And that, in the Attention Economy, is all that matters.
As Trump embarks on his new term, he faces not just political opposition but fierce competition from within his own media ecosystem. Figures like Musk and Bannon aren’t just his allies; they’re also vying for dominance in the attention wars. Musk, never content to let another man own the limelight, will continue using his social media empire to stir controversy, often positioning himself as both Trump’s booster and his rival. Meanwhile, Bannon, always the political provocateur, will double down on his media machine, keeping Trumpism alive while making sure he’s a key player in shaping its direction.
The competition for attention is so fierce that even policy arguments are staged for maximum drama. Take the recent H-1B visa debate: Musk, suddenly posing as an advocate for immigrant tech workers, clashed with Bannon, who sees them as part of the globalist menace. Trump, ever the showman, swooped in with his own "America First" narrative, effortlessly asserting his dominance by making sure both men’s arguments revolved around him. This is not governance - it’s reality TV.
Elon Musk, for all his billionaire eccentricities, is not merely a tech mogul - he’s a "poster". Owning Twitter (sorry, “X”) wasn’t just a business acquisition; it was an acquisition of narrative control.
Musk’s social media antics - whether beefing with critics, posting memes, or dabbling in conspiracy theories - are designed to keep people watching, engaging, and, ultimately, spending time on his platforms. He is a pure Attention Economy operator, wielding influence through sheer ubiquity. However, with Trump back in office, Musk will have to walk the fine line between amplifying Trump’s chaos and ensuring he remains a star in his own right.
Meanwhile, JD Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy author turned Trump disciple, represents a different kind of attention hog: the one trying to earn the spotlight rather than command it naturally. Unlike Trump, who thrives in the chaos of 24/7 coverage, Vance still plays the “political intellectual” card, balancing between online culture wars and traditional media credibility. He wants the MAGA movement’s adoration, but he lacks the instinctive bombast that keeps Trump permanently in the public eye. And, in a world where Musk and Bannon are constantly escalating their antics to stay relevant, Vance may struggle to keep up.
As attention becomes the most valuable commodity, politics is no longer about policies but performances. The winner isn’t the one with the best ideas but the one who can keep us watching the longest.
With Trump back in office, the attention economy’s biggest star has returned to centre stage, and every other right-wing media figure - Musk, Bannon, Vance, and others, need to stay relevant without being overshadowed. Whether it’s Trump’s court battles doubling as campaign rallies, Musk’s Twitter flame wars, or Bannon’s media machine pumping out outrage, the new rulers of the world aren’t the richest or the smartest - they’re the loudest. Making the somewhat reclusive Brits fair game!
And the worst part? The algorithms don’t care. They won’t reward fairness, integrity, or truth. They will reward whoever keeps us glued to the screen the longest. And as these attention predators harness more and more real-life power, the future may not be shaped by great leaders or big ideas, but by the next viral outrage cycle.
So buckle up. We’re all just unpaid extras in their never-ending spectacle.
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