by Dr. Randall Bock, America Outloud:
John Hawkins came up through the old conservative internet, when a writer could build an audience with speed, nerve, timing, and a willingness to fight in public. His site, Right Wing News, became a major force during the Facebook years, then watched the platform world tighten its grip. “We were one of the first people doing it, Right Wing News, where everything’s outrage and click-baity and we’re going to get you to click through.” It worked, until it did not. The lesson was not only about technology. It was about dependency. A movement that lives on rented ground can be removed from that ground.
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Hawkins now writes at Culturcidal, where the stated premise is plain: no outrage bait, no name-calling, and no country fixed without fixing the culture. He knows the traffic machine because he helped run one. Outrage works. It produces clicks. It teaches the audience to crave another insult, another villain, another hard candy of contempt. “I’ve actually written about it, called it Doritos journalism.” The phrase holds because it is funny and accurate. It tastes like food, but it cannot nourish the public. “People are going to click on it, but it’s not real news.”
The problem is not confined to one side or one platform. The appetite has spread through the whole media diet. “When everything’s Doritos, which is where we are, the mainstream media is now Doritos, everything’s Doritos.” That is why Hawkins moved toward paid writing and direct audience support. “The internet is moving towards a much more subscription-based model.” In that model, the reader is not only a metric. He is a patron, a witness, and sometimes a guardrail. The writer has fewer excuses. He must decide whether he wants heat or light.
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