I didn’t have much to say about Jason Arday when he was alive and I have even less to say about him personally now that he’s passed away. But I think his death reflects a level of invasiveness and vitriol that’s become far too normal in public life. It perhaps frightens me more than the ambivalence that drives otherwise “good” people to look away from the pressing issues of our time. Because we are looking. Constantly. Watching others, devising our opinions, pining for viral moments, hoping a post will change our own lives. Before I write about anyone publicly, I am governed by one question only: if they were across the room for me, would I be okay reading out what I’m writing? AKA: Would I stand on fucking business? I tend not to write about any one person until I’m certain the answer is yes. But the etiquette of this weirdo, parasocial infotainment media sphere doesn’t require such consideration, let alone value it, instead it encourages not seeing the subjects of our words as real people, to not see the topics we debate as affecting real lives. It is all sport. Self-serving fuel for posts and think-pieces. The British media hounded a professor for unsubstantiated claims of plagiarism more than it has hounded any of the men substantially named in the Epstein files. An entire institutional machine ramped up its shaming rituals to full tilt over an black man who was flawed but seemed mostly harmless. The same machine never congregates with such scathing bloodlust for people who are obviously terrible, it continuously to use its kiddy-glove passive voice when it comes to the commitment of a genocide or the lying, far-right, bigoted party leader who has solicited funds from foreign crypto-billionaires and is trying to usher in a new age of fascism after fucking us all over with Brexit. And none of these so-called journalists and right-wing grifters who’ve been foaming at the mouth, fake moralising, will look at this moment and show an ounce of self-reflection, humility, remorse or responsibility for how their words have gone too far. Instead, we will endure their slimy rationalisations, their weaseling as they offer empty and begrudging condolences, silently removing or modifying all their institutionally-backed online tongue-lashings so they can pretend the gratuitous bile they spewed made no contribution to Arday’s death. That, to me, is a perfect representation of how fucking insidiously exhausting racism is, of how cowardly white supremacy fucking is as a collective blight on this whole fucking planet. An insatiable lust for blood spread thin on so many hands that no one person can be convicted of holding the blade. But the outcome always, conveniently, materialises in black death regardless. More people are going to die this way, I fear. Discoursed to fucking death.