In this op-ed, writer Emma Rayder reflects on unempathetic social media responses to the devastating LA fires in California and what they say about how desensitized we are to tragedy.
For the past few days, I’ve been glued to my phone, scrolling X and TikTok and refreshing the news to follow the devastating fires ripping through Los Angeles. I’ve cried with and for friends and strangers who’ve lost everything — their homes, their pets, their wardrobe, their family photo albums, their entire lives.
The outpouring of resources and awareness is inspiring. Practically every other Instagram Story on my feed features a link to donate to the Los Angeles Fire Department or a comprehensive list of resources for those affected. While the wildfires have spurred incredible acts of generosity, and reflected some of the better aspects of human nature, I was naive to assume our country was unified in its outpouring of support for Los Angeles. Social media comment sections have revealed a darker reality — a compassion crisis fueled by political division and a growing desensitization to tragedy.
There are a few common threads in the negative comments I’m seeing: a hatred for celebrities, a belief that only famous and rich people and Democrats live in Los Angeles, and a sort of scoffing attitude that people shouldn’t grieve lost possessions when their lives are at stake. All of those ideas are compounded by the social media algorithm, which trafficks in hate clicks and rage-bait and benefits from making us all loathe each other.
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Studies have shown that excessive social (and traditional) media consumption can reduce empathy. It makes sense that, amidst an overload of painful information, our brains fight off a constant state of despair by forcing us to feel less. But many users have sprinted past numbness to downright vitriol.
While scrolling through TikTok, I saw hundreds of comments echoing the sentiment of, “You’re rich, you will be fine.” Others pointed to Californians’ choices to live in the state and vote blue as the root of their misfortune (it’s worth noting that many have shown a similar lack of empathy for Floridians who vote Republican and are impacted by hurricanes). While some of these insensitive remarks were left on the videos of celebrities like Heidi Montag and Whitney Cummings, who both lost their homes in wildfires, most were left on the profiles of so-called “normal” people.
Gen Z (and Millennials) have long held an “eat the rich” mindset — and we’re not unjustified in our frustration with the ultra wealthy. The mega-rich are only getting richer, with America’s top 1% holding almost a third of the country’s wealth — more than the 50% of Americans who make up our middle class. But anybody who has been to Los Angeles and walked the Venice Beach boardwalk or strolled through downtown knows that the city and its suburbs are as diverse in socioeconomic status as it gets. Los Angeles County’s poverty rate is nearly three percentage points higher than that of the United States as a whole. The county’s median income levels are close to representative of the national values, but Los Angeles’s per capita income of $44,319 is far below the estimated $96,500 it takes to live comfortably in a major U.S. city.
“Thankful we still have each other,” wrote Jhené Aiko. “Starting from scratch.”
Even if it were only the richest of the rich and celebrities losing their homes and possessions in the wildfires, that would not void us, as a nation and as humans, of our duty to feel compassion. The truth is that people are returning to their homes in L.A. to find ruins and flattened neighborhoods. Some of those people are celebrities, who are posting candidly about what they and their communities have lost.
