One of the more popular ways for people, with modest talents, to gain public attention is to be edgy. The best examples of this are the pop stars who have modest musical ability, but are willing to degrade themselves on stage, well beyond what is common. Comics used to play the edgy card, by dropping the F-bomb in their act or making increasingly bawdy sexual references. The game is to set yourself apart from the other mediocrities by saying and doing outlandish things. That way, the public pays attention to you instead of others.
You see something similar in the commentariat. There are millions of people able to talk and write about public issues well enough to succeed on stage. It’s not that hard. Most TV presenters are remarkably stupid, but they can learn to read from the teleprompter and look into the correct camera. The Atlantic Magazine has shown how easy it is to create a black intellectual with the TN Coates experiment. Getting on TV or getting a perch at a big site, therefore, requires something else, something to set you apart from the crowd.
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