Escapism: The Soft Power of Distraction

We don't live in an age of information. We live in an age of infotainment, where the line between politics and performance isn't blurred—it's erased. Escapism is no longer a private act of retreat from reality. It's a public strategy. A deliberate tool used by those in power to manage perception, maintain control, and redirect rage.

Every crisis is a stage. Every tragedy, a content cycle. Every war, a ratings spike. Behind the constant churn of headlines is a carefully tuned system that thrives on emotional fatigue and short-term memory.

The Media Carousel

Scroll through the news. One week it's Gaza, then Ukraine, then a celebrity scandal, then back to Taiwan. Urgency is temporary. Algorithms reward novelty, not depth. When attention peaks, the story pivots. We are not informed. We are updated.​

War doesn’t end. Corruption isn’t resolved. The lie isn’t corrected. It just gets buried beneath the next trending topic.​

And this isn’t just market logic. It’s political calculus. When the Dutch military bombed Hawija in 2015, killing over 70 civilians, the truth was buried for five years. It wasn't covered until it could be treated as a footnote. A mistake. A ghost.​

Similarly, in October 2023, an explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli Arab Hospital resulted in hundreds of casualties. Initial media coverage heavily relied on unverified claims, leading to widespread misinformation. Major outlets, including The New York Times and the BBC, later issued corrections, acknowledging their premature reporting. The rapid shift in narratives exemplified how quickly media attention can pivot, leaving the complexities of such tragedies underexplored and the public grappling with fragmented truths.

Political Theater

Escapism becomes governance. Not through silence, but saturation.​

When the UK economy falters, there's a surge of migrant hysteria.​

When another Black man is killed by police in the U.S., a Chinese spy balloon suddenly threatens national security.​

Western democracies have perfected this dance.​

They don’t censor; they flood.​

They give you endless speech, but no memory.​

Debate without direction. Emotion without impact.​

Political theater doesn't exist to inform or resolve—it exists to perform. To occupy.​

And it works.​

Because it's easier to argue about pronouns than pensions.​

Easier to cancel a comedian than a corporation.​

Easier to debate the morality of a statue than the morality of a war.​

Consider the timing of executive orders in the U.S. Research indicates that presidents often sign controversial directives when the media and public are preoccupied with major events, effectively reducing scrutiny. ​

In the UK, during the 1997 general election, the Labour Party's strategic use of media spin, led by Alastair Campbell, transformed political communication, emphasizing image over substance.

This isn't governance; it's choreography.​

A performance designed to distract, to deflect, to delay.​

While the audience debates the actors' costumes, the scriptwriters—those in power—continue their work behind the curtain.

Entertainment as Policy

Bread and circuses. Now: TikTok and Netflix.

We’re not just offered escapism. We’re fed it. Governments don’t need to crush dissent when they can dilute it. The goal is not to silence you—it’s to exhaust you. If you're emotionally fried from the day's outrage buffet, you won’t have the energy to organize, investigate, or resist.

And so, we get political commentary that looks like stand-up comedy. News that feels like sports coverage. Catastrophe covered like reality TV.

Take the 2023 revelations about U.S. involvement in sabotage operations in Europe. Brief scandal, no accountability. Then back to celebrity divorce coverage.

Western Exceptionalism in Distraction

Russia censors. China surveils. The West distracts.

Soft power is the velvet glove of empire. It doesn’t need to crush you. It just needs you to look the other way. Let you scroll, scream, and meme your way through collapse.

You can vote. But only between two brands of the same product. You can protest. But only in ways that don’t disrupt capital. You can speak. But only to an audience too tired to listen.

Escapism becomes the leash. Not forced, but welcomed. A pill we take willingly because the truth is exhausting. Because real change is slow. Because doomscrolling feels like doing something.

In reality it is like doing nothing. Ask yourself how many times you felt so strongly about a cause that you made it part of your daily life.

To make the example of this more compelling: When have you ever done something about the leaders that use the art of escapism. To think about this for longer than 5 seconds makes you realize it is futile. Scream all you want, criticize on Twitter or even fight with your friends, it wont change a thing.

The rules are rigged, the deck is stacked, welcome to the age of escapism.

The Quiet Things

But reality doesn’t care if we’re tired. The budgets are still passed. The bombs still fall. The wealth still concentrates.

At some point, we have to log off. Not forever. But long enough to look at the quiet things: the deals made in back rooms, the wars fought in our name, the narratives spun while we were distracted.

Escapism is a reflex. But awareness is a discipline.

And if we want to reclaim the future, we have to practice seeing again.