Everyone is offended by everything. It’s exhausting. Keeping up with all the noninclusive, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, ageist, cultural-appropriating, body-shaming propaganda that seems to litter the social media age.

In 2018, almost anything apparently is subject to the scrutiny of one marginalised eye or another. Being outraged allows you to take the moral high ground. It reaffirms your righteousness. It lets you say: “I am offended and therefore I am principled.” It lets you jump on the bandwagon and pledge allegiance to the latest campaign on your timeline. It gives you a vehicle to add your name to the narrative. It proves that you are following current affairs, albeit from the comfortable vantage point of your Instagram feed. It allows you to place yourself on the virtuous side of the conversation. It says: “I am woke.”

And for that reason, outrage has become currency.

Outrage was once reserved for the truly unjust. It was for civil rights activists and suffragettes. It has fought against police brutality, institutional racism, unequal pay, segregation and voting rights. Outrage gave a voice to the voiceless and forced society to take a long hard look in the mirror. It has challenged the status quo, prompted legislative review, torn down statues, conquered apartheid and abolished slavery. It gave birth to the life work of Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Davis. It ensured that the legacies of the Emmett Tills, Rodney Kings, Emily Davisons, Stephen Lawrences, Eric Garners, Marsha P Johnsons and Mark Duggans were lasting. It gave us the words of Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, Bayard Rustin, Maya Angelou, Darcus Howe. It manifested itself in the riots of Watts, South Central, Brixton and Stonewall.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We’re not going to channel our unwavering outrage toward the clumsy marketing techniques of H&M.’ Photograph: H&M

Outrage used to require more than a caption under a reposted picture. It required action and intent. It was the train that aimed to move protest toward progress. It was not a chess piece in a consumerist game. It was not an empty statement to endear oneself to the demographic-of-the-day. It was warranted and validated.

There is still much to be outraged about in our post-modernist society; hate crimes against the LGBT community are increasing, the sale of slaves in Libya has persisted without intervention, the gender pay gap is so large that the ethnicity pay gap has been told to wait its turn, sexual predators are the kings of Hollywood, black men in the US are given sentences that are 19% longer than their white counterparts when convicted of the same crime and it is still illegal to be gay in more than 70 countries.

So what we’re not going to do is channel our unwavering outrage toward the clumsy marketing techniques of H&M.

If we are all outraged all of the time, then outrage simply becomes the default setting

Writing this, I represent a “triple jeopardy” intersection; a black, gay, woman. If we were playing Outrage Monopoly I would have properties on the high-ticket streets. My adult life has been punctuated by moments of outrage, both internalised and verbalised, against a world that has at times seemed intent on undermining and eroding my deviations from “the norm”. Because of this, I am selective with my outrage. I do not have the luxury of campaigning against battery farming when my people are being shot in the back by the Los Angeles police department.

But outrage is of course subjective. The British National party is outraged by multiculturalism, Brexit leave voters were outraged by Britain’s open borders. Devout Christians are outraged by secular music. I do not share any of those concerns, but this does not make them any less legitimate to each respective group. Outrage is therefore a currency with many different denominations, each of varied value in any given social marketplace.

If outrage is currency then think of your expression of outrage as an investment. It is emotionally draining to be truly outraged. It takes effort and energy to articulate the nuanced sentiments behind your indignation. It goes beyond simply “taking offence”. You are outraged because you seek growth, change, evolution; a return on your investment. Smart investors do not inject their finances blindly into every opportunity that presents itself, yet we are now in a state of constant infuriation in response to any cause that picks up enough momentum. Our outrage portfolios are a mess and we aren’t even tracking our profits and losses. Outrage is no longer the mouthpiece of the activists, it is the plaything of the commentators.

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Last December social media were collectively outraged by the bullying of Tennessee student Keaton Jones. Celebrities rallied around the 11-year-old, clamouring to be louder and more supportive then the next. The bullies were vehemently denounced and Keaton was hailed as a superhero, all in response to a 70-second video. Every one from Rihanna to Justin Bieber was publicly incensed by the treatment of the young teen. The following day Keaton’s family had been exposed as Confederate flag-wielding white supremacists and the tide of outrage turned. In a case study that epitomised the currency of outrage, the internet was quite literally looking for refunds. Words of support were retracted and invitations to premieres scrapped. Keaton went from hero to villain at the click of a refresh button. Two days later all was forgotten.

By becoming fickle and oversaturated, the value of outrage is plummeting. In fact if you’ve got capital tied up in outrage, I’d consider pulling out now before the stock implodes completely.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Outrage doesn’t sit on its sofa complaining about how Kim Kardashian culturally appropriated braids. It means refusing to give up your seat on the bus in 1950s Alabama.’ Photograph: AP

It is said that if you stand for nothing then you will fall for anything. But surely standing for everything won’t get you anywhere either. Martin Luther King Jr didn’t hop from cause to cause. Sojourner Truth didn’t stray from her mission in favour of the latest headline-grabbing movement. And it is in that commitment to change, that unwavering belief in our outrage, where revolution is born. The suffragette movement existed on both sides of a century. The civil rights movement spanned more than a decade. Even the London riots of 2011 raged on for five days. Collective outrage was once so charged, so relentlessly sustained, that it acted as a catalyst for tangible progression.

These days the lifespan of outrage rarely exceeds 24 hours or at least until our attention is diverted toward the next hot talking point. People are so intent on projecting a self-serving image of morality that they now piggyback any prominent cause that might help position themselves as ethical and compassionate. Publicists tell their clients to “find a cause”. Columnists scramble for negative interpretations on which to base their think-pieces. Social media influencers can now find themselves engaging in three or four Twitter battles a week to prove that they are pro-choice, antiracist, body-positive vegans. And this is not to undermine the genuine endeavours of many 21st-century activists, nor is it intended to dismiss some causes as less worthy than others. It is simply to highlight this devaluing of outrage that occurs as a byproduct of excessive uproar.

If we are all outraged all of the time, then outrage simply becomes the default setting. Nobody’s outrage is given its rightful platform for any significant period of time because here comes another ill-thought-out ad campaign that misrepresents dog owners. Excessive outrage derails movements by adding too many trains to the track. Black lives matter, but wait, polar bear lives also matter and have you even stopped for a second to consider the real meaning behind Thanksgiving? By shouting about everything, we are creating a deafening silence where outrage is without consequence. Politicians can avoid law reforms, newspapers can side-step retractions, murderous police officers can evade prison sentences, safe in the knowledge that it will all blow over.

Barely anyone heard the whispers about the decision not to charge police over the death of black musician Sean Rigg

The currency of outrage is no longer worth its weight in gold. Traders are practically giving it away to anyone who will take it.

In 2017 the British Medical Journal published an article arguing that Peppa Pig was fostering an unrealistic image of the NHS. Seriously. A cartoon based around a talking farm animal was piling the pressure on the UK’s doctors and nurses. It was a trending topic on Twitter for most of the day; people were outraged by the article’s outrage which spawned yet more perplexing articles of faux outrage. But in that same week barely anyone heard the whispers about the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to charge the five officers who allegedly contributed to the death of black musician Sean Rigg in police custody. There simply wasn’t enough outrage to go round, so the fictional pig was granted the column inches.

Online outrage had us trying to #StopKony in 2012. Time called it the most viral video of all-time and there were estimates that half of the population’s young adults had seen the campaign film Kony 2012. But did we stop Joseph Kony? Who knows. We all lost interest and made way for Gangnam Style.

But long before the hypersensitive, hashtag-hungry internet age, outrage existed – undistracted and unwavering. It was provocative and empowering. It threw itself in front of the king’s horses and marched on Washington. It defined entire eras and rewrote laws with defiant, unrelenting, Underground Railroad-building resilience. That’s true outrage. Outrage doesn’t sit on its sofa complaining about how Kim Kardashian culturally appropriated braids. It means refusing to give up your seat on the bus in 1950s Alabama.

• Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles is a BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter