Causes Of The Loser Edit '

The Loser Edit by Colson Whitehead is a look at the philosophy and the thinking behind how parts of society work and why people are so drawn to attention. The need and craving for people to make sure they are looked at in a great way while everyone else around them looks worse. Some of the causes of the “loser edit” are the ways media looks at people, the social class those people are in, and something Alfred Adler called the “superiority complex”. It affects the real world in so many ways that some people don’t even stop to think about. How editing someone down to all of their bad moments and focusing only on the wrongs gives an incredibly pessimistic overtone on how american culture is. Or realistically, any culture where mainstream media is prominent.

Whitehead even states at the beginning of the Loser Edit, “If you have ever watched a reality TV show and said ,’He’s going home tonight,’ you know what the ‘loser edit’ is,” meaning television and any form of media is going to have a significant impact on how people are going to act in their day to day lives. Social media tries to look for the worst in people and allow people to feel better from that, which causes an entire generation of people competing for “likes” or always try to be on top. It creates a sort of narcissistic overtone across all platforms of media. Making someone who’s rich and famous look terrible allows people to feel better about themselves. They love seeing people fall from the top of the pillar to where they are socially or sometimes even