Community
5 August, 2026
'Angertainment' talk lives up to its name
About 40 people turned up to the Bowral Memorial Hall last night to hear Ed Coper, the author of 'Angertainment - How Social Media Ruined Everything' chat about his book and why he wrote it.
About 40 people turned up to the Bowral Memorial Hall last night to hear Ed Coper, the author of 'Angertainment - How Social Media Ruined Everything' chat about his book and why he wrote it.
In fact, some people were so ‘angry’ that The Southern Wire was asked to stop filming during the question and answer session part of the night.
Wingecarribee Shire Councillor Nicole Smith introduced Mr. Coper as well as his interviewee, Eleanor Gammell, who describes herself as ‘a convenor focused on systems dynamics and human futures.’
Ms. Gammell is the host of ‘Alive to This,’ roundtable conversations about AI and human futures, and the convenor of ‘Esther Lane’, a gathering space in Sydney devoted to ‘inquiry and collective sensemaking’.
Her work also spans institutions such as Small Giants Academy, TEDxSydney, MONA and The School of Life, where she has co-created transformative journeys through forests, borderlands, boardrooms, underground museums and public stages.
Coper signed copies of the book outside in the foyer after the talk.
"Angertainment' - as you can guess from the title – is about how people on social media have figured out that if you take things that make you emotional, especially negative emotions like anger; and then you also capture their attention by things that are entertaining, then you get a really winning formula," Mr. Coper told The Southern Wire.
"If you think about your own experience on your own social media feed, you see all of this content that comes to the top that is designed to make you react."
Mr. Coper also explained that our brains are wired to react when we feel threatened or angry.
"Social media platforms know this, and they serve you a steady diet of things that make you angry," he said.
"That is for example, things that make you hate your neighbours, make you really depressed about the state of the world, and make you likely to be divided and hyper-partisan; and all of these things that actually prevent us from getting on with each other which is really important in society."
He also explains in the book another 'buzz word' that became the 'Word of the Year' in 2025 - 'ragebait', which affects and can often change who we vote for, what we buy and who we choose to hate.
Mr. Coper was also pleased that there were lots of interesting questions.
"People down here are dealing with all sorts of local issues – they're coming at them from different angles, and I'm by no means an expert on what's going on down here," he said.
"But you could tell from the questions that people were really passionate about it, and my comment to them was 'if you want to be having these debates, no matter what side you fall on, on social media, it's really important we fix this social media design so that it can be a healthy place for us to have debates, because at the moment social media encourages all the worst aspects of debate – it's not genuine conversation in search of a conclusion.
"It's about 'owning' the other side, who has the best insults, who can get all the clap backs from their own side, etc.
"If we want to preserve social media as a place where we can have community discussion and democratic participation, we've got to fix the way that it's designed at the moment."
The recording of the talk is below.
--------------
Subscribe to The Southern Wire Newsletter for free at the link below.
https://subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com/1986abc6-c89e-4781-9db2-cf35c9dd71e4
If you value independent local journalism across the Highlands, Tablelands and Wollondilly, please click the link below to support us to ensure we remain paywall free.
Read More: Bowral, Southern Highlands