Canada Is Burning and All We Talk About Is Donald Trump!

A city has been ravaged by hellish wildfire, but social media can’t look away from Trump even for a second.

Canadian officials fear the growing wildfire could double in size and reach a major oil sands mine and even the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan. (Photo: Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

As of 9 May 2016, the Alberta wildfire in Canada has spread to 1,610 square kilometres. For a little perspective, London and New York City cover 1,572 and 1,214 square kilometres respectively. It is unprecedented - 100,000 people have been evacuated from their homes as the monstrous wildfire nicknamed “The Beast” rages on through central Canada.

Officials are now claiming that only natural intervention in the form of a significant amount of rain could quell the fire. This is, by far, the worst wildfire in recent Canadian history; it has now been eight days and the fire continues to engulf whatever is in its way.

Alberta declared a state of emergency Wednesday as crews frantically held back wind-whipped wildfires. Unseasonably hot temperatures combined with dry conditions have transformed the boreal forest in much of Alberta into a tinder box. (Photo: Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

In Other International News...

Donald Trump, that great ‘unifier’ of people, recently adorned the cloak of ‘presumptive Republican nominee’ in the US Presidential elections. But this is not to say he has only made news now. Trump, with his outlandish gestures, intimidating lexis and sexist, racist, politically-hollow statements, has made news from the day he decided to run for President and everyone thought he was kidding. Since then, both the believers (who are you people?) and the sane, have taken to social media to rally forth their point - aggressively, with humour, and unendingly.

Social Media: The 21st Century Town Square

In the modern newsroom, a lot of curation is done on the basis of what’s trending on social media. While this may not come as a surprise, the extent to which Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Instagram, Flickr - the list goes on, really - are monitored to keep a tab on ongoing conversations is unprecedented. According to the Digital News Report 2015 conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 63 percent of people surveyed said they use Facebook to “find, read, share or discuss the news.” Less than 40 percent said they don’t consider Facebook as a serious source of news. Sixty-two percent of “serious news lovers” engaged in conversations earmarked by hashtags on Twitter.

The point I’m about to make has to be seen in this context. As someone who has come to see social media as a way to track what people are engaging with, to be able to contribute meaningfully as a journalist, I can’t help but notice:

Canada is burning down in what can only be described as an apocalyptic wildfire, and all we care about is the genuineness of Donald Trump’s wig - I mean, hair.

An RCMP officer surveys the damage on a street in fire-ravaged Fort McMurray, Alberta. (Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Alberta via The Canadian Press via AP)

Assumptions and Data: The Only Way This Article Would See the Light of Day

I must clarify a few things. Firstly, the argument I am making is set in the context of conversations in Indian social media about two pieces of international news. One may argue that one is set in the US, and has direct ramifications for India, while the other is a fire in Canada, a country that traditionally gets very little media attention. I say that’s exactly where the problem lies! If the fire was in the US, all bets that it would drown out the size of Trump’s fingers.

We are constantly choosing to retweet, share, gif-ify, make memes and videos, write and discuss Trump daily, providing, as Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! says, Trump an “unfiltered pipeline into everyone’s brains.” If Trump is so problematic that an incessant amount of time has to be spent discussing him, then maybe the onus lies on us to move away from the inordinate amount of media attention we are complicity giving him. The political economy of mass media today lies on manufacturing consent; newsrooms will go on simply because we keep giving them the ratings.

And, in this case, there actually is something else more pressing to pay attention to.

Medium curates a news list called ‘Trumped’, updated daily; only a few articles about the Alberta fires manage to get a word in edgewise. (Screenshot: Medium)

The discussion has no mention of a fire that is clearly two steps ahead of what the Uttarakhand fires at home could have been. The similarities are before us - Canada had hot, dry weather and a vast tinder forest; Uttarakhand had dry weather and inflammable pine. It could have been us, it was us, and yet, Trump remains the dominant thread in conversations, when it comes to significant developments in ‘International news.’

A look at the hashtag-led conversations of Twitter around Donald Trump in India. (Screenshot: Hashtagify.me)

A look at the hashtag-led conversations of Twitter around the Alberta fires in India. (Screenshot: Hashtagify.me)

A comparative search to show search trends on Google in India over the last 7 days, since the fire started. (Screenshot: Google Trends)

At no point am I saying that rigorous discourse around the possible-next US President is wrong, or overdone. I am merely saying that if we could move away from the Trump memes, jokes, spoofs and repetitive articles reiterating the size of his stubby fingers and concentrate on his political manifesto or lack thereof, and what he stands for, maybe we’d have some time to spare for the hell that Canada is going through, and is doing a remarkable job maneouvering, in case anyone is interested.