Can Jack Schlossberg take internet trolling all the way to Congress?

You’d have thought that a scion of the Kennedy dynasty wouldn’t need much of a leg-up in life. But the New York Times just ran a huge puff-piece about Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy.

Schlossberg wishes to run for Congress — in New York’s 12th district. For anyone who likes their political leaders to come from no more than a few American families this will come as great news.

But the most interesting thing about Schlossberg is something which came on the sidelines of his interview.

Schlossberg is 32 years old, and like a lot of people his age and younger he has tried to make a name for himself by being active online — including TikTok and Instagram. He picks fights with famous people, repeatedly insulted a member of his family (Robert Kennedy Jr.), used the “C” word about women he didn’t like and did bizarre performances like skateboarding while reciting poetry. He was what is known best as a “s–t-poster.”

While presenting himself as zany and a little out there he turns out to have all the predictable politics. Which could make him the perfect candidate to replace Jerry Nadler. The bored Schlossberg even “faked his own social media death” to get the attention he so inexplicably craves.

But there was some method in this fake madness and Schlossberg has been unusually honest about it.

“The internet is a nuance-destruction machine,” he said. “There’s no room for qualifying anything, ever.”

He went on to describe his tactics: “If somebody thinks I’m crazy because they saw one of my videos, that means that they saw one of the videos, which means that they got some information about the Trump administration and politics that they might not otherwise have gotten.”

Funnily enough there are a lot of people who think that way, even if they don’t admit it.

It is not in fact true that the internet is a “nuance-free” zone. There are plenty of people who can read and write nuanced views online. But it is also true that the algorithms and people’s simple finger movements favor opinions and content tending towards the extremes.

As it happens there was a demonstration of this earlier this year that relates to Schlossberg’s own family.

When President Trump followed through on his promise to declassify all the remaining files about the assassination of JFK the internet got excited. Was the world about to learn that JFK had not in fact been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald but by the head of the CIA, the late Queen of England or a Martian from outer space?

The moment the files were released, livestream platforms began to run shows discussing the contents of the unredacted files. Of course all that was really needed in that moment was for JFK scholars to scour the files for any tiny item which had previously been unavailable to them. Given the quantity of documents in the release that would have taken well-informed scholars a number of weeks at least.

But the internet doesn’t have time for that, and there is money to be made in having the first “take” on such a story. And so, sure enough, the most popular livestream after the JFK files release was one claiming in its headline that the Mossad had been found to be involved in President Kennedy’s assassination.

That wasn’t true of course. There was absolutely nothing in the files that suggested any such thing. And in any case the people taking part couldn’t have had the time to go through the files in such a short space of time. But the claim drew attention, which in turn brought clicks, which in turn brought money.

Everybody in the business of news knows that these incentives are there. For all of the attacks that the mainstream media gets, there are also standards that the media generally sticks to.

For instance, we do not run photos of the most gruesome scenes simply in the hope of getting people to slow down and click on them as cars do when passing a crash site.

The old media still has some standards. But it is true that social media has none. Consider all the podcasters and others who have spent recent weeks spreading the most insane and offensive conspiracy theories. Such as claims that Charlie Kirk was killed by his former colleagues or even with the complicity of his wife.

Who benefits from any such claims? Only one person — the person who has decided to make themselves that much richer by engaging in this dumpster behavior.

People fall for it of course, because the zanier a claim the more some people are tempted to click on it. That is why some platforms have focused obsessively on the war in the Middle East in recent years and not, say, the genocide in Sudan or northern Nigeria. The first subject is “hot.” People have passionate takes on it and the more extreme the claim the more people will gravitate to it.

By comparison the wars in Sudan and Nigeria are “unpopular” wars. Too few of us care about them or even know the cause of them. And so the podcasters and posters steer clear of them. Which — again, for all of its flaws — is not something that the traditional media does.

So Schlossberg is right. But with two important caveats. First is the fact that the preening, narcissistic and eventually nihilistic void into which so many online personalities have fallen is something they can also get out of. There is no reason why everybody should always fall lower and lower in their standards. Human minds can affect things for the better as well as for the ill.

But the second thing is a lesson that some influencers may learn the hard way. The online world may have zero boundaries, but the real world still has some. And those two places still meet. As the latest Kennedy heir may find out during his race for Congress.