Published in 2020
113 pages
Ashley “Dotty” Charles is a broadcaster and writer from South London. After joining the BBC in 2014 she became the first solo female to host the BBC Radio 1Xtra Breakfast Show in 2016, where she has since interviewed everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Will Smith. She has presented TV programs including BBC One’s music show, Sounds Like Friday Night, and BBC Three’s Story of Grime documentary series. She is also the host of the official Netflix podcast series What to Watch on Netflix. She lives with her wife and son in London.
What is this book about?
Presenter and DJ Ashley Dotty Charles explores our age of outrage, and how it’s debasing civil discourse.
We’re living in a post-modern utopia of sorts, where thanks to our resolute predecessors, we’ve checked a bunch of items off our outrage shopping list. Slavery? Abolished. Apartheid? Not anymore buddy. Women’s suffrage? Nailed it. But what do you do when you keep winning your battles? Well, you pick new ones, of course.
Ours is a society where many get by on provocation, the tactless but effective tool of pedalling outrage – and we all too quickly take the bait. If outrage has become abundant, activism has definitely become subdued.
There is still much to be outraged by in our final frontier – the gender pay gap, racial bias, gun control – but in order to enact change, we must learn to channel our responses.
This is the essential guide to living through the age of outrage.
