When Outrage Becomes Selective: The Psychology of Silence, Deflection, and Whose Stories Get Told

The Silence Is Loud

When Trey Reed and Cory Zukatis were both found dead in Mississippi, the story should have shaken the ground. Two young men, gone under tragic and suspicious circumstances. But instead of collective outrage, the loudest response has been silence… or worse, deflection.

And that silence says more than people realize.

Why do some deaths ignite national protests, hashtags, and headlines, while others are quietly brushed aside? The truth is uncomfortable: we are conditioned to pay attention only when a story “fits the script.” If it aligns with a political narrative, it gets airtime. If it doesn’t? It vanishes into background noise.

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Selective Outrage: Who Gets to Be Mourned Publicly

The uncomfortable psychology behind selective outrage comes down to confirmation bias. Humans seek out stories that reinforce their worldview and ignore those that challenge it.

• If someone already believes injustice is rampant, they’ll amplify cases that fit.
• If someone wants to believe everything is fine, they’ll downplay or dismiss the same cases.

This is how victims stop being people and start being political talking points. Trey Reed wasn’t a headline because his story didn’t serve a convenient narrative. Cory Zukatis wasn’t acknowledged because he became a footnote to a “larger” conversation. But in truth, both lives mattered. Both deserve justice. Both families deserve answers.

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Deflection as a Defense Mechanism

If you’ve ever spent five minutes in a TikTok comment section, you’ve seen it:

• “But what about black-on-black crime?”
• “What about this celebrity or that politician?”
• “Why aren’t you talking about the other person?”

This tactic has a name: whataboutism. Psychologists call it a defense mechanism. Instead of engaging with the painful reality of one tragedy, people drag in unrelated issues to dilute the outrage. It’s easier to deflect than to feel uncomfortable.

But here’s the thing: deflection doesn’t bring answers. It doesn’t heal families. It doesn’t move justice forward. It just muddies the water until no one knows what’s true anymore.

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When Facts Become Optional

One of the fastest-growing threats to justice today is misinformation disguised as “facts.” In the Reed and Zukatis cases, we’ve already seen:

• People copy-pasting the coroner’s first press release as though the investigation were finished.
• Claims that it’s already been ruled a suicide, when it hasn’t been. (as of today, 9/18/25 at 12:00 PM)
• Commenters minimizing one victim by refusing to even use his name.

This isn’t harmless. Misinformation spreads faster than the truth and plants seeds of doubt that are nearly impossible to uproot. It leaves families fighting not just for justice, but against a wave of false narratives that distort what really happened.

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Naming the Unnamed: Why Words Matter

There’s a reason trauma-informed practice emphasizes naming names. Saying Trey Reed. Saying Cory Zukatis. Saying them as sons, brothers, and people… not just “that other guy” or “a white kid.”

When we refuse to name someone, we deny their full humanity. We reduce them to a placeholder in a story that should have centered them all along. That’s not just sloppy conversation. That’s retraumatizing to families already drowning in grief.

Names matter. Words matter. And silence is a form of violence.

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What Real Justice Looks Like

Justice doesn’t look like silence.
It doesn’t look like deflection.
It doesn’t look like misinformation winning the narrative.

Real justice looks like independent investigations. It looks like families demanding second autopsies because they don’t trust the first. It looks like communities refusing to be gaslit into accepting an easy explanation when the evidence doesn’t add up.

And justice looks like us. Not just repeating hashtags when it’s convenient, but holding space for uncomfortable truths even when they don’t fit the script.

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Why This Matters for Mental Health

At Moody Brews, we talk often about how truth-telling is part of healing. Silence festers. Deflection fuels denial. Misinformation erodes trust. All of these are psychological wounds on top of tragedy.

For the families of Trey Reed and Cory Zukatis, healing can’t begin until justice does. For the rest of us, healing requires facing the reality of why outrage is selective in the first place, and choosing to do better.

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Final Thought

The silence is loud, yes. But it doesn’t have to be.

We can choose to listen, to speak, and to demand accountability. Not just when it fits our worldview, but when it matters most: when human lives are lost and families are left in the dark.

Because healing starts with truth. And truth starts with refusing to look away.