My Two-Cents: Fake News, Real Fun
This week's post concerns a little social experiment I did last week. The idea came to fruition in the way all my greatest and sexiest ideas do – after watching a South Park episode. Cupid Ye, to be specific. The satirical takeaway from this episode was we can’t stop people from saying stupid shit, but we CAN start fact-checking stuff before we believe it. And then it dawned on me – I should respawn an old idea I had a while back: spreading white lies for my amusement. My friend Morgan used to do this to her roommate when she was bored. They would be sitting on the couch and she would hit him with “Oh my god, did you hear Khloe K went bald?” (Refer to post Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire, for more context.) I thought the idea was ready for a redo and revamp. It would help me test my novel theory – are we all at fault for failing to doubt dubious claims without a second thought?
So the other day in op lab, I started spitting lies to my lab partner (Sorry Keegan!) And from there, a seed was planted. I became enamored with how easy it was to spew little white lies, and how little people questioned them. I even compiled a list of some of the lies I started:
Kanye West announces new country album
New Space Jam movie to debut staring Bronny James
Shrek 5 movie to be released as R due to extreme nudity and profanity
New pool with lily pads for tanning is to be put in on the 8th floor of the Link (told some random people in the elevator at my apt building, sorry guys)
Did you know the Eiffel Tower is actually a secret antenna for the world’s largest radio station?
Have you seen the new study that says people who multitask are more likely to die earlier from chronic illness? (told to someone I saw multitasking)
Lil Baby announces new country album (I like this one a lot so I’ve just been rotating through artists)
Biden gets a girl pregnant (yelled this one to a stranger at the bar, 10/10 entertainment for me)
Stanley buys over hydro flask (someone replied to this with “yeah I heard.” BITCH from where? It was at this moment that I realized that the misinformation gullibility epidemic may be even more dire than I deemed previously.)
I am distantly related to the Queen of England
I am distantly related to Cleopatra
New Beyonce remix of International Harvester released.
Every fawn must stumble before they run. Much like my social experiment. What started as a fun way to spice up my week and test an idea turned into a dire realization – the issue is more frightful than I first thought. Most of my lies barely received a batted eye in response. Half the lies were confronted with, “Yeah I heard that.” You heard about the New Space Jam Movie with Bronny? From fucking where? Are you just agreeing with me so I’ll stop pestering you? (That is the only valid response to why you would say you have heard about Bronny x Bugs Bunny LeCollab.) I was extremely worried, to say the least. My innocent beginnings to get to the bottom of the ease of white-lying was taking me down an entirely different road of answers.)
In a world bogged down with information, it has become inherently hard to parse through the misinformation. And it seems like a good majority of us have decided to throw the towel (myself included from time to time). What can be learned from this? What is our next step?
We can’t stop people from saying stupid shit. The idiots of the world will always find a way to run rampant. However, we can take a small first step in the right direction by all starting to question the crazy shit we hear. Which is hard, because there is a lot of crazy shit that you hear that probably is true. But we would all benefit (myself included) from taking a second to skip the crazy headline and read the actual article depicting the events.
The second step to take is to offer compassion. Kate, what do you mean? You just spent a week lying to people and tried to write it off as a “social experiment”? You may have a point. But luckily I am willing to block out the naysayers and spoilsports in my pursuit of science. And the truth. Even if that truth is through lies – which was the case here. We can all do a better job of being compassionate towards others who are making an active effort to parse through misinformation. Instead of picking their faults apart, we could embrace their successes and promote the continuation of knowledge. The key to the problem of our misinformation miasma lies in taking a step towards investigating the truth, and appreciating that this is hard. Why would someone want to change if you are being a dick about it? They wouldn't. My experiment would not have worked if my friends had not forgiven me for being a lying bastard all week – and the absence of results would lead to the absence of this blog post. Be nice to those trying to do better, duh.
And to my roommate – Emma, I am sorry again I told you that Figs just dropped a new dentistry-themed pickleball paddle set. That was a real dick move but I hope you can understand my intentions were pure of heart.
