The Tragic Death of Fake News

Last updated on: December 14, 2016 at 8:43 am by Anne Kennedy

The Tragic Death of Fake News 2016-12-14T08:43:48-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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We were supposed to get some kind of amount of snow overnight, along with blistering cold temperatures. You won’t be surprised to learn that I am obsessed with checking weather reports. Not only do I hate all the weather, but the children got sleds from St. Nicholas, and also, what if I want to go out and get milk? So anyway, there I am, gazing at All The Weather sites on the Internet. And most of them say Definitely Snow Yes Absolutely We All Agree.

So, waking up this morning, I can only conclude that I have yet again been duped by the ever growing preponderance of Fake News TM–that impossible to nail down or control Threat that is taking over our very society and ability to Deal At All.

I actually managed, as with Pokémon Go, to avoid knowing what anybody was taking about (by not actually clicking any links) until I finally succumbed and listened to a podcast where it was all explained to me.

Turns out, get this, All Men are Liars and they belong to their Father Who is the Father of Lies….oh wait, I’m thinking of something else.

No really. Lying is what we do best–both to ourselves (which is the source of all human history) and to everybody else. That’s actually what makes the study of history so interesting. Because, well, Stuff Happens, and everybody, or at least lots of people, see it happen, but everybody, wallowing in the depths of their own minds, unable to see things as they really are, accounts for the things that happen in their own peculiar way. But usually only one person writes it all down. And if they’re lucky they write their version marooned in exile somewhere, and they make sure to see it all with the glory of victory hovering over their heads. If people basically agree that that’s basically what happened then their account lasts up to this very day. Or, they can just write it so many hundreds of years after the alleged “Events” that no one is around to say “Nah, Bruh, it definitely didn’t happen that way.”

So for realz, we do live in a Post Truth World, who even cares any more whether it really happened or not. However, and on the other hand, the very nature of the Internet is a small beagle of hope (you read that right, I’ve decided to think of Internet as an irritating and pestilent dog…named….Mad Dog). We may be swimming in a sea where our own “Truth” is preeminent, is the Only Thing That Matters, but we’ve willingly connected ourselves to a vast ocean of other people who feel exactly the same way. And all those people on their phones can speak, and write, and film themselves, and pretty instantaneously verify or discredit the truth of x y or z. In other words, at the very moment we want the Individual Self to reign supreme, one’s own perception of reality to be the norm which norms all other norms, we’ve also created this way for millions of other people to instantly stand up and say NO.

I really think the deep-seated traumatized sadness of so many people in modern western life can be traced a little bit back to the violent civil war that takes place on Twitter every day. You get on with your slapdash assembled thoughts and feelings, and you expect that the world should agree with and affirm you because you are god. But instead of that, everyone else, who is also god, disaffirms everything you hold dear. So then you have to run around and block all those jerks, but the mind is unsettled because you know they’re out there. So then you try to impose a #safespace. But that’s not really working either because it’s too easy to make fun of. You can’t be safe in a world with Twitter. It’s just Not Possible. You may win some skirmishes, but then you end up with Trump.

In other words, if we wanted to be totalitarian, we shouldn’t have had the Internet. And, if we wanted the Self to be the seat of all power and knowledge, we Really Shouldn’t have had the Internet. We wrecked the glorious Dawn of the Self by shooting ourselves in our guilt assuaging TOMS.

I mean, here I am, in my own bed, looking out my own window, observing that there was literally No Snow last night. Well, maybe an eighth of an inch. The weather apocalypse has been delayed yet more hours. I’ve been Lied To, about the weather. But I have the power to expose that lie this very moment by the touch of a finger. Take that Weather Underground with your nefarious lying Weather reports. I guess I can go out and get milk after all.

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