I make the consistent mistake of reading the news; and the bigger mistake of reading the comments on said news, and I have thoughts. They’re not great thoughts. Not even particularly well-thought-out thoughts…but at least they’re not born of shared psychosis some folks in this country seem to espouse. The news nowadays, and since news became a thing, is bias. It is sensational. It is this way for the purpose of appealing to the biggest audience. Think about it: NO ONE is going to read an article or sit through a news cycle where the subject of discussion is the best summer perennials to plant if you live on the east coast.
Okay…I’m sure there are some folks out there who care about that. My mother included, but I digress.
The point is, in order to get the views, which gets the money, the news outlets have to create content that will get attention. After 9-11 and the birth of the 24-hour news cycle, this need reached a fever pitch which has been maintained in this country since 2001. Trust me: relevant news is not happening every minute of every day, so news outlets run out of relevant news to fill up those 24 hours. This in turn leads to embellishment or half-assed op-eds, which many folks take as news. Hell, there’s a whole-ass “news” channel dedicated primarily to poorly-articulated opinion:
I always encourage folks to do their own research rather than just giving them the answer, mostly because if it’s not something they want to hear, they wouldn’t take it seriously from some Joe-Shmoe (is that how you spell “Shmoe”? Is is “schmoh”?) they don’t agree with. Best to learn the facts yourself. What was that one old adage I don’t remember where the fuck it came from?
“Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats his whole life.”
-Some dude
That said, I think one of the major problems nowadays is the AMOUNT of information available. It is overwhelming; and coming from someone whose job it is to research shit all day, it is TIME CONSUMING. Like, sometimes a single research project will take an entire 8-hour day because of all of the different resources I have to check.
There are very few news outlets you can exclusively rely on to provide you, not only the WHOLE story, but an objective take on the story. I’ll provide my sources at the end for those interested.
That means, in order to get accurate information, you need to cross-check and that takes time—assuming you even know where to look to cross-check, which is another hurdle in itself. One of the most difficult things I had to deal with at my new job was figuring out where to look for the information. And I’d been doing this type of job (albeit in a different division or field) for about 10 years.
No doubt about it: research is fucking HARD.
The dichotomy here, then, is the ease in which people can access the bad information: “fake news” if you will. It’s so easy to find inaccurate stuff and so hard to track down the accurate stuff, so I get it.
And I get how easy it is to just stick with the easily-accessible rags. It’s the same reason people will buy the discounted off-brand item and not the more expensive brand item: it’s easily accessible; and even if it’s too good to be true, it’s true enough for what they’re purchasing it for.
All of this, I think, has contributed to what we are seeing today:
An egregiously huge information market where misinformation is the currency. It has gotten to the point where some folks believe Hillary Clinton is an actual Russian robot and trans women can get pregnant.
Like.
That’s where we are now as a society.
Where we believe a trans woman…who does not have a uterus…can get pregnant and get periods.
Ugh.
So what’s the fix? Fuck if I know. Other than completely overhauling and regulating how America does the internet, I think people need to take this into their own hands, which makes sense, right? The government answers to the people (us). Huge corporations appeal to the people (us) to consume their products. Therefore, we, the people, have the power here.
If folks actually use that power, it could mean intelligent conversations about what’s best for this country. Some, I hope, will; but I get it ‘s a big ask. A smaller, more achievable ask is just that you
SHUT
THE FUCK
UP
Thinking about leaving a comment about how water is making frogs gay?
How about don’t?
Thinking about writing a whole-ass blog about how “woman” is a transphobic word?
Maybe leave that particular post as a draft.
Thinking about getting into an argument with someone about whether drag queens are predators?
Unless you know of an actual case study establishing some sort of predilection for pedophilia, just shut the fuck up.
It’s a common preconception that shutting the fuck up is difficult. It’s really not. In fact, shutting the fuck up is way easier than not doing that.
If I learned anything about the art of argument, it was to shut the fuck up when you don’t know the answer to a question. Either that, or say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” In fact, that’s actually a great way to garner favor from your boss when s/he asks you for an answer to something you don’t know. It shows you’re honest and will take the initiative to figure out the answer to a question.
This is actually a good tool to keep in mind for posting on the internet—especially if you can’t help yourself and simply MUST post that comment:
“That’s an interesting point. I’m not sure of the answer now, but I’ll take a look at some research on the matter.”
— Me
You’re not conceding the person is right; you’re acknowledging their point instead of running them over; and you’re showing that you are smart enough to do research yourself. Bonus: you’ll probably cause some sweat on the brow of the person on whose you are commenting because in all likelihood, they have not done the research and are now just waiting to be proven wrong.
Win-win-win.
All wins all the time.
So be a winner: do your fucking research or shut the fuck up.
Just Jelli 