So I posted a little piece, out of anger, posing that Mike Flynn had been chosen to replace James Comey as director of the FBI. I thought it was funny. Many other people thought it was funny. Many people did not find it all amusing.
As quickly as a half an hour after posting, it had nearly 1000 page views and people had begun to sound off in the comments section (and still are).
The breakdown was pretty much as follows...
About 70 percent thought it was funny and took it as the joke that it was. About 10 percent did not think it was funny at all. What about the other 20 percent?
That 20 percent explains a lot about who we are as a country. Most of the time this blog serves as a place where I and others can voice my opinions on politics and elaborate with just a little depth. This one time, when I had an idea, born of frustration, I wrote something that I thought would be funny and lighten the mood about Comey being fired.
Several people sounded off with the comment that it was not "productive". I beg to differ. Some read it and thought it was just not funny, but as I said, about 20 percent wondered whether or not it was real and began to go off on other tangents. Within that 20 percent were people who did not read the comments above theirs and did not read the blog post itself.
Trump has often said that even if Putin interfered with the election (he did) it did not change a single vote. With an off hand joke, about 20 minutes of thought and writing, I was able to untintentionally get about 3000 people to think differently about something and essentially fool them with a free account. A few people said that is how they recognized it as a fake post was the fact that this is a blogspot account, not the fact that I said that Sean Spicer threw a smoke bomb after the press briefing and exited the briefing room via a cable in the ceiling.
Also wrapped up in that 20% were the Trump supporting trolls who enter these groups so that they can undermine them from within. The post was used in some circles to show that we liberals were making stuff up despite, I say again, that it was obviously fake to anyone who took the time to read it. To people who fell for it, I apologize but I also ask a very big "what if".
Some people say that Vladimir Putin is worth about 70 billion dollars and other reports estimate $200 billion. So at a minimum, he is one of the richest people in the world if not the richest person in history. So if a person could do something like this in a matter of minutes, what if a billionaire decided to engage in something of the sort full time?
Also something to consider is that this is a process that refines itself. What worked, what did not work? Many people recognized it as a joke right off the bat and pointed out the flaws. First, that it was a blogspot post. Easy fix, pay $20 for a web domain. Done. Second, the piece led with a comment that "Trump tweeted..." and many people noted that there was not a picture of the tweet and that there were too many characters in the comment. Got me. Third, was the fact It became apparent that too many people did not actually click on the post, they just read the headline and blurb beneath it. In literature, it is called a narrative hook. So, the takeaway is that if there is a good picture, a grabbing headline and a blurb beneath that is intriguing enough, the rest of the article is irrelevant for many.
In the coming days, if I can, I am going to post this piece in some right wing groups and see how it goes over. The objective is the same, though. How hard is it to fool someone? How difficult is it to engage someone in a narrative that simply ramps up what they wanted to believe in the first place? Cast your mind back to a year ago when people were saying that Hillary Clinton was on the verge of death and that in her spare time she was raping children in the basement of pizza shop that has no basement and wonder whether or not Putin's antics had an impact on the election. Take a moment also to think about how easy it was and how much of that is on us.
There are two components at play, the trick and our willingness to be tricked. I have written my opinion about injustices and the work we do in inner cities, immigration, etc. etc. etc. but by far the greatest response I have ever gotten is over a fake post.
Elijah Montgomery
We tweet at WritLarge
Contact at 9of9productions@gmail.com
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