And this is precisely why it makes no sense to be offended by the people’s eagerness for fake news. You exported them to the virtual world of fantasy. You can’t expect them to live there but consume the news from your world, the world from which you ejected them.
One response to “Hyperreal News”
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Good theory!
I haven’t found anything linking underemployed or unemployed people or “surplus” people to the being the biggest sharers of “fake news.” Have you found such statistics? Wouldn’t the biggest sharers of “fake news” be people who don’t vote, for that theory to make sense?
If you look at “fake news” as a way of social bonding and reinforcing things people want to believe, it makes far more sense. To me “fake news” is the old “email forwards” is the “chain letters.” I realized this with an aunt of my mother who keeps sending these ridiculous email forwards and now whatsapp messages full of debunked stories with evil rapists who use ponytails as leverage and hide under cars. I can’t tell her, “No look at Snopes” or that it’s offensive. But what she has is a persistent feeling it’s dangerous to be single and for young women to go out anywhere and wants to communicate that to her younger relations.
You exported them to the virtual world of fantasy.
Not literally. I didn’t make Oculus or Neuromancer or Tron or this prophetic music video :-p :LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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