“Being an American means believing absolutely anything you want to believe.” -- Kurt Andersen
Nowadays, people are freer than ever to voice their opinions. Social networking technologies such as Facebook and Twitter have enabled individuals to connect despite geographical boundaries, are allowing people to share what is on their minds whenever they want. In addition, it is also suggested that social media can relieve people’s pressure to remain socially pleasing in face-to-face environments. Altogether, social networking platforms are pushing human communication forward and strengthening social ties (Vallor, 2010). However, the flexibility and convenience provided by social media can have negative consequences as well. For example, netizens not only get to conceal their real identities but can have multiple identities online by using different personal profiles, which is hugely empowering the production and spread of real-seeming fictions and ideologies.
In ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America, Saslow shows how bullshit is occurring in online platforms. The article is mainly about a man called Christopher Blair, who is one of the owners of a political satire site. Blair’s everyday life involves producing and spreading “viral insanities” online to troll Trump supporters and bait them into leaving politically incorrect comments. He is convinced that the more radical and provocative he gets, the more people will like and share his contents. The characteristics of Blair strongly correlate with Frankfurt’s description of a bullshitter, and that is a person who simply pays no attention to the authority of truth. Nevertheless, the fact that so many people can get provoked by articles that are labelled as satire is both ironic and alarming. This is reflecting not only how the title of a content is being valued more than the actual subject matter, but how people nowadays generally cannot be bothered to fact-check the information they see online.
According to Frankfurt, civilizations “cannot get along healthily without large quantities of reliable factual information.” As a society, we have gotten to the point where, according to Mother Nature Network, 37% of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax. And a survey conducted by National Consumers league suggests that 33% of American parents think vaccines can cause autism. The truth is, if people simply buy into anything they see without much thinking, they will become more and more untethered from the reality, and the prevalence and persistence of bullshit and lies on the Internet will continue to rise.
Hi Teresa!
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you included a quote to start off your post. This was a great way to get the reader hooked and interested in the topic at hand. Additionally, you did a good job of slowly introducing the readings to this post. You could improve the post by alluding back to the example of Christophe Blair in your conclusion to emphasize the point.
I liked your post it was really informative. I would have liked to see your opinion reflected more on the blog instead of citing the readings and interpreting them. Try to be more personal with what you write and speak from your own voice. Other than that and a bit of grammar your blog post I see a lot of potential in this post.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of information packed into this blog post which makes it very interesting to read. Really good job incorporating readings, however I think you should analyze these readings a little more to offer more insight. There are also some grammar mistakes that once fixed will improve the readability of the post. Overall, really good job!
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