I'll tell you what happened, and it's fucking terrifying.
4chan tricked the msm into propagating one of the dumbest memes of all time. It should have been an embarrassing defeat for media. They should have been laughed out of the room forever. Instead, the media snapped their fingers and altered reality to align with their failure.
Imagine playing a prank on a lying abusive asshole coworker. Maybe you fool him into wearing his pants on his head to the office. Except when you go to work the next day, everyone is wearing their pants on their heads. What's more, they're looking at you like you're the idiot for wearing your pants on your legs.
That's what happened with the 4chan ok hand gesture hoax. Instead of taking the loss and suffering further erosion of credibility and trust, the media just rolled with the ridiculous prank and made it reality for themselves and their followers.
This is honestly one of the most chilling things that happened in recent history.
Frankly, it's surprising that 4chan hasn't used this understanding to engage in more grandiose manipulations of the media, and therefore the public. That would make them seriously dangerous, though. :-)
I'll tell you what happened, and it's fucking terrifying.
4chan tricked the msm into propagating one of the dumbest memes of all time. It should have been an embarrassing defeat for media. They should have been laughed out of the room forever. Instead, the media snapped their fingers and altered reality to align with their failure.
Imagine playing a prank on a lying abusive asshole coworker. Maybe you fool him into wearing his pants on his head to the office. Except when you go to work the next day, everyone is wearing their pants on their heads. What's more, they're looking at you like you're the idiot for wearing your pants on your legs.
That's what happened with the 4chan ok hand gesture hoax. Instead of taking the loss and suffering further erosion of credibility and trust, the media just rolled with the ridiculous prank and made it reality for themselves and their followers.
This is honestly one of the most chilling things that happened in recent history.
Frankly, it's surprising that 4chan hasn't used this understanding to engage in more grandiose manipulations of the media, and therefore the public. That would make them seriously dangerous, though. :-)