Satire

Please Vet Your Social Media Shares- Here is an Example of Fear Porn Bullshit

Luke Austin Daugherty Advice, News Articles, Satire, Social Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
texas militia

Screen shot of the video link below

We all have them… Facebook friends who just lust after “Fear Porn.” You know, spooky stories with only a meme or link to a sketchy website for “evidence” of some new terrorist threat, food that will kill you, something that will cure cancer, or some other ridiculous news story.

Generally, when you examine the social media pages of these types of folks, you find a regularly watered tree of social media bullshit. They see no reason to vet anything. As long as it supports their particular ideology, faith, or political leanings, they post that new link for all to see. There can be a particular relish for Fear Porn with these types. They love to be seen as “in the know” among their social media peers and enjoy getting other people’s blood pressure elevated with their posts.

“What is ‘Fear Porn?” you may ask… My definition would be, “Bullshit stories on the Internet which are originally constructed by intentional liars and then shared like a virus by credulous people with a desire to make life seem more exciting artificially.”

Though, I do enjoy the definition on the Urban Dictionary website for comedic reasons:

“Fear Porn- Conspiracy theorist information used to generate sexual excitement in Red necks, religious extremists and dudes that live in their mom’s basement.”

I found myself considering the issue of Fear Porn sharing when I first logged on to Facebook this morning. A Facebook friend had shared a new “story” from another person’s page. It was a video with the caption, “Yesterday mexican police tipped off the texas melita that iSIS WAS GOING TO CROSS OVER IN TO TEXAS AFTER SUNSET. TEXANS SETUP A WELCOMING PARTY. 25,000 ARMED TEXANS MET THEM last night as they tried to cross. The ones not shot quickly retreated.”

The moment I saw the post, my skeptical antenna picked up the story’s BS qualities: no actual source cited, poorly constructed caption, original poster is some ‘Murican type dude trying to gain a following on social media the easy way. Believe me, he’ll pick the low hanging fruit with no trouble at all.

Here is a link to the original post. Be warned, it may not be up for long if the original poster catches too much flack over it.

Then, I clicked the video. Seconds into it, I thought, “Hey… this is just a video of the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot in Kentucky!” I have never been there, but have known some people who have years ago. The event includes a night shoot where a bunch of people blast their machine guns into the hillside using tracer rounds.

For contrast, here is another video of the same night shoot from another person in 2006:

Here is the thing my friends; we live in an age where ANYONE and I mean AAANNNNYYYYYOOOONNNNEEEEE can use a re-edited video, a picture from some war or old news story, a photoshopped image, or create a quote meme to propagate total bullshit on the Interwebs. As a human, alive in the modern age, and on social media, you MUST become good researcher. You MUST employ an appropriate level of skeptical analysis. You MUST do your due diligence before sharing wild news stories and such. When bullshit stories and memes are shared, they contribute to the sum total of wasted time for and the dumbing down of your fellow humans on social media. Are there ever amazing stories, new discoveries, and/or staggering events that happen? Sure. But, thanks to irresponsible sharing on social media, the fewer true stories are made harder to find by the many fake ones.

It helps to have an epistemological foundation based on demonstrable evidence and reasoned logic rather than emotional whim, faith, and confirmation bias. In the digital media age, skepticism is the appropriate mode.

There are some great online tools which make sussing out Fear Porn bullshit easy: Google, Snopes, Google Image Search, and many more. They are free… please use them 🙂

Here are some memes that I created which relate to this issue. Please feel free to use them when confronting Fear Porn and other Interweb bullshit.

For credulous posters of BS who actually believe it…

Gandhi meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

Gandhi meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

For those who quote mine, but particularly quote mine using fake quotes…

Abraham Lincoln meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

Abraham Lincoln meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

For those who do not even bother to Google search before posting…

"Do you even Google" meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

“Do you even Google” meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

and my favorite for general purposes 🙂

Smokey the Bear Bullshit meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

Smokey the Bear Bullshit meme by Luke Austin Daugherty

The Last Internet Challenge You Will Ever Need

Luke Austin Daugherty Comedy, Satire Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Fire Challenge Gone Wrong

Fire Challenge Gone Wrong

From the tame “Chubby Bunny” challenge to the uber-dangerous new “Fire Challenge,” social networking sites are teeming with “Internet Challenges.” What is an “Internet Challenge” you may ask? Well, it is basically just a dare, but instead of being done for a payoff of street cred with real friends you know personally, it is for internet cred with complete strangers. You are supposed to accept the challenge, video yourself doing it, and then post the video online.

I remember dares when I was a little kid… A buddy daring me to talk to the girl I had a crush on or jumping a really high and sketchy ramp assembled by friends at the trailer park on my BMX bike. Hell, sometimes we’d even jump over each other.  There were regular dares, “double-dog” dares, and so on. Yet, for the most part, I wasn’t into dares, dishing out peer pressure, or giving into it. I carried that trend even more so into adulthood. What I want to do, I do. What I don’t want to do, I don’t do. You won’t bully, manipulate, or peer pressure me into doing some shit I don’t want to do.

So, when I now behold the trendy spectacle that has become known as the “Internet Challenge,” I stand amazed at the nincompoopery of it all. The first one that I ever noticed a couple years ago on Youtube was the Cinnamon Challenge. There isn’t much to it. Basically, you just eat a huge spoonful of cinnamon and try to swallow it. The result? Hacking, watering eyes, a nose dripping with snot, and instant regret apparently. See the video link below for a compilation of people doing the challenge.

One reason I stopped doing dares at a pretty young age was, once you start, you just can’t stop. If you gain your fame among peers for doing dares, the dares will never cease. Not only that, but they tend to increase in ridiculousness (and danger) as they go. Such has been the case with the Internet Challenge phenomenon as well. The Cinnamon Challenge became The Ghost Pepper Challenge, The Flour Slap became The Knock Out Game, The Ice Bath Challenge became the Fire Challenge, so on and so on.

Let us park there just for a moment… “The Fire Challenge.” This challenge is a simple, yet staggeringly moronic one. Basically, you dump flammable liquid on yourself and then set it ablaze. Yes, you set yourself on fire. As much as I’d like to rename it the, “Darwin Award Challenge,” or, “The Proof That I’m Incredibly Stupid Challenge,” that would only serve to confuse such an obvious title for the challenge. There is really only one downside to doing this challenge. That is, you end up on fire. If that isn’t enough to dissuade you from doing such a challenge, likely, no other reason I can provide will.  See the following video for a good example of this nonsensical challenge. (language warning)

There have been many news stories done on these Fire Challenges gone wrong recently. In my opinion, since you end up on fire, they are all gone wrong. One of the most interesting things to me about many of these videos is, the participants seem really surprised the the fire is hot once lighting the flammable liquid. PEOPLE! It’s fire! Of course it is going to be hot! That is one of the primary reasons that you typically avoid catching on fire when it is under your power to do so. The sad thing is, this new challenge won’t be the last of them. Once the enamor and prestige of setting one’s self on fire has worn off, inventors of Internet Challenges (whoever they may be) will come up with something even more dangerous and stupid. I could presuppose some insane ideas, but I won’t for fear that someone would be crazy enough to try it.

That said, I would like to reveal the last Internet Challenge you will ever need to do, ironic though it may be. I call it, “The Ignoring Internet Challenges and Social Media Peer Pressure Forever Challenge.” This is how you do it… After committing to participate in my perpetual challenge, any time you see a new challenge pop up online, you totally ignore it. You say to yourself, “Self, this new challenge was probably invented by a moron with nothing worthwhile to do but come up with stupid challenges. I will not allow the foolish whims of a nameless stranger nor the potential praise of others on social media to manipulate me into doing something dumb.” That is it! So, please share my new, “The Ignoring Internet Challenges and Social Media Peer Pressure Forever Challenge,” and make the world a better, hopefully less nitwit filled place! If you would like to post a video of yourself doing my challenge, basically just record yourself doing anything but an Internet Challenge: eating cereal for breakfast, reading a book, watching TV, drawing a unicorn… whatever. 🙂 -Luke

 

Fighting Vitriol and Hate with Vitriol and Hate Doesn’t Work…

Luke Austin Daugherty Video Satire, youtube Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Earlier today, I saw this video pop up in my Facebook feed. As I started to watch it, I asked myself, “Why does the lady holding the sign look SO familiar?” When the answer hit me, I yelled to my wife, “HEY! The lady who got hit with the slushie is the hateful lady I debated with at that huge garage sale event!” Yet, I was not happy that she had been doused in a frosty, frozen, convenience store beverage.

Here is the back story… A few months ago the, “Greater Indianapolis Garage Sale,” was taking place at the State Fair Grounds. Since I am a picker and ebay seller, I decided to head up one afternoon with my family to see what we could find. I had not more than walked into the large room with hundreds of booths before I saw a table in the middle of the room surrounded by three huge signs decrying gay marriage, threatening Hell to sinners, and explaining why Monster energy drinks were of the Devil. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, isn’t that special?” It was going to be a while before we got to that booth, but I committed to myself to suss out and confront this person’s ideology.

When we got to the both, the woman running it was holding up an empty can of Monster (I hope she did not buy it, rather found it so she did not have to put money in the Antichrist’s pocket) while pontificating to the person in front of her about why the Monster logo was really “666.” Spooky stuff.

So, I waited a few moments for her to finish and then started asking her questions. She, as very fundamentalist religious people go, was not really interested in my questions or dialogue, rather only the opportunity to “rebuke” me for something. I switched gears from dialogue to debate mode and off we went. Over the next 45+ minutes we drew quite a crowd as well as attention from people running booths nearby. I’ll admit, she had me on angst and volume. I relied on the Socratic Method and asking her to demonstrate the reliability of her epistemological base in order to change my mind toward her position. I sensed a great deal of internal trepidation in her anytime I tried to test her ideology with reason and logic. Her main ammunition was vitriolic charges about my supposed character and assertions that I would be tortured in an imaginary place for eternity after I died. The other unfortunate thing for her was, my knowledge of the Bible itself was superior to hers. So, I not only had to discuss with her on one level about ideology in general, but I also spent time correcting her on her own assertions based on the Bible. It was a bit tiring I must admit.

I knew there was only the slightest chance that I would get through to such a person on any level. Yet, it was important for me to try. The greatest encouragement was, two of my kids, my wife, and a crowd of people were listening to our conversation. They saw and heard, not only what we communicated, but how. I tested her ideas, she insulted me. I implored her to rise above her archaic dogma, she condemned me to hell fire. I did not go ad hominem, she arrogantly called me names. She insulted me to my kids, I told them she was a scared person and a bully. As we eventually concluded our parley at an obvious impasse and I walked off, several other people thanked me for trying to get through to her and for how I went about it. At the risk of hubris, I was actually very proud afterward of how I had handled myself.

Then today, when I saw the video of her, Christine Weick, being slushie assaulted, it really bummed me out. Here is why:
1. It is her right to stand on a public corner and spew her nonsense if she wants to. She did not deserve to be treated in the way that the other pedestrian treated her. The other woman should have presented her own case, called Christine out on her hatefulness, explained the error of it, and then left. The second woman had no right to dump a drink on Christine and she made an ass of herself.
2. Christine and many similar people who see the video will generalize the other woman’s behavior as, “how liberals are,” and it will only serve to justify their own behavior.
3. The only thing that any other passerby could have gotten from the whole exchange was something negative. There was nothing to use as a positive, teachable example from either person in the situation.
4. Last and most important… You cannot fight vitriol and hate with vitriol and hate.

Due to the road noise adjacent to the two women, I could not make out everything that was being said. Ultimately, you had two hateful people, on different sides of one particular issue, threatening each other that the God that they both happen to have on their own side would be tossing the other into Hell. I was emotionally sickened by each of them and their words toward one another.

So, if we cannot glean a lesson from positive example, we can learn one from the negative…

We MUST hold ourselves to a higher standard my fellow humans. We must refrain from personal attacks when debating with even the most hateful person. Many times, like schoolyard bullies, dogmatic bullies are actually very weak, scared, and trying to compensate for that. Even if we are not able to break through to such people, our behavior and tact can be a positive example for others. Only that will help all of humanity to grow and be freed from the chains of credulity, hatred, condemnation, and a lack of empathy toward others. It is of paramount importance that we stand up to such hateful people. BUT… we must do it the right way. Do not become them in an attempt to beat them. As my mom always told me, “Be careful that you do not become what you hate.”

-Luke

UPDATE! 11/9/2014- Here is a video of Weick that I randomly saw pop up on the front page of youtube today: