Tag: rumor

How Rumors Get Started

The other day I saw something really strange go under my drawbridge. It looked like a sailboat mast, only… there was no sailboat beneath the mast. Maybe a really, REALLY tall periscope? An optical illusion? I’m just going to have to accept the fact that I’ll never know the end of that story. And maybe I need to get more sleep. Or update my eyeglass prescription. Or perhaps, like Scrooge, I was digesting a bit of underdone potato.

And then a friend sent me a link to a website about Willatuk, Seattle’s equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Jeez, glad I didn’t know about that before I went kayaking a few weeks ago. I’d have been rather creeped out.

Willatuk

While I always have and always will view stories about sea monsters with a healthy level of skepticism, the Willatuk website did suck me in for a second. Not in terms of believing the creature actually exists, but in terms of believing that other people believed it.

But then a few red flags popped up. First of all, the website mentions a Wonkatilla Tribe, which I’d never heard of, and couldn’t find on line except in relation to this website. It also mentions a tunnel 5 miles beneath the surface of Lake Washington which lets out into Puget Sound, and is supposedly the passage that this creature takes. Uh… Lake Washington is only 214 feet deep, folks.

And one couple supposedly saw Willatuk transiting through the locks. I think the people working the locks would have noticed that. And shut him in. And made a fortune off of him.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the timeline of Willatuk sightings is a purely fictional creation of the guy who made the film Willatuk: The Legend of Seattle’s Sea Serpent. He also happened to make the website. This kind of gave me a giggle.

But it also irritates me a little, because not everyone will follow through the way I did. So I suspect that we’re now going to hear about the occasional Willatuk sighting, and eventually people will forget that it all started off as a work of fiction, and maybe 200 years from now fiction will be viewed as fact and… well, you know, that’s how rumors get started.

I leave you now with the (really bad) Ballad of Willatuk, which was also created for the movie. Because I love you, dear reader, I actually sat through the movie myself for research purposes, and it’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back and will always regret. No one has even bothered to rate it on the Rotten Tomatoes website, which is kind of a distinction in and of itself.

Urban Legends, Falsehoods, Satire and Lies

Now that we’re all happily speeding along the cyber highway, word spreads more quickly than it ever has before. For the most part, that’s a plus. Unfortunately, just because it comes at you at a furious pace, that doesn’t guarantee that the quality of the information is high. It takes even more effort to wade through the B.S. than it used to. Sadly, not everyone makes that effort.

Here are some basic ways to weed out the stupidity before you post it on your Facebook page and look like a dope.

Consider the source. Ask yourself where this information originally came from. There are several humorous satire pages out there that report things with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks for the laugh factor. The Onion, which calls itself “America’s Finest News Source” is one of these. I actually love reading the Onion, but it’s not meant to be taken seriously. This article called Faux News will direct you to many other satire sites. Know them. Enjoy them. But don’t take them as fact.

Then there are other news sources that claim to be true and want desperately to be believed, but cannot be trusted because they’re pushing a warped agenda. If Fox News is the only one who is reporting on an issue, it’s most definitely suspect. CNN is getting to be just as bad. And I have absolutely nothing against religion, but I tend to seek outside verification for any news item from any religious news network source. There is a difference between fact and faith, and when a reporter does not know or refuses to acknowledge that difference, I find it rather scary.

Also, at the risk of incriminating myself, don’t quote blogs as fact without verification. Any fool can have a blog. I could tell you the moon is covered in a thick layer of cocaine, but I don’t recommend that you send your favorite drug mule there. He’d be pretty pissed off at you by the time he got back. (But then, he’d also have plenty of time to detox, which is a good thing.)

Another thing that should have you bobbing in a sea of red flags is any news that implies a major conspiracy. It’s human nature that a secret can’t be kept by more than two people. If a story is going around that an entire agency or organization or country has been sitting on a secret for decades, the odds are that this story is extremely exaggerated at best. For example, I used to know someone who genuinely believed that there are secret concentration camps all over America and that US Citizens are disappearing at an alarming rate. My response to that is, if so, why are no one’s friends, relatives and Facebook followers screaming bloody murder? Do you think in this day and age, when we are linked together in so many complex ways, a large number of adults could simply go poof and no one would be the wiser? Poppycock.

Also, it’s very irresponsible to pass on a product warning without being sure that it’s true. Before you go boycotting Brand XYZ, make sure it really deserves such treatment. While I’m not wild about corporate America, you have to remember that many people just like you and me depend on these companies for their livelihood, and if too many people mistakenly think there’s nuclear waste in their pie filling, it’s those everyday pie fillers who will be laid off. The corporation itself will grind happily on.

One excellent source for verification is Snopes.com. They often track down the sources of misinformation like no one else can. When all else fails, check Snopes.

Also, if you receive an e-mail full of capitalizations and spelling errors and exclamation points, warning you to do, or not do, something, such as “IF YOU GET A E-MAIL FROM XYZ, DONT OEPN IT!!!!” Don’t panic. Use your common sense. It’s stupid to open an e-mail from an unknown source under any circumstances.

If a story begins, “This is a true story,” it most likely isn’t a true story. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Listen to your inner voice. Be skeptical. Don’t pass things on without verifying them.

I just love The Onion!
I just love The Onion!

My Own Personal Dallas

The other day I had a unique opportunity. I attended a friend’s extended family gathering. The thing is, no one there knew me except my friend, and they didn’t realize how much I knew about their family dynamics. I’ve been friends with this person for decades, and he confides in me. I know all the family scandals.

Once I connected the names with the faces, I sat back and watched the show. It kind of felt like I was the omniscient voice in a sordid TV drama. I had a running narrative going on in my head.

  • Ooooh, A just rolled her eyes behind B’s back. That’s because he’s talking about being generous, even though he’s constantly borrowing money from A and never pays it back.
  • C and D just brushed shoulders. They’re having an affair. I wonder what D’s husband would think about that if he knew? Especially since C is his brother.
  • E looks annoyed at everyone. As well she should be. She’s the only one who is taking care of their mother with dementia.
  • F and G are siblings, and they had sex with each other when they were teens. Ewwwww.
  • H is secretly gay. It seems obvious to me, but denial is pervasive in this family. How sad that she feels the need to keep it a secret.
  • I is a heroin addict.
  • J isn’t really the father of K.
  • L once got drunk and French kissed Uncle M at a wedding. He was horrified and everyone still whispers about it.
  • N is mentally ill, unmedicated, and once threatened to kill his nephew.
  • Everybody hates O’s wife.
  • P is part of a really lunatic fringe religion.

This was an interesting experience because I got to see the public face that each person put on while at the same time knowing what was hiding behind each of those masks. People can really by duplicitous and complex. The irony is that setting all this inside information aside, everyone was really nice.

The only thing I don’t know is who shot JR. Maybe that will be revealed at the next gathering. It kind of makes you wonder what you don’t know about the people you think you know, though, doesn’t it?

JR

If I Disagree with You, It’s because You’re Wrong.

When my late sister wanted to push my buttons, she would say, “You have very strong opinions.” For decades, this put me in a place where I could not win. I wanted her approval so much that I’d try not to have strong opinions. I’d try not to have any opinions at all. I’d try to figure out exactly where I was wrong, or bad or crazy. I’d try to change who I was, and I’d fail, and therefore feel even worse about myself.

Then one day in my early 40’s it occurred to me that maybe the reason she felt that my opinions were so strong was that they weren’t being changed by her often contradictory ones. I realized that everyone is entitled to an opinion. I express my opinions, yes, but I never insist that the rest of the world agree with me. In fact, I find that in general I’m not particularly persuasive. I finally said to my sister, “Yeah, but as long as I’m not forcing those opinions on you, what difference does it make?” And just like that, after decades of what felt like pure torture to me, that particular button was never pushed again.

Opinions. Everybody’s got ‘em.

Just recently, in my internet wanderings, I was introduced to a concept called confirmation bias. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

“Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. For example, in reading about current political issues, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.”

I suppose I always knew that confirmation bias existed, but I never knew it had a name or that so many studies have been done about it. I’m willing to concede that every one of us is guilty of confirmation bias, but here’s where it gets dangerous: people in the throes of confirmation bias can make bad investments, poor choices, or break laws. Have you ever said, “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”

Economies have been destroyed and wars have been waged by people influenced by their own confirmation bias. It is why the concept of bloodletting persisted for 2,000 years, and why there are still people, even today, who think the world is flat, and that man has never walked on the moon. Confirmation bias is the bedrock of every cult and lunatic fringe militia on the face of the earth.

Unfortunately, it’s also a major factor in many forms of mental illness. Depressed? It will be so much easier to believe the negative things said about you, your circumstances, or the world in general, thanks to your old friend confirmation bias. Schizophrenic? It’s not that hard to find people who agree with the voices in your head. Hypochondriac? Someone will gladly confirm your diagnoses for a price, and since they agree with you, they must be more right than those doctors who are telling you that you’re fine. Paranoid? In this information age, when any nut case can have a platform to express his views (including me!), you’re bound to find “evidence” to support your conspiracy theories.

The good news is there are things you can do to reduce your confirmation bias.

  • Take the extra time to actually confirm facts. Two of my favorite websites for this are www.snopes.com, and www.factcheck.org.
  • Keep an open mind. Allow yourself to hear opposing opinions and ideas, and if they come with a boatload of documentation, you may want to take them seriously. This is called exploratory thought.
  • Take pride in being able to say, “I was wrong.” It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to do so.
  • Ask yourself if you are rejecting information simply because it doesn’t confirm your belief. Then ask yourself why it’s so important to you to maintain the belief you have.
  • Think critically and logically instead of emotionally and aggressively.
  • Continually ask yourself, “Is this information a fact, or is it an opinion or a rumor?”
  • Try to stay rational and remain calm. If you think there’s some evil international conspiracy at work, and you seem to be the only one privy to it, odds are you have a problem, because a) It’s nearly impossible for more than two people to keep a secret, and b) What are the odds that YOU are the one person on the entire planet to have been given this revelation? I mean, yeah, it could happen, but the odds are heavily stacked against you.
  • Apply the principle of Occam’s Razor. The simplest theory, the one that requires the least amount of assumptions, is often the correct one. For example, unless you live in Africa, if you see hoof prints, think horses, not zebras.
  • Think for yourself. If the evidence before you is that the emperor has no clothes, then he’s naked, regardless of what everyone around you is saying. Be careful about this, though. Make sure you’re drawing your conclusions from facts, not simply from a strong desire to see the emperor naked.

Of course, all of this is my opinion. Feel free to decide for yourself.