I like to read the “What’s New” section of Snopes, which has a roundup of the current urban legends. These days there seems to be a whole bunch that are showing up that are plainly absurd. Some are obvious jokes. Snopes says they get emails asking about these, but are there really people out there stupid enough to believe:
Is Congress ‘moving to appoint Barack Obama to a third term’ in 2016?
A 14-year-old girl is pregnant with the son of God?
In 2014 does Halloween fall on Friday the 13th for the first time in 666 years?
Can cell phone calls from particular phone numbers cause brain hemorrhage and death?
Image circulates of a “captured Ebola zombie.”
Can the striped mittenfish change its sex at will by turning its entire body inside out?
Did Sarah Palin demand President Obama “invade Ebola?”
Has the Obama administration ordered $1 billion worth of disposable coffins for use with Ebola victims?
These seem absurd by the one sentence title alone. Any of the “facts” that might have been with it in the original Facebook post or email that shared it in the first place should make it obvious they can’t be true.
I’m afraid that the answer might actually be “yes”. But, it could also be that Snopes is desperate to remain relevant. Maybe they are just listing every rumor, every internet joke, they hear and then “debunking” it.
Which do you think it is – is there a significant number of people that are dumb enough to believe jokes as real? I believe there is not a single person that, after a moment of thought, would believe Halloween could EVER fall on Friday the 13th. Am I too naive?
Just take a look at Yahoo’s home page.
At least 1/3 of the linked articles are pure BS - stuff from the Examiner, and the like. Others are sensationalist drivel that is supposed to pass as “news.”
As far as I know, “someone actually believes this” is not one of the required criteria for inclusion in Snopes. All you need is for someone to SAY it. It’s perfectly possible that one or more of these has been spread purely by people out for the yuks, and not a single sucker has actually fallen for it. I don’t say it’s likely; just possible. The point is that just because it’s in Snopes doesn’t mean it’s actually fooled someone.
I mean relevant as in, maybe fewer people follow them these days. After endless email forwards of things saying “I know this is true - I saw it on Snopes” where the fact is it was show to be NOT true on Snopes, the average viewer might not trust them, and/or it might be possible that they are not considered to go-to place for UL any more. *
Or they could be desperate for advertising, and site visits are important, even if the content is useless.
*While I obviously still read them, and check for the lastest ULs, I really haven’t forgiven them for their fake ULs they made. While I understood their point, it was to me an incredibly stupid way of making it.
I’ve always found it interesting that so many of the items they debunk are designed to appeal to the right-wing and ignorant demographic. Whereas I see fairly few that would appeal to the left-wing and ignorant demographic.
I wonder whether that’s due to
Snopes has a preference for making right-wingers look silly & cherry picks what they debunk.
or
Somebody(s) somewhere are producing these items *en masse *for right-winger consumption to keep the base agitated.
or
the left wing but ignorant crowd is so slothful or anomic or ??? that they don’t see, much less repeat or report, stuff intended to appeal to their prejudices.
or
To be fair, that one’s not THAT far out there. They did have a lot on the what’s new page that, while not true, were at least believable:
Does an automobile’s dashboard gas pump icon indicate which side the vehicle’s fuel door is on?
Has an Ebola outbreak in Chicago killed three people?
Rumors claim 7th Heaven actor Stephen Collins has taken his own life.
Plus one that I would have sworn was not true that was:
After donating $100,000 to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation, oil giant Baker Hughes plans to start using pink drill bits.
Although I can’t think what the point is. no one but the drillers ever see the bits, and even then only until they go in the ground.
So as a resource, they still have value.
But I would like to believe that no one thinks the constitution has been voided so that Congress can “appoint” Obama a third term. Or that the 31st can fall on the 13th!
I walked into a store a couple of days ago. The owner of the store was an elderly man who was talking to some people who he presumably knew. I missed the beginning of the conversation but he was talking about some disease. And he was saying, with all apparent seriousness, that the government was intentionally withholding a cure to the disease because it was using the disease to reduce the number of old people in the country.
