In 2016, a YouTube movie review channel known as RedLetterMedia posted a video discussing the deceits surrounding, and controversy at the time regarding the new Ghostbusters movie featuring four female protagonists in replacement of the original all-male cast. The nature of their video could be used as an example to illustrate how much our current day politics suffers from the same types of deceptions vis-à-vis the Wag the Dog nature of them. It is a sad yet fascinating commentary on how propaganda can manipulate people’s perceptions and thus their view of reality. It also exposes the ‘monkey see monkey do’ nature of too many of us, and how easily we can succumb to groupthink.
For instance, the original Ghostbusters 2016 trailer had an inordinate number of downvotes (970,322), which Sony Entertainment and the entertainment media chalked up to a massive preponderance of sexism, misogyny, and, of course, racism (that ostensibly run rampant throughout our culture). What they failed to grasp was that the math did not add up to support this contention. The trailer had 38,045,852 total views meaning that only 2.5% of those who viewed it clicked the ‘dislike’ button. Also, there were only 279,282 comments posted, which means only 0.73% of people veined to leave a remark. In other words, 99.27% of people who saw the trailer did not bother to comment on it at all.
In an effort to stoke the flames further, for increased publicity and thus interest presumably, Sony began deleting relatively benign and civil comments critical of the trailer and left only the more vile ones. This gave more notice to the hate-filled misogynistic comments, and thus the impression that they were par for the course. This would lead to articles such as that on May 2, 2016, by Tom Huddleston titled, ‘New Female Ghostbusters Trailer is Bringing Out the Misogynists.’ News stories were everywhere about man-children, their bigotry, and the injustice to what was, in all honesty, a very unfunny movie and its terrible trailer. The fellas at RedLetterMedia cited an article by The_Night_Rider on March 7, 2016, titled ‘Sony Rigging Ghostbusters Comments?’ It was concluded that these antics would presumably give Sony a review embargo of sorts and an angle with which to market the movie.
Then Sony handpicked reviewers and bloggers to attend early screenings of the film. Apparently, they paid people to see the movie once it came out, and lie about how much they enjoyed it. On March 12, 2002, CBS News’ Bootie Cosgrove-Mather reported, ‘Sony Pays for Fake Reviews.’
So, one can begin to see how relatively simple it is to artificially create a narrative. Ultimately, there was an insignificant number of hateful comments posted and Sony, along with their accomplices in the entertainment media, exacerbated a relatively minuscule issue besmirching the American culture and society in the process. According to Mike Stoklasa at RedLetterMedia, “They were able to ignite a fraudulent movement based on a dumb, unfunny ‘comedy’ film.”
Now, who is to say that our government and their lackeys in the mainstream media do not do the exact same sort of thing on a daily basis for the purpose of misleading the public on a whole host of issues. Remember when Nancy Pelosi besmirched the TEA Party (who merely felt they were being overtaxed) by claiming she saw swastikas at their rallies? There was no evidence of this, but it did not matter. It made it into the zeitgeist anyway. Same thing happened with the Michael Brown ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ fiasco, which never happened. Who could forget how NBC News doctored George Zimmerman’s call regarding Trayvon Martin in an effort to make him look racist? I recall when a MSNBC reporter referred to Black Lives Matter protests in Minneapolis as “mostly peaceful” while buildings burned behind him. Look at how quickly people were willing to buy into Jussie Smollett’s bald-faced lie that he was assaulted by racist MAGA supporters.
Remember this when the powers that be try to tell you that there is a racist white supremacist behind every tree, or that there is a rape culture on college campuses, or that there are widespread weekly school shootings, or that there is an epidemic of police shooting unarmed black people, or that trans women are women (while Lia Thomas crushes the competition), or the current ‘Gay’ misinformation campaign regarding Florida’s recent bill is homophobic despite that fact that this word is nowhere within it), or that the ‘science’ declares for safety that we wear masks, lockdown for years, get a mandatory vaccine (or get fired), get mandatory booster after booster, et cetera, et cetera. The time has come to open our eyes, read between the lines, critically analyze the news, think for ourselves, and draw our own conclusions based on facts, stats, and wisdom.
St. Louis, MO
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