It might even be so sophisticated that its perpetrators don’t actually realize its just such an attack.
On Upworthy, Tod Perry notes there’s something called a post-truther era:
A lot of talking heads have remarked that we live in a post-truth era. In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary defined it as “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
And moves on to a … conspiracy … theory …
Yep, Birds Aren’t Real is a thing. A pretty big one, too. Birds Aren’t Real has over 300,000 followers on Instagram and 66,000 on Twitter. Plus, there are local Birds Aren’t Real chapters sprouting up all over the U.S.
The theory postulates that in the ’50s, the CIA began killing off America’s bird population and replacing them with flying surveillance robots. Birds Aren’t Real estimates there are currently 12 billion birds watching us from above.
Sure, it’s a joke. But it’s a joke that seems calculated to pull in the intellectually vulnerable, and then the next time they see a bird and its non-technological innards – say, hanging out of Fluffy’s mouth – it’s like a crowbar upside the head.
Think about all those conspiracy theories you’ve indulged in!, it screams.
Or maybe it’s just a joke.
