Sup, you beautiful bastards! Hope you're having a fantastic Monday.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show, and let's just jump into it.
The first thing we're going to talk about today is fake news, although it is of the variety
that doesn't make me want to slam my head against the wall but rather just laugh.
And at the center of this news we have Justin Beiber the the guys from Yes Theory.
And if you're not familiar with the guys from Yes Theory, I highly reccoment their channel.
It's really interesting to watch. A lot of people know them as the guys that challenged Will Smith to bungee
jump out of the helicopter. With that said there's a lot more going on over there.
And the way this is all connected is you may have seen a photo several days ago where it looks
like Justin Beiber is eating a burrito from the middle. WHAT KIND OF MONSTER WOULD DO THAT?
The answer is Sean Evans. Everyone knows that. Sean Evans: nice guy, fantastic guy great host of Hot
Ones. Eats burritos like a monster. And with this new photo being released, it would appear that Justin
Beiber was part of this monster club. And this picture blew up everywhere. Viral posts on social media,
The likes of E! News covered it, even Vanity Fair. So many people saying "What the hell is wrong with Beiber?"
Well, it turns out that's not Justin Beiber, it turns out it was the Yes Theory guys who
wanted to trick the internet. And they have since put out a video explaining how they were able to trick people.
And this was really simple. They got a Justin Beiber Doppelganger by the name of Brad Souza.
They set up the photo, took the photo. They tried unsuccessfully to post it to the pics subreddit.
They then put in a smaller "Mildly Infuriating" subreddit. They gained some traction. It blew up there.
And thus it blew up everywhere. With it blowing up and so many people talking about it, it was accepted as truth
by so so so many people
Once again, just your everyday people on the internet as well as news organizations.
And so first I just want to say, "good job," to the Yes theory guys, and number two, I think the reason I love this
story so much is just that it's- We talk about the news every day. Fake news is just horrible. It's infuriatingly
horrible and as I've mentioned before, one of my favorite things I've ever heard before is:
"Doubt has been weaponized." The term "fake news" was initially about obviously fake stories that were
meant to promote a narrative that was just not true. It has now unfortunately morphed into, for a lot
people, just a place to put things you do not agree with, thus it can't be true.
But what I think this Justin Beiber fake news story does is, what this prank does, is it highlights what I've
believed to be a fact, is that the majority of people see something and then they want to believe it, they will
believe it at the surface level. And the more people you have talking about it, sharing it, and especially once you
start getting sources that are seen as at least more legitimate than your average everyday random on the
internet, by many, if they think this could be a reality, they believe it as truth without diving even furthur
Which I will say the topic being Justin Beiber eating his burrito sideways is- I don't know if you're inclined
to do a deep dive on that but it makes me think "How many times have you had a conversation with someone
about the news, and it's based off of a headline they saw?" and that person doesn't know any of the actual
details that are being discussed or debated or literally just the headline.
I know this is kind of a light-hearted prank story but
it hits on something I constantly think about, but that said if there is a final note,
1. Congrats to the Yes Theory Guys for tricking SO many people
2. Question everything you see. Within reason.The last part of that sentence is incredibly important.
and 3. Just a reminder, Sean Evans, you are a monster for actually eating burritos like this
You're one of my favorite people on the internet, but true friends call it like they see it.
Then in quick social media news, there are reports that very soon twitter may be doing away with
the like button. According to the telegraph there was a twitter event last week and at the event
Jack Dorsey, who is the founder of twitter, reportedly said that
he would get rid of the like function soon
and adding he was not a fan of the heart shaped button.
And according to the Telegraph, this potential move
is in part an effort to create a healthier environment
for debate. And in response to that article, the
official twitter, for the twitter communications team
tweeted, "as we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking
everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing
healthy conversation, that includes
the like button. We are in the early stages of the work
and have no plan to share right now." Also this sounds vaguely
familiar, and I'm not saying this is happening because
of him, but if you look back to just last month
this was kind of a thing that Kanye West
was championing on twitter.
If you don't remember, he tweeted "having your amount of likes on display
for the world to see and judge is like showing
much money you have in the bank or having to write the size
of your dick on your t-shirt." "Speaking for myself
I personally want to participate in social media with the
option of not having to show my followers or likes."
And in another tweet writing, " there are people who
are committing suicide due to not getting enough likes.
Seeking validation in the simulation.
The main point with this recent telegraph report,
it seems that Jack or at least part of twitter
is on board with the idea of hiding these
metrics. And so I was intrigued by that mindset around
the removal of metrics, specifically likes.
Now we're seeing this Telegraph article that might be something else
we see. While I initially thought the idea of removing
likes was stupid, I do also
wonder how much they actually
matter. I mean if you're one of the people that like stuff on twitter
because you want to be able to remember it, go back to it
in an orderly way, I mean right now
they have it so on mobile you can bookmark something,
and if you think something's funny or you wanna show appreciation
instead of hitting the like button, you could just tweet at that
person, or you could retweet or quote tweet, although there are people
that also want to get rid of those. That could arguably
generate more interaction. And I guess
that then leads us to the thought of, well why do we share
anything? Is it and should it be
about the actual interactions with other human beings
or has it simply evolved into this
number system, where based on these numbers
that's where a lot of people get their self worth.
Put out something, it gets a lot of likes, you get that
dopamine drip, you feel good about yourself. Then you put
something out, you don't get as many likes, that's
viewed from the outside in. You're judged or
mocked. But at the same time as the company, it probably
makes sense to show levels of engagement. I don't know, I think
there's a deeper conversation about how and why
we interact online. But with all of that said, that's why I want to pass the question off to you
with, what are your thoughts around this?