Is the Mattress Firm Conspiracy the Secret to Teaching Fake News?
This past summer, I taught journalism summer camps with a group of highly intelligent college kids. A group that on most days inspires me for the future of our country and world.
The day they all told me about Shane Dawson’s Mattress Firm conspiracy and their UNDYING belief in it was not one of those days.
Not to be a fun killer, but as danah boyd recently points out in her Medium blog there is a danger in how conspiracy theories are being used for political purposes and to discredit the media.
“Over the last two years, both social media and news media organizations have desperately tried to prove that they aren’t biased. What’s at stake is not whether these organizations are restricting discussions concerning free-market economics or failing to allow conservative perspectives to be heard. What’s at stake is how fringe groups can pervert the logics of media to spread conspiratorial and hateful messages under their false flag of conservatism.”
Now, the Mattress Firm conspiracy theory is far from any Nazi propaganda or a conservative attack to discredit the liberal media. It is however a great example of the “fun” and impossibility of arguing with smart people about conspiracy theories.
It didn’t matter how hard I tried to convince them that Shane Dawson didn’t use any credible sources, used various faulty arguments, and “high entertainment value” video techniques to persuade them. They all believed and still months later send us group messages about how the Mattress Firm conspiracy theory could be true.
They are correct that there is the possibility that the theory could be true. In this possibility of truth and the rebellion of going outside the mainstream lived the excitement of this debate. There was no proving them wrong that they could “possibly” be right.
In this realm of wild conspiracy theories and the wild west of the internet lives the battle for information and truth. As danah boyd and Professor Kate Starbird believe the mainstream journalists and scientists of the academia are losing out to the conspiracy theories of the internet.
I still believe in training truth seekers and through media literacy education the future can be one of rational thought, but as I kept losing any hope of changing college students’ belief in Mattress Firm I also began to realize this is the brick wall teachers have been hitting when discussing the “possible truths’ that exist online.
Even the architects of social media had dreams of connecting people with the beauty of information and freedom of speech like on this platform of Medium we are now on.
But the dark reality is as boyd said,
“Yet, at this very moment, those who built these tools and imagined letting a thousand flowers bloom are stepping back and wondering: what hath we wrought? Like the ACLU and other staunch free speech advocates, we all recognized that we would need to accept a certain amount of ugly speech. But never in their wildest imaginations did the creators of major social media realize that their tools of amplification would be weaponized to radicalize people towards extremism, gaslight publics, or serve as vehicles of cruel harassment.
When teaching these political topics it can be hard and it is very serious. Teaching Mattress Firm conspiracies is not so serious, but I think an important way to shed a light on the battle for truth online.
Journalists and I have been arguing that there is a way to find truth and balance online. By going to allsides.com and reading a variety of sources a fairly objective reality can be found through the online media.
The pushback, I think is from the world of conspiracy theories of Mattress Firm and darker places online.
To shed a light on those darker places, my first lesson in media literacy is changing. It isn’t going to be finding a variety of sources, but the differences between a Mattress Firm conspiracy video and well sourced journalism.
The ‘truth’ is that I have learned that young people and the internet find conspiracy theories fun and there is a possibility of truth in them. I acknowledge their truth. I don’t believe it, but I do see it.
Allowing students to examine the differences between Mattress Firm conspiracy videos and well sourced journalism will hopefully elevate their truth seeking.
