Most People Don’t Want Truth, They Want to Feel Intellectually and Morally Superior
We can’t decide what we want from writers. Truth? Accuracy? Support for own agendas?
I was reading a New Yorker article on the trend of permanent van living (appropriately dubbed “vanlife”), by Rachel Monroe.
She lived with two “vanlife” people, ushering in the new lifestyle trend of forgoing the traditional 9 to 5 and living on the road, reminiscent of the surfer and hippie subculture.
Her article centered around both the freeing and fake aspects of this trend. Emily King and Corey Smith, the subjects of her article, are sponsored by various brands as they live nomadically all across the U.S.
They’ve received sponsorships from several companies so their daily routine involves contrived social media posts designed to satisfy the companies they work for — and look authentic and carefree while doing so.
Monroe’s article highlighted the glamour of life on the road, coupled with the fake aspects that come with companies attempting to profit from a new lifestyle trend. It was a pretty damn fair article, and interesting to anyone who’s been following the trend of lifestyle marketing.
King took to Instagram, though, to criticize the journalist (which likely grew her following — as a keen marketer, she’s probably aware of the value of controversy):
“The writer lived with us for 8 days. She selected moments from only the first 3 days to paint her picture.
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Omitted was soaking in hot springs. Omitted was days surfing. Omitted was breaking down in a national forest. Omitted was sharing ideas and beers with the GoWesty crew. Omitted was essentially why we love life and why we live in a van.
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I was confused. Why was mainstream media hyper focusing on money and influencer marketing? And why the friction? And fiction, for that matter. Why do you think this mainstream cultural criticism outlet chose what they chose?”
Seriously? Why did Monroe focus on influencer marketing? Because it’s fascinating. Because it’s an economic and cultural trend. Because it enables the good and the bad — people are more free to pursue their passions than ever before, but social media can also be manipulated.
Authenticity is not always it seems, and things that look carefree are often more carefully formulated than you’d expect. Did King seriously just want a glowing review of the vanlife trend, with no critical reflection? Did King just expect a fucking congratulatory blog post?
On one hand, King is criticizing that Monroe didn’t tell a full picture of her time with the vanlifers. But the majority of writers are constrained by word limit, need to develop a specific (and critical) angle, and are expected to write something of substance and depth for editors.
A pleasant portrayal of a quirky trend is a decent article, but many editors (and readers) yearn for more. Conflict, intrigue, or showing that something isn’t what it seems is at the core of really good writing. That’s what Monroe did.
But most people don’t understand that.
I’d argue it’s even worse in the political sphere: the same people who criticize fake news share poorly researched articles and recoil at the thought of a contrarian (or non-left-wing news outlet) getting the facts right.
This was most obvious when Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s reporting at Reason uncovered that rape could not, in fact, be considered a pre-existing condition in the new Republican healthcare plan.
New York Magazine, Washington Post, Allure, Broadly, and Bustle all portrayed this irresponsibly, at first, crafting headlines and articles like there was some male-dominated Republican conspiracy to deny all health care coverage to survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse.
This clearly wasn’t the case, nor was there some malicious scheme targeted toward these marginalized groups — in fact, almost every state has an anti-discrimination insurance law currently on the books to prevent this type of scary possibility from becoming a reality.
Some publications who ran misleading stories issued corrections, others refused to dig deeper at all.
Others, like the Washington Post, ran less-than-accurate op-eds then later deployed their fact-checkers on the case, ultimately deciding that the popular myth garnered a “four Pinocchios” ranking (the worst accuracy score that can be assigned).
At least Washington Post eventually went to great lengths to distinguish truth from falsehood — but many didn’t.
Despite the fact that Reason ended up being right, they were ridiculed by many in the mainstream media for their contrarianism. In a similar case, another Reason reporter was brutally criticized when he first began reporting that Rolling Stone’s UVA rape story was false (and guess who ended up being right…).
This pattern plays out again and again, yet many left-leaning outlets who fail to run accurate, well-researched stories retain their high readership. The people who share these insidious false stories still consider themselves great foot soldiers in the fight against fake news and still parade their moral superiority. They, unlike all others, are paragons of intellect and judgement.
I use the left as an example not because the right is flawless, but because I think it’s generally easier to spot the bad news outlets and obviously-fake content on the right.
The issue is that many outlets on the left are masquerading as reputable, and much harder for an average educated person to see through.
Many on the left portray these less-obviously-bad outlets as beyond reproach, but that’s a dangerous mentality. Nobody is beyond reproach. It’s an insidious smugness, one that’s hard to see through. It’s not truth-seeking, it’s agenda-driven.
I thought journalism was all about critical thought, diving deeper, and not letting dominant groups in power set the agenda, unchallenged. Truth to power and all that.
But when Glenn Greenwald exposed NSA secrecy with the help of whistleblower Edward Snowden, he was condemned by many.
And when Katie Couric manipulated footage of gun owners to falsely represent their messages, she was hardly condemned. People, especially on the left, wanted to believe that gun owners lacked substantial arguments. They wanted to believe that their political enemies were stupid, so that’s what they did.
And when the Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On crew made a documentary about sex workers, they pissed off broad swaths of the sex work community by violating the boundaries of their consent and outing people the filmmakers supposedly wanted to help. Thanks to them, Netflix viewers all over can watch an inaccurate portrayal of an oft-harassed and marginalized community — without realizing how bad it is.
It keeps happening: we want to discredit those who write things we don’t agree with, or things that threaten the way we view the world. We want to believe that journalists are smart, that the Washington Post is accurate, and (for many of us) that the other side is significantly worse than our own.
Unfortunately, truth isn’t what people want. They might say they do, but actions point to the contrary.
Confirmation bias is an impressive driving force. People, from vanlife devotees to liberal friends in my newsfeed, want someone with a platform to portray them as correct, without challenge or reproach.
Most people just want their lifestyle or political party presented uncritically. The least they can do is be honest about it.
