Debunking Hoax with Comedy

Brief introduction: This writing is all about the way that comedy as communication can translate the truth message, even debunking hoax.

Kevin Teran
Aug 28, 2017 · 5 min read

My Story

I believe every act of communication is in some way an act of translation. Then, what’d you do if you encountered a hoax? Showing the logical explanation? That’s not how communication works.

Have you ever felt this experienced? When you comment on someone post to point out that “No, it’s not true” or “Hey, this is hoax!” You’ll feel you think you are doing a public service. You think you are helping out. But then, they turns back on you. The crowd backlash against you. They will defend the falsehoods, because it simply resonated with them. Then it’s usually summed up by them saying “Well, I don’t care if it’s true or not, I just believe in it blah blah blah”. In this scenario the person doing the debunking can end up looking like a prude, a scold, a know-it-all.

But, the reality is that most debunk way and fact checking are not effectively working that way. You know why people share hoaxes? It simply is one of the ways they attempt to make sense of the world around them. They are not a mistake or something we can fully stamp out. They are core to the human experience. This is one of the reasons people get defensive when being confronted with debunking. It is seen as an attack not just on the details of what they posted, but on them personally and the way they view and communicate to the world.

The hoax will still be alive. But, what if we debunk the hoax in a fun and light way? We could look to an example of my true story.

On the lovely Sunday morning, I read a post on Facebook showing that the Mother Earth is flat. The only problem is it’s stupid and fake. It’s undebatable. But, they keep believing the Earth is flat, not round. In the end, they’ve stopped arguing because someone posting one meme that describes and shows how the flat Earth during eclipse. Case closed.

While the meme obviously lends itself to a humorous approach, (most) people find humor stuff corrections all the time. Funny meme or jokes corrections go viral every now and again, driving more attention than the hoax. People usually try to debunk hoax with focusing on science and forcing on logic. But we don’t realize with snark and humor really meant to help make the correction more shareable. Placing a joke in dire circumstance that are outside your control is an effective coping mechanism. From my true story, we can see how having fun can actually make debunking more effective.

Comedy As Communication

Communication is a great weapon to express your language. You can’t force people to understand and okay with your opinion. Like,

“Hey, listen up, because I’m about to drop some serious knowledge and truth on you.”

The recipient may reply with some F words.

What I learned from this is if I was going to ever communicate well with other people the opinion that I was gaining, I’d better find a different way of going about it. And that’s when I discovered comedy.

Now comedy travels along a distinct wavelength from other forms of language. What I want to write is the unique ability that the comedy and satire has at circumventing our ingrained perspectives — comedy as the philosopher’s stone. It takes the base metal of our conventional wisdom and transforms it through ridicule into a different way of seeing the world. That it’s about communication that doesn’t just produce greater understanding within the individual, but leads to change. Comedy also can be an information delivery system that scores markedly higher in both credibility and retention than the news media.

Alchemy of Comedy

A great piece of comedy is a verbal magic trick, where you think it’s going over here and then all of a sudden you’re transported over there. And there’s mental delight that’s followed by the laughter, which is releases endorphins in the brain.

And just like that, you’ve been seduced into a different way of looking at something because the endorphins have brought down your defenses. This is the exact opposite of the way that anger and fear and forced, all of the flight-or-fight responses, operate. Flight-or-fight releases adrenalin, which throws our walls up sky-high. And the comedy comes along, dealing with a lot of the same areas where our defenses are the strongest. Only by approaching them through humor instead of adrenalin, we get endorphins and the alchemy of laughter turns our walls into windows, revealing a fresh and unexpected point of view.

What I Learn of My Story

From my true story, when people believe in the Earth is flat, you can’t just throw the fact or science but starts off by inserting the joke (Earth-during-eclipse meme). And this joke hits the bull’s eye.

This joke short circuits the logical wiring behind the debate and it leaves people with the opportunity, through the laughter, to question its message.

One powerful attribute that joke has as communication is that it’s inherently viral. People can’t wait to pass along that new great joke. And this isn’t some new phenomenon of our wired world. Jokes have been crossing our country with remarkable speed way with various types like memes, cartoons, stand up comedy, satirical writing (read Sokal affair), and more.

Now, you put all of these elements together, when you get the viral appeal of a great joke with a powerful message that’s crafted from honesty and truth, it can have a real world impact at changing and debunking something, even hoax.

Conclusion

My writing here is to suggest to those of you who are good people and seriously trying on creating a better world from fakes, frauds, and hoaxes is to take a little bit of time thinking funny things, because you might just find the solution that you’ve been looking for to debunk all of them.

Recommended reading:

http://towcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/LiesDamnLies_Silverman_TowCenter.pdf

http://theweek.com/articles/596338/11-funniest-new-york-times-corrections-2015


Originally published at zlippery.wordpress.com on August 28, 2017.

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Kevin Teran

Written by

Which of my writing is my favourite? The one I’m going to write tomorrow. Ranting on Twitter @zlippery.

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