A Massive Screen Really Amplifies Lies

Illustration by the Author

I have an influencer friend who held a debate watch party. She rented a local movie theater for a two-fold plan–raise funds for the Harris/Walz ticket and give people a way to watch the debate live.

How is it different?

I’ve never watched politicians on a screen that big. It’s a different experience viewing 70 foot images of the people speaking. The screen takes over your entire field of view. It magnifies small details. Beads of sweat glisten like dinosaur tears. Anomalies like skin tags and fat rolls– things that TV’s resolution would gloss over–show up in full, scary detail. Words rain down on you from huge lips.

These cinematic properties are not without effects. Researchers Kersten Frober and Roland Thomaschke in their psychological study titled, In the Dark Cube: Movie Theater Context Enhances the Valuation and Aesthetic Experience of Watching Films, found a movie theater context leads to a stronger emotional experiences. Their subjects reported feeling more intense emotions when watching a film in a movie theater, compared to watching it at home. I worried watching the debate on a big screen would unfairly sway undecide voters.

The Crowd effect

The theater created a vaccum-sealed shared experience. There was no crowd for the ABC debate, but in…