Fake News is a great idea, since I never wanted to bother with having a conscience anyway.

Oliver “Shiny” Blakemore
Endnotes
Published in
3 min readDec 21, 2017
Olu Eletu | Unsplash

I’m kind of glad about this dramatic upswing in fake news, you know?

I mean, not that I know what the words mean. They seem like nonsense words to me. The whole point of news is that it’s reported by journalists who are telling what happens as far as the journalists involved can tell, and they have their own bias because, fortunately, there’s still human beings in this equation, and if you don’t like their bias then what’s great is that, probably, there’s someone else out there who shares yours.

As far as I can tell, except in instances of libel or something, then the term “fake news” can’t possibly mean anything.

But, you know, I keep hearing the term from reputable sources, so it must be a real thing. I mean, all these governors and politicians can’t possibly be so petty as to imply that their attitude toward the press and news outlets is that it’s okay to dismiss alternative opinions with some pithy ism that they recognize means literally nothing but they’ll use it anyway because they’re in power and you’re not, so suck it. That sounds completely preposterous. So fake news must be a real thing.

And I’m totally behind it. It’s awfully nice not to be responsible for actually forming my own coherent opinions about anything or thinking through anything that I hear. I like the option to just label anything I find disconcerting as fake news so that I don’t have to think about it.

Because there are a lot of things that get me down, as I’m sure there are a lot of things that get you down.

Abortion issues getting you down? Pah! Too complicated. That’s fake news.

Did you hear about somebody getting bullied and you don’t like the idea? No worries! Fake news that thing!

Worried about taxation? Whatever! Makes me uncomfortable. That’s all fake news.

Are you so gay you can’t even drive straight? Or do you know someone who’s caught “the gay” and they keep talking about “rights” or something? Psh! Whatever! People can’t decide things for themselves. Not in my America. That’s fake news.

This fake news thing is great. All my worries about social responsibility and what matters to the human race has dissolved into a warm cloud of faintly vanilla scented meringue. Which is foreign. And foreign things are uncomfortable, and therefore fake news too.

I suddenly don’t have a care in the world. All thanks to fake news. I feel like there’s some money to be made here somehow…

I don’t care to face the idea that there’s strife and pain and hunger and bullying happening in the world today. I can’t personally confirm most of it right at this moment; I only have media coverage of it. And since the media is the source of fake news, I can dismiss all of it.

It’s a comfortable era to live in. Thanks to fake news, I can live every day with a completely clean conscience.

Unless, you know, reality happens at some point. That’ll throw a monkey wrench in the fake news strategy of life. That is a conundrum.

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Oliver “Shiny” Blakemore
Endnotes

The best part of being a mime is never having to say I’m sorry.