In his post on last week’s symposium, George mentions a viral video concerning Apple products, an onion and some Gatorade. I remember this video, and I remember thinking it was crap. But I could see how so many people believed it. The way the information, though false, was presented made it seem like fact. The fact that the video was spread so widely across the Internet also seems to add validity to the claims made. But when I first watched it, an extremely quick google search confirmed that the video was spreading wrong information.

George talks about our predisposition to believe a certain style or format of information makes it seem more believable. But when the information given is so absurd and ridiculous, it seems extraordinary to me that people don’t take 30 seconds to check the validity of a claim. As a frequent user of Tumblr, I see fake claims being spread around to a wide audience every day. I wonder why no one else thinks to google things. Whenever I see a viral ‘news’ post, I immediately google it. Most of the time it’s crap. But yet so many people continue to spread it around. When it comes to this sort of thing, people seem to get caught up in spectacular, but often believable, claims. So anyone reading this, for the good of humanity, just google things. It takes 30 seconds.

P.S
Did everyone hear about how the winner of ‘The Voice’ spontaneously combusted after one of those Madden Brothers stabbed her with his toothpick??? CrAZZyy!!!