Fake Meme Contest

[TheDrake]

I recently saw a meme as wild as "Ruth Bader Ginsberg, associate justice of the Supreme Court, said she would resign if Trump was elected. The word of a sitting member of the US Supreme Court should be as good as gold. Share if you agree she should keep her word!"

It is interesting, the elements in this. First, Ginsberg was an outspoken critic of Trump - at least by SCOTUS standards. Second, it was built around a fake news story from earlier in the year. Third, the politics of replacing justices plays into it.

We've got some clever people here. I think we could probably craft a fake meme to beat them all. Share your ideas.

Something like "Clinton emails reveal involvement in Scalia's death, share if you think she belongs in jail" or "Trump gropes NBC reporter in Rockefeller Plaza. Share if you think the electoral college should make Hillary President"

I'm working on something more subtle and will post when it is finished.

[D.W.]

Pass.

I'm still trying to figure out how to scold / warn my family or friends who reply to this garbage without... contributing to the garbage myself.

It's right up there with, "Only X percent are smart enough to understand/see Y!  Share if you are a special snowflake!"

How do you explain to someone who falls for this crap the concept of "like" farming or building social media influence / reach?

The only thing a meme is good for is the occasional laugh.  Meme's to actually influence people are just... depressing.

[TheDrake]

If you can't beat em, join em. Of course you could really run an experiment with:

MOST MEMES, LIKE THIS ONE, ARE COMPLETELY FALSE
SHARE IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
(over picture of hillary tripping over something)

MOST MEMES, LIKE THIS ONE, ARE COMPLETELY FALSE
SHARE IF YOU THINK TRUMP WILL DESTROY AMERICA
(over picture of trump pointing his finger with his mouth wide open)

I'd like to see how many people would only read the bottom line and share it.

[Fenring]

D.W., I think there is presently no way to fight the meme war. I have smart people on my FB feed who perpetually repost material that is laughable with commentary such as "keep fighting the good fight" or "don't let them get away with it." And indeed, there are certain things that should be made known, while other things are nothing more than fake memes. Typically a person will repost anything 'on topic' with what they believe and won't vet it. Or more properly, vetting it isn't particularly germane to their efforts since the idea is to raise awareness about topics, not about particular events. So even if a repost about an event is fake or misleading it doesn't matter because the cause it's about is still important. This may sound vaguely noble, except that upon closer inspection it means that reality is made to fit what a person imagines inside their own head, and this is called "the cause." Yeesh.