Author Archives: dontbelieveeverythingthatyoumeme

First, you need to know the facts: Do you live in the United States?  If you do, you may be surprised to learn that you are not a citizen of America at all, but in fact part of a large corporation called “The United States.” That’s right.  In 1871, Congress passed 28 USC 3002, whichContinue reading “When Conspiracies Come Full Circle”

The pandemic has brought with it many things, but one thing we were shocked to see was the rise of the badly-made meme. Perhaps the abundance of these poorly made memes came from a design to spread our thoughts and messages faster than normal. More likely, they existed because people who had never memed beforeContinue reading “There’s No Excuse for a Badly Made Meme”

The Meme. An idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. At least that is, according to Richard Dawkins, who coined the word itself in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Let’s think of this in a non-internet sense. Did you ever see that group of kids at school whoContinue reading “Weekend with Bernies”

About a year ago, we were having a conversation about the fake news of the day, as we tend to do, and we were talking about how the social media bubbles that everyone lives in seem to be getting tougher. One of us posed the questions, ‘what if the people who are so extreme inContinue reading “If All Your Friends Join a Cult, Would You Do it, Too?”

It’s a sunny Sunday morning. Most of the world is slowly rousing and you idly scroll through your phone’s social media feed. Your uncle has been very active online this morning. You know, that uncle. The one you used to think was somewhat sensible until he started listening to AM talk radio and joined Facebook.Continue reading “Are You a Dissatisfied Customer?”

The United States 2020 election is just a couple of days away. Many are wondering what it will mean for America and for the rest of the world. But we are certain of one thing: Misinformation and manipulation online won’t go away. In fact, we will need to use our media literacy skills in theContinue reading “The Troll That Would Not Die”

With the rampant conspiracy theories that have taken over the internet lately, from Qanon’s Save Our Children distraction to the theory that anarchists are setting fire to the American West Coast, there is one thing we have seen in common: Memes that attack the Mainstream Media for not sharing these stories. No doubt, you haveContinue reading “If it’s Not on Social Media, Did it Even Happen?”

It’s been discussed many times: Never trust a quote from a celebrity that you find on the internet. But these quotes are all over the place. Whether it’s Clint Eastwood, Albert Einstein, or Bill Gates, at this point, our natural instinct should be to distrust the quote when we see it. And yet people continueContinue reading “Do Celebrities Give a Quote More Weight?”

We’ve all come across urban legends over time and chances are, we’ve believed some to be true as well. Maybe we still do. But what makes these modern myths so compelling? The successful urban legend will follow a formula. Every urban legend we have found follows this same pattern. Whether it’s the story about thatContinue reading “How to Make an Urban Legend”

We have written a fair amount on media studies and the current climate that we find ourselves in, largely in preparation for recording episodes of the podcast. However, we’ve been thinking about how to kick off the podcast, and thought the best way to do it was to get some input from our friends andContinue reading “We Made a Survey!”