I’ve always known the media couldn’t be trusted. Back in the fifties my Dad played in his debut professional football match. The paper next day quoted him saying all sorts of things. Not nasty things, but also not true. For example, his debut was an away game at Highbury, and he was quoted as saying it was a dream come true because it’s where he would have chosen for his debut. Strange thing to say for an Everton fan who would have loved to have played his debut at Goodison. The weird thing is, is that he hadn’t even spoken to a journalist. They just made some shit up.
Back when I was working in industry, The New Scientist interviewed us about some of the research work we were doing. When the article appeared it was an awful distortion of the truth.
So I have some personal experience of just how crap the media can be.
But their entertainment value is still going strong. Just read or watch them, if you have to, for the lolz.
You only have to look at some of these classic recent examples attempting to explain the rise in heart-related problems.
Post-Pandemic Stress Disorder - that’ll be it.
Nope - it’s not plain old vanilla climate change, but mysterious climate change. Oooh scary.
But relax, it’s neither of those things - it’s all because we’ve given young people too much freedom.
There was even one article attributing the rise in heart problems to missing breakfast. I assume the risk I take in having a humungous bowl of Coco Pops in the morning is, therefore, balanced out.
The saying goes “you couldn’t make this shit up” - but clearly someone did.
My favourite, that I’ve posted before, is the rather educational piece in The Sun.
I know that women are strange and mysterious (and rather wonderful) beings. I had no idea they suffered from “winter vagina”. I’m thankful to The Sun for pointing this out - it had been my view, based on my previous experience, that I was the cause of this phenomenon in the women I’d attempted to woo. I now know it was the climate wot dunnit. I shall limit my amorous pursuits to summer in order to test out my new understanding.
Coming in a very close second to awkward freezing in the nether regions is this gem from Canada. As you will know, the truckers are rather angry. Thousands and thousands of trucks are converging on Ottawa in convoys over a hundred kilometres long in some cases. What on earth are they so angry about? Covid restrictions and mandates? Are they raising a truckous over freedom?
Not at all. They’re angry about potholes in the road.
Some outlets have even linked this convoy to white nationalism. This tweet, although not from any official media source, explains it perfectly
Did I say ‘explain’? Silly me.
This lady’s cheese appears to have completely slipped off her cracker. But full marks for a very inventive attempt to squeeze racism into things (it’s not a parody account - as I initially thought. I asked - and got blocked).
Yes, the world has gone stark raving bonkers - and as unpleasant as things are for many, as worried about the future as we are, it’s good to know there’s stuff to give us the giggles and warm up the most stubborn of winter issues.
I like that you asked if it was a parody account. I also like that you got blocked. It's easy to see who is going to enjoy the Metaverse, but it's not going to be very fun for us contrarians who are walking around (literally, on our legs, which we have) looking for someone to debate and having to assign each other to take positions like "why it is important to share your pronouns to people who will never have to refer to you using pronouns next to a photograph of yourself" and "all truckers are white nationalists, even the ones who aren't white" and "pharmaceutical companies are saviors of humanity who don't profit from our misery."
Thank you! I seriously needed that…