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No, it does not "say something about society" if you fall for fake screenshots. It just means you're gullible.

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No, it does not "say something about society" if you fall for fake screenshots. It just means you're gullible.

Let's talk about confirmation bias.

Parker Molloy
May 17, 2022
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No, it does not "say something about society" if you fall for fake screenshots. It just means you're gullible.

www.readtpa.com
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Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, best known for her smearing opponents of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” law as being “pro-grooming,” tweeted out a screenshot of what she claimed was an article from The Washington Post.

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“More cutting edge journalism from the 49-year-old Washington Post activist infamous for showing up masked on random people’s doorsteps and sliding into the DMs of TikTok teenagers,” tweeted Pushaw, referencing the screenshot containing the headline, “This dog is the new face of online homophobia,” and referring to journalist Taylor Lorenz. Unfortunately for Pushaw, not only is Lorenz not 49 years old, but the article itself is not real. It’s a total fabrication.

Christina Pushaw on Twitter: “More cutting edge journalism from the 49 year old Washington Post activist infamous for showing up masked on random people’s doorsteps & sliding into the DMs of tiktok teenagers.” The image features the headline “This dog is the new face of online homophobia,” includes the subheadline “Internet trolls have turned a dachshund into a viral homophobic meme — and her gay owners don’t know what to do.” This article does not exist.

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Countless people pointed out that the article was not real, which inevitably brought out the most “I’m not owned” response possible from Pushaw’s defenders: But doesn’t it speak more about the media and the current state of the world that people can no longer differentiate between satire and reality? And the fact that the writer is Taylor Lorenz, who might actually write something like this.”

*sigh*

No. It does not actually “speak more about the media and the current blah blah blah.” It speaks to how gullible people are.

But first, just because it’s a little bit of fun, here’s a little bit about the dog from the nonexistent article!

The Present Age
Who's Afraid of Taylor Lorenz?
Hello, dear readers. Last week, Steven Perlberg published an article at Insider about a challenge facing The New York Times: staff retention. According to Perlberg’s report, the Times has been worried lately about losing top talent to places where journalists can make more money and have more autonomy. In it, he interviewed Taylor Lorenz, a reporter who recently jumped from the…
Read more
2 years ago · 23 likes · 13 comments · Parker Molloy

This dog, whose real name is Whitney Chewston, has become a meme. Basically, in March 2021, someone thought it would be funny to take this picture of the dog sitting next to a glass of red wine, and added the caption “not too fond of gay people” to it. Since then, people have added other anti-gay captions to photos of the dog, meant to be something of a satire of judgmental homophobes.

In March, Lil Nas X tweeted a request for more pictures of the dog:

Twitter avatar for @LilNasX
MONTERO @LilNasX
can u guys send me more pictures of that homophobic dog
4:26 AM ∙ Mar 25, 2022
133,415Likes5,239Retweets

And he got responses:

Twitter avatar for @cubano_sucio
AKA Mack 🦖 @cubano_sucio
@LilNasX
Image
Image
Image
Image
4:46 AM ∙ Mar 25, 2022
34Likes3Retweets

The joke is funny because every LGBTQ person has absolutely met someone like the dog meme. The whole thing is a joke.

“Homophobic Dog” has its own Know Your Meme page, and the actual dog’s owners (who happen to be two gay men) did an interview with them, taking the joke in stride:

But back to the point at hand: no, being duped into believing something fake “doesn’t say something” about society. It “says something” about your willingness to believe anything that supports your own worldview.


Another example of this can be seen in this clip of Joe Rogan inventing a story, getting really upset about it, and… then learning that it’s fake.

Twitter avatar for @KnowNothingTV
KnowNothing @KnowNothingTV
joe rogan having a normal one (watch until the end)
6:47 AM ∙ May 17, 2022
13,292Likes1,112Retweets

There’s a really good Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic by Zach Weinersmith on this topic.

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