Welcome to the post-truth era, brought to you by Some Random Guy who knows what Trump supporters want to see and can play them like a fiddle.
He types at the bottom, “Comment ‘DOWN WITH THE GLOBALISTS!’ below if you love this country,” publishes the story to his website, [redacted because they make money off their ads].com, and then pulls up the Facebook page he uses to promote the site, which in six months has collected 805,000 followers and brought in tens of millions of page views. “WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN!” he writes, posting the article. “#SHARE this 1 million times, patriots!”
In this case, Some Random Guy is an ex-restaurant worker who discovered that posting fake news for stupid people is thr new American gold rush. He and his business partner are now making money hand over fist. A studio setup may be in the works, one that will allow them to take their fake news to the next level.
Wade turns the television to Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist with nearly 1.4 million followers on Facebook, who is the opportunist they would most like to become.
You get a gig like that, after all, and you've got the ear of the next president of the United States.
What's perhaps most fascinating here is that Wade seems to have no hesitation about telling his Washington Post interviewer that everything he posts is for angry pro-Trump rubes. He clearly doesn't think that any of the people getting his Facebook-shared stories will notice or care that he's openly admitting to bullshitting them. He's laughing about his “yellow journalism” as he types up the headlines. He's scurrying to tone down a post after his Trump-supporting commenters start talking about violence against Trump's critics. He's musing about opening a fake news site for the anti-Trump side as well, just to capitalize on that new revenue stream. He voted for Obama.
There are times when Wade wonders what it would be like to write an article he truly believes in.
Now there's a movie plot for our times: Fake news writer dreams of someday writing real news. With the right songs, we have ourselves the next Disney princess.
Oh, as for where that fake news comes from? It's not a problem. Like, at all.
Wade writes about a rumor he has seen on Fox News’s website, which says “the new batch of anti-Trump protesters has been bankrolled by individuals like billionaire liberal activist George Soros and groups like Moveon.org.”
It's the circle of bullshit. And Trump supporters are going to see this, and are going to realize they're getting played, and are going to ... keep clicking anyway. Because who the hell cares?