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Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and I love all things tech, and today

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Speaker 1: we're going to cover an interesting topic. There was a

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Speaker 1: suggestion from Shaye Lee. And you might remember Shay in

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Speaker 1: her alter ego as al Amona, who sabotaged my episode

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Speaker 1: about how matches work, and now she's back. Hi, Shay Hi,

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Speaker 1: I heard Alimona ran off with the quister. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the union made in. They're just gonna burn it all

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Speaker 1: to the ground, burn it all down. So to give

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Speaker 1: some background on what this episode is all about, Shaye

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Speaker 1: reached out to me and asked if I had ever

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Speaker 1: done an episode about a specific piece of internet folklore

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Speaker 1: called aratus, and we're going to get to that. We

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Speaker 1: communicate in stories and your traditional folklore. These are the

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Speaker 1: tales that are passed around. Typically they're not even written

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Speaker 1: down there, their oral traditions. It's told around the campfire.

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Speaker 1: And now the campfires turned into creepy pasta, yes, which

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Speaker 1: we will talk about. So you know that that also

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Speaker 1: developed into things that we call urban legends. Urban leges

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Speaker 1: is just another type of folklore. But it was a

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Speaker 1: subset of folklore that kind of grew into as we

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Speaker 1: started to see the industrial revolution. We saw people move

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Speaker 1: to the cities. You know, it became less of an

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Speaker 1: agrarian world, and a lot lots of the uh, A

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Speaker 1: lot of regions in the around the world became more

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Speaker 1: urban and less agrarian, and a different set of folklore

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Speaker 1: tales started to arise. A lot of them are like

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Speaker 1: tales of warning. Yeah, you say, like don't trust strangers tales. Yes,

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Speaker 1: a lot of morality tales too, Yeah, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are like, see what happens if you do this

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Speaker 1: thing that breaks our social morays? You will suffer like

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Speaker 1: these people did. Yeah, see what happens when you take

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Speaker 1: candy and or apples from strange women in the woods, right, right,

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Speaker 1: Except now it's like when you're going trick or treating,

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Speaker 1: if you don't check all the candy, you're going to

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Speaker 1: end up with razor blades and poison. Right. Yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: never found a razor blade in any of my candy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: no one in my twenty seven years of trick or treating,

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Speaker 1: no one ever did until people started worrying about it,

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Speaker 1: and then people would yeah or like or like it

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Speaker 1: would be Oh I discovered this, and it turned out

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Speaker 1: that they had planted their own discovery that kind of thing,

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Speaker 1: kind of like the the murders. Yes. Yes, So one

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Speaker 1: of the things I wanted to to kind of allude

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Speaker 1: to to kind of set the stage for the stuff

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about today, which is the more internet

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Speaker 1: based stuff. I'm just going to give an example of

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite urban legends of all time. It's

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Speaker 1: a It's one that's been told a billion different times.

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Speaker 1: It's been written in lots of different anthologies. Shay, you'll

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Speaker 1: appreciate this. When I was in uh elementary school and

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Speaker 1: middle school, the books I checked out the most in

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Speaker 1: my school library, we're all about urban legends, ghosts, and

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Speaker 1: other types of paranormal, supernatural kind of stuff. We have

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Speaker 1: that in common because I did the exact same thing.

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Speaker 1: I stopped believing in it. So that's where our path divulge, No,

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Speaker 1: so diverted, I should say. So. The story I want

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Speaker 1: to tell is the Vanishing Hitchhecker story. Classic story. So

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Speaker 1: the basic version of the story goes, a guy's driving

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Speaker 1: down a road, a dark country road at night. The

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Speaker 1: rain is coming down really hard, it's hard to see,

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Speaker 1: and as he's driving down the road, he sees a

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Speaker 1: young woman walking along the side the road, and so,

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Speaker 1: not wanting her to get totally frozen out in the

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Speaker 1: pouring rain, he pulls over and offers her a ride,

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Speaker 1: and she gets in the back seat of his car,

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Speaker 1: and out of a sense of a concern for her,

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Speaker 1: he gives her his jacket to wrap around herself, and

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Speaker 1: then she gives him an address, and so he starts

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Speaker 1: to drive, and otherwise she doesn't really communicate with him.

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Speaker 1: He gets to the address. When he gets there, he

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Speaker 1: looks in the back seat and the girl's gone, and

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Speaker 1: he never heard the car door open or anything. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't know what happened, and his jacket is gone as well.

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Speaker 1: There's just a like a the seats wet from where

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Speaker 1: she had been because of the pouring rain, but otherwise

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Speaker 1: there's no indication. So he goes to the house where

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Speaker 1: he had the address and knocks on the door to

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Speaker 1: find out what the heck is going on. Woman answers

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Speaker 1: the door. Typically it's a woman in this in this legend,

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Speaker 1: he explains what has happened. The woman goes pale and says,

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Speaker 1: no one by that description lives here. But there was

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Speaker 1: a young woman whose family lived here before us, but

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Speaker 1: she died years ago and she's buried at such and

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Speaker 1: such cemetery. So he goes to the cemetery, and when

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Speaker 1: he comes up on the grave of the young woman,

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Speaker 1: there's his jacket resting on her gravestone vanishing. Hi. Oh,

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Speaker 1: and it's considerate to leave his jacket behind. Yeah, Otherwise

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Speaker 1: she's up with teen angel and looking at rings and

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Speaker 1: jackets that are just an accumulation of wealth that they've

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Speaker 1: had over the years. I remember that movie vaguely. Well,

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Speaker 1: I was talking about the song, but there's a whole

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Speaker 1: genre of music that's dedicated to teenagers dying. So that's

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Speaker 1: an example of an urban legend. It's one that's been told. Like,

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Speaker 1: there's lots of variations. Well, the Internet has its own

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Speaker 1: versions of this, and we're also going to talk about

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Speaker 1: in this episode how the Internet reinforces the communication of

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Speaker 1: these stories and reinforces people's belief in it, largely through

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Speaker 1: the behavior of those who are sharing the stories and

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Speaker 1: also the way the platform themselves work. So you mentioned

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Speaker 1: creepy pasta. Let's explain what creepy pasta is, and I

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Speaker 1: guess first we have to explain what copy pasta is,

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Speaker 1: because creepy pasta is a subset of copy pasta. Before

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Speaker 1: I learned it from you, I actually didn't know that

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Speaker 1: creepy pasta was a subset of copy pasta. I just

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Speaker 1: thought it was its own thing, just the name of

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Speaker 1: a forum, because no one ever talks about copy pasta anymore.

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Speaker 1: But the it's it's a sort of a portmanteau of

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Speaker 1: copy paste, right, and it's the fact that a lot

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Speaker 1: of people to share stories. What they would do is

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Speaker 1: they would find something on the Internet that was interesting,

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Speaker 1: maybe in a message board or whatever, copy it and

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Speaker 1: then paste into some other message board or whatever, and

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Speaker 1: that's yeah. Usually there was no attribution, like I often

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Speaker 1: expelled for that if I tried that. Well, they weren't

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Speaker 1: necessarily they weren't necessarily trying to pass it off as

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Speaker 1: their own work, but rather like I saw this crazy

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Speaker 1: story or this funny joke or whatever it might be.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes when you're doing that copy and basing, well

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Speaker 1: one you might lose the attribution, so you don't know

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Speaker 1: who originated the thing and to sometimes you lose the context,

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Speaker 1: like is this a joke? Is it a piece of fiction?

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Speaker 1: Is it supposed to be an account of something that

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Speaker 1: actually happened. Creepy pasta is a subset where it's specifically

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Speaker 1: about spooky, creepy paranormal typically kind of stuff, but not

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Speaker 1: necessarily paranormal, but often paranormal, or like the unnamed serial

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Speaker 1: killers of Yeah, like the hook that's hanging on the

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Speaker 1: card door, that kind of just the killer. Do you

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Speaker 1: know who Jeff Jeff the Killer. I do not know

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Speaker 1: who Jeff the Killer is. Jeff the Killer is weird

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Speaker 1: because it's in his name. Yeah, you would think, well,

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Speaker 1: Jeff the Killer is a Baker obviously, listen, sorry, listen,

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Speaker 1: my dad was Jeff the Killer Jeff Baker. And um,

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Speaker 1: kind of a boogeyman type story, very like how he

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Speaker 1: comes into your room if you don't share this, or

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Speaker 1: if you share it a number of times or YadA yadya,

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Speaker 1: and um that for me, the story isn't what's important.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen pictures of him when you're just

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Speaker 1: scrolling through Facebook. Have you seen like the picture it's

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Speaker 1: like a big white creepy face that it's been so

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Speaker 1: edited that there's like no nose and just a big

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Speaker 1: creepy smile and huge eyes, and it usually has like

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Speaker 1: a caption that says, go to sleep under it, or

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Speaker 1: I probably have. Yeah, I've seen a lot on the internet.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember most of it. But um, so, Jeff

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Speaker 1: the Killer. There's many incarnations of Jeff the Killer. There's

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Speaker 1: you know, the creepy guy that comes into your bedroom

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Speaker 1: and kills you and all that. Oh yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's so inconvenient and inconsiderate, but um they're because of

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Speaker 1: creepy Pasta and just all the threads abut Jeff the Killer.

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Speaker 1: There were Jeff the Killer fan girls that would draw

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Speaker 1: a little like a little romantic, you know, heart images

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Speaker 1: of him as as Yeah, as if that's like they're

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Speaker 1: they're brad Pitt that this is this is messed up.

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Speaker 1: So we wanted to talk a little bit about a

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Speaker 1: couple of examples of creepypasta. This is just the beginning

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Speaker 1: of this episode. Two each each section we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about a different kind of subset of Internet folklore.

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Speaker 1: But creepy Pasta is one that is pretty easy to reference,

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Speaker 1: and uh, one example of it although it didn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: start as creepy pasta itself, because creepy pasta tends to

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Speaker 1: be in the form of some sort of story. Um.

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Speaker 1: A lot of early types of creepypasta fell into one

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Speaker 1: of two categories. It was a story about something that

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Speaker 1: supposedly happened to someone, and it could it could be

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Speaker 1: presented as fiction. You didn't have to present it as

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Speaker 1: if it were real, but it's it's given in that

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Speaker 1: sort of tale, or it was you know, lost episodes

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Speaker 1: of certain types of shows or movies or things that

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Speaker 1: that uh no longer are shown, but they do exist

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Speaker 1: and there's something creepy about what happened, Like it's that

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Speaker 1: one really dark episode of Gilligan's Island. There are versions

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Speaker 1: of of it. Now that that particular style of creepy

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Speaker 1: pasta fell out of favor fairly quickly, Like it was

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Speaker 1: kind of like a creepy version of fan fiction. But

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Speaker 1: one of the most prominent examples is slender Man, which

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Speaker 1: didn't start off, as I said, as creepy pasta. It

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Speaker 1: started off as kind of an exercise. Uh. There was

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Speaker 1: the Something Awful forums forum board on the Internet, so

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Speaker 1: people would get together and have conversations about different topics,

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Speaker 1: and this was particularly in a thread that was titled

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Speaker 1: create Paranormal Images. So it's just people trying to use

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Speaker 1: photoshop to create images that were unsettling or had some

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Speaker 1: sort of alien or paranormal aspect to them, Like the

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Speaker 1: idea like make something that if you were to look

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Speaker 1: at people would go like, ooh, that's what is that?

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Speaker 1: That's creepy. Yeah. So this guy named Eric Knudson created

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Speaker 1: a a picture of an elongated, like an unnaturally tall,

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Speaker 1: unnaturally thin figure with an odd like obscured face, and

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Speaker 1: it became known as the slender Man. He also included

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Speaker 1: a little bit of flavor text to kind of give

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Speaker 1: some very shifty background on this character and attaching him

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Speaker 1: to the fictional fire. And then the Internet took that

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Speaker 1: boy Haldy. Yeah. So there were all these different people

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Speaker 1: who contributed to flushing out the mythology behind slender Man.

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Speaker 1: So the legend of Slenderman grew online, right, and it's

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Speaker 1: on all these different communities and people within that thread

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Speaker 1: had already predicted that some of the images that were

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Speaker 1: being made were likely going to end up on websites

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Speaker 1: about the paranormal, but they would be submitted as if

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Speaker 1: they were genuine examples of evidence, as opposed to somebody

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Speaker 1: specifically crafted this and in fact that did happen, including

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Speaker 1: with slender Man. And so that's where we started seeing

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Speaker 1: more discussions about it, including people who are sure that

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Speaker 1: they had heard of this character before and in fact,

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Speaker 1: that was one of the points you wanted to make, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I worked with a girl a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: about five years ago. She swore up and down that

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Speaker 1: she and a bunch of internet friends contributed to, uh,

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Speaker 1: the creation of slenderman um. Not I don't. She didn't

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Speaker 1: mention anything about the photoshop. But the way, if I

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Speaker 1: can remember it correctly, the way she presented it to

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Speaker 1: me was that she and a couple of friends were

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Speaker 1: just chatting over the Internet and somebody on the thread

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Speaker 1: or the forum said, hey, let's make a legend and

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Speaker 1: or let's make a let's let's make an urban legend.

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Speaker 1: And they probably already had their you know, base material

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Speaker 1: with the pictures and the other flavor text and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But she swears up and down that she contributed to

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Speaker 1: the creation of slenderman um. Red Letter Media believes that

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Speaker 1: they contributed to the creation of Slenderman. There's a video

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Speaker 1: called very appropriately did red Letter Media in Vince Slenderman

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Speaker 1: Um three guesses about what that video is, and it

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Speaker 1: was mostly done tongue in cheet. Yeah, but they their

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Speaker 1: criteria is that they made a short film that had

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Speaker 1: a character that was bald and war suit. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and he was ominous, so that makes him Slenderman. But

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Speaker 1: by that, by that criteria than like the Gentleman and

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Speaker 1: from Buffy are Slenderman from the episode Hush and the

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Speaker 1: silence from Yeah, he's Slenderman, and you know, ominous bald

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Speaker 1: guys your Slenderman? Dude, are you? Are you Slenderman? I'm

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Speaker 1: only I'm only ominous when I'm walking to work. When

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Speaker 1: I'm walking away from work, I'm whistling and I'm jaunty. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 1: that's a good point. And like when we were sort

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Speaker 1: of brainstorming this episode, one thing she said that really

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Speaker 1: stuck with me is like everybody made slender Man, Like

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Speaker 1: every Yeah, it was like one of those stories where

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Speaker 1: you're just like the Internet's baby. We all made him.

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Speaker 1: But but his actual creation date is something that we

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Speaker 1: can trace back to that photoshop thread, which we even

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Speaker 1: know when that was originally posted, which was June eight,

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine. It is so rare when you can

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Speaker 1: actually trace a legend back to its point of origin. Now, granted,

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Speaker 1: it grew much larger than that thread, and in fact

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Speaker 1: it even factors into a real world crime. And um,

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Speaker 1: this is what I'm sure anyone who's followed the story

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Speaker 1: of Slenderman knows about. There were a group of young

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Speaker 1: girls in Wisconsin and two They were all friends, and

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Speaker 1: two of the friends lured the third one out to

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Speaker 1: a remote location and then stabbed her. Uh. She fortunately

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Speaker 1: was survived the the attack and made a full recovery. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the two attackers were committed to mental health institutions

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Speaker 1: for at least you know a while you said that

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Speaker 1: one of them is is currently coming up for parole soon.

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Speaker 1: I I didn't actually read the article on it. While

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Speaker 1: I was scrolling through the social media interwebs one day,

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Speaker 1: I saw an article. I didn't read the article, but

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Speaker 1: I saw the headline said, Um, one of them was

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Speaker 1: up for parole, and apparently the family of the victim

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Speaker 1: is not very happy about that. Understandably, so understandable. It

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Speaker 1: is certainly one of those stories where you feel awful

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Speaker 1: for everybody. You feel terrible for people who have lost

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Speaker 1: enough connection with reality to not be able to tell

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Speaker 1: the difference between a fantasy and what is actually real.

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Speaker 1: But then when you're a kid, that's that's a tough

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Speaker 1: distinction to make. Honestly, these days, as an adult, it

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Speaker 1: could be a pretty tough distinction to make. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of misinformation out there, and the whole thing with

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Speaker 1: internet folklore is that the problem with it is that

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Speaker 1: so much of it seems real. It's presented as it's

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Speaker 1: completely sincere and real. Yeah, I mean, I would like

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Speaker 1: to think that I don't believe in a tall child

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Speaker 1: snatching bald guy, but I mean at late at night,

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Speaker 1: you see something like this and your imagination starts to

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Speaker 1: fill in gaps and then you know, you start to

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Speaker 1: you start to believe things that are not necessarily true

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Speaker 1: might be true. Yeah, we wanted to chat a little

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Speaker 1: bit about also a couple of other examples of creepy

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Speaker 1: pasta really quickly. And this next one was one that

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Speaker 1: surprised me because you also mentioned candle Cove, which I

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Speaker 1: had not heard of before you mentioned it. I hadn't

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Speaker 1: heard of anything about candle Cove until maybe a year

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Speaker 1: and a half ago. Um, I was just I was

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Speaker 1: at my mom's house one day visiting and she and

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Speaker 1: my stepdad were really into the show and it was

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Speaker 1: candle and it's the show I think it was on

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Speaker 1: SI Fi. There was there. It's their Channel zero series. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what tripped me up. But yeah, it was a

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Speaker 1: show called Candle Cove and they were really into it,

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Speaker 1: and she was explaining to me, you know, the the premise,

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Speaker 1: the pres sounded familiar, so I don't know if I had,

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Speaker 1: you know, encountered the encounter the original, but I looked

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Speaker 1: it up because honestly, the reason I was looking it

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Speaker 1: up is that I recognized one of the actors from

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Speaker 1: Parks and rec and I wanted to figure out what

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Speaker 1: his name was. And as I was looking it up,

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Speaker 1: all the information about how Candle Cove started off as

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Speaker 1: I don't think it was on Creepy Pasta, but it was.

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Speaker 1: It was definitely a Creepy Pasta style story. Yes it was.

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Speaker 1: It was written by a guy named Chris Straub. And

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Speaker 1: what's funny is I've talked to Chris Straub personally years ago.

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Speaker 1: So Chris Straub is also a web comic list and

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Speaker 1: I wrote for how Stuff Works dot com. I wrote

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Speaker 1: the article how web Comics Work, and he was one

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Speaker 1: of my sources, and I did a full interview with him,

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Speaker 1: chatted with him for about probably an hour while I

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Speaker 1: was researching this work. And uh, it's so interesting because

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Speaker 1: again I had no idea until we started researching this

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Speaker 1: episode that he had contributed this piece of internet lore.

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Speaker 1: So the original work is presented as a series of posts,

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Speaker 1: again on a message board, so it seemingly a lot

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Speaker 1: of contributors. Yes, but but it's it's the work of

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Speaker 1: fiction of one person, but presented in the way as

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Speaker 1: if it's a thread, a conversational thread between multiple people

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Speaker 1: who all remember this children's show that no one else

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Speaker 1: seems to realize existed. And it starts off pretty innocently, like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: does anyone else here happen to remember this show? I

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Speaker 1: remember watching it as a kid, but I don't. I

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Speaker 1: can't find anything about it, and so I'm wondering, like

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Speaker 1: I just imagine it, and other people say, oh no,

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Speaker 1: I remember that show too, and again this is all

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Speaker 1: part of the fiction. Yeah. I think like the big

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Speaker 1: twist is not only as the show super creepy, as

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Speaker 1: people remember more and more about it, it starts to

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Speaker 1: appear more and more sinister. But one of the details

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Speaker 1: released is that, uh, the person who star the thread

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Speaker 1: chatted with his mother about what had happened, and his

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Speaker 1: mother said, oh, you would always say that you went

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Speaker 1: to want to watch a show called candle Cove, but

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Speaker 1: you just changed the channel to static and sat there

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Speaker 1: and stared at it for thirty minutes. Yeah. So again,

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Speaker 1: very very kind of creepy premise. But that has taken

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Speaker 1: a life of its own, where not only is it

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Speaker 1: a television series on sci fi where they take elements

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Speaker 1: of that and they wrap other narrative around it, um,

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Speaker 1: but on top of that, like I even debate on

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Speaker 1: using on including this because I thought, well, clearly this

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Speaker 1: is the work of fiction. People know it's work of fiction. No,

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Speaker 1: there are YouTube interviews are in YouTube videos I should

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Speaker 1: say titled is was Candle Cove a real TV show?

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Speaker 1: And I thought, well, if you have to make a

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Speaker 1: video about it, then there are people wondering about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because there's there's videos of like original Candle Cove episodes

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Speaker 1: which I'm pretty sure are just lifted from the show

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Speaker 1: or base or there might be some like fan made

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Speaker 1: things because there were fan fictions written about candle Cove. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now a lot of these actually would get a lot

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Speaker 1: of fan fiction added to it. And Uh, the other

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Speaker 1: thing that this reminds me of is something called the

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Speaker 1: Mandola effect. Um. Actually that's technically the Mandela effect, but

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Speaker 1: I've heard it pronounced the wrong way. But it's named

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Speaker 1: after Nelson Mandela. So have you heard of this effect.

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Speaker 1: I've heard of the effect. I don't actually know why.

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Speaker 1: It's called the Mandela effect. So Nelson Mandela was imprisoned

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Speaker 1: for many, many years, and the Mandela effect refers to

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Speaker 1: this belief that people had that they had heard newscasters

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties announced that Nelson Mandela had passed

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Speaker 1: away while in prison, but that never happened. But people

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Speaker 1: swear they remember seeing those newscasts, but it never happened.

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Speaker 1: There are other examples of this. Uh. The two that

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Speaker 1: people tend to site pretty frequently are the Bernstein Bears,

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Speaker 1: where it's it's spelled stain at the end. That's the

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Speaker 1: correct spelling, but everyone thinks it's steen s T E

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Speaker 1: I n instead of s T A I n um,

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Speaker 1: and they swear like no I have a book and

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Speaker 1: it's spelled the other way. It's the barn steam Bears,

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Speaker 1: the barn Stain Bears, and the other one is Uh.

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Speaker 1: Everyone's convinced that the comedian Sindbad was in a movie

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Speaker 1: in which he played a genie named Shazam. Apparently he

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Speaker 1: was in like a weird promo where he was a genie,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't there. There was no movie because there

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Speaker 1: was no Yeah, but those are all like Internet legends

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Speaker 1: that ended up sort of get growing, and this man

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Speaker 1: Mandela effect or Mandela effect had this added benefit of

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Speaker 1: people hearing something and then convincing themselves that they too

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Speaker 1: had experienced it, which is kind of interesting. Now we

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Speaker 1: actually have tons more we could talk about, like their

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Speaker 1: other LM monts, not just creepy pasta. There's stuff like

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Speaker 1: inspirational stories that are referred to as glurge, where I've

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Speaker 1: never heard refer to it as that it's you had

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Speaker 1: to be on snopes dot com back in the day

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Speaker 1: on those message boards, but glurge refers to stories that

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Speaker 1: are meant to tap into those sort of sappy emotions

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Speaker 1: that we have. Uh. They also tend to be kind

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Speaker 1: of dark under the surface, but it's it's the inspirational

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Speaker 1: story counterpart to creepy pasta, except it's often passed as

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Speaker 1: it really happened, and it turns out it's never anything verifiable.

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Speaker 1: But rather than go on all arounte about that, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about some conspiracy theories. Now, we started

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Speaker 1: off this episode talking about works of fiction that aren't

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Speaker 1: necessarily intended to be taken seriously, but sometimes take a

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Speaker 1: life of their own outside of their point of origin,

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Speaker 1: and then they are taken seriously. There are other times

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Speaker 1: where there's just a joke or a hoax that people

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Speaker 1: end up taking as a sincere message. And the first

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Speaker 1: one I wanted to mention is is one of the

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Speaker 1: earliest examples of an Internet hoax. It actually dates to December,

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Speaker 1: when very few people even knew what the Internet was,

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Speaker 1: and it all involves the company Microsoft supposedly acquiring the

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Speaker 1: Catholic Church. Huh, you're a Catholic, so so do you

404
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Speaker 1: own shares in Microsoft? Is that how it works? I

405
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Speaker 1: mean I have a Mac, so I don't. I don't

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Speaker 1: know that's true. It's right in front of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I if if my mom's secretly owned shares and Microsoft,

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Speaker 1: then you know she's got some splain in too, do Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So had you heard of this before? I actually never

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Speaker 1: have maybe, And I went to Catholic school for so

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Speaker 1: many years in my life, I'm surprised I never heard

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Speaker 1: this four. How old were you in ninety four? I

413
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Speaker 1: was two, okay, maybe that's why you didn't hear about it, okay,

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Speaker 1: whereas I was older than that. So this was a joke,

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Speaker 1: and it was clearly a joke. It was a press release,

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Speaker 1: supposed press release, but it was, you know, a joke

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Speaker 1: in the form of a press release supposedly from the

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Speaker 1: Associated Press, which is you know, it's a legitimate organization. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It even had a byline by Hank Vorhez was supposedly

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Speaker 1: the name of the person who who wrote up this

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Speaker 1: press release in your relation to Jason, not Vorhees. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: uh yeah. And I even wrote, just imagine what Clippy

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Speaker 1: would be like. So you're trying to transubstantiate, would you

424
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: like some help? Um? So? Yeah. The the hoax, the

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Speaker 1: press release hoax even included a host in quote from

426
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: Bill Gates, who was referring to religion as a growth market.

427
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: Obviously that was part of the joke. And I said

428
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: that Microsoft would get exclusive electronic publication rights to the Bible,

429
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: so they would be able to only one version of it,

430
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: not the King James, and that would be the yeah,

431
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: be it would be whatever is the most Catholic version. Yeah,

432
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 1: the longer version, the Catholic version of anything. Is the

433
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: longer version ever been to a Catholic wedding. Yes, I

434
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: had still going on. I know I had to sneak out.

435
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: That was seven years ago. But yeah, this, like I said,

436
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear it was a joke. And yet

437
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: there are people who either they got mad because they

438
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: thought that Microsoft had been perpetuating this joke and they

439
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: said this is in poor taste and Microsoft got flooded

440
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: with complaints, or there were a few people who thought

441
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: it was a genuine press release and they were horrified

442
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: about it, and they were reaching out the Microsoft express

443
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: their horror and concern. It got so bad that Microsoft

444
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: actually formally denounced the joke on December six, released its

445
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: own press release to say, no, we had nothing to

446
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: do with this announcement. We definitely did not buy the

447
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: Catholic Church. We know, we don't know who it was

448
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: that created this, We have no connection to it. We

449
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: are sorry that you're upset, which was weird that they

450
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: were apologizing for something that they literally had no control over.

451
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: I mean, this wouldn't be the only time that Microsoft

452
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: would get connected to Internet legends and hoaxes. There's there

453
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: were also ones that said if you forward this email,

454
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: then Bill Gates is going to give you like dollars,

455
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 1: which was never true. Oh those chain letters, I remember

456
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: those email chain letters quite well. Yeah, thankfully those have

457
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: kind of died down. But you sometimes will see the

458
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: equivalent on Facebook where it will be like usually Facebook,

459
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: it's share this, but don't share it copy and pasted.

460
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: And by the way, cut that message. Don't share this

461
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: copy and pasted. That's pretty much a dead giveaway that

462
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 1: what what you're being asked to do is to perpetuate

463
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: a hoax, because the justification usually get is we don't

464
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: want the people who are most vulnerable to be targeted,

465
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: so therefore, copy and paste it or Facebook's algorithms will

466
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 1: not promote this if you share it. That's not true.

467
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: The reason they don't want you to share it is

468
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: because if you share it rather than copy and pasted Yeah,

469
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: you can trace it back to the point of origin.

470
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: So sounds but the Microsoft Catholic Church stuff sounds a

471
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: little Jonathan swift E. Yeah, it was a it was

472
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: a pretty odd thing to see become, you know, a

473
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: hoax level. Again, I don't think it was intended as

474
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,719
Speaker 1: a hoax. Like to me, this sounds like an onion

475
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: article and someone mistaken believing that a satirical article is

476
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: a real thing, like a modest proposal type of stuff. Yeah,

477
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: And when you when you see people taking something that

478
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: was meant as satire, sincerely, that's not scary. It is scary,

479
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: although sometimes it's you could also argue some people are

480
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: just really bad at satire, and sometimes things that people

481
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: claim our satire just are lies. S satirical, it's just

482
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: a lie. And uh, you know, perpetuating a lie and

483
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: then telling people, oh no it's satire. That's not to

484
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: get out of jail free card. My joke didn't land.

485
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: Oh don't worry, it was just satire. Yeah, no, it wasn't.

486
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: It was a bad joke, right right, or or there's no,

487
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: there was no joke structure there. You were just telling falsehoods.

488
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: Then you got mad when you got called out on it.

489
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: So that is a very early example. And then the

490
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: next one is sort of the genesis for this whole episode,

491
00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: the eratus story E R R A t A S.

492
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: Although sometimes it's just with one R R A T

493
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:05,959
Speaker 1: A S. I'm glad that you've established that we were

494
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: saying erratas not not not erotic, or I was saying

495
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: like aratus. Well, it's a rata. Errata is already plural,

496
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: so it's already it's already got a problem with it. Yeah,

497
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: because it's it's pluralized, uh in an Anglican way. But

498
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: arrata would already be the plural and it means like errors. Right.

499
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: You typically would say, like you would publish a rata

500
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: to say these are things that we're included in the

501
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: previous published work which there are wrong. Yeah, might be

502
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: a typo, might be that there was a misplaced decimal

503
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: and a figure or something. So the misspelling of erratas

504
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: is in itself of errata to be in a ratum, right,

505
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be. It's errataception. Okay, So this is a

506
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: weird one. It's a very odd story. It's actually kind

507
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: of hard to explain because it gets wrapped up in

508
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: about two or three different kind of weird things. Uh. Supposedly,

509
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: aratus itself refers to some kind of computer algorithm. Yeah,

510
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: that's used by HR or used by companies to remove

511
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: material they don't want on the Internet. Like think of

512
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: it as it's supposedly an algorithm that can seek and

513
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: destroy content and remove it from the Internet automatically. Typically

514
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: described as a way of removing stuff that's infringing on copyright,

515
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: so like a takedown. So let's say that you, I

516
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: don't know, you upload the entire film Berry Gordy's the

517
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: Last Dragon to YouTube, and you just haven't hosted on

518
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: your own account because it's the greatest movie ever made,

519
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: and I will brook no discussion upon the matter, and

520
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: then this ratus computer algorithm would could be could be

521
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: sent to take that down. There's no need for that.

522
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: YouTube has a very effective, some would say over effective

523
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,959
Speaker 1: means of taking down stuff that gets copyright strikes on it,

524
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: either demonetizing it or taking it down entirely, there's no

525
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: need for an algorithm. But the other component to this

526
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: is that supposedly the algorithm could find and remove references

527
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: to itself. Yeah, like if you what it's when I

528
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: was researching, it seemed like it was saying that if you,

529
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: if anybody even typed in erratas into like a search engine,

530
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: it could somehow not really damage your computer, but it

531
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: could like track you just by looking it up or

532
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: something like like Like a lot of stories went were

533
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: about how someone was supposedly working for a company and

534
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: came across some mention of eratus box labeled yeah, or

535
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: like a division that had the name Eratus, and then

536
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: they would do an internal search on their uh intra net,

537
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: right the company's intranet, not the Internet necessarily, and that

538
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: this would suddenly raise an alarm among the big wigs

539
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: and that person would be dismissed, fired from their job,

540
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 1: or they would be discouraged in no uncertain terms to

541
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: leave all that alone. And so it was just this

542
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: idea that it was a forbidden search term to the

543
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: point where people were perpetuating stories that you shouldn't even

544
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: search for it online because it could come back to

545
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: haunt you. Don't even think think. Meanwhile, seemingly not connected

546
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: to this at all, there was a YouTube account created

547
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: called Chronos for Life that appeared to be mostly dedicated

548
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: to a very odd video talking about the Jurassic Park film.

549
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: It was like a fan video of Jurassic Park. And

550
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: have you watched these videos? I didn't watch the video.

551
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: I watched clips of the like snippets of the videos themselves.

552
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: So a lot of the videos have like white text

553
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: on top of there's there's no that's illegible. Yeah, there's no,

554
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: there's no like voice over. It's like the narrator is

555
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: communicating via text, but it's white text over light background.

556
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: So it makes it. And sometimes it's only up for

557
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: a short number of frames, and it's and the video

558
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: itself along with the text is so poor quality no

559
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: matter how you watch it that it's hard to read,

560
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: no matter what. Right, So you get you get the

561
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: sense that the person who made this uh is either

562
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: doing some very interesting but strange performance art, or maybe

563
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: they're not. They're not. Well, that's another possibility, because it

564
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: comes across very disjointed, illogical, difficult to follow, things that

565
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: would typically be unsettling. Yeah, it was kind of conspiratorial,

566
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: but you didn't really know what the conspiracy was, right,

567
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: And then there would be a video that was in

568
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: that same vein, but not about Jurassic Park rather about

569
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:18,479
Speaker 1: how uh this eratus thing was a dark conspiracy and

570
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: I think that it was even Uh the person was

571
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: worried about their mother being under surveillance. Yeah, because the

572
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: mom was the one originally uploading all the Jurassic Park

573
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: videos because or something. And then yeah, that that her

574
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: her own mental acuity was deteriorating as a result of this,

575
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: and yeah, I guess, very very strange. And then uh,

576
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: people found that if they turned on captions for these videos,

577
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 1: because you couldn't really make anything out in the videos,

578
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: but you turn on captions, you would get these captions

579
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: that would not appear otherwise. That left clues, and if

580
00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: you followed the clues, you would eventually find your self

581
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: looking at the band camp page for a band called

582
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: KFC Murder Chicks. Are we going to get sued? No,

583
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: but that's what the band was called. I'm yeah, are

584
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,399
Speaker 1: they going to get sued? But probably not at this point.

585
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 1: It sounds to be like that band has been defunct

586
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: for a long time. So what this eventually appeared to

587
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: be was a case of a person working on a

588
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: music project which largely was based around taking snippets of

589
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: audio from videos and putting it together into really weird

590
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: uh composition. Yeah. The purpose of the band was to

591
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: create a type of music called Internet sounds. Yeah deep Internet, Yeah,

592
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: the deep Internet Sounds, and it was supposed to be

593
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: some sort of weird, distorted background noise. It made me

594
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: think of like a perhaps less focused approach to to

595
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: forrmants as a Negative Land does, and that's a band

596
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: that does a lot of compositions by taking pieces audio

597
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: snippets from different sources and putting them together into very

598
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: interesting uh audio like interesting albums. Actually, in fact, I

599
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,919
Speaker 1: had UH, one of the founding members of Negative Land

600
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: on for a couple of episodes and we talked about

601
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: that work so similar to that, and in fact that

602
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: the person who had UH created these would later say, yeah,

603
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: this was just sort of my attempt to kind of

604
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:42,800
Speaker 1: make something um, but I didn't really have a fully

605
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:44,959
Speaker 1: fleshed out plan on how that was going to work.

606
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: But on the Internet people were following it and filling

607
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: in the gaps and making it more than what it

608
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: was and treating it like, oh, there really is this

609
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: conspiracy out there. And one of the crazy things about

610
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory is that if you come out and tell

611
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: someone no, that was all manufactured, it's not actually a

612
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: conspiracy that ends up being parcy. Yeah, it's a cover up, right, Like,

613
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: so there's no way to disprove a conspiracy to someone

614
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: who's desperately going to follow that conspiracy theory. They they

615
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: they are invested in believing in it, and so any

616
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 1: counter evidence you give was manufactured to discredit the conspiracy,

617
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: but it doesn't disprove it. That kind of thing. So

618
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: this is another one of those cases where again I

619
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 1: I had never even heard of this until you asked

620
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: me about it. I honestly, at the beginning of this week,

621
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: I was just very sick and going through just the interwebs,

622
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:49,399
Speaker 1: and I came across the video about eratas conspiracy, and

623
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 1: I was like, that sounds like something he has talked

624
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: about at some point. I don't know. There are so

625
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: many episodes that I'm not sure. I mean, it may

626
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: turn out that there that I have covered this very

627
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 1: same story. Yeah, and I wouldn't remember this was all

628
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: a conspiracy in and of itself. Well, I think it's

629
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: fascinating and we have a little bit more to talk

630
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: about as far as misinformation goes, where Like in this case,

631
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: I would say that the eradas thing kind of falls

632
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: into the land of the alternate reality game genre. So

633
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: alternate reality games are where you mix reality and the

634
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: fictional world within a game, and um, there are a

635
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: lot of examples. They typically are marketing tools. So for example, AI,

636
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 1: the movie AI, the Spielberg Kubrick film AI had an

637
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: alternate reality game associated with it that a lot of

638
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: people referred to as The Beast, and it was a

639
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: story that played out mostly online, but included some stuff

640
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: where people could interact not just online, but they could

641
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: get faxes and phone calls and stuff. So it was

642
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: like the fictional world of the game would reach across

643
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 1: the barrier between reality and fiction and interact with you

644
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: in ways in the real world that typically games don't.

645
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 1: So it became kind of a role playing game almost, um.

646
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: And I think that that's one version that can end

647
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: up being misconstrued as being reality as opposed to now

648
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: this is a marketing thing, or it's it's meant to

649
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 1: be a game. When we come back, we're gonna talk

650
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: about examples of misinformation that we're created specifically to perpetuate

651
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 1: an agenda, not to create some sort of fiction or

652
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: a game. We'll do that after we come back from

653
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: this quick break. All right, we're getting into the home stretch,

654
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: and this is some of the darkest stuff we have

655
00:40:55,239 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: to talk about. So there are communities out on the

656
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,399
Speaker 1: Internet that so discord and they may do it for

657
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: multiple reasons. They might just want to you know, it

658
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: might be like what Christopher Nolan would say, some people

659
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: just want to watch the world burn. Um. In some cases,

660
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: it's to push a particular agenda that they really believe in,

661
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: or to discredit an agenda that they do not like.

662
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: And um, and all's fair in these communities, and in fact,

663
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,760
Speaker 1: you have multiple people with different motivators, all working towards

664
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,240
Speaker 1: the same goal. Some people may earnestly want to bring

665
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: down something. Some people may just think it's funny to

666
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: see commotion come out of their work, you know. Some

667
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: people just want to get a rise out of people. Um.

668
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: But the communities that we typically see this in the

669
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: most are places like four chan and eight chan, where

670
00:41:56,280 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: we get groups of people who find each other, they

671
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: have some sort of commonality between them, and they know

672
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: how to gamify systems. They know how people think, and

673
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: they know how systems work, and using those two things together,

674
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:20,879
Speaker 1: they can perpetuate misinformation and lies and push forward their

675
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: own agenda. And we've seen that several times over the

676
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: last few years. In particular, so one entity or one

677
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: group would be q and on. Really that's originally an

678
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: entity UH, a person who was posting with the handle

679
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: q um so q and on being anonymous that has

680
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: posted numerous things that were very conspiracy oriented directed at

681
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:59,280
Speaker 1: particular groups or people, for example Hillary Clinton UM and

682
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 1: it ends up being something a narrative that ends up

683
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: being picked up by other people and then presented as

684
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: truth that then gets reinforced again and again to the

685
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: point where you start seeing some of those things that

686
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: have never shown to have any actual truth to them

687
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: being presented by UH by media outlets as truth, usually

688
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: right wing media outlets. You don't tend to see that

689
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: beyond that group, but it has become a real issue.

690
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: And one example of that has been known as pizza Gate.

691
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: And pizza Gate is a pretty a truly terrible story

692
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: UH and it's it's one that alleges that there was

693
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: this particular pizza parlor where secretly there was a pedophilia

694
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: ring running through this this pizza parlor, Like that was

695
00:43:55,880 --> 00:44:00,879
Speaker 1: like the nexus for this pedophilia ring, uh, and that

696
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 1: this establishment also had a connection to the Clintons, And

697
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: there were a lot of different people posting on a

698
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: lot of different platforms that we're trying to substantiate these

699
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: claims that again under investigation, there was no evidence to

700
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: support any of it, but that wasn't what was important.

701
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: What was important was that ground swell of people making

702
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: these allegations and then immediately responding to any criticism by saying,

703
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: you're trying to cover this up and that is unacceptable.

704
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: Their children and they're they're welfare that's at stake and

705
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: how dare you? And I mean, that's a very powerful

706
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: emotional lever to pull. So it was really effective, at

707
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: least in certain circles. Yes. And also it's one of

708
00:44:55,000 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: those arguments where you are confirming so one's bias that's

709
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: directed towards a certain group. Right. So that's one of

710
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: the reasons why we really wanted to talk about this topic.

711
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 1: Two is the idea that why do these things get

712
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: spread so fast and why do they get adopted so quickly?

713
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: And it's a couple of different things. Uh. One of

714
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: the big things is just the way human behavior tends

715
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: to work. So say, if you come up to me

716
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: and you tell me something that that seems to confirm

717
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: a bias I already have, I am more inclined to

718
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: believe you right, because you seem to be telling me

719
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: something that that reinforces a belief I already possess. So

720
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: if I believe I have a sweet, sweet style despite

721
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: all evidence to the contrary, and you come up and

722
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: you say, Wow, you're really got that outfits really well

723
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: put together, you really are looking great today, I can

724
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: sit there and think like, oh, yeah, I knew I

725
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: have a sweet, sweet style, and sheha is just reinforce

726
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: that belief. So while any objective viewer might look at

727
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: me and think this guy doesn't even know how to

728
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: match his socks, I'm walking down the straight thinking I

729
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 1: got sweet sweet style. Yes, But in that case that

730
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: was that's harmless, right. But if I have, let's say

731
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: a different belief. Let's say that I believe that um

732
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: an organization like the Red Cross. Let's say I have

733
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: a belief that the Red Cross is actually doing something

734
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: really nefarious. And then you were to come to me

735
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: and say, I just heard that over in South Carolina

736
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: the Red Cross has quarantined this entire community, and they

737
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: won't tell anyone why. And it's like it doesn't even

738
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:50,360
Speaker 1: have to make any sense, right, It doesn't have to

739
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: have It doesn't have to make any sense you have

740
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: to have you don't have to have any corroborating evidence.

741
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: If it plays into a belief I already have, I

742
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: am more inclined to believe you, So that's part of it.

743
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 1: If it plays on a fear I have, I'm more

744
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: inclined to believe you because if I'm already afraid of

745
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: something and you tell me there's that that fear is

746
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 1: is rational or is you know, legitimate because of some

747
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: other reason, I'm more inclined to believe you. On top

748
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: of that, we have these Internet communities and uh, in

749
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: some cases you might have something like a sub credit

750
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: where you have these people who share some sort of

751
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: common interest or common trait. They will reinforce their beliefs.

752
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: It becomes an echo chamber. But you also have platforms

753
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: like Facebook and Facebook. The way it works is that

754
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: when a post gets a lot of engagement, when people

755
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 1: are leaving comments, when people are sharing it, when people

756
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: are liking it. You know, when people are applying to

757
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:55,439
Speaker 1: one another. Facebook sees that activity, and Facebook makes money

758
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: when people are spending time on Facebook. So if they

759
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 1: see if they being an algorithm, actually it's not even

760
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: a person. If the Facebook algorithm identifies certain posts as

761
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: being really productive from an engagement standpoint, those posts are

762
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: valuable because it means when people see this, they spend

763
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: more time on the platform. When they spend more time

764
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: on the platform, we make more money. So let's promote

765
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: the posts that are getting this kind of crazy engagement.

766
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: And so that's why you see posts that are not

767
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: necessarily sincere or earnest, or accurate or truthful get promoted

768
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: on sites like Facebook. In fact, that's one of the

769
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: big reasons why the United States government has called Facebook

770
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: to task on multiple occasions for perpetuating, you know, quote

771
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: unquote fake news, which I term I hate because it's

772
00:48:54,960 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: often used to discredit actual news while not being applied

773
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 1: to what is truly fake news. But that's neither here

774
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 1: nor there. So it's a tricky situation because as a

775
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:16,240
Speaker 1: as a human being, it's asking what what I'm asking

776
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 1: you to do is to engage your critical thinking skills

777
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: even when you're encountering something that seems to be confirming

778
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: your beliefs, like you have to. You have to apply

779
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 1: critical thinking even in those cases, especially in those cases,

780
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: because that's when your most vulnerable to accepting a lie

781
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: as the truth, When it is telling you something that

782
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: you want to hear, or it's reaffirming something you were

783
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 1: afraid of. That's when you have to apply those critical

784
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 1: thinking skills the most. Because the people who are perpetuating

785
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: this stuff, they already they're aware, at least on a

786
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,399
Speaker 1: certain level of human psychology and how these things work

787
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: and how messages can be delivered in a way that

788
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 1: will get the broadest acceptance. So you have to keep

789
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: that in mind, like they're gamifying the system, and the

790
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 1: system happens to be the way people think and the

791
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: way these communities operate. To quote my favorite musical ever

792
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 1: created um ref Madness the Musical. Okay, I just think

793
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: it was gonna be repo the Genetic Opera, But go ahead,

794
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we could find a connection there

795
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: as well. But refermat the very last line and refor

796
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 1: Madness the Musical is when danger's near, exploit their fear.

797
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: The end will justify the means. Yeah, so this is

798
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 1: not this is not a new idea. I mean, propaganda

799
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: is largely based on this same principle. In fact, you know,

800
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: you could say that a lot of the people who

801
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: are creating this misinformation, they're just following in the same

802
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:54,759
Speaker 1: footsteps as ad executives and uh and and political operatives

803
00:50:54,920 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: have for for decades or longer. Um fax has always

804
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: been part of advertisement pretty much. Oh absolutely, no, I

805
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: mean you look back at like someone. The series mad

806
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: Men was based off of actual advertising executives who really

807
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: did find incredibly creative ways to convince people to buy

808
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 1: stuff that they didn't want or need. And the same

809
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:25,839
Speaker 1: thing is true now about much more critical stuff like

810
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 1: who are leaders are or what policies we should adopt,

811
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: or what groups we should you know, pay attention to.

812
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a you know, while we started

813
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 1: off kind of talking about folklore, the important thing is

814
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: that we need to be able to separate fiction from truth.

815
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: We can still enjoy fiction. I think stuff like creepy

816
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: pasta has a definitely has a place. It just has

817
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 1: a place as accepting it as hey, let's get around

818
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: the fire and tell ghost stories. Not come here. You

819
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 1: need to hear this because it might save your life. Yeah, right,

820
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: that's the difference. We have to be able to differentiate

821
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: those two things. If we don't, we're more likely than

822
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: not to act on incorrect information. So, Jeff, the killer

823
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:17,920
Speaker 1: is not really in your bedroom. I sure hope not.

824
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: I don't have to clean. I would feel so awkward.

825
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'm so sorry for the mess. You've

826
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: been hanging around me too much, apologizing to just kill

827
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: me now because I feel so embarrassed. They'd be like, listen,

828
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: you've maybe he would help you clean it before. I'd say,

829
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: you made your bed, but you clearly haven't. Yeah, well,

830
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:46,479
Speaker 1: I mean he's just gonna dirty it up anyway. Yeah,

831
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 1: that's true. Just stabby step stab, which ironically was the

832
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 1: name of the operation that the two girls who carried

833
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 1: out the slip. Yeah, they called it stabby step stab.

834
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: That is that's actually nothing. Yeah. I thought I was

835
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,279
Speaker 1: just pulling that out of thin air, but then I remember, nope,

836
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: that's what they called that. So that was a callback,

837
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: not on purpose. That was just my brain sabotaging me.

838
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:16,879
Speaker 1: Not not creative. I mean, I know that's the lack

839
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 1: of creativity is not the worst part of the story,

840
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: but problematic part of it. Well, Shaye, thank you for

841
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: your suggestion, Thank you for letting me come on the

842
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: show and annoy you. You didn't didn't annoy me at all.

843
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: It was very helpful, and I am glad to have

844
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: someone to talk with so that it you know, we

845
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: can have that sort of conversation and you can. You know,

846
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:42,479
Speaker 1: you introduced me to stuff I had not heard about,

847
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,320
Speaker 1: and I find a lot of it fascinating. You introduced

848
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 1: me to something I didn't know about that was written

849
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: by a guy I do know, which was weird. Yeah, yeah,

850
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: that was odd. Now I watched the show like in

851
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: its entirety. Now, yeah, now, he wrote the original Creepypasta.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he was connected to the show, except

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Speaker 1: maybe he probably got a credit. Yeah, I probably got

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Speaker 1: like a writer's credit or maybe even like a producer's credit.

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Speaker 1: I I honestly don't know. And honestly, it's not like

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00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: we're friends or anything. I literally interviewed him for an article.

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Speaker 1: So what he's saying is that he wants to be

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Speaker 1: your friends. I mean, that's true. It's true. It's true,

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00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: but it's not not relevant. Okay, So if you guys

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00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, or maybe

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00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 1: there's someone you want me to have on as a guest,

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00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: or maybe you think, why don't you have that shape

863
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 1: person on again? You need to let me know. You

864
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,799
Speaker 1: can reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter. The

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00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 1: handle for both of those is text stuff H s

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00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text

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Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.