Nothing like a little bit of corporate sabotage!
The software developers who created Lemmy openly criticize systems of government and economics. These are nation-state battlegrounds too. The barrier to entrance is very low, as Lemmy doesn't even do routine tracking of account creation, rate-limiting alone isn't really defensive. 15 years ago sites like Reddit had major vote manipulation detection logic behind the scenes. This is pretty much unleashed playground for a lot of known tactics.
The meme itself is a kind of evidence, regardless of the underlying truth of the claims. Popular actors and what's used in commercials is often run through A/B testing to find out what people react the most to.
Trump as an icon very much was crafted just like this artists story;... he has crossed into the key spotlight point several times in his life. As much as almost anyone in human history. My concern isn't just that people dream of icons like this, but that they can't seem to tell when it is a nightmare and negative - and they are drawn to it. Which Trump isn't a novelty meme or art project.
Yes crazies are getting crazier and louder
It isn't just their words, since 2014 they believe all kinds of wild things, and the pandemic was just one example of how they act out on these belief as business owners, neighbors, organizations. It isn't just politics.
Already evidence that they didn't understand what Hitler was and just symbolically associated black color with bad things.
I wouldn't be concerned about trending itself, it's that people seem to be favoring trends that are objectively bad. The pandemic people kept saying it wasn't real and would go away when summer of 2020 came... but that proved wrong, and so few seem to want to learn from the lesson of going against science in favor of Fox News or whatever other negative trend that crowds keep following. If we were trending towards building affordable houses for more people and sheltering the homeless and not making rent lock people into jobs they don't want - I'd thing it was progress. But right now, the crowds seem to be flocking to some negative-oriented Nazi kind of shit.
This isn't shitpost material, this is reality of how the human mind works, and www.thisman.org that you linked is another example of the human brain works. This s the very meaning of 'Demon-Haunted World', where people compulsively flock and put their faith into someone without scrutinizing the actions the person or system is taking. People read a book and say they personally know Jesus... if you haven't met such a person in your lifetime if you have lived in North America, I'd be surprised.
This isn't shitpost material, this is the nightmare of reality that's trending towards self-destruction. Since 2014 crowds have been flocking to icons and symbols of things that are objectively bad.
Ok, I've got it wrong, you said hundreds, this is a shitpost.
I tend to witness it like you describe too. I do not see people saying "oh, we were wrong, the pandemic wasn't going to be over by Easter 2000 and it went on for years"... or really kind of admit that Fox News mislead them, or Alex Jones is a liar and they want to make sure that skills like his don't keep influencing the next generation.
Why can't people blame advertising for being fat... do you really need McDonald's and Burger King reminding you all the time that they have food? At what point do you realize the influence that can be scientifically measured with advertising is real. What would the side-effects be of too powerful of advertising, Donald Trump? Obesity icon? If an advert does not work, they change technique, media outlet, agency, or they run it at a different time, they very much measure the increased sales. At what point do you look at your brain and go - oh, I can't defend against weaponized snack food and soda. It's engineered to make me crave it.
It's a very personal experience. It really doesn't take long to be exposed to something, maybe even a movie, through advertising instead of a friend actually recommending it to you personally based on experience.
why would you want to live knowing there are profiting manipulating you to purchase things you don't really want and vote for people that don't deserve it, etc. At what point do you stand up and realize that those people are organized and learning what other people will accept and using it on you? What kind of freedom is this, and why do you want everyone else to be treated this way too.
it is a sort of bug and deep down I think these people either want a rigid hierarchical society
sigh.
It’s quickly stomped out by groupthink.
that's my observation too. Having lived in several parts of the world with very different religions and values... conformity is incredibly important to many people. The proven structure is to market some other group to hate.
But if you’re basically mentally healthy, the signs of cultdom seem so obvious to me that I have a hard time understanding why they don’t see them.
I spent a lot of effort facing the history of humanity was all over the globe people were cultist towards stories that had no basis in realty. They set food laws, clothing rules, marriage - all based on childhood stories they are raised on - much like the spoken/written language they were raised on.
I think people raised on Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Fox News - aren't much different. It seems the human pattern is global and people who actually want to take a science thinking attitude of sincere facts and honest leaders.
it's exclusive problem to lemmy.world's DDOS prevention attempts as far as I know, so no idea.
He learned from the best... George Lucas did everything he could with Bill Moyers to open source the whole humanity meme pattern inspiration in Star Wars. He was trying to tie pre-film, pre-cinema, patterns to film. Passing down the meat and potatoes of society to each generation.
The federal governments of several nations should be in pursuit of this, and IP addresses and specific time logs shared.