Damn, down the rabbit hole I went. Just lost 25 minutes on parrot videos. I wonder if parrots are well schooled in conspiracy theories? Jesus was actually a cockatiel didn't you know.
David this comment broke my brain entirely “ I believe if the media never mentioned this virus and never sold it to the world as they have & we still went on with our lives. No one would even notice or be affected by it, except of course people that would have caught it, just like the flu.”
I'm sympathetic to this view. It's wrong, but I understand how you could land there. We've seen the media get all overexcited about things in the past. There's nothing newrooms love more, especially the 24/7 ones, than a crisis! They get to make special graphics, maybe a theme song.
So it's easy, if you have a sceptical view of the media, to believe the media is hyping a thing.
And then when you add that to early predictions (often not well contextualised by the media who love to present the worst outcome as the likely one) of huge death rates that didn't come to pass, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that it's being made to seem worse than it is.
I liked your line of questioning here. He never felt attacked and we got to see fleshed out responses instead of him shutting down and getting defensive. Also, parrots are jerks and I love them. If they start repeating conspiracy stuff humanity is screwed.
I wonder how much the conspiracy minded fixation on doing your own "research" is because a lot of these people don't feel like they've ever researched anything else before. Presenting uncritically absorbing a bunch of blogs, podcasts and videos as research probably helps make some people more intelligent and invested.
I have no doubt that people doing their own research have no idea how to do academic research, or journalist research. I mean, you just need to look at the sources. Those words are such a trigger for me! Arghhh!!!!
Sorry, I left the very important qualifier out that I think it makes these people *feel* more intelligent and invested! I agree that I don't think that most conspiracists (?) know anything about the research process beyond it's something smart people do.
I think it's a fairly understandable reaction to weaknesses in traditional media. It's not hard to look at traditional media and see that it's often little more than a thin shell around press releases or official talking points. Often it's just syndicated wire content. And we see all those videos about dozens of TV news stations repeating identical scripts.
So it's not hard to come away from that with the idea that the media is "controlled" (it's not - but the reality is complex and there are real flaws).
Once you think the "mainstream media" is not telling you the truth then you start looking for someone who is. And you're obviously going to land on people who are saying the opposite - pushing the conspiracy theories - because independent sources saying the same as the mainstream media are obviously also controlled, right?
I think for a lot of people that genuinely feels like doing the research. It's going beyond the 'official' truth and finding the things They are trying to hide.
Forget the delusioned, and not all that talented Sesh, the parrots are the best part of this article (sorry David). I had heard the story before but I particularly love this paragraph in the article you linked "Now that the birds have been removed from the public exhibits, some guests are arriving who have heard about the vulgar birds but don’t know which cage they’re in. So they have taken to swearing at all of the birds, hoping they’ll get some abuse back, Mr. Nichols said". It seems they'll have more than 5 swearing parrots to worry about soon :-)
So much of internet *discourse* is based on making the other person feel bad or look stupid, and we tend to paint people who believe in conspiracy theories as dumb or evil. Some of them are! But many are usually decent people who have been misled. This dude seems like a character to say the least (especially with his past history) but the interview made me think that “Sesh” represents a lot of people who believe they’re thinking critically by consuming misinformation. Have to admit I was very surprised that this interview was actually thought-provoking, haha.
I like that he was “shocked, yet not surprised” by the conspiracy theories he read about.
Also, nice how he responds to your skepticism about the conspiracy theories by basically saying that your brain “cannot comprehend that information” or you “just blindly choose to ignore it”.
I don't know who this rapper is; I just came here to say THANK YOU! I subscribed after listening to you on AE. I have been feeling exasperated. Reading Webworm and listening to your podcast has been the release valve on the pressure cooker!
This is really nice to read, RSM. Hope you find some fun stuff in the archives. Been writing this thing since April or so. A few lolz to be had, I hope, in amongst the more serious stuff. Welcome to the 'worm!
I read this while my neighbours in the apartment above me either exercised or did more adult exercise so firstly thank you for the distraction! It’s interesting to see that despite being in England where there is a lot more covid death, the opinions of the conspiracy theorists are pretty much the same, I suppose it doesn’t matter where in the world you are if you read the same stuff it can be applied to however good or bad the situation is! I’m aiming to see these swearing parrots by the end of the year, they’re the only good thing about living in England at the moment. Finally I took my kitten on a walk today, he’s five months old so I have to push him in a pet pushchair and I didn’t see anywhere near as many cats on my walk as you do but I feel like you’re the one person who won’t think I’m truly insane for walking my cat! Anyway have a good day and keep being you, you’re doing amazing!
I will! With any luck there will be no zoo keepers around and I can get some swears out of them! And I wish I could attach a photo, it’s essentially a human pushchair with the seat fully down so my kitten (Moo, named after his cow like markings) can lay down or move about, we saw three dogs and a collection of birds and he went insane for them, I live in a city centre so we can’t walk safely yet but when we can it’ll just be him on a lead, no wheels involved!
Wow thats sad, he sounds like an otherwise intelligent young man. I wonder what his mum and dad think. My daughter is down the rabbit hole and I get really pissed off about the stuff she posts.
Kia ora David. Just stumbled across this old article of yours after finding Sesh in a more recent incarnation and trying to find out more on him.
Looks like he's been recruited by the ACT-adjacent dirty politics network. He's being promoted by the BFD and recently did a video on the trans-rights thing in Auckland which contained a large segment of really poorly masked misogyny (seems to be a theme) and (paraphrased) "kill kill die Chloe Swarbrick / Brooke van der Gun Nut is correct hurr durr vote ACT".
He's being supported (financially and morally) by the newly formed Reality Check Radio bullshit and is engaging in alt-right grift tactics with a familiar grammar.
Check out his Twitter. Not for the faint of heart but of course you're David Farrier so there's no worries there :)
Thought you might be interested to see where he's gone.
What the world needs right now is to hear these swearing parrots. Is there a video somewhere?
Not of these parrots, but a lot of other parrots! An old fav: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw92NgHFqQE
Damn, down the rabbit hole I went. Just lost 25 minutes on parrot videos. I wonder if parrots are well schooled in conspiracy theories? Jesus was actually a cockatiel didn't you know.
This vid made my day. Thanks David!
David this comment broke my brain entirely “ I believe if the media never mentioned this virus and never sold it to the world as they have & we still went on with our lives. No one would even notice or be affected by it, except of course people that would have caught it, just like the flu.”
Caught it, died, etc. Yeah - kinda heard wooshing noises at that point, Emily! Argh!!
I'm sympathetic to this view. It's wrong, but I understand how you could land there. We've seen the media get all overexcited about things in the past. There's nothing newrooms love more, especially the 24/7 ones, than a crisis! They get to make special graphics, maybe a theme song.
So it's easy, if you have a sceptical view of the media, to believe the media is hyping a thing.
And then when you add that to early predictions (often not well contextualised by the media who love to present the worst outcome as the likely one) of huge death rates that didn't come to pass, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that it's being made to seem worse than it is.
I liked your line of questioning here. He never felt attacked and we got to see fleshed out responses instead of him shutting down and getting defensive. Also, parrots are jerks and I love them. If they start repeating conspiracy stuff humanity is screwed.
I wonder how much the conspiracy minded fixation on doing your own "research" is because a lot of these people don't feel like they've ever researched anything else before. Presenting uncritically absorbing a bunch of blogs, podcasts and videos as research probably helps make some people more intelligent and invested.
I have no doubt that people doing their own research have no idea how to do academic research, or journalist research. I mean, you just need to look at the sources. Those words are such a trigger for me! Arghhh!!!!
Sorry, I left the very important qualifier out that I think it makes these people *feel* more intelligent and invested! I agree that I don't think that most conspiracists (?) know anything about the research process beyond it's something smart people do.
I think it's a fairly understandable reaction to weaknesses in traditional media. It's not hard to look at traditional media and see that it's often little more than a thin shell around press releases or official talking points. Often it's just syndicated wire content. And we see all those videos about dozens of TV news stations repeating identical scripts.
So it's not hard to come away from that with the idea that the media is "controlled" (it's not - but the reality is complex and there are real flaws).
Once you think the "mainstream media" is not telling you the truth then you start looking for someone who is. And you're obviously going to land on people who are saying the opposite - pushing the conspiracy theories - because independent sources saying the same as the mainstream media are obviously also controlled, right?
I think for a lot of people that genuinely feels like doing the research. It's going beyond the 'official' truth and finding the things They are trying to hide.
Forget the delusioned, and not all that talented Sesh, the parrots are the best part of this article (sorry David). I had heard the story before but I particularly love this paragraph in the article you linked "Now that the birds have been removed from the public exhibits, some guests are arriving who have heard about the vulgar birds but don’t know which cage they’re in. So they have taken to swearing at all of the birds, hoping they’ll get some abuse back, Mr. Nichols said". It seems they'll have more than 5 swearing parrots to worry about soon :-)
I concur that the parrots win this piece. For obvious reasons.
Hahaha, that’s wonderful!
So much of internet *discourse* is based on making the other person feel bad or look stupid, and we tend to paint people who believe in conspiracy theories as dumb or evil. Some of them are! But many are usually decent people who have been misled. This dude seems like a character to say the least (especially with his past history) but the interview made me think that “Sesh” represents a lot of people who believe they’re thinking critically by consuming misinformation. Have to admit I was very surprised that this interview was actually thought-provoking, haha.
I like that he was “shocked, yet not surprised” by the conspiracy theories he read about.
Also, nice how he responds to your skepticism about the conspiracy theories by basically saying that your brain “cannot comprehend that information” or you “just blindly choose to ignore it”.
Yeah, it's that mentality of "I know more than you". Very appealing mindset.
I don't know who this rapper is; I just came here to say THANK YOU! I subscribed after listening to you on AE. I have been feeling exasperated. Reading Webworm and listening to your podcast has been the release valve on the pressure cooker!
This is really nice to read, RSM. Hope you find some fun stuff in the archives. Been writing this thing since April or so. A few lolz to be had, I hope, in amongst the more serious stuff. Welcome to the 'worm!
I read this while my neighbours in the apartment above me either exercised or did more adult exercise so firstly thank you for the distraction! It’s interesting to see that despite being in England where there is a lot more covid death, the opinions of the conspiracy theorists are pretty much the same, I suppose it doesn’t matter where in the world you are if you read the same stuff it can be applied to however good or bad the situation is! I’m aiming to see these swearing parrots by the end of the year, they’re the only good thing about living in England at the moment. Finally I took my kitten on a walk today, he’s five months old so I have to push him in a pet pushchair and I didn’t see anywhere near as many cats on my walk as you do but I feel like you’re the one person who won’t think I’m truly insane for walking my cat! Anyway have a good day and keep being you, you’re doing amazing!
Lauren...when you see those parrots please send David a video so he can post it here! Now...my BIG question. What is a pet pushchair?? And why?
I will! With any luck there will be no zoo keepers around and I can get some swears out of them! And I wish I could attach a photo, it’s essentially a human pushchair with the seat fully down so my kitten (Moo, named after his cow like markings) can lay down or move about, we saw three dogs and a collection of birds and he went insane for them, I live in a city centre so we can’t walk safely yet but when we can it’ll just be him on a lead, no wheels involved!
I too would like to see a photo of this pet pushchair. But perhaps it is best left in my imagination. It looks grand!
I’ve tweeted you a picture, I hope it’s just as grand as you imagine! (Also cat pics attached)
I just want to hear more from the foulmouthed parrots referenced here. Just some lovely birds mouthing off.
Wow thats sad, he sounds like an otherwise intelligent young man. I wonder what his mum and dad think. My daughter is down the rabbit hole and I get really pissed off about the stuff she posts.
I’m intrigued to know which podcasts he’s watching?
Kia ora David. Just stumbled across this old article of yours after finding Sesh in a more recent incarnation and trying to find out more on him.
Looks like he's been recruited by the ACT-adjacent dirty politics network. He's being promoted by the BFD and recently did a video on the trans-rights thing in Auckland which contained a large segment of really poorly masked misogyny (seems to be a theme) and (paraphrased) "kill kill die Chloe Swarbrick / Brooke van der Gun Nut is correct hurr durr vote ACT".
He's being supported (financially and morally) by the newly formed Reality Check Radio bullshit and is engaging in alt-right grift tactics with a familiar grammar.
Check out his Twitter. Not for the faint of heart but of course you're David Farrier so there's no worries there :)
Thought you might be interested to see where he's gone.