This week, we discuss the prevalence of propaganda in 2017, especially on Twitter, which activates our Mad Online sensors. Recently I got a screen shot of an account posing as a liberal who was celebrating the death of Houstonians because Texas is a right leaning state and deserved to drown in Noah's flood
We're seeing this more and more of these kinds of account coming from the right to incite people against leftists and democrats. Recently, the President retweeted an account that had an avatar lifted from a website using stock models. The account claimed to be a black female conservative, and was quickly found out to be false.
These accounts are meant to get people all riled up online as the easiest and most shareable emotion is being pissed off. It also makes racist conservatives happy to spend money on their products so they can feel there's at lease one of THEM isn't some welfare queen.
We also talk about the recent letter posted up at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, which states that we veterans are too right wing to go to a four year school for liberal arts and hand holding. It also made the rounds through Angry Veteran Online channels because the military doesn't see critical thinking as a necessary skill to sit in a guard tower for twelve hours.
Take for a moment that it's written by "Terry Steinawitz" which is a name created in Mengele's lab to be the most offensively Jewish (and misspelled) name ever. I have no doubt there are people out there who think every veteran is some gun fucking NRA member who's ready to colonize everyone in Algebra 101, but this is just a poor attempt from some Pepe from 4Chan.
But it worked, and there's people who are mad online still, despite the fact that the email attached won't respond to you, or that Terry is not now nor has ever been a student at UCCS. It doesn't matter. Be outraged, click to send to all your buddies.
These days we have to be cautious about our rage. It feels good to be mad, it feels righteous. I hated having to delete the tweet I had the screen shots in because it felt so good to be mad and share that mad with my friends and followers.
But lets all make sure to take the five seconds to make sure we know what we're being mad about. There's plenty of terrible takes from Matt Walsh, John Chait and Joy Ann Reid for us to get mad at, no reason do plumb the depths of the twitter wells and give a platform to the basement dwellers with a hundred sock accounts.