Diane in 7A

I missed this story when it happened - I miss most "viral" stories, YouTube videos, and so forth.

But apparently a comedian/Hollywood producer started Tweeting about a woman on an airplane who was being difficult:

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2013/11/everyone-lost-viral-airplane-story/355612/

As it turns out, it wasn't true:

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2013/12/america-stunned-producer-bachelor-lied-about-diane-7a/355692/

Two questions arise.

The first, which I think was discussed in a recent thread: Why do people believe this shit? Where has skepticism gone when it comes to stories passed through social media?

The second is: Why do people care about these stories anyway, true or not?

The writer at The Atlantic Wire asks this, too:

But that's also the tired cycle of the internet publishing: something happens, there's backlash, and then backlash against that backlash. It's a cycle we're all guilty of falling into. That we're for some reason spilling time, ink and HTML code over this story proves how desperate we are to outrage about outrage, to keep the wheels spinning, to talk about something — anything. Even one random guy's airport story that you, under any normal circumstances, wouldn't listen to at a bar.

I agree. And I understand that the answer is that we're all just basically waiting for Godot, and trying to kill time while we do.

But why on this stuff, specifically?

 

Samm Levine (from Freaks and Geeks and Inglorious Basterds) did a pretty awesome parody on Twitter.

http://laist.com/2013/12/02/that_guy_who_shamed_that_woman_on_h.php

 

Because the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.

 

This is the first I've heard of this story.

Nothing surprises me anymore. Right after the story about the waitress who was denied a tip because she was gay came out and it just seemed like complete bullshit. You hear it, you don't believe it and then you feel bad about feeling that way.

Wow, I'm so cynical that I can't feel sympathy for this person who was wronged because I think it's made up.

I talked to a friend who works at a paper and they had a conversation in a staff meeting about whether to run the story because everybody there thought it was bullshit.

They ran the story. I don't blame them for that because they kind of had to take everything at face value.

 

Then there was the video of the twerking girl who set herself on fire, which turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by Jimmy Kimmel.

 

That was freaking hilarious.

 

The Internet is a giant printing press with few editors.

 

Some of this stuff seems like someone just trying to get attention from their Twitter following and they're unprepared when it becomes a big story.

That doesn't excuse the dishonest behavior.

 

This gets to question No. 2, though: Why is it a story to begin with that someone wrote a shitty note on a restaurant receipt?

 

The problem we have is that we are too concerned with something makes for a good story and not concerned enough about whether or not the story is actually true, combined with our desire to look at which story (whether true or not) generates the most buzz.

It's just not people getting outraged over the Internet that is the problem. Print media has this issue, so does televised media.

We can find countless examples of people who are rude on airplanes or waitresses who had to serve people who thumbed their nose at them for one reason or another, but the ones that generate the most headlines are the ones that get the most buzz from people who pass them around.

And then media outlets run with them without verifying the info, because, you know... ratings, page views, paper sales, etc.

 

Very true. But the majority of the news outlets run the stories and cover them like its newsworthy.

 

Way too many people get their news from yahoo.com.