How rumors propagate.

I watched the attached video (at 8:56) and started thinking about how rumors get going.

Back when I did my Dolphins page, I would sometimes get a nugget of information that I would research and then write about. And, once in a while, on a lark and to test the limits of people’s belief in what they read (and to conduct a sort of social experiment too!), I would get a nugget and “go with my gut” and run with it. Not that I lied or made stuff up, per se, but I’d roll with “news” sometimes. 

If it was especially salacious, whether I had corroborated it or not, it might get some traction. That’s just how people think. 

But a friend of mine, Brian over at Phinatics, decided one April fools day to have a little fun. He wrote an article that was absurd. I don’t remember the details, but it was some blockbuster trade he was “breaking news” on. But the trade was silly. And every source he linked to pointed to Wikipedia’s April fools page. 

But, hilariously, this got picked up by most news outlets without doing any research. It was all over the internet as they say. People asked him (and other dolphins site owners) about it. 

And there ya go. All you need is a nugget of truth. And the willing audience who wants it to be true. And people eat it up. 

I suppose it’s human nature, sad though it might be.