mandatory viewing on this subject (particularly the second one which provides some well-needed critical thinking and fact-checking on the whole "republicans always crash Grindr" claim; there's a shit ton of blatant misinformation going on there we need to make people more aware of. like, a major part of this myth stems from a straight up satire twitter account's post that was taken at face value.)
But building on that essay [first video], and what weâve discussed today as a prime example of a narrative born from the âhomophobes are secretly just gayâ trope, I want to examine why itâs so resistant to correction, and why people that are otherwise usually media literate and concerned with truth over comforting myths might grab onto this with both hands and refuse to let go.
And I'm including myself in this. The first time I heard the Grindr crash thing, I laughed. I'm not coming to you from moral superiority. I'm coming from a position of "I also fell for this and then felt annoyed about it and made it everyone else's problem in the form of a video essay because I think the truth is actually a more effective political weapon than a lie."
So why does this work? I think there are four main reasons, ranging from "understandable" to "I'm not sure that's healthy babe."
The first reason: yo, it feels good. Queer people are constantly on the receiving end⌠Of right-wing politics in a material, tangible way. These aren't abstract disagreements. These are people who've campaigned on the premise that your love is invalid, your identity is a disorder, your existence is a threat to children. And when the power imbalance is that stark, there is something extremeeeelllly satisfying about the idea that the oppressor who thinks they are so much better than you is nothing but a fraud. They canât even meet their own bar for âdeserves rights.â
It's the political equivalent of "the bully has a crush on you." We're told that story from childhood. So when someone offers an adult, political version, "they're homophobic because they're secretly homosexual", weâre already primed and lubed, and it slides right in to how we understand the world. And suddenly, the power dynamic feels more manageable, theyâre just pathetic self-hating gays, Iâm not scared of that. It feels good, and it feels true. And thatâs the exact kind of story that goes viral, regardless of whether itâs based on evidence.
The "Republicans crash Grindr when they gather" claim has every quality of what misinformation researchers call âstickyâ, as in, itâs sticky. Itâs sticks to your brain. And it does so, even after you learn the truth. Researchers call this The Continued Influence Effect (CIE). Itâs a cognitive phenomenon where misinformation continues to influence a person's reasoning and beliefs even after it has been clearly and credibly retracted. The paper posits that people continue to use misinformation because, on some level, they still feel it is relevant or useful, even if they know it's false. This paper frames this not just as a problem of forgetting the correction or new information, but as a problem where the feeling of familiarity and narrative coherence from the original misinformation overrides the factual knowledge of its retraction. We believe, because it feels true.
And youâll see this under any post thatâs been debunked. People who fell for it will say âwell, it might as well be trueâ or âThis case might be false, but this really happens, so it might as well be true, and in a way it is true.â [laughter] Like yeah but in another way that isnât nonsense, it isnât. But it doesnât matter, once itâs in your head, itâs often hard to get rid of. Especially when itâs gone so viral that youâve seen people talking about it from all directions, each time your new worldview being compounded and cemented. And this⌠it went viral. And I get why.
One: itâs funny, and funny storied spread faster than boring ones.
Two: Itâs ironic.
Three: We have a clear villain being a hypocrite. People love an exposed hypocrite because...
Four: it feels like justice. Itâs someone we see as a threat getting caught in the act, exposed for their lies! They finally get their just desserts! And on top of that, itâs easy to believe because...
Five: itâs just plausible enough even for a skeptic.
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