The Line-Storm Clouds Fly Tattered and Swift

Yes, it absolutely does!

Propaganda is baked into our daily reality so seamlessly and thoroughly that it mostly feels like common sense.

It's why we defend brands like they're old friends.

It's why we discuss celebrities we've never met and who don't know we exist as if we know their hearts, defending or condemning them based on how talented their publicists are.

It's why we confuse relatability for trustworthiness

It's why we mistake emotional resonance for moral principles.

It's why we think our opinions are purely self-generated despite being nudged by countless carefully curated narratives which have more (and more subtle) ways of reaching us than at any time in human history.

It's why we treat people's lives, public policy, and geopolitical matters like team sports.

It's why we need to constantly interrogate our own assumptions, habitually subjecting them to fact checking, methodical scrutiny, and cynicism.

It's why we need media literacy and media ecology to be taught to kids of all ages.

It's why everyone should read Orwell, Huxley, Neil Postman, and Marshal McLuhan.

It's why we should all study logic, rhetoric, and ethics - so we can understand and apply moral reasoning based on principles.

The point isn't whether or not we're affected by propaganda, because we all are.

The point is whether or not we know we're affected...which ironically is the exact blind spot that makes people think they're immune.

The moment you assume you're above that influence? That's when it's working best.

That's why, Anon, the post you're responding to didn't say "you are not immune to propoganda."

It said:

If you think you're immune to propaganda, that means the propaganda is working.

That was what...500 words? So Anon's problem is aliteracy.

"You're right! No one is! That's why we all have to put constant effort into identifying and resisting harmful propaganda!"

When I hear "tumblr sexyman," I think of Cecil Night Vale being constantly depicted as a skinny white man instead of literally anything else. I think of the background character white men who get elevated over protagonists that are women, people of color, or otherwise not the white man power fantasy.

Cecil Night Vale, as previously mentioned.

Oncelercest, because if there aren't two skinny white men to ship, tumblr fandom will start shipping the skinny white man with himself.

Bill Cipher inexplicably being fanon'd as a white twink despite being a fucking triangle.

Everyone fawning over Marvel Loki while shoving every woman and Black person in the MCU aside.

The way nearly every single character in Hazbin Hotel has the same "tall and skinny" body type, along with all the criticisms Black audience members have made about the issues with Alastor's design.

Pip: “You should. Drinky post time!”

Me: “It’s gonna make people really mad.”

And, well, many such cases!

TBH I actually think it’s even weirder in stories where the larger DCU and other child heroes exist.

The higher the stakes, the more Batman has to be depicted as The Most Specialist Smartest Boy In The Whole Entire Universe to justify pitting him against intergalactic psychic wizard tigers from beyond time. His importance scales with the stakes. Everyone has to be awed and impressed with him at all times.