When did everybody become so stupid?

Karen got tricky . The label, I mean. What began as a truism - describing a certain type of woman (entitled) representing a certain set of views (racist) with a certain brand of hair (short and blonde) and a certain kind of accent (American) pursuing a very specific outcome (speaking to the manager) - she was the 52% of white women who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. 

As per the evolution of many memes, Karen became bastardised by the masses.

Then it escalated. People began using the name Karen to describe any woman with a grievance or opinion, especially if she was over the age of 40. On social media, I’ve been called a Karen for defending Amber Heard, criticising Andrew Tate and voting against Brexit. I’m now too scared to complain if my chicken is raw in restaurants. 

It’s playing havoc with my insides and I’m increasingly choosing the vegetarian option. As per the evolution of many memes, Karen became bastardised by the masses. And unfunny. 

Above: Many TikTok videos allegedly showing raging 'Karens' are false, made for clickbait content.

But Karen still exists as a caption on viral videos. I know we are our algorithms, and what we watch is what we get, but my social feeds regularly serve up clips with titles like:  “Karen moans about my dog not being on a leash”, and  “Karen doesn’t think I’m disabled enough to use a disabled parking spot”. Underneath are thousands of comments like “rude much?!” and “DON’T ENGAGE! CALL THE POLICE ON HER!”. Thousands of internet users, furious with the mouthy white woman. And I watch them, because I can’t believe that anyone actually believes they’re real. 

“It’s obviously fake!” I yell at the mobile screen. No one responds. 

It’s not just Karens, of course; it’s the Airbnb host disregarding his guests’ personal boundaries by sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs. It’s the landlord asking his tenants to vacate for a weekend so his close friends can stay. All viral videos with Hollyoaks-quality acting portraying infuriating, everyday situations designed to outrage the viewer and garner furious feedback. 

My algorithms are screwed because the amount of hours I spend hate-reading the naïve comments under videos I’ve just hate-watched has given me a front row seat to the gullibility of the internet. “It’s obviously fake!” I yell at the mobile screen. No one responds. 

Above: The 'Coldplay Couple' "was a brilliantly scandalous fifteen minutes in popular culture" but the reactions to it from those affected were often false. 

Back in July, Andy Byron, the CEO of the tech company Astronomer, was caught in an uncompromising position with his head of HR, cuddling her from behind at a Coldplay concert. It was a brilliantly scandalous fifteen minutes in popular culture. Public infidelity rocks! After the event came the backstories and the quotes from former disgruntled employees, and an official statement from Andy’s wife, Megan. It was a girlboss defiant two fingers up of a statement, and shared all over social media: 

It was obviously fake! No one talks like that apart from ChatGPT, the blandest and most dramatic motivational speaker ever.

“Let me be perfectly clear,” it said. “I am not issuing this statement in defense, nor in heartbreak. I am issuing it in power. In precision. In silk gloves and sharpened wit.” 

She promised the famous affair was the beginning of a powerful new era. “I am not spiraling. I am ascending. To those who expect tears—I don't cry for clowns, I schedule. I document. I rebuild. This is not revenge. It is refinement.” 

Wow. I DOCUMENT. I REBUILD. Powerful, eh? Liked by millions, including many well-known celebrities who chimed in, saying “YES SISTER” and “OMG THIS!” and “best thing I’ve heard today!” Except… it wasn’t real. It was obviously fake! No one talks like that apart from ChatGPT, the blandest and most dramatic motivational speaker ever. But so many people were duped that it felt like the Twilight Zone. That we’d entered an idiocracy where even the most basic of bluffs are believed. 

Above: The appearance of St George's flags in towns and cities up and down the UK "are proof that millions of people have been sucked into dangerous - and incorrect - rhetoric".

Has the internet rotted our membranes? A 2023 study called Seeing is No Longer Believing investigated the public's ability to distinguish real photos from AI-generated images. Disseminated across Twitter, Reddit and Instagram, they asked 260 participants to quickly classify a series of images on a social feed, including fakes like Chris Hemsworth wearing a blue ballgown and Bernie Sanders dancing with Sarah Palin. 

The overall image classification accuracy was 61%. Which might seem high, but it also means that people were wrong FOUR OUT OF TEN TIMES. The conclusion from the study: “These results demonstrate that people are not good at separating real images from fake ones.” Or they really wanted to see Chris Hemsworth in a blue dress. 

Has the internet rotted our membranes?

It’s more serious than mindless memes. The St George flags awkwardly flying up and down most high streets in England right now are proof that millions of people have been sucked into dangerous - and incorrect - rhetoric being pumped out of the Daily Mail and right-wing commentators' mouths about migrants being given rooms at the Ritz, PlayStations, jacuzzis and hugs on arrival. 

Even TV showman Rylan Clark on ITV’s This Morning joined in with his impression of the situation: “Here's the hotel, here's the phones, here’s the iPad, here’s the NHS in reception of your hotel. Here’s three meals a day, here’s a games room in the hotel. Have a lovely time, and welcome.” He’d been infected by a lack of facts, and the quick debunking of the iPad claim wasn’t enough to stop people setting fire to the hotels. 

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Above: The video of a man offering a safe space to his Muslim neighbour is, says Kean, "completely fake", showing that kindness can be corrupted too. 

Lefties like me can easily look and judge. The Third Person effect (Davison, 1983) describes how people believe media messages or communications will have a greater effect on others than on themselves. Everyone else is impressionable, but not us. That doesn’t always fly. In the midst of a terrifying, anti-migrant national mood, I’ve seen mates sharing an Instagram video of an old fella, captured on doorbell cam, talking to his Muslim neighbour, offering a safe space if anything bad happens. 

A perfect antidote to the riots and aggro, you might think. But I recognised the old man. I’ve also seen him in the “never booking this AirBnB again” viral video, and the “old man refuses to move his car” viral video. It’s a lovely sentiment, but it’s acting. Completely fake. I’d rather people believed fake videos that weren’t racist, but that doesn’t negate the fact it isn’t real. Regardless of how convenient the message is. 

Instead of judging information by asking "Is this accurate?" they’re asking "Does this feel right?".

So, is it stupidity, or a choice? It’s neither, actually. Research by Martel, Pennycook and Rand (2020) involving over 4,000 participants found that when people are in heightened emotional states - stressed, anxious, or upset - they become significantly more susceptible to fake news. Even more revealing, when participants were specifically told to "rely on your emotions rather than logic" while evaluating headlines, they were even more likely to believe them. So, instead of judging information by asking "Is this accurate?" they’re asking "Does this feel right?".

Above: When people are in a heightened emotional state, "they become significantly more susceptible to fake news".  

The problem isn’t our stupid heads, it’s our stupid hearts. And in a social media environment that’s trained us to react like hungry sharks, feeding on schools of fishy stats, all we are is a bundle of wild uncontrollable feelings. Rather than a bunch of airheads, the global populace are becoming pathologically emotional, turning to digital fallacies and imagined events for a quick fix. 

Like a Karen desperate to rant at the manager, our desire to experience a surge of emotion is trumping our attachment to reality.

Thanks to the way social media has groomed us, we’re so addicted to feeling that we’ll trick ourselves into thinking that fakery is real, simply because it gives us that boost of whatever we need; joy, rage, more rage. Like a Karen desperate to rant at the manager, our desire to experience a surge of emotion is trumping our attachment to reality. We don’t know what's real, and we don’t care, as long as it gets us off. 

Naomi Klein, in the brilliant book Doppelgänger, calls it The Mirror World, this bizarre digital realm where nothing is real and persuasive rhetoric reigns, regardless of how ridiculous it becomes. In The Mirror World, regular rules of common sense don't apply, and because of those dastardly algorithms, each of us sees a different version of reality designed to trigger our emotions. We’re not even reacting to the same truths anymore. As Klein puts it: "Millions of people have given themselves over to fantasy, to make-believe, to play acting." We've each descended into our own mirror world where our nervous systems determine our political perspectives.