#massopinionation — Public Fediverse posts

A new book is out.
Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life
by Rachel Hartigan

I found this review of the Hartigan book fascinating for reasons that apply to Earhart, but also to hundreds of “mystery” topics.

It remarks on the speculation and searches that have been going on for decades that are fueled by the “chatter-driven, nonfactual celebrity culture”. It cites how “social media turned speculation into a participatory sport” – what I call “mass opinionation” because everyone feels obliged to add their uneducated and often puerile comment to the news story, weird image, or video. As with conspiracy ideas, mystery creatures, anomalies, etc., “the myth making process is now instantaneous”. The reasonable realistic explanation is brushed aside, ignored or challenged by people with little grasp of logic or nature. This is why we have absurd tales of Bigfoots in Ohio migrating away from a meteorite, dogman attacks, mass psychogenic illness events, belief in UAPs as extraordinary objects, et cetera, et cetera…

When I was publishing on Doubtful News from 2011 to 2016 or so, stories about finding Amelia Earhart’s plane came around at least once or twice a year. Often by the same group trying to drum up publicity for their dramatic, speculative claims. None of them were much more than press releases from those who were so obsessed with the topic that they were convinced they knew more than anyone else. Even today, news media that used to adequately serve the public fill their dockets with news taken from someone’s Facebook or Instagram post. Copy-pasting weird tales or someone’s fringe ideas isn’t news. Except now it is, which is disappointing and so frustrating.

They never actually found Earhart’s plane. Maybe one day it will be found. (At least we know it ACTUALLY existed in the first place.) But as with other unsolved mysteries that likely have much more direct or simple explanations for which we haven’t yet found the missing pieces, the real story has been swamped by the media money-grab and mystery mongering.