Vested Interest March 2024

March Madness. 

I don’t mean basketball, I’m referring to the generally crazy state brought to us by social media, click-based journalism, and the reckless blathering of he-who-shall-not-be-named.  The mass hysteria over Kate Middleton’s family photo is a great example of how patterns of normal behavior have altered. PHOTO KILLED blared the headlines after a 40-something mother of three ran a picture of her family through a few filters to brighten their smiles and fluff their tresses. BBC WILL NO LONGER TRUST PALACE INFORMATION yammered the tabloids. INTERNET SLEUTHS FIND EVIDENCE OF OTHER TAMPERING IN KATE PHOTOS!! Suddenly everyone is encouraged to be a photoshop vigilante searching for prior examples of the princess’s perfidy. Serious sociologists gravely intoned about the photo being an example of society’s loss of “shared reality.”  When Ms. Middleton-Windsor eventually was filmed strolling down the street in her village the TikTok detectives at once concluded the smiling brunette was obviously a body double. Madness. 
 

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