Conspiracy theories have been around for centuries, but the advent of the Internet and social media has amplified them exponentially. Some conspiracy theories, of course, have proven to be true. But many, if not most, are nothing more than paranoid people expounding on things they don't understand.
I don't post here much these days, but now and then something comes along that spurs me to.
This time it was a TikTok video, posted ("tweeted") on Twitter. It included a video (below) that is so mind-numbingly stupid that it begs for deconstruction, and the 280 character limit on Twitter just isn't enough. So here we are.In the video I referred to, it's a woman who insinuates that the major renovation project of a Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C. is proof of sinister goings-on by mysterious nogoodniks. The building is the William McChesney Martin, Jr. Building (the "Martin Building"), dedicated in 1974. It's been undergoing a multi-year modernization, and the outside of the structure is full of construction equipment and fencing. There is nothing strange about it.
CONTINUE READING...| She is @lovemycountry326" on TikTok. We don't know her real name. |
The woman who made the video and posted it to TikTok on Sept. 8, 2921 calls herself "lovemycountry326." While she technically qualifies as a "citizen reporter," she has no idea how to be a citizen journalist.
Let's watch the video and then break it down into all of its gloriously inept elements.
"So," she said, "this is [zooms in] you can see right there, this is the Federal Reserve." [zooms back out]
Note: She never tells us which city this Federal Reserve is in. There are 12 of them around the U.S.
"Okay, so I've showed [sic] you guys pictures of this before, uhm, but it's interesting because I got a nudge to come back and do a live to show you and I'm glad that I did because I just met one of the guys here and sat and had like a 15-minute conversation with him. And it was a very good conversation, uhm, and he is going to get me some information."
