Athenae, Food and Drink

Don’t Talk to Me About Fake News

Until you address this kind of crap, published on the notoriously dodgy internet website known as CFUCKINGNN: 

5W Public Relations said that 38% of Americans wouldn’t buy Corona “under any circumstances” because of the outbreak, and another 14% said they wouldn’t order a Corona in public. The survey encompasses polling from 737 beer drinkers in the United States.
In another survey conducted by YouGov, the firm found consumers’ intent to purchase Corona fell to its lowest level in two years. The survey also showed that Corona’s buzz score, a metric that that measures favorability, has dropped significantly since the beginning of the year.
Constellation’s Newlands said those reports do not reflect the company’s business performance, calling the “misinformation” about the virus’ impact on Corona’s business “extremely unfortunate.”
Online searches for “corona beer virus” spiked in early February, but have since declined.

Jesus Christ. After days of debunking, at least they fixed the headline, which spread across social last week lookin’ like this:

This kind of thing is horseshit and it’s a type of horseshit designed to appeal to people like me. College educated, middle class, no meteoric anything or other but probably not as dumb as the average bear. I’m deeply insecure because I know enough to know I’m not a supergenius, but look at all these idiots, who think Corona beer gives you coronavirus! HAR DEE HAR HAR.

This got shared all over amongst my fellow Xers with “we are a stupid country” and “this is how Trump got elected” and “man, people are dumb” and that the entire thing was designed for self-congratulatory shame-forwarding apparently didn’t ping anybody’s radar at all. That’s how canny it was: clickbait for people who are kinda smart. Like that Honey Boo Boo show or the Bachelor. Here’s a bunch of people to point and laugh at, you’re definitely not them!

And all of that is beside the point which is that we can have all the ethics panels we want about fighting “fake news” and teaching “media literacy” to children. As long as the ACTUAL NON-FAKE MEDIA have so little pride that they’re posting dubiously sourced press releases for traffic, nobody really has a keg to stand on here.

A.

One thought on “Don’t Talk to Me About Fake News”

  1. There are plenty of valid reasons to never buy Corona and the virus ain’t one of them.

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