Once upon a time—let’s call it the before times—truth had a certain charm. It was slower, harder to reach, and required more than a Canva infographic and a TikTok voiceover to feel real. Then the internet happened, and suddenly everyone’s Aunt Donna was a part-time epidemiologist with a minor in constitutional law and a doctorate in vibes.
Welcome to 2025, where information travels at the speed of panic, and the truth is whatever meme got the most fire emojis under a comment thread titled “WAKE UP, SHEEPLE.”
We are not drowning in lies. We are drowning in certainty—which is far more dangerous.
Chapter One: Truth Is Too Slow for the Algorithm
Let’s start with a basic principle: reality is boring. Truth rarely comes with dramatic music, subtitles, or a jaw-dropping twist ending. But fiction? Fiction has flair. Fiction is optimized. Fiction knows how to hold your attention for eight swipes and a desperate Google spiral.
In the current media ecosystem, here’s how content wins:
- Outrage > nuance
- Volume > accuracy
- Aesthetics > sourcing
- “I just feel like” > “According to”
- TikTok voice filter that sounds like Siri’s emotional cousin > peer-reviewed journal
So while scientists publish multi-year studies with phrases like “limited statistical confidence,” someone in a pickup truck can film himself yelling “THEY’RE PUTTING MAGNETS IN LUNCH MEAT,” and it’ll have 800,000 views before the CDC finishes spell-checking their title page.
Chapter Two: Everyone Has a Platform, No One Has a Filter
The democratization of media was supposed to be a good thing. And in many ways, it is. Marginalized voices have found power. Censorship has (mostly) been challenged. Knowledge is more accessible.
But so is brain rot.
Now, thanks to high-speed broadband and low-speed discernment, the same tools that empower activists also empower that one dude from your hometown who keeps uploading 48-minute rants from his truck cab titled “THE TRUTH THEY WON’T TELL YOU.”
You know him. He uses words like “globalist,” “deep state,” and “suspiciously quiet for someone with nothing to hide.” He thinks Snopes is a propaganda arm of the lizard elite. He believes “research” means watching two videos in a row on Rumble.
“I’m not saying it’s true, I’m just asking questions,” he says.
He is, in fact, not just asking questions.
Chapter Three: Social Media – Where Fact-Checking Goes to Die
Social media was never designed for truth. It was designed for engagement, which is tech-speak for “addiction with metrics.”
You liked a post debunking climate denial? That’s cute. The algorithm saw you linger and now you’re served six videos of a guy lighting snow on fire and screaming that it’s fake.
You commented “this seems false”? Now the algorithm thinks you love arguing and sends you to a gladiator pit of conspiracy influencers who wear sunglasses indoors and call you “sheeple” between promo codes for survival seeds and testosterone dust.
This isn’t an accident. It’s architecture. The platforms don’t care what’s true. They care what spreads. And rage spreads better than nuance. Lies travel faster than caveats. And no one ever went viral for whispering, “Actually, that’s complicated.”
Chapter Four: Misinformation Is a Business Model
Let’s be clear: misinformation isn’t just an accident. It’s a thriving industry.
There are full-time operations creating viral pseudoscience, bootleg documentaries, and emotionally manipulative TikToks that look like infographics but have the credibility of a gossip circle at a high school for gifted parrots.
Why? Because misinformation monetizes well. Panic sells. Conspiracies have merch. The truth is unpaid and wears hand-me-downs. Fiction has a Patreon.
“Just follow the money,” they say about everything.
Except the part where someone actually is making money from their follower count of 3 million rage-tweens and uncles with burner accounts.
Chapter Five: Debating Is Dead. Performative Certainty Is In.
We don’t discuss. We declare.
Gone are the days of “Let’s read more” or “I see your point.” Now it’s “You’re brainwashed by Big Broccoli,” and “You must love war crimes if you wear that brand of shoes.”
Everyone’s a pundit. Everyone’s a preacher. Everyone has a brand, a take, and a three-second attention span. And if you ask for sources, they’ll send you a video titled “WATCH BEFORE IT’S DELETED” and then block you for being “in the matrix.”
Truth isn’t debunked. It’s outperformed.
So… What Now?
We know we’re in a mess. We know algorithms have eaten our ability to concentrate. We know we’re just dopamine-depleted thumb-robots reposting graphics made by AI interns with too much time and not enough ethics.
And yet…
There are still people reading books.
There are still fact-checkers and librarians and journalists holding the line with actual citations and the wild belief that reality still matters.
There are still moments where people say “I don’t know,” and mean it as a sign of integrity, not weakness.
Final Thought:
Disinformation wins when we stop caring whether things are true and start caring only whether they’re useful to our side.
But reality is stubborn.
It doesn’t bend to hashtags.
It doesn’t trend.
It just waits—quiet, uncool, inconvenient—until the spin collapses and we’re left with nothing but the facts we ignored.
In a world trained to believe louder equals right, the truth will not shout.
It will whisper.
If you still know how to listen.