Lies, Deception, and... Photoshop?

I don't know who or what to believe anymore. Everywhere you look, news articles are flooding your Facebook feeds. Youtube videos are showing you how to do amazing things. People are spreading information at a viral rate. What is real? How do you know?

It seems as though you can't even look for facts anymore. With so many sites on the internet, everyone has different "facts." It isn't like it was years ago when you would just open up an encyclopedia for the truth. Many people tell you "truth" which is so completely false. "Trolls" run a muck in our time. Anyone could write a bullshit article claiming it is news or that it is true spreading lies and deception.

Memes have pictures of Bernie Sanders stating a Hitler quote. How would you know that unless you researched Hitler or were there to hear him speak the words? What would even indicate to an avid Bernie supporter that further research was needed? Wasn't Hitler a socialist too? Wait, let me search the internet to find out since I am not a history buff and I had to return all of my high school history text books when I graduated... Oh wait. Is internet research even reliable? Which sites can be trusted? I don't know. Shit.

People put a banana and a kiwi together and bury it... tricking young viewers into believing that they, too, can do this. Obviously this is fake but it is just an example of intentionally trying to deceive people. A girl posts a video of snow boarding down a hill with a bear chasing her. Same with the biker in the woods. Have these bears been spliced into the videos? Are they real? How do you know? People are so good at editing things these days that your first instinct is to be amazed... then to convince yourself that everything is fake and take a nap. At least in the 1990's America's Home Videos area, everything seemed believable. I mean, who at home possessed the technology to take a cassette tape and edit in unbelievable things? Have you ever found yourself watching 9/11 conspiracy videos and believing them? Are they true? They sure seem to be but so does the bear chasing the girl...

Kiwi Banana

Snowboarder getting chased by Bear

Biker being chased by Bear

Can you even trust the News anymore? They twist everything to fit their agenda. These pictures below demonstrate this idea better than I ever could.

This leads me to a scary conclusion. Because of all the deception and "trolling" the world does now, we are not taking things seriously. Terrifying things are happening around the world and no one believes they are real. Every TV show or movie I have ever watched portrays a world in widespread panic at the announcement of extraterrestrial life. People have been reporting UFO sightings and abductions for years. Everyone thinks they are nuts. When they really show up (if they haven't already) no one is even going to believe it. Excuse me while I put my tinfoil hat back on. Are we even going to have the chaos and panic everyone assumes comes with frightening reality?

I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I question things that do not seem to add up. I find myself looking to Snopes when something doesn't seem believable... but who are these Snopes people? Is their information any more truthful than (in the words of my High School English Teacher) BillyBob'sBackyardBBQ.com? I feel more lost and confused than I ever have in my entire life.

I think that is enough internet for the day.