Spread The Bullshit - When You Post It, The Burden Of Proof Is On You

by Unknown 6:58 PM 1 comments do your goddamned research ffs memes pseudoscience spread the bullshit

wut?

People have always posted little sayings on the internet. Some are funny. Some are corny.  Some are offensive.  Some are true and some were pulled out of someone's ass because they sounded good.  Some are simply misattributed and others...no one knows, but they're not true.

When you post things on the internet, particularly in places like Facebook - you are saying to the world, "Here this is.  I believe this."  When the information you posted isn't humorous but presents information as being correct, true or scientific - doing your research is always a good idea.

In particular lately, I've seen a few posts on psychology claiming that you can tell certain things about people based on their actions and demeanor.

In my mind, the psychologists in question were terrible with spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Something like this sets of alarm bells in my head.  Laughter being a sign of loneliness, for example.    #2, someone sleeping a lot when sad is no surprise - most of us know that sleeping more is a symptom of depression.  The rest of it....I just want to know who said this? Where? When? Were they a reputable psychologist? Were they just someone making it up? Are these famous quotes?  I don't know...and you haven't told me.

The person in question who posted this on Facebook, when I asked him who said these things, told me to look it up.  He did so in that way people do when confronted by a request for proof, knowing full well that they have none.  He attempted to push the burden of proof onto me.

The problem is that not everyone is aware enough of the variability of Facebook to take everything they read with a grain of salt.  Someone, somewhere, will probably dump their boyfriend because he can't cry, believing him to be weak.  Don't believe it? You're not as jaded as I am.  There are a lot of stupid people on the internet.

But that's an extreme example.  Not everyone is gullible and believes the things they read on the internet.  ...but at best, it's questionable for you to post things like this that present at least half-assedly as science, without backing it up with some kind of notation - this person said it.

Because people listen to things that are said to them.  Some of them don't even intend to - and these little "factoids" nestle themselves down deep in their brains only to resurface later.  The person probably doesn't remember where they heard it, might not remember the context -but they tell someone else, who tells someone else who again re-post it on Facebook as a "fresh" little "factoid".

This perpetuates the stupid.  Are we getting the point?

In fact, when I DO try to Google this little snippet, I am redirected to...social networking sites.  I do not find a lovely website that attributes these little bits to any psychologist or philosopher but instead to the Google+, Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr and Twitter accounts of other people who have posted it - having not already done their research.

One fresh perspective (as well as the top Google result for me) was This Is Not Psychology, a Tumblr account which appears to be dedicated to posting JUST this type of meme - psychological gibberish that isn't actually real psychology.  Here's another:

Don't pigeonhole me!

Note the complete lack of a source. The Tumblr did cite a source but only where the image originally came from. Fair enough. That website did its job and what it was intended to do. It was created as a storage place for bullshit and bull-shit adjacent bullshit. And the person who created it echoed the point I'm trying to make here:

"You can’t just state a fact, then get pissy when people ask for a source. I’m not in the business of pseudoscience."

Well said.

Now what's a girl to do? I suppose a girl's got to ask a psychologist, doesn't she? Now to find one who will give me the time of day over this bullshitty bullshit shit. I'm in a swearing mood today.

In the meantime, all of you fabulous bitches just keep being awesome. I'll keep being an asshole...it's what I do best, yo.