re: #61 Charmingly Persistent

Ooh, good article. I would argue, though, that this sort of misinformation isn’t as new and different as he argues. For example there were rampant urban legends way before the internet. Everyone knew about the lady who killed her dog by trying to dry it out in the microwave, for example.

When Bill Clinton was president, there were endless absurd conspiracy theories. There was no internet for people outside of certtain corners of government and academia, but the CTs certainly got around and people who were so inclined believed and acted on them. I went to a gun show in the eighties one time and the tshirts and bumper stickers were just as crazy as anything you see now.

Cable TV in the 80s helped some of that. Lots of new programming time to fill. Remember some of the wacky free cable TV shows that the government put up money to help every day Joe to operate?

Edit to add: Just remembered, they were called cable access stations.