Although the term became common place less than five years ago, it now holds status as a quasi-official term with long lasting, dangerous effects. One man seemed to lead the charge in making the term part of the common lexicon. Obviously, one man alone cannot effect that sort of change. Yet, his place of prominence aided the term on its journey. Supporters use the term as he does. Opponents use it to denounce its effect. The increasing use pushes the word even deeper into the lexicon. Even my post here adds to the terms permanence. I do not believe anyone including myself obviously, should attempt to extricate the word from the lexicon. Rather, I want to use my modest platform to understand the term as well as explain its danger.
To start, the two words themselves, occasionally written without the space and leaving both words capitalized, mean, according to the dictionary, that some sort of noteworthy information about a recent or important event is counterfeit or not genuine. I have no issue with this definition. In fact, I remember several years ago when Facebook still had its trending news section, I would scroll through my newsfeed and see sometimes ridiculous and sometimes perplexing headlines of articles shared by Facebook friends. I would look up the websites first and frequently discover that these websites were counterfeit, sometimes claiming to attempt irony along the lines of The Onion or Babylon Bee. Thankfully, I do not see many of those now. While I did not label those sites as “fake news,” I would speak out against the spread of this dangerous misinformation. If someone had attempted to popularize the term in reference to articles published by websites like this, I would wholeheartedly support that. Unfortunately, such a campaign would take far longer than the few years it has so far, primarily due to the fact that this sort of campaign would operate largely devoid of emotion, an effective tool for making memories.
This term holds the most danger because of its connotation, its added emotional meaning. Connotation affects tremendous changes to language as it has here. To my best understanding, here’s how many wield the term. Rather than apply the term to single articles, this allegation, in the minds of its users, negates every claim made not only in the article but also every article published by the organization. On one hand, I could see possible, genuine use of the term that way. In the example I used in the above paragraph, this use applies. Those false and dangerous articles came from websites designed to mimic and trick. It could also apply, if you want, to help the incredibly gullible, to websites like The Onion or the Babylon Bee. I also think that this use could hold a vital role if used as a tool to help people dig deep into the things they read, to question the author’s motives to better understand the article. However, this term did not gain widespread use as a tool of methodical introspection but rather rapid confirmation of already and continually held personal opinions.
I believed that this happened because the term’s most prominent user and promoter wields the term against the things they do not like or things they perceive as a personal attack. This then spreads to encompass the author or speaker and their organization and everything they publish like one of those toys that expands tenfold when you drop them in water. This poses the most danger by far. If a person characterizes any criticism of themselves as false, they begin to believe, or already believed, themselves to be infallible, something that no human being can claim. Beyond the above, one alleged lie from a particular reporter or news organization now becomes a mantle thrown over the entire published work in the past, present, and future. Increasingly, as a person exiles all those who engage in criticism, harsh or constructive, the only sources of information left are those who speak only what a person wants to hear, only what “tickles their ears.” I fear for a person in that situation. They could take a wrong turn which leads them to a cliff and will end up driving over to their doom because they choose to listen only to the ones who say they always make the best decisions not the ones who point out the error in hopes to keep the person from driving off the cliff and take the ear ticklers with them.
This trend for the use of the “Fake News” term comes from a real, albeit ugly, part of human nature. None of us, myself included, like to hear criticism; it hurts. It makes us look bad. Yet this same criticism fosters tremendous personal growth. When used correctly, constructive criticism shows love for the other person because you don’t want to see them drive off a cliff.