The Furry Effect

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Yeah, this is a conversation from Twitter that’s spilling over onto my blog now. Hey, I can type more than 140 characters at a time here.

Anyway, the short definition of what I call The Furry Effect:

A group exists or is formed.
The media runs with a few stories grossly misrepresenting that group.
Those stories attract the kind of people who dig the misrepresentation (read: freak show).
Soon the new population is so significant (or overwhelming) that the original misrepresentation is now accurate.

Or, more briefly, a lie becomes the truth.

http://abiteofsanity.com Bryce Moore, A Bite of Sanity

This is a horrible side effect of media sensationalism. There are no ratings in doing a story of a group of folks with a common interest (any common interest, not just the one you describe) getting together, hanging out, being groovy and not hurting anything or anyone.

Indeed, you’ll get much more attention for your story if you spin it in such a way that the group of people are violating half a dozen laws, flaunting it in the face of the authorities, and putting babies on spikes in a secret room. If you can find an angle that has anything to do with “different” or “alternate” (is there a better word?) social, religious or sexual connotations, it’ll play even better to the red-state/Fox News portion of the audience, further contributing to the misrepresentation.

Really, we’d all be so much better off taking the “live and let live” approach to life, but then a lot of people who make their living off of sensationalizing the things they do not know or understand would be out of work.
http://www.petervintonjr.com Peter

Very well said. One can apply this analogy to the current commonly-assumed definitions of the words “liberal” and “conservative.” Both political mindsets have so far deviated from their original core philosophies that the very words have become largely pointless.

Great observation.

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