TheCOVIDBlog.com
April 26, 2023
This blogger has long given up trying to understand the hiveminds of the masses. It’s best to just observe from a distance and draw conclusions. The vast majority of humans are innately followers. That’s why the social media phenomenon called “influencer” exists in the 21st century.
Arizona State University psychology professor, Dr. Robert Cialdini, dubbed the term “social proof” in his 1984 book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. People inherently copy the actions of others, particularly when presented with more information than they can handle at one time. Social proof is an easy (lazy) way to determine the “correct” way to behave and/or react to certain stimuli. If everyone else is doing it, then it must be correct.
Dr. Herbert Kelman, while a lecturer at Harvard, published a paper in 1957 that outlined how public conformity does not necessarily equal private acceptance. While millions of people were against the mRNA and viral vector DNA injections, they received the shots anyway to conform with the herd. The foregoing is a core principle of advertising. Your product doesn’t necessarily have to be good. But if other people say that it’s good, then others will buy it.
RELATED: History of media deregulation, monopolization of media by 8 alleged “chosen people,” the NewsGuard app, and why trust in mainstream news is now at all-time lows (November 7, 2022)
A 1968 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology demonstrated how you can train a population to overcome hesitancy and fears via social proof-type conditioning. Kids who feared dogs watched an even younger kid play with dogs for 20 minutes a day for four days. Two-thirds of the kids who feared dogs previously were playing with dogs themselves by the fifth day. That’s because they saw social proof.
Homosexual culture was normalized by Barack Obama and mainstream media coordinating to make it normal since 2008. If you see it everywhere, and celebrities support it, then it must be okay. MAGA/confederate culture was already growing due to the “tea party” during the Obama Administration. Donald Trump/right-wing media pushed it further in just four years, to the point that hundreds of people were willing to risk arrest and incarceration at the January 6 “whatever.”
RELATED: Dimitri Ndina: post-Pfizer death of Tennessee doctor highlights shameless mainstream media propaganda campaigns that perpetuate mass formation psychosis (January 1, 2022)
In one minute, Malcolm X broke down this phenomenon and how it could be applied to anything socially in society.
Mainstream media changed forever at the turn of the millennium. Broadcast television, radio and newspapers have slowly lost influence in favor of social media, streaming services and blogs. The methods of delivering propaganda from the powers-that-be (“TPTB”) have changed. But the idolatry-based social proof concepts remain the same.
The messenger doesn’t necessarily need to be charismatic. But they need to know how to work an audience. The other major difference is the interactivity. Viewers receive instant, ongoing social proof (gratification) via “likes,” shares and comments to their interactions online.
That all said, there is always a method to mainstream media madness, particularly as it relates to the people they choose as the messengers.
Tucker Carlson firing was inevitable
Fox Corporation, the parent company for Fox News, had no choice but to make major moves to its lineups after agreeing to pay $787.5 million to settle the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit last week.
It is believed that Fox Corporation had about $4 billion total in liquid cash when they agreed to settle. Thus the settlement amounts to almost 20% of Fox Corporation’s cash on hand. Granted these large settlements by corporate giants are tax deductible. But $787.5 million is a painful hit no matter how you slice it. And now the dominoes are falling.
Fox Corporation and their top opinion personality, Tucker Carlson, decided to “part ways” on Monday. His last show on the network was April 21. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was renamed “Fox News Tonight” on an interim basis. Brian Kilmeade, another Fox News personality, is the interim replacement host.
RELATED: #TwitterFiles conditioning conservatives to trust Elon Musk; plus Tucker Carlson vs. Hunter Biden, and the concepts of “controlled opposition” and propaganda (December 15, 2022)
There were reportedly no stipulations in the settlement with Dominion for Fox Corporation to fire its top moneymaker Carlson. He had consistently ranked in the top 2 of cable news shows for at least two years. Part of the reason for the separation likely has to do with the lawsuit filed by former Fox News and Tucker Carlson producer Abby Grossberg last month. The complaint names Carlson, Fox Corporation and several other Fox employees.
The lawsuit makes several explosive allegations, including that Fox Corporation forced Grossberg to lie in depositions related to the Dominion lawsuit. She also accused Carlson of creating an extremely toxic work environment, including a meeting where the discussion of whether Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer or her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, was “hotter and more fuckable.”
Ms. Grossberg also reportedly has 90 recordings proving her allegations. It appears the Grossberg lawsuit may have influenced the Dominion settlement. She also accused Fox News of deleting text messages from her phone, and effectively hiding evidence from Dominion. Fox Corporation may want to distance itself from Carlson before any of the tapes become public. It matters not in a legal sense. They’ll still be liable. But Fox News has a very long history of sexual harassment issues. Firing Carlson is a mitigation method.
Read the entire Grossberg vs.Carlson complaint here.
Liberals of course rejoiced over Carlson’s termination. Democrat Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he believes Carlson was terminated for saying Fox News and other television networks are beholden to big pharma advertising.
Many conservative voices believe Carlson will resurface with a podcast on Rumble or some other platform that draws larger audiences than Fox News.
But Carlson may be restricted as to his next moves by contractual obligations to Fox Corporation.
Regardless, the 8 p.m. time slot for “Fox News Tonight” with Brian Kilmeade on Monday night drew 2.6 million viewers, a 21% drop from Carlson’s average since late February. Fox Corporation’s stock was down over 3% on Tuesday, costing the company more than $500 million in market capitalization.
The MAGA mob attacked Kilmeade for being a “never Trump RINO” in protest of his show.
Meanwhile all those text messages from Carlson about Trump, e.g. “I hate him passionately” and Trump is “a demonic force, a destroyer” matter not to said crowd. Both Sean Hannity and Carlson testified under oath in the Dominion case that they never believed that there was voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election. Carlson begged the MAGA base for forgiveness in a March 20 interview with WABC host Bo Snerdley. His pleas were apparently granted.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Don Lemon out at CNN
Anglo-Irish Bishop George Berkeley is often credited with first positing the deep, brain-teasing question, “if a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is around, does it make a sound?” He never wrote or said those exact words. The first documented occurrence of the quote was in an 1882-83 issue of the Jamestown, New York-based magazine The Chautauquan. And if Don Lemon wasn’t the professional diva he’s become at CNN, nobody would know or care what happened to him on the same day Carlson was fired.
CNN announced on Monday that it and longtime anchor and contributor Lemon had “parted ways.” No further explanation was provided. But the insinuation was what Lemon finally crossed the line when he stated that Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley is past her prime at age 51. He reportedly made snide remarks like this about women constantly, while playing the homosexual card to absolve himself from responsibility.
Lemon, 57, tweeted a response to his firing on Monday. It implied that he was entitled to some sort of special treatment before being fired.
CNN released a statement shortly thereafter, refuting Lemon’s version of what happened.
Lemon clearly hates women, which explains his homosexual culture. But his troubles extended to his personal life as well.
Lemon made headlines last year because of the Dustin Hice lawsuit filed in August 2019. The circumstances surrounding the outcome of said lawsuit are beyond suspect. Hice alleged that he offered to buy Lemon a drink at a bar in Sagaponack, New York on July 15, 2018. Lemon refused the drink, telling Hice “I’m just here to have a good time.” What allegedly happened next was the crux of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on May 3, 2022, nearly three years later. A federal judge had ordered Hice to pay Lemon $77,000 in attorney fees in March 2022 for manipulating evidence. Hice said in a statement following the lawsuit’s dismissal:
“After a lot of inner reflection and a deep dive into my memory, I have come to realize that my recollection of the events that occurred on the night in question when I first met CNN anchor Don Lemon were not what I thought they were when I filed this lawsuit. As a result, I am dropping the case.”
Make of all that what you will.
Lemon, like all CNN “talent,” has no base audience. Thus it’s unclear what, if anything, he plans to do next.
Twitter chaos, more conservative infighting, and new Charles Barkley-Gayle King Show?
It’s The Great Reset. So nothing is surprising. But we assume Elon Musk decided to enforce yet another whimsical Twitter policy change on April 20 because…it’s 4/20. Everyone who refused to sign up for the $96 per year Twitter Blue (which is marketed as “Pay the $8 [per month]”) lost their blue check marks that day. Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey and “the pope” temporarily lost their blue check marks until they reappeared the following day.
Many mainstream media journalists pouted because they no longer have that little symbol of validation that gave them status for the past 15 years. Most of them remain without the blue check marks today, as NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. aren’t paying for said validations for their employees.
Millionaire Hollywood celebrities pouted as well. But Musk ultimately restored many of their blue check marks free of charge.
Musk admitted to paying for several other millionaire celebrity blue check marks.
Musk is obviously trolling all the “journalists” he’s been feuding with since he acquired Twitter late last year. But he knows that a mass exodus of celebrities from Twitter would harm the platform. So he’s kissing up to them.
Candace Owens vs. Steven Crowder
For the record, this blogger had never heard of Steven Crowder until publishing this article. But Crowder is apparently influential in the MAGA community. We’re not going to pretend to understand the entire substance of the feud. But he and another MAGA mouthpiece, Candace Owens, are fighting because she allegedly leaked news that Crowder is getting divorced from his wife.
From the sounds of it, Crowder is very conservative, and a divorce could hurt his brand. But like the aforementioned Reagan, Graham, Lott, etc. Crowder is one of “those” conservatives.
Owens also reportedly invited Crowder’s wife to her show to talk about the divorce and further humiliate him. The divorce was filed shortly after Mrs. Crowder gave birth to fraternal twins, Crowder’s only two children, in 2021.
UPDATE April 27, 2023: And now video has emerged of Crowder, via Yashar Ali on Substack, showing him verbally abusing his pregnant wife.
It’s unclear which one the MAGA masses are backing. Further, we’ve long known that Owens will do anything for money, including her abrupt flip-flop from anti-Trump liberal to “OMG, I’m conservative” in 2016-17. But the Crowder camp dug up even more Owens grifting that even this blogger was unaware of. She ran a website called Social Autopsy that doxxed conservatives prior to her abrupt switch from liberal to MAGA in 2016.
Owens also talks greasy about Trump and endorsed Kari Lake for President in 2024. This blogger assumes that a lot of the MAGA men stick up for Owens because they want to sleep with her. Regardless, the Crowder vs. Owens feud is good entertainment…and that may actually be the hidden purpose therein.
CNN desperation
It’s unclear how CNN is even still in business. The network drew only 122,000 prime time viewers per night in the 25-54 age demographic in February, its lowest mark in 10 years. Desperate times call for desperate measures. CNN isn’t even hiding its desperation.
The Network announced last week that former NBA star Charles Barkley and CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King (who is mostly famous for being Oprah Winfrey’s alleged girlfriend) will host a once-per-week prime time show beginning this fall. The show, entitled “King Charles,” will air on Wednesday nights.
It’s unclear whom the target audience is for this experiment. King is just another liberal feminist. Barkley is a good sports commentator who incorporates the Owens/Larry Elder shtick. Nothing fresh will come of this. But again, CNN is desperate. They have nothing to lose.
All this mainstream/social media noise and shuffling is deliberate. TPTB are tightening up their propaganda machines to ensure consistent, forceful narratives as The Great Reset enters the pivotal year of 2024 and the U.S. Presidential Election. Carlson fans will forward the notion that he was fired for being truthful. But Carlson admitted not only in the Dominion depositions, but also in past interviews, that he does what he is told.
Carlson made clear that he never believed the election fraud claims. But he pretended to believe it on the air because he was told to do so. From what we can gather, Carlson had two years left on his contract at $15 million-plus per year; and Fox Corporation paid it as part of the severance. That means he’s unlikely to resurface on any major platforms until at least 2025.
Perhaps this was a deliberate move, to “re-educate” him if you will, before putting him back on the air. All we can do is wait and see. It wouldn’t even shock this blogger to see a Carlson/Lemon odd couple-type show in the future.
Meanwhile Disney (ABC, ESPN, etc.) is expected to cut another 4,000 jobs by the end of this week. This blogger tries to cut through all the mainstream/social media noise so readers do not have to do so. There are still a few good sources of information out there. But again, truth is the least profitable, least prosperous, and least rewarding endeavor you can possibly pursue. Nobody is paid millions (or even high six-figures) to tell truth. They are following orders.
Artificial intelligence, deepfakes and hivemind mentalities will make truth harder and harder to discern going forward. Your gut is usually correct. Trust it. Stay vigilant and protect your friends and loved ones.
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Everything is fake and evil. And has always been fake and evil. Tucker Carlson never went far enough on his show. He always skirted around the truth. For example, he never directly talked about the mechanics of mRNA, how the vax will kill you, and millions of others, and how Trump was part of it.
Tucker spent years as part of PBS and CNN. None of these people have principles. It has always been about fame and money.
Candace Owens decided not only to become “conservative” but married a rich white banker too. She went from down for the struggle to down for whatever bag of cash she can get her handson.
Musk is the con man of con mans. He has used government to prop him up financially (US and SpaceX, China and Tesla), then gets on Tucker to basically make a sales pitch for his new AI program, after saying AI was evil.
Evil is everywhere. None of these people give a fig about you.
well said, it’s all fake drama, infighting, nation against nation, etc. It’s their ‘divide and conquer’ agenda they hope to use to bring the masses under their tyranny. Through it all, the Lord God reigns, He is on His throne. He is coming again – like a thief…..
The entire social media and cable industry along with Disney can collapse for all I care. Lived without most of it since 2016 and don’t miss it. The desperation of the “great” reset shows. They are hoping they can get it all in place before everything blows. Good riddance.
If they are part of this agenda, they know very well that they will collapse without an audience as people start dying. So they are just going out as planned.
“It’s best to just observe from a distance and draw conclusions.”
Wise words. Because if you don’t in these chaotic times, one can lose their life to a crazed lunatic with an axe to grind.
If you’ve been warning people from time immemorial that this was going to happen and they called you crazy or worse….If you have been pleading for people to unite and they continue to bicker and pick over the most stupid inconsequential things despite all that has happened….then yes, you just observe from a distance. There is nothing more you can do, or could have done.
Another round of chaff to distract us.