Sometimes I would have one of those days when nothing went my way–one of those days when my boss criticized me for my productivity levels, my cat meowed at me all afternoon, my best frienemy and I had a falling out. When it was that kind of day and everything felt wrong, I would sit down at my laptop and go to my favorite social media sites. And then Fakelina would flutter up to me, tap me on the forehead with her magic wand, and she would make it all better.
Fakelina was a news fairy, and she was very special. Anything you wanted to believe was true, no matter how much of a stretch it was, she could make it so.
“Fakelina, is chocolate good for me?”
“Naturally! You should eat as much of it as you can. The more you eat of it, the lower your chances of cancer!”
“Fakelina, I wish I didn’t have to go to the dentist.”
“You shouldn’t. Have you heard that the anesthesia they use can cause dementia?”
But then I got greedier and the wishes got bigger.
“Fakelina, I wish all these awful school shootings were just a reality show.”
“They are. I can show you the video which proves that the kids are all paid actors.”
“Oh, good! That makes me feel so much better. You know…I really hate thinking about that Trump guy, too. The things he’s doing to the EPA…our judicial system…”
“Shush…don’t think about any of that. Did you know he peed on a prostitute once?”
“No way! Tell me more, Fakelina!”
“Yep. Somebody somewhere is supposed to have evidence of that, or so I’ve been told. And did you hear what he tweeted last night?”
“Ugh! I’m not sure he’s even human. Do you think he might be one of those lizard people?”
“Nope, not a lizard person.” Fakelina shook her head. “It’s even worse. He’s a fungus which has taken on human form. He’s from a different planet. Watch this–it shows where his disguise slips for a second, and you can see a little bit of the mold coming through.”
“I knew it,” I mumbled.
“The world is controlled by alien fungi. Here’s another one about Barack Obama…”
I paused. What? But I liked President Obama! This couldn’t be true. Or…could it? The theory did make sense… They were all a part of the elite, so they were all fungus.
And the videos were undeniable. Oh, God… President Obama was fungus… Prince William was fungus…
I sat motionless, taking it all in. Fakelina was scratching one of her glittery wings.
“Amazing, isn’t it? You have just found out the thing they don’t want you to know. You were courageous enough to research it, and now the secret is yours. You’re not like the sheeple who believe everything the media tells them.”
She was right. I felt special. Like I was smarter than everyone else.
“You have to spread the news,” Fakelina commanded me. “The people of this country don’t know what’s being done to them. But remember–you’ll get a lot of blowback from those who haven’t yet seen the light.”
I did not shirk my duty. I spent the following weeks delving deeper and deeper into the archives of secret knowledge on the Internet, and becoming more frightened as I went. The leaders of Black Lives Matter were aliens. The leaders of the Women’s March were aliens. All the Hollywood actors and popular singers and rappers were aliens, too.
I shared as much as I possibly could with my friends and family online. I tried to warn them. But just as Fakelina had said, the people I once thought I loved and cared about turned out to be blinded sheep, who bleated at me about “rational thought” and “credible sources.” There was a deadly international conspiracy going on, and all they could think of were my sources? It was painful for me, but I had to accept that they were not ready to wake up, not ready for the enlightenment I had experienced. So I blocked and unfriended them, one by one. I would have to walk this path alone.
Or…not alone, actually. I had new friends–better friends. People who were fellow alien fungus researchers. They understood me. And whenever I got too discouraged and was about to give up my quest, I could feel Fakelina perched on my shoulder, whispering in my ear: “Keep going! Keep watching Youtube videos! You will find the answers!”
So I kept going. Months, or maybe years, passed. And as I spent more and more time studying the conspiracy theories, I shrank–first my mind, then my heart and the rest of me, until I became a very shrivelled little creature indeed.
One night, I woke up around 2 am, curled up next to my laptop, and I noticed that I had grown a pair of sticky, glittery wings. They didn’t help me fly, though. I could only flap them listlessly.
Fakelina was slouching on my sofa, smoking a cigarette.
“Am I magical fairy now, too?” I asked her.
“I guess so.” She shrugged. “Oh no, don’t give me that look. It’s not like we’re going to be fairy BFFs or anything. Time for me to take off.”
“What?? But…but you gotta keep helping me! What about our mission of bringing knowledge to the masses?”
“You have learned enough to continue the mission on your own, gullible grasshopper.” I heard a “ding!” and a tiny, sparkly suitcase appeared in her hand. “Besides, I sold all the data about you to Cambridge Analytica and I need a vacation.”
She floated up to me and tapped me with her wand one last time. “I now endow you with the power to not only share fake stories, but to make up your own shit as well! If you spin your web of lies well enough, you can play on people’s fears and prejudices and fanatical obsessions. And then you can do all sorts of things. Influence elections….sell useless nutritional supplements…”
My shoulders slumped. “Wow. Not quite the fairy tale ending I imagined.”
Fakelina laughed. “If you wanted a happier ending to your story…you should’ve used your brain!”
I could still hear her cackle long after she was gone.
eurobrat 
04/09/2018 at 4:26 am
Well done. Lots of Fakelina followers out there.
04/09/2018 at 5:23 pm
Thank you! Yes, I think I’ve been debating too many of them lately. But at least they haven’t been threatening me
04/10/2018 at 12:49 pm
Dang, I hope she stays away from me! – Marty
04/10/2018 at 3:16 pm
I think it’s more a matter of being able to stay away from her 😉
04/10/2018 at 3:31 pm
Ah, yes. I’m familiar with the concept from my dating days. Good advice.
04/13/2018 at 1:38 pm
In the Interweb Age, where it’s all about “going viral”, it’s of NO surprise that the world is run by fungi. Our modern culture is all just one big disease to me.
04/14/2018 at 12:55 pm
And I can understand that concept when it’s being used metaphorically…what worries me is the people who have a literal belief in the reptilians or Annunaki or whatever controlling the world. All we need to make things suck as bad as they do now is just regular human beings….
04/15/2018 at 2:07 pm
(Here I go off on another tangent)
I’m wondering if you have this Brit in mind. He’s a pro-footballer turned broadcaster, turned Green Party spokesman, turned author, turned new-age conspiracy theorist. He’s been promoting the alien-lizard conspiracy theory for a couple decades now.
https://www.davidicke.com/
There is debate over whether he uses it as an allegory for our psychopathic leadership class, or if he means it literally. It might just be a headline grabbing hook to attract followers who otherwise wouldn’t pay attention to his more sedate, intellectual, material. Either way, it sounds like he’s recently put all that in the back seat in an attempt to be considered more serious to mainstream tinfoil hat wearers.
I just don’t know. Especially for a jock, he’s a very smart, articulate, knowledgeable, man who is alternatively batshit crazy & bang-the-fuck-on. https://www.davidicke.com/article/467092/david-icke-google-facebook-cambridge-analytica
But one thing is 100% certain, he definitely saw this mini-series in the 80’s. (A super-keen eye can spot the future Freddy Krueger.)
“V” was intended to be a (non-alien) tale of a creeping fascist takeover of America. Originally called “Storm Warnings”, it was based on “It can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here
It’s story with a “very familiar taste” to it. A populist new President is elected promising to restore America to prosperity and greatness! He then starts attacking the media and anyone resisting him. There are thuggish squads of patriotic Minute Men, attacks on women minorities & science, bullshit counter-conspiracies and a “Corpo” government of-&-for the corporations. Despite all its negatives, the government had a large, unshakable, following. Very familiar plot-line.
NBC thought it was “too cerebral” for TV (and too anti-corporate) and insisted the villains be turned into alien reptiles…in part to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars/Trek.
04/16/2018 at 5:58 pm
I have heard of this guy, although he wasn’t specifically who I was thinking of…but I have seen my share of Youtube videos “proving” the reptilian control of our world. Again, if meant as a metaphor, then that’s one thing…but the line between humorous satire and genuine insanity is very thin in the online world.
04/19/2018 at 11:40 am
I’ve periodically kept tabs on this Icke guy over the last 10-15 years or so. And it’s pretty terrifying how small the “leaps of faith” required are getting. Shit, how familiar does the description of V aka It can’t Happen Here sound in 2018??? The reptile aliens in V even dressed in red!
It’s not just Trump. The goon squads are rising all around the world. (Russia, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Poland, etc.) Rights & Freedoms (& jobs) are just being slurped up like Cheese Doodles in a vacuum cleaner. Worst of all, as long as they can use the latest phone to post pictures of every bowel movement they have on Loserbook, nobody gives a fuck!
But as I said before, I just can’t tell if “Reptile Aliens” is a metaphor, or not. Although, the biggest single difference between “the reality” and “the conspiracy” is what gets served at suppertime. The awful truth is that we’re ruled…and increasingly so…by soulless, reptilian, elites willing to do anything for a buck/power. (See Loserbook, Cambridge Analytica etc, etc)
Our Sci-Fi dystopian future…just ain’t as “future” as it used to be.
04/19/2018 at 8:08 pm
There are so many frightening things going on…and the conspiracy theory guys are supremely unhelpful, completely blurring the line between fact and fantasy until the categories just stop mattering altogether. That’s how you get these horrible stories about Parkland and Sandy Hook victims being paid actors.
There are so many real problems we have to deal with…who needs the made up stuff, anyway?
04/20/2018 at 10:03 am
Yeah, “crisis actors”. Jesus Christ! it would have been FAR easier to just do what downtown building owners in my podunk hicktown do all the time. They pay addicted homeless people money to burn down their unwanted buildings. (heritage protected, or for the insurance)
Instead of “crisis actors”, you just shoot up some junkie, give him an AR15, point him at a school and tell him he gets another hit for every kid he shoots. Easy as pie!
04/20/2018 at 9:54 am
Wonderful story, by the way! (Yeah, another case of Sedate Me burying the lead with his damn tangents.) It would make a great short film.
It’s a heartwarming tale of how exposing yourself to the Interwebs (never mind exposing yourself ON the Interwebs! ie SnatchChat) has slow, but serious, negative long-term repercussions. Not just for you, but all of society.
More & more, the Webpipes only tells you what you want to hear. No longer does anything you don’t want to hear has to get through anymore. Not only that, corporate algorithms are increasingly deciding want it is you want to hear, based upon their endless tracking of you and your profile they create, buy, sell & trade. Ain’t that kind of them to make your choices for you…and all for nothing but the billions they make off it?
Be it celeb butt-cleavage, or stories about Hillary Clinton’s Satanic pizza shop with a child molesting VIP room in the basement…you get exactly what you want! That’s what capitalism and “the marketplace of ideas” is all about. A healthy Democracy? Not so much.
And there’s fewer & fewer humans involved. On the Webpipes, there ain’t no experienced, professional, “news editors” making sure stories are “factual”, “important” & other such freedom limiting bullshit. They just keep the truth that you already know to be true…but have no evidence whatsoever for…out of the Mainstreaming Media. Who the hell needs that? We want freedom to believe whatever we already believe! Facts are a Socialist plot!
It’s my choice to unquestioningly believe whatever them there robots keep feeding me….based upon my past swallowing of it. You can’t make me swallow “facts” or anything “important” against my will. And if there isn’t video of a real pizza shop with a leather-clad Hillary whipping young, naked, boys….I’m a gonna make me one and share it with the world. The world needs to know the truth!!!
04/20/2018 at 10:05 am
Oh, and there’s a touch of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in it. Nice.
04/25/2018 at 6:32 pm
Thank you 🙂 High praise to be compared to Kafka!
04/25/2018 at 6:38 pm
And as if to echo both my story and your comments, the “dark web” is currently in an uproar about a supposed snuff film showing Hillary and Huma Abedin sexually assaulting and killing a young girl. People are going nuts about it…. Of course, the photos floating around which were said to be stills from the video have turned out to be promotional pictures of a female band. It’s almost enjoyable to read complaints from the tragic trolls: “I’ve spent hours and hours looking for this video!”
And as horrible as this will sound, why would anyone imagine that Hillary is…exciting…enough to have had titillating videos made of her? I gladly voted for her, but even I occasionally wish that she would have inhaled a little bit more along with Bill.