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| Cafe at Classic Football Shirts London. Source. |
"By far the greatest Cafe the world has ever seen."
I was walking past a familiar storefront this afternoon, the Classic Football Shirts London shop, and happened to notice this claim in huge letters (how could I not?) on the front glass.
The cafe at this store is indeed nice, as Judy and I have experienced more than once. Does it live up to that claim? (Is it even in the same class as Chapters in Newberg, Oregon?)
I'd rather ask, does it matter?
My theme this evening is manipulative exaggeration. The "greatest Cafe the world has ever seen" may be exaggerated, but it's not manipulative. It's so over the top that nobody is likely to argue the point.
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| "Communist, not socialist. Communist." Screenshot from source. |
A few days ago, I watched a video clip of the USA's president say straight into the camera that New York City mayoral candidate is a "... communist, not socialist. Communist. He's far, he's far worse than a socialist."
I realize that as a rule the current U.S. president is not a reliable source of facts nor a defender of the biblical commandment against false witness, but I want to stick with this one case for a moment. Trump's assertion is an exaggeration (yes, Mamdani is on the left end of the USA's political spectrum, but not that far!) but also an outright falsehood (Mamdani is not a Communist either politically or philosophically, and this is a matter of public record).
The leader of what we used to call the Free World is guilty of manipulative exaggeration.
I realize that he's not the first U.S. politician to engage in this variation of false witness. As just one case study, I've just spend some time in a mixed experience of fascination and horror, reading about the 1884 presidential campaigns of Grover Cleveland and James Blaine. As American Heritage summarized it, "Grover Cleveland had seduced a widow; James G. Blaine had peddled influence [and] lied about it. In 1884, voters had to choose between two tarnished champions."
(My favorite line from Cleveland supporters: "We should elect Mr. Cleveland to the public office he is so admirably qualified to fill and remand Mr. Blaine to the private life he is so eminently fitted to adorn.")
Compared to the raging MAGA bulls in the china shop of democracy, it may seem like indulging in trivialities to point to the cesspool of manipulative exaggeration that makes up much of the Internet. But is this wider context just making it harder to raise a red flag when the president himself indulges? Might we become so cynical that we give up on seeking truth and unmasking manipulation even when it's conducted by our chief executive? And ... when it's conducted by "our own side" as well?
I'm sad to see that people on the left, where I generally find myself, are now constantly using these techniques of manipulative exaggeration, often in the form of "clickbait," in the supposed service of getting our attention for their message. My e-mails and my phone's text messages feature such lines as...
- Re: Taylor Smith...Donald Trump's DISGUSTING rant.
- re: Portland's polling location [Johan won’t respond??] (Portland, Oregon, doesn't have polling locations! Only drop-off points for our ballots, which can also be mailed in.)
- We can't believe you're a Republican!!!
- NOT asking for money, just your signature. (For the record, they did ask for money, too.)
- Impeachment COMING SOON [MUST READ >>]>
And in addition, there are those frequent "surveys" and "polls" which both major parties send out constantly, with questions worded to make it obvious how we should answer.
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| He is starting to worry about me. |
If there's anything unique about the text messages and e-mails from the Republicans, it's how stupid they think their audience is. A frequent theme: the president has been checking with his staff to hear how I've personally responded to their latest plea.
If there's any blessing in this Internet/phone blizzard of manipulative exaggeration, it might be that the formulas (including senders' addresses, CAPITAL LETTERS, shocking headlines, etc) are so absurd that we're probably all learning how to filter them out. The sheer volume of such traffic may also reduce my patience with even using these devices as much as I've done in the past. SHOCKING! It's WIN-WIN. GAME OVER!
Four years ago, I posted the following essay on clickbait. I find my YouTube feed to be slightly calmer these days. Is it because I've somehow trained it to reduce this kind of traffic, or are content providers themselves realizing we're burning out on manipulative exaggeration?
Many of those videos have calm, interesting titles and descriptions, and the day is not long enough to view even a small portion of those. That's especially true for a video like this, modestly entitled "Crew-3 Mission | Approach and Docking," that takes more than six hours to watch from beginning to end.
Six hours may seem like a long time, but it's a lot shorter than the preceding video, "Crew-3 Mission | Coast and Rendezvous," which clocks in at nine hours. Strangely enough, that title completely omits the dramatic centerpiece of the video -- the launch!
Many of the videos I'm invited to watch are exactly the opposite: the titles are far more dramatic than the content. Often the titles reflect today's equivalents of the overused superlative "extreme" of a couple of decades ago.
These overly dramatic titles and descriptions are sometimes called "clickbait." This word entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1999, longer ago than I realized. (According to the OED, clickbait is "Internet content whose main purpose is to encourage users to follow a link to a web page, esp. where that web page is considered to be of low quality or value.")
In our classes at the New Humanities Institute in Elektrostal, Russia, we occasionally presented our students with carefully curated cutting-edge lists of buzzwords and jargon (and sometimes asked them to predict whether those words and phrases would still be in use in five years), but I don't remember "clickbait" being in those lists. I think one of the last classes we did on this topic included the word "binge-watch" ... in case that helps you deduce what years I'm talking about.
Far from exciting my interest, clickbait titles and descriptions of videos relating to space travel usually repel me. Here are the top five words and phrases practically guaranteed to prevent my click:
game over! (which it never is!)
insane! (meaning, as far as I can tell, audacious)
humiliated! (usually comparing one tech entrepreneur/celebrity's success to another)
this is huge! (probably not)
it's happening! (and so is everything else)
I watched one of these videos, out of sheer curiosity and to maintain a shred of integrity for this screed. (What if it really was "game over" and my protests were just ill-informed?)
GAME OVER! Elon Musk & Google's INSANE Partnership Will Change EVERYTHING 🔥🔥🔥
The video on the "insane" partnership of Elon Musk and Google was underwhelming. The commentator simply described the Starlink/Google collaboration, which was already public news five months earlier, using video clips that were only vaguely related to the narrative, not a single voice other than his own, and no analysis that could not be found in corporate press releases. Youtube doesn't mind, of course -- the video was preceded by two ads.
More samples from one evening's Youtube browsing:
Original post and links for that day, November 11, 2021, are here.
A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs. Many thanks to Steven Davison for writing about this podcast. I've been sampling it. It lives up to Steven's praise. And if you think that rock music is a bit of a trivial subject for our difficult times, I can point out how multidimensional the podcast's coverage is, taking into account racial politics, business ethics, technical innovations, generational influences, in short, all the ways that music reflects life. What's more, we may need a thoughtful podcast on rock music while we're in detox from all that manipulative exaggeration.
While I'm at Steven's blog, here's a more typical post: a new look at "that of God" through the eyes of George Fox (of course), Lewis Benson, Rufus Jones, and Michael Langford.
What's going on in Richmond, Indiana? Two institutions closely related to Friends report troubling financial news. Here's an item on Earlham College and another on Friends United Meeting. (Part two of the FUM document is here.)
According to FUM's Weekly E-news, FUM has scheduled an online information session on the financial situation and the 2026 budget on Thursday, November 13, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Register here. Lloyd Stangeland, FUM’s Acting Chief Financial Officer; Shawn McConaughey, Clerk of the Finance Committee; and Emily Provance, Clerk of the Advancement Committee, will facilitate the session.
"Responding to the calls of Palestinian Christians": a statement and petition campaign arising from the 2025 Church at the Crossroads campaign. Thanks to Kristin Du Mez for the link.
Blues from Brazil: Little Walter's "Sad Hours" performed by Sacha Gamarra. Below: From Dnipro, Ukraine, Kostiantyn Kolisnychenko with the same instrumental.
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