The Internet rallied around this tearful Southern boy. He was invited to next year Avengers movie premiere. He got to meet pro football players. Except his daddy is a white supremacist in prison. He was literally photographed holding the Confederate battle flag like a young Dylan Roof. (We should not blame this boy. His momma gave him a flag and told him to pose, so he did.) People jumped to conclusions about what was going on. Things just got super awkward for all these celebrities who wanted to be this boy's friend.
But why did he ever have a GoFundMe page? He didn't need a liver transplant. This is in some regards a repeat of that homeless good Samaritan who ended up being rewarded with more than $300,000 in charitable donations. Why? Because he gave his last twenty to help a photogenic white woman buy gasoline. (Never mind that giving that much money to a recovering drug addict could trigger a relapse.) People aren't giving to homeless shelters or food kitchens. They have decided that this one homeless man was a great guy. Let's give him money!
This phenomenon is a mirror to our current tendency to publicly shame people who do something that we impulsively believe was wrong, without knowing about the CONTEXT in which the event took place. Jon Ronson just wrote a great book about this: So You've Been Publicly Shamed. This is where fake news comes from--it is created organically and is not agenda driven. Like a game of telephone, our love or outrage gets distorted. We can blame Russia or we can blame human stupidity.
So we must be more wary of these viral videos. Don't think with your heart. Think with your brain. Because that's what your brain is for.
