Humanity’s collective epistemology has shifted tremendously since the advent of the viral internet. Only two centuries ago, Descartes had people ruling out every single possible doubt before agreeing something was real. Now “my uncle shared this link” is good enough for someone to shape a worldview around.
So it’s healthy to see people showing such skepticism about a viral Facebook claim. Even if they are totally boofing it on the fact that it’s a joke.
At least it’s a start.
Last week, 17-year-old Shelley Floryd of Sweden proposed that maybe, just maybe, an entire continent wasn’t real. She said, flat out, that Australia was a hoax. Not real. Fake news. And for some reason, 50,000 people have chimed in on her Facebook post to tell her she’s wrong.
Which… she knows.
As with most things that cause strangers to lose their shit online, it was just an inside joke.
“I [claimed Australia didn’t exist] because the person who inspired the post was my Australian best friend, Sam. Basically, I was talking to him on the phone and he told me he hated the Smiths, and I went ‘Australia doesn’t exist’ because nobody hates the Smiths AHAHAH,” Floryd told the Daily Dot.
Not content to just let him know in private, she posted her thoughts on Facebook, in a slightly unhinged rant about our friends down under.
https://www.facebook.com/baepsaedeura/posts/1886545014917318
Now, normally, posting a thing to one’s own Facebook page isn’t exactly “informing the entire planet,” but for some reason, this went viral. Over the week, 23,000 people wound up sharing it.
Floryd still has no idea why.
“I posted it and then I went to bed and woke up to more than 700 shares. I guess it’s because I already had 8.9k followers and they thought it was funny?” she said.
Many did not. And in an age where articles about Hillary Clinton using a body double to cover up her failing health rack up tens of thousands of shares, it’s weird to see everyone jump in to debunk her, with awful ferocity.
“Most people have been very negative, calling me a retard, idiot, slut, cunt, and so on. A few hundred ppl have threatened to kill me and some others to beat me up,” she said.
But she is headed to the continent in July, and she wants people to know she loves the place and does believe it exists, and is confident her plane will land when it reaches the location where Australia is supposed to be.
“I don’t have any hard feelings against Australia apart from the fact that I’ll probably die where I go there (in July!). As far as I know it’s just filled [with] bugs, capitalism and spiders,” she said.
Yeah, those spiders are definitely real AF.
H/T LadBible
