Velociworld

HOAXERS

I, for one, love a good hoax. A pulling of the wool over the collective eye. An emasculation of the self-important professional classes. Hell, just a good old fashioned Gotcha!

I have friends who deplore, despise a hoaxer. They consider them the most common of upsetters of the welfare of the commonweal. They believe they pull a hoax out of pure mean-spiritedness, usually even at no personal gain. I disagree.

From Piltdown Man to the Cottingley Fairies to the War of the Worlds broadcast, I would posit the rationale for each and every hoax is unique to the hoaxer. Whether skewering the supposed giants of the natural philosophy establishment, or scrambling to escape punishment for innocuous playfulness gone awry, or pure mischievous overreaching, the motive for any singular hoax is unique unto itself.

I delight in seeing the gullible take the bait, in other words, regardless of motive on the part of the hoaxer. Sometimes it's just cool to watch the fur fly, mass hysteria incorporate itself, normally reasonable peoples resort to ad hominem attacks to prove or refute what ultimately is smoked out to be a laughable cosmic wedgie.

Crop circles? Ha ha ha! Alien autopsy film? Double ha ha ha!

Perhaps it is the fisherman in me, but rising to the bait is as self-gratifying an emotion in me as any.

Now, I will be the first to admit that certain hoaxes have egregious consequences. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has caused untold damage over the last hundred years. However, I discriminate between a well-executed hoax, a gotcha, with what otherwise is a pure and unadulterated fraud, created for no other purpose than to create ethnic and spiritual strife. The Protocols isn't a hoax to me. It is propaganda. Leni I'm sure loved it.

What about other supposed hoaxes? Is the Shroud of Turin a hoax? If so, to what aim? To prop up and legitimize the Church? Ah, that's not a hoax, if it do indeed be fake. More propaganda. A genuine hoax is meant not to impassion devotees, it is meant to poke a finger in the eye of the comfortable. Making the self-serious look ridiculous, and pompous.

The Emperor's New Clothes. Now, yes, that is fable. But it demonstrably proves the positive benefits of the occasional hoax, to wit: dropping the scales from the eyes of the hypnotized masses. Would someone had been able to pull that one off on Josef Stalin.

To conclude, should I ever be busted for any hoaxes, please remember: I not only did it for the pure hell of it, I did it for your own good. And I might be calling you as a character witness.