The world today has three very interesting cliques that many a logical person finds difficult to understand.
The first are flat-earthers: people who think the Earth — our planet — is flat, despite abundant scientific and empirical evidence.
The second are anti-vaxxers: people who believe that vaccination is propaganda by Big Pharma to increase their profits via inoculation formulae they peddle.
The third — as can be seen via their rise in countries like the United States — are the ultra-right, exemplified by people who still believe that Donald Trump is still President
The last group also believes that John F Kennedy’s son, who died in 1999, is still alive and will join Trump as his running mate for the 2024 US presidential race.
Common denominator
The reason these myths persist can be traced back to a single phenomenon: the American news media not reporting on the facts.
And there are some compelling examples, staring with the Tuskegee study: an experiment carried out by US sources where people of a certain race were infected with a venereal disease and its effects researched on them without the infected individuals either knowing about it or being denied the requisite treatment for the disease they had.
The entire phenomenon was paralleled in the Marvel superhero series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which aired in March-April 2021.
Real-life example
However, the media distrust may have stemmed from broadcasts at least a decade ago from today, even before the first revelations of a certain Edward Snowden.
It was a show called Person of Interest, which had among its producers names like JJ Abrams — who helped produced some of the newer Star Wars films — and visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s sibling Jonathan Nolan.
Jonathan was a writer and producer, and yet was able to eerily predict the surveillance carried out by the American National Security Agency or NSA, which for a long time the US intelligence establishment referred to as “No Such Agency” to keep it a secret.
It was the workings of this agency that Snowden brought to light as a whistle-blower, and has — as a result — been on the run.
King Julian
Then there was Julian Assange, whose humanitarian record may best be described as “chequered”.
After all, he was behind the globally-acclaimed WikiLeaks revelations, but was also accused by several people of rape — charges that would go on to be dropped later.
He would go on to be nicknamed King Julian after the garrulous lemur-kingdom-ruling creature from the Madagascar animated films.
Censorship
Over the years, both Snowden and Assange have been vilified for a variety of reasons aside from allegations of ties to anti-Western regimes.
What they said has also been subjected to heavy censorship across the world, despite the statements often carrying weight.
Now, both Snowden and Assange have seen their fair share of the limelight with movies being made on their life and most prominent actions.
However, Assange may have received more attention because of Confoundtheirpolitix, a character in the noted comic series — possibly better interpreted today as a graphic novel — Asterix and the Missing Scroll.
The name, derived a phrase from one of them the verses of the Commonwealth national anthem of God Save The Queen/King, could very well have been Wikilix, in conjunction with Gaulish (ancient Frnech) names that had the suffix “-ix”.
Modern-day context
Today, both Snowden and Assange are seen as enemies of the state in most of the Western world in general and the US in particular.
This, despite being both of them being considered “hacktivists” across the world.