They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live.

I recently caught up on all my newsletter reading. I subscribe to some excellent newsletters that give my brain something to think and ponder about. During the day, usually in the afternoons when there is a lull, I’ll peruse my newsletter emails and look forward to something that would inspire me.

I found this link in one of these newsletters. It looks like it’s based from a sci-fi or horror movie, one which I hadn’t seen before – called They Live.

Cinema Fan from the IMDB described it as, “ John Carpenter’s slow and deliberate immersion of the daunting and worrying fable of the corrupt, deceiving and indifferent economic, social and political society, that has wrapped itself around its people and who in turn have blindly accepted their fate. . Multicultural in more forms than anticipated, are the leading and upwardly mobile alien race who have gelled themselves into the Human psyche and exploited it to its full potential. This is the story of an everyman, a no one, a Nada who stumbles upon their secret, via an underground movement, whose mission is to sabotage their plans and awaken the world to its sinister plans. With the help of a pair of sunglasses, that shows the world as it really is, not in color, but a black and white parallel world that the sub-conscious has chosen to ignore. With subliminal messages as “OBEY”, “CONFORM”, “MARRY AND REPRODUCE”, “CONSUME”, “WATCH TELEVISION” and “SLEEP”.

In this video snippet, the character finds a pair of glasses that reveal the true messages behind the marketing posters and magazines and he has a hard time believing what he really sees.

It made me think of the different messages that we all get from social media and which has been made evident in the last couple of years with covid.

I don’t know about you, but it’s been an eye opener for me to realise that there are others in my environment – family, friends and colleagues – who may not see what I see in messages. Where I may scoff at something I see online, they may take it to heart or think there’s a message – good or bad – within it. Or vice versa.

We have seen from the anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers and other conspiracy theorists that maybe they have such glasses and see the world like this; OR is it the opposite?

Am I not seeing something?

I think it’s fair to say that we are served a lot of fake news and media now and where it’s now too difficult to discern fact from fiction anymore.

References:

How to Spot Fake News: A Course

Snopes: Fact Checking News

List of Fact Checking Sites

Fact Checking in the Age of COVID