Every year, it seems that there is a new type of virus or an imminent technological disaster that will purportedly threaten the existence of humankind.
If it wasn’t the Y2K apocalypse that would bring society back to the Stone Age, it was going to be the bird flu or cellphone brain tumors that would kill us all.
However, as today’s data visualization from Information is Beautiful shows, these fears are mostly overblown. The media finds a way to tap into these hot-button issues and then people inevitably get worked into a frenzy.
“Swine flu”, which broke out in the U.S. in 2009, blew up into a full-on panic by media and authorities. While it did eventually kill about 12,000 people, that’s not very remarkable when it turns out that the common seasonal flu kills between 3,000 to 49,000 people each year, according to the Center for Disease Control.
The public consumed information on the swine flu like there was no tomorrow. Here’s Google searches for “swine flu” surpassing the amount of searches for the newly-elected “Barack Obama”.
But do you know what was even worse than swine flu? Ebola, of course.
In the very first chart on this post, the true length of the data for “ebola” is cut off because the series is literally off the chart. Here’s a revised version that puts all of the data in full perspective:
Based on this level of coverage and interest, the virus must have surely been on the level of the Black Plague, right?
According to The Economist, there were just 28,637 ebola cases and 11,315 deaths worldwide. The World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak to be over in January, and there hasn’t been a trace of the virus since.
Next time the talking heads on television are discussing the newest global distraction, take a deep breath. There’s no need to panic if mountains are being made out of molehills.
Every fuckin night for the last two weeks our local news has focused on the HB2 bathroom law here in NC. Last night the story was about the 10 or so protesters outside the Gov’s mansion. This was their lead story. I remember when there would be 5000 tea party protesters outside the same mansion and there wouldn’t be a peep in the news about it. MSM sucks, no doubt about it.
The average sheep would not understand what those charts depict nor would they understand the article. If you asked them, I’d bet many would immediately try to remind you how bad those events really were.
I don’t watch broadcast or cable news anymore……local or national….at all! I don’t miss it a bit. Everywhere you go these days they are pumping that shit into your head. Doctors office, grocery store and the latest one I saw is at the fucking gas pump. Some cumstain in the asshole of society decided that we all need a little Entertainment Tonight video blasted at us at full volume while we’re just trying to sniff a few gas fumes to forget this train wreck for few seconds. How many humans even consider the value of silence anymore? It probably terrifies them.
Despite a few stalwart holdouts, we are clearly on the downhill slope of “peak human”. Stick a fork in us! Our epitaph should read: We stupided ourselves into extinction!
Distractions are the way of the con, always watch the other hand. The media as an arm of the government keeps the mark distracted while the dirty work of our bureaucratic state expands to meet the need of making us all safe from whatever. What’s next?
Ouirphuqd nails it!
No just the main steam media–Michael Snyder types also…let’s see ::: mayan calendar, ebola, last 6 months of 2015, junk bond “collapse”, retail apocalypse, QE3 ending apocalypse, .25% interest rate hike apocalypse, Saudi and Turkish invasion of Syria to start WW3, Russia plane shot down to start WW3, Ferguson and Baltimore riots to start civil unrest and martial law……ad nauseum
Our economic system IS unsustainable…I’d like to think that the people will rise up en mass and protest all of the political and economic shenanigans, there most likely will be a large war in the Mideast ( especially with inevitable, finite sweet crude diminishing–and sunni/shia escalations)
However this constant–” we are on the brink of calamity” reporting and fear porn is exhausting—prepare ad remember, God’s timetable, not ours
If you believed the ZOG propaganda, you’d think the alleged threats from people to Colorado RP officials were all from the headquarters of the Grand Wizard Trump of the KKK and Harpy was the constant victim of Right Wing Extremist slanders.
@Javelin
Snyder is a broken record of doom. He must be a real treat at dinner parties.
Oh, and you forgot Shemitah and Blood Moon…
1.– Watching teevee news stations will make you dumber. That’s not me trying to be funny. Studies have been done on this. The people I know — and you know — who get their news only from TV or the newspaper, are all fucking stupid as shit, bordering on retardation.
2.– The three major news whores — the Communist network, the Libtard network, and the Neocon network — all have an agenda. They will force their agenda down the people’s throats 24x7x365. This is called brainwashing.
3.– You will, at best, get .01% of the truth … even on those rare occasions when they try to tell the truth. Look up Ebola. There’s hundreds of pages of info about Ebola .. a lot of it actually quite interesting. Now, despite the non-stop coverage for what seemed like forever, what did people ACTUALLY learn about Ebola? Not a fucking thing. Same old fucking soundbites, over and over and over.
4.– One can never never ever become informed when “news” is given in 30, 60, or 90 second soundbites. You’re getting less than .01% of the full story on ANY story they report on. Even when they don’t actually lie (a lie of commission) to your face, they are lying my ignoring 99.99% of the data (a lie of omission). They fuck you coming and going.
5.– There are key players responsible for Shitfuk America that we lump into TPTB (politicians, lawyers, the mega wealthy, nazi corporations, etc etc). They all use the same tool to manipulate, control, brainwash, and subjugate us into a retarded stupor of acquiescence …….. television.
6.– The misuse of television is perhaps the greatest evil perpetrated against mankind. God told Satan that He would send Jesus to redeem mankind and set them free, …. and Satan laughed and said “Not as long as I have television.”
7.– I would love to live long enough to see a Soviet or Chinese style purge fall upon the upper echelon whores of Babylon … to see them hanging from the gallows, or burned at the stake. Literally. (But, not by me, for I am committed to non-violence.) Of course, it must go much deeper than the public faces of dicksucker Cooper and Megcunt. The vast majority of the media empire is owned and controlled by Dirty Rotten Joos. Really. They MUST pay for their sins … and since they rejected The One who could have done that … may Satan shove hot iron spikes up their asses for all eternity.
Lets overlay the stats with topics such as constitutional law and J-Lo’s ass. See what trends highest.
Or Porn.
Everything is marketing and P.R. Everything.