Certainty Doesn’t Need Context
For a long time now, I’ve developed a habit of verifying/identifying the background or profile of the writer/presenter/speaker in a commentary space before actually diving deep into the narratives that they are building.
Why?!
Based on all sorts of baiting, rage-bait, trigger-bait, thirst-traps, or whatever new variation exists, knowing about the presenter helps me understand where the content is coming from before I decide what to make of it.
I’m not just talking about a single individual. This can be applied to almost any entity that is providing you with content, especially those who always present it as information, things you didn’t know, the facts behind the curtains, the plot behind the play, what they aren’t telling you, what actually happened, things like that.
Before taking an interest in these sorts of content, I think it’s better to be a little thorough.
Even if you think, why should I bother about these things?
Keep in mind that when a narrative is being built, they are not necessarily doing it once or twice. It happens throughout the period during which the desired narrative is established. The same argument comes back through different events, different examples and different forms. You keep seeing certain things while certain other things rarely appear.
Eventually your mind can be curated towards a certain narrative without you even realising it.
That’s the part which interests me more than someone simply lying on the internet. Because they don’t necessarily have to lie.
The individual pieces of information presented to you can be true. But which information gets selected, how frequently you see it, what context is provided along with it, what gets left out and how everything is connected together can still build a particular picture in your head.
You can relate this with almost any of the recent events that have been going around. Wars, protests, political issues, social issues or even unfortunate incidents happening in educational institutions. Almost immediately there will be people explaining what actually happened, why it happened and who is responsible, sometimes while the actual event itself is still unfolding.
Even though you aren’t part of any particular faction, ideology or political view, you’ll slowly formulate your views based on the information you repeatedly consume. And being neutral doesn’t necessarily protect you from that.
This is especially something I’ve been thinking about in the case of teenagers. Even in the current era, I don’t think enough emphasis is given to helping young minds understand how to form an opinion rather than simply giving them opinions to choose from. And there are a lot of people willing to do the latter.
Parents, teachers, mentors, influencers, online communities, political groups, religious groups, celebrities and now practically anybody with a phone and an audience can become part of how a young person understands something.
The problem is, confidence can easily look like credibility when you don’t know enough about the subject yourself.
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So when I come across such a narrative, I prefer knowing something about the presenter. It can be done by going through their previous content, recent online activities, ideologies or shifts in perspectives, or any available public presentations, portfolios or profiles. Not because finding something about the presenter automatically proves or disproves what they are saying.
That’s another trap.
A person whose ideology I completely disagree with can still present a valid argument. Someone who thinks almost exactly like me can still present absolute nonsense. Knowing the presenter gives me context about the lens through which something is being presented. The actual claim still has to stand on its own.
And there is another problem here which I don’t particularly like admitting.
How often do we actually do this when we agree with the person?
When someone presents something completely against what I believe, suddenly I’m interested in their entire history. Who is this person? What have they said before? Who are they associated with? Why are they saying this?
But when somebody says exactly what I was already thinking, somehow the background investigation isn’t that urgent anymore.
Apparently my investigative journalism has office hours.
Now coming back to the whole point about knowing who is presenting the information, there is another problem with my approach.
Short-form videos.
YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok and similar formats are convenient in almost every way, both for the presenter and the consumer. The presenter has a minute or two to make the point, which obviously doesn’t leave much room for background, contradictions or uncertainties. For us it’s even easier. Why spend twenty minutes trying to understand something when someone is willing to explain it in forty seconds?
I’m not saying short-form content is inherently unreliable. I’ve learned plenty of useful things from it myself. But while going through Shorts or Reels, how often do we actually remember the person who gave us that information? I may forget the account completely and never see that person again, but whatever they told me can still become part of my understanding of the subject.
Now repeat that with multiple videos from multiple people, with the platform deciding what I’m likely to watch next based on what I’ve already watched. At that point, who exactly is building the narrative?
Which brings me back to the problem I started with. I wanted to know the presenter before trusting the narrative. But what happens when the format itself makes the presenter invisible?
When was the last time you learned a “fact” from a forty-second clip, and actually stopped to check who gave it to you?
What do ‘you think’? Is there a way to stay critical in a feed designed for amnesia?
