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I was at Area 51, which he covered. And while his video was very entertaining, it did not represent at all what it was like to be there. AGNB is exceptional at
by Taek 6y ago
I was at Area 51, which he covered. And while his video was very entertaining, it did not represent at all what it was like to be there.
AGNB is exceptional at finding the crazy people and encouraging them to be themselves on camera. 98% of the people at area 51 (admittedly a lower percentage than most events) were completely normal, non-conspiracy individuals, mostly from the midwest.
- crocodiletears 6y agoInteresting that they were mostly from the midwest.
- ethanbond 6y agoBut... they were at Area 51... It seems that alone would indicate that they are not non-conspiracy individuals.
- Apocryphon 6y agoThe Area 51 thing was a viral meme on social media. It hit the mainstream. It was a little like a flash mob. Even its origin was comedic.
- ethanbond 6y agoYeah but most ordinary people don’t travel hundreds of miles into the middle of a desert to a classified military installation to “flash mob.”
- aaron-santos 6y agoA statement on the chance that an ordinary person traveled to Area 51 is in no way a statement on the chance that a person who traveled to Area 51 is ordinary. The two are wholly unrelated.
- anonymfus 6y agoChances that you just formulated are related by Bayes's theorem.
- Apocryphon 6y agoPeople gather in the desert all the time. Burning Man, Coachella, EDC. The people who gathered at Area 51 made their own gathering.
- ethanbond 6y agoYes, their own gathering around raiding a military installation. Pretty clear this is going nowhere. Have a good weekend!
- Apocryphon 6y agoThe joke was about raiding the place because Area 51 is, in popular consciousness, a securely guarded place with unfathomable secrets inside, and thus inaccessible unless a very very large number of people attempted to storm the place with bullet-defying Naruto running. Where do you get that mass of people? Why the internet of course, which is also a terrible place to organize an invasion, which makes it all that more ironic. It should also be noted that at the gathering no violence broke out, because everyone there was for fun. There wasn't even an instance of someone present mentally unstable or too ideologically fanatic actually trying to make a run for it. By all accounts the partiers and the security forces got along amiably. It was indeed a positive, if eccentric, social event. This debate is going nowhere because it requires the participants to have a working grasp of both pop culture and humor.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> It hit the mainstream. Mainstream people are not travelling to Area 51 to be part of a flash mob due to an internet meme. Re-set your expectations of what normal people are doing, because it's a million miles off.
- sukilot 6y agoThat's quite provincial. Normal people have little adventures, but not all the same adventures.
- Apocryphon 6y agoPeople get bored and take road trips. Prior to this year, it was a common American pastime. Another unlikely example: https://www.ijpr.org/2017-05-09/solar-eclipse-or-bust-small-oregon-towns-grapple-with-how-to-prepare-for-thousands https://www.ijpr.org/2017-05-09/solar-eclipse-or-bust-small-...
- ethanbond 6y agoA once in a lifetime (incredible) celestial event == going to the gates of a military installation and, depending on who you ask, throwing a party or attempting a raid. Totally normal.
- Apocryphon 6y agoIt's not for everyone, but it's within the boundaries of normality. My other response has already pointed out your apparent lack of getting the joke, but it should be noted that if your primary hangup is the fact that people were partying at a military installation, you should probably know that specific base is one important to UFO mythos and thus public imagination. There is precedence for that at multiple locations: https://www.newmexico.org/events/summer-events/roswell-ufo-festival/ https://www.newmexico.org/events/summer-events/roswell-ufo-f... https://www.travelportland.com/events/ufo-festival-mcminnville/ https://www.travelportland.com/events/ufo-festival-mcminnvil... Area 51, of course, is of higher security than these locations, but there's no crime to be outside of the restricted zone. Personally, I had no interest in the Storm Area 51 event but Groom Lake would make one hell of a hiking expedition. It'd be quite cool to take pictures at the gate, and try to spot black project aircraft along Route 375. https://travelnevada.com/road-trip/extraterrestrial-highway https://travelnevada.com/road-trip/extraterrestrial-highway
- klyrs 6y agoConsider that your assumptions may skew how you're reading GP's comment. What I take from this is that AGNB may have selected the most entertaining people to interview, and ignored the majority of fairly humdrum folks who were there for various reasons. Sounds like a recipe for confirmation bias to me; more like shock reporting, less like good journalism.
- djmips 6y agoYou just mentioned Area 51. You must be a conspiracy individual!
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y agoApparently this is news to people but Area 51 is a pretty massive military base with a daily workforce in the thousands. The primary reason it exists is a combination of history (nevada test area) and geography (groom lake allows radar/radio testing with limited observers on the horizon). If anything someone working at area 51 is a HUGE discounting factor in UFO nut nonsense.
- ethanbond 6y agoI don’t believe OP was referring to the employees. In any case, I was referring to the people who showed up at, yes, a gigantic military base in the middle of the desert. “Completely normal” people would never go there. Ever.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y agoThe overwhelming majority of people there are utterly banal engineers that like the paycheck. Holy cow do people mistake both the scale and ordinariness of groom lake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)
- ethanbond 6y agoI think you’re missing the thread of this conversation. We are discussing civilians who have no official nor unofficial relationship with Area 51/military/government/defense/intelligence/etc showing up at the gates to participate in a “Rush the gates to free the aliens” meme event.
- sukilot 6y agoNot just "aliens". Also experimental aviation and weapons projects.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y agoI'm not missing it, I just think it's pointless jackassery.
- bsder 6y agoI have shopped at Roswell, but I don't believe that aliens have visited us. Often, something like this is just a neat excuse to have a party and something interesting to talk about later.
- Taek 6y agoAs someone who went, I'd say most people were there for the same reason as me: 1. When 2 million people on Facebook say they will go to a thing, you know some fraction will actually go. 2. We were hoping it would evolve into something akin to the next burning man. 3. If it sucked you could fall back to spending a week in vegas. 4. Surely of the people that showed up, a high percentage of them would be interesting people. #1 Around 2000 people showed up #2 no dice, but the potential was there and it may have happened at 20k people #3 I did do this, it was fun #4 definitely was the case, made multiple great friends that weekend
- ordinaryradical 6y agoI was friends with a journalist who had to do those "man on the street" interviews where they ask questions like, "How many states are there?" "Is Puerto Rica part of America or its own country" etc. etc. I asked if it was depressing and she said no: she'd often spend all day trying to find people who could not answer the questions or would say something wacko. In general most people knew the answers or had pretty milquetoast opinions but that doesn't make for a good segment. I love All Gas No Brakes; I do not take it for a minute to be representative of majority opinions in the US. I think its whole purpose is to reveal certain things which the media incorrectly identifies as being a "significant" or "reasonable" opinion or to reveal the absurdism living under most American life. For eg. the most recent video on Portland reveals the hollowing out of those protests as they have disassociated from BLM, not because they represent what BLM has become but precisely because they do not.
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- dugditches 6y agoAnd I suspect there's just lots of 'normal' people footage left on the cutting room floor. Combined with the fact that he doesn't spend long with them either once he realizes they're not 'content'.
- sukilot 6y agoI worry for people who don't understand that AGNB is designed around the concept of people showing off for the camera.
- nsilvestri 6y agoIn a recent interview on the H3 Podcast Andrew, the man behind AGNB, said (paraphrasing) that the crazy people find the camera. Something attracts them to it.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago>crazy people find the camera. Something attracts them to it They're marginalized most of the time. The camera promises a brief break from that.
- peterwwillis 6y ago> 98% of the people at area 51 (admittedly a lower percentage than most events) were completely normal, Is it "normal" now to go to a place where conspiracy theories suggest the government is keeping alien remains and try to storm its gates?
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago>Is it "normal" now to go to a place where conspiracy theories suggest the government is keeping alien remains and try to storm its gates? We used to pack a lunch & watch the prison riots in my hometown. It's like that except you can be close to the mayhem.
- StavrosK 6y agoI might have gone just for the spectacle of it.