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There's a strong strain of (bogus) piety in conservative American Christianity that thrives on pages, sites, and media branded as Christian. "Wow, I can get my
by OliverJones 5y ago
There's a strong strain of (bogus) piety in conservative American Christianity that thrives on pages, sites, and media branded as Christian. "Wow, I can get my ticket punched for the stairway to heaven just by visiting the Jesus Is Lord page? Cool."
It's weaker in other countries. At any rate, it started out weaker.
So this sort of trolling is, in the early 21st century, peculiarly successful at targeting Americans. In that way it's similar to the televangelism craze of the late 20th century. Like televangelism, it is spreading globally.
FB should pay these trolls. They're a huge boost to FB's "engagement" business model. There's nothing to be done about it except mass boycotts (account cancellation) of FB. Clergy and other church leaders could try, if they got organized, to drive such boycotts. But they won't; FB is too convenient.
Similar analysis applies also to targeting of Black communities, in which church leaders are big offline influencers.
- netcan 5y agoIDK... There's a strong strain of "cat-pictureiness" to the internet... always has been. Most of us indulge in it, in one sense or another. If people are christian, and they're in vapid cat picture mode... these sites might grab their attention. Social media is a niche finding, attention grabbing device. There's no mystery in how these got so many people's attention. The question is what is being done with their attention. Most likely it's just selling them stuff. Most likely. A more unlikely, but also more worrying scenario is that some scheiter has suddenly become a messiah with 100m followers because FB algorithms accidentally did it. I mean, people will do these sorts of things. But, if Zuck does it accidentally for cheese... I will be mad with him. ISIS was bad enough.