A recent study by the New England Journal of Political Science finds that people who form an opinion from reading just the headline of a news or entertainment article have been and are being influenced by Russians. Doctor Tom Smith of Harvard Community College explained that a large percentage of the population suffers from an extreme lack of intelligence. He said the Russians understand and appreciate this better than anyone.
We sat down with Dr. Smith for an interview to find out how he and his team came to this conclusion.
GNR: Dr. Smith, thank you for speaking with us today. First, how did you come to the conclusion that forming opinions from just reading headlines results in Russian interference?
Dr. Smith: Thank you for having me. Let me just say that after seeing what the Russians were spreading around on social media my team and I formed an early hypothesis.
GNR: How so?
Dr. Smith: Well, if you look at the stuff that they passed around, it was, how shall I say, ridiculous, We came to an early conclusion that only a really fucking stupid person could believe this shit. But, then we realized that a lot of people really did believe this shit. Which drew us to further conclude that there must be a lot of really fucking stupid people.
GNR: How does that equate to Russian interference?
Dr. Smith: Good question. The Russians know there are a lot of really fucking stupid people. Combine that with the internet and what you have is an atmosphere that is ripe for manipulation. The Russians know that people of low intelligence will simply read the Headline and form an opinion. So they run ads that will sway elections one really fucking stupid person at a time.
GNR: What research do you have to back this up?
Dr. Smith: We hired some of the best comedy writers in America and started a satirical website. The articles were written in such an obvious outlandish way that only a really fucking stupid person would believe the content. It was a quadruple blind study that included people of all intelligence levels. We found that people who read the articles were more likely to reply in the comment section LOL, HAHA or even a comical response that relates to the ridiculousness of the article. We also found that those that just read the headline were more likely to respond, FAKE NEWS or even argue with a ridiculously false premise.
GNR: How do you know if someone just read the headline or read the whole article?
Dr. Smith: Analytics. Everything you do online is monitored by the government. We hacked into the website of the Department of Governmental Online Oversight and studied how long people were actually on our satirical website. Numerous people made comments after only viewing the material for a few seconds, meaning they just read the headline.
GNR: So your findings are routed in science?
Dr. Smith: Exactly!
GNR: So if I understand you correctly, Russians are able to influence elections because really fucking stupid people draw conclusions from reading headlines?
Dr. Smith: Exactly!
I think it was the brilliant Forrest Gump who once said “stupid is as stupid does” or maybe he said”stupid does as stupid is” or words to that effect or is it affect. I always get those two words mixed up.
The really sad part of your satire is that it is mostly true. Your 59% is suspect as it is well established that 79% of statistics are made up. In fact the more I think about it, GNR must be funded and supported by the Russian Federation. This article has to be some devious form of reverse psychology. That’s it! Sowing the seeds of doubt! You commie bastards!!!!!!
Ha, ha good “study” seems so true too.
I concur. There are millions of RFSP on line who accept most posted narratives by just reading it’s headlines. Sad thing is a lot of them vote frequently as well. However that’s not Russias fault. It is those individuals fault.