Op-Ed: Everybody’s idiots, according to everybody else

Rob ‘Donald Trump’ Palmer performs his winning Trump-imbued performance of Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ – Copyright AFP LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA

The word “idiot” is unavoidable in any sort of news media. Everybody is calling everybody else idiots. Its proving it that seems to be the problem.

It’s idiotic.

Perhaps (shudder) the rumors of the existence of actual idiots on Earth are true?

Nah.

Couldn’t be.

Someone told everyone that years ago.

 The word itself has plenty of definitions. What’s usually not mentioned is that the expression is of an opinion. It’s entirely qualified by who’s calling who an idiot and in what context.

If you remember during the COVID pandemic when unqualified people were calling qualified professionals idiots for political reasons, that’s a context.

The word is dismissive, and “assertive”, if that’s anyone’s idea of assertion. It’s also a very undemanding word. It can just be said, with or without any basis. If you try to find out exactly what’s idiotic, you could take years to get an explanation, particularly from an idiot.

Fact-checking has become an essential industry, specifically due to unfounded statements and spin. These statements are directed at idiots. So, we can assume that the demand for idiots has been increasing drastically in recent times.

Who needs idiots?

If you take the word to mean “gullible”, you can assume that PR, advertising, politics, and anything involving acceptance of baseless statements would be the hardcore.

Here’s a bit of soggy logic for you:

Factless information is a source of income for millions of people. They can’t possibly be idiots, because they make money out of it, right? Lab animals get rewards, too. They get rewards for doing unnatural things that no self-respecting rat or mouse would do if given a choice.

It’s a matter of degrees of difference, really. Idiots are relied upon to provide support for anything. It’s an old marketing ploy in a slightly different mode.

For example:

I’ve been eating Nutcase Cereal for a couple of weeks. Now, I’m this happy prosperous, and incredibly verbose, gerbil. You can be a happy prosperous gerbil, too! Try our fabulous discount offer and change your species now!

You can see where this might eventually go off the rails somewhere.

The process is:

Assertion – response – outcome. It’s about as complex as dropping a piece of toast. Someone will pick it up and do something with it. That’s not the whole story, though.

In the case above you would expect to be awash with happy prosperous, and incredibly verbose, gerbils. Emboldened by your success, you would then play to vast enthusiastic crowds of frolicking gerbils. Anyone who’s not a gerbil is therefore an idiot, obviously.

What you’ve also done is killed yourself in every other market. Maybe even social media.

Mistaking one demographic for the others is idiotic.

The same sales pitch can’t and won’t work on different demographics. You may be a God Among Gerbils, but you’re still a moron according to everyone else.

Be careful of the word “idiot”. It may be you.