Gutfeld: Media designed 'distorted reality' just to make people mad
'Gutfeld!' panel discuss how media contributes to 'depression and anxiety' among Americans
Welcome back. I hope you all enjoyed your memorial day. Or as those who failed history call it: "The long weekend."
So I had a great time up at the lake. I actually went water skiing with Caitlyn Jenner. As expected Kat and her new husband spent Memorial Day, in typical fashion.
Anyway, that really happened. But how can you tell? According to CNN, you can't. Last week, they reported on a study claiming that Americans exaggerate their ability to spot fake news - and surprise -- Republicans are more likely to fall for fake news than Dems.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy, 5/31: This really just highlights this news literacy problem that we have in this country where people are consuming misinformation, conspiracy theories, things that are just not true.
Yes, coming from CNN you dope. I got two words for you, Wooly Willy: Russian collusion. Anyway, if the findings showed the reverse, CNN would never have run the study. If the story doesn't match their assumptions, it’ll vanish faster than Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book. The study found that "overconfident" people are more likely to share false content taken from "untrustworthy" websites. What's that sound like to you? A CNN anchor!
If you remember, CNN pushed some of the most false stories ever from collusion to obstruction to Covington to Kavanaugh. These guys put out more fictional content than Stephen King. And now they say you can't tell the difference between real and fake news. I’d call it "gaslighting," but only Pete Hegseth does that after eating a bowl of beans.
CNN is like the guy on the corner selling fake Rolexes, laughing at you for buying one. And in both cases you know the product is fake because of where you got it. One guy's just selling it from a TV studio, the other is naked except for a trench coat standing in front of a Times Square peep show. And they're both Don Lemon.
But this study is brought to you by the Trump era - by destroying legacy media. After four years of Trump these guys were more exposed than Anthony Weiner on Snapchat at 2 AM. Now we know, the emperor has no clothes. (Hope that doesn't include Brian Stelter.) (Sorry for the image.)
So it's not their fault for pushing fake news, it's your fault, they say. Which leads me to another, stranger study. Last year, Pew reported that conservatives were far less likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues than those who identified as either liberal or very liberal. The worst sufferers? White women, aged 18-29, who were given a mental health diagnosis at a rate of 56.3 percent. That's more than double moderates and conservatives.
First thing you learn from this "survey" there's a lot of mental health issues out there. But you could also have learned this from being on Tinder for a week. But it raises the question: Do leftwing ideas cause mental health issues, or do people with mental health issues gravitate toward leftwing stuff? Another way to ask this is ‘was Pelosi bat**** crazy before she got into politics or after?"
Let's see what CNN thinks.
Skit of woman and man arguing: Woman: My sources are telling me that Bret Kavanaugh is breaking into people’s homes and stealing their guinea pigs. // Man: How can you talk about Kavanaugh when we’ve got velociraptors and T-Rex’s all over the country misgendering people? // Woman: There is a widespread transphobia problem in the velociraptor community, that is true. // Man: And during Pride Month!
Meanwhile, over at MSNBC?
Skit of a phone interview with Brian Williams: Hello and welcome back to the 11th Hour, I’m your host and original lead singer of the Beach Boys, Brian Williams. In today’s top story I’ll be discussing the time I was best friends with Martin Luther King Jr. We met when I was training pterodactyls how to read sheet music to babies. It was the same month I ascended the throne of Denmark and invented the color orange. That story and more, after the break.
So why are so many liberals experiencing mental issues? I’m no doctor. But I’m not gunna let that stop me. If you're always digesting content from a conveyor belt of grievances - while thinking there's a bunch of evil people hell-bent on making the world worse, what's that do to your brain? You get angry. You go outside, you scream at cops. You're told the world is nothing but two groups: the oppressed, and the oppressor.
But if you believe that people are irredeemably bad, and there's no justice - then how useful are you? If every day, you're constantly monitoring stories of horrible inequality -- supplied by your media source -- it gonna add up.
And if you're ideology demands all of this behavior must be eradicated, what happens when you can't do that? You're helpless. You’re just one person, armed only with a women’s studies degree and a hat that looks like your privates. You become divorced from reality - from your friends, your family.
It's now a clash between an impossible utopian vision and a distorted reality designed by the media, just to make you mad. No wonder so many people are agitated. Especially women, who generally care more about stuff, than pigs like me. My solution, of course, is always gonna be skepticism. To step back and see how the media manipulates you. And how that manipulation affects your mind. And moods.
It's like being in a bad relationship but you keep coming back for more. But it's not real. Seriously, by comparison, The Wizard of Oz is nonfiction. Then consider the lost opportunity costs of wallowing in oppression theater.
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Sometimes you use other people’s problems to avoid your own. You display compassion for refugees, but you haven't spoken to your parents in years. Instead of building your resilience to overcome life's problems. You fail. But at least it’s not your fault. It’s those damn sweatshops in Sri Lanka! It’s prison lunches full of gluten! It’s anywhere but here. It’s anyone but you.
Of course, mental issues exist independent of the media. I've been insane for decades. And I might be getting worse. But the media has no compassion for your current state and they use it to their advantage. Legacy media needs vulnerable people to watch their rage-creating clickbait. But if you brought that up to CNN, they'd call that fake news.
This article is adapted from Greg Gutfeld's opening monologue on the June 1, 2021 edition of "Gutfeld!"
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