Fake Isn't Funny

I've heard that money is the root of all evil. Then I've heard that the love of money is the root of all evil. But, you know, I don't think love is the right word. Desire perhaps? The desire for money? But that doesn't cover it, either. The overwhelming desire for any thing - money, possessions, recognition, fame, power, control - that may be closer to the truth. If you desire anything to the extent that you would compromise your principles (assuming, of course, that you have some), break laws, or hurt people to get it, it will lead you to 'evil.' Which brings us to the question of what is 'evil.' I don't have enough room to get into all the possibilities and philosophical discussion that could lead to, but at the simplest level I think evil is anything that hurts someone - including yourself.

Generally speaking, I'm not really a 'nice' person. I don't make friends easily. I don't wave at strangers. I have a few people that I love and some people that I like, but I view the 'unwashed hordes' of the general public with a jaundiced eye containing more than a little suspicion and mistrust. If I don't know you, I'm likely to avoid you, even ignore you.

And yet.. it would never occur to me to do something that could harm people I don't even know. I just can't understand it. Take for example the people who write viruses. Why? What could possibly be a reason to create and disseminate something that will harm hundreds or thousands of people? Do they think that it somehow proves they are 'better' than all those people? Are they so angry that they just want to lash out at people they don't even know?

Another example, one closer to home for me, is people who fake pictures and videos of the paranormal, either deliberately or by accident. I've taken bad pictures too. How does a person get from 'well, this shot is ruined' to

Wife: Hey, look, honey, Aunt Myrtle came to the family reunion!
Husband: What? That's just a streak on the film .. how do you get Aunt Myrtle out of it?
Wife: Can't you see it? That's the exact same shade of bilious green as the hat she always wore!

Yeah, that's bad enough, but going from that to calling the local paper or logging in to your favorite paranormal website and trying to convince the world that that streak is really Aunt Myrtle, or that distorted reflection in the glass isn't anyone you recognize in spite of the fact that it's clearly your best buddy who was standing next to you when you took the picture, is even worse.

And then there are the people who whip up deliberate fakes in Photoshop and present them to the gullible public as genuine 'ghost' photos, or get their buddy to run around in the forest in a gorilla suit and put up yet another 'Genuine Bigfoot Sighting!' video on youtube. The fact that said buddy in the gorilla suit is likely to get shot if there are any real Bigfoot hunters around aside, what's the point? The 'thrill' of fooling the public? The 'excitement' of getting 47 comments that all say some variation of "FAKE!"? I just don't get it. You could get just as much 'recognition' by admitting they're fakes and letting us try to figure out how you did it. We would appreciate that, and thank you for it!

But the more fakes and hoaxes there are that are presented as 'real,' and the better they get, the harder it's going to be to recognize 'the real thing' if it comes along. And that's just sad. The people who are really trying to find the truth, looking for the 'real thing,' are becoming jaded, overwhelmed, frustrated, and disgusted.

Come on people, give it a rest. Find something else to do. It's not like you're making money off these bogus pictures. Where's the thrill when the average teenager with an old pc and a hacked copy of Photoshop can produce something good enough to get posted on most of the 'submit your ghost photo' sites? Why not try something that's a real challenge instead?

What is it that you people desire so strongly that you will lie, cheat, and steal to get it? Perhaps you are telling yourselves 'but we aren't hurting anyone." You're wrong. Every fake hurts me, and hundreds of other people like me, who approached that picture or video with hope and spent time analyzing it. Do you think it's just funny to mess with the heads of the 'crazy' people looking for ghosts and cryptids? I remind you that Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Edison were all thought to be 'crazy' in their day. Edison, in fact, got the first recorded EVP while trying to build a machine to communicate with the dead. How 'crazy' is that?

Ok, so we're fascinated by ghosts, Nessie, UFOs, Bigfoot, whatever. Why can't you just leave us alone? Wouldn't it be cool if we did find one? And finding a 'real' one gets a little harder with every fake and hoax you put out there. Lying to people is not funny, and fooling people with your lies proves nothing except that you are dishonest and a cheat. Whatever perverse pleasure you are getting out of it, your desire for it has led you to compromise the principles you should have, and you are hurting people. Now go back to the beginning of this post and refresh your memory about what that means, how it defines what you are doing.