I might be wrong

Angelo Koulouris

Essay Introduction

To some extent, all art, whether that be paintings, novels, movies, or TV shows, contain within them ideological values that reflect upon the circumstances of their creation. Contextual information such as—who the artist is, what they believe in, where or when the artwork was created, who funded it—all influence the impact a work will have on its audience, regardless of intentionality. Though not every piece of art may be political in nature, they may still contain morals and ideas they pass onto an audience, no matter how innocent they may seem. One such example is Ai Weiwei’s sculptural work ‘Cube of Tea’ (2006), A literal cube made out of Puer tea leaves, a substance significant culturally and associated with social and business prosperity within China. Ai created this cube as a form of commentary on the Chinese burgeoning population, and their dramatic rise to global trade prominence and soft power. The artwork serves as a condensation of complicated ideas contextually infused into the construction of the cube, but without this knowledge for the average observer, this is just a cube.

The process we have for analysing art is similar to how we analyse digital media, such as newsfeeds and social media videos. Yet many people fail to engage deeper with the messaging present in these mediums and end up accepting misinformation as truth. Reflecting upon conversations I have had with my dad, I aim to illustrate the importance of employing critical analysis when dealing with misinformation.

‘No future left at all…’

In 2020, normal life as it was once known was completely uprooted by a global pandemic and multiple major elections that took place around the world. Here in Melbourne, the majority of the year was spent in a state-wide lockdown, limiting social interaction and ease of movement in hopes of stopping the spread of the virus. These conditions resulted in the rise of online conspiracy theories and misinformation seeking to prey upon the confused, scared, and angry populaces of the world, desperately searching for answers to justify their pain. Those pushing conspiracy theories would often have an ulterior motive for it, such as trying to promote or sell alternative products, sway audiences to their political ideologies, or distort the facts surrounding a topic until the truth can no longer be discerned. With Covid in particular, it was a prime opportunity to cast doubt over mainstream news, and scientific trust and promote anti-establishment viewpoints. For others, it was a chance to push conspiracies about vaccines or secret global cabals attempting to take over the world.

As a result of these extraneous sociopolitical factors both domestically and internationally, my dad ended up falling down a rabbit hole of misinformation. The economic strain lockdown placed on businesses resulted in him being laid off from his job at a Volkswagen dealership. Finding a job after that—with his lack of experience outside of the mechanical field and lacking a finished high school education—proved difficult. He needed to find work soon, as his partner was pregnant with a child who they had been trying for four years but could not have due to medical complications. This resulted in him at 50 years of age taking labour-intensive jobs at waste sites and working night shifts for better pay.

He had never paid much attention to politics throughout his life—it was just never his thing—he would watch the news and go along with it. However, once videos started appearing on his Facebook feed asking him to question what was going on around him, suddenly lockdowns did not seem so logical anymore. The algorithms on social media sites would push more of these conspiratorial videos onto his feed—not for any political agenda—but simply to boost user engagement. Thus, one idea expanded to another; the virus is just a virus, Climate change is not as bad as scientists say, its fear-mongering, it is all about control, it is all about money. Why did they roll out the vaccine so fast? How do we know it is safe? What about its side effects? Blood clots? Birth defects? Are heart attacks on the rise? Once his feed became nothing but the same rage-inducing narratives, retold, repackaged, and reinforced over and over, that became his reality. Everyone else had gone crazy. He would not question if these videos were misinformative or conspiratorial, because they—and the people speaking in them—were what remained of common sense in the world.

I have no way of knowing what caused this slide into conspiratorial territory—maybe he has always thought like this—I can only make assertions based on what I know about him and what he has told me in the past. These videos say they are just asking questions and seeking out truth, whilst covertly pushing their agendas and ideologies onto their audience. Much like Ai’s cube, we cannot approach these videos on the surface level taking their word at face value, rather we must dig deeper to find the contexts behind them, search for multiple different perspectives, and deconstruct the messages they want to push. Not only to widen our understanding of issues but to combat the rise of misinformation.

‘If I did not have you’

Through a rigorous combination of casting doubt on mainstream news services, attacking opposing viewpoints, and abusing online algorithms, misinformation has become increasingly difficult—if not near impossible—to combat. Over the next four years, my visits to my dad’s house had become more tense and difficult to predict what we might end up talking about. These ‘conversations’, as he would call them, could spring up out of nowhere. A family dinner turned political by a chance mention of a recent global event. A talk about healthy/unhealthy foods and what you put in your body suddenly became about vaccines. A discussion about a movie I watched turned into how films these days are woke now. These conversations could spiral out of control so quickly that it became impossible to fully break down any topic, leaving both of us frustrated, enraged, and/or saddened by the disconnect we share.

“Hey Ange, come look at this”

My first thought was oh no as I went around the dining table to see what you had brought up on your phone. It was a mind-numbingly long nine-minute video titled “Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far,” a debate (only one person talking in the video) that’s actually about climate change despite its title. Speaking at the podium was a British-Russian man dressed up in a black and white tuxedo, Konstantin Kisin, who argued such incredible things like, ‘The only way to deal with racism is to treat people on the content of their character’, and that universities turn people into, ‘woke idiot[s]’. He speaks eloquently, characterising himself as intelligent, but all I hear are the alarm bells in my mind. The warning signs that tell me of every little persuasive technique he uses to manipulate the audience, of every othering tactic and strawman fallacy he uses to belittle his hypothetical opponent. The crowd cheering blindly for him. The lack of any counter-argument in this ‘debate’. Yet somehow you don’t hear any of that.

At about two minutes in he builds to:

“Now I want to talk to those of you who are woke and who are open to rational argument, a small minority I accept [audience laughter]. Because one of the tenets of wokeness are of course that your feelings matter more than truth, but I believe in you, I believe there are those of you here who are woke and are open to rational argument so let me make one. We are told that your generation cares more than any other about one issue in particular, and that issue is climate change. We’re told that many of you suffer from climate anxiety, you wish to save the planet, and for tonight and tonight only I will join you, I will join you at worshipping at the feet of Saint Greta of Climate Change [audience applause and laughter]” (Kisin, c. 2023, [2:14-2:58])

I could break down that guy’s entire argument, I could sit here and go through the full nine minutes of the verbal vomit spewed out by him and transcribe it verbatim. I could tell you who Kisin is, a self-proclaimed centrist who has a podcast called ‘Triggernometry,’ whose arguments always conveniently end up aligning with right or even extreme-right viewpoints. I could tell you how his speech went viral, being spread all over the internet on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. I could tell you how the video was shared by other like-minded pundits, congratulated for his thought-provoking speech whilst getting his word out to as many people as possible.

But I write all of this after having the time to research it, go in-depth and look for second opinions, counterpoints, and discussions surrounding the speech. When I engage in such critical research, you say I am trying to ‘debunk’ the videos you show me. Honestly, I do not understand how you could think that way, am I supposed to sit here and say for instance that Ai’s artwork is just a cube? Of course not! We have to look past that, beyond the surface level to find what the creator intended—and in this case for Kisin, we need to question what he is arguing to understand what is and is not true.

On that day in 2023, there was no way for me to do this, no time to research, it was just us locked in conversation and disagreement, both trying to discuss this topic at a base level of understanding and getting nowhere with our opposing worldviews.

“Really makes you think, doesn’t it?” No, it’s a load of bullshit. You once told me ‘We have to look past the noise to find the truth’ and for once I absolutely agreed with you, but somehow you found the noise to be the truth. You looked for hidden meanings where there were none and ended up believing everything that the algorithm showed you.

To think critically is not to look for anything mainstream media does not tell you, rather it asks you to question every piece of information that comes your way equally, to engage with the content on multiple levels, to delve deep to find the answers rather than just accept others’ statements as they are. To hear both sides of the story. To research beyond the headlines and reels that evoke rage and fear out of you.

To think critically means you must question everything and trust no one, and in doing so…

…you cannot trust me either.

‘Let’s go down the waterfall…’

All art contains within them some kind of ideological message or purpose. It does not matter whether that be a book, poem, TV show, animation, video game, movie, social media clip, poster, advertisement, essay, or a cube, they all want to say something, they all want to convince you of something. This story is no different.

We are often quick to trust the author of a text, we expect them not to lie to us (especially in non-fiction) and to tell us the whole truth as honestly as possible. But what happens when the author starts lying or tries to persuade the reader to agree with their opinion?

We expect the news to do the same for us, to report on the facts truthfully without distorting the information, but history shows that is not the case either. How can we trust them?

Who can we trust?

You told me that in the past you never paid attention to these things. You would watch the news growing up, believing Cold War propaganda like Russia was evil and that the United States was good. But now you know better. You do not trust what mainstream media tells you; You do not believe anything anyone tells you. Your refusal to trust means that your mind is open, that you will not ever be a sheep again, right?

Who do you trust then?

I have spent the last four years trying to tell you that you have been lied to. To try and explain how they manipulate you because of all of these contradictions. The chaos. The noise. Words do not seem to work anymore. Let alone an essay.

To you, the reader, I feel the need to apologise but I do not know why.

I have not lied to you (maybe I did)

What I told you was true to my life and experiences (you do not know if that is real)

I spent the last four years trying to make him agree with me (that is not right)

And I have tried to convince you of my arguments, if only to get my point across.

When I say do not trust me, I do not want you to trust me on that either.

Can you trust me?

I brought up Kosin’s speech to illustrate to you how stupid all of this is. How illogical, self-evidently ridiculous the hollow rhetoric of misinformation is, yet people still believe it. The highlights were included to draw attention to that fact, employing the same tactics I would use in high school for analysing persuasive essays as simple shorthand for breaking down the argument.

The highlights are themselves a manipulation tactic. In highlighting Kosin’s quote, I am telling you how to read his speech, persuading you to see it as stupid. I never actually explained why Kosin’s speech was misinformation.

In highlighting my essay, I am also persuading you to read it in a certain way. I want you, even if you agree or completely disagree with me, to question everything you read. Never take something at face value. Never accept something as just being a cube.

In telling you of this manipulation, I am also trying to persuade you in a certain way.

In telling you of this contradiction, I am asking you not to trust me or anything you see, hear, or read on the surface level.

In telling you not to trust me, I only ask that you continue to question and engage with what you see, hear, or read on multiple levels.

In telling you this, I cannot say there is a correct way of going about it.

In telling you this, I cannot say that I am right either.

Angelo Koulouris (he/him) is an aspiring writer living in Melbourne currently studying a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing at RMIT. His interests include watching films and writing screenplays, with a background in youth theatre acting. He is currently working on an experimental personal essay for publication at the Bowen Street Press.