A writer fabricated a series of stories for Atlas Obscura
thewalrus.ca
thewalrus.ca
It debunks an unintentionally untruthful (not fabricated) page that Atlas Obscura used to have.
I think something like Atlas Obscura will be the internet of the future, wonderful collections of weirdness, with no way to discern truth.
So just like real life, then.
To be clear, I believe that objective truth exists. I also believe that people have a lot of stories. I'm from a small town, the size where you could learn a story about pretty much every family, and a lot of the stories would intertwine, or be very similar to each other, forming a shared reality among neighbors. I'm sure we could talk a good long time about the social implications of that sense of shared reality.
I think there's something deeply uncomfortable about having too many people available in your life to form a shared reality. I feel like that discomfort is a big driver of modern angst.
It’s totally about personal satisfaction. We need to “scratch an itch.” The thrill we get from “getting away with it,” is also a big part of the equation.
Many stories are embellished, along the way, by people involved in the oral tradition. Some, become almost unrecognizable, after a few generations. These folks often do it, to “add spice,” for entertainment value.
I’ve come to learn that most folks that “front,” are often doing so, in order to personally feel better; not harm others. It’s not healthy, but often, doesn’t result in much harm to anyone else. I’ve learned to relax, when I encounter it, and sometimes, even enjoy it.
Very many folks have terrible self-esteem, and develop coping mechanisms, which can sometimes be quite destructive, but, more often, are just energy sinks.
I have learned to be cautious, though, and not take things at face value, which can be difficult, if I don’t want to become a bitter cynic.
The fact that we are reading about this now, shows that people were negatively affected by it. It wasn't a harmless activity.
People should be called out for intentionally spreading misinformation, and they should feel bad about it, and people shouldn't trust anything they say again for a very long time. Don't feel sorry for these assholes, and don't let them get away with it, because that encourages them to continue this sort of behavior.
That's the thing. If we don't trust, or accept that trust may not be merited, then there's nothing to break.
I know some outrageous characters. Many, are decent folks, in their way, but I wouldn't trust them to handle any kind of meaningful responsibility.
But I enjoy having them in my life, and have no intentions of driving them away, or avoiding them.
I have a cat. He's a great little guy. But if I pick him up, and I don't make him feel secure, he will scratch me. He doesn't want to hurt me, but he needs to dig into something to feel secure; even if that "something" is my chest.
It's possible to have relationships with folks that have no boundaries, and we need to maintain our own boundaries, ourselves, as opposed to rely on others, to respect them.
That said, we also don't need to defend our boundaries with nukes. Often, a simple "No, I don't want to do that." is sufficient, as opposed to "This is bear spray! Stay away!".
Yeah but to get to that point you have to break the trust you had in them or people in general, so my point remains. Or did you from the day of your birth assume everyone is lying to you about everything?
Let's just say that I have spent my entire adult life, in close relationships with some of the most untrustworthy S.O.B.s on earth, and have learned to deal with it.
Many folks think, because I am friendly, open, and kind, that I'm weak, naive, and gullible.
They tend to get quite upset, when they find out, that's not the case.
My point is that these lying assholes are not doing something "harmless".
I realize that most folks don't have four decades' worth of experience, dealing with hardened criminals, con artists, and generally delusional people, to firm up their personal boundaries.
I've found that a good start, is not to do things like apply emotionally-charged labels to the folks doing this. If they are dangerous, or present a risk, they may be sanctioned, imprisoned, whatever.
But I have found, in my experience, that offering kindness, where none is expected, is often key to helping folks turn things around.
As I said, many of these people are living in their own personal hell, where they hate themselves, and the world around them, and that tends to set up a reinforcement feedback loop.
In today’s world, how much of Netflix “documentaries” are rigorously researched and how much just made up, to save time and money? It is not like Netflix is going to get in trouble, legally or in public opinion…
And paradoxically I trust new religious manuscripts even less. In the context of the modern world they just seem like obvious hoaxes.
Well... I mean, you'd think so, but not so much, it turns out.
But, that wouldn't fit the, "Christianity bad" narrative.
Pointing out that atheism and scientism are making up and embellishing their own history is more of a controversial take in these circles.
Thunderfoot showed how misleading it was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsdLDFtbdrA
I don't know enough about, e.g., the JFK assassination, to be sure that a dramatization of it isn't going to fill in the gaps and make me think I do know something that turns out to be serving the agenda of others, or simply wrong.
And yes I recognize that "history" is just the consensus version of "historical fiction", and that consensus is local at best, and often also serving an agenda!
It’s not misleading to take artistic liberties in a work of fiction designed to entertain, even if based on true events. That would be damming for a documentary, but this was not one.
But some number of people get POd when not everything is literally true.
"This story is based on true events, except the parts that aren't".
Can't think of any examples at the moment, but I've noticed it quite a bit.
Then there's the TV Series Fargo, which is made out of whole-cloth but starts with a claim that it's a "true story", which I think is great.
By pandering to irrational fears about nuclear power, 'Chernobyl' and similar works have consequences that translate, more or less directly, into fossil-fuel pollution.
I'm inclined to be more forgiving towards a Borges manqué who uses his talents to defraud hipster travel websites than I am towards people who are successful enough at spreading FUD and bullshit that they make the world an objectively-worse place.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chernobyl-podcast/...
It's sort of like, once you make a name for yourself by pointing out what is wrong, suddenly everything becomes wrong.
But when has he been wrong, in a way that would cause you to call his credibility "dubious"? When has he called out an Infinite energy machine, or a "pull water out of the air in a desert" machine, or an Elon project, and been wrong?
The problem is, this story is probably a fabrication.
The stories without corroboration, not that much, particularly if they sound too dramatic.
Personally, I'd never convict anyone where the evidence was nothing more than he said she said.
Do you have examples? Does that include whole memeplex about the Nazis being somehow far better at advanced technology than the Allies?
Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews.
> ...
> Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews.
Thinking about this a bit more, couldn't that even be thought of as history being written by the victors? In this case the victors (Allies) wanting to write history to rehabilitate the losers (Germany) to fight the next enemy (the Soviets), and allowing defeated elements of the German forces (former Wehrmacht generals) to do so?
IIRC, there was an period where the Allied consensus was to reduce Germany to a nation of disarmed farmers, but that was quickly reversed once the Americans realized they needed a reasonably powerful Germany to oppose the Soviets.
Let’s not forget that the readers are also willing participants in this, and their willingness to believe “half-truths” is what keeps the whole thing going.
Edit: You advice to be skeptical is, in my mind, healthier if the reader also is very aware of whether they’re entertaining themselves or trying to educate themselves, and if they’re trying to educate themselves, work hard to seek out the highest quality sources of information, i.e. not Atlas Obscura.
Then, in case of doubt, it's possible for anybody to request the notary validates the sources of the story.
Freelance journalist could also go through the process to be able to guaranty to the Editor they're submitting to that their story is not bullshit, without having to reveal their sources or the editor to have to do the checks themselves.
There's a reason journalists tend to be all hush hush around giving who their sources are, sources are often risking their lives, and are often putting regimes in place / powerful people under scrutiny. The very same people that can decide whether you should live or not.
So in principle: yes, in practice: please no!
There are lots of cases where anonymous sources are used in less extreme circumstances, and to protect those you could build a rigorous system of vetting notaries, equivalent to a security clearance. Under OP's proposed model we wouldn't need a lot of these notaries, since as I understand it they'd only be actually validating sources if doubts are raised, so the requirements could be quite strict.
It's just that in general I find the "anonymous sources" a bit too easy to use. It's very easy to have your article say whatever you want by using "anonymous sources".
It’s worth noting that Moffat is recognized as Europe’s first Dark Sky Town2, and it’s home to the Moffat Community Observatory3, which offers beautiful views of various night sky objects3. This observatory complements the town’s Dark Sky Town status as recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association3.
However, an article from Atlas Obscura had to be retracted because it was found that the author fabricated the idea of “dark weeks” in Moffat, and also fabricated interviews with multiple sources1. Therefore, while Moffat is a Dark Sky Town, the specific concept of “Dark Weeks” might not be an officially recognized or widely practiced event. It’s always a good idea to check with local sources or official town information for the most accurate details.
Learn more
1
atlasobscura.com 2
visitscotland.com
<Truthiness>Utter Cobblers</Truthiness>
"The idea that lemmings intentionally jump off cliffs and into the sea is a myth. This misconception likely originated from a 1958 Disney documentary called "White Wilderness, ...."
A google search will give you 1000 sources that lemmings don't jump off cliffs, because there was a Disney movie about it and now it's the prototypical example of falsification.
Here are 10 articles on a comparatively small website, where only one gained enough notoriety to be directly called out as debunked on secondary sources, where the statistical data is insufficient.
It is very surface level on everything though. It does not go into details about what is below the apex of 'outright fabrication' in the journalistic fraud pyramid. Most journalists have always relied on either some extremely rich investor or Government funding and in both cases it is obvious they won't tolerate real independent journalism for their money.
But the simple truth is that every profession, including journalism, has its rotten apples. But they're a small fraction of the total and in general journalists are the real thing.
Referring to a professional person gone to the bad as a "rotten apple", meaning that most of the apples are fine, is a kind of malapropism. The full saying is: "One bad apple spoils the barrel". The claim is that corruption spreads if it is not opposed quickly and throughly.
It's an error to use the phrase to minimise the scale or severity of wrongdoing.
I understand how you feel, I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. Makes me want to tear my hair out... but the people have spoken.
Usage of "literally" to mean "figuratively" dates back hundreds of years, with citations by top English writers. If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken.
Do you have a source for this? This is exactly how bullshit spreads.
> If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken.
If you believe your authority as an anonymous commenter overrules the previous anonymous commenter, you have mistaken ideas about argumentation.
I did, just not on me—I had to come back with it.
**
My daily bread is literally implored
I have no barns nor granaries to hoard;
— John Dryden, The Hind and The Panther (1687)
Every day with me is literally another yesterday for it is exactly the same.
— Alexander Pope, Letter to H. Cromwell (March 1708)
His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone
— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1839)
If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)
He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies.
— Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague (1769)
I look upon it, Madam, to be one of the luckiest circumstances of my life, that I have this moment the honour of receiving your commands, and the satisfaction of confirming with my tongue, what my eyes perhaps have but too weakly expressed — that I am literally the humblest of your servants.
— George Colman and David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage (1766)
Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet.
— James Joyce, The Dead (1914)
that he had shared her bedroom which came out in the witness box on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel...
— James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.
— Mark Twain, "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer" (1876)
All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs.
— Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)
Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye
— Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)
This bugs me for the opposite reason it seems to bother you: this definition is wrong descriptively; the figurative use of “literally” doesn’t mean “figuratively”, it means “as if literally (in the usual, literal sense)”, and is applied to another expression used figuratively (that is, it is a mechanism for claiming the proximity of a figurative use to a literal one, not for marking a use as figurative.)
For something that's Atlas Obscura worthy, it's been a few centuries that people have been making ranking of fraud level by trade. There's a book, whose name I can't remember, that explained how much you should expect to be swindled by the baker, the windmill guy, etc. It explained some of the common tricks each profession would use, how widespread the tricks would be, and therefore do an estimate on the most dishonest professions.
In addition to the fraudulent author, editors are (or were, or should be) accountable for lies getting into print. Especially when a writer under their purview lies over and over. Especially if you don't immediately pull all of that author's stories after even one of them is deemed fundamentally fraudulent. And I'm not sure how 'spot-checking' is meant to be used here, given that you could apparently catch quite a few of the lies in the articles with a Google search. What were they doing as editors?
When we talk about the dwindling quality of journalism, or the dearth of trust in journalism, to me it always goes back to editors and fact-checkers. More precisely, the lack of them. It doesn't matter why they aren't doing their job, whether it's lack of money, time, or lack of skilled practicioners. Editors are really important, as it turns out.
I'll admit that I swallowed the stories completely so; a good creative writer, I suppose.
This is the problem with confirmation bias. What if another article came out to reveal that this article was fake? And then recursively on and on. How would you know how to distinguish the reality? I sense most people will believe what they want to believe, and if that be the original article (possibly fake), or the rebuttal article (possibly fake). We have to go entirely on our ability to trust the source.
Seems a little too pat, popped up a few years ago, never heard of before. The text of the ebooks is respectable, but may give off a whiff of anachronism in places.
If anyone in the UK feels like checking a library ...
Ebay tosses up unrelated baseball cards and comics.
Abebooks yields four sketchy hits, e.g. one is "print-on-demand" with a fake pic of a leather binding.
So what you are proposing, and I am perhaps agreeing with, is that someone has created a bunch of random ebooks and then invented a backstory for the fake author?
My local UK library doesn't have any books by that author - https://libraries.hounslow.gov.uk/client/en_GB/hounslow/sear... .
This one in particular seems too implausible - inspiration for Poirot and Downton Abbey? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23309690-down-to-the-abb...
I haven't actually read any of the ebooks mind.
Good catch. Also, Christie has been written about for decades and no one ever mentioned this alleged 'forerunner' which is just about a clone ...
Thanks for looking.
Gotcha.
But they never did. Then the real media picked up the story.
Next day came the real story: no one ever hacked anything. Clever, they got two media storms for the price of one.
I'm tempted to wonder what attitude this reveals on the part of the publisher towards its readers. Do they think "This is obscure, our readers won't notice if we make stuff up"?
I got an email reply from Patel (who is mentioned in the Walrus story) about 3-4 weeks after my initial complaint, acknowledging the issue and saying that they'd issued a correction. In the editorial comment that they'd added to the story along with the corrections, they understated the issue that I reported, but they had fixed all of the numbers. Of course, fixing stories 3-4 weeks after publishing means that only the fictional long tail will benefit.
As a person who often reads stories on atlas obscura weeks or months after they are first published, it's nice to know I don't exist.
[1] Umberto Eco takes on big lies and the human compulsion to hate, The Philadelphia Enquirer, Nov. 10, 2011. https://archive.is/sTIuk
No worries, no one has bad intentions. They're just thoroughly incompetent.
The one in TFA is at least fairly harmless.
Most of the people I talked about it see his forgeries as "simple" work for awards/compliments: Everything he wrote/reported seemed believable, because it was in range/sync with events/storys/news that actually happened.
Again, I'd love to know how to identify his/the political motivation.
As far as I understand he never wrote anything special or world changing, he took stories you already heard a million times and created pieces of fiction that pandered to the sensibilities of his core audience. A story about the life in a small town in the US? Boring! Lets add in a bit of racism here, a literal Trump cult there, re-frame it as some backwater town in the middle of the woods and a few more changes later you have a story people want to read, not quite "The Call of Cthulhu" but maybe enough to bridge the gap to the next award winning piece of journalistic fiction about the just as colorfully exaggerated struggles of a refuge family on their way to Europe or the life and motivations of freedom fighters in remote corners of the world.
Sites like Atlas Obscura feel like perfect publications for hoaxers because of that. Make up an extremely obscure topic or event, then bet the editors won't bother to do any real fact checking because of said obscurity.
It's also the reason that stories about cancelled movies/TV shows, lost scripts, unused content in video games, media that's gone missing in general, etc are so likely to be inaccurate or outright hoaxes; trying to actually verify these stories and get reliable sources is quite the challenge.