Brent Clanfield Post #9

For me, the obvious place to look for 'fake news' or any type of fake claims that people believe is Facebook. Viral videos, memes, or posts that strike a chord for people and get them to react in some way fill my timeline. Whether it is my extended family, or simply a random person I am 'friends' with that I haven't talked to in 5 years, these types of striking posts seem to rile up everyone.

Now, I saw many political posts, but on a lighter note I also found a somewhat gross video of a woman peeling a layer of plastic off of her lettuce.

The video is disturbing at first and immediately makes me question the salad I had yesterday, and the tens of thousands of other people that have watched the video seem to feel the same way. People are so quick to blame the 'processed' food that is everywhere now and, of course, are quick to yell GMO and say how they are poisoning us with plastic. I too had the reaction that 'wow, what are we really eating...' but I then realized I am on Facebook.

So, I began to research the video. Turns out, its not a layer of plastic coming off of the lettuce. (Duh.) It is actually just epidermal peeling, an effect of cold weather that causes no harm. So, why are people so quick to cry wolf and say the FDA is failing us?

I think it is a perfect example of this fear of GMOs that we talked about earlier in class. For some, the term GMO is truly correlated to plastic in our foods. Those same people think the only way to not eat plastic is to eat solely organic. While there is really no evidence of GMOs containing plastic, people like to hold on to their fears and grasp at straws to reinforce their thoughts. For them, this video is 'proof' of their fears that others always said were false.