Does anybody remember when the experts boldly predicting that covid was not seasonal? Anyone?
A bit like yourself, I've taken quite a large step back from the media (something I cover a bit more in the media thread). However I do still dip in to gauge the mood, and something recently occurred to me when thinking why quite so many people I know were almost desperate for masks to be mandated. In a lot of the debates I've been having, and I've had a lot, the issue of masks has really polarised views as we see on these forums. But one thing has struck me, more often than not people arguing for masks reach out to articles that have popped up on the BBC website. At first I thought nothing of it, in media terms its a pretty much middle of the road outlet, although one I've found myself increasingly fed up with over the years.
And then I wondered why I was fed up with BBC News, and it struck me. Over the years I can remember getting annoyed at their latest medical / dietary scare stories, of which there have been a lot. In fact for whatever reason, the BBC has been a bit of a nagging outlet, constantly reminding us that those little food treats in life we often enjoy are bad for us and we might die, that if having the odd glass of wine might lead us to die, that if you don't go to the gym every day you might die, you know basically trying to guilt us into a healthier lifestyle. It was here that it struck me. Ever since the pandemic began, the BBC have increasingly been using pictures of people with masks, even when the context does not require it. Basically be it inadvertently or deliberately (I'll leave you to decide which is the case) the BBC has been normalising masks.
Its a well known technique, rather than blasting a message through society, you offer an idea or concept through nudging it more subliminally. In this case increasingly numbers of pictures of people with masks on, even though most people haven't been wearing them. Then they started offering advise on how to make your own, and have repeated it ad nauseum ever since, then they add articles on how the rest of the world is doing it, and hey here's some nice graphs to demonstrate it. Then they start to question why people aren't wearing masks, and offer advice on when you might want to wear a mask. And so on. All this helps makes people think that masks are normal, rarely is there a mention of the negative side to them, just that they are just something you should get used to often referring to them as "your mask" as opposed to "a mask". This then reflects back into the debates I have when people ask me why I'm not wearing "my mask", and why despite repeated links to both the scientific debates on the matter from both sides, and the data that clearly shows despite a very low ratio of people wearing them in public, the infection rates are coming down, the people I debate with continue to assert that we need masks to eradicate the virus.
Sadly for those of us sceptical on the benefits of them stopping spread, cynical about them offering any protection, and even concerned that poorly used ones could actually make things worse, this nudging technique employed by the BBC and others has been effective. Many people now actually believe that masks can save them from the virus, and any guilt they have been made to feel. More than just being a placebo, masks are rapidly becoming the security blanket of the nation, and I can only see them being forced into more & more situations, who knows maybe the nation's enforced collective guilt ("Stay Home, Protect The NHS, Save Lives, For You Are The Unclean") will see masks making their way across our doorsteps?
What's the next catchphrase? "Wear Masks, Be Free From Guilt, Massage Someone's Fragile Sense Of Security Because We Scared The Bejeezus Out Of Them"?
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