I remember this was a huge phenomenon when it came out and people were recording it on their home VCR’s and playing it back frame by blurry frame. News programs reported on it. Serious people discussed the reasons why they thought it was fake, as though it wasn’t just grainy footage of a plaster dummy stuffed with spiced meats.
It sparked a genuine debate about whether we were alone in the universe, and what that would mean for human beings. It’s really amazing how easy it was to pull off such an obvious hoax and full a lot of people.
We watched this in my high school anatomy/physiology class- our teacher had us do a project debunking it based on what we’d learned during the semester. It was a blast. RIP Steve.
You say this like people TODAY aren’t falling for obvious scams.
Humans are by bulk numbers, idiots. Always have been. Always will be. There’s a fool born every minute. You just need to wait 18 years to scam them.
Downvote all you want, but if you look around, and can’t see the swarms of morons all around you, it’s because you’re part of the swarm.
If you’re amazed by that, I’ve got a lot of stories about a certain pandemic for you. So many people got fooled, and still are to this day, you wouldn’t even know which side I’m on from this paragraph alone.
Another movie in the same vein is ‘The Last Dragon’. A fake documentary about dragons, plainly stating so in the beginning. Yet, some people still got fooled.
Or Beyond Believe, which your movie is related to.
There’s even that one time a mass hysteria happened due to a dramatic radio play. People overall just don’t get better at not getting fooled.
I’ll wait for someone from !tenforward@lemmy.world to shop Quark’s head onto this.
