Statistical Hypocrisy

When I went to my best friend’s house to drag him outside for a bit of fresh air, ice cream and gossip about pretty girls, little did I know that I was moments away from having my life turned upside down.

There was no answer when I hammered on the door with a subtle fist, but I was used to that. I walked in through the unlocked entrance, calling out my friend’s name and shouting juicy promises as I made my way to his bedroom.

“Come on out. You know who is doing you know what, and you have to see because you would be absolutely shook!”

The house was deathly silent. I shut up when I saw the glow of a computer screen reflected in my friend’s face eerily, as he sat statue still, engrossed in reading what looked like comments on Facebook.

I sighed loudly knowing that if my hollering at the top of my voice had no effect, my sighing wouldn’t. It was more for me than for him, because I knew what was happening here.

“Are you arguing with people on Facebook again?” I reached the statue in two long strides and smacked it on its back, and out burst a human being that turned to look at me. His eyes were aflame with naked passion.

“Do you see? Do you see?” He whispered urgently, waving a confused hand in the direction of his computer screen.

“What new crusade are you on, my friend? Whatever it is, I don’t care. I just wanted to drag you out to get ice cream and talk about girls. Because that’s what normal people do.”

My friend completely ignored most of what I said, but not everything.

“Crusade is exactly right, “ he said with terrifying enthusiasm. “Go on. See.”

“Am I supposed to be looking at a comment thread on a New York Times article about a pancake recipe?”

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“Take a look at that comment. John Smith. The same people…”

I saw it.

The same people who complained that New York Times only does salads and other dreadful tasting non-food recipes are now complaining that pancakes are unhealthy and should not be promoted. 

My friend’s eyes glinted menacingly. “You see it, don’t you? I see this argument everywhere. Literally EVERYWHERE! And it’s broken. How does John Smith - pff John Smith - know that the very same people who complained about salads are now complaining about pancakes? He doesn’t!”

“He’s wrong. WRONG. WRONG!” He screamed at the flickering screen, and it seemed to flicker more rapidly for a second as if in terror.

I responded with a wordy, “Er…”

My friend, the crusader, turned, gripped my shoulders painfully hard, and stared unblinking into my eyes for so long that I began to squirm, and melt.

“You see, “ he said. “I call this The Statistical Hypocrisy Fallacy. Just because some group of people somewhere on the Internet said they don’t like X does not mean that when some other group of people say they like X, that there is some kind of hypocrisy at play.”

I nodded because that seemed to be what was expected. He released his death grip, and beckoned me over to see another window on his screen.

The same people who complained that it was fat shaming to use fat people in exercise bike ads are now complaining that using a thin woman is not targeting the right audience.

The same players who complained that the tennis season was too long are now playing a million exhibitions.

“But how do they know that it’s the same..” I started off, before I stopped myself. The conversion was already happening, it was too late. My friend smiled at me, validated.

“I tried reasoning with one of them, you know, “ pointing at a four screens long Twitter thread. “I asked, in the most polite way I could, if this man had actually gone door to door, to people’s homes, with printed screenshots of their utterings on the Internet - time and date affixed of course - and verified that yes, these very people had changed their tunes now? But he didn't engage. Clearly, this man was a buffoon and a simpleton.”

I saw the final response from the buffoon. “TROLL!! GO AWAY!!!!111” with miscellaneous colourful phraseology inserted that I am skipping without loss of semantic content.

The same people who said DC was too dark are now complaining that Marvel has too many  quips.

Something in me snapped. That made no sense at all! How does he know it’s the same people? It was such a vacuous statement that was all the more dangerous because it had a vague ring of truth to it. But it was wrong. WRONG! Comment threads and colours whizzed by as I opened window after window - it was the same everywhere, as my friend had said. From travel to relationships to music to economics to porn, there was a John Smith in every comment thread.

A heavy weight settled in the pit of my stomach as the scale of the problem we were faced with struck me with stark clarity. 

“We need more people, “ I muttered under my breath. But my friend had gone back to fixing the world one comment thread at a time. He typed: 

The Internet, despite appearances, is not made of just one person.

Truth! I pulled a chair for myself, pulled up the comic book thread, and sat down to do God’s work.