History behind the Dunkirk Movie

The National Enquirer Created Influencers 

Some days, it feels like anybody with a phone and a confident tone can call themselves a journalist.

I grew up in the 70s when supermarket tabloid headlines smacked you in the face at the checkout line of Winn-Dixie. I was a little kid, and even I knew something was off when Elvis turned up alive every other week. The man couldn’t even rest in peace without somebody spotting him on an island in the Pacific.

Remember these actual tabloid headlines?

“I Had Bigfoot’s Baby!”

That one isn't as crazy now due to the fact my husband is 6'5" and has the largest head I’ve ever seen, so my sympathies to that woman. 

“Bat Child Escapes!”

As for me, Bat child needs to go! I cringe near bats!!

“Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby”

So, maybe? Aliens are now true and Government has been hiding it...so I believe.

“Painting of Elvis Weeps Real Tears”

If its in South Mississippi, that's just condensation from the humidity!

“Gas-Passing Dinosaurs Blew Themselves Into Extinction!”

They must had some beans back in those days! Whew! Poor Mrs. T-Rex!

“A Space Alien Ate My Dog!”

Well in those days it was "Space" aliens rumor now its the other kind of alien...yes I went there!

“I Strip for God”

If I strip for God the offering plate would be empty.

So many headlines! Decades of pages to fill and apparently no shortage of imagination.

At the time, we could laugh, put the paper back on the rack, (not financially supporting it) pay for our groceries, and go home. But somewhere along the way, the checkout line moved onto our phones. Now every breaking story comes with an internet sleuth, a dramatic pause, and somebody promising to reveal what they don’t want you to know after a word from their sponsor. Like and subscribe!

That gets less funny when real people are hurting.

Online speculation around the Clancy trial, Nolan Wells' death, and Charlie Kirk’s murder shows how quickly people can turn tragedy into content. The rest of us ought to know the difference between asking a fair question and announcing that our hunch is the truth.

The content creates new victims. Threats are made to people who are completely innocent except for the headline click bait.

But, I thought about if I were a writer for these over the top tabloids, I have a few completely made-up tabloid scoops of my own:

“Aliens Land in Alabama—Ask Where They Can Get a Good Biscuit!”  

“Elvis Spotted at the Self-Checkout!”

“Bat Boy Gets a Podcast!”

“Woman Asks AI to Organize Her Life—It Quits and Moves to the Beach!”

“Church Potluck Erupts in Scandal—Two Women Claim Same Deviled-Egg Platter!”

“Man Opens Tupperware Cabinet—Rescue Crews Still Searching for Him!”

Of course all these headlines are true, why? Cause I said so. Who needs proof/facts/etc.?

Doing a little research, here are some of the crazy headlines from Influencer media circling the internet globe, poisoning the minds of gullible sheep:

“Usher was replaced by a clone at a concert” Viewers spotted differences in concert clips and spun them into a body double theory.

This one is popular....“The moon landing was faked.” Why? Because TikTok said so.

“Guy Fieri Never Swallows the Food” A streamer studied clips and argued that the camera always cuts away first.

So, someone took hours of their life to study whether a man swallowed food. Nothing wrong with that person’s sanity!

“The Internet Died in 2016 – and Now We’re Mostly Talking to Bots!” The dead internet theory keeps circulating TikTok.

“An Influencer’s Baby is the Queen Reincarnated!” When Trisha Paytas, an American media personality, went into labor around the time Queen Elizabeth II died, social media turned the timing into a reincarnation theory.

Have we come too far. Yes. Was it harmless decades ago when this stuff started plaquing our attention? Yes. The percentage of folks who actually believed it was well below average. I can count my grandmother, she believed it and she did think Elvis was on an island somewhere. But she also thought King James himself wrote the Bible. But she was a precious soul.

It was harmless back then, standing in line to learn Elvis was alive and Congress was full of space aliens. Now anybody with a ring light, a weak platform can tell us the same sort of thing while we’re sitting in our cars/porch or office. At least the tabloids waited until we needed milk to get our attention.

Going forward, I will try to ignore the noise of Make Believe Headlines, hold on to my sense of humor, and instead of going in the stores I will do the pick up in the parking lot. 

But I will keep an eye out for Elvis, Aliens, and Bigfoot just in case. I’m getting a picture.

The historic headlines and the modern claims above are documented as things published or circulated—not as true stories.