Early Sunday morning I wrote an article about the recent shooting, coverage and reaction to it. Because of my location I didn’t have access to format and upload the article to Chaotic Fringe. This was written around 7am. After I finished it, I logged onto Facebook and saw a few of my friends had forwarded an article ‘written’ by Morgan Freeman, which was very close in tone to what I had written. I had no doubt Mr. Freeman wrote the article because of the amount of people who had reposted the article and the picture associated with the article.

Early this morning, on a Monday, I learned the article was faked. It seems someone, a seeming nobody like myself, had the same idea I had and wrote an article about it. He attached Morgan Freeman’s name to the article to gain viewers of the article. Sure enough, it worked brilliantly and many people, including my friends, went ahead and sent the article out from their Facebook pages. I have no idea how many people did this, but considering the story was listed in a number of national publications and broadcast entities, this was a major incident.

Taking away from the implications of what this person did to fool the public into thinking Morgan Freeman wrote the article, look at what this implies with folks in general. In my own experience, I have posted articles about events and had hoped my Facebook and Twitter fans would send out the article to their friends. I’m not talking about everything I write but there have been a number of articles I was positive would have hit a chord with some people and would have benefitted from being out there for general discussion. It is incredibly frustrating to write what you think is an intelligent article, expecting people to resend it and have nothing happen. It is further disheartening when you see them resend an article of the same theme by someone else or some organization.

What is it that makes a comment from friend less important than the same comment uttered by a famous person or a corporation? I don’t know if it’s because people want to be part of the pack, feeling some star struck acceptance of a certain point of view, or just not thinking a friend gives them enough credibility, but I can see why the person of the Morgan Freeman hoax would do such a thing. I will say I don’t agree with what was done because in the end you will wonder if people would have agreed to such comments if they didn’t think it was Morgan Freeman. Now the argument, as valid as it is in the arena of comments about this issue, will be dismissed because of the signatory being a hoax. On the other hand, had this been written by a regular person would people have taken the time to read the article and pass it along? Would it have reached the same status without Freeman’s name a picture?

If my experience can be used a guide, I would have to say no. I’m sure the person who wrote the article had the same feeling. Social media used to be a place where the common person could make their voice heard. It was the town square and anyone with a soap box could speak and be equal. That has all changed and social sites have become advertising ventures and cliques. It can be argued if this is good or bad, but the reality is popularity gets notoriety which gives gravitas to your opinion. A relative nobody can comment on current events and no movement happens. A famous person gives some pop psychology commentary from the cover of a Dr. Phil book and thousands of people will retweet it.