This is a Leonberger blog but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that are books that I want to promote. This is a book I would like to promote. Last week I read The Bubble Reputation, Kindle Edition by Alex Craigie. I loved this book and therefore I would like to promote it. It comes in a paperback edition and a Kindle edition.
- Paperback – October 12, 2022, publisher : Ashford Carbonell Publishing, ISBN-10 : 0995696640 ISBN-13 : 978-0995696648, 134 pages, Item Weight : 7.7 ounces, Dimensions : 6 x 0.31 x 9 inches, it is currently $4.38 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Kindle – October 11, 2022, Ashford Carbonell Publishing, ASIN B0BHZL8J9G, 147 pages. It is currently $2.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Today, just 10 minutes before I started working on this post, I came across a great and allegedly true story on Facebook. It was touching, infuriating, and engaging, but having developed a nose for fake stories on social media I suspected it might not be true. I looked in the comment section. People were touched, excited and infuriated by the story, and no one questioned the story except one person who stated that it was a fake story. I checked out the story and indeed, it was just another fake story debunked by snopes.com and by Stanford University, and it also contradicted what Wikipedia had written about the same incident. What I would like to point out is that almost everyone fell for it instantly. Almost everyone forgot to ask the simple basic question, is it true?
The incident I am hinting at in my review below was when a friend of mine shared a story on Facebook that could be defamatory of Syrian refugees. The source claimed that mainstream media did not want to tell the story, which is why it was not well known. I have learned that such claims are a red flag, so I checked it out. Snopes.com debunked it stating that it was false. The only source carrying the story was a site that intentionally creates and disseminates fake news and stories, and there were no records of the people in the story even existing. So, I left a helpful comment explaining that sorry, but it turns out that this is a fake story and provided a link to Snopes.com. My friend deleted my comment. I was the only one questioning the story and I got no support from anyone. I asked why he did that. He was angry with me for posting the comment and he told me I could be al-Qaeda’s lawyer, which had nothing to do with the story. After I tried posting it a second time and explaining that this was “bearing false witness” intentionally using religious language I hoped would work with him, he blocked me. Later on, he sent me a friend request which I briefly accepted. However, I soon blocked him after seeing that he had not learned his lesson. We are no longer friends.
Social media is full of fake stories, ill-intentioned trolls, conspiracy theorists, Qanon BS, defamatory fake news about actors and other celebrities, and people eat it up way too easily. That is a big problem. I believe I have noticed that it is especially my demography, white men of the age 50+ that keeps falling the most for fake news and stories. I read a study that confirmed what I believe I am seeing; my demography is the worst in this regard. I think it has a lot to do with a lack of social media savviness and a tendency to believe what you want to believe. Your existing beliefs and your gut feelings are your worst enemy in this regard. I believe a science background can really help you with this. In Science you learn to focus on the evidence.
What I wanted to say with all this, is that we may always have had this problem, but it has been amplified through social media and internet and don’t think for a minute that the gullibility and crazy behavior of people in this novella is in any way unrealistic or exaggerated. I also want to highlight how big of a problem this is. False news and conspiracy theories has resulted in genocide. Why do we have to believe what we want to believe rather than what is most likely true? Why can’t we be more rational? This is an incredibly important topic. Anyway, enough of my rant, now to the book.
The Bubble Reputation from the Amazon Page
If you want to destroy someone’s reputation, social media provides the perfect tool.
Emmie Hobson, children’s author and TV presenter, is riding high on a wave of popularity when an unscrupulous newspaper editor, desperate for a scoop, brings Emmie’s world crashing down.
Social media picks up the baton and a terrifying backlash of hate and abuse is unleashed. Threats are made and there are those, inflamed by the rhetoric, prepared to take the law into their own hands.
My Amazon Review of The Bubble Reputation
Bearing False Witness
Emmie Hobson is a popular children’s books author and TV personality. She is happily married, has a great relationship with her parents, and a rocky relationship with her sister who is an addict. One day an editor for a gossip magazine decide to slander Emmie in an attempt to boost sales. She fabricates evidence to support her false accusations. Despite the evidence being questionable a lot of people are quick to believe it and social media is used to supercharge and spread the false accusations even further, while inventing new rumors. People eat it up and suddenly Emelie is a hated pariah and a target for emotional and physical abuse.
I think this book is an important wakeup call for all of us because it highlights a very dark side of humanity that has grown worse. Gossipers, rumor mongers, conspiracy theorists, and mean trolls are tremendously successful today, thanks to social media, internet and divisions in society. “Bearing false witness” is a special kind of black lie that can kill. Defamatory conspiracy theories enabled the holocaust, the Tutsi genocide and the recent genocide in Myanmar. This is a very serious topic.
I found the apparent extreme gullibility of the public in this story to be very believable, perhaps even an understatement, because of what I’ve seen on social media. For example, someone posted a false defamatory story on Facebook, and I responded with a comment debunking it. My comment included a link to snopes stating that the story was false, I pointed out that the only source for the story was a fake news creation website, and that the story had other plausibility issues. Despite all that, all other commentors on the story believed it and the person posting it launched a silly ad hominem attack against me instead of arguing the case. Social media is indeed wild.
I can add that I don’t think it is as much gullibility as a desire to believe ill about others that is rooted in envy, politics, worldviews, bias, plain meanness, or perhaps a desire to be judgmental or feel superior. Accepting unsubstantiated claims whilst being very skeptical of what you don’t want to believe, isn’t skepticism but the opposite of it. We need to do better, use common sense, and examine the evidence. The story about Emmie, despite being fiction, makes it very clear as to why.
This is one of the most intense thrillers I’ve ever read, and it is very timely. The author is describing a very believable scenario that grows more and more intense and darker and darker. Many of the characters in the book are infuriating and yet so average, so unethical and foolish, yet so sure of their righteousness, so incredible yet so realistic. The author also describes the love between Emmie and her parents, and her husband, and their unyielding support for each other throughout all this craziness. The book asks us to be careful about what we believe and to stand up against rumors and lies. It is a gripping page turner that will shake you to your core while asking you to think. It describes a slice of a drama that we are all part of everyday. I highly recommend this excellent thriller.
About the Author
Alex Craigie is the pen name of Trish Power.
Trish was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and written in pencil in a book with imperial weights and measures printed on the back.
When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines before returning to the teaching job that she loved.
Trish has had three books published under the pen name of Alex Craigie. The first two books cross genre boundaries and feature elements of romance, thriller and suspense against a backdrop of social issues. Someone Close to Home highlights the problems affecting care homes while Acts of Convenience has issues concerning the health service at its heart. Her third book. Means to Deceive, is a psychological thriller.
Someone Close to Home has won a Chill with a Book award and a Chill with the Book of the Month award. In 2019 it was one of the top ten bestsellers in its category on Amazon.
Leonberger Life 