Why I Saw Through the Media Manipulation - Part II
Revisiting the Introduction of Covid-19 in Early 2020
In Part I, I named six life components that contributed to my ability to see through the media manipulation regarding Covid-19 (CV19) in 2020. I shared further extrapolation around the first three components: my personal media habits, my previous education, and my work history.
Here I’d like share more about the next 3 components:
My pattern recognition (with regard to information and communication)
My contextual default setting
My overall media sensibility
In lieu of being repetitive here, please check the intro of the previous article as to what my aims and intentions are in writing about this topic. I’ve been reluctant before to go more in-depth about this, but I’m feeling called to do so. I’m curious what parts of my sharing resonates with you, and I’m appreciative of the feedback I’ve already received from Part 1.
My Pattern Recognition
I’m someone who’s very intrigued by pattern recognition, especially regarding information and communication. Pattern recognition says a lot about the trustworthiness and credibility of media sources. When noticing behavior patterns of how the media communicated about CV19, they seemed eerily similar to behavior pattern models surrounding abusive relationships and traumatization.
There were strong implications by the media to only listen to an external authority, rather than using your own discernment. Which can foster disempowerment and learned helplessness. There were continued pleas about how isolation was better for you and those around you. Isolation is a key tactic used by abusers as it’s a fast way for someone to feel unsupported. Cutting yourself off from interpersonal connections enables greater dependence on media sources. As you rely upon media sources more heavily, you’re less apt to regain your personal connections.
When I saw these things imbedded within the CV19 response, they were big red flags. The red flags continued with the implementation of odd, head-scratching rules, like making gyms off-limits and restricting outdoors outlets for exercise. Spiritual and religious gatherings were suspended. Yet, mainstream stores like Walmart and Target were left open, as well as liquor stores. What an interesting public health protocol to follow? You’re allowed to stock up on alcohol and junk food, as long as you followed along with isolation and lockdown. I don’t remember these best practices when studying public health, folks.
Coercion and Covert Manipulation
Noticing pattern recognition of with information dissemination includes subtle instances of manipulation. In order to uncover the covert manipulation, you must be intricately aware of how it’s used. Overt manipulation is more obvious. Sometimes there are coordinated efforts when covert and overt manipulation occur simultaneously. With something like CV19, covert manipulation occurs when information is being withheld, when you’re sensing what someone isn’t saying. You see the pattern of what’s being silenced or avoided through information suppression.
Covert manipulation is often a precursor to using coercion. A gradual tiptoe to get you to agree to things that you wouldn’t usually agree to. A simple example of this would be if a grocery store slowly took away half of its food items. You’d begin to buy items you hadn’t bought before. How willing is that choice for you? It could be said, “well, you made the choice to buy that” - sure you made the choice, but you were influenced by the whittled down selection, which was outside of your control.
You can further deduce when someone’s stated intentions don’t match up with their actions. In the case of the media, there’s what they say their doing and what they’re actually disseminating. For example, when someone in the media says, “We want to help you.” Yet your authentic response to their information is: “I don’t feel like I’m being informed of how I can help myself.” Instances of mixed signals like this create confusion. If this happened once or twice, it can be written off as a mistake. When this happens repeatedly, it’s a deliberately chosen way of communicating. With the result of causing confusion and dysregulation.
Leaving You to Fill in the Blank
A consistent tactic with the media is to make nothing sound like something. Call it spin, call it hyperbole - this is the modus operandi of mainstream media. Wouldn’t you think that the media sources would drop the usual pomp and circumstance of sensationalism if there truly was a deadly pandemic occurring. The dire nature of the situation would call for the most direct, transparent, honest communication as they could possibly give. Not with CV19. Instead, it seemed that media sources went into high gear with their old tactics of spin and hyperbole.
I remember seeing consistent media reports and online articles about the tests and getting tested. Yet with all this talk of tests, never having a sentence or two specifically describing the test itself. No instances of providing a link explain how the test works. Why the mystery, why the lack of transparency? Very odd to hype up the test like it was some type of gold standard. There were no descriptions or links explaining, because the test wasn’t gold standard. The article writer simply speaks of the test as if it’s the gold standard. The reader is supposed to accept this as a fact.
Repetitive messaging, about anything, is a telling sign for manipulation. If you know something is naturally good for you, or if you come across something that’s naturally helpful, it will make sense to you rather quickly. When something truly makes sense, it doesn’t have to be told to you on repeat in order for it to make sense to you. Insistent messaging every day, numerous times a day, through multiple outlets, denotes something else is going on there. Such incessant repetition is used for pushing something that doesn’t make sense. These are the tactics used to get people to comply anyway, even though their senses are telling them something else.
Gaslighting and Trauma Bonding
In hindsight, you can more clearly see the overarching pattern that the events of 2020 were the first stage of something bigger. A preamble for what would be ushered in during 2021. Part of the set-up for this was to increasingly impose psychological distress. This is why it’s important to revisit, because when it was all happening in real-time, all the psychological effects create a haze for the individual, which negatively impacts decision making.
Remember, the relationship with the media is similar to that of an abusive relationship. Which would be hard to decipher while in the thick of it. Think of what it’s like for someone to experience gaslighting within an abusive relationship. It breeds stress and dysregulation. Gaslighting within the collective is similar to gaslighting within one-to-one relationships, it’s just happening on a grander scale. But the effects are still the same, it leaves the gaslit individual feeling as if they’re the one who’s confused or crazy.
Since the onset of CV19, society experienced 10 months of media messaging that resulted in confusion and unease. So much so that by the end of 2020 hardly anyone could make sense of anything. As basic social liberties were taken away, the average person was more stressed and less sure of what was happening. Are you supposed to believe these weren’t the intended consequences? That such coordinated efforts had results that were accidental? That this was a mere consequence of so many incompetent people in positions of power in media? They all simply messed up badly. Is that the story we’re meant to believe?
Defending Your Controllers
Do you find yourself making excuses for these influential individuals who "messed up?" Would there be consequences for them regarding their incompetence? Even if it were innocent, were there any apologies? No, none that I recall. There weren't personal consequences for any of these individuals who got things so wrong. Show me the pattern in your real life where that happens. The pattern where such incompetence goes by unscathed. In my life experiences, the pattern where there’s no personal consequences only occurs when that was the agenda all along.
You see accountability further obfuscated with the excuses made to protect those who did the misleading. Excuses from the corporate entities, as well as the loyal fans. We got to witness the irrational loyalty toward those who did you harm. This is another psychological effect the media industry is aware of, when one protects their abuser. In psychology, this is identified as trauma bonding or Stockholm Syndrome (which involves bonding with your captor in an instance of entrapment). Society was being held hostage by the media. In turn, part of society defended it.
My Contextual Default Setting
To this day, I’m still amazed at how frequently individuals overlook context. It appears the common attention apparatus default setting is to get drawn into content, overriding contextual faculties, especially when online. It’s like there’s a “shiny object” syndrome when it comes to consuming content. It’s hard to get past it. Instead, the bait is taken. Focus is given to what the media dangles in front of you.
It’s so easy to get entranced by whatever the media wants you to focus on. Often without question, the information is taken at face value. There appears to be little cross-referencing happening. Self-directed critical thinking from the average person appears to be lacking. Why not have broader perspective from using multiple lenses when gaining understanding about something? Especially something as big as what the media was reporting CV19 to be.
For me, context is everything. Even more so… multiple contexts are everything! Since I know how valuable context is, I don’t let myself get easily persuaded by someone’s content. This is a big contributing factor as to why I see through media manipulation. My tendency to remain “zoomed-out” - my continual consideration for context - gives me the space for needed discernment. Which is needed when the media makes such significant claims as they did with CV19.
What If It’s Not an Attention Deficit?
I deliberately take in lots of info from differing sources. I love using overlays from various disciplines when integrating new information. Using multiple lenses allows me to test something's validity. Yet, during multiple stages in my life this has been frowned upon. Parts of society even associate this way of processing as a disorder - attention deficit (A.D.D.) or hyperactivity (A.D.H.D.) - rather than a helpful addition to a useful skill set. Well, maybe it’s not useful to the media for me to question things, but I find it useful.
For myself, what others might consider attention deficit disorder, I consider cross-disciplinary pollination recourse (C.P.R.). My chosen process is to let things unfold intuitively, and to cross-reference when I feel called to. I’m okay with leaving things open-ended and having question marks. I’m okay with having space for something to be unresolved. I’m good at quelling my need to know something with certainty right away.
I think it’s a disservice that this trait in mainstream society is tied to what would be called A.D.D. and considered a disorder. It seems limiting that schools and workforces desire an individual’s ability to have single-pointed focus. If that’s more desirable, then can that be lauded without villainizing those having multi-pointed focus? Either acuity has its benefits. With something as complex as CV19 being introduced to society, wouldn’t there be some benefit in having those with multi-pointed focus to explore what’s happening? I think so
Forced Certainty When Facing the Unknown
I’m okay with not knowing and with saying “I don’t know.” I feel comfortable with uncertainty, relatively speaking. I think many people have anxiety around uncertainty. Therefore, that’s another helpful trait to have when media thrusts an unknown concern into society. I don’t need the answers instantly. I like to explore and allow the truth to unfold. I don’t need to be right (even when I may think I’m right). I can hold space for questions to linger, and have the possible answers flow (rather than have answers forced).
I don’t really need to know why something is happening or why something has happened. I think needing to know why can get someone stuck from exploring more avenues. Someone can get distracted into wanting to find an answer in one direction, when there are other places to put attention. I prefer to focus my attention on language and behavior. A person can only SAY why they’re doing something. You don’t fully know for sure if that’s 100% their intention. You must choose to take it at face value. When you look at behavior, and you look at what’s done, that tells you so much more. That tells you if the behavior matches up with the stated intentions.
Applicable here, is the old adage: actions speak louder than words. Strange how easily this is overlooked. Rather than listening to what the media is saying, look at the actions being enforced by the powers-that-be. Also look at what actions you were able to maintain for asserting your own health and well-being. What was healthy? What was enforceable? What seems aligned for you to sustain?
No Critical Thinking Allowed
There are mainstream media clips from the CV19 era where people were encouraged not to do their own research. That taking self-initiative would be dangerous. How insane does it have to be that you outsource your own God-given cognitive skills to an external media source? Merely because the media says something is deadly, or that there’s an epidemic crisis, you must dismiss your own critical thinking.
The media’s influence hindered most people from taking an approach of lateral thinking when it came to CV19. When using lateral thinking, you use an indirect approach to your reasoning and create a well-rounded way to look at a problem. Media doesn’t encourage you to explore ways to think, it wants to tell you what to think. It promotes the sentiment that your discernment is not needed.
Think about it, if CV19 was such a novel virus as they said it was, how did they have any certainty in telling us anything? On they premise of a novel virus, they couldn’t be certain. So why wouldn’t they choose to benefit from lateral thinking and exploring one’s breadth of knowledge? This approach was not encouraged at all. Not to mention, this approach is the antithesis of being bombarded with repetitive messages that cause stress and confusion. Which was what happened with the CV19 response.
A Psychological Operation By Any Other Name
Grant yourself the permission to call your reality how you perceive it to be. Sometimes others will view it similarly, sometimes not. When there are differing perceptions, discuss it and engage in synthesis with others. Integrate what you feel is true, leave the rest aside. I grant myself the permission to do this too. With an event like CV19, I witnessed pushback around personal sovereignty and autonomy. So much so, that I opted not to speak as clearly and concisely about my perceptions during those early months. I could sense that those perceptions would be opposed.
For me, it was clear in 2020 that the CV19 event was a psychology operation (psy-op). By 2025, the moniker psy-op gets used more than it did in 2020. As someone who studied psychology since the 90’s, I’ve been familiar with the term psy-op and I’ve been using it for decades. Today, it may even be overused in society, as it’s now a mainstream term. Psy-ops are also called engineered reality. Yes, the powers-that-be use media events to engineer reality.
When you station yourself from a more zoomed-out focal point, you see psy-ops more readily. You understand the threads that go into engineering reality, and you see who benefits from the course of action that’s taken. There’s a lot to see when you take those steps back from being so up close to it. You see the controlled opposition paradigm that’s used to create binaries for choosing sides and enacting polarization. You notice logical fallacies used to justify reasoning, rather than proving invalidity. Having broader contextual overlays, you understand the manipulation of cognitive dissonance and implied consent. Which brings us back to the overall media apparatus surrounding us.
Yeah, it was to disempower us and to make us poor. Yet, some are still thriving.. or are they really..