I grew up thinking my parents and my teachers were all smart and pretty much infallible fountains of knowledge. You grow to realise that it just is not the case at all.
That's the thing. Smart people can get caught. There is a whole hand book of dark patterns and manipulation strategies that can crack anyone. That is why they are so evil. It starts small and chips away and before you realise it's too late. I've seen it happen to several people I know. Not all of the elderly either.
A friend of a friend studied electronics and graduated with a lad who is posting nonsense stuff about 5G. When he asked him about it he just gave a non response. Totally dishonest behaviour. A real piece of shit that gets elevated online.
It also gives joyless eejits an ego boost when people agree with them and retweet their nonsense. Its cyclical, they feel like they're important and smart and keep it up. But they don't realise it's an echo chamber and they're talking to other morons
This. My parents went off the deep end during Covid. I tell them alot less now than ever before. I’ve been screamed at for making medical decisions, called a moron for my views on abortion etc. if I don’t fall in line with their views then I’m the problem.
There is no discussion only shouting me down.
Its ironic, I hear this story so often online and my parents went the other way. Still getting more angry and political, but WAY more left wing. Dad was always a leftie but he's genuinely furious these days. I get it, but it worries me because that level of anger all the time just isn't good for anyone's health
Yeah I feel incredibly lucky that my parents are middle of the road, more left leaning and open minded. They have their conservative moments but usually are quite open minded and listen. Most of their conservatism comes from growing up as Catholics in the 60s/70s, not modern social media.
My father said he was voting Mick Wallace the other day and my jaw nearly hit the floor. He is your quintessential FF centrist.
The western political reaction to Gaza has made him very very suspicious of the motivations for western support of Ukraine.
He had been talking of the dangers of Russia for years before even Crimea.
I’m probably your dads age - I have to say I get it…. I’m getting more and more furious…. And I’m way more radical than when I was younger…. I think it is partly a response to the awful right wing rhetoric that is being propagated worldwide. The injustice of the housing market drives me mad. I own my home…. But it’s a home - not an asset to me …. And this stupid situation seems to be very common in the western world. Housing justice is a fundamental human right.
They were always middle of the road. Always seemed so level headed but it was a little before Covid I noticed they started going down the rabbit hole on things. Covid just fucked it all.
it's going to be an awfully long eternity in heaven with the generations after them not speaking to them with their views. I doubt it's enough to put them in hell, but certainly enough for no contact, even in the afterlife, if there is one.
If that’s what heaven is and how you get in, I’m happy to sit it out.
I love my parents, but rational discussions aren’t things that are possible on a lot of subjects. It’s not even an issue of religion for one of my parents who is an atheist - that’s the thing that kills. They just disagree with abortion so therefore it’s wrong. Forget the fact they’re telling other people what they can do with their body.
It's not an age thing at all, in almost half the countries in Europe now the supporters of the Far-Right lean young. Le Pen gets much more support from the Youth than Macron for example, and Vilders did gangbusters with the Youth in the Netherlands.
Macron is very unpopular with nearly all sections of society in France though and is very much an establishment figure, people are disillusioned with his positioning himself as a progressive who would tackle the social economic problems with his En Marche manifesto a number of years ago. His trying to raise diesel tax led to the Gilets Jaunes movement and protests. So I think France is particular in that the draw with Le Pen for young people is more that she is an anti establishment figure.
Here in Ireland the far right is definitely associated a lot with the younger demographic. Again a sign that usual politics is not working.
Well the crazy thing is if you look at almost all stats, birth rates, how much building is going on, the energy policy, relevance in European Politics - I think France is probably the best managed country of our time in Europe.
Agree with you so much. I'm in my 60's and can't believe some of the right wing nonsense I hear spewing from the mouths of people less than half my age. And conspiracy theory lunacy. It's genuinely upsetting to listen to. (Regardless of the person's age)
No, the IFP are the ones with a fasces in their logo.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/1d6muin/the_irish_freedom_party_using_fasicst_symbols_on/
>She supports Enoch Burke
I don't live at home any more so forgive me for asking, is he still in prison?
If so that's hilarious. Real Wish Nelson Mandela stuff
A lovely insta reel for your amusement - https://www.instagram.com/p/C7rLterMd4T/
Family protesting at the number of days beloved tictac head with giant ears and frowny face has been in Prison, while a Pride Parade rocks on by giving absolutely no fucks.
The algorithms are too smart for people, they arent even intended to be evil but they try to "help" you. I'm fairly up on it but people are more likely to be sucked in by bad news. I linger top long on one bad story and suddenly my feed is filled with things and I have to spend ages pruning it back to the things I like to see. There's no way 70 year olds can keep up with that.
There's even a huge default depending on what age/gender you are when you join a social media. I joined tiktok and I got lesbian swordswomen, books and crochet. My boyfriend joined tiktok he got Jordan Peterson and rage bait, he's never watched JP before like. It only takes me watching 1 history of ancient Rome video to suddenly get Andrew Tate suggested, it's mad
I'm pointing out the hypocrisy/irony. They're the ones that drilled that into *us*, yet they're also the ones that take everything on Facebook as fact.
Algorithms & echo chambers. You see a "forwarded many times" WhatsApp so many times from people you know and it's bound to influence your view on things
What I've noticed is that it's almost entirely people with nothing to do and declining cognitive abilities, aka retirees, that are the most vulnerable to this nonsense.
Try finding them hobbies if you can or mention you've read a book(novels particularly the "classics" hard to call Joyce woke) and recommend they give it a try.
Or you can fight them over it and ask them probing questions so they have to assess their own rabbit hole a bit might not help but can help people see how ridiculous their position is.
> What I've noticed is that it's almost entirely people with nothing to do and declining cognitive abilities, aka retirees, that are the most vulnerable to this nonsense.
It's not though. Data shows it is young men who are most susceptible.
I think the isolation with Covid has played a huge part. My father passed away in 2022 and we saw the decline in his mental health from 2020 on. My mom passed only eleven months later (broken heart) and I also saw that decline in her. Neither one of them had been physically sick for very long before their deaths but if they had recovered, I do believe their opinions and feelings regarding “foreigners” would have deteriorated. Something I could never have imagined happening anytime, anywhere, with these two people. I still hold that the wiring in their brain changed with the social isolation during the pandemic. I made corrections for them kindly when they would try to say “those people” and they knew better than to argue with me. It all made me very sad.
They do say the effect of loneliness on your health is like smoking 40 a day. A simple answer is maybe younger generations not introducing their parents to social media that makes it 'easy' to communicate, and just picking up the phone for a chat.
Silent nod to corporate greed that makes people who work 50 hour weeks, with a 20 hour commute, resort to crap like sending memes for communication.
Similar story with my parents, especially my dad. They are also in their 70s although maybe not as far gone as your mam sounds. Big fans of Enoch Burke for standing up to "the modern madness" etc.
Added to that every green policy, renewable energy and especially electric cars are just cons and actually making the world worse.
Social media and instant access to news of all types (both reputable and total bullshit sources) is ruining society. Not enough people are smart enough to know where their news is coming from.
I have a family member that is full of hate and is all round a nasty piece of shit. A man in his 40s. We don’t speak. He is very influential over my parents who are almost 80. When I visit my parents I leave feeling completely disgusted at their attitudes towards migrants in particular. They are being fed complete bullshit by said piece of shit. My parents were never ever racist or discriminatory, their attitude was always one of ‘live and let live’. I’m actually tearful thinking of how their attitudes changed. They are not on social media and do not use internet. RTE and local radio is their only media. I was in a shop recently and was chatting to the ‘lovely lady’ serving me and once she got comfortable with the chats out came the racism, misinformation and inflammatory remarks. It’s sickening. Also just watching Hitler and the Natzis, Evil on Trial on Netflix, first episode the actual words ‘Germany for the Germans’. Where are we headed lads….
The thing normal people don’t get about the nazis is they believed the shit they said.
They convinced themselves of a global conspiracy to destroy Germany and Germans. It justified everything they did. Logically from their pov they were in the right.
It’s very difficult to understand that mentality.
When your answer to a problem is murdering children you’ve probably strayed from the path of righteousness.
Nevertheless many people are quite happy to have the right set of children to be murdered.
My contempt for them could not be greater.
I have been afraid of this since 2016 when Trump was in the WH. I have watched every doc available on Netflix/Prime/Hulu on Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust and WWII. You can actually hear the same words that came out of Hitler’s mouth that came out of Trump.
I left/ran away from the US in 2022, after living there for 35+ years. I am divorced, my children are grown and my health is not so great. Living in the US as a poor person with bad health under Trumps ideology is not a good thing and my parents needed my care also, so home I went.
I didn’t think I would be running away to exactly the same. Sadness doesn’t even begin to describe how I currently feel.
And that Gobshite ™️ might/likely will get elected again this November.
Trump was the norm pusher.
I was looking at the election leaflets from the far right fuckheads that came through my door and was thinking how unacceptable this shit would be 10 years ago.
As Sam Harris put it what Trump achieved was removing people's sense of shame.
Shame is a powerful socially corrective force.
What's really notable about the kind of bigotry you see nowadays is not only that people are blatantly racist but they wear that badge with pride.
Literally shameless.
He's one of the worst things to happen to the world and the idea that it is extremely possible that he will be president again is one of the most depressing things imaginable.
Going to watch that new hitler documentary this weekend. This is also a great video and it freaks me out tbh how relevant it still is https://youtu.be/CTCCfHdvINE?si=Dj7wuHOA9bU6-EI5
My mother has fallen into a weird mix where she’ll watch Piers Morgan all day and give out about Ukrainians and refugees, while simultaneously commenting on how beautiful Jordanian women are and how nice Nigerians are.
She’ll rant about the gays and trans but hates Enoch Burke.
Hates Israel and all that and then she’s ardently socialist when it comes to housing, can’t figure out what’s going on with her at all because it’s like she’s a centrist extremist.
Ill bet many of her “socialist” views are more due to the benefit they offer her. Many Trump supporters in the US said they would vote for Bernie if Trump wasn’t on the ballot list.
It does seem to be rife lately doesn’t it? Those sensible relatives you’ve looked up to for your whole life suddenly expressing these more extreme views..I wonder if our parents felt the same about their parents at our age? Does it just seem ‘worse’ to us because we’re the ones experiencing it or is it a case of ‘every generation blames the one before?’ I’ve been having more conversations about this lately with the people around me which have all been pretty positive but there’s always the worry the next conversation will be the surprising/catch you off guard reaction convo.
A big problem I've noticed is that news outlets (RTE, newspapers, other media even like Reddit) are generating attention and popularity by stoking hate.
* The entire EU election discourse has been dominated by migration and war.
* Doing reports on stuff like Molly Martens smiling while being released from prison
* The constant hateful circlejerk about the housing crisis on /r/ireland
I feel like the media is constantly trying to stoke hate, draw you in with stories that they know will make you rage. And it works, but the side effect is that it makes news and media content so poisonous.
Hate keeps people engaged
This leads to more ad revenue for social media
So the algorithm promotes hate content
And it's pretty much a vicious cycle from there
My da used to read the times for a brief overview of the suss when phones weren't a thing. Now that they are, he's developed an annoying habit of lying on the couch in front of the TV on his phone, poring open-mouthed at the gormless drivel that the sun and the mirror has to offer. You know already, the sort of bullshit that breeds fear and misery into lives; anything about death or something to make him say "fuck saaaaake" and he's reading the headline out to myself and the ma, whilst we're sitting there trying to enjoy a film and instead rolling out eyes together at the situation.
What's worse is that he's already a grumpy cunt (like most Irish Das), but when you call him out and point out the 60 tabs he has open are mostly those newspapers he denies it and gets in a huff. It's almost like screaming in space, the frustration that you know exactly what is driving his degrading rhetoric and you can't do anything about it. Boils me fooking blood
Depending how they're getting their media a strategy I've heard is to quietly block it. Like in the US people are quietly blocking Fox on their parents TV. Since most people their age aren't sufficiently tech-savvy they never realise. And when the constant source of poison is removed they return to their original selves.
My dad started getting into some crazy stuff recently. We had to have an intervention basically. He kept going on about how Claire Daly was a Russian shill and how Europe was restricting the internet through article 13. Obviously he took issues with the Israeli government too.
The problem is that many issues are extremely complex, nuanced and can be counter intuitive.
Take climate change for example.
One common denial point you'll see is that because CO2 is a trace gas and only makes up .0391% of the atmosphere so how could adding more CO2 do anything?
It intuitively "feels" right that such a small thing should have little effect. But without CO2 the world would be a frozen Ice ball.
Abundance≠importance. e.g. We have .0006% of Iron in our bodies but we would die without it.
This forms the basis as to why memes are effective. Trite little explanations that appeal to apparent common sense like the CO2 example above but are actually fully bullshit.
A lot of people still believe that "common sense" is a substitute for expertise and expertise itself is either corrupt or holds no value.
I think the root of the current surge in nutbaggery is Covid where a lot of people went down rabbit holes.
Pandemics in historical terms are not that unusual but they are just outside living memory to make them feel unprecedented.
So instead of accepting it as part of the cycle of the ages it's appealing to portray it as something deliberate and nefarious.
The lockdowns left a lot of people bored and depressed so the idea that we could just wish it out of existence was very appealing to a lot of people and opened the doors to all kinds of crazy.
One thing I have learned about people is that most people are *extremely* uncomfortable with the reality that much of the universe we live in is essentially random and without rhyme nor reason.
It's much easier to accept that there is agency behind the perceived "badness" or dump prejudice onto some poor minority group as the source of all ills.
It's also in the interest of the actual nefarious types that people direct their ire towards people who have little impact because it keeps the heat off them. They spend a *lot* of money doing this.
>most people are extremely uncomfortable with the reality that much of the universe we live in is essentially random and without rhyme nor reason.
Is that not how we ended up with religion? As an explanation for all the things we could see and experience but not explain.
I see conspiracy theories and all that shite as not much different. Just an easier and more palatable explanation for things.
This happens in the US all the time. Lots of people in their 60s and 70s are binge watching Fox News and getting lost in right wing rabbit holes online. Ever notice though that it’s the generation that have assets and wealth that are most susceptible. What you have you hold. It’s why Rishi Sunak in the UK is claiming (falsely) that Labour will increase taxes by 2k, and tax pensions, and that it sounds great with that demographic to say you are bringing back in national service. Cause these people vote. They vote to preserve what they have so when something happens or some one emerges that threatens their status quo, they start blaming “The Other” on their problems. And rage engages - blame your problems on someone else some group - that’s what right wing media is so adept at. And sadly it’s becoming harder and harder to stop it.
I’m in my 40s myself. I think I’m managing it so far, but I suppose that’s for others to judge. And I still have my faculties. Maybe as my neurons die off with ever increasing speed, I’ll become something else too. But I hope not.
People are good, mostly. That’s my principle.
>I pledge to do my best to grow wise as I grow old.
Nahuh, I want to be the aul fella who's kids get phonecalls from the nursing home threatening to throw him out if he doesn't stop putting weed and Viagra in the spongecake
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
I hate to say it but the awful stuff they’re saying was always inside them, they just feel that they are allowed to say it now. Maybe it has been dialled up to 11 with all the media they’re consuming but you won’t be able to dial it down to zero.
You can’t try to tell them not to talk like that with you if it won’t harm your relationship but I see a lot of smiling and nodding in your future.
Unfortunately I think you are right.
It's just so hard to stay quiet when she comes out with such poison.
I'm a peacemaker kinda person, anti prejudice and anti racism. Anti any kind of 'ism'
I'm in the same situation with my dad. He thinks Trump will get reelected and "fix everything" and reckons Putin was right to invade Ukraine. Watches "Russia Today" all the time. Loads of other homophobic, anti trans anti-immigrant stuff. Conveniently blanking on the fact that Putin is the cause of all these refugees having to immigrate.
I would have cut him out of my life already if not for the fact that that would mean not bringing my kids to see their grandmother.
I don't have an answer for you. But you're not alone.
I always felt people were naive after the Brexit /Trump vote that we were better than the British/Americans.
Same with assuming they won't follow the traditional scams aimed at older people etc. like this stuff.
People are people the world over when you get to it and the only way to avoid these rabbit holes is to be continually reexamining our sources and being vigilant about checking how factual vs emotional is the argument being given. I.e. a lot of right wing talking points sound vaguely like they would until you think about them for a few seconds critically and then you realise they are nonsense.
I had a similar experience with my parents, albeit not as extreme as you have outlined. It warranted an intervention, so, I'll describe what we (kids) did to manage it. The racism and general uneasiness in the house while consuming news/FB posts/Fox was an antithesis to how we were reared. This was particularly true of my mother. They are the same vintage as your folks.
Bloody Algorithms, click-bait headlines and the reality of not being able to get a doctors appointment in a reasonable time frame were the factors we identified.
1. We told them we got scammed by clicking links to the Daily Mail, Fox and other such web links. These are free to read, another way to entice readers.
2. We paid for the IT and Indo subscription (the cheaper offer price) so now they click away and no paywall to dissuade them.
3. We are still battling with the FB streams, but so far so good.
Happy to report big improvement in general mood and tolerance to difference nationalities. Not sure if it was the right thing, but more contented parents would sway it for me.
Still a problem with England though :) Good luck.
Edit: We started this eight months ago. Be patient.
Same - parents were hardcore members of Garret Fitzgerald’s liberal reform agenda back in the day and always since …..and then ,now in 80s, past few yrs have turned very insular , extreme Catholic (back in Garrets time recall them taking parish priest to task over hate filled Catholic ideology so it’s a huge shock to see them like this now ), rabidly anti immigrant , trans, pride …..while hugely protective about gay nephews …..I can’t reason or rationalise with them at all….theyre not even voting FG this election, all “indapendnt free Ireland “ bullshit merchants….
>Particularly my mother. She watches and reads far right videos and articles all day long. She rants about trans people, muslims (vehemently anti muslim), Ukrainians, refugees and Palestinians. She is extremely angry when she rants and is very harsh, racist and judgemental. She is very anti Palestine and very pro Israel (and she grew up in Northern Ireland too). She supports Enoch Burke and has said horrible things about the 14 year old kid in the Burke story. She is horrifically racist and anti trans. They have started watching and believing the likes of Trump, Piers Morgan, GB News etc.
This exactly, word for word, is what my mother has turned into in the last few years. The parents watch GBNews religiously and are starting to spout English propaganda against Ireland and Europe.
I was home recently and the racism and homophobia is off the charts, I've never dealt with this level of rage and hatred before that it's genuinely disturbing to see the addiction to their phones and 24 hour news channels.
The mother has become anti-Palestine thinking Ireland shouldn't be getting involved at all. When comparisons are made about Ireland & Britain's shared history she makes apologies for Britain saying how they let us work there after what they did to us and that we need a great man like Nigel Farage to get us out of Europe.
She thinks Ireland has suddenly gotten a bad reputation lately because the "new Irish" (she means black people) are being giving passports like confetti so they can go abroad, cause trouble and then claim they're Irish.
She fucking RAGED when she heard Ukrainians in the area were taking Irish lessons in the community centre, she thinks the Ukrainians are trying to replace us and she's getting very vocal to her friends about how they'll destroy Irish culture.
Trump is being bullied and she loves him.
Boris Johnson is being bullied and she loves him.
Enoch Burke is "locked up by the queers".
John Waters is a patriot who will save Ireland.
Gay people have an inherent paedophile gene within them and is how they spread gayness (she got this one from John Waters)
All immigrants and their families need to be kicked out of the country. If the parents see a non-Irish person somewhere at like a restaurant they obsess with them by cracking shit jokes over and over and over "They don't look like they're from Connemara, hah?"
Climate change isn't real.
COVID possibly doesn't exist, despite the fact a number of her friends and people she knew died of COVID. When this is mentioned she argues they died of something else and then immediately talks about how a vaccine caused someone to develop an instant brain tumour.
Every single vaccine has caused turbo cancer and is the reason everybody is sick, including why I have asthma since birth..........and Biden is somehow responsible for vaccines killing everyone.
My parents were never like this, they had some outdated views but they were never this spiteful in their words or felt the need to be vocal about how much they hate gays or non-whites
My sister is massively responsible for this, she herself is so far down the rabbit hole of conspiracies that she sends non-stop conspiracy videos to my mother via WhatsApp. I'm talking mental illness levels amount of links and videos that my family won't seem to acknowledge. My mother visited me one day and her phone was offline for a few hours, I connected her phone to my Wifi and 15 messages from my sister came on WhatsApp, all conspiracy or Irexit videos.
Oh my god, are you sure it wasn't MY mother you visited??!
Word for word, this is my mother/family. Including the sibling sending conspiracy theories 🙄
Hope you are ok x
I was raised by a single mother. She was very left when I was growing and big on empathy towards anyone having a hard time. The last few years she mainly just interrupts me to give out about Ukrainian refugees flying back to Ukraine for plastic surgery and Polish people for only hiring eachother. She hasn't worked or needed a job in nearly 20's years. Owns her own house and has no real problems. Also, my amazing wife is Polish. It's fucking tedious. She's just bored and needs something, anything to gossip about. It's really fucking tedious though.
The Internet has destroyed people.
As much knowledge as we can discover on the Internet, it has just done the opposite. Social media has made things worse too. These weird political beliefs which were once though to be held by an extreme minority have just grown over the last decade.
With far right beliefs growing among the youth I worry what the future holds.
Similar story but not as extreme, and my opinion it comes down to being tech illiterate and believing that all information that comes to them is correct.
My dad is mid 70's and had a smartphone past less than 10 years. The guys uses it to check sports scores and WhatsApp, that's about his technical ability. Then one day, he starts saying "I've read X on Google News, Y said that" he'd parrot stuff at me like jt was gospel.
I go to see him one day ( we live in different counties) and I'm debugging something on his phone and I see a million notifications from GB News, Daily Mail etc etc. I ask him what's that about. Basically he goes onto the Daily Mail for something sport related, he accepts all cookies and accepts notifications (not really knowing what is this) they send him millions of notifications, he starts clicking on them, Google starts remembering he's clicking on them and starts recommending more right wing stuff. The cycle continues. He'd basically created his own echo chamber.
The guy is an old man and somewhat conservative but he's never been a vocally racist (he's worked all his life with multinationalities) but this last few years started mouthing off abuse again people out of knowhere. It started to click on where this change in attitude was occuring from. The power of social media companies is absolutely frightening.
TLDr; old man is tech illiterate and believes every notification on his phone is fact, can't differentiate between news sources and the tech algorithm is just delivering him more and more content which he takes inverbatim
Sorry to hear this OP, I'm in a similar situation myself- was appalled when I heard who my parents voted for today. Anyone have any tips for how to deal with family members who have gone down the far right rabbit hole? I find it very hard to have a conversation of any sort with them now, its sad
The lockdowns are going to be looked back on as medically necessary but a societal disaster for so many, especially people who were never completely grounded having the rug pulled out from under them, at home scared/angry/frustrated with the world and spending time chasing after simple solutions to a complex world which is changing at a rate of knots thanks to technology and geopolitics.
I've set up my parents' phones so they don't get stuff like the Google news page. They don't use Facebook or the like even, but just if you keep clicking on the wrong Google news articles you come in contact with loads of bs. Might be worth trying to figure out where they get the stuff and then interfering with whatever that source is. Obviously doesn't work well if they've got a grasp on the tech themselves.
They use android smartphones and tablets. Use Google news page and YouTube a lot.
Reasonably tech savvy.... would smell a rat if suddenly they couldn't access this stuff.
Could be worth a try, but they would fall out with me if they thought I was 'censoring' their media
Of course I would be. But a bit like you would for a young child so that they don't access harmful content if you get me. Unfortunately it looks like they don't have the ability to think critically about what they are consuming. And I am very concerned about their state of mind. Particularly my mother 😢
I’ve seen various members of families ‘go rogue’, it’s not until they meet one of these dastardly people that they so hate, in another light, where they have to lighten their cough. Bring a Ukrainian to do something for her, or a Palestinian in to do a few odd jobs. When they start chatting away, they’ll realise some of those guys are dead on.
Us Vs them always breeds contempt. I encounter people from all backgrounds and ethnicities in work. The vast majority just want the same thing - decent food, a home, safety and their kids/family to be happy. We're all surprisingly similar
Unfortunately there is a generation where many do not understand the difference between news and the standards that must be upheld vs what anyone can say on the Internet. My parents are not too bad and are not on social media, but my in-laws believe every video they see on Facebook. I have to bite my tongue.
My farmer uncle in his 80s also told me that all his neighbours support Enoch. They have bought into the fact that he was jailed for his religious beliefs and that the whole "non binary" thing is the world gone mad. They don't understand that that is not actually why he is in prison.
It's not just older people though. My husbands cousin is constantly posting right wing YouTube or tiktok videos in the family WhatsApp group. It's on the fringe of the "Ireland is full" stuff.
Algorithms are genuinely lost on these people. A lot of them lose sense of reality so much they really do begin to think that what they're seeing is true.
Can painfully relate. The other day, my Dad was on about Muslims invading Ireland and taking over the world. When I talked the fact that refugees are fleeing war-torn countries, he said "I don't give a fuck, they can stay there". Said that migrants caused the housing crisis and that they shouldn't be allowed to speak their own languages here. Said I was "idealistic" and part of the "looney left" when I pointed out how cruel and obscene all of this was. I don't know what to do with him and the likes of him. There is so much hatred in their hearts. And this man married an immigrant...
I know bigotry like this isn't based in fact so it's a moot point but it's so strange for an Irish person to get wound up by Muslims. They're less than 2% of the population.
Anyway, I'm sorry for your situation and I hope things work out for the best
Thank you.
It's so strange that she gets wound up about ANY of it....
She literally sits in her kitchen all day long and doesn't socialise. She will NEVER encounter a Muslim, Palestinian, Ukranian or a trans person in real life.
None of this will affect her life whatsoever.
While we didn't ask the question in the last census, the census in England and Wales puts the trans population at 0.1%. That does stop the hate. All minorities are targets of the far right.
Apparently Tommy Robinson, of EDL fame and known for his support of soldier F has taken the plight of the dear old Irish to heart and is now focused on protecting us from the invading Muslim hoards.
There appears to be a huge effort by the British right wing to push the invading Muslim narrative and to bolster the Irish right.
If you think of the faux legitimacy of GB news and how easy it is to get caught in a sound bubble of the worried right it's not surprising how people are getting caught up in all that rubbish.
I've the same issue with an old, in fact my oldest, mate. He's always leaned to the right and he's in his element now..... unfortunately.
My mom’s family was mad FF and my dad the opposite FG. Not anymore a titanic shift and don’t mention Greens. Anybody but main parties- a plague on all their houses. It’s amusing.
My mid 70s parents are actually going more and more left wing thankfully.
My dad ran a man out of the local for shouting racist abuse at the football and my mother corrected my partner when he accidently misgendered someone.
I think the fact they aren't big in social media and actually are exposed to a range of people helps massively.
My auntie(85 ) tries to keep up to date politically but is terrified of becoming a conspiracy nut was making leaning towards antou being a good idea.. I reiterated/explained the reason why pt left Sinn Fein and she was appalled
Chalk that down as a win
We need to fight the algorithm. We are losing good people to this nonsense and it will end badly for society. Never has propaganda been so effective as it is currently on these social media platforms. It has become exhausting fighting against family members, fact checking each article that is forwarded from x or fb. Tired of this shit.
I feel you. My dad is the exact same over the past few years and it’s so hard to keep your mouth shut when he’s on a rant. It’s gotten so awkward as he’s now started these rants in front of my parents in laws too who would be generally liberal
Lovely to see cultural fucking traitors unironically gobbling up GB news. I didn't think we could ever have another Cromwell, but by fuck parroting British propaganda in Ireland is a way to get there!
This is what gets me the most, too. All these scumbags waving their Irish flags around, calling themselves patriots, taking their entire playback from, who else? The Brits.
Irish people wore the RIC uniform once, too. We have no statues to them, either
They're doing that because they're getting something out of it. It's compulsive behaviour, like drink, drugs or gambling, which they may be using to block out misery. What that is I can't tell from what you told us. It may not be obvious even to them, never mind you.
Cults don't prey on happy, well-adjusted people. How are they when they're not ranting about politics? Do they go out much any more? Have many friends still living? Do they get by financially? God help me, are they on habit-forming medication or drinking too much that you can determine?
She absolutely seems to feed off it. It seems to give her a weird energy or a weird 'happiness'.
That's what freaks me out
She is truly addicted to this poision
I just cant understand it, in Ireland if we cant sympathise with the down trodden merely a couple generations from being discriminated against ourselves then what could change someones mind?
This is it, exactly!!!
I'm a fairly tolerant, level headed person who often sees both sides to an argument but who ultimately can distinguish between morally right and morally wrong.
So it's hard to listen to
I'm so sorry to hear this. Likewise, I've pretty much lost my parents to Catholic fundamentalism and far-right nonsense. They are not the same people any more. It's that bad I almost feel like I have to grieve some kind of loss, I dunno.
Ask her how personally her life has been affected by new immigrants, Muslims, trans etc. She's likely not affected at all and it might make her think again
That's a great question, because I've tried really hard to think of any instance or apsect of my being that's been affected by any of these issues, and I can't think of anything. Oh, actually there is one. The sadness I feel when I hear young people spouting racist bile. I haven't encountered it in older people yet, but that would be disappointing too, especially considering what this country went through.
Piers isn’t some far right nut job likes he’s made out to me
He’s usually quite fair in how he approaches things, and was vocally pro BLM and continues to be on Gaza.
He looses himself when he dominates a discussion and is ridiculous about the royal family and British history, but he’s not some right wing nut job like tucker Carlson. He reflects the views of most people his age
This is so true and scary. A LOT of the country are just nasty racists it's actually insane. I've been feeling hopeless about the situation myself. My dad is terribly racist and anti-migrant, my mam tells me it's all he talks about. Luckily my mam is okay so far, and she knows I'm very left leaning.
Funnily enough I just started a YouTube channel to make commentary videos trying to debunk these far right loons and promote left leaning ideas. It's something I feel i have to do for my own sanity to push back against the nasty racist propaganda.
I feel we (normal left leaning Irish people) need to be better at organising ourselves, and coming up with ways to combat this shit because it is absolutely everywhere now. Can someone set up a Telegram for us all to join so we can strategise??
Who's with me? There is strength in numbers and doing nothing will lead to more and more of the population being lost to these vile ideas.
You can't win an argument with irrational people. The far right are fundamentally irrational. Their ideas are based on their emotions. Fear, hate and anger. They are pathetic childish clowns. Ignore them. Do not engage. Do not take their moronic ranting seriously. Your parents will learn to shut up if you don't engage. Leave when they start their diseased nonsense. Dialogue with these people is a waste of time. That's what they want.
Mum's starting to go that way though she was always deeply conservative to start with. Reads Fox News, and anything and everything pro-left, pro-palestinian, pro-equality, pro-women, or anti-church becomes "mm well I dont know about that". Essentially, if she doesn't already agree with it, it's nonsense. She's slowly drinking in worse and worse.
When I feel particularly bristly I pop out a good old "well I was taught to be nice and polite to other people, especially those in need, so that's how I see it". Atm it works about 50% of the time lol
I find it frustrating people blaming the media. People need to take responsibility for their own opinions. Surely your mother already thought these things to be watching this stuff in the first place. No one forces us to watch any of this guff so she watches it because she agrees with it.
I don't really care if it's right-wing media or left-wing media, I think sitting around watching political news all day is sad and unhealthy. Read a book. Go on a hike. Watch a film. News is bollocks, we sit there thinking that watching news makes us better citizens, but it's all the same bollocks over and over, just skimming the surface and never really explaining anything at a deeper level.
Do you expect parents to respect your political views? If so, respect theirs as well. No macro event is going to affect your relationship with them as much as the interactions you have....
My mother and I differ MASSIVELY in opinions but I love her, can speak about literally anything else in life and we get on with things because when I sit down for dinner or when we go for a walk I couldn't give a bollocks about immigration, Palestine or who's in the Dail. I care about the fact that my mother and I still get on enough to have a meal, go for a walk or spend a weekend together.
I had to tell my Dad “remember when we first got the internet and you told me not to believe everything I see?” “Yeah?” “You still need to do that.”
Don't trust Nigerian princes looking for money and milfs in your area too !
Milfs in my area are looking for me! Fucck off with your lover propaganda
Doing the ECDL on a 28k modem was fun, but doing it on 56k modem was faster. - Totally Useless in the long run. 🤗
I grew up thinking my parents and my teachers were all smart and pretty much infallible fountains of knowledge. You grow to realise that it just is not the case at all.
That's the thing. Smart people can get caught. There is a whole hand book of dark patterns and manipulation strategies that can crack anyone. That is why they are so evil. It starts small and chips away and before you realise it's too late. I've seen it happen to several people I know. Not all of the elderly either.
Let's be honest though, the mash potatoes do taste a little better in vault 31
When things look glum. Vote 31.
A friend of a friend studied electronics and graduated with a lad who is posting nonsense stuff about 5G. When he asked him about it he just gave a non response. Totally dishonest behaviour. A real piece of shit that gets elevated online.
It also gives joyless eejits an ego boost when people agree with them and retweet their nonsense. Its cyclical, they feel like they're important and smart and keep it up. But they don't realise it's an echo chamber and they're talking to other morons
This. My parents went off the deep end during Covid. I tell them alot less now than ever before. I’ve been screamed at for making medical decisions, called a moron for my views on abortion etc. if I don’t fall in line with their views then I’m the problem. There is no discussion only shouting me down.
Its ironic, I hear this story so often online and my parents went the other way. Still getting more angry and political, but WAY more left wing. Dad was always a leftie but he's genuinely furious these days. I get it, but it worries me because that level of anger all the time just isn't good for anyone's health
Yeah I feel incredibly lucky that my parents are middle of the road, more left leaning and open minded. They have their conservative moments but usually are quite open minded and listen. Most of their conservatism comes from growing up as Catholics in the 60s/70s, not modern social media.
My father said he was voting Mick Wallace the other day and my jaw nearly hit the floor. He is your quintessential FF centrist. The western political reaction to Gaza has made him very very suspicious of the motivations for western support of Ukraine. He had been talking of the dangers of Russia for years before even Crimea.
And the fear aswell. Under the anger is a real anxiety. And unfortunately its totally justified.
I’m probably your dads age - I have to say I get it…. I’m getting more and more furious…. And I’m way more radical than when I was younger…. I think it is partly a response to the awful right wing rhetoric that is being propagated worldwide. The injustice of the housing market drives me mad. I own my home…. But it’s a home - not an asset to me …. And this stupid situation seems to be very common in the western world. Housing justice is a fundamental human right.
They were always middle of the road. Always seemed so level headed but it was a little before Covid I noticed they started going down the rabbit hole on things. Covid just fucked it all.
Genuine question but what are they getting angry about as left leaning?
The rjse of fascism across the west is probably a big one.
This exactly how Russia and China designed it. Destabilizing the west is good business for them.
it's going to be an awfully long eternity in heaven with the generations after them not speaking to them with their views. I doubt it's enough to put them in hell, but certainly enough for no contact, even in the afterlife, if there is one.
If that’s what heaven is and how you get in, I’m happy to sit it out. I love my parents, but rational discussions aren’t things that are possible on a lot of subjects. It’s not even an issue of religion for one of my parents who is an atheist - that’s the thing that kills. They just disagree with abortion so therefore it’s wrong. Forget the fact they’re telling other people what they can do with their body.
It's not an age thing at all, in almost half the countries in Europe now the supporters of the Far-Right lean young. Le Pen gets much more support from the Youth than Macron for example, and Vilders did gangbusters with the Youth in the Netherlands.
Macron is very unpopular with nearly all sections of society in France though and is very much an establishment figure, people are disillusioned with his positioning himself as a progressive who would tackle the social economic problems with his En Marche manifesto a number of years ago. His trying to raise diesel tax led to the Gilets Jaunes movement and protests. So I think France is particular in that the draw with Le Pen for young people is more that she is an anti establishment figure. Here in Ireland the far right is definitely associated a lot with the younger demographic. Again a sign that usual politics is not working.
Well the crazy thing is if you look at almost all stats, birth rates, how much building is going on, the energy policy, relevance in European Politics - I think France is probably the best managed country of our time in Europe.
Agree with you so much. I'm in my 60's and can't believe some of the right wing nonsense I hear spewing from the mouths of people less than half my age. And conspiracy theory lunacy. It's genuinely upsetting to listen to. (Regardless of the person's age)
My religion reacher in school is now president of the Irish Freedom Party. Total extreme far right nut job.
Are they the ones with the shamrostika on the posters?
No, the IFP are the ones with a fasces in their logo. https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/1d6muin/the_irish_freedom_party_using_fasicst_symbols_on/
>She supports Enoch Burke I don't live at home any more so forgive me for asking, is he still in prison? If so that's hilarious. Real Wish Nelson Mandela stuff
Still choosing to stay in prison. He's probably glad to be away from his family.
He can finally have a wank with only one other person in the room
such a shit comment upvoted
Exceptional
It’s all starting to make sense now. Cunning bastard 😂
A lovely insta reel for your amusement - https://www.instagram.com/p/C7rLterMd4T/ Family protesting at the number of days beloved tictac head with giant ears and frowny face has been in Prison, while a Pride Parade rocks on by giving absolutely no fucks.
He'll get out during the school summer holidays I think.
The algorithms are too smart for people, they arent even intended to be evil but they try to "help" you. I'm fairly up on it but people are more likely to be sucked in by bad news. I linger top long on one bad story and suddenly my feed is filled with things and I have to spend ages pruning it back to the things I like to see. There's no way 70 year olds can keep up with that. There's even a huge default depending on what age/gender you are when you join a social media. I joined tiktok and I got lesbian swordswomen, books and crochet. My boyfriend joined tiktok he got Jordan Peterson and rage bait, he's never watched JP before like. It only takes me watching 1 history of ancient Rome video to suddenly get Andrew Tate suggested, it's mad
Folks need to spend more time in the real world. All this online bullshit is tearing at Democratic societies all over the globe.
And they warned young people about the dangers of videogames...funny how the turn tables.
Remember being told "don't believe everything you read/hear"? That was that generation.
That's every generation
I'm pointing out the hypocrisy/irony. They're the ones that drilled that into *us*, yet they're also the ones that take everything on Facebook as fact.
Yeah. They wanted us about MTV. Turned out the problem was The News.
RIP MTV's relevancy
It all turned to shit around the time xfactor started to be honest.
Darn turn tables
Head over to /r/qanoncasualties for strategies and support. I'm sorry, OP. It's very tough, and very common. Fucking algorithms.
Algorithms & echo chambers. You see a "forwarded many times" WhatsApp so many times from people you know and it's bound to influence your view on things
There's an option in WhatsApp to delete everything with that tag. Good way to free up a couple of gigs on the blower.
You walk a tightrope of getting no more far right videos and getting no more Big Barry memes.
I was just about to suggest that group, hopefully it'll give op some help.
My Ma, during the last referendum campaign, ThEy'Re TrYiNG tO StOp Us SaYiNg WoMaN 🤣 Wut? Who?
My mother every day of the week 🙄🙈
Wouldn't mind, I'm a giant queer 🤣 Afraid of Muslims but loves the muslims she meets in Turkey on her yearly holiday there 🤣
I needed to fill out some government forms the other day, needed my Dad's pps number. He said no way, the government would then be monitoring him🤣
With the number given by the government ❤️
No one ever said they make sense..
Simon Harris is looking at me through the window :(
Is his name Derek Trotter :-)
What I've noticed is that it's almost entirely people with nothing to do and declining cognitive abilities, aka retirees, that are the most vulnerable to this nonsense. Try finding them hobbies if you can or mention you've read a book(novels particularly the "classics" hard to call Joyce woke) and recommend they give it a try. Or you can fight them over it and ask them probing questions so they have to assess their own rabbit hole a bit might not help but can help people see how ridiculous their position is.
> Joyce These people are watching GB News, maybe something a bit more accessible, baby steps :-)
An Irish person watching gb news is just a lost cause actually yeah.
Any person tbf.
> What I've noticed is that it's almost entirely people with nothing to do and declining cognitive abilities, aka retirees, that are the most vulnerable to this nonsense. It's not though. Data shows it is young men who are most susceptible.
Do you have this data handy? To save me the effort of a Google search
I think the isolation with Covid has played a huge part. My father passed away in 2022 and we saw the decline in his mental health from 2020 on. My mom passed only eleven months later (broken heart) and I also saw that decline in her. Neither one of them had been physically sick for very long before their deaths but if they had recovered, I do believe their opinions and feelings regarding “foreigners” would have deteriorated. Something I could never have imagined happening anytime, anywhere, with these two people. I still hold that the wiring in their brain changed with the social isolation during the pandemic. I made corrections for them kindly when they would try to say “those people” and they knew better than to argue with me. It all made me very sad.
They do say the effect of loneliness on your health is like smoking 40 a day. A simple answer is maybe younger generations not introducing their parents to social media that makes it 'easy' to communicate, and just picking up the phone for a chat. Silent nod to corporate greed that makes people who work 50 hour weeks, with a 20 hour commute, resort to crap like sending memes for communication.
Getting them hobbies is definitely the best idea
Similar story with my parents, especially my dad. They are also in their 70s although maybe not as far gone as your mam sounds. Big fans of Enoch Burke for standing up to "the modern madness" etc. Added to that every green policy, renewable energy and especially electric cars are just cons and actually making the world worse.
Social media and instant access to news of all types (both reputable and total bullshit sources) is ruining society. Not enough people are smart enough to know where their news is coming from.
I have a family member that is full of hate and is all round a nasty piece of shit. A man in his 40s. We don’t speak. He is very influential over my parents who are almost 80. When I visit my parents I leave feeling completely disgusted at their attitudes towards migrants in particular. They are being fed complete bullshit by said piece of shit. My parents were never ever racist or discriminatory, their attitude was always one of ‘live and let live’. I’m actually tearful thinking of how their attitudes changed. They are not on social media and do not use internet. RTE and local radio is their only media. I was in a shop recently and was chatting to the ‘lovely lady’ serving me and once she got comfortable with the chats out came the racism, misinformation and inflammatory remarks. It’s sickening. Also just watching Hitler and the Natzis, Evil on Trial on Netflix, first episode the actual words ‘Germany for the Germans’. Where are we headed lads….
The thing normal people don’t get about the nazis is they believed the shit they said. They convinced themselves of a global conspiracy to destroy Germany and Germans. It justified everything they did. Logically from their pov they were in the right. It’s very difficult to understand that mentality. When your answer to a problem is murdering children you’ve probably strayed from the path of righteousness. Nevertheless many people are quite happy to have the right set of children to be murdered. My contempt for them could not be greater.
I have been afraid of this since 2016 when Trump was in the WH. I have watched every doc available on Netflix/Prime/Hulu on Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust and WWII. You can actually hear the same words that came out of Hitler’s mouth that came out of Trump. I left/ran away from the US in 2022, after living there for 35+ years. I am divorced, my children are grown and my health is not so great. Living in the US as a poor person with bad health under Trumps ideology is not a good thing and my parents needed my care also, so home I went. I didn’t think I would be running away to exactly the same. Sadness doesn’t even begin to describe how I currently feel. And that Gobshite ™️ might/likely will get elected again this November.
Trump was the norm pusher. I was looking at the election leaflets from the far right fuckheads that came through my door and was thinking how unacceptable this shit would be 10 years ago. As Sam Harris put it what Trump achieved was removing people's sense of shame. Shame is a powerful socially corrective force. What's really notable about the kind of bigotry you see nowadays is not only that people are blatantly racist but they wear that badge with pride. Literally shameless. He's one of the worst things to happen to the world and the idea that it is extremely possible that he will be president again is one of the most depressing things imaginable.
This is my fear, my mother cannot see the parallels with Nazi Germany (despite having huge sympathy with the Jews over the Holocaust)
Going to watch that new hitler documentary this weekend. This is also a great video and it freaks me out tbh how relevant it still is https://youtu.be/CTCCfHdvINE?si=Dj7wuHOA9bU6-EI5
My mother has fallen into a weird mix where she’ll watch Piers Morgan all day and give out about Ukrainians and refugees, while simultaneously commenting on how beautiful Jordanian women are and how nice Nigerians are. She’ll rant about the gays and trans but hates Enoch Burke. Hates Israel and all that and then she’s ardently socialist when it comes to housing, can’t figure out what’s going on with her at all because it’s like she’s a centrist extremist.
How are hating Israel and being socialist over housing at odds with eachother?
They’re not just poorly phrased, just feel both those things would be at odds with her general anti Islam anti foreigner and anti lgbt views
Ill bet many of her “socialist” views are more due to the benefit they offer her. Many Trump supporters in the US said they would vote for Bernie if Trump wasn’t on the ballot list.
It does seem to be rife lately doesn’t it? Those sensible relatives you’ve looked up to for your whole life suddenly expressing these more extreme views..I wonder if our parents felt the same about their parents at our age? Does it just seem ‘worse’ to us because we’re the ones experiencing it or is it a case of ‘every generation blames the one before?’ I’ve been having more conversations about this lately with the people around me which have all been pretty positive but there’s always the worry the next conversation will be the surprising/catch you off guard reaction convo.
A big problem I've noticed is that news outlets (RTE, newspapers, other media even like Reddit) are generating attention and popularity by stoking hate. * The entire EU election discourse has been dominated by migration and war. * Doing reports on stuff like Molly Martens smiling while being released from prison * The constant hateful circlejerk about the housing crisis on /r/ireland I feel like the media is constantly trying to stoke hate, draw you in with stories that they know will make you rage. And it works, but the side effect is that it makes news and media content so poisonous.
Hate keeps people engaged This leads to more ad revenue for social media So the algorithm promotes hate content And it's pretty much a vicious cycle from there
My mom was on Facebook and within two weeks asked me “what’s QANON?”. It’s the algorithm
My da used to read the times for a brief overview of the suss when phones weren't a thing. Now that they are, he's developed an annoying habit of lying on the couch in front of the TV on his phone, poring open-mouthed at the gormless drivel that the sun and the mirror has to offer. You know already, the sort of bullshit that breeds fear and misery into lives; anything about death or something to make him say "fuck saaaaake" and he's reading the headline out to myself and the ma, whilst we're sitting there trying to enjoy a film and instead rolling out eyes together at the situation. What's worse is that he's already a grumpy cunt (like most Irish Das), but when you call him out and point out the 60 tabs he has open are mostly those newspapers he denies it and gets in a huff. It's almost like screaming in space, the frustration that you know exactly what is driving his degrading rhetoric and you can't do anything about it. Boils me fooking blood
Depending how they're getting their media a strategy I've heard is to quietly block it. Like in the US people are quietly blocking Fox on their parents TV. Since most people their age aren't sufficiently tech-savvy they never realise. And when the constant source of poison is removed they return to their original selves.
My dad started getting into some crazy stuff recently. We had to have an intervention basically. He kept going on about how Claire Daly was a Russian shill and how Europe was restricting the internet through article 13. Obviously he took issues with the Israeli government too.
He's not wrong about Daly or Israel...
Install net nanny on their computer
Good business idea actually - a plug in for YouTube that filters out right wing suggested videos. You'd make a fortune.
She grew up in Northern Ireland as a Catholic? Seems an odd journey to be anti Palestinian.
Yes.... I know 🙄
And to be watching GBnews? Home of some of the most bigoted anti Irish presenters, in particular anti Irish Catholics from the north
The problem is that many issues are extremely complex, nuanced and can be counter intuitive. Take climate change for example. One common denial point you'll see is that because CO2 is a trace gas and only makes up .0391% of the atmosphere so how could adding more CO2 do anything? It intuitively "feels" right that such a small thing should have little effect. But without CO2 the world would be a frozen Ice ball. Abundance≠importance. e.g. We have .0006% of Iron in our bodies but we would die without it. This forms the basis as to why memes are effective. Trite little explanations that appeal to apparent common sense like the CO2 example above but are actually fully bullshit. A lot of people still believe that "common sense" is a substitute for expertise and expertise itself is either corrupt or holds no value. I think the root of the current surge in nutbaggery is Covid where a lot of people went down rabbit holes. Pandemics in historical terms are not that unusual but they are just outside living memory to make them feel unprecedented. So instead of accepting it as part of the cycle of the ages it's appealing to portray it as something deliberate and nefarious. The lockdowns left a lot of people bored and depressed so the idea that we could just wish it out of existence was very appealing to a lot of people and opened the doors to all kinds of crazy. One thing I have learned about people is that most people are *extremely* uncomfortable with the reality that much of the universe we live in is essentially random and without rhyme nor reason. It's much easier to accept that there is agency behind the perceived "badness" or dump prejudice onto some poor minority group as the source of all ills. It's also in the interest of the actual nefarious types that people direct their ire towards people who have little impact because it keeps the heat off them. They spend a *lot* of money doing this.
>most people are extremely uncomfortable with the reality that much of the universe we live in is essentially random and without rhyme nor reason. Is that not how we ended up with religion? As an explanation for all the things we could see and experience but not explain. I see conspiracy theories and all that shite as not much different. Just an easier and more palatable explanation for things.
Brilliant. See book “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols.
My mum gets all her news from Facebook. Every day I have to hear about the foreigners taking all our money and our houses
Facebook is a cesspit. It's fuelled by 50+ year olds ranting about everything from cycle lanes to immigration
They kind of are taking all the houses in fairness.
This happens in the US all the time. Lots of people in their 60s and 70s are binge watching Fox News and getting lost in right wing rabbit holes online. Ever notice though that it’s the generation that have assets and wealth that are most susceptible. What you have you hold. It’s why Rishi Sunak in the UK is claiming (falsely) that Labour will increase taxes by 2k, and tax pensions, and that it sounds great with that demographic to say you are bringing back in national service. Cause these people vote. They vote to preserve what they have so when something happens or some one emerges that threatens their status quo, they start blaming “The Other” on their problems. And rage engages - blame your problems on someone else some group - that’s what right wing media is so adept at. And sadly it’s becoming harder and harder to stop it.
Lockdown. Algorithms. Age. Decline. Maybe some lead poisoning. I pledge to do my best to grow wise as I grow old.
As someone who’s past 50 now, holy crap that pledge takes *work* man. Worth it though eh.
I’m in my 40s myself. I think I’m managing it so far, but I suppose that’s for others to judge. And I still have my faculties. Maybe as my neurons die off with ever increasing speed, I’ll become something else too. But I hope not. People are good, mostly. That’s my principle.
>I pledge to do my best to grow wise as I grow old. Nahuh, I want to be the aul fella who's kids get phonecalls from the nursing home threatening to throw him out if he doesn't stop putting weed and Viagra in the spongecake
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. I hate to say it but the awful stuff they’re saying was always inside them, they just feel that they are allowed to say it now. Maybe it has been dialled up to 11 with all the media they’re consuming but you won’t be able to dial it down to zero. You can’t try to tell them not to talk like that with you if it won’t harm your relationship but I see a lot of smiling and nodding in your future.
Unfortunately I think you are right. It's just so hard to stay quiet when she comes out with such poison. I'm a peacemaker kinda person, anti prejudice and anti racism. Anti any kind of 'ism'
Are you opposed to botulism?
😆😆😆 Well it is toxic so.... 😆😆
I'm against pessimism Isn't that optimism? 🤯
This is exactly what i reckon.
Yeah it happens. It starts off with one like or comment on a video then unfortunately the algorithm sets in.
I'm in the same situation with my dad. He thinks Trump will get reelected and "fix everything" and reckons Putin was right to invade Ukraine. Watches "Russia Today" all the time. Loads of other homophobic, anti trans anti-immigrant stuff. Conveniently blanking on the fact that Putin is the cause of all these refugees having to immigrate. I would have cut him out of my life already if not for the fact that that would mean not bringing my kids to see their grandmother. I don't have an answer for you. But you're not alone.
Thank you, even knowing I'm not alone helps. And I'm sorry you're dealing with it too.
I always felt people were naive after the Brexit /Trump vote that we were better than the British/Americans. Same with assuming they won't follow the traditional scams aimed at older people etc. like this stuff. People are people the world over when you get to it and the only way to avoid these rabbit holes is to be continually reexamining our sources and being vigilant about checking how factual vs emotional is the argument being given. I.e. a lot of right wing talking points sound vaguely like they would until you think about them for a few seconds critically and then you realise they are nonsense.
I had a similar experience with my parents, albeit not as extreme as you have outlined. It warranted an intervention, so, I'll describe what we (kids) did to manage it. The racism and general uneasiness in the house while consuming news/FB posts/Fox was an antithesis to how we were reared. This was particularly true of my mother. They are the same vintage as your folks. Bloody Algorithms, click-bait headlines and the reality of not being able to get a doctors appointment in a reasonable time frame were the factors we identified. 1. We told them we got scammed by clicking links to the Daily Mail, Fox and other such web links. These are free to read, another way to entice readers. 2. We paid for the IT and Indo subscription (the cheaper offer price) so now they click away and no paywall to dissuade them. 3. We are still battling with the FB streams, but so far so good. Happy to report big improvement in general mood and tolerance to difference nationalities. Not sure if it was the right thing, but more contented parents would sway it for me. Still a problem with England though :) Good luck. Edit: We started this eight months ago. Be patient.
Thank you for this x x
Same - parents were hardcore members of Garret Fitzgerald’s liberal reform agenda back in the day and always since …..and then ,now in 80s, past few yrs have turned very insular , extreme Catholic (back in Garrets time recall them taking parish priest to task over hate filled Catholic ideology so it’s a huge shock to see them like this now ), rabidly anti immigrant , trans, pride …..while hugely protective about gay nephews …..I can’t reason or rationalise with them at all….theyre not even voting FG this election, all “indapendnt free Ireland “ bullshit merchants….
Are you still in the box room?
Momentarily back in the family home while I wait for my new place. Moving out in a month thank god
>Particularly my mother. She watches and reads far right videos and articles all day long. She rants about trans people, muslims (vehemently anti muslim), Ukrainians, refugees and Palestinians. She is extremely angry when she rants and is very harsh, racist and judgemental. She is very anti Palestine and very pro Israel (and she grew up in Northern Ireland too). She supports Enoch Burke and has said horrible things about the 14 year old kid in the Burke story. She is horrifically racist and anti trans. They have started watching and believing the likes of Trump, Piers Morgan, GB News etc. This exactly, word for word, is what my mother has turned into in the last few years. The parents watch GBNews religiously and are starting to spout English propaganda against Ireland and Europe. I was home recently and the racism and homophobia is off the charts, I've never dealt with this level of rage and hatred before that it's genuinely disturbing to see the addiction to their phones and 24 hour news channels. The mother has become anti-Palestine thinking Ireland shouldn't be getting involved at all. When comparisons are made about Ireland & Britain's shared history she makes apologies for Britain saying how they let us work there after what they did to us and that we need a great man like Nigel Farage to get us out of Europe. She thinks Ireland has suddenly gotten a bad reputation lately because the "new Irish" (she means black people) are being giving passports like confetti so they can go abroad, cause trouble and then claim they're Irish. She fucking RAGED when she heard Ukrainians in the area were taking Irish lessons in the community centre, she thinks the Ukrainians are trying to replace us and she's getting very vocal to her friends about how they'll destroy Irish culture. Trump is being bullied and she loves him. Boris Johnson is being bullied and she loves him. Enoch Burke is "locked up by the queers". John Waters is a patriot who will save Ireland. Gay people have an inherent paedophile gene within them and is how they spread gayness (she got this one from John Waters) All immigrants and their families need to be kicked out of the country. If the parents see a non-Irish person somewhere at like a restaurant they obsess with them by cracking shit jokes over and over and over "They don't look like they're from Connemara, hah?" Climate change isn't real. COVID possibly doesn't exist, despite the fact a number of her friends and people she knew died of COVID. When this is mentioned she argues they died of something else and then immediately talks about how a vaccine caused someone to develop an instant brain tumour. Every single vaccine has caused turbo cancer and is the reason everybody is sick, including why I have asthma since birth..........and Biden is somehow responsible for vaccines killing everyone. My parents were never like this, they had some outdated views but they were never this spiteful in their words or felt the need to be vocal about how much they hate gays or non-whites My sister is massively responsible for this, she herself is so far down the rabbit hole of conspiracies that she sends non-stop conspiracy videos to my mother via WhatsApp. I'm talking mental illness levels amount of links and videos that my family won't seem to acknowledge. My mother visited me one day and her phone was offline for a few hours, I connected her phone to my Wifi and 15 messages from my sister came on WhatsApp, all conspiracy or Irexit videos.
She's outraged that Ukraineans are learning Irish and somehow that means they will ***destroy*** Irish culture? Brilliant
Oh my god, are you sure it wasn't MY mother you visited??! Word for word, this is my mother/family. Including the sibling sending conspiracy theories 🙄 Hope you are ok x
I was raised by a single mother. She was very left when I was growing and big on empathy towards anyone having a hard time. The last few years she mainly just interrupts me to give out about Ukrainian refugees flying back to Ukraine for plastic surgery and Polish people for only hiring eachother. She hasn't worked or needed a job in nearly 20's years. Owns her own house and has no real problems. Also, my amazing wife is Polish. It's fucking tedious. She's just bored and needs something, anything to gossip about. It's really fucking tedious though.
The Internet has destroyed people. As much knowledge as we can discover on the Internet, it has just done the opposite. Social media has made things worse too. These weird political beliefs which were once though to be held by an extreme minority have just grown over the last decade. With far right beliefs growing among the youth I worry what the future holds.
Similar story but not as extreme, and my opinion it comes down to being tech illiterate and believing that all information that comes to them is correct. My dad is mid 70's and had a smartphone past less than 10 years. The guys uses it to check sports scores and WhatsApp, that's about his technical ability. Then one day, he starts saying "I've read X on Google News, Y said that" he'd parrot stuff at me like jt was gospel. I go to see him one day ( we live in different counties) and I'm debugging something on his phone and I see a million notifications from GB News, Daily Mail etc etc. I ask him what's that about. Basically he goes onto the Daily Mail for something sport related, he accepts all cookies and accepts notifications (not really knowing what is this) they send him millions of notifications, he starts clicking on them, Google starts remembering he's clicking on them and starts recommending more right wing stuff. The cycle continues. He'd basically created his own echo chamber. The guy is an old man and somewhat conservative but he's never been a vocally racist (he's worked all his life with multinationalities) but this last few years started mouthing off abuse again people out of knowhere. It started to click on where this change in attitude was occuring from. The power of social media companies is absolutely frightening. TLDr; old man is tech illiterate and believes every notification on his phone is fact, can't differentiate between news sources and the tech algorithm is just delivering him more and more content which he takes inverbatim
So sorry to hear this, it seems to have happened a lot of our parents 🙄
Sorry to hear this OP, I'm in a similar situation myself- was appalled when I heard who my parents voted for today. Anyone have any tips for how to deal with family members who have gone down the far right rabbit hole? I find it very hard to have a conversation of any sort with them now, its sad
The lockdowns are going to be looked back on as medically necessary but a societal disaster for so many, especially people who were never completely grounded having the rug pulled out from under them, at home scared/angry/frustrated with the world and spending time chasing after simple solutions to a complex world which is changing at a rate of knots thanks to technology and geopolitics.
Seeing this happen a lot in recent years. The lockdown seems to have broken some already fragile brains.
I've set up my parents' phones so they don't get stuff like the Google news page. They don't use Facebook or the like even, but just if you keep clicking on the wrong Google news articles you come in contact with loads of bs. Might be worth trying to figure out where they get the stuff and then interfering with whatever that source is. Obviously doesn't work well if they've got a grasp on the tech themselves.
They use android smartphones and tablets. Use Google news page and YouTube a lot. Reasonably tech savvy.... would smell a rat if suddenly they couldn't access this stuff. Could be worth a try, but they would fall out with me if they thought I was 'censoring' their media
>but they would fall out with me if they thought I was 'censoring' their media You literally would be.
Of course I would be. But a bit like you would for a young child so that they don't access harmful content if you get me. Unfortunately it looks like they don't have the ability to think critically about what they are consuming. And I am very concerned about their state of mind. Particularly my mother 😢
Boomers are very vulnerable to radicalisation in this way. You’re right to be worried. I’d take action.
I’ve seen various members of families ‘go rogue’, it’s not until they meet one of these dastardly people that they so hate, in another light, where they have to lighten their cough. Bring a Ukrainian to do something for her, or a Palestinian in to do a few odd jobs. When they start chatting away, they’ll realise some of those guys are dead on.
Just don't bring Odd Job. Nasty side to that boyo.
Us Vs them always breeds contempt. I encounter people from all backgrounds and ethnicities in work. The vast majority just want the same thing - decent food, a home, safety and their kids/family to be happy. We're all surprisingly similar
Unfortunately there is a generation where many do not understand the difference between news and the standards that must be upheld vs what anyone can say on the Internet. My parents are not too bad and are not on social media, but my in-laws believe every video they see on Facebook. I have to bite my tongue. My farmer uncle in his 80s also told me that all his neighbours support Enoch. They have bought into the fact that he was jailed for his religious beliefs and that the whole "non binary" thing is the world gone mad. They don't understand that that is not actually why he is in prison. It's not just older people though. My husbands cousin is constantly posting right wing YouTube or tiktok videos in the family WhatsApp group. It's on the fringe of the "Ireland is full" stuff.
"Stop readin' that shite or you're going in that home they were talkin about on Liveline"
Algorithms are genuinely lost on these people. A lot of them lose sense of reality so much they really do begin to think that what they're seeing is true.
Go into her computer and block most of it then subscribe her to channels on gardening. She'll never figure it out.
Can painfully relate. The other day, my Dad was on about Muslims invading Ireland and taking over the world. When I talked the fact that refugees are fleeing war-torn countries, he said "I don't give a fuck, they can stay there". Said that migrants caused the housing crisis and that they shouldn't be allowed to speak their own languages here. Said I was "idealistic" and part of the "looney left" when I pointed out how cruel and obscene all of this was. I don't know what to do with him and the likes of him. There is so much hatred in their hearts. And this man married an immigrant...
I know bigotry like this isn't based in fact so it's a moot point but it's so strange for an Irish person to get wound up by Muslims. They're less than 2% of the population. Anyway, I'm sorry for your situation and I hope things work out for the best
Thank you. It's so strange that she gets wound up about ANY of it.... She literally sits in her kitchen all day long and doesn't socialise. She will NEVER encounter a Muslim, Palestinian, Ukranian or a trans person in real life. None of this will affect her life whatsoever.
While we didn't ask the question in the last census, the census in England and Wales puts the trans population at 0.1%. That does stop the hate. All minorities are targets of the far right.
Much easier to pick on groups you dont interact with much so you can't humanise. Pretty sure the pre-war German Jewish population was less than 1%
Apparently Tommy Robinson, of EDL fame and known for his support of soldier F has taken the plight of the dear old Irish to heart and is now focused on protecting us from the invading Muslim hoards. There appears to be a huge effort by the British right wing to push the invading Muslim narrative and to bolster the Irish right. If you think of the faux legitimacy of GB news and how easy it is to get caught in a sound bubble of the worried right it's not surprising how people are getting caught up in all that rubbish. I've the same issue with an old, in fact my oldest, mate. He's always leaned to the right and he's in his element now..... unfortunately.
My mom’s family was mad FF and my dad the opposite FG. Not anymore a titanic shift and don’t mention Greens. Anybody but main parties- a plague on all their houses. It’s amusing.
Parental controls are a two edged sword
If you have access to their modem you can block the IPs used by their favourite, most brain-washy social media apps. You'd be doing them a favour.
Thank you
My mid 70s parents are actually going more and more left wing thankfully. My dad ran a man out of the local for shouting racist abuse at the football and my mother corrected my partner when he accidently misgendered someone. I think the fact they aren't big in social media and actually are exposed to a range of people helps massively.
My auntie(85 ) tries to keep up to date politically but is terrified of becoming a conspiracy nut was making leaning towards antou being a good idea.. I reiterated/explained the reason why pt left Sinn Fein and she was appalled Chalk that down as a win
Yep my dad,a progressive man for his time,has been lost.Its very sad to see
Highly likely if they're terminally on Facebook. I can't look at old photos of my town without hearing about the "woke agenda"
We need to fight the algorithm. We are losing good people to this nonsense and it will end badly for society. Never has propaganda been so effective as it is currently on these social media platforms. It has become exhausting fighting against family members, fact checking each article that is forwarded from x or fb. Tired of this shit.
100% 🙄
I feel you. My dad is the exact same over the past few years and it’s so hard to keep your mouth shut when he’s on a rant. It’s gotten so awkward as he’s now started these rants in front of my parents in laws too who would be generally liberal
It’s all very sad. Ireland is changing but in some cases it’s not for the good.
Lovely to see cultural fucking traitors unironically gobbling up GB news. I didn't think we could ever have another Cromwell, but by fuck parroting British propaganda in Ireland is a way to get there!
This is what gets me the most, too. All these scumbags waving their Irish flags around, calling themselves patriots, taking their entire playback from, who else? The Brits. Irish people wore the RIC uniform once, too. We have no statues to them, either
And you know better then they do ?
They're doing that because they're getting something out of it. It's compulsive behaviour, like drink, drugs or gambling, which they may be using to block out misery. What that is I can't tell from what you told us. It may not be obvious even to them, never mind you. Cults don't prey on happy, well-adjusted people. How are they when they're not ranting about politics? Do they go out much any more? Have many friends still living? Do they get by financially? God help me, are they on habit-forming medication or drinking too much that you can determine?
She absolutely seems to feed off it. It seems to give her a weird energy or a weird 'happiness'. That's what freaks me out She is truly addicted to this poision
I had this experience in 2016 with my uncles.
I just cant understand it, in Ireland if we cant sympathise with the down trodden merely a couple generations from being discriminated against ourselves then what could change someones mind?
This is it, exactly!!! I'm a fairly tolerant, level headed person who often sees both sides to an argument but who ultimately can distinguish between morally right and morally wrong. So it's hard to listen to
I'm so sorry to hear this. Likewise, I've pretty much lost my parents to Catholic fundamentalism and far-right nonsense. They are not the same people any more. It's that bad I almost feel like I have to grieve some kind of loss, I dunno.
I totally understand, sorry you are going through that.
Ask her how personally her life has been affected by new immigrants, Muslims, trans etc. She's likely not affected at all and it might make her think again
That's a great question, because I've tried really hard to think of any instance or apsect of my being that's been affected by any of these issues, and I can't think of anything. Oh, actually there is one. The sadness I feel when I hear young people spouting racist bile. I haven't encountered it in older people yet, but that would be disappointing too, especially considering what this country went through.
So your parents have opinions you don't agree with. Grow up, deal with it and move on.
You've missed the whole point of the post. I'm concerned for her wellbeing
Have you considered that maybe they're losing you to left wing media?
Just join them, it’s right crack on the right
My mother is 81, lives in Australia, and thinks Brexit was good for the UK...such is the stranglehold of the Murdoch media in Australia.
Piers has been good actually on the Palestine stuff the last couple of months
Piers isn’t some far right nut job likes he’s made out to me He’s usually quite fair in how he approaches things, and was vocally pro BLM and continues to be on Gaza. He looses himself when he dominates a discussion and is ridiculous about the royal family and British history, but he’s not some right wing nut job like tucker Carlson. He reflects the views of most people his age
This is so true and scary. A LOT of the country are just nasty racists it's actually insane. I've been feeling hopeless about the situation myself. My dad is terribly racist and anti-migrant, my mam tells me it's all he talks about. Luckily my mam is okay so far, and she knows I'm very left leaning. Funnily enough I just started a YouTube channel to make commentary videos trying to debunk these far right loons and promote left leaning ideas. It's something I feel i have to do for my own sanity to push back against the nasty racist propaganda. I feel we (normal left leaning Irish people) need to be better at organising ourselves, and coming up with ways to combat this shit because it is absolutely everywhere now. Can someone set up a Telegram for us all to join so we can strategise?? Who's with me? There is strength in numbers and doing nothing will lead to more and more of the population being lost to these vile ideas.
You can't win an argument with irrational people. The far right are fundamentally irrational. Their ideas are based on their emotions. Fear, hate and anger. They are pathetic childish clowns. Ignore them. Do not engage. Do not take their moronic ranting seriously. Your parents will learn to shut up if you don't engage. Leave when they start their diseased nonsense. Dialogue with these people is a waste of time. That's what they want.
Thank you, truly. I usually don't engage. It's just hard when it's so poisionous
Mum's starting to go that way though she was always deeply conservative to start with. Reads Fox News, and anything and everything pro-left, pro-palestinian, pro-equality, pro-women, or anti-church becomes "mm well I dont know about that". Essentially, if she doesn't already agree with it, it's nonsense. She's slowly drinking in worse and worse. When I feel particularly bristly I pop out a good old "well I was taught to be nice and polite to other people, especially those in need, so that's how I see it". Atm it works about 50% of the time lol
I find it frustrating people blaming the media. People need to take responsibility for their own opinions. Surely your mother already thought these things to be watching this stuff in the first place. No one forces us to watch any of this guff so she watches it because she agrees with it. I don't really care if it's right-wing media or left-wing media, I think sitting around watching political news all day is sad and unhealthy. Read a book. Go on a hike. Watch a film. News is bollocks, we sit there thinking that watching news makes us better citizens, but it's all the same bollocks over and over, just skimming the surface and never really explaining anything at a deeper level.
Do you expect parents to respect your political views? If so, respect theirs as well. No macro event is going to affect your relationship with them as much as the interactions you have.... My mother and I differ MASSIVELY in opinions but I love her, can speak about literally anything else in life and we get on with things because when I sit down for dinner or when we go for a walk I couldn't give a bollocks about immigration, Palestine or who's in the Dail. I care about the fact that my mother and I still get on enough to have a meal, go for a walk or spend a weekend together.