~ WHPTTLGADTRH ~ We Have Passed Through The Looking Glass And Down The Rabbit Hole

~ BI-AAA-CFTOFFWSTB-WCO-F-A-‘F’-TBTU ~ Believers In – Anything And Everything – Can Find Thousands Of Fellow Fantasists Who Share Their Beliefs – With Collages Of – Facts – And – “Facts” – To Back Them Up

~ BTI-C-WMI-A-SHAHTRCOTAR-N-TDBOAAOTAATW-JLAN ~ Before The Internet – Crackpots – Were Mostly Isolated – And – Surely Had A Harder Time Remaining Convinced Of Their Alternate Realities – Now – Their Devoutly Believed Opinions Are All Over The Airwaves And The Web

~ NATFLR-RAF-A-WAD-BAC ~ Now All The Fantasies Look Real – Reality And Fantasy – Are – Weirdly And Dangerously – Blurred And Commingled

~ CE-S-GSEATAOMOETPAW ~ Conspiracies Exist – Sometimes – Groups Secretly Execute Agendas To Achieve Or Maintain Or Expand Their Power And Wealth

~ CEOTW-TT-CASOD-RAI-DLTIIADAPE-ITGGPO-RAH ~ Conspiratorial Explanations Of The World – Tend To – Connect All Sort Of Dots – Real And Imaginary – Drawing Lines To Impute Intention And Design And Purpose Everywhere – Ignoring The Generally Greater Power Of – Randomness And Happenstance

~ T-19502-W-FAF-ATO-WH-W-TV-NAN-HMP-SMT-C-TAA-A-NISA-CQ-HS ~ The – 1950s – Were – Freaky And Fantastic – A Third Of – Waking Hours – Watching – TV – Nowhere And Never – Had More People – Spent More Time – Consuming – Fictions And Advertising – And – Never In Such A – Continuous Quasi-Hypnotic State

~ DU-WBPOT-FT ~ Drug Use – Would Become Part Of The – Fantasyland Transformation

~ I-TAOA-MB-B-B-C ~ In – The Age Of Aquarius – Make-Believe – Became – Blue-Chip

~ NSHBAOI-B-LFO-TEL-A-TPR-HBWDUOTST-TFT-OA-DFT-TA ~ Neither Side Has Been Aware Of It – But – Large Factions Of – The Elite Left – And – The Populist Right – Have Been Wearing Different Uniforms On The Same Team – The Fantasyland Team – Operating As – De Facto Tag-Team Allies

~ S-CFF-P-COF-T-EF ~ Self-Conscious Fan Fiction – Permitted – Consumers Of Fiction – To – Enter Fictions

~ G-DTJT-F-IC-B-O-L ~ Government – Decided To Join The – Fantasy-Industrial Complex – By – Operating – Lotteries

~ TP-EB-1965-W-S-BFLC-ICBL-‘R’-A-ML-EF ~ The Pill – Everywhere By 1965 – When – Sex Became Far Less Consequential – It Could Become Less – “Real” – And More Like – Exciting Fiction

~ CS-AN-F-0-PY-KI ~ Cosmetic Surgery – A New – Fantasy – Of – Permanent Youthfulness – Kicked In

~ OIC ~ Our Inner Child

~ R-TITNIAMCOTTAE-BEI-A ~ Relativism – The Idea That Nothing Is Any More Correct Or True Than Anything Else – Became Entrenched In – Academia

~ AT-1960-TWR-A-CBETV-A-ILA-AEWPTBODWTW-TDBOAFWCOMF ~ After The – 1960s – Truth Was Relative – And – Criticizing Became Equal To Victimizing – And – Individual Liberty Absolute – And – Everyone Was Permitted To Believe Or Disbelieve Whatever They Wished – The Distinction Between Opinion And Fact Was Crumbling On Many Fronts

~ TNUI ~ The New UltraIndividualism

~ BI-GSC-T-RFTHITTI-AMF-TCP-T-TM ~ Belief In – Gigantic Secret Conspiracies – Thrived – Ranging From The Highly Improbable To The Impossible – And – Moved From – The Crackpot Periphery – To – The Mainstream

~ CWSU ~ Casinos Were Suddenly Ubiquitous

~ C-ONMS ~ Celebrity-Obsessed News Media Sprawled

~ FTVEC-MMRLMFP-RTCAITNOT-STWP-B-MWPWWABOF ~ Feeding This Vastly Expanded Celebrity-Media Maw Required Lots More Famous People – Reality Television Came Along In The Nick Of Time – Sometimes There Were Prizes – But – Mainly What People Won Was A Bit Of Fame

~ RT-H-R-ITN-B-FTB-RSCO-H-CS-CC-AINSS-A-D-P ~ Reality Television – Has – Reality – In The Name – But – From The Beginning – Reality Shows Consisted Of – High-Concept Stunts – Carefully Cast – Authored If Not Strictly Scripted – And – Definitely – Performed

~ T-O-MT-P-I-C-BA-TG-ATA-IS-CEIOSCTUT-TB-CABUA-SB ~ Transforming – Ordinary – Mostly Talentless – People – Into – Celebrities – Became A – Television Genre – And Then An – Industrial Sector – Canny Executives In Other Sectors Came To Understand That – Their Businesses – Could Also Be Understood As – Show Businesses

~ LARP-TO-APTBCAOSITRW-SFDAAT ~ Live Action Role-Playing – Took Off – Allowing People To Become Characters Acting Out Stories In The Real World – Sometimes For Days At A Time

~ FY:K’R’US ~ Forever Young: Kids “R” Us Syndrome

~ PHOT;IWA-TV-S ~ Politics Happened On Television; It Was A – TV – Series

~ ATI ~ And The Internet

~ BTW-CIAOF-CNSNAFOW-SIWMEF-RAR-TP ~ Before The Web – Cockamamie Ideas And Outright Falsehoods – Could Not Spread Nearly As Fast Or Widely – So It Was Much Easier For – Reason And Reasonableness – To Prevail

~ ITDA-ETAFAPARO-F-SHAUWT-IARUAMB-ATRM ~ In The Digital Age – Every Tribe And Fiefdom And Principality And Region Of – Fantasyland – Suddenly Had An Unprecedented Way To – Instruct And Rile Up And Mobilize Believers – And To Recruit More

~ OTI-TPGTA-FAOBOT-DEOTPOBOIS-ECOAL-IEAVPTVOTTTTTOTP ~ On The Internet – The Prominence Granted To Any – Factual Assertion Or Belief Or Theory – Depends Entirely On The Preferences Of Billions Of Individual Searchers – Each Click On A Link – Is Effectively A Vote Pushing That Version Of The Truth Toward The Top Of The Pile

~ BIOYOFTTLTBIO ~ Believing In One Type Of Fantasy Tends To Lead To Believing In Others

~ BTW-IRWETFOSA-FOCITWCPIOAT ~ Before The Web – It Really Wasn’t Easy To Find Or Stumble Across – False Or Crazy Information That Was Convincingly Passing Itself Off As True

~ P-IIS-IW-AAC-WDMB-EOODD-H-TFAA-I-C-BS-S-A-B-B-T-GAG-AMT-K-TWH-OOOM ~ Pre-Internet Information Systems – In Which – Accuracy And Credibility – Were Determined Mainly By – Experts Or Otherwise Designated Deciders – Had – Terrible Flaws And Annoyances – Including – Complacency – Blind Spots – Snobbishness – And – Bigotry – But – Those – Gates And Gatekeepers – Also Managed To – Keep – The Worst Hogwash – Out Of Our Mainstream

~ AG-UIPMPOBML ~ Anything Goes – Unless It Picks My Pocket Or Breaks My Leg

~ T-SMOON-A-SSMLTN-IDU-RI-MAM-ILOW-T-H-ST-POPABOL ~ That – So Many Of Our Neighbors – Are – Saying So Many Loony Things Now – Is Doing Us – Real Injury – More And More – In Lots Of Ways – Fantasyland – Has – Started To – Pick Our Pockets And Break Our Legs

~ ANOC ~ A Natural OmniConspiracist

~ T-S-S-EO-AC-MIT-I-TEADT-RRO-AT-FN-O-T-OS ~ The – Sudden – Shocking – Exposure Of – Actual Conspiracies – Make It Harder – Ironically – To Expose And Dismantle The – Rare Real Ones – All The – Fantastical Noise – Obscures – The – Occasional Signal

~ IF-IHFPTK-WAWTDLOIL ~ In Fantasyland – It’s Hard For People To Know – Where And When To Draw Lines Or Impose Limits

~ T-GD-HCP-B-TWT-WW-RAHTBI-FAE-F-A-WDT-MG-A-C-ASMF-WSMTYRWOL-T-SP-D-OR-DA-OUVOMITETRHF ~ The – Great Depression – Had Chastened People – But – That Was Then – We Were – Ready And Hungry To Believe In – Financial And Economic – Fantasies – Again – We Decided That – Mardi Gras – And – Christmas – Are So Much Fun – We Should Make Them Year-Round Ways Of Life – The – Smart People – Decided – Old Rules – Didn’t Apply – One Undeniable Virtue Of Markets Is That Eventually They Reflect Hard Facts

~ UR-MOUWUOT-N-GCITKCAPFNS-EOTB-C-S-A-V ~ Until Recently – Most Of Us Were Unaware Of The – New – Global Cottage Industry That Knowingly Concocts And Publishes False News Stories – Each Optimized To Be – Clicked – Shared – And – Viralized

~ A-S-E-A ~ A – Stupendous – Exhibit – A

~ WNTA-AGP-YETYOOAYOF-B-NYOF-E-IYFFHP ~ We Need To Adopt – A Guiding Principle – You’re Entitled To Your Own Opinions And Your Own Fantasies – But – Not Your Own Facts – Especially – If Your Fantastical Facts Hurt People

~ PF-WCH ~ Peak Fantasyland – We Can Hope