I remember the early 2000s when basically 90% of all Americans were absolutely certain that jihadists were going to attack their local supermarket any minute now because Power Cable, Nebraska was such a strategic target.

Heck, there was a bomb scare because of an advertisement campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force that involved placing PCBs with LEDs on them that would display characters from the show. Because surely Al Quaeda would put conspicuous LED displays on their bombs.

News media want people to panic so they keep tuning in. Panicked people tend to come up with remarkably stupid scenarios like "Al Quaeda have unlimited resources and can show up anywhere to shoot people at random" or "Hamas want to take Dorcester as a strategic location to strike at Israel from".

[–] Rusty@lemmy.ca 38 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I remember in 2008 when Putin was invading Georgia (the country) there were some confused and scared people from Georgia (US state).

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 21 points 5 days ago

Ah the 20 upvotes to 14 down. Good ol' reliable internet.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well tbf i woke that morning and saw the head lines on the news and thought what the fuck when did the cold start again. Then. Minutes I learned there is a country named Georgia

[–] uuldika@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago

tbf that was around the time the cold war resumed.

[–] TheRealKuni@midwest.social 12 points 5 days ago

In Nate Bargatze’s recent standup special he talked about how he, a water meter reader at the time, was tasked with protecting his town’s water tower after 9/11. With a flashlight. He did a much better job making it funny than I can, but I remember that level of fear. “It’s called terrorism because they make you afraid they can hit anywhere!” I remember hearing.

Which is silly in retrospect, Al Qaeda only hit major, symbolic targets in the US and never did “hit anywhere.”

[–] _core@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I was working for a company that was renovating and upgrading the water filtration system in the ass end of nowhere and we had some official show up to ask us what we were doing b/c someone called us in thinking we were terrorists sabotaging the water system.

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 days ago

That's reasonable I think, if people are messing with infrastructure, it's good it's being verified they are doing legitimate work. Though don't call them on a hunch terrorists obviously...

[–] abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I literally had an old lady tell me that black lives matter was going to take over destroy the UK and take over Britain. Like the organisation. There are some people that are so deep in right-wing newspaper and Facebook shit that they will unironically spout something like that.

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That is literally frightening. I honestly feel bad for her. That is not a good life. Pushing hate like that requires a lot of internal suffering.

Don't do social media, kids.

[–] nyamlae@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

I mean, we're also using social media but can still recognize that she's delusional. There's a lot of different factors contributing to people's delusions.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 34 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I lot of people are like this. They don't conceive a world outside their own. When I was in grade school, so many people in my hometown thought that... we were going to be the next Columbine (not like there were any kids actively acting odd, just the feeling that we were somehow important enough to have such a tragedy). They also thought several big companies were going to open up shop (like Best Buy, Red Lobster, etc... it was the 90s). Currently, some people still live there who think they have the highest number of Somalians living there (they don't), the largest amount of Muslims (they don't), and they're like the drug central for the state (they're not). It's a small town filled with people who don't really travel more then a few hours any direction and so they really don't have a concept of what's outside their world. The town of 20,000 must represent ALL 8+ billion people. If something bad is happening somewhere, then it MUST be happening really close to them. I had someone message me about how the Chinese were basically getting ready to invade them (so many texts about that). Oh, and after 9/11, so many people legit though that small town no one knows exists, was definitely going to be targeted next by middle-eastern terrorists...

[–] Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 5 days ago

and they're like the drug central for the state (they're not).

To be fair you never know. There is a small town fairly near where I live that had one of the largest meth production operations in the country at one point. Turns out it's pretty easy to make a lot of drugs and not get caught when you do it in the middle of nowhere.

[–] possumparty@lemm.ee 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Average right-wing american levels

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Britain might be better off banning American TV for a bit

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I don't think they're much better. British TV is what created the modern antivaxx people with the MMR Scare

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Don't forget that in WW2 UK civilians were taught to pay attention to other peoples' shoes because of rumours of hairy-handed nuns in Fallschirmjäger issue boots. This kind of shit is nothing new.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

There genuinely were German spies in Britain though.