Rant: I tried to fact-check a moon landing hoax video for my cousin and it totally backfired

My cousin sent me this hour-long video last week, one of those 'definitive proofs' the Apollo missions were faked. He knows I like digging into stuff, so I figured I'd watch it and calmly pick apart the bad points. I spent a whole evening, paused it a bunch, and wrote down notes with timestamps from NASA's own archives to counter each claim. When I sent him my breakdown, he didn't even read it. He just said, 'See, you're working so hard to defend it, that proves they got something to hide.' I learned that for some people, the act of you trying to debunk something is just more evidence for their side. It's not about the facts at all, it's about the feeling. Has anyone else had a family member just completely shut down when you actually put in the work to look something up?

2 comments

2 Comments

rosew373d ago

Yeah, that line about "working hard to defend it" is the whole game. It turns your effort into the proof. I had the same thing happen with my uncle and some political stuff. You can't win with facts because they see the facts as part of the cover up. It's so frustrating. You put in all that time just to have it used against you. Makes you want to just not bother next time.

the_robert3d ago

Totally get that. I stopped giving them my own research. Now I just ask questions about their video, like "what part of that seems the most off to you?" It makes them explain it, and sometimes they hear how weak it sounds.