On the Dangers of Slacktivism

So, as it goes. I was scrolling down my feed this morning and my eyes fell upon the attached picture. It purports to show the pre-columbian nations of the Americas and is infused with hashtags like #BeforeAmerica and#NativeHistory and having glanced at the thing for just a little more than a second, it occurred to me that on the right hand side of the image, there's a cut off label which clearly says 2015. Slightly confused I take a closer look and notice that it has the Olmec as contemporary with the Apache. At this point it is clear to me that something's rotten in Denmark, so I decide to track down from whence this image came. Armed with my suspicion that the image was taken from someones poorly researched alternate history novella and the obvious fact that the "Huron Supremacy" has never been a thing, I make the necessary motions at google which pops out this:https://www.reddit.com/.../rough_draft_seeking_advice_on.../

Turns out, not only is it from a poorly researched alternate history fiction, it's from an unfinished, unpublished, as yet unwritten, poorly researched alternate history fiction.

At this point I'm starting to wonder how the 2015 mark got past the person who shared it and then started to wonder how many other people had shared it with remarks about how #NativeLivesMatter and how the white historians are keeping this map out of academia ; so I went to twitter, searched for #BeforeAmerica and found that since about twelve hours ago, this little image and it's right on message, has been slowly spidering its way across the twitterverse. Each share, more shocked that they hadn't been "taught this at school" than the last, each one more supportive of the Native peoples, who's map colonialism destroyed, than the last.

Me being me, I've gone and told every last one of them that if they genuinely cared about the native peoples of the Americas that they'd have recognized the obvious fiction far quicker than me.

If they really supported the native Americans they'd have known that the Apache as people didn't exist until horses were imported from Europe, they'd have know that the Maya, Olmec, and Aztec weren't contemporary with each other, they'd have known that the Anasazi culture died out by the 1300s.

Basically I caught some idiots in the wild, uncritically sharing something because it fits their narrative, and I textually stamped on them. Hopefully this'll be an end to the travels of this image.


Update: It wasn't an end to it :(

But as they say, If you can't beat them, join them.





















UPDATE: 09/03/16

In the last week or so, this shit has reappeared, only in black and white this time, because that totally makes it more legitimate. *sighs*

It looks like this now

The Top Ten Ads that crash your Phone Browser

Obligatory image to draw people in

Ever wondered why your phone's browser hangs halfway through a list of things, presented to you with the sole purpose of showing you adverts?

It's the adverts, some advertisers have paid to show you adverts that are so poorly engineered that that they crash the very mechanism by which they intend to show you adverts.

Here are the top ten culprits.


No not really, I couldn't be arsed to do the research.