Ah, but
@MetroGnome, this
degree-of-blatantness is an important factor: and is the aspect I find most puzzling.
Whilst I often jibe and despair at many fellow humans in respect of their sheer gullibility in response to
obviously-fabricated content (cf artificial documentary-style footage on television, such as Ice Road Truckers/Pimp My Ride and Ancient Alien series etc often being consumed as literal realities), I puzzle over the
threshold-of-credibility levels within a wide variety of purportedly real-world news realities.
Let me fail to attempt to explain.
Ever since 'Blair Witch' (but long before that point) a significant proportion of audiences have always been attuned to fictions-presented-as-real....let's call this the 'overt credibility contract' between consumers and producers. Whilst some people will accept even declared fairytails and fictions as facts, a presumed majority of modern-day consumers are sufficiently savvy/trained to recognise artificial realities as being false.
But this is where perceptual baselines are then being constantly played with. I am at a loss as to why anyone (or any...group) would create artificial depictions of realities, with a presumed intent to deceive, but then make obvious mistakes in that creative process.
I've often said (and I will regret this, one day)...I baulk at, and reject, artificiality-depicted-as-being-real much less than I
cannot tolerate perceptable flaws in that same synthesis. Put it another way...if I'm ever being lied to, I want the lies to be
perfect. I do
not want to see a little man behind the curtain, operating the levers, and hollering down a tube. I will always seek him out, the puppetmaster....
My attitude could also be: he who
fails to analyse, and does not question everything, is no different from being a mere baby...fed, warm and utterly-powerless, in the face of a pitiless universe.