Hate Crime Hoaxes are More Common than You Think - Quillette

Hate Crime Hoaxes are More Common than You Think - Quillette
"...Other reports implied he was also a suspect in a federal investigation of threatening letters mailed to Smollett the week before the attack. 
This was all baffling to many people unfamiliar with hate crime hoaxes. 
The author Roxane Gay tweeted that she “genuinely thought no one, and especially no one that famous, could make something like that up.”

roxane gay

✔@rgay

I don’t even know what to say about Jussie Smollett. His story has seemed suspect for days now but I genuinely thought no one, and especially no one that famous, could make something like that up.

"But people make all sorts of things up, even things like that. 

More baffling to us than a hate crime hoax is that people would find such hoaxes baffling. 

Lying is hardly uncommon in our species, and false claims of victimhood, like other lies, become more common when they provide some advantage to the liar and when they’re likely to be believed. 
That hate crime hoaxes seem strange or the motives unclear might simply be due to a lack of familiarity with them and with their social context. 
If you want to understand them better, here are three things to know.

• First of all, hate crime hoaxes aren’t new or unusual. 

• Even fairly incompetent hoaxes might therefore succeed, which brings us to our second point: Hate crime hoaxes aren’t hard to pull off. Long term cultural trends matter, too, and the third thing to know is that hate crime hoaxes thrive in a culture of victimhood. .."

Lots of sick fake-hate crime info here.

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