LAST WORD
ON ALL
THINGS FAKE
O
chieng was remembering that
enterprising American who
gave currency to the cynical
statement that the best way to make
it in the world is ‘to fake it until
you make it’. He had noticed that
perception not substance was the key
to success.
He was making an astute observation
of the American society where
glamour and excess was idolized
since the film industry had created
a mega dollar economy that was
hinged on the make believe world of
Hollywood.
The thesis behind his success strategy
was that people react to appearances
and not what is. For example if you
want to be an executive, he advised,
then dress and behave like an
executive and soon you will become
one as people assume you are one.
The trick was to project the image
that you want people to have of you
and soon they accept and adopt it
as being the real you. Later some
wisecrack was to simplify the concept
by stating that what you see is what
you get.
The make believe world is now so
meshed with reality to the point that
reality shows are today top billed.
The world spends countless hours
glued to the screen to watch how
other people live their very fake but
glamorous lives.
It was therefore just a small step
to move from making believe to
making the news. You could change
perception by controlling what people
saw and heard about you. The era of
the fake news had been born.
We had grown up knowing that if
you tell a lie a thousand times it was
still a lie. Americans had discovered
that this was not true, if you said and
did something for long enough it
would morph into a truth in peoples’
minds.
Ochieng would like t