An insider's look at the fake news phenomenon and the consequences of media misinformation. Interviews from those who have been accused of spreading it themselves are featured in variety throughout the film.
Mike Cernovich Merle Liske Nate Chambers Jon du Toit Scooter Downey Wes Hull David Lugo Jonathan Bowe Zachery Moy Alex Phillips Jane Ruby
Hoaxed: The Media’s War on Truth, Hoaxed: Everything They Told You Is a Lie
USANR
USA
just wanna mention — I posted on Twitter how bad this movie sucked and what a bunch of garbled right-wing memelord racist gibberish and doublespeak dog-whistling from a bunch of clear conmen and/or delusional narcissists it was, and Weird Mike himself retweeted me, causing my mentions to be flooded with dudes linking me to lazily sourced youtube videos insisting diversity meant white genocide, or calling me a cuck soyboy (original bruh, totes alpha of you), or insisting that I was a shill for the mainstream media. plus a lot of remarks about jews, even though I think most of them had no idea I myself am jewish. cool fan base.
(EDIT: as seen by the occasionally swarming of this review! you guys are so based with your epic kino)
anyway, I linked to my prior letterboxd review, and changed my username to Mike Cernovich Is A Pissbaby. that’s how you gotta do it to ‘em.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Call a spade a spade, this is a conservative "documentary". They give all the face time to right wing fake news portrayers, giving them a platform to explain how mainstream news media's are the real fake news. They aren't asked tough questions re the consequences of their actions fuelling the alt-right. Everyone knows the mainstream has an agenda and is biased, but you don't combat that by making up fake news stories yourself. Its a ridiculously one-sided story that tries to portray right wing fake news dispersers as being the victims. Ya... ok.
This movie opens with a recreation of the pizzagate shooting where the directors play the gunman. Only ideologically coherent when taken as an attempt by Mike Cernovich to profess his innocence.
is there anyone in this world more pathetically narcissistic about their pathological lying than Mike Cernovich?
well! Stefan Molyneux, actually. Stefan seems to think "scientific racism" and historical revisionism are all it takes to be a "philosopher" with just a light scattering of statistics-driven sociology in between ranting for an hour about how single women and minorities are destroying "western civ" whatever the fuck that means. Stefan's gift is to lie quickly and glibly and seem intelligent to people who haven't been exposed to, say, history, philosophy, critical analysis and he's very good at pretending he's smart about those things. but if you read his books, or his godawful trolling on twitter, you realize he has no reasoning, he's just…
out of a general curiosity I gave it a shot. I’ve seen Dinesh D’Souza’s failures. I’ve watched a lot of Christian cinema. I’ve seen nazis on YouTube insist they’re not nazis.
strange, though — for a bunch of people known for making bullshit provocative poorly researched statements that get massive mainstream media attention start whining up a storm that the second anyone researches or analyzes what they are saying, turns out they happen to be full of shit (Molyneux, acting as the absolute king of galaxy brain racism-blinded idiot takes) or talking out of their partisan ass. the “hoax” isn’t some left wing, all encroaching servile media class addicted to clicks, deep state shit: it’s these parasitic shills, coming from…
Most right-wing crackpot documentaries are easy to pin down. Dinesh D’Souza can’t argue his points worth a damn, but it’s clear what those points are. Amateur Qanon “documentarians“ are great at relaying exactly what their movement is all about. Hoaxed does not follow in this tradition. Cernovich and his rogues’ gallery can’t decide whether they actually support any of this shit: Pizzagate, Unite the Right, even Black Lives Matter. They qualify every statement with “I disavow” deflections, while the film continues to showcase all the hateful rhetoric without meaningfully challenging it. Hoaxed is a fundamentally cowardly piece of work. It’s also very, very boring.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter.
Some absolutely terrifying truths being told here.
God help every single mainstream media outlet & lying ass "journalist" once the people realize that the real enemy isn't their white or black next-door neighbour but it's the militarized propaganda machine known as the nightly news responsible for sewing the seeds of division.
Everyone should know about Operation: Mockingbird.
Also quite embarrassing to see a lot of users still clearly thoroughly programmed by MSM to believe that all this is just Alt-Right conspiracy nonsense, these people probably still believe the Steele Dossier is real. It seems some people are determined to sleep through this global awakening.
At one point in this, Cernovich attacks the news media for blurring the distinction between 'opinion' and 'news'; later on in the film he defends pushing an unsubstantiated claim about Hillary Clinton as holding up a 'cracked mirror' to society or something? At one point, the New York Times is somehow blamed for Communism spreading after World War II. An anonymous image board poster with seemingly no credentials other than being a random person on the internet is portrayed as someone I should listen to because... they know about memes? Cassie Jaye attempts to defend her film 'The Red Pill' against accusations it's too uncritical of MRAs by saying that if people watch the film, they'll feel differently about it.…
Incredible! The most satisfying documentary I've ever seen. Finally at long last something that I can point to and show people. That I can put at the end of the fishing pole and yank people out of the cave.
10/10
E:C = 60:40
Cassie Jaye saying "how can I have trusted anything they've ever said about all these other people who I've seen smeared in the media before" and then cutting to Alex Jones is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've seen in a long time.
Mike Cernovich produces another empty, meritless documentary in order to insert himself.
No aspect of this film has aged well with many of those involved facing charges for defamation and fraud or deplatformed for white supremacy and racism. So there's that.
I thought this was very thought-provoking and important. I'm not sure we live in a time where fake news is novel, but it's certainly more prolific and we're more susceptible to it than ever. It reminded me of another interesting 4-part documentary called The Century of Self, that exposes the uses of propaganda by the government and business to influence in subversive ways throughout history. I appreciated how the majority of Hoaxed was fairly balanced, although it got off the rails for about 30 nauseating minutes in the middle. I especially enjoyed the segment on Black Lives Matter.
It's sad that there are so few places to turn for truthful and accurate reporting. It was said by one of the…
"It's just tweets."
So much douchebaggery to be stuffed in a documentary, in what is an unapologetically pathetic display of "bombshells" and "respectable" talking heads. Nothing more lame than a YouTube journalist or personality. Felt like the right wing answer to 'White Noise', which is much better.
Vice-esque editing.
