Mask-shaming? Check the mirror.
Masks are a no-brainer. Don’t you agree?
Indeed, you may have seen this pee-pants meme circulating:
Well put, friend, though the “do not get wet” part is a little misleading (that’s no excuse to discourage masks). The analogy I use is similar, though it gets at a slightly different angle and I won’t be creating a meme out of it anytime soon — Wearing a mask is like the “withdrawal method” of birth control. It is a tool that won’t be fully effective (and it’s important that everyone know that it’s not fully effective) but on its own and when combined with other methods of pregnancy prevention is less likely to result in pregnancy than uh, not withdrawing. Sure, user error will happen. But it’s hard to dispute that on an aggregate scale, sperm are less likely to reach egg if the parties involved are in good faith attempting to direct it elsewhere.
Either way, diverting respiratory particles from your mouth and nose somewhere other than another person’s mouth and nose … common sense, right? Just one problem: it’s too late to call it that. Americans disinclined to mask have no reason to believe that this is a matter of common sense because authorities opining on this subject have destroyed their credibility on it.
Let’s recap.
Message 1: Wearing a mask won’t protect you so don’t wear one.
The messaging in March and early April was haphazard and at the public health authority level uncoordinated, but the theme in U.S. circles who considered themselves science-minded was to discourage them. A sampling of remarks:
- We just don’t have evidence that masks help prevent the spread. (Masks — physical barriers over the nose and mouth— bear the burden of proof that they will actually reduce the spread of a respiratory illness before we would consider wearing them)
- Air comes out the side, and what about your eyes??? You would really need goggles and an N95 to do anything. (Not perfect so don’t bother — never mind that none of the other recommendations to reduce spread are perfect either)
- Wearing masks actually makes things worse because people will futz with it. (Speculation about user error, often by those without even anecdotal evidence— unclear why this is compelling to someone who is reluctant to conclude without hard evidence that a barrier over nose and mouth would reduce the spread of a respiratory illness. Also have you ever worn a mask in your daily activities? I have and this is not at all consistent with my experience)
- You need to be trained to use PPE. Without proper training people will remove it wrong and touch their face. (More speculation about user error, in implementing a simple barrier over nose and mouth. Also aren’t we also recommending everyone wash their hands immediately after?)
- There’s a PPE shortage. (Definitely let’s not buy premade masks or medical-grade PPE, but isn’t rejecting the entire barrier concept throwing the baby out with the bathwater?)
Even when the wording was more nuanced / caveated or hedged than as framed above, caveats are not what people retain. They retain the gist and forget the words; the tone and subconscious messaging sinks in even more; they pass that on with different, often more extreme words.
That is how propaganda works. Speakers need to understand the propagandist nature of anything they say that is trying to affect the behavior of the masses, even if the motivation is not patently political (I believe some of it was in this case, but sources tell me that it mostly was not.)
The logical, predictable takeaway from the above bundle of messages? Masks don’t protect you. You shouldn’t wear them.
The tone? Confident, the science banner waving in the background, and often prefaced with appeal to authority. “We know more than you, and we aren’t inclined to wear masks.”
The subtext? People wanting to wear masks are misguided and don’t understand science. And of course there is the matter of the “foreign virus.” Denouncing Trump for those comments blinded many to their own unconscious bias about Asia as they wrote off mask popularity in Asia as quaint. One person admonished me, “you’re never going to get Americans to behave like Asians.” In any case, Asians are not wearing masks because they are Asian. They are wearing them because it is a good idea, and because the concept is as straightforward as the pants-peeing meme illustrates.
And voila, months later, a bunch of Americans are now behaving like Asians. (Fun fact! Asia does a lot of things before us, and most of the time Americans have no clue that we didn’t do it first. I was text messaging in China in 2002, and that didn’t become a regular thing here for more than a year after I got back. They’re using electronic payments now in a way that I hope comes over soon.) The ones that aren’t “behaving like Asians” are operating under the influence of heavy doses of Asia-ignorance from one direction and overt xenophobia from the other. That poison lingers.
Message 2: Wearing a mask won’t protect you but wear one anyway in case you have COVID.
After confusing the initial messaging on masks, yes, one would need a tweetable to adjust it. Say, something simple like “Wear face coverings to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” Or what about “Cover your face, flatten the curve.” I mean where’d that hashtag go?!
The CDC went with this.
Setting aside that the underlying inference was never particularly reasonable (see pee-pants meme), I have trouble rationalizing the decision to make this the social media blast. The most plausible explanations I’ve come up with involve face-saving / a softer backpedal from the previous messaging to convince themselves that the previous messaging wasn’t as terribly wrong as it was. Groupthink combined with “expertise blinders,” perhaps?
How much of the population can we rely on to wear masks based on this message? It’s true that a huge chunk of people will do anything just because the CDC tells them to, but those aren’t the people the CDC needs to “campaign” to.
For the rest, one or more of the following may apply to any given human reading this message —
- Selfish and entirely unmotivated to do something that helps only others.
- Motivated to help others, but less motivated if they think it has no benefit for them.
- Has COVID, but believes strongly they do not have COVID, could not possibly have COVID, etc.
- Believes strongly that they pose no risk to others will not go too far out of their way to take an inconvenient action.
- Confused as to whether they are being told to wear a mask or not, or whether this is newer than the old messaging that suggested not to wear one, so defaults to not wearing one.
- Registers this as an unstated course reversal and/or a demonstration that no one knows anything about masks, is now skeptical of anything the CDC says about masks.
- Does not care to read much beyond a slogan or graphic.
- Cares enough to read beyond a slogan or graphic but is too inundated with slogans bombarding them in their social media feed to have the time to dig in.
- Is REALLY pissed off about something pandemic-related and dying to stick a middle finger up at the people in charge.
Then there’s this: no matter how a given individual chooses to apply the directive, everyone (aside from perhaps some conspiracy theorists?) gets the impression that the CDC thinks masks don’t help the wearer. That makes it unnecessarily difficult to walk this back later with their own credibility intact, but it doesn’t end there. CDC is the authority that Americans cite “because science,” often with a side of “everyone agrees with this unless they are anti-science or too dumb to understand science.” If individuals hold science out as a monolith (which it is not, by the way), and “science” puts out something that defies common sense (again, pee-pants meme), and that something rather quickly turns out to be wrong, people become skeptical of science.
Message 3: Wear the mask if you want your life back
On July 14, “science” suddenly confirms it— mask-wearing drastically reduces COVID spread! CDC’s director says that in 4–8 weeks of universal masking, we could get COVID under control! Huzzah!
CDC’s website (last updated over a month ago) still touts the “protect others” bit, making the pee-pants meme provides a much clearer citation for the “reduce spread” proposition … but fine. Great. Thank goodness people are finally wearing masks and thank goodness that public health authorities are finally recommending it.
Message 4: Huh? We didn’t screw this up. Nothing to see here… Keep calm and put your mask on.
If someone doesn’t trust you, and you need them to do something that will literally save or lose lives, what tone do you strike? Gaslighting wasn’t entirely effective (see #1–3). What next?
… well, read Fauci’s take yourself.
Admitting to some longstanding Fauci bias on my part ever since he uttered ‘the virus makes the timeline,” this communication is deadly irresponsible. To claim that the discouragement of mask use was only about the PPE shortage is either gallingly patronizing or completely disingenous, and I’m not sure which is worse. The pee-pants memo sort of guts the notion that “we couldn’t have known!” And how willfully-blind and arrogant does one have to be to say they don’t regret a decision that could have saved so many lives? What else will this guy give himself a pass on?
Propaganda: UR DOIN IT WRONG
Assuming civilization survives intact, I believe that the historical lesson from this chapter will emphasize how influencers created harmful propaganda that undermined their own goals. The mask messaging presents a particularly-compelling case study, complete with an abrupt pivot peddled as subtle through inartful gaslighting, and lacking any trace of public introspection that would open the door to restored credibility, nor empathy for those they now deem “out of compliance” (or “murderers,” in some cases).
Likely contributing to the failure here was leaders’ denial about the propagandist nature of these public-health communications. Well-intentioned people are loathe to think of themselves as circulating propaganda, which tends to involve both a political agenda (ew!) and misleading others to promote it (gasp!). This is hair-splitting. If there is a need to declare that a particular subject is not politics, it usually is politics. Even the determination of “what is politics” is politics, as is everything else over which there is a macro-level power struggle within a society. And as for “misleading,” let’s be honest with ourselves. In 2020, is there such a thing as a unit of information that is (a) reasonably objective (b) complete / accurate in all material respects and (c ) consumed by mass quantities of people?
Social media gives us each the unearned power to influence, and journalists and other content creators who have earned the power to influence must “adapt or die.” When such a huge percentage of our information comes in tweets, graphics, hashtags, and hand-selected citations to data, we need to stop believing that this unicorn exists because we have hitched our wagon to the source for whatever reason. If you’re reading it in a “feed,” you’re imbibing propaganda; if you’re posting it in one, you are planting the seeds of propaganda and surrendering them into the hands of a for-profit algorithm to plant. Good intentions can’t will this phenomenon away, so the moral imperative is to wield it with care.
The way to get people to do what you want them to do is to give them an incentive to do it. Short of physical or legislative force, this requires some level of emotional appeal; when you’re dealing with the masses, that requires effective propaganda. The CDC video demonstrates that some of those at the table recognized at least this much, but probably would not have articulated it that way. And it never occurred at all to many that they were creating or contributing to propaganda, particularly individual social media users that form quite the behemoth when aggregated into a “feed”.
Propaganda is about connection and empowerment. Trump’s propaganda is so effective because it empowers his target group at the expense of everyone else, marrying the feelings of rage and inspiration to cultivate enough loyalty to “shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue” (why do people not talk about this more?). We may wonder what Trump really thinks about some of his supporters, but his messaging never betrays it.
Creators of propaganda always — almost definitionally — carry biases and preconceived notions about individuals whose behavior they want to change. If the content they create reveals that bias, the speaker loses credibility with the targeted individuals; the propaganda won’t be effective. My inclusion training teaches me that overcoming this is most achievable when we acknowledge the bias and try to push back on ourselves about it. (Well, Trump must have another way, but I doubt it would work for me.)
The presumption underlying pee-pants is “DUH”; (Audacious to miss a typo in a sentence like “LET ME MAKE IS SIMPLE FOR YOU,” isn’t it?), reflecting a bias that those “against” masks are stupid, dense, or willfully blind. Some other themes I have noticed in various messaging from scientists, intellectuals, cerebral cartoonists, and other liberal-minded people in well-meaning attempts to influence pandemic behavior, some caricaturized for literary effect.
- We / the people we rely on are the experts. They / we know what’s best for everyone
- Others are acting against their own interests
- Our positions are supported by science. Other people must not realize that they are acting in a way that indicates they are either anti-science or idiots. SCIENCE IS UNDER ATTACK. Let’s try putting the word science on some T-shirts..
- The ones who aren’t idiots are assholes who do not care about anything other than themselves.
- Look at this picture of unmasked people within 6 feet. I AM SIMPLY AGHAST.
- What, entertain the possibility that the conclusion, emphasis, or premise is wrong? … doesn’t that seem unnecessary and a waste of time given our credentials?
- Oh we got it wrong? WELL, we were in uncharted waters. No one knew, or could have known. Listen to us now!
OK, so we’re smart and we care about smart-people things and think everybody else should care about the same smart-people things that we care about. I worded that last sentence in a kind of mean way but isn’t it universal? Left unchecked it manifests as disrespect, even when completely devoid of that intention. Contempt can be worse when unwitting, bespeaking unworthiness as to the subject of it.
Human adults don’t need a college degree to know when someone is insulting their intelligence. A higher IQ bestows no one with the authority to define other people’s interests on their behalf. (I find it rather intuitive that “sticking up a middle finger at someone” is a significant and legitimate interest, particularly when the tea leaves have settled in the general formation of the END OF DAYS… but my physicist brother absolutely refuses to accept this.)
The most credible, objective sources who had a platform to influence behavior in a pandemic suffer from subconscious biases about their own intellectual superiority, clouding their poisoning their and obliterating any hope of producing the effective propaganda necessary to achieve their aims. The inability to confront these biases is a disturbing indicator that we have learned nothing from 2016. Trump’s election should have taught us the futility of leveraging intellectual superiority to control people’s behavior, “for their own good” or otherwise.
Humility?
My main goal is to get this out of my system so it stops consuming me. Within the ominous swarm in my bonnet, masks are the Queen Bee, and I must reduce the frequency of unleashing her in inappropriate settings, e.g., through offhand bitter comments in work meetings (virtual, of course), or trying to hide the smoke coming out of my ears as I desperately try to avoid hijacking other people’s pleasantries. I refuse to resign myself to a fate in which the word “Fauci” is a hypnosis prompt triggering an extended series of deranged text messages that is the thumb-to-screen analogue of placing his face on a dartboard and expelling watermelon seeds from my mouth at it until my face is all sticky, the floor is covered with watermelon seeds, and Fauci remains unchanged but for a dewy pink glow as if from a fresh application of bronzer. At some point I just need to call it done so I can breezily quip, “oh, I wrote a crazy rant about that, ha ha!” when the subject comes up.
Every criticism I’m making applies to me (seriously go back through the bullets and do it — if you’re mad at me for writing this it may be fun). I mean, is there any difference between the messaging I claim is responsible for conjuring an unnecessary “mask controversy,” and my choice to sink hours of my time into hollering at those people? I appreciate that pee-pants-memers and social-media shamers are also using social media as an outlet and their feelings are no less worthy of emotional projectile vomit than mine. Any meaningful distinction I could purport to offer would require delving into the fifth circle of meta, with me landing somewhere in the realm of “out-elitism-ing elitism.”
In case anyone is still here and willing to entertain my “social media makes us all propagandists” thesis, I submit additionally, including to myself: propaganda and humility need not be — should not be — mutually exclusive. Take it from an arrogant hypocrite who is obsessed enough with everybody else’s arrogance and hypocrisy to spend at least ten hours over the course of two weeks typing it up!
Perhaps when formulating content with propagandalike qualities for distribution, maybe we should all engage in the thought exercise (1) What unintended behavioral incentives may this statement create? (2) What are the consequences if I say this now, but I am wrong? In drafting social-media policies or workplace-respect policies, I have come to consider the mission of convincing employees that their employer actually gives a crap a challenging one, even when for the most part the employers actually, genuinely do (well, the people in HR / Legal do, at least the ones who do not self-select away from me). Whenever the motivation is external, there is a fine line between “we are serious about this because of our values” and “YOU MUST DO THIS TO AVOID DISCIPLINE, TERMINATION, COMPANY LIABILITY, GIANT LAWSUITS, ETC.”
The latter approach works fine for some policies, for example, “you must wear a mask in our space,” but a consequence-driven approach to respecting others is too blunt of an instrument (watermelon seeds?). It frames a person’s pre-publication reflections through the hyperbolic lens of “is this the equivalent of blackface from the 1990s?” A random social media user without a sphere of influence (like me!) might be able to skate by on that litmus test without killing anyone, it’s appropriate to acknowledge pebbles we put on the wrong side of the scale before stepping up on a soapbox of the right one to chastise others.
We deserve more than that from high-ranking officials stepping up to the mic during a pandemic. When they fail to consider their own fallibility in advance and absurdity results, we allow them to cop out when we direct our anger toward the absurdity itself rather than its root cause.
Are we still talking about face masks?
Face coverings seem to be normalizing now. I am hopeful that we are over the hump at this point, based on the statistically-significant peer-reviewed study I plan to title “ballpark percentage of people on the Beltline wearing masks as observed by one person on a moving bicycle during the period from July 27-August 5, 2020.”
I am also hopeful that the deeply-serious issues don’t get swept under the rug, and that our influencers start from the premise that even smart, unselfish people have cause to be skeptical of the authorities (scentific, journalistic, and otherwise) that we trust.
