So I go online, and on a media outlet (it has several hundred thousand visits a month, it’s not some random blahblah.com) it says the following, “Dejavu Telegram Channel writes: Tzhvzhik’s source in Kremlin reports․․․” Immediately after this passage I stopped reading. For one reason only: I consider my own mental and physical health to be far more important than being aware of how people react to every little thing spewed by an acquaintance of Tzhvzhik.

Take a moment to look at this deeper: A Telegram channel called Tzhvzhik, which has only two thousand and one handfuls of readers (more than half of whom are not active), has sources in the Kremlin. Then Tzhvzhik’s post is quoted by the Deja Vu channel, which has a thousand and one readers (again, more than half of them are in a virtual coma). After that, the news outlet takes what Tzhvzhik was told by a housekeeper living in the Kremlin or the residential ghost.

Another wonderful event is taking place here: The journalist decides to be very thorough and professional and refers to his source, that is, Deja Vu, who, let us not forget, quoted Tzhvzhik, who in turn quoted Dobby living in the Kremlin.

But the wonderful thing is that the link goes to Telegram.org. In other words, the person wants to say that I read in the Telegram. Moreover, linking the main messenger website. As they say, the product is directly from the producer.

This is a small case for one person, but it is a huge problem if we talk about Armenian society.

The name of the problem is the consumption of unworthy, senseless information.

We often talk about media literacy, fact-checking and the like. Undoubtedly, all that is needed. You need it as much as possible. However, the point is that in many cases you do not need to be a fact-checking specialist, you do not need to spend a few hours to check the authenticity of what is depicted in the video, and so on and so forth.

The problem is simple and very human. It can be presented in a few sentences.

The point is that we must be dignified and proud media consumers, regardless of intellectual circumstances. This means that we should take on the role of a silent conspirator when they want to feed us the stuff made up by a housekeeper living in the Kremlin. Moreover, they feed it so often that all this is repeated and repeated like deja vu.

We constantly complain that the media field is full of fakes, falsifications, misinformation (it is still unclear whether there are differences between the three). But the thing is that we feed into all this.

If we stop reading, not to mention spreading such nonsense, they will not have a long life. The fault is also ours, it should not be blamed on fake farms and political predators. If we stop “eating” them, a lot will change.

A classical answer to all of this has existed for a long time:

“Brother Nerses, how are you? Are you alright? Do you remember that lung, that delicious offal (tzhvzhik)…

“Here, take your lung and shut up,” said the angry brother Nerses, and taking out his lung hidden under the cloak, he threw it in Nikoghos-agha’s face in such a way that the latter froze, stood in his place, with his face precious shawl and neck stained with blood.

Samvel Martirosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.