[chatmasta]

Reading InfoWars can give you information about upcoming narratives that will seep through the right-wing infosphere. If you see them talking about some mainstream story with a controversial angle not present in the other sources, then – despite being wildly exaggerated, cherry picked and out of context – there is probably some kernel of truth to it. And even if it’s a tiny kernel, it could be enough for a few influencers to latch onto it and promote the narrative.

For example, not every article about the Zizians mentions their gender identity. But the right wing articles do. If you only read some news sources, you would miss this bit of information. Is it relevant to the story? Maybe, maybe not – that’s up to the reader to decide. Is it relevant to the narrative that will take hold as it propagates throughout social media? Yes absolutely. And the fact that only one side mentions it means it’s even more likely to become a central point of contention, because each side will weaponize it against the other. The right will claim the left is hiding it and the left will claim the right is unnecessarily elevating it. In the end, it will become the most controversial (and therefore popular) part of the narrative, and the hook of engagement bait that keeps the story going.

You wouldn’t be able to anticipate this if you only read a few mainstream left-leaning articles about the story. And there is value to anticipating these narratives because if you catch them early, you know to ignore them as they expand into a larger waste of time.