If you’re on social media you’ll have seen
a poem that begins:
And the people stayed home
It was written in 1869 by Kathleen O’Meara,
a French-Irish writer, and reprinted during the 1919 pandemic. The post shows a
helpful black and white picture from those times to underline the point….
Except it wasn’t. Anyone with any knowledge
of history or poetry can see that. Nobody in 1869 would have been concerned
with meditation or the global renewal of nature as pollution dies down.
It was, in fact, written in March 2020 by a
retired US teacher called Catherine O’Meara, and posted on her blog.
The poem isn’t my cup of tea at all. I find
it overly sentimental mush, but many have loved it and shared it. In fact I seem to see it posted weekly by someone on different social media platforms. I even found it on the site of Cardiff
Cathedral when I searched online, along with the spurious history. There are
lots of Youtube read-outs, too.
To muddy the waters further an Italian author had claimed it was hers, translated by the modern US
author. That claim then seemed to die down.
So why has
it been hijacked and given a false date and author?
The writer has now been interviewed by
Oprah and quoted by Deepak Chopra, but neither mentioned the fakery. I can’t find anything online to explain why it got faked up. It’s not
political. It doesn’t criticize anyone. It’s just a somewhat woolly modern mindfulness
poem.
What does someone have to gain by faking
the date and authorship and relating it to the current situation to
get it to ‘do the rounds’.
I asked @fakehistoryhunter on Twitter, who makes a point of trying to debunk these things. They replied "We will probably never know" but suggested that it was someone trying to get more attention. Who? One cannot say.
I asked @fakehistoryhunter on Twitter, who makes a point of trying to debunk these things. They replied "We will probably never know" but suggested that it was someone trying to get more attention. Who? One cannot say.
Is it some kind of ‘clickbait’ – enticing people to click on a link so that
an unknown company has their data? That’d be my guess, though it is just a guess. Perhaps someone with a cyber-detective bent might start digging and find out in the months to come.
If that is so, it’s been incredibly successful
clickbait - so I wonder if we will see more literature being used as fake content?
Any theories?
Moira Butterfield
Lots of books coming out…..er…….soon.
