Mass Hysteria, YouTube Style

I saw George A Romero's latest movie, Diary Of The Dead, the other night, and there was a line of dialogue in it that got me really thinking.

The movie, for those unaware of Mr Romero's work, is his fifth 'Dead' film, and rather than carry on his decade spanning social commentary that began with 1968's groundbreaking Night Of The Living dead and culminated in 2005's Land Of The Dead, Romero has reinvented the zombie outbreak that he pioneered 40 years ago and has slapped ground zero, as it were, right in the middle of the YouTube generation.

In the movie, the main character is filming the emerging catastrophy as it happens, believing it to be important to capture the truth of what is happening and uploading it the the internet for the world to see, rather than the reimagined news media versions of events.

At one point when a character questions that what is happening is actually real, someone mentions that they remember the old Orson Welles War Of The Worlds radio broadcast from 1938 which caused thousands of listeners, who had either missed the disclaimer at the start and end of the broadcast that it was a work of fiction or become so wrapped up in the drama that they fell prey to what was effectively a form of mass hysteria, to take to the streets, believing that there really was an alien invasion in progress.

Back then, of course, radio was the only real means of mass communication, and so having nothing to back up, or denounce, the events that the radio seemed to be reporting, the public had two options - believe it, as many did which lead to panic, or disbelieve it, accepting it for the fictional drama that it was.

The reference got me thinking, though - would it be possible to perpetrate such a hoax these days, with the myriad of media sources, both official and unofficial, available to cross-reference the events that would be apparently unfolding?

With sufficient people involved, and enough money and resources, I think it could be pulled off
With prerecorded clips ready to go, these could be uploaded at regularly intervals from various locations around the globe as if they were happening in the present, and the news media could be bombarded with accounts from everyday people who were being caught up in the event.

Of course, this couldn't go on for long, as the fabrication would soon be discovered and debunked all over the world, but just for half an hour or so, wouldn't it be fun to fuck with minds of the planet.....?