Unvaccinated TikTok Users Believe They Will Be ‘Lone Survivors’

Unvaccinated TikTok Users Believe They Will Be ‘Lone Survivors’

3 years ago
Anonymous $LNMzUc6XNz

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/88ngep/unvaccinated-tiktok-users-believe-they-will-be-lone-survivors

TikTok users are falsely claiming that vaccinated people will soon die, leaving them to inherit the earth. The videos—which represent a fraction of the misinformation spread unchecked by the platform, most of it less obviously ridiculous——will surely be studied by furrowed-brow scientists in 100 years, when we really will all be dead, not from vaccines, but through a combination of pernicious ignorance and sheer exhaustion.

Using audio from the 2007 film version of The Transformers, the TikTok users are picturing themselves climbing atop or striding towards various things, facing away from the camera. “I am Optimus Prime,” the voiceover intones, “and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting.” The videos are hashtagged with a mixture of anti-vaccine hashtags like “#unvaccinated” and others, in a bid to have them appear on users’ “For You” pages and get more views. The most-viewed video has nearly half-a million likes thus far.

Unvaccinated TikTok Users Believe They Will Be ‘Lone Survivors’

May 18, 2021, 2:55pm UTC
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/88ngep/unvaccinated-tiktok-users-believe-they-will-be-lone-survivors > TikTok users are falsely claiming that vaccinated people will soon die, leaving them to inherit the earth. The videos—which represent a fraction of the misinformation spread unchecked by the platform, most of it less obviously ridiculous——will surely be studied by furrowed-brow scientists in 100 years, when we really will all be dead, not from vaccines, but through a combination of pernicious ignorance and sheer exhaustion. > Using audio from the 2007 film version of The Transformers, the TikTok users are picturing themselves climbing atop or striding towards various things, facing away from the camera. “I am Optimus Prime,” the voiceover intones, “and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting.” The videos are hashtagged with a mixture of anti-vaccine hashtags like “#unvaccinated” and others, in a bid to have them appear on users’ “For You” pages and get more views. The most-viewed video has nearly half-a million likes thus far.