Have you ever heard the words "I used to be a skeptic?" The amount of underlying ignorance exhibited by that phrase is enough to make your IQ drop. It seems like every commercial that makes ridiculously vanilla claims about their product has to include the "skeptic" character who spouts that bitter nonsense. What infuriates me the most when I hear those words is that there are only two satisfactory reasons that they were included in the script:
- The entire production team does not know what the word skeptic means or how to use it, or
- The actor delivering the cliche has long since abandoned his/her capacity for intelligent decision making.
At this point, I'm willing to wager that the odds are about 50/50 for either possibility. After all, when it comes to TV commercial actors, you never know. It could go either way, but the second option is a dead end. So for the sake of continuity, I'm going to assume the reason this marketing trope exists is that the teams that produce these shit-quality commercials being incapable of comprehending the word "skeptic."
First, some definitions:
skeptic (n): someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs (source)
critic (n): someone who frequently finds fault or makes harsh and unfair judgments (source)
Based on the above, I think we can all agree that skeptic and critic are not congruent terms. When commercials incorporate their "I used to be skeptical" buffoons, those characters aren't skeptics at all. They're what I like to call unentitled critics: People who judge products, services, or other people without fully understanding them. For more on the subject of unentitled critics, see any popular FOX news channel anchor.
But commercial production teams aren't the only people who get it wrong. Turn on practically any paranormal television show and, with a stopwatch, clock how long it tkes you to identify the token "skeptic" character and see through their charade of self-proclamation. Five minutes would be a generous estimate.
So to clear up any confusion, here's what a skeptic is and is not.
What a Skeptic Is
- A person who maintains a reasonable amount of doubt regarding the information he/she receives.
What a Skeptic Isn't
- An unentitled critic.
- A paranoid douchebag who questions the validity of everything anyone says ever.
- Someone who claims to be unconvinced for the sake of appearances despite buying another person's bullshit hook, line, and sinker.
- Someone who cannot accept new information because it doesn't conform to his/her worldview.
This means that those actors who said they used to be skeptical? Not skeptics. The token "skeptic" on the ghost/psychic/paranormal television shows? Not skeptics. Those morons who sit around claiming that evolution and global climate change are scientific conspiracies without ever examining the data? Assholes.
There aren't enough true skeptics in this world. At the same time, there are far too many critics. But as I alluded to above, there are two kinds of critics: unentitled and entitled critics; and what often entitles a critic is the ability to skeptical in the true sense of the word.
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