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Rant: my uncle shared a viral photo of a 'shark on the highway' after Hurricane Harvey and 40 people believed it
We were sitting in his kitchen in Houston two days after the storm when he showed me the post. It had 250,000 shares and a caption saying the shark swam onto I-10 near Katy. I pulled up the original photo on my phone in about 30 seconds, it was from a 2011 flood in Australia and the shark was clearly fake. He just shrugged and said it didn't matter if it was real because it captured the mood. That bugged me for days, because the same feed had real info about which shelters had room and which roads were closed. Now I check every storm photo before I pass it along, even the ones that look obviously true. How do you all handle family members who share stuff like this without turning dinner into a fight?
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rodriguez.mia20d ago
My mom does the exact same thing and here's what finally worked for me. I stopped replying to the whole group and started texting her one on one, just a quick "hey that one's from 2011, here's the link" with zero lecture attached. The first few times she got a little short with me but after a while she started checking stuff herself before posting, mostly because she didn't want to get caught again. The trick is never do it in the group thread, because then it feels like you're calling them out in front of everyone and they dig in. Also pick your battles, if it's a silly shark photo who cares, save the correction for stuff about shelters, gas stations, road closings, the things people actually need. My uncle still shares junk but he asks me first now on the important stuff, which is really all I wanted.
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