Fiction is full of stories related to cases of mistaken identity and mistakes exploding into something far beyond what an innocent screw up could normally achieve. These can range from the serious impacts of Harrison Ford being mistaken for the killer when it was actually a one armed man, to dialing a wrong number and finding romance.
And since people are assholes it happens in real life.
Troll farm sleuths are famous for blurting out their hot take without regard to the actual facts behind events. One of the easiest ways to mistake an identity is just relying on the name in the media story. Some names are vastly more popular than others. Some are rare enough that it’s unlikely you’d expect more than one person sharing that same name. Most are somewhere between John Smith and Moon Unit Zappa on the scale of individuality.
The uselessness of gematria rears its ugly head in viral news stories. We may be past the point where FRED=33 and DON=33 is a serious issue of mistaken identity. But we aren’t past how those who put out gematria and other zero actual evidence conspiracy material are appealing to the audience that doesn’t care about facts. Social media accounts with a fair number of followers who consistently use gematria or at least dabble in it often enough that you can expect it - they are the Fox News and Newsmax and OAN of social media.
When a person has achieved a degree of fame there’s an expectation that some harassment is involved as a price of that fame. You’re allowed to voice your opinion that Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones suck. Standing up in church and mocking 13 year old Jenny for her rendition of Michael Row the Boat Ashore is not so cool. Best that if you really have that opinion and you’re so serious about it you feel you can’t keep it to yourself, at least just wait until there aren’t a hundred people surrounding you and Jenny who don’t want the interruption.
In the USA the peak of “acceptable” harassment is politicians. And for now even though the vast majority of them do actually suck it’s still not cool to offer up a death threat. That’s the kind of thing that gets you an unwanted visit from law enforcement. But a case of mistaken identity because someone shares the same name as a neo Nazi mass shooter - That’s cool. That’s fun. Dogpile on and ignore the fact checkers because you have the right to voice your opinion that he’s the guy that did the bad thing because you like the attention. Not famous means you’re fair game. Like Sandy Hook family members. Which we should be over this type of content, but obviously still aren’t there, yet.
No, gematria stories claiming that Don and Fred are the same because the numbers show it aren’t going to be taken seriously. But if your source of information includes gematria users, Freemason hand gesture pointer outers, evil colors of clothing experts, and those that think every celebrity is the opposite gender of what they actually are, those are the attention seekers who don’t mind that the wrong man gets death threats.
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