The Irregardless Effect: A New Principle of Applied Stupidity

Actually, this not really a new Principle of Applied Stupidity, as I sort of mentioned the concept in the book. But when the book went to press I didn’t yet have a name for this facet of stupidity science, plus since the book came out I felt that I needed to expand on it a little bit.

First, a little background: as you may or may not know, I publish a children’s family concert called "Peter VS. the Wolf." The character of the Judge is somewhat dizzy and confused, and one of the Judge’s lines goes something like this:

"Mr. Wolf, irregardless of the metaphoricalness of the situation . . ."

For years, every time I attended a performance of the show, without exception, someone in the audience would come up to me afterwards and, in a voice normally reserved for informing someone that their fly is open, furtively and tactfully whisper to me,

"Justin . . . You know . . . ‘Irregardless’ . . . Is NOT a word."

This struck me as a little bit odd at the time, since "metaphoricalness" is not a word either, and no one ever said boo about that. Also, I was well aware of the fact that "irregardless" is not a word; I had purposefully used that word in the line to imply that this judge is not very smart. It got to be so ridiculous though, as so many people got indignant about the use of this word, that I ended up having to change the script, and have the wolf pop up out of his chair and tell the judge that, indeed, "Your honor, ‘irregardless’ is not a word" (to which the judge replies, "don’t talk when I’m talking.")

So anyway, in the book ("Principles of Applied Stupidity"), I do mention this phenomenon, when I refer to a video producer I once worked with. He would purposefully put misspelled words into a video. The clients would get tunnel vison over that one big error and so they would have no input on the rest of the show. They were so proud of catching the misspelled name of a CEO that they felt vindicated as critics, and everything else looked fine in comparison. It was a fabulous trick which I co-opted for my own use many a time.

So anyway, this is how this principle works: by doing something that is obviously wrong, and that wrongness is obvious to everyone, and it has been universally accepted and repeatedly stated to be wrong by the mainstream conventional thinking, this can have a marvelous effect of distracting people.

But I’ve since realized that this is a much more important element of stupidity science than was originally thought.

One of the most wonderful uses of the Irregardless Effect is in the realm of public relations. This can be publicity, getting people to tune in to a radio/TV show, getting traffic to your blog, or anything else that benefits from having a lot of people pay attention to what you’re doing. I’ll give you a perfect if somewhat tasteless example:

A few months ago there was some Catholic bishop who stood up in front of the whole world and said that the Holocaust didn’t happen. This garnered huge amounts of press. Even the Pope got into the act, apologizing for this guy’s comments.

Now, anyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen is essentially announcing to the world that they really have no awareness of basic 20^th-century history. But what makes this such a good example of the Irregardless Effect is that everybody knows that what this guy said was historically inaccurate. We all know he’s wrong, but instead of ignoring him, a huge worldwide reaction occurred.

Let me just briefly point out here that there are, I don’t know, how many priests and bishops and cardinals on the planet? And how many of them would get any press at all for coming out and not saying something wrong, and instead just concurring with the accepted and heavily documented historical accounts of the period? None, of course. Intelligence and common knowledge are not news. But NOT knowing basic history, saying something that everyone knows is wrong, in other words, BEING STUPID . . . THAT will, on the other hand, get you on the NBC nightly news. And that, my friends, is the Irregardless Effect.

There is tremendous potential energy out there of people who, after a lifetime of having their mistakes corrected, are very eager to now correct other people’s mistakes. If you make an obvious mistake, people's reaction to it is powerful, but  like the mighty Colorado river being channeled through a turbine generator, that energy becomes your servant.

The point I’m making here is, if you do something in public that the majority of people think is wrong or inaccurate, there will be a stampede of people writing e-mails, writing letters, making phone calls, making blog comments etc. etc. . . . They love to correct other people. Seeing someone "doing it wrong" galvanizes people into action, where being correct gets no response at all. This is the power of the Irregardless Effect.

(Bear in mind, it has to be generally accepted as wrong, not just wrong in one or two people’s opinion, to get the desired result.)

Another wonderful example: I am not a tremendously large fan of Britney Spears. I have nothing against her either. But whenever she does something that we as a society think is inappropriate, everybody sees the picture of her doing it. It leads the entertainment news programs. Yes, she’s famous, but when the famous do something WRONG, we are saturated with reports of it. Whether it’s holding her baby on her lap while she’s driving, or a wardrobe malfunction, pictures of this "incorrect" behavior get plastered all over the news and the covers of fan magazines. TV stations will put Paris Hilton’s arrest photo up on the screen on the slightest pretense. From a PR perspective, doing something wrong, like putting "irregardless" in a script, will quickly, effectively, and efficiently goad into action large numbers of people, who would otherwise sit back and passively observe, or even ignore you altogether.

I hate to sound so terribly cynical, but there’s an old and very true saying in my line of work: "there’s no such thing as bad publicity." Granted, there will be large numbers of people expressing disapproval of what you’re doing, but who cares? Worst case scenario, you create an opportunity for yourself to go on Oprah and apologize, and promote your book on repentance/recovery etc. at the same time. Nothing wrong with that. Again, there is no such thing as bad publicity. The public condemnation of a momentary error in judgement is a minor side effect that passes with the next news cycle. (You remember Imus and his nappy hair remark?  Huge press, huge public outcry, and he's back making more money that ever.)  What remains when the furor dies down is far greater PR and fame than you could have ever afforded to buy. This is what the Irregardless Effect can do for you.

© Justin Locke

Comments

[Miriam]

Proof: When I saw the title of this post, my first thought was, "this had better be about irregardless not being a word or... or... oh ok good."

I don't know how fair it is to say that the public outcry to the bishop's denial of the holocaust was merely prompted by people's need to correct people. There are people who don't see it as just ignorance of a piece of history, but as saying "no one ever wronged you, you never suffered that way, stop whining." Or, when the right of the state of Israel to exist is questioned, there are those who point to the holocaust has been a cause of many actions, prompting the push for Israel to become a state, and still used repeatedly as justification for its existence. To say "the holocause didn't happen," is to say that a great many other things shouldn't have, potentially even that Israel should not exist.

To say "the holocaust did not happen" implies something more than ignorance: it implies denial. Clearly, the bishop knows something of the holocaust or he could not make the statement in the first place. But for some reason, he refuses the evidence. The simplist reason to deny the holocaust is some kind of malice against Jews or Israel. The publicity thus came from something more than just a need to show someone's ignorance but something more.

[justin locke]

hi miriam,

no argument. BUT let's step away from the "ostensible" content here and take a look at the invisible newsroom people who chose to run this story. ignorance is news? they ran the story because of its ability to provoke a reaction, period. They made a conscious decision to run an outrageous story in order to evoke public outcry. amazingly, such things help ratings. what a coincidence.

Here's a guy who is totally wrong . . . perhaps insane . . . or pandering to his own constituency. but the content got on the news because it was so far away from accepted reality. "more on this after these words from our sponsor."

what other reason really is there for putting this guy on the news? how does this inform anyone, or advance anything? it's like saying, "child claims 2 plus 2 equals 5. film at eleven."

my point is, always look past the first layer of reaction to the subject, and ask why calm informed people are choosing to show this drivel to you. they too have an agenda. don't let your immediate moral outrage blind you to that . . . they are counting on that happening. -- jl