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Bigfoot Ate My Baby

Maybe

By Monica BennettPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Alright. So Bigfoot didn't eat my baby. You were lured here. That's what tabloids use every day to suck us in. There was such a paper using headlines like this and it was a supermarket legend in its own right. The Weekly World News was available at every register in every supermarket, right next to The National Enquirer and The Star. Bigfoot was a sure thing to sell papers. Headlines like, "I was Bigfoot's Sex Slave," and "I had Bigfoot's Baby," are going to raise eyebrows. Of course, she had his baby, and she was his sex slave! Is this any different than the fact that Brangelina started breaking up the day after they were married? They had to break up, it was written in The Star. One of The Weekly World News most popular articles is a 2009 bit entitled "How to Sell Your Soul to the Devil." While no longer on newsstands, they are now an e-zine. Part of a well-rounded childhood, you know scaring them half to death, will not be available at the supermarket. You would have to download it for them. What a loss. Parents and children can't have that talk explaining the headline, "Kate Middleton was NOT a Virgin." They can't even begin to enlighten them about how that woman had Bigfoot's baby, or the Israeli merpeople, the six-inch alien, or what the plan is for the alien attack coming in December.

Here's an eye-opener. People pay to read this stuff. After all, The Weekly World News bills itself as "The world's only reliable news." Are other publications guilty as well? Yes, they are. Gawker did a study on five of the most popular tabloids in America and came up with some nasty statistics.

  • US Weekly was ranked the most accurate, but their cover stories were only 35 percent accurate. The rest of the stories came in at only 59 percent accurate. It gets those percentages from paying reality stars and C level celebrities. It was correct on every single pregnancy and adoption, the Winslet/Mendes break-up, Mel Gibson's divorce (who didn't see that one looming) but they screwed-up a lot. Brad and Angie, Hudson and Wilson, Pink and Carey, well you get the picture. The story about Jessica Simpson farting during a meeting about her clothing line? We'll never know.
  • Life and Style came in at number two. Tabloid fans are losing ground quickly with a 25 percent rating on cover story accuracy, and a 34 percent overall accuracy. Is it their fault that Jon and Kate plus eight keeps changing the rules? They invested 22 covers in 20 months on that debacle. Not to mention screw-ups with Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, buns in Jennifer Aniston's oven and a litany of others.
  • In Touch? Obviously NOT. We are down to nine percent accuracy on cover stories and 21 percent overall, and we are not yet in the basement. They were wrong on Brad and Angelina nearly every time and reported 19 pregnancies that will never come to fruition because they never happened. Did the couples even know each other? They got Avril's divorce right.
  • OK! Clocks in with a dismal rating of seven percent on cover stories, and 14 percent overall. They correctly reported the Halle Berry story about the boytoy and Penelope Cruz's marriage, but poor Jennifer Anniston had multiple pregnancies again! Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are not married, they didn't break-up or have children as reported. Kim Kardashian is a contributing editor. Enough said.
  • The Star is in the basement with a nine percent cover story rating and a 12 percent rating overall. It might be seen as a tie with OK!, but overall accuracy was apparently the tiebreaker. It got points for getting Eminem and Kim reconciling and Tea and David cementing a rift, but that's about it. They also lay claim to 25 non-pregnancies.

America won't end its love of tabloids soon. The problem lies in our belief systems. People love gossip, fairytales, and nightmares. Stay tuned to A&E to watch Rob Lowe actually see Bigfoot.

pop culture
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About the Creator

Monica Bennett

I am a retired high school and college teacher. I have taught forensics, biology, chemistry, ecology, and Earth science.. Long Island has been my home for 60 years.

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