Illiterally
For decades the ruling elite had been using media to control the interpretation of truth. But after people caught on, unable, in an open society, to control what is considered true, they instead chose to challenge the very idea of truth. Reality exists, but we are losing the words that point to it.
For example, the brand Real Orange Drink, whose fine print reads less than one percent orange juice. Or RNN—the Real News Network, which broadcasts almost no footage, just carefully-edited computer simulations. Reality television.
Literally once meant as opposed to metaphorically. Now it means totally, as in it’s colder than hell—literally.”
The copulative to be is a slippery pest and difficult to eradicate. In the sixties, CIA agents planted in the counterculture attempted to make it a noun: Be-ins, during which the troublesome youth were meant to take hallucinogens and behave inauthentically.
Conversely, some things that might be considered authentic are given labels to suggest they are simulations. The capitol of Rhode Island is now called Historic Providence. Scare quotes have become scarier.
Our means of referring to the world are being taken away, and our world with them.
The sky was as blue as sky blue paint, begins a successful poem of the day.