by Pippa Starr August 2, 2020
It's basically psychological manipulation on a mass scale that is costing the health of more than a billion lives across the planet.
What is Gaslighting?
“is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim(s) and delegitimize the victim's beliefs.”
Gaslighting can be effective by implementing some or all the above-mentioned strategies. It doesn’t have to be a one on one thing, in fact “Gaslighting” on a grand scale has sadly become a popular pastime for many in the rise of social media. It’s used as an effective to tool to manipulate groups of people and as you will see in this article, more often than not, it is used mostly for sinister purposes.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane and back to our school yard days where rumours were rife, gossip and inuendo was key to establishing what sort of people one had as their friends to serve and protect each other in the school yard, in what became cliques. The schoolyard could often be cruel and it only took one key influencer to tell others that a certain person had an issue and it didn’t take long for others to go along with whatever that seed was that was sown by the said influencer to be taken on as fact by the masses. For example if the ever popular and liked Johnny started a rumour that was believable enough about Jill it might get believed. Let's say Johnny said Jill was found in bed with the new teacher when it wasn’t true. If enough people started hearing it, they may take on this information (and more often than not they do) as as reliable information.
Let’s elevate this situation a little, Johhny’s clique of around 50 people spread the rumour fast enough so that Jill’s clique of 5 people had no chance to cover the rumour before the rumour spread like wildfire. No one dare speak against “popular Johhny or his clique in fear of becoming socially isolated. What can often happen is people who wish to become part of the popular “Johhny” pack will often repeat the same things as Johnny’s clique to try and “be cool”.
Fast forward to adult years and this still happens but on a lot larger and more serious scale, assisted by social media. The results have been devastating to the point that some key people who are qualified have become part of “Johnny-Like” cliques with some devastating results. The bullying and clique style techniques that have been implemented online have been at the core of too much suicide and worse. It has also stepped into political issues, often causing non-democratic results in democracies.
This pack mentality is often driven by the almighty power of money and that oxymoron known as “career-stability” and the fear of losing status among peers.
One of the best examples of this behaviour is being used in what has been a somewhat lengthy and self-righteous campaign against people who wish to quit smoking.
There is the clique of “Just quit or die” people. There is the “Use my products, they work” cliques and the “We rely on real science” cliques. There are many high-profile people in each clique but right now it appears that the “Vaping Hurts My Kids” sub clique is beginning to increase in popularity. I say appears, because often we see their faces more often than the “we rely on real science” clique due to media, government, and business allied members funding of their clique. One of the most notable being Michael Bloomberg.
It is fair to say that the “Quit or die clique” is really also a subbranch that feeds the “Use my products, they work” clique.
This is keeping it really simple because this issue has a huge network of international scale that contains various cliques that are simply unafraid to “gaslight” smokers and non-smokers into thinking such things as :
- vaping is just as harmful as smoking,
- the kids are starting to smoke because of vaping,
- it’s hooking a generation back into smoking and worse.
These developed bully tactics are designed into making you, the media and government bodies believe that you are wrong to think otherwise. It's basically psychological manipulation on a mass scale that is costing the health of more than a billion lives across the planet.
The “Use my products, they work” cliques are sophisticated and now drive deep into subbranches that use psychological tactics to promote the very product that on the surface they appear to dismiss. It seems complicated, but it’s simple and the media, government and even health professionals are falling for it.
As parent’s will know or realise soon, teens are at the most impressionable yet rebellious stage of their lives. They are more likely to experiment with drugs, alcohol, and smoking ect than any other cohort. This is not news, right?
The best way to get teens to try ANY new product is to introduce an element of dare, maybe a bit of risk followed with, do not try this!
There is a wiring malfunction that is in their deep epigenetic make up that makes a brain in the teen years transfer everything that has “don’t’ attached to it” to equal “do it, try it once, it wont kill you!” . If your laughing at this last sentence it is because you know it’s true. We have all been there right?
This isn’t rocket science, but this is how a network of gaslighting cliques are influencing media, government, health professionals and beyond into thinking there is a teen vaping epidemic. In the last few years branches of the “Use my products, they work” cliques have cleverly funded and co-ordinated strategies to promote vaping to kids. They got posters on bathroom walls in high schools, they have had mass campaigns on Television and targeted the youth at every opportunity across the social media network, they even have an ice-cream bus now.
It’s been the largest funded and covered campaign to teens in the history of any drug and of any product! This was all on purpose in a massive gaslighting exercise to make you believe that vaping and e cigarettes should be banned completely!
No one in their right mind wants to see another generation of reliance on a product that hooks you from your teen years and beyond with detrimental health effects. However, there is an industry clique that is trying to change all that.
The “We rely on real science” clique is not a well-funded or well-oiled network rather they are a network of people who rely on real science who wish to improve their lives for their health and their loved ones. They have been school yard bullied by the “Use my products, they work” clique with a network that spans the planet.
The “Use my products, they work” clique need people to use their products to keep them wealthy and they will go to any means to protect this, even if that means trying to create an on ramp to smoking by using teens in a perverse trap of reverse psychology that twists and turns the masses into believing something that isn’t completely true.
It’s no accident that when you type in “Teen Vaping” into Google there are 5.5million impressions, the “Use my products, they work” clique worked hard to make that happen.
So what are the products they are trying so hard to protect from the
“We rely on real science” clique from having any influence over?
They are big pharmaceutical products known as Nicotine replacement products. The sales of this category of products is set to boom over the next few years with unprecedented growth that has never been seen before. The best efficacy rates their products have, to combat a billion people from smoking are at best only 10% effective at 12 months and worse beyond that.
Whereas the products being used by the “We rely on real science” clique has proven way beyond double the best efficacy rates of their counterparts. It’s a situation where real science has helped to create a market where big pharma failed to and they will stop at nothing to bully those in their way. Even if it means creating an epidemic of teen vapers in an attempt to get vaping completely banned. There is a market of 1 billion smokers that big pharma relies on. They expect 2/3rd's of them needing treatment for having a tobacco related illness and they believe addiction control is their turf!
Without out that market, Big pharma are headed for a titanic catastrophe. As many as 30% of hospital admissions are due to a tobacco related illness. This is a massive industry that they will protect even if the collateral damage is a few teens and people returning to smoking. It is all about protecting that huge golden egg for a future of wealth for the few that will enjoy it.
Essentially Big Tobacco and Big Pharma are great friends, they may seem like enemies but they feed each other’s wealth by their very existence and that is why they will remain the enemy of the “We rely on real science” clique for a long time.
Vaping, Snus and other non-combustible nicotine vaping products were invented because Big Tobacco and Big Pharma didn’t want to. They wanted to keep the market to themselves. Big Tobacco have now created their own version of a “healthier” product however it still contains stuff to keep you hooked.
It might be safer but so what?
You decide which clique you wish to support, will you stand with the relentless corporate bullies or those that simply want for a better life for themselves and their families. Have you been Gaslighted?