I didn’t hate Trust Me I’m Lying when I first read it. But I certainly didn’t like it either. Media manipulation isn’t exactly a secret, nor is it some abstract topic hard to understand. Actually, I would think it’s pretty simple: powerful individuals with ulterior motives exploit an unsuspecting public for money or otherwise. Going into the event, I had expected him to reiterate this theme of the book a few more times.

Yesterday, on September 28th at the Stockton University Freshman Convocation, Ryan Holiday did speak. And he did reiterate the themes of his book. He discussed a how the media system is broken and how bloggers manipulate information and often lie to catch the public’s attention and gain more page views.  He also talked about how people encourage this system by getting their emotions involved and sharing it with their friends. But again, all of this was already laid out in the book, and therefore not the takeaway from his presentation.

The things I found interesting about Holiday’s presentation were those that were not illustrated in the book. For one, occasionally throughout book, one could get the feeling that he did not ardently disapprove of the media system, as he didn’t seem very vocal in his condemnation. In fact, he even tells his audience to do what they want with the information that he has laid out and during one of his interviews, I even got the impression that he was still in the business of media manipulation. But during his presentation, he seemed very discontented with the media and the way that it works, and clarified that he is no longer in that business, that the book was his way of breaking those connections and walking away from this thing that was increasingly itching at his conscience. Or perhaps have current events, including Donald Trump’s rise to presidency, altered his views over time?

He went on to discuss the importance of “media literacy”, which I think isn’t something that is talked about all that much. Actually, it is apparent that it isn’t because, as Holiday disclosed in his presentation, 44% of Americans get their news from Facebook and 7% legitimately believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. And yes, I did check. He wasn’t lying. We live in a world where fake news spreads quicker than real news, and the online media industry understands that and fully exploits it. Holiday explains that it is increasingly essential that we are able to discern what is and isn’t fictitious and what is and isn’t relevant to us and our lives, because it is so easy to get pulled into the trap that is laid out for us.

Holiday’s presentation at Freshman Convocation was, in a way, more thought-provoking than the book was—at least for me it was. It encouraged me to look beyond the pages of his book into the world in which I live and look critically at my own usage of media and question whether or not the news I am reading is important and relevant to me.

Finally, I had one question for Holiday, which I never got the chance to ask, and I now leave for you, dear audience: if everything we read and see in the media can be fake, how do we discern what is real and what isn’t? Or have the lines between the two become so blurred that they no longer exist?