I’m sure that EVERYONE has heard about the famous slap that happened at the night of the Oscars on March 27th. As many people are picking sides over who was in the right and who was in the wrong with Will Smith and Chris Rock, I am actually here to talk about the article that I had read about claims that the slap was staged. I have seen many discussions back and forth about the slap being real or being staged on the night of the Oscar’s. There are many points to back up both sides of the arguments.
In the article “Was Chris Rock Wearing Protective Cheek Pad Before Will Smith Slap?” by Dan Evon, it talks about the viewers of the Oscar’s thinking that the whole situation was staged. There are some points in the article that may not have been fact checked before being publish or they just didn’t do the due diligence of showing the proof behind their statement.
The Claim
At the beginning of the article under “Claim”, Evon states, “A photograph shows Chris Rock wearing a protective cheek pad before Will Smith walked on stage and slapped his face at the 2022 Oscars show.” There is no picture evidence next to this claim to show that this statement is factual. You should always try to fact check posts before believing the post and especially before reposting the information on your own social media platform.
The Origin
Under the “Origin” of the article, Evon explains the story behind the slap. He then goes on to explain what some conspiracy theorists had put out onto social media; “On March 28, a doctored image of Rock wearing a protective cheek pad in the moments before the slap was spread online in support of this “staged” theory.” He shows the post with the doctored images and the caption at the top saying, “In 8k quality images you can see a pad on chris rocks cheek, yeah conspiracy theorists gonna go crazy with this one”. Other articles that touched base on the topic of the slap being staged stated that this image that was shared was a doctored image of Chris Rock. It would have been better if the author had added this image at the beginning of the article next to the “Claim.” This author only talks about the misinformation that has been spread across the internet, but they have not talked about what the facts are.
Now, we are just left with the misinformation that the internet has put out there instead of the facts of the event that actually happened that night. People fall for conspiracy theories all the time because of how interesting they are. Conspiracy theorists are like people trying to find the criminal. They put together all these stories that may or are not 100% true.
MDST 485 Class Blog 
This is interesting because you took an event that has been made into dozens of memes and analyzed it DEEPLY. Thanks for the analysis of the event. I do realize that misinformation is a huge issue on this topic. You’re right, was it staged, or was it genuine? The fact that people are making an emotional reaction into a debate is wrong on many levels. That’s just my opinion though.
Fact checking a story is so important with all of the misinformation and lies posted on media sites; yet, it can be difficult to find reliable resources. I took a class recently called Searching for Information and finding reliable sources was one of the main subjects. With all of the high quality apps and software, it can be easy for people to take a picture and make changes to it. There are positive things about these apps and software, sometimes its simply to take a picture and make it funny, other times, it’s to make the quality of the picture better. Unfortunately sometimes these apps and software are used to create fake pictures and cause confusion about a story.
In this case, fake or not fake, what is sad is that this story is getting more traction than more important topics that media could be focusing on. (And please know this isn’t a criticism against your blog, you aren’t even discussing the issue of right or wrong, just the validity of the story and picture and why conspiracy theories come about.) Of course, if people were watching it with children or their children asked what happened due to rumors they heard, it’s important to discuss how any type of violence is wrong and that making fun of people is wrong.
What your blog does is remind the reader that its important to fact check stories and not believe everything we read and see just because it’s in print. Great topic.