NO, I CAN'T LET YOU HAVE THIS

The easy gratification of little viral lies is costing us more than it's worth.

- KATHERINE ALEJANDRA CROSS

"PLEASE, JUST LET me have this." It's what we cry when a too-good-to-be-true viral story is threatened by the too-true-to-be-ignored reality. When we say it (or, more likely, tweet it), we know something's wrong. It's like that uncanny moment when we realize we're about to awake from a wonderful dream.

It comes up a lot: during the "plane bae" saga, for instance, when a comedian nonconsensually filmed a young man and woman in the row in front of her and created a fictional narrative that they were in a romantic relationship to the delight of thousands, who then demanded that the poor young woman live up to that fantasy. Or, more recently, when accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania and people wrongly believed that a pizza box, seen in a video where he was beefing with Greta Thunberg, had tipped the police off to his location. They're fun stories, to be sure. The memes that came out of the Tate arrest were priceless little gems scattered across the desolation of Elon Musk's Twitter. But these nuggets of entertainment may come at too dear a price.

When someone says "just let me have this," it's worth asking why they need it in the first place and the answer should prompt some sympathy. Even the most cursory glance at the world reminds us what a sorrowful and joyless place it can be at this moment, when we seem to be reliving the 20th century's greatest hits all at once. In addition to providing the cozy fire of a feel-good story to warm your soul, these viral internet fictions can lull you into believing there's some justice in the world.