Since the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch, one character in particular has gathered a disproportionate amount of attention, with some players declaring him the rarest character in the game. This character is Raymond, a cat villager.

What’s the deal with Raymond?

Raymond is a gray-colored cat in office attire. An office cat motif is amusing to begin with, but players have pointed out that he’s the only cat in the game with a “smug” personality, which is odd given how independent and aloof housecats can be in real life. This combination of traits already makes Raymond an appealing character.

But there’s something more that makes him stand out. Raymond has heterochromia, a rare condition in which both his eyes are different colors. Heterochromia is considered appealing in certain creative communities, particularly those influenced by Japanese media. Many in such communities who make their own original characters give their characters heterochromia because it’s one way to make a character seem more special.

If players were to visit Raymond’s house on their island, they would find the interior decor has an office theme. This immediately appeals to those adapting to working at home in light of the recent coronavirus epidemic, as Raymond’s home office indicates a character that a portion of the Animal Crossing community can relate to. More appropriate still is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a game that people made a point of obtaining before widespread shutdowns took effect, to the point that people were grateful that GameStop resisted the shutdowns long enough to allow them to obtain a copy of the game.

So, is Raymond really the rarest character in the game? Not really. Whether at the Campsite or through Nook Miles Tickets, Raymond has the same odds of appearing as each of the other potential villagers. However, he is the current most desirable villager, and considering that there’s hundreds of possible villagers, there is high demand for this one character.

The demand is so high, that some players are stocking up on Nook Miles Tickets in an effort to get more chances to obtain this character. Some players are willing to exchange valuable in-game assets, such as millions of bells (the in-game currency) with other players on sites such as Discord for the opportunity to have Raymond move from one player’s island to another. In some cases, players are willing to spend real-life money in excess of the cost of the game to obtain Raymond from another player.

Of note is that because Raymond is a new character, an Amiibo for Raymond was not available at the time Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released, so players couldn’t simply scan it for the guarantee that Raymond would appear at the campsite.

Expediting Raymond’s popularity is that because players notice other players going to great lengths to obtain this character, there is an increased perception of value to him. On top of that, he gets noticed just for all the attention that surrounds him, similar to how the first result of a search engine favors results that get more traffic, and placing higher in search results results in yet more traffic.

There are many other popular villagers in ACNH. Among these are Marina, an octopus (there are only three octopuses in the game), Ankha, a cat that resembles King Tut’s sarcophagus, Lucky, a dog that was heavily bandaged, and Marshall, a squirrel that resembles a marshmallow.

What’s my favorite villager? Maybe I’ll reveal that in another post.

“You will not bow before Snoke.” -Rey, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

As I examine the character of Snoke, it becomes apparent that he is a stand-in for the kind of psychological turmoil that would be experienced by a person in Ben Solo’s position. While it’s apparent that Snoke in the Star Wars universe is a personal entity that is adversarial and interacts with the other characters, it seems to me that he’s an allegory for something experienced by those with mental illness and emotional trauma in the real world.

Snoke seems to be a stand-in for unwelcome, demanding voices as experienced by someone with a psychosis.

While the cause of such voices is still not fully understood, it seems they are caused by thoughts in a person’s own head, which the brain wrongly interprets as audible. This phenomenon can be caused by, among other things, prolonged stress or perhaps just inadequate sleep.

In persons with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a person’s unwanted thoughts can “take over” making them believe that they have to do certain things. At first, it’s usually trivial and ritualistic tasks, like how a person washes their hands. But conceivably, these thoughts can develop into “voices” that can “guide” them into some poor life choices. There are cases where the voices have a spiritual meaning to the person experiencing them, and they might wrongly attribute them to the divine!

Considering this, the allegory of Snoke becomes much more apparent. For one thing, his voice sounds almost exactly how a judgmental internal voice would sound: wise enough to sound like they’d have answers to the person’s problems, but can even be loud and abusive if there exists even a minute flaw.

Also noteworthy is that Snoke demanded continual sacrifices to placate him, and what’s more, what he demanded was whatever could give Ben hope outside of Snoke himself. Evil voices demand similar sacrifices! It was Snoke who pressured Ben into killing his father, who was a connection to Ben’s old life. When Ben did kill his father, it still wasn’t enough. What’s more, the fact that Ben felt conflicted about it was enough to invalidate the sacrifice as far as Snoke was concerned!

Ben then felt pressured into killing his own mother, and to his credit, he didn’t go through with it. However, Ben’s conflict was noteworthy enough for him to bring up again when meeting Rey. Snoke was willing to condemn Ben for his mere thoughts!

But it’s interesting that Snoke would have such direct access to Ben’s thoughts, especially considering that he couldn’t do the same to Rey without the assistance of a force-ability designed to that end. For some reason, Snoke had more direct access to Ben.

Snoke has been manipulating Ben for a long time. Ben was coming to realize that, if Snoke had his way, the abuse would be continual.

So Ben killed Snoke.

For a long time, Snoke pulled Ben along with the idea that he could bring out Ben’s potential. But the reality was, Snoke was intent on continually using him. With Snoke dead, Ben ascended to the position of Supreme Leader of the First Order, and in so doing, he began to rise to live up to his potential.

”The Supreme Leader is dead.” -Kylo Ren

”Long live the Supreme Leader.” -Armitage Hux

Sometimes, you hear something that sounds intuitively true, and meshes well with what you’ve already accepted. You decide to accept what you’ve just heard without asking questions or looking into it.

If this sounds like you, you may have experienced truthiness. But what is truthiness?

Truthiness describes the quality of an assertion that lends itself to being accepted as true based on the intuition of the listener, rather than supporting evidence, if any.

The term in its current usage was coined by political comedian Stephen Colbert on his program The Colbert Report in the year 2005. Previously, the term was obscure and referred to something that was dependably true.

In the political landscape, truthiness occurs on a constant basis. There are many, many examples that illustrate its occurrence.

One example is the video of the emaciated polar bear which trended with the help of global warming alarmists. The video showed the polar bear trudging about, clearly famished, picking through rubbish. The video, as presented, was intended to pull at the heartstrings of viewers, who then make the assumption that human-assisted global warming led to the diminishing of the bear’s natural habitat, resulting in its sad condition.

For the polar bears as a whole, the reality of the matter is far less bleak. The polar bear population is currently booming. What’s more, polar bears are even thriving where arctic ice is receding. As for that particular polar bear, it may not have been as well off, but as is often the case with both animals and people, not everyone gets off as well.

So, what’s the truthiness? Those already accepting of the ideas surrounding anthropogenic climate change see a polar bear struggling, and easily attribute it’s sad situation to the consequences of human callousness. They need look no further into the matter to arrive at a conclusion that fits their preconceived notions, but if they did, they’d have likely arrived at a different conclusion.

Those forwarding the video for reason of climate change alarmism might not have looked far into the matter themselves, but it’s possible that they’re aware of what’s going on, and decided to forward what they decided might provoke a reaction that more strongly favored their cause. Selecting only the evidence that favors a conclusion while ignoring what does not is called cherry-picking.

Another recent example of truthiness has to do with an alleged statement by American President Donald Trump, apparently suggesting “injecting disinfectants” as a means of fighting off an infection caused by the novel coronavirus.

When information media outlets got wind of this, they ran with it. Trump was ridiculed by corporate media outlets (with whom he had an adversarial relationship to begin with), lambasted by media pundits, and his supposed advice was even warned against on Lysol’s website.

However, the recording of the conversation that sparked this controversy is publicly available. In it, Trump asked a hypothetical question about internal use of disinfectants as a possible treatment to a coronavirus infection, and it was directed towards someone studying possible treatments for the novel coronavirus. The question was hypothetical, and didn’t sound like such a treatment was immediately advocated. During the conversation, Trump deferred to the medical professional, which would seem more responsible in that particular situation.

So, what’s the truthiness? It’s the inclination of the usual consumers of corporate information media to assume that President Trump continually goes off on ignorant tirades, as this is how those media outlets habitually portray him. To them, it’s another day to get outraged over something he said, and once they’ve tired themselves out banging pots and pans together, it’s back to sipping overpriced coffee while pondering some philosophy that they read about on some dark corner of the internet.

They didn’t look into what the President actually said, or in what context, but considering that what they’ve already heard goes neatly with the conclusions they’ve already come to about him, why would they feel inclined to do so?

By the way, presenting information that is intentionally misleading in an effort to direct the listener to a particular outlook is called deception.

There are many, many more examples outside of politics, and they largely have to do with rumors, hearsay, and other various forms of misinformation.

For example, it’s been said that Takis snacks cause ulcers. This makes intuitive sense to someone raised on the idea that spicy foods cause ulcers. However, the idea that spiciness causes ulcers is a myth.

You might have heard it said that a party at your college got so rowdy that a soda machine was thrown from a window, and when a student officer attempted to intervene, he was thrown from the window, too. Did you check for police reports or old news stories, or did you take his word for it? You might be asking “did you go to the same college as me?” That same story has been told at many colleges.

Arbitrary third example? Another popular college story is that the library is slowly sinking into the ground because the architects that designed it didn’t consider the weight of the books. It appeals to a sense of irony that a team of educated professionals would make such a short-sighted blunder.

Truthiness works as well as it does in making ideas gain traction because it appeals to preconceived notions while inhibiting the desire to verify. Those who become more aware of it are in a better position to see just how strongly society has been pulled along by it.

Decades ago, a man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania robbed a bank while having lemon juice smeared on his face. His reasoning was that because lemon juice is an ingredient in invisible ink, the juice would make his face invisible. He was so sure of his plan, that he made a confident gesture towards a security camera on the way out. Later, after the man was apprehended, he reportedly exclaimed, “But I wore the juice!”

Taking note of the incident, a couple researchers decided to study just why people who were not very smart believe themselves to be brilliant. The phenomenon that the two studied would later come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

So, what is the Dunning-Kruger effect? The Dunning-Kruger effect describes the tendency of people with insubstantial ability to think highly of their ability.

One example is with bad drivers. We know who the bad drivers are: they’re the ones that drive fast and weave through traffic, a recipe for collisions. Yet, they tend to believe that this behavior makes them good drivers, and that in the event that they get into (cause) an accident, they’d just be good drivers having a moment.

Another example is the tendency of people today to believe themselves to be scientifically-minded, for having benefited from the advancements that others have made. In reality, few such people have ever conducted a repeatable study in a controlled environment which was subsequently peer-reviewed. Using smartphones doesn’t make you a genius.

There are many, many other examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect that one can think of. It can be apparent in the following quips:

• “My tech-savviness is expressed through the ownership of a smart watch.”
• “I feel the course won’t be a major challenge, judging by the first few pages of the textbook.”
• “I’d have this “parenting” thing down. University of YouTube FTW!”
• “Who needs manscaping when you have plenty of Axe Body Spray?”

In many cases, the Dunning-Kruger effect is observed when a person who is inept lacks the introspection necessary to perceive their own ineptitude.

Conversely, as a person studies more in a field of knowledge, they tend to come to a better understanding of just how little they really know, which may have to do with the tendency of the more capable to sell themselves short.

Recently, the Dunning-Kruger effect has come to the awareness of many people who have afterwards attempted to use it as a clever way to explain to another person that they’re not as smart as they think they are. A person attempting this should take care to define the Dunning-Kruger effect properly, so as to avoid a certain irony that could otherwise result.