Can you spot the lies in your news feed? | Laura Smythe

Come back with me a moment to 2017.

You're having a great time because none of us know what a pandemic is.

Comfy mom jeans are back in style and the Bitcoin you bought back in 2008, it's finally taking off.

You're scrolling on Instagram, and that's pretty cool because they only just started with their algorithmic feed, so you're still kind of seeing memes and photo dumps from people you actually know.

What's up with all these orange squares? Influencers and famous faces from Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski and Ja Rule are posting about this high-end music festival coming to the Bahamas.

White sand beaches, luxury accommodations, Migos, Major Lazer, the cultural experience of a decade.

Influencer and celebrity-driven marketing sells out 95 percent of tickets in 48 hours.

Some folks are shelling out up to 100K for a spot, and college students are also going for spring break.

Not a bad way to unwind for finals, right? Except it never took place.

Fyre Festival has gone down in history as the greatest party that never happened.

Ticket holders expecting five-star service showed up to bread and cheese sandwiches and FEMA tents.

None of the promised artists performed, and the main organizer ended up in federal prison.

While so much of this was shocking, What really resonated with me was how this was really a story about trust.

A lot of people here were left disappointed.

Netflix and Hulu, they got some great fodder.

But hundreds, not even, thousands of smart, well-off people saw this glamorous, curated content online and collectively decided, this is real and it's worth the cost.

humans gravitate to people that we like.

When someone feels relatable, we instinctively trust them more.

But relatability and credibility are two very different things.