Did you ever notice nobody asks what the boogeyman does?  When you parents tell you to watch out for him (I’m assuming it’s a man. Please write me if you know otherwise) nobody ever tells you what makes him so dangerous or what he’s actually going to do to you when he shows up.  Zap you with heat vision?  Pester you with Hare Krishna literature? You just don’t know.

That’s when it occurred to me that the boogeyman’s real power comes from the fact he’s never defined. That his power comes through his uncertainly. The unknown. Because you don’t know what he can do or will do to you leave a vacuum of facts in your mind. A vacuum that we as human beings fill with our worst fears.  He’s room 101 (a reference to 1984, look it up) personified. And it affects our mental fitness and our media literacy skills.
Intellectually or marketing minded, we often make a logical assumption that more information is always the key to effective persuasion. The Boogeyman (or an idea that is acts as boogeyman) is just the opposite.  It’s power to get people to accept an idea is based on what’s unknown about it. Letting them self-persuade themselves with what’s unknown. More than by what is known.

And as I talk about in my book, Does This News Make Me Look Fat?, it’s that growing ignorance and the generation of tasty but fact-free media that can expand that ignorance that is helping to promote fearful actions and give others who can exploit that uncertainly power over us. I talk about this concept in my first chapter, which you can read free by going to junkfoodmedianation.com and downloading.