If you read my last post you are aware that for well over a decade I have written weekly. When I started I was so excited to share my little opinions with the world. I wanted people to feel good about where ever they were in life, to dress with their own flair, to care for themselves through movement, to find small joys, but writing was also an avenue to explore my own ideas. When I started Nine Cent Girl in 2010, opinions were simple, individualized even trivial ideas. Opinions were just what you thought. Even posts when I referenced other journalist’s work, health studies, or recipes, the ideas presented were fundamentally just my opinion. 

To better explain, here is a snippet from my 10 year anniversary post:

Sometimes I write with an urgency that is spurred by events happening clear across the globe, while other posts seem to emerge from personal experience, but always there is that need to write. To converse with all of you. To join my ideas with the current of information that is flowing 24/7 over the platforms that we all reach for at day’s end. Nine Cent Girl forced me to dig beyond headlines, to follow the story, find some truth, and form an opinion. There is so much to research and understand, and finding that is indeed what always draws me. Swirling in the chaos and discovering the still point. Right there is a kernel worth our notice. I suppose I will forever be a student, set on inquiry to lead me places worth my time. And, if I do my job right, hopefully your time as well.

Can you hear the surety in my tone? As if my opinion should have some sway over yours? As innocuous as I believed opinion to be, I still wrote with a conviction that I should influence readers. After this last election, I can’t ignore how dangerous personal opinions have become. Opinion has become the front man for lies (nowadays labeled misinformation), circumventing facts and statistics, getting louder and louder on every digital platform available. It is not a shock to me that many people can not decipher fact from fiction anymore. Having spent over 3 decades in a classroom, staying on top of the fast-changing technology and the marketing that has replaced research, I am not fooled by a distant cousin’s Facebook re-post. But for many, if it appears in their feed, they believe it. If it shows up on a YouTube channel they subscribe. If they read it in a blog post with no citations or credentials they alter their own beliefs to follow along. Ironically, these same people denounce established news sources, doubting the scrutiny and investigation that these organizations are required to follow. At best opinions are built on shaky ground, the more conspiratorial the better, binding together the left and right against the common sense of the middle. 

In 2020 I wondered why anyone could denounce vetted medical research, and then doubt the confirmed election results, and yet, during these subsequent years, our next president and his billionaire bros have spread enough doubt and lies to have turned ordinary Americans against their own best interests. If anyone can place themselves back in their high school social studies classroom and imagine conversing with your teacher about today’s world, I think we might all leave opinion elsewhere and find verity in the steady guidance gained through reading. Look back in history and tell me when the billionaire class voluntarily diminished their own interests to help those living in the tenements Although she never uttered the words, Marie Antoinette’s quip to ‘let them eat cake’ might easily be the words of any gilded and careless autocrat who really is only interested in holding on to power. Here we are, working like indentured servants to keep our children fed and a roof over our head while those who steer our lives build mega-yachts and debunk another truth. Dangerous opinions are the currency of too many in power.