Creator Stephen King as soon as mentioned, “Fox Information did to our mother and father what our mother and father had been afraid video video games would do to us.”
On June 24, 2024, X consumer @JamesTate121 posted a quote claiming writer Stephen King as soon as mentioned, “Fox information did to our mother and father what our mother and father had been afraid video video games would do to us.” The physique of the publish repeated the alleged attribution, studying, “Stephen King pens it finest.”
(X consumer @JamesTate121)
King did post the saying on X on Nov. 14, 2023. Nevertheless, he included a disclaimer clarifying that he was not the unique writer of the quote, which he credited to “Tweet (no attribution).”
(X consumer @StephenKing)
As a result of the attribution of the quote to King stems from an apparent misunderstanding of King’s unique publish, we now have rated this quote as “Misattributed.”
Based mostly on reverse-image searches performed utilizing Google Photographs and TinEye, the precise quote meme within the publish, which incorrectly identifies King because the quote’s originator, seems to have first circulated within the weeks after King’s X publish went viral, showing on Imgur and Instagram in late November 2023.
On the time of this writing, @JamesTate121’s X publish had acquired round 47,000 likes and eight,100 reposts, a lot of which expressed skepticism that King was the true supply of the quote. As one reposter pointed out, “Stephen King is 76 years previous. What online game had been his mother and father afraid of? Pong did not come out till he was 25!”
One other clue that the quote was misattributed is the truth that Fox Information was launched in 1996, years after King’s mom, Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King, died in 1973 and his father, Donald Edwin King, died in 1980 — that means neither of King’s mother and father might ever have watched Fox Information, not to mention be influenced by it.
Who Mentioned It First?
A neighborhood be aware appended to @JamesTate121’s publish on June 25, 2024, which has since been deleted however could be seen in archived versions of the publish in addition to within the beneath screenshot, claimed that the quote originated with a post made on Aug. 3, 2019, by X consumer @ryan_scott. That publish learn, “Fox Information did to our mother and father what they thought video video games would do to us.”
(X consumer @JamesTate121)
Nevertheless, Snopes was capable of finding a number of earlier posts sharing variations of the identical quote, which went viral not less than twice earlier than @ryan_scott posted his model in 2019. In different phrases, claims that the quote originated with X consumer @ryan_scott are additionally incorrect.
On June 10, 2019, practically two months earlier than @ryan_scott’s publish, X consumer @AllenCMarshall posted, “FOX has achieved to our mother and father what our mother and father thought video video games would do to us.” That publish had acquired round 64,000 reposts and 264,000 likes as of this writing.
(X consumer @AllenCMarshall)
Greater than a yr earlier than @AllenCMarshall’s publish, on Jan. 31, 2018, one other X consumer, @Blk_Dolphin, posted a barely broader variation of the identical quote, studying, “CNN & Fox Information has achieved to our mother and father what they thought violent video video games & Marilyn Manson would do to us.” This publish, which had acquired round 25,000 reposts and 74,000 likes as of this writing, seems to be the primary securely datable time any variation on the quote went viral.
(X consumer @Blk_Dolphin)
Nevertheless, the existence of a fair earlier X post, dated April 7, 2017, exhibits that not less than one type of the quote was in circulation even earlier, even when this explicit quote didn’t go viral. In it, consumer @awylam responded to a now-deleted publish with, “Who was it that mentioned @FoxNews has achieved to child boomers what our mother and father mentioned video video games would do to us?”
(X consumer @awylam)
Though Snopes has been unable to search out any earlier, securely datable appearances of any model of the quote on-line, the wording of @awylam’s April 2017 X publish strongly means that the quote had already been circulating in some type, whether or not on-line or by means of phrase of mouth, by the point it was posted.
In the end, not one of the early examples Snopes was in a position to monitor down could be precisely described because the origin of the quote, which can be finest understood as a saying or proverb, not an attributable quote.
We have fact-checked different alleged King quotes, including whether or not the writer mentioned, “Arduous to imagine there was ever a world chief as dumb as Donald Trump. Cannot spell, cannot learn, has by no means managed something approaching an unique thought.”
