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| ABC/Jimmy Kimmel Live |
If you’re
not familiar with Jimmy Kimmel Live’s segment
“Lie Witness News,” you’re missing out on a pretty fascinating (and pretty hilarious)
psychology experiment.
The premise
is this: Kimmel’s staff takes to the streets of L.A. as roving reporters,
questioning pedestrians about recent stories in the news. These stories,
however, are…not quite right, to say the least.
Take last Friday’s Independence
Day-themed “Lie Witness News” (you can see the whole video at the end of the post) where a “reporter” asks a man if he’d be watching
“President Obama’s planned 4th of July confederate flag burning with
the last surviving Tuskegee Airman and the Wu Tang Clan.”
“I will,”
the man replies with a straight face.
“Have you
heard about that?”
“I have.”
“Are you
excited for it?”
He replies, “A
little.”
The
reactions of the interviewees are fascinating. Without flinching, they always
have an opinion on the matter, and apparently — somehow — they’ve always heard
the story from another source beforehand.
But why aren’t
people thinking twice about these ridiculous questions? Why does this segment
work so well?
