I'm never sure if people have actually gotten more stupid, or if it's just much easier for folks to advertise said stupidity.
It more the second I believe. We used to know who was nuts in the park, now we're not sure if they're using a blue tooth ear piece. Twitter and Email and etc. distribute the stoopid much faster then in the past.
It seems to be somewhat common, especially amongst school-age kids who have little or no interest in history, to think anything and everything in the movies is fiction. Twitter also has 1,000,000s of regular users, you're always going to find a couple of dozen, maybe even 1,000s who'll say something silly. I'm often in that 1,000s!
Yeah, I say silly things online quite often and people will take me seriously, so I can imagine some of the "omg that's horrifyingly stupid" sometimes comes out of a joke being taken seriously. Otherwise, it's as said above. People have the medium to broadcast their idiocy in ways that wasn't possible before.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
I can't say I'm surprised. People can be stoopid.
Are these the same people who complained that it was a spoiler if you mentioned that the titanic sank before they saw the movie?
In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.
Please usewhen discussing well-known historical events.Spoiler (mouseover to read):
spoiler tags
As for the OP, well, some of them might be joking. But never ever underestimate human stupidity/craziness. It's like eHarmony cat lady - yeah, it was a fake, but there would be thousands of people out there like that.
Something tells me we haven't seen the last of foreshadowing.