It was too perfect to be true, as usual

There’s a subreddit called /r/AgedLikeMilk, in which people post screenshots of social media posts or news stories that turned out to be spectacularly, hilariously wrong in retrospect.

With Josh Duggar and Jussie Smollett both getting convicted on Thursday, it was like Christmas came early for that subreddit. Many people stuck out their necks for the creepy “Christian” sex offender and the hate crime hoaxer.

Franklin Harris @FranklinH3000

Quite a day.

I can understand close friends and co-workers of Smollett standing up for him. That’s what friends do. But people who knew him only from television - or had never heard of him at all until the story of his “assault” broke - should have realized there was so much about the incident that didn’t seem plausible and at least kept their remarks more guarded.

In a 2017 article, Freddie De Boer describes a “back channel” in which progressive activists and writers betray skepticism about viral outrages - but that they would never express such doubts in public. I guarantee you, that was happening with the Smollett case.