The ministry's propaganda and how susceptible we are - a rant
I watched the smile archives and immediately after rewatched the sanctuary's (allegedly official) marmalisation video because one of the taped reminded me of it (warnings for the smile archives : dark themes of violence, MANY flashing lights)
The marmalisation video is uploaded by themeparkjackk on YouTube, I can't link it because YouTube added a stupid dm feature and right now I'm logged in on a shared family account. (trigger warning for the marmalisation video : flashing lights, arachnophobia, rotting food, decomposed animal)
There is one specific scene in that video that always creeps me out and put me to thought.
Like many good propaganda makers, they try to pin it on you.
Yes they try to persuade you by saying life sucks and you can start again with us, we can make you happy but it's YOUR choice to.
You chose to get corrected, we didn't force you, we didn't brainwash you, you chose to.
All this pain you're going through? The insanity? The "side effects"? Not our fault. It was your choice to be here. And your actions and your condition are all on you, not on us. We only did what you asked us to.
Another thing that I thought of was the smiler takeover event that many people didn't like because it was "too soft, not scary / not creepy enough". But the ministry wouldn't want to show that side of themselves would they? They'll show you some maybe a bit strange people having fun, being silly but overall being just, well, people. They're not violent, they're not insane, they're just happy. Felix can be excused for being over the top, he's an entertainer, a musician, they often are. Grin grin is a bit crazy but he's a clown. If asked they could pin his behavior on him acting as part of his job. Scientist gladwell was pretty chill and agent joytide? Not even that happy! Just a regural person! The other people were some agents and a contortionist, still none of them are scary. Maybe a bit off but not enough to drive you away from correction. In previous festival of thrill events the advocates are just dancing, having fun and the bunch. Even the smiler operators aren't inherently creepy, just happy! The ministry has been selling this image for a while now, with the only signs of creepy-Ness being on the smiler itself. But this could very well be them giving a thrill to make you think "I'm brave, I can do it, look I'm not scared!" and push you to try it . Whenever the ministry as a whole shows itself to public, they project this image of happiness and fun and a little bit of strangeness but never enough to drive you away.
"but phoenixthefurb, what about the sanctuary? It's very clearly creepy! And it drives you away! And the advocates there are insane and violent!!"
First of all, the ministry doesn't find the sanctuary satisfactory now. This is stated in smile always where they stop kelman from further correcting miles. They have also shut down the sanctuary for the same reason, and took their experiments underground. It's a bad public image. I've also seen somewhere (I can't find a source unfortunately) that kelman was complaining about the ministry calling his work a failure and that's why they shut down the sanctuary.
Now, this is my idea and it isn't Canon for sure but I will stand by it unless proven otherwise, the sanctuary was purposely re-opened to make the smiler seem better.
The advocates in there are repeatedly shown as the result of manual correction, failures. One of the doctors in the sanctuary (as seen in a walkthrough video) called them mistakes. And don't get me started that you're walked through the cages in the basement, where the worst of the worst are kept. Why would the ministry want to show you their mistakes?
Because seeing this and immediately seeing the advocates of the smiler, you start to believe that the smiler is successful in its goal to make you smile. First of all the huge rebrand from the "social compliance" to "happiness for everyone" ministry of joy also helps with their cause. You see the sanctuary and the smiler advocates and it creates in your mind this image of "the sanctuary patients are failures, and the smiler actually works because of how the new advocates act. The ministry has changed and actually cares for our joy!" and you know how I know? I've seen people fall for it.
The amount of comments online I've seen saying that they think the smiler actually cares about making people happy and that the ministry stopped the violent brainwashing is a LOT. And it shows how good they are at propaganda.
You see all these people being happy, living their lives and having fun and you're being told that this is how your life could be, as long as you join the ministry. And you see the past, see how they "abolish" the sanctuary so to speak and they stop showing you their experiments and you get convinced that they changed and that now they're to trust.
I have one final point to make. And this is an important one and I want you to stop and think about it.
Do you guys realize how many of us have been brainwashed by the ministry in real life?!
Maybe I'm not the best spokesperson for this subject because the smiler is my special interest and my hyperfixations/special interests affect me heavily, but maybe the story of how I came to be like this is good for this talk.
How many of you came across the smiler / the MOJ across on accident or after a bunch of strange coincidences and became obsessed with it. How many of you call people or yourselves advocates. How many of you see things like smiley faces, the color yellow, illusion patterns, spirals, stripes ect and think of the smiler. How many of you interact with unrelated media and it reminds you of the smiler. How many of you hear certain phrases like "smile" or "join us" and you flinch because you thought of the smiler. How many of you have changed the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you act, the way you laugh, the way you think ect because of the smiler. How many of you have changed your usernames or blogs or general accounts to show your advocacy. How many of you have had strong urges to spread the word of the smiler. How many of you had had your thoughts consumed by it. How Many of you have exposed yourself to fictional propaganda (eg the smile archives, we happy few, my friend malamar and many more) and it had drawn you in because it reminded you of the smiler? All these examples aren't random by the way, most of these I haven't just seen, they're personal experiences. The amount of times just saying "the ministry wouldn't like that" has pulled me out of a bad mood, the amount of times i connect the smiler with unrelated media, the amount of times I have smiled or giggled to myself because something has reminded me of the smiler or I have just thought of it and many more examples are insane. Did you guys know that the reason I learned to do the "service smile" (you know the one, the one ppl at clothing stories, supermarkets, restaurants ect have) is BECAUSE I WOULD THINK OF THE MINISTRY WHILE WORKING?
And all of this because I came across it coincidentally in 2022 when searching for a comment I left on a YouTube video about the roblox game vision park (big story for another day)
We, as a fandom, are all so susceptible to the ministry's propaganda and trust me, this definitely counts as mild brainwashing.
If the MOJ was real we'd be screwed.