Do Your Research

There’s a special kind of person who, when faced with facts that contradict their worldview, puffs up their chest, wags a finger, and declares, "Do your research!" They say it with the confidence of a QC delivering a closing argument. The problem is, their "research" consists of trawling Facebook groups where Linda from Wigan, who once failed GCSE science, is explaining why NASA faked the moon landing.

The phrase used to mean something. Academics do research. Scientists do research. Journalists – at least the ones who haven’t sold their souls to the Daily Mail – do research. What these people are doing is not research. It’s cherry-picking nonsense that already aligns with their opinion, giving it a quick skim between sharing a meme about how Bill Gates is putting microchips in the flu jab.

They love to sneer at "sheeple" who "believe everything the mainstream media tells them," as if their alternative – lapping up whatever drivel the Express has vomited onto its front page – is any better. The Express is a newspaper that could run the headline "EU to BAN TEA and FORCE BRITS to EAT BAGUETTES" and still have its readers nodding solemnly about the betrayal of our great nation.

Proper research involves checking sources, questioning bias, and engaging with opposing arguments. It’s not clicking the first link on Google that agrees with you and then calling everyone else "brainwashed." It’s certainly not taking medical advice from a bloke on YouTube whose qualifications amount to "once had a cold."

But they don’t want research. They want validation. They don’t want to find out what’s true. They want to find out that they were right all along. The irony is that, in demanding everyone else "do their research," they reveal just how little they’ve done themselves.