Week 10

Hey folks! This was a big week—I’m officially wrapping up the final stretch of the project. I finalized my massive spreadsheet of 100 Flat Earth TikToks, organizing each video by creator, rhetorical strategy, emotional tone, visual tactics, monetization cues, and engagement style. From mockery and memes to fear-based narratives and pseudo-scientific jargon, the patterns are now clearly visible—and surprisingly consistent. The more a video layered emotional manipulation with claims of hidden knowledge, the better it performed.

I also completed drafts for Parts 2 and 3 of my “Flat Earth and the Monetization of Our Attention” blog series. Part 2 dives into how these creators intentionally shape their content for emotional impact and virality, often as a gateway to promote products, sell merch, or grow monetized followings. Part 3 reflects on what this says about how misinformation operates on platforms like TikTok, and how the structure of attention-based economies incentivizes these misleading narratives.

With the data collected, categorized, and analyzed, and the writing almost done, I’m preparing final reflections on what I learned—both about Flat Earth content and about how misinformation evolves in digital ecosystems. I’ll also be sharing some takeaways about how younger audiences engage with these videos and what makes the messages resonate so effectively. It feels satisfying to see everything come together after weeks of building. Almost there!