Classic Snopes: Will Smith Arsenio Hall bald joke "fact check"

"fact check"

Did Will Smith Make an Alopecia Joke on ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’?
An old clip of Will Smith making a bald joke resurfaced after the actor hit Chris Rock for making a bald joke at the Oscars.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-smith-arsenio-hall/

excerpt:

Claim
A video shows Will Smith making a bald joke directed at a person with alopecia during an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show."
Rating

Miscaptioned
About this rating
Context
The video is real. Will Smith really did tell a bald joke during an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1991. However, there's no evidence to suggest that this joke was directed at someone with alopecia. The miscaptioned video went viral after Smith slapped Chris Rock during an Oscars telecast for making a bald joke about Smith's wife, who does suffer from alopecia areata.
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Which is hilarious given that alopecia is simply a medical term for virtually ALL forms of baldness. Male-pattern baldness, for example, is Androgenetic alopecia:

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/androgenetic-alopecia/

Medline Plus even helpfully provides a photo in case people are unfamiliar with male-pattern alopecia:



I know some posters here like to talk about disinformation and misinformation and how sites like Snopes are so crucial for establishing Truth capital "T", but I'd rather not trust sites like Snopes or Facebook or Twitter--or the Washington Post or the New York Times for that matter--to make those decisions for me. I'd rather have the freedom to do some of that digging and research for myself, thank you, if I so choose, and I would prefer it if others shared the same freedom.

Bottom line: America. Love it or Leave it.

 

related:

No, Pointing Out The Media’s Lies Does Not Threaten Democracy
Journalists and organizations that decry the rise of ‘misinformation’ and being branded ‘fake news’ should look in the mirror.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/31/no-pointing-out-the-medias-lies-does-not-threaten-democracy/

 

depends on what the definition of is, is

 

glad to have inspired your ground-breaking and unprecedented quest for Truth. May you continue on that path and prosper.

 

also, campers, remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#Variations

 

that's a good point and I agree with you. I still disagree with the assumption that we can take Snopes's "no evidence" assertion at face value. We are all familiar with people who shave their heads to hide their natural hair loss, and to assist with denying (at least for the time being) that that natural hair loss is occurring. In such a way even someone who shaves their head and says "I simply shaved my head" is not evidence one way or another for the reality of that person's hair loss, baldness, vanity, or whatever.

This may be a long-winded way of talking about the ontology of hair loss. But we can add to the mix a similar case--LeBron's hair transplants. Does the fact that LeBron either painted his head or got transplants remove the reality of his male-pattern baldness?? Snopes might aver that there now "is no evidence" that LeBron is bald. But we of course would know the Truth capital "T" value of that statement.

 

and for what it's worth, drug- or chemical-induced alopecia is still "alopecia":

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7631289/

While the butt of Smith's joke may deny that he had "baldness" or hair loss

First, Williams does not have alopecia areata, he tells Rolling Stone, referring to the type of alopecia that can cause sudden and patchy hair loss, which Pinkett Smith has discussed on her Instagram. He says a topical treatment he received for a case of the measles affected the texture of his hair, so he decided to shave everything off one day and never looked back. (from the Rolling Stone article)
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it seems clear that the chemical topical treatment he received impacted his hair in an undesirable way ("affected the texture of his hair" which could certainly mean "thinned his hair"), leading him to voluntarily shave his head.

So I guess I think Snopes is still just a bit too quick on the draw here with its "fact-checking." And as you say, this is problem with fact-checking in general, and relying on "fact-checkers" to establish the difference between truth and falsity, and between information and disinformation. Which was my original point in creating the thread.

 

oops, our posts crossed in the ether. Yes, I agree with you here, that it's reasonable to take someone's word about their own condition. But it's also possible for people to mis-describe and sometimes even misunderstand their own condition.

I am for example routinely criticized in this forum for my own self-description politically as a Democrat, and there are others here who are convinced that I am deluding myself. Obviously there must be a "truth" to the matter even if it may be difficult to ascertain or may be obscure to some participants in those exchanges. But I would not want to be subject to a tribunal that seeks to establish that "truth" one way or another about my political leanings or allegiance.

And sometimes you have issues or questions that are legitimately subject to interpretation: the glass half full versus half empty scenario. No one side's interpretation is correct. Both are equally valid ways of describing "reality." Snopes cannot establish the truth or falsity of a claim about the half full or half empty statement. Such statements can only be examined, discussed, and re-interpreted if need be.

I suggest that's what we have here.

 

and once again our posts crossed in the ether. You again also make good points and I don't think we're really disagreeing here any longer. This is what "discussion" is, instead of poo-flinging.

See? the D&D is not ded!! long live the D&D!!!

 

yeah, but I guess I'd say Snopes should still stay out of it. The point of the recirculated video of Will Smith telling bald jokes at someone else's expense in likely ignorance of the cause of that person's baldness was to compare to Chris Rock telling a bald joke at someone else's expense in possible ignorance of the cause of that person's baldness.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, this is the point of the comparison and of possibly exposing--or at least raising the question of--the hypocrisy of Will Smith's actions here. On that question Snopes is 100% unqualified to speak.