We have suffered through a year and a half of a viral pandemic, which has become for a majority of us the Alpha and Omega of everyday life. We think of little else and organize our lives around media-inflamed anxiety, ever-changing medical reports, and government ordinances. We wear masks. We put distance between ourselves and our fellows. We isolate. We line up for what seems like a never-ending succession of jabs. We devour the News as if it were the truth. We are victims of what is called “fear appeal,” defined as “a persuasive message that attempts to arouse fear in order to divert behavior through the threat of impending danger or harm.”
