Five years ago, the “greentext” aesthetic was associated with epic stories, usually with some sort of groan-inducing pun or twist at the end. Or else they were super gross.

If you had told me then that I would trust a greentext news update more than I would trust my local nightly news, I would have laughed.

Now? I’m loving my daily news bulletin from /pol/ News Forever.

Reading green text on a peach background is not the greatest experience in the world (and can you imagine what it’s like for red-green colorblind people??) but, to me, it’s now an indicator that what I’m reading is plausible-to-true. The types of graphics that we see on CNN, or the local nightly news, with the ticker bars on the bottom of the screen and the rotating concentric circles, those now are a visual cue for fake news.

I wonder if I’m more willing to trust the butt-ugly chopped-together aesthetic of greentext as a direct contrast to the slickness of the mainstream media’s visual presentation.

This would make sense, as the Drudge Report is also incredibly popular, and its aesthetic focuses on “just the facts, ma’am.”

Sometimes Drudge’s layout looks extra special. I particularly like this one from yesterday. Most of the photos are crisp and bold, and fit into an overall red-yellow-green color palette (one of my favorites, tbh). Obviously Matt Drudge isn’t in the business of making news pretty, but sometimes it turns out that way.

It’ll be interesting to watch how the backlash against fake news also extends to the visual presentation of news. A sophisticated visual presentation doesn’t automatically mean that the content it contains is false, but it’s a lot easier to hide BS in a fancy container–there’s more distraction from what’s important.

The truth (or at the very least, the truth-as-you-see-it) needs very little varnishing to be effective.