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Last week I was wondering whether the first chinese balloon story was really so interesting as to occupy the top 4 spots in /r/all and 5 of the top 11. Today, a week after the Ohio train chemical spill, the full severity is finally hitting the front page, albeit only one post at the 10th spot as of now, with the "why isn't this being talked about" group battling with the "it is being talked about, here's 10 news links" group in the comments. I saw the chemicals specifically being discussed a few times before today in doomer prep subs, but the front page was mostly UFOs or earthquake posts the last few days. Charitably, what the latter group don't understand is that what the former means, is, why did a tangible disaster story go less viral than a relatively inconsequential balloon, why wasn't it talked about the way we talk about other threats, why did it not develop the way we've come to expect big stories to develop? Uncharitably, the latter want to reinforce the conservative conspiracist trope. The white house certainly could have made a big statement about it, like they did with multiple statements about balloons and UFOs, but it's not false to say there was coverage of the train story, despite it being punctuated/less than the expected amount.
Every country will signal boost other stories to take the heat off embarrassing incidents, but what is unique is how skilled western media/culture is at dancing around plausible deniability. They covered it, but something clearly wasn't the same. It's like a rhetorical ABS, as in making controlled micro delays, to render judgment impossible, until enough time has passed that whatever the truth is, it's become a fait accompli. Like with the nordstream bombing, or old CIA shenanigans/warcrimes, the facts are suspended in the air until its old history, at which point you will have Americans saying how they're not surprised X or Y happened, but then turn around and continue to give themselves the benefit of the doubt or maintain faith in the system. Similar to gell-man amnesia but reflects worse for both the writer and the reader.
I wonder if it's because balloons are inherently funny, chemical spills are not very funny (although there was a funny disaster involving molasses once...), UFOs are mysterious, there is the international conflict angle, Ohio is the worst state... basically, the balloon story is memeworthy, the chemical spill is not.
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