Whereas, if things are too forsaken, one loses the ability to communicate about the lion at all. There is no combination of sounds one can make that makes people think there is an actual lion across an actual river that will actually eat them if they cross the river.
Hm. This sounds like a challenge.
How about this:
Those “popular kids” who keep talking about fictitious “lions” on the other side of the river are actually losers. They try to pretend that they’re simply “the safe and responsible people” and pat themselves on the back over it, but really they’re just a bunch of cowards who wouldn’t know what to do if there were a lion, and so they can’t even look across the river and will just shame you for being “reckless” if you doubt the existence of lions that they “just know” are there. I hate having to say something that could lump me with these deplorable fools, and never before has there actually been a lion on the other side of the river, but this time there is. This time it’s real, and I’m not saying we can’t cross if need be, but if we’re going to cross we need to be armed and prepared.
I can see a couple potential failure modes. One is if “Those guys are just crying wolf, but I am legit saving you [and therefore am cool in the way they pretend they are]” itself becomes a cool kid thing to say. The other is if your audience is motivated to see you as “one of them” to the point of being willing to ignore the evidence in front of them, they will do so despite you having credibly signaled that this is not true. Translating to actual issues I can think of, I think it would mostly actually work though.
It becomes harder if you think those guys are actually cool, but that shouldn’t really be a problem in practice. Either a) there actually has been a lion every single time it is claimed, in which case it’s kinda hard for “there’s a lion!” to indicate group membership because it’s simply true. Or b) they’ve actually been wrong, in which case you have something to distance yourself from.
If the truth is contentious and even though there has always been a lion, they’ve never believed you, then you have a bigger problem than simply having your assertions mistaken for group membership slogans; you simply aren’t trusted to be right. I’d still say there’s things that can be done there, but it does become a different issue.
Hm. This sounds like a challenge.
How about this:
I can see a couple potential failure modes. One is if “Those guys are just crying wolf, but I am legit saving you [and therefore am cool in the way they pretend they are]” itself becomes a cool kid thing to say. The other is if your audience is motivated to see you as “one of them” to the point of being willing to ignore the evidence in front of them, they will do so despite you having credibly signaled that this is not true. Translating to actual issues I can think of, I think it would mostly actually work though.
It becomes harder if you think those guys are actually cool, but that shouldn’t really be a problem in practice. Either a) there actually has been a lion every single time it is claimed, in which case it’s kinda hard for “there’s a lion!” to indicate group membership because it’s simply true. Or b) they’ve actually been wrong, in which case you have something to distance yourself from.
If the truth is contentious and even though there has always been a lion, they’ve never believed you, then you have a bigger problem than simply having your assertions mistaken for group membership slogans; you simply aren’t trusted to be right. I’d still say there’s things that can be done there, but it does become a different issue.