Witch, Please: How Rumors Still Run the World
- Marc A. Tager
- Sep 18
- 4 min read
I recently heard a story about a school that has haunted me ever since. A teacher staged what he called a “witch game.” Each student was whispered a role: witch or ordinary villager. The goal? Form the biggest group possible without letting a witch in. If even one witch slipped in, your group failed.
The classroom dissolved instantly into suspicion. Interrogations broke out. Nervous glances became accusations. Friendships cracked under pressure. Kids splintered into small cliques, each certain they’d rooted out the impostors.
When the time came to reveal the witches, not a single child raised a hand.
The teacher never picked any witches at all.
The silence that followed was heavy. The kids realized the damage had already been done. Fear had divided them, suspicion had consumed them, and all vestiges of trust had collapsed, all without a single witch ever existing.
Sound familiar?
That’s exactly what’s happening today. Only instead of whispering “witch,” the labels are liberal, conservative, vaxxed, unvaxxed, pro choice, pro life, red state, blue state. Heard or used any of those lately? The words change, but the tactic doesn’t: plant suspicion, feed fear, watch communities eat themselves alive (Burnlet, 2023).
Fear is humanity’s oldest enemy and one of its sharpest tools. History has always been built on whispers. From Salem to the Spanish Inquisition to McCarthyism, suspicion alone has been enough to ruin lives. No proof required just the right tone of fear and the right crowd willing to believe it (Leahey, 2018).
What made the Salem witch trials so effective wasn’t witches; it was people’s willingness to suspend critical thought and surrender to fear. The accusation became the evidence. The rumor became the verdict. The lie became the truth.
And isn’t that exactly where we are now? We no longer burn witches, but we cancel, ostracize, and prosecute. The words are modern, but the energy is ancient.
Let’s be honest: in 2025, our witches aren’t hiding in dark forests. Some of the most dangerous are hiding in memes. We latch onto some half-baked JPEG with bold white letters that shows up in our feed and, bam, it’s suddenly “proof” of who the enemy is. No citations, no sources, just the internet equivalent of your buddy whispering in the corner of a classroom, “Psst, I think she’s a witch.”
And we lap it up. We hit “share” without even asking the most basic question: Is this actually true? We love confirmation bias because it feels good. Critical thinking? That’s hard. Memes are fast food for the brain: cheap, greasy, and guaranteed to leave you sick later (Ellison, 2020).
This is how cancel culture exploded. It fed off suspicion, rumor, and whispers. Instead of asking for facts, people weaponized outrage. Whole careers were burned to ash without trials or context, digital bonfires lit with retweets. Cancel culture taught us that accusation is conviction, and suspicion is guilt. That’s how witches got burned then, and it’s how reputations get burned now (Gray, 2019).
The justice system has absorbed this playbook as well. Entire livelihoods and lives are shaped by suspicion: bail fees, mandatory sentencing, “tough on crime” posturing. We forget that suspicion and accusation aren’t proof, but the machine feeds on them anyway (Ellison, 2020).
And most troubling, even the highest office in the land now echoes these same tactics, pointing the finger at media companies, calling them witches in disguise. What once was a cautionary tale is now political strategy.
Hate breeds hate. Once fear hardens into hatred, it doubles back on itself endlessly. Salem didn’t need witches to collapse; it only needed the suspicion of witches. Communities don’t fracture because of “the other.” They fracture because they believe the whisper about the other (Gray, 2019).
When we decide difference equals danger, we build the bonfire with our own hands. The accused doesn’t even need to exist.
This is where I circle back to what I’ve taught my kids: the only person you can control is yourself. Not your neighbor, not your former bestie with different political views, not the stranger shouting in all caps on Facebook.
Just you. That’s it. One person.
So unless someone is truly infringing on your real life, keeping you from eating, working, loving, or living, why are you wasting energy trying to stomp them out? Why not spend that energy trying to understand them (Burnlet, 2023)?
I’m not saying you have to agree. I’m saying stop acting like suspicion is a hobby and outrage is a sport.
Here’s the blunt truth: every time we fall for something without researching it, every time we decide “different” automatically means “dangerous,” we’re replaying that witch-hunt game. And we lose before we even start.
As this rant plainly shows, there doesn’t need to be a witch. The rumor is enough. The suspicion is enough. The fear is enough. That’s the danger.
So what’s the solution? Refuse the whisper. Don’t play the game. Think for yourself. Pause before you hit share. Ask questions. Stretch your empathy muscles a little further.
Because if you don’t, you’re not just burning witches. You’re burning trust. You’re burning community. You’re burning the very possibility of building something better together.
And here’s the tragic irony: the witch hunts never needed witches. And our modern-day divisions don’t need enemies. All they need is people who won’t think.
References
Burnlet, J. (2023). Critical Thinking in the Age of Memes. Journal of Social Media Awareness.
Gray, P. (2019). The Roots of Human Fear: Evolutionary Perspectives. Psychology Today.
Ellison, K. (2020). The Meme Machine: How Misinformation Spreads Online. Digital Culture Review.
Leahey, T. (2018). Witch Hunts in History: The Power of Fear and Rumor. Historical Perspectives Quarterly.
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