Palo Alto, CA — A 3-month study by the Palo Alto-based Rundex Family Foundation has revealed that Trump supporters have an 87% higher likelihood of going blind and killing kittens than the control group. The study, which was co-sponsored by Facebook and the Coca-Cola Company, sought to find correlations between the use of all capitals (called CAPS in Internet-speak) and what scientists have noticed as early onset blindness and premature kitten deaths with Donald Trump supporters.
“Well to be perfectly honest,” said Rundex lead researcher Robert Colvin, “we thought this was plain silly. You know, another Internet myth. Like, ‘Every time you masturbate a kitten dies’ kind of stuff. A joke really. But then Facebook contacted us and asked us to dig into the ‘Big Data’ and we did. We also partnered with Coca-Cola because they are experts at understanding big data trends. I mean, how else could you convince billions of people to drink sugar-water without an intimate understanding of marketing data?”
According to the study, Trump supporters who post rants on social media in ALL CAPS have a significant chance of going blind within the next 3 years.
“Well the data is all there,” continued Mr. Colvin. “Being a ranting, all-caps Trump supporter has surpassed masturbation as the chief source of correlative, early onset blindness. We’ve controlled for many factors, including age, race, and gender, and the blindness rate held steady. And kitten mortality stayed at normative rates. What we didn’t expect, and this is where it gets really strange, was that there would be a correlation with dead kittens. In other words, every time there is an all-caps, pro-Trump post, tweet or whatever, kittens start dying all over the planet.”
Not Really News asked Rundex for redacted samples that demonstrate how this blindness/kitten-killing might occur. Below are some examples.
“Yeah, that was Roger McCoy of Jackson, Tennessee,” commented a somewhat reserved Mr. Colvin as if he realized that he shouldn’t have shared this. “It was tragic. But this is a prime example of how this stuff works. I mean, it takes a while. This was the post that finally killed his cats and made him blind. Mr. McCoy had been at this for months now, and it all just gave out on him. Coca-Cola sent him 3 cases of soda pop, by the way.”
Others, according to Rundex, didn’t suffer the same extreme fate as Roger McCoy but will have lasting eye-sight and dead kitten problems if they don’t slow down.
“The case of Christians for Trump put a bit of a wrinkle in our study,” said a beaming Mr. Colvin. “I mean it presented a challenge for us. Here you have a mix of all-caps and lowercase words and hashtags. And it’s also a group. Well, the results are just as your intuition is telling you,” said Mr. Colvin as he tapped his forehead. “The group members have had some sight impairment, and some have reported kitten deaths. So basically the ‘ALL CAPS Trump’ impact has been watered down. You know, it’s been spread around the group.”
As for the recommendations of this study, Mr. Colvin was coy about them.
“Look,” said a serious Mr. Colvin. “We just provide the study. We let others figure out how to turn that into policy and action. We’re just the messengers here. However, I can tell you that the Trump and Clinton campaigns made a swing through our offices this week. So that means something, right.
