Since 2014, two brothers, Rick and Marty Lagina, have been digging trenches, moving rocks, draining swamps, and drilling holes all over a small island that they own off the coast Nova Scotia.

Their digging and drilling efforts have been chronicled in a series on the History channels Curse of Oak Island.

For some background:

On a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia, a legend of treasure has led a centuries-long search for whatever may or may not be buried there. It might be pirate booty. Or it might be some unknown European royal treasure, or it might be Spanish gold from South America, or it might be some kind of religious artifacts dropped off by the Knights Templar.

Or maybe it is something else.

Or maybe it is nothing at all.

The complex underwater caves may be naturally formed from millions of years of water erosion of soft gypsum, or they might have been dug by Vikings or Templars, or pirates. Anyway, these two brothers bought the island, hired a bunch of like-minded, similarly convinced treasure hunters, and have been running back and forth all over the place digging holes, using metal detectors, all the while convinced something is there.

Because the island has been inhabited on and off both by indigenous and immigrants for centuries, the chances of finding something is great. Be it a wall, a road, a cave, a nail a Happy Meal Toywhatever.

Each episode follows the exact same formula:

One of the treasure hunters, all of whom look exactly like front row ticket holders of a MAGA rally, finds something. The Something is usually pulled up from one of the zillion holes they have drilled all over the island, Or it might be from a pile of mud that the metal detector expert with an Australian accent declared looks very old while examining a something that has been covered in mud for 200 years. Yeah, it all looks old. It has been covered in muck for along time. The something could be a nail. Or a board. Maybe a piece of wood. A shape of a shipwreck in a swamp. A stone wall. A Village People CD cover. It doesnt matter. Anything sets them off.

Narrator Robert Clotwothy, the voice of Ancient Aliens (can you see where this is going?) then breathlessly asks a series of ridiculous questions: A wall? Next to a path? Near where another wall was found? What could it mean? Is this the proof that the brothers were looking for? Will this lead to the treasure?

A nail? In a board? That is 200 years old? Could this be the proof the brothers were looking for?

A metal object? Found in a place where no metal objects should be found? Could this be the proof the brothers were looking for?

Clotworthy uses the same tone and tenor of any of the other series he narrates for the History Channel, like Ancient Aliens, none of which by the way have anything to do with actual history.

The something is then sent off to be analyzed by the experts who make us wait until the next episode to only let us down again that the something is old, made of wood or metal, and amazingly enough shouldnt have been found where it was found. What a surprise!

This constant something is known to scriptwriters as a MacGuffin, a plot device that motivates the Oak Islanders to move forward, but in reality is unimportant itself. Metal, wood, wall, pathway, piece of cloth. It doesnt matter. Anything they find causes them to have simultaneous Oakgasms and the cameras to zoom in on their eyes as they look knowingly at each other. This is it. This is the one.

Until next week, when a new this is it is found.

By the end of each and every season however, nothing of consequence is found. No gold. No treasure chest. No Ark of the Covenant. No Knights Templar temples.

More holes dug. More MacGuffins found in the search for the big MacGuffin.

t the end of the day, the Laginas have exactly the same amount of things they had at the beginning of the season, which is to say, not much. Of course, the brothers dont care. The History Channel and its advertisers, is paying the bills.

The Curse of Oak Island, inexplicably, after seven seasons continues to be one of the highest rated shows on cable. Let that sink in: After SEVEN SEASONS of not finding anything, they are still one of the highest rated shows on cable TV.

Never mind that the brothers almost completely ignore the laws and rules of archaeological investigation. They happily back-hoe their way through hole after swamp, after hole. They have spawned two sequels and have made millions, all on the promise of next week is it.

Oak Island is not a singular phenomenon. There are dozens of similar shows that start off with the promise of finding the MacGuffin, only to lead viewers on a wild goose chase to Nothingville. Aliens. Bigfoot. Extraterrestrial spacecraft at an Air Force test facility in the Nevada desert. Government conspiracies. Gold.

All of these shows are directly targeted to a similar demographic: White male middle aged men, just like the Lagina brothers.

Why?

Because these men are the same men that easily believe conspiracy theories. It is not a large leap to jump from believing there is a vast conspiracy to cover up the existence of Bigfoot to believe the conspiracy that the media is telling you lies and that Joe Biden lost the election.

Oak Island and its like are merely the gateway drugs to the larger, more serious conspiracies.

I doubt if the viewers of shows like Oak Island are very good at vetting information and looking critically at issues. It is easy to believe information that APPEARS to be correct even though it is not.

And that says a lot about how we as a society educate our children on critical thinking skills.

Perhaps that is the true curse.

Author: Tim Holt

Holt is an educator and writer, with over 33 years experience in education and opines on education-related topics here and on his own award-winning blog:HoltThink. He values your feedback. Feel free to leave a comment, over at his site. Read his previous columns here.

***

The El Paso Herald-Post welcomes guest columns, open letters, letters to the Editor and analysis pieces for publication, to submit a piece or for questions regarding guidelines, please email us at news@epheraldpost.com

Link:

Op-Ed: The Hoax of Oak Island - El Paso Herald-Post