Idioms

crisis actor

crisis actor

1. Someone who portrays a victim in a training drill for emergency personnel, such as firefighters and EMTs. I volunteered to be a crisis actor at my local hospital's disaster drill. You're lucky this is a crisis actor, and you didn't just kill an actual patient, Fleming! If you don't mind spending an afternoon being a crisis actor, they need volunteers to train the new crop of EMTs.
2. conspiracy theory Someone who impersonates a victim of a tragic incident, typically a mass shooting, that has been staged. The concept originated with conspiracy theorists who claim that such actors are employed by governments or secret organizations attempting to stage such incidents to gain support for a particular agenda. The term gained widespread attention when some survivors of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were claimed to be crisis actors by conspiracy theorists in the aftermath of the shooting. Can you believe that some people think the Parkland kids were crisis actors paid to be there to further the liberal agenda on gun control? How sick is that? How do you think people who survived the Boston Marathon bombing feel about talk of crisis actors being there?
See also: actor, crisis
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
By Sunday, Robbie Parker, whose 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, was killed in the attack, knew there were videos accusing him of being a crisis actor, because people were posting them on a social media page that friends created as a memorial to Emilie.
With credibility at issue in an era of "false flag" and "crisis actor" allegations, should outlets really omit the crucial "who" from the four Ws?
A FEW DAYS after the Parkland high school massacre, an aide to a Florida state legislator lost his job for claiming that two survivors were "not students here but actors that travel to various crisis [sic] when they happen." Such "crisis actor" rumors, which have spread after several recent public tragedies, are a reminder that people are capable of believing bizarre stories that are supported by only the thinnest alleged evidence.
The teenage Cuban-American has been vilified as a 'skinhead lesbian' and a 'crisis actor' in a staged mass shooting.
When controlled by the context of events and by crisis attributes, it was found that ethnic-NSAs gain greater influence on crisis dynamics and termination when these conditions best fit their power traits and skills, namely, in the multi-centric order of the post-Cold War period, in crises that involve a few or even a single crisis actor, and in durable confrontations.
In the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting last February, a conspiracy theory claiming that a teenage survivor of the school shooting was a so-called "crisis actor" was the top trending item on YouTube.
"So Called 'Student,' But actually a CRISIS ACTOR, David Hogg, was on camera months ago, pretending to be a high school student in California," the user wrote.
"I've always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too." While speaking on camera, Curry avoided eye contact with the reporter, prompting a Twitter user to claim Curry was reading a prepared script and another tweet labeled her a "crisis actor." Neither claim has been substantiated.
She was not, however, what they called her: a "crisis actor."
Hogg has faced intense criticism from right-wing conservatives and gun advocates who have falsely called him a crisis actor after the Valentine's Day shooting in Parkland that killed 17.
Egged on by rabid conspiracy theorists like one Alex Jones (who has since been 'deplatformed' from YouTube and Twitter) this lot started saying that the bereaved were 'crisis actors' who were putting on a show.
The idea that tragic events are created by "crisis actors" employed by the government has become the default explanation for many events today, from 9/11 to mass shootings.
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