I didn’t share this miscaptioned photo, but each time I’ve seen it before on social media, I’ve accepted it as true. This time I checked.

According to Snopes, Prince Phillip did not prank the Queen of England dressed as a palace guard. That’s ceremonial attire he has worn in public on several occasions, and the queen would certainly have known who he was.

This is a small thing, but it shows just how easy it is for us to be manipulated.

Certainly out there enemies of democracy have already noticed how easy it is to get people to react to stories about non-existent issues like the gender of a plastic toy potato, or a publisher’s decision to stop printing children’s books that include racially insensitive content, alleged threats posed by transgender people lurking in public bathrooms, or the allegedly stolen presidential election.

I’m sharing this meme to acknowledge that, even though I habitually check memes before sharing them, I’m still influenced when other people share memes that I don’t check.