Skip to main content

Manufactured Crisis

There are a lot of "manufactured" phenomena that are disingenuous, shameful, and harmful to the evolution of the human species. Besides the all-to-common manufactured drama, there is the "manufactured crisis" that, in one common instance, upper management uses when they feel guilty for earning so much money for doing relatively nothing. They create a crisis to feel self-important and to re-assert their position in the pecking order of the organization.

Manufactured crisis can also involve skewing research and statistics, falsification of reports, outright lying, and the presentation of various unfounded data to to things like: sway public opinion, create drama in a small uneventful human lives, get a person stigmatized and/or fired from their job, acquire funding and administrative support for pet projects, and a affect a myriad of hypocritical and radically dishonest outcomes.

Being blissfully unaware, willfully obtuse, and ultimately subjugated by those employing this tactic is often embraced by those wanting to advance their own agenda and/or enforce their own preconceptions. This is a larger social phenomenon used to define (again) manufactured, superficial, and subjective dualities of "good and evil", "us and them", "right and wrong", et. al. It is common throughout the history of civilization and has been key to the human atrocities that stem from not only an innate human arrogance and elitism, but the coupling of (2) very disparate and volatile human elements: insecurity and competitive drive.

This phenomena's efficacy in "rallying troops" has helped it to become a common propaganda model used in right and left wing media, politics, and corporations which are often one-in-the-same in today's oligarchical society.
"Being a Good German", Salem Witchcraft Trials, The Crusades, Radical Islam, and definition #3 of the "Manufacturing Outrage" entry.

See also: Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent".

"My dickhead boss fired me after years of hyper-scrutiny and manufactured crisis because I was deemed a threat to the department's soul-less administrative way of life where all they wanted was to graze (like cows) their way to retirement".
Urban Dictionary Merch
Your favorite words on things you can wear, drink from, read, or give to a friend.
The Urban Dictionary Store sells gifts you’ll have to explain.

manufactured crisis

Manufactured crises are when a person or a group cries out to others that something or someone is in danger from a different something or someone... when it really isn't. This is either because the claimed threat doesn't actually exist, or the claimed threat doesn't actually credibly threaten the thing that is purported to be threatened.

Unfortunately manufactured crises can be just as believable and seem just as real and dangerous as real crises when put together well. This especially goes if the reasoning behind manufactured crises plays to peoples' already existing prejudices and preconceptions about the things or other groups of people that are cast as being a threat.

Manufactured crises are frequently used in politics to rile up supporters and win over new ones. They often have a lot of overlap with conspiracy theories due to their shared nature of being untrue at their core. Hateful ideologies like antisemitism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc are also often propped up by manufactured crises that say that Jews/gays/foreigners/some other group are a threat to us, our family, our children, our country, our way of life, whatever.
ben: We've got to stop the gays. They're brainwashing and indoctrinating our children and turning them gay in our schools with all that diversity and inclusion bullcrap they're pushing! It's all part of their agenda!

chris: Simmer down, ben. Take a rational look at what's actually happening. Even if you feel uncomfortable around gay people, that whole bit about schools brainwashing children into being gay is nothing more than a manufactured crisis by right-wing leaders to rile you up. What schools are doing is teaching about the fact that queer people exist and that they should be respected the same as you would any other person. It's nowhere near being the "brainwashing" that the news pundits hype it up to be, and the goal certainly isn't to "turn our children gay".
More from Urban Dictionary

trucker's tan 

A sunburn or suntan focused on the left arm. It is caused by the left side of the body being the only half that gets exposed to sunlight while driving. Presumably, it would be located on the right side of the body in countries where they drive on the left side of the road.
I had a trucker's tan after driving for 10 straight hours on a sunny day.
Word of the Day on October 5, 2026
The phenomenon where adults salivate at children's toys
Every time I walk into the toy aisle, I catch myself kidulting over the latest action figures and LEGO sets!
kidulting by Emotional Cruiser October 12, 2025
Word of the Day on October 4, 2026
British slang for a scientist or technical expert, esp . when the speaker is not certain of the expert’s specific field of study. Not necessarily derogatory, but typically used by persons without a technical background. In the US, the equivalent would be “egghead”, “squint”, or “geek.”

Origin of the word is unknown. Started sometime in World War 2. Given the typical evolution of British slang, could easily have started because what these experts did was confusing or “baffling” to the common person.
According to the boffins downstairs, the murderer used a serrated blade.
Boffin by Agnon February 11, 2023
Word of the Day on October 3, 2026

Pee Calculus

When you have to pee in a movie but don’t want to miss anything, and must do the following mental equation: will the amount I have to pee cause enough discomfort to diminish my attention capacity for the remainder of the movie to an extent which is greater than the amount of the movie I would miss by making a mad dash to the restroom.
I saw Satantango last night, wonderful film but by the 5th hour I had to start doing pee calculus.
Pee Calculus by anorlondo October 1, 2026
Word of the Day on October 2, 2026
Literally "dirty" pronounced with a West Indian accent. Can also have a positive connotation, for example Sean Paul's album title "Dutty Rock".
"The girl is pretty but she corrupt and dutty!"

or, in a positive usage:

"Booya! That freestyle was dutty!"
Dutty by J Hall April 3, 2003
Word of the Day on October 1, 2026
Load more