Failure and perception are intertwined.

On September 29, 2006, the first result of a search for "miserable failure" (or even just "failure") was the official biography of George W. Bush. This "Google bombing" incident made the internet laugh. However, it also spoke to a more general dynamic of failure. Most failures are a question of perception, yet there are some failures that everyone can agree are failures (like the Challenger explosion).

No matter what empirical metrics are employed, those who disagree with them frequently label individuals, programs, organizations, businesses, and goods as "failures" in language. People who disagreed with George W. Bush's "War on Terrorism" viewed him as a failure. An effective approach to delegitimize anything is to declare it a failure.

I often reflect on the demise of MySpace. I wrote a contentious blog article in 2007 pointing out how kids were segregating themselves on Facebook and MySpace in the US based on their colour and class. A few years later, I discussed the role of the news media in this separation, emphasising how media portrayals of MySpace as frightening, hazardous, and rife with paedophiles (in spite of lack of supporting data) contributed to the division's emergence. The news media contributed to the delegitimization of MySpace (aided and abetted by a team at Facebook, which was directly benefiting from this delegitimization work).

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