"Potemkin Village" is what the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare.
> the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare.
I doubt it's incredibly rare, but appears to be quite common. I had the same experience with a new programming language mailing list about 5 or 6 years ago. In retrospect, most of the accounts were controlled by a small core group trying to "generate buzz", as one of them called it later.
That example crossed my mind too but I'm not sure it quite fits. That would be like people getting off the boat and saying "What a delightful village! I believe I'll live here". But maybe you're right. It's a lot closer, and a neat twist.
