First, the stories told by Sulkowicz on the one hand and the friends of Michael Brown on the other, have real life consequences for actual people. The lives of Paul Nungesser and Darren Wilson have been irrevocably altered – possibly forever – by the casual slander of people who are trying to sell an agenda. These people essentially justify this behavior to themselves by saying that the public policy goals they are after are worth more than the lives of people they have destroyed. One wonders, though, if these stories are really as widespread as their proponents suppose, why they couldn’t find an actually guilty person to destroy their lives.

Second, in both cases, there are actual, real life people who really do face the injustices in question – and pushing a dubious narrative on behalf of a cause makes it more difficult for those victims to have their stories believed by an increasingly skeptical public. The unraveling of the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative made people primed to disbelieve that the police did anything wrong in the case of Eric Garner, or to believe the police were justified in shooting Walter Scott repeatedly in the back, or that Freddie Gray probably somehow broke his own spine. Similarly, the Crystal Mangums, Trelana Brawneys, Jackie from UVA and Emma Sulkowiczs of the world have made it easier for actual rapists to get away with their crimes – because when a public celebrity’s rape narrative falls apart, it lends credence to the suggestion that rape claims are fabricated on a routine basis.

Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. And regardless of the fervent wishes of this narrative-driven generation, they still matter.