At the beginning, it all seemed clear-cut: Jussie Smollett was a victim, and this was an example of the real-world consequences of a president's divisive language.

Smollett, a musician and actor in the show Empire, told police he had been attacked by two men on January 29 while returning to his downtown Chicago home after getting a sandwich at a Subway restaurant about 2am.

They verbally abused him, using racist and homophobic language, and shouted "this is MAGA country" — that's Make America Great Again, Donald Trump's campaign slogan. Smollett said they tied a noose around his neck and doused him with a clear liquid, believed to be bleach.

The outrage was immediate.

On Twitter, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, two Democratic senators running for president, separately called it a "modern-day lynching".

Nancy Pelosi called it an "affront to our humanity". Kevin Hart, Ellen DeGeneres and Cher were among the celebrities to express shock, the latter drawing a direct line back to Donald Trump:

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How quickly things change

This week, Ms Pelosi quietly deleted her tweet. Ms Harris said "the facts are still unfolding" — and declined to comment further. Mr Booker said he would wait until "all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources" before weighing in again.

That's because Smollett's story started to be undermined — and has now largely fallen over, with the news on Thursday that he has been charged with filing a false report.

The Chicago Police Department had initially said they were investigating a "possible hate crime". Last week they arrested two men they suspected were involved.

However, numerous Chicago media outlets began reporting, via unnamed law enforcements sources, that Smollett staged the attack and even paid the two alleged culprits.

By Friday last week, the men were released without charge. Police said their "investigation had shifted" after discussions with the pair — brothers who were acquaintances of Smollett's — and that they were keen to speak again with the actor.

Police initially pushed back on reports the attack — CCTV footage of which has not been located — was staged, calling them "inaccurate".

Fox, as recently as Thursday morning, said it was standing by its star, denying reports he was being written out of the show.

From the outset, Smollett vigorously denied the accusation he was faking, including during a high-profile US TV interview:

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"Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying," two lawyers representing him said on Saturday.

Smollett said he was "pissed" that people were publicly doubting his claims and that it amounted to a revictimisation.

He also said that his story would have been more readily accepted had he said the culprit was "a Muslim or a Mexican or someone black".

That is presumably because it would have fit a pre-existing narrative.

Narratives a key part of this controversy

With Smollett now the one facing charges, some say this is an example of how quickly narratives can be asserted and weaponised in the era of social media.

"If you are inclined to believe that America — especially in the age of Donald Trump — is plagued by racism and homophobia, none of these extremely fishy details seemed to register," said the writer Noah Rothman in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

The "fishy" details he was referring to include:

that Smollett was reportedly still holding his sandwich when he returned to his building;

that Smollett was reportedly still holding his sandwich when he returned to his building; that he was still wearing the noose around his neck when police arrived at his building; and

that he was still wearing the noose around his neck when police arrived at his building; and that if there is such a thing as "MAGA country", downtown Chicago — which overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 — is not it.

"Indeed, many politicians and journalists seemed to suspend all critical thought in a campaign to indict not just Mr Smollett's attackers but the country as a whole," Rothman said.

This is a line of attack Donald Trump Jr, the President's son, has been using repeatedly in the past week in an attempt to go after his political and media enemies and protect his father. (Mr Trump, it should be noted, called the alleged attack "horrible" when asked about it earlier last month.)

Hate crimes are on the rise in the United States. More and more people really are facing the violence of prejudice, according to an FBI report released last year.

And those who say they have been attacked, and take those claims to the police, are often afforded the benefit of the doubt, by the public and the media.

To suspect Smollett of lying from the get-go would have been a strange and dangerous precedent to set, as author Roxane Gay pointed out last week:

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But instant commentary is almost a necessity in 2019 if you are a celebrity or a politician — or anyone with a Twitter account.

The confusion over this story is a by-product of a culture that is quick to judge and to call-out, and one that so often rewards people for taking a side — instantly and via strong language — on an issue of public concern.

Candidates seeking office, like celebrities seeking status — like all us who are extremely online — have become incentivised to weigh in.

But as the Smollett case has shown, when a useful narrative emerges, certainty becomes secondary.