I’ve been saying this for a while. The real malicious actors are right there in the open, telling you what they’re doing. I think people gravitate toward the clearly fake conspiracies because it helps soothe their conscience - clearly their guy is Different, you don’t even have to think about it, right?
If someone falsely accuses you of anything, assume they did that first. Investigate the accuser.
There’s also a feeling of “knowing” more than other people. You don’t know about how Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla invented a time traveling aircraft carrier? Have I got some research that you need to do on your own. But if you did know about it, then it’s junk meant to distract you from what’s really going on.
None of that “knowledge” derives from any level of credible sources, but it does bring a certain level of superiority over people on Facebook. If it’s actually well documented and widely known, then that isn’t something where I get to feel better than other people.
Conspiracy theorists are only interested in the idea of a conspiracy, and lose focus when the conspiracy is found to be true.
I have a direct example of this:
I was at the UFO museum in Roswell, NM and the guy that was giving a talk was a self-described Ufologist and this was after the government released the UFO footage. He talked the whole time about government coverup of past UFO crashes, etc.
In the Q&A, someone asked if the recent footage gave him hope that we’ll begin to learn more about UFOs now that the government seems more forthright with the information… And he got pissed at them for even asking. It was as if his whole retirement activity of uncovering conspiracies was challenged and his brain couldn’t handle it except by getting angry at an honest question.
His conspiracy seemed to be more boring than he thought (and spent decades “researching”) so he wouldn’t allow the truth to shatter it. It was fascinating to see in real-time.
One statement that always works with republicans: Every accusation is an admission.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It’s a conspiracy observation.
Well, it’s only a bad thing, if the others are doing it. Didn’t you know?