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.
Conspiracy theorists are not about the actual theories. They are about being special. They are smart and figured out monkeys have been influencing the course of human politics since the roman empire. *They * are the only ones who “get it” that bic biro pens have finger print scanners the CIA uses to locate disobedient citizens.
As soon as it becomes confirmed, they are no longer special, because everyone “gets it”.
When they say “wake up sheeple”, they wouldn’t know what to do if you “woke up”.
That’s why the idea of wokeism is so repugnant to right-wing conspiracy theorists. The idea that they are the ones asleep but also there are many others who woke up before them is so counter to their own self-image that they will alter their perception of the world before they will allow such a thing to be true.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It’s a conspiracy observation.
I don’t always agree with 4chan but when I do…
