For Conspiracy Theorists, the truth is in the fiction.
Congratulations conspiracy theorists, you have won! You have got my full attention at the moment and I’m definitely ashamed to say I’m completely obsessed. This prelude to the apocalypse that we’re all living through has given you everything you ever wanted, a platform, an international conspiracy and a captive audience (literally held captive in their own homes).
But before we get into it let’s start with a few facts. Conspiracies are things that actually do exist and there’s no disputing that. The bastards in charge are, well, bastards and we’re all doomed to a life of servitude whether we believe we are or not. What I won’t do is try to ague the veracity of any of their beliefs as that’s not a healthy way to go about your life and as a friend tells me often, you can’t argue with stupid.
From the outside looking in there’s a lot to pick apart. For starters, as a community they don’t do themselves any favours. What we can’t do is be surprised that they exist at all. Questioning the powers that be and the malevolent forces that govern us is a more than healthy and viable way to conduct your life. Where they fall flat as a community is in the self-aggrandising, arrogant and belittling way they go about their business. Their methods of ‘educating’ non believers and reliance on unsubstantiated propaganda rival even the most fervent right wing machines, as does the gleeful willingness to dangerously spread misinformation to validate their own existence.
To pick apart there inconsistencies and methods is not a difficult thing to do and you would be forgiven for feeling guilty about doing it. But don’t get me wrong; I want to understand how they got to this point. The world is a terrifying place; the cretins that govern us are terrifying people and the so terrifyingly shit you have to laugh way in which this pandemic has been dealt with causes distrust in even the most ardent supporters of an administration.
There are parts to laugh at. As a community they love nothing more than a worryingly shit pun to hang a hashtag on. If you’ve been anywhere near social media in the last few months you will have surely come across a few of them. We’re living though a PLANdemic apparently and all those who don’t agree with them are referred to lovingly as SHEEPLE (my personal favourite). It is pretty funny that they ALL use the sheeple one. Doesn’t take much to follow the crowd now does it?
Where it becomes a little more dangerous is the point where they find obscure articles and videos that vaguely agree with their world view and then present them as fact, tell you your thick as pig-shit for not knowing this thing they decided to agree with five minutes ago and you really should RESEARCH! But what they’re doing isn’t research as this implies that they went into any fact finding activity without an objective, read as many sides of an argument as possible and came to a rounded outcome. What they’re actually doing is screaming into an echo chamber and being super fucking smug that they knew what the outcome was going to be.
Are they not confusing a nefarious plan with opportunism? I ask this because of course laws are being passed that carefully deconstruct civil liberties and outsource lucrative medical contracts to firms owned by party donors under the cover of a pandemic. But this is an opportunity seized, jumped on quickly as the public is far too concerned with a deadly virus and where their next toilet roll is coming from to notice. It was never part of a larger conspiracy.
Interestingly, there are parallels with their methods and other immoral organisations. If you don’t believe or agree you are a part of the problem, a person to be avoided or persecuted, ridiculed for your chosen way of life. Is that not the recruiting method of every religion in existence? Much in the way that religious people believe they hold the monopoly on morality, conspiracy theorists are convinced they have the monopoly on the truth. Questioning the official story is one thing (it’s also a good thing). Convincing yourself you know the actual truth just because you question it is something else entirely and just feeds a misplaced sense of superiority.
Sometimes it seems like it’s just a uniform to wear and a community for those so utterly and completely disaffected to belong to. It makes me feel genuinely sorry for them and I promise I don’t mean this in a patronising way. Even though they claim to be anti-corporation and terrified of technology spying on us with 5G their lives are spent on smartphones and laptops with definitely safe 4G capabilities. Four G’s is obviously the limit though right? Adding one more G is clearly one G too far. Just don’t tell Snoop Dogg. There is a constant social media presence from a community that pretends to hate social media, who look down on the way everyone else uses it without admitting once that they are just as much a slave to the endorphins released by someone interacting with your opinion as the rest of us. Again, my sympathy is small but real.
The other 98% of my sympathy is currently reserved for those who have been directly affected by this prick of a disease that’s ruined all of our lives beyond recognition. I can’t imagine for one moment what it must be like for someone who has lost a loved one, who probably died alone, to be told by these entitled cretins that their suffering is a lie.
Am I now part of the sheeple (or sherson? Not sure what the singular is) for not agreeing with them? Part of me hopes I get accused of being a cog in the machine, spreading lies and fear to the masses as another system of control just so I have the opportunity to hold a mirror up and ask if what they are doing is any different.
I’m desperately trying to understand what it takes to make a person like this. It could possibly be a strange symptom of rightfully feeling completely unimportant in the grand scheme because unfortunately, just like the rest of us, their existence is of little consequence. Is it comforting for them to believe that they’re constantly being watched? Does it validate them in a backwards sort of way? It’s easier to believe that those who govern us care enough about our lives to feel a need to control us as opposed to facing the ugly truth. The truth being that they just don’t care. I’m sorry but I just can’t get on board with the idea that a Prime Minister who’s middle name is actually de Pfeffel gives just one fuck that a few thousand people are congregating in London with megaphones and badly drawn placards when his initial plan was for as many people to get the virus as possible. Congregating in large numbers would achieve this right? He called it ‘herd immunity’. Is it a flock of sheep and a herd of sheeple? Seems like they did exactly what he wanted. Maybe THAT was the plan. Ok, of course it wasn’t but maybe the best way to fight a myth is with a counter myth.
I often wonder what would happen if they got everything they wanted. What would they do if the world changed in exactly the way they pretend to fight for? I can’t imagine that the majority of them would accept the changes, as with nothing to fight against, the most dominant part of their chosen path through life will have been removed. They’ve confused activism with a personality. It would seem, rather depressingly, that the journey is the destination, as I truly believe that the end of the road terrifies them just as much as the rest of us.
Phil Watson
dampcardigan 