I was having a conversation about CT with my husband the other day. I was saying how I had fallen down a rabbit hole, of where a lot of the more intense CT have come in more recent times from and my *research* and *critical thinking skills* took me back to GamerGate in 2014 (if anyone remembers that?) It was fuelled by a lot of the same extreme, Alt-Right views that we still see today within CT and day-to-day life. From my understanding (and lack of critical thinking), GamerGate gave people the option to voice their more extreme opinions online and I do wonder if that has opened a lot of doors for people to cry that their "freedom of speech" is being taken away? I know that 2014 wasn't that long ago, I've always heard the odd conspiracy prior to this but I do wonder what was the catalyst to make people more open/comfortable to saying their extreme views and when it began to snowball to what we see today.
A lot of the conspiracies are rooted in being offensive to a group of people. Even something more *light-hearted* as Michelle Obama actually being a man, as if that is some sort of problem even if she was born a man. The irony that they reject the ideology that people take money for vaccines, but now are seeming to buy into this mass hysteria of vitamin D or whatever else the pope of conspiracy theories (David Icke) is saying that week.
Having an interest in psychology, I do wonder in 10/20 years time if there will be research brought out about the influences of mass following on CT, what the vulnerability/risk factors are for someone to buy into it and how it can play on someone's mind. I know when I was mentally vulnerable, I fell into a CT trap and it echoes experiences others have had. I'd be curious to know how many people believe the same things in 20 years time. It reminds me of that experiment to see if people would "follow the leader", a group of people told to sit in a room and they were told when they would be called. Time would pass and no one would stand up and say anything until someone else had until ultimately they were all doing so. It would be interesting to know if the pandemic itself (being isolated, loosing jobs etc) would make people more susceptible of buying into it as people, en masse were more vulnerable/scared. Especially with CT being more widespread on social media, more than I have ever seen pre-pandemic. You used to be seen as an "oddball" for buying into CT but now it's more commonly spread. Even John Cook (founder of Skeptical Science and author of The Conspiracy Theory Handbook) said that “when people feel threatened and out of control, it’s natural to want to feel more control and bring order to the randomness by resorting to conspiracy theories." (
https://www.healthline.com/health/m...es#Why-do-people-believe-conspiracy-theories?)
Sorry for the long post! I should be writing an assignment for university but instead I got side-tracked haha.
straight faced.
