It will come as no big surprise to anyone that Social Media plays a huge role in the dissemination of conspiracy theories. I became curious about just how big the effect was though, and decided to make a chart. Of course it’s an immense undertaking to list all conspiracy theories — there are many, and many overlap with each other. I listed only the main ones that most people will have heard of, and ignored the fact that some (for instance 9/11, COVID-19) have many sub-theories or spinoffs. While others (QAnon for example) incorporate a whole host of older and newer conspiracy theories, I listed them as one single conspiracy theory.
Takeaways:
- There were as many conspiracy theories in the 100 years preceding Social Media as in the 20 years since.
- All of these conspiracy theories have been (usually easily) debunked — yet they persist.
- Many old conspiracy theories are being recycled. (For instance, the Deep State conspiracy is from the 50s, but revived by Trump; QAnon incorporated many old conspiracies)
- Since the advent of Social Media, conspiracy theories seem to be further removed from reality than before.
What struck me when I made the chart is the exponential growth in the number of conspiracy theories since the launch of the internet, and the acceleration of incidences since the launch of the various Social media platforms, and a seeming further acceleration since the launch of predominantly right-wing Social Media platforms.
How and why do conspiracy theories start?
Sometimes conspiracy theories originate from practical jokes. Recently there was a documentary about how the “Birds aren’t Real” conspiracy theory was deliberately started as a hoax. Despite the documentary, many are still convinced that birds aren’t real. This isn’t a new phenomenon, in 1963 something similar gave rise to the Illuminati conspiracy theory. You can read in this article how the Illuminati conspiracy theory started with a hoax.
Mostly though, the goal has recently become political power and/or money. Think Alex Jones of InfoWars, Steve Bannon and Breitbart, David Icke and a host of others. COVID-19 conspiracies and misinformation have all been traced back to 12 people: Robert Malone and the rest of the Disinformation Dozen. For all of these people, their bottom line seems more important than truly-held beliefs. Do a Google search for the net worth of any of them: conspiracy theories are big business.
So who spreads the gospel?
The people mentioned above wouldn’t be able to do much harm, were it not for their armies of followers on Social Media. Conspiracy followers lately seem to come from 3 main sources: the (utra-)right, evangelicals and, since COVID-19, increasingly also the spiritual/new age side. I didn’t use the word “gospel” in the heading frivolously: the conspiracy followers aren’t content to just quietly believe, they actively proselytize. They seem driven to convert everyone to their point of view: be it that the earth is flat, that vaccines kill, that the world is controlled by a gang of super-rich pedophiles, or all of the above. You seldom find one that follows only one conspiracy theory, they usually buy into all of them. This seems odd, until you click on a Youtube link that one of them uses as “proof”. Youtube’s algorithm will suggest similar videos, and soon after watching a video trying to prove that the earth is flat, you’ll be watching one trying to convince you that COVID-19 was created in a lab to initiate the Great Reset. The rabbit-holes all join up — it’s a warren down there.
New conspiracies, the same old faces
The fact that most conspiracy theories lately seem to originate on the right of the political spectrum, has led to the worrisome phenomenon that most conspiracy followers seem to have effortlessly shifted to a Pro-Putin stance. They swallow the Kremlin’s “denazification” story hook, line and sinker. So what does the average conspiracy follower look like? Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but mostly it will be an overweight, bible-thumping, gun-carrying person in a MAGA hat, rude to the point of being obnoxious, who won’t agree with anything you say because they “did their own research” on Youtube, who believes that the world will be a better place once Trump is reinstated and Putin defeats all of Europe.
Some conspiracies are nuttier than others
What originally prompted me to write this article was when I came across the following tweet:
It was a response to a photo of Princess Diana, side by side with the photo of an older woman who she bears some resemblance to. (Probably created using a face aging app). Wondering if this person really meant that Melania Trump is the older version of Princess Diana, who is still alive, I checked out her profile and the rest of her tweets. Indeed, that is exactly what she meant, and looking through her tweets showed me that she follows every conspiracy theory I’d ever heard of, and quite a few that I’d never heard of.
Then I found that she’d retweeted this photo:
As I’d never heard of any “Flotus” magazine, I Googled it and, predictably, it came up blank. The photo is an older modelling photo of Melania. The hilarious scribblings in red are obviously meant to be “secret messages” and numerology-related nonsense. I then did a reverse image search, and found only two other instances of this photo — both on conspiricist’s twitter accounts. Which just goes to show (in case anyone doubted it) just how gullible these people are, and how they will accept anything, no matter how crazy or outlandish, if it fits into their confirmation bias.