Covid fuels rise of conspiracy theorists
ONE thing the Covid pandemic has evidently boosted is the fondly-treasured fantasies of the paranoid conspiracy nutjobs. I maintain a discreet watch on various of them – for my own amusement as much as an academic interest. And it’s fascinating. From the origins of the virus, through to alleged suppression/exaggeration of news of it, and how masks are going to spread it even worse, to that holy motherlode of dastardly evils…a vaccine being hurriedly rolled out and forced on an unsuspecting population.
And as you surely know, any vaccine is the work of that secretive ethereal entity… ‘Big Pharma’. Then there’s the lockdown, and how that’s the beginning of the end of freedom of movement. Big brother is watching you, and will probably be injecting one of Bill Gates microchips in with the vaccine, so they can track you forever more.
I’m not altogether sure what ‘ole Bill will want to learn from the movements of an unemployed facially pierced conceptual arts graduate, whose daily routine and spending power is hardly going to excite advertising sponsors.
Not only is the pandemic news itself a heady mix of ingredients for them to knit into a sinister web of self-delusion, the fact that they have to mostly sit indoors with only their devices for company helps feed the psychic monster.
Funnily enough, I happen to know a boffin who has done some work for Bill Gates, trying to find ways to help the world’s poor and hungry. I regret to inform – knowing rather a lot about the subject being investigated – that his focus is…er…soft. Like other tech billionaires, along with various movie and pop stars, and ranks of vacuous celebrities, he’s earnestly sure he knows everything, simply because he’s made a lot of money in a particular field. But he is, apparently, at least quite earnest and really wants to help.
Like the Covid conspiracy theorists, Trump supporters in the US are – more worryingly – falling foul enmasse to similar hysterical hooey. Blithely ignoring the evident reality that the man himself lies quite openly, and more or less continuously, and that he recently openly encouraged a mob to go and invade the seat of US Government, many of his followers are convinced there’s a socialist conspiracy out to get him.
Many were using some obscure social media platform, which was apparently allowing increasingly unsettling material to be posted. When it was then effectively shut down by its tech peers, users cried foul. Several US Trumpites I keep loosely in touch with – the word ‘friend’ is somewhat stretched on the social media – were soon bleating that this was the end of free speech. ‘Look’ they cried, ‘the President is being censured!’
This ignored the fact Donald was still quite at liberty to walk out of The White House door, and say whatever he chose direct to the world’s TV…. and whatever he said would be beamed right round the world, live, unedited. Well, I say unedited…at least until networks bored of his droning on, and satisfied he’d cut through the branch he was sitting on, would allow the camera’s gaze to move on.
However, the phenomenon has arrived. Whole groups of people will share delusional garbage on-line, believe it, and keep adding to its momentum until it becomes selfperpetuating. I seldom engage with these people. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a digital shouting match, but rather because they might then block me...and spoil my viewing pleasure.
One of the things that I ache to ask them is how the massed ranks of the conspirators are managing to keep a lid on ‘it’….whatever ‘it’ might be. In the case of the Covid pandemic, this would appear to incriminate pretty much the entire medical profession.
That’s quite a trick. We’re all being duped by…well…the list is pretty extensive, and somewhat contrary. Big tech is in the frame, which is funny if you think how the conspiracy theories spread. The makers of Roundup weed killer are a perennial favourite…pretty much wanting to boil your babies.
Based in the anti-GMO movement, the hatred of Roundup has created a vast catalogue of made up science, dodgy websites, and now litigation. It is now a commercial activity in its own right.
Apparently, those of us who don’t see the light, foolishly accepting the lies of the dark forces controlling everything are the ‘credulous’. I always enjoy the irony of that.
In seriousness, much as it all amuses me, it’s a new reality. And these people all have a vote. I believe we’re experiencing the results of those who do understand the effects of social media on the world, and who are – ironically - exploiting it for their own aims.
It must be true; I read it on Elvis’ Facebook page.