fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3827 ]

[ SECRET POST #3827 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3827 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Teen Wolf, Derek Hale]

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03.

[Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, NHL]

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04.

(James I, Reign)

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05.

[Joss Whedon's leaked Wonder Woman script]

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06.

[Tara Strong]

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07.

[LissySandwich/Bowlingotter]

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08.

[Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid]

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09.

[Legend of the Seeker]

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10.

[Grimm]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #548.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Why are conspiracy figures and websites so popular in certain circles? What is the appeal of them and their views? When did they start being taken seriously?

(Until recently, I was under the impression most people didn't take them seriously and Infowars and its ilk were seen as something of a joke.)

I think they started being taken seriously with the rise of social media. It lets people spread misinformation quickly. It also allows people to create groups which inevitably become echo chambers.

I think the appeal of conspiracy theories is that they sometimes come true. For some people (like myself) it is fun to read about the crazy shit some people believe (hollow moon!).

A lot of the Watergate era theories came true, the ones about government overreach, rightwing attempted takeovers, human rights abusing, corporate powergrabs, and creepy military worshiping surveillance cultures.

Not just those. A lot of big current news stories start as crazy conspiracy theories. Like "Russia rigged the election." Did they? Didn't they? Right now it's still just a wacky theory, maybe it'll be proven right or maybe not.

One explanation of conspiracy theories is that stem from actual truths and experiences that mainstream/conventional narratives refuse to acknowledge.

So, for instance, the Kennedy assassination conspiracy is bullshit - but it comes out of a sense that the American power structure is willing to do awful things to maintain power, and that the intelligence services and military were doing terrible secret shit, which is true.

If Kennedy hadn't been essentially dying from Addison's disease already then I'd give some credence to the conspiracy theories surrounding him, but there was no need for any opposing interest to do anything more than wait. He was always going to be, at best, a one term president just on health grounds.

Also, the US government really benefits from playing up the wacky conspiracy nut angle.

If you can imply that genuine criticism is even faintly similar to a conspiracy theory then it is a good way to silence that criticism, at least in the short term.

That dynamic certainly exists.

But at the same time, a lot of conspiracy nuts really are conspiracy nuts, to put it crudely.

I've never heard conspiracy theories explained that way, but that makes a lot of sense. Okay, you've just blown my mind, nonny.

Like, of course people would feel that an America that had been manufacturing constant wars would also manufacture 9/11 to keep those wars going. Or that these dodgy food and drug companies would use toxic GMOs to make the populace sick so that people have to buy more drugs. (i'm not entirely clear on what the various GMO conspiracies are). And a govt that does shit like Flint would certainly also put chemicals in plane contrails.

If you lived in Latin America in the 1980s then it was also "America tried to rig the election" which was proven correct pretty much instantly afterwards when American paramilitaries invaded and set up right wing dictatorships whenever the rigging did not work.

Russia probably wanted a certain outcome, and certainly used social "hacks" but it wouldn't have worked if Trump and Hillary had not basically been as stupid as they were in their campaigns.

Yeah, that's what I lean towards. Russia didn't win the election for Trump. Half the country really did think he was fucking swell, and they still do. (And who knows if Russia's govt actually wanted Trump to win, anyway? Maybe they were banking on anti-Russia sentiment to push Americans to vote for Hillary and it didn't work?)

The problem we have currently with the internet is that it's almost impossible to know what is true and what isn't. News sources can be as dodgy as 'some random dude on twitter said that Trump has cancer!' and how do you know if anything is legit? I'm sure if I looked right now I could find both evidence of Russian-linked voter fraud, and also plenty of sources debunking that.

Of course, this makes it the perfect environment for crazy conspiracies to thrive.

But Russia rigging the election isn't and never was a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy fact!

Obama came out about it in July 2016. He was pretty straightforward about what was happening.

Edited 2017-06-27 00:49 (UTC)

Are we talking interference with voting machines or just spreading bullshit rumors? Because we know Russia did the latter, but that isn't rigging an election. Swapping out ballots, interfering with voting machines, assassinating candidates, those are rigging an election. Just like America has done in the past. But talking a load of bullshit is not rigging an election.

Re: What is the appeal of conspiracy theories?

mrs_don_draper - 2017-06-27 00:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: What is the appeal of conspiracy theories?

(Anonymous) - 2017-06-27 01:07 (UTC) - Expand

Was that when he said anyone who thinks that there was an attempt to predetermine the election results (aka the election had been decided in favor of Hillary Clinton) was nuts?

Because hello Mr 180 degree turn around.

The latest Washington Post article about it talks about the hacking and public release of key DNC files and the social media campaigns, but specifically says that the Obama whitehouse found no evidence that they tampered with the vote.

ETA in case I wasn't clear since apparently I'm having problems tonight: If there is actual widely-accepted evidence that they tampered with voting machines or sent out a legion of Russian spies with fake IDs to vote for Trump or something, fine. But I don't consider rumor-mongering and hacks to be "rigging" the election.

Edited 2017-06-27 01:22 (UTC)

Re: What is the appeal of conspiracy theories?

cbrachyrhynchos - 2017-06-27 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

They go back much further. One guy I met suggested that they got started shortly after WWII, when everyone realized the United States and Great Britain managed to hide entire small cities of people working on nuclear weapons and computer decryption. Wilson and Shea wrote the Illuminatus! trilogy largely from conspiracy letters to Playboy.

But even before then, you had The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as some bugfuck crazy ideas in circulation regarding the Catholic Church and the Latter Day Saints.

There's a question about when a batshit idea becomes an actual "conspiracy theory", is the problem with trying to trace the history of it. Like, when you like at something like the Popish Plot in the 17th century - is that something that we can legitimately call a "conspiracy theory"? I don't know the answer to that.

That said wrt the history of this kind of thinking anyone who hasn't ought to at least read "Paranoid Style In American Politics." I also think that there's a lot of interesting stuff with regards to these themes in 19th century Europe in the early parts of Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism." And of course if you want to get into occult societies and all that sort of thing, there's a tremendous literature there, even once you weed out the bugfuck lunatics.

Depends on the theory and theorist.

Sometimes, like crop circles (of which 20% are still unexplained and thus could still be alien elves), it is the promise of something more than the mean and bleak materialism of the world. These are the lighthearted ones, the ones that promise there is still magic out there somewhere. Others, like the old post-Watergate left wing conspiracy theories pull back the curtain on the machinations of government and offer a means to combat them. Then there are the post 9/11 insanity theories. These just indulge whatever racism and undeserved feelings of martyrdom and oppression the wacko white supremacists have.

I think the appeal is having knowledge other people don't, or seeing what other people can't and being special for that.

I think some of the reason that they seem more popular is that people are looking for answers right now in a divided world. Lots of people want simple to explain a complicated world. Others want something that makes it not their fault (or the fault of the people like them).

In general, the biggest part of their appeal is because they provide an explanation for why things happen. And it's an explanation that's sensible, and it's an explanation that means that it's someone's fault.

SA

"Sensible" is probably the wrong word to use here, because it implies that the conspiracy theories are rational, which they're not. What I mean is that conspiracy theories make sense and are easily understood.

Seconded. If a conspiracy is creating problems, then that implies that stopping the conspiracy will solve the problems.

People want to make something orderly and neat out of chaos. Its easier for some people to believe that there is the illuminati or whoever pulling the strings, instead of the world just being senseless.

I think sometimes there's a comfort in not believing in chaos.

Believing that Sandy Hook was faked to make guns look bad is nicer than believing that real little kids died.

Also the appeal in being smarter than everyone else, plus they tend to go along with stuff you already want to believe. Like in the Southern US a conspiracy theory that said... something like slavery got started because plantation owners were slaughtering all their white servants in Satanic worship and needed people to do the work that they didn't consider appropriate as Satanic sacrifice, that likely wouldn't gain much traction in the South. But the conspiracy theory that 'slavery' was invented after the civil war to make the South look bad and never actually happened? THAT is a popular one.

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