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You all of the things older people worried that social media and the internet would do to young people? It was all projection and it's older people who are just as likely to get sucked into conspiracy wormholes and end up being dicks in public for clout.
Now we are far more online than ever during lockdowns and in social distanced conditions it's like everyone is just even more themselves than they were previously, but with fewer outside influences to provide friction. That's neutral. What isn't neutral is the conspiracy wormhole
I think the defining character of the age is probably Travis Bickle. It's amazing how much absolute guff is powered by people who want to present themselves as 'god's lonely men' fighting for what is right, making themselves a hero in their own theatre of phantasy and desire
And lets be fair, feeling you have stumbled across the one screen grab of the evidence that'ill bring the whole conspiracy crashing to the ground (on facebook or through googling) is a much better and more exciting story than 'I stayed at home and minimised risk'. Wrong, though
Because, lets face it, doing your duty to your community is arse-clenchingly boring. Far more exciting to imagine you are a mix of Fox Mulder, Batman and, I dunno, V from V for Vendetta, heroically 'demanding the facts' while ignoring the facts and getting yourself a name online
Real heroes do boring shit, day in day out because it's the right thing to do. Live streaming yourself going into a hospital or ranting on youtube or writing your column for national newspaper is far more exciting in your shadow theatre of personal exceptionalism and showing off
Times of crisis, like pandemics or like economic recessions a horrifying and destabilising but they are also boring. real grind and terror is boring. It eats at you. I feel like right now our covid deniers and anti-vaxxers are people who are terrified of being boring
Being scared and upset: boring. Doing the right thing even when it feels wrong: boring. We often talk about conspiracism rising from economic or social upheaval, as a way of finding a more satisfying narrative for large impersonal forces. True, but people love feeling heroic, too
The conspiracy worm hole gets people who want to shout at clouds for raining. It gives them a way of feeling like heroes 'taking a stand'. It feels powerful to have 'special knowledge' and a mission when others seem sad and upset. And the high end peddlers know that
Anti vaxx, anti lockdown - high end peddlers of rot and nonsense know they are feeding an audience that will, with energy and verve, both support them and also become purveyors themselves. Conspiracy is a cottage industry. A hobby you might turn into a job. Far more exciting!
Are there real conspiracies in history? Of course there are. Are there real hardships and pain in the world? There most certainly are. There are governments that do horrible things. Are these things sorted out by watching a ranting man and reading some hot takes? No, not usually
People fall for conspiracy thinking when they feel unimportant. But going that route is rewarded by other people going that route who make you feel important. And it's not just young people who feel unimportant. Older adults do too, and now is a great time for that feeling
We talk about radicalisation as if age were an inoculation. What we're seeing in the UK and other countries now (post social media) is a radicalisation into conspiracism of adults who want not to feel powerless and ignored, but who are choosing to do so through ego, not effort
Literally everything that is deplored by people about the tiktok generation and twitch streamers etc is enacted in the same way by people falling into the conspiracy world online, just with less cleavage and fewer pranks and dances. Except their way is likely to get people killed
