To the true seekers out there, this is not aimed at you. This is just my reflection on 15+ years of following conspiracies online.
When I first got into conspiracies I was brought in through a collection of different sources. Some were hacker forums, some were AJ documentaries (not his radio show), then I started to look up forums, and read articles. This was when most were independent PHPBB variants and occasionally a post on 4chan would come up. Then I started to hear more about reddit, so I went into there looking around and back then it was still the wild west and almost anything goes was the mentality. So you could really post stuff and people would fork their own communities if they were popular enough and focus and drill down. Fast forward and we'll it's a cluster fuck of limited hangouts, circle jerks that never end anymore, and a completely watering down of most stuff. Including our community.
So this happened a few times...I think I left around the MeToo movement at first (2012?) And was getting tired of the constant fear porn, negativity and that sort. I then cam back to Reddit around 2014-2015 but it still was dying hard, and they seemed to be stuck on a lot of the oldies (9/11 etc) but seemed to have a lot more people and a lot more interest in BLM stuff. There was a lot of Black vs white tropes and fake stuff posting about it constantly....it was so tiresome that I stayed out and took another break almost immediately because of the quality problems.
Fast forward to 2017 and Trump has been hated constantly in the media, then I start to hear rumblings about how he is the 'savior' and lo and behold I start to see the well known Conspiracies such as pizza gate, satanism, etc get promulgated around media clips. I start to see people talking about Q and this movement....I look into it. Seems like a controlled op to me..or a system of profiteering from essentially crowd sourced data and providing nothing but odd riddles intermixed...
So I immediately assume it's a front. And leave it behind, but I started to notice that the Conspiracies in general were just not great...so I step back almost completely. I have a few people who keep tabs and they keep me informed without me having to do much, but then corona and it's suddenly all coming to a head.
Years and years of control culminating in the perfect information operation....they used the playbook of Ferguson - for Floyd...then you have the swing flu - for Corona....the Q anon for Trump and to counter any of the above issues.... Then you bundle it all up into the election year....and then swap the team (but dirty the waters) and keep the Q movement going....then use it against itself....and clean up your loose ends...then prepare for the swap back....but at this point the board is almost completely under control..
Our community was the target, they successfully used it in their operations over the past 10 years.... We have continued to make them succeed. It's too much at this point. I think I need another break....perhaps a permanent one.
I have learned a lot...but nothing has helped me except avoiding the vax....that I am thankful for...but I don't think it has helped me knowing the other stuff because it's never come with tips on applying the knowledge.
This community has never been about solutions....and I am. So am going somewhere where that kind of thinking is promoted and not side lined in favour of the latest fashion....
Sorry....but you gotta realise that we have made this problem partially.....this is our mess too. When you just share information with no intention of following througj...it's nothing more than talk and words....or worse some kind of operation.
Thanks, but so long for now. I am going to try and get off this place and find the light instead of wasting in the dark.
Well I didn't use the term conspiracy theory when I started lol. I looked up stuff and started the term when I was on Reddit since the community literally called itself 'conspiracy' etc.