If you spent some time on the internet, you've probably stumbled upon some insane conspiracy theories, or at least people who believe in them. I think it's really safe to say, even you believe in at least one conspiracy theory. From harmless stuff like Flat Earth to something that's detrimental to society like the anti-vaccine movement, conspiracies are everywhere.
Even I was really deeply entrenched in conspiracy theories and almost joined a terror cell, let's talk about it.
But before that, I'd like to divide the internet timeline into three simple eras:
Dial-Up Era (1993-1999), Pre-Smartphone Era (2000-2007), and Smartphone Era (2008-Present Day).Now let's talk about the Dial-Up Era first. Honestly, I didn't know much about 90s dial-up internet apart from it existed. Reminder that I live in the Third World. I wasn't fully connected to the internet until at least 2006, back then the only way for me to connect to the internet was through a cybercafé or the computer class.
But one thing I learned from the Dial-Up Era conspiracy theory sites was that nobody believed them, because nobody shared them. You see, the internet was a really niche thing back in the 90s. Even during the latter half of the '90s, people still didn't fully understand what internet was, as much as we don't understand Blockchain is right now.
That's why there were weird and oftentimes hilarious instructional videos on how to use the internet back in the 90s, which you can now watch for free on YouTube.
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| *beep boop psshhhfkha/.* |
Thus, most people who shared the conspiracy theories were just a group of very dedicated and isolated, often interesting characters who live on the fringes of society. Or, they were just a bunch of really bored retirees who treated the internet the same way as ham radios.
One example was the late Dr. Gene Ray, a self-proclaimed 'The Wisest Man On Earth' who discovered the theory of everything known as the 'Time Cube'. It was really hard to decipher what Time Cube is due to the fact that it was muttered by a geriatric person with a severe case of schizophrenia.
The only thing I could catch from the entire wall of incoherent ramblings was that the scientific community was trying to stop Dr. Gene Ray from researching the Time Cube because it would expose the Meridian lies.
The Time Cube theory claimed that there are four corners of Earth which are divided by time, and the number 4 should not be demeaned. So if you have the number 16, you shouldn't call it 16 because it would demean the number 4. So you call it four 4s.
That's the only thing I understand from the site.
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| .....okay. |
The Pre-Smartphone era was pretty much the same until at least the tail end of it through the introduction of this relatively small video sharing site called YouTube. Back then, it was pretty small, but just like many other social media giants.
I want to tell you how I went down the rabbit hole.
If I remember correctly, I was on YouTube mainly to see some
'kigurumi' content back in 2006-2007. In case you didn't know already, I have a thing for masks. I signed up my first YouTube account just to see
this.
Fetish aside, I got instantly addicted to the platform and started to browse something else. Like gaming, since I love to play video games. So like any teen around that time, I was clickbaited into watching Windows Movie Maker
slideshow videos about future console games like the PS4, Xbox 720, and Wii 2. Fun times.
What I shouldn't have done was to read the comments. I was watching a
“PlayStation 9 commercial” video, scrolled the comments and saw a comment that said something like this:
"ROFL, it's a shame that we won't be around after 2012"
That single comment made me literally search for what happens in 2012, and stumbled upon a bunch of conspiracy videos on that site. I clicked one by one, saw a lot of them. Look no hate for the user who made the comment, I'm pretty sure they were joking, but it prompted me to look for more.
It started from some weird rogue planet called Nibiru and eventually stumbled on conspiracies about Freemasonry, Illuminati and Reptilians.
I spent sleepless nights diving deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, being scared so much about those evil Illuminati chasing me upon learning this forbidden knowledge.
You guys might laugh at me, how the fuck did I get roped into believing crazy conspiracy theories over a random YouTube comment? But it actually how it all happened.
And that wasn't even the worst part.
Back in the day, YouTube was more community driven. It was a video sharing website, as well as websites for finding friends. I was approached by someone who shared the same conspiracy theories that I had. He told me that him and his associate were in a group of people who wanted to destroy the New World Order.
So, I watched their videos, went to their website and convinced that I must do something about it. Thankfully, I was hesitant about it, there was this spark of skepticism at the back of my head that prevented me from joining them. And it was around the time I was having my final exam at school. So I ghosted them…
I think it was around 2009ish when my beliefs in conspiracy theories started to wane, as I was too busy making speedpaints and having friends from the otaku community. I met a lot of otaku friends from around the world and basically distracted myself away from believing in crazy stuff.
But the thoughts of this secret cabal of evil people still lingered at the back of my head, probably still is now.
I think by the end of 2011 I was 99% free from conspiracy theories because I got new friends in college and Facebook, met a lot of new friends as well.
By the end of 2012, I'm completely free from the dumbass conspiracies. Because the apocalypse didn't happened, and I learned an important lesson:
Don't believe anything you see on the internet.
That's how I got out of the conspiracy rabbit hole. Jumping to the modern era, the present day as I wrote this post, It really makes me terrified as more and more people have access to the internet, more and more people get trapped in the conspiracy rabbit hole.
I think this is what many experts call “misinformation”, "information warfare", and “post-truth”. Because honestly, looking at the present day, seeing how divided society is like over basically everything, I'm inclined to believe that goodhearted people can become truly evil over a Facebook post.
