As someone who spends a lot of his time ‘online’ I understand this might, at first, reek of hypocrisy.
But there is such a thing as too online.
Especially when you start believing a child-eating, Satan worshipping cult is secretly running the world from some sort of ‘deep state’ and somehow Donald Trump is your saviour.
That’s probably a bridge, or two, too far.
This is a brief summary of QANON. A conspiracy theory which began in yonder years of 2017, on a site called 4CHAN. Someone called Q - short for Q clearance - started dropping clues online.
This is a very American conspiracy theory, and like many American things, whilst it started there, it didn’t end there, especially on the internet - an internet which is essentially American.
Britain too is rife with conspiracy theories. We have our own QANON, we have Save The Children, Save Our Rights, Stand Up X, and so many under the sun that I cannot count the hours I’ve spent on Facebook groups, or fringe websites scrolling through objectively insane comments about them.
I could go through the content, but as I said, it’s patently insane and I see very little reason to. Instead, discussing how they spread, the themes they encompass and the spaces they occupy is worthwhile I think.
This week I’ve been chatting on and off with MPs about the emails and messages they receive from these types of people. All agreed it was a minority, but who changes history if not a vocal, committed minority?
Politically, these groups occupy a strange grey area which is difficult to define in traditional political terms. Which is why the far-right thrives online in conspiracy theories. Take Trump as an example of their politics - it’s, in short populist (does what it needs to get support). He’s flirted with raising the minimum wage and often outflanked the Democrats to their left, and then simultaneously dragged the GOP into something nasty, racist and very far right. The far-right specialises in creating causes under huge umbrellas to draw in as many people as possible.
In the 70s, this manifested in bringing together anti-tax, farm/land reform, gun rights, traditional republicans and more all together. They offer them all solutions, to gain their backing, and in reality rarely give any of these solutions but pull them along further and further with them.
It’s not just the far-right though. Piers Corbyn - brother to one Jeremy Corbyn - is leading a group called ‘Stop New Normal’, a far-left group. One of a number of fringe, conspiracy theory groups such as Save Our Rights, and Stand Up X. This group occupies the stage where far-left and far-right blur and merge in odd ways.
These groups offer simple conflicting conspiracy theories which don’t stand up to the most basic questioning. But they are thriving. Conspiracy theories thrive in the vacuum left by legitimate, sourced information. In times of panic and worry, people are more susceptible and open to influence, they are more likely to be dragged down rabbit holes like this.
But they operate in a similar fashion to how I outlined the far-right in the 70s. Looking at the groups I listed above, you have people worried about child abuse (Save Our Children), people worried about 5G (Stop New normal), people against lockdown and vaccinations (Save Our Rights), but then these have drawn largely on specific communities.
Yep, really. Yoga mums have become a hotbed for conspiracy theories, similarly ‘gym lads’ and goers alike have been indulging in conspiracy theories. Their way in, again like the 70s in America, was presupposed as a legitimate worry - child safety for yoga mums, their gym/mental health for gym goers.
During the early stages of the pandemic, the poor communications from the government gave these sorts of conspiracy theories an opening and a way in. Later on, a combination of in-fighting within the Tory party and people being naturally reticent to lockdowns. Then, with the vaccine, it wasn’t clearly enough explained why it was safe, that it doesn’t contain pork, that it went through every safety measure in the book.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said that social media isn’t doing enough. That’s almost always the case. Social media companies have no real incentive to limit such communities on their platform, they only did so with Trump when people started dying.
The issue is though, is that none of this was done. And whilst conspiracy theories bloomed during the pandemic and found fertile ground, they will now likely become a common part of life beyond it. Just like coronavirus, they won’t be going anywhere soon.
Project Mbappe is completed, what’s next?
Now, anyone remotely connected to football would’ve seen Mbappe leading PSG’s destruction of Barcelona. The win was important for a number of reasons, least of all it would be the first time Barca haven’t made the quarters of the Champions League in a LONG time. It was symbolic of a Barca in decline, with a great black hole in their finances, of PSG in ascendancy, with the opposite of a black hole in their finances, a Qatari state ban I guess.
But Mbappe was the star of the show, and people promptly began discussing the 22-year-old like he’d just burst onto the scene.
No, no no.
He burst onto the scene against Dortmund in 2017 after Dortmund’s bus got bombed. Between then and now he’s done a few things like won a World Cup, played in the final of a Champion’s League, beat some of the greatest teams on the planet.
Mbappe isn’t a new talent. He’s already done the biggest things he can do, thrown off the shackles that bind Messi and Ronaldo, and now he’s free to do whatever he wants to do, and god help any defender in his way.
Read more:
The BBC has many problems, but is also very very important! - by Harry Lambert
Vaccine diplomacy because Russia and China never miss a chance to manoeuvre - by Cindy Yu
Jude Bellingham is my favourite footballer, no further questions - by Raphael Honigstein and Mark Carey