I think I’ve asked this before a long time ago.

One of my paranoid tinfoil hat theories is that I think cringe culture was pushed by algorithms and has now has become a convenient tool for the right to groom people into policing ‘otherness’ more harshly. I think it’s because it has that particular right-wing playbook stank to it and because I can smell that style of using shame to manipulate that right-wingers love from a mile away. Hell, this site came from a part of the left that was originally a reaction to that, using bullying but instead using it to punch back at the punchers, so to speak (although we’ve changed a little and good, it’s not needed anymore because everyone bullies chuds now).

Cringe culture was big around 2016ish, while it mostly targeted blue hair liberals it often extended to making fun of whatever marginalized group you can think of.

It was always there, of course, but not enough to actually be taken seriously unless you had high-school bully brain. Anyone that wasn’t a chud or too tech illiterate to curate their algorithm tended to lose interest. Fast forward to the 20s’ and now instead of targeting specific marginalized groups or political stuff, there is a more widespread sort of bullying towards any sort of ‘otherness’. Strong emotions, being passionate, being too quirky, looking out of place, being too young, being too old. Being too much of well, anything. Let’s just say it’s not a fun time to be neurodiverengent in particular.

So we know from those files that Gamergate (and I think some Chan spaces?) were involved with promoting right-wing idiology. Well, sure is interesting that after people started posting about the Israel genocide on tiktok, the US freaked out and took control. And now we see a massive resurgence of cringe culture, again. Alongside with other right-wing garbage (think manosphere and so on)

Of course, it’s always been there and is likely just a totally organic consequence of people growing up with social media and the digital panopticon. But notice how everything that is cringe fits neatly into what the right think the left is? I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn in a decade or so that all of this was at least taken advantage of by the right as a form of social policing, a way to undo all that pesky self acceptance and understanding the lgbtq community and other marginalised groups worked so hard to normalise. It’s a way to punish outgroups while getting under the libs “safe to make fun of” radar (and many leftists too, you are not immune!) Seems like a good way for the right to bring back that repressive order they love so much and make everyone afraid to step out of their assigned role again.

    • Rawrosaurus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      15·
      12 days ago

      Certainly would explain why so many sitcoms are pretty problematic with the themes and story if you start to analyze them.

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        6·
        12 days ago

        My theory on “Friends” is that it was designed to push the consistently toxic-masculine behaviour by the male characters, especially that vile prick Ross, as being “normal” and “funny” in the minds of girls and young women.

  • la_tasalana_intissari_mata [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    48·
    13 days ago

    Social media sites intentionally promote grooming to provoke more censorship laws and allow more monitoring and more data to sell.

    For example discord:

    1. Permit CSAM servers.
    2. Wait for a big controversy
    3. Laws become more strict, requiring photo ID to use certain sites.
    4. “Sowwy we need a pictue of you full ID to allow you to talk to your fwends”
    5. Sell that shit to ever single intelligence agency.
  • dkr567 [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    46·
    13 days ago

    FBI and other state apparatus lets some public massacres and school shootings to occur due to combination of the “need” for unlimited budget and as part of strategy of tension-esque tactics

    • kgbbot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      25·
      13 days ago

      I thought that about the borders before the full on dumbass Nazi bullshit…

      You’d see some report, illegal border crossing is (some specific metric). Who exactly is in charge of counting? Border Patrol‽ The same organization who’s budget benefits when there’s a crisis…

  • yngmnwntr@lemmy.mlEnglish
    45·
    13 days ago

    Hollywood deliberately shows molotov cocktails being made incorrectly. Anyone who shoves a rag in the neck of the bottle is gonna shower themselves in burning fuel when they try to throw it. Seal the bottle with a cork or screw cap and tie the rag around the neck.

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      12 days ago

      If you ever saw the show Hamilton’s Pharmacopedia? It is a vice documentary series about drugs. Despite what you might be thinking, it is really good. The host, Hamilton Morris, is a chemist as well as a journo. Interested in the chemistry and production of drugs, including the illicit cooking.

      So anyway, in the show, he is wanting to broadcast the production methods to create the different drugs, as well as explain the underlying chemistry. They had a lot of headaches during production because the legal team at Vice wouldn’t allow them to actually provide instructions on how to make drugs, or anything close to it. They would want him to leave out or intentionally misrepresent some key aspects. Out of integrity, he did not want to provide wrong scientific information and outright refused. So it took a lot of negotiating to find a way that satisfied everybody.

      You can find interviews/talks./writing where he talks about all aspects of this conflict. Basically he was under extreme pressure to do exactly what you say, and his view is that most people who are not extreme sticklers would probably just acquiesce and present the misleading information.

      He says that chemistry is intentionally made to be boring and shitty in school because there are 2 things you can really easily learn from basic chemistry: manufacture of bombs and drugs. So teenagers can’t really be taught it in an engaging way because its too much power to give them.

    • electric_nan@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      12 days ago

      Seriously. So much tidier to transport too. Also, there’s probably lots of serviceable recipes for the mixture, but Styrofoam and gasoline make a nice flammable jelly. Packing peanuts seem like a good source.

  • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    39·
    13 days ago

    The serial killer wave of the 70s and 80s was fallout from an MK-ultra-like scheme that was experimenting on unattached young men. My brain says that this is not true, but my heart says it is exactly what happened.

    • kgbbot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      29·
      13 days ago

      The Unibomber was a subject in one arm of MK-ULTRA. While at Harvard he was “debating” with another student who was actually a young prosecutor from Boston. His job was to disagree and completely invalidate Teddy and his whole logic structure.

      Add some female rejection after college and BOOM Unibomber.

      • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        24·
        13 days ago

        Idk if I remember correctly or not but I had heard a worse version of kazynsky’s MKULTRA experience. The professor running the experiment was highly regarded and someone who kazynsky looked up to. They had him spend hours writing long essays about what motivated him and what he believed in and then they had a panel that tore apart everything and belittle him over it. They also recorded him talking about his beliefs and played it back and mocked/deconstructed it to humiliate him and break him

          • kgbbot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            9·
            12 days ago

            I’ll shout at you until you’re healed…the emotional trauma is healing (if you’re a fucking bastard!)

        • kgbbot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          9·
          12 days ago

          You’re definitely filling in parts of the story I missed on…it’s been a few years since I read about it…The individual breaking him on behalf of the professor was the Boston Prosecutor posing as a student.

          I think you are the hero in this retelling…wonder if there’s any unrealized others…

    • red_giant [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      20·
      12 days ago

      my theory is that there really wasn’t a serial killer wave, there were really only like 5-10 legit serial killers anyway, and the FBI was perpetuating the idea of serial killers to regain public credibility after the church committee and COINTELPRO

  • daniyeg [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    35·
    13 days ago

    it’s not a well articulated conspiracy (it’s barely a conspiracy), but basically there’s this whole network of nano influencers (100-10k followers, mostly meme page admins) 4chan chuds that are basically the source of all evil on the internet. all the harassment, doxxing, death threats and astroturfing that happens is because these people periodically send links alongside what to say to their followers, to either boost a fake controversy or dogpile on a person/group because “it’s fun”, and there’s always one or two people with access to botnets that will generate fake traffic so that something doesn’t have 10k views and 2k comments. the reason you see some internet personalities freak out or quit suddenly is because they are used to getting 100 private messages, and then suddenly they get 5 thousand messages telling them to kill themselves.

    these things exist (i’ve seen multiple of these on telegram), the conspiracy part hinges on the scale and whether or not there are back channels coordinating these (centrally or decentrally it doesn’t matter). personally i think these are being decentrally coordinated through places like 8kun or whatever public but small and hard to access platform these people congregate in.

  • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    32·
    13 days ago
    1. 9/11 was either a US/Israeli op or they let it happen on purpose
    2. COVID19 originated in the US
    3. The Epstein stuff is just one of many billionaire-run human trafficking/blackmail networks
    4. The Epstein clique were dabbling in cannibalism
    5. Dead Internet is partially true and is primarily used to sway young people towards eco-fascism and right wing ideology
  • sexywheat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    32·
    13 days ago

    Here is my list of “conspiracy theories” that I believe in:

    Just look at a picture of Pierre Trudeau vs. Fidel and tell me which one was his dad, for the love of god this should be very obvious. The Trudeaus made a family trip to Cuba right around 9 months before JT was born (I swear to god wikipedia was edited to make the time lines not match up perfectly, but I have no proof of this, only faint memories of browsing wikipedia holes from years ago where I swear to god it added up to 9 months before hand)

    • Israel did 9/11

    The only people that seemed to have put any actual effort into researching this are actual antisemite pieces of shit and extreme right wing cranks, but the way that October 7th played out (Israel knew beforehand, got the arabs to create a pretense for what they wanted to do anyway, and then seized the moment to do genocide) matches up perfectly. Not to mention that Satanyahoo called Oct 7 “israel’s 9/11” kinda sus. The “dancing israelis” on 9/11 (especially their interview in hebrew media after the fact where they said they were in New York to “witness the event”) is a very fucking weird and sus smoking gun IMO. I always thought that the “9/11 truthers” were kinda insane despite bringing up some legitimate points, but after Oct 7 and the genocide that followed I couldn’t help but put the pieces together.

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      24·
      13 days ago

      I am open to Israel did 9/11. but “dancing israelis” is very weak. Similar to “the only reason someone would wear a polka dot dress to a political event would be to activate a post hypnotic suggestion”. They are circumstantial in the extreme. I would present this as “it was in their interests and comports with decades of prior and subsequent behavior but I have no specific evidence of it”.

      I recall reading somewhere that the US was planning to squish Israel down somewhat in the fall of 2001, but those plans were forgotten about after 9/11.

      If this was true I think there would be bragging about it somehwere. A journo or a scholar could find something, but it would need to be someone with a lot of context knowledge and hebrew, maybe arabic speaking. now that it’s 25 years later, statues of limitations starting to roll over, people retiring, some things can become declassified, and the overall sentiment in israel that they have god’s breath under their wings. All that should shake it lose, if there’s any fruit. But somebody skilled, with gonads of steel, would need to apply themselves to developing it.

    • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      13 days ago

      Those don’t count, too reasonable.

      How about this one: the CIA sabotaged the N1 rocket. Reasoning: they had obvious motive, and a history of doing that kind of thing

    • stink@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      13·
      13 days ago

      From May to October 2019, Virginia reported 19 respiratory disease outbreaks, a significant increase from the 13 and 15 outbreaks recorded during the same period in the previous two years. Laboratory tests were unable to identify the causes of some cases. In July 2019, two communities in northern Virginia reported outbreaks of pneumonia with unknown causes, which local media suspected to be “a mystery virus”. A total of 54 people exhibited symptoms such as fever, coughing, and feableness, resulting in two deaths. That same month, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory, located just one hour’s drive from the affected area, was suddenly shut down.

      • NewOldGuard@lemmy.mlEnglish
        8·
        12 days ago

        I remember reading so many articles in 2019 about mysterious pneumonia in nursing homes killing people, and young people getting respiratory illnesses that all got chalked up to illicit vapes being laced or having additives. Both things could be real on their own, but it has always felt like such odd timing to me

        • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          21·
          12 days ago

          reading so many articles in 2019 about mysterious pneumonia in nursing homes killing people,

          what kind of publication would you have been reading?

          There is no CSI deployed in these situations so it’s hard to know how any given case of pneumonia is more mysterious than another.

          re vapes, that is another story. It was about teenagers. I was considering posting about it to this thread because I do think there is a conspiracy there but it’s too long to explain. But you are mixing up 1 thing (popcorn lung) with something about nursing homes (???). Totally separate. Even if any COVID plot you can imagine was true, it is different people, with different motivations.

          • NewOldGuard@lemmy.mlEnglish
            2·
            11 days ago

            I’m stating them as two separate things, I’m not conflating the two. I’m saying it is a bizarre coincidence that 2019 was so rife with novel respiratory illness in so many areas given what the next year held in store. And the vape related illnesses were not blamed on popcorn lung, the speculation at the time was that it was vitamin E acetate added as a thinner that was killing people, which is a real issue but it wasn’t confirmed at the time.

            Also, they do test sick people in nursing homes to treat them, and perform autopsies when they die. You dont need CSI to know what virus caused it. People were not testing positive for any of the standard viruses that cause pneumonia or respiratory illness. It was widely reported at the time, literally search “nursing home mystery pneumonia 2019” and you’ll see well sourced articles from ABC, NBC, CNN, ACSH, Etc

            • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              11·
              11 days ago

              OK I did your web search and I found that 3 people died in 1 nursing home, which was unusual because it was in the summer. Nothing about autopsies. This 2019 article about diagnosing pneumonia came up, it doesn’t support what you are saying. I looked at the Virginia state law and I don’t think there are any mandatory autopsies in long term care if the cause of death is obvious.

              The Vit E was the actual cause of most vaping problems, but it was reported in the media like “popcorn lung caused by e-cigs”. I think it was willful misinfo by public health. “popcorn lung” is so evocative and therefore memorable. Doesnt it make you imagine your lungs turning to popcorn?

              What could the possible connection be between lung disease caused by a pathogen spread in close living conditions, and one cause by volunarty inhaling of a chemical?

  • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    30·
    13 days ago

    Microwave safe metal isn’t widespread outside of commercial kitchens because companies don’t want to be liable if a home cook warps/bends their microwave safe metal product and it causes a fire at home. And the profit margins for shitty quality metal is probably higher.

    I had an old housemate freak out because I microwaved a metal tray that I stole from work (and has probably been microwaved thousands of times)

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    29·
    13 days ago

    Jeffrey Epstein got a bunch of rich people to show up to his island because he was running a crypto-style yield farm (put in this much money and get a ridiculous % return) and the price for entry was black mail. So every kind of wheatcoin and gamification that a cryptobro creates is a miniature Epstein operation.

    Making Elon Musk all the more pathetic to beg to get into the actual party. It wasn’t even the point.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    26·
    13 days ago

    Kinda mild one, but the whole “backlash to the pro-breastfeeding movement/fed is best” thing in online spaces just screams “astroturfed by the baby formula companies.”

    • DelgadoSlims [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      12 days ago

      Sorry, but I have to disagree. My wife was unable to breastfeed our daughter due to a medication she was on, and all the shaming we faced for using formula was super fucking enraging. That’s gotta be a fairly common occurance so its no suprise that there’s a legion of angry parents out there ready to jump at your throat if they think you’re shaming them

      • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        10·
        12 days ago

        That’s gotta be a fairly common occurance

        Obviously we’re just trading anecdotes, but we never got flak for doing alternating between breastmilk and formula. Did hear from people who thought it was “weird” breastfeeding a baby for more than a couple months.

        However, it’s not just the complaining about the pro-breastfeeding camp. It’s that it would typically come with a lot of glazing of formula that sounded like it came off of PR copy.

        • DelgadoSlims [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          12·
          12 days ago

          Glazing the formula companies is super weird. We had to be formula exclusive during the big shortage in 2022, and I hate those companies with my life. Maybe I have not seen the kind of comments you were talking about because that sounds incredibly suspicious

          • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
            12·
            12 days ago

            That’s the tricky thing with astroturfing, often it’s not that the entire thing is astroturfed. That’s just the catalyst, or it latches onto a zeitgeist.

    • spudnik [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      15·
      13 days ago

      And he goes way back and shows up in the weirdest places. In 93/94 he was put in charge of the biosphere 2 project as a money man, and was a huge reason it ran out of money and eventually failed. He was some kind of producer or whatever in hollywood from like the early 90s. He’s just this weird human avatar of Finance Capital forced into a corporeal form so the system can exert its influence more directly