From the makers of Pizzagate and “The NFL is rigged” comes the latest tinfoil conspiracy theories — and you’re going to LOVE this one.
But first, we need to look backward before our brain melts and we turn into the walking dead. Since the dawn of the Internet, people have become more and more anonymous. When you don’t have to put your name to something, the validity of what you say becomes suspect. Say what you will, but at least those in the media and politics have to be held to having their name to some of the dumb things they say. This isn’t the case, obviously, on message boards and social media websites.
In some of the darker recesses of the Internet, anonymity is a badge of honor and back in 2017, on a website called 4-chan, that level of anonymity was pushed to its most extreme. A poster only known as “Q” would post cryptic pieces of information backed only by a promise that this information was coming from deep within the bowels of the “deep state.” These were also born in the shadow of the right-wing coming to power with Donald Trump’s presidency.
The conspiracies took a single sentence or a post and then took on a life of its own by “believers” who would then interpret them to mean all kinds of things. This resulted in claims that COVID-19 was a bio-terrorist attack; Hillary Clinton was running a sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza place, and, yes the attacks on the World Trade Center were an inside job. You’ve likely heard one or more of these – all of which have been debunked – but may have never known they were just originating from some goober in his basement tweeting out garbage.
If you look at these seriously, you can see the damage they’ve caused. January 6th violence was significantly enhanced by “Q-Anon” believers. But if you look at them like some sort of Andy Kauffman comedy piece, they’re actually quite hilarious.
Which brings me to last week’s Emergency Broadcast System test that tested all cell phones nationwide in a pre-planned, pre-communicated test. The test was important to test security protections that were put in after a false alert was sent out several years ago, on accident, in Hawaii alerting of an impending missile strike. These would only be used in a national emergency.
Here’s where the comedy of it comes in. And hold on to your tin foil for this one. Q-Anon theorists have long claimed that COVID vaccines have been ways that the government has been pushing mind-control or population controlling chemicals or technology. The vaccines, they claim, contain nano-probes that, when activated, could cause any manner of the population to turn into… wait for it… zombies. And that when the EBS was activated last week, the nano-probes would be triggered causing the zombie apocalypse. This was backed up by tweets and posts by actual human beings stating ‘TURN OFF YOUR PHONES’ ‘SAVE YOURSELVES.’
Well, guess what? The EBS was activated and those “tweeters” went silent. Again. Because they are stupid and gullible. For me, though, it’s high value entertainment because, frankly, I’d love to see a little zombie apocalypse heading right up 64th Street through Parkville. Maybe next year?
In the meantime, the best place to go for all your zombie information shouldn’t be the Internet – it should be the Spirit of Halloween costume store.
(Get more Chris as @TheFakeNed on X, the app formerly known as Twitter)