You can find talk of conspiracies, coverups, subterfuge, secret plans, machinations, cabals, oligarchies, and doomsday warnings just about everywhere these days. Posts appear all over social media like late night commercials. Well, my social media at least. I clicked on David Icke once going on in a PowerPoint presentation about lizard people and the queen, and now I can’t shake it. Algorithms are like gremlins, causing havoc throughout the internet. Or is that conspiratorial, too?
I actually like David Icke. I find his storytelling engaging, especially when it comes to his career in soccer and coming up through traditional media like the BBC. I’m less certain about his ideas about harmonic convergence and vibrations. Still, he’s like the Saint John Chrysostom of the genre, the golden-tongued orator of the neo-Gnostic set, effusing secret knowledge as if he were giving a TED Talk. He participated in a TEDMED event back in 2012, pre-Covid.
There can be little doubt that this genre of social media, in addition to its purported content, is meant to be entertaining. It used to be a matter of selling newspapers or popcorn. Now, it’s clicks. Anything that will get you to click on a post is fair play. I spend time on X and YouTube with occasional forays into Rumble because of Glenn Greenwald and its uncensored vaccine debates. I appreciate anything that is uncensored. I am a grown man who can evaluate things and think for himself, thank you.
There are many other platforms, of course: e.g., Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok. It looks like TikTok will be around for some time given the recent Supreme Court ruling. I think its cute, alternative spelling must have had something to do with it. Its CEO got an invitation to the inauguration tomorrow in the Capitol Rotunda. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Great Britain did not, which is no surprise. His Labor Party sent staffers to the US to help with the dreams and aspirations of Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign. Things did not end well.
One feature in particular these platforms share is the claim that secrets are being kept from the public, you and me. It’s all about what we don’t know, don’t hear, don’t see, and don’t understand. I can’t scroll through YouTube without running across a dozen videos challenging me to find out the truth about such and such and enticing me to like-subscribe-follow for the real story. In the end, though, they may be right. Are we not fed manufactured news concocted in the lab for general consumption that provides calories but little nourishment?
It gets tiresome. The real story often turns out to be given by some guy with a flashy intro and outro but nothing in between but gossip-page sensationalism. This isn’t confined to politics, although the circus known as American politics reigns supreme with recent Canadian antics with the boy-king also making headlines. You see it with vitamins, health food, exercise, fashion (e.g., the right and wrong way for men to wear scarves; hint: not like the French), and religion, the mother lode of secret knowledge. My favorite is the cardiologist in funny glasses pitching his brand of olive oil.
In addition to being critical, skeptical, or even ruthless with these claims, it’s important to question who the “they” are said to be holding back knowledge about everything from UFOs to cleansing your colon. I even saw the other day how “they” don’t want me to know how teeth cleaning at the dentist can be deadly. I don’t know if it has anything to do with fluoride, but General Ripper and his “precious bodily fluids” came to mind.
This thinking can lead to anxiety, which has been and continues to be a problem in the West, as well as paranoia. “They” can become an unknown, unfriendly, unwanted force that threatens our existence. When that happens, we typically project our demons onto others in an attempt to divert the threat. This often sets up an “us versus them” mentality that pushes people farther apart and deepens political and ideological divides. This is true even in families. We need look no further than our own bloody Civil War to see that. Or the inauguration.
But maybe “they” aren’t who we think they are and what they don’t want us to know is not some hidden knowledge. Maybe it’s been us all along.
Just maybe.
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