Ever since Coast to Coast AM, I've been fascinated by conspiracy theorists and have followed them for over two decades. The psychology of it, how they parasitically attach to the gaps in knowledge about an event and inject those gaps with fear or hatred, is fascinating. Like the neurovirus from Snow Crash but for boomers. The communities they form are a mecca for the most confused and ill people on the internet and had an interesting ideological metagame way before reddit did. But prior to gangstalking, they were always in some way hierarchical. UFO shit would come from civilian sources but be filtered through the military or media or specific conspiracy theorists selling books. 9/11 shit came through a federal commission, engineering panels, and specific conspiracy theorists selling books. Antisemitism is always selling a specific ideology regardless of the fuck-fuck games they play to obfuscate the antisemitism.
Gangstalking is the first big shift for me. There is no coherent narrative to the gangstalking conspiracy, only that the participants feel stalked and observe a pattern. Other participants confirm their delusions because there is a myspace pc4pc relationship where they'll get confirmation for their own delusions by the same group. For someone facing a lot of psychological persecution, the trauma and loneliness that causes makes that a much more powerful version of the relationships you build on forums. They're confirming the antagonist only you are aware of. There are grifters who try to centralise it or collect a bunch of them into a specific conspiracy theory, but gangstalking is the first truly democratic conspiracy theory I've seen. Everything is crowdsourced and the crowd is the doing a Paris Commune thing. That shift means that anything a mentally ill person believes will be confirmed by the group that confirms everything to sustain itself. Other conspiracies might have elements that turn you off- I think the Nimitz and Roosevelt UFO videos are evidence of something but UFO conspiracies immediately become bullshit- but gangstalking is a purely positive feedback loop. Even challenges to the personal conspiracies being contributed are just asking them to define their antagonist better.
Q Anon is the synthesis of the two kinds of conspiracy theory. It has that whole probably-Jim Watkins hierarchical element which keeps the conspiracy useful to power, but both early on and increasingly now it's becoming this indecipherable mishmash of every conspiracy theory or woo belief that can be absorbed. Everybody can contribute something and the conspiracy is built out of those contributions as much if not more than the Q posts. When I was on their discord servers early on, what kept those boomers motivated was that they were insufferable people chainsmoking in front of a computer while spitting and saying "yep" on an open mic every minute. All they wanted was a community which believed the things that they read on facebook. Their kids wouldn't reply to them about those things even though they're evidence of the big happening. It was the same gangstalking dynamic where they say anything and it becomes true to everyone.
There isn't really crossover in content apart from the generic conspiracies that explain who is gangstalking you. Gangstalkers might think it's the government or gangs or a cult, Qanon is a more structured understanding of those things. That structure reverts to the same democratic centralism of most conspiracy theories. Gangstalkers fold in and it's a buffet of content that rewards original research into its canon, but a lot of their gangstalking stories are like "I saw a red car three times in one hour" or thinking the bus drivers have it out for them. It doesn't have the same legitimacy as the other conspiracy theories which make up Q.
Ever since Coast to Coast AM, I've been fascinated by conspiracy theorists and have followed them for over two decades. The psychology of it, how they parasitically attach to the gaps in knowledge about an event and inject those gaps with fear or hatred, is fascinating. Like the neurovirus from Snow Crash but for boomers. The communities they form are a mecca for the most confused and ill people on the internet and had an interesting ideological metagame way before reddit did. But prior to gangstalking, they were always in some way hierarchical. UFO shit would come from civilian sources but be filtered through the military or media or specific conspiracy theorists selling books. 9/11 shit came through a federal commission, engineering panels, and specific conspiracy theorists selling books. Antisemitism is always selling a specific ideology regardless of the fuck-fuck games they play to obfuscate the antisemitism.
Gangstalking is the first big shift for me. There is no coherent narrative to the gangstalking conspiracy, only that the participants feel stalked and observe a pattern. Other participants confirm their delusions because there is a myspace pc4pc relationship where they'll get confirmation for their own delusions by the same group. For someone facing a lot of psychological persecution, the trauma and loneliness that causes makes that a much more powerful version of the relationships you build on forums. They're confirming the antagonist only you are aware of. There are grifters who try to centralise it or collect a bunch of them into a specific conspiracy theory, but gangstalking is the first truly democratic conspiracy theory I've seen. Everything is crowdsourced and the crowd is the doing a Paris Commune thing. That shift means that anything a mentally ill person believes will be confirmed by the group that confirms everything to sustain itself. Other conspiracies might have elements that turn you off- I think the Nimitz and Roosevelt UFO videos are evidence of something but UFO conspiracies immediately become bullshit- but gangstalking is a purely positive feedback loop. Even challenges to the personal conspiracies being contributed are just asking them to define their antagonist better.
Q Anon is the synthesis of the two kinds of conspiracy theory. It has that whole probably-Jim Watkins hierarchical element which keeps the conspiracy useful to power, but both early on and increasingly now it's becoming this indecipherable mishmash of every conspiracy theory or woo belief that can be absorbed. Everybody can contribute something and the conspiracy is built out of those contributions as much if not more than the Q posts. When I was on their discord servers early on, what kept those boomers motivated was that they were insufferable people chainsmoking in front of a computer while spitting and saying "yep" on an open mic every minute. All they wanted was a community which believed the things that they read on facebook. Their kids wouldn't reply to them about those things even though they're evidence of the big happening. It was the same gangstalking dynamic where they say anything and it becomes true to everyone.
deleted by creator
Conspiracy theories appeal to people because the complexity of the world and lack of coherent narrative to it make them react with fear and anger. There are totally conspiracies that exist and we should be fearful and angry about them, but for some people that becomes their dominant modality. Illnesses like paranoid schizophrenia are completely unchecked versions of it which is why they're so prevalent in gangstalking.
There isn't really crossover in content apart from the generic conspiracies that explain who is gangstalking you. Gangstalkers might think it's the government or gangs or a cult, Qanon is a more structured understanding of those things. That structure reverts to the same democratic centralism of most conspiracy theories. Gangstalkers fold in and it's a buffet of content that rewards original research into its canon, but a lot of their gangstalking stories are like "I saw a red car three times in one hour" or thinking the bus drivers have it out for them. It doesn't have the same legitimacy as the other conspiracy theories which make up Q.