Flat-earth for some reason is making a resurgence from the late 1400s into 2019.
We are not amused. But then, this is our reality now. We don't know what it was like a few years back.
But our elders have wisdom to share about conspiracies past. Now is the time to listen.
u/ActualGodYeebus asked:
Older folk, this generation has the "flat earth" conspiracy. What were some of the dumbest conspiracies or crazes or bandwagons going around during your time?
Here were some of the answers.
McCartney/Lavigne
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One of the Beatles (think it was Paul?) had secretly died and their album art and music were laced with hints, including messages you could hear if you played the records backwards. Some people took this quite seriously.
Weirdly enough, today, there is a very similar conspiracy theory concerning Avril Lavigne. Lavigne is a Canadian singer who was real big in the early 2000s and, according to the CT, died sometime around 2005 and was replaced by an impersonator. Depending on the version of the CT, the impersonator is either a fan or a close friend of Lavigne who looks a lot like her.
Wait, So, This ISN'T Real???
That you had a "permanent record" at school where they recorded everything you did and it would follow you your whole life. That's now the job of social media.
Holy sh*t yes! Everything in school, even in cartoons, the dreaded PERMANENT RECORD!
This Is How Conservatives Think
Satanic messages inserted into rock music. The messages could only be heard if you play the album backwards but when played normally your subconscious mind would somehow absorb these messages and that's how Satan would take over your life. There were apparently huge satan worshipping covens all over the place, kidnapping children for rituals.
Today we'd probably call it "Satangate".
The World Keep Turnin Girl
Various "the world is going to end on (this specific date)" typically predicted by a cult leader. I remember those in my childhood and teens, but don't think I've heard of any more since the Jim Jones cult mass murder/suicide. I guess that kind of a prediction these days is a good way to get yourself investigated.
Pseudo-Science Now
Before the internet there wasn't much of a bandwagon to jump on. Conspiracy theories were for weirdos and enthusiasts. But there were a lot of really idiotic rumors about celebrities, like that one about Marilyn Manson having a rib removed so he could perform autofellatio. With the advent of Internet, people began to act like experts on every f*cking thing, but back then it was mostly, "well, I heard that...". Someone might think that Elvis was still alive, but they couldn't spew out all these pseudo-scientific factoids, like they do now.
Adults Are Usually More Gullible Than Kids
Here in South Africa when I was around 8 we used to get these "tazzos" (small, plastic circular disks) with Pokémon on them in packs of chips.
They were huge collectable for us kids and we all loved them until a newspaper published a story about the devil (the ACTUAL DEVIL) coming out of a tazzo and killing a little girl.
It started massive outcry that those tazzos were satanic and demonic and a bunch of other BS.
I still don't know how every adult who read it wasn't like "this is so dumb" and ignore it.
At Least You Came To Your Senses
I worked at a club in Florida during the early 80's. They provided housing, but it was like living at the Y with shared bathrooms, etc. Everyone was pretty chill with the gay guys who worked there until one of them got hep C and thanks to all the AIDS rumours, a bunch of us kinda got freaked out. The Health Dept came in and gave us all shots, and we weren't entirely sure what was happening. I have to shamefully admit that I steered clear of him until i came to my senses
You Scared Sis
Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster. There seemed to be countless specials about these guys during the '70s. Oh, and UFOs. Lots of grainy pictures of UFOs.
My brother was totally into all of these. I, on the other hand, was a paranoid little girl. Every creak, every shadow in my ancient home was attributed to aliens. When I was dragged on camping trips, I preferred to hold my bladder all night than risk encountering Bigfoot. Geographically, I was spared the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster, but they all contributed to the myth of these strange creatures.
One of our favorite family stories is the time I slept walked early on a Saturday morning and headed downstairs to watch cartoons. Unbeknownst to me, my father had been sleeping on the sofa that night. I came down, saw a being on a sofa, and my sleep-addled mind "saw" an alien. I did what any 8-year-old would do - I screamed like a banshee and told the household there was an alien on the sofa. My brother reacted like any alien-obsessed 10-year-old - he came barreling down the steps while I was trying to run up the same steps. My father sat up wondering whether a murder was being committed in front of him. My mother probably threw up her hands and wondered how she managed to be stuck in such a crazy family.
People Are Dark AF
Around 2005 there was an advert in the UK for Frosties cereal.
There were crazy rumours going round for a couple of years that the boy in it had killed himself due to bullying because of how bad the advert was, and even crazier ones that he was actually dead to begin with - that he was CGI'd in, and that his singing had been stitched together from home clips.
Scare Tactics
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Whenever a kid disappeared near my old school, every single adult would blame "an old gang that kidnapped kids for organ harvesting, then, after luring and killing the kid, they would throw the body with no organs, naked in the streets".
Whenever this happened there was always a classmate who would say: "My mom told me that this people have been kidnaping children since she was our age".
No real proof about this "gang" appeared, so i always assumed that this was fake or a parents/schools strategies to "teach" kids to don't accept candy from strangers.
We also had the "if you play this song backwards, you will listen to the real message", with songs like "Asereje", "Pulcino pio (spanish version)". Shakira having a few ribs removed from her body, because you can't move your hips the way she does *You Can't*.
Yu Gi Oh! cards being satanic or cursed, because of boobs and weird drawings.
Pokémon being... you guessed it, satanic or cursed.
And my favorite, and old curse killing government members who were involved on Simon Bolivar's body exhumation.
Ok, who is watching the clock? Those seconds aren't going to count themselves. The only way to understand time is to be its witness. Although that can get depressing. Let's focus on the light and cool.
History...
Calculate Figure It Out GIF by OriginalsGiphy"If you are an 80-year-old American, you have lived through approximately 1/3 of our nation's entire history."
Those Days...
"The 80s were 40 years ago."
"This is what messes me up because I was born in 82 and graduated high school in 2000 so for some reason my brain is stuck on the 80's being twenty years ago. The 70's thirty years ago etc etc. I have to stop and realize sometimes that my concept of how long ago things happened is way off."
Time goes by...
"We observe that light travels at 186,000 miles a second, but given the vast size of the observable universe, that's a snail's pace. But from the point of view of a particle of light, time doesn't even exist."
"Time slows down as you approach the speed of light, and theoretically stops completely when you reach the speed of light."
Years Gone By...
"MLK Jr. and Anne Frank were born in the same year."
"Betty White was born in 1922. Automatically pre-sliced packaged bread loaves became commercially available in 1928. Betty White is six years older than sliced bread."
Long Live the Queen!
queen elizabeth images GIFGiphy"The queen and Marilyn Monroe would've been the same age."
"And Marilyn Monroe and Andy Griffith were born on the same day!"
- osme1
I swear Liz is going to outlive dirt. Wait, I believe she already has. Well she won't be alone, she'll have Betty White. At least she better have Betty. Time is nothing without Queen Betty.
TV Time
Season 2 Omg GIF by Paramount+Giphy"Happy Days was a TV show made in the 1970s-80s about teenagers in the 1950s. Similarly, That 70s Show was made in the 90s-00s about teenagers in the 70s. If a similar show were to be made today, it would be about teenagers in the 2000s."
- VVillyD
A Croc
"If a T-Rex imagined a creature as ancient as the T-Rex is to us, it would be a Stegosaurus. If that Stegosaurus imagined a creature as ancient as the Stegosaurus is to us, it would be a Crocodile. If that Crocodile imagined a creature as ancient as that Crocodile is to us, it would be a Shark."
On the Clock
"On a twenty four hour clock the amount of time that humans have been on the earth would total around five seconds."
"How about this one: If Homo Habilus first appeared at midnight, 24 hours ago, that means the first Homo Sapiens appeared at 9:25 PM, or about 2 and a half hours ago. The first human civilization, in lower Mesopotamia, appeared at 11:57 PM, or about 3 minutes ago."
"The Western Roman Empire fell at 11:59 PM, or 1 minute ago. Everything that has happened since - the Crusades, the Plague, the discovery of the New World, the world wars, all of it - has happened in the last minute of human existence."
And that's just OUR Sun...
"The span of our lives are so insignificantly small that our Sun will last another 5 billion years. That's 9 zeros people. Our eldest live to around 100 in the best places. That's 50,000,000 (50 million) times longer than any person can reasonably expect to live. And that's just OUR Sun. The universe as a whole has probably existed for magnitudes longer than that already and will continue to exist until the end of time as we know it."
Tell Me a Story
william shakespeare GIF by will herringGiphy"We know what a good storyteller Shakespeare was but there were Greek playwrights who wrote shows nearly 2,000 years earlier that are pretty good, too."
I hate time. Only because I'm petty and irritated of the amount I squandered. That's neither here nor there though. Time marches on and continues to amaze. I'll keep watching.
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