You read that right. According to a huge number of people, the earth is indeed flat and its edges are found in the Antarctic. They say that the shape of the world you see from space is down to the efforts of a skilled special effects team working overtime.
Of course, this is absurd, yet there are many that will fight you over it. Here’s another:
‘Chem trails are killing us.’
The lines in the sky are part of a worldwide global agenda to bring the population of planet earth down. People think that pilots and airlines are all in on the act of population reduction and we are helpless to stop them.
Crazy right?
These are just two of the many rabbit holes that the internet will have you believe is real. TikTok and Twitter have become virtual breeding grounds for some of the worst cases of conspiracy that are shared the world over.
This growing trend on social media focusses on sensationalism to hold the attention of the curious, creating clicks and fuelling algorithms. It allows for monetisation and many are hooked. Advertisers pay while the platforms get richer.
But why are we so obsessed by conspiracy?
When I was growing up it was all about The Bermuda Triangle and the possibility of time travel (in a Delorian mostly). However, today’s stories surpass the tales of ghost ships and flux capacitors.
Some conspiracy theories in the post Covid world have proven to be true which has fuelled others that are clearly not. And sometimes, unfortunately, yesterday’s conspiracy becomes today’s conspiracy fact.
Anyone interested in the news will always seek to find ‘the truth’. From JFK’s murder to 9/11 there have always been stories around the narrative about what’s really going on behind the scenes and beliefs that the Illuminati are making decisions ‘for the greater good’.
When I was younger there would be the odd book in the library that would get us kids excited. We’d pass it round to read and think that somehow we were in the know and nobody else was. Playground stories played out for months when someone saw something unexplained and everyone became the next Sherlock Holmes.
In the midst of all the excitement, we’d come across the truth and it was always less sensational than we had imagined. The excitement that all the speculation had brought us was what we enjoyed the most.
Then we grew up into people who wanted to follow a quest for truth and speak out in the name of justice. Only, this did mean a lot of people getting stuck down an endless number of rabbit holes! From Princess Diana being ‘murdered’ by the royal family, to Hitler being alive in South America.
Now, fake is attacking real at an alarming rate and standing up for truth is getting harder when the truth isn’t always what people want to hear. It’s actually less exciting.
What about a quest for authenticity? It is in such short supply! There has been an emergence of independent news outlets because people are looking for authenticity and a lack of it is leaving impartial institutions feeling threatened. When the dust settles, conspiracy theories actually start to reveal themselves as true facts.
‘Hunter Biden laptop is real’,‘ Highly probable leaks from a lab’.
Time is telling and the conspiracy of a few years ago is now becoming the real narrative. Our trusted news sources have been called into question. Just like with our politicians, the level of distrust is high, and many people no longer even watch the news, let alone read it.
Recently, I heard someone say Twitter is becoming our ‘trusted’ news source. The problem is that the levels of misinformation on Twitter have gone skyward on other subjects, apart from lockdowns and Covid. I’ve seen grainy alien craft (always shot on a low res camera), and sea monsters of Biblical proportions.
This has probably come as a result of removing thousands of staff members at Twitter whose job was to fact check. This said, even the fact checkers themselves were accused of dubious practices. Yet during Covid and since, false narratives were revealed and questionable science was err… questioned.
As more and more crazy stories emerge, Musk’s Twitter 2.0 has a massive challenge on its hands and the appointment of Linda Yaccarino as CEO has had both the right and left up in arms. Maybe that is a good sign!
In the last year, what has emerged is that excess deaths are going through the roof, the vaccine didn’t necessarily stop the spread, pharma made monumental amounts of money from Covid, side effects from vaccinations do exist, even affecting millions of women’s menstrual cycles. These stories are still running and hopefully truth and justice will prove who did or didn’t do the right thing.
It seems that the only sane thing to do is to be a critical thinker. Check the facts and check them again. We should be questioning, discussing and exploring. Twitter is not a primary news source and we need to be willing to do the necessary research and get to the heart of what is real and what is not.
We have access to so much information.
‘ Fake news ’is more than a term used to cover disagreement. It just takes a little more time to uncover it.
Sadly, it’s the power of polarisation that has undermined our conversations. You have to be either right or left, awake or asleep, pro- or anti-vax, science or people. We have lost the art of conversation. You’re wrong until proven wrong.
What happened to the ability to question and to reason?
However, certainty is something you need. How can you build your life on uncertainty? What I’m asking is how can we have certainty when the facts are not always real..? I believe we can.
This is how…
When you unplug yourself from the matrix you get back to your core values. The noise of technology is dimmed, our brains switch back on again and our intuition and intelligence is awakened. We were the ones that created the machines – we aren’t supposed to be ruled by them! We need to look up. Engage with one another. Be confident to question but be braver about taking up a position of truth.
No more autopilot, it’s time to engage again! We have been travelling via sat nav rather than following the signs, reading the maps and following our inner compass.
Switching the news off is becoming commonplace. However, even entertainment is framed with views that feed bias and news narratives that seek to make fiction fact.
I choose to switch off the doom and gloom. It will end up distracting me so much that I won’t be able to enjoy life. Or I’ll end up mixing fact and fiction. Just because my TV tells me something, it doesn’t mean it’s real.
I’m not alone either. The push-back is real. A growing number of people that once believed what their TV told them are now ready to unplug, and not just TV, even social media. AI can become an amplification of terrible information, and remove our ability to think for ourselves! So, even though switching off, looking up and engaging with those around us seems like a step backward, it is actually a step forward!
That is what we should be fighting for. The return of curiosity and creativity over consumption. A return to innovation, discussion and seeking the deeper things. Walks outside, the world around us and the beauty of deep conversations that allow us to be uncomfortable enough to bring understanding of the other person’s position rather than winning or losing.
As we explore the world there should be a quest to find what is in us. The hope that lives in our hearts, the voice that keeps us on purpose if we take enough time to listen when distractions are placed at a distance.
True authenticity is what we are looking for and we won’t find it scrolling, surfing and consuming. The algorithms are not stacked in our favour.
Even in a world of ads and content marketing the truth is out there. The content you can engage in should add value and enhance your journey, with tried and tested insights to help you go further than before. The old ways might indeed be the best.
We need to be looking to enrich others rather than exposing them. The noise of a thousand whistle blowers falters when someone comes along who is truly pursuing purpose and seeking to help others. Positivity trumps negativity every time.
Conspiracy theory is around us, just as much as corruption, lying, cheating and stealing. There’s a web of intrigue and it is intruding upon what really matters.
Focusing on ‘what if ’enables us to miss ‘what is’. The opportunity to engage in the real and impact our families, our neighbours and friends or show kindness to the brokenhearted. Why not try to be authentic and make a positive impact rather than trying to expose the whole world’s problems from your keyboard with a few hundred followers.
Time tells and ultimately so does the truth. Sowing and reaping is a natural law that will play out.
Even the richest men overplay their hand eventually, virtue signalling gets replaced by the truth in time and the murkiness rises to the surface. The truth is out there and it does eventually emerge. When you focus on what is right, the wrong will eventually surface.
In a world of tale-telling, our responsibility is to be committed to telling the truth. Marketing is the message and we want to be telling facts, not selling fiction. Products and services should be making an impact to make their story worth telling.
Your brand can inspire, encourage and uplift and the company behind the message can be motivated by the right things and have a team that are aligned. When you do the right things against the values you live by you create enough evidence to make people want to seek out and find out what makes you different.
Never mind if Elvis is still alive, or the moon landings were fake, you are ready to live in the real world!
Good news never falls flat, it travels. And when people experience something good, the message goes around the globe and stands the test of time.
We can help you with that! We are Cre8ion