Two idiotic coronavirus conspiracies are spreading with the virus

I’ve always been fascinated with conspiracy theories – they’re entertaining. Sometimes, you see these zany ideas printed on pages taped to lampposts in cities. Other times, conspiracies are broadcasted on YouTube by showmen like Alex Jones, who became barred from most social medium platforms in 2018. He’s currently flogging Superblue Fluoride-free Toothpaste on Amazon.

Conspiracy theories are humorous – they’re often imaginative. Conspiracy theories carry an intrigue. Most often, conspiracies are ridiculous without sound foundations based on scientific or historical verifications – but these details have never made conspiracies less compelling.

Nobody would search British Columbian rainforests for Bigfoot or scan South American skies for flying saucers if conspiracies and the paranormal weren’t popular for at least a minority of hardened followers.  

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code wouldn’t have become a bestseller, if some readers weren’t interested in devouring tales about conspiracies.   

The majority of us don’t take conspiracies seriously, but many do. One summer, I removed a sopping copy of Brown’s The Da Vinci Code off the porch of the King Hiram Lodge as I walked by in Didsbury Alberta. There must’ve been an obscure and symbolic reason for leaving the book behind on the doorstep of rural Albertan Freemason lodge – the social club has been a source of conspiracies for hundreds of years.   

There’s rarely ample proof or investigations to back most conspiracies, but these outlandish notions are often built upon shared conjectures strengthened from self-generated media.    

Conspiracy theories are often foundations of many fiction works. Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent, is an early study. Set in London in 1886, Adolf Verloc owns a shop selling porn and contraceptives. Verloc is also employed as a secret agent for an unknown country (perhaps Russia). He’s involved with a group of anarchists – they are crazed extremists against Victorian England – they want to destroy the world of the bourgeoisie.

Foucault’s Pendulum by Italian author, Umberto Eco, is a masterpiece divided into 10 segments. This satiric novel is filled with references to the Kabbalah, alchemy and the Knights Templar – all familiar references for conspiracy devotees. The novel from 1988 begins with the narrator, Casaubon, hiding inside the Parisian technical museum – the Musée des Arts et Métiers, certain members of a secret society kidnapped his friend, Jacopo Belbo, When the novel opens, the higher powers are after him.

The coronavirus has brought the best in some, with many remaining on the frontlines as healthcare workers, or in the service industry, helping others attain goods and services during a worldwide pandemic.

Others are volunteering by producing masks from donations or delivering food for the vulnerable and elderly. Meanwhile, others are spending their time in isolation by creating then proliferating two dangerous streams of conspiracies on the web.

In the Bill Gates theory, the billionaire is linked to the COVID-19 virus and a massive vaccine hoax.

From the months of February to April 2020, the New York Times discovered Gates had been mentioned with the virus a staggering 1.2 million times. The conspiracy mantra against the Microsoft creator is so popular, the story resting on no evidence whatsoever crested at 18,000 mentions a day this spring.

The theories against Bill Gates have varied. Some orthodoxies in the Gates-hates sects say he wants to profit off a COVID-19 vaccine. Other believers declare Gates is either trying to cull humanity, or employ a global surveillance system. All insanity, but strongly trusted by the faithful.

Then there’s the 5G conspiracies – their central principles rest on comical opinions about the coronavirus being transmitted through mobile phone masts. NHS England Medical Director Stephen Powis branded the 5G conspiracy now seen in every corner of the web as “The worst kind of fake news.”

The 5G fable is as fantastical as elves and unicorns, but the UK’s mobile networks showed 20 cases of masts being targeted in the country, a BBC report on April 15 revealed. Videos of these destructive incidents were shared on social media throughout England, mostly by mobile phones of course.

Thankfully, only a minority of us are live in a bizarre universe, where Bill Gates supposedly constructed a Plannedemic. Most of us fail to understand the dangerous but faithful eccentrics who say a virus is transmitted by a technology they mistrust but ironically depend on.

Believers in the Bill Gates and 5G myths are living on a discoloured, twisted planet far from earthly sensibilities.

Hopefully, most of these conspiracy disciples will leave their hazardous and unproven opinions behind after the clouds of the pandemic have lifted.       

        

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Assiniboia Times can be found here ***