How I Became a Conspiracy Theorist

A cautionary tale.

Short answer: The term “conspiracy theorist” is a relatively recent and top-down propagated derogatory label used against people who can think for themselves and dare to be open about it. Therefore a stupid yet effective conversation stopper; taken literally it shouldn’t feel like an insult.

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The full answer is more complex and personal, somewhat as follows:

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Before the mid 00s or so, all Greeks were conspiracy theorists, although “we” couldn’t yet identify as such. Lacking the enlightened linguistic tools to help embrace our true selves. Most without an internet connection and unable to verify much, so bullshit and truth was believed according to one’s political preferences and personal biases. This seems true to this day, all around the globe¹ as well. People can generally see conspiracies even after the dreaded label takes root in the local culture. With so much information available, one can choose what seems more profitable to believe in, then call rivals “conspiracy theorists” or any other term of similar function. Followers of whatever party (or the uniparty) pick their truth accordingly. Cowards will never think (out loud) outside the limits of politically correct discourse. But this is not about other people, it’s all about ME, the arrogant asshole who thinks he’s better than partisans, gaslighters and cowards. Though admittedly I’ve never been the bravest person on earth.

Young I was and didn’t care about politics, but saw the left as better than the right because they appeared less greedy and racist. Was becoming quite the well-rounded teenage nerd with a functional bullshit detector, even when I couldn’t see answers. When the mainstream media cried in unison that the eve of the year 2000 could have magical anti-computer powers with potential to end civilization, it felt too absurd, and I had no clue on such tech. Later I thought: Couldn’t all those fucking morons have someone program a computer calendar ahead and see what happens? In Greece or in any of the other countries that pushed that digi-horror trash as news. Friends challenged with that years afterwards acted like I was being paranoid. Maybe they were just too scared to think through the implications of a large scale conspiracy against them.

9/11 was different and almost as special as a white woke snowflake. We were still culturally allowed to blame the evil imperialist “Αμερικανάκια”² for plotting an inside job, and many did, especially on the left. This was rapidly changing, as the “War on Terror” and the later ObamaCares took over the hearts and minds of the westernized helotry international.

Up to my late teens I was way into commercial sports, especial football, but those increasingly appeared fake and corrupt to me. The Blues and the Greens of East Roman charioteer fame mind control spectacle. Money laundering and acolytes for the powerful, pressure valve and sponsor t-shirts for the serfs. The weak Greece football circus as European champions and Eurovision success (for our Greek Goddesses) and the Athens Olympics (for everyone) all together and oh so real and hundreds of construction workers and thousands of stray dogs and great public wealth sacrificed to the Grand Spectacle and the revival of NationalPrideTM. Before the fall.

But what did I know, I was just a young introvert semi-punk that few dared to debate honestly. In hindsight, it was not that bad yet, people had attempts at conversation without an (inner) woke referee waiting to kill substance with buzzwords. And most of them largely respected each other on things that mattered, even though they were gradually becoming more tolerant to bad actors.

Meanwhile, Greek TV was getting full of conspiracy theory merchants, starting to associate anything majorly anti-system with the far right and various irrelevant or fake bullshit. The 00s were the also the start of the final struggle for the Greek left. I mean the people, the parties already sucked. The reaction to a cop murdering a teenager and the start of the following economic crisis were the left’s last hurrah. Those years also saw the rise of widespread youth-anarchism, before it’s utter infiltration and commercialization and wokefication along with the left. I lived much of this on the ground. Witnessed the people using wishful thinking against advanced police tactics (and false flags) that they didn’t want to acknowledge as real. Saw the accomplished journos reporting almost everything upside down, like the well-paid mercenary mouthpieces they still are. On much of it I knew exactly what had happened, I wasn’t just an outside observer making guesses.

In the early 10s, with many refugees arriving due to NATO (proxy) wars - by now mostly approved in the Greek mainstream due to “Muslim Terrorism” and “Assad’s Chem Warfare” - a previously obscure fascist party became the main attraction on TV news:

• The “illegals” cause problems (on repeat)

• The fascists hunt them to protect us (on video, the police does nothing)

• The fascists help grandma cross the road (later proved a member’s relative)

• Common people on TV approve the fascists (often those interviewed proved to be members)

• Mainstream arch-fascist interviews (including with major asshole journalist later turned centrist party leader)

• Concentration camps (introduced in the public discourse by leftist singer, once singing about refugee struggles)

• And much more

The fascists were soon in the Parliament. Most everyone refused to see their rise as a psyop. Reaction was almost exclusively racism bad / vote left / (teen girls love) antifa. Years later, in late 2020, the fascists were scapegoated to earn legitimacy for the globalist right wing government (and to keep the left busy as they cluelessly awaited freedom by “safe & effective” magic injection). The left was ecstatic (as much as masked covidiots can be) and the same TV channels that once promoted the now criminal fascist MPs were the voice of reason and justice.

Back to the timeline, the mid 2010s came with ongoing economic and refugee crisis and increased state oppression. State trickery included the discovery of “Alexander the Great’s tomb” in Amphipolis, which made no sense according to most dating efforts, and especially location. It kept many shittyzens busy for a while; those clueless in history are the most proud of it. Later, the upstart left wing government completely betrayed its promises - and - the results of a crucial referendum they themselves enacted.

The resistance was largely busy with more and shittier drugs, and improving their skills in TheScienceTM one-liners, identity politics and adultery. Trying to be fair to them, the global culture trap was turning “left” and cultural “victories”, localized “progressive” NGOs, “political” drug parties and educated anarcho-tourists must have looked like exotic remedies to defeated folk and the rising numbers of medicated and gender confused youngsters.

Censorship and digital surveillance were becoming more obvious, but it was borderline taboo or too boring to discuss them. Several major TV channels managed to show - and provide serious analysis on - a scene from “The Interview” movie as legit Kim Jong Un propaganda footage. The Trump craze was (un)popular as a rising threat to the identity politics cult, with some Hilarious imperialist feminism and feeling the Bern thrown in the mix. I think I was one of the few in Greece who actually observed American and global politics in detail and from very varied sources, trying to make sense of what more and more appeared as organized globalism. After all why were “our” factories in enemy commie China and “our” tech corps aiding the digital gulag? Why was sexist trap music mass promoted by the same mass media obsessed with identity politics? Why was everyone in the woke legions ignoring Biden’s longtime and obvious harassment of kids and women?

Then came “covid”. The rest is history.

1. Sorry, I’m no flat earther. Keep reading, won’t infect you with stupid.

2. Largely obsolete Greek slang term that should translate as “idiot little Americans”.