Premium Episode 190: r/conspiracy Time Machine

Never heard of either of those sites, about to go down a rabbit hole. Wish me luck.

To answer the question posed in the episode about whether the same ppl kept posting and just changed their thinking, or whether new ppl caused the shift: my best friend and I were libertarians into conspiracy theories back around 2008-2009, mainly concerned with the PATRIOT ACT, erosion of civil liberties in the name of security, UFOs, etc and we noped the fuck out of those circles as they embraced racism, antisemitism, religious fundamentalism, etc. I ended up diving into actual anti-state political theory such as that distributed by Crimethinc which I view as much more productive.

The Boston bombers did have intelligence connections as your friends over at True Anon have pointed out in detail!

Jeremy

It’s depressing to see it wind up that way. I was on the Kanye subreddit (r/Kanye) and him endorsing Trump caused people who somehow never had anything to say about his music to bombard the subreddit and just spam “DRAGON ENERGY🐉” over and over again. It really sucks.

Malek Douglas

lolllll!! Well then it appears that I'm confused * in general * 😣

Peskyfairy

I am compelled to mention that the Arkenstone is from The Hobbit.

David Fellner

This has been me many times 😂 The ears can create some funny words

I was 47 minutes into this podcast when I realized the term they keep repeating is not "arkenspiracy" - a reference to an archaic mythological forum where conspiracies reveled in the past. Like arken-conspiracy, a fanciful fantasy word such as "arkenstone" in Harry Potter -- but indeed, it was"R / conspiracy". So anyway thank you for educating me 🥹

Peskyfairy

The show last night was awesome and thank you for coming out! It was really cool to meet you briefly “backstage” during intermission!

oh holy shit thank you for reminding me about the flytape podcast attempt, that was a long buried memory

Ian Sigsworth

They were being ironic

Arthur G. Pym

Came here to suggest abovetopsecret forums too

Arthur G. Pym

Enjoyed the episode, even though I wish you would have also touched upon the mods of the sub as well. For one thing, there was the time in 2014 when they pinned a 6-hour-long pro-Hitler "documentary" at the top of the front page and received 200+ upvotes. In general, I'm not huge on the sort of "aw, remember when /r/Conspiracy was just regular conspiracy stuff?" revisionism, when the mods have been outright holocaust denying Nazis forever. That just kinda rubbed me the wrong way when the former mod complaining about the state of the sub came up towards the end. (link to the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/2hczx1/adolf_hitler_the_greatest_story_never_told_2013/) On a lighter note, there was also the funny attempt at a podcast launch in 2015. One of their more notorious mods, Flytape, was featured in front of a greenscreen with a medieval doctor/bird mask and vaping and made enough of an ass of himself that there never was a second episode, IIRC.

I’m still subscribed to r/conspiracy, and the amount of posts that are just “Ideas for baking,” or outright lies is insane. Thanks for the episode!

Cfbest

This was awesome. I would love to see how crazy Liv and Jake would go if they tried to do the same with Above Top Secret or Godlike Productions *winky winky*

James Cook

Great episode, thanks guys. Outstanding. At 1hr5mins the insight of the conspiracy leading to damage. Fuck.

Big black cockatoo

Loved this episode. Backing the camera out to encompass people slowly going more internet insane the more stress is put upon people offline is just spot on. I know my sentence structure is weird, but I hope you caught the meaning anyway.

Jessica Oudbier

Top notch episode. Really engaging and a quality bit of research & analysis.

Nèv

Well researched and well analyzed episode. Jake, tonight you were in peak form: insightful observations and comments. It's a pleasure to hear your contributions. Five stars, bravo and a standing ovation!

Snickerdoodle