“Think for yourself.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
While good advice in general, these demands usually come with a large dollop of condescension. Pfft, stupid sheeple, believing everything they read!
In an age of fake news, that’s a legitimate concern. However, studies show that most people who share fake news are aware that it’s fake. That’s another discussion. Studies also show that people do engage with media, even on a subconscious level, and that reading information contradictory to their opinions or previous knowledge actually reinforces those ideas, rather than downloading new ideaswholesale into their brain.
In other words, we aren’t mindless consumers of media, subject to subliminal messaging or conspiratorial instruction. Our brains aren’t so blank-slate that messaging can be imprinted on us and turn us intro drones. We aren’t sheeple.
However, there is a certain need to dismiss people as “sheeple” — if you want your own agenda to be pushed and need to delegitimize people’s views. Ironically, this tactic is often adopted by the very people who arguably are most susceptible to any “sheeple effect”: conspiracy theorists.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common conspiracy theorists and how they use the “sheeple” explanation to support their viewpoint:
