Conspiracy Theories I Have Known
Throughout my life, I have made it a point to formulate unsubstantiated (but also unfalsifiable) conspiracy theories to try to make sense of the world around me. Over the years I have amassed a pretty good little collection. I humbly present a few for your consideration:
1. Tom Cruise is DEAD.
I can’t be the only one who thinks this. He probably died sometime in the mid-nineties — somewhere in the Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire era. But Hollywood couldn’t bear to let their fanciest leading man go, so between 1996 and 1999 they kidnapped leading CGI developers and forced them to create an immortal Tom Cruise (and probably killed them afterward) — therefore everything from “Eyes Wide Shut” on was just a CGI representation of Tom Cruise, probably played by Andy Serkis*. This is the only way to explain how the Tom Cruise of 2016 looks EXACTLY THE SAME as the Tom Cruise of 1996.
2. Portland Traffic Accidents Are Staged
It’s an open secret that the city of Portland hates people and wishes they would go away — and they especially hate people who drive cars. Portland has a plethora of devious little tactics calculated to induce people to flee — such as designing a freeway/road system that guarantees that you will spend at least 3.5 hours commuting each day, no matter how close to the office you live (and making sure that everything smells like STANK combined with really good Thai food).
As if all this weren’t enough to begin with, I am becoming increasingly convinced that the city stages fake accidents to augment the already unbearable traffic situation. Nothing serious, you know — just a fender bender strategically placed at a crucial junction, prompting oh, say, 6 police cars to show up and mill around for an hour or two. You see enough of these, you start to get cynical. You start to think. After all, you have nothing to do for the next hour or two but sit in your car and formulate conspiracy theories.
3. Most Trollers on Medium are Fake Accounts Created to Antagonize Their Maker
I made this one up — I mean formulated this one just this week. I actually think it’s a great idea, and included it in this helpful article. It all started when I saw someone named “ben” (come on, man, try to be a little less obvious) trolling Oliver Shiny’s article (Oliver, if you are reading this I swear I’m not recommend-fishing this time). “ben”’s comment was so generic, so infantile, so utterly without nuance that I had to wonder if this guy was for real. It was then that the inspiration hit me, like a harpoon to a sperm whale: what better way to get greater visibility and grow your reader base than by creating fake, abusive personalities to persecute you in the comment thread? It was a tactic that I swore to remember for the future.
It actually makes me feel a lot better now when I read the comment threads on Medium and beyond. I used to get depressed seeing all the trollers doing their thing — now I just chuckle, tap my nose knowingly like Paul Newman in The Sting, and say, “I see what you did there.” It will also come in handy for that glorious day when I reach that height of Medium celebrity which is rewarded with trolling. It will keep my audience guessing, and that’s always a good thing.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Like it? Click the green heart. Clickit clickit clickit clickit clickit! Then follow me. Then tell your Grandma to follow me.
