Tory Shepherd: The internet is full of seductive conspiracy theories tempting people away from evidence
You can’t fat shame people into weight loss so how should we deal with entitled “Karens” addicted to gorging themselves on junk science and conspiracism, writes Tory Shepherd.
Opinion
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It was easy to sneer at “Bunnings Karen”. Easy to roll your eyes at her discombobulated ramblings as she tried to argue that she was allowed to stroll the aisles mask-free.
Bunnings Karen – blonde, middle-aged, entitled – was familiar. Someone who thinks (wrongly) they’re better, smarter. That combination of arrogance and ignorance made her an immediate object of contempt.
But we should think of her as a symptom of a broader problem, rather than the problem itself. (There is also a series of problems with the “Karen” trope, but that’s fodder for another day).
Think of it this way. Health professionals have long known that shaming an obese individual doesn’t work to bring down obesity rates.
On a community level, you have to change the obesogenic environment, the surroundings that make it easy for so many of us to get so fat.
The disappearance of corner stores, ubiquitousness of fast food and reliance on cars and barriers to walking. The delicious black hole of trans fats. All are colluding to increase the rates of overweight and obese children and adults.
It’s the same principle with misinformation. We live in a “misinfogenic” environment. Maybe at school these anti-vaxxers, the anti-maskers, the COVID-19 deniers, got fed junk science. Or they got fed proper science then went home and gorged on astrology columns.
There are doctors out there who show that, even with a good education, some continue to believe things that are simply untrue. Take, for example, Mehmet Oz, Oprah’s pet doctor. He is qualified and yet believes in homoeopathy. Education is critical to give people a chance in a misinfogenic environment, but it doesn’t totally immunise them.
The internet is full of seductive conspiracy theories in shiny wrappers, waiting to tempt people away from evidence.
Many of the conspiracy theorists, the people you hear reading rehearsed scripts to police to avoid the COVID-19 restrictions, believe in the “sovereign citizen” conspiracy theory.
Put simply, they believe they’ve found loopholes in Australia’s laws that mean they don’t have to obey them.
They marinate in the information, let it soak in and flavour everything.
Believers take things like the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and basically play word bingo until they come up with a recipe they like. And if they’re not doing it themselves, they’re buying the scripts online that teach them how to be arses to the police. (I doubt many of them are aware that the movement has old and deep roots in white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and has spawned extremists including killers.)
How appealing to think you’ve found a magic way around restrictions. And how hard to resist the lure, when it’s everywhere.
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When people are sharing their “I do not consent” videos on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and TikTok. When those people who share the videos get lauded by other believers, and are invited onto mainstream media shows.
And it’s harder to believe this stuff is really bad for you, when people with impressive titles (such as president, or doctor), gobble up conspiracy theories all the time, and regurgitate chunks of them.
These anxious times provide the salt, the seasoning, to these delicious anti-truth nuggets.
It’s the equivalent of comfort eating.
That’s why, even though I was initially rude about Bunnings Karen, I’m going to try not to punch down. It’s a rule for comedians, and maybe should be a rule for life. Instead of going after the little people, go after the ones with the power.
Punch up at the shysters making a fortune out of these conspiracies – and that includes the social media giants, as well as the salesmen spruiking those silly scripts that tell people to say they are a “living woman” or a “sovereign citizen” as though that’s a free meal ticket.
Punch up at anyone using their influence to peddle this rubbish. Punch up at a system that allows this misinfogenic environment to thrive.
Instead of blaming people for falling for the delicious sausage sizzle, blame the people who know how the sausage was made, and sell it.