The Top 10 toxic tropes of 2020
Despite 2021 not being much better so far, 2020 is already regarded by many as one of the worst years in modern times. And in hindsight — a word presciently associated with all things 2020 — it’ll also be remembered as the one where conspiracy theories took an even more toxic turn.
I always used to see conspiracy theories as harmless bundles of selective truth and misapplied logic created by the marginalised for their own entertainment. But in this post-truth age of ours, a host of new myths have cropped up.
So, let us knead our skulls between our whitening knuckles while hoping to God that this will all be over soon, and take a look at some of last year’s worst conspiracy culprits.
1. The Covid Hoax
Many of 2020’s top tropes were centred around beliefs that Covid-19 was a hoax. When people feel like they’re in danger of losing their freedoms, their friends, their families and their jobs, they go through something akin to the five stages of grief, and the first of those stages is denial. By refusing to accept the truth that the world is being held to ransom by something wild and chaotic, they find it easier to deny reality and shift the blame things that are less frightening and unknown, like wrongly comparing Covid-19 to the flu.
When we’re in denial it’s important to accept the reality of what we’re collectively going through, because belief in conspiracy theories can leave people stuck in the first three stages of grief — denial, anger and bargaining. But if, through reasonable insight, a breakthrough can be made, the fourth stage, depression, can be bravely conquered and the final stage, acceptance, can occur. And with acceptance comes the ability to get on with life.
2. 5G Masts
2020’s insane scapegoating of 5G masts was an excellent example of humanity at its lowest intellectual ebb. Thankfully, no vulnerable individuals or outsider groups were targeted in this particular manifestation of scapegoating, because inanimate objects will do fine sometimes. Following social media reports about 5G being the cause of coronavirus symptoms, dozens of masts — most of which were only actually 4G — were set ablaze in the UK. Bolivia was one of the many countries that followed suit, with masts being pulled down in the towns of K’ara K’ara and Yapacani, despite the fact that there are no actual 5G masts in Bolivia at all.
As is often the case, one of the main culprits in the spread of this hoax was former footballer and sports commentator turned professional bullshitter, David Icke. The gist of his claim was that SARS-CoV-2 was invented as a cover for the physical effects of 5G signals. Despite Icke’s resulting ban from various social media sites, mirrors of his claims continue at the time of writing, with ‘researchers’ on comments sections all over social media demanding proof that the virus has been isolated and visualised by electron microscopy.
For the record, Chinese virologists provided this exact thing between December 2019 and January 2020, and a good overview of it can be found here.
3. Anti-Vaxxers
With Covid-19 giving keyboard warriors everywhere pro tips on going viral, it was obvious from an early stage that we’d need a vaccine. The response of the conspiracy-minded everywhere to this was easy to predict. Anti-vaxxers have been sucked in by dangerously wrong information for a long time now, but this Lancet article reveals that followers of anti-vaccine groups on social media increased by almost 8 million in 2020.
Lies are well known for their ability to spread further and more quickly than the truth. Because of that, false rumours about vaccines spread around the world in the drop of a red MAGA hat. If we’re talking about something historical or distant in terms of cause and effect, like 9/11 or the assassination of JFK, they have no effects on our day-to-day lives and are effectively harmless. However, if we’re talking about an ongoing pandemic that’s affecting everyone on the planet, making informed decisions about how best to stop it in its tracks is too important a thing to let conspiracy theories have any sway over peoples’ health choices.
4. Bill Gates is the Devil
Although I’m a MacBook user and not the biggest fan of billionaires, I’ve never had beef with Bill Gates. Preferring Apple computers and thinking no-one needs that much money doesn’t stop me from understanding that Gates is ultimately a philanthropist who tries his best to use his enormous wealth to make a difference. In 2020, however, his well-known prescience about pandemics and his cumulative pledging of $1.75 billion towards the development of vaccines were garbled together to make him equitable to the Devil himself whose sole purpose in life is to cull, chip, control and maybe even cook and eat the world’s population.
The origin of this misinformation was a Facebook post by an Australian conspiracy theorist who shared an instagram post originally published by Pioneer Valley Genetics which portrayed a woman holding up the front page of a 2011 copy of the now defunct conspiracy-based publication, The Sovereign Independent.
With belief in conspiracy theories being greater among people who primarily rely upon social media for their information, the increase of misinformation about vaccines lies clearly at the door of mass rumour mills like Facebook and Twitter. But when the proponents of conspiracy theories’ collective worth in advertising revenue lies at around $1 billion, it’s also obvious why these companies continue to drag their heels when it comes to facing down these potentially deadly myths.
5. Hydroxychloroquine
Touted as a potential miracle cure for Covid-19 alongside bleach injections and sunshine enemas by renowned medical scientist Donald Trump, hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malaria drug that became subject to its own branch of erroneous theories in 2020. Like Dr Trump’s other recommendations, hydroxychloroquine ultimately proved to be dangerous for Covid patients.
Although the difficult-to-shift President isn’t really a qualified doctor, someone who is—and probably shouldn’t be—is Dr. Stella Immanuel, who the Senior and Junior DT’s both retweeted on the subject of hydroxychloroquine. Given that Dr. Immanuel, who is also the founder of Fire Power Ministries in Houston, has previously claimed that alien DNA was being used in medical treatments, that fibroids and cysts are caused by sexual intercourse with demons and that scientists were creating a vaccine to prevent people from being religious, it might be best for anyone receiving treatment from her to request a second opinion.
6. The Querdenken Movement
The Querdenken or lateral thinkers movement, is a German phenomenon largely comprised of supporters of the extreme right-wing Reichsbürger group who espouse anti-Semitic, anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown rhetoric. Among their beliefs are that Bill Gates is the Devil, Covid-19 is a Zionist plot and the only purpose of public health measures is the erosion of citizens’ liberties. Despite them promising a million people at one of their organised protests in November 2020, only 20,000 actually showed up, which neatly matched the approximate number of deaths caused by the virus in Germany at the time.
Despite the relatively low turnout, a recent poll revealed that about a third of the German population believe in conspiracy theories to some extent. This number rises to 56% among supporters of the far right AfD party, with another crucial factor being a lower level of education.
7. Evil Italian Doctors
“Many times, conspiracy theories arise from the difficulty in accepting the unexpected. For some people, it is more reassuring to invent an imaginary evil figure to fight, because it is more comforting compared to the invisible virus that you feel you cannot control.” — Massimo Polidoro
Italy’s own brand of nauseating toxicity came in the form of public demonstrations and disinformation campaigns against doctors and medical staff. The reasons cited for these actions were the belief that physicians were complicit with a ‘fictional health crisis’ that was invented by politicians and the media. The proven reality behind these claims, however, show that it was not journalists and politicians but the protestors themselves who were inventing their own truths. Numerous videos appeared across multiple social media platforms claiming to reveal empty Emergency Rooms and ambulance bays in Italian hospitals, but unsurprisingly it turns out they were completely fake. The motives for creating these videos, it seems, were purely to stir up ill feeling towards the medical staff who were working around the clock and endangering themselves to save lives.
8. The Deep State Cabal
A constant factor between all of the conspiracy theories looked into here so far is that they are all based in ideas about who really holds power in this world. With many of them having their origins in right-wing evangelical ideology there are, predictably, only two ultimate holders of power. These are: 1). Satanists, and 2: Jews. Whichever of these two an ‘enemy power’ works for is immaterial, because they’re both believed to be acting as the agents of an evil New World Order whose job is to usher in the age of the antichrist.
While the concept of the Deep State is not entirely fictional, Trump’s interpretation of it is a paranoiacally embellished and sensationalist version of the truth designed to raise alarm and manipulate the gullible. Presenting the Deep State as an organised Cabal with nefarious plans to rule the world, is basically an old-school conspiracy theory dressed up anew by QAnon.
QAnon — who name themselves after “Q,” an anonymous government insider who has ‘inside information’ about the diabolical Deep State — believe that “Q” is the emissary of a ‘great saviour’ who will protect us all from the evil powers that truly run the US government. In other words, QAnon are rehashing the old NWO trope. But as this new variant of an old idea spreads around the world, it mutates wildly and provides the fictional foundations required for a host of other new conspiracy theories to spread.
9. Election Fraud
Although Donald Trump’s tenacity and grit can be seen as admirable from a certain angle, from a sane and rational viewpoint it was pretty clear that his claims about voter fraud were pure baloney. In his attempt to hold onto power by any means possible, he made his claims of postal vote fraud long in advance of the election itself, doubtlessly as a pre-emptive safeguard against his predicted loss. With all but one of his dozens of lawsuits failing, the facts, once again, were clearly against President 45, who, in British parlance, was now instructed to pick up his P45 (notice of unemployment).
But in lighting this particular fire, Trump was knowingly fuelling something much larger, which the events of the first week of 2021 have revealed in all their fascistic ugliness. In the post-truth age that Trump played a large role in establishing, rumours and conspiracies have real currency, and ones involving false claims of voter fraud directly feed those linked to other dangerous theories. The potential danger Trump unleashed in doing this was extreme, acting as a threat to unity, peace and democracy and planting the seeds, even now after his loss, for future conflict.
10. Doomsday (again)
The Book of Revelations’ Four Horsemen provide us with a neatly personified approximation of the powers that will end the human epoch, with the events they represent — war, famine, pestilence and death — revealing no tough surprises. So, with the Year of Hindsight also being the Year of the Global Pandemic, whispers of Pestilence heading out to the stables with a tub of saddle wax were inevitable.
For Pastor Paul Begley however, whispers weren’t sensational enough. In his three decades as a professional doom-monger, Begley has broadcast weekly episodes of his Coming Apocalypse telecast to millions, authored books titled Texas Blood Lake, Mark of the Beast RFID, and Zombie Apocalypse, and made thousands of videos on his YouTube channel on his pet and most profitable subject: Doomsday. The world, he loudly assured us back in June, would end following Saturn’s conjunction with Jupiter on 21st December. It didn’t, of course.
As creatures that are aware of the endings of things, it’s natural for us to think about the end of the world. We all know we’ll die one day, and we all know that the Earth will eventually succumb to a solar flash. But when the unscrupulous exploit our natural fears with daft theories based on whims and fantasies, times like these provide too many opportunities to foment the formulas of fear, helplessness and despair that cause conspiracy theories to blossom.
