WTF Conspiracy theories heard from family, friends, and neighbors

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It's secret info that puts them in the know, unlike all the rubes.
there's a lot of overlap with folks who are susceptible to multilevel marketing schemes, both prey on similar personality traits.

here's this big secret, it's too [bad/good] to be true, /they/ don't want you to know about it but I'm letting you into this inner circle of [knowledge/success].

with conspiracy theories, it usually opens with a kernel of truth and then launches into a bunch of questions (to which they offer no real, provable answers), tie them all together to imply that they're related or that their answer, whatever it is, is the TRUTH, and they point to nobody telling you this as proof that THEY don't want you to KNOW (but there are lots of reasons "they" might not have told you, starting with because it's fabricated bullshit). it helps when the conspiracy theory they adopt was predated by a particular bias.

some people want to feel smart, but they don't want to or are unable to put in the work to get there, and conspiracy theories provide neat little packages of Exclusive Knowledge that they're not smart enough to realize is not a substitute for research and understanding.

and this is not me trying to be like "they are all dumb, unlike me who is Not Dumb™" bc I know just as well as y'all do that nobody is immune to this stuff, including myself. and it doesn't help that there are legitimate conspiracy theories out there that have been proven true. this also is excluding people who have mental health issues that involve paranoia and delusions, because their motivation is less voluntary/more compulsive.
 
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Should look like this.
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