Lindsay Patton
Whew, it seems like 2020 has taken top prize in number of conspiracies that can be pumped out within a year. And 2020 isn’t even over!
Seriously, in the past year we’ve seen dozens just surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. We’re not even talking about Russian interference, UFO sightings, QAnon, plus those flat earthers still going strong.
We are so inundated with conspiracy theories that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s made up. Well, Abbie Richards is here to keep our conspiracies straight.
Abbie Richards recently filmed a TikTok series breaking down which conspiracy theories are true and which ones are false, based on her own conspiracy categorization chart:
The chart is an inverted pyramid that goes from most based in reality to least based in reality. Some conspiracy theories included are big tobacco (based in reality), QAnon (not based in reality), Area 51 (based in reality, but we have questions), Big Foot (false, mostly harmless) and more.
The original post received 800k views and 172.5k likes that Richards decided to continue on with a conspiracy theory TikTok series explaining various theories.
She formalized the chart in a PDF and updated some conspiracies based on additional research.
In the next video, she starts breaking down the pyramid and begins with theories that have actually happened.
We learned MKUltra tried mind control on people through LSD, but it didn’t work. We also learned the FBI spied on musician John Lennon and that big tobacco lied about their product causing cancer.
The next videos gets into the “We have questions” section:
The category crosses the “speculation” line and is right before you start to leave reality. Theories in this section include UFOs, #FreeBritney and suspicious deaths like Jeffrey Epstein, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, etc.
The most recent video is part three, which gets into science denial.
Richards says this category is the last one before things start to “get scary” and includes aliens, mystical creatures and celebrities. We’re talking Elvis being alive, Prince Charles being a vampire, the LochNess Monster, you know, the fun ones.
Part four has yet to be posted, but we’re imagining it’s not as much fun as the previous videos.