Age of the Geek

Pizza and the rabbit hole
     For about a month now, since just before Election Day, the seedier corners of the internet have been obsessing over "Pizzagate," a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child trafficking ring out of a Washington D.C. pizzeria. The political conspiracy combined with the absurdity made for a catnip-like combination for the internet trolls that frequent places like Reddit's /r/The_Donald, who went so far to create a spin-off message board dedicated to the topic.
     Taking a life of its own, the conspiracy theory has created its own mythology, tying the pizzeria from the Clinton Foundation to Satanism to Brazilian football. Did a Hollywood celeb talk about pizza? Must be part of the conspiracy. Did a politician have their photo taken with a child? Must be part of the conspiracy. Why hasn't the Washington Post covered it? Must be part of the conspiracy. And what does Janet Reno have to do with all of this anyway? Must be part of the conspiracy.
     For the last month there have been bombastic YouTube videos and "news" articles, each eager to share the big revelation that will "blow the whole thing wide open." And if it doesn't happen, well then at least they got a big spike on their traffic for that day.
     It's hard to say how many people actually believe in the Pizzagate conspiracy. A couple weeks back I had a conversation with a Trump supporter that admitted he only frequents places like /r/The_Donald because it's fun to participate in its silliness. While I'm sure some people actually believe in the conspiracy theory, I suspect most people are treating it like a game.
     I understand the appeal. Conspiracy theories are fun. Heck, I've spent the last couple months following a series of YouTube videos predicting a reboot of the Pokémon franchise, linking the designs of new characters to medieval alchemy, Norse mythology, and the Book of Revelations. It's not a complicated formula. Find one connection that seems plausible, then extrapolate 10 more connections out of it.
     It can be fun to take a trip down the rabbit hole.
     But that's a silly theory about a video game. This is a real life business run by real life people who have had their real life turned upside down by internet trolls looking for cheap laughs. All of which came to a head this weekend when a North Carolina man decided to do some "self-investigation" of the pizzeria – with a gun.
     Thankfully, nobody was hurt during the incident. A shot was apparently fired, but the man was otherwise arrested peacefully.
     But it could have gone differently.
     It's hard to decide who is more culpable in this situation. The people who don't know better and actually believe in the conspiracy nonsense, or the people that do know better and perpetuate it anyway.
     This behavior isn't limited to just internet trolls. This is the post-fact world that we live in. A world where social media has enabled us to create a personalized bubble of reality where anything that reaffirms your pre-established beliefs must be true and anything that challenges them is just part of the "lamestream media."
     Everybody does this to some degree, myself included. It takes a conscious effort to challenge your perception. Not everybody has the time, energy, or inclination to do so. We all know that person on our social media that posts crazy stories about vapor trails in the sky, or the Department of Homeland Security buying up all the ammo in the country, or how global warming is a hoax. That person that posts whatever has a catchy headline without caring about whether or not what they're posting is true.
     You know. The kind of person we just elected to be president.
     This is the inevitable result. One might think it's harmless to share a silly story, but somebody else might actually believe it.
     For better or worse, the internet has turned us all into the media. Facebook is the largest distributor of news in the nation. That effectively means everybody is now the editor of their own news aggregate. It's a power that should not be taken lightly.
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and tries to keep his crazy theories on video games and movies.