I’ve never plunged into the depths of Negative 48, but just to assure you of how the gematria conspiracy problem isn’t isolated to the “Jesuits Did It” crowd I spend most of my time with, here’s some info.
The first thing you should know, is the reason for this today - Negative 48, real name Michael Protzman, passed away recently from injuries sustained in a dirt bike crash.
There are some side notes to follow when I will try,and likely fail, to summarize some key points without regurgitating the articles. The main point comes right away. As silly as Qanon related content may sound with its constant failures in predictions, the never ending changes to the stories with no coherent unified message, the obvious grifting involved, do not let your Dunning Kruger to dismiss how a significant following can be achieved by someone who is obviously up to no good.
Just by math alone, every once in awhile someone takes the basic cult format, offers up a fresher take that resonates with disenfranchised gullible people, has the good fortune of being more charismatic than average, and the good fortune to just stumble upon a winning plan.
His chosen name, Negative 48, is a gematria joke of sorts. And it was purposefully chosen as such since in his merging of Qanon into his particular schtick he embraced and practiced gematria. EVIL=48 in the basic format of a=1,b=2,…z=26. Naturally, two digit numbers are easy to match up so he ignores, for example, that in reverse PURE=48 making him impure.
This immediately brings into question the cohesion of belief in conspiracies. Why the gematria he used wasn’t for decoding sports or some of the other major topics embraced by Zach and his crowd will remain unanswered.
Part of the reason I didn’t pay too much attention to Neg is that I know of a researcher that kept tabs on him, and when something significant happened I’d hear about it. The “keeping tabs on the cult leader” angle was already in capable hands and I do not have unlimited time to tackle a new subject. So a lot of what I know about Neg and his followers is based on their comments.
Naturally, the recipe includes the usual ingredients. A lot of Neg’s content revolves around JFK, JFK Jr. and the Qanon content surrounding them. That was the spices, but we needed the meat - Anti-Semitic content. Nothing jump starts a good conspiracy meat pie like the old tried and true bigotry. As the dish started to simmer numerous side dishes and vegetables in the pie got added leading to the heterogeneous mix that Qanon content is famous for. Bizarre things that are mutually exclusive are embraced instead of dismissed. The fertile imaginations of the followers and prompted by the attaboys of the major influencers - is Neg actually JFK, or just claiming he’s chosen to recognize the second coming of JFK? Or he’s JFK Jr.? He doesn’t look like either. A clone? The story doesn’t so much change regularly as already a preexisting garbled mish mash is out on the Internet to pick and chose from.
Before we get to dessert, let’s take a side trip to discuss nostalgia. Nostalgia conjures up images of an elderly person on the porch rocking chair, reminiscing about the happier times when the music on the radio didn’t suck like today and your schoolmates that you were cooler than you really are. Effective parenting requires some shielding from bad ideas until the child brain has developed enough to better understand the ugliness of the real world without totally freaking the fuck out.
Now Zach’s angle is to groom teenagers who like sports into thinking that those being rigged is the secret to undoing the evil empire. Get them before they’ve had enough life experiences to counter how if something to be sounds too good to be true it probably is.
With introducing JFK topics, we have an appeal to nostalgia. Now, there are people with retirement problems looming, cognitive biases having interfered with getting along with others all through life, desperate for a quick fix.
So here’s dessert. The grift. The promise of a luscious dessert that makes your retirement from the meal a happy event. Per the Vice article, one of the hooks was promoting shady investments. Bingo. If only people would immediately see anytime $$ are involved that’s a huge red flag that means your reward is a terrible case of indigestion for eating the dessert.
Neg, from what I’ve read, would do livestream videos, get drunk, do gematria and throw around his conspiracies. By golly, I remember how good it felt to get drunk in my 20’s and now my doctor says I’m not supposed to anymore. Flying around on a jet, this guy is soooooo cool. I wish my remaining years were that cool. And these people are old enough to vote.
And they are much more likely to retweet or post on Facebook all the completely fictitious stories that content bots generate and spread. The kind of people that Jordan Klepper finds at rallies who genuinely believe that somehow two digit numbers mean the way to political expertise and personal financial security. Unchecked, the sports gematria believer of today is a prime candidate to have some odd ideas about the politics of tomorrow.
So as fate would have it, Neg has been removed from the equation. But life is not so simple (oh my god I yearn for the days when life was simpler) and when properly viewed as a symptom of society you will understand that the Negs of the world always existed, you were just shielded from the ugliness.
Instead of the birds and the bees, or even better in addition to the birds and the bees, maybe it’s high time to have THE TALK:
“Billy, what do you know about confirmation bias?”
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