One of the weirdest aspects about the explosion of conspiracy misinformation on social media is how competition simultaneously promotes the conspiracy and attacks opposing conspiracy theories. The opposing conspiracies aren’t necessarily directly diametrically opposed (e.g. belief in flat Earth as well as gematria using GPS coordinates). They are opposed to the marks giving money away to other grifters.
An example from not social media - let’s say you’re creating a microbrew beer in your basement. You learn the basics of actual making of it, your friends and family give positive feedback and you get convinced to try and supply a stock to some of the local bars in the area. But, there are already two competitors in that bar. So what are you going to do to gain attention outside your small circle of friends to gain market share and keep growing? You can promote the hell out of the positive aspects of your beer and how great it is. Or, if you’re brewing Gematria Lite, you can attack the existing beers relentlessly. ABC brand beer is poison! I don’t have any evidence for this other than I said so! 123 brand beer tastes like shit! Well, that’s subjective, but your target audience loves complaining, so that helps.
New to social media conspiracy channels have a microbrewery. They are learning how to go from 50 views per video to a dream of 1000’s per video. Whether they are fully aware of the grifting and that’s the goal, or they’ve been duped into believing that it helps the cause is not important. Whether by subconscious osmosis of what’s going on in the truth community surrounding them or direct input from a ringleader, they have learned that advertising your social media requires attacking the enemy.
You don’t see beer companies making ads that say the other brand is actually better. You also don’t see them making ads that have clear falsehoods. If ABC beer is not actually poison, there’s a successful lawsuit to be won. No, they’re going to stick to something subjective like the taste or how it has a nicer head of foam. The goal is to get the target audience at the bar to make a decision on what beer to buy at the bar NOW. Regardless of long term faithfulness to the brand based on actual product quality. These are decisions a low level person in the conspiracy pyramid scheme is making.
The mid level is a person who is trying to manufacture beer themselves. They want to know exactly what ingredients to use. They want some tips on the process, how long to ferment, proper cleaning and maintenance of the equipment. And maybe some tips on higher level marketing like nailing a celebrity endorsement. They want some staying power instead of just making it for their own enjoyment. They don’t want to invest time and money to just have the equipment collecting dust in the basement.
In pops in Gematria Lite with promises of an ultimately unachievable goal. Do this today (buy a beer at the bar) and you are the most important person in your circle (your basement microbrewery). Here’s a packet of yeast.
The gematria tools are even less beneficial than a packet of yeast. Superficially designed for success, it’s impossible to not find a match after limited training. There’s no real rules to follow. How many ciphers are the correct number? Drop zeroes and double digits are actually one? Transpose numbers? Prime numbers? I’m allowed to pick both teams, what kind of sense does that make? Instead of brewing their own beer successfully, the gematria user is trying to just get to the point where they enjoyed that one beer that one time months ago.
The master brewers love how the microbrewer can’t achieve any true competitive status. The microbrewer is missing the one key piece to the puzzle. The marketing skill to sell the useless packet of yeast to other microbrewers. People like Zach are not selling the idea of gematria success, they are selling their marketing skill. How to be successful at getting away with calling ABC beer poison without getting sued. How to be as disrespectful as possible without getting ostracized beyond the family and schoolmates that already find you creepy and weird without getting your YouTube channel deleted and fired from your job.
If you’re doing it wrong, and you’re always doing it wrong, your bogus master brewer will throw more useless info at you. You forgot to use water, duh - you’re an idiot, try harder. And if you actually figure out what the product really is, the hatred. Well, don’t try and sell your beer at the same bar as me. The claws come out.
The problem that the master brewers have to overcome is the limited supply of microbrewers. There’s a fair number of microbrewer wannabes that have dreams of master brewing. Finding the microbrewer is an art form. You simultaneously want to encourage belief in every conspiracy under the sun, at the same time as discouraging those that have figured out your scam enough that they are dangerously close to stealing some of your precious market share.
And some microbrewers just never figure it out. These are the people with enough psychological damage that don’t get that subconsciously they are constantly being reinforced (bad sports pick, again; didn’t add water to the yeast packet) they are wrong all the time, while simultaneously, verbally and in print, being told they are right (narrative for the other team; your beer is awesome) they are right all the time. Like slot machine addicts that don’t get one lucky spin doesn’t make up for losing ten times as much the entire night, they only remember the short term success of that one beer they enjoyed this week.
That one glass of ABC beer that was left out overnight that made you sick because you drank it and it’s generous supply of bacteria doesn’t make all ABC beer poison. That one 123 beer you found exceptionally refreshing because you spent the previous two hours doing yard work in the hot sun doesn’t make 123 the best tasting beer to everybody all the time. There’s room in your life to enjoy both if standards are met. Whether you impose them on yourself or get forced do it is up to you. Your government doesn’t want you to drink one because it tastes better, they want you to stop leaving it out overnight because there will always be idiots that drink it anyway. What never helps is wasting resources on a packet of yeast that is marketing nothing but conflict.
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