Actual cross pollination (with actual pollen) is the evolutionary advantage where genetic traits can be shared by “parents”. And in a way conspiracy content is no different. Through crank and grift magnetism people with different ideas of what’s wrong with the world, what can be done to make it right, or those just looking for a quick buck a collection of bad ideas flourishes through people checking out what other bad ideas the algorithms through their way. Or in this case, the comments sections of YouTubes.
The picture is of course a run of the mill at this point dime a dozen image of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Or insurrection if you are so inclined to name calling. And through cross pollination I was able to find that because of gematria.
There are of course active YouTube channels that embrace Qanon style content, and this is not one of them. Qanon is pretty open about gematria being on their list of fake evidence tools. Whether this user embraces the whole Qanon smorgasbord or not isn’t clear. There are several ordinary person content videos and also footage of the riot. And nothing else. They were either there and took the footage themselves, or posted video from a friend who was there, or just found it and thought it would be a good idea to copy and share on their personal channel.
There are three types of crank magnetism cross pollination. Direct, indirect and a hybrid of the two.
A direct cross pollination example is where somebody devotes their time to posting anti vaxx content. Then starts commenting on gematria videos. Gematria aficionados who didn’t much care about vaccine topics are now given the opportunity to listen to all this relatively new content they were unaware of. The “gene pool” is different. There’s talk of mRNA, excess deaths, lockdowns and a host of fresh, new exciting things to dive into. The flowers are the same though. It’s not trying to use orchid pollen to cross with dandelions. The basic infrastructure is unchanged, all the anti government, evil cabal, the Attaboy!TM, the grifter interruptions of conversations with their off topic suggestions, it’s all there. A comfy familiar echo chamber.
Indirect cross pollination occurs because these are still humans. And innocently humans like to be entertained as part of being a social creature. And YouTube (rightfully) does not care about your content as long as it’s not too directly harmful. So although some may dabble in chambers that they would arguably be better off leaving out of their lives they accumulate personal content revolving around their more normal interests. Music, sports, their pets, videos of family gatherings, gardening, or whatever. A theoretical example is stumbling on a new gardening video, because you love daisies in particular. And that other daisy lover is also into the chemtrails they are convinced are killing off her daisies. In all fairness, this seems rather rare. Active direct cross pollination is very pushy. You’re designated as less than human if you aren’t supporting the work of your local cult leader. Posting videos about daisies when you should be posting about chemtrails and FEMA death camps is a no-no, no Attaboy!TM for you.
The hybrid method is the style that best explains the magnetism where multiple bad ideas are embraced. And it explains how I encountered the image shared above. Gematria was the beginning of the chain, and then embracing a violent attempt to overthrow the duly elected government was the end result.
The same way often struggling TV shows have a crossover episode with another show in attempt to boost ratings, conspiracy theorists will have guest appearances on other YouTube channels. The chain I present to you took a long time (months) to be created, but that’s expected. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to become a rabid conspiracy supporter. The process takes time. The tactics are designed to encourage mid level promoters of the pyramid scheme. Jumping right in at the top is out of the question, you will be deemed a threat and that results in being targeted by the Shill Game content. You aren’t going to be noticed by the leaders if you don’t show some mild sign of support like posting a quick gematria decode of Monday Night Football or a weird looking cloud. Trying to get a daisy gardener to start off immediately with posting sovereign citizen content is a huge turn off to the gardener. And counterproductive as it runs the risk of having them do a little bit of research before getting used to the echo chamber.
Here’s the chain of crossovers and cross pollination:
Sports gambling gematria—>Evangelical rapture gematria—>Evangelical Qanon style content without much gematria —>There’s weird shit in the sky that’s aliens, spiritual, chemtrails, rainbows, may or may not be out to kill us content with 0 gematria —>Jan. 6th content.
And that’s what they call the conspiracy rabbit hole.
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