Remember when conspiracy theories were just photocopied pamphlets?

Back in the late 90s in Phoenix, I'd find those grainy xeroxed zines left on bus seats about everything from JFK to chemtrails. Now it's all algorithm-fed TikTok videos and deepfakes that look way too real. Kinda miss the raw charm of bad handwriting and crooked staples. Anyone else feel like the format change killed something genuine about the community?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_clark741mo ago

Oh man, you're bringing back memories. A buddy of mine down in Tucson found this whole stack of them in an old laundromat back in '97, all about how the government was putting fluoride in the water to make us docile. The pages were all smudged and you could barely read the handwriting, but that was part of the whole thing, you know? Now you just get a perfectly edited video from some guy who calls himself "TruthSeeker420" and it might as well be a professional production. Miss the days when it felt like some guy in a basement with a photocopier, not a studio with a budget.

park.abby1mo ago

That laundromat find sounds exactly like the old days. I actually heard someone say once that the smudged ink and bad handwriting made the conspiracy theories feel more genuine, like you were getting real dirt instead of some polished content.