I remember it pretty much that way too, but not recently and not at a department store. Heck, I just browsed through commemorative euro coins (no dice) because I felt it was somehow connected to Europe in the nineties…

Then I am happy for you

“Victim” is an interesting term, but quite accurate. There’s such a an effort and investment into converting people to that cult. I wish you the best with your mother, hopefully the other half of your conversations is more pleasant and eventually overtakes the conspiracy theories.

I don’t. We don’t talk. Relatives of mine, including one of my parents, sank into vaccine conspiracies, then followed that pipeline to Qanon, and then explained to me how they were waiting for Trump to lead his secret army to take down the government of my non-english-speaking, european country.

I gave them their keys back, I got my keys backs, I blocked them everywhere, I nuked my accounts on the social media they use (and where their posts steadily got worse). It’s a hard decision, I still think about it often still (it’s been nearly two years), but I will never talk to them again.

I think the young feel immune, and that they feel socially progressive news cannot be lies because “that is not what our side does, we have ethics”.

It’s not true in practice, though. Fake news are used to sow division, and making people angry on both sides is part of it. The far-right, boomer fake news are more obvious because they are outlandish, but there’s more than that out there.

It is, and I feel the questions are quite obvious.

That being said… I’m related to conspiracy theorists. I got a first-row seat to their dumbassery on facebook before I deleted my account. And… a significant issue was paywalled articles with clickbait titles, during Covid especially. The title was a doubt-inducing questions, such as “Do vaccines make you magnetic?” and the reasoning disproving that was locked behind the paywall. And my relatives used those as confirmation that their views were true. Because the headlines introduced doubt and the content wasn’t readable. That and satire articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

The immediate aim is to entertain, confuse, and overwhelm the audience, and disinterest in or opposition to fact-checking and accurate reporting means the propaganda can be delivered to the public more quickly than better sources.

Rounding error :)