How to Get Rich on a Stupid Conspiracy Spambot Saturday

Was it a Spambot Saturday Crawl by or wasn't it???  Originally run on May 4th, 2011...

There are the birthers, the truthers, the deathers and the Roswell hopefuls, JFK and Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theorists, and fan fiction writers of history who believe anything but what is considered common knowledge.  Everyone has some blind spots, but it's when we decide that what we see is missing a few fractals and we suddenly presume our vision is clearer than anyone else's that we run into trouble.  That being said, in this age of instant access to a google's worth of dubious sources, I'm of the mind that if one fabricated purely fictitious conspiracy and seeded it out there in the Internet, cottage industries supporting the validity and veracity of the mystery would pop up faster than dandelions on a summer's day.

Thus I'm here to provide the formula for the next Sham Wow P.T. Barnum Seller of expensive exclusive imported bottled sunshine. Apply at your own risk.

1) Watch the news.  Pick an item: Sports, Weather, Celebrities, Politics, Food, Economics, Seasonal, Feel Good Local Stories.

2) Fire up your imagination and add a little Charlie Sheen type reasoning or read the Inquirer.  Is it drugged, fixed, forged, corked, destroyed, observed by satellites, photo shopped, controlled by a secret society, alien, undead, heavenly, magical, extinct, curative, radiated, chemically deadly, a super bug that causes every condition known to man, or a wonder drug that cures every condition known to man.  Macro or micro, all you have to do is decide that something of reality is completely fabricated and Dan Brown like, only you and a select few insightful ones know...the TRUTH.

2) Create a Wikipedia page stating the stupid theory whatever it is.  Give it a Catchy name that sounds vague yet threatening...What's the secret of THE BOX?  Attach photos.  Circle random spots in red or add dashes or lines to intensely written explanations that insinuate multiple crazy claims that are all overly technical and in very tiny print.  Below the pictures, write in ALL CAPS TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS IT IS IMPORTANT, your key theory. Make sure the take home point is digestible without reading the fine point or thinking too much.  You want the kid in his mom's basement to take the message with them to their next YouTube viewing.

Poor Example: The box devalues currency by proactively adjusting the cost of everything to make the cost of living progressively more oppressive inversely indexed to one's means.  

Good Example: THE BOX RAISES THE PRICES OF EVERYTHING FOR THOSE MAKING LESS THAN 100K!

3) Source your selected paranoia by playing connect the imaginary dots.  Velcro your suspicions to national corporations or organizations that recently got bad press.   Then leave teasers on Facebook, Twitter and blogs in the commentary section in forums that might be interested.  In Economics for example, go to Real Clear Markets and in the comments section, "Want to KNOW why you make less money than your neighbor?...FIND OUT THE SECRET OF THE BOX..."  with the link embedded to your wiki page.

4) Merchandise your theory.  Design a T-shirt, Slogan, bumper sticker, hats.  Make sure the t-shirt is dark and smugly cryptic.  "I KNOW WHAT'S IN THE BOX."  Exclusivity of a conspiracy theory makes EVERYONE want to join. Be the Smartest one in the room, KNOW THE SECRET OF THE BOX.

5) Create the Counter Theory using the same method.  Be sure to adopt a snarky tone and attack theory and it's backers  page personally.  "Jane you ignorant slut" type slams are de rigour.  Make sure your t-shirts are the mirror opposite in color scheme.  "THINKING OUTSIDE THE STUPID BOX" or showing a round peg breaking through a square hole.

Tag the originals with a derisive knickname. "Boxers" or some such.  It will double your income and increase original followers as everyone who wants to know what they think will try to be open minded by checking both sides out before picking one. Do however, make the upstart counter theory have a swagger or machismo to it's identify by slurring the whole mass of people who follow the original line of thinking.  Example for a bumper sticker: When Dealing with a BOXER, Keep it BRIEF.  Sarcastic fonts and a sneering attitude cannot be emphasized enough.

6) Become the face of the theory.  Post a video explaining in excruciating detail the nuances of your theory or counter theory.  Use the commentary that will have been generated by those lemmings that have glommed onto your wiki page to buttress your initial theory, it will validate their joining you and make you seem even more brilliant in their eyes.  Speak as though the theory itself is passe, common knowledge, that way the conspiracy becomes perceived as possibly being not simply a theory but a fact that everyone  ought to know and probably learned in grade school or high school but forgot. 

7) Write a book explaining the progression/story arc of your theory. Flesh it out with personal stories that reveal that even if the theory itself ever gets disproven, you are a worthy intellect that should be consulted from time to time because you tell good tales and can fill air well.  Be sure to create multi-media displays that do not actually advance any knowledge but retell everything you've said in a more colorful and visually arresting way.  Also, put in proper outrageous claims of the utopia/serenity/wealth/dream like existence either being denied or actively destroyed by not subscribing to the theory.  Be sure to include a public disclaimer that you just don't know you only suspect so you can't get sued.


FINALLY*Blog Writer/Editor Note: None of these tips have been proven to work nor are we advocating in any way creating crank pot theories for the purposes of getting rich beyond your wildest dreams.  Or are we?  Yes. There are two number twos....is that an editing error or a clue to the untold riches I've not yet found but are all locked in the back side of a two dollar bill...I'll never tell.

P.S. The first hit to this piece was from an unknown and untrackable I.P address!  They're on to me!

Host your own Spambot Saturday and leave a link to it in the combox.  Come on people, all I'm asking is to be invited to read prose lost to the passage of time on the internet. 

Stealthy Things Theory

Every woman knows it.  Her purse is a ninja.  It can hide in plain sight.  My pocketbook of choice is large. It is modeled after the Texas flag and has sparkles on it.  When a decidedly Not-Texan friend saw it for the first time, all she could say was "wow." Yeah. There was snark in there. 

It is big. It is loud. It is fun.  I think it is cool.  It is slightly insane.  In short, my purse looks like my personality the way dogs look like their owner.  Except for one thing.  My purse can hide from me.  I have never yet successfully hid from my children or my purse. 

Even the kids have noticed, the thing can be sitting on a mantle, draped on a chair and we can spend a good 20 minutes before someone trips over it.  Thus we came to the understanding that everyone has a secret ninja in their lives. For several of my children, it is their shoes, for others, their backpack when it is homework time, and for still others, their lunch box.  The question is not what is the ninja object in one's life but why is there a ninja object in one's life?

There are several controversial competing theories on the matter of obvious yet invisible objects.

1) We are failable forgetful disorganized beings: This has been loudly decried by the establishment as judgemental, harsh and unreasonable and thus dismissed as a kookie premise that only the despairing or lazy thinker embraces.  I agree.

2) Government Conspiracy Theorem:  All objects have microchips in them that allow the feds to test teleporation technology in discreet and multiple locations so as to perfect it before letting the public know about such things.   Sometimes the process doesn't work entirely, explaining the single sock/shoe/lost car keys that are never located.  Such a theory has much in the way of promising explanations of reality if true, it would resolve those perpetual seemingly eternal losses like the wallet that is always empty, the completely devoid of cookies "Cookie jar" and the empty ice cream tub in the freezer. 

3) The Toy Story Premise:  You know how toys are alive when we're not looking?  Well so are the things.  Attention things!  I will not abuse you if I gain knowledge of your being sentient.  Further, I would welcome your help.  Please please please, pull a Beauty and the Beast number on my home and put yourself away properly.  

4) Object Permanence Isn't: We know as infants that things don't stick around, but we're conditioned by all that came before to think otherwise.   It's possible.  After all, all things are finite, but that might seem like too hard a truth to bear, and so begins the socialization of a whole people to think that objects should endure beyond time.  

5) It Takes a Village to Create Real Paranoia: My kids can see the purse, they've just colluded to not notice in the desperate hopes of not having to run one more errand.  (This one seems entirely reasonable to me, except I'd have to be in on the scheme because there are times they want to go and I don't and I still can't find it). 

These are just a few of the possible explanations for the cloaking devise that ordinary house hold things sometimes use to avoid detection.  Feel free to add your own in the com box.  In the meantime, I've decided to put my phone in my purse so I can call it and locate it....except that's missing too and I'm pretty sure I turned it off....may have to reevaluate my staunch denial of theory #1.