The sheep on the other side of the fence

It is a common misconception that to be red-pilled means to be free thinker. It doesn’t.

From being the reasonable good-guys of 2020-21, the fiery torchbearers of liberty, truth, and justice, the once rational lockdown-sceptic is currently swelling its ranks with paranoia, insanity, and comedic gullibility. With the beasts of old, from lockdowns, to vaccine mandates, to wall-to-wall fear propaganda, fading into dust, the Sceptic movement has had to start fighting ghosts just to stay relevant, and this is no exception. Without further ado, this article presents exhibit A to the court room:

Here is a Twitter post by “Dr” Anastasia Maria Loupis, a prominent vaccine sceptic who has flooded her quote tweet box with the clown emoji, in response to a satirical headline that “Dr” Loupis seems to think is real.

The fake article, modelled on the Guardian’s presentation style with left-wing activist George Monbiot deep faked as the author, with the original creator giving their own tribe a little giggle by pretending that Monbiot is thankful for his dozens of Covid boosters after contracting the disease over two dozen times.

Inspired by the celebrity virtual signalling that was witnessed in 2021, this joke may crack a smile if one is of a certain political bent, yet the story should have ended there. Satire is an effective tool in the comedian’s arsenal, a weapon powerful enough to keep the lights on at The Onion and Babylon Bee headquarters, but, through no fault of the joke writers, it can backfire onto one’s own army.

Case in point: this particular stunt has gone horribly, horribly wrong, for the ‘truth-seekers’, ‘conspiracy factualists’ and the ‘awake not woke’ brigade - ironically those who claim to be immune to propaganda - have fallen for social media satire. The keyboard infantry of the once rational Sceptic movement has assumed the article is real, instead of satirical.

What could have possibly given it away? Could it be that nowhere in the world has approved a dozen booster doses for any of its citizens? Or how about not-real Monbiot spewing out that ‘literally billions of kids are dying of Long Covid every day’?

One of the only benefits to have arisen from Elon Musk’s embryonic reign of Twitter are the Community Notes, to let passing digital travellers add context to a particular post or call it out for telling porkie pies.

There is such a community note attached to “Dr” Loupis quote tweet, yet scroll into the comments and into the quote tweets themselves, and you fill discover an army of gullible partisans. One may find solace in at least some of the Twitter dive-bombers asking for the link, as they obviously cannot find it themselves, yet plenty are criticising and mocking Monbiot for an article he didn’t write.

A fake headline has been created. A trusted figure within the Sceptic community has seen a red light but has slammed the accelerator to the floor regardless, now the NPC regiment of the Sceptic movement has been caught with its trousers around its ankles.

They have constructed the ultimate strawman and torn it down via a social media mob of torches and pitchforks. They have created a clown out of their own imagination and have whipped themselves into laughter. Like Cypher from the Matrix, they have chomped on some steak trying to believe it’s the real deal. Twitter is a fantasy world like no other.

Now this article will award the gold and silver medal positions for the most ironic tweets of 2023 - and we’re only in May.

In second place, goes to:

First place, without a shadow of doubt, is handed to this carelessly written sentence:

The words “sheepdom” and “self-awareness”, deployed to criticise a headline that was never created and to castigate someone who never said those words, is nothing short of hilarious. Who’s the sheep who lacks self-awareness now?

The only road out of this very dark, deep hole now, is to plead biased ignorance. ‘Yes the post is satire but with how crazy things are nowadays, it’s incredibly hard to tell,’ or, the ‘nature of the internet means that it’s hard to tell fact from fiction’ (the fake headline still spoke of billions of Long Covid deaths but never mind). All this does is unveil one’s own skewed and automatic worldview, not discredit the opinions held by the other side.

George Monbiot is what the Sceptic community brand a Branch Covidian, and rightfully so, for his appearance in the satirical headline originates from his open support of draconian pandemic restrictions coating a hubris of blind panic, so he’s a good character to mock, though the Sceptic community must learn to stop messing with ghosts.

The gullibility expressed by those who fell for this bait paints a horrifying picture regarding how one can easily lose their grip on the reality which surrounds them. It is concerning how one can become so trigger-happy for their own team yet so consumed by social media echo chambers that they can’t differentiate political comedy from actual political discourse.

It is a common misconception that to be red-pilled means to be free thinker. It doesn’t. The red-pill is only a portal through which one begins to question, distrust, then outright despise mainstream institutions (which is beneficial) but one blue-pill can easily be exchanged for another.

It is a matter of trust. While legacy institutions may be detested to the point of contrarianism until a cult of non-conformity develops, information received from the Sceptic/dissident community itself will be consumed without a second thought. This is exactly what has happened with “Dr” Loupis’ unfortunate quote tweet.

It is ironic yet so easily explainable. Those who have no faith in mainstream outlets and immediately label all reporting as lies, even if it is true, exhibit dogmatic, unquestioning loyalty to those who are whispering to them what they desire to hear, even if it is false. Love friends, hate enemies - a tale as old as time.

While this caveman mindset worked for when we were hunting mammoths, this primal portion of our brain runs into a maze of problems within this complex network billions of people call home. Interpretation, nuance, and truth rarely exude blood-red tribal loyalties, but people are not so perfect – those who apply scepticism towards their foes don’t share the same aggression towards their allies, and it can turn expressions of fealty into stupidity.

This was an own goal for the ‘do your own research’ battalion, though a humiliation that will barely go unnoticed in the bowels of echo chamber fuelled, terminally online politics. But above all else, this episode proves beyond doubt that there are sheep on the other side of the fence, and if one does not pause to catch their breath and quell the raging inferno within their soul, they may end up blindingly following the herd.