[Epiphany21]

The whole "birds are fake" thing is a long running and largely apolitical joke that predates 2017 by at least a decade. That's where this Peter guy got the idea from in the first place. The Guardian is complete trash. They will write anything and pass it off as factual to get clicks. It's nakedly propagandistic in its attempt to tie every unpopular idea back into one public personality (Trump) and push petty tribalism that way. There is no large group of Trump supporters/voters who believe birds are battery powered. Not everyone you politically disagree with is a moron who lacks agency.

[NoboruWataya]

I'm fairly sure this is also just the latest in a series of articles the Guardian have run about "movements" that are really just trending subreddits. I might be misremembering that but they definitely had one about r/antiwork, which in fairness was also covered by other media and had a lot more potential to turn into an actual movement than this.

I think the new strategy is just to write about any and every internet phenomenon as if it is the harbinger of a revolution. 1% of the time (Qanon, GME) you'll get it right and look like incredibly prescient. The other articles will be forgotten.

[j4yav]

Qanon is a better example of lots of people believing some really outlandish stuff and aligning it closely with politics.

Flat earth is also interesting because it tends to be correlated with strongly religious.

[Epiphany21]

I've yet to see any kind of productive or useful discourse come out of mainstream media in regards to the Q nonsense. That kind of stuff can't gain traction under a system that prides itself on truth and transparency. Same goes for the COVID-19 related tensions that culminated in pitiful US vaccination rates and people eating animal-grade deworming paste. The underlying problems are not really so partisan in nature.

>Flat earth is also interesting because it tends to be correlated with strongly religious.

I think it would be more interesting to see how many of them haven't been on a plane and how long ago they last read non-fiction literature.

[kingcharles]

I wish Trump wasn't real.

[djanogo]

It's amazing how these trash authors keep doing this, find individual who talks about conspiracy or believes in weird stuff and tie him to Trump or Rush or voted certain side, it helps keep their readers in their bubble.