Can't tell if dumb bigots... or trolling (actually, I'm pretty sure it's trolling)

A few days ago while lurking around one of several skeptic Facebook groups that I belong too I came across this article from a website called Pink News.

The article was in concern over a flyer that was being posted around Clintonville, Ohio for... well, you can see for yourself:

Weirder things have happened, i suppose. Straight White Guy Festival, anyone? http://t.co/0mQKcItnOS pic.twitter.com/kib7tlx9hz
— Lauren Bagley (@TheREDison) July 18, 2014

Yes... you're reading that right. It's a flyer for a Straight White Guy Festival.

Now, I know many of you are probably thinking "this can't be real, right"?

Well it could be real because despite our society's advances in the field of race relations, there are still racist people in this country, but I don't think it's real, and I have several reasons why I believe this is so.

Lets take a look at what is not on this flyer that most would have had.

First, there's no contact information of any kind on these flyers.

Most racist groups would have placed on such a flyer either a mailing address, or a phone number, or an e-mail address. At the very least they would have put a website name on there inorder to help promote their group if they were unwilling to place on the flyer direct contact information.

The second thing that caught my eye is that the flyer doesn't say who is putting on and sponsoring this festival.

Any racist or bigoted group that was putting on and sponsoring such an event would not have left their name off. Most hate groups want people to know that they are sponsoring such an event in hopes of recruiting people into their group.

At the very least they would have put the name of a front group on the flyer in an attempt to hide who is really organizing this so called festival, while at the same time trying to recruit new members.

Now lets take a look at what the flyer does say on it.

First is the title of this "event" Straight White Guy Festival.

The name of this alleged festival looks more like something a dumb college frat boy would have created and doesn't realize that this sort of thing is racist and bigoted as hell, rather than a person that is part of a racist and bigoted group.

Now before anyone says it I'm very well aware that bigots are not known for their intelligence, but atleast they would try to come up with something a little more creative than that.

Second thing I noticed about the flyer was that it contradicted itself.

The flyer says "Come help us celebrate our enjoyment of being straight white and male" but it also says "Everyone welcome".

If this festival is intended for straight white males then how come the flyer is also saying that anyone who is not straight, white, or male can attend?

A racist and bigoted group would never have put "Everyone welcome" on such a flyer. They either would have put nothing on there, or they would have made it very clear that only straight white males would have been allowed to attend (or atleast straight white people).

The final thing about this flyer that leads me to believe that someone is trolling in real life is that while there is a location for this "festival", a date, a time, and that beer will be available, according to WBNS-10TV no permits have been taken for such a festival, and while I'm not sure of the local laws concerning festivals at local parks, most places would make you apply for a permit to hold such an event, and to sell beer at it.

Taking all these things into consideration I can only come to the conclusion that this is some kind of joke.

I'm not sure if the person that created these flyers intended on them being racist or anti-racist, but it's still pretty offensive either way.

Ofcourse it could be real and some racist group is intending to hold a festival without getting or knowing they have to get permits first, as well as not knowing how to make a proper flyer.

If they have their festival they'll find out the hard way that you need to have the proper permits.

5 Things I've noticed about... Conspiracy Theorists on Youtube

If you're someone that makes a hobby of investigating conspiracy theories, you will eventually be lead to one place: Youtube.

Youtube seems to the gathering center conspiracy theorists on the internet due to the huge amount a conspiracy theory videos on that website (and I mean huge).

Now there are a lot of things that I have noticed about conspiracy theorists on Youtube that I could talk about, but I have narrowed it down to five different things.

So here are five things that I've noticed about conspiracy theorists on Youtube:

5. They can come up with some pretty bizarre conspiracy theories.

If you want to find a really bizarre conspiracy theory, then there is no better place to look than Youtube, because the conspiracy theorists on that website can come up with some very bizarre conspiracy theories. In fact some of the weirdest conspiracy theories that I have ever heard of are from videos on Youtube.

These conspiracy theories on Youtube can get so strange, and combined with a person's own behavior either in a video, or in the comments section, that it makes one wonder if that person is either a poe, or a fraud that is looking for attention (or to scam people), or severely mentally ill. In fact some conspiracy theorist on Youtube have been proven to be either mentally ill or frauds.

Some of these videos are so bizarre that I've had to stop watching them at times because I felt that it was driving me crazy (mostly rage) and making me want to destroy my computer in frustration over not only how some one could come up with some thing that crazy and stupid, but also in frustration over why Youtube would allow such a video to stay on the website.

If such videos make me nearly go crazy then I can't imagine what they do to people who take these videos seriously.

4. Their videos can be extremely long.

Sometimes a conspiracy theorist's video on Youtube can be short, sometimes they can be half an hour long, and sometimes they can go on for hours and hours.

Some of the longest videos that I have ever seen on Youtube have been from conspiracy theorists, and I'm not talking about an hour or two long. Some of these videos can be three to four to six hours long. In fact I think the longest one I have ever seen (I didn't actually watch it, I just noted the time) was forty hours long!

The only way someone could watch such videos is if they were unemployed and/or had no life what so ever. They would have to spend all of their time infront of a computer watching these poorly made and researched Youtube videos which would become essentially their only source of information about the world...

Besides just making abnormally long videos, conspiracy theorists on Youtube also tend to do this:

3. They create videos of an event quickly after an event happens.

Thanks mostly due to cheap (many times free), widely available, and easy to use video capturing and editing software, conspiracy theorist can now create videos at astonishingly amazing speeds after some event happens, sometimes even within hours of an event happening.

Usually these videos are pretty short, as well as poorly made and edited, but give them a few days and they will create a far longer conspiracy theory video about that event... that will still be poorly made and edited.

In fact this seems to be a pattern with many conspiracy theorists videos on Youtube, because...

2. They're videos tend to be poorly made and edited.

Some of conspiracy theorist's videos on Youtube are just unwatchable, and it's not just because of the length, or subject matter, or lack of any evidence presented within them when a conspiracy theorist tries to make their case about a conspiracy theory that they claim is real, but because they are just horrible videos to begin with.

Many of the videos are made are just very poorly done, and the editing and placement of segments and commentary within them is just horrible at times and appears to be just thrown together. The commentary alone in these videos are often not well thought out, and many times is just incoherent and often times makes many contradictions, and for the most part makes no sense what so ever.

Kind of sounds like a conspiracy theorist is general rather than just the ones on Youtube.

1. They don't like "non-believers".

Most conspiracy theorists in general do not like people who don't believe them and doubt the conspiracy theories that they are promoting are real, but on Youtube they take it to a different level entirely.

Many of them are just rude and very hostile towards anyone questions them. They down vote comments they don't like and mark them as spam in hopes of hiding the comments that have offended them. They false flag videos they don't like (mostly debunking videos) and outright threaten people who post debunking videos or comments expressing doubt in a conspiracy theory.

That's just the ones who mainly post comments.

The ones who post videos on the other hand might do all of that as well, plus they might just delete your comments from their own pages, and block you.

Kind of shows how open minded they are, doesn't it.

Fregoli Delusion: A possible reason why some believe in Crisis Actors?

Recently I read this VICE article about a person by the name of Ed Chiarini (whether that is his real name or not is unknown, but it doesn't really matter) whom is a conspiracy theorist whom believes that everyone you see in the media is actually an actor (even famous actors).

His latest target: Senator John McCain, whom he believes is actually Henry Winkler (and no, I'm not kidding, he really does believe that the Maverick is actually the Fonz).

@SenJohnMcCain @ABCWorldNews Hey McCain/Winkler Say hello to your WIFE for us, & to Eugene Levy (AKA ACTING pres of EGYPT) too. We C U- SCTV
— Ed Chiarini (@dallasgoldbug) August 27, 2013

And apparently he also believes that Eugene Levy is the acting president of Egypt.

When I first read this article I honestly believed that this person was a poe due to the sheer fact that the conspiracy theories he was creating and promoting were so ridicules that it bordered on satire...

Sadly, it wasn't satire. He really does believe what he is saying. I figured that out when I saw his posts about the Sandy Hook massacre and that everyone seen in photos and videos being "crisis actors". Even a well constructed poe would not cross that line.

After seeing that this person clearly believed what he was saying it became very clear that this person most likely has major mental health issues.

Many people who were commenting on the article were saying that he probably has schizophrenia, which is very probable he does have, but I was told by a fellow skeptic that he may have a rare mental disorder called Fregoli delusion.

Fregoli delusion, also known as the "delusion of doubles", is a mental disorder that is sometimes the result of a brain injury and can leave a person to believe that two or more people are actually one person.

Besides believing that two different people are in fact the same person, other behaviors that can go along with Fregoli delusion includes the following:

• Impaired self monitoring, mental flexibility, and social reasoning, including passive acceptance of inaccurate conclusions.
• A tendency to select salient associations rather than a relevant one.
• Mnemonic association of routine thoughts.
• Unable to come up with an alternative hypothesis.

Sound familiar?

To me it reads just like the type of behavior a conspiracy theorist who thinks that crisis actors are real and that two different people are one in the same often times displays. Because of this people like Ed might not be able to control their behavior (at least not without some serious mental health intervention) and can lead them promoting some pretty disturbing and disgusting conspiracy theories and not even be aware of the harm they are causing.

While Fregoli delusion is considered a delusional disorder, it is not considered to be a type of schizophrenia, but is in fact a type of Delusional Misidentification Syndrome, which is an umbrella term that encompasses delusional disorders in which a person believes that the identity of a person, place, or thing has been altered.

I don't know if Ed, or anyone for that matter who believes that the Sandy Hook massacre was faked and that what you saw was crisis actors are mentally ill (although it seems very unlikely that they are not) or that if they are that they have Fregoli delusion (they could have something else entirely, or have a different type of mental disorder and Fregoli delusion as well), but Fregoli delusion does seem a likely cause because not only can it cause a person to believe that two different people is the same person, it also causes people to be paranoid and believe that they are being persecuted. Combined this along with impaired self-monitoring and social reasoning as a result of a brain injury that can cause Fregoli delusion, you might get someone who is unable to control their actions, especially over a medium such as the internet, but also unable to understand that their actions are harmful to others and possibly even themselves, thus you have a situation like what happened after the Sandy Hook massacre where some conspiracy theorists were harassing family members of the slain children and some of the heros of that day, accusing them of being crisis actors and even going so far as to threatening them.

Why do people lie about their belief in a Conspiracy Theory? Part 2: Ulterior Motives

Why do some people claim to believe in a conspiracy theory, when in fact they do not?

In Part One I of this two part series, I explained that some people do this out of a motivation of fear (mainly the fear of some sort of lose by no longer believing in a conspiracy theory, or the fear of some type of retaliation).

Of course it is not always fear that motivate a person to claim that they believe in a conspiracy theory when they really don't. It could be that they have an ulterior motive that tends to be selfish in it's reasons.

Attention Seeking

Conspiracy theorists get a lot of attention, either from fellow conspiracy theorists who may or may not share their beliefs, or from skeptics who debunk their beliefs (while at the same time mocking them for those beliefs), or from the media (and law enforcement agencies) when a conspiracy theorist breaks the law after being motivated to do so by a conspiracy theory.

This attention can be attractive to those whom seek out attention themselves, and will take any type of attention (positive or negative) they can get.

Basically you can think of them as a bratty child who is acting bad simply because no one will play attention to them, and they know that acting the way that they are people will pay attention to them, and they do so without fear of consequences because there might actually be very little in the way of consequences, and even when they do suffer the consequences of their actions, they know it will be either minor and/or temporary, and that there are probably ways around it too.

Financial Motivations

Some people claim to believe in conspiracy theories not because they actually do, but because they're greedy, and they know that selling products that some conspiracy theorists buy can make them a lot of money.

For example, some one might open up a store that sells alternative medicine. The owner of the store might tell their customers how they "believe" that big pharma is evil, and that the medicine big pharma makes is actually bad for you, and that what they are selling will cure just about anything. The owner might not believe a word they just said, but if it gets them a sale, then they might not care.

Another example would be someone who has their own radio show and/or internet site which is dedicated to conspiracy theories, and lets say that this radio show and/or internet site has several sponsors that sell products that are aimed at conspiracy theorists. This could cause the host of this radio show and/or internet site to constantly spout out conspiracy theories that don't believe in order to keep money rolling in from those sponsors, and maybe even sell products that they have created (such as videos) to their audience.

Political Motivations

Another reason why some people might proclaim belief in a conspiracy theory that they don't believe in, and even make up conspiracy theories that they know are bogus, is because of political motivations.

Politically motivated conspiracy theories are actually very common, and the most common use for them is to try to get a person elected to an office by making up some stuff about another person whom already holds that office (or vice verse). The reason for this is to try to fool the voting public into believing these conspiracy theories about said candidate, and get more people to vote for their own candidate. This can be done by either a supporter of one of the candidates, or by one of the candidates themselves via attack ads, or internet postings.

Persecution complex

Somewhat similar to politically motivated conspiracy theories, some people might claim that a certain piece of legislation would (or does) somehow take away their rights (whether real or not). Some people might use the claims that a certain piece of legislation would take away their rights in order to rally people around them and either intimidate a politician to vote no on said piece of legislation, or create legislation that is suppose to counteract the other piece of legislation, or to an extreme extent, get people to ignore the legislation and any laws that comes with it as way to make it appear that piece of legislation is a failure. This could also apply to legal rulings as well as legislation.

Another reason why someone might claim that there is a conspiracy in that they are being persecuted for is that they are in fact being either investigated by law enforcement officials, or they really are being prosecuted for a crime they may or may not have committed. Some people might start spouting off conspiracy theories about the government targeting them over some conspiracy theories that they claim to believe in (which they may or may not actually believe in).

In fact they may actually be claiming that they are being persecuted (and even go so far as to claim that they have proof of a conspiracy theory, when in reality they never do) as a way to rally support around them, and as an attempt to try to intimidate the government into backing off of them.

Research

Some people might claim that they believe in conspiracy theories, and go to gatherings of conspiracy theorists groups, not because they believe any of it at all, but because they are doing research into conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.

The reason for this could be because they could be a psychology student, or a psychologist, who is doing research into the mentality of conspiracy theorists, so they may pretend to believe in conspiracy theories in order to gain their trust, and help to better their research in understand conspiracy theorists, and the conspiracy theories that they believe in. Perhaps they are even a skeptic who is trying better understand conspiracy theorists.

The research could also be being done by law enforcement officials in order to seek out individuals who might be considering committing a crime (like an act of terrorism).

Controlling people

Probably on of the more darker aspects of conspiracy theories is some people might create conspiracy theories as a method of (or an excuse for) controlling people in order to get them to do what they want them to do.

The creation of conspiracy theories are primarily based off of some type of fear, and there are people out there whom have no problems using that fear in order to control another person.

While this way of controlling people is mainly used by cult leaders, it is also used by egotistical people who simply love to control others.

7 Reasons why Conspiracy Theorists get their videos and pages removed from Youtube

There are lots and lots of conspiracy theory videos on Youtube (and I mean a lot of them). These videos can range from being interesting to disturbing on multiple levels (being either because of the content in it, or the kind of conspiracy theory that is being talked about, or the fact that people can believe something so utterly ridiculous) and sometimes these videos end up getting deleted (and even whole pages).

Usually when a conspiracy theorist's video or page gets deleted they'll claim that (insert group here) are the ones whom either deleted the video or their page.

The reality is that this is never really the case, and that in fact there is usually some real, legitimate reasons why conspiracy theorists actually get their videos and pages removed from Youtube:

7. It contains copyrighted materials.

Probably one of the most common reasons why a video (or an entire page) gets removed from Youtube (and not just for conspiracy theorists, but anyone really, including skeptics) is because it contains a certain amount, or a certain type of copyrighted material that does not fall under the fair use laws, and thus is subjected to a DMCA complaint by either a single individual, or an entire group or business.

The recipient of the DMCA complaint does have a chance to get whatever material that was removed restored [example], but more often times then not they won't do this, either because it makes them look like the victim of some dark forces trying to hide the "truth", or out real of fear that if they do so then they might "disappear" after they give out the contact information that Youtube requires to begin the process of whether or not the video or page gets restored.

Of course there are those that say "screw these people, I'm putting that video back up."

6. The video contains hate speech.

Because many conspiracy theories have antisemitic undertones to them (or are blatantly antisemitic) it should be no surprise that some conspiracy theorists are antisemitic themselves, and are bigoted towards other groups as well. It should also come as no surprise that sometimes conspiracy theorists post videos that are blatantly bigoted and targets specific groups of people as well (Jewish people mainly, but other groups such as African Americans and Homosexuals as well) and contains language that can be best described as hate speech.

While hate speech is not actually illegal in the United States (although some kinds is legally questionable) Youtube does have a anti-hate speech policy, and will remove a video if enough complaints are launched (although sometimes this doesn't always happen).

5. The video encourages violence and/or other illegal activity.

Because certain conspiracy theorists believe that the government is preparing to throw certain citizens into concentration camps (or kill them) some conspiracy theorists may create videos encouraging their viewers to violently resist anyone who tries to arrest them. Other times these videos might even encourage the viewers to go out and commit acts of anti-government violence, or show you how to make something illegal, like a bomb.

Other videos might also encourage other types of destructive crimes as well, like vandalism. An example of this would be someone in the anti-GMO movement encouraging people to burn farm fields containing GMO crops.

4. The user is harassing people.

Sometimes when a person is removed from Youtube it has nothing to do with the videos they are posting, but rather it is their behavior and treatment towards others on the site.

While harassing and even threatening people isn't something that just conspiracy theorists do, it is something that conspiracy theorists do sometimes do in order to try to scare a skeptic away from Youtube. Sometimes it works, most of the time it just gets them in trouble with Youtube (and law enforcement).

3. The videos contain graphic images.

Sometimes Youtube takes down a video not because it's actually encouraging violence, or has had a DMCA complaint was launched against it. No, sometimes it's because the content in the video was simply to graphic to be allowed on Youtube, even under an age restriction.

2. They get hacked.

Many times when a conspiracy theorist's page on Youtube goes down they'll claim that their page got hacked by the government, and sometimes they are right (at least about the hacked part, not about the government part).

The truth is that conspiracy theorists do sometimes end up angering the wrong person, and said person might feel that Youtube is taking to long to take down a video or someones page (or they don't even bother to try to let Youtube handle it) and if they have enough skills and know how, they hack the page and get rid of whatever they don't like (an action in which I neither encourage nor endorse).

1. The user does it themselves.

Sometimes conspiracy theorists actually take down their own videos and then claim that Youtube told them to take the videos down, which Youtube does not do (Youtube would just take down the videos and then send a warning).

While there are probably multiple reasons why a conspiracy theorist takes down their own video, the most likely reason is that they want you to think that the government has something to hide, and thus it gets their own page more attention from other conspiracy theorists.

5 Things I've noticed about... Conspiracy Theorists on the Internet

Ever encounter a conspiracy theorist on the internet? Most of us have, especially if you're a skeptic like myself who has their own blog about debunking. At that point they tend to come to you.

While there are a lot of things about conspiracy theorist on the internet that I've noticed they tend to do, I've narrowed it down to five main things.

So here are five things I've noticed about conspiracy theorist on the internet:

5. They love using quotes.

Be it in their signature line on an internet forum, or in their timeline on their Facebook page, conspiracy theorists love posting quotes on the internet. Usually these quotes are allegedly from some musician, or politician, or philosopher, or just some famous person whom they think would share their beliefs. Sometimes these quotes are accompanied with a picture of the person who allegedly said it.

The problem with this is that (and this is true anytime someone quotes someone) is that the quotes can be taken out of context, the quote can be mis-quoted, or it could be something that person never said at all.

There is of course one truth about these quotes: they do absolutely nothing to back up what ever conspiracy theory they are claiming to believe in.

4. They love collages.

Go to any conspiracy theorist group on Facebook or conspiracy theorist forum and you'll usually find some collages of photo-shopped pictures along with conspiracy theory claims within the collage.

These collages are often times confusing at the least, and more times than not, disturbing looking.

Many conspiracy theorists might think these collages helps get whatever point they have across, but the reality is that they are really a turn off for normal minded people and makes them all look like a bunch of wackos.

3. They don't have a sense of humor.

Conspiracy theorists (at least on the internet) take things way to seriously, and when someone makes a joke or a sarcastic remake, they tend to go ballistic, either because they don't think you should be joking about the subject at hand, or they think you're being serious.

They also can't tell when someone (or some website) is being sarcastic either. An example of this would be Skeptic Project. On the front page of the website it says "Your #1 COINTELPRO cognitive infiltration source." To most people they are clearly being sarcastic. But apparently some people in the Infowars forums thought they were actually admitting to being a COINTELPRO website.

2. They are extremely rude.

Ever try having a conversation over the internet with a conspiracy theorist about some conspiracy they believe, and you tell them that you don't believe in it, or that it isn't true, then you have most likely been on the receiving end of one of the most logical faulty and volatile rants that you will probably ever encounter.

While this behavior is nothing unexpected (be it unwelcomed) from a conspiracy theorist on the interenet, what is unexpected is that some of them make threats (which can get them in trouble), try to take down other peoples' internet pages if they don't like what is on there, troll internet pages and spam them with their conspiracy theories, and harass people who disagree with them.

1. They think everyone whom disagrees with them is a disinformation agent.

Anyone who has a blog dedicated to skepticism and debunking, or gets into an argument with a conspiracy theorist on the internet in which you present evidence debunking whatever claims they are making, will eventually get called a disinformation agent (or a sheeple at the very least).

Because conspiracy theorists so badly believe that what they believe is real, they actually can not believe that someone would honestly not believe them, so anyone who says otherwise must be a disinformation agent, thus they can disregard whatever information is posted that contradicts what they believe to be true.

Of course being called a disinformation agent really means nothing to skeptics. Some of us even consider it a kind of badge of honor.

6 Ways to tell if a Conspiracy Theorist posting on the Internet is Mentally Disturbed

If anyone has ever encountered a conspiracy theorist on the internet, then you know that some of them can be quite intense people, even to the point where you might believe that they are mentally disturbed.

So here now is a list of six ways to tell if a conspiracy theorist that you see posting on the internet might be mentally disturbed:

(Author's note: it should be noted that there is a difference between being mentally ill and mentally disturbed. Mental illness is actually far more common then most people might think. In fact, one-in-four people in the United States has some type of mental illness. You might even know someone who has a mental illness and not even know it. What mental illness is, is something that happens to a person's mind or brain to cause them to act and think irrationally, and they can usually recognize the negative impact it is having on them and their life. As for someone who is mentally disturbed, they also might think and act irrationally, but their irrationality would be in a much more volatile and disturbing manner, and they might be so far gone that they do not realize this.

Also, just because person's posts might indicate that they are mentally disturbed, it doesn't mean that they are in fact mentally disturbed, they could just be a troll, but even a troll can still be mentally disturbed.)

6. Incoherence

Basically speaking, whatever messages they post either barely make any sense, or makes no sense what so ever. This can be a gradual thing, where if you're having an argument with the conspiracy theorist, over time they can begin making less and less sense as they grow more frustrated and angry because you're not agreeing with them, or they're just incoherent out right.

5. Volatile & Vileness

Some conspiracy theorists, especially those who might be mentally disturbed, can become extremely angry in a second, especially when confronted with evidence that the conspiracy theories that they believe in are in fact false. It's quite common for people who are like this to post messages that are best described as either being threatening, insulting, and at the very least, disturbing. Sometimes they'll even make threats against public officials and institutions, or just the people they're arguing with.

4. Paranoia

If a conspiracy theorist argues how everything the media says is a lie, how the government constantly spreads dis-information, and how debunkers are government dis-information agents, and how banks and corporations are controlling the world, then they are probably paranoid. While this might actually be quite common for a conspiracy theorist, some will go on about how you need to prepare, such as by buying all the guns and ammo you can, to building a bunker and living in isolation. They might also not buy certain things, or from certain business, or put their money in a bank account, because they don't trust them.

Some conspiracy theorists who are extremely paranoid will even believe in very bizarre conspiracy theories, or won't even trust their own family. The most paranoid conspiracy theorists most likely wouldn't even use the internet in the first place, because they fear that the government will use it to track them down and harm them.

3. Obsession

For some conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theories can take over their lives. They become obsessed not only with conspiracy theories, but proving that they are real. Some will even abandon their families, or more likely, their families will abandon them, because of their obsession.

It's pretty easy to spot a conspiracy theorist on the internet that is obsessed with conspiracy theories, because they won't stop posting about a conspiracy theory until they are convinced that you are convinced that the conspiracy theory that they are talking about is real, or that they have convinced themselves that they have "debunked" a debunking of a conspiracy theory, or they're kicked off of a website, and even then, because of their obsessive needs, they'll constantly try to find a way to get back in.

2. Unable to see the harm in their actions

A conspiracy theorist who is mentally disturbed might not be able to see or figure out that their own actions are harmful, even if what they are posting might be considered illegal. They tend to not to be able to figure out why everyone is making such a big deal over the way they're acting. Some will even admit that their own friends and family have distanced themselves from them, or that they have distanced themselves from their friends and family because they will not accept what he or she believes in.

1. Admits having a Mental Illness

Some conspiracy theorists will admit that they actually are mental ill, but usually the mental illness that they admit to having is usually anxiety based, which can come about after watching and/or experiencing a traumatic event, such as an act of terrorism, or a mass shooting.