To ask why people are so utterly bonkers?

[veryannoyedtbh]

Reading about the man who faked being a naval officer to attend memorial events. The lengths he went to, getting a suit altered and buying medals of the internet. Was a professional teacher as well. Madness.

Then the ten people prosecuted for saying Brigitte Macron was born a man. Again, the efforts involved and they mostly appear professional people with full lives. Just mad.

Then you get the people on here pretending with fake stories or just trying to troll people. It’s just bizarre. It’s like validating you are indeed the saddest person ever.

I don’t get it. Is it the internet age? It’s like a boundary has been removed and people in freefall.

I like that half the thread is people talking behavioural psychology and half is people talking spuds and lasagne. Anyway, people believing and doing bizarre stuff is all explained by the theory of cognitive dissonance - listen to Derren Brown's bootcamp for the brain on Audible and he explains exactly how rational people end of doing totally irrational stuff.

Pretty sure none of the men I've met who into conspiracies are being paid by Russia....🤔😱😂 I would expect them to be a lot better off for a start!

It’s the internet/social media.
People can now say and do stupid things in front of millions of people instead of just talking bollocks in a corner of the pub.
Look at the “professional grifters” like Ant Middleton or Tommy Ten Names, twenty years ago they’d have been writing letters in green ink with BLOCK CAPITALS to the local paper now they can tweet it…

@Islavadaukrani oh my God, why didn't we think of that? 😂

@ByWarmShark that sounds interesting. I like Derren Brown some of the time. I met him in a sandwich shop and he's very attractive. Just in case anyone was curious.

That reminded me of the time DH and I were invited to dinner by our new neighbours. He was one of those. He told us that he’d invented the mountain bike. He must have been about 18 months old at the time. We never went back, and referred to him as “Weird mountain bike guy” until they moved out.

Nah, they're all too busy talking about flannels...

He is attractive! I'm a little sad I'm not his type (only possible reason we're not an item). His podcasts are excellent and the brain one in particular really does explain a lot which is confusing about humans. (I'm not being paid by Derren Brown or Audible...)

My husband had lasagne, chips and salad for dinner this evening. We're crazy we are.

@ByWarmShark I didn't know he did podcasts, I'll look them up. I do like him but some of the TV stuff I've seen has been hit and miss. Maybe it just depends what your taste is like.

I know someone who pretends to be a pilot but is not very intelligent. He buys badges from airlines on ebay and even tells people he got given a medal for landing a plane in a severe storm. I know a real pilot and he told me pilots never get medals for landing planes.

The footballer was Joey Barton. He has a history of being abusive. He got fined as he was abusive about 3 or 4 people. He is an ex footballer.

The Internet enables them. Before they would have been shut down by people they knew in real life but now the Internet allows them to find their own echo chambers and it encourages more ridiculous behaviour.

😂😂😂

Ditto!

Wow I didn't know about this! I will try and find it.

There's a lot of odd people around, a lot of lonely people and attention seekers. So many completely self absorbed people with no self awareness. It does seem to be worse now than it was say twenty years ago, I'm not sure why.

😂Some of these stories are hilarious!! Thanks for the laughs😁

I think some people are gamblers, alcoholics, drug addicts, have OCD or even paranoia people are talking about or judging them and yes believe in conspiracies

I think there is something in some people that would come out as any of the above or any other addiction

There are some people who need to believe in conspiracies, makes no sense to me but yes I do see it as like an 'addiction'

What about the conspirators who say Australia doesn’t exist and that we’re all just paid actors - I, myself, am still waiting on my first pay

I know someone who genuinely believes the earth is flat. He has no other bonkers beliefs, just this one, and comes across as pretty normal, but the fact he thinks this blows my fucking mind.

Capitalism, social media, stress, drugs, bad foods, imposter syndrome, who knows the correct reason.
There is a lot of madness and anger everywhere.

I meant the conspiracy starters may be paid by Russia.

@GameofPhones oh I know
But I'm much more puzzled by the real life interactions - people shit posting on the Internet, whether paid or not, I don't really think about because the Internet is just mad.

@floppybit so presumably he thinks all the world's missing socks slid off the edge? Or got pushed off the edge by cats.

One of the crazy guys I know went to a seminar about flat earth. I had to ask. He said to me that he doesn't actually believe it, but it's fun to go. And apparently you meet lots of fun people. 🤷🏻‍♀️ These are the moments where I think all these people are just trolling us.

alright, it's 130 a.m., I better get out there and change the batteries in the birds while everyone's asleep.

How do sailing boats work then? and aeroplanes? and what is on the other side of the 'flat' or does earth go on forever? What about the other planets? Are they flat or dont exist? is the sun real or a flatpack from Ikea? we need details please!

I married someone who insisted the Holocaust didn’t happen. ( didn’t know that when I married him)