Conspiracies have always swirled in times of crisis – but never before have they been a booming industry in their own right.
conspiracy fantasies as genre, as business model and industry (the conpiracy industrial complex as moniker to describe the graph of media outlets, media personalities and network of grifters around them?)
In practice, this squared virality meant that if you put out the right kind of pandemic-themed content – flagged with the right mix-and-match of keywords and hashtags (“Great Reset”, “WEF”, “Bill Gates”, “Fascism”, “Fauci”, “Pfizer”) and headlined with tabloid-style teasers (“The Leaders Colluding to Make Us Powerless”, “What They Don’t Want You to Know About”, “Shocking Details Revealed”, “Bill Gates Said WHAT?!?”) – you could catch a digital magic-carpet ride that would make all previous experiences of virality seem leaden in comparison.
The global attention to Covid meant an easy way to clout by attaching other stuff.
Because what Wolf turned into over the past decade is something very specific to our time: a clout chaser. Clout is the values-free currency of the always-online age – both a substitute for hard cash as well as a conduit to it. Clout is a calculus not of what you do, but of how much bulk you-ness there is in the world. You get clout by playing the victim. You get clout by victimizing others. This is something that is understood by the left and the right. If influence sways, clout squats, taking up space for its own sake.
'clout chaser' nice parallel to cloud chaser. Clout as volume of your online engagement, and is a thing in itself, clout is the aim of the work. Conspiracy fantasies a means towards clout.
Most writing is chasing clout, rather than insight
As the result of online business models and SEO, most writing becomes about chasing clout and audience eyeballs rather than providing thought provoking insight and razor sharp analysis. The audience reaction has weakened with the anger reaction machines like Twitter.
We need better business models that aren't built on hype.