Comment by ryandrake
5 days ago
Like a lot of things, it was a joke until people who were not in on the joke started adopting it seriously, and then it somehow kind of merged under the broad "conservative-adjacent" political umbrella. Just like anti-vaxxers, anti-public schoolers, flat earthers, QAnon, and so on. They start out as tongue in cheek jokes, then a few people start saying "Wait, I believe this!" and inevitably they're welcomed into the funny farm with open arms.
And these jokes started back in the 80s?
I think you may have this a bit backwards and there’s some conflation going on between real social phenomena and people who find those phenomena too ridiculous to believe and decide to make jokes about it.
I can assure you the basis for the home schoolers, anti-vaxxers, and raw milk consumers wasn’t some joke. They came from disgraced scientists, church leaders, quack doctors, etc.
I’m not saying there has never in history been a joke that directly led to a conspiracy theory or social movement, but the history of many of these things is pretty well documented and several of the categories you mentioned have origins in the 70s/80s.