Comment by haswell

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.