Why reddit is obsessed with /r/conspiracy.

295K users. Plus subs like /conspiritard, /topmindsofreddit, devoted to obsessing over everything we do. Today some other subs even did a nice imitation of us?

Some users have even become celebrities in their own right. The MO seems to be Cherry picking a few strawman posts about Joos or 9/11 then circle jerking over their own intellectual superiority in such matters. Meanwhile they neglect to mention or perhaps notice that within this sub there is a dearth of group think. Generally once someone starts talking about metaphysics or aliens or satanism they get shouted down.

There is no consensus here other than the basic premise of being a place to ask questions and share information. And the questions raised or information shared is by no means orthodoxy. It's open to speculation, deconstruction and even dismissal.

I get the idea of poking sticks into a cage full of anonymous users you think you're smarter than. I did it when I was younger, hell I still fuck with users here when they start talking about the flat earth society or hologram planes. But what gets me is this idea of devoting time and effort to it. Seeking it out, devising a sub for it subscribing, coming up with nicknames. It's bizarre... until you think about their underlying motivations.

The meta is: these people are as familiar with the conspiracy theories discussed here as we are, they just front like it is out of contempt not curiosity. They're really repressed. We've all seen behavior like this before. At it's best it reminds me of people who say they have 'guilty pleasures' and enjoy bad pop music or tranformers movies 'ironically'. At worst they're like those republican homophobes who get caught with a mountain of gay porn.

They front like they know they're shit but they can "appreciate them with a smug sense of superiority afforded by the veil of detached irony.' That's bollocks mate. You don't listen to Macklemore because it sucks. You listen to it because you like it.

Really this article really nails it. The vibe I get off of these subs devoted to worshiping everything we say and do isn't that they actually feel superior to us. It's that somewhere inside of them they get it and want in on it. They're too repressed to accept it in a way that they feel comfortable expressing outside the realm of mocking indignation.