I used to spend a lot of time hanging out on the Reddit sub r/conspiracy, both to look for new material to write about and to get a finger on the pulse of what was happening on the fringe. Sadly, like most online spaces where cranks hang out, r/conspiracy has devolved into non-stop ranting about the COVID vaccine, Jews, Elon Musk, and how Hillary Clinton killed Jeffrey Epstein. None of this is new or interesting, and the more people hammer the same talking points, the less compelling they are.

But every so often you find some gold. I especially like any thread on r/conspiracy or Twitter where people talk about the conspiracy theories they personally think could be true. I’m not talking about 9/11 being an inside job or reptoids, I mean very minor conspiracism that could or could not be true, and either way, it doesn’t mean much because it is, as this great Twitter thread puts it, “low-stakes.”

What's your goofiest low-stakes conspiracy theory? I believe the 2016 clown panic was a psyop to test how panics can be spread via social media.

— Robert Skvarla (@RobertSkvarla) September 3, 2024

Every once in a while I find a thread like that on Reddit, and most of them devolve into the same “Jews did the COVID” nonsense. But I found one from a few days ago called “What are some niche(ish) conspiracies you ACTUALLY believe in?” and found it amusing enough to read. And since I think we all need a bit of a break from the election, I decided to answer some of the most popular responses. I skipped anything too mainstream or inherently hateful, and actually had some…fun…with it. The way conspiracy theories used to be, you know?

These are sorted by most upvoted.

Health insurance in the US is intentionally a pain to deal with, they refuse to cover most basic procedures/tests, and deductibles are outrageous with the goal of you not seeking care until your health problems worsen which in turn makes them more money. So many people hold off on scheduling tests or procedures only for it to be life threatening down the line which is how they make their biggest profits.

I completely understand why health insurance and the healthcare industry spawn conspiracy theories, particularly given the role of medical debt in driving people toward fringe beliefs and extremism. I’d say this isn’t quite right, but health insurance in the US is incredibly difficult to deal with, expensive, confusing, and hard to get a handle on for people who aren’t steeped in it. Certainly there’s no rhyme or reason to how hospitals and medial groups charge for services, and many people have had to delay tests or procedures because of costs, lack of referrals, or scheduling problems. I don’t think it’s intentional, but the byproduct of a system that’s way too complicated and doesn’t deliver what many people actually need. The only way to make this go away for sure would be a national healthcare system, and, well, that’s not going to happen.

I firmly believe that Michael Jordan didn’t retire and play baseball for 2 years because he was bored. He did it to serve a gambling suspension from the NBA that both parties wanted to keep under wraps. I also think gambling had to do with his father’s murder either directly or indirectly.

I grew up in Chicago and was in high school when Jordan unexpectedly retired. The conspiracy theories that the retirement was actually a gambling suspension seemed to start right away – fueled in part by comments Jordan made at his retirement press conference about him potentially coming back if then-NBA Commissioner David Stern “lets me back in” and Jordan’s public gambling controversies.

But Jordan and Stern, who died in early 2020, both consistently denied any conspiracy or secret plan to push Jordan out. There wasn’t any need for one – if Jordan’s gambling had gotten to the point where he was betting on games, he would have publicly been suspended or possibly even barred for life from the game. Jordan’s father had recently been murdered, and coming off winning three NBA titles in a row, Jordan talked openly of his competitive fire not being there. Instead, he fulfilled a longtime dream of his late father and pursued baseball, spending a year in AA with the Chicago White Sox organization. But while Jordan flashed some skill, he was clearly a better basketball player, and came back to the NBA by the end of the next year. The conspiracy theory exists to explain something that seems inexplicable, but really had a lot of reasons behind it.

We aren’t the first advanced civilization on this planet.

It’s certainly possible, but there’s no evidence of it. Any advanced civilization would have left technology or ruins behind that would have been durable enough to be found, unless it happened millions or tens of millions of years ago and all the things they left behind turned to dust. And while ancient aliens theories love ascribing wonders like the Pyramids or the Nazca Lines to extraterrestrial beings, we know they were produced by humans using simple and durable scientific and engineering concepts. It’s an alluring idea, and variations on it have been used by countless fantasy and sci-fi writers. But we have no reason to think it’s true.

Trivial but that was a fake belly on Beyoncé in my opinion

Beyoncé faking her pregnancy was a big rumor on celebrity gossip sites in 2011, but the singer herself called the rumor “stupid, ridiculous and false,” and there was never really any evidence it was true. Beyond that, her child turned out to be Blue Ivy Carter, who has become a well-known singer and influencer in her own right.

Google jamming. The idea that government grants are given to movie, tv, music producers to name things based on what they want hidden.

For example: 1984 might be something they don’t want people searching, or coming across accidentally. One of the seasons of the TV show, American Horror Story was called 1984.

The idea is that things in pop culture will eventually show up first in the search results instead of older works that some people might want to censor.

This is a variation on the conspiracy theory that Disney called the movie FROZEN that to jam search results for people looking for proof that Walt Disney in stored in cryogenic deep freeze. But really, this is just some bad post hoc logic. People give names to things that are short, easy to remember, and punchy. And when those names become well-known, they influence what other things are named. Why would “they” not want people searching for the book 1984? It’s a famous book, you can get it anywhere, and all I have to do to find it is Google “1984 book.” Also, if you just Google “jamming” you get a bunch of Bob Marley lyrics. Did you know that there’s a conspiracy theory that Bob Marley was killed with cancer by the CIA for…reasons? Maybe that’s what they’re jamming.

Dandruff shampoo is specifically formulated to make your dandruff worse if you discontinue using it.

Generally speaking, if you use a product or medicine to treat something, and you stop using it, the thing you were treating is going to come back. Ergo, if you have bad dandruff and stop using dandruff shampoo, your dandruff will come back, and your mind will probably tell you it’s worse than ever. Even other responses to this one said it wasn’t true, though you can damage your hair if you shampoo too often.

Where I live, I cannot for the life of me find orange seeds. I have to buy a young tree to be able to grow my own. All the orange varieties in the supermarket are either completely seedless or the seeds are small and vestigial. I, quite miraculously, found two viable seeds within a single blood orange I bought from the supermarket, literally the first orange I’ve seen with actual seeds inside for well over a decade. Only one germinated. I can grow lemons, mandarins, grapefruit, nearly every other kind of citrus from store-bought fruit. Why don’t any orange varieties have viable seeds like other citrus fruit?

Orange seeds are trivially easy to buy online, though it can take well over a decade for an orange tree to grow to the point where it will fruit. Seedless oranges are grown from tree grafting, and are more popular than oranges with seeds, because they’re easier to eat. The OP would be better off just buying and planting a small tree.

That slowly due to computer screen and phones we will lose our peripheral vision evolution wise

No, because this isn’t how evolution works. There’s no reason why people with poorer peripheral vision would have more children than people who have good peripheral vision, so there’s no evolutionary benefit to it. Screens are certainly doing nothing good to our bodies, our vision, and our attention span. But this sounds like something that was cut out of Idiocracy.

We used to use airships all the time before planes were invented and they used to be hooked up to buildings all over the place. Possibly this is what the bellless belfries on many buildings were actually meant to be used for, as a point to get on and off the airships. The only reason we stopped using them is because big oil companies wanted planes, so they sabotaged the Hindenburg and psyoped us into thinking they’re super dangerous. It’s ridiculous that we abandoned the humble dirigible just because 35 + 1 people out of 97 + 1 died in an accident.

There’s literally no evidence of this, or any reason why it would be true. Photography was around 70 years before the Hindenburg, and if we were all bouncing around on humble dirigibles and docking on skyscrapers willy nilly, someone would have taken a picture of it at some point. Airships are actually very dangerous if filled with hydrogen, like the Hindenburg, and helium is too rare and expensive to waste on airships when airplanes do the job faster and safer.

In fact, the world is running out of helium, because it’s the only element on earth that is completely nonrenewable. When it’s gone, it’s gone – and nobody has figured out how to synthesize it.

Sounds like the perfect conspiracy.