There’s been a bit of excitement amongst the Flat Earthers over the past couple of days, as word spread that none other than Donald J. Trump had come out publicly as a Flat Earther, telling an Associated Press reporter that:
I fly a lot, and I mean a lot. No one flies more than me. Listen, I own a jet. I own a 757, beautiful plane, it’s the best plane! If the world were round, believe me, I would know!
Flat Earthers around the globe reacted with excitement to Trump’s apparent endorsement of their peculiar theory — forwarding the story to fellow Flat Earth conspiracy theories, posting comments on Flat Earth sites happily welcoming Trump into the fold. Internet-famous Flat Earth Youtuber Mark Sargent posted a video reporting the, er, “news” as if it were something that might have actually happened.
Responding to Sargent’s video on flatearthscience.org, one Flat Earther allowed himself to dream:
One year ago today, I learned about FE. What an October Surprise this could be. It seems likely to me, that he will have to address it. Trump has said that he will reveal the truth about 911, when he is elected. There is a lot of Truth in FE and ME. A wise man such as he, should be able to see it as easily as we do. A Globalist Trump is not, it would be a nice one year anniversary present to me, from the Goddess herself, if he was to call himself a Flat Earther. The Truth is very Powerful and will certainly set us Free as we were promised.
But despite being gullible enough to literally believe we live on a flat disc with a little snowglobe over it, that the moon and sun are basically big ceiling lamps, and that gravity is a hoax, many Flat Earthers thought the Trump news sounded a bit fishy.
“Wouldn’t that be something!” one commenter on flatearthscience.org declared. “But it sounds too good to be true.”
Another thought the “news story” in question was an attempt to make Flat Earthers look bad –by linking them to Trump:
This is to attach Flat Earthers to Trump (who says wildly outlandish things) … seems more like a discredit.
As it turned out, the obviously fake story had originated on an obviously fake news site crudely impersonating CNN and featuring only two other “news” stories in its archives, one of them headlined “World’s Biggest Starbucks Opening In Phoenix AZ [featuring] Roller Coaster, Underground Water Slide & Robot Baristas,” and written by a fellow who says his name is “Jimmy Rustling.”
The site’s “About” section, at the bottom of each page, makes a reference to “Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin” and encourages anyone with complaints to call a phone number that turns out to be the number of the Westboro Baptist Church.
So, yeah, fake story is fake.
But I am happy to report that the whole embarrassing spectacle did at least inspire a couple of crappy Trump-centric Flat Earth memes. I found these on Whotfetw.com, my go-to site for crappy Flat Earth memes.
But it’s not just political memes the Flat Earthers have trouble with. They do a pretty terrible job with cat memes, too.
In conclusion, this is the weirdest damn election year I’ve ever lived through.
Flat Earth? Round Earth? Bah! Truly intelligent people know it’s actually a multidimensional rhombus.
This made my day. The idea of flat earthers thinking that people are trying to discredit them by linking them to Trump has me giggling.
I think that defines the point where I stop trying to work out how someone came to think that way, and just enjoy the glorious convolutedness.
ETA and now I’ve started again. There’s a big difference between nonsensical and nasty, so props to the flat earthers who can see that.
@Oogly + IP
And a ‘fail’ compilation
@Nequam
I was trying to forget those generic, obnoxious, brainless things.
@Axe
AMERICA’S FUNNIEST ELECTION SEASON REACTION, GONE WRONG, GONE SEXUAL, EPIC FAIL MEMES
Eh, needs more aliens. I bet there’s a theory about Drumpf being an alien. I mean, there’s one that most if not every major celebrity and rich person is a reptoid, he’s probably a part of it.
“In conclusion, this is the weirdest damn election year I’ve ever lived through.”
I’ve been politically aware since 1984 and a political junkie since 1988.
It’s not contest. This is by far the weirdest election year I’ve ever seen.
I’m not sure what ME is either. I was hoping one of you knew. I tried googling, but that’s sort of hopeless in this instance given that “me” is a rather common word.
@David
I don’t know, I picked the ones that sounded the closest to conspiracy theory lingo
Mutant Enemy
Memory Eater
Multi-Environment
Mother’s Extract
Flat Earther irony I forgot to mention in the post: in the picture of Trump with the “flat” hair, the hair is not in fact flat, there is a slight curve to it.
I saw one debunking of the flat earth theory that showed some flat earther offering a picture of the “flat” horizon that, like Trump’s hair here, was actually curved. Maybe flat earthers are simply unable to see curves?
Hmm, I did some searching and the closest thing I could find was a tour company called Flat Earth that gives tours of Middle Earth (the LOTR film location in New Zealand). Is there some kind od Middle East conspiracy theory among flat earthers, maybe?
@Kupo Tolkien wrote in the Silmarillion that Middle Earth was originally flat. After the Numenoreans angered the Valar by daring to set foot on Valinor, they curved the earth so that no human could find Valinor. The elves can still get there (barring some exceptions), and obviously the invited members of the Fellowship.
Mandela Effect! Of course, how did I not get that, given that I’m sort of obsessed with it.
If you don’t know what the Mandela Effect is, google it and prepare to have your MIND BLOWN with its total ridiculousness.
Mandela Effect has to be pretty near rock-bottom in terms of pointless, unsupportable conspiracy theories.
Pretty sure “ME” is “Motionless Earth” – the companion pseudo-scientific claim to Flat Earth ideology that states that the Earth does not move. In other words, a geocentric cosmology that requires that the entire Universe moves around the Earth, and that the Earth itself does not move within the Universe.
Oh lor’, bloody Mandela Effect. It’s the Rolls Royce of conspiracy theories and it’s not even about a conspiracy. I think my favourite was seeing someone who was pretty sure that New Zealand used to be to the left of Australia on the map… oh, and that Queensland didn’t use to exist.
IT IS A VERY FLAT EARTH! THE FLATTEST! WE WILL MAKE THE EARTH FLAT AGAIN AND BUILD A GREAT WALL AROUND THE FLAT EARTH AND MAKE THE DUNGEON DIMENSIONS PAY FOR IT!
People probably just remember Mandela dying in prison because they’re mixing him up with Steven Biko.
@skybison
One of the flat earth “theories” described on Wikipedia does state that the North Pole is the center of a massive disc, and that Antarctica is a wall of ice surrounding the Earth.
@harmless
I NEVER SAID THE EARTH WAS FLAT. THE EARTH IS ROUND, PERIOD! HILLARY CLINTON STARTED THE RUMORS THE EARTH WAS FLAT AND I PUT THE ISSUE TO BED!
Actually HawkAtreides could be right. Flat Earthers don’t generally believe in parallel universes (or indeed any universe beyond earth), so the notion of alternate timelines is probably alien to them. (As are aliens, for that matter. They don’t doubt that people are being abducted by evil creatures; they just think these creatures are demons, not aliens.)
OMG, I just spent like 20 minutes reading people convinced that the Mandela Effect is real because they misremember quotes from movies. The best was the guy whose JFK book was magically altered while in storage because it’s impossible that his recollection of how many people were in the car might be inaccurate. That whole thread had Poe’s law written all over it; I was so sure it was satire at first but then I kept reading and realized they might actually be believing this thing.
Gee, when I realized that New Zealand actually was east of Australia, I just assumed that I had made a mistake. Thanks, conspiracy theorists!
Huh. I though the Earth had to be moving constantly upwards, to provide a Flat Earth-friendly alternative to gravity. These Flat Earth theories are deeper than I thought!
(That said, I have seen debates as to what, precisely, lies behind the encircling Antarctican ice wall. My favourite theory is that it’s just more ice, infinite ice, forever.)
I want Space X to o a thing where they send flat earthers into space. Not because I hate them and want them to suffocate, but to like, hang out in a ship with windows and shit and orbit the planet.
But then they would probably think the windows were screens, so they would have to do a space walk?
I spent waaaaay too much time perusing the flat earth memes site in that link. I noticed all of the following:
1. Their sense of proportion is usually off by several orders of magnitude.
2. They appear to think that “up” and “down” are absolute directions, and are not relative to the center of a gravity well.
3. They appear to believe in an absolute frame of reference (i.e. what relativity says isn’t so).
4. They don’t seem to have any concept of inertia.
5. I have no idea what they think coriolis force is, and possibly they don’t know what they think it is either.
6. Gravity is really “buoyancy and density”? I can sort of see how that could work, if there was a physical barrier to keep the sky in. But I suspect that if it really worked like that, then people should be able to leap skyscrapers or something similarly ludicrous which doesn’t match observed reality.