Obama, Where Art Thou?

One thing I heard growing up is that “books can open up new worlds.” That idea—or the way it was presented—always fascinated me. I seem to remember seeing a television commercial (oh, the irony) in which a kid opens up a book and from the pages comes a stampede of fantastical creatures a la Jumanji. While I never believed that would happen, I did wonder what books I needed to be reading in order to achieve that level of escape. Because, as an avid reader (and not to denigrate books—I do have a degree in books, after all), I have never been transported to any new world that I could not have seen in a movie—and probably with better vividness.

This post isn’t about knocking books. Books are great. They improve your memory and can help you communicate ideas. I love books. But, on a recent web-surfing adventure, I was reminded of that age-old promise--that books can portal you to sensory-overloading dimensions you never thought possible--and I thought: why are teachers still pushing books when the Internet does the opening-up-new-worlds thing so much better?

Case in point: I found a site called Conservapedia, which, I’ll admit, is far beyond anything I thought possible. And as someone who spends a good chunk of their day surfing the the darkest corners of the Internet, that's saying a lot. I guess I could see Conservapedia in a book—maybe something Kurt Vonnegut would have come up with—something so absurd and yet so possible. Something plucked straight from the bowels of socially-conscious satire it almost seems like a parody of itself. But for now: it exists solely on the Internet as an unintentionally Orwellian anthology of whacko conservative beliefs.

The site is the conservative answer to Wikipedia—which, objective as Wikipedia is, is apparently too “liberal” for the people who started Conservapedia. I don’t know how I got there—how many mindless clicks away from my e-mail or Reddit it took to land on something so ridiculous—but that’s the magic of the Internet: it transports you to worlds you—well…worlds you might have thought possible but certainly didn’t believe existed.

I clicked around on the site with my jaw securely dropped as I read popular conservative conjecture substituted and presented as fact. There's even a section devoted to great "conservative" movies, which I thought meant: anything directed by Clint Eastwood and that Obama movie that just came out. But, no. They claimed some of my favorites, such as "Ghostbusters" and the "Sandlot" as indisputable "conservative" movies--and great ones at that. And the funny thing is the they also have a "Debatable Whether Conservative or Not" section on this list--which means that, by omission, "Ghostbusters" and "the Sandlot" fall under the not-debatable-they-are-conservative-movies category.

I wondered if it was a joke. The litmus test was typing in Barrack Obama. The first three paragraphs comprised every conspiracy theory championed by Donald Trump. It said that Barrack Hussein Obama (emphasis on “Hussein”) was born in Kenya and that he was (and still is) the first Muslim President in U.S. History. There was also a part about his birth certificate—and I’m sure you can imagine what that said.

At this point, I was pretty sure Conservapedia was a joke—an Onion-type compendium of every popular right-wing conspiracy presented as objective truth. Every link I clicked on, I got exactly what I expected. Like asking the craziest of Republicans about any topic and getting the craziest of Republican responses. There’s no way it could be for real. But, just to make sure, I opened a new tab and checked Google. I typed in “is Conservapedia a joke?” I think I got to "is Conservapedia…” before auto-fill completed my question. The question had been addressed all over the Internet. And everywhere was the same answer: “No. Conservapedia is all too real.”

I’m not going to whine here and say that people have been brainwashed and that Conservapedia only continues to re-enforce that brainwashing. Because…I don’t care. The Internet is filled with far too much fringe conspiracy crap to combat or address it all. And the people who read Conservapedia and take it seriously already have their minds made up. There’s no telling them anything contrary to what they already believe.

So, instead, I’ll just leave the links here and let you (the non-existent fan of this blog) have a good laugh. 

Also, I should note that if you look at the FoxNews page on Conservapedia, you'll notice that it's not quite what you'd expect. Conservapedia doesn't seem to endorse or even support FoxNews. Instead, they (Fox) are part of the conspiracy against conservatives--despite promoting and being the original producers of every bit of misinformation on Conservapedia. Hopefully, this inner-rift expands into an entropic finale in which Bill O'Reilly eats himself live on the Factor, thus bringing to an end the age of sanctimonious self-righteousness. 

My fingers are crossed.