I shitposted in one of the comment sections on a recent post by @themarkymark, saying that I'd watch any kind of conspiracy theory/flat earth kind of content for 100 Hive per hour.
It was a throw-away joke comment, that I definitely didn't intend to go anywhere with - as all shitposts are - until...
@lasseehlers made an actual offer to provide me some coin for my time. And, as I stated then - a deal is a deal. So even though I was sure I wasn't going to drink the tinfoil-koolaid of flat-earth... I thought it'd do no harm to watch the hour of video.
So, my wife and I popped it on the living room TV and settled in for what - I have to admit - was one of the best "bad science movie" style videos we've seen in a hot minute.
So, what follows is going to be my thoughts on the "Best flat earth documentary till date" as it was dubbed on the LasseCash post. Note that, none of this is an attack on lasseehlers himself or, really, anyone that does believe this. Folks can and should believe whatever the fuck they want so long as it isn't directly hurting others. That said, I am going to rip into how fuckin' dumb this video was.
First off... It is, I think, telling that the 'experts' of this... documentary (which is a term I use extremely loosely here), are a go-nowhere failed rapper, some Instagram influencer, and a random guy who likes to rant about religion.
As this is supposed to be (as far as I can tell) a video meant to sway folks to the side of Flat Earth being real, it's got a whole ton of what I think are issues that I'm more than happy to criticize.
The entire video has a "first year film student" vibe. Cheesy deep-voice modulation underscores what I assume are meant to be "gotcha, science!" moments in a way that lends absolutely no credibility. The after-effects are also reminicent of YouTube vlogs from the early years of the site, which definitely doesn't help.
A core issue of the video is that it can't pick a fucking conspiracy and stick with it. They spend as much time (or more?) going on unrelated tangents including, but not limited to:
- Gravity is fake!
- Satellites are real, but orbits are fake and they're suspended by giant balloons.
- The moon is fake and is plasma, so couldn't have possibly been landed on.
- The sun is a small localized light source (like a flash-light? I guess?)
- Claims that space-walks are just in big tanks because of "space bubbles" (which are pretty obviously bits of debris being dislodged into space)
- Neil DeGrasse Tyson is fat
The video really doesn't focus on any particular evidence that makes any sense... they bounce around from one nonsense conspiracy to another, many of which are based on a lack of understanding about how core elements work. There's a good five minutes that they hammer on about how most images of the moon are "computer-generated" without anyone seeming to know or acknowledge that image layering is a common practice and is - generally - what they're calling "computer-generated" in the video. This is just one example of many many points where it's painfully obvious that the "do your own research" crowd hasn't actually... done their research.
Now, I will say, for all I absolutely shit on this video - it did have one saving grace.
It had some amazing one-liners. My favorite of which was "Space Testical Earth", which a second later talked about "tectonic balls" instead of tectonic plates.
And, at one point some background music played, singing "all the stars are bullshit" which is absolutely fantastic, a real banger that I'd totally rock out to any time of the day.
There was also the moment where the religious zealot commented that the earth was flat because of... umm.. my notes say "Unicorn Farts from Satan".
The real clincher here for me though, and the biggest reason I 100% discount the idea of a flat earth, is that these folks want me to believe that all the governments of the world are in on some conspiracy to keep us away from the giant ice walls that keep us in our little flat petri dish. And that... that's where this really dies.
Have none of these people ever dealt with the government before?!?!
The dumb fucks in the Canadian gov't can't quickly and accurately send me a simple piece of paper in the mail to the address that exists on every single piece of gov't issued ID I own... and conspiracy theorists ACTUALLY BELIEVE that these same jokers in gov't are capable of all coming together and keeping something as big as a giant fucking ice wall A SECRET?!
COME ON.
You know they'd fuck that up. They're incompetent at the best of times when it doesn't matter. There's a snowball's chance in hell they'd pull off something like that that does matter.
@lasseehlers, it's okay if you don't pay out the rest of our 15K deal, and for all that I tear into the video I did have a blast watching it. It was worth it for the laughs for sure.