In case you believe that X-Files is a genuine project and are unaware it's anti conspiracy psy-op too.
Chris Carter used real psychological tools by military warfare psychology.
1 The slogan says "I want to believe" instead of "I want to know". This apparently innocuous and almost unnoticeable logic fallacy to average people, is in reality a powerful tool of mass brainwashing. It reads you do believe in conspiracy, don't know.
2 The Lone Gunmen are very useful characters to show to the average people that even private citizens can be aware of conspiracy, if enough intelligent and able to look in the right places for not mainstream informations. First of all they made them all physically weird and unappealing, in order to show that only beta males can believe in conspiracy. Second, when public feedback was still strong, they decided to eliminate them in the most useless and absurd way, to make people forget. They tried to make them the leading characters in a spin off, pretending to not understand that such physically not charismatic characters will never work as a stand alone show.
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pitenius ago
You're dead right with the promotion of "I want to believe" (with the implication that the topic is unbelievable, but seductive).
It's handled in the show, but the idea of "Lone Gunmen" in oxymoronic. Also, conspiritards are not the "Lone Gunmen" -- we're the victims of those shadowy forces, not their willing agents.
Conspirologist ago
Your second paragraph doesn't make sense. The Lone Gunmen is a clever name, it's how is handled that is wrong and misleading. Conspiratards means those who believe conspiracy doesn't exist, against logic and factual proofs, by claiming it's all coincidences based paranoia. What is your point?
pitenius ago
Meh, I'd call myself a conspiritard. The other construction would be conspirator, which I am not.
The original "lone gunman" was Oswald, who was an insider and a patsy. I don't think most conspiracy theorists fit that bill.