From The Confessional: Miss Us With That QAnon Bullsh*t

Conspiracy theories aren’t new—we know that. People have been covering their windows and bracing for a zombie apocalypse or alien invasion for years. But before, conspiracy theorists had a harder time spreading their misinformation. They had to rely on paper literature like books, magazines, and newspapers, or word of mouth. Today’s believers, unfortunately, have the internet at their disposal. They can spread lies quicker than you can say “Trump lost, you MAGA-hat wearing Covidiot” with just the click of a button. And it’s terrifying how many people whom we previously respected have fallen into the conspiracy theory abyss, with little hope of ever getting out.

Our in-laws are hooked. So are our neighbors and former friends. Even some of our spouses are now believing asinine stories some Youtube expert is spewing, rather than listening to real, reputable scientific evidence.

They believe the election was stolen. They believe celebrities eat babies. They believe COVID-19 isn’t real. And they definitely don’t want any part of this “dangerous” vaccine going around.

We want to save them, but oftentimes, we can’t, and we have to simply cut them out of our lives instead.

Whether you’re mourning the end of a friendship because your old BFF has gone down the Qanon rabbit hole, or you’re dancing in the streets because your MIL’s “the election was stolen!” beliefs finally gave you the excuse you needed to un-invite her from all holidays from now on, we’ve all been impacted by these bizarre tales in one way or another.

All we can hope for is that these Qanon/Trump-loving “sheeple” will “wake up!” like they always tell us to do. Or else the human race might really be doomed after all.

As much as we might crack a joke about or shake our heads at these tin-foil hat wearing Trumpets, the truth is, the lies they believe are harmful. And their choice to fall into these traps means our relationships with them are forever changed—a reality that can be truly heartbreaking.

It’s hard to be in the same room as some of these people. Their mouths are moving, and you can tell they actually believe what they’re saying, but all we hear is gibberish. And we just want to be like, “Bruh. Stop talking. You sound like an absolute idiot and no one is taking you seriously.”

2020 brought out the worst of the worst because it combined conspiracy theorists with a pandemic. And that meant a wave of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers took a hold of our country. While we social distanced and masked up and signed up for our vaccines, Aunt Carol spewed dumb falsehoods about COVID that got her officially uninvited from Christmas dinner for life. Bye, Aunt Carol.

This pandemic changed everything—including breaking up friendships, marriages, and relationships forever. We simply cannot look at our spouse or sibling or best friend the same way again after they believe Qanon bullshit or support the man-baby who is still crying about losing, months later after the election.

For better or worse, the past four years, plus the pandemic, have brought out some bizarre conspiracy theories that we cannot believe anyone with an actual working brain would believe, but they do. And alas, we must then say goodbye as they slither farther and farther down into the Marjorie Taylor Greene loving—Dr. Fauci hating—science is bad but guns are good—the election was stolen but only because Trump lost—rabbit hole.

Buh-bye, Uncle Pete. We will not be saving a seat for you at Thanksgiving this year.