A user’s guide to flat-earth conspiracy Instagram accounts

Kyrie Irving is one of the most entertaining basketball players on the planet, and he has always seemed to be an eloquent, intelligent human being, but all of that was shattered last week when he joined the ranks of Tila Tequila and B.o.B. as a prominent proponent of the flat-earth theory. In the grand field of conspiracy theories, few are as beautifully straightforward as that of flat earthers. It is not part of a grand cosmology of conspiracies involving JFK and the Illuminati and extraterrestrials and steel beams; it is based upon the notion that the earth feels flat, and so it must be. It buttresses no other claims. As evidence, flat-earthers do not cite uncovered government documents, linking up names with spurious figures and documenting everything with careful red ink; they cite pictures of the horizon, which appears to be flat. It is gloriously pure in its conception: That fact doesn’t feel right, so it isn’t.

All of the other absurdities of the flat-earth conspiracy theory flow from this one assertion, but they are wonderful in their invention. Antarctica, they say, is an enormous wall of ice around the edge of our flat earth; NASA covers up the existence of the ice wall in an effort to keep people from climbing over it and off of the disc; eclipses are caused by some sort of invisible “anti-moon.” (Check this article out for a more detailed investigation.) As we’ve seen over the past few months and years, all social platforms are good for disseminating misinformation and conspiracy theories, each in different ways. Accordingly, the best possible place to get your flat-earth conspiracy theories reinforced is on Instagram.

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