My conspiracy/paranormal/alien event is really about getting sympathy and attention. I'm sorry I'm

I would just love ONE post to start out like that. I think I would actually spend time writing back and thanking that person for at least being honest. It would be better than the way it goes now. Which is even more sad.

I post some junk about being a monarch sex slave, or a mind controlled ex agent of the Illuminati, or the victim of alien "probes" or I was possessed by a demon who made me stuff broken glass into my crotch.

Someone calls me out as a pathetic liar trying to elicit attention, and then a word war breaks out between the reasonable people who are totally fed up with and irritated by the kooks that are running this joint, and the other kooks who like to defend each other because with more kooks, everyones stories start to sound almost reasonable.
It's positive reinforcement of each others crazy stories. It just takes one or two people to say "I believe you" and the whole crazy story cycle is reinvigorated with thank yous and bless yous and may the alien spirit head froth candy into your open mouth like they feed the children on their own planet.

Stop helping them by accepting their crazy stories.

Just because we don't believe them, and we know they are taking some normal reasonable thing and blowing it up into a grand story full of intrigue, doesn't mean we have to just make some snarky post, and move on to the next snarky post.

Maybe we should consider what this person thinks they are going through. Maybe they are actually hurting. And the only way they have gotten comfort, or conversation, or what they percieve as human contact, is by telling these crazy stories to themselves and others in the hope that ONE person, will believe them. They don't even care if someone believes them, they just want someone to pretend to believe them.

I think the worst part about this are the predatory "carers". The ones who agree with and pander to the kooks, because they themselves like feeling like they are the hero, the savior, the bringer of kindness.
The next time you think you see a panderer, or a care predator in a thread, check their profile and look at the threads they are posting in. Follow their posts for maybe 10 posts. It becomes obvious that they don't care about the subject matter, or the person. They care about getting that post in, which repeats almost all of the key points, and relates it as their experience or a friends experience, so they can TRULY commiserate with the poster, the victim, the person who is trying to get the attention.
They are associatively taking the attention away, and focusing it on them for their own needs.

You wanna know who I think the most caring people are on ATS???

The ones who demand proof. The ones who want people to analyze the crazy story they are posting. The ones who want the kooks to admit they are posting gibberish for attention.
Because they feel very strongly that truth is strength. And the best way to improve your self esteem is to feel strong. And the truth is a great foundation because it is solid. You never have to feel guilty about the truth. You never have to worry that the truth is going to change it's mind on a whim. They are trying to help them find their own strength through being even modestly honest.
Say I don't know, when you don't know.
Say I don't understand that statement/idea/concept/description, when you don't understand it.
Ask people, how do I do research? How do I look that up? I don't know how to find out the answers to the questions I have about this stuff.

But what is going on instead is that the predatory pacifiers come along and defend the kooks. They validate the kooks lack of choice to be honest. They enable the kooks through praise and compliment and condemnation of the challengers.
They actually do much worse when they stretch the boundaries that the kook originally had. They imply connections for the kook that didn't exist before their interference.

"Oh I understand that the gray aliens stuck things in your boom boom room. It happened to my cousins sisters neighbors brother just last June. But did you consider that in that part of the country also in June, there was a "government exercise", where the CIA was using black lasers to implant satan chips into the people the aliens had already probed. Yep, sure did. Because the Illuminati made them do it so they could have mexican sex slave children smuggle the loch ness monster through the wormhole technology to be ready for shark week in Florida".

Thats what this whole website is like. Armies and Armies of kooks backing each other up, and people who want to help, want to teach, want to inform, want to help free, getting more and more irritated and furious, and insulting and snarky.

I guarantee more helpers walk away and wash their hands of this place each month than kooks.
And that's aweful.

Let the trolling begin!!!

There's nothing I can add, you covered it & I, for one, agree & feel that you're dead on.

I'm sure there are quite a few of the type of people you describe. However that does not mean that certain things don't exist (MKUltra, aliens, etc.) just because you say they don't any more than them existing because others say they do. Anyone who claims to have a monopoly on the truth are deluding themselves and others.

Originally posted by coyotepoet
I'm sure there are quite a few of the type of people you describe. However that does not mean that certain things don't exist (MKUltra, aliens, etc.) just because you say they don't any more than them existing because others say they do. Anyone who claims to have a monopoly on the truth are deluding themselves and others.

You are absolutely right. I make no attempt at pointing the way because my truth is absolute. I'm not that guy and I apologize if my post read as absolute. I put it in the rant place so that it can be ignored as is warranted lol.

I'm just frustrated because in my opinion there are people who are probably being harmed, or at least, marginalized by the attention they seek coming from a community where "everything" is accepted at some level.

The idea it seems much of time here is that if enough people are willing to agree that something is real, then that's good enough for it to be real and damn you if you question that.

Often times it seems that just a little bit of honesty between poster and reader, could go along way for people on here who seem to be reaching out for acceptance, and like most people, if they can't find it one way, they'll allow themselves to bend and stretch things until they get what they want.

Um the subjects you are ranting abot comprise a large portion of our conspiracy topics on most conspiracy boards.

I didn't take what he posted as absolute truth however I must agree in that there are some threads that the OP will swear by and citing a questionable external source. Granted not everyone is a CGI, extraterrestrial, cryptozoology or paranormal expert yet some of the imbedded or linked videos as well as "news sources" are without a doubt a hoax. Some of us, upon initially seeing an article or video, don't look at it closely enough to make a call on it & that's why they're posted on ATS, for the input of others yet there are those individuals who aren't able to accept a minute amount of criticism & become extremely defensive. I think we can all truthfully say that we've seen some wild & laughable things posted here (hello leprechaun in the tree), I just wish we could all keep a sense of humor about those items. It is what it is, we're a very diverse group & that's part of what makes it interesting.