Online Conspiracies & Virtual Cults, Part 2: Celebrity Makes the World Go Flat

The Purple Principle

Do we live in an age where online conspiracies and cults proliferate ever more frequently and powerfully? We continue to explore this question by focusing on the growth of the flat earth movement in “Online Conspiracies & Virtual Cults, Part 2: Celebrity Makes the World Go Flat.”

Our special guests for this episode, filmmakers Daniel Clark and Nick Andert, gained unprecedented access to the flat earthers for their insightful Netflix documentary, Behind the Curve. The central character in their film is the surprisingly engaging flat earth celebrity, Mark Sargent, whose Youtube videos have had over 19 million views.

In addition to interview discussion, this Purple Principle episode features numerous audio highlights from Behind the Curve, including interplay between Mark and his ever-tolerant Mom, other flat earth celebrities and adherents, as well as scientists commenting on the challenges of combating conspiratorial thinking.

Tune in to learn more about the making of Behind the Curve and the window it offers onto conspiratorial thinking and cultic identities, including Qanon and other polarizing ideologies, along our political and social fault lines.

Original Music by Ryan Adair Rooney

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Our guests:

Daniel Clark, @djcfilm

Nick Andert, @nickandert

Additional Resources:

Behind the Curve. Netflix.

Behind the Curve

Behind the Curve. International Documentary Association

Delta-v Productions

Rachel Brazil (7/14/20). “Fighting flat-Earth theory.” Physics World

Rhett Herman (10/26/98). “How fast is the earth moving?” Scientific American.

“Who started the flat earth conspiracy theory, how many actually believe this, and what do they believe exactly?” QRIS.

Spiros Michalakis (5/22/18). “As a scientist, 'flat earthers' ought to be my enemy. Here's why I listen, instead.” MacLean’s.

Rob Picheta (11/18/19). “The flat-Earth conspiracy is spreading around the globe. Does it hide a darker core?” CNN.