They say there’s someone for everyone, but what about tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists? If you’re into QAnon or believe the Earth is flat or think Ted Cruz’s dad is the Zodiac killer, does that make it harder to date? If so, then you’re in luck: As per Vice, conspiracy theory dating sites have started cropping up in an era of, as Kellyanne Conway would put it, “alternative facts.”
Alas, so far the only such dating sites are in Europe. One, from Germany, is called schwurbeltreff.de, whose name is a nod to a disparaging German term for conspiracy theorists speaking gibberish. Launched last month, it already has 1,5000 users. And what’s it like over at schwubeltreff?
Alongside the standard dating profile bio questions around height, hobbies and favourite movies, new users of the site are asked to list which conspiracy theories they consider to be real – such as coronavirus, QAnon, New World Order or prepper ideology – and to disclose the number of coronavirus vaccines they’ve taken. New users are also asked to describe where they get their information about current events, and to explain how they think the world will change in the next 20 years.
The site’s creator is Michael Bründel, a prominent German conspiracy theorist who of course is a major player in the nation’s anti-lockdown scene. Here’s some other things worth knowing about him:
Styling himself as “Captain Future,” wearing a trademark yellow cap and eyemask, Bründel has been a fixture at so-called “Freedom Marches” since the start of the pandemic.
The site’s homepage shows Bründel wearing a tinfoil hat connected through a web of electrical sparks to a tinfoil hat-wearing woman, whose laptop is decorated with stickers featuring a UFO, a call to “Free Julian Assange,” and a photo of a plane about to crash into the World Trade Centre.
The pandemic plays a key part in the conspiracy theorist scene, both on schwubeltreff and on another such service from Switzerland, which specifically serves anti-vaxers. Another German site was launched in 2015, and they naturally leaned hard into the pandemic; one Instagram post on the platform’s page reportedly read, “Back then: ‘Jews won’t be served here.’ Now: ‘Unvaccinated are not wanted.'”
For now, though, any American conspiracy theorists will have to make do with the conservative dating app The Right Stuff, which definitely hasn’t attracted a bunch of prankster progressive yuksters making fake accounts.
(Via Vice)