Conspiracy Theories That Never Gained Traction

Lana Del Ray on stage with her arms outstretched
Photograph by Kevin Kane / Getty

Succession” and “Billions” are, scene for scene, the exact same show (but no one has watched both of them).

Lana Del Rey perished aboard the Titanic.

George Soros has been pumping money into George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic organization for years.

There was only ever one Winklevoss, but there are actually two identical Hammers, Armie and Arnie.

Half of the world’s population falsely remembers the Mandela Effect being spelled as the Mandela Affect.

Vaccinations make your Wi-Fi slower.

Donald Trump was the Gerber baby.

George R. R. Martin was the Gerber baby.

Lana Del Rey was the Gerber baby.

The moon landing happened, but they still staged it afterward, because, originally, Neil Armstrong accidentally said, “This is one big step for man, but two steps for manki—wait,” then Buzz Aldrin’s foot got stuck in a moon crater, and it was a whole thing. So NASA was, like, “Let’s punch that up and just stage all this later.”

Plantar fasciitis isn’t a real thing.

Bagels aren’t born with holes.

Bitcoins are made of foil-wrapped chocolate.

Kobe Bryant never played in the N.B.A. Twitter completely made him up.

Amelia Bedelia accidentally founded the Illuminati.

Paul Rudd looks more or less his actual numerical age. You just associate charm with youth.

Language is a construct created in order to make humans confuse one another and to complicate their existence with deeply painful emotions that didn’t exist before the words that define them were invented. With each new level you reach in Duolingo, you only make Duo stronger. His blinks communicate his true, unspoken message: “End mankind.”

Sunscreen is just mayonnaise.

Vaping was invented so that robots could look cool.

When Elon Musk runs out of CBD, he turns back into Mark Zuckerberg. They’ve always been one and the same, and both versions put way too much sunscreen on their sandwiches.

Four Loko only contains three lokos.

Big Slinky pressured postwar housing developers to build more two-story homes, because they initially produced way too many Slinkys.