MONKEYPOX HOAX AND THE ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE MIDTERMS

In recent weeks, Covid-19 has found a new contemporary in the medical conspiracy theory realm: the Monkeypox virus. Although it was named for the laboratory monkeys among which it was first identified in Denmark in the 1950s, the virus is found mainly among rodents in sub-Saharan Africa. It is transmissible to people and it has caught epidemiologists off guard in recent months, with cases popping up in Europe, Asia and the Americas, along with a scourge of disinformation about them to boot.

This week in France, a series of tweets and Facebook posts went viral, claiming that The Simpsons had foreseen (or even somehow caused) the Monkeypox outbreak. The Simpsons has periodically been seen as an oracle, supposedly predicting the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, Richard Branson’s trip to space and most recently, the pandemic. Now it is Monkeypox’s turn. Images of Homer sitting on the couch beside a monkey and later lying in bed covered in virus-like red spots have been shared with comments like “the author of The Simpsons cartoon should be investigated.”

Despite the 33-year-old cartoon show’s reputation for prophecy, these posts are misleading. Journalists from France 24 found that these two particular screenshots came from different episodes, one in which Homer adopts a pet monkey to help him with household chores, and another in which he organizes a “chickenpox party” for a neighbor’s kids and ends up contracting the virus himself.

“THE COVID PLAYBOOK”: COPY-PASTE CONSPIRACIES SURROUNDING MONKEYPOX
Monkeypox conspiracy theories started spreading online almost as soon as cases began to appear outside of sub-Saharan Africa earlier this year.

Leonardo Bianchi, an Italian journalist who focuses on conspiracy theories, wasn’t surprised when he saw QAnon believers, professional conspiracy influencers like David Icke and media outlets like InfoWars were copy-pasting disinformation tropes to a new virus. I spoke to him about why it’s happening, how the conspiracies keep spreading and what it means for the rest of us.

You’ve been studying conspiracy theories for years. Were you expecting to see those copy-paste conspiracies with Monkeypox?