The Evolution of Village Idiots: Why Everything’s ‘Rigged’ Now

There was a time when the village idiot’s wild ideas never traveled far. He’d claim that Bigfoot was spotted in the local woods or that the government was secretly monitoring everyone through their televisions. People would laugh it off, and his theories would fade by the end of the day. But then the internet came along, and those kinds of claims—like Bill Gates wanting to microchip the population—found massive audiences.

I also must mention that meanwhile, Elon Musk is out here ACTUALLY developing brain-implant technology with Neuralink, and no one bats an eye.

Anyways, what used to be dismissed as harmless rambling now spreads across social media, gains traction on Reddit, and turns into viral YouTube content.

People would indulge him for a moment, maybe humor his nonsense, but it never went further than the village. Then, the internet happened. What began as harmless local gossip evolved into online communities where even the most fringe theories found validation. The social circles that once protected us from these ideas expanded beyond control, morphing into endless networks of forums, comment sections, and conspiracy subreddits.

What was once small-town chatter became global noise, amplified by every retweet, post, and share, until the village idiot was no longer just talking to himself.

Even mainstream platforms helped fuel this shift. Joe Rogan, for instance, once hosted a range of guests like biohackers Tim Ferriss, Dave Asprey, & Aubrey Marcus. Even digital age pioneers like Kevin Pereira, diving into wide-ranging topics.

But over time, Rogan’s podcast became a hotspot for conspiracy theorists, constantly referencing incidents like the Gulf of Tonkin—an actual government cover-up—as a springboard for entertaining more dubious claims. While it started with genuine curiosity, Rogan’s habit of “just asking questions” now feels like a way to legitimize wild theories rather than explore them critically, adding yet another voice to the proliferation of modern misinformation.

And it’s not just one or two places anymore. There’s an endless supply of these forums: 4chan, 8kun, Reddit, the darkest corners of Twitter (or X, whatever we’re calling it now), and even private Telegram groups.

Each one has a crowd ready to validate whatever wild theory gets thrown out there. In these spaces, it doesn’t matter if the logic’s shaky or if the evidence doesn’t exist. If you believe it, you’ll find a group that believes it, too. From referees rigging games to celebrity clones, every idea, no matter how ridiculous, finds its echo chamber. It’s like the internet’s favorite pastime has become transforming every random thought into a full-blown conspiracy movement.

We’ve seen this before, right? The explosion of chan sites, niche forums, and fringe communities where conspiracies don’t just live—they multiply. It’s not just Twitter or Reddit; it’s entire subcultures. From QAnon to sports message boards, there’s always a space where the most outlandish ideas not only survive but thrive.

I see this mindset far too often. It’s like a friend I know who is convinced they have ADHD or that they’re on the spectrum. They’ll dive into online quizzes, watch TikToks from self-proclaimed experts, and then self-diagnose because it gives them a neat, easy explanation for why they are the way they are. But actually seeing a doctor to get a real diagnosis? That’s too final. They won’t do it because deep down, they know the answer might not be what they want to hear. The label is more comforting when it’s unofficial, floating in that limbo of “I might have it” without the commitment to reality.

It’s the same with sports conspiracies. People latch onto these wild ideas—rigged games, corrupt refs, secret agendas—because it gives them a simple answer for why their team lost or why the game didn’t go their way. There’s a psychological safety in believing the system is rigged, because it absolves you (or your team) of responsibility.

Just like those friends who won’t confirm their suspicions with a doctor because they’re afraid they might not have the condition, these fans won’t accept that the truth might be simpler—and more uncomfortable.

Maybe their team just didn’t play well. Maybe the refs just made a bad call. But instead, they cling to the more dramatic, more comforting explanation that it’s all a conspiracy.

Something as seemingly simple as a missed call in a football game has become a spark for full-blown conspiracies. The Miami Hurricanes scrape out back-to-back close wins, and instead of shrugging it off as, you know, sports, some fans leap straight to the conclusion that the ACC refs are in on some master plan. That Hail Mary by VT? Called incomplete not because human beings occasionally make mistakes, but because the refs are in Miami’s pocket, apparently playing their part in some Machiavellian plot. Forget the inherent chaos of sports or the basic fact that players and referees are fallible—no, this must be rigged!

The other day, someone hit me with their theory that the NFL was rigged—said they’d seen too many second-half comebacks lately, especially from the Chiefs. And of course, since Taylor Swift was at the Super Bowl, that was the final nail in the conspiracy coffin. Had to be scripted for ratings, right?

I tried to explain the basics—how football is a game of adjustments. Coaches don’t just sit around during halftime; they change strategies, exploit matchups, and adapt to what wasn’t working. The Chiefs aren’t coming back because some suit in a backroom needs a ratings boost—they’re coming back because Andy Reid’s a genius at making mid-game tweaks and Mahomes is a different breed of quarterback.

That Super Bowl? The Eagles dominated early, but the Chiefs tightened up their game in the second half, and Philly’s defense wore down. Sure, that explanation doesn’t have the intrigue of a rigged narrative, but it’s the reality of football: unpredictable, chaotic, and reliant on human error. But these days, people would rather believe the NFL’s running a soap opera than admit their team just didn’t handle the pressure. Because saying “the game was rigged” feels better than admitting “we didn’t adjust, and Mahomes did.”

Shouting “conspiracy!” over simple human error or incompetence has become far too common a trait these days. It’s weirdly comforting for people to imagine elaborate schemes running behind the scenes, controlling outcomes like puppeteers. Why? Because it’s easier to believe in a world where someone—anyone—is in control, even if it’s sinister, than to admit we live in a world rife with randomness, chaos, and, perhaps most unsettling of all, human imperfection.

It’s a strange irony, isn’t it? People who, on one hand, are quick to point out how flawed and incompetent the average person is—how you can’t trust someone to get your fast-food order right, or how customer service is a lost art—are often the same ones convinced that vast institutions are somehow executing elaborate, perfectly coordinated conspiracies.

These are the folks who have seen their coffee order botched three times in a week but still believe that entire leagues, governments, or media organizations are working in seamless, secret unison to control outcomes.

It’s a bizarre contradiction. We’ve all witnessed how human error is everywhere—how difficult it is just to get people to agree on lunch plans, much less a massive cover-up. Yet, when something big goes wrong, it’s easier to imagine that shadowy forces are pulling the strings behind the scenes than to accept the more mundane reality that mistakes happen.

It’s like we forget how fallible people can be when the narrative becomes more appealing if there’s some grand design. Sure, refs miss calls, politicians make blunders, and sometimes the playoff committee doesn’t pick your favorite team because, well, they’re people too. But instead of chalking it up to human error or incompetence, we invent stories about rigged games, deep-state plots, or secret backroom deals.

Believing in a conspiracy offers something simple: an explanation that tidies up the messy reality of human fallibility. It lets us avoid the discomfort of randomness or error and replaces it with the comforting idea that someone is in control—even if that someone has sinister motives. In a world where people can’t even remember to add extra fries to your order, the idea that massive institutions could pull off intricate, multi-layered deceptions without a hitch is somehow more believable than the truth that mistakes are just part of being human.

This behavior isn’t just a sports thing, either. It’s part of a larger cultural shift. Critical thinking has been replaced by knee-jerk skepticism, not the kind that leads to healthy inquiry, but the kind that dismisses everything out of hand unless it fits a preconceived narrative. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re almost allergic to admitting we don’t know something, or that maybe what happened wasn’t part of some nefarious scheme—it was just life happening, unpredictably and imperfectly.

But that’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? Admitting that sometimes things just happen—without reason, without conspiracy—forces us to confront uncertainty. And that’s the real problem: as a society, we’re becoming more and more averse to the unknown. The phrase “I don’t know” feels like defeat, so we fill the gaps with fantastical explanations, however illogical they may be. It’s the same mindset that leads to conspiracy theories in politics, science, and now, even in the trivialities of sports.

Look at Florida State fans after the playoff snub. Instead of accepting the hard truth that the committee made a decision—flawed or not—based on the criteria they had, some of these fans went straight into conspiracy mode, convinced that ESPN, Nick Saban, and hell, even Kirk Herbstreit & the playoff committee were out to get them.

It couldn’t just be that FSU, without their star quarterback, didn’t look like the same team. No, it had to be part of a larger, orchestrated plot to deny them their rightful place. Because believing that is somehow less painful than acknowledging the committee might have made a cold, pragmatic decision that wasn’t in their favor.

What we’re seeing is the result of a culture that would rather spin webs of fiction than sit with the uncomfortable reality that people are just… flawed. It’s easier to construct a narrative where everything that doesn’t go your way was manipulated by invisible hands than to face the unsettling randomness of life.

Incompetence, human error, bad luck—these are all inevitable. Yet, rather than accept that refs might just miss calls, or that the playoff committee might just make a tough decision, people invent complex schemes to avoid confronting these uncomfortable truths. It’s the illusion of control—if there’s a conspiracy, at least someone’s behind the wheel, even if they’re driving us off a cliff.

And here’s the kicker: the village idiot, once a harmless figure muttering to himself about moon landings or magical ponds, is now a kind of digital folk hero. They thrive in the spaces between fact and fiction, where doubt festers. They aren’t just whispering to the person next to them in line anymore—they’re broadcasting live to thousands of people who are all too willing to embrace their half-baked theories, because those theories help soothe the anxiety of uncertainty. Now, the village idiot has an audience, a following, and worst of all, a platform.

In the end, what we’re left with is a society where the village idiot has gone global. Instead of rolling our eyes and moving on, we’re retweeting, commenting, and subscribing. The Miami games aren’t just football anymore—they’re fodder for conspiracy because admitting that refs are imperfect or that games sometimes just don’t go our way is too mundane, too human.

The village idiot’s voice has become louder, but the underlying message remains the same: it’s easier to believe in an elaborate scheme than to confront the uncomfortable truth that sometimes, nobody is really in control.