Don’t Look Now, But There’s Money in the Trunk

Conspiracy theories make people rich. Not you and me, of course (unless you are paranoid or have an extensive imagination, in which case there's hope for you). The conspiracy theory industry makes millions of bucks a year, at the very least. This includes books, movies, lecture series, and even serialized newspaper reports.

Organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, which have been near-defunct for many years now, still make huge amounts in membership fees, presumably because at any point of time, there will always be some people seeing Birth of a Nation (a highly controversial movie, banned in many countries) for the first time. And I'm sure almost all of you remember the furor that rose in journalistic circles when Princess Diana died. The then-Premier of the UK, Tony Blair, had to publicly denounce the 'Diana Death Industry', as he put it, and even then, the gold rush was scarcely derailed.

There are numerous books, periodicals, etc that focus on such sensationalist theories. Don't take my word for it, search for the word conspiracy on Amazon.com. In fact, I read in an excellent article on the subject that a new edition of the afore-mentioned Protocols of the Elders of Zion is available on Amazon, and has sold at least 64000 copies, which is a pretty handsome number (for a book whose origins have been proven to be fake).

When we talk of movies, many conspiracy movies have done well. The Fugitive, Men in Black, and to a lesser extent, The Matrix (although people like the series for different reasons) are all examples of movies where someone suspects that life isn't all that ordinary at all. And surprises of surprises, they are right. The biggest fish of all, of course, is the X-Files franchise. This series made tons of money for its producers, and was even made into a movie.

This is, more or less, all that I have to say on the subject (and Thank God for that!). I hope I have managed to convince at least some readers that conspiracy theories need to be consumed with a ton of salt. Of course, maybe this is all a conspiracy too, hatched by some evil sociologist who's cashing on our gullibility by forming an international syndicate of conspiracy theorists …