David M. Perry: It’s worth remembering that “lizard people” is an extreme version of antisemitism. There are people who don’t explicitly connect to Jews, and maybe they even don’t know, but the origins of conspiracy theory are 100% about us.

It’s worth remembering that “lizard people” is an extreme version of antisemitism. There are people who don’t explicitly connect to Jews, and maybe they even don’t know, but the origins of conspiracy theory are 100% about us.

I was today years old when I learned that former race car driver Danica Patrick is a fucking insane right winger who believes the world is being run by a lizard people conspiracy and has an Alex Jones-level YouTube channel

She leads with "the lizard people invented money to control us." Really.

Welp

jeez louise even for paranoia

What I can't figure out is why they also seem to think that the Reptilians can be defeated with podcasting awareness or whatever else; they seem to have us pretty badly outclassed.

“Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as ‘at the same time too strong and too weak’.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fasc... Also, if the Reptilians can’t be defeated by Getting The Truth Out, then who will view the far-rightie’s podcasts & buy their overpriced vitamin supplements? 🥺

Lizard people are such a cool concept but of course the antisemites have to ruin it with their awful conspiracy theories. static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrea...

Honestly, some days, I wish I were one of the actual lizard people in question myself. Fucking hate having this human skin of mine some days that feels so fragile sometimes. 😭

www.imdb.com/title/tt0240...

The Lost World (TV Series 1999–2002) ⭐ 7.1 | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fiwww.imdb.com 1h | TV-PG

youtu.be/2zmbvBUAsB8?...

THE LOST WORLD: SEASON THREE (2002) | Official Traileryoutu.be THE LOST WORLD: SEASON THREE (2002) | Official TrailerWATCH ON AMAZON: https://amzn.to/2Lwcm0nThe explorers face unprecedented threats and challenges in thei...

everyone has their favorite lizard people, but…

See! Lizard people are a great concept when you don't make a hateful conspiracy theory about them.

David Icke is the one that pushed the conspiracy into the mainstream... and he be one of those "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" kinda guys...

Yes

Is that the connection between Icke and antisemitism? I’ve never understood the link — I don’t disbelieve it, but when people are accusing Jews of nefarious things, they’re not usually this confusing.

"I strongly believe that a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War...

They then dominated the Versailles Peace Conference and created the circumstances which made the Second World War inevitable. They financed Hitler to power in 1933 and made the funds available for his rearmament." - David Icke

yeah it's not just lizard people - I summarized in the graf starting: "Icke is one of the most prolific and virulent anti-Semites in the world." psmag.com/social-justi...

Why Did the 'Times' Let Alice Walker Recommend an Anti-Semitic Book?psmag.com When we're talking about violent anti-Semitism, studious neutrality is journalistic malpractice.

In addition to what @ninjakick.bsky.social shared, Icke has also run something like “I’m not saying ALL the Jews are lizard people, just the inner cabal of bad ones” up the flagpole.

I gotta disagree about that last part. Case in point: Henry Ford claimed that jazz music was a secret Jewish plot to replace white people with black people in society through national moral decay.

And that’s why we had to learn square dancing in elementary school gym class. No, really.

The conspiracy plots are often ludicrously complicated (the theme of Jewish people using racial/ethnic minorities to corrupt the nation is common). I was saying that these people are usually semi-open about blaming Jews (bankers, the media, etc.) “Lizard People” is much more confusing!

The funniest thing about a bunch of racist tropes like this is that unless you're already starting from an internalized "target is bad" assumption, they all make the targets sound incredibly cool. I am 100% down with converting and attempting to marry into the space lizards hegemony.

Same!

Ever sense I learned about that, it's really made me feel queasy about that old tv show - V.

Ironically, V was inspired by It Can’t Happen Here, an explicitly antifascist and anti-Nazi book.

Oh yeah, that's always so weird to me. Just goes to show the limits of allegory and metaphor.

Watched "V" several times, and I've never heard of this novel before. (Also didnt know about the lizards=Jewish thing so obviously I'm out of it.) I looked it up and wow, how prescient. Have to read it.

I saw a lot of 1984 in V as well.

The show predates David Icke popularizing the Reptilian hypothesis in conspiracy circles. In fact, he almost certainly cribbed a lot from V (and They Live), making them antisemitic in the process because he filtered them through his own bullshit.

To be clear, "Shapeshifting Reptilians controlling society" as a concept goes back further into the early 20th century, but it was fringe even among people who believed in conspiracies or UFOs. David Icke is basically the reason it's a thing anyone knows about.

A book I read, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, traces it back to a Robert E. Howard story featuring his pre-Conan character Kull, who battled a race of hypnotic snake men for control of his kingdom.

It got picked up from there among believers, but was still barely a thing till Icke wrote The Biggest Secret in '98.

Starting a rumor in those circles that David Icke is afraid of Reptilians because he's secretly a Mousetilian.

Oh shit, I just about that!

Was it linked to anti-semitism in the before Icke? There's an old pulp fantasy story The Shadow Kingdom by Robert E. Howard where the protag, Kull, finds out that kingdom is really controlled by serpent people. I've always wondered about that one.

I was just writing a follow up about that because that story seems to be where the idea originated. REH was definitely racist and antisemitic, but I'm unclear if that particular story was meant that way. In any case, the concept didn't have nearly the same antisemitic baggage it does now in the 80s

It is complicated. Robert E. Howard seems to have been inspired to write "The Shadow Kingdom" from an idiosyncratic reading of the Old Testament, but the Serpent People probably weren't literally intended to be Jews (REH's antipathy to snakes being well-known). deepcuts.blog/2022/04/06/d...

Deeper Cut: Conan and the Shemites: Robert E. Howard and Antisemitismdeepcuts.blog Antisemitism The following article deals explicitly with antisemitism in a historical context. Frank discussion of these matters requires the reproduction of at least some samples of antisemitic speec...

I've read all the Kull and Conan stuff and REH wasn't exactly the king of subtext, but who knows about any particular story.

if it helps, the "lizard people" thing is younger than the (original) V series

I actually found the DVDs in a convenience store a few years ago and rewatched it- the series is *really* unsubtle about being an anti-fascism/anti-Nazi parallel, fwiw. Which is interesting given how it also critiques the Reagan era in the process.

The original V was a re-framing of the Nazi purges, with a camp survivor warning of what they were doing. Rounding up the scientists, academics, etc. and getting rid of them so that they couldn't challenge the invasion. It's definitely the opposite of what Icke vomited up.

This particular example was a major stepping stone for me personally in finding out the ol' "Pretty much every conspiracy theory is antisemitic even the ones that seem cute or silly"

Yep. And a lot of them, particularly pseudo archaeological ones, were started or heavily influenced by the Nazis.

Stipulated. Also, CONAN comics writer @jimzub.bsky.social said in interview that the “lizard people supplant the rightful government” narrative appears to originate from the Serpent Men in the KULL and CONAN stories from the early 1900s. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m... bsky.app/profile/notd...

I was today years old when I learned that former race car driver Danica Patrick is a fucking insane right winger who believes the world is being run by a lizard people conspiracy and has an Alex Jones-level YouTube channel

The Shadow Kingdom, published in 1929: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sha...

The Shadow Kingdom - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

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