I’m sorry if my thread title isn’t really clear, so here’s what I’m asking:
I’ve noticed, on this and other message boards, that people who are trying to advance conspiracy theories, draw attention to their belief that they’re being persecuted, or otherwise screed silly ideas often tend to post in an incomprehensible and bizarre manner.
For example, the ramblings of this lunatic, as brought to the SDMB’s attention in this thread.
I’ve noticed several hallmarks in this type of posting style, including, but not limited to:
Use of incomplete sentences.
Seemingly RANDOM capitalization of VARIOUS words without any REAL
Sorry - I hit “Submit” on accident, and I missed the edit window. Here’s the full text of the question.
I’m sorry if my thread title isn’t really clear, so here’s what I’m asking:
I’ve noticed, on this and other message boards, that people who are trying to advance conspiracy theories, draw attention to their belief that they’re being persecuted, or otherwise post screed about their silly ideas often tend to post in an incomprehensible and bizarre manner.
For example, the ramblings of this lunatic, as brought to the SDMB’s attention in this thread.
I’ve noticed several hallmarks in this type of posting style, including, but not limited to:
Use of incomplete sentences.
Seemingly RANDOM capitalization of VARIOUS words without any REAL regard to their SIGNIFICANCE. (See posts 1, 18, 41, and 52 in the SDMB thread linked to above)
Hi, Opal.
Posts that the deluded person obviously regards as “clues” (post 18), and/or appeals for the reader to divine the deluded person’s meaning, rather than a straightforward presentation of their idea.
This is definitely not limited to the SDMB. On another message board that I visit, a regular member is convinced that the Illuminati are involved in everything. But rather than say, “The Illumaniti are behind Heath Ledger’s death. It was because he played a gay character in Brokeback Mountain,” his posts looked more like “ILLUMINATI and Heath Ledger! “Gay” actor dies at hands of SECRET agents. 9/11 clues POINT to plans to ERADICATE gays. 23/57 CONSPIRACY Scotland YARD and INTERPOL. See Monday, July 23rd, 1988 ARTICLE in Los Angeles TIMES.”
My questions:
Is there something about deluded beliefs that causes their holder to disregard most conventions of written communication? Have there been studies?
Is this a sign/symptom of schizophrenia? I’ve known and worked with some schizophrenics, and they’ve had a tendency to write mostly-incomprehensible nonsense.
Actually, I don’t think you’ve quite caught the flavor. What you’ve produced there seems more like movie trailer / tabloid headline language or sideshow barking. That’s a different form of incoherence. The spoken form of what you are after is sometimes called “flight of ideas”:
My PERSONAL broadbrush theory is that these people TEND to BE very unused to logical thinking (OR THEY wouldn’t be such conspiracy NUTS to BEGIN with), hence HAVE NO EXPERIENCE with logical writing.
IMO, they’re not listening to people. They’re not listening to people trying to reason with them now; they weren’t listening to people trying to teach them before. Immunity to correction extends beyond their ideas, encompassing their behaviour, attitude, and yes, style of writing.
They’re disconnected from the mainstream in more ways than just their beliefs.
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.
(Actually, the inimitable Robert McElwaine was somewhat unique in that his writing was grammatically coherent, and usually stayed on topic, in spite of the screwy upper case words sprinkled throughout, and the bombastic tone. It was just that the content itself was utterly bugfuck.)
Now, both of these people have some crazy ideas about gravity. But the first one is able to express himself quite clearly, while the second is on the verge of babbling. The second poster seems to have some peculiar lingual idiosyncrasy in addition to his strange beliefs. Does it have a name?
My personal and wholly unprofessional opinion is that he’s medically cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and his writing style reflects his mental derangement. However, the six-legged lamb is just cuter than shit—I wonder if it’s real.
Part of it is that you use capital letters for EMPHASIS. As newbies are always told, ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING. And people who are trying hard to get their point across tend to SHOUT.
The closer to reality the poster is, the better the emphasis is. As you get futher away from reality, THE emphasis is misplaced. You may EVEN see this IN their speech.
In general, those who can think clearly can express themselves clearly. Those who cannot, cannot. Conspiracy theories that make no sense can most readily seed and flourish in minds free from the weedkiller of clear thinking.
An indication of schizophrenia? No. I do not believe that the repetitive and deranged exposition of absurd ideas, using garbled or nonsensical language, is a reliable indicator of this particular and very distressing condition. If it were, the majority of politicians, religious leaders and estate agents would all be confined to clinical care.
It’s an indication of bad memory and thought processes, not of being deluded. There is a difference.
I think most of the poster’s here know how bad my writing and sentence structure can be. I cringe on the good days when I see some of the worse days. It’s a memory problem that worsens during illness relapses. It sometimes takes me half an hour or longer to post a paragraph, because after I apply spelling changes, I have to try to catch wrong words and sentence structure. The worst posts are when I decide a spell check will do, due to time constraints. Right now I’m having trouble and I won’t be posting much today. I’ve been back to the board for less than a day, and would like to be posting. :mad:
For another fine example of this sort of thinking expressed in print, see this article. I’ve reproduced the text of a Chicago sandwich-board wearer’s sign verbatim, including the weird capitalization. There’s definitely a link between the completely out to lunch theories and this style of writing.
For my part, I always hear this style of writing in my head as though Dennis Hopper were reading me the audio-book.
The MI5 persecution guy on Usenet (Google search if you haven’t seen any of his babbling) sometimes engages in this. Just by reading his posts, it’s perfectly evident that he has some form of mental disease.