My parents have always been left-wing hippies and entertained the odd conspiracy theory, but during the pandemic they got lost down YouTube rabbit holes and bought into Q-Anon and anti-vax ideas. They still don’t believe Covid is real (even though they blatantly had it…).
We’ve just kind of agreed not to talk about it anymore, but they’ve steadily become more and more batshit and I think they believe I have been brainwashed.
Anyone else’s familial relationships changed forever?
I think it’s not solely stupidity, but being isolated for a long time with YouTube and extremist “news” sites being their only source of information has radicalised them. I had to ask my dad to stop sending me links, not just because of the content, but because they were from far right organisations (which was so surreal to me, they’ve always been extremely left). So he doesn’t send them anymore and I’m just excluded from those conversations (which I’m happy with) but it does mean he doesn’t have anyone else to give him some perspective and it worries me.