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?
My parents would watch a channel that had little pro Russia news segments thrown into commercials. The damage this constant little poking with misinformation does is not easily undone. They didn’t even notice how their opinion was formed by those few lines in-between their favorite shows. Then suddenly they had issues with their satellite dish and when I fixed it somehow, for some totally unknown reason that channel was no longer there. Woops. They found other shows to watch and don’t support the war anymore.
I wish it was that easy. That part of my family is a bit more remote, so I don’t see them that often. Still, I hurt thinking about how this misinformation was able to divide us like that. There’s also little point in arguing with them. We simply don’t talk much anymore, and if we do, we keep the topics light and refrain from politics and/or other world-news topics such as climate change. (Which is not really a thing, if you ask them, but I think you get the idea.)
Ribbit