New Boogeyman For Conspiracy Loons: Bill Gates

Bill Gates was one of the earliest prominent figures to sound the alarm bells about the possibility of a pandemic. A large portion of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's mission and resources have been devoted to spreading awareness about infectious disease and finding ways of preventing an outbreak. Here's Gates in a 2015 TED talk warning us to take action:

Basically, he's about the last person anyone with a functioning brain would blame for the mess we're currently in.

Well, anyone with a logically functioning brain, we'd like to introduce you to the Internet. In one of the most bizarre cases of "shooting the messenger" we've ever seen, Gates posted a thank you message to healthcare workers on Instagram and was met with a wave of hate and insinuations that he somehow created the novel coronavirus. These comments were then liked by tens of thousands of people. Here it is below:

Again, Bill Gates was the guy who tried to warn us about coronavirus. This is like if after Paul Revere yelled, "The British are coming!" the townsfolk knocked him off his horse and beat him up for giving the British too many good ideas. It's hard to even parse exactly what the case against Gates would even be, but a lot of the theories seem to stem from the stalwart minds within the anti-vaxxer community. One user writes:

'WAKE UP. CORONAVIRUS IS A DISTRACTION FOR MAKING YOU A DOCILE POISONED MICROCHIPPED SLAVE!COVID-19 (C)ertificate (O)f (V)accination (ID)entification - (1)=A (9)=I "Artificial Intelligence".'

So we guess (and we have to emphasize guess) the thinking here is that Gates will be using the coronavirus vaccine as a cover to microchip humans. Beyond that there isn't any explanation for what this accomplishes, or why Gates would outline his evil plan in an acronym for the virus like he's the fucking Riddler.

Then there are claims like within this Facebook post that Bill Gates stands to profit off a coronavirus vaccine. But the patent referenced is actually for a different coronavirus, one which primarily affects chickens. It's also paint-sniffingly-stupid to think that one of the most philanthropic men on Earth would somehow invent a virus to subsequently create a vaccine to make money, when in reality, there's way more money to be had in making boner pills or if he just released a new Xbox. Oh, he's doing that? Hmm ... well, then maybe they're on to something.

Dan has a podcast about The Bachelor, but it's like if it were sports. Check that out if you want.

Top Image: Kjetil Ree/Wiki Commons