4 Conspiracy Theories That Will Make You Give Up On Humanity

In Weezer.

As Rivers Cuomo.

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This guy.

According to this particularly inspired theory making the rounds, the bespectacled frontman of the alt-rock group Weezer is indeed Kurt Cobain in disguise, because the first thing a famous rock star who is clinically depressed does after freeing himself from the shackles of celebrity is to start the whole rise-to-fame process all over again. Still, you can kind of see some suspicious similarities in the men's careers, if you squint while ingesting twice the human body's limit of LSD. Weezer's career-making Blue Album came out shortly after Cobain's death. They both have reservations about fame, their guitar sound is somewhat similar, they're roughly the same age, and, of course, they kind of resemble each other:

Via Heavy.com
When your repertoire switches from "Rape Me" to "The Sweater Song,"
your butt-chin is bound to lose a bit of chisel.

Well, not really, and once you get past the "holy shit, that's kind of weird" aspect of those other facts, you quickly realize that there's absolutely no freaking way this can be true. Cuomo didn't just appear overnight -- we have childhood pictures and shit, and Weezer has been around since 1992. Also, Cuomo confesses to being Nirvana's biggest fan, which would be an unlikely statement from Cobain, a man who openly resented the band's fame and mainstream status to the point where he contemplated joining freaking Hole.

Still, think about the implications if Cobain's maimed remains actually had been someone else's and the real Kurt pissed off to live a life where he'd never have to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" again. Where did he get the body? How did he set the whole thing up so no one has been able to find out that he's been writing power-pop tunes in a frisky four-man ensemble all along? And what does he do to the people who inevitably find out? If you ask me, there's a pretty chilling psychopath thriller in there -- and old Kurt damn well wouldn't be the good guy.

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As for the protagonist of the story, I'll just leave this picture here.

So, yeah. As an idea for a movie, this is a massively interesting premise. As for its viability as a conspiracy theory, uh ... let's just make the most of it by watching the following video and imagining it's Cobain singing:

Let's take a moment to revisit Princess Diana and her unfortunate demise via paparazzi car chase on Aug. 31, 1997. Right from the beginning, it was one of those cases that was destined to wind up with a massive Wikipedia entry just about the scores of assassination-related conspiracy theories surrounding it. That's always the mark of a good death story.

Some say the driver of the doomed limousine was on the payroll of some intelligence agency or another. Others maintain that a mysterious white Fiat Uno played a part in the fatal crash. Others still claim that the driver was deliberately blinded with a bright flash. And that's just the methods -- the actual reasons of her alleged assassination are so many and storied, the ghost of Elvis would lift his eyes from the pile of banana-bacon sandwiches he is forever consuming and shake his head sadly. Then his gaze would meet mine and he'd wordlessly pass me one of his sandwiches as he realized I'm going to have to write about the stupidest theory of them all: the one that claims Lady Di was assassinated by royal reptilian vampires because she was about to reveal the truth, man.

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"That'ssss bullsssshit, man. We were busy canceling Rolanda that day."

I shouldn't be surprised. I really shouldn't. The whole "British royalty are Illuminati reptilian shapeshifters" thing has been around as long as the concepts of Illuminati and reptilians, both of which are incidentally surprisingly recent. Diana was (allegedly) in the habit of referring to her husband's family with colorful phrases like "lizards" and "literally not human." Sane people might remember that her marriage was a strained affair at best and file this in the colorful, writhing map labeled "impeding divorce" language. Or, at the very least, "not everything I say is to be taken literally, you fucking morons" language.

Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, gleefully take these offhand remarks as cast-iron proof of Elizabethan reptilianity, and on this solid rock build their theories about the royal family being strange lizard vampires that have lived through the millennia by going full Dracula on people and replacing their body parts bit by bit with stolen flesh while they're at it, because fuck you, logic.

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Though it would explain why Prince Charles looks like he's made out of spare parts.

So Diana had enough of that shit, threatened to reveal their secret to the public, and was promptly assassinated for being a dick to the Iguana Nosferatu folk that secretly preside over us all. This brings us back to all those assassination theories, thus creating a layer cake of conspiracy theorists of varying levels of (in)sanity. I bet whoever is in charge of updating the appropriate watchlist appreciates the effort.

Most people take such things as the tragedies they are, grieve for a while, and move on the best they can. Some people stare at the poop-encrusted wall in their basement until they locate a clean spot, and start to smear it with crazy-ass theories about poisonous shoes.

Poisonous. Shoes.

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We know they were normal poison shoes instead of soccer boots because
the poison didn't make him start diving at the slightest impact.

Here's how the theory goes: Allegedly, the politically active singer might have ended up on the CIA's shit list. So one day, a mysterious white man came to see Marley, bringing him the gift of shoes. Marley promptly tried them on and described their fit thusly: "Ouch!" This is because one of the shoes had a small metal spike in the toe. Then, a mere five months later, Marley was playing soccer when someone stepped on that very same toe. Then, the toe cancer thing, and a few active years later, a sad and untimely death. Damn, CIA, someone must have gotten an effectiveness bonus.

Look, no one is saying the CIA never tried to assassinate anyone via ridiculous means. Shit, just everything they threw at Fidel Castro earned them a permanent Customer Of The Year discount at ACME, much to the chagrin of Wile E. Coyote. However, if they were so damn keen on killing Marley, why would they have bothered to off him in a way that literally took years -- and enabled him to perform and function normally for the vast majority of said years? Also, people, are we really doing the "government deliberately gives cancer to people who annoy it" thing again?

Because if we are, holy shit, this would be a political/spy thriller with the best damn soundtrack.