The conspiracy theory growth cycle is pretty clear after all these years: something originates on 4chan, is picked up by some independent blog that editoralizes

The conspiracy theory growth cycle is pretty clear after all these years: something originates on 4chan, is picked up by some independent blog that editoralizes and sanitizes it. The blog post is then spread through Facebook and Twitter before it lands back on 4chan, but now legitimized by coverage on more "mainstream" web (by 4chan's standards anyway). The Flat Earth conspiracy was easily the best example of this