Was there ever a Furby in your house? Did you ever wrap a thick blanket around it and stuff it into a box deep, deep in the cellar? Because those darn things looked harmless, but they would wake everyone up by squawking and yelling unbidden in the middle of the night. It freaked me out, but I’m not alone. Apparently, the little gremlin toys were banned from CIA headquarters in 1998 because of a fear they could be used to relay classified information.
Made perfect sense to me, given my personal Furby dramas. When I became aware of the British comedian, Joanne McNally’s, investigation into Furby as Spy, I went deep into a rabbit hole of the whole conspiracy thing. There’s even a Conspiracy Chart (conspiracychart.com) that categorizes popular conspiracies and provides an interactive link to further info for each. The chart is part of a larger website (abbiesr.com) which showcases someone’s work to research and educate about misinformation and conspiracy theories.
The conspiracy that Avril Lavigne was replaced by a body double around 2004 is not only on the website, it was the focus of a whole podcast by the same comedian. The sordid tale is that Avril died and the record company decided to hire lookalike Melissa to take her place, so as to not lose the financial freight train the singer’s popularity was on. I had heard the strange concept years ago when I was still working full time and I tossed it out as a funny topic of conversation in the lunchroom. That’s when I realized the degree to which some people take these things seriously – one of the gals from the office reiterated the full theory. The chance of height, the facial features, something about a hand, the change in approach to singing and to the world.
I guess I could ask Chad. In a strange quirk in my real life, which itself now sounds like a conspiracy theory, my former husband was trying to teach all those guys math in Hanna. When they got a radio interview, he suggested they speak with me to get pointers on dealing with the media. I kid you not, I met with Chad and Ryan at the National Hotel coffee shop, and they took notes while I spoke about key messages. The rest, as they say, is history. You’re welcome, Nickelback.
Conspiracy theories, though, have destroyed preventative health protocols, politics, careers. They’re not funny if you’re on the receiving end of a concept that you’re dead. Nice idea to think Elvis or Diana are still alive, though, or that Stevie Wonder isn’t blind or the Titanic never sank (yup, that’s all on the chart). Unsettling to turn living people into pop-theory targets by suggesting they are dead or robots or responsible for covid.
Now that I think of it, Furby seems cute and cuddly by comparison. I might go downstairs and dig him out of storage. Unless he has escaped already and is the leader of a large nation.