WEBVTT 00:00:00.582 --> 00:00:04.800 Hi there, my name’s Kirby Ferguson. I am the creator of This is Not a Conspiracy Theory. 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:11.305 Stay tuned to the end of this video for further information about how this series works and how you can subscribe. 00:00:11.305 --> 00:00:12.819 Alright. Here were go. 00:00:14.772 --> 00:00:17.130 The people of the internet present 00:00:17.668 --> 00:00:21.383 A documentary feature delivered in episodes 00:00:26.044 --> 00:00:28.119 November 1963. 00:00:28.119 --> 00:00:30.278 An assassination. 00:00:30.278 --> 00:00:33.448 Not the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 00:00:33.448 --> 00:00:37.297 but that of his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. 00:00:37.297 --> 00:00:42.870 It was this killing that permanently sealed JFK’s murder in mystery. 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:49.958 The conclusion of the official government investigation was simple yet unsatisfying: 00:00:51.450 --> 00:00:56.738 a disaffected loner with a cheap rifle killed the president... by himself. 00:00:56.738 --> 00:00:58.703 Counter narratives started to appear. 00:00:58.703 --> 00:01:04.521 Amateur sleuths tried to follow the trajectories of the bullets backwards, into the shadows. 00:01:05.613 --> 00:01:10.117 Their methods were a combination of lawyer, detective and outsider. 00:01:13.547 --> 00:01:19.720 This style of reasoning became known as the conspiracy theory. 00:01:21.101 --> 00:01:26.235 Trust in government plummeted during the years of scandal and upheaval that followed. 00:01:26.235 --> 00:01:32.244 Finally, the president himself was implicated in a spying scandal and the fears of conspiracy thinkers seemed confirmed. 00:01:32.244 --> 00:01:34.436 Conspiracies were real. 00:01:35.189 --> 00:01:40.664 But the research into the Kennedy assassination was failing to develop a convincing alternative scenario. 00:01:40.664 --> 00:01:46.616 Instead, it had splintered into countless, conflicting variations. 00:01:47.630 --> 00:01:53.231 And on the outskirts of popular culture, new and more outrageous ideas were developing. 00:01:54.861 --> 00:01:58.277 The flaws of the conspiracy theory were becoming obvious. 00:01:58.277 --> 00:02:01.341 And its logic could lead to preposterous conclusions. 00:02:01.341 --> 00:02:05.206 According to the stories the US government is concealing under top security 00:02:05.206 --> 00:02:07.508 flying saucers from another world 00:02:07.508 --> 00:02:12.161 and alien bodies, cryogenically suspended in huge freezers. 00:02:12.361 --> 00:02:15.170 The term conspiracy was soon an insult. 00:02:15.170 --> 00:02:17.900 Why the fuck does everything have to be a conspiracy, huh? 00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:21.005 And yet the conspiracy theory would continue to grow. 00:02:21.005 --> 00:02:24.185 Its influence absorbed into popular culture. 00:02:24.185 --> 00:02:29.507 It blurred into the realm of science fiction as claims of alien abductions and cover-ups multiplied. 00:02:29.507 --> 00:02:33.303 This happened. If you believe it, that’s alright. 00:02:33.303 --> 00:02:35.760 If you don’t believe it, I don’t care. 00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:39.230 The TV series The X Files channeled all these themes of paranoia 00:02:39.230 --> 00:02:43.304 and beamed them into American living rooms every Sunday evening. 00:02:43.304 --> 00:02:48.098 While Oliver Stone’s film JFK brought the Kennedy conspiracy theory back into the mainstream. 00:02:48.098 --> 00:02:51.689 Now we’re through the looking glass here people. 00:02:51.689 --> 00:02:53.974 White is black. 00:02:53.974 --> 00:02:55.534 And black is white. 00:02:58.394 --> 00:03:01.342 But it was a new form of media, the World Wide Web, 00:03:01.342 --> 00:03:05.456 that brought the conspiracy theory to its widest audience ever. 00:03:05.456 --> 00:03:12.719 And after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the conspiracy theory became an online sensation 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:18.000 and it’s maintained a conspicuous presence in online culture ever since. 00:03:19.292 --> 00:03:23.799 By 2013, we'd entered a new era of suspicion and paranoia. 00:03:23.799 --> 00:03:28.210 Trust in government hovered at levels even lower than the Nixon era. 00:03:28.210 --> 00:03:32.905 Despite their persistently poor reputation, belief in conspiracy theories flourished. 00:03:32.905 --> 00:03:39.711 “Sixty-three percent of registered voters believe at least one political conspiracy theory...” Conspiracy Theories Prosper, Dan Cassino and Krista Jenkins 00:03:42.017 --> 00:03:47.755 The conspiracy theory is something more than just paranoia from the fringes of society. 00:03:47.755 --> 00:03:51.735 It's a dramatic expression of a uniquely modern anxiety: 00:03:54.766 --> 00:04:01.317 the sensation that you are trapped within the invisible design of a greater power. 00:04:01.317 --> 00:04:03.798 What you know you can’t explain. 00:04:03.798 --> 00:04:04.969 But it's there. 00:04:04.969 --> 00:04:08.385 like a splinter in your mind. 00:04:09.846 --> 00:04:12.769 In the United States in particular these fears have deep roots, 00:04:12.769 --> 00:04:17.041 roots that tangle down into the core of the American identity and beyond. 00:04:17.041 --> 00:04:20.219 Back through the centuries, past America’s formation 00:04:20.219 --> 00:04:24.494 and right down to the bedrock psychology of the conspiracy theory: 00:04:24.494 --> 00:04:30.118 the projection of human intentions upon complex events. 00:04:32.164 --> 00:04:37.133 The ancient Greeks once saw lightning bolts and imagined the fury of Zeus. 00:04:37.133 --> 00:04:40.380 But we later developed better understanding of the forces of nature, 00:04:40.380 --> 00:04:45.440 and we are now beginning to understand the complexity behind our own society. 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:48.871 We are confronting powers more daunting than a shadowy elite, 00:04:48.871 --> 00:04:52.846 powers that we struggle to comprehend with the minds we’ve evolved. 00:04:52.846 --> 00:04:54.210 You don’t get it. 00:04:54.210 --> 00:04:57.727 Then help me. Please, I need to know. 00:04:57.727 --> 00:05:01.501 This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. 00:05:01.501 --> 00:05:04.190 Nobody is in charge. 00:05:04.590 --> 00:05:08.550 What we are now realizing is that we are guided, constrained, 00:05:08.550 --> 00:05:11.272 and even controlled by the systems we have made, 00:05:11.272 --> 00:05:16.823 by the rules, institutions and technologies we ourselves created. 00:05:16.823 --> 00:05:19.046 And these systems have no ideology, 00:05:19.046 --> 00:05:21.990 they have no ambition, they are not greedy, 00:05:21.990 --> 00:05:24.647 they are not good and they are not evil. 00:05:24.647 --> 00:05:29.894 They are simply not like us. 00:05:32.248 --> 00:05:36.552 This is Not a Conspiracy Theory 00:05:44.522 --> 00:05:47.316 A serial documentary about the forces that shape us 00:05:47.316 --> 00:05:48.941 From the creator of “Everything is a Remix” 00:05:48.941 --> 00:05:51.789 Written & Directed by Kirby Ferguson. Original Score by John Woods. Fonts by The Font Bureau 00:05:51.789 --> 00:05:54.551 No DRM, No Regional Limitations, Multiple Subtitles 00:05:56.967 --> 00:05:58.485 And welcome back. 00:05:58.485 --> 00:06:01.131 There you have it, there’s the premise of This is Not a Conspiracy Theory. 00:06:01.131 --> 00:06:06.133 That is the theme I’m going to explore and whether you would like to subscribe or not, you should base it on that. 00:06:06.133 --> 00:06:09.051 Do you want to see more or not -- it’s up to you. 00:06:09.051 --> 00:06:14.602 Okay, so the format of This is Not a Conspiracy Theory is a little unusual but it is basically simple. 00:06:14.602 --> 00:06:19.523 It is a documentary feature broken up into installments and delivered on the net. 00:06:19.523 --> 00:06:25.177 That’s the basics of it. It’s a nonfiction movie, in parts, on the web. That’s the fundamentals. 00:06:25.177 --> 00:06:28.171 So you just saw Part 1, that is free for everyone to watch. 00:06:28.171 --> 00:06:31.770 If you’d like to see the rest of the series, you have to subscribe, you have to purchase them. 00:06:31.770 --> 00:06:35.769 The total running time for the feature will be at least 80 minutes, it will be at least 80 minutes long. 00:06:35.769 --> 00:06:40.249 However, there will be no set number of installments and there will be no schedule to their release. 00:06:40.249 --> 00:06:45.766 They do take a lot of time to make, so they’ll come out when they’re done and it will be slow. 00:06:45.766 --> 00:06:46.963 You should know that. 00:06:46.963 --> 00:06:48.845 But the installments of the film aren’t the whole story. 00:06:48.845 --> 00:06:54.633 They’ll be accompanied by a series of video updates and these will be the more interactive realm of the project. 00:06:54.633 --> 00:06:57.525 This series will keep you up-to-date with what’s going on behind the scenes 00:06:57.525 --> 00:07:04.887 and they’ll also be a platform in which you can participate, you can offer feedback, you can potentially influence the course of the series. 00:07:04.887 --> 00:07:08.064 Or you can just sit back and watch it all unfold, Whatever you’d like. 00:07:08.064 --> 00:07:10.722 And real fast, three more features worth mentioning. 00:07:10.722 --> 00:07:15.959 The series has no DRM. There’s no proprietary copy protection on the files. 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.097 You can watch the videos on any device you’d like. 00:07:18.097 --> 00:07:19.753 There are no regional limitations. 00:07:19.753 --> 00:07:23.355 Whether you’re in the US, Canada, Russia, China, whatever, you can watch the videos. 00:07:23.355 --> 00:07:27.936 And all the installments will be subtitled in many languages by the user community. 00:07:27.936 --> 00:07:30.911 Subtitles will be added as soon as possible after launch. 00:07:30.911 --> 00:07:36.278 So there’s only this first installment done right now so you’re basically pre-ordering the rest of the series. 00:07:36.278 --> 00:07:41.500 So right now the price is reduced to $12 US. It will later, become $15. 00:07:41.500 --> 00:07:45.256 You can also get a second subscription for half off by choo sing the gift option. 00:07:45.256 --> 00:07:52.184 So you can get a gift subscription for a friend, a family member, an enemy -- hey, why not? -- for a mere six bucks. 00:07:52.184 --> 00:07:53.654 And there you have it. 00:07:53.654 --> 00:07:57.243 That’s This is Not a Conspiracy Theory. I hope you will consider purchasing the videos. 00:07:57.243 --> 00:07:59.837 I think it will be a special and unique experience for you. 00:07:59.837 --> 00:08:05.963 And by doing so you are supporting ambitious and 100% independent filmmaking. 00:08:05.963 --> 00:08:12.048 Thank you so much for your attention, I really do value it highly and I hope it shows in that videos that I make. 00:08:12.048 --> 00:08:16.272 I really do not take your time for granted. I try to make the most of the time that we have together. 00:08:16.272 --> 00:08:19.835 Thank you so much for watching. See ya next time.