Conspiracy believers deny citing the conspiracy sources they actually use

Evidence

In my travels through the far reaches of conspiracy America I, too, met countless people who told me they had uncovered the truth about Seth Rich or Pizzagate or September 11 by doing their “own research,” as virtually every person put it. Tellingly, nobody pointed to Mike Cernovich, YouTube, Reddit, or sites like WhatDoesItMean as their source. Instead they cite “primary documents” or more vaguely “a variety of sources.” — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 470

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The self-investigator’s refusal to name their actual sources — claiming primary documents while having consumed only meme-churn — is a dense portrait of how self-directed epistemology generates conviction, worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Conspiracy peddlers privately act on the truths they publicly deny — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 995; Copied stories across conspiracy sites create false impressions of source diversity. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 393