Raptures and Conspiracies and Groupthink, Oh My!

Allow me to catch you up to speed if you have been living under a rock, or maybe you just do not have Tiktok (Honestly, the delete button is looking beautiful right now). 

This past week on Tiktok, a trend has overtaken the main pages for millions of people. The idea at hand this time? The rapture is coming, and we need to be prepared for it.

Religious opinions aside, seeing countless people with aluminum foil hats preparing for the rapture was shocking. I thought to myself, “There is no way all the people really believe the rapture is happening, right?” Wrong! After watching dozens of videos of in-detail walkthroughs of how to prepare for the rapture led me to think about groupthink mentality, and how it becomes a domino effect that can sometimes turn dangerous. 

We are all guilty of believing in conspiracy theories, such as the moon landing being fake, the earth being flat, etc. The most important part is that believing in these conspiracy theories really does not harm anyone, it might just spark a heated debate at the dinner table. 

The rapture happening? Now that has the potential to throw some people for a loop, especially if the media they consume leads them to believe what they are constantly seeing is true. It is exactly that groupthink mentality that has the power to divide people who are not able to think freely themselves and form their own opinions. 

Groupthink is the phenomenon when multiple like-minded individuals form opinions based on what they are seeing, sometimes to fit a certain agenda, or to possibly conform to an agreement and refrain from any argument. 

It is easy for us to see discourse on social media and automatically believe it, especially when the consequences are shown as life altering. Remember November 11, 2011 (11/11/11)? I remember hearing the rumors on the playground that the world was going to end the second the clock struck midnight. As a naive 1st grader, I was convinced, but sure enough, here we are today, still standing! And as you can imagine, the next year on December 12, 2012, the exact same thing happened, with the exact same results. 

So why is it so easy to conform to the groupthink mentality? Oftentimes, blindly believing what we are seeing is easier than you think. It happens in extreme cases that involve the whole world, such as the rapture happening. But it also occurs in our smaller social groups. An entire friend group attacking one person because of something minor is a direct result of groupthink, which many of us have probably been on both sides of. 

Groupthink is extremely dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. In the worst cases, groupthink can lead to groups of people ignoring the simple ethical ideas that bring peace to the world. It prioritizes one specific goal or message while negating any other possible answer. 

So as you probably could have guessed, the rapture did not happen. I am not saying it never will, at the rate we are going I feel that being prepared for anything can never be harmful. But next time you blindly believe what you see, take a step back and look at the legitimacy of the claim being made. 

Better yet, just stay off Tiktok at this point. 

Strike Out, 

Matty Wolfe

Boca Raton

Matty Wolfe is the Senior Editor for Strike Magazine Boca. This avid reality television consumer loves to escape the world as often as he can. You’ll find him outside often, working on his tan and playing mermaids in the ocean. He’s also a future Survivor contestant, even if the producers do not know it yet. You can reach him by email at mattheww0507@gmail.com