I find it curious that those who call conspiracy theorists “mental cases” rarely, if ever, bother to look through our lenses. Do they think this just all comes out of a vacuum? In fact, it’s my belief that conspiracy inquirists, or truthers, excel at introspection and even self-critique, a trait strangely lacking in their doubters.

You would think they are some type of “experts” on the “theories.” In almost all instances that I have observed, not even remotely. In fact, in one presentation by one of these so called theorist “experts,” a trait of the conspiracy theorist is stated to be their attention to details. This is supposed to be a deficiency? Mostly this is gaslighting. Lately, I’ve seen more of the appeal-to-authority scam, whereby some “expert” from “Yale et al” is hauled out to pontificate in front of a cadre of cheerleaders.

Another common tactic is the straw man fallacy, or shooting down or even inventing a weak theory or anomaly and then victory dancing a soft-toss debunking. The is common at sites like Metabunk.

Calling anomalies “superficial” is another common tactic. Therefore, it’s necessary to focus on large and quick-hitting anomalies.
<...>
The difference is that so-called “conspiracy theorists,” actually alertly and critically examine evidence. They are wired differently. If you actually did critically view the sample video below in its entirety, would you dismiss as “crazy” somebody who saw a pattern of lies and extreme deception or something seriously out of kilter? Or would you be curious enough to examine other short-duration exercises or even longer, more time-consuming examples?

Forget the “conspiracy theorist” and “mental health” diagnosis for a moment and ask yourself what you are seeing here. Does it take “great imagination” or “pattern loving” or “a lot of attention to details” to call a spade a spade? If you see nothing here and move along after a 10-second viewing, you might want to reconsider who it is seeing unicorns and rainbows.