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#SaveMarinaJoyce: conspiracy theories about British YouTuber go viral

On the internet everything is also everything else. Any news story is also a joke, any joke is also a news story. When something gets big, everything else about the internet is fed into it, creating an flaring cycle of self-referential humour and serious emotion. 

This is what happened with Marina Joyce. Stay with me, this will get convoluted.

Was Marina on drugs? Had she been kidnapped? Both? On the internet it's hard to tell.
Was Marina on drugs? Had she been kidnapped? Both? On the internet it's hard to tell. 

Marina Joyce is a moderately popular British fashion vlogger. Over the weekend she tweeted out a link to her latest video. Here begins the conspiracy.

Something about Marina is...off. Her eyes are wide and seemingly distracted. There are long periods of staring silence. The product placement (a lot of vloggers get sent free stuff to promote) is repeatedly and awkwardly mentioned.

But there are thousands of weird videos on YouTube. It was when some people started hearing Marina say the words "help me" in one section that things got crazy.

#SaveMarinaJoyce was born, and people began poring over other clues in Joyce's archive. Two million tweets were written. Multiple "evidence" Instagram accounts were set up. A fake Buzzfeed Community post that claimed Joyce was dead did little to ease fears. While Joyce tweeted that she was fine several times, a lot of people assumed that she was being forced to tweet like that - especially as she faved many tweets speculating about her safety and asking if she was okay.

Then, maybe it wasn't all that many people. By this point people were making jokes about the conspiracy as much as they were earnestly investigating. Separating ironic worry from real worry can be almost impossible.

A strong theory soon emerged that claimed Joyce was the victim of domestic abuse. Bruises can be spotted her arms, as well as a weapon in the background of one video.

An event that Joyce was planning became implicated - as it appeared that she was telling visitors "don't go" in sign language in the video inviting them.

Why warn them away? Because it was a terrorist event, duh.

Yes, that's a real newspaper. 

At this point, like everything else online, Harambe (the ape that was shot!) got involved. Also the police — some local officers responded to calls from concerned fans and confirmed that Joyce was fine.

Now her mother has been interviewed and Joyce herself is trying to confirm to everyone that she's safe via a livestream.

Speaking to the Mail Online, her mother Cherly said Joyce was totally fine.

"The gun is a toy gun, one of those BB guns – I've got other children," she told Mail Online.

"It was me speaking in the video. I was filming for her and I whispered 'stand LIKE me' not 'help me'."

"We're a private family really, this all just turned into a frenzy." 

As ever, there's only thing you can really learn from all this: never tweet.

Stuff.co.nz

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