I would say that it really became a thing in its current form in the 1800s. Lots of the weird Biblical “literalism” (and I think things like Salafism/Wahhabism) come from the combination of widespread literacy and direct access to the texts + those ideologies that deny that you need anything outside the text to interpret them yourself/solo scriptura.
What we’re seeing now is related to shitposting being taken seriously for sure (the “birds aren’t real” thing has also been making a slow shift from stupid joke to conspiracy therapy, I think that’s how “Helen Keller” don’t real started)
I trace it back a bit further than 4chan though. You start to see it all the way back in the 90s on Usenet, pretty sure that’s around when the Flat Earth Society Forums - which were clearly mostly Poes - started too.
![Come one come all, it's time to unblock [email protected] and bring your best memes of conservatives!](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a100af77-7e63-4ff2-8783-f0b0ac6cb86d.jpeg){kind=link}
I would say that it really became a thing in its current form in the 1800s. Lots of the weird Biblical “literalism” (and I think things like Salafism/Wahhabism) come from the combination of widespread literacy and direct access to the texts + those ideologies that deny that you need anything outside the text to interpret them yourself/solo scriptura.
Like even if medieval T and O maps look “flat” that’s not really what they were trying to communicate. Medieval people knew the world was round.
You can try to calculate the size of the earth yourself the same way Ancient Greeks did.
What we’re seeing now is related to shitposting being taken seriously for sure (the “birds aren’t real” thing has also been making a slow shift from stupid joke to conspiracy therapy, I think that’s how “Helen Keller” don’t real started)
I trace it back a bit further than 4chan though. You start to see it all the way back in the 90s on Usenet, pretty sure that’s around when the Flat Earth Society Forums - which were clearly mostly Poes - started too.