Just my opinion but conspiracy theories and social media really seem to be very simpatico, I gotta think it's more rampant now b/c od social media.
I would bet you could even see a rise from art bell days to even when crappy chain emails came about
my good buddy in college used to listen to art bell every night, this buddy was one of the smartest most creative thinking people I've still ever met, and he would always see genius in that **** and it was always really hard for me to see it. I think he originally got into it b/c of the people art bell would have on about hallucinogens such as terrence mckenna