The Black Hole Picture Spawned The Saddest Conspiracy Theory
On April 10, the world laid eyes on an image never before thought possible: a real, only slightly very blurry picture of a black hole 55 million light years away. The viral image of the supermassive black hole M87 was met with the delight of astronomy fans (and the slight disappointment of Muse fans momentarily expecting a new tour announcement) everywhere. Everywhere except the darkest parts of the internet, where the black hole was attacked by another bottomless black void: male insecurity.
During the well-deserved post-victory back-patting, many singled out Dr. Katie Bouman, a computer scientist who as a PhD student in 2016 led the team that developed the algorithm used to process the staggering amount of data gathered by the Event Horizon telescope into a single coherent image. Not only did Bouman deliver the kind of zoom-and-enhance skills most TV CSI characters would swab a million crime scene condoms for to get, but many also noted that her amazing work mirrored that of female computer nerd pioneer Margaret Hamilton, whose computer coding helped achieve another space first -- putting a man on the moon.
But that's just what the wo-Man wants you to believe. Dissenting voices are claiming that not only was the black hole a hoax, but it was a hoax to make some silly broad look good. The wild conspiracy theory is led by MRA pick-up artist Daryush Valizadeh, who calls himself Roosh V and is basically an Entourage T-shirt given sentience. As the David Koresh of incels, Roosh (who also doesn't believe in the moon landing, so suck it, Margaret Hamilton) led the charge by claiming on Twitter that the black hole was faked to prop up Bouman, in yet another attempt by the world of astronomy to emasculate real men by pretending women can do something other than make babies and/or buy him the Doritos he likes from the store.
Despite the immediate compliance of his most blue-balled followers, Roosh was once again the target of a lot of ridicule (which does seem to be his M.O.) for pretending to believe that large institutions will gladly spend millions of dollars to make women feel good about themselves. But if your misogyny is as untethered as a black hole, why stop there? Was Rosalind Franklin just a plant by Big Feminism? Did Mary Anning only discover a bunch of dog bones, and her beta cuck partners were too polite to correct her? Did the French give a medal to Marie Curie just to shut up their mistresses? We'll never know until science stops its endless over-promotion of women.
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