Conspiracization: Critique, Gaslighting, and the Infrastructures of Suspicion

ABSTRACT: Gaslighting and conspiracization mark two convergent crises of interpretation in the digital age. Gaslighting manipulates perception by denying intent; conspiracization overreads intent, recoding critique's idioms as proof of hidden design. The problem is not confined to misinformation but emerges instead where the forms and tones of critique themselves become objects of suspicion. Examining catchphrases like historian Yuval Noah Harari's "hackable animals" and the World Economic Forum's "Great Reset," this article shows how speculative foresight discourse is reframed online as elite confession. Empirical analysis of Amazon's "also bought" metadata networks reveals how conspiracy bestsellers cluster with critical texts, generating ambient legitimacy within digital infrastructures. Conspiracization thus emerges as critique's mimetic double: borrowing its style while stripping its reflexivity. The task is to recalibrate suspicion—distinguishing between practices that illuminate complexity and those that collapse it into plot.