Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Groupthink—that warm, cozy cognitive blanket humanity keeps wrapping around itself no matter how many times it catches on fire. We like to pretend it’s a modern problem, but really, groupthink is one of our most ancient technologies. Before smartphones, before books, before the wheel, there was someone yelling an idea loudly enough that everyone else just nodded along. Voilà—civilization.

And to be fair, groupthink has done some good. World religions are basically the deluxe, premium version of groupthink, wrapped in ritual and incense. Billions of people agreeing that certain stories explain everything? Impressive. Comforting, even. A collective spiritual hug. Sure, occasionally things went off the rails—crusades, inquisitions, the occasional prophet who really needed therapy—but overall, world religions are the closest thing we have to socially acceptable groupthink with a good PR team.

But then there’s the other side—the part where groupthink forgets to check the “Do Not Enter If Hallucinating” sign. Like, say, The Salem Witch Trials, where everyone in town collectively decided that teenage drama plus ergot poisoning equaled Satan’s recruiting drive. Or the Manson Family, whose vibe was “flower power meets homicide.” Or Jonestown, the tragic, horrifying monument to what happens when unquestioning obedience meets one particularly unhinged man with a megaphone. And of course, Ruby Ridge, a situation that shows what happens when groupthink and paranoia shake hands and decide to ruin everyone’s week.

So where are we now? Have we learned? Have we grown?

laughs in 2020s

We now have Fox News and right-wing media attempting to assemble the Infinity Gauntlet of Hive Minds, snapping their fingers to see if they can get half the population to believe that billionaires are actually poor, workers are somehow oppressors, and the only path to salvation is to grovel before the people who already own half the planet. It’s like watching groupthink evolve Pokémon-style—from “everyone in the village thinks Goody Proctor is a witch” to “everyone on this cable network thinks empathy is communism.”

This new strain of hive-mindery whispers to those who have less: You’ll finally get ahead if you worship the ones who have more. It’s trickle-down psychology—just as effective as trickle-down economics, which is to say, not at all.

Where does this all lead? Well, if history is any guide, nowhere good. Groupthink tends to end either with someone drinking Kool-Aid or someone insisting the Earth is flat while holding a smartphone that depends on satellite math. This international hivemind being crafted in real time feels less like a unifying ideology and more like a slow-motion disaster everyone is politely pretending not to see.

But hey—silver lining: at least we’re all collectively witnessing it together.

Groupthink. Bringing people together… right before things go very, very wrong.