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Language: en-GB

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Welcome to a town that doesn't exist. Or so
the story goes. This is Bielefeld, in the

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north west of Germany, and ever since an Internet
joke from 1994 went viral — although the

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term "went viral" hadn't been invented in
1994 — but ever since then, there's been

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a running gag in Germany about the Bielefeld
Conspiracy, about how it's a made-up city.

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Do you know anyone from Bielefeld, goes the
question? Have you ever been there? Most people

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will say no. So how can you be sure that it's
real and not what "they" want you to think?

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Belief is an incredibly powerful thing. The
Bielefeld Conspiracy is a joke that everyone's

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in on, but it's a joke that demonstrates safely
how good the brain can be at rationalising.

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I guarantee that you, out there, you could
explain away any evidence that this town exists

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with just a few seconds of thought. Maps?
Faked. Photos? Faked. Video of the city? Either

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shot somewhere else or just fancy computer
graphics. If you've actually visited it? False

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memories, elaborate ruses, I'm sure you can
come up with something better than that.

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Now every group of people, no matter how small
or large, has its own references, its own

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in-jokes, its markers that define them. From
jokes that only you and your friends get,

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or just you and your partner, scaling up to
millions of people who have rickrolling. Or

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the entire nation of Germany, which has Bielefeld.
Which is a concept and pronunciation I've

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probably mangled a bit in translation, given
I'm not German.

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But groups linked by belief are powerful.
Whether it's religion, or lack of religion;

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politics, whether it's parties or social views;
or belief in a conspiracy theory — humans

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ally ourselves with people who think like
us, and then we adjust our ideas, slowly and

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unconsciously alter our minds, to match those
around us, and to favour people like us. Social

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psychologist Henri Tajfel experimented in
the 70s and 80s with what he called the "minimal

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group paradigm": what is the smallest thing
that could trigger an us-versus-them attitude?

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His answer was, basically, anything at all.

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So perhaps it's best, every now and then,
to step outside the echo chambers we find

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ourselves in, to try to empathise with people
who are different than us, and to wonder if,

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perhaps, we might be a little wrong. After
all, I might be part of the conspiracy.

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