Sheeple

Goatle are clearly superior to sheeple.

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“”im the only guy who knows how to call out the bull shit of society the smart way. and against all odds i do it for free

—wint

“”Meek and obedient, you follow the leader Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel What a surprise

—Pink Floyd

For the bleating animal, see Sheep.

Sheeple, sometimes spelled sheople, is a portmanteau of the words "sheep" and "people" used mainly by political cranks to describe the great unwashed masses that are blissfully "unaware" of whatever fringe issue the crank wants to publicize. 'Sheep' or 'cattle' in obvious reference to people has the same implications.

Analogous in use is the word "zombie", a word (as of recent years) trending in popular culture and video-games, which has been picked up by cranks like conspiracy theorist Mark Dice in order to try to lure people closer to his worldview. Godspeed, Mark. The Internet has also spawned a meme known as the "NPC" or "Non-Player Character" to describe the unconscious, script-running brainwashed masses; this was subsequently adopted by the alt-right as a way to attack anybody who doesn't see the world their way.

Origin

The term was, according to some sources, popularized in the late 1980s by William Cooper, but it appeared earlier than that in the Wall Street Journal in a 1984 article attributing the term to the John Birch Society. The earliest known occurrence according the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1945 by an arts critic, "The People, as ever (I spell it ‘Sheeple’), will stand anything." The earliest use of the term is sometimes attributed to E. C. Segar, the creator of the Popeye comic strip. In the mid-1930s, an episode dealt with Popeye becoming the king of a remote island whose inhabitants blindly follow his orders, however bizarre they were. Popeye began calling them "my sheeps".

The metaphor of sheep standing for the clueless public believing everything their political masters told them was of course used by George Orwell in his 1945 fable Animal Farm.

Usage

“”You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.

—Food and Drug Administration, telling antivaxxers not to use a veterinary drug to treat COVID in sheeple

It is a favorite of uneducated teenage YouTube commenters and libertarian conspiracy theorists who use it to describe anyone whose heart does not skip a beat in love every time Ron Paul or Rand Paul's name is mentioned — in other words, those who don't blindly and slavishly agree with the aforementioned. Michael Savage uses it as well. It is most commonly used by cornered cranks who are running out of false facts or have had all their "evidence" debunked, or as a last ditch attempt to substitute actual evidence. The irony in this is that most conspiracy nuts that whip this word out are commonly, blindly following a 'theory' without having even a smidge of evidence supporting it, and sometimes, not even understanding it (in the case of technical matters, such as the 9/11 collapses). William Cooper's unified conspiracy theory book Behold a Pale Horse makes frequent reference to sheep (and to a lesser extent to cattle) in the sheeple-sense of the word.

Among survivalists, it is a reference to those who are Not Prepared for the Great Calamity Which Is Coming Shortly and who instead assume the government will take care of them in case of a disaster, à la Hurricane Katrina. Common to dealing with persons in all these categories and more is the strong impression that one is in the presence of a frustrated would-be shepherd. Essentially, you're a sheeple if you believe what anybody else tells you to believe, but not a sheeple if you believe what I tell you to believe.

While it is true that the majority of Americans fail to understand even the most basic facts about civics, reality is not a popularity contest. The level of acceptance of an idea among greater society does not have significant bearing to the merits of the idea — Galileo and Charles Darwin went through significant backlash to their scientific theories in their lifetimes, but their ideas have gained wide acceptance in the scientific community. On the one hand, American culture needs to value knowledge and intellect more, so that people can hold honestly-informed opinions about society. On the other hand, the reason why so many sheeple are rejecting the crazy conspiracy theory of the week could be because the theory is simply a lie or with very little basis in fact.

Russia

Similarly, in post-Soviet Russia, the term bydlo (быдле), literally 'cattle' but sometimes translated as 'sheep', has been used in the Orwellian sense. The term temnoe bydlo (темное быдло), literally dark cattle, was also used in Bolshevik poetry.

Russian fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyin (1883–1954) developed the non-factual idea that the Russian people, as well as the Slavic people of Ukraine and Belarus, are inherently innocent. The fiction of Russian innocence that Ilyin developed is one that can be exploited by a fascistic (or kleptocratic) state that never delivers improvements but only maintains the status quo ("eternity politics" in historian Timothy Snyder's parlance). It is no coincidence that Ilyin is Vladimir Putin's most esteemed philosopher.

What is the singular form?

Q: If sheep is the singular of… sheep, and person is the singular of people, it is not clear what an individual within the sheeple herd is to be called — "sherson"? "Sheepson"? "Sheerpson"? Or perhaps just "sheeple"? (Although the latter just seems like grammatical error.)

A: A sheep.

More lulz

A surprising number of folks who brand their opponents as "sheeple" are themselves members of the Religious Right, who view the Bible as the inerrant word of God. Their Bible encourages the followers of Christ to behave like "sheep" in the care of their "shepherd", avoiding false shepherds that turn out to be wolves in sheep's clothing.

Wake up, sheeple!

You will be led to judgement like lambs to the slaughter—a simile whose existence, I might add, will not do your species any favors.

See also

• Wake up
• Useful idiot
• False consciousness — the Marxist view
• Psychological projection
• You