Template:Cover abstract/Pizzagate
Pizzagate is the (admittedly rather silly and unoriginal) name of an actual conspiracy theory claiming Hillary Clinton is secretly involved in a pedophile ring centered around a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. This outlandish theory was spawned from a highly peculiar pattern-analytical reading of the hacked emails leaked by Wikileaks belonging to John Podesta,
the then-manager of Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, because the highly suspect code phrase "cheese pizza" figured among said correspondence. The fact that the mention of cheese pizza was much more interesting to some people than the actual emails of any possible importance whatsoever says something about the conspiracy crowd.
The Pizzagate theory was initially promoted and popularized on the notorious Poe-nest 4chan and on Reddit. It spread quickly over various fake news websites, as well as via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and culminated in an armed man, arguably acting on the suggestion of one Alex Jones, entering the lion's den pizza parlor in question, rifle in hand, to "self-investigate" the claims in December 2016.
Make no delay and bite into a story that made millions question, "What the hell is going on in American politics?"