Emma Gritt

There’s never been a better time to be a conspiracy theorist: government funded plans to dim the sun; a pop star embarking on a questionable space flight; supermarkets stripped bare after Spain and Portugal were plunged into a catastrophic blackout; Robot policemen on the streets of China; the US admitting to the existence of UFOs.  Like a lot of people my age, my gateway drug to the murky world of cover-ups was The X Files. For an hour each week, my young mind was exposed to alien abductions, secret societies, cannibal cults and paranormal phenomena. And my interest in the other worldly – and the people who wholeheartedly believe that humanity is being misled en masse – has never abated.

Next month marks the 23rd anniversary of the launch of LinkedIn, the most awful of all the social media networks. It used to be about business. These days it’s a parallel universe where the sort of nonsense you once shared with your family and close friends on Facebook – births, deaths, marriages, attention-seeking ‘U OK HUN?’ sad selfies, angry rants, happy birthday messages, saccharine memes and cryptic quotes are chewed up and regurgitated into smug self-promoting drivel or, worse still, marketing blurb. I was made redundant in November and the worst thing about the past five months has been having to go on LinkedIn. Naively, I believed I could upload my CV, apply for some jobs, get a job, and get on with my life. But no.