Sheeple

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,Sheeple at urbandictionary.com. but it appeared earlier than that in the Wall Street Journal in a 1984 article attributing the term to the John Birch Society.Sheeple at wordspy.com. 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.""Round about Radio" by W. R. Anderson (1945) Musical Times 86(1225):84. doi.org/10.2307/933326.sheeple, n., Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest use of the term is sometimes attributed to , 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 early comic strips by E.C. Segar were reprinted in The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye series by Fantagraphics Books in the 1980s. Volume 5, ISBN 0930193296, presents the debut of Popeye. See also Volume 6 ISBN 0930193512, Volume 7 ISBN 093019358X, Volume 8 ISBN 0930193938, Volume 9 ISBN 0930193938, Volume 10 ISBN 1560970138, and Volume 11 ISBN 1560970154.
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==
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 PaulRe: Bernanke to the sheeple: don't even THINK about auditin by fainly161 (Feb 16, 2010) YouTube. "Ron Paul Warns of Cming Social nd Political Chas" or Rand Paul'sRand Paul: ‘Resist’ the ‘Great Reset’ – ‘They can’t arrest us all’ (August 12, 2021) Wake Up Sheeple! (archived from August 25, 2021). name is mentioned — in other words, those who don't blindly and slavishly agree with the aforementioned. Michael Savage uses it as well.Michael Savage — Welfare Crybabies & The Sheeple Daily Motion. 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.See also "escape hatch". 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.Behold a Pale Horse by Milton William Cooper (1991) Light Technology Publishing. ISBN 0929385225.
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.Monday Potpourri: Sheeple and a Backdoor Survival Roundup by Gaye Levy (July 11, 2011) Backdoor Survival (archived from September 24, 2013). 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.Russia Eternal: Recalling The Imperial Era In Late- And Post-Soviet Literature And Culture by Pavel Khazanov (2017) University of Pennsylvania, doctoral dissertation. The term temnoe bydlo (темное быдло), literally dark cattle, was also used in Bolshevik poetry.
Russian fascist philosopher developed the non-factual idea that the Russian people, as well as the Slavic people of Ukraine and Belarus, are inherently innocent.The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder (2018) Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 0525574468. 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!==
==See also==
*Wake up
*Useful idiot
*False consciousness — the Marxist view
*Psychological projection
*You
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Memes
Category:Neologisms
Category:Political terms
Category:Conspiracy theories