Conspiracy Carl

Conspiracy Carl was first introduced in Spongebob Conspiracy #4, but the series mainly takes place on the Conspiracy Carl website. The following part goes through the videos in date of discovery, and when discovered at the same time, in order of (supposed) upload. First, though, a guide to the website:

**The website** is pretty chaotic: a lot of the page is covered in conspiracy-themed gifs, the amount of which seems to steadily increase. The background image contains a bunch of illuminati eyes, some of which are green; connecting the green ones spells out MUSE.

There are 4 categories listed on the page: “conspiracys”, “CARL”, “contact me”, and “archive”. The interesting part is the “archive” section — the link itself doesn't work, but by going to /archive, we find a “guest area”. This will be discussed more later.

When the website is discovered on May 20 2021, it has 8 videos published already, all increasing in popularity per upload, eventually reaching hundreds of thousands of views.

## Backstory

Carlton Mayhew was born on July 7th 1965 in Orlando, Florida. His father worked as a cellphone tower repairman, who passed away after falling from one of the towers while Carl was still young. This caused Carl to develop a subconscious paranoia of cellphone towers and the government. He studied political science in college and gained an interest in online political discourse. He met his wife Cecile in high school and served in the Florida National Guard before being dishonourably discharged for unknown reasons (Likely AWOL). He had 3 children, his youngest one being Mark Mayhew. Every three years he took his family on a cruise through Hawaii. Carl became involved with the Muse when Cecile developed pancreatic cancer after consuming Happy Meat Farms ground beef. His wife’s oncologist was a host being manipulated by his own muse, who instructed him to plant a spore on Carl’s home when he learned of his wife’s condition. The host followed through and planted the spore during an in-home visit. After contacting his muse Carl began making videos to pay for his wife’s treatment, with his muse forcing him to overplay the character of a crazy conspiracy theorist for views. He eventually fed his own cat to the muse, causing Cecile to divorce him. He became estranged from his family, making him more susceptible to paranoia and manipulation. Happy Meat Farms began increasing his paranoia by interfering with his WiFi signal and planting cellphone towers near his home. He was eventually successfully manipulated by his muse who convinced him to plant a spore on his son Mark’s home, which Carl did.

## Mar 05 2021

His first video was uploaded. He opens up by saying he doesn't know if he can stand his job much more, because he is paranoid that his peers are spying on him. He decides to “upgrade” his tinfoil hat to be safe. He then spends time talking about subliminal messages in childrens' movies. He mentions not having or wanting any pets, after which he ends the video.

#### More details:

* At 2:44, there is a loud noise in the background.
* One of the notes on his corkboard says “TAKE THE TRAIN #MU53”, spelling out Muse.
* He has a printout of the Kennedy assassination newspapers, but one of the headlines reads “MEAT PRICES SOAR / BUTCHERS LOOK TO MAKE A KILLING”. Carl has drawn a circle around it and arrows pointing toward it.
* There is a piece of meat lying on the printer? Which disappears at 2:02
* He has a note with a picture of what seems to be the silhouette of a man standing in a stairway saying “They are following me”.
* He is wearing translucent blue glasses and a blue hawaiian shirt.

### Mar 11 2021

His second video was uploaded and it is a short one. The light in his room is now strongly red, and he starts off by saying he was followed by a Tesla today. He wraps up the video by filming his outro in normal lighting.

#### More details:

* He is wearing dark glasses that seem to be slightly broken in the red part, but switches to a different pair of brown glasses in the second part.
* The last frames of the video include the text “ARCHIVE MAYHEW”. The archive will be explored in-depth later

### Mar 26 2021

His third video. Instead of his office, he is now at what seems to be an aquatic theme park. He is stopped to record because the ride he was on stopped, and he thinks someone is watching him. No glasses. Nothing much else.

### Apr 02 2021

He posted his fourth video. He starts off by saying he likes his blue shirt (same shirt as in Mar 05), and might make it his “official Conspiracy Carl shirt”. He continues to rant for a bit until he is interrupted at 1:50 by a loud noise, which startles him — he says to himself “I might have to get some more”. He continues his rant, but he is too thrown off to really go on properly and wraps it up quickly.

#### More details:

* Same translucent blue glasses as Mar 05 as well.

### Apr 09 2021

His fifth video. He begins by being excited about how many viewers he is getting, and tells his fans to tell their friends and to sign up for his newsletter. His glasses reflect some text from his monitor that, when decoded (rot-23), reads “*PHASE ONE COMPLETE HOST SHOWS NO RESISTANCE INCREASE HIS POPULARITY*”.

#### More details:

* He is wearing leopard-print glasses now, and a gray shirt, despite his earlier intention to make the blue shirt his trademark style
* The background shows a picture on the wall of what seems to be Carl, standing next to two young teenagers — perhaps his kids? Has since been blurred.
* We can see that he has a few tabs open about conspiracy stuff: “Illuminati Sacrifices”, “Proof Moon Landing is a Hoax”, “The Flat Earth Society”; but also “The Best Places to Order Meat” and “The 10 Best Divorce Lawyers Near[...]”. Yikes

### Apr 15 2021

His sixth video, and is the first time we see a crossover between Carl and Alex. Carl has found Alex's first spongebob theory, and watches through it while regularly pausing to offer his own thoughts on the parallels between the theory and the illuminati. Nothing more happens. He is back to his blue shirt and blue translucent glasses.

Before the next videos continue, Carl makes two blog posts: “*im pretty sure my microwave is self aware??!*” on Apr 16, and “*doplegangers?*” on Apr 17. First one is pretty self-explanatory, but the second one says “*[doppelgangers] can look just like you! They can act like you! but they arnt you! where do they come from? the illuminati has to be behind it*”. This could be story relevant, but we will have to see.

### Apr 19 2021

His seventh video, and is about Alex's second spongebob theory. Carl is wearing his blue shirt and blue glasses and the lighting is dark. However at 1:33, the video abruptly cuts to the same video but in different lighting and with a different shirt & glasses. The board also looks more disheveled, with red string dangling down. At 2:17 we are back to blue shirt Carl, and the video continues to cut back and forth between the two versions. At 3:41 he pauses the video because he thinks he heard something, but continues. He wraps it up at the end because he is tired.

### May 02 2021

marks his 8th video, and he watches Alex's 3rd video. He continues as normal, but interrupts himself at 2:36 and looks around his room in a paranoid way. It throws him off for a second but moves on. But: at 3:33, it cuts back to that same gray shirt Carl from the last video, only to cut back to blue Carl shortly after. Cuts back and forth again one more time before the end.

Those were the videos that were up when the website was discovered. However, there are three hidden videos on the /archive page, which we can get access to by using the password “**MAYHEW**” (which is Carl's last name, his full name being Carlton Mayhew). These three videos are very different from his Conspiracy Carl persona — he is much more relaxed and “normal”, though it is still a conspiracy series. Let's have a look at those three videos:

#### The #1 archive video

The video is just an introduction video, where Carlton says he wants to talk about things that “might not just be bothering me, but might be bothering you as well.” There is a sticky note on the wall behind him, saying something about “Cruises” and “Oct 2021”, and then “27 Feb - 5 Mar 2022”. He is wearing a nice button-down, and those same leopard-print glasses from Apr 09. He continues to wear these glasses for the other two archive videos as well. Notably, the wedding band he is wearing here disappears for all future videos.

#### The #2 archive video

The video starts with him saying his first video got “a few hits on it, at least somebody is watching me.” He says he wants to grow his presence so he can “get millions of hits.” He then continues to talk about covid being used to make everyone get a vaccine, and what easier way to possibly cut back on the population? He also talks about how the lottery is fake. He says he has to feed the cat in a second — notable because Carl said he doesn't have a cat. Ends the video by reminding people to like & share.

#### The #3 archive video

The video opens with him holding his cat for a bit before starting the video. Mentions a bit later that he “loves coffee, just like he loves his cat.” He rants about Facebook for 5 minutes, and wraps it up by saying he doesn't want to go on a crazy rant, he doesn't want to be “like those other people making videos where they try to scare you with their sensationalized craziness.” “Is anybody even watching these?” he laments. “I don't think they are.”

To summarize, these videos seem to be from before Carlton adopted his Conspiracy Carl persona. It leads us to conclude that, like Alex, Carl has a Muse telling him how to be successful in exchange for raw meat. When Carl adopted his new persona, he privated these videos and started from scratch—which worked and he blew up. Back to the main videos now…

### May 24 2021

Carl releases his first new video post-discovery, and he has turned against Alex. He accuses Alex of being part of the Illuminati and hiding messages in his videos. He brings up the numbered words from Spongebob #4, but interprets them wrong, saying they instead spell out “*BEGIN PHASE ONE / TARGET THE CHILDREN'S SPIRIT / SEND IN THE DRONES*.” He mentions that “you see all the time, people disappearing, dying mysteriously” because of drones from the government.

#### More details:

* A new note on the board says “GET MORE MEAT!”
* He is wearing the same blue shirt but now with a Conspiracy Carl t-shirt underneath, with dark frame glasses
* At 2:43, we see some of his open tabs, which include his own website, Alex's YouTube channel, “How To Become Famous Online”, “Cancel Your Family Cruise”, “the x files theme song” and the Reddit profile for a user called “**FelineFriendly48**”

**/u/FelineFriendly48**, seemingly Carl's account, offers some insight into his private life. In a (removed, but recoverable) post to **/r/AmITheAsshole** titled “*AITA for following my dreams??*”, he says:

> “i dont care what People think i have something important to say and she just acts like my dreams never mattered and she left with the kids and wont answer my calls”
>
>

This post implies that his wife & kids left him because of his Conspiracy Carl series, and he is so obsessed with being popular that he is unwilling to change. This is also probably why he is canceling the cruise lol. The post ends on a dark note:

> “its not like she even liked the cat anyways it was mine first”
>
>

This is a little more unclear, but since he definitely had a cat before, claims not to have a cat now, and then implies his wife is upset about something regarding the cat... The current running theory is that Carl fed the cat to the Muse, as a form of sacrifice maybe even. We will have to learn more to be more certain though.

### An email from Carl

An email arrives on Jun 4 to all those who signed up to the mailing list. This mail contains a hidden video. He tells people to send him an email (at [[1]]) of the viewer, wearing a tinfoil hat, making his trademark all-seeing-eye gesture, and saying “*we are the truthseekers*”. He is again wearing his blue shirt and dark frame glasses. There is a still frame of what seems to be a creature in the dark? Hard to tell.

### Jul 5 2021

It marks his first upload in over a month. Carl's office is now completely covered in tinfoil (he “had to add more shielding”), and he is mad at Alex again about the Late Night Snack short. At 1:16, Carl is briefly interrupted by a creaking noise, but he continues without a hiccup. He instructs his viewers to go to the short film and comment that he needs to “stick to the spongebob stuff, that's what you're good at.” Another creak at 2:57, and by the end of the video he seems paranoid and looks around a bunch.

#### More details:

* A new note has appeared, saying “Retirement date: March 2015”
* A hard-to-read note appears, saying something about MUSE (or maybe MU53), but it is hard to make out what it says
* He has a piece of paper hanging that says “Fix shower drip”
* When he enters the room, he is holding a piece of paper, which very well could be his Muse's video idea
* He is wearing just his Conspiracy Carl shirt with frameless glasses this time

### Aug 3 2021

he drops his latest video, in which he responds to Alex calling him out in Spongebob #5. At 0:42, a statue of Neptune appears, with an encoded text. He rants about Alex for a bit, and then plays a compilation of the videos fans sent in following the previous email to prove the Truth Seeker Army is strong. One of the clips has the text “HMF” edited in, which is the key to deciphering the text from earlier (Using vigenere cipher), which then reads: “*PHASE TWO COMPLETE SPORE SUCCESSFULLY PLANTED*”. He signs off and says “cut”, but accidentally(?) leaves the camera rolling as he sighs to himself and says “what have I done.”

#### More details:

* He now has a medal hanging on the corkboard, a Florida National Guard Commendation Medal
* He has the missing person's poster of Anthony hanging (former cohost of the Cynical Critics, explained further down below). It is unclear how he got his hands on it, but maybe he just got it from around the neighborhood as they all seem to live somewhere in Florida.

### Nov 12 2021

The video Conspiracy Carl goes “live”. He starts by saying he is “not sure if this is gonna work.” A washing machine can be heard which Carl talks about and at one point he briefly mentions that it is so “it can't hear” him. Carl continues by introducing Alex's Goofy Goober theory and then goes through a sponsor with HMF — all while seeming defeated and putting no energy into it. Carl can be seen looking down at what is likely a script.

At 2:58, Carl breaks and picks up the camera—he states that he is sorry about everything and all that he said was a lie, and something has been controlling him the entire time. The washing machine stops and Carl immediately takes off his tinfoil hat and exits the room, into the darkness outside it. He apologizes to Mark, saying that he didn't know things were gonna get so bad. Carl says that he made something else that should explain everything and has sent it to Mark, finally telling him to not plant the spore before the Muse interrupts him: “Oh, Mr. Mayhew.” Carl screams and the stream ends.

No hidden secrets found in this video.

### Feb 20 2022

The video Conspiracy Carl RETURNS. With a new video, recorded on a new set with way higher production value, proudly proclaiming “*CONSPIRACY CARL is BACK!*” A sleek new title card begins the show saying “The Awakening with Conspiracy Carl”, and then we get introduced to the “new and improved Conspiracy Carl.” He says that if you saw the last livestream, you might have thought he is a goner - he plays the clip of him getting caught - but then says he defeated the Illuminati presence in his house. He then says he is “ashamed to admit” that all this time he has been controlled by the illuminati: “they wanted me to play the crazy conspiracy theorist character to discredit the truth by acting over the top.” He says he is not the only one - the Illuminati controls a vast network of puppets, and he is gonna free them all. He ends by saying that he will “be seeing us all very, very soon”.

There are a couple glitches with his greenscreen throughout, that probably just reflect how he is bad with technology. On his table in front of him are a couple items that are perhaps of interest: there is a model t-rex, a totem, and an old rusty key going through a ring. The totem is of the Hawaiian mythological god Kū, who is the god of, among many things, war. Kū is perhaps notably also the only Hawaiian god to require human sacrifice. It is unclear as of now what any of the items mean, if they have a meaning at all.

### April 25 2023

The video *Happy Meat Farms IT Department Files 029* from the Happy Meat FarmsARG, made by the same creator of the MuseARG, showcasing a machine I call "Child" (from the references to mother and father with the ending story). It shows Carl as one of the people prepared to be assimilated starting from 4:30. It is shown that he is 54 years old. and as the Child says "has potential". The recommendation given to him is "increase paranoia" as it sends workers to spy on him and build cell towers near his building. This hysteria brought his channel to life, reaching thousands of views and as the Child states "very useful".