What’s your unit of measure!?!

The Whackadoo Scale for Conspiracy Theories

Introducing the Animal Shit Metric

You’re sitting there innocently— at a family dinner, in the bus depot, or at a pet crematory — and you catch yourself hearing the latest conspiracy theory. “For God’s sake,” you say to yourself, “that sounds crazy.” You are aghast, but also confused. You don’t know how to react because just how crazy is it? In other words, what is the level of whackadoo contained in the conspiracy theory?

Witness the Whackadoo Alert Level Scale®! Designed to aid well-meaning citizens in determining the appropriate level of outrage or bafflement to express. When something bizarro shows up on the interwebs, should you be horrified, amazed, thunderstruck, or gobsmacked? I talked to the scale’s designers to find out.

Designing the Scale

“There were crucial design decisions made along the way,” said Marfa Arbuthnot, one of the scale’s developers. “Even the title of the scale. Should it be whackadoo, wack-a-doo, or whackadoodle? Oh, the fights we had!”

“Remember when Daniels argued for ‘nutburger’ rather than ‘whackadoo?’” That’s Rafe Rafelsohn, another member of the design team. The two laugh together convivially at this memory. Rafe explains, “He insisted — insisted!— that the kerning on the word, ‘nutburger,’ would be very much more attractive in the printed matter, and that this difference would be essential — essential! — for the success of our work.”

“It was strange,” says Marfa, “he was so adamant, and then he just wasn’t. He stopped arguing and said he was okay with whatever decision we made.”

“And then he died in a mysterious fire,” adds Rafe, “No body was found.”

“It was strange,” Marfa repeats.

“Strange,” Rafe echoes.

What other design decisions had to be made?

“We always knew we wanted the scale to be based on animal shit. It seemed like a natural,” explains Rafe animatedly. “And so intuitive! We were using phrases like ‘bat shit crazy’ and ‘going ape shit’ already.”

“Oh, yes,” interjects Marfa. “Like that time they found arsenic in the cafeteria lutefisk!”

“Building from these basic elements — bat shit and ape shit — we populated the rest of this six-level scale with other forms of animal shit.”

“It wasn’t easy!” says Marfa, “There were some we couldn’t use. Like chicken shit. We couldn’t use chicken shit because that’s in common parlance and means something very specific. If you are chicken shit you are a pathetic authoritarian boss who is a stickler for absurd rules, not a piece of false, astounding, and risible information.”

“Similarly,” continues Rafe, “we couldn’t refer to foxes or loons because ‘crazy like a fox’ and ‘crazy as a loon’ are already idioms in English. We felt our options narrowing.”

“And we knew,” says Marfa, “that we had to include at least one example of each type of animal shit. As everyone knows animal shit comes in four varieties — globular, tubular, pellets, and amorphous. People think often of the tubular.”

“Because that’s what humans do.”

“And they think of globular because of cow patties and horse hockey. But they seldom think of the others — amorphous and pellets. Unless it’s a joke about trail mix. And that’s not respectful.”

“Representation is so important,” says Rafe.

It’s cute how they finish each other’s sentences. They definitely seem to be into each other.

Final Choices

“The two lower levels are to indicate non-traumatic levels of whackadoo. Ducks are small and relatively harmless. And turtles are — “

“Oh!” says Marfa, “I love turtles!”

“Who could object to turtles?” Rafe encourages her enthusiasm. “At the level of Turtle Shit the conspiracy theory is light, amiable. Possibly even benign. Certainly at these low levels, even if the conspiracy theory is false, reasonable people might agree that it is — or should be — plausible.”

“Yes,” adds Marfa, charmingly. “Plausible, even if based on false beliefs, unjustifiable conjecture, or stupid assumptions. And wombats! With their poop cubes! Who could ignore Whackadoo cubed?”

“With Bat Shit,” continues Rafe, “a bit of menace enters into the picture. Not that bats are menacing — in fact, they are delightful — but they have the air of menace.”

Note: a lower functionary of the design lab later explained me that, though Rafe and Marfa didn’t mention it, the Bat Shit level had originally been expressed as a single word, Batshit. This somehow leaked to DC Comics who immediately sent a “cease and desist.” Apparently in an upcoming comic book series — part of the Excrement Event — “Batshit” will play a central role.

“For the final two levels we simply bowed to the power of the words themselves. ‘Going Ape Shit’ has such a pedigree for the metaphorically berserk-o in our world. And nothing can surpass the iconic, memetic power of ‘Horse shit!’ We don’t even need the word ‘crazy.’ The descriptors on their own are so powerful!”

“Yes! Yes,” says Marfa. “Say something stupidly conspiratorial. Something outrageous!”

I think for a minute.

“New Balance shoes are trying to lure us to indentured servitude by being so danged comfortable.”

“HORSE SHIT!” They yell together, as if rehearsed, and I honestly am a bit shook. I try again.

“The Red Sox hundred-year losing streak was a false flag operation!”

“HORSE SHIT!”

Yikes! Again.

“The kerning on ‘Whackadoo’ really is pretty sketchy!”

“HORSE — ” But they stop. Suddenly quiet. Pensive. I see a seam of doubt. I’ve gone too far. Their eyes start to tear up a little.

“Whoa!” I bellow. “Ha ha! Just kidding! I love the kerning! Seriously. Truly great kerning. What did Daniels know? He knew nothing. And besides, he’s dead!”

They laugh weakly. Relieved. I leave after apologizing and shake my head. That was pretty weird. A fucked up situation. Kind of … duck shit?

Yeah.