Idk if it’s true or not, but I heard the recent form of the flat earth movement started out as more of a “challenge and verify everything” movement. It wasn’t that they actually thought the earth was flat, that was just meant to be an example of how they were going to take even the most widely accepted theories and confirm their truth before believing them.

And then it attracted a lot of crazy people who actually thought the earth was flat, and completely changed the movement.