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Below, you’ll find a downloadable blog post offering valuable insights directly from the author of Sybil. The downloaded PDF also includes supplemental classroom activities to help you connect the play’s themes and characters with your students.
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Murder by Misinformation
How Social Media Misinformation Fuels Conspiracy Theories: Insights from Sybil
D. P. Roberts
When I wrote Sybil, I wanted to explore the modern pressures that shape our lives online—how social media can alter not just our identities, but our entire sense of reality. Living “too much online” can be dangerous, especially when platforms are saturated with conspiracy thought, misinformation, and a constant need for validation. In Sybil, we see how the characters’ lives spiral out of control as they become consumed by their online personas, by paranoia, and ultimately, by a completely constructed world of conspiracy.
The Spiral
At the heart of Sybil is the idea that conspiracy thought acts like a trap. What starts as curiosity quickly escalates into a dangerous downward spiral, as each of the characters becomes more deeply entangled in a false narrative. Their search for answers about Sybil’s death turns into an obsession, fueled by the echo chambers of social media and the endless stream of misinformation. Each monologue in the play reflects a new stage in this spiral, leading from doubt to delusion.
In the early stages, we see the characters simply trying to make sense of the mystery. They ask questions, looking for meaning where none seems to exist. For instance, Daniel’s monologue sets the tone, hinting at his growing suspicion that “everything fits together, right? It’s all connected.” At this point, there’s still some grounding in reality, but the search for patterns—common in conspiracy thinking—has begun. The characters are looking for a hidden explanation, a larger truth that will make everything make sense.
Rabbit Hole
As the play progresses, the characters turn to social media to validate their suspicions. The digital world becomes a space where they can find confirmation for their theories, even when these theories have no basis in fact. Social media amplifies their paranoia, allowing them to see connections where there are none. “People have been posting about her death,” one character says, underscoring how quickly a conspiracy can spread online. Suddenly, it’s not just about Sybil’s death—it’s about uncovering something much bigger, something sinister.
At this point, social media is no longer just a tool for communication; it has become a machine for spreading misinformation. The characters begin to see their online feeds as sources of truth, falling deeper into the rabbit hole of conspiracy thought. Their real-world interactions start to mimic the frenzied pace of their online lives, with everything reduced to a stream of likes, posts, and shared paranoia.
Losing Touch
By the time we reach the middle of the play, the characters are fully immersed in their online-driven fantasies. The search for truth has given way to full-blown delusion. They are no longer seeking answers—they believe they have already found them. “She was a social media assassin,” one character says about Sybil, reflecting the way her online persona has taken on a life of its own, much larger than the reality of who she was.
In this phase, the characters’ identities are completely tied to their belief in the conspiracy. They are disconnected from the rational world, and their monologues reveal how much their minds have been warped by what they’ve consumed online. Their obsession with Sybil, and with finding hidden meanings in her life and death, has transformed them. Every event, every interaction becomes part of the conspiracy, and their sense of self becomes completely lost in this fabricated narrative.
The Collapse into Fantasy
The play reaches its most extreme point with Jemma’s monologue, where we see the ultimate collapse of reality. Jemma’s belief in the Zalgo conspiracy—a completely fictional internet myth—shows how far she has fallen. “We have to do something,” she says, fully committed to the idea of summoning Zalgo, the demon king, in a desperate attempt to find answers. Jemma’s monologue is the most alarming example of how conspiracy thought can push someone to act on irrational, fantastical beliefs.
Jemma’s actions show how living “too much online” can distort one’s reality to the point of no return. The idea of summoning a demon king is ludicrous, but for Jemma, it’s not only possible—it’s necessary. She represents the final stage of conspiracy immersion, where the line between fantasy and reality is completely obliterated. The digital world has consumed her, and the consequences are tragic.
Dream Space
In Sybil, the characters’ descent into conspiracy thought is a reflection of how social media can warp our perception of the world. The progression of the monologues—from Daniel’s initial doubts to Jemma’s total immersion in the Zalgo conspiracy—illustrates the dangers of living too much in an online world where truth becomes malleable. Social media platforms, with their constant flow of information and validation, provide the perfect breeding ground for these dangerous ideas to take root and flourish.
Each character’s journey in Sybil serves as a cautionary tale about the psychological toll of living online. The more time they spend seeking validation and meaning in the digital world, the further they drift from reality. By the end of the play, they are no longer in control of their own narratives—those narratives have been taken over by the conspiracy they’ve built around Sybil’s death.
Sybil challenges us to consider the role that social media plays in shaping our realities. How much of what we see online is real, and how much of it is a performance? And at what point do we stop questioning and start believing in the fiction we create? The play serves as a powerful reminder of the need to stay grounded in the real world, even when the online world offers tempting—and sometimes dangerous—alternatives.