Covid Lockdown. He's not the only one either. There's been a noticeable change in boomers who weren't internet savvy during that period, tons of stories of "My boomer mom went from a normal person to a Qanoner in 3 months"
A lot of boomers weren't educated on the internet, like Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. In fact from around late Millennials onwards, they got literalt education in the internet at school, specifically the whole "people on the internet might not be who they say they are" thing, as there was a big moral panic over the internet in the mid 2000s due to people meeting others they thought were their age on the internet and getting kidnapped.
So Millennials and Gen Z grew up on the internet with "Take everything with a grain of salt, believe nothing, assume everything is false" while Boomers were told something different with the internet.
They didn't get that education, they still had it drummed into them the stuff the internet was advertised in the 90s when it first began. "The internet is a source of information" therefore they have instilled into them, "believe everythng you see, it is true" they think the internet is an all knowing source of info as thats what they've just assumed from what they saw back in the 90s.
So when lockdowns happened, and boomers had not much to do, they turned to the internet, some for the first time. They just believed it, and got sucked into the vortex. Now they rave conspiracy theories like JFK is alive. Val Venis is one of these people. Boomers just can't handle the internet, they're not equipped to.
Now Val Venis is on Twitter 24/7, you'll note Boomers don't venture beyond Twitter and Facebook on the internet. I've kindaa worded this poorly and tried to sum it up quickly to avoid the word count but there's studies on this and how boomers reacted to the internet for the first time during covid.
