From The Gherk’s Facebook page.

You see a lot of things walking around Melbourne.

Buskers. Suits. Tourists trying to figure out which laneway has the “good coffee.”

And today… I saw a woman sitting quietly with handwritten signs, still fighting a battle in her head that the rest of the world settled years ago.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t aggressive.
Just… there.

It made me a bit sad.

Because people like this are the end of the pipeline.

At the start, you’ve got influencers. Monetised outrage. Affiliate links. Podcasts. “Do your own research” merch. Supplements. Rumble videos with sinister music about Bill Gates… Entire ecosystems built on feeding people just enough fear to keep them engaged, just enough validation to keep them loyal, and just enough community to keep them coming back.

But at the other end, you don’t see the influencers.

You see this.

Someone sitting alone on Easter Sunday, trembling, muttering to themselves, holding onto a belief system that promised clarity, control… maybe even purpose. And instead, it left them isolated.

We’ve always had the those colourful charecters, with a cardboard sign, warning about the end of the world.

That part isn’t new.

What’s new is the scale.
What’s new is the business model.
Because confusion used to be a by-product.
Now it’s a product.

And while the people at the top of the griftfluencer chain move on to the next narrative, the people at the bottom are left trying to make sense of something that no longer even has a market.

Whoever this person is, I hope they find something better than what they were sold.
Something real.
Something that doesn’t leave them sitting alone on a Sunday, trying to hold the world together with a marker and a piece of cardboard.