Avril Lavigne was replaced by a look alike in 2003, after she died by suicide. The theory is that she was struggling with her fame and once she found out that her parents were getting a divorce, she killed herself. At this point the claim is that she was replaced by a look alike named Melissa who wrote about Avril’s death in her later albums. This conspiracy ebbs and flows, it resurfaces every few years and social media goes wild with theories about what happened to Avril. The first appearance of this theory was in 2012 on a supposed fan website for Lavigne that was (somewhat) poorly written in Portuguese.

There are many people who have come up with evidence that this is true, including, her face structure is different mostly her nose, she has gotten smaller in stature, and most prevalently, she said she would never wear preppy clothes and starting around the time they claim she died, she did start wearing “preppier” clothes. There are also theories that her voice sounds higher, her signature has changed, certain birthmarks or freckles have shown up or disappeared over time, and even that she started to do photoshoot and music videos showing more skin.

On the other side of this theory, people are confused as to why there would be an imposter in the first place. Stating that she wasn’t terribly popular or influential at the time, but they still wouldn’t have been able to hide news that she had killed herself. Avril has confronted the media saying that this conspiracy is dumb and of course she hasn’t been replaced, but isn’t that what a clone would say??

A few years later a mysterious internet goer posted on a blog that they had made the whole theory up to see how easy it was to make people online believe what you say, after this people still believed that Avril was dead, and Melissa had taken over as New Avril. They had invested so much, both emotionally and in researching her that they couldn’t not believe the theory. It was hard for people to believe that Avril may have just changed overtime and moved away from her angsty teenage-like ways that everyone came to know so well.

Contextually, these beliefs started online, in blog-form. It didn’t take long for the “news” to spread to different websites and social media platforms, it started with fans of Avril and eventually got to the point that anyone and everyone was catching wind of it and spreading it further. The influence of the internet keeps this theory alive, even after people have been told that it isn’t real, and it was made up. Overall, people find it hard to disbelieve something once they have been shown ‘solid’ evidence that it was real. Many people find it hard to not notice all of the little differences between ‘Original Avril’ and ‘New Avril’. It is too weirdly interesting of a topic for them to not investigate it and find out whether or not what they see is what they should believe.

Sources:

“Avril Lavigne Is Not Dead – & She’s Not Dumb.” FASHION Magazine, 12 Feb. 2019, fashionmagazine.com/culture/avril-lavigne-conspiracy-comeback/.

Bassil, Ryan. “Investigating the Conspiracy That Says Avril Lavigne Was Killed off and Replaced With an Actress.” Noisey, VICE, 1 Oct. 2015, noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/r7pebb/was-avril-lavigne-killed-off-and-replaced-with-an-actress.

“Why Is Nobody Talking About The Fact Avril Lavigne Died And Was Replaced With A Clone?” Punkee, 13 July 2018, punkee.com.au/nobody-talking-fact-avril-lavigne-died-replaced-clone/52385.

Feinberg, Ashley. “Did Avril Lavigne Die in 2003?: An Internet Conspiracy, Explained.” Gawker, blackbag.gawker.com/did-avril-lavigne-die-in-2003-an-internet-conspiracy-1734185142.

“Avril Lavigne Murió y Fué Sustituida!” Avril Lavigne Murió y Fué Sustituida!, avrilestamuerta.blogspot.com/.

The belief that I am investigating is that aliens could be the AI (artificial intelligence) that we know today. Along with this belief comes the Fermi Paradox, named after the physicist Enrico Fermi. This Paradox poses the argument about the lack of evidence and high probability of extraterrestrial beings and civilizations. Based on the articles I have read, mainly astronomers are those who believe in this theory because they have not seen evidence from space that aliens are out there. I have found information on this theory on various websites, including that of SETI, BBC, and the Fermi Paradox website. This theory is still popular today, especially as we advance technologically with more AI devices coming out constantly. This belief that aliens were the start and continuation of AI technology is extraordinary because it seems impossible, we have knowledge of the scientists and engineers who have, and continue, to work on AI. Believers of this theory are claiming that the aliens came to our planet and created this technology, using their advanced knowledge, and then moved on to help other planets and populations do the same. When they moved on they left behind their AI technology so they could monitor us from a distance and later communicate with us if need be. They also state that it is possible if they were to try and communicate with earth, they may be so evolved that we would not be able to understand or detect their messages.

On one end of the spectrum, critics often say, if our galaxy is really over 10 billion years old, there must have been plenty of chances for another species to branch out into the world and settle down on another livable planet. If this is so, where are they and why haven’t we come into contact with them? At the other end of it all it is stated that we haven’t been able to detect alien intelligence because our first contact with them will be in the form of technology and not organic creatures. “Intelligences might be like small ships passing in the night in a vast ocean” it is stated on aeon.com. This AI technology that the aliens have developed is so far beyond our abilities to understand that until we are “ready” we won’t be able to come in contact with them.

Cognitively, I think this belief goes along with the idea that people don’t like the unknown. It brings us cognitive dissonance to not know the explanation behind something, like lights in the sky or why space is so vast, but we are the only species active throughout it. In terms of the belief that aliens are just AI I think it’s possible that this idea is comforting to people who don’t understand how or why technology had become so advanced to the point that it is essentially self-sufficient. The believers of this theory seem to come from more scientific backgrounds, but at the same time others who have similar scientific backgrounds will completely dispute these ideas. Those scientists who do share these beliefs have created communities and websites in which they can all share their ideas; this comradery allows their ideas to be supported and pushed even further. Confirmation bias could be to blame for some of these sustained beliefs, if someone has some beliefs that aliens exist and then they are presented with ambiguous evidence, they are more likely to see this as evidence to go along with what they believe. Along with this, even if they are presented with data that could prove that aliens do not exist, they aren’t likely to listen or remember this.

Overall, this belief in aliens as AI started in response to Fermi’s Paradox stating that the lack of evidence that aliens were real meant they could not be anywhere in our universe. From there they have perpetuated the belief through pseudoscience and lack of evidence to keep coming up with more and more hypotheses for why they do exist, but we haven’t seen them or communicated with them.