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Conspiracy file · Since 1945

Sheeple

A blend of "sheep" and "people": a put-down for anyone who follows the herd without asking questions. The word dates to 1945 and has been a staple of conspiracy talk ever since.

Also known as Sheople · Sheep-people · The herd

On the recordTimelineFrom the comicsIn Paranoid American comicsSources & further reading

Sheeple, a panel from a Paranoid American comic
From Time Samplers #1

The story

Sheeple is a portmanteau of sheep and people. Merriam-Webster defines it as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced." It only comes in the plural: nobody is ever called one sheeple.

The earliest known use is from 1945, when the radio columnist W. R. Anderson wrote that "the People, as ever (I spell it 'Sheeple'), will stand anything." A 1949 book had a chapter called "We the Sheeple". In 1984 The Wall Street Journal picked it up from the owner of an American Opinion bookstore, who used it for taxpayers who go along without complaint. Merriam-Webster added the word in 2017, with an example sentence about Apple customers.

Time Samplers takes the word literally: in 1913 Alexander Graham Bell is breeding sheep-people in his lab and steering them with sound. That part is fiction. The real Bell did spend some thirty years breeding sheep on his Nova Scotia estate, and he chaired the scientific board of the Eugenics Record Office, the center of America's movement to breed better humans.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Sheeple

On the record

  1. The earliest known use of "sheeple" is from 1945, in W. R. Anderson's radio column, cited in The Musical Times.
  2. Ernest Rogers' 1949 book The Old Hokum Bucket has a chapter titled "We the Sheeple".
  3. Merriam-Webster added the word in April 2017: "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced."
  4. From about 1890 Alexander Graham Bell bred sheep at Beinn Bhreagh, his estate in Nova Scotia, selecting for extra nipples and twin lambs. He reported on the flock in Science in 1904 and 1912.
  5. In 1883 Bell read his "Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race" to the National Academy of Sciences, arguing that marriages between deaf people could produce a deaf variety of humanity.
  6. From 1912 Bell chaired the Board of Scientific Directors of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor.
  7. In 1921 he was honorary president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics in New York.

The theory

  • Mass media, advertising and schooling are designed to keep the public docile: sheep that won't notice the shearing.
  • The cure is to "wake up": question the official story and you leave the flock.
  • Some versions say the herd is managed with technology, from subliminal ads to broadcast frequencies, a thread that runs straight into the H.A.A.R.P. and mind-control stories.

Timeline

  1. 1883Bell presents his memoir on a "deaf variety of the human race"
  2. c. 1890Bell starts breeding sheep at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia
  3. 1904Bell publishes on the multi-nippled sheep of Beinn Bhreagh in Science
  4. 1910Ilya Ivanov proposes a human-ape hybrid at a zoology congress in Graz
  5. 1912Bell becomes chairman of the Eugenics Record Office's scientific board
  6. 1921Bell is honorary president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics
  7. 1945Earliest known use of "sheeple" (W. R. Anderson)
  8. 1949"We the Sheeple", a chapter in Ernest Rogers' The Old Hokum Bucket
  9. 1984The Wall Street Journal reports the word in print
  10. 2017Merriam-Webster adds "sheeple"

From the comics

Panels straight from the page. Click one to read it full size.

From Time Samplers #1: Escape from Jekyll Island · Pages 8-9

Bell's best invention

1913: Alexander Graham Bell shows his backers his best invention yet, a flock of sheep-people he steers with a tuning fork. The real Bell never made a sheeple, but he did breed sheep for some thirty years, and he chaired America's leading eugenics office.

Bell's best invention, 1 of 4
Bell's best invention, 2 of 4
Bell's best invention, 3 of 4
Bell's best invention, 4 of 4
  1. Ivanov's humanzees: a real reference. In 1910 the Russian biologist Ilya Ivanov proposed crossing humans and chimpanzees by artificial insemination. He tried it in French Guinea in the 1920s; nothing came of it.
  2. Bell really did breed sheep. From about 1890 he kept a flock at Beinn Bhreagh, his Nova Scotia estate, selecting for extra nipples in the hope of more twin lambs. He reported on it in Science in 1904 and 1912; the flock was dispersed in the 1940s.
  3. Eugenics: in 1883 Bell warned that deaf people marrying each other could create "a deaf variety of the human race", and from 1912 he chaired the scientific board of the Eugenics Record Office.
  4. A and A-sharp: two notes that close make the sound "beat". At concert pitch (440 and 466 Hz) the beat is about 26 per second, so Bell's math holds up. Whether beats like these can steer moods or brainwaves is a popular claim with mixed evidence.

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