Why do people need conspiracy theories?

Hello, I'm Birdie in the cage. I'm writing from my cage in this very moment, just as you're probably reading from yours due to the recent government imposed quarantine, depending on where you are.
If you're from the future and the whole Coronavirus situation has been over for a while, let me know how that shaped up so that I may or may not write it down among my notes to see if I can make a movie off it. My screenwriting career hasn't quite taken off just yet (it was just about to, I promise!), but I can retroactively blame it on this pandemic, because there are enough shortcomings that I have to take responsibility for and I don't need any more, thank you very much.

Opportunistic tendencies aside – love me a good first impression –, all there is to know about why I'm writing this is that I have been forced in my cage for several years regardless of this specifc historical moment, yet one would barely be able to spot that difference at the moment.
So, am I going to talk about the virus? No, for that you might want to consult the news, or the radio, or facebook, or twitter, or whoever is begging for something that will allow the constant churning of posts to get the dopamine going. Staying silent can be quite the challenge, especially for Mama Birdie. She, in fact has many things to say on the matter.

Did you know that 5G Network, as proven by an experiment on cockroaches, is so dangerous that it directly partook in the spread of the virus? Ah, you don't believe it? Well, 5G Network was already active in Northern Italy where the situation got out of hand and extended to the whole European continent and then the entire world, surely it is because of that very much plausible reason and not because an infected patient unknowingly traveled all over the goddamn place. Yes, that is her argument, no matter how much trustworthy sources of information have made public announcements stating otherwise.

THE LIES! ALL FILTHY LIES!

Conspiracy theories probably have some truth to them, if only a crumb of it...If you squint. For this reason, I believe that it's important to listen to people's concern because who knows, one day someone might prove one of those right and then you're gonna be the asshole and you don't wanna be the asshole because that's tedious. Yet, I have learned – the hard way, because all children believe that their parents can do no wrong at first – that Mama Birdie can get just a little bit unhinged when it comes to this kind of behaviour. I remember plenty of gems from her:

• The government lying about the intensity of earthquakes in order not pay for further safety measures all while using drills in the Mediterranean sea that were in fact causing said earthquakes.
• The weather changing devices of AAARC in Alaska aiming to cause natural disasters, which had some very intricate plot that involved enslaving aliens in the sewers of the USA.
• The multi-decade secret plan by the United Nations to create a single government that rules the whole world which consists of brainwashing the people into having no religion through movies (Jurassic Park was a crucial one to this plan) yet somehow God is supposed to appear in 2030 as a hologram in the sky, speaking a different language depending on who is watching. Satanic imagery is also involved, because they are enacting God saving everyone and somehow that helps towards the goal.
• The good ol' 'the Earth is flat' idea, despite it being something that Christopher Columbus aimed to prove wrong by travelling West instead of East and reach India (he stumbled upon America and she thinks she's the one making horrible discoveries? The audacity.)
• That one time that during the Cold War the aliens helped six soldiers specifically with defusing bombs because the Pope asked them to.
• And last but not least, my personal favourite. This one, I can only explain by reporting here the dialogue we had because it honestly belongs in a sit-com:

  “Birdie, can you come over here and read me the title and plot of this movie?”
  “Yes. It's titled 'A royal weekend'. It's set in 1939 and it talks about Theodore Roosevelt and his relationship with his cousin while they are preparing to receive the English royalty.”
  “Ah, Theodore Roosevelt, the American president! Did you know that he secretly communicated with the aliens?”
  “...”
  “They wanted him to arrange an event where they could manifest their presence.”
  “...”
  “Roosevelt said no.”

What an inspiring quote.

All of this begs the question: why do people need conspiracy theories?

The base on which every conspiracy theory is built is that 'the powerful people don't tell us the truth', that we are slaves. Now, we are all 'victims' of the society, that I will not argue with because unless you flee far away from civilization you will have to withstand certain unjust rules, but it's worth pointing out that there is an obsession with others hiding the truth. Why, because people deliberately hiding it from you justifies you not knowing said truth, and justifies you not taking control over your own life in general.

This is directly linked to the knowledge that is actually accessible. Perhaps, because it's too accessible and when you don't know something that isn't obscure, something that might be common knowledge for a group of people, you are humiliated because asking means not knowing and not knowing is shameful. When there is so much information flooding every space every second, it's hard to keep up, and even if you get information on a subject you will hardly ever become an expert on it. It's easy to feel lost, and that's something that people don't like to acknowledge.

I know, for example, that I find myself overwhelmed with how much material is out there that I end up never looking up anything ever. And with being locked ever since I finished school it's strangely not become easier to look up things, on the contrary this is my personal way of experiencing that feeling. I believe all of us are in some degree experiencing that feeling. This place is for you: I want you to experience this feeling unapologetically with me, to find out little tidbits of information regarding whatever topic together and free ourselves from this constant anxiety.
Welcome to the cage, there are no stupid questions here.