It's hard to say for sure why conspiracy theories have been running hot in pandemic times — possibly people trying to make sense of an increasingly complicated and dangerous world, possibly the bad faith actions of misinformation campaigns, possibly too many people who just have too much time on their hands finding all the wrong ways to make connections online — but the result is a lot of bizarre nonsense spreading across social media.
Probably the most prominent theory over the past year has involved the notion of microchips somehow being added to COVID-19 vaccines for...reasons. It's a theory that has duped a lot of people, some of whom went so far as to spread schematics of a guitar pedal that they thought was the microchip in question.
Others were tricked into buying a Faraday cage that would block their own wifi signals out of fear of 5G internet. And even Bill Gates's daughter couldn't resist taking a swipe at all the conspiracy theories involving her father.