The Great Fear spread like an epidemic through postal routes; today it’s hashtags. Different century, same message: the system stinks, pass it on.
The French peasants of 1789 weren’t a bunch of frothing lunatics storming barns and waving pitchforks because someone heard a rumor about aristocrats putting fluoride in the wells.
Nope.
According to some very earnest researchers with access to epidemiological models — the kind usually reserved for predicting flu outbreaks or monkeypox surges — the Great Fear was actually rational. Politically driven.
A measured, strategic revolt against the feudal system.
Turns out the peasants weren’t hysterical lunatics screaming about aristocrats poisoning the water supply. They were literate, organized, and justifiably pissed.
In other words, it was the French Revolution’s beta test: Version 1.0, now with better postal service.
Researchers modeled the spread of peasant uprisings as if it were an infectious disease. Which makes sense: revolt is basically the flu with pitchforks. “Have you had your inoculation, monsieur?” “Non, but I burned down a manor last week.”
Instead of coughs and sneezes, outbreaks spread along trade roads and postal routes — the 18th-century equivalent of going viral. Forget TikTok dances, this was TikTok arson.
And guess where revolts happened most?
Prosperous, literate regions. Because when you can actually read the feudal contract that says you owe two-thirds of your wheat and half your goats to Monsieur le Duke, you don’t say “merci.” You say, “Pass me the kerosene.”
Let’s be honest: this isn’t news, it’s just history’s way of trolling us. Replace feudal dues with student loans, manor houses with Amazon warehouses, and postal routes with Twitter/X, and voilà: you’ve just described 2025.
The only difference is that back then, they torched aristocrats’ paperwork. Today, we post angry Yelp reviews about Jeff Bezos’ yacht. Progress!
And don’t kid yourself that the ruling class has learned a damn thing. In 1789, nobles called peasants hysterical, “irrational,” prone to wild conspiracy theories.
Today, billionaires call protesters spoiled brats with sociology degrees. Same sneer, different wigs.
“So the peasants weren’t crazy, huh? No, they just did what rational people do when the system’s rigged — they lit the paperwork on fire. And they didn’t need Twitter to do it! You know why?
Because torches don’t need batteries. You don’t get the spinning wheel of death on fire, baby.”
“You telling me burning down your landlord’s house is irrational? No, irrational is paying rent to a guy who calls himself a ‘lord.’ Lord of what? Lord of taking your goats?
Burn it, Jacques. Burn it all down. Call it an early withdrawal from the bank of feudalism.”
It’s one of the rare moments in history when the mob was smarter than the people in charge. Which makes it not just history, but prophecy.
Because today’s uprisings — whether they’re climate kids gluing themselves to highways or workers walking out of Starbucks — follow the same damn pattern: connected, rational, and aimed at the rotten timbers of a crumbling system.
So don’t laugh too hard at the peasants of 1789. They were just the beta version of us. The Great Fear wasn’t hysteria. It was the Enlightenment with pitchforks. And if you squint, you can see the torchlight reflected in every trending hashtag.
