The notion that COVID-19 vaccines will be used by governments across the globe to track the human race's every move has long been a topic of discussion among conspiracy theorists. But now, new 'evidence' has emerged from Italian proponents of the idea – only it would be evidence, were it not a reworked schematic for the Boss Metal Zone.
The conspiracy theorists shared the schematic online, claiming it depicted the diagram for the supposed 5G chip. It features a section labelled “5G frequency” – clearly the source of many a theorist's eureka moment – as well as terms guitarists will find familiar: “MT-2 Gain”, “Footswitch” among the most recognizable.
Mario Fusco, a senior software engineer at Redhat, spotted the misinformation and took to Twitter to flag it.
“Here in Italy people started to share this figure claiming that this is the diagram of the 5G chip that has been inserted in the COVID vaccine,” he tweeted. “In reality it is the electric circuit of a guitar pedal.”
Here in Italy people started to share this figure claiming that this is the diagram of the 5G chip that has been inserted in the covid vaccine.In reality it is the electric circuit of a guitar pedal and I believe that putting it in the covid vaccine has been an excellent idea💡 pic.twitter.com/qXKnv7VVlyDecember 28, 2020
Naturally, the image has garnered quite a few humorous responses.
One user wrote, “Excellent. Reassured to know that 5G relies on op-amps and some 1n4148 diodes. Proper old school. None of that digital and microprocessor nonsense. I’ll take one in each arm.”
Another replied, “This is a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, and trust me, that ain't curing anybody of anything, except maybe good tone.”
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In related news, Boss recently confirmed that a reissue of the lauded HM-2 Heavy Metal is in the works – presumably, in pedal form.
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.