We’ve been writing a lot about the conspiracy theories surrounding the Sandy Hook school shooting — some say too much. “Why you’re giving these Sandy Hook truther media whores the time of day. Ignore them and they go away [sic],” one reader emailed.

Unfortunately, that’s probably not the case. The genie is already out of the bottle and this myth will likely only heat up as the debate over gun control does. “It’s by far the hottest topic of the moment,” David Mikkelson, the co-founder of the myth-debunking website Snopes.com told BuzzFeed. As the site’s Ben Smith and CJ Lotz wrote today, “Some of the factors that can bring theories in from the fringe appear to be driving its unexpected surge this month: A connection to America’s intensely polarized political culture in general, and a message that appeals to a longstanding fear among gun owners, in particular.”

“This has gone super viral. It even surprised me how crazy insane the interest in this stuff is,” Paul Joseph Watson, a guest host for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show, said today.

And thanks to the Internet, the media can no longer suffocate a smoldering conspiracy theory by ignoring it. ”The biggest problem for theorists was always getting their message out,” Robert Goldberg, a University of Utah historian who studies conspiracy theories, told Salon. “The Internet has completely changed that. Often, they don’t even bother trying to get their theories in the mainstream media anymore.” So even if the the few media outlets that have covered the theories give them a bit more exposure, it’s unlikely conspiracists would have a problem reaching their audience on their own anyway.

Indeed, they’ve already been tremendously successful. The numbers alone are staggering.

The most popular video on YouTube, “The Sandy Hook Shooting – Fully Exposed,” produced by ThinkOutsideTheTV, already has nearly 11 million views. There are at least 40 other Sandy Hook conspiracy theory videos on YouTube with over 100,000 views. Alex Jones’ conspiracy websites, which get 11 million visitors a month, are publishing new stories about the Newtown massacre every day.