The term "crisis actors" originally described folks who played the parts of victims in staged tragedy scenarios to help first responders and emergency personnel practice procedures in the event of an actual catastrophe.

The phrase took on a darker tone when appropriated by conspiracy theorists who claim certain events — the Moon Landing, the JFK assassination, 9/11, and mass shootings at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, the Pulse nightclub — were actually "false flag" performances engineered by nefarious government organizations to cheat the NRA out of future income. Inasmuch as, they insist, these events didn't really take place, it was thus necessary to provide believable footage to air on newscasts and social media to help persuade the populace — and the thespians on these projects became the new "crisis actors." 

The idea of fake tragedy productions is incredibly divisive, and the inability of experts to state with accuracy that a particular disaster really happened is frustrating.

I can't figure out why no one's asked me. Of course they're fake! 

Y'see, Koster Katering — a family company started by my paternal grandfather, Oscar "Big Chef" Koster, to feed the cast and crew of the "Fake Holocaust" — has worked exclusively on false flag productions for over 70 years. If you are/were an actor, camera/sound person, electrician, key grip, carpenter, gaffer, special effects expert, etc., on ANY of the "tragedies" listed in the second paragraph, it was Koster Katering that fed you!

We also did craft services for stuff you didn't even know was fake: "The 2004 Fake Red Sox World Series Victory"; "The Fake Women's March on Washington at the Trump Inauguration"; and, for reasons I never figured out, "The Fake Reenactment of Civil War Battle Shiloh, 2005, Hobbs, New Mexico," which was basically a fake of a fake. Anyway, here's a random batch of my fave Koster's Katering moments:

1. The "plane" that crashed into the North Tower on 9/11 was the same "plane" used by Lynyrd Skynyrd when they "went down" in McComb, Miss. This explains the box of vintage "Fly On Free Bird" T-shirts found at "Ground Zero."

2. The cast of the "Sandy Hook Tragedy" requested Fritos and peppermint cupcakes.

3. Listen carefully to audio from the "Pulse Nightclub Incident" and you'll hear dialogue from an episode of "The Big Bang Theory," which was filming on the adjacent soundstage.

4. The crisis actor who played "Gov. John Connally" at the "JFK Assassination" kept grabbing the wrong shoulder when he was "shot," requiring six takes.

5. The Aurora, Colo., theater shooting was real, but did you know the killer, James Eagan Holmes, flipped burgers for Koster Katering when he was a kid — on the set of the "Fake Columbine Massacre"? Eerie!