QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement that claims that President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping. The theory has been linked to several crimes and helped fuel the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol. It originated in forum posts on 4chan, an online bulletin board known for creating and spreading memes, and later spread on larger social media platforms.
The QAnon conspiracy theory began as a claim that President Trump (and Robert Mueller) were saving the world from cannibal pedophiles. The spread of Qanon can be traced back to three people in November 2017 who banded together to promote the theory and gain followers. President Trump, viewed as a hero by the movement, has stopped short of endorsing the conspiracy theory but has described QAnon activists as “… QAnon is a decentralized, far-right political movement rooted in a baseless conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against…”
Conspiration theories have legitimized violence, impaired public health, and undermined democratic governance. Containing their harms begins with understanding the origins of the QAnon conspiracy theories. The spread of the theory can be traced back to three people who banded together to promote the theory and gain followers.
In summary, QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement that claims that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshippers who run a global child sex-trafficking operation. The spread of QAnon has led to significant public outcry and criticism, with some arguing that it is a dangerous and unfounded conspiracy.
📹 What is QAnon? How the conspiracy theory gained traction in 2020 campaign
With less than three months until Election Day, most of the nation’s attention has been focused on the presidential race. But more …
📹 QAnon: The 21st Century’s Most Bizarre Conspiracy Theory
What is QAnon? Who is it, and where did it come from? Join us as we go insanely in-depth about this conspiracy theory. Simon’s …
2:10 – Chapter 1 – The origins of 4chan 9:30 – Chapter 2 – Cultural impact 16:40 – Chapter 3 – Pizzagate 26:30 – Chapter 4 – The calm before the storm 31:15 – Chapter 5 – The rise of Q 40:15 – Chapter 6 – Where we go one, we go all 55:30 – Chapter 7 – Who is Q and where did they go 1:03:55 – Wrap up PS: Always a treat your script, Casual Decoder or Cash Criminalist ! And it’s Allsides at 20:40
My 2 takeaways: 1. Simon just learned how absolutely bonkers American politics has been for the past decade & change, and if you think it’s crazy to read about, imagine living in it. 2. When some post-post-apocalyptic society is piecing together how our civilization fell, they wouldn’t be wrong to think that a lot of it stems from 4chan’s influence.
The quote about strangling was from a murder that happened in my town. Dude even posted all the photos of her body strung up at the foot of the bed. He did this so it was the first thing her son saw when he got home from school. It shook the town quite bad. I had the unfortunate experiance of seeing it reposted unedited on Imgur literally minutes before my mother ran in to tell me a murder happened in town.
The worst part about QAnon is the way it has literally torn families apart in the US. Seriously. I will be alone for the holidays again this year because members of my family would rather cling to this shit than admit they got fooled. I can’t even speak to them for any period of time without it eventually devolving into a fight about QAnon’s validity. There needs to be an intervention group like the ones that rescue people from cults or something.
Qanon is a practical joke/trolling gone WAY too far. The fact that anyone took this even remotely seriously is testament to how stupid people are and how quick they are to believe anything bad, as long as its only talking about people they oppose. I understand people want to believe they are getting “inside information” and answers to questions, but you have to be critical of the answers you get. One of the (few) warnings on 4chan /b (random board) is “Everything posted here is fiction and not to be taken seriously” for a reason.
I can respect when someone hops up on article and openly admits he’s gonna be talking out of his ass. Far too many people try to pretend they’re experts about everything they talk about (I’m looking at you, Fact Fiend) even if they’re completely off about what they’re talking about. It’s refreshing. Please never lose that honesty.
I used to work for a pretty huge lab a few years ago. The supervisor for billing department was named “Rick Roll.” I genuinely thought it was someone just trolling and making a reference to the joke. Nope, was just the dude’s actual name. “Rick Roll: Billing” was how all the interoffice mail envelopes were addressed and had me chuckling every time I saw one addressed to billing. 🤣
I was such an optimist decades ago. Very Zen-Buddhist, and yet I joined the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam “conflict”. My-O-My were my eyes opened! The racism, the unbridled vitriol that flowed from the mouth’s of my shipmates. I was blindsided by such hate associated with such ignorance from extremely intelligent people, and it’s just continued, as it will forevermore. Now in my senior years, I’ve lost so much hope for the human race. I’ve been slowly beaten down to the point where I just want to be separated from the madding crowd, sitting in my own gardens enjoying the birds and the butterflies, while my grandchildren watch in amazement as little doodlebugs do their little doodlebug thing. Hatred and ignorance will always exist, however it still knocks the wind from my sails. As I watch my grandchildren, I morn, knowing the world they will grow up in once they pass through my garden gate, physically leaving behind the peace and tranquility I’ve strived to create for us. I hope with all my heart that I’ve given them useful knowledge that they will use when making their life decisions.
I’ve always assumed that whoever was behind it was just taking the piss. It seems like a lot of energy but you should never underestimate the time, money and effort that 4chan users have put into causing a bit of chaos for shits and giggles. Internet Historian has done a few articles covering their escapades over the years and I have to say, batshit as they are, damn they are committed. And resourceful.
As someone who has family still trapped in the rabbit hole, I saw the slow descent into madness. It’s a religion to them. No cult opens with the crazy part. They open with “Are you worried about the safety of your children? Do you feel society is falling into corruption? Would you like to see a future where humanity can do better? Well, the Bible has a message of hope, and I would like to read you this scripture and hear your thoughts. For more soothing words about our Lord and Savior, you can come to our Sunday meeting.” And before you know it, you’re handling snakes or refusing medical treatment or sending your children off to “camp.”
I’m American and I couldn’t even start to describe how to explain how half of the OAnon theories are supposed to work out. Most people here just read them for a good laugh. I was a counselor at a crisis center for several years and one thing we always told new staff is that you only observe and contain the really unstable ones. When it comes to their delusions you never try to explain it away, you never try to identify with it, and you most certainly never try to argue with it. That last one is how you get stabbed with a pencil or body slammed into a television. I got stabbed with a fork to learn that one.
52:49 It’s not ‘reports of 460,000 missing children’ but ‘460,000 reports about missing children’. So, a say 16 year old boy running away from home after an argument gets reported first as missing, then, when he turns out to have returned home through the back door is reported a second time as being found. And then that happens 2 or 3 times again the same year. So, 1 child, 8 reports. Other cases can include divorced parents fighting custody, not great for the child either, but quite different from being abducted by a stranger.
Rather than “always try to change your opinion” I’d say “always be willing to reevaluate the evidence”. Sometimes your perspective changes. Sometimes you learn evidence you had was from an untrustworthy source, and sometimes there is new more reliable evidence. But some people simply don’t rely on evidence. 🤷♀️
Fear and Loathing is actually found in non-fiction sections. It was 100% autobiographical…written by someone who was tripping balls on enough drugs to kill most normal casual drug users. Also Thompson probably got adrenochrome from Aldous Huxley, who first referenced it in his 1954 book The Doors of Perception, where he also described as being similar to mescaline. If I was to put money on it, I would say that Thompson was fucking with his readers to a greater or lesser degree for his personal amusement.
An Australian author called Van Badham wrote a book called Q Anon and On which covers all of the territory here but in the greater detail that a book permits over a clip. An interesting section within it examines whether there is a common pre-disposer to falling into conspiracy thinking and one large common factor was of people who had fallen into some kind of situation of precariousness. The situations were broad ranging, including things like failed or failing small business ventures, substance dependence or borderline dependence, relationship and employment precariousness, societal anxiety (the pandemic, political polarisation anybody?). Something that makes a person feel like the earth under their feet is not stable. Seeing as most people experience one or more of these at some stage of their lives it is no wonder that so many fell down the hole.
The most wild part of this is as a survivor of human trafficking that happened throughout my childhood, it is the same people who go on our support groups to call us snowflakes, put laughing emojis if we use our voices online, and actively vote against resources for our recovery. If they cared about the children who have survived sex trafficking, they would be far kinder people who want us to recover. Hearing the republican party use this conspiracy as a political move, whilst also demonizing and mocking survivors who have lived it, was genuinely one of the most disgusting things I have ever witnessed. People who have never experienced this shouldn’t have more of a voice than we do.
One of your very best, Simon. I already showed this to someone who has literally told me that the things I talked about (Qanon stuff, and how dangerous these people are to society, how unhinged they are, and how they have become an actual political influence on the right wing in the US and Canada), couldnt possibly be true and I was imagining it, or falling for ‘leftwing propaganda’. They pride themselves on being apolitical, and they have watched a few of your vids. So I sat them down, did the straps up tight, put the rubber cylinder between their teeth and taped their eyelids open. Slightly under one hour and seven minutes later, and after talking them out of calling the cops, they admitted that in fact they had changed their opinion. Some of this may not have happened in precisely the way it is retold here. Allegedly.
My mom is a Q believer and dear god that woman is too smart for her own good. She triple majored in college, alongside a double minor I think, she graduated with all A’s, a few B’s, but B’s in honors/AP is better than A’s anyways. And yet she’s so curious that she ends up being naïve and it’s sad to see the naïvety of such a logically smart person.
Simon, 400000 children may be reported missing each year, but the overwhelming majority are found within 24 hours and 98% of the time it’s a parent or a family member who did the kidnapping, so these numbers may seem sinister at their face, but in reality children kidnapped and trafficked by strangers is incredibly rare
When I originally heard of “Qanon” I was like “Can’t be crazier than Alex Jones, he set the bar by ranting about water turning frogs gay.” Then I spent like 20 minutes on Q and I felt like vomiting blood & feel my brain cells dying. Never thought something could make Alex Jones not named Ye look so reasonable.
The guy was shooting off a rifle in public and making threats. Shooting a lock is particularly dangerous. At minimum, he should not be in the general public but it needs to be more than four years. I am one of those people who think full auto should be legal. To have an armed public with any level of safety, those showing such recklessness and indifference to human life have to be removed.
As someone who has had a security clearance, I can tell you that bragging about having Q clearance is as basic as it gets as you could just be some pencil pusher at the DOE. It’s not like solely having that clearance will get you into the Air Force One briefing room, get you access to PDBs or snoop in on the joint chiefs. It’s just someone approved to have some access to classified nuclear information. What’s more important is having TS/SCI with access to special access programs and either way, it’s so compartmentalized that you can only be read into so much unless you’re basically a flag officer, presidential advisor or cabinet secretary. Plus, I can tell you right now that 95% of all classified material is boring and of the the remainder, most is out of date, leaving only one percent or that would be of interest to most folks or of importance to America’s enemies. So yeah, the odds of some high level official leaking vital intel on 4Chan is ridiculous and far more likely the works of some idiot in over his head that watched too many episodes of X-Files, or of course, Ron Watkins who essentially admitted to being Q when he let it slip for an HBO documentary.
Well, thank you guys. This has explained things way better than anything else. I had actively tried to figure out what the whole thing was, but no one could actually come up with any sort of details. Even other articles that were supposed to be about it just made me understand even Less about it. All I could get was the name (Which is now used more as a pejorative for people who have nothing to do with it) and a vague connection to the “deep state” and somehow pedo type stuff being involved. At least I somewhat understand what it actually was now. So sincerely, thank you.
Beliefs like these are not due to lack of intelligence. They are due to fear, likely being raised in an authoritarian household, and a feeling of being completely disenfranchised. I grew up in a similar atmosphere, bought into some conspiracy theories (did you know that Elvis is still alive? 😂) but because I am somewhat intelligent – or at least hang out with intelligent people – I saw through these theories a long while back.
Great article man! You have a very nice way of providing a healthy ratio of facts, statistics, and data to your articles, as well as still having bits where you drop jokes or curse! It comes off more realistic and relatable that’ way, and this episode had me cracking up, honestly. Keep up the great work, and thank you for providing top notch content! Wishing you major success and best wishes. I do expect a future where I will be able to see you at the top of the industry, doing what you love and do best!
4chan was always something I avoided like the plague. Many people behaved like they were on the dark web but without the ‘safety’ of being tracked easily, a on the dark web. People with little moral compass, looking for a free for all without the brains to cover their tracks. I was writing a long discourse about privacy laws and government reach and realised it was a snooze fest. I’m an avid fan of casual criminalist (btw I love that it’s NOT Saw). I’ve watched biographics and geographics? is that what it’s called? This is the first time here. The name of the website really put me off. I’m a computer programmer and security specialist (in the academic world now) and this came up in my feed and I didn’t see the website name (thinking it was casual criminalist) and watched the entire thing! It was fantastic! Thank you to Simon and all the fabulous writers and your amazing editor! My first and possibly my last comment on the website. I figure you guys are all flooded.
It’s funny. Every time you said “that nobody is interested in” it was always something that I found interesting and occasionally like “oh. That’s how that works”. Either way. You grabbed me right until the end although I think my laughter woke everyone in the house up. Time for another beer and another article. Cheers!
4chan is home to a particular collection of the greatest batch of trolls ever to graduate from the 1990’s bbs’s. For them, to troll is divine. In addition to the items you mentioned, they also cooked up the resurgence of the flat-earth theory (based on old-testament-era cosmology) on a bet — I actually saw the page where they first took up the challenge. They followed with attempted hollow-earth copy of it, among others. Other early members of that generation of cynics also did things like use the military networks mainframes to play article conquest games with computer operators in the SSSR during the cold war (i.e. the equivalent of someone playing World of Warcraft on the Red Phone line today). A lot of people lived essentially ignored in electrically humming sub-basements back then, and they were their own world of iconoclasts, Monty Python and sci-fi geeks, Bucky Fuller followers, and general bored underpaid intellectuals. Some of them never stopped at “the game” and recruited acolytes and successors. Getting your troll-topics into public media and political discussions are the hallmarks of victory. Doing so as anonymously and surreptitiously as possible is the ethic. It follows from the laws of time travel enforcement: the greatest effect from the smallest or least noticeable/trackable input. It’s a refined art form 🙂
We just finished early primary voting here in Florida. My local library has to put signs on the book returns to tell people not to drop their ballots in the returns. We’ve always had stupid, crazy people. Most are probably nice, decent human beings. The problem is when they gain control of the government because sane people aren’t paying attention.
“Great article! I wanted to highlight something you mentioned at 48:05. Your statement about not being influenced by the ‘deep state’ and instead being supported by sponsors made me laugh because you kind of prove the point! Because IMO if you leaned to hard on certain topics in the wrong direction your website would be demonetized, and you’d be shadow banned. There are plenty of examples. That being said, your ability to provide balanced perspectives on various topics, without compromising your content for sponsors is commendable you’re able to consistently offer thorough context and well-researched investigations, which is incredibly valuable for the viewer and I respect that!. Keep up the good work!
You mentioned vitamin supplements and how shady they definitely are… but aren’t government health agencies also shady themselves, when they can be lobbied by companies into allowing certain foods on the market that definitely have no health benefits to us whatsoever and may be causing us health problems?
I applaud you for trying to explain this as best as you could. It was an interesting watch, but it shows how far we have fallen. This is simply because you can’t experience anything from a computer. You have to get out and see the world for yourself. Most people that tell you someone else is trying to control you, are also trying to control you, fear makes it easier.
“Seeing as it’s all done from behind someone’s computer”, you’re forgetting that to these people, the world in their computer is real life. They are their truest selves on these messaging boards. When they leave and have to interact with the real world, that is when they put their mask on and pretend to be a normal person.
Thank You, glorious, dripping sarcasm is exactly how this needed to be presented. The current disconnect of those who fell for Q is utter perfection. The people I know have chosen to pretend they weren’t involved, to actually recognize a need for disconnecting slightly from their echo chamber, or (and much more insidiously) to transition to religious iconography. You’re a Beast.
The Netflix doc on this was so bonkers too. The dudes being interviewed as the leaders were so fucking creepy. I guess the head was the anime nerd? I’m sure the people storming the Capitol were real proud to follow him 😀 My reaction to just the pizzeria as the HQ was the same as Simon’s, just endless laughter.
Great as always. As for Paul, I found out he works as a dev in Johannesburg. Keeping his name on my mind to avoid his type of toxic as we work in the same sphere (software dev). If you know our own recent history when it comes to state capture and coups you know how disgusting it is for him to be involved with a conspiracy tied to the Shitstain Coup, never mind being an alleged voice of it at some stage. All I can say is he is lucky more of his countrymen don’t know what he’s been involved with.
He should get community service? He believed a nonsensical conspiracy theory so he walked into a building with no basement and fired an assault rifle randomly in order to rescue nonexistent children in the nonexistent basement. Then could not be convinced that it was not true. This is someone who is dangerous, who should not be out in public and definitely should not be able to be armed anymore. While gun ownership is a right in the US, it is also a privilege, and a responsibility. And he is not responsible. What happens when the next thing he believes involves needing to kill? He’s someone who would actually do it, and that is not okay, he is not someone we need out in the real world where he can do harm based on some made up nonsense social media post
“That was a way long rant about sponsorships which noone’s interested in.” Au contraire, I found your insights on that point fascinating. Sponsored content is so much a part of daily life for anyone spending time online nowadays, I’d actually be really interested in a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of look at how it works, maybe that would be a great Sideprojects or Today I Found Out article (or maybe it’s a better fit for Into the Shadows or the Casual Criminalist? :P). And I’d say noone can speak on that with much more authority than the OG FactBoi 🙂 You make it, I’ll watch it. 😉
There’s a lot of empty people out there. No purpose and no avenues for personal growth, just empty stimulation and endless routine. Suddenly someone tells them that the entire world is being secretly controlled by powerful villains who do evil things to CHILDREEEEN, they show them some things and say these things are plain evidence of this secret plot. Suddenly they have a grand purpose to save all their friends and family via this secret information that they were special enough to acquire. Really shows how everyone is susceptible to mild forms of mental illness
Living in the conservative American South (Arkansas), overseas viewers would be surprised how often pickup trucks and third hand 1990’s American sedans with tinted windows have “Q” stickers on them. On any given trip to a local grocery store, there will inevitably be at least one car with the sticker – that statistic, at least here, is very believable
I had a friend who’s gone so far down the Trump/Pizzagate/Covid/Qanon rabbit hole that I had to cut ties with him. He’s obsessed with Trump and if someone doesn’t entertain his ranting or agree with him, he loses the plot. It’s ridiculous how much he worships Trump, especially as he’s fricking AUSTRALIAN! We had been friends for almost 30years.
Hmm. I never knew what this Q business was about, and never attempted to look into it, assuming that a) being a somewhat popular phenomenon it had to be bull crap, and furthermore that, b) if it mattered at all, it would eventually be outed. After perusal this article I still know very nearly nothing about Qanon whatsoever, and so I’ve decided to care about it henceforth even less than I did before, which was already pretty much not at all. I must now try to remember to ignore any references to it from now on. And that’s the problem with the basic assumption (which I share) that we’re being lied to pretty much all of the time. That problem is this: The fact that we’re being lied to all the time does NOT mean that literally everything is a lie. If you think everything is a lie, then you have no basis in truth. With no basis in truth, you’re extremely vulnerable. You’ve a house built on sand, and you’re probably going to be able to believe just about anything, being tossed around as it were by every wind of doctrine. Jesus talks about this, and it’s worth reading.
Regarding the bit about circumstantial evidence, it can absolutely be enough to convict. I was a juror in a murder trial that had a lot of circumstantial evidence, but very little otherwise. Regardless, we were still able to reach a very easy guilty verdict. While most of the evidence was circumstantial, the cumulative circumstances were such that it absolutely couldn’t have been anyone else.
Simon: 4 years jail?? That’s crazy! Me: yeah, anyone who is running around with an assault rifle ready to kill people should have more time than that, and probably a lot of therapy. Simon: only community service! Me: oh (That community service better come with a TON of therapy and media literacy classes, and a removal of all weapon permits)
As someone who does not favor the present administration and is therefore constantly associated with Q-Anon, it was great to finally discover what Q-Anon was and its origins. Before perusal Simon, I simply had no idea. Except as a deterrent, I could never credit any story that connected Hillary Clinton to any aspect of sexuality.
So, all I got from that was, Simon and I are in complete agreement about a benevolent dictator being the best political option. However, I would like to amend the idea slightly and make it a benevolent AI dictator, because, as we all know, power corrupts and there is no guarantee a human would remain ‘benevolent’. Cheers and great websites, btw. I’ve been binging a bit, so thanks for making my laziness a bit more educational and interesting.
Listening to this, I am reminded of a game we played “back in the day” (mid-90s) on the internet and that was to create a “grand unifying conspiracy theory”. Also, check out Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” which also looks at a fabricated unifying conspiracy theory of all the different secret societies that suddenly becomes real (or does it?).
I lost one of my oldest best friends to this, during the pandemic her punk rock question authority ideals were corrupted by their fear mongering preying on her motherly sense of protecting children. I tried approaching it as someone who understood and tried to point out how much harm this theory has done to the groups really protecting kids but she was too far gone and I miss her dearly
I enjoy all your websites immensely, but Simon, sweetie, we middle-aged folks literally invented the personal computer, smart phones, etc. Many of us are quite proficient with technology. And not all Americans are enamored of assault rifles; the deluded man who wanted to save children by showing up at a pizzeria with an assault rifle certainly deserved jail time, not community service.
About that rant with the dietary supplements and going to a legit doctor. My primary care physician ordered me dietary supplements. I was like “why”? and she said I needed them and that insurance would cover everything and I wouldn’t have to pay a cent. I got this weird grape skin extract thing in the mail. I told her I didn’t want anymore. She then, with out my permission, ordered me a second dietary supplement from a different company. I had to call her up again and be like “Yo! No more of this. I know I don’t have to pay for these. I don’t want them.” A year later I got called by an investigator about these pills and she was thrilled to learn I still had the bottles sitting in a drawer somewhere because I’m a hoarder. And I had a second set of suspicious pills she didn’t even know about, and yes she definitely wanted pictures of those too.
My ex-partner fell down the Qanon rabbit hole. A few years before the insurrection, before Trump was elected. He was an early devotee. I loved him so much, but I just can’t bear to talk to him anymore. He’s bitter towards half the people in this country who don’t share his political opinions and is so smugly convinced he has all the answers. It’s like he is a totally different person.
I have always had the idea that Qanon was a bunch of young teenagers having a laugh by posting whoppers to see how many people would believe them. I imagine them sitting around in a parents’ basement, laughing themselves silly when their tall tales showed up in mainstream media and crowds of people reacted as if it was all true.
Throwback to high school when I was always saying Epstein didn’t kill himself and I didn’t even know who Epstein was or what he did and my history teacher was essentially like “that theory just suggests that being a child molester isn’t worth killing yourself over” and I never said a word about it again 😂
If I were Q then I’d have totally had a power trip… Potentially I’d go find an anonymous way to get these fanatics to fundraise donations for me, perhaps I’d also just start directing angry mobs towards people/places I really despised (not saying to harm them, but rather saying that they are a problem)… You could do so much damage with it or profit so much off of it… You could easily make a cult…
19:00 — Fake news is not in fact illegal in the United States. Defamation is a civil matter, not criminal, so it’s up to the defamed persons to bring action against the fake news sites. But the legal bar for defamation against public figures is extremely high, and it’s hard to win. In the most outrageous cases, a defense that often works is that the claims were so exaggerated that they were obviously false to any reasonable person. Unfortunately, the fact that a great many people do believe some of these claims does not establish the “reasonable person” standard. Oh, and MSNBC is nowhere near as far to the left as Fox is to the right. By European standards, MSNBC is centrist. It only appears leftist in an American context where the Overton window has moved so far right that the right-wing major political party is nominating outspoken white supremacists for elected office. Fox was being called fake news 20 years ago, and that wasn’t wrong.
FWIW, Gamergate was a tad more complicated than that. I’d recommend Brad Glasgow as someone who actively interacted with the movement in order to try to understand it for a clearer perspective. One of the most headache-inducing parts were all the people and events being associated with Gamergate that never had anything to do with it – but because they were assholes they must’ve been Gamergaters so woo. Lots of Kafkatraps. It was a quagmire of misery in which you had people uncovering legitimate problems with the game news industry, right-wingers trying to recruit disaffected lefties, trolls who just wanted to throw dynamite into the room and laugh as everybody freaked out, genuinely malicious actors exploiting the opportunity and investigative reporters who neither investigated nor effectively reported on the thing they were covering, instead opting to just repeat whatever someone else who was similarly lazy declared. That said, the Zoe Quinn thing (though somewhat inaccurately reported as gaining a favourable review – it was coverage and promotion, not a review, without disclosure of their relationship) was an incredibly minor and stupid event. So far as I can tell it was the response to that that ended up “creating” Gamergate proper, as it was used as an excuse to demonize a lot of unrelated people. Those unrelated people got upset and, well, it spiraled rapidly out of control. If nothing else I’d advise you to remember that the organizations being most heavily criticized were typically the ones writing the narrative and history of Gamergate – and that plenty of male journalists were also ‘targeted.
Thank you for this,I had no real idea of what all the Q stuff came from .I was so clueless that I actually thought the Q was a reference to the character in Star trek .It made sense to me since Q claimed to be omniscient and superior to humanity but was actually incredibly childish,egotistical and generally misleading .I think most of us know that government habitually lies or at least obfuscates,anyone who has spent more than 5 mins perusal a politician being interviewed should recognise that .The problem is that any kind of revolution (Assuming that’s what Q supporters are hoping for ) usually ends in economic collapse,the rise of tyranny,persecution of those who don’t support the “cause” and general misery .At least until some kind of stability is established,then you end up with a new set of leaders who will habitually lie and obfuscate,unless opt for the simpler option of shooting people .
I remember back in 2015 I quit the democratic party and became a right leaning republican. I was 18 in 2015. By 2016 I was a conservative republican. I distinctly remember falling for a lot of Q’s nonsense. From pizza gate, to Hilary Clinton being arrested, to the addrenochrome thing. Thankfully the more Trump talked the less I liked him, and by 2018 I became a moderate independent. I’ve had my fill of being a radical for both parties at one point. Being a radical, it was so much easier to believe the Q nonsense because i was so far right. Now i refuse to watch or read any news from the biased american news stations, and instead choose BBC, since i havent come across much biased news from them. They usually report the news and thats it. (Tho i could be wrong as i only read from the bbc news app. I dont watch BBC.) From the articles i read they dont have talking heads like fox news, or cnn, msnbc has that TELL YOU how you should think. Rather then give you facts and let you decide on what to believe. Its refreshing to read from them. This article definitely reminded me of some stuff that I completely forgot about and is honestly embarrassing that I actually believed this propaganda. I didn’t even know the adrenochrome thing was a Q thing. One things for certain, it’s so much less stressful being a moderate than a radical for either party. I don’t get outraged by things either party does so much, I’m able to point out the bias or hypocrisy of both sides, and I’m more open to listening to differing opinions (except for fascists, communists, or socialists.
Gamergate was about ethics in journalism. It was a conspiracy theory that everybody criticising corrupt journalism was a “misogynist”. It’s all very well documented and it also led to the downfall of several publications in gaming and the intensifying discussion about feminism, critical race theory, Frankfurt school and others in the general public – school of thoughts behind other conspiracy theories such as the “patriarchy” or the “gender wage gap”.
this is just my opinion but I would bet dollars to donuts that whoever Q actually is, or was, he was an avid fan of Star Trek: the next generation where the recurring character of Q was a seemingly all-powerful being with the ability to create anything with a snap of his fingers, such as the latest conspiracy theory. Just sayin’
43:25 funny story about the red pill blue pill concept from the Matrix. In the 90s commonly prescribed estrogen pill Premarin’s 0.625 mg tablets were a dark red color and Zoloft’s 50mg tablets came in a blue color. The Wachowski sisters have since made a statement that the red pill/blue pill concept was an alagory for transgender identity.
A few points on 8chan. One, it’s not actually “8” chan, the 8 was supposed to be a sideways infinity symbol; a reference to the ever-expanding nature of the site’s make-your-own-board design. Also, to call it a “seventh circle of hell” is an exaggerated antagonism. Before there was a movement of people mobilized against 8chan, it was a safehaven for people who were outcast and in danger. I specifically remember a young person from a Muslim country on the Atheism board getting advice on how to survive long enough to get somewhere safe; literal life saving information. It was also where people have developed an appreciation of and shared art- real art, not whatever furry shit I’m sure you’re imagining. Since the mobilization, 8chan has become a wasteland, with the only people left there being the Q people. The whole thing was a self-fufilling prophecy.
Does anyone actually know why some of those really weird prices happen onlone? I see it a LOT on Amazon, along with the classic ‘two dollar item with 175$ shipping’. Honestly I have always assumed the actual item is cocaine or weed or whatever, but the weird prices are absolutely a thing. And I am not buying ‘error’, no business is going to allow something that serious to happen to their major sales pipeline, they’d be bankrupt pretty quick if they just had randomly messed up pricing. Not to mention that I have NEVER seen any 400$ items randomly come up for 1.63$… If its an error its got to be something automatic, so if it is, why isnt it fixed, so is it an error? For the record, no, I don’t believe people are selling trafficked kids, and I dont really believe in ‘the deep state’. This is because associations of powerful people dont need to conspire, they have the power to make what they like legal. This is why tobacco and bourbon are huge economic players and MDMA and Magic MUshrooms are illegal. Look who makes the laws…
Fun Fact: Democracy is just a form of Socialism. Democracy is a terrible thing. In a Democracy, your rights are dependent on whether you are a member of the Ruling Party. If you are not in the Majority Party, your rights don’t matter because you are outvoted by everyone. Meanwhile, in a Republic, which is what America is supposed to be, all citizens have the same rights and subject to the same laws whether they are in the majority or the minority. There are balances to ensure that a simple majority can’t take away the rights of the minority, e.g., Electoral College, Filibusters, et al.
Videos like this which illustrate just how idiotic American society has become (because Americans, we…are enamored in our own privilege and don’t realize how ridiculous we really are), helps put life in perspective. There is always a glimmer of hope we will get better as time goes on but there is an equal amount of dread waiting for the end of it all. I am always amazed we have yet to fully destroy ourselves.
I was in GamerGate and at the time I would’ve been a big defender, but time has a funny thing of putting things in a new perspective. I was never on 4chan and barely even Twitter, but got wrapped up in it when the big PR blunder that was the “Gamers are dead Articles” gave me the big mad. That point forward I was angry and wanted answers, you can probably guess who had their version of answers. Suddenly I was listening to the right leaning YouTube websites because they weren’t the ones calling gamers sexist, hateful etc. However the anger from the other side was justified. There were harassment and death threats garnered towards women in the industry while at the same time right wing websites waved it away as not real or overblown. The whole thing was a shit show that in a better timeline wouldn’t have happened. I have much more reflective insight on this if anyone is interested but this post is long enough. From my experience it’s not hard to imagine how such a thing can lead people down a rabbit hole of radical paranoia into the likes of pizza gate, QAnon, and even Jan 6th.
The way QAnon discredits the idea of the deep state is so thourough one might believe it’s an inside job. Deep states are a real thing in many democracies around the world, where the unelected bureaucrats and/or military pretty much don’t care who gets elected, because they hold the power, which should be deeply troubling to us. What they are not, is a world wide satanic pedophilic government, which is why I would imagine they are pretty happy for the term to get the connotations Q gives it.
I must have been naive or simply hadn’t considered that Utube kept track of how long people watched articles but seems obvious having actually considered it, I hope you share credit with your writer and other team mates, You guys are doing good work . your articles are entertaining and educational delivered from an educated and humorous perspective. 😊😊
It’s important to understand why people fall for traps like this. Whenever the government is caught red handed lying about Gulf of Tonkin, spying on civilians, Waco, JFK, Benghazi, Iraq invasion, MLK assassination, many CIA operations (MK Ultra, operation paperclip, etc), and Iran Contra it is enough for someone to distrust anything and everything the government does even when it is simple, clearly not suspicious, or more likely to be incompetence. So when an outsider to politics arrives and confirms their suspiciousions saying that “the government is bad and I will get rid of them” they are on his side ride or die. So when an election occurs with this man with very suspicious circumstances (voting stopping for a few hours, vote spikes for Biden in Michigan, Media claiming that this was “the safest Election in history” while also claiming that 2016 was hacked by Russians) all that put together leaves enough room for doubt, and that doubt combined with previous statements leads the easy conclusion of “the government rigged the election because Trump was trying to fight them”. But this mindset leaves them in a very depressing spot, where the good guy lost, the evil government still reigns supreme, and there is nothing you can do about it. That is where QAnon fits in. It ties together every single thing these people were feeling and gives them hope. It tells them “you were right, the government is evil and Trump is the good guy trying to fight back” while also telling them “we havent lost yet!
The history of 4chan presented in this is only partially true, the site wasn’t created just because they wanted somewhere to share anime pictures and things. It as originally a board on the Something Awful forums and the users were banned from Something Awful because they openly refused to stop posting child pornography which lead to the site being created as an attempt to get back at the apparently “Fascist” behavior of the Something Awful moderators. The majority of people involved likely didn’t want to be involved in that side of the site but that was a huge part of why it was originally created. This is also to my knowledge what lead to the creation of 8chan and other “chan” sites that spawned after 4chan started putting their foot down exactly as Something Awful did.
This shit is absolutely crazy, especially in the American south. I live in southern WV and there are many older people in my life or people aquatinted with me who are deeply into this. My dad’s life long best friend was a victim of Q. He was a pretty normal dude in politics but when Covid happened he got deep into it and drank heavily along with it. Everyone around him even his family was like you’re crazy so he drank more to cope with that and got deeper and deeper. He drank so much it killed him. Man that shit is crazy. The internet is a dangerous place really
Hey Jen, if you can get door dash to slip some sleeping meds in his food you and the 30 writers can escape this dude and his 120 YouTube websites! You could see the outside again! But seriously great work.👍👍👍( If you do need help place a cigarette burn in the upper right corner before the commercials and we’ll send help)😂
The TV show “The Rookie” made fun of QAnon in one of its episodes, where one of the more annoying police officer characters revealed he was the original QAnon, and that the first ‘leaks’ were part of a story the guy was writing about a dystopian world. The character claiming that this was part of a backstory for that story, and he meant to post it to a writing discussion board, but due to being severely drunk at the time, he instead posted it to 4chan.