Inspired by The Prophecies of Q, by Adrienne LaFrance, cover story of The Atlantic, June 2020 edition
Reddit, 4chan, 8chan: these anonymous platforms, are home to numerous conspiracy theories about untouchable and secretive cabal. One of which is QAnon conspiracy.
QAnon started as fringe theory online, which believes that the world, especially the US is controlled by a powerful organization called Deep States. According to Q mythology, President Donald Trump was elected by the support of highest military intelligence in this time to deal with the great upheaval. The main idea is that Q society and Trump are fighting Satanic Deep States which includes Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, the Bushes and other elites. These Satanic elites are believed to be sex traffickers who torture children and drink adrenochrome for their magical powers.
The idea originated in October 2016, when Wikileaks publicly released the emails stolen from the account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The emails repeatedly mentioned Comet. These emails were mostly about fundraising but some high profile Trump supporters claimed, on 4chan which later spread to more accessible social media platforms, that these emails are evidence of ritualistic child abuse. This created chaos. Edgar Maddison Welch, on December 4, 2016 arrived at Comet Ping Pong in order to self-investigate the theory — “Pizzagate”. Earlier, these theories were posted by anonymous users, but in October 2017 an anonymous user with username “Q” who claimed to be a government insider posted about the arrest of Hillary Clinton on 4chan, which evidently did not happen. Q wanted to make people believe it is a military official with Q level clearance or a classified intelligence officer. Slowly Q started dropping intel, often incomprehensible, filled with abbreviation, cryptic reference and jargons. QAnon, the followers of Q used these hints to try and decipher the secret that Q was trying to pass. These posts were based on a history of false, baseless and unsubstantiated claims which led to wrong prediction.
Bring order to the chaos.
The cultish devotion of QAnon in the times of pandemic has developed the most dangerous conspiracy theory about the COVID-19. The group thought that the pandemic was something to celebrate cover for the secret arrest of the Deep State elites by Trump’s administration. Up until March 23, when Q posted a theory that coronavirus was developed with the joint venture of China and democrats to stop Trump’s reelection by destroying the economy. In other instances, QAnon launched #FilmYourHospital to charge into the hospital and look for sick patients and cars in the garage to uncover the tactic.
FBI claimed these conspiracy theories by QAnon are “potential domestic terrorism threat”. Infodemic should be regulated and controlled otherwise it would be a threat to everyone.
PS. I wonder if there is a similar group in India.