Note: The views and opinions expressed in blog/editorial posts are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the views or opinions of Misbar.
Who are QAnon?
A popular representative image of QAnon (Social Media)
Originally founded on 4chan in 2016-2017, the conspiracy group QAnon has become increasingly popular in the past year. Since its humble beginnings, the movement has accrued hundreds of thousands of followers. The group has received greater attention in recent news due to a mass banning of QAnon accounts on Twitter, Tik-Tok, and Facebook. The causes of these bans range from harassment, to inciting violence, to the spreading of dangerous misinformation.
At the core of their beliefs, QAnon supporters believe that there is a “deep state” secret society of wealthy elites who may or may not worship Satan, but definitely run an underground sex-trafficking organization and control the government behind the scenes. They believe that these elites, including high-profile individuals such as Bill Gates, the Bushes, and the Clintons have been conspiring to undermine President Trump’s efforts to fight the “deep state.”
The name arose from the original anonymous 4chan poster (or group of posters) who claimed to have top government clearance, which they called Q clearance. This poster repeatedly dropped “crumbs” of intelligence on the President’s plan to overpower the “deep state, and the 4chan community was quick to force the puzzle pieces to fit together regardless of substantive evidence.
Amongst their claims is that the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election was actually an investigation into the Clintons/Obamas/Bidens to see how they were colluding with Russia and organizing a global pedophile ring.
While QAnon may seem harmless enough as an obviously tenuous conspiracy theory, it has had real consequences. The most well-known of these was when a man armed with an assault rifle entered a Washington D.C. pizzeria and demanded the release of child sex slaves which he believed were being kept there due to misinformation from QAnon. Thankfully no one was hurt, although he did fire several shots. The man in question is currently serving a four-year prison sentence.
QAnon has circulated false claims in regard to the coronavirus, which they claim has been fabricated by the “deep state.” They also believe that many high-ranking politicians and celebrities are involved in child sex trafficking. The movement is slowly entering the public consciousness. Several prominent congressional candidates, including Marjorie Tarly Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, have endorsed QAnon but are keeping a public distance from the movement.
The Significance of 4chan
4chan is the homeland of various conspiracy groups and extremist organizations. The most infamous of these is Anonymous, the hacktivist anti-establishment group which surfaces every so often to make statements on current events or conspiracies. In many ways, they are the other side of the QAnon coin, fighting for progressive reforms and standing against President Trump. It is worth noting that whereas QAnon states that the president is fighting the “deep state,” Anonymous has claimed that Trump was associating with Jeffrey Epstein and was involved in his sex-trafficking organization. Like QAnon, many Anonymous accounts on Twitter have been banned.
4chan was founded in 2003 as an imageboard and anonymous chatroom for the purpose of discussing anime content. As early as 2004, the website was already coming under fire for the posting of child pornography. Since then the website and it’s users have repeatedly faced harsh criticism for repeated instances of posting and downloading child pornography; ironic considering one of the core tenants of QAnon is fighting pedophilia.
Since its inception, 4chan has become oversaturated with problematic content. The total anonymity of the site has created a kind of social experiment on how people behave when they do not have to face any consequences for their statements.
Within minutes of visiting almost any one of 4chan’s many boards, netizens will be greeted with a deluge of nakedly blatant racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and sexism, amongst other prejudices. You can see for yourself at (https://www.4chan.org/). Be warned, however; 4chan is not for the sensitive or faint of heart. Here is a brief sampling of what Misbar encountered in just two minutes browsing /pol/:
It is important to discuss what exactly 4chan is and how it functions because the bottom line is that nothing on 4chan has any real credibility. It’s all hearsay, taken at face value by members of a community with no attempts at validation, fact-checking, or other means of fighting misinformation. As a result, QAnon is fundamentally scarred by the ugliness of 4chan, and can hardly be considered legitimate. However, it cannot be taken lightly either. It is easy to dismiss 4chan users as a bunch of simple trolls, but their actions have reverberated throughout the internet for over a decade. They are not to be underestimated.
Sick and Tired
In summary, QAnon is a conspiracy group whose claims are outlandish at best, and completely fabricated at worst. Still, organizations such as QAnon cannot be simply ignored in the hopes that they will simply go away. Nor should they be waved away as unworthy of study. The core sentiment behind QAnon, a deep mistrust of the wealthy and political elite, has been steadily growing in American society.
While the specific conspiracies of QAnon are largely invalid, it is a fact that many celebrities and politicians have faced credible sexual misconduct allegations since the beginning of the Me Too movement, some of which have resulted in convictions (Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein being the most infamous examples.) It is a fact that America is facing an ever-increasing rate of income inequality. It is a fact that many Americans on all sides of the political spectrum are unhappy with the current state of the country.
While the reactions vary depending on each person’s disposition, it is becoming abundantly clear that dissatisfaction with the United States status quo is growing. QAnon is just the symptom of a larger condition.
