Q: Into The Storm exposes the sinister banality at the root of QAnon movement
TV Reviews Into The Storm
Three years ago, when director Cullen Hoback (Terms And Conditions May Apply) started filming his six-part HBO docuseries, Q: Into The Storm, most Americans still had the luxury of dismissing QAnon as a fringe movement. Self-described followers of “Q” would turn up at former President Donald Trump’s rallies wearing T-shirts with a blocky “Q” emblem and waving signs promoting debunked conspiracy theories. They were kooks, and few people took them seriously. Trump himself wasn’t asked about QAnon until 2020, and he had only nice things to say. Now, at least two one-time supporters of Q—Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert—are members of Congress. QAnon has infiltrated the mainstream.
We can no longer afford to ignore Q, and that makes Q: Into The Storm disturbingly relevant. The documentary begins with footage from the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and climaxes with scenes from the “Save America Rally” that preceded the siege—quite literally the “calm before the storm,” to use a popular Q slogan. Jim Watkins, who owns the 8chan website that “Q” calls home, at one point compares the pro-Trump rally to the 1963 March On Washington. The comparison is twisted and lacking even minimal self-awareness, much like QAnon itself.
Q: Into The Storm quickly brings viewers up to speed on the movement, which started as anonymous posts on fringe Internet message boards that revealed, through cryptic clues, Donald Trump’s hush-hush battle with a Satanic cabal of baby-eating Hollywood elites and politicians, including Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton. Stephen King would’ve dismissed this plot as implausible. Yet QAnon has thrived because it’s so absurd: It’s hard to imagine any rational person buys into this nonsense, but tens of millions of Americans reportedly believe its core premise. Hoback introduces viewers to the small-time YouTubers and podcasters who promoted Q’s gibberish, along with everyday Americans who embraced the conspiracy without question. Florida couple Jamie and Jenn Buteau voted for Barack Obama twice but are now full-blown MAGA and QAnon disciples. This puts into shocking relief how swiftly the post-racial “hope and change” era was corrupted.
When HBO released the trailer in February, concerns were raised that Q: Into The Storm might glamorize QAnon. Journalist Ben Collins worried that the documentary could “recruit more people” to a movement that traffics in antisemitic and racist narratives. After watching the six-part series, this fear seems overblown. Q: Into The Storm doesn’t overly sympathize with Q supporters nor does it simply sneer at the gullible. It’s a delicate balance that Hoback successfully maintains throughout the documentary.
There’s never a single moment when viewers might consider this motley crew of conspiracy theorists “cool.” This isn’t Goodfellas. QAnoners consistently come across as pathetic, lost individuals so desperate for meaning in their lives they obsessively follow a random trail of stale breadcrumbs. They want to believe they’re part of something greater than themselves and that they possess an insight the majority of the world lacks. They’ve cast themselves as the heroes from The Matrix, who’ve been “red pilled” and freed from a false reality. But QAnon is more a scam than a cult, and Hoback seeks to demystify the movement.
The bulk of the documentary is devoted to unmasking the elusive “Q,” who QAnoners believe is a high-level government official with Q clearance, which grants “Q” access to classified information regarding the government’s activities. It’s absurd on its face that “Q” would choose a code name that limits his identity to a select group, but the fantasy requires grandeur. Candidates for the true “Q” include General Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Donald Trump himself. Former gossip columnist and entertainment reporter Liz Crokin suggests that “Q” is actually John F. Kennedy Jr., speculating that he faked his death more than 20 years ago. JKJ Jr. is only a slightly more feasible candidate than Elvis Presley, who had no previous background in politics. “Nothing will surprise me,” Crokin declares at one point. “Aliens exist. The world is flat.” This is Q’s promised “Great Awakening”: Nothing is real, but anything is possible.
It spoils nothing to reveal that “Q” is not anyone as powerful or well-connected as QAnoners believe. “Q” is someone who has gleefully “embraced infamy” (another melodramatic Q term), and Hoback pulls back the curtain on the P.T. Barnums behind this circus. Frederick Brennan founded 8Chan in 2013 as a supposed “free-speech” platform. The lack of restrictions and moderation created a breeding ground for alt-right and racist content.
8Chan soon drew the interest of businessman Jim Watkins and his son, Ron. Watkins offered Brennan a partnership, but it was a devil’s bargain. Brennan was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, and he reveals that his friends were all made online because it wasn’t easy for him to play outside. He’s far more stable emotionally than Jim and Ron Watkins, and you can blame his early errors in judgment on his youth (he was 19 when he started 8Chan). Brennan is well-meaning if misguided at times, but the Watkins seem unabashedly sociopathic. They appear to delight in the chaos left in their wake. Brennan eventually cuts ties with them and 8Chan in disgust, and Brennan’s growing obsession with destroying the monster he helped create almost costs him everything.
Hoback appears on camera quite often in Q: Into The Storm, but the participatory documentary style doesn’t feel self-indulgent like some later Michael Moore efforts. Hoback enters the larger narrative without making himself the center of the story. He develops a tenuous cat-and-mouse dynamic with Jim and Ron Watkins, but he comes closest to an actual friendship with Brennan.
The backstabbing 8Chan drama is reminiscent of The Social Network and often just as compelling, but Q: Into The Storm doesn’t delve as deeply as it could into the real damage QAnon has inflicted. Families have been torn apart as Q adherents become increasingly disconnected from objective reality. QAnon fully embraced the Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen,” and Ron Watkins shared baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines that Trump retweeted. (Watkins, like the former president, would later have his Twitter account permanently suspended.)
The so-called “QAnon shaman,” Jake Angeli, turned up at several “Stop The Steal” rallies waving a sign that read, “Q Sent Me.” He was dismissed as a joke, but on January 6, he stood in the Senate chambers during a violent insurrection. This is why Q: Into The Storm is both engaging and deeply unsettling—it feels like just the first installment in a far more horrific story.
183 Comments
Still, it would’ve been better with a Yakkity Sax soundtrack.
Virtually everything is improved by Yakkity Sax
Even coitus!
/chases wife around room sped-uppedly while Yakkity Sax plays
(Benny Hill on TV in background)
Hell, listening to that music is the only way I can get an ere … you know, I think I’ve said too much.
Candidates for the true “Q” include General Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Donald Trump himself.My God. It’s like a Mt Rushmore of incompetence, corruption, and old white male privilege.
I wish I could believe that it would break the movement when Q is inevitably revealed to be some basement-dwelling nobody who made it all up for the lulz.
L Ron Hubbard made up Scientology just to prove he could. It didn’t go away after that became known.
Bingo Baby! You beat me to that one DoctorAnd look at it now….
Qanon has been called Trailer Park Scientology.
Whenever some new right wing nonsense comes along it always gets attributed to “trailer parks” despite thriving in the suburbs.
And for the tax benefits.
I wish I could believe that it would break the movement when Q is inevitably revealed to be some basement-dwelling nobody who made it all up for the lulz.He already was. Qanon was one of dozens of basement dwelling nobodies roleplaying Super Secret Government Agents on 8chan (FBIanon, CIAnon, DoDanon, etc). He was doing “drops” for months with no-one taking it seriously, then the RP got out of hand and spilled over to other sites. 8chan’s owner Jim Watkins was accused of hijacking the account around the time Q’s drops “coincidentally” started changing to align with Watkins’ political beliefs and business needs.
If it was proven that Q was the Watkins, the faithful would just claim the proof was made up.
According to a couple of guys interviewed in the Vice doc, that’s all it was. It was supposed to be a larp.
Mt. Failupwards.
I read that for a second as “Mt. Fuckwads” which– well, okay, that works too.
yes yes perfectly acceptable alternative translation.
More like “Bottomless Pit Rushmore.”
The doc coming through with the truthiness
The four horsemen of the derpocalypse
it’s hilarious to assume Trump is smart enough to fabricate those idiotic “Q drops” but the other 3 absolutely seem smart enough to collaborate with him to inflame and tease all the “Q rubes” with those nonsensical pearls of wisdom.
Missed opportunity to release this on March 4th
Q people are the absolute worst
it feels like just the first installment in a far more horrific story. That’s because it is. QAnon isn’t going away, it’s just rebranding. Their new favorite quote to repeat ad nauseam is “There is Q. There are Anons. But there is no QAnon.” Nothing says, “We’re not a cult” like repeating a meaningless mantra.
Yeah. The problem with that in that, in french, “Anon” means literally “offspring of an ass”.https://en.pons.com/translate/french-english/ânon
Ooooh, I bet that’s going to stop them using the word!
https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-nazi-cult-rebranded/
I’m sure the documentary will get into this, but QAnon yokes itself firmly to Evangelical Christianity, and that’s what keeps the suckers sucking. The more it’s exposed as a grift, the more big dates that pass with zero incident, the more the true believers are encouraged to stay true. Because it’s not fact-based, it’s not research-based, it’s faith-based. And you’re rewarded with more Heaven Goodies if you have more faith. I’m sure there are QAnon followers who consider themselves atheist, but really they’d be perfect marks for the church anyway. It’s just a matter of branding and online presence that the Q church got to them first.
Q is really a bunch of different interlocking sects at this point. The Evangelical Q is one sect but their is also a whole new age spiritual Q group as well. But both sides come at this from a similar spot of believing things without proof being key to their mental well being
Yep. There’s been a lot written about this but I see those sides converging in real time. One Facebook friend from high school that has gone full Q who I check on for amusement/terror and who was an adult entertainer and into all sorts of new age mysticism and astrology but with no connection to organized religion, is now regularly citing obscure biblical verseses and using Evangelical language. That’s the problem with this cabal and why it’s so scary—it unities people with random, often completely disparate, and even diametrically opposed worldviews against “the pedos” and for the Dear Leader who is the only one who can stop them. “Consprituality” really is the apt term.
There’s a decent podcast by that name (Conspirituality) that goes deep on this new age link to Q-type political rhetoric.
Yeah, that’s where I picked up the term.
They all intersect with one major “Q”, and that is “Fuck Q”.
I’ve definitely noticed a lot of my “spritual” and “eco-conscious” type friends (you know the type, the stereotypical “militant vegan”) have become very into Q and repeating the same conspiracies of them. It’s literally the horseshoe theory in real life: just the two extremes of each side being more or less the same, but with a different end in sight.
I saw some clip where these guys were interviewing Q people outside a tRump rally, mask-less of course, and they said something along the lines of COVID being a hoax because our bodies “vibrations” keep us from getting infected by it. I’m guessing this is part of that new age language that has seeped into this movement.
Horseshoe theory is complete centrist bullshit though.
they interlock, but seem to allow a lot of flow, as well. A good friend of mine went from “reposting articles about Hermeneutic magic and the Golden Ratio”, and after one bad run-in with Child Protection Social Services, went for “the Evil Government is run by Lizard Men.” This (Canadian) man then spent four years posting pro-Trump consipracy stuff, and now is posting things from “the Christian Evangelical equivalent of the Onion”… which just tells me who he’s hanging out with online.
To say… the Evangelical Q guys might end up being the vaccine-resistant strain of Q, immune to reason or embarrasment.
Oh, do you know Mike from Alberta too?🤣
If we could just keep kids from being brainwashed by religion until they were like 10 years old, religion would disappear.
Evidently not, given that people have gotten into Qanon in their forties and fifties, despite it being far more ridiculous than most religions.
those people that bought Q in thier 40s and 50 were not atheists and scientists they were religious people brought to sunday school as children and to never question the supernatural authoritarian garbage.
Two things, (1) while I agree that believers would drop majorly if people weren’t allowed to teach religious beliefs until they were 10 (I would have said 12) there will be people who choose to believe later in life.(2) Conspiracy theorists come in all stripes including many atheists believe in conspiracy theories (and depending on whether you think believing it was more likely than not that the CIA was involved in the Kennedy asassination is a conspiracy theory, then color me one). Humans have a genetic predisposition toward religious beliefs and I believe that manifests itself in some people in a belief in conspiracy theories baseless. or otherwise. UFO believers too.
People seek meaning and order in an otherwise meaningless and chaotic universe. Religion or flat earth or…
Preach!
Oddly – already a right per the constitution, just conveniently ignored.
Its all essentially a pyramid scheme, much like Christianity.
Much like “civilization”, actually.
What’s actually insidious about it is that it’s more one size fits all than that. It’s why it’s able to grab all range of people. It’s a stew of religious iconography, pseudoscience, military/spy gibberish, and movie/fantasy novel references. Someone described it as an American syncretist movement and I think that works.
Don’t forget the white women that are all new agey/Goop following woo woo queens that are now all anti vaxx and “The Children! We must think of The Children!”
Yeah. That’s pseudoscience.
All of those yoga pants wearing anti-vaxx, anti-mask soccer moms aka Karens. That’d be SOME Q followers.
“Q Church” tends to be identity Christians, prosperity gospel, pagans, and the religious fringe. Priests and ministers observe that Q converts often draw away from their church. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-03-03/la-na-church-qanon-conspiracy-theories
I’m sure there are QAnon followers who consider themselves atheist, but really they’d be perfect marks for the church anyway.It’s where people with the deep-seated religious need for there to be an imposed order on the world, but have some sort of animous relationship to actual religion, go.It’s also where a lot of religious people go.
Bingo.
QAnon reminds me a lot of the 80’s Satanic Panic especially when you look at things like the McMartin Trial. You have adults involved, many of whom have their own struggles (emotional, mental, educational, economical) who are hearing things that are absolutely outlandish and improbable, but that is all couched in a “Won’t someone please think of the children?!” rhetoric. There are plenty of more “provable” things that the government does that could be a rallying point for a populist movement, but these people latched onto the one that involves kids for a very clear reason.
there’s absolutely a case to be made that the 80s Satanic Panic is right there in the Q-DNA.
What’s crazy is that conspiracy-minded evangelicals don’t see the biggest and most obvious “crumb” sitting right in front of them. Trump is a dead ringer for the antichrist, according to the book of revelations (really fascinating read):https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/
Um, Jesus? AV Clubbers (particularly all you horror buffs), that’s a mighty long read, but if there are any left-wing evangelists out there, this is the conspiracy theory for you! Downright scary … Got time? Read it. Great link, Hagbard. Thanks.
Crazy read. I’m not usually into hearing about people cherry picking bible verses to fit their narrative, but this was still quite fascinating.
the response to the idiotic “Q drops” that their “evangelists” rush to decipher when they’re released really drove home the connection between the two, along with the bigger idea that this is all a big grift meant to hustle rubes based on their pathetic need to feel important or superior to others. I could almost feel compassion for them if they weren’t so interested in tormenting vulnerable minorities in order to make themselves important instead of improving themselves.
Knowing and being related to so so many right wing conspiracy cultists. and trying to convince young people that the world is very old and a sphere has me thinking that conspiracy people both have no ability to deal with randomness and uncertainty. They cannot believe bad things can just happen to people and that random events do not need human causes and the need to feel in the know and important. They cannot accept that people get sick or car accidents happen or a few people can fly airplanes into buildings or evolution happens they need to have human intentionally behind literally everything.
Also most people in government are not capable or competent enough to pull off conspiracies.
Its not really hard to believe at all. For centuries, people have been lied and duped by religion, and usually the most gullible or the least educated are the ones affected by it. Conspiracy theories arent all that much different than religion. Its not based on anything, outside of the faith that you believe it is real, which is absolutely insane
I wish I could give your statement more than one star but I’ve only got this one account.
There’s an important scholar in Computer Science (and other fields) named Gerald Weinberg. He has a lot of great quotes. But one that he wrote about complex computer systems has always struck me as being actually important in situations like QAnon and other conspiracy theories: “Things are the way they are because they got that way.”This is an important concept. Bizzare and complex systems, structures, and relationships do NOT require design and intent. More often than not, they are emergent phenomena. Our brains are built to see patterns, to relate things. But most things just happened. The “design” doesn’t exist and the designer isn’t there.
Yeah – Teleological arguments (arguments that appeal to purposive systems requiring a designer) are very flawed but also massively appealling. I think it’s because there’s so many processes, functions and artifacts in the world that humans have created that only exist because we created them, so it becomes easy to assume “well all these things are purposive and were designed, so surely all things that are purposive are designed”. It really appeals to our sense of order and instinct to categorise and organise things, but it simply doesn’t bare out in reality.
When I started studying philosophy I believed in some form of God, though I wasn’t religious, and it was pretty much teleological concerns that had 18 year old me convinced that there had to be some sort of higher power. 1 semester of philosophy cured me of that pretty sharpish.
Conspiracy theories I guess appeal for the same reason because they’re a way of imposing order on an increasingly chaotic seeming world. (I don’t actually think it’s any more chaotic than it was previously, it’s just we’re way more aware of how much shit goes on in the world due to the internet, so it feels a lot more chaotic than it used to). In a way, I don’t think some people are even looking for an explanation that holds up to genuine scrutiny, they just want an assurance that there is a greater plan and purpose to stop them from falling into depression due to the lack of meaning.
well written. yes it seems that randomness scares people more than evil intent. Something similar is that need to believe in an afterlife and some of us are comforted by the lack of anything after death and others it terrifies.
Exactly.
This has been what I have been saying to people for 25 years. People who believe there needs to be a creator or who doubt evolution have no understaning of complex systems.
I remember reading an article about a psychologist carrying out a street
survey for her doctorate. She had three dice and asked random people which outcome
was more likely: Rolling three sixes one after the other or rolling, say, a two,
a five and a one (in that order).Of course, the probability is exactly the same but many people said the
three sixes were less likely. She then asked each person if they believed that
supernatural forces existed that influenced our lives. She discovered that there was a strong
correlation between the people who got the dice question wrong and those who
believed in the supernatural.Now, most people live for many years and over that long period we are
bound to experience some coincidences and unusual events. Her theory was that
people with a poor sense of probability tend not to understand this and every time
something quirky happens in their lives, they have to attribute it to the
stars, the fairyfolk, the tealeaves, numerology or some such nonsense.This sort of backs up your theory, 4jim.
Jimmy Kimmel does a bit every now and then where they stop people in the street and start asking them questions about something “in the news” that they just made up. The number of people who just eventually buy into the lie and start talking about it like they have actually seen it is freakishly on point. Obviously they edit down to just these people but it still shows you how crap like QAnon can gain traction.
The one where they made up fake bands and got Coachella attendees to wax rhapsodic about them was hilarious.
I think it was also Kimmel that asked people if we should attack Agraba and of course people were all for it. None of them seemed to realize Agraba is the city in Alladin.
Good post, not surprising.
It is exactly that. People can’t deal with randomness and senselessness, and lack of meaning of their existence. The brain searches for patterns and meanings, and when there aren’t any, it goes into overdrive. Some of us learn to deal with it, but if you’re caught early enough in your life and convinced that hey, nothing’s random, don’t worry, everything happens for a reason, there’s someone guiding it all… you just sort of relax and don’t need to develop any other mechanisms for coping.
Bad crap just happens, not everything has meaning and when you are dead you are just gone is just so much more comforting than the bat crap crazy alternatives.
well written. Yes. that “everything happens for a reason” falls apart fast if you spend 5 minutes thinking.
This is why I get frustrated with the people who think the coronavirus was built by China’s government. People are very insulated from nature (living indoors, working indoors, only going outdoors if it’s in a manicured park), and so people have forgotten that nature can actually kill you. Diseased animals are running around in the forests, and yes, we really do get sick from them (and our livestock, and our pets). You don’t have to invent a giant conspiracy theory to explain that some lifeforms can kill humans.
Exactly. the whole Occam’s razor thing. often the simpleist explination is the correct one. there have been zoonotic viruses killing us since forever, and way more often after the domestication of animals.. no need for bio-weapons labs.
Sure, but it’s not a conspiracy to consider the possibility was not entirely natural. I am not sure if Occam’s razor truly swings toward purely natural.
Occam’s only suggest that the simplest is often the correct one. Conspiracies often spiral into out of control complexity to try and be correct.
Or rational suspicion of the people providing the simple story. Like the many popular uprisings around the world that 50 years and a few declassified documents later turn out to be CIA actions. It depdends on whether you have analyzed the data. Bothe the US and China have biological testing labs. The nature of this particular COVID virus makes a lab origin more believable.https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/1021030/coronavirus-leak-wuhan-lab-scientists-conspiracy/
NOPE again need for human causality, nature can kill us just fine and the research geneticist are rather accurate in that this is wild.
That wasn’t quite a coherent sentence and being dogmatic is not being scientific. A wild origin is still possible and certainly not less likely than a lab origin, but to just to blindly accept it is wild without investigation is silly.
There is still a good chance it did escape from a lab. We do not know either way. Scientists would not have expected it to adapt as quickly as it did once it jumped species.However, it very easily could be natural as well.
Oneproblem is that small fraction of a percent that turn out to be true that people can point to.
As a former evangelical I agree. A desire for order or meaning behind everything, in a world and universe that is random and meaningless. One of the big derailers for me were the following: “it’s God’s plan/god has a plan for you.” Or “it was their time to go home/the Lord called them home.”Regarding death: the idea that death is at the direction of god. A coping mechanism for grief, a sense of comfort. But it’s not even biblical (which… I mean that’s a whole other argument) in any sense. Regarding good OR bad to go with the “God’s plan” route. Well, if god is blessing you, why is he not blessing others? Telling somebody who has undergone pain, tragedy, trauma “god has a plan” is… Cruel. The corollary to all of this is: all deaths are God’s, even horrific ones. All events are God’s plan, even horrible ones.Its a house of cards that falls apart at the slightest breeze.One idea of God I have learned about, even in my agonisticism, is a different idea, which is that God is with is in our suffering. Or liberation theology. But the very standard you talk about… I have seen it and fully agree. And then you add on the need to have the “real truth” and be “in the know.” Fully co-signed. Especially among more fringe denominations like vineyard or apostolic or charismatics. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa and there is no reason or meaning behind it. It feels sometimes like the human brain in many cannot even cope with that idea. So if it’s not religion, they make up flateartj, antivax, q, all kinds of conspiracy minded nonsense just to “belong”, find “order” and have the “truth.”
Well put. thanks for sharing your journey. I agree. I go further in just saying all theology is an illogical mess. Also I agree that the gods plan/ better place crap is just abusive. There is just so much good evidence and logic that proves there is nothing supernatural and the Abrahamic pantheon is just made up brainwashing.
I thought everyone was already aware that Q lives in the top of the Chrysler Building, where it lays in wait for Michael Moriarty to feed it the occasional gangster.
Wait, are you referring to…uh…Kizzle…Kezazzle…Kinjapo…Quetzle—(is yeeted into the air by a feathered serpent)
What’s so hard to spell about Xtapolapocetl??
“In his house at R’lyeh dead Q waits dreaming.”- HQ LoveQraft
This is what I’ve been trying to tell people ever since I first heard about this nonsense.
This is one of the best comments I have ever seen on this site. Please accept my star.
To feed IT the occasional gangster? To feed HER the occasional gangster! Also, the occasional bikinied sunbather.
l ron shrubbard
So are the Watkins actually ‘Q’?
That’s the general belief. Or at the very least it is mostly the father.
In the beginning, probably not. But at some point one or both of them probably was. At the absolute minimum, because of their interaction with the poster they almost certainly know who they are. The thing is, at this point, Q has not posted in months and the movement is still going strong. Its moved passed a single Q and now its just crazy people spreading stories
This. I fully expect there never was any one ‘Q’ but a mishmash of players who posted in the name of. I never took a deep dive on it because it’s not really my field of research but I took a passing interest in reading some of the posts and they all feel similar but the tone and some slight grammar changes between them, people have a particular style that can change with time but Q messages were always inconsistent and cryptic so it was most likely a joke pushed into a movement because people were desperate to latch onto something since Trump was and is an incoherent mentally deficient mess. Whether it’s dementia, advanced syphilis, or just that he was always a intellectually challenged person we’ll never get the straight answer (i’m going with the last). His inability to lead the movement paved the way for Q to form up and be driven by a lunatic fringe. What’s fascinating is how devoted the followers are but how unable the mainstream Republican party is unable to break free of them. You can quietly deny the John Birch Society while courting their vote, Republicans are saying the quiet part loud and it’s amazing to see it happen in real time.
They are part of it, but there are a lot of pieces. There’s a guy named Jim Stewartson who has been researching it. Roger Stone and Paul Manafort have been pulling strings also according to him. His Twitter
I still can’t believe this. My mind refuses to process that people actually take this seriously.What is happening. How do I explain this to my 17 year old?
I have a 13 year old whos best friends dad is Q pilled. I just talk to my son about what he hears and discuss what he thinks about it. I don’t say blanket statements like “That is a lie” but I have always encourage my kids to use logic and think for themselves. Especially applying Occams Razor to any strange theory you hear. Its amazing how quickly any of these silly conspiracies fall away when you ask “But why do that?”
Yeah, I got you brother. She knows. It’s just so appalling.
I guess I would be a bad father taking shortcuts, but I think I would just go ahead and tell my kid (if I had one), “Son, that’s some major fucking bullshit.”
I get that and it happens but I am also aware of the fact that teenagers love to do shit just to piss their parents off and I don’t want my sons teenage rebellion to be embracing QAnon
“You don’t get me or my Qusic!”
That’s the simple question that most of these people can never explain, or when they do explain it, that’s when it gets into their REALLY crazy beliefs. Like Flat Earthers, on the surface, sound like they do their research, they don’t believe NASA, etc. and they want to know for themselves. Then you ask them why NASA would fake these things, and THAT is when they start talking about Secret Satanic Government That Controls The World, Lizard People, et al, and it becomes clear it’s rooted in antisemitism and hatred and fear.
You have one group of people who hate another people but they’ve also constructed this religious identity that they are “good people”. There are maybe sometimes legitimate reasons for dislike but rather than engage it’s easier to hate
So either they believe the insanity about devil worshipping pedophile cults that justifies their hatred of liberals or they acknowledge they’re hateful people.
There’s probably a really interesting conversation in there that could be had a child/teenager about human’s capacity for hatred over other people and how we confront that (and it’s not like the left don’t get pretty hateful towards the right too, i’m not saying this is a one way street). Sort of links into mindfulness etc. You can either acknowledge you will have negative emotions/thought processes and actively engage with why that is, why it’s irrational and why they shouldn’t control your behaviour or you can justify them and continue with hate
I used to have a coworker who believes that some people are actually lizards wearing human-skin costumes. …I’m not joking. Some percentage of the planet is secretly an unknown intelligent reptilian species. A guy with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology (from a shitty school) actually believes that.Then he convinced our boss to hire one of his best friends. The two of them would get each other worked up, and would jabber on and on about this stuff. (I only lasted a few more months, and I quit the company entirely because of those two people!)
Yeah, Yeah, Yeash…like V (TV mini-series from the ‘80s)!I know, people are nuts. Hey I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy. It’s really not that hard to believe Kennedy was killed by the mob or his own inept, hungover, Secret Service guys, but, Tom Hanks drinking the blood of children, or lizard suits, that really strains the old noggin.
“Son/Daughter, listen, there are crazy people out there who don’t think correctly and believe all kinds of nonsense. Don’t confront them, just act like everything is OK, and never turn your back on them!”.
I am wondering what this will tell met that listening to the QAA podcast for a few years has not. Sounds like they have discussed and covered most of these people in greater length. Apparently they even in the doc above as are many of their guests.
Yeah this sounds more like a decent introduction for people who have only heard a little about it. At this point QAnon can’t really be explained in a limited run series because QAnon is its own evershifting cinematic universe. Something like this can only ever hope to be an informative snapshot.
oh, oh, now do religion……
Florida couple Jamie and Jenn Buteau voted for Barack Obama twice but are now full-blown MAGA and QAnon disciples.Not really all that surprising. While QAnon has almost fully taken over the Republican party, it has found enough fans on the left to be considered a serious threat to the Democratic party as well.After all, before the Big Lie that Biden cheated and Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election, there was the Big Lie that Bernie Sanders won the 2016 Democratic primary and Hillary Clinton cheated. This falsehood is still being pushed by Bernie Sanders himself. Of course, that lie was followed up by Trump who said Hillary did not actually win the popular vote.Unfortunately, these lies led to conspiracy theories over the next four years which spurred attacks against Iowa caucus winner Pete Buttigieg from Bernie supporters. All of this, of course, culminated in the Trump-backed QAnon insanity that Biden cheated, which of course resulted in the Capitol attacks on January 6th.Sadly, instead of the country uniting against QAnon like they were the new Taliban, the insane cult has become even more powerful and will be a major force in U.S. politics for some time. I wish we could just dismiss it as a conservative form of idiocy, but unfortunately far too many progressives spread QAnon misinformation.
Love the mindset that is “The people working for the government are worthless do nothings that can pull off super elaborate conspiracies that involve 1000s of people and keep them quiet for 50+years.”
worked for UFO believers and 9/11 conspiracy nuts too. If any government were that competent, that would actually be scarier than the actual conspiracy they are pushing.
well put! yes, having done government work I can attest that they try hard and have good intentions but are not that capable of faking the moon landing or hiding the flat earth.
Yeah, especially the 9/11 one. That one to me really highlighted how contradictory and all over the place conspiracy theorists are. They claim 9/11/01 was the greatest false flag operation in the history of the world made by Bush as a pretext to seize oil from Iraq. Then when you ask them why we did not get the oil and the war was such a mess, they then say “because Bush was a moron.” Like he was (haha), but which one is it? Just stupid.
Agreed. As an 18 year (so far) local government employee for 5 munis in two states, I have equal measures of offense and laughter at this clearly contradictory self-serving mindset.
My mom was gov employee for 30+ years Me state and local for 20+. Good people hard working (most) and bureaucratically inhibited from global cabals.
I get that harping on this point might keep me in the greys, (as the Giz-group doesn’t want another lawsuit) but:
Failure to address Faux News and the other hate-right-wing media misinformation streams will translate into failure to address the roots of Qanon and other crazy groups.
It will translate into an effort in failing to preserve representative democracy.That’s what’s at stake. A representative democracy must have an informed citizenry. A misinformed citizenry will make poor representation choices during elections. The misinformation by Faux News and others erodes democracy’s foundations.
The only Q that matters
I disagree:
Okay it works.
I was just thinking before I scrolled down, John DeLancie must be annoyed as fuck about this.
“Now see here, 007…”
“Everything for a man on holiday. Explosive alarm clock – guaranteed never to wake up anyone who uses it. Dentonite toothpaste – to be used sparingly, the latest in plastic explosive.”
I have to watch it still, but do they ever cover the fact that Q anon is literally just an antisemitic conspiracy theory from like a hundred years ago? https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-nazi-cult-rebranded/
Good to see Frederick Brennan was interviewed, his piece of the story made for pretty integral parts to the reporting on both Behind the Bastards and Reply All.
TFW when a glorified D&D campaign run by racists eventually upends American democracy…
I’ll have to have my mother watch this, she’s asked me several times over the past few years what this QAnon thing is. But usually around the time I’m attempting explain what “adrenochrome” is (or more accurately, what these deranged lunatics think it is), she throws her hands up and yells THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE and wanders off to make some of the special “tea” my sister sends her from Los Angeles.
I have thought it funny when fellow progressive non-believers in Q comment on how insane it all is – then they go to church on Sunday with the kids in tow.
This Q jeannie is nutty faith-based tribalism and it ain’t going back in the bottle. Look at the various branches of Christianity, all building their brand on the same Iron Age mythology of a paradise of omnipotent oversight of everything with angel wings, with absolutely NO PROOF offered in 2000 years. They even slaughtered millions in the name of peaceful Jesus-guy. No one had a problem on the handle end of those swords.
Mormons. Didn’t even waver after the whole backstory changed to magic salamanders and whatever.
Islamists willing to slaughter and kill over a drawing and believing they will receive virgins in an afterlife for their efforts. BTW, how does that even work? Seriously, where do the virgins come from? Are they replaced or is it defilement to “have” them. I don’t know how that works. It’s just amazing that I know educated engineers and architects who fervently believe and behave in accordance with this stuff…. Orthodox Jews living within the boundaries of a wire and million other behavior controls I will never understand.
This Q shit will stay around because they united and found strength in numbers. Even got some fuckwads elected to Congress. They’ll never stop now. I do not, however, know any educated engineer, doctor, architect types who believe in that shit, so that’s encouraging at least. But it doesn’t matter who perpetrated the fraud and lunacy. No expose will change any of that.
None of that mattered to any of the groups listed above.
I know one medical doctor who’s into Q. The capitol insurrection also had firemen, policemen, lawyers, CEOs, real estate agents, and more involved. It’s not just something that only people without college degrees get sucked into.
I know they exist, but unlike the fact I have several religious devotees and nutballs in my family, I don’t have any Q’ers – yet.
The inclusion of real estate agents here made me guffaw.Any moron can be a real estate agent and most of them are.
I will wager that the anonymous asshole who started this whole thing isn’t even involved anymore and is probably as amazed as anyone that it has blown up like this.
I read a suggestion somewhere that perhaps it started as somebody’s psychology project, for a masters or doctorate: start throwing the bullshit out there, see if anyone gloms onto it, then make the bullshit progressively more outlandish, and study the results. Then they finished the project, or abandoned it… and the monster they created is still staggering around out there.
It would never pass the ethics boards at any doctorate Psych program, much less APA. So, that is highly unlikely. But I bet Zimbardo would LOVE to do it…
I would just like there to be some actual consequences for the Watkins and others who have perpetuated lies in the name of Q.
Do the Q-Anoners who claim to care Oh So Much about child abuse and p*dophilia know that 8chan was (is??) a haven for people to disseminate CP online, and that’s where Q originates? Do any of these Boomers and Xers know what a [#]chan board is typically made up of? They’re so naive.
Don’t drag X into it. We remember all of this from Usenet.
I actually think a significant number of Qers are projecting. I mean, they’re people who were hanging out on 8chan long enough to be radicalized.
But they weren’t, I don’t think. Q was laundered through “Eat Pray Love” Facebook pages to yoga moms and #Blessed Christian wives. And now they’re so far down the hole it doesn’t matter where it originated, to them.
What are you talking about? Q is not entirely made up new age women. Q is a mix of weird survivalists, Christian evangelicals, new age kooks, and various brands of reactionary nationalists.
If it was only 8chan types it wouldn’t be a big deal, spreading out to the general populace is what makes this different than any other chan bullshit.
The ritual satanic abuse panic of the 80s was the literal definition of projecting, so you might be on to something there.
I mean, in a way, the fact that these stump-fuckers became legitimate political power brokers is the perfect funhouse-mirror-as-reality version of the American dream.
“Stump fuckers” you say?
Thanks.
Now I’m all horny for stumps.
We are constantly taught not to assume Americans for anything nor hold any American accountable. “He was having a bad day”.We are taught American exceptionalism is the foundation of a successful life and that everyone and everything contrary to Americana is wrong. QAnon is the byproduct of acting on that principal like all the other extremist organizations before it.
Except Q is spreading way beyond America. And also, is it really “Americans” or “white men”?
White man here. The majority IS white men, usually with a long beard and some tattoos. There are obviously a few white women and very, very few non-white folks but you’re right: it’s generally us white guys. Note – I’m NOT a Q supporter or believer. Fuck those assholes. My Dad passed from Covid and I would fucking punch the first one of those Covid denying fucks who told me it was a fake.
I agree wholeheartedly. Sorry about you dad.
I’m an American who has lived, at times, in three other countries for work. If there’s anything I think we need to understand is that although we were blessed by geography and have made some smart decisions throughout our history (and some bad ones), we are not, by our nature, exceptional. The march of history will not be kind to us if we continue to believe that nust being America bestows us with some magic powers.
Well, it’s certainly a good indicator of stupid.
i love how people were so eager to believe a completely anonymous source! someone just posted, “i’m high up in the gov & i know things! here are some things i know but i’m not going to come out & tell you plainly, it’s going to be in code, you figure it out.” & people latched onto that as true.
It makes stupid people feel smart. That’s probably the appeal for many of them.
could be.
This part gets to me. Also, if this was all a “secret plan” to bring down child eaters, why publish it to literally millions of people in public. Way to keep a secret!
a little proof would be nice, too.
Florida couple Jamie and Jenn Buteau voted for Barack Obama twice but
are now full-blown MAGA and QAnon disciples. This puts into shocking
relief how swiftly the post-racial “hope and change” era was corrupted.No, it puts into shocking relief how completely, utterly fucking stupid and gullible people are.
fucking idiots
Where are the “Trump is the Antichrist” people? They’re really slacking if they’re out there.Look Qberts, when Trump held the Bible upside down all the crucifixes within were upside down aka “Hail Satan!” … 666 5th Avenue … the “Wicked” picture with Stormy Daniels? C’mon people. Someone needs to douse Trump with holy water. I bet he reacts negatively. Someone also needs to dig up the seven knives of Megiddo…
ffs, the description of this show is full of just as much craziness as “Q” is supposed to embody, starting with the “violent insurrection” that involved exactly zero armed people, ridiculing a man in a wheelchair for being a Q supporter (way to be “woke” or is it okay to shit on handicapped people if they don’t follow the official line?), and referencing claims of the election being stolen as a “Big Lie” (Hitler reference) despite the fact that this very fricking week, it was revealed that the WaPo told a very Big Lie indeed about Trump trying to pressure Georgia into fraudulently altering the election results.I’m not even a Q person, and never have been, but try spending five minutes on a Q forum before regurgitating more Soviet-level propaganda about what, quite literally, millions of your neighbors have invested their time in. After all, it’s definitely not a conspiracy that a handful of companies literally decide who gets to speak, and they are STILL actively censoring the legally elected president of the f—-ing country.
People died and others horribly wounded during the insurrection. So yeah, it was violent. Nice to see a Q apologist show up.
Must be nice to just look at the pictures and reply. Frederick Brennan is pictured because he founded 8Chan. I see nothing in the text of the article that makes fun of him in anyway. Thanks for concern trolling though.
(shhh…there’s one amongst us)☝️
This is still one of the best discussions of QAnon, where it comes from, and why it appeals to people I’ve seen:
“Q: Into The Storm doesn’t overly sympathize with Q supporters nor does it simply sneer at the gullible. It’s a delicate balance that Hoback successfully maintains throughout the documentary.”Yes, if only more documentaries about the holocaust provided a delicate balance between all the dead Jews and how misunderstood Hitler was.Fuck that noise.Also, to sypathize with Frederick Brennan (who as an ADULT started a board for child porn and nazis under the guise of a free-speech platform) because life is tough for the guy and he has a brittle bone disease is fucking stupid. I hope he falls out of his wheelchair and those little yippy dogs eat his dwarf ass.People died on January 6 in part because of what he created and fermented. So fuck him with a brittle bone.
Tough but fair.
I remember when Brennan was a gamergate guy and he used to say that “SJWs” were denigrating him for his disability, and not the fact that he ran a board for distributing CP.
While we’re at it, let’s sympathize with Alex Jones for creating the Sandy Hook truther movement. Maybe we can get a documentary about it that strikes a delicate balance. Or – we can not do that and run these people out of town into a fucking desert somewhere to live separate from society and Jones can carry this brittle boned waste of space around like Master Blaster.
People respond poorly to being labeled as homicidal morons. Particularly if they are homicidal morons.
Finally a comment that speaks to me. Also…BOOM!!
I personally prefer documentaries’ that aren’t overly slanted (this had some slant). It lets the individuals involved and the relevant issues really breathe. I also think it reveals more about the perpetrators’ motives and their psychological makeup.
Come for the lie. Stay and buy a t-shirt.
‘Hoback appears on camera quite often in Q: Into The Storm, but the participatory documentary style doesn’t feel self-indulgent like some later Michael Moore efforts.’Goddammit. Holding out hope that this isn’t yet another documentary where we spend hours watching the documentarian making phone calls
so immature I can not even begin to put in to words what I think of what has happened and what is happening. I have had maybe two weeks to make sense of this and my thinking hasn’t changed from what it was prior to this learning experience. This isn’t my focus, this isn’t my interest, I don’t gain anything of value to myself, and to be forthright, there’s limited value there for anyone else.
I would say I am disgusted but that doesn’t come close to explaining how I feel. I don’t want this in my world space in any way, ever.
ultimately, we fix our own problems with honesty, resolve, and hard work. No special figure is ever going to do that for any one of us. There’s no quick fix, there’s no happy ending, there is only this one planet, and people living on it doing their best at whatever they can.
I won’t engage with this in any form again for the next 50 or so years.
Nothing is real, but anything is possible.Did those hacks steal the mantra of the Assassin’s Creed and change a couple of words? That’s just lazy.
I just finished this. I thought it was interesting, but kind of lost its way in the middle. I get that the Watkinses (Watkinsi?) are crucial characters, but I thought it spent too much time on the back-and-forth between them and Brennan. I would have preferred to see more about the followers and the other people trying to debunk QAnon.Still, it’s an impressive piece of work.