They really don’t. Talk to them for a while and it very quickly devolves into the truth of the matter- the person has no real grounding in anything, believes all sorts of cray shit, and happens to hang out with the antivaxxers because they like the people there or they have a friend there. Promoting the message of the group is just virtue signaling, but internally it’s all petty squabbling and usually ends up in antisemitism sooner or later.
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Yup. The number 23 enigma was supposed be a zen koan for you figured out for yourself. That your own brain was the puppet master.
However just like QAnon it was gaining a mystery cult of its own. I’m not sure which of Wilson’s collaborateurs came out and just explained the joke.
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To be clear. Q didn’t make up QAnon. These Anon conspiracy games where being role played on his server. He just stole the account of the most popular Anon.
At some point a separate group of grifters took QAnon to YouTube. They did this because they knew could make money using the same monetization model as YouTube flat earthers had be using for the last 6 years.
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Right. If the conspiracy has reified anything it is Q himself.
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I’m not sure I agree that it’s a conspiracy theory. There is no somewhat central “authority” when it comes to UFOs or Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster or John F. Kennedy assassination theories.
There actually is an account that puts out disinformation as “Q.”
It’s either a cult, an influence/disinformation campaign potentially propagated along by foreign actors, or both (I think both). Conspiracy theory is involved – but it’s a cult. It’s needs to be approached as a significantly more dangerous entity than “conspiracy theory.”
Lots of cults have disinformation/conspiracy theories they use as the “real truth” that only the leader and followers are privy to. It’s a big part of it. At their core, they are cults, not conspiracy theories, IMHO. To deny them as a 21st Century cult (which btw I’m not specifically saying you’re doing), with literal cult followers who are largely incapable of thinking rationally about it or much of anything, is to miss what really makes this tick. We’ll need to recognize it as such to figure out how to try to bring it down, which I am quite motivated to support the effort of.
Almost unrelated, but still pretty interesting. But this isn’t really what “Men in Black” do in conspiracy, or what the rather involved folklore around them describes.
Even in the original 50’s and 60’s UFO related anecdotes about men in suits turning up. They didn’t leave bread crumbs or help out. They showed up to intimidate and silence. The original “G-Man” archetype, as they were called at the time, was an implied government agent. Or agent of “them”. Covering up an incident, or intimidating an author/witness/whatever. Likely as an outgrowth from actual Airforce and intelligence authorities properly and publicly investigating early sightings as they’re kind of required to do.
In essence they’re the secretive, sinister agents of the central hidden power or other in a given conspiracy construction. Their actions are pretty universally threatening, negative, often deadly. It’s not at all helpful, or involved in distributing information. Not a Deep Throat thing at all.
The X files I think quite clearly glossed this version of the Men in Black with Deep Throat and other whistle blower claims that were then highly current in pop culture. And which also appear frequently in conspiracy, Carlos Allende of the Phildelphia Experiment, Bob Lazar, and Q himself being famous examples.
But since the 90’s the Men in Black have changed a lot. The old idea of difficult to identify, covert, humans threatening believers has receded. And in it’s place the Men in Black are usually depicted as non-human, uncanny valley style. Having borderline supernatural powers, undertaking bizarre actions, occasionally helpful in untoward ways. But still largely threatening and aggressive. They’re usually posited as aliens themselves, hybrids, trans-dimensional beings or the like. The earth bound agents of pick your flavor of science fiction invaders. Barely passing as human and silencing, threatening, murdering, and covering everything up.
It’s been theorized that Slender Man may have grown out of meta references to Men in Black. Being rooted in “creepy pasta” online fiction, the original writers were quite likely drawing from more modern Men in Black stories. In combination with certain horror and ghost story tropes. Slender Men nests pretty perfectly (and almost identically) into the current slate of Men in Black beliefs. Up to and including supernaturally commanding people to harm themselves and others, and having followers or human agents at their disposal . All that’s really changed is the framing. It’s more monsters and the supernatural than one world government and secret UFO bases.
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I don’t know about it redeeming childhood friends or giving them ferns or different strains as curative influence (1 plot hole, take with fluids?), but there’s been a nice workup of genes and RNA pro/con schizophrenia this year and the Focus Method should work fine with paranoia. Even in a generative funk, we consume stuff; if they get into bone broth, I have to count it as some kind of winsome turn.
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I think Feds used to be the G-men taking down scams. We got fiction of that to serve up before creative nonfiction was this big (). Then pop fiction and missed takes of ProPublica (founded 2007ish, so pick a predecessor whose output is free off the air? 20 minutes? Cable Court News?) have had a whole lot of TV and other fiction where Feds and State Agency defer prosecution until the Stars are Right for prosecutors who turn out to be unfunded or the McGuffin or running a scam or disinterested. That reflected deregulation darkly enough to make fertilizer out of skeletonized noir film plots.
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But isn’t that the “point” of QAnon right there? In the end it all comes back to “liberals” are bad and they want to destroy your way of life.
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I’ll add that if I was going to make a reference to an X-Files character who leaves breadcrumbs, it wouldn’t be CSM, it would be Deep Throat or Mr. X. But CSM’s got the advantage of being the far more recognizable character; people know who he is even if they only have a passing familiarity with X-Files.
Still, I think the advantage of going with Deep Throat would have been one more opportunity to contrast the real Mark Felt with the various fictionalized versions.
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I see we’ve come full circle. Conspiracy theories and urban legend inspires filmmakers to promote Blair Witch like it’s real. That begins the practice of viral marketing and “this is not a game” marketing campaigns. These campaigns expand in scope and depth making complex and interesting ARGs. Some guy familiar with how ARGs are designed explains how conspiracy theories are inspired by ARGs.
The real reason they work is that there are marks worth milking, and the cash flow it real. It’s why Ben Shaprio, Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, etc. all sell garbage supplements - people work harder to believe their version of the world than anything else.
This is simply not true. Over the years there have been several authorities in each of these realms of knowledge all claiming a super secret inside knowledge that will prove it all to be true. People have had entire careers convincing people that their truth is the truthiest about Bigfoot, and Q is the same thing. It’s a fake person that closes the gap between a desired reality and the disappointing truth that other use to sell tote bags and other tchotchkes.
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G-man was originally a press nick name applied to FBI agents and before that prohibition agents. They were a big runner in pulp fiction, films of the era, and early TV.
As the government agents in suits in the early UFO stories weren’t clearly identifiable by agency they got dubbed G-men after the generic government agent of popular imagination.
We know the government was investigating these thing, and not as scams, because they were relatively open about it at the time. First the Army then the Airforce, because it’s their job to secure our airspace. And reports of unidentified aircraft stood a chance of being actual foreign military Aircraft.
As the UFOs are alien space craft interpretation became dominant, and this is not true. Those authorities were increasingly in the position of publicly debunking claims.
That’s salted with a bit of quietly letting claims proliferate or even promoting them to hide their own covert programs. As with the Project Mogul balloon program and the Roswell “crash”. Mogul was reported, by name, at the time and even connected to the supposed Roswell crash. By letting the Roswell UFO claims hang out there, the leaks of Mogul were quickly forgotten and crowded out.
If you were a believer, as this progressed that put the government in the position of being the adversary. And thereby you get the original version.of the Men in Black.
Over the next couple of decades there was an erosion of trust in government, a rise in anti-government conservatism, and the spawning of multiple anti-government conspiracy. And as the UFO scene evolved into full blown UFO conspiracy the newer supernatural version developed. And the Government Agents, regulation bad shift your talking about was a factor in all of that.
There are certainly “leaders” or “sources” in these movements. But there is generally no central authority dictating what is acceptable to include, or “true” in terms of the ideology.
Compare new religious movements and extreme religious movements (“cults”). There is typically a single person or tight knit group laying out of somewhat fixed belief system. Beliefs outside that canon might be excluded, people who don’t line up are excluded. Changes are dictated and enforced by a central authority.
By contrast UFOs, Cryptozoology, Q etc have “leaders” or more prominent voices. And they have cliques, factions or whatever around them. But no single personality has top down control of the whole belief system. Any given Q follower may accept claims from multiple prominent voices, participate in multiple factions. There is no method of excluding outside beliefs, or enforcing a correct set of them. Nothing prevents any given follower from promoting their own beliefs, forming their own faction.
So no central authority.
Q Anon originates with a single source, but Q is not the leader of Q Anon. And Q does not clearly dictate beliefs or claims. Q posts vague, coded statements and the various prominent Q Anon leaders interpret them. More over at this point Q Anon has many sources. Some drawn from pre-existing conspiracy claims that have been incorporated (Like the supposed CDC whistle blower from Anti-vax). But there are also other anonymous or named sources corroborating Q or introducing new claims. Which of these sources is valid is entirely up to the follower, and each individual clique.
It’s decentralized.
This is pretty typical of conspiracy movements. It’s one of the major things that differentiates them from other extreme and fringe belief movements like religious groups, or survivalist militias.
The very fact that it is people and not person indicates it’s decentralized. When Tom Biscardi disagrees with Lauren Coleman about the Sasquatch, Biscardi doesn’t become shunned and excluded from the Official Bigfootism.
Or spin off into the smaller, more extreme Swamp Ape Cotillion.
And there isn’t a Cryptozoology Pope that tells people which one of them is correct.
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Yeah, I just don’t see it as being even close to the same. I’ve been following fringe ideas and conspiracy theories for over a quarter of a century. Used to subscribe to Fortean Times, all of it. When there are dozens of people who claim, often at the same time, to have some privileged information about something, I just don’t see it as being the same as one account from one source that is at the head of a “movement”/cult. In the case of UFOs, there have certainly been UFO cults, but those are very small pockets, relative to the larger community of people interested in UFOs. Heaven’s Gate was a cult, UFOlogy is not a cult. Etc.
I think we’re going to disagree on this and that’s fine, but, but I still think categorizing QAnon as simply a “conspiracy theory” is totally missing its true danger, and is a mistake. If someone thinks it wasn’t just Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy, that’s a conspiracy theory. QAnon is way way beyond that.
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Wait, you guys believe there’s a single Q?
Did your readings just forget John Titor?
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Single source from the standpoint of believers.
I think that’s a dangerous misunderstanding. While the JFK conspiracy itself hasn’t inspired too many people to violence. It’s always been a deeply politicized idea and it’s deeply nested in many movements that are highly political and routinely violent. Including anti-government militias and the Patriot movement.
There is no harmless conspiracy theory. Psuedo academics aren’t a political. Top to bottom they shot through with racialist ideas, capital N Nationalism, othering, appropriation, and all sorts of dangerous shit. They’re endemic in extremist movements particularly on the far right, and routinely used by authoritarian governments to solidify their hold on power.
Many, many, many conspiracy movements have gone the way of Q. Fueled by the “just a conspiracy theory” and “harmless” ideas many mistake as some how different from Q claims. It’s been a bit since we’ve seen something become this prominent and influential. But the conspiracy fueled right wing militia movements of the 90’s were just as visible and escalated to the largest terror attack on US Soil pre-9/11. And that particular problem never went away, not sitting in at the core of the Q movement.
The very same Protocols derived conspiracy format Q has adopted drove the rise of the Nazis, fascism globally and the Nationalist wave in the US from the late 18th century into post WWII era.
Q is not unique in any regard. It’s just been a bit since we’ve seen a large, mainstream movement of the sort become the core backers of a major US politician. It’s a mistake to think that the fuel behind it, whether it’s JFK or UFO’s or Clinton Murder theories dating to the 80’s is “just a conspiracy theory”. Cause this is what conspiracy theories do.
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Q:
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I don’t believe that saying there is a false sense of a centralized leader changes my point that people are falling in line behind their chosen leader. There are also multiple “official” QAnons let alone the actual “official” QAnon that has the consistent tripcode.
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That’s where my previous unpacking of how Q is not a leader is important.
How ever many people are behind Q or have presented themselves as Q. Q does not lay out beliefs, issue orders, rulings or whatever. Or control a hierarchy, it’s actually.pretty much the opposite. The Q identity posts vague, coded statements and predictions.
The major actors in the Q system. People like the Watkins (before they directly posted themselves), Alex Jones and the like. Interpret these, or wedge their own interpretations in and the belief system grows out of that.
On top of that their are numerous other sources, some anonymous, some not who inject other claims or contribute to the overall system. Some of these are themselves prominent actors in themselves, with cliques behind them. Some aren’t. Some are the same sort anonymous, likely astroturfed social media presences as Q. Some of them are the major Q associated figures.
There’s no way you can describe this as centralized, or consider it to have a single leader. Hell the most recent media coverage is all about struggles and infighting between different personalities and how it factors into the Identity of the main Q.
You’re attempting to argue that the existence of multiple authorities and multiple actors identifying themselves as Q equated to centralized control or leadership. That just doesn’t make any sense.
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I never claimed there was a central authority at all, which is why I am confused by your response to me. I was literally disagreeing with the statement that there was a centralized power by saying there was a coalition of figures in which people follow with a similar belief in Q and compared it to the way people follow central figures behind other conspiracies. However, your statements that there are no hierarchy is extremely wrong - and contradicts your point that a centralized power rises within coalitions of groups within a broad movement tent.
But the fact that there is a power vacuum for a leader to emerge from means there is a centralized seat of power and a hierarchy despite it being a broad tent. They are fighting because they are working to define a central QAnon seat, that’s what infighting accomplishes. It’s also united whenever there is an outgroup despite the infighting. And just as Trump became the central figure of the TEA Party movement which claimed no central leadership, there are not just the figures evangelizing the idea of QAnon being valid that have authority over their followers there are literal elected officials that are prominent in the QAnon community. It’s a mistake to say that because a coalition doesn’t currently have a central leader that it doesn’t have a broad goal to raise its profile and gain power, and it’s also a mistake to say there is no hierarchical structure within QAnon when there are spiritual leaders, commercial leaders, and political leaders attached to the movement.
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There is definitely something missing, I would call it critical thinking rather than cynicism.
The metaphor this makes me think of, is how hatchery farmed fish, when released into the wild, don’t know how to use the rocks and eddies of the natural stream for cover, and they end up picking fights unnecessarily. The end result is a lower overall population of fish than if wild stocks were left to repopulate their own numbers.
With humans it’s the deep suburbs and impoverished school systems that make the hatchery.
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