QAnon "tearing families apart"

Originally published at: QAnon "tearing families apart" | Boing Boing

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My Mom claims to have never heard of QAnon, yet regularly espouses some of the core beliefs of the cult, including anti-vax nonsense regarding the COVID vaccine. I try to gently set her straight, but even if she concedes my points, within a week she’s come right back to believing nonsense. Even if she isn’t a QAnon adherent per se, she’s internalized the shit that she finds in social media. I don’t know what to do about this. I’d love to just take the internet away from her, but that’s not practical.

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Falls flatly into the “watch out what you wish for” file.

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It’s the equivalent of having a cult member in your immediate family, with all the frustration and intractability and destructiveness that implies. As anti-vaxxers, the Q cultists are now literally putting their lives at risk for their wackadoodle beliefs.

In that context, the evangelical and spiritual/wellness woo “gateway” aspects make perfect sense. Once a gullible sucker is identified it’s easy to rope him into something like this. It’s why I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Ivanka starts a right-wing version of Goop.

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Occasionally curiosity gets the better of me and I make the mistake of going onto gab.com. The people there are… seriously crazy.

Like, this is considered a reasonably mainstream statement:

I don’t find it funny, it genuinely makes me scared that so many, many people can be this deep into absolute crazy-land.

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…i have so, so, SO many questions now.

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cillian-murphy-wat

How can Biden be BOTH executed AND a puppet… I just…

i cant GIF

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Often felt that demonstrating absolute certainty (~faith) connected political extremism and religion …of course, i could be wrong about that.

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I got better

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In some ways this is the perfected form of the cult. No one need do the “roping in.”

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Lookalikes. Stand-ins. CGI holograms. Clones. Come on, there are many reasonable explanations.

Social media platforms have been an incredible boon for grifters in that regard.

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I can personally vouch for this…

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Black Ink Crew Laughing GIF by VH1

FTFY! :grinning:

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The pandemic did no such thing.

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Exactly. Q was a thing long before Covid was.

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Before he was arrested and tried for crimes against humanity including genocide, fugitive former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić lived for years in Belgrade under a false name, posing as an alternative medicine guru.

Since 1999[56] Karadžić had been masquerading as a “new age” expert in alternative medicine using the fake name “D.D. David” printed on his business cards. The initials apparently stood for “Dragan Dabić”; officials said he was also using the name “Dr. Dragan David Dabić”.[57][58][59] He lectured in front of hundreds of people on alternative medicine. He had his own website, where he offered his assistance in the treatment of sexual problems and disorders by using what he called “Human Quantum Energy”.[60]

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Now it all makes sense…

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It’s about confused and gullible people grasping for straws, trying to find meaning in the meaningless void of existence.

They trusted Trump, thought he was chosen by God, then when he proves to be hapless and corrupt they can’t blame an infallible God, and they sure aren’t going to look deep inside themselves, so there must be some other reason-- all that’s left is weird nonsense.

Once you’ve crossed that threshold your friends and family become less important.

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