When will people stop laughing at QAnon?

Published December 16, 2022 By admin with Comments 1

HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — A Washington Post reporter emailed Elon Musk to get his thoughts on QAnon and Elon Musk responded “lol.”

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has been rife with controversy — few aspects of it have not garnered some degree of criticism or confusion — and, now, some of his decisions have conspiracy theorists associated with QAnon viewing him favorably.

Musk tweeted, “Follow” with a rabbit emoji on Dec. 12, Media Matters reported. The phrase “follow the white rabbit,” a reference to “Alice in Wonderland” that was popularized by “The Matrix” films, has been used as a rallying cry of sorts for QAnon over the years, causing many QAnon believers to feel like Musk is now on their side.

“One person in Musk’s inner circle, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Musk’s views, said he uses the claims merely to win the internet’s most prized currency: attention,” the Washington Post writes.

What is QAnon?

QAnon is a far-spanning, all-encompassing conspiracy theory that has alienated people from their families, jobs and lives, even when it’s not driving them to commit actual crimes.

The esoteric apocalyptic conspiracy theory is a “big tent” theory that encompasses many popular conspiracies that came before it, founded on the belief that a high-ranking governmental official (one with “Q” clearance) is posting anonymous messages, primarily on the 4chan clone 8kun, from inside the government about the shadowy “Deep State” who have evil intentions that can only be thwarted by insiders, primarily former President Trump.

The conspiracy has also grown to prominently feature common, antisemitic conspiracies like blood libel, with the belief that the “elites” are trafficking and harvesting children for adrenochrome, a chemical compound of epinephrine.

Primarily followers evangelize about “The Great Awakening” and “The Storm.” This is the idea that one day people across America will “wake up” to the conspiracies that QAnon promotes and that “the storm” will happen, and massive amounts of “Deep State Agents” will be rounded up and executed.

In 2016, a North Carolina man stormed into a Washington, D.C., restaurant due to his belief in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which some have called a precursor to QAnon and has been folded into broader QAnon beliefs.

The debunked ideas of a pizza parlor being the center of a child trafficking operation, or Nancy Pelosi eating babies, or John F Kennedy Jr. being alive and Donald Trump’s next vice president, or the idea that America has been a corporation since the 19th century, or the Earth being flat are all conspiracies that some might find laughable. Some might be amused by the notion of people vehemently believing the words of an anonymous poster (the New York Times refers to forensic linguists who point to South African software developer Paul Furber and later 8kun owner Jim Watkins or his son Ron, who came in last in the Republican primary for an Arizona Congressional seat) who has failed to return proven predictions. However, despite how farfetched these conspiracies may seem to the average reader, they have inspired very real damage and violence.

Content retrieved from: https://myfox8.com/news/politics/when-will-people-stop-laughing-at-qanon/.