0:00

Kayla: Are you ready, Freddy, for the.

0:02

Chris: For the start of the podcast? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Do we want to say anything? Like, you're just gonna start telling me your story. We're not gonna set it up at all.

0:10

Kayla: That's what I'm saying. Are you ready to do the podcast? Chris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought you meant, like, are you ready for the information.

0:14

Kayla: No, I meant, are you ready to do the podcast? Chris: Oh, yeah.

0:59

Kayla: Welcome to the podcast. Chris: Welcome to our podcast, which is called.

1:02

Kayla: Cult or just weird. Chris: And you are? Kayla, and I am. Well, I have. Oh, Chris.

1:08

Kayla: Chris. Why'd you think I was gonna call your name?

1:11

Chris: I don't know. Just thought I'd see if you would do it.

1:14

Kayla: Do we have. Do we have any business? Do we have anything to say?

1:18

Chris: Well, there's no business, but. Well, I do have some business. I have a little Qanon joke that I got from Reddit.

1:24

Kayla: You have a QAnon joke that you got from Reddit? Chris: Yeah, from the, I think the cultist headquarters.

1:29

Kayla: Reddit subreddit spelled with a Q. Chris: With a Q. Quiltist.

1:32

Kayla: Are you gonna tell the joke? Chris: No, I just wanted to say that.

1:35

Kayla: I had one cool story, bro.

1:37

Chris: The difference between IQ and Q is intelligence.

1:41

Kayla: You love that. You love it so much. Chris: Yeah, you see, my mouth is open.

1:45

Kayla: Say it again. Chris: And smiling. No, I'm not saying the joke a second time, but I am gonna credit the redditor beetlebethlehem as the redditor. Thanks, Beetle Bethlehem, just in case they listen to this.

1:54

Kayla: I think that you're being very insulting with that joke.

1:57

Chris: Why am I being insulting? Oh, well, okay, but, like, most jokes are insulting.

2:02

Kayla: I think that is absolutely false. The best jokes are not necessarily the insulting ones. The best jokes are the ones that are, like, on fucking memes that we watch, where it's just.

2:14

Chris: It's still flying. Kayla: Freddie Mercury going easy come, and then he captioned his easy come. That's the best joke that was funny. Or Eric Andre jumping through his own, like, logo.

2:26

Chris: That is also funny. Kayla: Most jokes don't have to be insulting. That is fine. But you could never make it in the world of stand up. You'd be a hack.

2:34

Chris: I would just be Anthony Jeselnik. It's fine. No, I. Funny joke.

2:39

Kayla: That's a. That is a claim. Chris: That's. It's also a joke. Also insulting. It's the only humor that white men know. I'm sorry.

2:46

Kayla: Yeah, I guess that's true. Chris: That's all I can do. I mean, I don't know. Like, do we want to, like, set up that this is the second part in the QAnon series. Better know a QAnon.

2:55

Kayla: Hey, guys, if you're here for the first time.

2:57

Chris: Yeah, that's right. There might be people that, like, listen to this as their first episode.

3:00

Kayla: This is the second episode in our multi part QAnon series. The first part was the previous episode from two weeks ago. Highly recommend you go back and listen because it gives a lot of context to what we're going to be talking about.

3:15

Chris: Historical context mostly today. Kayla: Yeah. So we got, like, a bunch of historical context today. We're gonna do a bunch of, like, 2016 context. It's, like, the whole episode. The whole previous episode covered 900 years. This episode's gonna cover, like, two years.

3:30

Chris: Well, but at least we're finally talking about QAnon. Kayla: Kind of.

3:32

Chris: Last time, were just talking about, like, blood libel, and we're gonna kind.

3:35

Kayla: Of be talking about pizza gate, I guess. We're talking about QAnon.

3:37

Chris: Okay, good. Finally. Finally talking about what we said were going to.

3:42

Kayla: Yeah, it's actually more fun to talk about the context than, like, the actual thing itself.

3:46

Chris: There is only context. Kayla: Yeah. I love context. It's what I've discovered about myself. Context, culture. Just weird.

3:52

Chris: Well, that's why we all love Dan Carlin. It's because he doesn't know where to begin, and it's just piles and piles of context.

3:58

Kayla: Good job, Dan Carlin. Chris: And it's great. Kayla: So I guess before we get started.

4:02

Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: Should we talk about the. It's weird that we're doing elephant in the room.

4:05

Chris: It's weird that we're doing QAnon, like, during the election season. Yes, because it has so much to do with it. But. But, yes, the election happened in between the first episode of this series and today.

4:19

Kayla: Yep. Chris: And also, what's gonna be, like, weirdly confusing, is that we did a lot of our interviews before the election.

4:25

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: But we're gonna be airing those episodes after.

4:28

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So, yeah, that's gonna. That's gonna be confusing. Sorry, guys.

4:33

Kayla: I think what I'll eventually argue here, and I can argue it right now, is that QAnon, while it is a political conspiracy theory largely hinging on Donald Trump being our president, it's actually evolved beyond that in so many ways. I think I saw. I totally agree where it's, like, it's more identity than theory at this point.

4:55

Chris: Right. I totally agree at this point. Unfortunately, it's agnostic of who's in the White House, what the results of the election are, but just keeping everybody up to date, though. This is where we are. And as of right now, we know that Biden has enough electoral college votes to take the presidency. And what is it? November 8. Today, 9th.

5:18

Kayla: Yeah, today's the 8th. Chris: I feel like we need to say the date, because it's like, God knows.

5:21

Kayla: Today is November 8, tomorrow. We.

5:24

Chris: Each day is a year in 2020. Kayla: We are still witnessing the reaction of QAnon to super in progress. Yeah, so get into that a little bit here. But honestly, because it is still ongoing, it may fall outside of the scope of our four part QAnon series.

5:46

Chris: We might talk about it in a future episode, which are largely unwritten.

5:51

Kayla: Right. Chris: I feel like I'll probably mention the latest goings ons of QAnon by then, but it'll still be in progress over the next two weeks, for what it's worth.

6:00

Kayla: And this episode is also largely unwritten, so. Okay, perfect.

6:06

Chris: Let's wing it. Kayla: So in our previous QAnon episode, as mentioned, we traced the history of something called nocturnal ritual fantasy.

6:13

Chris: Nocturnal fantas. Oh, sorry. Nocturnal ritual.

6:17

Kayla: Nocturnal ritual fantasy. No. Nocturnal ritual fantasy. A sociological phenomenon that has existed throughout human history in which groups of people wholeheartedly believe, without needing any actual evidence, that another group of people is secretly meeting in nocturnal rituals in order to overthrow the status quo and sacrifice innocent children, oftentimes consuming their blood and flesh in order to help reach that goal.

6:43

Chris: It sounds like a fun party. Kayla: It's honestly, like, I know we did the whole context, and I know we talked about why.

6:48

Chris: What were you gonna say? Honestly, it sounds awesome.

6:51

Kayla: No, that's not what I was gonna say. Chris: I don't know what that reaction sounded like.

6:55

Kayla: No, what I was gonna say is that, like, even with all of the context that we have now, it's still just like, what? Why is this something that keeps coming up over and over in human society?

7:06

Chris: We talked about that last episode. Kayla: I know, but it's still just, like, so specific. It's so specific and weird.

7:14

Chris: I think the reason for its specificity is it's the pinnacle of outrage.

7:19

Kayla: Right, right. It's so weird. Chris: All outro. All outrage roads lead to child sacrifice.

7:27

Kayla: Rome. Chris: That feels like what it is to me.

7:30

Kayla: It's just. Yeah. Chris: Well, by the way, last episode was super heavy. Do we have any content warnings for this one?

7:36

Kayla: Oh, all of the same, but it's less. We get less into it, but, yeah, all the same.

7:42

Chris: So in other words, same being, we're.

7:44

Kayla: Going to be talking about anti semitism, racism. We're going to be talking about things like blood. Blood libel and anti semitic canards. Child sacrifice.

7:52

Chris: Whoops. We already talked about child sacrifice. Sorry.

7:56

Kayla: All of that. Chris: Okay. Kayla: We'll be talking about a lot of political stuff and current modern within the last four years. Political stuff, which I know is still hard to think about for many people. So good luck.

8:12

Chris: Good luck. Have fun. Actually, another question. Can I make more jokes this time? Because last time it was really hard to make jokes. I think so because it was super heavy.

8:21

Kayla: I think it's less. Chris: Can I make. Can I make racist jokes yet, or.

8:26

Kayla: No, you should. Just don't. Chris: But I'm a white guy. All I have here can only make races.

8:31

Kayla: Let me read insulting. Chris: Okay, go ahead.

8:34

Kayla: We largely talked about how nocturnal ritual fantasy played out in the violent anti semitism of the middle ages and has been the basis of the blood libel anti semitic canardous, which is the claim that Jews are sacrificing christian children and using their blood to make matzah. Nocturnal ritual fantasy has affected groups of Christians, groups of Jews, groups of daycare workers, and regular people during the satanic panic of the 1980s, and then set the stage for the 2016 pizzagate conspiracy theory, in which an online circle of far right republicans crafted a baseless story that high profile democrats were trafficking children for sex and sacrifice in the basement of DC pizza parlor Comet Ping pong. That was a lot.

9:18

Chris: Yeah. And there was also the gate made out of pizzas.

9:20

Kayla: Right, there was the gate made out of pizzas. But it's really just the beginning when it comes to QAnon, which I guess I'll remind our listeners that QAnon is another conspiracy theory that claims there is a worldwide secret cabal of satanic elites consisting of high profile democratic political figures, celebrities, and others who are simultaneously sex trafficking children and undermining free society in heinous ways. And Donald Trump is fighting an underground war to root out this cabal and bring everyone involved to justice.

9:53

Chris: That's the core of it. And then also, it's everything else.

9:55

Kayla: And also, it's everything else. The history of nocturnal ritual fantasy, blood libel, pizzagate, a slew of other sociological issues that came to a roaring head in 2016, paved the way for this QAnon conspiracy theory to take hold online and then in wider political society. Again, we already talked about this, but remember, listeners, we are recording this episode just a few days after the 2020 presidential election. Votes are still being counted. We do have a declared winner, but working on episodes about QAnon while all of this is unfolding is interesting to say. The least. By the time this episode comes out. By the time the next episodes come out, there could be new info that we won't be able to cover, maybe ever, maybe till the next episode. But for now, let's get back to building a timeline of QAnon.

10:45

Chris: By then, it might be Aranon. Kayla: Yeah, who knows?

10:47

Chris: Asanon Tiananon could get all the way.

10:49

Kayla: Down to z, baby. We left off the last episode with the climax at Pizzagate, in which a gunman entered Comet Ping Pong in an attempt to free children rumored to be held captive there. The pizzagate conspiracy theory ballooned to become QAnon. So let's talk about how that happened and then what happened after. So, okay, let's do it. There's so much here, you guys. It's. It's a lot.

11:16

Chris: It's a lot. And it's horrible. Tune out.

11:19

Kayla: It's also fascinating. It's so fascinating, but, God, it's a lot. So, okay. By the time Donald Trump became president, when he was inaugurated in January 2017, the rumors were swirling, all based off of online analysis about the various leaked Democrat emails that widespread nefariousness was happening involving elites abusing children. Even after a gunman entered comet Ping Pong to find that no children were being held there, the conspiracy theory did not exactly dissipate. Instead, everyone who believed it, like, instead of them going, guess were wrong. A lot of people that believed in it kind of dug in. It was like, well, maybe the intel on this wasn't.

11:58

Chris: Was it a conspiracy theory? Kayla: No, maybe the intel wasn't 100% correct. Maybe the children are being held at a different pizza place. But they felt like they knew for sure that widespread child abuse and trafficking was taking place and demolites were behind it. Like, we just need to keep researching, keep looking for evidence, keep finding the proof that our beliefs are correct. Kind of the definition of motivated reasoning. But that's for later. These kinds. Yeah, these kinds of rumors percolated for a while, particularly on the anonymous image boards, four chan and eight chan. I mentioned these guys in the last episode. I don't think we really got into it. Maybe some of our listeners will even remember us talking about four chan in our Cicada 3301 episode. Either way, callback.

12:44

Chris: Yeah, callback. Sweet. Kayla: Either way, we're gonna really dig into it here. We did not really dig into it with the Cicada 3301 episode because, again, that was another measuring the coastline topic.

12:55

Chris: All of your topics are like that. I think you just like to find coastlines to measure.

12:59

Kayla: We're doing QAnon because of you. I'm doing this with you.

13:03

Chris: You're the one that's the expert on Q. I probably shouldn't say that if I'm gonna be doing some episodes. I'm an expert now. You were the initial expert.

13:10

Kayla: I am the expert between the two of us. Sorry, all right? I'm more steeped in it than you.

13:15

Chris: Tell your stupid story. Kayla: Okay, so first, what is four chan? It's anonymous image board site, which means that it was originally created for users to be able to hop on and, without creating an account or username, share images alongside text conversations.

13:31

Chris: That sounds very benign. Kayla: It really does. And it's really not. Image boards first started in Japan, and four chan was.

13:42

Chris: I didn't know that. Kayla: Yeah. Four chan was created as an english language counterpart, like, an unofficial counterpart to one of the most famous japanese image boards. Two chan.

13:52

Chris: What? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: That's where four chan came from.

13:55

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Holy shit. Why was it called two chan initially?

14:00

Kayla: I have to look it up. Four chan was created in 2003 by 15 year old Christopher Poole. And its first sub forum, or Chan, was b, went for sharing anime and random images.

14:15

Chris: So by subforum, you mean, like, there's just. It's a forum site and there's different.

14:20

Kayla: It's like, when you log. When you go to four chan.org, comma, you are basically met with, like, a pile of links to all of the different boards there are available to you.

14:31

Chris: And the boards are essentially, like, their own little discussion, their own little forums that have their own topic or theme.

14:35

Kayla: Right. So, like, b was meant for sharing anime and random images. There are now. That was their first one and the only one for a while. There are now a number of those boards dedicated to anime, video games, the occult, music, sports, etcetera.

14:50

Chris: That doesn't sound so bad. Kayla: Be is still the most well known board on the site. I think, like, they're random. That's where, like, it's kind of, like where you don't want to click if you don't want to have to visit r eye bleach or brain bleach later and, like, get yourself kind of back to a state of feeling okay about life and yourself.

15:08

Chris: Four chan is a cesspit. And slash b, their original forum home on it is the sessist.

15:16

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Hideous. Kayla: It can get bad. I don't want to paint it with that broad of a brush because I think it has been a source of fulfillment in a lot of people's lives.

15:26

Chris: That's fair. Kayla: I don't like to go there that much. Chris: That's fair. It's something that is very mixed.

15:31

Kayla: Yeah. The style of posting on four chan differs from other forums or social media in that, again, posts are made anonymously. There is a kind of a way to post non anonymously. We'll get to that in a minute. But just know that, like, the whole purpose of this is that you just. You log on and you say, shit, and it's anonymous.

15:51

Chris: Right. Kayla: And posts are ephemeral. So posts that receive replies get bumped to the top, and then older threads, things that don't get replies, they get deleted to make way for new ones. So it's like, stuff is kind of constantly churning, and you have both the anonymity and the knowledge that what you're posting is not going to live on the Internet forever. The anonymity is a huge draw for something like four chan. About 900,000 posts are made daily with over 20 million unique monthly visitors. And because anonymity is granted four chan, like my co host mentioned, he used the word cesspit. I'm going to say it's considered the armpit of the Internet. I could use a meaner word, but again, like, well, the armpit could.

16:34

Chris: I mean, are they using deodorant? Kayla: I don't know. I like an armpit. I think my armpit smells nice. I've talked about this on my other podcast. I think an armpit's a. It's a great place.

16:44

Chris: Mmm. So. So you're pro four chan, is what I'm hearing.

16:47

Kayla: I'm pro armpit. Sorry.

16:53

Chris: Don't laugh at your own joke. Jesus Christ. Kayla: That wasn't a joke. And just. I mean, I'm.

16:57

Chris: You're just amused at yourself. Kayla: I have a weird thing about armpits. Yeah, well, I don't have an armpit fetish. Again, I've talked about this on my other podcast. Yes, I do not. But I.

17:10

Chris: You just like the way they smell, which is. Kayla: I really do.

17:13

Chris: Kind of still weird. Kayla: Yeah. You know what? Everybody should go listen to my other podcast, the episode I talk about where I talk about armpit fetish. It's actually really good.

17:22

Chris: Oh, it's really fascinating. Is this just a cross promotion plug? Was that.

17:25

Kayla: I'm just saying armpit fetish comes from. It has roots in puritanism, baby.

17:31

Chris: Oh, what doesn't? Kayla: If you want to look at boobies, but you can't. What's close to it on armpit?

17:37

Chris: Oh, interesting. Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I. I didn't talk to armpit people, but I read maybe. No, I did talk to armpit people. I did talk to armpit people.

17:45

Chris: You talked to people about this? Kayla: Yes, I talked to armpit people about this. And this one guy was like, he likened it to when you're in high school and, like, you see a hot girl in the class and you see her shoulder. You see the shoulder of the bra strap. The hottest thing you can see is, oh, the armpit. Because it's hidden, but it's not. I get it.

18:08

Chris: Okay. That actually makes some sense. Kayla: Go listen to that. Don't listen to this. Okay.

18:14

Chris: Yeah. Continuously encourage our listeners to stop listening.

18:18

Kayla: No, keep listening. Chris: You guys should probably unsubscribe while you're at it.

18:21

Kayla: Okay. The anonymity on four chan doesn't just allow people to discuss thoughts, feelings, and ideas that they wouldn't feel comfortable discussing on a social media platform tied to their identity. It also allows people to push the boundaries of what is decent and acceptable in society. It is a hub of Internet culture where many memes originate. So, like, lolcats originated there, rage comics originated there.

18:45

Chris: Didn't the, my little pun. Didn't you say my little punk?

18:47

Kayla: Oh, we'll get to it. Chris: Okay. Kayla: It's also a place where harassment of other groups gets planned. It is a place where a lot offensive content enters into an arms race to the bottom. Often illegal content gets posted. There have been issues with child porn and borderline child porn. There have been instances of murders, either murderers either posting their plans on the site beforehand or posting the aftermath. It is a controversial place, needless to say. And again, the anonymity allows people to behave in ways they maybe wouldn't in the light of day.

19:21

Chris: I feel a little bit more justified about the cesspit thing now.

19:25

Kayla: But there's also nice things. Well, I'm gonna get into some specifics, and there's, like, there's some good stuff, I guess.

19:31

Chris: Lolcats are nice. Kayla: Lolcats are nice. It is also worth noting that even though it is the most used image board on the Internet, it has a history of money issues. I don't know why this is worth noting. I just thought it was interesting. So it's a free site. It requires a lot of bandwidth because of all, like we said, 900,000 posts a day. There's a lot of users. Really, the only way the site has been able to make money outside of, like, from. Sometimes donations from users has been via advertising. But given that the site is full of Edgelord, nazi memes, and offensive pornography, not exactly getting sponsorship, not a site that advertisers are flocking to. So, in the past, it has sometimes gone down due to lack of. Of funds. Like, it's had to move its servers, blah, blah.

20:17

Kayla: And the kind of advertisements you find on there are for, like, sex video games. It's like, sex video games. And again, that just kind of, like, adds to the flavor of four chan as being a somewhat unpalatable place for polite society.

20:32

Chris: Right. Kayla: Some talk about it reinforces that. Yeah. Like, it's like, you go on four chan, and it's like, titty game, and you're like, okay. Some topics, however, are too unpalatable for even four chan.

20:44

Chris: Whoa. Kayla: Resulting in bans of certain topics.

20:46

Chris: But you talked about murder aftermaths and child porn.

20:50

Kayla: Well, yes, I don't think they. There's not a forum for murderers. Like, you're not supposed murderers about murders, but there have been topics that have been banned. Some users kind of view this as a form of censorship or, like, free speech. Gamergate. Gamergate was eventually banned from discussion on four chan. And because that had some very intense real world ramifications, there was a lot of harassment, blah, blah. I think I talk about it a little bit more, a little bit later, but these various bands on, and again, it's few and far between, but these bans on some of these topics eventually led to the even more intense image board being created, eight chan, where literally nothing is too extreme to discuss, and anonymity is still the name of the game.

21:42

Chris: So it's, like, twice as bad as four chan.

21:45

Kayla: That's a good way of putting it. So I've been hitting the anonymity thing hard. In fact, the way that posters are identified as anonymous in the vast majority of posts serves to inspire the name of the. Of the decentralized hacker collective anonymous. So since all of the posts, instead of saying, like, this is from Chris C, it says, this is anonymous, that's where anonymous comes from. You can choose a nickname when you make a post, but again, it's not required. There's no registration needed. Even the handful of moderators the site has doesn't really. They don't really use identifiable nicknames. However, there is one way to verify a continued identity on four chan, and that's via something that they've installed called trip codes. It's kind of a technical thing, so I won't get into it.

22:36

Chris: Basically, it sounds like, what is it? Just a tag that identifies one post as being from the same user as another.

22:43

Kayla: Think of it as a password that's used to authenticate a user's identity by signing their posts. It's like, you can sign your post. Four chan also has an even more powerful version of trip codes for some users, which are secure trip codes, which acts more like a verified username and is much harder for outside users to crack. So, like, people sometimes try to crack each other's trip codes, poses each other, blah, blah. So then the secure trip codes were made so that it is harder to do that for, like, these more important accounts. Okay, I wonder what those important accounts are. Foreshadowing this, again, does not necessarily get rid of anonymity. You're not forced to verify who you are IRL to use these trip codes, but it does allow the same user to verify their posts on these image boards.

23:30

Chris: It's important to consider there's sort of, like, two things we're talking about with the anonymity. There's who am I in real life? Is that tied to my online identity here? And then separate from that, is this online identity something that consistently comes, like, am I posting as a different, unverifiably connected to my other posts person? Or is it like, you know, Sephiroth 69?

23:54

Kayla: Hell, yeah. Sephiroth 69,420, baby. That's my account name.

23:58

Chris: That joke again, please. Kayla: Why? Chris: I said it wrong. Actually, let's just.

24:03

Kayla: We're rolling with it now. Maybe you're wondering why I am getting so into what four chan is. Well, because while it's the armpit of the Internet, it is also a place that continually affects the larger, more mainstream Internet and even the world at large. So I'm just.

24:22

Chris: Did you promise were gonna talk about QAnon this time?

24:25

Kayla: We might. Chris: Jesus, Kayla.

24:29

Kayla: Let me just list some of the ways in which four chan has affected the larger world. We mentioned Internet memes like Lolcats and Rage comics, but four chan is also the birthplace of the rickroll. Did you know? Oh, that's right.

24:41

Chris: I did know that I did. Kayla: It is where Tay Zonday's chocolate rain gained fate.

24:46

Chris: I didn't realize that. Kayla: And the image of Peto bear. Do you remember Pedo bear?

24:51

Chris: Oh, yeah, I remember Peter Bear. Kayla: I forgot about Peter Bear until today. I don't know. Nocturnal ritual fantasy.

24:57

Chris: Right. Kayla: We already mentioned that four chan is the birthplace of the hacktivist group Anonymous, which has been responsible for a number of real world happenings, such as anti Scientology activism in the form of physical protests and cyber attacks against various government agencies, corporations, and individuals. As my co host mentioned, bronies, the Internet fandom consisting of adult men who unironically. Enjoy the cartoon. My little pony friendship is magic. A cartoon aimed at young children. This fandom started on four chan. One day we'll do bronies.

25:29

Chris: I mean, we talked about them in another episode. We talked about them in Tulpas, I believe.

25:33

Kayla: Oh, yeah, we did talk. But they need to be their own. Chris: They need to be their own thing.

25:36

Kayla: Yeah, probably in 2009. Again, I don't remember all of the trigger warnings that I said, trigger warning. Animal abuse in.

25:46

Chris: We're just terrible. Kayla: Yeah. Well, this is four chan. Four chan's terrible.

25:49

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: In 2009, a teenager was arrested after posting videos of himself abusing a pet cat.

25:55

Chris: Oh, geez. Kayla: But he was arrested because four chan users tracked him down. These videos went up on YouTube, and four chan users found him. The cat was treated and is now safe.

26:03

Chris: Don't fuck with cats. Kayla: The death of Jeffrey Epstein was actually first reported on a four chan board, what? Almost an hour before ABC broke the story.

26:11

Chris: Holy shit. Kayla: What? And the. The theory is that, like, somebody with insider information, like, somebody who, like a first responder posted on four Chan.

26:22

Chris: Or was it somebody who knew that he was planned to be killed?

26:26

Kayla: Was it Jeffrey Epstein himself? Chris: Hash. Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.

26:30

Kayla: Jeffree Epstein. Fuck you. Apple's stock price dropped in October 2008 after a rumor started on four chan that Steve Jobs had a massive heart attack. Like the price. The stock price dropped.

26:42

Chris: The stock price was affected by four chance. Kayla: Yes. In October 2006, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned the NFL of a threat of dirty bombs being detonated at various stadiums due to threats originating on four chan. Another user made bomb threats in 2007, posting images of homemade pipe bombs. Other four chan users tracked him down, leading to an arrest. There are at least five other instances of threats of violence originating on four chan. Some real, some hoax. There have been at least five arrests of child pornographers who either posted to or obtained porn from four chan. The August 2014 celebrity photo leaks in which scores of private images from a list celebrities iclouds were hacked and released to the public were first posted to four chan before spreading.

27:28

Chris: I didn't realize. Kayla: Wide to the rest of the Internet. It all rose lead back to four chan.

27:32

Chris: I know. Yeah. What the heck? Kayla: And it's because of the anonymity, right? The Gamergate controversy largely lived on four chan, especially in the early days, and was the place for Gamergate activists to organize harassment campaigns against women in the video game industry, leading to its eventual ban. As a topic. Various incel spree killers have participated in four Chan's incel community with some believing the rhetoric in that community contributed to or inspired the attacks. Spree killings believed to originate in this community include the Umpqua Community college shooting and the Toronto van attack.

28:03

Chris: Wasn't the San Bernardino shooter also, was he? I thought he was an incel like type. I don't know if he was a four chan guy, though. I don't know.

28:11

Kayla: There's been multiple incel instances of violence, but I don't know if that one was particular.

28:16

Chris: Will all of our users know what incel is?

28:19

Kayla: We can't get into it. Look it up.

28:23

Chris: Sad, disenfranchised men involuntarily celibate men.

28:28

Kayla: In November 2014, a user posted a posted images of a murder victim to four Chan stating that, quote, it's way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies.

28:37

Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: And, quote, I just wanted to share the pics before they find me. While four chan debated the authenticity of the photos. I remember when this happened. It was fucked. A 33 year old man was arrested for this murder that same day in Oregon and was eventually sentenced to 82 years in prison. So this is just me trying to show that four chan and image boards have a history of reaching out into the real world and touching it with its dirty little fingers. This has happened almost since the beginning of the board, and it's rubbing its.

29:09

Chris: Armpit all over everybody. Kayla: Continues to happening today. Remember how we talked last episode? How the pizzagate rumors incubated and swirled on four chan?

29:19

Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: And remember how that led to real world violence?

29:22

Chris: Right. So that wasn't the only time that's happened, as you're saying.

29:26

Kayla: No, no. Perhaps not a shock to learn that QAnon itself, one of the most prominent, prolific political conspiracy theories of at least the last decade, also started on four chan. We're probably not learning that at this point. I've probably already said it, but still.

29:41

Chris: Well, yeah, I think it's good to level set where we are. This is why we've been talking about four chan. That's where QAnon was born.

29:49

Kayla: There we go. So let's now put ourselves back. Let's think back. Back. December 2016.

29:59

Chris: So that was, what, 75 years ago?

30:01

Kayla: 77 years ago. Chris: Yeah. Actually, you know what else happened that was momentous in December of 2016? That was born in December of 2016.

30:10

Kayla: What? Chris: This podcast, it was. I mean, in a sense. Oh, yeah. December 2016 is when went to volunteer at best friends.

30:20

Kayla: Oh, boom. Mic drop. It all comes back. It always comes, always ties back in on itself.

30:27

Chris: That's right. Kayla: I think I'm leaving QAnon on now. Okay, so we're back. Now we're in December 2016, Donald Trump has been elected president. Pizzagate. Rumors are still swirling around the Internet. Hubs on sites like four Chan are straight up celebrating. For many of the people on those sites, Donald Trump was their chosen candidate. I think we've already recommended it on this podcast, but again, I'm going to reiterate, I highly, highly recommend the documentary. Feels good, man. For a detailed analysis, like, better than I could ever do on how and why exactly a candidate like Donald Trump spoke specifically to people who called four Chan home. Like, a lot of it is tied up incel culture that we mentioned, in disaffected youth culture, in the fairly widespread unemployed population.

31:16

Kayla: On these sites, the arms race offensive culture and intensifying masculinity that viewed emotions or need for empathy and compassion as cucked a specific hatred of candidates like Hillary Clinton. And just a slew of other things. Again, go check out feelsgood man the documentary for detailed analysis.

31:35

Chris: Unless you're a cuck, then whatever.

31:37

Kayla: Whatever. We don't fuck with you. Chris: Yeah, no cucks on this podcast.

31:40

Kayla: Just know that a ton of people using sites like four Chan desperately wanted Donald Trump to be president, and he appealed directly to the desire for intensity to quote unquote, troll, which was ubiquitous on these sites.

31:54

Chris: Right, and trolling. I know most people know what this is, but we like to explain things in baseline troll because this actually comes up. This will come up more in future episodes.

32:03

Kayla: Oh, good. So I don't have to. Chris: Yeah, I'll talk about trolling in my next episode. But basically, the idea is that it's provoking someone. That's the basic idea. And that's why they say, don't feed the trolls means don't be provoked, because that's what they want. They'll try to say something provocative or insulting or both, and hope that you respond with some level of emotion, like rage or whatever.

32:27

Kayla: It's like when you make a really bad joke, and then you'll get me.

32:29

Chris: Like, that's not trolling. Kayla: Troll me all the time.

32:32

Chris: No, trolling is if I say something like, shitty about you or something like provoking and want you to reply, don't provoke me.

32:39

Kayla: In fact, a lot of people on four chan and similar sites actually believed that they had a hand in Trump's election win, that they helped will it into existence with their constant posting about him.

32:51

Chris: Meme magic. Kayla: Meme magic? Do you talk about meme magic?

32:55

Chris: I don't but I can. Kayla: Yeah, just go watch the documentary, guys. It was not.

33:00

Chris: Stop listening to the podcast. Kayla: Stop right now. Go watch the documentary, then come back and you'll have the context that you need to get this context.

33:09

Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: It's all context. It's context all the way down.

33:11

Chris: This is too postmodern for me. I can't.

33:13

Kayla: You know that there's a new. It's not a new thing, but there's a thing after postmodern.

33:17

Chris: Post postmodern. Kayla: Metamodern. Chris: Metamodern.

33:20

Kayla: And it's like, get the fuck out of here. Modern is, like, constructive. Postmodern is deconstructive. Metamodern is taking the deconstructed and reconstructing it. I want to kill myself. And the only reason I know this is because I saw people on Twitter arguing over whether or not the Amazon show the boys was postmodern or metamodern. And I saw a really. I just learned about the place, but I saw a really convincing argument that it was absolutely not metamodern. And that is definitely postmodern.

33:52

Chris: I feel like it's deconstructive, but also, probably not everyone has seen the boys that listens to this, so who cares?

34:00

Kayla: They also haven't seen the documentary. Chris: That's true. I'm just saying I don't want to.

34:03

Kayla: Like, get into it. If you're into a big discussion about the boys. I don't want to get into a big discussion. I'm just saying, if you've. If you've watched the show, then you get this part, and if you haven't watched the show, that's true. Move on.

34:12

Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of things are, like, kind of hard to tell sometimes.

34:15

Kayla: You know, I just was. Chris: Watchmen is a little bit like that.

34:18

Kayla: To learn this. Okay, so meme magic happened. These trolls were like, ooh, we helped elect Donald Trump. And, like, the support was not necessarily lost on the Trump campaign or on Donald Trump. And this is probably.

34:35

Chris: Do they acknowledge the fact that they were being supported by these wackos? Unfortunately.

34:39

Kayla: Well, you know what? I'll let you figure it out, because I'll give you a little bit of evidence. In July 2016, then candidate Donald Trump tweeted a meme that featured Hillary Clinton, a background of money, and a star of David symbol that read most corrupt candidate ever. It was immediately called out as hellishly anti semitic. I don't think I have to explain why don't put Star of David symbols on money and be like, this politician's corrupt. Because you know what? You're saying. I mean, it was. It was. He eventually deleted it and reposted it with the Star of David removed. And turns out that image had been posted on eight chan a week before Trump posted it. That's where it is from.

35:20

Chris: Came from eight Chan. Kayla: And it originated on a Twitter account that frequently posted anti semitic and racist memes. And then it was circulated on eight Chan.

35:30

Chris: Oh, okay. Kayla: So.

35:33

Chris: So from Twitter to eight Chan, back to Twitter on the candidates account.

35:39

Kayla: So the relationship between four Chan, eight Chan image boards and the rise of Trump was somewhat symbiotic, like he was this beloved candidate. Instances like the Star of David image made many image board users believe Trump knew they were on his team and welcomed their embrace. It makes sense, then, that a story in which Trump is the hero would flourish on these sites, particularly after the leak of the podesta emails in an incident like pizzagate, which painted Trump's enemies, the democratic establishment, as the villains.

36:10

Chris: And also, it primed them for a situation where Trump was, or his campaign at least, was acknowledging them implicitly. Maybe, but certainly it seemed that way.

36:24

Kayla: Right? That was the interpretation, right? As Trump's first year in office unfolded, obsessions with supposed democrat corruption and attempts to undermine the president were coupled with Trump's particularly strong and controversial moves that strengthened and fueled the conspiracy theory laden relationship between the image boards and the Trump administration. Let me just remind you of some of the things that happened in that first year of the Trump presidency.

36:49

Chris: Things I don't even remember, man. Like, that was so long ago in, like, how much I've aged. I know, psychologically.

36:58

Kayla: So these are things that his base, particularly his base on the Internet, really responded to. So this included his ban on travelers entering the country from a number of. Entering the United States from a number of muslim majority countries. His quick nomination of a conservative justice to the Supreme Court, cementing the Senate's obstruction of confirming Merrick Garland, his taunts towards north korean dictator Kim Jong un, calling him rocket man, and tweeting that the american nuclear button is, a, quote, much bigger and more powerful one than his. And my button works. It's funny, the relationship that they have now, considering how it started.

37:37

Chris: I know. It's like they were enemies and now they're. Franz.

37:41

Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: That's literally, it's a buddy comedy.

37:46

Kayla: That's a fan fiction genre.

37:52

Chris: I'm sure it exists. Kayla: Enemies to love her. Chris: So I have a question. Then. I get a four channers being. I get four chanters liking the taunts of a foreign dictator because it appeals to their sense of, like, you know, chaos and fuck everything. But I don't get why they give a shit about Neil Gorsuch. Or did I pronounce that right?

38:13

Kayla: I think so. Chris: I don't. I don't get why that's something that's important to them.

38:17

Kayla: Anything that was, like, a strong hand and anything that was, like, cry more libs was, like, very much appreciated.

38:25

Chris: And the Neil, not like everything that he did makes sense.

38:29

Kayla: That's what. I'm just giving some specific examples. So it's not us just going like, Donald Trump. We don't like him. Like, here's some specific examples of things that happened that.

38:38

Chris: But to tie the cause. And the effect is that it's mostly. It's less about the. They enjoy it when he acts chaotically and more. They enjoy it when he triggers the libs.

38:48

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Or behaves in violent or prejudiced ways.

38:59

Chris: Okay. Kayla: And if those things come together, great. Like the muslim ban.

39:04

Chris: Perfect. Kayla: He also loosened some restrictions on us military commanders, which resulted in more airstrikes in the Middle east. He continued his pledges to destroy Obamacare and build a wall between the US and Mexico. He had.

39:20

Chris: How did he continue his pledge with Obamacare? He wanted to, but it never happened.

39:24

Kayla: He kept being like, we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it, we're gonna do it.

39:26

Chris: Okay. Kayla: Then they never did it. This is when he issued his executive order aimed at punishing, quote unquote, sanctuary cities by. With federal dollars. I know. He increased deportations and restricted the number of refugees who could seek refuge in the United States. And then, of course, there was his seemingly unending stream of aggressive tweets, including ones that claimed approval rating polls were rigged. That millions of people voted illegally in the election. I totally forgot about that.

39:56

Chris: I remember that when. I remember that recently when. I mean, tying again to the election that just happened.

40:02

Kayla: Right. Chris: That was. We knew that was one of the things that eventually would come back and he would challenge the validity of.

40:10

Kayla: The election because he did that from the beginning, literally from the beginning.

40:14

Chris: And to be fair, the approval rating. Oh, the approval rating polls, not the pre election polls.

40:19

Kayla: No, no, the approval rating polls. Chris: Oh, okay.

40:21

Kayla: Well, he was saying, well, the polls were rigged. So these polls were rigged.

40:24

Chris: Yeah, I think it's less rigged and more just wrong. Terrible.

40:28

Kayla: Yeah, just don't listen to polls, guys. Chris: Sorry, pollsters, but, like, figure your shit out, man.

40:32

Kayla: He was also tweeting about continuously how Mexico would pay for the border wall. This is when he accused President Barack Obama of espionage and spying on him. And he even went so far as to call beloved actress Meryl Streep overrated.

40:51

Chris: How dare he? Kayla: And he spelled overrated with a hyphen.

40:55

Chris: Oh, my God. I am very anti hyphen.

40:58

Kayla: I am triggered. I cried more.

41:01

Chris: I am a triggered lib. Kayla: Along with this went continued attacks on his former opponent, Hillary Clinton. Don't think I need to remind everyone of butter emails or the lock her up chants chance that became ubiquitous at republican events from the election on. And it kind of just like morphed and grew and changed. It was just like, lock her up for whatever new thing we're talking about now, right? The attacks extended to various crimes, including the handling of the Benghazi incident. Hillary Clinton was accused of colluding with Russia, and then there was the eventual Obama espionage thing. So we've got a group of disaffected individuals anonymously online where they can both troll and express their deepest, darkest, most un PC thoughts. We have a political candidate that they strongly support as a hero, now in a position of power, who constantly slings insults and unsubstantiated claims at his opponents.

41:57

Kayla: A symbiotic relationship between these two groups and the pizzagate conspiracy theory, painting high level democrats as baby sacrificing, eating Satanists.

42:06

Chris: And they all lived happily ever after.

42:08

Kayla: They did. Because enter Q delight.

42:12

Chris: Finally, hour three. We're talking about QAnon. Finally.

42:18

Kayla: Finally. On Saturday, October 28, 2017, anonymous user posted the following on four Chan HRC extradition in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run passport approved to be flagged. Effective 1030 at 12:01 a.m. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur. USMs will conduct the operation while Ng activated. Proof check. Locate a Ng member and ask if activated for duty. 1030 across most major cities. Ng is National Guard with this post. Qadon, a conspiracy theory like we have never seen, was finally born, but also.

43:04

Chris: Like, we totally have seen. Kayla: Yeah. For what it is worth, no evidence that would be considered evidence by the standards of this podcast, no evidence of Hillary Clinton being extradited or arrested has ever been uncovered.

43:24

Chris: Yeah, as of November 2020, she's still a free woman.

43:31

Kayla: In the days following this cryptic post, someone identifying themselves as q clearance patriot or q, claimed to have made this original post and began posting more cryptic images.

43:42

Chris: So q clearance, just to be clear, is the, Oh, whoa. Sorry. We'll get to that.

43:48

Kayla: So he posted other things like, my fellow Americans, over the course of the next several days, you'll undoubtedly realize that we are taking back our great country. Parentheses seize the land of the free from the evil tyrants that wish to do us harm and destroy the last remaining refuge of shining light. On POTUS order, we have initiated certain failsafes that shall safeguard the public from the primary fallout which is slated to occur. Eleven three. Upon the arrest announcement of Mister Podesta. Actionable. Eleven four. Confirmation to the public of what is occurring will then be. Keeps going.

44:18

Chris: That's what I'm hearing. Kayla: Yeah, it just goes on and on. So this person claimed to have inside information on all governmental matters and was positioned deep within the Trump administration. The Q in Q refers to the claim to have Q level clearance, a real security clearance level at the upper echelons of the Department of Energy. So it's a real thing.

44:43

Chris: So is it like ABCD and then they get to Q? I guess it's like Avenue Q. It's like way the fuck up there.

44:48

Kayla: That's just how crazy it is. Okay, I should note. I should note that at the time there was a trend on image boards. Four chan specifically for posters to LARP or to pretend to be intel officers posting messages about secret government intel. So, like, there were posts from people claiming to be FBI anon or NSA anon, like using these titles. This was kind of common, and it was kind of like an Arg style thing where everyone was in on the pretend. But also, what if this was real, that kind of thing. But that Arg LARP aspect didn't stick when it came to Q. Something about the nature of these specific messages. The focus on the Trump admin rooting out, arresting and punishing high level democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Podesta really struck a chord with other four and eight channers.

45:44

Chris: Arg foreshadowing.

45:49

Kayla: This is when the idea of a deep state, an embedded pseudo government within our own government, working against the interests of the people and the leaders in charge, an idea that's actually been around for ages, took hold again.

46:01

Chris: That wasn't where the words deep state originally.

46:04

Kayla: No, no, no. That's something that's been around for fucking ever.

46:07

Chris: Okay? Kayla: But like, this idea was like, oh, the deep state, it started coming back.

46:14

Chris: Is there a shallow state? Kayla: That's the state that you're in all the time.

46:18

Chris: Boom. Damn. Good one. We didn't rehearse that, you guys.

46:22

Kayla: No, we didn't. That's why it was so good. The QAnon poster continued posting on the site fairly consistently. Each post more and more cryptic than the last. And this established the relationship that exists between Q and the followers. So Q would drop these messages, these breadcrumbs that the followers would then analyze, dissect and discuss to extract meaning. Meaning such as the predictions of disasters, high level arrests, social upheaval, war games, and more. A typical Q post that we might think of would read something like this one, and I am not going to read you the whole thing because it's very long.

47:02

Chris: I appreciate that, patriot. Kayla: And like every. I'm about to. Every sentence I'm about to say is in like a new. There's like a line break. It's a new way. This post is dropped.

47:12

Chris: So imagine the post. Kayla: It's like a poem.

47:15

Chris: Okay. Kayla: In that way. Chris: Okay. Interesting.

47:17

Kayla: Patriots don't sleep. 40,000ft v necessary to understand USA global events. Paint the picture. Decrease altitude. We will not fly that high again. Higher the altitude, greater the risk of conspiracy. St. Many cannot, will not swallow what is no such agency. Q group. Who has clearance to full picture? Important. Sis is good. What agency is at war with clowns in America? How does POTUS shift narrative? New age of enlightenment, 80% covert, 20% public. And this goes on and on and on. There's a reference to Godfather three.

47:54

Chris: Holy shit. Kayla: There's reference to Alice in Wonderland, to Snowden, to Snow White. And then it's one post forgotten country for humanity. Geronimo.

48:02

Chris: Q, that reminds me of trout mask replica.

48:06

Kayla: Disney is a distraction. I forgot to say that one. Chris: Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds.

48:12

Kayla: It's word salad. Chris: Not many people probably know that. Well, it's word salad, but it's like, just coherent enough, right? You know, it's like it rides that line right where you kind of want to go, like. And I think that maybe part of that is what drives the desire to like, oh, we have to interpret this.

48:27

Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: Cause if it was two word salady, you'd be like, ugh, I don't know.

48:30

Kayla: You put this poem in front of 16 year old Kayla in her AP literature class. I'd be like, oh, let's go. Let's do this. Oh, my God. In a station of the metro. Apparitions of these faces in a crowd. That's what I would do.

48:41

Chris: Oh, my God. You're a dork. Kayla: I wrote a ten page paper on that poem. Suck my dick.

48:46

Chris: Did you even. Was it like, even an assignment or did you.

48:48

Kayla: I just did it myself. Chris: Because you wanted to. That wouldn't surprise me.

48:52

Kayla: Man. That poem, two lines, one title. But I think it was written by anti semite, like everything else.

49:00

Chris: Back call back again. Kayla: Attempts, like you were saying, attempts to understand the cryptic comments from Q led a lot of followers to undertake what is considered research with quotes.

49:14

Chris: Kayla is air quoting with her fingers right now.

49:17

Kayla: The research we're talking about is the dedicated unraveling of the clues via deep dives into sources on WikiLeaks, YouTube, elsewhere on four chan political news, the president's own twitter, and more. And if the way I said sources, what didn't make it clear I'm using that term.

49:34

Chris: He was also air quoting that the.

49:37

Kayla: Vast majority of key research does not take place within mainstream media. Instead, followers flock to alternative media sources, which, you know, we could get into a whole conversation about mainstream media versus alternative media. We do that here, do it later.

49:51

Chris: I guess I'll get to that.

49:54

Kayla: But the reality is that alternative media sources often have little accountability and really don't have any motivation to necessarily even adhere to reality. Take that as you will.

50:05

Chris: That's not to say they're all bad. It's just that they're not set up that standard. Yeah.

50:10

Kayla: The research also involves analyzing the somewhat minute or somewhat meaningless things Donald Trump says and then installing a network of meaning onto it.

50:21

Chris: Right. Kayla: One of the common motifs among QAnon believers is that something called the storm is perpetually on the horizon.

50:28

Chris: So we're starting getting, like, the. This is the vocab now, because doing a little vocab, QAnon has its own, like many things we've talked about on this show before, part of the ritual is that QAnon has its own jargon. It has its own vocab. Research is actually a pretty big buzzword, as is the storm. But let me let you get to that.

50:48

Kayla: Well, this. The storm refers to an offhand comment Trump made on October 5, 2017, when he was taking a group photo with a number of generals. I'm actually gonna play the audio.

51:00

Chris: Do you guys know what this represents? Tell us, sir, maybe it's the calm.

51:04

Kayla: Before this could be the calm before the sun storm. We have the world's great military people in this room, I will tell you that. And we're going to have a great evening. Thank you all for coming. What storm, mister president? You'll find out. Give us a hint.

51:30

Chris: Thank you, everybody. Kayla: Thank you very much.

51:36

Chris: Oh, the you'll find out thing is, like, very sneaky. I see why that might trigger someone to be like, oh, there's something more there.

51:43

Kayla: But I also can see why it's just like, an offhand comment of, like, you'll see.

51:46

Chris: Yeah, well, especially Trump. Like, he tends to do that. Right. He tends to make a lot offhand comments that people sort of, like, key on and blow out of proportion. And that includes the left side of the aisle as well.

52:00

Kayla: Like Coveefye. Chris: Yeah, exactly.

52:02

Kayla: Do you remember how there were people. Chris: That were like, covifi?

52:05

Kayla: Cause Covifi was like, in 2017. Do you remember how there were people that were like, covi fee means something, right? I think humans were like, Covi fee means something.

52:13

Chris: Yeah, yeah, of course it doesn't. Kayla: It was a misspelling of coverage. That's what it was all it was, guys.

52:20

Chris: And. Yeah, and so that's. That's something that's, you know, he commonly does. And he just. He'll make some offhand comment and people take it more seriously than they should.

52:29

Kayla: That's. Yes.

52:33

Chris: So that took a long time to get out.

52:36

Kayla: The storm became an example of a code word Q followers believe Donald Trump is using to signal to them and to the world that there were secret happenings going on that supported the QAnon theories. So you've got this supposed high level governmental insider leaving clues to dissect. You've got the president supposedly sending secret messages, and you've got a bunch of people who still believe in the pizzagate conspiracy theory despite no evidence of a Democrat cabal. Except now you've got that high level governmental insider not only providing evidence of shady, secretive wrongdoings in the hands of Democrats, you've got a president signaling to you that you're right.

53:18

Kayla: And thus pizzagate becomes QAnon, a wider arching conspiracy theory that Donald Trump, the hero of the story on four chan, is working behind the scenes to take down insanely criminal Democrats who threaten the integrity of our nation and the fabric of our society.

53:34

Chris: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can see the leap there from Q saying, hey, Hillary Clinton's gonna be indicted to. Or was it indicted or extradited?

53:46

Kayla: Extradited and arrested. Chris: Okay, so I can see the connection from Q saying, Hillary Clinton is going to be extradited and arrested to saying, okay, well, what else is she up to? Oh, remember the pizzagate stuff?

53:59

Kayla: Right. Chris: And now this is from a credible source because he's got Q level clearance.

54:04

Kayla: Q that Q level clearance, babe. Chris: Credible is also in air quotes here.

54:07

Kayla: Credible. But how did an idea that flourished on a very non mainstream place, such as four chan, grow into a theory espoused by a wide swath of people, from baby boomers to zoomers at the time of this recording. According to a poll reported on by axios, a third of Americans consider themselves open to the QAnon theory that there's a third, that there is a cabal of elites who are doing child sex trafficking. Like that specific piece of it.

54:37

Chris: Oh, well, when you say it that way, like, that feels less crazy to me. Because of things like Jeffrey Epstein. Right. Because rich people frequently do both crazy and shitty things. It seems like. I know if that's, you know what I mean?

54:56

Kayla: That's the thing we always talk about. Chris: When you hear that question.

54:58

Kayla: It's not just the best woo that has a kernel of truth. It's the best conspiracy theories and the best. They have a kernel of truth. They are rooted on something in reality. And we will talk about this more in a future episode. But we have major problems with sex trafficking of children. Like, we do. I don't think there's a giant cabal, and there is no evidence that there's a giant cabal.

55:18

Chris: It's unlikely that they are drinking blood.

55:22

Kayla: Yeah, that's not happening. But Jeffrey Epstein is a real thing that happened.

55:24

Chris: Right. Kayla: That is a real thing that happened in our world. So anyway, how did Q and I, how did that go from four chan to, like, how did it make that leap from obscure to.

55:38

Chris: You said that happens in general, four chan. Right. Like, you listed a bunch of things where.

55:42

Kayla: Right. Chris: But there's something that was, like, niche on four chan all of a sudden, like, sprung into the.

55:46

Kayla: But you. There's, there's a how for all of that, like, the 2014 celebrity picture leak that the hinge for that was when it made the leap to Reddit.

55:57

Chris: Okay, somebody got it from Reddit. Kayla: Always making the leap. And the leap for this specifically was infowars. And I won't say that there was absolutely talk of this on Reddit. Like, this was definitely talked about on Reddit. But the thing that brought it from trolls on the Internet to baby boomers to people who are not trolling, people.

56:18

Chris: Who aren't on the bottom or the.

56:20

Kayla: Internet, it was infowars. It was the controversial alt right figure Alex Jones catching wind of theory, and it was going up on his YouTube show, and, like, it all kind of went downhill from there. Another recommendation here. I highly recommend the reply all episode from September country of Liars. And they take a beautiful deep dive into how this jump happened. They actually get into, like, who might behind Q itself. That's not really under the purview of this podcast. But charismatic leader Kayla, you don't have to unmask this charismatic leader, to know who the charismatic leader is. But if you want to learn more about the particular evolution of theory that took it from obscurity to mainstream.

57:05

Chris: And if you want a pretty compelling case of who they think the original.

57:08

Kayla: Poster is, check it out. Country of liars. Reply all. So that'll tell you about the evolution. And as the QAnon theory evolves, with more and more drops happening, with an eventual move from four chan to eight chan, somewhat sparked by the eventual Reddit ban on the topic, with influencers popping up on more mainstream social media, like YouTube, like Facebook and Twitter, the things that QAnon followers came to believe spiraled more and more out of control. These beliefs include things like, ooh, this.

57:40

Chris: Is my favorite part. This is, like, all the crazy stuff. Because the stuff before was totally normal.

57:47

Kayla: Yeah, this is the good. This is the good stuff. This is why we're all here. So these beliefs include things like the Clinton body count conspiracy theory, which asserts that Bill and Hillary Clinton have had at least 50 close associates of theirs assassinated over the years, generally in order to cover up their heinous wrongdoings, such as sexual harassment, assault, their connections to Jeffrey Epstein, their satanic ritual abuse, election fraud, general corruption, or as revenge for knowing too much or speaking out of turn, like leaking information to WikiLeaks.

58:20

Chris: And that's such B's. Cause they've only killed, like, 40 people.

58:22

Kayla: It's only 49. Yeah, sometimes these.

58:25

Chris: Well, to be fair, and also to be fair, the sexual assault stuff is real. A lot of the stuff you said is real. So I can see why people don't like them.

58:32

Kayla: Don't say, a lot of the stuff I said was real. Chris: Okay. Some of the things that you said. Yes, sexual assaults are among them.

58:39

Kayla: The end. Chris: They're true. And I can see why people have.

58:43

Kayla: Like, developed a dislike is what we always talk about. The best conspiracy theories have little kernel of truth, unlike this part of it, where sometimes the assassination theories include the hiring of MS 13 gang members to carry out the murders.

58:57

Chris: Okay, so they're in league with. And MS 13 is, like, the gang. The, like, is it South America?

59:04

Kayla: No, it's central american gang.

59:06

Chris: Central american gang. Okay. Kayla: Yeah. It's one of the Donald Trump boogeymen.

59:11

Chris: Right. Kayla: It's also like, yes, they're also.

59:13

Chris: They're a legitimate threat, but also a boogeyman. Right.

59:16

Kayla: Another belief is that german chancellor Angela Merkel is Adolf Hitler's granddaughter.

59:21

Mike Rothschild: Whoa. Kayla: She's not like, that was.

59:23

Chris: Oh, that's a good one. Kayla: Almost every mass shooting in the United States is a false flag orchestrated by the cabal.

59:31

Chris: Did we talk about false. We talked about false flag last episode.

59:33

Mike Rothschild: Right? Kayla: It's a fake thing that the government stages.

59:37

Chris: Right. So in this case, it would be, oh, look at this horrible shooting. Now we have justification to take your guns away.

59:44

Kayla: That's what we want to do. Philanthropist George Soros is part of the cabal and uses his wealth to fund resistance activities across the US, including antifa. He intends to utilize this unrest to help stage a coup against Trump. And when activists and protesters show up at events, they have been paid by George Soros to do so. I will take this moment to remind Mister George Soros, since I know that you're listening, I have not received a check yet.

1:00:06

Chris: Yeah, I know. Kayla: Any of my participation. Where the fuck is you've been to.

1:00:09

Chris: Like, since 2016, you've probably been to, like, ten protests. Yeah, I'm still waiting for my women's march check.

1:00:15

Kayla: Come on. Chris: Like, I'm a dude and I went to the women's march. Please give me a check, George.

1:00:20

Kayla: Oh, also, George Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor, one of the beliefs is that he is secretly a Nazi who turned in other jews to be murdered during the Holocaust.

1:00:29

Chris: Mmm. That is. That's a pretty nasty accusation.

1:00:33

Kayla: It's not good. The cabal has plans for population reduction as a means to control the people of the world. So medical treatment such as vaccines, or more recently, measures to stop the spread of COVID our hoax, is at best, to control our actions, and at worst, are actually designed to harm and kill us to keep the population down.

1:00:52

Chris: Yeah. Cause if you wear a mask, you can't breathe, and it causes.

1:00:56

Kayla: You're breathing in all your CO2. You're breathing in all of your bacteria that you're supposed to be breathing out.

1:01:01

Chris: That's right. Kayla: Yeah. Speaking of COVID the virus was.

1:01:04

Chris: What's my favorite thing to speak about? Kayla: I want to stop speaking of COVID.

1:01:07

Chris: Well, it's your fault. Kayla: Speaking of COVID the virus was intentionally created in the lab in China as a bio weapon. Oh. Also, the push to wear masks is actually so it makes it easier for child predators to evade detection because you can't, like, see what anyone's face looks like.

1:01:22

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And it makes it also. Chris: You can't. I don't know if you're about to say this. You can't tell, like, who the child is either.

1:01:28

Kayla: It makes it so that, like, oh, you can't tell who the kid is and they could also have their mouth taped shut under the mask and make it harder for them to.

1:01:35

Chris: I never thought about that. Kayla: Ask for help when they need it, when they're in danger. Or maybe the imposed mask use is to ease us into some sort of imposed islamic sharia law thing where we'll eventually be forced to wear modesty garments as seen in the Middle east.

1:01:49

Chris: Oh, I hadn't heard that one. Kayla: Yeah, I don't know. Chris: I mean, I definitely heard multiple arguments along the. Well, I don't know if I want to call them arguments. Multiple theories along the lines of the masks are to groom us for XYZ. Yeah, I hadn't heard grooming us for modesty garments. That's interesting.

1:02:07

Kayla: That's one I've heard, baby. Oh. Also, a bleach solution, known as miracle mineral solution, is a miracle cure for Covid when consumed.

1:02:16

Chris: Mmm. The whole, like, consuming bleach as a health benefit thing deserves its own episode.

1:02:23

Kayla: Don't drink bleach. Don't drink turpentine, don't drink poison as a means to cure any ailments.

1:02:29

Chris: Although it's kind of self selecting, because it's like, if you're the type of person that thinks that you should be bleaching, you know what? Go ahead.

1:02:34

Kayla: People have their kids do it. Chris: Oh, that's not. Kayla: Their children do not deserve that.

1:02:38

Chris: Do not make your kids drink bleach. Do nothing. Make your kids drink bleach.

1:02:44

Kayla: You ever think you'd be saying that sentence? Nope. The Mueller investigation was actually not an investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia, but instead was a counter coup orchestrated by Trump, who pretended to collude with Russia so he could get Mueller to investigate democrats.

1:03:03

Chris: Oh, that's right. I forgot that Mueller was supposed to be, like, on Trump's side. He was on Trump's side to root out the cabal. Right.

1:03:11

Kayla: The storm is some massive, globe shifting political event that will happen at some point. The dates keep. The dates keep changing. One belief is that the storm will coincide with the widespread high level arrests of Cabal members, leading to their trials and executions. After the storm will be a period of great awakening in which everyone will open their eyes to the corruption and moral decay that's been happening around them and come around to the truth that is q.

1:03:33

Chris: And they'll be like, isn't it, like, sort of utopian at that point? A little bit.

1:03:37

Kayla: We're all going to be sitting pretty. Chris: Utopia is good.

1:03:41

Kayla: I wouldn't be a utopia. Another belief is that child trafficking is a way bigger problem than the mainstream media will ever report on. Potentially millions of children are trafficked for the satanic ritual sex abuse at the hands of the cabal. And most missing children are actually those victims. Big corporations sometimes help procure child victims for the cabal. The Wayfair incident is an example of this in which. Do you remember this? Yes, but Wayfair accidentally listed a number of relatively cheap items for thousands of dollars on their website. So it'd be like a $25 throw pillow. Accidentally got listed for, like, $10,000. And q and honor like, that led Q and honors to speculate that this was a way for people who, like, wanted to buy children.

1:04:25

Chris: The children purchasing and, like.

1:04:27

Kayla: And all of the products had these weird names that they were like, these are the names of the missing children.

1:04:32

Chris: Oh, jeez. So if I buy a lac, is that, like, is there a kid in Sweden named Lac?

1:04:38

Kayla: If it was a $10,000.01, potentially.

1:04:40

Chris: No. I mean, I think it was, like, $10.

1:04:43

Kayla: But also, traffic. Children are held by the cabal in underground tunnels.

1:04:49

Chris: Oh, I've heard that before on the podcast. It's really good.

1:04:53

Kayla: At various sites, including under the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, with an extensive tunnel system allowing delivery of victims straight to the cabal's doors. High ranking.

1:05:03

Chris: You know, I have never seen children in the tunnels under the Getty. I've only seen lizard people down there.

1:05:09

Kayla: Yeah, well, it's because they eat the children. Chris: Okay.

1:05:11

Kayla: And deliver them to Brad Pitt. Okay, sorry, Brad Pitt. High ranking dems, donors and celebrities aren't just sexually abusing and murdering children. They are also gruesomely torturing these children as both a form of ritual sacrifice as well as for personal entertainment. Oh, and also because the cabal is addicted to something called adrenochrome, a chemical qanoners believe is excreted into the blood when someone is experiencing fear, terror, stress, and death. So the cabal tortures babies to produce the adrenochrome and then consumes the blood to receive the effects.

1:05:43

Chris: So they, like, extract. They extract the blood or the adrenochrome.

1:05:47

Kayla: The adrenochrome goes into the blood, and then you eat the blood.

1:05:50

Chris: Okay, so. So the cabal is extracting the adrenochrome laced blood of children, and then what's. Why?

1:05:59

Kayla: It's a drug that they're addicted to.

1:06:02

Chris: Does it like. Isn't it? I thought it was like a life extension thing.

1:06:05

Kayla: I have no idea. Chris: I thought it gave powers or something.

1:06:08

Kayla: I don't know. Chris: I'm pretty sure it's a life extension thing. I'll take a look.

1:06:12

Kayla: But even if it is a life extension thing, it's also, like, something that makes you look horrible and gross, because anytime there's, like, a celebrity that has, like, there's, like, at one time, they were the pinnacle of health, and then they have some sort of, like, drug addiction or health setback, and they look thin or frail or old. The q and honors are like, look, this is what adrenochrome addiction does to you. Or, like, if there's, like, someone has a bloody eye or if somebody, like, hurts their leg, anytime. Like, adrenochrome addiction or withdrawal accounts for, like, any physical symptoms or illness that are ever present in a high profile person.

1:06:45

Chris: And by the way, we're stating this from the perspective of qanoners, adrenochrome isn't real.

1:06:50

Kayla: Well, it is a real thing. It's a real. Adrenochrome is a real chemical compound, but there is no evidence of widespread usage of it as a drug amongst elites. And the general consensus is that this rumor of adrenochrome being something that you harvest out of the adrenal glands of a person started in Hunter S. Thompson's fear and loathing in Las Vegas, which is, like, all about drugs and drug abuse.

1:07:15

Chris: But, like, so what's real adrenochrome is just something that my adrenal glands produce.

1:07:19

Kayla: I have no idea. I don't know. I, like, looked it up. I don't know if it's something that's produced biologically. I don't know if it's something that's produced in a lab, but it is an actual chemical compound.

1:07:28

Chris: Oh, I did not know that. That extends your life.

1:07:30

Kayla: It extends your life and makes you look weird and is only accessible from the tortured glands of babies.

1:07:36

Chris: Okay. Kayla: And, you know, I will say that, like, I did obviously, cherry pick some of the more extreme beliefs in the QAnon conspiracy theory.

1:07:44

Chris: Did you? You haven't even gotten to some of the, like, really great. Like.

1:07:48

Kayla: Like what? Cause this is my list. Chris: The thing is about QAnon is that it picks up everything you were just talking about. Cabal stuff. You didn't mention that. Like, there's, like, flat earth comes into it.

1:08:00

Kayla: Flat Earth doesn't always into it, though. That's the thing, is that, like, it can be a catch all, but I would not consider flat Earth to be a tenet of QAnon.

1:08:11

Chris: Yeah, I guess that's a good point. It's kind of, like, a giant octopus. There's the core, and then there's all these tentacles. The core is basically what you said. And then there's the flat earth tentacles and the anti vax tentacles.

1:08:24

Kayla: And that core is just kind of like the tip of the iceberg, because these theories go down rabbit holes that have their own rabbit holes, and, like, everything in the world can be reframed to, like, the QAnon framework. It's because Q has dropped hundreds and hundreds, I guess. Not hundreds. He's dropped hundreds of breadcrumbs, and there's, like, thousands of followers unraveling each one of those, like, breadcrumbs into more and more theories. And now there's, like, influencers off doing their own, like, off Q research. Then, like, they unravel those threads even more. So, like you said, I've seen Q followers connect theory to reptilian aliens, hollow Earth puppet leaders installed by the CIA, illuminati. More. Yeah, all of it.

1:09:10

Chris: Basically, anything that you can go watch on Gaia tv.

1:09:13

Kayla: Yes. It all will connect back to Q. And for what it's worth, an outsider can't really debate or debunk these claims. Like, first of all, if you tried to debunk every claim made by somebody in the QAnon community, like, you'd die of old age before you could get to it all. And then, second, QAnon does have this beautifully closed, logical loop in which everything that goes against it is further proof of its veracity. So, like, every mainstream source, news source is corrupt and hiding something. Everything can be explained or re explained. Q's claims are so cryptic and open to interpretation that even when he makes a prediction that turns out to be false, for example, like, the storm was originally going to be something that happened on November 3, 2017, and nothing of political note actually happened on that day.

1:10:05

Kayla: But when that turns out to be false, it just means that either the interpretation, not the prediction, the interpretation was incorrect, or the prediction did happen. It just played out behind the scenes.

1:10:16

Chris: There's another couple ways that they deal with that we get into in upcoming episodes. The actual mechanics of how they deal with the fact that Q is frequently, almost always incorrect.

1:10:30

Kayla: Well, I'm excited to get to that. Chris: Yeah, you better because those are my episodes. You better be excited.

1:10:35

Kayla: I'm so aggressive. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Well, anyway, back to my episodes. And that's what we're doing right now.

1:10:41

Chris: I want to talk about my stuff. Kayla: Now. We're talking about my stuff. We're talking about how. Because this is the thing that I think is this is what really gets me, is the things happen. They just happened behind the scenes. And then, like, looking for all of the, like, little things that, like. Okay, I'm saying, like, a lot, everybody, I apologize, but that's what happens.

1:11:01

Chris: Just edit it out. Kayla: I'm not gonna. So, there are claims from within the QAnon community that widespread arrests and executions have actually happened, but are being hidden from we, the people so that there isn't mass unrest. So those that have been arrested are serving house arrest. Their ankle monitors are sometimes hidden by walking casts. See Hillary Clinton's broken toe in 2017. Those that have been killed now only appear in public via body doubles, and eventually they will die of natural causes. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A lot of Q and honors thought she was dead way before she actually passed.

1:11:39

Chris: I see. Kayla: There's always an explanation for why theory is right. I. Always an explanation right. And I am excited to hear more about it in an upcoming episode from.

1:11:49

Chris: You of cult or just weird.

1:11:52

Kayla: Before we move on, I just want to flag a couple things. Do we maybe see some connection to nocturnal racial fantasy in any of these claims? The fear of a shadowy group conspiring to overthrow the government. The fear that the group is sacrificing and eating children in satanic rituals. The antisemitism. The fucking underground tunnels. Why are we so obsessed with underground tunnels?

1:12:20

Chris: Did we talk about this already, or did I? Cause I'm losing track with all the interviews we're doing.

1:12:24

Kayla: I don't know. Chris: Did you talk about why it's in underground tunnels? I think we talked about it last episode. You were telling me we talked about.

1:12:30

Kayla: The underground tunnels at the. Chris: It's because where, like, that way you can just say this stuff is happening and you don't actually have to, like, physically see it.

1:12:37

Kayla: I mean, that makes sense. Chris: Didn't you say that?

1:12:40

Kayla: I don't know. We talked about the tunnels under. The theoretical tunnels under comet ping pong in pizzagate and the tunnels under the daycare center. Yeah, yeah. And now there's tunnels in QAnon as well. The only real thing that I think is different here in QAnon than I've seen in other nocturnal ritual fantasy is that QAnon kind of has some built in hope. Like, there's someone who is dedicated to saving us from this cabal, and it's Donald Trump. And, like, as weird as that might sound to some of us, I think that probably makes QAnon or those conspiracy theories more attractive than other theories.

1:13:26

Chris: Absolutely. Kayla: Cause it's, like, somewhat this world doesn't make any fucking sense. And if you think this stuff, it makes even less fucking sense of. But someone is coming to save us. Someone is doing the work.

1:13:35

Chris: Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Kayla: Like, and I just think that. That.

1:13:38

Chris: Not only that, but you can participate in it.

1:13:41

Kayla: Right, right. Chris: You get to participate in the, you know, the storm or whatever it is that will bring about this. This better, more golden age.

1:13:49

Kayla: Right. Chris: By being a Q and honor yourself.

1:13:52

Kayla: Right, right. Yeah. I think it's like the sheer complexity sets it apart from other nocturnal, original fantasies. The participatory, like, the being able to participate in the salvation is different. And, like, the clear savior, to pin all your hopes onto it almost makes it feel more.

1:14:07

Chris: It's also very online compared to. Obviously. I mean, obviously they didn't have the Internet back in, but.

1:14:11

Kayla: No, like, it's not. It's not more online compared to Pizzagate.

1:14:15

Chris: That's true. That's true. Pizzagate didn't have the savior bit.

1:14:20

Kayla: Right. Chris: It just had the negative part. Kayla: It's interesting. It almost makes it more religious in a way.

1:14:26

Chris: Yeah. Because there's a savior coming to. I mean, it totally is. Like, the. The Armageddon, then. Golden age is a very common religious theme. Like, that's the whole, like, rapture thing that Christianity has.

1:14:38

Kayla: Last book in the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series. That's literally what happens.

1:14:42

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Oh, man. Chris: But it's not just Christianity. I mean, lots of religions have that trope.

1:14:48

Kayla: Yeah, I guess that's true. Interesting. So, okay, so we've got this clear savior you pour all your hopes onto, and then that hope ballooned and ballooned as theory itself ballooned, and, like, theory starts creeping out of the shadows of the Internet and fringes of society onto a global stage. We've already told our listeners that I started following QAnon pretty early on. Like, I was fascinated by the developing community, and when it was still nascent, I think I expressed a my fears about it to you, to Chris.

1:15:19

Chris: Well, yeah, I think it was pretty clear that it was like, oh, but your fear wasn't just that it was scary, but that it had the potential to grow.

1:15:27

Kayla: Yeah. I was like, this has the potential to become something big and violent in my eyes. And I guess I didn't know it at the time, but, like, learning about nocturnal ritual fantasy, like, kind of supported that initial fear because historically, violence often follows the accusations of widespread child sex abuse and sacrifice. So it scared me to see this theory become more and more well known, to the point that, like, just this year, Donald Trump was being asked directly about it in town halls, and hopeful congressional candidates in the 2020 election vocally embraced theory as part of their platform. I read today that at least 44 candidates in the 2020 election, some congressional, some for the state legislature, and some mayoral, had espoused QAnon beliefs.

1:16:13

Chris: Wow, that's not good.

1:16:16

Kayla: With 24 believers running for Congress alone. Again, this is an ideology that believes Democrats are part of a satanic child sex trafficking and sacrificing cabal that must be rooted out by supporting the hero Donald Trump. It is not an ideology I personally feel is suited for our Congress, and that's why I was afraid to do this topic in the first place. The more legitimacy theory gains in the form of established leadership, the more empowered the followers are to commit. The potential violence we now know follows nocturnal racial fantasy.

1:16:47

Chris: Right. But as we said in our first episode, it's now that it's kind of the cat is out of the bag. We're not going to be responsible for expanding the influence of QAnon.

1:17:01

Kayla: I hope not, hopefully. Chris: And also, I think that even if we did this topic back in 2017 when you were first following them, I think that we would have still been able to do a good enough job contextualizing and editorializing.

1:17:17

Kayla: Right. Chris: That it wouldn't have been a negative influence.

1:17:22

Kayla: I hope so. Chris: Also, weren't doing our podcast in 2017, so that would have been weird.

1:17:28

Kayla: That would have been very weird. Chris: Also, there's time travel theories in QAnon, so maybe that's true. Maybe should have just gone to a.

1:17:35

Kayla: Jump off point and gone to Mars, come back. Chris: Right?

1:17:37

Kayla: Great. Chris: What's the one you said wasn't there? I'm sorry that I'm, like, tangenting, but wasn't there the guy that thought that, like, Obama had a time travel device?

1:17:47

Kayla: Obama got recruited back when he was in college by the CIA to be part of this, like, experiment where he, like, got to. He got to be transported to Mars. And I think it was like, it was tight. He knew something was going to happen, so he had to, like. It was kind of like Jesus y almost in that, like, he had to become president. I don't know, but.

1:18:11

Chris: But he went to Mars. That's pretty cool. Kayla: He went to Mars and came back, and then he became president. So as we record this podcast, the 2020 election has come and gone. Some results are still being tallied, and the reaction from the QAnon community is still very up in the air. Obviously, there are reactions happening, but, like, I don't know if there's anything distillable yet, but it turns out only about two of those congressional candidates succeeded in their quest and will be heading to the House, which I think is too. Too many, in my personal opinion. But.

1:18:42

Chris: Yep. Kayla: But, you know, it signals that, like, while QAnon is fully mainstream, it is yet to become some sort of majority.

1:18:51

Chris: Yeah. I mean, I hope that it doesn't become a majority, especially now that the savior figure has lost the presidency. Hopefully, that curbs some of that.

1:19:03

Kayla: So the two candidates were Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it. And then the other one was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Do you know?

1:19:13

Chris: And she's from Georgia. Kayla: She's Georgia. Chris: Yeah.

1:19:15

Kayla: She's already getting into it on twitter with Matt Gaetz.

1:19:18

Chris: Yeah. Oh, and Dan Crenshaw.

1:19:21

Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: Yeah. Dan Crenshaw. Kayla: Maybe it wasn't Matt Gates. Maybe it was.

1:19:24

Chris: Smacked her down a little bit. Kayla: Maybe I'm mixing them up.

1:19:26

Chris: Yeah. So there's definitely some back and forth between traditional Republicans and these Q nine folks.

1:19:35

Kayla: Kind of also kind of not. But that's its own thing.

1:19:39

Chris: It's complex. Kayla: Let's talk about some of the reasons why it might be that QAnon, while in the mainstream, is not yet a.

1:19:47

Chris: Majority, because it's fucking nuts.

1:19:50

Kayla: The next part I'm gonna say is gonna sound counterintuitive because I'm gonna talk about the racism embedded in QAnon, which is part of the majority. But just follow me on this journey, and I. The racism is not one of the reasons why, but what the racism led to is one of the reasons why, I think.

1:20:08

Chris: Okay. Kayla: So, for one thing, QAnon often suffers from extreme racism embedding itself in its already extreme beliefs. I can't tell you exactly why this is, but there are probably several reasons for it. First, the original Q community exists on four chan and eight chan. And as we mentioned, these sites are home to a particularly. A particular brand of edgy humor, vernacular behavior.

1:20:31

Chris: Cesspit. Kayla: Yeah. Edgy means, like, as opposite of politically correct and kind as you can hope to get. Some of the memes you see coming out of four chan. And again, the anonymity helps with this. Are just as racist as possible.

1:20:46

Chris: Like, specifically, they try to maximize their. And it's. And it's to try to trigger you. Right. Like, a lot of the. Or at least allegedly, it's.

1:20:53

Kayla: Right. Chris: It's to try to push that boundary and make somebody looking at it as upset as possible. And that serves multiple functions. Both the you know, triggering whoever the normies are that they want to trigger, but also scaring them away from their community.

1:21:07

Kayla: It's also hack because it's like, it's not, you're not breaking any new ground by being a hardcore racist.

1:21:14

Chris: Yeah, no, it's very. Yeah.

1:21:17

Kayla: And tale is old as time. Yeah. Come on. The racism often targets black people, middle eastern and muslim people, jewish people. To be clear and fair. No one gets a pass on these chans, but, like, these tend to be the most common targets that I've seen. Antisemitism is also baked into the QAnon theories from the get go, partly because antisemitism is just baked into so many conspiracy theories to begin with. Like, we spent an entire episode talking about the anti semitic conard of blood libel. But what about accusing George Soros of being a nazi and funding protests? What about putting a Star of David over Hillary Clinton, exposing her corruption, accusing Democrats of participating in the same baby eating rituals Jews have been accused of for the last 900 years? Anti semitic beliefs often go hand in hand with racist beliefs.

1:22:06

Kayla: And one reason why is that many anti semitic conspiracy theories believe that jewish people pull the strings of racial tension specifically to pit black and white people against each other as a distraction from their secret jewish control.

1:22:19

Chris: Right. Kayla: Which is just like, that's a whole other episode.

1:22:25

Chris: We only have so much time here. Guys were already making four or five episodes here.

1:22:31

Kayla: Its so much work to be this racist like, but its a hobby, Caleb.

1:22:37

Chris: Its so much work, its, you know, its doesnt feel like work.

1:22:41

Kayla: Q and honors also, generally, as we have said time and time again, view Donald Trump as a hero. And Donald Trump himself has often espoused sentiments, made statements, or behaved in ways that are racist. So we have his call for and then the executive order for a ban on muslim people entering the United States. We had him referring to Mexicans.

1:23:02

Chris: Is it a ban on muslim people entering the United States? Or is it bans on travel from.

1:23:06

Kayla: He did call specifically for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the country. And then, as we already mentioned, he banned travel from seven muslim majority countries.

1:23:16

Chris: Right. Kayla: He referred to mexican immigrants and refugees as rapists and murderers. There was the Obama birther conspiracy theory he almost single handedly spearheaded. And it's not just the racism during his campaign or tenure, it's something he has that's kind of been following him or he's participated in his entire life. So in 1973, the Justice Department brought a lawsuit against the Trump management company when it was alleged that employees were told to turn away black lease applicants by stating that there were no apartments. In 1989, Donald Trump took out full page ads in major New York newspapers to call for the execution of five black and latino boys who were wrongfully accused of raping a woman in Central park. Years later, even up until 2016, after the exoneration of the Central park five, Donald Trump continued to lay the blame at their feet.

1:24:05

Kayla: And these are just some examples, but when your leader embraces beliefs like this, it makes sense that the movement then would, too.

1:24:12

Chris: Right? Kayla: Along with racism, QAnon also has a checkered history of real world violence, much like its predecessor, pizzagate, and everything else that comes with nocturnal ritual fantasy. Here is just a quick list of confirmed QAnon related violent events. June 15, 2018, an Arizona man blocked a bridge at the Hoover Dam with a heavily armored vehicle while being armed himself. He was upset that the mass arrests that he'd been promised had not yet been made, so he took two rifles, two handguns, and 900 rounds of ammo to the location and barricaded himself there while preaching QAnon gospel. He was arrested and later pled guilty to a terrorism charge, and he then wrote letters to Trump from jail that referenced QAnon. December 19, 2018, a man from California was arrested after he planned to blow up a satanic Temple monument in Springfield, Illinois.

1:25:03

Kayla: He was found with bomb making materials in his car, and the FBI described him as wanting to, quote, make Americans aware of pizzagate in the new world order. March 13, 2019, a Staten island man murdered Francesco Cali, a Gambino crime family boss, believing Callie to be a member of the deep state, which I'm just like, yeah. Wait, he killed a crime boss? Is that good or bad?

1:25:26

Chris: And also, like, ballsy.

1:25:28

Kayla: Yeah. He believed he was under protection by President Trump himself, hence the ballsy. And mere weeks before the incident, the same man had tried to make a citizen's arrest of Mayor de Blasio, as well as MACD, Maxine Waters, and Adam Schiff. I think he was later found unfit to stand trial. Obvious reasons.

1:25:48

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: September 25, 2019, a QAnon supporter vandalized a catholic church in Sedona by smashing up the exterior while shouting QAnon hashtags and beliefs. From December 30, 2019 to October 1, 2020, at least three different child kidnapping arrests were made of QAnon believers. It's like, people, QAnon believers that were, like, kidnapping kids, thinking they were saving them, I think, oh, God, something like that. On April 2, 2020. Wait, did this happen? This? Yeah. Oh, God, this feels like ages ago. April 2, 2020. This year, Eduardo Moreno admitted to intentionally derailing a freight train in Los Angeles near the Navy hospital ship mercy. He did not believe the ship was there to help people and was part of, quote, suspicious activities involving coronavirus. He also wanted to, quote, wake people up, a phrase often used by Q followers.

1:26:36

Chris: I forgot about that. Kayla: I did, too. And I was like, there's no way.

1:26:39

Chris: That was centuries ago. Kayla: Yeah. But then, of course, it was April 2, 2020, because that's why the hospital ship mercy was here.

1:26:46

Chris: Right? Right. Kayla: And there are at least five more documented cases of violence or attempted violence at the hands of Q followers. So the result of extreme racism and violent tendencies is that more and more people have started to view QAnon as an ideology that is dangerous and something that requires some sort of regulation, especially on privately owned platforms such as Reddit and Facebook.

1:27:09

Chris: And there recently, of course, I say recently, and it's like, I don't know, was it a month ago? Was it a week ago? But it was definitely this year. There was a resolution in Congress that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. I think there were only two people that didn't vote for it, but basically it was a resolution to condemn QAnon.

1:27:29

Kayla: Right. I forgot about that. Chris: Yeah. And then it's also designated as a domestic terrorist organization by the FBI.

1:27:36

Kayla: So it's like, I think that some of these things, some of these, like, intense beliefs and controversial, to say the least. Beliefs, probably while it brings it more into the mainstream, it probably is also a bit of a deterrent in people joining. Like, if it's labeled a terrorist group.

1:27:54

Chris: Right. Kayla: Maybe some people might think twice before joining in. I don't know. Yeah, I hope so.

1:27:59

Chris: And I would say that, like, actually, the racism is probably a mixed bag, too. Like, I think it definitely appeals to some sector of people, but it might also turn off another sector of people that might be willing to. Somebody that's like, you know, I was into flat earth. What's this QAnon thing? Oh, no, thanks. That's like flat earth plus racism.

1:28:16

Kayla: Right. Chris: So that's. That's probably a little bit of a mixed bag for people.

1:28:19

Kayla: Right? It's going back to talking about social media and its place on social media, privately owned platforms again. Back in 2018, Reddit saw the writing on the wall after Pizzagate and eventually banned all subreddits dedicated to the topics of QAnon and pizzagate. And they would even go after, like, successor subreddits that espoused the similar ideologies, even if they didn't use those exact words. At some point in the last three years, q, him herself, themselves, whoever is doing the post, whoever is. The queue eventually moved off of four chan, migrating over to eight chan, you know, the lesser known but more extreme site.

1:28:59

Chris: So, Hans, we started with two chan in Japan.

1:29:02

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: And then we multiplied that by two to get to four chan. And now why is it powers of two? Can you please explain that?

1:29:08

Kayla: I cannot. Why? Chris: So are they gonna do a 16 chan?

1:29:12

Kayla: Maybe. There probably already is. Chris: I don't. I don't like that. I don't like that. Powers of two are cool.

1:29:17

Kayla: Go tell eight chan, then. Chris: They're totally ruining powers of two.

1:29:20

Kayla: Sorry. To get more, to get more details on why Q moved off of four chan and over to eight chan, again, recommend the reply all episode on Q and on country of Liars. They do a good job on this. It's also possible that there were worries of the topic getting banned, like with Gamergate on four chan, but, you know, again, go listen to reply all. What we know, however, is that Q has had a somewhat consistent identity on these boards due to the specially issued trip codes we mentioned earlier.

1:29:50

Chris: Okay, so that's how people sort of the signature thing.

1:29:53

Kayla: That's how people were able to, like, follow Q around.

1:29:55

Chris: Okay. Kayla: But Qanon didn't really need Reddit or four chan. It grew in popularity on other sites, particularly the big social media sites like Facebook, where there were tons of Facebook groups as well as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram. And we're talking Facebook groups with thousands and thousands of members.

1:30:13

Chris: How do you know these details about the Facebook groups, Kayla?

1:30:15

Kayla: We'll get to it. There were YouTube channels with thousands of subscribers, Twitter and Instagram accounts with thousands of followers. The Reddit ban didn't really stop Q from digging in and getting more famous, even in spite of its violent rhetoric and racism. And you can even make the argument that the bigger social media companies refusal to combat the violent QAnon speech on their platforms led it to becoming more accepted in the mainstream and, like, validating it as legitimate and leading to its place in the 2020 election.

1:30:46

Chris: It certainly doesn't hurt its growth by giving it a place to grow on Facebook and Twitter, the biggest places.

1:30:53

Kayla: And, yeah, as my co host has hinted at, yeah, I was a part of a bunch of those Facebook groups.

1:30:59

Chris: Yeah, because you were a believer. Kayla: No, it was just interesting. I think I did post it there one time.

1:31:04

Chris: Oh, yeah. Didn't you post, like, something about Covi Phi just to, like, see if you.

1:31:08

Kayla: Could get a. Oh, I think I did.

1:31:11

Chris: Just so you could see if you reply.

1:31:13

Kayla: No, I think. I think. Chris: What was it? I don't even remember.

1:31:16

Kayla: I think you had to. Your post had to be, like, in this particular group, your post had to be accepted by a moderator.

1:31:24

Chris: I think I can't control the trolls. Kayla: Bummer. But, like, other people posted crazier stuff than what I posted, and my post did not make it.

1:31:31

Chris: And so that's why you finally decided that we needed to do this episode, so you could get back at those mods?

1:31:37

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: You hear that? Mods. So those are gone now, though, right?

1:31:41

Kayla: Spoilers. Chris: Oh, sorry. Spoilers. This happened, like, a few weeks ago.

1:31:45

Kayla: No, we're okay. Hold that thought. I want to go on a side note from something really interesting that I noticed when following these QAnon groups on Facebook. The two that I frequented the most were. I'll call it Q anon. So it was Q anon.

1:32:00

Chris: Okay. Kayla: And then the other one was QAnon follow the white rabbit.

1:32:04

Chris: I'm gonna say right off the bat, I really don't like the hyphenated one because I don't like hyphens.

1:32:10

Kayla: You might like it a little more after this. Each group had thousands of followers, but QAnon follow the white rabbit was the bigger group. When the two groups first started, they generally followed the Q drops and like, the quote, unquote mainstream Q theology, like.

1:32:24

Chris: Pretty much to the letter mainstream Q.

1:32:27

Kayla: But as theory became more and more complex and as Donald Trump's presidency dragged on and on with little to no evidence of a storm of arrests or the rooting out of the cabal, I noticed something of a schism occur.

1:32:40

Chris: Oh, schism. Kayla: You love a good schism.

1:32:43

Chris: Yeah. Schism's how you know you're for real. So they're definitely a religion.

1:32:46

Kayla: Then at one point, Q Dashin on, which was created by a man named Stephen D. Kelly, and I think he might have been the only moderator. I don't know. He was definitely, like, the leader of this group. At some point, he turned on Donald Trump himself and implicated Trump as one of the pedophiles within the Cabal.

1:33:05

Chris: Whoa, wait, so then who's the savior figure for him?

1:33:09

Kayla: Stephen de Kelly. Chris: Oh, he was the.

1:33:12

Kayla: He was the one. He's the one who knows. He's like, I know it all.

1:33:15

Chris: So he was like, Trump is one of the bad guys, actually.

1:33:19

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: And the thing you're not with, the thing that he was supposed to do, he was supposed to defeat the cabal.

1:33:24

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Just kidding. I'm gonna defeat the cabal.

1:33:26

Kayla: It was less. I. Less explicitly. I'm gonna defeat the Cabal and more. We need to defeat the cabal, and you need to.

1:33:32

Chris: So, wait, so this group didn't have a, like, a savior to.

1:33:37

Kayla: Well, it was that thing of, like, Stephen de Kelly was being like, you're either with me, or if you had anything against Stephen de Kelly, you would get blocked. But it was about us. Like, you need to be with me fighting this. It was also Stephen decely being like.

1:33:52

Chris: The reason I'm asking that is because were just talking about how part of the appeal of QAnon could be that there's this savior figure that's going to make everything okay. And to me, Stephen Kelly was a savior, okay. Because he would have.

1:34:07

Kayla: He would have weekly healing threads.

1:34:10

Chris: Okay. Kayla: Where if you needed healing, you would, like, type your name into the thread, and he would, like, send you energy healing.

1:34:16

Chris: Oh, did you do that? Kayla: No. This man scares me. This man scares me a lot.

1:34:22

Chris: Yeah, he sounds like a bit of a. Kayla: He still has his YouTube. He still has his YouTube.

1:34:26

Chris: Oh. Kayla: Because it's not explicitly QAnon. Like it is, but it's also not. It's called, like, scat cat radio or something. I don't know, something like that. I forget.

1:34:35

Chris: Scat dash cat. Kayla: Yeah, but he also, like. Oh, he said that he was, like, a former. I don't know if it was former CIA or NASA or. He was a former one of those.

1:34:46

Chris: Yeah, he's a former intel agent. I remember you talking about that. Kayla: Yeah. Like, he knows about remote viewing and, like, jump off points and, like, wasn't.

1:34:53

Chris: He the one with the Obama got transported to Mars theory? Wasn't that.

1:34:56

Kayla: I don't know if that's him, but he definitely subscribed to that theory. I don't know if he came up with that.

1:35:00

Chris: Okay. Okay. Kayla: But, like, his schism was a schism.

1:35:04

Chris: Yeah, that's a pretty heavy schism. Kayla: And, like, I want to say it, like, schismed off around the time that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and then killed, slash died, because, you know, he dead now. Epstein was close. The number of high profile people that did include the Clintons, but it also included Donald Trump. So it's kind of like, it makes sense if you're like, I'm anti pedophile sex trafficking rings.

1:35:30

Chris: Right. Kayla: Like, that requires a lot of mental gymnastics, even in a group like this, because it's like, there's a video evidence of Donald Trump hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein and, like, pointing at women.

1:35:44

Chris: Right. So my assumption is that it was like, he was doing that to defeat him.

1:35:49

Kayla: I'm just saying mentally, right. Chris: I get how there would be a guy that would say, oh, look, actually, he's part of the problem. And therefore.

1:35:58

Kayla: But instead of, like, going, he's part of the problem, maybe I should reevaluate. It's. He's part of the problem. I am.

1:36:04

Chris: I am God leader. Kayla: I am the leader now. Chris: Yeah, yeah.

1:36:08

Kayla: Follow the white rabbit. The other QAnon group, like, they rejected this. They doubled down on Trump as savior. But Q Nan became more and more about the teachings and predictions of Stephen Kelly.

1:36:18

Chris: It's really interesting, but was it. Was it fairly small, like, compared to the larger Q movement?

1:36:23

Kayla: Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was small. Like, okay, probably single digit thousands.

1:36:27

Chris: Okay. Because now it's, like, millions across the globe, so, yeah, okay.

1:36:32

Kayla: But I don't know. I'd have to go check out his YouTube now. I don't know how much he has.

1:36:36

Chris: Yeah, maybe he's grown proportionally with the rest of it.

1:36:38

Kayla: Was, like, really fascinating to watch this play out in real time and, like, to see these two groups butt heads with each other and, like, watch this central Trump figure be part of the cabal and, like, not the leader, and he needs to be taken down now. And, like, watch Q dashing on, morph into this, like, mini sub cult of Stephen Kelly followers. He's also. Stephen Kelly is the one who's, like, really hung up on the idea that there are thousands and thousands of children under the Getty. And, like, when you just storm the Getty, he's very obsessed with the Getty.

1:37:09

Chris: Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, have you seen the Getty?

1:37:13

Kayla: It's a little evil looking. Chris: Yeah, it's an evil super villain lair.

1:37:16

Kayla: I love the Getty. Chris: It's wonderful.

1:37:19

Kayla: I apologize to be discussing this in somewhat vague terms and without specifics, but that's only because, again, as my co host mentioned, in the middle of this year, major social media platforms, particularly Facebook, actually began to shut down QAnon related groups and content. The QAnon community was largely purged from Facebook and YouTube. So all of those groups I was in are no longer accessible, the content since deleted, and just my memories to guide us on Twitter, you'll find that hashtags previously attributed to QAnon beliefs now no longer yield any results.

1:37:50

Chris: Oh, really? Like what? Like wiggy. Wha.

1:37:53

Kayla: We don't know what that is yet. Chris: Oh, sorry.

1:37:55

Kayla: That's for next episode. Chris: I'll talk about wiggy. Wha.

1:37:58

Kayla: Yeah, I'm not gonna say any specific hashtags. No spoilers on this podcast. But anyway, just know that if you try to click on some of them, it's like nothing shows up, even though definitely thousands of tweets have been made using that hashtag. And it's all probably too little, too late in terms of, like, quelling the rise of the conspiracy theory. Like, the genie's out of the bottle, but I guess it's a start. Or it's something. I don't know.

1:38:21

Chris: I mean, it's better than nothing.

1:38:23

Kayla: It's better than nothing. Chris: And being that those platforms are the largest, it's good that they're doing that, right?

1:38:31

Kayla: Yeah. I appreciate taking action and also probably could have taken action earlier.

1:38:36

Chris: Yeah. And by could, we mean should.

1:38:40

Kayla: Since I only have my memory to go off of to explain this part of the story, and since I'm no expert, I figured it was probably a good idea to bring in an actual expert to talk to us a little bit about these QAnon developments. And QAnon as a whole.

1:38:53

Chris: I love that. Kayla: Don't act like you don't know what we're talking about.

1:38:56

Chris: I'm. What a surprise.

1:38:58

Kayla: Chris and I sat down with conspiracy theory expert and QAnon researcher Mike Rothschild to dig a little deeper into the story, and I think we can go ahead and listen to that interview now.

1:39:09

Chris: By the way, what? Mike Rothschild was also on that reply all episode that we keep citing. That's actually where we first. Wasn't that where we first heard his name or.

1:39:19

Kayla: I don't think it's where we first heard his name. It was definitely the first interview we heard.

1:39:22

Chris: Heard, right? Kayla: Yeah, yeah. Chris: But he's been. He's been doing the rounds. He's been a business insider. Now there's, like, a bunch of.

1:39:27

Kayla: He's an expert. Yeah, it's wonderful. So let's. Let's listen.

1:39:30

Chris: Let's take a listen. Kayla: Let's. Let's do this. I mean, I guess our obligatory starter question is just, can you tell us your name and just a little bit about you in your background, introduce you to our listeners?

1:39:56

Mike Rothschild: My name is Mike Rothschild. I'm based in southern California, and I am a conspiracy theory debunker and researcher.

1:40:03

Kayla: That's the coolest job title I am making.

1:40:06

Mike Rothschild: I am 100% making up what I do as I go along. I had absolutely no inkling of doing this. I didn't know that this would ever be a job. I just sort of fell into it, one thing after another, and people were liking what I was writing, and I was able to do more of it. And then I was able to get a book published, and now I'm working on another book and been just nonstop with media over the last month or so, and it's been a wild and sort of exhausting ride, but I'm really happy to be able to do it.

1:40:38

Kayla: Was it something you were interested in personally and then that kind of like permeated into the professional, or did it start purely as like a research professional thing or.

1:40:46

Mike Rothschild: I. I was always interested in it. When I was in college, I got really into the art Bell show, coast to coast, and I would listen to him really late at night as I was working on stuff, which maybe isn't the greatest thing to be doing when you're sleep deprived and working on a million different things at the same time. But I loved his stories of crop circles and UFO's and secret societies and alien abductions, so far off the beam from anything that I grew up with and anything I was into as a kid. And I just. I just loved the stories and the commitment that the guests and the callers made to them. And I loved his approach of listening with empathy and understanding, never really validating the stories so much as just giving people an outlet to say them out loud.

1:41:38

Mike Rothschild: I never believed any of it, but I thought it was just great storytelling. And then I moved to Los Angeles to get into screenwriting, and it was just sort of one false start and failed project after another. And I got really frustrated and I started writing for the blog of the podcast Skeptoid, which is a really.

1:41:58

Chris: Yeah, we've cited them like three or four times on the show.

1:42:01

Mike Rothschild: Oh, yeah, Brian Dunning is terrific. He's great at what he does. I've interviewed him for the book I'm working on. He's just, he's just a big resource. And I asked him, hey, can I write for your blog? He's like, yep, do Mondays. And I was able to just sort of explore topics and find things that I liked and that I didn't like. And that worked and that didn't work. And the stakes were really low. I mean, there was no money in it. It was just something I was doing for enjoyment. And it started catching on and I started getting more readers, and I led to some actual writing gigs. And now it's pretty much what I do.

1:42:33

Chris: What is it like to be the QAnon guy? You know, the QAnon guy, quote unquote, here in late 2020? How crazy is that now? And how does that compare to maybe, you know, a few years ago when it was still in its nascent stage.

1:42:46

Mike Rothschild: Well, I want to just make it clear that I am not the only Q. There are a number of us, actually, the guys who host the QAnon anonymous podcast do a great job. Will summer, the Daily Beast, Ben Collins and Brandi Zdrasny at NBC do amazing work. So I'm one bowling pin in a set of researchers and journalists who fight this stuff. But I'm surprised, and yet also not surprised that it's taken off. I started following Q really just a few months after the first posts went up, when I started to see tweets about John McCain and Hillary Clinton wearing walking boots to hide their secret ankle bracelets because they'd been arrested. And I thought, that's amazing. I've got to just follow this wherever it goes.

1:43:40

Mike Rothschild: And for the first couple months, I was looking at it was just a kooky thing, and it sort of tied into the general conspiracy zeitgeist around Trump and the sort of endless churn of deep state conspiracy theories and stuff like that. But I started to get really concerned about it when I noticed that it had some similarities in the DNA of long running prosperity scams. Some things that have been around since the early nineties, terms you'll see thrown around in the Q world. Sometimes things like Nasara, the iraqi dinar, the global currency reset.

1:44:14

Mike Rothschild: These are long tail scams that hold that there's a vast storehouse of money that's going to be released at some future date to the people who believe really hard and who pray and who send money to these gurus who have this super secret intel about this secret war that's going on. And it's just the same kind of fanciful story that Q was telling, except where Q is different is that Q is not acting as an investment vehicle. There's no money changing hands. There is, but that's a different kind of thing. Q isn't soliciting money. He's not giving investment advice. He's not breaking any financial laws, which is what always brings those scams down. But Q is also a lot more violent. The people waiting for the great money deliveries from Nassara or dinars, they weren't going to go out and kill anybody.

1:45:05

Mike Rothschild: Q people are violent, and they have committed murders, and they've committed acts of arson and domestic terrorism. And that's what really concerned me the most, was this combination of patience and violence, I guess you could call it, which is a great term, and I haven't used that before.

1:45:21

Kayla: Yeah, that's good. Keep that one.

1:45:23

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: For the sake of our listeners, with your best ability, can you concisely explain to our listeners what, in your own words, what is QAnon? What are we talking about here?

1:45:35

Mike Rothschild: Oh, it's hard. I mean, just a simple explanation of what Q is just, like, runs on for thousands of words. So I will try to keep it as brief as I can. QAnon is a movement based around anonymous message board poster who calls themselves Q. And what Q is doing is leaking cryptic intelligence about what Q calls the storm, which is an event where the deep state will be secretly arrested and tried under military tribunal laws and executed. And this includes the Democratic Party, prominent people in Hollywood, prominent people in finance, prominent people in the media. And all these people will be sort of swept away at the order of President Trump, and it will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. And that's the very nutshell of Q, the secret messages about an event that is just around the corner.

1:46:36

Mike Rothschild: And that event is going to be a violent purge where a lot of people are going to get killed, but it will be good because they're bad people.

1:46:42

Kayla: That was beautifully succinct. Chris: Yeah. So one of the things that you know is that you have such a background in a wide variety of conspiracy theories. The book that you currently have published is about a variety of conspiracy theories. QAnon, for some reason, seems to want to vacuum up and make every other conspiracy kind of a part of itself. So beyond the basics that you just talked about, it kind of wants to glom everything else onto it, too. So why do you think that is? And have you seen anything like that before in your. In your conspiracy theory research?

1:47:17

Mike Rothschild: Yeah, it is. It really is a conspiracy theory of everything. It's a. It's a big tent where everyone is welcome. As long as you distrust the mainstream media and want to see Hillary Clinton hanged. The conspiracy theory world is normally very insular. People in it don't want other people coming into it. You know, conspiracy theorists really don't proselytize on a. On a watch, large scale basis. It's very much about one one interactions, and Q very much falls into that. But at the same time, you have so many different elements being pulled in. And I think a lot of that is really recent because of the pandemic. And the pandemic has united what were formerly these very siloed spheres of conspiracy.

1:48:02

Mike Rothschild: You had the anti vax people, who traditionally are very left wing, very liberal, and then you had the anti bill Gates people, and they're kind of liberal and far left as well. And then you had the sort of more anti government militia, deep state kind of thing that was much more far right. Those are now all the same thing. They have different facets, and not everybody believes every element of it. But if you believe that the DNC screwed Bernie Sanders out of the presidential nomination in 2016, you probably really dislike Hillary Clinton.

1:48:37

Mike Rothschild: And so you are going to be more susceptible to a traditionally far right conspiracy theory, like the Clinton body count conspiracy theory that might lead you to something else in the something, the medical world, and that might lead you to anti vaccine, and that might lead you to anti 5g, that leads you to child trafficking, that leads you to QAnon. And so it's all just sort of a path of conspiracy theories. And unfortunately, because so many people are home so much and are so online and we're so used to this deluge of bad news and terrible things, we feel very natural in going from one bad thing to another and then linking them all together and saying, see, there's a cabal, there's string pullers, there's puppet masters who are responsible for every bad thing in my life.

1:49:23

Mike Rothschild: And Q gives you a way to fight back. It gives you a way to rage against the dying of the light, as it were. You can make your memes, you can make your videos, you can try to red pill your friends and your family, and it lets you fight these very small, very personal, one one battles, figuring that enough of those small scale battles will win the war on behalf of the good guys.

1:49:50

Kayla: Right, right. I was just seeing that, like, that exact rhetoric of fighting these battles, like wars are won by battles. And that exact rhetoric being talked about in QAnon circles today, which, yeah, funnily enough, you mentioned that so much of this is about making memes and being on the Internet, and we're all stuck at home being on the Internet. So I kind of want to get your opinion on what the recent purging of QAnon groups on Facebook and now, like, there was a purge on YouTube today. Like, what you think the consequences of that is going to be?

1:50:20

Mike Rothschild: Well, I'd like to start by saying that I think it's long overdue.

1:50:24

Kayla: Right. Mike Rothschild: The tech companies and the big social media platforms spent way too long tiptoeing around QAnon. I think Reddit had it right when they just out and out banned them two years ago. But Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, they just took too long. Either they didn't take it seriously or they didn't know how to get a handle on it. And unfortunately, now they're really entrenched there. And we've already seen with Twitter that a lot of the big Q promoters who were banned have come back. The harassment is still going. You can still search for QAnon, and the first thing you find is an account that has half a million followers. It's a setback for them. They lose their accounts that they've been building on. They have to rebuild their follower counts, but they do.

1:51:08

Mike Rothschild: They're not going to give up, and it's going to be the same thing with YouTube. I think that the big Q promoters on YouTube are going to come back with probably new material that's not quite so Q centric, but that's okay because the queue movement is not so Q centric anymore. The Q movement is much more about everything that's going on and about general distrust and unease and asking questions, and they're lying to us and they're biased. It's not so much about the Q drops anymore. The Q drops don't mean that much anymore. So I would say that the short term is going to be a lot of whining from Q promoters, which is amazing and I love. And then in the long term, they're going to come back.

1:51:52

Mike Rothschild: They're not going to leave YouTube or Twitter or Facebook because that's where the battle is being fought. Fought on really far right niche platforms like bitchute or Gab or places like that. It's being fought on the big platforms where everybody is. So I wouldn't expect Q to disappear from YouTube at all. It will be back. It might be a slightly different form, but it will be back.

1:52:18

Chris: Do you think the platforms curating has any effect on that, though? It's worth doing? Or is it a. Or is it sort of like, you know, shoveling sand back into the ocean type thing?

1:52:28

Mike Rothschild: It's totally worth doing. It's absolutely anything that stops Q from being put into the feeds of people who are receptive to it is a good thing, but it is also shoveling sand against the tide because these people are very good at getting around being banned. They feel like being banned and being hated is a badge of honor. They're proud of it. They like it. And they think that they're fighting a secret war against the forces of evil to save the souls of America's children. You don't just lay down your weapons because the enemy took action against you. The metaphors of military action and war all over quote the armor of God and scrambling the enemy's radar war and bombs. And this is a campaign to these people. It's not a game.

1:53:25

Kayla: Right, right. It's interesting, just to go back to something you mentioned, that the movement is not necessarily so focused on the Q drops. It's almost gotten a little bit decentralized. And I'm wondering, in your opinion, is there also some disillusionment happening with Donald Trump as a figure? And the only reason I bring that up is because I noticed a while ago a little bit of a schism happening in the Facebook groups, where some of the Facebook groups started implicating Trump in the whole, like, pedophilia ring and being a part of the deep state. And then the others were, you know, still Trump was the savior figure. I'm wondering if. If there is any disillusionment that you've noticed.

1:54:05

Mike Rothschild: I haven't seen any disillusionment. You know, you always get people on the fringes who are sort of arguing with other people on the fringes. Q is not a unified movement by any stretch. There's constant fighting over what did Q really mean, this thing that people believe? Well, Q never said that. Is it okay to make money? Is it not okay to make money? So it's a very splintered movement. But I have not seen any especially large signs of pushback against Trump. I mean, if anything, these people, they think he cured himself of COVID They think that he's untouchable. So, yeah, they are as pro Trump as ever and maybe more.

1:54:49

Kayla: Damn. Boo. Mike Rothschild: Now, I don't know if that's going to change if he loses in the election, but I don't think it will.

1:54:55

Kayla: Sure. Mike Rothschild: I think that they will take all of the excuses that the Trump campaign has been seeding social media with voter fraud, media bias, china, Covid, whatever. They're going to accept that as the reason why Trump lost. They'll say, well, he didn't really lose. The deep state took it from him, and then they can just keep going off of that.

1:55:17

Kayla: That's very cult of personality in that way.

1:55:20

Chris: Yeah. Speaking of cult, a little bit of an on the nose question, but the name of our podcast is Cult are just weird. So I kind of have to ask, what is it about Q? And I've seen it referred to as Cult. Right. Cult like or the cult of Q. Is that something you think is apt, or do you think it's an oversimplification, or what's your view on calling it a cult?

1:55:42

Kayla: Is it a cult, yes or no?

1:55:46

Mike Rothschild: It is apt and also an oversimplification. If that is helpful at all. It is very cult like. I've talked to a number of cult experts for the book I'm working on who have said basically it meets eight of the ten criteria. Four of the five criteria. It's close enough to a cult that you can call it that and not be wrong, but at the same time, it's also not quite as nuanced as we'd want to talk about it. It's very cultish in its thought control, in the way it manipulates information, in the way it walls people off to the outside world, and the way it makes the outside world seem scary and violent and evil. But at the same time, it doesn't really have a figurehead.

1:56:31

Mike Rothschild: Q is kind of the figurehead, but Q also doesn't play that much of a role in the movement. There are elements of QAnon that have nothing to do with Q. So you can't really put Q on the level of an L. Ron Hubbard or a Jim Jones or whatever. So in that sense, it's maybe not a traditional cult. I would say that it is close enough to. To worry me in what it does to people. And that's what I try to focus on, is the harm that it has on the people who believe in it. And in that way, it is very cultish. You can stop believing in Q anytime you want to and nothing will happen to you. But at the same time, you might lose your friends, you might lose the community you've built up.

1:57:12

Mike Rothschild: You might feel like you were stupid and conned and wasted your time. And so people can leave it. They just don't want to.

1:57:19

Kayla: I guess that makes me want to ask, as somebody who has studied this so much, and, you know, you've seen what this does to families. You've seen what this does to friends, do you think there's anything prescriptive we can do to help people that have kind of fallen into this conspiracy spiral? Is there anything to try and bring our friends and family back from the brink?

1:57:40

Mike Rothschild: Yeah, there are things that you can do depending on how much effort you want to put into it, how much pushback you want to get, and how deep into the movement somebody is. If somebody is like a conspiracy theory lifer and they were a Sandy Hook truther, and before that they were a 911 truther and a birth certificate truther and blah, blah, I don't think you're going to get through to them. That's just not a person who's going to change their way of thinking. But if new to this and a lot of this is pandemic driven. And they weren't really a conspiracy person before this. You can get through to them. The first thing that you want to make sure that you do is listen to them. Ask open, gentle questions. Don't belittle, don't mock.

1:58:25

Mike Rothschild: You're just going to push the person deeper into the belief because nobody wants to be mocked or made to feel stupid. At the same time, don't try to debate the finer points of the conspiracy theory. Don't deluge them with articles and podcasts that debunk it. You can't debate these people and win. There's no such thing. I get asked by Q people, oh, go on my YouTube show and debate me. I'm not going to do that. There's no way to win that because I have to stick to the things that are true and the other person can just make up whatever they want.

1:58:56

Kayla: Right? Mike Rothschild: Which is really sad and depressing. A really good way to start the process, if a person is open to it, is to try to unplug them. Just get them offline for even a couple of days. Stop the deluge of social media craziness. Stop the deluge of fake stories and outrage hits that we keep getting. All of us are getting through social media. Just unplug them. Do something to get them away from it. And try to point out the contradictions. Try to point out the places where Q has been wrong or been fooled. Try to point out the things Q says that just don't make any sense or that directly contradict each other or directly contradict things they know to be true themselves.

1:59:46

Mike Rothschild: There are ways to do it, but it's very time consuming, and it involves a lot of banging your head against a wall. And it's entirely up to each individual if they want to do that. And if they don't want to do that. I don't look down on anybody for that. I've talked to a lot of people who have said, I just can't deal with it anymore from my friend or my mom or my cousin or whatever. I can't deal with the conspiracy theories and the constant attempts to send me stuff and to wake me up. I just don't want it in my life anymore. That's always appropriate. You always have to protect yourself. But, yeah, there are things you can do if you want to put the effort into doing them right.

2:00:33

Chris: Yeah. I think that there's going to be a conspiracy theory about this interview because you've segued into, like, almost every single.

2:00:40

Kayla: Questions we fed him the questions.

2:00:44

Chris: Did they. Did they talk ahead of time? Oh, no.

2:00:47

Mike Rothschild: It got to me. Chris: So my next question was actually about just what you were just saying is about protecting your own mental health. Yeah. Because sometimes, even QAnon aside, when we do research for some topics on the show, it can be a little disorienting and disappointing and a lot of d words. So how, you know, when you're immersed in that as your job, how do you protect your own mental health?

2:01:14

Mike Rothschild: Yeah, I have to unplug sometimes. I have to remind myself that what I'm doing is not because I believe this stuff, but because I'm trying to help other people who believe in it. I try to just disconnect whenever possible. I try to keep a spirit of not. Maybe fun is not the right word, but sort of amusement. Like, some of these things that these people say are just ridiculous.

2:01:40

Kayla: Right? Mike Rothschild: And I sort of enjoy the ridiculousness of some of it. Like the, you know, stuff about, like, clones and body doubles. I mean, this is. This is just. Who could take this seriously? And so I enjoy the really bizarre aspects of it, and it reminds me that this can be more fun if I just kind of go with it. It doesn't have to be dour and depressing. I mean, it is dour and depressing, but it doesn't have to be all the time. And I also. I try to limit my interactions with actual q believers.

2:02:15

Kayla: I was going to ask if you experienced harassment because of this.

2:02:20

Mike Rothschild: I get stuff on Twitter. You know, I'm very judicious with muting and blocking and reporting. But, yeah, I try not to interact too much with actual people who believe this stuff because I. First of all, they don't want to talk to me anyway because I'm the enemy. But I can't really ever tell when a person really, truly believes this stuff, when it's all just a big goof to them or if they are really in need of help. And there are definitely some people who believe this stuff, who are clearly in need of help. And because I can never quite tell, I sort of don't want to go there. I don't need to hear the endless excuses and the endless conspiracy theories and the endless justifications. So I try to stick to interacting with people who are facing some difficulty because of it.

2:03:18

Mike Rothschild: Somebody with a loved one or a friend or. I've also been starting to cultivate some contacts with former Q believers, people who have actually gotten out of it and realized. And just a few. It's not that many so far, but people who realize that they got suckered in by something and were able to get out of it and now realize how bad it was. So, yeah, I try to limit my interactions with the people who are actually really deep into this because it's just an endless elevator that doesn't go anywhere.

2:03:48

Chris: I want to riff one of the things you were just talking about. This isn't actually a predicted segue. This is me just riffing now. So no more conspiracy. But you were talking about whether certain believers actually believe or whether it's a big joke to them. And that's something that we've talked about before, is there's. There's this weird, like, magical power behind that. Like it's both a joke and not a joke. It's both serious and unserious. It's. Yeah, it's like both of these things at once. And it gives this, like, air cover for plausible deniability, but it's also really compelling. Is there anything that you can. You can talk to us about what you've seen about that sort of, like, weird duality?

2:04:27

Kayla: The troll. Not a troll. Mike Rothschild: Yeah, it's hard, especially with a lot of the big account, a lot of the big promoters, because you just don't know if this is all a big grift for them. If they've found this really lucrative vein of watch their videos and subscribe to their podcasts and buy their self published books, or if they're just seriously true believers who feel like they're imbued by this spirit to go out and save the children of the world and defeat the evil ones. It's hard to tell. You can tell sometimes because they sort of very quickly drop it and move on to something else. It's happened a few times with some of the big promoters. They'll be really into queue, and then just all of a sudden they'll denounce it and move on to something else that they're just as equally as passionate about.

2:05:16

Mike Rothschild: So you do wonder if it's like, was there anything here to begin with? Or did you just sort of mine this for as much as you could get out of it? And now you're moving on to the next thing.

2:05:26

Chris: Yeah, I feel like we've seen that before with MLMS sometimes.

2:05:29

Kayla: Oh, yeah. Where it's like, I'm super into this MLM.

2:05:32

Chris: And then they'll move on to the next one and.

2:05:34

Kayla: Part of the grift. Interesting. Chris: So one of the episodes that we're going to be doing, the angle is going to be about Qanon as an arg, QAnon as an alternate reality game. And I have some background as a game developer. So I just wanted to ask you a little bit about that. Do you think there's something compelling about the hobbyism of QAnon followers?

2:05:55

Mike Rothschild: You know, I know a lot of people really subscribe to that theory that Q is either set up as a game or sort of ordered as an alternate reality game. I differ a little bit in that the people who, the really hardcore people, not the dabblers and not the grifters, the people who really are just like, this is their life now. It's not a game to them. They don't consider what they're doing to have entertainment value or enjoyment value. A lot of them will sort of talk endlessly about how they don't enjoy anything anymore. All they do is cue, you know, they don't watch tv anymore. They don't listen to music anymore. All they see is the cabal and the children and the satanism and all that stuff.

2:06:39

Kayla: So brutal. Mike Rothschild: Oh, it is. It's very sad. It's very nihilistic. I think that there are definitely puzzle solving elements of Q, and I think that's one of the things that makes it so compelling. But I don't know if it was set up that way. I mean, I don't know if it was set up in any particular way at all. And I don't think that people who are really deep into it look at it as a sort of fun hobby. They look at it as a puzzle to solve, but the puzzle, the picture on the puzzle, is something evil that has to be destroyed. So in that sense, it's definitely not anything like a hobby.

2:07:16

Kayla: Right. Less hobby, more like compelling spiritual calling, almost.

2:07:21

Chris: Yeah. In the gaming industry, there's sort of a well established difference. The fun and engagement are not necessarily the same thing.

2:07:30

Mike Rothschild: Okay. That's a really good way to put it. Chris: Yeah. And so to me, it feels like maybe some people are having fun. Like, there's obviously an overlap, but there's a certain element of the puzzle solving that is creating engagement for these folks, for sure. Seems like.

2:07:42

Kayla: But not fun. Chris: But not necessarily fun. I mean, I'm sure some of them probably are having fun. Like, some of them talk about, like, I've seen quotes of, like, oh, you know, I enjoy when my kids go to bed. I enjoy logging on and doing my research.

2:07:55

Mike Rothschild: I've seen a lot of stuff like that. Kayla: Yeah, that covers all of our planned questions. So is there anything that we didn't cover that you think is important to say? Anything that you want to add, anything our listeners should know?

2:08:07

Mike Rothschild: I would say just to continue taking this movement really seriously. I think in the last few months, we sort of conflated Q with just sort of social media conspiracy theorizing in general. And I want to caution people that Q is a very online movement. But Facebook doesn't make you become a Q believer. You can have a QAnon group put in front of you and say, oh, that's ridiculous. I don't want anything to do with that. It doesn't make you click on join that group. It doesn't make you watch that video. The Q is successful and persists because it fills a need in the lives of the people who believe it. It gives them something that they're not getting from hobbies, family, work, church, whatever.

2:08:56

Mike Rothschild: And I think we really have to concentrate on finding what that is, and that's going to differ greatly for many different people. But Q is something that people gravitate towards for a reason, and not just because it was put in front of them by an algorithm. So Facebook and YouTube and social media is the delivery system for the weapon, but it's not the weapon itself. And we have to really, I think, keep that in mind as social media finally cracks down on Q. And that may not have the effect on Q that we want it to have or think it's going to have.

2:09:33

Chris: Would you say that, like, the missing thing is, and I'm just sort of, again, riffing here, but is an element of trust institutions and that sort of, like, you know, our institutions are eroding trust in the 21st century? Do you think that's part of it, or.

2:09:49

Mike Rothschild: Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think also just a fundamental lack of empathy. We tend to think of people who get sucked in by conspiracy theories as just crazy idiots, and they might be, but they are also people who are looking for something and in queue, they found something. That thing they found is repellent, but they don't think so. They think that the rest of us are the crazy ones. And that's really hard to get people out of. That's really hard to combat well, and.

2:10:19

Kayla: It'S up to us. Chris: We're on it. We're on it with our ten listeners. This has been a real treat to talk to you and really appreciate you coming on the show.

2:10:30

Kayla: Yeah, thank you so much for taking. Mike Rothschild: Yeah, I will talk to anyone who will ask the right questions.

2:10:49

Chris: So, yeah, that was. That was like one of the favorite interviews that we've done.

2:10:54

Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: It was just. It was a really quality interview. A lot of interesting stuff to say. Yeah. So some of the things that we talked about with him, we'll get into, as we've mentioned, in future episodes, like when we talk about ARG's and their similarities to QAnon and hobbyism. One of the things that I do want to ask you about Kayla, because he mentioned this in one of our questions, is the stakes. And this also comes up in future episodes. But the stakes are so high. Right. You can't. What were his words? There's something about, like, you know, you're not gonna lay down your arms.

2:11:31

Kayla: Right. Chris: Just because there's a setback when the stakes are literally, you know, world ending.

2:11:38

Kayla: Right. Chris: Civil. Is it like saving all of the children and the future of humanity from the satanic cabal?

2:11:43

Kayla: Right. Chris: And then that those stakes drive some behavior that is very. Just like, if you believe that, if you truly believe that, then there's not much that you're not willing to do justifiably.

2:11:55

Kayla: That's literally what we talked about with the nocturnal ritual fantasy and why it has to be about the horrible abuse of children.

2:12:03

Chris: So I feel like this is a safe enough space for me to ask you this question.

2:12:07

Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: Because I feel similarly a lot of the time with the climate emergency. And sometimes I wonder if my belief about the stakes of the climate emergency, which are similarly like, I do believe that if we don't act swiftly and drastically, then there are dire consequences for literally billions of people.

2:12:30

Kayla: Right. Chris: And maybe that's okay, because my beliefs are justified by science that I trust. But sometimes I think, like, what would I be willing to do? Like, would I be willing to do something bad like, these guys, these qanoners are willing to do? Because, again, the stakes are so high. I don't know, it just. It worries me sometimes.

2:12:52

Kayla: Well, I think ultimately it's not. I don't know if it's helpful to necessarily frame it as, like, oh, no. Am I going to be just like these QAnon people? I think it's more useful to frame. This overall conversation is going back to that age old question of, do the ends justify the means? And I don't know.

2:13:12

Chris: Yeah, I know. Kayla: I think that. I do think that if you're going to talk about specifics like QAnon versus the actions of QAnoners versus the actions of preventing climate change, I think it is important, like, you noted, that what you're talking about, you're getting your information from sources that you trust, from independently verified scientists, yada, yada, QAnon, you know, originally is getting their information from anonymous person on a message board, on an image board.

2:13:48

Chris: Right. Kayla: So there is a bit of difference there in terms of, like, the actual urgency. If you know, if science is one of your, like, trusted institutions. I don't know. Do the answers.

2:14:02

Chris: Yeah. It harkens back to our Roques Basilis episode where we talked about utilitarianism and the dangers of that, because utilitarianism is very rooted in ends justifying means.

2:14:13

Kayla: Right. Chris: You know, you do these thought experiments sometimes when you're high with your friends where you say, like, you know, if I had the, if I could press the button and so would die and it would save a bajillion lives, would you do it? And then you kind of, like, go down that rabbit hole. Like, if I could kill Rex Tillerson, I won't, just to be clear. And that would, you know, prevent a million people dying from climate change. You know, would you do it? And that's. I don't know. It's like, it's just, it's a hard question to answer. I think a lot of it also comes down to something we talked in that episode about, which is, because you can't predict the future ultimately.

2:14:50

Chris: You know, like, those conversations, I feel like they frequently come down to, well, is it guaranteed that a million people will have their lives saved? Right. And then, and then you kind of get yourself into this box of these certainties that don't exist in the real world.

2:15:09

Kayla: Right. Chris: To be able to answer that question. Kayla: Right. Chris: So I don't know. It's just something that I think about because the stakes thing comes up again and again with this, because it's, it drives some of these extreme behaviors that you talked about earlier in the episode. And I frequently think about that with, like, what do I believe in that is, has such high stakes? And climate change is one of, I.

2:15:27

Kayla: Think that's part of why it's really important to understand why you believe something. And I mean really understand why you believe it, because if you're going to have a belief that you would be willing to take extreme measures over, like, you have to be very sure of that. It can't be. You think it can't be. You read something on the Internet.

2:15:59

Chris: Right. Kayla: And I don't think that people who believe in QAnon feel like they've just read something on the Internet. I would question the validity of the sources of their research.

2:16:09

Chris: Right. Kayla: And that's, you know, me personally, and.

2:16:12

Chris: I do think that a lot of aseans justify the means too. Like, at the end of the day, even if I were one of them, hopefully I would have some. The same trepidation that I have now about pressing that theoretical button to kill one person to save a million. I would have the same trepidation there. The whole, like, well, because it's wrong.

2:16:35

Kayla: Right? Chris: And that, I don't know, seems like because it's wrong is a little bit of a fail safe for those types of scenarios where belief in high stakes can drive some behaviors or thoughts that are not great.

2:16:49

Kayla: I think you're just trying to rewrite Battlestar Galactica. It's literally, like, what Battlestar Galactic does.

2:16:55

Chris: Oh, no. See, now we're gonna get. You don't like Battlestar? I think it's a good show with a lot of flaws. We're about to get all of our friends really angry at us, so let's move on.

2:17:06

Kayla: Yeah. Battlestar is a good show with a lot of flaws, just like QAnon is a good theory with a lot of flaws.

2:17:11

Chris: Whoa, whoa. The gloves are off. Holy shit. All right, we're adding an episode about Battlestar now, please. Holy shit. Starbuck would be fandom.

2:17:20

Kayla: Fandom is definitely a cult. Okay, let's cut this off here. There you have it. We've got the past, the present, the future of QAnon. I guess we're kind of still waiting to see what the future holds. Perhaps you're thinking that with the social media shutdowns and the major political losses in the recent election, witnessing the end of QAnon.

2:17:39

Chris: Well, Mike talked about that a little bit, right? He said, like, it's a good step. It won't solve the problem, but it's a step in the right direction.

2:17:46

Kayla: Oh, yeah. I would personally say, not so fast in that thought. Like, remember how I ended the last episode? Moral panics are cyclical, right? This is not the last we have seen of nocturnal original fantasy. Not even the last.

2:18:01

Chris: Well, it's not even the last we've seen of this nocturnal fan.

2:18:04

Kayla: No, definitely not the last we've seen Qanon. And the belief that a democratic cabal of elites is trafficking and sacrificing children. Interesting side note, I read today that the idea that there's, like, a political. Like, a political ingroup. Sacrificing children, like, was originally applied to Republicans in the seventies.

2:18:21

Chris: Really? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: I had no idea.

2:18:24

Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Why were they sacrificing children in the seventies?

2:18:27

Kayla: I don't know, probably for the adrenochrome. Chris: Those jerks. Oh, right, the adrenochrome.

2:18:31

Kayla: So if moral panics are cyclical, then it probably does not surprise anyone to learn that in the year of our Lord 2020, just this year, the pizzagate, the specific pizzagate arm of the QAnon conspiracy theory itself, witnessed a major comeback, not just in the United States, but across the world. And this time, we cannot blame the boomers, because the call is coming from inside the Gen Z. This year, a less partisan version of the conspiracy theory took TikTok by storm, with the hashtag pizzagate spreading like wildfire across the app, gaining a resurgence of popularity in the US, and then also Italy, Brazil, Turkey, other countries.

2:19:13

Chris: I thought TikTok was just silly dances.

2:19:16

Kayla: No, it's pizzagate dances now. No, like, these TikToks gained millions of views and, like, oddly coincided with support of the Black Lives Matter movement rather than with the alt right.

2:19:28

Chris: Wait, so they were Black lives Matter, but also Pizzagate is real?

2:19:33

Kayla: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And, like, that. This was so comforting to read, because when I was doing, like, some text banking for get out the vote efforts this past couple weeks, I got a text that was both supportive of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and Black lives matter. And I was very confused because I had never seen that before. And so to know that, like, oh, this is something that's happening amongst the youth, I was like, okay, I still don't get it, but at least, like, I get it. At least I understand where it's coming from.

2:20:08

Chris: Yeah, yeah. Kayla: And this version of theory, it focuses less on, like, the political aspect, the democratic elite, and instead, it focuses on celebrity elites, like Oprah. Remember when there was that whole thing on Twitter of, like, oprah's house got stormed? They found all these kids in the. That happened. Chrissy Teigen and Ellen Degeneres. And I think Bill Gates. It's more those kinds of people than the political elites. Yeah. A rumor started that Justin Bieber's recent song Yummy was about pizzagate, indicating that Justin himself had been a victim of child sex trafficking. And the rumor was further cemented when many conspiracy theorists believe that Justin sent a coded message in an Instagram live video confessing to have been trafficked.

2:20:50

Kayla: So, like, somebody said, in, like, somebody asked a question, like, Justin, if you were in Pizzagate, like, touch your hat, and there's, like, you know, a million questions coming in because there's, like, thousand people watching this Instagram live. And at some point, he, like, adjusts his beanie and they're like, oh, that means that he's pizzagate.

2:21:04

Chris: You know, that's a common thing. And we'll get to that as well in a future episode. Not specifically Justin Bieber, but the, hey, have this person do a thing, and that'll prove theory. And then that happens, or some version of it happens, and then everybody gets their minds blown and they're like, Hugh's real.

2:21:24

Kayla: My mind is already blown. In April of this year, a quote unquote documentary about Pizzagate called out of shadows went viral again on TikTok, again getting millions of hits, spiking Google searches of the term. And this eventually led to the viral hashtag savethechildren catching on across all social media platforms in August. And this was a way for Qanoners and pizza gators under threat of censorship due to their usual keyword usage, where they now could rise up in their beliefs using this savethechildren hashtag.

2:21:55

Chris: Right? You can't ban savethechildren hashtags.

2:21:58

Kayla: Oh, they did. Yeah. Eventually, this seemingly anti saving children, if you go search for hash savethechildren, at least the last time, a couple days ago, when I searched for savethechildren on Twitter, nothing comes up because.

2:22:10

Chris: Because Twitter wants the children to. Kayla: Because they realized that this was a code for keeping on a pizzagate.

2:22:15

Chris: Oh, right. Kayla: So to wrap this all up, I just want to say that after a 900 plus year history of nocturnal ritual fantasy, culminating in the modern day version that is QAnon, this shit isn't going anywhere. And I'm a little fascinated and a little terrified, I guess, to see where it goes from there.

2:22:36

Chris: Hopefully shedding the light on it will, I don't know, improve things somehow. You know, it definitely helps me process to know that it has this cultural recurrence. Like, it totally sucks, but it also, I don't know, I feel a little bit more powerful with the knowledge, and hopefully our listeners do, too.

2:22:57

Kayla: Hopefully. You guys, I hope you're okay. Hope you're doing all right. Hope you're hanging in there.

2:23:03

Chris: If you have any QAnon stories, by the way, this is an ongoing series here. We're gonna do. We actually, we said last episode it's gonna be a four part series, right? It's looking more like maybe five. So depends on how we want to end the season out. So it's. We'll see. But if you have any stories, please, culturejustweirmail.com. Yeah, shoot them on over to us. And thank you to all of our other fans who are emailing us. Fan mail at various times.

2:23:31

Kayla: We like your fan mail. Chris: Yeah, we love your fan mail. And if it. If it's taken me a while to get back to you, I apologize. Things has been crazy.

2:23:37

Kayla: Also, Chris does all of the work for this, so it's all on him.

2:23:40

Chris: Yeah. Kayla: So don't. Don't get mad.

2:23:43

Chris: And I'm lazy, so it's hard to do.

2:23:45

Kayla: Well, you're not lazy if you're the one doing it. I'm not doing any of it.

2:23:50

Chris: And of course, thank you to Mike Rothschild for his time on the show.

2:23:52

Kayla: Yes, thank you. Chris: Coming on the show and talking to our audience about this thing you are an expert in. You like experts.

2:24:01

Kayla: We are all experts in it, too. Chris: That's right. Next time on cult or just weird, we talk about ARg. We said it's Arg's. But, like, underneath that, it's about engagement. It's about sort of the thing we talked about with Mike at the end there where it's. People get really hooked on this stuff in similar ways that they get hooked on other things.

2:24:26

Kayla: Interesting. Looking forward to it. Chris: We done any business? End of. Oh, go, like and subscribe or something.

2:24:33

Kayla: Are you gonna say like, go gators or something?

2:24:35

Chris: Yeah, we'll go gators. We beat Georgia this weekend, so that's good. Sorry. If there's any Georgia fans that listen to us. I love you guys, especially Georgia this week. But anyway, yes, go rate us on Apple Podcasts wherever you want. Go subscribe to us on what do I.

2:24:52

Kayla: Whatever you want. Chris: What am I supposed to do to get people to, like, is it. I don't know, go do things.

2:24:58

Kayla: Go. Chris: Go subscribe. Our patreon still free, although we announced a vaccine today of Pfizer announced the vaccine. So it's only supposed to be free till the end of the quarantine. So maybe it's not gonna be free anymore soon.

2:25:09

Kayla: That means I have to suckers get back on it in a timely fashion. I'm Kayla.

2:25:17

Chris: And I'm Chris. And this has been cult or just weird?