Skeptic Review

For some time, I have been curious about the Qanon hashtag on Twitter. So, I decided I better find out what it is, because it is quite popular.

As it turns out, it is a complicated and long running conspiracy theory of sorts—it is another attempt to expose the deep state—some have compared it to the pizzagate phenomenon.

Let me explain as best I can.

Know Your Meme traces the origin of Qanon to 4chan and dates it back to the end of October 2017. Q apparently refers to a security clearance and the poster identifies himself or herself as “Q Clearance Patriot.” The posts began jumping over to Reddit and then on to Twitter. Early on, The Outer Light YouTube channel also promoted Qanon as legit. Since that time, many other YouTubers have capitalized on the conspiracy theory as well as folks on 8chan.

As best I can tell, the assumption is that this Qanon person is a high level staff member inside the Trump administration who is leaking information to the public through cryptic posts and clues referred to as “bread crumbs” or simply “crumbs.”

When “crumbs” are dropped, followers try and deconstruct the message to understand what is happening inside the deep state. The conspiracy theorists believe Trump is dismantling the deep state and putting himself in grave danger by doing so. Q even posted recently that an assassination plot within the government itself had been thwarted and that, for now, POTUS is safe. Crumbs have also lead to the belief that Gitmo is being held open to eventually imprison the deep state traitors, including Hillary, Obama and George Soros.

The Q phenomenon has lead to YouTube channels and web pages and blogs that attempt to decipher the latest “crumbs.” One such personality is Jerome Corsi, Head of Washington D.C. News Bureau for Alex Jones and http://Infowars.com. Corsi maintains an elaborate “decoding” of Qanon posts on scribd.

https://www.scribd.com/user/869063/Jerome-Corsi

Apparently Corsi has a PhD in political science from Harvard and is a well known conspiracy theorist and prolific author. He has many books listed on Amazon, the most recent being Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump. He also has a book on Obama’s birth certificate controversy and another on the theory that Hitler escaped death.

Qanon Endorses Book “Beyond A Pale Horse”: Book Sells Out on Amazon

So back to Qanon. There are many associated hashtags such as “The Storm,” “The Storm in Coming,” “The Great Awakening” and “Follow the White Rabbit.” Another frequent reference is to Operation Mockingbird:

Operation Mockingbird was an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency that began in the early 1950s and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes. (Wikipedia)

One theory about Qanon is that it began as what is called a “LARP.” A larp or larper is a live-action role-playing game, similar to a video game storyline but being acted out in real life through role-playing. Regardless, it has true believers who do not like being mocked and who share information readily with one another or announce the latest Q crumb and compare notes on what it might mean.

SAMPLE POSTS FROM Q:

Qanon has even inspired a T-shirt!

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/2323096-q-anon-the-great-awakening?store_id=144098

Jerome Corsi, Deep State Conspiracy Theorist, Set to Release New Book