How QAnon changed American politics forever (with Travis View)
57:56 Share

Hey, you guys, if you want to keep viva, want to keep broken with this episode. After you finished, you should head on over to panic worlds, patron, which is patron that complied panic world, and you can get an extra long version of this episode ad free. Wow, amazing.

Yeah, that's right. If you love the apocalyptic c tone of what you're about to hear and you want to keep living in that world, you can do that over a patron outcomes. flash. My first question for you is do you have a favorite conspiracy theory of this election cycle? Is there when it's really tickled?

You remember last and last year in two thousand sixteen, there were there were theories that um that there like a dominion was holding braudy lent election data in servers in germany and this required RAID on the facility their conspiracy theories that italy was using some source satellite system to change votes. That's I mean, that's really the kind of stuff i'm looking forward to, and I have a feeling we're going to see that kind of thing in the in the coming months when people start getting really drawed. Yeah, we haven't .

had any like the phone wacky stuff yet. It's still kind of like serious and a little sad and boring. It's not like we haven't gone like laser based theories yet or sound wave or anything like that.

Yeah yeah you know um like a lot of there's a lot of a research that suggests that people become more conspirator oral when they feel as if they they are losing power. So whoever loses this election is is probably going to come up with some really, really wild conspiring theories about what's going on behind the scenes in the coming months.

Will let me hit you with a theory in twenty twenty conspiracy. There is a front center and there are still a lot of journalism institutions that won existed in two, how the resources to try to debunk them. But now IT feels like with everything in this election is all just sort of ambient's present, sort of White noise, like what we saw with spring fellow ohio and cats and dogs and immigrants that just sort of out there, and we just accepted.

And IT does sort of feel like everything has its own version of Q N. On, in a way there. Is there sort of an overarching conspirator law to all of IT? Does this sound right to you?

One of the talents of a trumpet law as allies is the ability to enough love his own the shit, as as band likes to say. Eventually IT gets to a point where, like trump promotes some sort of wild conspiracy theory, or there are some sort of like even some sort of a conspiracy theory that's very popular on the right, becomes like a man bites dog story where was like, yeah, of course, that's just the way they are. It's just the political air we breathe. It's just part of the general information ecosystem that we just have to your wait through.

That is a perfect way to put IT, and that's where to be talking about today. In today's episode of panic world, my name is ran. Trump has svan the geocentric in three elections now. And as of last night, he is looking like he's gone to be the expressive of united states again, since trump entered our political lives, a lot has changed. AmErica has become more paranoid, more pilot, more fragmented, and no single election could have ever fixed that.

And there is no greater manifestation of trump era insanity than cuando d, the internet native cult that is acted as the engine of trumpy since twenty sixteen, understanding how IT started in what its followers believe is more important than ever. So today we have, with us travel's view and expert in all things, cue on in the host of the podcast, Q A A, or cue on anonymous, depending on whether the venue lets you put IT on their size. We wanted to look back at how different american politics has become in the last ten years, because I starting to feel like everything is q and I now, yeah, I came into this stuff.

I really, I think I really believe loose change. The nine eleven documentation when I was a teenager, like, I was like, they ve got IT figured. This should out, man.

And then I was always very fascinated with, like the weird corners of the internet, you know, like blogs written about like energy, vampire s and themes and flatter thirds and hollow worth is my favor. Actually, I think it's much fun. I was always really, really excited when I found like some absolute sickos blog, and I could read IT all day.

And so when q and answers red IT to turn on and and will get to, you know, our store into the second about how this all happened, I was very excited that they were pulling in stuff from everywhere. I was like they were playing in all the hits when a dro chrome showed up. I was like, oh, you guys are just, you're cooking right now.

This is, you are spirit cooking, if you will. But are our story today starts in twenty sixteen, like most of moments of political instability in the last fifteen years or so. And I actually started on my birthday, october twenty seventh, when wicky leaks, releases tens of thousands of emails from john pedestals, private gmail, who was obama's council to the president and your clinton's campaign. Ir IT had been hacked red that year. And I we wanted you require drivers to sort of explain what did do you remember like what force and noticed right away about a sort of word repeating over and over in these emails.

Yeah, there were food terms. And what was really interesting about that particular story is that it's like these these emails were released through vickie, the dnc protected emails in they were they were hacked by these russian agents who then sent ted wicky leaks. So then basically released through october as parva, a part of a larger campaign designed to, uh, promote trump as a kind.

But the thing about the emails is that like that contains some things that you might be like interesting. For example, there is some the general wider c emails talked about um how they were kind of like wearing hostel towards the campaign of berty standards, for example. Know that's that's certainly interesting. But you know there wasn't a level of like in a canal that I think that a lot of like maybe four chain types were hoping for.

Yeah I think you're right. There was not a smoking gun in there that they thought.

yeah, this seems like I was like this is going to a be this going to show the like actual total the privity of the day that is like this is not choice going to like in the politically this is going to like send them all to jail.

all to jail. Yes.

so they decided that like food terms um like pasta or pizza.

cheese pizza .

or in one instance will not sauce uh were specially codes that uh people were using to communicate um how to to like traffic and um abuse children all these problems which were largely .

you know quarantine to the pole board which is for chance politics board. Which fun fact was created after rapid us in two thousand and eight because this course about rap is so fucking annoying, the moderators were like, we're going to put you all in in a special section um so all of that discourse was over there but IT hadn't politically radicalized in a coherent direction until around twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, when you get stuff like game or gate.

And IT wasn't IT like fortune was like a safe space for that left. Just theory before that. But he was not a raving in sancy lum of a fascism.

He was different. He was a different place. But they they get this league. And and I also think you're right about the russian agent connection. We're like IT was an open vector for that exact kind of conversation.

A lot of the the weird um things about uh our online political you know information ecosystem emerged from the seth rich conspiracy theory. This is where is the false claim that uh tragically murder dnc staffer was actually the person who attempted to take these emails and released them to the public and was absolutely not true but but yeah is really interesting how like this moment worth us. There's this russian hack and league, which leads to these fortune poll people doing baking and finding connections that are just that just non existent and then also leads in order to cover up the fact that that that was actually russian agents who had the dnc.

Oh, i'm so glad. I'm so glad mentioned that because that's the next part of our story here. So a about three days after the a week leaks release of pedia emails, it's bouncing around fortune IT starts to build critical mass and a website called your news wired.

That com, which was run by a collaborator of the british conspiracy theorist and lizard people expert David ik, claims that an FBI insider has told them all about a democratic run pedophile. This is where my extern, of which the rightwing influencer gets involved. And this is when you start to see the beginning of this internet wide push, this sort of like vast, decentralized network of of influencing and conspiracy theory and anonymous sers.

And this leads to pizz gate, which is sort of the in between for gamer gate and q and I. This is like they're the nand retaux of a horrible online man, if you will. And like when you look back on this time period, is there a moment, two and sixteen, where you think, like we could have fixed this problem because of the way the platform ers are lining up, by the way, these networks are connecting? Like.

could we have stopped? no. I mean, the appeal of IT likes for the people who are participated in IT was his ideas that, like, no, like, we are like, a non working together to uncover the news at the mainstream media is covering up. There is a really exciting kind, like populous message.

And you know, there is this year part of this community that sort of revealing things about the world, that what we called baking, which is like basically interpreting, like these online materials, ways that make these conspire connections by doing this activity, you aren't just a crank at home making things up. You are you know, you're contributing to like a great awake thing. And that's a very intoxicating, ating narrative.

That's exactly right. And to be clear, like what we're talking about at this point in our time line, q on has not happened yet. And so this is where you get the the FBI insider idea starts to evolve into an FBI a non, which will be using this term throughout the episode.

And just to be clear and on means anonymous, it's what fortune users call each other. He does not have a good mouth fill when you say IT out loud um and this idea of this hidden information that was coming out of the White house, I feel like I was very integral because of the anonymity ata of some in like four change or later eight chain. Everyone is anonymous.

You can just sort of cosplay. You can just sort of lot whatever you want. And if you fits the narrative, I think you you can get a lot attraction. Does that sound kind of the A A correct way of thinking .

about IT here? There was no one called mega non. There is one called high level, high level insider H I H si and on.

And the thing that people just serve, like came on the fortune and then they pretended to have connections and they said that they were going to release secret information about what was really going on behind the scenes. And they were no sometimes was referred to us like you'll lopping. They were like they are pretending to have to be someone that they're not. And like sometimes like the other, the other on on, on these image board, they would play along or they would call them out and their bullets, ed or whatever, they interact with them in some way. But some people who are very invest in these ideas, you took what these insider announce were saying as like law as like, you know, they try to like, take what they're saying and then research IT further to try and validated.

I think your use of law is correct because like when this was first happening, I was working in a newsroom and I was like one of the few people who like understood what these websites were. So like, my days for a long time were being like OK. Like, this is what happens when a fortune thread for or force, you will time out.

This is what this means. This is what sagan is. No, fortune gold isn't real. Like all of these sort of like basic mechanical things that have to explain to older editors.

And like the thing that I was always struck by in these conversations was trying to make the argument to a lot of serious journalist that I was working forward. The time being like this is sort of just creepy pasta. And I remember downplaying the importance of the stuff of the time, because IT just seemed so monumentally stupid and so clearly a bit that everyone was doing.

And I just couldn't imagine we'd talking about IT ten years later. I can actually breaks my brain to think about, like when pizza happen, when a guy brings a gun into A D C. Pizza, because he thinks there's a sex bring happening in the basement, whatever. IT seemed like a one off, but we know this was the start of a very specific kind of thinking that was taking over the world, and we're going to get to that right after the break.

The yet dy store has so many great gifts. We had to hire a catalog here to make the most of these next thirty seconds. Water proof back bags, waterproof first, water prod s water proof g proof to skillets might to be passed like most recipe take a cover three castles, ls gear gifts .

and product experts visit the .

yet ty store in wicker park today hey guys.

I have a hot new podcast will check out attached resume is a brand you show for multitude to interviews online creators, but how their jobs work and how they got there. Here, the personal stories behind seismic events in digital media and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape.

Who's to buy longer pod casters and business owners eric and AManda attach your resume proves that the best credential for deciding the future of media is actually making stuff. Guests on the first season include David roth, a prolific poster and the corner of defector media. A Q, A huge best known for her work on panic world, a fantastic podcast, and judge gunmen, a man who shares my love for dog and donate.

And he's also a comedian. He's pretty good to new episodes every thursday until they run out episodes and have to go make more subscribe to attach your resume in your podcast APP of choice. Now my dad works in B2B mar keting.

He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row asthma. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

Not everyone gets B2Be, but with linked in, you'll be able to reach people who do get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linked in that com slash campaign to claim your credit that's linked in flash campaign terms and conditions apply linked in the place to be to be.

So at first, against everything theory, I mean, they were fun for certain kinds of people like, you know, guys who works your local wap store, what? And IT felt more like a prank than anything. I didn't really feel like a political op.

They did all these things like they started a false rumor. This is was like, this was Steve jobs so alive that he had had a heart attack and is spread online momentarily to the point that IT cause apple stock to dip. And and before people realized there was a hoax and oh that quite a Victory making up bullshit that has an outside impact.

I think that's a really important piece of this, which is like they had been doing what they called ops or Operations for a long time. You know you like there's that you know about the hilter did nothing .

wrong about to do label.

Yes yes, course. yeah. They were people who don't like they. They sort of flooded an online poll to like create the new logo for mountain dew and they ve got IT in the mountain. Do find to say he learned nothing wrong.

Another suggestion on the mountain to poll was a suggested the flavor called, I think was called gussie granny. I was a .

funny one. And and so all of this kind of comes together to to, or twenty seventeen, almost a year after the pedestal emails release. This is when we get the first q post and it's on you for chinese political board and it's titled Hillary will be arrested in two days wh SHE wasn't IT ends with saying, open your eyes many in our government were and this was sort of the moment where the FBI insider stuff, the FBI in all the different and non, the pizza gate stuff, all of that kind of comes together.

And so q responded to this post by saying H R. C. Extradition already in motion, effective yesterday with several countries in case of ross border run. And then he says, he goes on this, they expect massive riots organized in the violence and others freeing the us. To occur and and then said, proof check, locate a national guard member and ask if activated for duty ten thirty across most major cities.

I'm sorry, the idea of her clinton running across the border is so you magine like rules, like she's still on TV like where it's all fine. Now, I mean, there there is an inherent silliness, is some of the stuff. But do you think, do you think this this q user, whoever they were, and we can talk about there, is about that later, do you think that they were doing something particularly innovative compared to all the other users that we're trying to sort of game at this time period?

Yeah, actually, you know, I think that what what the innovation was more game vacation to a, to being an insider and non and like, for example, FBI annon. Their format was sort of like A Q and a. They should like, ask me anything and he would pretend to know whatever, have all these answers.

What cute. A very frequently, especially in the early days, there are these leading questions designed and sort of like very cryptic phrases that were designed for more engagement. And we can see this actually in in the in the second um q drop and and and which was done the same day. And IT says things like, where is humor? Follow humor.

Humor ever, by the way.

that exactly. You say, oh, the analysis. Oh, human, everything.

Why should I follow humor? Oh, no, it's getting me right now.

I'm doing IT. IT goes to say, why does posters surrounds himself with generals? Why is military intelligence? Why go around the three letter? And they asked these like these questions, and they serve an interactivity to this.

And like sometimes they would like, you know, they that you would like use these these phones that seemed like nonsense, but none. They convince themselves that had to have some sort of very significant meaning, and they make them feel like they can go out and find the answers themselves. And IT gets them to invest a lot of time. And so as a consequence, people get like sucked into this this narrative.

So I I wanted to come back to this idea you'd mention about the game fiction which um so in twenty twenty two Adrian han long time garbage day reader actually a wrote a wired piece connecting q on to earlier A R and this is a really good chunk that we pulled out here. So q million, millions of followers often seem to begin their journey with the same refrain. I've done my research in early two thousand.

One and cool news posted a IT from the reader type jane salas name in the google outcome and see what pops up. The goole results began with janine Sally's home page, but LED to a whole network of fictional sites, some more futuristic versions of police websites and lifestyle magazines, like the sentient property crime bureau, the metropolis living homes that profiled AI powered houses. Others were hacked blogs.

A couple were in german and japanese. In all, there are over twenty sides and phone numbers to investigate. By the end of the day, the websites racked up twenty five million hits, all from the single in cool news article suggesting readers do their research, and later emerged they were all part of the first ever A R G, nicknamed the beast, developed by microsoft remote speller g's movie. The way i've described IT the bee sounds like normous fun, but that's exact same psychology behind you and on, which is you type in one thing and was that you find what they call chromes, right? So that's that's the time crimes and Bakers, I guess yeah.

it's like, this is this is another always the funny, the weirdest sort of ways in which q on people use terminology that you have this idea of that like like q doesn't tell you what the bleep people of people always insisted me there's not a called because it's not tell telling me what to believe is that could cute a sort of releases what they call these small little bits of information they call chromes and then they or directions and they the ideas that the other people called, when I called Bakers, which would bake the chromes into something, something more of here, which is not IT, was a confuse metaphor. You do not bake chromes in order to, like, make bread. So, yes, so there's this idea that by by taking the little bits of information or these are like us said, the leading questions um you could you could sort of like find you could figure out um you know the most secret, explosive, esoteric truth about the power structures that control the world.

I don't think IT is like totally that different from playing like ARPG or something like a text based like you're using the internet and using the news as a text based video game more or less. But the ending is almost always usually anti semitic. C in two thousand and seventeen.

Um it's another sort of big moment on our time on here. This is when Q N on moves from four chain to eight chain. And and I feel like the reason this moment in particular is very interesting is because once IT leaves its home base on fortune IT really IT will have h en as sort of like a as a distribution network.

But I do think sort of sets in motion a moment where IT starts to spread across the entire internet. And that's when you get each more like paul furber A K brook describe um who start popping up. Can you give us a little quick run down on on paul furber .

for those not in the know so paul for furber was really involved from the earlier even when he was on fortune um so yeah paul fiber is a south african man who ran the the I believe .

this the calm before the White south africans have never .

done anything bad on the internet ever yeah yeah and yeah he was involved in its very, very, very, very early days and this .

is actually the same month where, best as we can tell, uh the first real actual celebrity famous person name drops which is when rose and bar tweet about q on on november seventeen seventeen about two or three month .

later Shawn hanney mentioned .

IT h in the anyone and but rose embrace seems to be kind of the moment because now now we're like in full spread mode yeah should be .

should be mentioned that someone else who was we have documented very interested in you on the very early days was a markey tailor. Green.

whatever happened to her?

Well, yeah, SHE went on. She's big now. He took the facebook live to talk about, to talk about the huge drops and some of the wild early theories of q non.

For example, the claim that Robert ler special council investigated club was actually with a cola White hat idea that a Robert muller was. Actually, they claim he was investigating trump, and actually he was a good guy and the cute on university, he was going to eventually nail clinton. This was an early theory that kind of dissipated. What would be playing clear that that was not the case?

No no I don't remember that happening actually. Um by twenty eighteen like in my own career, i'm having to cover anything about you on the pops ops. So like this is like when you have the moral panic of amazon, a recommending cute on related merchandise being created by drop shippers and like the sense that like IT was taking over the country, which ah you know we should talk more about later on, what exactly how far this stuff spread? The the last I think really important date, pretty pandemic would be August tenth, twenty nineteen. Now do you know what that date is?

How please jog my memory.

So there's this guy, jeff rey estein the banker um the manhattan the manhattan banker this is when he died. Yeah and I was hoping you could walk us through how this impacted uh q on a consequences three based almost entirely around a hinton child sex trafficking networks because I feel like that would be big for that.

After he died, a lot of two million followers, they claim that he had actually like faked his death and then that he was like living at some sort of in undergoes location.

They had guys just take the win. You got this one you don't need to make a crazier.

I mean, IT one q non promoter, I haven't heard from a while, named the chief police and the effortless event happened he tweed f scene and prosecutors have reached a plea agreement, part of which was fake death, new identity and taken to undisclosed location to fully CoOperate with investigators. Kabc waking in their boots, right? Like no matter what happens, that's not actually what's gonna en, that's just a partly to some other bigger thing.

what's very eventual. So it's a doomed yeah the thing that's about to happen will always be about to happen to a sense. But on january six, twenty twenty one, I would say the closest thing to IT about to happen almost happened.

There is a tendency in especially the maintain media to try and sidestep. Addressing the insane bullshit that trust supporters believe because it's it's honestly IT takes a long time to write IT out or explain IT in a news package. You sound ridiculous when you try.

And so I think up until january six, like most of the major mainstream outlets, we're like, look, if we're onna do with q non, we're onna pull like some internet guy that looks like shelter from the big bang theory on to the TV for a second to be like the anonymous hacker for chinese, convincing people that everyone's a pedophile. But the the interaction IT was such a high profile thing that you couldn't look away, you couldn't be, you couldn't sort of wave IT away because, know, this is where you have to. Q N unshamed guy, this is where you have. Is there? Yeah.

you know, it's like one of the things my background like I said, I was very interested in the subject matter um not don't really have a background um as as a journalist before I started getting into this. But one thing I learned is that like a lot of people in the press, they were like understandably um didn't want to give IT oxyde.

They thought you know I think pra probably the best course of action is to just ignore like when I started getting really interested in q like IT was july two thousand and eighteen. There had already been an extremist incident. A connective q on IT was the previous month.

In june of twenty eighteen, there is a man who had an armed stand off in an, in an armored vehicle of the hover damn bridge, right? Got about the hover dam. And this was, I was like, is is crazy when you think about how early this was, this was like like less than a year before the before the q drops started started posting.

He had a sign like pleading with people to release the inspector general report. And this was based upon the belief that, uh, inspector general horovitz of the D O. J had some sort of secret report about the mell ference of the of the deep state that was being suppressed or something.

And so if I was revealed, then I would change everything. And so yeah, you're right. Is sometimes very goofy, sometimes it's just like really kind of like a harmless bombers in q shirts.

And so there is this tension. I don't want to say, here's this crazy movement. And this game steam and is going to take over is so scary, is already move as extremist action.

Why isn't more more people doing about this? Because i'm just bucky alex Jones, trying like wild people up and trying let people scared. I want to do that, but I, I want.

But at the same time, IT is a kind of right wing extremist movement. And so I need to like to treat IT kinds seriously. So is like, yeah, there is is very, very difficult to know exactly how to approach IT the tone to take well.

I will say the whole day m guy was correct because q did change everything. We had individuals believing all kinds of cookie things in their own world. And over the trump administration, those, you know, fairly harmless weirdos started to interact with hard core neonatal militia members.

And so what we saw in january six was the full articulation of this idea that the wu new age people and the sonoran tattoo people and IT has changed the world. That has changed the way we in amErica think about ourselves in the way we view our fellow citizens. In a sense, we're all sort of paranoid of each other now, and we're going to talk about that after the break.

This summer, a one gunmen on a rooftop reminded us that american presidents have long been the targets of assassins. Nearly fifty years ago, president jerd ford face two attempts on his life. In less than three weeks.

one fired a shot at president.

and our ford became stunning ly close to being one in a ret point a day. Forty five calva pistol at the president. These are the only two times we know of that.

A woman has tried to assassinate A U. S. president. And the two assassins never met. One was a protege of infamous called leader Charles manson. SHE is twenty six year old, but that Alice, from nickname quickly, I always felt like Linda was kind of his right hands woman.

The other, a middle aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in the violent revolutionary underground, identified by police, a Sarah gene Moore sera gene, could into into these areas that other people couldn't a spy. Basically the story of one strange and violent summer this season. On rip current, listen to a rip .

current on the I heart radio, APP apple podcasts, or wherever you was into your favorite shows.

The new apple watch series tennis here. IT has the biggest display ever. It's also the thist apple watch ever, making IT even more comfortable on your risk. And it's the fastest .

charging apple watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just fifteen minutes.

introducing the all new apple watch series ten now available for the first time, glossy jp like aluminum compared to previous generation iphone tennis later required charge .

time and actual results will vary.

It's game time. And if you've got a hunch about this N, B, A season, you can turn this into a big win on fan door because right now, 3 dollars hundred now。 That's read. unch. Gam problem call winning country gamer so .

job and he wins. You agree, right?

You think joe ban, I I would save that. yeah. I think he is legibly elected.

Okay, hot take, but fair enough. I think I agree with you. Um into two thousand and twenty three M P R wrote about the let's go branded me so they're write in late twenty twenty one the phrase let's go brand and based on a famously mish erode crowd chant and an ask your race got I love american culture so much quickly spread about conservative groups as a direct excluded toward.

By then sometime last year, fringe Donald m supporters, who called for the former republic ican president to run again into two twenty four, created a series of dark moga means they usually depicts a an authoritarian dictator like version of trumping which he sometimes has blue laser eyes accepting captions typically call for time to take revenge on local enemies. Those means almost immediately sponge dark Brandon figura sinners jobim. In this context, they often show images of the president shooting red lasers from or wearing military gear um which is to say that even like biden is kind of like leaning into the visual language of something like cun on now post code which I find extremely fascinating. I think most .

like tom supporters, they were they were just happy with the idea that like Hillary clinton was sad because he lost, but like human on followers, they want more. They wanted her to live in a constant state of pants shedding terror because he was going .

pants suit shading her yes.

that he was going to be like bag and then sent to gtm o and then hand and then and then um so this is and so I know this idea of that, like, you know, this political leader is not new. So some sort of like restrained western serve, like elected of office holder, but rather a dark of venture who is fixing on making your nmb suffer, is a little bit more invigorating.

What is really fascinating about this time period, this sort, like this covered post interaction moment bines in the White house, is that you start to see the conspirator oral influence of q non have an effect on the other side of the eye. This is where you get the, do you know the turn blue and ice, you know, blue and on you have had turned blue on.

yeah, yeah. So now when .

we go into this, we're not gonna be saying that these two are equal. And opposing forces by no means, but as anyone who's just heard the first part of this show can to test you when you start to talk about the originals of q una, the influence of russia on the twenty sixteen election, the the, I mean, the behavior of trump s own campaign IT is all very conspiratorial because I was literally was. So I do think because the internet is this, this soup of different influences in aesthetics, it's constantly remixing itself. IT was quite easy in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, for a bunch of democrats that are using twitter too much to kindly start talking like you and on people IT .

doesn't seem that crazy to me. Yeah yeah like like you mention like on my like on my own podcast. I I generally shy away from music a term um uh blue and on and this is really useful short hand because I like it's very .

it's catchy it's catchy .

is is the best to think that sounds good is also useful when what i'm talking about a the for example, right now there's a small community of people who are very insistent that uh that trump a stage his assinniboin mpt.

I watched a video today of what an area fifteen round would do near a human year. And I don't know that i'm saying you've ve got to do your research.

You've tt a follow the red cards here yeah some people they're very uh supportive of a democrats but they believe that like trump, like use a blood packer or something, sometimes they accuse the the associated press photographer who took that very famous photo of trump immediately afterwards of being in .

on that trust the plan and I .

trust the plan exactly. I can see why you're why you would refer to that as blue. But think about you on is that like it's it's an extremist movement.

Here's a tip for listeners that are sort of just learning about these world today. If you take right wing conspiracy is and you dig deep enough, almost all of them, I would say ninety percent of them are just a remix on the um protocols of the others of zion. They are all just very old anthropogenic shit.

This has been bumping around for like hundreds of years. If you go on the left and you really want to find some cool left, this conspiracy, the theory you can the CIA admitted to almost all of them every couple years of like ah yeah we did ash IT. So I mean, they're not comparable in any way there are and plus on the internet like and this is a thing that we have touched.

The first part of this, one of the criticisms I always had with, like when CNN or even abc, your places would get into this territories in the its are covering this stuff, is that you can throw a dark in any direction on the internet, and you can find the crazy st. Person who believes, and probably mah straight to the most, the same thing you've ever heard of. And that's just how the internet has been since the nineties. Like that, just what IT is mad, you know, like it's when that starts to network and mobilize and spread, that's when you start to .

have to start taking IT seriously. I think yeah yeah I mean I grateful for the fact that um IT didn't seem like um q encouraged a people generally to take like outside action besides vote. There was like remember during during the but .

but vote go the point .

it's like it's like way to know there are going to be revelations that change everything. Why I have to be so fixing the .

got off there are .

there is a worry that like because key was so trusted by this, that was there's the concern list for me that you would, uh, ask people to do something that would that would like, you know, harm the cut followers or other people. They seem to find ways do that on their own. You have just because they believe so, so fervent tly, rather than being the survey, the ponds of a survey command control system on the key pose.

Do you think, do you think that the fact that never when that direction is because the mental of q kept being passed around, like by this point, I incorrect me from wrong by this point. James and ron walkings, the father and son duo who were long time owners of the h and domain IT, seems like if they were the one piloting queue .

at this point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's see, sees me the case.

But after the insurrection after covered uh, in october twenty twenty two, once again a big month uh for bad internet stuff is when ellam takes over twitter, he starts the process of your naming at x do you think ella musk knows what you on is like? Do believe he believes in IT or cares about that.

I mean, literally this week he's sharing videos with q non iconography in them that seem to have been surfaced in a hard court union telegram group. But i'm also just like not convinced that like people at his level of the class archi know anything. And also I sort of think he's like trump y, i'll say or do anything to be popular online because he has like a deep, unless void inside of him. I don't believe that he really believes that. What do you think.

So it's it's funny the a member, the washington post actually uh emailed him A A question about on and in his his response was merely l lo so so that that indicates to me at least like like he knows what q in on is. But he also like he, he knows you. I was is something, you know, I was like, thump is something something that's funny and profit, something to, you know, nod and wink at.

I think that I think that's right. And I think the the game fiction that kono introduced to a certain kind of political poster, both on the right and those on the left that are aware of IT, I think was really amplified after ella must bought twitter and started to gut IT. Because that's when you start to see, I think, cuing on and both blue on become a lot more um hard to separate from Normal internet discourse.

This is when you know you have all kinds of theories about uh biden being drugged for the debate uh which I could even tell you which side believe that I think they both did in certain degrees um this is when you start getting like the conspiracy theory about trump now actually being shot um this is when A A schism happens around biden and calm a Harris like this summer where you have in finding with the democrats and they are both using conspiracy theory against each other. It's just faster to me that after the insurrection, a bunch of major platforms clearly give up on a news content to give up a moderation. They start, you know, adding more AI content.

They sort of say, like enough, don't we don't want any part of this? Can you have eluting buying twitter? And IT starts to fall apart.

And then a lot of the stuff that cute on supporters were doing in the and of the last decade just becomes a Normal way of communicating for a lot of people. I mean, this is like the Amber heard john I deb stuff. This is the gabby te to disappearance. This is like tiktok conspiracy theories like IT all just sorted starts to feel like we're all Bakers of a specific subculture that we're in.

The other thing is that like um q kind of made this almost multilevel marketing kind of like system of being an online ponant in which same .

more and way that's that's a really good way to put IT same more .

about that that's really good. So you would like prose like this information and then um or like this very cyp tic information that was like hard to the cycle. And so the other there are the people. A one of the most notable ones is, I guess when we called praying medic also also by the name of David haye.

Uh, what he would do is like he would tell you what that means, right? He would say, I was like, there is all the strange stuff here's what that really means um and and here's how did the safety that really works very well. You can sort of like build a large audience by that saying, like you, all these are now these news events in these documents, in these oil now, even like weird subtleties that like powerful people are saying, well, all has a hidden meaning and know the msm will telling what that is.

But I do because I understand that I understand level. They don't. So listen to me and then you have offer these elaborate explanations. And then there there's a system where and then you then you so like connect with other people who buy into you're narrative to promote you and you proto promote them. And maybe they aren't as popular as you, but but they sort of offer a sort of a relevant sort of like interpretation of what you're saying to create the sort of like close network of serve like understanding current events. So yeah, that's like just just serve like a common thing thing now where you sort of like, you know be the sea online.

I think that's exactly rate. I've almost wondered over the years if if q don is not actually a symptom of america's politics and actually a symptom of the way the internet has changed media consumption in the same way that, you know, any person on redit you come across has a fine theory about their favorite T V show or pop star. Whatever IT is, there's is a contingent in our country who watch a lot of cable news.

And the same thing happened to them, like there's an entire sub reit of people who believe the taiLoring of secretly osbiorn gail's. They have all kinds of fan theory that they can see through the lines to be like these words mean this, and that's which these the seeker messages. And that is just the way the internet has shaped those people who listen to tea script.

And the same thing just happened to the people who watch too much fox news or M S M B C R C N N. IT is politically powerful because IT involves current events and and political power. But IT IT is not actually maybe connected to politics in anyway is simply just A A symptom of twenty four our cable news. I've always wonder .

that yeah yeah I was always interested in um it's sort like a connection to this kind of phenomenon the show lock at fandom, the v dc that I know where you're going .

with this yeah there .

there a community people believe that the that the series was heading towards essentially .

a gay romance. John lock was the name of the gay romance.

the john lock conspiracy. Here there there is a community of people who believe that there were secret clues in the show that um indicated that that there was some sort of more than friendly a connection between between sherlock and they spend lots of lots of time decoding clues and there is someone reference the number of fifty seven and there's a soit by shakespeare, a soit seven which happens to reference his affection for a Young man so well and sea clue .

I have a friend who like had a degree in sherlock ck homes fan vick from the first sherlock home stories and there is an entire society people who have been writing gay fanfic k about hotel homes and wants in for almost three hundred years now what is the status of q non right now?

2 so q um stopped posting in in twenty twenty then then returned in twenty twenty two to make a few posts who implied that they're returning for good that was like do you want to play again？ But the problems that these posts were kind of like poorly received by the q in on Baker community, the kind like network of people who who the q post they worked very unless. And so q kind of like win away. But the q on community still is very active. A Q on helped a forge, this sort of like conspiracist network of people who were on rumble and telegram and now, now even twitter.

I had a great argument many years ago that the rise of fascism in europe in the turn of the last century was directly related to the affordability of the printing press, that all of a set in every single waco across europe could print whatever they wanted. And you saw immediate explosion in both a courtisanes fascism. And when I think about the twenty for a century version of both a courtesy and fascism, I think of cue on this idea that at every sort of big um communications revolution you get these sort of movements, they just tend to happen because IT is a natural outgrowth of the way we consume media, the way we communicate, the way politics bounce is off of you uh, do you know how citizens vote and mobilize and think like I don't think that IT is necessarily surprising that this stuff is happening.

I'm always curious like like, well, you know how long is this going to go? I mean, there is like, and I think the answer is like, you look at things, something like our familiar was like nasta a sora no.

this is new to milk, by the way. congrats. Uh, grank. We put a little clap and sound effect. You are the first guest in in our episodes that you mention an international thing that I don't know.

you win. You just one panicle.

And tell me all about this.

This is actually one of the very first internet code.

This this isn't the the graduate from rescue rangers called in russia.

No, no, no. There is a belief that there is a um there is a entity online who who organized using yahoo groups.

Oh this oh my god, you are hitting like every pleasure center, pleasure center of my brain right now.

Okay pack you like late ninety two thousands um or early two thousand years is entity named dove of one that the real name was shay good one there is there is a woman who lived in pacific northwest uh SHE claimed that there was a secret law past called nesa that in that what would happen was that when the secret law was revealed um they would make everyone rich however, there was a battle going on behind the seas between these entities called the White the White tites and the black nights and and this is why IT wasn't revealed yet and to this day, like and like dove of oneness, shiny, good one. SHE is an active anymore but are there still people who are waiting for this nsa law to be revealed and make everyone rich? Essentially.

that's wild when .

these community is form and their passionate, and they they have, they have sunk a lot of time and money they made sacrifices of. Sometimes you've separated from their family, sometimes they would ve lost jobs over these a crazy, cute on beliefs. And so when you have that invested that much time and make that many sacrifices and you force this kind of community, there's just no incentive to leave IT even after decades.

That's so interesting. That's like I i'd never heard of this nsa asara thing that's a child. Especially especially is happening on something like a yahoo group which doesn't doesn't have the same network effect, is something like, let's say, facebook or instagram or whenever it's so interesting that like it's such a it's such a fundamental by product of the way we use technologies that these things just happen.

And I do have to wonder if this this current election cycle, you know, the reason IT feels so intangible to us is partly, I think, due to the internet, which is that is that is no longer centralized the way IT had been for a decade. In part of the reason IT doesn't feel centralized anymore is because of groups like Q N. On that.

We're taking advances, little ally like a virus inside of centralized platforms. And a lot of those companies like, fuck, I don't want to deal with you freaks anymore like we're going to just turn the ship off and you can all use A I generator content. Now I do think that part of IT IT allowed a lot of americans to start to abstract fy politics in the same way and create the law and sort of treated like a fan. M, I really do think in many ways that this election is is happening very much in the shadow of q non. But now, instead of being like this thing, we're like this evil right wing cold is taking over american politics, is that we all just sort of sound like piano IT seems inseparable to me, like efficient water.

The one thing about cun on is that when I talk about like the ways in which people come more cosplay toral when they lose power. Q on the kind of the exception that proves the rule, but only because because this is a conspiracy movement that emerged after their guy won, their guy got in office.

You got what IT ook excuse his inability to do they want, that's what IT.

But they yes, they wasn't. Yes, he wasn't arrest. He wasn't locking her up.

Yes, he wasn't like, like training the swap. Even progress on the wall wasn't quite as fast as they wanted. And so they wanted, they wanted.

So they came up. IT couldn't be, if that like this, this guide bulshed eating us. IT couldn't that I was dupe? No.

because that coding of decision is to painting.

And so instead they reason that actually that trump is going to do all the things that you're going to are going to do. But he has to do IT in secret because there's a secret battle and eventually he's going to reveal everything um but yeah there was this how to how to resolve the the surrey c gap between how much they wanted trump to do and how much they was actually doing is by turning to these .

kinds of conspiracy theories and now that IT looks like trump is the projected winner and the next present of the united states again, it's reasonable to assume that q non activity will ramp up because trump will never be able to deliver what he's promised them. And I think that's the most important take away from today's pisos, which is that q non is is an excuse. Q non is a way to rationalize trump for first and foremost.

And IT will continue to evolve. Much of what we've talked about today will obviously remain true for how q on followers communicate and what they believe. But IT is, IT is a living entity.

IT is a living ideology, and IT is changing all the time. H, I feel a lot Better about the future america. Um the drive as I wanted.

Thank you for coming on the show. Um he was fantastic. If you want to follow you, there are good place.

They can do that. I am unfortunate still on the platform, formally known as twitter travel's view, but I am also a blue sky, which I I enjoy. I think there is a good day there.

I'm digin IT too. It's nice. Thank you again. This was fantastic pleasure. If you like this conversation and you want to keep vibe and you want to keep rocking with IT, you can go over to our patriot patriot outcome ash pan world where we have an ad free extra long episode with travis talking more about the history of online conspiracy theories in amErica and we also play a little game um which actually retrospect again wasn't very fun actually because I think we're both in a very dark place, but drivers and. Panic is a garbage day production.

You can subscribe with the newsletter at garbage day dot email and is written produce by grand ervin, hosed by me, right? And our amazing researcher is at amy mous video editing by cat ray sec. And our incredible derange logo was drawn by gabby cash.

You want to give us five dollars a month. You can do that at Peter round dcom flash panic world, in return will give you more content to consume you. You want to buy that on the show or sponsored IT in any way, you can contact the fine folks and multitude, add multitude dot production flash ads.

And if you want to get involved in other way, you know, any other crazy scheme you want to roll us into, you can contact our fixer and bag. Ma n josh feels bad and he can reach him at panic. Pod at geno, come lately. Here's my advice for you, chill out and touch grass when you still can.