QAnon, Radicalization, and the Cult of Personality (A Social Media Post)
“More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts.”
― Robert Frost
1. QAnon and the Phenomenon of Radicalization
Addiction, algorithms, the commodification of attention, the collection of data—these are only the base issues with social media and the rise of influencer culture. What happens when the algorithms direct you to darker vortexes, when they grab your attention, lead you into more fringe addictions? What happens when you graduate from kitten memes, pocket knife reviews, haul videos, and porn to something more radical (and radicalizing).
If you’ve read an ounce of news over the last few months, you’re aware of QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy hub for those claiming…
President Trump is engaged in an underground fight against uber-elite pedophiles, or
That the compound adrenochrome “represents a mystical psychedelic favored by the global elites for drug-crazed satanic rites, derived from torturing children to harvest their oxidized hormonal fear—a kind of real-life staging of the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc,” or
That Bill Gates is related to the devil, or
Trump and the Q Team are turning 5G Towers into Tesla 432 Hz harmony towers.
(For a great piece on QAnon and the impacts of religion, read this piece for RNS by Katelyn Beaty.)
QAnon theories populate the online world and are disseminated through social networks like Facebook, which NBC News reported has “more than 1,000 of those QAnon groups, totaling millions of members.” (See “How QAnon Rode the Pandemic to New Heights—and Fueled the Viral Anti-mask Phenomenon.”) The results? Members “doomscroll” QAnon posts for hours, riff off the material, receive applause for new insights. They forge connection over shared ideas, reinforcing insights no matter how baseless. Facts over feelings. Facts be damned.
One of those members—Melissa Rein Lively, the subject of the above-cited NBC article—took the conspiracies to the street. In a local Target, she made her way to mask display, and in a profanity-laced tirade, vandalized it. It was performative disobedience, captured via cellphone video for the benefit of her QAnon community. Why’d she do it? According to the article,
Rein Lively said she was "craving connection" in the weeks before the Target video, that she "couldn't just go and sit with a table of people and have a glass of wine like I'm used to."
Isolated, alone, and without the usual social outlets, she found herself drawn to online conspiracy groups. And over time, she found her views moved by the masses. Ultimately, she found herself radicalized. And though Rein Lively lost community respect and her career over the incident, someone won. But who?
2. Radicalization and the Right to Win
Dylan said it best “the times, they are a-changin’.” And in this era of rolling COVID lockdowns and social distancing, the people are struggling with those changes. Community is waning. Isolation is waxing. And human as we are, we all long for connection. And as I wrote earlier in this series, fear, anger, pride, and the like are powerful unifying tools. In the social media bubble, they can bring a community together in no time.
The purveyors of fear, anger, pride, and the like build massive audiences, draw people into their online communities on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Often, these sorts of online personalities blend fact and conjecture, offer editorialization mixed with conspiracy. And as their communities grow, the algorithms offer more support, recommending their content to more and more viewers (particularly on YouTube). What’s more, new growth brings a sort of confirmation bias to the community members. “The opinions of the purvey must be right,” the logic goes, “because, after all, could a lie really attract so many people?” And as the audience falls deeper down the rabbit hole, as they find themselves becoming more radicalized, who wins?
Follow the money; see the man at the top of the pyramid; watch him laugh his way to the bank.
You can find examples of these sorts of communities all over the internet. Alex Jones, the conspiracy-theorist founder of Infowars honed the technique to an art form. The mystery men behind QAnon’s “Q Drops” are following suit. But lighter versions exist in almost every corner of the digital world. Consider Taylor Marshall, a Catholic talking-head who weaves traditionalist values and conspiratorial conjecture to question the validity of the Pope (and indeed, Catholicism itself). Consider the evangelist John Hagee who, in 2015, claimed the coming of the four blood moons was an omen of the end times. (He’s still pushing this conspiracy theory, claiming that Russia took ground in the Middle East after the fourth blood moon and that it’s preparing an eventual invasion of Israel.) Consider modern politicians who do not debunk conspiracy theories that help their campaigns. Consider, consider, consider. Then ask yourself: Are they shilling these conspiracies for a price?
Radicalizers use speculation, conjecture, and conspiracy—all of which are unprovable in fact—to gather a community. The radicalizers question all authority but their own. They dismiss facts that undermine their authority. They ask the community to fall in line, to support and spread the message, to make viral videos. They sell books, supplements, ask for donations, beg for your vote. They amass influence and power. They set themselves at the head of the table, make endless toasts to their unmatched insight. All the while, they march their followers into deeper devotion. And they’re using social media as the tool to do it.
Today, consider the radical voices you hear on the internet. Ask yourself:
Are they using conspiracy theories (even if implied) to capture my attention?
Do they cite sources for the facts they use?
Do they come under any authority but their own?
Are they trying to sell me something?
If the answers make you uncomfortable, unfollow these internet voices. Unsubscribe. Walk away. And above all, find a more rooted community of connection.