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QAnon and On: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults
In QAnon and On, Guardian columnist Van Badham delves headfirst into the QAnon conspiracy theory, unpicking the why, how and who behind this century’s most dangerous and far-fetched internet cult.
From Gamergate to Pizzagate and beyond to QAnon, internet manipulation and disinformation campaigns have grown to a geopolitical scale and spilled into real life with devastating consequences, entangling everyone from politicians to Hollywood celebrities.
But what would motivate followers to so forcefully avoid the facts and surrender instead to made-up stories designed to influence and control? It’s a question that has haunted Van, herself a veteran of social media’s relentless trolling wars. In this daring investigation, Van exposes some of the internet’s most extreme communities to understand conspiracy cults from the inside.
QAnon and On is the story of the modern internet, the farscape of political belief and a disinformation pipeline built between the two that poses an ongoing threat to democracy itself. Shocking and mesmerising in equal measure, this book will open our eyes to the dangers of partisan belief.
From Gamergate to Pizzagate and beyond to QAnon, internet manipulation and disinformation campaigns have grown to a geopolitical scale and spilled into real life with devastating consequences, entangling everyone from politicians to Hollywood celebrities.
But what would motivate followers to so forcefully avoid the facts and surrender instead to made-up stories designed to influence and control? It’s a question that has haunted Van, herself a veteran of social media’s relentless trolling wars. In this daring investigation, Van exposes some of the internet’s most extreme communities to understand conspiracy cults from the inside.
QAnon and On is the story of the modern internet, the farscape of political belief and a disinformation pipeline built between the two that poses an ongoing threat to democracy itself. Shocking and mesmerising in equal measure, this book will open our eyes to the dangers of partisan belief.
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First published November 17, 2021
156 people are currently reading
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About the author
Van Badham
11 books184 followersOne of Australia's most capricious and engaging writing talents, Van Badham's career spans journalism, comedy, drama, arts criticism, genre fiction, speechwriting, music theatre and cabaret, non-fiction, writing for television and radio, and even poetry. Her first novel, Burnt Snow was published by PanMacmillan in 2010, while her plays include the award-winning The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars, Muff and a stage adaptation of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, as well as Sydney Theatre Company's box-office smash, Banging Denmark<.
Van was born in Sydney and completed degrees in theatre at the University of Wollongong, the University of Sheffield (UK) and the Victorian College of the Arts. A former literary manager of both London's Finborough Theatre and Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, she has been a regular columnist for The Guardian since 2013, and has appeared a frequent guest of both The Drum and Q&A on the ABC.
Van was born in Sydney and completed degrees in theatre at the University of Wollongong, the University of Sheffield (UK) and the Victorian College of the Arts. A former literary manager of both London's Finborough Theatre and Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, she has been a regular columnist for The Guardian since 2013, and has appeared a frequent guest of both The Drum and Q&A on the ABC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
April 29, 2022
What an interesting book this is! Van Badham, an Australian journalist who seems to know her way around the world of internet conspiracy theories, walks us through three recent episodes: Gamergate, Pizzagate, and, finally, QAnon. I thought I knew something about them, but I had underestimated just how crazy they were. I hadn't understood that Gamergate involved tens of thousands of men spending a large part of their time over months and in some cases years obsessively trying to bully a few women into killing themselves because they didn't like the style of videogames they were producing, or that tens of thousands of other people decided that the owners of an ordinary pizza restaurant in DC were torturing and killing children in its non-existent basement because they thought that references to pizza in stolen emails were a secret pedophile code. I didn't understand that many people really believe there are shape-shifting lizards among us, in fact believe it so strongly that in at least one case they have killed their infant children because they suspected these poor kids of containing "serpent DNA". And although I had seen many references to the infamous 4chan and 8chan/8kun sites, I hadn't understood what these sites were like, and that ironic, ambiguous, somewhat tasteless internet conversations not that different from what you see on Goodreads could rapidly evolve into straight-out psychotic behaviour.
I was appalled, but at least as often, I'm afraid to say, I was fascinated. This is the kind of social science experiment that no ethics board in its wildest dreams would consider allowing with three subjects under controlled conditions and a psych team standing by to help, and it was done, completely uncontrolled and with no safety net, using millions of fragile, vulnerable people. It was monstrous (what do I mean, "was"? It's still going on), but it has the potential to teach us a great deal about how we function. In particular, there is a gigantic amount of data here about what makes people believe things. I would not have thought it would be so easy to post implausible parodies of information leaks from disaffected insiders on a joke site and rapidly sever hundreds of thousands of people's connections with reality, but the QAnon experiment shows you can.
Evidently, a great many of us don't weigh evidence at all. If we see a narrative we find attractive, we can decide we believe it without any need for evidence, and then refuse to change our minds irrespective of what happens. Of course, we're used to people believing weird and nonsensical things when they're officially labelled "religions", and we have a special category for religious beliefs. Without stopping to consider, we tend to assume they're traditions going back centuries, which represent the accumulated wisdom of a culture. Well, some religions are. But the mechanisms seem to work just as well if it's something you read twenty minutes ago in an ungrammatical internet post, as long as you're the right kind of person and it's done in the right way.
What is that kind of person? What is that way? This book, which is remarkably analytical and non-judgemental, tries to answer the questions: the author thinks it's often connected to having something bad happen to you which leaves you permanently scared and insecure, and that certain kinds of simple black-and-white, good-versus-evil threat narratives can then become irresistibly appealing. It's only the beginnings of an answer. It would be good if we could use the QAnon experience to understood better how to defend ourselves against these psychological techniques. Because you get the impression that certain organisations who do not love Western democracy are becoming increasingly effective at using them.
____________________
Be Nice, in message #52, recommends looking at Hamilton Hume's Nov 2021 post on Medium, "Why the World's Gone Mad: The Weaponisation of the Conspiracy Narrative Virus". I just finished reading it and agree. It overlaps well with this book and has a mass of related material. If possible, it's even more worrying.
I was appalled, but at least as often, I'm afraid to say, I was fascinated. This is the kind of social science experiment that no ethics board in its wildest dreams would consider allowing with three subjects under controlled conditions and a psych team standing by to help, and it was done, completely uncontrolled and with no safety net, using millions of fragile, vulnerable people. It was monstrous (what do I mean, "was"? It's still going on), but it has the potential to teach us a great deal about how we function. In particular, there is a gigantic amount of data here about what makes people believe things. I would not have thought it would be so easy to post implausible parodies of information leaks from disaffected insiders on a joke site and rapidly sever hundreds of thousands of people's connections with reality, but the QAnon experiment shows you can.
Evidently, a great many of us don't weigh evidence at all. If we see a narrative we find attractive, we can decide we believe it without any need for evidence, and then refuse to change our minds irrespective of what happens. Of course, we're used to people believing weird and nonsensical things when they're officially labelled "religions", and we have a special category for religious beliefs. Without stopping to consider, we tend to assume they're traditions going back centuries, which represent the accumulated wisdom of a culture. Well, some religions are. But the mechanisms seem to work just as well if it's something you read twenty minutes ago in an ungrammatical internet post, as long as you're the right kind of person and it's done in the right way.
What is that kind of person? What is that way? This book, which is remarkably analytical and non-judgemental, tries to answer the questions: the author thinks it's often connected to having something bad happen to you which leaves you permanently scared and insecure, and that certain kinds of simple black-and-white, good-versus-evil threat narratives can then become irresistibly appealing. It's only the beginnings of an answer. It would be good if we could use the QAnon experience to understood better how to defend ourselves against these psychological techniques. Because you get the impression that certain organisations who do not love Western democracy are becoming increasingly effective at using them.
____________________
Be Nice, in message #52, recommends looking at Hamilton Hume's Nov 2021 post on Medium, "Why the World's Gone Mad: The Weaponisation of the Conspiracy Narrative Virus". I just finished reading it and agree. It overlaps well with this book and has a mass of related material. If possible, it's even more worrying.
April 10, 2022
With an election coming up, if you live in Australia you should read this book in order to ensure that you don't vote ScoMo. He hangs out with people who either believe QAnon shit or are using it. I don't think it matters which.
If you are American, get over the fact that this book starts in Australia. Americans, you have spread this shit around the world. Own up to that. Read what it means in practice in a democracy which is still a lot healthier than yours.
Russians: get rid of the creep.
Although a friend said to me recently that she found Badham 'hysterical', this book is anything but. I found it remarkable that while delivering such horrifying news of the world it nonetheless remains sober. Her careful research leads her to conclusions which will be very hard for normal people to take. In particular that the only thing we can do about psycho conspiracy theorists is keep reminding them of the good life they are missing by cutting themselves off and remaining in locked up spaces with those of the same ilk. Whilst I dare say that can work, any normal people will find it a pretty revolting task. And in any case, this process assumes that we normal people are the ones who can make the decision to stay in touch and hope to deprogram those who are lost. Most recently it is a friend of some standing who has cut me off because she is QAnon. As for those who think that they can talk QAnon but not be QAnon, which is another alarmingly large group of people I know, I am lost as to what to do about them too. Some of them seem to think it's amusing. Others analyse the world in QAnon ways without, apparently, realising. One of that group declined my recommendation to read this book because he finds that books have points of view. He is under the impression that if he reads shit on the internet that isn't book length he will save himself from such horror. He's a mathematician and apparently is so naive that he thinks he can gather data and draw his own conclusions. The consequence is that he has no idea that he is doing the sociological equivalent of adding 2+2 and getting any number other than 4. He has no idea that he is thinking exactly like a QAnon person.
Read the book.
If you are American, get over the fact that this book starts in Australia. Americans, you have spread this shit around the world. Own up to that. Read what it means in practice in a democracy which is still a lot healthier than yours.
Russians: get rid of the creep.
Although a friend said to me recently that she found Badham 'hysterical', this book is anything but. I found it remarkable that while delivering such horrifying news of the world it nonetheless remains sober. Her careful research leads her to conclusions which will be very hard for normal people to take. In particular that the only thing we can do about psycho conspiracy theorists is keep reminding them of the good life they are missing by cutting themselves off and remaining in locked up spaces with those of the same ilk. Whilst I dare say that can work, any normal people will find it a pretty revolting task. And in any case, this process assumes that we normal people are the ones who can make the decision to stay in touch and hope to deprogram those who are lost. Most recently it is a friend of some standing who has cut me off because she is QAnon. As for those who think that they can talk QAnon but not be QAnon, which is another alarmingly large group of people I know, I am lost as to what to do about them too. Some of them seem to think it's amusing. Others analyse the world in QAnon ways without, apparently, realising. One of that group declined my recommendation to read this book because he finds that books have points of view. He is under the impression that if he reads shit on the internet that isn't book length he will save himself from such horror. He's a mathematician and apparently is so naive that he thinks he can gather data and draw his own conclusions. The consequence is that he has no idea that he is doing the sociological equivalent of adding 2+2 and getting any number other than 4. He has no idea that he is thinking exactly like a QAnon person.
Read the book.
Read
April 2, 2023This is one of those books that's hard to give a star rating. The author is based in Australia and writes for The Guardian. She has done some impressive investigative work with this book.
The first part of the book focuses on Australia. It seems QAnon arrived there a bit later than in the U.S. Having followed all of this from the U.S., there were already much in the book I already knew.
But what was different for me was the journey she takes the reader through the Dark Web. It's very disturbing. Just before taking up this book, I had begun to re-read The Divine Comedy. This felt like a modernized version of traveling through Dante's Inferno.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.
This is the place I told you
to expect. Here you shall pass
among the fallen people,
souls who have lost the good of intellect.
================
The return of Pizzagate....
The National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, was forced to close indefinitely after Kimberly Lowe, a fringe congressional candidate running in a GOP primary in Virginia, visited the site with hopes of uncovering a child sex-trafficking hub.
Denied entry based on her trail of inflammatory Facebook posts, Lowe became belligerent. A war of words and a physical altercation with the center’s director followed. Soon after, right-wing media featured video from outside the center’s gates alleging “credible threats of the cartels trafficking children through the butterfly center.”
The false claims follow the same script as the Pizzagate conspiracy theory in 2016, when Democrats were falsely accused of abusing children and holding them captive in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in upscale northwest Washington, D.C. that doesn’t have a basement. But proving or debunking a conspiracy theory isn’t the point.
The point is to inflame and excite a Republican base that flirted with (or openly embraced) the QAnon conspiracy theory alleging a Deep State cabal of Democratic-Satanic pedophiles
(Daily Beast)
=====
"Global cabal theories are able to attract large followings in part because they offer a single, straightforward explanation to countless complicated processes."
"It makes me smarter and wiser than the average person and even elevates me above the intellectual elite and the ruling class: professors, journalists, politicians. I see what they overlook — or what they try to conceal."
"Global cabal theories suffer from the same basic flaw: They assume that history is very simple. The key premise of global cabal theories is that it is relatively easy to manipulate the world. A small group of people can understand, predict and control everything, from wars to technological revolutions to pandemics."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/op...
====================
Who is QAnon?
According to reports, Jason Gelinas was a “longtime Wall Street IT expert” with a noteworthy professional interest in data mining. He perhaps knew better than most how susceptible people are to advertising when they’re angry and they’re frightened; reports claim he was earning $US3,000 a month from Q-adherents on his Patreon site, and suspected of compiling data on 10 million site visitors willing to believe – without evidence – that a network of Hollywood satanists run vast underground camps where raped children are milked for blood. It’s an unquestioning credulity that would have any marketer salivating.
Janja Lalich, a professor emerita of sociology at California State University at Chico who’s studied cults for decades, says internet movements such as QAnon have grown at an alarming rate, because of a political debate that’s become increasingly unmoored from a set of universally agreed-upon facts. “It’s times like these that cults can thrive,” she says. “We have leadership that has tried very hard to change our relationship with reality, and people are grasping at straws. The last four years have been precedent-setting in creating an atmosphere of disbelief."
=================
Recently, Donald Trump was asked about his party’s embrace of QAnon, whose followers believe that Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, the Dalai Lama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros are all involved in a secret pedophile ring in which children are killed and eaten in order to cultivate a life-saving chemical from their blood.
“I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Trump said. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.”
This was not surprising. The very fine people of QAnon always say nice things about Donald Trump, so of course he reciprocates. That’s literally his entire strategy for life.
Meanwhile, he has been trying to cast Biden as some kind of Trojan Horse.....
What’s clear—crystal clear—is that Donald Trump is the Trojan Horse. He’s the one who brought crazed extremist conspiracy mongering into mainstream public life.
https://thebulwark.com/donald-trump-i...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
=================
We ARE nuts. This book is a bestseller in the U.S.
The book, which says it was written by a dozen anonymous Q followers, decoders and citizen journalists known collectively as Where We Go One We Go All (WWG1WGA), claims that Democrats murder and eat children and that the government created AIDS, polio and Lyme disease.
Input from another reviewer....
"Then there’s the belief that the world is run by a Satanic cabal led by Hillary Clinton. Further reading into some of the blogs frequented by QANON followers show that many of these followers are also flat earthers. These people are being conned, and frankly, they deserve whatever hardship they get for being so willfully stupid."
Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy-theory expert, told NBC that the book is just another way for the QAnon movement to cash in on its gullible followers, calling it “a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q."
NEW ARTICLE ON QANON....
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
How QAnon works like a video game to hook people....
https://www.axios.com/qanon-video-gam...
QAnon as repackeged anti-Semitism
https://www.timesofisrael.com/qanon-i...
The QAnon orphans: people who have lost loved ones to conspiracy theories....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
The first part of the book focuses on Australia. It seems QAnon arrived there a bit later than in the U.S. Having followed all of this from the U.S., there were already much in the book I already knew.
But what was different for me was the journey she takes the reader through the Dark Web. It's very disturbing. Just before taking up this book, I had begun to re-read The Divine Comedy. This felt like a modernized version of traveling through Dante's Inferno.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.
This is the place I told you
to expect. Here you shall pass
among the fallen people,
souls who have lost the good of intellect.
================
The return of Pizzagate....
The National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, was forced to close indefinitely after Kimberly Lowe, a fringe congressional candidate running in a GOP primary in Virginia, visited the site with hopes of uncovering a child sex-trafficking hub.
Denied entry based on her trail of inflammatory Facebook posts, Lowe became belligerent. A war of words and a physical altercation with the center’s director followed. Soon after, right-wing media featured video from outside the center’s gates alleging “credible threats of the cartels trafficking children through the butterfly center.”
The false claims follow the same script as the Pizzagate conspiracy theory in 2016, when Democrats were falsely accused of abusing children and holding them captive in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in upscale northwest Washington, D.C. that doesn’t have a basement. But proving or debunking a conspiracy theory isn’t the point.
The point is to inflame and excite a Republican base that flirted with (or openly embraced) the QAnon conspiracy theory alleging a Deep State cabal of Democratic-Satanic pedophiles
(Daily Beast)
=====
"Global cabal theories are able to attract large followings in part because they offer a single, straightforward explanation to countless complicated processes."
"It makes me smarter and wiser than the average person and even elevates me above the intellectual elite and the ruling class: professors, journalists, politicians. I see what they overlook — or what they try to conceal."
"Global cabal theories suffer from the same basic flaw: They assume that history is very simple. The key premise of global cabal theories is that it is relatively easy to manipulate the world. A small group of people can understand, predict and control everything, from wars to technological revolutions to pandemics."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/op...
====================
Who is QAnon?
According to reports, Jason Gelinas was a “longtime Wall Street IT expert” with a noteworthy professional interest in data mining. He perhaps knew better than most how susceptible people are to advertising when they’re angry and they’re frightened; reports claim he was earning $US3,000 a month from Q-adherents on his Patreon site, and suspected of compiling data on 10 million site visitors willing to believe – without evidence – that a network of Hollywood satanists run vast underground camps where raped children are milked for blood. It’s an unquestioning credulity that would have any marketer salivating.
Janja Lalich, a professor emerita of sociology at California State University at Chico who’s studied cults for decades, says internet movements such as QAnon have grown at an alarming rate, because of a political debate that’s become increasingly unmoored from a set of universally agreed-upon facts. “It’s times like these that cults can thrive,” she says. “We have leadership that has tried very hard to change our relationship with reality, and people are grasping at straws. The last four years have been precedent-setting in creating an atmosphere of disbelief."
=================
Recently, Donald Trump was asked about his party’s embrace of QAnon, whose followers believe that Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, the Dalai Lama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros are all involved in a secret pedophile ring in which children are killed and eaten in order to cultivate a life-saving chemical from their blood.
“I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Trump said. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.”
This was not surprising. The very fine people of QAnon always say nice things about Donald Trump, so of course he reciprocates. That’s literally his entire strategy for life.
Meanwhile, he has been trying to cast Biden as some kind of Trojan Horse.....
What’s clear—crystal clear—is that Donald Trump is the Trojan Horse. He’s the one who brought crazed extremist conspiracy mongering into mainstream public life.
https://thebulwark.com/donald-trump-i...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
=================
We ARE nuts. This book is a bestseller in the U.S.
The book, which says it was written by a dozen anonymous Q followers, decoders and citizen journalists known collectively as Where We Go One We Go All (WWG1WGA), claims that Democrats murder and eat children and that the government created AIDS, polio and Lyme disease.
Input from another reviewer....
"Then there’s the belief that the world is run by a Satanic cabal led by Hillary Clinton. Further reading into some of the blogs frequented by QANON followers show that many of these followers are also flat earthers. These people are being conned, and frankly, they deserve whatever hardship they get for being so willfully stupid."
Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy-theory expert, told NBC that the book is just another way for the QAnon movement to cash in on its gullible followers, calling it “a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q."
NEW ARTICLE ON QANON....
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
How QAnon works like a video game to hook people....
https://www.axios.com/qanon-video-gam...
QAnon as repackeged anti-Semitism
https://www.timesofisrael.com/qanon-i...
The QAnon orphans: people who have lost loved ones to conspiracy theories....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
January 2, 2022
An impressively broad exploration of where QAnon came from and how, what its impact has been, and where we might go from here.
The book talks about why people can be convinced to believe in blood-drinking lizard people and why making fun of or challenging friends and family who believe in blood-drinking lizard people will do nothing but force them further into the cult.
For Australians, Badham also offers some context of why we probably shouldn't dismiss QAnon as an American problem.
I loved this. It felt well-researched, compelling and engaging. Sometimes I find non-fiction like this gets a bit lost in the details when "zooming in" on statistics, individual anecdotes and the like, but with QAnon and On I always had a solid grasp of what those parts were serving in the over-arching narrative.
If you want to understand the power of the internet to influence us or learn more about conspiracist thinking, I'd heartily recommend this book.
The book talks about why people can be convinced to believe in blood-drinking lizard people and why making fun of or challenging friends and family who believe in blood-drinking lizard people will do nothing but force them further into the cult.
For Australians, Badham also offers some context of why we probably shouldn't dismiss QAnon as an American problem.
I loved this. It felt well-researched, compelling and engaging. Sometimes I find non-fiction like this gets a bit lost in the details when "zooming in" on statistics, individual anecdotes and the like, but with QAnon and On I always had a solid grasp of what those parts were serving in the over-arching narrative.
If you want to understand the power of the internet to influence us or learn more about conspiracist thinking, I'd heartily recommend this book.
January 20, 2022
Really excellent and well-researched coverage of the phenomenon of internet cults. This text explains a lot of things that I couldn't fathom and gives an extremely comprehensive explanation of the origins and characteristics of these cults and the real world effects of the absurd fantasies that thrive in them. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone, like me, who is trying to make sense of this seemingly nonsensical world. Terrific!
December 8, 2021
If you're wondering one of the many way that the interwebs fucked up everything, as those ever-wise Suburban Bukowskis would say, then it's worth perusing this fine tome from compoetriate, Van Badham on the mess that is Qanon.
Van went undercover and studied the right-wing 'qult', and also did the hard-work of reading all those studies that we couldn't be bothered to find, to bring the message to us lowly sheeple here who aren't in-the-know like these fine Qanoners wandering down interweb wormholes till they've forgotten what reality is anymore and believing that their god, Trump, will save them from the shape-shifting lizards that secretly rule the universe and have to drink the blood of babies to keep mammalian form, and anyone who aids them (basically that's anyone not in the qult.)
Like all gods, this one is made in the image of it's followers, so you can see they ain't gonna be pretty. Gamers, incels, neo-fascists, mens' righters, evangelical xtians, you name it.
I've always been a fan of conspiracy theories as a fringe form of entertainment - in fact I wrote a satire, "9/11 Conspiracy: The Musical," which won some things at Short & Sweet (which ironically Van used to run, but she probably doesn't want anyone reminded of that 🙂
Back in the day conspiracies were a fun thing to watch - David Icke and his anti-semitic reptilian theories in particular were a car-crash I found it hard to resist. However now that joke's just not funny anymore (OK, it's still quite a bit funny) because people actually believe this stuff, lots of people, and the right-wing around the world have learnt how to weaponise it against democracy. Sometimes, like Trump, they do it by actually dog-whistling that they're 'good people' and 'patriots', or sometimes, like [Australian PM] Scott Morrison and much of the LNP, by just not saying anything about them for fear that they'll lose their support.
Anyway, read the book (the ebook is quite cheap if you're low on dosh) and keep watching the skies.
Van went undercover and studied the right-wing 'qult', and also did the hard-work of reading all those studies that we couldn't be bothered to find, to bring the message to us lowly sheeple here who aren't in-the-know like these fine Qanoners wandering down interweb wormholes till they've forgotten what reality is anymore and believing that their god, Trump, will save them from the shape-shifting lizards that secretly rule the universe and have to drink the blood of babies to keep mammalian form, and anyone who aids them (basically that's anyone not in the qult.)
Like all gods, this one is made in the image of it's followers, so you can see they ain't gonna be pretty. Gamers, incels, neo-fascists, mens' righters, evangelical xtians, you name it.
I've always been a fan of conspiracy theories as a fringe form of entertainment - in fact I wrote a satire, "9/11 Conspiracy: The Musical," which won some things at Short & Sweet (which ironically Van used to run, but she probably doesn't want anyone reminded of that 🙂
Back in the day conspiracies were a fun thing to watch - David Icke and his anti-semitic reptilian theories in particular were a car-crash I found it hard to resist. However now that joke's just not funny anymore (OK, it's still quite a bit funny) because people actually believe this stuff, lots of people, and the right-wing around the world have learnt how to weaponise it against democracy. Sometimes, like Trump, they do it by actually dog-whistling that they're 'good people' and 'patriots', or sometimes, like [Australian PM] Scott Morrison and much of the LNP, by just not saying anything about them for fear that they'll lose their support.
Anyway, read the book (the ebook is quite cheap if you're low on dosh) and keep watching the skies.
December 7, 2023
‘This is a book about two things: the internet and belief.’
We have always lived with conspiracy theories: humans are really good at finding, sharing and accepting really weird theories about events. And theories about causation abound, especially in uncertain times. But, in the thirty plus years since the internet has enabled rapid, widespread dissemination of thoughts and views, conspiracists have a bigger audience than ever.
I knew nothing much about QAnon until the attack on the US Capitol in 2021. I was drawn to this book after observing the appearance of QAnon slogans in various marches in Australia protesting against lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination. While I could understand why some people were protesting, I could not see the relevance of some of the themes introduced.
‘QAnon is an American invention, but it has become a global plague.’
In this book, Ms Badham takes us through the origins of QAnon, into some of the conspiracy theories including Gamergate and Pizzagate, into some of the damage done to (and by) individuals as a consequence. And, once I started reading, I recognised more and more of the terms and tags being used in Australian social media posts. While some of the conspiracy theories defy rational belief (at least to me), others contain a kernel of truth. And given that so many of our human beliefs are irrational, it becomes easier to understand how some can believe theories which well, really, simply confirm their own biases. Sigh.
‘Conspiracy theories fall in and out of popularity.’
I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, saw QAnon as a peculiarly American problem.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
We have always lived with conspiracy theories: humans are really good at finding, sharing and accepting really weird theories about events. And theories about causation abound, especially in uncertain times. But, in the thirty plus years since the internet has enabled rapid, widespread dissemination of thoughts and views, conspiracists have a bigger audience than ever.
I knew nothing much about QAnon until the attack on the US Capitol in 2021. I was drawn to this book after observing the appearance of QAnon slogans in various marches in Australia protesting against lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination. While I could understand why some people were protesting, I could not see the relevance of some of the themes introduced.
‘QAnon is an American invention, but it has become a global plague.’
In this book, Ms Badham takes us through the origins of QAnon, into some of the conspiracy theories including Gamergate and Pizzagate, into some of the damage done to (and by) individuals as a consequence. And, once I started reading, I recognised more and more of the terms and tags being used in Australian social media posts. While some of the conspiracy theories defy rational belief (at least to me), others contain a kernel of truth. And given that so many of our human beliefs are irrational, it becomes easier to understand how some can believe theories which well, really, simply confirm their own biases. Sigh.
‘Conspiracy theories fall in and out of popularity.’
I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, saw QAnon as a peculiarly American problem.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 30, 2021
Thrilling and Terrifying
As someone who hates most social media I hadn’t really heard of QAnon until the failed Capitol coup, by which time I thought that if it had now crossed my path it must have gone mainstream. So I should probably learn more about it.
I’m intrigued by cults, and this book perfectly lays out exactly how and why QAnon is a classic cult and why it is so dangerous.
It is a truly fascinating read, but equally terrifying that this is happening and is seemingly unpreventable, even in this day and age.
As someone who hates most social media I hadn’t really heard of QAnon until the failed Capitol coup, by which time I thought that if it had now crossed my path it must have gone mainstream. So I should probably learn more about it.
I’m intrigued by cults, and this book perfectly lays out exactly how and why QAnon is a classic cult and why it is so dangerous.
It is a truly fascinating read, but equally terrifying that this is happening and is seemingly unpreventable, even in this day and age.
July 12, 2024
Those following my reviews will know that I am interested in Cults and to some extent Conspiracy Theories (not really the theories themselves, more understanding where they come from and what makes people pursue them)
So Badham's tome was of particular interest to me. The book details online conspiracy, starting with Gamergate, focussing on "Q" and concluding with the Jan 6th assault in the United States. While the focus is primarily on documenting and exploring the movements and how they came about, there is a wealth of insight about psychology, and politics.
Something in particular that has been bothering me on the topic is understanding how Fascist governments politicise and use conspiracy theories - I mean there are obvious points like Governments might make up politically expedient conspiracies and appeal to conspiracy theorists as potential voting blocks - but its the slighter more complex stuff like how politicians can get away with doing this and IMHO more significantly how a Fascist party/government can foster perspectives that simply aren't accountable to reality, which in some respects is the favoured outcome. Whether the conspiracy is about a Flat Earth, Demonic Democrats, or Covid-19 the ultimate desired outcome is to escape accountability, to live in a way where your enemies are everything bad and your actions are everything heroic.
Anywho that is a particularly niche area that I found interesting about this book, more generally I do have to caution that it is difficult reading, both in terms of real life content, the nature of some of the Q-anon theories and just the overall sense of dismay at the actions of many people worldwide buying into this particular conspiracy.
So yeah - is recommended but really only if you're ready for a heavy read. Badham's style is great, relatively objective, but every now and again gracing us with sarcasm, and often a lot of compassion and humanity. I like the way they break up the narrative with straight from the source posts and messages from online. Despite being cruel and horrible there was something victorious and bad-ass about even starting a chapter with a particularly sexist and degrading comment directed towards themselves!
So Badham's tome was of particular interest to me. The book details online conspiracy, starting with Gamergate, focussing on "Q" and concluding with the Jan 6th assault in the United States. While the focus is primarily on documenting and exploring the movements and how they came about, there is a wealth of insight about psychology, and politics.
Something in particular that has been bothering me on the topic is understanding how Fascist governments politicise and use conspiracy theories - I mean there are obvious points like Governments might make up politically expedient conspiracies and appeal to conspiracy theorists as potential voting blocks - but its the slighter more complex stuff like how politicians can get away with doing this and IMHO more significantly how a Fascist party/government can foster perspectives that simply aren't accountable to reality, which in some respects is the favoured outcome. Whether the conspiracy is about a Flat Earth, Demonic Democrats, or Covid-19 the ultimate desired outcome is to escape accountability, to live in a way where your enemies are everything bad and your actions are everything heroic.
Anywho that is a particularly niche area that I found interesting about this book, more generally I do have to caution that it is difficult reading, both in terms of real life content, the nature of some of the Q-anon theories and just the overall sense of dismay at the actions of many people worldwide buying into this particular conspiracy.
So yeah - is recommended but really only if you're ready for a heavy read. Badham's style is great, relatively objective, but every now and again gracing us with sarcasm, and often a lot of compassion and humanity. I like the way they break up the narrative with straight from the source posts and messages from online. Despite being cruel and horrible there was something victorious and bad-ass about even starting a chapter with a particularly sexist and degrading comment directed towards themselves!
January 23, 2022
A thorough and terrifying insight into the world of internet cults and the world of QAnon! Thank you for your bravery Van in writing this well researched book.
February 3, 2022
lucid and frightening
To address a problem you must first understand the problem. Van Badham has done a fantastic job in bringing together the latest research in QAnon and starts to explore how we might counter the effects of QAnon.
A great first step
To address a problem you must first understand the problem. Van Badham has done a fantastic job in bringing together the latest research in QAnon and starts to explore how we might counter the effects of QAnon.
A great first step
March 10, 2023
This is an amazing book, but it's a terrible shame it had to be written.
May 8, 2024
I’ve thought about this book so much over the past couple of weeks. Insightful and terrifying. I love that the conclusion as far as convincing conspiracy crackpots to return to a state of shared reality is as boring, logical and time-consuming as ‘listen to them talk for, like, weeks on end until they finally feel connected to someone enough to question their bananas beliefs.’ It’s the answer no one wants as far as deradicalising these bellends goes (WHY CAN’T I JUST THROW A BOOK AT THEIR HEAD AND TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF?!?!?”) But Van Badham makes the sober case that we can’t write these assholes off—not if we don’t want more violence and misinformation that leads to massive harms. Also if you like audiobooks I’d really recommend the audiobook because Badhams dry narration of truly batshit tweets and chan posts made me giggle several times despite the very scary subject matter. Also her deep dives into stuff like pizzagate and the capital insurrection was super interesting and revealed facts I didn’t know despite being pretty invested in the subjects.
December 31, 2022
Exceptionally researched.
August 22, 2022
I know what I didn’t like about the book, but I also understand how many hours of work must have gone into researching and documenting the topic discussed in the book. One fifth of the book is made up of more than 500 references to articles and books written on the topic, or relevant to the topic.
It’s a good place to start if you’ve been, like me, only marginally aware of QAnon, and have maybe first heard of them only at the time of the raid on the US Capitol in 2021. I mean I’ve heard of Pizzagate before, but I wasn’t aware that it was more than a bunch of online trolls making fun of gullible people. It seems there was more to it, quite a lot more. And if you pick up this book you’re sure to get quite a good look at how deep the rabbit hole goes.
But I felt that too much of the information is second-hand or third-hard, in the fact that it’s either just quoting primary sources, or quoting different points of views by researchers or journalists. The research is one of documentation, and the point of the book seems to be to chronicle the events. There is little original commentary and analysis. Conspiracy theory has so many things in common with nationalist myth-making that I was surprised to find almost no commentary on the connection. And even on the commentary that’s mentioned in the book, about LARPers, alternate reality games, the fact that QAnon has the characteristics of a cult, and other interesting information, the original material is usually better.
And, while good research and documentation is an important aspect of historiography, good organisation should be one too. This is something else that I felt was lacking from the book. There are so many names thrown around, of people reporting on what other people do, or did, that I, as a reader, had to try very hard to follow who is the person that is doing stuff from one paragraph to another. The point of a chronicle of sorts should be to enlighten and make things clearer. I felt that this is definitely something that the author could have improved.
The one big plus is that the endnotes contain a wealth of reading material really worth looking into, in order to get a more definite picture of the phenomenon. So, the book’s good. But it could’ve been better.
It’s a good place to start if you’ve been, like me, only marginally aware of QAnon, and have maybe first heard of them only at the time of the raid on the US Capitol in 2021. I mean I’ve heard of Pizzagate before, but I wasn’t aware that it was more than a bunch of online trolls making fun of gullible people. It seems there was more to it, quite a lot more. And if you pick up this book you’re sure to get quite a good look at how deep the rabbit hole goes.
But I felt that too much of the information is second-hand or third-hard, in the fact that it’s either just quoting primary sources, or quoting different points of views by researchers or journalists. The research is one of documentation, and the point of the book seems to be to chronicle the events. There is little original commentary and analysis. Conspiracy theory has so many things in common with nationalist myth-making that I was surprised to find almost no commentary on the connection. And even on the commentary that’s mentioned in the book, about LARPers, alternate reality games, the fact that QAnon has the characteristics of a cult, and other interesting information, the original material is usually better.
And, while good research and documentation is an important aspect of historiography, good organisation should be one too. This is something else that I felt was lacking from the book. There are so many names thrown around, of people reporting on what other people do, or did, that I, as a reader, had to try very hard to follow who is the person that is doing stuff from one paragraph to another. The point of a chronicle of sorts should be to enlighten and make things clearer. I felt that this is definitely something that the author could have improved.
The one big plus is that the endnotes contain a wealth of reading material really worth looking into, in order to get a more definite picture of the phenomenon. So, the book’s good. But it could’ve been better.
January 13, 2022
Από τα chan και το gaming στους ανθρώπους - σαύρες και τους παιδεραστές, μια τρελή ιστορία γεμάτη ��λαμμένους χριστιανούς και ψεκασμένους ακροδεξιούς. Διασκεδαστικό και εξοργιστικό μαζί. Must read.
December 30, 2022
A lot to unpack from @vanbadham @vanbadham@mastodon.social! An Australian journalist, that has undertaken extensive research into the cult origins, following down rabbit holes in, sometimes, very fine detail
The book explains the sickness of QANON & (as an Australian) understanding the potential impact of Australian then Prime Minister, Scott Morrison's friendship with Tim Stewart, who is Australia's greatest megaphone for QANON.
A good deal of attention is paid to QANON's US origins in what appears to be a misogynistic gamer community, into bizarre the mutations of of deluded minds and unthinking followers, leading to 6 January 2021 assault on the US Congressional building and its occupants and defenders. Still struggling on with the tail end of Trumpian MAGA supporters
Again, as and Australian, what is exposed herein leaves you wondering why Australian Security & Police are not dealing with and recognising more publicly, the menace of our right wing extremists.
One interesting takeaway from this is the fact the QANON cult has been monetised, so committed or not, some people are making a lot of money from right wing extremism, selling merchandise of hatred and dissention.
The book explains the sickness of QANON & (as an Australian) understanding the potential impact of Australian then Prime Minister, Scott Morrison's friendship with Tim Stewart, who is Australia's greatest megaphone for QANON.
A good deal of attention is paid to QANON's US origins in what appears to be a misogynistic gamer community, into bizarre the mutations of of deluded minds and unthinking followers, leading to 6 January 2021 assault on the US Congressional building and its occupants and defenders. Still struggling on with the tail end of Trumpian MAGA supporters
Again, as and Australian, what is exposed herein leaves you wondering why Australian Security & Police are not dealing with and recognising more publicly, the menace of our right wing extremists.
One interesting takeaway from this is the fact the QANON cult has been monetised, so committed or not, some people are making a lot of money from right wing extremism, selling merchandise of hatred and dissention.
December 4, 2022
Not sure whether this is a 3 or a 4 but am absolutely certain it is a 3.5👍.
November 29, 2021
A well-researched and compelling account of conspiracy theories in the Internet Age.
April 24, 2022
This book filled a spot between Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World and some of Steven Pinker’s works on rationality. It is the coalface account of irrationality in modern America and Australia (with some nods to the UK). Each of the histories of individuals behaving in ludicrous and violent ways while believing they were acting for what’s right and just had echoes of religious fervour, holy wars and these comparisons are drawn by Badham directly.
The value of this book is the depth of Badham’s digging and the effort to retrieve skerricks of madness from chat rooms to illustrate the larger point. She also provides interesting political background for the movements, with histories of those who benefitted like Bannon, Yiannopoulous and Trump.
It also has some of the hallmarks of a rushed-out hot take, the layout is clunky and bland, the inset quotes are sometimes irrelevant. Badham makes sport of generating vitriol from her political opponents in her role as a commentator and there is more than a little of the pointed and scathing in the way she describes gamers in general. She criticises gamers making in game purchases as being too inept or lazy but I wonder if she would make the same criticism of people buying pre-made meals - too inept and lazy to cook or just exerting their right to choose how much value a service provides them in time saved? Sometimes it feels like the thesaurus has been leaned on a bit too heavily and there is more than one typo but they were probably rushing this one out the door before they miss the hot-button issue sales opportunities.
Badham’s conclusion is a paean to rescue through community. She draws on concepts of resocialisation coined from a study of POWs and how, when returned to their community, they dropped their prison camp indoctrination. She didn’t reference Pinker but she may as well have when she posits that it is acceptence and reassurance that gives believers space to explore other ideas, not arguing them out of their narratives.
Other concepts like “splitting” and “LARPing” combine in her analysis to allow people who feel like their world and their fates are out of their control to refocus on a battle of good and evil in which they are the heroes. When they decide they are the heroes, their friends, family and governors who point out the flaws in their narrative become enemies. It’s only a short step from there to storming the capitol and shooting up a pizzeria.
There is a little irony in the way Badham draws these political actors into the narrative, never explicitly linking them but all the while pointing out how they benefit from the phenomenon. She’s right to highlight it but sometimes I thought I was being goaded into an anti-republican conspiracy with the same tactics she was analysing
The value of this book is the depth of Badham’s digging and the effort to retrieve skerricks of madness from chat rooms to illustrate the larger point. She also provides interesting political background for the movements, with histories of those who benefitted like Bannon, Yiannopoulous and Trump.
It also has some of the hallmarks of a rushed-out hot take, the layout is clunky and bland, the inset quotes are sometimes irrelevant. Badham makes sport of generating vitriol from her political opponents in her role as a commentator and there is more than a little of the pointed and scathing in the way she describes gamers in general. She criticises gamers making in game purchases as being too inept or lazy but I wonder if she would make the same criticism of people buying pre-made meals - too inept and lazy to cook or just exerting their right to choose how much value a service provides them in time saved? Sometimes it feels like the thesaurus has been leaned on a bit too heavily and there is more than one typo but they were probably rushing this one out the door before they miss the hot-button issue sales opportunities.
Badham’s conclusion is a paean to rescue through community. She draws on concepts of resocialisation coined from a study of POWs and how, when returned to their community, they dropped their prison camp indoctrination. She didn’t reference Pinker but she may as well have when she posits that it is acceptence and reassurance that gives believers space to explore other ideas, not arguing them out of their narratives.
Other concepts like “splitting” and “LARPing” combine in her analysis to allow people who feel like their world and their fates are out of their control to refocus on a battle of good and evil in which they are the heroes. When they decide they are the heroes, their friends, family and governors who point out the flaws in their narrative become enemies. It’s only a short step from there to storming the capitol and shooting up a pizzeria.
There is a little irony in the way Badham draws these political actors into the narrative, never explicitly linking them but all the while pointing out how they benefit from the phenomenon. She’s right to highlight it but sometimes I thought I was being goaded into an anti-republican conspiracy with the same tactics she was analysing
May 1, 2022
I'm in the somewhat awkward position of already being familiar with ~85% of the material in this book, primarily because I'm an avid listener of the QAnon Anonymous podcast. You could say I have an unhealthy amount of interest in QAnon, but I'd only object to the ambiguity of that statement. I spend hours and hours of my life hearing and reading about the hilariously wacky and existentially terrifying latest news on an internet cult, whereas QAnon adherents spend hours and hours "researching" what amounts to an open-source, limitless, syncretic, unifying global conspiracy theory. And frankly it's hard to say who gets more out of their efforts at the end of the day, but my proverbial money's on them.
Van Badham laid this book out well, which helped this slow reader finish it in a blazing fast three days. I was especially enthusiastic about learning about Gamergate and the Gamergate-to-QAnon pipeline. I had followed Gamergate in real time, but failed to really understand it. I still kind of don't. Van Badham helped me realize that, much like QAnon, Gamergate is not so much to be understood as observed and related to other similar phenomena. In both of the aforementioned cases we are dealing with irrational forces.
I don't know if I can necessarily recommend this book unless you have a preexisting interest on the subject. If anything, it seems far safer to stay away. On the other hand, I find it ever so fascinating.
Van Badham laid this book out well, which helped this slow reader finish it in a blazing fast three days. I was especially enthusiastic about learning about Gamergate and the Gamergate-to-QAnon pipeline. I had followed Gamergate in real time, but failed to really understand it. I still kind of don't. Van Badham helped me realize that, much like QAnon, Gamergate is not so much to be understood as observed and related to other similar phenomena. In both of the aforementioned cases we are dealing with irrational forces.
I don't know if I can necessarily recommend this book unless you have a preexisting interest on the subject. If anything, it seems far safer to stay away. On the other hand, I find it ever so fascinating.
March 24, 2022
Illuminating and concerning, the Qanon craze has peentrated through to the highest levels of government in Australia through Morrison's close personal relationships with avid supporters, and the election of Qanon Republicans in the USA. Van Badham does a great job highlighting the origins of the movement, and its evolution through 4chan, 8chan/kun, Reddit, then Twitter and Facebook. We all know someone who got sucked in - sucked in to one of the most rank, disgusting, and frankly ludicrous conspiracies ever had. That Democrats (and Labor) were blood-drinking, child-raping, Satanic lizard people. Just absolutely insane stuff.
And yet, the movement grew and grew, and continues to exist and spread. It evolves with the times, and while it may have taken a hit with COVID restrictions easing and Biden's inauguration, all it will take is some global event to spawn a whole other iteration of it. Van Badham, with expert contributions, demonstrates just how easily people will trade in their senses for a sense of safety in a complex world. The world, unfortunately, isnt as simple as good vs evil, of Trump vs satanists, but is wildly more complex, but in far more ordinary ways than the grandiose conspiracies of Qanon. Worth a read if you are interested in the origins of the movement.
And yet, the movement grew and grew, and continues to exist and spread. It evolves with the times, and while it may have taken a hit with COVID restrictions easing and Biden's inauguration, all it will take is some global event to spawn a whole other iteration of it. Van Badham, with expert contributions, demonstrates just how easily people will trade in their senses for a sense of safety in a complex world. The world, unfortunately, isnt as simple as good vs evil, of Trump vs satanists, but is wildly more complex, but in far more ordinary ways than the grandiose conspiracies of Qanon. Worth a read if you are interested in the origins of the movement.
February 14, 2022
During the course of reading this book I was fascinated, terrified & revolted, sometimes all 3 at the same time. This author is well-known for both her comedy works for the theatre & her journalism for The Guardian & it is the latter side of her skills that predominate here. Well-researched & digging deep she chronicles the development of the online conspiracy theory that has, so far, peaked with Q & his (?) band of hapless devotees. From outside their behaviour appears absolutely insane but Badham explains the whys & the hows with great insight. She also shows an unexpected compassion for those who have disappeared down an endless rabbit hole, occasionally at the cost of their lives. If you want to try & understand why hundreds of people might gather in Dealey Plaza in Dallas to see John Kennedy Jnr return from 22 years of being dead to help Trump regain the Presidency, start here. Highly recommended.
April 18, 2022
I was already fairly familiar with the whole QAnon story, having recently listened to Nicky Woolf’s podcast series ‘Finding Q’, but what Guardian columnist Van Badham does here is look at this strange and disturbing phenomenon through a much wider lens.
The subtitle ‘A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults’ suggests this is about much more than the just the QAnon movement, but also encompasses the Gamergate controversy of the first decade of the 21st century, Pizzagate (the belief that Hilary Clinton and other Democrats were eating babies in the basement of a Washington DC restaurant) and even weirder conspiracies (if that were possible).
There was probably far too much detail for my liking in her account of all these controversies, but her broader message about the increasing disconnect with reality that the modern internet is bringing about for many digital natives and the danger this poses for (what’s left of) democracy is a timely one.
The subtitle ‘A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults’ suggests this is about much more than the just the QAnon movement, but also encompasses the Gamergate controversy of the first decade of the 21st century, Pizzagate (the belief that Hilary Clinton and other Democrats were eating babies in the basement of a Washington DC restaurant) and even weirder conspiracies (if that were possible).
There was probably far too much detail for my liking in her account of all these controversies, but her broader message about the increasing disconnect with reality that the modern internet is bringing about for many digital natives and the danger this poses for (what’s left of) democracy is a timely one.
January 11, 2022
A comprehensive review of the QAnon conspiracy theory and it’s antecedents Gamergate and Pizzagate. Badham demonstrates how these earlier ‘panics’ established a foundation conspiratorial mindset on which QAnon was able to build a ‘big tent’ conspiracy in which both Donald Trump and JFK Jnr ride in on white horses as our unlikely saviours. The book is particularly strong in demonstrating how the conspiracy entered mainstream social media from the dark regions of the 4chan/8chan/8kun communities, facilitated by ‘conspiracy entrepreneurs’ and Russian bot farms.
Extremely thorough and well documented Badham has done the research so that the rest of us sheeple don’t have to.
Extremely thorough and well documented Badham has done the research so that the rest of us sheeple don’t have to.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 23, 2022
A thorough examination of the QAnon cult and the antivaxxers. A disturbing read to learn what some of these poor souls,in the face of reason, still believe. Educational immaturity? Very hard to understand and alarming to learn that our former PM (Morrison) was close friends with a QAnon adherent who really believes he can talk to cockroaches. And that the wife of this man was living at Kirribilli, at taxpayers expense, with no duties but to keep the PM’s spouse company.
January 26, 2022
Incredibly well written and researched, this was the first non fiction book in a long time that I couldn’t put down. While most of the events explored I knew on a surface level, the chilling detail about how they all unfolded was a significant eye opener for me.
An important read as we venture further into the abyss.
An important read as we venture further into the abyss.
January 5, 2023
Fascinating expose of the growth and impacts of QAnon.
January 5, 2022
A brilliant tale of an unbelievable tale!
June 30, 2022
Absolutely fascinating
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