THE Q INTERVIEWS

from SPRING 2021 DUE SOUTH

by Due South magazine

INDOOR DECOR

File No. 109536 Q

What is QAnon? How has it impacted members and their families? | Story by Kenyan Carter.

THe q interviews

FILE NO. 109536 INTERVIEWER: Kenyan Carter CLASSIFICATION: Conspiracy

Conspiracy theories, across all different facets of demographic and political differences, have fascinated people for ages. Many conspiracy theories like flat earth, the Mandela effect, and Area 51 are relatively harmless and even entertaining. In 2019, thousands of people participated in the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us’’ event with the stated purpose of invading the government facility to “See them aliens.” This ultimately resulted in Alien-Stock in the town of Rachel Nevada, an EDM music festival where like-minded alien enthusiasts, anime fans, and meme lovers found each other. No aliens were found, but a lot of laughs were had and it was a nice moment if you were on social media during this time whether you thought the aliens were real or not.

Not all conspiracies, however, simply provide levity.

Enter 2020 where an entire generation experienced a global pandemic for the first time in their lives. Studies show that situations of crisis, fear, and uncertainty increase the likelihood of conspiratorial thinking and I can’t think of three better words to describe Covid-19 and the lockdown that followed. Two of the main conspiracies that you’ve probably seen circulating your family members’ Facebook pages more than usual recently are the anti-vaxxers and QAnon.

Anti-Vaxxers are people who refuse to take vaccines, they believe they’re unsafe and infringe on their human rights of body autonomy. AntiVaxxers have been around for a while but have seen a spike in believers recently (followed by a spike in measles). A recent Lancet article says the antivaccine movement added 8 million people over the last year, with 31 million people now following anti-vaccine Facebook groups and 17 million subscribe to YouTube accounts.

QAnon is a newer, broader conspiracy theory. Born and spread through the dankest chat rooms on the internet, QAnon is an amalgamation of conspiracies which include anti-vaxxing, a “deep state” cult that controls the world through child sacrifice, aliens, and that of 5G, the latest edition of phone network technology, is spreading coronavirus through its radio frequency waves. Sounds like really fun people to be around. The group also has numerous connections to conservative voters in the country with their belief in Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was somehow rigged and that Trump was the actual winner, not Joe Biden. They have all these out-of-the-box theories, yet they can’t fathom a world in which people don’t all vote for Donald Trump. Many of these Q believers participated in the insurrection at the capitol on January 6, holding signs such as:

“Q sent me.”

No one really knows the source of QAnon or who exactly “Q” is, yet Q believers trust him/her/ they over any professor, doctor, journalist, or mom asking them to come outside for fresh air out of their musty basement.

All jokes aside, online radicalization can have harmful effects on someone’s mental, physical, and medical health as well as their friends and family. I spoke to a 21-year-old student whose mom is a believer in QAnon and asked her about her experience. The subject of the interview chose to remain anonymous so she will be referred to as A .

Interview content continues on next page.

Interview 1 of 2

### Start Transcript ### A : My mom believes that the Joe Biden we see on T.V., is someone in a cosmetic suit. She thinks that Joe Biden is someone else in a fake cosmetic skin suit.

Interviewer: That’s funny, is it just because he’s like, too old?

A : No, it’s from the Q Telegram. They were sending all this “proof” of Joe Biden being fake. Showing before and after of him when he was Vice President.

Interviewer: Right, because people definitely don’t age or anything. When did you first become aware of your family members’ Q affiliation?

A : Probably about a year ago.

Interviewer: How did you find out? Did she just come tell you?

A : She slowly started to talk about it and telling me the different conspiracy theories one by one. She was trying to convince me that all of it was real. She believes it. She believes all of it as truth. She was telling me about how all the millionaires, not Trump though, not Trump. Drink baby’s blood and she started showing me stuff on Telegram.

Interviewer: How has your family member’s Q affiliation affected your relationship and others within your family?

A : It makes me concerned for my mom because it kind of makes me feel like she’ll believe anything and that she’s in a constant state of paranoia. They could literally be like “Joe Biden is putting LSD in our water” on Telegram and she’d believe it and stop drinking water.

Interviewer: Have you tried confronting your family member about these beliefs? How did it go?

A : I haven’t tried to confront her about how it concerns me, but I have tried to debate her on some of the conspiracy theories. She never hears me out-- she never even lets me finish what I’m saying. She just starts arguing and throwing up all her points. She’s like, “Don’t believe the things you see on T.V., don’t believe the things you see on social media, but the propaganda I’m seeing, that’s real though no matter where I see it.”

Interviewer: Is your mom an Anti-Vaxxer? Will she take the Covid vaccine?

A : Yes she’s an Anti-Vaxxer no she won’t be taking the vaccine. She believes the vaccine will give you Bell’s palsy and possibly just kill you.

Interviewer: Any final words about this?

A : I know it can be hard to trust certain sources whether it be on TV, the internet, etc. because of things being twisted by both sides and people putting out fake news. But I feel like deep diving into these conspiracy theories isn’t the answer because it just puts you in a constant state of paranoia and denial of reality. ### End of Transcipt ###

Interview 2 of 2

Falling into a web of conspiracy can be a uniquely hazardous problem for the elderly who don’t quite have the levels of internet literacy as the youth who’ve grown up with it. This, however, doesn’t mean that young people aren’t susceptible to some degree of online radicalization as well.

I interviewed a 23-year-old South Alabama alumni who is a follower of QAnon. For the sake of anonymity, she will be referred to as R in this transcript.

### Start of Transcript ### Interviewer: What was your first exposure to Q?

R : It was watching this documentary called Above Majestic on Hulu. Which, actually, I just realized got taken down. I’m not surprised. You can still find it on YouTube. When it starts getting popular and they catch on to it, they start taking it down. That’s what happens to a lot of the YouTube videos. Literally, I’ll be in the middle of watching a video and they’ll take it down.

Interviewer: What kind of information are you getting from these videos and documentaries?

R : They talk a lot about decoding information that we’re given through the media platforms and even like decoding the Bible going back as far to stuff like that. That’s how far back stuff like this goes.

Interviewer: Are there any other platforms for this stuff? I’ve heard a lot about Telegram.

R : There’s this platform I use, I don’t wanna give out the name. It’s kind of like my form of Netflix, it’s an outlet for forbidden knowledge TV. If it were public it would be really easy to be taken down by the government. But it’s private, you have to pay for it through a subscription. It makes it easy for experts in forbidden knowledge to come together and post.

Interviewer: Stuff like what?

R : There’s stuff on there like, one with David Icke about perception and how we’re told that we live in a very solid world but it actually isn’t and this is all just a simulation and stuff like that. Another really popular one is a series by Billy Carson where he talks about ancient Egypt and how that plays into everything.

Interviewer: So let’s quickly talk about theory then. We’ve got aliens, simulations, decoding, and child trafficking. Are these all separate things or are they supposed to be all connected to each other?

R : So, they’re all under one thing. When I say that I mean everything is being controlled by one entity which may or may not be human. Basically, they control the banks, the media, the political system, and religious institutions. How that all ties into each other is the manipulation. Basically making the general population think they have control when they really don’t. For instance, in the political system, they give the impression that the Democratic and Republican Party are two different things when they’re all part of the same system. The news will literally lie and exaggerate things like Covid-- they’re just reading a script. It’s all being ruled by one thing but it trickles down.

Interviewer: But you have to acknowledge that, yes, despite Democrats and Republicans upholding the same institutions, they are different. In our Republican-dominated state, they just passed a law restricting gender-affirming medical care for trans youth. That’s enough difference to pick a side right?

R : That’s the tricky thing and that’s why I’m glad people like you are involved because we do need good people because that’s the only way we’ll be able to change the systems or get into the systems to some degree.

Interviewer: So you say you’re apolitical but the QAnon movement clearly leans towards the extreme right. Specifically, this idea of a cabal and deep state in control of everything has a lot of racist caricatures used against Jewish people. What do you think about that?

R : To me, being a racist is a clear disconnect from the heart of the theory which is about feeling connected to everybody. It definitely harms the credibility of the theory because if you’re a racist you don’t really know what you’re talking about. It’s kind of sad that the most extreme people on the spectrum are overshadowing the people who are into this to genuinely help people. There are definitely people who see this from a more spiritual perspective and come at it from a much different angle.

Interviewer: So who do you think is involved in this deep state cabal?

R : There’s people like Ellen, Oprah, Bill Gates, it’s people that people actually trust and have a lot of money and publicity. People trust these people without actually knowing what they did to get in these positions.

Interviewer: So how do you think people are being manipulated?

R : There’s this thing called the problem reaction solution. Big major events will happen such as Covid or 9/11 for example. The government or the entity will create the problem, get the reaction out of people, and then offer the solution. They already have the solution in mind; they just have to create the problem to get to the solution.

Interviewer: Are there any parts of Q or related conspiracies that you don’t believe in? Anything you look at and think maybe that goes a little too far?

R : There’s some that I have to do more research on like the whole 5G thing, I don’t really know where that ties in. When people started getting Covid some people were like, “That’s not Covid it’s 5G radiation poisoning,” or something like that. It didn’t really add up, I’m not saying I’m not open to it but I didn’t really understand it.

Interviewer: So what’s up with dem aliens?

R : Aliens have been here for many, many, many, many years. If you look at the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, you’ll see pictures of aliens. The ancient Egyptians were chilling with aliens back then. The Q theory of aliens is sort of a as above so below, whatever is happening down here is also being reflected in the cosmos. That also means that there’s good energy and bad energy, good aliens and bad aliens. There are actually aliens here to protect us which is proven in the documentary Unacknowledged. It showed two military’s firing missiles at each

other and the aliens intercepting and destroying them before they hurt people. But of course, there are the aliens here to breed with us and push their agenda.

Interviewer: Of course! Has your research into QAnon affected your personal relationships?

R : Yes it has, unfortunately. It kind of affected it around the time when I graduated and moved to Atlanta. It affected my personal life in a sense that it changed my perspective so much that it made me look at everything differently. Like if someone were to post something on social media about politics I feel like I can’t really engage with it because I don’t believe in it. A lot of people in my age group just engage in a lot of things that I don’t personally believe in doing. It definitely affected my relationships because I started to feel out of place even just speaking with them.

Interviewer: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

R : No I will not. I’m not super well-versed to answer this factually but I do believe that the vaccine is an experiment. It’s not what people think it is.

Interviewer: Well then what is it?

R : My theory on that is that it’s nanotechnology. It’s kind of leading us into the Black Mirror type society. My perception on vaccines as a whole have changed a lot during the Covid pandemic. This is the solution in the problem reaction solution. This is what they’ve been wanting us to take to begin with, so I’m not trying to engage in their end result because this is part of their agenda.

Interviewer: Any final thoughts you’d like to share?

R : I definitely feel like in the midst of all this I’m still very optimistic. Learning about this did kind of hinder my rainbows and butterflies with how I view the world, but it kind of brought it back when I took a more spiritual perspective with it. ### End of Transcript ###

My interview with R definitely helped answer the question of how someone who’s young, and a college graduate even can fall into a rabbit hole of conspiracy. It all stems from a lack of trust in our institutions that we’re taught growing up are supposed to be there for us and represent us. Growing up we become painfully aware of a corporate media that stifles outside voices and pushes narratives, a police force that serves themselves over the people they’re supposed to be protecting, and politicians who will literally let the world burn to satisfy their greed. Our best bet at stifling the ever-growing pipeline into the dark psychology of conspiracy is to be and represent something real for people to believe in.

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