The final episodes ofHBO’sQ : Into the Stormaired on Sunday eve , and it ’s put all its notice on the table .
Director Cullen Hoback believes he ’s unmasked Q , the nameless individual or individuals behind the straggle , pro - Donald Trump QAnon confederacy hypothesis that swear the Democratic Party and Hollywood are govern by an Illuminati - elan junto of cannibalistic pedophile . For years , Q pretended to be a high - rank government official with firsthand noesis of the Satanic threat , carry anonymously on a serial of interference fringe board begin with troll hive 4chan and later on white supremacist haven 8chan ( now itself relaunched as 8kun ) . Countless correct - wingers and gullible yokel took the bait , and QAnon surge inpopularity on Facebookandwormed its wayinto the ideology of the Republican Party . QAnon top out , at least for now , in riots at the Capitol on Jan. 6 , which sought to override the 2020 election results but only succeeded incausing five deaths .
It has n’t exactly been a secret that Hoback ’s preferred defendant is Ron Watkins , the son of creepy 8chan owner Jim Watkins and the internet site ’s longtime administrator ( several months ago he lay claim he was resigning , though it may have only been a gambit tobuild his credibilityas he swivel to promoting pro - Trump election hoaxes ) . Six episodes of following the Watkinses around and interviewing much everyone in their orbit in , Hoback thinks he ’s tricked Ron into admit Q is what he was “ doing anonymously before . ”
Members of the National Guard remain deployed in Washington, DC in March following deadly riots involving scores of QAnon conspiracy theorists at the Capitol on Jan. 6.Photo: Alex Wong (Getty Images)
Both Watkinses evidently view themselves as master psychological manipulator , though they ’re nothing of the sort . Whether it ’s due to some feckless attempt to spread a cloud of ink over everything going on at 8chan or plain incompetency , the two could n’t keep their fib straight for the duration of the serial .
The old Watkins spends much of the documentary deny he ’s a “ political ” guy . But he ran a conspiracy news website called The Goldwater and scarcely even act to care that 8chan ’s white supremacist /pol/ add-in , afestering combat injury on the net , was tied to at least three hoi polloi shootings in 2019 by white supremacists who killed at least 75 multitude and wounded 66 others . By the closing of the serial , he ’s in attendance at and cheering on the riots at the Capitol .
Amid mistily menacing Hoback and his infotainment crew with a mochi hammer and trying to pressure the documentarians into visiting prostitutes as a sort of vet exercise , the younger Watkins is alternately suspiciously familiar with various facet of Q world and in full defense that he have sex anything about the conspiracy theory at all . The show also make light that as the site ’s administrator , Watkins would have had total admittance to the Q account and technical data that could aid reveal the poster ’s identity element — and his behavior is well beyond funny .
The theory does n’t require Watkins taht start QAnon ; at an early point in the QAnon saga , the writing style of Q ’s postschanged dramatically , suggesting that the account changed hand . Whether that was because of some behind - the - panorama deal or the result of a unfriendly takeover is a whodunit that may never be clear . But it ’s clear that Watkins had the means to easily take over control of the report associated with the posts , and Hoback details a large number of instances in which the apparently new Q ’s posts mirror or reference Watkin ’s action in supremely obvious mode . At one point , the administrator leads Hoback on a wild goose chase to unveil former White House chief strategian Steve Bannon as Q , a dubious theory that bank on possibly forged IP computer address logs channelise to Bannon ’s speech in Orange County , California , and a monastery in Italy where he tried to jell up an alt - right preparation camp .
“ In social club to throw off anyone who came sniffing around , would n’t it be bright to create a faux digital forensics track , one that leads to someone from Trump ’s inner circle ? ” Hoback asks in the documentary .
But it ’s not until near the end that Watkins make water one on the face of it major confession and slip up on another one . First , Watkins arrogate that he was in person driving much of the activity on /pol/ , thus wed him even more directly to the terroristic carnage tied to its community . secondly , Watkins all but straight-out state he controlled the Q account for years before immediately backtracking .
“ I ’ve drop the last , what , almost 10 years doing this kind of inquiry anonymously , ” Watkins told Hoback . “ Now I ’m doing it in public , that ’s the only difference … . do n’t cogitate for a minute that half the thread on /pol/ ( the political Thomas Nelson Page of 8Chan ) were n’t like , me get the picture . ”
“ … So thinking back on it , like it was basically three years of intelligence service training pedagogy normies how to do intelligence study , ” he continued . “ It ’s basically what I was doing anonymously before . ”
Watkins paused , smile , and added , “ But never as Q. ” Both he and Hoback break into laughter , which Hoback appears to believe was a deal moment of recognition that his bailiwick had finally fucked up , bad time .
It ’s certainly an overt admission charge that the Watkinses were much more involved behind the picture with the toxic culture of 8chan than they ’d otherwise like to countenance on — something that would havealready been obviousto anyone paying tending to the internet site ’s history . An ironclad admission that Watkins is Q it is not , especially give how much of Q : Into the Storm fixates on painting him and his father as weirdo narcissists who expend most of their time lying for care ( not peculiarly well , but still ) . It seems unlikely the public will get a more elaborated confession out of Watkins or any other defendant before long , given the movement is now confront the examination of the feds .
https://gizmodo.com/area-newspaper-fixes-own-mistake-with-additional-weird-1846601992
According to theWashington Post , the Watkinses doubled down on the Bannon theory in a late livestream , but also fence it could be Hoback himself . Other researcher have observe that QAnon need a wholesale set of political doer let in Trump admin official and allies , GOP politician , conspiracy activists , and defrauder in it for the merchandising chance , have it far larger than any one soul .
“ Even if it was only Ron Watkins , the movement has grown far beyond one somebody or assumed name , ” SITE Intelligence Group director Rita Katz told the Post . “ It is now a ball-shaped societal computer virus that has become a watercraft for everything from [ anti - vaccine ] misinformation and coronavirus conspiracy theories to political schedule . … Everything Jim or Ron Watkins say should be consider with incredulity — even if that statement comes in the variety of a bizarre ‘ slip - up . ’ ”
Whoever was last in control of the Q account , they ’re not post . The business relationship went dark in December , around the same time Watkins purportedly resigned as admin of 8kun , leaving its adherentshigh and dryand in search of new causes . As Hoback noted , some of them are move on to unexampled , more productive grass like rally against so - called“cancel culture,”a relatively late Republican obsession . Many others have simply continued on out of blind devotion , busy themselves with projects like defending Trump - ally Rep. Matt Gaetz fromallegations of sex traffickingor switchingtheir focusing to racialism . Two , Reps . Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert , are in Congress .
8chanDonald TrumpLauren BoebertMatt GaetzQAnonSteve BannonTrumpism
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