Why QAnon Followers Are Suddenly Saying There's No Such Thing as QAnon

[DonViejo]

A lot of recent negative media attention has led to some backpedaling.

By David Gilbert
March 24, 2021, 10:01am

The conspiracy movement QAnon has been around for nearly four years, and it’s never been more popular. But QAnon influencers and their followers now appear to be disavowing the group, telling anyone who’ll listen that “there is no QAnon.”

At first glance, this might seem like members of QAnon are finally coming to their senses and realizing that former President Donald Trump will not return to power any minute to unmask a Satanic, child sex-trafficking ring run by liberal elites. But the reality is that surface-level QAnon disavowal is an effort by high-profile influencers to distance the conspiracy theory from the past few months of negative media coverage.

“After January 6, the QAnon brand was badly tarnished," the anonymous founder of the Q Origins Project, which seeks to document how the movement came about, told VICE News. He added that by "claiming that QAnon was never really a thing," believers were trying to get rid of their bad reputation. But QAnon members seem to have forgotten that they’ve been referring to themselves both in name and ideology as “QAnon” for years, before the label became toxic.

The name “QAnon” has been used since the anonymous leader “Q” first appeared on the message board 4chan. “Q” was the poster, and the “anons” were the anonymous 4chan users who followed the posts. Since then, the name has been used to describe not just the person posting the cryptic messages but also the wider movement, which relies on followers’ interpretations of Q’s clues, something previously unseen in conspiracy movements.

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https://www.vice.com/en/article/88azmv/why-qanon-followers-are-suddenly-saying-theres-no-such-thing-as-qanon

[CrackityJones75]

1. Longer than 4 years.

Jimminy they were at the convention for 2016 election. They had been around for a while before that.

[Moostache]

2. This excerpt says it all:

“After January 6, the QAnon brand was badly tarnished,"

How in the ever loving fuck did we become a country so over-marketed to that something as inane and preposterous as this entire Q-thing establish a "brand" in the first place?? Have we fallen so far down the money hole that the ONLY thing that matters at all is profiting off of any and everything?

I already know the answer to that rhetorical flourish...but it is making me really want to retire and leave this shit hole forever, to find a remote place to safely observe the disintegration of a once proud nation into a puddle of gibberish spouting, overly-armed morons flinging their own poo at each other in the end.

Its sad, but the Divided States of America cannot long stand and there is insufficient urgency to excise the rot to save the whole.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Unfortunately, according to Samantha Bee, Q-A-MOM will live forever in various perverted methods.

.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017647114

.

[apnu]

4. IMO QAnon has always been a trolling experiment.

the way it morphs and ignores its own history, typical trolling behavior.

[JenniferJuniper]

6. Exactly,

it's probably that 400 pound guy in the basement Trump was talking about. Or some reasonable facsimile (s).

[Voltaire2]

9. its more like a LARP experiment

its techniques are from the gaming world.

[central scrutinizer]

5. There is no QAnon

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

[PoliticAverse]

7. "The first rule of fight club..." n/t

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. Exactly

[Lemon Lyman]

8. -

My prediction has always been that eventually they’ll almost all jump ship. Then they’ll all go with some bullsh*t story like, “The whole Q thing was always a joke on you libs and you fell for it!” Some dumb*ss thing like that.

[Baked Potato]

10. I'd like to buy "QAnon" if Q would drop a message please. I offer $4.19. Please counter.

[marble falls]

11. Goes to show even degenrate assholes have limits.

[DFW]

12. I didn't realize he was THAT close

...to having his identity revealed!

[ancianita]

13. Now that they've watched HBO, they realize they've been conned by larpers and grifters

[Gruff B. Gus]

15. I hate to use this overused term

but they're just gaslighting. They deny it because they know it's infuriating to normal people. Trolling, basically, as someone mentioned already. Nothing to do with them being embarrassed or anything like that. They definitely are not.

[Wounded Bear]

16. And nobody admits to being one, or following them, or even having heard of them...

Just like none of them listen to Fox News and they're not repubs, etc, etc, etc...

[maxsolomon]

17. There is no "Q", or at least

Jason Gelinas isn't a top-level Govt Official.

Just a traitorous troll.

[LakeArenal]

18. There's more to Qanut than there is to antifa so.....

[keithbvadu2]

19. If there is a QAnon brand name to be tarnished, then QAnon exists.

If there is a QAnon brand name to be tarnished, then QAnon exists.