![]() In 1798, a Lutheran preacher from Maryland wrote to George Washington to warn him of a dire threat a secret group with the express aim of overthrowing all governments and religions, was spreading like wildfire. 3Ĭonspiracy theories are further not a novel phenomenon of the internet age. According to polling conducted by Emerson College in 2019, even QAnon, frequently depicted as a fringe right-wing phenomenon, drew equal support – 6 percent – from both Republicans and Democrats. Most often, they are built on a foundation of misinformation and misinterpretations of actual happenings and couched so as to be unfalsifiable.Īlthough recent media coverage has primarily focused on right-wing conspiracy theories, belief in conspiracy is non-partisan. 2 While actual conspiracies do and have occurred, conspiracy theories lack any empirical support. QAnon adherents, however, represent only one, highly-political branch of the wider world of conspiracy theory believers.Ĭonspiracy theories can be defined as stories that explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events by means of secret plots between two or more powerful actors. QAnon has drawn outsized media attention since the theory first emerged on the anonymous image board 4chan in October 2017, due to both the outlandishness of its claims and its embrace by public figures, politicians, and a number of individuals who participated in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. I wanted to feel like I was part of the solution.” I wanted to feel like I was doing something good. “Someone would share a news article that says: ‘13 children saved in Michigan from sex trafficking operation.’ And then you think, ‘Okay! It’s working!’ And you just get caught up in that,” she says. Curious, Judy began researching “Q” on the internet, subsequently finding a rich community on Twitter and Facebook, all dedicated to saving children from the clutches of a satanic cabal. This was for the greater good.”Ī former school teacher from southern Mississippi, Judy – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – first learned about QAnon from a post in a Facebook group dedicated to another conspiracy theory that she had joined several years earlier at the invitation of a friend. More and more Twitter and Instagram users created their own versions of the template going into the rest of November 2021.Or a while there, there was this hashtag, ‘save our children,’” she recalls of her early involvement with QAnon, a conspiracy theory movement that holds, among other things, that a group of prominent politicians and celebrities run an underground child sex trafficking ring. The above meme was reposted to other platforms like Instagram in the days following. The meme (shown below) received 494 likes over the course of six days. Their chart made references to other memes like Squirting Isn't Real. Their meme (shown below) received roughly 500 likes over the course of six days.Īlso on November 23rd, 2021, Twitter user posted the first known version of the meme on Twitter. On November 23rd, 2021, Instagram account posted the first known exploited version of the chart, inserting other words and phrases into the pyramid via caption changing. Her tweet reply roughly 450 likes over six days. ![]() For instance, Twitter user posted a reply on November 23rd, 2021, that noted the omission of the "Celebs moisturize with baby foreskins" conspiracy from the original 2020 version. ![]() The post received roughly 22,400 likes over the course of six days.Īfter the November 22nd, 2021, tweet, people on Twitter reacted to the chart. She also posted the new version to her Instagram on November 23rd. The tweet (shown below) received roughly 73,200 likes over the course of seven days. On November 22nd, 2021, Richards posted an updated 2021 version of her conspiracy chart to her Twitter. It was reposted to other sites like Imgur in the days following. On October 3rd, 2020, she posted a 2020 version of the chart to her Twitter, which received roughly 31,700 likes over the course of one year. The original conspiracy chart was created by social-media personality Abbie Richards. ![]()
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