Powered by ProofFactor - Social Proof Notifications

Understanding QAnon: The Internet Conspiracy Theory That Surfaced at a Trump Rally

Dec 28, 2022 | 0 comments

blog banner

Dec 28, 2022 | Essays | 0 comments

Letter to the New York Times: What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed up at a Trump Rally.
Toulmin Analysis
The people watching the rally held by President Trump in Tampa were exposed to a movement fringe that discussed various loosely associated and imprecisely baseless and deformed conspiracy theories.
About Fox News, Mr. Trump was partly obscured through the crowd’s sign that read “We Are Q.” In a different shot during the speech of the president, a promoting sign of the debunked Seth Rich conspiracy theory, having the Qanon hashtag was focused on the screen’s centre. Besides, a number of the attendees wore T-shirts that had a Q that was blocky, while others held letters for the signs(Qin and Karabacak, 2016).
Notably, all the signs had a self-description representing “Q followers,” who are anonymous individuals or a group of individuals who claimed to be government secrets privy. That was supposed to mean that classified information was already leaked to the 8chan and the 4chan message boards and had spread across mainstream internet platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Remarkably, Q has attracted individuals; however, the exact individuals’ number is difficult to tell, and that is eagerly waiting to consume their “breadcrumbs” or waiting for new information spreading conspiracy theories on the web.
What is happening is that Q is claimed to be an insider of the government meant to expose an international, entrenched bureaucracy secretly plotting every nefarious scheme against the administration of Trump and his supporters. Markedly, the character incorporates a lingo to imply that they have intelligence or military background.
It is a mixture of different, though connecting, theories of conspiracy that primarily hold the President like a conquistador who is battling anti-American cabal saboteurs who have overthrown the media, industry, government, and different other public life institutions in a vision of overarching nefarious actors’ goals, which is not clear.
In a little longer version, an increasing group of individuals is said to be merging on a theory collection and half-thoughts believed to reveal a current untold story of world events. In deciding what the individuals believe is happening, the Q followers sift on the president’s tweets, news articles, and the government sets data.
Importantly, sometimes the Q followers are after signs of his existence. A common Rosetta stone they normally use in looking for the number 17 uses, which is where the Q letter is found in the alphabet. So during the presentation of jersey number 17 to Mr. Trump by the Alabama football team, the sigh was regarded as a Q’s influence coded signal(Qin and Karabacak, 2016)… The followers of Q ascribe hidden motives and secret coordination to a continuous parade of journalists, politicians, industry leaders, and other institutions. Their theories often are enthusiastically at reality odds.
Besides, the community employs a mind-bending pop culture language with alternative realities, for example, “Alice in Wonderland” or “The Matrix.” This is common in telling stories of how followers had undergone a “red pill” or have had to believe that the reality of observation is false, as well as the reality in the QAnon narrative. The interpreted clues to rush shared from the “drop” of evidence from the Q resemble something that I almost the same as what video gamers call a massive multiplayer online game (MMO).
Since QAnon does not limit itself to an internet’s fringe corner, on top of its center-and-front President’s rally presence, it was given a promotion by celebrities like Curt Schilling and Roseanne Barr. The worldview paranoiac has spread past the internet into the reality of the world many times in the past months. On various occasions, individuals believed to be QAnon followers have met, sometimes carrying weapons, in regions where the representatives told them how they were somehow associated with anti-Trump conspiracies.
About a June activity, an armed man had a handgun and a rifle driving an armored vehicle reached the Hoover Dam with a mission he said was from QAnon demanding the justice report released by the government through a department from the inspector general on the F.B.I agents conduct in the investigation of the private email server use by Hillary Clinton. The report was revealed a day before, although the followers of Q believed that a second report was a secret and had more damning details on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nonetheless, there is no available indication of if such a report has been released. Consequently, the said man was arrested during a police standoff. Recently, a possible and suspiciously armed man visited the Michael Avenatti law offices after posting a link by the Q followers to the website belonging to Mr. Avenatti as well as a picture of the building of his office (Qin and Karabacak, 2016). However, the man fatefully did not visit the premises.

References
Qin, J., & Karabacak, E. (2016). The analysis of Toulmin elements in Chinese EFL university argumentative writing. *System*, *38*(3), 444-456.

Rate this post