Conspiracy theorists have probably been around since the Year Dot. Sometimes, admittedly, they are actually on to something, but more often than not they develop a theory based on zilch and, despite a lack of substance to back it up, manage to acquire a voice and accumulate followers at an alarming rate. And then they feed on people’s fears.
The Internet has been a boon for conspiracy theorists as it has allowed them to access a platform, find a voice and get their “message” out to a much wider audience than ever before. They often rely on infiltration by their followers to keep the ball rolling and right now the wellness community has become one of the unwilling access points for far right conspiracy network, QAnon.
Why the wellness community? Well they aren’t the first to be used as a vehicle by agenda groups. Extinction Rebellion, aka XR, began life as Rising Up!, a group who strongly support the idea of a holocracy (anti hierarchy). They are all about decentralising world governments, are anti authority in general, and specifically against any form of structured society, advocating the world order needs to be disrupted and sent in chaos in order to save it. Rising Up! rebranded and relaunched itself in 2018 as Extinction Rebellion, attaching themselves to the climate movement, which was gaining momentum, leading people to believe they are all about saving the environment which is not their real agenda at all. They launched XR Youth in 2019 to recruit Children to their disruptive cause.
But we are talking about QAnon right now. This is the group who fervently believe Donald Trump is the saviour of the World because he will defeat the satanic forces of the “deep state” who are currently running everything worldwide. Uh huh, like, narcissistic hedonists do that all the time.
Whatever, QAnon is a fringe phenomenon of the dark web and came into being on controversial forum sites such as 4chan and 8chan, both of which initially were discussion platforms on a variety of ordinary topics. Over time, however, these sites began to develop a more political bent which made them really attractive to a number of political activist groups. The hacking group called Anonymous found their way there, so I suppose it was inevitable that someone calling themselves Q Clearance Patriot, aka Q, should find their way there too. Once established, and attracting a formidable following, orchestrating a move into mainstream media would have been a shoo-in.
QAnon are heavily into conspiracy theories, it’s their bread and butter. They are also anti vaccination, anti 5G, anti lockdown restrictions and support people refusing to wear face masks in public because QAnon also believe that COVID-19 does not exist because COVID is a “government conspiracy”. Okay, so their popularity on the dark web I understand, but how did they become so popular on mainstream media?
Influencers, that’s how.
Influencers have an annoying tendency to spout misinformation based on their personal beliefs (and whatever they believe makes them look and sound good) rather than on factual information. And because of their online profile, their followers eat it up. Like those supporting the anti vaccination movement for instance, who would be better off educating themselves about such nasties as whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis and tetanus and then asking themselves why they would encourage people not to vaccinate their children against these horrors.
Anyway, QAnon found the wellness industry to be an ideal vehicle because of the number of it’s followers, many of whom are influencers, being able to infiltrate various industry sites, where they began “spreading the word” via sharing posts that support QAnon dogma . Hence QAnon has attached itself like a parasite, feeding off those exploring health and wellbeing alternatives to deal with stress and/or to just makeover their general health routines, and they are being lead astray, as QAnon misinformation does nothing more than tap into their fears. This is so very wrong.
Right now, the world is ripe for the picking by conspiracy groups because everything has been tipped on it’s head and those looking to find answers are finding the wrong ones…and then they share the misinformation with their friends because they believe it without question.
Meanwhile, people are dying in large numbers worldwide from something. If it’s not COVID, as QAnon insist there is no such thing, then what is it? Is 5G destroying our immune systems while moonlighting as a population tracking device? Well the jury’s still out on that one. But to deliberately spread misinformation during a global pandemic is dangerously irresponsible, yet that is what’s happening. Why do people listen to this? And why do they believe it?
Just use some common sense.