The Birth of “Q” The term “QAnon” is quite simple. It refers to the person (or, more likely, persons) at the heart of this conspiracy: an enigmatic online figure known only as “Q.” The lore behind Q is pretty straightforward. He claims to be a highly-ranked military official who has access to knowledge most people never will. And he shares cryptic messages online that are supposed to provide clues to what’s really going on in the tangled world of American politics. Like most of the stupidest things you’ve ever heard, “Q” and “QAnon” originally came from 4chan. Interestingly, while being the most successful “anon” in history, the Q character is not actually very original.

Not That Original As NBC News reported, 4chan was home to many “anons” before Q. This included an FBIAnon and a CIAAnon. In principle, these accounts all had the same MO: to present themselves as keepers of special and hidden information that they would dispense to those willing to listen. Still, these other anon accounts stayed mostly contained to 4chan. What helped QAnon achieve more mainstream status was exposure across multiple internet platforms as well as the controversial presidency of Donald Trump.

Human Psychology and Cryptic Clues In theory, if Q was real, he’d be able to just give people direct information. But that would be much too easy and much less fun. Or, if you’ve got the mind of a conspiracy theorist, would make it too easy for nefarious government forces to track down who Q really was. Whatever the reason, Q’s posts are never straightforward. Posts are deliberately cryptic, forcing users to keep up with Q “drops” with more info just to make sense of things. For example, a seemingly innocuous post about “Alice in Wonderland” is actually using bizarre code to refer to Hillary Clinton and Saudi Arabia. Of course, the real brilliance of these vague posts is that there are no downsides. There have been over 5,000 Q “drops” over the years, so when something ends up being even partially right, followers get to rejoice at the special insights provided by Q. And if something doesn’t come to pass? Well, people must have interpreted the drop wrong, or maybe the Deep State has been spying on Q and changing things up. As interesting as all of this can be, QAnon would likely have died down like the other anons if it stayed on 4chan. However, it spread across the internet thanks to a few special architects.

Creatively Spreading the Conspiracy The whole point of Q is that he is supposed to be anonymous. Nonetheless, NBC tracked down three people it thinks are chiefly responsible for the conspiracy. It began when 4chan moderators Pamphlet Anon and BaruchtheScribe reached out to Youtuber Tracy Diaz about Q. This ended up being a mutually beneficial relationship. Diaz’s Youtube channel began getting more hits as people tuned in to learn more about Q. And as the conspiracy found greater legs, it just kept extending far beyond those original 4chan boundaries. It was Diaz that recommended Q lovers take their discussions over to Reddit, further expanding conspiracy awareness. This was good timing, as QAnon stuffed moved from 4chan to the even more controversial 8chan, making it much harder to learn about Q from the original source. Reddit eventually shut down the CBTS_Stream subreddit. But the cat was out of the bag, with QAnon stuff infiltrating mainstream conspiracy circles. People openly discussed Q on InfoWars, conversations that sometimes involved those original 4chan moderators. Still, after all these years, it looked like QAnon stuff might be losing steam. That is, until it recently got a major shot in the arm from Donald Trump himself!

Trump Teams Up With QAnon Like Q, Donald Trump knows something about being kicked off certain platforms. It was after being banned from Twitter that Trump launched Truth Social, his own, more conservative-friendly social media platform. Trump is, of course, a frequent poster on Truth Social. According to VOA News, he has amplified over 50 different accounts that support QAnon. Some considered that an endorsement: if Trump supports the people that support Q, that must mean he supports Q. Others remained very skeptical on this point. However, the former president tools things to another level at a recent rally in Ohio. There, he started using a song while he spoke that is similar to a song using in many QAnon videos. While it’s not exactly a smoking gun, many interpret this as Trump further embracing the Q phenomenon ahead of possibly running for president again in 2024. While that is a pragmatic approach for Trump, it does mean one thing: we are likely going to have more QAnon content for many years after this. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is in the eyes of the beholder!