IT’S the insane and baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that bizarrely claims famous figures like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey drink blood to make themselves younger.
But it’s now been revealed that the discredited online movement QAnon was first linked to the president by an “ignorantYouTuberwho just months earlier had protested AGAINST his 2016 election win.
9 QAnon is a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory that says he has insider knowledgeCreditGetty
9 YouTuber Isaac was the first to link Donald Trump to the QAnon conspiracy theories
9 QAnon conspiracy theories eventually led to the storming of the Capitol CreditAP
In the new Netflix documentaryThe Antisocial NetworkMemes to Mayhema man referred to as Isaac explains how he spread rumours that that an anonymous blogger called Q worked for Trump and had “insider knowledge of the future.”
Thanks to YouTube videoswhich racked up 20,000 hits in less than 24 hoursIsaac accidentally became a ringleader of the movementwhich ridiculously believed the world is run by Satan-worshipping paedophiles and Trump was recruited to bring this group to justice.
By the time Isaac realised his mistakesand tried to warn members it was all a hoaxit was too late.
By January 62021QAnon had become so powerful that thousands of its believers stormed the Capitol the centre of US Government in protest over Trumppresidential lossleading to hundreds being charged with federal crimes.
Isaac was a Freshman student in New York City in 2016when Trump was elected president over Hillary Clintonand he says he initially “swung really far-left”.
“I was shocked,he recalls“The New York Times had predicted Hillary at 91 per centno one thought this could happen and it did
Isaac was one of the thousands who marched outside Trump Tower the day after he was electedscreaming and chanting things like “New York hates youand “Not my president”.
He says“It was madnesspeople were yelling and screamingIt was just total rage.
“Being in that mob was so hateful and sort of hit me like a wrecking ball all at oncethis is not what I signed up for.
“Then we had this new guy in charge saying‘We’re going to drain the swampit gave people some sort of hope the world could change.”
‘QAnon ShamanJacob Chansley files to run for Congress after serving 27 months in prison for role in January 6
As Isaac turned from a Trump hater into a Trump supportera post on anonymous forum 4chanfrom someone called Qcaught his attention.
It read“Nothing is randomEverything has meaning+++”
Seven minutes laterTrump tweeted “+++”.
9 IsaacQ videos were racking up hundreds of thousands of views CreditYou Tube Netflix
Isaac posted a video to YouTube about this tweetsaying“We knowfor a factQ is real.”
By the next morningit had already got 20,000 views.
“It was a whirlwind of‘What did I just doWhat have I stumbled on?’he recalls.
He immediately started posting more videos about Q on his YouTube channeland it began “growing like wildfire,as thousands caught on and began spreading more misinformation on 4chan.
One of Isaac’s videos speaks about a 4chan post he saw of a picture of Trump and some of his cabinet standing in the White House with their thumbs up.
“Their thumbs connect and make a Q,he earnestly stated.
In some more of Isaac’s fanciful YouTube videosseen in the Netflix documentaryhe is seen telling his viewers“There’s a person on the inside leaving us breadcrumbslike you guys aren’t getting the whole storyhere’s what’s going on behind the scenes.
“Q is about getting to the truthHe knows a lot of the secrets they have and that’s why he’s such a threat…
“The information he’s given to us has been extraordinary…The letter Q is everywhere.”
And Isaac was by no means the only QAnon YouTuber getting his information from 4chan.
There are many other video clips in the documentaryincluding one woman who says“Q is a patriot we know that for sureSome of the things he’s spoken about on 4chan have shown us thatfor sure.”
Tinfoil hat theories
9 QAnon tinfoil hatters ludicrously believe Oprah Winfrey is part of a Satan-worshipping cult CreditGetty
9 They also believe Barack Obama is part of this group who drink blood to stay young CreditAFP
With more and more jokes about child sex abuse and paedophilia popping up on 4chanalongside these Q theoriesslowly but surely people started to believe insanely outlandish conspiracy theories.
The main bogus conspiracy theory that members of QAnon believe is there is a group of Satan-worshipping elites including top Democrats and Trump’s biggest rivals like President Joe BidenHillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood actor Tom Hanksas well as religious figures including Pope Francis and the Dalai Lamaare also said to be in this cult by delusional fantasists.
QAnon also believes that the reason Trump was elected as president in the first place was because he’d been secretly recruited by top military generals in order to break up the group of Hollywood elitesand would eventually bring its members to justice.
Butwhile he’d managed to convince thousands of people of Q’s existenceIsaac slowly started to realise it wasn’t real when “nothing had happenedon any of the dates given by Q.
The people behind QAnon posts were just some dudes in a basement who predicted Trump’s tweets Isaac
“This hope of radical change he promised never seemed to come into fruition,he says“Eventually I learned many of the commenters on Youtube were actually behind QAnon posts and they were just some dudes in a basement who predicted Trump’s tweets.”
He adds“They really took advantage of people looking for answers about the world around them.
“I had to tell people it’s not real‘Q dies todayIt’s just a bunch of manipulative scammersusing me to push the Q narrative.’”
It was already too latehowever.
The comments on Isaac’s video denouncing Q’s existence included“It doesn’t matter if it’s realIt’s more entertaining than Game of Thrones,and simply“It is real.”
He continues“It wasn’t well-received at all I got a mountain of dislikes and hate commentsIt was like talking to a wall.
“There was nothing I could’ve said.
“Once you realise nothing’s going to happenyou think what is going to happen to these people?”
It’s unsurprising that QAnon members didn’t want to listen to Isaacas the documentary shows that they were believing a lie the whole time.
Derangedsupporters
9 Fredrick Brennanfounder of 8Chansays it was just trolls all along starting QAnon
In actual factQ never predicted Trump’s tweets.
What actually happened was that the person behind the original post Isaac saw doctored the timestamps to make it seem like Q was predicting the future.
Q’s post was at 5.07pm while Trump actually posted almost an hour earlier at 4.15pm.
“It was just trolls originallylike ‘look at all these foolsthey actually believe this’,one former 4chan user says.
Fredrick Brennanfounder of 4chan rival 8chanexplains“Trump’s fans thought he would have some kind of clandestine plan to bring people to justice.
“His followers saw what they wanted to see and ran with the lie
“The people who support QAnon need some way of proving they’re the people who got the short end of the stick.
“They see elite people who get richer and richersaying ‘Everything’s finewe represent the truth,and people end up hating the truth.
“They do the same thing as people on 4chanthey start falling into the internetfalling into fantasy.
“It doesn’t have to be trueit just has to feel good andlittle by littlethe ‘truthsounded deranged.”
Killing in the name of QAnon
9 Anthony Comello said he murdered the boss of the Gambino crime family due to QAnon CreditAP:Associated Press
9 Supporters of QAnon storming the capitol CreditAFP
The bizarre theory has gained cult status among some followerswith Q-related products such as T-shirtsmugsand jewellery available.
Believers have also been at the centre of violent crimes since Isaac started sharing videos about it.
In 2019Anthony Comello was charged with murdering the underboss of New York’s Gambino crime family.
In courthe appeared with scribblingsincluding a “Q”on his handand his defence team blamed the killing on him being obsessed with conspiracy theoriesbelieving the mobster was a member of the “deep state.”
On October 152020Trump refused to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theorists insistingI don know them.
But that same yearwhen he claimed the reason he lost the presidential election to Biden was due to fraudQAnon believers continued with their theories.
After he started tweeting that the result was a liethousands of people stormed the Capitol shouting “Stop the stealand “Fight for Trump”on 6th January 2021.
And Frederick notes that it wasn’t just pro-Trump supporters there.
He says“It was an internet-generated eventfull of people who love Christpeople who love Trumpconspiracy theoristsjust people who are totally deranged and believed in this mass delusion.”
Some QAnon believers maintain that Trump is still the lawful presidentandsince the storming of the Capitol964 people have been charged with federal crimesand 465 of those have entered guilty pleas.,
