How the pandemic broke people’s brains, leading them deep into conspiracy theories
We were already living in the age of conspiracy when March came.
Across the world, businesses closed. People went home. And there, they consumed media. Most binged Netflix. Others were radicalized — sometimes within weeks — by algorithms driving them deeper and deeper into the internet’s darkest rabbit holes.
World-shaking events tend to turn into fodder for conspiracy theories (the JFK assassination, 9/11, the current pandemic, to name a few) as people try to make sense of a chaotic event. In the absence of clear answers, conspiracy fills the void, promising scared people there is a reason for a seemingly unexplainable tragedy. And along with true believers, there are conspiracy peddlers who profit from lying. Fear sells: It sells gold, storable food and survival gear. It transforms fringe social media accounts into huge conspiracy hubs, monetized both with ads and with merchandise like books and T-shirts.
The most prolific, and increasingly mainstream, conspiracy theories right now revolve around QAnon and COVID-19, and they often dovetail and intermingle with one another.
Coronavirus conspiracy theories fall into three main categories: The pandemic is real but wildly overblown, the virus is a bioweapon unleashed by a foreign power to destabilize the U.S., or the coronavirus doesn’t exist at all. Each appeals to a different demographic of skeptics, from those who acknowledge the virus but struggle to contextualize it to those who prefer to reject it outright. It’s why there are so many competing coronavirus narratives, many of which contradict each other — the internet is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” of COVID denial.
QAnon is a bigger beast, an amalgamation of countless conspiracy theories proliferated by Americans for decades. At its heart, adherents of QAnon — named for the supposed Trump administration insider “Q” who posts cryptic messages on 8kun — believe that a cabal of powerful Satan worshippers are running child sex trafficking rings. These villains are primarily Democrats, although the term “globalist,” which is often used to imply Jewish people, is also used. If this sounds completely insane, consider the Satanic panic of the 1980s and ’90s, a hysteria so widespread it landed innocent people in jail.
But QAnon encompasses much more, making it easy for people to pick and choose the elements that appeal to them. Q promises a “great awakening” is sweeping the nation wherein corrupt politicians will be outed (and sometimes arrested or even executed) by Q-verse heroes like Donald Trump.
“QAnon also represents a militant and anti-establishment ideology rooted in an apocalyptic desire to destroy the existing, corrupt world to usher in a promised golden age,” an August report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center says. “This position finds resonance with other far-right extremist movements, such as the various militant, anti-government, white nationalist, and neo-Nazi extremist organizations across the United States.”
Its promise that this evil world will soon be given a fresh start is so widely appealing that, although its base remains overwhelmingly Christian, QAnon has begun to seep into the rhetoric of New Age types and even lifestyle influencers.
QAnon and COVID conspiracy theorists don’t hit you with their most extreme beliefs right out of the gate. Some of the talking points sound convincing on their face, like the assertion that there are pedophiles in positions of power or that COVID’s 2.2% case fatality rate means it’s not really that bad. Conspiracy peddlers rely on the fact that most people won’t fact check them — and often they’re right.
Anecdotal evidence suggests an astonishing number of people were pulled into conspiracy circles recently by two self-styled “documentaries.” One is “Plandemic,” a video full of misleading claims and outright falsehoods about the coronavirus pandemic. It was viewed millions of times before Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms took it down. The other is “Fall Cabal,” a 10-part video series that lays the foundation for many core QAnon theories. It’s now so canonical that it’s taught as a core text by a church in Indiana that blends evangelical Christianity and QAnon analysis.
These are entry-level tools of radicalization; they don’t hit you right off with the Satanic cabal. It is a softer entry into the world of disinformation — but radicalization is happening at a rate that shocks even academics who study extremism.
“QAnon is arguably no longer simply a fringe conspiracy theory but an ideology that has demonstrated its capacity to radicalize to violence individuals at an alarming speed,” the West Point study found.
Thanks to readily available editing software, it’s easier than ever to produce slick videos that look and feel more legitimate. Watch one, and algorithms push you further faster. Did you see “Plandemic”? Next you might get a video about Bill Gates’ “plan” to enact a global genocide. Like a pro-Trump page? Facebook might recommend Pizzagate content. A sociologist studying YouTube found that after watching videos of Trump, videos “that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content” populated their recommended videos. Instead of radicalizing over months or years, people are losing touch with reality within weeks, stuck at home during one of our century’s most stressful events with little to do but consume an endless stream of content.
The West Point study, which concluded QAnon is “a security threat in the making,” tracks the case of one such individual.
Jessica Prim, whose social media was filled with QAnon posts, live-streamed her April arrest at a pier in New York City. In her video, Prim spoke of rescuing children and seemed to believe she was driving to the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship docked in Manhattan to help with the surge of COVID patients. The Comfort was the subject of a QAnon theory that “mole children” held in underground bunkers by their Satanic abusers were being freed by the military. The survivors, according to this baseless belief, were being cared for on the Comfort. The Daily Beast reported Prim cried and asked police, “Have you guys heard about the kids?” as she was being arrested. Police said her car was filled with knives and they found her social media posts threatening Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. She was charged with criminal possession of the knives.
Remarkably, the West Point study found, it took just 20 days from Prim’s “first contact with QAnon propaganda” for her to get in her car and take real-world action. She is hardly alone. Just in the past two years, QAnon adherents have been suspects in a train derailment, a terrorist act at the Hoover Dam, and the murder of a New York City mob boss.
It’s hard to believe they will be the last. Stuck at home for the foreseeable future, stressed by a pandemic and egged on by social media echo chambers of their choosing, untold more Americans may find themselves mired in extremist thought before they even realize it.
