Checked By Reality, Some QAnon Supporters Seek A Way Out

[Shabibilicious]

Checked by reality, some QAnon supporters seek a way out

• 

DAVID KLEPPER

Thu, January 28, 2021, 3:27 PM

 

 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Ceally Smith spent a year down the rabbit hole of QAnon, devoting more and more time to researching and discussing the conspiracy theory online. Eventually it consumed her, and she wanted out.

She broke up with the boyfriend who recruited her into the movement, took six months off social media, and turned to therapy and yoga.

“I was like: I can’t live this way. I’m a single mom, working, going to school and doing the best for my children,” said Smith, 32, of Kansas City, Missouri. “I personally didn’t have the bandwidth to do this and show up for my children. Even if it was all true, I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

More than a week after Donald Trump departed the White House, shattering their hopes that he would expose the worldwide cabal, some QAnon adherents have concocted ever more elaborate stories to keep their faith alive. But others like Smith are turning to therapy and online support groups to talk about the damage done when beliefs collide with reality.

The QAnon conspiracy theory emerged on fringe internet message boards in 2017. At root, the movement claims Trump is waging a secret battle against the “deep state” and a sect of powerful devil-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government.

It is named after Q, an anonymous poster who believers claim has top-secret government clearance and whose posts are taken as predictions about “the plan” and the coming “storm” and “great awakening" in which evil will be defeated.

 

It's not clear exactly how many people believe some or all of the narrative, but backers of the movement were vocal in their support for Trump and helped fuel the insurrectionists who overran the U.S. Capitol this month. QAnon is also growing in popularity overseas.

Former believers interviewed by The Associated Press liken the process of leaving QAnon to kicking a drug addiction. QAnon, they say, offers simple explanations for a complicated world and creates an online community that provides escape and even friendship.

Smith's then-boyfriend introduced her to QAnon. It was all he could talk about, she said. At first she was skeptical, but she became convinced after the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein while in federal custody facing pedophilia charges. Officials debunked theories that he was murdered, but to Smith and other QAnon supporters, his suicide while facing child sex charges was too much to accept.

Soon, Smith was spending more time on fringe websites and on social media, reading and posting about the conspiracy theory. She said she fell for QAnon content that presented no evidence, no counter arguments, and yet was all too convincing.

“We as a society need to start teaching our kids to ask: Where is this information coming from? Can I trust it?” she said. “Anyone can cut and paste anything.”

After a year, Smith wanted out, suffocated by dark prophesies that were taking up more and more of her time, leaving her terrified.

Her then-boyfriend saw her decision to move on from QAnon as a betrayal. She said she no longer believes in the theory, and wanted to share her story in the hopes it would help others.

“I was one of those people too," she said of QAnon and its grip. “I came out on the other end because I wanted to feel better.”

Another ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, created a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as the relatives of people still consumed by the theory. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 114,000 members. Three new moderators had to be added just to keep up.

"They are our friends and family," said Jadeja, of Sydney, Australia. “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult.”

His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take deep breaths, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.

Michael Frink is a Mississippi computer engineer who now moderates a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while mocking the group has never been more popular online, it will only further alienate people.

Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory but sympathizes with those who did.

“I think after the inauguration a lot of them realized they've been taken for a ride,” he said. “These are human beings. If you have a loved one who is in it: make sure they know they are loved.”

QAnon supporters are likely to respond in three general ways as reality undermines their beliefs, according to Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.

Those who only dabbled in the conspiracy theory may shrug and move on, Cohen said. At the other extreme, some militant believers may migrate to radical anti-government groups and plot potentially violent crimes. Indeed, some QAnon believers have already done so.

In the middle, he said, are the many followers who looked to QAnon “to help them make sense of the world, to help them feel a sense of control." These people may simply revise QAnon's elastic narrative to fit reality, rather than face up to being hoodwinked.

“This isn't about critical thinking, of having a hypothesis and using facts to support it," Cohen said of QAnon believers. “They have a need for these beliefs, and if you take that away, because the storm did not happen, they could just move the goal posts.”

Some now say Trump's loss was always part of the plan, or that he secretly remains president, or even that Joe Biden's inauguration was created using special effects or body doubles. They insist that Trump will prevail, and powerful figures in politics, business and the media will be tried and possibly executed on live television, according to recent social media posts.

“Everyone will be arrested soon. Confirmed information,” read a post viewed 130,000 times this week on Great Awakening, a popular QAnon channel on Telegram. “From the very beginning I said it would happen.”

But a different tone is emerging in the spaces created for those who have heard enough.

“Hi my name is Joe,” one man wrote on a Q recovery channel in Telegram. “And I’m a recovering QAnoner.”

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/checked-reality-qanon-supporters-seek-202743127.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

Former QAnon follower apologises to Anderson Cooper for believing he ate babies

 

 

Chelsea Ritschel

Sat, January 30, 2021, 12:38 PM

 

 

Former QAnon conspiracy theorist apologises to Anderson Cooper (Getty Images for WarnerMedia)

A former QAnon supporter has apologised to Anderson Cooper for previously believing that the CNN anchor ate babies.

Jitarth Jadeja, who believed in the baseless conspiracy movement until June 2019, spoke with Cooper for an upcoming CNN report investigating the QAnon movement titled “Inside the QAnon Conspiracy”.

In a preview released ahead of the special report, Cooper began by acknowledging that he, as well as other high-profile individuals, have been the target of some of QAnon’s most “outlandish” conspiracies.

 

“It’s also something of a personal project, as the QAnon fringe has previously focused on me and a bunch of other reporters, as well as many other public figures, as somehow being responsible for some of their more outlandish, should we say, and bizarre conspiracies,” the journalist said ahead of the interview, adding that he was called a “paedophile” and linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein through “phony flight logs”.

During the interview, Cooper asked Jadeja whether he, at the time, believed some of the movement’s claims, which include that high-level Democrats and celebrities “worship Satan” and “drink the blood of children”.

In response to the question, Jadeja revealed that he thought Cooper was guilty of the claims.

“Anderson, I thought you did that,” he responded. “And I would like to apologise for that right now. So, I apologise for thinking that you ate babies. But, yeah, 100 per cent.”

Jadeja’s response appeared to surprise Cooper, who responded: “You actually believed that I was drinking the blood of children?” to which Jadeja replied: “Yes, I did.”

According to Jadeja, who stopped believing in the unhinged theories after watching YouTube videos debunking the movement’s claims, he believed Cooper was involved because Q, the conspiracy movement’s leader, “specifically mentioned” the CNN anchor.

“And he mentioned you very early on,” Jadeja continued, adding that the anonymous conspiracy theorist also referenced Cooper’s family and that more recent QAnon theories have speculated that the journalist is a “robot”.

During the interview, Jadeja, who lives in Sydney, Australia, also revealed that his belief in the baseless theories spouted by Q also extended much further, telling Cooper that he believed “that QAnon was part of military intelligence, which is what he says,” and that “the people behind him were actually a group of fifth-dimensional, intradimensional, extraterrestrial bipedal bird aliens called blue aliens”.

“I was so far down in this conspiracy black hole that I was essentially picking and choosing whatever narrative that I wanted to believe in,” he said.

QAnon, which started as a fringe internet conspiracy, entered the mainstream under the Trump presidency, with followers convinced that the former president was waging a secret war against high-profile paedophiles running a Satanic sex ring, among other baseless beliefs.

The group was dealt one of its biggest blows on Inauguration Day, which many had believed for months would be a day of reckoning and would see Donald Trump arrest enemies of the country and remain president.

CNN’s QAnon special airs Saturday at 9 pm ET.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/former-qanon-follower-apologises-anderson-173814134.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[caddieman]

There is QAnon sight that is for recovering QAnon believers and their families to post their stories. They have 122k members last I saw. Their stories are very sad and very scary at the same time. To think regular and every day people get sucked in is quite alarming.

I’d post the link but not sure if it’s in the form rules!

[Shabibilicious]

2 minutes ago, caddieman said:

There is QAnon sight that is for recovering QAnon believers and their families to post their stories. They have 122k members last I saw. Their stories are very sad and very scary at the same time. To think regular and every day people get sucked in is quite alarming.

I’d post the link but not sure if it’s in the form rules!

 

Hopefully they have good family and friend support systems and manage to find their way back without being embarrassed or facing other complications....cult like addiction is a real thing.

 

GO RV, then BV