THE Q IN QONSPIRACY
Wu Ming 1
THE Q IN QONSPIRACY
QAnon and Its Surroundings:
How Conspiracy Fantasies Defend the System
Italian edition: March 2021
You can order the book directly from Alegre
Index:
Ouverture
How to spoil a party. Slave children under your feet. Open fire on shisha bars. Slave children at Central Park. Trump’s voice from the burning bush. Buy children from the furniture factory. Rear-end the pedophile’s car. A name. The rabbit hole. Five definitions to keep in mind. The disappearance of a name?
I. The Novel of a Research
Chapter One. The wake of the Qomet
Hillary’s faults. Hillary’s email. A pizzeria in Washington D.C. Soldiers of 4chan. Alex Jones and other poisoners. The sorrows of young Maddison. When a man with a pizza meets a man with a rifle.
Chapter Two. QAnon, its birth and early unfolding, 2017‑2018
The nonsense before the storm. The first two drops and the vase overflows. Crumbs and Bakers. And Q, when you call me, you can call me Cabal. Hunter S. Thompson and adrenochrome. The Storm. Between Reddit and 8chan. Between right and left. John‑John is alive and fights along with us. Extension of the domain of struggle. That time Matthew was on the bridge. The encampment of evil. QAnon’s Trump and everybody else’s Trump. Qanon qannonading the media from Tampa.
Chapter three. «An extraordinary mix between the Internet and the Templars»
An improper name. LutherBlissettProject. The purpose of Luther Blissett’s media pranks. Umberto Eco’s multiple name. Another «QAnon». A letter from Rotterdam. The beginning of the quest. The Pendulum keeps coming back (it’s what they do after all). Pop culture, counterculture, subculture: that certain family resemblance. Missing a link.
Chapter four. The book of metastasis
«Fabulation used as a scourge». The Diabolicals and the Sardonicals. I bought myself a personal computer (but my heart is missing some beats). The Plan. Lia had warned you! The oncology of conspiracy. Blunt weapons: irony, satire, parody. A fake investigation on the fake moon landing. Conspirituality. The Me Decade (we’ll talk about this again). Singularity. Missing more links: pop culture, counterculture and gaming. The Crying of Lot 49 and Illuminatus!
Chapter five. Paul‑Is‑Dead: etiology and incubation
Highway to hell, or at least to the Midlands. Beatlemania as a feminist uprising. Beatlemania and political murder. The Beatles and Satan. A new phase. The weird and the Eerie in The Beatles videoclips. What’s wrong with those blokes? From Santana to Satan: the fateful ’69. From Woodstock to Altamont passing through Helter Skelter. Wait a second, do you remember that blurb…?
Chapter six. I buried Paul, miss him, miss him, miss him!
Wednesday morning at five o’ clock. A new mystery cult. The radio implies that Paul is dead. The first modern conspiracy fantasy in the form of an Alternate Reality Game. A «harmless» theory? The Doppelgänger obsession. The dawn of backmasking.
Chapter seven. «A leftist prank?»
The prank hypothesis. Buzzfeed‘s scoop. Bad signals from Germany. Discomfort in the non-Trumpist right. An insight by Ben Davis. From avantgarde to post-irony, fromdétournementtomemes.Blissett was more than culture jamming. We need an inventory. We need the right concepts.
Chapter eight. Creating conceps: what does a conspiracy do?
«Conspiracy theory» is an inadequate concept. The CIA time machine.A definition of Conspiracism. Conspiracy fantasy vs. conspiracy hypothesis. A critique of Barkun’s triad (Event conspiracies, Systemic conspiracies and Superconspiracies). Real and imaginary conspiracies. A warning on metaconspiracism.
Chapter nine. It’s irrational, and yet it’s logic
Thinking fast and slow. That silhouette in the bushes is not always a tiger. Information: first come, best remembered. If I recall it, it means it’s important. I’m comfortable here, why move? Somebody wanted this! To paint a big wall you need a big brush. Look, this guy says it too! Of course I know! Yellow ties and the pandemic. Captain America and the virus. To stop? After all this work? It’s their fault, not mine. The people agree with us! On doing research. Photoshop ’til you drop. Schopenhauer’s The art of Being Right. The lady is a pedo.
Chapter ten. What does a conspiracy fantasy actually do?
Der Sozialismus der dummen Kerls. Every conspiracy fantasy has a kernel of truth. Capitalism is not the result of a conspiracy. System homeostasis and diversionary narratives. On being sloppy working on symptoms. How does a diversionary narrative work? A case study: chemtrails. Watcher Of The Skies. Morgellons and other stories. Climate war! The cold comfort of conspiracism.
Chapter eleven. The problem isn’t only on the right
Examples of left-wing conspiracism.They’re all paid by Soros! 1977: SPECTRE in action inBologna. As long as you see false flags waving. Putin Tour. That atrocious penumbra. Cospiracism and lesser-evilism.
Chapter twelve. A Midterm Election in Sorosland (August‑December 2018)
Alex Jones is not on You Porn anymore. Fake investigation, real convictions. Lionel at the White House. No Name’s multiple death. After the jump QAnon takes a breath. Killgeorge. Attack on the Tree of Life. «Great Replacement», «Eurabia», «White Genocide». On talking about race not to talk about climate. A palindrome bisyllable: Soros. Social media, racism and blood. Midterm defeat. Disinfo is necessary.
Chapter thirteen. The last year before Covid (January ‑ December 2019)
Fire at Comet Ping Pong. QAnon’s first best-selling book. Frankie Boy’s last day. A massacre at the antepodes. Racism as a First Person Shooter Game. End of the Mueller investigation The irrelevance of being Earnest. The FBI and QAnon. The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein. 8chan’s last massacre. FredBrennan’s second life. Epstein’s lookalike is dead. Mr. Watkins Goes To Washington. The embarassing phone call. Here comes 8kun. QAnon kidnapping children.
Chapter fourteen. «Cult», «sect», «mind control»: handle with care
What do we mean by «cult»? QAnon and Jesus Christ. The myth of «brainwashing». When the Italian Constitutional Court avenged Aldo Braibanti. The offence of mind control has a fan club. The real mind control.
Chapter fifteen. Love is very strong, the body isn’t
Hatred for democracy. The promises of social media vs. actual reality. Look, Narcissus is pooping. FOMO and wasted life time. I’ll stick to my role. Facebook’s water and the gills. The time of illusions is over. The real «great replacement»: Facebook and independent media. On Twitter, gamification by «default power». The revolution first and always.
Chapter sixteen. Why debunking doesn’t work
Why is a toxic narrative toxic? Debunkers in the bunker. Ratiosuprematism: a definition. «No» and «Not» do not exist (ops!). «Neutrality» to defend Goliath. Science is democratic, many scientists are not. What is «burionismo»? Balloon piercers. Re-enchantment is necessary.
Chapter seventeen. Beyond debunking: «showing the suture»
Gullible scientists. «We need a magician!». The magician/debunker as a hit man. Meeting Mariano Tomatis. Unidentified Narrative Objects and the suture. Looks simple, doesn’t it? Cups and balls and glasnost. Teller torn to pieces and run over by a truck. Penn & Teller’s and the estrangement effect. Debunking corrupts even the best.
Chapter eighteen. In viro veritas? / 1st part
Make the line, not the point. The memory of a flashback. Astonishing posterity. Ongoing writing and the trashcan of history. If you’re puzzled by spillovers. All united against the virus! Prologue to The Hare and The Tortoise: The conspiracist hare and the anticapitalist tortoise. Crossfire. Tableau vivant.
Chapter nineteen. In viro veritas? / 2d part
We already knew, but what did we know? Event 201. Did Bill Gates also do good things? Enriching the rich so they can give alms to the poor. Dissent as a neurological disorder. «Denialist!» (endorphine release follows). Vaccines and autism. Cigarettes and syphilis. Plandemic. Those lies about Ebola. Your baby’s dummy is connected to the Internet. Confinement and 5G.
Chapter twenty. In viro veritas? / 3rd part
Virocentrism: A definition. By dint of crying wolf about bullshit… «It could only be done this way.» Anti-lockdown capitalism and the Lombard breakdown. Italian-style lockdown. «We dictated the rule to the world». The great misunderstanding and the blame game. Staying home and staying indoor are not the same thing. «The virus is in the air!». The spectacle of penance. Snitches everywhere and scapegoats. The distortion of the precautionary principle. Mesmerizing numbers. The summer of the schizogenic double-bind. A pandemic of psychological pain. The new pro-lockdown capitalism. Governing via Facebook. And you’re surprised about conspiracy fantasies?
Chapter twenty-one. Virulence illustrated, followed by Burnout
QAnon and the pandemic. Covid is really there and that’s okay. Wuhan’s adrenochrome stockpile. Covid is a hoax. Stella Emmanuel and demon sperm. Who’s the child kidnapper? The digital soldiers take their oath. The big platforms make up their minds at crackdown. #Savethechildren. QAnon goes global: the German case. Conspirituality and hippie red-brownism. Pastel QAnon. The revival of Pizzagate on TikTok. Towards the election: QAnon runs for Congress. Meanwhile in Italy. The last QDrop. Trump gets Covid. The end of QMap. Trump’s defeat. A Hummer in the Indian Summer. The kraken! Maybe a coup…? The killing of Christopher Hallett. Ten days of darkness. Yes, maybe a coup! The assault on Capitol Hill. Biden is sworn in. Disillusionment. And yet the Nazis told you so! QAnon in a broad sense beyond QAnon in a narrow sense. Towards Jonestown. A dream.
II. QAnon’s Transatlantic Genome Strands
Chapter one. Blood Libel
Chapter two. Your Possible Pasts
Chapter three. Contra Iudaeos, again
Chapter four. Spectral Evidence: The Devil in America
Chapter five. The 1960s: The morning of the magicians and the paranoid style
Chapter six. The 1970s: Satan and the government are coming to get you
Chapter seven. The 1980s: Satanic Panic!
Chapter eight. The 1990s: Satan comes back to Europe
Chapter nine. The 2010s: Satan goes back to America
Chapter ten. Bibbiano, etc: QAnon in Italian Sauce
