Understanding the Cultish Nature of QAnon

The next speaker in this IAMCR 2024 session is the excellent Rita Gsenger, whose focus is on the adaptive conspiracy ideation of online cults like QAnon. QAnon is a conspiratorial movement that combines several elements, centred on the elusive figure of ‘Q’ who posts occasional cryptic information drops on the 4chan message board, claiming US government insider knowledge.

The central claim here is that the world is secretly governed by a group of influential people who drink children’s blood, and there is an argument that QAnon can be understood as a cult: a novel social system emerging from secular or occult populations that does not necessarily have an identifiable leader figure and uses cultish language. Many of the things that QAnon does might be recognised from this perspective.

Such cults can emerge from subcultural milieux, for instance; this may be in response to a lack of recognition or acceptance from mainstream society, and then also leads group members to make a stronger commitment to the group’s ideals. Some members may occasionally doubt the value of such a cultish group, and ideals must therefore be reestablished and reaffirmed from time to time. Some groups also come to a more or less dramatic conclusion – in end times cults literally hrough mass suicides.