Musings on a strange letter

[pensnest]

I sort of understand the Q cultists. Sort of.

It's an addiction. I've had them myself, and they can be very satisfying. I devoured popslash when I first discovered it, devoured it all the time (or so it felt), and when I settled in to being part of it, I *loved* checking through my LJ, seeing what was on my friends list, and even more, contributing my own stories and getting feedback[LOVE] from people. It was addictive. It was rather like that when I got into Star Trek, nearly fifteen years earlier, but the addiction was a bit harder to feed before there was internet in a big way. I'd put everything aside for the day when my IDIC newsletter arrived, but it wasn't like being part of a bunch of communities and journals where there were daily updates.

I really got addicted to the US election in 2016, but from the point of view of MetaFilter. I read the MetaFilter political threads avidly, and Shakesville, and other places that supported Hilary and were anti-Trump.

Perhaps in both cases, there was an escape from real life involved. Fandom is wonderful, but it is an escape from the mundane facts of our actual lives. The American election, well, I suppose what happens in the US does affect me, but at second-hand: my addiction to that election was an attempt to escape from the incredibly disappointing reality of my own stupid country's meatheaded decision to go for Brexit, and the subsequent shenanigans of the politicians.

And, of course, I was only seeing the side I wanted to see....

It can give you a real rush, to see your own point of view reflected back at you, to be embraced into something that lots of people love. If it's popslash, getting cheerful applause for your weirdly cracked output isn't doing anybody any harm—even so, we all know about fans who Go Too Far, who slide over that line that separates A Thing That Makes Us Happy from Something Hurtful. We've all heard about the fans who are so determined that Their Ship Is Real that they send evil messages to spouses, and so forth. The difference is that in general, fandom strenuously disapproves of such behaviour.

If it's Qanon, I guess it must be easy to go deeper and deeper into the chasm, because everyone else down there is cheering you on and agreeing with you and sharing your enthusiasm. Perhaps there is, deep down, some kind of awareness among the Qidiots that what they believe is not quite as legit as they're telling themselves it is, so they want to pull more people in—after all, the more people are on their side, the more right they must be. Right? Right????

I don't know any Q people (as far as I'm aware). I don't feel sorry for them, either, because however grasping the addiction, at some point they had a choice, go with it or don't, and they chose to go with it. They have had plenty of opportunities to get their heads up into the light and just check, just look, just apply a little bit of logic and see whether, maybe, there's something wrong, if the 'secret signs' and 'secret plans' and 'nationwide conspiracy of pedophile baby-eaters' are in any way realistic, or maybe not so much. Some, now disillusioned, are starting to question, and it's about bloody time too. They have done so much harm.

It's easy to fall headlong into something. It's up to us to pick what we fall into.

If you have a Q person in your life, I wish you luck.

Comments

[topaz119]

I sat next to a programmer for about a year who I now realize was a Q person. He seemed perfectly nice, if a bit socially maladapted at first, but it was software... half of the devs have zero social skills. As time went on, though, conversations got weirder & weirder. I really feel like he was trying to help me—like, he’d tell me I shouldn’t use electronic payments because “the Fed[real Reserve bank] was on the brink of collapse” (except that if that were true, paper checks wouldn’t be worth the paper they were printed on, so it’s not as though he’d be in any better shape) or that I shouldn’t take my kids to Disney World because they ran a child trafficking ring out of there. Hundreds of kids were taken every year, he told me, and nobody did anything when their parents tried to get them back. He was really concerned & asked every time I came back if I’d seen anything strange. Needless to say, I did not ask for his contact info when I left. (And I did not see anyone I thought could be him storming the Capitol.)

[frausorge]

I get that, yeah - finding a community to be part of, that gives you a sense of belonging and frequent hits of approval, is immensely attractive. I have felt that myself also when getting involved with activist groups on the other side of the equation! But as you say, we're still responsible for what we sign on for.

[brandywine28]

There's just *so many* of them. I think, prior to the 6th, I was a little bit ignorant as to just how widespread this thing had become, and I was absolutely positive I didn't know any of those people in my day to day life. Never met one, never interacted with one, very "THIS INCREDIBLY STUPID THING HAS NOT TOUCHED ME IN ANY REAL WAY", but now? I honestly don't know anymore. One of the morons they arrested is an Orthodox Jew from Bay Ridge. Bay Ridge!

I love your fandom parallels. That's exactly what it's like!

[pensnest]

The sort of stuff you can't even argue against because it's so bizarre. It would be tempting to ask for the names of some of the 'disappeared' kids. Because, surely, their parents would have noticed? But I suspect there is always a stupid answer.

[pensnest]

The sad thing is that it's not really a 'cause', not like standing up for the whales, or whatever.

[pensnest]

It feels a bit like when I discovered that people I knew and liked voted for Brexit, only much ickier.