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On Feb. 23, I logged onto Zoom to observe the first public service of what is essentially a QAnon church operating out of the Omega Kingdom Ministry (OKM). I’ve spent 12 weeks attending this two-hour Sunday morning service.

What I’ve witnessed is an existing model of neo-charismatic home churches — the neo-charismatic movement is an offshoot of evangelical Protestant Christianity and is made up of thousands of independent organizations — where QAnon conspiracy theories are reinterpreted through the Bible. In turn, QAnon conspiracy theories serve as a lens to interpret the Bible itself.

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Alternate Reality Game -- ARG

An alternate reality game is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. Wikipedia

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Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Been thinking about this *a lot* since Adrian pointed it out

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Adrian Hon
@adrianhon
· Jul 9
Theory: QAnon is popular partly because the act of “researching” it through obscure forums and videos and blog posts, though more time-consuming than watching TV, is actually *more enjoyable* because it’s an active process.

Game-like, even; or ARG-like, certainly.

Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Specifically based on all the ARG player behavior I’ve seen over the last 20 years.

I’m pretty terrified about how it plays out. No time for a thread or to write about it today though.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
Sigh ok

It even “solves” the content generation “problem” that ARGs have had :(
1:26 PM · Jul 10, 2020
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Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Replying to
@hondanhon
Every single QAnon behavior I’ve seen is a 10x+ version of ARG player behavior but uncontrolled, undirected and unconstrained
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
It rewards independent research, gives you the dopamine hit of finding a connection “on your own” and for pros, unlike ARGs, you can generate your own content to fill in the narrative gaps *that other players will use* AND it is a threat to public safety and governance
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
You get the same documentation behavior as you get on ARGs with people generating documents, wikis, narratives, explanations to bring on newcomers.

ARGs are predicated on drawing together/discovering evidence to figure out an end-goal/story and "meaning"
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
In a conversation with a friend (I'm checking to see if I can/they want to be tagged in!) they reminded me that you get all of the local fame aspects of ARGs as well.

"The first to solve" or the "first to make the connection" that we saw way back in 2000.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
I bet that in QAnon, just like in ARGs and pretty much every other online game, (and, I argue, any online social service), you get Bartle's types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Socializers: meme makers (which also creates achievement)
Achievers: connection finders, playing for local fame
Killers: *LITERALLY, FOR FUCK'S SAKE*, but also in this case, "killing"/griefing/attacking people not even playing the game
Explorers: connection finders
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
ARG players *want* to believe it's not a game and behave as if it isn't. They provide suspension of disbelief in, I'd argue, same way QAnon does. ARG players *also* see themselves as secret hero warriors etc, you're an avatar with power.
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Mike Gintz
@sawtoothwave
· Jul 10
Replying to @hondanhon
I agree that the pattern is very ARG-ish, but isn't the primary dopamine hit here coming from the fact that unlike an ARG, participants don't believe it's a game? They see themselves as secret hero warriors for truth/righteousness, thus imbuing their every action w/ purpose.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Here's a e.g. After 9/11, @adrianhon
and I and others who were community moderators of one of the first ARGs had to come down *hard and fast* with players *convinced* that "we" could solve 9/11.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
That rush of "making sense of something" and sharing it in a social sense is right there in QAnon.

QAnon is a massively multiplayer, distributed, bottom-up, undirected effort that is strikingly gamelike and has its tendrils now in politics and is a threat to public safety.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
re the content generation problem for "regular" ARGs I mentioned above. For every ARG I've been involved in and ones my friends have been involved in, communities always consume/complete/burn through content faster than you can make it, when you're doing a narrative-based game.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
This content generation/consumption/playing asymmetry is, I think, just a fact.

But QAnon "solved" it by being able to co-opt all content that already exists and, like I say above, encourages and allows you to *create new content* that counts and is fair play in-the-game.
Dan Hon
@hondanhon
·
Jul 10
Top-down, narrative-based games (where we've seen these mechanics & behaviors play out) don't do that. They burn out, they finish, they have dead ends.

That's why I'm worried: I don't know how you fight something like this.

It would be trivially easy for Facebook to keep their word and no longer recommend QAnon pages like this.

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SnooLemons1950
305 points ·

Take My Energy

I don't believe it's seriously just 1 person. It makes sense it's some kind of psychological warfare meant to divide and conquer. The US isn't the only western democratic country dealing with this either. Something fishy is going on and I hope the Biden administration heavily investigates this and finds out where this originated and why.

For example, I used to be an Intel analyst in DC after 9-11. Whoever is doing this isn't familiar with the clearance process in the US. There's no such thing as a "Q" clearance. It's just a Department of Energy access. Although the DOE does fall under the umbrella of Dept of Defense, it's sort of ignored. In the 10 yrs I did MASINT or GEOINT, not once (even at conventions) did I meet someone from the DOE.

If someone really wants to dump super secret stuff, they've most likely got to be in HUMINT (Human Intel = agents like James Bond). Either that or they've got to have TS/SCI with a full scope polygraph or a Yankee White clearance, which is the highest level anyone can get because they are in the inner circle of the president. Secret Service people have YW clearances. I had a TS/SCI with a single scope poly, which doesn't ask embarrassing questions like porn activities, etc. to the point of making people cry. CIA people all have to get the full scope polygraph. If a person bragged to a CIA or FBI agent they had a "Q" clearance, the agent would first ask what them what the hell they're talking about and then they'd laugh in their face.

I've told these Q nutballs that there's no such thing as a "Q" clearance and to google it. Of course they say I'm wrong (as is the internet I guess). These people are dangerous because they're super dumb.

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level 8
Dopatap


You mean "Q Clearance" the political comedy bt Jaws author Peter Benchley?
level 7
Beard_o_Bees


100% this.

So much 'Q' material is lifted directly from action movies and spy novels.

And these knuckleheads 'Zero Dark Thirty' that shit up then try to perfect their 'i'm a super secret operator' outfits.
level 6
StasRutt

Plus from what I understand from my family members security clearances, you don’t get a clearance and immediately have access to everything. You only get read onto very specific things.
level 7
SnooLemons1950

You are correct. On the back of my badge with the RFID chip were letters denoting which accesses I had. No one really pays attention to that stuff because you wouldn't be in your job in the first place without those accesses. None of that is under your control anyway. I even had some jerks make up a story I hacked into a database (sexism; I sued and the DoD settled). I filed a complaint against them and it was deemed impossible because I didn't even have access/privileges to get into it. Plus, I don't know squat about databases since that's not even my job. Everything a person sees online in any kind of classified environment is tracked. IT security knows what people are looking at when working at a government facility, especially if it's within a classified environment.
level 7
caraperdida
8 points ·
1 day ago

That is absolutely true.
level 7
mythmakerseven


This is how my family member who works in a job with low-level security clearance describes it. She technically has access to a wide range of stuff, but they'd haul her out of the building in 5 minutes if she accessed anything unrelated to the current thing she's working on.
level 6