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NOTES ON THE ORIGINS AND CONTEXT OF Q DROP 1
This will be the first in (hopefully) a series of threads that examine how the earliest Q drops fit in with --indeed, were an outgrowth from -- 4chan culture.
I'll also examine how Anons (board users) responded to the drops.
This will be the first in (hopefully) a series of threads that examine how the earliest Q drops fit in with --indeed, were an outgrowth from -- 4chan culture.
I'll also examine how Anons (board users) responded to the drops.
This project is feasible because Q's time on 4chan was brief -- roughly a month -- and well preserved. For instance, the thread in which Q made his first appearance is available here: https://tinyurl.com/qdebut
Now, it IS 4chan, so... WARNING: vile, /vile/ stuff is is in that link.
Now, it IS 4chan, so... WARNING: vile, /vile/ stuff is is in that link.
The most surprising thing I found in that thread (I'll add screenshots as the discussion goes on) is that *many of the key ideas in the Q mythos were present in this very thread BEFORE Q came around.*
Far from breaking new ground, Q gave his audience what they already wanted.
Far from breaking new ground, Q gave his audience what they already wanted.
With that introduction out of the way, let's turn to -- wait, what's that you say? I need to explain what 4chan is in case my readers don't know?
C'mon, anyone who reads this already knows. But on the .004% chance that they DON'T... sure! Read on. Otherwise, skip to "Part B."
C'mon, anyone who reads this already knows. But on the .004% chance that they DON'T... sure! Read on. Otherwise, skip to "Part B."
PART A: 4CHAN AND ITS CULTURE -- HERE THERE BE NAZIS
By "Nazis" I mean literal, "gas-the-Jews" Nazis with swastika-flag icons who refer to /pol (where Q made his first month's worth of drops) as "a National Socialist board."
No, really; here are some screengrabs:
By "Nazis" I mean literal, "gas-the-Jews" Nazis with swastika-flag icons who refer to /pol (where Q made his first month's worth of drops) as "a National Socialist board."
No, really; here are some screengrabs:
I should add that MOST other screenshots won't be as vile, but you do need to understand the waters Q is swimming in, here.
Note the timestamps on those posts -- they're from 11/30/17, at the very /end/ of the period we'll be studying. You may ask: was it different at the start?
Note the timestamps on those posts -- they're from 11/30/17, at the very /end/ of the period we'll be studying. You may ask: was it different at the start?
Yes and no; pol always had a large, racist, Nazi-friendly contingent. That was certainly true in October 2017; if you can handle a few more ugly screenshots, here are some examples from the thread Q first posted in. (One of them was RIGHT ABOVE drop 1. Can you guess which, kids?)
But by the time Q left 4chan at the end of November '17, the composition of the board had changed radically -- many boomers had been brought onto the boards by YouTuber tracybeanz, who I would describe as the first QAnon influencer. The Nazis didn't quite know how to feel abt it.
In short, I want to be clear that the amount of Nazi content you saw a few screenshots ago wasn't present *in the first thread with Q drops*, but also that it *absolutely* was a very well-known, very obvious feature of the pol board-- racist & Nazi talk was /4chan's whole deal/.
But it's not the ONLY part of 4chan culture. There were also hoaxes. Oh, the hoaxes! And that brings us to Part B.
PART B: 4CHAN'S RICH LEGACY OF HOAXES, LARPERS, AND "ANONS"
This one, I'm gonna keep short: Lord, 4chan had a LOT of people claiming to be "insiders" and leaking definitely-true-for-sure "intelligence" about forthcoming events:
FBIAnon, HLIAnon, Victory of the Light, CIAAnon.
This one, I'm gonna keep short: Lord, 4chan had a LOT of people claiming to be "insiders" and leaking definitely-true-for-sure "intelligence" about forthcoming events:
FBIAnon, HLIAnon, Victory of the Light, CIAAnon.
I'm probably leaving some out, but I think you get the point. The thing about being an anonymous message board is that it's very easy to write shitposts that you know other people will /want/ to believe; bask in their positive attention; and depart.
By 2017, Anons had seen this cycle play out many times. And in the thread where Q first came into being, they'd see it play out *two more times* -- once with Q and once with "0-drop Q," the person who made the post Q was replying to in drop 1.
We'll come back to that, but here.
We'll come back to that, but here.
So, later on we're going to examine 0-drop Q's activities at length (he even interacts with Q!); we'll also show that the "passport flagged" bit originates in an earlier part of the thread.
But that's all in Part C, so come, children! Board the Learning Bus and trundle along!
But that's all in Part C, so come, children! Board the Learning Bus and trundle along!
PART C: Q'S DEBUT THREAD -- THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT FOR DROP 1
Again, you can view this thread yourself at http://tinyurl.com/qdebut -- please feel very free to check my work. I encourage it, in fact!
So, what kicked the thread off? What was Q /ultimately/ replying to? This:
Again, you can view this thread yourself at http://tinyurl.com/qdebut -- please feel very free to check my work. I encourage it, in fact!
So, what kicked the thread off? What was Q /ultimately/ replying to? This:
The Anons /immediately/ understood this post to be a reference to the fact that (it was widely reported) Mueller's first public indictments would be made on 10/30/17 (which did in fact happen -- one of the very few times his outfit leaked). They discussed who might be indicted:
10/30/17 is, of course, a key date to keep in mind here-- it's the one referenced in "drop 0" and (as we'll see) confirmed by Q. So we already see how this thread's context is shaping the earliest Q drops: the date isn't plucked out of a hat, it's the central topic of the thread.
