NOTES ON THE ORIGINS AND CONTEXT OF Q DROP 1

This will be the first in a series of threads that examine how the earliest Q drops fit in with -- indeed, were an outgrowth of-- 4chan culture.

We'll also examine how anons (i.e. 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.

The most notable thing we've found so far is that *many of the key ideas in the Q mythos were present in this very thread before Q started posting.*

In other words: far from breaking new ground, Q gave his audience what they already wanted.

But the devil's in the details, so let's plunge in.

We should note, by the way, that many of these screenshots will have offensive language. Some are *nothing but* offensive language.

In later threads, we may cut back on the offensive content -- why bludgeon the reader w/it?

But in our very first thread, it's important to establish what kind of place 4chan is and how the denizens of /pol/, the board on which Q made his drops, *actually talked* at the time of the drops.

So with that out of the way, let's get to it.

PART A: 4CHAN AND ITS CULTURE -- HERE THERE BE NAZIS

By "Nazis" we mean literal, "gas-the-Jews" Nazis with swastika-flag icons who refer to /pol/ (where, again, Q made his first month's worth of drops) as "a board for National Socialism."

No, really; here are some screengrabs:

Careful readers (our favorite kind, we must admit) will note the timestamps: November 30, 2017. This is at the tail end of the period we're studying.

You may ask: was 4chan any different when Q got his start?

Yes and no. Pol always had a large, racist, Nazi-friendly contingent before, during, and after Q's time.

In fact, a Nazi-flag anon posted in Q's debut thread, fantasizing about Obama being imprisoned. N bombs and antisemitism abounded in the thread that contained drop 1:

But by the time Q left 4chan at the end of November '17, the composition of the board had changed -- many boomers had been brought onto the boards by YouTuber tracybeanz, who can fairly be described as the first QAnon influencer.

So by late November, there were frequent skirmishes between Nazis and Q believers (and, interestingly enough, arguments among the Nazis: was Q bad because he wasn't overtly antisemitic, or good because many Q believers were coming to 4chan and getting "pilled" on Nazism?).

But we digress.

In short: flagrantly racist and antisemitic language was a staple of 4chan culture; in fact, the post *immediately before* drop 1 contains an N bomb.

But racism and Nazism aren't the *only* parts of 4chan culture worth discussing. 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"

4chan had an *astonishing* number of people claiming to be "insiders" and leaking "intelligence" about forthcoming events. In a moment we'll list some of the most prominent ones, but for now, take a look at this post:

It's safe to say that any time someone posts "dance of the LARPer.gif" with the text "oh god, not another one," LARPs -- or hoaxes, if you prefer -- are *very* common.

And indeed this was the case on 4chan. A not-even-remotely-exhaustive list of just the most prominent ones:

FBI Anon, HLI Anon ("High Level Insider"), Victory of the Light, CIA Anon.

Many of these had spinoffs, impersonators, and rabid fans.

Other anons posted threads encouraging board users to "dig" and providing cryptic clues, gaining phenomenal engagement with very little effort.

In fact, as we'll see, there were at least *three* other LARPers -- aside from Q -- in Q's debut thread.

Heck, Q was *responding to* and *expanding on* a theory put forth by one of those LARPers in drop 1.

This naturally raises the question: who was the person Q replied to? What were they talking about?

We'll examine that in Part D (and fun fact: things did not go well for that anon -- let's call them Drop 0 Anon). But first we need to understand what the whole thread was *about*.

PART C: Q'S DEBUT THREAD -- THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT FOR DROP 1

So, what kicked the thread off? What was 0-Drop Anon (and therefore, ultimately, Q) replying to?

This:

The anons /immediately/ understood this post to be a reference to the fact that, according to CNN, Mueller's first public indictments would be made on Monday 10/30/17 (which in fact happened -- one of the very few times his outfit leaked).

The anons asked: who might be indicted?

They split into two camps.

One camp held that Mueller was trying to distract from the "real story" of the Steele dossier and Uranium 1 (if you're unfamiliar w/these right-wing shibboleths, they boil down to: "Clinton is the REAL colluder").

This was by far the smaller camp.

Most anons -- because, and we cannot stress this enough, 4chan was *awash* in conspiracy theorists who *already believed many of the core points of QAnon* before Q ever showed up -- fell into the second camp: it's gonna be a Democrat.

But wait, there are more examples.

Here, the images are key. In particular, note the file name on the second screenshot -- already we see anons linking Hillary to Satanism long before Q ever does.

Let's return, for the moment, to the assertion that "4chan was awash in conspiracy theorists."

How can we tell?

One minor theme running through the thread was that the FBI was about to release a large number of JFK-related documents, and anons were very excited.

We're going to see more talk of the JFK files later, when we get to Drop 0 Anon. For now, suffice to say that some of Q's most notable themes (Uranium 1, the Steele Dossier, Dems-are-the-real-criminals-here, & rank Obama hatred) were popular on 4chan long before the advent of Q.

This isn't surprising; these are standard themes for any right-wing audience.

But the important thing is that Q's entire message was *exactly in line with what the anons already wanted to hear*.

Or was it? Careful readers will note that Q is *also* well-known for evangelical language and imagery.

Surely we won't see *that* on 4chan?

Reader, we will:

So, in a short survey of this thread, we've shown that it already -- before Q comes onto the scene at all -- has all the building blocks for a generic Q drop:

Dems are the real criminals and will soon be arrested. God is on our side. Obama is terrible. Secrets are key:

So powerful is the reality distortion field around 4chan that these anons think of Manafort primarily *as a Democratic operative* (because, according to them, he had ties to Podesta's lobbying firm) -- even though *he was Trump's campaign manager.*

So that was the thread into which QAnon was born -- racist, antisemitic*, paranoid, and wildly disconnected from reality.

In the next part, we'll showcase the specific posts that shaped the content of drop 1.

* We haven't dwelt on the antisemitism, but there was a LOT.

PART D: THE SPECIFIC POSTS THAT INSPIRED DROP 1

Before we get into the weeds of Drop 0 (which, again, is the post to which Drop 1 responds), let's dig into the /really/ exciting stuff: the predecessor posts that -- read together -- clearly inspired much of drop 1.

Another anon asked: "We know that they can't flee to Spain, so where do Podestas hide?"

What we're seeing is anons, /prior to Q's first drop/, speculating about prominent Dems trying to flee the US.

This is kind of a big deal! Look at how Drop 1 starts:

Q's very first words address a concern that was already floated in the thread.

IOW, Q is participating in this already-ongoing discussion; he's not coming into it like a bolt from the blue and shattering a pre-existing calm.

Heck, not even Drop 0 did that.

This brings us, finally, to...

PART D-1: DROP 0 AND "DROP 0 ANON"

Drop 0 (which, again, is the post that Q was responding to and expanding on in drop 1) is a direct response to the OP.

The OP, as you'll recall, asks why the Fox anchors are smiling. Drop 0 Anon says:

This does not go well for him. He's challenged immediately -- and I do mean immediately; the next two posts are direct replies:

He tries to play it cool. Anons aren't buying.

It's /impossible/ to over-emphasize how badly this is going. Look at the timestamps. Anons are on him *immediately* after posting, and they're getting more and more blunt.

He thought he was getting into a jacuzzi, but it turned out the water was frothy on account of piranhas.

Here, another anon chimes in with "Dance of the LARPer.gif".

His pride stung, Drop 0 Anon declares himself too cool for school -- or at least too cool to care about his critics. It's all gonna go down on Monday 10/30/17; believe him or not, Hillary's getting arrested. Period.

Apparently this works, because the next anon to post to Drop 0 Anon asks about the JFK files.

The next anon after *that* is Q, affirming and expanding on this LARP:

It's worth noting that, when Drop 0 Anon returns, he replies to the random anon *first* and only *then* to Q. He goes along with Q's "yes-and," but he only gives a "yes." This kills what could have been a beautiful partnership &, perhaps, changes U.S. history.

LARP better, D0A.

Incidentally, the anon saying "If that was the case it would be leaked already" was talking to Q (this post, along with Drop 0 Anon's replies, is /100%/ of the engagement Q got on drop 1).

So Drop 0 Anon responded -- & then (we regret there's no other way to say this) got rekt.

It is, perhaps, not /academic/ enough to say he "got rekt," but it's true.

Drop 0 Anon is about to slink away into the mists of history, never to return. When he does, we'll examine why he failed (and what, in our opinion, Q learned from his failure).

First, his last activity:

N.B. Two other users *referenced* Drop 0 Anon after his last post, but he didn't reply. So the last trace of Drop 0 Anon in the historical record is his weary, faux-defiant: "If you say so it must be true."

PART E: WHAT Q LEARNED FROM DROP 0 ANON

This is a short, sweet lesson: *don't engage with critics.*

4chan is full of very skilled trolls. LARPers who defend against them -- or even acknowledge their existence -- see their whole hoax go down in flames.

Here's another example that may have been on Q's mind, dating to roughly a month before Drop 1.

In this thread (and its predecessor), an anon claimed to be a CIA employee. Providing an obviously fake document, he said that the world might end tomorrow. https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/142560856/

As you can see from the original post in that link, this LARPer has already engaged the critics. And he's also already /lost/. There are a few believers, but the thread has decidedly turned against him.

The replies to that LARP are revealing, by the way. The most interesting is: "Everyone has been saying it's going to happen for the past 2+ years, and guess what? Nothing ever fucking happens."

Proof, again, that there were a *lot* of LARPers on 4chan when Q first popped up.

PART F: CONCLUSIONS

What have we shown?

Primarily, that:

* the distinctive elements of Q drops were all floating around, not just in 4chan culture in general, but in Q's debut thread in particular;

* that being a fake insider was part of chan culture;

* that anons other than Q *did* take up the role of being a fake insider, within Q's debut thread -- IOW, it was a /popular/ activity (in fact, here are 2 more)

* that other anons had seen it so many times that one of 'em reacted with "dance of the LARPer.gif";

* and that Q's content was a melange of topics that had previously been raised in the thread.

In short, Q's behavior was /normal and expected/ in the context of 4chan, and indeed was so unremarkable that most people didn't engage with it.

Here's our closing thought:

one of the people in this thread, though he expresses it with 4chan's trademark homophobia, had /already caught on/ to what would soon become a of key dynamics in QAnon -- not that he was responding to Q, of course.

Right-wing media figures like Hannity (who, you'll recall, was featured in the original post) tended to get their audience excited with a bunch of breathless promotion -- this NEXT big reveal will BLOW THE LID off the RUSSIA HOAX! -- but the product never matched the hype.

It was a cycle of hope and disappointment, and this anon had had enough.

But Hannity's huge audience (and, later, Q's followers) had /not/ -- which is why I have this image saved as "wonder what he thinks abt Q."

P.S. As a reward for reading this far, have a historical treat! This is the first time "the Storm" is mentioned in a thread with a Q drop. This was, of course, before Q got any significant engagement--almost as if Q was repackaging stuff the anons already believed & said.