How the QAnon Conspiracy Seduces Normal People
The theory contains many of the same features that make
games and detective novels so enjoyable.
By Faye Flam
January 30, 2021, 8:00 AM EST
QAnon is such a weird theory that it’s tempting to think
humanity is getting dumber. But it’s better seen as a highly sophisticated way
of manipulating people. QAnon may one day be considered a masterpiece of
propaganda.
This cult-like belief revolves around a conspiracy theory in
which prominent Democrats and Hollywood celebrities are systematically
victimizing children in order to extract something called adrenochrome from their
blood. They consume this substance, so the story goes, as both a youth elixir
and a recreational drug.
People may believe the theory, or parts of it, are true,
even if they don’t know that it’s called QAnon. In a December 2020 NPR/Ipsos poll, 17% of Americans
said that they thought it was true that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites
who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” and
another 37% said they weren’t sure.
Why would anyone believe this, let alone so many people?
One reason is that believers discover the details of this conspiracy theory
for themselves by solving puzzles and finding clues called “drops.” Game designer Reed Berkowitz
says he quickly recognized QAnon as a kind of a game known as an alternate reality game. These are fictional stories that send
people out into the real world to gather clues. On the way, players encounter
others who are engaged in the same hunt.
Berkowitz doesn’t just think QAnon is like a game — he
thinks it is a game, though he says it was intended to fool people into
thinking it’s real. When people get find drops, they are mean to look like
valuable, high-level leaks.
The drops are designed to make people feel a sense of
discovery, something believers find highly rewarding. In a piece he wrote for
Medium, Berkowitz argues that when people think they’ve found an idea themselves, they become
attached to it. And they get pleasure from it.
When I talked to him by phone, he said alternate reality
games use something called rabbit holes to
send people in search of clues. The games can lead to phone calls and real
meetings between players. Reality and fantasy blend, but the players recognize
they are taking part in a game.
QAnon, he says, looks like something created with a purpose
in mind. “I absolutely think that
somebody is designing it and promoting it,” he says. The purpose is propaganda. The game leads people to
distrust mainstream media, politicians and medicine, including Covid-19
vaccination campaigns. It also leads them to antisemitic and racist beliefs.
Players may or may not believe the literal truth of the blood-draining story,
but they tend to be bonded by ideology and feelings of distrust.
The community reinforces those ties, says Berkowitz. “If
you're suddenly involved in this community of people who supports you and
believes that you’re valuable ... this keeps you coming back.” The game is
designed to reward people with social credit when they figure out the “correct”
answer, which is the answer the QAnon designer or designers had planned all
along.
And of course, we’re more isolated than we’ve been in recent
history — missing the diversity of social interactions that in normal life
keeps us from falling into ideological rabbit holes.
Simon DeDeo, a social scientist at Carnegie Mellon
University, says people too easily dismiss believers in conspiracy theories as
stupid. And that makes it hard to understand why these explanations draw people
in.
In a paper published in Trends in Cognitive Science, he and
a colleague explore the different factors that make explanations valuable. One
that applies particularly well to conspiracy theories such as QAnon is called co-explanation, an ability to link
seemingly disparate phenomena with a single explanation. The world’s great
scientific theories do it, too — from Darwin’s evolution to the theory of
electromagnetism to quantum mechanics tying together matter and light.
Conspiracy theories also tie up lots of little loose threads
this way, just like a satisfying whodunit. “What something like QAnon does is
hijack that source of joy we get from solving a murder mystery,” DeDeo
says. But conspiracy believers tend to put too much weight on co-explanation.
“Fundamentally, they have the right values … These values are virtues mostly,
except when the value is overemphasized,” he says.
Facebook, Reddit, YouTube and Twitter are the perfect soil
for this sort of thing to bloom, bringing together users seduced by the lure of
discovery. If people are engaged in QAnon, social media gives them more, until
people are storming the U.S. Capitol.
Now
that social media is becoming many people’s only social outlet, we can expect more conspiracy theories to
spread.
There is no new normal without real-world social
interactions. There’s only a new abnormal.
Listen to Faye’s interviews with Berkowitz and DeDeo on her
podcast, “Follow the Science,” available on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the
editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Faye Flam at fflam1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.net
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