And contrary to popular belief that QAnon adherents tend to be older people who have more time to spend on conspiracy websites, PRRI data shows that 22% of people under the age of 50 believe in QAnon theories. QAnon conspiracy, compared to only 14% of older adults. over 65 years old.
“I don’t think belief in conspiracy theories like QAnon will dissipate anytime soon,” PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told WIRED. “Trump supporters in particular are already willing to support conspiracies that have no basis in fact at levels above the general public. Combined with historic levels of distrust in government and a variety of other institutions among many Americans, the conditions that allow such theories to fester and even thrive are unfortunately not going anywhere anytime soon .
Trump’s return to the White House was widely celebrated by the QAnon community, whose members believe that all the wild predictions made by Q in their thousands of posts will now come true.
“The general agreement is that Trump will crush the deep state and all the evil liberals will go to jail ASAP, we will return to the gold standard and the Fed will be destroyed,” Mike Rains, a researcher who follows closely with the QAnon community, tells WIRED. “Ukrainian biolabs will be revealed as the source of Covid and [Anthony] Fauci and company will all be sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.
This can be seen in Telegram channels and fringe platforms like Gab and Truth Social, where QAnon influencers have holed up following the mass purge of QAnon accounts on mainstream platforms in 2021 following the attack on Capitol.
But we can also see it more and more on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and, more particularly, The takeover of billionaire Elon Muskprovided fertile ground for the conspiracy to thrive, in addition to providing income for influencers who can monetize their bullshit.
Meta, TikTok and X did not respond to comments about QAnon content on their platforms.
“It certainly doesn’t help that under Musk, unproven QAnon conspiracy theories have flourished all over X, giving them a massive following and a veneer of legitimacy,” Cook says.
Among those who launched what was then called Twitter after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was Trump. Pushed to post on his own small Truth Social platform, he quickly embraced QAnon wholeheartedly, promoting QAnon-related accounts nearly 1,000 times, according to an October analysis by Media Matters.
