Untruth or Just Fake: What Happened To QAnon

A super-secret group of patriots or the internet being weird again.

Untruth or Just Fake: What Happened To QAnon

By: Tyler M. (6th Period Social Studies)

Introduction

This paper is about QAnon, which is either a super-secret group of patriots saving the world or the internet being weird again. It started on a site called 4Chan, which I’m not allowed to go on, but I’ve seen screenshots on Twitter (which I’m also technically not allowed on). My dad says QAnon had “it all figured out,” and my mom says “don’t listen to your father.” My teacher said this would be a good research topic, even though she sighed a lot while saying it.

The Origins of Q (Not Star Trek)

QAnon started when someone named “Q” posted mysterious messages online in 2017. Q claimed to be a government person with top secret clearance (like spy stuff), and he said there was an evil deep state of lizard people or Democrats (or both) controlling everything. At first, people were like, “Whoa!” because it felt like a real-life action movie, but with way more typing.

Q would post things like “The storm is coming,” and then everyone had to figure out what it meant. It was like if Wordle had a baby with National Treasure, and the baby wore a tinfoil hat.

The Good Stuff

Here’s why QAnon was kind of cool:

• It made politics less boring.

• Everyone became a detective, even people who only graduated from truck driving school.

• It had charts. Lots and lots of charts.

• Some people thought JFK Jr. was alive, and he would come back as vice president, which would be wild because I just learned who JFK Jr. was last week.

My dad used to say, “Q is ten steps ahead,” and then he’d stare at the toaster like it was bugged. It made dinner more exciting.

The Problems

But then stuff didn’t really happen. Like, Q said Hillary Clinton would get arrested, and she never did. Then he said Tom Hanks was part of a secret pizza cult, but Tom Hanks is literally in Toy Story. That’s Woody, man. You can’t fake that kind of acting.

Also, Q stopped posting after the whole Capitol thing in 2021, which my teacher said we “don’t need to get into right now.” I asked her what happened to Q, and she just stared out the window like she was in a sad music video.

So What Happened?

Some people say QAnon faded away because the predictions stopped coming true, and also because it got people arrested. But I think it was just ahead of its time, like the Zune or Beta Max. Or maybe Q got grounded.

Also, now everyone’s arguing about AI and Taylor Swift and whether birds are real, so there’s new stuff to believe in. My friend Lucas thinks the moon is fake. We’re doing a podcast.

Conclusion

In conclusion, QAnon was a mix of mystery, hope, and dad-energy. Some people think it was a great revelation. Others think it was a hoax made by bored people with too much Wi-Fi. As for me, I think it was kind of like Fortnite lore, confusing, exciting, and probably fake. But fun while it lasted.

Bibliography

• YouTube (mostly shorts)

• Dad (during dinner)

• Twitter (before it got weird)

• My teacher, kind of