investigative reporter for the La times. Laura welcome to the
show. Thanks for having me.
So
I you know, I've heard some talk about this phenomenal.
But
and it was it is it's I don't know I that it's really
necessarily counter intuitive but
how did you and on which started with Trump. Supporters
involves Trump. How did it migrate or did it my great,
or did it just reach this community through a totally
different track.
>> It's something called hostile qanon or Q and on light
and it's a type of qanon recruitment that is
specifically aimed at women and is generally perpetrated
through instagram and other social media platforms so not
the types of qanon followers you would see going to the
message boards and reading all the cute drops they pick the
clues that are released or were released but people who are
finding their way to the ideology through these kind of
side doors like instagram hashtags in facebook groups
where people are sharing links and encouraging others to
educate themselves. And these types of groups are very active
in the wellness community, especially because during the
pandemic a lot of those physical spaces, meditation
room sound healing rooms, yoga studios were closed and online
was the only way that people had to stay in touch with each
other.
>> And so is the is the and I and I want to get to sort of
like you know, what is it about this community that might make
it. Sir right, but but you said it you know that it's coming
through hashtags
well it was driving it. I mean I understand the I understand
that it's a you know it's a slightly different variant if
you will. And and so it serve in being transmitted through
different factors but but who who's pushing it to that
community we're like what what where and why and how did
someone think the you know, I'm going to I'm going to go that I
mean it
I'm using metaphor of a virus and on some level like a virus
doesn't know where it's going but it finds the sort of like I
don't know the you know the it finds that it runs downhill.
I guess.
>> That House right, yeah, I'm foot yeah, who but in this
instance, you know like
it doesn't have is somebody just going out there go like
I'm going to do hashtags with you know, sunsets and hashtags
with football games and I'm here to hashtags with a guy
they just it's like who's doing this.
>> As a great question and it's actually as with all things
cute, they're still kind of like a layer of murkiness about
it where it's not always clear who is pulling the levers
behind all of it, but for people who watch the New Age
world that's kind of people who keep an eye on conspiracy
theories, yoga teachers and other people in the really
spoken out against this type of thing they say that it's clear
that there's been some kind of a concerted effort to target
people in this community partly because a lot of the language
that the wellness community uses it's kind of akin to the
language the qanon uses including the phrase, the great
awakening which people might have heard of referring to the
idea that there's going to be this point where the country
wakes up and realizes that you know Democrats who are also
cannibalistic pedophiles are controlling the levels of
government
great awakening is something that's also discussed in don't
get communities is an idea of kind of spiritual ascension of
kind of getting a better grasp on the internal balance self
and 5th dimension is another one kind of the New Age age of
acquired this type of behavior and it actually lines up very
neatly so one of the theories is that this community became a
fat target for qanon because so much of the language party felt
familiar to people some the recruiting can be done through
these pathways that people might argue be talking about
that in a different sense or already kind of interested in
type of of language that makes sense.
>> It does make sense and it occurs to me as you say that
that it's conceivable that the language itself was lifted
from that community. I mean we should I guess maybe
we should reiterate that qanon is not real and that someone
constructed the stories they were not nobody reported on.
The and maybe we should go through some of the sort of the
main themes about qanon but it's conceivable that the
person who decided to soar released this hoax or whatever
it is
just shopped around and found this language and borrowed it
from the spirituality wellness community and the spirituality
wellness community is sort of
re appropriating it.
>> Right the re re appropriation I it's really
hard to say and this is something that researchers are
struggling with when we talk about quantifying how the kind
of spread of qanon in this community, it's sometimes
difficult to know if someone is talking about the great
awakening or if they're talking about the 5th dimension which
is another thing the here and spiritual communities or if
they're even talking about the idea of being a light worker
that's one of the phrases that pops up and he went on is this
idea that Trump is a light worker is going to save the
country from this group of people right but light workers
also facing here in spiritual is I'm talking about people who
are kind of battling evil being a force for good. And so when
you see those phrases used online, it's sometimes hard to
know whether the person is doing it is like overtly Q if
they have no idea what's going on and they're using it and
some others or is there somewhere in the middle of that
spectrum, all the way from kind of full extremist plus it's
it's that pin down exactly where each person falls on that
>> And I imagine that ambiguity actually adds to the
spectrum.
transmissibility if you will because people can read into it
and see something that is shrouded in secrecy that is in
fact not even addressing what they think it's addressing.
>> That's absolutely right and this is a community that the
new Age World health wellness fair to volley all about is a
community that has been primed for many years to look for
hidden pondered the meaning the idea that there's more at play
in the world and what needs the naked eye and that nothing
happens meaning Leslie that everything happens for a reason
so those are the same kind of belief that underpin conspiracy
there is the idea that you have to search behind the curtain
for the person pulling the lever isn't and so it just a
very neatly Mattias it's surprising if you haven't found
your way into this community before but once you get there,
it's pretty clear that a lot of the rhetoric and the views are
actually quite similar.
>> Well, let's I mean, let's talk about you know I think we
throw around you and I'm not sure that everyone knows
what it is like what, but what the the queue Cannon is I guess
in terms of when people say that they're trafficking in
qanon conspiracies like what exactly are these conspiracies
I have to admit to that it wasn't until probably this the
past week. But I found out about the
secretions that come from supposedly come from children.
>> I'll let you explain. In a crime, I mean I I don't
even know that we have enough time or that Lake 30 to give
credence to all these topics rate but basically the main
assertion of qanon although it has so many tentacles now that
it's actually you sometimes see people gloaming on to like one
area of it and not like necessarily the whole belief
system for example like the anti-vaccine stuff is very
active in the wellness community that some of the
other tenants not so much, but basically Q has asserted in the
past that it alleges that there's a cabal of say tannic
cannibalistic pedophiles many of whom are Democrats and
Hollywood elites. That are running a global, trafficking
ring and conspired against President Trump. He was in
>> Let me just W 2 with you did that some of this emanate out
office.
of pizza gate.
>> Yes, yeah, you is very it started off as a separate thing
is my understanding and then it kind of got soared into qanon
which is another thing that you see with queues that it kind of
chefs with the times right so as like the pandemic came
around suddenly a lot of you are and languages about public
health guidance on masks and vaccines just as during.
Pizzagate it became about that narrative so it's it's always
hard to it's it's difficult like pin them right on the card
because that that the conspiracies in the narrative
shift that the news of the day.
>> So the the the core of qanon is that there's this satanic
call to of of pedophiles that
we are commingled with the Democratic Party and of course
the celebrities. Trump would came to office has some type of
like almost
undercover operation to roll this massive network up.
The deep state of course was protecting this network and so
they were trying to attack Trump from the inside and this
que person explain I think I tried to explain or I did try
to explain it. What would he would ask you where did that
come from like the queue part.
>> Que is someone who has on these message boards. His claim
to be a high level government official with with what's
called Q clearance a specific type of security clearance who
has access to classified information that involves the
Trump administration and the enemies of the Trump
administration and this person has alleged in the past that
there will be something called the storm a day of reckoning of
types when thousands of people who are in this cabal worldwide