I was reading this Washington Post article about QAnon: Meet a real-life believer. I only became aware of QAnon in the past couple of days from a typically liberal source: Daily Kos. I’m sure there will be a New Yorker piece that will come out shortly. But I don’t really want to talk about QAnon. I want to talk about the subject of the article’s email to the writer where he referred to him as one of “Bezos’s boys,” asked him, “How’s the fishbowl?” (not sure what that means) and added, “LOL!”
It’s the “LOL!” that got me. I’ve noticed that from Trump supporters online before.
I have a high school friend who posts a lot of anti-Trump stuff. I like it and comment on it and so I see it a lot more in my feed (that’s how the algorithm works, yeah?). He has a consistent Trump troll who comments on his stuff. It’s on the tip of my tongue to call him stupid but that’s not fair. I have only ever observed him, I’ve never engaged with him. But, to illustrate, he recently called the Helsinki summit with Putin “fake news.” To which everyone else asked, “Which part?” He just wrote back something about Hillary along with his signature: three laughing crying emojis. That’s how he ends all of his comments with three laughing crying emojis as if to say, “you liberals just don’t get it.”
Look, everyone thinks they’re right. I don’t know anyone who says, “What do I believe? Only the weird shit. I’m, like, literally insane. And stupid.” And it’s not that it’s condescending. Liberals are condescending all the time.
There seems to be a new recursive problem with “the media.” I heard this on the news, the news can’t be trusted, therefore I don’t have to listen to it because it’s news.
No one trusts “the media” and everyone can blame their problems on “the media.” The only problem is the sources that are telling you not to trust the media are also media which renders the whole situation absurd.
There is one ting about this QAnon believer that makes sense. It’s his willingness to seek answers on his own. He insists that there are people that, “happen to be extremely bright or creative or intuitive or unbelievable researchers who are just living humble lives. Now there’s an Internet, and they can plug into a community.”
That’s true and it’s a pretty sound argument. There are more sources and more communities where one can find like minded people. I think we are now seeing the consequences of going right to the source of the information and draw one’s own conclusions. The problem is that those communities might be wrong.
I have a feeling that Trump supporters’ problem with the media is that it’s an authority and it’s very American to not trust authority. At all.
But, frankly, you need to check your answers, have them reviewed, make sure you’re not overlooking something. That’s what you do in school. You go and you learn from professors, teacher’s assistants, and fellow students. If you don’t trust anyone else, you’re going to miss that.
But if you’re the kind of person who is convinced of his own powers of reason and logic and that “they” (and “they” can be anyone you want it to be – the media, the government, your friend on Facebook) are lying to you, you’re not going to accept expertise from anyone.
I don’t know if these people can be reached. I’m also curious if they’ve always been around and that we’re just now realizing it because of our digital age. It’s all so confusing.
Laugh out loud.
