With little fanfare, on Wednesday night, anonymous conspiracy avatar Q announced “Q&A” and began answering questions from users on the image board 8Chan, where all of Q’s “drops” originate.

Immediately, there flowed a torrent of conspiracy questions, Pepe the Frog memes, racist tirades, and general paeans to Q’s greatness. So in that respect, it wasn’t much different than any other Wednesday night on 8chan.

I happened to catch the Q&A at the very beginning, and so got in on live-tweeting it, at least until I had other things to do. So, from that live-tweeting as well as after, here are my analysis of the questions, the answers – and what wasn’t said.

Q1: “Anything on [Justin] Trudeau?

A1: “Billionaire(s) 187.

FVEY

Safety House Build.

U1 Funnel >> Canada >> X”

Translation: This is a typical Q post, in that it’s a bunch of nouns that are laid out to look cryptic and profound, but are really just nouns.

It essentially implicates the Prime Minister of Canada in the bizarre murders of pharmaceutical billionaires Honey and Barry Sherman in January, the Five Eyes surveillance,  and the Uranium One “scandal.” As for “Safety House Build,” I have no idea, and a Google search turns up nothing.

Q2: “Flynn exonerated soon?”

A2: “In the end, all will be right. Patriots protect Patriots.”

Translation: Michael Flynn’s exoneration for his indictment for lying to the FBI is a big deal to Q fans and the far right in general.  But given that he pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at the end of November, that doesn’t seem like it’s in the offing. Q is basically kicking the can down the road.

Q3: “Are they going to continue to hide behind Sexual misconduct or will the truth come out?”

A3: “Sexual misconduct is the ‘public shelter’ to accept resignation.

Watch those announcing 2020 P running.

‘You cannot attack a political opponent’

None are protected.

None are safe.”

Analysis: It looks like Q is claiming that any member of Congress resigning due to a sex scandal is faking it, and that the real reasons are…something else. In reality, most of the resignations/retirements from Congress that have happened in the last year are due to the near certainty of Republicans losing their majority in the House.

I have no clue why “‘You cannot attack a political opponent” is in quotes, because it’s not a quote from anything.

Q4: “Was the Pentagon hit by plane on 9/11?”

A4: “Yes”

Analysis: By far the most fascinating answer, not because of the content (I mean, the Pentagon was hit by a plane on 9/11), but for what it represents. Apparently, the 9/11 truth movement has fallen so far that it’s not even a prevalent conspiracy theory anymore. It’s truly a relic of the past to this new generation of 8chan meme warriors.

Or maybe it’s not, because the anons on 8chan were pretty pissed by Q’s answer, with some demanding “actual proof.”

 

Q5: “Are we alone? Roswell?”

A5: “No.
Highest classification.
Consider the vastness of space.”

Analysis: Nothing here that’s not standard conspiracy special pleading. “Aliens are real, they’re being kept from you, there’s no proof, you just have to trust me.” Aliens aren’t even new to Q, they’re a big part of the incoherent “Q Anon map” that followers love analyzing.

Q6: “Was moving the date back on POTUS FEMA “Presidential Alert” significant?“

A6: “Due to K confirmation push.
Hand in hand.
[RR] stand down due to K conf.”

Analysis: Q is stapling together a couple of conspiracy theories, one about the FEMA text alert test that was meant to happen tomorrow but was pushed to October 3rd, and the other about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein supposedly being fired. Q has been hinting at this for quite a while, but so far, nothing has happened.

The FEMA alert was pushed for a very sensible reason – the agency is really busy with cleanup from Hurricane Florence. Q has claimed that the alert will be somehow linked to the big FISA declassification that’s supposed to happen, but there’s no evidence that’s true, nor any reason why they’d be linked.

This is the kind of claim that Q runs off of: profound, conspiratorial, and utterly lacking in proof.

Q7: “Did NASA fake the moon landings? Have we been to the moon since then? Are there secret space programs? Is this why the Space Force was created?”

A7: “False, moon landings are real.
Programs exist that are outside of public domain.”

Analysis: Old time conspiracy theorists spent decade after decade arguing that the moon landings were fake. New wave conspiracy theorists claim they’re part of a “secret space program” that drains trillions from our budget and builds super-advanced moon bases and anti-grav planes powered by Nazi technology and alien engineering.

Here, Q would seem to be “confirming” the existence of a secret space program, but this is just standard conspiracy fodder.

That was it. After a post complaining about how many IPs were accessing 8chan, Q disappeared into whatever Q does with the rest of his/her/their day.

There were literally THOUSANDS of questions coming in. They were all over the place, from general conspiracy crankery about Hillary Clinton baby-eating videos and chemtrails, to oddly personal and sad questions like “are you proud of us?” and about Q’s snacking habits.

Interestingly, there were a lot of questions about aliens and 9/11, and not that many about typical Q fodder like sealed indictments or FISA declassification. It painted a fascinating picture of the conspiracy movement as being fragmented and unified only by suspicion.

And don’t think for a second that Q’s acolytes were all happy with what they got. Many were not – though some were.

Some Q believers felt let down or lied to, other felt elated or that they’d been given “necessary disinformation.” A few even thought it was fake, or that Q’s 8chan account had been hacked.

In the end, it was a perfect encapsulation of QAnon: slapdash, paranoid, lonely, dangerous, suspicious, and fairly pointless.