stop with the memes
Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as making someone question their own reality. The term may also be used to describe a person who presents a false narrative to another group or person which leads them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed.
My 1/6 story: I've been writing about QAnon since January 2018 - when almost nobody knew what it was or took it seriously. I took did, because I saw its similarities to scams and frauds that had lasted decades by promising the same thing Q promised, except in blood, not money.
Many of the "disinformation experts" who now write reams about what Q "really" is wouldn't have known a Q drop from a hole in the ground when I was screaming for people to look at it not as some internet cranks, but as a burgeoning prophecy cult with a kill list.
I've never waivered from my belief that Q is not some high-level conspiracy, but a primal urge to get back at the people who are keeping you down, and the need for out groups to form in groups - all exploited by cagey grifters and spineless politicians.
"QAnon" as we knew it from 2017 to early 2021 doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't need to. The ideas it espoused - a deep state cabal oppressing patriots, funded by Jewish money and propped up by corrupt experts and pundits - are so mainstream that they don't need "drops" anymore.
Everything converged on January 6th: the messianic worship of Trump, the desperate need his followers had to be heard and respected, their astonished outrage that the deep state puppet Joe Biden could possibly take office, and their lust for blood to run in the streets.
On 1/6, I was deep into writing my book on QAnon, and didn't want the distraction of yet another Trump rally. But even just casually glancing at Twitter, I knew something horrible was happening. So I turned on the TV - and saw everything I'd been screaming about come to fruition.
Years of warnings and writing and interviewing and pleading for people to not write Q believers off as flyover country cranks - yet there were Q t-shirts on rioters breaching the Capitol, looking for members of Congress to kill.
For a second, I felt I'd failed. But I needed to scream louder. Reinforce that this wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime riot - but the expression of angry, violent, cultists who were determined to make their prophecy come true and make the blood run in the streets. The blood Q promised.
Q is silent, and "the storm" never happened. But the people who believe it will, someday, if they just meme and pray hard enough, they're still out there. They're our friends and family.
And I'm here too. Still screaming. Still writing.
Only now, people are paying attention.