During the invasion of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, the Q was everywhere. T-shirts, caps, flags and posters were printed.
It was the symbol of a belief shared by much of that crowd: “Stormy Day”, “Judgment Day” had come, when they, collectively known as QAnon, would help Donald Trump and heroic military personnel to prevent Joe Biden from being confirmed as President of the United States – which would also suppress a globalist elite that rapes and devours the little children of power to renew their energies and (in the case of Hollywood actors) prolong their youth.
But where does the Q come from? And how did this most dreaded and dangerous conspiracy theory of recent times spread?
Divided into six episodes, all already available on HBO programming, the documentary “Q: In the Eye of the Storm” answers these two questions very well.
In addition, he claims to have unraveled a mystery: the “who” behind Q.
American documentary director Cullen Hoback spent three years collecting material for the series. It hit the road in early 2018, just a few months after the first messages signed with the letter Q were posted on an online discussion forum.
The letter would refer to a high level of confidentiality in US intelligence agencies. Faced with the possibility of accessing state secrets, even in cryptic language, the imaginations of many people have caught fire.
At this point, nothing more natural for someone keen to investigate the story, like Hoback, than to go in search of the mysterious Q, who may have been a lone wolf, perhaps a group of people.
Hoback surmised that the administrators of the 8chan site, where Q.’s texts were gaining traction, could give him clues. And there he went to the Philippines, where he made contact with three picturesque figures, all of them Americans.
Jim Watkins had been in the military before he became an “entrepreneur”. When Hoback finds him, in addition to running 8chan, he raises pigs and runs an organic store. Ron Watkins, Jim’s son, is a nerd. He bought a house in the cafundós of Japan, where he spends the day programming.
Fred Brennan is the creator of 8chan. He lives in a wheelchair due to a congenital illness. He is very talkative and claims to have created the site as a space where freedom of expression could be exercised in an absolute way.
There is some tension between Brennan and the Watkins. They were partners, then they left. But everyone says they don’t know Q’s identity. It seems like a dead end. However, the relationship between them ends up becoming the main narrative line of the documentary.
As QAnon’s ranks increase, animosity between Brennan and the Watkins also grows, leading to a judicial war. At the same time, Hoback increasingly suspects that Ron Watkins is Q.
As we already know, the QAnon Saga culminates in the depredation of the Capitol, following the war between these three unusual characters, including Hoback’s effort to unravel Q’s identity, brings an element of suspense. to the series. The problem is, the documentary ends up slipping, you see, into conspiracy theory terrain.
Hoback offers no solid proof that Ron Watkins is Q, only good proof. More importantly, it doesn’t provide concrete evidence that the Watkins, those two lost lunatics in Asia, have ties to the Trump circle or the radical wings of the US military, but it does cast those suspicions in the air.
Although it is irony or a “metalinguistic” joke, watching a documentary on QAnon using conspiracy theory devices has, at least in me, had an unpleasant effect.
With that, the best parts of the series are the ones that are on the sidelines. There is a good history of online forums like 8chan, where signs of political madness and sexual perversions abound. There’s a recording of how Q’s posts spawned a subculture of QTubers – people who made money and notoriety by performing every new post from the guide in videos and podcasts. . And, of course, there is step by step how an underground phenomenon gained the sunlight and had a real political impact.
Worth watching? OKAY. Just be careful not to fall into the rabbit hole – the conspirator’s word for parallel reality – that the documentary’s writers have left behind.