QAnon is a very American conspiracy theory, focussing upon a supposed plan by a mysterious entity named ‘Q’ who was working with Donald Trump to rid the US of a corrupt elite.  But despite this American focus, it has adherents around the world. One of those adherents is a friend of this episode’s guest, Georgina.

Georgina and her friend were both fans of documentaries about cults, but despite what you right think of as inoculation against mind control, Georgina’s friend still fell deep down the QAnon rabbit hole.

This episode was recorded on Jan 5th, the day before the storming of the Capitol.

My guest this week thought all was well when she started dating a handsome intelligent man. But then a few things he said, particularly about “the Jews” started to seem like something more than just the jokes she initially took them for. Here she describes how her relationship with a conspiracy theorist got started, and how it turned out. Along the way, we discuss toxic masculinity, incels, and the importance of teaching history and critical thinking.

 

 

Sarah’s ex-partner seemed like a normal person, but a few years ago he discovered conspiracy theory videos. Starting with claims that the Moon Landing was fake he quickly progressed to Flat Earth and eventually ended up follow a cult-like group that was predicting the end of the world in 2018 in an event called “EMPCOE”. He began to prep for this, but the predictions never came to pass and new predictions were made. Despite this, he never lost faith in the people making the predictions and became increasingly angry with Sarah for not following his belief. This anger escalated into abuse.

Sarah tells her story in detail, a story that is shared by many conspiracy casualties who have lost their loved ones to cults and conspiracy theories.