A fringe 4chan conspiracy reached 17 percent of Americans by 2020.

Evidence

As Trumpism normalized fringe beliefs, an even more bizarre conspiracy theory emerged: QAnon. Beginning in November 2017, an anonymous 4chan user named “Q Clearance Patriot” claimed Trump was secretly working to dismantle a global cabal of “Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” These cryptic posts, later traced to South African blogger Paul Furber and the owners of 8kun, Jim Watkins and his son Ron, gained a cult following. By 2020, despite widespread deplatforming by major social media platforms, QAnon had attracted a significant base, with 17 percent of Americans believing its core tenets. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 454

Categorization

• SEED: The QAnon case is a clean, concrete example of the ‘omnivore monoculture’ mechanism in reverse - a subculture that decentralized-distribution and deplatforming paradoxically grew rather than collapsed - worth an article comparing horizontal vs top-down meme propagation.