The Pleasures of Conspiracy — The Techno Social

Conspiracy thinking is about more than misinformation…

Often, we talk about QAnon and other associated conspiracies as ‘misinformation problems’. That is, if we just kept social media clean of ‘bad’ information, the misinformation problem would solve itself, and we could go back to believing in the efficacy of vaccines and the integrity of our democratic institutions without issue. That is, to a certain extent, true. After Twitter permanently banned Donald Trump and fellow travellers from Twitter in the week following the January 8th insurrection, research found that misinformation about election fraud dropped 73%. (The idea that the election was ‘stolen’ is part of the QAnon universe). These results demonstrate the networked nature of misinformation; how the misinformation circulated and becomes accepted as fact. Even when trying to debunk misinformation, we still end up highlighting the very misinformation we’re trying to stamp out.

That caveat aside, there is still the unanswered question of what, exactly made QAnon and other conspiracies find such fertile soil? There are a number of competing explanations, including explanations that point to political and economic disenfranchisement, but what I want to explore in this blog post, are the affective dimensions of conspiracy thinking, particularly QAnon.

Conspiracy communities are powerful drivers of connection; it’s easy to think of conspiracy thinking and conspiracy communities as a problem of ‘information’. It is tempting to believe that Flat Earthers could be persuaded by more effective science communication, but this is, in fact, unlikely. In concluding scenes of Netflix’s (2018) documentary Behind the Curve, we see flat earthers conducting a scientific experiment to disapprove the fact that the earth is a globe. I have copied the explanation of the experiment helpfully described by Newsweek to set the scene below,

“….at the very end of Behind the Curve, Campanella comes up with a similar experiment, this time involving a light instead of a laser. With two holes cut into styrofoam sheets at the same height, Campanella hopes to demonstrate that a light shone through the first hole will appear on a camera behind the second hole, indicating that a light, set at the same height as the holes, travelled straight across the surface of the Flat Earth. But if the light needs to be raised to a different height than the holes, it would indicate a curvature, invalidating the Flat Earth.”

As one might expect, the experiment doesn’t work as hoped, because the earth is round. One might expect this to be a transformative moment of understanding for those involved, but it is not. Empirical evidence alone is not sufficient to make people turn away from their conspiracy beliefs.

While the conspiracy itself may prove initially enticing, it is the community that makes people stay. The David and Goliath struggle against the powers-that-be with likeminded others becomes a potent identity marker, reinforced by alienation from previous relationships.

The slow slide away from old friendships is sharply demonstrated in a recent NYT article that profiles an Upper East Side, QAnon “meme queen” or as she prefers ‘digital soldier’. Despite the recent setbacks to QAnon (the failure, for example, for Trump to declare martial law and refuse to leave office), Valerie Gilbert remains a true believer. The NYT article depicts a woman caught in a compelling affective loop. Her QAnon posts on Facebook, while alienating her from long-standing friends, are greeted with likes and “heart emojis” (NYT 2021) by her QAnon friendship.

Hanging on to the conspiracy theory, and by extension, the conspiracy theory community is as much as about avoiding negative emotion as it is about the serotonin hit that QAnon provides.

Recanting QAnon conspiracy theories poses fundamental challenges to identity and one’s personal epistemology, that is, how we know about the world and understand our place in it. To reckon with the fact that you were ‘conned’ into what amounts to an online RPG, means encountering emotions we often work so hard to avoid, like shame and embarrassment.

It also means abandoning the most potent lure of conspiracy thinking, the feeling of being right, and righteous. Conspiracy theories are a potent one-two punch. Not only do they provide a compelling narrative frame to understand a world that is so often beyond our grasp and comprehension, but they also offer a means of doing so. Conspiracy theories centre individuals as experts. It is their problem-solving ability and their reading of the data that can uncover the truth.

For example, we can understand flat earth theories as persuasive because they appear to confirm what our senses tell us. For example, going to the top of the highest mountain in my local area will not show me the earth's curvature. Instead, it will seem from my vantage point that it spreads out horizontally towards the horizon. This epistemological orientation emphasises personal experience and self-belief as the most important form of world and knowledge building. This a heady cocktail that waives aside established knowledge with the promise that the truth is out there and you can discover it.

The individual is recentred in history's narrative arc as being in a unique position to understand the truth.

This is further reinforced through community bonds where others, operating on the same logic reaffirm, support and praise this approach. The internet is always on, providing a never-ending well of serotonin to access as true believers work to decipher clues, make connections, and in the case of QAnon be part of a history-changing event. Engaging in QAnon and other conspiracy style thinking feels good.

The truth is much less exciting. Although real conspiracies do exist, are most often banal, they involve institution failure and yes, sometimes prolonged cover-up of that self-same failure. However, they owe more to disorganisation, neglect and self-interest, than they do to organised cabals bent towards maleficence (Jane and Fleming 2014).

In 2020 misinformation and conspiracy theories took centre stage in the cultural conversation. The panic-inducing pandemic, and the rise of QAnon, meant that more people were taking the challenges of misinformation seriously.

It is no surprise that QAnon really mainstreamed the year we spent a lot of time indoors. The usual social connections and interactions that might dissuade more than a casual flirtation with conspiracy vanished. Yes, we saw our friends, families and coworkers less, we were deprived of the incidental interactions that might act as a check on any serious drift from reality.

In the past, it was easy to dismiss conspiracy theory communities as harmless fantasists; after all, there was little demonstrable harm in believing that the moon landing was fake. Now, the stakes are much higher. Conspiracy theories have prompted waves of anti-vaccination sentiment which threatens the public health fight-back against covid-19. Most strikingly conspiracy theories prompted the insurrection in the Capitol on January 8th, egged on by sympathetic persons in positions of power. To understand why people were (and are) prepared to take such radical action, we must unravel the sticky emotional potencies of conspiracy and conspiracy communities.