How many people follow QAnon or 4chan nonsense? You're over weighting a sheer minority of people who probably have other issues in their lives as for why they chase down conspiracy rabbit holes.
Alas, they don't have "other issues" - because recommendation algorithms drive people down the conspiracy rabbit holes.
Conspiracy, fear, hate - they all drive engagement better than anything else. And since we all optimize for engagement, guess where things are heading. And no matter how resilient you are, there's some really dark shit out there. Ready to tear down even rather healthy people.
This to me seems like it's the key to all of this, or at least a portion of it that really shouldn't be ignored. As I shared, if my ex had other ongoing issues under the surface, they were never presented and she did a great job keeping the visible symptoms from manifesting for the better part of three years.
Maybe she didn't realize they were there herself, hard to blame anyone for that.
It doesn't seem that remarkable, contentious or incendiary of an idea to wonder if following these blogs and communities infiltrated and started poking at something that was already there, driving a curiosity to dig further, effectively picking at a scab....so to speak. And when the platform responds to your interactions, likes, reshares, searches by pushing more of that in your face, it doesn't seem any more remarkable that someone could find themselves facing mental anguish or other personal/emotional problems that wouldn't have ever otherwise seen the light of day.
Optimization for engagement is actually quite scary to me: because the effects upon the user (beyond engagement) are literally meaningless. If the system can burn out your mental health while increasing engagement, it can and will make that choice.
Came to say I agree with village-idiot, many if not everyone overestimate their emotional resilience and those that become victims usually become so inadvertently and don't realize the ramifications until it's either too late or a real steep climb to get back up. QAnon might not be the most common rabbit hole, but it was in all fairness just an example. The most common example is probably drugs and alcohol.
QAnon stuff gets millions of shares on Facebook every week. It's nuts and not a tiny slice of people. Ballpark 20% of republican voters at the very least believe in this stuff.
I mean this question without any malice or partisanship, because I’m genuinely curious. What’s it feel like to watch those in your political in group seemingly lose their minds? Has it affected your opinions or relationships with fellow conservatives?
No, if anything it's brought us together. What's been hard is losing leftie friends for no reason. I don't talk about politics, but if they find out I went to a Trump rally (instagram pics) suddenly we can't be friends. It's weird. I lived in San Francisco 20 years ago and had rabidly leftie friends whom I very much enjoyed sparring with over drinks, however something has changed and we can't even make small talk anymore. Bizarre.
There's a lot more to 4chan than /b/ (and the associated /pol/, /r9k/, /s4s/ crap). I haven't used /b/ in years (it stopped being funny around 100M get) but I still use some of the special-interest boards.
First, my point is not specific to any one crazy movement or community. QAnon is the most recent one, but anyone historically aware can point to a variety of similar examples.
Second, if you think QAnon is relegated to only those who visit 4chan, I have very bad news for you.
I do. It's entertaining, especially since there's been some Qanon posts which seem almost plausible, and the rest of the time it's some guy with a neckbeard trying to get likes.
