Conspiracy Theory Dictionary: From QAnon to Gnostics
In half a decade we’ve gone from Jeb Bush making a serious run for president to Marjorie Taylor Greene running unopposed and winning a House seat in Georgia. QAnon came seemingly out of nowhere, but taps into a much deeper and older series of conspiracy theories that have surfaced, resurfaced, and been remixed throughout time.
Essentially, QAnon is a recycling of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy theory that drove the Nazi ideology and led to the genocide of over 6 million Jews, gypsies, gays, and others who made Hitler mad. It’s riddled with the kind of conspiratorial paranoia that led to the deaths of over 75 million people in World War II.
The spread of the QAnon conspiracy theory greatly benefits from historical memory, getting a generous marketing boost from sheer familiarity. It also benefits from an authoritarian mentality growing louder in America, with a predilection for magical thinking and a susceptibility to conspiratorial thinking.
Tales as old as time
Conspiracy theories have been around much longer even than the Protocols — stretching back about as long as recorded history itself. Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? In an increasingly complex world brimming with real-time communication capabilities, the cognitive appeal of easy answers may simply be stronger than ever before.
Anthropologists believe that conspiracy theory has been around for about as long as human beings have been able to communicate. Historians describe one of the earliest conspiracy theories as originating in ancient Mesopotamia, involving a god named Marduk and a goddess called Tiamat — both figures in Babylonian creation mythology.
According to the myth, Marduk defeated Tiamat in battle and created the world from her body — but some ancient Mesopotamians at the time thought that the story was not actually a mere myth, but a political cover-up of a real-life conspiracy in which the followers of Marduk secretly plotted to overthrow Tiamat to seize power.
This “original conspiracy theory” was likely driven by political tensions between city-states in ancient Mesopotamia, although there are very few written records still around to corroborate the origin of the theory or perception of the story at the time. Nevertheless, the Marduk-Tiamat myth is regarded as one of the earliest known examples of widespread belief in conspiracy theories, and it points to the relative commonality and frequency of false narratives throughout history.
Whether deployed purposefully to deceive a population for political advantage, created to exploit people economically, or invented “naturally” as a simple yet satisfying explanation for otherwise complicated and overwhelming phenomena, conspiracy theories are undoubtedly here to stay in culture more broadly for some time to come. We had best get the lay of the land, and understand the language we might use to describe and talk about them.
Conspiracy Theory Dictionary
Term | Definition | Notes |
---|---|---|
4chan | A notorious internet message board with an unruly culture capable of trolling, pranks, and crimes. | alt-Right |
8chan | If 4chan wasn't raw and lawless enough for you, you could try the even more right-wing "free speech"-haven 8chan while it still stood (now 8kun). Described by its founder Frederick Bennan as "if 4chan and reddit had a baby," the site is notorious for incubating Gamergate, which morphed into PizzaGate, which morphed into QAnon -- and for generally being a cesspool of humanity's worst stuff. | alt-Right |
9/11 truthers | People who believe the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001 were either known about ahead of time and allowed to happen, or were intentionally planned by the US government. | |
alien abduction | People who claim to have been captured by intelligent life from another planet, taken to a spaceship or other plane of existence, and brought back -- as well as the folks who believe them. | UFOs now real, nbd |
American carnage | Evocative of "immense loss" in the Nazi mythology | |
Antifa | Antifa is anti-fascism, so the anti-anti-fascists are just fascists wrapped in a double negative. The real cancel culture -- and a dangerous one. | |
Anti-Semitism | One of history's oldest hatreds, stretching back to early biblical times | Referred to as "the oldest hate," anti-Semitism is also inherently anti-feminist, because Jewish societies wereย once matrilineal. |
Biblical inerrancy | ||
birtherism | One of Donald Trump's original Big Lies -- that President Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and therefore, wasn't a "legitimate" president. | |
Black Lives Matter | ||
blood libel | ||
child trafficking | ||
Christian Identity | ||
climate change denial | ||
The Confederacy | ||
contamination | ||
cosmopolitanism | Another term for globalist or internationalist, which are all dog whistles for Jewish people | |
Crossing the Rubicon | ||
cultural Marxism | Anti-semitic conspiracy theory alleging that Jewish intellectuals who fled the Hitler regime were responsible for infecting American culture with their communist takeover plans and that this holy war is the war the right-wing fights each day. | |
deep state | ||
DVE | domestic violent extremism | |
fake news | ||
GamerGate | ||
George Soros | ||
Hollywood | ||
Illuminati | ||
InfoWars | ||
JFK assassination | ||
John Birch Society | The QAnon of its day (circa 1960s), this extreme right-wing group was theoretically about anti-communist ideals but espoused a host of conspiracy theories and outlandish beliefs | |
lamestream media | Derogatory term for any media that isn't right-wing media. | |
leftist apocalypse | ||
Makers and Takers | ||
micro-propaganda machine | MPM | the โmicro-propaganda machineโ โ an influence network that can tailor peopleโs opinions, emotional reactions, and create โviralโ sharing (๏ฟฝ๏ฟฝLOL/haha/๏ฟฝ๏ฟฝRAGE) episodes around what should be serious or contemplative issues |
motivated reasoning | ||
New World Order | ||
nullification | A constitutional "theory" put forth by southern states before the Civil War that they have the power to invalidate any federal laws or judicial decisions they consider unconstitutional. It's never been upheld by the federal courts. | |
One World Government | ||
PizzaGate | ||
post-truth | ||
PR | public relations | |
propaganda | ||
Protocols of the Elders of Zion | Forged anti-semitic document alleging a secret Jewish child murder conspiracy used by Hitler to gin up support for his regime. | |
PsyOps | Psychological operations | |
QAnon | ||
Q Drops | ||
reactionary modernism | ||
Reichstag fire | ||
Rothschilds | ||
sock puppets | ||
"Stand back and stand by" | ||
The Storm | ||
WikiLeaks | ||
ZOG | Zionist ---- Government |
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