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hexola

(4,835 posts)
Mon Aug 6, 2018, 07:00 PM Aug 2018

It's Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/its-looking-extremely-likely-that-qanon-is-probably-a

Last month, an Italian leftist activist collective called the Wu Ming Foundation pointed to a book they published in the ’90s that is shockingly similar to QAnon.

In 1999, Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi, and Luca Di Meo, writing under the name "Luther Blissett," published an Italian novel called Q.

Luther Blissett was a name regularly adopted in the ’90s by leftists, anarchists, and general troublemakers in Italy. It was used for staging all kinds of pranks. The Luther Blissetts in different cities would occasionally communicate by phone, but for the most part the project just spread organically. Think of it like an analogue Guy Fawkes Anonymous mask.

Three of the authors behind Luther Blissett — Bui, Cattabriga, and Guglielmi — told BuzzFeed News that the Blissett project was "a network of activists, artists and cultural agitators who all shared the name 'Luther Blissett.'"

The plot of their novel Q is pretty similar in structure to the basics of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

"Coincidences are hard to ignore," Bui, Cattabriga, and Guglielmi said. "Dispatches signed 'Q' allegedly coming from some dark meanders of top state power, exactly like in our book."

They also pointed to the fact that the Q from the QAnon community is described almost exactly like Luther Blissett used to be described, "an entity of about 10 people that have high security clearance."
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It's Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters (Original Post) hexola Aug 2018 OP
Very interesting, thanks, but sounds more like Hortensis Aug 2018 #1

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
1. Very interesting, thanks, but sounds more like
Mon Aug 6, 2018, 07:24 PM
Aug 2018

the book inspired right-wing extremists to run with its ideas. It was written as a serious novel, after all and was first published in Italian in 1999, which would be quite a stretch for the typical trumpster.

It does include conspiracist and counterculture themes, though, which would appeal to people prone to extremism and conspiracism on both left and right. Those people of course have far more in common with each other than they have with the more moderate, mainstream people they're more typically identified with, and who they typically despise and reject cooperation with.

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