Cahiers d’histoire. (Jun 2023)
QAnon, une guerre culturelle entre canulars et nouveaux mythes
Abstract
QAnon, a conspiracy theory born and developed in the virtual world, attacks public and cultural space, invades and disturbs it. The Capitole invasion of Washington on January 6th 2021, testifies the influence, extent and impact of this movement. Brandishing posters proclaiming "we are Q" and flags displaying the letter Q, making use of symbols that refer to a far-right culture, the followers of this theory have shown a violence that forces us to ask ourselves about its origin, its development and its communication techniques. In this regard, some part of the press has suggested an emanation from the protest movement of the Luther Blissett Project and an influence of the novel written by his Bolognese cell, Q. The purpose of this article is to understand if there is a direct link between this conspiracy theory and the Luther Blissett Project and if its media guerrilla practices and the novel Q have been a real source of inspiration. To this end, the first part of this analysis retraces the birth of QAnon and the key events that led to its development. The second part examines the movement and tries to define it coherently. The history of the Blissett project and the examination of shared points and correspondence with QAnon are addressed in Part Three. If the uncertainty of a link persists, a dysfunction of the legitimization of knowledge emerges, inextricably linked to ethics and to politics. The conspiracy theory is thus a metapolitical manifestation of subordinate social groups and a cultural response to the constant uncertainty of a liquid existence.
Keywords
