Q: Into the Storm by Cullen Hoback (review)

Cullen Hoback’s six-part documentary Q: Into the Storm is required viewing for anyone attempting to understand the origins of the QAnon phenomenon. The documentary’s title is a reference to “the storm,” a sort of millennial prophecy in QAnon lore in which Donald Trump and the military will round up a cabal of Satanic pedophiles acting as “the deep state” and publicly execute them. The opening credits to the series feature a computer-rendered moving model of Washington D.C. in the style of Game of Thrones. The model grinds away like a sort of Rube Goldberg machine as lasers begin to shoot out of buildings to form pentagrams and other esoteric symbols. I found this sequence to be a metaphor for the entire series: We still do not understand the purpose of this machine or who set it in motion, but we can at least recognize the major pieces and watch how they function.

QAnon began in 2017 with someone using the alias “Q,” claiming to be a high-level government official leaving cryptic posts on the website 4chan. The thread was called “The Calm Before the Storm.” (4chan is an English-language imageboard described as a hub of internet subculture.) Hoback began work on this series not long after, and he traces the key players in the QAnon phenomenon right up to the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. The director is known for his 2013 documentary Terms and Conditions about internet privacy and the problem of corporations mining data from internet users. Because of this previous work, Hoback was able to negotiate access with the secretive owners of 8chan, which became Q’s platform of choice. (In 2018, Q migrated from 4chan to 8chan, claiming the former had been “infiltrated.” Like 4chan, 8chan is an English-language website comprised of user-created message boards.) In early interviews, subjects seem to believe Hoback is making a film about 8chan. As their relationship with the documentarian develops over years, however, they begin to trust him and more details start to slip. The frisson of the series comes from cutting back to previous conversations to show how subjects contradict themselves or feign ignorance when questioned about certain topics.

While the show features a vast array of characters, it emphasizes three individuals in a quest to identify the elusive Q: Frederick Brennan, Jim Watkins, and his son, Ron Watkins. Frederick Brennan is known by the handle “Hotwheels,” possibly in reference to the fact that he is confined to a wheelchair. In 2013, Brennan created the forum 8chan, which gained sudden popularity following the Gamergate scandal of 2014. (Gamergate in general refers to online harassment of feminists and progressives; in 2014 it focused on female video game developers.) When 4chan founder Christopher Bell banned discussion of Gamergate, 8chan was able to present itself as an alternative with free-speech near-absolutism. For years, Brennan and 8chan have turned a blind eye to child pornography and other odious topics, encouraging the community to “police itself.”

In a reversal of fortune, Jim Watkins, who was living in the Philippines, became the owner and operator of 8chan, while Brennan began working for him in 2014 as the site administrator in Manila. Watkins himself was an unsavory character, running several pornography websites. In 2016, Brennan stepped down as administrator, due in part to his growing disgust with racist content on the site—8chan became known as the place to find white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and other alt-right postings along with antisemitic and pedophilic content. Jim Watkins assigned Brennan to other projects and placed his son, Ron, aka “Codemonkey,” in charge of 8chan.

By 2018, with its migration to 8chan, Q had grown a sizeable following on such sites as Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook. Numerous baby boomers flocked to 8chan in order to get “Q drops” directly from the source. Brennan became increasingly estranged from the Watkinses after Hoback began filming. In 2019, 8chan was linked to mass shootings in...