QAnon: How the followers react to the lack of uprising

A QAnon supporter at a 2018 Republican campaign rally

Photo: Matt Rourke / dpa

Expectations for January 20 were high among the supporters of the conspiracy theory QAnon: Blackouts, mass arrests and violent riots for the inauguration of the new US president were mentioned in advance in some QAnon groups.

The fact that none of this happened caused some resignation.

While the ceremony was still going on, some of them wrote on alternative networks: "It's over", or: "That is the proof that Q is total bullshit" or: "Nothing damned happened."

Surprisingly, even Ron Watkins, one of the most important QAnon distributors, seemed to distance himself from the conspiracy myth: "We gave everything," he wrote to his around 120,000 followers in the messenger app Telegram.

"Now we have to be brave and get back to our lives as best we can." Ron Watkins is the son of the operator of 8kun, one of the major QAnon platforms.

In the forum, which Watkins himself is said to have run for a long time, the messages of the mysterious user named Q, to whom the movement owes its name, were found.

(Read more about 8kun here.)

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