All language subtitles for Q Into the Storm - 01x02 - Do You Believe in Coincidences .WEB.720p-WHOSNEXT.English.C.orig.Addic7ed.com

Drop 151 (Nov 14 2017)

How do you capture
a very dangerous animal?

Do you attack it from the front?

Do you walk through the front door?

Why did POTUS depart Manila
30 min ahead of schedule?

Nothing is as it appears...

NOVEMBER 29th, 2018

On my way to Manila,
I had a layover in Hong Kong.

The view from my window
was not all that different

from the one in Drop 130.

At this point, Q had been posting
for just over a year.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Manila was home
to the team behind 8chan,

the site where Q posts.

And I was planning to meet with
the site's creator, Fred Brennan,

for the first time in person.

I had noticed
that social media platforms

were increasingly restricting
certain types of speech online,

and I was curious
to what extent Q and 8chan,

a site that was unapologetic about
allowing almost any type of speech,

played a role in that debate.

I assumed that's why
they agreed to meet with me.

It was really a dice roll whether
or not this trip was going to pay off.

Fred hadn't provided an address
or even an exact time to meet up,

but the morning
we were supposed to film together,

Fred dropped his coordinates.

From the beginning, Fred was surprised
by how minimalistic my setup was.

Just me and a film school grad
I had hired locally.

He lived in a high rise
gated community,

and despite
all the cloak and dagger...

This way.

...Fred said
that he was moving soon.

So, it was okay
to film the grounds.

Fred had spent years cultivating
some of the wildest content

the Internet had to offer.

I couldn't help but wonder,

had he also played a role
in shaping Q.

Q: INTO THE STORM

Para sa akin
cheese hamburgers siempre.

Then one extra rice box?

- My chicken nuggets sa table.
- Yes.

I don't know
if anybody wants it,

but if you're still hungry,
you can eat it.

You'd be surprised how many people
come all this way to see me.

They just want to meet me.

The image in their heads
does not match my reality.

They think that I'm,
like, this amazing guy

that made this amazing website
and I changed the world.

And I see myself as somebody

who was in the right place
at the right time. Yeah.

I think most of them
go away disappointed

but at least they get to eat curry
rice during their disappointment.

I grew up with just unfettered
access to the Internet.

And, I grew up also disabled.

So, I couldn't go run outside and play
with the neighborhood kids.

So, throughout my life,

almost all of my friends
have been online friends.

Like, since the beginning. Ready?

I have osteogenesis imperfecta.

It's caused by a single mutation
in a gene that makes collagen.

So, the bones
don't form correctly.

So they become
really brittle like glass.

I was always very self conscious
about my disability.

I fought a lot with both my parents
about why did you have kids.

You knew this would happen.
You received genetic counseling.

What's wrong with you?

And it caused
a lot of teenage angst also.

My challenges around mobility did
make me more intellectually curious

because there wasn't
a whole lot else that I could do.

The Internet leveled
the playing field,

so Fred spent
almost all of his time online,

which meant his digital self
matured at a rapid pace.

So much so
that by the age of 12,

he had already stumbled across
some of the most shocking content

that the Internet had to offer.

When I first found 4chan,

I just saw
what a lot of people are saying.

And I felt I finally had discovered
what people were really thinking.

Saying things
like gas all the crippled people,

I hate downies,
throw them off a bridge.

I felt like I was seeing a window
into people's hidden thoughts

that they weren't saying because
it wasn't socially acceptable.

But this is what everybody's
really thinking.

When they look at me, wow,
look at this crippled retard.

As a child,
I was very impressionable

and I just felt, like, wow,

I've been lied to my whole life
by people who are telling me,

oh, it's good to be different.

I figured, like, because
the site just seemed so active,

you say, wow,
this is a huge number of people

that are just speaking the truth,
or what I thought was the truth.

So, I feel like the Internet changed
my perspective of the world a lot.

Don't smoke kids,
or else you'll become like me.

I'm almost the dead baby. Like,
I'm one step after the dead baby.

When Fred was 19, he became
the admin of a site called Wizardchan.

The forum was a home
for male incels.

That is, virgins who think
they'll never have sex

and just generally hate women
because of that.

But after Fred did some drugs
and slept with a prostitute

who had, well, two fetishes...

She had a fetish for male virgins,
and disabled people.

So, I was both.

Fred was no longer a virgin.

So, he resigned
as admin of Wizardchan.

While on his digital
walk of shame,

Fred began to look
for a new edge to lord over.

He was still an active user
on 4chan,

but he couldn't create a board
without approval from the site's owner.

Meanwhile, Reddit,
its more mainstream competitor,

allowed anyone to create boards
but wasn't anonymous.

I was just thinking,
wow, wouldn't it be amazing

if Reddit and 4chan had a baby,

and everyone could make
their own board.

So he merged Reddit's
democratized board creation

with 4chan's anonymous posting,
and presto, 8chan was born.

Now anyone could create a board
and posts could be totally anonymous.

When I wrote 8chan
originally in 2013,

I wasn't really planning
for success.

I wrote the first part of it

while I was coming off
of psychedelic mushrooms.

Like, you know,
they call it the come down, I think.

It wasn't meant to scale
from 100 posts per day

to, like, 10,000 posts per hour.

This free speech maximalist approach
had given Fred an edge.

But he now had a serious
moderation problem

because illegal content like
child porn would get shared as well.

I had no idea that the hosting
was going to be so hard.

I had no idea how my payment
processing worked.

I was just on the "hopium"
of free speech and all that.

Fred created 8chan in 2013.
He was 19-years-old.

But with a mass influx of users,
Fred needed help.

It seemed he also wanted
to find a partner

who would let him continue
to run the site as its admin.

I started to get lots of emails
from people

that were interested
in running 8chan on their own.

Of all the offers I received, I chose,
Jim Watkins and his son, Ron,

because I felt they had
the most experience with this.

I would say, overall,
Jim is a good owner for 8chan.

I would say that Jim is not
tech savvy at all.

Jim is much more
the business brain,

and Ron is much more
of a technical brain.

I would describe Ron
as a tech bro, pretty much.

He's a talented programmer also.

In some ways,
more talented than I am.

Jim Watkins is
an American businessman

operating out of the Philippines.

Jim served in East Asia
while he was in the Army,

and found a dollar
went a long way.

He offered
for Fred to come join them

along with a handful of perks.

So, it was a no-brainer for me
to sell 8chan to them

and move to the Philippines.

Like, they offered me
a condo with the rent paid.

When's the last time
you went swimming?

- Eight years ago. I was 12.
- Wow.

And then a caregiver also.

Let go.
It's okay. We know CPR.

Fred had even found a fiance
in the Philippines.

He now had plans to get married
in just a few months.

So, working with Jim Watkins
helped him support this new life.

They kept me on as an employee now,
being the administrator, not the owner.

As the administrator,

Fred had to deal with all kinds of
in fighting and drama on the boards.

Not to mention, the site itself
operated at a loss.

It seems most advertisers
didn't want to touch it.

Being 8chan's admin
was really difficult.

It was really arduous work.

And then, I decided to quit from
being administrator in 2016, April.

Fred stepped out
as 8chan's admin,

but he continued to work
for Jim Watkins

on other Internet projects
that they owned.

I don't believe 8chan
can ever be profitable.

What's the point
of running it then?

You know how some rich men
will have a yacht, like a big boat?

So, that boat is not generating
any income.

It's a liability,
it's not an asset.

So, I was told to just think of 8chan
as a boat.

I'm on a boat. I'm on a boat.

Everybody look at me
'cause I'm sailing on a boat.

- It's a fun toy for Jim.
- It's a boat.

It's a boat, yes.
The SS 8chan.

Come on, baby.

That one is Jim's house.
He might get upset,

so we'll go
around the corner, okay?

Man, they have a lot of cars.

Yeah. I don't want to say something
that's going to get me in trouble.

So, let me just say nothing.

I don't want to say
the words financial insolvency.

But, maybe he has guests. Let's
give him the benefit of the doubt.

When I asked him about Jim,
Fred was hesitant.

I really like working for him,
he's a great boss.

But, yeah, I mean,
I have to be careful what I say.

It was the first time
I noticed Fred holding his tongue.

In theory I am supposed to meet
with Jim tomorrow to film.

Wow.

I really can't wait
to see your documentary.

- Now that you got Jim in it.
- Okay.

So this is speculation,

but I think he's worried
about what I'm going to say.

So, he wants to have
a counter to what I'm saying.

I don't think I'm saying
anything really bad.

But, he might be worried about it,
so he just wants to make sure

his side gets in
if you're already here.

At this point,
Jim Watkins was relatively unknown.

It seemed that no one had even
considered he might possibly be Q.

He owned 8chan and he's
self-described as an industrialist.

Lights off.

So, why did you seek out 8chan?

I didn't seek out 8chan.
8chan is an accident.

My son said, this guy needs
some help with 8chan.

He can't afford the servers

and said, can we put this in our
data center. And I said, okay.

You say, you own 8chan.
No, 8chan owns me.

It costs a lot of money
to run it.

I don't get much for it either.

They kind of tricked me
into it, and then now I have it.

I can't get rid of it
because it's important.

Jim seemed nervous.

He'd never given
an interview of this type before.

I was hoping to get a better sense
of whether or not Jim had the skills,

the knowledge,
and the motive to be behind Q.

Why do you think I'm here?

You are here
to make a documentary about me.

- Not you.
- No. About 8channel. I'm sorry.

While Jim's data center
was located in California,

he actually had
a variety of businesses

that he operated
from the Philippines.

So, coming up is
where our office used to be.

Which office are you referring to?
The 8chan office?

Nobody works for 8chan.

Really? I was imagining
that there is, like, a...

There's nobody
that works for 8chan.

There's people who work for me
that work on other things

other than 8chan because
8chan doesn't make any money.

How do you keep it up then?

I make money doing other things.
I'm well diversified.

It's like a beret.

I have an organic store, and this
is one of our means of livelihood.

We bake our own bread.

Fresh harvest.
We got some kale in from the farm.

We do serve our own bacon.
Even our eggs are organic.

What is the point of 8chan?

To give people a place that
they can have freedom of speech

without having to worry about getting
in trouble for saying something.

I'm just sick
of people being censored

and gender neutraled
and all of that.

It makes me angry. It's like, this
is not what America's all about.

I grew up watching Archie Bunker,
and he was like a pig.

I've been around a lot of places
and done a lot of things,

but there's one thing
Archie Bunker ain't never gonna do

and that's break bread
with no jungle bunnies.

8chan users,
they use kikes and waps,

and all of the bad words
for everybody.

And it was like, wow.

After we had some time
to settle in,

I got around to asking Jim
about Q.

What he thought about the biggest
banning of QAnon to date

done by his mainstream competitor,
Reddit.

So, one of the first things
that turned me on to 8chan

was that Reddit banned QAnon.

I don't honestly follow that board.

I don't know
what they were talking about.

It's just one of our users.

It wasn't anything that we were getting
police reports for or anything.

What are they talking about?
Like, revolution now or something?

I'm not a political person myself.

See what's going on
in the back.

I really stay out of politics 'cause
it's against the law for foreigners

to be involved in politics
in the Philippines. So...

But I mean,
you can be involved in U.S. politics.

But I live here.
I don't really know what's going on.

Chicken soup.

Sorry I don't know
more about the Q stuff.

But, from what I understand,
the Q is not causing us any trouble.

When Reddit banned QAnon,

people started rallying
around this notion

that some ideas are
kind of too dangerous.

Dangerous ideas,
that's scary.

That's a scary idea
to have dangerous ideas.

Okay, let's take some kale.
Let's try putting some cream in it.

I've had dangerous ideas
like my one idea was

to round up all of the politicians
and then machine gun them.

And then their replacements
come in

and you round them all up
and machine gun them.

And then the third round,
you tell them, you be good

or I'm gonna machine gun you.

And then, I was gonna vote Run
for President being Machine Gun Jim.

But... Actually, I have no idea
if this is going to be good or not.

Actually, that's pretty good.

Yeah, I'm not
politically correct at all.

Of course, I was curious
about the brewing tension

that seemed to exist
between Jim and Fred.

And wondered why Jim had decided
to subsidize 8chan in the first place.

I agreed to help

and then Fred agreed
to move here.

And, I was nice to him.
I treated him well.

And I took his broken website,
which was completely broken,

and my engineers
fixed his website.

So, is everything okay
between you and Fred?

We have a gentleman's
agreement on it

that we would split
the profits 60-40.

But there hasn't been
any profits yet.

Fred was still working with Jim
on his other projects,

just not for 8chan.

I wish he would be involved with 8chan.
It might be more successful.

Maybe he'll come back.
We'll have round two, fight!

It could happen.

So Fred, I know that being 8chan's
admin was super taxing,

and I'm guessing if there are
any other moral dilemmas

that are preventing you
from coming back to run 8chan.

As an American,
I grew up in school

and we're taught in school that one of
the things that makes America greater

than all the other countries is
that we have real free speech

and in other countries they have
libel laws and hate speech,

and lots of obscenity laws.

And, so that's something that's
just a cherished American value.

And I never really questioned that,

and that was the kind of mentality
I opened 8chan with.

But, you can't go three years
as 8chan's admin

seeing the reality
of total free speech

without having your faith in this
sacred concept shaken a little bit.

Even though 8chan
was home to Q,

most QAnon followers
never actually visited the site.

Instead, they would go to places
that collected Q's drops,

like qmap.pub.

These archival sites made
Q's messages easy to search,

expanding Q's reach while sanitizing
the darker realities of 8chan.

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

I don't really go
on the boards. So...

I mean, it's a hard place to be.

Yeah. It's too chaotic.

Do you read Q drops
on 8chan,

or one of those sites
that collects the drops, like qmap?

Oh, I know.
Yeah, exactly. I go to qmap.

Are you on 8chan a lot?

Only if I have to be. That website
is a headache, I've got to say.

It's not a place
for soft people.

It's not meant to be a place
for soft people.

It's not meant to be a place
for easily offended people.

It's a place for adults.

How do you deal with being
on 8chan as Christians?

Well, thank God
my wife is not on 8chan.

I've seen some of the threads.

I've explained to her about that
there's pornographic stuff there.

There's gore, violence.
Like, literal graphic stuff.

Like, they post�
There's child porn on there?

They pull that down.

They pull out anything that's illegal,
but it gets posted all the time.

- Really?
- Yeah.

I didn't know that. I never heard
of that before. That's troublesome.

I just told her basically what was on
there and she kind of went, okay.

Yes, I trust you. I don't want
to see it, but I trust you.

And that's why I'm so thankful
to God he sent a wife

that trusts me when I'm dealing
with this kind of evil sickness.

And the person now administrating
this so-called evil sickness

was Ron Watkins,
Jim's 30-something year-old son,

who had just flown in
from Japan.

- This is the elevator power cord.
- No, it's not.

Don't run into
the elevator power cord.

Welcome to 8chan headquarters.

This is 8chan headquarters.
Wheelchair accessible, right there.

Jim's command center
for his entrepreneurial efforts

was largely vacant
when we arrived.

- Pen 15 club, Frances?
- You have to give him a tattoo.

Wait, I think we gotta...

There was a small studio

where they recorded content
for a news site called The Goldwater.

- No, we'll make you a badge here.
- Tattoo time. Tattoo.

I'm a member
of the Pen 15 club too.

- Welcome to the club.
- Welcome to the club.

The 8chan's servers were
in California,

it's volunteers
scattered around the globe.

It's headquarters, essentially
wherever Ron carried a laptop.

Though it seems
some work did get done here.

We don't have a serious bone
in our bodies.

Your documentary won't be
picked up by anybody

if we talk
the way we usually talk.

How do you differ
from your son?

I don't differ from him.
We're like out of the same mold.

When he was 10 years-old,
he was sitting right next to me

with just a little black
Compaq computer he had.

I'm more of
an anti-social type person.

I avoid social contact
as much as possible.

I prefer to spend my time
programming.

I talk mostly with my dogs.

- But your dog talks back.
- My dog does talk back.

I agreed to be interviewed
for this

because it's very important
to get the word out

that, as the years go by,

more and more people are attacking
free speech online.

And we need to do
all we can to defend it now

while there's still time.

I'm more of like
the forgetful professor type.

Like, I'm terrible at adding,
subtracting, multiplying, dividing.

But, I'm really good
at very high level mathematics,

like Ph.D. level mathematics.

I'm able to use these mathematics

to build things that other people
are not able to comprehend.

- You're also known as Codemonkey?
- Oh, Codemonkey, correct.

There's a famous song from, I guess,
2005 called Codemonkey,

and there's a music video
and you can find that on YouTube.

And, I really liked the name and
then one day I was mining trip codes

and came across Odemonkey,

so I added a C in the front,
and it became Codemonkey.

People approach me all the time
asking who Q is,

and I will say I don't know.

He's just another 8chan user

and he's welcome to post on 8chan
as long as he wants.

We don't know who Q is.
It's not me.

Might be you, right?
But it's not me.

Only Q would do a documentary
about himself, like...

You knew way more about it
than me. It's like, wow.

So, he posted
about six hours ago.

And that does coincide
with this flurry of activity.

About six hours ago.
Q even attacked me,

and I had to set that
straight quickly.

While calling it an attack
might be an exaggeration,

Q had told Ron
to check his code,

complained about being
locked out of the board,

and even asked Ron
for more resources.

Yeah, CM, which I assume, I mean,
that stands for Codemonkey.

See, it says here
he has a team to secure,

so from then I figured
Q was a team, right.

I'm pretty sure Q is a spinoff
from Star Trek.

The Q is a type
of security clearance

called the Q-Level Clearance.

Yeah, I have one,
but I'm not Q.

You don't have
a Q-Level Clearance.

While Jim didn't have
a Q-level clearance,

he did have
a military background.

I started out as
a mess hall truck driver

and after that I went on
to Army recruiting,

and I did that
for about 10 years.

And then I got out of that
and started my own company.

Jim discovered a niche online

where he could use
the laws of one country

to skirt around the laws
in another,

which primed the pumps
for his next endeavor,

investing in image boards.

The very first image boards
actually started in Japan,

but they were heavily censored
due to Japanese law.

That would all change in 1999

when a Japanese college student
in America

named Hiroyuki Nishimura
created 2channel.

2channel was named after the channel
that you turned your TV to

when hooking up an old
school video game console.

Because the site was hosted
on American soil,

2channel was able to bring
unfettered free speech to Japan

and it was insanely popular.

That's when Jim got involved.

Hiroyuki came to me and he said,
I can't afford to do this anymore.

So we put some servers
in my data center

and we put it online.

In 2003, America finally got
a taste of the chan culture

that its free speech laws
had helped to create.

4chan!

4chan's founder, Christopher Poole,
also known as Moot,

got his start at a comedic website
called Something Awful.

Something Awful helped shape
meme culture as we know it,

and when Moot created 4chan,
it preserved something

that made the Internet
in the '90s special: anonymity.

4chan had a few knockoffs,
including 420chan,

which focused more
on drug culture.

It was started by this guy,
Aubrey Cottle.

When 420chan started,
it was a damn joke.

Like, it was 420,
we were fucking high as shit.

And we should register 420chan.
That'd be fucking funny.

But Aubrey Cottle had
another claim to fame.

He had cultivated the collective
of Internet hacktivists,

keyboard warriors known
as none other than Anonymous.

Welcome. I am Anonymous 420.

We interrupt your YouTube time
to bring you this urgent news story.

Anonymous started
as a prankster collective

and users were organizing
to pull off

comedic and sometimes
offensive stunts.

Contrary to the assumptions
of the media,

Anonymous is not simply
a group of super hackers.

Anonymous is a collective of
individuals united by an awareness

that someone must do
the right thing,

that someone must bring light
to the darkness, that someone...

But, as Anonymous evolved,
it became increasingly political.

At first, they targeted individuals
on the wrong side of history,

like talk show host
and Holocaust denier, Hal Turner.

Why are you listening
to this show?

This is a show for white people.
Get out of here spic.

We DDoS'd him, we sent
countless pizzas to his house.

We signed him up for escorts
on Craigslist,

and basically we destroyed his
ability to pay for his radio show.

They went on
to target Scientology.

The extent of your malign influence
over those who have come to trust you

as leaders
has been made clear to us.

Anonymous has therefore decided that
your organization should be destroyed.

And even went after
the Federal Reserve.

During the hack of the Fed,

Anonymous stole the login credentials
of some 4,000 bankers

from across the country.

All I remember is that all of us
were fucking terrified

that all of a sudden Anonymous was
just this big fucking global thing.

It just dramatically accelerated
from there.

They went fully mainstream.

Havoc ensued,
and between 2011 and 2012,

dozens of arrests happened
around the world

causing Anonymous to splinter.

25 members of Anonymous
have been arrested across Europe.

And we're, like, freaking out
being oh fuck-oh fuck-oh fuck.

What did we do? Oh, Jesus.

After Anonymous faded
from the limelight,

in 2014 a controversy
known as GamerGate

exploded from the bowels of 4chan.

This new collective borrowed
from the tactics of Anonymous,

but had a very different agenda,

pushing back against
the feminist critique of video games.

Yes, I followed GamerGate
from the very beginning.

I found it fascinating
and I fully supported it.

It was the first time
in many-many years

that a culture stood up
to feminist takeover and won.

They went after prominent
female game developers,

critics, and their associates.

And, using
the shield of anonymity,

users coordinated
harassment campaigns on 4chan.

Instantly they dived
into find where she lives,

find where
where all these people live.

What are we gonna do about her?
Can we hack her email? Like, instantly.

It's misogyny. It's misogyny.
It's in every game in sight.

But collectively, lessons
from Anonymous had been learned.

There were
no self-declared leaders.

There was no clear objective,
just male-driven vengeance

under a collective banner:
gamer culture.

Just a matter of sort of the rage

that gamers were having by being
abandoned by the industry

that used to cater to them.

Mark Mann was essentially
the Godfather of GamerGate.

He oversaw the video game board

where anons would discuss tactics
for their harassment campaigns.

Was anyone ever doxed
in that process?

Well, yeah. It's the movement.
Everyone's gonna get doxxed.

So we have GamerGate.

It started with ethics
in games journalism,

and that was co opted by people
leaning towards the right,

and then sort of pushing them toward
a liberal media is lying to you agenda.

And then that completely transformed
from there into the alt-right.

The first thing you lose
is all perspective.

It's like you're just constantly
surrounded by nothing but hate.

Christopher Poole decided that
that flavor of free speech,

too toxic for 4chan.

And in December of 2014,

all mentions of GamerGate
were given the axe.

4chan, the bastion of free speech,
was banning mentions of GamerGate.

Blame 4chan! Blame 4chan!

Freedom of speech must be dispersed!
My sensibilities must come first!

And 4chan users weren't happy,
including Fred Brennan.

I think the media
just doesn't understand

that 4chan is heavily moderated.

There are rules.
Like, activism is banned on 4chan.

You can state your political beliefs
and have debates,

but when you start turning it
into action

that's what gets banned on 4chan.

Fred was still a heavy 4chan user,

and the censorship of GamerGate
seemed to prove

that speech on 4chan
really wasn't that free.

So, my philosophy, because I had gone
years just getting angrier and angrier

at the 4chan administration,

that anyway that I could hurt 4chan
was a good thing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately,

he'd already created a space
that welcomed the controversy.

I thought, oh I had this big number
of refugees from 4chan.

I'm gonna do everything I can
to support them

as an attack on 4chan.

In late 2014, that's when users
started flooding over to 8chan,

to the video game board run
by Mark Mann.

I think what brought a lot of
people to 8chan was the fact

that it was unique. You know,
we promised better moderation,

a much more streamlined community
than what was on 4chan.

Around the time
that Anonymous splintered,

Jim and Hiroyuki
splintered as well.

Jim claimed that Hiroyuki had
stopped paying the bills.

There would be battles
that play out in Japanese court,

and Jim ultimately modifies the name
from 2channel to 5chan.

It's pretty crazy what Jim did.

I mean, he basically ran
the deeds office

and just crossed off Hiroyuki's name
and put his own name.

Of course after this happened, Jim
and Hiroyuki became bitter rivals.

That was fun.

It's around this time that Jim extends
his support to Frederick Brennan,

as the owner of 8chan,
expanding Jim's reach to the U.S.

Now, Hiroyuki, well,
he's a celebrity in Japan.

But, his celebrity status
didn't help him

in his numerous court cases
against Jim.

So, there was only one real way
to get back at him,

and the opportunity presented itself
when Chris Poole,

clean from the fallout
of GamerGate,

decided that he needed
to sell 4chan.

And, he sold it
to none other than Hiroyuki.

They had a falling out,
and Hiroyuki purchased 4chan.

I believe that was partly
to spite my father.

These methods of organizing
attacks and pranks

first popularized by Anonymous...

That someone must bring light
to the darkness.

...then used during GamerGate.

I can map out the entire family tree
starting from Something Awful.

There's a direct lineage
pointing right back to my shit.

These methods, it seems
that they were just preludes

to what
would eventually become...

QAnon.

Welcome back my friends.

This is Dustin Nemos
of Dustinnemos.com.

I have something interesting
that just happened.

And you're not
going to believe it.

So I've been talking about how,
a couple times,

I'm not bragging or anything,
but I mentioned it once or twice

'cause it's interesting.
I was invited to speak on QAnon

at the American Priority
Conference, in D.C.

The organizer reached out to me
and basically said,

I want to do a Q panel.
Would you come and participate?

And I was like, sure.

Up until now,
QAnons had organized online.

But for the first time ever,
key Q-tubers were stepping out

from behind their monitors
into the limelight.

AMERICAN PRIORITY
Washington, DC Conference

The American Priority Conference
was created as an alternative.

So, this was supposed to be
this kind of vision of the new right,

this Internet right.

The Clinton Foundation's
the next one that's coming up.

That's the next thing
that's gonna be the next...

I haven't even caught up
on all the drops yet from today.

We're fighting a war against evil
and people who eat babies.

Craig James
from JustInformedTalk,

Dustin Nemos
from The Nemos News Network,

and future congressional candidate,
Deanna Lorraine,

were all scheduled to headline.

Not to mention, the infamous
political hitman, Roger Stone,

was slated to make
an appearance.

Operatives like Roger Stone
and General Flynn

understood the power
of information warfare.

Both having bolstered rumors

that a child sex dungeon existed
in the basement of a D.C. pizzeria

frequented
by their political opponents,

even though no such dungeon
was ever found.

Now, what do you think? I've heard
rumors of restaurants here in D.C.

where you can go
down to the basement,

and they're serving kids
up to Saudi princes and stuff.

I haven't heard that one,
but I know,

it takes me back to the
Comet Ping Pong example, where...

That was where I got it from.
The Comet Ping Pong.

Do you talk about Q at all
in your posts?

Yes, I do. Absolutely, I...

Because Q kind of ties
everything together

and Q has people
wake up to the fact

that things that people in the media
have told us

have been very much
indoctrination and lies.

You may understand now the power
of thousands and thousands of people

on the Internet directly...

While the earliest promoter of QAnon,
Tracy Beanz,

was still allowed to speak,

presumably because she was
no longer open to discussing QAnon,

she presented
to an empty room.

The other Q-tubers
were given the boot.

We were gonna speak
on the QAnon issue

as it applies
to the overall MAGA movement.

And they uninvited us
for that purpose.

Someone's pulling some strings
to force him to disinvite us.

I actually wrote an article
about that QAnon panel

and how it was planned to happen,

and then highlighted some of the
bigger speakers they had at the time.

And after that article came out,
the QAnon panel was cancelled.

Q is not popular among
a lot of the alt-leftist media people.

A lot of them build about half
of their audience on bashing Q.

It doesn't matter
if they want to de-platform me,

we're still getting the word out.

Q gives you a great deal of power
in a way by using your platform.

- Correct.
- Why do you think Q trusts you?

I don't know that Q trusts me.
He might not trust me.

Many people are putting
a lot of faith and hope into Q,

and hoping
that what he's saying is real

and is going to change
the course of history.

Do you think Q is seeking infamy?

Evelyn Hall once said,
I disapprove of what you're saying,

but I'll defend to the death
your right to say it.

I don't agree, and I don't disagree
with what Q is saying.

But I really appreciate that he's
using 8chan to get his message out.

And do you seek infamy?

I don't seek infamy.
But I will embrace it.

What about your dad?

I can't speak for him,
but he's a character.

I've been blessed
with a really good life

and I have a lot of fun.

This is what I do for fun.
I play with pens.

When you put in
a cartridge like this,

you want to flick it a little bit

like you're flicking
a spitball in class.

And that one'll be able
to write shortly. Okay.

Jim mentioned
that he has another hobby: pigs.

To visit his farm, we would need
to make a lengthy drive

into the jungle
on the outskirts of Manila.

The pig farm was
a place of legend on 8chan.

Users like to speculate that it was
where Jim disposed of his enemies.

The pig farm is an active business.

It's where we get rid
of the bad users.

No.

- Did I say that?
- No.

Despite all the rumors
about Jim's farm,

I still had a hard time imagining

that he was going
to feed me to the pigs.

So, why did you end up
taking over as admin?

Fredrick was growing irritated
and discontent with the site.

It grew too fast,
and it outgrew the software.

They weren't able to figure out
how to grow it.

And so I devised
a way to scale it.

And my method worked,

and we were able to scale 8chan
to the size it is now.

I'm so happy that you were able
to interview Fred, though.

'Cause that's,
like, proof of life

'cause people have accused me
of killing him.

And of course I didn't.
He's a friend of mine, you know.

Do you think you're their enemy
at this point?

I don't think I'm their enemy, no.
Not at all.

Definitely there's been some
disagreements over the years

and definitely
we have our differences.

But, if it was true, I would have
already been fed to the pigs.

So, it's not true.

Maybe 25 percent of 8chan
is paid for by pigs.

With your weapon in your hand,

I'm gonna be a fighting man.

Sebastian is my stud.

We don't do
artificial insemination here.

We do it natural
and he's a lover not a fighter.

He's a wonderful lover.
And they love him, too.

Over here we got his girlfriends.
This is his harem.

71, two, three, four, five.
Seventy-five.

I have 75 piglets
and weaners.

They're weaning.

I'm gonna build a house up here,

and I'm gonna make this
my private yoga studio.

That data center is in here.

Running an image board
is not for the faint of heart.

I'm being attacked every day
from all different angles,

so you have to have thick skin
and not care what they talk about.

I've had a lot of mental training

and I've spent
many years meditating.

And I used to stay in a monastery.

I learned a lot about
how to try to kill the ego,

or even
just work around the ego.

And, because of that, words
from other people attacking me

or saying terrible things about me
does not bother me at all.

So, I usually avoid drama
as much as I can.

It's just high stress,
and I don't need all that stress.

Excuse me, Pol. Yan...

So, who do you think brought
this Q to your apartment?

How did this arrive?
I just found it one day.

I wrote up a report
as soon as it happened, but...

Where was it?

It was on... Where was it?

I think it was just on my desk.
It was a long time ago.

I don't really remember
the details anymore.

And Q had posted at some point
that he was going to thank,

I don't know if it was
the creators of 8chan or the...

Right, he said he was going to send
a message to the 8chan administrators.

I came back. I saw it.

And I thought it was really weird
and I just looked at it,

and then I just posted it online.

I wrote, this could be something
or this could be nothing.

I thought it would be funny to say,
oh, it could be from the real Q.

And, weirdly enough,
Q never repudiated that.

I'm one of the Q proofs.

They believe Q put the Q
in my room.

But, it's not like bad gift
or anything.

It's a good gift for me.
I design fonts, so...

The Q is my favorite letter.

And it always has been
since I was a kid.

When you're a typographer,

you're always fighting between making
sure people can read the letter

and then your own artistic intent.

So, Q gives you the most freedom.

There are so many ways
to put the tail of the Q.

You can have it bisecting.

You can have it only inside,
so none of this part.

You can have it totally outside.

You can have it touching,
or you can write it as a two.

So, it gives a typographer
a lot of freedom

when they're designing a font.

And I'm not sure
if any other letter does that.

You do have an unbelievable
amount of Qs in here.

Thank you.

Yeah, this,
it's as if your room is just Qs.

Back when I first got
the blue Q,

QAnons, they would send me
Qs to be like, thank you.

'Cause, like, they saw
the blue Q as a sign.

So, not all of these Qs
are actually bought by me.

And, I never acknowledged
any of the Qs that came here.

But you didn't get rid
of them either.

That's true, yeah.

Do you think it's possible
that Frederick Brennan is Q?

I think Frederick Brennan
could be Q,

but having an object
does not mean

you are the person
associated with that object.

Example,
here's a MAGA hat, right?

Does that mean I'm Trump?
Obviously, I'm not Trump,

even though I have
the same hat that Trump wears.

There are a million of those,
and I've only seen one...

There are millions of Qs, also.

This is my man cave.

So, what goes
down in this room?

This is where it all happens.

I am Jim Watkins
and I will dance on command.

I do lap dances for 50 bucks.
You want me to turn this off?

That pen cleaner's about
the noisiest thing I've ever heard.

You can hear this?
I can't hear this at all.

And, so, is this where you log
into 8chan usually?

I usually don't go to boards
that are not public

'cause you get there,

and you get things
you want to unsee.

But you don't have access
to the Q board?

What is the URL?
What is the...

We can go to the Q board.

The Q research board
is hidden,

meaning it wouldn't show up
on 8chan's main page.

You had to know where to look.

You could be directed there
by a link from another site,

or type Q research
into the browser.

Q...

- Research? Q research?
- Research, okay.

It's weird that one of the most popular
things on 8chan and you're like...

But how would I know it's the
most popular thing? It's not listed.

Q has something like 2500 posts
at this point.

- Have you read them all?
- I read a lot of them.

Tell me about it
and I'll tell you what my opinion is.

One of the big ones is that there's
all these sealed indictments.

Hilary and John McCain,
they're all arrested already

and wearing ankle bracelets.

That's possible. I think they have
secret courts in America, don't they?

November 11th was supposed
to be this big day.

11-11. That's one, one, one, one.

One more one
if you count the one in the 18.

But, everything
that Q has said has come true

in some potential future.

And all of those unlimited futures
have or are happening.

Just you can only experience
one of them.

See, now you are starting
to sound like Q.

Obviously, if there's so many people
reading this Q research,

I don't think that this is a LARP.
It's too big for that.

But who it is and if he's actually
an insider at the White House,

that's up in the air.

Do you think it's possible
that your dad is part of Q?

It's impossible. Yeah, he would
have bragged about it already.

He seems like he would be good
at keeping a secret.

It's a big world, you know.

Maybe he's just some
overtired, overstressed,

middle GS-5
from the White House

that's like, "I got an idea."

Q's a big fan of General Flynn,
so probably someone really...

General Flynn? Yeah,
and he got burnt for no reason,

didn't he? Poor guy.

I found out more about it today
than I actually knew about it before.

I haven't been keeping up
on politics for awhile

'cause I I've been busy working
on important things.

He worked in the military
for awhile,

so I believe they do stuff
that needs to be kept secret.

What is a Q-level clearance?

I was in the Army 16 years and
I never had a Q-level clearance.

I don't know what that is.

Q, if he is who he is,

he would surely know
a lot about the military.

And my dad knows
a lot about the military.

Probably it's they're military
talking points, maybe.

When I was in the academy,
the commandant said

you're the most civilianized
motherfucker I ever let graduate.

It's possible, I guess, that
he could be Q. But I doubt it,

'cause he's so busy working
on the pig farm now.

Do you think it would be dangerous
for Q to reveal themself, or herself?

Probably, yeah.
Has he done anything illegal?

You can definitively say then
that you are not a part of Q?

I am not a part of Q.

Don't arrest me.

How do you think
you differ from your father?

How do I differ?

I don't, I'm not autistic
about pens, for one.

After spending several days with Jim,
something came to mind.

Pen board
usually has one user. Me.

Q uses a pen
to confirm its identity.

A 1500-dollar
Mont Blanc Starwalker pen

that supposedly belongs
to Donald Trump.

Q first introduced the pen
on December 12th of 2017,

then Q returns after the power
struggle on January 5th.

What does Q use to confirm?

That same pen.

Why does Q choose a pen of
all things to confirm its identity?

This is my hobby, yeah.
This is what I do for fun.

That is from France.

So, we'll let that sit
for a little while.

Are there a lot of pen collectors
out there?

There are millions of pen collectors
out there.

I love this pen.
This is my favorite pen.