The QAnon Anonymous Podcast
is an ongoing American Conspiracy Theory and Politics podcast started in 2018. As implied by the title, the show was originally dedicated to documenting the QAnon Conspiracy theory, and the three original hosts started out "Anonymous," being referred to by their pen names; Travis View, Julian Feeld, and Jake Rockatansky. Early episodes analyzed the messy historical origins of the QAnon conspiracy, such as its close relation to the Satanic Panic, and what exactly it's adherents believed, with weekly episodes frequently going into detail about particular facets of QAnon and providing updates on new developments.
Since it's beginnings - and particularly since the decline in explicitly QAnon-related beliefs in the wake of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election - the podcast has branched out into discussing other misinformation and conspiracy theories, particularly those adjacent to QAnon and motivated by similar political beliefs. The show has also picked up three additional correspondents: Annie Kelly, Liv Agar, and Brad Abrahams.
The tone of the show is usually critical but humorous, with the hosts frequently trying to engage with their subject matter in a factual way, but without taking themselves too seriously. A recurring feature are "Jake Stories," comedic segments in which the hosts dramatically read a fictional story crafted by Jake that typically incorporates characters and elements from the topic covered in that episode.
This show provides examples of:
- Agent Mulder: The more esoteric QAnon followers believe in Satanic conspiracies that extend the lifespans of the hated elites through the use of Human Sacrifice, alien technology, or a variety of other supernatural powers or outlandish sci-fi style technologies.
- The Alleged Expert: Several of the podcast episodes go into detailed biographies of self-styled experts who are either directly or tangentially related to QAnon. One of the most notable of these was Christopher Hallett, a fake 'Sovereign Citizen' style legal expert, who got killed by Neely Blanchard, a QAnoner, after his bogus legal aid failed to restore her custody of her children.
- Angrish: During the Manclan episode on The Liver King Jake descends into this after hearing the Word Salad description of one of Brian Johnson's previous companies.
- Artifact Title: Following the apparent decline in relevance of the original QAnon conspiracy theory after Donald Trump left office in 2021, the show has increasingly devoted time to other conspiracy theories, cults, and conspiratorial thinking in general, to the point that many of the newer episodes do not reference QAnon at all outside of the introduction and outro.
- As Himself: Jake tends to write the guest of the week into his stories and have them voice his version of themselves. Notably though, Robert Evans, the host of of Behind the Bastards, aside from voicing himself in the Jake story of their crossover episode, would also voice himself for another episode where he didn't otherwise appeared as a guest.
- Awesome McCoolname: In one of the episodes, Travis discloses that his civilian name is Logan Strain. His co-hosts are quick to remark how remarkably it sounds like the name of a comic book superhero.
- Bad Liar: Episode 68 focuses on Prince Andrew of the British Royal Family's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and his decades of exploitation of under-aged girls, and the interview Andrew gave at the time trying to downplay or outright deny said involvement despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Annie Kelly and the hosts are hard pressed to keep it together, despite to the rather serious subject manner, while observing how Andrew gormlessly stumbles, fumbles, and squirms his way through said interview and simply cannot string any kind of coherent or convincing lie together to save his life.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The podcast hosts have described QAnon as an Alternate Reality Game that a lot of mentally vulnerable right-wing people came to genuinely believe is real. They will dismiss any evidence that contradicts Q and take outrageous leaps in logic to 'prove' Q right.
- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The podcast hosts refer to QAnon as a "big tent conspiracy" which brings together all other right-wing conspiracies and any right-wing person that believes in a conspiracy theory. A particularly amusing example of this is the sound bite in the intro music where a QAnoner says, "like alien life, uh pedophiles, this just seems to tie it all together."
- The Comically Serious: Given how absurd some of the events covered on the show are, Travis calmly explaining the details while his co-hosts laugh comes off this way in some episodes.
- Dumbass Has a Point: In the "Real Pizzagate" episode the podcast hosts point out that wealthy and influential people really can engage in statutory rape, prostitution, and human trafficking while being almost entirely protected from punishment for it, which is also a recurring point Q makes. However all the details Q gives about this unfortunate truth are sensationalist nonsense aimed solely at Donald Trump's political enemies, when in reality there's overwhelming evidence Trump had friendly associations with Jeffery Epstein and other wealthy pederasts.
- Elaborate Underground Base: QAnon conspiracy theorists often believe the evil conspiracies have lavish underground complexes they use to hide the massive infrastructure that would be necessary to maintain their vast criminal organizations. The podcast hosts suggest this is just QAnon's way of Hand-Waving the lack of actual evidence they have for their beliefs.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Even a casual observer can discern that Q certainly isn't a Secret Agent Government Insider like he claims. The hosts and their guests also present strong evidence Q is Ron Watkins, a geeky and uncharismatic web developer who, ironically, got his start in online business through porn distribution and has facilitated the spread of extreme porn through his ownership of the Chan message boards.
- Donald Trump probably never had any secret Xanatos Gambit prepared to take down the Clintons and "Deep State" even when he was President of the United States. His indictments and 350 million dollar fines after losing the Presidency make it obvious to all but his most deluded followers that Trump isn't going to fulfill Q's "Storm".
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Instead of discussing QAnon or anything related to the Podcast's usual topics, Premium Episode 152 is a lengthy interview with Olexandr Serdyuk, a Ukrainian comedian who was the model for the stock image Travis uses as his Twitter avatar◊, as this situation had caused their identities to be mistaken.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The podcast hosts occasionally lampshade how ridiculous it is QAnon-friendly politicians like Lauren Boebert continue to show up to work with other politicians they accuse of being occult monsters and devil-worshippers who literally rape and eat children.
- Hero-Worshipper: Donald Trump and Q are practically deified by many QAnon devotees.
- Invincible Hero: One major distinction QAnon has from other conspiracy theories is that is contains a heroic conspiracy of Donald Trump and the "White Hats" (Trump's allies and the US military) secretly planning to overthrow the evil conspiracy in an inevitable victory QAnoners call "the Storm".
- Large Ham: Jake really gets into some of his stories.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: The hosts dedicated the "New Age to QAnon Pipeline" episode to several hippies and influencers promoting new-age spiritualist beliefs, after noticing that a surprising number of such people had gotten into QAnon, despite liberal politics being more typically associated with these types of people.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Of the three original hosts, Jake is typically affable and modest, Julian — while not outright mean — is quick to needle and laugh at his co-hosts, and Travis is usually more serious and reserved.
- Pædo Hunt: QAnon loves to label any and all perceived political opponents as pedophiles. This is also an obsession of Q-believing actor Jim Caviezel and the point of the movie he stars in, Sound of Freedom: the ostensibly true story of the real organization Operation Underground Railroad.
- Powers That Be: The Qanon conspiracy contains several most notably the 'Deep State' (the Clintons and their associates, as well as the 'three-letter agencies' of the US Government) and the "Elite Cabal" (anyone wealthy who is Jewish or has ever expressed vaguely left-wing ideals, or just anyone QAnon doesn't like)
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: A recurring theme of conspiracy theories discussed on the show. Most notably, the alarmingly common belief among QAnon followers that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his own death as part of a supposed multi-decade plan to expose the "deep state."
- Success Through Insanity: One of the most remarkable episodes of QAnon's impact was the murder of prominent Gambino crime family boss Frank Cali by an unemployed young man who was a QAnon devotee. As the New York Times put it, "Four days after pulling off the most high-profile mob killing in decades, Anthony Comello (the shooter) sat down with New York Police Department detectives and told them that the C.I.A. had infiltrated The Mafia. And, he added, the government was spying on him."
- Testosterone Poisoning: The main focus of the Manclan miniseries.
- Universally Beloved Leader: One of the major hallmarks of QAnon believers is a complete adoration and reverence of Donald Trump and the belief anyone who opposes him is part of an evil conspiracy.
