July 20, 2021 • 20 mins
Today we’ll be looking at how Jim and Ron Watkins (who we think is behind QAnon) have moved on to start a whole new grift. These include Cryptocurrency, aliens, and Christian fundamentalism.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Q and On is now the most prolific online conspiracy
theory of the twenty one century. None of their predictions
came true. Q has vanished and the storm never came,
but Q and On is still alive. I'm Jake Hanrahan,
and this is Series two of Q Clearance, a podcast
shedding light on the ongoing Q and on conspiracy theory.
(00:24):
This is a production of Kudatar Media and I Heart Radio.
In today's episode, we're going to be looking at what
Jim and Ron Watkins did next. If you don't know
those two names, please please go and listen to series one.
But basically that's who I think through all this research
and talking to people, that's who I think was ultimately
(00:48):
running Q and on, writing the drops, posting them out,
spreading it everywhere. I think Jim and Ron Watkins were
behind it, so do many many different people now to
what they were doing. Next, we're going to speak to
Julian Field from the excellent Q and Non Anonymous podcast.
He's going to be speaking to us about how Jim
(01:10):
and Ron sort of moved off into other grifts after
Q stopped posting. Remember, they were the ones running the
boards that Q and On posted on so Julian just
for our listeners, Um, maybe you can give us a
quick recap on who Run and Jim Watkins are. Obviously
(01:30):
they have not had as much attention since the election
didn't bring Trump back. Yeah. So Jim has a history
in the army and he went on to become a
self styled king of porn, and so he made a
lot of money basically um unblurring Japanese genitals and then
(01:51):
reselling that from the Philippines to the Japanese, circumventing their
censorship laws. So he made a lot of money doing that.
His son grows up in that environment. I'd say Jim
Watkins is like the quintessential sex tourist kind of guy. Uh,
just just as a kind of sleeves bag who lives
abroad and has a million shell companies. And his son,
I think got pilled online red pilled you know, on
(02:13):
like four chan and and eight chan and stuff. And
they both took an interest to image boards and so
you know, they've kind of wrestled control of a few
image boards from people. They're they're accused of stealing one
um from Nakamura and uh. They they ended up with
eight chan, which they took from the creator of it,
(02:36):
Frederick Brennan, and you know, as a result, they had
control over the entire ecosystem in which Q verified itself
and also posted so many Now, you know, with the
information that came out with the HBO documentary and other, um,
other pieces of evidence, many people believe that Ron has
(02:56):
at least posted as Q a few times, if not
a lot. Once you know, Q moved to the specific
message boards or the specific channels on eight Chan that
that were UM that basically allowed Ron to become the
soul verifier for Q. And that's that's what, at the
end of the day we have real proof of is
(03:18):
that their custodians of Q, they invented the trip code
that would allow Q to verify who they were from
just being on ann that that uh, that that wasn't
really verifiable UM and so so now um Q stopped posting,
and of course you know they've denied it through and
through that that you know they were involved in that.
(03:41):
But I think all eyes are definitely on them, And yeah,
we could get into it a little later, but they
are no longer in the best of positions. You know,
they used to run a pig farm together and that's gone,
you know. Um So, I think they're both well Ron
is now in Japan and his father is in the
(04:01):
United States last I checked, because the Philippines did not
grant him naturalization. All right, Yeah, And you know, as
you said, I I also think that's definitely fair. Like
I think it's definitely possible, very very highly possible that
Jim and Ron were running Q and on. I would
put money on it, you know what I'm saying. I
(04:22):
think they'll probably writing a lot of the drops as well,
if not all of them. Um and a lot of
people have kind of come to this this realization, as
you have on your podcast, and like you said in
that HBO documentary, there's a lot more that kind of
opened the eyes to that. Um So, as you said,
they're no longer in the Philippines and they're not really
on the Q and On circuit anymore as much as
(04:42):
they were. So what happened, like, what did they do next?
What was the kind of fallout for them after obviously
Trump didn't get in and I think in December or
November last year, Q just stopped posting. Well, the father
is an interesting figure because he's tried to become essentially
a figure of you know, right wing information through UM
(05:05):
the gold Water, which was his website before Q was
even a thing. And so he's been you know, wanting
to be a disinformation like YouTuber essentially and failing over
and over at attracting an audience because he's not very
good at reading scripts. He's also you know, he just
makes you shudder just watching and listening to him. There's
there's very little um charisma there. But the Sun has
(05:28):
actually had more uh success, and what he did even
in the lead up to the election, when Q was
still technically posting, he built his own kind of Twitter
presence and became a central figure in the claim that
you know, the vote was rigged and and all of
these kind of efforts to to undermine the results as
they came in for the United States presidential election. And
(05:51):
so he he was successful until you know, it was
revealed that he was using one of these like boosting
tools from this white right wing operative and he was
eventually kicked off of Twitter. He has rebuilt on Telegram
and kind of pivoted a little bit, uh not in
terms of sharing conspiracy theories. He's still sharing them hardcore,
(06:14):
you know, like the CCP, you know, they they they
are responsible for the rigged election. He even dabbled in
like basically a new version of adrenea chrome development of
that conspiracy theory, a new Adina chrome. Sorry please what
it was like adren no courtquoit or some something like that.
(06:34):
So he was like, you know, trying to to write
deep lore on his on his adrene of chrome theory. Um.
And then now he's kind of like settled in And
one of the weirder moves that he's had is he
started this thing called alien Leaks, which essentially promises to
be the wiki leaks for you know, um what they
call disclosure, you know, like revealing the technologies or the
(06:57):
aliens or the government project projects or whatever. Her uh.
And he started it with one of the dumbest guys.
I it has to be another bit another troll, because
this guy, Tony Tiera, is just a pure dunce and
they're just kind of bumbling around on that podcast talking
about stuff. Um. Alien Leaks has already been accused of
(07:18):
of essentially just republishing public documents and then making a
little blog posts about what you should think of them.
But they're like already public and have been declassified long ago.
You know that their first thing was that I don't
know if you've ever read. It's a pretty fun document.
It's like that c I a thing about remote viewing. Yeah,
so they basically there's a great book called The Men
Who Stare At Goats written kind of about the whole
(07:39):
thing by John Runson, and it was essentially like the
CIA kind of thinking does this work? Could this work?
And just like plowing a load of money into like
a stupid project, right, like it didn't work or anything. Yeah,
which wouldn't be the first time he releases that, like
look at this, look at this, like this is incredible.
We were leaking stuff. We're just I'm just like Julian Assange.
But really he's had very little attention and uh, but
(08:01):
it is it's entertaining to listen to Tony Tiera, you know,
do like sub Joe Rogan commentary, while Ron Watkins um,
you know, puts out videos where he's wearing like body
armor and and uh like a cowboy hat and like
uh some sort of kimono. Honestly, him and his dad
have spent so much time streaming and creating crap content.
(08:23):
I mean, Jim Sor just did a few videos on
trying to cure his own ham. It looked like absolute shit, uh,
and he put the whole the worst condiments on it.
It was just a horrifying spectacle to watch him do
that kind of stuff. But I think their whole thing is,
you know, that that new thing for censorship where it's
like the first two minutes or three minutes of the
video won't have anything weird in it, and then and
(08:45):
then they'll be like, okay, now we can talk about
Q and on or something like that. I feel like
that's their approach to all their communications, just put out weird,
wacky white noise. In a way, it's a bit like
Operation mind Fuck. Uh. You know the idea that, um,
if you always look like you're clowning, if you always
look like it's a bit if it's very hard to
(09:05):
take you seriously because you're so ridiculous, then when you
really want to do an op, when you really want
to get something done, it also looks ridiculous. And it's
they think it disarms the enemy. You know. I'm sure
they fucking would quote Sunsu or some dumb sh it,
but yeah, essentially, like that's what they do they just
pump the air full of nonsense. They hire some of
the dumbest possible people, like they must have picked them
(09:26):
because they're perfect Patsy's um and so yeah, that's that's
just their path right now. I think I think it
hurts a little bit. They never made any money. Um,
they can't really say it's them, even though Ron like
kind of still revels in the in the kind of
knowledge of others that you know, they come to him
for that stuff. But you know, there's not that much
pay pay out in the end, and January six wasn't
(09:49):
quite the effort post I think they wanted it to be.
So it's a it's a bit of an uncertain future
for those two. But I can't imagine they won't be
getting up to more bad stuff. I mean, they they've
had so many I don't know, if you're familiar with
susu coin. They took a fork of an existing cryptocurrency,
and so they just took like an existing platform and
they kind of customized it and made a new one.
(10:10):
And they were like, Okay, so this is susu coin,
and it's going to be a way to post and
never be censored because the post will be text you know,
in the transactions of the blockchain or whatever. Um. So
it was gonna make like essentially a decentralized message board
that would you could never take down, like you know,
it was the Jews or whatever posts they want to
put put up, um and and it never really took off.
(10:33):
But they had this the mascot for it was a
clearly like underage kind of lolly character, and they made
a whole bio for her where they're like, she's twenty
one and like making all these jokes and stuff. So
it's just like always like that, right. You know. Jim
makes a company called is It Wet Yet? Jim runs
(10:56):
a show on his Terrible Tour of three or Tiger
Network or whatever it's called. Uh, they're kind of attempt
at doing a streaming slash YouTube platform, and his show
is called like the Ship Ahoy The Ship Show. Like
everything is dumb. It's like, you know, he dresses up
in like stupid costumes or will wear like a Sesame
Street T shirt and just talk about that and then
(11:16):
he'll you know, even though he's never really Christian in
any way by any accounts, he's he's you know, reading
the Bible and singing, uh, you know, songs and stuff.
It's just bizarre. Honestly, they're real creepy. Yeah, it always
been creepy, and I think it's worth mentioning as well.
For a time there was literally child sexual abuse images
(11:38):
being shared on one of Jim and Run's message boards, right,
oh yeah, there were whole communities dedicated to to that
kind of stuff. That was very common on almost all
Chan boards. Four Chan had issues with it, certainly, h
Chan uh, you know, with its even more lax rules,
you know, had issues with that. And then of course
they used to run like this big porn pire in
(12:00):
which they would use endless keywords generated probably automatically, but
the result is that, um, some of Jim's old websites
like would have extensions that that you know, that would
be basically references to child pornography. So you know, they're
not squeamish. You know, Ron rolls around in his car
playing porn on the screen in his car, and you
(12:21):
know that that is the x King of porn. So
you know, I don't really buy their rebrand as Christian patriots,
but it's certainly I don't think that either of them
are particularly horrified by um, child pornography. Nor were they
or are they about? You know, extreme neo nazis doing
actual uh you know what they call effort posting, like
(12:41):
basically preparing for an operation where you would actually hurt
or kill people and having people cheer you on. You know,
that was a recurring problem with their boards as well. Yeah,
very very disgusting. So we've got um, We've got Jim.
He's curing ham on YouTube. He's trying to launch is
weird far right Christian fundamentalist type streaming platform. His son
(13:05):
Ron is now doubling in Alien Leaks and was quite
a big proponent, saying that the voting machines were rigged
during the election. They've also started up this weird cryptocurrency.
Um have they said anything about q and on? Have
they kind of just distanced themselves from it? What? How
(13:28):
have they dealt with all that in the fallout from it? Well,
you know, as in the HBO documentary, they just keep
saying we are not I am not quing on. You know.
And Ron even in that latest video, which is I
have to admit shot quite well, got some soft light going.
It feels like maybe, um, I don't know, probably just
a filter at this point with technology, but you know,
it's got a certain genessiqua like you're you're looking at
(13:51):
the water, it's peaceful, there's trees, and then he's dressed
like an absolute moron, like you know, kind of on
a rock and saying stuff like you know, I am
not Q, I'm not Q and on. So I think
that's the bit that they're gonna stick with. It's just
like it wasn't us. But I think they also desperately
want people to know that they had power briefly even
(14:13):
or that they you know, that they did this, that
they successfully did possibly the biggest troll in history. Yeah, yeah,
I think what makes you think that, what makes you
think that they want people to know? Is it the
kind of I'll be honest, I've seen some of the
videos and it's it does feel almost as if they're
being like wink wink, nude nudge, it wasn't us. You
(14:34):
know what I mean? What do you think I think
that they do? And they also know that obviously you
know that their their admission, their admission of it would
be tawdry and messy, but really there's no law that
they can be um prosecuted under it they were always
you know, operating essentially within American law due to the
(14:56):
way free speech works over here and and others such things.
So you know, it's like I think they feel safe.
They feel safe. Jim feels backed by history. He often
makes like long soliloquizing fucking speeches where he's talking about
you know, ancient colonial raiders and how it was actually
great that they did genesize and stuff. So it's like
(15:17):
he feels like, you know what, I have the weight
of history behind me, and it didn't happen this time,
but at least we've accelerated what we're looking for, which
I believe is, you know, the kind of ethno state
race war style UM endpoint for them. Yeah. Yeah, it
wouldn't surprise me from from what they say and what
they've been behind and what they've allowed to kind of
breed on their platforms. I think that's pretty accurate. Um.
(15:40):
So that's what Jim and Ron got up to next,
in terms of Q and on, where do you see
all this heading? You know, like, you guys have been
doing this a lot longer than me. You've you've delved deep,
deep into this from your point of view, where do
you see Q and on heading right now. I know
you can't you know, predict the future, but you must
have some idea. Well, you know, I mean QUIN was
always de centralized, and I think that that was the
(16:01):
model that allowed it to proliferate. So well, is that
the people really carrying the signal for most uh kind
of Uh. Most of those coming into the movement have
been interpreters or Q tubers and all this stuff. So
you know, they all start their own grifts. They are
fighting uh new voices like ghost Ezra, who's like an
(16:21):
open neo Nazi essentially at this point, uh and has
and you know, we don't know who that person is,
and they've gathered a big following on telegram. So there's jealousy,
there's breaking apart. But for the beliefs, I like to
see it in a different way because you know, again
there's no leader to this movement. Q is basically a
non nonperson, you know, just it's a way of being,
(16:42):
it's a way of thinking. UM. And the people who
are done with this, some of them will go Okay,
I was duped, but very few most people will double
down or continue to have the beliefs that were under
the umbrella of Q. And on, even though they won't
use the name anymore. Uh. You know. A perfect example
is recently a sepack you know. Uh, a journalist Zach
(17:03):
Patrizo would kind of like he was going up to
people with Q T shirts because he was seeing them
walking around. And one time, you know, one of the
people was this woman wearing this big Q T shirt.
He goes up to her with the mike and she's
just covering up the T shirt and just running away,
you know. So it's like weird because they want to
be like we are Q and on, but they they
(17:23):
know also and they've been told by Q that it
looks bad at this point. So I think we're going
to see a proliferation of the same birchue right far right,
uh like anti communist fever dreamshit, and the same kind
of like racist, xenophobic, you know, the whole you know,
antic submitic. Obviously, all of these conspiracy theories will continue.
(17:44):
Right now, there are um anyone's to marshall if Trump
comes back or whoever whatever figure is able to kind
of electrify the right. I think what we know now
is that you can't ignore these people that you now
have a part of the gop base that believe these things,
whether you label them as Q and on or not,
and believe new things that they're making up after Q
stop posted that they're all kind of crowdsourcing. They've learned.
(18:07):
It's like teach a man to fish, you know, Q
taught them to fish. Q taught them how to fish.
I think that is one of the best ways of
summing up how Ron and Jim Watkins very likely assembled
the Q and On army and sent them off into
the world. Now they know how to fish, they know
(18:28):
how to catch the fishes, they know how to keep
it moving. Just because Q is no longer they're posting
doesn't mean that this problem has gone away. And as
we've mentioned several times already in this series, and as
Julian just mentioned, their things are becoming more and more extreme.
Some of the top Q and On influences are becoming
outright neo Nazis and others that claim not to be
(18:50):
almost unknowingly doubling in these kind of conspiracy theories. Also,
Q and On is a big problem in America, but
it's also spread all across the world, specifically to Europe
somewhere you might not imagine it taken route though, is Japan.
Q and on has spread to Japan and it could
(19:11):
be a very serious issue. We'll be talking about that
in the next episode. Q Clearance is brought to you
by I Heart Radio and cou Data Media. I'm Jake Hanrahan.
You can find me online at Jake Underscool Hanrahan. That's
h A N A h A N. You can get
(19:35):
Q Clearance merch at dark wash dot net. This episode
was produced by myself, with fact checking and additional research
by Sarah Hiower. The music is by Sam Black and
the sound was mixed by Thomas Griffin at Splicing Block.
(20:00):
Humper boomp Ump boo
Q and On is now the most prolific online conspiracy
theory of the twenty one century. None of their predictions
came true. Q has vanished and the storm never came,
but Q and On is still alive. I'm Jake Hanrahan,
and this is Series two of Q Clearance, a podcast
shedding light on the ongoing Q and on conspiracy theory.
(00:24):
This is a production of Kudatar Media and I Heart Radio.
In today's episode, we're going to be looking at what
Jim and Ron Watkins did next. If you don't know
those two names, please please go and listen to series one.
But basically that's who I think through all this research
and talking to people, that's who I think was ultimately
(00:48):
running Q and on, writing the drops, posting them out,
spreading it everywhere. I think Jim and Ron Watkins were
behind it, so do many many different people now to
what they were doing. Next, we're going to speak to
Julian Field from the excellent Q and Non Anonymous podcast.
He's going to be speaking to us about how Jim
(01:10):
and Ron sort of moved off into other grifts after
Q stopped posting. Remember, they were the ones running the
boards that Q and On posted on so Julian just
for our listeners, Um, maybe you can give us a
quick recap on who Run and Jim Watkins are. Obviously
(01:30):
they have not had as much attention since the election
didn't bring Trump back. Yeah. So Jim has a history
in the army and he went on to become a
self styled king of porn, and so he made a
lot of money basically um unblurring Japanese genitals and then
(01:51):
reselling that from the Philippines to the Japanese, circumventing their
censorship laws. So he made a lot of money doing that.
His son grows up in that environment. I'd say Jim
Watkins is like the quintessential sex tourist kind of guy. Uh,
just just as a kind of sleeves bag who lives
abroad and has a million shell companies. And his son,
I think got pilled online red pilled you know, on
(02:13):
like four chan and and eight chan and stuff. And
they both took an interest to image boards and so
you know, they've kind of wrestled control of a few
image boards from people. They're they're accused of stealing one
um from Nakamura and uh. They they ended up with
eight chan, which they took from the creator of it,
(02:36):
Frederick Brennan, and you know, as a result, they had
control over the entire ecosystem in which Q verified itself
and also posted so many Now, you know, with the
information that came out with the HBO documentary and other, um,
other pieces of evidence, many people believe that Ron has
(02:56):
at least posted as Q a few times, if not
a lot. Once you know, Q moved to the specific
message boards or the specific channels on eight Chan that
that were UM that basically allowed Ron to become the
soul verifier for Q. And that's that's what, at the
end of the day we have real proof of is
(03:18):
that their custodians of Q, they invented the trip code
that would allow Q to verify who they were from
just being on ann that that uh, that that wasn't
really verifiable UM and so so now um Q stopped posting,
and of course you know they've denied it through and
through that that you know they were involved in that.
(03:41):
But I think all eyes are definitely on them, And yeah,
we could get into it a little later, but they
are no longer in the best of positions. You know,
they used to run a pig farm together and that's gone,
you know. Um So, I think they're both well Ron
is now in Japan and his father is in the
(04:01):
United States last I checked, because the Philippines did not
grant him naturalization. All right, Yeah, And you know, as
you said, I I also think that's definitely fair. Like
I think it's definitely possible, very very highly possible that
Jim and Ron were running Q and on. I would
put money on it, you know what I'm saying. I
(04:22):
think they'll probably writing a lot of the drops as well,
if not all of them. Um and a lot of
people have kind of come to this this realization, as
you have on your podcast, and like you said in
that HBO documentary, there's a lot more that kind of
opened the eyes to that. Um So, as you said,
they're no longer in the Philippines and they're not really
on the Q and On circuit anymore as much as
(04:42):
they were. So what happened, like, what did they do next?
What was the kind of fallout for them after obviously
Trump didn't get in and I think in December or
November last year, Q just stopped posting. Well, the father
is an interesting figure because he's tried to become essentially
a figure of you know, right wing information through UM
(05:05):
the gold Water, which was his website before Q was
even a thing. And so he's been you know, wanting
to be a disinformation like YouTuber essentially and failing over
and over at attracting an audience because he's not very
good at reading scripts. He's also you know, he just
makes you shudder just watching and listening to him. There's
there's very little um charisma there. But the Sun has
(05:28):
actually had more uh success, and what he did even
in the lead up to the election, when Q was
still technically posting, he built his own kind of Twitter
presence and became a central figure in the claim that
you know, the vote was rigged and and all of
these kind of efforts to to undermine the results as
they came in for the United States presidential election. And
(05:51):
so he he was successful until you know, it was
revealed that he was using one of these like boosting
tools from this white right wing operative and he was
eventually kicked off of Twitter. He has rebuilt on Telegram
and kind of pivoted a little bit, uh not in
terms of sharing conspiracy theories. He's still sharing them hardcore,
(06:14):
you know, like the CCP, you know, they they they
are responsible for the rigged election. He even dabbled in
like basically a new version of adrenea chrome development of
that conspiracy theory, a new Adina chrome. Sorry please what
it was like adren no courtquoit or some something like that.
(06:34):
So he was like, you know, trying to to write
deep lore on his on his adrene of chrome theory. Um.
And then now he's kind of like settled in And
one of the weirder moves that he's had is he
started this thing called alien Leaks, which essentially promises to
be the wiki leaks for you know, um what they
call disclosure, you know, like revealing the technologies or the
(06:57):
aliens or the government project projects or whatever. Her uh.
And he started it with one of the dumbest guys.
I it has to be another bit another troll, because
this guy, Tony Tiera, is just a pure dunce and
they're just kind of bumbling around on that podcast talking
about stuff. Um. Alien Leaks has already been accused of
(07:18):
of essentially just republishing public documents and then making a
little blog posts about what you should think of them.
But they're like already public and have been declassified long ago.
You know that their first thing was that I don't
know if you've ever read. It's a pretty fun document.
It's like that c I a thing about remote viewing. Yeah,
so they basically there's a great book called The Men
Who Stare At Goats written kind of about the whole
(07:39):
thing by John Runson, and it was essentially like the
CIA kind of thinking does this work? Could this work?
And just like plowing a load of money into like
a stupid project, right, like it didn't work or anything. Yeah,
which wouldn't be the first time he releases that, like
look at this, look at this, like this is incredible.
We were leaking stuff. We're just I'm just like Julian Assange.
But really he's had very little attention and uh, but
(08:01):
it is it's entertaining to listen to Tony Tiera, you know,
do like sub Joe Rogan commentary, while Ron Watkins um,
you know, puts out videos where he's wearing like body
armor and and uh like a cowboy hat and like
uh some sort of kimono. Honestly, him and his dad
have spent so much time streaming and creating crap content.
(08:23):
I mean, Jim Sor just did a few videos on
trying to cure his own ham. It looked like absolute shit, uh,
and he put the whole the worst condiments on it.
It was just a horrifying spectacle to watch him do
that kind of stuff. But I think their whole thing is,
you know, that that new thing for censorship where it's
like the first two minutes or three minutes of the
video won't have anything weird in it, and then and
(08:45):
then they'll be like, okay, now we can talk about
Q and on or something like that. I feel like
that's their approach to all their communications, just put out weird,
wacky white noise. In a way, it's a bit like
Operation mind Fuck. Uh. You know the idea that, um,
if you always look like you're clowning, if you always
look like it's a bit if it's very hard to
(09:05):
take you seriously because you're so ridiculous, then when you
really want to do an op, when you really want
to get something done, it also looks ridiculous. And it's
they think it disarms the enemy. You know. I'm sure
they fucking would quote Sunsu or some dumb sh it,
but yeah, essentially, like that's what they do they just
pump the air full of nonsense. They hire some of
the dumbest possible people, like they must have picked them
(09:26):
because they're perfect Patsy's um and so yeah, that's that's
just their path right now. I think I think it
hurts a little bit. They never made any money. Um,
they can't really say it's them, even though Ron like
kind of still revels in the in the kind of
knowledge of others that you know, they come to him
for that stuff. But you know, there's not that much
pay pay out in the end, and January six wasn't
(09:49):
quite the effort post I think they wanted it to be.
So it's a it's a bit of an uncertain future
for those two. But I can't imagine they won't be
getting up to more bad stuff. I mean, they they've
had so many I don't know, if you're familiar with
susu coin. They took a fork of an existing cryptocurrency,
and so they just took like an existing platform and
they kind of customized it and made a new one.
(10:10):
And they were like, Okay, so this is susu coin,
and it's going to be a way to post and
never be censored because the post will be text you know,
in the transactions of the blockchain or whatever. Um. So
it was gonna make like essentially a decentralized message board
that would you could never take down, like you know,
it was the Jews or whatever posts they want to
put put up, um and and it never really took off.
(10:33):
But they had this the mascot for it was a
clearly like underage kind of lolly character, and they made
a whole bio for her where they're like, she's twenty
one and like making all these jokes and stuff. So
it's just like always like that, right. You know. Jim
makes a company called is It Wet Yet? Jim runs
(10:56):
a show on his Terrible Tour of three or Tiger
Network or whatever it's called. Uh, they're kind of attempt
at doing a streaming slash YouTube platform, and his show
is called like the Ship Ahoy The Ship Show. Like
everything is dumb. It's like, you know, he dresses up
in like stupid costumes or will wear like a Sesame
Street T shirt and just talk about that and then
(11:16):
he'll you know, even though he's never really Christian in
any way by any accounts, he's he's you know, reading
the Bible and singing, uh, you know, songs and stuff.
It's just bizarre. Honestly, they're real creepy. Yeah, it always
been creepy, and I think it's worth mentioning as well.
For a time there was literally child sexual abuse images
(11:38):
being shared on one of Jim and Run's message boards, right,
oh yeah, there were whole communities dedicated to to that
kind of stuff. That was very common on almost all
Chan boards. Four Chan had issues with it, certainly, h
Chan uh, you know, with its even more lax rules,
you know, had issues with that. And then of course
they used to run like this big porn pire in
(12:00):
which they would use endless keywords generated probably automatically, but
the result is that, um, some of Jim's old websites
like would have extensions that that you know, that would
be basically references to child pornography. So you know, they're
not squeamish. You know, Ron rolls around in his car
playing porn on the screen in his car, and you
(12:21):
know that that is the x King of porn. So
you know, I don't really buy their rebrand as Christian patriots,
but it's certainly I don't think that either of them
are particularly horrified by um, child pornography. Nor were they
or are they about? You know, extreme neo nazis doing
actual uh you know what they call effort posting, like
(12:41):
basically preparing for an operation where you would actually hurt
or kill people and having people cheer you on. You know,
that was a recurring problem with their boards as well. Yeah,
very very disgusting. So we've got um, We've got Jim.
He's curing ham on YouTube. He's trying to launch is
weird far right Christian fundamentalist type streaming platform. His son
(13:05):
Ron is now doubling in Alien Leaks and was quite
a big proponent, saying that the voting machines were rigged
during the election. They've also started up this weird cryptocurrency.
Um have they said anything about q and on? Have
they kind of just distanced themselves from it? What? How
(13:28):
have they dealt with all that in the fallout from it? Well,
you know, as in the HBO documentary, they just keep
saying we are not I am not quing on. You know.
And Ron even in that latest video, which is I
have to admit shot quite well, got some soft light going.
It feels like maybe, um, I don't know, probably just
a filter at this point with technology, but you know,
it's got a certain genessiqua like you're you're looking at
(13:51):
the water, it's peaceful, there's trees, and then he's dressed
like an absolute moron, like you know, kind of on
a rock and saying stuff like you know, I am
not Q, I'm not Q and on. So I think
that's the bit that they're gonna stick with. It's just
like it wasn't us. But I think they also desperately
want people to know that they had power briefly even
(14:13):
or that they you know, that they did this, that
they successfully did possibly the biggest troll in history. Yeah, yeah,
I think what makes you think that, what makes you
think that they want people to know? Is it the
kind of I'll be honest, I've seen some of the
videos and it's it does feel almost as if they're
being like wink wink, nude nudge, it wasn't us. You
(14:34):
know what I mean? What do you think I think
that they do? And they also know that obviously you
know that their their admission, their admission of it would
be tawdry and messy, but really there's no law that
they can be um prosecuted under it they were always
you know, operating essentially within American law due to the
(14:56):
way free speech works over here and and others such things.
So you know, it's like I think they feel safe.
They feel safe. Jim feels backed by history. He often
makes like long soliloquizing fucking speeches where he's talking about
you know, ancient colonial raiders and how it was actually
great that they did genesize and stuff. So it's like
(15:17):
he feels like, you know what, I have the weight
of history behind me, and it didn't happen this time,
but at least we've accelerated what we're looking for, which
I believe is, you know, the kind of ethno state
race war style UM endpoint for them. Yeah. Yeah, it
wouldn't surprise me from from what they say and what
they've been behind and what they've allowed to kind of
breed on their platforms. I think that's pretty accurate. Um.
(15:40):
So that's what Jim and Ron got up to next,
in terms of Q and on, where do you see
all this heading? You know, like, you guys have been
doing this a lot longer than me. You've you've delved deep,
deep into this from your point of view, where do
you see Q and on heading right now. I know
you can't you know, predict the future, but you must
have some idea. Well, you know, I mean QUIN was
always de centralized, and I think that that was the
(16:01):
model that allowed it to proliferate. So well, is that
the people really carrying the signal for most uh kind
of Uh. Most of those coming into the movement have
been interpreters or Q tubers and all this stuff. So
you know, they all start their own grifts. They are
fighting uh new voices like ghost Ezra, who's like an
(16:21):
open neo Nazi essentially at this point, uh and has
and you know, we don't know who that person is,
and they've gathered a big following on telegram. So there's jealousy,
there's breaking apart. But for the beliefs, I like to
see it in a different way because you know, again
there's no leader to this movement. Q is basically a
non nonperson, you know, just it's a way of being,
(16:42):
it's a way of thinking. UM. And the people who
are done with this, some of them will go Okay,
I was duped, but very few most people will double
down or continue to have the beliefs that were under
the umbrella of Q. And on, even though they won't
use the name anymore. Uh. You know. A perfect example
is recently a sepack you know. Uh, a journalist Zach
(17:03):
Patrizo would kind of like he was going up to
people with Q T shirts because he was seeing them
walking around. And one time, you know, one of the
people was this woman wearing this big Q T shirt.
He goes up to her with the mike and she's
just covering up the T shirt and just running away,
you know. So it's like weird because they want to
be like we are Q and on, but they they
(17:23):
know also and they've been told by Q that it
looks bad at this point. So I think we're going
to see a proliferation of the same birchue right far right,
uh like anti communist fever dreamshit, and the same kind
of like racist, xenophobic, you know, the whole you know,
antic submitic. Obviously, all of these conspiracy theories will continue.
(17:44):
Right now, there are um anyone's to marshall if Trump
comes back or whoever whatever figure is able to kind
of electrify the right. I think what we know now
is that you can't ignore these people that you now
have a part of the gop base that believe these things,
whether you label them as Q and on or not,
and believe new things that they're making up after Q
stop posted that they're all kind of crowdsourcing. They've learned.
(18:07):
It's like teach a man to fish, you know, Q
taught them to fish. Q taught them how to fish.
I think that is one of the best ways of
summing up how Ron and Jim Watkins very likely assembled
the Q and On army and sent them off into
the world. Now they know how to fish, they know
(18:28):
how to catch the fishes, they know how to keep
it moving. Just because Q is no longer they're posting
doesn't mean that this problem has gone away. And as
we've mentioned several times already in this series, and as
Julian just mentioned, their things are becoming more and more extreme.
Some of the top Q and On influences are becoming
outright neo Nazis and others that claim not to be
(18:50):
almost unknowingly doubling in these kind of conspiracy theories. Also,
Q and On is a big problem in America, but
it's also spread all across the world, specifically to Europe
somewhere you might not imagine it taken route though, is Japan.
Q and on has spread to Japan and it could
(19:11):
be a very serious issue. We'll be talking about that
in the next episode. Q Clearance is brought to you
by I Heart Radio and cou Data Media. I'm Jake Hanrahan.
You can find me online at Jake Underscool Hanrahan. That's
h A N A h A N. You can get
(19:35):
Q Clearance merch at dark wash dot net. This episode
was produced by myself, with fact checking and additional research
by Sarah Hiower. The music is by Sam Black and
the sound was mixed by Thomas Griffin at Splicing Block.
(20:00):
Humper boomp Ump boo
Host
Jake Hanrahan
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