This book is the brainchild of the director of Stanford University Press, Alan Harvey. After eight months of trying to solicit a manuscript about QAnon and either getting no response from journalists covering the Q beat (whom I—Mia—will not name, but you know who you are) or being ghosted by a prospective author, Alan joked that at this point I probably knew enough about QAnon to write a book myself.
He was half right. Having the opportunity to work with the most brilliant psychologist on radicalization, Dr. Sophia Moskalenko, allowed us to get this book finished in record time. We both thank SUP for turning this manuscript around so quickly. Thank you, Alan Harvey, Caroline McKusick, Tim Roberts, and Jennifer Gordon for your helpful insights and editing.
I want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Criminology at Georgia State University and especially Volkan Topalli and David Maimon at the Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group, whose access to the dark net allowed us to glean unique insights for this book.
We are beholden to the Minerva Research Initiative, and especially to David Montgomery, Rebecca Goolsby, Harold Hawkins, and Toni Haynes. My ability to write and conduct new research is directly correlated to the fact that Minerva’s 12-plus years of support has reduced my teaching load, allowing me to focus more on research than teaching. This research was funded in part by the Office of Naval Research Grant #13275485—SC1000013887. We do not represent the Department of the Navy or the Minerva Research Initiative; any mistakes or errors are exclusively our own.
The GSU grad students working on the project have been extremely helpful, and while we thank all of them, two in particular deserve special mention: Kristian Warpinski created graphic representations to help shape the models for “becoming involved with” and “exiting QAnon”; and Bhashithe Abeysinghe, in response to a text message late one Saturday night, was able to scrape almost all of Parler before Amazon stopped web hosting—generating a database of materials that scholars will be able to use in the future. We thank Cynthia Miller-Idriss for her support and endorsement of this project.
Having to explain the addictive qualities of conspiratorial thinking to my seminar students forced me to articulate convoluted and complex processes in a digestible fashion. To that end I also owe Kari Pricher, Sophie Varon, Susan Chun, Jennifer Griffiths, and Danelle Garcia a debt of gratitude for allowing us the opportunity to present this research to a massive audience—and, to Anderson Cooper, for being as obsessed with QAnon as it is with him.
I, Sophia, would like to thank: Mia Bloom, for setting me up on a blind date with an idea that I ended up falling in love with; Alan Harvey, for his visionary support for this project; Isabelle, Kai, and Erik, for putting up with Mom writing day and night for a few weeks; Kristian Warpinski, for giving my graphic ideas a digital form; Caroline McKusick and Jennifer Gordon, for helping to make the book a much smoother read; Tim Roberts, for keeping this unusually brisk production organized and streamlined.
Last, but not least, we thank our friends and their spouses for their friendship and encouragement.
We dedicate this book to Albus, Margosha, and Mimi.
Mia Bloom
Sophia Moskalenko