The director of the HBO documentary series, Q: Into the Storm, Cullen Hoback, reveals in the latest episode who he believes the mysterious Q behind QAnon.
The documentary follows the rise of the popular QAnon conspiracy theory since 2018. The conspiracy theory began in 2017 and claims that former US President Donald Trump is leading a secret war against Satanic pedophiles in Hollywood and the Democratic Party. The entire theory was started by an anonymous individual who became known as Q. This theory has been supported by many people in the US and around the world, and QAnon followers were on the front lines when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6.
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Hoback says that after the documentary was in development for years, the person spreading this theory finally revealed his identity to him.
Hoback believes the person named Q is Ron Watkins, the son of 8chan/8kun owner Jim Watkins.
Watkins worked as an administrator for the website 8chan, which was later replaced by 8kun and highlighted the 2020 presidential election. He began appearing on right-wing news outlets and falsely claiming that the election was rigged to make Trump lose. He also regularly posted conspiracy theories. Twitter banned Watkins' account after the Capitol on January 6.
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As documented in Q: Into the Storm, both Watkins and his father continued to express their suspicions about Q's identity and even pointed to the possibility that he was former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
Hoback, however, believed that during a conversation in late 2020, he was able to confirm his suspicion that the creator of QAnon was the younger Watkins.
“I’ve spent the past … almost 10 years, every day, doing this kind of research anonymously. Now I’m doing it publicly, that’s the only difference,” Watkins told Hoback during one of their conversations. This was a reference to his secret identity as Q, according to Hoback.
In the final episode, Hoback begins to recount instances where Watkins feigned ignorance of Q's activities, while later revealing that he had a deep insight into Q's intentions. There were also images of pens and watches in many of Q's publications, and Hoback noticed during the filming of the series that these were two interests that Watkins had.
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Another piece of evidence that appears to indicate Watkins is Q came after the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter posted his intentions on 8chan that day. Once that information came to light, the site temporarily lost its hosting service. When the site came back up, Q was able to post immediately, something Hoback says only site administrators can do.
Also, as seen in the last interview Hoback received from Watkins, the latter accidentally revealed his identity, after referring to himself as Q.
Of course, it is not 100% certain that Watkins is really Q. The QAnon conspiracy theory continues to exist and still has many supporters, even though many social networks have banned its content on their platforms.
