conspiracy theories

The Lonely Hyperpolitics of Conspiracy Culture

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Anton Jäger’s book Hyperpolitics is another one of those I’ve read, recommended, and will be insufferable about for quite some time. But at least that insufferability helps me gain useful insights to navigate the world.

To re-iterate Jäger’s theories, you can measure politics on scale of Politicization (how political are things) and Institutionalization (people are engaged with clubs, churches, unions, etc.). We had both Politicization and Institutionalization that built our world, an age of Mass Politics from clubs to unions. Our current age is one of Hyperpolitics, everything is political but we’re disconnected and our political movements aren’t that social.

One of the things that Jäger’s work keep has me thinking about is his model that our age of Hyperpolitics seems so lonely. Hyperpolitics, in Jäger’s theory, is an age of outbursts and politics but things don’t get better as there’s no building of institutions that bring such progress. We’re in an age of tantrum and outburst but not connecting – and I think that explains Conspiracy Culture.

Back in the heady days where Qanon began, it seemed to be all-encompassing. People would decode drops from the mysterious Q figure (who clearly was several figures, and hijacked by the owners of the website he was on). Conspiracy theories spun out and were drawn in, creating ever-expanding narratives. People made videos and guides and websites, and so on. Qanon was a project, it was a lifestyle, it was a club.

It may seem like a unique pathology but anyone familiar with cults, conspiracy grifts, and various extreme movements would recognize what was going on. Qanon (and its like) provided community and a sense of belonging. Whatever was going on, here were people that were on your side, and you could yes-and your way into any group or conversation. You could also feel effective as it did change politics, albeit in ways that had no payoff as people discovered.

Looking at that through the lens of Hyperpolitics makes it seem sadly obvious and understandable.

How many people attach themselves to conspiracy theories, join high-control groups, or create their own conspiracy fandom out of a sense of loneliness and frustration? In an age where everything is political and there’s no institutionalization, such groups can soothe not just a sense of powerlessness or need for understanding, but a need for connection. In the past someone might join a club or a union, or already belong to one and have a sense of belonging – but in the 21st century it’s easier to go online and go down a rabbit hole.

I wonder how much of Conspiracy Culture, especially in the US, is people who feel not just powerless or isolated and lonely. They get an illusion of the Mass Politics of Jager, a sense of community and of institution. They are still isolated and manipulated, caught up in Hyperpolitics, but the feel is there.

This is something that sits uncomfortably with me. I know that there’s so many grifters in Conspiracy Culture, that in the influencer age, inauthentic engagement is far too common. But that doesn’t mean people still aren’t lonely – and still aren’t take advantage of by people who are grifters AND lonely.

Of course in an age of Hyperpolitics, this might lead to a self-amplifying loop. People in a politicized age with no sense of institution and belonging create an institution – that just reinforces the extremes of the age. People seek camaraderie and change and just end up joining groups who are focused on further amplifying the political situation with their theories. Conspiracy Community may be community, but it’s still about the conspiracy, and that means the community keeps amplifying it, keeping up the Hyperpolitics.

Of course nothing much changes, because we know there are people ready to tap the conspiracy community for money and influence, but not to help the people within. It’s up to us to rebuild a modern form of mass politics, of politics and social institutions, because the future is otherwise a bleak string of tantrums.

–Xenofact

They Will Still Kill You

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When people discuss conspiracy theorists and political operators and the like, the question often comes up “do they believe this?” This question embodies many facets – a search for authenticity, a desire to understand, wanting to counter, and so on. Such a quest is often frustrating, as the solid answers elude us even as we delve in to peoples beliefs. We are through the looking glass and it feels like someone is laughing at us.

I’ve seen this come up recently in August 2026 as people once again ask “hey do these various racists in racist movements believe their extreme rhetoric.” The conclusion as of late – perhaps understandably – is “yes, these people do believe it and they will kill people.” But I’d like to argue that the conclusion is partially right and misses the point at the same time.

Before I’ve stated that there is a subset of people whose political beliefs are narratives about themselves – hero stories essentially. They do not so much believe as want to maintain a narrative about themselves. Their beliefs and actions are a juggling act to maintain the story and their own sense of identity.

Now I suspect a lot of people’s real political and spiritual beliefs are like this. In this performative age where the culture and the technology grinds at us to be Influencers one way or another, I think we all run the risk of being narratives without a person attached. But that aside, how many people actually believe the extreme things they say and how many, well, just say it?

It doesn’t matter. The question is not “do they believe?” It is “will they kill us?”

Yes, people who really believe something bad will kill people. We know this from all of human history. Good people believing something bad will kill people. That’s pretty clear.

But the people who are trying to maintain a narrative, maintain a story, the people with Influencer brain will kill you just the same. They may be worse because they don’t even have hard beliefs to change.

Think of all the people who live in the spotlight, who have turned their lives into shows and stories. They have to maintain their image or suffer a kind of living death as their egos are punctured. Their income may depend on weaving the right story to sell merch and advertising hits. They will do whatever it takes, change their story, alter it, add to it, or deny it to meet their needs.

Of course they will gladly advocate for the death of others. You don’t need some hearty belief that people should die to want people dead. All you need is a story so important the lives of others are just decoration, where your tall tale about yourself matters more than actual humans. All you need are people who think they’re main characters and you’re an NPC.

It’s not how much you believe, it’s how many deaths you’ll cause. When it comes to survival, maybe “actually believing” isn’t the first thing we should worry about. Maybe it’s “who will kill us?”

–Xenofact

You Had QAnon, You Didn’t Get QAnon, Because You Had QAnon

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(This is written in late February 2026. Please consider it a commentary on a period in time. In addition I am not an expert on Conspiracy Theories, but a follower as part of other interests, others have written and commented on this far better than I.)

In the second decade of the 21st century a kind of Conspiracy Theory community arose online around the persona of Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president. Christened QAnon around online personality and poster “Q,” a mysterious figure(s) who posted vaguely about a horrific conspiracy of corruption, child abuse, and more. It expanded, drawing in other conspiracy theories and past biases, evolving to a belief system with distinct traits:

  1. There was a global conspiracy of high-placed individuals – and most of them traditional liberals and figured hated by right-wing conspiracists.
  2. They were engaged in corruption at the highest level, and this included satanic child abuse. This in turn included feeding on “adrenechrome” from these children – a common chemical that achieved mythical status due to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
  3. Donald Trump and an elite group of military/government operatives were going to stop this.
  4. Some of this veered into aliens, time travel, and more as it integrated other conspiracy theories. It was extremely “yes-and,” almost a game.

I followed this Conspiracy Theory as it was having effects far off of internet message boards and family arguments, and because it was instructive. I saw familiar beat after familiar beat, having lived through multiple Satanic Panics, integrating other conspiracy theories and beliefs I’d seen since the 70’s. Of course there was also the shadow of anti-Semetism lurking around as always in the form of re-envisioned Blood Libel, and one could see the potential danger.

Any reasonably informed observation of QAnon would be hard pressed to ignore a bloodlust straight out of the worst of human history. Dreams of mass executions, of military tribunals, of coups. A great revolution was predicted, a kind of spiritual awakening combined with bloody purges. Needless to say some people did not wait, and there were actual crimes, threats, and so on. The glee one could witness in QAnon and QAnon-adjacent communities was disturbing, and was a reason to keep an eye on it.

As the various permutations of QAnon played on, it absorbed the real-life crimes against humanity surrounding public figure Jeffrey Epstein. It took little effort to discover how this well-connected monster and his allies had engaged in despicable crimes, and dangerous “Epstein Files” integrated into QAnon. In time, they even took on a life of their own, transcending QAnon, a belief that Epstein was a kind of key to unraveling a Global Conspiracy.

In fact, QAnon in many ways had become mainstream, had become “real life.” You’d see many a politician or political figure reference it, if only obliquely. The obsession with the Epstein Files also lived on, even in the minds of people not as connected to the original QAnon.

Then in 2025 during the second Trump administration, after a year of dodges, publicity, and ultimately Congressional action under duress, some of the government’s information on Epstein was released. Heavily yet poorly redacted, handled by a Department of Justice clearly covering for Trump and his allies, the information was still explosive. As I write this it has spawned arrests and investigations across the world – except in the US.

And the result? Was there Satanism, was there alien technology? No, there were a lot of famous, connected, rich people doing assorted crimes, looking for new opportunities at the expense of others, and engaging in cultural and financial manipulations. Even in documents filled with black bars and selective release, it was apparent that there was conspiring by Epstein’s crowd over the decades, sometimes involved directly in cultural and financial trends.

You didn’t need aliens, Satan, or anything else. You had a bunch of banal assholes.

Of course, even with the limits of what was revealed, Epstein was deeply connected to Donald Trump and his circle, along with other figures from internet culture, finance, science, and so on. Some were already reprehensible before any connections were publicized.

The QAnon and QAnon-adjacent crowds – which in many ways had been subsumed into the Republican party – had a crisis. They could face the fact that there were really conspiracies (which anyone could have told you). They could try to ignore it. They could try to cover up for “their people” who had allied with if not been monsters – as was joked by some, “Epstein was in the Trump files.”

What I saw at this time was a lot of the latter two. Among people who followed conspiracy theories and politics, showcasing “covering for Trump” was a bit of a sport, in the “can you believe this type” attitude. Some of it was strange, brittle people saying words out of a mouth that wanted to scream something else. For some you could see the horror of what they were doing to themselves trying to cover for this.

QAnon’s theories were not real. But they were real in a different way. QAnon was wrong, but also right. The problem was they were the assistants of the monsters.

But as people once ready to “save the children” rushed to preserve some people from accountability for and association with child sex crimes, they missed an irony. They who had decried cover-up, decried conspiracy were now part of cover-up in their online streams and chats. They needed their internet clicks and merch sales, and so would suddenly try to cover for some of Epstein’s associates.

QAnon and it’s allies and descendants thus became became part of the conspiracy. Watching reactions of various conspiracist theorists, QAnon or QAnon adjacent, was disturbing – to see people rush to defend people clearly involved in crimes they once decried. They were helping people they should have despised, but these people were their people and they got a pass.

Also, where was the glee at going after the sex predators and abusers of children? Where was the desire for tribunals and bloody vengeance? That too had faded, which was strange, because the utter joy at imaging the deaths of hated political figure seemed to motivate so many of them. Now where was that joy?

I think they had missed all along that their passion for harm was a sign of how bad they could get. These people who had claimed that children were abused, tortured, made afraid, and drained of vital chemicals were themselves motivated by the suffering of others. They joyfully awaited the horrible deaths of people they hated as part of a conspiracy theory that they then happily became part of.

Had they asked for a moment what they were, maybe they would have seen what they might be. They were the monsters all along, they just didn’t know it.

QAnon was a fever dream online of people who thought they were fighting a conspiracy that fed on pain and suffering. All these years later it turned out they were part of the same, covering for monsters and having never seen how they fed on dreams of human agony. For every conspiracy theorist and conspiracy influencer out there, one has to ask how many have always taken joy in the pain of others, and how much evil they will cover for their own needs.

Here now, as I try to learn from this, it’s a challenge as there’s so much. Academics and historians and psychologists have decades if not centuries to dwell on. Books will be written. Documentaries will be made. What lessons are revealed may we listen to, if only because we clearly have much to learn as we failed so far. I will assuredly write more.

But if there’s a reminder for me. The belief in an other means you can too easily become it or find you were it all along. Decide evil is outside of you and you’ll never see when it sprouts inside, never see when you’re supporting it, never see when you create it. You are so dedicated to a worldview, you’ll destroy it to preserve the illusion you haven’t.

It’s up to build a world where people are safe from the monsters, and hopefully that the monsters don’t gain power at all. Make sure you’re doing good before you decide to hunt evil, or you just might not like what you see in the mirror one day.

-Xenofact