EPISODE 106 | Suffer the Children: Pizzagate, Wayfair & the Seeds of QAnon
"Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."
In the world of the internet, this is known as Poe’s Law, and it’s especially applicable to the weird narrative Gordian Knot known as Pizzagate. The adage applies not just to how absurd some beliefs are, but also to the arguments made by people who hold these beliefs. First formulated in 2005 by Nathan Poe, it builds on a 2001 quote by Alan Morgan called Alan’s 2nd Law of Newsgroups, which states, “Any sufficiently advanced troll is indistinguishable from a genuine kook.”
And that is certainly the case for the wild story that “a hipster-heavy pizza parlor” (as they put it on their website) in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington D.C. is not just a fun family place with pizza, ping pong and live music, but the nerve center for an diabolical child trafficking ring that operates out in the open because they are protected by highly-placed pedophiles in the Democratic party. As an article on Cracked.com puts it, “This is supported by lots of very stupid evidence”.
The stakes of the fake narrative are so high that it’s become more than just true believers review bombing the place. Workers have been harassed and, on December 4, 2016, a heavily armed man entered the restaurant and started firing guns.
The story of Pizzagate is the story of how the conspirasphere went from harmless kookery to being actually, physically dangerous.
TRIGGER WARNING: Some pretty disturbing things will be talked about in this episode, so if the subject of child sexual abuse and trafficking is deeply uncomfortable for you, perhaps you should not listen. I mean, it should be uncomfortable to anyone, but you know what I mean.
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