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