I mean, as long as I’m going to be a Daring Fireball re-link site (apparently)…here’s a relink from early September.
“The shorthand largely stuck. But QAnon is much more complicated and convoluted — and dangerous — than other conspiracy theories. The QAnon belief system has inspired violence and crime across the United States, leading the FBI to label it a domestic terrorism threat in 2019.
The editors at BuzzFeed News have become uneasy about using conspiracy theory to describe QAnon, which has grown to encompass a whole alternative world of beliefs and signals. The copydesk has to stay on top of language and note when terms become stale and reductive; QAnon has shifted, and so should how we write about it.
QAnon is a collective delusion, and that’s what BuzzFeed News will be calling it from now on.”
Even as someone who has built a career on the Internet, I’m wary of what it has become.