Do other countries have conspiracy theories which are as popular as QAnon? Could you describe these theories and tell us how popular they are? I don’t know of any, but there are several possibilities why I don’t. It may be just that I don’t have enough knowledge of popular culture in other countries. It may be that the U.S. dominates world culture so much that American conspiracy theories are the ones that are most likely to become known around the world. It may be that the conspiracy theories of other countries are often about how some person or group in the U.S. is doing some terrible thing to other countries. It may be that conspiracy theories are just less common in other countries. What do you think? Please back up your statements with examples.
UK has people believe Princess Diana was murdered. Maybe by the royal family because she was dating a muslim.
Australia has a smattering of out-and-proud QAnon believers, among a broader community of climate denialists-anti-vaxxers who blur in membership with far right / nationalist / conspiracist believers.
Probably the main home-grown theory that is different to the US is that the legal status of Australia’s Aboriginal people, which allows some provision for land rights, is a conspiracy. It has [somehow] been put in place in a deal between the mainstream political parties, Aboriginal people and left. And its the reason those people who can see through the web of lies poor, marginalised and have shitty lives.
But mainly its just the same garbage as the US, and often using their language about sovereign citizenship, rights to bear arms etc, none of which have ever been part of our political set-up.
anti-semitic conspiracy theories seem pretty popular in the middle east.
CTs about vaccines being used nefariously (like the polio vaccine) have stifled vaccination rates in parts of Africa.
Speaking of the British Royal Family, Englishman David Icke believes they are actually the descendants of shape-shifting Reptilian extraterrestrials.
But David Icke has no political significance at all, nor do the (very few) Dianamaniacs,
As we are learning, there was and is no end of magical thinking among the Brexiteers, but that’s just about overlapping the normal range of political wishful thinking and self-deception. And of course, extreme or dogwhistled racism is always bubbling along somewhere, but when it’s in the open it has little or no traction in electoral politics, and doesn’t take on the fantastical (and - seen from outside - obviously manufactured) sort of allegations that I understand QAnon to peddle: it’s still the fringe, not the whole hairdo.
In Hungary, government-promoted conspiracy theories against George Soros are pretty conspicuous. When I last visited there four years ago, there were billboards all over the place demonizing him.
As the article below states, the main idea is that Soros has a nefarious plan to swamp Hungary with refugees. Half of the country believes this! A related idea is that Muslim refugees will try to Islamicize Hungary.
Anti-Semitism has a long history in Hungary, as does fear of Muslims (centuries ago, part of Hungary was under Turkish occupation).
Choosing to identify legitimate political debate as some form of CT is really not worthy - it amounts to a form of CT in and of itself.
A long time ago, there were people worldwide that believed Paul McCartney had died in an auto accident in 1966 and had been replaced by a lookalike android. They would scour Beatle albums for clues, most notable Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road. Not so many clues on the White Album, I guess. These people were quite fervent in their belief (and their drug use) and were certain the Beatles were leaving clues for them (Paul is a dead man, miss him, miss him). That’s what QAnon followers remind of, waiting for their Q drops of clues.
We have a range of Covid-deniers in the UK too, of course. Some are already well-known as contrarians, but there have been cases of some heated people going into hospitals to berate doctors and nurses, sometimes even patients, and sometimes even attempting to invade intensive care units in order to “prove” it’s all a hoax.
What I find extraordinary is the high proportion of care home workers who refuse the vaccine.
We expect there will always be the ‘contrarians’ but you would hope that those people would lean the other way. I wonder how long it will be before being vaccinated becomes a condition of employment in those kind of jobs.
The OP seems to refer to QAnon as a conspiracy theory, singular. I had thought that it was a whole huge pile of conspiracy theories. Which one in particular is being referred to?
There was an online discussion among people I know. One talked about such conspiracies as the following:
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The Sandy Hook massacre never happened. The school closed years before the massacre. The dead children never existed and were seen alive and well years later.
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The 9/11 attacks were conducted by the Bush administration, not by Islamic terrorists. A missile, not a plane, hit the Pentagon.
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The covid-19 virus is harmless, doesn’t exist, was defeated by President Trump, and is a deadly bioweapon created by a lab in China.
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Both of the covid-19 vaccines are deadly and contain tracking chips developed by Bill Gates.
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Hillary Clinton ran a child sex dungeon in the basement of a pizza restaurant in DC.
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There were Jewish space lasers that caused the western wildfires.
He said that this means that the US has become a laughingstock worldwide.
Whatever you’re going to call this collection of conspiracy theories, are such large collections of theories anything special to the U.S.? Or do other countries have significant proportions of their populations that believe such theories? (Note that none of these theories are believed in by a majority of the U.S. population.) Is it really true that the U.S. is a laughing stock worldwide? Or do other countries find nothing unusual about such a collection of theories?
Not really. Have a look at this Wikipedia page, which lists a lot of Arab conspiracy theories and, I suspect, is not nearly comprehensive.
In Italy a theory spread: Covid is a fake pandemia, Bill Gates is one of the world leader who aims to control humanity injecting people a microchip through vaccination. The microchip will be controlled by the 5G wifi system
September 11 was caused by US administration (during first Bush era giving money to Bin Laden rebel group than in 2011 exchanged the favor attacking them)
September 9/11 was organized by US administration to better control US population and drive their attention away from real problems. A very famous documentary about the topic rose a lot of discussions. The towers collapsed like in a controlled building demolition operation. All the victims are… I don’t remember the word to explain they are a necessary step to reach the final goal (something Machiavellistic)
We have some smaller national theories like the one accusing the Vatican to hide a girl homicide linked to sex parties hold by clergymen. In this theory also the Roman mafia is involved
Recent ones are about Covid again. The vaccine will deprive humans from their spiritual body part.
Well, sure.
Conspiracy theories are a human thing, not an American thing. Think of how Jewish conspiracy theories used to crop up in Europe, and I’d assume still might.
Much of today’s conspiracy theories are patterned after “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a Russian conspiracy theory.
Every so often I catch a glimpse on Facebook and elsewhere of an idea that a cabal of banking families (the “Jewish” is implied rather than stated explicitly, but often the Rothschilds are named) is directing world events to the detriment of the general population. Surprisingly, this is mainly a left-wing thing in Britain as far as I can tell.
Freedom for Humanity - Wikipedia
I was recently astonished to learn that there are still hardcore believers in this CT. On Amazon, there are a bunch of books (self-published, natch) about it, and you can read customer reviews from people who are 100 percent convinced that Paul was replaced by “Faul” or “Billy Shears.”
For my part, I remember discussing the “clues” with friends and family at the time, but none of us took it seriously; it was just a silly diversion, like finding Waldo in a Where’s Waldo book.
It was fun trying to play Beatle albums backwards without wrecking the needle. One interviewer told Paul how impressed he was that his bass playing continued to improve after he died.
Just about sums it up for Europe. No real equivalents to QAnon, let alone the large following.