They often seem angry about the state of the world and their place in it. Conversely, they get a special pleasure in the knowledge they think Q has shared with them, reveling in the secrets that set them apart from the average person. As one believer put it to me with a smile, they know the news before everyone else. In a confusing world, a conspiracy theory like QAnon gives people something to put their faith in. “Many of them are perfectly normal,” Barkun said of conspiracy theorists. “It would be nice to say, ‘Well, they’re all crazy people,’ but they’re not.”
