I'm trying to find some good class based analysis on the subject. I feel like Matt has spoken about this sort of thing on his vlogs but its kind of hard to search through those to pinpoint a specific talking point.
I think it's a strong overlap with the anti-vax and science skepticism run amok in our culture. Very similar crowds, and the associated ideologies prey upon similar biases/epistemic vices. Gonna bullet point a few, and then just rant for a bit. Hope this winds up making sense.
- mistrust of authority based upon ignorance (and thus fear) of the field of expertise rather than informed/materialist critique
- a school system that under develops critical thinking skills and scientific literacy
- woo/pseudo-scientific explanations that lend a veil of legitimacy.
- in group reinforcement and encouragement
- tHiNk oF ThE cHiLdReN/superficial appeals to parental instincts
- moral panic/outrage
- hyper-individualistic/agent based world view; there's clear good guys and bad guys and that's why bad things happen
I suspect that upper-middle class white women (UMCWW) are particularly likely to have been socialized in a way that makes them susceptible to some of these. For example, this segment of society is maybe the golden goose for advertisers. UMCWW are often socially isolated and have PLENTY of free time/money. Ads will give anyone brain worms, but these women consume a disproportionate share of day time television, so they're really getting the juice here. Even the programming itself is often times just more advertising in entertainment clothing (Ellen, Dr. Oz, Oprah), but perhaps more importantly, absolutely riddled with woo and pseudo-science. Overtime I suspect this has just normalized those kinds of narratives in the minds of UMCWW and they're inadvertently conditioned to be more accepting of them. I say inadvertently because I don't think advertisers set out to dumb people down - they just gravitate towards the strategies that sell. Well, the more they preyed upon certain biases in human cognition the more it reinforces those very same biases, thus begins a positive feedback loop where advertisers are further incentivized to reengage those same biases. The problem with conditioning a population to be easily persuaded to buy (both literally and figuratively) bullshit, though, is that you can't limit it to just consumerist tendencies. That population is going to be more susceptible to ALL forms of bullshit.
Also, to supplement the dearth of community and solidarity in our hyper-alienated capitalist hell world, UMCWW are probably particularly active on social media. Again - may as well be factory farming for brain worms here. Algorithms drive clicks and attention time above all else, so the more shocking your claim the more attention it's likely to receive. This has lead to kind of an arms race in digital media to create the most addictive experience possible in order to, you guessed it, serve up even more garbage ads pushing the same shit as TV. However, it's no longer just a one way flow of information, advertiser to consumer, but a memetic flow of information amongst the consumers who are all viewing/sharing/discussing the same content. Similar to how people riff on existing memes, these groups will riff on their existing biases/uncritically adopted (and deeply problematic) ideology, and start ramping up the crazy. That's how you get these "healing crystal to anti-vax" pipelines.
So not only is Q shit's epistemic structure similar to the slop UMCWW have been marinating in for decades, but it's largely spread the same way too.
This is only one example of materialist forces at work here. I think there are other factors too, and would strongly encourage someone else to come in and give analysis in a way that they have further expertise in. I FUCKING HATE ADVERTISING, so I decided to focus on this angle for clarity sake.
Edit: Word choice, spelling, clarity, final blurb
Because QAnon is a religious revival movement and a lot of suburban white women are very religious
I think this idea is important. I'd like to see it expanded upon!
The entire cult is essentially an extension of evangelical Protestant millennarianism. The Storm and the Great Awakening (huge tell right there) are almost literally just the Rapture by another name.
Ah I do know that a lot of bougie white women are into woo and new age bullshit and Q touches on a lot of that.
Right, I'm aware of that. A lot of women into like healing crystals and what not are big Q people, but I'm trying to find the why behind it.
The complete absence of meaningful, non-hierarchic, models of spirituality in a society with materialism pushed to its very extreme, probably. That and the lack of local community.
Why is this thread the first I'm hearing of "woo", and it's in every dang comment?
Because one is most likely to have encountered it through RationalWiki, which is a nexus of libshittery. According to them the term comes from use by writers in the 90s as a put-down.
Pseudoscience/spirituality stuff, like healing crystals or essential oils.
It's not called woo by supporters (at least as far as I'm aware), and I'd guess the name comes from the sound you imagine people make when they're doing "magic" (or maybe the sound ghosts make or something).
I've only ever heard it used in a derogatory way, usually for crap like ESP, telepathy, or ghosts.
I know a lot of white women who are into alternative medicine and woo spirituality because they aren't taken seriously by (male) doctors
I did a deep dive into QMom accounts on Instagram before they started banning them and saw a few patterns:
- Overwhelmingly stay at home moms in the exurbs
- A lot are in second or third marriages
- Often have a second cause they cheerlead, conflicting with their presumed right wing leanings. I saw one who was really into protecting national parks and another who wanted to protect bees.
- Disproportionately from the Midwest and Great Lakes
- Their kids all play hockey
conflicting with their presumed right wing leanings
Most people in america, in the world even, are not all one thing or the other. They're a weird synthesis and mishmash of ideas from all corners (at least those that have a relatively free flow of information)
I might have a hypothesis on this. Let me mull it over.
The hard part of this question is why there are so many WOC into Q
essentially the same reason. Q is like the ultimate false consciousness, in that it has an answer for any potentially radicalizing realization. It's a fact that the lives of women of color aren't held in equal value by the justice system as other lives. Within that gaping void of justice, one is freely able to imagine an epidemic of kidnapping, murder, and sex trafficking being covered up by an elite cabal, because it's not like the truth is much better.
I like the theory that Tom and Tarence came up with on Trillbillies: these are white women who have kids who are now late teens and into their 20s. And their kids either don't really like them much or they have values that these white women don't like ("you're ok with those transgenders?!"). So "save the children" appeals to them because it lets them forget about their actual kids and focus on abstract, cute little babbies like their own kids used to be.
At the risk of sounding like "women be on the phone" a lot of my theories on modern conspiracy movements directly correlate to social media usage through smartphones. I'd have to guess the online communities where suburban white women congregate are already full of conspiracy woowoo and reactionary ideology so Qanon is the direct leap there.
There have been suburban panics over the dangers of child abduction since at least the 80s and they never really went away. Qanon's just the current culmination of the various tendencies.
Simply living in the suburbs induces a hefty social illness, something I should really form into a real theory sometime unless someone else has already done that. Suburbs present to you a simulation of community, but that's not what it is. You're not forming a community with the people living in your suburb. You're forming proximity. Of course people can still make real human connections, but the implicit assumption is still that your neighbors might be freaks so you build fences for privacy, get a private security company to respond to alarms, and you attempt to have the nicest yard in town. You're a competitor with and defender against these people you live around, yet they're supposed to share something with you. It's an illusion of community which must necessarily fertilize conspiracy mindsets, since you can't even trust your own neighbors.
We need to index all the topics in all the cushvlogs, not only because it would be nice to be able to find specific things, but also because writing out all the things Matt talks about would likely provide further proof to his insanity
This is how modern theory starts lol. Some crank gets their ramblings systematized, and then the rough edges and wrinkles of live speech get ironed out into the written word.
Cool project for a community that actually regularly engages with the content. Don't let your dreams be dreams comrade, go make that praxis reality. I'd offer to help but I've only seen a select few.
Matt is actually in the process of ironing out his own wrinkles by writing a book
It's alienation from the species-being all the way down if I had to give a starting point.
What else do they have to do?
They are just as alienated. What's a wine mom if not a functional alcoholic
