Anonymous

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an “anarchic”, digitized “global brain” or “hivemind”. Anonymous members (known as anons) can sometimes be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta. Some anons also opt to mask their voices through voice changers or text-to-speech programs.

Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, India, and Turkey. Evaluations of the group’s actions and effectiveness vary widely. Supporters have called the group “freedom fighters” and digital Robin Hoods, while critics have described them as “a cyber lynch-mob” or “cyber terrorists”. In 2012, Time called Anonymous one of the “100 most influential people” in the world. Anonymous’ media profile diminished by 2018, but the group re-emerged in 2020 to support the George Floyd protests and other causes.

Wikipedia

This might seem a strange subject matter for me to tackle, but this post comes from watching a Netflix documentary called “The Antisocial Network: Memes and Mayhem”.

*with earthshaking, real world consequences.

When I was pondering on the meaning of the Beast and who or what the Antichrist might be, I completely missed the point: the Beast is the internet and the Antichrist is the angry white boys who use it to attack religious and political institutions and other symbols of hypocrisy, hence, the title of this documentary.

By the time Trump became President, the whole enterprise was hijacked by his followers, who saw the entity Q as their (False) Prophet. QAnon was born the day Q first posted on 4chan. It drove the anger against the “Deep State” (the Right’s ‘dog whistle’ word for everything on the Left) and ultimately led to the January 6th, 2021, insurrection, when Trump told his Ellipse audience to march on the Capitol and ‘fight for their country’. Now we’re living in a world where no one on either side of the political aisle in the United States House and Senate trusts the other side. If things turn out badly this November, there is a spectre of civil war looming.

And we wonder why. Here’s a hint.