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Unlike video games, alternate reality games aren’t played on a console — they use the world as their storytelling platform. There’s no one particular medium. The story takes place in real time and seems to exist in the world. So game designers hide clues and puzzles in websites, apps and even newspaper advertisements. It’s a bit like a networked treasure hunt that turns the world around you into a game.
For Mr. Hon, that phenomenon resembled the dynamics governing QAnon. In a viral Twitter thread and follow-up post, he argued that “QAnon pushes the same buttons that ARGs do, whether by intention or by coincidence. In both cases, ‘do your research’ leads curious onlookers to a cornucopia of brain-tingling information.”
But specifically what caught my eye is that almost everyone who discovers QAnon uses a phrase like, “I did my research.” I kept hearing that and I couldn’t get it out of my head. This research is, basically, typing things into Google but when they do, they go down the rabbit hole. They open a fascinating fantasy world of secret wars and cabals and Hillary Clinton controlling things, and it offers convenient explanations for things that feel inexplicable or wrong about the world. It reminded me specifically of how people get to alternate reality games. Through these research rabbit holes.
There’s a phenomenon you mention in these games called “This is Not a Game.” Can you explain that?
“This is Not a Game” is the idea that the game is more enjoyable for players if we try and avoid to break the suspension of disbelief as much as possible.
If you were an adherent, no one would be able to tell. You would look like any other American. You could be a mother, picking leftovers off your toddler’s plate. You could be the young man in headphones across the street. You could be a bookkeeper, a dentist, a grandmother icing cupcakes in her kitchen. You may well have an affiliation with an evangelical church. But you are hard to identify just from the way you look—which is good, because someday soon dark forces may try to track you down. You understand this sounds crazy, but you don’t care. You know that a small group of manipulators, operating in the shadows, pull the planet’s strings. You know that they are powerful enough to abuse children without fear of retribution. You know that the mainstream media are their handmaidens, in partnership with Hillary Clinton and the secretive denizens of the deep state. You know that only Donald Trump stands between you and a damned and ravaged world. You see plague and pestilence sweeping the planet, and understand that they are part of the plan. You know that a clash between good and evil cannot be avoided, and you yearn for the Great Awakening that is coming. And so you must be on guard at all times. You must shield your ears from the scorn of the ignorant. You must find those who are like you. And you must be prepared to fight.
You know all this because you believe in Q.
The reason I’m optimistic is not that I think QAnon will disappear in a year but that something like QAnon is proof that people care and people like being involved in pursuit of truth. In QAnon that care and pursuit are dangerously twisted. But it gives people who feel unwelcome in lots of places a sense of purpose. You can make projects and build community that harnesses that positively. The same way bad actors can look at QAnon and find a playbook, so can good actors. We can find similar ways to motivate alienated people in a more constructive way. At least I hope so.
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