Joe Rogan Experience #1710 - Cullen Hoback

1. 0:00 – 1:18

   Series launch context and the “Q-munity” lexicon

   1. CHCullen Hoback0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night! All day! (instrumental music plays) What's up, man? How are you?

   3. CHCullen Hoback0:14

      Uh, I'm good.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs)

   5. CHCullen Hoback0:16

      I'm good. You know, it's- it's, uh, it's ex- it's really exciting to be here. I- I... There was this... Right before we got rolling, I was mentioning, you know, I- I d- I tweeted back in April, uh, "Would love to, would love to, uh, go on Joe Rogan's podcast at some point."

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      Is that when the documentary series came out, in April?

   7. CHCullen Hoback0:32

      Y- yeah. So it, it, it premiered in March, like end of March.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      Oh.

   9. CHCullen Hoback0:36

      And then it was rolled out in, uh, two-episode-per-weekend installments. So it took three weeks for the whole, the whole thing to, to, you know, release. And, uh, it was actually really exciting because it was y- you had the audience reacting in, in real time.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CHCullen Hoback0:53

       You know, there, there'd be a week to see, okay, well, how, you know, how is the Q-munity receiving this, you know? How is the-

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Did you say-

   13. CHCullen Hoback0:58

       ... mainstream media?

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       ... "the Q-munity"?

   15. CHCullen Hoback0:59

       The Q-munity, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       You really said that?

   17. CHCullen Hoback1:01

       Yeah, yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       Is that what they call themselves?

   19. CHCullen Hoback1:02

       I mean, I have so much of this-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       (laughs)

   21. CHCullen Hoback1:03

       ... like lexicon now that I can't, that I can't avoid. It's just-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       Uh, it was funny.

   23. CHCullen Hoback1:07

       You know, I say it at the beginning of the series.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       Yeah.

   25. CHCullen Hoback1:08

       Like, it seeps into your thoughts. It really does, you know?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Right. Clinton, body count, right? Like you-

   27. CHCullen Hoback1:12

       Clinton, body count, 17.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Yeah.

   29. CHCullen Hoback1:14

       Can't, can't say that without thinking Q.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Right, right.
2. 1:18 – 4:37

   QAnon as a worst-case misinformation engine (and its link to Jan 6)

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:18

      Yeah. Well, it was, uh ... Y- it's really well done, I just want to say. You- you've- you did a fantastic job. It's really excellent.

   2. CHCullen Hoback1:25

      Thank you. Thank you.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:26

      And it's such a compelling subject. And it's- it opens up so many conversations on censorship, on t- you know, like, what is the truth? And how, how important is it to know what's, what's real and what's not real? It's a ... It's such a complex and unusual conversation that we have to have today about misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and this whole Q thing, which is just like ... It, it, to me, embodies the perfect example of what's like worst-case scenario if someone just started making up some wild shit. We, we assume making up wild shit-

   4. CHCullen Hoback2:16

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:17

      ... online-

   6. CHCullen Hoback2:17

      It's a safe assumption.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:18

      ... and got a- a- an enormous group of people to go along with it, and then they wind up attacking Capitol. I mean, when they, when they attacked the Capitol Building, when, when they stormed the Capitol Building and you realize like, oh my god, like this is literally like the wings of the butterfly create the storm, and then here it is. Like, a thing that y- looked preposterous just a couple a years ago, when people were talking about all the Q drops and all this like, uh, uh ... The people that I knew that are into QAnon ... Jamie pointed out earlier that a lot of 'em were the same people that are into flat Earth.

   8. CHCullen Hoback2:55

      Mm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:56

      It's the same sort of folks, like kinda, uh, without w- you know, uncharitable terms, unsophisticated, gullible, and into secrets-

   10. CHCullen Hoback3:06

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:06

       ... into finding out secrets.

   12. CHCullen Hoback3:08

       I mean, I would say that in my experience there weren't too many QAnons who were also big flat-Earthers-

   13. JRJoe Rogan3:14

       I can introduce you to a few.

   14. CHCullen Hoback3:14

       ... or maybe they had, they had, they had set that aside a little bit. But you ... I mean, you see in episode one, uh, Liz Crokin who is a big Q tuber, big sort of celebrity, um, in terms of like analyzing Q drops and talking about the meaning. You know, she ... I bring that up to her. I'm like, "Well, what about flat Earth?" And she's like, "You know, uh, uh, tell me any ... Nothing's too crazy," right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:35

       Right.

   16. CHCullen Hoback3:35

       You know, it's like... And this is the thing about Q. It's like, Q ... And I think a lot of people were attracted to this premise because it, it, it, it feeds correctly into a d- d- ... you know, this notion that we should be skeptical of things, was question everything. Question everything. You know, question whether or not the, uh, the Earth is flat. Question whether or not (laughs) , you know ... Uh, a- and in the beginning, um, that included questioning Q. And that faded away pretty quickly, you know. A- a few months into QAnon, you could question anything as long as it -you didn't question Q.

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:11

       Mm.

   18. CHCullen Hoback4:12

       And it was inter- ... You jumped right to, right to January 6th (laughs) , right, you know?

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       Yeah.

   20. CHCullen Hoback4:18

       Sort of the, the finish line. Um, you know, and I ... When I think of Jan 6th, like I don't think, I don't think it would have happened, um, without QAnon. I also don't think it happened solely because of QAnon, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:30

       I think that's fair.

   22. CHCullen Hoback4:30

       There were a lot of-

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:31

       Yeah.

   24. CHCullen Hoback4:31

       There were a lot of, um, uh, forces that coalesced that day.

3. 4:37 – 6:46

   Foreign influence, meme warfare, and free speech used “against” a country

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:37

      Yeah. I- I would agree with you, 100%. I think it's, um ... It's such a strange time, you know, where people are learning how to use social media, and then we're also aware that social media is heavily manipulated by foreign countries. Um, that they're ... You know, you're at w- I'm sure you're aware of the Internet Research Agency-

   2. CHCullen Hoback5:00

      Sure, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:00

      ... in Russia, this whole, b- essentially a troll farm that's designed to fuck with us-

   4. CHCullen Hoback5:07

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:08

      ... and very successfully. And R- Renee DiResta's highlighted this s- uh, really well. And, uh, it's r- it was really interesting to talk to her and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes with this stuff, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of memes, often hilarious memes, that get shared on, uh, social media, created by Russia.

   6. CHCullen Hoback5:30

      (laughs) I mean, can you imagine, uh, getting that job in Russia where it's like your job will be to be a meme-smith?

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:35

      Your job is make funny-

   8. CHCullen Hoback5:37

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan5:37

      ... with American politics. Good luck. Yeah, like what do you, uh ... Like, where do you start?

   10. CHCullen Hoback5:43

       Yeah. I mean, that was one of the questions I- I've had. When you're ... You're looking at something like 8chan, now Akun, where, you know, Q had been posting. And we talk about free speech on those platforms, and-

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:59

       (laughs)

   12. CHCullen Hoback5:59

       ... um, this idea that y- you know, anyone can post whatever they want, um, within, you know, sort of the, the limits of free speech, right? Like there are certain things which are illegal.Um, but does that protect people who are abroad as well? You know, free speech traditionally in America would protect American citizens, but in the case of the internet, you know, the internet is global. So that means that you can have actors in South Africa or in Russia posting on these sites, uh, protected under the same, um, same, uh, premise as, uh, as what Americans are accustomed to, and able to use speech, uh, against America-

   13. JRJoe Rogan6:36

       Hmm.

   14. CHCullen Hoback6:37

       ... in, in certain instances. So what you're describing, you know, (laughs) these kind of meme smiths, meme smiths in Russia are in some ways using f- free speech against us, right?

4. 6:46 – 12:28

   Algorithmic moderation, collateral censorship, and the problem of “truth” arbiters

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:46

      I guess. Yeah. I mean, I guess. I think what it's doing, uh, uh... (sighs) This is, um, a v- an odd idea, but I think what it's doing is it's forcing us to adapt and evolve our ability to dedec- to detect bullshit, and it's doing it almost like an immune system response. Like, what, what we're reacting to and what we're recognizing from all this stuff is like, "Oh, we didn't know what this was, and this has, uh, r- resulted in this riot, whatever you wanna call the Capitol Hill attack, and now we're looking at more censorship on social media." We're looking at, uh, you know, like, them trying to batten down the hatches and figure out how to handle something like QAnon or the people that were allegedly promoting these ideas, a lot of them that are banned from social media, the, the stuff that you highlighted in your show. We, we have to figure out what's true and what's not true, and so there's been some sort of draconian measures that have been, um, suggested, you know, like, uh, hiring some sort of a team that goes over social media and makes sure that everything is according to what they deem to be correct or incorrect, which obviously is y- y- subject to biases. And we're, we're very aware that that's going on today, that there's a lot of that going on today, where the, the necessarily a truth doesn't like... The Hunter Biden laptop story is a great example of that, right? Like, uh, the social media platforms, they censored news from the New York Post, one of the oldest newspapers in America, on the Hunter Biden laptop story, because they decided that it somehow or another it was propaganda, or somehow or another it was not good to get that information. But it was news, it was real news, it was a real story, and they decided it was too close to the election. "This could hurt Biden, we don't want Trump to win." So you're dealing with biases. This is not just like simply, "Here's information w- that we know to be true," or, "Here's information that we know to be a lie, we're gonna stop that from getting through." No, they knew it to be true, but they decided to stop it because it wasn't convenient or it didn't fit the narrative they were trying to promote.

   2. CHCullen Hoback9:09

      Right. It's very, it's... And how do you find a neutral arbiter of-

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:13

      Right.

   4. CHCullen Hoback9:13

      ... the truth-

   5. JRJoe Rogan9:14

      Right.

   6. CHCullen Hoback9:14

      ... um, if, if you are going to entrust someone with that responsibility? And I think that that's, it, it, it's just an incredibly slippery slope.

   7. JRJoe Rogan9:22

      Incredibly slippery.

   8. CHCullen Hoback9:24

      And, uh, and what all these big tech companies have, have, uh, suggested is that, "Well, maybe we don't use humans, maybe we use algorithms-"

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:32

      AI.

   10. CHCullen Hoback9:32

       "... right?"

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:33

       Right.

   12. CHCullen Hoback9:33

       You know, to, to, to moderate everything. And, you know, the algorithms had, had, that, that in many ways had bolstered something like Q because they're, they're basically, uh, sociopathic when it comes to just trying to drive attention as much as possible. So now they can kind of invert those algorithms and, and punish those who, um, talk about, uh, that kind of content. And oftentimes, even if, even if their goal was just to prevent- prevent, I don't know, conversation around, um, QAnon because they consider it to be problematic, what else gets swept up, what else gets swept up with that? Um, I mean, I saw, I saw a lot of people who were reporting on QAnon maybe coming from the, uh, the side of critiquing it. Their videos were being wiped out, um, you know, people who were documenting January the 6th, their content was being wiped out.

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:24

       So-

   14. CHCullen Hoback10:25

       People who are critical of QAnon, they had websites that were, um, sort of on the other side, that was being wiped out as well. And, and that's because, of course, it's, uh, it's sort of this blunt force that, that an, uh, an algorithm wields.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:38

       So people even, people that were analyzing the movement from a critical standpoint, people who are looking like, "How ridiculous this is. Look at this," they had their channels wiped out as well?

   16. CHCullen Hoback10:48

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:49

       So any content on QAnon, they just wanna erase it from the internet, es- essentially?

   18. CHCullen Hoback10:54

       That seemed to be the, the initial response, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan10:57

       It's, it's so strange-

   20. CHCullen Hoback10:58

       And, and, and, and-

   21. JRJoe Rogan10:58

       ... that they'd all move together in sync.

   22. CHCullen Hoback11:00

       I mean, I, I think that if I did not have, you know, HBO in my sails with this project, it wouldn't have seen the light of day.

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:07

       Really? Like, if you try to put it on YouTube, you think?

   24. CHCullen Hoback11:10

       Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, when we, even when we... So when we first released the series, um, you know, there was, there was, there were some articles floating around like, "Oh, maybe this is gonna make it things worse." Um, if I typed in Q, Into the Storm into YouTube, it wouldn't auto-populate at a certain point. It started out auto-populating and then that went away. So, um, yeah, I, I, I, I wouldn't feel confident at all that, um, you know, if we didn't have a, a gorilla in our corner, uh, that, um, that the story that revealed ultimately who was behind QAnon, uh, would've been seen, would've been able to find an audience. Um, and that-

   25. JRJoe Rogan11:53

       Well, shout out to HBO.

   26. CHCullen Hoback11:54

       (laughs) Shout out to HBO.

   27. JRJoe Rogan11:55

       I mean, they-

   28. CHCullen Hoback11:55

       I mean, they really had my back somehow, so...

   29. JRJoe Rogan11:56

       They've been amazing for decades, you know, you really think about it. I mean, they're the people that when Bill Maher's show Politically Incorrect got pulled off of, uh, what was it on ABC? I forget.

   30. CHCullen Hoback12:06

       Yeah, I'm not sure.
5. 12:28 – 18:39

   Platform censorship creep and the pivot back to privacy as the root issue

   1. CHCullen Hoback12:28

      You wanna hear something fucking crazy? So y-Gu- yes- just yesterday I was talking with, uh, someone who's helping distribute the film, and I said, "Well, what about Amazon?" You know, "Are we going to be able to put it out on Amazon internationally?" And they said, "Well, as of the last year, they have stopped taking documentaries." All documentaries.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:49

      What?

   3. CHCullen Hoback12:50

      You cannot publish a documentary-

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:52

      What?

   5. CHCullen Hoback12:52

      ... on, on their platform. And the reason was because, that I was told, (laughs) is because, you know, and there was, there was all this conspiracy, flat earth stuff, and they were, they were getting blowback, that eventually they said, "We don't want to have to decide what we-"

   6. JRJoe Rogan13:04

      What's real.

   7. CHCullen Hoback13:04

      ... "publish and what we don't, what's real and what's not. We're just not going to publish anything."

   8. JRJoe Rogan13:09

      Oh, my God.

   9. CHCullen Hoback13:09

      And the example they gave me that they couldn't get published was The Cove. I don't know if you saw that documentary.

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:16

       The doc- the dolphin documentary.

   11. CHCullen Hoback13:17

       Yeah, the dolph- dolphin documentary.

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:19

       Yeah.

   13. CHCullen Hoback13:19

       You know, it won an Oscar.

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:20

       Yeah.

   15. CHCullen Hoback13:20

       (laughs) And I, just to, just to check it, you know, I looked it up and sure enough, The Cove wasn't available on, on Amazon. So, you know, and those who said that there wouldn't be a slow creep of censorship, you know, kind of starting with things that I think everybody agrees should be, you know, they wouldn't like to be in society, you know, things like The Daily Stormer, or maybe a lot of people don't want 8chan, you know? It's a ... there's a progression-

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:42

       Yeah.

   17. CHCullen Hoback13:42

       ... you know, until you end up, it seems like, something like, (laughs) you know, The, The Cove can't find an audience on a, on a major platform. Um, and I don't want to conflate government censorship with the corporate censorship too much. However, in a lot of ways, it does feel like the government has passed the buck to these corporations to do what they legally can't, which I think is the same thing we saw the government do with privacy, right? Like, they wouldn't have been able to get all of this data from us directly, but if you give it to a Facebook or a Twitter, uh, it's very easy for the government to then go and get access to that information. So I think what we saw happen with the Fourth Amendment, we're now seeing happen with the First Amendment, where they can say, "Well, look, we, we couldn't restrict conversation around certain topics. We couldn't directly, um, decide what's true or what's not. We're going to put that in the hands of these companies." And of course, these companies have, uh, intimate relationships (laughs) with, um, with many members of, of, of the government, you know? There's a revolving door there. So I, I, I ... When people want to talk about what ... limiting what we can say online or limiting, um, disinformation and these other things, I, I think that it's almost the wrong place to start. I think we have to go back to the privacy issues, and I actually think if we had not let privacy be eroded online, we wouldn't even be having this debate. You know? Because if, if these gigantic companies hadn't collected thousands of data points on us, you know, didn't know our fears, our desires, um, if they hadn't built these psychometric profiles, they wouldn't have been able to manipulate us, use these algorithms to drive us into echo chambers, which have really created these disparate realities, and now these disparate realities can't agree necessarily on a set of facts. Um, sometimes you c- you're, you're considered, um, you know, sometimes people will be ostracized for even to talking to somebody from the, quote, unquote, "other side," right? Um, and, and so now there's this conversation about what should be allowed to be said online, uh, and I think that that's simply a byproduct of, of, um, you know, our privacy having been eroded. So, you know, if I was to do anything about these issues, I would start by restoring rights. I would go back and say, "All right, well how do we get," (laughs) you know, "how do we get, um, ownership and privacy rights, um, online when it comes to our, our personal data? Let's start there before we, we start, you know, going after the speech itself."

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       Do you think that the algorithms are designed to do this, or do you think that it's just a function of human nature that we tend to gravitate towards things that outrage us and then huddle up together in echo chambers, that this is just a natural tribal behavior, and that what the algorithms do is essentially just highlight what we're really interested in?

   19. CHCullen Hoback16:46

       They magnify it in a feedback loop, right? So you're right to say that humans do have these traits. Um, you know, and I- I haven't designed the algorithms, but I've also talked to people who have, and, you know, a lot of it, they don't even understand how they work at a certain point. Like, they're off to the races.

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       Have you seen The Social Dilemma?

   21. CHCullen Hoback17:05

       Yeah. Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       What, what'd you think about that?

   23. CHCullen Hoback17:07

       It's great. It's great.

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       Amazing, right?

   25. CHCullen Hoback17:08

       Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I-

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:10

       Scary too-

   27. CHCullen Hoback17:12

       Uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       ... the conclusions that they draw.

   29. CHCullen Hoback17:14

       Oh, certainly. I mean, I ... Yeah, I made a film about eight years ago called Terms and Conditions May Apply, you know, and that, that came out right before the Edward Snowden revelations, you know, and when it (laughs) came out, pe- uh, the initial response was like, "Oh, this is maybe conspiratorial. Surely the government doesn't have this much insight into our behavior and, and, you know, and access to, um, to our devices and our personal information," and then the Snowden revelations came out, and then it was like, "Oh, well, maybe the series didn't go far enough." (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:49

       (laughs)
6. 18:39 – 21:07

   Personal opsec: Signal, VPNs, and the limits of protecting yourself

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:39

      Do you do anything to personally protect your data? Do you, like, use DuckDuckGo for searches-

   2. CHCullen Hoback18:45

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:46

      ... and thi- things along those lines? You have Brave as a browser. Like, do you do that stuff?

   4. CHCullen Hoback18:49

      All that, yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:50

      Yeah?

   6. CHCullen Hoback18:50

      Yeah. Use Signal.

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:51

      VPNs?

   8. CHCullen Hoback18:52

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan18:53

      Yeah.

   10. CHCullen Hoback18:53

       VPNs. I mean, I, I do my best, you know, to... If a government actor really wants to get at you, they're gonna be able to.

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:00

       Yeah.

   12. CHCullen Hoback19:01

       I mean, you saw the NSO Clickless spyware-

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:04

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CHCullen Hoback19:04

       ... story, right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:05

       Yes.

   16. CHCullen Hoback19:05

       I mean, if, if there's a zero day that allows you to get access to a microphone and everything that someone's doing on their phone without them even having to click on a link, you know, it's game over. Co- of course, governments will abuse that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       Yeah. And probably are right now.

   18. CHCullen Hoback19:23

       Probably are right now, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:24

       Yeah.

   20. CHCullen Hoback19:24

       Where's our, where are our phones at? (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:25

       Right there. (laughs) Yeah. It's, um, it's interesting because you would think that there'd be a market for a platform that becomes bulletproof, and there have been some, you know, Linux-based, uh, cellphone operating system phones that they sell. Like, they buy a phone, you get a Google phone, they de-Google it and put different software on it and stuff. But I'm, I'm not sure if that's, like, if, if you're deluding yourself into believing that you're actually protected with that stuff or you actually are protected.

   22. CHCullen Hoback19:59

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:59

       I would think they could work around all those things, especially something that's... I mean, it's essentially, like, open source, right? Like, you, like, if it's a Linux-based operating system, there's some super geniuses out there. I'm sure they're gonna be able to hack into that.

   24. CHCullen Hoback20:15

       Yeah, I mean, I think with stuff like Signal, you're just, you're just protecting yourself as best you can.

   25. JRJoe Rogan20:20

       Right.

   26. CHCullen Hoback20:21

       You use something that's, that's end-to-end encrypted, you're doing better than 99% of people who are-

   27. JRJoe Rogan20:25

       Right.

   28. CHCullen Hoback20:26

       ... out there. You're making somebody really have to work to get access to your, uh, to your, to your stuff. And if you're using a VPN and you're using DuckDuckGo-

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:33

       Yeah.

   30. CHCullen Hoback20:33

       ... then you're, you're minimizing your digital footprint. And you're not as, you're not worth as much to these companies and they're not able to, to, you know, uh, manipulate you, I guess, in the same way through these algos. But let me ask you this. I mean, would you... What would you do about the algorithm problem? Right? 'Cause on the one hand, algorithms are necessary for something like a search engine. On the other hand, um, you know, they are, they drive the most sensational content, things like QAnon, um, and, uh, and I think have largely facilitated the situation we find ourselves in now.

7. 21:07 – 26:21

   Why Q works: identity, community, and conspiracy as an interactive game

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:07

      It's a really interesting question, because on one hand, for me, like, when I go to my YouTube page, it highlights the things that I'm interested in. And I'm... When I go to YouTube, in general, I'm interested in entertainment. I mean, that's all I get. I mean, I have a very boring YouTube page. If you go to it, there's a few political talk shows that I listen to, like Breaking Points and, you know, Jimmy Dore and Kyle Kulinski and a few other folks. Uh, and then there's some, a lot of, like, billiards matches and Muay Thai fights. Like, that's, like, most of my YouTube, so it's, it's boring. You know, it's like for, for the average person, there's not... It's not suggesting anything to me that's gonna be, uh, that's gonna lead me down any rabbit holes or... 'Cause I don't use it for that. I use YouTube for, like, "Oh, I got 10 minutes to kill. Let me watch something stupid." You know, "Let me, let me sit here and watch a pool match." You know, that's what I do. But if you're a person that is re- and I've been that person in the past, that's like in- that get- got into conspiracy theories and like, "Is this real?" Like, "Who built the pyramids?" And then next thing you know, you're, you're going down this-

   2. CHCullen Hoback22:17

      How do magnets work? (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:18

      Right. Yeah. (laughs) And you're going down this rabbit hole, and then that becomes your fucking life. Like, one of the things that, to me, was so fascinating about your, your documentary series was seeing into the lives of these people that were utterly obsessed with these Q drops. And it, it becomes a thing that gives life meaning when, you know, for lack of better terms, a lot of those folks in that documentary are misfits. Like, a lot of the, the, the people are a little goofy. They're, they're... you know, the way they talk about things and think about things is a little goofy. And when QAnon came along, it gave them something to latch onto that was bigger than them. They were part of a movement. And you see that same sort of thinking, that same sort of, uh, mental pattern in people that get obsessed with UFOs. You see it in people that get obsessed with political dogma. You, you see it in a lot of things. They become a part of a movement that's far bigger than them. It's one of the reasons why people get so invested in political candidates and, and political campaigns. It's not necessarily that they're looking at the big picture objectively and they think that this is... this, this politician is gonna be better for their lives. It's gonna... they're gonna highlight, um, you know, problems that we have that are... you know, you know, problems that we have with inequality or problems that we have with laws. But mostly, they want their team to win, you know. There, there's a lot of that-

   4. CHCullen Hoback23:51

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:51

      ... with a lot of people. They, they connect ideologically with a team, and then they get very tribal. And you s- that was a thing that I saw in that documentary. I'm like, "This is a pattern of human behavior." And it's... The QAnon thing just locked into it because it was secretive, it was interesting, the idea that Trump had this insider, you know, and this insider was, like, dropping all this information, that it was all going down. And in Trump, we had this guy that was gonna clean up the swamp. He was gonna find those people that were eating babies and, you know, and all that.

   6. CHCullen Hoback24:27

      Yeah. And it was a narrative that, um, that contradicted what people were seeing in the mainstream media-

   7. JRJoe Rogan24:32

      Yes.

   8. CHCullen Hoback24:32

      ... as well. And I think that, uh, uh, a lot of those individuals who voted for Trump and also-... w- gravitated towards QAnon. Um, they wanted to believe that there was this sort of secret story that was happening behind the scenes, you know, where all of these arrests were coming, where, (laughs) where, um, you know, what they had hoped would happen would actually happen. Uh, and I think that, um, I think you... I mean, you hit a lot of the big points there, but, you know. Then that's why QAnon is sort of part religion, part political movement, um, part interactive game. Uh, and it draws in people from the UFO crowd. I mean, it's a big tent for, for all kind of, um, conspiratorial fringe thinking or, um, you know, sort of strong religious convictions as well. I mean, you see a lot of people who are evangelicals who also believe in, in, in QAnon. There's a big overlap there. So I think it's, it's individuals who are looking for community as well-

   9. JRJoe Rogan25:33

      Yeah.

   10. CHCullen Hoback25:33

       ... looking for purpose and... You know, I, like, I spent so much time with these guys, right? And I would get phone calls, uh, in the middle of the night, um, where they just wanted to talk, a, a lot of times because they just found me to be a, a grounding force in their lives. And so I would, I would try to always take it when I could, um, and just, uh, give them, give them a, a more neutral perspective (laughs) versus, um, what they might be hearing, especially some of the QTubers.

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:03

       So some of the QTubers, like, they were going down these paths or these, uh, um, um, you know, they were in these rabbit holes, and then they would call you and go, "Hey man, is this, does this make any sense?"

   12. CHCullen Hoback26:13

       Yeah. Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan26:14

       "Am I out of line?"

   14. CHCullen Hoback26:16

       I mean, it's-

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:16

       'Cause they were wrapped up in it-

   16. CHCullen Hoback26:18

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan26:18

       ... and they saw you as an objective v- sort of voice of reason?

8. 26:21 – 31:22

   Influencers, ex-military validation, and Flynn’s embrace of Q symbolism

   1. CHCullen Hoback26:21

      I think so, yeah. I mean, I... You see in episode five the, one of the craziest things in the series, which is that, uh, these ex-mil guys, um, whether it's General Flynn or, in this case, General Paul Vallely, um, or Major General, um... Is he a lieutenant major? Anyway, um, he, uh, you know, he's using his ex-mil guys to, uh, seed his political agenda with these QTubers. So what happens is they suddenly have someone who is claiming to have this super secret intel reaching out to them and saying, you know, "Osama bin Laden is actually still alive. Um, would you like to talk about that on your QTube station?" And they're going, well, you know... And, and they're useful because S- someone like, in the case of Craig, um, and his site, Just Inform Talk, I mean, he had like half a million or more followers. So they're a, a useful inflection point. So he, he would be someone who might call me up and be like, "W- what do you think about this? Like, why are they telling me this? You know, what's, yeah, what's their motive? Should I, should I tell this to my audience?" I'd be like... (laughs) It didn't really matter what I said, he usually just ended up telling it to his audience. But I, you know, I would, I would try to talk him through it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan27:37

      Did you try to get a hold of General Kelly?

   3. CHCullen Hoback27:39

      I did not, I did not. The, the only general that I spoke to, and it didn't, he didn't end up making an appearance in the series, uh, just because I wanted to keep the series focused primarily on the investigation into who was behind it, um, was General Hayden.

   4. JRJoe Rogan27:55

      The Kelly one is interesting because when he's standing outside in front of his house with his family, he's like, "Where we go one, we go all." And they're reading the whole speech, the QAnon's speech.

   5. CHCullen Hoback28:03

      Oh, General Flynn.

   6. JRJoe Rogan28:04

      I'm sorry.

   7. CHCullen Hoback28:04

      General Flynn.

   8. JRJoe Rogan28:05

      I said Kelly, sorry. Flynn. That, that was... So did you talk to him?

   9. CHCullen Hoback28:09

      So I had tried, I had tried to get a hold of General Flynn and to do an interview with him. Uh, of course I would have. Uh, he was, he was going through some legal troubles at the time. Um, so he was not making as many public statements. He was not really giving interviews. So what you saw was his family, you know, Joe Flynn, um, Barbara Redgate, I think was her name, um, some of these characters who were in his orbit, family members who were kind of speaking on his behalf. Meanwhile, though, General Flynn, um, was messaging QTubers behind the scenes bolstering this. And you gotta, you gotta... He had like five million dollars in legal bills or some crazy amount of money that he had to spend in his legal bills. So, uh, he needed all the support he could get. And I, I had talked to, um, some individuals who had helped him in his fundraising efforts from nearly the, the beginning at one of these Q conventions. You know, and they said internally within the family, there was debate as to whether or not QAnon was helpful or harmful. Um, but ultimately they, they all gravitated towards it.

   10. JRJoe Rogan29:16

       So do you think he was using it just as a fundraising thing? Like he was attaching himself to that because he knew that they would support his, uh, legal defense-

   11. CHCullen Hoback29:25

       I-

   12. JRJoe Rogan29:25

       ... cynically?

   13. CHCullen Hoback29:26

       I, I (laughs) I mean, I, I do think that that's, that's a part of it, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan29:29

       Hmm.

   15. CHCullen Hoback29:29

       You have, you have an incredibly passionate base-

   16. JRJoe Rogan29:32

       Right.

   17. CHCullen Hoback29:32

       ... who are, who, who see... Most of them believe that Flynn was Q, right? That was the predominant theory among QAnons.

   18. JRJoe Rogan29:40

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CHCullen Hoback29:41

       Um, because Q was, uh, because Flynn was so central to the Q narrative. You know, he was, he was the, he was a good guy in that narrative who, uh, who warranted their support and was kind of, you know, working against the cabal. So you ask most QAnons and Flynn would be very high on their list of suspects for who might be behind it. Um, and it would not be until the last year in the approach to the election that Flynn would openly embrace it, doing what I think you were describing where he, you know, raised his hand with his family-

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:11

       Yeah.

   21. CHCullen Hoback30:11

       ... on the 4th of July and they all take the, the Q oath. (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       Whoa. Yeah, that was wild to see an actual general do that.

   23. CHCullen Hoback30:22

       And then you saw all of the QAnons doing the same thing, so then they went on YouTube and started taking, you know-

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:28

       Yeah.

   25. CHCullen Hoback30:28

       ... taking the same kind of oath. You saw how, you saw how much power he had really generated vis-a-vis QAnon. What's even more wild though is that in Japan there is a huge-... crowd that supports Flynn there. So there's, like, Q Army Flynn Japan. And there's over-

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:51

       No.

   27. CHCullen Hoback30:51

       ... like, 100,000 people in Japan who are, like, giant Flynn supporters. There's a, like a, it's almost like a religious offshoot, uh, in Japan. There's sort of two different, two different big primary segments there of QAnon. Uh, but one of the biggest ones, um, is, is really centered around, centered around Flynn. Um, and, uh, that, that's always shocked me. I mean, imagine if there was, like, a general in Japan who had a big following in the States (laughs) .

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Yeah, right?

   29. CHCullen Hoback31:18

       They, he managed to do that through 4chan or 8chan or 8kun or whatever.

9. 31:22 – 37:29

   Who is Q? Early suspects, the South Africa angle, and the 4chan→8chan transition

   1. JRJoe Rogan31:22

      Well, that was another aspect that I thought was odd is that how people in other countries, like the guy from South Africa, are so into American politics.

   2. CHCullen Hoback31:31

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan31:31

      Like, he ... I, I ... It's hard to try to get their perspective. Like, I would, I would imagine that it's just very different being there and looking at us. Like, I think America is such a bizarre anomaly in that-

   4. CHCullen Hoback31:46

      But America has so much influence on-

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:48

      Yes.

   6. CHCullen Hoback31:48

      ... world policy that if you wanna influence world policy, you influence America.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:53

      But it's so ... I mean, it is really unusual that we don't ... We barely know who the fuck the Prime Minister of Canada is.

   8. CHCullen Hoback32:02

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan32:02

      You know? Right? We know very little about-

   10. CHCullen Hoback32:04

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       ... Canadian politics.

   12. CHCullen Hoback32:05

       Yeah, that's true.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:06

       We know Trudeau, right? Handsome guy, see him on TV, a lot of Canadians hate him. That's what we know.

   14. CHCullen Hoback32:11

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       You know? I mean, we, we really don't know anything about all the other people. We knew about that guy ... What was his name? The, the one who was the mayor of Toronto who was out as fu- ... Ford.

   16. CHCullen Hoback32:21

       Oh, gosh.

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Remember that guy?

   18. CHCullen Hoback32:22

       I, I do remember him.

   19. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       He was doing coke and-

   20. CHCullen Hoback32:23

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:24

       He was crazy.

   22. CHCullen Hoback32:24

       Yeah, it just requires a big-

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:26

       Yeah, he was flashy.

   24. CHCullen Hoback32:26

       ... splashy story, you know?

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:27

       Yeah, it's ... You gotta be in the tabloids.

   26. CHCullen Hoback32:28

       Like black face or something that, uh, draws them out.

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:29

       Yeah, something, something big has to happen. But that guy in South Africa was fully invested in American politics.

   28. CHCullen Hoback32:37

       Oh, I mean-

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:38

       Yeah.

   30. CHCullen Hoback32:38

       Living and breathing in it.
10. 37:29 – 44:06

    Tripcodes, anonymity mechanics, and how Q became “verifiable”

    1. JRJoe Rogan37:29

       The Trip code, explain that and how that's a-

    2. CHCullen Hoback37:31

       On whole. So, it's, it's just a cryptographic function that allows someone to type in a password, um, a simple password. It, it's eight characters long, um, and they will produce a code, and that's called a Trip code. And this is a way of anonymous or pseudo-anonymously kind of identifying yourself. So, if I have the password, Q's password, eight character or so password, type it in, boop, boop, boop, it's gonna produce a code, and that code will appear on every post, um, that the password is entered for. So, this is how people knew that Q was posting. And in fact, the first 127 posts didn't have a Trip code, so there was no way to even know who Q was in the beginning, right? They, in fact, the ANONS had to go back and review all the, the old posts just to see, like, "Okay, which ones were Q? Which ones weren't?" So, like, the first 127 drops, like, anybody could've been coming in, like, LARPing as Q, sorta jumping in, trying to write in the style.

    3. JRJoe Rogan38:28

       Anyone?

    4. CHCullen Hoback38:28

       And the idea of Q hadn't even been established yet. I mean, Q itself, uh, yeah, anybody, any asshole on, (laughs) on-

    5. JRJoe Rogan38:34

       Like you? You could've done it?

    6. CHCullen Hoback38:35

       Yeah, of course.

    7. JRJoe Rogan38:36

       Yeah.

    8. CHCullen Hoback38:36

       Yeah, you could've done it. Anybody could've done it.

    9. JRJoe Rogan38:38

       Interesting.

    10. CHCullen Hoback38:38

        Paul Ferber could've been there doing it sometimes, but someone else could jump in, you know, kind of put on the hat.

    11. JRJoe Rogan38:43

        I'm confused. I'm confused.

    12. CHCullen Hoback38:43

        And lots of people were trying to do that in the beginning.

    13. JRJoe Rogan38:45

        Um, uh, uh, so, like, when you post there, it, you don't have, like, a screen name?

    14. CHCullen Hoback38:51

        No, there's no login, so anybody can post without having to log in. That's, that's the sort of, that's what makes the Chans really unique. There's also no algorithms on the Chans. But it's, it's if you're using a VPN, which I, uh, 4Chan makes that very difficult, 8Chan less so, um, or 8kun now, uh, i- if you go there and you, you know, you wanna just shit post and you don't wanna have it traced back to you, you can do that. So, that's why people, you know, it gives them this true sense of anonymity-

    15. JRJoe Rogan39:21

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CHCullen Hoback39:21

        ... without having, you know, all of their posts be logged and associated with their IP.

    17. JRJoe Rogan39:25

        But how does that establish a community, though? 'Cause, like, when people d- do, have, like, whether it's on Twitter or whatever, people g- uh, find people based on their screen names.

    18. CHCullen Hoback39:35

        Well, it's more of a culture.

    19. JRJoe Rogan39:37

        Hmm.

    20. CHCullen Hoback39:37

        And I think that those who are heavy Chan users would, would, um, they would, they would ... The, the term is "fame fagging." That's what they would say, um, where people use a name like Q, um, to, uh, you know, to, to bring more, uh, notoriety.

    21. JRJoe Rogan39:56

        Hmm.

    22. CHCullen Hoback39:56

        You know, they want th- in their minds, like, the, the best ideas rise to the top.

    23. JRJoe Rogan40:00

        Right.

    24. CHCullen Hoback40:00

        So, uh, they don't want to, um ... They don't want to have, they don't wanna give ... They don't wanna have the, I guess the power that's associated with identity.

    25. JRJoe Rogan40:12

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CHCullen Hoback40:13

        And that's part of why they were so annoyed when Coleman Rogers and Paul Ferber went on The Alex Jones Show, because they were, you know, d- doing what Chan users would call "fame fagging" at that point. So ...

    27. JRJoe Rogan40:24

        Interesting.

    28. CHCullen Hoback40:25

        And that's a term they love to throw around on the Chans heavily.

    29. JRJoe Rogan40:28

        S- so, if you had a screen name-

    30. CHCullen Hoback40:30

        And Q was doing that too, so Q, by using a Trip code, would've, would've been, um, you know, that, that term, I think they threw out. But, uh, it's, um ... When Q started posting, Q was not known as Q at the time. Q was just a random ANON writing stuff, and it wasn't until-
11. 44:06 – 1:04:56

    The Ron Watkins case: style shifts, technical access, and tells under pressure

    1. JRJoe Rogan44:06

       You were with them for how long when you were doing this documentary series?

    2. CHCullen Hoback44:13

       Um, I was with them... I mean, we were filming on and off for about three years.

    3. JRJoe Rogan44:18

       Over the course of that time, like, Ron's story evolves, or e- either he forgets what he told you initially, or he forgets the way he was sort of describing Q and his idea of politics and what he feels about politics. And towards the end, he's saying e- essentially he's been educating normies on how to do politics. And you're like, "Hey, what the fuck?"

    4. CHCullen Hoback44:45

       (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan44:46

       Like, "What is this?" Like... But along the way, like, the part of the, the thing was analyzing the difference between the original Q and then the Q once it goes to 8Chan, right?

    6. CHCullen Hoback44:58

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JRJoe Rogan44:58

       Like, there's a different-

    8. CHCullen Hoback45:00

       So-

    9. JRJoe Rogan45:00

       ... style of communication.

    10. CHCullen Hoback45:01

        Yeah, yeah. I mean, so the two points there. So, eh, when we get to the end, we can go into all the reasons that Ron is Q. Um, but if we're just talking about the early days, because I get a lot of people asking me, "Okay, well, who was the original Q?" Um, what you were, what you were describing, uh, that style shift, that's a huge indicator, A, that there was only one person writing at one point and then another person writing at the next, and B, it tells us when the shift might have happened. So, you know, that shift that's most detectable is somewhere between the jump from 4Chan to 8Chan and th- the mo- a little bit after when Paul loses control of the board and believes that Q has become fake.

    11. JRJoe Rogan45:45

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CHCullen Hoback45:45

        Um, and, uh, and that's... You know, Q starts posting really, you know, obvious doctored photos. There's, um, you know, punctuation changes. You know, you can see that it's someone who's trying to emulate.

    13. JRJoe Rogan46:01

        Punctuation changes?

    14. CHCullen Hoback46:03

        Yeah, like way more exclamation marks, you know?

    15. JRJoe Rogan46:05

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CHCullen Hoback46:05

        (laughs) Like, just... A- and stuff. Eh, to be clear, it's this kind of punctuation I've seen Ron use on his Telegram feed-

    17. JRJoe Rogan46:12

        Hmm.

    18. CHCullen Hoback46:13

        ... ex- extensively since, since, uh, you know-

    19. JRJoe Rogan46:16

        Uh-huh.

    20. CHCullen Hoback46:16

        ... he was booted from-

    21. JRJoe Rogan46:17

        Is-

    22. CHCullen Hoback46:17

        ... Twitter in January.

    23. JRJoe Rogan46:18

        Is he leaning into it?

    24. CHCullen Hoback46:21

        Wha- Well, so I... After the series concluded, you know, Ron, Ron messaged me, um, and that was the first time he had seen it. He was watching it alongside everybody else, and he messaged me and he said, "Cullen, you know, I identify more with villains." Um, he said something to the effect of, um, "I learned a long time ago that you have to make internet personalities larger than life because it makes for a more entertaining existence. Um, I'm not Q, but I may as well lean into it." So he's alwa- He has to ke- continue to deny Q, being Q, I think, um, in his mind for whatever liability might come with that. You know, he's, he's always... He has... It's like he comes as close to admitting it without, without, you know-

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:14

        Yeah, there's that moment-

    26. CHCullen Hoback47:15

        ... fully, you know, without, without getting rid of the plausible deniability. Um, just... And I think he also assumes that all of our communications are being monitored. (laughs)

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:25

        Right.

    28. CHCullen Hoback47:25

        So, uh, which they probably are, but-

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:27

        I'm sure they are.

    30. CHCullen Hoback47:28

        Um- (laughs)
12. 1:04:56 – 1:13:33

    The Bannon red herring: planted forensics and IP/proxy misdirection

    1. CHCullen Hoback1:04:56

       A huge effort. I mean, I even, I didn't believe it.

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:04:58

       Explain, explain that to people who haven't seen it yet. First of all, go see it. Well, it's on HBO Max. Go, go, go watch it.

    3. CHCullen Hoback1:05:04

       (laughs)

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:05:05

       Please. It's so good. But it's-

    5. CHCullen Hoback1:05:06

       Thanks for watching all six hours, two nights.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:05:08

       Yeah. I've... More than that. I watched six hours.

    7. CHCullen Hoback1:05:10

       Were you working out while you were watching it or were you...

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:05:12

       Uh, some of the time I was-

    9. CHCullen Hoback1:05:13

       (laughs) Okay.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:05:13

        ... actually on the treadmill.

    11. CHCullen Hoback1:05:14

        Okay.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:05:14

        Or, or the stairmill rather, watching and, you know, it kept me, uh, distracted. Um, but, uh, I watched it again last night. I watched a few of them last night. I watched two of them last night.

    13. CHCullen Hoback1:05:24

        Oh, wow.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:05:25

        The, uh... Because I just wanted to kind of refresh my brain. The, the thing that I was getting at initially is like-

    15. CHCullen Hoback1:05:32

        The Bannon thing?

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:05:33

        Yeah.

    17. CHCullen Hoback1:05:33

        Or were you gonna-

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:05:34

        Well, let's, let's just do the Bannon thing and then I'll get to the thing I was getting at earlier-

    19. CHCullen Hoback1:05:37

        Okay.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:05:37

        ... where I got distracted. The... So he sort of tried to... It was, it was very strange that he was doing that, that he was like outing Bannon, right?

    21. CHCullen Hoback1:05:48

        Super strange. Why would-

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:05:49

        Yeah.

    23. CHCullen Hoback1:05:49

        If Bannon was Q, why would you dox your most famous user?

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:52

        Right, right. And he's using... He's saying that what he's using is IP addresses and that he's isolating it into a very specific location that is very near where Bannon's house is, right?

    25. CHCullen Hoback1:06:04

        Correct, yeah. So the, the very first time I met Ron, we shot an interview in the Philippines. You know, uh, I had gone there saying, you know, primarily it's going to... I'm interested in, in looking at free speech through the lens of Q. That's what I... You know, that was sort of the pretense. And at the end of my interview with him, um, he pulls me aside and he says, "You know, no one's really been looking at this, but I think Bannon is Q."... very first time-

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:06:34

        Let's explain Bannon. Bann- Steve Bannon-

    27. CHCullen Hoback1:06:36

        Steve Bannon.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:06:37

        He's, uh, D- Donald Trump's advisor.

    29. CHCullen Hoback1:06:39

        Yeah. He was the, he was sort of the architect mastermind behind the 2016 campaign.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:06:45

        There's a lot of people who probably aren't paying attention to politics on this.
13. 1:13:33 – 1:51:30

    How Q escaped the chans: YouTube influencers, Reddit expansion, and monetization

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:13:33

       God. So what I wanted to get to before is, um, when the initial Q drops and when all the stuff starts happening, how does it leak and become a mainstream thing? How does it get out? Like, what is, what's the m- is there a, a specific moment or is it just a slow sort of recognition by people who are conspiratorially minded that there's this gentleman or person or whatever that's posting pretending to be this Trump insider? Like, what is it that makes it become this huge thing? W- I don't remember when I started hearing about it, but I assume by the time stuff reaches me, it's leaked out into the mainstream.

    2. CHCullen Hoback1:14:20

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:14:20

       So what, what was the event?

    4. CHCullen Hoback1:14:23

       People started talking about this anonymous insider on the chans almost immediately. It was almost instantaneous. And I think that for those who were trying to get an edge on YouTube, you know, having this s- s-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:14:38

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CHCullen Hoback1:14:38

       ... being able to say like, "Oh, there's this secret government insider who's releasing drops and all of our dreams-"

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:14:43

       Oh, I've seen this.

    8. CHCullen Hoback1:14:43

       "... are coming true." So you had, you had people like Tracy Beans, Jordan Sather, um, uh, eh, f- right from the start kind of being like, "Is this legit? Here's what they're saying." You know, and then, and then it kind of built from there. People are following them, um, s- start checking out, you know, the chans. Um, but it was still fairly contained. It was fairly contained up until like late December of 2017 when these characters, Tracy Beans, Paul Furber, and Coleman Rogers, and I believe it was Tracy's idea, say, "Let's, let's, uh, start a board on Reddit that's devoted to QAnon."

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

       Oh.

    10. CHCullen Hoback1:15:22

        "That's gonna reach, that's gonna reach, you know, a much wider audience." Um, and, and it certainly did.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:28

        So that's 2017?

    12. CHCullen Hoback1:15:29

        2017, yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:29

        So Reddit is where it branches out?

    14. CHCullen Hoback1:15:31

        Reddit branches out, and then it also branches out when they go on The Alex Jones Show.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:36

        (clears throat)

    16. CHCullen Hoback1:15:36

        And that becomes a, a big, a big boom. Um-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:15:39

        So then it becomes fun?

    18. CHCullen Hoback1:15:40

        Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's when-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:15:42

        And then-

    20. CHCullen Hoback1:15:42

        That's when people, that's when the excitement kind of kicks up. But you had a lot of the Anons who were pissed off that they had gone on Alex Jones, that they were going mainstream. Um, they didn't, they didn't like-

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:15:51

        They wanted everybody to stay anonymous.

    22. CHCullen Hoback1:15:53

        And they didn't like the celebrity status of it. Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

        That's fascinating.

    24. CHCullen Hoback1:15:56

        In fact ... Oh. Here's the-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:15:57

        Fascinating part of the culture, right?

    26. CHCullen Hoback1:15:59

        So here's a, yeah, really fascinating, and you can see it even in Q's mentality, um, towards Tracy, because he ... Okay, so this is, this is great. I had talked with, um, I talked with all of the board owners for, for Q. So everybody who had ever, um, been in charge of the like craziest thing on the internet that's QAnon, right? Like, um, where Q had been posting on their board. Um, I asked them all like, "Okay, well, did Q ever communicate with you?" Right? "Did Q ever, you know, send you messages?" And they said, "Well, not like direct messages. But Q, because of that IP address, would sometimes post anonymously openly on the boards so that only the board owner or the moderators would know it was Q." So it was a way of communicating with those who were running the boards without the entire public knowing it. And so they would be able to just go, "Okay, same IP, bring it up." And there was one inc- and they didn't, Q didn't do this very often, very, very rarely. Um, but one of the board owners was like, "There's a really unbelievable moment." Like I, my jaw just dropped that Q was, Q was saying this stuff. You know, and, and I was on this call with like a couple of other, um, you know, um, uh, folks who were, who were, uh, big into Q at the time. I think like ... Anyway, um, they were all like, "Wait, what, what is it? What is it?" Um, I think we have the, it's like secret Q drop. Um, but-

Episode duration: 2:49:07