One year after the Capitol riot, QAnon is evolving — and finding new ways to stay alive

• A year after the January 6 Capitol riot, QAnon has not vanished.
• In the absence of "Q," the power has shifted to a network of conspiracy theorists, one expert said.

One of the most striking viral clips from the January 6, 2021, insurrection on the Capitol showed a man leading a mob chasing a Capitol Police officer up a winding staircase. The video shows the man, whom we now know was Douglas Jensen, wearing a beanie and a dark shirt emblazoned with the letter "Q."

Jensen is among the more than 700 Trump-supporting rioters who have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack. He was one of many who proudly displayed their fealty to the conspiracy theory movement as they stormed the Capitol, inspired, in part, by QAnon influencers spreading misinformation about the 2020 election.

Jensen's attorney declined to comment due to his client's ongoing case.

On December 8, 2020, "Q" — an anonymous user on the fringe platform 8kun whose messages invented QAnon in 2017, falsely alleging that then-President Donald Trump was fighting a "deep state" cabal of child traffickers — shared a link to a Trump compilation video soundtracked by Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It."

Just under a month later, with no additional guidance from "Q," QAnon supporters like Jensen stormed the Capitol, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 the election.

One year after the Capitol insurrection, "Q" hasn't returned to 8kun. But the movement continues with far-right influencers espousing a loose network of conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine rhetoric.

"In the absence of 'Q' and of Trump being on television 24/7, a lot of the power has shifted to influencers," Jared Holt told Insider. He's a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which researches online conspiracy theories and disinformation.

Experts including Holt warn that the movement could see a spike in activity around the 2022 midterm elections — with an onslaught of QAnon believers running for office.

The movement scattered across alternative 'free-speech' platforms in 2021

After the Capitol riot, Twitter purged 70,000 QAnon accounts, YouTube cracked down on the movement, and Facebook banned it across its platforms.

Believers were forced to move to alternative social media apps like Parler and Gab, which have significantly fewer users, minimal moderation, and are marketed as free-speech hubs.

Telegram, a messenger platform, has also helped conspiracy theorists find major followings.

This means "the really hardcore shit has a home-field advantage" due to a lack of moderation, Holt said, adding that it opens the door for users to become further radicalized by violent white supremacist or antisemitic ideologies.

"I think it's detrimental that these groups have been sealed off into their own uncensored echo chamber that doesn't break through to the mainstream," Jake Rockatansky, a host of the podcast "QAnon Anonymous," told Insider.

Prominent QAnon-linked celebrities include the attorney Lin Wood, former 8chan administrator Ron Watkins, and a conspiracy theorist known as "Ghost Ezra," each of whom has hundreds of thousands of Telegram subscribers.

All three have shared anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and the baseless allegation that Trump was cheated out of victory in the 2020 election. Watkins and Ghost Ezra did not respond to requests for comment.

When reached via email, Wood said he does "not know what the QAnon movement is," though he has referenced the theory's slogans, including "WWG1WGA" ("where we go one, we go all") online.

Many QAnon influencers are now distancing themselves from the movement, with some having "purged the actual title of 'Q' or 'QAnon' from their lexicon even though they're pushing the exact same theories," Rockatansky said.

With most of QAnon's leaders off mainstream platforms, it "absolutely has the potential to catch the rest of us by surprise if something like January 6 were to happen again," Rockatansky said.

Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

QAnon influencers replaced 'Q' in the anonymous leader's absence

Without a singular messiah releasing coded "Q drops" that QAnon celebrities would interpret and translate for their followers, influencers have replaced "Q" as the movement's central attraction.

"People are looking more to the influencers themselves for direction, less relying on them to translate a medium," Holt said. They're no longer seeing QAnon influencers as a channel between 'Q' and fans, "but the medium itself."

After Biden took office last January, some QAnon believers gave up on their beliefs. Others stayed on and began branching out to new webs of conspiracy theories.

Holt said the movement has "diversified ideologically" as QAnon celebrities realized "they could bring bigger audiences" by posting about other topics, too.

In November, far-right personality Michael Protzman led hundreds of his followers in a pilgrimage to Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, where he baselessly claimed John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, would reappear and become Trump's vice president, Vice News reported. Protzman did not respond to a request for comment.

Others, like the influencer "QAnon John," have spread the falsehood that the Astroworld incident, where 10 people died from a crowd crush during Travis Scott's concert in November, was actually a satanic ritual.

QAnon could become increasingly visible around the midterm elections

Rockatansky said it's likely more GOP candidates will use QAnon-style rhetoric during their upcoming campaigns because they know the movement has many supporters who "are passionate and will get out and vote."

But there are also 49 QAnon supporters from over 15 states running for US Congress in 2022, according to the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters. Two people with histories of sharing baseless conspiracy theories derived from QAnon — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert — are already in Congress.

"I think other people in the movement who are looking to speed up 'the Plan' or speed up 'the Storm,'" Rockatansky said — referencing the QAnon belief that a day would come where members of the fictional "cabal" would be arrested or executed en masse — "you're going to see them running for local office."