0:00

Q and On is now the most prolific

0:02

online conspiracy theory of the twenty

0:05

one century. None of their predictions

0:07

came true. Q has vanished

0:09

and the storm never came, but Q

0:12

and On is still alive. I'm

0:15

Jake Hanrahan, and this is Series

0:17

two of Q Clearance, a podcast

0:20

shedding light on the ongoing Q and on conspiracy

0:22

theory. This is a production

0:25

of Kudatar Media and

0:27

I Heart Radio. In

0:30

today's episode, we're going to be looking

0:32

at what Jim and Ron Watkins

0:34

did next. If you don't

0:36

know those two names, please please go

0:39

and listen to series one. But

0:41

basically that's who I think through all this research

0:43

and talking to people, that's who I

0:46

think was ultimately running

0:49

Q and on, writing the drops, posting

0:51

them out, spreading it everywhere. I

0:53

think Jim and Ron Watkins

0:55

were behind it, so do many

0:57

many different people now to what

1:00

they were doing. Next, we're going to speak to Julian

1:03

Field from the excellent

1:05

Q and Non Anonymous podcast. He's

1:07

going to be speaking to us about how Jim

1:10

and Ron sort of moved off into

1:12

other grifts after Q

1:15

stopped posting. Remember, they were

1:17

the ones running the boards that Q

1:19

and On posted on so Julian

1:21

just for our listeners, Um, maybe you can

1:23

give us a quick recap

1:26

on who Run and Jim

1:28

Watkins are. Obviously

1:30

they have not had as much attention since

1:32

the election didn't bring Trump

1:35

back. Yeah. So Jim

1:37

has a history in the army

1:40

and he went on to become a self

1:42

styled king of porn, and

1:45

so he made a lot of money basically um

1:48

unblurring Japanese genitals

1:50

and then reselling that from the Philippines

1:53

to the Japanese, circumventing their

1:55

censorship laws. So he made a lot

1:57

of money doing that. His son grows up

2:00

in that environment. I'd say Jim Watkins is like

2:02

the quintessential sex tourist kind

2:04

of guy. Uh, just just as a

2:06

kind of sleeves bag who lives abroad and has a million

2:08

shell companies. And his son, I think

2:10

got pilled online red

2:12

pilled you know, on like four chan and and

2:15

eight chan and stuff. And they both took

2:17

an interest to image

2:19

boards and so you know, they've

2:21

kind of wrestled control of a

2:23

few image boards from people. They're they're accused

2:25

of stealing one um from Nakamura

2:28

and uh. They

2:31

they ended up with eight chan, which

2:33

they took from the creator of it, Frederick

2:36

Brennan, and you know, as a

2:38

result, they had control over the

2:40

entire ecosystem in which Q verified

2:44

itself and also posted so

2:46

many Now, you know, with the

2:48

information that came out with

2:50

the HBO documentary and other, um,

2:53

other pieces of evidence, many people believe

2:55

that Ron has at least posted as

2:58

Q a few times, if

3:00

not a lot. Once you know, Q moved

3:03

to the specific message boards or

3:05

the specific channels on eight

3:08

Chan that that were UM

3:10

that basically allowed Ron to become the soul

3:13

verifier for Q. And that's that's what, at

3:15

the end of the day we have real

3:17

proof of is that their custodians of

3:19

Q, they invented the trip code

3:21

that would allow Q to verify who they were

3:24

from just being on ann that that

3:26

uh, that that wasn't really verifiable

3:29

UM and so

3:31

so now um Q

3:33

stopped posting, and of

3:35

course you know they've denied it through

3:38

and through that that you know they

3:40

were involved in that. But I think

3:42

all eyes are definitely on them,

3:44

And yeah, we could get into it a little later, but they

3:46

are no longer in the best

3:49

of positions. You know, they used to run a pig

3:51

farm together and that's gone,

3:54

you know. Um So, I

3:57

think they're both well Ron is

3:59

now in Japan and his father

4:01

is in the United States last I checked, because

4:03

the Philippines did not grant

4:06

him naturalization. All right,

4:08

Yeah, And you know, as you said, I I

4:10

also think that's definitely fair.

4:13

Like I think it's definitely possible, very

4:16

very highly possible that Jim

4:18

and Ron were running Q and on. I would

4:20

put money on it, you know what I'm saying. I think

4:22

they'll probably writing a lot of the drops as well,

4:24

if not all of them. Um and a

4:26

lot of people have kind of come to this this realization,

4:30

as you have on your podcast, and like you said

4:32

in that HBO documentary, there's a lot more

4:34

that kind of opened the eyes to that. Um

4:37

So, as you said, they're no longer in the Philippines

4:39

and they're not really on the Q and On circuit anymore

4:42

as much as they were. So what

4:44

happened, like, what did they do next? What was the kind

4:46

of fallout for them after obviously Trump

4:48

didn't get in and I think in December

4:51

or November last year, Q just stopped

4:53

posting. Well, the father is

4:55

an interesting figure because he's tried to become

4:58

essentially a figure of

5:01

you know, right wing information

5:03

through UM the gold

5:05

Water, which was his website before

5:08

Q was even a thing. And so he's

5:10

been you know, wanting to be a disinformation

5:13

like YouTuber essentially and

5:15

failing over and over at attracting an audience

5:17

because he's not very good at reading scripts. He's

5:20

also you know, he just makes you

5:22

shudder just watching and listening to him.

5:24

There's there's very little um charisma

5:27

there. But the Sun has actually had

5:29

more uh success, and

5:32

what he did even in the lead up to the election,

5:34

when Q was still technically posting,

5:37

he built his own kind of Twitter presence

5:39

and became a central figure in

5:41

the claim that you know, the vote

5:44

was rigged and and all of these kind

5:46

of efforts to to undermine the results

5:48

as they came in for the United States presidential

5:50

election. And so he he was successful

5:53

until you know, it was revealed

5:55

that he was using one of these like boosting

5:58

tools from this white right

6:00

wing operative and he was

6:02

eventually kicked off of Twitter. He

6:04

has rebuilt on Telegram

6:07

and kind of pivoted a little

6:09

bit, uh not in terms of

6:11

sharing conspiracy theories. He's still sharing them hardcore,

6:14

you know, like the CCP, you know, they they

6:16

they are responsible for the rigged

6:18

election. He even dabbled in like

6:21

basically a new version of adrenea chrome

6:24

development of that conspiracy theory, a

6:26

new Adina chrome. Sorry

6:28

please what it was like adren

6:31

no courtquoit or some something

6:33

like that. So he was like, you know, trying to

6:36

to write deep lore on his on

6:38

his adrene of chrome theory. Um.

6:40

And then now he's kind of like settled in And

6:43

one of the weirder moves that he's had is

6:46

he started this thing called alien Leaks,

6:49

which essentially promises to be the wiki

6:51

leaks for you know, um what

6:53

they call disclosure, you know, like revealing

6:55

the technologies or the aliens

6:58

or the government project projects or whatever. Her

7:00

uh. And he started it with one of the dumbest

7:03

guys. I it has to be

7:05

another bit another troll,

7:08

because this guy, Tony Tiera, is just

7:10

a pure dunce and they're just kind of bumbling

7:12

around on that podcast talking

7:15

about stuff. Um. Alien Leaks has already

7:17

been accused of of essentially

7:19

just republishing public documents and

7:21

then making a little blog posts about what you should

7:23

think of them. But they're like already public and have been

7:26

declassified long ago. You know that

7:28

their first thing was that I don't know if you've ever read.

7:30

It's a pretty fun document. It's like that c I a thing

7:32

about remote viewing. Yeah, so

7:34

they basically there's a great book called The Men Who

7:37

Stare At Goats written kind of about the whole

7:39

thing by John Runson, and it was essentially

7:41

like the CIA kind of thinking

7:44

does this work? Could this work? And just like plowing

7:46

a load of money into like a stupid

7:48

project, right, like it didn't work or anything. Yeah,

7:50

which wouldn't be the first time he releases that,

7:52

like look at this, look at this, like this is

7:54

incredible. We were leaking stuff.

7:57

We're just I'm just like Julian Assange. But

7:59

really he's had very little attention and uh,

8:01

but it is it's entertaining to listen to Tony Tiera,

8:04

you know, do like sub Joe Rogan

8:06

commentary, while Ron Watkins um,

8:10

you know, puts out videos where he's wearing like body

8:12

armor and and uh like a cowboy

8:14

hat and like uh some sort of

8:16

kimono. Honestly,

8:19

him and his dad have spent so much time

8:21

streaming and creating crap content. I

8:24

mean, Jim Sor just did a few videos

8:26

on trying to cure his own ham. It looked

8:28

like absolute shit, uh,

8:30

and he put the whole the worst condiments

8:33

on it. It was just a horrifying spectacle

8:35

to watch him do that kind of stuff. But I think

8:37

their whole thing is, you know, that that new thing for

8:39

censorship where it's like the first two minutes or three

8:41

minutes of the video won't have anything weird

8:43

in it, and then and then they'll be like, okay,

8:46

now we can talk about Q and on or something like that. I

8:48

feel like that's their approach to all their

8:51

communications, just put out weird,

8:53

wacky white noise. In a way, it's

8:55

a bit like Operation mind Fuck. Uh.

8:57

You know the idea that, um,

9:00

if you always look like you're clowning,

9:02

if you always look like it's a bit if it's

9:04

very hard to take you seriously because you're so ridiculous,

9:07

then when you really want to do an op, when you really

9:09

want to get something done, it also looks ridiculous.

9:12

And it's they think it disarms

9:14

the enemy. You know. I'm sure they fucking would quote Sunsu

9:16

or some dumb sh it, but yeah, essentially,

9:19

like that's what they do they just pump the air

9:21

full of nonsense. They hire some of

9:23

the dumbest possible people, like they must

9:25

have picked them because they're perfect

9:27

Patsy's um and so

9:29

yeah, that's that's just their path right now. I think

9:32

I think it hurts a little bit. They never made any money.

9:34

Um, they can't really say it's them, even

9:37

though Ron like kind of still revels

9:39

in the in the kind of knowledge of

9:41

others that you know, they come to him for that stuff.

9:44

But you know, there's not that much pay pay

9:46

out in the end, and January

9:48

six wasn't quite the effort post I

9:50

think they wanted it to be. So it's

9:53

a it's a bit of an uncertain future for those

9:55

two. But I can't imagine they won't

9:57

be getting up to more bad stuff.

9:59

I mean, they they've had so many I don't know, if you're familiar

10:01

with susu coin. They took a fork of

10:04

an existing cryptocurrency, and

10:06

so they just took like an existing platform and they kind of

10:08

customized it and made a new one. And they were like, Okay,

10:10

so this is susu coin,

10:13

and it's going to be a way to post

10:15

and never be censored because the post will

10:17

be text you know, in the transactions

10:20

of the blockchain or whatever. Um. So

10:22

it was gonna make like essentially a decentralized

10:24

message board that would you could never take down,

10:27

like you know, it was the Jews or whatever posts

10:29

they want to put put up, um

10:31

and and it never really took off. But

10:34

they had this the mascot for it

10:36

was a clearly like underage kind

10:38

of lolly character, and

10:41

they made a whole bio for her where they're like, she's

10:43

twenty one and like making all these jokes

10:45

and stuff. So it's just like always like that, right.

10:47

You know. Jim makes a company called is It Wet

10:50

Yet? Jim

10:56

runs a show on his Terrible Tour

10:58

of three or Tiger Network or whatever it's called.

11:00

Uh, they're kind of attempt at doing a streaming slash

11:03

YouTube platform, and his

11:05

show is called like the Ship Ahoy The

11:07

Ship Show. Like everything is dumb. It's

11:09

like, you know, he dresses up in

11:11

like stupid costumes or will wear like a

11:13

Sesame Street T shirt and just talk about

11:16

that and then he'll you know, even though he's never

11:18

really Christian in any way by

11:20

any accounts, he's he's you know,

11:22

reading the Bible and

11:24

singing, uh, you know, songs and

11:26

stuff. It's just bizarre.

11:29

Honestly, they're real creepy. Yeah,

11:31

it always been creepy, and I think it's worth

11:33

mentioning as well. For a time there

11:35

was literally child sexual abuse

11:37

images being shared on

11:40

one of Jim and Run's message

11:42

boards, right, oh yeah, there were whole communities

11:45

dedicated to to that kind of stuff. That

11:47

was very common on almost all Chan boards. Four

11:49

Chan had issues with it, certainly, h

11:51

Chan uh, you know, with its even more lax

11:55

rules, you know, had issues with that. And

11:57

then of course they used to run like this big

11:59

porn pire in which they would use endless

12:02

keywords generated probably automatically,

12:04

but the result is that, um, some of

12:06

Jim's old websites like

12:08

would have extensions that that you

12:10

know, that would be basically references to child

12:12

pornography. So you know, they're not squeamish.

12:15

You know, Ron rolls around in his car playing

12:17

porn on the screen in his

12:19

car, and you know that that is

12:21

the x King of porn. So you know, I don't

12:23

really buy their rebrand as Christian patriots,

12:25

but it's certainly I don't think

12:28

that either of them are particularly

12:30

horrified by um, child

12:32

pornography. Nor were they or

12:34

are they about? You know, extreme neo

12:36

nazis doing actual uh

12:38

you know what they call effort posting, like basically

12:41

preparing for an operation where you would

12:44

actually hurt or kill people

12:46

and having people cheer you on. You know, that

12:48

was a recurring problem with their boards as well. Yeah,

12:50

very very disgusting. So we've

12:53

got um,

12:55

We've got Jim. He's curing

12:57

ham on YouTube. He's trying to launch

13:00

is weird far right Christian

13:02

fundamentalist type streaming platform.

13:05

His son Ron is now doubling

13:07

in Alien Leaks and

13:10

was quite a big proponent, saying

13:12

that the voting machines were rigged

13:14

during the election. They've also started

13:17

up this weird cryptocurrency.

13:20

Um have they said anything

13:23

about q and on? Have they

13:25

kind of just distanced themselves

13:27

from it? What? How have they dealt with all that in the fallout

13:29

from it? Well, you know, as in

13:32

the HBO documentary, they just keep saying we

13:34

are not I am not quing on. You

13:36

know. And Ron even in that latest

13:39

video, which is I have to admit shot

13:41

quite well, got some soft light going. It feels

13:43

like maybe, um, I don't

13:45

know, probably just a filter at this point with technology,

13:47

but you know, it's got a certain genessiqua

13:50

like you're you're looking at the water, it's peaceful,

13:52

there's trees, and then he's dressed

13:54

like an absolute moron, like

13:56

you know, kind of on a rock and

13:58

saying stuff like you know, I am not Q,

14:01

I'm not Q and on. So I think that's

14:03

the bit that they're gonna stick with. It's just like it

14:06

wasn't us. But I think they also

14:08

desperately want people to know that

14:10

they had power briefly even

14:13

or that they you know, that they did this, that

14:15

they successfully did possibly

14:19

the biggest troll in

14:21

history. Yeah, yeah, I think

14:23

what makes you think that, what makes you think that they want people

14:26

to know? Is it the kind of I'll be honest,

14:28

I've seen some of the videos and it's it

14:30

does feel almost as if they're being like wink

14:32

wink, nude nudge, it wasn't us. You know

14:34

what I mean? What do you think I think that

14:37

they do? And they also know that

14:39

obviously you know that their their

14:41

admission, their admission of it would be

14:44

tawdry and messy, but really

14:46

there's no law that they can be um

14:48

prosecuted under it they were always you

14:51

know, operating essentially

14:53

within American law due to the

14:56

way free speech works over

14:58

here and and others such things.

15:00

So you know, it's like I think they feel

15:02

safe. They feel safe. Jim feels

15:04

backed by history. He often makes like long

15:08

soliloquizing fucking speeches

15:10

where he's talking about you know, ancient

15:12

colonial raiders and how it was actually great

15:14

that they did genesize and stuff. So

15:16

it's like he feels like, you know what, I have the

15:18

weight of history behind me, and it didn't

15:20

happen this time, but at least we've accelerated what we're

15:23

looking for, which I believe is, you

15:25

know, the kind of ethno state race war

15:27

style UM endpoint

15:30

for them. Yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise

15:32

me from from what they say and what they've

15:34

been behind and what they've allowed to kind of breed on

15:36

their platforms. I think that's pretty accurate.

15:39

Um. So that's what Jim

15:41

and Ron got up to next, in

15:43

terms of Q and on, where do you

15:45

see all this heading? You know, like, you guys have

15:47

been doing this a lot longer than me. You've you've delved

15:50

deep, deep into this from your point

15:52

of view, where do you see Q and on heading right now.

15:54

I know you can't you know, predict the future, but

15:56

you must have some idea. Well, you know, I mean

15:59

QUIN was always de centralized, and I think that

16:01

that was the model that allowed it to proliferate.

16:03

So well, is that the people really carrying

16:05

the signal for most uh

16:07

kind of Uh. Most of those

16:09

coming into the movement have been interpreters

16:13

or Q tubers and all this stuff. So you

16:15

know, they all start their own grifts. They

16:17

are fighting uh new voices

16:19

like ghost Ezra, who's like an open

16:22

neo Nazi essentially at this point,

16:25

uh and has and you know, we don't know who that

16:27

person is, and they've gathered a big following on telegram.

16:29

So there's jealousy, there's breaking apart.

16:32

But for the beliefs, I like

16:34

to see it in a different way because you

16:36

know, again there's no leader to this movement. Q is

16:39

basically a non nonperson, you know, just

16:41

it's a way of being, it's a way of thinking. UM.

16:44

And the people who are done

16:46

with this, some of them will go Okay, I was duped,

16:48

but very few most people will double down

16:51

or continue to have the beliefs that were under

16:53

the umbrella of Q. And on, even though they

16:55

won't use the name anymore. Uh. You know.

16:57

A perfect example is recently

16:59

a sepack you know. Uh,

17:02

a journalist Zach Patrizo would

17:05

kind of like he was going up to people with Q T shirts

17:07

because he was seeing them walking around. And

17:10

one time, you know, one of the people was this woman

17:12

wearing this big Q T shirt. He goes up

17:14

to her with the mike and she's just covering up

17:16

the T shirt and just running away, you

17:18

know. So it's like weird because they want

17:21

to be like we are Q and on, but they

17:23

they know also and they've been told

17:25

by Q that it looks bad at this point.

17:27

So I think we're going to see a proliferation

17:29

of the same birchue right far right,

17:32

uh like anti communist fever dreamshit,

17:35

and the same kind of like racist,

17:37

xenophobic, you know, the whole you

17:39

know, antic submitic. Obviously, all

17:42

of these conspiracy theories will continue.

17:44

Right now, there are um anyone's

17:47

to marshall if Trump comes back

17:49

or whoever whatever figure is able

17:51

to kind of electrify the right. I

17:54

think what we know now is that you can't ignore

17:56

these people that you now have a part of the gop

17:58

base that believe these things, whether you

18:00

label them as Q and on or not, and believe new

18:03

things that they're making up after Q stop posted

18:05

that they're all kind of crowdsourcing. They've learned.

18:07

It's like teach a man to fish, you know, Q

18:10

taught them to fish.

18:13

Q taught them how to fish.

18:16

I think that is one of the best ways of

18:18

summing up how Ron and

18:20

Jim Watkins very likely assembled

18:23

the Q and On army and sent them off

18:25

into the world. Now they know how

18:27

to fish, they know how to catch the fishes, they know how

18:30

to keep it moving. Just because Q

18:32

is no longer they're posting doesn't

18:34

mean that this problem has gone away. And as we've

18:36

mentioned several times already in this series,

18:38

and as Julian just mentioned, their things

18:40

are becoming more and more extreme. Some

18:43

of the top Q and On influences

18:45

are becoming outright neo Nazis

18:48

and others that claim not to be almost

18:50

unknowingly doubling in these kind

18:52

of conspiracy theories. Also, Q

18:56

and On is a big problem in America, but

18:58

it's also spread all across the world,

19:01

specifically to Europe somewhere

19:04

you might not imagine it taken route though,

19:07

is Japan. Q and on has spread

19:09

to Japan and it could be a very

19:11

serious issue. We'll be talking

19:14

about that in the next episode. Q

19:18

Clearance is brought to you by I Heart

19:21

Radio and cou Data Media.

19:24

I'm Jake Hanrahan. You can find

19:26

me online at Jake Underscool

19:28

Hanrahan. That's h

19:30

A N A h

19:33

A N. You can get

19:35

Q Clearance merch at dark

19:37

wash dot net. This

19:41

episode was produced by myself,

19:44

with fact checking and additional

19:46

research by Sarah Hiower.

19:50

The music is by Sam Black

19:52

and the sound was mixed by Thomas

19:54

Griffin at Splicing Block.

20:00

Humper boomp

20:07

Ump boo