The Coming Storm - S1: 3. The Basement
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
A severely disabled boy from upstate New York is shocked when his online community of video game fans is flooded with porn. He gets sucked into a toxic world of mostly young men stuck in their parents’ basements, making memes out of snippets of popular culture and Nazi symbols. He becomes a major figure in a dark new counterculture germinating on a niche website called 4chan.
As the 2016 Presidential election approaches, a story grows on 4chan about Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, paedophilia, and references to pizza. The story bursts out into the real world when a man walks into a pizza restaurant with a gun.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
Published on Tuesday, 4th January 2022.
Available Podcasts from The Coming Storm
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