Q: Into the Storm (2021) s01e02 Episode Script
Do You Believe In Coincidences?
-(SUSPENSEFUL TUNE PLAYS) ♪
-(KEYS CLICKING)
RON WATKINS:
This is how the story goes.
One of Donald Trump's
most trusted people
who has a Q level
security clearance
is dropping information
anonymously online.
FREDERICK BRENNAN:
Q posts, and then Trump
says something similar,
and then they tie that
all together
in the proof Q exists.
QAnon is almost sort of a--
a mega conspiracy theory,
but much vaguer.
RON: To understand QAnon,
you have to start at the place
where Q posts.
So, I was getting on a plane
to hang out with the guys
behind the most notorious
website on earth.
If anyone knew who was behind Q,
it would be those closest
to the source.
(video game-style
music playing)
(violin music playing)
Filmmaker:
On my way to Manila,
I had a layover in Hong Kong.
The view from my window
was not all that different
from the one in Drop 130.
At this point,
Q had been posting
for just over a year.
♪
Manila was home to the team
behind 8chan,
the site where Q posts.
And I was planning to meet
with the site's creator,
Fred Brennan,
for the first time in person.
I had noticed that
social media platforms
were increasingly restricting
certain types
of speech online,
and I was curious
to what extent Q and 8chan,
a site that was unapologetic
about allowing almost
any type of speech,
played a role in that debate.
I assume that's why
they agreed to meet with me.
It was really a dice roll
whether or not this trip
was going to pay off.
Fred hadn't provided
an address,
or even an exact
time to meet up,
but the morning we were
supposed to film together,
Fred dropped his coordinates.
(speaking other language)
Filmmaker:
From the beginning,
Fred was surprised by how
minimalistic my setup was:
just me and
a film school grad
I'd hired locally.
He lived in a high-rise
gated community,
and despite
all the cloak and dagger
Uh, this way.
Filmmaker:
Fred said that
he was moving soon,
so it was okay
to film the grounds.
Fred had spent years
cultivating
some of the wildest content
the internet had to offer.
I couldn't help but wonder,
had he also played a role
in shaping Q?
(intense orchestral
music playing)
♪
♪
♪
♪
(Fredrick Brennan
speaking Filipino)
cheese hamburger
(speaking Filipino)
(laughs)
(speaking Filipino)
(speaking Filipino)
Chicken nuggets,
the table?
-Yes.
-I don't know if anybody
wants it,
but if you're still hungry,
you can eat it. So
You'd be surprised
how many people
come all this way to see me.
They just want to meet me.
The image in their head
does not match my reality.
They think that I'm,
like, this amazing guy
that made this amazing website
and I changed the world.
And I see myself as
somebody who was
in the right place
at the right time.
Yeah.
I think most of them
go away disappointed,
but at least they get
to eat curry rice
during their disappointment.
(laughs)
I grew up with just unfettered
access to the internet.
And I grew up also disabled,
so I couldn't go
run outside and play
with the neighborhood kids,
so throughout my life,
almost all of my friends
have been online friends.
Like, since the beginning.
Ready?
I have osteogenesis
imperfecta.
It's caused by
a single mutation
in a gene that makes collagen.
So the bones
don't form correctly,
so they become
really brittle, like glass.
I was always very
self-conscious
about my disability.
I fought a lot with
both my parents about,
you know,
"Why did you have kids?
You knew this would happen.
You received genetic counseling.
What's wrong with you?"
And it caused a lot of,
like, teenage angst, also.
My challenges around mobility
did make me more
intellectually curious,
because
there wasn't a whole lot
else that I could do.
Filmmaker:
The internet leveled
the playing field.
So Fred spent almost
all of his time online,
which meant his digital self
matured at a rapid pace.
So much so that,
by the age of 12,
he had already stumbled
across some of the most
shocking content
that the internet
had to offer.
Brennan:
When I first found 4chan,
I just saw what a lot
of people were saying,
and I felt like
I finally had discovered
what people were
really thinking.
Saying things like,
you know,
"Gas all the crippled people."
You know,
"I hate Downies.
Throw them off a bridge."
I felt like I was seeing
a window into people's
hidden thoughts
that they weren't saying
because it wasn't
socially acceptable.
But this is what everybody's
really thinking
when they look at me.
You know,
"Wow. Look at this
crippled retard."
As a child,
I was very impressionable,
and I just felt, like, wow.
I've been lied to
my whole life
by people who
are telling me,
"Oh, it's good
to be different."
(fires)
I figured, like,
because the sites
just seemed so active,
you say, "Wow, this is
a huge number of people
that are just totally
speaking the truth."
Or what I thought
was the truth.
-(fires)
-So,
I feel like the internet
really changed my perspective
of the world a lot.
Don't smoke, kids,
or else you'll become like me.
I'm almost the dead baby.
Like, I'm one step
after the dead baby.
-If the baby doesn't die
-Filmmaker: When Fred was 19,
he became admin of a site
called Wizardchan.
The forum was a home
for male incels.
That is, virgins who think
they'll never have sex,
and just generally hate women
because of that.
But after Fred did some drugs
and slept with a prostitute,
who had, well,
two fetishes
She had a fetish for virgins,
male virgins,
and disabled people.
So, I was both.
Filmmaker:
Fred was no longer a virgin,
so he resigned as admin
of Wizardchan.
-Woman (chanting):
Shame! Shame!
-(crowd booing)
Filmmaker:
While on his digital
walk of shame,
Fred began to look for
a new edge to lord over.
He was still an
active user on 4chan,
but he couldn't
create a board
without approval
from the site's owner.
Meanwhile, Reddit,
its more mainstream
competitor,
allowed anyone
to create boards,
but wasn't anonymous.
Brennan:
I was just thinking,
wow, wouldn't it be amazing
if Reddit and 4chan
had a baby,
and everyone could
make their own board.
Filmmaker:
So he merged Reddit's
democratized board creation
with 4chan's
anonymous posting,
and presto:
8chan was born.
Now anyone could
create a board,
and posts could be
totally anonymous.
Brennan:
But when I wrote 8chan
originally in 2013,
I wasn't really
planning for success.
I wrote the first part of it
while I was coming off of
psychedelic mushrooms.
Like, you know,
they call it the come down,
I think.
It wasn't meant to scale
from 100 posts per day
to, like,
10,000 posts per hour.
Filmmaker:
This free speech
maximalist approach
had given Fred an edge,
but he now had a serious
moderation problem,
because illegal content,
like child porn,
would get shared, as well.
Brennan:
I had no idea that
the hosting
was gonna be so hard.
I had no idea how my payment
processing worked.
I was just on the "hopium"
of free speech and all that.
Filmmaker:
Fred created 8chan
in 2013.
He was 19 years old.
With a mass influx of users,
Fred needed help.
It seemed he also
wanted to find a partner
who would let him continue
to run the site as its admin.
Brennan:
I started to get lots
of emails from people
that were interested in
running 8chan on their own.
Of all the offers I received,
I chose, uh, Jim Watkins
and his son Ron,
because I felt they had
the most experience
with this.
I would say overall
Jim is a good owner
for 8chan.
I would say that Jim
is not tech savvy at all.
Jim is much more
the business brain,
and Ron is much more
of a technical brain.
I would describe Ron
as a tech bro, pretty much.
He's a talented programmer,
also.
In some ways,
more talented than I am.
Filmmaker:
Jim Watkins is an
American businessman
operating out of
the Philippines.
Jim served in East Asia
while he was in the army,
and found a dollar
went a long way.
He offered for Fred
to come join them,
along with
a handful of perks.
Brennan:
So it was a no-brainer
for me to sell 8chan to them,
and move to the Philippines.
(laughing)
Like, they offered me,
you know, a condo
with the rent paid.
Jim Watkins:
When's the last time
you went swimming?
-Eight years ago.
I was 12. Yeah.
-Jim Watkins: Wow.
Brennan:
And then a caregiver also.
Jim Watkins:
Let go. It's okay.
We know CPR.
Filmmaker:
Fred had even found
a fiancée in the Philippines.
He now had plans
to get married in just
a few months.
So working with Jim Watkins
helped him support
this new life.
Brennan:
They kept me on, as like,
an employee now,
being the administrator,
not the owner.
Filmmaker:
As the administrator,
Fred had to deal with
all kinds of infighting
and drama on the boards.
Not to mention,
the site itself
operated at a loss.
It seems most advertisers
didn't want to touch it.
Brennan:
Being 8chan's admin was
really difficult.
It was really arduous work.
And then I decided to
quit from being administrator
in 2016, April.
Filmmaker:
Fred stepped down
as 8chan's admin,
but he continued to work
for Jim Watkins
on other internet projects
that they owned.
Brennan:
Uh, I don't believe 8chan
can ever be profitable.
Filmmaker:
What's the point
of running it, then?
You know how some rich men
will have a yacht?
Like, a big boat?
So, that boat is not
generating any income.
It's a liability.
It's not an asset.
So
I was told to just
think of 8chan as a boat.
-I'm on a boat ♪
-I'm on a boat ♪
I'm on a boat,
everybody look at me ♪
-'Cause I'm sailing
on a boat ♪
-Sailing on a boat ♪
Brennan:
It's a fun toy for Jim.
-Filmmaker: It's a boat.
-It's a boat. Yes.
-The SS 8chan.
-(filmmaker laughs)
Come on, baby.
That one is Jim's house.
He might get upset.
So we'll go around
the corner, okay?
Man, they have
a lot of cars.
Yeah. I don't wanna
say something
that's gonna
get me in trouble.
So let me just say nothing.
I don't want to say the words
"financial insolvency."
But maybe he has guests.
Let's give him the benefit
of the doubt.
-(dog vocalizes)
-(laughs)
Filmmaker:
When I asked him about Jim,
Fred was hesitant.
Brennan:
I really like working for him.
He's a great boss, but
Yeah, I mean, I have to be
careful what I say.
Filmmaker:
It's the first time
I noticed Fred
holding his tongue.
You know, in theory,
I'm supposed to meet
with Jim tomorrow to film.
Brennan:
Wow.
I really can't wait
to see your documentary
now that you got Jim in it.
Filmmaker:
Okay. (laughs)
-So this is speculation.
-Mm-hmm?
But I think he's worried
about what I'm gonna say,
so he wants to have
a counter to what I'm saying.
I don't think I'm saying
anything really bad,
but he might be
worried about it, so,
he just wants to make sure
his side gets in,
if you're already here.
Filmmaker:
At this point, Jim Watkins
was relatively unknown.
Okay, okay, okay.
Filmmaker:
It seemed that no one
had even considered
he might possibly be Q.
He owned 8chan,
and he self-described
as an industrialist.
Lights off.
Filmmaker:
So why did you seek out 8chan?
Jim Watkins:
I didn't seek out 8chan.
(laughs)
8chan is an accident.
My son said, you know,
this guy needs some help
with 8chan.
He can't afford the servers,
and said,
"Can we put this
in our data center?"
And I said, "Okay."
(car alarm chirps)
You say, "You own 8chan."
No, 8chan owns me.
It costs a lot of money
to run it.
I don't get much
for it, either.
They kind of
tricked me into it.
And then now I have it,
I can't get rid of it,
because it's important.
Filmmaker:
Jim seemed nervous.
He'd never given an interview
of this type before.
I was hoping to get
a better sense of
whether or not
Jim had the skills,
the knowledge, and the motive
to be behind Q.
Why do you think I'm here?
You are here to make
a documentary about me.
-Filmmaker: No. (laughs)
-(laughs)
No. About 8channel.
I'm sorry.
Filmmaker:
While Jim's data center
was located in California,
he actually had
a variety of businesses
that he operated
from the Philippines.
So, coming up is where
our office used to be.
Filmmaker: Which office
are you referring to?
The 8chan office?
Jim Watkins:
Nobody works for 8chan.
Filmmaker:
Really?
I, I was imagining
that there's like, a--
There's nobody works for 8chan.
There's people work for me,
that work on other things
other than 8chan,
because 8chan
doesn't make any money.
Filmmaker:
How do you keep it up, then?
(clears throat)
I make money doing other things.
I'm well-deser--
Well-diversified.
(Muzak playing)
♪
It's like--
It's like a beret.
Yeah, I have
an organic store,
and this is one of our
means of livelihood.
We bake our own bread.
Fresh harvest.
We got some kale in
from the farm.
We do serve our own bacon.
Even our eggs are organic.
Filmmaker:
Um, what is the point
of 8chan?
Jim Watkins:
To give people a place
that they can have
freedom of speech without
having to worry about
getting in trouble
for saying something.
I'm just sick of,
you know, people being
censored and gender-neutraled,
and all of that.
It makes me angry.
It's like, this is not
what America's all about.
I grew up watching
Archie Bunker,
and he was, like, a pig.
Been around a lot of places,
I done a lot of things,
but there's one thing
Archie Bunker
ain't never gonna do,
and that's break bread
with no jungle bunnies.
Jim Watkins:
8channel users,
they use "kikes" and "wops,"
and all, all of the,
all of the bad words
for everybody,
you know, and it was,
like, wow. (laughs)
Filmmaker:
After we had some time
to settle in,
I got around to
asking Jim about Q,
and what he thought about
the biggest banning of
QAnon to date,
done by his mainstream
competitor, Reddit.
So one of the first things
that turned me on to 8chan,
uh, was that Reddit
banned QAnon.
Well, I don't honestly
follow that board.
I don't know what
they were talking about.
I, you know,
it's just one of our users.
And it wasn't anything that--
that we were getting
police reports for
or anything.
What are they talk--
What are they talking about?
Like, revolution now,
or something?
I'm not, I'm not
a political person, myself.
Let's see what's going on
in the back.
I really stay out
of politics,
'cause it's against the law
for foreigners
to be involved in politics
in the Philippines. So
Filmmaker:
But, I mean, like, you can
be involved in US politics.
Jim Watkins:
But I live here.
I don't really know
what's going on.
Woo-hoo-hoo.
Chicken soup!
Sorry I don't know more
about the Q stuff.
But from what I understand,
the Q is not, uh,
causing us any trouble.
Filmmaker:
When Reddit banned QAnon,
people started rallying
around this notion
that some ideas
are just too dangerous.
Dangerous ideas.
That's scary.
That's a scary idea
to have dangerous ideas.
Okay, let's take some kale.
Let's try putting
some cream in it.
You know, I've had
dangerous ideas, like,
my one idea was to, like,
round up all of the politicians
and then machine gun them.
(blender whirring)
And then their replacements
come in,
you round them all up
and machine gun them.
(blender whirring)
And then the third round,
you tell them, "You be good,
or I'm gonna machine gun you."
And then I was gonna vote--
run for president
and be Machine Gun Jim.
But, actually, I have no idea
if this is gonna be
good or not.
♪
Actually, that's pretty good.
(laughs)
Yeah, I'm not
politically correct at all.
♪
Filmmaker:
Of course, I was curious
about the brewing tension
that seemed to exist
between Jim and Fred,
and wondered why Jim
had decided to subsidize
8chan in the first place.
Well, I agreed to help,
and then Fred agreed
to move here, and
I was nice to him.
I treated him well.
And I took his broken website
which was completely broken,
and my engineers
fixed his website.
Filmmaker:
So, uh,
is everything okay
between you and Fred?
We, we have a gentleman's
agreement on it that
we would split
the profits 60-40.
But there hasn't been
any profits yet.
Filmmaker:
Fred was still
working with Jim
on his other projects.
Just not for 8chan.
Jim Watkins:
I wish he would be
involved with 8chan.
It might be more successful.
(laughs)
It could happen.
♪
Filmmaker:
So, Fred, I know that
running 8chan
was super taxing,
and I guess
I'm just wondering
if there are any other
moral dilemmas
that are preventing you
from coming back to run 8chan.
As an American,
I grew up in school,
and we're taught in school that,
okay, one of the things
that makes America greater
than all the other countries
is that
we have real free speech,
and in other countries
they have libel laws
and hate speech,
and lots of
obscenity laws and
So, that's something that's just
a cherished American value.
And I never really
questioned that.
And that was
the kind of mentality
I opened 8chan with.
But
you can't go three years
as 8chan's admin
seeing the reality
of total free speech
without having your faith
in this, uh, sacred concept
shaken a little bit.
Filmmaker:
Even though 8chan
was home to Q,
most QAnon followers never
actually visited the site.
Instead, they would
go to places that
collected Q's drops,
like qmap.pub.
These archival sites
made Q's messages
easy to search,
expanding Q's reach,
while sanitizing the darker
realities of 8chan.
Liz Crokin:
I don't really
go on the boards.
So
Filmmaker:
I mean, it's a hard place
to be.
Yeah. It's, it's too chaotic.
Filmmaker:
Do you read QDrops
on 8chan,
or one of those sites
that collects the drops,
like qmap, or--
Oh, I ne-- yeah, exactly.
I go to qmap.
Filmmaker:
Are you on 8chan a lot?
Uh, only if I have to be.
That website is a headache,
I've gotta say. Um
It's not a place
for soft people.
It's not meant to be
a place for soft people.
It's not meant to be a place
for easily offended people.
It's a place for adults.
Filmmaker:
How do you deal with
being on 8chan as Christians?
-That's a good point, too.
-Well, thank God my wife
is not on 8chan.
(laughs)
I've seen some of the threads.
And I've, I've explained
to her about the--
there's pornographic
stuff there.
There's gore. Violence.
Like,
literal graphic stuff.
Like, they post--
There's child porn on there?
Filmmaker:
Well, they pull that down.
They pull down
anything that's illegal,
but it gets posted all the time.
-Really?
-Yeah.
I didn't know that.
I've never heard that before.
That's troublesome.
I just told her basically
what was on there,
and she kind of went,
-oh, okay. (laughs)
-Okay, yes, I trust you.
I don't want to see it,
but I, I trust you.
And that's why
I'm so thankful to God,
'cause I have a wife that,
that trusts me when,
you know, I'm dealing with
this kind of evil sickness.
Yes.
Filmmaker:
The person now
administrating this
so-called "evil sickness"
was Ron Watkins,
Jim's 30-something-
year-old son,
who had just flown in
from Japan.
-This is the elevator
power cord.
-No, it's not.
Don't run into
the elevator power cord.
Jim Watkins:
Welcome to 8chan headquarters.
Ron Watkins:
This is 8chan headquarters.
Wheelchair accessible,
right there.
Filmmaker:
Jim's command center for
his entrepreneurial efforts
was largely vacant
when we arrived.
-Pen 15 club, Frances?
-Oh!
You have to give him
a tattoo.
Ron Watkins:
Wait, I think we gotta get
Filmmaker:
There was a small studio
where they recorded content
for a news site called
The Goldwater.
-No, we'll make you,
like, a badge, here.
-Tattoo time! A tattoo!
-Team.
-Jim Watkins: I'm a member
of the Pen 15 club, too.
-Frances: Yeah.
-(laughing)
-Welcome to the club.
-Welcome! (laughs)
Filmmaker:
The 8chan servers
were in California,
its volunteers scattered
around the globe,
and its headquarters
essentially wherever
Ron carried a laptop.
(anime song playing
over computer)
Though it seems
some work did get done here.
Jim Watkins:
We don't have a serious bone
in our bodies.
Your documentary
won't be picked up
by anybody
if we talk the way
we usually talk.
Filmmaker:
How would you say
you differ from your son?
Jim Watkins:
I don't differ from him.
We're, like,
out of the same mold.
When he was 10 years old,
he's sitting right next to me
with just a little black
Compaq computer he had.
Ron Watkins:
I'm more of an anti-social
type person. I avoid
social contact
as much as possible.
I prefer to spend
my time programming.
I talk mostly with my dogs.
Uh
Jim Watkins:
But your dog talks back.
My dog does talk back.
(laughs)
I, I agreed to be
interviewed for this
because it's very important
to get the word out
that, uh, as the years go by,
more and more people
are attacking
free speech online,
and we need to do
all we can to defend it now
while there's still time.
I, I'm more of like, the,
the forgetful professor type.
Like,
I'm terrible at adding,
subtracting, multiplying,
and dividing.
But I'm really good at very
high-level mathematics.
Like PhD-level mathematics.
(clears throat)
I'm able to use
these mathematics to
build things that other people
are not able to,
to, uh, comprehend.
Filmmaker:
Uh, you're also known as
Codemonkey?
Uh, Codemonkey. Correct.
Well, there's a, a famous song
from, I guess 2005,
called "Codemonkey."
And there's a music video,
and you can find that
on YouTube.
And I really liked the name,
and then one day,
I was, uh,
mining tripcodes
and came across "Odemonkey,"
so I added a "C" on the front,
and it became "Codemonkey."
People approach me
all the time asking who Q is.
And I always say,
"I don't know."
He's just another 8chan user.
And he's welcome to post
on 8chan as long as he wants.
We don't know who Q is.
It's not me.
(clears throat)
Might be you. Right?
But it's not me.
Only Q would do a documentary
about himself. Like--
-(laughs)
-Yeah, you know way more
about it than me.
It's like, wow.
So he posted
about six hours ago.
And that does coincide
with this flurry of activity
about six hours ago.
Q even attacked me.
And I had to-- (coughs)
I had to set that straight
quickly.
Filmmaker:
While calling it an attack
might be an exaggeration,
Q had told Ron
to check his code,
complained about being
locked out of the board,
and even asked Ron
for more resources.
Yeah, CM, which I assume--
I mean, that stands for
Codemonkey--
Ron Watkins:
See, it says here he has
a team to secure.
So
From then,
I figured Q was a team.
-Right.
-Right.
I'm pretty sure Q is
a spin-off from "Star Trek."
The Q is like a type
of security clearance,
called the Q-level clearance.
Yeah. I have one,
but I'm not Q.
-You don't have
a Q-level clearance.
-(both laugh)
Filmmaker:
While Jim didn't have
a Q-level clearance,
he did have
a military background.
I started out as
a mess hall truck driver,
and after that, I went on
to army recruiting,
and I did that
for about 10 years,
and then I got out of that
and started my own company.
Filmmaker:
Jim discovered
a niche online
where he could use the laws
of one country
to skirt around the laws
in another,
which primed the pumps
for his next endeavor:
investing in imageboards.
The very first imageboards
actually started in Japan.
But they were
heavily censored,
due to Japanese law.
That would
all change in 1999,
when a Japanese college
student in America
named Hiroyuki Nishimura
created 2channel.
2channel was named after
the channel that
you tuned your TV to
when hooking up
an old-school video game
console.
Because the site was hosted
on American soil,
2channel was able to bring
unfettered free speech
to Japan,
and it was insanely popular.
That's when Jim got involved.
Jim Watkins:
Hiroyuki came to me
and he said,
"I can't afford
to do this anymore,"
and so we put some servers
in my data center,
and we put it online.
Filmmaker:
In 2003,
America finally got a taste
of the chan culture
that its free speech laws
had helped to create.
(screaming):
4chan!
Filmmaker:
4chan's founder,
Christopher Poole,
also known as "moot,"
got his start at
a comedic website
called "Something Awful."
Something Awful helped shape
meme culture as we know it.
And when moot created 4chan,
it preserved something
that made the internet
in the '90s special
Anonymity.
4chan had a few knockoffs,
including 420chan,
which focused
more on drug culture.
It was started by
this guy, Aubrey Cottle.
420chan, that started
as a damn joke.
Like, it was, it was 420.
We were, we were
fucking high as shit,
and he's like, "Hey.
(chuckles)
"You should register
420 chan.
That--
That'd be fuckin' funny."
Filmmaker:
But Aubrey Cottle had
another claim to fame.
He had cultivated
the collective of
internet hacktivists
and keyboard warriors
known as none other
than "Anonymous."
Anonymous:
Welcome. I am Anonymous420.
We interrupt your
YouTube time to bring you
this urgent news story.
Filmmaker:
Anonymous started
as a prankster collective,
and users were organizing
to pull off comedic
and sometimes
offensive stunts.
Anonymous:
Contrary to the assumptions
of the media,
Anonymous is not simply
a group of superhackers.
Anonymous is a collective
of individuals united by
an awareness that someone
must do the right thing.
That someone must bring
light to the darkness.
Filmmaker:
But as Anonymous evolved,
it became
increasingly political.
At first,
they targeted individuals
on the wrong side of history,
like talk show host
and Holocaust denier
Hal Turner.
Hal Turner:
Why are you listening
to this show?
This is a show
for white people.
Get outta here, you spic.
(Anonymous supporter speaking)
And basically
we destroyed his ability
to pay for his radio show.
Filmmaker:
They went on to target
Scientology.
Anonymous:
The extent of your
malign influence
over those who have come
to trust you as leaders
has been made clear to us.
Anonymous has
therefore decided
that your organization
should be destroyed.
Filmmaker:
And even went after
the Federal Reserve.
Newscaster:
During the hack of the Fed,
Anonymous stole
the login credentials
of some 4,000 bankers
from across the country.
All I remember is that
all of us were fuckin'
terrified.
That all of a sudden,
Anonymous was just
this big fucking
global thing
and it just dramatically
accelerated from there.
They went fully mainstream.
Filmmaker:
Havoc ensued,
and between 2011 and 2012,
dozens of arrests
happened around the world,
causing Anonymous
to splinter.
Newscaster:
Twenty-five members
of Anonymous
have been arrested
across Europe.
Aubrey Cottle:
And we're, like, freaking out,
being like, oh, fuck,
oh, fuck. oh, fuck.
What did we do?
Oh, Jesus.
Filmmaker:
After Anonymous faded
from the limelight,
in 2014, a controversy
known as GamerGate
exploded from the bowels
of 4chan.
This new collective
borrowed from the tactics
of Anonymous,
but had a very
different agenda,
pushing back against
the feminist critique
of video games.
Paul Furber:
Yes, I followed GamerGate
from the very beginning.
I found it fascinating
and I fully supported it.
It was the first time
in many, many years
that a culture stood up
to feminist takeover,
and won.
Filmmaker:
It went after prominent
female game developers,
critics,
and their associates.
And using the shield
of anonymity,
users coordinated
harassments campaigns
on 4chan.
Zoe Quinn:
Instantly, they dived into,
"Find where she lives.
Find where,
where all these
people live."
Uh, "What are we
gonna do about her?
Can we hack her email?"
Like, instantly.
(choir singing)
Filmmaker:
But collectively,
lessons from Anonymous
had been learned.
There were no
self-declared leaders.
There was no clear objective.
Just male-driven vengeance
under a collective banner:
gamer culture.
Mark Mann:
Just a matter of,
sort of the rage,
that gamers were having
by being abandoned by
the industry that
used to cater to them.
Filmmaker:
Mark Mann was essentially
the godfather of GamerGate.
He oversaw
the video game board
where anons would
discuss tactics
for their
harassment campaigns.
Was anyone ever doxxed
in that process?
Well, yeah. It's the movement.
Everyone's gonna get doxxed.
-(laughs)
-Cottle: We have GamerGate.
It started with ethics
in games journalism,
and that was co-opted
by people leaning
towards the right,
and then started
pushing them towards a
"liberal media is
lying to you" agenda.
And then that
completely fucking
transformed from there
into the alt-right.
Quinn:
The first thing you lose
is all perspective.
Uh, it's like you're just
constantly surrounded
by nothing but hate.
Filmmaker:
Christopher Poole decided that
that flavor of free speech--
too toxic for 4chan.
And in December of 2014,
all mentions of GamerGate
were given the axe.
Furber:
4chan, the bastion
of free speech, was
banning mentions of,
of GamerGate.
(singing to tune of
"Blame Canada")
Filmmaker:
And 4chan users
weren't happy.
Including Fred Brennan.
I think the media
just doesn't understand that
4chan is heavily moderated.
There are rules.
Like, well, activism
is banned on 4chan.
You can state
your political beliefs
and have debates,
but when you start
turning it into action,
that's what gets
banned on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
Fred was still
a heavy 4chan user,
and the censorship
of GamerGate seemed to prove
that speech on 4chan
really wasn't that free.
Brennan:
So, my philosophy,
because I had gone years just
getting angrier and angrier
at the 4chan administration,
that any way that I could
hurt 4chan was a good thing.
Filmmaker:
Fortunately or unfortunately,
he'd already created
a space that welcomed
the controversy.
♪
Brennan:
I thought,
oh, I have this big
number of refugees
from 4chan.
I'm gonna do everything I can
to support them,
as an attack on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
And in late 2014,
that's when users started
flooding over to 8chan.
To the video game board
run by Mark Mann.
Mann:
I think what brought
a lot of people to 8chan
was the fact that
it was unique.
You know, we promised
better moderation,
a much more
streamlined community,
than what was on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
Around the time
Anonymous splintered,
Jim and Hiroyuki splintered,
as well.
Jim claimed that Hiroyuki
had stopped paying the bills.
There would be battles
that play out in
Japanese court,
and Jim ultimately
modifies the name
from 2channel to 5channel.
Brennan:
It's pretty crazy
what Jim did.
I mean, he basically
ran the deeds office
and just crossed off
Hiroyuki's name
and put his own name.
Filmmaker:
Of course,
after this happened,
Jim and Hiroyuki
became bitter rivals.
That was fun.
Filmmaker:
It's around this time that
Jim extends his support
to Fredrick Brennan
as the owner of 8chan,
expanding Jim's reach
to the US.
Now Hiroyuki, well,
he's a celebrity in Japan.
But his celebrity status
didn't help him
in his numerous
court cases against Jim.
So, there was only one
real way to get back at him,
and the opportunity
presented itself
when Chris Poole,
fleeing from the fallout
of GamerGate,
decided that he needed
to sell 4chan.
And he sold it to
none other than Hiroyuki.
Ron Watkins:
They had a falling out,
and Hiroyuki
purchased 4chan.
I believe that was partly
to spite my father.
Filmmaker:
These methods of organizing
attacks and pranks,
first popularized
by Anonymous
Anonymous:
That someone must bring
light to the darkness
Filmmaker:
Then used during GamerGate.
Cottle:
I can map out the entire
family tree
starting from Something Awful.
There's a direct lineage
pointing right back
to my shit.
Filmmaker:
These methods,
it seems that
they were just preludes
to what would
eventually become
QAnon.
Welcome back, my friends.
This is Dustin Nemos
of dustinnemos.com.
I have something interesting
that just happened,
uh, and you're not
gonna believe it.
So I've been
talking about how
a couple times--
I mean, I'm not bragging
or anything,
but I mentioned it
once or twice, 'cause
it's, it's interesting.
I was invited
to speak on QAnon
at the American Priority
Conference, uh, in DC.
Yeah, the organizer
reached out to me, and, uh,
basically said,
"Hey, I wanna do a Q panel.
Would you come and participate?"
And I was like, "Sure."
Filmmaker:
Up until now, QAnons
had organized online.
But for the first time ever,
key Q-tubers were stepping out
from behind their monitors
into the limelight.
Will Sommer:
The whole American
Priorities Conference
was sort of created as a,
uh, you know, an alternative.
So this was supposed to be
this kind of vision
of the new right,
this internet right.
The Clinton Foundation's
the next one that's coming up.
That's the next thing
that's gonna be the next, uh--
I haven't even caught up
on all the drops yet
from today.
We're fighting a war
against evil,
and people who eat babies.
Filmmaker:
Craig James from
JustInformedTalk,
Dustin Nemos from
The Nemos News Network,
and future congressional
candidate Deanna Lorraine
were all scheduled
to headline,
not to mention the infamous
political hitman Roger Stone
was slated to make
an appearance.
Operatives like Roger Stone
and General Flynn
understood the power
of information warfare,
both having bolstered rumors
that a child sex dungeon
existed in the basement
of a DC pizzeria
frequented by their
political opponents,
even though no such dungeon
was ever found.
Now, what do you think--
I've heard rumors of,
of restaurants here in DC
where you can go,
you know, down to the basement,
right?
And they're serving kids up
to Saudi princes and stuff.
I, I haven't heard that one,
but I know,
you know, it takes me back
to the Comet Ping Pong example.
I, I, that was
where I got it from.
-Yeah. And I love how
-All the Comet Ping Pong stuff.
Filmmaker:
Do you talk about Q
at all in your posts?
Yes, I do. Absolutely.
Because Q kind of ties
everything together.
And Q has people
wake up to the fact that
things that people
in the media have told us
have been very much,
you know, indoctrination
and lies.
A few different pieces together,
you may understand now
the power of thousands
and thousands of people
on the internet
Filmmaker:
While the earliest
promoter of QAnon,
Tracy Beanz, was still
allowed to speak,
presumably because
she was no longer openly
discussing QAnon,
she presented
to an empty room.
The other QTubers
were given the boot.
We were gonna speak
on the QAnon issue,
as, as it applies to,
you know, the, the overall
MAGA movement.
And they uninvited us
for that purpose.
Someone's pulling some
strings, to force him
to, uh, dis-invite us.
I actually, uh,
wrote an article
about that QAnon panel,
and how it was
planned to happen,
and then highlighted
some of the bigger speakers
they had at the time.
And after that article came out,
the QAnon panel was canceled.
Dustin Nemos:
Q is not popular among
a lot of the alt-leftist
media people.
You know, a lot of them
build about half
of their audience
on bashing Q.
You know?
It doesn't matter if
they want to de-platform me.
We're still getting
the word out.
Filmmaker:
Q gives you
a great deal of power,
in a way,
by using your platform.
Correct.
Filmmaker:
Why do you think Q trusts you?
I don't know that Q trusts me.
He might not trust me.
Many people are putting
a lot of faith and hope
into Q.
And hoping that
what he's saying is real,
and is going to change
the course of history.
Filmmaker:
You think Q is seeking infamy?
Well, Evelyn Hall once said,
"I disapprove with
what you're saying,
but I'll defend to the death
your right to say it."
I don't agree
and I don't disagree
with what Q's saying.
But I really
appreciate that he's using 8chan
to, uh, get his message out.
Filmmaker:
And do you seek infamy?
Uh, I don't seek infamy,
but I will embrace it.
-Filmmaker:
What about your dad?
-(laughs)
Uh, I, I can't speak for him,
but
(laughs)
He, he's a character.
Jim Watkins:
I've been blessed
with a really good life,
and I have a lot of fun.
This is what I do for fun.
I play with pens.
When you put in a cartridge
like this,
you wanna flick it a little bit,
like you're flicking--
flicking a spitball in class.
And that one will be able
to write shortly.
Okay.
Filmmaker:
Jim mentioned that
he has another hobby:
pigs.
To visit his farm,
we would need to make
a lengthy drive into the jungle
on the outskirts of Manila.
The pig farm was a place
of legend on 8chan.
Users liked to speculate
that it was where Jim
disposed of his enemies.
(man screaming)
Jim Watkins:
Well, the pig farm
is an active business.
It's where we get rid of
the bad users.
-Ron Watkins: No. (laughs)
-(filmmaker laughing)
Oh. Did I say that?
No.
Filmmaker:
Despite all the rumors
about Jim's farm,
I still had a hard time
imagining that
he was going to feed me
to the pigs.
(filmmaker speaking)
Ron Watkins:
Fredrick was growing
irritated and discontent
with the site.
It grew too fast,
and it outgrew the software.
They weren't able to
figure out how to, uh, grow it.
And so, uh, I devised
a, a way to scale it.
And, uh, my method worked.
And we were able
to scale 8chan to,
to the size it is now.
Jim Watkins:
I'm so happy
that you were able
to interview Fred, though.
Because that's, like,
proof of life, 'cause
people have, like,
accused me of, like,
killing him.
And of course I didn't.
He's a friend of mine.
You know?
Filmmaker:
You think you're
their enemy at this point?
I don't think I'm their enemy.
No, not at all.
Definitely there's been
some disagreements
over the years,
and definitely we have
our differences, but,
if it was true, I would have
already been fed to the pigs.
So, it's not true.
(pigs snuffling)
Jim Watkins:
Maybe 25 percent of 8chan
is paid for by pigs.
With your weapon
in your hand ♪
I'm gonna be
a fightin' man ♪
Sebastian is my, um,
stud.
We don't do artificial
insemination here.
We do it natural,
and he's a lover,
not a fighter.
He's a wonderful lover.
They love him, too.
Over here we got
his girlfriends.
This is his harem.
Seventy-one, two,
three, four, five. 75.
So I have 75, uh,
piglets and weaners.
They're weaning.
(squealing)
I'm gonna build
a house up here.
And I'm gonna make this
my private yoga studio.
That data center's in here.
(laughs)
♪
Ron Watkins:
Running an imageboard is not
for the faint of heart.
I'm being attacked every day
from all different angles.
You have to have thick skin,
and not care what
they talk about.
I've had a lot of
mental, uh, training,
and I've spent
many years meditating,
and I used to stay
in a monastery.
Uh, I learned a lot about
how to try to kill the ego,
or, or even just
work around the ego.
And because of that,
words from other people
attacking me
or saying terrible things
about me
does not bother me at all.
So I usually, uh,
avoid drama as much as I can.
It's just high stress,
and I don't need
a lot of stress.
♪
Brennan:
Excuse me, Pol.
Yan.
Filmmaker:
So who do you think brought
this Q to your apartment?
How did this arrive?
I just found it one day.
I wrote up a report
as soon as it happened,
but
Filmmaker:
Where was it?
Brennan:
It was, um, man,
where was it?
I think it was just
on my desk.
It was a long time ago.
I don't really remember
the details anymore.
Filmmaker:
And Q had posted
at some point
that he was going to,
like, thank,
I don't know if it was
the creators of 8chan, or the--
Right.
He said he was gonna
send a message
to the 8chan administrators.
Came back, I saw it,
and I thought
it was really weird,
and I just looked at it,
and then I just,
I just posted it online.
I wrote, "This could
be something,
or this could be nothing."
I thought it would be
funny to say,
"Oh, it could be from
the real Q."
And weirdly enough,
Q never repudiated that.
I'm one of the Q proofs.
They believe Q put the Q
in my room,
but
it's not like, you know,
it's not like a bad gift
or anything.
It's a good gift for me.
I design fonts, so
The Q is my favorite letter.
And it always has been,
since I was a kid.
When you're a typographer,
you're always fighting
between
making sure people
can read the letter,
and then your own
artistic intent, so
Q gives you the most freedom.
There are so many ways
to put the tail of the Q.
You can have it bisecting.
You can have it only inside,
so none of this part.
You can have it totally outside.
You can have it touching,
or you can write it as a two.
So, it gives a typographer
a lot of freedom
when they're
designing a font.
And I'm not sure if any
other letter does that.
Filmmaker:
You do have an unbelievable
amount of Qs in here.
Brennan:
Thank you!
Filmmaker:
Yeah. This-- It's
It's as if your room is,
is just Qs.
Brennan:
Back when I first got
the blue Q,
QAnons, they would send me Qs
to be like, thank you.
'Cause like, they saw
the blue Q as a sign.
So not all these Qs
are actually bought by me.
I never acknowledged
any of the Qs that came here.
Filmmaker:
But you didn't get rid
of them, either. (laughs)
Brennan:
That's true. Yeah.
Filmmaker:
Do you think it's possible
that Fredrick Brennan is Q?
Uh, I think Fredrick Brennan
could be Q.
But having an object
does not mean
you are the person
associated with that object.
Example, uh
Here's a MAGA hat, right?
Does that mean I'm Trump?
Obviously, I'm not Trump,
even though I have
the same hat that Trump wears.
Filmmaker:
Well, there are a million--
a million of those,
-and I've only seen one--
-Well, there are millions
of Qs, also.
(machine buzzing)
Jim Watkins:
This is my man cave.
Filmmaker:
So what goes down
in this room?
This is where it all happens.
I am Jim Watkins,
and I will dance on command.
I do lap dances for 50 bucks.
You want me to turn this off?
(filmmaker speaking)
You can hear this?
I can't hear this at all.
Filmmaker:
Um, so is this where you,
like, log into 8chan usually?
Jim Watkins:
I usually don't go to boards
that are not public.
'Cause you get there
and you get, like,
things you want to un-see.
Filmmaker:
But you don't have access
to the Q board?
What is the URL?
What is the
We-we can go to the Q board.
Filmmaker:
Now, the Q research board
is hidden.
And that means it wouldn't
show up on 8chan's main page.
You had to know
where to look.
You could be directed there
by a link from another site,
or type "Q research"
into the browser.
Q
Filmmaker:
Uh, research? Q research?
Research. Okay.
Filmmaker:
It's weird that, uh,
like, one of the most
popular things on 8chan
and you're, like
But how would I know
it's the most popular thing?
It's not listed.
Filmmaker:
Q has something like
2,500 posts at this point.
-Have you read them all?
-Filmmaker:
I read a lot of them.
Oh. Tell me about it,
and I'll tell you
what my opinion is.
Filmmaker:
One of the big ones is that
there's all these
sealed indictments.
Hillary and John McCain,
they're all arrested already
and wearing ankle bracelets.
Jim Watkins:
That's possible.
I think they have, like,
secret courts in America,
don't they?
Filmmaker:
November 11th was supposed
to be this big day.
Jim Watkins:
11-11.
That's, uh, 1-1-1-1.
It's one more one
if you count the one
in the 18.
But everything that Q has,
has said,
has come true in some
potential future.
And all of those
unlimited futures have,
or are happening.
Just you can only
experience one of them.
Filmmaker:
See? Now you are
starting to sound like Q.
(laughs)
Jim Watkins:
Obviously, if there's
so many people
reading this Q research,
I don't think
that this is a LARP.
It's too big for that.
But who it is,
and if he's actually an insider
at the White House,
that's up in the air.
Filmmaker:
Do you think it's possible that
your dad is part of Q?
Uh, it's impossible.
(laughs) He would have
blabbed about it already.
Interviewer:
He seems like he would be good
at keeping a secret.
Jim Watkins:
It's a big world, you know.
Maybe he's just some
overtired, overstressed,
middle S, GS-5
from the White House
that's like,
"I got an idea."
Filmmaker:
Q's a big fan of General Flynn,
-so probably someone related
to General Flynn--
-General Flynn?
He got burnt for no reason,
didn't he?
Poor guy.
You know, I, I found out
more about it today
than I actually
knew about it before.
I haven't been keeping up
on politics for a while.
'Cause I've been busy
working on, like,
important things.
I mean, he worked in the
military for a while, so
I believe they do stuff
that needs to be kept secret.
What is a Q-level clearance?
You know, I was in
the army 16 years
and I never had
a Q-level clearance.
I don't know what that is.
Q, if he is who he is, uh,
he would surely
know a lot about
the military, and
My dad knows a lot
about the military,
and probably, it's--
they're military
talking points. Maybe.
Jim Watkins:
When I was in the academy,
the commandant said,
"You're the most
civilianized motherfucker
I ever let graduate."
It's possible, I guess,
that he could be Q,
but I doubt it,
'cause he's, he's so busy
working on the pig farm,
and
Filmmaker:
Do you think it
would be dangerous
for Q to reveal himself?
Or herself?
Probably, yeah.
Has he done anything illegal?
Filmmaker:
You can definitively say, then,
that you are not a part of Q.
I am not a part of Q.
Don't arrest me.
(laughs softly)
Filmmaker:
How do you think
you differ from your father?
Uh, how do I differ?
Well, I don't
I'm not autistic
about pens, for one.
Filmmaker:
After spending
several days with Jim,
something came to mind.
Pen board usually
has like one user. Me.
Filmmaker:
Q uses a pen to confirm
its identity--
a $1,500 Montblanc
StarWalker pen
that supposedly belongs
to Donald Trump.
Q first introduced the pen
on December 12th of 2017.
When Q returns
after the power struggle
on January 5th,
what does Q use to confirm?
That same pen.
Why does Q choose a pen,
of all things,
to confirm its identity?
Jim Watkins:
Ooh, this is my hobby. Yeah.
This is what I do for fun.
That is from France.
So we'll let that sit
for a little while.
Filmmaker:
There a lot of
pen collectors out there?
Jim Watkins:
There are millions
of pen collectors out there.
I love this pen.
This is my favorite pen.
(video game-style
music playing)
♪
-(INTENSE MUSIC) ♪
-What are the parallels between
Q that you wrote about,
and QAnon?
SPEAKER: Secret messages,
shared drop by drop,
crumb by crumb.
What kind of person would read
this book and think,
"I want to be Q,
I want to be the villain"?
CULLEN HOBACK: In early 2019,
I got an anonymous tip,
that forced me to revisit
my investigation
into Jim and Ron Watkins.
Somebody's making claims that
Roger Stone
was subsidizing your site.
Uh that's false.
I don't know who Roger Stone is.
I do think there is
a possibility that Roger Stone
is deeply connected with Q.
HOBACK: Maybe Q really was
someone close to Trump.
I think that the people that are
8chan
are heavily involved with Q.
Most likely, Ronald Watkins
knows who Q is.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
-(KEYS CLICKING)
RON WATKINS:
This is how the story goes.
One of Donald Trump's
most trusted people
who has a Q level
security clearance
is dropping information
anonymously online.
FREDERICK BRENNAN:
Q posts, and then Trump
says something similar,
and then they tie that
all together
in the proof Q exists.
QAnon is almost sort of a--
a mega conspiracy theory,
but much vaguer.
RON: To understand QAnon,
you have to start at the place
where Q posts.
So, I was getting on a plane
to hang out with the guys
behind the most notorious
website on earth.
If anyone knew who was behind Q,
it would be those closest
to the source.
(video game-style
music playing)
(violin music playing)
Filmmaker:
On my way to Manila,
I had a layover in Hong Kong.
The view from my window
was not all that different
from the one in Drop 130.
At this point,
Q had been posting
for just over a year.
♪
Manila was home to the team
behind 8chan,
the site where Q posts.
And I was planning to meet
with the site's creator,
Fred Brennan,
for the first time in person.
I had noticed that
social media platforms
were increasingly restricting
certain types
of speech online,
and I was curious
to what extent Q and 8chan,
a site that was unapologetic
about allowing almost
any type of speech,
played a role in that debate.
I assume that's why
they agreed to meet with me.
It was really a dice roll
whether or not this trip
was going to pay off.
Fred hadn't provided
an address,
or even an exact
time to meet up,
but the morning we were
supposed to film together,
Fred dropped his coordinates.
(speaking other language)
Filmmaker:
From the beginning,
Fred was surprised by how
minimalistic my setup was:
just me and
a film school grad
I'd hired locally.
He lived in a high-rise
gated community,
and despite
all the cloak and dagger
Uh, this way.
Filmmaker:
Fred said that
he was moving soon,
so it was okay
to film the grounds.
Fred had spent years
cultivating
some of the wildest content
the internet had to offer.
I couldn't help but wonder,
had he also played a role
in shaping Q?
(intense orchestral
music playing)
♪
♪
♪
♪
(Fredrick Brennan
speaking Filipino)
cheese hamburger
(speaking Filipino)
(laughs)
(speaking Filipino)
(speaking Filipino)
Chicken nuggets,
the table?
-Yes.
-I don't know if anybody
wants it,
but if you're still hungry,
you can eat it. So
You'd be surprised
how many people
come all this way to see me.
They just want to meet me.
The image in their head
does not match my reality.
They think that I'm,
like, this amazing guy
that made this amazing website
and I changed the world.
And I see myself as
somebody who was
in the right place
at the right time.
Yeah.
I think most of them
go away disappointed,
but at least they get
to eat curry rice
during their disappointment.
(laughs)
I grew up with just unfettered
access to the internet.
And I grew up also disabled,
so I couldn't go
run outside and play
with the neighborhood kids,
so throughout my life,
almost all of my friends
have been online friends.
Like, since the beginning.
Ready?
I have osteogenesis
imperfecta.
It's caused by
a single mutation
in a gene that makes collagen.
So the bones
don't form correctly,
so they become
really brittle, like glass.
I was always very
self-conscious
about my disability.
I fought a lot with
both my parents about,
you know,
"Why did you have kids?
You knew this would happen.
You received genetic counseling.
What's wrong with you?"
And it caused a lot of,
like, teenage angst, also.
My challenges around mobility
did make me more
intellectually curious,
because
there wasn't a whole lot
else that I could do.
Filmmaker:
The internet leveled
the playing field.
So Fred spent almost
all of his time online,
which meant his digital self
matured at a rapid pace.
So much so that,
by the age of 12,
he had already stumbled
across some of the most
shocking content
that the internet
had to offer.
Brennan:
When I first found 4chan,
I just saw what a lot
of people were saying,
and I felt like
I finally had discovered
what people were
really thinking.
Saying things like,
you know,
"Gas all the crippled people."
You know,
"I hate Downies.
Throw them off a bridge."
I felt like I was seeing
a window into people's
hidden thoughts
that they weren't saying
because it wasn't
socially acceptable.
But this is what everybody's
really thinking
when they look at me.
You know,
"Wow. Look at this
crippled retard."
As a child,
I was very impressionable,
and I just felt, like, wow.
I've been lied to
my whole life
by people who
are telling me,
"Oh, it's good
to be different."
(fires)
I figured, like,
because the sites
just seemed so active,
you say, "Wow, this is
a huge number of people
that are just totally
speaking the truth."
Or what I thought
was the truth.
-(fires)
-So,
I feel like the internet
really changed my perspective
of the world a lot.
Don't smoke, kids,
or else you'll become like me.
I'm almost the dead baby.
Like, I'm one step
after the dead baby.
-If the baby doesn't die
-Filmmaker: When Fred was 19,
he became admin of a site
called Wizardchan.
The forum was a home
for male incels.
That is, virgins who think
they'll never have sex,
and just generally hate women
because of that.
But after Fred did some drugs
and slept with a prostitute,
who had, well,
two fetishes
She had a fetish for virgins,
male virgins,
and disabled people.
So, I was both.
Filmmaker:
Fred was no longer a virgin,
so he resigned as admin
of Wizardchan.
-Woman (chanting):
Shame! Shame!
-(crowd booing)
Filmmaker:
While on his digital
walk of shame,
Fred began to look for
a new edge to lord over.
He was still an
active user on 4chan,
but he couldn't
create a board
without approval
from the site's owner.
Meanwhile, Reddit,
its more mainstream
competitor,
allowed anyone
to create boards,
but wasn't anonymous.
Brennan:
I was just thinking,
wow, wouldn't it be amazing
if Reddit and 4chan
had a baby,
and everyone could
make their own board.
Filmmaker:
So he merged Reddit's
democratized board creation
with 4chan's
anonymous posting,
and presto:
8chan was born.
Now anyone could
create a board,
and posts could be
totally anonymous.
Brennan:
But when I wrote 8chan
originally in 2013,
I wasn't really
planning for success.
I wrote the first part of it
while I was coming off of
psychedelic mushrooms.
Like, you know,
they call it the come down,
I think.
It wasn't meant to scale
from 100 posts per day
to, like,
10,000 posts per hour.
Filmmaker:
This free speech
maximalist approach
had given Fred an edge,
but he now had a serious
moderation problem,
because illegal content,
like child porn,
would get shared, as well.
Brennan:
I had no idea that
the hosting
was gonna be so hard.
I had no idea how my payment
processing worked.
I was just on the "hopium"
of free speech and all that.
Filmmaker:
Fred created 8chan
in 2013.
He was 19 years old.
With a mass influx of users,
Fred needed help.
It seemed he also
wanted to find a partner
who would let him continue
to run the site as its admin.
Brennan:
I started to get lots
of emails from people
that were interested in
running 8chan on their own.
Of all the offers I received,
I chose, uh, Jim Watkins
and his son Ron,
because I felt they had
the most experience
with this.
I would say overall
Jim is a good owner
for 8chan.
I would say that Jim
is not tech savvy at all.
Jim is much more
the business brain,
and Ron is much more
of a technical brain.
I would describe Ron
as a tech bro, pretty much.
He's a talented programmer,
also.
In some ways,
more talented than I am.
Filmmaker:
Jim Watkins is an
American businessman
operating out of
the Philippines.
Jim served in East Asia
while he was in the army,
and found a dollar
went a long way.
He offered for Fred
to come join them,
along with
a handful of perks.
Brennan:
So it was a no-brainer
for me to sell 8chan to them,
and move to the Philippines.
(laughing)
Like, they offered me,
you know, a condo
with the rent paid.
Jim Watkins:
When's the last time
you went swimming?
-Eight years ago.
I was 12. Yeah.
-Jim Watkins: Wow.
Brennan:
And then a caregiver also.
Jim Watkins:
Let go. It's okay.
We know CPR.
Filmmaker:
Fred had even found
a fiancée in the Philippines.
He now had plans
to get married in just
a few months.
So working with Jim Watkins
helped him support
this new life.
Brennan:
They kept me on, as like,
an employee now,
being the administrator,
not the owner.
Filmmaker:
As the administrator,
Fred had to deal with
all kinds of infighting
and drama on the boards.
Not to mention,
the site itself
operated at a loss.
It seems most advertisers
didn't want to touch it.
Brennan:
Being 8chan's admin was
really difficult.
It was really arduous work.
And then I decided to
quit from being administrator
in 2016, April.
Filmmaker:
Fred stepped down
as 8chan's admin,
but he continued to work
for Jim Watkins
on other internet projects
that they owned.
Brennan:
Uh, I don't believe 8chan
can ever be profitable.
Filmmaker:
What's the point
of running it, then?
You know how some rich men
will have a yacht?
Like, a big boat?
So, that boat is not
generating any income.
It's a liability.
It's not an asset.
So
I was told to just
think of 8chan as a boat.
-I'm on a boat ♪
-I'm on a boat ♪
I'm on a boat,
everybody look at me ♪
-'Cause I'm sailing
on a boat ♪
-Sailing on a boat ♪
Brennan:
It's a fun toy for Jim.
-Filmmaker: It's a boat.
-It's a boat. Yes.
-The SS 8chan.
-(filmmaker laughs)
Come on, baby.
That one is Jim's house.
He might get upset.
So we'll go around
the corner, okay?
Man, they have
a lot of cars.
Yeah. I don't wanna
say something
that's gonna
get me in trouble.
So let me just say nothing.
I don't want to say the words
"financial insolvency."
But maybe he has guests.
Let's give him the benefit
of the doubt.
-(dog vocalizes)
-(laughs)
Filmmaker:
When I asked him about Jim,
Fred was hesitant.
Brennan:
I really like working for him.
He's a great boss, but
Yeah, I mean, I have to be
careful what I say.
Filmmaker:
It's the first time
I noticed Fred
holding his tongue.
You know, in theory,
I'm supposed to meet
with Jim tomorrow to film.
Brennan:
Wow.
I really can't wait
to see your documentary
now that you got Jim in it.
Filmmaker:
Okay. (laughs)
-So this is speculation.
-Mm-hmm?
But I think he's worried
about what I'm gonna say,
so he wants to have
a counter to what I'm saying.
I don't think I'm saying
anything really bad,
but he might be
worried about it, so,
he just wants to make sure
his side gets in,
if you're already here.
Filmmaker:
At this point, Jim Watkins
was relatively unknown.
Okay, okay, okay.
Filmmaker:
It seemed that no one
had even considered
he might possibly be Q.
He owned 8chan,
and he self-described
as an industrialist.
Lights off.
Filmmaker:
So why did you seek out 8chan?
Jim Watkins:
I didn't seek out 8chan.
(laughs)
8chan is an accident.
My son said, you know,
this guy needs some help
with 8chan.
He can't afford the servers,
and said,
"Can we put this
in our data center?"
And I said, "Okay."
(car alarm chirps)
You say, "You own 8chan."
No, 8chan owns me.
It costs a lot of money
to run it.
I don't get much
for it, either.
They kind of
tricked me into it.
And then now I have it,
I can't get rid of it,
because it's important.
Filmmaker:
Jim seemed nervous.
He'd never given an interview
of this type before.
I was hoping to get
a better sense of
whether or not
Jim had the skills,
the knowledge, and the motive
to be behind Q.
Why do you think I'm here?
You are here to make
a documentary about me.
-Filmmaker: No. (laughs)
-(laughs)
No. About 8channel.
I'm sorry.
Filmmaker:
While Jim's data center
was located in California,
he actually had
a variety of businesses
that he operated
from the Philippines.
So, coming up is where
our office used to be.
Filmmaker: Which office
are you referring to?
The 8chan office?
Jim Watkins:
Nobody works for 8chan.
Filmmaker:
Really?
I, I was imagining
that there's like, a--
There's nobody works for 8chan.
There's people work for me,
that work on other things
other than 8chan,
because 8chan
doesn't make any money.
Filmmaker:
How do you keep it up, then?
(clears throat)
I make money doing other things.
I'm well-deser--
Well-diversified.
(Muzak playing)
♪
It's like--
It's like a beret.
Yeah, I have
an organic store,
and this is one of our
means of livelihood.
We bake our own bread.
Fresh harvest.
We got some kale in
from the farm.
We do serve our own bacon.
Even our eggs are organic.
Filmmaker:
Um, what is the point
of 8chan?
Jim Watkins:
To give people a place
that they can have
freedom of speech without
having to worry about
getting in trouble
for saying something.
I'm just sick of,
you know, people being
censored and gender-neutraled,
and all of that.
It makes me angry.
It's like, this is not
what America's all about.
I grew up watching
Archie Bunker,
and he was, like, a pig.
Been around a lot of places,
I done a lot of things,
but there's one thing
Archie Bunker
ain't never gonna do,
and that's break bread
with no jungle bunnies.
Jim Watkins:
8channel users,
they use "kikes" and "wops,"
and all, all of the,
all of the bad words
for everybody,
you know, and it was,
like, wow. (laughs)
Filmmaker:
After we had some time
to settle in,
I got around to
asking Jim about Q,
and what he thought about
the biggest banning of
QAnon to date,
done by his mainstream
competitor, Reddit.
So one of the first things
that turned me on to 8chan,
uh, was that Reddit
banned QAnon.
Well, I don't honestly
follow that board.
I don't know what
they were talking about.
I, you know,
it's just one of our users.
And it wasn't anything that--
that we were getting
police reports for
or anything.
What are they talk--
What are they talking about?
Like, revolution now,
or something?
I'm not, I'm not
a political person, myself.
Let's see what's going on
in the back.
I really stay out
of politics,
'cause it's against the law
for foreigners
to be involved in politics
in the Philippines. So
Filmmaker:
But, I mean, like, you can
be involved in US politics.
Jim Watkins:
But I live here.
I don't really know
what's going on.
Woo-hoo-hoo.
Chicken soup!
Sorry I don't know more
about the Q stuff.
But from what I understand,
the Q is not, uh,
causing us any trouble.
Filmmaker:
When Reddit banned QAnon,
people started rallying
around this notion
that some ideas
are just too dangerous.
Dangerous ideas.
That's scary.
That's a scary idea
to have dangerous ideas.
Okay, let's take some kale.
Let's try putting
some cream in it.
You know, I've had
dangerous ideas, like,
my one idea was to, like,
round up all of the politicians
and then machine gun them.
(blender whirring)
And then their replacements
come in,
you round them all up
and machine gun them.
(blender whirring)
And then the third round,
you tell them, "You be good,
or I'm gonna machine gun you."
And then I was gonna vote--
run for president
and be Machine Gun Jim.
But, actually, I have no idea
if this is gonna be
good or not.
♪
Actually, that's pretty good.
(laughs)
Yeah, I'm not
politically correct at all.
♪
Filmmaker:
Of course, I was curious
about the brewing tension
that seemed to exist
between Jim and Fred,
and wondered why Jim
had decided to subsidize
8chan in the first place.
Well, I agreed to help,
and then Fred agreed
to move here, and
I was nice to him.
I treated him well.
And I took his broken website
which was completely broken,
and my engineers
fixed his website.
Filmmaker:
So, uh,
is everything okay
between you and Fred?
We, we have a gentleman's
agreement on it that
we would split
the profits 60-40.
But there hasn't been
any profits yet.
Filmmaker:
Fred was still
working with Jim
on his other projects.
Just not for 8chan.
Jim Watkins:
I wish he would be
involved with 8chan.
It might be more successful.
(laughs)
It could happen.
♪
Filmmaker:
So, Fred, I know that
running 8chan
was super taxing,
and I guess
I'm just wondering
if there are any other
moral dilemmas
that are preventing you
from coming back to run 8chan.
As an American,
I grew up in school,
and we're taught in school that,
okay, one of the things
that makes America greater
than all the other countries
is that
we have real free speech,
and in other countries
they have libel laws
and hate speech,
and lots of
obscenity laws and
So, that's something that's just
a cherished American value.
And I never really
questioned that.
And that was
the kind of mentality
I opened 8chan with.
But
you can't go three years
as 8chan's admin
seeing the reality
of total free speech
without having your faith
in this, uh, sacred concept
shaken a little bit.
Filmmaker:
Even though 8chan
was home to Q,
most QAnon followers never
actually visited the site.
Instead, they would
go to places that
collected Q's drops,
like qmap.pub.
These archival sites
made Q's messages
easy to search,
expanding Q's reach,
while sanitizing the darker
realities of 8chan.
Liz Crokin:
I don't really
go on the boards.
So
Filmmaker:
I mean, it's a hard place
to be.
Yeah. It's, it's too chaotic.
Filmmaker:
Do you read QDrops
on 8chan,
or one of those sites
that collects the drops,
like qmap, or--
Oh, I ne-- yeah, exactly.
I go to qmap.
Filmmaker:
Are you on 8chan a lot?
Uh, only if I have to be.
That website is a headache,
I've gotta say. Um
It's not a place
for soft people.
It's not meant to be
a place for soft people.
It's not meant to be a place
for easily offended people.
It's a place for adults.
Filmmaker:
How do you deal with
being on 8chan as Christians?
-That's a good point, too.
-Well, thank God my wife
is not on 8chan.
(laughs)
I've seen some of the threads.
And I've, I've explained
to her about the--
there's pornographic
stuff there.
There's gore. Violence.
Like,
literal graphic stuff.
Like, they post--
There's child porn on there?
Filmmaker:
Well, they pull that down.
They pull down
anything that's illegal,
but it gets posted all the time.
-Really?
-Yeah.
I didn't know that.
I've never heard that before.
That's troublesome.
I just told her basically
what was on there,
and she kind of went,
-oh, okay. (laughs)
-Okay, yes, I trust you.
I don't want to see it,
but I, I trust you.
And that's why
I'm so thankful to God,
'cause I have a wife that,
that trusts me when,
you know, I'm dealing with
this kind of evil sickness.
Yes.
Filmmaker:
The person now
administrating this
so-called "evil sickness"
was Ron Watkins,
Jim's 30-something-
year-old son,
who had just flown in
from Japan.
-This is the elevator
power cord.
-No, it's not.
Don't run into
the elevator power cord.
Jim Watkins:
Welcome to 8chan headquarters.
Ron Watkins:
This is 8chan headquarters.
Wheelchair accessible,
right there.
Filmmaker:
Jim's command center for
his entrepreneurial efforts
was largely vacant
when we arrived.
-Pen 15 club, Frances?
-Oh!
You have to give him
a tattoo.
Ron Watkins:
Wait, I think we gotta get
Filmmaker:
There was a small studio
where they recorded content
for a news site called
The Goldwater.
-No, we'll make you,
like, a badge, here.
-Tattoo time! A tattoo!
-Team.
-Jim Watkins: I'm a member
of the Pen 15 club, too.
-Frances: Yeah.
-(laughing)
-Welcome to the club.
-Welcome! (laughs)
Filmmaker:
The 8chan servers
were in California,
its volunteers scattered
around the globe,
and its headquarters
essentially wherever
Ron carried a laptop.
(anime song playing
over computer)
Though it seems
some work did get done here.
Jim Watkins:
We don't have a serious bone
in our bodies.
Your documentary
won't be picked up
by anybody
if we talk the way
we usually talk.
Filmmaker:
How would you say
you differ from your son?
Jim Watkins:
I don't differ from him.
We're, like,
out of the same mold.
When he was 10 years old,
he's sitting right next to me
with just a little black
Compaq computer he had.
Ron Watkins:
I'm more of an anti-social
type person. I avoid
social contact
as much as possible.
I prefer to spend
my time programming.
I talk mostly with my dogs.
Uh
Jim Watkins:
But your dog talks back.
My dog does talk back.
(laughs)
I, I agreed to be
interviewed for this
because it's very important
to get the word out
that, uh, as the years go by,
more and more people
are attacking
free speech online,
and we need to do
all we can to defend it now
while there's still time.
I, I'm more of like, the,
the forgetful professor type.
Like,
I'm terrible at adding,
subtracting, multiplying,
and dividing.
But I'm really good at very
high-level mathematics.
Like PhD-level mathematics.
(clears throat)
I'm able to use
these mathematics to
build things that other people
are not able to,
to, uh, comprehend.
Filmmaker:
Uh, you're also known as
Codemonkey?
Uh, Codemonkey. Correct.
Well, there's a, a famous song
from, I guess 2005,
called "Codemonkey."
And there's a music video,
and you can find that
on YouTube.
And I really liked the name,
and then one day,
I was, uh,
mining tripcodes
and came across "Odemonkey,"
so I added a "C" on the front,
and it became "Codemonkey."
People approach me
all the time asking who Q is.
And I always say,
"I don't know."
He's just another 8chan user.
And he's welcome to post
on 8chan as long as he wants.
We don't know who Q is.
It's not me.
(clears throat)
Might be you. Right?
But it's not me.
Only Q would do a documentary
about himself. Like--
-(laughs)
-Yeah, you know way more
about it than me.
It's like, wow.
So he posted
about six hours ago.
And that does coincide
with this flurry of activity
about six hours ago.
Q even attacked me.
And I had to-- (coughs)
I had to set that straight
quickly.
Filmmaker:
While calling it an attack
might be an exaggeration,
Q had told Ron
to check his code,
complained about being
locked out of the board,
and even asked Ron
for more resources.
Yeah, CM, which I assume--
I mean, that stands for
Codemonkey--
Ron Watkins:
See, it says here he has
a team to secure.
So
From then,
I figured Q was a team.
-Right.
-Right.
I'm pretty sure Q is
a spin-off from "Star Trek."
The Q is like a type
of security clearance,
called the Q-level clearance.
Yeah. I have one,
but I'm not Q.
-You don't have
a Q-level clearance.
-(both laugh)
Filmmaker:
While Jim didn't have
a Q-level clearance,
he did have
a military background.
I started out as
a mess hall truck driver,
and after that, I went on
to army recruiting,
and I did that
for about 10 years,
and then I got out of that
and started my own company.
Filmmaker:
Jim discovered
a niche online
where he could use the laws
of one country
to skirt around the laws
in another,
which primed the pumps
for his next endeavor:
investing in imageboards.
The very first imageboards
actually started in Japan.
But they were
heavily censored,
due to Japanese law.
That would
all change in 1999,
when a Japanese college
student in America
named Hiroyuki Nishimura
created 2channel.
2channel was named after
the channel that
you tuned your TV to
when hooking up
an old-school video game
console.
Because the site was hosted
on American soil,
2channel was able to bring
unfettered free speech
to Japan,
and it was insanely popular.
That's when Jim got involved.
Jim Watkins:
Hiroyuki came to me
and he said,
"I can't afford
to do this anymore,"
and so we put some servers
in my data center,
and we put it online.
Filmmaker:
In 2003,
America finally got a taste
of the chan culture
that its free speech laws
had helped to create.
(screaming):
4chan!
Filmmaker:
4chan's founder,
Christopher Poole,
also known as "moot,"
got his start at
a comedic website
called "Something Awful."
Something Awful helped shape
meme culture as we know it.
And when moot created 4chan,
it preserved something
that made the internet
in the '90s special
Anonymity.
4chan had a few knockoffs,
including 420chan,
which focused
more on drug culture.
It was started by
this guy, Aubrey Cottle.
420chan, that started
as a damn joke.
Like, it was, it was 420.
We were, we were
fucking high as shit,
and he's like, "Hey.
(chuckles)
"You should register
420 chan.
That--
That'd be fuckin' funny."
Filmmaker:
But Aubrey Cottle had
another claim to fame.
He had cultivated
the collective of
internet hacktivists
and keyboard warriors
known as none other
than "Anonymous."
Anonymous:
Welcome. I am Anonymous420.
We interrupt your
YouTube time to bring you
this urgent news story.
Filmmaker:
Anonymous started
as a prankster collective,
and users were organizing
to pull off comedic
and sometimes
offensive stunts.
Anonymous:
Contrary to the assumptions
of the media,
Anonymous is not simply
a group of superhackers.
Anonymous is a collective
of individuals united by
an awareness that someone
must do the right thing.
That someone must bring
light to the darkness.
Filmmaker:
But as Anonymous evolved,
it became
increasingly political.
At first,
they targeted individuals
on the wrong side of history,
like talk show host
and Holocaust denier
Hal Turner.
Hal Turner:
Why are you listening
to this show?
This is a show
for white people.
Get outta here, you spic.
(Anonymous supporter speaking)
And basically
we destroyed his ability
to pay for his radio show.
Filmmaker:
They went on to target
Scientology.
Anonymous:
The extent of your
malign influence
over those who have come
to trust you as leaders
has been made clear to us.
Anonymous has
therefore decided
that your organization
should be destroyed.
Filmmaker:
And even went after
the Federal Reserve.
Newscaster:
During the hack of the Fed,
Anonymous stole
the login credentials
of some 4,000 bankers
from across the country.
All I remember is that
all of us were fuckin'
terrified.
That all of a sudden,
Anonymous was just
this big fucking
global thing
and it just dramatically
accelerated from there.
They went fully mainstream.
Filmmaker:
Havoc ensued,
and between 2011 and 2012,
dozens of arrests
happened around the world,
causing Anonymous
to splinter.
Newscaster:
Twenty-five members
of Anonymous
have been arrested
across Europe.
Aubrey Cottle:
And we're, like, freaking out,
being like, oh, fuck,
oh, fuck. oh, fuck.
What did we do?
Oh, Jesus.
Filmmaker:
After Anonymous faded
from the limelight,
in 2014, a controversy
known as GamerGate
exploded from the bowels
of 4chan.
This new collective
borrowed from the tactics
of Anonymous,
but had a very
different agenda,
pushing back against
the feminist critique
of video games.
Paul Furber:
Yes, I followed GamerGate
from the very beginning.
I found it fascinating
and I fully supported it.
It was the first time
in many, many years
that a culture stood up
to feminist takeover,
and won.
Filmmaker:
It went after prominent
female game developers,
critics,
and their associates.
And using the shield
of anonymity,
users coordinated
harassments campaigns
on 4chan.
Zoe Quinn:
Instantly, they dived into,
"Find where she lives.
Find where,
where all these
people live."
Uh, "What are we
gonna do about her?
Can we hack her email?"
Like, instantly.
(choir singing)
Filmmaker:
But collectively,
lessons from Anonymous
had been learned.
There were no
self-declared leaders.
There was no clear objective.
Just male-driven vengeance
under a collective banner:
gamer culture.
Mark Mann:
Just a matter of,
sort of the rage,
that gamers were having
by being abandoned by
the industry that
used to cater to them.
Filmmaker:
Mark Mann was essentially
the godfather of GamerGate.
He oversaw
the video game board
where anons would
discuss tactics
for their
harassment campaigns.
Was anyone ever doxxed
in that process?
Well, yeah. It's the movement.
Everyone's gonna get doxxed.
-(laughs)
-Cottle: We have GamerGate.
It started with ethics
in games journalism,
and that was co-opted
by people leaning
towards the right,
and then started
pushing them towards a
"liberal media is
lying to you" agenda.
And then that
completely fucking
transformed from there
into the alt-right.
Quinn:
The first thing you lose
is all perspective.
Uh, it's like you're just
constantly surrounded
by nothing but hate.
Filmmaker:
Christopher Poole decided that
that flavor of free speech--
too toxic for 4chan.
And in December of 2014,
all mentions of GamerGate
were given the axe.
Furber:
4chan, the bastion
of free speech, was
banning mentions of,
of GamerGate.
(singing to tune of
"Blame Canada")
Filmmaker:
And 4chan users
weren't happy.
Including Fred Brennan.
I think the media
just doesn't understand that
4chan is heavily moderated.
There are rules.
Like, well, activism
is banned on 4chan.
You can state
your political beliefs
and have debates,
but when you start
turning it into action,
that's what gets
banned on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
Fred was still
a heavy 4chan user,
and the censorship
of GamerGate seemed to prove
that speech on 4chan
really wasn't that free.
Brennan:
So, my philosophy,
because I had gone years just
getting angrier and angrier
at the 4chan administration,
that any way that I could
hurt 4chan was a good thing.
Filmmaker:
Fortunately or unfortunately,
he'd already created
a space that welcomed
the controversy.
♪
Brennan:
I thought,
oh, I have this big
number of refugees
from 4chan.
I'm gonna do everything I can
to support them,
as an attack on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
And in late 2014,
that's when users started
flooding over to 8chan.
To the video game board
run by Mark Mann.
Mann:
I think what brought
a lot of people to 8chan
was the fact that
it was unique.
You know, we promised
better moderation,
a much more
streamlined community,
than what was on 4chan.
Filmmaker:
Around the time
Anonymous splintered,
Jim and Hiroyuki splintered,
as well.
Jim claimed that Hiroyuki
had stopped paying the bills.
There would be battles
that play out in
Japanese court,
and Jim ultimately
modifies the name
from 2channel to 5channel.
Brennan:
It's pretty crazy
what Jim did.
I mean, he basically
ran the deeds office
and just crossed off
Hiroyuki's name
and put his own name.
Filmmaker:
Of course,
after this happened,
Jim and Hiroyuki
became bitter rivals.
That was fun.
Filmmaker:
It's around this time that
Jim extends his support
to Fredrick Brennan
as the owner of 8chan,
expanding Jim's reach
to the US.
Now Hiroyuki, well,
he's a celebrity in Japan.
But his celebrity status
didn't help him
in his numerous
court cases against Jim.
So, there was only one
real way to get back at him,
and the opportunity
presented itself
when Chris Poole,
fleeing from the fallout
of GamerGate,
decided that he needed
to sell 4chan.
And he sold it to
none other than Hiroyuki.
Ron Watkins:
They had a falling out,
and Hiroyuki
purchased 4chan.
I believe that was partly
to spite my father.
Filmmaker:
These methods of organizing
attacks and pranks,
first popularized
by Anonymous
Anonymous:
That someone must bring
light to the darkness
Filmmaker:
Then used during GamerGate.
Cottle:
I can map out the entire
family tree
starting from Something Awful.
There's a direct lineage
pointing right back
to my shit.
Filmmaker:
These methods,
it seems that
they were just preludes
to what would
eventually become
QAnon.
Welcome back, my friends.
This is Dustin Nemos
of dustinnemos.com.
I have something interesting
that just happened,
uh, and you're not
gonna believe it.
So I've been
talking about how
a couple times--
I mean, I'm not bragging
or anything,
but I mentioned it
once or twice, 'cause
it's, it's interesting.
I was invited
to speak on QAnon
at the American Priority
Conference, uh, in DC.
Yeah, the organizer
reached out to me, and, uh,
basically said,
"Hey, I wanna do a Q panel.
Would you come and participate?"
And I was like, "Sure."
Filmmaker:
Up until now, QAnons
had organized online.
But for the first time ever,
key Q-tubers were stepping out
from behind their monitors
into the limelight.
Will Sommer:
The whole American
Priorities Conference
was sort of created as a,
uh, you know, an alternative.
So this was supposed to be
this kind of vision
of the new right,
this internet right.
The Clinton Foundation's
the next one that's coming up.
That's the next thing
that's gonna be the next, uh--
I haven't even caught up
on all the drops yet
from today.
We're fighting a war
against evil,
and people who eat babies.
Filmmaker:
Craig James from
JustInformedTalk,
Dustin Nemos from
The Nemos News Network,
and future congressional
candidate Deanna Lorraine
were all scheduled
to headline,
not to mention the infamous
political hitman Roger Stone
was slated to make
an appearance.
Operatives like Roger Stone
and General Flynn
understood the power
of information warfare,
both having bolstered rumors
that a child sex dungeon
existed in the basement
of a DC pizzeria
frequented by their
political opponents,
even though no such dungeon
was ever found.
Now, what do you think--
I've heard rumors of,
of restaurants here in DC
where you can go,
you know, down to the basement,
right?
And they're serving kids up
to Saudi princes and stuff.
I, I haven't heard that one,
but I know,
you know, it takes me back
to the Comet Ping Pong example.
I, I, that was
where I got it from.
-Yeah. And I love how
-All the Comet Ping Pong stuff.
Filmmaker:
Do you talk about Q
at all in your posts?
Yes, I do. Absolutely.
Because Q kind of ties
everything together.
And Q has people
wake up to the fact that
things that people
in the media have told us
have been very much,
you know, indoctrination
and lies.
A few different pieces together,
you may understand now
the power of thousands
and thousands of people
on the internet
Filmmaker:
While the earliest
promoter of QAnon,
Tracy Beanz, was still
allowed to speak,
presumably because
she was no longer openly
discussing QAnon,
she presented
to an empty room.
The other QTubers
were given the boot.
We were gonna speak
on the QAnon issue,
as, as it applies to,
you know, the, the overall
MAGA movement.
And they uninvited us
for that purpose.
Someone's pulling some
strings, to force him
to, uh, dis-invite us.
I actually, uh,
wrote an article
about that QAnon panel,
and how it was
planned to happen,
and then highlighted
some of the bigger speakers
they had at the time.
And after that article came out,
the QAnon panel was canceled.
Dustin Nemos:
Q is not popular among
a lot of the alt-leftist
media people.
You know, a lot of them
build about half
of their audience
on bashing Q.
You know?
It doesn't matter if
they want to de-platform me.
We're still getting
the word out.
Filmmaker:
Q gives you
a great deal of power,
in a way,
by using your platform.
Correct.
Filmmaker:
Why do you think Q trusts you?
I don't know that Q trusts me.
He might not trust me.
Many people are putting
a lot of faith and hope
into Q.
And hoping that
what he's saying is real,
and is going to change
the course of history.
Filmmaker:
You think Q is seeking infamy?
Well, Evelyn Hall once said,
"I disapprove with
what you're saying,
but I'll defend to the death
your right to say it."
I don't agree
and I don't disagree
with what Q's saying.
But I really
appreciate that he's using 8chan
to, uh, get his message out.
Filmmaker:
And do you seek infamy?
Uh, I don't seek infamy,
but I will embrace it.
-Filmmaker:
What about your dad?
-(laughs)
Uh, I, I can't speak for him,
but
(laughs)
He, he's a character.
Jim Watkins:
I've been blessed
with a really good life,
and I have a lot of fun.
This is what I do for fun.
I play with pens.
When you put in a cartridge
like this,
you wanna flick it a little bit,
like you're flicking--
flicking a spitball in class.
And that one will be able
to write shortly.
Okay.
Filmmaker:
Jim mentioned that
he has another hobby:
pigs.
To visit his farm,
we would need to make
a lengthy drive into the jungle
on the outskirts of Manila.
The pig farm was a place
of legend on 8chan.
Users liked to speculate
that it was where Jim
disposed of his enemies.
(man screaming)
Jim Watkins:
Well, the pig farm
is an active business.
It's where we get rid of
the bad users.
-Ron Watkins: No. (laughs)
-(filmmaker laughing)
Oh. Did I say that?
No.
Filmmaker:
Despite all the rumors
about Jim's farm,
I still had a hard time
imagining that
he was going to feed me
to the pigs.
(filmmaker speaking)
Ron Watkins:
Fredrick was growing
irritated and discontent
with the site.
It grew too fast,
and it outgrew the software.
They weren't able to
figure out how to, uh, grow it.
And so, uh, I devised
a, a way to scale it.
And, uh, my method worked.
And we were able
to scale 8chan to,
to the size it is now.
Jim Watkins:
I'm so happy
that you were able
to interview Fred, though.
Because that's, like,
proof of life, 'cause
people have, like,
accused me of, like,
killing him.
And of course I didn't.
He's a friend of mine.
You know?
Filmmaker:
You think you're
their enemy at this point?
I don't think I'm their enemy.
No, not at all.
Definitely there's been
some disagreements
over the years,
and definitely we have
our differences, but,
if it was true, I would have
already been fed to the pigs.
So, it's not true.
(pigs snuffling)
Jim Watkins:
Maybe 25 percent of 8chan
is paid for by pigs.
With your weapon
in your hand ♪
I'm gonna be
a fightin' man ♪
Sebastian is my, um,
stud.
We don't do artificial
insemination here.
We do it natural,
and he's a lover,
not a fighter.
He's a wonderful lover.
They love him, too.
Over here we got
his girlfriends.
This is his harem.
Seventy-one, two,
three, four, five. 75.
So I have 75, uh,
piglets and weaners.
They're weaning.
(squealing)
I'm gonna build
a house up here.
And I'm gonna make this
my private yoga studio.
That data center's in here.
(laughs)
♪
Ron Watkins:
Running an imageboard is not
for the faint of heart.
I'm being attacked every day
from all different angles.
You have to have thick skin,
and not care what
they talk about.
I've had a lot of
mental, uh, training,
and I've spent
many years meditating,
and I used to stay
in a monastery.
Uh, I learned a lot about
how to try to kill the ego,
or, or even just
work around the ego.
And because of that,
words from other people
attacking me
or saying terrible things
about me
does not bother me at all.
So I usually, uh,
avoid drama as much as I can.
It's just high stress,
and I don't need
a lot of stress.
♪
Brennan:
Excuse me, Pol.
Yan.
Filmmaker:
So who do you think brought
this Q to your apartment?
How did this arrive?
I just found it one day.
I wrote up a report
as soon as it happened,
but
Filmmaker:
Where was it?
Brennan:
It was, um, man,
where was it?
I think it was just
on my desk.
It was a long time ago.
I don't really remember
the details anymore.
Filmmaker:
And Q had posted
at some point
that he was going to,
like, thank,
I don't know if it was
the creators of 8chan, or the--
Right.
He said he was gonna
send a message
to the 8chan administrators.
Came back, I saw it,
and I thought
it was really weird,
and I just looked at it,
and then I just,
I just posted it online.
I wrote, "This could
be something,
or this could be nothing."
I thought it would be
funny to say,
"Oh, it could be from
the real Q."
And weirdly enough,
Q never repudiated that.
I'm one of the Q proofs.
They believe Q put the Q
in my room,
but
it's not like, you know,
it's not like a bad gift
or anything.
It's a good gift for me.
I design fonts, so
The Q is my favorite letter.
And it always has been,
since I was a kid.
When you're a typographer,
you're always fighting
between
making sure people
can read the letter,
and then your own
artistic intent, so
Q gives you the most freedom.
There are so many ways
to put the tail of the Q.
You can have it bisecting.
You can have it only inside,
so none of this part.
You can have it totally outside.
You can have it touching,
or you can write it as a two.
So, it gives a typographer
a lot of freedom
when they're
designing a font.
And I'm not sure if any
other letter does that.
Filmmaker:
You do have an unbelievable
amount of Qs in here.
Brennan:
Thank you!
Filmmaker:
Yeah. This-- It's
It's as if your room is,
is just Qs.
Brennan:
Back when I first got
the blue Q,
QAnons, they would send me Qs
to be like, thank you.
'Cause like, they saw
the blue Q as a sign.
So not all these Qs
are actually bought by me.
I never acknowledged
any of the Qs that came here.
Filmmaker:
But you didn't get rid
of them, either. (laughs)
Brennan:
That's true. Yeah.
Filmmaker:
Do you think it's possible
that Fredrick Brennan is Q?
Uh, I think Fredrick Brennan
could be Q.
But having an object
does not mean
you are the person
associated with that object.
Example, uh
Here's a MAGA hat, right?
Does that mean I'm Trump?
Obviously, I'm not Trump,
even though I have
the same hat that Trump wears.
Filmmaker:
Well, there are a million--
a million of those,
-and I've only seen one--
-Well, there are millions
of Qs, also.
(machine buzzing)
Jim Watkins:
This is my man cave.
Filmmaker:
So what goes down
in this room?
This is where it all happens.
I am Jim Watkins,
and I will dance on command.
I do lap dances for 50 bucks.
You want me to turn this off?
(filmmaker speaking)
You can hear this?
I can't hear this at all.
Filmmaker:
Um, so is this where you,
like, log into 8chan usually?
Jim Watkins:
I usually don't go to boards
that are not public.
'Cause you get there
and you get, like,
things you want to un-see.
Filmmaker:
But you don't have access
to the Q board?
What is the URL?
What is the
We-we can go to the Q board.
Filmmaker:
Now, the Q research board
is hidden.
And that means it wouldn't
show up on 8chan's main page.
You had to know
where to look.
You could be directed there
by a link from another site,
or type "Q research"
into the browser.
Q
Filmmaker:
Uh, research? Q research?
Research. Okay.
Filmmaker:
It's weird that, uh,
like, one of the most
popular things on 8chan
and you're, like
But how would I know
it's the most popular thing?
It's not listed.
Filmmaker:
Q has something like
2,500 posts at this point.
-Have you read them all?
-Filmmaker:
I read a lot of them.
Oh. Tell me about it,
and I'll tell you
what my opinion is.
Filmmaker:
One of the big ones is that
there's all these
sealed indictments.
Hillary and John McCain,
they're all arrested already
and wearing ankle bracelets.
Jim Watkins:
That's possible.
I think they have, like,
secret courts in America,
don't they?
Filmmaker:
November 11th was supposed
to be this big day.
Jim Watkins:
11-11.
That's, uh, 1-1-1-1.
It's one more one
if you count the one
in the 18.
But everything that Q has,
has said,
has come true in some
potential future.
And all of those
unlimited futures have,
or are happening.
Just you can only
experience one of them.
Filmmaker:
See? Now you are
starting to sound like Q.
(laughs)
Jim Watkins:
Obviously, if there's
so many people
reading this Q research,
I don't think
that this is a LARP.
It's too big for that.
But who it is,
and if he's actually an insider
at the White House,
that's up in the air.
Filmmaker:
Do you think it's possible that
your dad is part of Q?
Uh, it's impossible.
(laughs) He would have
blabbed about it already.
Interviewer:
He seems like he would be good
at keeping a secret.
Jim Watkins:
It's a big world, you know.
Maybe he's just some
overtired, overstressed,
middle S, GS-5
from the White House
that's like,
"I got an idea."
Filmmaker:
Q's a big fan of General Flynn,
-so probably someone related
to General Flynn--
-General Flynn?
He got burnt for no reason,
didn't he?
Poor guy.
You know, I, I found out
more about it today
than I actually
knew about it before.
I haven't been keeping up
on politics for a while.
'Cause I've been busy
working on, like,
important things.
I mean, he worked in the
military for a while, so
I believe they do stuff
that needs to be kept secret.
What is a Q-level clearance?
You know, I was in
the army 16 years
and I never had
a Q-level clearance.
I don't know what that is.
Q, if he is who he is, uh,
he would surely
know a lot about
the military, and
My dad knows a lot
about the military,
and probably, it's--
they're military
talking points. Maybe.
Jim Watkins:
When I was in the academy,
the commandant said,
"You're the most
civilianized motherfucker
I ever let graduate."
It's possible, I guess,
that he could be Q,
but I doubt it,
'cause he's, he's so busy
working on the pig farm,
and
Filmmaker:
Do you think it
would be dangerous
for Q to reveal himself?
Or herself?
Probably, yeah.
Has he done anything illegal?
Filmmaker:
You can definitively say, then,
that you are not a part of Q.
I am not a part of Q.
Don't arrest me.
(laughs softly)
Filmmaker:
How do you think
you differ from your father?
Uh, how do I differ?
Well, I don't
I'm not autistic
about pens, for one.
Filmmaker:
After spending
several days with Jim,
something came to mind.
Pen board usually
has like one user. Me.
Filmmaker:
Q uses a pen to confirm
its identity--
a $1,500 Montblanc
StarWalker pen
that supposedly belongs
to Donald Trump.
Q first introduced the pen
on December 12th of 2017.
When Q returns
after the power struggle
on January 5th,
what does Q use to confirm?
That same pen.
Why does Q choose a pen,
of all things,
to confirm its identity?
Jim Watkins:
Ooh, this is my hobby. Yeah.
This is what I do for fun.
That is from France.
So we'll let that sit
for a little while.
Filmmaker:
There a lot of
pen collectors out there?
Jim Watkins:
There are millions
of pen collectors out there.
I love this pen.
This is my favorite pen.
(video game-style
music playing)
♪
-(INTENSE MUSIC) ♪
-What are the parallels between
Q that you wrote about,
and QAnon?
SPEAKER: Secret messages,
shared drop by drop,
crumb by crumb.
What kind of person would read
this book and think,
"I want to be Q,
I want to be the villain"?
CULLEN HOBACK: In early 2019,
I got an anonymous tip,
that forced me to revisit
my investigation
into Jim and Ron Watkins.
Somebody's making claims that
Roger Stone
was subsidizing your site.
Uh that's false.
I don't know who Roger Stone is.
I do think there is
a possibility that Roger Stone
is deeply connected with Q.
HOBACK: Maybe Q really was
someone close to Trump.
I think that the people that are
8chan
are heavily involved with Q.
Most likely, Ronald Watkins
knows who Q is.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪