How White Supremacists & Men’s Rights Activists Are Using Pastel QAnon & Alt-Right Tactics to Infiltrate Mental Health & Wellness Spaces Across Social Media Platforms
Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right is a collection of techniques and strategies of using queer and feminine-coded aesthetics to indoctrinate predominantly queer people and women into the QAnon/Alt-Right conspiracy theory, mainly on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube and TikTok. It co-opts the aesthetics (including a pastel colour palette, which is where it gets its name) and language of communities and activities popular with queer people and women and uses gateway messaging to frame the conspiracies as reasonable concerns.
The term “Pastel QAnon” was, interestingly enough, coined by a researcher at Concordia University in Montréal named Marc-André Argentino. Jay Marquis-Manicom also happened to do their masters thesis on the ethnography of the Alt-Right in Montréal at Concordia University. Jay and their partner Clementine Morrigan have been weaponising these tactics on their audience. It is suspected that the queer community is currently being surveilled by a project that is funded by Concordia University: “Queering The Map.”
GROUPS TARGETED: Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right targets several existing communities and ‘movements’ which are predominantly populated by queer people and women including; prison abolition, mental health, complex trauma, lifestyle, celebrity, influencers, fashion, beauty, fitness, dieting, mothers and community groups, yoga, self improvement and self care, holistic living, childbirth (including home birth), pregnancy and childcare support groups, interior design and party planning.
‘Conspirituality’ messaging within groups is often spread by their ‘leaders’ and ‘influencers’ for monetary gain especially during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the impact on their businesses.
AESTHETIC: Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right uses a queer-coded aesthetic of an often pastel colour palette, aspirational imagery, font, design language and phrases used widely in marketing of products and services aimed at queer people and women. This includes pastel colours, glitter, watercolours, handwriting fonts, illustrations, photographs (e.g. natural scenery, fashion and make up, aspirational lifestyles) and language (e.g. spirituality and ‘motivational’ quotes) in styles the targeted groups are familiar with to make them attractive.
Clementine Morrigan and Jay Marquis-Manicom/LeSoleil have curated their “QUEER PUNK ANARCHIST” aesthetic to fit their group targets:
ABUSE SURVIVORS AND WHITE QUEER LEFTISTS AND LIBERALS WHO ARE AFRAID OF THE SHIFTING CULTURE WHERE PEOPLE ARE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ABUSE — ESPECIALLY RACISM, ABLEISM, AND SEXUAL ABUSE — ON A COMMUNITY LEVEL.
GATEWAY MESSAGING: Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right uses gateway coded messages about child abuse, child protection, child trafficking, health (including 5G, COVID-19 denialism, vaccines, and mental health), trauma and other topics and frames them using language familiar to queer people and women e.g. ‘awakening,’ ‘enlightenment’, ‘seeking one’s own truth’, ‘freedom of thought’, ‘self-exploration’, ‘truth seeker’, ‘censorship’, ‘cancel culture’, and ‘do your own research’. The messages do not identify themselves as related to QAnon/Alt-Right and posters often deny any knowledge of QAnon/Alt-Right, but spread the same conspiracy theories framed for a queer and/or female audience. The messages often use and expand upon on existing distrust and misunderstanding of the groups targeted, positive reinforcement and concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Becca Lewis, Stanford University researcher of online political subcultures, says: “We say you ‘fall down a rabbit hole.’ But it’s not how the ecosystem actually works. So much of this content is being disseminated by super popular accounts with absolutely mainstream aesthetics…. If you’re able to make this covetable, beautiful aesthetic and then attach these conspiracy theories to it, that normalizes the conspiracy theories in a very specific way that Instagram is particularly good for.”
At face value, many of the accounts appear as though they align with our morals and interests. This is how they catch people, and over time their messaging becomes more extreme and/or they start to recommend other accounts to start moving us down a pipeline of right wing extremist ideology.
PIGGYBACKING ON SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS: Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right piggybacks on existing social media phrases, slogans and hashtags to spread its messages to a much wider audience. For example: #BlackLivesMatter #MentalHealth #AbolishThePolice #DefundThePolice #CancelCulture #Cancelled #FuckingCancelled #FuckThePolice
AVOIDING CONTENT MODERATION AND DENIABILITY: By co-opting and adapting existing language and using private groups and auto-deleting ‘stories’ Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right messages largely avoid content moderation. This also gives people spreading the conspiracies semi-plausible deniability with people and groups pushing Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right messages often denying any knowledge of QAnon/Alt-Right.
SYMBOLISM: You will see a lot of the influencers who are engaging with Pastel QAnon & Alt-Right tactics using axe emojis to symbolise that they are “cancelled” — something the entire cult self-proclaims. 🪓🪓🪓
Fasces are bound bundles of sticks or rods into which an axe is inserted or to which an axe is tied. The symbol dates to ancient Rome, whose leaders used it as a symbol of authority and power. This symbolism long survived the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, becoming an element of heraldry as well as a symbol of governmental authority.
The United States draws a considerable amount of its own symbology from classical antiquity, including the fasces, which has been used as a symbol by military units, government agencies, and even the House of Representatives. For many years, the fasces appeared on the so-called Mercury dime.
However, the fasces came to be associated with right-wing extremism in the early 20th century when it was adopted by Benito Mussolini for his fascist movement (the term “fascism” itself is derived from the word “fasces”). The fasces became the most well-known symbol of fascist Italy, and thus of fascism itself.
“The Nexus” is this cult’s term for accountability or “cancel culture.” They believe that anyone who participates in calling out abuse, on any level, is “stuck in The Nexus.”
SURVEILLING SURVIVORS: Pastel QAnon/Alt-Right is studying marginalised communities through multiple Instagram accounts, often by creating close relationships with us through DMs, getting involved in our traumas and call-outs, studying the language that is used to hold abusers accountable, finding our abusers and bringing them into community together while radicalising them into white supremacy. Many of the accounts who are radicalising our abusers are working in university institutions and with the police. The aim of the accounts surveilling us is to have us continue to play into neo-liberalism, pin survivors against each other, and keep us from critically thinking about whether or not the other accounts are associated with QAnon and the Alt-Right. The accounts that are radicalising our abusers and the accounts that are surveilling survivors are separate, but there is sometimes crossover.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ACCOUNTS THAT ARE SURVEILLING SURVIVORS (This is not a check list. Not every account involved will meet this criteria. Different accounts use different tactics for different audiences.):
- Real identity is obscured (Do you see any real photos of them? Have you met them? Have you video-chatted? Do they have tagged pictures? Who are they following/surveiling?)
- Often claim a mixed/biracial cultural background (which they are very knowledgeable of), “white-passing”, clings to any marginalised identity to explain why they aren’t revealing their real identity (like being undocumented)
- Identity and life is often grandiose (lots of travel, living in major cities like Montreal/NY/LA/San Diego, fashion designer, working for politcians, bragging about long-term activism, volunteer work, philanthropy, writer with focus on “online dating”, often “friends with celebs”, etc.)
- Often very critical of right wing (yet *might* still use right wing rhetoric like “the woke mob” and “cancel culture” — but not always!)
- Encourage sympathising with rapists and abusers
- Foster a “friendship” with you over DMs but you don’t really know any tangible information about them being a real person
- Asks about your mental health status or want to talk about mental health, will often try to “be there for you”, might even pretend to have the same diagnosis
- Leads call-outs or imposes themself on other call-outs, often making them a disaster and not respecting survivors asks
- Huge focus on abolition, compassion, and “cancel culture”
- Pushes your boundaries but not enough for you to feel comfortable re-stating them
- Love-bombing, sharing your work, helping you gain a following, making you feel special
- Meme account where you don’t know the person and they aren’t following anyone back
The Wellness Therapist or “Azi” has often claimed to work on HBO’s “Q Into The Storm”, a documentary that has been met with much concern from disinformation experts — citing that it could possibly be a recruitment tool.
“Most of us are aware enough not to give out our address or banking information to strangers on the internet but feel much freer to share intimate personal details in comments and DMs. While this information is seemingly innocent, it can be used to con us out of money or subtly influence our political, philosophical, cultural, and/or spiritual views of the world. It can also be used to perform online ethnographies which can lead to lucrative opportunities for the researcher like documentaries, book deals, academic papers, networking connections, etc.” — The Lighthouse
EXAMPLES OF ACCOUNTS SURVEILLING SURVIVORS (there are MANY of these accounts out there — these are only a select few):
Many of these accounts have similar characteristics to an old account that went by @/douconsideryourselfafeminist (or “Sarah”) and exhibited a lot of the same tactics and behaviors. “Sarah” was cited in a thesis paper that came out of the same co-hort as Jay’s thesis paper at Concordia University.
GASLIGHTING: These influencers are gaslighting us by questioning my sanity while using digital blackface. They are creating false narratives, telling thousands of people that I have doxxed people and incited harassment — disconnecting me from many members of my community. They have also misgendered many of the survivors who are speaking up, myself included, even after being repeatedly corrected. They are effectively emotionally abusing their thousands of followers with these tactics.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim(s) and delegitimize the victim’s belief. Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
WHAT GASLIGHTING LOOKS LIKE:
- They tell blatant lies
- They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof
- They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition
- They wear you down over time
- Their actions do not match their words
- They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you
- They project [ie. accuse you of the thing they are guilty of]
- They try to align people against you
- They tell you or others that you are crazy
- They tell you everyone else is a liar
“There is a difference between responding to criticism and silencing critics. Ask yourself: are the claims themselves being refuted or is the claimant’s credibility/approach being called into question?
TRUST YOURSELF. INFLUENCE YOURSELF. ASKING CRITICAL QUESTIONS OF POPULAR FIGURES IS NOT MENTALLY UNWELL AND BEING MENTALLY UNWELL IS NOT A REASON TO BE DISBELIEVED.
Draw your own conclusions.” — The Lighthouse
Follow Caitie on TikTok & Instagram.
***Update August 22, 2023: Ongoing Harassment and Urgent Insights***
Amplifying the Harassment: An Unsettling Reality
Since writing this article, I have endured extreme online harassment from Clementine’s cult following. Clementine’s partner Jay, and an account falsely portraying themselves as a healthcare worker @the.wellness.therapist, have armchair diagnosed me as schizophrenic and paranoid, despite receiving ongoing mental healthcare from qualified professionals for PTSD stemming from the ongoing cyberstalking and harassment.
Clementine’s Eery Admission of Tactics
Clementine has written in one of her Substack articles titled “You Don’t Have to Like Them but You Have to Love Them,” about the ease of employing calculated actions to harm others. She contemplates using burner accounts to spread slander and rumors, alluding to the ability to exact revenge on individuals. Astonishingly, this exact strategy has been carried out against me since naming her connection to the NXIVM cult. Here are the documented instances and a map of some of the cult members who have employed these harassment tactics against me (viewable on desktop only).
The Grim Trail of Evidence
The harassment campaigns I have endured are documented with alarming evidence. This ranges from the utilisation of multiple burner accounts adorned with blackface, to the creation of entire profiles dedicated to doxxing my Indigenous family and coercing me into suicidal thoughts. In this disturbing context, a crucial question surfaces: If Clementine stands by her principles, why does she not intervene as her cult following systematically harasses me? Moreover, the uncanny colour similarity between the profile picture of @the.wellness.therapist and the original Concordia University account @douconsideryourselfafeminist (along with similar behaviour and writing style) raises suspicions, considering the connection between Jay and @douconsideryourselfafeminist is what inspired me to dig deeper in the first place.
Unraveling Disturbing Connections: A Distinct Pattern
As further pieces fall into place, a disconcerting connection emerges: Jay Marquis-Manicom and the Instagram account @douconsideryourselfafeminist (“Sarah” from Montreal) are linked to the same Concordia University cohort. This revelation aligns eerily with the roots of “whistleblower” Sarah Edmonson, known for recruiting young women into the NXIVM cult, Queering the Map which documents the experiences and locations of LGBTQIA+ people across the globe, and Marc-Andre Argentino who coined the term/tactic Pastel QAnon. Additionally, my investigation reveals Clementine’s reliance on a dissertation authored by NXIVM’s marketing expert, Dr. Christine Marie, to substantiate her arguments against cancel culture. The intricate connections continue to multiply.
A Complex Web of Manipulation: Azadeh Ghafari @the.wellness.therapist
@the.wellness.therapist claims to be Iranian psychotherapist Azadeh Ghafari and work at UCLA, cited in books and articles about NXIVM and cults. However, I was notified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that Azadeh Ghafari is not a public entity providing health and social services as she claims. I was also informed by UCLA that she is not employed there.
Unveiling Disturbing Agendas: Shielding Abusers
Beyond the realm of harassment and manipulation, a stark reality emerges: Clementine Morrigan’s actions may serve as a diversion, shielding celebrities and powerful individuals who seek to evade accountability for their racism and sexual abuse. This sinister tactic aims to silence marginalised voices, preventing them from voicing complaints against these wrongdoings.
Challenging the Manipulative Strategy
By delving into the intricate layers of manipulation, it becomes clear that these actions are not isolated incidents. They form part of a broader strategy aimed at protecting the interests of those who perpetuate racism and abuse. The urgency to continue questioning, probing, and advocating for accountability remains undiminished.
As this unsettling journey unfolds, it’s imperative to remain vigilant against attempts to manipulate narratives and divert attention from crucial issues. By exposing the truth behind these calculated tactics, we stand a chance to disrupt the cycle of abuse and exploitation that threatens to persist unchecked.
