User:John Cummings/Articles/QAnon section

Pastel QAnon is a collection of techniques aimed at indoctrinating predominantly women into the QAnon conspiracy theory, mainly on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram and TikTok. It co-opts the feminine-coded aesthetic (including a pastel colour pallete, which is where it gets its name from) and language of activities and communities popular with women and uses gateway messaging to frame the conspiracies as reasonable concerns. The trend was identified by researcher Marc-André Argentino. a researcher at Concordia University, Canada.

Groups targeted
Pastel QAnon targets several existing communities and 'movements' which are predominantly populated by women including 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' for monetary gain especially during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the impact on their businesses e.g yoga instructors and other 'wellness' professionals spreading vaccination conspiracies. Researchers have identified lack of investment in women’s health as a key driver for women adoption of 'conspirituality'.

Aesthetics
Pastel QAnon uses a feminine-coded aesthetic of an often pastel colour pallet, aspirational imagery, font, design language and phrases used widely in marketing of products and services aimed at women. This includes pastel colours, glitter, watercolours, handwritting 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.

"“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.'"

Gateway messaging
Pastel QAnon uses gateway coded messages about child protection, child trafficking, health (including 5G, Covid-19 denialism and vaccines) and other topics and frames them using language familiar to women e.g ‘awakening,’ ‘enlightenment’, ‘seeking one’s own truth’, ‘freedom of thought’, 'self-exploration', 'truth seeker', 'censorship' and 'do your own research'. The messages do not identify themselves as related to QAnon and posters often deny any knowledge of QAnon, but spread the same conspiracy theories framed for a 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. For example:


 * Targeting black and brown women, who have a history of medical experimentation without informed consent, with messages about 'forced vaccination' and other healthcare related conspiracies.
 * Targeting mothers and neighborhood groups with messages about child safety including furniture companies.
 * Using concerns by parents during the COVID-19 pandemic to spread conspiracy theories related to vaccines, masks, social distancing and 5G.

The messages use QAnon hashtags and other methods to encourage social media algorithms to suggest users increasing extremist QAnon affiliated content to indoctrinate readers.

Piggybacking on social media campaigns
Pastel QAnon piggybacks on existing social media phrases, slogans and hashtags to spread its messages to a much wider targeted audience. E.g Save the Children's human trafficking hashtag #savethechildren was used to spread conspiracies about sex-trafficking Satanist paedophiles and white supremacist and xenophobic narratives.

Content moderation and deniability
By co-opting and adapting existing language and using private groups and auto-deleting 'stories' the messages largely avoid content moderation. It also gives people spreading the conspiracies semi-plausible deniability, people and groups pushing Pastel QAnon messages often deny any knowledge of QAnon.