It’s become clear, both by the products they buy and the choices they make, that many people trust their influencers more than their own doctor. Part of what makes a successful influencer is the ability to compel their followers to trust them, and they do that by sharing their lives, their homes, their diets, their concerns. An entry point that can be found everywhere from a community garden to the beauty aisle at a big Tesco. But something is happening, accelerated by the pandemic – the former is becoming a mainstream entry point into the latter. While the overlap of left-wing, magazine-friendly wellness and far-right conspiracy theories might initially sound surprising, the similarities in cultures, in ways of thinking – the questioning of authority, of alternative medicines, the distrust of institutions– are clear. It’s a place where the word “scamdemic” might comfortably run up the side of a pair of yoga pants (88% polyester, £40, also available in “Defund the Media” print, “World Hellth Organisation” and “Masked Sheeple”, in millennial pink). It’s a place where you might typically see a vegan influencer imploring their followers to stick to a water fast rather than getting vaccinated, or a meditation instructor reminding her clients of the dangers of 5G, or read an Instagram comment explaining that vaccines are hiding tracking devices. It describes the sticky intersection of two worlds: the world of yoga and juice cleanses with that of New Age thinking and online theories about secret groups, covertly controlling the universe. Ward defined it as “a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fuelled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews”. In 2011, sociologists Charlotte Ward and David Voas coined the term “conspirituality”.

A number of influencers who previously focused on wellness and spirituality have become dominated with QAnon content Rein Lively But as she clicked on and read about imminent genocide under the guise of a health crisis, she felt herself changing. She liked the idea that there were patriots in the government who were working quietly to help save the world. At first, she enjoyed what she was reading. “Much of what I read took a hard stance against the pharmaceutical industry and western medical philosophy, and was particularly critical of individuals like Bill Gates, who seemed to have an incredible amount of influence and involvement in public health policy,” continues Rein Lively. Today that phrase is seen on social media posts by yoga teachers and wellness influencers speaking out against human trafficking. The phrase was first used by QAnon believers spreading the false claim that Hillary Clinton abused children and drank their blood. It originated on far-right message boards before entering online wellness communities, where it found a largely female following, who continue to share phrases like “Save the Children”. “A significant number of influencers previously focused on wellness and spirituality,” she noticed, “seemed to become dominated with what we now understand to be QAnon content.” QAnon is the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is fighting a deep-state cabal of Satanic paedophiles. Her interests were grounded in “wellness, natural health, organic food”, she lists for me today from her home in Arizona, “yoga, ayurvedic healing, meditation, etc.” When the pandemic hit she started spending more time online, on wellness sites that offered affirmations, recipes and, on health, the repeated message to “Do your research.” She’d click on a video of foods that boost immunity and she’d see a clip about the dangers of vaccines.

Rein Lively had always thought of herself as a spiritual person. When two employees at the Scottsdale branch of Target confront her, she continues, “Why? I can’t do it cause I’m a blonde white woman? Wearing a fucking $40,000 Rolex? I don’t have the right to fuck shit up?” This shit is over, we don’t want any of this any more!” she screams, holding the phone camera in one hand and tossing face masks with the other, in a video that swiftly became known as QAnon Karen. A PR executive in Arizona, she already had the appearance of a person for whom a viral video was part of the plan, but with the super-groomed blondeness better suited to a branded beauty tutorial than a clip of face masks being torn from their racks. I t was the afternoon of 4 July 2020, and Melissa Rein Lively’s video was about to go viral.

Pervasive thoughts