Parkland Shooting Survivor Says QAnon Convinced His Dad It Was A Hoax & Now His Father Thinks He's A Paid Actor
His family is being torn apart.
Getty Images A man who survived the 2018 Parkland school shooting says his father has become convinced the deadly massacre was a hoax and his son was a paid actor.
The man says his father has become engrossed by QAnon and has began adopting many of their far-right conspiracy theories.
“QAnon has consumed his life to the point where it's tearing our family apart along with my mental health,” he wrote in a Reddit post, detailing his father’s claims.
The man’s claims about being a shooting survivor have been verified by Vice News however, he has maintained his anonymity due to fears of backlash from QAnon theorists.
Parkland school shooting survivor says QAnon convinced his father it was a hoax.
The man says his father began believing the shooting was a hoax after seeing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene harass another survivor, David Hogg, and claiming the shooting was a “false-flag operation.”
“He's done ‘extensive research’ on body language and claims he can tell the shooter is a radical commie actor who was paid to sacrifice his life in order to remove our guns,” the survivor wrote.
Earlier this year, the man became one of the last classes at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that survived the shooting to graduate.
The shooting, one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, claimed the lives of 17 people — 9 of whom were classmates of the Reddit poster.
QAnon got to his father during the pandemic.
The man says his father began as an anti-masker but, when he turned to the internet to find like-minded people, he found QAnon.
"From there it snowballed into what he is today, believing that if the government is able to overthrow an election, then everything else is probably a lie too," the 18-year-old said.
Researchers estimate that support for QAnon — which was once a fringe theory on the internet — has increased rapidly during the pandemic, partially due to the anti-mask movement.
“QAnon has consumed his life to the point where it's tearing our family apart along with my mental health,” the man wrote on Reddit.
His father accused his son of participating in the hoax.
The man says his father has been actively trying to trigger his survivor’s guilt and PTSD by spouting theories to him and accusing him of “accepting money to be part of it.”
“I can't take more of him berating me and purposely trying to trigger me to see if my PTSD is real or not. He's seen me break down and cry my eyes out multiple times which I never ever did before,” he wrote.
He also adds that his father refuses to stop wearing burgundy despite his son’s requests. Parkland shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, wore a burgundy t-shirt during the deathly shooting.
He says he has tried to seek professional help for his father but is now considering cutting him off completely.
He writes that he has tried to get through to his father on a number of occasions, including asking him to think back to the day of the shooting.
“[I] remind him to look back at the texts I sent when I was 100% sure the shooter was about to enter our classroom. I ask him to look me in the eyes and still argue I'm able to fake what I wrote in those messages but no luck.”
Cruz is expected to go on trial in September for the 2018 shooting.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.