The violence of online conspiracy theories

This article investigates the relationship between online conspiracy theory communities and platformed violence through a case study of a conspiratorial harassment campaign against a Danish children’s TV show, Uncle Shrimp (DR, 2012–), and its main actor. Based on theories of violent extremism, conspiracism, and the participatory practices in online spaces of hybridized extremism, we aim to understand how the QAnon-adjacent Uncle Shrimp conspiracy theory is appropriated to fit a Danish context. We analyze 370 user comments and six posts from Facebook ( N = 376), drawing on Berger’s four steps of group extremism: crisis narratives, in-group negotiations, out-group threats, and (violent) solutions. We found that users engage in conspiracy theory worldbuilding through a range of participatory practices and that the harassment campaign against the Uncle Shrimp actor emerged from the community shaped by mutual appreciation and forensic play alongside expressions of hate and platformed violence.