![]() pizza restaurant called WeThePizza with a friend who was killed or captured in the process, and found an actual menu of child sex services offered, as well as child pornography. In one particularly bizarre incident, a participant in /r/Pizzagate claimed to have hacked the website of a D.C. Anyone remotely connected to a piece of so-called evidence became a target for threatening phone calls and social media messages. Anything they decided looked "creepy" or "wrong" was thrown into the evidence bin without question, from the dark album art of a band that had played at Comet, which they deemed satanic, to an email describing a handkerchief with "a map that seems pizza-related." Even modern-art murals on the walls of the restaurant were implicated. that theorists decided must be linked to the pedophilia ring because they also serve pizza. ![]() Threatening phone calls regularly harassed and frightened employees of many restaurants near Comet, and other pizza places in D.C. Conspiracy theorists began pouncing on any social media posts involving children, adding foul comments attempting to read abuse into innocent photos. Though the whole idea of the conspiracy was clearly unhinged from the start, this is where things became especially personal and frightening. If "pizza" is code for pedophilia, the rumor mongers reasoned, clearly a pizza restaurant is the dungeon where all the horrors go down. James Alefantis, owner of Comet as well as other nearby restaurants, used to date David Brock, head of a pro-Clinton group, and John Podesta knew Alefantis and ate at the restaurant. That's how they landed on Comet Ping Pong, a popular family-friendly pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., that also hosts occasional punk shows. The theories grew to engulf pretty much anything that could be linked to Podesta, or anyone who had ever met him. It's been amplified for unknown reasons by Twitter bots traced to the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Vietnam. From there, Pizzagate caught the attention of conservative fake news sites, minor white supremacist celebrities, and supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The theory also became popular on Reddit’s “The Donald,” a hub for Trump supporters. It's important to note that since the theories that would become Pizzagate began on 4chan and Reddit, sites known for trolling people with cruel, complicated pranks, it's likely that many of the conspiracy theory's originators were joking - coming up with absurdities to entertain themselves.īut it took a very short time for /r/Pizzagate, the now-closed Pizzagate-focused Reddit subforum, or subreddit, to fill with people who appeared to be true believers. Using this code, Pizzagaters claim, Podesta and his well-heeled pals could brazenly discuss their plans for throwing disgusting sex parties exploiting enslaved children, in between exchanges about Clinton's campaign strategy and setting up conference calls. Specifically, they noticed that these emails mentioned pizza a few times.īoldly disregarding the simple explanation that the emailers, like most Americans, eat pizza regularly and find it to be an easy food to serve and eat while socializing, self-appointed Internet detectives decided that "pizza" was a complex code for pedophilia. When Wikileaks released emails from former Hillary Clinton 2016 Campaign Chairman John Podesta's account, most commentators honed in on the ones showing Clinton allies speaking candidly and sometimes disparagingly about the candidate and her associates, as well as about policies like a federal $15 minimum wage.īut a small number of people on message boards like 4chan and Reddit were more interested in seemingly mundane emails about small social gatherings and parties hosted by Podesta and his friends. Pizzagate started, as so many things have in the last few months, with Wikileaks. Taking the so-called Pizzagaters seriously seemed about as sensible as taking the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency seriously, and both seemed like relatively safe targets for poking fun.īut just as many expected a return to the rational world after Trump's defeat, only to wake up on November 9 living in Trump's world, this bizarre pizza-pedophilia piece of make-believe seems to have struck the right kind of nerve in this simultaneously gullible and paranoid time to become a lasting, serious concern. ![]() The story seemed like a hilarious curiosity in the weeks before the presidential election. pizza restaurant had a secret pedophilia dungeon in its basement, ending with him shooting his assault rifle inside the restaurant and being arrested.īut the name stuck. "Pizzagate" seems like too cute of a name for a conspiracy theory that's escalated to the point that an armed man actually drove up the East Coast to "self-investigate" whether a D.C.
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