# Beyond the Rabbit Hole: Mapping the Relational Harms of QAnon Radicalization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17658 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17658/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 66 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [BERTopic: Neural topic modeling with a class-based TF-IDF procedure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05794/) (2022)
- [EmoLLMs: A Series of Emotional Large Language Models and Annotation Tools for Comprehensive Affective Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08508/) (2024)
- [Prompting Large Language Models for Topic Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09693/) (2023)
- [Spillover of Antisocial Behavior from Fringe Platforms: The Unintended Consequences of Community Banning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.09803/) (2022)
- [From Text to Emotion: Unveiling the Emotion Annotation Capabilities of LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.17026/) (2024)
- [Fearful Falcons and Angry Llamas: Emotion Category Annotations of Arguments by Humans and LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.15993/) (2024)
- [Understanding who uses Reddit: Profiling individuals with a self-reported bipolar disorder diagnosis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11612/) (2021)
- [Pathways through Conspiracy: The Evolution of Conspiracy Radicalization through Engagement in Online Conspiracy Discussions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.10729/) (2022)
- [Identifying and Characterizing Behavioral Classes of Radicalization within the QAnon Conspiracy on Twitter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.09339/) (2022)
- [Conspiracy theories and where to find them on TikTok](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.12545/) (2024)
- [What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities?: Role of Social Factors in Conspiracy Engagement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.04527/) (2020)
- [Understanding Online Migration Decisions Following the Banning of Radical Communities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04765/) (2022)
- [Comparing the Language of QAnon-related content on Parler, Gab, and Twitter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11118/) (2021)
- [Characterizing Reddit Participation of Users Who Engage in the QAnon Conspiracy Theories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07433/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large-scale computational research on conspiracy theories has focused exclusively on believers' online behavior, leaving the harm experienced by those closest to them under-examined. This paper bridges this gap by analyzing 12747 stories from r/QAnonCasualties, an online support group for people who have ``lost'' someone to conspiracy beliefs. We design a computational pipeline to extract fine-grained thematic traits from personal narratives and cluster them into six coherent radicalization personas, which we then link to the emotional toll reported by narrators via LLM-assisted emotion detection and regression modeling. We find that personas are meaningful predictors of specific emotional harms: radicalization perceived as a deliberate ideological choice is associated with anger and disgust, while personas marked by personal and cognitive collapse correspond to fear and sadness. This work provides an empirically grounded computational framework for understanding the relational harms of radicalization, opening new avenues for research into its wider social consequences.