A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Oli London & the Right Wing Grift (with Taylor Lorenz)

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

How does a white gay guy from England go from “trans-Korean” troll to a member of the conservative media establishment? It’s easier than you think! Today, Taylor Lorenz helps us unpack the anatomy of the right wing grift — because if all else fails, just become a Fox News star. Support me on Patreon! Huge thanks to the sponsors of today’s show! For a more sustainable, chicer clean, try Blueland. To uncover and cancel the unwanted expenses you’ve forgotten about, try Rocket Money.  Find more of A Bit Fruity. Find more of Matt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to A BitFruity. I'm Matt Bernstein, and I'm so happy that you're here. Today, we are going to be talking about someone and something that I have not been able to look away from in, like, three years, and I feel like if I don't get it out in podcast form, then it's just going to keep rotting through the insides of my brain, and we can't have that. To help us explain the phenomenon of Ali London, we are joined today by... the one and only Taylor Lorenz. Taylor is a tech reporter for The Washington Post. She is the host of a new podcast called Power User. She is exceptionally smart. She's a historian of the internet. And I couldn't think of a better person to spend today with Taylor. Welcome to a BitFrudy. Thanks for having me.

Just to kick this off, what is a grift? How would you define a grift, a grifter? Because I feel like this is a word that not everyone is super familiar with. I totally agree. And I actually use it all the time. Yeah. I think because there's so much grifting happening on the internet, I would say a grifter is somebody that essentially exploits something, usually the attention economy online,

to push a message or to sell something or to make themselves famous. It's sort of like a disingenuous person who they're running an operation. You know, like there's always something at play. They're kind of dubious. You shouldn't trust them. The way that I sometimes explain what a grifter is to people who are unfamiliar with it is like, I think there's this idea that when you have a microphone, you are expressing your opinion to an audience who can then choose to agree or disagree.

And you're attracting an audience based on, you know, people who are interested in what you have to say. What I think a grifter does is they take kind of the temperature of the room of what do people want me to say or where is the most money in what I can say. And then they say that thing. Exactly. It's actually like going in the other direction where they're following their audience instead of their audience following them. But the audience oftentimes doesn't realize that. Well, that's what I mean about that sort of like disingenuous approach to things.

Right. It's as you said, it's it's kind of shrewd. It's like this is going to feed a moral panic. This is going to get people incited. This is going to get people outraged, whatever. I can then monetize that. So I'm going to say this stuff. It's leaning into usually pretty bad beliefs.

I mean, a key example of a grifter that I've talked about, just this kind of category of grifter that I've talked about a bunch on this podcast. It's like there are a lot of LGBT conservatives online. Blair White, Ariel Scarsela, the TikTok twink, I don't remember his name. There's a bunch. And it's not to say that none of these people sincerely hold their beliefs, but they, I do think, are always susceptible to change based on what they think their audience wants to hear. Yeah, I mean, fundamentally, grifters crave attention.

And I also crave attention. Who among us? Who among us? But I won't sell my soul for it. We wouldn't sacrifice our morals to get it. Exactly, exactly. I'm just craving attention and trying to keep my soul throughout the process. So, Ollie London.

Ollie London is, okay, if you're listening right now and you're like, I have never once in my life heard the name of this person, I don't know what you're talking about. First of all, I want what you have. Second of all, strap in because this is kind of a wild one. I know you and I are both very terminally online, as the kids say. I mean, your podcast is called Power User. And I would say that you very much earned that title over being extremely online, which is the title of your book. I am also extremely online. And so I think if you've been extremely online, it's hard to have fully evaded OLLI London.

But then I was telling my not chronically online friend yesterday that I was going to do this episode. And he was like, who's Olly London? And so I started to explain the story to him for the first time. And I was watching his eyes and his jaw expressed to me like and remind me, oh, this is actually an insane story. Do you remember your first time encountering Ollie London? Well, the first time I knew who he was is I'm an avid daily mail and tabloid news reader. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's an addiction.

There's something about tabloid news that will, I mean, I worked in tabloid news. Like, there's something about the way that they find in frame stories that is obviously really bad for society in many ways. But as a journalist, I just keep tabs on all of it. his sort of initial viral blowup was very well covered on the Daily Mail. And so that's where I first heard the name. Yeah, the Daily Mail loves like a plastic surgery scandal. I think millennials love, I think the world loves a plastic surgery scandal. Do you remember what the story was about and how you reacted? Well, he was claiming that he wanted to be a Korean. Like he was claiming, I mean, he's a white man, but he was claiming that he sort of identified as Asian.

And so he had gotten an extensive amount of plastic surgery to fulfill that belief that it's not even a belief. He just got a lot of plastic surgery to look Asian, basically. And of course, they were covering in this way of like, is he the first like trans or racial, which is, by the way, not a thing, you know, person. And I was just like this, he looks insane. He doesn't even, I don't even think he looks Asian. and he just looks like he's had a shit ton of plastic surgery.

Yeah, yeah. Many, many eye lifts, and I don't even think the outcome at its peak was what he was hoping for. I remember first coming across Ali London because he was also, like, amidst the many surgeries, he posted some selfie on Twitter where if you're watching the video version of this episode, I'll throw it up on the screen, but he was like clearly like fresh out of ACE surgery, like very puffy, very swollen. and he was like, I'm trans-Korean, I'm Korean now. Again, if you are not familiar with this person's story and you're like,

what the fuck is going on? Let's back up a bit. So, Ollie London, Oliver London, was born in England in 1990 to a housewife mother and an interior designer father. He's white. I do feel like that's an important part of the story. He's very white. He in interviews has said that his dad,

growing up was like very aggressively masculine and dominant and would project that onto Ali in ways that could sometimes veer into abuse territory. He put a lot of pressure on Ali to be, you know, very masculine and, you know, heterosexual presenting. Ali London has described being bullied growing up in school for having gynacomastia and bad acne. Gynacomastia is a condition where you, in, it's pretty common, like 30% of young boys and men deal with it at some point. It's where you grow excess breast tissue and it can make it appear like you have breasts. And so that made him dysphoric and he would end up getting corrective surgery, which again, a lot of people do, but it's just ironically very much a gender affirming procedure, whether you're, you know,

cis or trans. In 2013, Ali London goes to South Korea for a year. for a teaching job that he had. And he became very interested in South Korean culture, which is kind of where the story goes south. Ali London becomes really obsessed with K-pop and specifically the group BTS, which I'm not a huge K-pop person, but, you know, I know that that is a world that sucks people in.

Within a year of going to South Korea, he starts to get these cosmetic surgeries to resemble the BTS member Jimin. By 2022, so less than a decade later, he had had 32 surgeries including, let me check my notes, six nose jobs, an eye surgery, a facelift, a brow lift, a temple lift, and veneers, totaling more than $200,000. A lot of this is like according to the Daily Mail, so who knows how accurate that number is. You know, because a lot of people get plastic surgery, and a lot of people get a lot of plastic surgery. And the thing that really got the internet going was he began to pull this, what I would call, a stunt online, where he was identifying as trans-Korean.

That really drew the ire of the internet very quickly. He angered immediately both the online trans community and the online K-pop community. there were, you know, endless small media documentaries around like, this white guy got 32 surgeries and identifies as trans-Korean. Is there any meaningful difference between trans-Korean and transgender? Like, you know, you had Ben Shapiro on Twitter being like, well, if you don't think he's trans-Korean, then you're a bigot. Amongst the other people who, like, came to this person's defense,

there's one person in particular who was like, basically like, leave Ollie London alone. Can you guess who it was? Was it higher, right check? Oh my God. Did you imagine? It was Rachel Dolazol. Oh, my God.

Yes, I do remember that. And it was like, yes, the one other transracial person, like, I guess transracial solidarity. I mean, the thing is, is if Rachel Dolazol had actually leaned in and started calling herself transracial and done it just a few years after, I think she could have had the Ali Lundgeon trajectory. She could have totally been like a right-wing grifter. Yeah, she was just a little too early and she didn't, yeah, she didn't take the bait.

I also think she was too earnest. Yes. I think Ollie is like a deeply, I mean, we can get into this later. Confused man. I think Rachel like genuinely wanted to identify as a different race. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we will get into this. But I think Ali London is someone who was very interested in shock value and at like any expense. And I think Rachel Dolazol did not want any.

shock value. I think she wanted to fly under the radar as a as a black woman. She just wanted to live a quiet life as a black woman in America. She wanted to live a quiet life in black face. In 2021, Ali London starts to identify as non-binary and uses they-them pronouns. And so if you look at like, there's like the vice articles and all a different thing. And so any of the ones that come out during this time, they start using they-them pronouns for Ali London. At this point, the key problem with Ali London is really just that it's like very racist to do this. Obviously, I think that like goes without saying I don't need to explain it. You're taking a caricature of what you think a South Korean person

looks and acts like and getting a bunch of surgery to look like that. Like you shouldn't do that. But I do think a lot of the fixation at this point was on just like the amount of plastic surgery. Because like there's a there's a long history of us like loving to hate people who get a lot of plastic surgery. It's like we do this to like I don't know like Donatella Versace. I mean I think like most of this is against women usually. But anytime somebody looks kind of starts to look, I mean, when you get too much plastic surgery, you start to look kind of like unnatural and sometimes a little disturbing. And I think that that ends up being kind of a, I mean, I think people are just fixated it because people love to be like, look at how vain you are. You know, you try to, you try to get surgery and

make yourself look better. And now you look like shit, you know. There's something like kind of appealing, like on a like visceral level, I think to like a lot of the average internet commenter about someone that looks strange because of plastic surgery. There's like a shot in Freud aspect. You know, look at this privileged person with all this money because to get that much plastic surgery, you have to have a lot of money. And I think it's like, we're looking at the rich, do what we think is like stupid. Yeah.

And that feels good because like we'd like to think that if we were rich, we would do something better with the money, which like, I don't know for a lot of people that could be true. Yeah. And so, I mean, again, it's just really racist. I mean, like shockingly racist. In early 2022, he announced, which I just love. that like ollie london is making announcements but he announces to the tabloids that he has plans to get a penis reduction surgery because he wants to have a smaller penis because in his words he wanted

to be a hundred percent korean and then it takes a turn in i mean it continues to take turns in mid two two ali london begins identifying as gender fluid as a gender fluid trans korean woman now he says that he's planning on undergoing more surgeries to look like rosee from black pink. I think that's how you say it, Rose. I don't know. We think. And then in late 2022, so okay, 2021, he's non-binary. 2022. He is a trans woman, which if he wasn't identifying as Korean throughout, I support that journey. But by late 2022, he announces to E-News that he is detransitioning by August of 2023, less than a year later. He not announces, but publishes a book called Gender Madness, One Man's Devastating Struggle with Woke Ideology and His Battle to

Protect Children. Taylor, you wrote a book. How long does it take to put a book together? Well, it took me two and a half years, but I actually wrote my own book. And I think I'm 100% sure based off nothing but my own belief that he had a ghostwriter. His book, by the way, which I got a copy of, because I don't know why, but somebody sent it to me. and I don't want to plague the local library by donating it. But I just don't believe, I think he probably got a ghostwriter and turned it around so fast because it's incoherent. Not only did he have a book deal, but it was like on the shelves less than a year after he decided to detransition. Yeah.

It's fascinating and we'll get into this, but he would end up being taken seriously by the right as the face of the detransitioner movement. And that's what we're getting to. but it's just like the most remarkable thing to me is the lack of any due diligence on the part of anyone in the right wing establishment. They don't want the due diligence. This entire right wing establishment is set up to turn around these books super quick, right? And capitalize on virality. Like there's like an entire infrastructure to feed this grift.

You know, they're not like, um, not sure if he's an earnest detransitioner, like, they don't give a shit. It's just about, is this a good person to push the narrative that I want to promote? I was also wondering, like, who the hell gave this man a book deal? And so I looked into it. It's a company called Sky Horse Publishing. And I was like, all right, well, what's Sky Horse Publishing? Have you heard of Sky Horse Publishing? Yeah. They published a bunch of other stuff. Isn't that one of those right wing? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. They publish such classics as Unwoke, How to Defeet Cultural Marxism in America by notable author Ted Cruz. They actually have some high-profile people. Really?

Well, Ted Cruz, obviously. But they did the RFK book. They published a lot of RFK books. Their entire business model is just turning around books to feed right-wing outrage. That is quite literally what this publishing company is built on. Oh, they did Woody Allen's memoir. I was just going to say they published Woody Allen's latest book, which is like, where do pedophiles go to die?

The right-wing grift machine. Yeah. Actually, where do pedophiles go to thrive, really? Yeah. The publishing world used to be this, like, kind of like gate-kept world. And it was like hard to get a book deal. And that was like a big accomplishment if you got like a book deal from like a major, you know, publishing house. And now there's just so many of these kind of like smaller independent publishers built to support specific really right-wing agendas. And they turn around these books or they, you know, help people's right-wingers self-publish a lot of books too. Or like e-book type. courses and things and, you know, I just, I consider Skyhorse as part of that universe. So upon publishing this book and detransitioning, which I'm going to say that with a huge asterisk, because I'm not in the business of saying who is queer and who's not and who's trans and who's not, but I don't think this person ever transitioned in the first place. I just think he got a lot of plastic surgery and tried to like shock the internet and was trying to do that in multiple ways and quote unquote detransition was his latest effort. But upon doing this, he immediately

becomes like a conservative media circuit spokesperson for the anti-trans cause. He has made, according to him, over 120 news media appearances, many of which I've watched, unfortunately. On Fox News, he was a recurring contributor on Newsmax, OAN, Talk TV, G.B News, News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Pierce Morgan uncensored, Megan Kelly, and he's always framed by these journalists, these like, some of them, I mean, unfortunately, like legendary, you know, Tucker Carlson, Pierce Morgan, Megan Kelly, these like iconic conservative talk show hosts as like he's introduced by them uncritically as like the face of detransition and like trans issues. And that kind of brings us to where he is now. He has successfully.

transitioned, no pun intended, into like a moderately successful online right-wing influencer. He has over 400,000 Twitter followers. He tweets like 100 times a day. Relatable. Yeah, you know what? Maybe I was like that. I put that in my outline, but then I'm like, hey, some of us also tweet 100 times a day.

But he just tweets like right-wing outrage 100 times a day. Yeah, his Twitter is so unhinged. It's bizarre. I would like to take a quick moment to thank our forever friend and sponsor of today's show, Blue Land. Speaking of forever, you know, most of the everyday cleaning essentials you use in your home, you know, what you use to clean your mirrors and your counter and your dishes, the main ingredient in all of that stuff is water. And the main ingredient in the packaging is obviously plastic.

Blue Land is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing. cleaning essentials that are better for you and the planet and give you the same clean that you're used to. Basically, how Blue Land works is you order your bottle one time. So instead of ordering a bottle of dish soap or window cleaner over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you just buy one what they call Forever bottles, which are very cute, very chic. You fill it with water and pop in one of your Blue Land cleaning solution tablets and bam, you have your cleaning solution. out, all you have to do is fill that bottle with water, pop in a new tablet, and you're ready to go. No more wasting single-use plastic bottles that'll end up being thrown out, and no more wasting

money on shipping what is mostly just water. Blue Land refill tablets also start at just $2.25, so not only are you being better to the world, you're also being better on your wallet. I love Blue Land. I live in an essentially entirely Blue Land home at this point. I use them for my laundry, my dishes, all of my different countertop surfaces. And if you would like to try out Blue Land and get 15% off your first order, you can head over to blueland.com slash fruity. Again, that's blu land.com slash fruity. Now, back to the show.

Sorry, I don't know why he did that. Back to the show. he was kind of starting to fade into history for me as a figure. I was like, wow, that guy who got all those surgeries and then became an anti-transgrifter, but I haven't been hearing from him lately. His latest pivot, however, is the pro-Israel cause, the Zionist cause, which if you go on his Twitter is basically what the entirety of it is now. Just as he was slipping my mind, finally, finally as I was getting my brain cells to re-jerk,

regenerate. Two things happened. Two things happened. One was that I was on Facebook. I know, I know, I know, Taylor, don't give me that. Look, I was on Facebook. I was scrolling through like the Facebook stories of people that I grew up with because sometimes I do that. Sometimes I'm like, hey, what's that person from high school up to? And someone who I knew when I was younger, who has been railing pretty hard, you know, against the Palestinian protesters and stuff. And this is like a total normie, a total local who's like not terminally online in the way that we are, shared a tweet, a pro-Israel tweet from Ali London. And I was like, whoa, Ali London is like reaching the normals back at home.

Like this is how successful his reinvention as a right-wing influencer has become that like these people don't even know about the trans-Korean bullshit. These people don't know about the K-pop shit. These people like think that he's just a source for media. And these are people who identify, by the way, as like liberals. Yeah. Oh, I've seen liberals share his stuff before,

especially since the pro-Israel. I mean, the unfortunate thing about the internet is that nobody, most people don't know the lore of many of the people that they're sharing or following. And so you'll see, especially people like Ali hop on, you know, whatever is the trending issue of the time, go really hard on it, speak to usually a very,

you know, extreme minority. I mean, ultimately, most of the public does not support what Israel is doing right now. now, but he knows that there's money to be made in coming out. And so, you know, these people, these liberals, they see someone posting, you know, the ideology that they agree with on Israel, so then they follow him. And then they're slowly fed a diet of like more and more extreme content. It's so interesting how he, he jumps from thing to thing from outrage concept to outrage concept. But he like really, he really goes full throttle for each thing in a way that I think aids his

reinvention but is sometimes so pronounced that people who have known about him for a while can't help but notice and he'll have a viral moment. And so amidst his kind of like pivoting to Zionist activist, he changed his profile picture and I want to send it to you and have you describe what you see. Oh yeah. The IDF. Yeah. Describe what you're, describe what you're looking at. It's Ollie London with his hair, you know, shaved very short, wearing a black sweater and a big military looking vest with a giant patch on the front that says Ministry of Foreign Affairs Israel. And it looks to be like a bulletproof vest. He's standing in front of like a giant fence, probably where they fence in the innocent Palestinians. Yeah. Yeah, he's just standing there basically in his little propaganda

vest. He must have been on some sort of trip, like a press trip. Yeah, he's wearing. Yeah, this is like, I don't know, I feel like similar pictures have been taken of like Deborah Messing and like Jerry Seinfeld and these people. Yeah. Well, Israel has this whole. whole massive PR industrial complex. And they love to have people over, especially influencers, and dress them all up. And I guarantee you he is in absolutely zero danger in this picture. And yet he's got the bulletproof vest because the whole thing that they do on these trips is sort of try to radicalize people and say, you know, like, oh, look at how dangerous it is. You know, I'm over in Israel. And I've got to wear the vest because, you know, I could get murdered at any

minute. Meanwhile, you know, they're the ones doing the murdering. The other thing I want to send you is Ollie London's current Twitter header, like banner image. And I want to get your read on that too. It is a red, white, and blue banner that is, looks like it was not made quite in the right specifications. It looks like it was a screenshot that's been uploaded, which is hilarious. It says, Ali London TV, news politics analysis. News politics analysis. And I just think it's like, I don't know, watching him consciously rebrand himself over and over, I think is really interesting. I totally agree. It's also just like, it's interesting as well, his new profile picture, which is a, he's in a suit. He's got a dog tag with the star of David on it. He's got the yellow, you know, remember the hostages, Israel stuff like pin. He looks, he's trying to basically look like a political influencer. And I think that's what his, that's what his latest rebrand. is all about is sort of like cementing him as an authoritative person to go to about political issues.

Meanwhile, this man has absolutely zero political knowledge of anything. It's shocking to me how much it's working. And it's, again, it's such an indictment not only of what we would think of as the right, but like, Ollie London once again came into view for me a couple weeks ago. So Ali London tweeted about this kind of like misleading story about a Jewish professional. at Columbia not being led in on campus. And who retweeted it, Andy Cohen. Ugh. Andy. Andy, come on. What are you doing? How are we letting this happen? I mean, unfortunately, I think

celebrities, and I consider Andy a celebrity at this point, they amplify these people constantly, like people like Ollie and other right-wing grifters. Like, they play very well, weirdly in, I think, Hollywood where I think a lot of people don't have the media literacy. I would expect Andy to have a little bit more media literacy, although it sounds like he just ideologically agrees with him. And that's enough to platform a grifter. And it's a shame. I mean, again, I've been like watching Ollie London's interviews and stuff, which are always very interesting. And we'll get to that in a second. But he, this is where he levels out now. And he's also said that he wants to be a policy advisor to Trump. And frankly, I would not put it past anyone involved in picking who gets to be Trump's

policy advisors to make Ali London a policy advisor. To me, he is doing everything right. He's very Milo, Yonopolis. But, you know, the sad fact is that even Milo had more political experience than this man. Do you want to quickly explain who Milo Yanopolis is or was? Because who hears from him anymore? No one. Thank you. Yeah. He was recently, I think, resigned from Yuzi. He was kind of one of the original, like, effeminate, gay, like conservative men to come up. He started. He started as a blogger, like a tech blogger actually, and then kind of became radicalized and, you know, it was like, I'm a flamboyant gay man, but I'm right wing. And I actually don't know if gay people even deserve rights. And, you know, he was very pro-Trump, very early and sort of rode that

Trump train. He ultimately, I think, flew a little too close to the sun. And he, it turned out, had sort of, I think he was sort of canceled by the right ultimately, which is really the only way that these people can be eradicated as like when the right itself de-platforms people. He had made a bunch of comments about like young boys. And it was sort of basically, it was canceled for like being a pedophile, but not, you know, who knows what,

that's a criminal allegation. But like, you know, he, he had made comments that that were enough to make the right-wing media angry. Of course, at that point, he did therapy to, he basically went through a conversion therapy program, came out as straight and Catholic, got a job as Matt Gates's, press secretary or something at one point he was working for Matt Gates and then was working as

Kanye West's chief of staff. Oh. And apparently was living with Dove Charnie. Kanye West Dove Charnie and Milo Unopoulos were all living together at one point in this big house in L.A. We have like every possible terrible cameo in this one little story. I remember Milo Yanopolis. He was also like doing a lot of outrage bait type of things like 10 years ago. And I remember like and he would say these things that I was just like, oh my God, like you, I hate this idea that like gay people can set the gay community back. But I do reserve that for someone like Miloianopoulos because he would say things like, how can I be racist when I suck black dick? Exactly. That it was all stuff like that. Oh my God. He loved talking about sucking black dick. Like he, he, he and also it's like, you know, there's that other guy, um, Daniel Ryan Spalding, the pro-Israel influencer where, you know, there's a specific type of conservative. And, you know, there's a specific type of conservative. gay male influencer that's also deeply misogynistic. And obviously anybody can be misogynistic on any part of the political spectrum. But I think that these very flamboyant, effeminate gay influencers like Milo and Daniel and, I mean, even Ollie, like they lean into misogyny. And it's all about

like the blue-haired feminists, you know, and that kind of plays really well on the right because they, you know, hate women. Because they hate women. So a few days ago I texted you and I was like, could you do this episode with me? Because I was like scrambling and I was like, I need someone to talk about Olly London with me. I can't talk about this alone in a room. I've spent too much time talking to myself about this. I need to talk to someone else about this. And you were like, yes.

And the first thing that you told me was that you had met Olly London. Yes, I spent an evening with him. Oh my God, my evening with Olly London. That sounds like a short film that would like debut in Cannes. It was in Cannes. We met at the Cannes. It was during the Canfield Festival last year. What is Ali London doing at the Canfield Festival?

So we were at, it was the World Influencers Awards, which is this big awards show in Europe by the World Influencers and Bloggers Association. It's very like international. They had this, rented out this, you know, gorgeous ballroom at the Canfield Festival with all of these, you know, influencers from around the world. Elon Musk's mother, May Musk, was there. there as well. It was a wild cast of characters. I was awarded, not to toot my own horn, but I was there because I won tech and media influencer of the year. And also it was so

funny because no one knew who the fuck I was. They were like, I would have been there giving you a standing ovation. People were like, oh, congrats. Like, who are you? No followers. Um, but, you know, whatever. I was the token media influencer. But Ali won, he won some sort of award, some sort of influencer award. And they put his book up on screen. So we're at this- Shut up. Oh, yes. They put gender madness on the screen at the Cannes Film Festival? No, no, not at the, don't slander the Cannes Film Festival. We're talking about the World Influencers Awards. Wait, so this was not part of the film festival. No, no, no, no, no. Just taking place at the same, like, hotel and whatever. They just do it like in conjunction, I guess, because all the celebrities are there.

No. So, whatever, it's this big lavish event. Allie is brought up on stage. She's given his award. They put his book up on screen. It's like a party. We're all in black tie. I, of course, am in my N95, 3M aura mask, as I always am, because COVID is not over, and I'm extremely high risk. So I have my, like, N95 mask on. But, you know, if I go to, like, a party, I think you saw this at my book party.

Like, I put this, like, little sparkly, like, cover over it. Yeah, you make it, you dress it up. Yeah. I'm, like, at the party. and Ali comes over and he just starts saying, praising me and saying, you know, I look beautiful. Oh, my mask looks great. Or, you know, he made a comment like, I love your, you know, outfit and what you did. I'm like, this man has no fucking clue who I am.

Absolutely no idea. Like, he clearly didn't put two and two together. He knows who I am online. He's talked shit about me. Did you know who he was at that point? Obviously. I know who it is. Oh, okay.

I couldn't believe he was there. I was like, I mean, I'm just looking around the. room and all the influencers. And many of these people I've talked to for work or whatever. And I don't always agree with every influencer I cover. But him specifically, I was like, how the hell did he find his way into this room? So we're like waiting. We were actually waiting. There was like, Getty images was like taking pictures. And he was like waiting in line for the picture. That's what I got introduced to him. So he's like so effusively nice to me. And by the way, said nothing but nice things about my mask. Like, you know, he's out there on one fucking Twitter like shit talking like,

ah, you know, COVID did it on. It's like, you don't have the fucking balls to. You know, say it to my face. Like, you won't. None of these people will. None of these people will. When they're confronted with a masked person, IRL, they just cave. Well, because then he went right back around and started talking shit about you on Twitter. Of course. I have the tweet. I have the tweet. He wrote, he's such a dick. He wrote, it's a picture of you and Dylan Mulvaney where you were having a dinner. And he wrote, why isn't Taylor Lorenz? The Washington Post journalist who pushes for permanent ask mandates and double masking, not wearing a mask. And, uh, and you clapped back and you were like, you complimented my mask a couple months ago.

Yeah. I feel like part of why he posted that also is just because it included in the photo was Dylan Mulvaney. Exactly. That will get people angry. Anyway, and by the way, Ali and I are pictured together on stage in Cannes when I'm wearing a mask. Yes. And I cropped him out of the Instagram photo when I posted it. But does that photo exists somewhere.

It does. It does. And May mask is in it with us. I'm going to have to find it after we're cool. I know. I know. They like took picture of all the award winners and we're up there. And I remember in that photo, I think I'm crouching down in front because I was put almost

standing right next to him and I didn't want to stand next to him. So I was like, let me just crouch down here in front because I was like, I don't want to be, I can't be too close to this man. Yeah, you don't want to be like arm in arm with Ollie London. But I think, I mean, I think that the fact that he was at something like that also just shows how normalized he's becoming and kind of how mainstream he's seen in certain circles. And how, like, easy the grift is. Yeah. I mean, you know, I won't say getting 32 plastic surgeries is an effortless thing to do. But, you know, that wasn't the grift. The grift is the pivot. The grift is the,

I'm trans-Korean for shock value. No, I'm not. I'm actually a woman. No, I'm detransitioning. No, actually, I'm against all this gender madness. What happened to me could happen to you. All within the period of like 18 months. Exactly. And like that's the thing that I'm saying is so easy. Like again, I know from like my history of like spending so much time and and kind of like digging around LGBT conservative circles. And really just like minority identity communities in general. Like all you have to do is be like, I'm going to be the twink conservative on TikTok now.

I'm going to be the the anti-black black person. I'm going to. It's like you can tokenize yourself so quickly. and that's just, you know, as it pertains to like minority group conservatives, but then you can like also do this thing where you're like, I got a bunch of plastic surgeries. I don't think I ever earnestly identified as trans, but I know that if I just start calling myself detrans,

then they'll take me seriously for that cause and I'll get invited to everything and I'll get a book deal from the conservative bookbook. And it's like it's an indictment of the whole system. I'm afraid it's an indictment of those who uncritically consume the media to. Well, that's most people uncritically consume. the media. I mean, most people just see this guy who has a semi-professional looking Twitter account, 400-something thousand followers, calls himself a political analyst tweeting about Israel. They agree with his, you know, genocidal takes. And so they start boosting him. And that's all it takes.

And that's how these people do audience capture is sort of by riding whatever the current outrage cycle is, you know, and feeding into that. I was reading his book reviews on Amazon. Oh gosh. And they're like all positive. Ah! So I'm going to read one. Powerful and brave story. This is a review from Maddie, five stars August 2023. I don't know what I was expecting, but I bought this book after listening to Ollie's interview with Megan Kelly. He is fascinating and has a profound message. I found him to be so brave to tell this story and stand up to those who want to silence

alternative viewpoints. Interlude, you know that clip that's like conservative voices are being silenced. I said it on Tucker Carlson. I said it on Tucker Carlson's podcast. I said it in my new best-selling book. I said it on this show. I did that show.

Conservative voices are being silenced. This reminds me of that. I have been blown away by Ollie's transparency and insightfulness in telling his truth. very well-written book that takes a deep dive into the research some people don't want to acknowledge from someone who has walked in the shoes and has been brave enough to say what others don't want to hear. Thank you for sharing yourself in such an open and significant way. 32 people found this helpful.

I hope they all get help. I mean, he's just not a voice for trans people. I'm sorry, he's just not. Like, he shouldn't be. His experience of, you know, identity and gender is not the norm among. trans people and to take it and then represent not only sort of represent it as the norm among trans people, but then you use that sort of politically to legislate around trans issues as if he is the norm is so dangerous. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's the underbelly here. That's like

the thing that carries the entire story and that makes it terrible ultimately is like, yes, there's this like kooky crazy guy and he's like clearly unhinged and clearly willing to do anything for fame and like by the way those are things that I don't really have an issue with like I think those are accusations that are often levied against like women who do really extreme things for fame but like you can get a ton of plastic surgery you can be like you know Sophie Anderson or Amanda Lepore or any of these people without being offensive and without without doing it in a way that like ultimately is in service of a movement that's trying to like hurt an already extremely suffering minority of people absolutely and not making it part of some

political agenda. Right. The problem isn't that he's had all these surgeries and, you know, whatever he wants to do to his own body. The problem is that he's trying to make his experience representative of this larger oppressed group and then tying it to this really regressive political movement. I read that book review and I was like, well, now I have to see Ali London on Megan Kelly. And so I did. And there are two short clips from it that I want us to talk. But I do think they're revealing of exactly how he maneuvers his grift. So here is the first one. And right before they were about to do these dramatic, irreversible procedures on you,

surgeries on you to make you, quote, appear more female, you stopped. I mean, you did the thing nobody does. You stopped. You went into a church and everything changed. So that's just the broad brush overview. of what brought you here today. Thank you for being so honest about all this, because that's got to be very traumatic

just to hear me listing it all like that. It is, but, you know, I think it's important to speak about it because, you know, I have been for a crazy time and I recognize that, and, you know, I acknowledge what I've been through. But, no, I think it's more of a microcosm to what's going on in the world right now with so many people questioning their identity

and struggling and never feeling good enough. And I always had that feeling of never feeling good enough, never feeling that I looked good. Tell me, tell me your thoughts. The truth is that he just didn't want that surgery. It sounds like he just didn't want surgery, you know, and he just decided to stop getting a specific type of surgery. He'd already had so many surgeries that doesn't necessarily have any broader meaning.

But the way that Megan is trying to tie it to, oh, you know, you did something that nobody else does as if, oh, all these trans people are going through this experience. It's just so disingenuous. It's false. The thing that is really interesting to me from that clip is how, and as you watch more of his interviews, they all start to sound the same, which is that he'll be like, yeah, isn't it crazy that I went through this? And also, this is happening to everyone in the country. And what my, like,

he says explicitly, he's like, my experience is the experience of so many right now. It's like the universalizing of every single thing that he says, because it's just, it's clear that his explicit goal and all this is to like frame himself as a martyr and frame himself as a symbol of the movement because like that's how you become more famous. Okay, wait. And then there's one other clip that I want to play for you. They just were fast tracking you into it. And what happened with the church and the Robert Frost poem? Well, so I've been going for all this surgery. I had facial feminization surgery last year, which involved 11 procedures in one day. So that was an eye surgery, jaw, neck, literally every single part of my face, even had my forehead bones shaved down

to make it look more feminine. So that had happened. And then about six months down the line after all of that surgery, I was considering more surgery, Megan. So I was actually considering going to Thailand. I consulted with doctors about having a breast augmentation. So that would be putting silicone implants. I wasn't quite ready for the vaginoplasti, but I was ready for the breast surgery. And thankfully, I got to a point where I was like, this is, you know, this is a really big step. do I want to do this and I started to question it. I mean, that's when the Robert Frost poem, which I remember reading at university when I studied English.

And I remember you have two roads in the wood and you can choose different paths. You can choose the path that you're already going on that's easy. You know what's at the end of the path. Or you can take a risk and go down a different path. And, you know, I was at that point where I was so unhappy with myself and I thought, you know, it's now or never or never going to happen. So, you know, I took the path and the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I took the road less traveled, and that made all the difference. Just absurd. It's absurd. He's an adult that got a lot of plastic surgery. I mean, I think if anything, he struggles with probably some body dysmorphia and deep psychological issues. And, you know, clearly he's unhappy with himself. And, you know, he's, it sounds like chased, you know, and received dozens of surgeries to kind of fill something. in himself, none of that has anything to do with the broader LGBTQ political movement,

which he's sort of blaming it on. I mean, I live in L.A. Like, if you, anybody could go and get 40 plastic surgeries, you'll probably be able to find some dubious doctor that will do that for you. But that's not because some gender industrial complex is pushing it on you. They're just, these are the people that he's seeing are just doctors trying to make a buck, you know, especially when he's talking about going abroad. I mean, to me, it was just like, the like, I read this Jack Frost poem. Like that killed me because it's obvious that he wants to like create this like folklore around himself.

Yes. Like he wants his Wikipedia page to read. London later went and read the Jack Frost poem, the road not take it. You know, and it's like. He probably ran out of money. Yeah. Yeah. Are you aware of every subscription service you're paying for every month?

Are you sure? Have you checked? I thought I was. and I was not. You know that one TV show you signed up for a streaming service to watch? Did you cancel it when you finished watching that show? Have you checked? I hadn't and I was still subscribed. That was until I'm so annoying. That was until I signed up for Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. It's really easy. Basically,

you sign up with your credit card or bank info, and Rocket Money will look at all of the stuff that is honestly kind of complicated and tedious for you or I to look at and let you know what you're subscribing to every single month and still paying for that you may have forgotten about. And we'll help you cancel those unwanted subscriptions with just one click.

Rocket Money has over 5 million users and saves each one an average of $740 a year when using all of the app's features. If you'd like to try it out, and stop wasting money on things you don't use and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, you can do that by heading over to rocketmoney.com slash fruity. That's rocketmoney.com slash fruity. Huge thanks to rocket money for sponsoring the show today. And now let's get back to it. You mentioned that you think a lot of this is a result of Ollie London, just like regretting

a bunch of surgeries that he had. And I think that that, and obviously that's an oversimplification, but like I think that's true on some level. I also think that he has been a grifter the entire time. And my personal belief is that if he had found a way to better monetize the outrage from all of his surgeries without doing the detransition grift, like I think he would have done that. I totally agree. I feel like you can kind of see him trying multiple things. And I feel like you see this a lot with these types of influencers where they sort of evolve themselves. to fit the whims of the audience and just kind of like, you know, you can see him kind of like

moving through these different types trying to glom on to different communities, right? First, it's the K-pop community. He's trying to integrate himself into that. And then it becomes, you know, the trans LGBTQ, you know, community more so. And then it's like, now it's anti-trans, conservatives. Now it's the pro-Israel community. It's just kind of like, where can he capture audiences best? Yeah, I don't really think he's playing like 40 chess. I think he's just playing it by year. I don't think any of it is coherent at all. I think it's just desperation. It's like, I mean, fundamentally, I think he's somebody that doesn't fit in and is clearly struggling with his own identity, right? And I, it's sad. I mean, from the little that we know about his sort of

childhood, it sounds traumatic and not to excuse his behavior, but I think that there's people that are broken and sort of trying to find themselves and they end up just getting sucked into this conservative outrage machine because it ultimately provides a lot of validation. And a lot of these people, when you look at the conservative influencer landscape, so many of them, like, they tried to make it in traditional industries or they tried to make it in different worlds and they kind of flamed out or failed. And then they're ushered into the conservative pipeline where they're praised and told they're amazing and brilliant. And, you know, they get all the this affirmation and community and money. And so it just, it's very easy to be captivated by that.

Yeah. I think opportunism, you know, because that's what grifting is. It's a, it's a specific type of opportunism. I think it can and does exist across the political spectrum, but it feels. Sure, sure. But there's not the, there's not the infrastructure on the liberal side as much. Maybe on like the centrist liberal side slightly, but they don't have their own media. At that point, that's just the mainstream media. You know, the conservative media really has an entire media ecosystem built to elevate these people and enrich them. What do you think about right-wing politics that makes it so susceptible to this kind of grift? That makes it so seamless for someone like Ali London to ascend. Or, I mean, other people, like, I don't know, I think George Santos is very much right here. I think Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump is.

like the king of the grift. And I don't just mean like the crimes and like he just got convicted for 34 felonies like we love. But I think to me the most interesting grift about Donald Trump was how he convinced hundreds of millions of people that he was like a man of the people, that he was like of the working class, even though this is someone who grew up shitting in golden toilets. Well, I mean, I think it's just when you look at the rise of these figures, you have to look at the rise of the attention economy and the media climate and look at how Trump. And look at how Trump, leverage the media and exploited the media, I mean, often unintentionally, to kind of boost himself to power. I mean, I remember when I was a, I'm still a reporter, but back in 2016,

when I was covering politics and I was covering on the Trump campaign events. And I mean, I was at the Hilton the night that he was elected with him and everyone. Who was around? YouTubers, content creators, alternative media personalities, podcasters. Look at who was at Hillary Clinton's event, just the mainstream media people. Like the divide in these media ecosystems, it's been bifurcating for a long time. But what they've done is just build this sort of entire media universe, which is integrated with e-commerce and everything, the publishing companies, right? Like the right-wing ones that are built to facilitate this exact grift and enrich these people.

And we don't have anything like that. I mean, sort of like corporate, you know, the corporate Democrat people have it to some in the sense that like they can get corporate money but they don't have like a pipeline where they're going to be like the equivalent of like the Megan Kelly and the daily wire people and just this entire sort of like media ecosystem built to prop up these figures and let's not forget the conservative and the right wing movement has always been personality driven it's always been sort of grievance based personality driven content even back to the days of like rush limbaugh talk radio in the 90s like yeah I was going to mention Rush Limbaugh because rest in hell

but he in Trump's first campaign in like 2015, 2016, Rush initially was like, fuck this guy. Like he did not like Trump. And then he felt his audience tilting that way. And then he, you know, became one of the biggest right-wing media Trump apologists. And in 2020, he was awarded by Trump the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yeah. I mean, I think it just shows. it's such a full circle moment in a lot of ways because I think it just shows how here's what this

has become. I mean, I think like so much of the internet now is that spiritual succession to the Rush Limbaugh world. And obviously he, you know, was from decades past. But you just don't see that as much. And also, I mean, let's not forget just fundamental differences between sort of more progressives and conservatives is like progressives care more about if, you know, people are lying in certain ways. Like it's a more, it's fact, but, you know, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. Like, there are tons of studies that show sort of like the differences in different parts of the internet, right? And that's not to say that, you know, oh, on the right, they don't believe in facts, but they, you know, with certain issues, they're completely skewed. And they have a,

they have a regressive political agenda that they're pushing. And the progressive agenda is not, it's very different, right? It's based more around like inclusivity, intersectionality. It's just a different beast that doesn't play as well on the internet the way that the current internet is structured. Yeah. And that's not to say that like everybody on the left like fact checks everything. No, but it's it's more that like leftist misinformation doesn't go viral in the same way because there's not that like pipeline. And also it's like inherently challenging power. Whereas often misinformation on the right is is boosting. It's upholding traditional power structures. And so it just gets boosted in a way that like,

more progressive misinformation doesn't. And again, there is tons of misinformation all over the internet all over the political spectrum. But the rights, in the far right, specifically, it's built around it, you know? Yeah. There's, there's no left wing equivalent to like QAnon or Pizza Gate or any of those things. No. I mean, you see leftist people buying increasingly into right wing conspiracies. They're actually leftist people, but they've fallen so far down the rabbit hole that they've come back and now are promoting right-wing conspiracies about journalists and about other people. And I think that that is the path. This is the pathway that we see all the time to radicalization.

I want to talk for a second about Candice Owens because the argument that I kind of was hoping to make by the end of this episode that I kind of wanted to stay up front, but I didn't want to scare people away, is that like, I don't think that there is a huge difference between Ollie London and Candace Owens or like any of these people, really. And so I think a lot of people don't know Candice Owens' origin story. Oh, yes. Candice Owens was running a small marketing agency, which had a blog that she would publish on kind of a lot. And she was like super liberal. She published blogs about what she called, quote, the bat shit crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party. And she once wrote, quote, the good news is they will eventually die off peacefully in their sleep, we hope. and then we can get right on with the obvious social change that needs to happen immediately.

So she was like a real lib. In 2016, she launched a Kickstarter campaign for a website that she wanted to build with some of her co-workers at the marketing agency. The website was going to be called Social Autopsy, and it was intended to be like an anti-bullying website, like a tool to combat bullying. But in practice, it was just going to be a database to compile people's digital footprint and personal information. This seemed to a lot of people, like on the left and the right, as like a pretty obvious

invasion of privacy. And so she immediately got a bunch of pushback for this social autopsy website concept. And she was doxed by her critics. And she blamed this doxing on progressives. And she began online to reach out to conservative media people, including Milo Yanopoulos and a guy named Mike Cernovich, who, when she tells this story now, she's a lot of She's like, the conservatives embraced me. And she in 2017, a year later, would say, I became a conservative overnight. Then she started a YouTube channel where she branded herself as like the black

woman conservative and the rest is history. And so I don't know. I just think it's like a grift all the way across. Like I become conservative overnight. Like that's not something that happens to people with principles. I think you're 100% right that there's a lot of similarities in this path between Candace and Ali. You know, what's interesting is like Candace was. I would say one of the first of this more recent generation of content creators. I mean, she was kind of born out of, you know, GamerGate, basically. Do you want to explain that for someone who doesn't know what GamerGate is? Yeah, GamerGate was this online harassment movement against women, specifically in like gaming and journalism in 2014. It was, you know, ostensibly, they were like,

it's about ethics and gaming and, you know, we just want to hold journalism accountable. And what they really wanted is to attack progressive women and progressive women in the video game world for, you know, making games woke as, uh, it was kind of like the, the early woke panic. It was. It was. It was like, why, you know, doesn't my video game character have double D breasts anymore and, you know. Grand Theft Auto has gone woke. Yeah. There's almost so many of these outrage campaigns now that we've become really desensitized. Like, Gamergate was one of the first, like, massive ones where it really took over the media. And I think they exploited the media's inability to understand these cycles. Now I would say the media is slightly understand, you know,

they're slightly better about covering them, not the New York Times, you know, who just platforms Chris Rufo all the time. But Candace really came out of that. And she kind of came from that era of the internet and her kind of anti-harassment campaign and site was built from that. And then she took this conservative slant. And I think, it's just been so lucrative. I mean, look at what she's been able to build. I think she has she has a level of like talent and charisma that I think Ali London does not have, I will say that. Mm-hmm. So I don't know if he'll be the next Candace Owens, but he's certainly in the mix. Yeah, I think he definitely wants to be. But yeah, I agree. I don't think he has like the on-camera

abilities that Candice Owens does or even like Ben Shapiro. Like all of these people who are uniquely inseferable as I'm sure there are viewers think someone like I am uniquely insufferable, but you have to find the uniquely insufferable audience that like clicks with you. And then you can, you know, I don't know if that made sense. We all just have to be our own unique version of insufferable. But they, I would say, I mean, what they're doing though is a grift. I would call it, you know. And that's the thing.

And it's like, I was thinking about making this episode and I was like, wait a minute. but like I give my opinion on what's going on in the world for a living. But I don't know. I think anyone who follows me or like you, I would hope that people can understand that I believe what I'm saying. Like deep to my core, I don't know. You subject yourself to so much harassment to be like a minoritized person online, a minoritized person with political beliefs online with progressive political beliefs online. Like I don't know what to say you guys.

I mean what I say. But also it's about challenging power. You're challenging power structures. They are not. And that is why they can make this money and get these opportunities, right? It's because they're saying things that powerful people, powerful governments like Israel and the United States, you know, want to hear. Powerful conservative politicians want to hear, you know. They want to use people like Ali London as like props, you know, in their sort of regressive campaigns to strip people of their rights and say things like, look, you know, the trans world has gone too far.

just look at Ali London. And it's interesting too with Ali London because every now and then, like I said, like he'll pop up and have a viral moment where people are like, wait, aren't you that ex-trans Korean like lunatic basically? I've made tweets about him and those tweets will get like, you know, thousands and thousands of likes in the moment from people who are there and who are like, oh yeah, that's Ollie London, what the hell? But then Ollie London and people like him are really good and they know something that I think

now is pretty widely understood, which is that if you just keep going, this is what Kattenbarge said to me when I was talking to her the other day, but there's no bottom. You can just keep going and literally just on like do the digital version of like plowing through the controversy. Just tweet a hundred more times about Israel. And three of those tweets will go viral enough that they'll reach, you know, my friends from high school who have no idea who Ali London was five years ago, 10 years ago. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, there's no shame or account. ability or introspection or anything. It's pure opportunism and a really sort of self-centered worldview too. It's, I mean, it's about how can I get ahead, not what am I doing for the world?

What is ultimately my impact? Why does this conservative publisher want to hook me up with a ghost writer and turn a book around based off this experience that I had for the past year? You know, like what? There's no questioning of it. And that's sad. And in zero ways, should we look to this man who has zero political experience or understanding or background in anything academic or political or journalism adjacent, you know, to be some sort of expert, especially on the Middle East. And yet, here he is, you know, just the way that he's positioned as an expert on LGBTQ issues and all these other things. Like this, this man, nobody should be listening to his opinions. Nobody. Nobody. And I really maintain that if he had found a way to

successfully monetize his position in the K-pop space, then he would have stayed there. And I wish he would have stayed there. I wish he would have stayed. But that's, I mean, look at, you can say this about every single right wing influencer. Same. If Tim Poole had, you know, just been able to monetize his sort of left wing stuff as well as his right wing. I mean, let's not forget, he started as a vice journalist, an Occupy Wall Street person. You know, you constantly see these people where it's like, God, if you had just been successful and whatever you wanted to originally do, we wouldn't have to deal with you. But the problem is they are failures. And they have failed into this. grift and in some ways they fail up into this system that rewards them. And that's another thing. I mean, I'm sure you've gotten this a million times because you've reported on controversial things from a left-leaning angle. Like, I always get accused of being paid by like some amorphous entity for saying the things that I say. And it's so funny that people think that there is money in being like on the left side of things when the money is on the right.

Like the money is in, like you said, like there's an entire system to prop up these people. There's money against progressive. I mean, I was just with a very well-known CEO, tech CEO a couple weeks ago who's, you know, was just talking about his sort of interactions with different governments and the U.S. government and just also just the amount of money that they spend trying to, that how 100% of those resources countering, especially, you know, certain political movements in the U.S., It's against, it's countering progressive politics. There is no, that is what the money is, you know, that is what the centrists are doing. And that is what, which is all the corporate power, all the centrists.

And then that is also what the right is doing. And then you also have to think about the progressive influencer and internet space generally is like, anti-capitalists. Like, these are not rich people. They're marginalized people trying to fight for basic human rights. That's why we're all on Patreon, you guys. We don't have, which by the way, if you want more of the show, Patreon, link. is in the bio of this episode. But that's why we're on fucking Patreon,

because we're not getting shows on the daily wire. We don't have the daily wire. There is no, there's nothing. I mean, I covered this creators for Palestine event yesterday with all these content creators. And no, there's not. I mean, there's no media company on the left. Because there's no funding.

The entire, you have to recognize that the right-wing media ecosystem is built around the content creator industry and has been for decades now, you know, so that they, They prop up these people like Barry Weiss, the Daily Wire people, right, as quote-unquote independent journalism. When they are funded, they are all completely funded up to their gills by far right billionaires in corporate interests.

That is what they are just shills. They are a repackaged version of traditional corporate media taken to the extreme. And yet they position themselves online as these like independent journalists. It's like, you're not independent journalists. Independent journalists can barely eat. Independent journalists are on substack. They don't have multi-million dollar contracts with Ben Shibank. Shapiro's Media Company. And that's the thing. So Ben Shapiro's media company, the Daily Wire,

there was just this report that came out that last year it did like two or three hundred million dollars in revenue. Like there's just simply no left wing equivalent to that. They're all shutting down because they have no money. Oh, they're all shutting down. If they haven't been driven out of business by Peter Thiel, I mean, look at media matters having to lay off, you know, dozens of employees because Elon must decided to file a completely frivolous lawsuit that will eventually, he will lose that lawsuit. But in the meantime, they have to pay for legal costs. I mean, I've been sued, God, you know, I've been sued multiple times, several times, you know, for millions of dollars over articles that are nonsense. And of course, they always lose because thank God for the First Amendment. But, you know, if I didn't work for an

employer that could cover those costs, I'd be at a business. Fucked. You know, not only that, but the e-commerce element, you know, there's entire, there's like a whole right-wing version of Amazon, I forgot what the market's called, you know, like all of these like anti-woke products, like, Ultra right beer. The money in the right wing space is there are no like left wing products. I mean, there's like kind of rainbow capitalism centrist stuff. But there's not, the left doesn't have anything like what the right has in terms of this operation. Totally. Oh my God. It's funny that you mentioned creators for Palestine because that's another thing that I will get accusations levied against me of like being paid for. And it's like, yeah, yeah, guys, I'm getting paid by big Palestine.

Yeah, exactly. The people that are. that are like trying to crowd fund like $4,000 so they don't get like, you know, beheaded by a bomb. Exactly. Meanwhile, the state of Israel, as we know, as I have reported in the Washington Post, actively pays content creators, pays right-leaning content creators, huge amounts of money. I mean, I heard one influencer got $200,000 just to fly to Israel on a PR trip recently. And they've been doing that for decades.

Of course. And before influencers, they were doing it with regular celebrities and athletes with brand Israel, which I talked about in my pinkwashing episode. Like, this has always been a thing. And so, yeah, I get accused of being paid for by big Palestine, which exists apparently. No, I mean, the truth is, is that it's the right-wing media and it's the right-wing ecosystem that has the money to pay for these people. And these influencers, people need to understand that they are not independent influencers

speaking truth to power. They are backed by corporate interests. They are backed by powerful right-wing interests. They exist to prop that system up. and Ali London is a pawn in that system, a willing pawn. He absolutely is. And everything we're saying are things that Ali London figured out several years ago and things that he sought to exploit. Pretty smartly, in my opinion. But everyone else is the loser in this. Yeah. Trans people aren't winning. People who even detrans people aren't winning.

No one wins in this except Ali London. Ultimately, it's a loss for humanity and for people. I mean, this man should not be platformed as some expert on these issues. He's simply not. There are people that do detransition. And when you actually talk to them, which I have for stories, they have incredibly nuanced and empathetic thoughts generally around this. And it's, by the way, a fraction of people, such a small fraction. I mean, they're so overstated in the media already. But it's hard, you know, when you have failed, right? When you failed whatever you wanted to do, I mean, Ben Shapiro famously failed out of Hollywood. Like, you know, these people, a lot of these people, had bigger ambitions when you failed to do that and then you have this whole ecosystem telling

you how great you are giving you money, praise, power. It's irresistible to most people, especially for broken people. And I think that don't have the moral fortitude to just be like, no, I'm not going to participate in that. There was this great article that I was reading called The Consolation of the Grift by Nick Catojio in The Dispatch. And I just want to read a quick quote from that. The reason there are so many suppliers of conspiratorial insanity on the right is because the demand for conspiratorial insanity seems insatiable. Even if we could cut off one supplier, another would quickly replace him to cater to that demand.

That's why Fox News opted to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in defamation damages rather than let Newsmax out-compete it in telling lies about the election. And so I guess just the question that I want to close on, Taylor, is in this social media information age where everyone can be their own news source, including you and I, Like, who is responsible for curtailing the power of the Ollie London, of the Ollie London's of the world? And like, will there always be a version of him if there are people who want to hear what he has to say?

You know, I think what we need to do is just really critique the system, understand how it works, and recognize what we're doing and not boost these people. You know, we need more media literacy in this country. We need people to understand how this right-wing internet machine operates and we need to not buy into it. Taylor Lorenz, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for not making me talk about this alone because I have spent too much time with Ali London rattling around my own brain. And I needed to get it out. So thank you for being here. And thank you the listener for being here for bearing witness. Thank you so much for having me, Matt. This was so fun. And listen to my podcast, Power User. You can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, as long as we still have it and everywhere else, just at Taylor Loren.

If you liked today's episode, feel free to, I don't know, share it with your friend from your hometown who's sharing Ollie London shit on Facebook stories. You can also rate the show on whatever app you're listening to this on. If you would like more of the show, like I mentioned earlier, I'm on Patreon because I'm not being paid by the big left, whatever big left is. And I love you. Thank you for being here. And until next time, stay.