Panic World - BONUS: How Epstein broke the internet — and our lives

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Ryan recounts everything he's learned from the Epstein files so far, and with Grant, begins connecting all the red threads. Turns out, there's basically no major event this century that Epstein didn't have some involvement in — from the Great Recession to Donald Trump's 2016 win. Want to hear the rest of the conversation, plus ad-free episodes, bonus content, and access to the Garbage Day Discord? Sign up for just five bucks a month at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get into the real darkness, what was your favorite dumb thing that happened of these three? Kamala 6-7HQ, Ted Cruz saying stop attacking pedophiles, or Elon saying money doesn't buy happiness? I think you got to go at the Kamala 6-7. We're so, so screwed. We're so screwed. And the whole thing is just so outrageously dumb and inappropriate and Like I said, I just hope everyone involved is having a nice time in their little slack room, planning out their posts. And I hope that that's fun for them, you know. Me in the real world, I'm spending my time reading thousands of emails about a secret

pedophile cabal that's running the world. That's what I'm doing while Kamala is doing six, seven. I looked at it. And then 10 minutes later, I was like, why do I, I can't compose an email. Why do I only want to get back in bed? and it took me like another five minutes to connect that like it made me deeply depressed and spiral just feeling endlessly cooked just how fuck like like really like an actual visceral reaction of being like I'm like why does everything feel empty now the comma thing that made me just like I was like

fine I had no emotional reaction to it this on the other hand give me screen sharing permissions talk us through this so this is Stephanie Feldman National Policy Director for Biden's 2020 campaign. And she wrote a thread, basically off the back of the headquarters Kamala announcement, you know, talking about like how do you measure, you know, how content persuades and mobilizes people. And this is an example. She writes of something the 2020 team for Biden wanted to do. She writes, here's my favorite example of something the Biden 2020 digital team wanted to tweet out from the Biden campaign account.

I vetoed it because it's such an outrageously unsurious reaction to a serious moment and not Biden brand. Lots of digital people were upset with me and it's a, it's the Asky cartoon text bunny with a sign meme and it says justice for George Floyd in the sign.

I think, I think it's the most outrageous thing I've ever seen in my life. And yeah, honestly, like, they're like, they feed into each other of just like, I've just, like, you are just so, Well, okay. We are talking about the Epstein files.

And so again. Again. But just sort of connect the dots between this and that and to get us there. What I will say is like I don't know how long I can go. Experiencing reality the way I'm experiencing it. The way I think many Americans are experiencing it between ice occupations. American cities and voter ballots being pulled out of different states and seemingly some kind of CIA related coup d'etat happening, it seems like, with Tulsi Gabbard or something right now that we

don't know much about yet. Right, I forgot. And then the Epstein files, of course, outlining in pretty explicit detail that this was all actually part of a plan cooked up by the world's most prolific pedophile. I don't know how long I can handle knowing all of that while also looking at like anyone in charge of what you would call the liberal establishment, the Democratic mainstream establishment, just with their thumbs up their asses, having fun online and goofing off. I don't know how long I can actually was, I don't know how long I can, I can last that. I the cognitive dissonance is too much for me. I'm Grant Irving.

This is Panic Road, a show about how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. Joining me today, an increasingly tired Ryan Broderick. Hey, buddy. Yeah, I'm in a much darker place than the last time I jumped on the mic because the Department of Justice released thousands of new emails related to Jeffrey Epstein and the investigation of his. crimes across the last 30 years, and I've read many of them, not all of them. I sort of stuck to my patch, plugging in terms for right-wing political networks and different sort of technological fascinations that he may have had, trying to kind of piece together. What influence he may have had over, well, selfishly, my career, but also global democracy. And the answer is,

is that he had quite a bit of influence there. And I... The farthest gump of evil. Yes, he is effectively the main character of... Well, okay, there's a lot we don't know. I'm just going to put that right at the top here. There's a lot we still don't know. I think it's safe to assume that what we have seen

is probably the least bad of what's in there. And the communications that he's having are with people who are the least important, if you can kind of think about it that way. But what we have seen already makes me think that he is effectively the final boss of millennials. Every horrible thing that has happened in our lives, including him triggering the great financial crisis

because he took all of his money out of Bear Stearns to support himself when he got arrested the first time. Every single thing, I'm still looking for a connection between him and 9-11 because if we got that, we can basically say that our entire lives have been shaped by Jeffrey Epstein. Hi, Grant here from the future. right when we finished recording, Ryan messaged me to say that there's an email from 2003

offering Galane Maxwell a spot on the 9-11 Shadow Commission. That's cool. Back to this uplifting conversation. And yeah, I feel very crazy. I feel extremely crazy that this man's email inbox, one of his vacation email inbox, not even his main email, his vacation email inbox,

seems to implicate him in every bad thing that has ever happened to people of our generation as it was happening to us, including micro-transactions and video games. So two questions for you. And before we just, we like break all that down. What have you seen has been most people's big reaction from this new deluge of information? And also, I had the thought yesterday, if somebody asked me what I was working on or thinking on, that I would have no fucking idea of how to start talking about it without sounding like I had like ingested thousands of hours of Alex Jones.

Like I would probably start with like, okay, so do you know about 4chan? Like can you, what have most people been taking away from this deluge that you've seen? And also if you had to do like a 60 second explainer. Okay. Like how would you solidify this for like the most normal person? The answer to your first question is like actually very frustrating because I think the most common thing I've seen is like a very, very, very oversimplified and like way more far reaching sort of summary of what's in there.

Because a lot of people who are like not reading these or reading sort of any responsible reporting about them. And so I've seen people be like Bitcoin was invented by Jeffrey Epstein. We have no proof that Bitcoin was invented by Jeffrey Epstein. We can talk about his involvement with the Bitcoin project. But that's, and, and Epstein did not like make 4chan. He did not make Gamergate. He was a financier who was looking for investment opportunities.

And every time you sort of see one of these projects come up in his inbox, that is how he's approaching it. He's picking things that already exist and he's deciding where to put his money in his influence. Okay. 60 seconds. Yeah, I can do it. The grand project of the last decade of Jeffrey Epstein's life, following his first arrest for soliciting child prostitution in the 2000s, was manipulating what we see on the internet to hide his crimes and exploring and investing in technologies that allowed him to transfer huge sums of money without being noticed by responsible parties. And those two things dovetailed into a conspiracy with Steve Bannon to over. overthrow liberal democracy in as many countries as possible in quick succession to allow him to basically fund his sex trafficking ring with cryptocurrency.

According to the emails that we've seen so far. And now when somebody says to you, that sounds fucking crazy. What's your response if that was like, not me, because you can be mean to me, but like a 50-year-old mom who is like Ernest. because that does sound crazy. If you think that Jeffrey Epstein didn't fuck with your life in some way, you are wrong. He fucked with all of our lives for years. And so it is our duty, I think, as human beings to understand what he did and why he did it, even if it means that I have not had a normal dream in like a week.

Okay, the rest of the conversation is. is going to be on our Patreon, Patreon.com slash Panic World. Normally, I like to give you the big concept before we pay wall, but this is such a rat's nest. I didn't really know where else to cut this off.

That felt fair. Unfortunately, this is so tricky and important. I think we're going to talk about it again on the main feed. In the meantime, for five bucks. This conversation is on our Patreon, Patreon.com, panic world and you can read about it in Garbage Day at Garbageday. Email.

The issue is titled, Here's how Epstein broke the internet. And then you just go to your browser and putting Garbageday.com email. Look for that one. You know, you know how to use the internet. I believe in you. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you soon.