QAA Podcast - Celebrities: Who Are They Now? (Premium E283) Sample

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

Ah, the lives of the rich and famous. The clones of the lives of the rich and famous. Perhaps the rich and famous are only rich and famous because they’ve been alive for centuries honing their craft. This week, we descend into a ‘page six’ gossip podcast, and examine a handful of conspiracy theories obsessed with the idea that our favorite celebrities are not who they say they are. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: http://www.patreon.com/qaa Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Thank you. If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, Premium Episode 283. Celebrities, who are they now? As always, we're your host, Jake Rockatansky. Liv Aker. And Travis Vue.

Okay, I had a very nice intro written. It was beautiful. It was poetic. But there's been breaking news. So before we dive into the episode, Liv, do you want to talk a little bit about what the White House official account just tweeted. Oh, God, it was in reaction to, and I'm not sure about the underlying news story here,

supposed fentanyl drug dealer being deported. And it's someone who's like in handcuffs and they're crying. They're being deported. And the White House account quote tweeted it with a studio Ghibli style AI slop depiction of the person being arrested. So just like studio Ghibli AI slop, you know, Reddit, um, fashion. basically. Like, that's, that's the world we live in now. It's like, I was saying earlier before we jumped on the recording, you know, the last administration, you know, they, they were like kind of trying to match, you know, the chanters, you know, with the dark Brandon memes and, uh, you know,

the, the ice cream stuff, the, you know, the sunglasses, the joint, you know, they were, they were trying. But now that you've got like a real chaner in there, it's just like un, unabashed racism. Yeah. Like, we're finally. seeing what a real poster looks like. Yeah. That they're proper posters. It's terrifying. It's grim.

It's real grim. It's the right wing version where, like, you know, they think AI is actually based, so they're willing to use it to mock you. I mean, it truly is, I mean, I know that this was all the times the reaction to the Nazis is they made fun of them. Like, people made fun of them because they're like stupid in a funny way. But, I mean, a part of this, I think, is to say, like, well, we have the power. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, they have the power. We will post fucking studio Ghibli edits. I know. just like some trash AI slop, like, I wonder how many, like, how many different IP filters they went through before they decided that Studio Ghibli it was the one that they wanted to go with. It looks oddly like, I don't want to say wholesome, but like the photo is cute. Like, it's a cutesy style. It's like, who is this, what is it for?

I don't understand. It's like Reddit fascism, like soft boy, ooh, small bean fascism. Yeah, because it's like, you know, like a white guy in, you know, a military sort of uniform with a scowl on his face you know handcuffing this crying woman they've aged her horribly in the the AI slop

it's a young woman who the meme is actually based on and it's got 51,000 like 7.1 million views so yeah it's really this is the future they don't care about culture all that shit about you know we must offend Western culture or whatever the classic it's like no

they have no artistic or aesthetic sense. No, there's nothing. It's just pure, it's pure, like, uncontrolled hatred. I saw another one of someone had an AI generated image of like this like idealistic, you know, 60s white only like bar area. And they were like, oh, this is what we have to return to. Of course, all the signs are gibberish because AI is a hard time like generating like real like signs. It's like a perfect image of like what their aesthetic sensibility is. It's purely this like modern even though they're trying to invoke some like return to tradition go to the past it's purely this like junk modern like brainless automated sense of the world aesthetic sense of like what art is what culture is yeah it's just nothing it's just a avoid yeah it's insane it's insane

but it's a it's a it's a product of society at large where the internet is going as we will see in this episode well a fantastically depressing way to start what i thought otherwise was going to be a kind of fun and light episode. I feel like, you know, these days the news is fast and heavy, and it's so mainstream that it's like, oh, we're just like reporting like one bad thing after another, or like, here's something dumb that the Doge people did, or here's something, you know, crazy. Elon said, you know, we're sort of focusing on all of the same swamp creatures. And so I was trying to kind of move away from that and focus on a conspiracy that felt a little bit

less political, even though it's become one, if that makes any sense? So in November of 2021, on episode 168 of this podcast, Travis brought us an episode on the extreme Q&ONC cult led by Michael Prothman, aka negative 48. Among many other things, the hardcore Q&ON group was known for their belief that various dead celebrities and big ones were disguised as white hats within Donald Trump's inner circle. This included the belief that Princess Diana was Melania Trump. So they also thought Michael Jackson was alive and there was Elvis was in there, along with JFK and his son.

So, you know, there was a whole Schmorgasborg of celebs. And in July of 2022, Annie Kelly led us down one of the original pop culture rabbit holes, the conspiracy theory that in 1966, Beatles member Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash and replaced by Billy Shears, even now. And then the other day, Travis asked me if I'd heard about the theory that Katie Perry is John Bonae Ramsey, the young girl who is the victim in an unsolved homicide in 1996. It seems like in the depth of the internet, being famous for one thing just isn't enough. And I'm not quite sure I understand the value ad here, right?

Like if you're a Katie Perry fan, is she more impressive because she's actually Jean-Baday-Ramsey, or is it just an easier story to digest, one where you don't have to accept the reality that an innocent child suffered and instead went on to become one of the most popular singers of the 2000s and beyond? Yeah, I wonder what the hook is here of like she has to say that she isn't because like the CIA or something. Yeah, there's not too many like crazy hooks on these. It seems more that people are just like, they're like, eh, reality like on this isn't quite interesting enough. Like, let's see if we can find a way to make it, you know, to make reality cooler. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like the thing that like, it's like conspiracy theories have the same problem that like 14 year old girls have, which is they don't realize that like focal lenses on cameras, like drastically change your face. Right, right, exactly. And it's kind of like this person, and this way.

And they kind of look different like otherwise. And oh, is that a new person? Because in this photo, they look way different. Yeah, sure. Lighting, makeup. Yeah, all of the various things that can alter a photo. Just digital altering because the, you know, the, I don't know, the studio or the company is like, oh, well, we're going to have these touch stop.

The artist wants it that way. Yes, many factors. So we've discussed the phenomenon of doppelgangers on the show before, of course, most memorably with Naomi Klein. But this trend of insisting celebrities aren't who they say they are stretches back long before Katie Perry. I was curious to dredge up other famous figures who have. died and since been replaced in an effort to understand yet another way the average human being processes fame, wealth, and tragedy. So let's kick off what will no doubt become my personal slide into a page six gossip rag, which actually sounds kind of fun.

Celebrities, who are they now? You've been listening to a sample of a premium episode of the QAA podcast for access to the full episode as well as all past premium episodes and all of our podcast miniseries, go to patreon.com slash QAA. Travis, why is that such a good deal? Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA podcast for just $5 per month. For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes plus all of our miniseries. That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julian and Annie, 10 episodes of Pervers with Julian and Liv, 10 episodes of the Spectral Voyager with Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of

trickle down with me, Travis View. It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting. Travis, for once, I agree with you. And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA. Well, that's not an opinion. It's a fact. You're so right, Jake. We love and appreciate all of our listeners. Yes, we do. And Travis is actually crying right now, I think, out of gratitude maybe. That's not true. The part about be crying, not me being grateful. I'm very grateful. Oh