QAA Podcast - Premium Episode 236: Tik Tokers Heart Bin Laden (Sample)

Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up QAA listeners? The fun games have begun. I found a way to connect to the internet. I'm sorry, boy. Welcome listener to Premium Chapter 236 of the QAA podcast, the TikTokers Hart bin Laden episode. As always, we are your host, Jake Rakatansky. Liv Aker.

Starting point is 00:00:26 And Travis View. The ongoing discourse around social media and extremism took a very strange twist earlier this month after users of the social media platform TikTok discovered a 2002 work by Osama bin Laden called Letter to America. The TikTokers know that the letter's analysis of American imperialism and its effects on the Middle East, as well as the influence of Zionist thought on American politics. Many expressed shock and acted as if the brief letter completely altered their conception of. the world, as if this was the very first critique of American foreign policy they had ever encountered, and some of them were very young, so maybe it really actually was. I'm a TikTok time traveler from the year 2046, where I come from, bin Laden was a hero. All right.

Starting point is 00:01:16 So this controversy ignited a very dumb conversation about the influence of social media and TikTok in general on young people. And I really think this incident is worth unpacking. So today, we're going to start by taking a closer look at the letter itself. Then Liv is going to walk us through how the TikTok community, based on the videos we can still find, reacted to the Bin Laden letter. Then we're going to take a look at whether this was an actual trend on TikTok or whether it was an inflated panic that was actually started on Twitter. And how this was caused by general anxiety over the influence that the Chinese-owned TikTok has on the youth of America. Too much stuff, Travis.

Starting point is 00:01:56 It's too much stuff. We've got TikTok trend, Twitter panic, Chinese-owned. There's too much stuff. One social media site per episode, Travis. I'm just too, I got too much shit on me. I've got too much shit on my phone. There's just too many, there's too many dumb things. We have to talk about the intersection of like politics and online platforms and, you know, all these good stuff.

Starting point is 00:02:22 So I think it's, I think it's really interesting. Now, what's fascinating to me is that the TikTokers in in the sort of the compilation of videos that were placed on Twitter, they all kept acting as if the letter just altered their consciousness forever. So I just read a letter to America and I will never look at life the same. I will never look at this country the same. I will never, please read it. And if you have read it, let me know if you are also going through. existential crisis in this very moment because in the last 20 minutes my entire viewpoint on the entire life I have believed and I have lived has changed please

Starting point is 00:03:07 read that entire letter I need everyone to stop what they're doing right now and go read it's literally two pages go read a letter to America and please come back here and just let me know what you think because I feel like I'm going through like an existential crisis right now and a lot of people are so I just need someone else to be feeling this show. So that's two people who described their reaction to reading this letter as having an existential crisis. Yeah, I really, every, every day I'm amazed by lack of historical literacy by Americans. Maybe it's the Canadian thing too. Maybe it's, it's our country too, but like kind of left-leaning lives who are just like, just finding out now that 9-11 was in part

Starting point is 00:03:47 caused by American imperialism. Yeah, yeah. We'll get into this. But I think that like maybe if there really was like their conception of like geopolitics was basically you know team America world police and like they thought like the old bin Laden letter would be like I'm going to attack America because I hate freedom

Starting point is 00:04:07 then yeah maybe this would be shocking but I want to unpack the letter itself because even knowing the contents of the letter and understanding the grievances that bin Laden expressed this reaction was kind of baffling to me at least in these two instances. Yeah, the self-importance of like, go read, read, read, letters, words on a page,

Starting point is 00:04:30 me, reading, reading, fuck, ah, God dare, everybody's so annoying online. I, who cares? Stop what I'm doing right now. Stop what I'm doing right now? What do you mean? Drop everything for you, for your, for your opinion? Like, shut up. I know. It's like, I want, I open up TikTok to relax, and you're giving me homework, basically. Yeah, I want to see, I want to see. I want to see. another ad for the dragon eggs, okay, because I clicked on the dragon eggs once. And now all I get is the dragon eggs ads. I've lost my mind. Maybe the whole cause of this trend is people just wanted to brag that they read something.

Starting point is 00:05:11 I think so. I think that's it, Liv. Like, I spent 20 minutes reading this. Just, by the way, 20 minutes of my life I spent reading. Isn't that impressive? Yeah, I suppose people's attention spans are so fried. They were like, oh, listen, I read this 800-word letter. Jesus Christ.

Starting point is 00:05:29 They were like, you were busy building castles in Fortnite, a dumb video game. Me, me, I was reading letters from potentially one of the greatest philosophers of our time, now dead. All right. All right, all right. Enough of this. Let's go. So the letter initially appeared on a Saudi website linked to al-Qaeda, and an English translation was shared on law. and was published by the British Sunday newspaper, The Observer.

Starting point is 00:05:57 And what's probably resonating with people was it was the sort of the expression of anti-imperialism. So the letter describes the decades of Israeli occupation of Palestine as years overflowing with oppression, tyranny crimes, killing expulsion, and a destruction and devastation. The letter also criticizes the hypocrisy of being indifferent to the destruction caused by American aggression while being enrable. at Americans who were American civilians who were killed on 9-11. So the letter states, quote, You have starved the Muslims of Iraq where children die every day. Is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions. And you did not show concern. Yet when 3,000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down. Normally, I'm very sad when Julian isn't able to join us. But in this moment, I may be glad

Starting point is 00:06:51 he wasn't able to make it. He would say something maybe a little too laudatory about Osama bin Laden. Lucky for everyone, I now serve as like the amped up guy on the show. And I just like don't know enough history to make, or my politics just aren't educated enough to make any sort of wild claims. So I think everybody's lucked out here. Yeah, I mean, this sort of point is like correct and it's made by like a lot of people. But it's also important to note that like there's a reason why.

Starting point is 00:07:21 Bin Laden is particularly upset about, like, is real, which is obviously going to be elaborated in the other reasons. Yeah. Like, this is not a symmetrical critique of state violence. No, no, no. It's not. And, yeah, it's like, I'm not going to claim to be any kind of like bin Laden expert or something. So really, I'm approaching this from the same level background-wise as a lot of these Ticktokers.

Starting point is 00:07:46 And like, knowing that, I'm reading the letter, I thought it was strange because there's, there's a lot more there than just like a, you're right, sort of a sensible critique of American policy. For example, it conflates the state of Israel with Jewish people generally, which is always a bad sign. Like when speaking of the American and British government, Bin Laden says, these governments have surrendered to the Jews, which is just a right-wing anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Yeah, I mean, explaining the American-Israeli relationship is like, Israel is influencing America. He's like, no, America benefits from it. That's why they give them money.

Starting point is 00:08:21 Yeah. There's a strategic reason why America wants a strong ally in the Middle East. The only surrendering to the Jews that America is doing is really, you know, hey, these soups are good. Whoa, you put that much corned beef inside two pieces of bread. Like, this is how a sandwich should be. Am I doing my own anti-Semitism now, I guess? Probably.

Starting point is 00:08:46 I'll stop. We should continue. in you. I'm Jewish, by the way. In another section, Bin Laden says, quote, the Jews have taken control of your economy through which they have taken control of your media and now control all aspects of your life, making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against. I don't know precisely what's referring to here, but I don't think, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:14 bin Laden's praise of Benjamin Franklin is entirely sincere here when he's going on this openly anti-Semitic rant. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. There's some sort of National Treasure joke buried somewhere here, but my COVID brain is too foggy to find it. So you make the joke listener. You decide what I would have said

Starting point is 00:09:34 and how I would have referenced Ben Franklin's inventions, not in real life, but from the movie National Treasure, and you laugh at what it could have been. Welcome to Q&Anon Anonymous, where we set you up to do the podcast. You have been listening to a sample of a premium episode of QAnon Anonymous. We don't run any advertising on the show, and we'd like to keep it that way. For five bucks a month, you'll get access to this episode, a new one each week, and our entire library of premium episodes.

Starting point is 00:10:08 So head on over to patreon.com slash QAnonanonymous, and subscribe. Thank you. Thanks. I love you. Jake loves you. Thank you.

QAA Podcast - Premium Episode 236: Tik Tokers Heart Bin Laden (Sample)

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