QAA Podcast - The Life of Fredrick Brennan feat. Jay Brandstetter (E361)

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Fredrick Brennan, the self-taught programmer and type designer best known for founding and then later denouncing the anonymous imageboard 8chan, died on January 10th, 2026. He was 31 years old. We had Fredrick on the QAA podcast several times starting in 2019 and he always had valuable insights into the technical aspects of imageboards, the owner/operators of 8chan, and the history of the internet. To remember Fredrick’s life, his journey from free speech absolutist to crusader against QAnon and 8chan, and our personal stories of “copypaste,” Travis, Jake, and Julian are joined by Jay Brandstetter, Fredrick’s partner during the last months of his life and host of the I’m From the Internet podcast. I’m From The Internet Podcast https://shows.acast.com/im-from-the-internet-a-podcast-about-somethingawfulcom Jay Brandstetter https://bsky.app/profile/jaybrandstetter.bsky.social Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media and binge the entirety of our new show Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: https://cursedmedia.net Produced by Liv Agar and 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.

If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 361, the life of Frederick Brennan. As always, we're your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Field, and Travis View. Frederick Brennan, the self-taught programmer and type designer, best known for founding and later denouncing the anonymous Image Board 8chan, died on January 10th, 2026. He was 31 years old. We had Frederick on the show several times, starting.

in 2019, and he always had valuable insights into the technical aspects of image boards, the owner-operators of A. Chan, Jim and Ron Watkins, and the history of the internet. Ait-Cham, which has since rebranded as a coup and was the most extreme experiment in unmoderated online speech and history, and central to both Gamergate and QAnon, as well as a place where white supremacist shooters posted their manifestos before going on rampages. As a consequence, Frederick's life and work is unavoidably tied to online extremism. But his denouncing of H.N. as horrible consequences, as long as actively working to the platform the site, which led to Jim Watkins attempting to kill him with lawfare, led to some

of our more interesting questions and conversations around radicalization and redemption. We all have personal stories to share about Frederick, but to talk more intimately about his life and work. We are joined by Jay Brandstetter. He is an internet historian, host of the I'm from the internet podcast, personal assistant to Frederick, and Frederick's partner in the last months of his life. Jay, you have our condolences, and thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today. No, I'm glad I could finally talk about this. I know it happened back in January, but for personal reasons, his family didn't want to release it until his birthday on the 21st. So in a weird way, it feels kind of nice to finally have it out there, and it's very heartening to see how many people

he touched positively who are missing him. Yeah, yeah. I guess, like, for those who don't know, who, uh, who were you to Fred in his last years? Um, well, when I first came up here, uh, we were originally friends over the internet, and then I came up here to be his caretaker, and then he had a health scare, and it made us sort of have a heart to heart, and then we sort of realized we had feelings for each other. And so for the last six months of his life, we were partners. Like, he lived with his family. I was living with them. Like, I even lived with them before that. It was a very interesting experience going from like, like, you know, all things considered things could have turned out a lot worse, inviting a stranger from the internet to come take care of you. I'm

glad that he got me. Yeah, seriously, somebody to fall for instead of like, you know, a crazed murderer per se. Yeah. Well, as we'll find out, he was on drugs at this time. So I think that explains why his decision-making skills weren't probably as good as they usually would be. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, I really wanted to really talk because I think that, you know, we're talking about internet history.

He is a really important figure as much as like, you know, some other, I guess, like, prominent, like, forum founders. And I think that I'm sure you talk a lot about, you know, his life and his struggles. And something I, you know, I think it's always been interesting to me is something about there's a something as part of the public narrative about Frederick is this difficult childhood. He suffered, you know, chronic medical trauma and abelism, family upheaval, driven largely by his father, and then years of foster care where he experienced like exploitation, medical, and neglect. He lived with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is also known as brittle bone disease,

which led him to frequently breaking his bones and constantly being in pain. So what did he tell you about his childhood and growing up with these disabilities? It was really really, neat to learn a lot of, I've never really, like, really known that much about what it's like to grow up with something like that. And, like, there were some good memories he told me about, like, when he was a kid, something that him and his mom and his sibling would do is they would put, like, they had like carpeting on the ground so it was very soft and she would get on the floor with them and all of them would just kind of scoot around because none of them could walk, but they could still kind of move around together. They would, that was like how they would play

together because when you have fertile bones, one of the things about that's really distressing is like, you don't really understand your own limitations. And also as a kid, you don't have full motor control yet. So it's very, you know, it's very upsetting. to just be like, even outside of the fact that you're spending a lot of time unable to go out and interact with other kids because you're in a cast, it's like even when you're out, it seems very upsetting to go through. I can definitely understand why that would be, I don't know how I would have to handle that. Yeah, I mean, when I, you know, talk to Fred about this, I think what was, you know, distressing about it was the fact that he had a kind of constant

unheeled broken bones. It was just, you know, some of them healed, some of them just didn't. And sneezing, for example, could become a real problem. Yeah, like that was sincerely, like, it was half a joke, but it's really a problem was like, he was like, I was always afraid I would make him laugh too hard. Like, that was seriously something we had to worry about. But like, yeah, in general, in terms of his fragile, it's like, yeah, just on a daily basis, sometimes, like, an old fracture, like, especially not that he was getting older, like, when the weather changes, he would feel it kind of everywhere instead of just in a knee or something. Or his, his time went on, this sort of, yeah, the way he explained it to me is when you have OI, it's kind of like your bones are 10 years older than the

rest of you on top of being brittle. So they, you know, it's like because they age quicker. So it was very much one of those things where even, it was kind of worsening in some ways, even if he had better understanding of it. Yeah. When he was in LA, I mean, something that definitely marked me was just like the level of care that he required to just, I mean, and that's if you don't leave your house. But if you leave your house, obviously, like we went with him to a Bernie rally and we, we had to get like a van where, you know, like the chair straps in at the back. It's hard to get him and it's hard to get them out. Then you hope the place that you go to has like access for people. So it's just like constantly having this level of effort that is kind of like superhuman, you know,

like none of us really understand that unless maybe, I don't know, we had a period of being extremely sick or something. Julian is leaving out like the funniest part of the story. Well, funny, I guess, in retrospect, where we had to carry Fred in his chair down the front steps like of Julian's apartment because Julian was on the second. floor and then that second floor is up like on the third floor there's a whole second part of steps and fred was being so funny about it because he was like you guys don't understand like please let me know like if you can really do this because if you drop me i will die like if you drop me i'm dead like he so i guess i guess that's funny if because we didn't drop him

would be less funny yeah that was the end of his story but he was basically like are you guys sure that you can carry me because this isn't any just carry a wheelchair guy like down the stairs. This is like, if anything goes wrong, like, that's it. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's also something to take into account is to leave, to go somewhere, to do things. You have to essentially put your life in someone else's hands. Yes. I mean, that it's a, a lot of these processes, I think, just mentally and physically are just, uh, you know, it's like, it's very hard to understand if you haven't experienced it because it's, um, a totally different life, like in almost every way. Yeah, like a very invisible one is like sidewalks, like little cracks in the sidewalks to us or something that like his wheels can't, get over. So there be times we walk it down the street and then halfway between there'd be a, there'd be a big crack. He'd be like, well, we got to turn around and they turn around and go on the side of the road to go around it. Just even little things like that. You don't really like, that was even like a game idea he'd been tossing around like a physics-based thing where one person's in a wheelchair, the other one's trying to, you know, cover stuff up for them.

Because it was something that we talked about a lot as we were on walks because it came up so often. That's nice. It's like the opposite of the goose game where you're just like pissing everybody off. It's like you're just being extremely helpful. Something else that I think, uh, you discuss is that he was that he was that he was, was also diagnosed with autism as an adult. So, like, how did he discover this? And, I guess, how did I guess it help him, I guess, like, kind of re-contextualize some of his other struggles in childhood?

Yeah, well, from what I understand, it's for something that he figured out online, because when he was spending his time on these online places, he was meeting a lot of other neurodiverse people. And it's something I bonded with him over because I didn't figure out I was autistic until I was 34. So that was one of the reasons why I was kind of happy to just pack up and move to other place. I was like, yeah, this stuff isn't working out for me. Let me try something else.

But yeah, from what I understand, it was something he figured out. And so he never really got like the professional. Even back then, it was a lot better than it was when I was growing up. But I'm 38, by the way. I'm six years older than him. So not much of a difference, but relatively. But anyways. Still a young man.

Yeah. And so he never really had the formal training. And a lot of it's kind of like in terms of recontextualizing. I think that definitely kind of, especially with his turn, being like, oh, yeah, this is part of why I don't get along with people. This is part of why I don't want the same things to other people. Like, I can see why a lot of his early hangups about Virginia and stuff, partially that was speaking from experience.

Also, as an asexual, this is something I have experience. I know I'm supposed to be feeling a certain way. I don't. What is wrong with me that's making me like this and why can't I fix it? Like, that is a very unhealthy headspace to be in and it's very self-reinforcing. I really wish I didn't relate to that. Like, there's just so many aspects of my life where I'm like, stumped, stumped daily. Love to be 42 and still talking about that.

But it's a lifetime process, you know, and it's not like, oh, great, I got a diagnosis or now, now I have a name for this. Like, it doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't make you any better. at getting along with people. It doesn't make you make choices in like a different way, just the knowledge, you know, like, unfortunately, I wish, I wish there was some sort of way to kind of intellectually override some of these impulses once we realize them, you know? There's like how difficult they're making our life and how if we had different behavior, like it would just be so much easier. And then it's like, well, struggling to change it and

ongoing process. So, yeah, I mean, I do. It's like just, with him, it's just a stack, you know? I mean, my lord, this is a highly modified game. I'll put it that way. He has a like 11 mods like loaded into the it's like he's got like 15 gigs of mods and he's downloading from like a P2P server like yeah it's gonna take it's gonna take the whole night you're gonna have to leave the system on overnight

yeah he's one of those challenge runs that the streamers do for the real sickos it's like all right you think you see what this game normally like looks like let me show you what you could really do in this game yeah he's doing Diablo two hardcore runs well so far we're doing great we're comparing Fred to a game we're remembering when we almost killed it I think Fred would laugh at this.

I do, I do miss him. Something that I said online is, it's just, he was, he made the world more interesting, you know. And I certainly, like, had my ups and downs with Fred. Like, he was a temperamental person. Like, you know, you'd be getting along. And then suddenly, suddenly you're not getting along. And it's like, what's happening? What did I, like, you know, and you try to kind of deal with it.

But I think that, like, knowing Fred over a longer period of time, you just, you're aware, I suppose that that is, like, an aspect of how he is. and it's obviously not like what he would pick if he could. Nobody wants like big mood shifts and stuff like that or to create a kind of hyper-defensive protection, I suppose, is the way I would put it. And it's like, if you can't understand why someone like Fred did that, then like what even are you like you have to have some level of, I don't know, just like emotional compassion for someone,

even when he's, you know, being a dick. Because later he won't again. Later you can have a good conversation with him again, you know. It's just, it was just, it was just kind of like an aspect of of knowing him and getting to know him and like letting him in your life. And so I don't know. It's a, I do miss him. Like, it's a weird, it's a weird experience to have a podcast where we're talking about him in the third person and just like, you know, him being gone.

So. Me too. Yeah. Especially for someone where like he was a figure on the internet like years before I ever met him. Like I didn't meet him really until 2022 like after he, you know, the documentary and everything. Like I first saw him, I think like in 2013, 2014 when Gamergate was unfolding and people were talking about the site world. those people were meeting. And I remember seeing him. And it stood out to me because, like, normally when I see the people who are on these sites, I don't get what they're so mad about. This guy, I kind of

understand why he's angry at the world. Like, I get him. I'm not saying it's good, but I get where he's coming from, especially for someone who was so young at the time. Like, he was 19 when he made Chan famously. Like, you know, he was literally like a teenager when he first started out. That's crazy. Yeah. Another thing that was an aspect of Fred's life that I know was very difficult and that I certainly related to was his relationship to pain management, you know? I mean, To be this, in this much physical pain, the opioids are like kind of like our only real solution because we just don't have that many good pain management drugs that can handle this level of distress. And so, you know, that's definitely something that I would talk a lot about with Fred and have my own experiences with addiction. So that was something that I really related to him about.

But I think that I guess like not many people are perhaps aware that like his basically entire life that I knew him at least was struggling with intense. drug addiction on top of everything else, which if you're talking mood swings, you're talking, I mean, that shit is built in as well. So yeah, I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about that, Jay. I mean, it feels a bit weird bringing it up. But, you know, you were mentioning that Fred has had experiences in rehabilitation since or did. Yeah, because especially when he, you know, he grew up before we knew what we know now about things like Oxycontinent stuff.

So, yeah, it's something he was taking his whole life. And then from what I understand, when he was in the Philippines, he was getting good regular health care because, like, there was a doctor he went to regularly. their doctors operate out of hospitals, so like he didn't have to travel to get care. It was all in the same building. And then when he came back here, it was quarantine first off, so he couldn't really get access to doctors easily. And also, like, you know, he didn't really have an income.

He was kind of isolated and everything. So he wound up self-doing his, he wound up ordering, like, off the dark web, getting fentanyl patches. So he was, he was basically self-vaccated. From there, he was kind of just spiraling, taking more and more of them, like, you know. And I didn't know about that when I first came up here, but that was how he was kind of working through it. And especially, like, I feel like, like, as.

especially after the dust had settled, the sort of like the emotional sort of toll of like being like, you know, you went through all this stuff, you did all these things. And now it's just kind of like you're by yourself and there's nothing you can really do because the world's kind of frozen right now. And why not just take this big pile of drugs you have? I can just, again, I'm not excusing or apologizing it. But like, especially for someone like him, it was already in chronic pain. Like what else?

You know, I get why he wound up like that, even if it sucks and I wish I could have been there to help him with it back then. Yeah, of course. I mean, the bottom line is to have any kind of, I think, like, judgment other than like, Of course, we're all responsible for our own actions. Like, you know, that's different. But drug addiction doesn't have to do with choice. It's not about being weak-willed.

Like, it's, you know, so I think for me, like, I definitely see it from that perspective, having had my experiences in rehabilitation and periods of sobriety and periods of non-sobriety. It's like the first thing you have to understand is that it's not a choice. Otherwise, like, that person is detestable. Why? Why would they hurt people around them and hurt themselves over and over by choice? That would obviously make them a bad person, you know? But of course, that's just not, it's not our medical understanding of it anymore.

But I'm always fucking blown away by how little information people have about this, including doctors. I've ended up in, you know, hospital settings and stuff, like, highly distressful situations. And just doctors, like, absolutely, it's like, have you read anything about this? Like, this is crazy, you know? It's, it feels like we're in the fucking 1950s. Like, I think people think that just because people now openly talk about addiction and they talk about rehabilitation, like, this stuff is a little bit more, like, in our zeit guys, that people's minds have changed about it? I would argue, no.

It is medieval out there, the understanding of addiction. Yeah, and even just that's the thing about Fred, too, is going to a doctor. Like, regular people, like, people with able-bodied people already have trouble getting our doctors to understand us like him. Like, they have to use, like, a children's blood pressure cuff on his leg or it will break his arm when they try and take his blood pressure. Like, right from getting one of guys, like, no, you have to do this special or I'm going to get hurt.

Yeah. So that was, yeah. And also, like, in terms of rehab, that's a thing that's tough, too. Like, going to rehab is already hard enough. Like, he had to pick up methadone. And when you start off, you got to go there every day to get it. He can't drive. You know, there's not like a bus he can get to this clinic.

If I wasn't there, he wouldn't have been able to do it. But because I was there, you know, every day I got to drive him up there. We had a nice little drive back and forth. We had to bundle them up, like get him strapped down in the van, do the whole thing. So all that extra stuff to do that. But, you know, again, he really wanted this. I never had to force him to it or drag him out of bed. He was always up and at it.

And also while he's doing this, he can't take opiate. So he's just, like, has all this pain and just taking, like, over-the-counter stuff, like ibuprofen and acetaminophen, although eventually it did catch up with him a little, as I can talk about too. Yeah, I imagine the like either liver or stomach are going to pay for both of those, if I'm familiar with like the downsides. Oh yeah, especially if he wasn't really aware. Like, yeah, basically last year around July, we had to take him to the hospital because

he wasn't communicating how much pain he was in. He was just popping more and more ibuprofen and it messed up his liver enzyme and he was like hallucinating. And we still don't have an official cause of death yet. We have the autops. We have his ashes and everything. but the autopsy has like a, we ordered a toxicology report, and they said it could take up to six months, I think, something like that.

But I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of organ failure or damage was related to that, just because that happened before that and then his health, he never really fully bounced back after that. But that was, that was why we sort of had that conversation because he had a near-death experience. And we were just talking. And it was, you know, that's one, I guess one positive to come out of this, even if it was like a horrible experience to go through.

Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's so difficult. That's the thing is like, you think you're kind of dealing and wrestling with like your biggest issues and then some fucking new weird issue creeps up like oh i took too much ibuprofen and that actually has this result yeah it may it may be see god and lightning bolts coming out of people it was yeah i didn't know that your liver could cause you to hallucinate like that was very scary to witness on the outside i'm sure he couldn't he couldn't communicate to the doctors because he was out of his sort of out of his mind's like yeah his hips got a little hurt because like he couldn't tell them out

to carry him in such he was just out of his mind but the you know the his liver stuff so it was Really, I'm glad I could be there for him at least. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, I think one of the more interesting things about, you know, Fred Brennan's, like, I guess, intellectual journey related to his relationship to, like, image boards and free speech. Like, you know, famously, he is one of the very first image board he kind of owned was Wizard Chan, the in-cell image board, which he purchased, but then relinquished control of after he lost his virginity.

He's very, I guess- It was just discussing Gandalf and other wizards. But, yeah, I mean, like, I'm curious if you ever talked about his early days and his early interest in sort of imageboard culture. We did talk about internet and image board stuff in general. Like, my thing was I never really probed him about this stuff. I was curious, but also I understood that was something he was very, you know, it was a bad experience for him. So my thing was if he brought it up, I would be happy to follow up. I never really poked him.

But he did talk some about it then. I do think it is kind of ironic that that's kind of what kicked this whole thing off was him being on Wizard Channel. They wound up in a relationship with an asexual. I mean, just like if you're like, you know, even when you win, you're still kind of, you know, it's like it didn't matter in the end after all, you know? I think it's very sweet in a way. Well, that's, that's so often life is the things that we think are the most important end up just like we end up ditching that so quick when something actually important comes in front of us. I totally get that. Yeah, there's also that whole path, which is like Fred,

clearly started up in circles that had just profound, like, misogyny and homophobia just built in. And his journey was to find out that his sexuality was actually, like, larger than perhaps he understood at the time being a teenager. And I certainly relate to that, too, you know. So, yeah, that's, that's another, like, whole very frustrating and difficult journey that he had to go on. Because, man, the contrast, you know, is wild. It really is, yeah. And also another thing, too, is, like, it was, like, he was secretive about it at the time, but he's a furry as well. so I could see that affecting as well, because that was very much one of the groups that, like, especially 2000's imageboard culture. Just like, that was a very common target of ridicule.

Like, I think furries weren't even allowed to post on 4chan for a really long time. So that could also sort of encouraging him to lock up and be sort of reclusive. Yeah, when he came out, I certainly think we all, we all saw when he came out as the raccoon. Like that he was posting about. He was loving it. Yeah, the art, I remember the artwork from that period was amazing. He commissioned so much, he commissioned so much horny furry artwork. I loved that. That was awesome.

When I first started working for him, I was working remotely, and one of the first things he had me do is set up an FTP and download all his furry art commissions and organize them by artists. Oh, my God, that's incredible. Yeah, the adventures that that little raccoon, I mean, do you ever wonder because a lot of the time the raccoon was pictured with like a larger, reliable furry animal that took care of him? And then Jay, you kind of ended up.

pretty well. Did he ever say, hey, man, could you wear the, could you wear a costume? I did wear a panda onesy on Halloween one year. He couldn't wear, he couldn't wear one. So I got him a little Pikachu hat because the problem with costumes is his arms have to be unrestrained so he could still steal her his chair. No, that is pretty funny. I mean, that is honestly one of the reasons why I message him was I had this gimmick account that was very modestly successful in 2002. I had like 23,000 followers.

And it was about something awful because that's sort of my specialty is like forums history. I'm actually not someone who used, really used image boards very much, aside from like a brief time in 2008 when I crossed over because there was the project Chanology thing going on. I lived in Florida, so I got to go to the one at Clearwater at the protest. Like, I got to process outside their headquarters. It was pretty cool. I'm glad I got to do that.

But, yeah, I have my Twitter account. And because I never had any kind of internet success like this before, I'm checking all the new people following it and just watching them come by. And also I noticed one. I'm like, oh, that one has a cute persona. And I click on it. I'm like, oh, that's funny. This for son is using the same name as the guy who owns 8chan.

And I realized I was like more followers. I'm like, oh shit, this is the Frederick Brennan. Because I didn't know he was a furry until that point. And then I had, and then immediately I'm like, wait, he's not just a, he's a furry. And he's also like the same type of furry that I am. I have to say hi to this guy. Like, yeah, we had so, like, in spite of our physical differences and other things, like, we are very similar people in a lot of ways.

So we immediately kind of bonded and hit it off. And it was, it was great. Yeah, I'm really, really, really, again, another great reason to be open, not, not to hide your light under a bushel. Because that's how people learn about you. Like, if he had still been hiding the fact that he was a furry, I mean. I mean, never have thought to say hi to him. Like, what am I going to talk about with this with this guy? Yeah.

Well, what I loved about that, like, part of Frederick's life is just how much joy it exuded. Like, he was doing commissions. He was, like, really enjoying himself doing this. And, like you said, doing it very publicly, there was something quite beautiful and liberating, I have to say about that shift. Yeah. And speaking from experience to someone who also went through a similar thing, like, I hid the fact that I was a furry until my early 30s.

And one of the things I think really helps is kind of like, especially for someone like him or me where you can be a little mischievous. You have a little bit of like a troll. to you is sort of like going from being ashamed of it to realizing, no, it's good that it pisses these people off because they deserve to be pissed off about it. They're jerks. You know, let me have fun. And then you're no longer, it doesn't feel bad when people are mean to you about it. And it's because you just sort of recontextualize it. Yeah, I know. We need, we need furry rights on the internet, man. I'm sick of this shit. But you, you explained really well what I observed as

like an outsider, which was that like, and what Julian mentioned previously is that you could see that Fred was having like so much fun with it and so much fun. it was like pissing off, like, people who, you know, who would have been his old sort of like cohorts, you know, from the chans who are basically like, what the fuck, like, what the fuck? You know, we so need more examples of people, like, changing and evolving publicly and normalizing that, like, how your life looks at, like, 19, like, has nothing to do with, like, how happy you could be at 41 or 42, you know, whatever. And so, like, I always, like, thought that that was so, I was so, like, I just thought it was so fun that it was like, I don't know. I just saw that as something so much more braver than, like, I could have ever done or been open about on the internet. And, yeah, just like, I think that's why we're here having this conversation is like what Julian said at the very beginning is that, like, Fred was really interesting. The world feels less interesting because he's, he's gone.

Yeah, I'm really glad that you brought that up because, like, yeah, like, that's one of reasons I think that Fred is worth celebrating. too because like we were like the first generation of people to kind of have the internet and it's like when you make pancakes or least when I make them you always kind of burn the first one because you're figuring out like how hot the grittle is or like how the thing it's like our generation was the burnt pancake we didn't know what the fuck was going to happen now we have an idea of what happens we've seen some of the patterns that play out and so like that's what reason my first it's like getting someone to even admit they're wrong is really hard on the internet and he'd only admitted he was wrong he basically like completely destroyed the life

he had built up to that point to try and said it right and I was like this is that And then stuck to it. It wasn't just like him, like, especially now that there's this whole pipeline for people to sort of cynically become right-wing grievance guys. He wasn't doing any of that shit. He was like, no, I'm actually like, he took it to, he actually fought. And I think showing these real examples what it looks like when someone really meaningfully changes, shows people that are in their position used to be that you can get out. There is a way out of this. And we're seeing more and more what that looks like is more and more people get out and also become confident enough to talk about their experiences.

Yeah. And like, I think, I think, you know, he had to make that early decision to make that change. to oppose essentially everything that he had previously embraced. He had to make that knowing that there are people that they will never forgive you. There are people to this day, you know, that it's like if you talk about Fred in any positive way online, they're going to come at you. And so he had to do that knowing that those people are like that, you know, and that, you know, I'd say that adds to the act, I think.

It adds to like how difficult that act can be. Because that's the thing with being wrong and then admitting it is people for various reasons, like, don't give a fuck. They will never forgive you. and they hate you and they won't change their mind about that. So it's human psychology is really, really fun. Yeah, that is one of the tough parts about it too. Like I think for me personally, for my experience,

I think that is a part of sort of really maturing and coming to terms of the fact that you did something bad is that you have to accept. Like, not everyone's going to forgive you. That's something you have to live with. That's a consequence of what you did, even if it would be good or better for them if they did do that. And he was all, I think he, for somebody who could be pretty inflammatory, I think he handled that with as much great, with a lot more grace than I might expect.

So, like, the only time really complain about people online being mean to him is he's like, oh, God, the Queen of Canada is bothering me again or whatever. Like, Q and non-people would always be, like, pinging him or like, whenever something was in the news. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It just reminds me of, like, also how much more visible Fred's life was online by the time he hit, like, maybe 13, 14. I remember, I mean, man, if I had to fucking explain what the, what I was doing on GeoCities with a page literally called the Hansen hate page in which I, like, basically homophobically attacked, like, the band Hansen for no. reason for no reason just clearly working out my own sexual insecurities at a young age.

It's like, no one knows about that. When I was a child, I wanted to kill Barney. Now that I'm an adult, I want to kill Hansen. No one has a screencap of that to fucking tell me I'm never going to be forgiven, you know. But I hope I hope I'm a different person. It was so awful. God. Oh, man. I remember I even recorded.

I was like very creative already. It was early podcasting, baby. I recorded a wave where it was like, oh, I'm Michael Jackson. I'm in the street. Like, oh, the car's coming. Bam. I mean, it hit Michael Jack, you know, like, all this stuff that I was like, I was just so fuck.

I was such a little piece of shit, you know, like, what the fuck was I thinking? And in retrospect, I'm like, oh, all of these layers, these mods were already there. And I didn't have any fucking tools to deal with them at all. So instead it became, you know, all these different fucking coping mechanisms and stuff. But I'm just glad no one has a fucking screen cap of that that they can shove in my face every time I pretend to have any kind of like empathy or virtue would do anything decent in this world. So, you know, Fred didn't have that. Fred was on the Sonic forums, like, you know,

getting raided. I was going to ask if you knew about the Chow Garden being his origins because that is such a fun. Yeah, if Sega had just moderated their web spaces, none of this would have happened. Totally. You can all trace this back to Sonic. Yeah. No, I mean, it's so, yeah, he got raided and then he got interested in the chans. I mean, this is, I had long conversations with, you know, I consider probably my best

interview ever, the first interview I did with Fred where it was the middle of the night for me and I was very low energy. But we really like went through all the different like parts of his life. I still look back at that as something really cool. But yeah, I did, of course, in the process, find out about the sonic board getting rated by these Chan morons. And then him being like, well, wait, what's this? And it's like, you're 13. Like, I don't make any good.

I made no good decisions back then, you know? And then, yeah, and then kind of having it become his whole identity. Like, how do you see that process, I guess? This is a question that I'm stealing from Travis here. He said, when did the internet shift from interest to identity for him? Um, I'm guessing, from what I said, like at first, when he was a really little kid, he had this odd experience where because he was someone who was very well, well written, he was very good at language, he could sort of pass as someone who was older, but also the stuff he would talk about kind of give him. Like, he would write, like, very passionate, like, essay-length defenses of some malware installer because he liked the cursors it gave him, like, things like that, like this very unsupervised child on the internet, not really knowing what he's doing, but knows that he likes it. And also, I think a part of it, too, is, like, sort of realizing that he could express himself on there and sort of having this sort of identity.

But like he talked about in the documentary, like that thing where he said that the, like, when you saw like the dark side of the internet, it reflected how he felt about himself. Like, oh, this is how everyone really feels. They just won't say it instead of this. And from there, I feel like that kind of, I think when he got doxed, that was the point where it really turned a corner. Because at that point, it was like he couldn't separate the two. So he was just like, well, I guess I'll just lead into it and just have this be my life now. But before that, there was always, I guess, kind of the release valve of, well, no one really knows who I am. I could just stop one day. Yeah, absolutely. I certainly had experiences like that early on on the internet. Like, for me, it was a kind of, in retrospect, like a kind of smarter, but not much less cruel version of like the kind of lowl cow phenomenon on the Kiwi farms. But it was called Portal of Evil. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Old Man Murray before that. So I was like fucking chatting with these people at a way too young and age. I was too stupid.

But I had that feeling, that niggling feeling of like, maybe these guys are right. They're awful, extremely cynical version of like life and who you are and how you can judge others. Maybe they're right. Because it felt like you said, it's like if you have something like, I don't know, depression or all these things. Like suddenly you see the world reflect just how awful you're already feeling. I'm so happy that I somehow stayed away from the internet from like 1996 through, I don't know, 2007, 2008. I mean, I really, I was an AIM. I had AIM instant messenger or whatever.

But that was it. I never got, I never went on to Fortune. I never saw any of the boards. Well, you didn't, you were an IRC kid. That's the first thing. You didn't do MIRC. So I was on MIRC immediately when that shit was out. What is that even?

Internet relay chat. Essentially, it's just a chat client that was made for free by this, I think, Indian guy. And it just became very, very easy to access things that were harder, that you had to kind of almost no programming. to make like commands. So this was like a kind of graphic user interface that allowed you access to these internet relate chat rooms. And it was dramatic.

You know, you could fucking, people would take over. There would be mod wars. They would like, you know, there's a lot going on. I was too, I was too worried. My dad had too much, like, computer voodoo around the home system.

Like, you know, if we had a Mac World magazine and there was a demo, he'd be like, well, hold on. What are you downloading? Well, immediately I'll tell you. I don't think MRI was ever released for Mac, right? Am I wrong? I'm not really familiar with Mac stuff.

I don't think MRI was ever released for Mac. That's why. Oh, and we were a Mac family through and through. I remember. You probably had an IRC relay, like, version. Did you ever have ICQ, Jake? That's another big one. No, no, no, we had AOL.

This motherfucker's never, like, typed in his friend's IP address into Win Nuke. He never typed it into Win Nuke, and he's never giving them the blue screen of death. No. Bro, bro, get out of here, bro. We're fucking... No, I really didn't use the computer. I was AIM. I did AIM.

and I remember distinctly my brother and I would make fun because here's the thing is I was just on the borderline of like the popular group far fringes so I was so trying to like deny my like theater you know my theater passions and like try out

for every sports to you know as some sort of like a play to be popular and so the internet was like that was like oh me and my brother used to make fun of each other for being on the internet too much we would call each other internet rats like if we saw somebody sitting at the family computer with the AOL ding going on a little too long? We'd be like, oh, you're an internet rat.

Like, that's the era that I was from where, we're, like, chatting on the internet was like, I don't know, like... I was, like, a computer rat as soon as I could be. As soon as I found MRI, I was like, the internet's way more important than all these morons I'm going to school. I'm sure if I had been exposed, I would have loved it. Stupid classmates, unless they want to play Ultima online with me, in which case, like, yeah, we can talk, you know?

I couldn't even have games. Mike, the Mac we had could barely run myth off the demo CD. Okay, Jake, you don't have to tell people that you, like, were tied to the radiator and that they fed you scraps. Over Thanksgiving, my mom asked me, she was saying, like, she was like, do you think that you were deprived as a child? Like, I thought you had everything you, I thought you had everything you really asked for. And I was like, oh, I was like, oh, what did I say? Moms are so awesome, dude. What a great.

You can't escape that. That's the bean. That's the tractor. your ship is like being swallowed by the mothership as she says that because how can you work your way out of that there's no fucking way that's awesome i guess while we're talking about mothers let me tell you about one of fred's uh foster moms he had who is really uh funny he told me a lot of complained a lot about her over the years uh Her name was Barb and one of his foster homes. So she was one of those people, she was very religious. She owned a catering business. And she just had like a flock of like foster children that she would have work,

do catering work for her. Like the older ones would actually like work. And like since he couldn't walk and he was in the wheelchair, he would have to do stuff like make dumplings or whatever, like things he could do sitting down. Like way. That is like the, yeah, like Cartoon. Yeah, like DeKenzie and child abuse here.

I think you're looking for the word entrepreneurship. That's true. They're disrupting the child labor market. I should be thinking ahead here. But yeah, and so like whatever thing, whatever hangups was that she was obsessed with Alestra. And this was like in the 2000s, well after we knew Alestra was bad and what it did to you. And she would buy tubs of Alestra when she cooked at home. She would put in all their food.

She'd make them eat it. Wait, wait. What is it? What is it? It's, um, in the 90s, it was like this additive that was supposed to make like fat. Uh, it made food not happy as calorie dense, but the side effect is it makes the undigested oil just sort of leak out of your colon. So people realized it wasn't worth it. Oh, yeah.

This was, there was a certain kind of potato chip, I remember. remember they would have to put a, like a, they would have to put a warning on it that said it causes anal leakage. I remember this. It was a big joke when we were kids. They have been feeding you poison in this country for so long. Like, I'm so glad I kind of grew outside the United States and like probably wasn't poisoned by some like new invention like Alestra. But you guys, it's like awesome, man. It's like every 10 years, like everything that everybody was eating is like recalled. And like we say like, nope, we can't not fit for consumption. They found the color out of space and they used it to color yogurt for children. It is a very.

processed era of food. So she was fucking feeding them molester? Like, why? Why? Just because I'm assuming she had an eating disorder. It sounds like she had some sort of weird fixation on it. I was like whatever thing she would do is because they were like this really religious family. She and her bio kids would pretend to be raptured. They would just like leave their clothes

in the floor and then hide and the idea is like the foster kids would see that and get scared because they thought they were raptured. They'd jump out of the closet. Like, ha, that's going to happen if you don't convert. Like, again, like the foster system is horrible. I hope this person is in fucking jail. Like, I'm Sorry.

Yeah. That is, well, fuck. Listening to just that story in my head, I was like, man, I'm surprised Fred wasn't more fucked up. Exactly. God, yeah. Holy shit. I will say, one of her bio kids, he checked them, he checked them on Facebook recently,

and they're like a skull mask guy now. So their bio kids wound up exactly like you would expect parents like that to create. Wow. Man. Do you know Jay offhand, like how many foster homes? Fred was in, like, over the course of his, like, childhood? He was only in the foster care system for a couple years. It's just he bounced between a bunch of them because, like, he wasn't an easy kid to,

that was a rebellious streak. Like, that's kind of how he honed it was having these abusive parents he didn't like or these unsafe family environments to be. That's the thing, too, is like sometimes one of the foster kids would be violent. And, you know, it was like a not a safe environment to be in. I'd probably guess, like, half a dozen based on the different families he talked about over the years. Yeah.

I mean, Wizard makes, I mean, I always saw, like, he had to develop essentially the person of like the kind of like evil vizier right like it's like if you're getting abused so much like and you can't really do anything physical you just the only thing you have is the ear of the king and I'm sure I'm sure he came up with all kinds of ways of trying to at least get taken care of you know I guess sort of like the flip side of that is he was very good at talk like like sometimes like I'm autistic sometimes I would get overwhelmed or something he was very good at talking me down because like that's how he has to interact with everything whereas like in the past I'm a big guy if I like get loud or something people get scared or they flinch him. He's like, okay, Jay.

And just immediately just like, just like, I'm being ridiculous. Okay, Jay. Oh, man. You know, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but Fred, I mean, people who knew him, I think, do, but Fred was like, you know, a whiz with fonts. And this was something that I found out much later that this was kind of his, like, passion was fonts. And believe it or not, I actually hit him up when my then-fiance and I were trying to

to make our save the date invitations. We had like, there was this font that she had seen that she was like, I really like this, but like we couldn't find it. We couldn't figure it out. And I was like, well, I was like, there is one person who I think like could probably help us. And I hit up Fred on Twitter. And he was like, oh, he was like, yeah, that's like this version of something like career. He was like, don't use that.

If you want something that's like closer to that, but like a way better font, he suggested this like totally different one that we ended up using. And so, like, he helped us figure out the font for our save the date invitations that went out to my entire family, who I'm sure would have, still to this day, have no idea that, you know, quote unquote hot wheels contributed. Oh, gosh. Yeah, well, what you don't know is secretly he built in like a crazy cipher into the font. And we're all going to be reading his manifesto soon after scanning that. Oh, God, no, he was always like that. It never shut off.

Like, we'd be on a walk at a store. So he'd be like, hey, check out that sign over there. See it? That's the Igloo Cooler font. And I'd be like, you're right. He can just spot stuff like that. I love that. Yeah, absolutely.

I love a weird, obsessed person about something very specific that not too many other people care about as a Ghostbusters fan myself. Yeah, I mean, you talk about like, you're right. It's like it's very difficult that his like, you know, so much of his life is public and like part of the public record because like lots of people have stupid ideas where they're 19 while high on mushrooms that they think are profound. Yeah, but usually they're. forgotten. But in Fred's case, this experience led him to creating 8chan, which he envisioned

basically as some sort of hybrid between 4chan and Reddit. And, you know, it's interesting is that he had this ambition for it to be, you know, to unseat Christopher Poole as like, and 4chan is like, you know, the number one image board. And it basically, it struggled for a while until Gamergate. And, and Fawcann sort of started banning Gamergate discussions. And all of a sudden, his mostly inactive image board became very, very popular. And I think this is, I don't know, it's just, I think it's interesting part of his record because this is something that, you know, A. Chan is something that he struggled to get going. And then it was only because of this horrible harassment campaign that started gaining traction.

Did he, did he ever talk about that experience about Gamergate and Aichan? I don't think he didn't really talk about that much specifically. I think because he was probably ashamed of that time of his life, I imagine. Like, you know, when you've spent all this time being very immersed in something that you've come to renounce. Like in terms of he would talk about like how like some of the stuff like from what the personally it was like people were just like really mean to him all the time. Like it was like the idea like a lot of stuff that he did like you talk about him sort of acting like the scheming vizier. Like when he ran 8chan, he did sort of like act in a certain way to sort of, you know,

doing that sort of like talking like Sepharoth or he's just, you know, because he wants to act like he's like an intimidating aloof figure because he's scared by all these like psychos who keep threatening you to kill him every time he tries to change something. Yeah, you had to have like a pretty thick skin, I think, you know, if you're quite constant contact with these people, you develop a very thick skin. Yeah, then, yeah, so he, so the explosion of Damergate caused him to have some difficulty keeping H.N. online, which led to his relationship with Jim Watkins, who offered to buy it and hire Fred in order to keep him online. Did he talk about his experiences with the Watkins and the Philippines? Oh, yeah, that was we had sort of a thing, neither of us drank, but we had a thing where whenever Jim died, we were going to get a thing, we were going to celebrate because like, yeah, it was sort of like a shared thing where like when his health took it or not. But of the actual time there, he told me a little bit about his time there, like, um, like a fun story I can open with was like just sort of sort of like the buffoonery at play. It was once Jim was like, he wanted to try some cratoms.

So he went to like a local Filipino worker who worked for him and gave him a couple thousand paces. I was like, go buy me some cratum. And when he came back, he had multiple garbage bags full of cratom leaf. because Jim didn't know that that's how you buy cream in the Philippines. It's just the raw product. He's like, what the fuck am I supposed to do with all this? Just like a room full of drugs. Yeah, yeah, Jim, it's true.

Like, I have to say, and this is going to come across as maybe a little, a little mean. But when I heard of Fred's passing after, you know, the original kind of shock and feelings, I had this thought that was just like, that motherfucker outlived him. Like, he didn't deserve to. Like, Jim, Jim, should be gone. Like, ah, and I know that's very childish, but yeah, fuck him. Oh, God, yeah. And then there is, like, one story he told me about there. That was, like, a darker one. He don't think he

told it publicly, but it was like, I think, like, for him, sort of like, probably a big moment for him, where he was, like, once they were at some sort of, like, nightclub or something. And, uh, because he learned, he taught himself Tagalog. He liked the language there. He liked the culture of the Philippines. Like, it really broke his heart. He could never go back to because he was a fugitive. And because he knew Tagalog, he could talk to, like, the people who lived there. He could talk to the workers and it such. And when they're at this club, he's talking to one of the women. And she tells him, I, like, I'm a human

trafficking victim. Can you help me? And he's just like, basically, he's like, what can I do? Like, I'm basically kind of realizing, like, I want to help this person, but I can't because all these people also control the circumstances of my life. So it's kind of like, you know, I don't, I'm not saying that DeV Watkins is on this person, just they were at a place

and him sort of realized like, oh, this is the crowd and like the place that I'm at. I don't want to be here. Like, it's like a very harrowing thing that stuck with him, yeah. Yeah, of course, that's horrifying because you realize the lack of power and that like everybody around you, you know, the gyms and the Rons and all of these people are so just profoundly evil that like, of course they end up around human trafficked people. Like they were constantly, you know, kind of running small to medium size scams that involved essentially human trafficking. And,

you know, Jim is an extremely racist man who, you know, treats like Filipinos as like inferior to like, let's say a Japanese person. And so, yeah, it's like, it's just, You just start to, I guess at that point, he probably realized, oh, I'm surrounded by evil that perhaps my heart doesn't want to embrace. And I can do nothing about it because these people could kill me in two seconds and blame it on anything. Like, it's like, oh, he fell over. Like, yeah, now he's dead. It's like, you know, I mean, him getting out of the Philippines is one of the craziest things. And a reason I'll always be thankful to Cullen Hoback for doing that in the process of making his film.

Because I think that was, I mean, he absolutely saved his life. Oh, 100. percent. Yeah, I sent him a message after the announcement to thank him and also tell him that he left one of his tripods here. I found it when I was cleaning the house. Really, I'm really curious if he talked about his turn, obviously, is his turn away from like being dependent upon the Watkins and escaping that horrible situation. But also realizing that is sort of like his earlier sort of philosophy about like unrestrained free speech online is unworkable. And it leads to horrible things. I mean, what was, what do you think the turning point was for him in that, that kind of thinking? I think that, I think that, honestly, that having to flee jail, like, like, the prison system is pretty radicalizing for a lot of people.

And I think going through that experience and even indirectly, realizing, like, how quickly that your entire life could be turned like that or taken away from you. I think that kind of made him realize, like, he identified as a communist when I knew him. Like, he was, he had gone very far in the opposite direction from his old beliefs. He was still very, he was still very, um, principled. He still had strong, like he was still very much into free software. He was still very much into open source software. He really liked the idea of information and knowledge being free to people.

But also he was like, yeah, we can't let anything go anywhere. There has to be some kind of moderation. And I guess that was one of the things we first sort of bonded over was talking about those sort of feelings of guilt about like, you know, like misspent youth, things we did in the past. Like, he was the concepts of restorative justice. Like those were some of the first things we talked about and thought about them a lot. Comrade Brennan, we salute you. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, one of the things that I remember that happened. And it was in 2019 in the wake of the Christ Church massacre in New Zealand. And that particular mass murderer put his manifesto on 8chan and then put links to the Facebook live stream on 8chan knowing other 8chanters would like would like see it and like save that video and stuff. Well, I just remember like him being like pretty disturbed about that particularly. Where like, you know, realizing that is like this thing that he created was now a, you know, really a tool for like the worst people in the world to do horrible atrocities.

Oh, absolutely. And also he was like, we should at least take the site down for a day or two, just out of respect for the victims. And, you know, they were like, no, we're not taking the site down. What are you talking about? And that was another sort of like, yeah, I think in terms of him realizing that his whole kind of life and world there, that was like, he cited that a lot as like the one that sort of turned around. I guess I was thinking more in a general sense, like his political views when I was talking earlier. But yeah, in terms of like, that was like the specific moment he always cites is like, okay, this needs to change. This is not working. And yeah, one of the things I always really convinced me that he was very sincere in this hatred of

8chan. It's like beyond the fact that, you know, the owners were now literally threatening his life with lawfare and he was having to escape that horrible situation was that he did a lot of work. After Cloudfair stopped providing services for 8chan, which caused the site to go down. Well, A. Chan tried to find hosting and sort of DDoS protection elsewhere. And Frederick very actively tried to find where he was getting those. services and then letting them know what they're doing and getting getting the site knocked down again. He spent a lot of time and energy just being a real, real, he was using his online trolling instincts

for good and trying to figure out what he needed to do. He just contacted all these hosting companies in order to figure out what he needed to do to get the site knocked out over and over and over again, much to the frustration of Jim and Ron Watkins. Oh yeah. No, that was so cool. Well, they can always fucking, they can have their giant pile of evil garbage. They can have their little fucking sad empire. I really hope the worst for those fucking scum. Well, I do know that they aren't doing very well as of recently. Like last year they tried to do a cryptocurrency because like I think Ron was talking about how he didn't have any money or anything. He was going to have to get a job if they didn't turn things around. And so they did a cryptocurrency. People kept trying to

give Fred free crypto to try and get him into doors. He's like, no, go away. Fuck off. It just, and also like his health isn't doing super good either. He had to sell a bunch of his businesses. So at least his empire is a lot smaller than it used to be even if it couldn't be taken down completely. I'm really curious about what, I mean, guess what was Fred up to in 2025, like the last year of his life? I mean, what was his main interest? Was he really into this, is font making? It was, yeah. When I was, um, I'd say like up until he was doing the rehab, he wasn't doing very much after he started the method though. And that's when I, like, the first year or a year, so a lot of it was just him sort of like re, re, getting used to living a daily life,

like getting out of his chair. We were going walks. In terms of his hobbies, he, He was really into his fonts. He hadn't been doing very much programming lately because by trade, he was a software engineer, but he had been out of practice for a while. And now because of AI, he felt like it wasn't always something he could get back into. Like, he tried to get back into fonts at one point. And like his, like his contact that he had talked to about it was just talking about AI stuff. So it was kind of going through a similar thing that a lot of people were going through

where his specialized skills weren't as he couldn't really find a use for them like he used to. But so it was one of those things where he was kind of trying to find what his next thing might be. He was getting into different stuff. Like, you know, he was, he was watching a lot of YouTube, like, educational YouTube, YouTube, not, like, conspiracy YouTube, YouTube. Although, occasionally we would watch something funny and laugh about it. Like, we've done a couple bonus episodes about weird YouTube people we saw. Or, like, he got a little bit into gaming, which was kind of interesting. I helped him get into that.

And he was, like, getting into the programming side of it, like, decopiling and recompiling old games, especially as someone who's fluent in Japanese. I think he could have done, been a lot of use for, like, translations and stuff. That was a thing he was a thing he was. Also, he was sort of a media person a little bit, too. He would, like, like, to go out sometimes and find if there was a DVD at the Thrift store that wasn't on archive.org, he'd buy it and rip it and put it on there. He liked to just do little things like that.

He had a lot of little projects like to work on, and he would abandon them a lot and move on to a next one. But, you know, it's always finding a new thing to work on some new project. And, you know, there was a lot of ways his life could have gone from here. Also, another thing was talk about was he was thinking about studying for the bar exam because, like, he liked the idea of being able to, like, help people or represent them if they needed. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I bet he would be an incredible lawyer. Oh, my God. Yeah. That would be a powerful version of Fred, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, I guess he's sort of like his manipulative. I want to manipulative, but like, you know, his like his ability to like argue, I think

would be harnessed. I mean, let's be honest. It's not even like, I'm not even saying it as an insult. Like Fred had a lot. He was, he could control stuff and twist things and was able to, he was good at manipulation. Like, I think it'd be a great lawyer. All right. You know, I say that with full respect, you know.

I mean, it's like, it makes sense, like, why he developed that, that defense. So, yeah, I think he'd be. great at defending people. Yeah, I mean, the other thing is it was really interesting in Fred's that he really became sort of a unlikely, like, media star in recent years, you know, it was like, besides appearing on our own show, he was, he was once on the front page of the New York Times talking about how much he wanted to take down 8chan and like he was in documentaries, he was in news reports, he was on podcast like this one and yours. There was a deep, deep description of him in the book Black Pill by El Reeves. She did a lot of work with him. Cullen Hoback,

of course, like a lot of work with him. A lot of people, got very interested in Fred's life. And like you said, yeah, that he was a very visible person. And his whole history was like pretty, you could, you could just watch or listen to a few different things, read a book or two and know an immense amount about this, this man. Yeah. And as someone who knew him personally, that was kind of interesting too. Because one of the things I was like he doesn't like being on camera.

He's not like somebody who enjoys being like in the spotlight like that was something he did because he felt like he had to. And like there was, he did enjoy some of it, obviously. But like, by the time I came up here, he was the point where he wasn't really doing interviews anymore because he felt like he kind of said everything he needed to say and he was literally enjoying it. But he did go to one more when I was here. I got to tag along with him to it.

So that was kind of neat. It was, I think, when PBS Frontline was interviewing him for something about Telegram. It was neat to get to see what it looks like when, like, a national news team like that was like, you know, it takes me like a, like a fucking hour to set up my microphone. I'm watching these team of pros just like sitting up whole cameras and microphones. It's just speak. I'm just, wow, I see why they're professionals.

It's neat to see in motion. Yeah, because normally if he was a bit more able, like they'd probably put him in a van. Like, that's what happened to me. It was like, you know, 5 a.m. It's a CNN van. And then, you know, you just hope it's not a sprinter bringing you to like Guantanamo. But it's like, yeah, you just get in there. And they interview you.

Like, it's not the whole studio is built into the van and like the drivers in the front, like communicating with you over a little earpiece. It's crazy. I do have a fun story about the interview actually. I think about it where it was in a vineyard. They wanted to have a nice backdrop. So it was like a conference room there or something. And because it was like a hotel type place, the chair they have was like a very low to

the ground like recliner type chair. And so I had to like help pick him up out of his chair and set him into it. And then after the interview. view, it was too low for him to climb back into his chair. So I had to lift him up out of it to put him in there. And he was wearing his long shirt at the time. I'm trying to pick him up and it's a little heavy. I'm flipping around.

I actually kind of flip him. And I basically mooned the entire staff of Phoebus flying by accident. I can't do anything about it because both my hands are busy moving him. So I'm like, okay, okay. He's trying to get him in his chair. Like when I first came up here, I weighed like 325 pounds. I got in really good shape taking care of Fred. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's definitely, yeah, he would definitely be quite a workout to, to be, caretaker of. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because like, you know, it's like people think that they know Frederick Brennan and what he's about because, you know, his life story has been published as so many articles is, you know, you could read his Wikipedia page, which I'm very proud to say, his Wikipedia page has a whole subsection called opposition to Q and on. But is there, is there anything that you think that, you know, it's interesting about Fred that maybe the world doesn't know about? Um, I guess just on the Wikipedia note, if you go to the Wikipedia page for Osteo Genesis Imperfected, those are his x-rays on it. He was a big Wikipedia nerd.

So he scanned him and he's like, okay, you guys have the rights for this. We need a picture for it. But yeah, the one thing that surprised me about him was like, he wasn't really a big media person. And the media that he liked was not at all what you would expect based on him being, like, the guy who founded A-chan. Like his favorite movie was The Devil Wears Prada. Wow.

One of the first things I did when I came over was we watched it together. Oh, my God. You guys should have been reading the tea leaves earlier. Yeah. And also, like, the, or like, music is like, you know, his favorite type of music is really Calypso because it's historical genres. so we could learn all that. And like when we were going to the,

he'd also, he'd just listen to it on the way to the clinic and tell me the stories about the musicians or what it meant. And I was like, oh, wow, America was not good to that, to that country. Trinidad. No. Yeah, nor to many. I mean, honestly, I'm trying to struggling to figure out who America is good for at this point. Yeah.

America, a large inconvenience in the international sphere. Boy, yeah. I mean, yeah, he did have really kind of like diverse interests, you know. Yeah. I think that's one of reasons I got along with them really well because he knew a lot of academic stuff, whereas I'm more of like a pop culture and culture person. So we compliment each other really well. Like he didn't know hardly anything about movies or TV. Like once, you know, we live in New Jersey, Spirit Halloween was founded near here.

So once it took him to the flagship store. And since you didn't know any of this stuff, it was very fun. Like he saw like a beetle juice. He's like, ooh, a prisoner because he's wearing the stripes. Just like, it's fun seeing someone who's that out of touch with pop culture in a very cute way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A prisoner. That prisoner is wearing weird makeup and has one.

weird air. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, it's, that's the thing is like, I guess, like you said, you know, he started a lot of projects and stuff. He's someone that I relate to immensely over hyperfixation. Just not being able to, it's like to do things halfway. You're either completely carried away down some fucking specific rabbit hole and eclipsing the rest of the world.

And then you come back out of it. Like, what the hell was that? So, yeah, I mean, you know, that makes sense. It's like, then you have holes in like other parts because you've just spent, you know so much about such. specialized things. I mean, that's really defined Fred was an immense amount of highly specialized information was in that head. Yeah, like once he got really into playing cards and he ordered like 12 different types of playing cards, he's had the cold decks like, oh, here's the French

Terra playing cards, here's this type, here's the German playing cards. He was like learning all the different types of all the different variations of solitaire that exists. Like he would just get really into subjects like that in a fun way. One thing that's really interesting about, you know, your relationship with Fred is the fact that you are kind of specialized in. something awful, which is basically just before Fred's generation, right? If I'm not wrong, Fred was not on something awful, or was he? Oh, no, not at all. He was never on there. That was before his time. And also, yeah, like, moot was a poster on something awful. And, like, a lot of the early ones, like Kurtainer and she were also active something awful posters at the time. There

was a lot of crossover with that. And it was kind of, like, I know there's a joke that sort of got circulated seriously where it's like about how blood tax banning hentai caused January 6. I wouldn't cause that directly a line of ascension through it. But yeah, something awful was a lot of the early 4chan user base was people who were from there. And also they were to tie it back to IRC, the Strawberry Fields IRC channel for their anime subform is where a lot of early people were recruited for 4chan too. So yeah, it is very tied up in the early DNA of that. And so did you guys find like you were trading information about those different periods

that essentially are linked through so many weird mechanisms? That is pretty fun. It was kind of neat letting him know like what people he knew of were from there or their start there before he knew about them. Or inversely, like, in general, I've noticed, like, it is kind of fun. Like, being a, like, being a something awful person and all your friends are, like, Tumblr people or image board people, it's kind of like being an Australian living in America where, like, all your frames of references are just different enough that everyone's like,

oh, this is new. I'm not familiar with this. And it's, uh, it's sort of like a fun angle. So I guess in terms of interaction, just, we would sort of tell stories to each other about different website people. So it was like, I guess it took, in a way, it was kind of to do, like, how even the form was different, the actual experiences could be surprisingly similar. Just like instead of being known by usernames, it's just like, oh, that guy who would always do this thing.

Yeah, it's, I mean, again, like, we've tracked it, but the immiseration of people, like, really plays a lot into every stage of the mutations. But, yeah, you have a podcast that deals with something awful. You want to tell us, like, what the name of the podcast is where people could find it and tell us, like, what do you get up to there? Sure, yeah. I co-host a podcast called I'm from the internet. My co-host is a comedian and game designer named Winslow Dumein. If you saw the Chicago Rat Hole in the news a couple years ago, he's the guy who's picture. blew that whole thing up.

So he's internet history too in his own way. Yeah, I remember the, I remember the rat hole. It's fantastic. Yeah. For the first couple years, it was focused on the something awful forums. And last year,

we sort of switched now we're doing more general internet history. But what it is, is we usually, it's narrative internet history. We focus on like a person or an event or a website or something. And I tell the story of it to Winslow. It's the classic, I'm the subject matter expert.

It's his first time and he's reacting and doing flavor. And also, Fred has appeared in a couple of bonus episodes. I've made them free. So if you want to hear him and me interacting, it's on there. But yeah, It's pretty, we cover all sorts of different topics.

We've even done a couple sports episodes. I don't know anything about sports. Like we had when Hockey Night in Canada was choosing a new theme song and someone submitted a troll entry and it won the poll. And like the Canadian people were freaking out about this sound with like gunshots and explosions in it opening hockey every week. Just fun little things like that. Or our drug episodes are all timers.

The one where I announced I was starting to work for Fred was DeJuse, which was a Soviet Benzo that causes memory loss and stays active in your system for days. So people would take the drug. forgot they took the drug, take more of the drug, and then a week later come to and find out that, like, they'd crash their car and lost their job. Like, multiple lives were ruined over the course of that episode. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's, I'm from the internet, right? People could just search for it on any podcast platform. Yeah, I'm from the internet or I FTI for sure.

Like, when I say internet history, people think it's like I'm talking out like the version seven of Discord. No, no, this is very narrative. But also, it's not like lull cow. It's not drama or snark. Like, we try and have a point and we're pretty humanistic. Like, there have been multiple times I did. episodes about someone. And they email me, like, thank you for being nice to me.

Like, I did one on, um, this guy who did like Hollywood replica vehicles. He had a replica of the, of the Jeep from Jurassic Park. And a video game company borrowed it for a trade event to promote a game they were working on it with Jurassic Park. And when they returned it, it was all scratched up. And he caused, and like, he wound up escalating it into a public feud. And the, the content at the time was, oh, this guy was just trying to get them to give him free money, basically.

But as someone who worked in logistics, I dug it. I was like, no, they signed the bill of lading. The company was at fly here. And I'm like getting to break through how that works and walk through. Like it's fun to actually get to do a little journalism sometimes as well. I don't try and I'm not like one of those just reading Wikipedia people. I do, I do a lot of digging and try and give my own spin on things. But that drug episode you're mentioning, it's not one of you guys that took that drug, right?

You're just, you're talking about. Oh, no, no. Oh, no. I don't, our Patreon doesn't make nearly enough for that, unfortunately. But yeah, it was like, it was reading other people's experiences and sort of, also when you have that zoomed out look, like the drug subform on something awful, You can go to like the opiates thread, check the front page. Everyone there is permabanks.

They died. It is one of those haunting places on the internet. It's done more to keep me away from doing drugs than any actual anti-drug work has done. Yeah. And do you ever like cover like Aeroid? Like just straight off. I mean, that's, that's an internet subculture that's like, I almost feel like, is there, is there a good podcast on the whole history of Aeroid?

Like, it's fascinating. I don't know. I'm definitely have to do an episode on at some point. Like, now for the new ones, I have to, like, I do some sort of episode. Like, I did one on Emotion Eric. It's fun to do nice ones too, like fun websites. I did one on. horse evokes. A recent one was on the oatmeal. That was fun to sort of break down that guy's

whole methodology. And like before AI, you know, making this type of crap was a bespoke human process, but it was still very cynical. Well, yeah, I really recommend it. People should go check out I'm from the internet. It's really so nice of you to make the time. And it's just been a real pleasure talking to you. No, thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm really glad I can talk all about Fred. Like, yeah, he was a very complicated person. And I'm really lucky I got to know him at the time of his life when he turned it around. And I'm sorry he didn't get more of a chance to share it with the world. But I still think it's really meaningful and important that he did turn things around and found it also like part of the reason why he wasn't posting as much as last few years. He was living a lot more of his

life, you know, off the, off the internet. He was having more fun. We were going on walks. He was putting together Legos. It was like even someone like him was sort of making it sort of realizing, yeah, maybe this isn't how I want to spend my entire life. And I think that's a good thing too. He helped me as well. We helped each other. Yeah, I don't think any anyone of us is in the danger of forgetting Frederick Brennan. So rest in peace, brother. Yeah, and thank you again. Yeah, no, a really awkward moment to say, do you have anything else to plug? But yeah.

No, just my pot. I'm from the internet. It's been running for a couple years, and I'm not really working on anything else right now. I'm always open to collab, though, if anyone has anything going on. Do you have, like, Twitter or anything like that? Oh, yeah, I'm on Blue Sky. The podcast also has a link tree. And we do have a Patreon, IFTI pod.

It's only a dollar a month. We have over 50 episodes on there. And I made the ones with Fred on them free. So if you don't want to pledge, you can go there and listen to them. Preacher Wars 1 is funny. He talks about some of the weird preachers. His family was into who now he still follows on YouTube to make fun of. So it's a little look behind the window there too.

Hell yeah, people definitely go and do that. And if you're interested in our Patreon, that's patreon.com slash QAA. We have a five bucks a month, a whole second episode for every main and access to our entire very long catalog at this point. I think all the Fred Brennan episodes are free. So if you want to search for his name on our podcast, you can go and listen to some of these conversations we're referring to. I even got him to kind of act as like the voice of God when we were at QCon. So he would just break in like in the middle of our live coverage and give some information. So that was really cool and fun too.

And we have a miniseries network as well, cursedmedia.net. If you're interested in, you know, these kind of serialized deeper dives that we've been doing over there. So yeah, we have a website to QAAAPodcast.com. Listener, until next week, may Fred Brennan bless you and keep you. We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. Is it true that you are somehow related to former CIA director, John Brighton? You can take the fifth on this one. No, I'm not.

I wish I was. I wish I was. Because I would just call up daddy or grandpathy for help. No, nothing to that either. He would have helped my ass, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, Brennan is one of the most common surnames in the United States. People don't know this.

These people have brain wounds. They're idiots. They don't know this. Fred Brennan is actually the result of Brennan's Super Soldier program gone terribly wrong. He was supposed to be a Superman, and he could originally zap people with his eyes, fly, and shit like that. But then I just ended up as a fat cripple. What happened? And you know what?

I'm going to sue the U.S. government. And the Deep State turned their back on you, and that's, they're just, they're very much family. To make my girlfriend. Yeah. Mr. Brennan, if you're out there, if you're listening, the CIA should donate 100% they should donate to. They should donate the money that you've earned from the cocaine that you've pumped out into the streets this week. Just this week alone. That's right.

Please, pump it back into Fredericks GoFundMe. The least you can do is get the guy in apartment. We're asking cops to spend 10 less arrests this week and spend $10 bucks on Fred Brennan's. So stop arresting people and also pay him money. Thank you. That's right. Yeah. Anytime.

We love telling the police what to do on this show. Absolutely. So. Man. So, yeah, so now you're here. And I suppose, I mean, even if maybe it wasn't your choice, it seems like you're going to be building a life in the United States. Yeah, it seems like that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to establish residency in California. I'm going to go back to, you know, that I was working on a project called Font Forge before. Yeah. It's just a font editor, you know. I have friends there who are helping me too. Cool.

You know. It's like all my coworkers are Internet people and all. everybody I know is from the internet so it's kind of tough but yeah I mean everybody has you know really come together so in a weird way it is like you've sort of been ejected from the you know from the matrix yeah every this whole online world where everything that's how you knew how to get places that's where people owed you favor you have them out when I came back here I just felt like I was 16 again yeah like celebrating getting a bank account yeah and getting a place to live on your own like I literally feel like a teenager. Yeah, which is really

our heart, I mean, you know, I always, anytime I have to go like, you know, stay with my parents or something, you know, you, you know, you turn from like a 30 year old or 30-something year old, yeah, you're back to being like 12 years old again. It's a humbling it's a humbling experience and so it's. But luckily, you know, parents

are awesome. My mom just she just puts up with my shit, you know. Yeah. You know, she puts up with me. And so you used to live on the East Coast and famously there's a story where cops, you went into like, I guess, be a witness, and then the cops

left you out in the cold for like, I don't know how long, and you almost died basically from that. Yeah, I almost lost some toes. What made you think that the West Coast was a better... Honestly, the reason I'm in Los Angeles is that the friend who brought me here,

this was just where the flight was landing, and then he would move on to where he had to go, but, you know, it was like, I did not, you know, I really relied on the awesome guy who brought me here. and they made the choices. Like, if they had lived in Austin, Texas, that's where I'd be. If they lived in Hawaii, that's where I'd.

That's right. If they had live in Little St. James, that's where you'd be. I have no idea where that is. But yes, exactly. Oh, that pedophiles island. There we. I got it. Okay.

Oh, sweet Lord. Well, fellas, I mean, yeah, I don't really know where to really go with this. I mean, you guys were so awesome to me helping me out on such short notice. And it's like you didn't ask for anything and you didn't like. So I really appreciate that. Like this podcast, the people that make it, they are real bros. And it's not just for content for them. You know, they really, really helped me out on really short notice.

Like Julian Field like dropped everything on a Saturday and came to talk to me. just to see what was going on, you know, because, like, at that point, it wasn't public yet. None of the documents had come out. Like, the arrest weren't at him posted. Ronald Watkins didn't leak it to Neon revolt yet. Yeah, I don't, uh, never really come across a situation like this, so I don't know that I'm even qualified to understand it or comment yet, but it seems like we're kind of in the eye of the storm.

I'm just glad that Jim Watkin is not Bloomberg levels of rich. Oh, thank God. In the United States. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe we can get, if we piss off Bloomberg, enough. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

He likes to do Dickensian things like, you know, like a crush people with special needs for no particular reason. He does seem like he enjoys that. Michael Bloomberg, can I have a million dollars, please? Yeah, exactly. Straight to the go fund me. We promise you will be making so many memes at some point. He'll make a whole, you'll make a whole, you want to, you want a meme?

Fuck that. He'll make you an image board. Mr. Bloomberg. Have you ever heard of 12 Chan? Now, Mr. Bloomberg, this is a web. website that's going to work for you. Bloomberg. And your campaign.

Yeah, Bloom Chan. Bloom Chan. That's right. There you go. That's your next one. Bloom and onion. Blue and onion, Chan. Free bloomin onions for your first post.

We've got so many ideas here, honestly. We got you in the lab. We're cooking stuff up. We've probably, we've got so many great ideas. We're probably going to have to shut the podcast, actually, and completely pivot towards a Bloomberg message board. What happened is. There we.