Red Scare - Vaccination Victim

Episode Date: May 1, 2021

The ladies discuss the backlash to Joe Rogan's vaccination remarks and review HBO's new QAnon docuseries.

Okay. We're back. We're back. How's it going? It's okay. You look great. Thanks. You do too. Dasha's wearing a very darling OPN sweatshirt and a very understated and underappreciated shade of brown. I love brown. Brown crewnecks are hard to come by these days. I think brown should be like the new color of the season because it hasn't been for a minute. Well, those pants you're wearing, are those the LA Apparel? No, these are just like my $13 TJ Max yoga pants, but I have two of those. And you have a pair of those in brown as well. Which will look great. Yeah, it's like a medium muddy poop brown. No subtlety, no nuance, but it looks great. Mocha. I believe it's called. I think that's the sound. Shit. Poop emoji. Poopoo.

Yeah, I feel, I finally know how woke people feel because I feel tired all the time. You're exhausted. Yeah, I'm exhausted. Honestly, me too. But I feel like I've been pretty fatigued ever since I got the first backshot. Oh yeah. So wait. Not going to lie. You're a number two and you're just like beside yourself and trying to get number three and then maybe number four. I've only had number one. Oh, you've only had number one. Okay. But yeah, I can't wait to get my second shot. So that I can be immune from COVID-19. Yeah. And finally get some respite from this pandemic. No, I do, I feel different. You do. But are you sure it's not like a placebo thing?

It's probably completely psychosomatic. Yeah. That's what Dan says at least. But I do, I just be feeling different. I don't know. Like how you feel more tired or achy or retarded. I just feel like shit and retarded. Yeah. But I felt like shit before also. I guess I've probably just felt like shit for a while. You feel like a different type of shit. Yeah. Cool. But maybe when I get my, maybe my second shot will really set me straight. It's because I'm not fully vaccinated that I have to live in this like ambivalent, exhausted state or something. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm just going to get like hyperimmune. I'm going to get hypervaxed. I'm going to just keep going back for shots. Yeah. I'm going to be like 20 shots.

I'm wearing like 10 masks. I mean, I didn't want to, but then ended up sort of having to for work. Yeah. I mean, that's, I feel like that's kind of the rationale. I don't begrudge anybody who like literally has to do it. I was going to work or travel. As long as I could, because I wasn't really sold on, on the facts. Yeah. But I do just like, so we're clear. I do think that you are a sick freak. If you are enthusiastic about getting the vaccine, you are mentally ill. Definitely. And like morally untrustworthy your cop. If you're excited about the facts, well, yeah. I mean, I think people are just so worn down and broken that they're what they're willing to do. Yeah. They're like willing to do whatever.

But yeah, no, I understand that. And I like, again, I'm, I echo the comments of a daddy Joe and that like Rogan, not Biden. And that I totally understand why people would want to get vaccinated and why they would get vaccinated. But like, I don't understand how suggestible some people are in the sense that they are kind of like turning it into like a crowdsourced public health propaganda campaign. Yeah. Well, I definitely felt pressure. Yeah. And, you know, people at work were like, are you getting, are you going to get that? Are you vaxed? Yeah. And then when I would say no, they would say why not? And then I would kind of like awkwardly have to, you know, tread into this like anti-vaxing territory or like, find a way to like, gently express any skepticism I have

about this basically pretty experimental vaccine. And I say this having done no research. Yeah. But that's because I don't trust science to begin with. There's no amount of like studies that I could could read that would be informative for me. Yeah. Because it's just a fundamental position of distrust that I have. Yeah. Probably. I don't know, due to being born in Belarus, which is still very heavily irradiated from Chernobyl. So it's not really out of the realm of possibility to me that the government could fuck up massively and cause a huge, oops, health crisis that they wouldn't be able to take any accountability for. And then today at the waxing place, I sent you that picture. Yes. They had a sign with like a really scary picture of a syringe

on it that said COVID-19 vaccine might cause increased sensitivity and skin pulling. So talk to your healthcare provider if you have any questions or concerns. Is that true? They're just preempting and covering their bases. So like, hypochondriac BPD hose who come up in there don't accuse them of. Yeah, I definitely hadn't heard that. But I think that that's part of it. But all the other part of it is just like, no one wants to be liable, including my healthcare professional who I'm supposed to call and ask if it's okay to get my pussy waxed. And they'll say something like, I don't know, probably Medicaid. Please hold. I mean, I am uninsured. So at this juncture. Okay. So you don't, you can't call anyone? I don't have anyone to call. I have

no one to call. There's no one. You're an analyst. I definitely talked to him a lot about my vaccine apprehensions. Oh, shit. I just turned my own makeup. Sorry. Be patient with me. I'm vaccinated. I want a sticker that says that. Yeah. I have like postpartum brain and you have postvax brain. I'm a vaccination victim. Yeah. No, but that's like, that's what I don't understand. Like this, this, these vaccines are like hastily thrown together at a time, whether or not they're effective and whether or not they have kind of serious long lasting side effects. They were also rolled out at a time when like public trust in medicine and science is at an all time low as it should be. Yeah. So yeah, I totally get being like skeptical about getting vaccinated and like

my instinct is like, hell no, I'm not getting vaccinated because I'm a woman and I want my kid to have a sibling and we do not know the fertility effects of these things. I know. And it's not like I'm not against it either way, but and I'm sure as hell not getting my kid vaccinated that's perverted. Like who would shoot up a little baby? But like I've heard rumblings of that too. Oh, with the COVID-19 vaccine? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, you'd get vaccinated against everything else. Yeah. The normal one. With the usual stuff that I'm vaccinated against. Yeah, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. Yeah. I've like been vaccinated before I've gotten flu shots in the past. Yeah. But I'm obviously not even a COVID anti-vaxxer because I went and got it. But

I don't feel, I don't feel good about it. Yeah. I mean, I think like, you know, as an adult, you just have to kind of like factor that into your calculus and be like, I'm doing this, but there might be some weird and or deleterious. Am I saying that correctly? Effects down the line. Yeah. And that's the thing is that no one knows the long-term effects are, but rather than just admitting that the people who are so adamantly pro-vaxx have to take on this sort of like smug position of being like, well, why wouldn't you get vaxxed? And that's what really bothers me. No, yeah, they have to make like, I'm like up some kind of conspiratorial freak for having like doubts about vaccinations. Yeah, they have to make us feel like bizarro, like conspiracy theorists

tinfoil hat people. And it's like somehow kind of the reasonable position became the kind of like conspiracy truth or position, like it's been pathologized. I mean, people were mad at Joe Rogan for saying something totally like reasonable and uncontroversial and more importantly, like on the fly. Like I don't think his much like our podcast, I don't think his podcast is particularly premeditated. Right. I think he kind of figures things out. A bit off the cuff. Yeah, which is why we he has the audience that he does because people appreciate that kind of shooting from the hip, no nonsense discourse. Yeah. I just realized I was like looking at pictures of Joe Rogan, not for sexual reasons, because I was looking up these comments. And I realized he

looked like the kind of he looks like the retarded brother of a Roman senator, which is why I like him. Yeah, he does look like a Roman. He's like a micro gladiator. He's like the guy that cleans the animal pens in the Coliseum. The janitor. But yeah, he got some heat for saying that if you're young and healthy, basically, there's no real need to be vaccinated, which I, I guess, agree with. Yeah. Although as always with COVID, the, you know, my fears were never like that I would get it. Right. Because I'm a fairly resilient, fairly healthy person. I was scared of like infecting like some Yemeni bodega guy and like killing him, you know. So if that's, that's sort of the wider justification for why like everyone should be vaccinated. But really,

I just want to travel and go to work and, you know, I just want my life to be easier. Yeah. Like handing down some guy whose family was droned by Obama's death sentence because you stopped in to get jewel pods. Exactly. He doesn't know it hit him. And exhaled my COVID vapors all over the place. Yeah. But it's scary. I mean, as somebody else pointed out, kind of rather astutely, kind of, I feel like bio warfare is the new kind of, is the future, you know, and it's like very everything that's solid melts into air. Like we've gone from kind of physical combat to drone warfare to bio warfare, because nobody's going to be, I feel like people are going to be lobbying less and less for physical wars

because they're costly from an economic and public relations perspective. Like nobody wants the liability of launching the next Iraq or whatever. Right. So now we're just going to fight like covert COVID. Like cyber and bio wars. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's totally, it totally sucks more because like with those kind of things, you don't know the kind of origins of like, yeah, Wuhan, yeah, wet market stuff. Yeah, you can never, we're not buying it. Yeah, you can never, you'll never be able to like, ping it back to like some senator ordering an offensive or something like that. Yeah. No one wants, no one wants the liability all the way down. Yeah. It's really falling squarely on the individual. Well, yeah, I mean, if we've learned anything from

the COVID response and the BLM protests, it's, it's that the name of the game really is offloading liability, accountability onto the public. I mean, I've been beating this drum forever. There was a good article by Shant, Miss Robion, and I'm going to butcher where it, where it appeared, but I have a good quote that I might pull up and because it'll, you know, kill some time. And also I'm trying to give a shout out to fellow Armenian brother. But he made a good point to the tune of one of the most conspicuous things about woke politics is that it politicized everything. It inserts politics into every space interaction and relationship. It problem and problematizes deconstructs and dismantles, it calls out and

it cancels and above all, it personalizes politics. But in doing so, it redefines politics itself away from something that takes place in the public sphere as a way of taking collective action to solve public problems and hold powerful people and institutions accountable. And instead into a matter of personal morality, behaviors and actions, which is like why people flip their shit if you politely inform them that you're maybe doubtful about getting a vaccine and or don't want to wear a mask outside, right? Which the CDC now said, if you're fully vaccinated, then you don't have to wear a mask outside. But that's always felt well, unless you're like around tons of people. Yeah, that has always felt like fairly I haven't

really been wearing a mask outside full disclosure for a while. Because it just feels like common sense. Plus, I'm constantly smoking cigarettes. And on set, I like to do a thing where I get a little bag of raisins. And then I take my mask off. And I'm like, well, I'm always about to eat a raisin. Yeah. So I can't wear my mask because I'm, I'm having my raisin snack. Yeah, I just ate a raisin three seconds ago, and I'm going to have another one in five seconds. So what's the utility? What's the point? Exactly. That's my workaround. This is like, this is what we've been reduced to like minor passive aggressive acts of civil disobedience. Eli and I took the kid to a fancy park slope chiropractor to get him adjusted on the advice of a lactation consultant. I've become

such a boring, horrid, yuppie shrew. And really, I noticed that Eli was, you know, they're, they're like kind of like a like a fancy libtard. Like I miss Obama, white people. Chiropractory is quackery. Yeah, totally. He I mean, this woman did something with the kid like that look like something I could do. Yeah. But he seemed like in better spirits and like hungrier and happier afterwards. So I guess she did something. I don't know. Well, I think it's effective in that with your spine is disaligned, it feels better for someone to like crack it back in shape or whatever. But all of the because I've gone to chiropractors and they've given me the whole spiel about all of the like supposed health benefits and stuff. And but also told me how easy

it is to like disalign your spine. So following their logic, I was like, well, I would have to go to a chiropractor like every five minutes. Yeah, well, that's the point. Yeah, they keep you on the hook. They're like shrink. So I'm sorry, you have assault deposits in your groin that I have to massage out with my mouth. But yeah, I noticed that like during the session, Eli was growing increasingly more like frustrated and hostile. And finally, he like took off his mask and was sipping water from from like a little metal courtesy cup. And I was just like, I see you, I see what you're doing. You're trying to give this bitch a hard time because you know she's going to snap and be like no masks. Because they're like these kind of like gatekeeper

enforcer types that like make you take off your shoes and bark at you if the mask like slips beneath a certain point. Anyway, that I mean, that's like literally all we have all I have is like walking down the street to like cafe grumpy, not wearing my stupid little cloth mask. I know. Well, and it's those types of people who even with the new CDC ordinance about masking are like going to continue to be wearing masks for a long time because it gives them them in their esteem some kind of moral high ground. Yeah. Even though it defies logic on every level. Yeah. Well, it's going to as soon enough, it'll be a powerful, a powerful signaling mechanism. Like it'll divvy the population up into, you know, like libtards and

no reactionaries, aka normies. So it's good. Let them wear the mask. I mean, this is like the kind of inverse of people who want to fly a conservative confederate flag. Like I'm all for it. Because it lets you know, right, where the people you should avoid. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. I personally have a confederate flag mask that I like to two birds with a don't tread on me. I liked we're going to be talking about the Q and on documentary. I really like Jim Watkins. Don't tread on me inspired t-shirt. Right. It's a joiner 404. Yeah. And the snake was chopped up into pieces. Lots of snake symbolism. Yeah. I never thought I'd see a man

with such a deplorable physique. Really, really gross. Yeah. So we watched Q inside the storm. The HBO six part doc about Q and on, which I thought was pretty good. I thought the my kind of take on it is that he's clearly been making it for a long time because he's been in the documentary. What's his name? Cullen. Cullen Hobags, something like that. Cullen Hobart. He's been like sort of doing this investigative report on Q and on for three or four years. And over the course of the documentary, he makes contact with the guy who owns eight Chan, who's this guy in the Philippines named named Jim Watkins and his son Ron Watkins,

who's sort of like the head admin of eight Chan. And then also the kid who made eight Chan whose name is Fred Brennan, who's like has brittle bone disease and sold eight Chan to Jim Watkins when he was like 19 or something. He moved to the Philippines to sort of be his employee. And then the middle part of the documentary sort of deals with the rivalry between them. And the takeaway basically spoiler, I guess, is that Ron Watkins, Jim Watkins' son is Q, which tracks, which basically makes sense. You know, anything about like image boards. Yeah, they're they're the smoking gun felt very anticlimactic. Well, my yeah, the smoking right the way I felt was like he was he's been making this

documentary for years. And at a certain point, he probably realized that he was just tracking the kind of petty squabbles of like total freaks and loser. And so then when the Capitol Hill insurrection happened, he was like, Oh, this is a great way to tie up the Q and on doc I've been working on. And so yeah, he does in the last portion, try to kind of tie everything up with the insurrection. Yes, as evidence of like the far reaching and the impact of Q and on. Yeah, I I feel like it was probably mutually beneficial. It's like a weird symbiotic relationship these guys develop because the filmmaker needed a smoking gun. And the eight Chan eight Coon guys needed a relevancy grab. So they kind of clung together to weather the storm.

So to speak, the storm of Q. Yeah. My my issue with this documentary is that it's trying to be too many things at once. Like there were any number of angles that had a lot of potential, like he could have made a documentary about one or all three of these like total freak shows. And or he could have made a documentary about kind of the history of online based conspiracy theories, or he could have made a documentary about the history of image boards, or he could have made a documentary about like the populist appeal of Q and on. Right. Like and he attempted kind of to to pack everything into a tight little doc and you know, into this kind of docu series format, which is already

actually a pretty bloated format to begin with. It's like, yeah, it's excessive. Yeah. The I'd say yeah, the first episode is skippable. If you're at all familiar with with Q and on already. Yeah. Every time anyone says LARP on in the documentary, I think pops up that says LARP a lot of actual playing. And it's I found that a little patronizing. Yeah. And as like, as he's trying to like wrap up the loose ends, and it's sort of like jumping back and forward in time. And he's like showing us previous things that Ron and or Jim Watkins had said that contradicted things are saying now that just felt a little erratic. Yeah. And patronizing. Yeah, I mean, but it's very hard to like he he chose the path that was kind of the least productive or interesting,

which is like doing a scripted reality TV show style play by play of their like conflict because Fred Brennan and the Watkins guys are kind of locked in conflict. Over eight Chan over eight Chan. Yeah. Because, you know, the backstory is that Frederick Brennan feels completely remorseful and horrified about what he his site has spawned in the wake of like actually does or do you think he's he has personal playing up. Yeah, I think that he's conveniently sort of wrapping up with his moral crusade against eight Chan. I think a whole lot of them are liars. I think I think Fred Brennan seemed like the most reasonable and smart and like ethically motivated. And he was a very interesting character. I would have watched

a documentary about him. I mean, he's like those those were the best. Yeah. Yeah, for me were the parts with with Fred. Yeah. And he's he's just like a prime example of like, when life hands you lemons, like he's like a guy who's completely like physically compromised. And so his brain has overtaken. Right. All of his functions. He's incredibly precociously smart. But yeah, I think he's totally he's too smart to be a Greta Thunberg libtard. You know what I'm saying? I think he probably does feel horrified and remorseful because, you know, these three mass shootings where the killers posted manifestos on eight Chan, it was like El Paso, the Poe and Christchurch. Yeah. And all three of them. It's interesting because Christchurch, the guy shot up a mosque

in the Poe one was a synagogue. And then the last one El Paso, the guy was targeting Mexicans. Right. Right. So they're very like targeted crimes. And they have kind of like, whatever, first person shooter vibe to them. I'm going to stumble through this because I don't play video games. Christchurch one really does because he's live streamed it. Yeah. And I think like Fred probably felt, yeah, I'm sure he felt horrified, but I'm sure he was also concerned about his own liability in the matter as, you know, he's protected under the section 230, right? Because, well, he still would be because he's no longer was involved with eight Chan and seems like he quit while still working for Jim Watkins in the Philippines

just because he didn't want to be like moderating the boards anymore. Yeah. Because they are really like evil. Yeah. And unwieldy. Yeah. And so Ron Watkins, Jim's weird progeny from his bizarre, well, Becky and sex tourist relationship with the South Korean woman then took over Fred's role. I think those guys are like weird. The Watkins. Yeah. No, total. They're total pedobears. Definitely. Jim Watkins actually was in trouble because one of his websites was called like Asian preteens or something. 00 preteens. But that was sort of orchestrated by Fred and like the anonymous guy. Yeah. They sort of joined forces to sort of flip the script on eight Chan and be like actually eight Chan is if you guys care so much about pedophiles, like eight Chan is

the guy who owns eight Chan is a pedo. Yeah. No, it's pretty it's pretty hilarious how QAnon, which is kind of an elaborate conspiracy theory about how the world is run by a satanic cabal of elite pedophiles who fuck and kill babies. Right. It's it's like also an elaborate cover up for the fact that Jim and Ron are probably total pedophiles. Yeah. Or I don't think it's a cover up, but I think it's like a classic projection formation of that's why Q is so fixated on sort of human trafficking, sex trafficking, pedophilia. Meanwhile, these guys are living in the Philippines and where essentially they are like moved there because the the dollar is so much more valuable than their currency and they're able to live basically like slave masters

and fuck children and whoever else. Yeah. They're able to fuck children and also fuck of age women who look like children because it's the Philippines. You are essentially slaves. Yeah. Yeah. Like the the disparity in everything. It's but I think QAnon at large is sort of a sigh up to discredit the real aspects of the cabal conspiracy, which there are like there is a very small amount of elite people who do basically control the world and maybe they're not like whenever people bring up pizza gate, you know, like as they do in this documentary, they love to be like, well, there was no basement and calm at Comet Pizza. Like that's there. That's what they really like hold on to. Yeah. And I don't I don't think the

Clintons are like literal bloodsucker reptilians or whatever, but I think they kind of may as well be like the things that they do are really just as heinous as the QAnon conspiracy. It's just the QAnon conspiracy is so fantastic and outlandish that it discredits the the real underpinnings of what what it's based in. Yeah. And I think the media has as with all things kind of vaguely related to Trump has completely fanned the flames of the QAnon conspiracy and agitated the Anons and then played the the these people are evil and should be shunned card. And why are we why are we giving them airtime? We should be starving them for attention. I mean, this is like the fault of the mainstream media on some level for pandering to this storyline. And I actually will give Colin

credit. I think what he did well was portray the the people sort of at the forefront of the Q stuff pretty humanely. Yeah. Because I think a lot of these like QAnon the insurrection docs really dehumanize and like make deplorable the people who who buy into into these conspiracies. Well, that's it. Well, here's the thing that I really resent about the QAnon story is that there's this active bid by the mainstream media, the liberal media to make the followers of QAnon look like insane, pathological, perverted losers. And, you know, there may be those type of people among them. And I think that everybody's like kind of strung out and addled and crazy in this day and age. But also like, the idea that these people are not

entitled to their conspiracy theory, when you guys ran with Russiagate, you imposed Russiagate on us. Totally made us all insane. Yeah, it's this privileging of it's or like having a monopoly on the truth. Yeah. And then painting your political adversaries as delusional insane, perverted, deplorable, while not examining any of the ideologies that like libs cling to. I mean, you rush a gate, Trump being a fashion, a literal fascist. Like that, to me, is just as delusional. Yeah, like Putin being in the words of Hunter Biden, the most powerful man in the world. Exactly. That's just as like delusional as any like deep state stuff that that QAnon people buy into. Well, I actually think the QAnon, I think Russiagate is a lot less plausible

as kind of like a grand myth or grand narrative than QAnon. Like I think as a metaphor, or an allegory for the world, QAnon is extremely accurate. Yeah, I agree. Definitely. Like is Hillary Clinton personally cutting up infants in her little blue suit in like the basement of a pizza restaurant? Probably not. No, but is she responsible for like, I mean, the Clintons are responsible for wealth inequality? Yeah. Is she functionally a pedophile? Yes. Again, I'm sorry to beat this drum, but read Hillary Clinton, Child Saver by Christopher Lash in Harper's Magazine. I think it was 92 or 94. I will personally scan this essay because it's pay walled. She is responsible for a

lot of the policies and practices that have again, like thrust children into the market and shifted the burden of proof for their care onto parents from bureaucrats. So now it's like there's this idea that parents are somehow less fit to bring their own children up than the therapeutic managerial state. So yes, she's functionally a pedophile. All right. And yeah, in terms of like harm done by the elites or the Clintons or the deep state or whatever you want to call it, like QAnon is accurate. Yeah. And maybe it's not exactly satanic, but it basically is. Even if they're not saying like, Hail Satan, they're still engaged in like unfathomably evil deeds that we don't have access to. You mean the ruling class?

The ruling class. Yeah. The global elites. The global elites are evil. They might not be satanic literal pedophiles, but they are responsible for, I mean, the global inequalities that have driven human and sex trafficking. Yeah. And you know, you best believe there are actual real pedophiles among them. Of course. Of course. I mean, Podesta's emails are weird. And we shouldn't just gloss over them because Comet Pizza doesn't have a basement. Yeah. You know, like that's where it starts to feel like a sigh up to me. Yeah. We should, they're worth examining. Yeah. No, totally. And I think like the other thing is that

the, you know, again, our leadership has completely abdicated responsibility. And they are not only incapable of giving the vast majority of people like material benefits and a safety net. They're incapable of giving them kind of a grand myth or narrative, which is, I think, completely productive for people to have. I mean, one reason that or so the story goes that Putin is so powerful if you believe that his approval ratings aren't cooked is because he's managed to unite the country kind of not only materially, but rhetorically under his like strongman cover or whatever. But like in the spirit of our times, I think the QAnon people are doing what people do now, which is that they're reconstructing a grand myth or

narrative themselves like user by user by crowdsourcing it. It's like one of those like posters that they used to sell at the mall that was like a picture made up of tiny other little pictures, you know, and it was like somebody's face or like a tropical seascape, but it was made up of other like, well, it's like how Curtis in his latest talk talks about how reality is made, you know, not just by the elites in like a top down way. It's like it's a it's a back and forth yeah between the elites and everyone else. And QAnon is a real example of that of people fabricating a story to tell themselves about reality that resonates with them on an emotional level that is more reflective of what feels like is going on to them than what those in power are

telling them is is going on. Yeah, and I think the kind of global elites of the ruling class can't be mad that nobody finds them credible. I mean, that's why they're mad at somebody like Joe Rogan, by the way, because they feel like they're the only ones entitled to tell the rest of us how we should feel and how we should behave. Right. Like if one of them says, you know, you have to pack on 30 masks or whatever, like Fauci knows best or whatever, because he's credentialed to the gills whereas somebody like Rogan, it's funny. And the funny thing about that Rogan, sorry to go back to that is that the all of the mainstream media outlets down to Fox is are making are trying to run with the line that Rogan has walked back or retracted his statements when in fact he didn't.

He kind of doubled down on them or reiterated them, but he did the he did the kind of shirky thing that sometimes we do or we're just like, we're just retarded podcast. Yeah, he said like, don't take medical advice from me. I'm not a medical authority. I'm a retard, essentially, I'm a moron. He called himself a moron. I wouldn't even take my own advice or whatever. But you, I mean, it has to be like, that's how you have to communicate with people in this day and age. Like you have to do this kind of like clandestine dance. Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, but it's also like, you know, as an unnamed friend of the pod said liberals are just dumb enough to assume that Joe Rogan's audience is kind of like thinks of him as a thought leader,

which they don't necessarily a lot of them are tuning in for the entertainment value. Most of them, yeah, and yeah, and for Libs who like are engaged in Fauci worship, they're they can only assume that like people who listen to our fans of Joe Rogan are like engaged in the same parasocial thing that they're doing with the people that they respect. Yeah. And I think like the only people who have a parasocial relationship with Joe Rogan are liberals in a negative sense and me because I think he's really hot. Yeah. But yeah, I don't think any of Joe Rogan's like normie listeners are inordinately obsessed with him. They just like throw him on while they're like driving to the

store or doing like a 24 hour freight haul. And he probably suffers from yeah, having a fan base that's active on on social media and stuff. Yeah, wait, how do you mean? Like because they like will, you know, go after people and make him seem, you know, that's that's really people's qualms, I think with Rogan or like his fault. It's like the Bernie Bros thing is like his fault. His people who listen to Joe Rogan are like misogynistic Nazis and here's the proof. Like just look at my like Twitter mentions or whatever. I mean, I like the thing that Jordan Peterson said that I'm good at paraphrasing mangle where he was like, I have millions of fans and followers. 10% of those people are

are seriously mentally ill. Well, those 10% of seriously unwell people are the most valuable. So it's like a fake effect, you know, it's like an amplification effect of crazy people. Yeah, Rogan is the most popular. He has the number one, like most popular podcast, obviously the mass majority of those people are like relatively normal. Yeah, he has like millions and millions of followers. So he has at least a million seriously unwell followers. Yeah. I mean, that's just like how it be. What I would have liked to have seen elicited in the dog more is sort of what we were talking about with the the way that like Jim Watkins

benefited directly from the global reality created by the elites to get to go and be like a businessman in the Philippines. Whereas in the States, he would probably be just a totally like middling loser. There he gets to live like a king because of the global inequities and conditions that were like created exactly by the people that like QAnon is trying to like expose and critique. Yeah. And yeah, that's a good point. It would have been interesting if the filmmaker had explored more of these like complex issues instead of giving us like a Mori Povich style play by play of their like minor struggles. Yeah. Well, at the end after so Fred Brennan

ends up having to leave the Philippines because Jim Watkins implicates him in like a criminal live bowl suit. Yeah. Of which if he's convicted, he'll have to go to prison for like a minimum of six years and being like a wheelchair bound like brittle bone, you know, disabled person. Would definitely like die. Right. And that it was sort of in response to his like long campaign against against 8chan. And when he then eventually flees the Philippines, there's this very like corny sequence of like will you or won't you get on the plane and we all know that he will be fine. But then Q posted like the after Fred Brennan gets back to the States, there's a Q post on 8kun, which is like after 8chan gets deplatformed is like the new site that they started that says

game over. And there's a part at the end of the documentary where the where Colin is talking to Ron, and he's asking him about that Q post. And I felt like that was just a moment for me where I was like, wow, like you've spent years fundamentally unpacking this like petty dispute. Yes. Yeah. I'm like, what are you really like, what are you what what are you really trying to get at? Yeah, I mean, it felt kind of like a missed opportunity. And, you know, an ultimate failure because there was no I mean, it feels like everything feels now, which is like, it's a totally speculative conflict that exists in a speculative economy like Q was, again, grossly amplified by the media. Yeah, it's the idea that this kind of amateur community of

conspiracy theorists has a global impact is not true. I mean, the way that anything like butterfly effect has a global impact, you know, yeah, there was a point where after it was also amplified right by like Twitter, deplatforming prominent Qtubers and Q and on people, including Vivian Kubrick, whose Twitter I tried to find. I was watching realize that she had been deplatformed because she is like a Q and on person. And how then they then they coopted like the Save the Children hashtag and sort of had to find nonlinear ways to keep like, spreading their message. And there's a scene where he's in Los Angeles, they're like on Hollywood Boulevard congregating around the Donald Trump star. And there there's some like there's like a Save the Children

pedo would protest. Yeah, we're going to need a couple of those t shirts. Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation. Now available in the Red Scare merch store. During that sequence, someone I think Colin says like, and Q and on had gone mainstream. And it's like, but the but saying something's mainstream, like superimposed over footage of like, literal like drooling, a crowd of maybe like 30 people who are like drooling and deranged, like it's not seem very mainstream to me. Yeah, it's not mainstream. I think if you pull the average nor me, they probably have not heard of Q and on. I mean, it's clear that it's like expanded past the bounds of eight Chan. But that is, yeah, like you said, well, thanks to the efforts,

the dedicated efforts of the mainstream media, right? Because they are running out of storylines. And then the the censoring of Q content then just makes Q conspirators feel legitimized, because why would they try to silence something if it is so innocuous? Yeah. And then yeah, and then the insurrection is sort of like the grand finale, which is the the storming of the capital storming of the capital. Yeah. I'm really glad that was the last episode. And I could rewatch that footage again, because in retrospect, it really like drove home. The point that this was so kind of like funny and gay and retarded, it wasn't like at all a menacing or threatening thing. Well, there were casualties. Yeah. But overall,

it was just kind of like our incidental. Yeah, it was like a lump in carnival. Mm hmm. It felt very like medieval and that, you know, hot Viking guy, right, figured prominently throughout the documentary. Somebody should make a documentary about that guy, except I feel like if you dig too deep, it will actually end up being like really uninteresting and anticlimactic too. I think he's an actor. I think someone found his like backstage profile or something. Yeah. He could have been cast on Vanderpump rules and instead he ended up storming the capital. It's like that kind of vibe. There are two paths. Yeah. Yeah. And then on HBO Max under after you finish every episode, there's like more like this and there's like three documentaries that are

all about the insurrection. And it's, it seems like this is something that's going to be milked for a long, a long time. Yeah, God, I hate because not to sound like a Q and on person, but like those in power need to triple down on this narrative of the insurrection being this threat to democracy. Yeah, because they've done more harm and damage to American democracy than anyone could. Exactly. Like the idea that we even have a democracy is laughable. I mean, I feel stupid even saying it doesn't even bear repeating because it's so kind of obvious to me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, well, that's Russia gate too. Yeah. That's like the Russia gate has to do with the cognitive dissonance of not understanding how things could have gotten

so bad. Yeah. So having to outsource responsibility onto Russian interference, but in a completely delusional way. Yeah. But I mean, like, you know, for the cabal, as another friend of the pod said, you know, the kind of American liberal media in cahoots with the democratic party just keeps testing out plot lines. Like we live inside of a shitty and gay and retarded like fishbowl TV show where like there's just constant plot lines that are, you know, Russia gate and BLM are two successful ones. But the kind of unsuccessful one that he brought up was the the plastic straw thing that kind of fizzled out. What plastic like a couple of summers ago, everyone was trying to get you get people to ban plastic

straws. And that one was like less persuasive and popular, even though it did make some sort of a dent. Well, people are very attached to their plastic straws, myself included. Yeah, me too. I love to chew on them. I hate to get a paper straw that's like disintegrating faster than I can drink my iced coffee. Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. Like there have been times where like I was drinking a cocktail or a coffee and the thing like literally dissolved. Yeah. And then I was left to I much prefer to like chew on a plastic straw and risk getting even more kind of androgens into my bloodstream or whatever carcinogens. Well, I thought the plastic straw band had to do with like environmental concerns. Yeah, but all of these things are like kind of like psyopt propaganda

campaigns. They're they're going back to chance quote that I read earlier. They're a means of getting people involved, right? But really kind of forcing them to like like outsourcing political functioning onto regular people, right, in the name of like personal customizable activism. I mean, it's evil. I know. Like it's what's that JFK quote, the ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Yeah, like it's like that kind of thing, but taken to its like logical extreme, right? Like your country should be doing something for you. Otherwise, there's a point of living in your country. Yeah. What's the point of citizenship? Yeah. I'd be I'd be like a happy and willing taxpayer if my taxes actually conferred

benefits onto me and people around me. Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, I'm not even against I'm not even against paying taxes. I really one of my favorite minor characters was the Christian evangelist YouTuber Craig James, who really reminded me of Kenny Powers. Yeah, yeah, he was like putting a big he sat and down energy, which which was cool. Yeah, he was and he had that charming. I found him and Fred Brennan very very charming, actually. Yeah, I found Fred Brennan to be very charming. I hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass. It turns out that he's the one guy who in spite of his major physical difficulties is a pedophile or something. No, I doubt it. But well, he gets married to a Filipino woman and is able to you know, he also did move

to the Philippines to be in Jim Watkins employ. Yeah. And the reason he could he was afforded a higher quality of life in the pillow Philippines was because he could afford like a full time caretaker and stuff, which he clearly couldn't in the United States is is his caretaker the same person as his wife. No, different, different. Okay. But yeah, there's two sort of demure Filipino women like in his in his apartment, in his orbit. I thought it was touching how he like had the had the dog with him at all times. Yeah. And then he had it shipped over. Yeah. Yeah. The what was the Kenny Powers guy named Craig James, Craig James. Yeah, that guy. Yeah. And he had that tiny wife. Mm hmm. Yeah, there's a lot of there and there's that couple that was

like not surprisingly not unattractive who are also like Q tubers. Yeah, who are bickering where who get to who got to speak. Yeah. The guy that really freaked me out was Justin Nemos. He was kind of like hot in a perverted Christian bail as Patrick Bateman way and had like kind of an Amish sling beard and a very kind of contained methodical manner that the guy who works for Jim. No, no, no, another Q Tuber. Yeah, he he seemed like he was like prone to bouts of violence because he seemed a little too bottled up, you know. Yeah, I did think it was interesting the the sort of boomer appeal of Q. Yeah. And what I thought the doc did well was walk sort of a fine line of not not patronizing Q like Q followers,

but also the shedding light kind of on the disenfranchisement that leads someone to become basically a conspiracy theorist. Well, yeah, I mean, it's I mean, the deplorables comments spoke volumes when it when it happened. I mean, again, like these people not only don't provide you with any security or future, but then they have to add insult to injury and like mock you with their like endless like cultural propaganda campaigns and pogroms like it's crazy. Deprived not only of like economic prospects, but also of community. Yeah, then obviously Q gives them something to sort of band together against and fill their life with meaning. Yeah. Yeah. In lieu of a of an actual like culture. Yeah, I mean, this is I think this is like an

attempt to have like an authentic culture because also like I was thinking about that to like we're relegated to like six part docu series that's like our culture from now on. And like yeah, like socially distanced late night talk shows, you know, that's like all we have like SNL. And there there is no culture like, you know, I remember like Amber, I don't know if she said this on our podcast or in conversation, like privately, but you know, Amber had a young single mother growing up who in the Midwest, who used to take her to like ballet theater, which like that option was available back in the day. And now it's most definitely not like now postcode. But even before that, like even now, like a young woman in Amber's mom's position,

the best she could do probably is like take her kid to like a Marvel movie at like AMC theaters. Like there's no nutritious culture. And I had this conversation with somebody about Charlie Rose and how we all miss him because he was like a great figure of like, you know, mass entertainment, like intellectual mass entertainment, who was like gone too soon. And, you know, unfairly smeared and it dawned on me that Joe Rogan as laughable as it sounds is the closest thing we have to Charlie Rose because they couldn't be more different kind of in terms of their manners and whatever, comportment and supposedly their intellectual interests. But Rogan has the thing Rose had in that he understands as an interviewer that you ask questions,

you don't foist your ideology onto people. Yeah. And you have you have he's open to being surprised and is intellectually curious. Yeah. Like Charlie Rose always asked open ended questions. It was fairly unclear what his own political views or ideological convictions were. I mean, I'm sure he was like a total centrist libtard. Yeah, probably. But I think too many interviewers these days like think they're commentators, you know? Yeah. Like there was a clip actually in this documentary of a woman interviewing Trump and she was kind of like, so but don't you think that it's irresponsible? And it's like, you should never feed an interview subject information, you have to let them spin their wheels and expose themselves. I did think it was funny that the

filmmaker wasn't able to get in touch with Steve Bannon. Oh, yeah. That he made this sort of futile visit to his Italian monastery. Yeah. That made me feel good. We got such a Steve Bannon. He came right on our show. And he does that. Because at some point, Ron Watkins shows him sort of like the back end of 8chan with all of the like IP information of Q's posts and triangulates it to a property that I guess Steve Bannon owns in like Laguna Beach. Mm hmm. And he really just sort of like runs runs with this when I immediately was like skeptic was skeptical. Yeah, obviously. Steve Bannon's not a big enough loser to post on image boards.

But no, he's I mean, he might be but I definitely don't think I actually regret it. I definitely don't think he's Q. But I think what's what's interesting about Q and on as overblown as it is by the media was the way that it did sort of bleed over into the Trump administration and became sort of a some symbiotic relationship. Like Roger Stone was definitely up in there. Yeah. In cahoots and his like pinstripes zoo zoo. Mm hmm. Like once they realized that this was something that they could something that they could harness in a as a tool of nonlinear warfare all the way, then that then they just sort of ran with it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I miss Steve Bannon. Well, it's been a year since we had him on.

Maybe we should check in with him. I'm going to send him some flowers for our anniversary. Yeah. An edible arrangement. What are your thoughts on 8chan in general? Like in what like heavy mean my thoughts about like the look of the website or the content that gets published on it? Well, like should it in terms of the free speech conversation, like should there be a platform for people to air out their most hateful and depraved thoughts? Yeah, intuitively us. Yeah. Yeah. I think the only kind of wrench that I would throw into those plans is that I'm actually, you know, I haven't thought about this enough, really. But the only thing is that I think this isn't like free speech as our founding fathers intended,

because the kind of older definitions of free speech didn't account for anonymity. Yeah. Like I think like anonymity is an interesting and complex question, because there are all these kind of anonymous posters all over the internet who can be as like foul and deranged as they want to be. Yeah. So should they be protected? I mean, yeah, I guess in theory they get kind of grandfathered into the original. Yeah. I think you're on to something. But yeah, I think there's a lot of things that I liked how the filmmaker took that detour into the kind of Skokie Illinois neo-Nazi summit. Yeah. That was the one that Noam Chomsky, right? He intervened as well. I think he's probably co-signed like the ACLU letter or something that

gave them the right to demonstrate. Yeah. And people were upset at this Jewish lawyer, I think his name was David Goldberger, who took on the case on the side of the Nazis. Yeah. Because there was all, you know, I think Skokie, yeah, it was a suburb or a town with a large Jewish population, which like I'm always like, what are Jews doing in the Midwest? Like, get the fuck out of there. But they were understandably horrified and incensed that literal Nazis were allowed to, which I understand their position. I think like the Holocaust is no laughing matter. But I agree with the ACLU at their position at the time. I mean, how cucked they've become. Oh yeah, I know. But yeah, I mean, I think like free speech, and maybe even

Greenwald said this, and it's a very, it's a point well taken, but free speech only counts if it's extended to your opponents and enemies. Right. If it's free speech for you and me and the people we agree with. I think Goldberger says in his open letter that he penned up for getting blowback for sanctioning the neo-Nazi march. But I do, I think right with anonymity, it's yeah, free speech protects you to put on like a Nazi regalia and go outside and champion your white nationalist views. But because you're like an individual proclaiming them, but to strip away sort of your identity, I think then you aren't really, you shouldn't get sort of carte blanche to say whatever you want and not be held responsible for it. Yeah, or you should, I don't know, again,

I haven't really kind of examined my own thoughts and articulated them, but or you should, but it's a different issue that should be handled differently. And my thoughts on, on 8chan or that it is, it's this kind of like id of the internet where people do voice their most deplorable impulses. But the answer to something like that isn't to repress, right, and sort of drive these people further underground or whatever, but rather to like inspire people not to, like if people had other options, they wouldn't be spinning their wheels on 8chan becoming increasingly like disenfranchised and hateful and maladjusted. Yeah, I mean, I think like the, the idea that holding a website culpable for mass shootings is preposterous, because just because the shooters

happen to post their manifestos on there, like the mass shooting problem in the United States, which has been exported elsewhere, you know? Yeah, all the shootings, I like remember the Christchurch one, but the El Paso one, I was like, damn, I like, there's so many mass shootings that I don't even keep track, can't even keep track of them. And many of them don't post their manifestos on 8chan. Yeah, but this is a problem that has, you know, nobody really wants to structurally deal with coming up with a solution, because it would involve probably talk of redistribution. And I mean, people like young, desperate men would have to be kind of endowed with a sense of their, you know, sense of like productivity and usefulness. This is like the desperate

last resort of people who, you know, are backed into a corner who have nothing, they're literally staring down the barrel of a gun, so they like turn the gun on others. I mean, I'm not saying that I sympathize with mass shooters, but I think Mark Ames put it well in that book that we read a long time ago. Going postal. Yeah, going postal, which is like, you know, mass shootings are billed in the media as like kind of an irrational, insane act, and they're totally rational in a way, given the circumstances. Yeah. And I mean, we have a cultural policy now that's like, that literally pathologizes if not outright criminalizes like young white men, like, yeah, I hate to say it, but it's true. No, I know, I know. There's a, even in the,

in the QDoc, sort of in giving the rundown of leading up to the insurrection, there was this like throwaway comment about how Trump pandered to incels or a ban in harness to the rage of like the incel community and all of this like, yeah, incel disenfranchised white man, rhetoric, all it does is pathologize their identities, basically. Yeah, I mean, that, that was always just like, like you, you know, it's like two wrongs don't make a right, we're going to correct cruelty and oppression with more cruelty and oppression, but like in the other direction. So yeah, I think, I think that like, it just, you know, off the cuff, intuitively, I think like, places like eight chance should probably be allowed to exist. The, again, the issues is much

broader. It's like, we tend to view these things in like a very binary fashion, like either good or either bad. The internet is huge and kind of is vastly beyond our imagination is both good and bad. Yeah, yeah. You know, has extremely good kind of effects and extremely bad ones. I think it's been maybe a net negative, all things considered. Yeah, probably overall for like in terms of like people's mental health, yeah. Yeah. But then again, you can Google pictures of Steve Bannon wearing a ribstop cargo. Yeah, more more will be revealed. It's funny, though. I think the funny thing for me was the filmmaker expressing his surprise that all these like Q adjacent and Q associated figures are willing to talk to him. And I was like, what? Like they're desperate to

talk to someone. They're incredibly lonely. Yeah, he was like shocked that like, that's why it's surprising he couldn't get Bannon on the line. I know. And stone declined to comment. Yeah, I know. But well, Jim and Ron sort of their interest in talking to him was to sort of diffuse their own involvement. And when he first goes to the Philippines, Jim Watkins takes him to like some kind of organic market that he owns and some weird Filipino mall. Yeah. And his pig farm and he makes it seem like he has like these many business ventures and like, well, HN isn't profitable. Right. But they the real like in investigation that he does is to try and like unpack all like the the lies and obfuscations that the Watkins lay out for him. And that's

was interesting. Yeah, but it's hard to say where the truth lies, you know, with that guy. He's Jim Watkins strikes me as like a real artist in a weird way. I mean, definitely in a seat. I mean, he's a total like off the wall weird freak. Yeah, he's got some really dark, dark vibes. I don't even think he's like a Nazi. I think it's he's worse. He like truly stands stands for nothing. Yeah, exactly. That's much scarier. That's why this whole impulse to brand people as Nazis and like reactionaries and like literal fascists exist. Because the fact is most people are not immoral, they're amoral, which is just much, much worse, because there's no bottom. Right. And like they're I'm more afraid of suggestible gullible people than I am of like

concertedly evil people because first of all, yeah, those people are in the minority. Yeah, Jim Watkins has some confused mix of like nostalgia for for military strategy and total like expat, hedonism expats, like to me, are some of the darkest in Southeast Asia. Yeah, I think that's really like the lowest of the low. Yeah, like middle aged white male expat. Yeah, how you choose to conduct yourself in your life to like, go live like a like a king in Southeast Asia. Yeah, I think it's a little disgusting like free ball and linen shorts. The whole thing freaks me out. Yeah, his the kind of evolution of his look is really weird and captivating. Yeah, when he gets the funny mustache, like a bow tie. And then he kind of grows out a

goatee and starts looking like a 70s pornographer sideburn. Well, he is a pornographer. That was how he his initial business ventures were all in porn websites and domains. To tell you the truth, I would love to see a documentary about Jim Watkins. I mean, this yeah, and I would love to see a documentary about Fred Brennan, like, separate in depth, like, you know, each could be an episode, maybe that could be his next project. Yeah, like a redundant mini series. I mean, all in all, I found having to engage with these these characters for a prolonged amount of time very unpleasant. Yeah, it made me feel dirty. It made me feel like I was watching some like, gross porn that I didn't want to watch but couldn't look away from.

Well, they take him remember the part where Ron takes him to soap land. Yeah. And he's like, a little unclear as to whether or not he goes. But it seems like he does. Yeah, he did sort of compromising things in the Philippines with the Watkins to quote, like, win their trust. Yeah. But it's also, you know, he made this documentary of his own volition. He took this like deep dive because part of him wanted to like engage with this is really abhorrent subculture. Yeah, a subculture of two. Yeah, kind of sun. But they are in a way of the culture of each and they do kind of embody in their in their pornographic, hedonistic,

evil, libertarian lifestyle. Yeah, like the kind of the dad is like like an old racist pervert like that's his archetype and the son is like a young incel. Well, he's not an incel. He's not. He's married, right? He's married and seems like borderline some kind of like a sex pornography addict who patronizes like prostitutes pretty constantly. There's like that was my takeaway. I did resent when he was describing their their pornography fixation when he showed Ron Watkins buying that like anime figurine of Ray from NG. He is like a life size like anime figure. And I was like, well, that's not some pornographic. He's just a weeb as someone who has a horny anime dolls. Yeah.

I found that a little bit insulting. Too close to home. Yeah, I was like, there's nothing wrong with that. There's sculptures. There's nothing wrong with collecting erotic sculptures. But yeah, he's how much but he would in in a different context. Ron Watkins would absolutely be like an Elliot Rogers style mixed race incel. Yeah, totally. But he's lucky to get to glob onto his father's empire and like live in Japan. Yeah, he really like he's also way too like aspergy to be an effective liar. Yeah, like blinking and grunting. Blinks too much. He's like, I'm not cute and like blinking. Yeah, like people listening to the podcast can't see me blinking. But yeah, he's a little too like flinchy and grunting and has way too many tells to really

be like a mastermind sociopathic liar. Yeah, it's like very clear about very early into the doc that like either Ron or Jim or both of them are Q. Yeah, they're like Q related at the very least. They have like access. I mean, I guess I find it plausible that Q was some other kind of unnamed mysterious character. And then after that, like algorithm, analyze the stylistic change. Right. That's when Ron took over. Yeah, I think Ron did take over. Yeah, they had some company run an analysis and log that there was like a distinct stylistic change. I forgot what year that took place. But because I'm not a morbid loser who keeps track of you don't need the time on yeah, intra elite squabbling among image board moderators. But yeah, there was that great scene

where like Ron was splayed out on the floor with like a cast on his wrist because he has carpal tunnel from being on the computer too much. But this all made me sad because it was like kind of supposed to be such like an epic narrative of like biblical conflict and it was really about like three weird men who would totally be in cells if it wasn't for their brain power and access to like Filipino Tang like squabbling amongst themselves. Yeah. Godless losers. Yeah. And being like too online. Truly. Yeah. Just depressing that everybody, you know, myself included, I'm always implicated in my own critiques or like we're all too online. Yeah. And you can't escape it and it's horrifying and depressed. It has like a life of its own.

Well, that's yeah. That's when the when the Q game blurs with real life. I thought the conclusion was was strong even if the the insurrection storming the capital stuff felt a little tacked on. Yeah. Wait, what was the ending? I like literally watched the entire show but was like scrolling through half of it. The end is just sort of like it's it's Colin really sort of presenting the evidence for for Ron being Q and sort of is this kind of person really the one you want to like place all of your your stock in if you are a Q and on supporter. Yeah. Okay. Well, um, any last words? I don't think so. It just I don't look forward to the next gay and retarded conspiracy theory that trumps the magnitude of Q post the post

coming world. Yeah. Yeah, because it does seem like it's diffused. Yeah, we're going to get an even worse conspiracy theory and we're going to get an even worse pandemic. Let's get a stock. See you in hell.