Raised in hardcore fundamentalism. We watched Loose Change 9-11 "documentary" in high school circa late 00's. We had a class called worldviews and the curriculum was based on Brannon Howse aka the guy who funded and hosted all of Mike Lindell's absolute proof line of documentaries. Yes, I know Alex Jones. Yes I have a therapist.
I was so close to Alex that my dad and I would drive down each weekend to help build the Branch Davidian church near Waco. GCN was playing on a speaker 24/7 somewhere in our house. My parents later lost their farm because they refused to pay taxes.
Fuck Alex Jones
That was what started it all, right? Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City. Pretty soon the feds are flying black helicopters over your house and they're going to take your guns away.
A buddy of mine got conspiratorial circa 2007 and kept telling me about Loose Change and started whinging about The Federal Reserve and a couple other things blah blah.
One day he asked me to check out Alex Jones' show to see what I thought. Within maybe three minutes I turned it off. He said, "so, what'd you think?" And I told him it was all nonsense. Jones was just yammering, never cited sources, the papers on his desk were just props, it was all nonsense. My buddy was deflated and immediately lost interest in the conspiratorial stuff and as far as I'm aware never followed Jones or InfoWars again haha.
We drifted apart and stopped being friends a few years later. I don't blame him for being dissatisfied with life in the US but he kept getting drawn in by grifters and was trying to find quick, magical solutions to problems in his life. I wish the best for him but I can only imagine what he might've gotten drawn into since 2017 with the rise of Trump and alt-right fascism and grifters galore.
I don't remember exactly how I got into Knowledge Fight but I know my taste for podcasting started with Oh No, Ross and Carrie! via their Scientology episodes and then I found Behind the Bastards and then Knowledge Fight and many others. Felt like therapy and like I finally found my people. Grew up surrounded by a lot of willful stupidity and had almost no one to connect with on an intellectual level. Nice to finally relate to some people with similar mindsets and outlooks on the world. Gives me hope for the future too!
Yo. Tell me more about countering the federal reserve nonsense. A best friend of mine has really fallen down this hole. Like I’m talking I was best man at his wedding. Now he won’t stop talking about how we all need to be Jeffersonian democrats. Ironically he’s in private equity which wouldn’t even be possible without the federal reserve to create a credit market.
On an irony scale from zero to "Paul Ryan listens to Rage Against the Machine", working in private equity while ranting about the federal reserve is pretty high.
Funny that your friend is in finance and still into Federal Reserve conspiracies. My undergraduate ECON classes got rid of any conspiratorial ideas I had about the Fed.
Brannon Howse did give me a really good laugh once. I was listening to Frank Speech and Brannon was doing a report about farmers protesting in the Netherlands (Brannon always uses these stories to pivot to an ad selling survival food), and Howse said "due to these protests all the stores in the Netherlands have empty shelves and no food". At that moment I was in Utrecht, shopping at a Jumbo, looking at shelves full of food.
Eh, the right wing media always lies.
Apparently San Francisco is a total hellhole, so is Vancouver where I live (a favourite punching bag of the current Conservative leader, trying to tear strips off Trudeau with that).
I used to be a conservative evangelical (now much more progressive and open to different ideas).
There was a strong undercurrent of conspiracism, like the idea that same-sex marriage was part of an intentional plot to undermine Christianity. We didn't listen to Alex, but some people were Alex-like, though we all knew who Brannon Howse was and thought he was completely unhinged. He believed that every religious group except for Jews was conspiring against authentic Christianity and the Catholic Church, Pentecostals and Charismatics, and people like Rick Warren and John Piper were all part of a conspiracy to bring theological liberalism into churches and lay the groundwork for the New World Order
People like Brannon Howse and Alex are pretty out there, even for many right-wing evangelicals with conspiratorial beliefs. I once "tested" bringing up Alex and Brannon Howse talking points with my right-wing dad, and he thought I was overly credulous for even giving those ideas consideration.
I watched loose change and thought it was a solid documentary it came out around the same time as Zeitgeist and it too was decent documentary.
Having a class called "World views" sounds like a noble goal provided it strikes a balance between the narratives
I don't even have time to go through the way every single part of Loose Change is terrible and/or wrong, I feel like all that needs to be said on this forum to sum it up is that one of the executive producers of Loose Change: The Final Cut is...drumroll...Alex Jones.
Which version of the film did you see? There are a lot because the director kept getting called out for misinformation and making new edits with different theories.
I burned about 200 Loose Change DVDs back in High School. Handed them out to everyone between periods. I cringe at myself god damn. One of those things that I'll be like almost asleep then think about how I handed out Loose Change and an adrenaline-pumping amount of cringe will bring me right back to wakefulness. Though, honestly in the long run, I think I'm happy to have the perspective of going deep in an Alex Jones/conspiracy rabbit hole and coming out of it. My bullshit meter is A+ after that and I gained a very valuable understanding about myself.
I watched Loose Change in college and it "changed everything" for me for a few months. And then Popular Mechanics put out an issue where they debunked most of the science aspects and it really showed me how effective that kind of propaganda can be if you don't go in with a skeptical mind set. I think a lot about the guys who did the work for that issue and hope they realize how much good they did, I'm sure debunking can seem like a thanks job pretty often.
We all have our moments, I actually bought into Loose Change for about a week myself, it happens. I said something to my cousin about it, and he gave me side eye. After that I talked to a firefighter friend of mine about it, and he opened my eyes to the reality. We are all susceptible to propaganda and conspiracy theories, if you realize that, you're much less likely to get duped.
Oh how I hate those middle of the night cringe attacks. It’s half the reason I’m such a bad sleeper, there’s A LOT of material to revisit. Shut up brain, goddamnit!
Don't feel cringe about spreading that message
Cheney and "W" haven't lost a nights sleep about the horror that they unleashed, the thousands dead and the billions wasted
I got into Loose Change,Alex Jones, Zeitgeist, etc pretty hard when I was 13-16.but as entertainment. I had some friends and friends siblings who believed it all. I knew one person that actually bought the DVDs and VHS tapes. The difference is I was in it fully knowing it was complete bullshit. I loved at as it was amazing story telling in a way.
✋
I was a Glenn Beck listener around '08 -> tea party -> infowars/libertarianism/full-blown conspiracy theories
I can't remember exactly when I gave it up but I think it was around 2013/2014. The pivot to hard supplement grifting shook me out of it; supermale vitality, iodine, etc.
Listening to Knowledge Fight has been part of my recovery. I'm rubbing my own nose in my mistake.
>I can't remember exactly when I gave it up but I think it was around 2013/2014. The pivot to hard supplement grifting shook me out of it; supermale vitality, iodine, etc.
His supplements are so overpriced I'm surprised he makes so much money from them. But then I guess having an audience of millions coming and going he only needs maybe a few hundred "whales" to bring in the big bucks with that stuff.
A buddy of mine was buying seaweed this and supplement that from other grifters in the late 2000's. Some other friends got roped in by the "fluoride" conspiracy stuff about the same time too so they were buying enormously overpriced fluoride-free toothpaste and lots of bottled water.
Pete Santilli is an Alex Jones wannabe who sometimes hosts on Info Wars. I was watching his Rumble channel one day, and he got so mad at someone in the chat who mentioned making Cardio Miracle at home because he couldn't afford buying it from Pete.
Great stuff, thanks. It's important to push back against hate/conspiracy. But we also need to be very welcoming to decent people who make the positive decision to take the off-ramp.
My ex started watching IW during his mental break. He got SUPER into prepping and keeping big knives and a shotgun in our apt he tried to force me to listen to episodes and was sure Ron Paul would be the next president (this was 2012). I think that's where he heard about Waking Life and decided we had to watch it. He talked that night about "getting to the next life" and when I woke up there was a shotgun propped up next to the bed.
I then had a boss a couple years later who was super into Alex to the point that he was watching IW in the conference room and trying to warn me privately to prepare for societal collapse.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the movie is people talking absolute nonsense uninterrupted for several minutes at a time, but I still find it a fun experience.
A few years later Linklater made A Scanner Darkly using the same rotoscoped style, and that's a really underrated film too, in my opinion.
I think the most surreal thing to me during that period was finding out that the singer for the original Pokémon theme song supported Ron Paul & made a parody song for his campaign. 😳
Not a fan of the message, but it is admittedly a banger.
https://youtu.be/guLEUhIgRAI?si=r1XNCglLyAqQelXZ
Same^
My father was addicted to this shit, so when I found a podcast by two seemingly authentic comedians. Just trying to make sense of shit and somehow can mock the absurdity with a “high road” approach?
I was all in!
Unfortunately for my father, he’s deeper than ever before into the right-wing shit, but now I can just roll my eyes and sometimes laugh.
This is the same for me and my right-wing parents. Thankfully they've stopped sending me Glenn Beck and Dinesh D'Souza books, or floating their latest doom and gloom prophecy when we chat, but I know they're still swimming in this nonsense.
Yeah, after being aware of Alex Jones through the memes, the first being the "turning the frogs gay", being told by a friend that there was a podcast that covered him and every episode he did where they debunk it and make fun of him was like a dealer giving you the first hit for free. I've binged every single episode of the depositions and related, and am now working on going back through the back catalogue starting from Jan 6, 2021.
[https://archive.org/details/rush-limbaugh-radio-show](https://archive.org/details/rush-limbaugh-radio-show)
[https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/archives/](https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/archives/)
Seems to be out there
It's amazing how any trace of him has vanished. There's no Limbaugh quotes running around and none of the grifters or former ditto heads ever bring him up. He contributed nothing but shit and he's as easily forgotten.
Fortunately Limbaugh was never directly a part of my life. I remember hearing about him though and plenty of his garbage permeated the culture. I remember seeing him parodied on The Simpsons especially.
fox news though...my Dad watched that crap for hours everyday. I went along for awhile 'cause I took after my Dad in many ways, we both watched lots of TV together. Some good stuff like Star Trek and the aforementioned Simpsons. Some bad stuff like Cops and fox news. Moving out on my own in 2007 eliminated a lot of bad media from my life.
You've probably heard them, but if not, there are two great episodes of *Behind the Bastards* where Robert Evans has none other than Paul F. Thompkins on to learn all about Rush Limbaugh. I read both Limbaugh's books, listened to his radio show, and even watched his TV show when I was in high school back in the 1900s, and I still learned a lot.
I \*would\* watch some of the Youtube critics like Maggie Mae Fish or the Skip Rewind guy go through episodes of his short-lived Rush Limbaugh TV show, which I have only vague memories of now. But that's 30-year-old content at this point, and I have no idea if there's much there to justify the work other than "this right-wing radio guy tried to be shocking on TV, but it didn't really work for him."
[https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-rush-limbaugh-episodes-79392356/](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-rush-limbaugh-episodes-79392356/)
Same. I grew up on him and the local talk radio shows. I continued listening through college and a few years later because I had a long commute. My radio stopped working for a few months and that broke the cycle for me. Very glad it did because I could easily have gone deeper. Would be interesting to hear some Rush breakdowns because he was a different style of liar
Got into Jones land because I was so disturbed by the w Bush administration, always found Limbaugh to be repugnant. When dubya went away, it really jumped out to me how closely Jones’ talking points matched rush and every other standard right wing radio host.
Made it easier to get my head on straight and bounce.
The right-wing AM radio I listened to as a teenager makes me cringe hard now; sometimes I forget that Limbaugh was arguably not the worst influence on my radio dial. My local AM station carried G. Gordon Liddy every day for years. I knew he was a conservative gun nut, but I considered myself a conservative gun enthusiast, so that didn't seem so bad. I had no context for who he was or why it might seem wild to me later on that he was a popular radio host.
Alex Jones came up between a coworker and I and he mentioned that he used to listen to Jones unironically. I told him about Knowledge Fight and he’s a regular listener now. Though he did mention in passing once that he sometimes listened to Ben Shapiro. And he’s brought up things that the toxic masculine crowd bring up. Like how “video games are purposefully making women characters ugly now,” and shit like that. I don’t want to come at him outright and make things awkward at work, but I try to make jokes and hint at how absurd some of that stuff is. I’m hoping he can see some of those viewpoints when brought up by Dan because Dan, and Jordan, are a million times better than me at putting those feelings and viewpoints into words.
And when growing up my dad listened to Rush Limbaugh. Mainly because he commuted like, an hour to work and home every day and liked talk radio. He’s a lot more left-leaning now thankfully and has avoided that boomer mentality a lot of older folks have.
I think the worst thing I did was frequent 4chan back in high school. I’m glad I got out of that when I did and avoided the whole red/black/whatever pill shit.
Keep up the good work with the coworker. Ive found that the way you're approaching it is the only way that really works. Just mock their ideas and point out the hypocrisy, and let them come to their own conclusion. If you try fighting it, they dig in deeper.
When I was the assistant manager of a Deep Underground Military Base Alex got piped over the PA and it used to drive the mole children bonkers. This, in turn, would stir up the Nordic Greys who I can tell you are simply a gaggle of assholes on their best days. Alex Jones is nothing but trouble in my book.
I was sorta in the right wing radio bubble. I grew up overhearing Rush Limbaugh (congrats on the continued sobriety!) and Michael Savage from my dad's radio all the time.
I then went into the military, where Fox News is on in every waiting room. What really saved me was going overseas and getting to know the locals. I wasn't really politically inclined even a little bit until Tangerine Hitler rode down that escalator.
I haven't always been on the right side of history, but I'm glad that I got that one right.
First time I ever heard Alex was 2005 or so and it’s hard to explain. It was obvious the dude is full of shit and says insane things but I’d get stoned and listen and he was extremely fucking entertaining. This was also Bush era Alex so teenage me agreed with some of what he said about the torture programs and the Patriot Act and whatnot (still do, but current Alex wouldn’t agree with himself anymore).
Yeah pretty much this. The Bush administration was so obviously corrupt, and Alex called out Republicans as aggressively as Democrats. He's so transparently full of shit though, his schtick didn't really resonate past my angsty 20's
I think I read a few articles back in the day, when I was casting about desperately for better information about the wars. Iraq was so obviously predicted on bullshit and mainstream media was repeating administration talking points uncritically.
There were probably a few months where I was reading articles on infowars. Didn't take long to see that they were also full of shit.
I never agreed with him but I used to watch him pretty regularly because I thought it was hilarious. Over time it started to weigh on me that people actually bought into it and it kinda faded out. Kf gives me a far more enjoyable way to laugh at the ridiculousness.
I only knew of Alex Jones because of the Sandy Hook denial nonsense. Then I watched the AJ documentary on HBO a few months ago and was absolutely horrified that such a goofy ass blow hard even existing, let alone thrives as a grifter.
Today I listened to my first knowledge Fight episode and I feel like I’ve found my people.
I recommend going back and listening to episode 641: Formulaic Objections Part 4. Specifically that one (you don't really need the first 3 for context if you're at all familiar with the trial). It's long, but it's worth it. You'll get a far funnier angle on the trial than presented in the HBO doc. There's actual recordings of Alex's depositions from after the default verdict. The plaintiff's attorney knows he already won, and has about had it with Alex's bullshit. It's comedy gold.
I watched a peak oil documentary in 2011, then youtube recommended me endgame and the Obama deception. Watched infowars for about a year in college. Got into libertarianism. But Sam Seder and Micheal Brooks pulled me out of that delusion.
I was gonna chime in and say the closest I got was reading about Peak Oil on very badly made websites in 2005. I find it pretty funny to hear that people were still falling down that rabbit hole in 2011. I believed it because that was around the time I had to trade in my pickup cause it was getting 15 miles per gallon, and bought a Scion that could get 30mpg. Right after Katrina when all the refineries shut down, we saw gas go from $1.50 to nearly $5 almost overnight.
A friend pointed me to the peak oil stuff and for a couple of months, I was pretty sure that society was gonna grind to a halt as the oil became more expensive to extract. The oil companies always know how to innovate and they found ways of getting that oil out of the ground. Looking back 2 decades, it would have been the best possible thing for our society. We probably could have dealt with oil running out much easier than saying we have to choose to not use what's available.
In the early 2000s, I was pirating all my content off of usenet, and I really enjoy documentaries. Some guy started flooding a bunch of Alex Jones documentaries and I watched for a hot minute.
But honestly, the laziness was noticeable and really turned me off.
I was raised conservative and in my last year of high school/first year of college, I began watching some shitheads such as Gavin McIness.
I think a big turning point for me was when McIness gave Alex a shout out so I checked out an episode of InfoWars. I remember just being confused and immediately knowing he was talking indecipherable bullshit.
I think that was actually one of the moments where I began to pull away from the right-wing sphere and have thankfully drifted very far from that mindset over the subsequent years.
I think Alex Jones made me a leftist?
I remember searching for something to listen to on my overnight Walmart job back in 2000 or so and happening across Alex. He was going on about Bohemian Grove and I found it boring so I tuned away and never went back. Didn't listen to any Alex until discovering Knowledge Fight in about 2018.
I was (and still am) in a band called the Alex Jonestown Massacre for several years before getting into knowledge fight. Figured this was required listening to stay in the band
I'm sorry, but I do not understand those of you that say you used to listen to him cause you found him funny. It reminds me of a "reasonable conservative" friend I had who tried to convince me that Joe Arpaio speaking at a republican event was funny. Even after I reminded him of all the shitty things he had done, "yeah, but the shit he says is funny." Sure, unless you happen to be part of the group he's speaking about, and getting applause for disparaging. I get that it's "used to" and not "currently do", but damn it's disheartening.
If humor is to those who understand it, your friend seems to hardly be a friend.
Maybe not just understand but rather at minimum accept that it is part of their worldview. That framing was where I came from I think.
I was aware of the memes but didn't get to really know how much of a piece of shit he is (or how much influence he has) until the Behind the Bastards episodes, which introduced me to Knowledge Fight.
Never listened to Infowars, but I was really into Ron Paul in 2008. I didn't think any of the other candidates were sufficiently opposed to the Iraq War or the Patriot Act, and that led me to have a huge blind spot where I was willing to overlook a lot of Paul's more unsavory views. Plus I leaned more Libertarian at the time, and so I supported some of his fiscal policies to begin with.
Not a bubble per se. I listen to cog dis and they covered a few articles that alex was involved in, so i started raw dogging alex. I love a good train wreck and boy, is he a doozie of a head case.
I never listened full time to him but I’ve been aware of him since the early 2000’s. I think it was 9/11 that put him on my radar but honestly I don’t fully remember. I just he has been an ongoing joke between my friends and I for decades.
Was always a little left, but met a guy who was super hardcore left and got me into Infowars / Alex Jones. I was a few years out of university and probably should have been able to see through Alex's BS, but my initial impression was that he is a little unhinged but made some good points. This was 2007 or so, still early days of the Internet, so the conspiranoia/grifter playbook wasn't obvious yet. I think Alex more clearly aligned with the far right years later, at this stage his political alignment wasn't clear.. he was on about Bilderberg group, MK Ultra, the elite cabal (the term globalist wasn't really used back then). I caught on pretty quickly that he was a lying goofball and that was it.
I remember Alex from the mid 90's when I was in college and finally got the internet. I was all in on the Loose Change/ David Icke downloads from my friend in Computer Programming, who had way more access with high download speeds. It was fun to believe in bullshit for a while. I moved onto listening to Opie and Anthony and Alex would pop on there once in a while. That's when I realized what he really was.
Back in the day yes, in the later 2000s when conspiracy theories were still cool. 😅 I actually got pretty deep into 9-11 for a while, it started to drive me mad. There's never any resolution, never any real answers just more questions and you just go deeper and deeper. Eventually I realized I just had to stop. Looking back at it now it's so ridiculous, but I was all in.
Parents used to listen to Rush on the radio. Grew up Catholic and as a teen I was a "skeptic". I was super excited to register as a Republican...... Well now I'm socialist so that was a hell of a leap lol
The first time I ever saw and heard [Alex Jones](https://youtu.be/zVz8-W6EWOI?si=R-Vl8yRO7aO3FA0a) was from a 2001 rotoscoped animated arthouse film called "Waking Life", where the protagonist walks through surrealistic dreams from scene to scene, each a meta discussion of the various profound complexities of life and the conscious awareness of it all. You barely even recognize Jones because his rant fits perfectly into the movie's notably diverse cast of cameos. That was probably the first and last time he was surprisingly coherent.
I wasn’t in the bubble really, but I’m in my mid 40’s and a friend of mine exposed me to him when he did the video sneaking into Bohemian Grove. I didn’t really buy what he was selling, but I thought it was pretty cool he snuck in and got footage.
> sneaking into Bohemian Grove
Those old days were so tame. Now those SF elites have this secret thing in the desert called burning man, where they have massive drug orgies and then burn a man. AJ is going to expose it any day now.
s/
Did that need the s/ ?
I live in Belfast so we had enough conspiracy theories of our own knocking around but it was Jon Ronson's "Secret rulers of the world" series (2001) that introduced me to Alex.
Back then I thought his theories about the Kennedy assassination, Gulf of Tonkin and 9/11 were sound especially after "W" nipped the POTUS and was fully erect for an invasion of Iraq & Afghan based on faulty intelligence. I thought his rebuilding of the church at WACO was a decent project after the Feds ....you know the rest.
Back then he was standing up for the people until he morphed into an ideological purity test of bigotry and hatred denouncing those that wanted gun control and became an outright member of the cult of Trump
Maybe it was the substance abuse that changed him, perhaps he saw it as a quick way to make millions but his change was notable even before Sandy Hook when Obama won in 2008
Barrack made Alex take off his mask and show everyone the utter racist piece of trash that was always there
I was in the bubble pretty hard from 2017-2021. Having grown up in somewhat of a fundamentalist, anti-government home, the ideas seemed to mesh pretty well with the indoctrination that I grew up with.
My introduction to Jones was pretty different than a lot of stories here. I was firmly into anarchism in the early 00s, Bush had basically stolen the 2000, war on terror was creating massive police state infrastructure aided by new federal policies that were quickly eroding civil liberties. I had friends who dipped their toes into Jones’ work and I saw them quickly abandon a structural understanding of what’s going on to a conspiratorial vision that blamed shadowy actors.
My general concern wasn’t jones aaa a right wing reactionary hiding behind legitimate critiques of the growing power of the state but rather his analysis wouldn’t be useful in identifying what was needed to be overcome for a better world. Most of the people I know that got really into Jones ditched left wing anarchism and became reactionary libertarians.
Dan has pointed in out many times before but there was a period where Jones had appeal to the far left. I think it was mostly due to a willingness to critique state formation in a very easy to digest language whereas most other critiques at that time were buried in academic language plus his content was much more widely available than most other heterodox stuff. I remember getting my first printed copy of endnotes and a buddy borrowed it, returned the next day and told me it was too boring and stuffy, these jones videos is where it’s at.
Anyhow, for all of your that climbed out of the jones hole. Kudos, he might go on and on about loving humanity but remember, he deeply hates more than half of us!
Never listened to AJ before KF. I was familiar with him because of 9/11 conspiracy theories, but never got into him. I was intereseted in those theories at the time (I was a teenager), but when it turned into "what about the jeeeews", I bailed out.
My mom used to listen to our local versions of radio right-wingers. My parents are pretty typical boomer liberals (white savior and what not), so that's kinda weird to me. I'm from Québec, so we have our own right-wing grifting subculture. She would listen to AM talk radio : André Arthur, who is kind of a Rush Limbaugh emulator, and Doc Mailloux, who I don't think has an american counterpart. He would get calls from SAH moms / retirees and blast them, mostly. Everything was women's fault. Very misogynic and hateful.
I remember listening in with her and thinking they were mean and bad people. So I never got into that stuff. Still, KF has changed my life. Opened my eyes to a lot of things. Seeing the boys live was an amazing experience.
I first heard of him way back in like ‘99, 2000. I was delivering mail and plowing driveways in the winter. I saw an infowars sticker and looked it up when I got back home. I’m like, this is all stupid.
And when I worked at night, I preferred talk radio, and while AJ didn’t air in Cleveland (that I know of) there was a local college DJ that I think got a lot of his news from him or his sources. He used a folk singer as his opener/closer, and all I remember is the line “The Federal Reserve isn’t federal at all, it’s just criminal”
He also played a lot of old punk rock. I distinctly remember him yelling about CHIMERAS?!? and rolling my eyes
I did “loose change” and a few 9/11 big pharma conspiracy videos here and there but always from an anti-authority/capitalism/empire left wing side… I’ve only met right wing people as I’ve gotten older. Had a friend go from hippie mum, open minded, listened to JRE for a few years and became a full blown Jordan Peterson/ben Shapiro “makes some Good points”… needless to say we don’t talk anymore.
I was never into alex. I did watch him spawn though. I did hear him say EU did 9/11. When all that crazy shit was going down like the towers, I made a mental note to come back and talk shit to this douche bag. That was kind of my induction into the pod. Oh yeah fuck alex jones right? Right.
I dated a casual infowarrior around 2006-9 she would show me loose change and shit and made me vaguely aware of Alex jones. Mainly I remember how it was annoying to watch movies with her she was big into the ‘predictive programming’ meme. I never took it seriously.
Im not an american and the only reference to alex Jones i had in my life was that he was that moronic 9/11 guy. Up until sandyhook and the defamation trial.
Not in the bubble, but I was a casual listener. I was a Coast to Coast AM listener. Alex was one of the more interesting guests on the show at the time. He was very cleverly emphasizing the elements of his ideology that a Coast listener might be receptive to: anti-authoritarianism, the police state, PATRIOT Act, black sites, coverups, etc. Also a great venue to talk about Bohemian Grove. As others have said, the Bush administration was so obviously corrupt that even a grifter like Alex could make some legitimate points at the time.
Oh yeah. Probably found Alex around 2009/2010. Would download his show to my ipod to listen to and laugh at. I used to post in the InfoWars FB for years before KF, saying how dumb Alex’s ideas were. Then i just went to straight trolling InfoWars after Sandy Hook. I found KF because of my hate for Alex.
Never directly, but I’d see him from time to time doing stuff. I was a pretty big conspiracy theorist from about 07-12 mostly from getting my mind blown on the Zeitgeist movies. The biggest thing that sticks out is his appearance in the first one talking about the North American currency and RFID chips.
I was never a fan, but I did listen to him a bit before learning about Knowledge Fight as a request from somebody to give him a chance. It was late 2020 and early 2021, so it was mostly election and vaccine bs.
I was in the Dubbya years. Maybe like 2006-2008. I remember seeing him on Waking Life. Then the very next day, and I do mean very next day, after Obama was elected, he pivoted to saying Obama was the antichrist....and that's when i realized he was a charlatan and a grifter.
I dabbled as a younger man. Raised in the south and knowing nothing but “cheating “ democrats from the people that raised you. It’s funny cause one of my good friends at the time always told me deep down that’s not who I was. They were at the time what I considered crazy democrats. Turns out she was right. It took me going to jail and having a kid to come to my senses. I told myself when in jail that I would observe both sides with no predetermined feelings and judge off of what I seen and heard for myself. I was never really a “believer” but I parroted the stupid shit. This was back in the W years. I vote for the D now but still don’t completely fit in.
I was in high school in the mid 2000's, but realized he was idiot a few years after I got out of school. Then joined the FD and realized everything he was saying about 9/11 was bullshit.
I was deep into it in college and bit after from ‘08-‘12ish.
I voted for Obama and the night he got elected my friends and I got together and celebrated. After that party died down a few of my closest friends hung around and we browsed Netflix for something to watch. That’s when we found the “documentary” Zeitgeist and in our buzzed and stoned state watched the whole thing with intrigue.
We literally got upset to our stomach as the movie essentially walks you down a path that both political parties are controlled by the same evil puppet masters. We all expressed regret for participating in the two party system and discussed ways to support 3rd party candidates (largely Ron Paul but would take any 3rd party that had a chance at winning).
I went all-in on it! I watched every Alex Jones documentary I could get my hands on, checked prison planet and info wars everyday for news, listened to the show via iTunes on my laptop, told friends and family about it. I even purchased from Info Wars, and proudly wore, a shirt that had an image of Obama wearing The Joker makeup and had “Fascist” written below.
It all ended when Alex was talking about the “FEMA Death Camps” and he published a list of locations. One of those locations was about an hour away from me. So I drove out there to check it out and it was just an oil rig. He also mentioned that a major airport near me was storing plastic coffins. I had friends that worked at that airport and it turns out it was no secret that they had large stores of emergency supplies, including coffins, because of the airports strategic location. Essentially being in the middle of the country it could deploy resources quickly to anywhere in the country and it was also isolated from natural disasters and enemy attacks. That made more logical sense to me than a conspiracy to round up people and bury them there.
I literally fell down the rabbit hole the day Obama got elected and a few months before his reelection I hopped out and voted for him a second time. It was a crazy time! I hope to hear more episodes from Dan and Jordan around this time period so I can laugh at I how crazy I was.
Although I do still hold a skepticism of the news media and politicians, I don’t blindly follow a source because it is counter to the narrative, which is essentially what Alex was doing at that time. If the media said zig, Alex said zag. If Obama wanted to make healthcare more obtainable, Alex said it was a tool to control you. He was essentially the punk rock version of news entertainment.
I was aware of him around like 2008/9. At that point in my life I knew him basically how most people did: a really passionate guy that was "exposing" stuff he found. He existed in clips that were shared around on YouTube and I honestly had a fairly neutral view on him. Yeah he'd say some wacky shit but I approved of the messaging for the most part. Then I checked out the actual show a few years later and realized it was a lot more hateful and racist than what I was presented.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowledgeFight/s/bFI410ahYa that’s my story, I got into conspiracy thinking, had a moment of clarity and voted for Obama then I quickly denounced Alex Jones, but, it was much harder for me to get rid of the socially liberal fiscally conservative mentality. I was an ardent Ron Paul supporter for a while then Gary Johnson, until I became a Larry Hogan supporter and eventual Biden voter. The vastness of the far right is easy to be allured with if you don’t understand how much we need the Government.
In middle school computer class I would finish whatever the assignment was in the first 10 min, then do the early 2000s version of doom scrolling. I ended up on infowars and being an edgy teen with the prospect of "forbidden knowledge" at my fingertips, I cannot describe the immediate excitement I felt.
That lasted for about 45 seconds, because the top "article" was his first gay frogs one, and I figured it had to be a satire site, and a pretty mid one at that with all the 9/11 articles.
Completely forgot he existed until Sandy Hook.
I discovered AJ on late night public broadcast cable. I play guitar and would be up late getting high and playing music with friends etc. I did several gigs for the Irving public broadcast channel, so I would turn it on late at night to see if I could catch myself on a rerun. That's when AJ came on seated behind a desk reading weird ass stuff about aliens and other crazy shit. I already listened to coast to coast to laugh at all the ufo conspiracies. It was fun. I remember on 911, after the crashes all happened, I'm sitting at my computer working and the thought popped in my head. "I gotta hear what Alex jones thinks about all this" lol. I listened to his whole broadcast on 911. It was hilarious. I never bought in to his schtick. I always thought it was satire until I realized some people took him seriously.
Not sure if I even belong in this conversation but no, if there was any tangential relation, it might be the patriarchal line asian parents tend to take. Fundies > AJ basically.
It's really the Dump Tiny Hands' years that really kick a lot of MAGAts and by extension AJ into my worldview. A crash course you could say.
I wouldn’t say bubble, but he’s been on my radar since the late 90s. Like you’d never confuse him for a progressive, but early Alex was more anti government. Like some of the same people listening to Rage, reading Ad Busters and so on would have a Police State VHS tape.
Until 9/11 he was mostly just a local Texas weirdo.
I was a Jones listener for almost 2 years, towards the end of the dubya bush era in my late teens. The nonsense that administration engaged in (torture, lying about Iraq wmds, clearly thirsting for another conflict with iran) really alarmed me and led me down a dumber path.
I have always considered myself a liberal, and McCain was very clear on wanting to continue those things I found repugnant, so I voted for Obama. When that entire Jones sphere shifted into claiming he was an evil Kenyan Muslim, the democrats were Satan worshipping warmongers, and it all just got blatantly racist… I thankfully snapped out of the spell that garbage had on me.
In a way I’m grateful, because I have a lot more discernment about gathering facts / not blindly listening to personalities. I definitely didn’t expect the entire Republican sphere to shift into a Jones like state, but having some personal grasp on how that tinfoil brain rot works has made it easier to counter or argue with them.
Grew up in Austin and was just the right age in the 90s to be an avid local public access TV watcher while smoking weed. Alex was a local legend but it all felt super ironic. You would just see him at the 7-11, he wasn't uber rich and syndicated all over, he was just a guy around town who ranted on public access with all the other quirky call in shows.
And back then his conspiracies (and honestly conspiracy culture as a whole) were a lot more kooky and fun than......outright fascist. He would rant about the NWO and lizard people, and more down to earth local stuff like when the APD started first using unmarked cars as spreed traps. I remember he freaked out when the police stations first got fingerprint scanners. Austin was actually still "weird" back then, so it wasn't unusual to be talking to a 50 year old liberal hippie, a 25 year old libertarian, and a 17 year old Mexican kid and all three loved Alex Jones.
Then 9-11 happened and year by year he became a global phenomenon. It's actually super surreal to see what he has become.
I used to listen to Paul Joseph Watson back in 2015, didn't really listen to Alex Jones, but had a positive opinion about him. My political compass has done a complete 180 since then though haha. People like Dan and Jordan did wonders for me unlearning the rutt I got myself in.
I used to put his show on at 1pm, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d go to lunch. Never made it more than 15 mins.
I couldn’t stand the fact that his narrative seemed to reset every day and no one would call him out on it.
No.
I was aware of him in the early 2000s and occasionally heard some of his stuff, [infowars.com](http://infowars.com) also was a site that I saw a lot getting passed around in my (surprise, surprise) left wing circles.
Yeah, back then he was pretty much Anti-Bush and the whole 9/11 stuff did appeal to quite a few lefty people.
To the best of my knowledge, most of them dropped off around 2008 or so. Basically when Obama got in and Jones pivoted on hating on Obama.
So I guess, outside of his Trump support, he was at least consistent with his hatred of the (still) most powerful person in the world.
In 2016 I think all I really knew about AJ was that he was a weird and wacky conspiracy theorist. One day I'm getting ready for work and a coworker shares the Infowars live feed on FB. I decide fuck it and let it play. I remember he ranted and raved about how this story he was going to drop was the BIGGEST STORY HE HAS EVER COVERED. He hyped it up for SO LONG! I'd say at least 40 minutes! When he finally got to it he drops this gem, "Barack Obama has umfollowed Hillary Clinton on Twitter". I absolutely lost my shit laughing.
Yes. I spent a chunk of my late teens and early twenties trolling 9/11 truther forums and YT videos. That lead me to hate-listening to Alex.
Around 2012-ish my childhood best friend started working at FSS as an audio-video producer and I got all the horror stories about the drinking and fighting.
KF came along because the depositon episodes were a big deal at my public defenders office lol
I had heard of him before but I started listening to Alex out of morbid curiosity during the run-up to the 2016 elections. (I am a non-American living in Europe). I was happy to discover knowledge fight pretty soon after the inauguration. I think I was one of their first listeners.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard of Alex Jones.
I was working as a paramedic in 2010-2012? (I can’t remember the exact year) had been doing it for a few years and therefore I spent a lot of time on the road. I worked in a very rural area. If you spend enough time driving through rural areas you’re going to hear some weird AM radio stations. I thought I had heard it all until one day…
On a Saturday my supervisor tells me to do a “standby” which means just hang out at a community event and be ready for someone to need help. Cool, I was happy to get out of the station for a while. So we drove down to an intersection where a charity motorcycle ride was going on. Now, these kind of things have a lot of downtime and I noticed a volunteer with a pretty sweet HAM radio set up. I’ve never been into HAM radio but I love hardware and was interested. I start chatting up the guy and I see his set up has an “Infowars” sticker on it. I’m just making conversation and somehow we wind up on the Iraq war. He’s spewing anti war slogans and I think “hey, this kids got it figured out” and I ask him about the inforwars sticker and his eyes light up and he tells me “you have to check out infowars man. They tell the fucking truth.”
So, I do some internet searching, start listening and my mind is blown… by how fucking stupid all this shit is. Just AM radio nonsense and dribble gussied up for the internet age. For a brief moment hearing a young, rural man opposed to the Iraq war gave me hope that maybe there was something to it, then I heard that stupid drunk fuck ranting about god knows what.
Now, I’ve been a liberal leaning guy living in rural conservative communities my whole life and after talking to this kid I thought “maybe we’re finally getting through!” My disappointment was crushing. Left leaning people missed a big opportunity in the 2010’s. We never reached out to this kid and Alex fucking Jones did.
Ever since then I’ve been keeping an eye on infowars and when I learned about Knowledge Fight I kept up with them. I’m still Facebook friends with the info wars HAM radio guy. He’s gone further and further down the hole. He’s into biblical flat earth nonsense now. It breaks my heart. I wish I had a better ending to this story, but this is the story.
Thanks for reading, I know it was long, if enough people want to hear my ramblings maybe I’ll start a sub stack or something about the insane things I heard working as a medic in the rural heartland. Anywoo, be blessed my friends and fuck Alex Jones.
Raised in hardcore fundamentalism. We watched Loose Change 9-11 "documentary" in high school circa late 00's. We had a class called worldviews and the curriculum was based on Brannon Howse aka the guy who funded and hosted all of Mike Lindell's absolute proof line of documentaries. Yes, I know Alex Jones. Yes I have a therapist.
Branch Davidian, wow deep cut. Fuck I'm old.
That was what started it all, right? Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City. Pretty soon the feds are flying black helicopters over your house and they're going to take your guns away.
I don't know if that's what started it all but thanks for reinforcing that I'm old! Ok edit, I guess WE are old.
A buddy of mine got conspiratorial circa 2007 and kept telling me about Loose Change and started whinging about The Federal Reserve and a couple other things blah blah. One day he asked me to check out Alex Jones' show to see what I thought. Within maybe three minutes I turned it off. He said, "so, what'd you think?" And I told him it was all nonsense. Jones was just yammering, never cited sources, the papers on his desk were just props, it was all nonsense. My buddy was deflated and immediately lost interest in the conspiratorial stuff and as far as I'm aware never followed Jones or InfoWars again haha. We drifted apart and stopped being friends a few years later. I don't blame him for being dissatisfied with life in the US but he kept getting drawn in by grifters and was trying to find quick, magical solutions to problems in his life. I wish the best for him but I can only imagine what he might've gotten drawn into since 2017 with the rise of Trump and alt-right fascism and grifters galore. I don't remember exactly how I got into Knowledge Fight but I know my taste for podcasting started with Oh No, Ross and Carrie! via their Scientology episodes and then I found Behind the Bastards and then Knowledge Fight and many others. Felt like therapy and like I finally found my people. Grew up surrounded by a lot of willful stupidity and had almost no one to connect with on an intellectual level. Nice to finally relate to some people with similar mindsets and outlooks on the world. Gives me hope for the future too!
Yo. Tell me more about countering the federal reserve nonsense. A best friend of mine has really fallen down this hole. Like I’m talking I was best man at his wedding. Now he won’t stop talking about how we all need to be Jeffersonian democrats. Ironically he’s in private equity which wouldn’t even be possible without the federal reserve to create a credit market.
Latest behind the bastards is all on Jefferson ! The man is the embodiment of cognitive dissonance.
On an irony scale from zero to "Paul Ryan listens to Rage Against the Machine", working in private equity while ranting about the federal reserve is pretty high.
lol it’s definitely not rational
Funny that your friend is in finance and still into Federal Reserve conspiracies. My undergraduate ECON classes got rid of any conspiratorial ideas I had about the Fed.
Yeah man. It makes no fucking sense
Brannon Howse did give me a really good laugh once. I was listening to Frank Speech and Brannon was doing a report about farmers protesting in the Netherlands (Brannon always uses these stories to pivot to an ad selling survival food), and Howse said "due to these protests all the stores in the Netherlands have empty shelves and no food". At that moment I was in Utrecht, shopping at a Jumbo, looking at shelves full of food.
Eh, the right wing media always lies. Apparently San Francisco is a total hellhole, so is Vancouver where I live (a favourite punching bag of the current Conservative leader, trying to tear strips off Trudeau with that).
I used to be a conservative evangelical (now much more progressive and open to different ideas). There was a strong undercurrent of conspiracism, like the idea that same-sex marriage was part of an intentional plot to undermine Christianity. We didn't listen to Alex, but some people were Alex-like, though we all knew who Brannon Howse was and thought he was completely unhinged. He believed that every religious group except for Jews was conspiring against authentic Christianity and the Catholic Church, Pentecostals and Charismatics, and people like Rick Warren and John Piper were all part of a conspiracy to bring theological liberalism into churches and lay the groundwork for the New World Order People like Brannon Howse and Alex are pretty out there, even for many right-wing evangelicals with conspiratorial beliefs. I once "tested" bringing up Alex and Brannon Howse talking points with my right-wing dad, and he thought I was overly credulous for even giving those ideas consideration.
I watched loose change and thought it was a solid documentary it came out around the same time as Zeitgeist and it too was decent documentary. Having a class called "World views" sounds like a noble goal provided it strikes a balance between the narratives
I don't even have time to go through the way every single part of Loose Change is terrible and/or wrong, I feel like all that needs to be said on this forum to sum it up is that one of the executive producers of Loose Change: The Final Cut is...drumroll...Alex Jones.
Which version of the film did you see? There are a lot because the director kept getting called out for misinformation and making new edits with different theories.
I watched them up to Loose Change : Final Cut. Wasn't even aware that there was more edits released
Sorry, but Loose change is a bunch of bullshit.
I haven't watched it for about 15 years but it would help if you were to point out some of the negatives before I decide to watch it again
I burned about 200 Loose Change DVDs back in High School. Handed them out to everyone between periods. I cringe at myself god damn. One of those things that I'll be like almost asleep then think about how I handed out Loose Change and an adrenaline-pumping amount of cringe will bring me right back to wakefulness. Though, honestly in the long run, I think I'm happy to have the perspective of going deep in an Alex Jones/conspiracy rabbit hole and coming out of it. My bullshit meter is A+ after that and I gained a very valuable understanding about myself.
I did the exact same thing with Zeitgeist 😆
I watched that damn thing like 50 times and I couldn’t tell you what it’s about now 😂 why did that film have so many of us in a choke hold
I watched Loose Change in college and it "changed everything" for me for a few months. And then Popular Mechanics put out an issue where they debunked most of the science aspects and it really showed me how effective that kind of propaganda can be if you don't go in with a skeptical mind set. I think a lot about the guys who did the work for that issue and hope they realize how much good they did, I'm sure debunking can seem like a thanks job pretty often.
We all have our moments, I actually bought into Loose Change for about a week myself, it happens. I said something to my cousin about it, and he gave me side eye. After that I talked to a firefighter friend of mine about it, and he opened my eyes to the reality. We are all susceptible to propaganda and conspiracy theories, if you realize that, you're much less likely to get duped.
Oh how I hate those middle of the night cringe attacks. It’s half the reason I’m such a bad sleeper, there’s A LOT of material to revisit. Shut up brain, goddamnit!
Lol yeah, I mean I'd have enough material to have bad sleep even if I didn't spend 10 years in the Alex/Conspiracy sphere and proselytizing for him.
Don't feel cringe about spreading that message Cheney and "W" haven't lost a nights sleep about the horror that they unleashed, the thousands dead and the billions wasted
I got into Loose Change,Alex Jones, Zeitgeist, etc pretty hard when I was 13-16.but as entertainment. I had some friends and friends siblings who believed it all. I knew one person that actually bought the DVDs and VHS tapes. The difference is I was in it fully knowing it was complete bullshit. I loved at as it was amazing story telling in a way.
✋ I was a Glenn Beck listener around '08 -> tea party -> infowars/libertarianism/full-blown conspiracy theories I can't remember exactly when I gave it up but I think it was around 2013/2014. The pivot to hard supplement grifting shook me out of it; supermale vitality, iodine, etc. Listening to Knowledge Fight has been part of my recovery. I'm rubbing my own nose in my mistake.
Sending empathy fellow wonk.
>I'm rubbing my own nose in my mistake. Nah, it's more like you're cleaning up a broken dish. Not a punishment, but a reorientation <3
>I can't remember exactly when I gave it up but I think it was around 2013/2014. The pivot to hard supplement grifting shook me out of it; supermale vitality, iodine, etc. His supplements are so overpriced I'm surprised he makes so much money from them. But then I guess having an audience of millions coming and going he only needs maybe a few hundred "whales" to bring in the big bucks with that stuff. A buddy of mine was buying seaweed this and supplement that from other grifters in the late 2000's. Some other friends got roped in by the "fluoride" conspiracy stuff about the same time too so they were buying enormously overpriced fluoride-free toothpaste and lots of bottled water.
Pete Santilli is an Alex Jones wannabe who sometimes hosts on Info Wars. I was watching his Rumble channel one day, and he got so mad at someone in the chat who mentioned making Cardio Miracle at home because he couldn't afford buying it from Pete.
Was that back in Becks days of using a white board to connect his theories? I used to watch him too but strictly for entertainment
Great stuff, thanks. It's important to push back against hate/conspiracy. But we also need to be very welcoming to decent people who make the positive decision to take the off-ramp.
My ex started watching IW during his mental break. He got SUPER into prepping and keeping big knives and a shotgun in our apt he tried to force me to listen to episodes and was sure Ron Paul would be the next president (this was 2012). I think that's where he heard about Waking Life and decided we had to watch it. He talked that night about "getting to the next life" and when I woke up there was a shotgun propped up next to the bed. I then had a boss a couple years later who was super into Alex to the point that he was watching IW in the conference room and trying to warn me privately to prepare for societal collapse.
Jesus, remember when the entire comments sections of every site was choked with "Ron Paul 2012"?
My ex was the only person I knew who ever talked about him, which was enough to make me terrified of what a Ron Paul presidency would look like. Lol
Luckily you were smart enough to make him an ex :)
Waking Life was a real good movie tho
Probably better to watch it when your partner's schizophrenia isn't beginning to manifest, maybe I'll revisit it sometime lol
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the movie is people talking absolute nonsense uninterrupted for several minutes at a time, but I still find it a fun experience. A few years later Linklater made A Scanner Darkly using the same rotoscoped style, and that's a really underrated film too, in my opinion.
Wait, did your ex khs while you were in bed?
No, but it seems like the plan was for us both so I left that day.
I think the most surreal thing to me during that period was finding out that the singer for the original Pokémon theme song supported Ron Paul & made a parody song for his campaign. 😳 Not a fan of the message, but it is admittedly a banger. https://youtu.be/guLEUhIgRAI?si=r1XNCglLyAqQelXZ
I’ve always hated the right wing radio jackasses. Finding a podcast about one of the worst of them was amazing.
Me too! I have a family member that let his 8 year old listen to Alex Jones. I couldn't believe it.
Well it is a family show.
Same^ My father was addicted to this shit, so when I found a podcast by two seemingly authentic comedians. Just trying to make sense of shit and somehow can mock the absurdity with a “high road” approach? I was all in! Unfortunately for my father, he’s deeper than ever before into the right-wing shit, but now I can just roll my eyes and sometimes laugh.
This is the same for me and my right-wing parents. Thankfully they've stopped sending me Glenn Beck and Dinesh D'Souza books, or floating their latest doom and gloom prophecy when we chat, but I know they're still swimming in this nonsense.
Yeah, after being aware of Alex Jones through the memes, the first being the "turning the frogs gay", being told by a friend that there was a podcast that covered him and every episode he did where they debunk it and make fun of him was like a dealer giving you the first hit for free. I've binged every single episode of the depositions and related, and am now working on going back through the back catalogue starting from Jan 6, 2021.
No, I was a baby dittohead though and wish the guys would cover Limbaugh.
He's thankfully been covered. By several hundred pounds of dirt.
Yeah but it isn't like they would be lacking for a extensive archive
Is Limbaugh's show online somewhere? Back in the day I know he was REALLY careful not to let it out anywhere for free.
“Because i’m a capitalist” was his reason he would say. Dude was such a blowhard
Blow? I thought he was into Oxy, like all those people he wanted to have executed.
[https://archive.org/details/rush-limbaugh-radio-show](https://archive.org/details/rush-limbaugh-radio-show) [https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/archives/](https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/archives/) Seems to be out there
It's amazing how any trace of him has vanished. There's no Limbaugh quotes running around and none of the grifters or former ditto heads ever bring him up. He contributed nothing but shit and he's as easily forgotten.
Fortunately Limbaugh was never directly a part of my life. I remember hearing about him though and plenty of his garbage permeated the culture. I remember seeing him parodied on The Simpsons especially. fox news though...my Dad watched that crap for hours everyday. I went along for awhile 'cause I took after my Dad in many ways, we both watched lots of TV together. Some good stuff like Star Trek and the aforementioned Simpsons. Some bad stuff like Cops and fox news. Moving out on my own in 2007 eliminated a lot of bad media from my life.
We all watched Cops back in the day, unfortunately. I do remember feeling like Charlie Brown, always hoping the "criminal" would get away this time...
I always hated him, but I used to listen a couple of times a week just to keep up with their latest talking points.
You've probably heard them, but if not, there are two great episodes of *Behind the Bastards* where Robert Evans has none other than Paul F. Thompkins on to learn all about Rush Limbaugh. I read both Limbaugh's books, listened to his radio show, and even watched his TV show when I was in high school back in the 1900s, and I still learned a lot. I \*would\* watch some of the Youtube critics like Maggie Mae Fish or the Skip Rewind guy go through episodes of his short-lived Rush Limbaugh TV show, which I have only vague memories of now. But that's 30-year-old content at this point, and I have no idea if there's much there to justify the work other than "this right-wing radio guy tried to be shocking on TV, but it didn't really work for him." [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-rush-limbaugh-episodes-79392356/](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-rush-limbaugh-episodes-79392356/)
Same. I grew up on him and the local talk radio shows. I continued listening through college and a few years later because I had a long commute. My radio stopped working for a few months and that broke the cycle for me. Very glad it did because I could easily have gone deeper. Would be interesting to hear some Rush breakdowns because he was a different style of liar
Got into Jones land because I was so disturbed by the w Bush administration, always found Limbaugh to be repugnant. When dubya went away, it really jumped out to me how closely Jones’ talking points matched rush and every other standard right wing radio host. Made it easier to get my head on straight and bounce.
The right-wing AM radio I listened to as a teenager makes me cringe hard now; sometimes I forget that Limbaugh was arguably not the worst influence on my radio dial. My local AM station carried G. Gordon Liddy every day for years. I knew he was a conservative gun nut, but I considered myself a conservative gun enthusiast, so that didn't seem so bad. I had no context for who he was or why it might seem wild to me later on that he was a popular radio host.
Alex Jones came up between a coworker and I and he mentioned that he used to listen to Jones unironically. I told him about Knowledge Fight and he’s a regular listener now. Though he did mention in passing once that he sometimes listened to Ben Shapiro. And he’s brought up things that the toxic masculine crowd bring up. Like how “video games are purposefully making women characters ugly now,” and shit like that. I don’t want to come at him outright and make things awkward at work, but I try to make jokes and hint at how absurd some of that stuff is. I’m hoping he can see some of those viewpoints when brought up by Dan because Dan, and Jordan, are a million times better than me at putting those feelings and viewpoints into words. And when growing up my dad listened to Rush Limbaugh. Mainly because he commuted like, an hour to work and home every day and liked talk radio. He’s a lot more left-leaning now thankfully and has avoided that boomer mentality a lot of older folks have. I think the worst thing I did was frequent 4chan back in high school. I’m glad I got out of that when I did and avoided the whole red/black/whatever pill shit.
Keep up the good work with the coworker. Ive found that the way you're approaching it is the only way that really works. Just mock their ideas and point out the hypocrisy, and let them come to their own conclusion. If you try fighting it, they dig in deeper.
When I was the assistant manager of a Deep Underground Military Base Alex got piped over the PA and it used to drive the mole children bonkers. This, in turn, would stir up the Nordic Greys who I can tell you are simply a gaggle of assholes on their best days. Alex Jones is nothing but trouble in my book.
I was sorta in the right wing radio bubble. I grew up overhearing Rush Limbaugh (congrats on the continued sobriety!) and Michael Savage from my dad's radio all the time. I then went into the military, where Fox News is on in every waiting room. What really saved me was going overseas and getting to know the locals. I wasn't really politically inclined even a little bit until Tangerine Hitler rode down that escalator. I haven't always been on the right side of history, but I'm glad that I got that one right.
First time I ever heard Alex was 2005 or so and it’s hard to explain. It was obvious the dude is full of shit and says insane things but I’d get stoned and listen and he was extremely fucking entertaining. This was also Bush era Alex so teenage me agreed with some of what he said about the torture programs and the Patriot Act and whatnot (still do, but current Alex wouldn’t agree with himself anymore).
Yeah pretty much this. The Bush administration was so obviously corrupt, and Alex called out Republicans as aggressively as Democrats. He's so transparently full of shit though, his schtick didn't really resonate past my angsty 20's
I think I read a few articles back in the day, when I was casting about desperately for better information about the wars. Iraq was so obviously predicted on bullshit and mainstream media was repeating administration talking points uncritically. There were probably a few months where I was reading articles on infowars. Didn't take long to see that they were also full of shit.
I never agreed with him but I used to watch him pretty regularly because I thought it was hilarious. Over time it started to weigh on me that people actually bought into it and it kinda faded out. Kf gives me a far more enjoyable way to laugh at the ridiculousness.
Same. I was actually listening when that whole Charlie Sheen craziness happened.
Yeah I was watching him in the early obama years so it was all birtherism and secret Muslims haha
I only knew of Alex Jones because of the Sandy Hook denial nonsense. Then I watched the AJ documentary on HBO a few months ago and was absolutely horrified that such a goofy ass blow hard even existing, let alone thrives as a grifter. Today I listened to my first knowledge Fight episode and I feel like I’ve found my people.
I recommend going back and listening to episode 641: Formulaic Objections Part 4. Specifically that one (you don't really need the first 3 for context if you're at all familiar with the trial). It's long, but it's worth it. You'll get a far funnier angle on the trial than presented in the HBO doc. There's actual recordings of Alex's depositions from after the default verdict. The plaintiff's attorney knows he already won, and has about had it with Alex's bullshit. It's comedy gold.
I watched a peak oil documentary in 2011, then youtube recommended me endgame and the Obama deception. Watched infowars for about a year in college. Got into libertarianism. But Sam Seder and Micheal Brooks pulled me out of that delusion.
I was gonna chime in and say the closest I got was reading about Peak Oil on very badly made websites in 2005. I find it pretty funny to hear that people were still falling down that rabbit hole in 2011. I believed it because that was around the time I had to trade in my pickup cause it was getting 15 miles per gallon, and bought a Scion that could get 30mpg. Right after Katrina when all the refineries shut down, we saw gas go from $1.50 to nearly $5 almost overnight. A friend pointed me to the peak oil stuff and for a couple of months, I was pretty sure that society was gonna grind to a halt as the oil became more expensive to extract. The oil companies always know how to innovate and they found ways of getting that oil out of the ground. Looking back 2 decades, it would have been the best possible thing for our society. We probably could have dealt with oil running out much easier than saying we have to choose to not use what's available.
Yes. 2003-2010. Sad, bad times.
In the early 2000s, I was pirating all my content off of usenet, and I really enjoy documentaries. Some guy started flooding a bunch of Alex Jones documentaries and I watched for a hot minute. But honestly, the laziness was noticeable and really turned me off.
I was raised conservative and in my last year of high school/first year of college, I began watching some shitheads such as Gavin McIness. I think a big turning point for me was when McIness gave Alex a shout out so I checked out an episode of InfoWars. I remember just being confused and immediately knowing he was talking indecipherable bullshit. I think that was actually one of the moments where I began to pull away from the right-wing sphere and have thankfully drifted very far from that mindset over the subsequent years. I think Alex Jones made me a leftist?
I remember searching for something to listen to on my overnight Walmart job back in 2000 or so and happening across Alex. He was going on about Bohemian Grove and I found it boring so I tuned away and never went back. Didn't listen to any Alex until discovering Knowledge Fight in about 2018.
I was (and still am) in a band called the Alex Jonestown Massacre for several years before getting into knowledge fight. Figured this was required listening to stay in the band
Hey your band fucking rips! Love it
I'm sorry, but I do not understand those of you that say you used to listen to him cause you found him funny. It reminds me of a "reasonable conservative" friend I had who tried to convince me that Joe Arpaio speaking at a republican event was funny. Even after I reminded him of all the shitty things he had done, "yeah, but the shit he says is funny." Sure, unless you happen to be part of the group he's speaking about, and getting applause for disparaging. I get that it's "used to" and not "currently do", but damn it's disheartening.
If humor is to those who understand it, your friend seems to hardly be a friend. Maybe not just understand but rather at minimum accept that it is part of their worldview. That framing was where I came from I think.
I was aware of the memes but didn't get to really know how much of a piece of shit he is (or how much influence he has) until the Behind the Bastards episodes, which introduced me to Knowledge Fight.
Never listened to Infowars, but I was really into Ron Paul in 2008. I didn't think any of the other candidates were sufficiently opposed to the Iraq War or the Patriot Act, and that led me to have a huge blind spot where I was willing to overlook a lot of Paul's more unsavory views. Plus I leaned more Libertarian at the time, and so I supported some of his fiscal policies to begin with.
My brother is hardcore into Alex Jones. Been dealing with this insufferable piece of shit for what feels like decades.
Aye.
Not a bubble per se. I listen to cog dis and they covered a few articles that alex was involved in, so i started raw dogging alex. I love a good train wreck and boy, is he a doozie of a head case.
I never listened full time to him but I’ve been aware of him since the early 2000’s. I think it was 9/11 that put him on my radar but honestly I don’t fully remember. I just he has been an ongoing joke between my friends and I for decades.
I listened to him on and off since Waking Life... 2001
Was always a little left, but met a guy who was super hardcore left and got me into Infowars / Alex Jones. I was a few years out of university and probably should have been able to see through Alex's BS, but my initial impression was that he is a little unhinged but made some good points. This was 2007 or so, still early days of the Internet, so the conspiranoia/grifter playbook wasn't obvious yet. I think Alex more clearly aligned with the far right years later, at this stage his political alignment wasn't clear.. he was on about Bilderberg group, MK Ultra, the elite cabal (the term globalist wasn't really used back then). I caught on pretty quickly that he was a lying goofball and that was it.
I remember Alex from the mid 90's when I was in college and finally got the internet. I was all in on the Loose Change/ David Icke downloads from my friend in Computer Programming, who had way more access with high download speeds. It was fun to believe in bullshit for a while. I moved onto listening to Opie and Anthony and Alex would pop on there once in a while. That's when I realized what he really was.
Back in the day yes, in the later 2000s when conspiracy theories were still cool. 😅 I actually got pretty deep into 9-11 for a while, it started to drive me mad. There's never any resolution, never any real answers just more questions and you just go deeper and deeper. Eventually I realized I just had to stop. Looking back at it now it's so ridiculous, but I was all in.
Parents used to listen to Rush on the radio. Grew up Catholic and as a teen I was a "skeptic". I was super excited to register as a Republican...... Well now I'm socialist so that was a hell of a leap lol
The first time I ever saw and heard [Alex Jones](https://youtu.be/zVz8-W6EWOI?si=R-Vl8yRO7aO3FA0a) was from a 2001 rotoscoped animated arthouse film called "Waking Life", where the protagonist walks through surrealistic dreams from scene to scene, each a meta discussion of the various profound complexities of life and the conscious awareness of it all. You barely even recognize Jones because his rant fits perfectly into the movie's notably diverse cast of cameos. That was probably the first and last time he was surprisingly coherent.
I wasn’t in the bubble really, but I’m in my mid 40’s and a friend of mine exposed me to him when he did the video sneaking into Bohemian Grove. I didn’t really buy what he was selling, but I thought it was pretty cool he snuck in and got footage.
> sneaking into Bohemian Grove Those old days were so tame. Now those SF elites have this secret thing in the desert called burning man, where they have massive drug orgies and then burn a man. AJ is going to expose it any day now. s/ Did that need the s/ ?
Not among us friend :)
I live in Belfast so we had enough conspiracy theories of our own knocking around but it was Jon Ronson's "Secret rulers of the world" series (2001) that introduced me to Alex. Back then I thought his theories about the Kennedy assassination, Gulf of Tonkin and 9/11 were sound especially after "W" nipped the POTUS and was fully erect for an invasion of Iraq & Afghan based on faulty intelligence. I thought his rebuilding of the church at WACO was a decent project after the Feds ....you know the rest. Back then he was standing up for the people until he morphed into an ideological purity test of bigotry and hatred denouncing those that wanted gun control and became an outright member of the cult of Trump Maybe it was the substance abuse that changed him, perhaps he saw it as a quick way to make millions but his change was notable even before Sandy Hook when Obama won in 2008 Barrack made Alex take off his mask and show everyone the utter racist piece of trash that was always there
I was in the bubble pretty hard from 2017-2021. Having grown up in somewhat of a fundamentalist, anti-government home, the ideas seemed to mesh pretty well with the indoctrination that I grew up with.
My introduction to Jones was pretty different than a lot of stories here. I was firmly into anarchism in the early 00s, Bush had basically stolen the 2000, war on terror was creating massive police state infrastructure aided by new federal policies that were quickly eroding civil liberties. I had friends who dipped their toes into Jones’ work and I saw them quickly abandon a structural understanding of what’s going on to a conspiratorial vision that blamed shadowy actors. My general concern wasn’t jones aaa a right wing reactionary hiding behind legitimate critiques of the growing power of the state but rather his analysis wouldn’t be useful in identifying what was needed to be overcome for a better world. Most of the people I know that got really into Jones ditched left wing anarchism and became reactionary libertarians. Dan has pointed in out many times before but there was a period where Jones had appeal to the far left. I think it was mostly due to a willingness to critique state formation in a very easy to digest language whereas most other critiques at that time were buried in academic language plus his content was much more widely available than most other heterodox stuff. I remember getting my first printed copy of endnotes and a buddy borrowed it, returned the next day and told me it was too boring and stuffy, these jones videos is where it’s at. Anyhow, for all of your that climbed out of the jones hole. Kudos, he might go on and on about loving humanity but remember, he deeply hates more than half of us!
Never listened to AJ before KF. I was familiar with him because of 9/11 conspiracy theories, but never got into him. I was intereseted in those theories at the time (I was a teenager), but when it turned into "what about the jeeeews", I bailed out. My mom used to listen to our local versions of radio right-wingers. My parents are pretty typical boomer liberals (white savior and what not), so that's kinda weird to me. I'm from Québec, so we have our own right-wing grifting subculture. She would listen to AM talk radio : André Arthur, who is kind of a Rush Limbaugh emulator, and Doc Mailloux, who I don't think has an american counterpart. He would get calls from SAH moms / retirees and blast them, mostly. Everything was women's fault. Very misogynic and hateful. I remember listening in with her and thinking they were mean and bad people. So I never got into that stuff. Still, KF has changed my life. Opened my eyes to a lot of things. Seeing the boys live was an amazing experience.
I first heard of him way back in like ‘99, 2000. I was delivering mail and plowing driveways in the winter. I saw an infowars sticker and looked it up when I got back home. I’m like, this is all stupid. And when I worked at night, I preferred talk radio, and while AJ didn’t air in Cleveland (that I know of) there was a local college DJ that I think got a lot of his news from him or his sources. He used a folk singer as his opener/closer, and all I remember is the line “The Federal Reserve isn’t federal at all, it’s just criminal” He also played a lot of old punk rock. I distinctly remember him yelling about CHIMERAS?!? and rolling my eyes
I did “loose change” and a few 9/11 big pharma conspiracy videos here and there but always from an anti-authority/capitalism/empire left wing side… I’ve only met right wing people as I’ve gotten older. Had a friend go from hippie mum, open minded, listened to JRE for a few years and became a full blown Jordan Peterson/ben Shapiro “makes some Good points”… needless to say we don’t talk anymore.
I was never into alex. I did watch him spawn though. I did hear him say EU did 9/11. When all that crazy shit was going down like the towers, I made a mental note to come back and talk shit to this douche bag. That was kind of my induction into the pod. Oh yeah fuck alex jones right? Right.
Since 96 or 97.
Oh yeah. Big time listener from 2015-2018ish
I dated a casual infowarrior around 2006-9 she would show me loose change and shit and made me vaguely aware of Alex jones. Mainly I remember how it was annoying to watch movies with her she was big into the ‘predictive programming’ meme. I never took it seriously.
Im not an american and the only reference to alex Jones i had in my life was that he was that moronic 9/11 guy. Up until sandyhook and the defamation trial.
Not in the bubble, but I was a casual listener. I was a Coast to Coast AM listener. Alex was one of the more interesting guests on the show at the time. He was very cleverly emphasizing the elements of his ideology that a Coast listener might be receptive to: anti-authoritarianism, the police state, PATRIOT Act, black sites, coverups, etc. Also a great venue to talk about Bohemian Grove. As others have said, the Bush administration was so obviously corrupt that even a grifter like Alex could make some legitimate points at the time.
Oh yeah. Probably found Alex around 2009/2010. Would download his show to my ipod to listen to and laugh at. I used to post in the InfoWars FB for years before KF, saying how dumb Alex’s ideas were. Then i just went to straight trolling InfoWars after Sandy Hook. I found KF because of my hate for Alex.
Never directly, but I’d see him from time to time doing stuff. I was a pretty big conspiracy theorist from about 07-12 mostly from getting my mind blown on the Zeitgeist movies. The biggest thing that sticks out is his appearance in the first one talking about the North American currency and RFID chips.
I was never a fan, but I did listen to him a bit before learning about Knowledge Fight as a request from somebody to give him a chance. It was late 2020 and early 2021, so it was mostly election and vaccine bs.
I used to be conspiratorial, but more youtube and forum based. Alex jones seems insufferable even for dumb past me.
I was in the Dubbya years. Maybe like 2006-2008. I remember seeing him on Waking Life. Then the very next day, and I do mean very next day, after Obama was elected, he pivoted to saying Obama was the antichrist....and that's when i realized he was a charlatan and a grifter.
I dabbled as a younger man. Raised in the south and knowing nothing but “cheating “ democrats from the people that raised you. It’s funny cause one of my good friends at the time always told me deep down that’s not who I was. They were at the time what I considered crazy democrats. Turns out she was right. It took me going to jail and having a kid to come to my senses. I told myself when in jail that I would observe both sides with no predetermined feelings and judge off of what I seen and heard for myself. I was never really a “believer” but I parroted the stupid shit. This was back in the W years. I vote for the D now but still don’t completely fit in.
I was in high school in the mid 2000's, but realized he was idiot a few years after I got out of school. Then joined the FD and realized everything he was saying about 9/11 was bullshit.
I was deep into it in college and bit after from ‘08-‘12ish. I voted for Obama and the night he got elected my friends and I got together and celebrated. After that party died down a few of my closest friends hung around and we browsed Netflix for something to watch. That’s when we found the “documentary” Zeitgeist and in our buzzed and stoned state watched the whole thing with intrigue. We literally got upset to our stomach as the movie essentially walks you down a path that both political parties are controlled by the same evil puppet masters. We all expressed regret for participating in the two party system and discussed ways to support 3rd party candidates (largely Ron Paul but would take any 3rd party that had a chance at winning). I went all-in on it! I watched every Alex Jones documentary I could get my hands on, checked prison planet and info wars everyday for news, listened to the show via iTunes on my laptop, told friends and family about it. I even purchased from Info Wars, and proudly wore, a shirt that had an image of Obama wearing The Joker makeup and had “Fascist” written below. It all ended when Alex was talking about the “FEMA Death Camps” and he published a list of locations. One of those locations was about an hour away from me. So I drove out there to check it out and it was just an oil rig. He also mentioned that a major airport near me was storing plastic coffins. I had friends that worked at that airport and it turns out it was no secret that they had large stores of emergency supplies, including coffins, because of the airports strategic location. Essentially being in the middle of the country it could deploy resources quickly to anywhere in the country and it was also isolated from natural disasters and enemy attacks. That made more logical sense to me than a conspiracy to round up people and bury them there. I literally fell down the rabbit hole the day Obama got elected and a few months before his reelection I hopped out and voted for him a second time. It was a crazy time! I hope to hear more episodes from Dan and Jordan around this time period so I can laugh at I how crazy I was. Although I do still hold a skepticism of the news media and politicians, I don’t blindly follow a source because it is counter to the narrative, which is essentially what Alex was doing at that time. If the media said zig, Alex said zag. If Obama wanted to make healthcare more obtainable, Alex said it was a tool to control you. He was essentially the punk rock version of news entertainment.
I learned about AJ from the old James Randy educational forum back in the wake of 9/11. That was a great forum.
Listened around 2008-09 on the radio. But like listening to coast to coast am. Then my friend said he was on to some stuff and I was like what?
No, I was raised with Rush Limbaugh though. I was out of my parents house and growing beyond conspiracy theories by the time Alex got big.
I was aware of him around like 2008/9. At that point in my life I knew him basically how most people did: a really passionate guy that was "exposing" stuff he found. He existed in clips that were shared around on YouTube and I honestly had a fairly neutral view on him. Yeah he'd say some wacky shit but I approved of the messaging for the most part. Then I checked out the actual show a few years later and realized it was a lot more hateful and racist than what I was presented.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowledgeFight/s/bFI410ahYa that’s my story, I got into conspiracy thinking, had a moment of clarity and voted for Obama then I quickly denounced Alex Jones, but, it was much harder for me to get rid of the socially liberal fiscally conservative mentality. I was an ardent Ron Paul supporter for a while then Gary Johnson, until I became a Larry Hogan supporter and eventual Biden voter. The vastness of the far right is easy to be allured with if you don’t understand how much we need the Government.
In middle school computer class I would finish whatever the assignment was in the first 10 min, then do the early 2000s version of doom scrolling. I ended up on infowars and being an edgy teen with the prospect of "forbidden knowledge" at my fingertips, I cannot describe the immediate excitement I felt. That lasted for about 45 seconds, because the top "article" was his first gay frogs one, and I figured it had to be a satire site, and a pretty mid one at that with all the 9/11 articles. Completely forgot he existed until Sandy Hook.
I discovered AJ on late night public broadcast cable. I play guitar and would be up late getting high and playing music with friends etc. I did several gigs for the Irving public broadcast channel, so I would turn it on late at night to see if I could catch myself on a rerun. That's when AJ came on seated behind a desk reading weird ass stuff about aliens and other crazy shit. I already listened to coast to coast to laugh at all the ufo conspiracies. It was fun. I remember on 911, after the crashes all happened, I'm sitting at my computer working and the thought popped in my head. "I gotta hear what Alex jones thinks about all this" lol. I listened to his whole broadcast on 911. It was hilarious. I never bought in to his schtick. I always thought it was satire until I realized some people took him seriously.
Not sure if I even belong in this conversation but no, if there was any tangential relation, it might be the patriarchal line asian parents tend to take. Fundies > AJ basically. It's really the Dump Tiny Hands' years that really kick a lot of MAGAts and by extension AJ into my worldview. A crash course you could say.
I wouldn’t say bubble, but he’s been on my radar since the late 90s. Like you’d never confuse him for a progressive, but early Alex was more anti government. Like some of the same people listening to Rage, reading Ad Busters and so on would have a Police State VHS tape. Until 9/11 he was mostly just a local Texas weirdo.
I was a Jones listener for almost 2 years, towards the end of the dubya bush era in my late teens. The nonsense that administration engaged in (torture, lying about Iraq wmds, clearly thirsting for another conflict with iran) really alarmed me and led me down a dumber path. I have always considered myself a liberal, and McCain was very clear on wanting to continue those things I found repugnant, so I voted for Obama. When that entire Jones sphere shifted into claiming he was an evil Kenyan Muslim, the democrats were Satan worshipping warmongers, and it all just got blatantly racist… I thankfully snapped out of the spell that garbage had on me. In a way I’m grateful, because I have a lot more discernment about gathering facts / not blindly listening to personalities. I definitely didn’t expect the entire Republican sphere to shift into a Jones like state, but having some personal grasp on how that tinfoil brain rot works has made it easier to counter or argue with them.
I was borderline AJ around 2000, because WTC seemed so cooked. But I fell out soon after.
No but I was handed a copy of "Behold a Pale Horse" at an age where I was extremely impressionable
Grew up in Austin and was just the right age in the 90s to be an avid local public access TV watcher while smoking weed. Alex was a local legend but it all felt super ironic. You would just see him at the 7-11, he wasn't uber rich and syndicated all over, he was just a guy around town who ranted on public access with all the other quirky call in shows. And back then his conspiracies (and honestly conspiracy culture as a whole) were a lot more kooky and fun than......outright fascist. He would rant about the NWO and lizard people, and more down to earth local stuff like when the APD started first using unmarked cars as spreed traps. I remember he freaked out when the police stations first got fingerprint scanners. Austin was actually still "weird" back then, so it wasn't unusual to be talking to a 50 year old liberal hippie, a 25 year old libertarian, and a 17 year old Mexican kid and all three loved Alex Jones. Then 9-11 happened and year by year he became a global phenomenon. It's actually super surreal to see what he has become.
I used to listen to Paul Joseph Watson back in 2015, didn't really listen to Alex Jones, but had a positive opinion about him. My political compass has done a complete 180 since then though haha. People like Dan and Jordan did wonders for me unlearning the rutt I got myself in.
I used to put his show on at 1pm, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d go to lunch. Never made it more than 15 mins. I couldn’t stand the fact that his narrative seemed to reset every day and no one would call him out on it.
No. I was aware of him in the early 2000s and occasionally heard some of his stuff, [infowars.com](http://infowars.com) also was a site that I saw a lot getting passed around in my (surprise, surprise) left wing circles. Yeah, back then he was pretty much Anti-Bush and the whole 9/11 stuff did appeal to quite a few lefty people. To the best of my knowledge, most of them dropped off around 2008 or so. Basically when Obama got in and Jones pivoted on hating on Obama. So I guess, outside of his Trump support, he was at least consistent with his hatred of the (still) most powerful person in the world.
The only things I really knew about him were the Sandy Hook stuff and the gay frogs clip.
In 2016 I think all I really knew about AJ was that he was a weird and wacky conspiracy theorist. One day I'm getting ready for work and a coworker shares the Infowars live feed on FB. I decide fuck it and let it play. I remember he ranted and raved about how this story he was going to drop was the BIGGEST STORY HE HAS EVER COVERED. He hyped it up for SO LONG! I'd say at least 40 minutes! When he finally got to it he drops this gem, "Barack Obama has umfollowed Hillary Clinton on Twitter". I absolutely lost my shit laughing.
Yes. I spent a chunk of my late teens and early twenties trolling 9/11 truther forums and YT videos. That lead me to hate-listening to Alex. Around 2012-ish my childhood best friend started working at FSS as an audio-video producer and I got all the horror stories about the drinking and fighting. KF came along because the depositon episodes were a big deal at my public defenders office lol
I had heard of him before but I started listening to Alex out of morbid curiosity during the run-up to the 2016 elections. (I am a non-American living in Europe). I was happy to discover knowledge fight pretty soon after the inauguration. I think I was one of their first listeners.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard of Alex Jones. I was working as a paramedic in 2010-2012? (I can’t remember the exact year) had been doing it for a few years and therefore I spent a lot of time on the road. I worked in a very rural area. If you spend enough time driving through rural areas you’re going to hear some weird AM radio stations. I thought I had heard it all until one day… On a Saturday my supervisor tells me to do a “standby” which means just hang out at a community event and be ready for someone to need help. Cool, I was happy to get out of the station for a while. So we drove down to an intersection where a charity motorcycle ride was going on. Now, these kind of things have a lot of downtime and I noticed a volunteer with a pretty sweet HAM radio set up. I’ve never been into HAM radio but I love hardware and was interested. I start chatting up the guy and I see his set up has an “Infowars” sticker on it. I’m just making conversation and somehow we wind up on the Iraq war. He’s spewing anti war slogans and I think “hey, this kids got it figured out” and I ask him about the inforwars sticker and his eyes light up and he tells me “you have to check out infowars man. They tell the fucking truth.” So, I do some internet searching, start listening and my mind is blown… by how fucking stupid all this shit is. Just AM radio nonsense and dribble gussied up for the internet age. For a brief moment hearing a young, rural man opposed to the Iraq war gave me hope that maybe there was something to it, then I heard that stupid drunk fuck ranting about god knows what. Now, I’ve been a liberal leaning guy living in rural conservative communities my whole life and after talking to this kid I thought “maybe we’re finally getting through!” My disappointment was crushing. Left leaning people missed a big opportunity in the 2010’s. We never reached out to this kid and Alex fucking Jones did. Ever since then I’ve been keeping an eye on infowars and when I learned about Knowledge Fight I kept up with them. I’m still Facebook friends with the info wars HAM radio guy. He’s gone further and further down the hole. He’s into biblical flat earth nonsense now. It breaks my heart. I wish I had a better ending to this story, but this is the story. Thanks for reading, I know it was long, if enough people want to hear my ramblings maybe I’ll start a sub stack or something about the insane things I heard working as a medic in the rural heartland. Anywoo, be blessed my friends and fuck Alex Jones.