Insight into Infowars, Alex Jones

[JFDee]

Longer piece in the NY Times Magazine by a former video editor for Infowars, including some graphic details further in.

But it wasn’t the politics that initially drew me in. Jones had a way of imbuing the world with mystery, adding a layer of cinematic verisimilitude that caught my attention. Suddenly, I was no longer a bored kid attending an overpriced art school. I was Fox Mulder combing through the X-Files, Rod Serling opening a door to the Twilight Zone, even Rosemary Woodhouse convinced that the neighbors were members of a ritualistic cult. I believed that the world was strategically run by a shadowy, organized cabal, and that Jones was a hero for exposing it.

Content from external source

I had my limits. I can’t say I ever believed his avowed theory that Sandy Hook was a staged event to push for gun control; to Jones, everything was a “false flag.” I didn’t believe that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama smelled like sulfur because of their proximity to hell or that Planned Parenthood was run by “Nazi baby killers.” But it was easy to brush off these fever dreams as eccentricities and excesses — not the heart of the Alex Jones operation but mere diversions.

Once I started working there, however, it became obvious that one was impossible to separate one from the other.

Content from external source

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infowars.html

 

[Mick West]

Interesting. He'd be a great guy to be on my podcast. Does anyone happen to know contact information for him?

 

[Jeremy]

I hate to admit it, but there was a time I used to listen to this guy. I eventually pulled away from conspiracy culture in general, but it's astonishing (not to mention sad) how he's now fine with nearly everything he once railed against during the Bush and Obama years, especially government authoritarianism and regime-change war. On the other hand, if one believes Kurt Nimmo, he's always been in it for the money.

Still, I wonder how Jones squares his anti-Muslim views and belief in "white genocide" with being pals with Louis Farrakhan?

 

[ump]

Interesting. He'd be a great guy to be on my podcast. Does anyone happen to know contact information for him?

I'd have thought the NYT would be happy to pass on a message from you. At least if you include references like this

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...-help-someone-climb-out-the-qanon-rabbit-hole

..To show that you're "respectable" (and a potentially useful source...)

 

[BlueGlass]

I still find Alex Jones extremely entertaining. I liked watching him on Joe Rogan's podcast the first two times. To me, he is like something that might show up on the interdimensional TV from Rick and Morty, like a weird cartoon chock full of spot on satire... Except the upsetting part is that it's not satire.