DLUTI 002 - ERR*TAS

Don’t Look Under The Internet
Episode Two

ERRATAS


[intro music plays]


[voices fade in as music fades out]


Doug: Alright, should we, should we record?

Jason: I’m already recording.

Mike: Oh, no.

Jason: Whenever you guys wanna go.

Mike: Alright, raw

Jason: B Roll

Doug: Raw-dogging it.

Mike: Alright, so, let’s start again with hello, it’s me, Mario, and my cousin…Shemp. I collect-a coin.

[laughter]

Mike: He collect your wallet.

Doug: He poke you in eyehole. These are my eyeholes.

Mike: Welcome back to Don’t Look Under The Internet, everybody. Our last topic was pretty fun. We found one that -- when you guys told me about it, sounded fucking awesome to me. Anybody, who want -- who wants --

Doug: Have you heard from Jason? Lately?

Mike: Oh, shit. I honestly kind of forgot he existed.

Doug: There’s three of us, but --

Mike: Well, no, there’s two of us right now..

Doug: Well, that’s what I'm saying. There’s three of us, but there’s only two of us currently.

Mike: Ooohhh.

Jason: [imitating phone ringing] RING RING, RING RING!

Mike: Let me, hang on, let me get that.

Doug: Oh my god.

Mike: That’s my other -- That’s my wallet. Hello?

Jason: [distorted low voice] H-hello?

Mike: Hi?

Jason: [distorted low voice] Hi.

Mike: Uh, who- who dis?

Jason: [distorted low voice] Are you looking for your friend?
Mike: Which one?

Jason: [distorted low voice] Uhhhhhh, he’s got ears? And some hair?

Mike: [distorted low voice] OH.

[laughter]

Mike: [regular voice] Oh.

Jason: Well I think that’s blown. Just [distorted low voice] Ooooohhhh.

[laughter]

Doug: The bit was going so well.

Jason: Well, we can try again on the next episode.

Mike: That’s true.

Doug: They’ll never know.

Jason: I’m - yeah, I’m fine. I never heard back from the dream survey [laughs] so --

Doug: Those pricks.

Jason: Yeah, they never got back to me. No one came at night and took me away.

Mike: That’s Jason, by the way.

Jason: Yes! Hi, I’m fine.

Mike: That’s Doug.

[Doug whines in response]

Mike: And I’m Michael., but you can just call me Dad.

Jason: [laughs] Alright, Dad.

Doug:,Daddy from now on, okay.

Mike: I’m really excited for this topic.

Jason: Same.

Mike: It sounded really fun when you guys told me about it. Uhm, looking into it was pretty fun. Uhm, I saw a lot of things…

[laughter]

Doug: Did you? That’s good. This actually had me and Jason tweaked out for quite a --

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: -- while back when we first heard about it.

Jason: That was back in like, early COVID days.

Doug: Yeah, like, pre -- like, early quarantine for sure.

Jason: Mhm. Yeah, we were both terrified to even do any kind of research on this topic.

Mike: I didn’t even know what it was up until, you know.

Jason: We told you.

Mike: And I cursed myself.

Jason: You, yeah -- I feel like we have a -- you’ve set a standard for yourself to where we tell you about a topic without knowing anything about it and you’re like “COOL! I’m gonna call this phone number!” By the way --

Mike: I think out of anyone here, out of the three of us, I’m gonna be the one that gets taken. And it’s because I’m so blissfully ignorant.

[laughter]

Mike: You’re just like “Oh, here’s this phone number” -- “Oh, let me fucking call it real quick!”

Jason: “Oh, what is it?”
Mike: “Here’s this word that this guy died by typing out.” “Oh, you mean ERRATAS?” “Nooooo!”

[laughter]

Jason: Yeah, so if you hadn’t already figured it out, we are doing something called Erratas? It's a very -- there’s a lot of -- shrouded in mystery for a bunch of very good reasons that we’re going to go over a little bit later.

Mike: It’s basically the internet’s Voldemort. It’s the word -- instead of He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named it’s the Word-That-Should-Not-Be-Named.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Cuz you don’t wanna type it online.

Jason: Yeah, let’s go ahead and start all of this off by our usual disclaimer saying if you research this, if you start to dive into this rabbit hole and something terrible happens to you, we are not going to be held liable.

Mike: If you start looking into stuff and you start noticing a strange man following you around the corner everyday and then he gets into an old Volkswagen bug, uhm,

Doug: It’s just Mike

Mike:  but if you see another guy -- yeah, that’s fine, that’s me -- but if you see another guy, more blonde hair, he’s gonna take you.

Doug: Mouth more open.

Jason: The only defense you have though -- yes, happier --

Doug: Mouth more open.

Mike: He’s gonna take you and you cannot legally, you legally cannot blame us.

Jason: -- just take him into the shower and make him just uncomfortable.

Mike: Kiss him.

Jason: Yeah, kiss his toenails.

Mike: Kiss him on the lips.

Doug: K- wha…?

[laughter]

Mike: Give him a raspberry, kiss his tummy.

Jason: Anyway, uhm, so Erratas. It -- this is somewhat old, right? It popped up, what, 2015?

Doug: 2015 - 2015.

Jason: November 26th. Yeah, I’ve got the whole transcript right here. So the first post popped up Thursday, November 26th, 2015, at about 1:26am. It was, oh I’m sorry not on Reddit -- 4chan.

Doug: Same shit.

Jason: Yeah, essentially, one’s more anonymous though. I’m just going to go ahead and read out, not all of it, but the majority of the first post, just to give kind of some context to what we’re looking at. So it starts off by saying “I’m only 20 and have only ever worked retail jobs my whole life. If I get terminology wrong, it’s not because I’m bullshitting. It’s because most of what she described is out of my frame of reference, I’ll be honest. She’s a super interesting chick. During this period she was homeless and in a band'' -- Remember that, it’ll be important later -- “Her temp agency gave her a job at this place that was closing down all their locations in the country and basically it was well known they were shady and generally treated their employees like cattle. Like they were in the process of cutting down all their full-timers to shit hours, replacing them with temps, and having temps do exactly the same work for like $10/hr. Everything was really disorganized by this point and different departments were scattered everywhere. They were just getting everyone to do whatever work they could give them or they would fire them.” And so she goes on, or he goes on, to describe what department they were in and eventually he gets to a point where he starts talking about it’s just her and a dude in a room, given a couple of tape guns -- they had them pack stuff in boxes. Most of the stuff had names of the respective departments written on them in Sharpie but hers said ERRATAS. The dude told her to get rid of the tape gun and not to mention it to her supervisors because it was apparently one of his jobs years before had been writing code to flag any employee that searched for it in the computer system -- not any old word, just that one -- and they would fire you if you got flagged. Weird shit.”

So it’s -- I mean that’s kind of a weird thing to come -- I mean imagine you’re at your job, your 9-5, right?

Mike: Capitalism, man.

Doug: Always.

Mike: Just, just, just firing everyone to get the cheap labor. Trying to save a few pennies at the cost of the working man. And woman.

Jason: And woman. Well, definitely in this case.

Mike: Yeah, definitely.

Jason: Homeless, in a band.

Mike: Yeah, she was on the up and up and finally got a job and all of the sudden it’s a shit sham company.

Jason: I mean can you think of -- are there other words in the English language that you can think of that if you searched for on your work computer you might be fired for?

Doug: “How to build a bomb”.

Jason: That’s a good one.

Doug: I mean, a lot. At work?

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: You could literally just Google “booby”.

Doug: “Three dicks at the same time”.
Mike: Yeah, you’re in trouble. I don’t have to go to the expense of writing out ERRATAS, I could just be like “penis” and then I’m out the door.

[laughter]

Doug: Nah, I think you’ll be alright. Try it out. Let us know what happens next week.

Jason: Yeah, just let us know.

Mike: We’ll find out next week if I have a job or not.

Jason: If Mike is living on my couch, then that means --

Mike: If I’m here more often, like, recording a lot more, it’s cuz I have a lot more free time now. At least forty hours a week’s worth.

Jason: Uhm, so after the -- going over how they would fire you if it was flagged, the post says “another thing was that she said that the atmosphere of the place was like hellishly unhappy in a really unreal way. Sounds stupid but I wanna emphasize she’s not a lazy person or the type to complain about jobs. So hearing her go into all this detail about the miserable atmosphere seriously creeped me out but I’m kind of a pussy anyways. She didn’t have any specific way to put it, but the way she kept describing it creeped me out hard like not just a normal job where it’s unfun, but everyone always seemed thoroughly miserable. Some weird people -- some people would be on the verge of crying sometimes for no real reason.” So I mean, doesn’t really seem like a company that has such low morale that it needs another reason to fire more people.

Mike: I feel bad for that Human Resource guy.

Jason: Yeah. So, whatever this company was, it sounds like they’re on their death throws and they’re scrambling to save as much money as humanly possible.

Mike: Liquidation.

Jason: So that was, that was the original post. And then, on -- what was it -- December 19th, 2015, about 7:30pm, another anonymous asked 4chan like “Did anyone here have any software/IT jobs in the East Coast between 2000 and 2010 or so? I ask because a few people I know from that time in the area have talked about some sort of sketchy HR related program called Erratas and I’m wondering if I can find any information about it. Not strictly paranormal related, but disturbing, but I believe I saw someone on /x/ mention it before so if that anon is here, please post.” So this is on the /x/Paranormal --

Mike: Yeah, I was just about to ask you, what was the original post posted under? Do we know?
Jason: It was on Paranormal.

Mike: It was on Paranormal?
Jason: Yeah, all of this is -- the majority of this --

Mike: All of this is on the Paranormal one?
Jason: Yeah, the original posts are on Paranormal. And that’s gonna play a part a little bit later.

Mike: Weird thing to bring up.
Doug: Yeah, that’s gonna be one of the main 4chan threads.

Mike: “I saw ghosts in my attic. I saw wendigo. Hey, uh, this homeless girl was working at a job? And uh, they -- she was taping a box and the guy yelled at her for a word.”

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: “Anyway! Look at this, uh, thunderbird!”

Jason: But somebody else did respond saying “From what I understand it was something that allowed some specific third party company unconditional access to employee information. Employees who included it in a search term or asked about it would get fired or placed in non-computer departments. I believe UPS, Unilever, and EcoLab were part of the system.” So those are some pretty big name companies that use this very strange flagging software to keep tabs on their employees in both their personal and professional lives.

Doug: Yeah I think, somewhere down the line 3M is mentioned as well and the actual program itself comes into question a lot which we’ll go over too.

Jason: Absolutely, yeah. So at this point no one’s really sure about what Erratas is, what like -- why it’s flagging people to get fired, why it’s fucking with so many people’s lives.

Doug: This is where the sleuths come in.

Jason: Yeah and this is kinda where the internet’s private investigators.

Mike: The internet is so magical.

Jason: It is.

Mike: You give them one little hint towards something -- the word Erratas -- and already there’s like an army of dudes just --

Doug: Oh yeah.

Mike: -- just going at this mystery.

Jason: The funny thing is the fact that you can -- after the research we've done -- the fact that you can say with a straight face that the internet is a magical place is truly terrifying to me.

Mike: Magical can mean bad.

Jason: That’s fair, not all magic is good.

Doug: So, the next thing that kind of brings our word into fruition here is mentioned in 2016, I think was May? Basically what happens is a post is put on to the music boards of Reddit, er 4chan?

Mike: 4chan.

Doug: So in 2016, the next mention of Erratas is put on to a music thread on 4chan. This thread is under the Deep Internet threads, which is interesting all in itself but basically it linked kind of describing what this deep internet was and it linked these different short videos that they took the samples from. So these samples led everyone into kind of a frenzy from this one YouTube channel that is honestly just really weird altogether.

Jason: Mhm.

Doug: The description of this video that it linked to had the word “Erratas or Rusts” in it which is where we see this new post come up and the internet went crazy for this. So they started deep diving into it, but the video itself was actually uploaded before the first OP post of Erratas. So this is our first --

Jason: Oohhh.

Doug: -- time hearing the word.

Jason: This is patient zero. So chronologically this came first.

Doug: Before, yeah.

Jason: Okay.

Mike: What came first, the KFC Murder Chick or the egg?

Doug: Yeah, which I don’t think I mentioned actually, but the band that this post was mentioning was KFC Murder Chicks. They are this deep web weird, weird music which --

Jason: Very.

Doug: -- we do have a clip of for you guys.

Jason: Yeah, once we explain a little bit more about what this genre is, we’ll play a clip of actually this band that we’re talking about, the KFC Murder Chicks.

Mike: Which -- when you guys first were talking in the chat about KFC Murder Chicks, I was so scared to look up what the fuck that was cuz I thought I was gonna see like a How It’s Made on like, how KFC’s chicken is made and I did not want to see a bunch of little chicks go through a grinder and it was very --

Jason: Have you heard about what KFC did to like --

Mike: I don't want to know.

Jason: Okay.

Mike: All those animals are mistreated, fast food is horrible.

Jason: Well they were bred genetically different to have mutations which gave them extra wings and extra legs --

Doug: Mmmm.

Mike: Right.

Jason: -- so they could get more food out of each chicken.

Mike: Mutant chickens.

Doug: They have three dicks.

Jason: My god, I hope so.

Mike: You know there’s like 27 billion chickens on the planet?

Jason: You know, I’m calling bullshit.

Mike: Go ahead, I’m gonna fucking Google it.

Jason: And now we're adding mutant ones into the mix?

Doug: We’re now sleuthing the wrong thing but it’s fine.

Jason: This is what happens, alright?

Mike: We’re adding mutant ones into the mix.

Jason: How many chickens are in the world?

Doug: Okay, while he’s looking that up, Mike, do you wanna give us --

Mike: Was I right? It’s like 23. - 27.3 or something I think right?

Jason: 23.7 billion, damn.

Doug: Damn.

Jason: Damn, there’s your chicken knowledge.

Mike: I’m just the Library Alexandria on chicken.

[laughter]

Jason: That’s hidden poultry talks.

Mike: Chicken and poultry. Actually since you’ve got the computer up, do you wanna play a small clip of KFC Murder Chicks?

Doug: Uhm, before we do that --

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: Why don't you explain what Deep Internet is real quick?

Jason: Yeah let's give some a frame of reference to our dear listeners.

Mike: So the 4chan thread that Doug was talking about that they found it on -- the music one -- it was on 4chan and they called themselves Deep Internet. Essentially, Deep Internet even has a description of their own -- they have a mission statement like they’re a fucking small business going for a loan at the bank.

Jason: Alright?
Mike: Essentially their mission statement is to “create a subgenre of noise, found sounds, and music concrete, super obscure short and/or low quality youtube videos eschewing traditional notions of musicality. Anything with more than 20 views is excluded by default.”

Jason: Uhm so wouldn't that --

Mike: It's essentially the most hipster thing “Oh this has 20 or more views? I don't even want it anymore”.

Doug: “Can't use it, too popular”.

Mike: Yeah, right, I do want to break down a little bit real quick --

Jason: Before you, quick question, so when Doug -- when you said they were posting all these videos for use by like Deep Internet music did they just disqualify themselves from the genre?

Mike: Yeah, when they, yeah, when they gave --

Jason: 20 views, right? They had to have more than 20 people looking at these.

Mike: Well it’s funny because the -- when they originally --

Doug: That’s why it blew up.

Mike: Yeah when they originally had the definition and were originally describing what the deep internet was, they had “Oh are these three examples of what qualifies as deep internet videos”. You couldn't even view them because they had more than 20 people on the thread.

Jason: So it’s --

Mike: So it’s a moot point. That’s how this downhill spiral of “What’s actually deep internet?” happens. They had the original like “This is what it is” but no one could see it.

Doug: They posted the KFC Murder Chicks album and gave the three points next to it and it was like three different YouTube channels and obviously I think the qualifications have to be like, prior to writing the music so if they find one that’s like 5 views, they’ll slap it into a song and then “Oh it has 100”.

Mike: I just wanna say real quick, because I didn't know what this was. It’s a genre -- it’s a subgenre of music with found sound and music concrete?

Jason: Yeah what -- what the fuck is that?
Mike: You almost got me. I’m not even entirely sure. I know it’s a French thing. The definition of music concrete is “it’s a type of music composition that utilizes recorded sounds as raw material. Sounds were often modified through the application of sound effects and tape manipulation techniques.” So Jason was kind of trying to --

Jason: That would just be kinda like previously recorded audio, so like somebody else’s audio that you’re then fucking with and distorting with even more.

Mike: I guess I mean that’s the only thing I can think of. I’m not French so --

Jason: Well I mean, do you -- We could try to explain it but would you rather just hear it?

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: You just wanna play some?

Doug: I’d rather hear it.

Mike: Some music concrete, baby.

Jason: This is a song off of the KFC Murder Chicks album “Golden Age of Gross Mystery”. You can find it on YouTube -- if you just search it, you’ll get the full album. It’s one video, they break up into some chunks.

Mike: I won't lie, their cover art? Pretty dope, not gonna lie.

Jason: Oh I love it.

Mike: It's like Frankestein distorted or something?
Jason: It’s pretty cool.

Doug: Some of the music’s not bad either, we were listening to some of it --
Jason: Yeah

Doug: -- earlier and like, it was kinda cool, I’m not gonna lie.

Jason: Yeah, it’s weird, it’s very fucking weird. But so here, this is KFC Murder Chicks. Track is called Psneakysys -- I don't, I think that’s how you pronounce it.

Mike: Very persneaky, sis.

[laughter]

Jason: God damn.

Doug: I’m not even going to attempt it.

Jason: Okay here is KFC Murder Chicks.

[distorted audio begins playing then stops]

Jason: I should probably plug it in.

Mike: I was like, why does this sound like shit?

[high pitched static noise]

Mike: Ah, that… that messed with my brain.


[TW: Loud noise for anyone listening along, turn down volume 19:00 - 19:09]

[KFC Murder Chicks song starts playing]


Jason: I don't know what to describe that as?

Doug: Uhm, eardrum blowing.

Jason: It’s loud, it’s abrasive.

Mike: It’s exactly what I like to wake up to every morning. That’s my Folgers in a cup. Foljers? [g/j used to emphasize pronunciation difference]

Jason: Foljers, not Folgers.

[laughter]

Doug: Mmm off brand.

Jason: Fucking Folgers.

Doug: It’s the Aldi brand, it’s fine.

Mike: I will say -- so remember how we were talking about those three videos that they use as an example of what qualifies as deep internet stuff?

Jason: Yes I do.

Mike: The second one is a video talking about how “YouTube is monitoring and controlling my life” and it’s by a man called ChronosForLife Jurassic Park.

Doug: Yeah so Chronos -- this whole YouTube channel is really just kinda bizarre, like there’s really no other word to describe it.

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: It’s just someone uploading Jurassic Park videos with superimposed text on to the screen.

Jason: And like really shitty quality.

Doug: It’s really -- it’s really shitty and --

Mike: It looks like -- remember how YouTube was back in whenever it first started, like 2006, and you could like see the block pixels?

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: Oh, yeah.

Mike: Same thing. Chef’s kiss, mwah. It’s that, it’s so good.

Jason: Uh, so --

Mike: But like they’re doing it on purpose. Sorry.

Doug: No, no they are. You can tell it’s purposefully a shitty video because --

Mike: I mean that’s the definition of the deep internet. You're supposed to make low quality videos, that’s the whole point.

Jason: Yeah, that was one of the criteria.

Mike: It’s basi -- It’s just like ‘make weird kitschy fucking shit’.

Doug: Yeah, yeah, so going into ChronosFor life a little bit -- that video you mentioned actually, the “YouTube is monitoring and controlling my life” -- the text that’s superimposed over it is just like this scrolling -- him describing that You -- kind of like calling YouTube out for censoring some videos that his mother had put up which completely leads the internet into a frenzy of trying to figure out that story in itself which kind of doesn't have anything to do with it but it’s fine.

Mike: It’s still fun cuz it’s about a person’s mom and how dare YouTube take advantage of a nice lady who raised this boy, I’m sure.

[laughter]

Mike: How dare they!

Doug: Well this all ties into Erratas in that sense because he was kind of looking to get out of the algorithm. He wanted to see what would flag the words or how it was censoring things like that so --

Mike: So he was kinda just testing the waters?

Doug: Yeah.

Mike: Like he was just -- was he like putting it in videos subtly?

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Like just a flash of frame like ERRATAS and then it was just gone?

Doug: No.

Mike: They didn't catch that one?

Doug: Well he was reaching out to people even though he had no real  --

Mike: Oh this was his way of communicating with this Deep Internet subgroup?

Doug: I don't --

Mike: Or at least anybody who’d listen to him?

Doug: I don't think he knew about this Deep Internet, like, he -- there was no connection to the YouTube and the Deep Internet yet.

Jason: Okay.

Doug: And I say yet loosely.

Jason: Fair enough.

Doug: Yeah but people were saying “Oh is he mentally ill? Did his mother die?” -- like there was a lot of theories floating around but in his second video -- once the Deep Internet thread kind of blew his videos up -- people started to see these videos and comment on the videos and he started making more and more videos that got a little creepier and a little weirder.

Jason: These are all, shitty uploads of Jurassic Park?

Doug: Everything was over Jurassic Park The Lost World.

Jason: Okay.

Mike: Which --

Doug: It was.

Mike: Is that the second one or the third one?

Jason: I can tell you right now.

Mike: The second one was Lost World. We wouldn’t wanna look like goddamn idiots in front of people --

Jason: [searching] Jurassic...

Mike: -- which I don’t care what anybody says, Jurassic Park -- not only is the first one a masterpiece but all of them are fucking great, like, I know a lot of people say that the third one is very bad. I loved it, I don't even care like --

Doug: Okay.

Mike: Yeah, they’re great movies.

Doug: Keep your opinion. Do you.

Mike: Anyone who says 2003’s Jurassic Park 3 is bad, uhm, you’re bad. You’re mean and I’m gonna have my dad beat up your dad.

Doug: You’re gonna get Errata’d.

Mike: Yeah, I’m gonna -- I’m gonna Errat you. [sings to the tune of We Will Rock You] We will, we will --

Jason: -- errat you.

Doug: ...So that being said, in the second video that he uploaded, this is when he was really, really reaching out. He had gotten all those weird random follows from the thread that led a bunch of people to his YouTube channel that had maybe one video on it. He’s asking if people have heard of this term and obviously the video didn't get taken down so this is where we kind of can confirm ‘okay here’s the algorithm loophole that he had found’.

Jason: Ooohhh.

Mike: So this -- how they can talk about it and say the word?

Jason: So he was probing for a weakness in this system that --

Doug: Yeah, exactly.

Jason: -- searches for instances of it?

Doug: Yeah, no, cuz he -- you could actually tell that this Chronos guy started following the 4chan threads. The people were asking so many questions, he actually made a couple other videos that started answering these, which I’ll go on in a little bit -- but there was actually a weird thing that happened in the second video that he posted. There was some weird morse code that someone found so 4chan being 4chan, bunch of sleuths, they started -- I think what they did was they took the videos and then like cleared them up a bunch so they could see text better but also hear the audio better.

Jason: Okay.

Doug: And when they did that, they found this morse code which was in a cleaned up version of -- I don't remember which video -- but basically this morse code translated into “Hollywood Astral Projection Clinic”.

Jason: What? What is that?

Doug: I don't know actually, there's really nothing about the Hollywood Astral Projection Clinic.

Mike: Is that Johnny Depp’s next band?

Doug: It was kind of a dead end for the most part. It ended up providing really no answers to the matter and actually kinda complicated the 4chan user’s sleuthing.

Mike: You really mettled the water on that one, huh?

Doug: Yeah, maybe.

Jason: You were not kidding. There’s, there’s noth -- there’s songs?

Doug: So like I said, Hollywood Astral Projection Clinic had really no effect on the search. There was -- it led nowhere. But that being said, they found the most morse code in a video that was uploaded five days prior to the original post on 4chan about Erratas. So all of this happened prior, still.

Jason: So, did -- wait --

Mike: I thought the Murder Chicks was the original?

Jason: No, so, this -- the original post, the first thing that I read, that was like the first thing that was discovered. It was not the first thing posted. So you’re saying that all of this was actually uploaded before they even started talking about --

Doug: Yup.

Jason: -- what Erratas was?

Doug: So Chronos’ first two videos were uploaded -- I don't remember when the first one was -- but the second one was the five days before. So this is where they found the morse code, in that second video.

Jason: Gotcha.

Doug: And like I said, five days prior to the original poster’s mention of Erratas that led the internet into this frenzy, which is kinda cool for the most part but it also leaves us with a lot more questions.

Jason: Yeah I mean that’s [laughs] our fucking lives right now.

Doug: So I think I mentioned that Chronos had been following the 4chan threads --

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: -- because at this point, now that he had these two videos with a bunch of followers, he's getting all these comments asking him questions: what’s going on, what's this, what's that? So in January of 2016, he still makes a few videos answering some of the questions that some of these people had. He was asking -- he was blatantly asking people for help with this, just trying to figure out the algorithm, trying to, you know, bring light to what this topic really was about which we still don't know.

Jason: Why was he so -- why was, he was a victim of this? Or what, like?

Doug: His mother was but he doesn’t explain it very well. So he says that his mother’s videos were being censored and taken down which people in turn thought that she may have passed away and he was upset that they’re -- that YouTube was taking these videos down so I don't know if he, like, thought that YouTube was using this Erratas program to flag and censor things which in turn led him to making these superimposed texts onto it because there's really no audio that can be heard that says Erratas clearly.

Jason: Oh, yeah.

Doug: There’s no text linked to the video.

Jason: Okay so it’s literally just this superimposed post-production editing on a really shitty copy of Jurassic Park The Lost World?

Doug: Yeah.

Jason: And people had to go through that and try to read the fucking things that he was saying?

Doug: Yeah.

Mike: At least they got to watch dinosaurs kind of.

[laughter]

Jason: Pixelated dinosaurs.

Mike: I think that’s either a dinosaur or that’s Fred Diller.

Doug: Well the video’s the best quality part of the whole thing. Like, if you go to the YouTube channel, it’s just like BAM! Jurassic Park The Lost World -- oh there’s text all over the screen but you can't really read it so.

Mike: I said Fred Diller.

Doug: Somebody actually --

Mike: It’s Fred Willard, isn’t it?

Jason: What?

Mike: Fred Willard?

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Ah, he died too.

Jason: What did you say? Frank Dillard?

Mike: I said Fred Diller.

Doug: Fred Durst?

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: Yeaahhhhh.

Mike: Yeaahh.

Jason: ...good god.

[laughter]

Jason: It’s like a rallying cry.

Doug: Ah, I love the internet. So yeah, pretty much, you’ve got Chronos doing all this shit and just being weird and that’s kind of where we see the term Erratas for the first time. So after we get a few more videos out of Chronos, the sleuths do it again. In his video “Here Goes Nothing”, we get two bits of the closed captioning in the video that say some kind of weird things. The first one is “Overthrow the government”.

Mike: Hell yeah man.

Jason: That’s topical.

Mike: Get some guillotines CHOPPING heads.

Doug: That didn't really spark any interest with the 4chan users but the second one did. The second one is an address: 200 Corbin Kentucky 40219. Auto captions on YouTube videos, if you didn't know, are not user generated --

Jason: Right.

Doug: -- they’re speech recognition.

Jason: Right.

Doug: So someone behind the scenes of the video had to have said these things because that’s the only way they would’ve got put into the video.

Jason: Huh, that’s weird.

Doug: But like I said, Chronos was following the 4chan posts about everything so when he -- when they started mentioning this -- that that address was --

Jason: Oohhh.

Doug: -- in there, all of the sudden those closed captions were not on the video anymore. They were gone. They just disappeared.

Mike: Too many people went to kentucky.

Jason: Is the town still there?

Doug: No.

Mike: What??

[laughter]

Mike: Wait, are you serious??

Doug: No, I’m just kidding.

Mike: I was like, you’re bullshitting me right now, the whole town disappeared?

Jason: Yes he is.

Mike: What is this, the Twilight Zone?

Doug:They just ctrl alt deleted it. They were like “nope, get it out” fucking --

Jason: We have too many of this.

Mike: Opened up the task bar and just ‘end task’ on Corbin, Kentucky.

[laughter]

Doug: So, the reason this address is so crucial to the whole thing is that if you go to the KFC Murder Chicks Tumblr page, guess where they’re listed at. Can you give me a guess?
Jason: I can give you a solid guess. I’m guessing it’s at 200 Corbin, Kentucky?

Mike: Is it 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney?

Jason: That was my second guess.

Mike: Is it P Sherman? Wallaby something?

Jason: So yeah, so the KFC Murder Chicks Tumblr is -- I mean, it’s no longer operational, you can’t go and you can’t visit, so you have to use either an internet archive or the way way back machine. But I did manage to print off a couple of pages. I did not print all of them off, phew. Lord. There’s sooooo much. So it’s, I mean, it’s Tumblr so it’s 98% absolute garbage and 2% --

Doug: Porn.

Jason: Yeah 1% porn.

Doug: Well Tumblr doesn't have porn anymore --

Jason: Well why even go --

Doug: That’s why I stopped using it --

[laughter]

Jason: Uhhhmmmm. So the 200 Corbin Kentucky is found on the KFC Murder Chicks’ Tumblr page as kinda permanent link that they’ve included kinda off to the side of the blog and it’s just a distorted picture. I cant really tell what it is, but it says “To ewe to be true” and it says “Send inquires to KFC Murder Chicks, 200 Corbin, Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky. 40219”

Mike: Isn't that where the actual like colonel-made KFC --

Jason: Yes so that is the home town of Colonel Sanders.

Mike: God, that place.

Jason: Which I would imagine has something to do with the name of the band.

Doug: Probably.

Jason: Probably.

Mike: How obrse do you think the people there are? If their main resource is chicken.

Jason: Fried chicken.

Mike: Fried chicken. Do you think that they like -- do you think they have like a ColonelCon?

[laughter]

Doug: The Colonel --

Jason: Fried Chick-Con

Doug: Oh my god.

Jason: No, what I think they do -- I think they have one big KFC that just is their town hall and water distribution plant and everything. It runs the whole town and the only thing these people get -- they get to bathe in like the used grease that they cook their chickens in. I would assume their toothpaste is all mashed potatoes.

[laughter]

Doug: My favorite.

Jason: Sometimes gravy, I don't -- I’ve never been to this place so I have no idea what these people are like.

Mike: Gravy.

Doug: If you’re listening and you’re from there, I’m so sorry.

Jason: I’m so sorry.

Mike: When they put gravy on the toothpaste, it’s the equivalent of like getting toothpaste with fluoride in it compared to not.

Jason: Yeah the gravy is for --

Doug: Instead of the extra, you know, whitening --  it’s the darkening.

Jason: The darkening... Jesus Christ alright --

Doug: We went a lot longer this time without being weird, okay, fuck.

Jason: It happens, I mean we’re naturally tangential, we start talking about -- I’m doing it right now. Anyways so this address is linked to the KFC Murder Chicks Tumblr page and this page is very, very fucking strange. It’s, I mean, think a picture-based blog that has no correlation aside to what their music might be -- and we all heard their music, it’s not exactly coherent -- like one of the first things that one of the first posts that you will find if you go use the way way back machine and pull this page up is by somebody named GGPoltergeist and they say “Hey, big fan of your music, quick question though, you posted a link to your album Cortex Rampage. I got to give it a listen before it disappeared and on the track Get Shit Straight you mention a man named Tod Ellsworth. Who is he?? Thanks.” And they respond by saying “He’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Now that’s, that’s how I respond --

Mike: “Hey, Jason, how's Kelly doing these days?” “She’s fine.” “Oh?”

Jason: I mean if I just said that, it would be fine. But if I added “Don’t worry about it”, that's a little suspicious.

Mike: “She’s fine, don’t worry about it”.

Jason: On top of it, this guy’s asking about someone that he has -- like, you know Kelly. It’s like “Oh hey, how’s she doing” and if I said “Oh she’s fine”, like that’s absolutely normal. But if you had come up to me and said, “How’s Alex Bjorncraw?”

Mike: “How’s Alex Trebek?”
Doug: “Bjorncraw” [laughs] Not well, actually.

Jason: Why’d you bring..?

Mike: Didn't he die already?

Jason: Yeah he’s dead.

Doug: That’s why he’s not doing well.

Mike: [laughs] Fred Willard...

Jason: My, my boy.. You need to stop disgracing the dead.

[laughter]

Jason: You’re like King Midas if everything Midas turned or turned to is just offensive and shit.

Doug: Death. Just turns to death.

Jason: Offensive and death

Mike: I'm gonna be haunted by Fred Willard and Alex Trebek

Jason: What a combo. See, that’s a little strange, nothing too out of the ordinary aside from that. I mean the pictures are pretty out of the ordinary, you got things like ‘The Golden Girls, Saturdays at 8pm”. There’s just an ad that someone -- it’s not an ad, somebody posted this --

Doug: I'm more of a Blanche...

Jason: Dennis Rodman being Dennis Rodman. You've got things about like workplace safety, videos screenshots, a lot of screenshots of like CGI -- shitty, shitty, shitty, CGI -- dinosaurs. A ton of those.

Doug: Oh, dinosaurs, you say?

Jason: A lot of X Files stuff, like the first person shooter movie that they did -- they got sucked into a video game and then -- but yeah it’s a lot of weird pictures. I mean, it’s a weird band so you kind of expect some weird stuff. And then you get to another post from an anonymous poster that says “What about the post office gives you the creeps? I've used it a couple of years now and they seem to be fine. Just curious lol” They get a response from KFC Murder Chicks saying “This is probably a controversial view but there’s a lot to suggest they’re tied in with a lot of the government’s more unsavory activities; spyinh, profiling, general disregard for the constitutional rights, all that fun stuff. Lots of stuff sent to us, an inordinate amount really, hasn’t ever made it or vice versa. Not to say I’m in favor of the way they got fucked over by the FedEx and UPS lobbies either though.”

Doug: Another mention of UPS.

Jason: Yeah another mention of UPS. And literally directly below this comment is another anonymous saying “What do you know about Erratas?” and a response from the band saying “Uhhhhhh like Magic/Yugioh errata?”

Mike: Which I don't even know what that’s supposed to mean as a Magic aficionado and I watched my fair share of Yugioh back in the day.

Jason: [imitates Pegasus] “Ooh hoo hoo, Yugi boy.”

Mike: “Kaiba boy.”

Doug: Uhm.

Mike: Erratas isn't a thing in any of those so --

Doug: I’m gonna look up. I’m gonna type in the word with Yugioh on it so I know what the hell --

Jason: Errata.

Mike: Pot of Greed.

Jason: What does Pot of Greed do?
Mike: It lets you draw three cards, I think? Two or three cards.

Jason: Thank you. I know. Everybody knows what Pot of Greed does.

Mike: Oh, then why’d you ask?

[laughter]

Mike: Stupid.

Jason: And again, so as you keep going after these weird little mentions of -- I mean Erratas, this is the first time we’re gonna see that on this band’s Tumblr directly linking this band to -- [burps] oh my god.

Mike: Can we cut that out?

Jason: I’m gonna try.

[laughter]

Jason: -- directly linking this to the KFC Murder Chicks and them kind of saying they have no idea what it is. So that’s it. Strange.

Doug: Yeah and we haven't really gone into Tod Ellsworth, the one that they were being asked about on their Tumblr and he’s almost like, the missing link that we kind of needed to start piecing together a lot of these weirdities that are happening.

Jason: Yeah it’s -- so this is the first time -- is this the first time we’ve seen his name, right?

Doug: Well technically.

Jason: Technically this is the first textual mention of it. It’s been on like, on the album, not chronologically?

Doug: Correct.

Jason: Right but the first time this has actually been brought to public view in like a spot like position is on this Tumblr, literally the same post responded to by the KFC Murder Chicks asking what Erratas is. The only other weird thing, before we get off of the Tumblr, would be the question from an anonymous saying “Have you ever been to Hawaii?”

Doug: Aha!

Jason: Which if anyone has heard of this search term, they will immediately know that this search term is linked to a computer generated image of a rape suspect that was found in Maui, Hawaii.

Mike: Wait, the search term ‘Hawaii’?

Jason: No.

Mike: Wait, the search term ‘Maui’ immediately just brings up a rape?

Doug: Well no.

Jason: No no.

Doug: It’s Erratas.

Jason: Erratas is --

Mike: Oh okay.

Jason: -- it’s linked to this computer generated --

Mike: I was like, I feel like you’d get more like --

Jason: [laughs] Yeah.

Mike: -- like travel destination websites than a rape victim.

Jason: It’s kinda become the figurehead, kind of the distinguishing mark of what Erratas is, and if you see this image and you’ve been on the internet long enough and you know what Erratas is, you kinda know that this image basically means Erratas at this point. Other than that, the only things that are really obsessive would be the amount of times that people talk about the Carnosaur movies? Which if you don't know, Carnosaur movies were a 1993 American science fiction horror film written and directed by a man named Adam Simon. They were --

Doug: Oh, yeah, Adam Simon.

Jason: Yeah, love his movies.

Doug: Love him.

Mike: Known for other movies such as Carnosaur 2 and --

Doug: And 3?

Mike: -- Carnosaur 3.

[laughter]

Doug: What a guy.

Mike: Don't forget, he did three of them!

Jason: So the Carnosaur movies were supposed to be what Jurassic Park is -- so it was their intention and as soon as they heard -- as soon as this guy Adam Simon found out that they were filming Jurassic Park, he sped this along. Turns out, it’s got mixed reviews. I’m gonna go ahead and --

Doug: Can't imagine.

Jason: -- take a gander that it’s probably not a fantastic film, probably pretty shitty.

Mike: Probably one of those B movies you watch to make fun of.

Jason: I mean, I’m gonna watch it after this for sure because I can't not at this point.

Doug: It’s funny how all of these dinosaur related topics are coming up in this research.

Jason: So far we do -- we’ve got Carnosaur. We’ve got the Tumblr, which is full of just dinosaur gifs, computer generated dinosaur images from really shitty video games or movies. We’ve got ChronosForLife which has been dubbing over -- not dubbing over but subtexting -- these really, really grainy clips of The Lost World. It all has to do with dinosaurs. There are these very loose connections between all of these things, kind of. You can't really say “okay maybe?” But it’s out there to connect all of these dots.

Doug: It’s almost like we’re missing one thing and his name is Tod Ellsworth.

Jason: Okay?

Doug: The first time we see Tod Ellsworth’s name come up is actually way back in one of those original Deep Internet YouTube links that were put on that thread. He -- it linked to his YouTube channel which contained basically music from KFC Murder Chicks. There was another random one but then there was one by DJ Rozwell which --

Jason: Hmmmmm yeah.

Doug: -- is gonna start to make more sense as we go through this. So the funniest thing is the name Tod Ellsworth is literally an anagram for The Lost World.

Jason: ...What?

Mike: Someone has a dinosaur fetish here, man. I’m just saying.

Jason: So, what, all we’re missing is the movie --

Mike: It all comes back to dinosaurs.

Jason: We’re just missing the movie Tammy and the T-rex.

Mike: Well and what about The Land Before Time?

Doug: Aw I don't wanna think about that movie, so sad.

Jason: Did you -- wait did you ever see those movies?

Mike: Uh, like the first one? And I saw the first one and then like there’s one where they find -- like they’re on an island and I remember the song like Big Water or something like that?

Jason: Oh I think I know which one you’re talking about.

Mike: And Petrie is like -- they’re like “Petrie, just go fucking fly and get help” and he’s like “Aaaaa, fucking, no.”

[laughter]

Doug: Word for word?

Mike: My Petrie the Pterodactyl probably isn't the greatest but you get the idea.

Doug:Uhm, anyways, whatever the hell we were just talking about...

Jason: Oh yeah, Tod Ellsworth, Lost World, anagram, dinosaurs.

Doug: Yeah so he’s our biggest link in this whole thing like I said. His anagram -- the anagram for his name is The Lost World so right there we have ChronosForLife.

Jason: Okay.

Doug: He has a KFC Murder Chicks video on his YouTube.

Jason: Oh that’s right cuz the YouTube channel is all KFC Murder Chicks stuff.

Doug: And the DJ Rozwell song.

Jason: And the DJ Rozwell song.

Doug: Which we -- I know I mentioned this already, but that name right there -- DJ Rozwell -- is gonna come in huge, huge later on.

Jason: Okay, so is this just --

Doug: It’s like a throwaway account, is what it looks like, where it’s just kinda got random shit on it. It has nothing to do with anything really. There’s no rhyme or reason to this video.

Jason: That makes me feel good because that makes my YouTube account look like a throwaway account which I’m very happy about. It’s not good right now.

Doug: I posted one video to YouTube.

Jason: I posted two and one of them is of Kelly when she looks like a hot dog singing the Duck Tales theme song.

Doug: I remember that!

Jason: She has one -- maybe I’ll throw it in, in case you guys want to know what that sounds like.

Doug: Run that by Kelly first.

Jason: Yeah, I will, but at least I have a spot to put it in now.

Doug: Yeah that’ll make sense.

Jason: Just in case.

Doug: So one other thing about Tod Ellsworth is that he has a Twitter which, uh, is gonna connect two of these other points.

Jason: Okay.

Doug: So the only things on his Twitter account are literally the picture of the Maui rape suspect --

Jason: Okay.

Doug: -- and a post that’s bashing the US postal system.

Jason: Oh.

Mike: What's his Twitter handle?

Doug: I'm so glad you asked. Because it’s @ErratasOrBust.

Mike: [high pitched excitement sound]

Jason: Mike, I can see you climaxing from here.

Mike: Just add that -- just add that other red yarn to the fucking, you know that like --

Jason: From Always Sunny?

Mike: Yeah or like any old cop movie where he’s like --

Jason: “Oh, it all goes back to Jimmy the custodian” and it’s just red yarn and like X’s through peoples’ faces and shit. “There is no Pepe Silvia!”

Mike: “There is no Carol.”

Jason: “CAROL”… alright.

Doug: Uh, the last thing I gotta say about Tod Ellsworth though is that his Twitter opened up seven days before the KFC Murder Chicks Tumblr.

Jason: So that, so that was the start.

Doug: This, yeah, this is basically --

Mike: I feel like we’ve said that like three times now.

Jason: That Tod Ellsworth is the start?

Mike: No that’s -- we’ve said that phrase “This is the start” like, to three other things already.

Jason: Well some of us are learning. Some of us are learning as we go.

Doug: But that’s the thing. I think this whole search that the internet did started actually building the timeline for people. Like, they didn't know what came first so whenever we got new information we were like “well, this is the first time that we heard this word”.

Jason: Oh yeah.

Doug: And then now we go back to this Tod Ellsworth, where we’re like “Well shit, now he’s the first”.

Jason: So now, so essentially what’s happening is we’re building backwards? Like we’re discovering things in reverse order.

Doug: We’re reading the book backwards, yeah.

Jason: Okay, alright, that’s kinda cool.

Doug: So --

Mike: So this whole topic we’ve been talking about Erratas but we’ve never really gotten into what it actually is. We’ve been talking about the shit around it but not what the actual like, phrase is supposed to be, ya know? We haven't really -- we touched that first and then just boop! Blipped it out of existence.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Like it’s Thanos making a snap.

Jason: Oh, yeah.

Mike: So Erratas we touched on in the beginning a little bit, but essentially it’s like -- it’s a system that takes down videos. It’s used by apparently like a lot of companies.

Jason: Big name companies.

Mike: Yeah I think 3M was thrown in the mix at some point as well.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: But it’s used by a whole bunch of these companies as a copyright enforcement tool. Basically, it’s a software that locates and flags certain words and phrases and I think Erratas is supposed to be like a test phrase, you know what I mean? Like I think they’re just like “let’s just use this word Erratas, it doesn't come up in like normal conversation so it's not like someone is gonna accidentally type it out in an email and flag it”. I think they were using it as like a placeholder for words, you know what I mean? To sell to other companies.

Jason: See, I --

Mike: Like when 3M picks it up, 3M’s like “yeah, we’ll buy this Erratas software”, 3M is gonna change the word from Erratas to like ‘duct tape’.

Jason: So like I -- I don't -- I’m not exactly sure what the word actually means. I know it is a word.

Doug: It is a real word. So the way it’s written in the dictionary, it’s ‘errata’ so without the s on it. I am assuming you can put like errata/erratas whatever but so it’s “a list of errors in printed work discovered after printing and shown with corrections” is what it means.

Jason: Oh so it’s like something gets edited more or less.

Doug: Yup.

Jason: That actually makes a lot of sense. So if people are -- so if this thing is actually searching for instances of itself and deleting it or correcting it, I think Erratas is a pretty apt name for what it does.

Mike: I guess. I didn't know that that was the definition.

Jason: I didn't know the definition either. I knew it was a word, but I --

Doug: Yeah, I mean, you’ll see a lot of stuff being tossed around too. Like actually the 4chan users started using it too, they’re like “oh we’re gonna get Errata’d”

Jason: Yeah…

Mike: They had to put --

Jason: What?

Mike: They had to put like asterisks and everything in it too so they don't trigger the friggin’ system too, right?

Jason: Not gonna lie, Doug and I both did that as well I think.

Doug: Oh yeah.

Mike: When we were first talking about that in our chat, they‘re like “oh let’s do a topic on Errat*s” and they took out the last ‘A’ and put an asterisk, so I’m like “What’s Errats? What is that?” and Doug was just like “Oh I replaced the ‘A’ with a star” and I’m like “Erratas?”

Jason: And we’re like “welp”.

Doug: “Well now Mike’s getting got”.

[laughter]

Jason: Yeah, it freaked us out. We were not too sure about any of it so we didn't even really wanna do any research on it until we started, you know, thinking about recording this podcast and then we kinda had to be a bit more ballsy with our search terms, which is a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Doug: You can never get too ballsy with your search terms.

Jason: So, so what exactly is this thing? You said it’s a program? It’s a company? What is it?

Mike: It's software. It’s like a copyright software. Its literal purpose is to flag certain words.

Jason: Just on the internet?

Mike: Uhm, no, it’s not specific. It doesn't say that or not. It just says that it’s a system used by companies. So I don't know if it's being sold to these companies or if it’s a universal -- like it’s on the internet and these companies are taking advantage of this system.

Doug: I wonder if each company has like a list of terms that the Erratas algorithm --

Mike: That’s what I was saying.

Doug: -- flags.

Mike: That’s what I was saying. Like, I dont think it’s only ‘Erratas’. I think when they sell it to like 3M, for example, 3M can add other words that could be flagged.

Doug: And I’m wondering if that’s like, you know, when someone in a company searched ‘Erratas’ they’re like “Ope they know about this software” like we need to [clicks tongue]

Mike: Fired!

Doug: So they don't tell anybody else.

Jason: They didn't meet productivity this week, look at that.

Mike: Essentially that might be it where they're like “we gotta get rid of this guy because they know they're being Big Brothered and they are being monitored”, you know what I mean?

Jason: Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Doug: Didn't they mention something about like, using this to also sell information to other people in the companies?

Mike: Uhhh.

Doug: I thought I remember reading something -- Anybody? No? Okay.

Jason: I don't remember.

Mike: Yeah I don't recall that, to be honest.

Doug: No one cares.

Mike: So either you’re crazy or I’m stupid and it might be the latter.

Doug: That’s very possible.

Mike: Yes. But even on like YouTube, we're going back to the original ChronosForLife guy -- he was trying to develop a way to use the word Erratas without --

Jason: A loophole.

Mike: -- without being flagged and he found a way. There were other --

Jason: So weren’t -- so -- speaking -- so YouTube -- the whole thing --

Doug: Stronks.

Jason: Huh?

Doug: Stronks.

Jason: [mumbles something here] ...this guy ChronosForLife -- his mother -- he said that he got, or she got, all of her videos taken down and like essentially Errata’d right?

Mike: Mhm, you did it, good job.

[laughter and clapping]

Jason: Goddammit.

Mike: But there’s another YouTuber that was exploring what Erratas was. Kinda like what we’re doing now only it didn't end so well for that guy.

Jason: Yeah so there’s this -- another name that gets thrown around a lot when talking about Erratas is the YouTuber Exer Erb. E-X-E-R-E-R-B. And there’s really not a whole lot about this YouTuber. The only information that’s given is saying that he created the KFC Murder Chicks -- YouTube was made in 2015 and first off the creation of the KFC Murder Chicks, that can’t even be confirmed, that’s just more heresay than anything just because his shit got deleted.

Mike: None of this can be confirmed.

Jason: Right so his shit got deleted. He frequented the Paranormal 4chan which that’s a link right there.

Mike: Coincidence? I think not.

Jason: So when he tried to link his experiences with the Erratas program or software and as soon as that happened, his -- all of his profiles, all from everywhere -- got, not just deleted, just got scrubbed. So I was talking to my brother actually when he was giving us some notes about our last episode and like how much we’ve sucked, why we’ve sucked so bad, what we can do to suck less -- which we’re still working on it -- so he told me that it is actually incredibly difficult to scrub yourself from the internet. It’s much easier to scrub somebody else from the internet than to scrub yourself. Which -- everybody leaves a trace. Like, every picture you’ve left on the internet, every comment, every everything leaves a trace of you being there. You can't find this guy anywhere. Nowhere. So he’s been tied to this just because he frequented the Paranormal 4chan and in one of his videos he mentioned something called Hekate Station. Now Hekate Station is actually, it’s a pretty old ARG -- for those of you who don't know what ARGs are, it’s an Alternate Reality Game. We’re gonna have episodes coming up that deal with ARGs and how real they can seem, how quickly you can kinda get caught up in the momentum of the mystery and everything. They’re very cool, so we’ll learn more about that later but so he vanished. No one on Reddit, no one on 4chan, no one on 8chan could figure out why and this other YouTuber by the name of Toxicologist made a video -- it’s two minutes, two to three minutes long, about why he disappeared, what he had to do with any of this, and it was because he was uploading videos of his experience with Erratas. Which -- that’s strange to me considering this other guy, ChronosForLife had been uploading videos about Erratas as well --

Doug: And getting around the algorithm.

Jason: -- and getting around -- right, and he got around the algorithm and obviously this guy Exer Erb --

Mike: Did not.

Jason: Right so no one knows what happened to this guy. No one’s heard from him.

Doug: Oh, he poofed.

Mike: D-E-D, dead.

Doug: He got voted off the island.

Mike: Super dead.

Jason: But yeah that’s the -- feel free to check out Exer Erb, a lot of people have been making like MS Paint artwork of his avatar. I mean, it’s nothing special it’s just this little gray --

Doug: Stick figure guy pretty much?

Jason: Yeah it’s like a cartoon, like flash games cartoon looking motherfucker -- but yeah that’s really all the information. It’s a very loose tie to this whole thing, not much information about it, just adds like another layer of mystery to what the fuck is going on here.

Doug: Yeah, it was almost like somebody came in third party and was kinda just trying to put what 4chan and all those other chans were doing into the mix to kinda keep people updated.

Jason: Yeah, so I guess the -- I know that was a lot of just odds and ends that were just kinda thrown about and pulled together by this one guy Tod Ellsworth. I think the biggest question about all of this is like, how do we know all of this is real? Like is this real?

Doug: No.

Jason: Okay.

Mike: I'm with Doug on this one. I don’t think it is because -- and I’ll go into it more, but I don’t think it is.

Jason: Oh my god, please.

Mike: I have my drunken ranted paperwork, my scrawlings of a madman in front of me. When we’re kinda wrapping everything up I’ll go over it cuz it kind goes over the entire -- it goes to the entire topic. I have stuff from the first original post. I have shit all the way down to Deep Internet, everything in between. So I’ll touch on that in a little bit but because of that, I’m gonna go with no as well.

Jason: Yeah, I have to agree. I don't think this is a real thing. It’s convincing like -- it was convincing.

Mike: This is, since we were talking about ARGs before, this is a pretty decent description of what an ARG is. It's something that seems on paper that it could be real.

Jason: Especially in the early days. The first couple of posts like the ones from -- especially the 4chan ones that opened all of this up were -- I mean they were just -- reading through it, whoever wrote this thought of everything, I mean --

Doug: It was very meticulously planned out.

Jason: And that’s what kinda made me think like “okay, this might be real” but I mean as you kinda go along and you get strung along and you see on these Tumblr pages, on these YouTube pages, and on like this guy Tod Ellsworth and how he has this ErratasOrBust hashtag attached to him, which is also attached to a YouTube video on an account owned by him that displayed the KFC Murder Chicks in Kentucky at the same address -- it just keeps going, it like --

Doug: The strings are getting longer.

Jason: It’s almost like there was one string.

Mike: The point is for the strings to get longer though, like an ARG is supposed to keep you dangling.

Jason: Right.

Mike: There’s not really an ending to any ARG, it’s supposed -- the point is, it’s that saying where, uhm, what is it? It’s not about where you're going, it’s how you get -- it’s like the journey.. You know what I mean?

Jason & Mike: “It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey.”

Jason: I thought you were gonna say people in glass houses shouldn't masturbate in the daytime but --

Mike: I mean, you can.

Jason: You shouldn’t.

Doug: It’s their choice.

Mike: You shouldn't. But yeah, that’s exactly -- this is exactly what an ARG is. It’s something that seems like it could be real, it’s a bunch of mysteries and puzzles thrown into the mix to keep you guessing and on your toes just forever and ever cuz even this -- there is no ending really to this. There's no like -- there kinda is, but it’s nothing super satisfying, you know what I mean? It’s nothing that --

Jason: Oh yeah.

Mike: After all this build up, we’re just like “We got em!” No, it's just like -- it ends.

Jason: So speaking of the end, what’s the final -- is there the final result of all this? The internet’s conclusion because I know Reddit is an army of millions of investigators with not a whole lot to do aside from investigate things. They help us out a lot. What did they find in regards to all this?

Doug: So there’s one clear answer to this but to be honest with you, this whole situation went dark for a long time actually. There was really no conclusion for the most part to it, but the internet being the internet, they always find a way.

Jason: Huh.

Mike: Life finds a way.

[laughter]

Mike: Wanna hear another reference? You’re a huge pile of shit.

[laughter]

Mike: Zing!

Doug: Everything leads back to the one and only DJ Rozwell, which we haven't actually talked about.

Jason: We’ve mentioned him once and it’s a video on Tod Ellsworth’s YouTube channel with all the Murder Chicks stuff.

Doug: Yeah and that’s actually the biggest key to the whole whole story.

Mike: And the smallest part of it, like it’s it has nothing to do with anything ‘cept that it’s on Tod’s fucking YouTube.

Doug: It’s just the one -- yeah, so to give you a little background info, DJ Rozwell -- he frequented the Paranormal boards. He was in the Deep Internet discussions, he was in the Jurassic Park boards talking about Jurassic Park, he was everywhere, and he actually made a post on one of those internet boards that said he wanted to make a band called the KFC Torture Chicks.

Jason: Huh.

Doug: Not the Murder Chicks, but the Torture Chicks.

Mike: There is it.

Jason: Well that’s a coincidence.

Doug: Oh totally, has nothing to do with what we’re talking about whatsoever. But he was also the one that made the original post that led you to the ChronosForLife YouTube channel.

Jason: Okay so Tod Ellsworth isn't the center of all of this or the star --

Mike: Unless Tod Ellsworth is DJ Rozwell.

Doug: Well would ya fuckin look at that.

Mike: Did I nail it?

Doug: He, yeah -- DJ Rozwell is the KFC Murder Chicks and Tod Ellsworth as far as --

Jason: and ChronosForLife, like he’s --

Mike: Oh, he’s everybody?

Jason: He’s everybody.

Doug: He’s the mastermind.

Mike: Is he KFC Murder Chicks?

Doug: Yeah.

Jason: Well, he’s in it.

Doug: He created the band. I don't know if he made the music or not, I assume --

Jason: I know that he is affiliated with them.

Doug: Yeah it’s his music though.

Mike: If it’s a band, was this all just one giant, like, ad to get people to listen to the KFC Murder Chicks?

Jason: So in prime ARG fashion --

Mike: You’re all smirking at me right now.

Jason: Yeah, cuz yes, in prime ARG fashion -- I mean we saw --

Mike: It's an ad?

Jason: I mean Nine Inch Nails, they did an ARG for their album with Teeth.

Doug: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike: Cloverfield and The Dark Knight Rises did one.

Doug: Cloverfield, yup.

Jason: Dark Knight Rises.

Mike: Even Halo 2.

Jason: That one was one of the best ones. We’re nerding out about all all of these different ones, these are -- you guys, I’m sure you’ll hear about all of these different ARGs in the future. We wanted to start off a little bit just as an intro. There are some crazy fucking ARGs out there.

Doug: Heavy hitters if you will.

Jason: Yeah, heavy.

Mike: Some that are gonna take multiple episodes because they’re still fucking going to this day, it’s been like nine years.

Jason: Exactly. I mean, yes, but this is absolutely an ARG.

Doug: And then, if you don't mind, I want --

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: I wanna read -- so DJ Rozwell actually had an interview with Spectrum? An internet website about KFC Murder Chicks and Erratas. I’m gonna just read like a small portion. They asked him “Regarding KFC Murder Chicks and Erratas what inspired you to create an ARG and link it up with that project?” “So to answer your question, yes. This was all to be a band promotional, you know, display on the internet” -- but this is what his response was “The whole ARG thing was around 2015 or 2016. Long story short, I was depressed, didn’t have a job, and I was in this weird place where I didnt feel confident in the KFC Murder Chicks music itself. I also felt like it needed a gimmick to go along with it to make it more well known and I figured a spooky internet mystery or ARG would do the trick. While, when it really blew up later I was amused at first, then I gradually got more weirded out. The narrators of these videos did all the speculating about me but never actually just contacted me to say ‘Hey, are you an actual person? Is it cool if we mention you?’ specifically rubbed me the wrong way back then but that’s karma I suppose” and then like he seriously, he gets like DMs two of three a week about Erratas and he usually ignores --

Mike: “Leave me aloonnee.”

Doug: -- them unless someone’s really spooked so --

Mike: “It’s ovverrrrr.”

Jason: I can imagine.

Doug: Yeah, it was just his fun way of dealing with maybe some hard time that he was going through and you know --

Jason: I think it wasn’t -- it was like sheer boredom honestly.

Doug: Yeah.

Jason: I’m thinking I read somewhere that he was just incredibly bored and needed a way to promote this music and this project and he had a bunch of time on this hand so why not create a complicated --

Doug: He said it was a very cynical and not very artistic palace that it came from. [laughter]

Jason: Alright.

Mike: So, he said that he made it when he was depressed, right?

Doug: Yeah.

Mike: So I’m gonna go over my drunken rant here.

Jason: Please.

Mike: And I’m just gonna, just dig into this guy and I’m gonna tear it to shreds.

Jason: Okay.

Mike: And how much, how many flaws he put into this thing and make him feel as depressed as he did back in 2015.

Doug: Oh my god.

Jason: So before we do this, we’re --

Mike: I’m gonna bully this man on the podcast.

Jason: -- we’re gonna, I’m gonna take a picture of this page or two of notes that Mike is reading from right now because --

Mike: It literally look like a madman’s scrawlings.

Jason: It did, it looks -- yeah go ahead, Mike.

Mike: Uhm anyways so --

Jason: Can I take a shot before we get into this?
Mike: Get prepared, yeah. You’re gonna want to. So again I’m gonna be flying all over the fucking map here. The original post, the original poster mentions that there is a box that they taped up using a tape dispenser that had Erratas written on it. Uhm, just doesnt fucking exist. None of that’s real.

Jason: No.

Mike: And there’s no mention of it again. It’s almost like that was supposed to be the main part of the ARG -- “What's in that box?” -- and then it just derailed. The original post also states that the homeless woman was in a band. That band probably being the KFC Murder Chicks.

Jason: Exactly, that very first post.

Mike: The very first post mentioned that, which, good for him, that was kinda cool. But the post itself doesn't even make any sense. So the original post, it talks about this guy who was -- he’s a payroll worker and he’s driving a forklift. How many payroll workers do you know that drive the forklifts? None.

Jason: Zero.

Mike: I’ve worked in a warehouse, the payroll workers are in a nice cozy office --

Jason: Air conditioned office.

Mike: -- that’s air conditioned and heated in the winter and we’re out on the frontlines doing the hard work. He has no idea what it’s like because he’s a payroll worker.

Jason: I sense some, uh --

Mike: Aggression!

Jason: -- angst coming out here.

Mike: [deep breath] Anyways. The December 19th, 2015, post -- out of nowhere, it says this is nothing strictly paranormal related. Why would he add that in a post about payroll software? Why would he even add -- why would he even go into r.. r/ ...no not r/ the /x/paranormal accounts on 4chan for a question about payroll software?

Jason: Yup, that’s I can see it being spooky but like not --

Mike: And then the anonymous poster says that UPS is in on it. That obviously explains the distrust with the post office between KFC Murder Chickens and Tod but they never really brush on that, it was just kinda of a once --

Jason: Can I, can we -- did you just say KFC Murder Chickens?

[laughter]

Doug: He did. I didn’t wanna correct him cuz I thought it was funny.

Mike: The KFC Murder Chickens… I’m hungry!

Jason: You’re a better man than I, because I needed to clarify.

Mike: I'm hungry, leave me alone. But they never really mention anything else about the post office -- like this guy just had subtle aggressions. I think he ordered something on the internet and it got delayed so he’s just really pissed at the post office.

[laughter]

Mike: The KFC Murder Chicks upload was November 21st, 2015. The original Erratas post was November 26th, 2015, and that was the homeless girl in the band so they’re about 5 days difference right there. I know we already went over the dates but I have it written here in my drunken posts so -- the Deep Internet is like where all this kinda -- the ball got rolling because that’s how we’re introduced to ChronosForLife, that’s how we’re introduced to Erratas, I would say like --

Doug: Through Tod Ellsworth, through YouTube.

Mike: Tod Elsworth. So it’s all coming from this Deep Internet post so he can really thank that Deep Internet genre for all this.

Jason: Seriously.

Mike: But that’s all I got written down real quick and I have like a really shitty --

Jason: You sound --

Mike: -- definition of ARG on here but that’s all I got written down but --

Jason: You can read it if you want, but I mean if --

Mike: It’s a reality -- it’s an alternate reality game that gives hints and puzzles to a mystery that could be real but most likely isn’t. Like a real life video  game where you must solve the mystery slash the puzzle.

Jason: Well there you have it, folks.

Doug: Riveting.

Mike: Thank you, that -- yup, that’s my whole thing. So I know I didn't tear him down but I mean there’s some shit in there where I can kinda see he was trying to go for a different storyline maybe? And just it got out of hand for him and he’s just “ah, fuck it”.

Jason: He didn't care.

Mike: Yeah. This could’ve gone so much farther if he like -- you could’ve just said something about that box.

Jason: Well see --

Mike: He could've.

Jason: You said that and that actually like that’s a good idea, it’s a really good idea.

Mike: Yeah, it’s just mentioned once. It’s on like -- they weren't they saying Erratas was written on the tape dispenser or was it on the -- ?

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Why would that be written on a tape dispenser?

Jason: Yeah. I mean again, after looking at it, after you have all the puzzle pieces in place --

Mike: A lot of it doesn't add up.

Jason: It’s like, “Oh yeah, none of this --”. Like, this is sloppy.

Mike: Yeah.

Jason: But looking like, outside looking in --

Doug: He did this all by himself.

Jason: Yeah, he did it all by himself.

Mike: Yeah it’s fun and good on him. It’s fun and honestly I couldn't come up with something like this if I tried. I am not that creative. It was fun, I really enjoyed it. I was hoping it would go on a bit in a different direction --

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: -- but it was still really fun and good on this guy for being able to create this fun little story that people still talk about to this day.

Jason: Yeah, he still gets messages so I guess he’s not lonely. It’s not the company he wants but it’s company.

Doug: He definitely -- I’m pretty sure he’s still doing music too so you can check his music out and check out KFC Murder Chicks.

Mike: Yeah go give him some royalties, he’s earned them.

Jason: Definitely go check these guys out. Give them -- literally just listening to their stuff will support them in some minor way but it will help and plus he -- they did put some effort into this so.

Mike: Yeah the music, as weird as it sounds, I mean it’s like stuff that’s edited together and someone created that, you know? So even if it’s like “Oh, I don't like this”, there’s a lot of effort that went into that music, you know?

Jason: That’s gonna be my burrito eating music from now on. I can’t eat burritos without the KFC Murder Chicks. Although it would make more sense --

Doug: Why would you not --

Jason: Fried chicken makes more sense.

Doug: Yeah. That’s your burrito music. I love KFC.

Mike: The set up was right there -- I mean you could’ve been at one of those KFC/Taco Bells.

Doug: That’s fair.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: So.

[laughter]

Mike: I think this is a good place to end this episode, boys.

Jason: Yeah, I think we covered pretty much everything? Uhm. Wanna say anything else?

Doug: Yeah? No? I’m good? I think we kinda hit it on the nail. I do wanna say, as far as just kinda my last thoughts on everything, I think for one dude doing everything on his own, I think he kinda fucking -- he did well with that he had to work with and I feel like this was actually one of like the more interesting ARGs that kind of didn’t go anywhere.

Jason: It sucks that it didn’t, but I agree with that 100%.

Mike: That’s what I’m saying. It had a lot of potential but just didn’t go anywhere.

Jason: Yeah.

Mike: Cuz you know he can only do so much by himself, I’m sure.

Jason: I’m -- well, so this ended what, four months ago or something? It wasn’t very long ago. Cuz the last piece of information, the confirmation, came like four maybe seven months ago?

Doug: Let me actually look at the -- let me see when that was written. Cuz I’m sure I could see it on the website actually.

Mike: I’m not -- I thought this ended like years ago. I thought this ended in like 2018, 2019?

Jason: I could be wrong.

Mike: Aw, man, everyone’s on their laptops looking everything up and I’m just sitting here like a dingus with my… Dingus.

Jason: Dingus of my dingus.

Mike: [whispers] We’re gonna cut this out right?

Jason: Yeah.

Doug: Yeah.

Jason: No, we’re gonna let everyone sit in it.

Doug: Stew in this.

Mike: Listen to this dead noise.

Jason: Listen to your own brain think.

[silence]

Jason: That’s a really good heartbeat.

Mike: That’s your brain, pulsating.

Doug: Oh, yeah! Wow, this was 2020. I didn’t even look at that.

Jason: Yeah, I mean, five years of mystery. That’s impressive.

Mike: Yeah especially for doing it by yourself. And I think you can kinda see how many people were in on it if you go to the KFC Murder Chicken’s album

[laughter]

Mike: … KFC Murder Chicks. I did it again. Chicken’s just comes off the tongue a lot better than chicks.

Jason: Rolls off the throat.

Mike: Yeah, but if you go there you can see how many views they have so that’s probably a good inclination of how many people were involved in the ARG, ya know? Cuz it all leads there, so whoever got through all this stuff got to that link and --

Jason: Yeah, I mean they definitely had some impacts.

Mike: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Jason: Please give us a shoutout on Twitter, hit us up on Facebook, on Instagram.

Doug: We’ll be posting a lot of, you know, pictures, links to the music, everything from this episode too.

Mike: Follow --

Jason: What?

Mike: Follow us.

Jason: Smash that like button.

Mike: Smash that like button. Follow us --

Jason: In real life.

Mike: Please. [whispers] Please… subscribe.

[laughter]

Mike: I will give you a raspberry if you subscribe.

Doug: I will kiss your dad.

Mike: I’ll kiss your dad if you subscribe.

[laughter]

Mike: You’re gonna click that subscribe button and then I’m gonna go ring your dad’s doorbell. You might not even be there but he’ll know.

Jason: He’ll just know.

Doug: He’ll know and you won’t and it’ll be weird.

Mike: “This is from the listener.” [kiss noise]

[laughter]

Doug: Sink back into the sewer where I belong.

Jason: On that note, thank you much for listening and please, please, please --

Mike: Stay paranoid?

Jason: I mean you can say that one.

Mike: What were you gonna say?

Jason: Don’t you have, like, a thing you say before you -- ?

Mike: That was my pear thing. There’s a pear in your fridge --

Doug: Aren’t you doing a sign off? Like, you’re gonna have like one sign off thing that you want to say like every time?

Mike: Oh, no, I’m switching itup every fucking --

Jason: Wild card.

Mike: I’m a wild card.


[outro music starts to play then cuts out]


Jason: …oh, man

Doug: Kinda perfect timing though.

Mike: Uhm, alright, so let’s sign out real quick.

Doug: Yeah, let’s, yeah.

Jason: I guess thank you so, so, so much for listening. You know, as always, stay paranoid.

Mike: Eat a tooth. Eat that pear in the fridge. I’m telling ya, it wants you.

Doug: And, uh, don’t forget to slap peens and bake beans.

[laughter]

Jason: Oh my god.


[outro music plays]