Welcome to the nonprofits, and today we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to talk about something fun. At the beginning, when satire clashes a reality, hilarity ensues. The Onion, King of Sarcasms, spends a bold narrative over now owning Alex Jones by literally owning info Wars. Meanwhile, Jones, the unintentional performance artist of conspiracy Land, is reportedly scrambling
to keep the parody from becoming his personal reality. It's a metajoke for the ages, the grand overlord of fake news out faked by professional satirists. As Joan rants about the deep State satire ops, one can't help but marvel at the absurd symmetry of it all. Satire, it seems,
might just be the most effective truth serum. These articles are from The Onion by Bryce P. Tettergard the CEO, on November fourteen, twenty twenty four, and The New Republic by Ellie Quinlan hultailing on November eighteenth, twenty twenty four. I have to admit I had quite a laugh when I first saw this, in spite of the seriousness of the story. But Stephen going to you, what do you
think this Downfall. Alex Jones's downfall reflects on the consequences of building an empire field on outrage and divisiveness.
I have to love the irony of Jones who has spent so very much time and energy into sowing vitriol to support and empower a certain demographic of people, and those people have reaped the benefit of this toxic miasm that he's been creating and spreading, and now, in his hour of need, when he really could use the backing of some of these wealthy people, they leave him out
to dry. I think that that is just a beautiful turn of the coat that the people who have benefited the most from info Wars, outside of Jones himself, want nothing to do with keeping him and his voice is active. I think this is this could have happened to a worst individual, and I'm very happy to hear that things are not going as he pleased.
You know, I have to completely agree, because he just absolutely was the turd in the punch bowl for I don't know how long. And it's good to see though that the people around them they're no better than him, because they're ready to dump him just as soon as they get a chance. A j switching over to you, I know that he had certain products that definitely reflected onto his branding and audience of info Wars. What kind of what did you have to say about that?
He actually knows, you know, Alex Joan was under the impression that the good guys on the right were going to be buying info Wars after he was forced to put it up for auction, and apparently some of his supporters showed interest in the purchase, but none of them work out, and the only mirror was the company that runs the onion. So what did he do? He decided to take mothers into his own hands by having one of his other companies make a bit unsuccessfully of course.
And this company, as you mentioned, has some products, and the company is called First United American Companies, which is ironically abbreiated fuck fan Prohounds and that correctly sounds like that.
Yeah.
So they what they do is they sell dietary supplements, and some of these supplements that they sell are really interesting. One of them is called info Wars Life Brainforce Plus. I don't know exactly what that does, like, does that puts some kind of conspiracy theories into your brain? And the other one is the best one. Okay, it's pretty epic,
and it's called Info Wars Life, Super Male Vitality. So if any of you guys here in the panel need to get your daily those of toxic masculinity, just go ahead and find Alex Jones.
Well, I would definitely hope that that would be a good example of anyone that's getting this product probably doesn't have to worry about getting laid that. Just go ahead and takes that off your show. Because after all, I guess since you mentioned the name of this company being abbreviated to fuck, I guess that makes Alex Jones fuck.
Uh So, Scott, Okay, now go ahead. I was just gonna say I need to recover from that pun there, but you can go ahead.
Now. How do you think this story high likes the parallels between Info Wars and the Onion as competitors.
Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing, that's the that's the ironic thing here. First of all, I really love this story. It made me smile. I mean, we're kind of in dark times right now, and it feels really good to smile. And I do have to admit a not small amount of schadenfreud to hear and so I indulged myself and let myself.
Have a little giggle about that.
But it's especially funny when you realize that they are, in fact, they were at least competitors in some ways intentional but in some ways unintentional all of the stuff that was coming out of Info Wars. You know, he did eventually admit that it was an entertainment site, right, that he wasn't intending to present news items, and be he didn't want to be held to any kind of standard of truth, I would imagine, so he kind of
had to play this role of being competitors. And then now they end up just say, okay, well we'll just we'll take that, we'll buy that off of you, and now you'll be gone and go on your merry way, and then you know, then we'll we'll have a bigger market share. I suppose I loved the irony. I love the irony. And it's just like a layered threat that's an onion joke. There a layered treat that just keeps on giving, keeps on giving. It's a meta irony, and
that's my favorite kind of irony. It's irony about irony and so well played kudos to the Onion nice job there.
I had initially read that when the CEO found out that the company was going to be available, he was pretty much on the viewpoint of this is too good to pass up. There's this is this is a story in itself that just buying it creates all on its own, And I agree, But there is a more serious side to this. And Stephen going over to you, how does the financial outcome impact of the Sandy Hook families as
a symbolic justice, even if it's incomplete. Do you think that they see a certain level of justice and the fact that not only did they bankrupt him, but that some something that he would want to put as the boogeyman under the bed is actually becoming his reality.
Yeah, yeah, like that's it's like, yeah, the fact that the Sandy Hook victims were instrumental in making this deal happen. For anyone who's not up on all the details. There there were two bids for the company. One was by the Onions Company and the other one was by Alex
Jones's other company. Alex Jones's other Company's bid was higher, but the fact that the Sandy Hook families, a portion of them, were supporting the Onion and said that if the Onions deal goes through, then we will relinquish any what's coming to us of Jones's lawsuit woes skyrocketed the value of the bid, even if it wasn't necessarily in the form of cold hard cash, that would have gone to a bunch of other companies before Sandy Hook parents
would have gotten it. I think the fact that that, like, yeah, it's it's unfortunate that those Sandy Hook parents wouldn't get
what the court has deemed do them. But one like what there is no price that you can pay in order to compensate for the loss of your children, and then to have wall wars like this like Alex Jones benefiting from the death of their children and then the harassment that they received on top of that because of Alex Jones, Like, there's no dollar sign that's going to compense, say,
for all of that. So in one sense, it is sad that they don't get any money now because of this, But at the same time, it's almost as if they because there wasn't going to be a dollar sign significant enough or that could ever compensate them. It's meaningful. I hope that because of what they've gone through, hopefully they've been able to like pull the plug, pull the drain on the cesspool that Alex Jones bathes in, and you know, just drain him of any power hopefully down the road.
And that even though they won't get, you know, that financial compensation, that at least they can make a difference in preventing harm like this from happening to other people down the road.
Yes, And one of those things being that sometimes we see companies or people getting away with certain bad behaviors over and over again. And he did this for a very long time, and seeing that come around, it's fortunate because it should serve as a reminder of the other people. And that switches over to AJ. I know he started out on radio and then he went on to his on self run misinformation Empire. What do you think that
says about on check platforms like this? And do you think that this downfall of them forwards could serve as a warning to others who are spreading dangerous information because we hear that every day.
I struggle with this because I believe that censorship is not the solution to the spread of hate. I feel like information, more information, and more education, and you know, being able to analyze your biases and your beliefs is a better solution than censorship. But this case, those show the harm that this type of un check platforms, like you said, has. So let's go back a little bit.
Alex Jones started in FORO Wards in the nineties after he was fired from a radio show because his extreme viewpoints made it hard for the radio station to get sponsors. So this goes to show Okay, yeah, like his said, yeas were always extreme, So we wanted to create his own broadcast where he was free to spread any kind of misinformation as far as he could manage. And unfortunately this was fire and white and his false conspiracy theories
have accumulated him quite a fortune. So there are a lot of people that support that type of misinformation that he's sharing. As far as warning to, you know, those who spread that misinformation, I would hope that this does give them some kind of idea on what could happen to them, because I don't know if we can even call what Alex Jones spread information, you know, I don't
think we can. What he spread was frighteningly dangerous, is you know, as you mentioned, one of the most disgusting conspiracies that he has spread came at the expense of the families of the Sandy Hook victims. He claimed that the whole thing was fake. He called the shooting a hoax. He say that it was an effort to increase gun control, and he went as far as to say that the
parents were actors and that the children never existed. And the problem here isn't just the claims alone, but the response of his followers, like the people that listened to and believe his livees act upon those lives, and in this case, the harassment threatened the families of the Sandy
Hook victims. There were dead threeads. There was even somebody shot at one of the family's cars, one of another one of the victims parents say that this conspiracy theories urinated on his seven year old son's quay and threatened to dig up the coffin to confirm that there was a child in it. How disgusting do you.
Have to be? So?
I mean, you have to hope that if people learn anything from this, is that spreading misinformation and its avengers.
I definitely am not a fan of limiting information, and I get where you're coming from. There that certain level of ill at ease with something that feels like a restriction. But really we're talking about platforming. Do we want to give someone the ability to platform as a bully? I mean, because literally what he did is not only was he a bully, but as your examples pointed out, is he encouraged the worst in other people who already have those tendencies.
He encouraged him to do those behaviors because look, these parents lost their kids and there's there's nothing that any of us is going to say or anyone in the world is going to ever fix that or make that better. But that doesn't mean that that gives somebody like him an opportunity to take a shit on him, because that's what he did. That's why people did the behaviors you mentioned. But switching over to you, Scott, I did find a level of amusement about this situation, even from people who
tend to be a little on the right. There was a certain level of amusement at finding the onion and taking info wars over. So what do you think that this loss of his empire and everyone finding this funny? What do you think this says about his reputation? And could his attempt to work around it and keep it, do you think that could further make him look even worse?
Well, first of all, you were talking aj you were talking about censorship, and I think it's worth pointing out that stopping misinformation actually encourages the flow of good information, and so this isn't necessarily a censorship situation stopping somebody from passing on horrible and harmful and damaging and hurtful misinformation. And now I've totally distracted myself away from your question, Infidel, Can you give me a quick five word version of it.
Do you think his attempt to work around this bid and try to still fight to go the distance if I can still alive from cake, do you think that that just will even make him look even worse the way he's.
A yeah, yeah, well of course, I mean it's clear what's happening here. And there's a little quote from the article I read here. It says, and we've already talked a little bit about it. A company affiliated with Jones First United American Companies, which sells dietary supplements, lost its bid for the fire Right Network last week, underbidding the Onion, which went on to claim in for Wars as its own.
But the saga hasn't ended there, okay. In an attempt to recoup the lost bid, Flock accused the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the auction of colluding with the satirical news site as well as families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre to pass over the group's three point five million bid. So he's just adding fuel to the fire there,
he's just making it worse. Not only did he accuse these families of being deceptive in the loss of their children, which is like the most terrifying, most horrifying, most painful moment of these families' lives, and he just had to rub salt in it.
Now he's adding things. Now, he's adding fuel to that.
He's saying, now they're in addition to that, they're colluding with the trustee, the bankruptcy trustee, to manipulate the sale. And so with no evidence, by the way, I should point out there there hasn't been any evidence that any of that was true. In fact, the trustee of themselves talked about that.
They released a.
Statement saying this is a ridiculous claim that there's been no collusion at all. There's no evidence at all of any of this happening, and I think it really is.
You know, I would say it's making him.
Look worse, but he already looked pretty damn bad, and so you know, at this point he might be thinking that he has nothing to lose, and so adding this isn't necessary. I don't think it's going to harm his reputation anymore, because I think his reputation is all to.
The people who don't like him.
His reputation is already in the gutter, and the people who do like him, they're not going to be listening to, you know, to facts anyway, and so it does add a nice, little delicious layer to all those to that
irony there. I'm happy that the you know, AJ was saying that the families gave up some of their share of their take of what was coming into them, and you know, we might think of that as being unfortunate, but I hope that they got at least some satisfaction knowing that they could take an active part in taking this man's this man's business down and taking at least this source of misinformation out of the system.
And I think whatever the onion turns info wars into is going to be payment enough for the families?
Yeah, I'm sure it's going to be glorious.
Yeah.
Well, when Scott said something about there was no evidence for what he was claiming, I'm like, if I'd have been eaten, how to spit out my dog at that point. But it's just one of those things that we know that we can count on him to make things up. Now, Steven, I wanted to start. I'm going to ask all of you this, but I want to kind of get everyone's opinion. Also, go ahead and throw anything else you thought might be important. But do you think that this info world's model of
profit through outrage and pseudoscience? You know we've seen it influence other people, But do you think we're going to continue to see this type of behavior and other people try to perpetrate the same thing.
Yes, yes, yes yes, if it works, if it works, if you make a buck, like, there's just that that mindset. There is that kind of person who believes that if you can do it, then it is ethical for you to do it. If you can exploit a loophole, if you can exploit a person, well it's therefore for being dumb.
So give me your money, you are too stupid to have that money, and I am entitled to whatever I can take, whatever I can get, So absolutely, the only way that we'll ever be able to grow beyond this is through education, and only by only by educating people and teaching them how to use their brains will we ever hope to get free of some of this myer. And we're never going to be free of it. It's always going to be here with us. There will always be people who are exploitable, and there will always be
the people willing to exploit them. We just have to develop systems to try to mitigate it that as much as possible, and to try to protect the people that we can.
We already have some of those big fish out there, similar to InfoWars, you know, Joe Robe and undertakes can help in all of these other platformed people that are spreading all of this anti scientific information, information, misinformation, misinformation.
My bad.
Yeah, I think I think there's little to no chance that we won't be seeing this again. I mean demand made of multi what is a multimillion dollar business out of essentially a microphone and some listeners, and so it can be done, Like Stephen was saying, if it can be done. It's going to be done. And so there are people that have no problem making money off of the pain and suffering of others that have no problem that make money off of misinformation about fear mongering, about
conspiracy theory promotion. And so as long as there are people that are going to be lapping that stuff up and buying those supplements and buying those products and buying those buckets of doomsday food, and you know, whatever it is that's being sold, there's going to be a market for it. And as long as there's a market for it, there's going to be people that, as Steven said, are
willing to rake in that money. So it's nice to see this particular Goliath go down to borrow a phrase, but there's going to be more popping up, and so you know, we should probably get used to it.
Yeah, so I think that you're all right. I have to say, though, if nothing else came out of this story, though, at least I know when I'm buying Scott and Stephen for Christmas. AJ told me about a nice product here earlier. So right, thank you, thanks, Thanks
Now,