Dear Podcaster, Your Words Matter

If you’re out of the loop, I’ll fill you in: Infowars is a podcast hosted by notorious alt-right media personality Alex Jones. He’s the “water turns frogs gay,” guy. He’s the one who screams into a microphone about aliens and government conspiracies. If we’re being blunt (and we are here), the show is essentially just a front for selling cheap supplements to his audience, and he made millions doing it.

Now, I have no problem with a supplement-pushing crazy conspiracy podcast host if the show is done in good fun. However, his audience seems to be incapable of discerning fact from fiction. So much so that when he floated the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was a government conspiracy, people believed him. He continued to hammer home how much of a “fake” this tragic situation was, and people listened. They began to dox the families that had lost children in the shooting. They would call and leave threatening messages on parents’ phones, stalk them, and even confront them in public.

As a father, I cannot fathom the grief that comes from losing a child so suddenly and unexpectedly. And then to have a random crazy person start calling and harassing me for being a “paid actor” and claiming it was all fake would feel like walking through a Hellish fever dream. I don’t know how those parents survived that torture. Thankfully they all banded together and sued the man behind it all: Alex Jones and InfoWars. They sued him for every last penny, and they have hawkishly watched his financial moves to make sure that he can’t get away with the Hell he has unleashed on these people.

If you’d like to dive down the rabbit hole on Alex Jones, below are two videos that go in-depth on who he is as well as Sandy Hook.

Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan

One of the most unhinged interviews I’ve seen with Alex Jones. It’s worth noting this was before the lawsuit reached $1.5 Billion in damages. That would come later due to additional lawsuits filed by the victim’s families. Andrew does a great job of contrasting Jones with a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in this interview.

The most telling moment was this quote at the very end:

Andrew: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Alex: I see me picking my teeth with my enemy’s bones.

Nothing sums up Alex Jones and Infowars better, in my opinion.

Now, I know there’s at least one contrarian that will look at this situation and go, “Well, it wasn’t Alex who was attacking these people! It was his listeners!” And yes, from what I recall, Jones never directly encouraged this behavior, in fact, he claims he was “never trying to cause pain and suffering,” but he definitely didn’t discourage it, and he was the sole source of the information on Sandy Hook being a fake shooting. So by his own actions he was stoking the flames of anger and hate towards these families.

You see, while it wasn’t directly his fault and he didn’t carry out the attacks, Jones was (and is) a Stochastic Terrorist. Britannica defines stochastic terrorism as, “the repeated use of hate speech or other vilifying, dehumanizing rhetoric by a political leader or other public figure that inspires one or more of the figure’s supporters to commit hate crimes or other acts of violence against a targeted person, group, or community.” The post then goes on to say that the challenge with stochastic terrorism is that, in general, it doesn’t constitute incitement or solicitation to violence because the rhetoric lacks “sufficient specificity.” You can read the full definition here if you want to dive deeper on the subject. Even Jones had to be found guilty of defamation, which makes sense given that he was fabricating lies, but definitely not something you can put someone in jail for… just anyone who commits violence as a result of said words would go to jail.

The Sandy Hook survivors banded together and fought Jones with lawsuits until they finally reached a $1.5 Billion resolution on Jones. This lead to them pursuing Jones for as much of that settlement as they could (at last count this was just $85 million), and Jones will be responsible for paying this settlement off for the rest of his life.

This is a great clip to illustrate the power of words on a personal level brought to you by Andy Stanely. 

Words matter. How you use them to express your thoughts and feelings have a profound impact on the world around you. There’s a reason that shaming people in the public forum has been a form of punishment for thousands of years, and a reason that we say, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” They all matter. Whether they’re written, spoken, or listened to, words matter, and quite often we act like none of it does.

Social media has conditioned us to believe that our words do not have value… or that they shouldn’t have much value. Just look at Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Becoming the “bastion of free speech” has lead to a drastic increase in the amount of hate speech on the site. People think that the First Amendment entitles them to say whatever they want without repercussions without considering that there should be such a thing as common decency and concern for others.

As a Christian, I was taught that the tongue (ie: the words we say) was a powerful tool and a potentially dangerous weapon. Here’s a few good passages to ponder as we continue our conversation:

Proverbs 18:21 (NASB)

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.

 

James 3:5-8 (NASB)

Look at the ships too: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are nevertheless directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot determines. ‘And the tongue is a fire, the very world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set among our body’s parts as that which defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one among mankind can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!

Words have the power to give life or take it away. What you say can be a tool for good, or a tool for evil. In the case of Alex Jones, he used his tongue for evil, self-serving purposes, and he set a forest aflame with his tiny podcast.

Alex Jones is not the only one doing this, though. There are plenty of other folks that propagate fake narratives or stir up hate towards marginalized groups with their words. They may think what they’re doing is benign because they’re “just speaking their mind,” but people listen. People respond with violence. Just look at the bomb threats made on medical clinics caring for trans youth. Folks like Chaya Raichik (Libs of TikTok) and Matt Walsh were propagating all kinds of stories against these places and riling up anger, which resulted in the threats.

Some of the recent mass shootings were even propagated by people that referenced podcasters and social media hate influencers in their manifestos. Most notably are the Christchurch shooter, the Buffalo shooter, and the El Paso shooter, all of whom had manifestos that referenced right wing media narratives and memes on immigration and other issues.

Once you start looking into this, the rabbit hole goes deep. These words – this anger being generated by content creators (and political leaders) – fuels people day-in and day-out as they drive to work, consume social media, and have conversations with their friends. What’s worse is that these content creators all know each other and work in a similar ecosystem which ultimately drives their audiences to be in an echo chamber of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. This can compound when you add in content that is designed to make the audience feel angry. Harping on the same topic, like how “illegal aliens” are taking all the jobs and that immigrants will replace the white race will really start to rile up your base after a while… and what’s crazy is it seems like people enjoy this content.

Personally, I call this content “anger porn,” as it’s an addictive, stimulating form of digital content. Yes, it’s a bit crass, but that’s the point of the term. It’s not something you want to admit you consume constantly. It’s not something you’re proud of… just like regular porn. It is a real problem in our society, and it doesn’t really help anyone.

Anger porn isn’t something that only affects “the right,” either. Any community that consumes information with a (mostly subconscious) need to feel angry can be prone to it. Heck, in the wake of the election, I’ve certainly consumed my fair share. Algorithms don’t make it easy to avoid either. Once you like a new piece of content, they throw you down a rabbit hole of related content until you’re deep in a well of craziness. As I write this, my current TikTok Algorithm is mostly people trying to explain away the election, freaking out about Trump’s cabinet picks, and talking about “Blue Anon” conspiracies. Now, I will NOT become one to embrace that, but in the wake of extreme disappointment and fear for the future, I finally get how that’s a thing. Just to have a brief hit of what folks call “hopium,” is a dangerous drug. Especially on a diet of anger porn content.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get to how all this applies to podcasting and why I’m writing this. First and foremost, I think we should all seriously evaluate the content we consume and how it impacts us. Even if you’re not a professional podcaster, your choice to listen or watch content is going to condone that content creator. Content creators thrive on ad revenue that’s generated from the downloads, listens, and views they get. The best condemnation of a content creator is to just avoid the content they create all together. (As a quick aside, if you’re “hate-watching content,” you’re just as guilty of watching “anger porn,” as the person who regularly consumes said content as well.)

Secondly, as a podcaster reading this, you have a responsibility with the content you create. After all: your words matter. Even if you don’t ascribe to Christian principles, you should at least acknowledge that the words you say have an impact on the world around you. As people on social media have been learning for years, it’s a fool’s errand to think that inappropriate jokes and comments won’t get you in trouble. The book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, is a great case study in this phenomenon, by the way. As a podcaster, people are listening to you because they value you words. So take responsibility for them. Make sure that you back up your opinions with facts. Don’t rile people up just because you want to earn a buck. Don’t fall down the rabbit hole that Alex Jones, Matt Walsh, Chaya Raichik, and others have fallen.

When I saw the news about The Onion acquiring Infowars this morning, it made me laugh. The Onion is a parody news network committed to creating some of the snarkiest, funniest “fake news” content on the Internet. They are well-versed in speaking truth to power while also making you laugh.

Their current CEO is Ben Collins, who worked at NBC covering disinformation, extremism, and the Internet for several years. He also wrote that Buffalo shooter article I linked earlier. He’s covered Infowars and the communities that feed off that content, and so he knows the depths of darkness that exist there. He was a great journalist to follow back in the day, and I was honestly disappointed he was leaving to pursue this job, but I get it. Reporting on these communities non-stop can’t be easy. So for him to lead the charge in acquiring Infowars just makes it all that much sweeter (and funnier) to me. Not to mention their blog post announcing it is downright hilarious. What better way to close the book on Alex Jones than with an acquisition by Global Tetrahedon, a company whose home page sports a banner supporting Everytown For Gun Safety stating, “We will never stop fighting to end gun violence?”

Now more than ever we need people who will be a light in this world. Be that light with your content. Elevate, and don’t bring people down. If you need to punch, punch up. Seek truth and speak truth. We owe it to our audiences to be truthful and entertaining; not deceitful and damning. After all, words matter.