From Brand to Carlson to Musk and back to Brand - the network of conspiracists who have each other’s backs
They are an online mash-up of the neo-right, neo-left, old-school conspiracy theorists and the manosphere. And they defend one another when one of them becomes a ‘victim’ of a public ‘assassination’.
Brent Lee spent 15 years “down the rabbit hole”. He was a conspiracy theorist who believed the world was controlled by shadowy forces, that there was a “one world government” plotting to create an obedient, somnambulist blob of “enslaved” people. Lee was a “truther” and he had to wake everyone up.
In 2018, he managed to pull himself out, and now helps other people get out too. In the past week he has been watching closely the reactions online to the claims about Russell Brand, as many alt-right, anti-establishment influencers and new-wave conspiracy theorists leap to the comedian’s defence, saying they believe Brand is being targeted for speaking the “truth”.
Lee, 44, said: “You see different groups all coming together over the same thing, because in their world, if they’re coming for one of us, they’re coming for all of us.”
In the past five years, Brand has remodelled himself as a wellness guru and online influencer who can be found on social media channels such as Rumble and YouTube, railing against the mainstream media, Big Pharma, Big Food and centralised government, lacing his content with popular conspiracy theories.
It has put him in the centre of a wider network of self-proclaimed “outsiders”, which defends, and amplifies, itself. Bound by belief in libertarianism and free speech, it is an online mash-up of the neo-right, neo-left, spiritual gurus, old-school conspiracy theorists and the manosphere.
These outsiders appear on one another’s podcasts and online chat shows and defend one another when one of them becomes a “victim” of a public “assassination”.
Last week, The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 published allegations by four women against Brand of rape, sexual assault and abuse, all of which he denied.
On Friday night, in his first public appearance since the allegations, Brand posted a video on social media.
He thanked his followers for questioning accusations against him before making claims about media corruption, corporate collusions and the “deep state”, directing his fans to go to Rumble for new content tomorrow (Monday).
In the past few days, an online army has been fighting his - and their own - ideological battle. Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer who is awaiting trial in Romania charged with rape and human trafficking, tweeted: “Welcome to the club.”
Welcome to the club @rustyrocketspic.twitter.com/NS1n8nVSXV
— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) September 16, 2023
Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist, blamed “the Matrix”, as did the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Laurence Fox, Elon Musk and Nigel Farage blamed nameless, powerful forces, as did pundit Katie Hopkins, who told Brand to “keep going lovely”. Most of the figures supporting Brand have their own podcasts or shows on social media platforms away from the “mainstream media”, often with millions of followers.
It is a web. The alt-media pundit Patrick Bet-David (7.37 million total followers on a variety of platforms) interviewed Andrew Tate (9.5 million); offered the conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson (10.4 million) a show on his “network”; interviewed Alex Jones (350,000); and then went on Brand’s podcast.
Brand (19.3 million) supported Carlson when he was fired from Fox News and went on the podcast of Joe Rogan (27.4 million), who in turn interviewed Alex Jones, who interviewed Elon Musk (157 million), who then came out in support of Brand.
“Disenfranchisement seems to be the key to their unity,” said Joe Ondrak, head of UK investigations at Logically, a misinformation-tracking company.Their ideology, he said, was also based in “the Great Reset” conspiracy narrative.
This theory was based on a legitimate white paper published by the World Economic Forum after the pandemic, said Ondrak, and “seen by them as a way that the ‘deep state’ was trying to control people in order to achieve the New World Order. It’s the big apocalypse that’s coming.”
A year ago Brand signed an exclusive deal, for an unknown sum, with Rumble, where until last week, he uploaded a daily show called Stay Free, which reaches about 300,000 daily viewers.
He has produced more than 20 videos about the Great Reset, beginning around 2021, with many racking up between one and three million views.
The night before The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s investigation was published, Brand decided to deny the allegations with a video on social media, rather than through his lawyers.
“I’m aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, ‘Watch out, Russell, they’re coming for you, you’re getting too close to the truth’,” he said. “It’s been clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there’s a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces, and these kind of voices, and I mean my voice along with your voice.”
Brent Lee, the former conspiracy theorist, moved away from that belief system after the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election made him realise that people had power, that votes were real and “this one world government, new world order, doesn’t exist”.
He said: “Conspiracy theorists want to save people, we must remember that. Conspiracism is defined by their unity, so they have to protect each other. It is a leaderless cult.”
The Sunday Times
