This week we’re “just asking questions.” You probably recognize that quip from Joe Rogan, of course, but today’s focus is another actor and comedian turned popular podcaster, Russell Brand. As with Rogan, who he recently said he loved being compared to, Brand is amassing an increasingly large following—trust us, he’ll remind you of that number at the top of every episode—thanks to his high-energy solo rants about the conspiracy of, well, seemingly everything. But what’s Russell really saying? We’ve listened to hours of his podcasts and watched further hours of videos and, to be honest, we can’t really tell. Pseudo-spiritual musings mesh with benign revolutionary politicizing with a healthy dose of his live performance schedule and reminders to smash the subscribe button thrown in. Russell is exceptionally good at evoking emotions and firing listeners up with his high-energy, seemingly stream-of-consciousness diatribes, yet when you break down the sentences, you find that he’s pretty content-free. Well, except when he’s marketing himself, which, at the end of the day, seems to be the only thing Russell is truly interested in.Show NotesHybrid immunity offers increased protection that is longer-lasting against Covid-19 reinfection, studies showRussell Brand: My ResponseRussell Brand: How Did We Miss This?Russell Brand & Nigel Farage clash over immigration on Question TimeRussell Brand: 'I've never voted, never will'Johnson & Johnson Announces Real-World Evidence and Phase 3 Data Confirming Strong and Long-Lasting Protection of Single-Shot COVID-19 Vaccine in the U.S.Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine Boosting in Persons Already Protected by Natural or Vaccine-Induced ImmunityEffectiveness of the BNT162b2 Vaccine after Recovery from Covid-19Protection against SARS-CoV-2 after Covid-19 Vaccination and Previous InfectionWorld Economic Forum: Digital IdentityWatch Russell Brand Read From A Couple Of My Articles
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Matthew is taking the week off to continue to work on our forthcoming book.
You can stay up to date with us on all of our social media, including predominantly Twitter, where we're at our individual channels.
We're also on Instagram.
I believe Julian has posted on YouTube recently again.
And we're also on Facebook.
And also, of course, on Patreon at patreon.com slash conspirituality, where for $5 a month you can help support us and get access to our Monday bonus episodes.
And before we get into this week, I want to say someone on Twitter reached out about last week's episode on Terrain Theory and told me that I had gotten the origins of animalcules wrong.
It wasn't the 16th century.
It was actually the 17th century with Van Leeuwenhoek who had made that term, or had coined that term.
So thank you to Pamela McKenzie for being a nerd, her words on it, but I appreciate nerds on stuff like that.
So, oversight on my point, but now you know where the origins of animacules comes from.
Just the high integrity on display over something that probably has just wreaked havoc in people's lives that you got that wrong.
I know, I apologize to all the early microscopy fans out there.
But again, I really appreciate it because getting historical stuff right is important.
Yeah, and there's plenty of people who are experts in fields that we are merely dabbling and educating ourselves in, so that's great.
Conspiratuality 97, Brand Awareness.
This week we're just asking questions.
You probably recognize that quip from Joe Rogan, of course, but today's focus is another actor and comedian turned popular podcaster, Russell Brand.
As with Rogan, who he recently said he loved being compared to, Brand is amassing an increasingly large following.
Trust us, he'll remind you of that number at the top of every episode thanks to his high-energy solo rants about the conspiracy of, well, seeming everything.
But what is Russell really saying?
We've listened to hours of his podcasts and watched further hours of videos, and to be honest, we can't really tell.
Pseudo-spiritual musings mesh with benign revolutionary politicizing with a healthy dose of his live performance schedule and reminders to smash the subscribe button thrown in.
Russell is exceptionally good at evoking emotions and firing listeners up with his high-energy, seemingly stream-of-consciousness diatribes.
But when you break down the sentences, you find that he's pretty content-free.
Well, except when he's marketing himself, which at the end of the day, seems to be the only thing Russell is truly interested in.
Ah, Russell Brand.
If he just recently crossed your radar, you know him as the middle-aged YouTuber with a Jesus beard, hippie hair, distinctive London accent, and over 5 million subscribers.
5.3 million subscribers.
That's right.
Come on, update it. update it.
If you just look through the titles, The Great Reset, The Truth Is Coming Out About Vaccines, What THEY Are Not Telling You About Russia, The CDC Narrative Is Collapsing, Bill Gates and His Trustees, Trump Wasn't Lying, and of course how Brand is now being smeared and censored by a mainstream media that wants to get him cancelled.
But the 46-year-old brand has been on quite the epic journey to get to this high point of eloquent paranoia.
Now, I say eloquent because you may have noticed he has this brand of presentation that leans heavily on the juxtaposition of an impressive intellectual vocabulary delivered in a working-class accent with creative, playful flair and charisma.
And that's actually a good place to start because Russell is in fact a millionaire actor and comedian who nonetheless styles himself as a left-wing populist man of the people.
But his shtick has always been more about posture than depth, culminating now in his content-free rants characterized by rebellious calls for transparency and freedom from the shadowy cabal who are really pulling the strings.
He's built a career on an origin story of personal tragedy and trauma, leading to an eating disorder, self-mutilation, and then drug and sex addiction, culminating very publicly in rehab and recovery, AA, and kundalini yoga.
Along the way, he's done stand-up comedy, starred in movies, hosted a talk show, a radio show, a podcast, he's been hired and fired from MTV for misbehaving, published multiple books, married and divorced pop star Katy Perry, and made headlines with outrageous behavior at award ceremonies.
But Russell has also been a public activist who's spoken and written about wealth inequality, addiction, corporate capitalism, climate change, and media bias.
By 2013, he'd condemned Israeli aggression in Gaza, spoken up for leaders of the Baha'i faith who were on trial in Iran, as well as spoken up for U.S.
military whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
And then he showed up on BBC's Question Time, where an audience member challenged him to run for Parliament.
That's an excellent starting point, Julian, because it kind of opened my eyes to Russell Brand.
That, and before that, actually, an interview with Jeremy Paxman that we're going to run.
I personally discovered Russell in 2011 when I first moved to Los Angeles.
He was part of the Kundalini yoga circuit out here.
And apparently Kundalini is how he detoxed from his drug addiction.
And let me say off the top, we're going to be critical of a lot of things here, but I'm all for anything that helps addicts.
And one aspect of Russell's career I've always appreciated is his dedication to addiction recovery.
At the time of the Tadasana Festival, in fact, when I was the creative director and you were one of the teachers, that's around when I found Russell.
Do you remember him from that scene at all?
No, but I remember Tadasana and I think that was when we first met.
That was an interesting experience over there.
I knew from the elaborate Hare Krishna theme of the set he used for his stand-up tour, I think it may have been his first American stand-up tour, called Shame, that he was clearly into Hinduism in some way.
I didn't yet know about the yoga connection, never came across him in that scene myself.
My main recollection from Tadasana Festival was teaching a class in one of those tents, right in the parking lot of the Venice Boardwalk, right?
And I was collaborating on the spot with Craig Coland and his girlfriend at the time, Sita, who were doing music and I was teaching and we have people in the room, but we were having to compete with the enthusiastic motivational shouting of someone named Cute Blackson from the tent next door.
I don't know if you remember this.
He was like, are you ready to experience a lot?
Explosion!
Everyone would be hooting and hollering.
I was like trying to, you know, guide people into a meditation.
But, you know, I was really a fan of Russell's comedy back at that time.
It was raw and self-deprecating.
He was a great storyteller and, of course, utilized his incredible facility with language.
Yeah, one of the failures, we had five tents in a parking lot and putting the speaker's tent next to the tent you taught in was definitely a logistics failure.
You remember who else spoke in that speaker's tent, right?
No.
Mickey Willis.
Oh, no doubt.
That's when I first learned about him as well.
But let's get back to Russell.
We don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
I tracked back to some of his comedy then and he struck me as a high-energy clown and not in the bad sense of the word.
One of my best friends in college actually was also an addict and he had that same can't-turn-you-off energy.
Weirdly, just like my friend, I could never really tell where Russell is coming from, whether he's just, to use a British term, taking the piss, or if he's actually sincere.
But then I heard a bit more about his politics, and since we're going to be discussing the conspiracy hole you cited, I feel it's important to begin with his politics as a framework for his own media evolution.
So, as you mentioned, he showed up on a panel called Question Time, and that was with the former leader of the UK Independence Party, far-right provocateur Nigel Farage.
Now, I also want to say that they're discussing immigration here, and I'm fully on Russell's side.
Well, I think I am, because besides his working man calls to action and cries for letting immigrants in, which Farage opposes, I can never really tell where Russell stands in terms of policy.
And in fact, Farage calls Brands out on his inability to answer the question that's asked of him, again, on a show called Question Time.
So right after that happens, an audience member tells Brands to stand for Parliament, and here's his response.
Stand!
Stand for Parliament!
If you're good at campaigns, then stay!
Okay?
I tell you have a media profile for it.
Do it!
My problem would be, mate, I'd stand for Parliament but I'd be scared I'd become one of them.
I know what's up.
No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
You're full of addiction.
You're full of addiction and you've beaten it, okay?
You, you can't preach that.
That is rubbish.
You cannot preach that.
I'm not preaching.
Well you are.
You've attacked him, okay?
And you've attacked everybody that stands for his party.
I do.
I do.
We're trying.
I'm sorry.
They are people on the street.
Mate, I'm not preaching that we're going back to a time when Russell sounded a little more cockney, didn't he?
To add a little more context, Nigel Farage would later launch the aptly named Brexit Party, and this question time show is a legacy weekly political TV show on the BBC.
It combines panel discussions with questions from a live studio audience, and they usually have several politicians and members of government, and then like usually some kind of color, you know, a celebrity type person who is considered smart enough to engage.
Brand had said in that interaction that it was not immigrants causing economic problems in England, but, and this is an important early indicator of what is to come later, the problem is corrupt government elites.
What we heard in the clip was an angry audience member telling Brand that if he's going to speak out against anti-immigration policies, if you're going to preach that rubbish, he should run for office instead of just preaching against politicians.
But again, what we see here from Russell is this sort of blend of left-wing political critique with outsider conspiracist posturing about generalized corruption, right?
It's one thing to say there's this specific instance, it's another to say as a class, the elites are just this corrupt group who are screwing us over.
It's noteworthy too that in this year, this is the profile he was beginning to develop, readers of the British political magazine Prospect voted him the fourth most influential thinker in the world.
Here's another moment of tension between Brand and Farage.
- Russell Brown. - I sometimes feel worried about you, Nigel Farage.
The reason I feel worried is because I know a lot of people are frightened in our country.
I know a lot of people are feeling afraid and frustrated.
And there is a sense that there is a corrupt group in our country using our resources, taking away our jobs.
Taking away our housing.
Not paying taxes.
Exploiting us.
And there is.
There is an economic elite that this man's party is funded by.
That this man comes from background working in the city.
Let me tell you something.
There was an economic crash and a lot of money was lost.
His mates in the city farted.
Nigel Farage is pointing at immigrants and the disabled and holding his nose.
Immigrants are not causing the economic problems and suffering we experience.
As much as any of us, I enjoy seeing Nigel Farage in a boozer with a pint and a fag, laughing off his latest scandals about breastfeeding or whatever.
I enjoy it.
But this man is not a cartoon character.
He ain't Del Boy.
He ain't Arthur Daly.
He is a pound shop Enoch Powell and we gotta watch him.
So we're getting into some very inside baseball kind of English references there in the last couple minutes.
That's after the exchange.
So it's right after that exchange that the questioner angrily calls on him to stand for parliament if he's going to publicly attack politicians like poor old Nigel Farage, who I know both you and I find despicable.
Next, in the run-up to his book titled Revolution being released, That's when he went on News Night with Jeremy Paxman, right Derek?
Right.
That episode we just played is after what we're about to play here, but I think it's important because I wanted to first frame Russell as someone who is very politically motivated and active, which is fine, but refuses to partake in the system because that's going to keep informing the rest of this episode.
And so If he doesn't want to stand and make his policy decisions public, at least at the very basic level of civics, he votes, right?
No, he doesn't.
And so this is again, this year before the show, he was asked to be the guest editor for the political magazine, The New Statesman.
And that I remember specifically.
And this was the moment that Russell first drew a red flag for me.
So we have journalist Jeremy Paxson, Paxman, interviewing him on TV in 2014.
And he's asking him his qualifications for such a gig as an editor of a well-known magazine, as well as his feelings on voting.
And this to me, and it's a little long.
And in fact, the entire clip is worth watching.
It's about nine minutes.
We're going to play just under two minutes.
But it's really where his content-free nature shines.
Russell Brand, who are you to edit a political magazine?
Well, I suppose like a person who's being politely asked by an attractive woman.
I don't know what the typical criteria is.
I don't know many people that edit political magazines.
Boris, he used to do one, didn't he?
So, I'm a person with crazy hair, quite a good sense of humour, don't know much about politics, I'm ideal.
But is it true you don't even vote?
Yeah, no, I don't vote.
Well, how do you have any authority to talk about politics then?
Well, I don't get my authority from this pre-existing paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people.
I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity.
Alternate means alternate political systems.
They being?
Well, I've not invented it yet, Jeremy!
I had to do a magazine last week, I've had a lot on me plate!
But I say, here's the thing it shouldn't do, shouldn't destroy the planet, shouldn't create massive economic disparity, shouldn't ignore the needs of the people.
The burden of proof is on the people with the power, not people like doing a magazine for novelty.
How do you imagine the people get power?
Well, I imagine there are sort of hierarchical systems that have been preserved through generations.
They get power by being voted in.
That's how they do it.
You can't even be asked to vote.
It's quite a narrow, quite a narrow prescriptive parameter that changes within the... In a democracy, that's how it works.
Well, I don't think it's working very well, Jeremy, given that the planet is being destroyed, given that there is economic disparity of a huge degree.
What are you saying?
There's no alternative?
There's no alternative to this system?
No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying if you can't be asked to vote, Why should we be asked to listen to your political point of view?
You don't have to listen to my political point of view, but it's not that I'm not voting out of apathy.
I'm not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class.
Ooh, ooh, the posturing.
You know, when he says, I don't get my authority from a pre-existing paradigm, which is quite narrow, I look elsewhere for alternatives.
you can really hear that precocious narcissistic intersection with celebrity activism and how that may lay the groundwork for conspiracism.
And then given his very public spirituality, also his own form of conspiritualism.
And it's amazing that when he says that I look elsewhere for alternatives, Paxman says, well, like where, for example, well, I haven't invented it yet, Jeremy.
I've had a lot on my plate, right?
It's like, he says he's looking elsewhere for alternative forms of politics.
And then when pressed on it, he doesn't have anything really to say except to make a joke.
And then Paxman asks him what his proposed revolution would look like.
And in that same interview, he replied, a socialist egalitarian system based on massive redistribution of wealth with heavy taxation of corporations.
I think the very concept of profit should be hugely reduced.
I say profit is a filthy word because wherever there is profit, there's also a deficit.
And so really he does sound like a very left wing populist bemoaning corruption and exploitation.
He does, and it really reflects what happens in America, but this also goes back to what we've been saying recently, especially when we did our Political Typologies episode, Roganomics, where we talked about the fact that the right wing is very organized.
So you get a Marjorie Taylor Greene and a Lauren Boebert and a Madison Cawthorn because they're able to understand the dynamics of
The system as well as their area that they represent, congressional district is the term I was looking for, whereas the left does it sometimes, but not nearly to the same degree, and they also, however sloppily sometimes, understand the climate that they're in and the system that they're working within.
And so to hear someone say, I haven't invented the system, but it's so much part of his brand, and that's the thing.
For example, I work in finance full-time, and I've spent the last few months of my life immersed in our financial system, American and British as well, for the studies.
And let me say that finance is not necessarily a zero-sum game.
So yes, where there's profit, there's sometimes deficit.
And some can even argue, often deficit.
But the sort of blanket statement that he puts forward, that profit must imply deficit, clues you in on why Russell has become so popular.
He takes a hard position without the need for context whatsoever.
And as we'll get into as this episode evolves, without ever really offering anything that resembles a solution to anything.
And I know, as you mentioned in that quote, he's advocating for a system based on the redistribution of wealth, which I am all for, you're probably all for as well, but how does that happen?
What agencies are you taking from and which are you giving to?
What's the proposed tax rate?
So say what you will about Bernie Sanders' pie-in-the-sky dreams, but he came armed with charts and economists to back up what he was proposing.
Conveniently sidesteps any such actual thinking on the topic by pretending he's outside the system altogether, although when he's negatively impacted by the system, suddenly he's in there front and center.
In that question time he talks about, or I'm sorry, actually in the interview with Paxman, he talks about how the British system had created the conditions that allowed him to become a drug addict.
And so if you're going to take the system as working in one way and you want to fix it, but you're not actually willing to fix it, that's pretty much his entire brand.
And honestly, that hasn't changed much in his content in the intervening years.
We're going to be listening to a number of clips from his recent My Response video.
And I do appreciate Bran's ability to shapeshift and take on so many different roles, but his position as podcaster, and quite a successful one, seems to have solidified his penchant for conspiracy mongering.
So this video from March 17th of this year is in response to media organizations and bloggers calling him out on his criticisms of Justin Trudeau and his support for the trucker convoy, as well as his feelings on vaccinations.
He claims not to be anti-vax but he's admittedly anti-mandate.
And his version of the term sure rhymes with that first term, anti-vax.
I'm not really interested in getting too deep into Canadian politics as we devoted multiple episodes to The Convoy already.
What I want to look at is his content-free delivery, alongside some of the sources he chooses to boost in his screed against the mainstream media.
So the very opening of this episode positions him in quite a favorable light.
The establishment and the mainstream media are coming for me and coming for this channel, saying I'm a conspiracy theorist, a right-wing nut, and an anti-vaxxer.
If you don't think that I'm those things, and I don't think that I'm those things, could there be any other reason why the mainstream media and establishment want to shut down open discourse and dissent?
I mean, talk about a grandiose sense of self.
But that's what I meant by high energy.
Not only his words and pantomimes, if you're watching the video, but everything is always pitched up to a fever, no matter what the context.
And that's why I say he's content-free.
He's pure medium, and that medium is his brand and nothing more.
Yeah, so he has these openers, right, where he makes the very strong sort of case for what he's about to talk about in a brief form, and then immediately you have the crow fart.
His logo comes up and the crow farts and then it comes back to him and then he starts going into it.
It's an interesting format that's developed over time since he's been doing this conspiracy material.
But listen, Russell, that's just it.
You know, we're going to hear you in a little bit describing yourself as a flawed and fallible person doing your best not to lie, unlike everybody else, but you're still serving up completely unqualified hot takes about science and politics in a conspiratorial vein.
And this precocious and overconfident everyman analysis, right, which is part of the style over substance that you're flagging, Derek.
Russell, you gloss over standards of how informed, evidence-based, and logical your reasoning actually is, as well as the difference between well-informed and well-contextualized open discourse, which is what you're always calling for, versus irresponsibly speculative gadfly, you know, common sense rebelliousness that, as we note all the time on this podcast, trends right wing.
So let's listen to how he opens every episode after those crow farts, as you said, because that is part of his brand.
And that's also part of his pivot.
He throws in a fart joke in every episode so he has an out just in case you're ever held to account for your actual content.
Hello there, you 5.2 million awakening wonders.
Glory unto thee.
Let's stay awake.
Let's stay focused.
Let's stay conscious.
Let's stay in the conversation.
So, at the top of every episode, he lists the number of his YouTube subscribers.
We flagged that earlier.
And in his packaged intro, he offers the perfect conspirituals mantra about awakening wonders.
So he's priming you to be part of his crew, the insiders who know what's really going on.
Really traditional cult indoctrination material in a digital format.
Also note something he'll keep saying throughout this and other episodes.
The point of this channel is to have an open conversation.
But the term conversation implies at least two people talking.
So that might work during his interviews, but I think he has the budget to rewrite the script for his solo episodes.
Yeah, the repeated themes around COVID measures and vaccines has been conspiratorial, along with the predictable position that any dissent is being squashed by authoritarian government and censorious media and big tech.
And with the trucker convoy, we saw how he just adopts all the right-wing talking points wholesale about Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.
As, you know, being some kind of closet fascist, rather than a center-left public servant trying to navigate the complexities of our chaotic pandemic times.
At this point, he's not really saying anything in his critique that would differentiate him from far right-wing culture warriors, except, you know, maybe his accent and vocabulary.
Well, the entire video and all of the research is linked to in the show notes as always, so you can watch all of it to get more context on Trudeau if you want to follow that path.
But to me, this is where it really gets interesting.
We don't claim to be a news channel.
We're not sending out journalists and going, oh my God, what's happening over there?
That's not what we're doing.
We're looking at news and analyzing news.
Again, we know what the overall context is.
cliss.
We're not claiming to be a news channel.
So the idea of misinformation, this is opinion.
This is obviously my opinion.
We check our sources.
We never say anything that can't be backed up.
And you'll be interested to know that in the many articles of criticism of this channel and what we do here, no one is able to say this thing.
Again, we know what the overall context is.
He opens us by stating, we're going to look at some of the publications making the accusations against me and make sure they're squeaky clean.
He also says, as you just heard, he's not claiming to be a news channel.
So again, he skirts responsibility for anything he says.
I mean, he actually implies that he cannot spread misinformation because it's opinion.
And Russell, I have news for you all the time.
All the conspiritualists we cover are spreading misinformation, and they're not news sources either.
That kind of goes along with the territory.
So Mickey Willis isn't actually a journalist, even though he plays one on his TV channel.
And none of the many figures we've covered are epidemiologists or public health officials.
And that doesn't stop them from talking nonsense about topics they don't know anything about, and that includes you.
Yeah, it's a little bit of an echo of the Joe Rogan disclaimer, right?
Like, I'm not claiming, but nonetheless, he's a flawed, infallible person, but he's not delivering news, but just his opinions, but he's supposedly impeccably fact-checked and he won't lie to you like everyone else does, which is why it's important that you stay with him to the end and subscribe to keep the one-way firehose conversation going.
He actually says that, he continues on in that clip.
It's very important that you stay with him to the end and subscribe to keep the one-way firehose conversation going.
He actually says that, he continues on in that clip.
Stay with me to the end.
the end.
Every episode.
And subscribe.
Every episode he does that.
And I also want to point out that he says no one is able to say this thing in a very, again, Mickey Willis-esque style.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, Mickey Willis does it all the time, right?
It's this repeated kind of spin that none of the endless stream of falsehoods that he utters have ever been effectively debunked when actually all of them have.
So yeah, the notion is that no one can refute his evidence.
And so cool.
So let me say this thing now.
But before we do, let's listen to the clip first and get ready because your head may spin just a little bit.
There seem to be a number of reasons to be cynical.
In fact, a recent study published in some of the very publications that have levelled criticism at me recently revealed that Johnson & Johnson did a study that showed that natural immunity plus less vaccines than they originally suggested could be more effective than the number of vaccines they originally suggested.
And remember, this is an ongoing situation, so who knows what permutations may come elsewhere.
And one of the main things we're criticising is this attitude of certainty and condemnation that's continually applied to situations that are clearly changing and shifting.
I'm not in the business of telling you stuff that ain't true.
You've got enough people doing that without me joining in.
I'm trying my best as a flawed and fallible person to be engaged with you in an open discourse so we can learn together.
That's why it's important you stay with me to the end.
It's important that you subscribe to this channel so that we can keep this conversation going together. - Yeah, so I was a little bit ahead of the clips there.
You know, it's interesting, he's referencing scientific facts and data here, but he then breathlessly pivots into this thing about attitude, right?
And it's the standard, it's the standard pseudoscience peddler kind of claim that scientists are arrogant and they claim certainty about things when the information is unfolding, right?
And it's like, no, that's actually scientific method.
Any scientist you ever talk to will tell you that.
They will say, here's what we know so far, but it's unfolding, and so here's what we don't know for sure.
And they will change as the evidence changes, which is what we've been saying for years on this podcast.
But I should note that while he's saying this, there are things on the screen besides him.
So he shows articles and quotes often.
And so imagine actually finding these articles that he's posting on the screen as his sources and actually reading them.
My god, what intense journalism!
But that's not really the point.
He can post whatever he wants as evidence and expect that most people are not going to check his sources.
But I'm not most people, at least not in this sense.
So first he shows a CNN article while referencing a J&J, Johnson & Johnson study that's not actually referenced in the article.
The two studies that are in the article that he shows come from researchers in Israel and the Cleveland Clinic.
Now, there was a Johnson & Johnson study, it's just not what Brand was displaying on the screen at the time.
So, Julian, could you read the summation of the actual Johnson & Johnson study?
The study showed that the effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine against breakthrough infections and hospitalizations remained durable.
The mRNA vaccines, two doses, showed waning effectiveness for hospitalizations and breakthrough infections.
So those are the Pfizer and what was the other one?
Moderna.
Moderna, yeah.
As opposed to the Johnson & Johnson.
All three of those vaccines then showed no evidence of waning protection against COVID-19 related ICU admissions at any point, showing strong sustained protection against critically severe disease.
The study was not designed to compare the durability of vaccines.
Well, I would say that, wouldn't I?
Wouldn't I, Derek?
So, but listen to how he frames it.
And earlier I said, breaking down his sentences, natural immunity plus less vaccines than they originally suggested could be more effective than the number of vaccines they originally suggested.
Well, no, that was the studies in the CNN articles that you cite.
So what they actually say is they show that after being infected with COVID-19 and then getting one dose of the vaccine, you're more protected than if you just got two doses of the vaccine.
That's what those studies in the article say.
Which means vaccines don't work.
Vaccines don't work.
You should just get COVID and not be such a pussy.
Exactly.
So, I'm not sure what scientist, to your point a moment ago, Julian, would argue against the fact that getting it and then getting a vaccine would be protective and probably more protective, but just listen to how he spun it into a conspiracy.
Instead of exploring this topic in depth, he merely uses it as a wedge to imply that the pharma powers are roping you into more vaccines than you need in that oddly constructed sentence Before immediately pivoting to subscribing to his YouTube channel.
So, this offers the listeners a feeling of validation, right?
I knew they were lying.
And at that point when you're feeling justified, Russell asks you to slide him into your algorithm more regularly because he's the reason you're feeling justified.
Now, there was one other study in that CNN article from researchers in the UK who found that getting COVID-19 offers longer-lasting protection before getting a Pfizer shot, meaning that if you got the Pfizer shot or COVID-19, the latter would protect you longer before getting the second shot, right?
So again, the COVID-19 natural immunity We'll give you slightly longer protection.
Yeah, if you survive and don't get long COVID, we'll give you slightly longer protection.
So researchers liken that to getting a booster, getting the second shot.
And here's the thing, everyone in all of the studies, including the ones you put up on the screen, suggests getting a vaccine after being infected with COVID-19.
So not sure why Russell left that out, but now that you have more context on all the research that he's actually showing, Let's revisit that sentence one more time.
Natural immunity plus less vaccines than they originally suggested could be more effective than the number of vaccines they originally suggested, to which I say, duh.
But more importantly, this is why we do research in the first place.
Not me, but scientists.
So remember how we set all of this up?
The same publication that criticized me.
I know you said you weren't a journalist, Russell, and I agree with that, but your analysis is also shit, and that is what you claim to be doing.
Well, conspiracism, right-wing libertarian talking points, and anti-vaccine misinformation are, as it turns out, not enough.
Because as we know, Russell Brand is a very spiritual geezer.
We've already subjected you to his cheerfully self-aggrandizing mentions of how many subscribers he's addressing since he passed the 5 million mark, along with the standard fare appeals to open conversation and exposing the corruption hidden by the mainstream media, But here's an absolutely classic example of how he blends spiritual references, conspiracy whistleblower posturing, and shameless self-promotion.
The WEF want digital IDs.
The WHO want vaccine passports.
But to suggest that these non-elected bodies are working in conjunction makes you a conspiracy theorist and a fascist or a communist, depending on who you hate that week.
Hello there, you 5.2 million awakening wonders.
Thanks for joining us on this journey to truth.
Many bumps on the road, of course, there are.
Truth is a complicated and nuanced business, but we, as intelligent and awakening beings, can handle the conversation, deal with our own emotional complexity, our own prejudices, our own flaws, in order to pursue something noble, to come together in the mutual creation of something wonderful.
Today, we're going to be talking about our old friends at the WEF and the WHA.
Oh, who seem to have some similar ideas for our well-being.
They've come in to help us.
They're going to have us digital ID'd up to the hill.
But is there a downside to being digital ID'd?
I don't know.
We'll look into it.
We'll learn together.
Maybe these people have our best interests at heart.
If you are in the UK, come see me live where I can talk about these things with you directly, as well as meditate and do breath work.
This is a live experience that you'll love.
I'm in places like Carlisle, Plymouth, Newcastle, Hull, Bristol, Glasgow, fantastic British cities and towns.
You'll have a lovely time.
This is a wonderful experience.
If you want to come see me, there's a link in the description.
I'll see you there.
It's fantastic.
Of course, there's a link in the description.
So right off the top, he uses this playful tone, right, to imply that the conspiracy is obvious, right?
You're a conspiracy theorist if you think that, but isn't it really obvious?
Anyone critical of saying it's a conspiracy is ridiculous and in denial.
And then, as we've pointed out, calls his audience awakening wonders on a journey to truth.
You 5.3 million awakening wonders and intelligent awakening beings in pursuit of something noble.
Which, of course, despite his never-ending monologue, will somehow be created together.
Together we're creating something really noble and wonderful.
And, you know, so what's he saying?
The unelected bodies of the WHO and the WEF are obviously working in cahoots to establish global tyranny.
By the way, meditation and breathwork will be part of the fantastic experience of these live appearances where we'll talk about this stuff going on all across the UK.
Okay, now, We know, last week from photos that were shared on social media, that at these events, Russell appears to make himself available to the audience for the type of deep eye-gazing and hand-holding, right?
You saw these pictures, Derek?
Hugging, it's all the kind of stuff that usually is associated with taking darshan from a supposedly enlightened guru.
Yeah, the speed with which he changes throughout the context of political analysis and the salesmanship and the spirituality, it is very disorienting.
I have to say though, I remember in college I had a 500 page Chinese text source book of all of the different religions through the dynasties.
And I was always so amazed at how many fart jokes there were in those texts.
The old Taoist texts have all these references to taking a shit, and there's something about it that will just always be funny.
I have to say, just him doing that, he's very good at it.
He's very good at just breaking... And I remember in 1999 interviewing George Carlin, and I asked him, you're such a political figure, why did you choose comedy?
And he said, because if you can make people laugh, then they'll listen to you.
You get inside of them.
And I have to say, Russell has that.
He knows how to get inside of people in that way.
It's very effective.
But back to that clip, talk about saying the quiet part out loud.
I'm kind of amazed out of all the figures that we cover that his defenders, Russell's defenders, come after us so hard.
Because this is Pete conspiritually right here, awakening wonders, breathlessly segueing to the notion that the World Economic Forum's dystopian digital ID report to, as you just cited, breathwork and meditation.
But again, he showed something, so I had to look into it, and it's linked in the show notes, but here is what that WEF report actually says about digital ID.
Having a trusted, verifiable identity is essential.
As digital interaction increases at an unprecedented rate, not least due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information comprising our identities is being widely shared in ways that create both opportunities and risks.
If designed right, digital identities can provide countries with economic value equal to as much as 13% of their GDP, save hundreds of billions of hours through streamlined e-government, and cut trillions of dollars in costs for businesses by 2030, according to one estimate.
I just want to say here that this is just such standard fare, right?
going without official proof of identity, and the more than 3 billion people unable to effectively use an identity on digital channels.
Collaborative and user-centric digital identity models guided by shared principles can be empowering.
I just want to say here that this is just such standard fare.
This reminds me of the stuff around Bill Gates.
Oh gosh, I'm spacing out her name right now.
the Indian professor.
Vandava Shiva?
Yes, that's right, Vandava Shiva, yeah.
Yeah, so it's that stuff, it's like, you can, and Russell actually does this, he'll interview people on his podcast about the nefarious WEF, supposedly, right?
And they'll say, well if you go to their website, And you read this page on their website.
Here's what they say just like you just did.
You read this and then you put a kind of paranoid spin on what is freely available on a public website from this organization that is open about what their goals are and how they're trying to achieve these goals.
You know, like you can say, if designed right, digital identities can provide countries with economic value equal to as much as 13% of their GDP.
Well, that sounds really suspicious, doesn't it?
Now they're somehow going to data mine us and use that information to make themselves more rich.
Well, look at how the elites are doing it, right?
I live right across the street from a Bank of America at a Culver Center here in Los Angeles, and one day I was walking by with my wife and I noticed a line snaking around two blocks.
I mean, I'm talking like 70, 80 people deep.
Outside of going into this one Bank of America branch location.
And I didn't actually know what was going on and my wife said, oh, that is the only way that people can cash their unemployment checks.
You can't do it through other means.
And again, working in finance, specifically DeFi, so trying to find better solutions for finance, I'm pretty sure every one of those people would have liked to have just used their phone.
to get their money and not spend half of their day just to cash their biweekly check there.
And what I just read is the most bureaucratic possible.
So not ominous.
Yeah.
And you know, you know what?
Just on that same note, in addition to be able to cash your check that way, imagine what would happen in this country if everyone had a rock solid digital identification, a means of proving their identity and that that could be used for voting.
Imagine if people could just wake up in the morning on election day and vote through some way that their identity was verified digitally and we knew that it was as safe as possible.
That would be an incredible game changer for democracy.
Incredible.
One of the portfolio companies, a blockchain company I used to work for, in 2018 we did a blockchain voting and it's actually been done in small congressional districts in America.
Last week at my company, we launched a beta of our own voting through our Discord community, and it's all done on blockchain.
We've said this ad nauseum before, but most people already have a digital tracking device with them at all times.
You're probably listening to this podcast on it right now.
So again, this bureaucracy, cutting it down to save money and to make people's lives easier, and they even say there's opportunities and risks.
We're trying to mitigate risks.
Do I trust the people behind world banking, financial institutions?
Not completely, but I also know that if they can cut out the middlemen of their own bottom line by making bureaucracy less of a hazard for people, they're going to do it because it'll increase their revenues as well.
So, you know, this whole deep state idea on every idea that comes out of publicly available documents is just absurd.
I mean, again, does that mean governments won't use tracking for nefarious reasons?
They already are.
We know that's happening in China.
But a report on potential use cases for proof of identity is as benign as it gets.
And just to, again, drive home that point, the conspiritualists who claim that these technological initiatives are part of a forthcoming dystopia, while they monetize their social media feeds using the very same technologies and devices that they fear is just ludicrous.
Yeah, those same devices and algorithms and web technology that is tracking every single person who's listening to them, warning those same people about this technology.
It's just wild.
On our podcast server, we know the breakdowns of where everyone is listening to us from.
And that's just information we see.
I kind of look at it because I'm like, We've got Nigeria listening to us.
There's Byron Bay.
It's kind of cool.
But if we were actually looking to monetize beyond Patreon, if you're someone who has a company, that data is very important for you.
And companies are using it all of the time.
So if you're using a phone right now, you're being tracked in so many different ways.
I would fear that a lot more than the WEF just trying to create a driver's license that you can have on your phone.
Well, I've mentioned Russell's impressive vocabulary a couple times.
It turns out that he occasionally will do a YouTube short, this is their version of like an Instagram story or reel, in which he gives a vocabulary word of the day and this one is like the perfect intersection of his love of language and the sacred.
Hello YouTube shorts, thanks for watching this and for not Constantly watching Filthy Things, you know what you're looking at.
You know what you've been looking at on YouTube Shorts.
Now, let's learn something and try and get rid of some of the shame you feel.
Numinous.
A new word.
Why don't you impress people by using the word numinous?
What does the word numinous mean?
Numinous means the presence of divinity in something.
So, if someone has a numinous quality, or there was an air of numinous in their situation, you could say, As I ascended the stairs, I witnessed a numinous air.
As I looked into your eyes there, and felt... What the hell do I care?
That's the sort of thing you could say if you were trying to impress someone.
I know you don't need to impress anyone.
What's the point in impressing people?
I mean, what are you going to get from them now, Hank?
I mean, it's a silly clip, and he's rhyming just on the fly to have fun.
And, you know, it's actually one of my favorite words, numinous.
And this clip is a nice callback to his playful humor.
But I do notice that the definition he gives relies upon the assumption of divinity as something that's sort of literally there that, you know, people who are spiritual enough can intuitively detect.
This is a small quibble, but I think in a way it really underlines a central tenet of this kind of spirituality.
So you'll notice he refers first to a person having a numinous quality, which of course is what gurus cultivate.
Namely, the appearance of being divine when actually just being human.
Then he goes on, he sort of switches gears and talks about a situation having a numinous air, which is a little bit odd.
And again, I think of this as really being an impression that is cultivated in spiritual spaces, right?
And these are often really commercial spaces in which the numinous is a glaze that increases the value of what is being sold.
You know, the right furniture and lighting, artwork and statuary, the essential oil diffuser, the color of paint on the wall.
These all set the quote unquote numinous tone of the gift shop or the Lululemon boutique in the very swanky yoga studio or healing art center.
So I think for me, Brand is he's not only too readily taken in by this sort of performance.
He also engages in it himself, as we discussed a moment ago with his sort of Darshan appearance of presenting himself as sort of a numinous figure in those contexts.
But let's go on to the next clip, because here we find Russell riffing on the popular spiritual and recovery, addiction recovery theme of gratitude.
But also, how your thoughts create your reality.
You have to be grateful.
I'll tell you why.
Because when you are grateful, you become less self-destructive.
Here's how I use gratitude in my own life.
The second something goes wrong, like maybe, I don't know, what if I don't get a job I want, or what if my wife won't give me what I want?
Possibly it's conjugal activity, or possibly it's some kind of dinner, or possibly it's approval.
You know, there's a myriad of things that I require from my life partner, wife, partner, Gratitude means that instead of focusing on the one negative thing that I'm not getting in that moment, I focus instead on the many things I already have.
Two wonderful daughters, this beard, a lovely house, freedom, not poor anymore, not on drugs no more, not signing on.
I've got a tattoo of a snake on my finger.
People can argue if they want that it looks like a worm dragging a handbag.
They can say whatever they want to me, but I know that it's a Mark Mahoney original.
The principle of gratitude is an important one.
We can control our consciousness through attention and intention.
Dude, you saw Mark Mahoney and you got a finger tattoo?
That's it?
Come on!
I wanted to get a point with him for a long time.
I would have gotten something like that.
I don't know how well it's going to come through in the multiple generations of copying that clip, but there's background music that you probably heard little strains of, and it suggests that he's delivering an inspiring message, you know, an insightful nugget of transformational wisdom.
Of course, woven through it is this reference to his obviously expensive Marc Mahoney original tattoo.
He's described as the high priest of Hollywood tattoo artists, which is, I know why you wanted to see him, Derek.
The fact that he's off drugs and not poor anymore, alongside this reference to the tattoo, some people say that it looks like a snake dragging an ad bag, but really it's an original.
A lot of this strikes me as the standard online marketing posturing.
I've overcome these things.
I've accomplished these things.
Therefore, what I'm saying is valuable and true and can help you do the same if you listen to me.
What's the message then that you should listen to?
Well, we have to be grateful and we can control our consciousness through attention and intention.
And then he lists some of the things that could go wrong in everyone's life, not getting a job or approval or sex, which he calls conjugal activity.
I mean, fair enough, being positive and counting your blessings is a worthwhile thing.
But even in this very short video, where he ends up is the stance that is all too often a hallmark of spiritual bypass.
You know, it's the notion that you can control and choose your thoughts, and thereby you can control your emotions and even control your reality.
Really, the deeper psychological orientation here would be some kind of compassionate curiosity about the source of our negative preoccupations or our dissatisfaction or inferiority, so as to kind of move in the direction of actual healing and freedom that's not based in a false premise of control.
You're going to gain control over these things by meditating.
I don't know that it works that way.
But look, neither of these last two clips go as far into him being the spiritual teacher as the 15 minute guided meditation I found on his channel from October of 2020.
Hello, I'm Russell.
People are consistently asking me for breathing exercises for anxiety and for meditations.
So I'm going to do one for you now.
I will say to you, don't do this meditation while driving a car.
Operate in heavy machinery or, for example, firing a gun.
Perhaps you're a gameskeeper or a sniper.
Put down the gun, the machinery, anything else that you might be holding on to and sit in a way that is comfortable for you.
For the purposes of this, we'll be closing our eyes.
You and me.
So I'm hoping you're going to have the grace to actually shut your eyes and not watch this video and see if my eyes go all flickery and that.
You know, people's eyes go a bit flickery, like that.
Just close them properly.
Make sure your body feels comfortable, you know?
See where you hold tension.
Jaw.
Forehead.
Eyes.
Back of the neck.
Lower back.
Stomach.
Scan your body.
Sit comfortably.
Make sure you are in a place where you won't be disturbed for a little minute.
That might mean you have to go sit in your car, or you have to sit somewhere with a little blanket wrapped around you.
Or sometimes, well, I suppose if you're listening to this with headphones, Help to exclude any external distractions which may be there.
My meditation teacher told me don't meditate with a cat on your lap.
There's enough things to worry about.
So he goes on like this for 15 minutes, guiding a quite nice and innocuous basic mindfulness practice.
And I just want to say that this was Russell's brand as recently as about 18 months ago.
I thought you were going to play the whole 15 minute video, Julian.
I was ready.
Ready to drop in deeply.
It seems that it's always been part of his brand, at least since he found Kundalini Yoga.
And it's pretty milquetoast as far as modern spirituality goes, and he certainly doesn't seem to be attempting to break into the crowded yoga teacher market.
I mean, not just his meditation, but overall.
He did surf the wanderlust scene for a bit, but, you know, he moves through.
different worlds and that's fine.
And that seems to be part of his MO.
He can shape-shift and fit into a number of environments.
Like I said, I like that quality about anyone as long as they have the chops to fulfill the demands of the environment that they're in.
I don't know if Russell has any therapeutic training, but from what I see on social media, his recovery lectures positively impact people.
Cult leader eye gaze and the hugging you referenced aside.
And I also want to point out that JP Sears is big on the hugging thing after his comedy shows.
I'm personally a hugger when it's clear that someone wants to be hugged.
I just don't offer it as part of my shtick.
But if it's not mandatory, totally fine if you want to hug a man, that's awesome.
But all of this goes off the rails when he steps into the political arena.
And like I said earlier, I agree, or at least agreed with some of his politics, but I'm also aware that if those politics are to ever turn into policy, you probably should talk to some experts.
And by positioning himself as an analyst, he's taking on a very public, political role regardless of how much he claims not to be.
And this is where the crossover with Rogan really stands out to me.
I'll take the accolades and attention, and I'll definitely take the money, but I won't take the responsibility of having to be right or careful with the evidence.
This really jumps out when you start looking into some of the sources that he cites in his videos.
Now, it's nice that he does cite them, because a lot of conspiracialists don't, but in the MyResponse video, he continually cites a website called ReclaimTheNet.
And I went down a few Reddit holes trying to learn more about them.
And I shouldn't have to do that, as media outlets traditionally post a masthead.
Reclaim.net does list its contributors, but you actually can't find any of them online.
So from what I was reading, some people speculate, and it is speculation, that since they're writing about technology companies and politicians in critical ways, they're using pseudonyms to protect their identity.
And that's one argument, sure, but sorry Russell, say what you will about the mainstream media, at least their Twitter handles are transparent as to their identity.
And there's a reason I don't respond to pseudonyms and avatars on social media accounts.
If you can't take the responsibility for who you are in a public domain, why should I take you seriously in the first place?
And how can I possibly trust any of the information you're giving me if I have absolutely no idea where in the world you are or who you are?
So for all of the lack of transparency you talk about in your videos, Russell, this is a poor source of information to use in your arguments.
Now in the My Response video he also cites the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and as I mentioned earlier, CNN.
So basically it's like Cite them when I agree with them and denounce them when I do not.
In other videos he also cites a woman named Caitlin Johnstone who is a self-proclaimed independent journalist from Australia and this is how her bio on her website actually opens.
I am an Australian mother of two who just turned 47.
I received a BA in journalism in 2003 but had figured out by then that working in news media would just mean regurgitating garbage from Reuters and AP and the spin jobs of think tanks and PR men.
I don't know where you're trying to work, but that's not always the case.
Continued, so rather than waste my energy on something I knew would be dissatisfying, I threw myself into environmental activism, personal growth, a small business, and the unspeakably profound adventure of motherhood.
Now, maybe it's because I was trained in pre-internet journalism, but I do take sources a little more seriously.
But for context, and I want to give a shout out to Ben Cohen, the editor of The Banter, and he sent me Caitlin's article talking about Russell, her Instagram feed is Filled with posts about how Ukraine is a U.S.
proxy and the entire war is a U.S.
operation to overthrow Putin, she actually calls on Ukraine to sacrifice rivers of blood for acting as a supposed American proxy.
And she chastises people who, quote, believe the narrative for doing nothing more than eating Pop-Tarts and tweeting, Well, I can find no evidence of her doing anything but exactly that.
Johnstone is also a 9-11 truther, and she believes that Hillary Clinton murdered Seth Rich.
So this is who Russell is platforming as a good source of information.
But as you discover, Julian, he also seems to have partaken in a bit of QAnon rhetoric as well recently.
Yeah, you know, I just wanted to give a call back there to something you were saying a moment ago, which is this conspiritualist and conspiracy theorist in general tendency to Rely on certain sources as being authoritative when they agree with what you're saying, and then to disparage them as just completely corrupt and unreliable when you disagree with them.
And they do that a lot with scientific institutions as well, right?
And we see this a lot more in the conspirituality domain where there's a lot of pseudoscience, there's a lot of claims of magical healing abilities and that sort of thing.
And, you know, science is just this terribly materialistic and unenlightened and, you know, narrow, closed-minded way of looking at the world until they think that quantum physics proves that thought creates reality.
And then look, science says that this is really true.
I noticed that early on, meaning like 20 years ago, when the God gene was supposedly found in the brain and these very staunchly anti-science Christians were suddenly being like, we knew it's See, it's here!
This is the antenna of the God and we have it in us!
So, it's an old practice, but we're seeing it over and over again now in the conspiritualist realm.
But we're never far away from QAnon.
I want to just say that, you know, with Russell, during the height of QAnon and the hashtags Save the Children phenomenon, if you did a brief survey of his video titles from that time, it's all like quantum physics and God.
One of my favorite meditation techniques.
If you fall in love fast, you must watch this and animals and the spiritual life.
Like this is what he was talking about when, when the whole world was, you know, the Trump, the election was happening in 2020, all of the QAnon stuff was going on, save the children.
I don't know what the hell happened.
Uh, for, for one thing, these 2020 videos are mostly clocking in at between 30,000 and 500,000 views.
So that's kind of interesting to me.
He still only gets around 60,000 on his election meltdown video.
And in that one, we see him trying to tease apart what he categorizes as hypnotizing lies and valid observations from someone I've never heard of.
Maybe you have.
His name is Tucker Carlson.
No clue.
Yeah.
So this is the first time, right?
Here's a video.
It's about the election meltdown, everything that happened in 2020, the claims of voter fraud.
It's a Tucker Carlson video, and he's analyzing it, and he's trying to figure out how much of this is hypnotizing lies, how much of this are valid observations.
And part of it is that Tucker Carlson actually leans on a little bit of his spiritual kind of belief system in terms of how he's presenting himself in this and I think this one, but certainly in other videos that Russell will platform of his and do an analysis on.
You know, he talks about mysteries and God and the rest of it.
But what happens next is on the last day of 2020, on December 31st, Russell Brand's video title asks, is the pandemic being used to create a surveillance state?
That's the first real conspiracy theory, you know, big, big flag that I see.
It draws in 720,000 views.
And to be fair, he's also recently discussed wealth transfer and poverty during the pandemic.
So he's concerned about these things.
And coming up next is his video about the capital insurrection.
And really it's just standard left-wing analysis of government by the corporations, for the corporations, but then he wrong-headedly paints the rioters and right-wing populists around the world who have common cause with the capital insurrectionists as actually standing up for justifiable reasons against neoliberalism and state violence.
This is a really interesting turn here, right?
It's like the people, protest is good, rebellion is good, the government is corrupt, So therefore, what happened at the Capitol on January 6th must somehow be justifiable.
That really fits in with his demographic or his whole shtick, though, doesn't it?
Because remember that day when you saw the cameras when they actually got into the Capitol?
They just looked around and were like, what do we do now?
And that's kind of how I feel like what would happen if Russell ever went into office.
After all that time, you know, criticizing, he would step in and be like, oh, shit, what the hell am I doing now?
At least he'd be dressed fabulously, right?
It's really on January 24th, then, of 2021 that we see the emergence of Russell Brand Conspiracy Amplifier because he spends 16 minutes on the Great Reset.
And wouldn't you know it, that video does 1 million views and then more.
A month later, He wonders, QAnon, how did it hit home and what next in his title?
And as far as I can tell, this is his first mention of QAnon.
He starts off saying that he's about to discuss what nefarious and troubling aspects of the conspiracy theory have been proven to be true.
Thereby showing where the concentration of power is, those are his words, and which parts of the QAnon theory are merely speculative.
He doesn't actually talk that much about the actual central tenets of QAnon in the video, though.
He goes on to discuss 9-11 conspiracy claims, and Edward Snowden not being pardoned by either Republicans or Democrats, and that makes him not trust the government's official narratives.
And then he, for some reason, lists Trump's accomplishments as president, And he uses quotes from Jonathan Haidt and Noah Yuval Harari to justify being open to conspiracy theories.
From this point onward, it really is like you can just draw a line.
Bill Gates, the Great Reset, Hillary Clinton really is evil, the Davos elites are coming for you, big tech surveillance, and the vaccines that they're lying to you about.
This all goes into a rotating Lazy Susan of conspiracy narratives.
And as with someone like JP Sears, we can also track that the ever-diminishing number of spirituality and personal growth videos get far fewer views than his now-ascendant conspiracy fare.
So I'm going to say, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, it seems pretty clear to me that Brand was red-pilled sometime in between December 2020 and February of 2021.
And ironically, it looks somehow related to feeling that Biden, Joe Biden being elected, would not be substantially different from Trump In terms of economics and power dynamics.
I'd love to know how this happened.
Maybe he spent time with red-pilled friends over the holidays.
Maybe Tucker Carlson got to him, got inside his brain somehow.
Maybe the building pressure of 2020 made him want to really dig into QAnon with a very, or shall we say, much too open mind.
And it resonated just enough with his operating system to start to further corrupt his epistemic antivirus software.
But as we've seen with other brain-melted conspiritualists, there does seem to be a point of no return at which science, spirituality, and politics all get put through the acid blender into escalating paranoia and irrationality.
In fact, two days ago, he posted a 43-second video short about how blood drinking amongst the elites is actually not only a common practice but a booming industry.
You used to have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that, but now we know it's true.
He's a mercurial character, our Russell Brand.
And who knows, maybe the next turning of the wheel of his karma will lead to a book about how he got out of addiction to conspiracy theories via pranayama and meditation.
