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Hey, Christine. Yes, now that it's twenty twenty one, usually I would say New Year New Me, but really it's New Río, new you because in 2021 don't just make a commitment to wash your hands every time you go poop. Well it's not appropriate, by the way. Go the extra mile and wash your butt please.

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My goodness, yes, I missed you, I'm excited to chit chat, yeah. Hello, how are you? I'm good. I missed you. I'm excited to chit chat. Me too. What a coincidence. I tried calling you face time yesterday just to say hello. And you were busy.

That's fine. OK, I was busy like doing a family game night with my in-laws. I wasn't like busy out on the town or anything. You know what a busy on Zoome with your family in twenty twenty and twenty. Twenty one is a night out on the town. That's OK. That's valid. Excuse me. You were club and that I was. I'm concerned one quit so I think like a big night you know what.

And the Schiefer Lamping now. Yes absolutely. That is a wild competition.

Let's go to the Olympics. OK, here comes Jesus.

Sorry. He keeps inserting himself into the corner. Wait, let me see if we can see him. Others is but curtain coming through the door is doing that.

But then like then he starts whining because he gets stuck and I'm like nobody made you go back there into that corner anyway. What are you drinking today?

I'm drinking a nice cup of water. Me too. I'm doing it out of my vagina pizzeria cup.

We've discussed this before. Shout out to Boston. I just don't have a bigger cup than this. And I know that I'm going to need to wear my whistle quite a lot. Refilled my own mouth.

Yes, I drink a lot of water in this episode and to beat it to the punch, I drink because. Christine.

Oh. Three cockroaches. What? Oh, I thought you were calling me a cockroach. I'm sorry, you said I was. So you may never know. I found three more cockroaches. Oh, after we were done with this.

Where did you find. I don't even know.

So I haven't found any. So I'm very lucky in that I haven't been traumatized the same. But Alison found all three of them and she's fucking over it. So we tomorrow are re spraying the whole place.

So the live show that we have, by the way, is going to be filmed at our and that's why we drink studio, because I am not allowed to be here because the cockroach man said that I need to be fair.

That's probably better because then you're the only one using the Internet and stuff.

So it might even be very true. Well, no, Alison has to come with me. No one can be here because tell her to get off the Internet. Tell her she got to be watching my fucking show.

That's exactly. Exactly.

But anyway, I drink because I have I don't have control, and that gives me anxiety and I'm angry. What are you drinking and.

Well, that's nice.

I'm also drinking water because it's only three here. And unfortunately, I need to hold off on the booze in it for a couple more hours. But, you know, I don't this is probably jinxing it, but like, the weather is beautiful. It's like sixty five and sunny today and only 65.

I'm waiting for the lightning to fucking crash through the sounds of this microphone. Oh yeah. And also I drink because I've just messaged. Oh no. Is it too late to change your usernames because once again we forgot. So did you see.

I did last week. No. Oh did you call me Poopy Face again. Oh you were supposed to check on it.

Now I'm going to make it even worse. Oh no, not waying. I don't even check on my editing prowess. I you know what?

We really have forgotten so much about this. I even forgot to look. I don't know.

I have no idea what is even you said, oh, I'm going to listen to this since you covered Kuhnen and you clearly didn't because I listened to it. I didn't watch it on YouTube. Huh? I did. I really did. I was actually very nervous. And Christine and I can both vouch for this. I appreciate everyone's kind words about what I've been doing with Kuhnen and my research, but I have been very paranoid. And so it's nice to know that people are not mad at me, which is fun.

So that being said, I'm going to go look at our YouTube right now.

OK, well, just even posted it on Instagram and you didn't check. OK, well whatever. I also OK, I've just made the most beautiful face of me and I want to share it.

Oh well I was like did did, did you hang on.

And that's why, you know, she posted it and said, go check what Christine changed his name to. So it's like, oh, I like your sneak peek anyway. Whatever your name already on here has changed because I've already gotten mad and done it in the future.

You know, it's OK. I was going to say my if you were to change your right now or something, I wouldn't even notice because my notes are hiding me.

Great. You know what? I don't know what you wrote. I'm just going to assume I hate you because I assume the name is very silly on YouTube.

OK, I change mine a I can see that one and sucks with forty thousand exes.

So OK, here goes. I'm great. Now this is just spiraling out of control as per usual.

Here I go. Here I go again. Hmm. What do I say.

Christine is La Cucaracha.

Oh no I'm not the three cockroaches in your apartment. Please. OK, here's what here's what's really funny is I didn't know how to spell Cucaracha, so I was going to write cockroaches, but as I was trying to figure it out, I'd already written and seen is cockroaches. I wrote LA for La Cucaracha and then I psych myself out. So I was going to write a cockroach, but then I got Darvas and then my anxiety.

After pausing I looked back and I had written Christine is like, OK, well you've crossed many lines now.

So anything I've told you about a poopy head, you've just what is it you literally like that you are such a genius.

You know what?

And I'll change it. I'll change. OK, do you think we're really spiraling already?

Well, what else is new. I also. Oh shit.

What was I going to say. Hang on, let me think. Hmm. We've got nothing but time, girl. Yes, hang on. I really did have something to say once again. Oh, I know, OK, I actually do have a reason why I drink, which is that the other night I was so I've started watching Paranormal Witness because a couple of people thinks I'm your favorite, favorite little little turd.

Great. Thank you. You know how I feel about that. I'm like with a little pea little poor little thing has been coming in useful, by the way, with my noisy neighbors.

I've been banging them on the ceiling a lot.

So beautiful. So I was glad because at first when he said useful as like, please tell me it's not in the toilet.

No, but in terms of soundproofing, it's just in a in a way we didn't see.

It's a soundproofing tool, but not in the way intended just by shutting them up. OK, sorry. Paranormal Witness. Yeah.

So I've started watching that which is super spooky and I watched on YouTube TV because it's free on there.

Have you ever seen the show. I don't think so. It's I'm surprised I haven't seen it. It's very creepy. Like it actually scares me. And I was watching it one night and I got like really into and watched like five episodes in a row.

And I got really spooked and I was sitting in bed and all of a sudden my bedroom door slammed like I'm not getting like it didn't just like close. The whole thing slammed and like, go and jumped up and were staring and everybody was like on edge. And then I walked over and moonshiner was just sitting there with his fucking pompadour, OK, and started crying.

He wanted you to see it. He was like, yeah, I'm the fucking culprit. He did it.

And then he went, Well, I want to get out now. And I was like, will you fucking did that? Like, what are you doing? And so I realize now that my cat has powers that I didn't realize he had.

He can slammed like slammed doors. It was open, open and Blaze's stuff keeps getting moved around.

And I was like, oh no, it's a ghost.

And one day I was in bed and I saw something out of the corner of my eye and many had jumped onto the counter in the bathroom and carried Blaze's glasses out of the bathroom and in his mouth in his mouth and carried them into the bed and put them behind Blaze's pillow. And I went, oh, my God, this cat is literally carrying objects around the house and put. And the other day one of my slippers went missing.

The cat had taken my he's still a baby. The cat had taken my slipper and carried it behind a tree in our living room and it was just hidden there. I don't know.

This cat is bonkers and he likes to put things in his water bowl. He's obsessed with water.

So I keep finding screws and like little objects, sunglasses, he drops them all in the animals.

This cat is going to eat a screw one day. Yeah, like, yeah. This is so weird dog people in this household. And one of the reasons now that I can tell from the list is because apparently none of your items are safe.

It's like having a litter with a dog. Dogs eat them. Well, if you put things high enough, though, usually unless you're like your dog, like counter Cerf's or whatever, like cats have access to everything. It's like having I feel like it's akin to having a toddler where you're like, oh, I got a move that I got to move that before they grab it. I think cats can just get anything like nothing is safe.

But no one told me about this aspect of cats.

Like I've had cats my whole life. They've never carried a hidden in our glasses and slippers like this is so next level.

I mean, I feel like this cat is like like a reincarnate, like someone who likes to fuck with you. I think this is from a past life because this is it's I mean, that's reaching.

But it's also like I've decided it's true. It's not like a familiar or something who's just like, hey, fuck you.

I know. It's amazing.

It feels like a fuck you. And I mean, it's kind of cute when you see it happen.

I honestly, I'm just relieved because at first I was like, oh, my God, there's a ghost, like moving our stuff and slamming doors. And I'm like, OK, if it's the cat, it's so much easier to blame everything. Everywhere, noise, every strange object. Moving is the cat. There was one night I was watching the show and we all heard footsteps on the stairs, which happens a lot. And I was like, Oh, it's Mooney.

And then I look over and all three pets are in the bed with me and they all their ears all go up. And I went, well, cool. So there are still things that happened that I can't blame on Moon. And it's always the stairs and that's the stairs, the staircase that blaze that one time heard and called me like there's someone in our house. So I don't know what's up with the stairs, but, you know, I know it's up up the stairs.

Everyone here knows what's up the stairs. They're fucking haunted. Christine, are you kidding me? I have no idea what happened. You got them from, like, a church or something. What are you talking about?

OK, I didn't the last people who lived there did. All right.

It's like a weird like like everyone's like collaborating to build a really haunted home. Every every new person brings in a new patch, a haunted. And it's just the next owner's like, how do they get to those vertex.

Yeah. It's like Zac Big is a museum but like unintended and I don't get paid for coming up.

And I but I still have to sign an eleven page fucking waiver to walk into that house.

OK, that's fair. I will probably set up a waiver also before I forget. So you know how we've been doing, why we drink and what we drink again.

So people have gotten a nostalgic and have asked, hey, why don't you do a milkshake and wine facts anymore? And so I came prepared with a milkshake fact for you because it's been so long.

And I just thought, why not do something a little like, you know, hearken back to the early days of marketing?

I love that. And to to answer people's questions of why don't we do that? You try to find two hundred and fifty milkshake bags.

It gets really hard that you found one. Part of the problem is that I don't know if we we could very well have covered this 200 episodes ago and have completely forgotten.

OK, so I'm going to say it again if we did.

But I don't think so because I've never heard about this before. So I found this fact. It says the milkshakes in Rhode Island are thought to be called cabinets because people use people used to keep their blenders in a small wooden cabinet. Rhode Island's cabinets are not like the typical milkshake either. They do not contain ice cream. A cabinet is just milk and flavoring mixed.

OK, well, that's not even I'm not so sure chocolate milk is like chocolate milk. Yeah, I don't know. I don't read all the way through until just now. We were learning together, which is the cabinet. That's odd. I had heard of them being called cabinets, but I didn't know where and I didn't know why.

So I Rhode Island is very specific, like very specific. It's not just like New England, it's just Rhode Island.

That's fine. Well, then in that case, Kraft, Mac and Cheese is a cabinet. If I'm just mixing milk and something and that equals a blender.

Well, I guess I'm the blender. Can you imagine? Well, I also want to add Eva came up with a good point, too, that we do have a fun fact, which is I'm going to another fun fact, which is I'm going to give you all a sneak peek as to what the monthly milkshake milkshake of the month is in our newsletter.

And if you want to sign up for our newsletter, it's super fun. Eva said, this is like I haven't gotten a full look at it yet, but you've said it's her favorite, I think, ever so far. So I'm really excited about it.

That's yeah, it's great. Jazz is doing an awesome job with those, so if you want to sign up, you can go to and that's where they're free. It's just come to your inbox monthly. And Patreon donors get a separate one through Patrón.

But the milkshake of the month, because it's Valentine's Day month is the red velvet milkshake.

Oh, that's fun. Which sounds that's like my my jam like that sounds so good.

Alison's a big red velvet fan. I don't care about it. I'm very on the fence. It doesn't seem like something you'd love. Yeah. If it's there, I'm going to absolutely eat it, but I'm not going to order it, you know what I mean. Yeah.

Yeah. I would order probably eight of them, but you know, but that's fine.

And a milkshake and it's all like red and swirly. And it reminds me of Port Portillo's in Chicago, which by the way people ask a lot during Merval Monday or whenever whenever they get their hands on me, they'll say what they'll ask, what my favorite milkshake is, and I would just like to scream into the void for the thousandth time. Portillo's Chicago. They have the best milkshake because they put a whole fucking slice of cake in their milkshake.

What's the flavor? It's chocolate, but I imagine you could do the same really easily with this red velvet stuff if you. Oh yeah. A slice of red velvet cake in milk and then maybe like an extra couple drops of red food coloring for like the fun of it. It could get real crazy.

Yeah. Or you could just put it in a cabinet if you're in Rhode Island. Yeah.

Or yeah. You could drink half of it then leave the rest in a cabinet and just like really get things crazy and then that's how cockroaches and that's how you get the cucaracha. Exactly. Anyway, well thank you for listening to my updates and my updated milkshake fax. That was from Avivah Directory Dotcom, which Lord knows what that is. But there you go. Thank you.

That no, that made me very happy. Oh, I reckon we shall go. I love it.

Oh yes. That was exactly what I was thinking.

So now that we've said a lot of things that make us happy, let's make savings that make us sad. Oh, fantastic. I'm in.

So, Christine, I am still inside, which means I am doing nothing but looking at screens all day from my TV to my laptop to iPads to iPhones to everything, I am just staring, staring, staring. And I've been getting a lot of migraines. I feel like I have a lot of eyestrain and I'm just exposed to so much blue light. And luckily now I don't have to worry about that because we've got Felix Grey.

It makes a huge difference. I also had trouble sleeping because I guess I learned that blue late at night can impact melatonin secretion, which is what regulates sleep. And we weren't built to look at screens all day.

I even read books on my tablet, like I'm constantly looking at a screen and thank God for Felix Gray. And finally, a pair of glasses designed for the 21st century. If you go to Felix Gray dotcom slash drink, you can shop glasses that work as hard as you do. That's FLIR x gray.

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Christine, I am obsessed with stitch fix, I've been using Citrix for a long time and we're finally working with them and I get this very wonderful box of all these curated clothes just for me. So I like so wanky and it's just the more it just brightens my day when I get that shipment. Oh, God, stitch fix is amazing.

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OK, so hello. And this is this is long again, but this is my final piece. Look at his face. So he started just sticking, said to see. Now he's stuck again.

Now he wants me to move the entire table and the plan in the microphone so he can sneak his way out.

Do you. Actually that was perfect timing because Alison texted me at the same time. So I got to do her talking about her. Probably if you hear a scream, by the way, she found another cockroach, that's how you'll know she's that what the text was. No, but she was just asking me about something else. But every time she does text me now, I'm terrified of. Oh, I see what you're saying. So if we do hear one throughout the episode, that's most likely what's going on.

I if you if you see me scream and it's not because of your story, it's because of a cockroach. OK, OK, so here is my the finale of my trilogy. Let us feel this installment and to give people an idea of the categories we're going through today because you seem to like them all on Jeopardy last time, conspiracy theories how what they stem from to begin with, which is a little bit of an add on from last week about how people get sucked into the stuff.

Right. And then how did this spread so fast ways? It is like a cult and how to help someone get out ways.

It is like a cult. Sounds like the most Jeopardy one. Like Waze. It's like a cult for four hundred. I think you picked it for 400 last time. I did. I picked it for two hundred. I decided to up the ante today and apologise. In case you are someone who likes short episodes, that is not this one.

So I think like for the last five weeks they've figured it out pretty quickly. That's out the window. I know, I know. I just I, I want them to know that at least I'm aware. OK, conspiracy theory, self aware. Even when we do stupid, stupid things, you try. Look, I'm a try if it's going to annoy you. I just want to be to the punch before I hear about it meanly in a comment one day.

It's like. I know. I know. It's not great. OK, so here is conspiracy theories and where they stem from for one hundred. So just to remind people and if you are choosing to not listen to the first two episodes bold, but here we are. Conspiracy theories stem from fear, anxiety, mistrust, uncertainty, loneliness, powerlessness, especially during social and or political unrest. And then conspiracy theories help fill the psychological needs for people during those times when they are trying to protect themselves or their world view.

And it helps alleviate their doubts and their fears, a.k.a. conspiracy theories in general, not just Kuhnen, but one of the main ways that they learn when is that they come from grasping at straws when you are desperate for an answer to something you can't control. And given the state of the last year, people are looking for a lot of answers about a lot of things that they couldn't control and there were a lot of straws to pull from. And all those straws became Kuhnen Bulmer.

It's such a bummer. So another thing that brings a lot of people, and it's just a timeless trait of conspiracy theories and which can ultimately lead to cults, is that it's the us versus them trope with Kuhnen. It's the fear that evil forces will harm innocent people. And without really saying it so directly, if you join us, you will help save the human race. Yikes. Even if the belief doesn't make a lot of sense, it will still offer an explanation for what's happening in the world.

So it's just a way to say like, OK, this even though this feels chaotic, there's a plan, there's a reason for this and I can sleep better at night. And I looked into a few different articles in The Psychology of Conspiracy. And how people fall into this and a lot of people there is one I read from Cambridge that said there are three main benefits to conspiracy thinking, and the three benefits can be categorized into epistemic, existential and social.

So epistemic, the benefit is that it provides an order to events that you can't control, gives you an explanation. The existential benefit is that it distracts you from social tension because you're focusing on something else. And the social benefit is that it provides you a community to help validate all of your fears. So just to make that easier to swallow or to remember the three main benefits of conspiracy thinking are that they relieve, distract and validate your anxieties. Interesting.

That's so fascinating. OK, thank you.

Oh my God. OK, it is. I mean, this is one of my favorite series you've ever covered. I say that a lot when you cover things, but this is just so fascinating to me. Oh, thank you. Well, yeah, the the articles that I was reading were not that a bad way, but they were just very flowery. And I was like, OK, how do I make this kind of like a bite size thing?

But so so Christine, the cockroach can actually understand what's going on. So the three main benefits are relieving, distracting and validating. So I mentioned this last time when we had our rousing conversation about anti-Semitism was fun.

Wasn't that fun? Well, I've never lost more sleep wondering if I have Loudy.

I remember well, I remember I was editing the episode and I just every time I responded, it was because I was terrified.

Yeah. I was like, I feel like EVMs got this covered and I'm not going to insert myself. I'm just going to, like, understand and agree and go. I am Jewish and I so I like, you know, in theory that means that I would be less less likely to offend other people in my community or something. But I was terrified that I'm not doing it right. So especially because even if you're in the community, it does you can still say like two things.

Yeah. Doesn't mean you're, like, totally immune to, you know, being respectful. Yeah. You know, I did a great job. I was really hoping people would be like, well, I was Jewish, so they know what they're talking about. Like, that was my fear. I was like hopefully like people at least could lead into that. If I said something offensive, I really hope I didn't. But but no, you're right.

Like, even if you are I didn't even have the benefit. I was just like, I'm going to just sit back and assess.

Just because you are Jewish does not mean you can't also have anti-Semitic views. So. Right, right. No one is no one gets a pass, gets a free pass. Yeah. So anyway, just like how I mentioned anti-Semitism last time, let's reopen the wound and talk about it again real quick.

Oh OK. Rousing. Let's rerack it. Got it. Let's let's get re roused. OK, so Kuhnen wants you to think that these beliefs are new, but they're fucking not. But a lot of people like this is the, the conspiracy theory for the ages and like revolutionary or something. Yeah. And although that may be true in some ways, it's certainly not because of their beliefs like. Right. That it's the same classic fringe beliefs but with a modern twist.

It's, it's basically like the game telephone, you know. So most conspiracy theories aren't new. They're just how I wrote it. Remixed for this Generation remix and so remix for this generation's fears and this generation's unrest. So in this case, it would be human trafficking is a big thing we talk about a lot. So they found the the anxiety of this generation and rewrote the same script for a new audience. Right. For example, that, you know, talking about global bankers and drinking kids blood.

You know, that's. Wow. Where have we heard that before? Oh, yeah. For the last unfortunately, a thousand fucking years. And so there's a lot of anti Semitic tropes on blood libel, which I talked about last time.

Also, one of the reasons that Kuhnen is so alluring and why conspiracy theories in general are alluring is because they will find a way to work off of your emotions. And in this case, they were telling people that kids are being harmed, which is just a timeless way to rally people together because it triggers outrage. It's juicy enough to spread on its own. And with it being vague enough, you can almost write it, however traumatically you want to, so you can, you know, pull on people's vulnerabilities and really sucker them.

And also, when challenged, they will rationalize their worldview and anxieties however they need to to make it make sense, which I find ironic, because that means this group of people are building themselves a safe space every time they get challenged, which the people who make fun of all of us in our safe spaces and. Being snowflakes or whatever, the second that there's an inconsistency in their belief system, they'll double down and freak out because psychologically what's happening is they're building they're trying to maintain the same space they've created for themselves.

Sure. That's so Freud, who is often not right, Elmo in this case, he is.

So is he has one theory on errors versus illusions. And an error is a lack of knowledge or poor logic. You were wrong because he didn't have the evidence in front of you or you didn't stand corrected when challenged illusions or delusions is wishful thinking, very wishful thinking to a point of just complete denial of reality. So you know that it's a conspiracy theory versus doing your own research. When empirical evidence doesn't do anything for you, you're just sticking with what your original claim was.

Yeah. And so it's basically a lot of psychologists have called it motivated reasoning, because even if something sounds wild, it makes more sense to them if it means they get to keep accepting the world that they've built for themselves. Got it.

And a lot of that comes with like covid, for example, if you are so afraid of getting covid, it's a lot easier than it's a lot easier to just pretend it doesn't exist because then at least you can't get it that way. So there's there's a lot of projecting involved. There's a lot of finger pointing and like blaming the other. It's like, oh, well, covid isn't real. You made it up. You made it up because you just want to scare us.

It's like no covid stuck in real and you're just afraid to face reality. So what Kuhnen also ends up doing is justifying projecting your fears on other people, which reinforces an us versus them and just makes the wedge further and further are the wedge bigger and bigger. So this conspiracy theory, kuhnen, what's interesting about this is it's very different than other conspiracy theories that happened before this, especially the ones that were pre Internet. And so I'm just going to say real quick some of the reasons why this has been even more problematic than other conspiracy theories, cults up until now compared to cults before the Internet.

So, first of all, this is kind of a smaller one that I thought of. But I think it deserves to be mentioned because there are people out there exploiting victims of cults with the Internet. Public figures can get involved because they want the views of the monetization. So you don't even have to be a believer at this point. If you hear about it and have an audience, you can spread misinformation by accident and you're also reaping financial benefits from it.

Basically, if you fall into people's algorithms and I'm speaking specifically about YouTube, is because there have been a lot of people who came from Kuhnen and have been spreading things specifically through YouTube and video series or things like that. And when it comes to reaping the benefits of Kuhnen, there's been a lot of talk of people that are spreading these videos are creating this content. They don't even believe in it. They think it's complete bullshit, but they know other people do believe in it and they're working off of that.

So that's like extra effort. Yeah. So, yeah, like I said last time, and this is not me pointing fingers specifically at these three people, but an example is how some people think that Kuhnen is one of the three original predators who brought it to YouTube. And then people there's a group of people who think like, well, they don't even believe in Kuhnen. They just wanted to pump their own, you know, narrative. And maybe they're just doing it for numbers or whatever.

There's it's it's all alleged, but it is something worthy to pay, like noteworthy to pay attention to. If, like, if enough people believe this thing and you want to gain numbers, all you got to do is talk about the thing to those people, whether or not you agree with them totally. You have your audience built in. And because of the algorithm, especially people being at home and using their Internet more than ever and the algorithm being even more accurate, much quicker than usual.

Hmm. You're getting especially with conspiracy theories, it's extra dangerous because your audience comes from the algorithms of multiple people with different interests that can all fall into your audience. So it's not just people that believe in Kuhnen. It's people like me who are fucking researching it for the benefit of the good or it's truth seekers or it's true crime fans or it's people who have a fascination with cults. A lot of our audience, a lot of a lot of our audience who could genuinely be looking up information not because they're falling into a trap, but because they just want to know about it for the sake of fascination.

And all of a sudden you're getting videos like this that can slowly seep into your way of thinking totally. So I just wanted to say that and I am aware of the Verilli really, really thick irony here of that like. I am and in some ways a public figure that is in some ways monetizing on us, talking about Q and on right now. So when I'm talking about like public figures getting involved, even if they don't believe in it, I hear it.

But I would argue that we're trying to educate people away from it versus I don't know if that's the same thing. I just I as I was writing those notes, was like, oh, this feels kind of gross because like we literally have a podcast and we're talking about that. That's our whole podcast. I mean, I discuss crime and murder of a stroke. So it's just endlessly like talking about horrible, horrible things, which technically we do as a career.

But I mean, I looked at least I think hopefully it's true that we do it in a more educational, like, awareness type way than like, hey, join us.

And I like to think so, too. I just I felt kind of I just want to address that. I felt a little hypocritical writing it because I was like, I'm almost like shaming public figures for spreading awareness on random topics. And it's like, OK, well, hello.

Hi. But. But yeah. So there are a lot of people who are doing it for nefarious reasons. Right. And if you are an influence or a creator and this is also a PSA that people out there who want to become influencers or creators and your interest happens to be true crime, and now you want to do a YouTube video about Kunhardt and you think it's going to be like funny and entertaining because it's about lizard people. You have to be really aware of the message that's coming across and the outreach or the amount of people that you could reach with your video.

Because if you think you're just doing a silly little video but you haven't done your research, you could be spreading misinformation to people who are really taking your video seriously. So it's just another way. It's just one of the ways that the Internet has infiltrated this conspiracy theory because people on purpose or completely inadvertently can be reaching the masses and accidentally sucking them into something that they that's not the intention. So I'm sorry for getting on my soapbox there, but that was kind of a half PSA, almost like getting off.

You're almost like getting off your soapbox, like having to step off my soapbox and say, I know what I'm saying. But I, I just I if you are a content creator out there and you're like, I'm going to do a Kuhnen video, this is me urging you to please not sound like Yonan, but do your research because someone out there is listening and eager to learn more because of your video or your content or whatever it is. So just interesting quote, public figure.

If we're calling ourselves that to other public figures, please just be aware of how you are presenting research. Sure, sure. For the safety of the people, because there are a lot of people losing it right now. So one of the ways with the Internet is public figures getting involved in taking advantage of those who are already manipulated into this. Another thing is how radicalised people can become with random content like even Meems. They're easily editable. They're easily shareable within seconds, arguably, depending on what account it's on, thousands of people can see it right away.

It's just like the fastest way to spread content. Not Meems necessarily, but posting anything. I mean, the way that information is being spread is insane. This isn't a normal conspiracy theory or fringe group where there's 50 people on a plot of land and you just hype each other up like it's not fifty people now. It's all right. Everybody is getting access to this shit. And within a day, like X, amount of people are now looking at this information and some of them are going to fall for it.

Yeah. So how it spreads so fast beyond the Internet. First of all, it already had some traction because of pizza gate. And, you know, Kuhnen started back in twenty seventeen. So I do forget that there are people who have been in this movement for years. But this wasn't necessarily a brand new thing. This was already four years kind of infiltrating Reddit. People were aware of it. There were a bunch of accounts that did talk about it.

We just weren't paying attention. And by twenty eighteen, which I mentioned last time in the midterm elections, Kuhnen was considered mainstream because enough people had kind of rallied together with this belief system. So by twenty eighteen it really started blowing up. And when I say blowing up, I mean Time magazine listed as one of the twenty five most influential people on the Internet.

It was like listed Q as or just Hewitt. Q and on or Q I Oh wow. OK, as one of the I would say. Q The person I wrote all my notes in shorthand were Q means Q and Kuhnen. So I said, OK, remember which one it is. But I would imagine they're talking about. Q The person. The individual. Yeah. The top secret clearance who started all this bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine being that guy in the basement being like, oh my God.

Time listed me as one of the top twenty five and I can't even say anything, even brag about it.

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So it's the masses are finding out about it. There was an app that came out called Q Drop's, which was just meant to release breadcrumbs in an easier way. It was the number one popular paid app and entertainment. When I first came out just in the entertainment section of Apple, it was the number one most popular, but it was overall like world popularity. It was number ten. It's been taken down. But, you know, this is just to show you, like, how fast they were really getting into, like I mean, Apple was.

Yeah, I mean, that's really sobering. Like, yeah. No one in entertainment. Yeah. And also, this is like I, I am someone who goes on Reddit, so I'm not trying to like poo poo on Reddit, but Reddit has a in my opinion and a lot of ways it's got kind of a grimy feel to it where if you find something on Reddit, I usually think like, oh well that's not entirely like a credible source or you know, there are certain facets of Reddit.

You've got to be careful who you're talking to or what they're saying. And it's not super reliable. But then it goes from Reddit in twenty seventeen to by a year later, Kuhnen, like Time magazine, Apple like people are talking about the shit. Right. So it just goes to show you that it's a reminder that falling for these conspiracy theories and things like that, it's very insidious to a point where it's showing itself in real time in everyday life and you don't see it happening.

Yeah. So just a reminder that to not shame the victims because anyone could fall into this. So it already had traction, at least enough that people could find information relatively easily by twenty eighteen and the perfect storm. There's like four main ingredients to this horrible recipe. It's I'm going to get into the four spots, but I do really quickly want to say that a summary of what Kuhnen is I found three really good quotes and I just couldn't pick between them.

So I want to read them all here before I start breaking things down. But a reminder that we've talked about it in the last few episodes, that Kuhnen is a compilation of pretty much every conspiracy theory. So if you have a crazy belief, quote, crazy belief, you're likely to fall for it. And everyone's got a crazy belief. So everyone's susceptible and everyone's at risk. So here are three really good quotes I found summarizing what Kuhnen is.

If the Internet is one big rabbit hole containing infinitely recursive rabbit holes, Kuhnen has somehow found its way down, all of them gulping up lesser conspiracy theories as it goes. Another one is the Kuhnen. Conspiracy isn't appealing because it's a coherent narrative, but because it's a grab bag of moral panics that have all been squashed together to create a rat king conspiracy. Wow. Wow. And then the last one is, if you believe anything off the beaten path, you're welcome to the family.

So. Oh, yeah, that is really telling. Yeah. So it's just there's a reason in twenty seventeen it was like a post on Reddit and now it's like we have to worry about the percentage of people who believe in this, like it's so easy to fall into. Yeah. So because keeping on is such a massive umbrella it can accommodate almost anyone's weird belief. And one thing, that, one thing that helps Kuhnen gain followers is that like I said, everyone has a weird belief and yours has already been justified.

They've already found reasons for almost every conspiracy theory to make sense. So if I meant to time travel and I find a group of people who are like, oh, we have evidence for that, and you trust them as a community, you're probably not checking or looking at your own research. You're just kind of blindly following and they're giving you answers for how your weird belief is correct. Your specific interest. Yeah.

Yeah, it's. Very sinister because there's so many beliefs that not only are you falling into your own faction, but every faction kind of has its own weird fringe extreme beliefs, but they won't lead with that. So if I'm looking at time travel over here, I'm not noticing all these other little conspiracy theories seeping into the folds. And by the time I'm fully invested and I look in the rearview mirror, all of a sudden I have fallen for all these other random beliefs.

So it's like a like a conspiracy theory. Lasagna, they're like and it's also like sleight of hand magic, because you really can be looking at this thing and not even notice that this thing is seeping into your world view. So by the time you are aware of it, it's too late. Also, I I'm just putting this in here really quick. I think it's I'm not saying this is how it happens, but I imagine at least one person has this, quote, excuse or reasoning behind why they ended up falling into Kuhnen.

I remember every single person in the last year just being like, it's twenty twenty, like anything could happen and I wouldn't be shocked. Or people being like, it's twenty twenty. You could tell me anything. And I believe it. And honestly, a lot of weird shit happened that lizard people are like kind of not the craziest. So like it to me. I'm like OK sure. Fuckin lizard people. I can't be surprised anymore. I mean it's the things that happen in 2020.

If we had somebody had said, oh, guess what's going to happen next year in 2019, we would be like, OK, lock this person up. Like, yeah, there's something. Yeah. So I think it really was this isn't even mentioned in like the psychology of how people are getting sucked into Kuhnen, but it's just a personal note. Felt like we were all so broken by last year. We were really fuckin broken as people and the human mind should not go through the year.

We fucking went through as a society. And I think that was kind of like half the job was already done and that we were primed for it. We were so willing to just any answer would fucking do like how did this happen?

So know unity, any answer, any explanation, anyone, anyone that was going to validate a theory on how the hell this world is the way it is. And like any you know, I don't I'm not saying that that was everyone's way of thinking, but I wouldn't be shocked if someone was like, you know what? My reason of how I got the queue and it was fucking twenty twenty, I'd be like, OK, that fucking checks out.

My life was upside down already, you know. Yeah. So anyway, there's that also another part to this recipe. Beyond that, it's just like a conglomerate basically of conspiracy theories is that it was a movement that's telling you to do your own research and trust nobody who doubts you, even if there are people in your own group, which only makes the people who you do trust even stronger with you and reinforces the really ironic to me, because I feel like that should tear the community apart.

But you're just finding specific people to really latch onto. But whatever your opinion is about anything, it's already going to be validated by somebody. You just have to find the right people to really suck yourself in with. Even if the do your own research quote or concept, even if that meant do the research that I did, not the research you want to do, but do the research I did because, you know, validate my belief. Now, you could be it's just it's just such a wild concept that I've been talking about for three fucking weeks with everybody.

So I'm sorry.

But like, I've never seen a conspiracy theory like this or from all the research nobody has, we're like the conspiracy theory itself is that everybody but you is wrong unless they agree with you. So if everybody thinks that, then everybody is wrong. But no, so you can't trust anybody, even in your own group, but that's also but that's also the thing that everyone is bonding over, is that we can't trust anyone, even you like. It's it makes it's just wild.

So on top of having no ability to trust people, having any of your conspiracy theories being immediately justified and now having a community that's going to tell you that all of your opinions are right. However, whatever that means, then we've got social media, which I have touched on a lot. But now this is like my real section where I just completely roast social media. So real quick, here is a survey that was done right before the lockdown.

I guess Kuhnen was already had enough traction that they were doing surveys about Kuhnen before it became an issue. But so there was a Pew Research survey that happened at the beginning of twenty twenty. So before the lockdown, before covid, before people were really getting sucked into the shit, three percent of Americans said that they had heard or read a lot about Kuhnen, only three percent, OK, within the first six months of twenty twenty. So that would be what, June?

So three months of being locked inside. Mm hmm. After three months of being locked inside, there was another Pew Research survey where forty seven percent of Americans had heard of Kuhnen. What's even worse is that three months later, by September, twenty, twenty six months in lockdown. 25 to 30 percent of queue of people said that Kuhnen was partly or mostly true. Oh, my goodness. Which is a quarter to a third based on the survey you're looking at.

Talk about viral. I mean, yeah, spot on.

Or almost a quarter to almost a third, but. Yeah. So that's no days in lockdown was three percent of people three months and lockdown was forty seven and another three months in lockdown was a quarter of the world. Thought it was true. Not just heard of it but thought part of it was true, which is the world, not just the U.S.. Sorry Americans. I'm sorry. Oh no, you're fine. I was like, holy cannoli.

They were all. So that's interesting because it means in the first three months a lockdown, almost half of Americans had at least heard of Kuhnen. But three months later, a quarter of Americans. Wow, kind of believed it. So even though the number is lower, the impact is more serious. You have to remember, like in June also, there was so much social unrest that kind of. Right. Blew up four months and that probably fed massively because that's when I started reading about Kuhnen.

That's so, Jarome, the social unrest there. We're also I'm just going to say now there were a lot of other surveys that I planned on sharing the statistics on this. But to be all about people's beliefs and Kuhnen, to be honest, it was so anxiety inducing that I just didn't include the information because it really made me lose a lot of faith in humanity. So let's just say a a horrifying and humiliating amount of people really are so vulnerable to this world, which is just my way of coaxing the people who have lost loved ones to this.

You are not alone at all. Yeah, yeah. So I've said this earlier, too. But just to remind everybody, in case you don't remember, how twenty twenty one folks were locked inside, there was nothing to do. During what I consider one of modern history's most stressful times. People were confused, people were scared, people needed social interaction. People were spending all fucking day on social media more than they used to. And they were just getting royally fucked by these insidious algorithms like who royally fucked.

And then they were through those algorithms. They were spiraling downward, a rabbit hole that they could not climb out of, especially when a lot of them were digitally illiterate, like baby boomers who thought they were properly fact checking or thought they knew how the algorithms were working and how they could get out of those algorithms. And so a lot of people just got I mean, you didn't stand a chance basically, if you looked up one video about it and it's in your algorithm and you don't really know how to, like, shift gears and look at other content for a little bit to change up your platforms algorithm, you're fucked.

And so there were panics people. This is the most of the people who got sucked into and on first. They were really panicked, especially about covid. But because covid was so new, there was no information. So experts didn't have answers, at least answers people wanted to hear. And it truly, I can attest this felt like it was the end of the fucking world when this all started and when people were looking for answers, the only answers that they could really find were on social media from uncredible sources because actual scientists were busy getting the real information for you.

And I would also argue, by the way, that a lot of experts were working day and night to get you information as soon as possible. But it wasn't fast enough for people to feel like they were getting more it wasn't being disseminated properly by the powers that perfect. OK, you get it. Yes. So when looking for answers, they would end up on social media. A lot of those ended up becoming Kuhnen accounts. And it just got spread really quickly to people's algorithms because like I said last week and I said also just now, too, if you believe anything, Kuhnen is subtle and vague enough that it can slip into any belief.

So even people our age are now being affected by it because they're part of like New Age or energy pages and energy accounts and more of the woo woo stuff, the granola stuff. If you're into also conspiracy theories or if you're into even something as simple as like crystals and things like that, like it's so easy for someone who kind of believes in fringe kuhnen stuff to just show up on your page and then you're screwed. People were getting Cunegonde information from everywhere, whether that was Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, ticktock.

Many alt right. Apps like Parler and Gabb are talking about that stuff. And eventually it's just hard to not pay attention to because even if something sounded kind of fringe and extreme to you on one page, it's just like psychology, like the proximity effect of if you see it enough times out of sheer curiosity, you're going to kind of look at it. And then eventually the Internet thinks that's what you like to look at, and then it's all you're being shown.

So it's it's hard to not pay attention over time, especially when you've got nothing to. But look at the Internet and just see what's going on, basically by March 20, 20 and the lockdown, there was an immediate, massive spike in Facebook, no Cequent on accounts. I saw one poll that said Kuhnen accounts there were originally 200000 searches or two hundred thousand followers or people hits. Within that month, I went from two hundred thousand to one point five million.

Oh, boy. Another quote. I think this one was about Instagram. This. Oh, no, no, no. This was Facebook. In just four months, membership of the biggest public and on groups rose by seven hundred percent. Oh, my goodness. Also. Q And on activity nearly tripled on Facebook, it nearly doubled on Instagram and Twitter. A lot of this not only were we all inside looking for answers, people were on Reddit for even more hours than they were before and algorithms were catching up.

But on top of all of that, when people were inside, a documentary showed up on YouTube, I think it was on YouTube that reintroduce us to Pizza Gate, which is. Aha. And that was in April. And by June was when Pizza Gate became this huge, massive thing all over again. So now we're just reopening that wound while everyone's bored inside and doom scrolling basically. Yeah. Yeah. So by June twenty twenty hashtag pizza on tick tock apparently was quote viewed more than eighty two million times.

Oh my gosh. And so another quote is and the first week of June comments likes and shares of pizza also spiked to more than 800000 on Facebook and nearly 600000 on Instagram, which is interesting because when Pizza Gate was at its actual peak in twenty sixteen pizza gate only comments, likes and shares only got to ninety three thousand and wow. So in twenty sixteen it got ninety three thousand hits and twenty twenty when it got reopened and everyone was inside. Pizza gate went from ninety three thousand hits to spiking to 600000.

Wow. So it really took off the second time. Yeah.

And second time around it was more popular even though I'm sure that poor fucking pizza place was like I thought we were done with this brush that was finally put that behind us. Also there were two videos that also came out during the pandemic that really spread Kuhnen information. One was called Plan Dimmick, a.k.a. the pandemic is a plan and a hoax and a setup. The other was Fall Kabal, which was a ten part video series that I'm pretty sure was like an intro into Kuhnen.

And I never saw it. I tried to find it honestly. I just didn't want to watch ten fucking videos on this. No, no. But I'm assuming it was kind of like a Q and on one. On one and it kind of like slowly got you involved in all of this. So anyway, those two were very powerful. I would say if you're a Kuhnen family or you have a Q and on belief system, those are like household names.

Now, those two videos, that's what I'm gathering. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it felt like that because a lot of people talked about those two videos and how it helped them get involved. And it got to a point where once people were realizing how dangerous Kuhnen is, representatives for these platforms, we're saying that they were going to start removing accounts and they were more or less on it. I have quite an opinion on this just because I think I'm primed to be angry.

I want to be angry at somebody because of how dangerous Kuhnen got, but I and so I want to blame social media for not doing something about it. But then there's like what could they have done, like, without there really being like some sort of issue against folks in huge trouble about that? Right. And I and I it's a weird, controversial topic. And not like I don't want to suggest that, like, I'm not for freedom of speech, but at the same time, like there should have been policy, in my opinion, there should have been policies set in place a lot earlier.

And yeah, I mean, it's one thing to let people freedom of speech is another thing to say. Like you're spreading dangerous and false. Yes. Nute like news is presented as news media that is harming people.

I mean, and I and I'm I'm just super sensitive to it because I literally have been reading the shit for almost a month now nonstop. So I'm just like how to nobody fucking do something about this. And I would from what I saw, from what I read, I feel comfortable saying that I feel like a lot of these social media platforms were very reluctant to do anything about it until it was too late. Oh, yeah. And so I just don't want, like any like someone to fucking sue me.

But I feel like I don't think I mean, I think this is a hugely popular belief now that Sandberg fucked us all with his, like, refusal to act or do anything.

Right. And and. Yeah, and I would I would definitely blame Mark Zuckerberg. I also would say everybody is accountable in some way and didn't nail it on the first try. I would you could make that you can make a claim about any social media platform that they didn't do enough fast enough. But they are starting to finally change their policies. They have banned certain accounts. One of the policies that they put in place was that there would be they would change up the algorithm so that they wouldn't necessarily show you they weren't taking down the videos, but they were rerouting your algorithms to show you different content.

OK, so like this is how I think about it on Instagram, that you're not allowed to post a picture of a boob if you're breast. Thank you. Can't show a nipple that's that's not allowed. That's immediately banned. Your account can be banned. And yet, like, oh, it's freedom of speech if you're posting about, like, how you know any of this above anti-Semitism and you know what I mean.

Like, I just think it's bullshit when people are like it's freedom of speech and it's like, but then you show someone breastfeeding or just even somebody somebody's boobs or menstrual blood and people are like, oh, God, how can you show this to children?

It's like, well, look what you're showing the children anyway. That's my Christine three sixteen is what that Bible verse was in case need to back.

But no, you're absolutely right. I think there is a lot of hypocrisy in terms of what is censored and what is not. And thank you, I guess, social media for doing something about it now. Kind of. But I'm still not super duper pleased, especially because before they started setting these policies, which is super duper recent compared to what it should have been, these algorithms, Trevor Noah did a really good bit about this to where he was saying that the algorithms were only a few clicks away.

Like what? He didn't say this number, but you could pretty much guess around like five clicks into video going down the rabbit hole you ended up on. Q and on content. Wow. And so just because if you're the way that he phrased it was like if you're into alternate health, maybe you're anti vax. If you're anti vaccinated, you're conservative. If you're conservative, maybe you're into Trump. If you're into Trump, here's some kunhardt on information.

So like so fuckin quickly within an afternoon all of a sudden you're on Q and on content. And I mean that happened with that one woman I mentioned last time, who she's an execution member and she got in because she was into energies and crystals and frequencies and she clicked on a page that said you might like the Great Awakening and the like. You know, it's how easy is that? So because everyone has niche interests and Kuhnen is so varied already, anyone can fall in.

It's really easy for the algorithm to access a lot of people all at once. And extremism experts actually are shocked at how fast people are getting radicalized, even like with the knowledge of what the Internet is, they're still shocked at how fast people are getting radicalized since everybody was. One of the big reasons, I think and how this shows itself is very cult or how maybe even this could have just been a fringe conspiracy theory. And I think what made it cults is that it is social media and the Internet.

I think that might have been the real kick in the crotch it needed, I guess, as I'm going to call it, because during this pandemic, I think the pandemic plus social media was the real firestorm here because everybody was already physically isolated from their social circles while they were learning about the stuff. And half the job of a cult is fucking done. You're already not good or people. Yeah, yeah. You've got face time and you've got texting and all this, but you're not.

Doing your regular hey, let's go to brunch. Oh, by the way, I saw this thing on the Internet. You don't have people you didn't have people consistently taking you off of the Kuhnen ledge. Sure. Like, they normally would like any sort of rationalizing or like.

Like, yeah. Pulling it back. By the time you were telling people about it, you hadn't seen them in months, let's just put it that way. Or you're texting or you catch up every now and then, but like you're not sitting down with people face to face and saying, this is what I'm starting to believe. What do you think about what do you think? Right. Exactly. And also, like, let's just be clear. You, me, everyone that probably listens to this, at least a very large majority of people who listen to this suffer from either depression and or anxiety.

And I would guess that a lot of people who listen to the show who deal with that, like you and I do have also experienced when you are depressed or when you have anxiety, you fuckin don't talk to anybody. You just shut people out. You don't text people back. You don't it's oh, it's really hard to find these social energy are the mental energy to socialize. And if you're inside in, your only way of interacting with other people is through face time and all this.

And you're too depressed because of how the world is going. You're not reaching out to anybody. I'm telling you, if we didn't have the podcast, I wouldn't have texted you during this pandemic. And it's nothing against you. It's just I'm too fucking depressed. I'm so miserable.

I don't even I don't even get on a phone to call my doctor, let alone know exactly people. My my own best friends back at home. I barely talk to them. And it's just because I have secluded myself. And so even if you are talking, I'm saying, what are you going to talk about? You have a phone call and it's like, well, how are you dealing with the pandemic? Same old, same old. I mean, it ends up just being like another draining bummer.

Exactly. Like, what do you do? You can't talk about your vacation to Bali. Like, so.

Exactly. So my my argument or my the point I'm leading to but I am ten tangent I guess is that even if you aren't seeing people for brunch and catching up with them and that's how they can talk to you off the ledge, one big argument could be, well, you can still text people and FaceTime them. And this argument is me being like, buddy, I still don't fucking do that. So like, if I were secluded by myself and this is all I'm fucking reading and I'm I'm isolated.

I'm completely alienated from people, whether or not I even meant for it to happen. And now I have this whole wild belief system that now when I catch up with my friend and they're like, whoa, you sound a little crazy, all of a sudden it's very easy to kick them out because you weren't talking to them anyway. So it's like they don't get it. Like my online friends get it. Exactly. Exactly. So I hope I didn't offend anybody with my jibber jabber about depression and anxiety, but I would like to think through a lot of people isolating.

It's very common. Yeah, I would like to think a lot of people have been in our shoes before and experience something like that. So that just goes against the argument of like you're still not socializing even with the very few resources we currently have. So. Exactly. So anyway, between there being all the social media, no interaction with people, at least in my case, there wouldn't be any interaction with fucking people. When you combine the accuracy of social algorithms, us being inside all day completely secluding ourselves from people who aren't falling for the same media or information, people are becoming radicalized literally within weeks.

So I talked about this with I talked about this in the first episode that I covered on Kuhnen. And I talked about this woman named Jessica Prim. Right. And she was one of the crimes that the Kuhnen has come to be responsible for. And Jessica Preme live streamed her arrest. She was looking for a Navy hospital ship that she thought was where a bunch of, like, trafficked children were being held or something like that. But then she also kind of started she brought knives with her, I guess, to, like, defend herself or like get the kids out.

However, she needed to. Basically, she ended up getting arrested. People look back at her, at her posts, and they there were threats about Hillary Clinton and Biden. And because she I mean, she was fully radicalized, thinking that she was going to be this lone wolf vigilante who was going to go save these children off of a ship. And she and she was the one who was screaming at the cops the whole time about like, have you heard about the kids?

I need to wake up and rise stuff. Right. Yikes. Kim So there was a West Point study done on her and from her first interaction with Kuhnen material online, whether that was like the first post she saw, the first page she joined or whatever, from that to her being fully radicalized was twenty days.

Oh, so from that to her. So this so from time was twenty days. Yeah. So from now from her just like being on Facebook and like joining a group like the Great Awakening to showing up on a Navy pier about to stab people. To save children from a human trafficking ship, 20 days now, that is unsettling, so I will say I will add the caveat. I don't know anything else about her. There could have been mental illness involved.

There could have been something. This is like a one person study. So I don't know if there were any other influences that caused this, but it didn't sound like that. It sounded like everyone who knew her before was like, what the fuck happened to her? This is not what we're used to. I don't know enough about it to make a clear opinion. I will just say from what the study says, it is shocking. So after the skyrocketing Q and unpopularity, I talked about a vice documentary.

I watched. I think it's actually a multipart series. I only watch one video, though, but they spoke to Angelo Carusone, who is the president of a media watchdog nonprofit, and they have been tracking Q and on since the beginning. And they the filmmakers asked Angelo, they were like, so what do you think? How many people do you think Kuhnen has influenced lately? Like like what do you think the most recent number is? And he said he's the literal president of this company that has been watching.

Q And on since the beginning. And he was he said, quote, Overall, I would put it at about 10 to 15 percent of the population, which is thirty three to fifty million people.

And what is that number he's saying is ten is those are the people that have been affected by Cuno. So that doesn't mean they're completely like, I believe in lizard people extremists, but they at least have their foot in the door. I'm assuming they at least have their foot in the door and nine or have been touched in some way by Cuban. He said 10 to 15 percent of the population, which would be thirty three to fifty million, which is a ballpark estimate from the from the from the filmmakers before they even spoke to him, they thought it was somewhere around 30 million.

And for him to say 10 to 15 percent and it's even more than 30 million is just wild. How many million is it again? Sorry. So in the U.S., there's a lot I looked it up last night to double check. It was like three hundred twenty eight million, three hundred twenty nine million and thirty, according to this guy who's in charge of the media watchdog company. Thirty three to fifty million people.

Oh wow. OK, wow. Yeah. So pretty terrifying. So here are the political consequences. We could really get into this, but it's going to be shorter than you think. So the the notion that conspiracy thinkers could gain significant political power is sadly not new. All the way back to the eighteen hundreds people who were first joining the Freemasons thought that the Freemasons would rule the world one day or already did rule the world. And they were just finding out about it.

And that year, the Freemasons actually gained 10 percent of the House of Representatives. So, oh, boy, it's just a yeah, it was forever ago. But it's just to prove that history repeats itself and all you need is numbers and things start to change. Power starts to get shifted. So it's very reasonable to be worried that on followers could gain significant political power in the future, especially since some of those followers already have as of this last election, the big one people have been talking about as Marjorie Taylor Green, who won the House seat in Georgia, who goes on to say, that's all I can say.

And so many other candidates in this last election either posted Q and on content, commented on Q and on content, just flat out fucking said they were for Q and on like a shocking amount of people not saying all of them ended up winning spaces in the last election, but it's enough. People who were running felt emboldened enough to not be shy about it. And so anyway, I mean they were literally getting endorsed by liberal politicians and shit all this Kuhnen group.

So anyway, when Trump and his circle continue to not denounce Q and on, but instead give it supportive remarks or kind of flirt with the idea that they're real and he's for it, or he was following and retweeting and liking posts, his own campaign pictures. There were some Kuhnen propaganda in there and there was another media monitoring group called Media Matters for America. And they said that Trump's re-election actually, I don't know why this is surprising to me, but Trump's re-election relied on a lot of Q and on Sociales on social platforms to do a lot of fear mongering and spreading the good news, if you will, of what Kuhnen is.

This is a quote that says, what happens when a nation's leader is conspiratorial? People who are susceptible to conspiracy theories become manipulated and go into overdrive because a person in power finally represents them, which is what makes this so dangerous, because the more people with political power that feel. Free and safe of consequence to announce that Kuhnen is fucking real, all it's going to do is take all these other Kuhnen people and be like, well, they said it's OK.

And look how far they are. No one would take them seriously if they weren't telling the truth. So anyway, it just makes all of Kuhnen think that all their work is doing is worth it. They really are saving the world because look at how high they're climbing and in rank. Some people now, actually a lot of ex Kuhnen followers have said that if Trump if Trump had condemned Kuhnen, they would have gotten out, which is pretty.

Oh, that blows. That's just an argument for people who are saying the shitty comments of like, well, Trump didn't make you and on do anything. They're their own people. I hate that bullshit argument. If that's like saying like, oh, well, the cult members could have left. The cult leader didn't make that exactly. It's like saying, oh, someone could have left an abusive relationship because I mean, that's an extreme. But you're right, that same argument of like, why didn't you get out?

Yeah. Like, why didn't they have the power to. It's like you're ignoring the bigger issue of someone else's manipulating. Yeah, exactly. And just in case anyone out there wants to challenge me on this, I'm not saying Trump is a cult leader, but I am saying a cult thinks Trump is their leader. So let's. Yeah.

And somehow saying he's not there and he's not saying he's not.

So somehow those are things are different. But I just want to reiterate. So anyway, a lot of people have said, yeah, if he condemned Kuhnen, maybe they wouldn't have left, but it would have certainly been a wake up call because at least the person that they think is doing all the stuff behind the scenes saying, no, that's not true, they would have at least been a little rattled. Then again, a lot of people would have doubled down and been like, oh, he's that's what they want him to be forced to say that.

Yeah. Or like that's there's a code in there somewhere.

Although I also just want to say I'm not like comparing Kuhnen members to abuse victims, like, no, I didn't. There's a lot of self it's responsibility when you join something like Q and on. So I'm not saying like, oh that's the same difference. I guess I was just comparing the argument of ignoring like a bigger no Ubiquiti problem. I did not read it that way.

I don't want to get I want to get trouble.

No, I think there's the same narrative gets shoved into all of those situations. No matter how similar or not similar they are, there's always some critic who is like, well, why didn't they leave? And the answer to that is, fuck you.

That's so I mean, OK, just to reiterate, Trump told them to be wary of the government, to not trust the media. The election's a fraud. All these people, he is telling that to already think he's their savior and is going to save the world. So, like, he's just like left and right empowering them. Let's not fucking forget the capital where he incited violence from a whole group of people who were already vulnerable, already angry, already wanting to do something about it and just waiting for the go.

The green light. Yep. And many people that the storming of the Capitol were part of Kuhnen. You could see it on their signs, on their clothes. Let's remember that fucking Auschwitz shirt that people were wearing, which does have something to do with. Q And on, please listen to episode two of one of the people there that everyone saw on the Internet who was a member of Kuhnen is that shaman dude, which wow is such a fucking insult of shamans.

Yeah. Also he is calling himself the shaman something. Right? I am not thinking that that's what he is. And also, in case you missed it, I don't know if I mentioned this last week, but a lot of Kuhnen followers also the one of the reasons they felt like they could go to the capital are they can say all these things are they can join Congress and do whatever they fucking want is because they think they are free from the law.

Because one of their Bonanos theories is that in 1871, there was a law that turned the US technically into a corporation instead of a federal government. And therefore any laws that were passed after that year are moot because technicality wise, they it's OK, OK, OK.

And so they think since they don't have to follow any of the rules that have been around since eighteen seventy one, that they can just do whatever the fuck they want. And so it gives them a reason to, if they're not happy with how things are, do some vigilante work for the sake of all good anyway. So the aftermath of Trump is that a lot of folks, some of whom were in Congress because of all of his words, like the election was a fraud.

I don't trust that Biden is, you know, where he said don't trust Biden as president. That's what you think. But the election is a fraud. Don't trust the media. All this stuff, him saying that has not only done damage to the people currently on Kuhnen, but just how that is going to spread throughout time. Now, he Trump has certainly left a legacy now and that he has almost approved the next several generations having to rebuild trust in media and government and all things.

Because there's now a huge faction of people, a staggering, staggering percentage of people who believe him and now don't trust the government, now they're going to probably invalidate every time there's a new president unless it's the one they fucking want. I don't know. But so anyway, he enabled a lot of people to not trust the government, to deny by it and to ignore the administration, to incite violence or to incite vigilante justice, at least. And it's going to take a long time for people to break away from that idea that he told them was correct.

I mean, imagine your God, because to some people, he is the savior. Imagine your God telling you everything you think is right and everyone that's judging you for it is wrong. And now you're stuck in this world. And for the next several, I imagine, generations, you have to somehow wrangle yourself out of thinking that, no, he has. No, it's your responsibility. Yeah, something about it. Mm hmm. I open the people's eyes.

Exactly. So, I mean, he just like, basically lit a fuckin match and walked away. And so Travis view, who I mentioned in the last two episodes, who I'm very terrified of not doing justice in my podcast or his podcast. And there's two other people in that podcast. They're called Kuhnen Anonymous. Super Excellent. Please go listen to them if you are fascinated and want to learn more. One of his quotes about the now, I suppose, legacy.

Yikes. Of what Kuhnen has left Travis Travis said this is something that will be with us for at least a generation and probably longer, which is awful. And just to remind everybody in twenty twenty, the FBI did say that Kuhnen poses a domestic terror threat. So at least it's official. Finally, somebody said it right? At least.

But that's also, I'm pretty sure, the first time a conspiracy theory has become a fuckin domestic terror threat. I don't know. I think that's the first time it feels like that's the right information that I'm telling you. OK, anyway, so here we go on ways. It's like a cult for four hundred. Ding, ding, ding dong. So experts have classified Conan's audience as comparable to religious cults. I don't know if anyone has just like said, oh yeah, it's a fucking cult.

I'm not sure about that. I have, but I'm not an expert. Some people claim that it's not really a cult yet. It's more of a conspiratorial groupthink or a quasi religious worldview because of its extremes. Some are similar as to extreme groups. I feel like that's all really dancing around what we all think and or at least what I think it's that we're really flirting with trying to not say cult. That's what I'm thinking. That's at least how it feels to me.

So, again, all of this is alleged. No. One, this is all my opinions. Usually we are very, very, very neutral or try to be and not express our opinions. But after three episodes, I would say one hundred hours of research. I'm so fucking over this. And I'm sorry that this is not proper journalism right now, but I.

I don't know how to not think it's a cult after extremist experts are really shocked. And everyone who is dealing with this who have lost loved ones, people who have left the group are also was like, why would it not be a cult? Like, what's the definition of a cult that would make it any different from that? Like so to experts.

So there I looked everywhere. That's actually, you know, in a way it's an it's an answer to the question I don't think you were expecting, but I looked everywhere for conspiracy theory versus cult. I just type that in, OK. And all that popped up. I didn't mention Kuban on all the popular pages about you. And so I don't even know if there is an official. Is there an official? I feel like at one point I mean, I just looked a cult.

It basically says, like, I wonder if it's too broad to be a cult. Do you know what I mean? Because they all have different base of belief.

I'm not sure, because I, I would say a conspiracy theory if I were if I were to define it. And this could be totally fucking wrong. But I would say a conspiracy theory is when you have some fringe beliefs and you're not alone, there's a there's a group of you that all kind of follow these. Sure. Little pieces of information that that confirm for you this belief that you have, but you're aware that it's not really for everyone.

It's like a niche interest. Sure. And for me and I'm sure there's a more extreme or less extreme, depending on who you are, definition of that. But what makes it different to me from a cult is that a cult. There is a following where you I actually wrote my version of how this becomes a cult, OK, in here. But just to answer the question, the difference a quick difference between it is that you're not losing money, losing family, losing sanity, losing relationships, losing your reputation.

Like for me, a conspiracy theory is time travel's real haha. Anyway, moving on with my fucking life. Versus a cult is time travel is real, and I'm going to save the human race because of it, like it's those are very extreme polar opposites.

But what do you think about, like, flat earth or is there are some flat authors who are so hardcore that, like, that's true.

YouTube channels, they have like they think everyone else is wrong. They think the government is against them. But I don't think I wouldn't consider that a cult.

I wonder if it's because they're not losing family and money because of it. Well, because I think a cult typically has like a like a leader, a leader or like a devotion to like a one.

I feel like maybe it's too vague. Like there's so many different. I wonder if because of Kuhnen, that's actually a great breed and we didn't plan this, but that's a great hum. That's interesting. I wonder if because of Kuhnen there's going to become a third category. There could be because it's like you said, with flatterers or some other people, I'm not going to, like, just shout out a bunch of people I don't agree with. But I would say that a lot of them kind of fall into that gray space then.

Don't they like it? Yeah, yeah. And especially because a lot of them end up like converging. So there are a lot of authors who end up getting involved in antisemitism and neo-Nazi ism and there's a lot of overlap.

So I don't know, like I wonder if it's just too broad to categorize.

Maybe it's that we're honestly maybe the third group right now or maybe the gray space is that conspiratorial groupthink or quasi religious world, which is just as dangerous to me, to be fair, because the definition of the quasi religious worldview is having features of extreme religious groups. So having features and may be nice, some of them, but having having some, but not all of them. So maybe that's what this gray space is. If that is the case, I could understand, I guess, why people are putting Kuhnen into that category for the time being.

Then again, I think it has promoted itself. Yeah, no, I can totally see what you're saying. Yeah. So I can understand why maybe experts are hesitant to say something. Maybe it's just so new that they're trying to they're just fucking defining. They're just frantic being like, how what do we do to keep up. Yeah.

Because it keeps changing and growing. I mean, this is within the last year that it's gotten like so massive. I mean. Wow. So anyway, anyway, I'm not saying it's any less dangerous than a call. It might be more so, but I'm just maybe it's more so because it's like it doesn't even have a label. It knows no bounds defined. Yeah. It's almost scarier. So anyway, that's what experts are saying. I guess it's the kind of middle grey space.

I personally think it has exceeded those limitations. So like a cult, it lures you in with a horrible story of society that makes you want to help be a part of the change. In this case, it was human trafficking. So it makes you feel really important. And to those who hate what's going on in the world right now, which there have been a lot of reasons in the last year to hear someone saying we're trying to save the world at least sounds like a fun idea.

Like at least sounds like you're in the right direction. Like most people could get on board with that.

Like, yeah, sure. In a out of context, yeah. We all want to save the world.

Exactly. Especially when it's something as serious as human trafficking and totally and I mentioned her last time, but she's an ex neo-Nazi. Her name was Shannon Foley Martinez, and she's been chiming in wherever she can on Q and on and saying this is one of her quotes about everyone just wanting to do good and starting with the right intentions. Shannon said, quote, Especially moms at home when we start interjecting the idea that children are in danger, of course, moms in particular, and women are like, how do we save the children?

So when they start investigating and when your and when you feel like you've found the real facts that have been hidden from you, that's very alluring and seductive and feels like empowerment. So Traves view from the Q and on Anonymous podcast said you can sit on your computer and search for information. And Kuhnen basically promises that through this process you're going to radically change the Country Institute, this incredible, almost bloodless revolution and then be part of this historical movement that will be written about for generations.

And then another thing that Travis view said was Cuba. The Cuban community also often talks about alienation from family and friends, but they think these issues are temporary and primarily the fault of others. They often comfort themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of vindication sometime in the near future, which will prove their beliefs right. They imagine after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn to them as leaders themselves who understand what's going on better than the rest of us.

So, I mean, I don't know if you watch the Nexium docu series, but that is so spot on of like if people are disconnect, if you're disconnecting from people, it's because they don't understand. And if they came to a meeting, if they came, they would understand and they would they would realize why I'm part of this or they would join, too. I mean, it's us thinking of like they just don't understand. They're like, exactly.

They're not in the right headspace. Yeah, it's easy to. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's and so from those three quotes, I feel like it kind of hits a lot of the tenets of what a cult is and. That you think you're saving the world from some evil, you think that you are really special and part of this movement that's going to change the world and you have this community behind you that's telling you like, oh, if you alienate yourself from these people, it's almost like it soothes the burden of losing your family because you think it's only temporary, because one day, once everyone has reached an ascension or a utopia or an enlightenment, everyone will come back together.

And you don't have to worry about saying goodbye for now. Totally. Which that's that's what I took from it. And NPR interviewed Travis, and they said without Trump, does Kuhnen fizzle? And Travis said, without L. Ron Hubbard, did Scientology fizzle?

Oh, I just got major goose cam that I know that was feeling the quote of the century to me. And he said, Oh, my goodness. He said, oh, my gosh, once a movement like this grows to a certain size and wants the believers in it become dedicated enough, it becomes self-sustaining and it doesn't need its founder or leader anymore. And Scientology did that without fucking Facebook, so. Oh, yeah, they did it without they did it for years without Facebook.

Now, imagine if Scientology if instead of Trump not being president now, imagine L. Ron Hubbard just died and Scientology has the Internet like I mean. Yeah. And everyone's inside with nothing to do. I mean, it's how fast everyone be a Scientologist right now.

And so one of the fun aspects of a cult is that they also and this is where I don't know, I guess it could also still be a little conspiracy theories.

But cult leaders in general, they like to exploit anxiety with as much ambiguity as possible to kind of let you fill in the gaps yourself.

It's like that guy at the Rajneeshee who is just took an oath of silence and everybody was. Yeah. Oh, well, I know he approves of the way I believe it because he wasn't saying anything.

It's what I like to call customized anxiety because it has a much more like, alluring ring to me. Yeah. Get on board with that. Well, because, like, they're they tell you just enough to be afraid and then let you let your own paranoia fill in the gaps of how the worst thing possible could happen and what the best way you can help is. Yeah. So I guess that's where I, I hesitated earlier, but I'm going to go back to my original thought of I think that's what makes a cult too.

And that like in terms of conspiracy theories, you don't have this, you don't have as much of this customizes anxiety where everything kind of implodes to either the end of the world or it's your responsibility to get on board and help reach salvation or something like that. Anyway, so last week I said a lot of Kuhnen jargon and I said the week before, too, has a lot of religious tropes that maybe also learned certain people because they're familiar with that jargon, they're familiar with everything happens for a reason or there being a plan for things and during a time of intense anxiety, wanting similar explanations.

So a lot of kuhnen Christian jargon specifically, they've talked about the storm, the Great Awakening, and it's it's all reminiscent of a lot of people's upbringings. It's gotten to a point. This is also where I think we have exceeded that gray space and gone into zone is because there are now churches starting about, oh, my gosh, what? So some followers have a religious level of worship. Enough of them got together. And the thing that's creepy to me is that like a lot of people say that they joined because they I'm only speaking specifically about Christians.

I did not say anything about any other religions. I will say, ironically, a lot of Jewish people have also joined for very other reasons. If you're an Orthodox Jewish, a lot of anti vax stuff is how they got kind of sucked into this. Or again, a lot of Jewish mothers at home were afraid of human trafficking. My mother's afraid when I, like, stood my fucking toe. So can you imagine if there is a human trafficking ring she could help with?

So, I mean, like anyone, anyone is able to get into this, right? I'm not trying to pinpoint Christians, so please don't take it that way. But in terms of Christianity, a lot of people have said that they fell into it because it felt so similar to their current faith. And that is interesting to me, because then those people or anyone in Q and on, but especially, you know, I'm talking about Christian people right now, they have such a religious level of worship to Kuhnen that it's replacing their own religion that got them into this to begin with.

Or I will also say and a little bit I'm going to talk about how there are a lot of Christians who, because of their faith, they got out.

So I'm not saying that Christianity is a reason you get something going on, but a lot of their core beliefs that brought them into Kuhnen are made to feel alluring. They ended up like replacing their religion with this level of worship for Trump and Kuhnen and almost matching them to their God. Or their Bible, you know, so very interesting in that there it feels like a replacement or they're they're equating them in some way. So anyway, yes, there is a church now, I'm assuming a lot of people who already had some sort of faith, kind of a church seemed like a nice idea that also followed Kuhnen beliefs.

And now it's kind of just becoming, wow, it's getting out of hand. So there's an independent church in Indiana that's doing this. I would say that they're probably still selling themselves as over like insert denomination here. Right, right. Right. Where a church that happens to also all be Kuhnen followers are. We happen to also have faith in Coonana. We also happen to have a belief system rooted in. Q So I don't think they're calling themselves the Kuhnen Church, but I think they probably all like met on Reddit or something.

I that's how it feels. So anyway, they one person did write about this. They were they joined the Kuhnen Indiana church services and said that it was originally on Zoome. Eventually it had to go to YouTube because it exceeded the number limit. Oh, she's really so bad. So many people started going essentially they said essentially it's a covenant church. It's an independent congregation. They were calling. I don't know if this is what the church themselves are calling them or if this is what the author was saying.

But they were called Q Evangelicals and sort of evangelical that aren't really an insult to evangelicals, I think personally. So the service apparently began with them protecting the Zoome room from from Satan. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Oh, we forgot to do that. Yeah, well, we did it every other day, so we're probably safe today. OK, and then they did a Bible study and they incorporated Q videos into the sermon and not good where they also were.

They apparently took like a fifteen minute breather or something where they also tried to decode Q drops or breadcrumbs and one service. Apparently they talked about Project Looking-Glass, which is some sort of military time travel tech, which like I can get on board with that, but like that's about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were preaching time travel can be this. I took, I think straight from the article, so I don't want there to anyone to think there was any plagiarism. But after talking about Project Looking-Glass, they preached that time travel can be explained by certain passages. And then they also said that you should stop listening to all media, including like media, that normal, average, everyday Kuhnen people follow. They were all media.

Just wipe it out because it's satanic. And so nothing is not if nothing is safe except all of these Kuhnen videos, I think two of them that they were showing during this church were the two I mentioned earlier that got a lot of people involved. The plan Demnig and Fall Kabal. I think Fall Kabal was part of the service. So since all media might be controlled, it's all therefore potentially satanic. So just avoid it altogether. And instead, this church suggested a bunch of Q and on YouTube channels.

Q and on influencers and their ministry apparently collects funds for Reclamation Ranch, which this is where I that it also starts to feel really guilty because now you're taking their money in some way. Yep. And apparently Reclamation Ranch well is like us. It helps rescue kids from the deep state or the Oh God trafficking ring.

Oh. So again, there you have that. So switching gears, I want to say here are other ways that there have been some, like, weird faith in how it became a little odd, how became religious. At some point in eighteen thirty one, there was a Baptist preacher, William Miller, who predicted the second coming of Jesus was going to be on October 22nd. Eighteen forty four. It didn't happen. And his followers were crushed. Apparently this day was called the great disappointment, which is hysterical to me, which like every day of twenty twenty was technically the great disappointment.

Like, so these followers, they didn't lose faith, though, even though like a prediction had been proven wrong in front of them. But they did lose faith. And eventually these followers became Seventh Day Adventists. And now there's twenty million worldwide, which, by the way, by the estimates that that documentary was saying there's more it on people in the world than Seventh Day Adventists. Oh, yikes. If I'm doing that right, hopefully that's not true.

So anyway, yeah, the there's one author named Norman Cohn and he wrote The Pursuit of the Millennium. And in terms of apocalyptic thinking, he compared Kuhnen to this level of blind religious faith. Yeah. And so this is a quote from him. The seventh, this is a long quote, but it was all really powerful to me. The Seventh Day Adventists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints are thriving religious movements indigenous to America.

Do not be surprised if Kuhnen becomes another escape. Get ready for, he went on, to become a religion. It already. Boy, it already has more adherence by far than either of those two denomination adherents adherents. Yeah, so right. It already has more adherence by far than either of those two denominations had in the first decades of their existence and the first decades.

And this is one year while people are expressing their faith through devoted study of huge drops as installments of a foundational text, through the development of Kuis worshipping groups and through sweeping expressions of gratitude for what he has brought to their lives, doesn't matter that we do not know who is the divine is always a mystery.

Yes, that's probably part of the appeal. Yeah, it's like we don't know who God is, but people follow God. Does it matter that basic aspects of Kuze teachings cannot be confirmed? The basic tenets of Christianity cannot be confirmed. Among the people of Q and on faith remains absolute true. Believers describe a feeling of rebirth and irreversible arousal to existential knowledge. They are certain that a great awakening is coming. They'll wait as long as they must for deliverance, trust the plan, enjoy the show.

Nothing can stop what is coming. OK, Wolf, I am freaked out, officially freaked out. And this is I wrote here it is clearly 2:00 in the morning. I wrote a quote by yours truly great. So this is where I listed all of the ways that I feel like it is a cult. And maybe now that we've had this conversation and you've made me rethink things, maybe it just falls into quasi religious movements or if they're starting churches and shit like I am way on board with the cult thing.

So this these are some of the ways that I let me just describe this and you tell me if I'm talking about a conspiracy theory or four, I'm talking about a cult, OK?

You very subtly get lured in and the beginning with false promises of doing good, you begin learning the group's baseless secrets that the world doesn't want you to know. You alienate yourself from others. You feel connected to something bigger than yourself. You have a leader or a savior and a community making you feel special for being awake to the truth. You feel united and fighting against evil. You're a part of saving the world. You believe in predictions of big things that are coming that you can help prepare for.

You recruit others to save them, to help lead them to truth or to help lead them to salvation, or you shun them if they challenge you too many times. You believe in a soon to be reckoning and then some version of ascension into Utopia. When all that doesn't happen, you have so much faith in your belief system, you will deny inconsistencies to explain away the disillusionment. You're lead, therefore, into an escalated and more extreme worldview. Because of these new beliefs you had to create to explain away your previous views, you are willing to lose your loved ones for the cause.

So that's fourteen. Fifteen. I mean, listen, there's no and no fifteen can be. And also churches are being created because apparently this is akin to God. Yeah. Yeah. And it's being described as like evangelist behavior, which is this is frightening to me. Yeah.

And let me just say, if you are someone who has been kind of flirting with the idea of Kuhnen and you are here, I don't know if you're listening and you might be part of Kuhnen and maybe you're kind of being rattled. Let me just say this really quickly. No theory that you learned a few months ago is worth losing your family or your friends over. That's just that. So if you needed something. Yeah, there's there's that information.

And if you needed to hear it from somebody, a stranger. Hi, there you go. And this is where I now talk about the most important part of how to help someone get out. So the first real disillusionment has happened, which is awesome so far, like the big first real the Great Awakening, if you will, just the one that's on the right side of history. And my perspective was that Biden became president and they were fucking wrong, despite all the promises and.

Yeah, yeah, yes.

And that really shook some people. They couldn't process how the plan didn't happen and the plan that they were screaming about everywhere and the plan that they were shouting at all of us that will all see, will all see. It didn't come through. So even Anon's on am I say a not anonymous people on eight cun eight cun. I think someone did what that meant. I did a lot of I saw a few answers, but the overwhelming majority said that Cune or Cun is.

It means like a like a masculine like means son like the son of 4chan or H.A.. Well so Channe means like or is one of the, it's either the feminine or the masculine and then Kuehne is the other is the opposite. OK, so basically if you're saying 4chan and Forkan are like the opposite God like this, they described as brother sister channels, brother, sister.

I saw someone describe it as for Christine and eight Zanda or something like that, because they're like sibling websites are like brother sister websites.

Yeah, that's fine. So I don't want to be associated with 4chan and things like that.

So anyway, members of Anonymous that day, the day that Biden was inaugurated, they were all writing online with a lot of mixed feelings. And remember, the current owner of ACN is Ron Watkins', Jim Watkins' and Ron Watkins, even them on that day of Biden's inauguration, they wrote on the their forums saying, quote, It's time to go back to our lives as best we are able. So even they were like, let's just can we just fucking move on?

Yeah. Yeah. So this all comes this is another this is the new thing. Remember, once you are challenged or something doesn't make sense, you double down and try to rationalize why it is the way it is. So there's this new belief for the people who aren't rattled and are like really hunkering into like Kuhnen exists. And this was just part of the plan. I think this faction of Kuhnen people showed up after Biden's inauguration. But the new belief is that obviously FDR replaced the gold standard by offering people to foreign investors.

So humans were being traded with foreign investors. Obviously great.

Before this happened, though, I mentioned this a little bit in the last episode, but I'm explaining it before this happened, before FDR replaced the gold standard. Presidents were always sworn in on March 4th. And those are the only presidents that are valid. Those are the only presidents worth paying attention to. Right.

So that means any president who hasn't been sworn in on March 4th, we don't even count and. That's why instead of Trump being number forty five, he's actually been number 19 all along or what would have been 19, he was 18. I don't understand. OK, he's 19. Think of him as 19 instead of 40.

But no thanks, OK. And so this March 4th, this was all part of the plan.

They want you to think Biden won the presidency, even though they all fucking said the plan is Trump is going to become the president. Now they're saying, oh, the plan got edited or updated. And so now Biden's supposed to make you think he's president. But now this March 4th, oh, boy, the United States is going to revert back to its original form. But like what? Like and how like what aliens are going with. What project time travel like.

I don't fucking know why. All of a sudden it's like a surprise. Like, who's planning this? I don't understand. Anyway, apparently March 4th will now be the new reckoning where Trump does become president. And we realized the last couple of months have been a total sham, like two weeks.

That's in like less than two is like in a week. It's like it's like the next time an episode comes out. I think so. No, it's it's literally a week from tomorrow. Yeah.

OK, well we'll know, we'll know by then I guess. But so everyone is now saying, oh, March 4th. That's the new plan. That's the new plan. You're right. That's just going to keep adapting. When that doesn't happen, they're going to say, oh, the next election, it's going to happen. Like it's going to keep getting.

Yeah, well, luckily, this was the first real disillusionment or as I'm going to call the Great Awakening, because I think that's just comedy gold there. It's pretty clever that even devout Kuhnen followers hesitated because they were like, well, like that I don't buy it. Like something is weird. I was promised, promised, promised this whole time. And now there's this random plan about because FDR like sold gold and humans. So like a lot of people are starting to kind of wake up.

That's good. Yeah. So that's really nice. And right now their God, I wish I wrote I have the link, but I don't know which link it was that talked about this. I don't remember which article it was, but.

Oh I have a here. Perfect. OK, so it was a five thirty eight article and it was basically they're talking about right now because people are kind of starting to get rattled or at least the first real wave of people who are waking up from Kuhnen are starting to show themselves. This is the first real opportunity we've had to potentially pull doubting believers out from the conspiracy before one of three things happened. So there's one of three paths after Biden's inauguration that will happen for Q And on people.

The first one is unshakable faith, where now they're doubling down more than ever. And again, when people say like, well, once your big plan failed, why don't you leave? That's kind of like when cults say like, oh, the UFOs are coming to get us and then they don't show up. And actually, I'm not even going to say cults in that case. I'm going to say a quasi religious swappable because I feel like that's fair and more open, especially with like Seventh Day Adventists, like they're the great reckoning didn't happen.

And then they became Seventh Day Adventists. And they're not a cult, as far as I know. So right. Right, right. Now, I see what you're saying. Anyway, I don't want to put that title in that spot. I don't want to put a title. But so it's a it's a really good point in that, like, in most cases, people think there was a quote, a prophecy comes after the group has already been established.

So when believers find these holes in their beliefs, it's easy to fill the gaps. In sense. Biden was inaugurated. Now everyone's saying, oh, well, this was a planned Trump's going to be president March 4th. Also the inauguration speech. A lot of people been saying that the Bible that he swore on was fake, even doesn't even have to be a fucking Bible. But OK, so unshakable faith is the first one. The second one is doubting Cunard, which is what we won would be great.

Yep. I won option two. Basically, they could finally get back in touch with their loved ones. The people are starting to look at their past inconsistencies. A lot of execute. Our members have said what got them through it or what made them wake up was they found threads online, which if you see this thread online, I encourage you to read tweet that shit in case it happens for someone else. Wear these threads. We're listing all of the failed Q And on predictions all at once.

Oh, interesting. So I imagine like, yeah, usually if you can see an inconsistency and you can plan out ways to fill the holes, if you see all of those predictions that failed at one time, you can't possibly fill all those holes pretty powerful at one time, especially when all of them are such wild theories. You can't come up with that stuff right away and it'll startle you. Right. So anyway, so that's one thing I mentioned earlier.

A lot of people who were specifically Christian because I didn't see this anywhere else, but a lot of Christian Kuhnen followers said that one of the reasons that they were able to get out is because someone challenged them by not challenged them. But asked the simple question of I think you're holding Q to the same level. You hold God or I think you're holding. These breadcrumbs and these hens and the secrets of the world, you're holding them to the same standard as you would the Bible.

And that's the Ten Commandments. So, yeah. And so that woke a lot of people up and they're like, oh, this is wrong. You don't hold anything to the same standard as God. Interesting. OK, so congratulations to the people who have gone out. There is one guy he I mentioned last time he did a Reddit AMA as an excuse went on follower. This is a quote of his that said it was how he got out.

It was a couple of posts made by Q on the Chans. Oh, this is the guy who was talking about when some people started waking up because they realized that they think he was like a baby boomer who is like, oh yeah, right. I'm not good at punctuation. Yeah. So this is one of those cases and this was a quote of that. It was a couple of posts made by Q on the channels that seemed highly suspicious because of how ignorant they were to technology.

Q Posts often had weird syntax as originally a code. And the way he writes, some people have read into it being clues. But this guy saw it as an older person trying to use the wrong tech jargon, basically, he said. One morning, Q claimed to have shut down seven FBI supercomputers named after the Seven Dwarves, no less, via satellite hacking. And all of the rabid fans ended up claiming it was true because their Internet had been running a little bit faster now.

Oh, come on.

I realize that most of the Q believers I had seen were boomers with no idea how technology works or people my age with no idea about how computers operate. That day. I Googled Q and on debunked and got out.

So it was interesting. So it's like no matter what angle, like if you find that angle that's like. Huh. Yeah. That speaks to you. Interesting. I also think it's interesting that it was kind of a combination situation for him where it was like I kind of think you and I as a boomer and also now that I'm thinking about it, all of his followers that I know of are also boomers and they're all talking about how they know for sure a satellite was hacked.

Like it's like, OK, and this isn't a like totally rip on boomers. Some of you are very perfectly digitally literate and some of us young and some of us are not. Russians are are shitty at at tech, too. So it's not like one.

All right. So the other third option, other than unshakable faith, doubting you or the third one is becoming way more extreme, which is terrifying.

Let's not do that. I would like that one off the table completely. So for a lot of loyalist's, Biden Weiming winning has them super angry in the wrong way at the wrong people, and they're slipping even deeper into fringe beliefs to try to explain it away. A lot of these people probably feel really powerless because the thing they were promised by their own group, they are feeling betrayed. They don't trust their own community. And usually if you don't trust you feel like you can't trust your current fringe community, you just find another.

So now you're this one set of beliefs you already have that are very extreme. You're now going to just marry into another set of extreme beliefs and other extreme groups, by the way, especially white nationalists. Apparently, they have noted that these people are currently very vulnerable. They feel betrayed by their own and they are eager. The white nationalists and other extreme groups are very eager to recruit these new, already manipulated people. Sense a lot of these people all find each other on more conservative right wing social platforms.

It's just the same situation all over again where the Internet is at your disposal. A lot of people are looking for answers all over again. They're just frustrated. They feel betrayed. They want someone to listen to. And now not only are they just talking on like Facebook and Twitter where there's a whole bunch of different kinds of people to reach out to, but now they're reaching out on I'm speaking specifically about like parler and gabbin all that, not to totally call them out, but those apps existing now gives confused extremists a concentrated group of people who are more likely to take them in.

And that happens to be the platforms that people with some really ultraright opinions are on. Yeah, so since all these groups are just like it's just a breeding ground for extreme beliefs at this point, even the, quote, vanilla conservatives on these pages are getting wrangled in. So like, it's just it's just slowly sucking people in. Everyone, I would imagine, has at least heard of Kuhnen if you're on that on those platforms. I don't know.

I am not on those platforms. But I would imagine there's compared to like I don't know others, I would imagine read BuzzFeed. I would imagine there's a lot of people involved in Q and on on those platforms ripe for the picking. And basically when they decided to start working together, these you know, whether it's a I'm just using white nationalists over and over again, but for example, white nationalists, if they decide to start working together with Q and on people who feel like they're betrayed or they're coming up with even more reasons to explain away Trump not becoming president, whatever it is, once they all band together, if.

They were to start protesting, a former Kuhnen member said it will make January six look like a joke, which is the storming of the Capitol. Yeah, yeah.

So the notion that the staffing of the Capitol is just the beginning because people are now going to really band together now that Biden has become president. So that terrifies me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And despite all that, the people who are leaving, who have chosen option two, we welcome you. We embrace you. Welcome back. And advice from former members of Kuhnen and cult recovery professionals. They are all pretty much saying the same thing. And let me take this moment to say people have lost their families. They've lost their friends. To Kuhnen, they feel like Kuhnen has been chosen over them. Those who are lost are isolating themselves.

Thus they're falling deeper and deeper into the belief because they're relying on people who aren't their loved ones for social interaction. This kuhnen is devastating people, which is why I consider it a cult. One of the many reasons that I listed. There's also a fear for a lot of people that if this starts falling into more violent or extreme factions, Kuhnen could very quickly become physically harmful to people and their families. Fred Brenin or the guy who created Aitchison, and then he ended up selling his website to Jim Watkins', where two and on now is running.

He even said, like, I'm I'm paraphrasing. But he said, like, I'm terrified that one day, like someone from Kuhnen is going to, like, kill their children for the sake of saving them from people or like I mean, there's it is really terrifying how fast it can get once you've incited a little violence and. People could start doing real damage because they think they're doing it for the better good or the greater good. So it's not just losing family members, it's being worried about their mental and physical safety.

Yeah, and there is additional pain for a lot of people who are now leaving Kuhnen. But before they did, they recruited their own loved ones and so it with them. And now they have to not only walk away from this whole belief system, but also the people that they love and they have to deal with the guilt of bringing them into that group and now they're walking away from them after bringing them into it. What's more difficult is that stubborn?

Q And on followers, even if they might kind of start doubting, they will be afraid to admit that they were wrong due to the amount of time that they have invested in this, due to the sacrifices they've made for this, especially during a pandemic when this has been some people's 40 hour work week has just learned about Yohanan and the overall suggestions from former members and psychologists and cult experts. They're all basically the same. And before I say these things, I want to give my own very unofficial.

I am not an expert opinion. If you for some reason have lost somebody to Kuhnen and your choice has been to walk away completely and your boundary that you've set for yourself is to just not have a relationship with them. You are 100 percent valid in that you are one hundred percent valid and it being too fucking much, maybe too they are too gone. It's just not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility. It's not worth your sanity. You know, if there's if the options are both of you go down trying to get them out of Kuhnen or only they're damaged and you can move from this move on from this, you are valid.

The only reason I say that is because the overwhelming majority of recommendations is that you stay in touch with them in some way. And I don't want anyone listening to this feeling guilty. Sure, you should not feel guilty. This is just a suggestion, just a suggestion from other people. So experts are saying, first of all, don't if you are still talking to them, don't challenge them because they're just going to dig their heels in. Don't try to show them evidence because you're just showing them evidence from sources that they were trained not to trust or indoctrinated not to trust.

And if anything, you're just proving to them that you're part of the problem and they can't come to you because you are falling for media. They if if you show them credible sources to us and it's not credible to them, they're just going to end up running further into the unknown community because they need to go bitch about the experience to other people who get them, you know? So just try not to have logical arguments with people who are not being logical.

One quote is to try to make rational arguments is not going to work because they're not thinking rationally. Another quote is I don't think they can be reasoned out of beliefs they weren't reasoned into. So instead, what you can't do is continue loving them. I will add the caveat of if that means from a distance, great, if your boundary is I love them from afar, awesome if you can or if you're willing to check in on them. Many former members have said have described being in queue it on like a drug, which can be offensive, I imagine, to addicts.

So I'm not trying to be insensitive to that. But a lot of former members have said it feels like a drug because you're learning these clues. You feel the sense of entitlement and power. And once you figure it out, one clue and you figured out you've decoded it and now you have a piece of the puzzle, it's going to save the world. You need more and more and more and more. Interestingly, experts have also compared leaving cults to those with histories with addiction, at least in terms of one of the big things is isolating yourself from your family and people who can help you.

So one of the things that experts say is focus on their higher selves. So start with where their good intentions ended. So be like I agree that human sex trafficking is terrible. I would love to it. I would love to help you with that or I'm so happy that, you know, that's a big, important value to you. And then just redirect the sources they look at, at least show them a couple links to other human trafficking foundations.

And so it's not necessarily what CNN is saying, what NBC is saying, what New York Times is saying, just, hey, since you're really into human trafficking and saving children, really into human trafficking, but since you're really into saving people from this, here are some other foundations you can donate to or work with while you're also in Kuhnen. And hopefully that gives them steps into talking to other people away from the movement.

That sounds real hard because I have some relatives who are pretty far removed and human, and they some of them are very, very cruel and racist and angry. So even that far I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, no, I totally get in. That I saw a lot of that and rebuttals to the advice of like I can try, but like, that's not a simple fix.

So if they are, let's say, early on in the movement and easier Swade, maybe they're sure it's somebody that you know well enough to be like, I know where their heart is or I know because obviously, like some of the people I'm thinking of, like they were always racist. It's not like, oh, suddenly they became, you know, that was always a part of their personality.

So I'm not I don't want to be involved with them anyway. Right. Right, right. Yeah. If you're like, oh, my brother, uncle, mom or whomever, like, I know that they're being skewed or. Yeah, yeah. No totally different heart. Yeah. That makes more sense.

Yeah. Another one is again I said this earlier, but if they are religious in some way, maybe see if they're where, what pedestal they're putting you on, which is how a lot of Christians left also remind them of shared experiences and memories, because one of the things that I didn't mention earlier about would like to tack onto my list of ways. This is like a cult is is because they it removes you from your prior identity before Kuhar or before a whatever belief system you're in.

And so remind them of memories when but only think of them as your sibling or your friend or your schoolmate or back in college when you were roommates. Remember this wonderful time together and it kind of takes them out of thinking about and on for one fucking second, which chances are that they're that deep and it's all they're thinking about anymore. And so it's just a good time to remind them that they do have an identity outside of Kunhardt that they may have abandoned.

So, yeah, another one, which is like kind of like in terms of advice, because I feel like it's like what's a great way to be celibate, not have sex and abstinence.

Like, it's like it feels icky. It feels like kind of, hey, the best way to get out of this is to not even start from the beginning. But one of the big suggestions is focus your attention on what Kuhnen is and learn as much as you can so that you don't accidentally get sucked into it, too. And it's like I get it, but I want to know how I can help other people.

So sure. Anyway, to help yourself learn as much as you can. And hopefully you won't be swayed while you're talking to Kuhnen members and trying to help them. Right. I just I wanted to add that in, but I feel like that's kind of like a counterintuitive one. It's like, OK, yeah, I get that one. Sure. Also, you can focus your attention on those who have yet to be initiated and so Kuhnen. And if you see people online kind of being swayed or lured in and they're clearly brand new and kind of just open to it, step in on those comments and say something quickly and redirect them to actual sources before they think that those sources aren't credible.

And I mean, it only takes a few weeks, apparently, to get completely radicalized. But if you see someone hopefully on like day one and there's time to reroute their thinking, do it and try to figure out what loved ones, fears and needs are before a cult understands them better than you understand them better. So if you know that they're just like missing out on social interaction, try to like do some like weekly movie nights or some shit like I mean, that's a really small example.

But if you can figure out what their anxiety is and what answers they're looking for, try to find a way to get them those answers or fulfill those psychological needs before they're taking extreme measures. Also, you can offer them resources, like I mentioned, but you can suggest breaks from media. That's a great way to offer a resource because you're not telling them what not to believe. You're just telling them what to not really look out for five minutes.

Also, don't expect them to change overnight. But you've got to be patient if you're willing to put in this work. Also, I did not do enough research on this, but one person who is a former union member says their best tip is to when you're asking questions instead of accidentally challenging them and making them dig their heels and ask them questions with street epistemology techniques, which apparently is a conversation tool to help understand one's beliefs. I feel like it sounds controversial to me because, one, I don't know enough about it, so I don't know if I should be really sharing that information without being totally enlightened on it.

But it feels like if you were like someone preaching on the sidewalk, how you can lure people into your way of thinking. So it feels a little icky without me knowing too much about it. But I want to give it a shout out because former Q and on members say that it's what got them out and how they've been helping other people. So if it works, it works. I guess just hopefully you're using it for the right reasons. Also be willing to listen.

If they do start addressing their doubts, don't come at them with facts. Don't just listen. Just shut up and listen because they're telling you their feelings. They trust you. The last thing you want to do is, you know, make them second guess they're trusting you because then they'll just run right back into it and then list this one I liked a lot. Less the classic tactics of what a conspiracy theory is, just to kind of remind them like, hey, this kind of aligns with what you're going through right now.

Sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory, if you'd like. If they're really extreme and you want to list my things where I said how it feels like a cult, maybe just like test the waters, but you could list the the early tactics of a conspiracy theory is that there is a false authority figure. There's an appeal to one's anger and prejudices and an urgency for a claim and urgency of a claim that like something's coming or there's something really bad going on and we need your help.

So this is so fucking cool, by the way. And this goes out to everyone, not just Kuhnen members, but to spread awareness of tactics of a conspiracy theory. There was a team I think this was the same guy who gave information from Cambridge earlier, Professor van der Linden, his team to spread awareness of conspiracy theory tactics, made an online game that anyone can play. And it's called Go Viral. And it teaches how fake news spreads itself and how quickly it spreads itself.

So it's called Go Viral with an exclamation point if you want to go play it cool. And so it's just another easy way to, like, insert yourself without stressing people out. Also, I think this is hysterical. A former cult member said just tell them to do their own research. So I think I see the dark humor in that. Obviously, they're doing other research at the moment. So they're a little busy. But if someone does show any doubts, just be like, hey, even if these sources, even if you don't think they're credible, maybe just get married.

And just like if you just kind of just see what you think about it. And then one of the things I think is super cool, maybe this has always been happening in terms of helping people escape cults, but this is the first time I'm seeing it. So it feels really special to me is that a lot of former cult members have been like rallying together in terms of Kuhnen and they have been trying to now monitor Kuhnen threads so they can help pull people out.

Oh, that's great. Other cult members have been coming out specifically in support and to give resources for people as they're leaving like X cult.

Are you saying all cults are just Kuhnen?

No, sorry. So I've been saying like former or X Kuhnen members what I mean, just kuhnen. But this is like generally X cult member cult. Oh wow. OK, Interex cult members have been coming together to help out Kuhnen. I don't know if this is like maybe it's just the sources I read, but it seemed like most of them were former Moonies. Wow. Interesting. But so they started a hashtag called I Got Out and so you can look at that hashtag and see all these people's stories.

And like I said, they are going and following Q and on pages to like insert themselves in early enough to sway people against Kuhnen. Another person who's really big and trying to help people get out is an ex. Q and on member named Gita JDA. And he spoke to Anderson Cooper where he literally apologized to Anderson Cooper for everything he used to think because he was like all the way in, like there are blue interdimensional reptiles and Hollywood eats babies.

He literally said on his show. Actually, Anderson Cooper said the quote, Did you believe high level Democrats and celebrities were worshipping Satan and drinking the blood of children? And he said, Anderson, I thought you did that. And I would like to apologize right now. I apologize for thinking that you ate babies.

Oh, what a statement. In terms of like feeling like you came full circle. Like you got to literally tell Anderson Cooper anything, but also like it's got to feel good that he's trying to do his part and is absolutely also going to apologize to people. But so he is going around and like doing like from what I'm, I guess, a press circuit in some way because he's been everywhere. And the research I did trying to get people out or tell his story.

And in terms of support groups, there's not a lot yet just because I think Kuhnen is so new. But there is one that has been offered. I think it was a support group for just people who have lost loved ones to cults in general. It's called antidote. And I saw someone on a Q forum suggest antidote. I, I don't know anything more about that, but please check that out if you have lost someone. Also, ironically, the place where it all began is doing the most right now because a lot of the sources people are getting for relieving the fact that they've lost ones to to Kuhnen is read it.

And there are two separate issues, specifically where any time I looked up like how to get people out, these were the two that kept getting shot outs. The first one is recovery, but recovery is spelt with a q r e Q you overweigh. And then the other one, which I would say is the biggest and I would say currently the most influential in terms of Q and on support groups right now. Is Kuhnen casualties, and it's a it's a sub Reddit dedicated to people who have lost loved ones or are in the process of losing loved ones in June.

So three months into Kuhnen, kind of getting really popular, only 3500 people were in the group and now it is at one hundred thirty seven thousand. Wow. And what's interesting is when I planned on covering this part of the topic last week, there were five thousand people less. Oh, wow. So in the last week, 5000 people have joined, still growing. So I would very much suggest that I've seen a lot of posts in there where people are like because I lost my family your every year.

My family, like a lot of people, are relying on and on casualties as almost a source for like, how do I do this? How do I do this? Like, I can't talk to my mom anymore. Like, what do I do? So it's been it looks like it's becoming a really wonderful place in terms of an actual community. So please go check those out. I am so sorry that this was so long, but I do want to say that even though this was three episodes and several hours long of information, that one of the reasons I covered it so intensely is because it is shocking how many people that listen to this podcast are affected by this.

I only know because of Tea Time Tuesday, which I guess in its own is like a little blessing in disguise because I became aware of this. I don't think I would have cared as much or realized that I should care as much had I not seen every week people writing and being like I just lost my dad, I just lost my brother. My best friend is an kuhnen. I don't know what to do. And so I, I have had a little bit of a window or a little light shed on it to me.

And if you are out there listening to this podcast, which there are many of you, if you have lost loved ones, you're not even allowed in. And that's why we drink community. There's a lot of you. So please don't feel like you can't find each other and take care of each other, because this is a really, really terrible thing.

And I identify it as a cult. Others don't have to. But just from dangerous, no matter what you label it, it's dangerous. It's not this isn't cute. So the end that is coming on, I never, ever want to talk about it again.

Cute isn't cute. That's the end we're not talking about. You ain't cute. Ain't cute anyway. Holy shit, I'm so sorry Christine, but I just wanted to do everyone a justice and like not just kind of know and believe it's over.

It's been such a it's finally closure for all of us.

Wow. Wow. Good job. Wow. You did you. I'm so proud I did it.

I can't wait to go back to talking about ghosts next week. Everyone, this is really fucking awful.

I'm like I'm sitting here complaining that I had to talk about it for three days of my life and there are people out there living this. So I can't imagine it's it was for me, this is the most entitled part of it is that, like, I was so exhausted and mentally drained from doing research, I can't imagine having someone in my life going through or having to do the research because it personally.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's a good point.

But you did you did a good service. You did a good thank you.

My goal is to pull one person out. Accutron. Yeah. That would be a very delightful if that's the one thing that ever came out of and that's why we drink.

Beautiful. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. And I would have just been sitting here drinking and watching it happen and I'm fine with it.

Don't spit on the microphone.

You picked a really bad time for the biggest gulp of water in my movie. Maybe you picked a bad time. OK, ok. You're right. You're right. You're right.

I'm closing. I'm closing my kuhnen notes. I feel so nice. Oh, I bet. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for being so patient.

No, it was fascinating. I ate a muffin so I'm feeling better.

Oh good. I love when you feel better and jazzed up.

Oh, I love a good jazzed Christine.

I just was going to say my little jazz cucaracha clode.

Well, we're approaching dinnertime, so I'm getting I'm getting antsy. Hungry.

OK, let's see. So I have a story for you today. This is called the Snowtown Murders, a.k.a. the bodies in barrels murders is how most people know it.

Bodies in barrels. Oh, OK. Yeah, it's on us.

But yeah, well, it's an Australian story, so it's definitely more popular there. A lot of people case file cover this and it was a very early episode for them, but he was saying he's always known it growing up in Australia. So it seems to be something that's more well known over there.

All right. But this story was recommended by a listener named Jacqueline Bremner. So thank you, Jacqueline. I'm sure other people have, you know, emailed it in, but that's the one we saw. So May 9th, nineteen ninety nine is where we're going. We are in South Australia. And I also want to add, there are a lot of people and moving parts in the story. OK, like it got confusing writing it down. So please ask me if you're like, who's that again or which one's that, because it's very, very there's a lot of people and I tried to make it as simple as possible, but.

Just let me know if you're confused about it, got it, got it, got it. The first two characters here are David Johnson, who's 24 years old, and his stepbrother, Jamie Lusaka's, who's 19. They are on their way to pick up an old computer. So as they arrive in a small town called Snow Town, which for context in two thousand twenty six had a population of four hundred and five. So very small town, OK, they pulled up outside an old brick building and went through a side door, obviously thinking he's there to pick up a new computer.

David never expected that. Instead, he would be the final victim of a brutal series of murders called the Snowtown murder. Oh, shit. OK, yikes.

It would be about two weeks later that police arrived at said building and the city of Snow Town's reputation would be tarnished forever to the point. So I thought, you're leaning in to say something.

I was just going to say, oh, boy, for the millionth time. So I decided to hold onto it. Oh, boy is right. So the town got such a bad reputation because of this that locals requested to change the town's name from Snow Town to Rose Town. Spoiler alert the request was rejected. So it's still Snow Town. Oh, OK. Although the story ends in Snow Town, it begins in Adelaide, which is about a two hour drive south.

So we're going to go there real quick. And this begins in 1992. So you find in Adelaide, 22 year old Clinton Tresize and Clinton had a tough childhood growing up. So he spent a lot of time hopping around foster care for a number of years. And by 1992, he had been fully settled in Adelaide and had recently made two friends.

Oh, now this. Yeah, cute.

So this is where things get iffy on line as far as the identity of people, the the gender identity of people pronouns.

It's very convoluted.

So I just want to be clear and upfront here that some podcasts have gotten have had to take their episodes down because they were the right word confronted about the way they approached the story. So I'm going to try and do my best to cover this the most respectfully I can. It's also very unclear. This was the 90s, early 90s, and there wasn't like.

So terminology terminology is all fucked up maybe. But there wasn't like any way for me to know how these people identified in 1992. They weren't posting on live journal or like sharing their pronouns on Instagram or anything. So it's it's mostly through the media, which obviously we know we can't necessarily trust how the media represents people in the LGBTQ community as far as identity. So it's it's very iffy.

I'll smack you around a little bit if if something stopped.

But the problem is, if the problem is that, like, we don't know because that's the issue is like we don't know if they identified one way or another. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Well, then I guess then I mean, if you're going off of source, like the only sources that we've got, then I mean, there's nothing else you can do.

So, OK, here's what I'll tell you. So there was this friend that Clinton made named Barry Lane. That's what they were known as. However, they often went by Venessa and were known to dress as a woman, OK, however, he called himself a gay man. However, a lot of times he wanted people to call him Vanessa. So it was very unclear how some people used Vanessa. Some people use Berry, I mean, in his own life.

So it wasn't totally clear I'm going to use them pronouns because it's so up for debate that I'm sure I don't want to decide for them.

Sure. I mean, yeah, it sounds like I don't know. I don't I don't even know what it sounds like my right.

It's so confusing. And there's another person in here as well with the same kind of background.

So I'm going to use the pronouns for that as well, because what a headache. Oh, but I get it. I get why you're stressed. But also like, yeah, I'm sorry you have to go through this, but it's a headache because because you want to do you want to do them justice. You want to. Sure. Of course.

But it's also a headache because there are like forty people in this story. So it's not like. I see. Oh the two main characters are you know, they them it's like you have, you know, there like forty different people involved.

And so I'm trying to keep track of also in terms of like political correctness too, like you want to make sure that you're not accidentally dead, naming them while choosing to let me know who you're talking about, because nobody gave me the right information on what name they would prefer. Right.

And the last thing I want to do is use someone's dead name. But again, that's mostly what every article and source uses.

So it's like I either have to commit to using one name or the other. I'm going to use Vanessa because that is the one that you'll hear more about this. But I'm going to go with well, for most of these people anyway, I use their last names, so that doesn't even really become an issue. Oh, but I'm going to use them pronouns to just make sure I'm not, you know, deciding for anybody. Sure. So I just want to put that out there so late.

Barry, Vanessa, depending on which source you read. Lane and Robert Wagner, now there are a couple, so Clinton befriends this couple, Lane and Wagner is usually what I end up calling them last names. So they'd been in a relationship since 1985 when Wagner was 13 and Lane was 28.

Oh, we found our controversial part here, the R-1 controversial. But yeah, no, this is the smallest the smallest element of this whole story that's controversial.

Yeah. Got it. OK. Twenty, twenty three and twenty eight. Thirty thirteen and twenty eight.

So. Yikes. Oh that's like you dating a 13 year old. I got it. Yeah. That's a tough one to defend. That's a tough one to defend. Yes.

So while Wagner was not super open with his sexuality in orientation, Lane was according to Killer Queens podcast, Lane was known to dress in women's clothing and go by the name Vanessa. But there was little information about whether they identified as a woman. There's debate online about the pronouns, but the website Trans Lives Matter uses they then pronouns. So I think that's just what I'm going to go with myself. But I would say right. Like I would say so respecting them the most.

I would think if anyone had went by multiple names, you just didn't know what the best one was, just go by they them and last names. And it's just easier, right? It's just, you know, rather than risk, like, totally disrespecting them. Yeah. Totally disrespected them. Exactly. So what Clinton who is the guy who just befriended Lynn Wagner? What Clinton didn't know is that Lane and Wagner were actually members of a group of social misfits led by a total psychopath.

Oh, you had me in the first half. I was like social misfits. Makes it sound really innocent and like the freakin Little Rascals or something. But no, it's it's a lot more sinister than that. It was a lot more sinister than that.

So in August of that year, Lane and Wagner invite Clint to their friend's house. Now, this friend is John Bunting and spoiler alert he's the psychopath. OK, got it. Is he actually a psychopath? That is what the sources tell me. All right. OK, it is not me making up. It's not saying, oh, what a psycho. It's a legitimate term being used.

But we're really just like almost offending everyone today is like I'm not like saying, oh, you know, psycho.

I mean, it is an official terminology. So, yes, that's John Bunting. So got it. Lane and Wagner invite Clint to their friend John Buntings House on Waterloo Corner Road and the Adelaide suburb of Salisbury North. So Clinton is sitting in the lounge of the house when suddenly someone attacks him from behind, repeatedly hitting him on the back of the head with a shovel, not only fracturing his skull, but killing him on the spot. Oh, so welcome.

Welcome to the neighborhood. Oh, wow. John Bunting Lane and Wagner drove his body north, buried him in a shallow grave. And it was a couple of weeks later that Clinton's sister, Cherie, filed a missing persons report with police looking for her brother.

So she filed a missing persons report for her brother. And it turns out the reason that these folks decided to murder Clinton is because they believed he was a pedophile.

OK, all right. OK, OK. I told you, this is a big one. This is a land mine episode. You were right. You were right. I was, like, pulling my hair out earlier, trying to make sure I covered all my bases. So in conversations after his murder, his murderers remembered him by the name as happy pants.

And to be clear, they thought he was a pedophile, believed he was a pedophile.

Nobody ever gave any sort of evidence that he was a pedophile. This isn't like it. Oh, they found out that he was. And so they killed him. This was like they decided he was just like random based on hearsay, just like. Yeah, you'll see what I mean.

It all kind of comes out where that thinking stems from. You can probably guess. But anyway, I have a hunch, but yes. Let's go. Yeah.

So if you haven't guessed it, which I'm sure you have, Clinton's murder was orchestrated by our resident psychopath, John Bunting. This is the guy whose house they'd all gone to. And John lived with his wife, Veronica, at the house on Waterloo Corner Road where Clint had been murdered.

John was someone who had always, not shockingly, seemed to have a pretty dark side to him growing up. He was known to collect chemicals and submerge insects into them to watch them die.

Oh, as well. Oh, cute. As well as dig tunnels under his childhood house until his dad figured out what he was doing and stopped him because it was dangerous. But that's not something I would do. Dig tunnels under that. Yeah, I want to know what the end goal was before I judge and I'm like, OK, valid point. Like what's their treasure where we like that sounds fun. We doing a little I put us in a situation like, you know, or is it like an escape room.

So oh I don't want to be a part of because I like you. Yeah. So as a teenager, he got into Naziism, and that is where his hate of the queer community or as he put it, gays and pedophiles began well, so that is where the whole kind of angle of, oh, I'm deciding who is a pedophile and who's not, and then I will do my vigilante justice and kill them where that all came.

And it's always a great place to start when you compare the two as one and say gays and pedophiles, basically the same, you know, same thing.

Same difference, right? Exactly. So at age 22, Bunting worked in a slaughterhouse and reportedly bragged about slaughtering the animals, saying that's what he enjoyed the most. It was at the house on Waterloo Corner Road where he met his neighbors, Lane and Wagner and Lane and Lane and Wagner.

Yes, I'm saying, oh, like, ah, is he he doesn't like them, right? He's not going to like them. No.

They already murdered someone together. Oh right. Murderer flitton together. OK, got it. They that's what part of. That's part of the thing. The bigger issue. Yeah. So they are already friends but this is just telling how they met. So he met his neighbors Lane and Wagner and they started to get on board with Buntings Outlook on life and his violent attitude toward the world. Like you were just basically suggesting it's bizarre because thirty five year old Lane and twenty year old Wagner are in what a lot of people that at that time considered a same sex relationship, either that or some sort of queer relationship that you would think a Nazi who's very anti, quote, gay and pedophile would not be supportive of.

Right. So it was a little odd. But for bunting, it was excusable because Wagner was buntings, close friend and his partner in crime.

And he was like, fine, if that's your partner that you choose, I'll allow it for now.

So Wagner himself, he's the one who started dating Lane at age thirteen. So Wagner had a troubling childhood where his stepfather used to repeatedly beat him. He met Lane, like I said, and they began the relationship when he was only thirteen and Lane was 28, considering Buntings mission to get rid of pedophiles. This is the other layer of this is that Lane was a convicted pedophile.

I mean, OK, to be fair, he's having a relationship with a 13 year old. So like, yeah, yeah, not surprising, but so Lane was a convicted pedophile. So on top of being queer also was literally by law considered a pedophile. Got it. And yet Bunting was just like, that's different. You know, that's fine. Yeah. That makes a zero percent chance of brasier, right? Yes. Yeah, it's all right.

Listen, I'm telling you, I don't think I ever really understood migraines until I was like, is this one of my grade is when my whole my skin hurts and I can't open my eyes and oh my God, I'm so lame. And Waggner, as I kind of suggested, shared a home near Buntings House. So they were neighbors and that's how they had met. And they were frequent visitors at Buntings House because they were like super into his horrifying outlook on the world.

And they also often brought along their friend, Mark Heyden. So are these four folks they became fascinated with buntings, sick obsession with cruelty and vengeance. And they all got on board and were like, you know what? Speaking of cults, they all got on board and were like, you're right. You're changing the world. You're making it a better place by getting rid of, quote, gays and pedophiles and were in on it with you. We are jumping aboard.

So yikes. A need. If you fast forward now to 1994. It's been two years since Clinton's murder. He was the one who had gotten hit with a shovel. Right. Just like coming over once. Right.

So on August 16th of 1994 to farmers, unfortunately. Well, I guess fortunately, in that they found his body, they made a gruesome discovery. They found a shattered human skull and other human remains in a rural township called Lower Light. And it was Clinton's body. But unfortunately, police wouldn't be able to identify him until five years later. Well, so now we know who it was, but at the time, they had no clue. And so it took five years for that to come out.

So at the time of the body being discovered, Bunting, according to the criminal code, spent the greater part of 1994 investing in his new hobby. This is not good. Oh, his hobby was killing and skinning cats and dogs.

Good night. Moving on that day, I want to warn people that's that's the end of that, OK? Sometimes people write like, oh, I like I can tell by how quickly Christine says something about cats and dogs like that. It'll be over soon. So, yeah, it's over. We're moving on. We've ripped the Band-Aid. We. Abandoned, ripped off the Band-Aid. That's the end of animal cruelty, so he also continued to build up his group of social outcast.

So remember, he's like kind of cult like gathering these people who look up to him as their leader. Yes. So we've got Lahn. We've got Waggner, who's Layne's partner. We have hate in their friend. And the last recruit or the latest recruit is a recent divorcee named Elizabeth Harvey. So she joins the group. And Elizabeth and Bunting begin a sexual affair. But remember, he's already married to his wife, Fredricka. Right. So, again, this gets really convoluted, but basically he starts having an affair with this new divorced woman who joins their group.

So, Elizabeth, this result in Elizabeth moving into Buntings home in 1995, presumably Veronica is still there. So who knows? Just a fun, fun gang.

Super duper. OK, just like OK. Anyway, moving on. So she brings with her her two sons from previous marriages and their names are Troy, Utah. Eudy, who's 18, and James or Jamie Lusaka's, who is 14. And now that name might sound familiar because Jamie Lusaka's is the one who went up at the top of the notes, was with his friend David Johnson to pick up a computer when David became a victim, the last victim of the Snowtown.

I see.

I see where where we're heading. Yeah, it's not good. It's not great. I'm so sorry about that.

So in what seems to be an unfortunate thread in the story of Trey and Jamie also had difficult traumatic upbringings. Jamie's birth father had sexually abused Troy growing up, which is thought to be part of the reason Troy in turn then sexually abused his younger brother, Jamie. Elizabeth wasn't necessarily bringing her sons into a healthy environment here either, because as David Johnson's. So that was the first victim of top who's getting a computer at one. His stepfather later described Bunting as not interested in sport.

He had no hobbies. It just seemed that the sun rose and the sun set on pedophilia, and that would be virtually all he'd discuss.

So now this woman's having a relationship with him. She brings her two sons who've had a troubled background and are still really young into this house. And this is now the environment they're exposed to, just like a perfect storm mess.

So Bunting, unfortunately, was able to get Jamie under his wing like he took him under his wing pretty quickly. So he became kind of his like. I don't know, mentor. OK, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, so while Elizabeth and her sons are moving in not far from Buntings House, a 26 year old, Ray Davies, who lives in a rented caravan parked behind the house of 47 year old Susan Allen, his landlady.

So one day in 1995, Ray Davies, who was actually also a former lover of Susanne's. I'm telling you, I'm sorry, I was showing headache inducing. I, I you really you were in could because I, you were like, oh, there's so many names. And I was like, OK, I got it, I'm on it. And then I'm just like every time I have barely filed one away, I'm opening up a new filing cabinet in my head.

Yeah, I'm so sorry. It's like files within files, within files that are then attached to other files that are then linked back to another file. It's so messy.

It's it's it's usually I love a good set of drama, like a lot of drama. You're right. Walking into like a family drama is usually very fun for me. This because of its dark tendencies. No. And also I cannot keep up with everyone. It's like the dunkers all over again.

It is it is like I'm asking you to do a lot here. I think you seem to think, God, no, I'm asking myself to do a lot because this is like so wildly convoluted.

So the most recent there's Ray and Sue and his landlord, who he's also hooked up with before.

Yes, Suzanne, exactly. So, Ray and Suzanne. So Ray hears frantic knocking on his door and it's Suzanne and she is furious. And she accuses Ray of molesting a child she knows as well as making sexual advances toward her grandsons.

Oh, so Ray's like, no, I did not do that and protest his innocence, but she still goes off to tell the police and guess who she bumps into along the way. But good old bunting from across the road force. You know how Bunting feels bad.

I know how he feels about some pedophiles that are his friends, quote unquote. Right, right. Exactly. Exactly.

So what Bunting hears from Allen, from Suzanne is basically all the excuse he needs to justify his urge to kill a new victim, it seems like. Great. Well, I've been wanting to kill somebody. And you're telling me Ray is potentially a pedophile.

I'm on it. So I got John Captor's, Ray Bynes that throws him into the trunk of a car. John and his peeps drive, you know, his pal, his friends that live with him and hang out with him. They drive Ray to the bushland, which in Australia is typically like a blanket term for natural land that's only lightly settled natural vegetation. And there they torture him before taking him back to Buntings House, where he's tortured even more and ultimately strangled to death.

And Elizabeth Harvey, the one who moved in and started an affair with him and brought her two sons. Yeah, she his new girlfriend is present during this murder as well and has been basically fully indoctrinated that like he deserves it because he is a pedophile. So during the torture, Bunting encourages her to get involved. So she picks up a ceramic tool and like stabs him in the leg. So he's really just like pulling all these people into his, like, sick fantasy, you know?

Oh, by basically, like I mean, not to again, put on it, but basically saying, like, look, you're saving the world in this twisted way, like you're ridding the world of pedophiles. But it's like no, like none of this is proven.

It's all like a legit you know, like like we're all gathering together for this alleged thing that no one has confirmed. But that will save the world. And it's our responsibility says no one is right fully. Exactly. At Mike Bunting says that it's OK and that we're doing the right thing. And so that's basically where they were.

He must have been one charming mofo because he's just getting people to fall in love with them. He's getting friends to murder people for him. I mean, he must be a charming fellow.

So I have friends that are nice. I don't know friends who tell me that that oil.

No, nope. Me neither. No offense, but defense.

So Ray's body is dumped and buried in a shallow grave in Bunting's backyard. I guess he couldn't even bother to drive out to the bushland to bury him. And even more tragically, Ray Davies was never reported missing, at least from what I could gather. So nobody even reported him missing. Now, guess who started to get turned on by this whole the whole murder situation? It was Suzanne Ray Davies, landlady, ladies slash lover who accused him of being a pedophile was like, actually, I'm like super into this one in the world, know.

Oh, my gosh, I know. And that's why I'm saying like like and then on top of it, it was like, well, now you have to figure out how to reference people who are whose identities aren't totally clear. But I don't want to be disrespectful. And that's alright, too. Small parts of this whole. Story where everyone's name is so confusing already anyway. Wow. So basically what what a what a topic to say. Aha, this is the one this is the one we got to do.

Why.

Why so so OK. So just so just so I have folks like everyone needs this. Yes please.

Well the thing I'm going to ask about is so was Suzanne into the fact that people were pedophiles or that they were dying? No, no, no. She was really turned on by the murder of Ray. OK, that's what I said as well as were the other people in the group. I wouldn't necessarily say turned on, but they were all like on board with it.

They were all mentally overstimulated by it.

They were fully a little aroused in some way, in some way, whether that was intellectually, spiritually, sexually, who emotionally was emotionally.

But yeah. So Suzanne was not even a part of this group. Right. But then she finds out about this and is like, OK, I'm like super into that. I'm just like I've been in fact, I've been looking for a social circle.

I'm just found, you know, my mahjong group just isn't cutting it anymore. So I'm so glad I found you folks. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, now they have another member of their group.

So this is where. So let's just keep going. So Suzanne then begins a sexual relationship with bunting as well. So she's clearly turned on by the murder and by him. So she now Bunting is sleeping with Suzanne and Elizabeth and now he and he still has his wife, Veronica.

So, Veronica, let's go get it together somewhere in the mix. I don't know where she seems to drop off eventually. So maybe she makes it out of there, but hopefully he now has this new lover.

And it's Suzanne from across the road. And at this point, like I said, Buntings married to Veronica in a relationship with Elizabeth and now in a relationship with Suzanne. However, Suzanne becomes obsessed with him to the point where her sexual advances start to annoy him. Oh, so guess what happens?

Does he fucking kill her? She just disappears. So.

Oh, that's spooky. OK, what a weird coincidence. Yeah. So Suzanne is the one who accused Ray of being a pedophile, then got really turned on when he was murdered, then got obsessed with the guy who murdered him, then was disappeared when she became a little too clingy. Yikes. So after her family reported her missing, the police went to her home and her her place, which was normally pretty neat and tidy, had been fully trashed.

And the two people who knew where she was, where John Bunting, of course, and Robert Wagner, his his partner in crime, it was later discovered that her body had been dismembered, wrapped in a 11 garbage bags and buried in Bunting's backyard. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's like so extra and horrific. So initially, the police didn't even think this had anything to do with foul play because all they saw was the messy apartment.

So Susan was just reported missing and Bunting would later claim this was his later attempt at sounding innocent. He later claimed he had found Susan dead in her bed after she suffered from a heart attack. And it was only then that they decided to dismember her and put her in 11 trash bags.

And I was going to say I was like, oh, you you found her dead anyway. Aha. I know what's next. I know what to do. I got this. Don't worry.

Is like I've I've seen this nowhere before. I know exactly what to do next. Steerable on my own YouTube channel that I invented because nobody else on the planet has ever had this thought before. Yeah. Like so sick and twisted. So his excuse was like, no, no, she was already dead. That's why I dismembered her and put her in 11 trash bags. So don't you see?

Can't you do it now? Oh, I see what I see where the miscommunication looks like. That doesn't really excuse you. Well, in my opinion from anything. But who am I to say so? They dismembered her either way and began collecting her Social Security payments. So not great. And in 1996, Bunting Elizabeth Harvey, one of his lovers, and her two sons, Troy and James, moved to live in a town called Murray Bridge around 100 kilometres away.

And there's no mention of Veronica. So we're sorry. She just kind of didn't show up. I was like, let's pray that she actually left and isn't also somewhere in eleven trash bags.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's let's hope she, like, stayed, but not in a dead way in like a I'm going to start a new happy life way. Like she she stayed in like I'm going to grab my keys and just casually go to the gas station back then I'll never come back.

Yeah. And get a new job and a new life and I hope I do. I know identity. Yeah. New identity. So hopefully that's what happened because I could just kind of like poof out of the picture which we can only hope for the best.

But so his other two are gone now. So Veronicas. John and Suzanne is in some trash bags, so he and Elizabeth and her two sons moved to a different town and unfortunately, this is not the end. I know it sounds like, oh, happily ever after. Nope. This is just he's just getting started with his whole his whole mission, quote, unquote. So he still keeps in close contact with his BFF, Robert Wagner. And in this new house, I guess maybe this is he got it on Wayfair.

I don't know.

He has this, like, crime wall where it's like basically the cliche like string red string like like it's like a sunny. Always sunny.

It's always sunny. Red string crime.

Well, and he calls it he calls it the rock spider wall. Now I will explain that. OK, please do. Because because I didn't get angry at registering wall.

That's all I needed. Yeah. So basically it was a bunch of pictures connected by red string and a rock spider is actually a term for a prisoner sent to jail for pedophilia. So he created this like pedophile mind map thing. And this is how he decided he was going to track all these people that he was, quote, you know, after for their quote unquote, sins that he's making up.

Gotcha. So all the names on the wall were people that Bunting has deemed child molesters, even if there was not any actual evidence.

Oh, fine.

So it's just a it's a wall of pictures of people so full of pictures of random people that he's decided targets torture and murder. Yeah. For no reason. It's pretty wild.

So I guess, yeah, it's like a bad episode of Criminal Minds where there's like you're like this doesn't have much sense to it, but like, this is actually what happened. So it's like just fucking bananas. Bananas. Wow.

OK, so he now has this phone wall. Apparently sometimes he would even this is not a joke. Find a name at random in the phone book and call them and just start accusing them and abusing them over the phone.

Oh, so this person is actually not mentally I think he's like thoroughly unhinged at this point because he's literally randomly deciding that people that he's never met are.

I was going to say it's like it's one thing if, like, you are completely wrong, but you had some sort of, like, reason to think it versus like, oh, I'm just going to call you because I don't like how your fucking name sounds. You must be a pedophile like you spell actually. Weird. So I'm going to give you a call. I've decided that you're a pedophile. Exactly. Exactly. It's like so nonsensical. Like there's no connection at all.

And so even the people where in the beginning it was like, oh, Susann accused him of being a pedophile. It's like, OK, he took it too far in his writing, obviously, like he liked that he wanted a reason and someone gave it to him. But this time no one definitely no one's given him. He's creating reasons. Yeah, exactly. Like nobody's even giving him a breadcrumb to follow. He got it. Inventing it and well, we'll get to it.

But I was like and meanwhile, Lane is like literally a convicted pedophile and has been left alone this whole time. But whatever, we'll get to it.

So, yeah. So he called people up occasionally, just be like, hey, you're a pedophile. And they were like, this is Macey's.

Can I help you, sir? This is a Wendy's, sir. This is Wendy's. Please, we don't serve whatever you're asking for.

Oh, my God. I'm at the Macy's. I don't know why that was a first fucking business. I think.

I don't know what it was funny, but it really just is the exact opposite of, like pedophilia, which, by the way, they should use as a slogan. Basically, I've heard they're having some financial trouble in the twenty first century. Maybe they should hire me as their marketing goals. It's like we got Kohl's cash, Macy's. We don't have pedophiles. So like, come on, it are equally great, if not better. We were not on the rock spider wall and I think that.

Say something OK. Oh, why is it called the rock spider wall.

I told you because rock spider is a term for a prisoner, so. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. OK, it's a pedophile mind map. And come on, get with the program. It's a mind map. You totally get it.

I bases Labor Day sale. Yeah, it's very good. Now I'm just shouting out things about. So I'm just thinking of like, like all those commercials where just as Bo go go.

Oh no.

OK, we're sorry bases don't serve us. Please Macy's. We know that you only have the best intentions in mind. So who.

Basically he had this rock spider wall and at the center of the rock spider wall was one person to have a guess as to the CEO of Macy's.

Do you have a guess as to who in the above may be his new target sentence? No, because I, I lost total, I lost all reason.

This is a Wagley. Is it Waggner or.

It's lame yet the part the ex partner of Waggner. So Vanessa Lane, who initially went Byberry, so, you know, said both ways. Again, I don't want to intentionally name anyone but Vanessa Lane Waggoner's now ex partner who had been fundamental in that first murder of Clinton.

Right now, I guess now that they're broken up, Wagner and Lane, now they're the center of the rock spider wall because they're not off limits anymore. I'm not really sure. But now suddenly Lane is target number one. And by spring of 1997, Bunting decides it's time to kill again. Now, we're not at Lane yet.

So Lane is like the the epitome of this whole plot. But his next victim is actually nineteen year old Michael Gardner was the name that is mostly used. However, there are a lot of debates on this because they also went by Michelle. OK, Gardner got it.

And another person and we have no idea how they actually identified. So no, there's no very unclear if there is a dead name or their exact names. OK, exactly. Because oftentimes it was written that that they were an outwardly gay man who was very open about it, but also went by Michelle. But also just a lot of conflicting info out there. OK, so I'm just going to go again with the website Trans Lives Matter. Who is they then pronouns for Michelle.

So I'm just going to use that to be as careful as possible. So it seems that Michelle was their preferred name. So I'm going to also go with that. OK, so Michelle was close with their landlady, Nicole Zareena. So they rented out one of the rooms in Nicole's place and the two of them had a great relationship. They'd even like paint each other's fingernails and dress up together just like very close. It's always landladies, are like befriending their tenants.

It's a little strange to be both really intimate relationships, really intimate. You're right. Whether it's sexual or like slumber party. Yeah.

So I don't do that with the only thing I do with my landlord is make Alison scream at her about our fucking roaches and roommates or I don't even like slumber party with my own friends anymore.

I'm like, how do you find time to have a slumber party with your landlady?

But OK, I guess if you live in the same building, it's easier. So let's see. So like I said, Michelle was friends with the landlady, Nicole. They had a great relationship. And now this is a sentence that I italicized because I was like, I need to say this clearly because it's really kind of confusing. So, OK, Nicole is the landlady. Nicole's cousin Vicky lives nearby. Linda's having an affair with Robert Wagner, who is this is Lane's ex partner.

This is like my hometown in terms of like drama and everyone knowing each other in a big, weirdly incestuous. Oh, God. Yeah.

So the so the landlord, the one who's having the weird sleepover with.

Yeah. Their cousin is now dating Wagner after they broke up with Laine. Yeah. So Wagner had broken up with Lane. Right. Exactly. And Wagner is now dating this woman named Vicki who's cousins with Nicole, the landlady who has a tenant named Michelle Gardner.

I do 90 percent get what you're saying, OK, it's like I 80 percent get what I'm saying. So I'm glad you understand.

OK, well a plus I guess is what I'm getting that if I'm smarter than you, I'm finally on something, not finally. I think we've all seen this from day one.

But I think I think my my high interest in drama and like listening to other people's stories and what I say drama. I mean, drama I am not affiliated with, but like my high interest, best kind of drama. Yeah. My my favorite thing to do is like people watch but only dramatic people and like. Yeah. So I have been practicing for a long time. So they were like primed for this set up this web.

I'm loving, I'm loving, I'm loving the the debate or not the debate, the, the interaction amongst everyone. So. Oh yeah.

I mean maybe I should create my own rock spider wall and just like put everybody's face. I'm not I mean going to sit here and pretend like that wouldn't be wildly helpful.

I think it would be extremely helpful, but unfortunately I'm not going to do it. So my back OK, I might not have the time for that. If you have the time to print out all those photos, you can send them to me and we'll figure we'll do it.

We'll do a family tree on ancestry or something and I'll go off. Yeah.

So basically.

What I'm trying to say is essentially that Michelle got roped into this whole crowd inadvertently by accident because they were living in Nichols building and Nicole's cousin was dating Robert Wagner.

So basically, they hear it was inevitable that Bunting would hear about Michelle, who lived in this building and not surprisingly, did not approve of their lifestyle.

Write, quote unquote, I want to say lifestyle, as they had put it. So it was just inevitable for them to cross paths because so and so it was dating so and so's cousin and, you know, whole deal. So one day, an incident involving one of Vicky's children pushed Vicki, who's who's dating Wagner, pushed Vicki and Wagner into a rage. They'd apparently come home to see Michelle chasing Mills excited kid around the room, which was all fun and games.

However, Vicki and Robert got angered when Michelle playfully caught the kid and accidentally put their hand over the kid's mouth while trying to grab him. And Wagner and Mills decided this was sinister and that Michelle was a pedophile. So I was wondering about saw that coming there was bound to happen. Yep. So when Nicole went on a trip soon after this event, obviously Wagner has told Bunting all about this because their beliefs and partners in crime and like Litoral, partners in crime.

So Bunting and Wagner decide to make their move when Nicole, the landlord, is out of town because now it means is at home alone. Got it. So, Michelle, this is horrible.

Is abducted and taken to the shed behind Bunting's house where they are tortured and strangled to death.

Their body was dismembered, limbs thrown into an acid filled barrel like they just casually had lying around the shed.

You know how you do? Of course. Of course. So Bunting and Wagner then broke into Nicole's house and search for Michele's wallet to access their bank details. But they couldn't find it anywhere because, of course, they want the money immediately because they were taking like Social Security payments from the other people they've killed. So they're like, well, let's let's get their wallet.

Oh, my gosh. They took all of Michelle's belongings and some of some of Nicole's to make it look like Michelle had ransacked the place and left and fled. So they wanted Nicole to come home from her trip and walk in and go like, oh, shit, Michelle took all my stuff and ran, which is pretty much what happened.

So Nicole got home, was totally shaken, but was like, OK, I guess I guess they left with with my stuff. However, Nicole eventually finds Michelle's wallet under the bed. And I was like, that's odd because if Michelle was leaving, why would they leave without their wallet? Right.

Strange. So in passing conversation. Oh, Nicole tells Wagner, hey, it's really weird, you know, how like Michelle had left left me behind. Well, they also left their wallet. Isn't that odd? And remember, Wagner was like part of the team trying to find this wallet.

So, yeah, same thing. Ding, it exists. So after hearing this and wanting to access Michelle's money, Buntin gets his crew to start calling Nicole up in an attempt to convince her that they are friends of Michelle's and Michelle wants their wallet back.

Oh, God.

So, OK, so she refuses saying like, fine, if Michelle wants their wallet, they can come and get it. Exactly.

Especially because she's also thinking Michelle took all my shit and left with no way like they can come bring my stuff back and get their wallet and we'll trade.

Yeah, exactly that. Got it. OK, I'm like that person so far like makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. They're like why on earth would I come meet you for this wallet. They ransacked my home and yeah he stole like they can get their wallet. So obviously they're frustrated because they're like well shit, we need to find a way to get this wallet. We obviously Michelle's gone so we can't use them to get it even apart.

But nothing. I think I figured out what's going to happen. Oh, do tell. Because I'm already like, are they going to remember? Are they going to dress up as them? And no, no, no.

Again, OK, I don't know if this was like a little rascals like like a bunch of trench coat situations.

No, unfortunately, no fun visuals like that.

But so Nicole started getting more and more calls claiming the urgency of getting this wallet back, along with a bizarre call from someone claiming to be Michelle, which she's like. That's I know that's not Michelle, right? I like leave me alone.

At that point, I would just not trust any single Michelle related phone call.

I'd be like, OK, thing is going on. And that's pretty much what happens, because eventually Wagner somehow convinces her to just hand it over, because at this point I'd be like, OK, there's something going on here. Like, I don't want this wallet anymore right now. Like, why would you want to be involved? I'd be like, fine, take it, take the wallet, which is pretty much what happened. So they get hold of this wallet.

OK, all happy so. Well, all this is happening. Vanessa Lane, John's big target primatology. On the rock, spider wall gets a new boyfriend, Thomas Trevillian, now Thomas is a teenager again. Yikes. A teenager with a developmental disability apparently only wore army clothes, used to go outside and, like, scare the neighbors with screaming and antics. I don't know a lot of interesting stuff about this, Thomas, but basically, Thomas and Lane start dancing.

Dancing. Oh, my God.

OK, I was like, they just got nothing. There's they're feeling it. It's like, is this town of Footloose. I'm confused. It's a really, really sinister version of Footloose. So it is. Yeah. I'm sorry. My brain synapses are not firing anymore. Your brain was like, please, God, give give us like a positive light here. And they just started dancing just like any musical.

They broke out in song and everything went back to they thought the only way to cure this was through dance and dance. They did. Maybe it was because nothing gets cured. So maybe that was the clue all along. But unfortunately, nobody tries it.

Instead, they start dating and this target around Lahn is getting larger and larger for bunting. He's becoming more and more obsessed with killing Bunta I'm sorry, killing Lane even more so than usual, because now Bunting has heard that Lane has been talking to people about Buntings activities. So now he's getting word that, like Lane's gossiping about buntings interests, a murdering people. Yes.

So Bunting is now built this entire narrative that every pedophile is somehow linked to Lane and that he needs to stop Lane because that will kind of stop the swell of pedophilia that he's allegedly linked to. It's really.

What a theory. Bananas. What? Yeah, that's just like that. That's a thread that just came out of nowhere, like, well, I guess in his in his own wild mind. Yeah. I mean, this guy's calling up. Yeah.

In the phone book and just deciding they're pedophiles. But it's almost like there's like like a network of pedophiles and they all come back to Lane. Yeah. That's what he's basically told himself. And I mean, to be fair, is the only person so far that's actually a convicted pedophile.

So in that way, some sense amongst the characters in this story that makes it makes the most sense to pin it on this one person.

Yeah, and sense is a very relative term. Yeah. Obviously, in this scenario.

But that's it's at least like, OK, this guy actually was technically a convicted pedophile.

So this is the only person that like you're not just like looking through a phone book and guess making it up.

Yeah. Yeah. Or with no evidence. Exactly. So basically Bunting is deciding like I need to stop lying. That's what's going to be the next best thing for this world. So in nineteen ninety seven, Bunting and his crew, including Lane's boyfriend, Thomas Trevillian, the teen or teenager that I mentioned, burst in on Lahn, subdued and tortured them and this time to get rid of a potential trace Bunting forces Lane to make a call to their mother order in order to explain their sudden disappearance.

So this is really, really horrifying. In the call, Lane told their mother they were moving to Queensland and wanted nothing to do with her.

Oh, my God. It's not like just so fucked up. Oh, my God, that's all. Yes, it's awful. So they tortured Lane. They're not going to like this by crushing their toes with pliers.

Fuck you. Fuck you.

Fuck the. And the other. Absolutely not. Christine Schiefer. Absolutely not.

Oh no.

I'm nervous. Laughing That's not funny. That's not certainly not with with just just the toes or toes and fingers.

Well since you're asking his toes and nails so I don't know. I know you asked. I'm sorry.

Take my breath away. Oh my dear.

That is I mean, no matter what they were going to do, it was going to be terrible. But that personally is horrific.

Yes, I agree. It's it's that's why I'm and I don't often like to bring torture into the scenario because it really, really, really, really is rough. Obviously, that's the fucking understatement of the century.

But it's that is beyond that's so like talking about that terrible thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

So tortured them before strangling them to death. Then they wrapped their body up in carpet left lane in the house for a few days and then took them to Buntings Shed where they were dismembered and put into an acid filled barrel. So now this ammo is becoming clearer and you're seeing why it's called the bodies in barrels murders. Yes.

Yes. So ten days after Lane's murder, one of their friends reported the missing. However, because of the fake call to. Mother, police believe Lane had just moved to Queensland and they're like, well, there's not much we can do. It's an adult who, you know, left.

Sorry, I did not mean to totally interrupt, but go ahead. You know what specifically awful about this story compared to the others, which they're all terrible, but Lane was involved in these previously. So, yeah, they knew what was coming. They knew what was going to happen in some way, like they were part of earlier murders and tortures, which is just like, well, the other victims, too, I imagine we're like maybe there's a chance I'm going to get out of here.

But Wayne was probably like, oh, true.

Lane was like, no one's ever gotten out because I was part of it.

Yeah, good point. Good point. So because of that phone call to Lane's mom, police were like, well, there's not much we can do, which actually do kind of understand because Lane's an adult and left a message with their mom or at least called their mom and said like, oh, I'm moving. Yeah. So, like, it's hard, you know, even if it's suspicious, I feel like that's probably a hard thing to investigate.

So Thomas Trevillian, the teen has now moved in with Robert Wagner and Wagner's girlfriend, Vicki. So he soon confides in one of his cousins that because he was involved in Lane's murder, he's now concerned for his own safety, just like you were saying, being like, well, Lane was also part of the gang now. So now I'm part of the gang. Oh, am I in trouble? One safe. No one's safe. And honestly, it's really kind of tragic because it's almost like he wrote his own destiny, because it was when Bunting heard that Trevillian was like talking to people about how worried he was that they were like, great, well, now we got to get rid of him because he's much and he's telling people what we did.

And he became suspicious that Trevillian was confiding in people, which was exactly what he was doing. And so Bunting and Wagner were like, OK, well, got to get rid of this guy, too.

And that's so while I mean, it's like it's just another part of the like I don't even know the thought process. I'm going to say in quotes. Hmm. That Bunting had of that like some people who were actually convicted of things like this, they're going to help you hurt other people you're claiming have done these things. But then those people are safe until all of a sudden they realised for you that they could also be responsible for the claims.

Like it's like you were going to let the actual not that you should be hurting anybody, but you were going to let those people off until they reminded you, hey, by the way, you're being a hypocrite, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Or like, hey, with that logic, I should be in danger. And they're like, you know what? You're right. You should be in danger. Like, it's like out in your own.

I mean, it's so fucked up. Yeah, exactly.

And I mean, this is the guy who, like one of his lovers, got too clingy and he killed her, so. Right. It's not even though rhyme or reason anyway. Right. Like there's no rhyme or reason anyway. But yeah, this is like extra rough. So let's see, they decide that Trevillian needs to go. So they took advantage of his troubled background and his disability and they staged a suicide. They the police found or somebody found him hanging in a tree in the Adelaide Hills in November of 97.

And it would take years before the police figured out it was anything other than a suicide, because all signs pointed to him having, you know, mental instability. He had a diagnosed disability. It just added up for them. And it wasn't for years that they realized this was linked to these other deaths. So by early 1998 and now 17 year old Jamie, that's one of the kids of Elizabeth.

She's the one with the computer thing in the beginning. Yes, yes, yes, precisely.

So Jamie is still living in John Buntings house with his mother. And unfortunately, Jamie has since become addicted to heroin. And he decides it's a good idea to invite his friend Gavin to move in like, say, moving into this house. But OK, so Bunting excuses Jamie's heroin use. However, he despises Gavin Porter for being a, quote, junkie. So when cos again, like, you're just like, very selective.

Yeah, very selective because you're just ignoring other people with the exact same issue you don't like other. Exactly. Which is exactly what points to almost this doesn't have anything to do with actual vigilantism or logic. It's just like I don't like this guy. Yeah, he deserves it. Exactly. It's just about the only logic. Yeah. Yeah. So he despises Gavin for being a quote, junkie. And what it took for him to freak out was that he accidentally pricked himself on a needle that Gavin had left around the house.

So he flew into a rage, decided that Gavin was his next victim. And one day when Jamie was away, Bunting finds Gavin asleep in the back of a car. Not sure how that happened, but at this point, nothing surprises me and Wagner. So Buntings brought Wagner along again. And the two of them, Pownce, they beat torture and murder. Gavin, his body's dismembered and put into another. They're all full of acid in the garage.

I saw this acid coming from do we ever. That's what I want to know. We don't even know what kind of acid it is. Yeah, what you mean, like, are you doing these next two barrels of acid on purpose? Are you doing these things?

And then you're like, oh, look, another girl is like, oh, look, where did that come from? And it makes me wonder, too, because that I'm like, is your M.O. intentional or is it coincidental that, like, you just happen to always be be near acid? You know, it's got to be.

Yeah, it's very like Acme Anvil and. Yeah, like a cartoon. It's like, well, that's a weird coincidence that. Why are all these Cliff, what are all these pianos doing in the sky. Exactly. Exactly. What are these barrels of acid coming from inside a car. I don't know where you go, but I've never been able to find one of my own. So now they have another body in the barrels, in the garage, in the acid.

So when Jamie returns being like, hey, where's my friend? Bunting takes him to the shed to show him what has happened.

Find there on the floor by the limbs of his murdered friend Gavin of the limbs are still there. Don't worry. Then the shock continues when bunting lifts one of the barrel lids, revealing the remains of Lane and Michelle Gardner as well. So they're like, oh, you think that's horrifying? Well, look at what else we did. So Jamie hurls everywhere, as you should.

You should, as you should. The only logical like a to be thing that's happened so far. That's whole story.

So, yeah, it took this long and now I'm catching up. I'm like, oh yeah, that checks out body parts puch makes sense. So he hurls everywhere. But he's so scared that he agrees basically by force to become buntings winchman because buntings like well here's basically a threat like what happened to you. This happened to your friend and to people you've known since you were a child. And guess what? It can happen to you, too. So basically, by August 1998, Bunting has decided that Jamie should get his first taste of murder.

And he's like, who would be a perfect victim for this?

How about his half brother, Troy, who had sexually abused him when they were younger because he is a pedophile to him and gay? Yes. Well, at least a pedophile or at least he thinks it's an easy way to tell to convince Jamie, like, hey, this guy hurt you, right? In childhood, you should kill him. And that's at least an easy way for him to get into this whole game. It's like someone without the ability to have rational thinking at this point.

Trying to be rational. Totally. Yeah, totally. Like this makes sense. Yeah, I guess so. That's what they do. And yeah, I guess that's true too. Like there's that element of pedophilia in it. I mean they were both children, but there's that element of like child molestation. And again, like this was a bigger story as far as like they were I was molested by his father. And so it's like a big right.

Horrifying circle. But so they arrange a trip where Bunting, Jamie Wagner and Hayden.

Yeah, we have heard about Mark Hayden in a while, like this guy, Ben Karateka.

I know he maybe is with Veronica.

So they all go to visit Troy, the brother of Jamie in the night. They enter his bedroom, forcefully, drag him to the bathroom, torture him, tape, record his voice, a recording which would later be known as Voices of the Dead, which is nothing to name it before murdering him.

And even when his half brother is lying dead, Bunting orders Jamie to kick the body, which he does. He then helps them carry Troy to the car where he's transported back to Buntings house thrown in a barrel full of acid. You know the drill. I get it. At this point, I'm starting to finally understand all this stuff.

Yeah, it's starting to write itself. So Jamie gets access to his brother's Social Security benefits, uses it to get more drugs. They're now eight people dead just in case you need a tally. And all police have our number of missing persons reports and Social Security fraud. So they're like not being able to connect all of these together. So Buntings gang seems to be unstoppable. I'm sure in their own eyes that's what they were. And they've fully lost any compass of morality, if there ever was one, any compass of like rationale or even their own twisted sense of morals like they are all over the place.

I mean, they killed Elizabeth Harvey's son. Remember, Troy was right. So the son of Elizabeth, who's like his lover and lives with him or at this point his girlfriend, I guess his partner and lives with him. So they just like killed her kid, even though it was for a, quote, reason, like it's still just all over the place. So Buntings latest issue is that Mark Haydon's wife is now annoying him. Oh, so OK, what an issue to have.

Am I right? Yeah. He decides she has to go as well, but not before he targets her eighteen year old nephew.

Fred, listen, what the fuck did Fred do? I'm tell you. So Fred had actually helped out. In calling Nicole to claim Michelle's wallet, so Frighted actually been involved and had been part of the scheme to get Michelle's wallet had helped out, went on and on and on the right, the quote reinflating side.

Yeah, had tried to help get the wallet back, was like fully on their side, but he was just an easy target. Oh, my God. At this point they don't need any other reason. Then I want to kill someone and he's there. Just I mean, truly, it's just like because is just because. Yeah, because I want to kill someone. So with Jamie still as his accomplice on September 17th, 1998, Bunting Torture's Fred Brooks lit cigarettes are placed in his nose.

Yeah, a little cigarette lighter is used to burn a smiley face into his forehead. And this is the worst part of sparklers inserted into his penis.

OK, next. So anyway, lit. Lit sparklers. Yeah, like fireside. Like a crackly one.

Yeke, I can't I mean, I don't have that part of the parts, but yikes. I can only imagine. I, I, I don't know what to do. That's me neither.

Really, really. Really. It's just like next level. Like how do you even come up with the shit. You know that poor, I mean poor. All of them. Like the fact that like that, that like I've never even had that thought. Like I can't wrap my head into something that dark and twisted. But then to know that not only would it be a random thought, but someone else had that thought act on it and that was someone's last memory.

Jesus fucking Christ. One way to put it, Bulmer Central.

So, yeah. So tortured him clearly pretty thoroughly.

And then they took his body to his Uncle Mark's house market and where the other barrels had since been taken for storage.

And he joins the lovely collection that Bunting is building of Barral acid filled barrels with bodies in them. How many barrels are there per how many bodies were there per barrel at this point? Do we know? That's a great question, because I've only heard I think of like three or four barrels, but there's like now like almost ten people. So some of them were buried in shallow graves.

This was before the barrels came into the picture. The first person to be put in the barrel was Michelle, I believe.

And then it was lain and then it was Gavin. Not that it fucking matters. I know, but you're right.

I mean, it's it's like trying to get a grasp on this whole their M.O. so they take bricks, benefits and start taking in Social Security benefits. Just a few weeks later, in October, Bunting and Jamie are in their car when they spot a man named Gary O'Dwyer crossing the road. They notice he has a limp. And it turns out that Gary was a victim of a car accident. Either way, Bunting decides that Gary might be a recipient of a disability pension.

And he was right. She's so wanting that disability pension. Bunting rouses a scheme to get him and the gang invited to Gary's house. They set this up. And when they're invited over for drinks, Bunting gives the signal, which is just standing up. And at that point, Wagner grabs O'Dwyer from Gary O'Dwyer from behind and starts to choke him. They beat him up, torture him, get his financial details and record his voice for posterity sake, all before strangling him to death and then dismembering him and storing him in another barrel.

Fuck. I mean, so at this point we can just call this guy a serial killer, right? Or a serial group.

Oh, holy Foley. Thoroughly a serial killer. Yes.

In my mind, I don't know why. Because this is not what I. I don't think this is how serial killers are defined. It's the it's the lack of rhyme or reason that makes me want to recategorize them. I was trying to follow it for a while of like, oh, they're a group of people who, you know, make wild claims. They're not even making claims anymore. They're just like, this is no, this is I just want to kill you.

They just know they're getting away with it. So, yeah, OK. I don't know where I was really going with my point, but got it. I'm officially in serial killer zone. Oh yeah.

I mean we're at like I think this is the ninth. Yeah. That does it. I think we've I think we've reached a threshold that the FBI gives. Isn't the the threshold once you've hit five for something.

So it's three. So it's very it varies but it's typically three but not at the same time because that would, you know, just be a mass murder. Yeah. Or that would eliminate like a family annihilator or something like that.

But it's three I. Leave separate instances. Oh, shoot. It doesn't mean I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that. No, no, it's a good question. I always thought it was once you had five individual murders that made you a serial killer. So there's definitely like back and forth about what the actual number is, but typically it's three. So let's see. A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them.

Interesting. That's weird. That makes it feel like if you did it three times in two weeks, it doesn't technically apply because it was.

Yeah, I think it's like I think that's like the typical because if you were like, oh, I'm going to kill all my friends or not all my friends, I don't know why I said it like that, but like, if I were going to kill my I yeah.

I don't know. I think it, it depends, I think it isn't like strictly it's more like if it were it's a guideline maybe. Sure. I don't know. This is not totally pertinent to the story. I just. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, no it is.

I mean there clearly serial killers but yeah essentially they they should be separate events and three or more people is typically like the the definition. Fun fact everyone. Fun fact. So let's see, where are we. His body is dismembered. This is Gary who had the disability pension. So after the deaths of Fred, the nephew, and Gary, the random guy on the street, Bunting now decides it's time for Elizabeth Harvey to die. This is the woman he was sleeping with.

Oh, wait, no, sorry. I miswrote that. I thought I had written that. Not Elizabeth Harvey. Sorry, Elizabeth Hadyn, Mark's wife. That was annoying him. There's two Elizabeth. I'm sorry. I got the mixed up with the last name. Elizabeth Harvey is his G.F. Right Buntings SGF and Elizabeth Hayden is my pal, Mark's wife, who's annoying. I already just killed his nephew and now it's just killed his nephew. Right, exactly.

Yeah. OK, so they decide. I'm sorry, that was my bad. I know you're good, but it's time for Elizabeth Hayden to die.

Interestingly, she would be his only CIS female victim thought fun fact on November 20th, 1998, while Mark her husband is away, she was attacked and murdered by Bunting.

And although Mark was away, he later assisted in covering up his wife's murder. So when he got home, he helped them cover it up, which I think shows you how deep in they were right into buntings like fucked up head space. So she was reported missing by her brother the following day at three pm because he was like, I didn't believe Mark's explanations for why she had disappeared. And upon receiving the brother's missing persons report, police find it suspicious that Elizabeth's own husband had not reported her missing, but her brother had.

Right. So they decided to investigate because Elizabeth was closely linked to all of her murders. They all fell under close scrutiny of the police. And the police installed a listening device in Marchand's house. And that becomes pivotal in the unraveling of the case. OK, so those recordings were later used as evidence. And during this time, the gang even claimed another victim, David Johnson, all orchestrated by Jamie. This was the computer. The full circle of Jamie orchestrated the next murder, which was convincing his friend that they were going to pick up a computer at a building.

And then David thinks that's exactly what they're doing. They walk into the building and David becomes but like I said earlier, the last victim of the 10 murders. So this is our final victim, David Johnson. And this was at the hand of Jamie, who kind of walked him right into this situation. And it would be later revealed that with the final murder, Bunting and Wagner, they thought, like, let's level up and cook and eat some of this guy.

So, oh, so we are really escalating ourselves. Why not? So cannibalism is taking in to effect. Yes. Submarined that's thrown right into the mix is some cannibalism. So they cooked Annia. No clue what they thought, but it soon discovered by police that John Bunting is renting out an abandoned bank building in Snowtown. And they're like, that's interesting. Maybe we should check what's there. He had rented it somewhere to move the bodies once he suspected the police might be onto him.

So they tracked on the bank building, arrived at the site and are immediately repelled by a horrible, horrible stench. In one of the rooms, they find a couple barrels. Can you imagine being the one who has to open this?

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm living it in my mind right now, and I just can't even imagine who I should marry. Oh, my God.

So they open the barrels and thorough they find body parts of what would turn out to be eight people. Wow. It is for this reason, the case is sometimes known, like I said, as the bodies and barrels murders and. Fun fact in a documentary by Crime Investigation Australia, an investigator says this is actually kind of fascinating. It is also possible that the barrels filled with acid by the killers was used to try and destroy evidence. But the killers were too stupid to realize they were actually preserving the bodies.

The bodies sort of looked mummified. The wrong acid was used. The bodies were put into hydrochloric acid, which doesn't dissolve human tissue. Should they have been put into sulfuric acid, they would have been dissolved. So Bozo's think they're getting rid of evidence and instead they're preserving it.

You know, that's. It's good to know. Good to know now.

Good to know if in trivia I'm asked about acid and getting rid of body evidence. Now, I know and I always actually because I've never killed anyone, I had no idea that they're that different acids did different things. I know it's so stupid, but I've just never thought about. You're right.

I mean, it does make some sense in that, like, you can, like, pickle things versus like which is like so true.

I just I've never spent enough time thinking about it. And I just assumed, like, oh, you put them in like an industrial strength type of acid. Eventually the body gone. Yeah. Yeah, you would think so. I guess you probably safer putting them in water and waiting but.

Well luckily I'll never know. Luckily knock on wood. We'll never find out. Yeah. So police arrested and charged Bunting Wagner, Lusaka's and Mark Haydon on May 21st, 1999 for the murders. In questioning, James decides to Free-Flow all information in the hopes that this is Jamy, in the hopes that his compliance will give him a shorter sentence. So he directs police to the Waterloo Corner Road house, instructs them to look in the garden. And that is where they find the corpses of Ray Davies and Susanne Allen, two of the early murders, murder victims.

The trial of Bunting and Wagner lasted almost 12 months, which is the longest in the history of South Australia. And during the trial, Justin Brian Ross Martin determined Bunting to be the ringleader, which at least that was correct, and sentenced him to 11 consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Wagner was sentenced to 10 consecutive terms under the same conditions, and at his sentencing, he stated pedophiles were doing terrible things to children. The authorities didn't do anything about it.

I decided to take action. I took that action. Thank you.

Oh, bravo, bravo, bravo. Thank you for him. Next steps right now. So in December 2003, Bunting, Wagner and Lusaka's were convicted. And in 2011, there's pretty famous murder. I'm sorry, Jesus, this is the famous murder. There's a pretty famous movie about the murders called Snowtown, which has won a lot of Australian awards. It's apparently I haven't seen it, but it's apparently very dark and heavy. So it's apparently a really well done true crime documentary, but it's also pretty hard to watch.

So just a fair warning if if if you want to check it out.

I think I was not in the right I considered it, but I was not in the right headspace. So I bookmarked it for a future time when maybe I'm better equipped to handle that. But a final note is that some people in Snowtown have tried to profit off the story with merchandise, which is pretty icky. And I don't think a cute look. Right. And there's basically they sell these like barrels like these like boy barrels with like a foot coming out of it and a head coming out of it.

And it says Snowtown in like cursive.

Oh, no. Yeah. It's not a you know, I'm like super not into it. So, no, I mean, I'm also the type who's not into, like, serial killer merchandise. Right. That's not the point to me. I don't think that's I think that's the opposite of the point. But ah, like you, I'm not into it. I mean, just in terms of like, you never know who you're around and they could have been completely affected by it.

And now you're completely. Yeah. You're like really traumatizing people or triggering people. It's just not good in my opinion. But that is the story of the Snowtown murders. And I again, I'm so sorry. It was so all over the place. It's just like that's why I was so frantic about getting everything. No, you're right, because it was like so many names and two different Elizabeths and oh, my God, you did the best you could with what you got and you did pretty darn good.

I just I, I feel like we should name this episode the migraine episode, because it is it is fully in between this and Q and I'm like, yeah, good fuckin luck. If you were hoping for an easy digestible episode try next week like.

Yeah hopefully we'll both like fill out next week. We'll see. I mean I'm like we started this. Oh God. Like right after I ate like a late breakfast and now the sun is down and it's like seven o'clock and man oh man. Do I have what I, what I'm now recognizing must be a migraine because I don't know how else it could be very much.

I'm looking forward to reporting on a much easier, simpler one episode is all it. Take story next week. Yeah, and I do recognize the irony in that, like we are choosing to do this, do it to you, but we also want to listener. We also make sure we want to make sure that when we're reporting on things, you know, we're doing it right. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're sorry. But also, we're sorry if you are joining us in our Meckering, we're sorry if, like, here's here's what I'm really sorry about. If you're on a road trip with someone who loves listening to and that's why you drink and they're like just one episode and then we call it whatever you want. And you got stuck here for like three hours and now you're at your destination like you got there. And there's still a half an hour of this left.

And you're like, I got to fucking listen to that show again when I get in the car. Sorry. I'm so sorry.

Well, we're over four hours, so we should probably say bye. Good riddance. I need some water or like some wine or what's wrong with me.

I need a nap is what I need.

I need a nap and a big bag of booze. We appreciate you. Thank you to everyone that sat through all of this. And that's it. Goodbye and goodbye.

That's why we drive also.

We're sorry.

We're sorry.