From WIRED's Uncanny Valley: Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site

Summary

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media

Shared Episode: From WIRED's Uncanny Valley – Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site

Date: July 28, 2026
Guest: Tim Heidecker (comedian, new creative director of Infowars/The Onion project)
Host: Katie Drummond, WIRED Global Editorial Director

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Episode Overview

This special installment shares a recent "Uncanny Valley" interview where comedian Tim Heidecker discusses his role as creative director of the Onion’s planned takeover of Infowars, formerly run by Alex Jones. The conversation explores the intersection of political satire, digital culture, and the ongoing transformation of both comedy and extremist media. Heidecker reflects on his evolution as a satirist, the state of comedy in 2026, the challenge and ethics of lampooning real-life figures, and the importance of reclaiming platforms like Infowars for new creative purposes. He also shares his tongue-in-cheek idea of making Twitter a "World Heritage Site."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Parodying Alex Jones and the Infowars Takeover (02:01–05:00)

• Heidecker’s Alex Jones impression and its origins:
  • “I guess I just can do it...I think the key into it is to not stop talking and to keep going and filibuster as much as he can with not really any information.” – Tim Heidecker (03:34)
• Commentary on Jones as both a "great talent" and a "pills delivery system":
  • “There's a great broadcasting talent there that's been corrupted...it's essentially, it's a pills delivery system. That's the business.” – Heidecker (04:09, 04:28)
• The Onion’s satirical ambitions with Infowars: mocking but also building a platform for new voices.

2. Politics, Satire, and Heidecker’s Evolving Comedy (05:00–10:47)

• Early "Tim and Eric" years were not explicitly political but had a point of view critiquing consumer culture and capitalism.
  • “It was very. A very cynical look at our modern world, which I think is a political point of view.” – Heidecker (05:33)
• Twitter's early days as a space for creative, real-time political commentary:
  • “Twitter, if the youngins can comprehend, this used to be kind of a fun place.” (06:57)
• Heidecker’s foray into explicit political satire with Herman Cain’s 2012 campaign ("Kainthology"):
  • “I eventually made a whole record about Herman Cain...as if from the perspective of, like, a lunatic who is a big supporter of his.” (08:21)
• Surreality of real-life politics, especially in the Trump era, eclipsing actual comedy:
  • “At the moment when people say, how can you satirize this stuff anymore? It's too crazy.” (09:34)
  • “Just acknowledging the insanity right now is enough to make people feel like there's a community of sanity maybe out there.” (10:22)

3. Being Targeted by Alex Jones & the Right (11:17–14:23)

• Alex Jones’s public outburst about Heidecker's role—a “Christmas morning” moment:
  • “He posted on x a 30 minute video about you...What did you think when you saw those responses?” – Drummond (11:48)
  • “It was a total joy...I've been in this swim, swimming in these, you know, QAnon 4chan right wing waters for a long time.” – Heidecker (12:05)
• Personal safety concerns during the peak of online harassment (2015–2016).
• Shift in Alex Jones’s influence; comparison to a “beached whale”:
  • “It had beached whale energy. He's also visually a little beached whale.” – Drummond & Heidecker (14:15, 14:19)

4. The Infowars Project: Vision and Challenges (15:31–25:03)

• Initial involvement: Heidecker proactively reached out to The Onion in response to their move to acquire Infowars (15:45)
• Creative direction: mix of sharp satire of Alex Jones and, longer term, transforming Infowars into a risk-taking comedy platform.
  • “The joke of buying infowars...should be mean and cutting...But that can't go on for very long...So...use Infowars as a vessel to build a streaming, comedy platform.” (17:08)
• Access to the Infowars archive/hard drives and legal limbo:
  • “There is like the. There's gear and there's hard drives...But anyways, they swooped in at the last minute...and got a stay through the Texas Court of Appeals...So nobody truly owns this at the moment. It's like in this limbo, even the receiver, I think, isn't allowed to do anything.” – Heidecker (22:04, 23:10)
• Vision: Infowars as a comedic, internet-reflective platform, with a mix of curated original voices, TikTok/Instagram formats, and experimental content.
  • “The comedy coming out of Infowars should be reflective of the Internet and the moment we're in.” (25:31)
  • “The best thing about my experience...was we didn't get a lot of notes...Let them make something and let's see what it is.” (28:13)

5. The Current State of Comedy and Media (29:01–34:00)

• Satire and comedy’s transformation in the age of podcasts, right-wing “bro comedy,” and streaming fragmentation:
  • “The Rogan right wing, Tony Hinchcliffe, the return to this kind of conservative...The rise of the podcast...I think a lot of the big companies are like, we don't have to spend a lot of money on these things anymore.” – Heidecker (29:01, 29:53)
• Major networks’ lack of appetite for innovative/experimental comedy; nostalgia for Adult Swim era.
• The “death of late night” and why it doesn't matter:
  • “There was a sense of experimentation...Letterman...These are just some weirdos who accidentally got a TV studio...there's none of that right now anywhere on any of those shows.” – Heidecker (31:33)
  • “Everybody can go on podcasts...You want to talk to...a celebrity that I don't give a shit about.” (32:30)

6. Comic Optimism and Discovery (34:14–36:28)

• What excites or gives Heidecker hope in comedy today:
  • “I'm a snob about comedy and I think the stuff I make with my friends is the best there is. Sorry. I think we're really good at it and it's not very popular, but it's popular enough that I get to do it for my job.” (35:15)
• Emerging talents: Jay Weingarten, Connor O’Malley, Edi Mordecai.

7. On Attention, Internet Culture, and Twitter as a World Heritage Site (36:28–39:55)

• Getting noticed online: organic growth is hard; “if you try, you lose.”
  • “I can't predict it...Do what you enjoy...throw it into the wind and hopefully that connects with people enough.” – Heidecker (36:47)
• Game: Control, Alt, Delete – Technology Heidecker would control, alter, or delete:
  • Delete: “I would delete the ability to comment on anything.” (38:03)
  • Alt: “I think Twitter should have become a world Heritage site....It should be managed by a nonprofit...the world has a way to talk to each other. Twitter. That's what it should have been.” (38:16, 38:35)
  • Control: “I control Twitter and make that happen. I become the sole owner and then I give it to the UN. I bequeath it to the world.” (39:14–39:35)
  • “It is a document of human culture of the past 25 years.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Heidecker on Jones' influence waning:
  “It had beached whale energy. He's also visually a little beached whale.” (14:15)
• Heidecker on community in satire:
  “At the moment...just acknowledging the insanity right now is enough to make people feel like there's a community of sanity maybe out there.” (10:22)
• Vision for Infowars:
  “The comedy coming out of Infowars should be reflective of the Internet and the moment we're in. Satirical...format based.” (25:31)
• On late night TV:
  “There's a sense of experimentation...these are just some weirdos who accidentally got a TV studio...there's none of that right now.” (31:33)
• On Twitter’s legacy:
  “It is a document of human culture of the past 25 years...that’s what it should be.” (39:45)
• On attention economy:
  “If you try [to get attention], you lose.” (36:55)
• On user comments:
  “I would delete the ability to comment on anything.” (38:03)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:01 — Tim Heidecker’s Alex Jones parody origins
• 04:09–04:32 — Alex Jones as a performer and supplement seller
• 06:57–07:04 — Twitter as “a fun place”
• 08:21 — Making “Kainthology” about Herman Cain
• 09:34–10:22 — Surreal politics & dark comedy as communal sanity
• 11:48 — Alex Jones’s reaction to Onion/Heidecker’s Infowars project
• 13:13–14:19 — Jones compared to a beached whale
• 15:45 — How Heidecker got involved with The Onion and Infowars
• 17:08 — Satirical limits and future beyond Jones
• 22:04–23:10 — The legal limbo of Infowars’ ownership
• 25:31–26:22 — The future comedic vision for Infowars
• 29:01 — The state of comedy: Podcasting, conservatism, industry shifts
• 31:33 — On the death of late night TV
• 35:01 — New comedic voices and optimism
• 36:28–36:55 — Getting attention on the internet
• 38:03; 39:14 — Control-Alt-Delete game: delete comments, give Twitter to the UN

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is wry, candid, darkly humorous, and at times self-deprecating—true to both Drummond’s and Heidecker’s sensibilities. The interview moves breezily between personal anecdotes, cultural critique, and media industry meta-commentary, keeping satire and sincerity in deft balance throughout.

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Summary prepared for listeners of Mixed Signals & Uncanny Valley who want an in-depth but accessible recap of this notable episode.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, mixed signals, listeners. Max Tawny here, the co host of this show, the media editor at Semaphore. This week we still have a normal episode, but we wanted to add an extra into your feed. We wanted to do something a little special, which is to share a recent episode of a great podcast from our friends at Wired. Uncanny Valley is your insider look at the people, power and influence of Silicon valley. Each week, WIRED's journalists and editors break down the biggest stories in tech, in AI, in business, and in politics, bringing their reporting and analysis straight from the source to their feed to the podcast to Uncanny Valley. But in this episode, Wired global editorial director Katie Drummond sits down with comedian Tim Heidecker, the creative director behind the Onions reboot of Infowars. For people who didn't follow that saga, the Onion, the satirical news site now owns Infowars. And the strange twist of fate that had to do with a defamation lawsuit filed. It's super interesting. Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about. Tim discusses the unexpected new chapter, what it means for the outlet once run by the most famous far right conspiracy theorist in America, Alex Jones. And the episode explores the role that political satire can play in shaping the public discourse. We thought it was a really interesting conversation. Give the episode a listen and of course, keep an eye out for new episodes of Uncanny Valley, which publish every Tuesday and Thursday. Now on Canny Valley, here with Katie Drummond and Tim Heidecker.

[B]

From Wired. This is the big interview where we get to know the people beyond the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director.

[C]

Infowars forever. You are the infowarrior. Follow Us Infowars is a movement, and you're on it now. You're on our ship.

[B]

Come on board.

[C]

Jeez.

[B]

That is not, believe it or not, far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. For a minute there, I thought it really was him. It's comedian Tim Heidecker, who's been named the new creative director of Infowars, doing his best parody of its former owner. Jones is notorious for using the Infowars platform to peddle his false theory that the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Sandy Hook families sued him for defamation, and Jones was ordered to pay them more than a billion dollars. He had to file for bankruptcy. And that's where the Onion and Tim come in. The satirical news publication first tried to buy Infowars at a bankruptcy auction back in 2024 with the support of the Sandy Hook families. That deal didn't quite work out. But the Onion has a new plan and isn't giving up. It's still trying to take over the site. And Heidecker and his colleagues are moving forward, confident they'll prevail. Tim is here now to tell us more. Welcome, Tim.

[C]

Thanks for not calling me, Eric.

[B]

Oh, my God, I can't even imagine. Has that happened before?

[C]

Yeah. And even with close friends, I have

[B]

to start by asking, what goes into that uncanny parody of Alex Jones? How did you try to capture his id, if you will?

[C]

I guess I just can do it. I don't know. I don't think about it. I've been doing it for like 10 years or more when he was at the Republican convention in Cleveland, a guy I do a lot of work with. Vic Burger. Oh, I love Vic Burger.

[B]

Oh, that's awesome.

[C]

We went to the convention and at the time there was this. What is it called? Snapchat, which I guess it still exists. I never really got.

[B]

I miss that. I miss that boat. I don't understand it.

[C]

But for a minute there, it did really good face swapping. Or maybe it probably still does, but you can do that. Real timed face swapping. So I was doing it with Alex Jones and he was there, and so I just started doing it. And I could do it. I don't know why. I don't know how I could do it. But I guess the key into it is to not stop talking and to keep going and filibuster as much as he can with not really any information.

[B]

In the 10 years that you have been parodying him from time to time, and I think now more frequently, have you learned anything about the guy? Like, do you have a better understanding of his whole deal?

[C]

No, I guess. Do I? No. I think he's a great entertainer, a great talent. There's a great broadcasting talent there that's been corrupted or abused or, you know, he's taken into a very dark place where he's, you know, essentially, it's a pills delivery system. That's the business. That's right.

[B]

They sell supplements.

[C]

They sell supplements. And I think that is. That's the bread and butter. That's what they're there to do and to keep people afraid. If there's anything that might prevent you from becoming part of the many casualties of the globalists is to be stocked up with iodine and various silver components and things. So it's a big circus, a big PT Barnumy kind of blustery thing.

[B]

So I wanna ask you about sort of your career a little bit.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

You've been pioneering, I would say, a certain brand of satire for a very long time. Started with the Tim and Eric awesome show. And it's been described as absurdist, surreal, maybe cringe, but I wouldn't say. And I was very young, I won't tell you how young when the show debuted, but knowing what I know about it, I wouldn't describe it as overtly political.

[C]

No.

[B]

That, though, has changed for you.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

How would you describe your sort of personal brand of comedy as having evolved in the last. What year is it? 2026, 2025 years.

[C]

I think I instinctively said no when you said it wasn't political. I think in a sense it was. It had a point of view that had a set of values attached to it. I think that looked at consumer culture, mostly capitalism, and found some. Some sort of nihilistic, cynical. It was very. A very cynical look at our modern world, which I think is a political point of view. We didn't get into current events and didn't mess with the news necessarily, but. So I've always been that way. Most of the people I work with come from having a very progressive politics about them. A bunch of artists and weirdos and musicians and comedians at the time. I mean, obviously comedy's gone in a very strange direction recently, but I guess I would say the first five or six years of Tim and Eric was very much about Tim and Eric, not Tim Heidecker or Eric Wareheim. It was about this, like you say, a brand, a comedy duo that really didn't involve our own personal lives in any way. Very much in character. That got a little tiring for me, or it got a little restrictive. So I think, honestly, back to the good old days of Twitter, I think Twitter, if the youngins can comprehend, this used to be kind of a fun place.

[B]

Oh, the most fun place.

[C]

It was a great.

[B]

Well, maybe not the most, but it was a fun place.

[C]

It was a really funny and fun place. And I also found it was a way that I could talk about what was going on in the world very quickly. I can react to things. And then there was just stuff happening in politics that felt very Tim and Eric y or it felt very much like my kind of humor. There was a very. Herman Cain ran for president. He was the CEO of Godfather Pizza, and he was.

[B]

Sorry, what year was this?

[C]

This was 2012, I think. I think it was when Mitt Romney was running against Obama. Okay, ok. And he put out this campaign commercial that was kind of almost Like a social media style, very, very low budget kind of thing. But it was his campaign manager. And some. You guys can find it. But it's him at the end of the commercial, and he's, like, standing, like, looking cool, and he has a cigarette.

[B]

No, in 2012.

[C]

Yeah. Not Herman Cain. But his campaign manager was doing the commercial. No one knew who he was.

[B]

His campaign manager.

[C]

He was just like, this creepy dude. And, like, he's cool guy. Like, he was a cool guy. And that was the funniest thing I had ever seen.

[B]

That's really weird.

[C]

And it was. You know, it was like we had kind of gone through Sarah Palin a little bit.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

And even Donald Trump at the time had done his first foray, and he was really crazy on Twitter, saying insane things about Obama. And there was just a lot there that felt mockable. And I eventually made a whole record about Herman Cain, a whole record about, like, as if from the perspective of, like, a lunatic who is a big supporter of his. And I put it out called Kainthology. So that was probably like my first overt political comedy thing.

[B]

But fast forward to now. I would say I, among many would say that real life has eclipsed comedy in the Trump era. Right. Like, we are talking before Donald Trump hosts a UFC fight outside the White House in an arena that he had built. Like you.

[C]

That he might not take down.

[B]

It's. Right. Who can say, really? I mean, like, it's. That would be extremely funny if it weren't actually happening.

[C]

Yeah. I think it can be both things, by the way.

[B]

But how do you think about that? How is sort of like, the surreality of everyday life and Donald Trump and politics, how does that affect the work that you do?

[C]

I think it can be depressing and anxiety inducing and then also very funny at the same time. I think I love dark comedy. I love the darkest of comedy, and I think the best comedy reveals pain that we all experience and fears that we all experience. So at the moment when people say, how can you satirize this stuff anymore? It's too crazy.

[B]

Or to me, it's not even like, how can. It's not like, how could you possibly do that? It's like, how do you do it? Because it is so bleak and it's so outrageous.

[C]

Yeah. I think even if you did something where we would on office hours, say, just talk about the UFC thing and talk about how crazy it is and don't try to top it, just be open about how it makes us feel and how funny it is and how absurd it is that there's an audience of people out there who are feeling that same thing and want to know that they're not alone and they're not crazy. And so I think there's. At the moment, I think it feels my best answer for that is that just acknowledging the insanity right now is enough to make people feel like there's a community of sanity maybe out there.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And so that's kind of what satire does, as I think about it, is like it. It acknowledges a problem or acknowledges something that's crazy and. Or wrong. And it says, I see this, and somebody just out there trying to, you know, teach kids at school or something, or some nurse out there, somebody is just like, oh, thank God. I thought it was just me. You know, I thought I was the

[B]

only one who thought a UFC fight outside the White House was a crazy thing to be doing.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Speaking of crazy, I mean, when I think about insanity and craziness, like, Alex Jones had, like a truly crazy response to the news of you becoming creative director. It was. It was very funny. He posted on x a 30 minute video about you and your previous work. 30 minutes. He also posted, quote, the man hired by the Onion to take over infowars produced pro pedophile slash child torture and murder shows for a in conjunction with Will Ferrell, who took part in satanic rituals with spirit cooking high priestess Marina Abramovic. What did you think when you saw those responses and genuinely Christmas morning. Was it really Christmas morning?

[C]

Metaphorically.

[B]

Metaphorically. I'm Canadian. Very gullible. Very gullible now.

[C]

You know, it was incredible.

[B]

It was a joy.

[C]

It was a total joy because, like, I've been in this swim, swimming in these, you know, QAnon 4chan right wing waters for a long time. And in that first, when it was, I think when it was quite new and scary in 2016, 2015, when it was you had like, you know, the Pepe the frog and the, you know, memes of people being put in gas chambers and stuff. I had never experienced anything like that before. That was like, oh, my God.

[B]

Did you ever worry about your safety?

[C]

Sure. Yeah. At that time, there was a few, few incidents that was like, ooh, maybe we should get something done.

[B]

Did you.

[C]

Sure. Yeah. I mean, not. Nothing. I'm not living behind a. A wall or anything, but.

[B]

Yeah, but I remember that time and you take some precautions sort of journalistically, that was. I mean, it's still a scary time journalistically. And we have reporters who cover the. The waters that you swim in. Yeah, and it can be very scary. I mean, I looked at the responses to Alec Jones post on X about you, and it was all people just being like, fuck you, Alex Jones.

[C]

Well, that's what was really the. The funniest thing was even I like, Alex, this was a comedy show. Like, this is kind of embarrassing for you, but I had known, like, the child clowns thing, like, there are like three or four of our sketches that you could kind of read into in a, you know, find the worst bad faith possible way of interpreting. But when we're back there writing this child clown sketch, it's like it's pure absurdity. Like, there's no such thing as a child clown. You know, it doesn't exist. Except when I was eight and it was Halloween and we only had three costumes to choose from. And you look at it now and you go, yeah, I guess, you know, I could see you taking this the wrong way, but at the time we were just making each other laugh, you know, so I'm not here to defend it. But it was very funny to see him get riled up about that stuff, for sure.

[B]

But maybe interesting, too, to see how his influence has waned or just that it. I guess I was surprised to see that it didn't generate the kind of response that I thought maybe it would.

[C]

Yeah, it was a little like. I described it as kind of the last gasps of a dying whale.

[B]

It had beached whale energy.

[C]

Yeah, beached whale energy. He's also visually a little beached whale.

[A]

A little.

[B]

There's some beached whale happening. Yeah, there is.

[C]

Yeah, you're right. It was like. I almost wish we had gotten to this early, you know, sooner. I mean, for sure, we wish we would have gotten to this sooner, but he does feel like. I mean, that whole movement is so fractured. He's at war with Trump every other day.

[B]

They all know each other.

[C]

There's certain things he kind of gets close to being right about, or he kind of like, he's. He's on our side right now, apparently, with the war in Iran, and thinks that's a bad idea. So, you know, he's shifting and changing, probably for cynical reasons or whatever, trying to grab the flow. The, you know, wherever the culture is going on that side, he's got to sell some pills. Yeah, it's all about that. So I think at the heart of it, though, is still this feeling of very uncomedic ideas like retribution and justice and consequences for your actions. And sort of at the heart of that, at the heart of this are those ideas that I didn't necessarily expect to be in the middle of, but after, you know, learning more about the families and what they've been through and everything, it felt like a pretty noble activity to be a part of.

[B]

Well, let me turn to that then, in earnest. I mean, how did you get involved in all of this in the first place? Take us back to before you became creative director of the new infowars. How did that even become a glimmer of a possibility?

[C]

I remember, as you said in your intro, that they made an attempt to buy it. I saw that in the news. I kind of cold called them on it.

[B]

The Onion.

[C]

The Onion, yeah. But Ben Collins, who I, who is the CEO, love Ben. Great guy. I didn't know him at the time, but he was very active on Blue sky, which I had.

[B]

He is a big blue sky, strong posting energy.

[C]

And so I reached out, I think, actually just through my agent, to keep it kind of professional. I just said, hey, if you need any, I'd love to talk to you about it. I wasn't sure what they were planning on doing. I think my idea was really just to get our hands on his master tapes, like on the hard drives, and just like, just do something fun with those. That might have been my first, and do those.

[B]

Does the archive come with the deal?

[C]

Yes. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[C]

So that happened and then nothing happened. I didn't hear anything. I think their deal fell apart.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And then I just didn't. I didn't know anything. I just went back to my life and did my normal things. And then they reached out to me, emailed me and asked me if I'd get on the phone. And then it started with that. It started with a big question of, what would you do if you had control of infowars? What do you think we should do? And from there, we kind of just kept talking for a long time.

[B]

And what did you tell them? And how has that evolved?

[C]

The two things I said were, you, obviously, you're a satirical institution and you should make fun of Alex Jones for a. You know, the joke of you of buying infowars should last a period of time. It should be mean and cutting and hopefully land some blows and make him look like a fool. But that can't go on for very long. That's going to get pretty old because what else is there to say? He's a buffoon and he sells pills,

[B]

dying whale, et cetera.

[C]

And that joke that you're just going to do a variation on that joke for three Months. And then it'll be like, I'm not watching that anymore. So I also said at the same time the Onion. And I think they said this to me and I kind of felt it was, you know, the Onion is trying to grow, as every company tries to grow. But there's only. Their comedy is very restrictive. Their tone, their sensibility is a perfect, beautiful thing.

[B]

It is. It really is.

[C]

But it can't do. You can't bring in other voices. It can't make other shows that don't feel like the Onion. So they're kind of limited in that. But if they had another property, if they had another brand and wanted to grow the overall company, the parent company, Global Tetrahedron, they could use this. This could be the vessel for that. And they would bring in somebody like me who's not of the Onion, but is Onion adjacent. Similar sensibility to build like a streaming, a comedy streaming platform.

[B]

Have you talked to any of the Sandy Hook families? I mean, are you that sort of in the weeds?

[C]

Yes, once on a zoom, it was a very moving and very powerful but also very positive experience. They're all in, very excited. One of the families was like, I can't watch your video. We had put out one of my videos of me doing Alex Jones. I can't watch it with my wife because she gets mad when she hears your voice because she thinks it's him. And so they were like, they were laughing about it. They thought it was funny. They're like, go harder. Do it, you know, be as mean as you want or be as whatever. They just want to, I think, see this guy. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but pay for what he did to them. And so all accounts, I get them and their lawyer and all those people are just like thrilled about all of this. As much as you could be thrilled about something like this.

[B]

Well, and I guess I'm curious for you, there's, you know, becoming the creative director of Infowars. There's the obvious comedic appeal of that. Right. And the ability to build something, which I want to talk more about. There's obviously an added layer here. Right. And it's a really painful one, I guess. How do you think about the importance of this move for you or like getting it right or doing right by those families? What added complexity does that create for you when you're trying to build something?

[C]

You know, it's a frustrating process on lots of different levels. Certainly going through the legal process with the Texas courts has been an up and down battle. And struggle just starting anything, whether it's a laundromat or a, you know, comedy streaming network, is slow and painful at times and you're in the dark. And so all those things are part of what's happening here. Plus I'm trying to do like nine other things in my career.

[B]

Yeah. This is just to be clear, this is not your full time job.

[C]

No, but that grounds the whole thing a little bit when you can go back to why you're doing it. And one of the reasons we're doing it is the legacy of that incident and the way he corrupted it and abused his voice to. To really add salt to the. To the very terrible wounds that were already there.

[B]

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Now, legally speaking, and you are not a lawyer. Unless I miss something.

[C]

That's one of the things I'm trying to. I'm in law school as well, obviously.

[B]

I figured.

[A]

Yeah, so.

[B]

But the deal is not actually done. Can you update us on where it stands now?

[C]

I can try. I mean, I us.

[B]

Your best.

[C]

My best attempt at this impersonation that there's a receiver and I don't even know what a receiver is, frankly. It's a person, it's a man with that title. That title. It's like a notary republic, Notary public. Somebody who has been given all of this, all these assets because Alex had to. And we had an agreement with that person to then lease all that stuff from them.

[B]

Right. On like a month to month basis.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

That would give us access essentially to the. What we really care about is the DNS server. This is very wired talk.

[B]

Ah, yes, the DNS server. If you're listening.

[C]

Basically your GoDaddy password or whatever. You know what I mean? Like your name change.

[B]

Let's call it DNS server.

[C]

Yeah, fair enough. Whatever. We don't love GoDaddy. I'm sure Alex is using GoDaddy.

[B]

Probably.

[C]

Yeah. That's really the core of it. I mean there is like the. There's gear and there's hard drives and there's. I don't. I think the supplements are outside of that purview. But anyways, they swooped in at the last minute about a month ago and got a stay through the Texas Court of Appeals which put. Says nobody can do anything until we rule on it. Every other court in Texas has come back to the stay, to the court of Appeals and said stop that, Stop it. Let them do what they want to do. You're interfering or something. To that effect. So nobody truly owns this at the moment. It's like in this limbo, even the receiver, I think, isn't allowed to do anything. It's like cast in amber, which is a beautiful metaphor.

[B]

It is the godaddy password.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we are proceeding as if we have it. We don't care. No one's going to do anything about it. We're just going to. We are in fours. That is who we are.

[B]

You are wearing his skin.

[C]

Yeah, we are. I'm assuming you're walking in his skin. Up and down lower Manhattan. Yeah. So that will eventually. It will eventually resolve. We will get it. The timeline is. The court moves slowly. We all know the expression, but we're just plowing ahead.

[B]

Where do you think your audience for this is? Are they going to infowars.com or are

[C]

they watching clips on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube? I mean, YouTube is a big.

[B]

So you plan to be everywhere?

[C]

Yeah, we're just going to be everywhere for a while. I really want to push for its own streaming app. I mean, I have my On Cinema, which is the love of my life. You know, five years ago we started the High Network, which is now an app. It was a website. It is a website, but now it's a streaming app. It's a subscription site, but you go in there and, yeah, we're still working on some bugs and everything, but it's essentially a Netflix experience for this world of comedy.

[B]

There are so many ways to watch things.

[C]

There's so many ways to watch things. And YouTube is great, too. But, you know, I'd rather like the problem with YouTube and Instagram. First of all, they're run by the worst, very worst people.

[B]

They are.

[C]

And we're giving them free content by the truckloads.

[B]

And they're giving you very little, if anything. I speak from personal, professional experience. Yes.

[C]

And you never know when they're just gonna say, well, we're not doing this kind of stuff anymore, or you can't use this word, or, you know, they're very Byzantine and confusing. And the more independent you can get things and still connect to an audience out there. You know, that's where we should all. Every creator should be thinking that in some way.

[B]

So you've talked about sort of a few months of the Alex Jones bit. You've mentioned in other interviews that you want this to be. You want Infowars eventually to be a place where comedians get their start, where people experiment, where they try different things. Can you talk a little bit more about that vision sort of a year after you get that GoDaddy password and you're off to the races. What do you want Infowars to look like? What do you want it to be for an audience?

[C]

The comedy coming out of Infowars should be reflective of the Internet and the moment we're in. Satirical. It doesn't have to be entirely satirical or straight one to one parody, but it'll be what a lot of people are doing are a food influencer parody show or something. Something that feels like this is reflecting how I use the Internet. That's probably like the main ethos of the thing or the main kind of driver because that's where a lot of I think talented, funny people are, how they're expressing themselves. I think the medium of your comedy is becoming important, like what the vessel of the jokes sits in. You know, it's like, what is this is. What is the thing? It's not just going to be a sketch with people in a living room talking about a crazy boyfriend or something.

[B]

What's it going to be instead?

[C]

Well, it'll like I said, like I keep saying it, a food influencer, but,

[B]

oh, it'll be like my five to nine before my nine to five.

[C]

That I don't know.

[B]

But oh, it's a TikTok format.

[C]

Okay. Well, yeah, format based. So that's like one way of thinking about it. I think there'll be a sense of curation, a sense of stamping, of, oh, this is the same way. Adult Swim was a brand that said, I'm gonna watch this show because it's on Adult Swim.

[B]

They have curated it, certified it.

[C]

Yeah, it went by my desk and our people that were helping, you know, we thought this was good. And then hopefully, you know, when we figure out the tech side of it, that there will be a place to go like an app. And also that there'll be world building in there and that there'll be characters that might start as just a reference or a mention in somebody's sketch or a character that comes and then they branch off and have, you know, in sort of the SCTV mode. And for a lot of people who might have gone around town pitching stuff to Adult Swim or Comedy Central and they say, yeah, we just don't do that anymore. You know, we don't take risks like that anymore. We're just revamping the man show or whatever it is, you know, we're rerunning the Office or something. Those people, I hope we, we will be able to give some money to and they could do. I mean, the best thing about my experience, Eric and I, coming up was we didn't get a lot of notes, and we. We just got a lot of, like, I like, you know, Mike Lazo, who ran Adult Swim for so many years, just had a good feeling about us and thought we were funny and wanted and gave us the opportunity to go off and try stuff and see what worked. And we knew when something didn't work and we got better. So.

[B]

So you want to be that?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That. I mean, that that person was so impactful for me that I always say this when we talk about it. It's like people are pitching ideas, and it's like, I read, I look at this. I'm a terrible reader, terrible comprehension person. And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I like this person. That's why we reached out. Like, let them make something and let's see what it is.

[B]

All right, another quick break. We'll be right back. You mentioned at the top of the conversation that comedy, I think you said it was in a weird place right now. What did you mean by that?

[C]

Well, mostly, like, the Rogan right wing, Tony Hinchcliffe, the return to this kind of conservative. I say return because I think there was a fair amount of that happening in the 80s when I was growing up. There was, in general, in culture, there was kind of this conservatism that was in, you know, something like Top Gun or Andrew. I want to say Andrew Dice Clay. But, you know, I knew he was really doing a character, but I think he did get kind of lost in the character there for a while and made. Brought out the very worst in a lot of people. I think there's a. There's a lot of intersecting things. There is the. The rise of the podcast, which has become, in a way, I think a lot of the big companies are like, we don't have to spend a lot of money on these things anymore.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We don't have to spend any money on these things anymore.

[B]

We just stick them in this tiny studio.

[C]

Yeah. Put a couple of cameras in here and chairs. And that's the new talk show.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And some of it's really good, but it's also kind of like, weirdly like. And I'm saying that I just did another podcast, and don't you have a podcast? And I do have a podcast that I don't think about as a podcast. I think about it as a TV show because it is on YouTube. We've got five cameras. We have musical guests. We do bits.

[B]

It's a more ambitious talk show than what most media companies are calling podcasts. Yeah.

[C]

And I think it's a way to, like, skirt unions. It's a way to, like, not pay people enough money to live. So those guys were in the beginning of that. And so you have not a lot of interest in comedy coming out by, like, cable networks and the bigger companies. There's stuff that comes out, of course. Tim Robinson, so good. You know, he's got through. He's pushed through. Nathan Fielder's pushed through.

[B]

I'm always shocked when I see something that he made that's like, on my television.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because it's sort of like, I can't believe they let him make that show.

[C]

Yeah. And so there's room for that, but there's not a lot. Room for a lot of smaller stuff, I guess, or more experimental stuff. And maybe there never was, but there was certainly a little period of time, I think, in the early 2000s, where it really kind of worked for a lot of people.

[B]

There's been a lot of hand wringing about sort of the quote, unquote, death of Late night. Right. Colbert, et cetera. A lot of controversy. I mean, do you. Are you saddened by the death of Late Night tv, or do you think it is sort of a format whose time has come and needs to be reinvented?

[C]

I think it's a format that. Whose time has come. It's come. It came a while ago. I grew up on Letterman and early Conan o'. Brien. Loved those shows. There was a. Especially with Letterman. There was a sense of experimentation and trying things and it feeling like these are just some weirdos who accidentally got a TV studio and it's being broadcast on NBC to the whole world, you know, and it was really exciting and funny. There's none of that right now anywhere on any of those shows that I've seen. You know, it's a dinosaur. It's locked in. It's got to be super expensive to make those shows. And I don't understand why they exist. Everybody can go on podcasts and you want to talk to, you know, name a celebrity that I don't give a shit about.

[B]

Name a celebrity.

[C]

Josh o'. Connor.

[B]

I was about to say Josh Brolin for some reason.

[C]

Okay, Josh Brolin.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I want to interview Josh Brolin.

[C]

Nobody gives a shit about what he did this summer. You know, maybe. And I don't.

[B]

I don't either.

[C]

And because also, Josh Brolin probably just told you that on his own TikTok.

[B]

Right, right. He took you on his vacation.

[C]

We have total accessibility to these people now. And like, you know, when James Stewart went on Johnny Carson, it was like climbing up to the top of the mountain. Get like a glimpse of some kind of demigod for 10 minutes at night who is like, almost like seeing. Getting to see, like George Washington in the flesh. You know, when you're just like. And you had three things to watch. But, like.

[B]

But we've all seen a lot of Josh Brolin.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, even, like. I mean, I'm the biggest Beatles fan in the world, but, like, I didn't watch the interview with Paul McCartney on, you know, it's just like, I've.

[B]

Neither did I.

[C]

You know, and like, our big musical guest is Paul McCartney. And he just did Saturday Night Live the night before and he was just like, all right, there he is doing the song again. Good for you. Sounds good. You know, I don't know what it is. I don't know who it's for, you know, so that's just me.

[B]

That's just him. I want to ask you, I want to know what is your general mood about comedy? Pretty. I mean, pretty. You're having a. You're having a tough day. But, like, what makes. I actually just realized you said before we started this that you walked all the way here from Times Square. If you're listening, that's like, I don't

[C]

know, three and a half miles.

[B]

Two and a half miles. Three and a half miles. It's 94 degrees in New York today.

[C]

I know.

[B]

No wonder you're in a bad mood now.

[C]

Yeah, no, I'm in a great mood, but you got me talking about late night talks.

[B]

Sorry. But I was gonna ask what makes you hopeful? Where is the exciting new comedy right now? Who are you following? Like, who do you see and you think, ah, this is exciting. I have hope for where this is all going.

[C]

Good question.

[B]

Thank you.

[C]

I hate name checking people because I always forget. I mean, there's this kid Jay Weingarten that I love who. He's not really a kid, he's a man. But he taps into this sensibility of like, the TikTok Instagram voice. That voice that, like, is on all the. I went to a hamburger place and by the time I got back, I couldn't believe how much that sort of droning thing. Really good at that. I mean, obviously, I think Connor o' Malley is at the top. Is doing the best stuff right now on the Internet.

[B]

Are you hopeful?

[C]

Sure, yeah. I Mean, I think with this we're opening, hopefully opening a door for people. Edi Mordecai is terrific. I'm just. When names come to me, I'm just gonna say them, just start screaming them.

[B]

Yeah, it's great.

[C]

I'm a snob about comedy and I think the stuff I make with my friends is the best there is. Sorry. I think we're really good at it and it's not very popular, but it's popular enough that I get to do it for my job. So I tend to be a fan of my friends and the work we do, but I think there's other good stuff out there. There's stuff for all kinds of people. So there's shows that I might not think are funny, but people enjoy them.

[B]

And I think you referred to a few of them earlier.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that it's always been that way and there's always been a little tiny strip of stuff that's going to really last a long time, that really feels special and different and groundbreaking or for whatever. And then there's going to just be a ton of stuff that's fine. The Munsters, you know, the Munsters or the Brady Bunch or, you know, just comedy that people can have on Modern Family. Modern Family. Well crafted. Fine, keep it, Put it on. It takes me away from my worries and my troubles for a half hour. That's always gonna be here. And some of that now is just online. It's just like silly stuff online.

[B]

This is my last question for you. Speaking of the Internet, something we think about at Wired a lot is the World Wide Web. We also think increasingly about how to get attention on the Internet.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

How do you. How do you do that? How does someone get attention on the Internet anymore?

[C]

I try to. I can't think about that. I really refuse to. Because if you try, you lose.

[B]

I think, well, maybe we're trying too hard.

[C]

Maybe we're trying too hard. So I can't predict it. I try. You know, we have on our shows, we have social media people that they claim to have no little tricks and things about what you're supposed to. When you're supposed to post, when you're supposed to tag. I think the companies, these Instagrams and Tiktoks, have become incredibly manipulative. It's hard for organic growth to happen anymore. But I think you just try to do what you enjoy doing, light, what makes you feel good about, and then just throw it into the wind and hopefully that connects with people enough.

[B]

Well, I would love to End with a little game, if you will.

[C]

Yeah, baseball.

[B]

No.

[C]

What's the game?

[B]

No, not baseball, not basketball, not soccer. It's called control, alt, delete. So I want to know, what piece of technology would you love to control? What would you love to alt? So alter or change? And what would you delete from the world forever if you could? Okay, these are non binding answers.

[C]

Yeah, of course I would delete the ability to comment on anything.

[B]

Anything interesting. We're kind of getting back into comments at Wired.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Nobody talks anymore, you know.

[C]

Oh, I get a lot of chatter.

[B]

Oh, I bet you.

[C]

Yeah, I bet you do. I think my big alt was that I think Twitter should have become a world Heritage site. You're laughing.

[B]

Explain how that would work. Explain. Explain your idea.

[C]

I think that it should be managed by a nonprofit.

[B]

So it's like an online museum.

[C]

Yeah, it's an online forum. That is no profit incentive.

[B]

Okay, okay, makes sense.

[C]

Why does that cost anything to run servers?

[B]

Twitter. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think just maintaining the product.

[C]

Maintaining the product. The UN could do it. Somebody like that. And it's just like, oh, the world has a way to talk to each other. Twitter. That's what it should have been.

[B]

Twitter, un. Sorry, Elon.

[C]

Yeah, okay, good one. What was that? Alt.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And then control.

[B]

Well, I think you did delete comments. Control.

[C]

No, I said alt was.

[B]

Oh, alter the ownership of Twitter to

[C]

be owned by the U.N. and then here's my hat.

[B]

Yeah. What do you want to.

[C]

I control Twitter and make that happen.

[B]

You control the sale of Twitter from.

[C]

I become the sole owner and then I give it to the un.

[B]

You bequeath it.

[C]

I bequeath it to the world. Look up World Heritage Sites. This is what it should be. It is a document of human culture of the past 25 years. I mean, I love that human communication.

[B]

I love the concept. As I said, these are non binding and they don't need to be based in reality. Yeah, that one wasn't. But I applaud your entrepreneurial ship and your creativity. Thank you, Tim. Thank you so much for being here.

[C]

Pleasure talking to you.

[B]

You too. The Big Interview is a production of Wired and Kaleidoscope content. This episode was produced by our showrunner, Ann Marie Fertoldi. Kate Osborne is our executive producer. Music and mixing by Pran Bandy this episode was fact checked by Matt Giles and I am, of course, your host, Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director. Check back here on Thursday for the latest episode of Uncanny Valley, where Wired's writers and editors add you to their Slack Channel.

[A]

Mixed signals Listeners, thanks again for listening to this episode of Uncanny Valley. Do not forget, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and catch full episodes on Wired's YouTube channel.