Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site"

Podcast: Uncanny Valley | WIRED
Episode Date: June 17, 2026
Host: Katie Drummond (WIRED’s Global Editorial Director)
Guest: Tim Heidecker, comedian, satirist, musician, and now creative director (sort of) of "the new Infowars"

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Uncanny Valley’s "The Big Interview," Katie Drummond sits down with comedian and satirist Tim Heidecker, recently named creative director of the Onion-backed (attempted) takeover of Infowars. They discuss Heidecker’s history of satirizing right-wing media, the surreal landscape of modern comedy and politics, what Infowars could become in new hands, and Heidecker’s proposal to enshrine Twitter as a World Heritage Site.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tim Heidecker’s Parody of Alex Jones and Infowars

• Satirical Roots: Heidecker opens with his parody of Alex Jones, reflecting on how he "fell into" the impression and what makes Jones such a fertile target.
  • “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.” (05:18)
• Infowars Takeover: The Onion’s attempted acquisition of Infowars was initially meant as a gesture of support for Sandy Hook families and to neutralize the platform’s influence. Heidecker details his involvement, including cold-calling the Onion and working with their CEO, Ben Collins.

2. The Evolution of Tim’s Comedy

• Early work (Tim & Eric) wasn’t overtly political, but always held a viewpoint critical of consumerism and modern culture.
  • “It had a point of view…a very cynical look at our modern world, which I think is a political point of view.” (07:04)
• Twitter served as a pivot for Heidecker’s direct engagement with the world and current events.
  • “Twitter…used to be kind of a fun place. It was a way I could talk about what was going on in the world very quickly.” (08:27)
• First overtly political project: "Kainthology," a satirical album about Herman Cain.

3. Satire vs. Surreality in the Trump Era

• Satire must "just acknowledge the insanity" rather than try to outdo reality’s absurdity.
  • “Even if you…just talk about how crazy it is and don’t try to top it…At the moment, I think…just acknowledging the insanity right now is enough to make people feel like there’s a community of sanity maybe out there.” (11:01–12:14)

4. Alex Jones, Right-Wing Media, and Backlash

• Heidecker describes the online response—often threatening and conspiratorial—to his public role in the Infowars saga.
  • "In that first...when it was quite new and scary in 2016, 2015...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." (13:33)
• He expresses both alarm and humor about Jones' attacks, noting the diminished impact of such rhetoric in recent years.
  • “I described it as kind of the last gasps of a dying whale.” (15:35)

5. Vision for the New Infowars: Building a Comedy Platform

• The takeover is still pending due to legal entanglements and a stay from the Texas Court of Appeals; for now, Onion and Heidecker act as if it’s a done deal.
  • “We are proceeding as if we have it. We don’t care. No one’s gonna do anything about it. We are Infowars. That is who we are.” (26:33)
• Heidecker imagines Infowars as a new haven for experimental comedy, akin to Adult Swim’s heyday:
  • “If they had another property…they could use this…as a vessel…to build a comedy streaming platform.” (19:35)
  • “The comedy coming out of Infowars should be reflective of the Internet and the moment we’re in.” (28:53)
  • Sees value in curation—a place where emerging comedians can launch and experiment.

6. The State of Comedy, Late Night, and Podcasting

• Heidecker notes a shift towards right-wing, reactionary comedy podcasts (Rogan, et al.), and the decline of late-night as an innovative format.
  • “There was a sense of experimentation…these are just some weirdos who accidentally got a TV studio…There’s none of that right now.” (35:32)
• Believes podcasts are now where experimentation sometimes happens, plus serves as a loophole for companies to underinvest in creative work.

7. Hope for New Comedy Voices

• Heidecker is hopeful, inspired by creators like Connor O’Malley, Jay Weingarten, Edie Modokai, and his own collaborators.
  • “I’m a snob about comedy, and I think the stuff I make with my friends is the best there is…But there’s other good stuff out there.” (39:14)
• Notes there will always be a mix of enduring, special works, and “just a ton of stuff that’s fine. The Munsters…Modern Family. Well crafted. Fine. Keep it. Put it on.” (39:46)

8. The Problem of Attention on the Internet

• Heidecker avoids concerning himself too much with “how to get attention”:
  • “If you try, you lose…Just throw it into the wind and hopefully that connects with people.” (40:46–41:33)
• Expresses skepticism about viral strategies and the manipulative nature of platform algorithms.

9. Control-Alt-Delete: The Tech Tim Would Change

• Delete: "The ability to comment on anything." (42:02)
• Alt: Twitter should have become a World Heritage site, managed by a nonprofit or the U.N.—an online museum/forum for public conversation.
  • "It should be managed by a nonprofit...It's an online forum. That is no profit incentive." (42:34)
• Control: Wishes he could control Twitter, give it to the U.N., and enshrine it as a collective artifact.
  • "I control Twitter and make that happen...I become the sole owner and then I give it to the U.N. I bequeath it to the world. Look up World Heritage sites. This is what it should be." (43:13–43:34)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Alex Jones:
  • “He’s a great entertainer, a great talent. There’s a great broadcasting talent there that’s been corrupted...He’s taken into a very dark place...A pills delivery system.” (05:36)
• On Modern Satire:
  • “Just acknowledging the insanity right now is enough to make people feel like there’s a community of sanity maybe out there.” (11:01)
• Describing Infowars’ Legal Limbo:
  • “It’s like cast in amber, which is a beautiful metaphor.” (26:32)
• On New Comedy Ventures:
  • “If they had another brand and wanted to grow...they could use this...for that. They would bring in somebody like me...to build, like, a streaming...comedy streaming platform.” (19:35)
• On Comments:
  • “I would delete the ability to comment on anything.” (42:02)
• On Twitter as a World Heritage Site:
  • “Twitter should have become a World Heritage site. I think that it should be managed by a nonprofit.” (42:19–42:34)

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Highlighted Timestamps

• Parodying Alex Jones — 03:13–06:00
• Tim's Satirical Roots and Twitter’s Old Days — 06:27–08:31
• Commentary on Modern Political Satire — 10:21–12:14
• Heidecker’s Online Backlash and Memoir on Jones — 13:25–15:42
• Infowars Takeover: Legal Saga — 24:39–26:44
• Vision for New Infowars/Comedy Streaming Platform — 28:26–31:35
• Reflections on Late Night TV and Comedy — 35:17–37:47
• Comedy Hopefuls and Influences — 38:10–40:10
• Control-Alt-Delete Game — 41:36–43:44

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Takeaway

Tim Heidecker’s blend of absurdist humor, cultural criticism, and personal candor makes for a fascinating exploration of what satire, community, and comedy can mean in a fractured digital era. Whether he ever gets the "GoDaddy password" to Infowars or not, he’s determined to build spaces where comedians can experiment—while imagining playful, idealistic reforms like turning Twitter into a digital World Heritage Site.

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Transcript

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[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

InfoWars forever. You are the InfoWarrior. Follow us. InfoWars is a movement, and you're on it now. You're on our ship.

[Katie Drummond]

Come on board.

[Tim Heidecker]

Jeez.

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

Thanks for not calling me, Eric.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah. And even with close friends.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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 Berger. Oh, I love Vic Berger.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

But for a minute there, it did really good face swapping, or maybe it probably still does, but you can do that real time 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 he 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.

[Katie Drummond]

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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

They sell supplements.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

No.

[Katie Drummond]

That, though, has changed for you.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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 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.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, the most fun place.

[Tim Heidecker]

It was a great.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

Sorry, what year was this?

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

No, in 2012.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah. Not Herman Cain, but his campaign manager was doing the commercial.

[Katie Drummond]

No one knew he was his campaign manager.

[Tim Heidecker]

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've ever seen.

[Katie Drummond]

That's really weird.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Heidecker]

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 was a big supporter of his. And I put it out, called Kainthology. So that was probably like my first overt like, political comedy thing.

[Katie Drummond]

But fast forward to now. I would say I, among many would say that real life has eclipsed comedy in the Trump era.

[NPR Shortwave Narrator]

Right.

[Katie Drummond]

Like, we are talking before Donald Trump hosts a UFC fight outside the White House in an arena that he had

[Tim Heidecker]

Built like you that he might not take down.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

But. 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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah.

[Tim Heidecker]

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. It says, I see this, and somebody just out there trying to, you know, teach kids at school or something or go, some nurse out there. Somebody is just like, oh, thank God. I thought it was just me. You know, I thought I was the

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

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 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 adult swim 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?

[Tim Heidecker]

Metaphorically.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

You know, it was incredible.

[Katie Drummond]

It was a joy.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

Did you ever worry about your safety?

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Did you.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

And it can be very scary. I mean, I looked at the responses to Alec Jones's post on X about you, and it was all people just being like, fuck you, Alex Jones.

[Tim Heidecker]

Well, that's what was really the, the funniest thing was even I like, Alex, this was a comedy show.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah.

[Tim Heidecker]

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, you know, 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, that's. But it was very funny to see him get riled up about that stuff for sure.

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

It had beached whale energy.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

They all know each other.

[Tim Heidecker]

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, you know, wherever the culture is going on that side,

[Katie Drummond]

he's got to sell some pills.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

The Onion.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

He is a big blue sky, strong posting energy.

[Tim Heidecker]

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 do something fun with those that might have been my first and do those.

[Katie Drummond]

Does the Archive come with the deal?

[Tim Heidecker]

Yes. Yes.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

The two things I said were, you obviously your satirical institution. And you should make fun of Alex Jones for, you know, the joke of you of buying him for wars 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 gonna get pretty old. Because what else is there to say? He's a buffoon and he sells pills,

[Katie Drummond]

dying whale, et cetera.

[Tim Heidecker]

And that joke, you're just gonna 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.

[Katie Drummond]

It is. It really is.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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. Cause she gets mad when she Hears your voice. Cause she thinks it's him. And so they were like, they were laughing about it. They thought it was funny either, 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.

[Katie Drummond]

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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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 and in my career.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

No. Yeah, 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 really add salt to the very terrible wounds that were already there.

[Katie Drummond]

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[NPR Shortwave Narrator]

Ever notice how the second you Google something, suddenly every ad you see is about it, or you try to watch something while traveling and it's just blocked? Yeah. The Internet isn't as open as we think. ProtonVPN is a secure VPN service designed for people who want to prioritize their digital privacy and security. It keeps what you do online private and lets you access the Internet like it should work. Open, secure, and on your terms. Unlike most VPNs, Proton is backed by strong European privacy laws and years of expertise, creating a safer, faster, and more open Internet for everyone. They have A strict no logs policy that's independently verified. It's open source so anyone can inspect how it works. And it's backed by a foundation focused on protecting user rights, not selling your data behind the scenes. It's easy to get started. Right now ProtonVPN is offering our listeners 70% off a two year plan. When you go to protonvpn.com uncanny that's P R O T O N vpn.com uncanny For 70% off your two year plan, that's protonvpn.com uncanny hi, I'm Stacey Mannik Smith.

[Katie Drummond]

You might know me from public radio's Planet Money and Marketplace. And I'm here to tell you about a new show I'm working on at Bloomberg Businessweek. Yeah, it's called Everybody's Business.

[Tim Heidecker]

I'm Max Chavkin, a longtime reporter with

[Katie Drummond]

Bloomberg businessweek and more importantly, Stacy's co host. Each week we will talk to some of the smartest people we know to try and understand what is happening in the world of business and, and what it means for you. We'll explain Trump's trade war, the AI bubble, Elon Musk's whole thing and lots of other stuff. Listen every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Now, legally speaking. And you are not a lawyer. Unless I miss something.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

I figured. Yeah, so. But the deal is not actually done. Can you update us on where it stands now? I can try.

[Tim Heidecker]

I mean, I give us your best. My best attempt at this. 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.

[Katie Drummond]

Right. On like a month to month basis.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

Okay.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Let's call it DNS server.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Probably.

[Outshift by Cisco Narrator]

Yeah,

[Tim Heidecker]

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 state, to the Court of Appeals, and said, stop it, stop it. Let them do what they want to do. This is. 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.

[Katie Drummond]

It is the GoDaddy password.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

You are wearing his skin.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, we are. I'm assuming he's 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.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

So you plan to be everywhere?

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

There are so many ways to watch things.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

They are.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Yes. 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. That's where we should all. Every creator should be thinking that in some way.

[Katie Drummond]

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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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, you know, 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. Cause 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 gonna be a sketch with people in a living room talking about a crazy boyfriend or something.

[Katie Drummond]

What's it gonna be instead?

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

That I don't know. But.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, it's a TikTok format.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

They have curated it, certified it.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, they like it. So I swim it went by my desk and our people that were helping, you know, we thought this was good. And then hopefully 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 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 with Eric and I coming up was we didn't get a lot of notes and we just got a lot of, like, Mike Lazo, who ran Adult Swim for so many years, just had a good feeling about us and thought we were funny 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.

[Katie Drummond]

So you want to be that?

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, yeah, that's. I mean, 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.

[Katie Drummond]

All right, another quick break. We'll be right back. This week on the Political Scene from

[Tim Heidecker]

the New Yorker, Trump's rupture in the world order.

[Katie Drummond]

Europe caught between two adversarial great powers. That's basically dialing back the clock to

[Nicole Phelps]

not only Pre World War II, but

[Katie Drummond]

really it's a pre 20th century view of the world. And I would say it's a world of permanent insecurity that we're looking at.

[Tim Heidecker]

Join me, Evan Osnos and my colleagues

[Katie Drummond]

Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser every Friday on the Political Scene, available wherever you get your podcasts. 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?

[Tim Heidecker]

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 something like Top Gun or I want to say Andrew Dice Clay, but. But 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 lot of intersecting things. There is 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.

[Katie Drummond]

Right.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

We can just stick them in this tiny studio.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Outshift by Cisco Narrator]

Also.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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, puts out. He's got through. He's pushed through. Nathan Fielder's pushed through.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm always shocked when I see something that he made that's on my television because it's sort of like, I can't believe they let him make that show.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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?

[Tim Heidecker]

I think it's a format that. Whose time has 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. 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 gotta 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.

[Katie Drummond]

Name a celebrity.

[Tim Heidecker]

Josh o'. Connor.

[Katie Drummond]

I was about to say Josh Brolin for some reason.

[Tim Heidecker]

Okay, Josh Brolin.

[NPR Shortwave Narrator]

Sure.

[Katie Drummond]

I want to interview Josh Brolin.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

I don't either.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Right, right. He took you on his vacation.

[Tim Heidecker]

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. Of demigod for 10 minutes at night. Who's like, almost like getting to see, like, George Washington in the flesh when you're just like when you had three things to watch. But, like.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[NPR Shortwave Narrator]

Neither did I.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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 tough day. But, like, what makes you. 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 know. Two and a half miles. Three and a half miles. It's 94 degrees in New York today.

[Tim Heidecker]

I know.

[Katie Drummond]

No wonder you're in a bad mood now.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, I know I'm in a great mood, but you got me talking about late night talks.

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

Good question.

[Katie Drummond]

Thank you.

[Tim Heidecker]

I hate name checking people because I always forget. I mean, there's this kid, Jay Weingarten, that I love. Who. 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 of. Is doing the best stuff right now on the Internet.

[Katie Drummond]

Are you hopeful?

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah, it's great.

[Tim Heidecker]

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, and that's great.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah. And I think that it's always been that way. And there's always been a little tiny strip of stuff that's gonna really last a long time that really feels special and different and groundbreaking or for whatever. And then there's gonna just be a ton of stuff that's fine. The Munsters, you know, the Munsters. The Munsters or the Brady Bunch or, you know, just comedy that people can

[Katie Drummond]

have on Modern Family.

[Tim Heidecker]

Modern Family. Well crafted.

[Katie Drummond]

Fine.

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

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.

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, baseball.

[Katie Drummond]

No.

[Tim Heidecker]

What's the game?

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Okay.

[Katie Drummond]

Nobody talks anymore, you know.

[Tim Heidecker]

Oh, I get a lot of chatter.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, I bet you.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

I think that it should be managed by a nonprofit.

[Katie Drummond]

So it's like an online museum.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

Okay.

[Tim Heidecker]

Okay, makes sense. Why does that cost anything to run servers?

[Katie Drummond]

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

[Tim Heidecker]

Maintaining the product. The UN could do it. Somebody like that.

[Katie Drummond]

Okay.

[Tim Heidecker]

And it's just like, oh, the world has a way to talk to each other. Twitter. That's what it should have been.

[Katie Drummond]

Twitter. Un. Sorry, Elon.

[Tim Heidecker]

Yeah, okay, good one. What was that? Alt. Yeah, and then control.

[Katie Drummond]

Well, I think you did delete comments. Control.

[Tim Heidecker]

No, I said alt was.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, alt alter the ownership of Twitter to be owned by the un and

[Tim Heidecker]

then now here's my control. Here's my hat.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah. What do you wanna.

[Tim Heidecker]

I control Twitter and make that happen.

[Katie Drummond]

You control the sale of Twitter from.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

You bequeath it.

[Tim Heidecker]

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

[Katie Drummond]

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.

[Tim Heidecker]

Thank you, Tim.

[Katie Drummond]

Thank you so much for being here.

[Tim Heidecker]

Pleasure talking to you.

[Katie Drummond]

You too. The Big Interview is a production of Wired and Kaleidoscope. Content this episode was produced by our showrunner, Ann Marie Fertoli. 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. The Internet can be strange, absurd, terrifying, even surprisingly human. Each week on Close all tabs from kqed, we cover how the digital world is reshaping how we live and who we are. People just assume that the American Internet is this, like, free and vast frontier. And then when I started asking that question, it was impossible to unring that bell. People were asking chatbots to tell them God exists. Listen to Close all tabs. Wherever you get your podcast

[Tim Heidecker]

from PRX.