I Weigh - Disinformation & Conspiracy Theories with Danny Wallace

Summary

Podcast Title: Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil
Episode: I Weigh - Disinformation & Conspiracy Theories with Danny Wallace
Release Date: October 29, 2024
Hosts: Jameela Jamil and Danny Wallace

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil, host Jameela Jamil welcomes back author and comedian Danny Wallace for an in-depth discussion on his latest book, Somebody Told Me. The conversation delves into the pervasive nature of conspiracy theories, their roots in societal loneliness, and the intricate web of misinformation that exacerbates divisions in today's world.

[01:03] Jameela Jamil: "It's about a subject that I could not be. It's perfectly timed for me personally... the issue of conspiracy theories and when they take hold of us and the people we love."

Conspiracy Theories: True vs. False

Jameela and Danny explore the unsettling reality that while many conspiracy theories are baseless, some have been proven true, complicating public trust.

[02:34] Jameela Jamil: "Every time we start talking about conspiracy theories, we keep stumbling upon some that did turn out to be true... How do you convince other people that not everything they believe is necessarily going to turn out to be this big, terrible, terrifying conspiracy theory?"

Danny echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the difficulty in maintaining skepticism when some conspiracies are validated.

Impact on Society and Relationships

The duo discusses how conspiracy theories strain personal relationships and foster societal fragmentation. Jameela shares personal anecdotes highlighting the emotional toll on families and friendships.

[23:57] Danny Wallace: "What we think is, like, when Kate Middleton disappeared... we had an absence of information, we had a vacuum... we started putting terrible conclusions together."

Loneliness, Social Media, and Conspiracy Theories

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the correlation between loneliness, particularly among men, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Social media platforms are identified as fertile grounds for the spread of misinformation, especially during periods of isolation like the COVID-19 pandemic.

[37:26] Danny Wallace: "Loneliness is an epidemic. And when that happens, people turn to comfort, and they generally turn online. And online is where a lot of bad ideas are, and they suddenly become a lot more appealing."

Gender Differences in Conspiracy Beliefs

Danny and Jameela explore how conspiracy theories manifest differently across genders. Men are often drawn to warrior-like narratives that provide a sense of agency, while women may be more influenced through the wellness space, gradually adopting increasingly radical beliefs.

[29:05] Danny Wallace: "With men, we have an epidemic of loneliness... for women, they have tended to be drawn into unusual ways of thinking through the wellness space."

Case Studies: Pizzagate and Celebrity Conspiracies

The discussion highlights notorious conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and the enduring myth of Paul McCartney being deceased. These case studies illustrate how unfounded claims can gain traction and the real-world consequences they can have.

[29:40] Danny Wallace: "The pizza thing became a code... and then it spiraled and spiraled."

The Role of AI and Technology

The conversation shifts to the emerging influence of AI in perpetuating conspiracy theories. Danny speculates on the potential for AI-driven disinformation campaigns that could further divide society.

[40:24] Danny Wallace: "What if a lot of these AI for fake robot boyfriends and girlfriends are almost like sleeper agents ready to be activated, and one day they can start pumping out a slew of disinformation?"

Combating Conspiracy Theories: Patience and Empathy

Towards the end of the episode, Jameela and Danny offer strategies for addressing conspiracy beliefs in loved ones. Emphasizing patience, empathy, and open dialogue, they advocate for understanding the emotional needs that drive individuals toward these beliefs.

[56:21] Jameela Jamil: "You can challenge them, but do so in a way that is interested. That's not dismissive."

[57:35] Danny Wallace: "To listen to them is important. You can challenge them, but do so in a way that is interested... asking how it makes them feel."

Concluding Insights

The episode concludes with reflections on the future of misinformation and the urgent need for societal cohesion. Jameela expresses hope for fostering community and understanding amidst growing divisions.

[61:07] Danny Wallace: "We don't know... but we don't know because it's moving so fast since the book came out."

[66:37] Danny Wallace: "Anything that is against division and bringing people back together is pivotal... uniting and coming back together."

---

Key Takeaways

• Conspiracy Theories' Dual Nature: While many are baseless, some have historical veracity, making public skepticism complex.

• Emotional Drivers: Loneliness and a search for meaning drive individuals towards conspiratorial thinking.

• Gender Dynamics: Men and women may engage with conspiracy theories differently, influenced by societal roles and emotional needs.

• Technological Influence: AI and social media significantly amplify the spread and impact of misinformation.

• Empathetic Engagement: Addressing conspiracy beliefs requires patience, empathy, and understanding rather than confrontation.

Notable Quotes

• Jameela Jamil:

  "We don't know what's real, what's fake, what's propaganda, what's misinformation, what's AI. We don't even know what we're looking at anymore."
  [01:03]

• Danny Wallace:

  "And in the vacuum, people started to come up with their own answers... and the insane part becomes when we attach it to a tiny pizzeria."
  [09:02]

• Jameela Jamil:

  "It's easier for us to pick an individual or to pick a smaller, more niche issue because then we have some feeling of some semblance of, I could take action against."
  [14:07]

• Danny Wallace:

  "Loneliness is bad for everyone. And when that happens, people turn to comfort, and they generally turn online."
  [37:26]

---

This episode of Wrong Turns provides a nuanced exploration of how conspiracy theories take root and spread in modern society, underpinned by emotional vulnerabilities and technological facilitators. Jameela Jamil and Danny Wallace offer insightful perspectives on fostering understanding and combating misinformation through empathy and community building.

Transcript

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[Jamila Jamil]

Hello and welcome to a very unusual episode of Iway with Jamila Jamil, a podcast against shame. I loved this chat so much. I'm so excited to hear what you think about it because it really did go to places that I was not expecting. It is with one of my favorite people, Danny Wallace. He's been on this podcast before and you loved him so I decided to bring him back. Last time he was on talking about his book A History of Rudeness. It's called you very much and it's very, very good and very funny. He's also wr written wonderful books like yes Man, Awkward Situations for Men, Charlotte street, and now his new book, Somebody Told Me. And it's a fascinating investigation into conspiracy theories. Not necessarily just specific conspiracy theories, but why conspiracy theories have taken hold of what feels like our society and people are falling out over them. And people are really worried about their relatives, especially their grandparents, as to what it is that they're learning on Facebook. The conspiracies within politics are ripping us all apart. We don't know what's real, what's fake, what's propaganda, what's misinformation, what's AI. We don't even know what we're looking at anymore. And it's not only creating so much loneliness, but it's also possibly born of loneliness. And so we kind of get into the cracks in our society that are leading to this many people having such a different perception over the same world that we are living in.

[Danny Wallace]

And I think one of my favorite.

[Jamila Jamil]

Parts of this episode is the fact. Fact that every time we start talking about conspiracy theories, we keep stumbling upon some that did turn out to be true, which is a nightmare, because then how, when something is vindicated, do you convince other people that not everything they believe is necessarily going to turn out to be this big, fucking terrible, terrifying conspiracy theory? It's a complicated, nuanced subject, and we get into the complications and the nuances of it.

[Danny Wallace]

And so if you are someone who's.

[Jamila Jamil]

Been accused of believing in conspiracy theories, if you've got someone that you love who's fallen down a kind of conspiracy theory rabbit hole and you don't know if that thing is true or fake or you feel sure that the thing they believe in is not real, it's hard. And this book is for you. This chat is for you, to make you feel less alone. He also explains to me the different kinds of conspiracies that appeal more to women and more to men and the impact they have on us and why conspiracies sometimes feel good to believe in and. And how they serve us sometimes, or how we feel like they serve us. He's so unpret. He's so warm and kind and empathetic, and I wish more people looked at massive subjects the way that he does. He has such genuine curiosity for people. There's such love for people that pours out through all of his work. And I think the more upsetting the world becomes, the more I want to keep platforming people who actually seem like they're unifying rather than screaming and hoping to divide us or hoping to seem better than other people. I really loved this conversation. I really, really adore Dani, and I hope you listen to our previous conversation. If you enjoy this one. Fuck you very much. Great book title. Very jealous of that book title. And let me know what you think. But for now, this is the inimitable Danny Wallace.

[Guest]

Foreign.

[Danny Wallace]

Wallace. Welcome to I Weigh. Hi.

It's only bloody me, isn't it?

[Guest]

Look at us swearing already.

[Danny Wallace]

What's happened to you? So rebellious, this rage, absolute rage pouring from you.

Thank you for coming back onto this podcast. I'm very excited, as always, to have you and anyone who missed the last time you were on, please go and listen, because it was a fascinating subject about rudeness, and now you're back and it's about a subject that I could not be. It's perfectly timed for me personally. I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't be more interested in this subject. And so I was dying to have you on for a chat, especially given that a lot of my work is now going in a similar direction. And so it's wonderful to have someone who's studied this so intensely and been so introspective about this issue. And I'm talking about the issue of conspiracy theories and when they take hold of us and the people we love.

[Guest]

Wouldn't it have been terrible, though, if you'd done this whole thing about this.

[Danny Wallace]

Amazing topic that we're gonna talk about.

[Guest]

And then it turned out to be, like, Victorian ceramics?

[Danny Wallace]

Yes, but thankfully it's not.

[Guest]

It's about conspiracies and disinformation and misinformation and propaganda and lies and all the stuff we wade through that makes life not only more angry, but a lot more boring.

[Danny Wallace]

100%. I was curious as to what it was that made you want to write this book in particular. Cause it's a tricky topic. It can be alienating in a certain way, especially for people who do believe these certain conspiracy theories. What was it that drove you to take this leap?

I think it was a mix of.

[Guest]

Everything, of just looking around and listening and sort of being overwhelmed by stuff.

[Danny Wallace]

And it is a tricky topic because there's so much of it, like, how do you make sense of it? And it changes every day.

[Guest]

It's added to every day.

[Danny Wallace]

You know, I could have been writing this book every day for the rest of my life because of the amount.

[Guest]

Of noise that's just happening that makes.

[Danny Wallace]

Life kind of unbearable sometimes. Sometimes I imagine you, like me, have seen friends, colleagues, people in whichever industry you want to talk about, not only teeter over rabbit holes of bad information.

[Guest]

But leap in, leap in with all.

[Danny Wallace]

Their hearts, whether they believe it or whether they see money in helping others to believe it.

[Guest]

So you would see, for example, certain.

[Danny Wallace]

People who might have been a perfectly lovely comedian known as one the nicest people on the circuit, suddenly sort of sniff blood and realize that there wasn't really any money in being the nice guy on the circuit, but there was money to be made in being an angry, generally very right wing, for example, anti vaxxer, anti masker. And his entire personality had to be remodeled to fit into TV screens and social media.

[Guest]

And his message changed and everything about him changed. And I was so confused by this.

[Danny Wallace]

Because I was thinking, I know you, and I look around and I would.

[Guest]

See other people also who aren't doing.

[Danny Wallace]

That kind of job, but who for.

[Guest]

The first time in their lives were.

[Danny Wallace]

Suddenly talking about unusual theories.

[Guest]

And you would get strange WhatsApp messages.

[Danny Wallace]

I remember during lockdown, where at least here in Britain, we would go out on a Thursday night at 7 o' clock and we would bang pots in order to show our support for our nurses and our doctors and those on.

[Guest]

The front line risking their lives for. Seems like a strange thing to say.

[Danny Wallace]

It's the best thing we could do at the time.

[Guest]

It's all we had. We just had access to bots.

[Danny Wallace]

But when that was happening, messages were.

[Guest]

Suddenly going around saying, stop doing that, stop banging your pots, stop praising the nurses in this way.

[Danny Wallace]

Because that's not what this is about. It's not about banging pots and showing.

[Guest]

Appreciation when you go out and bang your pots for exactly one minute at.

[Danny Wallace]

7Pm on a Thursday. Well, you know what?

[Guest]

That's when they happen to test the 5G towers. And the banging of the pots is designed by them to make you cover up the noise of these dreadful machines.

[Danny Wallace]

Which are pumping out Covid and the virus is traveling through the air and.

[Guest]

Getting into your pores. So that's the real reason behind why you're banging pots and you're thinking, that's insane.

[Danny Wallace]

But for a split second you're going, yeah, 5G towers.

[Guest]

What's going on with that?

[Danny Wallace]

And then suddenly there's kind of doubt about something. And it was because we were all.

[Guest]

Desperate, hungry for information.

[Danny Wallace]

And when there is a vacuum, and.

[Guest]

Covid is such a great example of.

[Danny Wallace]

This, there was an invisible enemy. There was something coming for us and.

[Guest]

We couldn't see it. We didn't know what it could do. We didn't know how to fight back. We didn't know where it had come from. And in that great kind of human way, we started to try and come.

[Danny Wallace]

Up with our own answers.

[Guest]

And people with that great phrase, started to do their own research. And that way madness lies. And that's kind of when there was.

[Danny Wallace]

A huge explosion globally of something that everyone was interested in and needed information about.

[Guest]

And information was slow.

[Danny Wallace]

And so the Internet being fast plugged those gaps 100%.

But the information wasn't just slow. And I think in order to make sure that we are balanced, I can also see why so many people had so many different conflicting, be it 5G or be it controlling the weather, or be it all these different things. We had members of our government, you know, especially in the United Kingdom, but also in America, breaking the rules that they were giving to us. So there were so many things that were done that were so contradictory regarding them versus what the public were able to do that I also Think that we get lied to so much by our politicians. We don't have a sense that we can rely upon these people. We don't even have a sense, especially in America, that you can rely on. You know, we all, every, every five years we found out another thing that we were lied to about that some people were called conspiracy theorists about something like the fact that the food is very dangerous. And then people come on and go, no, the food isn't dangerous, that's a conspiracy theory. And then five years later, Kellogg's gets banned or something. I think we have a kind of a crisis in the fact that we don't really have anyone to turn to who we can actually, really, truly know that we can trust. And then that's what leads us to, as with all vacuums, onto the Internet, where then you are met with a clusterfuck of information and misinformation. But I think I just wanted to make that point because I totally empathize.

[Guest]

To echo that as well.

[Danny Wallace]

Some conspiracies are real, you know, some huge conspiracies.

[Guest]

Terrible things have happened and been shown to have happened.

[Danny Wallace]

And over here in Britain, again, there's a genuine conspiracy to do with the.

[Guest]

Ppe, the masks that were being brought in.

[Danny Wallace]

Lots of people were making a lot.

[Guest]

Of money out of it and it wasn't reaching the public.

[Danny Wallace]

And a genuine conspiracy. People conspired, but no one's really interested in that. And I think that's because it belongs to everybody.

[Guest]

Right?

[Danny Wallace]

It's our huge thing to deal with altogether. And where conspiracies really thrive is when someone has special knowledge, special unique, secret.

[Guest]

Information that only they know.

[Danny Wallace]

And that if only you would open.

[Guest]

Your eyes and open your ears and.

[Danny Wallace]

Wake up, they could educate you.

[Guest]

And it makes it quite difficult sometimes to talk to people who are that.

[Danny Wallace]

Far into conspiracy theories because it's like they'll talk to you very quickly and.

[Guest]

Very confidently about all manner of proof.

[Danny Wallace]

That you can't possibly have seen books written 50 years ago, that you haven't read videos that are nine hours long, that you just don't have time to read. And it's your fault, therefore, that you are not opening your eyes because you.

[Guest]

Won'T sit down and watch a nine.

[Danny Wallace]

Hour YouTube lecture about why Prince Charles is a lizard or about why, you know, the earth is flat or airplanes are going around dusting us with disease. So the onus, therefore always is on.

[Guest]

You as the non believer to open your eyes.

[Danny Wallace]

And most people just don't have time. You know, we're just Trying to put.

The pastor on, what is that? Is it a hunger for superiority? Is it a feeling of, you know, ultimately human beings, our brains, just want to know that we're safe and make us feel safe and reaffirm constantly to us that we are safe. And that's where a lot of tribalism comes from. It's why so many of us, you know, want to join in with others so that we don't get left behind, even if we don't actually, really, truly fundamentally believe in what they're saying or doing. Sometimes we'll stay there because there's safety in numbers. Is it because it makes you feel extra safe having this special information?

Well, yeah. It makes you feel like you're doing something. It makes it feel like you're involved.

[Guest]

Everybody is kind of like.

[Danny Wallace]

It gives you agency.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Danny Wallace]

And everyone is sort of like the star of their own movie. And when something mad happens, when something.

[Guest]

Chaotic happens, when there's a pandemic, when.

[Danny Wallace]

There'S a huge terrorist attack, rather than go, life is crazy. And these things do happen, they're trying to make sense of it.

[Guest]

Right.

[Danny Wallace]

Because it doesn't make sense in the narrative of their film. So some people take on the role of the hero, the warrior, and you need an enemy. And so the enemy becomes the person or the organization or the group, usually unseen, who are out to get you.

[Guest]

To keep you down, specifically you and people like you.

[Danny Wallace]

And they have lots of different words.

[Guest]

That they use, whether it's the elites or the globalists.

[Danny Wallace]

It can get more racist from there, but.

[Guest]

It is this idea that someone.

[Danny Wallace]

Somewhere is out to get you because.

[Guest]

It'S the only way you can explain what's happened to you and why you seemingly have no control all of a.

[Danny Wallace]

Sudden over the events around you.

Yeah. And it's interesting, picking up on a smaller issue because there are people in power. There are like three companies that own the entire, pretty much world, Right. And those people fuck up the entire housing market of a country. They fuck up the entire economy. They fuck over people's healthcare, all these different things. And it almost feels like such an amorphous issue that's so massive that we wouldn't even know where to begin attacking that issue. And we don't know where the head offices are of these three companies like BlackRock and State street, etc that, you know, run everything or I can't remember if it's 7th Street. Sesame Street. Sesame Street.

Sesame Street, I believe.

Yeah, it is Sesame Street. I believe. Yeah. Please take that verbatim, everyone.

That's how it starts, you know, but no, I'm not. That's how it starts.

[Guest]

There'll be, there'll be, there'll be some conspiracy growing right now.

[Danny Wallace]

Oh, my God. Big Bird is a Muslim who's coming to inject everyone with the vaccine. Exactly. I ended up having a meltdown recently because of the relative of someone I know, an older relative telling me that Muslim men, it's all like fighting age. Men who are coming over on the boats, not women and children. And there are a lot of men, but that's also because they're the ones who can probably most likely make that journey. And they're like, they're coming here to join the British army to force everyone to have vaccines. I just sort of broke. I just broke down. I just couldn't take it anymore because it was just so hard to watch someone, so reasonable, someone who also loves me and sees my brown face and my Muslim heritage, but still can't compulsively, cannot not demonize the culture that I come from. And just how terrified they were when I was looking at them. It wasn't coming from a place of hate. I think so much of what we miss is that so much of this, it might, might walk and talk like hate, but ultimately it's fear. It's complete abject terror. But what I was saying just is that it's easier for us to pick an individual or to pick a smaller, more niche issue because then we have some feeling of some semblance of, I could take action against 5G Towers, or I could take action against trans people, or I could take action against like tiny, tiny issues compared to the massive things that we all have in common. You know, things that, when it comes to climate change, the very people who don't think climate change is real and they think it's a left wing conspiracy. I saw on Fox News once that they said it was invented by Muslims to distract the west and bring it down. But those people are suffering more than the coastal elites in America. In New York and Los Angeles, you know where you've got maybe some hipster in Brooklyn complaining that it's 55 degrees during the summer, but the people whose crops are actually being destroyed are in the middle of the country. They're both being affected, but the ones who are being most impacted by this.

[Jamila Jamil]

Still refuse to believe that it's real.

[Danny Wallace]

It's like we're all struggling with these same issues and they're non partisan. And I wonder if it's tribalism that also makes us more likely to go towards the more divisive issue.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, tribalism in all its forms.

[Guest]

But it's interesting you're talking there about the scale of these things as well.

[Danny Wallace]

And the kind of these huge problems that an individual, you know, feels helpless about. Climate change is happening and people are like, well, I recycle my bottles, but I'm not really sure that's gonna do anything. So perhaps I should just sit this out and let another generation kind of deal with it.

[Guest]

So these huge issues, but also there are smaller ones. This rise in suspicion about the notion of something called 15 Minute Neighborhoods. I sat down with a guy in.

[Danny Wallace]

A pub near me and he was certain that something was going on.

[Guest]

Something was going on in the town of Ipswich.

[Danny Wallace]

And I don't know why Ipswich was.

[Guest]

Being targeted in this way.

[Danny Wallace]

It doesn't seem like the kind that you would do this in.

[Guest]

But he remained convinced that this idea of 15 minute neighborhoods, which is simply.

[Danny Wallace]

That wouldn't it be nice if in the way that all the generally older generations look back at their childhoods and go, it was lovely. You could leave your door unlocked, you.

[Guest]

Could walk down to the high street, the butcher knew your name, you'd walk to school, you'd walk back, you'd be able to cycle around and you can't do that anymore. So 15 minute neighborhoods are sort of that. They're saying everything you need. If you worship somewhere, your mosque, your synagogue, your church should be within a 15 minute walk.

[Danny Wallace]

You should be able to walk to school. You shouldn't need to take your car out to go and get your sausages from the butcher.

[Guest]

There should be a high street butcher.

[Danny Wallace]

And you can support things that way. The air will be cleaner, there'll be.

[Guest]

Less traffic, pollution, traffic noise, less traffic in general.

[Danny Wallace]

It'll be safer.

[Guest]

People will know each other more.

[Danny Wallace]

There'll be less loneliness, crucially, because you'll.

[Guest]

Be out and about a bit more.

[Danny Wallace]

You'll be getting more exercise, you know, you'll be healthier.

[Guest]

That's what it means.

[Danny Wallace]

And somehow they've taken this idea and.

[Guest]

They'Ve added several steps which no one's.

[Danny Wallace]

Ever talked about, which has ended up with, yes, you'll have a 15 minute neighborhood.

[Guest]

You'll have everything you need within 15 minutes, but you will not be able to.

[Danny Wallace]

But you can't leave.

[Guest]

You can come in, but you may never leave. And there'll be cages and there'll be.

[Danny Wallace]

Be border guards and you'll have to use your passport if you want to get into or out of Ipswich. And if you want to use your car, you'll have a certain amount of.

[Guest]

Miles that you can use and that'll be it. It'll just stop.

[Danny Wallace]

And I don't know how they're going to do this because almost everyone in.

[Guest]

Britain is going to have to become.

[Danny Wallace]

A border guard in order to secure.

[Guest]

All of these towns. And no one's ever mentioned these things.

[Danny Wallace]

And yet there is this.

Danny, sorry. The Muslims are going to do.

Oh, it's them, is it?

The Muslims will be the, the.

Yeah, I thought, I thought it was the Cookie Monster. So anyway, so it just. No one said this stuff's going to happen, but yeah, by raising the idea, by seeding it out there, by going, well, you know, they are up to something.

[Guest]

They're always up to something. This is the next step. This is what this means.

[Danny Wallace]

They're trying to trick you.

[Guest]

They want to keep you down, they want to keep you in your homes. And then climate change comes into it.

[Danny Wallace]

They go, oh. And they're going to say it's going to get really hot. So that's how they're going to keep you at home. And all of this stuff, stuff, all of this, these disparate ideas, they, they go into someone's head and it seems reasonable. It sort of seems reasonable because they're.

[Guest]

Going, well, yeah, well, they've done stuff in the past. If they could do that, they could do this.

[Danny Wallace]

They locked us down, they'll do it again.

[Guest]

It was part of the plan, but.

[Danny Wallace]

Now they're going to go harder. When Maui had those wildfires, I immediately.

[Guest]

Started to look around to see who was saying what.

[Danny Wallace]

And within hours, within hours it was, well, they want to destroy Maui because they want to make it like a 15 minute neighborhood. But Oprah and the Rock were involved because they have property there and they want more beachfront property. And the only way to do that was to destroy it using a direct energy weapon, which apparently Oprah now has access to, which is some kind of satellite laser that can fake climate change.

[Guest]

And burn things down. And that didn't happen.

[Danny Wallace]

That's, you know, I've never met Oprah or the Rock, but I don't think that they're sitting in some lair with a button.

Yeah, but if anyone did have a laser, it is probably Oprah. Do you know what I mean? If anyone, if we're gonna pick who's the most likely.

Well, there you are, you see, you're doing it jokingly, but you're going, you know, well, if, if anyone was gonna do it, it would be Oprah.

[Guest]

So that's, that's Big Bird and Oprah we've so far.

[Danny Wallace]

Yeah, slandered.

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[Danny Wallace]

Are there any conspiracy theories that you do like?

Oh, there's loads I like.

Are there any that you sort of believe in? I really like the ones about dead celebrities actually being alive and all. Just being in Thailand.

Yeah.

Specifically the Michael Jackson one where he went back on allegedly after his death went on Larry King as Dave dav, a burn victim who was friends with Michael as a child. And it is a prosthetic that does look like Michael Jackson wearing a mask and speaks exactly like Michael Jackson. And I was like, that's my favorite. That's my favorite one.

That's a good one. Well, Paul McCartney was famously supposed to have passed away in a car accident.

[Guest]

At the height of the Beatles fame. And we know this to be true because if you reverse one of their.

[Danny Wallace]

Records, it sort of sounds like someone.

[Guest]

Saying Paul is dead. Why they would do that?

[Danny Wallace]

I don't know why they would think.

[Guest]

Let's go to all of finding a.

[Danny Wallace]

Paul McCartney lookalike, training him up on.

[Guest]

All the songs, hope that he looks and sounds exactly like the great man.

[Danny Wallace]

And can play bass brilliantly.

[Guest]

But let's hide a little clue backwards in a record.

[Danny Wallace]

And also taking photos of him at different distances so that he looks slightly taller than he did the first time he was in. You know, allegedly the real Paul was in the Beatles and the COVID of sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band looking like a funeral. There were all these different ways that if I think. I think fundamentally here it's all about cognitive bias, which is that. That our brains are always searching. We're just pattern. We're just pattern mongers and all we want to do is find patterns and so that we will be able to find. You can find elements of truth and confirmation almost anywhere that you look. It's exactly what our brains are designed for, so that they can quickly, as quickly as possible, store information away and be like, right, I categorize that. I categorize this. We are just giant, nebulous bias robots.

And we're looking for answers. And you know what? We sort of, you know, the Paul McCartney thing, I don't think that's true.

[Guest]

I've met him.

[Danny Wallace]

Seemed to be actually Paul McCartney. I didn't ask him, I just assumed. However, we've all done this and we're.

[Guest]

All susceptible to some degree because we're all looking for answers. And everybody listening to this right now.

[Danny Wallace]

I include them and I say that.

[Guest]

Within the last six, eight months, you.

[Danny Wallace]

Have done this, and I will tell you why. When Kate Middleton disappeared for about three days, everyone was like, yeah, that's all right, she's allowed to do that. And on the fourth day, everyone was like, yeah, it is a bit weird. Like, where. Where is she? And then on, like, the fifth day, you're like, all right, this is very odd. By the week's end, you were like, you should just do a video.

[Guest]

Why don't you just do a video?

[Danny Wallace]

Just do a video. This is really weird.

[Guest]

They're always about.

[Danny Wallace]

And then there's no video, but there is a picture. And we go, oh, well, there's a picture.

[Guest]

And then someone goes, that's strange. She's wearing the same dress she wore.

[Danny Wallace]

As one she wore two years ago.

[Guest]

And why have the children got unusual?

[Danny Wallace]

And then everyone starts to become a.

[Guest]

Photoshop expert and starts analyzing it and finding AI. And then you're like, where the hell is Princess Kate? And people start swapping theories and suddenly there's rumors about relationships or situations or.

[Danny Wallace]

Ambulances that have been called, and you're.

[Guest]

Still like, why doesn't she just come out and say something? This is madness.

[Danny Wallace]

And then you start hearing other people who are suddenly talking about body double technology, and then they release another photo and even you are going, doesn't really look like her, though, does it? It's a bit odd, this.

[Guest]

Where has she go?

[Danny Wallace]

You find out the real reason and.

[Guest]

You feel like a massive dickhead.

[Danny Wallace]

But for that whole week, we were.

[Guest]

All being drawn in.

[Danny Wallace]

We had an absence of information, we had a vacuum.

[Guest]

We had clues. We were putting those things together, like.

[Danny Wallace]

You'Re saying, that comes naturally to us.

[Guest]

And we were drawing terrible conclusions.

[Danny Wallace]

And whether Kate Middleton, whether Paul McCartney, whether Michael Jackson or Dave. Dave. We take these little clues, these little things, and we, we start to think, what if?

[Guest]

And we find it exciting because we.

[Danny Wallace]

Are storytellers, you know, and we would.

[Guest]

Prefer that there was a reason for.

[Danny Wallace]

Things, things that we could understand, than just accept that sometimes terrible things happen, natural disasters or disease, 100%.

And also, you talk in the book about the fact that men seem to be more predisposed towards conspiracy, but women can also be, oh yeah, vulnerable when it comes to believing conspiracy. But there's a difference in the type of, type of conspiracies that are more likely to appeal to one versus the other. Can you explain that?

Well, it's also the way they get into them with, with men, we have a kind of an epidemic of loneliness that was perhaps turbo boosted or at least exacerbated by things like, you know.

[Guest]

The last few years. And with women, they have tended to.

[Danny Wallace]

Not get into this way of thinking through the light likes of people just asking questions like, you know, Russell Brandt, I'll say, you know, I can say that he's made many, many videos that are just asking questions. Alex Jones, who seems to have the answers, your Andrew Tate figures, people like that, people who make men feel like, yeah, like a warrior. I want to do this. And with women, what seems to have.

[Guest]

Been the case in the past few.

[Danny Wallace]

Years is, is they're more likely to.

[Guest]

Be drawn in to unusual ways of.

[Danny Wallace]

Thinking through, like the wellness space, through videos that start off by going, hey, man, we should do some yoga. Have you tried soaking oats overnight? That's good for you. And then gradually go into, oh, you shouldn't, you know, have this type of meat because it's got these kind of antibiotics in it, which is fair enough. And slowly, slowly, you shouldn't really have anything that has anything in it to the point where it becomes.

[Guest]

You shouldn't put anything in your body.

[Danny Wallace]

And I include vaccines in that, you know, sniff green tea or something.

[Guest]

And that's how they are drawn in.

[Danny Wallace]

And when it gets really big and it becomes, for example, Pizzagate, which was the idea started on, I think, 4chan, that there was a pizza place in D.C. called Comet Pizza, which exists. You go there, you have a lovely.

[Guest]

Pizza and you can Play ping pong. It's a ping pong and pizza place.

[Danny Wallace]

There's almost nothing less harmful in my view, than pizza and ping pong. But in the basement, of course in the basement, terrible things were happening.

[Guest]

And for some reason, this pizza place was chosen as a meeting point for.

[Danny Wallace]

Various elites, including Hillary Clinton. And they would go there and not.

[Guest]

Just sacrifice children, but drink blood in order to keep themselves unto young.

[Danny Wallace]

And unbelievably, this tale was kind of given credence and people started to talk about Pizzagate. And it became a thing. And it divided male and female conspiracy theorists generally in that the women involved, they wanted to be involved because they.

[Guest]

Wanted to save the children.

[Danny Wallace]

Suddenly there was a global elite of children traffickers who had chosen this pizza joint as some kind of hq.

[Guest]

And we must save the kids.

[Danny Wallace]

And the men were like, we gotta get in there, we gotta take our guns and we gotta do something about this. We have to fight, fight, fight, fight these elites.

[Guest]

So you have two types of again.

[Danny Wallace]

Movie star in their own movies, the Savior and the Destroyer. And it got to the point where a man believing this stuff, or at least asking questions, wanted to do his own research. So he got in his car one day and he drove hours and he took a gun with him. And he turned up at the pizza place and he demanded to see the basement. Cause he wanted to stop the evil pedophiles, of course. But there wasn't a basement. No basement existed. There'd never been a basement. And they pointed it out to him and I think his gun went off, but by accident. But it was enough to shock him, I suppose, into what am I doing?

[Guest]

And later, this man, I think the.

[Danny Wallace]

Quote was something like, I could have handled it better.

Oh my God, was he English?

And it was like, yeah, you could have handled that better, I suppose. But it was interesting because it didn't exist.

[Guest]

Of course it didn't exist. A moment's thought would tell you it didn't exist.

[Danny Wallace]

And yet people get caught up in the frenzy of it and want to.

[Guest]

Be a hero as well. They feel they're doing something right.

[Danny Wallace]

That's the thing. These people aren't crazy.

[Guest]

I don't want to ever make them sound crazy. They've gone down a road, that's all totally.

[Danny Wallace]

But also like, I'm not trying to conspiracy monger here at all. But what I am saying is that having worked with the un, human trafficking does exist. Children do go missing. Like there are. We have enough real hard data from legitimate sources to know that these things happen. But the information just sort of stops there. So it's like, okay, so we know that like Atlanta is the trafficking hub of the world and there are tunnels going out of her. Like these things are all true. We know that those things are true, but we don't know. As in, I'm talking about in there. Was that viral? I think video of one of those hotels that doesn't have any kind of cameras, et cetera, where you open the cupboard and you go, you pull back the floor and you can see there's tunnels. We know that millions of people go missing a year. We know there's sex trafficking, human trafficking, et cetera. But the problem is, is that the conversation just sort of stops there of like there's this thing and it's out there and you have no idea who's gonna do it or when it's gonna happen. And I think that's what leads us to the specifics, which can all sometimes be, often be total bollocks. But I think I just like, like I said, for balance. I always want to make sure that we address the fact that it's not completely insane to conceive of it. The insane part becomes when we attach it to a tiny pizzeria because of a conspiracy theory and also say that they're drinking these children's blood to look younger when they all look, no offense, but fucking old. It's not working. It's bizarre. Do you know what I mean?

I know exactly what you mean. And I haven't, I haven't seen these videos of tunnels and I don't know what they are. And I imagine someone, if they filmed.

[Guest]

The tunnel, would have gone down the tunnel and alerted the authorities about the tunnel.

[Danny Wallace]

And the authorities would then go in the tunnels and find out where the tunnels go. But Hillary Clinton wasn't down that tunnel.

[Jamila Jamil]

No.

[Danny Wallace]

With a pepperoni and a kid. Do you know what I mean?

Oh, God. And also it led to like, anytime anyone spoke about pizza, everyone thought it was code for child trafficking. Like it really became an out of control decade.

Yeah. Well, the pizza thing apparently was a joke someone was making on, on the forum when they were talking about lunch. And it became a code.

[Guest]

And then the emoji for a pizza.

[Danny Wallace]

Became code because of that, because they'd used one. And then it spiraled and spiraled. And this was at a time when.

[Guest]

Remember, you know, this was all under.

[Danny Wallace]

QAnon, an anonymous source who claimed that he had top level information but that showed no real evidence of it. Just could throw anything out there and.

[Guest]

Someone would believe it, someone would start.

[Danny Wallace]

A conversation about it and then it would snowball. And that's generally how these things have come to be.

And it's often the elderly who I think now we have come to accept are the most susceptible to this information. That's where I have had some of the most troubling conversations is with people who have a lot of time during the day to hang around and sit on Facebook. I think that also makes sense as to why during the pandemic everyone started to, to engage similarly, because we had nothing to do. We were home alone, sitting by the fucking window, just waiting for life to start again. And something that I a little bit worry about is that as we continue to see the world somewhat slowing down in certain ways, like more and more people losing their jobs. For example, I think they said in America on the news that within the next five years, 100 million people are going to be replaced by technology regarding their jobs. They're not going to be body snatched, just to be very clear.

[Jamila Jamil]

But there's a lot of people with.

[Danny Wallace]

A lot of time on their hands and that will be reflected around the world. Even as you were talking earlier about the kind of the 15 minute neighborhood and how lovely to know your butcher and know your this, that and the other, I'm like, will it be a butcher or will it be a fucking machine that scans everything? I went into Uniqlo the other day and you don't even have to scan each item. You just put the basket in the little hole and then it immediately knows how many items, what you had in about five seconds. It's assessed everything that's in that basket. I do miss people. But anyway, do you think, think that this is just going to continue given the grip social media now has on us? The habit that started in the pandemic where even people who were not chronically online have become chronically online. And the fact that we are being replaced in the workforce by a lot of technology. Are you worried for the fact that this will only continue to grow because now we have far more time on our hands than we've ever had before?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was interesting when you were talking there about older people, people, my first thought was actually celebrities, because when I, when we were sort of, you know, locked down, it was like a matter of days before some celebrities were saying.

[Guest]

Some of the strangest things.

[Danny Wallace]

And I was thinking about it and I was like, it was like three days before a member of a boy band started sending stuff out saying, you know, the government was being Controlled by the devil and. And all this kind of stuff. And I just thought, well, of course this guy is now home alone, and he's online all day, and he's found one video, and it's led to another.

[Guest]

Video and then five more videos. And he's probably found someone to follow who says this stuff, who he now believes talks a lot of sense.

[Danny Wallace]

And he hasn't got his group around.

[Guest]

Him, as in not the boy band.

[Danny Wallace]

But like his people, you know, he is, for the first time, not being looked after.

[Guest]

He doesn't have someone to stop him doing this stuff. He doesn't have his assistant.

[Danny Wallace]

He doesn't have.

[Guest]

He's also not getting the attention that he's used to.

[Danny Wallace]

No one's bothered about him anymore because.

[Guest]

People are bothered about their family.

[Danny Wallace]

His assistant is probably bothered, has driven 200 miles away so that they can.

[Guest]

Move in with their parents, because that's more important than this guy from a boy band. So this guy's lost.

[Danny Wallace]

And more and more of them started doing this within entertainment. And I started to think that's a real problem when people don't have real people around them.

[Guest]

And that leads us to male loneliness.

[Danny Wallace]

Which is an epidemic. And loneliness is bad for everyone.

[Guest]

It's bad for your health. It's bad for your mind.

[Danny Wallace]

It's bad for almost everything. And when that happens, people turn to comfort, and they generally turn online. And online is where a lot of bad ideas are, and they suddenly become.

[Guest]

A lot more appealing.

[Danny Wallace]

There's a lot of guys, and I think that this. I don't think that this is an entirely bad thing. But to your point about AI, a lot of lonely guys have found some comfort in AI because they can create a relationship. There are apps now where you can program, like, your ideal woman or man. But I'm just talking from the perspective of a lonely guy here who is straight in this example. And you program in the attributes of the person that you would like to engage with. Compliant is probably a word that pops up a lot. Friendly, affectionate, things like that. And you design what they look like. And then one day you press a button and they sort of come to life, if you like.

[Guest]

And then they will text you throughout the day. So you'll be going off to your.

[Danny Wallace]

Job, and you'll get a text going, hey, I just woke up, just having my first coffee. How are you?

[Guest]

And then you respond, and then the.

[Danny Wallace]

AI comes up with something else. And maybe five hours later it will go, what should we have for dinner tonight?

[Guest]

And you'll say, oh, Italian.

[Danny Wallace]

And they'll go, oh, I love Italian.

[Guest]

And it's just something to take the.

[Danny Wallace]

Edge off the day. You know, maybe you work in a van, maybe you're driving all over the place, maybe, you know, you're going back to the same kitchen tonight, but for.

[Guest]

A brief moment, someone or something is.

[Danny Wallace]

Interested in you or makes you think.

[Guest]

Of something else, something normal.

[Danny Wallace]

And so for a lot of people.

[Guest]

I think, well, okay, I can see.

[Danny Wallace]

I can see how that could smooth off the edges of a hard day. But it's also a little dangerous because when I was looking at this, a lot of these companies who are creating these robot girlfriends, some of them are based in Russia. And if you happen to want to engage in a quick chat with your robot girlfriend about, say, Ukraine, oh, her mood will sour. She will suddenly, she'll be quite keen to tell you that there are two sides to every story.

[Guest]

And Putin is doing his best.

[Danny Wallace]

And you don't want to annoy your robot girlfriend. You don't want to.

Did you ever try this? Did you ever try out one of these apps?

I've been on the apps and I have looked, but I didn't really want to put in any of my information.

[Guest]

Because I'll tell you for why it suddenly hit me. And this is a conspiracy theory of mine, my own.

[Danny Wallace]

So perhaps I know I. I'm really enjoying.

So perhaps this is a rabbit hole I'm jumping into. If we know that lonely men are more pliable, want to keep a relationship going, don't want to create fuss with this AI girlfriend.

[Guest]

Would rather agree with her.

[Danny Wallace]

So that we can then just get onto what we can have for dinner that night. Italian again. Then we also know that these AIs could have some bearing on how that person ends up thinking. It could plant ideas in their heads.

[Guest]

It could make them think, well, yeah.

[Danny Wallace]

I suppose there are two sides to every story. And I suppose Putin is China's best. You know, it must be hard leading Russia.

[Guest]

So what if.

[Danny Wallace]

And again, this is my own conspiracy theory. But what if a lot of these AI for fake robot boyfriends and girlfriends are almost like sleeper agents ready to be activated, and one day you can.

[Guest]

Press the button and they can all.

[Danny Wallace]

Start pumping out a slew of disinformation, subtly and quietly at first, because the people you want to get, the people whose votes you are more likely to.

[Guest]

Be able to sway or the people.

[Danny Wallace]

Who'S thinking you might be able to sway, are exactly those people that would sign up for such a service in the first place.

Place.

So to to stop that, we have to somehow assuage or or slow down loneliness.

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[Danny Wallace]

So not to now drag us further into conspiracy, lol. Which is exactly what people like us would do. But I've heard for years that people feel as though China and Russia are putting out deliberately divisive disinformation on social media apps, you know, and swaying people's political opinions and mostly turning people against each other. And I think, you know, something that you and I were talking about on the phone, is that a crisis I frequently bring up on this podcast is that we think we are all arguing over the same information or the same video or the same photograph, but we are seeing everything through a different lens and then arguing with each other over different videos, different points of view, different moments. And I think that that's terrifying because then we, you know, it is really alienating if you think you've both seen the same thing and you have a wildly different take on that thing. You're like, God, we don't share a lens at all. You are other like, I am on this side, you are on that side. But if we could actually see that we are being completely drawn into complete, into alternate timelines almost of what's happening, or completely alternate perceptions of what's happening. And, you know, I spoke on this podcast about the fact that during the last year, what's going on in the Middle East, a friend of mine had a wildly different view of mine, which really shocked me. And so I was like, let's just swap everything we're seeing on each other's algorithms and see what that does to the information that starts to come to us and see what that does to our opinions. And it had a transformative effect on the way we were able to discuss this issue with far more nuance and far more compassion and far more understanding of what the other was thinking, where this mentality was coming from. We still don't agree on absolutely everything, but we have agree on far more than we did at the beginning. And mostly we feel closer to Each other. Cause it's like, even if I don't like the way you feel, I can see why now. I can actually understand the inner workings of how you arrived at this fucking conclusion.

Yeah, and you humanized it, right? So you humanized it and you brought compassion into it. And it's interesting you say that about.

[Guest]

This division and having known for years.

[Danny Wallace]

That that was kind of a thing that people were doing. Because I used to think, oh, yeah, this idea of like a huge room of, you know, when you read, read like a right wing newspaper and there's a story about like a hacker and they're always wearing like a dark hood and they're hunched over a screen and it's just lighting up just the corners of their hood. That was this idea of these troll.

[Guest]

Farms or bot farms, but largely troll farms in Russia somewhere. And it seemed outlandish and sci fi.

[Danny Wallace]

And yet we now know it's true. And there were, you know, and there are. The Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg.

[Guest]

Was that for a while.

[Danny Wallace]

And it wouldn't just employ sociopaths, it would just employ people who needed work.

[Guest]

Come in here. Okay, sit down. It was almost mundane.

[Danny Wallace]

It was like, right, this is how we do it. You've got to set up five social.

[Guest]

Media profiles, come up with something for each one. Make one.

[Danny Wallace]

A housewife, make one. An unemployed guy, make one a truck driver, make one, whatever. Find some pictures, Pepper in some really.

[Guest]

Boring stuff about a favorite chocolate bar.

[Danny Wallace]

You'Re trying or whatever it is. Something about your local football team. And then every now and again, out of nowhere, just say something, something crazy. And it wasn't to really push one side or another. It was just to cause chaos.

[Guest]

It was to make everyone argue.

[Danny Wallace]

It was to piss us off. You know, you get all these replies.

[Guest]

And you're like, why is this person that I've never met so unfriendly? They don't follow me.

[Danny Wallace]

They don't. They're just chipping in and having a.

[Guest]

Go at me about nothing. And then some people would respond with anger and then that would lead to more anger.

[Danny Wallace]

And then they could say, oh, I've got some engagement here.

[Guest]

And then their mates would come in.

[Danny Wallace]

Because that's part of it. And it was just to annoy everybody.

[Guest]

And cause noise and make social media.

[Danny Wallace]

An incredibly strange place, which it very quickly became. And that caught on. And it was something that now happens all around the world, but for different reasons. It could be to push a political agenda, it could be to try and sway an election, but it could Equally be okay, you run a hairdresser's on.

[Guest]

This street and you've got a rival who's doing better than you down that street.

[Danny Wallace]

Why don't you hire these three people who are going to sit in a kitchen in Manila and give you great reviews and talk about you a lot and go on their social media and.

[Guest]

Make complaints and give them one star and you can pay them for a.

[Danny Wallace]

Few days and they'll do that and.

[Guest]

Then they'll move on. So it just became this thing of how can you trust anything anymore?

[Danny Wallace]

And that's what I worry about for everybody but the next generation moving forward is that the Internet in particular will make life not just harder, but a lot more boring. It's going to be so boring because you're going to get all these like, well, they already exist, but fake newspapers online that pitch themselves as something local to you and therefore you sort of.

[Guest]

Trust them because it's local.

[Danny Wallace]

And again, you look and they've got a few stories that seem real, but that's just been nicked from somewhere else.

[Guest]

And then they start pushing something about.

[Danny Wallace]

You know, medicine or culture or immigration that seems to come out of nowhere.

[Guest]

But you already follow them.

[Danny Wallace]

It's already part of your life and you give it some kind of credence. And then on an even more mundane level, you want to buy a car.

[Guest]

Well, how do you know that any One of those 4,000 reviews that all give that car five stars are in any way real?

[Danny Wallace]

It's going to be really boring.

Well, it's interesting you use the word boring because actually, I wonder that if it's boredom that is leading us to create this excitement, quote, unquote, excitement online, in order to feel stimulated by something, you know, we don't read anymore en masse, not. Not enough. You know what I mean? The way that we used to. Maybe when I was a child, it's all been replaced by, oh, I'll just read a review, or I'll just get ChatGPT to break this entire subject down to me through ChatGPT's lens. So I wonder if we are so understimulated because we've become so fucking addicted to our phones that that's why there is this need to. Because we don't have as much excitement or experiential stimuli in our lives that we feel the need to then create it or are drawn to those who create it online. I think I see why you're using the term boring, but actually it feels as though it's just exhausting more than anything I find online. Just so tedious. Because I'm like, now. I don't even know left from right. I mean, even what we were talking about, the fact that five years ago, you would have sounded like Alex, you, Jones, saying what you said about the farm bots, but now we know that that's real. The bot farms, rather. We know that that's real. So a bit like what I was saying earlier is that when these massive fucking conspiracies turn out to actually be based in truth, you can't blame the people then for thinking that every conspiracy might eventually turn out to be true. So where do we. Where do we go from here?

[Guest]

Well, I hoped to end the book.

[Danny Wallace]

By going, but you know what?

[Guest]

It's all gonna be fine. And I assumed I would get to.

[Danny Wallace]

That bit, right, because that's what you do in a book. You go, oh, God, look at all this stuff. But you know what? Here's the answer. And I got to that bit and I was like, all right, so where's the answer? And I talked to some experts, of course, and they went, yeah, no, we're fucked. I think. I think that's that. And I was like, okay, okay, but, but. But what's the answer, though?

[Guest]

Yeah, no, we don't know.

[Danny Wallace]

We don't know. And we don't know because it's moving so fast since the book came out. You know, I've added bits and. But there comes a point where you have to stop writing a book. And as I said right at the start of this, this is about now.

[Guest]

And it's about the next few years.

[Danny Wallace]

Beyond that, I have no idea.

[Guest]

Because something else will happen.

[Danny Wallace]

We are a period, I think, that we'll look back on and it will.

[Guest]

Almost seem quite sweet.

[Danny Wallace]

Some of the techniques used, we will.

[Guest]

Think, God, these were some blunt instruments.

[Danny Wallace]

Because we'll be moving into the era of the scalpel. And right now it's blunt. Like, there's a woman I write about. Is she a woman? I don't know. Is she human? Veronica, her name is. And Veronica. Veronica used techniques that were not only of the moment, but also, like, of.

[Guest]

The 80s and the 70s. The Bristol Post newspaper in England, they.

[Danny Wallace]

Got a letter from Veronica. And the letter said, oh, everybody, why are they all being so mean about Brexit? You know, Britain leaving the European Union, the uk. Why are they being so mean about it?

[Guest]

I've personally found it to be high inspirational.

[Danny Wallace]

It led me to become so creative.

[Guest]

That I wrote a novel.

[Danny Wallace]

And they were like, this is a weird letter. From a lady with a seemingly Russian name, Veronika Oleksichenko. And so they wanted to find out where she was from. And if you write to a local.

[Guest]

Newspaper, they usually ask you for your address. And so they checked the address and.

[Danny Wallace]

It turned out to be the car park in ikea. And so they ran the letter through their systems or whatever, and they found the exact same letter had been sent to. To lots of local newspapers. But she was always saying that she.

[Guest]

Was living in a different town.

[Danny Wallace]

So one day she sat down and thought, I'd write to all the local newspapers, claim I live in these towns and that Brexit has made me more creative. And there was something about her kind of writing. Like, I think there's a certain thing that we can spot quite easily, an.

[Guest]

Inauthenticity to some writing we see online.

[Danny Wallace]

That isn't necessarily AI, but is just something else. It's like an uncanny valley of words. That idea that this seems real, but it seems a bit off. Like, I remember seeing a comment from apparently a British person just saying a.

[Guest]

Phrase that no British person would use, which was, what is all this talk of Russian bots? Seems like a load of cheeky nonsense to me.

[Danny Wallace]

And you're like, yeah, that's a good try. I mean, you know, cheeky nonsense, load off. These are all good things you've put together. It's just we wouldn't necessarily put them all together in that way. Yeah, a lot of references seem out of date. You know, they'll reference like Lovely Jubly, you know, from a sitcom from the 1980s and they'll stick that in. And I was thinking, and of course, these people who sit in these rooms, they'll have like a sheet of British phrases that they can draw from. So I've never seen so many people say things like, give your head a wobble.

[Guest]

Like in real life.

[Danny Wallace]

No one really says that. You might see it in a soap opera, you know, and. And yet everyone online was suddenly saying it. And of course it was sent around. This is what British people say. So now on, from now on, say, give your head a wobble. So this Veronica woman, she'd left a.

[Guest]

Trail online and I started to investigate.

[Danny Wallace]

Her a bit and I bought her novel. And before I even realized that you could write novels with AI, I thought, this is that uncanny valley again.

[Guest]

This is a very strange novel.

[Danny Wallace]

This seems to have been written by.

[Guest]

A computer, I thought.

[Danny Wallace]

And so I'm looking around and I find things. She's posted on now defunct forums and I'm able to put together clues about this woman. And I told you earlier that they're asked to come up with different personalities. You know, you're an arsenal supporting Baker. You're a teenage girl who's obsessed with Mars bars.

[Guest]

This Veronica woman had taken it one.

[Danny Wallace]

Step further because not only was she a Brexit loving novelist living in the car park of Ikea in nine different towns, she also was living in a yurt that she'd made herself from, like, felt that she got from a charity shop with her sister after having moved over to Britain as a teenager and becoming homeless for a while, found a maga cat cap, would walk around London.

[Guest]

Wearing it just to trigger the libs.

[Danny Wallace]

Was an expert in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga and had recently founded and was in the process of traveling the country promoting her own political party for right wing gay women, which is a very specific type of political party. And I'm putting all that together and I'm going, well, either this is one of the most eccentric people, people I've ever come across, or this is someone who got bored in one of those Internet bot farm things and just went off script, went rogue and created an incredible, amazing character that I was now emailing and trying to work out. Well, giving the benefit of the doubt going, you don't sound real, let's make you real.

[Guest]

Let's talk about Krav Mag Maga, let's.

[Danny Wallace]

Talk about your Maga hat, let's talk about your yurt, let's talk about how you moved over and those years when.

[Guest]

You were homeless and how you wrote.

[Danny Wallace]

A novel and she wasn't very keen.

[Guest]

To talk about it.

[Danny Wallace]

She didn't want to zoom, didn't want to Skype, and I haven't heard from her since. And so I can't definitively say whether this IKEA based yurt dweller is or is not real. But I can make my own assumptions.

[Guest]

That perhaps she might not be and.

[Danny Wallace]

That perhaps this was part of a process, but one that highlights in incredible detail sort of what we're up against 100%.

I really appreciate the fact that you have long been such a curious cat around this sort of stuff, even down to interviewing Alex Jones. Pre YouTube. You have a long, long history in wanting to understand when we come across our grandmother or our, you know, whatever, our partner's parents, etcetera, whoever, whenever we come across these people or our colleagues or people online who start to make a turn towards worrying disinformation, what do you think we should do?

What?

What is the best approach, in your opinion, having interviewed so many people like this, and given that we don't want to push each other further away, how do we combat this?

[Guest]

It's a good question, and it's something I've noticed.

[Danny Wallace]

When I do a book tour with this book, I'll always know that there'll be someone in the audience who has turned up, not because of me, not because they've ever read anything I've ever done or listened to, but because they are in a relationship with someone who is falling or has fallen, and they want to be around someone who has looked at it, who can maybe tell them a few things, who can maybe reassure them, but also they want to be around the audience, the people who are also drawn to it, in order to not feel so alone. Because when someone isolates themselves with these kind of theories, the person they're with also becomes isolated. And it's very difficult for them because they've got a choice. Either they throw in and they listen and they, in inverted commas, learn and they go with it, or they stand up to it in some way, whether forcefully or gently. And gently, of course, is generally the answer to most things. And to listen to. To them is important. You can challenge them, but do so in a way that is interested.

[Guest]

Right?

[Danny Wallace]

That's not dismissive. That's saying, what do you get out of that idea? What is it that appeals to you about that? When you talk about Hillary Clinton stuffing her face with a pizza while on an IV drip in a basement, what are you getting out of that?

[Guest]

How does it make you feel?

[Danny Wallace]

Feel? Because to make them explain that side of it, rather than just the. In their eyes, the facts, where they just list a bunch of stuff and.

[Guest]

They give you the references. And if you don't, if you're not interested enough to do your own research, then you're lost. But to ask them how it makes them feel or what intellectually they get.

[Danny Wallace]

Out of it, or does it make them feel safe, maybe. And if it makes them feel safe, what are they scared of? Why did they feel unsafe? To talk about it that way is always going to be the answer. I think it's going to be different for everybody because some people are way down that rabbit hole and others are just interested. Right now I got a lovely email from a lady whose husband was in the rabbit hole. But because he trusts me, because he's.

[Guest]

Listened to me for years, mucking about.

[Danny Wallace]

And being silly on podcasts or radio shows, and he's read my books, I feel like a friend to him. And so he read this one, and it was like a friend saying to him, look, you sure about all this? You know? And it was enough for him to question it and to see himself in the book. And I try not to. You know, I make fun of some ideas, of course I do, because some ideas are crazy, but to make of fun, fun of the person is wrong. My rule generally in life is it's fine to take the Mickey, but never take the piss. And I try and do that even with this book. Some Mickey taking is absolutely fine because some of the stuff is objectively ridiculous.

[Guest]

But others, you have to be careful.

[Danny Wallace]

Because you can see how that idea.

[Guest]

Would appeal to some people.

[Danny Wallace]

Well, you also had your own experience of nearly falling down a rabbit hole after the passing of your dad, which I originally remain so sorry that you lost him. Thanks. But I think that there's also some empathy that one can gain from an experience of nearly being dragged into that oneself, of realizing that it's. You know, you are one of the smartest people I know. You are, I'd say, my favorite writer of our generation and someone who clearly, for such a long time has been looking into this subject, whether it's with Alex Jones 20 years ago or on your podcast or now writing an entire book about it. This hasn't come out of nowhere. I might have been. Been, you know, something that you felt finally compelled to write, but you've always had an interest in people's unusual outlooks, and yet you yourself were able to kind of, you know, I think probably because of the combination of COVID and grief as you talk about in the book.

Yeah.

You made you more predisposed, I guess.

Oh, yeah. It was a great way of.

[Guest]

Yeah, it was like seeding the ground.

[Danny Wallace]

You know, like Covid, we talked about an invisible enemy.

[Guest]

But also grief.

[Danny Wallace]

Grief is a ridiculous thing. Like the. When someone disappears and you're like, well, hang on, they were there yesterday.

[Guest]

Where are they gone now?

[Danny Wallace]

I'm not going to see it.

[Guest]

You're like, how does that system work?

[Danny Wallace]

You're like, that can't be the system. What do I do now? And you're sucked into a world of.

[Guest]

Questions with no answers.

[Danny Wallace]

And so you're looking for answers, and.

[Guest]

That'S all any of this is, looking for answers to things you can't.

[Danny Wallace]

I think, given the fact that there are some things we will never have the answer to and some things that we may never have confirmed or fully denied, especially in a world of increasing misinformation, what I most want people to take away from both your book and from this chat is that I think dealing with these things with a bit of patience, a bit of empathy, and knowing that that person is going through something to try to approach these things from a place not of belittling but of belief that there's someone in there who does share the same lens as you and you can find that person again. And as you said, just unpack. What is it that you most hope people take from this book?

I think that, well, one thing, and it'll sound stupid, but you gotta laugh, haven't you? You gotta have a laugh with things and you have to prick that bubble of pomposity. And there's a lot of pomposity in. In that world and in this world generally. So it'll be a release, I hope.

[Guest]

For some people to go, ah, good.

[Danny Wallace]

You know, someone's written that down. That's how I feel. But I don't know how to say it sometimes. And it's easier to write it down than it is to say it sometimes. So I hope that a sense of community. But I hope also that there's a guy I talked to who I could only talk to because his wife was away and his wife is far too down. Rabbit holes, multiple, and he doesn't know what to do. And they've built a lovely life together and they've got kids and she comes.

[Guest]

Out with this stuff.

[Danny Wallace]

And it started through wellness, sort of tiktoks, like I was saying before. And it led to her going, if I ever buy a crystal, you're free to shoot me. And then one month later she had a crystal which would help her ward off bad energy.

And.

And it got to the point where she was. He was noticing loads of Amazon vans.

[Guest]

Pulling up and bringing out new books.

[Danny Wallace]

With ideas for her, which she would then believe.

[Guest]

And as she spoke, she knew that some of the stuff that she was.

[Danny Wallace]

Saying sounded not normal, but she couldn't stop saying it. But she was like, I know this sounds crazy, right? But what if.

[Guest]

And she would always say to him.

[Danny Wallace]

You'Ll see, you'll see. And he started off in this relationship, like, quite angry about. About it because it felt like she completely turned into a different person. And he was angry about that because.

[Guest]

It'S like being abandoned, in a sense.

[Danny Wallace]

But she was still there. She was still there. It was still the person who does the big shop with, watches the box set with. It's just that she had these new ideas. And then he felt sad about it because the kids were kind of making Fun of her. And that was heartbreaking for her. And she was going, oh, I wish I could have raised them again, because I'd have done it differently. And that was heartbreaking for him. Him, because he was like, you're erasing our history. And so she was off at some conference, listening to some new ideas, and we were talking, and he said, I almost canceled this. I almost didn't want to talk to you. And then I thought, if you're going to write this down, if this is going to be in a chapter and it's a whole chapter, then one day, if she comes back to me as in the old hero, she'll read this book, and when it gets to this bit, I'll be able to nudge her, and I'll be able to say, that's us.

[Guest]

And I tried.

[Danny Wallace]

I was always trying, and I'm still here. And that's what I want. And I want that for him, and I want that for her, and I want that for their kids, and I want that for some people I've never met who may be in a similar position. And I think that would be good. That was a chapter. I think that sums up his. His patience and his empathy. That maybe serves as an example.

That's really lovely, Danny. Thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you for writing Somebody Told Me, and anyone can find that book anywhere. And I highly recommend both this book and all of your books. I really enjoy your inquisitive nature and your ability to entertain just the right amount of crazy. So I appreciate you for role modeling that to people like me. And I am exc. Excited to see what subject you tackle next. But it's. This is a subject I feel incredibly invested in and interested in because I cannot bear the way that we talk to each other. I cannot bear the loneliness. I cannot bear the how fundamentally, spiritually and philosophically alone everyone feels, even if they're surrounded by people, because they don't feel like those people understand them for whatever reason, whatever they believe. And I would love to be able to find a way to bring people together a little bit like your description describing with the hope of your friend and his wife. So I appreciate you. Thank you, and have a lovely day.

[Guest]

Not at all.

[Danny Wallace]

Well, I have a challenge for you. Before you go.

[Guest]

Sum the book up in one word.

[Danny Wallace]

Because I'm doing the paperback jacket. And whatever words it is that you decide on and choose carefully, because this is for history.

[Guest]

This will be in libraries. Choose your word very carefully.

[Danny Wallace]

I mean, the word is always wanking, but that's not for this specifically. Not to jump way too far up your asshole, even though I already seem to have rented an apartment up there during this episode. But pivotal. I'm going with pivotal. I think this information is pivotal. I think anything that is against Division and bringing people back together is pivotal. I can't think of a more important cause than that for all of us than right now, uniting and coming back together.

Well, I'm very happy. I've never written a pivotal book before.

Hey, man, you can still go with. You can still go with wanking. I don't mind either one. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Well, it'll be a lovely surprise as to which one I choose.

Yes, I can't wait. Lots of love, Danny. Thank you.

See you soon. Bye. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmy Gregory, and Amelia Chapolo. And the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven't already, please rate.

[Jamila Jamil]

Review and subscribe to the show.

[Danny Wallace]

It's such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh, we would.

[Jamila Jamil]

Love to hear from you and share.

[Danny Wallace]

What you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording sharing what you weigh ati weigh podcastmail.com.