Broken Alliances
One of the things that tends to happen when people follow a podcast is that they become infatuated with the host(s). Especially if they never step back outside of the bubble.
I was talking with friends last night on Discord. We all found each other through being fans of a podcast. However, some of us are also fans of other podcasts, which-as of late- have been at odds with one another. I’m of the mindset that this is healthy discourse but I also see the disruption it is creating from a birds-eye perspective. I’ll stop being so ambiguous and lay out some specifics.
While I was taking my Becoming a Live Player course (hosted by Rebel Wisdom), I remember a day when David Fuller mentioned Bret Weinstein’s role in the Covid narrative. He wasn’t happy about the Darkhorse Podcast approach to providing information about the vaccines as a counter to the narrative that became “everyone must get vaccinated”. Personally, I felt a little defensive going into that breakout room but was happy to hear it when one of my fellow pod members asserted that he liked Bret and Heather, and found their insights to be well thought out. The other pod member was a little more apathetic, while still being able to see things from David’s perspective. Overall the conversation was cordial and productive and we all came away feeling like we had gotten to a mental place that we may not have gotten to on our own.
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I’d been following Bret and Heather Heying for about a year and a half at the time. I knew without any doubt that they were providing an important resource for people by breaking down research articles and telling people how to read and digest them. Academic papers are dense and impossible for some people to follow along with if they don’t know the jargon, so Bret and Heather graciously took time each week to, not only host the podcast, but also answer Q&A for a whole separate hour just after. I have to admit, I became quite the fangirl because they were so nuanced in their approach and also because I have a slight bias toward an evolutionary biology framework, because that was what I was taught to use for my biology degree.
I also really like Rebel Wisdom as I’ve found them to be incredibly skilled at meta-analysis of this undefined space where these fringe podcasts meet. Their goal is to create an experience as opposed to just telling a story, so a lot of their channel is built on panels and nuanced conversations. They also are willing to discuss dangerous topics like psychedelics and the ongoing culture war. I have to admit, I am falling a little flat here because of how this whole thing has transpired since David first brought up the Darkhorse Podcast in a critical light. While I appreciate the fact that I may not have felt compelled to do a self assessment on my level of follower disillusionment had he not been the one to question their motives, I can’t help but feel like he took a really schiesty approach to get me to do that. The weirdest part is, I don’t think it was intentional, I believe he thinks he is justified in his assessment.
I know I sound like a bleeding heart fangirl when I say that Bret and Heather have been through an awful lot before and since they were exiled from the jobs they loved at Evergreen. Few people can know this as well as David because he interviewed them and for a while they were seemingly all good friends. I can also see how some of the people that share my love for the pair take it way too far in the cult direction. I do. I know there are some people who take Bret and Heather’s every word as gospel. But, just like Joe Rogan, they continue to remind people that they are subject to making mistakes. They cannot be held responsible for the opinions of their fans. The onus is upon the viewers to gather information from many sources. But you can’t blame people for being hardliners with Bret and Heather’s track record in deciphering what all the research is really saying.
I honestly thought they were all acting initially, as though they were attempting to model what dialogos would look like in this pandemic discussion space. Instead, I found out that these people that I follow are flawed humans just like me that can become chained to a soapbox. I will never know what the closed door discussions (or lack there of) were like between the duo and David. I do think everyone could have been more gracious to each other’s perspectives and angles. I think David’s meta-analysis capabilities stagnated on this topic because taking a hard-line position such as his does not seem to be in the spirit of ‘play’, as I would expect from one of the original Live Players. I also know we are all stressed the fuck out because there are no adults in the room. Society is looking for a daddy (and a mommy) to tell us which answer is right and who we should believe. The uncomfortable truth that most cannot accept is that, given our fancy new technologies of the 21st century, our capabilities have surpassed our understanding of them.
Just like the IDW failed after it became ‘a thing’, so too have the alliances between fans of these podcasts. They are at each other’s throats about who is right and who should be more careful about what they are sharing with fans. It’s really bizarre because I was under the impression that my fellow listeners were able to have conversations without losing their god damn minds trying to convince me to believe what they believe. People will throw out citations like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade candy, and I would rather we all just come to this discussion with a little more humility. We cannot try to silence people or discredit their motives because we believe we are coming from a moral standing that is greater than others. I believe that David and B&H are stuck in an echo chamber of their biggest fans’ feedback. I believe they have the tendency to think of dissenters as just ‘haters’. I think we, as listeners, should be nuanced in our individual discussions on these topics. But most of all, I believe we all need to turn down the signaling and speak from the heart.
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
