Netflix’s Adolescence, a four-part thriller about a 13-year-old murder suspect, has hijacked Britain’s political conversation. Annie Kelly explains why the series hit such a nerve: it maps the online pipelines that radicalize boys in their own bedrooms, dramatizes the deadly consequences of misogyny, and spotlights the adults too clueless to confront these threats. Within weeks, MPs demanded it be shown in classrooms, tabloid headlines frightened parents over coded emojis, and right-wing investigators branded the show a taxpayer-funded anti-incel psyop involving Sophie from Peep Show.

Come listen as Annie breaks down how virtuosic television managed to inspire breathtakingly cynical discourse about race, youth violence, and fictional portrayals of social issues.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
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Annie Kelly on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/annieknk.bsky.social



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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

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REFERENCES

“Adolescence” and the Right’s War on Men
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/adolescence-and-the-rights-war-on-men/

Not Based On A True Story
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/april/not-based-on-a-true-story

Adolescence: The Manosphere Strikes Back (E322)

People use generative artificial intelligence to troubleshoot technical problems, churn out anime-inspired images based on their personal photos, and drive university professors who teach undergrad courses to the darkest pits of despair.

But are the applications of artificial intelligence limited to worldly matters?

On today’s episode, we discuss how strings of words generated by mindless neural network predictions over tokenized inputs are burrowing into our very souls. First, we speak to Rolling Stone journalist Miles Klee, who recently published a fascinating investigation into people who have fallen into spiritual fantasies because of their conversations with ChatGPT. And then Annie covers how conservative author Rod Dreher sees the devil in AI chatbots.

Have you heard the good news of our lord and savior: byte pair encoding tokenization?

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
https://patreon.com/qaa

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Miles Klee on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/milesklee.bsky.social

People Are Losing Loved Ones To AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/


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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

God, the Devil, and AI feat. Miles Klee (E323)

What happens when conspiracists make their dreams come true by taking over the deep state agencies and cracking them open? FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino's recent shift from conservative radio host to federally-employed “Epstein killed himself“ advocate creates chaos among those who hope for new revelations from newly influential insiders. Joined by Will Sommer of the False Flag newsletter, Jake, Liv, and Travis dissect Bongino's controversial flip-flop, the disillusionment of the MAGA faithful, and Glenn Beck's anguish over the situation.

Meanwhile, James Comey's cryptic seashell Instagram post sparks a numerological panic and a Secret Service visit, mainstream conservative media cozies up to QAnon figures, and Elon Musk signals a pullback from political spending after a major loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
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Will Sommer on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/willsommer.bsky.social

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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com


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SOURCES


The Real Reason Trump World Just Can’t Quit Conspiracy Theories
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/real-reason-trump-world-conspiracy-theories-patel-bongino-maga

James Comey is under investigation for his '8647' Instagram post. What does it mean?
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/16/nx-s1-5400400/comey-trump-8647-investigation-instagram

QAnon Conspiracy Theorist Liz Crokin Claims 'The Simpsons' Are Satanic 'Predictive Programming'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ox1U3uYrY

Thanks to DOGE, Gumroad’s founder has a second job with the VA
https://www.fastcompany.com/91330297/doge-sahil-lavignia-gumroad

What DOGE gets wrong about tech and government
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-doge-gets-wrong-about-tech-and



Bongino’s Epstein Flip Flop  (E325)

“Jaw Clench Study Takes Tax Dollars,” United Press International cautioned in 1975. “‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: Rand Paul Mocks National Science Foundation Studies,” Forbes reported in 2021. “Gov't waste report finds $400K spent to give lonely rats cocaine: 'Absurd',” Fox News told viewers in 2024. 

According to these headlines, a wasteful, woke liberal government has been squandering taxpayer money on something wholly undeserving: frivolous scientific studies. Tens of thousands to millions of dollars, we’re told, are being handed out like candy so scientists can sit around watching monkeys clench their jaws, putting shrimp on treadmills, and give cocaine to rats. And who gets to choose which studies are funded? Wasteful ultra woke organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services. 

It’s true that some research doesn’t end up having much practical relevance––indeed this is the nature of scientific inquiry! There are sometimes cul-de-sacs and wrong paths. But the majority of the time, studies that are trivialized in media and on the Senate floor aren’t superfluous at all. 

While soundbites like “shrimp on a treadmill” might paint a ridiculous picture, they’re also taken out of context, obscuring the scientific merit and moral import of the research and researchers, who work for years on often obscure, tedious lines of inquiry only to have their lives’ work reduced to a cheap punchline by bad-faith demagogues playing to the public’s ignorance and lizard brain impulses. 

So, why is this media and political punchline so popular? And what’s the agenda of the lawmakers and media organizations that denigrate and misrepresent research and science more broadly, and the larger current of conspicuous anti-intellectualism that has always been present in American political culture, but in the last ten years has entirely taken over the modern American Right? 

On this episode, we discuss the decades-old, anti-intellectual gambit of mocking and attacking the “frivolous study,” examining how it warps and devalues science and international cooperation in a broader effort to defund public institutions, both scientific and otherwise.

Our guest is Brenda Ekwurzel, Senior Director of Scientific Excellence at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Ep 221: Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism

RFK Jr. is now running the Department of Health and Human Services. So we sat down with journalist and Conspirituality co-host Derek Beres to get an idea about how long it will take for Kennedy’s "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda to revive the black plague. 

We chat about why Beres argues that Kennedy's wellness-sounding platform masks an exclusionary health vision which amounts to “soft eugenics,” RFK Jr’s endorsement of the MMR vaccine and how this angered his followers, harmful narratives about autism which will probably be endorsed by the federal government, and how the MAHA Commission's AI-generated report doesn’t seriously address health problems facing children.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
patreon.com/qaa

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Derek Beres on BlueSky
https://bsky.app/profile/derekberes.bsky.social

Conspirituality Podcast
https://www.conspirituality.net/

Re:frame substack
https://derekberes.substack.com/

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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com


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SOURCES


Maga’s era of ‘soft eugenics’: let the weak get sick, help the clever breed
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/04/maga-soft-eugenics

Florida becomes second state to ban adding fluoride to drinking water
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/15/florida-fluoride-drinking-water

Health secretary RFK Jr. endorses the MMR vaccine — stoking fury among his supporters
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5354900/hhs-rfk-endorses-mmr-measles-vaccine-stoking-supporters-fury

RFK Jr. Misleads on Autism Prevalence, Causes
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/rfk-jr-misleads-on-autism-prevalence-causes/

Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26092033/

Effectiveness of fluoride in preventing caries in adults
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17452559/

National COVID-19 trends, May 27
https://thesicktimes.org/2025/05/27/national-covid-19-trends-may-27/

The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist
https://www.notus.org/health-science/make-america-healthy-again-report-citation-errors


MAHA Mia! feat. Derek Beres (E326)

Donald Trump “re-truths” a ludicrous claim about the former President, while being attacked by former bestie Elon Musk.  Travis explores historical body doubles that got away with it… kind of.  Jake wonders if movies are to blame.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
https://patreon.com/qaa


Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com




QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.


Body Doubles (E327)

After some not inconsiderable preamble, we look at two Kentucky-specific stories today: one about a New Age guru roofing magnate, and another about the Kentuckian millionaire who tortured another millionaire for bitcoin in Manhattan

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 396: Rat-Tail King Of Kentucky

For this special bonus episode we're joined by Jason P. Woodbury from Aquarian Drunkard's Transmissions podcast, to talk about everything from Christian music, to the Michael Tait allegations, to the mystic/freak-folk scene of the mid-2000s, to the crossovers between Ufology and Christianity

Please go check out Jason's podcast on iTunes or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ErL7gvZD6v3HJ4Nx5oexm

And support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Too Much Goodness Is A Sin Today (w/ special guest Jason P. Woodbury)

Taxi driver Arty (Andrew) picks up passengers (Branson, Charles) who divulge their deepest secrets and darkest truths.

Chicago live show on Friday, August 1. Get tickets: https://bit.ly/3SIzb4g
Ending song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzrTWiY-5s
E1 on Patreon: www.patreon.com/e1podcast

393 - Taxi Cab Truths

After a week of fun in Philadelphia, we take sobering stock of what's left of the presidential campaign after the conventions with Dan O'Sullivan (aka @Bro_Pair). What can Umberto Eco teach us about Donald Trump and fascism and why do the Democrats and Hillary Clinton seem so unable to responds to the threat represented by a figure like Trump? Trigger Warning: Despair. 

Big thanks again to our hosts from Philly, @captainfreiheit & @BaltimoreMatt

SUBSCRIBE TO CHAPO GET AN EXTRA SHOW A WEEK: www.patreon.com/user?u=3343736

Ellipsis... Gallery: http://www.artellipsis.com/

Umberto Eco's "Eternal Fascism" : http://interglacial.com/pub/text/Umberto_Eco_-_Eternal_Fascism.html

Episode 27 - Tomorrow Belongs To Them feat. @Bro_Pair (8/1/16)

We examine Joe Biden's "Corn Pop" saga through the lens of a few classic Chapo characters, then lament how Biden's long history of seemingly genuine nice guy-ness is undercut by his equally long history of shit politics. Also, the President just fully admits that Saudi Arabia directs our foreign policy by fiat, so that's cool and good.

Watch our Necronomicon Call of Cthulhu show here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUHsEpiT0g

Catch Felix's Fighting in the Age of Loneliness screening & Q&A here: https://t.co/V8uIoukpaI?amp=1

And get tickets to see Felix with the Yeah, But Still boys in DC this friday here:https://kennedycenter.sched.com/event/SlrU/yeah-but-still-podcast-with-brandon-wardell

Chapo Trap House

350 - Gotta Have My Pop! (9/16/19)

Conspiracy theories, melted online communities and cursed media — we pry open the cracks in consensus reality and journey into the hidden worlds below. The QAA Podcast is a mix of reporting, comedy, and history hosted by Jake Rockatansky, Travis View, and Julian Feeld along with co-hosts Annie Kelly, Liv Agar and Brad Abrahams. Formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.