Webworm with David Farrier

Calvin is seven, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. In today's podcast, Calvin watches and then immediately reviews Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I hope you enjoy it. It’s Calvin, being interviewed by his dad Rob. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

The internet isn’t just full of bad ideas: It’s dying. The idea of a dead internet isn’t new, and full disclosure — it started life as its own conspiracy theory. Dead Internet Theory posits that most of the internet is just bots — and that these bots are being used to manipulate the human population. While I don’t see some grand scheme playing out online to infect the internet with garbage, I think it’s happening organically and it’s happening fast. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Webworm regular Hayden Donnell with an essay about the incompetent executive class. Much has been written about the structural factors accelerating the media’s demise. Tech giants have hoovered up its ad revenue like the sandworms from Dune. Its audiences have migrated to TikTok, or worse, X, where they routinely mistake the deranged inner monologue of @MAGAJackie28743781 for objective journalism. Less has been written about the incompetence of the media’s executives. Vice was home to some of the world’s most principled and talented journalists, but it was also run by cartoonish charlatans who blew half the op-ex on jobs for their friends, cocaine and general horndoggery. Mostly though, media bosses have demonstrated more mundane strategic ineptitude. Enjoy the episode, and see you in the comments over at https://www.webworm.co/p/buffoons This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 14: In this episode, David Farrier reads some feedback from Webworm readers, before Hayden Donnell witnesses the "comeback" of Arise's John Cameron, as John attempts to speak in tongues. This is a look at how Pentecostal Christians tend to be a tight club - and how staging a comeback is part and parcel of anyone's fall. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 13: "I talk to the guy behind Paul T Goldman, 2023's best documentary". David chats with Jason Woliner, creator and director of Peacock's PAUL T GOLDMAN. Visit www.webworm.co for more, and to join journalist David Farrier's Webworm community. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 11: "The Life and Death of P22". A mountain lion walked the streets outside my house, and now it's dead. I'm curious what this fact says about us, and our relationship to nature. This includes an interview with journalist Rob Chaney, author of The Grizzly in the Driveway. For more details see https://www.webworm.co/p/episode11 This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 8: Arise & Me: Not a Love Story. It’s been a while since we talked about Arise megachurch. I figured it was time for an update. I also became curious what Arise leaders, and the board, thought of me since I started writing about them in April of last year. I am not a mindreader, so I decided to do the next best thing: I made a Privacy Act request, asking for all Arise emails, texts and electronic correspondence mentioning “Webworm” or “David Farrier.” All Webworm and reporting about Arise can be found here: https://www.webworm.co/p/megachurch. Please sign up for the Webworm newsletter for my reporting direct to your inbox: https://www.webworm.co This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Hi, Hope the weekend went well. I had a blast reading your stories under my secret societies newsletter. Especially loved this from Steff: “In university I won a ‘Freemason’s Scholarship’, which is hilarious because I had to go to an interview with 10 masons — and I’d just seen the movie From Hell, and all I wanted to talk about was conspiracy theories. I won, and I got invited to attend a dinner at their Auckland lodge with my mum and my best friend. So we go off to find the bathroom, and she goes “look at this” and pulls me behind a curtain and through a door and into their secret meeting chamber. And it looks like a movie set! I just couldn’t get over how simultaneously cool and silly it was. Like, all those lovely old men I met at dinner really hang out in here? Why don't they just go bowling?” I loved chatting to you in the comments over the weekend, and after that I chatted to New Zealand journalist Kim Hill about what the hell is going on with New Zealand’s conspiracy scene — you can listen to our conversation here. As for today — it’s time for a Webworm podcast. I wanted to try something every now and then where I share a piece of my writing from earlier in my career. I have stuff scattered in a variety of places — old laptops and computers, USB sticks (remember them?) and of course Google Docs. Today’s piece was originally published on the 3News website, back when I was a journalist in New Zealand. The website no longer exists, so neither does this piece — except, I found it in my Google Docs folder. I enjoyed revisiting it, so — like when Stephen King releases a new edition of The Stand — I decided to clean it up a little, add a few paragraphs, and re-release it into the world. I just compared myself to one of America’s greatest writers. Not arrogant at all. This one is a medical mystery; a rabbit hole I never expected to go down. Trigger warning: if you’re squeamish, this might make you a bit squeamish. Nonetheless — I hope you enjoy it. Let’s travel back to 2015. David. Pulling on a Mysterious Thread UFOs, chemtrails, shadowy government agents. The phone-calls usually start around 9pm. People call the newsroom with information they desperately want to tell you; information they can’t give to anyone else. Their stories are similar and familiar — and always filled with paranoia and conspiracy. One man insists the government has put an implant in his brain, using it to track his every move. A woman calls up insisting she’s been systematically abducted by aliens for the last 15 years. People call the newsroom — often me specifically — because they see it as their last opportunity to be understood. Or at least be heard. The police are no help. Doctors and medical professionals have turned them away. Most of them don’t even want to consider writing to the government, because the government’s in on it. They want to talk to the open-minded reporter. None of these callers are looking for answers, because they already have the answers. Their problem is that no one will listen to them. These far-flung stories don’t always come over the phone. Increasingly, people direct their story to my Facebook inbox or my Twitter DMs. People like Andy: And Andy started telling his story. It was involved and complex, full of names, dates and allegations. The messages arrived in my inbox in a steady stream. 10… 20… 86 messages by the end of the day. It was unrelenting and I didn’t know where to start. He claimed many troubling things, but there was no way to verify any of his claims. And then he started talking about the threads. I paused when reading this, and then I re-read it, just to clarify. I didn’t quite get it. Threads? I don’t know what he is talking about. I can’t picture it. Andy is very candid about it: “It’s not normal to be able to pull threads out of your chest. I’ve got wounds everywhere”. Andy tells me he didn’t used to have wounds everywhere. He sent me a “before” photo, from January 2014: A topless,...

Hi, I had my first surfing lesson this month. I wasn’t very good. It started off okay: I was pretty good at paddling, and smashing through some (tiny) waves to get out. I managed to keep by surf board straight, and I could up sit up and turn around pretty quickly. I could even paddle and catch a wave. The problem was standing up. How in God’s name are you meant to stand up? What, you’re meant to go from this wonderful lying down position to magically standing and balancing while a wave threatens to smash down around you? In other news I had a great time and got a very chafed pink belly. It was some escapism from a month that seemed doomed. The Delta variant has been making its presence known. US hospitals are stretched. Nine Inch Nails cancelled all their shows that I was looking forward to seeing (wise), and New Zealand has gone into a nationwide lockdown (also wise). And in the midst of this, the UN’s “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” released a new report that felt like a swift punch to the face. Their reports are usually sobering reading, but this one was horrifying. A “code red for humanity” is how UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it. The climate right now is warmer than it has been in about 125,000 years. And it’s just going to keep getting worse with more droughts, wildfires and floods. We aren’t on target to stop something that now seems all but inevitable. All this was running through my head as I walked to the beach, preparing to be pummelled on my board. The sun was unrelenting, and the literal cliff to my left was a fitting metaphor for humanity’s approach to the crisis we all face. And the question running through all of our heads? “What the fuck can we do about it?” When it comes to talk of the environment, many of us are trying to do out bit. We throw our recycling in the right bin, we use those re-usable bags at the supermarkets, and maybe we try and walk to the shops instead of drive. All the things we’ve being told will help save the planet. But we’re not making a lick of difference. It’s futile, apart from making us feel good about ourselves. We are — as today’s guest Joshua Drummond writes — being denied climate agency. Because we’re trapped in a system that makes it utterly impossible to make a difference. Josh has written for Webworm before, about what QAnon has in common with Evangelical Christianity. That piece seems relevant again this week, as City Impact Church held a “special meeting” for the pastor to spread anti-vaxx messaging in New Zealand. But today, Josh writes about our total lack climate agency and how that makes us feel utterly unhinged. He also offers some ideas about what we can do. It’s a great essay, and I’m so glad to leave it with you for weekend reading. Or listening, in its podcast form. David. If you want more Webworm and to support the work I do here, you can become a monthly or yearly paying member. Only consider doing this if it doesn’t cause you any financial hardship! Imprisoned in a System That Won’t Let Us Act Sanely. an essay by Joshua Drummond I jumped off a cliff once. Everyone else was doing it. It was at Northland waterfall, and I was about 17. The place was a popular swimming hole and there were quite a few spots my mates and I would jump off and do bombs, but there’s one particular bit where — if you get enough of a run-up — you can clear the cliffside and plummet a height even greater than the falls. My mates and I worked up to it. I didn’t go first; I’ve never been great with heights, but I wanted to prove myself. Plus, I have an innate practical streak that wants to see if someone else is going to get impaled before I jump into murky water myself. They jumped, they didn’t die, it was my turn. I jumped too. I didn’t regret it immediately; that came about a tenth of a second in, when gravity grabbed my guts in an unclenching fist and squeezed and twisted and pulled down. It was a visceral lesson; the laws of physics are a...

Hi, I’ve decided to launch a Webworm podcast, and I wanted you to be the first to know about it. God, how many times that phrase been uttered: “I’ve decided to launch a podcast.” Good Lord. Okay — so let me explain the “Episode 5” thing. When Webworm started, I experimented with four podcast episodes last year. I’ll list those at the end, as they’re all available along with today’s episode. But as of today I formally, officially and excitedly launch the audio component to Webworm! I’m going to use it to complement the written content here when it feels appropriate. When it feels exciting. When it feels — not to get too pretentious — worthy. And so I did a long read of Jez Brown’s heartfelt, horrifying and somehow hilarious essay on having Long Covid. I wanted to see how it would be in audio form. I want Jez’s story to have fresh legs, so people can listen in their cars or while they clean the house. It’s an experiment, and I want to see how you feel about it. You can listen to this episode in this email — it’s embedded in this newsletter — or you should be able to find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. I’ve been enjoying Armchaired and Dangerous so much with Dax and Monica (see below for details of our upcoming live show), so I figure Webworm can have a little podcast life, too. As a subscriber you will always get it in your inbox first. An extra thanks to paying subscribers (seriously, dear God, thank you!) who give me the resources and time to build this thing. I’d love to take your feedback in the comments below. Webworm will always be a written thing — I want you to be able to read it on your phone while you’re in bed or on the bus or at the beach — but I figure audio will be fun to play with. Some stories and interviews may even work better in audio form. Here are the previous episodes from last year: Episode #1: a week of conspiratorial madnessEpisode #2: The Sloppy Nonsense of conspiracy theoriesEpisode #3: “Make up something fucking new, so that I can actually give a shit!”Episode #4: I love The Boys because it features a psychopath with strong hints of Trump So welcome to the Webworm podcast. Big thanks to Aaron Short for doing the theme music. You’re great and your love of dogs is eternal and awesome. Armchaired and Dangerous: Live While we’re talking podcasts — we’re doing a live Armchaired and Dangerous in Salt Lake City on Thursday September 16th. Tickets go on sale tomorrow. You’ll be able to get them here. Dax, Monica and I will see you then, Utah! And if you’re in LA on Sunday August 22nd, I’ll be making a brief appearance on stage with Chuck Tingle at his show. You can find details here. It’s sort of a secret that I am popping up, but I am telling you because I want to. If you’re in LA come say hi! Keep it a secret, okay! An update on Dr Dan - and some some reader feedback Earlier this week I wrote about Dr Dan, a medical professional who since January has been talking a lot about hydrogen peroxide, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as potential Covid treatments on his Facebook and Instagram pages. He also looked nearly identical to Jason Schwartzman which is kinda cool. After that piece — his Facebook account already disabled — he shut down his Instagram account as well: As I mentioned in my piece, I wrote to the New Zealand Medical Council enquiring about the statements and studies he’d posted on his social media. They sent back this comment, attributed to Dr Curtis Walker, Chair, Medical Council of New Zealand: Council takes it very seriously when it becomes aware of any doctor who spreads medical misinformation, which includes anti-vaccination messages. Council notes that the information is no longer publicly available on Dr Quistorff’s social media platforms. The Medical Council recognises that the expert medical advice and scientific evidence strongly support that the COVID-19 vaccination is safe, effective, and necessary to overcome the global pandemic. Our role is to...

In today’s Webworm I talk to Ant Starr, fellow New Zealander and star of The Boys — one of my favourite graphic novels, and more recently — favourite TV shows. It’s the antidote to every Marvel film ever made in that it’s surprisingly violent, incredibly dark, and fucking funny. And my friend Ant plays Homelander, an All-American psychopath who reminds me a lot of Donald Trump. I am not alone in this: “A lot of my character has been based on Donald J Trump, so there is a lot of that extremist rhetoric, whipping the right into a frenzy!” Ant says during our wee chat. Even Garth Ellis, who created The Boys alongside Darick Robertson, had this to say: “He is really just a series of unpleasant urges kept in check by his own intelligence, which is enough to understand that he can have anything he wants so long as he doesn’t push his luck too far. It might help to think of the Homelander as having all the self control of, let’s say, a fourteen year old.” I’m beyond happy Ant wanted to be on Webworm. I’m a fan of his. He isn’t afraid to say what’s on his mind. As usual, I’ve transcribed key bits of our conversation below — in case you hate podcasts, or simple hate my voice. At the end of this newsletter, you’ll find the show-notes — which links to the things we talked about! I hope you dig Ant as much as I do. David. PS - You’ll notice Webworm’s audio edition now has a theme-tune! Thanks Aaron Short! Hey Ant. How are you man? I’m really good. It’s nice to be talking to you. It’s nice to be listening to your accent. Where in the world are you? I’m stuck in LA for the foreseeable future. I didn’t get out before COVID and it’s just too difficult to get home at the moment. At least it’s sunny over there. It is. As Bill Hicks once quipped, it’s perfect weather for fucking lizards! Honestly dude, I am lucky. Touching wood. No-one that I know who I am close to has come down with bug and I am okay, so it could be a lot worse. I think everyone is kind of waiting for the vaccine to be the miracle saviour, but I am not sure it is doing to be. I was talking to a doctor, and he said the vaccine is not necessarily the saviour everyone thinks it will be. No-one knows once we get it how long it will last. It’s a minefield. And I think people are still coming to terms with the fact that this thing isn’t going to disappear and we are living in a world where this is around for awhile and we have to learn how to cope with that. And it’s like with most of these things where people are faced with uncertain outcomes: we all want answers. When something is scary we want the answer now, and I think this is one of those things where the answers just aren’t here immediately — and that’s just going to take time. It puts people in a very unstable position but hopefully we can get through it. Where are you, mate? I am in New Zealand, working remotely. It’s funny, because you always want to be where you are not. I would love to be in Los Angeles right now, especially running up to election time where it feels like — what a place to be for that. And New Zealand is lovely but it’s also very… slow. And I think Jacinda Ardern has handled this situation here so well, I feel very safe, but it’s also just so mellow and so I am sort of jealous of you with these front row seeks to the chaos! It’s interesting. I hear what you are saying. I mean heading home to New Zealand is like going back in time 20 years. And it’s sweet and it’s nice, and I don’t know any other airport that plays birdsongs as you walk through the welcoming area. They still do it! It’s so cute! But you’re right, it’s a pretty surreal moment in time that we are right in. Front row seats over here. And it is quite bizarre. There are a lot of people hurting. And there is a lot of weird shit going on. Just where I am, locally — I tell you, a friend of mine has this crime watch app. It tells you any crime in the area. And it’s just almost like an old “ding” every-time, like an old...

These are the words of Joseph Uscinski, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. I spoke to Joe for Webworm, and our conversation made me wonder if things aren’t quite as fucked up as they seem. So I guess today’s newsletter is… hopeful, somehow? Joe Uscinski wrote American Conspiracy Theories (an excellent book) and as you probably gathered from the title, he’s very passionate about conspiracy theories. He’s a member of the University of Miami U-LINK team, which combats online extremist conspiracy theories, and also does a fuckload of survey work for the likes of the Pew Research Centre. In short, he really has his finger on the pulse about what Americans believe. And as debate raged about the possible identity of Q this week, I wanted to talk to Joe about how widespread the believe in QAnon actually is, and how worried we should be. I wanted to know the scale of the problem. I really like Joe. He’s well educated and opinionated — and he’s also a great speaker. Right now, he’s in hot demand. I accidentally Skyped him on the wrong day, and he sounded upbeat but also kinda exhausted. He’d just done six American press interviews in a row, most of them about QAnon. When I reconnected, I really loved our conversation. I think my kiwi accent threw him a little, and there were a lot of laughs as we talked. The podcast version of this newsletter is really fun. He swears quite a bit. In short — we kinda disagree on some things — but I knew we would. He thinks the problem of people disappearing down conspiratorial rabbit holes is no worse than it’s ever been. That it’s exactly the same. Joe told me social media isn’t to blame. I struggle with this, but he’s smart and I wanted to hear him out. We also agreed on a lot of things, including the bit where he yelled at me: “This is a plea to the conspiracy theorists - make up something fucking new, so that I can actually give a shit at this point! Because it is so boring, oh my God!” I found this conversation fascinating, and at times confronting. I hope you enjoy it. Like all the content here on Webworm, this edition is possible thanks to subscribers. They fund the work here, and also get access to bonus newsletters and podcasts. If it doesn’t cause you financial hardship, you can sign up here to stay across future episodes: You can consume our conversation in two ways: a podcast you can listen to (above), or a written version you can read (below). Take your pick. David. Joe - you are a polls expert. Take it away! Just to give you a rundown of the polls in this country, I will tell you the brief history of why I started polling QAnon, because it wasn’t even something I was paying attention to in mid-2018. It got brought to my attention, largely from a little bit of online harassment that I got from these Q people! They went through all my pictures on Twitter and decided to make a collage suggesting I was a satanic sex trafficker. It was the dumbest pictures they picked — and of course they found one of me wearing red socks, and the red socks mean you are a sex trafficker, or eat babies, or something like that. At that point I thought, “OK, let’s see what’s happening here.” And what happened very quickly in late July of 2018 was that some people wore QAnon tee shirts to a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida — my home state. And because of that, QAnon got a tonne of media coverage, in all the major newspapers. So I decided I was going to run a poll in Florida. And I thought “why don’t I throw QAnon on here, and just see what happens?” And a lot of people didn’t know what it was, and it was not rated very highly. So we said “how would you rate the QAnon movement on a scale from zero to 100, where 100 is “you really like it” and zero is “you really hate it.” It came out with about an average of 22. And to put that in perspective, it was about a point higher than where Floridians rated Fidel Castro! And if you know anything about Florida, it’s...

In this Webworm episode, I talk to science fiction writer Sonny Whitelaw — who after writing some Stargate books, discovered some fans thought Stargate was very, very real. We discuss what this says about conspiracy theory culture in 2020. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

This was not planned; it was not expected. But I turned my mic on, and just decided to reflect back on this unhinged week of conspiratorial madness. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe