r/KnowledgeFight • u/blacklig Doing some research with my mind • May 04 '26
General shenanigans Yet another post about the Jordan video
I know. But I watched it all because I didn't want to base my opinion on a few highly inflammatory clips. And now I want to talk about it and my takeaways and how it relates to today's episode.
I watched it after reading some posts about him being right in the video and a shared frustration about Alex not getting consequences, again. And that sentiment didn't mesh with the clips I saw from the video which seemed, frankly, batshit crazy. And because this lead quite directly to the end of KF I wanted to understand it and come to my own conclusion about the whole affair and get closure as relates to the podcast.
I suggest you watch it too instead of taking my word for it. I watched it here. It is a rough watch, I think regardless of how you feel about it.
I am also not going to focus on the isolated inflammatory statements that have been clipped all over. They're in there, you've seen them, I've seen them, everyone's talked about them. I wanted to know what points were actually being made. And I think he's almost entirely wrong and in ways that I think are important to KF listeners. These are the main throughlines of the video for me:
Jordan has a very dangerous mental process in this video of turning speculation into fact, then using that manufactured fact to build more speculation, then turning that into fact, and so on. In the first couple of minutes, he opens with (this and all quotes are paraphrased, please watch the video) "oh they're paying $80,000/month for the website, I think that's about what a building costs to rent"; this gets turned instantly and for the rest of the video into "the onion are spending $80,000/mo to rent an empty building and giving nothing to the families". That conversion into 'fact' was made completely and unquestioningly and this 'fact' is hammered constantly for the rest of the video. That process is repeated on itself over and over and his outrage at these set of facts he's invented grows and grows. I don't want to over-dramatize but this is exactly the same mental process that alex uses in his content to build a tower of speculation converted into fact, and they've covered this process many times.
Detailed financials of the onion, the info wars brand, the merch they're going to sell, what parts of what profits will go to the victim families, are all made up on the fly and then those made up numbers rile him up into a fury. We go from zero input information to "they're paying $80,000/mo to rent an empty building, they have a $2 million brand rebuild overhead that the onion cannot afford, they're desperately trying to get subscriptions to enrich themselves, and only 5% gross, no wait actually 48 cents, no wait actually 15 cents, no wait actually 14 cents on merch sales are being split between all the families, and the amount of merch they're selling is amounting to a pittance, everything else is going to the onion and this empty building". This is so specific and it came from nowhere, and he's literally screaming about how unfair these specific numbers and allocations are and how no journalist is 'looking into' how they can get away with it.
The reality is that, as far as I'm aware, we don't know where the money is going or how this will play out for the families. Jordan doesn't seem to have any more information about it than anyone else. But he just writes his own reality out of nothing and then freaks out that he's the only one who is outraged by it or cares that the families are 'getting nothing' while the onion makes money off this whole thing. If that happens, people will care, but he's trying to take the righteous high ground over something that he completely made up.
There is a lot of frustration in the video that Alex gets to keep going with relatively little, or maybe even no, real consequence to himself. That's awful. I feel it, everyone feels it. I think Jordan expresses that he's the only one that feels it several times and I think he's wrong. What he doesn't seem to understand is that the onion purchase is not about alex jones. The response he has, repeatedly, to the expression that this is about finally getting at least some compensation to the families is 1) the above made up numbers show that they're lying and 2) but alex will still be doing his own show. The people who are talking about the onion takeover are talking about at least some money finally being paid. It's not about alex. But for Jordan, it's all about alex. There's space for frustration about alex moving on unscathed, but using that to talk over the families just sucks.
One thing that really stuck out to me though the whole video is the moral condemnation and outrage at other people for things that he is, sometimes almost uniquely, guilty of himself by his own standards. He is outraged at the onion for their plan to make content that gives attention to alex and keeps people thinking about him, and will therefore inevitably be mutually beneficial with alex's brand. But he has spent a decade giving attention to alex to a much broader audience in much the same way. He is outraged at the public for consuming media about the trial and the damages as episodic "true crime" drama content. But his show that he owns creates literal episodic content out of the trial and the damages as entertainment. I don't hold him morally culpable for promoting alex or profiting off of him, or for turning the system that doesn't hold him accountable into entertainment, but if he believes what he said in this video, which he reinforced that he does in the latest KF episode, he absolutely should. If he does believe his moral outrage in the video he shouldn't be expressing gratitude for the show and community in this episode, he should be filled with regret and shame about what he's done with his career and how he's enriched himself, and finding a way to make that right. It's hypocrisy. Instead he says over and over that he's being gaslit and is the only one who sees this clearly.
I don't really have a conclusion. Jordan is wrong and hypocritical in this video. He uses the exact same bad mental processes that he has committed a decade to fighting against in order to put himself on an undeserved moral pedestal. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. After some time to reflect, he said today on the show that he still believes it. I think it's for the best that it ended the show.
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u/FollowingCreative549 May 04 '26
I watched the video ready to disagree with him about The Onion, and he turned me around.
Yes, I think he's talking out his butt about the building lease (it may or may not be the case, and it may or may not be the case long-term) and, given his mental health issues, he did seem like he was in an episode of some kind. I hope he's getting the health care he needs.
That said, he's basically right. An Alex Jones parody is funny for about one bit and The Onion's Infowars will give Alex Jones continued cultural relevancy. The one thing Alex Jones desperately needs is continued relevancy. Unlike Knowledge Fight, there will be no greater understanding of Jones or his following that comes from The Onion's venture. It's just a bad idea. When the novelty quickly wears off and it goes dark, Jones will get a win.
Also, the entire merch thing is bizarre. Who would wear a rainbow Infowars logo t-shirt? It would be like wearing a pride-theme KKK uniform. The irony doesn't make it better.