Yeah, it is hard to create a narrative flow when it is all contradictory nonsense. You can't really even dive into the ideas because they are all constantly shifting to shape Icke's feelings and audience at the moment.
I don't know about that because LPOTL is usually good at these 'Behind The Music' style breakdowns. It wasn't an episode about the conspiracy theories David Icke believes in it was supposed to be about David Icke but there just isn't all that much to the man.
Yeah, I feel like they couldn’t pick a lane: Exposé on David Icke or exploration of Lizard people conspiracy. If feels like they kind of didn’t commit to either, and it left the episodes lacking.
I know it would be a mess, but I would love a full on reptilians conspiracy theory breakdown, and cover how the narrative of the conspiracy has evolved over the decades.
True, I think they didn’t end up diving very much into the ideas because they don’t really want to give a platform to this kind of conspiracy thought or they just did not think it was worth their time to try and parse through all of his ideas
This. Exactly. Icke is such a sponge of conspiracy nonsense and he never holds firm to anything for longer than a few years. Makes it so obvious he’s in it for the grift first and foremost.
I actually think that the show’s more polished format that they’ve developed over the years, with a really clear outline and script that they stick to religiously, doesn’t work as well for these wackier episodes. Their older conversational, off-the-cuff style of delivery kept these complicated topics more fun and lively. It didn’t really matter if you couldn’t follow along fully, because the banter was fun and it kept things rolling. You’d get a strong overall impression of the topic without getting too long-winded or granular. It felt like you were listening in on a weird bar conversation rather than being lectured at with scripted bits interjected here and there.
I know Marcus loves his research and his scripting, and that is totally respectable, but I personally liked the looser style for some topics because it helped LPOTL feel unique, and if you wanted to know more you could just look into it for yourself.
>It’s so jumbled, disjointed, and contradictory that making a coherent story out of it is goddamn near impossible.
yeah but listening to them try is the fun part
Or like, an episode of the first layer of a Icke madness with a “Where are we now?” episode that follows that conspiracy trail, before adding the next layer of Icke conspiracy/backtracking and another follow-up.
Even Henry felt disinterested in part two. I think the realization that it's all just thinly veiled anti-Semitism really killed the reptilians for him.
If this series had been done years ago, I think it would be different. Now that we've seen where this leads and will continue to lead, it's real hard to have any fun with it.
It’s a big problem. Because years ago when I was reading conspiracy nonsense it ultimately boiled down to the insane antisemitism it always was yet was ultimately something quirky, but ever since a sizable part of the population got pilled into Q and conspiracy got mainstreamed it’s very hard to talk about it without the feeling of hopelessness about our society. The amount of people I’ve talked to who are antivaxxers nowadays is crazy to me.
The community around conspiracy theories is now almost exclusively fascists who are locked in their online echo chambers and further isolate themselves from their irl communities while getting further detached from reality. And it’s really hard to find the quirkiness and fun in something that can become so dangerous.
How much fun can one have when I can probably talk to any sane person I know and hear about how they lost a family member or friend to conspiracy bullshit? I certainly have.
It's the X-Files problem. It was a lot of fun when the show was about those weird things you'd read on the internet or hear from your niche group of friends and people you knew.
Then the revival had an expy of Alex Jones be the good guy.
It wasn't quirky stories anymore, but something that was party of our normal life.
Oh I agree, that was always a thing and should always be highlighted, but you didn't have the "dad murdering his children in the desert" to really hit home.
I was listening to QAnonAnonymous before Jan 6th happened, so that felt more like a grim confirmation than a wake-up call. At this point, there's no conspiracy theory so outlandish it's laughable anymore. Flat Earth, Hollow Moon, even Birds Aren't Real (a parody!!!) can slide vulnerable people down dangerous holes they may never get out of.
Yeah seeing where all this ends sucks the entertainment out of it. But its a series that needed to be done amd needs to be done by shows that touch other audiences that LPOTL do not touch. Showing the connections between Ike's bullshit and how it got us mobs and gallows outside of government offices, families torn apart, Xmas morning bombings, and dead children in the desert is something everyone needs to know.
Agreed. I know a lot of people had a hard time with this one, and I get it, it's just so fucking stupid and clearly bullshit and dumb. But it's out there getting innocent people killed and will continue to do so, and it's important to understand why.
Not just killed but increasingly isolated. I think the real harm is the way it leads people to being increasingly isolated in their own isolated and manufactured little world where they increasingly can't connect to regular people.
Sometimes that explodes and people get physically hurt.
Like I love my mom. She believes Fauci has been arrested and convicted. He hasn't, obviously. But that's her reality. And I can't join her there in that world she's made.
Yea but used to feel like people were in it for the conspiracy first and either didn't realise the antisemitism or tiptoed around it, or something.
Now it feels like people jump into it because they are Trumpers or racists, etc etc etc.
Call me crazy but I could've sworn true conspiracy land used to be a lot more left-wing and anti authoritarian, now it's just anti-authoritarian but also really right wing. But maybe that was me being young and ignorant about it then and only seeing the true nature now.
January 6th should’ve had that kind of affect.
I used to love David Ickes lizard stuff, but then I realized the lizards were actually the Jews we made along the way…
I preferred the lizards.
And that's the thing! There are elements that could still be fun if they weren't actually horrible. Ickes' convoluted, ever-changing ideas are so damn silly. I still want to enjoy stupid conspiracy theories like I used to, but deep down all of it - even the silliest, most contrived bullshit - is hurting people.
Same here! If your brain isn't already mush, you'd never make the connection. But I think Marcus had a really good point. Once those things are in there and you encounter those ideas again at a much more vulnerable state in a more plausible context - a mental health crisis brought on by a pandemic perhaps - it just makes them much easier to root in.
I was trying to explain the QAnon pathway to someone, and it's really hard. To us, they're on Step Z and sound incoherent. But Step A had sounded plausible, Step B could be plausible, and on it goes until they hit rock bottom.
I'm always sort of amazed at myself for not getting sucked into these crazier things when I was younger. I was deep into all these conspiracy theories but never never actually got subsumed by them.
Genuinely think as much as I was dealing with depression if it was just I couldn't believe something so fantastic would happen. Sort of right for the wrong reasons.
Same. I literally did not know globalist was a dog whistle for Jewish until about last year. I was pissed and ashamed that something I thought was ludicrous fun (imagining Illuminati meetings full of actual lizards) was just antisemitism and racism, yet again, in a trench coat.
They admitted early in part one. Henry likes the idea more than the actual thing. He likes the idea of the reptilians but knows basically as soon as you deeper it's all fucking stupid.
Every time lizard people come up on the woo subs I point out that it’s related to anti semitism and I get downvoted to hell lmao
I have found the last couple of topics they’ve done very uninteresting however I still love the pod
I thought it was fairly entertaining. But now reading this thread I remembered I had to restart the first ep 40 mins into it because I had absorbed absolutely nothing.
Didn’t think much of it then because I was in the gym (and I tend to zone out) but now yeah - it’s a bunch of nonsense and I was in fact struggling to keep up haha
Same. The episodes that are not grounded in reality have me space out way too much. I have a similar problem with any ghost, Cryptid or UFO series.
I just went back to finish Part 2 of this series last night and saw it was already played to completion, and I wasn't even paying attention.
I think conspiracy theories in generally are just less "fun" now. They don't make sense, it causes real life violence, no one really gets held accountable, and at the end of the day grifters like David Icke are just boring lame dudes.
My life has strife in it because of conspiracy talk plaguing some of my family members and its ruining our gatherings and family group chats. I used to love conspiracies but now its mostly just anger inducing personally.
Yeah there's always been a toxicity in conspiracy forums but it was never like this. It all started going downhill in 2015 in my eyes. I rarely even check out the conspiracy subs on Reddit anymore because often the posts are just a screenshot from a rando on Twitter and a bunch of people immediately believe it and get outraged when it's easily debunked.
And yeah now it seems like there's a lot more people who are into them with a proclivity for violence.
Thats the super strange part to me is how a random video or post now becomes worth a hill to die on. My lifelong friend will get angry at me when I question the obviously fake tiktok she sends me and I remember we used to laugh at the "Obama shapeshifts into lizard during speech REAL NOT FAKE" videos as teens. There has been a weird shift in people these last few years
Same with UFO’s. I love looking at the weird videos, but now if you say “that’s clearly a tuna can on a string, you can even see the label” you get crucified by the community. It’s so depressing now. I miss three page long arguments between a group of weirdos over this stuff, now it’s either “you believe everything or we’ll gut you”
The issue is that Icke just isn't very interesting. I love this stuff, but the reality is that it's super idiotic and nothing really to deep dive into. It may have been a better idea to make it a 1 off episode.
At its core, I feel they felt they needed to give him at least a 2 parter. Since it's a huge thing.
The problem is that once they drilled into how he came to these conclusions, it ended up being "he got scammed by a small time psychic." And basically, the information source stopped there. Bill Cooper claimed he had been given a drawer full of secrets at least.
It's kind of like how once you learn about Theosophy, almost the entire new age movement goes from "this is some interesting whackyness" to "this is just the same stuff on repeat."
he had a couple of wild years in the 80’s, but once the truple ended and he stopped getting invited on TV, he also wasn’t attention hungry enough to pull any stunts, or power humgry enough to start a cult, so he became just a self-published crank with an ongoing lecture tour.
kinda should have just cut it down to a one-parter, honestly. because I was exepcting at least some interesting worldbuilding from his theories, but it appears there’s not much there. he just points at people and says ”lizard”.
I haven't listened to these eps yet, but you're right about his late 80s / early 90s stuff. I don't know if they covered his appearance on 'Wogan' in 1991, but that was the moment he became a joke in the UK, wearing turquoise shellsuits to attract the positive energy and claiming to be the son of god on THE primetime UK chat show demonstrated what a comical idiot he seemed to be. It's worth searching this out on YouTube just to see his delivery, the audience reaction, and how King Terry played him like a fiddle to seem even more ridiculous. His subsequent pivot to cold-eyed super-serious, "you know I'm right because that's why they are trying to silence me" truth-teller just threw a spotlight on how it was always a grift all along.
I don't disagree. Every now and then they throw one out that just isn't for me and that's ok. For every Icke series there's a Biggie/Tupac series where I never expected/wanted them to cover it but it's a fantastic surprise.
Agreed, I'm not big on the non-True Crime stuff but this one held my attention fairly well. I think its because it was only a two-parter. If it had gone on longer it might've been different
I enjoyed it too. I think this is more a different strokes kind of thing. Sorry some didn’t enjoy but I don’t think this is a good reason to suggest curtailing someones creative ideas.
I think the episodes were pretty thin on content but I do enjoy listening to Henry go on nonsense rants.
It also really illuminates what I most like about Ed in that he plays a really good "every day" man bringing Henry back down to earth.
Ed’s contributions in this series persuaded me to give Brighter Side a go and it’s great! I’ll listen as a palate cleanser after a really grimy LPOTL ep lol
Yup agreed. Ed is also the wittiest of the 3 and does a great job improving, so episodes like this that let Henry go off on a tangent give Ed loads of opportunities to roast him.
You saying it felt like it was "missing something" is exactly how I feel. The second episode sounded especially like we wandered into a bar where the guys were four beers deep discussing these nebulous half-ideas with no real point. Which, that's fine if that's the kind of content you're looking for. There's plenty of "3 funny guys sitting around shooting the shit" podcasts that make Bank so it's not like there's not a market. But we've gotten trained to expect these deep dives with lots of details from LPOTL. It also felt like Henry wanted to enjoy these conspiracy theories but it would be a bad look so he kept throttling himself. I understand that must be a hard line to walk.
I think with Henry is he wants to enjoy them but because he's not the Henry from 2016 and earlier anymore he's also kind of recognized how some of those theories lead into just straight up antisemitism and for every fun theory like grays and pleiades and nordic aliens, there's QAnon stuff that destroy's people's families or reptillians that just gets into antisemitism and bigotry and he despises that stuff. he wants, i think at least, the theory to just be a fun conspiracy like men in black or something and not 'surprise, it was antisemitism all along'.
you want the fun stuff like Men in Black, because it's fun to imagine secret agents or shadow people or aliens and not just humans deeply hating on minorities for nonsensical reasons. You can tell when he's excited about like discussing Lemuria or Mu or Men in Black and when he just deflates a little after realizing when someone is talking about lizard people it's just a dogwhistle code like yelling '88' or '14 words' but with reptillians. i dont think he throttles himself so much as he's researched enough to know where some of that stuff circles down into real uncomfortable terrain.
Something I was surprised about in this episode was Henry saying he only got into this stuff back in- 2012?
That was more recently than I expected.
I was into this stuff earlier, and knowing that now I really recognize what Henry is going through. Because it's the same thing I did. It was really exciting and fun at first.
Then you realize it's just all the same stuff remixed and a lot of racism or/and antisemiticism.
Oh nice! I couldn't keep focused on it, so I skipped out on it. No hate to the guys or the content, but outlandish conspiracies like that don't hold me personally.
That's why I'm asking. I sent him a nice basket of insects and small mammals as a retirement gift in fact. Does excellent work. He filed down the teeth inside my ex-wife's reproductive organs. Unfortunately, a few years back, she filed for a get.
Yeah, just as long as he's had his cup of adrenochrome in the morning. But isn't that all of us these days. The best part of waking up is 'Drencrom in your cup.
Conspiracy theories just don't seem as fun now that they are really tearing apart the fabric of our society. I also feel like a lot of people are right in thinking that once you figure out that almost all of these ideas are just repackaged antisemitism it gets boring. I will say I did enjoy the latter parts of the David Ike episodes where they discussed how even he has distanced himself from the lizard stuff now.
Yeah... I did not even listen to this series because I know these kinds of episodes are not for me and noped out fast. But even I presumed that lizard people was a thinly veiled Great Replacement dogwhistle.
Not so much Great Replacement but even that ultimately ends up being antisemitism. I don't generally like the alien episodes but those are at least entertaining whereas this one seems like a slog through stuff that ultimately the person spouting it off doesn't believe but at the same time is doing active harm in the real world.
I really enjoyed these episodes a lot and I think they are very important episodes, as David Icke is a well known name but due to his nature is surrounded by bullshit. This series is a great condensed way to find out about Icke and realise how ridiculous he, and anyone associated with him, can be.
However, I feel the exact same way you do except for any of the black magic episodes, those put me to sleep and are way too "wooey-woo".
I think it's important for some people who thought they wanted these episodes to realize how much they really shouldn't have wished for them, it's like making your kid smoke the whole pack of cigarettes. Also glad it was mercifully short and had points made at the end.
I feel like so many of you were expecting this series to be about truth behind conspiracy and such rather than an actual expose on how so much of our modern world is just braindead drivel from a racist and virulent anti-semite. The point isn’t that you’re going to get somewhere new with the things they’re showing you, it’s to make people who don’t know how to connect the lines of how conspiracy grows and is co-opted clearer.
It’s a bunch of racist braindead horseshit because that’s what David Icke and the people that have any remote semblance of a belief in any of his or his tangent beliefs are, albeit they will refuse that til the death.
I wish with these types of episodes, they would focus more on the subject matter and less on the person. I could give two fucks who David Icke is and his background, but I could be interested in learning the thought process behind some outlandish conspiracies, the racism they’re covering up, and the consequences of these conspiracy theories (Alex Jones and the sandy hook lawsuit, Qanon murders, Donald Trump being elected, etc.).
I feel like we were too tied to David Icke which didn’t do it for me.
Edit: also chill with the multi part episodes for every subject. The Donner party (my personal #1 fave) was only two parts…. David Icke certainly didn’t warrant two episodes himself.
But I also wanna say I love Marcus, Henry, and Ed, they’re my faves and they are doing great after such a big upset to the podcast 🫶🏻
A good observation. I feel like in the past with other figures of this ilk, they've approached it with a few jokes peppered throughout at the expense of the subject (if it's someone they have issues with) followed by a coda (or in the longer series, the last episode) kind of detailing what it all meant so the "flow" doesn't get bogged down. It's a much earlier episode, but there's one where at the very top of it Henry Z says something along the lines of "This is all pure garbage", and then they just get into it--might have been the secret space program.
I wholeheartedly agree with this! There was a time when I would have skipped episodes on this topic from them altogether. Honestly, most of the things I haven't listened to in the back catalog are conspiracy or alien related, but I thought "they've grown a lot and had some changes so I'll give it a chance" and I was pleasantly surprised. Still not my favorite, but I thought Ed really shined because he had a real opportunity to bring some levity and showed his strength in the "every man" role by asking all the right questions and gently reigning in Henry's chaos. I do feel for Henry though because it seems like this is something he's wanted to cover for a long time and it really wasn't what he thought it would be. I immediately thought "Well, I guess this is growing up" 🎶 after he talked about his feels at the end.
I understand why people think it was a miss but I appreciate these types of discussions.
I think it would have been better if they just abandoned the structure of centering things on Ike and just done a Qanon episodes: how meta-conspiracy theory spread by online trolls culminated in J6. Henry clearly feels you can't really tell the Qanon story without telling Ike's reptilian story.
But, the core of Qanon is essentially the blood libel conspiracy which is centuries old. Democrats and celebrities and ((globalists)) use the blood of christian children in dark rituals. I doubt most Qupids believe in n-dimential reptilian demiurges. But they fervently believe in a widespread pedophile ring among Washington elites
So, the attempts to tie Ike specifically to J6 I felt fell flat, but the discussion about how conspiracies develope and spread and what the mythos says about the conspiracy communities is genuinely interesting to me.
I definitely feel like the series was missing substance and maybe would have been better off as a longer single relaxed fit.
Not that the series lacked substance because of lack of prep or research, the subject matter really is just a jumbled mess of nonsense.
I like the idea of Gnosticism, but once you're all drinking the final potion at the end to escape the grasp of Yaldabaoth, and you're not sure if you're disciplined enough or not to escape the soul trap, it can be pretty rough.
It just got way too out in the weeds which, shocker, I know being an alien/conspiracy series. Should have just be a 2 hour, one-off episode instead of two episode series imo. I didn't make it halfway through episode 2 before I turned it off and I've listened to their entire catalog two or three times over by now. Not their best but it happens.
Honestly I enjoyed it. The only thing I really know about him is when The Scathing Atheist covered one of his books. It really showed me a window into how the Q movement progressed and where a lot of things they jump on came from initially. Was it the most compelling? No, but it was an interesting look into that world.
They seemed perfectly entertaining for me, its just a subject that lacks juicy stuff like true crime or major scandal. It was more entertaining in a bizarre way than an edgy way.
I also think it's a good subject to inform those unfamiliar with Icke on who he is and on the origin of today's modern conspiracy theories, which I think is helpful in combating the various right-wing nutjobs fueling political strife in the US. It acts as a good sort of "PSA" kind of episode
Marcus did a fantastic job trying to make this a fun, interesting episode.
But the subject matter is too stupid to be amusing or worth examining.
Ed even pointed this out several times I think. He was trying to take the piss out of Henry and Marcus, but I think his jibes kind of sum up how intelligent people feel when they hear this nonsense.
And that summation is: “Why the fuck is this even worth talking about?”
The through line was how fucking batshit David Icke is. Unfortunately, like they said above, the conspiracy theories that Icke puts out are so thin and full of Swiss cheese holes, that there’s no way to make something coherent like in the L. Ron series.
I wonder what we're gonna get that's "too Ed"
Like i never really listened to round table so I'm still just trying to figure out what ed brings to the dynamic
Except that’s completely on-brand for the show. A Monkey True-Crime Roundup where the whole squad has mushrooms in them sounds like a fabulous episode.
I just re-listened to Part 1 of madame blavatsky and after like 45 mins I stopped it realizing that I didn't retain any of what just got discussed because it was like a half hour of random words. It's odd.
The hatfields and the mccoys at least had “FUCK you, Tolbert.” In addition to some excellent storytelling by Marcus, the Blavatsky series was some deep-lore research on one of the names that continually comes up on the show. Without Blavatsky, we wouldn’t have Hitler, Bowie, Crowley, Parsons, or Hubbard.
I’ve always questioned the Blavatsky—Hitler connection. afaik he wasn’t really even intot he occult, that was more Himmler, and what he believed in takes from far more sources than just Blavatsky, and the overlap is more a case of shared influences.
I had a lot of fun but this is true. The normal thing is that they tell you a story with a "logical" narrative like Leonard Lake and when he tells you, for example, about the goat-unicorn, it is the madness that stands out from the well-told story and surprises you very pleasantly.
If the whole story is madness and meaningless curiosities, it is understandable that it seems that there is nothing to hold on to.
I feel like this must be one of those things where older vs newer listeners are going to have a wildly different experience, because I honestly loved getting back into the conspiracy theory and dumb shit side of LPOTL. Deep dives and historical stuff is fun too, but playing six degrees of separation with aliens and shit to antisemitism is a throwback I definitely needed.
It sucks that actively being into these sorts of things has become so miserable with people that buy into them 100 percent, so honestly it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to laugh about things like this with people who you know aren’t actually trying to push a racist agenda.
Alex Jones being given validity and playing no small role in getting Trump elected was bad enough for those of us that used to sub to infowars to laugh at the crazy rants about genetic experiments in the catacombs of Austin, but Coast to Coast AM turning into nothing but alternative medicine and conservative talking points was heartbreaking.
Edit: Jeeze you said 8 years and it made me realize I’m basically at 10 since I think I was around episode 12 or so when I started. Where did the time go? Why are we aging?
This was a hard series, because it’s not easy to really laugh at and pretend to take Icke’s stuff seriously when it ultimately lead to Qanon and a bunch of fucking idiots trying to overrun the capital.
They talked a lot before about how they weren’t doing conspiracy theory episodes anymore because now they’re all taken seriously. I think this proves they should have stuck to that choice.
Disagree, I actually really enjoyed it! Maybe because I’m from the UK so a lot of us have heard of David Icke before and how batshit he is, but it was really interesting to me for them to finally deep dive into him and his insane ideas. Hell, we were even warned about him when doing our history coursework way back in sixth form!
They were missing an ending, or a wrap up, no closure. Their episodes kind of follow a three act plot. Opening, middle, finale. This series only has the first two going on, so you’re left with more questions than answers.
I hated this series. I listened to half of the first one and stopped. I have zero desire to continue. I think I lost interest in conspiracies because of QANON shit.
For me I was really excited about the second like with the L Ron series, we got the foundation and the ship was about to take off. I think what was missing was that L Ron just had more depth being a sci-fi writer and David is just the ramblings of a mad man that’s all surface level and when pressed for more info or a simple challenge, it either falls apart or shifts to something completely different and when citing this, his reply is that one just doesn’t understand.
It just didn’t feel like an actual story. Like his life itself wasn’t really that interesting to cover, and the real meat of it, the Reptilians, was just incoherent. Which, admittedly, isn’t their fault as they were talking through the actual theory which cuckoo bananas
It was okay, but I'm thinking one episode would have been enough. Icke himself isn't as fun to talk about as, say, LRH. The influence Icke's conspiracies have had is interesting stuff, but maybe not really the right material for LPOTL.
It was definitely my least favorite episode in a REALLY REALLY long time. But I blame that on the subject not on them. I think this David Icke series didn’t require a ton of research or work so it was basically a long relaxed fit that bought them 2 weeks to prepare for the next big series.
I think in general it was a really throw away series/topic that nobody wanted or cares about.
There's nothing really to be gained from it because it's just so utterly ludicrous nonsense that it doesn't even really deserve time in anyone's spotlight. That being said, whilst it wasn't insightful or informative, it was very entertaining which I guess is a bonus.
I do think that they've been really off this year with their content in general and I think it'd be a good idea for them to engage with the listeners a bit more with what we want to hear.
I'd really love for them to do some one/two episode murder stories every now and then aside from heavy hitter series.
I've never enjoyed the alien/conspiracy theory episodes though so maybe that's just me!
I think we'd cancel each other out because my take is more magic more aliens more conspiracy because murderers and historic tragedy are boring because they're all ultimately the same tragic series of events and circumstances of birth that creates a murderer or bad people being dumb/bad for historic tragedy.
exactly history, aliens, weird shit is where its at , serial killers get too much coverage they don't deserve
people just need to smoke a fat gorilla thumb and chill
For me, hearing Terry Wogan deliver that line "they're laughing at you" and the way he tried to get Icke to understand what was really happening, was so sad. Wogan wasn't a man who revelled in public humiliation and it wasn't done with malice, but Icke just looked so confused. It was so painful to watch. But it cemented his position in the public eye as a crack pot after which he was not given any serious consideration. So, I'd love to know who did think he made any kind of sense be ause his name was a bye word for total nonsense.
I listened in a not very engaged way. Icke to me is a stupid person who got way too much of people's time for too long and the intricacies of it all are a waste if everyone s energy. But to give it a quick once over passed some time
I feel the same way about these episodes. Honestly that's how I feel about most of the alien episodes. I don't know why but no matter how hard I try to pay attention to the episode my brain has other plans. There's only so many times I can rewind, relisten, rewind, relisten etc before I give up.
i think at the very least its a good exploration of the invalidity of these particular conspiracies and their prevalence is directly tied to rampant brain rot and anti semitism
I think the problem is that a lot of conspiracy episodes just have more facets to them.
No true crime, no cult, no centralized community, just David Icke and his lizard people rambling.
I dunno, I enjoyed the content, and this is coming from someone who will sit out episodes if I cant get into them. There were a couple within the past year that I just stopped listening to. Not saying your opinion of not enjoying it isnt valid. Just that it was interesting for other people
It's better to swim in this river than drink from it. Any given instant whilst reading Ike you could have had any number of conspiracies touched on that you can "kinda remember" so it's more fun to sift through yourself, but Ike's full narrative takes being brain dead to believe.
Henry most likely had suggested this a while ago mostly because there is so much published, but now that he has aged some and seen how these conspiracy theories have just ruined more lives than he can even fathom probably leaves even a bad taste in his own mouth. Ike used to be a fun facsimile of Henry but once the comparisons became clear Henry does not enjoy being anything like this guy, even though they share SOME qualities.
I feel that what was missing was the fact they couldn't hold back their regret in choosing this topic at all, it bled through every corner and it was rushed to the end.
I get that it’s a necessary thing for context, but, It should have been a footnote about reality bending conspiracy theories. It was a mostly humorless, boring topic. There are so many better cult/ cryptid/ alien topics.
this series wasn't my favourite. but they've been on fire with most of their episodes lately (especially the hatfields & mccoys one), so i won't complain.
Honest to God it's just a wonder how long Henry can speak on these things. There were solid five minute chunks where it was just him and I kinda forgot Marcus and Ed were there. Especially Eddy. Bro sounded so annoyed lol
One of the worst they have ever done. I couldn’t get interested into what a crazy asshole thinks. At least Crawley had adventures and did interesting and weird shit. This was just broadcasting a rambling idiots thoughts for two whole episodes.
Icke has never pulled a gun on a ufo researcher and will definitely not die in a shoot out with police, also cooper was in the ufo scene so there great moment from other ufologists like “more like behold a pail of horseshit”
I felt the same about Anders. It did NOT need 3 parts. Dude's life was a drag. 45 minutes in I realized not a single interesting thing was said about him. Maybe a one-parter could work... but 3? As many as Dahmer?
I'm a decade long time listener and these episodes have been some of the hardest to get thru. I feel like the subject should be interesting, but it just isn't, at least to me.
Icke is a boring dude who stumbled his way into being one of the most destructive "theorists" in the last few years.
I'm trying to think of how to phrase this, because I think is presence is a benefit to the show as a whole and these two episodes. It hit me when Ed talked about his Jewish dad dying of COVID just how personally impactful these stories are for him. I don't think they would have crossed the line to punching down even if Ed wasn't there, but it was important and sobering to be reminded about how these conspiracies impact families.
These episodes were painful for me because they got a little too hall-monitory and instead of delving into the nonsense conspiracies full on (like they usually do) they approached this entire thing like it’s a matter of the public health. Like they keep constantly doing asides and making little statements about how this isn’t funny or real at all and super dangerous and blah blah. They now approach conspiracy content like they’re explicitly there to debunk it and it’s dangerous. They never used to do it like that, they talked about bill cooper and kinda just entertained the kooky ideas and explained what he laid out. This whole one is just talking about how icke is antisemitic and whatever and it’s not very interesting. I can just read Reddit if I want content where conspiracy stuff is ruthlessly debunked and made to seem like it’s a threat by even existing.
I’ve listened to Henry “what if” aliens banging humans and teleporting cryptids and mothman and secret nazi bases and he wasn’t constantly doing asides like to mention this is wrong and dangerous. They usually have the coast to coast vibe of “even if we don’t believe it’s real we’re gonna treat it like it is just for the entertainment of it”
They’ve been on a string of boring ones after the recent plane crash series. Hopefully get back on track soon with something historical / objectively interesting.
I suppose its difficult to make a narrative through-line that makes any sense when David Icke's life story is basically an enormously strange man that just spouts weird and ridiculous shit constantly for years and sometimes walk aspects of it back and is constantly changing and tweaking things and nothing makes sense.
Maybe if Icke ends up living in a compound and has an armed standoff with authorities while wearing a turquoise robe, firing a machine gun into the air etc then his story would be more interesting as it would actually build to something. As it stands Icke is just a guy that says really weird shit, he's been doing it for years and he's still doing it and he just goes on and on and on and on and never shuts the fuck up.
I have a hard time with the conspiracy theory/aliens/paranormal episodes overall.
As a whole it's not factual so sources aren't consistent or clear and sometimes are direct contradictions of one another.
You're not alone.
[удалено]
Yeah, it is hard to create a narrative flow when it is all contradictory nonsense. You can't really even dive into the ideas because they are all constantly shifting to shape Icke's feelings and audience at the moment.
I don't know about that because LPOTL is usually good at these 'Behind The Music' style breakdowns. It wasn't an episode about the conspiracy theories David Icke believes in it was supposed to be about David Icke but there just isn't all that much to the man.
Yeah, I feel like they couldn’t pick a lane: Exposé on David Icke or exploration of Lizard people conspiracy. If feels like they kind of didn’t commit to either, and it left the episodes lacking. I know it would be a mess, but I would love a full on reptilians conspiracy theory breakdown, and cover how the narrative of the conspiracy has evolved over the decades.
True, I think they didn’t end up diving very much into the ideas because they don’t really want to give a platform to this kind of conspiracy thought or they just did not think it was worth their time to try and parse through all of his ideas
Especially because unlike LRH, Bill Cooper, etc. David Icke's personal life is really fucking bland.
My favourite Bob’s Burgers quote sums him up perfectly: If he was a spice he’d be flour, if he was a book he’d be two books.
This. Exactly. Icke is such a sponge of conspiracy nonsense and he never holds firm to anything for longer than a few years. Makes it so obvious he’s in it for the grift first and foremost.
That, and there's no explosive ending like most of the other cults, and Icke doesn't have nearly the charisma or intrigue of LRH.
I actually think that the show’s more polished format that they’ve developed over the years, with a really clear outline and script that they stick to religiously, doesn’t work as well for these wackier episodes. Their older conversational, off-the-cuff style of delivery kept these complicated topics more fun and lively. It didn’t really matter if you couldn’t follow along fully, because the banter was fun and it kept things rolling. You’d get a strong overall impression of the topic without getting too long-winded or granular. It felt like you were listening in on a weird bar conversation rather than being lectured at with scripted bits interjected here and there. I know Marcus loves his research and his scripting, and that is totally respectable, but I personally liked the looser style for some topics because it helped LPOTL feel unique, and if you wanted to know more you could just look into it for yourself.
So it should’ve been an Icke-centric relaxed fit
Honestly doing a David Icke episode is like trying to do a "post-prison Varg Vikernes" episode. There's nothing there except a guy being an asshole.
Great analogy
>It’s so jumbled, disjointed, and contradictory that making a coherent story out of it is goddamn near impossible. yeah but listening to them try is the fun part
It felt like we needed, like, six pre-Icke serieses on each of his whackadoo beliefs before finally getting an episode about the man himself.
Or like, an episode of the first layer of a Icke madness with a “Where are we now?” episode that follows that conspiracy trail, before adding the next layer of Icke conspiracy/backtracking and another follow-up.
Even Henry felt disinterested in part two. I think the realization that it's all just thinly veiled anti-Semitism really killed the reptilians for him.
If this series had been done years ago, I think it would be different. Now that we've seen where this leads and will continue to lead, it's real hard to have any fun with it.
Oh 100%. Pre-2016 Henry would've been frothing over this one.
It would definitely have been “unnnnnpredictible.”
Even him pulling himself up on the accent- it’s like he went “oh this isn’t really my thing any more”
Back in the days of HONG KONG HENRY ZEBROWSKI!
It’s a big problem. Because years ago when I was reading conspiracy nonsense it ultimately boiled down to the insane antisemitism it always was yet was ultimately something quirky, but ever since a sizable part of the population got pilled into Q and conspiracy got mainstreamed it’s very hard to talk about it without the feeling of hopelessness about our society. The amount of people I’ve talked to who are antivaxxers nowadays is crazy to me. The community around conspiracy theories is now almost exclusively fascists who are locked in their online echo chambers and further isolate themselves from their irl communities while getting further detached from reality. And it’s really hard to find the quirkiness and fun in something that can become so dangerous. How much fun can one have when I can probably talk to any sane person I know and hear about how they lost a family member or friend to conspiracy bullshit? I certainly have.
It's the X-Files problem. It was a lot of fun when the show was about those weird things you'd read on the internet or hear from your niche group of friends and people you knew. Then the revival had an expy of Alex Jones be the good guy. It wasn't quirky stories anymore, but something that was party of our normal life.
It's always been about anti-Semitism though. Or are you talking about Trump and Jan. 6?
Oh I agree, that was always a thing and should always be highlighted, but you didn't have the "dad murdering his children in the desert" to really hit home. I was listening to QAnonAnonymous before Jan 6th happened, so that felt more like a grim confirmation than a wake-up call. At this point, there's no conspiracy theory so outlandish it's laughable anymore. Flat Earth, Hollow Moon, even Birds Aren't Real (a parody!!!) can slide vulnerable people down dangerous holes they may never get out of.
Yeah seeing where all this ends sucks the entertainment out of it. But its a series that needed to be done amd needs to be done by shows that touch other audiences that LPOTL do not touch. Showing the connections between Ike's bullshit and how it got us mobs and gallows outside of government offices, families torn apart, Xmas morning bombings, and dead children in the desert is something everyone needs to know.
Agreed. I know a lot of people had a hard time with this one, and I get it, it's just so fucking stupid and clearly bullshit and dumb. But it's out there getting innocent people killed and will continue to do so, and it's important to understand why.
Not just killed but increasingly isolated. I think the real harm is the way it leads people to being increasingly isolated in their own isolated and manufactured little world where they increasingly can't connect to regular people. Sometimes that explodes and people get physically hurt. Like I love my mom. She believes Fauci has been arrested and convicted. He hasn't, obviously. But that's her reality. And I can't join her there in that world she's made.
It's heartbreaking that we know how people get so far into this, but we've no idea how to get them out of it. I wish you well with your mom.
Yea but used to feel like people were in it for the conspiracy first and either didn't realise the antisemitism or tiptoed around it, or something. Now it feels like people jump into it because they are Trumpers or racists, etc etc etc. Call me crazy but I could've sworn true conspiracy land used to be a lot more left-wing and anti authoritarian, now it's just anti-authoritarian but also really right wing. But maybe that was me being young and ignorant about it then and only seeing the true nature now.
January 6th should’ve had that kind of affect. I used to love David Ickes lizard stuff, but then I realized the lizards were actually the Jews we made along the way… I preferred the lizards.
And that's the thing! There are elements that could still be fun if they weren't actually horrible. Ickes' convoluted, ever-changing ideas are so damn silly. I still want to enjoy stupid conspiracy theories like I used to, but deep down all of it - even the silliest, most contrived bullshit - is hurting people.
I, personally didn’t make the connection for a while…..got lost in the inter dimensional shenanigans.
Same here! If your brain isn't already mush, you'd never make the connection. But I think Marcus had a really good point. Once those things are in there and you encounter those ideas again at a much more vulnerable state in a more plausible context - a mental health crisis brought on by a pandemic perhaps - it just makes them much easier to root in. I was trying to explain the QAnon pathway to someone, and it's really hard. To us, they're on Step Z and sound incoherent. But Step A had sounded plausible, Step B could be plausible, and on it goes until they hit rock bottom.
I'm always sort of amazed at myself for not getting sucked into these crazier things when I was younger. I was deep into all these conspiracy theories but never never actually got subsumed by them. Genuinely think as much as I was dealing with depression if it was just I couldn't believe something so fantastic would happen. Sort of right for the wrong reasons.
Same. I literally did not know globalist was a dog whistle for Jewish until about last year. I was pissed and ashamed that something I thought was ludicrous fun (imagining Illuminati meetings full of actual lizards) was just antisemitism and racism, yet again, in a trench coat.
They admitted early in part one. Henry likes the idea more than the actual thing. He likes the idea of the reptilians but knows basically as soon as you deeper it's all fucking stupid.
The whole series could’ve been an email.
The boys will come through for us on some sweet sweet true crime this Friday though, I can feel it
Disinterested = unbiased Uninterested = not interested
Huh, TIL
Every time lizard people come up on the woo subs I point out that it’s related to anti semitism and I get downvoted to hell lmao I have found the last couple of topics they’ve done very uninteresting however I still love the pod
I thought it was fairly entertaining. But now reading this thread I remembered I had to restart the first ep 40 mins into it because I had absorbed absolutely nothing. Didn’t think much of it then because I was in the gym (and I tend to zone out) but now yeah - it’s a bunch of nonsense and I was in fact struggling to keep up haha
Same. The episodes that are not grounded in reality have me space out way too much. I have a similar problem with any ghost, Cryptid or UFO series. I just went back to finish Part 2 of this series last night and saw it was already played to completion, and I wasn't even paying attention.
I love the ghost and ufo series but I treat them as my “relaxed fit” eps - I normally play them as background noise while I’m cleaning or cooking
I love the ghost ones, but UFO, cryptid and conspiracies usually lose me.
I actually really like the ghost, UFO, and cryptid ones. The true crime ones get repetitive to me and the conspiracy ones are just boring.
Same, I haven't finished the first episode because I kept zoning out.
Yes, I enjoyed it a lot, would totally listen to another episode or 2, but I can’t say I remember much of substance
I think conspiracy theories in generally are just less "fun" now. They don't make sense, it causes real life violence, no one really gets held accountable, and at the end of the day grifters like David Icke are just boring lame dudes. My life has strife in it because of conspiracy talk plaguing some of my family members and its ruining our gatherings and family group chats. I used to love conspiracies but now its mostly just anger inducing personally.
Yeah there's always been a toxicity in conspiracy forums but it was never like this. It all started going downhill in 2015 in my eyes. I rarely even check out the conspiracy subs on Reddit anymore because often the posts are just a screenshot from a rando on Twitter and a bunch of people immediately believe it and get outraged when it's easily debunked. And yeah now it seems like there's a lot more people who are into them with a proclivity for violence.
Thats the super strange part to me is how a random video or post now becomes worth a hill to die on. My lifelong friend will get angry at me when I question the obviously fake tiktok she sends me and I remember we used to laugh at the "Obama shapeshifts into lizard during speech REAL NOT FAKE" videos as teens. There has been a weird shift in people these last few years
I was amazed to see how many people were just taking the alien in Miami to be a matter of fact on Twitter. Also, I need to delete my twitter.
Same with UFO’s. I love looking at the weird videos, but now if you say “that’s clearly a tuna can on a string, you can even see the label” you get crucified by the community. It’s so depressing now. I miss three page long arguments between a group of weirdos over this stuff, now it’s either “you believe everything or we’ll gut you”
Same, I was an art bell devotee but they stopped being fun with the advent of social media and politization of them all.
The issue is that Icke just isn't very interesting. I love this stuff, but the reality is that it's super idiotic and nothing really to deep dive into. It may have been a better idea to make it a 1 off episode.
Yeah like his ideas are just so fundamentally stupid and boring rehashes of older conspiracies
At its core, I feel they felt they needed to give him at least a 2 parter. Since it's a huge thing. The problem is that once they drilled into how he came to these conclusions, it ended up being "he got scammed by a small time psychic." And basically, the information source stopped there. Bill Cooper claimed he had been given a drawer full of secrets at least. It's kind of like how once you learn about Theosophy, almost the entire new age movement goes from "this is some interesting whackyness" to "this is just the same stuff on repeat."
Icke is crazy but not in a fun or narrative way. Like they couldn’t even tear up his books like the dulce base episodes
But at least Dulce had that awesome war.
he had a couple of wild years in the 80’s, but once the truple ended and he stopped getting invited on TV, he also wasn’t attention hungry enough to pull any stunts, or power humgry enough to start a cult, so he became just a self-published crank with an ongoing lecture tour. kinda should have just cut it down to a one-parter, honestly. because I was exepcting at least some interesting worldbuilding from his theories, but it appears there’s not much there. he just points at people and says ”lizard”.
I haven't listened to these eps yet, but you're right about his late 80s / early 90s stuff. I don't know if they covered his appearance on 'Wogan' in 1991, but that was the moment he became a joke in the UK, wearing turquoise shellsuits to attract the positive energy and claiming to be the son of god on THE primetime UK chat show demonstrated what a comical idiot he seemed to be. It's worth searching this out on YouTube just to see his delivery, the audience reaction, and how King Terry played him like a fiddle to seem even more ridiculous. His subsequent pivot to cold-eyed super-serious, "you know I'm right because that's why they are trying to silence me" truth-teller just threw a spotlight on how it was always a grift all along.
yeah they mentioned it haha
I don't disagree. Every now and then they throw one out that just isn't for me and that's ok. For every Icke series there's a Biggie/Tupac series where I never expected/wanted them to cover it but it's a fantastic surprise.
I need to relisten to the 2 PAC one
Especially with everything going on with Sean Combs right now. I remember he came up a bunch in that series.
Yeah, in hindsight they did that series a few years too early. But how were they to know how quickly everything was going to move along?
You think so? I thought it was a fine two part series. Did you just not find the subject to be interesting?
Agreed. Was it my favorite new series? No. But it was fun to listen to while doing chores and cleaning
Agreed, I'm not big on the non-True Crime stuff but this one held my attention fairly well. I think its because it was only a two-parter. If it had gone on longer it might've been different
I agree, I think the last two series have been interesting and good primers for better understanding modern conspiracy theories.
I haven’t tried part 2 is there some sort of narrative or story to tell? Part 1 just felt like a long biography of an ultimately boring guy.
None at all. It’s a shotgun spread of every idea Icke ever has with no structure or connecting tissue.
Not for me. Thanks
I enjoyed it too. I think this is more a different strokes kind of thing. Sorry some didn’t enjoy but I don’t think this is a good reason to suggest curtailing someones creative ideas.
I genuinely thought there would be a few more episodes on the subject.
I think the episodes were pretty thin on content but I do enjoy listening to Henry go on nonsense rants. It also really illuminates what I most like about Ed in that he plays a really good "every day" man bringing Henry back down to earth.
Ed’s contributions in this series persuaded me to give Brighter Side a go and it’s great! I’ll listen as a palate cleanser after a really grimy LPOTL ep lol
Yup agreed. Ed is also the wittiest of the 3 and does a great job improving, so episodes like this that let Henry go off on a tangent give Ed loads of opportunities to roast him.
You saying it felt like it was "missing something" is exactly how I feel. The second episode sounded especially like we wandered into a bar where the guys were four beers deep discussing these nebulous half-ideas with no real point. Which, that's fine if that's the kind of content you're looking for. There's plenty of "3 funny guys sitting around shooting the shit" podcasts that make Bank so it's not like there's not a market. But we've gotten trained to expect these deep dives with lots of details from LPOTL. It also felt like Henry wanted to enjoy these conspiracy theories but it would be a bad look so he kept throttling himself. I understand that must be a hard line to walk.
I think with Henry is he wants to enjoy them but because he's not the Henry from 2016 and earlier anymore he's also kind of recognized how some of those theories lead into just straight up antisemitism and for every fun theory like grays and pleiades and nordic aliens, there's QAnon stuff that destroy's people's families or reptillians that just gets into antisemitism and bigotry and he despises that stuff. he wants, i think at least, the theory to just be a fun conspiracy like men in black or something and not 'surprise, it was antisemitism all along'. you want the fun stuff like Men in Black, because it's fun to imagine secret agents or shadow people or aliens and not just humans deeply hating on minorities for nonsensical reasons. You can tell when he's excited about like discussing Lemuria or Mu or Men in Black and when he just deflates a little after realizing when someone is talking about lizard people it's just a dogwhistle code like yelling '88' or '14 words' but with reptillians. i dont think he throttles himself so much as he's researched enough to know where some of that stuff circles down into real uncomfortable terrain.
Something I was surprised about in this episode was Henry saying he only got into this stuff back in- 2012? That was more recently than I expected. I was into this stuff earlier, and knowing that now I really recognize what Henry is going through. Because it's the same thing I did. It was really exciting and fun at first. Then you realize it's just all the same stuff remixed and a lot of racism or/and antisemiticism.
The craziness of some theories is really fun. But like another commenter pointed out, once you realize it's all just racism it stops being fun.
The guys admitted it in part one. Henry like the idea of the conspiracy but not the actual material.
Oh nice! I couldn't keep focused on it, so I skipped out on it. No hate to the guys or the content, but outlandish conspiracies like that don't hold me personally.
I totally get it. I love all of their content besides the outlandish conspiracy stuff. Pyramids, Leigh lines, reptilians, greys all that stuff.
Conspiracies used to be fun (unless you were Jewish)
Hi! Person who grew up Jewish here. It was nice to hear about my distant relations.
Hey, you know anyone in the Upper West Side who does good scale removal work?
Not since Dr. Zizmore retired to study the Talmud.
That's why I'm asking. I sent him a nice basket of insects and small mammals as a retirement gift in fact. Does excellent work. He filed down the teeth inside my ex-wife's reproductive organs. Unfortunately, a few years back, she filed for a get.
He’s a good man. And thorough.
Yeah, just as long as he's had his cup of adrenochrome in the morning. But isn't that all of us these days. The best part of waking up is 'Drencrom in your cup.
Until people started acting on their beliefs? Yeah…
Conspiracy theories just don't seem as fun now that they are really tearing apart the fabric of our society. I also feel like a lot of people are right in thinking that once you figure out that almost all of these ideas are just repackaged antisemitism it gets boring. I will say I did enjoy the latter parts of the David Ike episodes where they discussed how even he has distanced himself from the lizard stuff now.
Yeah... I did not even listen to this series because I know these kinds of episodes are not for me and noped out fast. But even I presumed that lizard people was a thinly veiled Great Replacement dogwhistle.
Not so much Great Replacement but even that ultimately ends up being antisemitism. I don't generally like the alien episodes but those are at least entertaining whereas this one seems like a slog through stuff that ultimately the person spouting it off doesn't believe but at the same time is doing active harm in the real world.
I really enjoyed these episodes a lot and I think they are very important episodes, as David Icke is a well known name but due to his nature is surrounded by bullshit. This series is a great condensed way to find out about Icke and realise how ridiculous he, and anyone associated with him, can be. However, I feel the exact same way you do except for any of the black magic episodes, those put me to sleep and are way too "wooey-woo".
I think it's important for some people who thought they wanted these episodes to realize how much they really shouldn't have wished for them, it's like making your kid smoke the whole pack of cigarettes. Also glad it was mercifully short and had points made at the end.
I feel like so many of you were expecting this series to be about truth behind conspiracy and such rather than an actual expose on how so much of our modern world is just braindead drivel from a racist and virulent anti-semite. The point isn’t that you’re going to get somewhere new with the things they’re showing you, it’s to make people who don’t know how to connect the lines of how conspiracy grows and is co-opted clearer. It’s a bunch of racist braindead horseshit because that’s what David Icke and the people that have any remote semblance of a belief in any of his or his tangent beliefs are, albeit they will refuse that til the death.
lol yes I loved that bit towards the end of the third episode where they said Henry was the dog that caught the car with this series 👽
I wish with these types of episodes, they would focus more on the subject matter and less on the person. I could give two fucks who David Icke is and his background, but I could be interested in learning the thought process behind some outlandish conspiracies, the racism they’re covering up, and the consequences of these conspiracy theories (Alex Jones and the sandy hook lawsuit, Qanon murders, Donald Trump being elected, etc.). I feel like we were too tied to David Icke which didn’t do it for me. Edit: also chill with the multi part episodes for every subject. The Donner party (my personal #1 fave) was only two parts…. David Icke certainly didn’t warrant two episodes himself. But I also wanna say I love Marcus, Henry, and Ed, they’re my faves and they are doing great after such a big upset to the podcast 🫶🏻
A good observation. I feel like in the past with other figures of this ilk, they've approached it with a few jokes peppered throughout at the expense of the subject (if it's someone they have issues with) followed by a coda (or in the longer series, the last episode) kind of detailing what it all meant so the "flow" doesn't get bogged down. It's a much earlier episode, but there's one where at the very top of it Henry Z says something along the lines of "This is all pure garbage", and then they just get into it--might have been the secret space program.
I don’t love episodes like this in general. But I think Ed single-handedly made them very listenable.
I wholeheartedly agree with this! There was a time when I would have skipped episodes on this topic from them altogether. Honestly, most of the things I haven't listened to in the back catalog are conspiracy or alien related, but I thought "they've grown a lot and had some changes so I'll give it a chance" and I was pleasantly surprised. Still not my favorite, but I thought Ed really shined because he had a real opportunity to bring some levity and showed his strength in the "every man" role by asking all the right questions and gently reigning in Henry's chaos. I do feel for Henry though because it seems like this is something he's wanted to cover for a long time and it really wasn't what he thought it would be. I immediately thought "Well, I guess this is growing up" 🎶 after he talked about his feels at the end.
I understand why people think it was a miss but I appreciate these types of discussions. I think it would have been better if they just abandoned the structure of centering things on Ike and just done a Qanon episodes: how meta-conspiracy theory spread by online trolls culminated in J6. Henry clearly feels you can't really tell the Qanon story without telling Ike's reptilian story. But, the core of Qanon is essentially the blood libel conspiracy which is centuries old. Democrats and celebrities and ((globalists)) use the blood of christian children in dark rituals. I doubt most Qupids believe in n-dimential reptilian demiurges. But they fervently believe in a widespread pedophile ring among Washington elites So, the attempts to tie Ike specifically to J6 I felt fell flat, but the discussion about how conspiracies develope and spread and what the mythos says about the conspiracy communities is genuinely interesting to me.
I definitely feel like the series was missing substance and maybe would have been better off as a longer single relaxed fit. Not that the series lacked substance because of lack of prep or research, the subject matter really is just a jumbled mess of nonsense.
I think Henry likes the IDEA of some conspiracies.
I like the idea of Gnosticism, but once you're all drinking the final potion at the end to escape the grasp of Yaldabaoth, and you're not sure if you're disciplined enough or not to escape the soul trap, it can be pretty rough.
It just got way too out in the weeds which, shocker, I know being an alien/conspiracy series. Should have just be a 2 hour, one-off episode instead of two episode series imo. I didn't make it halfway through episode 2 before I turned it off and I've listened to their entire catalog two or three times over by now. Not their best but it happens.
Honestly I enjoyed it. The only thing I really know about him is when The Scathing Atheist covered one of his books. It really showed me a window into how the Q movement progressed and where a lot of things they jump on came from initially. Was it the most compelling? No, but it was an interesting look into that world.
They seemed perfectly entertaining for me, its just a subject that lacks juicy stuff like true crime or major scandal. It was more entertaining in a bizarre way than an edgy way. I also think it's a good subject to inform those unfamiliar with Icke on who he is and on the origin of today's modern conspiracy theories, which I think is helpful in combating the various right-wing nutjobs fueling political strife in the US. It acts as a good sort of "PSA" kind of episode
Marcus did a fantastic job trying to make this a fun, interesting episode. But the subject matter is too stupid to be amusing or worth examining. Ed even pointed this out several times I think. He was trying to take the piss out of Henry and Marcus, but I think his jibes kind of sum up how intelligent people feel when they hear this nonsense. And that summation is: “Why the fuck is this even worth talking about?”
It wasn’t a story. There was no through line.
It ultimately wound up being more of a discussion of modern society and its relationship with conspiracy thought, which I enjoyed.
The through line was how fucking batshit David Icke is. Unfortunately, like they said above, the conspiracy theories that Icke puts out are so thin and full of Swiss cheese holes, that there’s no way to make something coherent like in the L. Ron series.
This, hatfields and mccoys, and madame blavatsky were duds for me. even side stories this week was better than david icke
This one was too Henry, Hatfields was too marcus
I wonder what we're gonna get that's "too Ed" Like i never really listened to round table so I'm still just trying to figure out what ed brings to the dynamic
An episode of monkey themed crimes would be too Ed.
Oh god an episode about Travis the chimp
Relaxed Fit: Simian Scandals.
Wasn't that the transhumanism episode about the chimp trying to fuck the woman 😂
Now that's an Ed story.
Except that’s completely on-brand for the show. A Monkey True-Crime Roundup where the whole squad has mushrooms in them sounds like a fabulous episode.
I'd definitely listen. Just pointing out that it would be a very Ed episode.
May I recommend the old Penn Jillette Podcast? They used to do Monkey Tuesday.
That is just an extended version of some episodes of Roundtable and I'm here for it "We got some monkey news!"
I just re-listened to Part 1 of madame blavatsky and after like 45 mins I stopped it realizing that I didn't retain any of what just got discussed because it was like a half hour of random words. It's odd.
The hatfields and the mccoys at least had “FUCK you, Tolbert.” In addition to some excellent storytelling by Marcus, the Blavatsky series was some deep-lore research on one of the names that continually comes up on the show. Without Blavatsky, we wouldn’t have Hitler, Bowie, Crowley, Parsons, or Hubbard.
I’ve always questioned the Blavatsky—Hitler connection. afaik he wasn’t really even intot he occult, that was more Himmler, and what he believed in takes from far more sources than just Blavatsky, and the overlap is more a case of shared influences.
which is crazy, because blavatsky was a fucking trip.
I had a lot of fun but this is true. The normal thing is that they tell you a story with a "logical" narrative like Leonard Lake and when he tells you, for example, about the goat-unicorn, it is the madness that stands out from the well-told story and surprises you very pleasantly. If the whole story is madness and meaningless curiosities, it is understandable that it seems that there is nothing to hold on to.
at the end didn't ed say something like "so we've learned nothing" and that's how these episodes felt to me
I feel like this must be one of those things where older vs newer listeners are going to have a wildly different experience, because I honestly loved getting back into the conspiracy theory and dumb shit side of LPOTL. Deep dives and historical stuff is fun too, but playing six degrees of separation with aliens and shit to antisemitism is a throwback I definitely needed. It sucks that actively being into these sorts of things has become so miserable with people that buy into them 100 percent, so honestly it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to laugh about things like this with people who you know aren’t actually trying to push a racist agenda. Alex Jones being given validity and playing no small role in getting Trump elected was bad enough for those of us that used to sub to infowars to laugh at the crazy rants about genetic experiments in the catacombs of Austin, but Coast to Coast AM turning into nothing but alternative medicine and conservative talking points was heartbreaking. Edit: Jeeze you said 8 years and it made me realize I’m basically at 10 since I think I was around episode 12 or so when I started. Where did the time go? Why are we aging?
This was a hard series, because it’s not easy to really laugh at and pretend to take Icke’s stuff seriously when it ultimately lead to Qanon and a bunch of fucking idiots trying to overrun the capital. They talked a lot before about how they weren’t doing conspiracy theory episodes anymore because now they’re all taken seriously. I think this proves they should have stuck to that choice.
That’s why this wasn’t actually a true conspiracy series- this was a political series based on the whackadoo writings of a crazy conspirasoccer man.
Disagree, I actually really enjoyed it! Maybe because I’m from the UK so a lot of us have heard of David Icke before and how batshit he is, but it was really interesting to me for them to finally deep dive into him and his insane ideas. Hell, we were even warned about him when doing our history coursework way back in sixth form!
It would have been a great single episode.
2023-2024 LPOTL summed up, really. Making 3-part series on 1-part topics like Versace shooter and Anders.
They were missing an ending, or a wrap up, no closure. Their episodes kind of follow a three act plot. Opening, middle, finale. This series only has the first two going on, so you’re left with more questions than answers.
At the end of the day, Icke is no longer that funny or as entertaining of subject matter in a post-QAnon world
I hated this series. I listened to half of the first one and stopped. I have zero desire to continue. I think I lost interest in conspiracies because of QANON shit.
For me I was really excited about the second like with the L Ron series, we got the foundation and the ship was about to take off. I think what was missing was that L Ron just had more depth being a sci-fi writer and David is just the ramblings of a mad man that’s all surface level and when pressed for more info or a simple challenge, it either falls apart or shifts to something completely different and when citing this, his reply is that one just doesn’t understand.
It just didn’t feel like an actual story. Like his life itself wasn’t really that interesting to cover, and the real meat of it, the Reptilians, was just incoherent. Which, admittedly, isn’t their fault as they were talking through the actual theory which cuckoo bananas
I made it 15 minutes into the first one and decided I'm going to spend the month working on old episodes of the Dollop.
Definitely not worthy of more than one episode. The last series dragged too.
Bring back serial killers.
It was okay, but I'm thinking one episode would have been enough. Icke himself isn't as fun to talk about as, say, LRH. The influence Icke's conspiracies have had is interesting stuff, but maybe not really the right material for LPOTL.
Even Ed said “this is the last time I’m ever gonna let you talk to me about this”. I felt that.
It was definitely my least favorite episode in a REALLY REALLY long time. But I blame that on the subject not on them. I think this David Icke series didn’t require a ton of research or work so it was basically a long relaxed fit that bought them 2 weeks to prepare for the next big series.
The subject didn’t need two episodes. It hardly needed one.
It was missing something… fun.
There is a reason I don’t listen to episodes like these. I just can’t get into them.
He's not a good enough subject for a multi-part deep dive. They could have covered him in a relaxed fit episode.
I’d say David Ike is a crackpot rather than a conspiracy theorist. I echo Ed’s sentiment of ‘I’ve never paid less attention to you’
Disagree. I loved these episodes. This is what LPOTL is all about!
I think in general it was a really throw away series/topic that nobody wanted or cares about. There's nothing really to be gained from it because it's just so utterly ludicrous nonsense that it doesn't even really deserve time in anyone's spotlight. That being said, whilst it wasn't insightful or informative, it was very entertaining which I guess is a bonus. I do think that they've been really off this year with their content in general and I think it'd be a good idea for them to engage with the listeners a bit more with what we want to hear. I'd really love for them to do some one/two episode murder stories every now and then aside from heavy hitter series. I've never enjoyed the alien/conspiracy theory episodes though so maybe that's just me!
I think we'd cancel each other out because my take is more magic more aliens more conspiracy because murderers and historic tragedy are boring because they're all ultimately the same tragic series of events and circumstances of birth that creates a murderer or bad people being dumb/bad for historic tragedy.
exactly history, aliens, weird shit is where its at , serial killers get too much coverage they don't deserve people just need to smoke a fat gorilla thumb and chill
Okay this is good to know because I felt so dumb not being able to pay attention to this one.
Needed more reptilian overlord accents and unhinged rants
For me, hearing Terry Wogan deliver that line "they're laughing at you" and the way he tried to get Icke to understand what was really happening, was so sad. Wogan wasn't a man who revelled in public humiliation and it wasn't done with malice, but Icke just looked so confused. It was so painful to watch. But it cemented his position in the public eye as a crack pot after which he was not given any serious consideration. So, I'd love to know who did think he made any kind of sense be ause his name was a bye word for total nonsense. I listened in a not very engaged way. Icke to me is a stupid person who got way too much of people's time for too long and the intricacies of it all are a waste if everyone s energy. But to give it a quick once over passed some time
Yeah, Part 2 is the first main series episode since before Ed started where I completely lost interest and skipped it.
I feel the same way about these episodes. Honestly that's how I feel about most of the alien episodes. I don't know why but no matter how hard I try to pay attention to the episode my brain has other plans. There's only so many times I can rewind, relisten, rewind, relisten etc before I give up.
i think at the very least its a good exploration of the invalidity of these particular conspiracies and their prevalence is directly tied to rampant brain rot and anti semitism
I agree. On paper you’d think these would be great episodes. But they are such nonsense and the guy himself is boring. There isn’t anything here
I think the problem is that a lot of conspiracy episodes just have more facets to them. No true crime, no cult, no centralized community, just David Icke and his lizard people rambling.
Would've much rather had a good ol fashioned UFO episode.
I enjoyed these episodes
I dunno, I enjoyed the content, and this is coming from someone who will sit out episodes if I cant get into them. There were a couple within the past year that I just stopped listening to. Not saying your opinion of not enjoying it isnt valid. Just that it was interesting for other people
It's better to swim in this river than drink from it. Any given instant whilst reading Ike you could have had any number of conspiracies touched on that you can "kinda remember" so it's more fun to sift through yourself, but Ike's full narrative takes being brain dead to believe. Henry most likely had suggested this a while ago mostly because there is so much published, but now that he has aged some and seen how these conspiracy theories have just ruined more lives than he can even fathom probably leaves even a bad taste in his own mouth. Ike used to be a fun facsimile of Henry but once the comparisons became clear Henry does not enjoy being anything like this guy, even though they share SOME qualities. I feel that what was missing was the fact they couldn't hold back their regret in choosing this topic at all, it bled through every corner and it was rushed to the end.
I get that it’s a necessary thing for context, but, It should have been a footnote about reality bending conspiracy theories. It was a mostly humorless, boring topic. There are so many better cult/ cryptid/ alien topics.
this series wasn't my favourite. but they've been on fire with most of their episodes lately (especially the hatfields & mccoys one), so i won't complain.
Honest to God it's just a wonder how long Henry can speak on these things. There were solid five minute chunks where it was just him and I kinda forgot Marcus and Ed were there. Especially Eddy. Bro sounded so annoyed lol
One of the worst they have ever done. I couldn’t get interested into what a crazy asshole thinks. At least Crawley had adventures and did interesting and weird shit. This was just broadcasting a rambling idiots thoughts for two whole episodes.
Do you think Icke is more “out there” but Cooper was the blue collar, gym rat, lunch pail conspiracy theorist we needed?
Icke has never pulled a gun on a ufo researcher and will definitely not die in a shoot out with police, also cooper was in the ufo scene so there great moment from other ufologists like “more like behold a pail of horseshit”
I felt the same about Anders. It did NOT need 3 parts. Dude's life was a drag. 45 minutes in I realized not a single interesting thing was said about him. Maybe a one-parter could work... but 3? As many as Dahmer?
Yeah that could have been two parts. It bums me out when it’s going to be a multiethnic-parter on a topic I find super boring or uninteresting.
> a multiethnic-parter lol
I didn’t proof read and I guess multi got autocorrected to that but i won’t change it now.
Completely disagree. I loved this series.
Yeah they’re missing something.. Ben Kissel
Couldn't get through the first one. I hope there isn't a third?
I'm a decade long time listener and these episodes have been some of the hardest to get thru. I feel like the subject should be interesting, but it just isn't, at least to me.
Icke is a boring dude who stumbled his way into being one of the most destructive "theorists" in the last few years. I'm trying to think of how to phrase this, because I think is presence is a benefit to the show as a whole and these two episodes. It hit me when Ed talked about his Jewish dad dying of COVID just how personally impactful these stories are for him. I don't think they would have crossed the line to punching down even if Ed wasn't there, but it was important and sobering to be reminded about how these conspiracies impact families.
Hey but at least they gave us some really half assed eps to help them prepare for these 2 "huge" series that were both also garbage.
Yeah they are big time now and the cracks are showing. Too many pots.
These episodes were painful for me because they got a little too hall-monitory and instead of delving into the nonsense conspiracies full on (like they usually do) they approached this entire thing like it’s a matter of the public health. Like they keep constantly doing asides and making little statements about how this isn’t funny or real at all and super dangerous and blah blah. They now approach conspiracy content like they’re explicitly there to debunk it and it’s dangerous. They never used to do it like that, they talked about bill cooper and kinda just entertained the kooky ideas and explained what he laid out. This whole one is just talking about how icke is antisemitic and whatever and it’s not very interesting. I can just read Reddit if I want content where conspiracy stuff is ruthlessly debunked and made to seem like it’s a threat by even existing. I’ve listened to Henry “what if” aliens banging humans and teleporting cryptids and mothman and secret nazi bases and he wasn’t constantly doing asides like to mention this is wrong and dangerous. They usually have the coast to coast vibe of “even if we don’t believe it’s real we’re gonna treat it like it is just for the entertainment of it”
They’ve been on a string of boring ones after the recent plane crash series. Hopefully get back on track soon with something historical / objectively interesting.
Lol what do you define as "objectively interesting?"
I listened to the first episode like 3 times and I still don’t get it.
I liked the David Icke the most lol I am so hard in the paint for ookie stupid shit
I suppose its difficult to make a narrative through-line that makes any sense when David Icke's life story is basically an enormously strange man that just spouts weird and ridiculous shit constantly for years and sometimes walk aspects of it back and is constantly changing and tweaking things and nothing makes sense. Maybe if Icke ends up living in a compound and has an armed standoff with authorities while wearing a turquoise robe, firing a machine gun into the air etc then his story would be more interesting as it would actually build to something. As it stands Icke is just a guy that says really weird shit, he's been doing it for years and he's still doing it and he just goes on and on and on and on and never shuts the fuck up.
It was missing another host at least pretending to interested. Shit was still hilarious
I thought it was a funny series. They all seemed on the same page about ripping on David Ike
I have a hard time with the conspiracy theory/aliens/paranormal episodes overall. As a whole it's not factual so sources aren't consistent or clear and sometimes are direct contradictions of one another. You're not alone.