Tim Heidecker’s plan to get you off social media and onto InfoWars

0:00Hi, everybody. It's Tim Heidecker here. Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street. They have lost InfoWars. Going to Buy Design, I'm Liz Stinson. And I'm Lilly Smith, guest hosting today. Our guest today is Tim Heidecker, and he's joining us not as an actor or a podcast host or a musician, but for his new role as the creative director of The Onion's InfoWars. Lily, you've been reporting on this for Fast Company. Can you catch us up on where things stand with The Onion's bid to take over InfoWars? Yeah, definitely. So just to context that a little bit, InfoWars is the platform of the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

0:41In 2012, Jones referred to the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting as crisis actors and called that shooting a hoax, for which the families ended up suing him for defamation and winning both in Texas and Connecticut. That was after years of litigation, and he has now been ordered to pay nearly$1.4 billion in damages, which has ultimately led to Jones filing for bankruptcy. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, InfoWars ended up for sale on auction and was scooped up by none other than the satirical political website The Onion, which seems like the ultimate punchline in some ways, who bid on the brand's intellectual property, production equipment, and all of that kind of stuff in a package deal.

1:26However, it's been tied up as Alex Jones has continued to file appeals to delay that handover of assets. Right. It sounds like Jones has not made it easy to just waltz in and take over Infowars. No, not at all. I mean, so the most recent appeal was this April, and he's basically been trying to block that transaction of these assets going over to the families. He said in April that they want the name and the logo to literally try to misrepresent and say they're me, and it's all hidden behind satire. satire. The satire part he did get right. And then he added, well, what you've got yourselves is a bunch of lawsuits.

2:07And that has proved to be true. The Sandy Hook families have yet to be paid, which will happen once the assets are handed over. To make that kind of long legal story short, the Onion's parent company, Global Tehedron, is now waiting for court approval of a plan that would allow it to pay$81 ,000 a month to license InfoWars.com, the domain name and its associated intellectual property. Those proceeds will go to the families and the families are really for this handover of assets to the Onion. Okay, so it sounds like we're still waiting on that final verdict, which we believe could come any day now.

2:49The Onion is confident that the deal will be completed and they'll be able to go ahead and take over InfoWars. And the person at the forefront of all of this is Tim Heidecker. He is going to be the creative director of the reimagined site. Yeah, that's right. So some people might know Tim from Tim and Eric, from his show Office Hours, and now he is going to be heading up the new InfoWars in a new context. And so his strategy really is first, you know, this kind of initial parody of Alex Jones, who in some ways is kind of a parody of himself. Hi, everybody. It's Tim Heidecker here. Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street.

3:34They have lost InfoWars. But eventually he does plan to sunset that and open up to a lot more content in different formats, video, bring in different creators to really expand the platform and what it can be, including, you know, the video that people will see in their social feeds. There will also be a website that they're really looking to make into a destination to get people off of these social sites and back onto, you know, the web, a web browser if that's possible in this day and age. And so part of that is really through the web design, making it kind of a unique destination for people to go to and spend time on through the UX.

4:14So we'll see how that plays out. Why do you think they're interested in this at all? That's a great question. I mean, it does fit well with the Onion as it exists. It seems to marry well if you look within kind of that broad brand family. It gives the Onion opportunity for growth in a way. I think also if you look at kind of the broader context of political branding right now, It opens up a possible new tactic for Democrats to take where they have previously been ineffective. So I've been thinking about it kind of as this idea of brand raiding or brand commandeering in the sense that they're taking this existing brand and really making it their own.

5:01The Democratic Party has kind of a hard time finding its voice at a national level. And part of that, I think, is due to the fact that they try to apply logic and really disprove conspiracy theorist points item by item in a way that just doesn't really work within the UX of the Internet and is kind of constant churn. And so this offers something different. It's also different than, say, opposition branding of yesteryear. Say like the, I'm trying to think of an example. I mean, there are a lot of them. Trump has used it against Biden a lot. So I think, you know, this offers something new in the sense that it really holds up a mirror to what Alex is doing rather than trying to disprove him and apply logic to something that's illogical.

5:55After a quick break, our interview with Tim Heidecker.

6:09Tim, welcome to By Design. Thank you for having me. So, Tim, The Onion is in the process of taking over brand assets from Infowars, the former platform of, of course, the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. I'm curious how you have been trapping for this. How is your voice? How's my voice? It's manageable. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know how he does it. I'm not, I have to put it on. It seems to be something he just does naturally. It's the way his genetics are engineered. But yeah, that's the preparation. We're just trying to prepare for anything, really. I mean, there's the most likely scenario where things eventually resolve themselves fairly soon to the place where we just have everything outright.

6:57Right now, it is just in no man's land, from what I understand. And we feel very confident just kind of forging ahead and doing it because who's going to stop us at this point? But we're hoping just to have the legal stuff behind us very soon. And in the meantime, while the legal stuff is working itself out, what are you doing in the background? What are you guys working on? Do you have just a backlog of content? Well, we're getting there. I mean, we just started up a few months ago. So we've got some stuff in the works that we'll be shooting soon. We've shot a little bit of stuff. And then we're starting from nowhere.

7:39So we had to staff up. We had to bring on a development exec and start going out to people we want to work with and get their pitches. And, you know, so it's a long game that we're moving as quick as possible with. But yeah, we're hoping, I don't want to say, I don't want to make too many promises here, but we're hoping like sometime in the fall, there'll be like this relaunch of InfoWars as a very progressive in terms of not necessarily politically, but in terms of content and experimentation, progressive comedy network. You had mentioned the parody, Tim. I know that some people are familiar with that online from what you've posted so far.

8:24You also mentioned that you're staffing up. Can you talk a little bit about how you're going to expand on that from a content perspective? What's that going to look like when things go live come fall? You know, just finding people that really have been a bit without a home out there on the cable networks. Younger creators, younger comedians that grew up on the internet and their humor and their look on the world is informed by that funny shit that I think is good and that our team think is good. The key is like we're the onion, you know, from the onions perspective, they want to branch out, they want to grow and as any company should, I guess, maybe not, you know, not every company, but the onion themselves is very strict in their sensibility and the tone of what the onion does.

9:17And they want to protect that, but they also want to grow. So, this thing came along that was sort of this altruistic bit of revenge against the dark forces of the world that also coincided with their desire to grow. And what growing means is really getting outside of the tone and the voice that they are so acclaimed for. So that's where I come in, and that's where the idea of using Infowars as a vessel for that makes sense to everybody. Tim, I actually want to back up a little bit to how this all began. And from what I understand, you called Ben Collins, who is the CEO of The Onion, before The Onion even had a deal.

10:02Or I don't know, deal inked is the right terminology here for taking over Infowars. But you were basically asking for this job, right? Why did you want to do this? Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, I don't know if I knew it was going to turn into this at that time. This was a couple of years ago. I just saw the story and I thought, you know, we, my show Office Hours, which is a podcast, a weekly live call-in show that often talks about that world of Alex Jones or Joe Rogan or Bill Maher, you know, whatever these characters are that we are now, that we're, you know, using as material often.

10:41And Alex was always like a big part of that. And so I've just been following him for over 10 years now. Not closely, not like some other people do, but I just find it horrifying and funny at the same time. And so I don't really remember what my intentions of reaching out were. It was sort of like, well, first of all, we'd like to get the footage. We'd like to get all of the back. We'd like to get the library of, you know, all the bloopers, I guess. And, you know, we just wanted to be in the mix. You know, we wanted to be in the conversation. So that's probably why I reached out. And then nothing happened, and nothing happened on their end.

11:20And then it came back up, and they reached out. I don't even know if that message got to Ben, if it was in the back of his head. I think he was just, which I didn't know, I think he was a fan of a lot of the parodies I'd been doing and a lot of the satire I'd been making that was pretty close to what they were thinking this could become. What would you say is the role of satire and parody in this moment? I mean, do you think that it's a particularly effective way to kind of weaponize the nihilism that seems to have taken over politics right now? Yes, it can be. I think at its best, and there's a lot of it that isn't great, but, you know, at its best, I think what it can do is there's a whole bunch of people.

12:07I mean, there's really the majority of this country that thinks what's going on on a daily basis is probably insane. And they've either, it either stresses them out or they've checked out, you know, so, and I'm not saying I'm playing to the majority of the country, but good satire should be able to reflect the insanity that people see and make them feel like they're not going crazy because somebody else sees what they see about how crazy this is. And that's kind of it. So it's a reflection and it is perhaps a calming or soothing antidote to the people that are – I don't know that – I would say I doubt it has much effect on the people you're satirizing.

12:55You know, I mean, I think in the case of Alex Jones this time, I think we did land some blows on his brain because he seemed to kind of lose it. And he loses it about everything, so who knows? But, you know, we had him convinced that I was – I'm a Satanist, demonic, you know. What did he call you? A skinwalker? A skinwalker, you know. What a charm. Yeah, so I think that's a great thing. If I'm taking up any of his airtime, that seems like a win. But, you know, I think if you're making fun of Trump or you're making fun of J.D. Vance with the eyeliner or whatever it is, like, it's not really landing on them necessarily.

13:36But I think it provides a, like I said, it provides some comfort to people that feel like the world is insane. And it's making things maybe a little less lonely for them. So as a performer, how are you accessing the parts of Jones that are like obviously very insidious, but with like some objectivity, like also pretty funny? How do you do that without sort of like elevating or validating the worst parts of him? I just go in there and riff it. I mean, I just talk to my, I do it with my friends. They're around. Not really. I mean, there's some conversations and there's some bullet points maybe, but it's meant to feel unhinged.

14:17It's meant to feel off the cuff and not thought out. So I couldn't read anything in that style. I think I could just go around, you know, and just bloviate. And it's about, you know, if you watch him, a lot of it is not really information heavy. It is bluster and it is repetition and it is exaggeration. And so I think in the satire of it, my job, I think, is to try to be as ridiculous as possible without losing sight of who you're doing or what the character is. Their response from what I saw was like there was no jokes, you know, and that's really funny because I think there are a lot of jokes.

15:00But if you're the subject of the joke, you don't see the jokes, you know. Right. But like I thought that saying that I had made this deal with the devil and God and I've gotten God and the devil to agree on something, that is a joke, you know? And it's not really a joke that I can recall seeing anyone make, you know? Like that's a stupid idea. Like especially if you're like me and you don't really buy into any of that stuff. But like that's it. You know, just heighten it and make it ridiculous. And I'm not going to go out there and literally repeat some of the awful things he said. it's going to be a little cartoonish and ridiculous.

15:34He does really seem to be generally kind of like flailing and unable to craft a kind of effective response to this parody of him. And why do you think that is like, why do you think it's so effective? I don't know. I mean, maybe he sees some of it. He sees the monster in the mirror or something with it. I don't know. I think he's got a lot of mental health issues, so I can't really diagnose the why of Alex Jones too accurately. Something that I was thinking about is a lot of times it seems like there's a hard time at the national level of the Democratic Party, for instance, kind of finding a voice right now.

16:11It seems often people get kind of trapped in this idea of trying to disprove conspiracy theorists or try to disprove a lie. And this doesn't really do that so much as just kind of, as you said, hold up a mirror and kind of offer an answer in that way. And it does seem to disarm him without getting lost in his narrative. Yeah, we just put the bait out there and let him snack on it, you know, and I think, I don't know if we even anticipated how shirtless he'd become over the whole situation. But it was beautiful to watch. And again, like anytime we're sucking up the oxygen over there and wasting their time, I mean, And my favorite kind of comedy is time-wasting.

16:55You know, like, what is the point of this? What, you know, it's absurd. So that's always sort of front of mind. The Jones impersonation part of this will probably eventually run its course. It will definitely run its course. Yeah, and then you're left with the media brand that you can basically do whatever you want with. You mean you want to bring in new voices. You want to, yeah, you want it to be a comedy platform that expands beyond what The Onion can do. Yeah. Guess what I'm wondering is, you know, you want this to eventually shake off the connotation of the InfoWars that came before. And, you know, like beyond your satirical embodiment of Jones as a character, how are you going to convince people that InfoWars is reincarnated?

17:42I mean, what creative decisions go into making that happen? Well, I mean, we're good to do like all the bells and whistles and promotional marketing that you would do with any new venture. The content itself should hopefully speak for itself. It will be a joke for a while that this is what InfoWars has become. that is a central joke in this, and that his legacy is what the content is now so different and so antithetical, maybe, to his worldview. And then I just, like, from the beginning, I thought it's just a very interesting social experiment or attempt to change meaning, you know, to change what people think of when they think of InfoWars, you know, and that maybe in four or five years, you think about us, or you think about good comedy, or you think about, you know, like words tend to lose their meaning when you put them in front of something else, you know, like, it could be anything, it could be zim zam, you know, doesn't really matter, you start associating the word with what it represents.

18:52And I don't know, it's probably a tall task, but I just think we stick with it. And Adult Swim is a good example. Adult Swim used to literally mean, and it probably still does, it's like when the parents get to go swim, when the kids are not allowed in the pool. Now, you don't think that when you hear adults swim. I mean, I don't, of course, but most people under 40 don't. They think of the TV network, you know? So that's what we'll do. And if not, we'll change it to ZimZam after three years, you know? Who cares?

19:27one immediate example i think of when you say basically you're just you're giving new meaning to infowars is just the quick change on the logo which is now just like dressed in a rainbow gradient yes with the onion is the o is really quite nice and subtle and you know we sold a ton of merch with that there's people walking around with the hats and the shirts and the tote bags and whatnot. So it is just a big, you know, we are mocking what he stands for openly. And we're also giving a big chunk of the population who have been so enraged by this person and this movement of anti-information or whatever, that it gives them a toy to play with.

20:08You know, it gives them like something to do about it. I want to talk about the, really quickly about the, some of the creative choices that are already showing up, even though InfoWars isn't fully live yet. You mentioned the merch. There's obviously like the SponCon that you are coming up with. What's the creative process like for that? Is that a team of writers that are coming up with like, turn your piss into gold, that sort of thing? I came up with that. So I'm pretty happy. I'm going to take ownership of that. Those ads are just... Yeah, it really is. I mean, it is a very small group right now.

20:46There's not, you know, we don't have Netflix money on this thing. There's, there's, we're keeping it tight. But there's this guy, Jamie Brew, who is at The Onion, who came from, he was at ClickHole for a while. And I just met him through this, but he's been very involved in helping kind of, I guess you'd say the head writer of this whole thing at the moment. My guys from Office Hours, my producer, Matt Carlin, a couple other, Jenna Freeman, I don't know how many people, I guess it doesn't matter, but a pretty small group. And we just do what writers do is you sit around and you bullshit for four hours and somebody takes notes and you go, that's pretty good.

21:27Let's do those four things. A lot of this comes from the family I built here at office hours and on cinema and from the Tim and Eric days. There's a lot of great, super talented to people that are just around and looking for work and or looking for more work at least. And I have access to that, that talent pool, I guess. How will you know if the new Info Wars is successful? Like what would be a really satisfying result from all of this for you? I guess if the owner of, of it, who's owns the, you know, Jeff, who owns the Global Tetrahedron, which owns the Onion, it's their parent company. I guess the success would be him being like, Let's keep doing this.

22:10You know, I mean, I think there's, it's very, you know, speculative at this point. And there's, I mean, there's, you know, there's something like, I don't know, a two-year runway for us to do this. And so I would assume it would be like, if this is working in two years and we keep going, like, that would be a sign of success. Some videos will get millions of views and some won't. And, you know, it'll be, that's not the best. And the other sign would be that if I feel like I'm making good stuff, people are feeling good about it and the creators feel like they're being treated fairly. And I've never done anything where I just felt, ah, that was perfect, you know.

22:54So it's just a mix of, ah, that could have been better. But I think just getting to keep doing it and letting it grow and making it a real force in the industry here would be a major achievement. Yeah, I mean, on the content side, is the goal to shift the perception of these, like, right-wing blowhards in some way? Is it to needle out Jones? Is it to kind of shift the way people consume information online on that side of things? For the short term, we're going to take direct shots at what everyone thinks of as InfoWars and goof on that pretty directly. And then, you know, we've been calling that sort of phase one.

23:31And then I think phase two is to become a player and a competitor to various, you know, which there really aren't many of anymore, except the direct social media platforms. But, you know, making, I don't know if we're going to actually get their attention, but to say to Instagram, like, no, they're not just like these people that are getting like millions of views, like, they're going to be here now, and we're going to pay them. And this is not just stuff that you scroll through. This is good shit. Take the creators from the platforms and bring them, I mean, the comedians from those platforms and bring them to you.

24:04I like that. Yeah, I mean, we're going to use those platforms to get their people seeing them. But eventually we want to make it so you come to us like you'd come to Netflix or whatever, you know. I love that InfoWars is the vehicle for this takeover, this media, this comedy and media takeover. I mean, why not? Because, like, first of all, it gets people like you talking to us about it. And we'll continue to do so because, like I said, if we launched ZimZam, it would be like a story in The Hollywood Reporter and nobody would care. And now you've got Fast Company's design vertical asking you questions.

24:43Yeah, it's huge. Well, Tim, thank you very much for taking the time. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Very thoughtful questions. I appreciate it.

24:56By Design is produced by Cody Nelson, sound design and mix by Nicholas Torres, video editing by Matt Toder. Our executive producer is Josh Christensen.