Tim Heidecker Wants to Turn Infowars Into Adult Swim for the Internet

Christmas morning.

Was it really Christmas morning?

Oh, metaphorically speaking.

I’m Canadian, very gullible. Now you know.

Good to know.

It was a total joy, because I’ve been swimming in these QAnon, 4chan, right-wing waters for a long time. I think when it was quite new and scary in 2016, 2015, when you had Pepe the Frog and memes of people being put in gas chambers and stuff, I’d never experienced anything like that before. That was like, oh my god.

Did you ever worry about your safety?

Oh, sure. At that time, there were a few incidents that were like, “Ooh, maybe we should get something,” you know? Different. I’m not living behind a wall or anything, but you take some precautions.

We have reporters who cover the waters that you swim in. And it can be very scary. I looked at the responses to Alex Jones’ post on X about you, and it was all people just being like, “Fuck you, Alex Jones.”

Well, the funniest thing was I think even a lot of his supporters were like, “Alex, this was a comedy show. Like, this is kind of embarrassing for you.”

It’s very funny to Eric and I, and to our friends, because we were obviously the people making that, and we know who we are, and we know where our intentions are.

You look at it now, and you go, “Yeah, I guess, you know, I could see you taking this the wrong way,” but at the time we were just making each other laugh, you know? So I’m not here to defend it. It was very funny to see him get riled up about that stuff, for sure.

But maybe interesting, too, to see how his influence has waned?. I was surprised to see that it didn’t generate the kind of response that I thought it would.

I almost wish we had gotten to this sooner. I mean, that whole movement is so fractured. He’s at war with Trump every other day.

There’s certain things he kind of gets close to being right about. He’s on our side right now, apparently, with the war in Iran and thinks that’s a bad idea. So, you know, he’s shifting and changing, probably for cynical reasons or whatever, trying to grab the flow, wherever the culture is going on that side.

He’s gotta sell some supplements.

It’s all about that. I think at the heart of it, though, is still this feeling of very uncomedic ideas like retribution and justice and consequences for your actions. Ideas that I didn’t necessarily expect to be in the middle of.

But after learning more about the families and what they’ve been through and everything, it felt like a pretty noble activity to be a part of.

Well, let me turn to that then, in earnest. How did you get involved in all of this in the first place? Take us back to before you became creative director of the new Infowars. How did that even become a glimmer of a possibility?