In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an English comedian, actor and conspiracy theorist, Russell Brand (@rustyrockets). He’s best-known for his tendency to spread conspiracy theories and for his anti-establishment (well, basically they’re just anti-US/UK policy) views.

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Now, when I say that Brand is a conspiracy theorist, I mean it. It seems that he believes pretty much EVERY conspiracy theory out there, including The Great Reset and “Klaus Schwab taking over the world through WEF”, “microchips in vaccines”, “Multipolar World”, …

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US and CIA-led coup d’État in Ukraine, and NATO’s expansion and proxy war against Russia. Brand’s a fan of David Icke, whose worldview contains inter-dimensional, shapeshifting reptilians which have hijacked the earth.

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Icke suggests that various public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood, a fascist group that tries to establish New World Order by suppressing freedom of speech. He also endorses a fabricated, anti-Semitic scripture called “ The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
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When discussing the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Brand clearly has picked a side – based on Russell, the only culprits of the war are the US and the “military industrial complex”. And most probably Klaus Schwab and his evil association known as the World Economic Forum…

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The basic argument is that everything is infiltrated & everyone is controlled by the “deep state”, thus making any kind of democratic efforts pointless. I mean, one of the title of his videos is “Prince Harry Saga – The TRUTH About The Deep State?” (with Clare Daly by the way) 6/18

As too many actors and actresses on social media, Brand has a huge following: he has over 6 million subscribers of YouTube and over 1 million over on Rumble. On Twitter, he has a whopping 11 million followers, even though it’s mainly used for channeling people…

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…to his YT and Rumble podcasts. This makes him one of the biggest outlets for conspiratorial content, and he’s only surpassed by maybe Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and Donald Trump. After YouTube took down one of Brand’s COVID-19 themed videos in…

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…September 2022, he moved to less-censored Rumble. Worried about losing that sweet, sweet YouTube money, Brand even produced an apology video but eventually took it down and said that “we made an error, in my opinion a relatively small error, and we are being …

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…penalised, and for me that looks like censorship". As an anti-capitalist, Russell evidently seems to worry about losing his main source of income, probably coming from Samsung and Coca Cola ads. You can also buy his T-shirts with cool anti-establishment statements for as…10/18

…low as 25, 99 £. I mean, the man even monetized the famous 12 steps from AA/NA with his 2017 book, Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions.

Watching Russell’s podcasts is extremely exhausting, they are an endless stream of rambling about conspiracy theories and how the…

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…mainstream media is quiet about them. But I did it, so you don’t have to.

On his show, he’s interviewed pro-Kremlin propagandists such as RT-funded Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, Jimmy Dore and Seymour Hersh.

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As is tradition, they barely mention Russia, mostly talking about the corruption both in the US and in Ukraine. In March 2022, Brand published a video titled “You’ve Been LIED To About Why Ukraine War Began”. The video to date has garnered 3, 1 million views, and in it Brand… 13/18

…suggests, right after he’s advertised his stand-up gigs, that the Revolution of Dignity was actually a US-backed coup d’État. He bases this information on heavily biased op-ed by Branko Marcetic. In said op-ed, Marcetic suggested that the “coup” was funded by the US…

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…because John McCain shook hands with Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok and Victoria Nuland gave out sandwiches to both the protestors and the police, and said “Fuck the EU” during a phone call.

Brand also appeared as a commentator on a fellow anti-capitalist Tucker …
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…Carlson’s show, apparently because he believes “change is possible”. The Tucker Carlson, who was so worried about the stock price going down that he had a dissenting co-worker fired. Brand was “surprised” on how many things they “actually agreed on”, and for some…

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… reason this whole rant reminded me of a horseshoe.

To conclude, Brand is utilizing his career as a comedian and actor to spread wild conspiracy theories in his podcast with clickbait titles like “Why Zelensky REALLY Wants US Tanks”. If there’s something he’s learned…
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…from the American media culture, it’s that fear sells: his rants about the end of days and deep state corruption are often seasoned with ads where he sells his stand-up gig or his mugs and T-shirts with corny slogans. You know, grifting and fearmongering for a hefty profit.18/18

Also, do read George Monbiot’s (@GeorgeMonbiot) fantastic and thorough analysis on Brand:

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…