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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm Noel King.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram. Back in August of last year, we explained QAnon in an episode titled, What is QAnon? Back in September of last year, we made an episode called A Fake News Survival Guide to help you and your loved ones better identify good information sources from problematic ones. Today's show is going to be a bit of a case study that calls back to each of those previous ones. As a warning, it's going to feature a lot of conspiracy theories, information that is not only false, but in some cases dangerous. We're going to try and navigate these conspiratorial waters to try and discover what happens when someone you love falls deeply into conspiracy theory rabbit holes and how to go about trying to dig that person you love out.
--:-- Noel King: A Los Angeles filmmaker named Sean Donnelly recently tried to do just that. The person he loves is his mom. And he recently made a documentary about her love of conspiracy theories.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: I was going to make a different documentary about my mom once about those peacocks, which is a whole other story. These peacocks showed up randomly, and then my mom was like, what a blessing, what a sign from the universe. And so she started feeding them, and then they stayed there, and she loved them. Handsome, handsome boy. So we don't know where they came from, but we feel very lucky to have them. They give me lots of joy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My parents live in Santa Cruz, California. And, you know, still in Santa Cruz, it's not like there's peacocks walking around everywhere. They're pretty rare. And randomly two showed up at our house, which was kind of like, you know, where the hell did those come from? And so we figured maybe like a neighbor somewhere had had them and they left. But nobody ever claimed them. And they just stayed at our house because my mom started feeding them. And so then, you know, she named them. Hi, Sandra. Hi, Cita. Ta-da! There you go, handsome boy.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: And, uh, it's been love ever since. But they had a renter who hated the peacocks and was like, these things are so loud and annoying, they're giving me brain damage, you have to get rid of them. And my mom's like, they're precious beans, and if we're not getting rid of them, you have to go if you don't like peacocks. You knew this was a peacock house when you moved in here. And so then my parents went out of town, and then they came back, and one of the peacocks was dead and the other one was traumatized. I was like, did she murder these peacocks when my parents were out of town? Because then my mom went to feed the other peacock and was running away from her and acting totally crazy when normally it was very friendly. There were just so many weirdos up there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One guy's like, it's hard to kill a bird like that. I would know. I beat a turkey to death the other day. But he's like, but I didn't kill that peacock. There were a lot of good characters in this movie, this unfinished movie. If anyone out there is interested in funding my peacock movie, I have a lot of it in the can. We digress. Back to the conspiracy theories.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: But I feel like it's been tricky over these last few years because she's kind of gotten more and more into these conspiracy theories. And they've kind of gotten more and more right wing and more and more extreme over time. And it used to just be like she was into aliens or she was into other kind of stuff. And it seemed a little harmless and it was just interesting and kooky stuff on the internet, you know, but.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't believe we've had a pandemic. I believe it was a plandemic. If you look at Rockefeller's lockstep, it was planned in 2010. It's all laid out exactly. It has to do with a new world order. The vaccine is made by Bill Gates and is actually trying to kill people. Like Joe Biden's actually dead and there's like a person impersonating him and like sort of like weaponized and intense.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: And eventually it became pretty scary when like all she was talking about was like these political conspiracy theories and how horrible the Clintons were and how many murders they'd committed. And then over time, it was like, at first it was like, all right, let's just not talk about politics. But then slowly it was like, oh, you know, what about these wildfires? Oh, I do not believe the wildfires in California and Oregon are natural. I've actually seen the blue beams in many videos. So I believe it's definitely direct energy weapons.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Even if it's something as simple as like, hey, you want to watch Stephen Colbert? I definitely feel he's a pedophile. Definitely. Because he makes jokes at Pizzagate and everything. The people that make all the jokes about it, saying it's not real, they're trying to diffuse it. He's a big part of it.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: My mom thinks basically any pop stars or musicians, most of them got to where they are by selling their souls to the devil. So that includes Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga. She's really a bad satanic. She's really into the spirit cooking. I've seen pictures of her at the spirit cooking where they're eating human meat and they have like a naked body in the middle of the table. And the main proof about Lady Gaga is that she like did like an artist retreat with Marina Abramovic, the performance artist. It's like she's the most satanic witch in all the land.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she told Lady Gaga some of her secrets. And I've tried to tell her like we have a coffee table book of Marina Abramovic in my house like on the shelf over there and it's like I went to her retrospective like this isn't a Satan worshiper this is just like a weird performance artist who's been at it for a long time. My mom's like oh well have you seen all the art that the Podestas have in their house and I'm like wait what are we talking about now I thought we were talking about Marina Abramovic.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: And that's kind of how all these conversations go it's like you're talking about one thing and then the second you make a point or you're into a new conversation. It's just too much to handle. You gotta stick to the classics, like talk about the dog, talk about food, talk about going on a walk. So yeah, my mom has gotten very addicted to her phone, like we all are but to another level. Watching YouTube videos and texting like pretty much all day every day.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Her phone phone literally dies five times a day because she uses it so much. And she has a charger in the kitchen a charger in the bathroom, a charger next to her bed. There's just chargers all over the house, and they all have 10-foot cords so she can plug in and walk around. And what is she doing on this phone? Watching basically a lot of really hardcore, extreme right-wing conspiracy theories.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: It's interesting because my mom was always like the most anti-cell phone person, like not just casually anti-cell phone, but like she would go out and protest cell phone towers being put up with like friends of hers in Santa Cruz. And they all none of them had cell phones. And they were very and she was always like, I never have a phone. I never miss it once. Like nobody needs to have a cell phone. You see everybody on their phone all the time. Like I don't even have a phone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then eventually she was like, maybe I should just get a flip phone so I can have a phone for emergencies. And then my dad was like you can use my old iPhone or whatever. I was always hoping that my dad was going to be the one that would kind of bring her back into reality.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: I keep trying to tell her all the time that it's almost a fool's errand to think that you always know what the truth is. But unfortunately I think over the years she's actually pulled him slowly closer to her direction and I think that like he definitely thinks most of what she says is crazy and not true but the fact that he even now believes like five percent of it is like still think a lot and it's like an entry point into like slipping down deeper and deeper.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think there was like everything gradual. I think when she first got it she probably just used it for making telephone calls and um then as time went on yeah I'd say that she's pretty much on her phone most of the day. And if she could be in a room all day and just watch one video after the other after years of having all these conversations with her and hearing her talk about all this stuff that just never ended up happening, I decided like a great way to hold her a little more accountable would be to make some bets and have like a firm deadline and be like, let's see who wins and who loses.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: One of them was that Donald Trump would come back into office and be president again. Bet number two is that Obama and Hillary and Nancy Pelosi and Brennan. Brennan, who I don't even really know who that is. And Comey will all be arrested. We ended up making seven bets. They $100 that A-star Hollywood people in the music and in Hollywood will be arrested for pedophilia and satanic worshiping and sacrifices. She's like, I don't want to drop any names here, but.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'll give you some examples. Tom Hanks, Oprah. Voter fraud. 100% proven with no dispute that huge election fraud with the Dominion machines. Like across all the news, not just conspiracy news. Capitol Hill on January 6th was definitely Antifa and Black Lives Matter. And it was 100% arranged that FEMA and the military are in control. Why there's all this.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: Is this a separate bet? Yeah. The Pope would be arrested for pedophilia. You're going to see some proof soon, and you are going to be shocked to the core. You probably won't be able to get out of bed in the morning. And you're going to probably call your mother and say, I can't believe all the crazy crap that you showed me all these years is really true. OMG, you were right, Mom. So this is the fantasy that you live in? No, I think it's going to happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When COVID started I think a lot of this stuff got a lot worse because they had friends that were kind of more on the right and they had friends that were kind of more on the left but when COVID started everybody that's become more liberal and like reads regular news is like staying inside their house so the only people that wanted to hang out were all the hardcore right-wing people that don't believe the news so basically for the last year they've been in only hanging out with people that don't believe any news and like want to hang out together.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: And they've sort of become like more and more radical. In Santa Cruz, they closed off the beaches for COVID. And then my parents were like a part of group of people that like stormed onto the beach for to protect their freedoms. And they were like on the front page of the local newspaper. My sister called me and was like, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe my parents are on the front of this newspaper, like breaking onto the beach with a bunch of maniacs. The Freedom Friends, they're called.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I definitely am hoping that now that things are opening back up again, that they're going to have a more mixed diet of friends and conversations and that that will help kind of stop them from getting too extreme and going even further down the rabbit hole they've been going down.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: Did your mom get vaccinated? Of course not. No, not only did my mom not get vaccinated, but her main mission is to try to stop as many people as she can from getting vaccinated. And it's like the number one focus of her day.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're back. You heard from filmmaker Sean Donnelly in the first half of the show. Now you're going to hear from his mom, Tammy. We asked to speak with the two of them together so we could find out how those bets went, but also how to go about maintaining a relationship with someone you love who's drifted away from reality.
--:-- Tammy: It's a combination of many things. It's mostly YouTube videos. There's several people. I think there's a lot of misinformation on both sides. I think you have to question everybody, But the people I trust the most, if you want me to tell you their names. Sure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The amazing Polly. She's an incredible researcher. Who's that? I'm not familiar with her work. Well, we can send you the link. She's amazing. It's in her name. That's how amazing she is.
--:-- Tammy: Anthony Fauci, who always is talking so much so fast, appearing everywhere, that he keeps people from digging deeper. And seeing the deeper truths.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is she like a credible journalist? You know, because journalists, they have people fact-checking their work and editing their work and supervising their work. And they represent companies that have a lot on the line if they misrepresent the truth.
--:-- Tammy: For example, during the election, a rumor you may have heard over and over and over was that there was something wrong with these Dominion voting machines. Of course. Meanwhile, President Trump is tweeting conspiracy theories about voting machines changing votes. But the government agency in charge of election security refuted that, saying there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And do you still believe that there's something wrong with those machines? 150%. Interestingly, that company, Dominion, started suing the people who were spreading that information, and they all stopped talking about it.
--:-- Tammy: Mike, thank you very much. Mike, you're talking about machines that we at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of those kinds of allegations. We just want to let people know that there's nothing substantive that we've seen. And let me read you something. Did you notice that? I did. And it's because there was no truth to that claim. That's why they stopped talking about it. Because if you're telling the truth in this country, as you well know, you're good legally. You're on solid ground. But but they weren't telling the truth. And that's why they have to stop talking about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, I disagree, but I understand what you're saying. To me, it's shocking, honestly, that anybody can believe that Joe Biden won when nobody even showed up at any of his rallies. Trump had tens of thousands of people there. To me, it's so obvious.
--:-- Tammy: Do you think that people, the difference between Biden supporters and Trump supporters is that maybe, like, some of them cared about the pandemic and some of them didn't? Like, as in Biden supporters cared about the pandemic and Trump supporters didn't? Yes, I did. And you see that because, like, for example, Trump got coronavirus and Biden didn't. You believe that, right? Yes. Maybe it's because one of them was being careful and one of them wasn't? No, because I haven't been careful at all. And I have a whole group of people and we've never sheltered in place. And we've been socializing and getting together the whole time. And nobody's got sick.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, while you were not getting sick, you made several bets with your son, Sean, that Comey and Pelosi and Hillary and Obama would be arrested, that election fraud would be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, that people like Tom Hanks and Oprah would be arrested for pedophilia and satanic worshiping and that FEMA and the military are in control of the pandemic and the country. You lost all of these bets and paid him $700.
--:-- Tammy: Did that help you come to believe that you were wrong about all this stuff? No. I believe the mainstream media is protecting so many of these evil pedophiles. You don't see anything on the mainstream media news about, you know, almost a million children go missing a year. And people don't question where are all these missing children going? You know, they're focused on COVID and the mask and the numbers and the fear, but there's so many more important things going on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To me, it's like it's real as real can be. And I believed it for way before Q came along. Interestingly, though, Donald Trump has been photographed standing next to partying with known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I've seen the pictures. Just going to throw that out there.
--:-- Sean Donnelly: Sean, was it a bittersweet win for you to sort of cash in, I think, $700 you walked away with, but not having actually changed your mom's mind? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't really about the money. I ended up spending most of the money to pay my friend to make the music and mix the movie. So it was all a part of the same project.
--:-- Tammy: I was going to make a different documentary about my mom once about those peacocks, which is a whole other story. These peacocks showed up randomly, and then my mom was like, what a blessing, what a sign from the universe. And so she started feeding them, and then they stayed there, and she loved them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's not relevant to this conversation. Did you lose any money on these bets? Yes, I lost $700. Did that help you come to believe that you were wrong about all this stuff? No.
--:-- Tammy: I believe the mainstream media is protecting so many of these evil pedophiles. You don't see anything on the mainstream media news about, you know, almost a million children go missing a year. And people don't question where are all these missing children going? You know, they're focused on COVID and the mask and the numbers and the fear, but there's so many more important things going on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, we have a fact check on our show and she's a very nice person from North Carolina. I think you would like her. Sean, what do you think you got out of making this video? I guess I think like, you know, she probably got into this stuff very slowly over a lot of years. And if she does get out of it, it will also be very slowly out of a lot of years.
--:-- Tammy: I don't want to get out of it. I believe it for real. And I believe it for way before Q came along. Sean, you're talking about the amazing Polly, right? She's an incredible researcher. Who's that? I'm not familiar with her work. Well, we can send you the link. She's amazing. It's in her name. That's how amazing she is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tammy, once again, I'm going to dispute that. The amazing Polly is not a credible source. She's a conspiracy theorist. And she's not a researcher. She's a person who spreads misinformation.
--:-- Tammy: I'm not going to argue with you about that. I believe what I believe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I believe what I believe. But I think it's worth noting that the amazing Polly is not a credible source. And she's not a researcher. She's a person who spreads misinformation.
--:-- Tammy: I don't care about that. I believe what I believe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. Well, let's move on. How has this affected your relationship? I mean, a thing I think a lot of people probably love about this video that Sean made, and the thing that I liked about it was that it seems like you two managed to have a somewhat functional relationship despite all of the static between you on the truth.
--:-- Tammy: Exactly. No, that's a good thing because I have a lot of friends that have lost contact with their kids because they voted for Trump or they didn't take the vaccine or they send them emails that are the opposite of what their belief is. So I have a lot of friends where I know so many people that have lost friendships and relationships with family and friends. So I feel very grateful that I believe what I believe, which is so different from anybody else in my family. And yet everybody still wants to spend time with me and see me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just don't bring it up. There's so many other things to talk about. And nobody in my family is going to ask my opinion on anything. And if your son, Sean, decided to stop talking to you because you believe that there's some sort of military tribunal going on right now at Gitmo to, you know, somehow prosecute Hillary Clinton, would that help change your mind about any of this stuff? No, of course not. But it would be really sad to me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The whole thing is sad. The division with families right now with the COVID and the vaccine and Trump and race and just everything that's going on in the country. I feel like before everybody could vote for who they wanted to vote for and it wasn't until Trump came along that um really caused um this division in people and I believe it was the fault of the media. Nobody called Trump a racist before he ran for president. Trump has many, many black friends.
--:-- Tammy: Tammy, once again, I'm going to dispute that. Trump spent a long time trying to pretend that Barack Obama was a Kenyan. Do you believe that? Definitely. I mean, I've had all these conversations with her a million times. Even Donald Trump doesn't believe that's true anymore, right? At the end, he said, Hillary Clinton was the one who said that. It wasn't me. Let's move on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, I think he still believes it, but I think he was probably pressured. The way I look at it is I don't really think those are like her beliefs. She didn't really believe them before she started watching YouTube videos like that. She was like totally into other stuff. She was very not political, never really even paid attention to that kind of stuff. So I feel like she's sort of gotten addicted to this stuff and fallen into it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But for me, I'm able to separate like this sort of addiction from like the rest of her personality and who she is. And and like I think it's like, you know, some of those things that lead you to this stuff are being trusting and kind of maybe a little gullible and maybe just like believing the best in people and believing that people are talking to you aren't lying.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think at the at the core that sometimes being very sweet, naive person can be what leads you to like some dark stuff on the Internet. And I think I also think that, you know, like my mom's saying, so many people like just cut people out in their family because of who they voted for or something. And if you're going to like sum up the whole person is like their political choices, then not only is that not going to be great for your own life because you're going to be more alone and isolated.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I don't think I think it'll just make everything way worse because people like my mom will just be even more surrounded by more extreme kind of right wing people and go even more into the Internet. And she won't have any voices around her anymore talking about other points of view and other ways to look at things. So I think it's important, not just for us to kind of like keep in relationship, but for most people that are going through this to sort of, you know, have have another perspective and have like a wall to bounce things off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Again, I don't want to have these conversations all the time. As you can see, they can get kind of tiring. But even just once in a while, I think is is helpful for everyone, you know.
--:-- Tammy: It doesn't sound like you know the video the process of making all these $700 worth of bets move the needle much on your opinions about these conspiracy theories or the facts at play.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I gotta ask, will you make any more bets with Sean about the news? No, no, no, no, that was a lot of money to lose. Definitely not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's something. Yeah, that's we take what we can get, you know.
--:-- Tammy: Well, Tammy, I really appreciate you making time for us to hash this out. And just be careful out there on the internet. But also, since you don't want to get vaccinated, be careful out there in the world as well. Thank you. I appreciate you too. All right. Thanks. Thanks for having us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tammy lives in Santa Cruz. You can probably find her out on the beach. Her son, Sean Donnelly, is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He co-created the Comedy Central show Jeff and Some Aliens, directed the feature documentary I Think We're Alone Now. It's about two obsessed Tiffany fans, and he recently did animation on the HBO documentary series The Lady and the Dale. This episode today was inspired by a video he made called Cue a Mom. It's funny, sweet, and a little heartbreaking. You can find it on his YouTube channel which is Dirty Sean that's dirty with a U D-U-R-T-Y S-E-A-N. I'm other Sean this is Today Explained. You should listen to a daily news podcast called Today Explained. I find that they give a real fair shot to most issues. Okay, Daily News Explained? Today Explained, it's a daily news podcast.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for the show comes from Charles Schwab. At Schwab how you invest is your choice not theirs that's why when it comes to managing your wealth Schwab gives you more choices you can invest and trade on your own plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs with award-winning service low costs and transparent advice you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab visit schwab.com to learn more.
