Russell Brand and Andrew Tate push conspiracy theories to dodge accountability and detract from allegations launched against them, Naomi Klein has warned.
Klein, a prominent author and activist, said the controversial influencers champion narratives which stop the audience from “believing anything unflattering” about them.
Her comments come after Brand, a comedian turned conspiracy theorist, was accused of rape, assault and emotional abuse between 2006 and 2013, in the wake of a joint investigation by The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches earlier in the month.
While Tate, a misogynistic influencer, has been charged in Romania with rape. He is currently awaiting trial alongside his brother Tristan in Romania on charges of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. There are no criminal charges against Brand, although police are probing allegations made in light of the media investigation. Both he and and Mr Tate have vehemently denied all allegations against them.
Speaking to The Independent in a wide-ranging interview, Klein said Tate, a former kickboxing world champion turned “success coach”, pushes conspiracy theories “about himself” as well as propagating “the narrative that people are out to get him.”
Klein, who has recently released a new book about conspiracy theories called Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World, added: “Which is something shared by many of these influencers because it means that they never have to be accountable for anything.
“Everything is a conspiracy to get them. And that is something we’ve seen from him. It’s something we’ve seen from Russell Brand.”
Klein, professor of climate justice at the University of British Colombia, argued both Brand and Tate push the “narrative” they “are building something that is so much more powerful than the old media”.
She explained Brand begins his shows by addressing his “awakening wonders” as she argued his audience “are enlisted as part of this story that they’re building something more powerful”.
Naomi Klein’s new book
“That narrative, it inoculates the audience from believing anything unflattering about the host or the personality,” Klein added.
The author tweeted about the allegations levied against Brand after they emerged as she explained she had met him.
Klein said: “Of course, Russell Brand’s followers deny the allegations. He has groomed an audience to deny/disbelieve everything they see and hear, which is very different from healthy scepticism.
“This knee-jerk denialism is precisely why people with plenty of skeletons in the closet love conspiracy culture: they have a built-in defense against accountability. It’s all a conspiracy, always. I have met Brand, been on his show (years ago). It took a hell of a lot of courage for these women to come forward. They have all my solidarity.”
Asked about Tate and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk rushing to Brand’s defence when the allegations about him emerged, Klein said: “There is an echo chamber and it’s like a lot of people are spreading the same story about themselves and one another.”
Klein, known for her best-selling books No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, said the popularity of Tate and other similar influencers could be partially explained by problems with loneliness in wider society. While this is a phenomenon which predates the pandemic, it was exacerbated by the Covid crisis, she reflected.
She added: “There is something explosive going on around loneliness and isolation and these para-social relationships where people are glomming on to people who tell them how to live and have a pseudo-parental or a pseudo-friend role in their lives.
“They are not playing the role of a traditional media figure. They are playing the role of omnipresent friend, right?
“There have been advice columnists before, but you would read them, you know, once a week or whatever. These are people who people are spending hours a day with. It’s immersive in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.”
Klein argued “toxic influencers” are honing in on the “anxiety” and “confusion” felt by many and realising dishing out advice on “how to live their lives, or how to be a certain kind of person” is likely to be a “very lucrative” career path.
“Why are so many young men going to Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate for tips on how to look?” she added. “That is a very, very bad state of affairs. But it’s not enough just to shake our fists and say ‘you’re a bad person’. I think we need to figure out how to meet those needs in healthier ways.”
Jordan Peterson is a controversial Canadian professor and YouTube influencer who critiques political correctness, feminism and the concept of structural racism, as well as also imparting life advice.
Discussing her recently published best-selling book Doppelganger, Klein explained the book begins from the “personal jumping off point” of exploring the fact she is “perennially confused with” Naomi Wolf.
She explained Wolf, a feminist writer, has gone from being part of the “liberal establishment” to being a doppelganger of “her former self” - now engaging in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
Wolf, who was suspended from Twitter in 2021 after disseminating misinformation about the Covid crisis, had her most recent book Outrages revoked and pulped in America after concerns emerged about inaccuracies.
“She is now somebody who is one of a not insignificant cohort of ex-liberals and leftists who have flipped to the right, particularly during the pandemic,” Klein added.
Klein’s new book combines personal observations with wider cultural and political criticism to explore conspiracy culture, antivax theories, wider misinformation, the wellness industry, social media and the far right.
Discussing the broader question of why conspiracy theories are so appealing to some people, Klein argued this is partly to do with the “cartoonish” solutions they invoke which involve arresting “all the bad guys”.
Klein added: “Whereas, on the left, we’re offering a systemic critique, and that actually is quite frightening in the sense of telling people that we are up against really entrenched forces.
“It’s the system itself. It’s not a few aberrant individuals and that means that we can only really do anything about it through a lot of hard work and organising and political change.”
