Reality Finally Crashes Into Alex Jones’ Twisted Fantasy World

A gleeful streak of schadenfreude shot through the internet on Wednesday, as a video clip of Alex Jones realizing that his own attorney accidentally sent a digital copy of Jones’ entire cellphone to the lawyers suing him on behalf of Sandy Hook parents went viral.

Jones’ attorney has been compared to Lionel Hutz, the comically inept lawyer from The Simpsons, while the clip has been remixed to the music from Curb Your Enthusiasm; although, the clip hardly needs an edit – it’s hilarious just the way it is.

Jones is currently facing the first of three damages trials to determine how much money he owes the Sandy Hook families, after he spent several years airing deranged conspiracy theories concerning the school shooting on InfoWars, casting doubt on almost every horrific detail.

Jones has a history of describing school shooting victims and survivors as “crisis actors,” often framing tragic murder-sprees as part of an intricate “deep state” plot to take away the American right to bear arms (the fact that none of these shootings have sparked meaningful action on gun control doesn’t seem to matter to Jones, at all).

While Jones has been memed to death, his ridiculous theories and exaggerated persona often referenced and caricatured, his amplifying of Sandy Hook conspiracies has completely killed the joke; grieving parents have suffered the consequences of his reckless spewing of hateful misinformation.

Questioning the motivations of grieving parents, resulting in them being hounded and abused by conspiracy theorists, is surely one of the worst things someone with a sizable media platform can possibly do, but Jones has been emboldened and supported by a wide range of podcasters and YouTubers for years.

It’s been incredibly frustrating to watch Jones framed as some kind of avatar of anti-establishment thought (conveniently ignoring his blind worship of former President Trump), or even as a free speech advocate, bolstered by bad faith culture warriors who have put great effort into softening Jones into a lovable loon (this video montage by The Serfs highlights how common this is among certain content creators).

Joe Rogan, a friend of Jones, armed with one of the most powerful platforms on the internet, is surely one of the worst offenders – Rogan has invited Jones on his podcast multiple times, and has rarely attempted to challenge his talking points. Rogan often frames Jones’ deranged outbursts as a joke, diminishes his role in amplifying hateful conspiracies, and, bizarrely, treats the man with a certain reverence.

Jones seems to make a good living from amplifying hate and selling supplements to his gullible followers, despite his reputation as an underdog muzzled by big tech. In court, it was revealed that during certain periods in 2018, InfoWars was making a jaw-dropping $800,000 a day. The Sandy Hook parents’ lawyer claimed that after Jones was deplatformed by the tech giants, his “numbers keep getting better.”

Jones wasn’t some outspoken figure pushed out by the mainstream; reportedly, Mark Zuckerberg personally stepped in to give Jones special treatment, after Jones broke Facebook’s rules concerning hateful conduct. A former Facebook employee told Buzzfeed News: “Mark personally didn’t like the punishment, so he changed the rules.”

Jones has spent so long broadcasting his warped view of the world, making claims about inter-dimensional pedophiles, human-animal hybrids and false flags, never seeming to suffer the consequences. When his most hateful lies sparked a backlash, Jones and his team proved ridiculously inept (the podcast Knowledge Fight has done a fantastic job documenting the absurd sequence of events that led to Jones finally facing the music, after losing a series of civil defamation cases by default).

Hence, seeing Jones hitting the boundaries of reality, stuck in a courtroom full of people who don’t share his warped worldview, is enormously satisfying, like watching a bloated housefly smack its head against a window, refusing to acknowledge the existence of the barrier.

So far, Jones has been forced to look a Sandy Hook parent in the eye, has been informed by the (clearly exasperated) judge that he’s not allowed to lie under oath, and been informed by the plaintiff’s attorney that they have direct evidence of him lying, thanks to the text messages they were sent by mistake.

Watching Jones squirm in court, attempting to deflect, distract, or even to promote his supplements feels surreal, like an elaborate Nathan Fielder set-up. Under the scrutiny of unsympathetic eyes and cameras, Jones has been forced to admit that the Sandy Hook attack was “100% real.” Joe Rogan isn’t there to save him, no simpering content creator there to laugh off his comments as jokes.

“This is not your show,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Jones. “Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath.”