Tim Heidecker Wants to Turn Infowars Into Adult Swim for the Internet
Key takeaways
- A few years and several legal back-and-forths later, The Onion still doesn’t quite own Infowars.
- Read our conversation below, watch it on YouTube, or listen at the podcast provider of your choice.
- This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story When The Onion announced that it would take over Infowars in 2024, I had a hard time imagining a single funnier and more perfect thing than the ghoulish legacy of Alex Jones being stomped all over by the satirical news outlet.
A few years and several legal back-and-forths later, The Onion still doesn’t quite own Infowars. But it is proceeding apace and recently announced that none other than comedian Tim Heidecker would serve as creative director (and chief Alex Jones impersonator) when Infowars’ brand is finally handed over. And just like that, something even funnier and more perfect came to be: In Heidecker’s first video as Jones, an 18-minute “Emergency Broadcast,” he offers up a spectacular impersonation of the conspiracy theorist, announces an alliance between God and Satan, and ends by imploring viewers that “Infowars is a movement, and you’re on it. You’re on our ship. Come on board.” (While drinking a wine glass full of adult blood, obviously.)
At WIRED, we’re longtime fans of both The Onion and Tim Heidecker—a match made in heaven, if you ask me—so I had to take the opportunity to sit down with Tim and find out more about what kind of movement, exactly, he was busy plotting for the Infowars of the future. We talked all things Infowars, including the latest on The Onion’s legal efforts to acquire the brand and its archives, plus the shift of Heidecker’s own comedy into newsier terrain, his thoughts on the death of late-night, and why he never tries too hard to get attention online.