Alex Jones: the Pinocchio of a divided America
We all want someone to like us, even if we have to lie to get it.
Never. Send. Nudes.
I could stop typing right now and you would still be getting a boat load of value out of the few words you’ve read so far.
I don’t care if he’s your partner. I don’t care if you’ve been married for 25 years. You never know when your nude might make national headlines for being sent to a lawyer who found out your husband sent it to a man notorious for tophats and pardons.
Alex Jones sent a nude of his wife to Roger Stone. This information was made public today after Mark Banston, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones, accidentally received a copy of Jones’ text messages from Jones’ lawyers. Oops.
I guess when you base your career around lies the (potentially) non-consensual sharing of an intimate photo of your partner feels like peanuts.
Ever since a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay up big time, I’ve been thinking about what makes Jones tick. Not only did he lie multiple times on the stand, but he perpetuated extreme lies on his website and online talk show; claiming entire events, like Sandy Hook, just didn’t happen. As if he were a fairy godmother with a magic wand and the ability to make things *poof* disappear.
There are a lot of things that add up to someone’s psyche. Especially for someone like Jones. And there’s no way even an over zealous therapist could uncover all of them.
But I think one of them boils down to good ‘ol attention. And I don’t think any of us are immune.
Jones had humble beginnings. He dropped out of college and gravitated towards radio, public access television, and any other platform in which he could spew a message instead of engage in dialogue. And people listened.
People listened from the beginning. Sure, he probably had lulls and didn’t pull the type of audience back then that he pulls today. But he had a crowd. And with a crowd comes all the warm and fuzzy feelings that make someone want to keep going.
Look at these words that I’m writing to you right now. You’re reading them. I wouldn’t be writing them if I didn’t know that you would eventually read them. And your words of encouragement, of resonance, of awe in response to my words have propelled me to keep going. Your attention is what keeps Pants on Fire coming. And the attention of those early Alex Jones followers is what kept his words coming.
The difference is that I’m writing about lies. And Alex Jones wrote and spoke and spewed lies.
But if you get attention for something, even if it’s for something as horrible as the lies Alex Jones told and continues to tell, then it’s pretty difficult to stop.
I think about this within my own head. What are the statements I make about myself that I give the most attention? And is all the real estate I’m giving them really serving me?
One statement that gets a lot of real estate in my head that is most definitely serving me is the declaration to never. Send. Nudes. Just invite them over to see the real thing instead.