Premium Episode 239: The Key Bridge Collapse
Nowadays, when a horrific tragedy occurs, you can pretty much guarantee that conspiracy theorists will flood the channels with wild narratives and flat-out disinformation. This week, we’re breaking down the various theories surrounding the collapse of the Key Bridge, including a completely AI generated 911 call. Later in the episode, Jake finds a conspiracy theory influencer with such a funny name, he just had to do a story starring him.
Thank you for subscribing to QAA on patreon!
Music by Pontus Berghe, Nick Sena, and Jake Rockatansky. Editing by Corey Klotz.
SOURCES:
Unfounded conspiracy theories spread online after Baltimore bridge collapse (nbcnews.com)
The 7 Dumbest Conspiracy Theories About the Baltimore Bridge Collapse (gizmodo.com)
Hacking, tracking, stealing and sinking ships | Pen Test Partners
Hackers can now bring cargo ships and planes to a grinding halt (cnbc.com)
Police warning after drug traffickers' cyber-attack - BBC News
PolitiFact | Baltimore bridge accident, fire near Ohio bridge aren’t connected
Oklahoma highway reopens following shutdown after a barge hit a bridge (msn.com)
https://www.wypr.org/live-updates/francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore
Comments (67)
Barger charger was great
Yahtzee!! Jimmy Corsetti, running free with the Egyptian Gods. Long may he stay buried. 😶
Ridicule of Jake is why I support this podcast. Please don't discourage Julian from ridiculing Jake!
Jake’s stories are the reason I subscribed and support this show. Please encourage him to include them at least monthly, and please stop discouraging him through ridicule!
You do know the Julian being mean to Jake thing is a bit right? They've talked about it multiple times throughout the years.
What's that term at 28:50, "talalogy" or something like that, meaning that everything's purposeful and full of intent / in a conspiratorial way?
"Teleology" Conspiracists tend to view every event as purposeful and part of a larger scheme. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218308637
We love a silly Jake story don't we folks
I haven't laughed this much in a while, thanks for this.
Great show you fellas, love the new art and always nice to hear a reappearance from Flynn. Will there be any future Jake stories? I always loved them as they remind me of the old days of radio plays. Episode 59 is still a favorite of mine.
Robert Evans back on the pod when?!?
will y'all do a follow up episode on the eclipse, unfortunately led to a murder-suicide
Took me a second to realize Teddy is a dog and not a sasquatch. Scarred for life.
Old school episode I dig it ❤️
I actually also bribed the pyramid workers to let me snap some pics. Also in the valley of the kings lol
It was also only like $3
We all live for Julian’s suffering 😌
Great "last" episode, Guys 🫡
There’s movie mindset, and then there’s TNT drama series mindset
The Jimmy corsetti story was sublime. I'd pay for a noir audiobook that has all the QAA legends from over the years.
I don't know, to me Jimmy Corsetti sounds like an up-and-coming politician in Baltimore. He's going to get to the bottom of what caused the bridge collapse, and clean up this town.
Oh hell. I’m excited for the rebrand for all of your sakes, but it’s bittersweet as a longtime listener ❤️
As ever, outstanding work from all three, but Jake's script-reading was absolutely spot-on! Hilarious and brilliantly-written. I'm going to personally see to it that Barger-Charger enters the lexicon, somehow, somewhy!
Hell of a send off for the old brand. Well done boys
This was one helluva barger charger of an episode.
"crap"
I like Julian’s observation about how everything is a movie. The other side to this is the people who see every major tragedy and go straight to “what are they distracting us from?” Every little thing has a deeper meaning, even if that deeper meaning is “we should be looking somewhere else!”
I love this podcast so much. Thank you all for melting my mind for so many years.
I'm Basic Numbers, bridge collapse was 23 years after 9/11, 23 is a special number, now give me money via patreon so that I can travel the world and point at things
I'm so glad I'll have language for my next barge incident
Bargée Chargée
This is one of the first truly frustrating episodes because we're seeing conspiracy brain breaking down and having zero effort to just drive metrics. Instead of baking, conapiracists on tiktok now just show us a bunch of ingredients and say "See?" It's strange to feel wistful, nostalgic even, for the stretches and leaps of logic from Qanon to try a narrative together to show how it's actually the deep state. Instead it's just pointing at things that are happening and suggesting they're connected without any of the creative work that went into the madness that was Q. My biggest fear however is this lowering of the bar will similarly impact Jake's stories until the point it's just him saying "Ghostbusters!" over and over again rather than weaving a tale that somehow ends up being basically just the plot of a Ghostbusters cartoon episode. In all seriousness, great work as always folks!
I think it's been this way for a bit. I recall first noticing this lack of a coherent conspiracy narrative for me was, Mike Lindell's first election stolen move, "Absolute Proof". It was just a bunch of ingredients with no real narrative tying it all together. Just snippets of claims from dead people voting, fake registrations, boxes of ballots being delivered to corrupt counters, drop boxes being stuffed, machines having a preset algorithms to switch votes, machines being hacked, countries ranging from Iran to Italy doing the hacking (they cite like 12 countries), all happening in every state even the ones Trump won... it was basically a conspiracy buffet, you can just choose whatever elements you like and go with them.
That anyone could have believed that 911 call is beyond me.
Boomers
I did not survived this episode
JAKE! Sarah Connor tries to kill Miles Dyson. Shame!
If the new name of the show is not BargerCharger, then that is money left on the table.
P Diddy used to be Puff Daddy and what else puff puffs? Boats, old boats but new boats don’t. They dropped the puff, coincidence ?
I thought there will be a new intro music? 🤔
Saaaame
"Future proves the past, now shut the fuck up Julien." I laughed so hard I pulled my stomach muscles and now I can't stand up straight.
holy shit why can't tiktok people ever get to the point telling their anecdotes. there's so much preamble and lore that's unnecessary
I get the sense that they obviously want to drag you along to keep watching to see if they ever get to the goddamn point, but I don’t know why. Doesn’t Tik Tok count like a fraction of a second of watching a video as 1 view? Is there also a benefit to maintaining longer viewership in the Tik Tok algorithm? Probably, but I’m not too familiar.
“I send the signal. Help is on the way”
So relieved they have the news on tho! Trust but verify.
Honestly this episode makes me want to unsurvived myself.
Will we all survived?
You all fucking brought it for your last premium episode as QAnon Anonymous. You have learned how to maximize each other’s strengths so well. A rebranding is due, you’ve become extremely skilled at filling the information void with ACTUAL information. You’re unmatched at what you do.
I wanna go back to the time when "numbers guy" just meant bookie
Really needed the return of the good General 🙏🏾
Jake said "barger charger" with such authority I genuinely wondered if it was a bit of nautical terminology I was unfamiliar with.
A second numbers guy has just struck the World Trade Center.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been listening for maybe four or five months now and have even listened into older episodes. But I still don’t understand half of what is going on when they read off the “found scripts “ lol
If you have time I urge you to listen to these guys from 2019 forward. If they’ve caught your attention at this point I really think you’ll enjoy the journey.
The 911 call reminded me of "Hello. Smithers. You're quite-- good, at. Turning. Me, on!"
Umm...You probably should ignore that.
Was that Travis laughing at the end? That's how you end the Qanon Anonymous podcast run!
Wait. What's up with the new name thing? Was it a joke ?
It would be weird if they did that out of nowhere.
barger charger!
Since y'all have decided to cover similar content, this time, at least, I know have interest in a Well, There's Your Problem/QAA collaboration.
Lmao those "911 calls"
They did it to distract from the eclipse!!!
Free Dundalk!
Lived in/around Baltimore all my life before moving out of state a couple months ago. Never thought something like the Key Bridge collapsing could ever happen and was absolutely not prepared at all to watch conspiracists start baking something so close to home.
First comment, heck yeah! 😁