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Mandela Effect is taking the conspiracy subculture by storm:
whether you or I like it or not.
Recently the battle lines were drawn between two prominent pro- Flat Earth personalities:
Brian Staveley on one side, and Infinite Plane Society on the other.
The former is building up a true following of ME believers,
while the latter is leading the charge against what he calls the ME ‘psyop’.
In late November of 2019 both Staveley and IPS dedicated large portions
of their respective livestreams to criticising the other party.
Anybody with an interest in psychology, sociology, the cultish tendencies of humans,
or the conspiracy subculture in general, will get something out of studying the skirmish.
In this article I will share my own notes taken while listening to Staveley’s ‘Call Out IPS’ broadcast,
and also provide some further thoughts and information regarding the topics at hand.
Article #59
JLB Notes:
Brian Staveley ‘Calls Out’ Infinite Plane Society
Published: 12-Dec-2019
Contents
1 – Background notes
i) Mandela Effect
ii) Brian Staveley
iii) IPS
iv) Mandela Month
2 – Notes regarding the notes
3 – The notes
4 – My reflections
5 – Footnotes
Credits
1 – Background notes
i) Mandela Effect
In the near future I plan to publish some substantial material concerning the Mandela Effect.
My primary angles of interest in ME include:
* ME’s impact on the broader conspiracy subculture.
-> It seems to me that this trend / meme may go even bigger than Flat Earth.
-> For those relatively new to the scene, FE significantly changed this corner of the internet circa 2015.
* The relationships between ‘independent media’ and mainstream / establishment narratives.
-> In December 2019 a film entitled The Mandela Effect was released in the United States.
-> Why now?
* The psychological / spiritual implications of believing that objective reality itself is changeable / changing.
Until this point, my own content concerning Mandela Effect has been relatively limited.
For previous ME-related discussion on this site, see:
* MSC Open House #13 ‘Mandela Sky‘ (16-Dec-2019).
* Al’s brilliant Member creation trilogy (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3).
* Apoc Shaker’s contribution to the ME discussion (here).
ii) Brian Staveley
You can learn about Brian Staveley by way of the about page on a site he runs called ‘Real News Online’.
I first became familiar with Staveley’s material via Fakeologist.com several years ago.
His work on the 9/11 hoax was years ahead of the game.
-> See for example this post on Fakeologist where Ab republished an old Staveley podcast deconstructing 9/11.
-> See also the comment I left on that post (and the comment left by Dante, too).
A few years ago Staveley seems to have been swept up by the FE meme, and then about a year or so ago, swept along even further by the ME meme.
-> Note that there is a heavy overlap between the FE and ME memes and subcultures (something which Staveley himself takes a lot of credit for).
From memory, I have only spoken with Staveley once, about six months or so ago when I called into his show for a very brief chat.
-> Actually I wanted to apologise for appearing to troll his livestream chat. He accepted my apology iirc.
I hope to interview Staveley some time soon as part of Mandela Month here at johnlebon.com.
iii) IPS
You can learn about IPS by way of his shopify page, blogspot page, and a wiki page he appears to have created himself.
IPS also goes by the name ‘Tim Ozman’.
-> This article claims his ‘real name’ is Mark Larson.
-> This article claims his ‘real name’ is Jacob Vigil.
Regardless, everybody in the scene knows him as IPS / Tim Ozman.
-> Not to be confused with truther troll Tim Osman, who I have known for about five years, and chatted with during a livestream in May of this year.
-> To further complicate matters, Tim Ozman (IPS) and Tim Osman (the truther troll) appear to be on good terms, and the latter calls into the former’s liveshow regularly.
IPS appeared on the scene a few years ago.
-> He gave Flat Earth testimony to an Albuquerque council meeting in early 2017 under the name ‘Mark Sargent’.
Since then he seems to have built up a profile / persona of something of a Flat Earth rebel, promoting FE while challenging some of the leading FE personalities and dogmas.
He has been accused of doxxing and trolling FE debunkers, including via use of family (child) images of his online opponents.
My first proper introduction to his shtick was via an August 2019 Fakeologist audiochat on which he appeared.
-> Ab of Fakeologist has been promoting IPS since at least May of 2019.
I have never spoken to IPS, but I did make the following video after listening to one of his shows recently:
JLB19042 – MK Ultra Project Was a Hoax? (27-Nov-2019)
I hope to interview IPS some time soon as part of Mandela Month here at johnlebon.com.
iv) Regarding Mandela Month
I flagged this idea in a recent video, which I recorded in the middle of taking the very notes which form the foundation of this article.
JLB19043 – December is Mandela Month at JLB.com #mandelaeffect (8-Dec-2019)
Until recently, I had largely ignored:
* Mandela Effect, due in part to its ties to Flat Earth.
* IPS, due almost entirely to his ties to Flat Earth.
After finally listening to an IPS ‘open phones’ chat (thanks to Ab’s constant promotion of these calls), I realised that IPS might be far more than just another FE spruiker.
Given the timing of:
* The outbreak of a truther war between IPS and Staveley
* The release of the Mandela Effect film
* Al’s brilliant MC trilogy (the final piece of which I published immediately before my recent holiday)
…It seemed appropriate to finally dedicate myself, at least for a while, to learning more about ME.
-> The phenomenon (meme) and the subculture building around it.
2 – Notes regarding the notes
The stream being noted
The original youtube livestream can be found here.
Staveley also appears to have uploaded a mirror to his backup channels, including this one here.
My note-taking
I took these notes while on a bus traveling from Sapa to Hanoi on Saturday, 7-Dec-2019, 2019.
Earlier during the same trip I took notes from Markus Allen’s appearance on THC circa 2014.
Formatting
Timestamps are rough i.e. ‘~15m’ means somewhere around the 15m mark.
Where you see inverted commas (‘…’), this is a paraphrase, not a direct quote.
All quotes/paraphrases are from Staveley unless otherwise indicated. I’ve colored them blue.
Arrows (-> example) indicate my own thoughts / comments jotted while listening and taking notes (i.e. 7-Dec).
Green arrows (-> example) indicate my own thoughts / comments added while transcribing the notes (i.e. 12-Dec).
3 – The notes
Outset
Staveley starts off saying he is ‘heavily censored‘, ‘totally censored‘
Spends minutes talking about how censored he is, and how he has to pull his liveshows down from youtube mid-stream or else he’ll get banned, etc.
-> What a joke.
-> This stood out to me right away when listening to the call. Whether they do it intentionally or not, e-cult builders (including those who are not consciously trying to build an e-cult) like to constantly remind their audiences how ‘censored’ and ‘under attack’ they are, etc.
-> I saw it — and, embarrassingly, to an extent, bought into it — with Jeffrey C and his hoaxbusting truth cult circa 2014/15/16.
-> In this case, Staveley has done the ‘we are under attack’ song and dance right at the beginning of his stream for about ten minutes straight. [1]
~11m
‘You’re a fucking fool if you don’t think we’re censored’
-> After a solid ten minutes of explaining how censored he is, Staveley then says that anybody who doubts him (i.e. anybody who is skeptical about this kind of thing) is a ‘fucking fool’.
‘Fear helps keep you controlled’
-> After he opened his show with ‘we are being censored’ fearmongering. The irony.
~16m
Claims people are trying to attack him, ‘tear down the community’
-> ‘under attack’, ‘community’, lol. This is Jeffrey C style to a tee. [1]
‘Such a joke, such a joke, it really is’
-> Excellent soundbite
Makes reference to IPS but not by name, mentions ‘Dallas Goldbug’ theories.
-> Staveley calls IPS the new Dallas Goldbug, says he is ‘years behind’ i.e. the Goldbug theories were debunked / rejected years ago.
-> Dallas Goldbug a.k.a. Ed Chiarini is an infamous conspiracy theorist whose main shtick revolves around claiming that person X is person Y, kind of like a 2016 Dave J on steroids.
-> IPS does indeed like to follow the Goldbug shtick, and makes some pretty wild ‘person x is person y’ claims during his livestreams.
-> For example, he recently suggested that same person who plays Justin Bieber also plays TheWeeknd.
‘I’m just gonna ban these people from my channel’
-> i.e. he is going to ban the livestream commenters whose opinions on ME are similar to those of IPS.
-> In other words, he is going to ‘censor’ them?
~22m
‘I got almost every single flat earth channel into Mandela Effect’
-> He talks up his own contribution to the rise of ME, and for all I know, what he is saying is true.
-> Is Staveley as central to the rise of ME on youtube and within FE as he claims?
-> I honestly do not know, I only began paying attention to ME very recently, perhaps some of the ME-interested Members of this site can fill me in.
‘We’re the fuckin best. Everybody in this chat. And the other channels’ (i.e. his ME friends’ channels)
-> Overt stuff.
~26m
‘You gotta make a decision. Yeah, I said it. After the show, choose’
-> As in, you have to either choose him, or choose IPS. You can’t support both. Rather divisive.
‘We’re not gonna have that hateful energy here’
-> In the middle of a hateful rant full of expletives. Good grief.
~31m
‘The official maps of the world have all changed’
-> Excellent soundbite.
‘I don’t mind if you come after me, its the Mandela Effect phenomenon I care about’
-> lol. Like monty Burns and Blinky the three-eyed fish. [2]
~35m
‘Now I’m not gonna take time off. This is important. This is a spiritual awakening.’
-> In reference to how he took a break from the ACT realm at some point in the past (back when his focus was 9/11).
-> His ‘I can’t rest now, my movement needs me’ rhetoric in this part of the call is amazingly religious. Truly.
‘This is a spiritual tug of war. It’s a spiritual War. ME is the key to getting out of here.’
-> Jonestown style koolaid if ever I’ve heard it.
-> ‘Get out of here’? Like what, on a spaceship or something?
~38m
Claims that the story is now that Jesus was hung from a tree, not a cross.
-> wtf? Need to look into this. [3]
~44m
‘The communities trashing us, all of them, they haven’t done any research.’
-> Us vs them, we have the truth, unbelievers cant see what we can see, etc.
~48m
‘How is it a psyop when our anatomy’s changing? How is it a psyop when our geography’s moving?’
-> Excellent soundbite.
~53m
This part of the call is strange. Either Staveley goes live at this point (and the previous bit was pre-recorded), or he goes to a recording (and the previous part was live).
Mentions ‘mandoozled’: ‘I see anybody using these terms, I’m gonna fuckn ban you’
-> IPS refers to the ‘Mandela Effect’ as ‘Mandoozling’, a portmanteau of Mandela and bamboozle.
-> As in, people who believe in Mendela Effect have been bamboozled by the psy-op.
-> Again, the hypocrisy of Staveley is astounding: if you use words he doesn’t like in his chat he will censor you (but he is under attack and being censored by youtube, the platform on which he is streaming this very call).
-> Seems like this is indeed a different recording/presentation to pre-53m, because now he is making direct reference to IPS by name, whereas in the earlier section he made obvious allusions to IPS but did not mention him by name.
‘You don’t like it, take a hike, there’s plenty of other Mandela channels’
-> Just like there are similar platforms to youtube e.g. bitchute and vimeo.
Mentions that the personality calling himself ‘Flat Earth Fucker’ called into IPS’ show last night.
->Which means the IPS call I listened to (via a Fakeologist post) is what triggered this Staveley rant, because I remember the FEF section of that IPS call.
~56m
‘Fuck that guy [IPS], and anybody who supports him, fuck you too’
-> Recall that Staveley earlier complained about people ‘dividing’ the community.
~58m
‘Everybody’s afraid to say IPS is a shill.’
-> The first explicit accusation that IPS is a ‘shill’ in the call so far.
~59m
Shane calls in (second caller).
Shane:
‘Heard about your channel from sasquatch channel.’
‘Bigfoot is totally true’
‘All the bigfoot channels are being censored right now, the youtube algorithms are keeping us down’.
-> Fascinating, the leading bigfoot spruikers are apparently also using the ‘we are censored and under attack’ trick on their followers.
-> I didn’t even know there was a bigfooty believer e-community. Makes sense, though, when you think about it.
-> This section is also full of excellent soundbites.
-> Staveley doesn’t speak for or against existence of bigfoot. Very interesting.
Flat Earth Fucker calls in (third caller).
‘IPS is a fuckin dick’ etc etc
-> Staveley getting very fired up at this point.
FEF kinda makes an apology for IPS:
‘he helped me, I’m willing to give him a bit more rope, etc etc’
-> This guy is a key plank in the Staveley-IPS feud / saga. FEF called into both shows, seems reasonable and fair with both.
-> FEF is the guy who, on a recent IPS call [one of the same calls which triggered this Staveley rant], Tim Osman accused of being a 50 year old teenage-wannabe who parties with fellow ME people instead of doing research.
~1h07m
‘Now I’m 100% certain IPS is a shill and he can suck my dick’
-> Surprising anger and language. Staveley is like a Jeffrey C clone here.
Tim Osman calls in (fourth caller), claims to be ‘Phil’.
‘I think I’m Mandela Effected, do you remember the christmas thing…’
-> lol
-> On a previous IPS call, IPS had said that he would create a fake Mandela Effect meme and see if the ME believers fall for it. As in, he will claim that something used to be this way, now it is that way. Hais planned bogus ME had something to do with christmas.Oobviously Tim Osman has decided to troll Staveley by using the very same fake christmas ME meme as IPS was proposing.
Staveley instantly hangs up on Tim Osman, ‘next caller’, lol.
~1h12m
Next caller mentions how IPS and Staveley had an interview in the past, apparently it was cordial but cut short.
-> Need to track down.
-> Found it. 23-Aug-2019. Link.
Apparently IPS has been putting images of Staveley in his youtube thumbnails.
-> IPS’ youtube channel was deleted around the same time as this call, so I can’t check to confirm, but it wouldn’t surprise me, although I’d be interested to know if IPS’ thumbnails were as nasty as alleged here in the call.
Caller: ‘to hear you rant about it has been awesome’
-> Previous callers (Michaelangelo and FEF) also indicated that they loved the polemic / drama / ranting. People love this shit.
-> When I speak of the psychological / sociological elements of analysing various mini-subcultures within the broader conspiracy subculture (e.g. ME), this is the kind of thing I’m referring to. Every single one of the callers-in and livestream chatters supporting Staveley would claim that their primary interest is the ‘truth’, but in reality is all about entertainment and feeling like they are part of something. The dichotomous dramas such as Staveley vs IPS (and NASA vs Flat Earth etc) fulfill both of these innate desires. Humans seem to get off on this kind of thing. [4]
~1h19m
Takes a break, plays one of his rap songs.
-> Staveley has little natural talent for rapping (I have none) but his lyrics are very clever, cool rap track imho even if I disagree with its overall message.
Track mentions ‘paint it black’, great wall of India, monopoly guy does not have eyepiece, Hal[l]ey’s Comet.
-> I had never heard of any of these supposed MEs before. [5]
~1h26m
Staveley returns
Caller seems to know Staveley’s background very well, fascinating stuff.
Caller claims that Staveley used to say it (‘it’ as in, apparent ME) was all due to ‘god’ until he discovered the Ed McMahon (Publishers Clearing House) stuff, then everything changed.
Caller implies that Staveley’s female associates (i.e. fellow ME livestreamers) are distracting or somehow harming Staveley’s research.
-> Intriguing part of the call, Staveley doesn’t even interrupt the caller, this is the longest he has stayed quiet in entire broadcast.
-> It did not seem to get much reaction in the comments on the youtube stream but this caller’s subtle suggestion that the females in the ME e-community are causing problems for people like Staveley, leading him astray etc, was one of the most eyebrow-raising takeaways from the entire call, for mine.
~1h35m
Same caller then goes on about his own ME story, Staveley lets him go on and on, story about fruit loops (froot loops) and cereal boxes in a shopping aisle; this caller speaks very well, good voice, could easily be a pro broadcaster himself.
~1h49m
A caller suggests that there is some ME concerning the capital of Australia i.e. Canberra.
-> wtf are these guys suggesting? That Canberra was not the capital of Australia in the ‘previous timeline’?
-> Canberra has been the capital of Australia since I was a child (and much, much longer). It is a quirk of Australian history that the two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, could (supposedly) not agree who should be the capital, so about 100 years ago they built a planned city in between Sydney and Mellbourne, almost equidistant, and made it the capital, with its own territory (similar to how Washington DC is contained within its own ‘district’). If these guys, any of these guys, are claiming that Canberra has only recently becomes Australia’s capital, then that right there shows you that we are not dealing with legitimate thinkers or researchers.
Caller goes on about east china, north and south korea, claims the landmasses are changing, etc.
~1h56m
FEF is on again, mentions something to do with Australia, hard to discern his exact words.
-> wtf is he on about? Perhaps Australia will be these guys’ achilles heel, they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
~1h57m
Carla joins
-> This Carla, apparently (link)
She gives good advice, basically says not to give IPS this kind of attention
Carla:
‘There is a dark, evil spirit out there.
‘We [Staveley channel / associates] are about love’
-> Overtly religious rhetoric.
~2h05m
Carla:
‘I’m watching you (the audience / detractors).’
‘These people are my flesh and blood, family’
She says she watches other channels’ livestream chats to see who is there, what they write, and reports back to Staveley.
-> This is overt religious cult type behaviour, the exact same as what happened with Jeffrey C, Krissy Tokyo et al circa 2015. [1]
Carla:
‘These people are so evil’
‘I don’t invite demons into my home’
-> Good grief.
~2h07m
Staveley plays another rap at the end
Lyrics in last minute of the the rap contradict entire show: ‘Don’t buy into infighting’
-> Lol. Too good.
[JLB 7-Dec-2019]
4 – My reflections
The bus in which I was traveling and taking these notes arrived at my accommodation just I was finishing listening to the call, so I didn’t get a chance to write down my initial thoughts on the day of listening.
Instead, here are a few key things I have taken away from the call, after transcribing the notes today (i.e. 12-Dec-2019).
In no particular order:
1) Even after 32 years on this earth I still find it strange — and even a little unsettling — just how emotional and unhinged a full-grown, otherwise (seemingly) intelligent man can become, when his feelings have been hurt.
2) This was my first proper foray into the contemporary ME scene. As in, the first time I have listened to a show like this for more than a few minutes. Wowee, it is like stepping back in time a few years to the peak of the FE cult, mixed with stepping back in time a couple of years further to the Jeffrey C hoaxbusting cult. The worst of both of those scenes put together.
3) Humans love drama, even those who say they don’t, they love it.
-> Staveley’s callers all admitted that they were enjoying his emotional outburst, some of them implicitly, others explicitly.
4) One of the good things I got from this call is a list of relatively new (for me) supposed examples of ME (i.e. examples which I don’t recall hearing before).
-> In many cases, my own memory is/was the ‘wrong’ one, but in none of these instances do I find myself drawn towards belief in ME.
-> In fact the ‘great wall of India’ supports my History Hoax theory more than it does the ME interpretation (imho).
5) Staveley’s rap was truly impressive to me.
-> Rap is a cool artform, the fact that the mainstream pushes utter degeneracy via it should not be mistaken for the artform itself.
-> A few years ago I meant to produce a reply diss track to Eric Dubay, who had dissed me in one of his own raps. Might be time to finally put something together…
6) There were so many excellent soundbites in this
-> I’m looking forward to making a sounboard out of them or something.
7) Bigfoot? Really?
-> You’d think I would have already known about the existence of this subculture / e-community. Nope.
-> How many of these little micro-scenes are out there, each one with prominent broadcasters claiming to be ‘under attack’, ‘censored’, etc?
8) Australia may be the achilles heel of ME.
-> Canberra not Australia’s capital? Australia not close to PNG / Indonesia? What are these guys smoking?
-> Just as my flight from Joburg to Australia helped sink one of the terrible FE arguments circa 2015, perhaps my local expertise regarding the official maps of Australia will help sink any of those ridiculous Australia-centred ME examples.
5 – Footnotes
[1] Jeffrey C hoaxbusting truth cult
I’ve gone into detail about this elsehwere. Long story short, I first got involved in content creation in the ACT realm circa 2014 via my partipation in the Jeffrey C -centred ‘hoaxbusting’ truth cult. So much of the rhetoric and even the social dynamics displayed in Staveley’s call mirror what I saw back then: right down to the appearance of Carla to simultaenously ‘calm things down’ while throwing fuel on the fire. For more info on this, check out my chat with Tim Osman from earlier this year. He was present during the Jeffrey C truth cult days, he saw it all.
[2] ‘Attack me if you like, leave Mandela Effect alone’
The following is what immediately came to my mind when I heard this part of the call: [mr burns blinky]
YouTube | Mr Burns political advert
From 1:35
Say what you want about me, I can take the slings and arrows, but stop slandering poor, defenseless Blinky. Good night and god bless.
[3] Jesus hung on a tree?
As far as I am aware, the story is, and was, that Jesus was crucified on a cross, not hung from a tree.
See this page on the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry website.
I honestly do not know what Staveley was referring to.
[4] The psychology and sociology of e-communities
This has been an interest of mine ever since I first began waking up to the cultish nature of Jeffrey C’s e-community circa 2014. Since then I have spent half a decade studying various e-communities on youtube and elsewhere. E-communities are not inherently a bad thing, in fact, I think they can be a terrific tool for otherwise-isolated people (such as those who no longer believe in TV) to communicate with like minds, and feel a sense, even if only virtual, of camaraderie with their fellow man. I’ve gone into heaps of detail about all of this elsewhere, may come back and amend this section with links later.
[5] The ME examples cited in Staveley’s rap
I’ve since looked into each one. Here’s my take:
i) Rolling Stones ‘Paint it Black’
The supposed ME is this: The lyrics used to be ‘I want to paint it black’, now are ‘I want it painted black’.
Oh dear. This is supposed to be evidence of a changing timeline/universe?
For the record, I initially remembered it as ‘paint it black’ i.e. the ‘old way’. But I also remembered it as ‘I see a red door’, not ‘I see a white door’.
-> This gives me an idea: I could say that the ‘real’ ME is the changing of the door colour from red to white, and accuse Staveley et al. of being disinfo gatekeepers who focus on the ‘paint it’ -> ‘painted’ change rather than the ‘more significant’ red door -> white door change.
ii) Great wall of India
The supposed ME is this: There is now a ‘great wall of India’ but there never used to be.
Oh dear. Even if the ‘great wall of India’ is a new thing, this is evidence for history hoaxing i.e. tourism $$$ scams rather than ME.
For the record, I don’t recall ever hearing about a ‘great wall of India’.
-> And the ‘great wall of China’ is also an obvious hoax, by the way, no more than a couple hundred years old, tops.
iii) Monopoly dude does not have an eyepiece
The supposed ME is this: The aristocrat-style dude on the front of the Monopoly board game box used to have a monocle, now he does not.
Oh dear. People have confused Monopoly dude and the Penguin from Batman, and blamed a timeline change?
For the record, if you had asked me to draw Monopoly guy a week ago (before I heard of this), I think I would have drawn him without a monocle, but I honestly don’t know. In my mind/memory, any guy wearing a top hat tends to look more normal with a monocle — including the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine, who apparently also does not normally wear a monocle. If I wanted to attend a dress-up party as an aristocrat, I would want to wear a a tuxedo, a top hat, a monocle, and walk with a cane. So maybe I would have drawn Monopoly dude with a monocle after all. Like I said, I’m not sure.
iv) Hal[l]ey’s Comet
The supposed ME is this: The so-called ‘comet’ whose name we pronounce as Hay-ley’ used to be spelled with one l, now it has two ls, i.e. Haley (old) -> Halley (new).
Oh dear. People have misspelled the name of a rare ‘comet’ and blamed this on a timeline change?
For the record, if you had asked me to spell the name of this sky-light a week ago, I think I would have spelled it with one l, not two.
Credits
If you got anything out of these notes, in 2019 or beyond, don’t thank me, thank these people.
Without them, nobody is ever spending hours taking and transcribing notes like this. Nobody.
Also, huge credit to Brian Staveley (website here, youtube here).
Regardless of where he gets swept these days, Staveley did brilliant work on 9/11.
And it is very easy to criticise people like him but at least he is putting his voice and his ideas out there.
Production notes Article 59. Typed and published 12-Dec-2019. Notes taken 7-Dec-2019. Produced as part of Mandela Month project (see JLB 19043). Exclusive to Full-access Members. 5,000 words.