How Russell Brand's online presence is (predictably) steering the conversation
Two reporters examine the comedian’s response to sexual assault allegations via social media
Facing allegations that include rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse, Russell Brand claims the mainstream media is working against him.
But as reporters Kat Tenbarge and Alyssa Bereznak tell host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, the allegations published against the British comedian came after a lengthy investigative process, including interviews with hundreds of sources, in a collaboration between three different publications.
Together, the panel unpack this story and explain how Brand's YouTube subscribers may have been primed to distrust the media.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.
Elamin: Alyssa, Russell Brand's YouTube channel has more than 6 million subscribers. Can you tell us a bit about his YouTube persona and the audience he's built there?
Alyssa: He's really gone in on the platform in recent years. Like a media brand, he has many different verticals — some of which, if you just arrived at by a search of "how to meditate" or something, you might think are pretty harmless. One channel is called "Awakening with Russell," and he's like a spiritual leader; he does Yoga With Adriene, and offers tips on how to deal with relationship problems. As someone who is trying to survive in this world, all that content would be super relatable to me. There's another channel about soccer called "Football is Nice."
And then there's "Stay Free with Russell Brand" — which is his main page, and I think also the name of his podcast — and he's clearly aligned himself with the American conservative right there. He's doing softball interviews with folks like Tucker Carlson and Ron DeSantis. He's making short video clips that accuse CNN of Biden propaganda. He's engaging with conspiracy theories about COVID, or Bill Gates, or UFOs. These are pretty common American right — especially online American right — talking points, and I think it just speaks to how you can have this splintered presence. You can be someone who gives meditation tips, and you can also perpetuate really dangerous and hateful ideas.
Elamin: There's a convergence of trying to draw in all the audiences. Maybe you show up because you like his football analysis or his meditation advice. And then, Alyssa, you end up finding one of his other videos, and then gradually you sort of descend maybe into some of his many conspiracy theories that he's been pushing over the years. Do we see him using those other channels as a kind of on-ramp for his conspiracy theories?
Alyssa: Definitely. I mean, if we're talking about the wellness channel, for instance, you might not be having a good time in your life and you might be looking for people to blame for it. I think we've seen this with many other YouTubers. This is how they recruit vulnerable young people who are looking for answers, or are looking for a channel for their anger. It's very manipulative.
WATCH | Russell Brand addresses the allegations on his YouTube channel:
Elamin: Kat, [some observers] are drawing a pretty direct connection between the way that he's been building all of this narrative against mainstream media and the anticipation of allegations just like these. His YouTube fans are loudly supporting him. Why do you think it's so easy for them to believe in the idea that mainstream media is conspiring against their hero, in a sense?
Kat: This isn't something unusual on platforms like YouTube. We've seen dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals build large audiences on platforms like YouTube by leaning into this idea that the mainstream media can't be trusted. Logically, it makes sense why this would help you build a YouTube audience, because the best way to get people to subscribe to your ideas is to create an us-versus-them mentality. And so these YouTubers are speaking to their audience every day, identifying them as part of the "us" and identifying the mainstream media every day as part of the "them" that you can't trust. This is a very easy economic strategy to understand. It helps these YouTubers make money.
But then when we look at the broader reputational strategy at play here, Russell Brand is not the only YouTuber to embrace this tactic to get ahead of or try to come back from some sort of sexual assault allegation. It's something that has been successful over and over and over again over the past few years. I think in large part that's because they're leaning into this already pre-existing idea, that particularly the American conservative right has picked up on over the past few decades: if you don't like what the media is saying, then it's very easy to just say "distrust all of the media," rather than try to argue with each point within an article like this, which is incredibly fleshed out.
Of course. They don’t like competition.
—@elonmuskElamin: Alyssa, it does feel like it's been escalating, right? And you see this story as kind of a natural evolution of this. You have someone like Elon Musk appearing to publicly support Russell Brand. He commented on the video that Russell Brand posted…. He sort of sees himself as part of the same fight. But this is the guy who owns X, formerly known as Twitter, steering the conversation. How do you see someone like Elon Musk and the types of figures who have been supporting Russell Brand playing into this conversation?
Alyssa: I mean, I think that to Kat's point, this is in its own way a safety net, or a way to build loyalty. When you pit two sides against each other in this really stark, polarized way, there is no meeting in the middle or parsing details, or looking at a gray area. There is just, "We need to write those people off because they clearly have a bad faith argument."... And so what it does is it just makes it so that any new piece of information — any extremely thorough, credible report like the one we're discussing — is just a non-starter because there's no way to take what one side is saying seriously. There's no nuance in the conversation.
You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.