You may wonder why we have stopped debating the chemtrailers and truthers on their facts. Back when we first started we tried the “change my mind” angle. That soon lost its luster once we understood the type of people we were dealing with. They are bat shit crazy. There’s no way around it. The more time we spent talking to them on-line and through various incarnations of our voice chats for the podcast, we decided we were going about this all wrong and changed our tactics. We’re never going to see eye to eye with a chemtrailer. Or a flerfer. Or whatever hodgepodge garden variety conspiracy theorist we come across.

So we started discussing the people behind the movements instead. The personalities vying for your hard earned money via their various GoFundMe campaigns. These people are way more interesting than combing over the facts they choose to ignore, their tired arguments have all been debunked years ago. We wanted to know why they feel like standing on a platform that touts fear as its objective. What’s the motivation?

At this point after speaking to critical thinkers like Amanda Baise (Madisonstar Moon), Jim Lee, Michael J Murphy, Betty Washam, Dan Bidondi, Andy Nolch, and Stephen D Kelly, we think we have it. It’s the thirst. The sweet, sweet internet fame that comes with having something go viral. Problem is that their content is so ridiculous and they take themselves so seriously that they’ll never get to go full on viral. There are already shows on TV that have the cute cats and people getting kicked in the balls for a laugh, and that’s some stiff competition. Your derp has to be full potato to beat that.

In the case of Betty Washam, the fear monger who does her deep dives into research from the personals on Craigslist, she discovered that being an alarmist will get you lots of views, but that’s also going to bring the trolls. You can’t cite a personal ad that anyone can anonymously submit as a call to arms or an emergency. That’s what the Media Wench explained to Betty when she called in. Projecting violence or a violent event, with specific times, places, and threats, is incredibly irresponsible. Especially if you have an audience that’s too dumb to realize you're getting your news from Craigslist, takes you seriously, then goes out and hurts someone. We’ve explained to her why her views are unfounded. Now it’s just radicue from here on out.

In the case of Andy Nolch, the independent Scientologist from Australia, it’s been a small debate within Echoplex whether or not he’s a troll or serious. Some of us have waffled on the issue, others have stuck to their troll guns from the start. We got him to admit to being a troll on a caturday. You should check that episode out. Andy is trying to have the attitude of a serious truther, but he’s a very bad comedian. In fact, he’s only funny when we’re making fun of him on our show. Which is probably why he doesn’t come on anymore. He’s tried the Scientology route, being trans gender, a misogynist, a trump fan, a chemtrailer, a flerfer, and a false flagger. Now that we think of everything, he’s tried it all. He’s also failed at being funny during any phase, and has lost most of his media outlets in the process. Going hard in the paint as an activist peddling fear will get you no internet fame, sir. We like Andy tho. Even if he’s crazy.

Jim Lee is a whole other brand of crazy. He thinks he’s a scientist. We know this because if someone calls him a scientist, he doesn’t correct them. He often cites himself or his website as a source of research, when all he’s done is copy someone else’s bullshit and thrown a candy coat on it as his own. All while having a sad that every other truther is stealing his work. He likes to run the link soup on anyone he talks to, quickly posting a shit ton of links and screen shots that no one has the time or is fast enough to fact check in real time. This makes him the winner in his eyes, and the smartest kid in the special class. But at least he’s humble about it. No, we’re kidding. His head is more inflated than his ego, and if he doesn’t say “me”, “I”, “mine”, or refer to himself as an expert once in each breath on one of his YouTube videos, he must be having a slow day. We have no problem attacking Jim Lee’s character, because he’s just another social media fame whore, looking for those views. That, and your money.

Our best frenemy, Amanda, was really the kicker into all this. Once we learned her game it was all over. Even she waffles on what she believes in. So much so it’s detrimental to her speaking appearances due to either the narrow vein it funnels the event producers into as to not upset her, or the volley of trolls that follow her to every event she does show up to. We’ve given her a variety of names. Dramanda, Khem Kardashian, Ol Maddie, Main Stream Moon. Those are some of the favorites. She’s based most of her activism doing real-life trolling. Taking to the streets and making people watch her point at the sky while she records them. Calling the weather desk, Colgate, the EPA, the FBI, and her dad, recording them without their consent, and posting the conversations on YouTube.

But the really special thing about Amanda is how she plays the victim card to keep her cult following rabid for her. Out of all the chemtards she’s actually probably one of the most successful in separating her fans from their money. Well, except for Michael Murphy. More on him in a bit. Every year she throws up a GoFundMe for travel expenses to some chem summit, then about a week after, shows all her fans how she’s fighting the man on her new Apple product. She may have started out exploring the idea of conspiracy and trying to make the world a better place, but since has definitely found it to be more lucrative to peddle fear to the people she hasn’t blocked yet to get donations. This year she wasn’t invited to any of the chemmie conferences, so she’s throwing her own. The meltdowns in the week leading up to the event will be delicious. If she would just accept how funny she can be, and stop taking herself so seriously, unblock everyone, and get some thicker skin, her audience would increase 100 fold. But don’t you worry Amanda. Echoplex will be here if you need to talk to someone. You have our number.

One guy that can take a little jabbing and has a bit of a sense of humor is Dan Bidondi. Dan is a former correspondent (I guess..?) for Infowars. But he was too crazy for them (hard to believe) and was let go. Now he saves his rants for Facebook live and his own radio show. If you can sit through 5 minutes of the stream of derp that comes out of this guy, you are a better person than we. His crazy ranges from chemtrails, government taking away everyone's guns, God, FEMA camps, and all things delusional paranoia. Our assumption is he just took one to many hits to the head as a semi-professional wrestler. He’s spoken to us before. It was a loooooooong conversation and took so many turns down the crazy train, another producer from another show had to chime in via Discord to ask him what the hell he was talking about. It’s one of the best moments of Red Light we’ve had. We’d talk to him again. He’s a good sport. And of the truthers we’ve spoken to, he’s the most self aware. He seems to understand how absurd he looks to a lot of people. And he’s dumb as fuck, so that really says something about the rest of the people on this list.

The last and saddest case to date we’ll cover in this article is poor Michael J Murphy. The chem-community calls him the father of the chemtrail movement. He’s made a few movies. “What in the World Are They Spraying?” and “Why in the World Are They Spraying?”. They were met with reasonable success. His third movie “Unconventional Gray” was funded by donations to a GoFundMe, but instead what was received was “What in the World is He Smoking??” as the funds disappeared and he has sunken into a world of paranoid delusions fueled by what seems to be meth. His Facebook rants are epic. We interviewed him based off of Dramandas recommendation to do our own research. It didn’t take us long to figure out that this dude is hanging by a thread of sanity. And that shit is fraying quick. His delusions spread from being cloned, to being the heir of Murphy Oil and having his inheritance stolen from him, trying to save Mariah Carey from being raped nightly, that he’s the only living son of JFK, he’s the emperor of California, and trying to save the Princess of Saudi Arabia. No we’re not kidding. Go check out his timeline.

He had posted his number from his website, so we gave it a jingle and set up an interview. After trying for at least 15 minutes to get him to say one thing about chemtrails, or his yet to be released movie, it became obvious that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Watching his downward spiral has been sad for us. Especially since the community he worked so hard for doesn’t lift a single finger to help him. But, that would detract from their own monetary gain, so outta sight outta mind for Mr. Murphy.

At this point, we probably know the names of more truther experts than we know the names of past presidents. So we’ll have no shortage of derp to cover like the TMZ of idiots for the foreseeable future. Plus there’s always updates. Every once in a while one of them sends us a love note or makes a video about the rabid Echo Shills stalking them on the interwebz. They won’t get a platform for a free exchange of ideas from us any time soon. We’ve had more than enough of that shit. The internet doesn’t owe you a soap box to stand on free of judgment of your bad ideas. We also won’t stop calling you out on your bullshit where we see fit. If you’re trying to make a buck peddling fear or telling people to be scared of clouds, you can bet you’ll see the Echoplex stick figure shill in your inbox, asking about what time you wanna have a chat. That’s something you can believe in.