John Safran

Well, a hole in the marketplace.

Not in a cynical way, but probably is like... Like, for instance, I was hanging out with all these Klansmen way before it got popular.

And then...

Then there was a point where like everyone suddenly became obsessed with the things I was obsessed with and it was like you look at The Guardian and the top five stories are all, you know, someone hanging out with or talking about, you know, the rise of white nationalism in Australia.

I was like, oh.

And part of the reason I did Puff Piece, which was my book looking at Philip Morris, the cigarette company, getting involved in electronic cigarettes, part of that really was a response to the rest of the world has become obsessed with all these things and, you know,

Like there was a point where people like me and Louis Theroux and John Ronson and were that... Like we were the ones going out into the unknown and bringing back these stories.

And people's response was like, I just had no idea.

There's still like...

There's still a Klansman around here in 2003, you know, like, and our work had all this energy to it because it was that, but the backdrops has changed.

And like, for instance, these things like Alex Jones, for instance, which I'm sure your listeners and viewers probably know about this guy from Infowars and big conspiracy theory.

He was like,

On the fringes and, like, I remember, like, just being on the radio on Triple J with Father Bob McGuire and, like, I'd be the one reporting to kind of, Bob, I was lying awake at night, I'm streaming this guy and you've got to listen to this, you've got to listen to this.

And it was like.

Like all these people were like so fringe and sort of like I was the one bringing it back to the – and then around 2015 and 16 and with Trump rising and then all these things that were just –

on the fringes had somehow been soaked in.

Suddenly all these – do you know one of the things that was really interesting when – like this is so many – it feels like a thousand years ago, but remember with the rise of the alt-right?

Yeah.

The first time it came around, around 2015, it was like suddenly there's this new alt-right or whatever and then some name would come up.

And getting into my – I was going, oh, my God, we had him on Sunday Night Saffron with Father Bob and, you know, we had him on seven years ago.