Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Snarky Gherkin goes 2 rounds with the Anti Vaxers
What drives someone to fight dangerous misinformation when it would be easier to stay silent? Meet The Snarky Gherkin, who found himself thrust into the world of conspiracy debunking after participating in a COVID-19 vaccine trial and facing a barrage of threatening messages from anti-vaxxers.
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I remember I made a meme a few weeks ago where it was that every you will never meet a flat earther who isn't also anti-vax.
Speaker 2:And also pro-Trump. You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though. I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening. On this day, always was always will be Aboriginal land. On this day, always was always will be Aboriginal land.
Speaker 2:Well, hello smart women and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast. For those of you who are regular listeners, you may notice that I'm finally getting my voice back, which is a relief to everybody except, possibly, my husband, and also regular listeners may have gleaned the notion that I am part of a loosely bound community of people who have taken it upon ourselves to counter the misinformation, the tidal wave of misinformation that and actually disinformation because it's deliberate that is washing over our society and causing a lot of trouble. So today I'm very excited to be interviewing one of my favourite people that I have come across on the internet, who is doing a stellar job of pushing back against the cookers we call them the cookers who spread this very, very dangerous disinformation. He goes by the name of the Snarky Gherkin, which I think is endlessly entertaining, and he has a wonderful presence. So I'm very, very happy to be chatting to Snarky Gherkin today. Hello.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Annie. Thanks for having me. I think the intro was far too kind, but thanks for the invitation and happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting among this community of people that we find ourselves in is as opposed to the cooker community, which I find to be just awash with misplaced confidence. I find the people that I talk to that are part of the sceptical community are not awash with confidence, and it's sort of what I like about them. So it's fine, it's fine, it's all good. So tell me, if you don't mind, how you came to be, how you came to create this character, the snarky Gertrude, and what got you involved in the first place.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of a long story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go for it, then I think initially.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've sort of just like most people, I've toyed and played with some dank meme pages over the years and had various successes here and there with certain pages, but for me it really all came to a head during the pandemic. I think for a lot of people in the various groups that we're in. I think for a lot of people in the various groups that we're in, I think, as mentioned on a post previously, I was involved in the vaccine trial back in late 2020. So had signed up to that and the COVID vaccine trial, I found it quite fascinating and quite interesting.
Speaker 2:How did you get involved in the vaccine trial?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was a little bit. My grandmother at the time said it was a little bit irresponsible, but I just saw an ad for it on Facebook came up. I think I'd had a few wines at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair enough. We all need to be supported by alcohol.
Speaker 1:That's right, a bit of Dutch carriage. I thought you know what, we'll sign up to that. So I signed up to it and and within the process, was was quite, quite fast. So, um, the next morning I've had a phone call from the institute that was was doing the the trial. Um went through a bit of a questionnaire and and before I'd sort of let the dust settle on what was what I'd done, I sort of was in and getting blood tests and and and various bits and pieces. This would have been around about August 2020.
Speaker 2:So the whole of the pandemic hit pretty much in Australia in the March, correct.
Speaker 1:I think April, yeah, March to.
Speaker 2:April, and this was in the August because, of course, we had to exist, didn't we, for that first couple of years?
Speaker 1:with no vaccinations yeah. So I sort of just jumped headfirst in at the time, just not a lot of thought into it other than just wanting to just do my bit. I knew by far my body wasn't a temple. Not that I was reckless, you know, I had a young daughter at the time and and um you know. But but I just thought to myself, it's just just if I can sort of help. You know other people.
Speaker 2:Was it Pfizer? Do you remember what it was?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, so it was AstraZeneca. So it was, but it was a. It was a variant of the AstraZeneca vaccine, so it was it, the oh, what's it? Called the Serum Institute of India. So they were working in conjunction with AstraZeneca and to create a and it wasn't necessarily about the, from what I understand, like it wasn't about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself, but it was about the. It was like safety trials.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, you know and so you know that whole process was fascinating. It was good to just get a medical once over as well.
Speaker 2:What was fascinating about the process?
Speaker 1:Just talking with the researchers involved, with the doctors, you know, just to sort of understand more about the vaccine, the way and you know people smarter than myself could correct me on this but you know the way it was described to me early on that really, even though mRNA technology was, you know, relatively new, the research into it has been going on for 20 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in early trials Some of the mechanisms used in that was very similar to the Hep B vaccine, so some of the genetic material that was used to deliver it. So the way that it was described and the way that I understood it was well, there weren't really any ingredients in this vaccine that that we haven't, that I hadn't received prior, probably multiple times. Um, so for me that that sort of put me at ease, um from it, you know, there's a little bit of sort of hesitation, um, but I'd signed up and and here I was, um, you were doing it for the, you were doing it for the greater good, and I think that part of the narrative is interesting as well that, um, you know part of the resistance and part of the narrative is interesting as well that you know part of the resistance and part of the cooker the cooker story just for listeners.
Speaker 2:We call people that are sort of rampantly conspiratorial in their thinking and anti-vax. We call them cookers, just to make that clear. And I think that part of the narrative was that it was this brand new thing and they were rushing it out. But it had actually been in development for 20 years, hadn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. So it wasn't necessarily new technology. I mean, the promises that it could sort of deliver seemed exciting and new and still are, like there's still some really exciting research and things happening on that front. But so I went in, um, I had a little. I think, if I recall, um, I'd had a sort of like a I won't call it a micro dose of the vaccine, but it was. I can't um remember the actual meals itself, but it was. It was a fraction of of what the normal dose would be.
Speaker 1:Um, this was would have been around october and then, in november, um, I went in for more tests before the actual first dose itself, and so, um, to see how the body would respond, and then, fast forwarding to sort of I think it was february 2021, went in for the second dose and, um, yeah, and and so, and that was followed by tests. The way it was explained to me was was that my bloods would then be sent to three different uh institutions and they weren't necessarily told what it is that I'd received, but they were to look at all of my vitals and my bloods and and to see if there were any. Um, you know any any anomalies.
Speaker 1:It was very. At one point I even had an ultrasound on my torso and just to sort of look at inflammation, and so it was very thorough.
Speaker 2:This as well counters the narrative that you know big pharma are just, you know, rushing everything through and just being haphazard, and of course they're not at all. I mean, you know they're going through, they're jumping through all the scientific hoops, right?
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right. So for me, where the journey started, it's a bit of a long story, but I very naively posted on. Well, I don't think it was naive, actually, but I posted on my personal Facebook page that I'm involved in this initial process with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Welcome any friends or families that want to ask me any questions about it. But I've had a dose, I'm feeling fine, I'm not picking up radio signals. It was a bit of a lighthearted sort of post, but just to let people know what I was doing, and that was quite overwhelmingly positively received.
Speaker 1:Um, it was then the, the second post in in around about February, after I had the second dose and results come back, and I was here. I still was, I was fine. Um, I someone within my sort of friends or colleague network must have shared a screenshot with that to to a various um pages or groups. I was just my phone just kept pinging and and I had about, oh, at least a dozen message requests from, from people and I thought okay, and a lot of them were just insane messages, just just absolute. What would say batshit, crazy, uh, messages from from people from people or anything from.
Speaker 1:You know you're a government, chill, and what are you getting paid? And for those that don't know, it's actually you can't get paid for being a subject of medical research.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the truth must never, ever get in the way of the cooker narrative, and I think it's just good at this point to just consider the fact that how quickly they jump on anything. And to your naivety, because I have or not actually don't anymore, because I can't stand the conversations. But I have had people in my life that are anti-vax, just generally speaking, just wouldn't have the whatever, just believe the rubbish that was propagated by Andrew Wakefield that the MMR caused autism, and so I had those people in my network. And then COVID hit and in my naivety I thought, oh well, this is going to be the end of the anti-vaxxers because we've got this pandemic and surely, to God, this means that we're now going to be, you know, full steam ahead and trying to vaccinate. No, no, no, no, that's not what happened.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, we had a similar thing, just deviating a bit. If you it would have been I think it was would have been 2017, 2018, when the federal government at the time, um at, you know, childhood vaccination had dropped to to an extent. And then I think it could have been, I think it was even before that. It was the no jab, no, no play, oh, sort of all set in where where, um, they'd cut centering benefits. And it was, I remember, smirking with with my wife at the time, because suddenly the uptick was extraordinary in that you know the conviction of these anti. Presumably I don't know if it was all you know it was all driven by anti-vaxxers or if it was just complacency. But suddenly, you know, childhood vaccination rates skyrocketed to the high 90% again, you know as soon as there was a financial incentive and yeah, I probably thought the same was true, like you know, when the pandemic started.
Speaker 1:I bet all that you know let's see how sort of you know whether some of these people are going to die on the hill, figuratively speaking, or actually. But yeah, so I mean, and that's what happened. I mean where it sort of got sinister was was then just just reverting back. Was my wife then started getting messages for saying your husband's going to be dead in three months or six?
Speaker 1:months and yeah and so that that for me, just absolutely it, it staggered me, um, and so it then it. It then sort of sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole, like who are these people?
Speaker 2:Yeah who are they? Who are they? Who are they? Snarky, it's a good question.
Speaker 1:That's it. So I stumbled across a couple of personalities. I don't think they're worth naming, but I saw one in particular that was at my local shopping centre filming live, I think, the morning when the mask mandate came in and they were wandering around on a live, calling people sheep, and I think he walked up to some old deer on a motorized scooter sort of thing, calling her like just mocking them.
Speaker 1:And nasty, nasty these people were just absolute nasty vicious and I thought this needs to be counted. So I joined various groups, tried to get my head around it to be counted. So I joined various groups, tried to get my head around it. I felt that humour was perhaps the most appropriate way for me to approach these sorts of things. I've sort of it's interesting. So before the pandemic I was kind of used to go down the rabbit hole on a lot of multi-level marketing schemes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:And I knew some people involved and tried to sort of look at the numbers upon a lot of these and just overwhelmingly you know, the likelihood that they were going to make money off them was minuscule.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:But I remember thinking at the time a lot of these hey, you can earn $4,000 a day working from home A lot of those people were suddenly quiet when the pandemic started and I think a lot of them just pivoted from from that sort of MLM schemes. A lot of them did pivot to, I think, what we call grifts in the various groups.
Speaker 3:They just became grifters.
Speaker 1:You know selling horse dewormers and you know pebbles and various you know alternative things, so it was yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting that the idea that they that's really interesting that the multi they, that's really interesting that the multi-level marketing peeps then pivoted because it's all about selling useless products, right? That don't help. I think it's interesting when you start looking at the most vociferous voices in the conspiratorial cooker space and they're all selling something. Voices in the conspiratorial cooker space and they're all selling something. I mean we call it grifting because it's just point. Everything they sell is pointless, you know.
Speaker 3:Dave.
Speaker 2:Onegs who sells the weirdest? Some sort of thing that goes around your neck or you hold or you hang it in your car and it keeps the vibes away. And of course he's very big on the chemtrails.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, there's endless pictures of him, endless videos of him. They've always got their shirts off too, like can they just put a shirt on Because I shouldn't have to look at their bare torsos, because they're not attractive. So he's always in his car with no shirt on, banging on about the muck in the sky and then hanging something that costs I don't know what off the rear vision mirror that protects you from something. I mean, it's nuts, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're phenomenally expensive and my sort of thoughts with the whole chemtrail thing at the moment and I keep posting about it. But it's like they're almost so close to accidentally being correct about something. But it's like, yeah, actually, maybe you know mass aviation travel as we do globally you've got 10,000, you know planes in the air. Maybe it's not great for the environment to have that much sort of you know fossil fuels, you know getting pumped into the stratosphere or thereabouts. But it's like no, no, no. It's this strange mental gymnastics where they'll say insist that you know human industrial activity has no impact on the environment at all.
Speaker 3:Why is that similar.
Speaker 1:Simultaneously, there's these poison chemicals and it's almost like we just need to call fossil fuels um poison chemicals, or something and they'd be good, then, right, they'd get it. They'd be on board. They'd be protesting coal mines for freedom, or something you know yeah freedom.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's the freedom movement you know they've been up on the gold coast this weekend yes, with some abysmal was what. So what they've done is um listeners is, is these um skin, um, these cookers have hired a space somewhere and they've invited a series of just batshit crazy speakers. And what did they call it, snarky? Did they call it the Freedom Conference? What is that?
Speaker 1:It's the Freedom Summit something, I think. Originally they thought they had 2,000 tickets and I think a lot of them were just just basically just just people you know some shit stirrers, you know just just yeah, getting 50 tickets to themselves. And I think, closer to the actual event, they downsized it drastically to a toilet from, yeah, more or less to a um I I don't know if I I don't know if this was just a meme or if it was the real thing. I think it was some sort of Masonic lodge or something. The irony behind that.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if it is actually I could have fallen for the meme there. But I think I did see a picture of some sort of lodge or something, but it was a small, very small venue. I saw they briefly panned out once and I think there would have been 50 people. They were asking people to come down from the back and the sides. Oh, yeah. We all just clump into like the centre to create. I think they wanted to at least get a few snapshots of there being, at least you know, ten people there.
Speaker 1:A decent crowd and I think for day two or three of the event they had an exciting announcement that you're welcome to bring a friend for free For free. So I think it was an abysmal turnout. The hosts awarded themselves prizes for various things.
Speaker 2:Dave Onyx awarded himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the meme lord or something, the meme war veteran.
Speaker 2:The meme for the most memes. The thing is they keep getting chucked off platforms because of the dangerous you know. The thing is, you know we laugh at them, but they're actually a risk to public health. That is the bottom line, these people I mean, and also their capacity to cling, like they're clinging to the fact that there was lockdowns it's like four years ago. We've all moved on and got on with their lives, but they're still talking about it. And monica smith I note um has is still trying to grift off people to, to, to have dan andrews sued or convicted of some criminal. What's, what's all that about, do you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a bit of I'm not too familiar with. Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the basis. I don't even think she's very familiar with on what basis she wants to convict Dan Andrews to be honest with you, but I think she very quickly raised $134,000.
Speaker 1:Raised $134,000. Now that figure, I suspect that I don't think that's real, to be frank with you. So the number tally had, she was updating it manually on her website and I'm just you know she's likely to get 50 reactions these days on any post that you know that she puts up. I'm not sure how much she really has raised. To be frank with you, I know people that donated, you know, 99 cents, you know, just to sort of see if the tally that she was putting up was retroactive or whether it updated and it didn't update you know so as silly as that is.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't like an automatic, you know. She presented it like oh, here's an automatic, tell you my website, that's how much I've raised, and it didn't respond when there was a, you know, at certain points when people donated various things. So I I think there's even a question on how much she's even raised. Um, I think, like like most things, like with a lot of this movement, is that they've come to a conclusion and they're essentially just trying to backfill it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, absolutely she's wanting to now. She wants to prosecute, but she's now just desperate to find a reason to prosecute and and get some money because none of them work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as far as I can see, none of these people that are in the cooker conspiratorial movement actually do anything except sell useless things? And for those listeners that do not reside in Australia, because we have a lot of listeners in Europe and in America and in Canada. Victoria is another state in Australia. I'm broadcasting from Sydney. Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, and during the COVID pandemic there was major lockdowns in Melbourne, in Victoria, which of course saved a lot of lives, and the cookers down there just went bananas. And all these years later they're still trying to I don't know what they're trying to do sue or something. He's no longer even the Premier Like. He's somewhere, you know, he's probably in the Maldives lying down, you know, having a well-earned rest.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they just will not leave him alone, right.
Speaker 1:That's right. I think for a lot of these people it was, it was the glory days, it was a sense of a purpose, it was a um, it was the first time and a lot of these personalities had. You can find pre-pandemic youtube videos of them at least three or four of them top of my hand where you know they. They tried to have lifestyle wellness channels or um motivational channels and and they were so and they just couldn't crack that sort of um, that, that sort of audience. But but yeah, when the pandemic happened, a lot did shoot up into the sort of you know the, the social media stratosphere and and it just ran with it. I mean, I remember one of my criticisms of one of the, the prominent um cookers down in in melbourne at the time. Um, you know they sort of they.
Speaker 1:Originally it all started with we're just asking questions and you know how can you, how can you stop me from just asking questions? And so then suddenly they had 100 t-shirts printed to sell that covid is a scam on it and it's like, well, hang on a minute, like, are you? Are you, are you actually asking questions or are you? You're now making a? And it's like well, hang on a minute, like, are you actually asking questions or are you now making a statement? And it's like I asked the question to one of these personalities early in the piece that, okay, let's see, let's say, if you like I just asked it privately like, let's say, you receive information tomorrow that convinces you actually that this is a real pandemic and COVID is an issue, are you going to dispose of those T-shirts or are you still going to sell them because you put a financial outlay forward to sell them.
Speaker 1:So you now have a commercial interest in perpetuating this sort of and they just blocked me after that. So yeah, so it's this sort of it's like well, you're not. They're pivoted from just asking questions to just blatantly well, hey, maybe I can make a few bob out of this, and I think that's where it became. Some probably did make some money out of it. You know, I think it's a bit like an MLM scam really.
Speaker 2:In itself Multi-level marketing he's referring to Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's it For every one that's made a bit of coin out of it. You know there's thousands that haven't. They've just become deranged, sadly. And you know, I think the saddest part that there are a lot of these people that just they lose connections from friends and family and you just see it, it's almost, it is a real shame, and so they just double down and triple down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then what they do is they so, you know, they're not invited to the baby's christening because they refuse to get vaccinated. So then they get isolated. And then what they do is they drift back towards a community that welcomes them with open arms. And I think it's important to note and this is certainly what we're watching with America and RFK is that all these people that are anti-vax are all selling something that is meant to do the same job. So it's all just marketing, right, like Joe McCullough and the whole thing with the Children's Vaccination Network. They're all selling something Ivermectin. What is with Ivermectin? It's horse-paced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is my theory sort of before, well, in the early days of the pandemic, and I think one of my theories was that this sort of thing could be prevalent in the US, where healthcare is a privilege for a lot of people, and so you can imagine a situation where, if we couldn't afford healthcare but you had a genuine medical problem, even know some alternative way to deal with that toothache because you just don't have. You might not even have the access to pay for the health insurance claim that you'd make. Sure, but people are drawn to these forums and so now you could use this. I don't know Like you could use I don't know kos.
Speaker 1:Could use um, uh, I don't know kosher salt, for example you know to sterilize it and take some of the pain away, and so suddenly it's like but I always thought that that to me I can understand how, how americans can can get stuck into that, but surely that wouldn't be the case in australia, where where um world-class health care is free, yeah, and accessible. I mean, it's not not exactly free, but it's accessible.
Speaker 2:Close enough.
Speaker 1:It's close enough, and so I think what surprised me the most is how prevalent it became in Europe and Australia, where I still don't think it's as strong.
Speaker 2:Don't you, I don't know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this Freedom Summit shows I mean, it sounds as prevalent like. It sounds as bonkers. When they're online, you know there could be, you can get race-shared by you know thousands of people anti-vaxxers and stuff but when it comes time to actually show up anywhere, yeah, they can't be bothered.
Speaker 2:I don't think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they can't, they can't be bothered. I don't think. Yeah, they just can't muster the numbers that they could during the pandemic and and these freedom summits and things it's. You know, there's 50 people show up, so I I'm not sure how much of it really is um, getting caught up in just the social media algorithms and the the sort of buzz of it all. But something I do find fascinating with them and just the psychology behind it is it's almost like for people that describe themselves as free thinkers, you could almost like. You could almost like tell them what their views are on other things, because they all seem to almost think the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, about everything so it's sort of like I was thinking this earlier where it's like on balance of probability because there'll be outliers that you know, I'm sure people listen this I'll say well, I know someone that. But on balance of probability, you know, if someone describes themselves as anti vax, I I can probably guess with with certainty what. What their view is on marriage equality, for example.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's moved to the right, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:That's right. I can guess what their views are on abortion rights. On the voice, right. Yeah, on the voice, yeah. On the Voice, yeah. Another point, and that's not the like you know, I could guess what their opinion is, probably on the Russian-Ukraine war, for example. It's there's this interesting I remember I made a meme a few weeks ago where it was that every you will never meet a flat earther who isn't also anti-vax.
Speaker 1:And also pro-Trump, anti-vax and also pro-trump. That's, that's right. It's rare there's a. There's a few, um, but, but it's it. It's all become a. There's a. It's almost become like a belief system.
Speaker 2:Well, it is an ideology, it is it is absolutely an ideology and and the weird thing is, as it has, as the collective ideas have coalesced into this ideology and it's moved to the right, it's taken elements with it that we would have thought were sort of to the left, like you know, the sort of people who were spiritual and sort of into yoga. They've now that whole thing that's now gone to the right and it's something about I was thinking about this yesterday about how often people who describe themselves as highly spiritual are also just highly individualistic and not that interested in I don't know if that's right, but I was thinking that yesterday. Are they that interested in the common good or the notion of sort of a cohesive, well-rounded society? I don't know. We're just pausing for a minute to hear a word from our sponsor.
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Speaker 1:I feel like and this is just sort of thinking out loud here but I feel like to some extent and I've had discussions about this with various individuals but the lack of, I don't know if it's the right way to put it, but to some extent, the turning away from a lot of mainstream religious institutions, and rightly so in a lot of circumstances Sure, yeah, they've done it to themselves and all that. But I do feel like it irks me when I hear, like Monica Smith, for example, when she'll refer to herself as Catholic and it's like you, you know, again, a thousand and one criticisms about the Catholic church. But during the pandemic, all the diocese and the Catholic church itself and the Pope were very clear that that it's, you know, as, as he's happened many times in the church's history, that during plagues and and things through history, that it's it's time to we isolate, we protect and we you know, vaccinate when, when it was available.
Speaker 1:So for her to then say well, actually, if you are a fully fledged Catholic, you're actually going against the Holy See, your Holy See's kind of edict on what it's asking of its followers. So I did find same with the Anglican Church here in Melbourne. Anglican churches, they were very clear they did, and it was always just these sort of fringe groups that had been excommunicated or these evangelical kind of start-ups and stuff that seemed to have ignored a lot of you know the sort of Ignored the tenets, I think the rules and yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I'm probably going way off and I don't actually know what I'm talking about. No, but I sort of agree.
Speaker 2:I sort of agree because I think that the sort of the evangelical arm which sort of ends up going towards the idea of the prosperity gospel right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if I'm it's a lot more individualistic, isn't it? And less community-based. Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:And I think of course you know the church, we know there's massive, massive problems with the church, we know this. But to your point, there was a really, you know, at the bottom end of the church as well. You know they're very, very supportive of those who are in need. They are, and I do not think that you find in these sort of new age spiritual sort of culty communities, there is that same um that, that that same urge, that same belief system that underpins it that we have to take care of each other.
Speaker 2:I find it very, very individualistic and I mean I write all sorts of stuff. You know I've come out recently having a major go at retreats. I'm like because it's just such a. It's such a sort of a middle class sort of white activity, and we go there and we work on our healing. It's like guys, guys, come on, if you, I get this this sense.
Speaker 1:Of this sense, we're starving for a sense of community, um, but just back to your point. Like this new age spiritualism, it it is sort of a la carte, where you pick the bits that you like, and and, and this, and, but, whether it's I think. What's missing, though, is that authoritative sort of maybe not authoritative figure, but at least you get some consistency and coherence with that group's position, whether it's the Grand Mufti or the head rabbi.
Speaker 1:You know it's quite clear and concise.
Speaker 1:And again, you know, there's also that sense of history that I think that comes with these institutions as well, where a family friend of ours is Archbishop Stephen Cottrell, now of the Church of England.
Speaker 1:So we are not deeply a religious person, but we have quite sort of serving ministers and stuff on on the periphery of our family and you know, they say they said during the pandemic, you just didn't need, you don't need to look far within with within the church's documents itself, just to say, well, this we've had to do this many times where we've had to isolate because of the plagues and pandemics and and things, and there's, there's a almost, to an extent, it's, it's a, it's a time for quiet reflection and yada, yada. So I I sort of feel there there is that sense of um, I think, with a lot of these sort of cookers, as we call them, for a lot of them, it was the first time, very clearly, that that they had had become interested in or become aware of this sort of thing in terms of. You know, I think if you'd asked some of these prominent personalities in 2018, hey, what do you know about the Centre for Disease Control, they'd say I don't have a clue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't have a clue.
Speaker 1:That's right, but suddenly it's armchair experts. You know listening to various personalities and things like that, but suddenly it's armchair experts. You know listening, you know to various personalities and things like that. But yeah, sorry to go off track.
Speaker 2:That's okay, but I have two questions for you. One because, as you know, recently I encountered Rosemary Marshall at DY yes and with her fake Forest of the dead like a corkscrew Forest of feelings.
Speaker 3:It was weird.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So we had a bit of an altercation. I was losing my voice so I couldn't say much. But honestly, they get this very fervent. They've got sort of this sort of mad fervent. Look in their eye when they approach me and I wonder, in your opinion, do you think they believe it? Or is it just now a convenient way to you know to belong to a group?
Speaker 1:I think the latter. I think that, for I think someone I shared a post yesterday there was a chap Dr Dan on X Twitter. I saw that. Yeah, and I think someone I shared a post yesterday there was a chap Dr Dan on on x twitter.
Speaker 1:I saw that yeah and I think he nailed it. I think that you know, reverting back to what we've said previously, I think in her mind you know she's someone that that's. Perhaps she's lost friends, um, you know she's lost personal connections with people. Probably um has lost family connections as well, and I feel like it's a sense of community and it's a sense of purpose.
Speaker 3:Meaning and purpose.
Speaker 1:I think she was, I don't know. I mean I didn't. The irony of my interactions with Rosemary I didn't know who she was a month ago until she came onto the page and just started spamming. Because how dare I look into any of the forest?
Speaker 1:of the fallen capers and so and she thought I had it out for her I said I didn't actually even know who you were, but here we are, so for those listening. So she then invited me on to an open debate. I said I'd happily have a discussion with her, but then she'd said, well, well, I'm going to bring two of my vaccinated friends and so my my two vaccine injured friends oh, vaccine injured they love that and and so I just I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit there and and be brought into a spectacle of of you and your two friends that that are just gonna show.
Speaker 1:I mean, I could bring two vaccinated friends that aren't injured, and does that nullify? Yeah, yeah, and so it, yeah, so it. It just got a little bit zany. I think I lived a bit rent free in her head. She kept sort of posting rumbling things about me for a while. So you know, I snapped back a bit and just try to debunk a bit of what she says. But I think answering your question, I'm honestly not sure.
Speaker 1:No, not bunk a bit of what she says, but I think, answering your question, I'm honestly not sure um whether she really believes it or not. I feel like, um, I don't know anything about her past. I feel like she may have been an intelligent person or career, and I think they're at that point in their life where it's you know their past retirement, I think for them this is their project, it's relevancy, deprivation right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. There's a social aspect of it too. You know you're speaking to people out and about, you're out in this beautiful part of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, annoying people, yeah, Northern beaches or thereabouts.
Speaker 1:I don't think they were doing very well.
Speaker 2:I mean, they had the.
Speaker 3:No, they're not.
Speaker 2:No when I said to her those pictures, you've got, those pictures you've got just for the listeners. There's laminated pictures on sticks with people that are supposedly vaccine injured or vaccine dead, and Snarky Gherkin, who I'm currently speaking to, had debunked a lot of that. Some of the people were alive and like people, things like the guy was vaccinated and then six months later died in a car crash. So there's this desperate need to sort of, according to them, was vaccinated and then six months later died in a car crash. So there's this desperate need to sort of, according to them, prior to the vaccinations.
Speaker 2:Nobody, ever, ever, died of a single thing. Everyone just lived forever. Now vaccinations have come along and apparently it's just caused everything. And I was going to say about the need, once they've climbed, you know, once they've sort of put their stick in the ground and said I'm an anti-vaxxer. There's this interesting um flaw called identity protective cognition, and what it does is it's, once you're in a group, um, the last thing you want is to stand aside from that group and disagree, because then you'll be expelled and because of our very, very tribal brains we're terrified of not being included, not being liked, because some part of us are going to die.
Speaker 2:So I sort of get that. But what interests me about you, and why I specifically wanted to interview you, is that everything I read because I read a lot of literature, critical thinking literature is that if you want to get on side, if you want to understand someone that has an opposing point of view, you then have to sort of climb in there with them, identify the value that's driving their thinking and then work out where you have a value that's sort of aligned so you can find the common ground. And I notice that with you you're just going head on and I really like that about you because it's like I like the satirical nature of what you do and I wonder if you went through the first route first and then chucked that away and you're just going for sort of laughing at them.
Speaker 1:There's two answers to that question. They sort of converge. They sort of converge, but essentially without trying to sort of dox myself, my line of work is that I investigate certain things that happen. So think of it from a public liability side of things. So whether it be a fire that starts on a truck or a machine that breaks down or even someone that sort of gets hurt. So my default setting is I always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I always sort of assume or presume that what they're saying is correct and then try to sort of work that they just sort of send. It's almost like sending the information through filters and so in my line of work for more than a decade now I've become very used to reading very thorough medical reports, very thorough engineer reports, surveying reports, that sort of thing. So it's a real deep dive and it's become almost like a muscle reflex for me just to be able to read large documents you know properly and try to disseminate sort of what happened.
Speaker 1:So I've tried to approach the Forrest, the Fallen cases in a very similar way, where I don't have the luxury of interviewing these people that have made these submissions. Of course I've invited, you know if anybody and I've said this on the page. If you want to correct me on that, please reach out to me. We'll make amendments. I've had one lady ask me to please take it down because she submitted it in 2022. And in 2025, it all seems a bit cringe now and she doesn't want that on there. And she's also requesting Forest of the Fallen to remove her little laminated stick as well.
Speaker 1:But I've always tried to approach these where okay, giving them the benefit of the doubt that I believe that they think that they were injured. That's the starting point. I think it's an honest starting point as well. I think it would be disingenuous to say that. I mean flippantly, we might say they're all fake, but they're what we call the forest of the fakes. But, um, you know, I genuinely try, um, and and come into these and and read, and so it's just about when I'm reviewing it. Um, you know, I'll start, I do it in batches, so'll review, you know, when I've set some time aside and commit to reviewing, say three, and so when I'm understanding a lot about anxiety, nocebo effects.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of these symptoms are they're just classic anxiety. Of course they are, they're just classic. You know, and I've had some cookers sort of like claim that I'm somehow accessing privileged information or medical records that I shouldn't have access to. But I'm basing these off all of the information that they provide. So a lot of the time they will say or sometimes I'll read the. You know, I'll do a bit of a hunt. I found a couple of coroner's reports which are all publicly available, you know. I found social media posts I reached out to. I found a post on an obituary for one chap that, yeah, did sadly pass away, but there was a long list of health issues.
Speaker 2:Nothing to do with the vaccine right.
Speaker 1:His wife was mortified that it was the sister that had submitted this on their behalf. Again, I won't name them.
Speaker 2:No, don't.
Speaker 1:They will speak to the sister, but they were thankful for highlighting it to them, but it's again also mortified that they were being used in that way. So I don't have access to any privilege information. A lot of the time it is just trying to marry up what certain symptoms mean, what they do, and there's just some things that just biologically just don't make sense or aren't possible. Just don't make sense or aren't possible.
Speaker 3:Oh 100%.
Speaker 1:There was one recently where two days after the vaccine they'd had cysts in their brain. And so that I mean to me it's like I'm all ears if you want to tell me that they think the vaccine caused the cysts to form, but to tell me that happened in two days, that's not medically documented. That's right, it's not possible.
Speaker 1:But that it's not, it's the yeah, so it's just things like that. I'm convinced that a lot of them, a lot of these people, have been in various communities and things. They've been led to believe that they're a victim of a vaccine injury, so I don't want to mock them.
Speaker 1:There are some that are just blatant, like there was one that had to be a troll and I'm surprised that they even printed it and posted it. Well, there's been a few, I think, but there was one in particular where you know the, the, the dear. She says that that I wasn't coerced and I felt a little bit fatigued after the first jab and I had a mild headache after the second jab, but I'm really I'm feeling great now and they posted that as a vaccine injury and so that we, we sort of did a bit of a celebration because we thought, well, this is the first genuine, um plausible case that we've, we've come across, um, yeah, we, we have, um, we have seen somewhere, you know where they've got, uh, myocarditis and and you know there's markers for that and that's acknowledged and and understood and and um but I think as well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, your your general tone that you use because you're you're very funny, it's very witty and very, very well written. We'll put a link in the show notes. It's very, very funny, but they're quite it. There is a sort of a almost, I would say, in some of your posts. It's almost like a taunt and I quite like that and find that interesting that you've gone in that direction, that sort of vague, sort of satirical taunt. I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, an old history professor of mine, who I admire, was once telling me about the sort of anti-vax network in the 1800s and how it's just always been around. Yes, and so there's various studies and I'll send you some links, and I think there was an interesting one out of Taiwan where they had. It was about countering vaccine misinformation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the conclusion was that mocking it was the best way to address it. So it wasn't about blocking it, because the natural default setting is we need to ban these people and and I agree, but but it actually just it, it actually isolates them even more and doubles them down even more, and so good, okay for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that that's one of the motivations with with me is that that is is apparently mocking. It is is. It is the best way to convince people that actually it's not. Now, I'm not aware of anybody who's seen any of my dank memes and said actually, you've made me think otherwise, you know, but I feel like we need to get better at making fun of not necessarily the people, but it's some of the.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the people that are on the fence. So I think to your point. We're looking at trying to get to people who maybe would be influenced by the cooker voice and then maybe they hear your voice or my voice or the voice. So my favourite ones are, you know, batshit crazy cookers. Yeah they're fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're great. And all they're doing is they are just sharing the things that they're saying themselves. So, yeah, they're not even mocking anybody.
Speaker 3:No, they're just saying this is what they said.
Speaker 2:They're just highlighting the silliness of it all, and Blocked by Pete Evans, I think are also really really good. You're great, Rosemary Marshall and the Plague Rats she's really good. They're really good, and of course I'm a paid-up member of the Australian Skeptics and so generally I speak nearly every year at their conferences and they're in a fight. We're all in a fight, I think, aren't we to try and stem the tide and just bring back or introduce the notion of use your critical thinking skills.
Speaker 2:Don't just believe something because you know the person has a fervent look in their eye and they've got to. Don't just believe something because you know the person has a fervent look in their eye and they've got a. As unfortunately as we know, anecdotes, narratives, have way more you know punch than a bit of data, correct.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, and we're social creatures in that way and we tell each other stories and they are far more memes and anecdotes are far more potent, I think, than actual, and it's hard to see. I sigh when you see a graph and numbers. You know it's like I'd far rather a colourful meme that sort of tells me about. You know, the lizard part of my brain can figure out in five seconds what it means.
Speaker 1:But, it's hard to stop, and but I think what, what I love about a lot of these pages as well, is it actually holds some of these personalities accountable, because they're very quick to do the dirty delete on on a lot of things, and there are things that have been posted by prominent anti-vaxxers that you can't find anymore unless it was for these pages just complete absurd things. Yeah, um, you know whether they're ranting at the moon there was a blood moon or, um, you know claiming a couple of years ago, like there's a. There's a famous video of monica schmidt, um, that she's long deleted, but but for her, um, she just said um, you know, kings and queens back in the olden days used to sacrifice their elderly for the good of the kingdom, and all this sort of basically just saying things like we should just let us get on with our lives.
Speaker 1:Let old people die, just let them die. But then in the same breath talk about her sort of Christian values and how every life is sacred. So disgusting it is, it's revolting in all the ways. So it's important. These groups do a fantastic job at almost cataloguing some of this nonsense. And you know these people aren't going away, you know, and it's it's, it's for now and it's also for the future, I think too. Just to remind ourselves, because it's all good to sort of. Some have sort of mallowed out and moved on to other things. But there was one chap in Melbourne, fainos Panayidis, who when he thought he had a moderately big following of, you know, 100,000 people he was calling for nurses to be hung and things, and I don't think we should ever stop parroting that until he sort of issues an apology about that or publicly says that hey, actually I was really wrong about that sort of thing they never will.
Speaker 1:I think we need to continue to. I mean, he's deleted it and thinks it doesn't exist anymore, but it, it's there and it's it's. That. That's why I really like the the batshit crazy cuckoo page and and ones like it, because it's important that we we can't forget what when, when we all had to stand up and stand together, these, these cookers folded they. They were the first to just fold and and say so. I think it's important that we, we emphasize that this, that this is who they really are.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we all do a really good job and I'm proud of us, because it's not easy and lots of people dislike us.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right, and you don't dislike people for telling the truth. I think so, like the shouting and carrying on it, in my opinion, is yeah, it's, there's something not right there if they're behaving in that way. Oh, 100%, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I said that back to front, but anyway, it's been an absolute delight talking to you, snarky Gherkin Likewise. And an absolute pleasure talking to you, snarky Gherkin.
Speaker 3:Likewise.
Speaker 2:And an absolute pleasure. That was very illuminating, and let's just keep doing the work, shall we? And hopefully, at some point in the future we'll have another chat and things will be going more our way.
Speaker 1:Well, I would love to Thanks again for the opportunity and we'll see you back on the meme battleground, I guess. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Talk soon.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So thanks very much, listeners. I hope, wherever you are in the world, you have your critical thinking hats on and I hope you have a lovely day, take care, stay safe, thanks, bye for now. Thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me, annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day.
Speaker 2:Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
