Sincerity Is Dead and the Pedophilic Global Elite Killed It
by Kate Weissenberger, Contributor
Illustration by Adi Horodniceanu, Contributor
On January 30th, the United States government released three million pages of the Epstein files—a substantial addition to the heavily redacted information published in December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. These documents—including emails, photographs, court records, police reports, and diary entries—provide horrifying details of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his global network of powerful individuals. You can read it yourself for free on the U.S. Department of Justice’s website.
But I doubt you will. The idea of even beginning to comb through the files seems ridiculous—three million pages!—and for those with the conviction to begin, there’s no way to discern at first glance between relatively innocuous email exchanges and evidence incriminating Donald Trump as a rapist without dedicating hours to poring over highly redacted text. The DOJ’s Epstein Library is sorted into 12 data sets, with each containing a seemingly random number of files. Data Set 1, for example, contains 3,147 photographs, while Data Set 6 contains only 12 files, most of which are court documents relating to United States v. Jeffrey Epstein and United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell. It all feels haunted—if not by the souls of the dead, then by the ghosts of sanity, of innocence, of childhood.
During his run for reelection in 2024, Trump twice stated that he would release the Epstein files to the public upon his return to the White House. It seemed like a strange promise; Trump’s relationship with Epstein, which lasted nearly two decades, is well-publicized. They were known to be friends, then later fell out—not over the sexual abuse, though Trump later claimed otherwise, but over a competition for a valuable Florida property.
When the FBI finally began to look through a selection of the files last spring, the Trump administration’s position on the release of the documents suddenly shifted. What was once evidence that needed to be released for the sake of American transparency became a hoax created by the Democrats purely to slander Trump.
December’s lackluster output followed by January’s halved release have done nothing to save face. Instead, Trump’s role in the ever-unfolding nightmare that the files present has only become more apparent. The DOJ’s statement, put out alongside with the pages released on January 30th, can only be described as absolute mindfuckery: “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
So don’t worry, reader! Your friends in the government know better. They only seek to protect you. The big boys are in charge, here, and they would never do anything to inspire meaningful action in you. You just sit back and relax.
Really, though. The manner in which the Epstein files were delivered was a calculated attempt to overwhelm the public into avoidance. Tactfully describing three million files as an enormous release when there should be a total of six million to view, offering little in the manner of reasonable data organization, weaponizing the knowledge that only the most extreme details will proliferate on social media—all of these have been used to ensure that you do not unseat your leader.
Even more effective in driving the public away from the throne has been a years-long effort by the technoligarchs and their buddies to instate apathy as king of American consciousness. Social media has not only altered the way we communicate and consume; it has completely changed the landscape of humor. When extreme juxtaposition becomes the norm—when the burnt bodies of war victims are a swipe away from the dancing Brita shark—nothing can be taken at face value. Earnestness will come at the cost of your sanity. Insincerity makes you a modern girl.
It’s impossible to discuss post-ironic humor without going back to 2019, when Fox News broadcast what is perhaps the final word in post-irony. Mike Ritland, a Navy veteran and dog trainer, ended his time on the air by warning against buying dogs from shady breeders before saying, “That, and Epstein didn’t kill himself,” with a smirk.
It’s a baffling fragment of media. There was absolutely no way to know, in that moment, exactly what Ritland meant. Was it a bid for attention? An attempt at subversive humor? A desperate plea for the public to always remain suspicious of what they are told? Despite the remark seeming to be tossed out so casually, Ritland walked the line between sincerity and insincerity with unnerving precision.
Though Ritland later revealed that he intended to ensure that people didn’t forget about Epstein and his crimes, he concretely provided fuel for the dumpster fire. “Epstein didn’t kill himself” appeared in many odd places in 2019—Mardi Gras floats, Christmas sweaters, the Golden Globes—but nowhere did it proliferate as it did on social media. Congressmen tweeted about it, boomers created Epstein meme pages, and twenty-somethings put it in their Tinder profiles. During my short dive into the world of Epstein-related Reels this past week, nearly seven years post-Ritland, I saw a number of edits of the man himself on Instagram, with additions ranging from nightcore backing tracks to sexy bee costumes. In the comments section of a completely unrelated video, a commenter told a girl who had spoken against ICE action in Minneapolis that she belonged on Epstein’s island. Epstein’s name is everywhere. We know what he did, and yet we remain complacent.
Modern tendencies toward post-irony have allowed for the development of a type of psychological attack known as memetic warfare, in which memes are used as propaganda. What initially appear to be fairly innocuous jokes are actually efforts to desensitize the masses. The sheer number of jokes made about Epstein and his accomplice Ghislane Maxwell serve to undermine people’s emotional reactions to their depravity. When “Epstein didn’t kill himself” became little more than a grim non sequitur, any suspicions about the possibility that some very powerful people at risk of prosecution themselves had ensured Epstein wouldn’t talk faded away. Even the news cycle, in all of its entertainment-based glory, has raised arms, with headlines like “Did Jeffrey Epstein really eat babies?” painting abysmal crimes as cheap, chewy gossip.
It is to the benefit of the global elite that we numb ourselves to the horror of it all. Some, like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who appear in a 2015 photograph with Epstein at a dinner party, risk losing the foundation upon which their power stands should the public realize who the real enemy is. Conservatives will say it’s the Clintons, and liberals will say it’s Trump; when they will realize that both are monsters—along with every person who stayed silent in the face of violent exploitation—I cannot say. In this post-ironic landscape, one must suspect that each meme supposedly making fun of these criminals veils at best a lack of will to fight against the system that keeps them in power and at worst full-blown support of these monsters.
Social media is not a transgressive tool. There is nothing about bleeding into the machine and letting it pump you full of sedatives in return that will Stick It To The Man. To continue to meme the sexual abuse of countless girls and women is to pave a path the elite have marked, one on which their violations can march to acceptability. If we continue to treat the Epstein files as nothing more than fodder for laughs—knowingly or unknowingly—there is no hope for justice.
The world is run by pedophiles. Scratch that: The world is run by men who, upon realizing they had conquered the earth’s past, present, and future, spent their days committing rape, murder, and child sexual abuse. Since January 30th, I have wept over the Epstein files each and every time I have tried to read through them. I’m sick, and I’m scared, and I don’t know how to go on having garnered this knowledge. I wouldn’t go back, though. I feel certain that to give into apathy is to willingly rid yourself of your humanity. I cannot blame anyone for falling victim to a way of thinking that has been forced upon them from birth, but I will treat with disdain those who refuse to take a step back from the onslaught of social media and contemplate what meaning their engagement holds.
If you do nothing else, just read the fucking files. Please.
