I think the argument is that the Simpsons clips are less to do with Comet Ping Pong and more to do with the existence (or not) of child trafficking rings. Comet Ping Pong is a symptom of "pizza" culture, not the root cause.

Of course, why the Simpsons writers would want to tell us about a scandal two-decades hence using language which is almost always completely innocuous and may not have even meant the same thing back then which it does now, is beyond me. Perhaps Cass Sunstein could tell us more?

The only impression I got about John Podesta from the leaked e-mails is that he's a bit of a sperg when talking about food.

I would think if Podesta was involved in anything like what is alleged, he wouldn't use his real name, he'd be hiding behind like 10 proxies, and he wouldn't use food codewords because the Internet already believes people involved in that sort of thing use food codewords the most.

All good points!

Another thing which gets me is the fact that there *are*, provably, many instances of high-ranking Washington insiders having ties to child sex crimes. People like Dennis Hastert (pimping out boys to gay Republicans), Jeffrey Epstein (pimping out girls to Trump and friends) - hell, even Anthony Weiner was caught recently "with his pants down" (metaphorically and literally-speaking), doing naughty things with a fifteen year-old schoolgirl. Weiner, like Podesta, is a Team Clinton insider, so you'd think the Team Trumpers would jump all over it - and yet the Weiner case is barely a blip compared to all this attention being paid to John Podesta, who this one time mailed his friend some cheese. (gasp!)

Podesta is definitely a food sperg, and that much can be confirmed, even without the emails, simply by looking at his public record. He may have a little teeny-tiny cannibalism fetish - but hell, so does Chris Barnes, and we still love Cannibal Corpse, right? And there's a small amount of purely circumstantial evidence that Alefantis, like many others, is at least somewhat interested in pedarasty (albeit no evidence at all that he is involved in anything illegal, let alone a child trafficking ring). Beyond that, nothing of substance has emerged.

So to what do you attribute this fascination with Podesta? As you say, there are plenty of politicians who actually fuck children, and all manner of strange and unpleasant things. Yet those cases are ignored.

I understood that this thing was a lark on the part of 4chan that grew some legs. But you seem to be in touch with a community of believers? How widespread is this belief?

Another thing that pisses me off about the "Pizzagate" hysteria is that the whole "Spirit Cooking" thing was legitimately creepy on its own merits even if it's really just pretentious performance art but "Spirit Cooking" got drowned out by people wanting to believe "pizza", "cheese", "walnuts", and "rice" meant something a lot more insidious than pizza, cheese, walnuts, and rice.

Also, yeah, I can believe in high-level child sex rings amongst the elite, but "private Caribbean island owned by a billionaire" is a lot more plausible a venue for such things than "some small local pizza place".

A month with Pizzagaters? Homer, you should try one of these smart drinks:

http://i.imgur.com/H5PjYsQ.jpg

Sort of, yes, but then again we poesters have been almost a decade-and-a-half amongst bizarre internet subcultures. A month of having spirited debates with PizzaGaters on Reddit and Youtube, is that really so different from years doing the same with furries, juggalos, Nicktoon enthusiasts, ryona fetishists, voters, fat people, and Real Vampires?