Al Fry’s “Strange Beings”

Al Fry is the Strange Being, if you ask me.

You can find some very odd videos by this man online — discussions of demihumans, dangerous chi power emitted from the eyes, and more insanity. It’s all a hodgepodge of random new age crap (qi and “psychic self-defense,” and the usual “vibrational levels” and “negative spirits”) and cryptozoology, duct-taped together and presented as if it was real. Except, almost as if with a bizarre sense of humor.

You want to believe the guy narrating is joking when he says, “Now, listen up!” and goes on to explain how as late as 9,000 years ago, there were still bipedal carrot-men roaming the earth, and the “data” regarding their existence was used by Tolkien in his book, The Lord of the Rings. Which, after all, is a work of history, right?

You want to believe people don’t actually believe in anything as silly as that. But then you listen to Al Fry, in all his dry, weird narrative glory, and you realize there are people who believe in things as stupid as this. And then you kind of have to laugh and despair at the same time.

17 thoughts on “Al Fry’s “Strange Beings”

  1. Wow. I just watched one of his videos on youtube, one about hidden world history. His bizarre ideas and slow, matter-of-fact way of speaking makes it seem like he’s making it up as he goes along – which I find hilarious. But then I scanned the 50 or so video comments and saw that each one either completely agrees or riffs off Al-the fucktard-Fry. Despair, indeed.

  2. Mark,

    Yeah, but I find the less-successful freaks more interesting somehow. More homegrown, less slick. Less allied with, you know, Those People.

    Kilgore — heh, I love Vonnegut too — yes, bizarre. He’s got that crazy, just-spilling-it-out -of-his-head way of talking that makes it sound even crazier. And yes, sadly this kind of thing does seem plausible to more people than it ought. This is why we need better education in critical thinking and science.

  3. In fact Al Fry goes on to say he does not beleive or disbeleive the claims cited by you. he also makes it quite clear that one of the core things he’s trying to acheive in his films is not taking mythology at face value. He’s trying to weave together folklore and often time first hand reports of bizzarre things, usually only hinting at certain truths which im sure he holds dear. While fantastic and ludicrous they may be, I also think these films are a wonderful source of information about world folk-lore, they can lead the open minded to countless interesting sources of information, for instance his studies of the arabian “Thousand nights” in another film are a fantastic insight into these stories for any beginner. I think if you can’t enjoy and take anything from these films then you have not looked with keen enough eyes. James

  4. James,

    Uh, okay. Did it look like I was simply slamming him? I reread my post and I don’t think I was. Weird isn’t always bad. And I do despair that humans believe such silly things. And Fry is weird and somewhat entertaining. And I wrote this in 2007, you know.

      1. Was I harsh in 2007? Maybe a little. Did I not carefully reread my maybe-a-little-harsh post in 2010? Yeah, maybe. (Though wow, does the implicit racism and colonialism in Fry’s ramblings are even more apparent in 2021 than they were in 2007.)

        But, you know, you’re the guy who’s so upset by a post on a little-trafficked blog post from 14 years ago that you had to post an insulting comment for the author, so… I think your comment is a pretty good example of the pot calling the kettle black.

        (Not to mention, insults coming from people who can’t even punctuate their own sentences properly are… not particularly insulting.)

      2. I’m also baffled that you’d be upset at my commenting about things I didn’t like about Al Fry, given this:

        https://twitter.com/MythicCDXX/status/1367279855780454406

        Strange, since we seem to agree about UBI… and probably other things. (Edit: Though probably for different reasons? I don’t see it as a subsidize-wages-for-the-benefit-of-the-private-sector scheme.)

        Anyway, maybe snipe-commenting isn’t a good way to get to know someone, huh?

        1. That’s what you were doing 14 years ago though. I agree the guy’s a racist, and doesn’t seem to like the gays or jews, but if you listen really hard you’ll find some things to take away. It is interesting content regardless. The art alone he shows throughout is a good enough reason to watch it.

          When you search his name and HWH this is one of the first websites that comes and you basically insult anyone interested in visiting because of it. Kind of heads all discussion off at the pass.

          1. Right… but 14 years ago is a long time, right? I’m willing to bet you posted some stuff 14 years ago that maybe you don’t agree with anymore. *shrug* That said, I did notice the same thing: when you google “Al Fry Strange Beings” my post is like the second or third hit on Google.

            By the way, I didn’t mean to insult people interested in the, er, “eliptony”: I certainly have retained my appetite for entertaining nonsense put out by people who take said nonsense seriously. I still find it sobering that people literally believe this stuff… but I am more worried about stupid beliefs with real-world consequences these days, like, say, anti-vax, or Qanon, or the “Red Pill”/incel/Men’s Rights Movement bullshit.

        2. As far as UBI goes, I change what I say depending on who I’m saying it to. I generally know how to read the room. When talking to neoliberals or those that think they’re influencers in that world you have to make it work centric and make it appealing that way, because that’s what the Third Way likes. Any way we can get it done.

          1. Currently the discussion is around the minimum wage hike legislation like that’s the end all be all of policies. People need to know that, no, there’s a better way to do it. Putting it in relation to that discussion is what’s called for.

          2. The discussion you’re referring to is in the US, right? Because a lot of the rest of the developed world has somewhat better minimum wage laws. (To some degree this is true of where I’m from, Canada, although South Korea, where I am currently living, does not.)

            But even in those societies where minimum wage is decent, UBI would be a positive change in many ways.

          3. Hm… I tend to think “any way we can get it done” is a dangerous maxim, though, since the way something gets done tends to shape whose interests the implementation serves. It’s very easy to imagine neoliberals supporting a “universal” basic income that isn’t actually universal—one that is only available to those who qualify as “working” according to some litmus test that—depending on the country and the province or state—might exclude people who are seasonal workers, or who are business owners affected by a temporary setback like a pandemic. That is, I can imagine it (a) not being universal, and (b) being constructed in such a way as to serve the interests of the rich, powerful, etc. (“If you want to qualify for your UBI, you need to get a job. Wal-Mart is currently hiring night stockists.”)

            After all, practically every good political idea ever implemented was warped and messed up in this way.

          4. I’ll add that my general impression of most institutional neoliberal types is that they’re not likely to really be moved to support UBI on logical grounds, because a lot of their policies seem more fundamentally to be grounded in spite (and perhaps the kinky rush that some people get making laws that screw selected vulnerable categories of people). Which isn’t to say I don’t think we should have logical arguments for it: it’s so obviously logical there’s no reason not to have good arguments locked and loaded. I just don’t know that we’ll actually convince any neoliberals of UBI through logic, and more than we’ll convince racists to stop hating and abusing minority groups through logical arguments (such as appealing to their self-interest).

          5. It’s a benefit for citizens as far as the universality of it goes. It isn’t necessarily the neoliberals (as in the top leadertype people and whatnot) that need to buy it, it’s the people they’ve tricked into supporting nonsense economics.

            I wouldn’t say that any way we can get any plan done is a good idea, but the basic UBI plan of X amount of money every month for base consumption needs implemented asap and I don’t think anyone will care who does it or the reason after it’s done. Doing it right is obviously a plus.

            In any case, I was doing to you what you did to me on first sight, I hope you get that. I don’t really remember much about Strange Beings, I’m sure there was some crazy stuff in there, HWH maybe not as much, but in either it wasn’t all useless.

          6. Ha, I think the main difference in our opinion probably is about how far doublespeak would be able to warp what gets passed off as “Universal Basic Income” in practice. I can’t help but envision a world of feudal serfs who have “universal” benefits on a provisional basis: stick to a shit job, and you’ll get enough supplementary income that the employer can pay you below-poverty wages. I can easily imagine a bastardized version of UBI being passed like that… by pretty much any major political party in any “developed” country, honestly.

            I’d rather not have that—it would only make proper UBI harder to achieve (“You already have this, what more do you want?”) Even the pressing need of the present can’t justify throwing away serious hope of a proper UBI for probably half a century to a century (if not more).

            Anyway… I didn’t actually do anything to you, you realize? I wrote a snarky blog post read by maybe a hundred people a long time ago (back when blogs like mine actually got heavier traffic), and you stumbled onto it, disliked it, and decided to insult me. There’s countless more offensive things online to be upset about. It’s probably more constructive to register surprise at the harshness than to call people names over things they wrote long ago.

            Shrug.

            Not that I’m particularly upset. It’s just kind that this behavior makes one become a pot calling the kettle black.

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