Owens’ rise as internet’s most dangerous voice

NEW YORK

- Katie Rosseinsky, The Independent

Candace Owens Farmer, conservative political commentator, speaks on stage during 'Turning Point's The People's Convention' at Huntington Place in Detroit.

(File/Tribune News Service)

For right-wing firebrand Candace Owens, conspiracy theories are a form of "mind yoga", a way of bending the mind "like a pretzel".

They're also extremely compelling, for her millions of social media followers and podcast listeners at least, and extremely lucrative, helping the 36-year-old American build a staggering media empire in under a decade.

Coronavirus and the vaccines. The moon landings. Climate change. The #MeToo case against Harvey Weinstein. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal battle. All these disparate subjects have received Owens' signature treatment. On her eponymous podcast, she is the queen of the "just asking questions" approach: positioning herself as an investigating crusader who is bold enough to probe the topics that she believes the mainstream media don't want you to know about.

She is part one-woman outrage machine, part millennial version of a medieval mystic; she has certainly worked out how to cleverly monetise the human impulse to "uncover" so-called "truths" and to feel like we are somehow in possession of a secret knowledge that explains how the world works. But her latest forays into so-called "mind yoga" are tying her in ever more complex knots that set her apart from even the most fact-averse of her fellow microphone-toting far-right truthers.