Robert Evans is an American author, journalist, and podcast host who has reported on global conflicts and

online extremism Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular inf ...

. A former editor at the humor website

Cracked.com Cracked.com is a website based on the humorous Cracked (magazine), ''Cracked'' magazine, which dates back to 1958. It was founded in 2005 by Jack O'Brien.Axon, SamuelStreamy Awards 2010: Here Are the Winners ''Mashable''. April 11, 2010. In 2007, ...

, Evans now writes for the investigative journalism outlet

Bellingcat Bellingcat (stylised as bellngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 ...

while working on several

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

s, including ''Behind the Bastards'', ''Behind the Police'', ''Behind the Insurrections'', ''It Could Happen Here'', ''The Women's War'', and ''Worst Year Ever''. In 2021 he published his first novel, ''After The Revolution,'' in a serialized podcast.

Career

Early career

Evans worked at the humor website ''

Cracked Cracked may refer to: Television * ''Cracked'' (British TV series), a 2008 British comedy-drama television series that aired on STV * ''Cracked'' (Canadian TV series), a 2013 Canadian crime drama series that aired on CBC * "Cracked", a Season 8 ( ...

'' as an editorial manager. In that position, Evans led a team that published "personal experience" articles. These articles fell into two main categories: journalistic pieces involving a variety of sources and personal narratives. In 2016 Evans published his first book, ''A Brief History of Vice,'' about the formative effects of narcotics on the development and history of civilization.

Journalism

Evans has done reporting for the investigative reporting outlet ''

'' between 2018 and 2021. He has reported on conflicts in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, and

Rojava The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing Regions of North and East Syria, sub-regions in the areas of Afrin Region ...

, as well as on far-right extremists in the United States. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Evans produced a variety of content about

8chan 8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site ha ...

, an anonymous message board, as well as the

Gamergate controversy Gamergate or GamerGate (GG) was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign and a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture. It was conducted using the hashtag "#Gamergate" pri ...

movement, a movement he describes as largely organically generated, with some direction given by white supremacists and extremists with long experience in radicalizing people on internet forums. Following the March 2019

Christchurch mosque shootings On 15 March 2019, two consecutive mass shootings occurred in a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attacks, carried out by a lone gunman who entered both mosques during Friday prayer, began at the Al Noor Mosque ...

, news outlets including ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'', '' Vox'', and ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' referenced Evans' warning about the nature of the shooter's manifesto. Evans argued that the manifesto was merely a

red herring A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question. Red herring may also refer to: Animals * Red herring (fis ...

, full of references and memes meant to distract observers. Following the 2019

Poway synagogue shooting The Poway synagogue shooting occurred on April 27, 2019, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, United States, a city approximately north of San Diego, on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday, which fell on a Shabbat. Armed w ...

, ''Vox'' relied on Evans' work to explain how the shooter's manifesto again constituted a 74-page

in-joke An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...

meant to further radicalize other

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

/pol/ /pol/, short for "Politically Incorrect", is an anonymous political discussion imageboard on 4chan. As of 2022, it is the most active board on the site. It has had a substantial impact on Internet culture while acting as a platform for far-r ...

users. In a 2020 ''Bellingcat'' article, Evans discussed the emergence and qualities of the

boogaloo movement The boogaloo movement, whose adherents are often referred to as boogaloo boys or boogaloo bois, is a loosely organized far-right anti-government extremist movement in the United States. It has also been described as a militia. Adherents say t ...

, a loose-knit group of individuals who express interest in fomenting American civil unrest. Evans says that he became aware of the boogaloo movement when he observed members at 2020 Virginia Citizens Defence League Lobby Day.

Portland George Floyd protests

Starting in late May 2020, Evans covered the

George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon Starting in May 2020, demonstrations over the police murder of George Floyd were held in the city of Portland, Oregon, concurrent with protests in other cities in the United States and around the world. By July 2020, many of the protests, which ...

. He began reporting in the first days of the protests by taking footage of protesters, counter-protesters, and police. His reporting on the protests was highlighted in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' opinion section, which published an interview with Evans after the 50th day of protests about covering the events. In July, Evans joined a

class-action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...

against the City of

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

for police use of force at the protests. The suit is non-monetary, seeking instead "declaratory and injunctive relief — asking the court to find the plaintiffs within their rights and to order police to stop brutalizing and unlawfully arresting protesters." Evans joined freelance journalist Bea Lake and housing services specialist Sadie Oliver-Grey as a plaintiff. The suit alleges that police officers were unlawfully violent, stopped journalists from reporting, and interfered with the right to free speech. The suit describes incidents that occurred to Evans including the "police allegedly threatening him with arrest if he did not leave the area, shooting him in the foot with a

tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the early commercial aerosol, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the eye to produce tears. In ad ...

grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...

and spraying him, and repeatedly shoving him". On Saturday,

August 22 Events Pre-1600 * 392 – Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor. * 851 – Battle of Jengland: Erispoe defeats Charles the Bald near the Breton town of Jengland. *1138 – Battle of the Standard between Scotland a ...

, a

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...

protester wielding a baton broke Evans' hand while he was filming. In an interview with ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', Evans said the right-wing counter-protesters "absolutely came prepared to fight", were "very aggressive from the jump", and were equipped with "knives, guns, paintball guns with frozen pellets, batons". In August, the song "No Cock Like Horse Cock" became a popular protest song in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. It was unclear exactly how it became popularized, but Pepper Coyote, the artist who produced the song, surmised that protesters became aware of his work through a cover song that appeared on Evans' ''Behind the Bastards''.

Podcasting career

Evans is the host of the podcast ''Behind the Bastards'' and one of three co-hosts of the podcast ''Worst Year Ever''. In 2019, Evans completed the podcast series ''The War on Everyone'', a podcast about how white supremacy and fascism have developed and spread into the American consciousness in the modern age, as well as ''It Could Happen Here'', a podcast about the possibility of a Second American Civil War. Evans published a new podcast series titled ''The Women's War'' in March and April 2020 about the primarily Kurdish autonomous region in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

known as

. Evans also published a ''Behind the Bastards'' podcast miniseries titled ''Behind the Police'' in June and July 2020, covering the history of policing in the United States to inform the present time of civil unrest. Behind the Police was cohosted by Jason Petty. In November 2020 through early 2021, Evans published ''Uprising: A Guide From Portland'', a podcast detailing first-hand accounts of the 2020

Cool Zone Media

In August 2021,

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

announced a launch of a new podcast network "Cool Zone Media" helmed by Evans, who would become its head of content. The network would unite under one umbrella both existing and upcoming podcasts from Evans and his frequent collaborators such as

Jake Hanrahan Jake Hanrahan (born 23 January 1990) is a British journalist and documentary filmmaker from the East Midlands. He reports on war and conflict, focusing on militia forces, paramilitaries and guerrilla warfare. Hanrahan is best known for his wo ...

and Jason "Propaganda" Petty.

Podcasts

*
After The Revolution
' (2021): An audiobook version of Evans' debut fiction novel *
Assault on America
' (2021): A mini-series that examines the events around the January 6th U.S. Capitol attack *
Behind the Bastards
' (2018 - ): Evans' flagship and longest-running podcast series *
Behind the Insurrections
' (2021): A mini-series detailing several historical coups, released following the

2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...

*
Behind the Police
' (2020): A mini-series on the history of American police, released in the wake of the 2020

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

*
Cracked Gets Personal
' (2017): Short lived show Evans co-hosted with

R. Brandon Johnson Richard Brandon Johnson (born January 14, 1974) is an American actor and television host. From 2011 to 2013, he starred as Gary Wilde on the Disney Channel series ''Shake It Up''. He has also hosted the TNT reality competition series '' 72 Hours' ...

while they worked for Cracked.com *
It Could Happen Here
' (2019, 2021 - ): Originally a mini-series about the possibility of a Second American Civil War, later relaunched as a daily podcast *
The War on Everyone
' (2019): A podcast where Evans details how white supremacy and fascism have developed and spread into the American consciousness in the modern age *
The Women's War
' (2020): Evans details his experience visiting the Autonomous Administration of Rojava *
Uprising: A Guide to Portland
' (2021): A first-hand report and background on then-ongoing

Protests in Portland, Oregon Portland, Oregon has an extended history of street activism and has seen many notable protests. History Portland's first organized demonstration was held in 1857. 19th century Women organized in the late 19th century around several issues. T ...

*
Worst Year Ever
' (2019 - 2022): A joint project with

Katy Stoll Katy or KATY may refer to: People * Katy, a short form of the name Katherine * Katy (given name) * Katy (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a fictional character * Katy Perry Places Serbia * Kać, Serbia ( hu, Káty, link=no) United States * Katy, Mi ...

, and

Cody Johnston Cody may refer to: People * Cody (given name) * Cody (surname) *Cody (wrestler), a ring name of Cody Runnels Places Canada *Cody, British Columbia United States * Cody, Florida *Cody (Duluth), Minnesota * Cody, Missouri * Cody, Nebraska *Cody, ...

; originally started to discuss then-upcoming

2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...

which with the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

pivoted to a general topic weekly series

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland
a ''Bellingcat'' article by Robert Evans highlighted in various news outlets
The War on Everyone
transcript of the podcast series available at the Anarchist Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Robert Living people American male journalists American podcasters IHeartRadio digital channels Journalists from Texas American war correspondents War correspondents of the Iraq War University of Texas at Dallas alumni Sam Houston State University alumni Novelists from Texas 1988 births