This story is from the summer 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL ISSUE. Buy the individual issue, or subscribe and get 4 issues delivered to your door each year.
Early in 2022, folks across Washington state noticed an unfamiliar free paper appearing in news racks at local shops and restaurants. In a few areas, unsolicited copies even arrived in the mail or on doorsteps. At a glance, The Flame looked a bit grungy but ultimately unremarkable. However, readers who bothered to skim the issue soon realized it was chock-a-block with COVID trutherism—wild, baseless tirades alleging medical tyranny and threats to liberty. This was no one-off stunt. Month after month, new issues turned up, pushing an ever-wider array of conspiracy theories—climate change isn’t causing wildfires, but maybe energy superweapons are! Public schools are trying to turn your kids trans!—to more and more neighborhoods.
This likely took many unwitting readers by surprise. Conspiracists tend to stick to social media, where their rhetoric evolves and spreads rapidly through insular echo chambers. But The Flame is just one of a handful of new print-focused conspiracy outlets that have cropped up over the last five years—like Druthers in Canada, Demokratischer Widerstand in Germany, or The Light, which has separate editions and distribution networks in the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
Physical media has long been in a state of decline. So WTF is the logic behind this pivot to print?
None of the papers responded to requests for comment. But in a recent podcast interview, one of the two small-town, middle-aged white women behind The Flame said she was just following orders—from God. “The paper has literally been prophesied,” explained Anna Kane, who lists herself on Facebook as both CEO of The Flame and an employee at ‘Stay-At-Home Mom.’ “You are literally involving yourself in spiritual warfare by getting the paper and passing it out.”
However, Kane also acknowledged more mundane motives. Print allows conspiracists to reach those who shy away from modern tech, including plenty of people who don’t live in the online conspiracy bubble. Sara Aniano of the Anti-Defamation League adds that the fresh twist of mimicking classic newspaper formats may help The Flame “catch people off guard,” while Kane has said she’s increasingly wary of deplatforming and content suppression on social media.
That said, The Flame claims it has online subscribers who engage regularly with its website, videos, and podcasts, and it’s clearly bringing in enough money to fund expansion. The Flame went from an initial print run of 40,000 to distributing over 100,000 copies across the country; in Canada, Druthers has leapt from 25,000 to 200,000. But Peter Smith—an investigator who infiltrates extremist groups for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network—says that while these outlets are certainly visible, their influence is limited: “They’re just kind of there, to be honest.”
“They’re just kind of there, to be honest.”
These kinds of publications typically depend on a few things to keep going, Smith added. On one or two founders who juggle all the organizing, ostensibly for free, though they often use the outlets to shill junk products, like shady supplements. On unpaid content generated by the community, or yoinked from online forums. And on the passion of activists who donate cash to meet print goal shortfalls, and contribute time and manpower to get the publication onto racks and the doorsteps of unsuspecting normies.
Like most print media models, it probably won’t hold. But count on them to find someone interesting to blame for their failure in their farewell issues.
This story is from the summer 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL ISSUE. Buy the individual issue, or subscribe and get 4 issues delivered to your door each year.
The post Conspiracy Theorists Are Returning To Print appeared first on VICE.
