How Aussie comedian Lou Wall tried to join the Illuminati during lockdown

Baking, learning a language, catching up on some reading or that new TV series — common things people did to pass the time in lockdown.

But Melbourne comedian Lou Wall went a different way.

They weren’t learning to bake sourdough, they were trying to infiltrate Illuminati conspiracy groups online — and then turned it into a musical.

“I was really, really bored,” Wall told ABC News Breakfast.

Long fascinated by what leads people to form communities around conspiracy theories, Wall thought it could be some harmless fun.

They picked the Illuminati rather than other conspiracy groups because the imagined world of shadowy, controlling elites seemed funny and absurd.

In the hunt, Wall joined 84 different Facebook groups, messaging countless people for five months on WhatsApp and created a fake Tinder profile.

“I scouted out the Freemasons; I tried to go in drag because obviously they only accept, like, cis males at Freemasons Victoria,” Wall said.

“Literally just followed every lead that was possibly given to me.”

What they found surprised them. They ended up making friends with a number of people within the community.

Wall didn’t agree with their politics — or ideas about the Pope being a hologram — but connected with other people struggling during Melbourne’s second wave.

“Some of the people I met made me feel so special and so welcomed,” Wall said.

One of the people Wall connected to was a woman named Debbie, an admin of one of the biggest Illuminati Facebook pages that was also linked to the official Illuminati website.

“We formed this relationship. She was this, like, white middle-aged woman from Milwaukee and I’m just, like, this 20-something from Melbourne,” they said.

“It was very strange but we really got along well.”

But Wall, who likes to think of themselves as an investigative humorist, did a little digging and found more.

“Essentially I did some investigating into her ISP and IP and she wasn’t who she said was.”

Wall had spoken to Debbie almost every day during 2020’s 112-day lockdown in Melbourne, and learning the truth hurt. They believe people operating within conspiracy communities hook new members through creating a sense of shared isolation.

“Deep diving into conspiracy theory culture, it is very difficult to maintain other friendships,” Wall said.

But Wall decided to pull back when the Capitol Hill riots happened on January 6.

“When I first started, I was pretty sure the Illuminati didn’t exist. And I obviously came out knowing that they don’t exist.”

Wall has turned the experience into a musical for Melbourne’s Fringe festival, though that wasn’t the plan when they started the journey.

“I definitely was just trolling … I’m so bored. Let’s just have fun on Reddit and Discord, trolling these people,” they said.

“But then as I started to get into it, I just built up so many kind of beautiful, but dramatic friendships that I was just, like, this has to be a musical.”

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from ABC News can be found here ***