CZM Rewind: The Zizians: How Harry Potter Fanfic Inspired a Death Cult & The Zizians: Birth of a Cult Leader

Behind the Bastards

Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, News, History

4.4 • 15.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 150 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Part One: Earlier this year a Border Patrol officer was killed in a shoot-out with people who have been described as members of a trans vegan AI death cult. But who are the Zizians, really? Robert sits down with David Gborie to trace their development, from part of the Bay Area Rationalist subculture to killers.

Part Two: Robert tells David Gborie about the early life of Ziz LaSota, a bright young girl from Alaska who came to the Bay Area with dreams of saving the cosmos or destroying it, all based on her obsession with Rationalist blogs and fanfic.

Sources:

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed Human.
0:06.0	Cool Zone Media.
0:08.4	Welcome back to Behind the Bastards.
0:14.4	That's how this podcast would open if I was a game show host.
0:18.9	But I'm not.
0:19.9	Instead of my guy who spent...
0:21.4	You would be good at it, though.
0:23.0	I don't think I would be, Sophie.
0:25.0	I do, but I think...
0:26.9	But I'm like biased because I think you'd be good at most things.
0:29.9	No, my only marketable skill is spending 30 hours reading the deranged writings of a quasi-cult leader who was somewhat involved in the murders of multiple people very recently, largely because she read a piece of Harry Potter fan fiction at the wrong time.
0:48.5	Oh, yes.
0:51.1	We have a fun one for you this week, and by a fun one, we have a not at all fun one for you this week.
0:54.5	And by a fun one, we have a not at all fun one for you this week.
0:59.1	And to have just a terrible time with me, we are bringing on a guest, the great David Boree, co-host of My Mama Told Me with our friend of the pod, Langston Kerman.
1:12.7	David, how you doing?
1:14.3	Oh, man, I can not complain.
1:15.9	How you doing?
1:16.5	There's nothing going on in the world.
1:18.7	Everything's fun.
1:20.2	Oh, yeah.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 16 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.