Tim Pool: From Occupy Wall Street to Right Wing Influencer to Kremlin Propagandist

He's an example of the Horseshoe Theory in action

I've written before about the Horseshoe Theory, where people on the far-left and far-right have a lot in common politically. Some people are a one-person Horseshoe Theory by themselves as they go from the left wing to the right wing. Tim Pool is one such person.

I first learned about Tim Pool the same way that I learned about the Gen-Z Lord Haw-Haw Jackson Hinkle, even though I have never followed either account on Twitter/X: Elon Musk amplified both Pool and Hinkle under the guise of being exposed to other viewpoints. Yet the reality is that accounts with far-right views tend to be amplified more on Twitter/X given its owner Musk’s current far-right authoritarian leanings.

I'm just amazed that Tim Pool originally started out as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, just like I was previously amazed when Jackson Hinkle originally started out as a staunch environmentalist and Bernie Sanders supporter. I've visited the Occupy encampments in Baltimore and Washington, DC and I was impressed by what I saw. I thought it was an ingenious way to gain attention for the economic crisis that was still continuing as a result of the 2008 economic meltdown while the politicians and the mainstream media were downplaying or ignoring that issue.

I regret that I never had the chance to visit the original Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York. I was recuperating from hip surgery that I went through about a month before the rise of the Occupy movement. (Which was why I had never spent the night at any of the Baltimore or DC encampments.) Three months after my hip surgery my husband literally ran away from home and I didn't hear much from him except for the alimony checks that he sent through the mail. (He refused to speak with me.) I was also struggling to find a new job. By that point I couldn't even afford to go to New York.

Visiting the Occupy encampments in Baltimore and DC later inspired me to start volunteering with the Poor People's Campaign. Tim Pool's Occupy experience led him down a far different path.

Pool was born in Chicago in 1986 and he grew up there until he dropped out of school at the age of 14. He moved in with his brother in Newport News, Virginia where he played guitar and made skateboarding videos. When he learned about the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, he purchased a one-way bus ticket to New York. He soon joined the protesters and he also met Henry Ferry, a former realtor and sales manager. The two of them formed a media company called The Other 99 and Pool used his previous experience making skateboarding videos to begin livestreaming the protests with his cell phone and he also assumed an on-camera role.

Pool was getting attention by November 2011 when he livestreamed Occupy Wall Street's eviction from Zuccotti Park. His footage led to this article in The Guardian. His footage was also used to acquit photographer Alexander Arbuckle, who was arrested by the NYPD.

The Other 99 was disbanded when Tim Pool and Henry Ferry had a falling out. But Pool's footage from Occupy was aired on the TV networks and he was even nominated as a Time 100 personality for his coverage of Occupy Wall Street.

From there Pool joined Vice where he shot footage of the Gezi Park protests in Instanbul, the Maidan protests in Ukraine, and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

After spending a year at Vice he moved on to Fusion TV where he became the Director of Media Innovation and Senior Correspondent. From there he started his YouTube channels Tim Pool, Timcast, Timcast IRL, and Timcast Music. Along the way Pool underwent such a radical change in his political thinking that by 2019 he participated in a White House event hosting right-wing internet personalities who President Donald Trump characterized as unfairly targeted for their views.

His views on his career and Occupy Wall Street began to evolve and change. He originally said in 2011 that he's not a journalist but he's an activist who supports the Occupy movement. In 2012 he said that he's not an activist but a journalist. In 2018 Pool said that he was never aligned with Occupy Wall Street. By 2021 he denounced the Occupy movement as crooked. It was also the same year that the Southern Poverty Law Center described Pool as a reactionary and a superspreader who pushed disinformation about the fairness and integrity of the 2020 election to Twitter by echoing Trump's claim that the election was rigged and stolen.

Tim Pool did a dramatic 180 degree turn from being a supporter of Occupy Wall Street to being a MAGA Donald Trump ally. What could've caused such a change? In 2017 one of the co-founders of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Micah White, wrote an article in The Guardian where he discovered that the Russians were attempting to use him and other prominent Occupy activists for their propaganda aimed at the United States. White said that he resisted the Russians’ attempt to co-opt the Occupy movement but other Occupy activists ended up working with the Russians, mainly through their Kremlin-run media channel RT. It's possible that Tim Pool might have been recruited by the Russians as early as his Occupy Wall Street days around 2011 or so and they eventually succeeded with him. When you consider that Russia is aligned with Donald Trump, it seems like they were looking for people willing to shill on behalf of Trump and Vladimir Putin on a regular basis.

Tim Pool also began to fashion a distinctive look as part of his personal brand. He always wears a dark-colored beanie on his head. The word on social media is that he wears the beanie because of his premature baldness and he feels ashamed or embarrassed enough to want to cover his head. The beanie definitely gives him a certain look, even as he wore it when he visited Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida this past summer.

If you've ever been to Florida in the summer like I have, you'd know that wearing anything too thick and heavy like a beanie is a totally uncomfortable experience. Plus it makes you look totally ridiculous.

At one point Tim Pool signed with a media company based in Tennessee called TENET Media where he made one podcast per week and he was reportedly paid $100,000 per episode. That's an unusually huge amount of money for podcasting.

In August, 2023 Tim Pool attempted to go back to his skateboarding roots near his current home in West Virginia when the regulars at a local skatepark rejected Pool's offer of $20,000 in prize money for the park's 10-year anniversary celebration. The skaters told Pool that not only he wasn't welcomed at the park but they would remove him if he showed up. The skateboarders objected to the hateful stuff that Pool spewed on his videos and podcasts and they didn't want to be part of any of it. They also didn't want Pool to publicize the existence of their little park.

Pool retaliated against the snub by buying the land where the skatepark is located along with a nearby building for $850,000. The local skateboarding regulars responded by staying away from that skatepark. This video explains how the skateboarding community now feels about Tim Pool, who've been dubbed “Skateboarding's New Supervillain.”

Tim Pool's time as a TENET Media podcaster raking in the big bucks all came crashing down last week when the US Justice Department accused the Russian media outlet RT of funneling money to TENET Media in exchange for the right-wing podcasting personalities pushing content that is friendly to Trump and others whom the Kremlin have deemed to be friendlier to its interests.

Tim Pool has released a statement calling himself a “victim.” Usually people define themselves as victims if someone stabs them or if someone drains their bank accounts or something really bad happens to them. Tim Pool was making a huge amount of money—$100,000 per podcast episode once a week. That doesn't sound like the usual victim trauma.

There is a video clip from one of Pool's TENET Media podcasts where he speaks out on Ukraine and it looks like he's reading a piece of paper. (His head is bowed down at times while he's banging his table as he is speaking about how Ukraine is an enemy of America and the US should apologize to Russia.)

He also frequently tweeted about how a civil war will start soon or how we are in a civil war now. Here's a compilation of some of his civil war tweets which all repeat the same message.

After the fall of TENET Media, it looks like Tim Pool has changed his tune on Twitter/X regarding Ukraine. Whether he is trying to make amends for his past statements or if he is just saying these things in order to try to avoid getting indicted himself remains to be seen. He wrote,

“Upon reflection I now understand that Ukraine is our Greatest ally

As the breadbasket of Europe and a peace loving people we cannot allow the Fascist Russians to continue their crimes against humanity

We must redouble our efforts and provide an additional $200b at once”

He went on to write:

“I am now pro war

We must fund Israel and Ukraine”

He also issued another tweet where he simply said “Slava Ukraini.”

Only time will tell if those tweets will be enough to keep him out of legal trouble. So far it looks like the Ukrainians aren't buying Pool's sudden conversion if watching United24's latest short is of any indication. Below is an even more sarcastic response to Tim Pool's about face on Ukraine.

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