

It’s now comfortably the most-viewed piece in The Spinoff’s history, despite being irrelevant to most of our audience, or anyone else’s, really.

Yesterday, my explainer on it hit one million views*. Adrenochrome is either addictive or part of a Satanic ritual (opinions differ). Dubbed by another media outlet “Slenderman for boomers”, the adrenochrome conspiracy is that Hollywood/the liberal elite are torturing children to stimulate their bodies to produce adrenochrome, which is consumed by drinking their blood.

In early April I wrote this story about adrenochrome, a chemical compound that doesn’t exist in any meaningful way, and how it became the centre of a QAnon conspiracy. Josie Adams explains why a low-stakes story she wrote in a morning took flight. The Spinoff’s most-viewed article, by far, is an explainer about a drug that probably doesn’t exist.
