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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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I generally stay away from reddit's /r/conspiracy board because it often just repeats what's been said in these threads a week late. But, I believe we have, perhaps, the funniest one I've seen in a long time.

Admittedly, I read the "Epstein didn't kill himself" angle as though he was murdered. But the latest iteration of the meme takes a hilarious new angle- that Epstein was taken out of prison, replaced with a dead lookalike, and now has grown out his beard and wears sun glasses, with an idf security detail following him around everywhere.

The clincher here, the funniest bit of the claim, if you will, is that the fortnite account, littlestjeff1, is his. To wit: that is in fact an active account and has been active through 2025 into today.

And, given that his xbox live account had been banned, and that there are references to littlestjeff1 - in the files (a YouTube purchase shares that exact name) lends credence to the theory.

I'm still skeptical, as it ascribes to netanyahu/idf intelligence a level of power that seems unreasonable on multiple layers, but it would be the very, very funniest writing of this season if the thing that gave away his cover was a public (now-private) fortnite profile, of all things.

Come on Jeff, if you're really alive, at least switch to Apex Legends.

Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1qwukr0/epsteins_fortnite_account_active_in_israel/

I don’t think it’s impossible. The Epstein network had blackmail on all the right people and friendships with all the right people. Epstein had at least a passing interest in video games (he opened up a trial account for WoW) and emailed five 4chan threads over as many years, indicating familiarity with “youth” activity. If anyone could have his death faked, it would be him. And how would he spend his time? He is clearly a dopamine fanatic, so the only answer is video games. Very implausible, but not impossible.

If they were going to kill him, they’d have done so before he made it back to New York to be arrested by the FBI.

If they were going to fake his death, they’d have had his plane ‘crash’ or have him die quietly of a heart attack three months before the FBI was ready to arrest him.

If your response to this is “yeah but doing it in a Manhattan jail makes it less suspicious”, clearly that isn’t the case, a locked-room mystery is so much more exciting. If Epstein had died (or “died”) in January 2019 in his Paris mansion of a heart attack none of this global scandal would ever have happened. You really can’t overstate this; the powers that be are powerful enough to perform a perfect exfiltration from a high rise high security Manhattan jail, pay off or threaten everyone involved, find a body double, hack every camera or disable them etc etc, but they can’t get a heads up on an FBI investigation, despite them being so leaky that even mid level mafiosos usually know they’re coming? Nah.

As an aside, old people have vastly poorer reaction times. Epstein would be in his 70s; gamers in that age range don’t really play shooters anymore, they play MMOs, RPGs, strategy games.

"Man who already believed in a conspiracy 100% discovers he can believe in a conspiracy even more than thought possible"

Seems very suss: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epstein-files-jail-cell-death-video-logs/

Investigators also questioned Noel about an unexplained change in the recorded number of inmates in the SHU, which appeared to drop from 73 to 72 sometime between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Noel said she was "probably" mistaken about the discrepancy and told investigators she had no memory of a count changing.

Thomas and Noel failed to complete inmate counts at 3 a.m., and 5 a.m. as well as mandatory 30-minute wellness checks of Epstein. Investigators speculated the officers may have fallen asleep.

Official reports state that Epstein died by suicide some time before 6:30 a.m., when his body was discovered by a corrections officer delivering his breakfast. No official time of death was ever determined. In recent months, there have been questions about the work of investigators probing the circumstances of his death.

They couldn't even find the noose he 'killed himself' with.

Thomas told investigators he discovered Epstein in his cell shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Aug.10 and that he "ripped" Epstein down from the hanging position.

Investigators asked what happened to the noose.

"I don't recall taking the noose off. I really don't," he replied. "I don't recall taking the thing from around his neck."

Noel, who remained standing at the cell entrance, told investigators she saw Thomas lower Epstein to the floor but did not see a noose around his neck.

The noose Epstein allegedly used has never been definitively identified. According to the inspector general's report, a noose collected at the scene was later determined not to be the ligature used in Epstein's death.

I'm still skeptical, as it ascribes to netanyahu/idf intelligence a level of power that seems unreasonable on multiple layers, but it would be the very, very funniest writing of this season if the thing that gave away his cover was a public (now-private) fortnite profile, of all things.

If the Israelis busted Epstein out of jail and left a body double and he's just been hiding out in Israel this whole time they deserve to rule the world.

“Deserve” seems overly charitable.

From the thread, you can even see that the Fortnite season playtime activity for the account drops greatly during the time he was in prison. The account went private within hours of discovery. Archive.org snapshot was taken down too.

I believe it.

So, Jeff is public enough that he names his Fortnite account after his island and himself, but privacy conscious enough that he immediately goes private as soon as he’s “discovered” (and not when the files were released, by the way, but when gamers online start talking about it)?

Maybe some hacker stole Epstein's Fortnite account after he died? Seems like a really-bad idea, but still more plausible than him being alive. I would still tend toward the "coincidence" explanation, myself.

At some point I have to start being incredulous and asking, if Epstein really was alive, is he going to blow his cover by playing on his Xbox account of all things? I don't agree with censoring archive snapshots because it makes it look like there's something to hide rather than transparently showing that there's nothing there.

The impression from Epstein's many emails is not of a particularly smart man, so I could buy it.