Since the release of the latest Epstein files, I deliberately refused to comment. Speaking too early would have meant participating in the very mechanism I was trying to observe.
Today, I decided not to comment on the files themselves, but to observe what they are doing to us.
We will have time to return to Epstein's network later - with distance, slowness and rigor.
What matters now is how we read, react, and think under cognitive saturation.
The economy of jouissance
I spent years as a journalist and a HUMINTer. Building networks of humans, mapping them, watching how influence circulates, how responsibility is distributed until it dissolves.
And I know how badly most people misunderstand networks.
What strikes me is the level of incompetence displayed by the professional opportunists of the Epstein files. There are 3 different kind of opportunists:
The influencers
The most visible one. They did not uncover anything, they sensed a shift and saw the wind turn.
Profile description: "I speak up" / "citizen journalist" / "investigative journalist". The new self-proclamed experts of the Epstein files. Suddenly specialists in: intelligence and clandestine operations, business, international law, geopolitics, pedophilia, human trafficking, science, finance, cybersecurity...
"Just so you know, I am not suicidal."
"I have information. I can't say more it's dangerous. I'll speak when I reach one million followers."
I saw these sentences on X. Influencers found in the Epstein files a way to... exist. No courage, just opportunistic timing.
They convert horror into capital: audience, legitimacy, money, access. And as long as this conversion works, the system is alive and well.
The guys orbiting Epstein's environment but never invited
"I always knew! I've never played that game."
They appear when there's zero risk, when consensus is stabilized and when condemning is becoming profitable. At no point does this posture attempt to reveal structure. Its function is:
- to extract oneself symbolically from the "contaminated" group,
- to capitalize morally on someone else's collapse,
- to transform a scandal into a theater of individual virtue.
I find it this opportunism cynical, and profoundly narcissistic.
The Grey Zone actors
There is another category, far less visible. A whole ecosystem of Grey Zone actors was waiting for this moment... to monetize it.
The release of the files triggered a market:
Crisis management firms.
Reputation laundering.
Strategic communication.
Legal-influence hybrids.
Behind the scenes, names mentioned in the files are being contacted and offered "solutions". At exorbitant cost, of course.
This is how these environments function. So while the public is busy sharing and commenting, a parallel system is already organizing.
I have not seen a single analysis of the Epstein files.
Not one. What I see instead is projection, consumption, and... pleasure.
Because let's be honest: almost no one actually wants to understand how a network functions. It is complex, uncomfortable. And above all, it does not reward emotionally.
What people want is to feel something.
These files provide exactly that. They allow most people to:
- feel moral superiority without responsibility,
- experience transgression without risk,
- participate in a fall without being implicated in what follows.
The pleasure is not in knowing, it is in watching. This is why consumption is compulsive, and why it spreads faster than analysis ever could.
And the more uninformed commentary floods the space, the more those who actually understand how networks operate withdraw.
The narrative is then left to those who understand nothing but spectacle.