Early career Evans worked at the humor website
Cracked as an editorial manager. In that position, Evans led a team that published "personal experience" articles. These articles fell into two main categories: journalistic pieces involving a variety of sources and
personal narratives. In 2016 Evans published his first book,
A Brief History of Vice, about the formative effects of
narcotics on the development and
history of civilization.
Journalism Evans has done reporting for the investigative reporting outlet Bellingcat between 2018 and 2021. He has reported on conflicts in
Iraq,
Ukraine, and
Rojava, as well as on
far-right extremists in the United States. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Evans produced a variety of content about
8chan, an anonymous
message board, as well as the
Gamergate controversy movement, a movement he describes as largely organically generated, with some direction given by
white supremacists and extremists with long experience in
radicalizing people on internet forums. Following the March 2019
Christchurch mosque shootings, news outlets including
Rolling Stone,
Vox, and
The Atlantic referenced Evans' warning about the nature of the shooter's
manifesto. Evans argued that the manifesto was merely a
red herring, full of references and
memes meant to distract observers. Following the 2019
Poway synagogue shooting,
Vox relied on Evans' work to explain how the shooter's manifesto again constituted a 74-page
in-joke meant to further radicalize other
4chan /pol/ users. In a 2020 Bellingcat article, Evans discussed the emergence and qualities of the
boogaloo movement, a loose-knit group of individuals who express interest in fomenting American
civil unrest. Evans says that he became aware of the boogaloo movement when he observed members at
2020 Virginia Citizens Defence League Lobby Day.
Portland George Floyd protests Starting in late May 2020, Evans covered the
George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon. He began reporting in the first days of the protests by taking footage of protesters,
counter-protesters, and police. His reporting on the protests was highlighted in the
New York Times opinion section, which published an interview with Evans after the 50th day of protests about covering the events. In July, Evans joined a
class-action lawsuit against the City of
Portland for police
use of force at the protests. The suit is non-monetary, seeking instead "declaratory and
injunctive relief — asking the court to find the plaintiffs within their rights and to order police to stop brutalizing and unlawfully arresting protesters." Evans joined
freelance journalist Bea Lake and housing services specialist Sadie Oliver-Grey as a plaintiff. The suit alleges that police officers were unlawfully violent, stopped journalists from reporting, and interfered with the
right to free speech. The suit describes incidents that occurred to Evans including the "police allegedly threatening him with arrest if he did not leave the area, shooting him in the foot with a
tear gas grenade and spraying him, and repeatedly shoving him".
On Saturday, August 22, a
right-wing protester wielding a
baton broke Evans' hand while he was filming. Evans is the host of the podcast
Behind the Bastards and one of three co-hosts of the podcast
Worst Year Ever. In 2019, Evans completed the podcast series
The War on Everyone, a podcast about how
white supremacy and
fascism have developed and spread into the American consciousness in the modern age, as well as
It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the possibility of a Second
American Civil War. Evans published a new podcast series titled ''The Women's War'' in March and April 2020 about the primarily
Kurdish autonomous region in
Syria known as
Rojava. Evans also published a
Behind the Bastards podcast miniseries titled
Behind the Police in June and July 2020, covering the
history of policing in the United States to inform the present time of civil unrest. Behind the Police was co-hosted by
Jason "Propaganda" Petty. In November 2020 through early 2021, Evans published
Uprising: A Guide From Portland, a podcast detailing first-hand accounts of the 2020
George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon. After a deal between iHeartMedia and
Netflix was signed in December 2025,
Behind the Bastards began streaming on Netflix in January 2026.
Cool Zone Media In August 2021,
iHeartMedia announced a launch of a new podcast network Cool Zone Media helmed by Evans, who would become its head of content. The network would unite under one umbrella both existing and upcoming podcasts from Evans and his frequent collaborators such as
Jake Hanrahan and Petty. ==Podcasts==