1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,400
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller

2
00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:06,720
Speaker 1: Show weekdays at two a m. Eastern eleven pm PACIFICO.

3
00:00:07,920 --> 00:00:11,400
Speaker 1: If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week

4
00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,920
Speaker 1: was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of

5
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:18,599
Speaker 1: the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats

6
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,480
Speaker 1: crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the rich

7
00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse, the Clearinghouse of hot takes,

8
00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:29,760
Speaker 1: break free or something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben

9
00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:36,120
Speaker 1: Maller starts right now in the air everywhere. We are

10
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:39,080
Speaker 1: back at it again, another weekend of podcasting. Here. This

11
00:00:39,159 --> 00:00:40,879
Speaker 1: a course, a spin off, as you know by now.

12
00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:43,720
Speaker 1: He spin off of the Overnight show, the Ben Maller

13
00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:48,200
Speaker 1: Show on Fox, and this all over the podcast world

14
00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 1: eight days a week now because four hours are not enough.

15
00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:56,080
Speaker 1: And we welcome in yet again, David Gascon. This is

16
00:00:56,120 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 1: an interview podcast. It's an interview podcast. Want me to

17
00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:08,400
Speaker 1: play that? Uh? I was delightful about the guest selection

18
00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,840
Speaker 1: that you had for this week. I know this is

19
00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:14,840
Speaker 1: this is Gascon's dream come true. I assume you already

20
00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:17,120
Speaker 1: know now because you downloaded the podcast. Who was on

21
00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:20,920
Speaker 1: the podcast but for a very long amount of time.

22
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000
Speaker 1: Gascon has been badgering me with the Babylon Be and

23
00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:26,000
Speaker 1: I have come around. I'm a big fan now of

24
00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:28,399
Speaker 1: the Babylon Be. At first, I was like so annoyed

25
00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: because you would every day with these Babylon Be stories.

26
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: I'm like, leave me alone, Leave me the f alone.

27
00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:39,480
Speaker 1: But I've come around, and they've blown up here this

28
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,000
Speaker 1: year in this election year. Babylon b which is a

29
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,320
Speaker 1: satire site, and they've been in the news a lot

30
00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:50,400
Speaker 1: because they got shut down this week. It's by Facebook

31
00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:55,040
Speaker 1: because of inciting what was it? Inciting violence on a

32
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:59,440
Speaker 1: satire site, which is just outstanding. So we have tracked

33
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:02,040
Speaker 1: down here ask on the man that runs it. The

34
00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,360
Speaker 1: CEO of the Babylon Be, Seth Dylan's gonna hang out

35
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:07,880
Speaker 1: with us here on this podcast, which I'm excited about.

36
00:02:07,960 --> 00:02:10,800
Speaker 1: I was it was a long time coming. I thought

37
00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:14,760
Speaker 1: about the approach since we've had so many radio personalities on,

38
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:17,240
Speaker 1: and I figured this is a great time to have

39
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:20,080
Speaker 1: them on, especially because we got the election going on.

40
00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:22,520
Speaker 1: People are voting, and we got obviously the huge day

41
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,880
Speaker 1: on November the three, and we didn't laugh a little bit.

42
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:29,600
Speaker 1: You you've had a wild week um Dodgers coming back

43
00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:33,840
Speaker 1: last week in the NLCS in the World Series. You've

44
00:02:33,880 --> 00:02:38,120
Speaker 1: got Kyler Murray, you got got Republicans and Democrats. This

45
00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:40,520
Speaker 1: is this is a good week for us, so that

46
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:43,320
Speaker 1: I thought it was appropriate for you. Yeah, yeah, I know,

47
00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:46,720
Speaker 1: it's it's great with everything's going on. And I'm sure

48
00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:51,080
Speaker 1: we'll last seth about the the President Trump retweet of

49
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,119
Speaker 1: the Babylon B which got a lot of attention recently

50
00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:57,639
Speaker 1: as well, within the last ten days or so. So, uh,

51
00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:01,080
Speaker 1: we'll get to that as well. And for those that

52
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:03,040
Speaker 1: are unfamiliar, I don't know how you would be unfamiliar,

53
00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:05,320
Speaker 1: because we talk about the Babylon B guest gun played

54
00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:07,040
Speaker 1: as a game here every once in a while, B

55
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,480
Speaker 1: or not to be. But it's a satire side obviously.

56
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:13,960
Speaker 1: It's it's been been doing very well here. And as

57
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,040
Speaker 1: they say, I like the mottel they have on their

58
00:03:16,080 --> 00:03:17,760
Speaker 1: social media. I think it was on Twitter. I read

59
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,760
Speaker 1: this that fake news you can trust, fake news that

60
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:24,600
Speaker 1: you can trust, and uh, it's it's you know, it

61
00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:27,880
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the the Phil Hendry

62
00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:30,480
Speaker 1: radio show from back in the day. I remember it

63
00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:34,120
Speaker 1: because like if you listen to the Phil Henry radio Show.

64
00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:37,080
Speaker 1: And you didn't know that it was a joke, you

65
00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 1: would be upset, right, you'd be like angry. But if

66
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:42,600
Speaker 1: you knew it was a joke, if you figured that out,

67
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:44,480
Speaker 1: and you'd be like, this is the most amazing this

68
00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:46,760
Speaker 1: like art, like this is art? What this is? And

69
00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,160
Speaker 1: so the babila me like the way I consume it now,

70
00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:51,120
Speaker 1: it's so funny when I read these stories and I

71
00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:54,440
Speaker 1: you know, you know, they're satire whatever. And then the

72
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:56,920
Speaker 1: people that are hard ohs that don't get the joke.

73
00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:01,120
Speaker 1: And that's my favorite part. That's I that's just outstanding.

74
00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,360
Speaker 1: And these are people in society that have very important

75
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:08,120
Speaker 1: positions and politics and news and they don't get the joke.

76
00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:11,280
Speaker 1: It's it's really pretty funny. It's kind of piggybacking off

77
00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:13,800
Speaker 1: of Sports Talk with Barry right because he would go

78
00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:17,039
Speaker 1: Twitter change his name multiple times and people would just

79
00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:19,760
Speaker 1: crush him or they would retweet him like he was

80
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,920
Speaker 1: breaking news. And that's the ya capain with the Beat

81
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:25,919
Speaker 1: because they have a good attention to detail with titles

82
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 1: and pictures and then articles and then bang, could you

83
00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:32,679
Speaker 1: imagine could you imagine if sports talk very joined forces

84
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:38,440
Speaker 1: with the Babylon be. Oh my god, you it would

85
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:41,960
Speaker 1: be like all the superheroes teaming up in satire. It

86
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,000
Speaker 1: would be amazing. Uh man, all right, well let's get

87
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,200
Speaker 1: to it though, guess because we don't want to waste

88
00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:50,359
Speaker 1: any time here. The man is standing by virtually, of course,

89
00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 1: we welcome in the CEO of the Babylon Being the man,

90
00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:57,359
Speaker 1: one of the big shots that runs this thing. Seth

91
00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:00,640
Speaker 1: Dylan is his name, and Seth, why don't we start

92
00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:03,520
Speaker 1: with the reason we're having you on here? The Babylon Be.

93
00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:06,640
Speaker 1: You guys ran a story, a political story, and got

94
00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,480
Speaker 1: shut down by Facebook. Kind of walk me through how

95
00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:15,920
Speaker 1: this all happened, please, Yeah. I mean basically, Facebook has

96
00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:22,320
Speaker 1: these community standards, and they have a complicated algorithm based

97
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,840
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence system that looks at various posts on their

98
00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:31,360
Speaker 1: platform and links that are um posted on their platform

99
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 1: to determine if they are hateful or inciting violence or

100
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:38,760
Speaker 1: threatening in some way, and so they're signals that they're

101
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:41,839
Speaker 1: looking for that will tell them, um, if the content

102
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,839
Speaker 1: is posted violate their standards in some way. So, um fine.

103
00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:47,520
Speaker 1: You know, to have systems in place like that, it's

104
00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:49,880
Speaker 1: more efficient than having people looking at everything. You know,

105
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,200
Speaker 1: I don't think they have so much content on their system.

106
00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:55,279
Speaker 1: It makes sense that they do that, but in this case, yeah,

107
00:05:55,279 --> 00:05:59,800
Speaker 1: we posted it absolutely ridiculous article. It was basically a

108
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,120
Speaker 1: re hashing of an old Monty Python scene. Um, you know,

109
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:05,600
Speaker 1: we we we took the scene from where they were

110
00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:08,280
Speaker 1: in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they were

111
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,960
Speaker 1: trying to condemn this woman as a witch and they

112
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:12,800
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out if she was a witch

113
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:14,720
Speaker 1: or not, and they decided to weigh her against the

114
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:16,599
Speaker 1: duck to see if she weighed as much as a duck.

115
00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:18,840
Speaker 1: And it's just the most absurd scene ever, and they

116
00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 1: determined that she is in fact a witch and she

117
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:23,280
Speaker 1: needs to be burned at the stink right. Well, we

118
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 1: translated that scene into the confirmation hearing where Amy Coney

119
00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:31,359
Speaker 1: Barrett was being grilled by these senators, um, and you

120
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:33,120
Speaker 1: know they're disparaging her and trying to make her look

121
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,160
Speaker 1: silly and whatever. So we took this duck scene from

122
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,039
Speaker 1: Monty Python and we made it. We made a spoof

123
00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:41,200
Speaker 1: on it and and had the senators you know, suggesting

124
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,479
Speaker 1: that if she weighs more than a duck, and then

125
00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:45,200
Speaker 1: you know she's a then she must be a witch

126
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:47,599
Speaker 1: and we must have burned her. Well that language like

127
00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:50,720
Speaker 1: we must have burned her? Was it triggered something? And

128
00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,919
Speaker 1: fag Facebook flagged it as being, you know, an incitement

129
00:06:53,960 --> 00:06:57,839
Speaker 1: to violence, and obviously it's not. But the incredible thing

130
00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,000
Speaker 1: where it went where things went sideways a little bit,

131
00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,680
Speaker 1: was when um, we appealed that that ruling and a

132
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:07,760
Speaker 1: person looked at it and then it reached out to

133
00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:10,240
Speaker 1: us and said it is an incitement of violence. We

134
00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:12,840
Speaker 1: stand by this. Uh, you need to make changes to

135
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:17,440
Speaker 1: the article. And we just couldn't believe that that's insane.

136
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,080
Speaker 1: So like, you know, how's it where they assume the

137
00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:23,040
Speaker 1: email you or you just go to your Facebook the

138
00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:25,840
Speaker 1: babblelon bi Facebook page and you're like, you're done, that's it,

139
00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:27,960
Speaker 1: It's over. Are you? Like? How how does the chain

140
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:31,520
Speaker 1: go where you find out you've been taken down, your

141
00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:37,000
Speaker 1: your your financial opportunity demonetized? How did that work? Yes,

142
00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:39,440
Speaker 1: they send you a notification tour account. They have like

143
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:42,280
Speaker 1: a page quality section where you can analyze your page

144
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:45,880
Speaker 1: and see if you're compliant with their policies and and

145
00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:48,080
Speaker 1: they give us a notification saying that one of our

146
00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 1: popes had been deleted because of violated community standards, and

147
00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:54,560
Speaker 1: as a result of that, we were demonetized. So basically

148
00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:58,160
Speaker 1: what that means is we can't make use of any

149
00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:02,360
Speaker 1: of Facebook's monetization tools. We can't use their instant articles platform,

150
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:06,120
Speaker 1: which allows you to display articles within Facebook and have

151
00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:09,840
Speaker 1: Facebook ads on them for ad revenue. Um, you can't

152
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:15,040
Speaker 1: use their subscription platform to collect subscription revenue. Brand collaborations

153
00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 1: are no longer permitted. So they have a bunch of

154
00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,360
Speaker 1: monetization tools that they restrict and turn off if you're

155
00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 1: violating the community standards. So they let us know that

156
00:08:22,840 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 1: those tools were no longer accessible to us. We would

157
00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:27,040
Speaker 1: no longer be able to monetize our Facebook page until

158
00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:29,520
Speaker 1: we fix this issue. And when we appealed and they

159
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:31,240
Speaker 1: denied the appeal, we had no choice. But they go

160
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:33,280
Speaker 1: to the media and try to make us think about

161
00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:37,200
Speaker 1: this because it's just absolutely ridiculous, Like in what universe

162
00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:40,480
Speaker 1: is that article and actual incitement to violence. They say

163
00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:43,760
Speaker 1: in their community standards that they take context into account

164
00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:45,800
Speaker 1: when they review these things, Well clearly they didn't in

165
00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: this case. Yeah, so how does that you know? You

166
00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:50,959
Speaker 1: you're an Internet guy? Obviously run the Babylon be You've

167
00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:52,280
Speaker 1: been in the game for a long time, Like, how

168
00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,080
Speaker 1: does that happen with the algorithm? Like, is it you know,

169
00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:57,880
Speaker 1: somebody programming it obviously, or how does it end up

170
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:00,840
Speaker 1: in that situation? And I saw your you posted on

171
00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:02,679
Speaker 1: Twitter about this, and I saw a bunch of people

172
00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:05,440
Speaker 1: underneath you said, yeah, I had something happened, you know,

173
00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 1: I'd said so and so, and I got in trouble

174
00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:11,120
Speaker 1: with that. So like, how do you think this happened?

175
00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 1: You know the algorithm? Well, I mean they code there out,

176
00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:20,439
Speaker 1: they code their system to look for specific keys, phrases

177
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,680
Speaker 1: and words, and so a sentence like we must burn her,

178
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: you know, burn her is clearly a reference to, you know,

179
00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:33,360
Speaker 1: lighting someone on fire, and their systems aren't smart enough

180
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:35,800
Speaker 1: to look at the broader context and see that we

181
00:09:35,800 --> 00:09:38,840
Speaker 1: weren't actually suggesting that Amy Coney Barrett be lit on

182
00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:41,760
Speaker 1: fire by anyone. You know, the system is not smart

183
00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:44,240
Speaker 1: enough to detect satire. And then when they came out

184
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:46,480
Speaker 1: in their public statement, they didn't make a statement to

185
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:49,839
Speaker 1: Fox News when Fox inquired about this, and they said,

186
00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:53,559
Speaker 1: you know, our systems have a hard time detecting satire.

187
00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:56,840
Speaker 1: So we're sorry for this mistake. But but our response

188
00:09:56,880 --> 00:09:59,120
Speaker 1: to that is, well, okay, your system failed, but then

189
00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:01,640
Speaker 1: a person looked at and the person also failed, So

190
00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:04,439
Speaker 1: you know, why did that happen? There's no explanation for that.

191
00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:06,480
Speaker 1: And to your point, yes, there are lots of people

192
00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,560
Speaker 1: commenting underneath his posts talking about how they've been flagged

193
00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:13,200
Speaker 1: and they've been disabled, they've been suspended, but they don't

194
00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:15,600
Speaker 1: have the platform that we have. They can't get online

195
00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:20,240
Speaker 1: and get the media involved and and push back on Facebook.

196
00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:22,560
Speaker 1: They don't have the ability to do that. We're in

197
00:10:22,559 --> 00:10:24,720
Speaker 1: a position where we can do that, fortunately, but not

198
00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:26,800
Speaker 1: everybody can. So for those people, when this kind of

199
00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:29,560
Speaker 1: stuff happens, they're just done. They're dead in the water. Yeah,

200
00:10:29,559 --> 00:10:33,360
Speaker 1: and this has a happy ending, right, Santh. I mean

201
00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:36,440
Speaker 1: you you updated the story, right, So because of interviews

202
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:39,720
Speaker 1: you've done like this and other obviously big platforms, they've

203
00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 1: changed their stances that correct. Yeah, I mean, well, once

204
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:46,559
Speaker 1: we brought media attention to it, all of a sudden

205
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:49,680
Speaker 1: they're issuing apologies and saying they reinstated our account. And

206
00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:51,800
Speaker 1: this happens over and over and over again. You know,

207
00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:54,920
Speaker 1: Twitter hasnt spended us before Facebook has threatened us with

208
00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:59,240
Speaker 1: the platform and demonitization before. And the only time we

209
00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:02,800
Speaker 1: get a positive outcome is when we go to the media,

210
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,000
Speaker 1: we explain what's happening, and you know, news reports start

211
00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:08,960
Speaker 1: coming out about it, about how Facebook is trying to

212
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:12,960
Speaker 1: censor us, and then and only then they changed their

213
00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:15,800
Speaker 1: tune and try to fix it. Said are you surprised,

214
00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:18,200
Speaker 1: like has this happened to you? Or have you had

215
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:20,600
Speaker 1: a hint of something like this happening to you in

216
00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:22,240
Speaker 1: the past, or is this the first time you've been

217
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:25,959
Speaker 1: hit with a hammer like that? Uh, well, it did

218
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,800
Speaker 1: happen one time in the past with Facebook specifically where um,

219
00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 1: when they first started implementing fact checking, they started working

220
00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,120
Speaker 1: with third party fact checkers, and the fact checkers snokes

221
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,880
Speaker 1: in particular, was rating our articles full. And it's just

222
00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:41,680
Speaker 1: the most absurd thing in the world. It's like, a

223
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:43,800
Speaker 1: joke isn't true or false. It's a joke, right, it's

224
00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:47,280
Speaker 1: in its own category. Um, you don't when when Jerry

225
00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:49,959
Speaker 1: Seinfeld is up on stage tracking jokes in a nightclub,

226
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,080
Speaker 1: you don't stand up and yell that's not true. Whenever

227
00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:56,960
Speaker 1: he tells a story that's that's fictional because it's a joke, right, so, um,

228
00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:01,160
Speaker 1: it's just it's silly. But Facebook was was wodenly interpreting

229
00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:03,319
Speaker 1: these fact checks to mean that we were putting out

230
00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,559
Speaker 1: fake news, and they had strict policies against faith news,

231
00:12:06,600 --> 00:12:09,000
Speaker 1: and so they would they reached out to us and

232
00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:11,319
Speaker 1: threatened us. This was a few years ago, well, two

233
00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,280
Speaker 1: thousand eight teens. They threatened up to with the monetization

234
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 1: and uh in suspension of our page for for for

235
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,640
Speaker 1: pushing fake news. And again we made we got a

236
00:12:20,640 --> 00:12:23,520
Speaker 1: lot of media attention there. Eventually they apologized and said

237
00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:25,800
Speaker 1: we realized it's a satire now and we need that

238
00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:27,600
Speaker 1: we need a better way of handling this stuff so

239
00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:31,520
Speaker 1: that we're not threatening satire companies, you know. But there's

240
00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:35,400
Speaker 1: been a lot of effort on the left to in

241
00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:40,199
Speaker 1: to insinuate, imply, um that we are not in fact

242
00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:44,199
Speaker 1: a satire site, but we are actually a purposefully misleading

243
00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:47,959
Speaker 1: disinformation campaign that pretends to be a satire site to

244
00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:51,880
Speaker 1: certain invent Facebook rules. And I'm not as a kidding

245
00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:54,320
Speaker 1: like that sounds crazy, But there's a recent article in

246
00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:57,880
Speaker 1: um in in New York Times published like five days

247
00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:01,280
Speaker 1: ago that says that we capitalize on Fusion Um in

248
00:13:01,360 --> 00:13:03,800
Speaker 1: questions whether or not we're doing this on purpose. Well, set,

249
00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:06,440
Speaker 1: I'm happy to bring that up because because Ben and

250
00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:10,960
Speaker 1: I like Ben, Ben Monday through Friday is typically compelled

251
00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:14,560
Speaker 1: to hit all that is sports talk radio. It's great.

252
00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:16,520
Speaker 1: So some of the stuff that he does on his show,

253
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 1: or some of the stuff he wants to do on

254
00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:21,479
Speaker 1: the show, just can't because obviously that kind of a spectrum,

255
00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:24,160
Speaker 1: it doesn't cater to it. But on the podcast, which

256
00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:27,160
Speaker 1: we obviously invited you on, we do things a little

257
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:30,319
Speaker 1: bit different. And so, like I said the email, when

258
00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:32,440
Speaker 1: I introduced myself to you, I was kind of like

259
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,480
Speaker 1: one of the original fans of the Babylon b and

260
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:39,000
Speaker 1: to kind of pull the curtain back, I would send

261
00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:41,400
Speaker 1: articles to Ben. I text him like in the middle

262
00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:43,800
Speaker 1: of the night when his show is going on, and

263
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:45,680
Speaker 1: his eyes would just roll because like, what the funk

264
00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:49,680
Speaker 1: is this right? And then before you know what, some

265
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:51,760
Speaker 1: of those other friends that are at sports that the

266
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,280
Speaker 1: media started retweeting you guys on the regular, and then

267
00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:59,040
Speaker 1: Ben's followers and listeners to a show started retwitting stuff

268
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:02,439
Speaker 1: and then tagging the minutes. So so yeah, and it

269
00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 1: blew up. It I mean, I know you guys have

270
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:08,600
Speaker 1: done great, and this is like, uh, let me ask

271
00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:10,600
Speaker 1: you this a little said I. I I. When you told

272
00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:13,400
Speaker 1: the story about you know, the New York Times and

273
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,440
Speaker 1: and their your their article like it, it it reminds me.

274
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,839
Speaker 1: I used to have a Boston radio that didn't get

275
00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:20,960
Speaker 1: like I I don't you know, I do a sports

276
00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:23,960
Speaker 1: show obviously, but you know, occase, let's throw some satire in.

277
00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:26,360
Speaker 1: And I had a boss that did not get had

278
00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:28,560
Speaker 1: no sense of humor. What is it like? It feels

279
00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:30,120
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people, said, that have no

280
00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:31,800
Speaker 1: sense of humor. What is it like to do a

281
00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:35,880
Speaker 1: satire site in when no one has a funny bone anymore?

282
00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:39,000
Speaker 1: It seems well, okay, so there's a couple of things

283
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,240
Speaker 1: that play there, and there is there is um. You know,

284
00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:45,200
Speaker 1: there's a lot of hesitation to do comedy and for

285
00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:48,000
Speaker 1: certain audiences because of the PC culture, right. I mentioned

286
00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:50,040
Speaker 1: Jerry since all a minute ago, you know, years back,

287
00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,960
Speaker 1: he announced that he would no longer do shows for

288
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,920
Speaker 1: college students on college campuses. And the reason is because

289
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 1: they're so politically correct, you know, anything he says, they're

290
00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:00,440
Speaker 1: gonna think he's racist or sexist or something thing, you know,

291
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:05,400
Speaker 1: or homophobic. So um, they they they're just ready to

292
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:08,920
Speaker 1: be offended by anything. And that kind of culture does

293
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:11,360
Speaker 1: make comedy a little difficult. But when it comes to

294
00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:13,400
Speaker 1: not having a sense of humor, Look, people on the

295
00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:16,200
Speaker 1: left love to laugh as long as it's the right

296
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:18,560
Speaker 1: targets that are being hit. You know, these late night

297
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:21,800
Speaker 1: comedy shows. I just saw something the other day. It

298
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,400
Speaker 1: was something like their jokes when they're making political jokes

299
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:28,360
Speaker 1: are about Trump, um, and only like three percent of

300
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:30,800
Speaker 1: them or something, or about Biden. Well, you know, they

301
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:32,880
Speaker 1: like to laugh at certain people, they like to laugh

302
00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:35,800
Speaker 1: at certain ideas. They're they're very they're very willing to

303
00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:38,480
Speaker 1: laugh as long as it's it's not it's not pointed

304
00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:42,440
Speaker 1: at them, right, So, um, it's a very selected thing.

305
00:15:42,440 --> 00:15:45,080
Speaker 1: It's a double standard. A lot of these media companies

306
00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:47,840
Speaker 1: that that are very hard on us and and have

307
00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,760
Speaker 1: this uncharitable assumption that we have some kind of ill

308
00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:54,400
Speaker 1: motives where we're trying to mislead people on purpose. They

309
00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:57,680
Speaker 1: never think that about the Onion, for example, the most

310
00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:02,080
Speaker 1: popular web you know, satire site of the last twenty years. Um,

311
00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:04,560
Speaker 1: they never assigned ill motives the Onion. They think the

312
00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 1: onion is funny and that they're doing genuine satire. And

313
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,160
Speaker 1: the only reason that they question our motives is because

314
00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 1: they disagree with us politically. And I don't know if

315
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:15,120
Speaker 1: they see that or not, but it's definitely disingenuous and

316
00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:19,400
Speaker 1: it's double standards. Said, let me what percentage of people

317
00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:21,040
Speaker 1: I remember I read a study years ago, I said

318
00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:24,960
Speaker 1: of Americans will believe anything like what percentage of people

319
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:29,240
Speaker 1: read your stuff online? And they're like, they don't get

320
00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:31,840
Speaker 1: the joke, they don't understand the sets. How do you

321
00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:33,960
Speaker 1: have any idea just a ballpark figure on how many

322
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:38,720
Speaker 1: people you think just don't get it? Um, I don't

323
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:41,240
Speaker 1: know that. I wouldn't say that's probably as high ascent.

324
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:43,720
Speaker 1: There's absolutely people who don't get it. Now, there's a

325
00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:48,720
Speaker 1: couple of reasons for that, right, there's um satire is successful.

326
00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:52,000
Speaker 1: The jokes are funny when they're when they're closer to

327
00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:53,960
Speaker 1: the truth rather than further away from it. You know,

328
00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:56,200
Speaker 1: it's they depend on having a proximity to the truth.

329
00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:59,040
Speaker 1: If it's too detached from reality, it's not funny. So

330
00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 1: that you know that saying there's a grain of truth

331
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:03,680
Speaker 1: in every joke is it's popular saying for a reason,

332
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:06,399
Speaker 1: there's truths to the things that we're joking about, and

333
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:10,040
Speaker 1: that's why people believe them so readily. Um. There's also

334
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,480
Speaker 1: the world has gotten much crazier. People have much more

335
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:16,879
Speaker 1: extreme views. They're saying much more extreme things. There's really wild,

336
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,080
Speaker 1: crazy things happening today that would have never been normal

337
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,160
Speaker 1: or acceptable years ago. UM. And so in that environment,

338
00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:26,960
Speaker 1: when when when you're trying to exaggerate the truth a

339
00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:30,040
Speaker 1: little bit, which is what satire does, Um, it's hard

340
00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: to stay one step ahead of it. So almost everything

341
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:35,639
Speaker 1: is believable today. I mean, and from my experience what

342
00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:37,639
Speaker 1: I see in the headlines, I see headlines every day.

343
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:39,760
Speaker 1: I'm shaking my head in disbelief. I'm like, I can't

344
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:41,720
Speaker 1: believe that really happened. I can't believe they really said that.

345
00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:44,080
Speaker 1: I can't believe they really did that. In that kind

346
00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:47,440
Speaker 1: of environment, UM, it's hard to write stories that people

347
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:51,720
Speaker 1: aren't going to believe. So it's reality's fault, Honestly, it's not.

348
00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:54,119
Speaker 1: It's not that our satire is too close to reality,

349
00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:56,199
Speaker 1: which is what we're accused of. It's that reality is

350
00:17:56,200 --> 00:18:00,959
Speaker 1: too close to satire. That's the problem. And on that note,

351
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: is that what inspired you to create Not the Bee?

352
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:06,639
Speaker 1: Because you guys have had some articles on the babel

353
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:10,919
Speaker 1: on Bee that you know they've turned from satire to truth.

354
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,120
Speaker 1: So is that look you to create Not the Bee?

355
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,160
Speaker 1: We call them, we call them fulfilled prophecies. But yes,

356
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:21,200
Speaker 1: we have in some cases, mere hours after we published

357
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:25,160
Speaker 1: a story, whatever we were joking about actually happened. Um.

358
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,439
Speaker 1: And that's a perfect example of how reality is, Like

359
00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:29,080
Speaker 1: it's hard to stay one step ahead of things when

360
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:31,920
Speaker 1: they're this crazy. But yeah, that's the that's the inspiration

361
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:34,760
Speaker 1: for Not to Be. It's that there's there's enough crazy

362
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:38,040
Speaker 1: stuff happening, these wild headlines, they seem like they should

363
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:42,119
Speaker 1: be satire but somehow aren't. Um. Not to Be is

364
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,400
Speaker 1: really targeting those stories and in isolating the stories and

365
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 1: amplifying them. So um, it's just really there's so much

366
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,000
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit today out there and what's going on

367
00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:54,320
Speaker 1: in the world. We thought that there was a great

368
00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:56,480
Speaker 1: opportunity to do kind of a spinoff of the Bee

369
00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,000
Speaker 1: where it's just this absurd like should be satire but

370
00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:02,240
Speaker 1: somehow isn't. And you guys do things on a national level,

371
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:05,320
Speaker 1: But is there a particular state that you target the most.

372
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:08,119
Speaker 1: I know, you guys hit California pretty hard, But is

373
00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:11,000
Speaker 1: it in California or New York or Florida and Texas,

374
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,640
Speaker 1: anything that you like in particular, you mean in terms

375
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:16,199
Speaker 1: of hit pretty hard. Like we make fun of them

376
00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:22,680
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, we will pick on people, uh,

377
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:25,640
Speaker 1: anybody that where you feel like basically, you know, satire

378
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:28,760
Speaker 1: what we try to do with his ridicule, bad ideas. Um,

379
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 1: that's one of the that's one of the main purposes

380
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:35,440
Speaker 1: of satires to criticize you know, bad thinking, bad ideology, hypocrisy,

381
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,600
Speaker 1: double standards. So when we see like governors uh you

382
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:43,480
Speaker 1: know with really heavy handed, um kind of authoritarian rule

383
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 1: in their states, you know, and they're doing crazy ridiculous

384
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:49,280
Speaker 1: things or contradictory things, we make fun of that. And

385
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:52,159
Speaker 1: and you've got a lot of stuff. You've got a

386
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on right now in California. They're

387
00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:55,679
Speaker 1: in the headlines all the time, like they don't have

388
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:58,040
Speaker 1: enough they don't have enough electricity of power their state,

389
00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:00,720
Speaker 1: for example. So you know, we we condom for those

390
00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 1: kinds of things. Um. So yeah, I mean I think

391
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: the ones that are in the headlines, the most are

392
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:06,960
Speaker 1: the ones that are gonna get picked on the most.

393
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,840
Speaker 1: We're really piggybacking on whatever is in the news. And

394
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:15,199
Speaker 1: and Sepia, the October sixte President Trump retweet is that

395
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:21,280
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa for the bab al embie. Oh man.

396
00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:24,200
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of debate about that that. Actually,

397
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: we don't normally get media attention outside of like conservative media,

398
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,000
Speaker 1: you know, like we get Fox News pays a lot

399
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: of attention to us, a lot of the a lot

400
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:32,879
Speaker 1: of the players on the right like the Daily Wire

401
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:34,760
Speaker 1: and the Federalists and the Blaze. You know, they pay

402
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:36,600
Speaker 1: attention to us, But we don't get a lot of

403
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,119
Speaker 1: immediate media attention on the other side, like with Slate

404
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: and Box and CNN or any of those places. But

405
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:44,919
Speaker 1: but when Trump tweets our stuff, all of a sudden,

406
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:46,680
Speaker 1: they pay attention, and they they look at that as

407
00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 1: just a prime opportunity to make fun of him as

408
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,120
Speaker 1: being an idiot. But um, we actually know, I mean,

409
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,639
Speaker 1: we know people in his administration, um, and we have

410
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:59,199
Speaker 1: it from we have close contacts of his who have

411
00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 1: a short up that he knows what the babylombie is.

412
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,240
Speaker 1: He thinks it's funny. Um, he reads it all the time,

413
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 1: and so we believe that he knows that it's satire,

414
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 1: but um, it is it is. It's possible he's just

415
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 1: trolling people on the left and and uh and sharing

416
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:16,119
Speaker 1: satire just to see a kind of reaction he can

417
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:18,399
Speaker 1: get from them. I would not put that past him

418
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: at all. Seth, who's the biggest celebrity or or I

419
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,560
Speaker 1: guess personality that you guys have fishhooked? Is it like

420
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 1: Alissa Milano or who? Is it? Very good question. If

421
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:33,000
Speaker 1: Trump was confused by that headline and thought it was real,

422
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 1: then it's Trump for um. But I don't think that

423
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 1: he was. I'm not sure. I'd have to go back

424
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 1: and look. I do know. We recently did a piece

425
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 1: on after Ruth Vader Ginsberg passed. UM. We photoshopped Lebron

426
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:54,080
Speaker 1: James wearing like a lace a white lace collar around

427
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: his black shirt, honoring Ruth Vader Ginsberg, so it looks

428
00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 1: like he was dressed like her. And UM, people on

429
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: the left we're sharing that like crazy. So there were

430
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 1: like New York Times reporters who are sharing it talking

431
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:07,920
Speaker 1: about how beautiful it was, now meaningful it was that

432
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:11,200
Speaker 1: the NBA was honoring Ruth Bader Ginenberg in that way. Um.

433
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 1: And so you know, depending on what we do, we

434
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: get a lot, a lot, a lot of attention um

435
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: from people. You know, they love to say that we're

436
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,159
Speaker 1: we're fooling our own audience with this stuff, but they

437
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: get fooled by it all the time. And specific names

438
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 1: of like celebrities are escaping me. I'm not sure. But

439
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 1: there was another one too, we did about how Trump

440
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 1: said that he's done more for Christianity than Jesus himself.

441
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: And you know, we're just playing on Trump's ego there.

442
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 1: He's constantly you know, talking about how great he is

443
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: and how and how he's done, you know, better than

444
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: anybody in history at whatever he's doing in that moment um.

445
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:47,679
Speaker 1: And but you know, the the left believe that that

446
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 1: was true, that he really said that, and that one

447
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:51,680
Speaker 1: was shared very wide, and I know there were a

448
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 1: lot of celebrities who are who are condemning him for that,

449
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 1: you know, being so arrogant to say he's done more

450
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 1: for Christianity than Jesus. So I'd have to go back

451
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 1: and try to pick out name because they're escaping me

452
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: at the moment. But there's been some big ones. I

453
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:05,880
Speaker 1: sins for sports guys. Well, I'll ask you this one.

454
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: Is there a favorite sports story that you've done, because

455
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: Ben's hit it up with Colin Kaepernick obviously over the

456
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: last couple of years. And I think one of the

457
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: ones that I noticed the most was when he got

458
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 1: put into Madden and then you guys published an article

459
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: it says Madden introduces throw a Malotov feature. I think,

460
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: for us, the perfect intersection, you know, because we have

461
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:35,120
Speaker 1: a very we have like a large conservative Christian audience.

462
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: So whenever we do it Tim Tebow joke, it's like

463
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 1: the perfect nextus of things because we're roping in the

464
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: sports on the one side, but also like the Christian

465
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: fake stuff on the other side. So one of them,

466
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: uh it was. I wrote the headline for this one.

467
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 1: It was Tim Tebow suspended for using performance enhancing Bible verses,

468
00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,400
Speaker 1: and it got shared like a million times. It went

469
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 1: like crazy viral. So I think whenever I think, whenever

470
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: we do a Temtebo article, it goes crazy viral because

471
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: it's that kind of perfect, you know, combination of the

472
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: Christian stuff and the and the culture and sports stuff. Um.

473
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 1: But yeah, in general, steth. How how do the sports

474
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,400
Speaker 1: stories do? I mean, you guys obviously deal with politics mostly,

475
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: but like, how do the how do the sports stories

476
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: do in comparison? They do really really well. Um, we

477
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: just don't do that many of them. We need to

478
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: do more of them. Part of the problem is we

479
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,719
Speaker 1: have our writers are more like it's funny, you know,

480
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 1: our writers are are like a mixture of things, are

481
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: like computer programmers or or they have a creative like

482
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: art background and and and so they like they like

483
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: board games and video games and stuff like that much

484
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: more than they like sports and not sports guys, Right,

485
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: So we need more people on our staff who get

486
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: sports and want to write about sports. Like the founder

487
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 1: of the b is actually really into sports. He loved

488
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: like he loves like m m a, he loves baseball.

489
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 1: You know, he's reallyly into sports. Um. But but we

490
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: need more people on our writing staff. Writing day today,

491
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: we can tap into these things because like whenever, you know,

492
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: whenever there's something going on, like we we make we

493
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: like to make fun of soccer and how Americans you know,

494
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: aren't aren't We make fun of Americans for not being

495
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 1: super interested in soccer and and uh and and feeling

496
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 1: like it's boring or whatever. And so when we when

497
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: we've got like sports shut down from from COVID, we

498
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: ran one on how American sports fans we even watched

499
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: soccer at this point. You know, well it gets shared

500
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of times. So well and Seth, I

501
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, and you know, being in the sports

502
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 1: radio game for a long time, and it has never

503
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: been more tribalistic in sports. I the the the Arizona

504
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: Cardinals quarterback the other day completed two passes the rest

505
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: of the game. He was terrible. He completely like, you know,

506
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: nine pass in the game, and I ripped him for

507
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: having you know, I didn't think he played well. And

508
00:25:55,600 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: the Arizona newspaper wrote a story ripping me for ripping him.

509
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean so that is a gold mine

510
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: for you guys. I know you mentioned you've done well

511
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: with the sports, but a lot of sports fans these

512
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: days cannot take any criticism of the hometown team and

513
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: they just go nuts like you're not allowed to rip us.

514
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: It's it's crazy, it's you know that that stakes to

515
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: kind of a broader thing goes beyond sports. People are

516
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: just not willing to hear disagreement anymore. And I don't know,

517
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's that's it's manifesting itself in the

518
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 1: sports world. I get to be bleeding into the sports world.

519
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: But that's kind of like a general principle, now, isn't it. Yeah,

520
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: totally it's it's totally true that you're not allowed to

521
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: criticize us. How there you I don't want to hear.

522
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: It's like put their their ear muffs on. They don't

523
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: wanna hear anything other than they want to be fed,

524
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: study diet of what they believe in. It's crazy. Well,

525
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: I do want to do you guys. You know, um,

526
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: I definitely want to do more sports stuff. That's for sure.

527
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: It does really well for us, and we got to

528
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: tap into that more. All right. So are you are

529
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: we the first sports personalities that you've done an interview with?

530
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: I know that you did some stuff you mentioned on

531
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: on a couple of news sites, but are we the

532
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: first on the sports side? Yeah? I think so. I mean,

533
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: even though we've had some kind of viral sports stories,

534
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: we've never really had any sports reporters or media sites

535
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: reach out to us for any kind of like comment

536
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: on it or UM, you know, and no, I don't

537
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: think I ever have. You'll never forget your first and seth,

538
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 1: do not ever cheat on us. I got a question.

539
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You don't have to say, I know it's here.

540
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: You know Intel how you how you make the make

541
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: the hot dogs? But like, like, how does this work?

542
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: You have an editorial board that says, hey, look at

543
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: you know so and so when you're when you're coming

544
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 1: up with stories each day, we kind of talk us

545
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: through how this works here when you come up with

546
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: the stories and with your writing staff. Yeah, So we

547
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: have a team of writers, UM and contributors, and we

548
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 1: communicated a number of different ways. We have a Facebook

549
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: group that's kind of a broader, larger group has some

550
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: people that are not on our staff but are very

551
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: creative that we've invited into that group to kind of

552
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: pitch ideas to us. UM, and then we have kind

553
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: of our internal flack channels where we're talking on flack

554
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: and pitching ideas back and forth. We're in a bunch

555
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: of different locations, so we're not all in the same room.

556
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: So UM, we basically just look at whatever is going

557
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: on in the news each day and and try to

558
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: think to ourselves, what's a funny take on this, and

559
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: and we throw headline. It's all the joke is in

560
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: the headline. It's always the headline that comes first. So, um,

561
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: it's just headline pitches, one after another. We pitched dozens

562
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: and dozens and dozens of ideas based on whatever is

563
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: going on in the world. UM. So we do that

564
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: day in and day out, and the ones that rise

565
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: to top to get a reaction that you know, our

566
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: editor in chief decides, you know, he wants to run with. Um,

567
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: we pick out of those, out of those pitches. So

568
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: it's really a small percentage. It's probably like, honestly, like

569
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: two percent of the headlines we pitch get published, and

570
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: most of them are just junked. Um. But it's to

571
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: refine the process. You know, we go through iterations of it.

572
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: Someone might pitch something that's not perfect as is, but

573
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: then you know, someone else will do an iteration of

574
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: it that's a little bit better and would you know,

575
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: connect better and better worded. So we play off of

576
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: each other and just work together very collaboratively to come

577
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: up with these ideas. And once we have a really

578
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: good headline, you know, one of our writers can can

579
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: take on the tap you're actually writing out that article

580
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: and populating and getting up on the site. So, um,

581
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: that's what we do every day. It's fun. It's crazy

582
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: that this is our job because we just make up

583
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: funny stories, uh and then photoshop crazy images to go

584
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: along with them. Um. We hitch ourselves sometimes crazy than

585
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: anyone does for a living. But it's a lot of months.

586
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: Wwe holds massive Royal Rumble event on Zoom that was

587
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: pretty solid. Yea. Writers declined to sign Colin Kaepernick. That

588
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: was another good one, that was pretty solid. You guys, Uh,

589
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: you guys continue to shouting. Now, how big is the staff?

590
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 1: I know you said you have some outside people, then

591
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: some internal people, but how big is the crew? Are

592
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: writing staff? I think we have about a dozen people

593
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: right now writing, and not all of them full time,

594
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: so it's a pretty it's a pretty small crew. Um,

595
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: some several of them all have other jobs and our

596
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: work is like part time contributing writers. And how's the

597
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: the advertising market these days? And we're still in the

598
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: apocalypse right and business is still slow? Are you guys

599
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: being able to still monetize it and make some money

600
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: on this? Because you guys, are can imagine tons of

601
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: traffic these days with all the people freaking out of

602
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: your stories. Yeah, we're doing record traffic numbers. Um. We're

603
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: trending up with that. Um we did. At the start

604
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: of the whole pandemic. If you go back to like

605
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: March April, are advertising took a big hit and and

606
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: our earnings went way down. But they've they've really come

607
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: back quite a bit, pretty close to where we were

608
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: before the pandemic started. So we're really bouncing back on that.

609
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: But we're also trying to monetize in other ways. We

610
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: have a subscription now where people can subscribe either just

611
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: to support us because these big tech issues that we're having,

612
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: or two uh, to gain access to premium content feature

613
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: that isn't otherwise available to everybody. So we try to

614
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: make some we try to throw some value add in

615
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: there so it's worthwhile for people to subscribe. So we

616
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: have a mixture of revenue from like our store where

617
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: we sell stuff and the ads we run aside, and

618
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: the subscriptions where people are paying for access awesome sets.

619
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: So listen, I appreciate you coming on with us. I

620
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: don't They're not gonna take up your entire day here.

621
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: But I was a little skeptical when you when my

622
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: guy David used to send me the Babylon be stuff.

623
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: But I have become a big fan as well. I

624
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: love it and I I feel like we're in on

625
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: the joke because I when I see people who you

626
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: mentioned the lebron story, when I see people who don't

627
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: get it, I just it just makes my day. It

628
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: just I just smile. I have a cheshire cat smile

629
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: from ear to ear when I see It's just it's wonderful.

630
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: So thank you for your time. Fun. And you know,

631
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: people people who try to act like it's dangerous that

632
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: people are believing our stories. Come on, it's hard. These

633
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: are jokes, and if people don't get the joke, you know,

634
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: that's on them. But we're not trying to mislead any buddy.

635
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: We're just trying to have fun. We're just trying to think, well,

636
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: what would be a funny take on this and then

637
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: come up with something. So that's all we're trying to do. Awesome,

638
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,959
Speaker 1: all right, thank you said, I appreciate it, all right,

639
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: Thanks guys. Be sure to catch live editions of The

640
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: Ben Meller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm

641
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: Pacific