WEBVTT - Making Left Wing Media in 2023 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome too. It could happen here a podcast about things 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:16.160 falling apart and sometimes putting things back together. And you know, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.479 today we're doing an episode that's kind of more on 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:24.119 the intellectual and emotional end of a very specific set 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.240 of things falling apart, And rather than clumsily try to 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.360 introduce it myself, I'm going to bring on the person 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.640 who who I think the thoughts that have kind of 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:36.319 been going through my head. I know they've been going 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:37.879 through the heads of a lot of the folks that 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.840 we have here at cool Zone for quite some time now. Thoughtslime. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.640 You are a YouTuber and a good YouTuber who does 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.319 a number of videos. Some of your recent ones are 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.480 thoughts on ai Art, a timeline of Elon's Twitter mistakes. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.880 She did a really fun video on the QAnon Queen 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:03.200 of Canada, who is a pretty problematic character. Welcome to 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.880 the show. Thanks for having me, Happy to be here. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:08.560 Do you want to just kind of start by reading 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.640 us that thread? Because you posted this on Twitter the 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:12.840 other day and I started chatting with it, and then 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.640 we moved over to DMS and decided we should kind 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.240 of do a little more formal thing. Yeah, so basically 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.360 I said that I'm constantly considering making a Why I 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.560 Left the Left video about how my views have not 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.120 changed one iota, but I've become completely disillusioned about my 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.959 role in communicating them. Part of the reason I shifted 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.759 my focus to trying to be just entertaining is because 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.520 deep down I don't really see a lot of value 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.679 in getting people on my side anymore. I don't think 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.160 it does anything or means anything. But the best I 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.760 can do is give you information and hopefully a laugh. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.680 I used to feel like I was participating in something 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.720 bigger than I think A lot. Then I think I 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.600 really am that I was helping in some small, in 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.080 some small way towards a sort of shift towards a 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.840 more revolutionary mass consciousness. I think that was a bit 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.440 of a childish fantasy. In retrospect, sometimes people will say 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.880 you made me an anarchist, and like, Buddy, I don't 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.000 even think it matters that I myself am an anarchist, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.200 and I regret that that sort of we're fighting the 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.880 good fight mentality has allowed some of the worst grifters 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.800 on the platform to flourish by manipulating people's passions for 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.600 their own weird petty reasons. I think what I do 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:20.280 has a lot of value, But I'm just saying that 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.760 I think I perceive that value to be is a 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:24.520 lot different than what I thought it was a few 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.400 years ago. Is basically what I had to say. Yeah, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.560 that I think does such a good job of nailing 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.120 the problem that I've been kind of dealing with emotionally 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.400 as well, which is it's it's not It'd be easy 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.040 to sum it up as like I no longer believe in, 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.840 you know, trying to transmit you know, leftist ideas or 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.800 political analysis, or that I don't believe in the value 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.760 of like trying to inform people about the world, because 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.680 that's not how I feel. But there is there has 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.919 been this shift, and I think probably the high point 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.400 for the version of me that was optimistic about the 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:07.200 ability to use mass media to build power and the 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.639 ability to take effective action on the left. I think 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.680 that kind of crescendoed I'm gonna I'm gonna say June 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.720 of twenty twenty um, and it had a pretty sharp 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.480 drop after that point. And I both think it's it's 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.400 valuable to still acknowledge kind of how remarkable what happened 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.440 in twenty twenty was, for all of its flaws and 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.160 all of the really messy fallout from it, we saw 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.080 an ups an uprising of unprecedented scale, and part of 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.600 why the crackdown in response has been so narly is 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.000 that it scared the hell out of a lot of 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:47.640 really unpleasant people. Um and the media had a significant 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.320 role to play in that, both in the fact that 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:51.000 there were a lot of people who were who were 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.280 kind of already organizing and radicalized when the shit started 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.320 to hit the fan, and that as things happened, um, 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.360 you know, the what was happening in the streets, what 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.960 the police were doing, the different kind of marches and 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.400 and different campaigns that were being started, got spread to people. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.240 And I do think that you know, folks, you know 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.360 like you and me, were a part of that. Although 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.039 it never is far from my mind that the most 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.080 influential piece of media that was that was recorded and 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.760 disseminated during twenty twenty was the video of George Floyd 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.320 being murdered, which was filmed by you know, someone who 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.680 just happened to be nearby and had the courage to 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:36.040 film it, not a professional journalist, not a not an influencer, 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.760 not a not somebody who was a professional political thinker 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:44.599 and everything else combined didn't have the influence of that video. Yeah. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.240 I think that that kind of gets to the heart 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.120 of it, right, is that like we express support for ideas, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.960 and thus people tend to treat us as though we 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:56.719 are the progenitors of those ideas, or the guardians of 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.440 those ideas, or the leaders of a kind of decentralized 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.120 proxy party of some kind. Yeah, it's it's it's both, 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.960 because I think thankfully there's that. I mean, there's there's 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.000 always going to be every everyone who makes popular media 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.000 gets forms a little cult, and so there's always going 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.600 to be a number of people who, you know, take 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.040 any given person in the media more seriously than they deserve. 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.279 And that that includes the both of us. And that's 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.719 that's not attempting to be that's not attempting to be 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.719 like humble or anything. That is simply a fact of 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.680 how mass media works. Um. I do think we've seen 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.160 I think there's been a mix of a healthy pushback 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.039 against looking at people who are doing creating popular media 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.240 as more than what they are and more than what 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.840 that media is capable of being. I think there has 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.360 been a pushback against that in the last couple of years. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.480 It's been healthy, and I think there's been a pushback 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.400 that's been unhealthy. Um, I think people have forgotten some 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.360 of the lessons of like one. I think a good 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.200 example would be there was a very justified backlash against 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.280 and when I say streamers here, I'm referring to people 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.719 who are actually in the streets streaming during riots and 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.240 protests and whatnot, right and that, And the justified part 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.520 of that backlash was due to the fact that past 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:20.160 a certain point, particularly those video those streams were primarily 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.599 being used by law enforcement, both to get charges on 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.160 people and to just to know where folks were as 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.360 an intelligence gathering method. And I think that the backlash, 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.000 which was understandable, and there was a lot of ugly behavior, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.559 including people who kind of got in after the early 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.039 portions of that, in order to make shitloads of money 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.520 by you know, streaming people getting the shit beat out 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.280 of them by the cops, and that was I think 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:49.039 very justified, a pretty aggressive social response to that, but 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:50.520 I think it's also caused a lot of people to 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.480 forget that. A huge part of why things kicked off 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.479 in twenty twenty and why so many people got involved 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.640 was Nico from Uniform Corn riot on the ground every 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.200 night in Minneapolis, doing one of the most impressive pieces 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.360 of citizen journalism that I think we've seen in this country. 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.640 And so I do think that some of what's frustrating 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.440 here is that it's difficult for people. It's difficult for 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.240 us as a community to take some of the proper 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.160 lessons from these these things that are happening from the 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.440 push and pull of the conflict that we all find 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.640 ourselves in, in part because the nature of the way 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:30.560 people express their understanding of these lessons via social media 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.560 is very geared towards flattening them and making it a 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.400 very simple matter of this is bad or this is 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.680 good and not well in this period of time, this 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.440 worked and then it didn't. You know, there's no real 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.400 sense of proportionality in these discussions. It isn't just a 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.200 matter of like, hey, you fucked up. You should probably 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.280 take this down, or this could be dangerous if you 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.040 leave this up, or if you continue to do this. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.280 It's more so like what are you a cop? What 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.400 are you some kind of cop doing this? Yeah, you know, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.520 let's spread that rumor and it. I mean, yeah, the 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.800 cop jacketing thing is is kind of one part of 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.760 the problem. But I want to focus a little bit 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.320 on what you were talking about in terms of what 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.760 do you think as you're kind of looking at you know, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.240 and we're all kind of staring twenty twenty four as 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:22.120 it approaches, what do you think is useful from media 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:28.040 that that attempts to analyze and share perspectives that are 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.240 that are left wing, that are anarchists inclined. What do 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.320 you think is actually the value that can be added 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:41.079 to attempts to achieve greater justice in our society. Well, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.880 I think the answer is twofold. I think firstly, anything 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.120 that drives people to like real life organizing and taking 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:55.160 action outside of online spaces is obviously useful. Beyond that, though, like, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:09:00.880 I think there is some value to just exposing people 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.800 to ideas that they might not have found otherwise. But 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.480 I think that, um, that a lot of that has 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.720 been accomplished now. I feel like a lot of people 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.880 are more familiar with with kind of the leftist the 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:19.120 leftist idehology one on one type of content that people 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.800 might expect in that way, So yeah, I would say 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.160 those are the two value propositions. I wonder if you 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.679 think a lot about because one thing that concerns me obviously, UM. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.680 Any community develops a language that is to some extent 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:39.840 its own UM, and that's that's a that's part of politics, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.120 you know, political analysis, if you're looking at things with 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.640 a Marxist analysis, or if you're analyzing things, you know, 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.599 based on your understanding of generations of anarchist political philosophy. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.840 There's terms that you're going to use that that other 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.880 thinkers have created, that are the terms that people use 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.920 to discuss those ideas UM. But it is sometimes kind 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:01.680 of a thin line between that and the thing that 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:03.440 colts do where they come up with a bunch of 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.800 specific terms that no one else uses in order to 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:10.600 separate a community from the rest from everyone else. And 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.760 obviously I don't think there's any intentionality there. I don't 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.400 think people who are talking about you know, the dialectic 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.880 or whatever are attempting to separate their listeners from the 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.000 mass of humanity. But I do think that happens sometimes. 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.600 And when I listen sometimes to conversations on the left 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:32.680 about justice, in particular about social justice, I wonder, like, well, 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.440 how is somebody who isn't like reading all this shit 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.040 going to interpret this? Is it just going to sound 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.640 like nonsense to them? And I think maybe like part 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.880 of the purpose, the positive purpose of mass media that 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.360 looks at things from the left is trying to communicate 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.679 with folks who are not going to sit down or 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:53.720 at least who have not yet sat down and done 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.400 a whole bunch of reading on the history and the politics, 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.840 but whose hearts are in the right place and who 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.280 I would like to be to engage in conversations with 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.680 folks who maybe kind of get their heads a little 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.480 bit too full of specific terminology. Sometimes I think it's 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.200 it's a specific balancing act because on the other hand, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:16.960 like you also have to give your audience a little 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:22.480 credit that they're absolutely but I think that like you 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.560 have to be able to meet people where they're at. 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.320 But at the same time, like if someone has expressed 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:32.040 this idea in a way that's already sufficient, like it's it's, uh, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.480 why do the work of like trying to re explain that, 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.240 you know. But that being said, I think there is 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.160 a tendency to just assume people already are on our 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.520 side or understand ideas to the level of complexity that 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.400 we might like and that people are on board with, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.560 like what even something as simple as what capitalism means. 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.760 You know, all the time you see people online who 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:01.840 will say that, Like a musician will post their band 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.160 Campaige and people will be like, oh, I thought you 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:09.040 were anti capitalist. You know. Yeah, it's it's like you know, 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.720 but like you also can't get caught up in the 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:18.600 kind of um weaponized ignorance that the people you know 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.679 like you. You can't make someone understand something if they 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.439 have a particular reason not to want to. So I 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.280 absolutely agree that, like there's the danger of that that 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:35.520 group in speak, uh, but it's it's a it's a 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.760 difficult problem to solve. I think the kind of approach 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.120 I take to it most of the time is that 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:45.560 I tend to write my scripts as the as though 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:50.720 I am uh just the like like a child. Like 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.760 I I try to write as though I'm speaking to 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.240 a five year old, you know, Yeah, I mean, and 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.880 I think. I also I think a lot about and 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.199 this is something you know here at cool Zone, I've 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.480 brought we brought on a couple of years ago. People 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:10.000 who you know are now making podcasts for the team 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.480 who when we brought them on, had a lot less 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:17.520 experience writing scripts and making media for mass consumption. And 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.600 one of the things that I found it was kind 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.080 of like my job to do repeatedly was to point out, like, Okay, stop, go, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.120 actually go back to that term, because you you just 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.160 you know, said a term that I think means a 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.560 specific or you just referenced a thing from history that 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.000 I think that people are interested in and should know about. 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.320 But you do have to like go in and explain 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.960 it and walk people through it. And that's kind of 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.400 part of That's really one of the challenges I find, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:48.480 particularly with Behind the Bastards, right where we're talking sometimes 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.600 about these complicated social movements and moments in history, and 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.280 it's this kind of tub of war between you want 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.200 to respect the intelligence of the audience and you want 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.360 to give them enough to hail that they have contexts 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.920 and that can maybe understand multiple sides of it, but 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.880 also you can't get bogged down in every detail, otherwise 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:08.719 you're never going to finish the damn thing. And we 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:13.600 can't all be Dan Carlin making ten hour long podcasts. Unfortunately. 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.520 I do like there's a degree to which I'm quite 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.400 jealous of his work, the way he set up his workload. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.240 But I would just never be able to think of 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.720 that many boxing analogies. Yeah, I don't. I don't know 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.080 very much about boxing. I would probably just like throw 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.000 in a whole lot of balls mahoney analogy, Yeah, a 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:34.280 lot of for me, it would be a lot of 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:47.400 super punch out references. Like hell, yes, stan Lee would 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.680 always say to comic book writers that every comic is 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.760 somebody's first comic, and so you kind of have to 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.080 consider that, like every piece of messaging you do might 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.960 this might be like the first time someone is stepping 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.800 out of a completely different ideological bubble than you might expect, 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.240 and so you know, it kind of has the messaging 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:08.360 kind of has to stand on its own. But I 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.040 think that's also like a unique problem to mass media 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.560 because it also means that in a sense, it's much 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.160 harder to like build on previous work. It's harder to 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.880 like go from your one on one content and then 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.800 get to the more advanced subjects, because someone could just 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.920 start at the more advanced part and get lost. I 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.360 think that's a really apt way of describing what I 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.840 also find as one of the central problems because a 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.200 ton of the episodes of Bastards, especially the stuff when 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:42.200 we focus on fascists, builds on itself. Right, you, your 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:47.080 understanding of fascism in Romania will be influenced and is 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.880 to some degree. You don't really you can't understand fascism 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.440 in Romania without understanding fascism and ymar fascism in Italy, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.080 fascism in the United States during the same period, and 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.600 vice versa. And so my hope is that the people 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.240 who catch all of the episodes are building a really 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.280 complex and durable understanding of the problem through it. But 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.640 it's also the struggle of like, well, a lot of 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:13.760 people are just going to be like, oh shit, I 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.800 know Hitler, but I maybe I'm not interested in hearing 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.000 about Romania, you know, and I'm not going to click 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.680 on those episodes. And there's nothing against people like when 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.320 I listen to podcasts, I find myself doing the same 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.680 thing where it's like, there's a million episodes of this show, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:28.120 I'm not going to listen. I don't I don't have 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.200 the time to listen to all of them. Sure, yeah, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.280 And that touches on another problem, which is that you know, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.280 the subjects that people like us tend to cover are 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.920 biased towards what we think people will find interesting. Yeah, 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.760 you know, and beyond that, like what we ourselves find 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.560 interesting to research, Yeah, and what in what you can 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.040 And this is a thing that I try to point 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.680 out on my subreddit sometimes when people are like, I 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:54.440 can't believe you haven't done this guy or that guy, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.520 and it's like, well, that doing that research is going 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:59.520 to fuck me up, and like, so I'm not going 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:01.520 to do it yet. I'm gonna do this thing that's funny. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.360 I'm gonna read about the liver King this week. I 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.399 need I need a break. So the liver King is 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:10.000 who we're talking about. Yeah, everybody needs a liver king 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.480 in their life at some point. Yeah. It's like I 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.640 read the Turner Diaries for one video. Yeah, And I've 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:19.639 been constant people who have been constantly like, oh, you 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.680 should read Camp of the Saints, you should read Siege. 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.480 And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want to. 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:26.600 First of all, I don't even know if I want 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.359 those things on my hard drive. Yeah. Yeah, Camp of 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.359 the Saints is a little easier, but yeah, maybe maybe 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.840 one of those a year and no more. That's like 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:41.240 the most I would recommend from like a mental health standpoint. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.840 It's also like you don't need to read the full 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:46.639 text of all of those I mean, that's part of 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.240 the thing is that like you can get a lot 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.160 by checking in some exerpts and reading scholarly papers analyzing 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.159 this stuff, and there there always will be that um 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.320 and I think to a significant standpoint, like it's more 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.600 important to understand, you know, And this isn't true for everybody, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.119 because there's some people who you know, are scholars of 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.560 this stuff, and you do need to to to do 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.080 the deep reading. But if you want to understand the 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.080 degree to which Siege and the Turner Diers diaries influence 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.240 the mass shootings that we see in the United States 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.000 state that are carried out by the far right, you 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.760 don't need to read those books to do that, right, 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.440 There's plenty of really good scholarly analysis, and that's part 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.679 of what you and I try to do for people. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.200 And what what other you know, folks who are creating 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.880 this kind of media other journalists do for folks. Yeah, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.760 I will I would say that I strongly balk at 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:42.719 the I don't consider myself a journalist. Um, yeah, I mean, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.680 and I don't consider that's something people talk about as well. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.440 On the subreddit, I get a lot of like comments 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.720 on people appreciating the journalism in the series, and we 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.800 do in some of our shows, like you know we 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.240 did we went to the Border, mean mar last year. 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.520 Garrison just got back from Cop City. But like Bastards, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.080 isn't journalism, you know, sometimes it's like celebrating journalism, but 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.360 it's it's it's entertainment that I hope has like an 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.280 educational quality to it. Yeah, it's I don't. I don't 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.080 say this to belittle myself. I just don't see that 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.560 as as the function of my job. I think, like 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.320 like I have, I have in the in the course 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.880 of my work, occasionally done journalism by accidents. I did 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.879 a long interview where I had like about the chaz 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.159 and and kind of the misconceptions that people had, and 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.639 I had some you know, talks with people within and 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.720 like that is technically, on its face a piece of journalism. Sure, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:43.720 you know, absolutely, it's not what I consider my uh 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.919 strength or role to be well, and I honestly this 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:48.600 goes back to what we were talking about with the 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:53.720 young woman who filmed the video of of George Floyd. Um, 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.879 journalism is a profession, but it's also just like a 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.400 set of tools, and you know sometimes you will use 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.879 those tools in order to do other things. You know 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:15.680 that that's that's certainly true. I'm curious you and I. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.240 You and I both kind of uh like make our 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:24.600 our our work work uh differently. UM, mine's ad supported obviously, 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.280 so my conversation with fans, you know, outside of like 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.639 when I'm doing a live show is primarily through we 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.760 have a subreddit and we have Twitter, um, and that's uh, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.239 you know, there's some difficulty there. For one thing, like 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.600 every single guest we have, there are people who will 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.920 be like, this is the best guests you've ever had, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.280 and this person is the worst guest you've ever had, 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.520 And there's absolutely no way to make decisions based on that, right, 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:53.400 It's just a much Um. You you've got a different relationship, 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.840 or at least a different method of I think communicating. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.840 I imagine it's different, um because because your your Patreon supported. 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.879 I'm interested in, how have, if at all, have you 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.280 seen kind of the conversations about what people want from you? 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.920 And you know the way in which you've been talking 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.600 with your fans. Have you seen that change since twenty twenty. Well, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.120 I think one of the major ways is since I've 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.240 kind of taken a step back from this explicitly political content, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.399 it's a lot of people have kind of encouraged me 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.480 to go more in that direction, and I have seen 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.640 like a big drop in my support as a result. 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:38.359 I think that it's it's a tricky balance to strike again. 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.800 Many of these things are like such a balancing act 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.840 because I always am careful to remind people that, like, hey, 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.680 you can support me on Patreon if you like what 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:53.520 I'm doing and want there to be more of it, 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.080 but please don't operate under the assumption that doing so 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:02.159 is activism or contr utes to activism, because it is not. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.840 You are not like making the revolution more than exactly 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.120 you know, you are getting a little drawing that I'm 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.000 going to put at the end of my video, like 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.280 that's that's the value proposition here. Yeah, And I think 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.240 that you know, it's it's a I don't The reason 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.720 I don't accept ad ad reads on Thoughtslime I do 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.840 on scaredy Cats is because I don't want the perception 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.040 that my views are going to be limited or held 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.199 back by, you know, the desire to seek out advertisers, 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.720 which whether or not I would have the the integrity 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.920