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Speaker 1: You've got to the heart of the batter and I say,

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Speaker 1: the weirdest thing about weird people is how normal they are.

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Speaker 1: This isn't the manosphere, this is the boyosphere.

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Speaker 2: It's more of a grift than an ideology.

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Speaker 3: These guys are selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling, selling.

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Speaker 3: So those of you who've tuned into the podcast, no,

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Speaker 3: we've doved deep into the issue of the crisis of

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Speaker 3: men and Boys. Richard Reeves and the Institute of Men

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Speaker 3: and Boys talked to Scott Galloway. A number of other

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Speaker 3: guests also talked about the manosphere. But we've never gone

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Speaker 3: quote unquote inside the manosphere. And that's why I'm so

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Speaker 3: excited to have my next guest, Louis Threux, who's done

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Speaker 3: dozens and dozens of documentaries on the porn industry, neo Nazis,

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Speaker 3: did documentary on scientology, Westboro Baptist Church, and just completed

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Speaker 3: this really insightful documentary about the manosphere. This is a wide,

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Speaker 3: raging conversation.

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Speaker 2: You don't want to this.

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Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom, this is Louis Theroux.

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Speaker 2: Where are you in London proper? Where are you specifically?

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Speaker 1: I'm in London, England in northwest London in an area

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Speaker 1: called Kilburn, Northwest. I don't know. You just really have

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Speaker 1: to know London to know where exactly. But I just

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Speaker 1: cycled back from Trafalves Square. It took me about twenty

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Speaker 1: five minutes.

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Speaker 2: I love it. What's what? How where do you spend

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Speaker 2: most of your time?

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Speaker 3: Are you out there just on the plane around the globe?

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Speaker 1: I have? I have three boys, three sons, and as

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Speaker 1: they've got older, I've traveled less. Like before I came

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Speaker 1: on this call, I was thinking about my life and

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Speaker 1: times as I want to do as an older man

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Speaker 1: fifty five years old, I was traveling a lot, you know,

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Speaker 1: when I was trying to win my spurs as a

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Speaker 1: documentary maker. So a lot of back and forth.

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Speaker 2: I have.

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Speaker 1: I'm half American half I've just started. Is that all right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: But I've just kind of gone into my origin story.

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Speaker 1: But I was good.

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Speaker 3: I so.

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Speaker 1: My dad's American. He's a travel writer and novelist from Medford, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: I grew up with a US passport, but I grew

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Speaker 1: up in South London, and I've always been slightly split,

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Speaker 1: you know, identity wise between the UK and the US.

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Speaker 1: And then when I graduated and was trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out what to do with my life. In ninety one,

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Speaker 1: I went to the US and thought, well, I'll put

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Speaker 1: that passport to some use and get some legal work

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Speaker 1: working in Boston. Then I thought, well, I should, really,

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Speaker 1: you know, work with words. That's what my dad does,

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Speaker 1: that's what my mom does. She works for the BBC,

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Speaker 1: or I used to. And I got a job in

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Speaker 1: San Jose, California, on a free weekly called the Metro.

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Speaker 1: And really I credit my experience in San Jose as

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Speaker 1: being the formative experience professionally, or certainly one of them

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Speaker 1: of my life. Like you know, some people said, like

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Speaker 1: I went to Africa. My dad's thing was he went,

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Speaker 1: he was in the Peace Corps and he went and

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Speaker 1: taught in Malawi. My thing was, I worked for a

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Speaker 1: free weekly in San Jose. But there was something about

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Speaker 1: being decontextualized and being exposed to a culture that was

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Speaker 1: very different, and also working with words, writing articles, you know,

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Speaker 1: from the bottom up. Was I worked for the Willow

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Speaker 1: Glenn Resident and the Metro and then the San Jose

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Speaker 1: City Times, all under the same umbrella, writing about city

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Speaker 1: council meetings but also character driven stories about past life regression, counseling,

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Speaker 1: and people who were into guns. So the whole kind

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Speaker 1: of buffet of the Western American experience. And that was

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Speaker 1: the jumping off point for so many things that followed.

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Speaker 1: And I was thinking, as I said, before I came

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Speaker 1: on this call, I've made over the years fourteen different

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Speaker 1: documentaries in the great state of California.

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Speaker 3: So much of the last twenty five years for you

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Speaker 3: obviously been defined by all of these. I mean, what

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Speaker 3: you could describe or has been described by people that

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Speaker 3: watching these sort of French subcultures, your willingness to enter

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Speaker 3: into that, you know, into worlds that people are curious

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Speaker 3: about but don't know much about. What what was what

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Speaker 3: was the first What was the inspiration for the first documentary?

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Speaker 3: I mean, you're you're, you know, they're writing chronicling culture

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Speaker 3: but politics, and you know, you're, you know, finding your

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Speaker 3: way fourteen just in California alone, documentary.

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Speaker 1: Just in California.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, I there's a psychological dimension to that, and then

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Speaker 1: a kind of professional like I I with someone who

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Speaker 1: grew up in as I said, South London. I was

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Speaker 1: always anxious. I was always worry prone. I always saw

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Speaker 1: other people and thought they've got the they've got they've

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Speaker 1: figured something out that I haven't. Uh. But there's also

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Speaker 1: a quality to feeling like an outsider that it gives

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Speaker 1: you are observational skills. It it makes you attentive. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it makes you a good listener because you suspect that

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Speaker 1: you suspect other people clue up about something, or you

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Speaker 1: just feel comforted by the idea that you're enveloped in

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Speaker 1: in the stranges of how other people lead their lives.

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Speaker 1: So I it was always a fringe dweller in that sense.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I moved to American, so yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was always attracted to whether it was reading about or

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Speaker 1: finding out about practices that struck me as on whether

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Speaker 1: it was really religious practices or bizarre pathologies. Then fast forward,

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Speaker 1: I was in America figuring out how I thought I

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Speaker 1: should be a writer. My dad's a writer. I worked

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Speaker 1: for Spy Magazine and then some friends. After Spy Magazine,

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Speaker 1: I was a magazine, you know, based in New York

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Speaker 1: in the nineties. It folded, and then some friends went

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Speaker 1: to work with the documentary maker Michael Moore, who at

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Speaker 1: that time had made Roger and Me and was working

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Speaker 1: on a new TV series called TV Nation, and they

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Speaker 1: my friend said, like, you should come and talk to Michael.

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Speaker 1: He's looking for some he needs to have a British

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Speaker 1: correspondent because some of his money is coming from the BBC.

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Speaker 1: So I went along, underqualified, nervous, no wardrobe to speak of,

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Speaker 1: with no reasonable right to expect anything to cover the meeting,

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Speaker 1: not realizing that all those things like a wardrobe, underqualified, nervous,

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Speaker 1: in Michael's eyes, were kind of positives, right. He didn't

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Speaker 1: want He didn't want a wind swept well, a bit

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Speaker 1: like yourself, Kevin, because you've been credited with having good

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Speaker 1: looks and sort of be TV being TV ready, Like

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Speaker 1: I wasn't that TV ready guy. And he I think

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Speaker 1: he thought, well, his awkwardness is an asset, like his awkwardness,

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Speaker 1: and he's sort of I mean, I think he might

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Speaker 1: have assumed that it was a It was a kind

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Speaker 1: of a party trick, almost like, oh, he's intelligent, but

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Speaker 1: he pretends to be bumbling. In fact, I was just bumbling.

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Speaker 1: But I was also very keen. So he hired me

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Speaker 1: to make my first segment segment which was about groups

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Speaker 1: that think the world is about to end, and it

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Speaker 1: was called Millennium took me to Oakland, California. Funnily enough,

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Speaker 1: among other places, there were four or five different cults

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Speaker 1: or sects featured, but the first one was led by

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Speaker 1: Harold Camping, and he was predicting the end of the

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Speaker 1: world for later that year, nineteen ninety four. Wow, it

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Speaker 1: didn't end. Spoiler spoiler alert, the world didn't end. Then

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Speaker 1: I went down to alcoholn outside of San Diego. It

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Speaker 1: was it was a UFO group called were they called?

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Speaker 1: I can't even remember what they were called. They thought

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Speaker 1: that they thought that UFOs were going to land in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and spoiler alert that that didn't

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Speaker 1: happen either, But that that kind of experience of, you know,

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Speaker 1: notwithstanding that I had no TV skills, what I did

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Speaker 1: have was curiosity and a sense of fascination like if

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Speaker 1: I had. My problem was I was overinterested and I

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Speaker 1: tended not to interrupt like I was realized, So when's

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Speaker 1: the world actually going to end? I'm like, well, it's

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Speaker 1: on Thursday, but it's too late for salvation because that

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Speaker 1: happens on the Tuesday, you know, and all the detail.

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Speaker 1: But I basically loved the experience of immersing myself in

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Speaker 1: the in these other mindsets, like I sometimes pretentiously put

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Speaker 1: Frederick Nature the Philosopher and say that it's like a

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Speaker 1: madness in individuals is rare, but in epochs, groups of

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Speaker 1: people and religions, it isn't normal. Something like that. In

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Speaker 1: other words, like we're all swimming in the waters of irrationality.

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Speaker 1: We just don't see it, you know, and if we

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Speaker 1: just recognize, so that kind of that kind of organized irrationality,

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Speaker 1: you know, which isn't It's not psychosis, right, It's not

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Speaker 1: that kind of madness. It's the madness of, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to sell my house because the uppose are

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Speaker 1: going to land, or because Harold Camping has told me

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Speaker 1: that Jesus is coming later in the year. That's that's

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Speaker 1: actually a sane who's been so conditioned by a belief

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Speaker 1: system that he's acting in ways that are irrational. So

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Speaker 1: in a weird way, that first one, I went on

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Speaker 1: to do second one about the Ku Kux Klan as

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Speaker 1: they were rebranding themselves a civil white group, civil rights

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Speaker 1: group for white people that was in Texas and Arkansas

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Speaker 1: and on and on. But that there was that first

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Speaker 1: story about celts and in a way where was a

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Speaker 1: template set me off on a trajectory that I haven't

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Speaker 1: deviated from. You know, I two programs in the longer length.

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Speaker 1: Now that was a ten minute segment. Now I do

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Speaker 1: sixty minute or ninety minute documentaries. But it's very much

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Speaker 1: been a forehaded plow, you know, with a great deal

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Speaker 1: of pleasure and some success ever since.

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Speaker 3: And we and we'll get to the inside the manosphere,

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Speaker 3: which love to talk about your latest documentary in a moment.

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Speaker 3: But what is there been a thread that connects I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's it's interesting one of the I mean, you've consistent

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Speaker 3: watching some of these documentaries and inside the manisphere, and

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Speaker 3: you come across not as condescending, but truly interested, curious, open,

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Speaker 3: you create a safe space where you know, people start

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Speaker 3: to express themselves and then their contradictions are exposed. And

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Speaker 3: and but at the same time, you know, the way

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Speaker 3: you just described irrational irrational mindset. Has there been a

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Speaker 3: thread that connects all of these documentaries beyond just the

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Speaker 3: curiosity and the fringe? But is it is there an

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Speaker 3: empathy that you've developed for many of these.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, this is this, this is You've got

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Speaker 1: to the heart of the better and the short version

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Speaker 1: is I sometimes say the weirdest thing about weird people

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Speaker 1: is how normal they are, by which I mean that

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Speaker 1: you find out that people arrive at irrational well I

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Speaker 1: would consider irrationality, and by the way, I don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: exclude myself from that, but they's kind of fee. It's satisfying,

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Speaker 1: very relatable human needs, and I do try and disrupt

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Speaker 1: that binary of us and them, like I do try

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Speaker 1: and see them as people who are available, they're up

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Speaker 1: for grabs, they're persuadable, or if they're not persuadable, because

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Speaker 1: most of the time they're actually not persuadable, but they are.

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Speaker 1: They're emotionally present, like they want to relate, they want

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Speaker 1: to be friendly, or they want to persuade you of

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Speaker 1: why what they're doing is the right way, and you've

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Speaker 1: made a mistake. Like the first episode I made of

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Speaker 1: my first TV series of my own was called Weird Weekends.

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Speaker 1: It was about militiamen. It was very trumpy in its way,

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Speaker 1: although it was nineteen ninety six so it was a

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Speaker 1: long time before. But people who believe in conspiracy theories,

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Speaker 1: they think that the UN is taking over the world

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Speaker 1: and that their only safety is by hiding in redoubts

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Speaker 1: up in northern Idaho and Montana, stockpiling guns and sort

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Speaker 1: of sitting out the end times in one way or another,

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Speaker 1: quite a paranoid mindset. But the shot was going up there,

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Speaker 1: and so it's finding out, Wow, this about these guys

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Speaker 1: is kind of a little bit romantic and almost cool,

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Speaker 1: like they were like cowboys. Like the seduction of it

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Speaker 1: was palpable, Like it wasn't like how could you possibly

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Speaker 1: believe this? It was like, oh, I kind of get

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Speaker 1: the mystery and romance, like everyone wants to be the

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Speaker 1: hero of their own life and this is a way

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Speaker 1: of leading out an epic destiny. Then I met part

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Speaker 1: of the same journey. I went to the headquarters of

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Speaker 1: a group called Aryan Nations. They were the most extreme

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Speaker 1: of that world, like they sort of unapologetic or were

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Speaker 1: neo Nazis. They lived in a compound up in Bordelaine

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Speaker 1: in northern Idaho, and at that time their pastor was

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Speaker 1: a guy called the Head. They started themselves a church.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a tax dodge or

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Speaker 1: pr thing, or maybe they sincerely believed that they were

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Speaker 1: the true Israelites, like these white guys. But They lived

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Speaker 1: in a compound that was straight out of Central Casting

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Speaker 1: with a fence around it and a guard tower and

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Speaker 1: two German shepherds called Hands and Fritz. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: was scared going there the biggest but I was so

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Speaker 1: relieved when I met Pastor Richard Butler, and he was

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Speaker 1: like eighty five years old, and his second in command

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Speaker 1: or his aide de camp was called Jerry Rudal, who

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Speaker 1: is about seventy years old. And I thought, if it

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Speaker 1: comes to it, I think I can take them right

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Speaker 1: like a physical if it gets physical. But they took

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Speaker 1: me around, and I remember Jerry Grudle took me to

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Speaker 1: the top of the guard tower and he starts talking

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Speaker 1: about how much he lacks England and the town of Cheltenham,

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Speaker 1: and he's a big fan of Benny Hill. And then

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Speaker 1: he starts talking about a sitcom from the seventies called

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Speaker 1: Are You Being Served? Which will mean nothing to your audience,

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Speaker 1: but what it meant to me was, well, this is

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Speaker 1: a guy who's a deep angler phile number one, but

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Speaker 1: number two like, this is a guy who really wants

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Speaker 1: to kind of be my friend. Now that's an awkward

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Speaker 1: thing for a journalist when he's dealing with a neo Nazi, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, in one sense it is an awkward but

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Speaker 1: it's kind of him. It was, it's boreder lot. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was kind of funny, but it's all a little embarrassing.

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Speaker 1: It was complicated and I but the surprise was, Wow,

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Speaker 1: these are people who really are in some respects lonely

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Speaker 1: right in some respects looking for connection. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: in any way trying to minimize the hatefulness of it.

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Speaker 1: There's no excuse for it. You know, I deplore it, obviously,

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Speaker 1: but you can't blind yourself to the polyvalent quality of extremism,

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Speaker 1: you know, And I've seen it across the board, whether

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Speaker 1: it's in Coalinga, you know, the maximum security mental hospital

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Speaker 1: for sexually violent predators, and you go among them and

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Speaker 1: they are they are They're presenting as regular people, and

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Speaker 1: you're like, wow, they don't you know. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't mean to be glid, but that you sort of

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Speaker 1: have to check yourself and remind yourself of the things

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Speaker 1: they've done. Because you're being filmed, you make your documentary,

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Speaker 1: and actually there's an expectation to bring an appropriate level

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Speaker 1: of objectivity and forbearance but the same time you're thinking

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Speaker 1: at times like he's he's if I didn't know better,

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Speaker 1: I think he's kind of a nice guy, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's an okay guy. Which is the paradox that the paradox,

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Speaker 1: this is the cross ii'me burdened with. You mentioned one

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Speaker 1: other thing, which was Manisphere, which I know we're coming

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Speaker 1: on to. But the other thing that's happened in the

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Speaker 1: twenty five years of working is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: this so called fringe stuff went mainstream, you know, And

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Speaker 1: going back to the Silicon Valley and the changes in culture,

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Speaker 1: I think the big thing we've seen, the biggest change

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Speaker 1: I've seen is how the Internet, but social media specifically,

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Speaker 1: has allowed people to aggregate people who in the in

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Speaker 1: the past might have not felt in community with people

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Speaker 1: like before they might have shortwave radio magazines, or they

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Speaker 1: a few of them might be on bbs is on

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Speaker 1: the Internet like bulletin Balls, but they weren't pinging each

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Speaker 1: other on Snapchat, you know, or WhatsApp or god forbids,

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Speaker 1: streaming live on their own platforms. And so in good

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Speaker 1: ways we've seen the Internet. If you've got a disease

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Speaker 1: and it's rare, you can now crowdsource solutions. That's wonderful.

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Speaker 1: But if you are planning a race war to initiate

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Speaker 1: the end times, you can also find your community, it's

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Speaker 1: not such a good thing. And or if you want

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Speaker 1: to proselytize on behalf of being a flat Earth or

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Speaker 1: an anti vaxxer, you can find a ready audience, and

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Speaker 1: not just that, you can catalyze an even bigger audience

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Speaker 1: by spreading that information. So those programs that in the

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Speaker 1: past seemed not exactly harmless, but I had the luxury

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Speaker 1: of being able to see them as part of something lonely,

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Speaker 1: like the empathy that you built with them got relatively safe.

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Speaker 1: Even the skinheads when I was with doing Louis and

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Speaker 1: the Nazis, they were damaged men, difficult backgrounds who'd come

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Speaker 1: out of prison. Some of them had developed a kind

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Speaker 1: of white racial identity as a safety mechanism having been

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Speaker 1: in prison. Like I've seen that in San Quentin. It's

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Speaker 1: very hard to go against the float. You gang up,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's I don't know if it's still the case,

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Speaker 1: but when I was there in twenty twelve, you know,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and eight nine, that's how it was. But

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Speaker 1: so you could sort of extend a bit of understanding,

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Speaker 1: and I guess you can still, but it's now closer

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Speaker 1: to the the power is less obviously hierarchical now it's

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Speaker 1: not so now they are in some respects equally powerful,

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Speaker 1: you know, in some respects. When I go and document

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Speaker 1: whether it's white nationalism or extremism or toxic content, I'm

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Speaker 1: just one more content maker turning up to document another

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Speaker 1: content maker. And I no longer or my BBC paymasters

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Speaker 1: or whoever's financing the project, no longer owns the conversation

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Speaker 1: and the and monopolizes the platforms in the way that

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Speaker 1: they used.

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Speaker 3: To, meaning they're streaming at the same time that that

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Speaker 3: like Tiki Taki World, well.

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Speaker 1: In a small way they have they have they have

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Speaker 1: their own outlet. Like so, going back five years, I

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Speaker 1: made a documentary called Extreman Online, uh that was about

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Speaker 1: Nick Twenters and the Groupers, and I spent a couple

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Speaker 1: of days with Nick Twenty's who has since gone on

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Speaker 1: to some notoriety based on his affiliation with Kanye West

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Speaker 1: or yeas he is now called, and also his sort

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Speaker 1: of taking up the mantle post Charlie Kirk. But he's

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Speaker 1: he's so irrespective of me, them streaming me when I arrived.

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Speaker 1: They're just people who've got platforms of their own, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, midway through making that program extremely online, it's

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Speaker 1: on I'm not not trying to do a big plug,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's on BBC Select in the US,

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Speaker 1: which no one has, so good forget about that. But

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Speaker 1: I remember arriving and I was filming with him, and

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Speaker 1: then I took a break. We went back to London

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Speaker 1: to kind of figure out next steps, and in the meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: he was streaming about me, saying I met a guy

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Speaker 1: called Lowid Louis through and people saying, wells he like,

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Speaker 1: he's kind of pretentious. He's kind of pretentious. So he's

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Speaker 1: got his I mean, he's got his platform and he's

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Speaker 1: broadcasting his version of our encounter, and then I've got

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Speaker 1: mine and hopefully I'm reaching more people. Then fast forward

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Speaker 1: a few years, but that was the first exposure to

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Speaker 1: make your program, and in a weird way, I found

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Speaker 1: it chastening but also enjoyably enjoyably challenging, Right you know,

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Speaker 1: I like sometimes I sometimes joke. I specialized in getting

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Speaker 1: out of my depth, and I enjoyed the sense of

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Speaker 1: I don't want my job to be too easy, and

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Speaker 1: I think it kind of keeps you honest, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean. And if I'm if I'm there and

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Speaker 1: I and he's doing his version, and he and he's releasing.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was a guy called Baked Alaska who

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Speaker 1: was part of the same documentary, and he filmed me

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Speaker 1: while I was there, and I filmed him and he

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Speaker 1: streamed me, and it creates an interesting dynamic, but it

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Speaker 1: also allows for an enjoyable piquancy to the encounters. And

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Speaker 1: then later on I went deeper into that with this

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Speaker 1: more recent documentary for Netflix, which is called Louis Through

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Speaker 1: Inside the Manisphere, where I was either being live streamed

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Speaker 1: or appearing on podcasts in their world throughout and then

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Speaker 1: being made to be uncomfortable and having to deal with

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Speaker 1: their gotcha's or their attempts to discomfort and discombobulate me.

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Speaker 2: It's it's fascinating, this notion.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you're this iterative conversation where you're making the

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Speaker 3: movie it's making I mean, it's searching you.

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Speaker 2: You're searching it.

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Speaker 3: You're that I mean, it's almost it's like a ping

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Speaker 3: pong match, almost and obviously it's promoting itself even before

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Speaker 3: it's complete, and so.

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Speaker 1: That would be I know that's a I know it's funny,

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Speaker 1: isn't it? Like we because the parties. Oh, this is

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Speaker 1: kind of a nightmare. I mean truthfully, I knew going

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Speaker 1: into it would happen, and I hoped it would happen.

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Speaker 1: But it's also uncomfortable. And then I did realize, well,

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Speaker 1: it is chumming the water. Like gets everyone. It gets everyone.

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Speaker 1: But you know, you raise a serious question, which is

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Speaker 1: if they are feeding off my content or feeding off

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Speaker 1: my presence for their content. I'm going to preempt your question.

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Speaker 1: Am I? Am I in some way amplifying them? Am

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Speaker 1: I a porn in their game? How do you deal

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Speaker 1: with How do you deal with it? Like meat platforming

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Speaker 1: them or just actually bring them attention? Or as I say,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of being a character. These live streamers, they

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Speaker 1: stream that their lives more or less twenty four not

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Speaker 1: twenty four seven because they're not asleep. But it might

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Speaker 1: be eight hours a day or ten hours a day.

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Speaker 1: The most recent example you'll know is particular who I

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Speaker 1: think you must be where he's he shouted you out,

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Speaker 1: He's I don't know if he's a fan, but he

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Speaker 1: thought you were better looking than JD. Vance, which in

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Speaker 1: their world is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, meaningful current.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a mixed it's a mixed blessing receiving

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Speaker 1: that kind of compliment, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, from the looks Baxters.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, my son was very proud because

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Speaker 3: he was very familiar with Clvicar. That's a yeah, a

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Speaker 3: fifteen year old, which I know is like is actually

401
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Speaker 3: the sweet spot.

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Speaker 1: One of the real the reveals of making the documentary

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Speaker 1: was this isn't that man spin this is the boy

404
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:54,679
Speaker 1: fit right, It's it's age between twelve and maybe seventeen.

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Speaker 1: That's the sweet spot. They and in my day we're

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Speaker 1: not far apart in age, but we probably grew up

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Speaker 1: watching Dukes of Hazard, the A team, So it was

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Speaker 1: be a Baracas Pinny of the Fool like it was

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Speaker 1: that and you know those are all maybe the six

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Speaker 1: million dollar man, but but there was a start skin Hutch,

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Speaker 1: there was a thing like these are these are badass.

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Speaker 1: You know they break a few rules to get things done.

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Speaker 1: You know they're not going to listen to the chief.

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Speaker 1: They're going to go out and kick ass and take

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Speaker 1: names and do what they have to catch the bag,

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Speaker 1: like there was a sort of an outlaw, an outlaw

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Speaker 1: kind of Maverick code. And in this day and age,

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Speaker 1: like our kids are getting our boys are getting content

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Speaker 1: in the same way we did. But from the incident

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Speaker 1: and then a whole time as well, there were I

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Speaker 1: don't know, as rockers or punk or heavy metal or

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Speaker 1: guns n' roses or whatever it was, but we sort

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Speaker 1: of believed that these were our guys because we were kids,

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Speaker 1: and we we wanted people who felt out outlaw and

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Speaker 1: naughty and disruptive and who our parents probably didn't approve of. Right,

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Speaker 1: So nowadays that that's YouTubers, Like YouTubers are filling that

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Speaker 1: space for good or ill. And the complicated part is

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Speaker 1: they're obviously real as much as they are also performing

429
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:15,360
Speaker 1: themselves and they are going out and you know, there's

430
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: no gate key, there's no one on CBS, ABC or

431
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: BBC like saying, you know what this is before the watersheds,

432
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: so let's tone it down. You know, it's a little

433
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: bit the language is a little bit blue, like you know,

434
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: these there's no there's nothing, there's no there's no influence

435
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 1: that's going to stop them. They stream on a platform

436
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: called Pick many of them where the content moderation is

437
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: extremely loose. It's owned by gambling company, so a lot

438
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: of it's tied in with gambling promotion and basically anything

439
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,399
Speaker 1: goes and part of the filming, you know, one of

440
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 1: my insights, such as it is, was that this is

441
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 1: less about well, it's as much as it's about ideology,

442
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: it's also about sales. And these are guys who found

443
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: a business model that involves putting out spicy or divisive

444
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: or explicitly bigoted and misogynistic, homophobic, racist content that gets

445
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: eyeballs because the algorithms like things that are divisive. And

446
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: then the upsell is some crappy FX trading app or

447
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: finance trading app, or a workout some workout regimen that

448
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: will give you muscles or supplements. One of the paradoxes

449
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: is that, you know, people say like, oh, it's a

450
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 1: rabbit hole, but truthfully, with a rabbit hole, it gets

451
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 1: weirder the deeper you go. But actually it's really weird.

452
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:43,719
Speaker 1: The shop front is weird like because that's how they

453
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: get your attention. Andrew Tates saying I don't think women

454
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: should drive, and women shouldn't vote, But then behind the

455
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: facade is something quite banal, and that's what you know,

456
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: and that's why you should sign up to the real world.

457
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: And it's a not terribly insightful or interesting so called

458
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: on university. So it's all incentivized by business and by

459
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: an attempt to monetize outrage.

460
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 2: So takeaway and so just interesting to me. I mean.

461
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 3: Back to this documentary that was just released, as you suggest,

462
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 3: on Netflix last month, and it has gotten a lot

463
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 3: of attention, was premier number one on Netflix. And and

464
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 3: you know it continues to this day because these guys

465
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 3: are continuing to talk about you and this this whole

466
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 3: subject matter of the manosphere. But the point you just

467
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 3: made is the point that you emphasize or at least

468
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 3: comes across, even if it's not expressed.

469
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 2: Intentionally or at.

470
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 3: Least edited in that context, is that it's more of

471
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 3: a grift than an ideology that these guys are selling, selling, selling, selling, selling,

472
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 3: selling selling. It's not necessarily right wing conservatism, but it

473
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 3: is misogyny that there's just it's it's it's an interesting

474
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 3: take on this whole frame because so much of the

475
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 3: n atosphere from our perspective sort of the lazy perspective

476
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 3: his frame in contemporary terms to Trump's success. Big podcasters

477
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 3: like Joe Rogan or THEO Vaughn, folks that I know, you've,

478
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 3: you've that are adjacent to this, that are not necessarily

479
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 3: part of this. But Andrew Tate seems so much of

480
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 3: the origin story of what is contemporarily expressed as the nanospirit.

481
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 3: You didn't get him necessarily to be on the documentary,

482
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 3: but he's part of your documentary. But tell me a

483
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 3: little bit about Andrew Tate. Tell me a little bit

484
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 3: about your kids, your three sons. Tell me about the

485
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 3: why this subject matter was the subject for this latest documentary.

486
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: So I went through lockdown with three sons, which you

487
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: know any father and mother who went through lockdown with kids.

488
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: I think we're still recovering from that.

489
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: Louis he tough? How old are the boys?

490
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: They're now twenty eighteen and eleven, So at the beginning

491
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: of COVID they would have been like fifteen, thirteen and

492
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: six or seven. It was a lot, and like everyone else,

493
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 1: we all defaulted to phones and screens a great deal,

494
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: just for like you. That's how they kept in touch

495
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: with their friends and as did we. But I remember

496
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two slightly starting to come out the other side.

497
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:36,679
Speaker 1: I began hearing about Andrew Tate from my boys, the

498
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: older boys, saying like, Andrew Tate said this funny thing,

499
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: like it was a name, you know what, Like that's

500
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: why Andrew. You keep talking about this guy Andrew Tate,

501
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: like I'm supposed to have heard of him. They're like, oh,

502
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: he's really funny. So it was. It was spicy content

503
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: to the effect of women are all like this. And

504
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: and then also his flexes, like he's say, people say

505
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: they don't like the color of my buguet, and I say,

506
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: what color is your buguetti? That was, you know, kind

507
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: of funny, kind of a funny flex, right. I Mean,

508
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: one thing that you always have to take credit for

509
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: is he's extremely articulate, and he's a kind of brilliant broadcaster,

510
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: you know, irrespective of the message. He has a fluency

511
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: for language and phrasing and messaging. And in addition, he

512
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: figured out something about the Internet so he would be

513
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: doing you know. His background was American dad, British mom,

514
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:33,959
Speaker 1: separated parents, grow up mixed race in Luton in very well.

515
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: I say, it's a rough area of a satellite of

516
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: London that's got its own social challenges, and got into kickboxing,

517
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: then got into reality TV, but always had a sense

518
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: of his own mission. Good looking guy, muscular, six feet

519
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: three and with evidently some natural gift for charming women.

520
00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: And so he had taken to the podcast and was

521
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: doing interviews, and then he was talking a lot about

522
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: various online online sales techniques, or a part of it

523
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: was something he called the PhD and it was the

524
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: Pimping Pose Degree, and you could subscribe to his course

525
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: and he would teach you how to be a player

526
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:21,959
Speaker 1: for one of the better terms. It was basically a

527
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: repackaged version of something I'd also made a program about

528
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: well pick up artistry, which was this subculture of using

529
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: body language and messaging in order to having almost mysterious

530
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: and magical attraction over women. There was a book about

531
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: it called The Game by Neil Strauss. So it's quasi

532
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: hypnotic techniques, like you use these words and women will

533
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: fall into your lap. So that was the precursor culture

534
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: to take plus a little bit of Iceberg slim, like

535
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: a kind of pimp speak based on the writings of

536
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: the kind of pimp subculture of the of the sort

537
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: of fifties and sixties all packaged together in this kind

538
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: of the form of this muscle good looking kickboxer. And

539
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: then doing his podcast, he realized that the more outrageous

540
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: he was, the more it was getting traction. And then

541
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: he would get clippers, guys sort of piece work or

542
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: gig work part timers around wherever, like, working from their

543
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: homes who would take little bits and put them on

544
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: the internet where put them on TikTok. Most of it

545
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: was TikTok I sometimes Joe, He's not really I want

546
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: to say, like Andrew Tay is actually a side effect

547
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: of the TikTok algorithm, or he was at the time,

548
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: and then that would get viral, and then suddenly his

549
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: name was everywhere and more and more people were clipping

550
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: him and getting more viral. So that led to this

551
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: moment of emergence of him as the most googled man

552
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: on the planet. But the techniques he used were picked

553
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: up on by other influencers looking to be the next

554
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: Andrew Tait in slightly different forms or with similar usaging

555
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: was slightly different, and so for our documentary, originally the

556
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: hope was we might get Andrew Taate or his brother

557
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: Tristan Tate. I continue to kind of kind of back

558
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: and forth with them, dming them as we were filming it.

559
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: Never it never resulted in a one on one encounter.

560
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: But we have other contributors who sort of speak to

561
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: the culture. We have four main ones. Justin Waller, who's

562
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: a friend of Tate's, a guy called Myron Gaines who's

563
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: sort of an associate of Nick Fuentes. He's probably the

564
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 1: most extreme one we follow. He's a podcaster based in Miami.

565
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: We have a Sneak Expressions part of Freshion Fit Sneak O.

566
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: His real name is Nick Nicholas de Bellanthas, who's an

567
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: extreamer now based in New York. And a UK based

568
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: streamer who goes by hs Tiki Toki real name Harrison Sullivan.

569
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: All of them in different ways illustrating the sales grift

570
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: or the ways in which this new media influencer culture

571
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: is going viral and being streamed by by our kids.

572
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: I should say my kids are somewhat out the other side,

573
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: and they would say, like we never believed Andrew take,

574
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: like we just enjoyed it as we thought it was funny. Yeah, right,

575
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: we like and he's like, Dad, it is funny. You

576
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: got to admit it's funny. This is me being my

577
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: kids now, so it is funny. Like and actually, no,

578
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: I'm really why are you getting triggered? Like, no one

579
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: really thinks that. But truthfully, while a lot of kids

580
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: don't think that, like another of them do. For it

581
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: to be concerning, like I think we give we should

582
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: give our children the credit of knowing most of the

583
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: time how to read irony and and understand that this is,

584
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: you know, much as a comedian on stage might say

585
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: things they don't mean. You know, there's an element of that,

586
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: but that doesn't get you all the way off the hook.

587
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: And and I think the most extreme thing you know

588
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: that I saw probably well filming wasn't even its explicitally ideological,

589
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: like it was a what they call a pred stein,

590
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: which is a moment when they set up a an

591
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: encounter with someone they accuse or believe to be a

592
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: sexual predator on flimsy evidence, I would argue, and then

593
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: as we as we observed from a distance, they basically

594
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 1: beat him up. And that for me, even as a

595
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: documentary maker, you know, it's one thing to sort of

596
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: talk to someone about their beliefs or historic practices, or

597
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: you know, criminals in a prison or whatever. But when

598
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: you're there and seeing a planned what appears to be

599
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: a planned attack and physical violence basically as you know,

600
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: because they're doing it in order to engage people at home,

601
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: you know, on on the platform Kick and they're watching

602
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: their view account go up. You're seeing in real time

603
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 1: a criminal act or what appears to be a criminal act,

604
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: being incentivized by the algorithms of a tech platform.

605
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 3: And think it was one of the most compelling parts

606
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 3: of the documentary was what Ed Matthews or some of

607
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 3: these predators things that they're doing. And as he's justifying

608
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 3: it and you're visibly shaken up a little bit by it,

609
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 3: but they're making the point how the numbers and the algorithms,

610
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 3: everything's dialed up, the rage is dialed up. And then

611
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 3: he claims that he deleted it, only to find out

612
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 3: that they clipped the heck out of it and monitored.

613
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: They've already clipped it. It's already gone virus too late.

614
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: You know. It's much as the same with you know,

615
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: when I talk to Sneako, who's also like, these are

616
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: guys who would say, are women shouldn't be able to vote?

617
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: Women are, in various respects, not the equals of men.

618
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: There's this sort of attempt to roll back it's almost

619
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: generous to call it a nineteenth century but some sort

620
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: of earlier sense of you know, masculinity in a time

621
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: when you know, you know, women should be absolutely either

622
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:54,359
Speaker 1: discouraged from or maybe forbidden from leaving the workplace. And

623
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: these are guys who say, like, well, I'm banned from

624
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 1: most of the platforms. A lot of them are back now.

625
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: He goes back on YouTube, I think, and he's certainly

626
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: on X And by the way, I'm not necessarily even

627
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: arguing that that's I think that's a whole other question about,

628
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: you know how whether banning works or not. But either way,

629
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: even the banned ones, their clips will go viral. And

630
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: you know, we mentioned Nicholas Fuentez, like he's been banned

631
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 1: from more platforms. He's back on X but everyone sees

632
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: his content because it gets clipped up and circulated. So

633
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 1: it's not a straightforward question of oh, we've got to

634
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 1: deep platform these people. And truthfully, you know, it isn't

635
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: really a free speech issue because it's not so much

636
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:42,319
Speaker 1: that everyone you know this idea, well you want to

637
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: ban and censor. Truthfully, what's happening isn't isn't a free

638
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: speech kind of level playing field for for people's views.

639
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: It's an it's an amplification and an incentivization of extremism. Right,

640
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: we are being more or less cajoled, coerced, nagled, orn

641
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: swaggled into watching things that we might not even want

642
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 1: to watch that much by appealing to our kind of

643
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: lowest common denominator, Like you look at your feed and

644
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: it's like, here's something else, here's something else. And without

645
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: being lewde like I sometimes have you made a few

646
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: films about adult film or the adult world. I sometimes

647
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: use the metaphor of pornography, like everything's become kind of

648
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 1: version of pornography, Like it's the is either emotional pornography,

649
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: it's a political pornography, which extremist content is it's looking

650
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,399
Speaker 1: for a quick a sort of a quick hit. What's

651
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: gonna grab you? What are you going to see? The

652
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: thumbnail or that? What are you going to see? That?

653
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: Will be like, Oh, I'm gonna see that because it's

654
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: it's so glaringly strange and appealing it's firing deepest basest

655
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: parts of my brain in my amigdala, and I'm unhelpless.

656
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: You know, they've kind of hacked brains that connected the

657
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: most up to date and sophisticated kinds of media dissemination

658
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: with the most primitive parts of our brains. And and

659
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: that's that's a dangerous that's a dangerous cocktail like that

660
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: doom scrolling. I don't feel good about myself, but I

661
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: can't quite switch off sort of mindset.

662
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 3: When you were interviewing these folks. I mean, you know,

663
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 3: I think the Myron Gains clips were interesting in the

664
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 3: documentary because he was visibly uncomfortable. You're talking to his

665
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 3: girlfriend at the time, and you know, you're getting two

666
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 3: different stories, you know, the folks in front of the

667
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 3: screen and then the folks behind the screen. You know,

668
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 3: to the extent that they ever go offline, but you

669
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 3: almost I mean, the way at least appeared to me

670
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 3: in the documentary is there's there's kind of split personalities.

671
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,399
Speaker 3: These guys are performing, yes, more than anything else.

672
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: It's complicated. Yeah, I think it's I think it's a

673
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: mistake to take it all at face value. One of

674
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 1: the things they said to the team early on was

675
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: you know, there was this conversation about it's about the manisphere,

676
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: but what about you know, how do we reflect the

677
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: kind of the female experience in the film? You know,

678
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: and there are female manisphere influencers who promote, you know,

679
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: bizarrely the same sort of content, saying you know, because

680
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 1: the view that the manusfet view is like women are

681
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:27,240
Speaker 1: basically the expression post like you know that the women

682
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: are just attracted to men of high value and the

683
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: man is only as good as his metric like his income,

684
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: his height, maybe the size of his sexual organ like

685
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: you are literally numbers, and that's how women see you,

686
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:44,959
Speaker 1: like women are their views are women are shallow and

687
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: so it's it's kind of strange and you know, demeaning

688
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: to both the men and the women. But at the

689
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: same time you sort of want to see, well, how

690
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: do we sort of see the way women kind of

691
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: exist alongside these guys. And my was like, we don't really,

692
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: you know, most of the man spirits actually are men,

693
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: and like all men, they exist alongside women. And what

694
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: we'll find is, okay, it's actually a little bit of

695
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: a pack of my own. A professional hack is like

696
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: if you're struggling with figuring out who someone is, you

697
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: see them with their significant other. You know, I've done

698
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: programs about celebrities. I can't get through this guy. I

699
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: often joked, like, if I went to do a program

700
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: about Trump, who knows, maybe it'll happen, I would probably

701
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,399
Speaker 1: spend more time with Milania, you know, or I'd want

702
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: to see them side by side. How do they negotiate

703
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: each other? You know, they say, no man is a

704
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: hero to his valet. That's an old cliche, but in

705
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: the same contest, like no man or woman is a

706
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: hero to their significant other. And and so I just

707
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,399
Speaker 1: had an instinct that when we're with these guys, they're

708
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: going to be performing masculinity, saying like I can have

709
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: any woman I want, and you know, and then the

710
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: girlfriends can be there and they'll be like anyway, nothing,

711
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: you know, or they'll just they'll just they'll kind of

712
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: have to moderate it or something, and or it will

713
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: be that you'll get the sense that the woman is

714
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: not on board with it, or because I've done programs

715
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 1: about pimps too, and you know, pimps are real, like

716
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: it's strange to see, but the women are very often

717
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, deprived of other choices in different respects, rappiling

718
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: with low self esteem. They're damaged, They're in a bad spot.

719
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: So there is a there is a kind of emotional

720
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: and social algebra in which it takes place that kind

721
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: of makes it make sense, you know, albeit in a

722
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: toxic way. Anyway, we're sure enough when we turn up

723
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: with Myron Gaines and he's saying, like, a lot of

724
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: these guys are I believe in one way monogamy. I'm

725
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: not doing the accent right, I'm all over the map.

726
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 1: And he goes, I go, what's that? And they say,

727
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: he says that I think I should be allowed to

728
00:41:56,600 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: basically pursue as many romantic adventures. So I like, but

729
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: my wife, my girlfriend is completely loyal to me, and

730
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: that's the way it should be. And she and then

731
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: it's just as we're talking about it, his girlfriend Angie

732
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: arrives and then I kind of calculatedly, cynically you might say,

733
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: dub him in. I'm like, hey, Angie, Marona's just saying that,

734
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 1: you know, he wants to have multiple wives and you

735
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: are you signed up to that? And you can see

736
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: like she's like she makes this face of like I

737
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, we've talked about that and I'm

738
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 1: not sure. And then, which is not surprising. What's a

739
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: little bit surprising is that he starts backpedaling and saying like, well,

740
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: you know, that's a long way off, and I go, well,

741
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're avoiding he is, and who knows,

742
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: maybe I'll decide I don't want multiple wives, which in

743
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 1: his world is a huge mistep because what you don't

744
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: want to be doing is pandering to the perception of

745
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: female expectation. Right, it's called losing frame. You're supposed to

746
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 1: stick but with you know, it's not negotiable. You've got

747
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: to be it is what it is like that's considered

748
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:09,800
Speaker 1: alpha behavior.

749
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 2: Yep.

750
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: So he was kind of unmasked or at least found

751
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: guilty of non alpha behavior, something I participated in quite freely,

752
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: by the way, but as in the non alphaness. But

753
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: in his world that was a misstep. And so you

754
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 1: see you see him feeling I think, discombobulated, unmasked, humiliated.

755
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,839
Speaker 1: Maybe so it was one of those moments you feel like, Okay,

756
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 1: I think I did my job today.

757
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 2: Do you these folks enduring? Meaning? Are they?

758
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 3: I mean ten years from now. Do you see the

759
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 3: boys sphere turning into the manisphere?

760
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 2: Do you see?

761
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 3: Or is it just just this is a continuation as

762
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 3: you you know, you reflect back, I mean you you know,

763
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:54,760
Speaker 3: pass this prologue in terms of just this has existed

764
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 3: or will continue to exist, but now it's being amplified, weaponized,

765
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 3: the grievance that is our algorithm.

766
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 2: It's just it's finding us.

767
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's a that's a quite it's a

768
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: big one. And that's a very apposite question. I mean,

769
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 1: I purposefully framed the film around the extreme of the manisphere.

770
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: There's a really good article on The New York Times,

771
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: which you can find on the website or on the app,

772
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: which is something along the lines of, like, we're all

773
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:20,879
Speaker 1: in the manisphere, which kind of makes the case that

774
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: we we shouldn't make the mistake of making all masculine

775
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: behavior quote unquote toxic. Like I think it's okay to

776
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: say a lot of the time, but a lot of time,

777
00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: a lot of guys like things that a lot of

778
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: the time a lot of women might not like, or

779
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: that there are interesting divergences that don't hold true universally,

780
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: but which is nevertheless helpful. You know, it shouldn't be

781
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 1: necessarily toxic to say, like most men might prefer this,

782
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: and most women might not prefer, you know, And for

783
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: some reason that's become in some circles. I don't even know,

784
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: like there's a perception that maybe that's controversial. I don't

785
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: even know if it is. But I do know that

786
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 1: a lot of guys, rightly or wrongly, feel judged about

787
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: maybe conforming to certain masculine archetypes. And as a father

788
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: of three boys, as a man myself, like I think,

789
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: you know, you shouldn't feel judged, like if you if

790
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: you participate, whether it's combat sports or you want to

791
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,240
Speaker 1: take your boys to the game or like, that should

792
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: be okay. And and by the way, girls too, and

793
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 1: women too, but you know, we should we shouldn't feel

794
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: we should feel as though we're afraid to endorse or

795
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: behave in ways that in the past, like might be

796
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: associated with masculine masculinity. Uh, where it goes next? I

797
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 1: is a hard one to call, like you were mentioning,

798
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: like are they really like that or is it a performance?

799
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: It's sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Like it's

800
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: definitely not the case they go off stream and say, well,

801
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: let's go to the opera and I'm can't wait to

802
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: read this new book by uh, you know, Joyce, Carol Oats,

803
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like and it gets a

804
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't think of any even example. They're

805
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: not thinkers and readers, you know, they're definitely, but they

806
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: also are in certain respects being distorted, like I sometimes

807
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: say that, you know, the algorithm is a mirror, like

808
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 1: that's been said by Neil Mohan who runs YouTube. But

809
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: actually it's a funhouse mirror. So we are recognizably ourselves,

810
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: but in this sort of distorted and often grotesque way.

811
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: If if you remove the funhouse mirror of the algorithm,

812
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: it would be nice to believe you go back to normal.

813
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you go completely back to normal,

814
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: like I think if you if you drink of that

815
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: sort of content for long enough and intensively enough, I

816
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: do think it has an effect on you. The thing

817
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: I avoided, and this is either dereliction or just the

818
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: kind of filmmaking I do. I avoided trying to show

819
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: what positive masculinity look like like. This is very much

820
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: like a conversation that needs to be had, but not

821
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: one that I necessarily presented in the film, and the

822
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 1: idea of like have we been overly centsorious of certain

823
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: aspects of behavior? Is that could be more indulgent? You know,

824
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: what does a second chance look like in a world

825
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 1: where we're also holding people account to account for their transgressions?

826
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: Like these are all great questions that I think is

827
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: part of a bigger and different conversation, I will say that,

828
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: and also the level to which those disorted kinds of

829
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: thinking percolate downwards, Like how pervasive is that kind of

830
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,720
Speaker 1: toxic behavior? To what extent are kids able to metabolize

831
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 1: and then move on from it? For observing my own kids,

832
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: like I like to think they are well adjusted, and

833
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's true for many of them. I do

834
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: also think that for a lot of these guys, like

835
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: I'm just as interested in the distorting effector that has

836
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: on the influences themselves. And I think there's a kind

837
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: of almost not psychosis exactly, but a kind of existential,

838
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: existential fragmentation or disintegration that can kick in with these dreamers.

839
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: When you're online for that long, it's like a sensory

840
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: deprivation tank, like going You're going out to stream everything's content.

841
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,760
Speaker 1: Your main relationship in the world is not with another

842
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: physical person, it's with the chat, and the chat just

843
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: wants you to get into fights, yeah, or go out,

844
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: or be obnoxious to a woman, or say things that

845
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: are outrageous. And then at certain point it's like, who

846
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,879
Speaker 1: are you so I do all of that? Like there's

847
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: a degree of sympathy I have for those content creators

848
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: and how they come out of the other side of it.

849
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: But luckily it's people like you, Gavin, who've got the

850
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: privilege of figuring out how much of this is legislated for,

851
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 1: like how we put measures in place, like obviously down

852
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: in I think it's in LA where they've had the

853
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: so called Big Tobacco moment with tech and the attempt

854
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: to try and push back or hold to account the

855
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: streaming platforms that have incentivized self sabotaging behavior. But I

856
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:31,760
Speaker 1: don't know what this looks like in terms of policy.

857
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: I do think government. I do think government has a

858
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: role though.

859
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 3: And there's no We've had a lot of interesting conversation

860
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 3: Scott Galloway. Richard Reeves has been focusing on the Institute

861
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 3: of Men and Boys and many many of us are

862
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 3: trying to lead what is positive maskuline. It look like,

863
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 3: how do we address the crisis of our men and

864
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 3: boys and what is it that they're as you suggest

865
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 3: that we you know, I love the start skiing Hutch

866
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 3: and you know six.

867
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 2: Million dollar Man and all your reference It says you're right.

868
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 3: We we all sort of attached to that archetype, but

869
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 3: in a way that you know, didn't necessarily go down

870
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 3: the path. That is the path that briefly I want

871
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 3: to just touch upon, which is you know, there's so

872
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 3: many reveals here about back to misogyny, et cetera, but

873
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 3: also this anti semitic you know, reveal. It seems to

874
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 3: be the one, I mean that connects so many of

875
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 3: the dots. I mean, you can't even get started on

876
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,320
Speaker 3: Nick Fuentes, but you know Sneako's challenges with that, and

877
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 3: you know, I know he's Quan adjacent, but all these

878
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 3: guys there was that was an undercurrent, even Harrison Sullivan

879
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 3: and his relationship with his mother, which you know is

880
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 3: a whole other thing. Their lack of relationship perhaps with

881
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 3: their father, and that was also modestly explored. So there's

882
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 3: so many components, you know, that's I guess, you know,

883
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 3: for follow for the rest of us.

884
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:54,360
Speaker 2: But the anti Semitic thread, is that something that.

885
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I think it's key. I think

886
00:50:57,560 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: it's key. Yes, I think it's key to understanding that.

887
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: And I think there's a couple of things behind it.

888
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: And by the way, thank you for referencing the psychological dimension.

889
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: I do think absent fathers is a common is a

890
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: common thread through a lot of the upbringings that we

891
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:15,920
Speaker 1: see and a lack of parenting and there's a lack

892
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: of positive real role models, which, by the ways, as

893
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: a denis in the prisons in my documentaries and jails

894
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: and high crime areas is a very common thread. Like

895
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: I did a film about Milwaukee about the It's the

896
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: most incarcerated a postcode zip code in the US is

897
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:39,399
Speaker 1: the time anyway was the area of Milwaukee. I thought

898
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: about calling the documentary like the City without Fathers, like,

899
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: which is there were no fathers there, right, like the

900
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,240
Speaker 1: and and and and Actually then you get this cycle

901
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 1: of violence. To the point about anti semitism. Uh, two

902
00:51:54,239 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 1: many things. One is, uh, wherever you find conspiracy theories,

903
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: anti Semitism is usually not far behind. It's kind of

904
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's been phrased in the past that anti

905
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:14,280
Speaker 1: Semitism is the socialism of fools, and this goes back

906
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: at least in the nineteenth century, and in fact further

907
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: like during the pandemic, I read a book about Black

908
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: Death thirteen forty seven to forty nine, or third of

909
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:29,959
Speaker 1: the European population died, and job one when the Black

910
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: Death came to your town seemed to be round up

911
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:38,879
Speaker 1: the Jews and harass or kill them, you know, and

912
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: that was like, well, we don't know if it works,

913
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: but it's worth a try, kind of And I think

914
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:48,720
Speaker 1: that speaks to us in the West having a sadly

915
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: part of our Christian legacy is an anti there's an

916
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: anti Semitic dimension to that. And you know, as as

917
00:52:56,239 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 1: a kind of perennial other like viewed as people who

918
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 1: are in different ways not fully trusted. Uh, it's a

919
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:11,880
Speaker 1: kind of easy sort of go to an attempt to stigmatize, dehumanize,

920
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 1: and you know, an extremists actually arm and hurt. I

921
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: think the other part of it is as a taboo,

922
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: and you know, and rightly so, you know, I think

923
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: bigotry obviously should be a taboo, but taboos are also

924
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: catnet online, So it's kind of the ultimate, you know,

925
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: the fight, they've got it, the final boss of taboos.

926
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: Like when you've when you've kind of explored the boundaries

927
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: with sexual content or they racist or content or fighting

928
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: or sexism, where do you go? Where's where? Where else

929
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: do you go for the ultimate outrage? That's where you

930
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: start indulging in anti Semitic tropes or calling out anti semitism,

931
00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: or rather indulging in anti semitism. So I think it's

932
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 1: a symptom of the outrage economy as well. So yeah,

933
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: it's depressing, and in fact it's the last reveal of

934
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 1: the film in a way. But nevertheless that's where an

935
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:18,440
Speaker 1: attention to economy winds up. And I don't even I

936
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 1: think across the board. I think there's parts of it

937
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: that are real. I think Myron Gaines is genuinely anti Semitic.

938
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 1: I think with Harrison Sullivan, notwithstanding that he clearly says

939
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 1: anti Submitic things, I think it Heeds and Matthews as well.

940
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: It's almost like they say, it's with so much ignorance

941
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 1: that you feel like you don't even really know what

942
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,439
Speaker 1: you're saying. It'll be in the same breath as by

943
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: the way, we've never been to the moon and the

944
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: earth is flat, right, right, But you know, it feels

945
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 1: like either a profound ignorance or a profound need to

946
00:54:56,400 --> 00:55:01,399
Speaker 1: just say something bonkers for them. And then in other

947
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: cases it feels like it's based on it's mixed in

948
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:09,879
Speaker 1: with a really deep uh, I really I deeply felt

949
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: bigotry and and you so the anti Semitism is more

950
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: real in those cases.

951
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 3: Do you feel I mean, after you complete a documentary

952
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 3: like this, I mean, you know, you know, and I

953
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 3: appreciate just the the empathy which you you know, indulge

954
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 3: and you know and and really try to you know,

955
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 3: understand and and and at least how you come across

956
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 3: as not being judgmental in terms of the inquiry. But

957
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:43,360
Speaker 3: after the manners, was this something left you wanting frustrated, hope,

958
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 3: less hopeful, deep more deeply concerned about the trend lines

959
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:52,800
Speaker 3: where we're going? And you know how it's it's multifaceted

960
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 3: with these platforms and you know, Rumble, not just Kick

961
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 3: and others. Not that the platforms themselves are the problem,

962
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 3: but the kind of tent and just the nature of

963
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:07,520
Speaker 3: the brain and the algorithms in the truth trust, we

964
00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 3: haven't even God.

965
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:12,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard, I mean it's hard. It's hard to.

966
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 2: Like.

967
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 1: I often think that my documentaries are informed by a

968
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 1: spirit of optimism and and as much as it's uh,

969
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 1: it's true that I focus on the dark side of life,

970
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: you know, sexual predators or criminals or gang leaders. Very

971
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 1: often it's usually in the context of seeing how their

972
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,800
Speaker 1: past times or their or their you know, the things

973
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,240
Speaker 1: that they're indulged in are informed by a need for community,

974
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:40,760
Speaker 1: a need for meaning and need to be the heroes

975
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: of their lives and or you know, you know there

976
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:45,920
Speaker 1: and there are positive values mixed in with that, like

977
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: and trying to see it in the round in that way.

978
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I do.

979
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 1: Allow for those elements of this world that are humorous.

980
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:01,720
Speaker 1: I know, it sounds weird to make even acknowledge that

981
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: that are creative, disruptive, pre spirited, anarchic, you know, I

982
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,160
Speaker 1: going as a bad of gangster rap by the way,

983
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: which also there's a little bit and wrestling like these

984
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 1: all you know, pro wrestling you take on an are

985
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 1: all of these worlds which involve creativity and self performance

986
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 1: and feudying and outrage. So I do I allow for

987
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 1: those and I recognize those as parts of the like

988
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: we none that we don't want to be the old

989
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: guy who's like kids these days, you know, like you know,

990
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: in my day, we just played with Marvels and Yo

991
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 1: yo's and you know, we went to the game. You know, like,

992
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 1: clearly this is a you know, that needs to provoke

993
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: an outrage. This is there's all of that needs to

994
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: be acknowledged as an evergreen part of the human experience.

995
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:53,480
Speaker 1: I don't know in terms of where the culture gets, Like,

996
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: it's clear. It's also clear that these platforms aren't going anywhere, right,

997
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: we have to live with them. I mean, one possibility

998
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,479
Speaker 1: they just get overtaken by the next AI like things,

999
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:08,080
Speaker 1: it's changing so quickly. It may be that this tsunami

1000
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 1: is just overtaken by the fact there's another even bigger

1001
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,959
Speaker 1: tsunami behind it. The really basic and quotidian thing is that, yes,

1002
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 1: we should discourage our kids from being on phones and

1003
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 1: screens too much. Keep the phones out of the bedroom,

1004
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: talk to your kids, phones out of schools, don't give

1005
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 1: them the phones to their certain age, check what they're watching.

1006
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: If that, you know, I'm not giving my eleven year

1007
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: old phone at he's gonna have a brick phone or

1008
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: a dumb phone. I guess, at least till he's twelve.

1009
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: I don't know thirty forty something. We haven't figured it out.

1010
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: But you know, be present, be a present, be around

1011
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:46,200
Speaker 1: for your kids, all of that stuff. But so I

1012
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: have micro suggestions, but on the macro stuff, I don't

1013
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: have much concrete except to say that if I've seen

1014
00:58:56,240 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: anything in all these years of making work in this

1015
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: kind of world, I struck by the adaptability of humans.

1016
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 1: Are are are are wherewithal in terms of dealing with

1017
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: the impossible, like anything that's come along. And also as

1018
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: a historian, I mentioned I went to Oxford. I'm going

1019
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 1: to mention that again. But you know, we've been through

1020
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 1: so many cataclysms and upheavals. You know, it was probably

1021
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: it was the printing press, or was the Industrial Revolution,

1022
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: It was TV, it was gexter rap going back to

1023
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:28,720
Speaker 1: ninety two, Chelton Heston and Tip of Gore. You know,

1024
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:30,160
Speaker 1: we thought it was the end of the world. And

1025
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:32,640
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to trivialize it, but you know, it

1026
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: was that feeling of like what our kids are listening

1027
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 1: to cop Killer by Iced Tea. Nothing's ever going to

1028
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: be the same again. So I do try and keep

1029
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 1: it in perspective. But I also think it's about policing

1030
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: the content in ways that are modest and achievable, you know,

1031
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,479
Speaker 1: and picking your kids up on things that they say

1032
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: and having conversations with them. I do think that we've

1033
00:59:57,240 --> 00:59:59,439
Speaker 1: I do think that I think the future is right,

1034
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: but that's more of an active faith than an observation

1035
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 1: about reality.

1036
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 2: What's what's the next project?

1037
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: I've got a few things cooking. I mainly do my

1038
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: podcast between my day job. My real job is making documentaries,

1039
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: but to try and be around for my kids, I've

1040
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: started podcasting more and more. Uh, I've got I'm talking

1041
01:00:22,920 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: to Netflix about doing something else. I don't know, it's

1042
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: it's it's a strange situation where your job involved documenting

1043
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 1: like dysfunction, Like it feels like I'm a parasite on

1044
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 1: you know, the apocalyptic trends of humanity, Like I always

1045
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: I shouldn't even say this to the Governor of California,

1046
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 1: but I used to enjoy living in La. I lived

1047
01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:44,919
Speaker 1: in la for three years. I was like, because every

1048
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: day it felt like the world was ending. I mean,

1049
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:50,640
Speaker 1: I'm slightly exaggerating, but you really, like in the winter

1050
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: you get munths slides, and then later in the year

1051
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: you get heat waves, and then you get as far

1052
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,480
Speaker 1: as fires, like we were on a perpetual sense of

1053
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 1: ecological catastrophe, and and and and a city that was

1054
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: kind of in the throes of kind of breaking apart.

1055
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:09,439
Speaker 1: I love l A, Like, I'm not trying to.

1056
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:11,960
Speaker 2: Be rude about the city, but I appreciate.

1057
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the majesty of a city that's, you know,

1058
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: fascinatingly figuring itself out in real time. So there's no

1059
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: shortage of subjects, which is either a good thing or

1060
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: a bad thing, depending on whether you're a documentary maker

1061
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: or the governor of California.