Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh These are some of our favorite segments
Speaker 1: from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment
Speaker 1: laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is
Speaker 1: the Weekly Zeitgeist. We're thrilled to be joined in our
Speaker 1: third seat by the hilarious, the talented, the brilliant Bridget Time. Hello.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be back again, so excited to
Speaker 1: have you always, Bridget. I saw the dogs again. I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, Bridget, Yes, we're welcome. We always have
Speaker 1: a good time, you know. I feel like the last
Speaker 1: time when we were together, we were just the country
Speaker 1: was about to be in the grips of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like it. Things are wild out here. Man.
Speaker 1: It's already March. It is already March. Birthday months okay,
Speaker 1: March fourteen. Okay, alright, Pie, okay, Pie, that's right, Pie Day,
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein's birthday. Pie Day. Um yeah, did he do
Speaker 1: that on purpose? Yes, make his birthday. He's just that smart.
Speaker 1: Some next level galaxy brand shit. Um Simone Biles also,
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, that's a big day. Damn company. Rianna Brianna,
Speaker 1: it's a place. She wasn't born on my same birthday,
Speaker 1: but she's also a piece I mean TikTok star Oscar Rosenstrom. Wait,
Speaker 1: really your favorite TikTok? Yeah, and your favorite Instagram star
Speaker 1: Bryce Rivera, also Bryce Jones, do good God, hold on
Speaker 1: no royalty, Quincy Jones, Mike Cocaine, Oh so God man,
Speaker 1: Billy Crystal. Has anybody ever ranked the best days, like
Speaker 1: the best birthdays? I mean, obviously Christmas being number one
Speaker 1: for a Lord and Saint Jesus Christ, But otherwise, like
Speaker 1: what what would the top birthdays be? This would have
Speaker 1: to be like top five? Yeah, Einstein, Steph Curry, Simanbile's,
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones, Bridget Todd, I mean, fucking Michael Caine, It's
Speaker 1: got what the until just now that you're saying Michael Caine,
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying Mike Cocaine, which is the
Speaker 1: joke of like, yeah, exactly, got it very late as
Speaker 1: as I want to do I have your do today?
Speaker 1: That's yeah. Yeah, it does feel like I really liked
Speaker 1: that joke from Rachel though, because I feel like that
Speaker 1: is the perfect encapsulation of the pandemic. Boring as ship
Speaker 1: and passing by incredibly rapidly. Uh I can't believe it's
Speaker 1: March already, and yet nothing has happened. And yet everything
Speaker 1: has happened. What is something from your search history that's
Speaker 1: revealing about who you are? Well, real quick, before I forget,
Speaker 1: I just want to say happy birthday to my mom.
Speaker 1: It's it's my mom's birthday. Her name is Penny. Happy birthday,
Speaker 1: Penny Birthday. She's she's thirty nine. Uh So, happy birthday Mom. Okay,
Speaker 1: So my internet searched lately. I mean I've been watching YouTube, um,
Speaker 1: you know, mostly to get through I mean just I mean, well,
Speaker 1: that's not really true, because I watched a ton of
Speaker 1: YouTube before the pandemic, So I guess I just watched
Speaker 1: YouTube to get through life. But um, I've been watching
Speaker 1: a lot of I mean I kind of ran. I
Speaker 1: watched tons of vintage nineteen eighties wrestling, so I searched,
Speaker 1: you know, all the nineteen eighties wrestling, but I've seen
Speaker 1: like quite a bit of it. Um And uh So,
Speaker 1: now I've been back on one of my old favorites,
Speaker 1: which is the jfk assassination. Uh And since it's never
Speaker 1: going to be resolved. It's one of those things you
Speaker 1: can just keep going back to, and it's got great characters,
Speaker 1: and it's got great grainy interviews with people, and you
Speaker 1: can hear all about phone booths and and phone books
Speaker 1: and all kinds of old things that don't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: You can, and you can hear mostly about my favorite guy,
Speaker 1: badge Man. Oh ship, and you okay, because I was
Speaker 1: told that going into this that Jack was some kind
Speaker 1: of okay. When you started saying JFK, Jack started cracking
Speaker 1: his knuckles and rolling his neck. He was about to
Speaker 1: step in the octagon. But what's Badgeman? Okay? Well, technically
Speaker 1: badge Man is not. Really he's not a real thing,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't stop me from watching. Well, no, I'm
Speaker 1: actually given that because that's a deal. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to attack to attack. Oh you never heard of this
Speaker 1: made up thing? I just said, No, it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a real thing that people talk about. But I
Speaker 1: do not believe that that is a man with a
Speaker 1: badge on the grassy knoll. But there was this guy
Speaker 1: who shot film from the other side, not the Zippruter side,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember his name right now. Should have
Speaker 1: had written down. But anyway, his name is like I
Speaker 1: don't know, so he he but he shot film from
Speaker 1: the other side when JFK was being shot, so he
Speaker 1: got the grassy knoll in it, but he was pretty
Speaker 1: far away. So a bunch of like nineties seventies photo
Speaker 1: and largers, you know, like these dudes with like yeah,
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys, guys, a bunch of guys with
Speaker 1: magnifying glasses who were smoking, looked really closely at these
Speaker 1: pictures and found what they think is a man wearing
Speaker 1: a badge finery a gun. Now. The only problem with
Speaker 1: that and I can see, but they have to really
Speaker 1: point it out, and they don't. They're so convinced there's
Speaker 1: a man with a badge shooting a gun that they
Speaker 1: don't even point it out. There's like there he is,
Speaker 1: and you're looking at nothing. And then then fine, they'll superimpose,
Speaker 1: like they're like, all right, if you want proof, here's
Speaker 1: a little superimposed outline of them. Since you're a beginner
Speaker 1: at looking at men firing guns, I guess because right there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Oh, you think it looks
Speaker 1: like a bush? What must be because you think everybody
Speaker 1: firing a gun looks like a bush. Um, that's a
Speaker 1: disorder you have. But I guess if I have to,
Speaker 1: I'll show you the outline of the man there. I
Speaker 1: think it looks like a bush, as in George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: who was in Dallas that day. I have a three
Speaker 1: tramps tattoo, and are the three tramps Nixon, George W.
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, and uh lb J. I'm I
Speaker 1: believe that. I mean, I believe, I really recreationally believe
Speaker 1: a lot of things, you know, recreational recreational belief that
Speaker 1: I actually think the third tramp is a young Bill Paxton.
Speaker 1: A lot of people talk about how strange it was
Speaker 1: that George H. W. Bush was there. Uh Not many
Speaker 1: people realize a like eight year old Bill Paxton was
Speaker 1: just down the street and has been photographed on his
Speaker 1: dad's shoulders. Is that true? Yeah, that's true. George H.
Speaker 1: Will was thrown up, oh Bill Paxton? Oh yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: George H. W. Was there behind the scenes coordinating the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Okay, So Bill Paxton was on George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush's shoulder, That's interesting. So uh and he was full grown.
Speaker 1: That's weird because Bill paxts Okay, full grown Bill Paxton
Speaker 1: was on George H. W. Bush's shoulders inside and overcoat
Speaker 1: and he was one of the tramps. That is interesting.
Speaker 1: So the Three Tramps for people listening to Daily Side Guys,
Speaker 1: they're these three guys that they think we're undercover CIA
Speaker 1: guys or else assassins that were dressed as hoboes like
Speaker 1: train train hoppers and and they you know, so people
Speaker 1: like compare their silhouettes. There's pictures of them. But you know,
Speaker 1: so people think, like Woody Harrelson's father, they think Harrelson's
Speaker 1: father might be one of them because Woody Harrelson's father
Speaker 1: claimed he shot j F. A and he was a
Speaker 1: guy who Yeah, so anyway, it's just good stuff and
Speaker 1: uh and uh, the three Tramps for these guys that
Speaker 1: if you get into it, it's it's pretty fun. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean if if if if let's say, if JFK
Speaker 1: assassination was Woodstock nine, like the three Tramps would be
Speaker 1: like corn. Uh. Yeah, So I'm gonna get a three
Speaker 1: Tramps tattoo. I'm also getting a triple underpass tattoo. And
Speaker 1: the other thing was badge oh badge man. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I kind of think that the funniest thing about Badge
Speaker 1: Man is that his head like he's not proportional. So
Speaker 1: even if he does look like a man with a
Speaker 1: badge on his head would be like yeah, two or
Speaker 1: three ft like three ft tall and his badge and
Speaker 1: maybe like his badge is maybe like like a millimeter big,
Speaker 1: and then shops are like fifteen ft tall. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, when you're looking at crimes, never underestimate
Speaker 1: the fuck I'm forgetting the word now, cold gas study.
Speaker 1: Never underestimate the cold gass uh, never underestimate the mascot community,
Speaker 1: is what I was going to say. Yeah, so Badge
Speaker 1: Man is this guy anyways, you can look him up.
Speaker 1: He's called badge Man and he's not real and um,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of people who talk about him
Speaker 1: endlessly and I like watching it. What is something from
Speaker 1: your search history? So this is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a weird one. But Jack, I think you might feel
Speaker 1: me on this because you are a fellow Whologan. You
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast who Weekly, Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: So they had an episode I think just the other
Speaker 1: day about Lance Bass in space. So if you haven't
Speaker 1: listened yet, I haven't listened for a couple of weeks. Okay,
Speaker 1: the last thing I googled was a picture of Lance
Speaker 1: Bass in space, because do you remember how there was
Speaker 1: a whole thing about how Lance Bass was going to space?
Speaker 1: Lance Bass from uh And the reason why he didn't
Speaker 1: go is because when he was undergoing you know, all
Speaker 1: the tests or procedures or whatever to get him up there,
Speaker 1: he realized he had a medical condition that was fairly
Speaker 1: serious for which he needed surgery. And so in a
Speaker 1: kind of way, that like saved his life. But because
Speaker 1: they had already done the funding and whatnot and the
Speaker 1: calibrations for the weight of going into space, they had
Speaker 1: to they couldn't just not have him go, because I
Speaker 1: guess the weight needs to be very precise. So they
Speaker 1: replaced Lance Bass with a Lance Bass shaped barrel. They
Speaker 1: took up the same amount of weight as actual Lance Bass. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I had to go down a deep after I
Speaker 1: had to pause who weekly and go down a deep
Speaker 1: Google dive finding out more about this Lance Bass shaped barrel.
Speaker 1: Lance Bass is apparently, uh, he's he's a friend of
Speaker 1: the network. A lovely guy has appeared on Will You
Speaker 1: Accept This Rose? And Oh my God, a great come on,
Speaker 1: come on, come on, and yeah, tell us more about
Speaker 1: your like your your journey. There wouldn't be a journey
Speaker 1: to space like the closest thing to that one, like
Speaker 1: where Homer goes to space. You know. It was like
Speaker 1: Lance Bass and they're like, wow cool. The one last
Speaker 1: thing I remember was in local in the local l
Speaker 1: A Valley area. He was causing ways because he was
Speaker 1: in a full he was trying to buy the Brady
Speaker 1: Bunch house. Uh, and then like lost to like h
Speaker 1: G TV or something, and it was a big thing.
Speaker 1: Um and apparently and this is not official, I may
Speaker 1: be telling tales out of school, but uh, Lance Bass
Speaker 1: and our iHeart podcast host Maven one of the Great
Speaker 1: Arden Marine We're supposed to Amazing Race together as a
Speaker 1: duo this past year, but the pandemic push it back.
Speaker 1: Oh my, but hopefully the future like two of the
Speaker 1: Great Arden, Like I want her do literally anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just as long as it involves her interacting with people,
Speaker 1: right right right. And also like she's just gonna tort
Speaker 1: your Lance. I'm interested like when it gets you know,
Speaker 1: because it gets tense sometimes on the Amazing Race, Like
Speaker 1: what happens you know what happens then, because that's what
Speaker 1: that's I feel like I'm the Amazing Race. When it
Speaker 1: was Couples that you were watching a couple, a couple
Speaker 1: spiral into a divorce in real time, it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: they are really on the edge. Yeah, it's like, oh wow, great,
Speaker 1: they're using this across the world game show to reveal
Speaker 1: that they have no communications skills. I was soft approached, Well,
Speaker 1: my wife was soft approached about doing amazing rate the
Speaker 1: Amazing Race because her sister was on Survivor and they
Speaker 1: share a bunch of the same producers. And my wife
Speaker 1: was on Survivor for like the Family Challenge, and the
Speaker 1: producers liked her enough that they were like, hey, what
Speaker 1: about what about this? Uh? And then you showed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah there she was like, I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: we'd make it. Uh. Now she was on medical school. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm not a better reason. I am the least built
Speaker 1: for reality television human being that I can that I
Speaker 1: can imagine. Uh, the internal uh, introverts don't do great
Speaker 1: on reality TV. I'm sure they would have tested me
Speaker 1: right out of there. Yeah. The producers probably would have
Speaker 1: sucked with you to the point that it would have
Speaker 1: been like abuse, yeah, because that's like that's their job.
Speaker 1: It's like if someone's born, it's like all right, we'll
Speaker 1: start fucking with them, so they'll react on camera where
Speaker 1: they would have just like tried to set my wife
Speaker 1: up with somebody else who's just a cool Like what
Speaker 1: do you think Jack Magnus and your wife are hitting
Speaker 1: it off pretty well? There Jack crying in the confessional
Speaker 1: yand Magness Magnus. Uh, I would have to just take
Speaker 1: my hat off to something Magnet Magnus. Yeah, what is
Speaker 1: something for me search history that is revealing about who
Speaker 1: you are, what you're up to? Well, um, I hope
Speaker 1: you guys can relate to this because it will be
Speaker 1: more fun. But my most recent interesting one is c
Speaker 1: k Y Videos. Do you guys remember c k Y
Speaker 1: the DVD somewhere mag Garage right now? Less you Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're working on an episode. Um And in case
Speaker 1: people don't know, I host a podcast called American Hysteria
Speaker 1: covers moral panics, conspiracy theories, urban legends, fantastical thinking, but
Speaker 1: through um a lens of sort of cultural criticism and
Speaker 1: uh sociology and stuff. So not do these things exist,
Speaker 1: but sort of how does our culture produce these and
Speaker 1: then how do they affect the culture? So anyway, the
Speaker 1: way that c K y UM, which were a series
Speaker 1: of skate videos um by the now famous Jackass Crew.
Speaker 1: Um that's the most simple way to put it. But
Speaker 1: we're doing a episode about influencers right now and the
Speaker 1: culture of like branding people essentially um. And immediately I
Speaker 1: was like, what isn't like, what's an earlier influencer, like
Speaker 1: pre Internet, And I was like, Oh, it's sponsored skating.
Speaker 1: And you guys probably remember like how cool it was
Speaker 1: to be a sponsored skater and like the late nineties,
Speaker 1: that was like that was the Twitter verified check mark,
Speaker 1: it was open way more doors, it was the top. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like and you know, there weren't that many
Speaker 1: for a while, and then um, the kind of like
Speaker 1: influencer micro influencer thing happened. And so I've just been
Speaker 1: really diving into the history of marketing skateboarding and the
Speaker 1: idea of like authenticity being so important in branding and
Speaker 1: how there was kind of like back then there was
Speaker 1: nothing as authentic as being just like a fucking skateboarder,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was just middle fingers and weed
Speaker 1: and uh, it was shoes that would hide your weed.
Speaker 1: Just the biggest shoes. It's basically like the platform shoe
Speaker 1: of the masculine world. Platform, Yeah, the pro platform. But
Speaker 1: so that that's kind of revealing about at least what
Speaker 1: I've been doing. And so I've just gotten to go
Speaker 1: back and I was a I was a skater um
Speaker 1: in my day, and just to kind of go back
Speaker 1: and and remember just like pushing, like having someone push
Speaker 1: someone in a shopping cart and launching them into a bush,
Speaker 1: and just like pranks at the mall. And uh, how
Speaker 1: skate culture and prank culture kind of has led us
Speaker 1: to a really different thing. But if you think about
Speaker 1: like the YouTube TikTok houses, like these sponsored skaters were
Speaker 1: just getting like hauled around the country and just being
Speaker 1: showered with cash like ten grand a month and just
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's so similar to these weird
Speaker 1: MC mansions full of tick talkers, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: like their wranglers. Yeah, and that's kind of what it was.
Speaker 1: It was like crankout videos. Crank out like the most incendiary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like, oh my god, the nineties
Speaker 1: were so bad. People cannot imagine. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like I was perfect in so it's just sort
Speaker 1: of like really, it's been just a really fun and
Speaker 1: fascinating dive back into this really um offensive masculine culture
Speaker 1: that kind of is mirrored and like what like Logan
Speaker 1: paul I would say, it's like some kind of a
Speaker 1: continuation of of jackassid and skate pranks. But that's been, uh,
Speaker 1: that's my big fun time lately. It's just watching old
Speaker 1: scate videos. The c k Y video has definitely had
Speaker 1: like a panic in like a Christian Catholic mother set,
Speaker 1: you know, because there was like there's like pentagram iconography
Speaker 1: and some of this stuff and it stood for camp
Speaker 1: kill yourself. Yeah, and like on top of it, it
Speaker 1: was giving every idiot teenager like the idea to break
Speaker 1: their wrists at a local parking lot chopping cart that
Speaker 1: you pushed off a loading dock with no sense of
Speaker 1: what gravity is. Um. So like yeah, I remember people
Speaker 1: be like, oh, like like a c k Ye was
Speaker 1: like oh you have that, like oh that's sick blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But yeah c k Y two K I
Speaker 1: still I still have that ship somewhere, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: was like, yo, Mike Ballelli beats up three dudes in it.
Speaker 1: Outside of seven eleven. In this one, people were like
Speaker 1: what because it almost it was like a you. It
Speaker 1: was like YouTube on a mixtape. You got skated, you
Speaker 1: got skating, you got pranks, maybe some weird toxic masculinity
Speaker 1: in the form of like misogynistic tropes or whatever, like
Speaker 1: dick jokes and fighting engage jokes, jokes, lots of racism
Speaker 1: like stuff that you're like, oh my god, like the
Speaker 1: stuff needs to put on the boards, even like print
Speaker 1: on boards. Was just like, oh yeah, I remember there
Speaker 1: was like a Chico benez deck that was like of
Speaker 1: a like a dude selling like oranges like out an
Speaker 1: off ramp or something out of a shopping cart. And
Speaker 1: I got the sick As deck right now. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just a really different It was a shock. It was
Speaker 1: a really big shock culture time. For sure. Well we
Speaker 1: have that, but it's just transformed a lot. So it
Speaker 1: was named after a band, I guess, and one of
Speaker 1: the drummer for the band was Jesse mar Jarra, who
Speaker 1: is I guess Bam mar Jarre's older brother. So it's
Speaker 1: it also has that like sort of how a scene
Speaker 1: develops in like a small town sort of vibe to it.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly, like Johnny Knoxville's shooting himself in the
Speaker 1: chest point blank range. Like I just watched a video
Speaker 1: of Johnny Knoxville just just shooting himself in the chest
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I didn't know, like this is
Speaker 1: the cheapest bulletproof vest I could find, and she's just like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck? What were we watching? And those guys
Speaker 1: like Johnny Knoxville was already part of that scene like
Speaker 1: from the start, or did he kind of jump on
Speaker 1: it once it I wasn't part of the why he came,
Speaker 1: Like c K was its own thing, and then it
Speaker 1: started got it blended I don't know through, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when I'm I don't know if that's when Spike
Speaker 1: Jones just to marry the two groups together to make Jackass,
Speaker 1: but I know Spike Jones was the next he was
Speaker 1: involved in it. Yeah, And he was like really responsible
Speaker 1: for like weaving in skate culture into like music videos
Speaker 1: like Best Boys and all kinds of like you know, everything.
Speaker 1: He was doing commercials and stuff, just like weaving in
Speaker 1: skateboarding until it became this like really common trend and
Speaker 1: enriched zooms essentially, yea, authenticity is so important and yet
Speaker 1: like they just pulled that in and made it inauthentic
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, I uh Robert Evans on a recent
Speaker 1: episode of Bastards with Jamie Loftus about the Man No
Speaker 1: Sphere and that sort of toxic masculinity sort of like
Speaker 1: the Alpha and now there's a Sigma Mail and all
Speaker 1: that ship. It's a really good episode. But they there's
Speaker 1: a theory they talked about that capitalism is basically a
Speaker 1: really smart um ai that has like basically reached the
Speaker 1: singularity because it just immediately incorporates and like always makes
Speaker 1: the right like move to counter whatever attacks it and
Speaker 1: like incorporates it into into its great or you know
Speaker 1: logic basically, which makes a lot of sense. Well, and
Speaker 1: you know it was, I mean, we'll we have we're
Speaker 1: covering this in our episode coming up. But it's uh
Speaker 1: a lot of influencer marketing. As we know, it was
Speaker 1: actually designed by Freud's nephew, and uh it's very Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys know about him, Edward Burnet's,
Speaker 1: but it's we're going to get into that and it's
Speaker 1: just really Freudian like the way that advertising involved is
Speaker 1: super entwined with psychotherapy, which is just so creepy because
Speaker 1: consumer culture it insists on having unhappy people for it
Speaker 1: to thrive. Like, if you're fully realized and self actualized,
Speaker 1: you might not need to reach for these products to
Speaker 1: be like this constant spend cycle of the advertiser dangling
Speaker 1: the thing and the lifestyle they think you want and say,
Speaker 1: if you buy this, then you could be this. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the other part is like it also benefits,
Speaker 1: you know, this consumer culture capitalism to have as many
Speaker 1: unhappy people as well, because you know, happy people don't
Speaker 1: buy as much crap. Yeah, and then the unhappy people
Speaker 1: create great art that they can then uh incorporate into
Speaker 1: the capitalists uh slipstream. Right. Yeah, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: great system they've designed, uh or that's designed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it certainly works. The loud thing just some people to
Speaker 1: those about Spike Jones, you know that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've heard the Spiegel catalog. He's he isn't he
Speaker 1: comes from this. His name is Sam Spiegel or whatever
Speaker 1: Spiegel um and he changed it to Jones because it
Speaker 1: was like a very very famous mail order catalog that
Speaker 1: was like, you know, huge and like the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: so you know, gotta gotta change the name around so
Speaker 1: they don't know you. You know, you're a rich boy Spike. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I didn't know that. And isn't he with
Speaker 1: Sofia Coppola. It's like, Oh, it's all wonderful. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love he was his character Giovanni Ribisi in Lost
Speaker 1: in Translation is his character. Yeah, but that's interesting that,
Speaker 1: like he's been part of a marketing dynasty because I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I'm gonna have to weave that in. Thanks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a nepotism and marketing the two defining forces of America. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we will be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Uh And what is something you think
Speaker 1: is overrated? Well? This is this goes back to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before. But um, brand activism. Um
Speaker 1: is something I've been thinking about a lot. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of our episode focuses on the Kendall Jenner pepsi
Speaker 1: scandal um that we all remember. I'm sure, um, but
Speaker 1: got me thinking as I'm watching all of this stuff
Speaker 1: unfold on Twitter and for people who don't know. I
Speaker 1: am non binary. UM, I use the then pronouns. And
Speaker 1: so this week has been real fun for me. So
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's like watching, um, watching things
Speaker 1: happen like the potato folks now who are not gendered. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know that that whole thing of like oh well,
Speaker 1: like I mean a lot of people were pissed off
Speaker 1: and thought it was you know, super stupid and everything.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, it's nice, it's nice, you know,
Speaker 1: but for me, it doesn't feel authentic necessarily. And I
Speaker 1: know that uh sixty four this is really important. I
Speaker 1: think six of millennials and this is you know, polls
Speaker 1: are weird, but this is sort of what companies are
Speaker 1: banking on. Is this particular study that says six of
Speaker 1: millennials will buy from brands that their values align right.
Speaker 1: So it's like there's a huge amount of money in
Speaker 1: in being part of movements the way PEPSI tried to
Speaker 1: sort of exploit the Black Lives Matter protests and everything. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think what's so interesting is like I didn't
Speaker 1: ask for the potato heads to not have genders. I mean,
Speaker 1: what they're they're one potatoes too. You can switch their
Speaker 1: parts already, so like you can put you can put
Speaker 1: the high heels on with the little bowl or hat,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But like I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: there was like an outcry from trans and non binary
Speaker 1: people to do away with the genders of the potatoes. Um,
Speaker 1: And yet now all of the hate is like falling
Speaker 1: back on, like as if we demanded this and we're
Speaker 1: being totally unreasonable. So it's this like like they get
Speaker 1: to look good and then we get to like carry
Speaker 1: the brunt as ridiculous as that, maybe from whomever decides
Speaker 1: to think that that's a horrible or ridiculous or you know,
Speaker 1: the left is going too far again thing, But it's
Speaker 1: like the left did did did we demand that? Or
Speaker 1: was that just an opportunity that they saw to market too.
Speaker 1: I think it's just it's open for attacks from the
Speaker 1: right and the you know, the culture war context, because
Speaker 1: if you're progressive and you are actually caring about these things,
Speaker 1: you will say like, oh, that's a little that's regressive
Speaker 1: or that's aggressive to have this thing just sort of
Speaker 1: delineated as a binary or whatever. Considering that progressive people
Speaker 1: say and generally like genders are construct is everybody still
Speaker 1: with me, Okay, so then therefore let's look at these things.
Speaker 1: But I think because they know that to be part
Speaker 1: of like progressive culture, that it's like, of course they
Speaker 1: wanted this because everything is gonna It's like, look, there's
Speaker 1: between like yeah, like talking about things on how to
Speaker 1: move forward and trying to paint someone as like a
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there was someone who had a campaign
Speaker 1: against the potato heads, but I there's certainly larger battles
Speaker 1: for me to pick the pro And also a lot
Speaker 1: of trance people use mr or missus like it's not
Speaker 1: it's such a strange. It's just really and I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously potatoes also don't inherently have genders. I think that
Speaker 1: they're like self whatever, I don't know. Science isn't my thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. But you know, and of course, like
Speaker 1: another important thing is, like I'm speaking for myself, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there's lots of queer, you know, gender nonconforming
Speaker 1: people that think that that's wonderful. And it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's great. But what's great about it is not Hasbro
Speaker 1: or whatever the company is. It's it's the fact that
Speaker 1: they're reflecting back to us, our own culture through an
Speaker 1: unfortunate medium. But nonetheless we can say, okay, like this
Speaker 1: is the direction culture is going, even if it's messy
Speaker 1: and stupid and shitty and embarrassing and launches us into
Speaker 1: like the spotlight. I mean, we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: mumpets and it's kind of you know, it's it's like
Speaker 1: a similar type of thing. But yeah, I think brand
Speaker 1: activism is uh, you know, I mean it's overrated because
Speaker 1: a lot of I think more progressive sort of centrist
Speaker 1: might might see that and think that that's just it's
Speaker 1: just so wonderful, you know, where whereas I'm seeing tweets
Speaker 1: that are just horrible about you know, and then Oreos
Speaker 1: tweets you know, trans people exist, and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you. You know, it's like, Nibisco, what's your policy
Speaker 1: in terms of your employees if they needed life affirming
Speaker 1: gender resignments or do you do you kick in on that?
Speaker 1: That's that's it, you know, and there's no there's no
Speaker 1: paid leave or anything like that. But the oreoke, well here,
Speaker 1: that's the difference that was in Nobiscos saying that that
Speaker 1: was the cookie talking. They're gonna take that up with
Speaker 1: the cookie, and I don't think the cookie has benefits
Speaker 1: or hr so I don't know. I I feel like
Speaker 1: the it's interesting to you the potato head thing on
Speaker 1: a continuing with the pepsi ad, because I feel like
Speaker 1: the pepsi ad was an example of the brand trying
Speaker 1: to appeal to people who have progressive politics and it's
Speaker 1: just like failed miserably because they first of all, it
Speaker 1: was just poor, like horribly handled, but also, uh, it's
Speaker 1: just a more subtle thing to do that, whereas the
Speaker 1: I do wonder like I would love to see a
Speaker 1: marketing material leak like they had with the logo design
Speaker 1: for pepsi where they were just like posed for twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars by people who were just like throwing going
Speaker 1: out how to use photoshop? Yeah, who knew how to
Speaker 1: use photoshop. But I wonder if this is part of
Speaker 1: the calculus at this point, that because the right is
Speaker 1: just so reliable in its outrage and you know exactly
Speaker 1: what is going to happen when you do something that
Speaker 1: is even remotely progressive in any way that the right
Speaker 1: is going there's going to be an outrage that is
Speaker 1: incredibly reliable and that automatically pits you against, so it
Speaker 1: it's like a safer bet to do something that's designed
Speaker 1: to outrage the right and be safe as opposed to
Speaker 1: like trying to do whatever the funk the pepsi ad
Speaker 1: was trying to do. Yeah, I think there's or it's
Speaker 1: like it's just genius troll marketing. It's like watch but
Speaker 1: nobody give a funk about potato Head. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: this thing. It's going to outrage the right. Every news
Speaker 1: outlet's going to cover it and without paying. Now even
Speaker 1: people have heard, well, has Bro's on the right side
Speaker 1: of the woke wars and that's all they had to
Speaker 1: do was just piss off the right. Um, and that's
Speaker 1: that seems That also seems very like a very feasible
Speaker 1: marketing plan to save money on on your ad Bucks
Speaker 1: because you see it done with other stuff too, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, it's normally just like some sensational product they
Speaker 1: used to get blocks to be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: a log that smells like beef, but like this ship
Speaker 1: they can get everywhere, like just past of toy blogs
Speaker 1: or food blogs by making by entering the culture wars
Speaker 1: and be like and we're right and honestly the people
Speaker 1: on the right, they just talk shit. What would I
Speaker 1: still see them drinking Kruig and wearing Nike? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I want I want somebody from the marketing world. Uh,
Speaker 1: if anybody, if any it is like GNG works in
Speaker 1: marketing and knows, like I bet there's a term for this.
Speaker 1: Whatever is like basically right wing troll baking. It's and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be so euphemistic. You'll be like organic societal
Speaker 1: reckon silly Asian strategy. So oh, all right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Q Shaman. He comes and goes, doesn't he do
Speaker 1: as he as he pleases? I mean his mom's like
Speaker 1: main argument was the door was open. Yes, that's it.
Speaker 1: So it got knocked in, right, I mean they how
Speaker 1: is he supposed to know the doors open? They're just
Speaker 1: waiting for him to come. Uh. So he just makes
Speaker 1: these criminals so fucking lazy and pisses me off. The
Speaker 1: door was open, the fuck? That's just because you think
Speaker 1: you can see that ship. Fine, but you've been gassed
Speaker 1: up by society to lead you believe that that is
Speaker 1: a valid defense. So I'll go off. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the affluenza defense, but like just expanded to everyone. It's
Speaker 1: like a Norman Rockwell painting where it's like, oh, my
Speaker 1: child accidentally went into the doctor's office, but it's like
Speaker 1: my baby actually stormed the capital. Sorry about this, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just a bit of Americana for you. So
Speaker 1: he is facing twenty years for his Senate prayer service,
Speaker 1: I think, is how he would describe it. Um and
Speaker 1: CBS is giving him an interview to explain himself. This
Speaker 1: is why Trump's gonna win next time if Trump lives
Speaker 1: for four years. This kind of ship because the media
Speaker 1: is already like, oh well, we can't lose the ratings
Speaker 1: of all the trumpy stuff. Let's take a second to
Speaker 1: humanized face paint screamer really quick. It's so great too
Speaker 1: because of all the Black Lives Matters activists that they
Speaker 1: gave full interviews too over the summer. It's really great.
Speaker 1: I remember when in the midst of it all the
Speaker 1: amount of journalists that were in and amongst the activists
Speaker 1: and protesters asking what it was they were here fighting
Speaker 1: for versus going seven thousand yards away and going I
Speaker 1: think they're throwing fire bombs. Now fuck off anyway, are
Speaker 1: given the same. But see, but I'm saying but these
Speaker 1: are the things too. Back to the other thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of people are seeing, just how fucking lame
Speaker 1: even the media is with ship like that. You like,
Speaker 1: like who the who the funk are y'all anymore? Like
Speaker 1: I don't even like fun all this anyway. So CBS
Speaker 1: this morning running the sick ass interview with Ku Shaman,
Speaker 1: and the clip, you know, starts off being like, you know, fam,
Speaker 1: we think you attacked the nation. And he's just gonna
Speaker 1: go and let you know why this has all just
Speaker 1: been blown out of proportion. Your actions on January six
Speaker 1: were an attack on this country? Do you understand that
Speaker 1: my actions were not an attack on this country? That
Speaker 1: is incorrect, that is inaccurate entirely. How would you describe them?
Speaker 1: My actions personally on January six, my actions on January things,
Speaker 1: How would I describe them? I say a song, and
Speaker 1: that's a part of shamanism. It's about creating positive vibrations
Speaker 1: in a sacred chamber. I also stop people from stealing
Speaker 1: and vandalizing that sacred space the Senate. Okay, I actually
Speaker 1: stop somebody from stealing muffins out of the the brain room.
Speaker 1: I also stop stop the count. If I was a lawyer,
Speaker 1: I would say, we've got thank you. See my client
Speaker 1: as an upstanding gentleman. He's all he does is deal
Speaker 1: in vibrations and is a protector of loose muffins. He
Speaker 1: comes in with with big sovereign citizen energy at first,
Speaker 1: where like he sounds like one of those dudes who's
Speaker 1: like at the court being like, you cannot taste me, sir,
Speaker 1: you cannot be detained against my will. This is against
Speaker 1: the constitution, And then like it's taste and uh pisy himself. Um,
Speaker 1: but then I love the just straight up asking the
Speaker 1: question back to the question or while you kind of
Speaker 1: uh scalford time. Even though you've been in jail, you
Speaker 1: should have been able to prepare for a question of
Speaker 1: how would you describe what you were doing that day?
Speaker 1: I should be like, how would how would I describe?
Speaker 1: Are you talking? I say, let me describe a description. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll put around like eight thirty in the morning. I
Speaker 1: did brush my teeth in the morning. Um, I flosted
Speaker 1: as well, and my breakfast included like a banana, and
Speaker 1: then um I took the I looked at the metro schedule.
Speaker 1: Hold no, I feel like you're how would you describe
Speaker 1: entering the capital violently screaming with a group of other insurrectionists,
Speaker 1: how would I describe? How would I screaming? But you
Speaker 1: know what's funny? Then then CBS lets him get away
Speaker 1: with that ship. Like you like, how would you describe it?
Speaker 1: You act like you're talking to some like political dissident
Speaker 1: somewhere and let's shot your side down, show the footage,
Speaker 1: be like this is what you did. Also, it's that day.
Speaker 1: I remember watching Um, I was watching somebody that was
Speaker 1: streaming on Twitch. They were going to all a bunch
Speaker 1: of the twitch streams from the insurrectionists that were there
Speaker 1: and that, and like after he would came he came
Speaker 1: outside and he was just like high fiving people and
Speaker 1: just having a fun time. And I'm like, this footage exists.
Speaker 1: Like if CBS, like if these like journalists like weren't
Speaker 1: as lazy as they were, they would go and like
Speaker 1: find the real footage of like what these people were
Speaker 1: doing and be like, hey, here's actually a clip of
Speaker 1: you doing that. Here's all of this stuff, like put
Speaker 1: it in his face. These people should have a book
Speaker 1: literally slammed in their fucking face. It's insane that this
Speaker 1: is they're letting this happen. The new new term book stomped,
Speaker 1: where the weight of the legal books just stomp your
Speaker 1: ass out for justice. But you know, this is America,
Speaker 1: so who knows what will happen. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone's like, why would his lawyer let him
Speaker 1: do this before his trial? This ship is so weird,
Speaker 1: and the the lawyers like, we gotta let people see
Speaker 1: this guy, you know what I mean. And you know
Speaker 1: what they did exactly that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: by not pressing him, by not just like rhetorically cornering
Speaker 1: him constantly being like so that's what you thought, Oh, interesting,
Speaker 1: don't just let that ship rock like that. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: a journalist pushed back on the truth, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: find find it right. The muffins steeling is good though,
Speaker 1: because I mean that that is one of the most
Speaker 1: important things to Americans is the prevention of muffin theft,
Speaker 1: So he's aligning himself with that. But yeah, myles, to
Speaker 1: your point, the like, that's just saying, well, America's white
Speaker 1: supremacist country and he is a white person, so we
Speaker 1: will let them see him and that will make them
Speaker 1: like him better. And that's what he's At the very
Speaker 1: end of end of his interview, he said, see me,
Speaker 1: see me. I mean, he's like, I'm not a violent man,
Speaker 1: you know, but this is how this is. This is it, y'all?
Speaker 1: This is it like the we're we have a we
Speaker 1: were held houstage by an improviser from Arizona. Um that's
Speaker 1: right going on, and his mom uh is in there
Speaker 1: saying that he you know, should open he deserves yeah,
Speaker 1: the open door thing, and just that he deserves another chance.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's basically given. Yeah, it's a like
Speaker 1: the his defense could have organized this interview, and all
Speaker 1: that does is arms stupid ass supporters of this guy
Speaker 1: really dumb talking points to then infect their groups with
Speaker 1: being like, well, you know, the door was open and
Speaker 1: it sounded like he was just there and he was
Speaker 1: praying like he wasn't one of the people like beat
Speaker 1: a coppyr and you know what I mean. And this
Speaker 1: is how this ship goes because you just let that
Speaker 1: go uncontested And now for sure have they already even
Speaker 1: like false flagships so much to go just like no,
Speaker 1: they left the door open. They tried to trap us
Speaker 1: with this and this is like part of the great
Speaker 1: awakening and but then like, but then you show him
Speaker 1: clips where the people are like, but it was me,
Speaker 1: I am not anti, I am the one, and like
Speaker 1: you had other people too, like is this whole that
Speaker 1: whole you know, paid at crisis actorship was going on.
Speaker 1: But then they juxtaposed that was so many people like
Speaker 1: I hate the people were trying to say what we
Speaker 1: did that day was but it was the vibes your
Speaker 1: honor defense been used in a federal court before because
Speaker 1: the specific mention of like the vibrations and energy was
Speaker 1: pretty I mean, that's that's that's key to his shamanism,
Speaker 1: right right, right, Yeah, So I'm excited to see what
Speaker 1: crystals he brings into court with him. Um, it's going
Speaker 1: to be interesting to his lawyer. Is a crystal. I
Speaker 1: hope that he wears his suit but also his buffalo
Speaker 1: helmet to the courtroom. He probably will. He's an asshole. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's evidence, I think, oh yeah, yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: could construct construct one. What if he builds up one
Speaker 1: out of his prison toilet? Right? All right? This is
Speaker 1: an article from Wired that I really liked. It's written
Speaker 1: by a guy named cal Newport who just released a
Speaker 1: book called a world with email, and he basically raises
Speaker 1: this overarching point that tech might not be might just
Speaker 1: be making us busier and not actually making us more productive. Right, No,
Speaker 1: I mean it's yeah, it's who the thought for all
Speaker 1: the times we're like yeah, man, because look we all
Speaker 1: see ship and we see a technological advancement, go oh wow,
Speaker 1: that makes that thing so much easier. Actually, thank you technology, um.
Speaker 1: And he just kind of raising this point. It's like
Speaker 1: we have to kind of stop defaulting to being like,
Speaker 1: all tech makes working so much easier and collaborating easier
Speaker 1: and therefore will be more productive when the data does
Speaker 1: not support that at all. He's talking about when the
Speaker 1: PC came out and began being worked or introduced into workplaces,
Speaker 1: people were like, Wow, this thing is great and it's
Speaker 1: making everything easier. But a lot of when they really
Speaker 1: started crunching the numbers as to what was happening, um,
Speaker 1: like in these like major corporations with the introduction of computers,
Speaker 1: they were like, nah, there's there's this kind of a
Speaker 1: disconnect between like what's easy and like what's effective. It
Speaker 1: seems to actually like it sort of rearranges people's time
Speaker 1: in a way that causes more issues like so, for example,
Speaker 1: they did a study like back in the late eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties about these five major corporations that were replacing
Speaker 1: their typing pools, like where people were the type is
Speaker 1: to get you your documents and ship with word processors,
Speaker 1: where people could like type on computers and get that
Speaker 1: ship quote unquote a lot easier or quicker. But they
Speaker 1: found that the typing pool, all their work fell to
Speaker 1: the people whose work they were supporting as a typing pool,
Speaker 1: and then created a need for now more expensive, higher
Speaker 1: paid managers to keep the newly minted typists to keep
Speaker 1: churning out the work. So it really increased staffing costs
Speaker 1: by with not even this not a proportionate increase in
Speaker 1: output or productivity. So now the focus is being put
Speaker 1: on for so for this writer talking about you know,
Speaker 1: slacking email is kind of like this whole new thing
Speaker 1: where you know, this is a quote from him says
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, just based on numerous studies found
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, we were sending and receiving fifty
Speaker 1: emails a day. In two thousand and six, it jumps
Speaker 1: to sixty nine. By two thousand eleven it was ninety Today,
Speaker 1: we send and receive an estimated one hundred twenty six messages,
Speaker 1: checking our inboxes once every six minutes on average. So
Speaker 1: we're basically spending more time just talking about work and
Speaker 1: not having like the uninterrupted hours to do the work. Um,
Speaker 1: so that's why they're like, what we actually need to
Speaker 1: have a reckoning here, because like gmails now even finishing
Speaker 1: our sentences, which seems convenient, but like, is that actually
Speaker 1: gonna make me more efficient? And we'll just give you
Speaker 1: allow you to get to the next email quicker. Right,
Speaker 1: You're you know, constantly distracted. And I think the answer
Speaker 1: to this problem isn't easy. Even as the author of
Speaker 1: the opinion pieces, it's not going to be easy. But
Speaker 1: we have to actually begin to slow down and begin
Speaker 1: to solve this issue because it's it's like this weird.
Speaker 1: This that's the productivity paradoxes. It's called like we don't
Speaker 1: know how much it's actually helping, and points to like
Speaker 1: other industries where they have more of like a project
Speaker 1: like project management protocols where teams spend less time talking
Speaker 1: what they're doing, and it's like check boxes and being
Speaker 1: like these are my tasks I have to get done,
Speaker 1: tic tic tic tic tic, I'm done. I can check
Speaker 1: in when I'm done with my tasks, versus like, hey,
Speaker 1: where's that test? You know, it's just checking in on
Speaker 1: this task and leave people to their own devices to
Speaker 1: just start work uninterrupted. But that only works for specific industries.
Speaker 1: And I think it's this I think opinion piece raises
Speaker 1: like the larger question of how are we going to
Speaker 1: uh ourselves try and solve this problem by taking a
Speaker 1: moment to look at these inefficiencies. Yeah, giving us busy
Speaker 1: work that we can do efficiently while not making our
Speaker 1: overall productivity any higher, and also not giving us like
Speaker 1: any way of any time to think about whether, like
Speaker 1: the overall like philosophical and ethical implications of the work
Speaker 1: we're doing. Like that's that feels like a huge chunk
Speaker 1: of what we're dealing with. Like in a world where
Speaker 1: the problem is that we keep observing the same social
Speaker 1: injustices over and over and over and nobody's ever doing
Speaker 1: anything about them, like that, that feels uh super relevant,
Speaker 1: that we're that weird and like just that I feel
Speaker 1: like this expands to social media too, right, Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the way you talk about too, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of like what the pandemic offered people societally, societally for
Speaker 1: a moment where ships slowed down very quickly, and now
Speaker 1: we had in one year increased class consciousness, increased consciousness
Speaker 1: around white supremacy and things like that that I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I don't think those things are unrelated,
Speaker 1: like because we had the time to think, to see,
Speaker 1: to process versus like I gotta I know that should happen,
Speaker 1: another unarmed person got killed, but I gotta send these emails.
Speaker 1: Oh my boss hitting me up on slack. I gotta
Speaker 1: get like, yeah, where do you find the time to say, Wow,
Speaker 1: how do I solve? Like I'm seeing people who are
Speaker 1: hungry in my neighborhood, Like what am I how? What
Speaker 1: what's going on? How do how do we are there
Speaker 1: things I can put my energy towards. On the flip
Speaker 1: side of that, though, that's probably how Q and NON
Speaker 1: started too. You know, people have this like gap they
Speaker 1: needed to fill, you know, and like like you know,
Speaker 1: soccer moms at home clicking around on the Internet looking
Speaker 1: for something to kind of validate their feelings, you know,
Speaker 1: and then that's when they got startling down these like
Speaker 1: internet rabbit holes and I think that's how that picked
Speaker 1: up so much steam and got mainstream so quickly. So
Speaker 1: I do think there's like a dark side to it
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, I don't think anything is absolutely good
Speaker 1: or bad, but yeah, I think but overall, uh, I
Speaker 1: think we're we would greatly benefit, at least in the
Speaker 1: context of I mean ship. You know, I'm glad people
Speaker 1: woke the funk up even slightly, but at what cost.
Speaker 1: The other thing, though, with our workplaces now, is how
Speaker 1: are we like we have to like kind of think
Speaker 1: about what this whole way of work, like, what our
Speaker 1: whole mode of working is and is. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to do this thing of like everyone is interconnected
Speaker 1: at the exact same time, and we can start firing
Speaker 1: off messages to each other without overloading our own circuits
Speaker 1: and capacity to just do like focused you know work
Speaker 1: whatever jobs are, or even like all these like unnecessary
Speaker 1: zoom meetings about other meetings and like you said, it's
Speaker 1: all just meta think kind of about talking about working
Speaker 1: instead of actually doing something. You have to like talk
Speaker 1: about it first and then kind of agree, and you
Speaker 1: could have just done all that in the first place,
Speaker 1: or had to be like one email instead of a
Speaker 1: our you know, waste of time zoom call. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they talk about even just like how certain activities in
Speaker 1: the beginning with like a computer were more efficient. Book
Speaker 1: just it creates more work, right, So like if you
Speaker 1: if you're like there was a you're running a business.
Speaker 1: Instead of having an accountant update your ledgers that were
Speaker 1: on paper, a business owners like, well, I got quick books,
Speaker 1: Now I got a spreadsheet. Now I can do this
Speaker 1: and do it just a little bit worse than my
Speaker 1: account exactly, which is fine, I get it. It might
Speaker 1: be easier than this paper book that you have to
Speaker 1: like work through. But over like the saying, but practically,
Speaker 1: business owners now just have less time to do the
Speaker 1: other things that might be more important because they're like, well,
Speaker 1: since it's easier, I can take this on. And what
Speaker 1: we're doing is we'll be like, well that's easier, I
Speaker 1: can take that on. I can take it on, and
Speaker 1: then we're really we're becoming more and more unbalanced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the overall issue that like
Speaker 1: will be continuously documenting of just overall like kind of
Speaker 1: broad but invisible social issues that are giving us a
Speaker 1: lot of the issues that we're having right now let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's talk about this McDonald's minimum wage talking point,
Speaker 1: because is there. It's actually kind of an interesting story
Speaker 1: that I think dives into one of the big problems
Speaker 1: of the United States. So AOC brought it up in
Speaker 1: a recent tweet, pointing out that McDonald's workers in Denmark
Speaker 1: make twenty two dollars an hour plus six weeks of
Speaker 1: paid vacation. Uh, but how much is a big mac?
Speaker 1: Six grand? Yeah, so this is a big talking point.
Speaker 1: The for one of the conservative rebuttals is, well, that's
Speaker 1: great because the big mac actually cost five fifteen over there,
Speaker 1: and it's four eight in the U. S um. This
Speaker 1: is based on something the economist does that's like just
Speaker 1: like a silly in phographic. They don't like really take
Speaker 1: it that seriously from two thousand fourteen, and if you
Speaker 1: actually looked at look at the updated data, the big
Speaker 1: mac costs like a dollar more in the US UM.
Speaker 1: So they're big mic drop thing actually is the opposite, Right,
Speaker 1: there's also um they they're pointing out that Denmark doesn't
Speaker 1: have a minimum wage, and so I mean, they're they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are you know making it like making
Speaker 1: that argument that's not AOC wasn't like their minimum wages
Speaker 1: twenty two dollars. She said that that's what they make UM.
Speaker 1: And the reason they're able to do that without a
Speaker 1: federally mandated minimum wage is that they have unions, and
Speaker 1: unions actually work on behalf of the workers. Typically trade
Speaker 1: unions work to keep wages above twenty dollars UM, but
Speaker 1: there's no federal wage. UM. So USA today was like, so,
Speaker 1: uh three pinocchios for AOC um, but uh so American society. Uh,
Speaker 1: fast food employees make an average of eight ninety an hour.
Speaker 1: Half of them rely on some form of public assistance,
Speaker 1: UM and over. And the reason that we don't have
Speaker 1: that as we we just don't have union support um.
Speaker 1: And So the way that this actually came about the
Speaker 1: twenty two dollars McDonald's showed up in Denmark and was like, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna like deal with these unions fucking union um.
Speaker 1: And so the unions went to work. Uh yeah, they
Speaker 1: find out phase they did the funk around part Uh,
Speaker 1: there were strikes, boycott's leaflet campaigns, newspaper coverage, and daily
Speaker 1: demonstrations outside of McDonald's restaurants. UM. Construction workers refused to
Speaker 1: build any new McDonald's brewery workers wouldn't deliver beer because yep,
Speaker 1: beer in McDonald's over there, which is awesome. Uh. And
Speaker 1: Danish graphic artists refused to work on McDonald's advertisements and
Speaker 1: instead made counter advertisements, including one that became iconic of
Speaker 1: a dog taking a piss on the Golden arches. Um.
Speaker 1: And so they eventually like, all right, I guess like
Speaker 1: we'll we'll, we'll do we'll be part of the we'll
Speaker 1: let our employees be part of the union. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's how like that's that's the only way that corporations
Speaker 1: are brought in line with like collectivism their workers. Uh fairly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just I mean, yeah, it's that simple, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like this country has just been on
Speaker 1: a steady path of just taking apart, dismantling unions and
Speaker 1: the ability for you know, collective bargaining and trying to
Speaker 1: advocate advocate for the workers to advocate for themselves collectively
Speaker 1: to get the outcomes that they want, like wages that
Speaker 1: be like I have one job and it's fucking tight. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I have vacation and I can be a parent
Speaker 1: versus you know what we have now, which is saying like,
Speaker 1: hey guys, I get it. You're a franchise e. You
Speaker 1: want to make money like this is the like you can.
Speaker 1: You gotta pay him at least this much and that
Speaker 1: is up to you. Oh yeah, I mean we've got
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton doing, you know, five to nine. So as
Speaker 1: a follow up to her nine to five, just worked
Speaker 1: felve hours a day because that's what you need to
Speaker 1: do to be able to actually live in this country.
Speaker 1: Yac um. It started with the forties right to work
Speaker 1: laws that gave states the power to determine whether workers
Speaker 1: can be required to join a labor union. UH. Then
Speaker 1: McDonald's UH has a has aggressively attempted or has aggressively
Speaker 1: prevented attempts to unionize in the US. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: several workers were fired for trying to unionize. UH. They
Speaker 1: appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, and the National
Speaker 1: Labor Relations Board sided with McDonald's. So the things they
Speaker 1: did to crushing ugonization was using employees as moles and meetings,
Speaker 1: circulating names of possible pro union employees and coaching franchisees
Speaker 1: on how to avoid hiring people who might organize a workplace. Um,
Speaker 1: which is illegal, but it doesn't didn't stop them from
Speaker 1: doing it. Um start start shedding dollars like that paying people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean corporate espionage, like all that ship is real,
Speaker 1: Like that's corporations. The devil works hard. Corporations work harder,
Speaker 1: Like they will find a way to you know, a
Speaker 1: spy to you know, make it so that people don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable taking collective action, yeah, which I think, and
Speaker 1: then so people don't feel comfortable like just in America
Speaker 1: in general, the tone is, we don't want people to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable getting in touch with their power as a collective.
Speaker 1: Now we're so the lack of education around unions and
Speaker 1: like the history of the labor movement in general is
Speaker 1: just I mean, it's it's pathetic how little we're taught
Speaker 1: in school or in any formal formal way about it.
Speaker 1: I think the closest they'll maybe talk about like activision,
Speaker 1: like in other books, will be like the fucking Reddit game,
Speaker 1: stop robin hood fucking crunch, right, and just keep it
Speaker 1: limited to that, like see what happened there? But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's happened any other ways. I mean I
Speaker 1: literally remember being in school and then being like, Eugene
Speaker 1: Debs also ran for president and then he was put
Speaker 1: in jail. But what did you do there? Keep going?
Speaker 1: But but then this other guy one instead, that's fine,
Speaker 1: and that guy just stayed in jail for a long
Speaker 1: time and he was powerful, so he's more interesting. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I was just like remember being like, wait, who
Speaker 1: what happened to that guy? Right? Wait? Is labor day
Speaker 1: like about giving birth or something? I don't get that? Yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Back in back in l A, we call a flavor
Speaker 1: day where you go to thirty one Flavors and get
Speaker 1: any ice cream? Can we rebrand labor Day? Not? I
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable flavor flavor day? Labor Labe? Where's labor labor?
Speaker 1: The fucking mascot for liver? Fucking unions? Socialist flavor flavor?
Speaker 1: I love this. Maybe this is how we reached the kids.
Speaker 1: Did we just create a TikTok carecter? Remember remember Public Enemy?
Speaker 1: That's the world. Remember the two thousand five show Flavor
Speaker 1: of Love? You guys remember Flavor of Love? Right? Who's
Speaker 1: with me? All right? Chris? What is something you think
Speaker 1: is overrated true crime? Which is so funny considering what
Speaker 1: I was just talking about. I listened to so much
Speaker 1: fucking true crime and this is somewhat somewhat serious. Point
Speaker 1: five thousand people have died from this pandemic and nobody cares,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't even think anybody died
Speaker 1: because they didn't see every single dead body in the
Speaker 1: morgue or whatever do they need now to believe people died?
Speaker 1: And I think true crime has to have something to
Speaker 1: do with it. I mean, I hike and listen to
Speaker 1: the most horrendous stories possible, and they don't bother me
Speaker 1: at all because they've replaced Like I listened to them
Speaker 1: the same way I listened to like top forty am
Speaker 1: music when I was growing up. It's just like one
Speaker 1: horrible story after another, and you know, sometimes just skip
Speaker 1: ahead because it's not gruesome enough or whatever whatever. They
Speaker 1: just killed them normal. No oh no, no, I want
Speaker 1: to hear something exotics. I'm trying to have some fun
Speaker 1: for me. I love the juxtaposition of you, Chris going
Speaker 1: on it like a restorative walk through nature and if
Speaker 1: blaring through your skull are just the descriptions of heinous
Speaker 1: crimes and right, But I don't think I'm like because
Speaker 1: it's just it's no. I mean, look, we we we
Speaker 1: work in podcasting. We know firsthand how the genre like
Speaker 1: it performs. People love fucking true crime. And yes, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that's very double ed sword because
Speaker 1: a lot of times you're like, these are real people too,
Speaker 1: and like you know, for some people, like a whole
Speaker 1: show made up, like just focused on like this terrible
Speaker 1: thing that happened in their families kind of fucked up.
Speaker 1: But it's only one person and most people don't know them,
Speaker 1: so let's get down. And then we also see it too,
Speaker 1: and like the shows that we like, like we are,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, I mean, do you do you
Speaker 1: think personally you're desensitized from the amount of true crime
Speaker 1: that you listen to. Well, that's what I'm starting to think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, like, I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: certain segment of the population that thinks like they're not
Speaker 1: gonna die or something like somehow there's some percentage of
Speaker 1: us that aren't going to die, and we're just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that loser who died, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: a loser. Oh what a loser. They ruined the economy
Speaker 1: by dying, or this motherfucker died. Yeah, like like loser
Speaker 1: party foul a sketch on SNL or like a song
Speaker 1: parody that was murder show that was about like, uh.
Speaker 1: It starts off with the girls like husband being like,
Speaker 1: all right, I gotta go out and like do something.
Speaker 1: She's like, all right, I'm just gonna like stay home
Speaker 1: and hang out, and then just like the whole song
Speaker 1: is about her watching just gruesome ass murders. But I
Speaker 1: think I think people, I mean, that's the most of
Speaker 1: entertainment is is now. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys watched that night Stalker documentary, it was really bad.
Speaker 1: Like I'm down for whatever true crime usually and that's
Speaker 1: that was just a terrible documentary. It's basically the interview
Speaker 1: with like did you see it? Just an interview with
Speaker 1: like one policeman like the whole time, and that he's
Speaker 1: not a nice guy and he keeps trying to make
Speaker 1: himself the hero of the story and anyway, it's it's
Speaker 1: just disheartening, weird. It's just narciss He's a narcissist. Just
Speaker 1: narcissists um interviewing other narcissists. But anyway, the point is
Speaker 1: for me is like I think that death is I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about death. I didn't come
Speaker 1: on the show to talk about death, but I do
Speaker 1: think that there's something really weird going on, like not
Speaker 1: just a little weird, not just like, oh man, people
Speaker 1: don't care about five thousand people dead, like it's it's
Speaker 1: truly mind boggling and really really worth investigating because it
Speaker 1: is not normal. It is not normal. A culture that
Speaker 1: lets five people die and just keeps talking about businesses
Speaker 1: opening is a culture that has been completely um brainwashed
Speaker 1: by this this this American idea that like you just
Speaker 1: do business and and then everything else falls into place somehow,
Speaker 1: and and and and and and including like not dying,
Speaker 1: because dying is never discussed. People don't like to talk
Speaker 1: about it at all, even though everyone does it and
Speaker 1: it's one of the best I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the two main things that happens to you in the world.
Speaker 1: You get born and then you die, and to not
Speaker 1: ever address it is so lame. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: it's just playing late. Our culture is so late. It's
Speaker 1: just like what we're gonna do TikTok videos and then
Speaker 1: just like one day, you turn off and all your
Speaker 1: relatives are like, well, I guess she's a loser. Like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we thought she was cool. I used to
Speaker 1: like those videos she made, but then she died, so
Speaker 1: I guess she was weak or not a good capitalist
Speaker 1: or something. I've never thought about it like that, but
Speaker 1: being born and dying are definitely top two things that
Speaker 1: happened to you. And like it says I was going
Speaker 1: to say the gravestones of like modern anyway, I can't
Speaker 1: do TikTok's anymore. TikTok's went downhill, That's what it says
Speaker 1: on the grave. The Uh yeah, I mean I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this before, but the Weimar Republic, like right before the
Speaker 1: rise of Nazism, was massively into true crime and like
Speaker 1: kind of invented the idea of a true crime obsession.
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't think you're totally off that
Speaker 1: there's like some connection between the sickness of a culture
Speaker 1: and its obsession with true crime. Like death. Yeah, death
Speaker 1: is not like you know, death isn't ideally death would
Speaker 1: not be violent. It's not supposed to be entertainment. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand I love true crime, So I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just noticing in myself that if you
Speaker 1: listen to enough Gore, it just starts to feel like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, death just somehow becomes more abstract and
Speaker 1: more like a piece of entertainment or something that's other.
Speaker 1: I can't quite put my finger on it, but all
Speaker 1: I know is death should be this awesome thing where
Speaker 1: you possibly turn into who knows, like a fucking star
Speaker 1: or something. I mean Caspers. Yeah, and you're out the
Speaker 1: universe just going like that's all you do. Like you're
Speaker 1: just a star with like a big spe and they
Speaker 1: don't know because they can't hear way out there of
Speaker 1: the hell. Yeah, and you're like I used to be crime.
Speaker 1: Now I'm a star. Yeah, and now I'm like and
Speaker 1: I'm nude this but I mean yeah, Like you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the research around true crime, and like
Speaker 1: especially I remember, like SVU, a lot of people like
Speaker 1: why are women so into s VU more than men?
Speaker 1: And like these really dark tales of crime, and like
Speaker 1: some level is like that people like to It's like
Speaker 1: about survival is what they found. Like some people want
Speaker 1: to hear about it because in some way they feel
Speaker 1: like it can arm them against something befalling them in
Speaker 1: some way, like on some level, but also like to
Speaker 1: your point about our mortality, like I think if you're
Speaker 1: also in denial about it, you may be more interested
Speaker 1: in preventing it visa v. Listening to true crime and
Speaker 1: it like sort of really begins to like obscure this
Speaker 1: relationship to death because I think, especially in the West,
Speaker 1: it's like a very it's a we we we look
Speaker 1: at it very strangely, like it's like, oh, this person
Speaker 1: died and now all of us too are hurting or whatever.
Speaker 1: But we seldom is it like you know in Eastern cultures,
Speaker 1: where it's like more like oh, yeah, like it's just
Speaker 1: our physical we're just transitioning from physical to non physical.
Speaker 1: But like fear of it, I think, yeah, drive so
Speaker 1: much other exciting. Yeah, death doesn't have to mean it's
Speaker 1: not just like the end of being able to buy shoes.
Speaker 1: That's why is a big part of it. But Americans
Speaker 1: look at like, wow, when I'm dead, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to ever be able to shop online? Right, almost such
Speaker 1: a lame way to look at it. And then they're
Speaker 1: gonna end up being stars. And because they weren't thinking
Speaker 1: about death correctly, they're not gonna get to yell anything.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna be a star nude hanging there and
Speaker 1: right next to them. Should have embraced death. I had
Speaker 1: a healthy attitude about death and you have to listen
Speaker 1: to it. But um, that's ridiculous. So the I like that.
Speaker 1: I think you just invented a new concept of the
Speaker 1: afterlife that I think a lot of people could get behind.
Speaker 1: I would like to be able to say or, I
Speaker 1: know that's right. I know that you kind of need
Speaker 1: a cool star near you so you can say that
Speaker 1: after they say something cool. I know that's right, after
Speaker 1: they say anything. I know that's right works after anything.
Speaker 1: Best thing about it? Hot enough for you? That's right?
Speaker 1: You say that again? Oh did you not hear me?
Speaker 1: Is it too hot? All right? That's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, Please like and review the show.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, Uh means the world to Miles.
Speaker 1: He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a
Speaker 1: great weekend and I will talk to him Monday. By Hi,