Algo-Rhythm Is A Bad Dancer (with Michael Christmas)

There it is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another phenomenal episode of My Mama Told Me, the podcast where we dive deep, deep into the pockets of black conspiracy theories and we finally work to prove that the p Intaj p Henson stands for boy don't play with me. You know that's what that p is for. You know, Toraj is saying something sassy from start to finishing that goddamn name. And we love you to rise, you big fan. If you ever want to come here and talk some bullshit,

you're welcome this. Sometimes the conspiracies that I spread about people are harmless. I think this is a pretty harmless one. Sometimes, like us people of murder and mayhem, But mostly, you know, you run out and you just make fun of names and ships. Sup. We're hoping that this is gonna be a murder conspiracy that I can believe all days. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint. I guess at least brutality murder

that's actually a pretty good one. Quille O'Neill, for those of you that don't know, did volunteer after his NBA career to become a sheriff and and I guess brutalized the local people in his community. And the possibility that Shaquille O'Neill killed someone seems pretty high. Yeah, for sure, he's seven ft eighteen, there's no question with the gun.

He's RoboCop Bro's. Yeah, he's also not a sheriff anymore. So. It feels like some sort of dishonorable discharged situation, right because they didn't give him like a medal of honor when he retired from it feels like he crushed someone's skull like a great and then they were just like, hey, Shack, you can't come back here no more. Man. He was acting like Batman. Yeah, and Bro, we're big fans of your work, but this ain't gonna work out. You gotta

leave man, you can't knock and take ahead. Well, this is we've really broken the fourth wall here. We we didn't do the intro the way intros are meant to be done, but fuck it, we'll do it live. My guest today, he's phenomenal. He's an amazing musician, talented artist, he's a comedian of sorts. He does all this ship. I love him. Please give it up for my guest, Mr Michael christ Man. I'm drinking what we're talking about.

What a bold way to come back. Hell yeah, I'm I'm so excited you're here because you came with a conspiracy theory that I think I bought into. Like I don't. I don't know that I've done enough research to know for sure. But I saw it and I was like, this guy is saying something. This is this is legit. I've been thinking about it and it's it feels like it has like a level of legitimacy to it. And I won't hold it up. You said, my mama told

me tis secretly trying to make black people bad at dancing. Yes, bro, Yes, I've had this thought for a long time to like this. It's it's really kismet that you happen to have a podcast where you talk about ship like this with no facts if necessary, because I'm like, man, what a perfect platform for me to come and discuss how I feel about this. Yeah, and I should let our our listeners know that you were You were so enthusiastic about it that you hit me up and you were like, dog,

I'm sitting on something, what's up? And I was already thinking about having you as a guest, but then once you hit me with the conspiracy theory, it felt like, oh, we have to do this now immediately. Yes, thank you for allowing me. Yes, TikTok is secretly trying to make trying to make people black people bad at dancing. Bro, I see the signs, So tell me more. Give me the full breakdown of where you discovered the what's making you feel that way. Let's let's really dive in deep here. Okay.

I think what it started this whole thought process was like, I know you've seen them now, The TikTok dances all arms. You know what I'm saying. It's all very stiff boom pop boo. It's like the mediocre cheerleading squad level of dancing. But these dances are becoming so popular that now you're seeing like adults do them because they're popular and you can get fuse off. So now people are incorporating them.

And when you spend so much time doing this little stupid ass move, this move get you get used to it, and then you go outside and then you go to the club and some good ship is playing and you start doing TikTok dances. Now now it's spreading right now all the kids. The kids are on what TikTok? So our children are growing up with no rhythm. It's it's it's just it's a massive wipe out and and it speaks to bigger things. But to start, yes, we're gonna be bad to dancing if you don't get it together.

I like what you're saying because it reminds me of a video I saw and it was probably like a year ago where Jason Derulo I think, was in Vegas and he was performing and he had like an ensemble of bad bitches standing beside him while he performed TikTok dances, and it was a bunch of adults in the crowd being like, is this naked doing TikTok dancers like you do regular dance, Jason bro It's not like Jason Derulo

is a bad dancer. He's a pretty good dancer. He's a fucking loser in a lot of ways, but he's a god. He's a great fighter, and he's a great dancer. He's a winner in a lot of ways too. That's the that part about Jason Derulo. I would love to hate on Jason Derulo, but then Jason Derulo pull up. Yeah, listen, I would not say that to Jason Derulo's face. That

motherfucker is big for no reason. I'm trying to go away, Jameson and the Rulo about to go and well you gotta start doing TikTok dances in public exactly selling my soul and see it. But to that point, it was a a very visceral reaction from the crowd of being like,

this is bad dancing in person. I'm sure whatever it looks like on the internet is a different conversation, but objectively, it looks terrible when you're just standing in front of us, like you said, moving elbows and arms instead of the thing is it's meant for kids. These challenges are for eight year olds to do during spring break when they're at the crib. They're not They're not to be done

by grown people with you know what I'm saying. But they get you so many views that you as a fucking forty year old nurse and like, on my break, I'm about to try to get my TikTok numbers up and then boom, now you're hitting that ship, you know, looking crazy. If somebody's walking by and seeing that, do you think that that this because I I honestly I feel like this question is almost jumping ahead of where we're at. But I'm curious because you're talking about it.

Do you think this is an unbeatable challenge? Not to to make it a pun and ship, but like, is this is this an unbeatable challenge being presented in front of us where we are, no matter what, going to end up becoming bad dancers because of TikTok culture. It's tough to say. On the one hand, yes, you can get hell of views by doing these awful dances. You don't need to do anything else, would do exactly what they did in the other video, and you're just gonna

pick up steam. On the flip side, what it really is is about, like this is stuff we're supposed to know how to do right. All these good dance moves that we do have, the wobble, the electric slide. This is stuff that like I don't remember how I learned it, but I knew it. So partially we have to combat this with teaching people dances because even you see our TikTok, they're jerking now, they're trying to lean with it, rock with and doing our dances from when I was a kid,

and they're not doing them right either. So it's like it's like, raise your kids. You need where where's the Casper slide? Man? We need a part part four, Part five. You gotta save the community. We need the DJs at the basketball birthday parties to come out and to do with the trends. You know what I'm saying. And he's him, he's hitting moves. Bobby Brown used to do dance moves. That's what we need more of. But you know, anybody, everybody's looking at their phones. Nobody wants to. Nobody wants

to use their legs. You got to use your Nobody wants to. All these videos are waste up. They don't even know that you could do ship with your legs because it's all waste s up on it. So, Okay, you're seeing this, you you are, You're recognizing a problem that's happening. Are you now hitting the streets. Are you becoming a prophet of this truth? Are you indifferent to this this sort of like wave that's taking over? Do

you know what I mean? I feel like the Hughey Freeman of this in the sense that nobody else really feels me the way I feel me on this saying like nobody thinks that there's a devastating effect in the future to this. It's just like the kids doing dances, you know what I'm saying, but that adults are doing the dances though, And I don't have a problem with

adults dancing either. The problem is you look silly, and you're gonna make your kids look silly and twenty years and they're like, remember twenty years ago and this was the move. You know, it's just not you know, we whatever to Also, it doesn't matter, And I will say, take that gives a lot of access to other ship I didn't know, like how to put on toilet paper rolls easy and stupid and ship like that. That stuff

is extremely helpful. But yeah, the dancing it's gonna cause it's gonna it's a ripple effect, you know, it's a it's snowball effect. Well, that's that's I think at the core of the question I want to ask you is what do you think the ultimate ripple effect is? If this is full butterfly effect, where are you seeing this little like you know, wing flap ultimately landing the avalanche.

I think part of my big worry is also rooted in the fact that this may also just be a thing that happens to every generation where I'm worried that erasure is about to happen to the things or like washing it or like cornballing the things that I'm used to and the things that I know. And then I realized, like Brome, I just like an old head, is that was actually the issue? Or you know what I'm saying.

And then you started to think, damn. When I was listening to like you know and my parents thought it was whack? Was it whack? And He's like, nah, it wasn't wet, But like, yeah, that's the thing. Is like part of me is like it's a racier and part of me is like I'm overreacting and it's just me getting older and not understanding. Well, that was my fear when I because I immediately, like I said, latched onto

this being a a possible truth. But then another part of me was like, man, you you're the kids dad. You're truly an old man yelling about your blood. If this is where your heart lives, Like maybe they're bad at dancing or maybe they're fucking phenomenal at dancing, and I'll never find out because I'm not doing the arm moves, you know what I mean. Like this might be the hardest arm hard is moves that anybody can do, and I'm truly not I'm so much a coward i won't

even try it. They're not they're not hard, but we can try it if you want. But they're not hard. I can see that they're not hard because I had to learn how to jerk and heel toe and do ship like that stuff that was very difficult to do. And that's all. That's all I want, Just some like the last dance that I think that was created that was cool. It was like the shoot dance that like a black dude that like a black person at the

crib in his neighborhood. You know, I'm saying broke with the homies made that dancing ain't got big And that's a part of it too. It's like the organic ship like these what you know what I'm saying, who's coming up with this? And how's it happening? You know what I'm saying, like pose to Alright, So what I'll say is that, uh, that sideways moonwalk thing that's that's circulating that ship is hard fun with that sadeways moonwalk. I think there are dances out there that I do. Go, okay,

listen to your point. There's a chance that people are still striving to make cool stuff and like add to the culture. The frustrating part of it becomes how much of that is being I guess sort of buried under

a bunch of other sort of like bullshit. Yeah. Well, one thing that made me feel like the official oldest nigga around the other day was like this dance moved the Gritty and the Memphis Grizzlies simply John Muren hit the hole every time they win a game, and somebody put a video but Michael Jackson, I don't remember which Michael Jackson video is, but he's doing that ship all through the village just sucking. It was like, damn, Michael

Jackson was hitting the gritty early. Either he's a time traveler or he invented all the dance moves, and like he invented all the dance moves and he did all of them. If you see if you see it tomorrow and you've never seen it before, you've seen Mike doing still. Yeah, we're just all doing variations of things Mike did. And he was like, I'm not gonna keep doing that. That's not the problem is I'm mad niggas is not doing Michael Jackson stuff. No more like trying to dance like

Michael Jackson. I don't know if you want to end that sentence where you ended that sentence, Nick starn't doing Michael Jackson stuff. I don't know. We all my mama told me, I'm mad Nick is not doing Michael Jackson. What a way to go into a commercial break. I love it. We're gonna take a break. We'll be back with more Michael Christmas and more, my mama told me. And we are back. Yeah, we're back here with more

Michael Christmas more. My mama told me. We're still talking about the possibility that TikTok is destroying the black dances. It's taking dance culture away from our our black youth and really families and and and society as a whole. Do you think that there is, I guess, a way to to introduce the legs to TikTok. Is there a way that we can start to make this more of of a reassessment of what is valuable on these apps?

I think I don't have the research on this, I didn't do any but I feel I feel like there are a lot of black creators on TikTok who, for whatever reasons, are not being pushed to the forefront. That's That's one if I was actually gonna walk up to the doors and be like hey he Aside from that, I think the main issue is the leveling of the dancing playing field. You know what I'm saying. TikTok will have you believe we all can dance at the same level.

This is incorrect. Niggas is dancing. They ask off in other places, but you'll never see it because they're not the cracking this niggas on TikTok. Yeah, so it's interesting that that's that that's your interpretation because it aligns pretty well with a lot of what I read about sort of like what's happening with TikTok. There there are a crazy amount of articles the people who are very angry at TikTok or at least assessing what's happening in TikTok, not just in terms of dance but also music as

a whole. They're real worried about what TikTok is doing to the music industry and to dance culture. Yeah, yeah, and that's the That's the other thing I think, aside from like the old head of Ratio theme is like it is scary to think that, bro. Like like the video of Shorty repping with the bud light that went viral, I don't know. I still I still didn't actually watched the video for real. I just keep seeing it moving all my timeline and being like, I'm about to watch this,

but she knew all the words. It went up because she knew all the words, and like that level of like, that's not impressive. It's not impressive. But then on the other end, I do think we create this dangerous space

where we then go, bitch, that's not impressive. You we shouldn't celebrate this and it's like, yeah, but you're just telling everybody to go watch the motherfucker when you do that exactly exactly, And that's my kind of my point is like the pumping, because you know what I'm saying, TikTok is the I think probably the number one have to get followers and used you follow, you follow the trend and you get followers and views, you know what I'm saying, And everybody can't spend on the goddamn hit

what you're saying everybody, But what everybody and understand I'm saying everybody can do is these whack dances, which gives at playing field the level it needs to put the

hump over people who are actually very talented. And to the original point you were making, which I think is one that a lot of these articles sort of address, is that everybody can do these dances, but TikTok intentionally amplifies the voices and the dances of specific users, so they are why while there are a million people learning to do this ship, only eight people are truly getting like the TikTok bump and saying like, yo, Addison Ray, you are the face of these dances or the face

of these things that are very often not created by the people that TikTok is choosing to amplify. And also on the on the back to the petty side, like I'm sick of hearing really good songs get remixed like five six songs in because of a challenge, like I want to hear DMX do it, God damn it, yeah, kick yeah, yeah, don't let me enjoy the song that it was meant to actually be. Fuck you know what? Really and this I did not think about this until this conversation, but it reminds me a lot of like, uh,

that Harlem shake ship. I was going to say, that's the beginning of this, yeah, of all of this is that that's the first thing where black young people from the hood create something and then it's a phrase. But when you go google Harlem shake, it's not is not gonna come up. None of them boys that were killing it in that video are involved anymore going to come up.

And that's what's happening to like everything, And what bugs me, I think, especially with that one, is that like literally it has nothing to do with the Harlem shake, you know what I mean? Like there is if you were if you were fucking using a bad boy song. If you were like you even using elements of the thing that made the thing, then maybe there's a level of this that I can negotiate with. I don't want to,

but I can hear it out. But it truly was them just being like, we're gonna use the words you like and then make a completely different thing that has

nothing to do with it. Yeah, I'm saying and and it's all you know, my spiraling and the thought process of this brought me to like thinking about damn like people using my god damn vernacular, taking the songs that I love that I grew up with, made by people that's poor because they don't even own the motherfucker's and taking them and enrich off of them because you did

a dance to it in a nice little house. Like you know what I'm saying, these spirrows then get me the star treatment where I'm like, god damn, this is

all a part of the same thing. Well, no, I think that's a hundred percent correct, And frankly, it's something that I I think we've talked about a little bit on the podcast before, but there is now a big push from from young people to say that there is no longer that the way that they speak on the Internet is Internet talk, and it that there is no longer like ebonics or a A V. Whatever you decide to call it, like African American vernacular is gone. It's

just how the Internet speaks. And that's crazy. It's dangerous because those small passes turn into big passes turned into you know what I'm saying, somebody being able to go put on the brownest possible shade of makeup from fucking Serbia and put on curly hair and it's cool. It's cool because this is just style. This isn't braids isn't isn't for anybody people was wearing braids like like, guess

my fucking ass right, you don't need to protective. You know what the you're doing, like you know what to do. And it feels like laughing in my face. And this is why it overall, just be like stop doing this ship because then it starts to spiral and I'm like,

maybe I'm just a crazy nig in the house. No, but I think I look, I'm a crazy nig in the different house because I I hear what you're saying and it feels correct to me that like, while I don't want to be an old man yelling about young people and what they should be doing with like their bodies and dances, at some point we do have to acknowledge there is a danger and just allowing culture to become blanketed where like everybody can access anything at any time,

because part of what makes culture matter is it is a lived experience for people that like they truly are a part of these things, like the fact that that that white girl knows little baby doesn't bug me, but the idea that like, then a bunch of people are giving her some version of like a hood pass because the bitch can wrap little baby. This bich is good

with me wherever. And then you find out, you know when three years ago she said, and then this little nigga on Twitter, and then you're like, oh no, yeah, why did I Why was I okay with this where you loved it when when light like he was a But then it's also like, yo, why do we need I don't need a new teammate. What I'm saying like, I don't. I got all the homies unkned, like I got the homies I need, And for sure, I definitely don't need somebody else coming to eat food at my

fucking cookout. Like, I don't even know why that is the thing, right, Look, we have a very specific amount of food here at this cookout. Dirty dirty hamburgers, thirty how dogs, none of them. It's for you. This bitch gonna come and she's gonna ask for mayonnaise. And now what now? Now where are we? You know, it's stressed me out because I don't want the kids to allow

ship to slide because they think it's cool. Because we live in that world, and that's where the ultimate danger is from, is like the kids being like, no, it's cool, pup. They we all say nigga, Like that was a long time ago. It's like, no, we don't all say nigga. We all say nigga. What I'm saying. Yeah, you talked about this a little bit in the beginning, and I do think that this is a really important detail that

that I don't want us to just skip over. But in the research that I was doing or the reading I was doing, one of the things that they talked about because I wanted to know why do TikTok dances look specifically the way that they do, And like you said, part of it is that the videos are shot vertically, which is the way that they have to show up

for the app to look normal whatever the fun. And so because they're shot vertically and for you to be actually be able to see who the person is, they have to do it from a certain distance, which means that they have to cut off their legs. Often sometimes people figure out ways to do it where they get their whole body in it. Yeah, exactly, but for the most part, off your cell phone, you kind of have to cut off a portion of your body, which is

why they isolate in the arms. And then the other detail that I think is really important, as they say that the reason that the arm movements are so sort of tight into the body is because you have to keep it inside of the frame, so you can't reach your arms all the way out extend them fully, because then they'll be out of the frame and then you don't get to see the entirety of the moves. So it really is like a very strategic structure to say, like, Yo, this is how you can dance and still make it

a well crafted video. Bro. People you just said they put niggas in a box. Oh ship people, you just said, brot niggas in a box. You can't move past these parameters. And now when you're out, you're doing the same dances and you're still not moving past these parameters. WHOA all right, So that's how they get okay, yeah, that's crazy because now we're doing like yeah, fuck all right, that's put niggas in a box. There are sometimes when metaphors ain't metaphors,

do you know what I mean? When they just they're just worried. It's just what happened, because your phone is it's literally what's happening. And somebody's gonna call it a beta because they don't want to process it. But come on, y'all, Michael Christmas just woke you the funk up. If niggers at home just like me, like bro, he's talking bro.

So one of the things that they also talk about, and this this is something you addressed, is that because they do and some of these articles talk about the fact that the dancing is technically not always great, right that like plenty of the people who are stars on these apps are not probably great dancers per se. And one of the things that they said is that TikTok

isn't about talent. Necessarily, TikTok is about enthusiasm and energy, and so one of the things that they're tracking is that the the people who are successful in the app are dressed well. They're giving off a cool vibe and energy, and that is driving people to want to see more of their videos much more than whether or not they can hit the dougie the douggist. You know what I mean. Let me say this you you sort of talked about

this on another episode where you talked about Jay Hoover. Okay, yeah, yeah, TikTok. TikTok is the g men bro. It's just following the it's Abricambie and Fitch bro. It's just like, this is what we want to show, so we could get more this. Yes, And I think to that point when they say energy and they say vibes, they're selecting that energy and vibes

based off of the ship that they like. Yeah, they want a nice crib right like from the sun hitting you because you've got a high apartment saying like that. There's rules to this ship. You can't be in a dark crib and being on TikTok popp and it just won't happen. Right kind of thing, you know what I'm saying, Like while doing dance moves, at least you gotta do something about why your crib is so dark in order

for that ship to catch on. Yeah, and like even you know, like you hear about like, uh, these people who all like all these young sort of like internet people who like buy a place together and they live in these communes trying to to create content and ship and even that is about creating a space that kind of looks like you're staying with Diddy, do you know what I mean? Like they never are like in a fucking like hell hole. All take let's all take our

five thousand dollars and get this fifty thousand dollar house. Yes, but we all just put in our our last five and then we're in here, and then we could come up off of that if we just shoot some videos by the pool every day it's like always in front of some giant uh glass like staircase or whatever. And then you're doing that and now I know you you have resources even though yeah, you got money, you got money,

you you TikTok. We want to follow you and see what else you got going on exactly, Like clearly You're already benefiting from these silly dances, so why would I not continue down the train of enjoying more of yourself. Every time there's a challenge, I want to see you do it. Yes, hold on, I want to see this one like the crazy legs, like like I want to see fucking little Loosely do all the challenges. I don't

want to see everybody do all the damn challenges. I read in one of the uh the articles that I was reading a person and this goes back to to your point about sort of like the taking of culture or the recreation of culture. And a person who I guess is like a TikTok dancer type person that we're talking to talking to name mood Ferris been as a mash. I don't probably fucking his name up bad, but that doesn't matter. One he doesn't mean anything to me. But

he said, and I thought this was really interesting. He said that TikTok is weirdly transforming into a dance genre itself. And I think that that it It has twofold interest to me because we've already sort of addressed the fact that they are creating something that's completely of its own world. But what they also say in the article is that TikTok is still pulling from things that we recognize outside

of its own genre. So it becomes a way of sort of softening everybody else's ship while still claiming, well, this is just something of its it has nothing to do with you. Well, this comes back to one of a dance I mentioned earlier and the point I had daughter before. It's like when Blackboy JB invented to shoot dance. He invented it, whether somebody else did it around him, Block what JB did it and made Vegas do it right.

Fortnite took that dance and put it in their game and didn't ask Block what JB And then that was a Fortnite dance, and whether they paid that nigga after or not, and whether they gave him the credit or not, that dances a Fortnite dance now, and so anything it's like TikTok is almost like a filter or anything that passes through it just becomes TikTok. Yes, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I think that's I think that's the perfect articulation of it. It reminds me, you know, it's

push your t losing to McDonald's. You know what I'm saying, Like, it's it's it's you made the McDonald's song. The McDonald's song technically is yours, but once McDonald's has it, that's the McDonald's song. I guess McDonald's b Yeah, like you sold it to McDonald's. It's like, uh, it's like buying a beat. I'm rapper, right, I buy a beat. They can sell the exclusive rights to that beat for five hundred dollars and then you go make a hit with that ship. But like you sold the exclusive rights for

five hundred dollars. Yeah, that's my it's mine now yea, yeah, that's my million dollar banger. You keep your five hundred dollars and in some ways and that's it's sad and it's fucked up. But then there's another star that you go like, well, when would I expect a major corporation to be like, you know what, we gotta do right by the little black girl that did the renegade dance. We got to make sure that she's taken care of

and fed, because that doesn't service their needs in any way. Right, It's like, um, what the there was a girl who actually was doing a dance she like made it up and then like a small white girl got to do it at the All Star Game. Yeah that I think that was the Renegade ship, right, Okay, yeah, that was

that ship. That was crazy bro. Right, Jimmy Fallon had literally brought Addison Ray onto fucking Uh which we're called the Tonight Show to have her do various TikTok dances, all of which belonged to different black performers and creators and all that ship. It's like the on fleet girl, Bro, This ship happens all the time and then like it

just goes under the radar, Like where's on fleek? That happened a shorty, bro, because that word was applashed on everything in Forever twenty one for like a long time. So like, what how's she doing? Like you know what I'm saying, she should be living like Madam C. J. Walker Off and she fucking won't be. Yeah, you want to know about fleektek. I guess The question I do ask though myself, and I'm gonna ask you, is what would be the appropriate compensation? What would be the appropriate

acknowledgement of these people's contributions? Because the reality is that girl was just talking into her phone. It's not like she sat and crafted a piece from this ship. She was just being a similibilly and hit a moment and that wave went crazy. So like, how do we actually make sure that people are getting what they deserve without overdoing it and being like nobody says this because this my long stud Tanya or whoever the funk she is. Well, I think the the thing to remember is the problem

isn't people saying her word. It's Wendy's tweeting this new fucking chicken sandwich is on fleet. The original thing needs to be acknowledgement, Like whether it's a quick phrase, you know, I'm saying one of my homeboys, my DJ. He is one of the biggest memes in the world. I don't know if you ever seen the meme and the nigger in the yellow hoodie and he's doing this ship looking mad. That's my DJ. But you met him at the shop, Yes, exactly right. Niggas is on Twitter every day. That's Jock Quis,

that's Quevo, that's this person, that's that person. He went and fucking made sure he got that ship and all of that so that he gets paid from that fucking meme. And I think we need to make it clear that you can do that for people, so when you hit a wave, you can jump on it immediately instead of like where the money reside. That Nigga jumped on that wave immediately, and it was his wave, you know, nobody else's. He got paid off it, he went got cool with

celebrities off it. You know what I'm saying. That was his wave. But I think it's not very clear how to do that versus other people can see it and be like, oh, I can make all I gotta do is yeah, I'm gonna take that ship right now, and then they go get big off of it, bigger they monetize it. You never got the chance to even try to.

And I would say this additionally, that's the corny thing that the Internet does, where they go, oh, you should just be grateful that we're celebrating you, or that you're getting the attention that you otherwise wouldn't be getting it, or you offset my life for like six months with this bullshit and then expect me to go back to living a normal life while y'all make a hell of money like that, Having a viral moment like that I've

never had a viral video moment like that. I've had a couple of stupid ass tweets go up and they suck my Twitter up for days. So I can imagine having something as big as on Fleek that's sucking your life up a little bit. Whether it's a good way or a bad way, it's in the way, you know what I'm saying. You have to take a break to deal with that. In some ways, even being made a new whether whether it is like you said, good or bad, you don't get to just go back to the version

of your life that it was. And then that's it's not even like y'all owe me. It's like if somebody's getting paid, then y'all owe me. Yes, if nobody was getting shipped off on Fleek and everybody just used the phrasing, it wouldn't even be an issue. But that's not the case. That became branding for some people. That became fucking commercials for a lot of people, you know what I'm saying. No, I think that's that's a hundred percent true. I think about that all the time with like you know it.

I think it used to be more of a trend and now it's a little more dangerous to pull off. But like when rappers would use like internet ship for like interludes and ship and you have to wonder how many of these people are actually getting compensated for those internet things or is it just you thought it was funny you put it in your interlude and these people just sort of have to be grateful that, like, oh,

they they threw me in there, you know what I mean? Right, Like I'm I'm I'm something on there real quick, you know what I'm saying. Like with me, I've used you know, I've used a million of the motherfucker's I make songs. You know what I'm saying. I want my computer, of course I got. I got a whole album about comedians that I've made about my favorite comedians. Every song starts and ends with some ship I pulled from YouTube, you know, saying like that's just what that is. But there's a

reason for it, you know what I'm saying. And on top of that, I reach out to a lot of these motherfucker's that I try to involve to be like, yo, you want to do a sketch on here or something like I want to miss the hospital to do some ship I've reached out to about to do some ship. You know what I'm saying, Uh, Nick COLLETTI We never used it, but on my second album reached out to Nick COLLETTI had to make a bunch of joke phone

calls for it. Like I find the people, they're there, and they're they're willing to listen, you know what I'm saying, And they're not about to Like I realized a lot of people are willing to work and for like a realistic price or for something real because everybody's bullshitting all day. But I think to that point, it truly is just acknowledge me, dog, you know what I mean, Like like you said, acknowledge that that I made a contribution to

the grander cultural imprint. And if you acknowledge that, and if you compensate that, knowing that you are going to also be compensated, then if you out bag me, I I had fun, you know what I mean? Like I I'm truly not at least and again I can only speak for myself. I'm not terrified of somebody becoming a millionaire off of some ship I said. I'm more terrified of them truly, like pretending as if I don't exist while be exactly there off of my ship because again

it's it's it's not a it's a principal thing. Bro, It's like I'm here, like I did that. You know, I'm saying I did that like so like and so like, you know, I think about Craig Mac. Somebody's gonna make a pup and ask Craig Mac TikTok remix and Craig Mac ain't seeing bred off making his music and how long you know what I'm saying, And it's gonna be huge,

Like that's frustrating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think this, this accountability is something that we are going to have to fight for for other people because it seems like at a certain point, either people don't have the resources or the the Internet doesn't give enough of a funk, like you're talking about Craig Mac, and I can't imagine there's about to be like a big wave of people being like justice for Craig Mac. We Craig Mac made this song. You guys, gotta nobody's gonna give a fuck,

you know what I mean? If we're being truly honest, and is that fair? No? Is it right? No? But that's the reality of where we're at. So like, is that then something where like we as artists are gonna have to step in and be like, yo, I don't want to be a part of this or I'm not gonna do this unless we gotta jumping We gotta jump in on this stuff faster. That's the other thing, is like they need to acknowledge faster, and if they don't, we need to acknowledge the problem faster and as a

bigger unit. Because this is you know, it's small potatoes. Now you said something, it got cracking and somebody else made a meal. You made eight dollars. Yeah, that's trash. But that's again slippery slopan to deal with it. Deal with it, deal with it, deal with it, deal with it. And now you just gotta deal with it. Like you know what I'm saying. It's just like it's it's not cool to race things people have done because it doesn't

matter to you what I'm saying. Yeah, it matters to somebody, and that's that's why we're here in the first nigga g depth matters to me what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm little boys with them big ass church and chains. I love them. Yes, God damn it, flavor in your end. We're gonna take one more break. We'll be back with more Michael Christmas and more, my mama told me. And we are back speak Hell yeah, We're back here with

more Michael Christmas, more, my mama told me. We're still talking about the possibility that TikTok is destroying homes, specifically black homes with ship dances that are making grandma's disappointed in their grandchildren, grandfathers. They lower their heads, they say, I welcome to Menia. Sooner if it's gonna make me forget about this bullshit that I gotta see my grandchild. Do do you think I guess this is going back

to the larger question. Do you feel like this is a feeling that other generations have had to deal with? Like were they looking at the whist and being like that, ain't that ain't dancing? This is this is trash in whatever. I can only point to the post nineties because I was born in ninety four, and everything that came out when I was a kid was an issue to the people older than me. Always jerking was an issue land with a rock with it that was kind of a

silly dance walking out. But at the same time, these dances were all being done way more than like the mats dances of right now slash like progressively, like I think the Soldier Boys when older, older people stopped doing like Okay, well he'll tell I can, He'll tell I can walk it out, I can check a noodle suit, but like hitting a choreograph dance move, which is exactly

the problem now. I also think the part of the problem was that Soldier Boy was the face of the product, and for older people it felt like, all right, what are we what game is this? Now? Do you know what I mean? Like all respective, But but he is not. If you're an older person in that generation, you're not looking at this and being like, now that's a man

I'll take seriously. Yeah no. And luckily I was a kid when Soldier Boy came out, so I got to enjoy every year of Soldier Boys started uninterrupted while just being hated on about older folks that don't get it. But I'm grown now and I funk with the Soldier Boys still, like I think every dance from then it's good, I think, is there's something I'm not about to do. I don't want to do to cup the shuffle like ever again if possible, Like you know what I'm saying.

But otherwise, like and you know what, when I was a kid, I went to camp and I don't know if you've ever heard the song Cotton I Joe. Yeah, I know Cotton I Joe. Do you know the dance? I don't know what anymore, but there was a dance. It was like front step, front step. Yeah, yeah, them

that bullshit. That's that's what TikTok dances look like. Yeah yeah, but but that's what they will also say that you get in those groups and you see motherfucker's doing Cotton I Joe and you're like, goddamn, they look like they're having a good time. They do look like they're having a good time, for sure. The group was ten year olds across the board, but it did look like you were having a good headtime for sure. But again it

goes back to what we were saying. You have to strike a balance right where it's like, I am not at all interested in taking the fun away from anybody, Like I do want every generation to have their ship, have their fun. I'm not I don't want to be the person that stops it at the same time, let's just figure out a way to make your fun not feel like it's destroying valuable like uh, just generations of

of work that we've done. Yeah, and and again, Like the the issue really for me, like this is all an agenda for me to dig a lot deeper into how my things are going away without you know, anybody, anybody's approval from the blacks. You know what I'm saying, Like like, where where is the most depth in the red suit with the curly hair on Chappelle's show to delegate, bro, we need a delegator, we need delegate everybody. Just let's

just slide goddamn Tim McGraw or whoever. Then it was on the song a little Dirk just doing whatever after he just got finished saying Nigga somewhere else like hey, hey, somebody regulates this ship man, And that's what That is the part that I think I often find myself feeling frustrated with because I don't want to find myself blaming black people, right Like I want to be not that dude who's like Nigga's y'all, y'all should have done something.

But it's like Lebron, don't do that. Don't do that, you know what I mean? Like when you did you know, when you do the fucking Harlem shake ship, you're truly just doing it for views and you're not considering the fact that you were a kid. Miami kids is gonna love this, Like, bro, you know what I'm saying, Just throw the move in there at least just to be like, I see it. I see that's the thing. That's what it feels like. It's it feels like as it's always

felt like this as a black person in America. It always felt like when I make contact with another black person that we are thinking the same thing. For the most part, we have the same ideas, we know what it is. And it's starting to feel just less overall,

like we know what it is as a unit. Yes, I don't want to lose I just don't want to lose us all knowing what it is when we get there, No, And I think it got even weirder because then there's that wave that we hit where it became cool to be like, I don't think like other black people think like I'm not trapped in the same you know, Kanye did it, Chance did it where they were like, yeah,

why do we have to be like that. It's like you don't have to be but come on, but come on, but you know what it is because because for one and this isn't to come out here or a chance or anybody in PARTICU dealer. But when you do that, do not get in trouble or do anything else and then expect nigga's to come give you a big old hook b because we're not gonna do it. Bro. Maybe you said you don't eat coligreenes, you don't eat coligreens different and you got it. Show me how different handles

frustrating situations turn around and die. Yeah, we'll make it value. So I guess the last question that sort of has been living in this for me is I wonder and I do think that this is the scary thing with this situation, right is I think that part of the problem that we're facing is that there is too much of everything all the time, and so we were inevitably going to find ourselves getting worse at stuff because we

just have to keep making more stuff. Do what I mean, Like, there's no a for eight it's fucking loose steel Ball trying to stuff the chocolates and I love Lucy. Eventually there's just too much, so you're gonna do a ship job. And so I wonder I'd love to hear your thoughts of like is the truly the only way that black people can get back to being like the true like heroes of dance and culture is for the Internet to

go away and we just have less stuff. No, And I think this goes back to an earlier point of acknowledgement, But this is on the level of the people in control as well as the creators, because we need to acknowledge real talent too, you know what I'm saying it we need to put things on the forefront now because they adhere to the guidelines of what we want our viewers to see, but because they're actually good yeah as well.

And I think that's a problem with that platform, is that it just seems very aimed, like you just see him. Because the thing is like, you can post all the same things across your socials, you will not get more agement then you'll get on TikTok. But it's only if you do it the way TikTok wants you to do it, you know what I'm saying. And so I think just like That's what I mean by by the people who are in control is like, you know, make it fair.

But also like for the people who are not in control, I think we we just need more people to be in Like when I think about my childhood, bro, even if they weren't the best role models, are black folks are in charge for real? You know what I'm saying. They said things and they stuck. You know what I'm saying. We And it's not to say that all these niggas are not good. A lot of my heroes a terrible people growing up and learning, but that's not the point. The point is having a good voice, or a good

few voices to actually look to and learn from. You know what I'm saying, I gotta look. I gotta look at movies where these people who are some of them terrible people, play incredible characters that can teach me things. But there's really people out there, you know what I'm saying, who can teach me those same things. And that's you know, we need those Like niggas could be mad at they should pall all they want, but that heat he to

me a lot. But like, yeah, I think about like Isaiah Washington, where it's like that is a phenomenal fucking actor. He was real good at acting. Yeah, he had a whole bunch of other problematic ship that made his relationship with with a public complicated. But at the at its core, and I think this is the point you're making. At its core, we were celebrating a person for their talents, not just their big personality or like their edginess or

whatever the funk it is. And now, whether we we can control it or not, there are a lot of people that are just existing off of their personality more than an actual skill set. And until we can go back to celebrating skill sets, we're gonna be chasing our tails in this ship. I feel like our last like leader.

And I'm saying because we lost a bunch at one time because of the pandemic, but our last like leader, I feel like it Nipsey hustle as far as like at least the niggas, I like, that's the type of person that I would can that are a leader? Yeah, a lot of my niggas. Because he'll say things that will resonate and make you think about your life and want to change it, you know what I'm saying. And

there's not that many of those anymore. We had a lot more of those when I was a kid, for sure, Like these people that even even if they weren't doing that, like just these larger than life inaccessible personalities. And it's not to say like obviously the internet makes that a lot harder to but also these personalities are a little bit all the same now, you know what I'm saying, all ruded and kind of the same thing. We all do this, we all like this, we all go here,

we all like this ship. That's how we live like this. We just need more standout personalities to take charge in the black community, thinks. And I don't know how we we make that, but I do think at least acknowledging people's skills and their goodness is a is a starting point. But we need more black comedians to be really, really famous yesterday. And that's what I mean is like you

know what I'm saying. You know, eight hunted nigga. Everybody on your list of people on your cast excluding me, is a goddamn generational talent or whatever it is they do. This has been a phenomenal episode and I'm a big fan. You watch your mouth. I know these niggas. When I went to when I found your podcast just because I Google, I looked up Zach Fox and I was like, oh, this is two of my niggas right here. And I'm like, oh, this is good. Then I started looking at the list,

I'm like, oh, I'm a fan of them. I'm afan of them. These niggas need to be bigger. And it's like, it's it's not them, you know what I'm saying. The talents there, the work is there, it's just the world. Yeah, it is very hard to be any version of what your talent is set up to be right that Like, you have to figure out a almost a scam sometimes to make the world see you as a talented person you may already be. And that's the scary part about all of this game. It's like, truly, we're not just

figuring out how to get good at a job. We're then figuring out a way to trick someone into looking at us long enough to go, fuck, he's good at that job. It's like you gotta spend time getting real, real good at some ship. Then you've gotta straight away from that and spend time trying to figure out how to make people watch you do that ship that you're amazing at now Exactly, it's a miserables. That's part of that's part of the hustle. Yeah, that's just life in general.

But I don't want that to happen to people who have like a quick strike opportunity. Some of these people are not aiming their lives towards having a viral moment or having a viral dance, you know what I'm saying. And so when they get it, I want them to keep it, yeah, saying when they get it, I want them to keep it. I always think about, um, the the lady that uh ain't nobody got time for that? That that late bro, what's upwhere her? Well, I'll say this, and this is I think a little bit of a

hopeful ending for for what we've been talking about. Is she was a lady struggling with drugs. She was in a fire and then got went viral, and she capitalized on that moment her teeth fixed and then did fucking commercials for the dentists that fixed her teeth and got paid off the ship. And I don't know if she was able to like to modify it beyond that point, but I do think that even that is a beautiful sort of like, okay, this is correct for what she

offered us. She became a meme that we all enjoyed. If nothing else, let this lady have some new teeth and some money to be able to like move forward however she chooses. Yeah, yeah, that's the new ship. Bro. If you get like, if you have a viral moment, you should give you, like whatever, the two things you need most. I love that, and then you can have it, bro. Then you can put it in the Wendy's commercial, McDonald's whatever, so long, John Silvers, whatever, and they can put it

go ahead. But yeah, fix my back and get me a new bed. You don't need to fix. You don't need to to set me up for life. But if you know I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor, get me a bed frame and help me out. It's like people who go role for like having some fileship at the crib or having a file crib and they throw that ship up on Damn Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy, send that motherfucker check, bro, so they can stop doing that this show anymore. Help them, help them, bro, Like they're sad,

Like I remember I've seen. I think I saw Drew Sky on a five South talking to DC Young fly In. DC Young Flyer was talking about how he didn't have the resources to shoot these big videos that King Bacha was making. He had to just show he had around him, so he was making vines of the cockroaches on his wall to which too, because Drew Ski was like, I remember that he was on VON and he was taking videos of cockroaches on your wall, and I'm like, is

this nigga okay? Like we need to send in and he's like and then that was DC's response was, well, these niggas on Vaughn is making these big production movies in these six seconds. I ain't got a movie studio, I't on cameras for no explosions. So I'm using what I got, you know what I'm saying in here, And

look at him. He's a super He's a goddamn superstar. Now, no, I mean it, it's crazy and like to that point, like I even you know, I'm not a person without resources, but like even just being able to put together a self tape of like yo, I need another person to be to set up a camera. I need somebody to read lines. Maybe it's that same person, but you need a level of like commitment from your community and from

around you to even make that ship happen. So the fact that these dudes we're making full production, three camera productions for internet videos tells you that they were sitting on profit already, or at least sitting on a cushion that to the point that d C was making, he didn't have And unless somebody is gonna come in and be like, yo, I see a potential in him, and I'm gonna make sure he gets correctly compensated for that potential,

he's just gonna be a nigga making roach video Roach videos. Bro. It's like anytime you see somebody do a quick dance move on the tail, but nobody tagged them and they weren't the posted person to post it. They were just caught doing the dance moved. Nike is never my never even know that he went viral. Well, that he changed the world a little bit, you know what I'm saying, Like, that's just crazy. You should be given something for making kids in Wisconsin do your fucking dance move while you

was outside of the projects. That's just what it is, pretty straightforward two things you need. I love that. I think that's the I think that's the thesis, the real big takeaway. We can leave everybody with, Give people two things they need for the great things they need in life, for their contributions, and then do what you will or we're gonna smack you. That's the new ship, bro, we gonna start pulling up and smacking people tough. Do that? Do that dance again real quick? Yeah? All right, I

think we did it. Michael, did you tell the people at home where they can find you what cool ship you have? Yeah? Man, Michael Christmas, my birthday is in like a week. That's like probably my only cool ship. But I'm gonna trying to should happen around it. Um, I got dumb music out of music, Spotify that stuff, Michael Christmas at, Michael Christmas on Instagram, making Christmas on Twitter, and yeah, go enjoy some of that. I've also been

dabbling and stand up. So if you end Boston, specifically on a Wednesday night, you walk into an empty bar and see a stage I might be on. All right, well go watch Michael do stand up. More importantly, go listen to his music. It's fired. Support, support, support and As always, you can follow me at Langston Kerman all of my bullshit. I don't make no music, but yeah,

it's nonsense either way. And uh, you can uh subscribe to the podcast, you can review do the thing I don't know, And if you want to send me your own conspiracy theories or drops, you can send them to my Mama pod at gmail dot com. Okay, that's it. By bit Unclela bears were racist. The Oasto player for oasting money versions of many turkey stuff in I can't tell me about