Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist.
Uh.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Daniel, we are thrilled to be joined. It's been enough of our bullshit chit chat. Let's get down to it. We're thrilled to be joined by one of our favorite guests here on the Daily zeit Geist, a talented writer, host, actress. Welcome back to this show, the brilliant and talented Danny Fernando.
Yes, the edd bles. I fuck with edibles, man, that's my Yeah. So I want to general I think a lot of people want to general high. The thing that I don't understand is how people can get high and then right to write when you're I want to take a bath and go to bed, like I need like a red bull to write. I need the opposite.
I think we there are certain people for whom you know, you know, there's the thing with like add medication. For people who don't need it, it affects them like speed, and for people who do need it, it actually calms them. Down, Like, I think there's a similar thing that happens with weed. Like I know people who used to like need to get high before class to like do as well as they possibly could. I just think that there's it totally affects people in different ways. For me, it gave me
a panic attack and I just kept going. I just kept being like, Nah, I want to be cool. I'm going to keep giving myself a panic attack. But yeah, writing well high, I the times that I tried that was non productive.
I will say I'm similarly unproductive when it comes to being high.
I can.
I can smoke weed and play ultimate Frisbee And that's about as far as hilarious mind was acting active activity plus weed can get. Other than that, it's on the couch watching Succession or something. Yeah, Succession seems stressful to me, honestly. You know, I did a couple episodes Super Blazed, and I had to like watch them again because I was like, I think I missed a whole business transaction worms.
Who's this old guy again? I'm told to off how much of the linga, the business lingo are we supposed to understand? Because I feel like they throw a bunch in there that's probably like a reference to something they've worked out in the writer's room, but like they're not counting on us knowing what the fuck they're talking about. I feel like it excites.
It's the same thing with like all of their La slash Hollywood references. Like I just I know that it excites the groups that it excites. And I wrote on a similar show that had like a big business aspect, and we we had like a business uh someone that that's their job that went through all of the scripts to kind of make it sound like we actually knew what the fuck we were talking about.
Business consultant. Yeah, business consultant. There you go, Wow, Sorry, I am high. So I mean usually business consultant is the most general job that you can possibly tell someone you do, Like that consultant. That must be the number one job that CIA agents tell people they do because they know it will immediately turn people's brain off. But also kind of true, you know, McKenzie, it's like mackenzie, but not yeah, because I also kill people exactly. What is something from your search history?
Okay, I recently googled Claire's ring watch because I had one as a youth. If you're not sure what a Claire's ring watch is. Let me tell you. So, Claire's the store in the mall that has like, you know, jewelry and accessories for like tweens mostly, but I think and sometimes I still go in there and I find
something I like. But this was like the store that I would frequent on any mall trip as a tween and teen, just you know, regularly, and I had at one point, so mood rings were really popular for a while. Maybe they are still or again, I don't know, I'm not I still don't quite understand gen Z fashion, and I'm like, that was something I wore in high school and you're doing it again.
Okay.
So there was this ring that you could buy that was like it was just a miniature watch, like if you picture like a Cassio style watch in your head. It was like that. And then it was a ring besides, yes, so you would wear it on your finger and so it was like very bulky and like not a great ring, but it like was a functional watch, so you could
like tell the time on your little ring watch. And then the one I had had a little like the like the face of the watch had an alien on it because this was back when like alien imagery was very popular. I want to say, so the nineteen ninety seven ninety eight.
Kind of thing files.
Yeah, yeah, and then the and then the alien would change colors depending on my mood. And it was so accurate.
Oh my god, it's like the Swiss Army Life of trends oft.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was, you know, like psychologically analyzing me. It was telling you the time. It was making me so my you know, my just fingers look so cool, like yeah, multijid.
You ever put on your middle finger and be like, hey, could you tell me what time it is to someone you were mad at?
Oh? That that's a good you could do that kind of.
Yeah. I am looking at the pictures. They are I don't know what I expected, but they're bulkier. You certainly can't get away with wearing multiple on the same man. No, maybe not. They are massive. They're also shockingly priced at like what one from Etsy is thirteen dollars and ninety cents. Yeah, there's another one you can get for three dollars and fifty nine cents. This seems like a marvel of technology to me, doing.
I know and giving them away?
Yeah, what is happening?
I don't remember exactly why I googled it in the first place. I think I was just like talking to friends and I was like, remember those things that we had, and then I googled it to see if you could still buy them, and I honestly might get one, even though I don't wear any finger rings.
Yeah, I mean, absolutely, go off. I have to mention. I have to mention. At the same time, despite the despite the widely available nature, of course, a company like Fossil had to take advantage and sells a one hundred dollar version as well, which seems was like.
What that I trust that more than a five dollars version. For some reason, my inner down capitalist is like, well it must work better because I where'd all that money go.
I certainly don't blame you for the trust element, but just in terms of the actual electronics needed to make this happen to the mechanics, one hundred dollars seems a little.
Steep, I think, especially if you can find one for three dollars else.
Yeah, exactly. Claire's the Claire's website claies dot com sells it for a five pound There we go, So I don't think you have it's not available in the US, so shipping is going to be a real bitch on that one. But that's a it's a good look. I did not encounter it. It was after my time. Apparently. I was there for mood rings, and I remember mood rings being a thing. My parents were like that shit again because I think it was like popular when they were kids. Also, it's funny, Yeah.
You were going into Claires all the time. It's just that they hadn't did they sessions yet?
It was early Claires, you know, it wasn't there. Weren't there more jelly bracelets and.
Of course just other and getting your ears pierced.
Well, telling my mom I was going to get my ears pierced, and then running out crying because I was just scared. Now, what is something you think is overrated?
The trailer for.
The idol came out yesterday and I'm just like, I don't know. It's just like Sam Leatherston man, like, Okay, I love Euphoria. I think there's obviously some issues with Euphoria, especially Barbie Frere's character. I love Kat and so it breaks my heart that she's not going to be in the new season. But I totally get why because she wasn't getting good stuff and just hearing all the horror stories from like their set, and just.
Like how like what was supposed to be like this.
Really kind of feminist story kind of turned into like torture porn and like anti feminist stuff. So you know, like I'm gonna I'm gonna say, like a light overrated is Sam Levinson? So yeah, I'm like, I'm the creator of that show along with others. He took over as the director, but I did.
Yeah.
I was just like, all of these shows on HBO are getting canceled, so many like POC stories, so many things taken off streaming, and then I think this was reshot for like millions and millions of dollars, and I'm just like, oh, so he just gets a free pass to do whatever, but then let's cancel this Chronicles.
Yeah, but it's crazy show too.
It's really good.
They didn't give it any kind of chance, and it's the show that before the Discovery merger happened with Warner Brothers, they almost certainly would have been like, let's give it another season and see if you can find of Spookies doesn't have a huge audience, but it's very impact audience people who do show up, and it's yeah, to your point, like, you know, we've heard a lot of former black and brown executives who were let go at Warner Brothers, you know,
have let us know, like there's an agenda out here to get rid of us at this company, which is not surprising because they're doing a ton of downsizing and then you see where they're spending their millions. It's confusing because after they dropped that little scene with the Weekend and Johnny Depp's daughter, I was like, is this is this this is what we're doing?
Is it this right here?
Wasn't it like so filled with like really graphic depictions of like sexual assault and violence that they had to cut shit out to be like.
A lot of like people on the crew were like, this set is like a whole lot to be on. And it's just like, you know, like what this story once was has now disintegrated into like, you know, someone okay with being like abused and assaulted for like the music is the understanding that I have? And yeah, I was watching I saw that trailer and I was just like, yeah, I don't know, like maybe maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I was just like, dude, like that girl is being exposed left right, center, right.
Right right? What what's something you think is underrated?
So I had originally like minding your own business because I'm seeing a lot of drama. But then at the same time, I kind of enjoyed the drama, so I'm like, uh, is it really but yeah, okay, so what wait?
So it is minding your business?
Yeah, I will go with them now, but at the same time, minding your business but enjoying it from the outside.
How about that?
Okay, so yeah, lurking lurking.
Is under lurking.
Yeah, oh god, that makes me sound.
Then you're not inserting.
Well, I mean, but that's like an Internet term when you like, you look at websites, but you don't engage in the conversation. You're just lurking.
Like on that is That is my Twitter persona, That is my social media persona.
I will say, okay, yeah, yeah, so lurkers of the world unite. You know, sometimes you just want to watch people fight and you're.
Like, yes, but stay in your corner, stay in your.
Yeah, yeah, you don't have to be part of it.
I like to post that neighborhood watch thing that's the only thing I post on any social media platform. But I just put it up there to let people know they're always under my watchful eye.
Right.
I accidentally got is one of the admin just because my neighborhood didn't have a page.
I didn't know this.
So you like, if you don't have a page, if you get two or three people to come on, and then because you're one of the first people, you become an admin for it. So I did not that that was the worst way for me to be on the neighborhood next door.
Page in the world. You're a mother your neighborhood.
I didn't mean to ignore it now, but like I would get notifications and be like, do you accept this post? I was like, this is the worst. They have too much time on their hands.
Right, They're like they're scared of a Pride flag and they're going to call the police on the flag, not the homeowner. This flag got. I don't know what it's up to. What do you guys think I need your input? Wait, when you say the neighborhood watched, which one do you mean Jack the weird eye or the dude in like the trench code.
Who has like the mass in the trench code who has like this one? Yeah, he has a fedora on, a very angular fedora.
Yeah, what what is the like? Who is like where did this come from?
That?
We're like, look out for this guy the man in Yeah, right, is he a ham and did you have a trench code on?
I mean he has very.
Angular clothing on.
I don't know if he's very very angular. His eyes stopped like his face stops right below his eyes, I think, and he I've actually got a spec script that I'm working on or the National Neighborhood Watch logo Shared Universe Cinematic.
Oh wait, there was that movie that they had to take down because of well the shootings, but didn't was it seth Rogan? Didn't they try to do like a comedic movie. Yeah, Neighborhood Watch.
Yeah, it was called Neighborhood and then they changed it to Watch or the Watch.
Yeah, and they had to postpone it because of all the ship that went down.
So that movie comes up a lot because it's one of super producer Ana Josier's favorite comedic Russian nesting dolls. For the first time, each one comes out and his mind just blown by each successive Russian nesting doll. He's just just like, I can't get over the concept. Yeah. So that was a movie called Neighborhood Watch and then it came out as The Watch. Yeah, someone actually watched it and has some moments, has its moments, which is
all I look for in a comedy. Give me one scene, give me sticks in my brain, and I'm yours bar.
Oh yeah, very low bar, the lowest of bars. We're just like I had that one?
Did you like for me?
I'm like, I only know that scene because it was just shown to me an isolation, right, I was like, and that's what I was like, Oh I know that part. I don't know what the fucking movie is about that. So I was like, oh, the Vince Von Rushing nestingal movie. But I didn't realize there was any controversy attached to the Yeah, I mean our great Maga Laureate Vince.
Yeah, it was around the Trayvon thing because it oh shah fucking yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, well I think it also has like an alien plot line.
Why not, as all of them shouldn't.
Don't limit yourself with your ideas, please put some extraterrestrials. Always spices things up, all right, let's.
Take a quick break, we'll come back, we'll talk some news, we'll get into it. We'll be right back, all.
Right, and we're back.
And and so there's some reporting going around about like Ron Desanta's big donors are starting to worry. They're starting to like kind of check their watch and stir about anxiously because it feels like he's the polling wasn't good when it came out, and it's getting worse because he's just like not doing anything. He's like he's doing what I do in a fistfight, which is play dead. It seems like he's just sitting there and talking about so
trying to change to the subject. Have you ever tried to when someone's fighting, you try to change the subjects? That's fuck you up? Man.
What do you think the chances are of Arsenal winning a Premier League title this year?
It's been a few years? Like what?
Shut up?
By the way, you know what's going to happen with this American news, right, I'm going to ask basic ask questions an Indians, please, and you will feel like I feel when I meet Americans and they ask me questions about India.
That's what's going to happen.
And I think that's really I think that's why you're a perfect guest, because you know, someone of your materials about looking at the sort of the absurdities of your society, your culture, and we can't pick a more absurd one than in the United States right now in the year of twenty twenty three.
But I feel like you guys are hard on yourselves. Everybody's going through something or the other. But okay, So to make it basic, Ron DeSantis is the guy who's gonna maybe take Donald Trump's place.
Potentially it would be the it would be the presidential candidate who could run against Joe Biden in twenty twenty four, assuming Joe Biden is also the candidate for the Democratic Party and still.
And knows that it's twenty twenty four.
Yes, exactly, right, Oh, he doesn't know it's twenty twenty three, So that we were beyond that as a requirement that man takes it's nineteen sixty seven and he's cruising in a vet. Yeah exactly.
And if this man is as charismatic as Trump.
No he's he's not. So he is. We've been talking about this for a while because he's been like the great hope of the mainstream media and the people who were you know, who wanted Jed Bush or Jeb Bush before Trump, like you know, they were the people who discounted Trump, who were Republicans, like this is their hope. They're like, all right, enough with the Trump silliness, we
have this other great candidate. We're gonna move on. And it's just like twenty sixteen all over again, or twenty fifteen, I guess the Republican primaries where it's just like, oh wait, nobody wants to vote for this motherfucker, right, yeah.
And then that's that's the test that Republicans have, right, because if you're a Republican, now you're really being asked the question you'll vote is it based on actual ideology or just on fandom? You know, because maybe you voted for Trump for fandom. But now if ron De Santis comes in, like that's the actual test of how much you believe in your ideology.
So yeah, but unfortunately, like it's gonna it's basically like Marvel, like it's the MCU.
Now it's all about fandoms. There's nothing about policy.
It's like, oh, this guy's kind of like fanos almost and he's going to own the Libs with how powerful and like, you know, how regressive he is. But yeah, like with rond de Santis, he's really trying to differentiate himself by trying to run to the right of Donald Trump, which is what worries some of these donors because Ronda Santis has been very enthusiastic about how he's just gonna
just completely kneecap abortion in Florida. The state legislature they just passed a bill that would ban abortion after six six weeks when most people don't even know they're pregnant, and DeSantis is like, I'm signing that shit. Okay, watch this because I'm actually about overturning Roe v.
Wade.
Okay, And again he's trying to court this very hyper conservative audience going into the primary, but a lot of people who are just onlookers are just sort of saying this, like abortion thing with conservatives. It is one of the
most consistently losing messages in recent memory. Like it's it's been lost after loss with these candidates who like evoke their like I'm anti choice, and most people with you know, value body autonomy or like yeah, and know that I'm going to move on from that, which is.
Most people like that. Most people do value the body autonomy, and that's why it's such a political loser.
Yeah, I don't even think it's you know, sometimes when i'm when I see regressive policies just sort of worldwide. You know, something I tell myself is everybody who's upset at you is going to be dead in ten years.
Whenever I'm in trouble, right right.
I feel like, you know, like on your last day of work, that's when you take a ship in your boss's office and walk up, right. Of course, I feel for this generation of politicians and leaders, they've just figured out this is their last day at work.
Yeah, and they're taking yeah, you know, in the bosses, except they are the boss, and they're taking a ship in each of our cubicles.
As they go out, they're not going to be around the smellt right.
Right, That's an important part of it.
And like, meanwhile, too, this is kind of like Republicans across the country are really doubling down on the abortion issue with like the worst possible takes. Like last week we brought up Tim Scott, who's running for president. He evoked like he's been evoking replacement theory as a reason to end abortion, which is something we've also seen in Nebraska.
We also got another really healthy helping of the racist, anti semitic trope from State Senator Steve Erdman, who looks like the kind of guy that has never spoken to a woman outside of giving a directive. But I just want to say, like, we'll just play his his fear mongering around this is this is the problem when we give people body autonomy.
Oh, yeah, we have killed two thousand babies since abortion became legal.
Just so you know, he means two hundred thousand. He meant to edit that, but he's going to keep saying two thousand because he doesn't he doesn't even have this monologue memorized.
Okay, right, those are two thousand people in the state of Nebraska that could be working and filling some of those positions, and we have vacancy.
They're not here instead, Who's our state.
Population has not grown except by those foreigners who have moved here or refugees who been placed here.
Why is that?
It's because we've killed two hundred thousand people. These are people we've killed.
So there's that's that's phase one of that take of it was like, yeah, so, you know, I hate to say it, but it's these brown people that are moving in that are replacing the little white babies that I'm talking about in Nebraska. But again, he's just he's relying on this very racist trope that we've seen from Charlottesville and many other places when you hear like they will not replace us type of shit.
Is that what you think the abortion thing is driven by, is that we need to have enough of a white population going out there.
Is that what you think it is.
I think it's one of the things they're trying. I think, you know, like that that's one of the arguments they're testing out. I think a lot of it is about wanting to control women and not like having a patriarchal society that is like down to bodily autonomy.
But it is it is something that like very wealthy industrialists like talk about in private about this idea of like are there enough babies and us are there enough white babies? And what does that mean to the racial makeup of the country?
So or is there enough revenue for this big industry that is babies?
Yes?
Right?
Yeah?
Do we have enough customers in general?
Yeah?
But yeah, it is. It's something too.
That Again, what by evoking or invoking the replacement theory, you perk the ears up of like ethno nationalists, white supremacists, and also evangelicals who are like, oh yeah, good abortion and yes, more white people. I like that too because I fear a brown America. And so yeah, that's that's that's one take. His colleague John Lowe decided he was
going to use for his rhetorical attack. He was going to read from a spooky book of ghost stories to really bring the point home about how abortion is just so very bad. Here's him again, be careful is a very spooky ghost story he's about to tell.
With a brand new baby in a womb, marrying her new baby in her womb, she approaches Elizabeth, and John is in Elizabeth's womb, and the Holy Spirit is communicated in some miraculous, incredible way from the womb of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ himself to the womb of Elizabeth, John the Baptist and John leapt And that is why abortion is clearly evil.
Boom laugh track, they're laughing, yeo.
And that is why abortion is clearly evil.
Yeah, you needed another bite of that punchline.
Yeah, so he said that is wow. I mean, see somebody behind him the camera like it's it's worth looking at it because they're somebody behind him, Like I don't know if they're from the media, but they just like when they realize what he's doing, they just like.
They put the phone out face.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's like when he's like, wait, hold on, what he's like texting is white. He's like, you're not gonna leave what this fucking guy just said?
Yeah, I would have paid somebody five thousand dollars to just scream Jesus is brown.
By the way, Yeah, exactly. Are you sure about that? Are you sure you want to be sure about that? You want to tell no seriously?
And again, I mean, but hey, you hear that libs, two ladies touched bellies and the one lady's ghost baby made the other baby move, so check made asshole's abortion is evil? Like, huh, really.
Think about your your ideological battle in America that I find hilarious as a liberal my sure right and somebody.
Who's quite left it.
Why would you have so much loathing for people who already have so much self loathing like this? Nobody hates on themselves more than the average liberally, we're just like a part of anxiety and self loathing.
Like we're hating ourselves enough for all of you.
You don't need to do.
It, No, truly, it's it's I mean again, this is like, this is this is your brain on anti choice rhetoric, folks, you know the people you know, the like left to make a compelling case in some of these state houses have the charisma of an evil high school principle from
an eighties movie. And I think while most people are thinking, why the fuck are they doing this when it's clear they've been losing election after election and like once where they thought they were going to change this like state Supreme Court in Wisconsin, like over this issue, Like we have to realize that people are getting right now in primary mode and they just want to make their case to the base first, even if it alienates I don't know,
seventy percent of the country when they hear it. And the overall strategy, especially in Rohnda Santis's case, as this one political science professor Jack Bitney puts it is he is betting on disaster. That is really what's going on too.
Like the reason they're they're still stoking this fire is because they are hoping for some kind of terrible recession or foreign policy blunder disaster to help swing the focus off of the you know, you know, regression or the restricting of body at tanymir you know, our own reproductive rights.
Yeah, do you also feel like maybe you know, you need some fire to stoke right at the end of the day in a in a politically charged year. And maybe the problem or the development of America as you look at it, is that you're not able to stoke a religious fire for whatever reason, because because you've kind of moved beyond that right and in many countries in the world, that's the basis of an election is basic religious polarization, this religion against that religion, and you don't
get to do that anymore. So really all you have is abortion and guns, which kind of feel similar to religions in modern America.
That's a fantastic point. And yeah, I mean the way that we do, like look at it quite literally probably worship gun culture and things like that. It is the way and the way it's evoked too. You know, like people even say that, you know, Jesus even is sanctioning weapons. I don't know if you know this in a very charitable interpretation for their own means.
But again, like even when they think.
Of like let's hope there's COVID twenty three or something that is going to completely change the conversation, I mean, you know, abortion is a fundamental right and so one that probably becomes even more important if there's economic uncertainty.
Like even if they're praying for a recession, I think people even be more concerned with, Oh, if with my financial outlook being a certain way, it's probably even more important to me to be able to decide when I'm having a family or I don't think people are like or the idea that you know, if they have this take of like Joe Biden is going to make America look weak to our enemies. I don't think suddenly your
concerns about body autonomy go out the window. So it's a very it's just it's just this weird issue that they they keep holding on to. But it makes more sense if you consider that's like I think they're just hoping another issue comes up because they don't they'd rather make an election be like, look at how bad Joe Biden messed up the economy than them having to defend here's why we believe you shouldn't have any reproductive rights.
Yeah, I mean I do get nervous every time the Republicans are banking on a disaster because they have a way of like you know the story of Nixon and Kissinger prolonging the Vietnam War, Like they Nixon was running for president against Johnson's vice president, Johnson was about to like have a peace treaty, and they actively like went to Vietnam and sabotaged the peace treaty more like it's actually not gonna be a good deal. We'll get you
a better deal and we're gonna win. Like is one of the most profound acts of evil that I feel like probably got a little memory hold because it didn't come out until like decades after. I think it was like the sort of shit that like people at the time were like Nixon so evil, who probably did that? But like he did do that, he did that shit right. Well, like they they will sabotage, they will cause the death of tens of thousands of Americans in order to get power.
So anytime the Republicans are like betting on disaster. I'm always a little bit worried, especially when it ties to the economy, which is a complex system driven by Republicans, a bunch of rich people who are Republicans that like and.
They could be the Arana in default too, you know what I mean. Through the obstruction.
I think also if you consider that, especially elections, that I have a friend who's a politician, and he says, you know, the big mistake that people make is you think that people take a long time to make a decision about who they vote for. But if you're a politician, you understand that you have twenty seconds of a person's time. It's a second decision, and that any sort of big
election issue that really warrants introspection is a complex, nuanced issue. Right, so what did Biden do to the economy, etcetera, etcetera. You got to go into that. But the reason they keep repeating the greatest hits because the greatest hits represent the minimum amount of words. It's literally grammar in election community low taxes, pro guns, pro choice. You know, they're
just very easy to drive decisions. And so it's kind of disheartening to think about these gigantic issues just being boiled down to economy of words for communication, for reaching people. But economy of words gives you your father's reach. So it's actually a lot more simple than we think it is.
Right and most like, Yeah, the term like thought killing cliche is also the other thing that's used. It's like, now, just once you hear that, it'll end any kind of further thought. Once you hear a certain talking.
Less immigrants, more guns, lower taxes, you just understand. And so you have to keep the greatest hits.
In their current form. So you have to keep talking about emotion, save.
Babies despite Yeah, and it's like so funny too, because like even after the last election, Republicans are like, we lost, we got to do something about getting more suburban women, and.
Then we got it. We got it.
Spooky ghost stories about how baby Jesus got John the Baptist to kick his mommy's tummy, gave him a.
Forced ghost high five through his mother's belly and they did a flip. Yeah.
Yeah, and that's why you shouldn't make be able to have any decision making ability of your own body.
Okay, both for us, Well, we have a new segment on this show. It's called Woke alerts because no, it's just a like some political action committee. Consumers Research is providing woke alerts to notify you when your favorite company get goes to woke. I mean it's I feel like we're seeing it with like the bud Light thing.
I like that they said to alert out for black Rock. Yeah yeah really woke Wall Street. Yeah yeah, they always charge that woke Wall Street. But I mean this seems like, to be honest, it's easy to make fun of. It seems like a winning strategy to me because corporations are like very skittish, and you can control what a corporation thinks is happening with a mailing campaign or you know, getting twenty people to just send a bunch of angry emails to a corporate you know, like they're they're not
they they're not like they don't have morals. They all they have is like they're doing their best to see what they think is making people happy, and everyone is afraid of being fired.
And line go up. If line go up, then we're good. Make sure the line goes up, though, please.
It's Consumer's Research is basically a lobbying firm under the guise of a consumer watchdog it's funded by dark money. They recently made the news for their effort to prevent Wall Street from factor and climate change into investment decisions, and it's they're just like launching a huge campaign to anything environmental social progress. They're going to be there to
claim that it is woke. But like some of the stuff seems like confusing, Like it seems like they're like they freaked out when the American airlines like reduced leg room on flights, which, wait, that's woke. I guess that's woke They're they're claiming there.
I mean, do they even define what woke is?
No?
Do we can anyone define what is?
No? Nobody can. There's an author who just published a book about like how woke brain disease is killing our children and went on a TV show and they were like, so just define woke for us, because this is confusing to talk about this without having a clear definition. And she had no clue.
She was just like, well, see what you just you just wrote a book about it. It's the hold ax. You let me find that clip because it's it's pretty fantastic. Oh here we go.
Would you mind the finding? Well, because it's come up a couple of times, and I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that this is going to be one of those moments that goes viral. I mean, well, is something that's very hard to define, and we've spent an entire chapter defining it. It is sort of the understanding that we need to rett totally re imagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Sorry, it's hard to explain in a fifteen second SoundBite.
Okay, Okay, I get it, I get it.
I get it.
Just again, thought killing clichs for them too?
Oh, woke bad? That's bad. American airlines woke bad. Yeah that a better answer. Oh yeah, wok is bad.
Is it really an election stance like anti wo because I remember seeing a couple of candidates that you guys had were like I'm going to get rid of the walk, etcetera.
And yeah, like, okay, I went.
To college in Gailsburg, Illinois, and so this is this is America, America, right. It's not New York America. It's not and every bit of American pop culture I've ever seen tends to ship on the Gailsburg, Illinois in the middle of the countries, you know, as if they're ignorant.
Or is it?
But these are just very hard working, very decent people. We want to pay their bills and watch The Bachelor and go to bed at night, right and and and I think if even if they were Republican, you went up to them and you're like, I'm anti woke, they'd be like, what the.
Fuck are you talking about?
You know, get the fuck off my farm or get the fuck out of my cafeteria.
You know, So is it really a thing?
I think what it's it? Is it?
From my perspective, they have perfectly encapsulated the feeling of like white hegemony or like cis hed hegemony, and the creeping influence of people that want more inclusive language, that want a more inclusive society, and so those things. Because to them, they're saying, oh, I got to feel bad because now I got to use people's pronouns, people have preferred pronouns.
That's woke.
Oh I have to now I can't. I like, I'm We're supposed to teach like a good faith interpretation of American history to kids so they understand this.
That's woke.
So anything that upsets that balance or suddenly puts these people in a position they're like, oh, I got to feel bad about this, or I have to change the way I've been interacting with other people. That's how they just sort of deploy that word as a sort of the discomfort around any kind of progress that's occurring. And I guess it's becoming.
Basically, yeah, it's not even what you define this progress, it's it's rewiring. Anything that requires rewired, Yes, would be easily determined as being allegedly bulk.
Le leg room on an American Airlines flight. That's rewiring, my posture. But I think you're make a really good point that they by being the ones who focus on woke, like they are the ones who keep bringing this shit
up over and over again. And we saw it in the last midterm elections that like people, you know, they're the ones who are talking about you know, trans people and like top surgery and you know, all these different things that people who live in Illinois, like where you went to college, might not care that much about, but they are like that becomes their talking point and like they own it, and they're the ones who are like talking about it, and I feel like it's also a
losing political strategy, but it's one that gets a lot of attention and so they they're able to kind of profit off of it.
And I think it tracks because you have such a large liberal media that picks it up as well on both sides tracts. But but I do think, like, Okay, I had host parents, and my host parents one of them was a cafeteria lady and one of them was a truckle, right, And I mean, to them, the fact that I was an Indian tespion was as alien as the fact that you know that somebody was woke, et cetera,
et cetera. But I ventually say, if you went up to either of those people and you were like, oh my god, you got to use people's pronouns now, you know, et cetera, they'd be like, I'll call you a bottle of apple sauce if you want me to call you that shit. If my taxes go down, you know, or if my life is made easier. And to take sort of their narrative and make it about these things is almost to disregard their real narrative.
Yeah, even absolutely, because you know, I mean, on this level. The GOP especially has completely abandoned any kind of policy. There's nothing Everything they evoke has nothing to do with
substantive policy. It's about these culture war grievances because they feel that I think they saw that that's energizing people more so in like a rallies type situation where people are coming out and they've seen like school like these school board meetings go up with a lot of people like I don't want my kids knowing about like slavery in this country or whatever, And I think they're very
short sightedly being like, okay, that bottle that. While in the meantime, to your point, the very real situation of living in the United States is also a force that acts on everyone, and they're everybody is having to face inflation or unaffordable housing, or wage stagnation and limited options.
For medical care.
But because all of their things aren't really going to the heart of correcting those things, it's much easier just go straight to oh my god, remember when you used to be able to just sit, like just use slurs against gay people in public, and it wasn't you didn't
get canceled and like that. To them, it feels like, okay, that's a better place to just operate from because we're not going to have a substantive policy debate right now because we've completely just normalized this sort of like culture war grievance thing as being the way we talk about politics.
Yeah, both sides are focused on distracting people from the core thing that they actually care about, which is like their material well being. And you know, both sides would rather not have corporation's economic health matter more than their physical health. But that is the world that both sides actually want to keep in place, and so they generate a bunch of noise to distract people. Hopefully that is their goal.
But I also think that it's a very interesting time for your country. And I say this respectfully, but you know, I think America is getting used to the fact that what used to be one seat at the table is now many seats at the table, you know, at least the global table. It's a different world we live in
right now. Everybody's voice is equally amplified. But like I remember going to college in America in nineteen ninety nine, right in two thousand and two thousand and one, so just spit on nine to eleven.
I feel like it didn't really.
Matter who the president was at that moment in time in America, or at least it mattered less because you were so far ahead of the global back, you know, and there wasn't this big cultural conversation and everybody's voices weren't amplified. Your system had been so set that it really mattered very little who the president was, and whether you were Republican or Democrat, you were going to be okay no matter who the president was.
And I feel like that's.
Somehow changed now and now it really matters ideologically who the president is.
Yeah.
I think part of that too is just we've gone from I think there's gradual and a gradual increase in people actually trying to understand civics in this country now because I think a lot for the longest time, it didn't matter in like the boom years of the nineties for many people. But there are plenty communities that began to stagnate, and those were sort of like niche things that you would have to be really tapped into, like
American culture that really care about. And now is like I think the degradation of like our infrastructure and all these things are becoming more widespread and felt people are beginning to understand more. It's like, oh, wait, what.
Are these policies again?
Oh?
Right, before it used to be like, yeah, you care about babies, but abortion was never under threat, but then now it is, and suddenly it's like, well hold on now, like that that actually fucking matters to me. And so I think it's part and parcel of just how how difficult life is becoming for people, and also having to
inform yourself of like you can't just be passive. But along what goes alongside of that is you have all these media apparatuses that are just there to get your attention and maybe say like, yeah, I know it could be about this, but let's talk about this other issue rather than you know, do we live in a corporatocracy with that are run by a bunch of plutocrats? And is that something we need to be concerned about.
It's easier to say.
The Republicans won't do anything about guns, and you know, the Republicans just go the Democrats are woke. When I think all people would rather say I would like to make more money at my job, I would like to afford at a house. I don't want to go into crippling debt because I want an education, like take take
those points and make those real for me. Everything else is just to avoid the real reconciliation or the real reckoning that has to occur in this country, because that's I think one of our greatest strength as a culture is their ability to avoid a reckoning with a lot of the shit that's been going on and just kind of paper over the cracks until I don't know, it becomes completely untenable.
Guys, I really think your election comes down to like a twenty minute debate, and it's very entertaining, but it really it will. That's the American election. It's that twenty minute debate. I think you you win and lose in that debate. It's really it's it's like watching gladiators. It really is watching election.
And yeah, and that's the difference between potentially another global like military conflict, is because one guy made fun of one old white guy made fun of the other old white guy on a stage and people are like, yep, all right, that's it. He owned him own, he owned him. Oh then po, wait what I'm being conscripted?
And who knows if there's even anybody still making up their mind at this point, who's still making up their mind about Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Like what is it even twenty minutes? Like what would it take for anybody to be like, wait, Donald Trump is running for president? This guy all right?
Where let me see where he's at on the issues and then I'll get back to you. Right, all right, let's take you a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we're back, And so is.
McDonald do you guys? McDonald They did it. They did it. So this is being treated as in some corners, probably just in places that are willing to regurgitate a McDonald's press release, but and be like this is a news story because we fired our entire news them. God, but
there so McDonald's is soon going to offer. This is being treated like now you can get breakfast all day from McDonald's, which was like huge news for everyone, Like that news story was underrated, like the when McDonald's went to changing so that you can get McDonald's breakfast all day every day, Like yeah, we that that should have been a national holiday, big things, But this is this
is bullshit. I'm going to say. They're they're going to offer individual packets a big Mac sauce for McNuggets, or just to accumulate and then bathe in. I don't know what the ultimate goal is here.
You're spoiling my future YouTube content here.
Jack again, I ask, what's the matter with that?
By that?
But you you have to order it through the app, which means that this is all about forcing customers to download the app and get access to more data. Because the entire like all these companies are like, we're yes, you know, when they get behind closed doors and talk to investors, everything from like credit card companies to you know, streaming companies, that they're all like, we're actually data companies. That's what we do. We know everything about customers and
we make marketing to them easier. So anyways, I don't know that this doesn't I can't imagine. I can't. I can't like mentally come up with the person who is excited about getting access to big back sauce. Right, am I in the room with one of those people?
First?
Should ask is one of them present personally?
No?
But Kaitlin, we.
No.
I mean I don't eat really that much meat anymore, and definitely eat not many mammals. I don't know my diet is confusing. It's like I eat a mostly plant based diet, but sometimes I have meat cheat days, just sort of like the Fifth Sifth and the Camp Camp. I love a good wordplay meat cheat it, so I have my meat cheat days. But yeah, I mean, but I used to love Big Max and I got to say their sauce is tasty. But I'm not going to go out of my way to go get some.
No, I'm not here to say that the Big Max sauce is not tasty or Big Max are not one of the great sandwiches. I'm just when you have a Big Mac copycat, it is the sauce is identical, like it ketchup, Like there's only really a couple of good ketchups, and like for whatever reason, they can't like nail ketch up other than like Hines and McDonald's does a pretty
good job with their proprietary ketchup. But Big Max Sauce everybody's figured out and so like it's just doesn't seem like a thing to me personally.
But this just feels like a little bit like late in the sauce game for it to be the thing that you're offering when it's like every other Burger place has been giving away that kind of sauce forever. Yeah, it's just like, you know, the Thousand Island substitutes have been out there for generations, and the it's like, I don't know. I mean, of course the Big Mac is unique, and the Big Mac sauce, it's like that's always been
the thing. But it's it's just like it feels so late to the game to be like, and here's here's a sauce we're offering for the first time. It's like, I don't know, it's just everybody.
Is twenty twelve, thank you, thank you, Hello.
But I will say that, you know, incentivizing people to use an app has got to be the easiest thing to do these days, because people just want to check in on a thing and click a button and watch number go up until the point that it's like, oh, well, I get a free thing now. It's like the Starbucks app is toxic. It is toxic at being so good at getting me to buy more coffee so that line go up till I have one hundred and fifty stars and I can get a free latte.
Yeah. I feel like the Starbucks app was engineered by the same people who made Candy Crush. It's just like you quite live, it's fucked up.
If you gamify something, it makes it. Yeah, the accountability and inspiration and motivation, all that stuff. The AMC app where it's like, if you spend more money on snacks, you get five dollars in which will buy you like half of a hot dog. But I'm like, yeah, I need more popcorn so I can get a five dollars reward.
Yes, please, I mean, if it fits.
It's the fuck the thing where it's like, we have found a way to monetize every part of our lives to the point that are say, rather, the companies have found ways to monetize our habits such that like I'm already going to the movies, or I'm already going to Starbucks, or I'm already going to McDonald's or something like that. Why not just make it a little bit sweeter of
a deal. And so I think maybe, while it might not encourage new people to download the app, because I think all of us here are like who gives a shit, people who are already using the app are now using it more being like, oh they added another deal. Well, Ladi da Ding Ding ding ding ding.
Yeah. I mean I've been on the McDonald's app for most of this recording, just checking out, just refreshing, seeing what's what's new, what the drive through wait time is at my three closest McDonald's.
But placing orders of different stores, just getting them ready for later.
Talking about like meat free and Big MacX that like that seems like the easiest beyond collaborate. I don't know have they done that the beyond Burger big they did.
They did the mcplant which was their plant based, plant based patty, which they did for a little while, but they didn't do it as a Big Mac, right, No, they did not. Well, they also just discontinued. It wasn't very popular.
The Big Mac patty gets lost, and they they could like be selling Beyond patties in Big Max for a year and not tell anyone and everyone to be like yop. So that's what they need to be doing exact So that this is my free advice to McDonald's, all right, And then some free advice for Netflix. Don't shut down your DVD service. I just remembered you had it now that you're shutting it down, and I want to use
it again. This is if this was if this was like a marketing scheme to be like, our DVD subscriber numbers have dropped too low, let's pretend we're taking it away. It has succeeded because I like they so they They've announced that they're shutting down their DVD by mail business after twenty five years the DVD The Netflix DVD library was one of a kind, like over one one hundred thousand titles, so many films that just like are not
available to stream anywhere, definitely not on Netflix. Netflix, by the way, has I think a total of thirty eight movies older than the year nineteen eighty and like ninety two older than the year nineteen ninety, right, so which a lot. Yeah, are there even ninety movies before nineteen ninety I actually don't know. I thought that's when they
started making them. Yeah, But this is like I feel like I, you know, made the switch from doing the DVD thing when I, you know, stopped having a DVD player and when Netflix still had most things that I wanted to watch, And then as the streaming wars have kicked off, and like now you have to subscribe to like five different services to still have access to all the movies that you want to you used to be able to get like on Netflix. I feel like it's they I would go back to the DVD thing now, well.
Two things. I don't know. I have to preface this that way, but I have a very a long relationship with Netflix DVDs where I started getting them like two or three years before anyone else I knew was getting them. I think I started flex receiving. Yeah, major brag. I liked it before it was cool, I think two thousand and four because I was like, I was a freshman in film school that year and I was like I
need to watch movies all the time. So I like heard about it and everyone's like, what's this new Netflix thing? And I was getting my three DVDs at a time and I was cycling through them really making it worth it. And then I had Netflix DVDs long before DVDs were a medium that anyone was using. So because you still can get a bunch of stuff that you couldn't have
access to streaming. And nowadays, if something isn't on a platform to stream for free on the subscription that you have, you can still rent most things for like whatever four bucks on YouTuber, Amazon or something like that. But there are enough things such as the Super Mario Brothers movie nineteen ninety three that does not exit. It's been scrubbed from the internet. You cannot rent it, by it, stream it. It just does not exist.
You'd want to do with a movie that predicted nine to eleven.
Exactly erase the evidence, but I would hazard a guess that that movie is available to like whatever, borrow or rent from Netflix DVDs. Same thing with Jamie and I and a guest. We're going to do an episode on the movie two hundred cigarettes doesn't exist anywhere. I can't rent it, can't buy it, can't stream it. You cannot do that with Crossroads there and other movies Crossroads, you know,
the Britney Spears, Spears Class Wow, Wow. So you know at least those three movies and probably why why did it get scrubbed?
That's me.
But anyway, all this to say, I no longer have Netflix DBDs, but I kind of wish I did sometimes because there's things that I don't want to, like rent for four bucks, like I had to rent Sausage Party because Jamie and I did an upcoming episode on it and I'm like, I don't want anyone to have money from this movie. It's the worst movie I've ever seen,
but I had to pay four dollars from it. I would rather just like play, pay like a lump subscription fee for something and then not feel like I have spent money on sausage Party.
That was a weird way to say the best movie you've ever seen.
Miss Sorry. I just opened an old notebook from the early two thousands that I just had in my closet and I had a Netflix DVD there.
So yeah, that they are never getting back.
Yeah, I did, like pay for I remember paying for it. I was like, I'm being responsible and you know that they're otherwise they would have been like charging me monthly for the rest of it, very honestly.
So yeah, well, at least at least we know it's not your fault that that that is going out of business.
You paid your dues.
Yeah.
Physical media. I mean this video game I really like called Death Stranding, where the entire thing is about we live in this post apocalyptic world where now people are like desperate for physical media, and this game has like quote unquote predicted so many things about like it came out before the pandemic and how everybody was stuck inside and the only thing that was available to do outside was be a delivery person and that felt so true.
And the fact that they're delivering physical media and now we're in a time where physical media is just slowly disintegrating just to I don't know, it's it feels very sad, it feels very apocalyptic, and how we're just like losing the things that we have that we could actually physically hold on to. And preservationists, people with huge catalogs and huge things on their walls were used to be like, damn, why you got all them DVDs? Those people are saying, well, who's laughing.
Now, I still have a binder full of DVDs, much like that one guy one time said he had a binder full of women. That's why I still have a bunch of books on my shelf. Like yeah, I like I like, yeah, books made the lead.
Yeah yeah. Books never got replaced by Kendall because for I don't know, probably for a number of good reasons, but maybe we should take another look at this, like it's it's it really feels like the corporations behind the entertainment industry have us exactly where they want us. When like you know, just or physical media that you could own and consume at home became a thing in the
early eighties, they freaked the fuck out. Like they were like, you know, when VCRs came out, the like studios opposed the home video boom, they started like suing. They sued Sony to try and make it so they couldn't make like the Betamax, which was the original VCR, because they were like, this is going to We're just losing too much control of like how we display our films and how we're able to control them and like hold people
hostage to be able to watch them. And because it wasn't modern America, the corporations lost out on that one, or I guess they lost to another corporation, so it still makes sense.
Moder Did you know that porn was largely responsible for home media becoming so popular?
Yeah? Yeah, porn is always at the forefront of everything. It's also like built the Internet, it built the home video boom.
SpaceX more like Space XXX.
Thank you You're welcome, almost made up. Let's talk about SpaceX baby. We were in Claire's Spiritually. I love it. I love it. All right, that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to him Monday. By