The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.
[1] This is season four, episode 30.
[2] In this episode, my dad is joined by one of my favorite humans, Michael Malice.
[3] Michael Malice is a best -selling author, podcaster, columnist, and media personality.
[4] He's a champion and proponent of free speech, anarchy, and many other non -mainstream beliefs.
[5] My dad and Michael talked about his impressive career, Canadian politics, Western culture, the woke culture wars, changes in universities, the crumbling study of the humanities, Newfoundland, Toronto, and more.
[6] Michael Malice has just released a new bestselling book called The Anarchist Handbook.
[7] I would highly recommend checking out.
[8] If you've been listening to this show for a while, you've probably heard me talk about my Helix mattress that I'm kind of obsessed with.
[9] I'm excited to let you guys know they just launched a new company called Allform.
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[21] He wrote that part.
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[30] Everyone, I'm pleased to have, as a guest today, Mr. Michael Mellis, an author, columnist, and media personality.
[31] He was the subject of the graphic novel, Ego and Hubris, by the late Harvey Picard of American Splendor fame.
[32] He is the author of Dear Reader, the unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong -il, 2014, as well as The New Right, 2019, a book that I've been reading deeply this week that was reminiscent to me of the new journalism anthropology of Tom Wolfe.
[33] He's the co -author of seven additional books, including Made in America, the New York Times best -selling autobiography of UFC of Hall, UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes, concierge confidential with Michael Fazio, 2011, which was one of NPR's top five celebrity books of the year.
[34] And most recently, 2016, Black Man White House, comedian D .L. Hughley's satirical look at the Obama years, also an NYT bestseller.
[35] He served as a cultural and political commentator on podcasts with Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Tim Poole, My daughter, Michaela Peterson, twice, and has his own YouTube channel and podcast, You're Welcome.
[36] My producer put a note at the bottom of this autobiography.
[37] Michael is a comedian with a harsh and fast sense of humor.
[38] He's a big fan of yours, but be prepared for a little bit of crazy.
[39] I got that impression reading your book.
[40] But in the best possible way, I would say.
[41] So let's talk about the new right, if you don't mind.
[42] I'd like to dive right into that.
[43] So I said in the intro that it was reminiscent to me of the new journalism of the 1960s.
[44] When I first read the electric coulade acid test, which I would recommend to everyone as a brilliant journalistic anthropological investigation into what became the psychedelic culture in the early 1960s.
[45] It's a brilliant book.
[46] And I got the sense that in the new right, you were doing much of the same thing for whatever it was that was happening from the time of maybe 2013 to 2016, something like that, something that actually seems like history already, interestingly enough.
[47] And you talk about, from an insider's perspective, in some sense, because you were an insider and an outsider at the same time in these groups, but you talk a lot about 4chan and memes and all these subcultures that exist online that are major forces and social domains in their own right, but that are, if not ignored completely by the mainstream media, so to speak, consistently misunderstood.
[48] And so, but then by the same, so I'd like to ask you about that.
[49] We could start with 4chan, maybe, and maybe you could walk us through first what it is, and then what it was, and then what it is now, if it's anything.
[50] I did get the sense as well that this happened already.
[51] Something else is happening now, and I don't know what it is, but whatever it was you were writing about, that's five years ago, which is a long time in Internet terms.
[52] Sure.
[53] I think right now, first of all, discussing 4chan publicly in a context like this in some kind of studious or serious context violates the ethos of 4chan.
[54] One of the big rules about 4chan is, you know, normies get out, re.
[55] So by talking about it automatically, I'm kind of positing myself.
[56] as someone who's an outsider.
[57] I'm not on 4chan all the time.
[58] But 4chan is kind of emblematic of a broader section of the internet, which was driven, wasn't literally only 4chan, but was driven by irreverency, was driven by this idea of that which is presented to us with earnestness should not be taken at face value, that this earnestness is often used as a cudgel and as a mechanism of affecting social control.
[59] Certainly you've been the subject of many memes.
[60] I'm sure you're familiar with.
[61] Yes, yes.
[62] And the other, the point that they figured out, there's an expression that they say meme magic is real.
[63] The premise being, you know, before the new right, the idea was you'd have these organizations putting forth some kind of claim or idea, often absurd on its face.
[64] And the argument would be like, well, that's not accurate, that's not fair.
[65] And the new approach was, why are we taking this adjutop at face value instead of mocking it, clowning it, and basically rendering the tool impotent.
[66] So that was kind of 4chan's poll board.
[67] You had the Donald subreddit on Reddit.
[68] So there is this, but you say that it's misunderstood by the mainstream press.
[69] I always use the term corporate press because I don't really regard it as mainstream.
[70] But I don't know that it's misunderstood so much as misrepresented.
[71] Well, I think it's probably both, because it's not easy.
[72] First of all, there's an immense divide between people who don't use the internet as a social mechanism or as their primary source of information and people who do.
[73] There's an unbelievable divide.
[74] And maybe if you're older than 50, you're in the world of 1970.
[75] And if you're younger than 40, you're in the world of 2010.
[76] And those are really different worlds.
[77] I mean, you talk about the corporate press.
[78] And I've been thinking a lot about the technological impact of YouTube and podcasts.
[79] And this is why I'd like to dig into the misunderstood part first before we go to the misrepresented part.
[80] What I see, what I saw popping up in your book continually was two things happening in 4chan.
[81] There's trouble making that in some sense is there for its own sake.
[82] And I'd like to talk to you about that.
[83] There's a political movement, but then there's also this exploration of what is actually a technological revolution.
[84] So you think about legacy media.
[85] So I've noticed that when I've gone to TV stations and been interviewed by a journalist, I'll have a discussion with a journalist in the green room, and I'm talking to a person then.
[86] But as soon as the cameras go on, I'm not talking to a person anymore.
[87] I'm talking to someone who's an adept mouthpiece for a massive corporate organization, but that was actually a necessity because the bandwidth for television was so expensive that it wasn't possible to grant any individual untrammeled access to it.
[88] And so it was inevitable that a corporation was never going to allow, except in exceptional cases, any journalist to have what would truly be an individual opinion and certainly wasn't going to let them explore ideas in real time.
[89] time.
[90] Too expensive, too risky.
[91] But then now we're in this weird situation.
[92] And the 4chan guys were playing with this to some degree where it isn't obvious that the corporate media platforms have any advantage whatsoever over anyone who's technologically able.
[93] I mean, the fact that we can have this discussion, for example.
[94] So they have one, go ahead.
[95] I would say they have one very big advantage, which you've seen yourself, which is the concept of legitimacy.
[96] So your previous book, the New York Times refused to basically acknowledge it as being printed America.
[97] So you can't say it's a New York Times bestseller, even though the number it's sold is just, you know, a huge amount is huge and successful, right?
[98] So the dear reader, the book I did about North Korea, which I'll talk about later, I did that with Kickstarter.
[99] As a result of that, on Amazon, it looks the same.
[100] It's going to have a page listing like another page listing.
[101] But the New York Times, you know, all these other elements, they're in a position, I got an hour on C -SPAN's book TV, so that is changing in that regard, but it gives them an opportunity to pretend that this book doesn't exist.
[102] So unless a book is being published by certain outlets that have legitimacy, basically it's just like, I don't know if you watched wrestling growing up, I certainly did.
[103] The WWF when I was a kid, there were rival organizations, and they literally acted as if these rival organizations didn't exist, and if a wrestler came over from the NWA, to the WWF, they acted like he was this new discovery that he had no history to him.
[104] It was very odd because all you had to do was change the channel and they're acting in certain other mechanisms.
[105] So that is a big advantage because if you go to talk to mom and you say, where did you hear this?
[106] I heard this on CBS.
[107] Where did you hear this?
[108] I heard this on 4chan.
[109] It's very clear which one mom is going to choose.
[110] I agree.
[111] But part of what the 4chan guys were doing by your own account to some degree was testing, these new technological platforms to see how much power they actually had.
[112] So these trolling games that you describe trolling as something that's actually quite specific in its intent when it isn't just being, say, adolescent foolishness.
[113] It's something like, can we create a narrative and string along legacy media types?
[114] And some of that's a joke, but some of it's also a test, is like, does this new technological platform have enough power to bend and to bend and twist what has been the standard means of delivering the cultural narrative for decades.
[115] And the answer to that frequently was yes.
[116] And increasingly, the legacy media outlets are suffering from de -legitimization.
[117] They lose money.
[118] They lose their ability to fact -check.
[119] And because they don't have this technological advantage anymore, they have the remnants of their brand.
[120] It's something like that.
[121] Yeah.
[122] And there's also something that's a very big asymmetry between honesty and dishonesty.
[123] right?
[124] If you and I are good friends and I tell you one major lie, well, that's one statement out of tens of thousands, that one statement is still going to do much more damage than one honest statement because I've lost, there's an amount of trust lost.
[125] So their brand has been, and they say this explicitly, CNN had ads not that long ago saying this is an Apple, we only report facts.
[126] If I'm coming at you and saying that I am only reporting facts, as soon as I'm caught in one misrepresentation, even if it's innocent, which I don't think it is in most cases, right away, that just kind of collapses the souffle because I trusted you, I relied on you, and now you're giving you misinformation.
[127] But most importantly, and this is where I differ from more mainstream conservatives who think things have become corrupted, you've made mistakes, I've made mistakes, everyone makes mistakes all the time.
[128] It's going to be inevitable, simply from a lack of knowledge.
[129] What steps have you, taken once these mistakes have been made to make amends and also put yourself in a position that you won't make the same mistake again.
[130] And if you see with corporate media, oftentimes they'll do things that are disingenuous, but let's give them the benefit of doubt.
[131] Let's just say they were sloppy.
[132] But no one gets fired.
[133] There's no me a call, but like, you know what?
[134] Tylenol is a great counter example.
[135] Back in the early 80s, I believe it was.
[136] Tylenol got some who was poisoning Tylenol bottles.
[137] People I think were dying.
[138] We're at the very at least we're getting very sick.
[139] So Tylenol had this huge ad campaign that said, this is the steps we've taken.
[140] You know, you got the childproof calf, you got the seal, you got the cotton, whatever it was.
[141] This is how you know that we are safe.
[142] You can rely on Tylenol.
[143] You don't see that with CNN or Fox or ABC.
[144] Whenever they do these egregious things, they just pretend that they never happened all along or say that this is some kind of, you know, you can't listen to the conspiracy theories on the Internet.
[145] So this is why there is this kind of another loss of trust because there seems to be very little effort to maintain and foster that trusting relationship between the channels and the audience and make amends when things have gotten wrong.
[146] So let's let's I want to go I want to continue with 4chan for a bit.
[147] Can you walk me through exactly like you you said that one of the mistakes that CNN did made for example and also Hillary Clinton's campaign was treating 4chan like it was actually a person and and as if there was someone who could represent it and speak.
[148] can you lay out exactly what it is and how it works and then maybe we can talk about the meme culture that's associated with it sure so 4chan and there's others there's a chan there's the reddit and others such uh their message boards so basically for chan i don't remember how many boards they have some are completely innocuous so fitness is their fitness and health board f a fashion board guys can ask does this do these pants look good on me you know what what kind of hat would look good at my hair you know innocuous stuff poll p -o -l is their politics board.
[149] So basically, it's anonymous, and it's not, I believe, after there's 15 pages, and after there's no updates on a thread, the threads vanish into the netherworld, wherever.
[150] You can't see them anymore.
[151] Right, so it's got an impermanence.
[152] Correct.
[153] You can identify yourself with a flag if you want when you log in, but there's no usernames.
[154] It's not like Facebook.
[155] So basically, you know, the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2015, 2016, we're positing about these sites.
[156] and like, how is it that this is allowed to happen?
[157] But it's not the kind of thing where it's like Facebook and you call Mark Zuckerberg and he banned certain users.
[158] The users are ephemeral.
[159] You don't know who they are.
[160] It's the posts are ephemeral.
[161] You know, they just vanish off the board.
[162] So this claim that, you know, the comparison I had, I believe in the book, was kind of a more al -Qaeda.
[163] It's very decentralized.
[164] You know, you can't really take out one person and then the whole thing falls apart, other than you're having to try to take out the site, which they tried to do earlier this year and in late 2020.
[165] But it's an entirely different model.
[166] And I think people who have that bureaucratic mindset, people who have that elitist in the sense that you have this managerial elite running things, they can't even conceive of an organization or a location or a website, which is decentralized.
[167] And there's no, like, you know, big bad vampire to kill once you take out this vampire.
[168] Yeah, well, I mean, but that is part of what, well, I thought what was in some sense, you're documenting something that's so revolutionary that even the people using it don't know how revolutionary it is.
[169] You know, and so because we have these massive communication technologies now, and they all have slightly different rules.
[170] And just by tweaking the rules a tiny bit, you can create a whole new organization, like TikTok, let's say, which has videos of a certain length, and at least to begin with, almost no other.
[171] It's all of a sudden that's a huge social network doing all sorts of things that no one has ever done before.
[172] So the rules for 4chan are really crucially important to understanding it.
[173] So it's anonymous, decentralized, and evanescent.
[174] And that's something.
[175] Yeah, and the two rules are no child pornography, and if there's pornography, it has to be stick to the pornography board.
[176] So it's pretty much the Wild West when it comes to free speech.
[177] Right, and the fact that it's not permanent also.
[178] anonymized and impermanent, which means you'd think, at least in part, that it would encourage a lot more risk -taking, because one of the things that would mitigate risk is the fact that it could be attributed to you, but also that it would be permanent.
[179] Yeah, I mean, that's the comparison of 4 -Channel, let's say, Twitter, where, you know, someone's old tweets will be there at the very least.
[180] They're going to be archived somewhere.
[181] You're going to have a consistent username.
[182] So even if it's not Jordan Peterson, if you're just going to be like Jack Smith, 37, they'll be able to track Jack Smith's 37's posts over time.
[183] You can't really do that on a site like 4chan or 8chan.
[184] But there's other sites like this.
[185] I mean, what they have figured out is, you know, the corporate press might decide 4chan's the devil, 4chan's the devil, 4chan's the devil, 4chan's the devil, 4chan's the devil.
[186] You take down 4chan, well, they'll just go to Discord or they go to all these other sites.
[187] So technology is what allows people, it's designed in contemporary terms, for people to communicate.
[188] So if you're going to kind of take out one location where they're gathering and trying to communicate, it's going to take minutes to find a new location.
[189] Now, there's going to be a cost because you have to get the word out through other means about this is where we all are now.
[190] But it's very, very hard when people are basically effectively teleporting, right?
[191] For me to go from one location to another, physically, after getting a plane, a car or train, whatever, but if you go to one website to another, I have to type in a web address.
[192] So if you just ban one address, the amount of effort it takes the shift to another one could not be more minimal.
[193] So, okay, so you documented, so no one's in charge of this, but something happens, and it's a communication network.
[194] And it attracts people who, what, it attracts people who are communicating in a like -minded way across time.
[195] Why did it become a place that was dominated, at least by your observations, by the thought, that was associated with the new right.
[196] Why did it converge on that?
[197] Because 4chan historically has been a site for great irreverence.
[198] So they had had campaigns to troll.
[199] And by trolling, let me say specifically what I mean.
[200] Trolling is, it's not just, you know, you have a Twitter account and I say, at Jordan Peterson, you're a jerk, F off.
[201] That's not trolling.
[202] That's just being obnoxious.
[203] Trolling, I regard the first troll as Andy Kaufman, the comedian, where by your performance, you're turning a third party by exploiting their weaknesses into an unwitting performer on their own.
[204] For example, there was a great wrestler to bring it back to wrestling called the Honky Tonk Man from the 80s.
[205] And his schick was he was an Elvis impersonator, right?
[206] And when they interviewed him, he would say, oh, no, Elvis stole my act.
[207] Now Elvis had been dead for 15 years at that time.
[208] It makes no sense whatsoever.
[209] But this would get the audience really enraged and they'd flip out.
[210] So when you are calmly causing someone else to have an extreme reaction, and in this case, and good trolling, he's exploiting, exploiting their innocence and naivete.
[211] I mean, they're taking what he's saying in face value, even though it's a complete absurdity and what follows suit, you know, on some case can be put in their lap.
[212] So they used to, what 4chan would go, would be known for is, you know, for example, you had a Mountain Dew, right?
[213] And they had named the next flavor of Mountain Dew.
[214] It's just a corporate mechanism.
[215] I talked about this in the book.
[216] it's a corporate mechanism to sell your sugary soft drink, what name should we call it?
[217] And they basically got enough people together, and this is kind of like rent -seeking, right?
[218] If you have an organized goal -seeking minority as opposed to an indifferent majority, that organized goal -seeking minority is going to be able to punch very much above its weight in terms of getting the achievements it wants.
[219] How many people are caring about this mountain dupeau?
[220] Very, very few other than the trolls.
[221] So they got the number one result to be Hitler did nothing wrong, right?
[222] Now, they're not Nazis.
[223] They don't think the Holocaust is something that didn't happen or is bad.
[224] They're putting now this Mountain Dew, who's trying to use this fun to sell you this poisonous, sugary garbage.
[225] Now the corporation is in position.
[226] Are they going to follow through with this poll or are they going to pull it?
[227] Whatever they choose, they have been forced into making a choice that they themselves would not have wanted because you have someone in a meeting trying to, hey, this is going to be fun for the kids.
[228] and they ended up pulling the poll because they're like, okay, the internet won.
[229] So to go from that and this kind of extreme distrust, if not contempt, for corporate irreverence and corporate humor and corporate fun, to have basically, can I curse on this?
[230] You can do whatever you want.
[231] Okay, well, not everything.
[232] To have someone who was basically a shit poster on Twitter running for president who was just there in these debates insulting these politicians, to their face, often very below the belt terms, that was that ethos brought to life because no one could have imagined in decades that you would have a presidential contender who's looking at a sitting senator in the face, who's doing well in the polls and telling that senator, I've never made fun of your looks, and there's plenty of material there.
[233] Believe me, that much I can tell you.
[234] You know, this is something that was complete unprecedented new.
[235] And we've been taught for decades that politics should be about respect, these are tough choices, these are people of lives.
[236] That's all very true, but there's this very new left from the late 60s perspective idea that these kind of powerful entities use respect and decorum and decency as a mechanism to stifle dissent and to basically make their victory a fait accompli.
[237] And if you kind of mess that up and force them to show their hand that these are not kind, caring people who care about your grandma and your neighborhood.
[238] These are power -hungry sociopaths who will smile at your face and do whatever they need to.
[239] When the lights are off, that I think was something that's very useful in terms of exposing our politics for what they are.
[240] So it struck me over the last decade or so that the alignment of comedic satire with right -wing philosophy or political philosophy or views was something that was completely, also completely unprecedented.
[241] I thought, well, all of a sudden, the right wing are the gestures, or at least among the right wing are these gestures.
[242] And I really didn't know what to make of that.
[243] I mean, you seem to regard it in your book, the new right, you seem to regard it as a kind of right -wing anarchic rebellion against.
[244] But it's strange what they're against, because on the one hand, there's the corporate voice, let's say, that characterizes the media.
[245] And on the other hand, there's the left -wing progressives.
[246] and you can't really put them in the same camp all that easily.
[247] Well, hopefully we will be putting them in the same camp.
[248] But they are in the same camp because one of my quotes is conservatism is progressivism driving the speed limit.
[249] So much of conservatism, Buckley got his start, William F. Buckley, who's the, I think, the big villain of the book, got his start complaining how terrible things are and how mistreated he was at Yale.
[250] The new Wright perspective isn't complaining about how things are at Yale.
[251] it's let's send tanks to Harvard's Harvard Yard and raise it to the ground.
[252] So these are two different approaches.
[253] And much of conservatism for decades, besides being inherently humorless, which is a personality thing, which is perfectly fine if that's your thing, it has been about a reaction.
[254] So the left would have some idea of the moment we need to do this and that.
[255] The right would just dig in their heels, get dragged along, and it's a ratchet effect constantly moving us toward a more and more progressive society.
[256] The National Review's slogan was standing a thwart history yelling, stop, and then at certain point people realized, how about instead of yelling, we actually stop it?
[257] How about we actually try to put a wrench into these gears?
[258] How about we try to metaphorically tar and feather some of these people instead of just complaining that it's not fair?
[259] Let's be aggressive and let's take the fight to them.
[260] You clearly see an analog between the tricks that Trump used, let's say, the humorous tricks that he used.
[261] and the manner in which he appealed to the public, and whatever was going on in places like 4chan and on Reddit, and with memes as well.
[262] And you spend a lot of time in your book talking about Pepe, for example.
[263] So what is it that you see as the connection?
[264] I mean, look, I saw this T -shirt in Florida last year that I thought was really apropos.
[265] It said, Trump 2020, because fuck you twice.
[266] Yeah.
[267] And I thought, yes, there's something about that that's really interesting.
[268] and I've talked to my progressive friends about this a lot because I'm trying to figure out exactly what's going on and being appalled at least to some degree at the shenanigans of the Democrats, among others, especially the identity politics types, because look, I'll tell you what I see in relationship to my books, for example.
[269] So hypothetically, this is the standard legacy media critique of my books, I would say, is that I'm peddling nonsense that, if not trite, is outright dangerous, which is kind of a strange combination, to ne 'er -do -wells who are so far beneath contempt that any attempt to help them is to be met with suspicion.
[270] And that's something that really puzzles me, because when I meet the people that I'm communicating with, you know, when I walk around or when I go to my lectures, you know, I see individuals, because I look at individuals, I see individuals who are trying to get their houses in order, who are often in desperate straits.
[271] And they come up to me and tell me, you know, some step they've taken towards improvement, sort of shamefacedly, but also happy about it.
[272] And, you know, I'm very happy that that's happening and tell them that, and that's my experience.
[273] But then I see in the response to my hypothetical audience, which is a misrepresentation to begin with, nothing, a contempt that's so deep that the contempt is even there for the attempt to help.
[274] And then I think, well, you progressive types, at least in principle, you're all for the downtrodden.
[275] But I don't know what it is.
[276] Maybe if they stay in their place and act like they're supposed to, there's this contempt among the helping class, let's say, for those they're hypothetically helping, that's so deep that, and I think it destroyed Hillary Clinton's campaign, that contempt.
[277] her comments about the basket of deplorables and the Democrat abandonment of the working class and Trump tapped into that somehow and you draw connections and so I'd like you to elaborate on that a little bit if you would sure and whenever I try to talk about people I always try to steal me on their arguments and present them in the most strong position possible when the left is at its best it's as you mentioned it is about concerning about marginalized people people who are forgotten the far left you know his historically would care about prisoners' rights and how bad it is that this prisoner is treated.
[278] For most people, it's kind of like lock him up, throw away the key, and that's kind of a left -wing idea that, like, this guy's been forgotten, let's make sure he has food, he's not being, you know, salt and on a daily basis, things like that.
[279] So they understand also in other context that when you have young males who have nothing to lose, who are completely marginalized, who are spat on and called every name in the book, in other contexts, whether the Middle East, in the inner city, they realized you keep pushing someone at the bottom and keep telling him you're nothing, you deserve to have nothing, that young male is going at the very least try to get some kind of modicum of respect, try to get some modicum of status, and this often has literally very violent consequences, because if I have nothing to lose but I can make a name for myself or I could for five minutes have a sense of power, some people are going to do that arithmetic, and it's a very, very bad thing.
[280] This is broadly speaking.
[281] Oh, everyone will do that arithmetic virtually as unfair equality multiplies.
[282] Unfair inequality multiplies.
[283] That just becomes more and more likely, that response.
[284] But to your point is, so in other contexts, I understand this, but now we're talking about your audience, right?
[285] These are young men who aren't doing so hot.
[286] And now they're being told they don't have a girlfriend.
[287] They desperately want to have a girlfriend.
[288] And now they're told you're a loser for not having a girlfriend.
[289] a girlfriend, it's like, well, I'm trying to get out of that situation.
[290] I'm not trying to be some kind of date rapist.
[291] I'm not trying to be some sexual predator.
[292] I just want to be normal.
[293] I just want to have Maslow's hierarchy of needs met, but because they have been assigned to be, you're supposed to be here at the bottom.
[294] You've had your turn.
[295] You're the whipping boy of the moment.
[296] On an individual level, this is going to have very deleterious consequences.
[297] And because you are telling them, listen, you don't have to be, even if you're going to be a, even if you're going to at the bottom.
[298] You could still be a better person tomorrow than you are today.
[299] Well, now you're kind of going to their house and rearranging their furniture and messing up their schemes.
[300] Of course, they're going to react in very aggressive ways towards your teachings, I think.
[301] Well, it's funny, too, because that notion of my audience is a caricature to begin with, you know, but I don't care about that in some sense.
[302] I'm interested that the caricaturing is occurring.
[303] It's like there's a reason for it.
[304] Why, they're all male, they're all angry, they're all white.
[305] It's like, no, that's not right.
[306] And even if they do skew mail, that's at least in part a legacy hangover from the fact that most of the people who watch a YouTuber are male.
[307] But anyways, nonetheless, that's the categorization.
[308] But then there's the emergence of that contempt.
[309] And I think, well, that is driving, just as you pointed out there, that that insistence upon the despicableness of that status is driving.
[310] I could see that in the 4chan, in the writing about 4chan that you were doing, that there's a testing and a pushing back that's going on there and some of it is clowning and some of it is like pointless trouble making as far as I'm concerned but there's more going on in there than that and that's for sure and then it coalesces around these right these more right -wing ideas which I also find somewhat surprising and so what do you make of that exactly is it because those ideas are the ones that are most specifically forbidden and the satirical comic rebellious types just glom on to them for that?
[311] Or what do you think it is?
[312] I think you hit the nail in the head.
[313] It's that if you tell someone who's got nothing going on and you say, you know, if you push this button right here, it's going to have some really hilarious consequences for some people who think they're better than you and have no problem telling you to your face.
[314] They're better than you.
[315] A lot of people are going to push that button, especially when the results are often hilarious.
[316] So it is going to give them that sense of power.
[317] And I don't know that they're making the wrong choice.
[318] I don't think it's very useful to tell someone who's not really being particularly aggressive that, you know, you suck and you're terrible.
[319] And you know what it is?
[320] Like, I don't make fun of people for being overweight.
[321] Like, I go after people for a lot of things.
[322] I don't go after people who are going overweight.
[323] I had a friend who passed away because he had morbid obesity.
[324] Another friend who had a gastric bypass.
[325] Because when you make fun of someone who's overweight, you're making fun of all your friends who are overweight.
[326] You know, they're seeing it as well.
[327] And here's the thing.
[328] That person knows they're overweight.
[329] They know they're going to be treated differently.
[330] they're going to be, you know, look down on and all these other things.
[331] They're painfully aware.
[332] And it's the same thing here.
[333] If someone is marginalized and you're calling him a loser, he knows he's a loser.
[334] At that point, it just becomes a bit of cruelty and bullying.
[335] And also, anytime you try to tell someone, especially in America or in the West at least, to sit down and shut up, it's like, who are you to tell me to sit down and shut up?
[336] Because now you don't have the power to tell me to sit down and shut up.
[337] You had that power in school, you have that power in the office, maybe you had that power when there were three networks.
[338] Now that there's infinite networks, if you look at the internet, you can't silence me. So I am going to talk.
[339] And if I see that it's upsetting you and you hate me, even though you don't know me, yeah, it's going to be a value for me to upset you because I do think you're a bad actor, I think is the mindset.
[340] And I don't think that mindset's at all irrational.
[341] So let's dig into that a little bit.
[342] I mean, I got memed like mad when I first rose to whatever prominence I've risen to or, or, notoriety or whatever.
[343] There were memes, and I think that's probably still the case, there were memes being generated in the hundreds like weekly.
[344] It was crazy.
[345] And I was watching them, and I thought, if I behave myself properly, those won't get unbearably cruel.
[346] Okay.
[347] I thought, if I can take a joke, then they're going to tilt in a manner that's more positive rather than more negative.
[348] I could see that there was a testing going on there.
[349] You know, that these jokes were being pushed at me, and I suppose to some degree pushed at whoever was listening to me. And had I responded negatively to that in any...
[350] I remember when I worked on working class working crews, you know, that one of the things that almost always happened was that when someone knew joined a crew, there'd be a test period where, you know, various forms of insults and it would be hurled at them.
[351] And it was an attempt to see how they responded.
[352] And if they responded with good humor and accepted their stupid nickname with some good grace and could laugh about it, maybe could say something funny in return, then, you know, after a week or two, if they did their job, then everybody accepted them in a way they went.
[353] But if they got all uptight about it and angry, then it just got meaner and meaner until they were driven off.
[354] And I could see that happening with the memes.
[355] And, you know, I was compared to Kermit, the frog, for example, and that sort of morphed into a peppy.
[356] thing.
[357] And I was watching that and hopefully was able to take a joke when one emerged.
[358] And at least one of the consequences of that seemed to be that it never got truly toxic.
[359] And so I'm struggling with the morality of the 4chan approach, you know, because there's a part of me that thinks, Jesus Christ, don't you have anything better to do?
[360] But there's also a part of me that thinks, well, wait a second, there's something really complicated going on here that has to do with the redistribution of power, and also the acquisition of a voice by people who are individuals and not part of a corporate group, let's say, but who have access to tremendous technological power, and they're serving the function of gestures, and they're serving the function of comedians.
[361] And I think comedians in particular are the canaries in the coal mine for a free culture.
[362] As soon as the comedians are threatened, you know somethings.
[363] As soon as the comedians are nervous, you know something's up, because you should be allowed to make fun.
[364] The biggest meme of yours that I use this meme of yours constantly on Twitter is the Kathy Newman meme.
[365] And one of those examples is, you know, that famous interview you had for people who don't know where you were saying things that were pretty straightforward or maybe people disagreed with you.
[366] And she would just ask you a question that seemed to be a complete non -sequitur to what you had just said.
[367] And this kept going on for the whole time.
[368] The one that comes to mind is a picture of you saying, I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.
[369] And her reply is, so you're saying kill all vegans.
[370] So oftentimes if someone, if you have something on Twitter and some responds with a non -sequitur approach, you just reply with a picture of her and people right away know, oh, so what you're saying is and it has nothing to do what it is you're actually saying.
[371] I think what you are saying to be the opposite of Kathy Newman in this context is accurate in that a lot of powerful people are there through inertia, are there through nepotism, are there through corporate means because they play the game.
[372] If I'm not part of the game, why should I be playing the game?
[373] And here's the other thing where I think these people are heroes is the thing that they're best at is when it comes to the thing that is the worst, which is war.
[374] We are constantly proselytized in corporate media that war is great.
[375] We need to have people overseas.
[376] We need to have more, more, more troops, more whatever.
[377] If you have a president who is regarded as contemptible, if you look at Trump versus Barack Obama, It's a lot harder for that president who isn't venerated to send young men and women to die because if there's a skepticism about his pedestal that he's on, right away, you really have to make sure you're selling this war or otherwise there's going to be this.
[378] It's just easy to clown you because the arguments used for these wars are often so ridiculous on their face.
[379] So what was the conclusion that you've drawn now?
[380] It's been a couple of years since you wrote the new right.
[381] And what are your later thoughts on boards such as 4chan?
[382] And what's happening in 4chan now?
[383] It doesn't seem to...
[384] Yeah, I think 4chan has to some extent fallen away as a cultural force.
[385] I mean, they were trying to meme Trump into the presidency, and that happened successfully in 2016.
[386] The Donald, which was the board on Reddit, was banned during the election.
[387] I think they respond as the Donald