Based Camp - After The Fracture： Only One Show Remains

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm very excited to be with you today because we are going to talk about

00:00:04.200 the last show left. We're going to talk about why Marco Rubio is not a viable presidential

00:00:09.480 candidate as a Republican, despite his alleged merit. We're going to talk about why the Democratic

00:00:14.660 Party is floundering. We're going to talk about why TV culture is dying and why really there's

00:00:19.880 only one shared discourse we have left. So I will summarize the point because Simone's going 0.99

00:00:26.260 off on tangents here. Essentially what we're going to be talking about is how, as the media

00:00:31.120 industry died out and as the idea of cultural touchstone shows died out, you know, like your

00:00:38.080 Game of Thrones or your like these just, we do not see these anymore. There isn't an equivalent running

00:00:43.580 right now that everyone is broadly aware of, except for maybe South Park, right? But even the fact that

00:00:49.960 South Park is one of these shows or the last one left sort of reinforces this point, which is what

00:00:55.760 has come as sort of the pan-cultural zeitgeist to replace all of that. And that is the drama around

00:01:04.400 U.S. politics and the presidential administration. Well, and world events, tech, health, it's basically

00:01:11.340 that. It's world news, which includes and is very heavy on U.S. politics because that affects the world,

00:01:16.840 plus health and tech. So basically anything that profoundly affects everyone, that's all that's left.

00:01:21.440 South Park is arguably only showing up and making headlines because its episodes are 100% on that.

00:01:28.500 It's on how AI is affecting us. It's on shifts in health like COVID and it's on U.S. politics and

00:01:35.120 world politics in general. But we've really entered this age of cultural balkanization. There's only a few

00:01:40.700 common topics left like those that we can talk about. And I really want to also dive deeper into just

00:01:46.120 how profound this balkanization is because I think it's one of those boiling frog metaphor situations

00:01:53.040 where people don't realize just how in a bubble they are already in. Like they assume that most people

00:01:59.040 kind of do the same things that they do and live a life kind of similar to theirs and are more relatable

00:02:05.620 because they don't really leave that bubble. And so the impact there is that they also don't realize

00:02:11.140 that if they want to be broadly relatable, they're going to need to stick to a specific narrative.

00:02:15.940 There are only some themes they can play with.

00:02:17.380 But there's another big factor here, which is worth talking about, is as the last show on earth,

00:02:24.240 like as the Trump administration became sort of the last show on earth, we have also seen the global eye

00:02:30.320 in the same way that historically, you know, in a lot of places you were on earth,

00:02:36.040 you would have a show that was popular in America, but it was also popular in all the other countries,

00:02:41.220 and it would be a cross-cultural touchpoint. You see a lot of people interested in American

00:02:46.240 politics that were not before as sort of a show, right? You basically, you have around, like,

00:02:52.880 consider our audience, like 50% is non-U.S. living.

00:02:57.160 Well, and actually, so there's a great, like, this is just randomly in one of Asmund Gold's

00:03:01.840 episode where he talks about why he covers news events, because he's been doing a lot of stuff

00:03:06.260 on, like, you know, like what on earth is going on in Russia? What's going on in Spain? What's

00:03:10.820 going on in Indonesia? And he pulled up, I just shared you a clip of this, in one of his episodes,

00:03:15.840 he's like, look, like, here are my stats. More than half of his viewers are from outside the U.S.

00:03:21.160 And research does highlight that large-scale international engagement with U.S. political

00:03:25.600 content has increased, particularly around, like, the major social media platforms like X and on

00:03:30.840 Instagram and Facebook, because you can't really talk about anything else. Like, there's nothing

00:03:37.620 else that you can get a platform around. What's really interesting about this is sort of our role

00:03:41.820 in this, because one of the things that I always comment on is it is so weird for people who don't

00:03:45.820 know, we're often seen as, like, the leaders of the United States' pronatalist movement, and at least

00:03:50.460 the figureheads that the media always talks to. And so, you know, I'm really talking with reporters,

00:03:54.360 talking with Politico yesterday, right? You know, and we've got Telemundo coming over soon. We've got a

00:03:59.040 French station for a 30-minute episode. We've got a German team for, like, a 25-minute piece. We've

00:04:03.760 got a, you know, we've had major pieces in Japan. HBO's here next week. Oh, HBO's here next week.

00:04:10.140 Yeah. So we do the rounds in terms of international media. And many people ask, like, why isn't there a

00:04:17.980 pronatalist movement in one of the countries that needed it more than the United States, right? Like,

00:04:23.040 the United States is arguably one of the most resistant countries to fertility collapse

00:04:26.980 when its wealth is taken into account. And so, you know, why didn't the pronatalist movement start 0.98

00:04:32.260 in Japan? Why didn't it start in Korea? Why didn't it start in Italy? Why didn't it start in Germany,

00:04:36.120 right? And why didn't it start in China, right? Like, all the other countries are freaking out

00:04:40.020 about this. Like, why is grassroots pronatalism a uniquely American thing? Why is it when Germany 0.56

00:04:46.120 or Italy, where their fertility numbers are much worse than ours, when they are covering falling

00:04:51.620 fertility rates, they come and talk to me? Why is it Telemundo is talking to us and not a Latin 1.00

00:04:59.100 American pronatalist organization? When, you know, Mexico fell below the United States TFR last year,

00:05:04.260 or, and, and, you know, now it might be all of Latin America might be collectively below the U.S.'s

00:05:09.000 TFR.

00:05:09.400 Well, we get this with, like, it's not just in Latin America. There was recently a German journalist who

00:05:14.760 reached out to us and was like, I want to cover demographic collapse in Germany. Can you introduce

00:05:18.900 me to the German pronatalist leaders? We're like, there aren't any that we know of. And,

00:05:23.600 and then he's like, well, okay, just any, any pronatalist in Germany. And we're like, well,

00:05:26.740 we know of one, but she's leaving the country and she's, she's an expat anyway. She's not German. 0.52

00:05:32.620 And he's like, oh, I'll talk to her. Like, no, there's just, yeah, it's really interesting.

00:05:37.580 No, no, but the point being is we sort of joined as members of the last show on earth,

00:05:42.960 right? Like we are, we are side characters, we are background characters, but we're, we're there.

00:05:47.200 We're playing into the, the, the narrative of that large sprawling cannon that is forming.

00:05:53.700 Yeah. Absolutely.

00:05:55.020 It's fascinating because it is a complete transition of what it means to be a movie star

00:06:01.200 in this generation and what it means to be a politician.

00:06:04.420 Well, yeah. And that's the thing is because this has replaced TV and movie, movies and sports and

00:06:11.680 games as the one thing, the one discourse we can all share. It has also sort of gone the way of

00:06:18.040 professional wrestling where now these used to be so like politics, health, and technology. Okay.

00:06:24.820 These used to be very wonky, nerdy topics, you know, newspapers and outlets and, and, and commentators

00:06:32.780 and armchair commentators as well, who covered them were very nuanced. We're very nerdy. We're very

00:06:38.640 niche. They, they did not have a lot of charisma or personality. There wasn't a lot of show to it.

00:06:43.260 Right. But now that it is the source of main entertainment and public discourse, you cannot

00:06:49.540 really make it in this space without being an over the top outlandish character. And that's why I

00:06:55.800 mentioned Marco Rubio and you point to him as an example is that he's one of those original, like

00:07:00.000 meritocratic, like traditional politicians who there's more nuance there. He's trying,

00:07:06.120 like, he's playing the game, like politicians used to play the game where, but now the game is

00:07:10.640 the way Trump plays the game. It's, it's, it's WWE Trump, not political wonky Marco Rubio.

00:07:17.820 I actually argue, and we see this not just on our side, but look at like all of the like tweeting

00:07:22.400 and trolling that they're doing, like Gavin Newsom is trying to do, which everybody about the American

00:07:26.400 psycho politician figured out trolling where we go over what happened there. But I, I think that you,

00:07:31.800 you might be sort of picturing it wrong. We've actually had a flip. So if you go back to the

00:07:35.980 old days, let's say like the 1950s. Okay. Everything was sort of centralized. So everybody tried to be

00:07:41.780 respectable. You know, your, your politicians tried to be like broadly inoffensive and respectable

00:07:46.340 and your media broadcasters tried to be broadly inoffensive and respectable. And then you move into

00:07:52.020 the, the era of the nineties and early two thousands, right? This is your, you know, Clinton and

00:07:58.120 Obama Bush era. Right. So in this area, politicians stayed broadly respectable, right? Like boring and

00:08:05.200 not really the main show. Right. But the media had transitioned. You look at the, the shows and the

00:08:12.060 pundits that people were watching most and especially the younger people, because you know, you're going

00:08:16.280 through a transition and many of them were comedians. Many of them tried to, you know, spice things up.

00:08:21.540 Many of them tried to be, be sort of like out there. Right. And, and, and capture public attention.

00:08:26.600 And you saw this with a lot of celebrities, like doing stunts to capture public attention and stuff

00:08:30.500 like that. Right. Today that is flipped again, where the, the, the politicians have to take on

00:08:39.100 the WWE style of what the media used to be doing. Right. The media that people are watching, ironically,

00:08:45.500 in terms of like information media, like where people get their news, I would say is ironically more

00:08:51.280 nuanced and more sort of level-headed and intellectual than media was in the eighties and

00:08:58.120 nineties. Yeah. Actually, what's really interesting is at least in the United States, media was sort of

00:09:02.400 always known to be polarized. Like if you were a Republican, you would tune into Fox news. If you

00:09:07.860 were a Democrat, you would tune into, I don't know, like ABC or CNN or whatever. Right. And you would,

00:09:14.340 you would sort of know and play your party. I was just looking at some, some Pew research on

00:09:21.240 the, the way that people are consuming news media now. And 37% of people under 35, I think a smaller

00:09:30.420 proportion, but quite big of the rest of Americans get most of their news from influencers. Now, most

00:09:37.060 news influencers on social media, primarily on X, Facebook and Instagram are, well, it's almost like

00:09:44.180 half and half. It's like 45% have no political affiliation at all. Of those that do have political

00:09:49.500 affiliation, it leans slightly to the right. So there are more, when they do express their affiliation,

00:09:56.320 they're more likely to express a conservative affiliation than a liberal affiliation. I can send

00:10:03.240 the graphs to you after this. What I want to know is who, what media influencer that's a big name

00:10:08.360 doesn't have a political team. I think that Asmogold is probably seen as one of those. It

00:10:12.860 doesn't have. Okay. Well then it's inaccurate. Asmogold is obviously on the right. Right. Yes. I,

00:10:18.520 I hear you, but I mean, that's, I don't think that's how Pew's doing it. They didn't name names

00:10:22.900 from what I skimmed. They just did it wrong. Almost everyone who is in this space is, is partisan.

00:10:28.460 And, but I don't hear they're nuanced partisan if they do well. What? Asmogold loves Bernie Sanders,

00:10:34.240 doesn't he? He did ages ago. Like, but I'm just saying like, he's nuanced. He's not like,

00:10:39.900 not at all, Simone. Most, but freaking most of the white house main staffers now liked Bernie Sanders

00:10:45.900 back when Asmogold did. That's true. Like, I don't know what you're like. Okay. So if, if, if you look

00:10:50.660 okay at our show, right, like fairly nuanced intellectual coverage with a stated partisan bias, but you can

00:10:57.680 look at the, the big figures like Asmogold or something like that, right? Like he is spicy,

00:11:02.040 but he is going deep and intellectual. Kersha, the, the, the canceled Foxy girl, right? Like

00:11:07.380 clearly intellectual in the way that she covers things. You can look at Sargon of Akkad, like

00:11:11.900 clearly intellectual in the way he covers, covers things. Carl, Carl Benjamin. You can look at

00:11:16.960 on the, on the left, right? Destiny. Destiny might be a partisan, but he is way more in-depth and

00:11:24.940 intellectual than any of the mainstream hosts that were on television.

00:11:29.900 I mean, if you look at any mainstream news channel, at least in terms of us outlets, it is,

00:11:36.040 there's, there's no nuance. I mean, another really important trend that I think is important to

00:11:41.000 highlight here too, is that news used to be a highly local thing. And, and now it is not. You really,

00:11:48.340 all you have left, even when it comes to like journalism that is supposed to inform people of local

00:11:52.840 events. No, it is all world news. It's not just that like people from Romania are tuning into Asmongold's

00:11:58.920 channel and listening to, to our podcast. It is that the number of local journalists in the United

00:12:04.800 States has dropped about 75% since 2002. And already then they were like almost none over 3,300 newspapers.

00:12:13.180 So more than one third have closed since 2005. So basically more than half of us counties have little

00:12:19.600 or no local news coverage. All you have really is like the next door app, which is this sort of

00:12:25.040 neighborhood based app where you have to like, you have to upload an electricity bill to prove that

00:12:29.640 you're a resident. And then people just kind of use that to chat about local things. But yeah, so

00:12:33.920 really again, like even when it comes to the things that journalism still used to do, like they weren't

00:12:39.580 known for deep nuanced wonky takes about world news. They were more about like, here's what you need to

00:12:44.840 know locally. Here's the stuff happening on the world stage that is relevant to you as a citizen.

00:12:50.080 So you can vote responsibly. That was kind of this noble concept of journalism and that all fell

00:12:55.000 apart. And now it is WWE journalism and now it's WWE politicians. But would you like to, I found some

00:13:03.380 really interesting information on just how balconized culture is now.

00:13:06.440 I want to do a fun tangent here. One of the fun things that we learned a while ago, and I should go back

00:13:10.700 and see if this is still true. If you're looking on some site of like, Romanian podcast rankings,

00:13:15.980 and we were like the seventh highest ranked podcast in Romania.

00:13:20.260 Yeah, I think that's changed since, but I was shocked to see.

00:13:23.120 Yeah, I'm sure it's changed since then. But I was shocked to see that as well. I was like, what the

00:13:26.540 is wrong with you, you Romanian bastards? What are you watching me for? 1.00

00:13:32.440 Yeah, but again, there's sort of one, if you want to engage in online discourse in a meaningful way,

00:13:38.260 and not just be in your very, very tiny bubble. You need to be talking about these things. And we

00:13:43.100 talk about, we do touch on the main things, you know, world relevant politics, which often is US

00:13:50.220 politics, tech and health, like we talk about all those things a lot. So it makes sense. But to give

00:13:57.000 you a picture of, oh, now I'm going to use America as the primary example here, because there's really

00:14:01.840 good data there. It has become so fractured over time. So for an example, we used to, like you said,

00:14:10.920 at the very beginning of this, watch, at least a lot of us watch the same TV shows. So household

00:14:16.900 viewership for TV shows, it peaked in the 1950s, in 60s, with shows like I Love Lucy. Like, I think

00:14:23.040 there used to be some stat of like, at any given time in the world, like, you know, I Love Lucy's

00:14:27.160 playing on this many TVs. And it was just humbling and terrifying at the same time. Also, though,

00:14:32.300 like another top show was called Texaco Star Theater, which I've never heard of before. So

00:14:36.200 whatever. But 50 to 60% of American households watch those shows. So you had more than a coins

00:14:45.600 flip odds chance of being able to make an inside joke about one of those shows. And the random

00:14:51.040 that many people watch the same shows. Yeah. 50%. But it's the same as Trump today. If I make a

00:14:56.940 comment about the Trump White House or some 100%, everyone's going to know 50, over 50% of people

00:15:01.940 will know. Way more than like, when I was growing up, there was like, I didn't know anything except

00:15:06.360 for like, you know, about the Clintons, except for like the scandal, right? Like, I didn't know that

00:15:11.820 much about the Bushes. I didn't know, except for like word flubbing and stuff like this. You're

00:15:17.080 getting a constant daily, like this is what's happening at the White House right now. Even if

00:15:21.660 you don't want to know, you know, and that's the crazy thing. People take pride in not knowing

00:15:26.900 because they see it as like such a difficult thing to somehow not know what's going on at the

00:15:30.840 White House. It's true. But yeah, it's not just TV, though. It's also books. I mean, as you did a

00:15:36.760 whole episode on like, no one reads anymore. But in the early 1980s, blockbuster bestsellers like the

00:15:42.460 Bonfire of the Vanities and the Da Vinci Code, they could reach up to 10% or more of US adults,

00:15:47.020 which is pretty impressive, given that US adults don't have to read. And it's not like that common

00:15:51.320 of a pastime, I guess. So 10% is pretty impressive. Now, today's bestsellers, even the most popular

00:15:57.960 fiction, reach just one to 2% of Americans. And fewer Americans are even reading a book. So only 48.5%

00:16:06.540 of US adults read any book, any book for pleasure as of 2022. And that's down from 52% in 2017.

00:16:14.240 Wow.

00:16:15.080 And yet, despite this, right? In like around these days, so like for the past five years or so,

00:16:21.600 about 4 million new book titles are published each year. And in 2003, about 300,000 new titles were

00:16:29.640 published. So 3,000 new titles to now 4 million. So there's like a billion more books. And like for

00:16:36.800 any weird niche thing you're into, you can read your book. And yet, you know, it's very...

00:16:41.940 Nobody's reading anymore. No.

00:16:42.980 Yeah. It's like video games, right? People must be playing the same video games. And I guess this

00:16:48.060 is me like a non-video game person. In the 80s and 90s, the blockbuster video games like Super Mario

00:16:52.920 Bros. and Tetris were played by 30% to 50% of all gamers. So it's very similar to like TV shows in

00:16:59.120 the 50s and 60s, right? They all had this like shared experience. And you even see this, like

00:17:03.220 chiptune, music was inspired by it. We all bond over it as like millennials. Like all these references,

00:17:08.600 you know, like flight. Like we know what that means as millennials, at least, right? I think

00:17:14.760 even a lot of like younger people know what that means. But today, even the mega bestsellers like

00:17:19.880 Minecraft, with which our son is obsessed. Yeah. Or Grand Theft Auto have only reached about 5% to

00:17:26.120 10% of all gamers over their lifespans. Wow. At any given moment, the current bestseller only engages

00:17:33.020 one to 2% of active gamers, of active gamers, not even like including nobodies like me who have

00:17:40.180 never played a game in their life, except from Roller Coaster Tycoon and like Riven, right? So

00:17:44.000 that's wild. And so I was like, okay, well then maybe, maybe it's, it's sports, sports. People still

00:17:53.340 watch sports, but no, actually. So average regular season NFL viewership is down from its peaks in the

00:17:59.340 80s and 2000s. NBA finals in 2005 averaged only 10.2 million viewers. That's down 46% from the 2005

00:18:07.640 peak. So that is just like, people aren't watching the same sports anymore. What's actually happening

00:18:14.680 though, is while major sports in the USA, like the NFL, NBA, MLB, they're shrinking. Global sports,

00:18:21.860 like women's leagues, international sports, international soccer are seeing growth. So people are just going

00:18:28.800 into the little niches. And then I think like anecdotally, maybe people can't relate to this

00:18:34.060 as much because they're probably only going to parties with people who are like super within

00:18:37.260 their bubbles and niches. But you and I, when we host parties, we're bringing together politicians

00:18:42.840 and journalists and business leaders and investors and influencers and writers and authors. And I think

00:18:51.380 like 20% of the conversations are like either pretending that we understand a reference someone

00:18:57.420 is making or asking them to explain a reference. Yes. It's so frustrating. It's just like, oh,

00:19:03.700 well, like so-and-so said or this thing. And like, oh, you know, or Elon reference, everybody knows.

00:19:09.640 If you make a reference about the weird pronatalist, most people know, like, which is weird,

00:19:15.140 right? Like, yeah, it's insane. It's insane. And I just, I still can't get over, like-

00:19:22.560 I want to focus on, say what you're going to say and then I'll get to-

00:19:26.340 Well, I mean, so that like, even in 1964, 36.3% of Americans watched the TV show Bonanza.

00:19:35.900 And then, then in the nineties, when you and I were kids, at least 20% of Americans watched

00:19:41.820 Seinfeld, I didn't. But now, do you even know what 2024's top American TV show was?

00:19:48.200 It's good games.

00:19:49.220 No, no. It was a show called Tracker. 17.4 American, 17.4% of American households watched it.

00:19:58.380 What?

00:19:59.180 I, I, yeah, it was like, wait, I don't.

00:20:01.680 It's, it's about a professional reward seeker who finds missing persons for prize money,

00:20:06.000 all while struggling with complex issues from his fractured family and past traumas.

00:20:12.260 Never heard of it. I've never freaking heard of that.

00:20:16.360 But I want to point out here, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, it can't really be

00:20:19.940 that bad that nobody has cultural touchstones anymore outside of what's in the public media

00:20:25.840 narrative. If you, like us, hadn't even heard of the top show right now, you're sort of proving

00:20:33.000 that to yourself.

00:20:34.200 But I think, you know, another element of this that I think is under discussed, which I'd love

00:20:38.200 to hear your thoughts on is, is we're, we're seeing much more of a mixing of social classes

00:20:43.600 and cultural groups. So like when you were growing up and we even like your mom harangued

00:20:48.520 us about this before she passed about like how we had to raise our kids. She was like,

00:20:53.720 you have to go to tennis and you have to go to sailing because you need to have this like

00:20:57.200 shared lingo with your social class so that you can fit in. And now there's just so much

00:21:02.760 more mixing like immigration since 1965 and changes in laws and social attitudes have

00:21:08.320 meant that like social classes and ethnic groups and cultures are now way more mixed.

00:21:13.140 So like nearly 39% of Americans married since 2010 are in religiously mixed marriage. So

00:21:19.420 that's, that's double the 19% rate before 1960. And in 1980, for example, about 86% of undergraduates

00:21:26.140 were white. So like going to university kind of was like a rich white person thing where

00:21:30.760 you would all get your like cohesive culture together, but that figure dropped to 40% with

00:21:35.900 non-white students making up from 80%. Yeah. So like 86% in 1980. And then in 1960, nearly

00:21:43.580 90% of American workers were white. And then by 2019, the share of non-white Latino were both

00:21:51.760 workers doubled to about 40%. So like just there used to be like a lot of just cultural isolation

00:21:59.280 and like shared understanding of things. And now we're just, we're mixed. And so that's

00:22:04.880 one thing. And then of course we've also like church attendance is down, right? I mean, it's

00:22:09.380 dropped from about 50% in the forties to sixties in the USA to 30% today.

00:22:14.100 Well, yeah, you can't reference. I remember growing up, my parents, I was raised in a secular

00:22:18.540 family, but I was told I needed to memorize the Bible because they shared cultural touch points

00:22:23.600 that other educated people would reference.

00:22:26.000 When also play tennis and go sailing. And what were the other things you were supposed to do?

00:22:30.420 Tennis, sailing, you think golf? No, they said golf is only trashy or autistic kids learn golf. They 1.00

00:22:35.800 were like only like really nerdy, messed up kids learn golf, even rich kids. They're like, because 0.53

00:22:39.860 it's not a kid's thing. They're like, you learn that when you're an adult. Don't do that.

00:22:42.880 That's true. Okay. Yeah. Learn it when you're old. Yeah.

00:22:45.080 No, but it's true though. Like all the kids I know who play golf as like young people

00:22:49.480 are like real squares, like, you know, in a, you know, in a way that, that see our pod person

00:22:55.960 episode in that, in that sort of a way, but gosh, I actually just thinking about me being like a

00:23:00.580 sailing and tennis kid, varsity tennis, by the way. And yeah, you were actually good at it. I just

00:23:05.340 learned that last week that blew my mind. You were like, wait, you were good. I didn't like it,

00:23:10.300 but I was good at it. I love in the discord. Uh, somebody was saying at one point that Malcolm

00:23:15.300 has this identity crisis where he keeps trying to pretend to be other things like Americana or

00:23:21.520 redneck or something like that. When in actuality, he's just like the most English nobility, uh,

00:23:29.320 like Edwardian Victorian period person they've ever seen in terms of values. And I can sort of see it

00:23:35.580 like that. I'm intellectually that English anthropologists, um, uh, Victorian, like, like

00:23:44.620 whatever you call it, like genteel scientists trying desperately to fit in with the natives 0.85

00:23:49.240 and pretend that he is something other than what he is. But anyway, the point being is I agree with

00:23:56.220 you. I think we are seeing a degradation of classes with sort of new network classes emerging.

00:24:01.680 Class separation. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing either. I mean, like social media has

00:24:06.300 leveled the playing field to a great extent. But I disagree with part of your thesis here. Okay.

00:24:11.180 I think what we're seeing is a new sort of class system emerged. It's much more of a network state.

00:24:17.480 Technofedalism. No, 100%. Technofedalism. Like if you look at our class, our community is

00:24:22.240 the rationalist slash effective altruist community. Even if we're in the right wing faction of it,

00:24:28.140 like we would have many of the same cultural touchstones as anyone else in that community.

00:24:33.540 They're watching. So we can make those. Yeah. We can talk about Rocco's Basilisk. We can talk

00:24:37.320 about all these things. We know Rocco, by the way, the guy who created it. We could have him on the

00:24:42.800 show sometime, I guess. He has some really fun, because he's come up with so many things aside

00:24:48.120 from the Basilisk. Yeah. Like, well, his talk on Hereticon was about building communities in like

00:24:53.700 icebergs or something, right? That was really interesting. You thought you could build cities,

00:24:56.840 floating cities out of icebergs would be cheaper than making it on a ship. Yeah. You didn't even make

00:25:01.260 the iceberg. Like you didn't even have to, yeah, it was super cool. Yeah. Yeah. That was the cheapest

00:25:06.640 way to get a big floating mass on the ocean. And the mass checks out. It's cool. I like it. But

00:25:11.900 anyway, anyway, so we're talking about Rocco. Oh yes. But you know, you have this shared cultural

00:25:18.860 idea. And there's many other shared communities out there where they sort of all, like we're also

00:25:25.400 adjacent to like the manosphere community. Like I know anything that's going on in the manosphere

00:25:29.680 community, largely anything they would know. Yeah. We can make a lot of references to them. Yeah.

00:25:33.780 Like the based gaming community we're adjacent to. But there's other communities out there that like,

00:25:38.740 if you're talking about like the progressive gamer community, like that's a whole other thing that

00:25:43.100 like doesn't include. Oh, can I give you a picture of this? Because I just think this is so fun.

00:25:46.940 Okay, sure. Let's do some niche literacy tests on you. No, no, no. Before we do niche literacy tests,

00:25:53.480 I wanted to go into another point, which I think is really important, is what you need to win

00:25:59.640 within this existing ecosystem is very different than what you needed before. And this is what we

00:26:04.480 sort of started with, but I want to highlight it. Yes. I was talking with a reporter at Politico

00:26:08.980 about the various potential candidates for president in the next cycle. You know, if it wasn't going to

00:26:14.800 be JD Vance, you know, who are the real contenders on the right? And she suggested RFK. And I was like,

00:26:19.500 RFK is an awesome candidate. Yeah. I loved his hilarious bear story. If you really guys,

00:26:25.820 if you haven't seen the story, he saw a roadkill bear and decided he was going to eat it, which first

00:26:31.120 of all, I'm like, you just know you have to watch the recording of him. It's yeah, just watch it puts

00:26:36.460 it in a bike lane in New York. And and the news started covering it saying that somebody had crashed

00:26:41.400 into a bear and hilarious. Anyway, I love it. I was like, what a base guy. And he's clearly not afraid to

00:26:47.780 challenge the system. And like, I don't think he's right about everything. I think he might his

00:26:51.700 skepticism might be a little too tuned up. But I think that he is willing to challenge things that

00:26:56.740 a lot of people haven't been willing to challenge for a long time. And that makes me like him as a

00:27:01.020 person. He's got the he's got the charisma for television, right? JD Vance definitely does.

00:27:06.500 You know, he's got that great origin story. He's willing to, you know, go to Europe and then meet

00:27:11.140 with the AFD, you know, like the band of political party instead of the mainstream party, then give

00:27:15.540 some big speech about how they're all a bunch of fascists and we shouldn't even be allies with

00:27:19.460 Europe anymore. And everybody like, you know, it's like he's doing something fun, you know, 0.67

00:27:23.540 and then you get there like who else? I think Joe Rogan would be a great presidential candidate.

00:27:27.480 Yeah, but get to your point, right? So obviously characters are viable.

00:27:30.620 Right. But I'm showing you what is viable. What isn't viable is Rubio. She's like, what about 0.92

00:27:34.860 Rubio? And I'm like, Rubio would make a great democratic politician because they haven't figured

00:27:38.460 out how to be interesting yet. No, he wouldn't because yeah, what they need is interesting politicians. 0.59

00:27:43.280 This is why Gavin Newsom, if he just leans into his villain era, he's good. He's golden.

00:27:48.760 There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me,

00:27:56.600 only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand

00:28:03.700 and feel flesh gripping yours. And maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable.

00:28:10.140 I simply am not there.

00:28:12.760 AOC, she's, she's, she's close. She's adjacent. You know, she's, she's characterable, right?

00:28:20.720 You know, it just like, you need strong characters.

00:28:23.320 You can't be.

00:28:24.160 Well, Fetterlin would be really good.

00:28:25.180 It would be great. Yeah. Oh, no, no.

00:28:27.180 Well, I was watching a really interesting take recently when they were talking about,

00:28:31.280 the Democrats recently hit their highest level of unfavorability, I think, like almost ever,

00:28:36.420 at least in a very long time. And the party is just sort of unwilling to see how bad they are.

00:28:42.440 And a lot of people think, oh, this means we need to go extreme or we need to go moderate.

00:28:47.080 And what the guy was pointing out is, is actually their unfavorability numbers now are about what

00:28:50.900 the Republicans were when Trump came into power in the first place. But dibs have gone through this

00:28:55.300 before. And he was talking about when Clinton came into power, the, the, you know, Bill Clinton,

00:29:00.040 and he pointed out that when you have these changes in who's running and who's winning,

00:29:05.460 it is because the new person doesn't come out there and just take a more moderate or more extreme

00:29:11.880 position. Typically what they do is, and Bill Clinton did this and Trump did this, is they'll

00:29:17.900 take a number of positions that are more extreme and they'll take a number of positions that are

00:29:22.660 moderate or literally on the opposite side. So you'll look at somebody like Trump and Trump comes out

00:29:28.300 there and, you know, everyone back then on the right was like, well, we can't be as far on

00:29:32.300 immigration as we have been historically. Trump goes way to the right of them on immigration and

00:29:36.640 then goes way to the left of them on gay rights and then goes way to the left of them on social

00:29:42.160 security and, and Medicaid. And then, you know, goes, takes this new sort of nationalist rightist

00:29:48.040 stance. It's not like a war hawk rightist stance. And Bill Clinton was doing the same thing when he

00:29:51.660 came into power, right? Like he was, he was way to the right or even right leaning on a lot of issues

00:29:56.160 and then way to the left on other issues. And freaked out Dems. Dems were terrified by Clinton 1.00

00:30:01.100 in the early days. And then the party sort of re coalesced around him as is happening with Trump

00:30:05.440 right now, but they need somebody who's going to come out there and do those things while having

00:30:09.400 a personality, which is why Fetterman would be so strong for it. If the democratic machine wouldn't

00:30:14.600 do everything in their power to prevent him from coming in. Um, okay. You can run.

00:30:18.700 Yeah. So I really, yeah. Just so for, for like literacy, cause I think people again,

00:30:22.080 don't realize how in a bubble they are. Like people get the impression on X that like everyone 1.00

00:30:27.160 is talking about the stuff we're talking about on X yet only one in five Americans approximately

00:30:32.280 are active on the platform. And then depending on your algorithm, you're in some little bubble

00:30:37.220 there anyway. And like elsewhere on social media, there are people who think that like people such

00:30:43.520 as Becca Bloom are household names. Do you know who Becca Bloom is? Never heard of Becca. Of course you

00:30:47.960 don't. And that's the thing is like, they don't realize this. And also beyond that as

00:30:52.940 of 2025. So as of this year, 73% of Americans don't use social media at all. So they're just

00:30:57.860 all about their local communities or their family. And that's why you, you, you, you have

00:31:02.200 to understand this, but I can show like top, top accounts on Patreon as an example of just

00:31:07.640 all these communities that like, these are people who are paying on a monthly basis to get

00:31:13.300 access to a community. It's really important to them. And you've probably never heard of it.

00:31:16.720 Like random things you don't expect to find on Patreon that are really doing well, software

00:31:20.760 and software mods, horse training, van life inspiration, and also sailing inspiration for

00:31:26.720 whatever reason. Like of the top 50 Patreon creators, there's number two, Peter Boies, who

00:31:33.920 tell me, tell me if this, you understand what this is saying. Okay. This is, this is what

00:31:39.620 it is about says. I tried to bring a lifelike look to Assetto Corsa AC. Ilja Jusper have

00:31:48.960 brought us many tools to mod AC. With his custom shaders patch, CSP, many features are added to

00:31:54.620 AC. One of CSP's modules called Weather FX made new graphics possible. With Sol, I created

00:32:00.520 a highly customized weather system for Assetto Corsa. The next step of my weather and graphics

00:32:04.900 system called Pure. It addresses many problems of Sol and brings new solutions. So what do

00:32:09.880 you think that is? It's, wait, a weather, it's either weather for video game mods. Is

00:32:16.140 that what it is? Is it weather for video game mods?

00:32:19.680 So Assetto Corsa is a highly acclaimed racing simulation video game. I thought it was some

00:32:24.280 kind of like weather prediction system. I was like, oh.

00:32:26.460 Yeah, I thought weather prediction at first, but then you asked me. So I was like, okay, it's

00:32:29.120 got to be something else. It's got to be.

00:32:30.720 Yes. Do you want to guess how much he makes per month on Patreon?

00:32:35.100 $5,000?

00:32:36.340 He makes $55,000 a month, Malcolm.

00:32:39.240 That's the second highest earner on Patreon is $55,000?

00:32:41.880 Yep, that's right. Uh-huh. That's right. Uh-huh. Yep. Mm-hmm. So just $55,000 a month.

00:32:47.380 I know. Well, the True Anon podcast, which is at number eight, makes $174,000 a month because

00:32:52.800 I don't know they charge more. There are several D&D creators. So D&D is alive and well.

00:32:56.860 Yeah. There's 38 is Turbo Driver, which just creates mods for The Sims 4 and has nearly 18,000

00:33:03.260 paid subscribers. There's number 41, Fornax, who creates Pixel Drain, which is some kind of

00:33:09.900 file sharing software. And he makes $58,960 a month. These are people, again, like people are

00:33:17.460 building their lives around this. They're paying monthly subscriptions that are non-trivial in cost

00:33:21.440 to these people for the software mods and to access the community. This is just the crazy thing.

00:33:25.940 And also, I don't think people realize we now have, you know, it used to be that like

00:33:29.080 throughout London, in a London neighborhood, you'd walk a couple blocks and you'd hear a

00:33:33.300 new accent. Like the idea of being hackneyed meant that you were born within earshot of a

00:33:38.580 specific church bell and you would have your, they had their own accent. Like it was a thing.

00:33:42.940 Now there are major social media accents. There's the female influencer accent. It's also called 0.98

00:33:47.420 TikTok voice or influencer accent. There's a male gamer accent. There's trad wife accent.

00:33:52.940 There's male news commentator or podcaster accent. And there's Gen Z non-binary, like 1.00

00:33:58.440 androgynous accent. That's what you've heard. The accent that always gets me is the EA community

00:34:03.020 accent, which is like our wider, like EA rational accent. Yes. And the thing that defines it,

00:34:08.940 because you see this when everything starts talking, it blinds me. Like when I hear it,

00:34:14.060 because I find it so annoying, which is they couch everything they're saying. They are like,

00:34:20.440 so afraid to make a claim where they'll say something like, like I feel, or like, I feel

00:34:26.800 like X or like, you know, this has been observed or whatever. Right. You know, like they don't,

00:34:33.200 they don't. Well, it's more word choice. It's, it's more their, their like diction and syntax and like

00:34:38.680 lilt and accent, but it is totally a distinct thing. Yeah. You can listen to someone and know,

00:34:44.940 depending on how informed you are, what community they're a part of like, oh, she's trying to be

00:34:48.880 TikTok influencer. Oh, he's a gamer. Like, oh no, he's more of a news guy. Come on. People gotta tell

00:34:55.280 us what, what, yeah. I don't know what we sound like. What do we sound like people also slang? I'm

00:34:59.860 going to test your slang and listeners follow along with the crew. Okay. Do you know what a light

00:35:07.140 stick is and how it's used? I stick, I assume a light stick is used for like filming like selfies

00:35:16.360 or something. No, you loser. It's a part of the K-pop community. It is a fan light that is unique 1.00

00:35:22.060 to each group. So you can buy your light stick for like your chosen K-pop group that has like

00:35:26.400 their logo and colors or whatever you wave it at concerts. I've seen this on my shows. I'm in

00:35:31.660 Japanese shows, but you don't know the word. So, okay. Try this one. Do you know what it means

00:35:37.020 to be tatty blasted? Tatty blasted? You took some good words here. What does it mean to 0.91

00:35:45.280 be tatty blasted?

00:35:46.240 It means that you are covered in tattoos because there is a very thriving and very vibrant tattoo

00:35:51.720 community. Speaking of the K-pop communities, I got an anecdote about that. So when I was

00:35:56.540 getting my Stanford MBA, the guy who was running Netflix at the time came over and gave a speech.

00:36:01.740 And one of the things he mentioned in his speech was like his secretary or something

00:36:05.740 was like, I don't understand why you don't buy more like K-dramas because they're all of the

00:36:12.920 first page results on Netflix. And he goes, that's just your account because you watch them all the

00:36:19.020 time. That's really funny. But this shows how you can forget and be like, oh, I see this stuff all

00:36:25.140 the time. That's why I want, like, I just want to like hammer this home that like, these are very,

00:36:29.740 very large communities that I'm talking about here. Like K-pop, the K-pop world is huge. And we also

00:36:34.620 need to watch K-pop demon hunters. And it is, we, we, we, we like don't realize, but like as big as

00:36:41.460 those worlds are, and as much as you can live your entire life within them, you need to understand that

00:36:46.480 if you want mainstream influence and, and relatability, you cannot use that lingo.

00:36:53.760 You cannot use that accent. You have to play into the one, the last show left, but I, I have a couple

00:37:01.400 more words for you and then we're going to stop, but do you know what it means to be mogged by someone?

00:37:07.440 Mobbed?

00:37:08.680 Mogged. M-O-G-G-E-D. 1.00

00:37:10.200 No, I don't know mogging. You could, I feel like I know these words. I'm not hip. I'm not with it. 1.00

00:37:14.340 Because I thought you knew all about your subculture. This is from the looks maxing 1.00

00:37:18.980 subculture to be, to be mogged is to be outclassed in looks. So if someone is much better looking,

00:37:25.540 they mog others. Like you might be height mogged or you might face mog someone. So that, that is a 0.89

00:37:32.080 thing. Do you know what an HFHOA is?

00:37:35.460 An HFHOA?

00:37:37.360 Uh-huh.

00:37:38.520 No, I'm looking up pictures of people who mogged people. 0.99

00:37:41.360 And they, they look ridiculous. 0.57

00:37:46.140 Well, yeah, the looks maxing, the looks maxing look is a very specific aesthetic that isn't 0.97

00:37:51.240 necessarily like everyone's universal standard of beauty, but like anyway, an HFHOA is a homeowners

00:37:57.780 association that is homestead friendly because there's a big homesteading community. You know,

00:38:04.940 they're all about their gardening and their chickens and their, their farm animals and not

00:38:09.720 all homeowners associations are super cool with that.

00:38:11.720 Oh my God. Do you remember, I thought that was so funny. The HBO like documentarian who

00:38:17.000 was afraid of us having guns in our house.

00:38:19.100 Oh yeah.

00:38:19.920 Who just asked like genuinely scared.

00:38:22.380 Are they loaded? Yeah, no, she was genuinely like, she thought she was going to come here

00:38:26.160 and die. Who knows? She might still, we make no promises.

00:38:29.500 You're going to give one of the kids a gun?

00:38:31.080 Yeah. Anyway, do you know what pan porn is or what it means to de-stash?

00:38:35.660 No, I don't know either of these. To de-stash is to declutter or get rid of the makeup you

00:38:42.060 don't use. And pan porn is, is when you hit the pan, like you've used all of the eyeshadow

00:38:46.460 or like blush or foundation, powder foundation. And what about slack packing?

00:38:50.660 Why would I know those? When would that ever happen to me?

00:38:53.340 You wouldn't know that, but what about slack packing? Or do you know what a Nero is?

00:38:58.160 Slack packing?

00:38:59.280 Slack packing.

00:38:59.960 No idea.

00:39:02.120 It's, it's part of the backpacking community. Also huge and thriving. Hiking a trail section

00:39:06.540 without carrying a full backpack or because someone else like shuttles your gear. Like

00:39:11.120 you have someone delivered to the camp ahead of, and a Nero is a nearly zero mile day. So

00:39:15.980 you're just going a few miles before you stop. Okay. Finally, finally though, maybe you'll

00:39:19.960 get this one. I think maybe you'll get this one. What community has murder hobos? 0.59

00:39:27.300 Murder hobos? 1.00

00:39:28.300 Murder hobos. 1.00

00:39:30.640 I don't know. Hobo communities?

00:39:32.260 No, Dungeons and Dragons.

00:39:34.400 Oh yes. I do know that term. Murder hobos. 0.81

00:39:36.580 You do know that. 0.50

00:39:36.960 Okay. I can tell you what this one means. Cause I do know the Dungeons and Dragons community.

00:39:41.460 It is when a group of players acts like murder hobos, they just, now that they can do whatever

00:39:46.940 they want, they just go out and murder everyone they see. And they'd be called murder hobos for 0.98

00:39:51.980 doing that.

00:39:53.060 God bless. All right. Well, I got to go get the kids for ABA therapy for Taurus

00:39:58.160 Den as we attempt to get him to eat food, which he refuses to do. But yeah, the takeaway,

00:40:03.820 there is one, there is one show left. And if you don't opt into it, you will not have widespread

00:40:08.680 influence. You need to understand that you live in a bubble more so than ever before that we do

00:40:13.400 not have a shared community or discourse because everything's mixed together, which ironically means

00:40:17.720 everything's balkanized and not unified anymore. And I think that's really interesting.

00:40:24.260 I love you.

00:40:25.620 I love you so much.

00:40:28.020 Bye Malcolm.

00:40:29.240 Have a great day. 0.99

00:40:31.420 Murder hobo. 1.00

00:40:32.780 You're a murder hobo. I murder hobo every AI simulation. I love murder hoboing. 1.00

00:40:37.020 Everyone's like, I find I get too attached to my AI friends. And I'm like, but I murder all my AI 0.83

00:40:44.340 friends. Why do you do that? And it's like, well, I can't murder my real friends. Right?

00:40:49.480 So no, no, too messy, too messy. Although someone pointed out in the comments the other day that

00:40:55.860 like, there are these swamps in Florida that you just like, I guess, like throw bodies into them and

00:41:01.360 like, no one finds them.

00:41:02.740 Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's some great places in Florida for doing that.

00:41:05.380 We're not in Florida. So people give us, we're in Pennsylvania. All right. Relevant advice.

00:41:10.240 Where do we throw the bodies?

00:41:13.020 No, just tragic boating accident. Always tragic boating accident. Come on, guys.

00:41:17.240 So say it with me.

00:41:18.140 Tragic boating accident.

00:41:18.780 Tragic boating accident. Got drunk. Ooh, we were all having too much fun.

00:41:22.820 Fell overboard. Tragic boating accident. All right. I love you.

00:41:25.920 Bye.

00:41:26.120 Are we going to switch sides because you're going to leave this one?

00:41:30.160 No, no, no.

00:41:31.360 No.

00:41:32.020 Too dangerous for all of you.

00:41:33.120 The world order has to remain intact. Don't do that. That would be terrible.

00:41:39.640 Sorry, I don't mean to abuse you like that.

00:41:43.500 Let's just get into it. You ready?

00:41:46.220 Yeah, yeah. I'm ready to go.

00:41:48.020 All right.

00:41:50.300 Okay, Torsten, do you understand why we're not going to a toy store, right?

00:41:54.380 Well, because you haven't been a very good boy. You hid your pairs.

00:41:59.000 Titan? Titan?

00:42:00.820 Titan? Titan, I'm thinking we're going to have to throw Torsten into the lava. Should we do that?

00:42:05.540 No.

00:42:06.540 You don't want to throw him into the lava?

00:42:08.420 No.

00:42:08.860 Why?

00:42:10.540 Torsten has to stay with me.

00:42:14.580 Oh, you like Torsten?

00:42:17.920 Yeah.

00:42:18.820 Yeah.

00:42:19.200 And you want to have, you like Tex, you want Tex to come back healthy? 0.53

00:42:23.020 I don't get the charm ragged thing. I don't get the, like, thing that has the, like, rug and the tiny cars.

00:42:34.020 Can you, like, car lug thing and the tiny cars? Please.

00:42:40.120 Yeah, I can.

00:42:41.100 Now go get it.

00:42:44.280 I said go get it.

00:42:45.960 Octavian, is that a very polite way to ask?

00:42:48.000 Can you please get it?

Based Camp - October 06, 2025

After The Fracture： Only One Show Remains

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