Sub-Cultures With High Fertility： In Japan, UK, and Australia
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Summary
A cultural subgroup that is derivative often of American cultural subgroups and popular with the lower classes within a number of countries is staying or becoming one of the core high-fertility communities it shall inherit the future. In this episode, Simone and I explore the phenomenon of the "Yankees" of Japan.
Transcript
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Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing a
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phenomenon where a certain convergently evolved cultural subgroup that is derivative often of
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American cultural subgroups and popular with the lower classes within a number of countries
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is staying or becoming one of the core high fertility communities.
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Exactly. And the first of these is going to be the Yankees of Japan. I'll put a clip of one here.
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I want daughters who act like that, by the way. That is my plan. It is 100%.
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But it's a culture that if you watch anime, you're likely familiar with, in which people sort of dress
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like greasers and they form gangs, greasers being the 1950s American subculture, and they focus on
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So not exactly. So yeah, Yankee culture is more just kind of like this. Yes, there's the greaser
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hairstyle in many cases, like perms and little bouffons and stuff. But there is just general,
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like, as younger kids, they were hooligans. They had bike gangs. They caused destruction to property.
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But the movement now has evolved into what is referred to as mild Yankees, which are basically
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the grown-up version of these people. And they've kind of switched out their souped-up biker game
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bikes for... What are they called? These weird-looking Toyota cars that they spend way too much money
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on. The Toyota Velfire. It's like this really boxy van. Just look it up. It's a thing. And
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they're actually now known for being, like, fairly responsible, but they still kind of maintain a
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So basically what happened, and we're going to go into a tweet that I think gets into this really well,
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is they picked up this greaser, rebellious-for-rebellious's-sake culture that ended up
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being very similar to sort of redneck culture in the United States, truck-nut conservatives in the
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United States, as we pointed out. This is a uniquely resistant to fertility collapse group.
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And being reactively anti-authority and anti-trend following, like mainstream trends,
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is in the US, and for obvious reasons, protective of fertility rates.
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And it has acted protectively for this subculture and other subcultures as they've aged out of their
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Well, but I think what's really interesting about this group, and also the other groups that we're
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going to explore in the United States, Australia, the UK, that bear a lot of similarities, is
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this rebelliousness also is correlated with or just exists alongside a fundamental mistrust in,
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like, mainstream societal institutions being plugged into mainstream news, and also believing in things
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like the lifelong corporate job and going to university. So these groups also tend to either
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not even finish high school, but at least definitely at very low rates, go to university,
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so they're not in higher education. And the man who actually coined the term mild Yankee, his name is
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Harada Yohei. He wrote this book called Yankee Economics, The New Conservatives, As the Leaders of
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Consumption. He described them as the last Japanese generation to have parents who enjoyed
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permanent, regular employment in a normal way. And it actually, as they aged, their rebelliousness eased up a
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little bit, because fewer and fewer of their parents had jobs and incomes that sort of allowed them to, like,
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wield social control that they might even, like, buck up against. So I think that also this generation
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are at the lower ends of the economic spectrum to begin with, also was the first to see the crumbling
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of the lifelong corporate job, which was a really big thing in Japan, but certainly a big thing everywhere else, too.
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So they also, like, I think are among the first cultures to start going off the grid.
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And by going off the grid, I mean, not buying in to something that has turned out to be a fundamental lie,
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and that buying into also correlates with low fertility, in that the lifelong corporate job,
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or buying into that kind of fantasy of, like, I'm going to make a lot of money, I'm going to go to
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university, is the IQ shredder. It is the moving to the cities. It is the going to university and getting
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the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and
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just spend time with friends and live within your means. And so this group is sort of naturally
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high fertility, because these are the ones who aren't entering the fertility shredder. Does that
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make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged as you would imagine, given their
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life choices. At the same time, they decided to get out of the university pipeline, focus on the
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trades. In Japan, especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or what they paid relative
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to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart. Yeah. And what's
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interesting is some people have posited about soft Yankees in Japan that, oh, they're going to
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disappear. They're not going to last for long because they're not very educated. And, you know,
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they won't be able to afford houses. They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these
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just like emptying out towns in Japan where they can buy houses, although they're typically sticking
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close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So no,
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these people will be just fine. So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to
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this, it said, Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society. Skip high school and uni, several
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years head start, and earn way more than a graduate in their 20s. Marry a gyro, buy a new house, have kids,
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this is the way. And it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on
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screen of like what this culture looks like. It says then they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer
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radius of their hometown. So they keep strong family friendship bonds, making it easier to start a
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family. And it shows, you know, a meme of them grilling with, with, and it says, yeah, the mild Yankee
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statue was their van. The boy was the soft Mohawk barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is
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learning to dance beautiful wife. And they have, I think it's not a van. I think again, it's a Toyota
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Vellfire. And I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle. That is so strange. And there's
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another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee, where it's a guy and his girlfriend and they have a
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baby. And it says, but, and he says, this, this messed up delicious. That's really bad. This,
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eat it if you like. And she's giving, an old lady's giving her like food. And of course in Japan,
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this would happen if you moved to a town and had kids.
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Oh, basically it's, it's a cartoon showing a husband enjoying his wife's food, a wife accepting
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local produce from a family member or neighbor. And then the, the family and their kids expressing
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thanks to that local community member. Like this is the archetype of sustainable family rearing,
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living in a supportive community, showing them gratitude, the young and old and, and working age
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all have a role and they enjoy small and simple things. And that's the thing about this.
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It's about building an alternate culture where the dominance hierarchy is not, and people don't
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like that. I use the term dominance hierarchy. They're like, call it the prestige hierarchy. I use
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dominance hierarchy because I'm comparing it in an anthropological context to like an eight tribe
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or something like that is not the unified, the dominance hierarchy. The problem, one of the
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biggest problems with the urban monoculture is that everyone's playing was in the same dominance
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hierarchy. So you're always going to feel near the bottom, unless you happen to be like famous or
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something where it was in both the Yankee and the mild Yankee dominance hierarchies. You can, for a much
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lower cost and much lower investment, really invest in that culture and be like your own person that
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you can have pride in. And then a tweet under it. Oh, actually, before I go to the tweet under it,
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do you want me to read about the evolution of Yankee culture?
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In Japan? Yes, I will. Okay. So the term Yankee in Japan doesn't refer to the American baseball team
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or the historical U.S. group, but rather to a distinct subculture that emerged in the late 20th
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century. Japanese Yankees are typically associated with rebellious youth, often characterized by a
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distinctive style. Think pompadour hairstyles, modified school uniforms, and a tough anti-establishment
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attitude. This subculture has roots in the post-war period, influenced by American pop culture like rock
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and roll and biker kings, but it evolved into something uniquely Japanese. Over time, it's been
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linked to working class communities, particularly in urban and semi-urban settings like South Osaka
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and parts of Kishu. Is it associated with higher fertility rates? There's no hard data from official
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sources like Japan's Ministry of Health or academic studies specifically tying Yankee subculture to
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higher birth rates. However, some observations and sentiment on platforms like X hint at a connection.
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For instance, it's been suggested in areas where Yankee culture is strong, like South Osaka or
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Kishu, families tend to have more kids, two to three, compared to Japan's national average total
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fertility rate, which dropped from 1.2 in 2023. Okinawa with a TFR of 1.6 and parts of Kishu, like Miyazaki,
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1.49, do stand out as having higher fertility rates than, say, Tokyo, 0.99. These regions also have a
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reputation as being more relaxed, community-oriented lifestyles, which some associate with lingering
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Yankee influence. The theory might go like this. Yankees historically from working class backgrounds
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may have prioritized family and traditional roles over career-driven urban lifestyles that dominate
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cities like Tokyo, where fertility rates are lowest. Their mild modern counterparts could still carry a
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countercultural tendency towards earlier marriage and large families, bunking Japan's broader trend of
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delayed and foregone parenthood. For example, Kishu's relatively high fertility rates, around 1.8 in
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some areas, and its reputation as a Yankee stronghold could suggest that correlation.
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So one thing that I was looking at today was the connection between Yankee culture and another
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high fertility culture, which is the Appalachian culture, which we constantly talk about. And in that
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Twitter thread, they don't even mention Appalachian culture, but two separate people are like,
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oh my gosh, you're just describing the UK phenomenon of the Dino.
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And we're going to go over these two other phenomenons in a second.
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Oh, you're just describing Aussie tradies. But I want to talk about the similarities between
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Yankee culture and Appalachian culture. And the reason why is there's this movie that I love that
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you will never, ever watch because it's basically the Japanese Amelie called Kamikaze Girls that I
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have probably spent like hundreds of hours watching again and again, like before I met you,
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because I love it so much. It's about two girls. One is this girl who's really into Gothic
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lollia clothing named Momoko and a friend she makes named Ichigo. And Ichigo is a Yankee. She's a,
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she's a Yankee girl. And like, when I rewatch the scene where she's introduced, I'm just like,
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oh my gosh, there's, she is like the Japanese, like Appalachian Tom girl, because she shows up on
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what is basically a rideable truck nut. It's like this insane, like souped up scooter motorcycle
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thing. And because she's the member of this, this, this Japanese biker game called the Ponytails.
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And she's actually showing up at this young girl's house because her father sells bootlegged Versace,
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like super trashy clothing. And like, as she's like looking at the clothing that's available for sale
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later in the scene, she's like, oh my gosh, universal Versace. Cause he'll just like starts
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combining logos. It's like just totally trashy taste, but like fantastic. And as she's approaching
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Momoko, Momoko's like thinking like, oh, a Yankee drawn on eyebrows. And she spits on the ground and
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she has like very male mannerisms and it's just like, whoa. Okay. So we've got the tomboy,
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we've got the truck nuts, we've got like the toughness and this sort of like unabashed enthusiasm
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for things and lack of concern for what other people think. And I absolutely love it. And I
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never watched that movie thinking like, oh, this is a lot like another type of American culture,
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but it totally is. And it makes so much sense to me that this would evolve into one of the
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high fertility Japanese cultures. And I'm thrilled about it.
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If I can get away with posting this culture, it's this video, because it's part of a music video
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that it's from the country song, When It Rains. And I think that many people, when they think of
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American country music, or they think of this like uniform sort of Republican American cultural group.
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And I keep pointing out that no, the Appalachian cultural group is very distinct from the aristocratic
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Southern group or the aristocratic and very religious Southern group and proper and the Mormon group.
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And I think that the intro to this video does a very good job because you see this family coming out
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going to church and you assume if you're approaching country music with stereotypes that they are the
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protagonist. And no, it's not, it's not them. It's the guy who fell asleep partying on his, his roof and
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who's just, you know, was, was having a fun time. And you can tell that this individual would be very
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Watch like a video of the, the girl in it, who is being a very like, at her lunch with the other girl.
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And she's showing a lot of manners that remind me a lot of our daughter.
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No kidding. Yeah. If it was like, if that scene was our family, it would be me
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dressed like the frilly girl and it would be our daughter Titan sitting across from me 100%.
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But also like another thing that's demonstrated in that scene you're referring to is like this
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distinct lack of education. Like, I think she's listening to some classical artist and Ichigo's
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But, but you see here that this is also something you see with this Appalachian group culture.
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When you see them stereotyped, they're always stereotyped as the women particularly as being
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uniquely tomboyish. Just think of like Applejack for My Little Pony. He was like hardworking and,
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and, and, and tomboyish. Or you could think of, well, any girl from, you know, I'm trying to think
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of good stereotypes. Oh yes. I'm a redneck woman. Or the, the girl from, I didn't need no high
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class man. The Beverly Hillbillies. I think she's great. Oh yes. The Beverly Hillbillies where she's
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incredibly strong. Is, is like the gyaru archetype. So the, what Roko on Twitter said when talking
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about this movement wasn't implying that like Yankees marry Yankees and definitely like female
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Yankees as depicted by Ichigo and Kamikaze girls is less common. You're more likely to get like the
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girly girl version of that subculture, which is gyaru. They're like way back in the day, the way that
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you knew you were looking at a gyaru was basically if you saw like a Japanese stereotype of like
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Malibu Barbie. So bleached blonde hair, super tanned, and then extremely girly pink accessories.
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They look overly tan and they're like, now, now they're, now they're just toned down. Now they
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just look like the Japanese equivalent of trailer trash. Like they're, they're attractive. They're
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sexy. They, they like dress in a sort of like sexy, attractive way. And I think social media
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has kind of had that effect where it's like toned everyone down a little bit and also taught everyone
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how to style themselves. Both in like a more classy and more trashy way. Right. Cause everyone has,
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everyone has adopted drag makeup online. Like everyone's contouring now. And yet like,
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we're trying to like, even it out. There's tempering taking place.
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I sent you a like super wholesome hentai of, of one of these girls. So you can see that
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Leave it to us to describe hentai as wholesome though.
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Well, this one is clearly just made for like, look, you can masturbate different parts of your brain.
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And one thing that people like to masturbate is the wholesome part. Like, yeah, like a fantasy about
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Who actually loves you and cares about you. Can you imagine?
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Yeah. Like the, the, just as basically a childhood friend who doesn't feel like she's done anything with
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her life is really just completely plussed and over the moon. And she's become a gyaru or like a mild
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gyaru, I guess you'd say. It was like big pink animal print, like broth, like small top thing.
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Yeah. And, and you, you, she's like sad about her life and she's really excited that somebody
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loves her and cares for horror. And that's the, the gist of it. But it's, it's, it's common enough
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that even when these characters are used in Japanese pornography, like hentai, they are used
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as like a, I'm going to be a sweet, good, and loving wife. Who's going to give you lots of
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babies. Yeah. Yeah. That's very much the, the, what you can tell is like the fantasy that's
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represented here. And it's interesting that it transitioned from delinquent to, I am going to
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be delinquent by being a sweet wife, but not in a traditional Japanese way, which is like,
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I guess like out of subservience or something like that, just because I appreciate you so
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much, you know, and I think that a lot of guys in Japan may feel that way. And they may look
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at a girl like that and see her as more attainable, which was what would create this like genre of
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hentai. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just also such a contrast to, I watch a lot of,
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I guess you could call them ambiance videos on YouTube made by single women who live in tiny
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little apartments in Tokyo and have salary woman jobs. And in these videos, they're just like
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silent. They never show their faces and they just do their evening routines. They make dinner for
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themselves. And it's just such this weird contrast between this like completely asexual, highly
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educated, professional woman. Um, and I'm sure that they're male equivalents, you know, doing the
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same thing. And then this, this, this family, you know, these people who actually want to have kids
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young. And this is what we have to like, this is, this is what post globalization, post tech high
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fertility culture looks like. It looks like people who marry their high school sweethearts or who marry
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during university and start having kids in their twenties and have a support system. I mean, it doesn't
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have to be as an, is the case with the soft Yankees family members, and they don't have to stay
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within 10 kilometers of where they were born, but it helps.
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So am I free to move on to the next cultural group?
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Ooh, which one are we going to do? Are we going to do Aussie tradies?
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Yeah, we're going to continue with this. It goes, this is wild. There's the exact same archetype
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with differences in execution, obviously in the UK called the Dino, a lower middle-class types,
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extremely misunderstood. The commonality they have is their positive outlook. They need few things to
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make them happy, laugh easily, et cetera. So let's talk about the Dino group.
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Dino isn't an organized group or a former subculture in the UK, but rather a satirical
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stereotype that's emerged online, particularly on platforms like Twitter, now X and 4chan to
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describe a specific type of person or lifestyle. The term paints the picture of a lower middle-class,
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often suburban or small town British couple, typically in their 20s or 30s, who embody a mix of
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aspirational consumerism and what some see as tacky mainstream tastes. Think of this as a modern
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evolution of the older British stereotypes of the Essex man or Mondio man, but with a sharper-
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What about the Chavs? Like, are they just totally different?
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Are they different from the, are they Chavs? Shavs? I don't know how they are.
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Okay. Although to point back to like Kamikaze Girls, like this obsession with like Versace knockoff
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stuff, I think that's the thing. It's like lower middle-class, like thinking, for example,
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Dino is usually imagined as a guy named Dean, hence the name, working a decent but unglamorous
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job. Say, a call center supervisor, estate agent, tradesperson. He lives in a new building
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housing estate, often called Barat Britain, after a major UK developer, drives a finance
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car like a Vauxhall Astra and enjoys lad hobbies, FIFA, Love Island packaged holidays to Marbella
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Yes. His partner, sometimes jokingly called Miss Fiat 500, matches him with white and teap,
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lift fillers, and wardrobe of fast fashion. Their home might feature gray carpets, a sophology
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sofa, and an astroturf garden, all proudly shared on Instagram. The stereotype leans hard into their
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perceived obsession with appearances and status, despite their relatively modest means. The Dino
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meme started as a piss take on 4chan and spread through British Twitter, where it's been dissected
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with both humor and disdain. Some see Dinos as happy and fulfilled in their straightforward lives,
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owning a home, having mates, and enjoying the odd pint, while others mock them as shallow conformists
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or oblivious to their precarious financial situation, big mortgages, little savings.
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Posts on X often highlight their aesthetics, slicked back hair, half shirt buttons undone,
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and blonde hair dye and eating disorder for the women. It's less about real subculture and more
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about a caricature of the normal British outside the urban elite.
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Oh, screw them. I'm here for it. I'm here for it.
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I think it's people who are proud to be themselves outside of this other culture, which is what's
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necessary to fight against this. A pride in being something other than the other urban monoculture,
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and an immunity to urban monocultural ridicule of you, whatever that culture looks like.
00:23:11.620
Well, there's some tension there because there's absolutely keeping up with Joneses taking place
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with the financed vehicle, with the house, with everything posted on Instagram, the lip filler,
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the blonde hair, the whitened teeth, the eating disorder. I think that they're among their
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internal, there is keeping up with the Joneses. It just happens to be that the Joneses aren't
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like this distributed international group. It's like literally the people who live next door to
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you, just like it was in the fifties and sixties. Yeah. But there, there is still, there's,
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there's sensitivity, but also it is more financially realistic keeping up with the Joneses because
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you're playing a different game than the urban monoculture game. Yeah. This is like what they're
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saying. They're like, they're so surprised that these people seem proud of things that aren't of
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status within the urban monoculture. Like why do they have pride in these modest mean things? And it's
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because they're playing a different dominance hierarchy than you're playing with it. Yeah.
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But anyway, goes on and tweets to say, I have a lot of friends like this. All they do is drink and
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party all day, but they go overseas every year. And here I am working overtime at the office as a
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humble salary, man. Maybe I should have taken the, and I think it's something in Japanese pill after
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all. And then it says under the shortage of blue collar workers is so extreme that wage wise,
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you can earn much more than the average salary, man. The flip side as your body will be
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broken by your fifties and you'll probably die of lung cancer early. And then the next says that
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they can live at least decent lives. If their father refrained himself from spending his whole
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savings on verifier, or if they're becoming too Pachinko addicted. And then a person says today,
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I learned mild Yankees are just like Aussie tradies. Like Pachinko addiction is, is no different
00:24:50.140
from problems with sports gambling in the U S like there's so many similarities here,
00:24:55.280
but yeah, we can, we can go here to this next culture, the tradies in Australia. Do you want
00:25:01.060
to learn about them? Yeah. I want to learn about the tradies. Absolutely.
00:25:04.460
In Australia, tradies is a widely used slang for a term short for tradespeople or tradesmen
00:25:09.960
refers to skilled manual workers who specialize in a particular trade, such as carpentry, plumbing,
00:25:14.880
electrical work, bricklaying, or mechanics. And you can tell that they would fall into this category.
00:25:18.780
These other people who we're talking about, these folks typically are hands-on professionals
00:25:22.220
who've completed apprenticeships or vocational training to master their craft. They're the
00:25:27.480
ones building houses, fixing pipes, wiring homes, and keeping cars running, essentially keeping the
00:25:31.820
country running. The terms got cultural weight down under. Tradies are often seen as embodying a rugged,
00:25:37.380
practical, no-nonsense Aussie spirit. Think high vests, steel capped boots, and a ute utility vehicle
00:25:44.620
loaded with tools. They are a big part of the economy too, especially in construction, which is a powerhouse
00:25:49.840
industry in Australia. Posts on X and Web Chatter sometimes paint them as a hardworking blokes,
00:25:54.340
and increasingly women who enjoy a beer after a long day, though that's more of a stereotype than
00:25:58.600
a rule. Unlike the UK's Dino stereotype, which is more about a lifestyle or a class jab, tradies are
00:26:04.020
defined by their skills and jobs. They're not a subculture in the rebellious sense like Japan's
00:26:08.440
Yankees, but they do have their own lingo and camaraderie. Think smoko, break time, or hard yaka,
00:26:14.520
tough work. Some tradies earn solid money, 75 to 95k on average, but they're specialized or run their
00:26:22.540
own gig, though it varies by trade and experience. So yeah, apparently a lot of cultures are seeing
00:26:32.240
this in different regions or something that they see as similar with the core difference being
00:26:37.720
a different life path and different dominance hierarchy and different things that they value.
00:26:45.340
And then this person here did a podcast on it. They say, this is a fascinating, generated,
00:26:50.860
a whole AI podcast about the subject. But they did a picture, which I thought is really nice looking
00:26:55.420
of this. And then somebody here also said, there's also the work and Ezekiah and then open a kitchen
00:27:02.180
car pipeline, allows lots of time for surfing, et cetera. Yeah. And an izakaya restaurant is
00:27:09.440
basically Japanese tapas. So I could, I could see someone like having maybe a pop-up restaurant and
00:27:13.520
using that to create a sort of flexible lifestyle. So only the malcontents of Japan
00:27:19.260
are also the only people who thrive. The only people who couldn't fit in, in a brutally conformist
00:27:24.900
country are also the only ones to find happiness. The only winners of Japanese society are the people
00:27:30.360
with a good sense to stay out. What were you going to say? Sorry, I interrupted you there.
00:27:35.740
No, go, go ahead. I mean, so, okay, I'll just jump in then and say one thing that gives me a lot of
00:27:42.780
hope about these subcultures is that one, they may be underrepresented as inheritors of the future
00:27:49.720
because they've chosen so much to opt out of the internet, to opt out of mainstream culture,
00:27:55.620
and to be pretty hard to measure. So I was, I was reading some news stories on this group and
00:28:01.920
they're like, well, people are trying to like find them, but you can't really find them in online
00:28:05.500
surveys. You, most of the interviews that people are doing on people on the streets are in places
00:28:10.980
like Tokyo, like in really high traffic neighborhoods. So they're not finding them
00:28:15.300
because these people, even when they vacation, they typically vacation close to home. So my understanding
00:28:20.120
is that basically they are off the grid to a great extent. And when you and I were looking at data
00:28:26.340
of groups that seem to be high fertility in the United States, we kept seeing yes, high levels of
00:28:33.620
religiosity, but also xenophobia and extreme sensitive sensitivity to hierarchy and sort of like a lot of,
00:28:39.980
a lot of scary fascist, but not in a good way. And it's sort of closed minded, scary way
00:28:45.080
tendencies. My impression is that these groups are not as much like that. They might be somewhat
00:28:51.680
suspicious of outsiders. I get that, but I'm, I'm less concerned about groups like this
00:28:57.920
inheriting the future because they're community minded. They sound pretty pro-social at least since
00:29:05.320
they've sort of evolved out of their hard Yankee days where they used to actually cause a lot of
00:29:10.380
property damage and be kind of troublesome people in their communities. Now they're, they're seen as
00:29:15.540
being much more responsible community members. So they're, they seem to be broadly pro-social.
00:29:20.600
They care about kids. They care about family. They're grateful for the community health they get.
00:29:25.740
This doesn't seem like a bad group to be inheriting the future.
00:29:28.680
It seems like living for a delinquent aesthetic where that is also high fertility. And that's one of a way
00:29:35.200
of thumbing your nose at society is high fertility. And another thing that's high fertility
00:29:40.140
is being both frugal, but not good with financial decisions. That's another thing that seems to be
00:29:46.640
high fertility is that they don't fold. They're just like, okay, I'm going to keep having kids and
00:29:49.700
it's going to work out. I think people who are overly concerned about being able to afford things
00:29:53.200
like the people who are like, well, don't they know how precarious their life is? People who think
00:29:58.940
like that never end up having kids. Yeah. Like they, well, they, they both are happy living within
00:30:05.360
their means, but they seem to for cultural or perhaps lack of education reasons are both
00:30:11.140
blow the money that they do have on things that they don't necessarily need like cosmetic surgery
00:30:17.840
and cars and maybe sports gambling or pachinko. And that's maybe, I mean, we, we see it as not great,
00:30:26.100
but at the same time, the lack of savings and also that lack of concern. Oh, I can't afford this.
00:30:32.220
So I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Does seem to be really, it forces people to lean in more to
00:30:40.040
family, more to community. And I do think there's a synergistic effect there where the more you lean
00:30:44.120
into family and community, the more you're likely to have kids and also support your family and
00:30:48.700
community. You know, the more everyone needs each other, the more they help each other and the more
00:30:51.620
they lean into that again. And so it would only create more children, more loving communities.
00:30:56.600
And we can, we kind of need that. So rut row. All right. Well, Simone, this has been a fun
00:31:05.680
conversation. I hope our daughters grew up to be as fierce as, as that Yankee girl who you liked
00:31:11.960
growing up. What did you think of her character growing up? Did you like, like her or did you
00:31:15.460
identify more with the other girl? No, I definitely identify with Momoko, the sweet Lolita girl who's
00:31:22.680
obsessed with frilly dresses. Some of the, I was watching other scenes from the movie today and
00:31:27.280
I realized like in one scene, she's wearing a dress that looks so much like what I wear every day.
00:31:34.260
Like she's a white bonnet and a black jumper, a white petticoat. And I'm like, Oh God,
00:31:39.900
Lolita. Like, is that like actually your thing now? Is this Puritan Lolita? What have I done?
00:31:46.720
Oh, that's what I like. When we go to conferences and she dresses up in her traditional outfits,
00:31:50.400
the people who like come up and gush over them are often like skunking goth girls. They're like,
00:31:56.340
Oh, that's so cool. You look crazy. Like I love it. And it's so fun that you can be so trad
00:32:03.040
that like the big goth. It's the horseshoe theory, just like you have the, you know,
00:32:08.640
the crunchy to all right horseshoe where, you know, they, they end up being connected in the end.
00:32:15.060
It it's, it's great. I love it. But wait, so you basically now as a grownup,
00:32:20.680
I have a daughter who's like the punk girl who's like Momoko and you know, sorry, I'm like Momoko
00:32:25.640
and I have a daughter like Ichigo. Yeah. 100%. Did you, did you expect that? We'll see if she
00:32:30.340
keeps it up as she gets older, but right now, Oh my God, she loves trolling. Like
00:32:35.000
such a troll. She's such a troll. She will like, even with her siblings, it's not just us. It's
00:32:39.620
like Octavian will be like, please don't touch my, my Google device while I'm gone. And then she'll
00:32:44.840
be like, as soon as he leaves, she has no interest in it. Yeah. She just wants no desire to play with
00:32:49.880
Dexter's lab or something. 100%. She lives to troll and I love it. I respect it. I didn't know that
00:32:55.560
that was a real genetic compulsion. Yeah. Trolling heritable. Someone can make apologetic score
00:33:01.720
around that with enough data. Is she going to be Deedee to Torsen's mad scientist? The short
00:33:08.200
little brother who's shorter than her and really smart. They're the same size now, pretty much.
00:33:28.040
He has bigger feet than her. Thank goodness. He's, he's growing something.
00:33:31.560
I'm going to get that kid to grow. We're going to move ways. Okay. All right. I love you to
00:33:38.360
Desimone. It's been a joy talking with you. And we just submitted our Andreessen Horowitz
00:33:43.720
applications with two of the Collins Institute and the video game that we've been working on.
00:33:50.040
If you're buddies with them, put in a good word for old, for old Collins. Yes. Or if you know another
00:33:57.960
VC we should be looking at or talking to, who's interested in AI games or AI education, let us know
00:34:04.280
because warm intros apparently matter. And what's the point of having fans if we can't get warm intros?
00:34:11.640
Yeah, actually social batching is everything. And these are big projects that we really believe in, but
00:34:17.640
I, yeah, we'll see. Oh, we should, we should put the pitch decks here so people can be like,
00:34:22.440
oh, this is what you're working on. Oh, that would be cool. Yeah. If you want to learn more about these
00:34:26.040
projects, see the pitch decks below. And if you have ideas for us, please share, because actually
00:34:32.360
our listeners are super smart, incredible people with some. Yeah. Okay. Not all of you. All right.
00:34:40.440
Which one are you listener? Are you, are you mid or are you based?
00:34:48.440
Are you, yeah. Are you smart enough to, to have been a Yankee who have known to be a delinquent
00:34:52.200
from the beginning? I was definitely a delinquent growing up. So you married the, the grownup
00:34:56.520
delinquents. Yeah. Well, I mean the, another one of the themes that I really like from this is,
00:35:01.640
is a lot of people identifying, or at least referring to them as misfits, you know, like
00:35:06.280
it's the misfits in the end who could get to inherit the future. And that's totally it. It's the
00:35:09.720
people, as you keep pointing out, who deviate from mainstream society.
00:35:14.360
They're misfits is that they don't care about the fact that they're perceived as misfits.
00:35:19.800
It is the not caring about other people's judgment of you as a misfit.
00:35:27.000
Anyway, and that's what you got to raise your kids to think like. And it's, it's, it's a big,
00:35:31.240
so many people, I think that this is, is going to be one of the biggest things that Mormonism
00:35:34.920
is going to struggle getting around is a fear of being seen as misfit or others, which is one of
00:35:41.640
the reasons their particular fertility collapse, even though it's not as bad as other denominations
00:35:47.400
like Catholicism may be more intractable because I think that many Catholic groups are okay. It was
00:35:52.360
looking weird. Whereas I don't know many Mormon groups that really embrace the idea of being weird.
00:35:59.240
Yeah. 100%. That's a big problem. Okay. Bye. Bye. I love you. Goodbye.
00:36:04.280
Bye. I said, good day, sir. Good day. I love the aesthetics, the subject. I absolutely adore it.
00:36:14.440
It has just all these like tiny little aesthetic moments and references. And the main character has
00:36:22.680
sensitivities to stupid little things that I really identify with, but it's definitely, it's like even
00:36:28.920
down to lighting choices made. It is clearly the Amelie of Japan and you will never watch it and
00:36:33.640
you will never like it. And that's okay. It's totally okay. I mean, that was a common thing in
00:36:38.680
Japan to pair characters who have those two acts. The contrast. Yeah. Yeah. You had it with Puffy Amiyumi,
00:36:44.360
for example, the cartoon about the popular band. The Tom Girl and the Girly Girl.
00:36:49.880
Tom Girl and the Girly Girl. Everybody wants to hang out with Tom Girl and the Girly Girl.
00:36:53.240
You know what? Watch them fight each other. Oh, that's so silly. So silly.
00:37:23.240
I want flowers. You want to pick the flowers too?
00:37:38.840
Okay. If you can stay out of the mud, you can pick some. They're called swamp marigolds. Go get some.