Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 27, 2022


Ep 730 ｜ When God Calls You to Tell Jokes ｜ Guest： Joel Berry


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per Minute

178.52638

Word Count

11,228

Sentence Count

839

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Why is satire more important than ever in our current culture? What is it like to be raised in
00:00:08.940 a fundamentalist quasi cult and then to become a born again believer? We're talking about all of
00:00:18.580 this and more with the Babylon bees, Joel Berry. We will end the conversation with a rousing game
00:00:24.860 of would you rather? You know how much I love that. You guys are going to enjoy this conversation.
00:00:30.000 It is deep, but it's also really fun. You'll laugh, you'll cry, all that good stuff. The episode is
00:00:35.860 brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. That's
00:00:39.740 goodranchers.com slash Allie. Joel, thanks so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who may not
00:00:54.160 know who you are and what you do? Yeah. I'm the managing editor of the Babylon Bee. I've been
00:00:58.940 working there for three years. I think I've heard of that. Three crazy years. Yeah. I've
00:01:03.180 heard of it. I think so. But you know, I went to go, I went to look it up the other day because
00:01:09.040 I heard of it for the first time. I looked at the Twitter page and they hadn't tweeted
00:01:13.860 since March. So I just figured that like the person who ran it died, but you're here. So
00:01:19.700 what, I mean, what happened with that? Yeah. Yeah. We're here. We're still, still posting
00:01:23.840 jokes, just not on Twitter. Not on Twitter. Twitter decided that we were, we were too
00:01:28.320 much. We were unfit for, for their platform. So I can. And what, what was the deciding
00:01:33.420 joke? Okay. So that got kicked you off? Yeah. So the deciding joke, I guess the context
00:01:37.740 was Rachel Levine, who is the assistant HHS secretary, who was a transgender woman, biological
00:01:45.240 man, had just been named the woman of the year by USA Today. And we, that was just funny
00:01:54.640 by itself. Right. Yeah. I mean, woman of the year of all the women out there. It didn't
00:01:59.680 even just say like transgender woman. Right. I'm pretty sure that it was the New York times
00:02:04.500 that actually said female. Okay. So this person who has literally sired children, female. All
00:02:11.100 right. Yeah. Incredible. And that's, that's where our job gets hard because it's one of
00:02:16.640 those cases where the real world is more absurd than anything we could come up with. Right.
00:02:21.120 So, you know, the site was a little quiet that day. It was feeling a little mischievous. So
00:02:24.640 I wrote this joke where we decided to make Rachel Levine our man of the year. We, we awarded
00:02:30.100 Rachel Levine our man of the year award. And it's, you know, not so much of a joke as it
00:02:34.420 is a kind of a mischievous, like a troll type thing, you know, we just, we threw it out
00:02:37.800 there. And that's kind of what like a lot of the Babylon B jokes are. You're just presenting
00:02:43.220 the absurdity of reality in a way that is either a little exaggerated or ironic to make
00:02:48.680 a point. Yes. Yeah. We're not pure comedy and people get that confused that satire and
00:02:53.420 comedy does overlap. You know, comedy sometimes is satirical. So that satire is sometimes comedic,
00:02:59.300 but satire is more to, to make a point. We have a message that we're trying to get across.
00:03:03.240 And so, so yeah, um, we, we put that out there. I, I talked with Kyle Mann, who's the editor in
00:03:08.440 chief of the B later that morning, he said, I think you're going to get us kicked off Twitter.
00:03:12.020 And he was right. He was right. I think either that afternoon or the next morning we had been
00:03:16.840 suspended. And, uh, you know, I, I think the initial plan was, you know, maybe we just delete
00:03:23.880 the joke like Twitter wants us to, and we'll go about it. We'll turn it into another joke. You know,
00:03:27.360 we'll make fun of it. Cause for, for those who just don't know how the Twitter suspension
00:03:31.700 process works, which they probably do. Cause I've been suspended several times for the same thing.
00:03:36.740 Um, they typically make you, they say, okay, we will let you back on Twitter in 12 hours if
00:03:44.540 you delete this tweet. So they hold you hostage. You can't send sometimes DMs. You can't really
00:03:49.820 function on Twitter at all. Um, you have to do what we say, and then we will let you back on it.
00:03:57.860 I have been kicked off and sometimes I've deleted the tweets, but last time it was for something
00:04:02.580 like that. And I actually, I appealed it and they reversed the decision and then let me back on,
00:04:07.840 which is very rare. But anyway, okay. So y'all decided not to do that. You decided not to delete
00:04:13.280 the tweet.
00:04:14.020 Yes. So, and that's, I mean, God bless Seth Dillon, our owner. He, he, within a few hours,
00:04:19.080 he publicly said, we are not going to delete this tweet. Um, we, we refuse to admit that we've
00:04:25.480 participated in hateful conduct. We're speaking the truth and we're not going to back down.
00:04:28.940 We're not going to censor ourselves and refuse to speak the truth. So, um, he took that stand
00:04:33.560 and, um, you know, at that time, Elon Musk, who is a kind of a fan of the B, he, he enjoys
00:04:40.300 our content from time to time. And he was in Germany opening up a new Tesla factory. Uh,
00:04:46.180 but then when he came back, uh, I guess when he came back to the States, he opened up Twitter
00:04:49.840 and found that the B hadn't posted and he was kind of what's going on, found out that we
00:04:53.460 were, we were off of Twitter and, uh, uh, kind of the rest is history. You know, I, I don't
00:04:58.860 know if, I don't know if that is the reason he bought Twitter. I think maybe it was a contributing
00:05:02.360 factor.
00:05:03.320 Yeah. Um, so as we're recording this, you guys are not back on Twitter, although this
00:05:08.840 is coming out a little bit after we're recording it. So just from what you know, right now,
00:05:14.900 as we are talking, do you think that there is a possibility that you'll get back on?
00:05:20.800 Yes. Now that it's under new ownership.
00:05:23.440 I think we will. Um, I think, I think Elon right now has a very difficult job to try to
00:05:28.320 keep the company together and to keep the, all the advertisers on board, um, until he
00:05:32.860 can get this $8 subscription service set up and get some revenue from there. Um, you know,
00:05:39.800 I don't know. I think, um, I think he's very much in our corner. It just, um, he, I think
00:05:46.640 there's a lot of groundwork that has to be laid before he's ready to start letting everybody
00:05:50.940 back on.
00:05:51.460 Well, there's a lot of people that I want back on. Obviously the Babylon Bee just for
00:05:55.700 the lulls. I want Megan Murphy to get back on. She was also kicked off for misgendering
00:06:02.200 someone. And that was a while ago. That was like 2018. So she deserves to be one of the
00:06:06.820 first people to be put back on, I think. And then James Lindsay, that was like one of the
00:06:12.440 saddest ones. I think he called a groomer, a groomer. Um, and I've tested that since
00:06:17.320 then I've called groomers, groomers on Twitter. I'm still on there. Um, I haven't seen my
00:06:22.880 friends getting kicked off for rightly gendering someone who is a man as a male. So that's a
00:06:29.960 positive development. So I'm kind of hopeful for the bee. Do you feel responsible since
00:06:34.560 you were the one who wrote the joke? You listen, Joel, listen, you could be the savior
00:06:41.800 small ass of democracy and free speech in the West, Joel, because you wrote a joke that
00:06:51.320 got you suspended from the bee, which may have been the impetus to Elon Musk saying, I'm just
00:06:58.140 going to buy this thing. We need to make jokes free again. And then he bought it and he, you
00:07:04.400 know, says that he's a free speech absolutist. We're already seeing fact checks of the White
00:07:08.860 House and they're taking down tweets that are really propaganda. I mean, here we are.
00:07:15.180 This, I mean, this is a big deal. It could be because you wrote a joke.
00:07:19.160 Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's weird to see kind of God working through this whole
00:07:24.420 stream of events. And honestly, I have to give credit to Seth too, because I don't know if I
00:07:28.800 would have been bold enough to take that stand publicly and say that we're not going to delete
00:07:32.220 this tweet. You know, um, I w I had some anxiety about that. You know, I thought, well, we're
00:07:36.560 going to lose all our audience and you know, what, what's going to happen. You know, maybe
00:07:39.920 we should just turn it into another joke and get back on Twitter. But, um, yeah, I, you
00:07:44.500 know, I'm, I'm really proud of him. And, and, uh, I think it's just funny. God, God works
00:07:48.980 in strange ways. Uh, who knows what he's doing, um, or how this is going to turn out. I mean,
00:07:54.520 Elon might fail, you know, we, we have a, we place a lot of hope in what he's doing now,
00:07:58.180 but he's just a man. He's corruptible like anybody else. And, um, you know, ultimately
00:08:02.540 we have to kind of trust God for the future and, and hope that, uh, you know, I think
00:08:07.440 the, the powerful thing about Twitter and, and a potentially uncensored Twitter is, you
00:08:16.880 know, our message and our worldview is convincing when people hear what we have to say, people
00:08:22.380 are, are, I remember the early days of YouTube before it was really, before they really kind
00:08:26.840 of put their finger down on, on conservative speech. Um, I knew so many people who would
00:08:31.420 fall into these rabbit holes of Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson and they, and they would
00:08:35.020 become conservatives because of what they were seeing and hearing online. And so I, I think,
00:08:40.280 uh, the potential of getting back to that world where, where we're just free to speak, you
00:08:45.240 know, in this, this, uh, arena of, of, uh, discourse. Yeah. I think it could be very powerful.
00:08:50.960 That is exactly what YouTube, Google, previously Twitter, meta. So Instagram, Facebook try to
00:09:00.800 prevent because they call it a radicalization because one person, someone might start following,
00:09:09.860 I don't know, someone who is a little more moderate than me. Um, and then, Oh, that kind
00:09:15.220 of sounds good. That's interesting. That debunked my prior belief or Prager you or something like
00:09:20.480 that. And then they say, Oh, well now I want to watch Ali Stucky. And all of a sudden there
00:09:26.000 are transphobes. Yeah. All of a sudden they're transphobes and, and, you know, defending traditional
00:09:31.740 marriage. That's exactly what YouTube doesn't want to happen. And I do think back to the days
00:09:37.640 of like 2015. And that's really when I started, I started a blog. I started posting videos on Facebook
00:09:44.660 when, if something was popular, like if something was interesting to people enough, people wanted to hear
00:09:50.320 it, it very quickly went viral that I can't even imagine something like that happening on Facebook
00:09:56.540 nowadays. That just doesn't really happen. It's such a different landscape. And I didn't,
00:10:03.580 you don't realize it at the time, but that was like the wild, wild west of the internet. And it was
00:10:09.180 great. It was, I think there was almost an entire generation of people who became conservative in that
00:10:16.040 time. And the Babylon Bee is another example. We got in thankfully before, back when things could
00:10:21.840 still go viral. I'm it's hard to believe we were only started in early 2016. I think it seems like
00:10:29.320 we've been around so much longer than that, but the, you know, it used to be, you could post something
00:10:34.880 and within minutes you're getting, you know, 5,000 shares, 10,000 shares. And now our engagement's much
00:10:42.060 lower than that. And thankfully our audience has stuck with us through that. But yeah, you know,
00:10:47.680 I've noticed that too, just like on Instagram, I just, and this might bore people, but we're just
00:10:53.640 looking at kind of like the landscape of how the internet has changed and how it really does impact
00:10:58.860 shaping the culture. It impacts an entire generation and really how people think. And like, I look at my
00:11:05.700 audience on Instagram that has grown by over 300,000 over the past two years and yet engagement,
00:11:11.340 and it's not just me. I see this on other people's posts too. And it's not even just
00:11:15.200 conservatives. Engagement has stayed the same. Like that's a problem. That doesn't make a whole
00:11:20.160 lot of sense. So anyway, it's interesting how y'all have combated that though, because you've also
00:11:24.760 gotten a platform on Fox news. I have people come up to me all the time and say how much they love
00:11:29.900 the Babylon Bee. I used to write articles for the Babylon Bee and that was super fun. So what do you
00:11:35.700 think is like, has created the appetite for satire that you guys still amidst censorship, whatever,
00:11:43.380 have been able to grow so much? Like what button do you think that y'all pressed?
00:11:48.180 Yeah. Well, I think that first of all, I remember when I first discovered the Babylon Bee just as a
00:11:53.340 fan, I started myself as a fan, suddenly finding comedy that understood the Christian world and didn't
00:12:00.780 hate Christians, you know, could poke fun at Christians and people that I loved in a good
00:12:05.260 natured way was, it was very refreshing. And I think a lot of people latched onto that. But then,
00:12:10.380 you know, shortly after the Bee was founded, Trump was elected in 2016. So there was this huge,
00:12:16.620 there was just this incredible cultural event. And I think a lot of the comedians, a lot of people in
00:12:24.240 pop culture, they, they were so horrified by Trump being elected that they, they really felt that
00:12:34.180 their duty as entertainers to be funny and to make people laugh had to take a back burner to what they
00:12:40.680 saw as, you know, saving democracy and getting Trump out of office. So a lot of these, these
00:12:45.420 entertainers, they weren't funny anymore. And not only that, but kind of this woke culture that was
00:12:49.680 rising at the same time, there, there became a lot of things that you just couldn't joke about.
00:12:54.500 So I think a lot of the Babylon Bee success in those early years, we were just joking about things
00:12:59.500 that people weren't allowed. No one else was, it was low hanging fruit, really. We're not professional
00:13:03.860 comedians. You know, I, I used to be in sales, you know, I'm just a regular guy. A lot of us are
00:13:07.800 regular people. And we were writing jokes that, that you wouldn't see anywhere else. Kind of saying the
00:13:13.180 things that everyone else is thinking, but is afraid to say out loud. And we were just throwing it out
00:13:17.540 there. And so that was kind of our superpower early on. I think that we're seeing a pretty encouraging
00:13:24.160 shift though, in comedy, even some, you know, some of the great comedians, we see Dave Chappelle and
00:13:28.360 Bill Maher, who, who are pushing back against this, this wokeness that has really kind of suppressed a
00:13:34.480 lot of comedy. Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully we're kind of ushering in a new era there. I don't know.
00:13:40.600 Yeah, I think so. I mean, once you make fun of something, you give other people permission
00:13:45.220 to not just make fun of it, but actually think about it. I mean, that's why I, I mean,
00:13:51.000 I don't do satire videos all that often. There's a lot of serious things that I like to talk about
00:13:55.380 seriously, but there are some things that I can't as accurately and as compellingly, if I can make up
00:14:02.080 a word, talk about literally, um, that I, I can do that when I do it satirically or ironically,
00:14:12.260 or even just sarcastically, like it's another form of communication that sometimes I think is
00:14:18.140 more effective than just explaining things to people. Like I, I mean, I say all the time that,
00:14:24.800 you know, progressivism dominates all the institutions that we have, but when you say it
00:14:30.580 in an ironic way, as someone who is a liberal saying, even though we dominate the NIH, the WHO,
00:14:37.380 academia and public school, but even after all of that, we're still the underdog. Like that is
00:14:42.180 really what they think though. That's literally what they think. I'm not even exaggerating,
00:14:46.740 but kind of when you put it in that ironic way, it makes people think, oh yeah, that kind of is
00:14:50.640 absurd. So I think that's like the effectiveness that the Babylon Bee has.
00:14:54.980 Absolutely. And I think our side traditionally has never been very good at that. I think conservatives
00:14:59.000 have earned this reputation over decades as we're the people that point to the charts and the
00:15:02.980 graphs and say, we can't, we can't afford this and this budget and that budget. And, and, um, and so
00:15:08.380 I, now conservatives and Christians too, are kind of the cultural outsiders. Um, America doesn't have
00:15:16.100 kind of this Christian cultural consensus anymore. Um, and so we, we are kind of pushing back against
00:15:22.400 the kind of the completely uniform worldview of every politician, every corporation, every,
00:15:28.620 everybody you see on TV. Uh, and that's, that's a really fun place to be. It's, it's kind of fun to
00:15:33.440 be, uh, it's fun to be rebellious, you know, in a good way. Yeah. I think so too. Um, tell me how
00:15:40.440 you got to the Babylon Bee. You've been there for three years. Wow. It's changed so much. Yes. Um,
00:15:45.020 and grown so much, but you haven't always been a comedy writer, right? No, no. And I, I never saw myself
00:15:52.000 as a writer or a comedy writer. Um, I still don't know if I am. I, I'm just, I'm having a blast
00:15:58.440 doing this, but, um, I was in, uh, I was in corporate supply chain sales for almost 10 years,
00:16:04.220 um, in the Midwest. Um, just, just a regular guy working a, you know, a regular job. Um, I,
00:16:11.880 I grew up in kind of, uh, fundamentalist Christianity. Um, was, can you define, like,
00:16:18.980 what did that look like? Yeah. Cause that's such a, just a pejorative that is thrown around today.
00:16:24.320 It is basically, it labels anyone who thinks that the word of God is inerrant and actually
00:16:30.160 tries to stick to biblical standards on sexuality and gender, but that's not what you mean by
00:16:35.260 fundamentalist. No, no, we, I was a, uh, probably the most stereotypical, uh, stereotype of what you
00:16:44.100 might consider an American Christian fundamentalist being. So, you know, if you imagine the homeschoolers,
00:16:50.500 you know, women that wear jean dresses and, and have their hair up in a bun and, um, you know, uh,
00:16:58.840 very sheltered, wasn't allowed to listen to certain music. We didn't have a TV in our home,
00:17:03.860 um, all this stuff. What, is it a denomination? Like, is it Baptist or fundamentalist Baptist?
00:17:10.760 We were kind of independent fundamental Baptist, you know, IFB for short, I guess is the pejorative.
00:17:15.200 I've heard of that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and for a while we, uh, my parents even got involved in,
00:17:21.840 uh, uh, Bill Gothard, uh, who was, uh, later kind of turned out to be a cult leader and a,
00:17:28.160 and a, and a very bad guy. Um, but, uh, that was our, our homeschool curriculum that we, uh,
00:17:35.980 a lot of people, a lot of people in the audience aren't going to recognize it. Some people will
00:17:40.440 recognize Bill Gothard. No, I have, because I have heard of the Duggars talk about it and how harmful
00:17:44.760 it, how harmful it was. I hadn't heard about it until recent years when I heard kind of some of
00:17:50.260 the Duggar children talk about like how really toxic this curriculum and the ideology was. That's
00:17:56.700 really not Christianity. It really is a cult. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's, there's no, I,
00:18:02.580 I have no idea how I'm still a Christian. We can get into that later. I would love to. Yeah. Um,
00:18:06.840 it's, um, but, um, yeah, so that's, that was the world I came from. And, um, I think that was what
00:18:13.300 was refreshing when I, when I read early Babylon bee jokes, comedy writers who kind of got that
00:18:18.540 world. Um, but I, when I was 19 years old, I kind of, I kind of had this, I was always a bit of a
00:18:25.080 disrespectful, sarcastic person. I always kind of looked at my world that way too. Um, I had this
00:18:31.180 sense that I had to get out and figure out what life was and what the world was. So I, I joined the
00:18:36.500 Marine Corps without telling my parents. I came home and said, Hey, I joined the Marine Corps. I leave
00:18:40.840 next month, you know, bye. How many siblings did you have? I was the oldest of six. Okay. Yeah. And
00:18:47.160 so, and you were 19. So at that point where they just kind of like, well, we have these other five
00:18:52.360 kids to take care of. You're an adult, do what you want. Or were they really distressed? They were
00:18:56.700 really distressed. Yeah. Um, and they, you know, they, they came around eventually, but, um, I think
00:19:03.480 I'm, I'm really thankful that I did what I did and I joined the military and I saw the world
00:19:09.480 before I went straight from the kind of the Christian bubble into a, like a secular university.
00:19:16.320 Um, I, I sometimes think that maybe if I had done that, I would have deconstructed. I will,
00:19:21.280 I would have lost my faith, but, um, I kind of did things backwards. I joined the military,
00:19:25.620 saw the world, had jobs for a few years and then did college after that. And, uh, I think my,
00:19:31.120 my real coming to faith was, was overseas. I was in Fallujah from 2006 to 2007. Um, and, uh,
00:19:38.160 didn't go to church the entire year we were patrolling every Sunday. So no church, no Christian
00:19:42.900 influence, no Christian bubble. Um, but God sustained me through that year in such a, um,
00:19:48.260 a powerful and, and tangible and real way that I couldn't deny God existed. I was like, wow,
00:19:54.760 this is real. You know, I don't know if all this is that I grew up with. I don't know if that's all
00:19:58.600 legit, but God is real. Jesus is real. Um, and that was, that was kind of how I really,
00:20:04.240 I think came to true faith while I was over there. Then I came back, I went to college
00:20:09.100 and I came back to the States with this incredible, uh, thankfulness for America,
00:20:15.420 for all of the blessings that we take for granted. Um, you know, the fact that we, uh,
00:20:20.860 we would be rolling down the main stretch of Fallujah, you know, craters all over the road
00:20:27.240 from bombs that had gone off last week, you know, bullet holes peppering the houses. And in all that,
00:20:33.380 you see kids walk into school, you know, families trying to live their lives. And, and, and, you
00:20:39.120 know, you hear a explosion, you know, two blocks away, you know, and the kids just walk into school
00:20:43.380 like it's nothing like that's, this is like the world that they're used to. So I came back thinking
00:20:47.580 like, how, how do we have it so good here? Like, how did all of this happen? Like, I think what,
00:20:53.460 what a lot of people that age don't realize is that the blessings of America didn't happen by
00:21:00.360 accident and it took a long time to get here. Yeah, man. I think that is so true. Such a,
00:21:06.100 such a misunderstanding that all the people who think, Oh, Christianity should have nothing to do
00:21:11.440 with America should have nothing to do with the laws. I'm like, where do you think the idea of
00:21:15.200 human rights came from? Like, how do you not look at other countries realize that there is no even
00:21:20.080 concept of human rights? Slavery still happens. Child brides are still taken. Sexual exploitation of
00:21:28.840 women and children on a large and legal scale happen systemically in other countries that do
00:21:36.620 not have the Western basis of human rights. That is distinctly biblical. Yes. Like, it's hard for me
00:21:42.580 to even understand, I guess, because it's not being taught in schools anymore. It used to be, even from
00:21:48.000 a secular perspective, that the Bible was the most important piece of literature, if you wanted to
00:21:54.980 call it that the most important document and shape in the West. I don't think that's taught anymore.
00:21:59.260 And I think that young people are just really ignorant to that. Yeah. And it's, you know, I, um,
00:22:05.720 I think I, I really, once I, once I realized that, um, I, I became extremely passionate about protecting
00:22:16.260 that. That was kind of my, when I really started thinking about politics more and worldview. Um,
00:22:22.340 cause it really is, uh, the Bible, um, and Christianity, um, it, it shaped everything,
00:22:31.820 all the underlying assumptions that we have, um, about, uh, you know, women's rights, humans,
00:22:37.900 human rights, everything came from that. Um, and, uh, people, kids are not just being not taught that.
00:22:45.440 They're, they're being very intentionally, uh, deprogrammed to be, um, opposed to that.
00:22:51.700 Yeah. And this has been a long process over, over many decades, very intentional. Um, and it's,
00:22:57.820 it's something that, uh, something that definitely, uh, we, we hear a lot about Christian nationalism
00:23:04.200 right now. Yeah. You know, and, and what you hear a lot from the left or from people who oppose
00:23:09.800 Christian nationalism, that we're just, we are, we are lusting after power. We want political power.
00:23:13.900 It's like, no, I want people to have rights. You know, I, I want, uh, I, I, uh, I don't know if I'd
00:23:21.700 call myself a Christian nationalism cause I don't even know what that means, but I, I, my political
00:23:26.100 views are what they are because I love people because I care about people and I want, I want my
00:23:31.480 kids and their kids to, to be free. You know, um, there's this, this assumption on the other side
00:23:38.400 that, that we on the right believe what we believe because we don't care about others. We're not
00:23:42.820 empathetic or we want control. We want control. We want power. Um, and, and that's not true
00:23:49.320 at all. You know, we, we believe what we believe because we love people and somehow that message
00:23:53.700 gets, gets lost out there, I think. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more. I do want to talk
00:23:58.980 more about kind of like the Christian nationalism craziness boogeyman is what I would call it out
00:24:05.620 there and, and what exactly you think about that. Um, but I want to hear a little bit more
00:24:10.240 about your story. You come back to America. You're so grateful for how all this happened. Realize
00:24:15.680 it, it's not accidental. Um, and I guess that made you think a little bit more about your
00:24:20.540 theology and about your faith. Yes. Um, it absolutely did. Um, I wouldn't say that I
00:24:27.820 deconstructed cause that's another word that just, who knows what it means. People mean different
00:24:32.140 things by it, but, um, I did have to kind of shed a lot of, you know, what I was brought
00:24:37.320 up in. Um, you know, I, I rediscovered Jesus through the gospels, just reading the gospels.
00:24:43.700 Um, and, um, you know, I, I told God early on, I said, I don't know what you want me to
00:24:50.960 do. Um, but I want to serve you with my life. You know, I want to give my life to you, whether
00:24:55.880 that's being a missionary, you know, being a pastor or whatever. He said, no, he will
00:25:00.260 write jokes. And here I am writing, writing jokes and making memes. But, um, uh, so me
00:25:06.760 and, me and, uh, a close friend of mine, uh, were involved in a church plant. Um, you
00:25:12.260 know, very passionate about, you know, we're kind of, we, some people in the audience might
00:25:17.400 be familiar with the young, restless and reformed movement where young Christians were rediscovering
00:25:22.900 sound theology. Um, but it was still kind of cool and hip and, you know.
00:25:27.720 Yeah. It came with the advent of like the podcast, I think.
00:25:31.380 Yes. Yes.
00:25:31.660 Because that's when I started, I was late high school, early college, um, around like 2010,
00:25:38.760 2011. So like, I would say, I don't know if that's the end of the young, restless reform,
00:25:44.620 but kind of, I mean, the, you know, the Matt Chandler and I mean, a lot, a lot of more teachers
00:25:51.520 than that, but I started listening to them going on walks and I was in high school and college and
00:25:56.020 it just blew my mind. Cause I mean, I was raised Southern Baptist, not fundamentalist at all,
00:26:01.880 but I just didn't really have any idea of the theology and the thinking and the intellectualism
00:26:10.140 that was under just the altar calls, you know? Oh, there's like a whole world. People actually
00:26:16.140 think about Christianity. You actually defend it. There are people who have the same doubts and the
00:26:21.840 same questions that I've had and they have an answer for them from the Bible and started reading
00:26:26.260 C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller and John Piper and David Platt and even Francis Chan. I'm not saying all
00:26:31.980 those people are reformed.
00:26:32.640 All those guys. I read all of them. Yeah.
00:26:34.240 Yeah. So anyway, right there, right there with you, there are problems with that movement,
00:26:38.680 of course, in retrospect, obviously we know like some issues with Mark Driscoll and his leadership
00:26:43.900 and things like that, but I'm thankful for how it got me interested in theology.
00:26:49.320 Yeah. I think it's funny, you know, the Bible promises us that, that God will build his church.
00:26:55.800 You know, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I think that what we see is we
00:26:59.700 kind of zoom out and look at history is God uses movements, movements come and go, you know,
00:27:04.880 the kind of the, there's been a rise and fall of the young, restless and reformed and movements
00:27:09.800 before them. But God has used each wave to, to, for his glory, to bring in new Christians,
00:27:15.980 to build his church. And it is, at the same time, it's tragic when you look back at like a lot of
00:27:21.100 those people that we followed and loved and listened to their preaching. There's been this,
00:27:25.680 I think, you know, ever since 2016, there has been this huge schism in the church where,
00:27:30.220 you know, some people went drastically one way, some people went drastically the other way.
00:27:35.220 Wokeness got involved. And that whole worldview around, you know, race and, you know, epistemology
00:27:44.820 really messed a lot of things up. And so that affected what ended up happening. We left that
00:27:51.160 church that we had been a part of planting. Me and my friend, we also split. We went completely
00:27:59.700 opposite directions. He no longer claims to be a Christian. He's a progressive, ex-evangelical,
00:28:05.220 and I am still this, you know, whatever you want to call me.
00:28:09.300 Did you say that he was raised fundamentalist too?
00:28:11.900 Yeah, probably very similar to, to, to me. And it's, you know, it is, I think about it often,
00:28:22.600 you know, why, why did, why am I still in the faith? Why did God keep me? And whereas my friend
00:28:30.920 veered off, you know, that's, I think that's something to wrestle with. It's a very, it's
00:28:35.020 a very difficult thing. Um, but.
00:28:38.240 And what, I mean, what do you think the difference is when you, when you think about it? I mean,
00:28:43.900 I know you don't have the answer, but if you were just to kind of theorize, obviously there
00:28:48.380 are differences maybe in personality and experiences, upbringings, maybe a little bit,
00:28:54.880 but like, when you look back to that formative time in your life and you kind of abandoned some
00:29:00.420 of the non-Christian beliefs that you were raised with that were masquerading as Christian.
00:29:05.780 Yes.
00:29:06.420 And then you discovered the gospel and the freedom that comes from that. Like,
00:29:11.800 what, what, what was, if you can think back, like the shift in your thinking that apparently
00:29:16.240 your friend did not have?
00:29:20.760 Yeah. Um, it's tough. I think, um, when on paper, if you look at everything that's happened
00:29:29.820 to me in my life, you know, um, I, I have the classic ex-evangelical experience, you know,
00:29:34.380 I've been hurt by the church. I know women who have been abused by men in the church. I've,
00:29:38.140 I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of the church, you know? Um, and, uh, know a lot
00:29:43.220 of people who have left, uh, for things that I've experienced myself. Um, I think, I guess
00:29:50.400 at a, at a higher level, um, that, I guess that's when I, my, I guess my Calvinist side
00:29:56.160 comes out a little bit and I, I'm Calvinist when it suits me. Um, and I, I just have to-
00:30:01.500 Oh, I'm sure that you and Seth get into some good discussions about that because somehow
00:30:05.400 it always comes up whenever I'm with-
00:30:07.460 Yeah, Seth is very passionate.
00:30:08.360 Seth or Minnie and Dylan.
00:30:10.160 Yeah. And then Kyle, our editor-in-chief is hardcore Calvinist, so they-
00:30:13.080 Yeah.
00:30:13.280 They like to, but, um, I'm kind of a squish in the middle. I think it's kind of one of
00:30:17.500 those paradoxes that our human brains can't really wrap our minds around, but, um, it's
00:30:21.920 one of those things where I just have to chalk it up to, um, God has me and won't let me go.
00:30:26.700 I don't know why. I mean, um, I think, I think, um, I was very fortunate to kind of be removed
00:30:33.460 from my bubble, placed in this, this very dark, godless place with nothing but a Bible. Um,
00:30:39.780 and, uh, you know, 12-hour guard post shifts where I'm sitting in a tower with just looking
00:30:46.700 on a dead horizon and nothing else to do but read my Bible. Um, I think that's, that's what
00:30:52.040 I would challenge a lot of people to do who are struggling, you know, read the Gospels,
00:30:55.860 read the words of Jesus. I mean, he, um, you can't pin him down into right wing or left wing.
00:31:02.060 Um, he, he goes right to the heart. He goes right to your sin and, and right to what you
00:31:06.400 really need. Um, the other thing too, uh, C.S. Lewis reading mere Christianity was incredibly
00:31:13.400 transformative, especially that opening chapter where he, he just starts with the moral law
00:31:18.060 and, and reality. I still go back to that so often. Yeah. It was, um, reading that was,
00:31:25.460 was extremely revelatory. Um, you know, uh, but at the same time, I know a lot of people who
00:31:31.420 have deconverted who read a lot of those same things too. So, um, why, uh, God is good.
00:31:36.800 God is gracious. And I, that's, you cannot, um, you cannot claim credit for your own salvation.
00:31:44.500 Um, because it's God who does the work. Um, and all I can do is just fall on my knees in
00:31:51.500 thankfulness to him and pray for those who, who are struggling and who have all these questions
00:31:57.000 that, you know, the, the book that me and Kyle wrote, the postmodern pilgrim's progress
00:32:01.100 wrestles with a lot of those, those things. We, we, this main character that we wrote kind of goes
00:32:05.500 through all of the, the nastiness that you see in the church and the hypocrites and the pastors
00:32:09.980 who have moral failings and things like that. And that kind of the mantra that, that keeps them
00:32:14.460 going is, is walk forward. You know, sometimes that's really all you can do. Um, when people fail
00:32:21.340 you, when churches hurt you, when you're reading the scripture and you don't feel like you're getting
00:32:26.240 anything out of it, sometimes all you can do is just have like this very simple childlike faith
00:32:32.820 in your, in your father and hold his hand and walk forward with him until the answers become
00:32:38.020 clear. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But, um, there, there's really something to what Jesus said
00:32:42.360 where, where it talks about the, the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who become like little
00:32:46.780 children. You know, if you, if you hold onto your pride and you, you, um, are this person who
00:32:52.360 needs to have everything answered, um, needs to, to know everything, um, it's not going to work for
00:32:59.900 you. You know, you, you have to have this, this level of, of, uh, trust and rest that God is good
00:33:06.440 even if you don't know what he's doing all the time, you know. Just like a child obeys or you teach
00:33:12.480 your child to obey a parent even if they don't feel like it. Right. Because we love them and they
00:33:18.100 learn to do that. They don't know where we're going when we get in the car half the time.
00:33:22.360 Um, and yet they do it because, okay, these people love me. They want what's best for me.
00:33:27.600 And I do think that that is the faith that fuels our obedience as Christians, because
00:33:32.360 I've been this person and I have friends who have been this person who say,
00:33:36.400 I don't want to stop doing X because I don't feel convicted about it. Yes. And I've even had
00:33:43.760 friends who say, who say I've journaled about it. I've prayed about it. I've read scripture about it.
00:33:49.440 Mm-hmm. And, but, and I don't feel convicted. So it must not be that bad. We've probably all been
00:33:56.680 that in big or small ways at some part of our lives, even as sincere Christians. Yeah. But that
00:34:03.180 is not the faith like a child that God calls us to. God does not say when you feel like it,
00:34:08.540 come to me. He says, take up your cross and follow me. You die to yourself. You die to those feelings
00:34:14.700 that desire sin. Um, and so, yeah, that, that childlike faith is really hard when you think
00:34:23.440 that you know best. And especially in an age when we are told that all of our feelings are valid and
00:34:28.360 not just valid, valid, but totally legitimate and worth following. Yeah. Well, that's, that is like
00:34:34.680 the fundamental divide in our religion, our politics, our culture. Um, it is divided between
00:34:42.180 people who, uh, believe that we identify, we in self-identification, we define who we are
00:34:49.700 and those who say we are who God says we are, you know? Um, and you mentioned childlike obedience
00:34:58.220 there. It's, it's really true. And I've said this to a lot of people, you know, in the,
00:35:01.300 in the aftermath of the pandemic, a lot of people lapsed and, you know, going to church,
00:35:06.300 um, you know, slow going back because just, you know, the pandemic was so messy and icky and,
00:35:12.240 you know, um, go to church. God command, I don't care if you feel like it. Um, God commands you
00:35:19.600 to gather with other believers. So like, okay, drag yourself there in spite of how you feel.
00:35:25.440 The feelings will come later. The conviction will come later. Um, sometimes you just have to start
00:35:31.180 with obedience. It's clearly written in scripture. God tells us what to do. Um, whether you feel like
00:35:36.700 or not, trust him with that and just do it. And, and sometimes, uh, you know, you, you can't always
00:35:42.480 wait for the feelings to come. Yeah. I, like I said, I wasn't raised fundamentalist. I was raised
00:35:48.360 Christian, which I'm very thankful for, very thankful for the foundation that my parents gave me. Um,
00:35:54.800 I went to a Christian school, kindergarten through 12th grade. So it's a private Christian school,
00:35:59.560 wasn't homeschooled, but, uh, and I thought it was a great education. There are things looking back
00:36:05.280 that didn't love about it that I thought, you know, I think now could be better. Maybe weren't
00:36:09.940 great, but I'm very thankful for learning theology from an early age and learning how to apply it to
00:36:17.660 different subjects. And I'm always shocked when I see a comment on Facebook or something, uh, from
00:36:25.400 someone who had my same education, who says something like, Oh, I just like, I'm so glad
00:36:32.400 that I, you know, that I've overcome all the lies that I learned from going to a Christian school.
00:36:39.860 And it's just, it's so damaging what I learned growing up. And I just, I think I'm like, okay,
00:36:44.660 we had the same upbringing. I know your family. Uh, we had the same teachers and now they've
00:36:51.920 deconstructed, they've become progressives. And the funny thing is, is that they always see
00:36:57.880 themselves. It seems like very courageous. Yeah. They're so courageous for no longer believing what
00:37:04.420 their parents taught them and what we learned at school. So I'm like, okay, you're courageous
00:37:09.160 by adopting all of the ideas and standards of morality that the vast majority of our culture does.
00:37:18.300 You're courageous for going with the mainstream. You're courageous for abandoning all of these
00:37:26.600 unpopular moral and biblical positions and just being like everyone else who doesn't have a biblical
00:37:33.520 moral compass. And they see someone like me as someone who did not escape and who is still just,
00:37:41.080 um, caught in this like delusion of Christian education. Whereas I look at them the same way.
00:37:47.180 I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah. You went to the Northeast for college and a professor
00:37:50.780 poked, you know, into your belief system a little bit and you were rattled. And then you just decided
00:37:58.260 that it would be easier to agree with what the vast majority of the world believes. And they see me as
00:38:05.280 trapped. I see them as trapped. They see me as someone who conformed to what I've just been taught,
00:38:11.700 which I, and I see them as people who've been conformed to what they've been brainwashed to
00:38:17.800 believe in a lot of ways. Um, and it is when I think about like, well, what was the difference?
00:38:23.220 And cause these, a lot of these people also, they're like, you know, I vote Democrat for the
00:38:27.900 poor. I'm like, dude, I knew your family. You had like three homes. What are you talking about?
00:38:33.740 I, I know where you, I know the gated community that you were raised in. Like what? And I just
00:38:40.340 wonder, I'm like, what did happen? Same with you and your friend about like, okay, I guess I could
00:38:46.320 have gone that direction too. I had plenty of reasons to do it. Same kind of thing. I mean,
00:38:51.720 I've always been a very independent person. I could see myself liking feminist ideology.
00:38:57.980 I like to work. I could see myself abandoning or could have seen myself abandoning like the family
00:39:04.820 commitment thing. And yet I guess like you, it's just that God kept me. He kept me. And by his grace,
00:39:13.240 he kept me through a lot of seasons where I could have let my doubt just take me in a direction of
00:39:21.200 total apostasy. And I guess that's the difference. It's not because I'm smarter than those people.
00:39:26.520 I'm not. It's not because I'm naturally better than those people. I'm not. It just has to be
00:39:32.520 the grace of God. That's gotta be it. Yeah. I completely agree with you. I think that's a
00:39:37.060 good perspective. And I, I think that that when, when we interact with a lot of those folks and I
00:39:44.600 interact with a lot of these people on Twitter, they're very angry, very bitter. Yeah. It's good to,
00:39:50.080 to keep, always keep that in mind when you're interacting with, with people who have left the
00:39:56.100 church, remembering that, that you're only still where you are for the grace of God or because of
00:40:02.500 the grace of God, you know? And I, I do think too, that the, you know, Satan is a liar. Our culture is
00:40:09.720 very compelling and deceptive and, and, and it is a parallel religion, you know? And I think a lot of
00:40:15.800 people who, who grew up in religion who are very swept away by kind of the religious trappings who
00:40:23.000 are star Christians or star evangelicals, they kind of, what I see a lot of times is they, they
00:40:28.140 switch sides and they're, they're still fundamentalists in their own way. Yeah. Just for
00:40:33.340 the other side, just for the progressive side, they still have that same kind of religious fervor,
00:40:37.380 that passion, that anger, legalistic, that idea that I can't associate with, with other people
00:40:43.000 that disagree with me. It's, it's, it's the same thing playing for a different team. Just,
00:40:48.620 yeah, it's the, a different side of the same coin. Yeah. And so I, I think, um, you, you know,
00:40:55.500 you have to, you have to have this, um, I don't know. Anytime you get swept up in, Christians are
00:41:04.640 guilty of this too. We get, we get swept up by, you know, charismatic leaders, you know, or a church
00:41:09.960 that seems to have it all together. Um, you know, a book, you know, a book will come along that like,
00:41:14.740 just revel, every Christian has to read this book. We do the same thing on our side sometimes. And I
00:41:19.300 think you, you have to, um, continually step back and, and evaluate yourself and, and ask yourself,
00:41:26.040 you know, am I, am I following men right now or am I following God? Um, you know, and bring yourself
00:41:32.900 back to the very basics of what scripture says, um, what God is clear about in his word, kind of
00:41:39.020 leaving the open-handed things open-handed. Um, you, you know, even as a Christian, you still can't be,
00:41:44.300 like, you know, dogmatic, you know, um, be sure about what God says in his word. And beyond that,
00:41:50.920 there's really, there's not really not a lot you can be sure about, you know?
00:41:54.400 Yeah. Um, tell me how you came to the Babylon Bee.
00:41:59.180 Yeah. So, um, I was, um, I was miserable in my job. Um, my wife, uh, was tired of me being
00:42:06.240 miserable all the time, I think. And, uh, she, she encouraged me to, to, to branch out. So she was a
00:42:12.020 nurse. She said, um, I will, you know, I'll pull extra shifts, um, at the hospital. You should,
00:42:18.080 you should take a year and figure this out and just start writing. So I started writing. I started
00:42:22.400 a podcast. I, I wrote columns for different newspapers, um, kind of just working out a lot
00:42:27.640 of the thoughts I had about, you know, politics and Christianity worldview, things like that.
00:42:32.440 Um, and, uh, then I started just kind of on the side, I started pitching ideas to the Babylon Bee.
00:42:38.320 I, I also started a little website called the Petty Prophet, which was a Babylon Bee knockoff.
00:42:42.860 I was writing my own jokes and putting them up. Um, and, uh, I started pitching. They liked what I
00:42:48.760 was pitching. Um, and that just kind of snowballed. So I, I started writing a joke a day, a couple
00:42:54.260 articles a day. Um, that turned into kind of a part-time job for them. And sooner or later I was
00:43:00.260 working full-time and Kyle called me and said, well, you're, you're kind of full-time. We should
00:43:03.440 probably just hire you. You know, that's awesome. So, I mean, it's, um, it's wild. I, I still,
00:43:09.560 I still can't believe, um, I'm doing this. Um, I, it is, it is truly God's grace because I,
00:43:17.780 it is the perfect, uh, marriage of, you know, like my passion for, um, truth, you know, worldview,
00:43:26.380 um, you know, politics and my, kind of my natural sarcastic, disrespectful, you know,
00:43:33.780 attitude about things. It just, it works out great. So I, I, I'm glad God led me here.
00:43:39.080 I also had a sarcastic, disrespectful attitude growing up. And so there's like something to that.
00:43:45.860 I haven't worked it out yet, but those of us who had that, we all seem to end up here making fun of
00:43:52.380 the things that are supposed to be made fun of. There's so much that, I mean, this, there is,
00:43:57.540 our culture and our world is so ridiculous. People are so ridiculous. The things that people say with
00:44:03.780 so much seriousness and sanctimony and earnestness, um, is just so funny to me that the corruption that
00:44:11.800 we see in Washington while, I mean, it's, it's tragic, it's, it's damaging and we, we wring our
00:44:17.640 hands about it, but it's also hilarious. You know, we see, we see human beings dressed up in
00:44:22.780 their nice suits who think they're so important, you know, conspiring together and being corrupt.
00:44:28.400 And it's, you know, I, I, I think of Psalm two, where it talks about the Kings of the earth conspire
00:44:33.080 together and talk about how they're, they're going to loose their bonds and free their, you know,
00:44:37.340 themselves of these chains and the Lord laughs, you know, and, and we who are in Christ can laugh
00:44:42.120 too. I think when we have that eternal perspective that, that, uh, we belong to a kingdom that,
00:44:47.040 uh, uh, is not of this world. Um, our, our King will never be defeated. Um, and, uh, we, we know
00:44:55.160 who wins in the end. Um, we can still fight. We, we have to speak truth. We have to do what's right
00:44:59.480 in the moment for, for our family and for our kids and for our country. But regardless of what
00:45:04.340 happens, whether we're successful or whether we're defeated, we can still have this joy and this hope
00:45:08.360 that comes from, from knowing, um, who our real King is, who are, who are, uh, where our end is.
00:45:14.420 And, uh, and so I think that's where a lot of the laughter comes from the Babylon Bee, you know,
00:45:18.720 even while our culture and, and our, our country seems to be crumbling in front of us. Um, there
00:45:25.720 is something that is a little bit funny about it. Yeah. I also think I laugh at the people who get
00:45:32.080 angry at y'all for your joke because y'all have become more conservative. It kind of did used to
00:45:37.760 be more niche. Yes. More like making fun of, okay, both Joel Osteen and maybe John MacArthur
00:45:43.420 or something. And now it has kind of expanded to more like news. I mean, y'all still do that stuff,
00:45:48.520 but it's more kind of like what people are talking about in the news and it's conservative. I mean,
00:45:54.000 you're mostly making fun of the left because they're ridiculous. Yes. And all the people who
00:45:59.400 maybe they were fans of the Babylon Bee in 2016, because you made fun of someone that they didn't like.
00:46:05.880 Uh-huh. Now they crossed their arms. So angry. They're like, you're not supposed to make fun of
00:46:10.460 that. And they laugh, they make me laugh because as you said, sanctimony, they're so sanctimonious
00:46:17.720 and self-serious and it's just funny. It makes it so much funnier. I think that there's,
00:46:23.700 there's something about, I think, conservative humor right now that half of the country does not
00:46:32.040 think it's funny at all. And to us that, that makes it funny. Oh, that's so funny.
00:46:37.240 You know, the fact checks that we got, you know, the, when, when Snopes would fact check the Babylon
00:46:41.580 Bee, you know, did CNN really purchase an industrial size Washington washing machine to
00:46:46.500 spin the news? You know, did Trump really propose putting a space Navy on the dark side of the moon?
00:46:51.840 You know, like these were actual fact checks. Did AOC actually die trying to tie her shoes because
00:46:55.740 she's so stupid. Those are real fact checks. Yes. I mean, it, it almost, it like, it adds a second
00:47:01.340 punchline to the joke. Cause we put the joke out there, you know, people laugh and then it gets
00:47:05.400 this very serious, well-researched, like three page fact check, you know, from a very serious person.
00:47:11.160 And, and, uh, that's so funny. It's just great. The other day I saw there's another comedian,
00:47:14.640 John Crist, who did like a parody video as like a meteorologist or something like that.
00:47:20.820 It was obviously like ridiculous. And it was like a meteorologist has like a meltdown or something.
00:47:27.520 And I guess some people thought that it was serious, that a fact checking site, I think it
00:47:31.880 was Snopes had to like very seriously say that this is a comedian. It's just, I mean, I do think I,
00:47:38.760 we don't have time to like get into all of this. Cause I do want to do a fun segment to end us. But
00:47:42.900 like, there's also, I think that that is also a product of our culture and of secular progressivism is
00:47:50.400 it's inability to create beauty. And within that it's inability to have true joy outside of politics
00:47:59.080 and political wins and power struggles. It's like, they don't have joy in anything. Like
00:48:05.700 everything is anger inducing. So they can't laugh at it. The only thing they can laugh at is when
00:48:11.060 unvaccinated people die. Yeah. Well, I mean, and a lot of that reminds me of like the hardcore
00:48:16.340 fundamentalism that I grew up with. Yes. It's just like what you were saying earlier.
00:48:19.920 Yeah. Their, their worldview is, um, I mean, they've thrown out 2000 years of, of wisdom,
00:48:25.160 um, and knowledge, you know, that our culture is based on. They've decided to kind of create this,
00:48:30.420 their own moral framework from scratch. And it's an absolute disaster. And every waking moment
00:48:37.500 they spend is meant, is meant to defend this, this rickety scaffolding that they've created.
00:48:42.580 They can't laugh at it because as soon as you laugh at it, it all comes crashing down,
00:48:46.820 you know? And so it's like, they're, they're just, I mean, like religious fundamentalists,
00:48:51.080 they're very, very jealously and angrily and, and fearfully defending their worldview.
00:48:55.460 Oh my gosh, that's so true. It's kind of like when you hear those horrible stories of,
00:49:00.300 in places like France, um, like, uh, people getting their head cut off for making fun of
00:49:08.140 Allah or Muhammad. I mean, it's not that, it's not that different. It's like you make fun of their
00:49:14.000 gods and their idols here. And while it may not be as physically violent in some cases,
00:49:20.480 they are just angry because you are making fun of their God. Exactly. Um, all right. I wanted to
00:49:28.160 end with a fun segment, uh, with a, would you rather segment? Oh boy. It's not serious at all,
00:49:33.700 but you do seriously have to pick. Um, I don't know what the consequences. If you don't, you
00:49:39.640 get kicked out of the studio and you can never come back. I wouldn't want that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um,
00:49:45.820 I didn't come up with these, but they're good. And I might come up with some more if I think of
00:49:50.700 some on the spot. Okay. Would you rather read Adam Schiff's book about January 6th once a month
00:49:58.240 for the rest of the year or no, not the rest of the year. Cause that's not enough time next year.
00:50:05.180 That's your new year's resolution. You have to read Adam Schiff's book about January 6th every single
00:50:10.760 month. Or would you rather have to eat bugs as the main ingredient of your meals? Um, let's say
00:50:21.840 every day for six months. I would read Adam Schiff's book. Every single month. I will not eat bugs. I
00:50:34.080 will never eat bugs. I don't care. I will starve and I will die before I eat bugs. Oh my gosh.
00:50:39.020 Yeah. Probably by the end of the year you could have them be memorized. And my Twitter feed would
00:50:42.480 then become insufferable because I'd be making fun of Adam Schiff's book with every tweet for the
00:50:46.500 rest of the year. Yeah. It'd be the only thing that she could think about. Um, okay. Would you rather
00:50:53.340 leave your job at the Babylon Bee to become a spokesperson for Pfizer or, um,
00:51:00.220 um, okay. Every time something, okay. I don't, I I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand exactly,
00:51:13.680 um, exactly what this means. Okay. I'll, I'm going to change it a little bit. Okay. So you have to
00:51:23.580 leave your job at the Babylon Bee to be a spokesperson for Pfizer, their commercials, things like that.
00:51:29.500 You might even have to like go on Don Lemon's show and just like talk about how great Pfizer is,
00:51:35.420 or would you rather have to listen to a two hour long Bernie Sanders podcast? First thing every day
00:51:44.940 when you wake up at regular speed, he could be talking regular speed. Yeah. He could be talking
00:51:50.920 about pudding. He could be talking about mother Russia. You never know whatever it is. Uh, okay.
00:51:58.540 I would listen to Bernie Sanders's podcast and eat the bugs instead of become a spokesperson for
00:52:03.340 Pfizer. Wow. That's, that is a bridge too far for me. Every morning, Bernie Sanders, two hours. Okay.
00:52:11.400 Um, would you rather every time you travel, every time you get on a plane, um, Stacey Abrams has to go
00:52:17.180 with you? I just made that one up. She has to, from the time you leave, like your car. I don't know
00:52:25.820 if you pick her up or she meets you at your house. Yeah. You go to the airport, you get on the plane.
00:52:31.100 And from the time you get here or wherever it is, Stacey Abrams is your companion. Doesn't matter.
00:52:35.900 All right. You don't have to talk to her, but
00:52:37.260 or would you rather have a standing lunch date with AOC every Friday, two hours minimum?
00:52:49.940 Am I in the middle seat on the airplane? Um, you, I, it doesn't matter. You have to sit next to her
00:52:56.280 though. So, okay. So I'm thinking strategically here. I think I would go AOC. Um, not because I
00:53:06.380 have a crush on her or anything. I know. Okay. Well, she might think that. I think because, um,
00:53:13.500 she is much more influential, um, in the, in the culture than Stacey Abrams is. And I would make it
00:53:21.860 my goal to try to convert her, um, and make her a powerful agent for goodness and righteousness.
00:53:31.400 Yes. I think about that too. Whenever someone's like, who would you like to like have lunch with
00:53:36.640 or have dinner with or be friends with on the left? I'm like AOC because I can see in her little
00:53:43.660 face that she doesn't really understand what she's saying. And I just think she's a little help.
00:53:49.180 At some level she is, she's motivated by good things. She just wants, you know,
00:53:53.220 she wants to take care of people. She wants to, you know, whatever, like every good liberal,
00:53:57.460 you know, and, and, uh, she's just ignorant. Okay. Would you rather have, um, without Seth or Kyle
00:54:05.900 knowing, start to delegate all of your joke writing to Samantha Bee? She has to come up the headlines
00:54:15.720 and you have to submit them. And they have to think it's coming from me. Yes. And if they
00:54:19.960 criticize them, you have to get mad. You're defensive about it. Cause this is the best that
00:54:24.120 you can. Or from now on 10% of your income goes to the jet fuel for Kenneth Copeland's jet.
00:54:33.320 Oh no. Oh, that's hard.
00:54:36.700 That's really hard. Man, that's an impossible choice. That's an impossible choice. I know
00:54:45.680 Samantha Bee, I tried, I sat through like a compilation of her funniest stuff, like the
00:54:51.360 funniest stuff I could find to see if I could laugh. It's not. Yeah. You can't, you can't eat all
00:54:57.200 of, all of late night comedy. I, I never watched broadcast television anymore, but like when I'm in
00:55:01.440 a hotel, you know, sometimes I'll put on whoever it is, uh, Colbert or, but it, and it's, I, I try to
00:55:07.760 be charitable watching these guys and they're just so, they're not so angry. They're so angry and not
00:55:12.680 funny. Um, Oh, um, I couldn't, I think I'd have to go kind of Kenneth Copeland's jet. I, oh man,
00:55:21.840 that's, I mean, your livelihood would be on the line if you delegated that to Samantha Bee.
00:55:29.700 Yes. Well, I, well, yeah, I would, I would, I would, I would give my, my 10% to Kenneth
00:55:37.020 Copeland's jet while simultaneously praying that, that God grounds the jet and it can never
00:55:44.460 take off again, I guess. Yeah. In a peaceful way. Yeah. A peaceful grounding. Yeah. Well,
00:55:49.320 you know, our money all the time is going to causes that we hate. We spend money with corporations
00:55:54.220 and our cell phone companies and everything else. It's kind of hard to get away from that sometimes.
00:55:58.060 Yeah. I try to. Yeah. Um, okay. I got one. I'm going to, this is not what's written down,
00:56:04.480 but this is a funny scenario in my head. All right. This might be the last one. Uh, I don't know.
00:56:10.860 You're in a life or death situation. All right. You're a life or death situation. I don't know what
00:56:15.680 it is. You're in some, like, I don't know. You're on a stranded, you're on a deserted island. You are
00:56:22.060 about to get attacked, but you have 30 seconds for one phone call to call someone and this person
00:56:31.940 can rescue you, but you need to very clearly under pressure, communicate to them where you are,
00:56:38.560 what you're doing and what needs to be done. Okay. This is so funny to me. It might not be funny to
00:56:48.980 you. Who would you put in charge of making that call? 30 seconds. Your life is on the line.
00:56:55.980 John Fetterman or Joe Biden?
00:56:57.740 I did not see that coming. Joe Biden or John Fetterman? Oh no.
00:57:08.420 Life or death. Who am I, who am I, uh, staking my life on here?
00:57:15.680 Um, I, I'm going to have to say Joe Biden. I think so too, man. I think so too. He's got the
00:57:22.320 resources. He's the president. He's got Marine one and air force one. You know, he can send the
00:57:26.980 military to, to rescue me from whatever is attacking me. I think if you also told him
00:57:31.900 the exact words to say and spoken really short sentences and like held his face. Yeah. And we're
00:57:40.240 like, listen to me. And you told him, I don't think Fetterman could do it. I don't think he could do
00:57:47.640 it. No, I, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would not trust Fetterman. Okay. Good choice. Okay.
00:57:54.860 Would you rather, he'd be great. Okay. Would you rather be, uh, Dylan Mulvaney's videographer
00:58:04.700 for a month? Do you know who Dylan Mulvaney is? So you're the one who has to hold his phone
00:58:09.320 while he's doing the TikToks. Oh goodness. Or would you rather be, um, run PR for Kamala Harris
00:58:21.280 as your job? Oh man. Um, I, I'd have to go Kamala Harris on that one. I, I, I don't know if I could
00:58:34.920 do, uh, the Dylan Mulvaney videos. Plus I think that would be a great opportunity to, to get some
00:58:42.260 sneaky satire in with, with Kamala's PR. Oh yeah. Uh, you know, that, I think that would be really
00:58:46.740 fun. Some guerrilla satire. Yep. Um, okay. These are good. These are funny. Um, okay. Would you
00:58:54.680 rather PayPal takes $2,500 from you every time you misgender someone or you have to send $2,500
00:59:02.260 to the war in Ukraine every time you make fun of a liberal? Um, I, I think I would, I think I would
00:59:15.340 have to go with, um, $2,500 going to Ukraine for making fun of a liberal because I, I could not,
00:59:22.500 um, I could not give up, uh, my right to misgender somebody whenever I want. That's a, that's a
00:59:29.580 fundamental God given right. Wow. That's a lot of money sent to the war in Ukraine. Um, uh, who let's
00:59:39.900 see. Um, would you rather, I think this is the last one I'm trying to see if I want to change it at
00:59:50.660 all. Um, would you rather your eulogy be given by Jesse Smollett?
00:59:59.580 Um, or, um, would you rather have to give a eulogy for
01:00:10.240 okay. I'm trying to make this up as I go. Okay. Who would you rather give your eulogy? Jesse Smollett
01:00:21.020 or, um, John Fetterman, just kidding. I think that's easy. Jesse Smollett because he, he is an
01:00:32.680 actor. Yeah. And, um, I think, I think that he could probably really like gin up a lot of emotion,
01:00:37.860 uh, and get people's, you know, get the tears welling up just about, you know, what, how great
01:00:43.520 my life was. And, and, uh, he, there were, there wouldn't be a dry eye on the place after he just
01:00:48.440 kind of manipulated everybody's emotion. But he might use that to accuse you of a hate crime.
01:00:52.980 That's true. You were the person who told him in Chicago that he was in Maga land. He was in
01:00:59.180 Maga territory. So yeah. Then it's on my Wikipedia forever and I'm ruined. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, uh,
01:01:05.180 I'd have to go Jesse, I think. Okay. Yeah. Take a risk. Last question. Would you rather have
01:01:11.960 your mom's haircut or it depends on the time period, like early nineties haircut or haircut now?
01:01:22.740 Now hair, her hair or her arms.
01:01:25.640 Um, uh, uh, I'd go with her hair. Yeah. Okay. I can deal with long hair. You have to style it the
01:01:36.400 way that she does. You can't change it. You can't cut it. Yeah. I think that would, I think that would
01:01:42.040 be okay. That would be okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, on that note, that's the end of our conversation.
01:01:48.560 Okay. Where can people find you, buy your books, all that good stuff? Yes. Uh, you can find me at,
01:01:53.580 on Twitter at Joel W. Barry, uh, the Babylon Bee.com. Uh, we have a lot of extra stuff for
01:01:58.960 subscribers if you support what we do, which we always appreciate. Um, and then our new book is
01:02:03.720 the Babylon Bee Guide to Democracy just came out. Um, it's really fun. What got a lot of pictures
01:02:08.860 and no matter what, no matter who you are, even, even leftists will like it. I think get a kick out
01:02:13.360 of it. So definitely pick that up. Wow. Okay. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.
01:02:18.380 I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much.
01:02:23.580 Thank you.