Jay Burton joins me to talk about the strange developments on the pro-Soda side of the anti-Democrat tea party movement, and why you should be able to buy soda on the cheap. Plus, a story about how Big Soda got involved in the campaign.
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00:00:30.120Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:34.200I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:38.300You might also enjoy this fine beverage.
00:00:42.540Yes, this one beverage that has definitely not paid any money to receive this on-air.
00:00:49.580No, just kidding. So it would be really weird if that was how I opened a show out of nowhere.
00:00:55.920If I started communicating with you like that, just kind of working stuff in that I'm clearly advertising, but I'm not announcing my intention.
00:01:05.260You would wonder why that's happening.
00:01:07.300And that's a feeling that a lot of people got recently when they logged on to Twitter because out of nowhere, several large MAGA-associated accounts started talking about the importance of being able to buy soda.
00:01:23.360Now, they weren't just against like the libs taking away your ability to purchase the soda.
00:01:27.640Very specifically, they wanted you to agree with the idea that food stamps should continue to pay for the soda of poor people who probably aren't consuming very healthy food or beverages.
00:01:42.740Very strange messaging. And the fact that so many of them were doing this simultaneously set off a lot of alarm bells.
00:01:51.000It turns out that there's a much larger story as to how Big Soda got involved in the online MAGA influencer movement.
00:02:00.700Joining me today to talk about the curious developments in native advertisement on the MAGA front is Jay Burton.
00:02:09.460Yeah, Aaron. Thank you so much for having me on.
00:02:11.320Thanks. Yeah, I know this is a little more of a humorous, humorous episode.
00:02:15.380Sometimes we try to dive into the political theory and, you know, philosophy.
00:02:19.760But today we're going to be looking at the online politics of selling online politics.
00:02:25.860But before we do that, let's hear from our sponsor.
00:02:28.740And to be clear, this is a sponsor, Consumer Research.
00:02:32.140Hey, everybody. This episode of the Oren McIntyre Show is proudly sponsored by Consumers Research.
00:02:37.600You've heard about Larry Fink and BlackRock and ESG and all the ways that they're ruining your life, making grocery stores more expensive, making video games more woke.
00:02:48.180Well, Consumers Research has spent the last five years making Larry's life hell, and they're just getting started.
00:02:55.240Their work and its consequences have been profiled in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most recently, Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparono wrote a whole chapter in his book, Go Woke, Go Broke, on how effective they've been at dismantling BlackRock's ESG patronage scheme.
00:03:13.180He's making Larry Fink lose that last bit of hair on his balding head, and you should follow Will's work on X so you can laugh along with him.
00:03:42.120Early on, our good friend Battle Beagle noticed that several large accounts were simultaneously discussing the merits of having people use food stamps to purchase soda.
00:03:59.080Now, again, inherently nothing wrong with, you know, letting people make their own decisions on what they consume.
00:04:07.800For those worried, by the way, this is not high fructose corn syrup.
00:04:12.100Again, I am not being paid by this company, but yeah, it's water and tea and no artificial sweeteners.
00:04:28.540I am not consuming all of the worst things.
00:04:32.220That said, there is this very strange, confusing number of accounts who are out there discussing why, again, not just that you should be able to purchase whatever you want, but that people receiving government aid should be able to purchase whatever they want.
00:04:51.160So after Battle Beagle, and by the way, you should get all of your news from Strange Beagles online.
00:04:56.860That's the most reliable source that one can imagine.
00:05:00.840I imagine Jay Burden also can attest to the amazing prophecies that come from Battle Beagle.
00:05:13.200Take the exact opposite of what you were recommending to you in a college course.
00:05:17.420You should get your news from anonymous strangers you've never met on the internet, predominantly represented by cartoon character profile pictures and AI images of animals.
00:05:28.220And if they're going to be showing their face, they should at the very least, you know, be in front of a bunch of heavy metal albums, right?
00:05:34.860Like that's how you can really speak to their veracity.
00:05:44.420That said, Nick Sorter, who's an independent journalist, he's broken a number of large stories.
00:05:48.900He's been on Fox and all kinds of other places.
00:05:51.780Tim Cast, I think he's on on a pretty regular basis.
00:05:54.700But he dug deeper into what happened here.
00:05:57.040So let's take a look at the post so you can kind of get a grasp in case you're not incredibly online and didn't see all of what's happening here.
00:08:17.500Like, I think anyone paying attention would, of course, know that there's a large difference between people being able to make a choice as to whether or not to drink a 40 some odd ounce.
00:08:28.080Big gulp on their own with their own dollar or whatever a big gulp costs, as opposed to having it subsidized by the taxpayers.
00:08:37.560Like, you can buy lots of things that are very nice if you can afford them, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for them.
00:08:45.140And you could buy lots of things that are bad for you, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for them.
00:08:51.240But for some reason, all of these people who should be relatively right wing and familiar with the concept of people on welfare and food stamps not being able to buy whatever they want were suddenly very pro soda for some reason.
00:09:05.460And so, you know, very obviously, this was picked up again, picked up.
00:09:11.480First, what I saw was from Battle Beagle.
00:09:14.500But then Nick here figured out that there was a much larger story behind this.
00:09:19.380Did you see these posts when they went up initially?
00:09:42.340I had just simply seen, wow, it sure is weird that a bunch of people are posting about soda this morning because, you know, I didn't spend a lot of time on it.
00:09:51.460It was just one of the things as I kind of, you know, scrolled before I began my day.
00:09:55.960And I mean, it didn't, you know, stick in my mind, but it was definitely odd because the moral perspective is a little bit off, right?
00:10:04.720This isn't how conservatives really normally talk, right?
00:10:09.540You know, you could certainly say that we should have some sort of food assistance program, right?
00:10:15.880But to say that conservatives ought to support this, I mean, even if we take aside any kind of alternative motivation here, it's just a weird argument for one person to make, let alone for the better part of half a dozen, right?
00:10:34.620So without any additional knowledge, it seemed highly suspicious, right?
00:11:28.440These are what we call talking points that literally they are bullet points and they tell you what to say.
00:11:34.820Now, obviously you shouldn't just say what's on the talking point and Chris, unless you're very lazy, which some of these people were, but you're supposed to mix it with like something that you would say to give it more of a native feel.
00:11:50.080You'll see the instructions here, for instance, make sure you put a picture with Trump and a Diet Coke or you hit his love of a Diet Coke and have a link to a story from a conservative outlet about
00:13:14.940I think that's a certain amount of doing business with what you're doing here.
00:13:19.020The problem that I think me and a lot of other people have is the lack of transparency, right?
00:13:26.700When I do an advertisement, I tell you, this is a sponsor, right?
00:13:30.360And oftentimes, I like the things that are being advertised on the show.
00:13:35.020That's usually what sponsors are trying to do.
00:13:37.600They're trying to align themselves with people who already like their product, already would use it, already think maybe that their audience would enjoy it.
00:13:46.640So personally, I don't have a problem with that.
00:13:49.540But every time, even if I genuinely like and I'm fully endorsing what is being put up here, I make it clear that is a sponsor, right?
00:14:17.900No one's paying me to have, you know, but when I talk about a specific product, I make it clear if that, you know, you've been compensated.
00:14:26.020That product is being talked about because of that compensation.
00:14:29.540And that's not what happened here at all.
00:14:31.500And not only is it not what happened here, not only do these people not disclose what they were about, but they often introduce this as like their own attempt to fight back against this ridiculous regulation, this thing.
00:14:46.980But they were doing so in a way that was very not conservative, not Republican.
00:14:50.900As you pointed out, all the opinions you would expect conservatives or right wingers to have about welfare were countered in this.
00:14:58.240So not only were we hiding the reason that these posts were being made, but we were specifically going against the values of the people we're normally talking to in the audience and pretending like somehow this links back to our shared understanding of the free market or whatever.
00:16:08.160And to be honest, bringing, like, what really is a relatively minor point of, like, welfare administration policy, you know, to this level, it just stinks, right?
00:16:22.020Like, it immediately reads as disingenuous, right?
00:16:26.000It reads to your audience, even someone like me, who's not a particularly engaged consumer of any one of these accounts, as, oh, like, you're a shill, right?
00:16:35.840Which immediately casts dispersions on everything else you've said.
00:16:41.100Because it's like, if you were just going to, you know, copy this, copy, paste, and say some random nonsense about, you know, we need to fund, you know, we effectively need to subsidize, you know, the sugar corn industry.
00:16:53.740Like, I don't believe you've only done that once, right?
00:16:57.640That seems to indicate you might have some sort of, you know, there might be a flaw in your reasoning.
00:17:07.380Like, when we talk about the alternative media, you know, one of the things that really people in alt media like to pat themselves on the back about is the fact that, like, oh, we're not, like, stodgy traditional media.
00:17:20.400And, you know, there's certainly something true about that.
00:17:23.160But that doesn't mean that there are, you know, untalented sellout hacks, even in alternative media.
00:17:29.360You know, you see it all the time, right?
00:17:31.380And, look, I'm not casting aspersions on all of these accounts.
00:17:33.880I 100% understand how someone could be presented with a brand deal that they didn't do their research on.
00:17:39.480And that's not the end of the world, right?
00:17:41.120I'm using this to talk about a broader problem.
00:17:44.260But the problem is, right, when you have alt media, when it's controlled by one person, that means in order to control that node, all you need to do is to get to one person, right?
00:17:54.580And if you've got that person, right, whether through greed or something else, you've got that node, you've got their influence.
00:18:16.800Is that really, you know, the free market of people deciding that, you know, Harry Sisson or however you say his name is, is just the greatest guy ever?
00:18:25.380Or, you know, is it a way to basically create that same type of relationship or try to force that, you know, parasocial relationship to get people to trust someone?
00:18:35.940And then use that to drive a narrative, which is somewhat similar to what we're seeing here.
00:18:43.020Yeah, and it really is, again, as you point out, I'm not against people securing the bag, you know, like people got to get paid.
00:18:51.820People need to make a living with what they're doing.
00:18:55.280But it is the lack of disclosure and, in this case, the direct opposition to the values of the people you're advertising to, which is a pretty big problem.
00:19:06.480You know, like you said, that this very particular nuance of welfare policy, it very clearly only comes about because, I guess, a significant amount of soda sales go to poor people who can't make good decisions about what they're putting in their bodies.
00:19:25.280And they can't buy it with their own money, so they need to take that money from you to pay for it, right?
00:19:31.920And this is directly at odds with basically everything that a conservative audience would believe, and yet it's being sold as a conservative idea because it interacts with, you know, the free market.
00:19:52.920But the cynical nature of this is really bad.
00:19:55.560And you can see right here, you know, he's got the text that some of these influencers received.
00:20:01.260Influencers were texted telling them to help push back.
00:20:05.540Some were paid between several hundred to even $1,000 for each post for attempting to turn MAGA against RFK and Maha.
00:20:14.580So, again, you know, this is a basically the soda industry recognizing that someone entering into this administration isn't on their side, like ultimately is against the pot product that they're putting out because it's bad for people.
00:20:31.180Obviously doesn't want it to be subsidized by the government, by your tax dollars, and they're being paid to basically fight a civil war with people inside the administration who are against this and, you know, getting paid $1,000 a post.
00:20:47.600Now, I got to say, again, I'm not against people making money, but I don't know if my credibility is worth $1,000, you know, like it's not a small amount of money, but, you know, my soul would slightly more.
00:21:01.240Like, you know, it feels like that number should be slightly higher.
00:21:04.760I get, like, you could put, like, four or five posts out, but even then, still, it just, it seems like a very small amount for selling a credibility for very large accounts.
00:21:14.160Well, and this is a, there's a famous, you know, internet comedy sketch, right, centers around a couple guys in a road trip.
00:21:21.380And, you know, one of them asks, like, oh, how much would it cost for you to do something disgusting?
00:21:26.480You know, and the first guy's like, oh, a million bucks.
00:21:28.300The second guy's like, eh, maybe $7.50, and then the third guy's like, hmm, 200 bucks.
00:21:35.540And it's immediately suspicious, right, because it's like, wait a minute, you know, this is supposed to be something really horrible, you know, something you'd really have to think about.
00:21:43.980And similar, like, to your point, exactly right, it's like you were basically, you know, selling out.
00:21:51.180You know, I mean, I'm not saying it's good, but you could kind of, you couldn't really blame the guy, right, if it were a, you know, a villa.
00:21:58.000In, you know, the Alps or something, it's like, all right, well, fair enough, I understand the appeal.
00:22:02.600But for, you know, a couple hundred bucks to, you know, effectively sign out to, or sell out to, you know, Big Soda, it's like, I mean, come on.
00:23:34.100Yeah, I think that there's, I mean, there's something else to be, just as a brief aside in this, right?
00:23:40.740I am far from, you know, one of these health or sugars people, right?
00:23:47.640It's a whole sphere, and I get very much into it.
00:23:50.660But just as a historical aside, if any of you viewers are interested in the question of what crazy things will soda companies get up to,
00:23:59.600there is a whole long history of Coke and Pepsi doing all sorts of absolutely insane stuff that is much, much worse than, you know, paying a few influencers, right?
00:24:42.660So he points out here that along with apparently, you know, setting up assassinations, there's also the lobbies that are, you know,
00:24:53.000so none of these people probably got directly approached by Coke or Pepsi.
00:24:56.800They probably didn't even get approached by Maribov.
00:25:00.060Maribov, obviously, they got approached by this influencer company, but they're going, you know, Maribov and these other, you know,
00:25:06.600lobbying organizations are likely to, you know, be the ones that hired something like Influencible.
00:25:14.180You know, he points out the link there to the conservative articles that could appear.
00:25:23.000He, you know, he points out that this isn't the only product that does this.
00:25:26.580Things like movies, you go out there and do this and, you know, look like I, I did an advertisement for Sound of Freedom, but I did it on my show.
00:25:35.940I did it because, you know, I made it clear it was an advertisement.
00:25:39.040And by the way, I actually liked that movie.
00:25:42.780I gave it a personal endorsement in my advertisement of it, but only because, A, I had already announced it's an advertisement.
00:25:50.700This is not just me, you know, going on about a movie I just saw, but also I genuinely thought it was a good movie that I think people should see.
00:25:59.160So, again, I'm not against, you know, advertisements, campaigns, people getting paid, but it is just kind of amazing that, you know, people can't just say that and that instead we're kind of like burying these campaigns and trying to, you know, lose a lot of our credibility over the fact that, you know, make a few extra hundred dollars.
00:26:22.120Again, when you're in this business, when you're doing what you're doing, there's two types of people, right?
00:26:28.920It's like you've got entertainment and credibility.
00:26:32.560That's really what you're looking for.
00:26:34.440Either this person is just highly entertaining or this person is someone I trust in some area.
00:26:40.720Maybe it's, you know, political theory.
00:26:43.180Maybe it's, you know, what's going on on the Hill.
00:26:46.360Maybe it's deep diving into corporations.
00:26:48.560They have a research skill that maybe it's history.
00:26:52.660You know, there's something about this person who, that has built a certain level of credibility with me.
00:26:58.980And if you're someone who has built an audience on that credibility, it just seems very, very foolish and short-sighted to sell it for such a low price.
00:27:09.240Like, again, there's all the morality involved.
00:27:11.520But even if you just sidestep the morality for a moment, just from the cost-benefit analysis, I'm just, sorry, I know I'm kind of going on about this, but it just kind of blows me away that you would work so hard to amass a large following with a lot of people who kind of ultimately trust you and then would be like, yeah, but like for the cost of, I don't know, like going to the movies twice, I could burn all that.
00:27:36.320And, yeah, that'll probably be worth it.
00:27:38.920Well, and there's two things as well, right?
00:27:41.280Which is one, you know, what was the nature of this advertisement or endorsement, right?
00:27:46.560You know, if you have a website, there are banner ads on it, and we all kind of know what the game is there, right?
00:27:53.480That's not really an implied endorsement.
00:27:55.140People just pay for advertising space, right?
00:27:57.180But if it's a post, right, that you are making yourself from your account, and you're not marking it as an ad, that's sort of a weird one, slimy thing legally.
00:28:08.800But also, right, you were speaking using your own voice, right?
00:28:13.320You were saying, this is what I think.
00:28:15.420You know, we as a group should think this about this.
00:28:19.120Not, you know, thanks for sponsoring me.
00:28:21.940You know, here's why you should like the product, right?
00:28:57.020But I think there's another kind of interesting implication in that, right, which is the transition from, let's just say, two to three years ago, when people like you and I are domestic terrorists, right?
00:29:08.520I'm not saying literally, but we were being called domestic terrorists.
00:29:11.900How the FBI or Joe Biden would have described this.
00:29:16.180In heavy scare quotes, forgive me about that.
00:29:18.600You know, you have this kind of like, you know, Joe Biden with his fist in the air in front of a blood red banner, you know, shaking his fist at the sky and saying, you know, we're coming for those people.
00:29:28.260To, you know, some of the biggest corporations in the world, dedicating their time to molding their opinions on advertising, right?
00:29:38.000Like that's a remarkably fast transition.
00:29:40.760And I think that indicates a shift in cultural attitudes and cultural water, right?
00:29:45.640Because I'm constantly fascinated by why do rich and powerful people pay attentions to this bizarre corner of the internet, right?
00:29:55.680Because purely by the numbers, I mean, some, but not as many as do, right?
00:30:01.720This is an area that punches well above its weight.
00:30:04.480And I think what's been realized, and this has been, you know, remarked upon since, you know, much, much earlier, if you look at a place like 4chan, that there are places that are generative, right?
00:30:16.480And I think that that's what you're seeing is that other people, people who don't necessarily have the best of intentions, have recognized that this is fertile ground.
00:30:24.580That if you seed something here, it goes elsewhere.
00:30:27.460And they're looking for a way to profit off that, right?
00:30:40.400And this one's easy to see because it's a low-rent advertising agency.
00:30:44.160But to kind of put on my tinfoil hat for a little bit, you got to wonder, you know, if this was a, you know, a foreign power, some sort of political organization with more resources to throw around, there's a very real chance that we might never have even noticed.
00:30:57.860So sorry, Oren, that's a lot for me to throw at you.
00:31:00.140But do you see what I'm kind of getting at there?
00:31:03.300And, you know, so let me relay story time with Uncle Oren.
00:31:08.080Let me tell you about my experience previously with this.
00:31:11.720So when I was a local reporter, just a local reporter working the beat, I go to these different political events.
00:31:19.180I do politics and I do crime for a local newspaper.
00:31:23.680I show up to one of these local meetings and there's this group that is pushing to end greyhound racing in Florida, which is where I'm a reporter at the time.
00:31:34.260And when I show up to that meeting, you know, they've got all the animal rights activists.
00:32:23.780I look into it and I find out that the Seminole Indian tribe, who owns all of the legal casinos in Florida, has basically contracted out these animal rights activists.
00:32:38.080Because the only organization other than these Indian casinos that are allowed to run table games in Florida are pari-mutual facilities, dog tracks.
00:32:51.300And so the only competitor to the Indian casino was the Greyhound track.
00:32:57.440And so there was not some organic groundswell of, you know, support for getting rid of dog tracks.
00:33:05.100There was not some genuine concern over the condition of dogs.
00:33:08.680There was not some relatively passionate, you know, people who are out there just fighting for the rights of animals.
00:33:15.540These people were bought and paid for under the guise of being animal rights activists to basically clear the way for casinos to get rid of the only other competitor for gambling inside of Florida.
00:33:31.740They got the ballot initiative necessary.
00:33:35.500You know, the referendum, the popular vote in Florida can alter the constitution and they banned Greyhound racing in Florida.
00:33:42.880And now, you know, Seminole Indian casinos are the only ones who can run any gambling inside of Florida.
00:33:51.240So not only is this established practice, but this is established practice that works and works to the tune of billions of dollars, right?
00:34:00.420By moving out the only competitor, the Indian casinos made billions of dollars by lying to people and telling them that this was all part of their ability to, you know, get rid of this animal abuse, right?
00:34:14.260So this is, to your point, something that is prevalent.
00:34:17.440This is a time-tested, you know, thing.
00:34:21.200It works and it makes people lots and lots of money.
00:34:24.260So in some sense, this has always existed.
00:34:26.300However, there is a positive aspect of this, if we can, you know, point to it here, which is, in some sense, this is an indication that we are culturally ascendant, right?
00:34:37.080As you point out, you know, we were, you and I were people who were being called domestic terrorists by the White House and the President of the United States.
00:34:50.440Falsely accused of this by the President of the United States.
00:34:54.120It's, you know, the people who, you know, who run intelligence agencies and domestic security agencies were labeling anyone to the right of, you know, the Wall Street Journal as, you know, being this.
00:35:06.500And now, all of a sudden, major corporations want to plug themselves in.
00:35:11.540So in some ways, this is like a growing pain, right?
00:35:15.280Like, this is a victim of success scenario where, yes, it's really ugly that some of these accounts fell for this and they sold their credibility over this.
00:35:24.760However, in some sense, this is a good indication because the simple fact that people would invest this much time and money in spheres like ours, recognizing the power that they wield, even when it comes to policy, like government policy, that is ultimately like a positive thing, right?
00:35:45.080I think that this is an important, moments like these can serve as kind of an important check on how we view the kind of basic populist premise, right?
00:35:59.780The idea that, you know, left to their own devices, right?
00:36:03.520If you give people, you know, access to information, they will come up with the right conclusions.
00:36:09.140Because the problem is, right, when you have these kind of decentralized narratives, and I mean, to be fair, this could be done in a centralized way as well.
00:36:17.620But when you have these unorganized systems, they're very easy for outside organized actors to come in and game them, right?
00:36:25.280Like I guarantee all of those accounts, right, weren't talking to each other trying to say like, oh, hey, how are we going to plan this, right?
00:36:47.580They didn't just appear out of nowhere.
00:36:49.700But at the same time, you're 100% right.
00:36:52.180You know, the fact that these people are trying to do something that's a little bit nefarious and scummy in our neck of the woods, it's like, oh, well, hey, look at that.
00:36:59.720We're big enough to get a really bad advertising campaign.
00:37:07.920It indicates that there's value there to be extracted.
00:37:11.300But you got to remember, right, people come to that, you know, area because there's value there.
00:37:18.000But not everyone there is contributing, right?
00:37:20.100Not everyone is, you know, bringing interesting ideas or, you know, kind of a head on certain news issues.
00:37:26.840And to me, right, I think that it's something to be very cautious of because this is a, you know, a collection of ideas, a collection of people who are moving from the fringes to the more mainstream, right?
00:37:40.560And there are problems that come with that.
00:37:42.780You know, look, like, if you take another, you know, pick your poison, right, another hobby you might be interested in as, you know, a viewer that's very, very mainstream, the players are kind of known, right?
00:37:55.680You know, you have the big people, you have people in the middle, and there's, you know, a natural turnover.
00:38:00.740But when it's kind of going from, you know, this situation where everyone is very small, everyone's anonymous, there are all these kind of, like, you know, ghettoized different communities.
00:38:09.620So there's a difficult to tell, right, who the players are.
00:38:17.320But other times, right, that creates opportunities for, shall we say, disingenuous forces to act.
00:38:24.520And I think that's what we saw a little bit of.
00:38:26.580You know, to me, it reminds me, you know, very much of something that Curtis Yarvin said, which is, you know, he's someone who ideas have been massively mainstreamed, right?
00:38:35.640I have some of my friends' mothers telling me that they really like the New York Times podcast.
00:38:41.060And if I've ever heard of this guy named Curtis Yarvin, you know, like, that's a guy who took a blog and, you know, became very successful with it.
00:38:49.180It's going to be the moment where your grandma leans over and is like, have you ever heard of the Sex Pistols?
00:39:23.420But things that didn't used to happen in this weird little corner of the internet where we share ideas, well, they're going to start happening, right?
00:39:39.140Guy's got a couple hundred bucks to say something kind of scummy.
00:39:41.860It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
00:39:44.560But they're probably going to keep happening.
00:39:46.200And when the numbers go up, when it's 10 grand instead of one, you'll see more people go for it, right?
00:39:53.900You'll see more people basically decide to sell out.
00:39:56.360And this has happened in other, you know, conservative or right-leaning institutions, right?
00:40:03.220You know, go through a lot of those Tea Party Republicans and look how they were voting five, ten years later, right?
00:40:09.900When the checks get bigger, more and more people start to compromise.
00:40:12.980And I think it's something we should be aware of.
00:40:14.500Yeah, and I think this leads into a more interesting scenario because, of course, as you point out, we've got, you know, the populist movement isn't incredibly organized.
00:40:26.180And so it's very easy for people to enter.
00:40:29.080Sometimes the gatekeeping is not always great when it comes to this.
00:40:33.500And, of course, we see it when we see kind of this grifting, right?
00:40:37.300But also, remember, we're seeing this same thing ideologically, right?
00:40:43.080There's so many people who were very liberal or were moderately liberal.
00:40:48.140And all of a sudden, Donald Trump is winning.
00:40:52.400And all of a sudden, they're like, well, it turns out that I just happen to also be a liberty enjoyer, fellow Republicans.
00:40:58.620And they start, you know, kind of spouting all of their same talking points, but while calling themselves MAGA or, you know, right wing or, you know, post liberal or whatever.
00:41:11.040And that's why it becomes very important to start to measure, you know, what these people are saying before you elevate them to positions of leadership or intellectual notoriety.
00:41:22.680Because a lot of it could be, you know, this laundering.
00:41:25.660You know, they're probably not getting paid to push, you know, I don't know, their, you know, post-war consensus garbage or whatever, their woke right garbage.
00:41:33.200But it's the same type of thing, right?
00:41:34.880Like they assume the form of the movement so that they can write it.
00:41:40.800They don't have the values or they don't ultimately align.
00:41:43.960But if they present themselves in a certain way, they throw a few memes in there, they say that they're based or something like that, then they can start pushing.
00:41:51.420Well, if you believe in liberty, then obviously, ultimately, you can't really be for a society that promotes Christian values because that, you know, you can start getting that kind of stuff.
00:42:02.040The people who have no affiliation, no real overlap in belief or culture or shared goals, but they want to tell you what the movement is, right?
00:42:12.160Like, well, actually, this is what you believed all along, right?
00:42:16.040Like there's a lot of that happening right now.
00:42:18.780And so this is very obvious and very crass with the money, but we're getting an ideological version of this as well.
00:42:25.780And it's just as important, if not much more important, actually, I'd rather people make a few hundred dollars off of big soda, but more or less, you'd like keep pushing for closed borders and reduction of insanity by introducing Christian values into government structure rather than, you know, the other way around.
00:42:45.180But ultimately, it's just as important to keep, you know, those people who are pushing these non-aligned values under the guise of making America great again, as it is to watch out for, you know, these guys who are pushing, you know, the importance of being able to buy a, you know, large Coke with your, you know, with your food stamps.
00:43:07.940And look, like this is ultimately kind of a silly story, but it's a useful prism to investigate something that happens all the time, right?
00:43:17.860Which is that there are people who, you know, see that there is something to be gained by presenting as part of a social group.
00:43:24.300And so they cynically put that hat on, right?
00:43:27.100They adopt the mannerisms as an order to economically profit, right?
00:43:35.140You have 100% heard this story before, right?
00:43:38.960That XYZ, you know, either failing actor or musician or influencer, all of a sudden discovers that they are, you know, they have conservative politics.
00:43:50.120And they use that to sort of relaunch their career, right?
00:43:53.300They become, you know, a specific micro celebrity.
00:43:57.700And oftentimes, those people end up, you know, burning out, right?
00:44:02.460They end up, you know, sort of revealing themselves as, you know, doing something cynically.
00:44:07.140You know, they reveal themselves as, you know, acting only, right, in their own best interest.
00:44:18.840If you're on the other end of that, right?
00:44:20.500If you're reading, if you're, you know, taking them at face value, there's a betrayal in that, right?
00:44:25.700You are dealing with someone who's not an honest actor, who is acting cynically.
00:44:29.620And that's important to police, right?
00:44:31.720Because if the primary thing, and this is what I do think our circle offers, is we have, you know, answers and analysis you can't find elsewhere.
00:44:39.860That's a genuinely valuable and unique thing.
00:44:42.220And if that is being, you know, distorted or diluted, because it is profitable for people to, you know, come to the table, right, or, you know, try to present themselves as contributing, well, that's something that needs to be addressed.
00:45:15.780You had immense, you know, pressures on all fronts.
00:45:18.700And so, you know, you could be pretty well assured that everyone here was here because they actually thought it, right?
00:45:25.420Because otherwise, why would you ever say these sort of things, right?
00:45:30.140You know, I mean, recently, I don't know if you saw people were talking about the period of time where digital blackface was a big deal, right?
00:45:37.620Like, if you used GIFs or, you know, reaction images that didn't correspond to your literal physical skin tone, that was a problem.
00:45:45.000That's just kind of like an example of how nuts things were, right?
00:45:49.740But, you know, you have a time now, like you said, where, you know, these ideas are becoming more popular.
00:45:54.660It's kind of the way the wind is blowing.
00:45:57.780There's going to be more of that opportunism.
00:46:00.060No, it's going to continue to be an issue.
00:46:04.960And I think people need to be vigilant for it.
00:46:07.040Though, like I said, I think the ideological version of this is far more dangerous than the commercial version of this.
00:46:14.540And, you know, the good news is that something like Twitter holds people accountable, right?
00:46:19.220The fact that this was immediately noticed, it was immediately the story was broken, warnings went out.
00:46:25.160And this, this, nobody got away with this, right?
00:46:28.000I'm not saying, obviously, that no one has ever gotten away with this.
00:46:31.000But the point is, it's very easy for this to get noticed, very easy for this to be brought to the attention of the people who are being kind of sold this opinion.
00:47:04.080But I just wanted to put in there that he did acknowledge this and apologize.
00:47:08.580And, you know, that that's really all you've got at the end of the day when you're trading on your reputation.
00:47:13.500So, you know, hopefully an incident like this will encourage people to be more thoughtful about the type of deals that they take, be far more willing to, you know, first make sure they're not selling an idea that is against the values of who they are talking to, but also something that ultimately they would disclose if they receive that kind of payment.
00:47:36.580Again, I'm not against advertising, but just tell people it's advertising.
00:47:40.860And finally, it hopefully raises the level of people who are often interacting with these slop accounts to recognize like, okay, well, just because somebody's going through a bunch of memes and posting a bunch of stuff that blows up doesn't necessarily mean that they are sharing all of the values that I have.
00:48:00.580Right. But that's not ultimately the indication that this person is someone who I can trust on a regular basis.
00:48:07.620But that said, we have a number of comments from the people.
00:48:12.500So before we move to our super chats, Mr. Burden, can you tell people where to find your fine program on which they may at occasion, you know, run into an advertisement or two?
00:48:22.820Yeah. So you can find me on the Jay Burden show, which is on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
00:48:28.860A different format than this. It is an interview show, right? A little less topical. Normally it's on kind of a book, piece of art, something like that.
00:48:36.320If you are interested and there is a huge crossover and guests between my show and yours, please check it out. Highly recommend it.
00:48:43.180I think I had Aaron on most recently to discuss his book, which is quite good.
00:48:47.720So again, Aaron, I appreciate the opportunity to come out.
00:48:50.500And I'd like to be clear, I did not pay Mr. Burden for that advertisement in my book.
00:48:55.760That was it. That was a, you know, not a native advertisement.
00:48:59.060I will not slide him five dollars under the table as soon as.
00:49:02.920And I'll tell you, and this is another thing, even rarer on podcasts.
00:49:17.600And this is a complete inside baseball aside.
00:49:20.760If you have actually read someone's book and you are, because they're your friend, you know, you want to support them, listening to them talk to someone else about their book.
00:49:29.660And you'll listen to the host ask questions that you're like, you didn't even get through like a paragraph in the opener here.
00:49:37.380You were really just going off the blurb on the back.
00:50:09.560Maybe it's the maybe if the shilling didn't come across as fake and forced as the Truman Show product scene, then it would have made more sense.
00:50:17.680Promotions can be done in a way that feel at least somewhat authentic.
00:50:23.380I have advertised products on this show.
00:50:26.660In fact, most of the time when I advertising something on the show, it is something that I genuinely think is useful or at least, you know, I think is a positive thing.
00:50:36.360Oftentimes, like I said, with the movie, you know, I have watched the movie and actually really liked it.
00:50:42.100You can advertise for things that you think are valuable or positive.
00:51:03.040It's the desire to do the native advertising where you kind of walk into a otherwise, you know, normal looking post or video or whatever.
00:51:12.540And then halfway through, you realize, oh, this person is just selling me something.
00:51:17.420This is not actually their real thoughts.
00:51:19.180This is not actually their real opinion.
00:51:20.940This is not something that they're just, you know, recommending to me.
00:51:24.700It is something that they've been explicitly paid to do.
00:51:27.580And as you point out, when it's just so nakedly against the interest of the people you're advertising to, that's when it really looks crass.
00:51:34.840Jacob says, why does the fat Malaysian get all the cola sponsorship?
00:53:27.060Yeah, it's would be, it would be that I would have respected, right?
00:53:29.940Like let's, let's get the full, uh, idiocracy, you know, president, uh, Camacho, uh, advertisement in there that I would, I would have, I would have been behind.
00:53:40.420Um, yeah, I mean, look, uh, beverage has the electrolytes that kids on snap crave.