The Charlie Kirk Show - Exploring the Death of Comedy with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, how do we make comedy great again?

00:00:02.000 The death of comedy and the attack on jokes and those who tell the jokes is a very serious warning sign.

00:00:10.000 In fact, it's a fire alarm for our civilization.

00:00:12.000 Seth Dylan from Babylon B joins us, one of the funniest satire sites out there, if not the funniest.

00:00:18.000 Please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.

00:00:22.000 We are able to bring you these interviews, these exclusive conversations in real time.

00:00:26.000 Thanks to those of you that contribute to us and support us at charliekirk.com slash support.

00:00:32.000 Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:34.000 And join us in Palm Beach, everybody.

00:00:36.000 December 19, 20, 21, 22, thousands and thousands and thousands of people.

00:00:42.000 tpusa.com slash SAS.

00:00:45.000 You want to be there.

00:00:46.000 Tucker Carlson, I'll be there.

00:00:48.000 Dennis Prager, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, tpusa.com slash SAS.

00:00:53.000 Seth Dylan is here, everybody.

00:00:54.000 Buckle up.

00:00:55.000 Here we go.

00:00:57.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:59.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:01.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:04.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:08.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:09.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:10.000 His spirit is love of this country.

00:01:11.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:17.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:18.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:27.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:29.000 Hey, everybody.

00:01:30.000 Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:33.000 With us today is Seth Dylan, who is the CEO of Babylon B.

00:01:39.000 I love your website, by the way, Seth.

00:01:41.000 I have to say, it is funny.

00:01:43.000 It is timely, and it is sometimes on the edge.

00:01:46.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:48.000 Thanks for having me on, Charlie.

00:01:49.000 Glad to have you as a fan.

00:01:51.000 So tell us, how did you get into the satire publishing business?

00:01:55.000 What I love most about the Babylon Be is that it goes after Democrats and it goes after kind of leftist third rail political issues.

00:02:04.000 How did you get into this?

00:02:07.000 Well, I actually acquired it.

00:02:09.000 I didn't found it.

00:02:09.000 Adam Ford is the founder and he started it back in 2016 and I just saw it as like the best thing on the internet.

00:02:15.000 I mean, it was just blowing up really quickly.

00:02:17.000 It's getting a lot of attention and it was really quality, conservative comedy that wasn't cheesy, which was a breath of fresh air.

00:02:26.000 And so, you know, I approached Adam just looking to invest in it initially, but he was looking to get out largely because of tech censorship, which I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit about in this discussion.

00:02:35.000 But he was trying to find an exit.

00:02:37.000 And so we were able to work out a deal.

00:02:40.000 I saw it as just a great opportunity with this property that was just growing and blowing up and having a big impact.

00:02:44.000 And satire has always been something that I thought was just the most effective tool for speaking truth to culture anyway.

00:02:50.000 So tremendous opportunity I couldn't pass up.

00:02:53.000 So we worked out a deal back in 2018 and I've been running it ever since.

00:02:56.000 So how big have you guys grown?

00:02:58.000 I get the articles sent every day from Babylon B. Can you give us an idea of how big your presence is?

00:03:06.000 We've got, well, we're bumping up on a million followers on Facebook.

00:03:10.000 I think we have 800 something thousand close around there on Twitter as well.

00:03:15.000 We're doing like 20 million page views a month in traffic.

00:03:18.000 So we're getting a lot of eyeballs on the site, a lot of reach.

00:03:22.000 It was just, you know, a fraction of that a couple of years ago.

00:03:25.000 So we've grown astronomically.

00:03:28.000 So satire is something that I agree with you is one of the most effective ways to engage politically and culturally.

00:03:35.000 It's always supposed to satire, the best form of satire is where you can't tell whether or not the line has been crossed.

00:03:43.000 You can't tell whether it's true or not.

00:03:44.000 It's just right within that kind of makes you say, wait, that could be true.

00:03:48.000 That's the best type of satire.

00:03:50.000 For my favorite, my other favorite satire site is CNN or MSNBC because I can't always tell whether or not what they're saying is true.

00:03:58.000 What I love about your site, and I could just flip through some of the articles here right now, is that it really pinpoints the absurdity of the left and kind of the double standard that all of us exist under.

00:04:09.000 Can you talk about just the utility that satire you think that actually fits into American discourse, especially with as much fake news we live under and just the total activist nature of the journalist class?

00:04:26.000 Well, I mean, the utility of it, I think the thing that satire does most effectively, more effectively than anything else, is it ridicules bad ideas.

00:04:33.000 And, you know, you've got so many bad ideas out there that are just on the face of them absurd.

00:04:39.000 And sometimes the best response is to laugh at them and to make a joke of them and to mock them mercilessly.

00:04:44.000 You know, and it's not about attacking people as individuals.

00:04:47.000 It's about attacking the bad ideas that they're advancing and how damaging they are.

00:04:50.000 And I think we need to, you know, safeguard ourselves, especially our youth, against being, you know, inoculate them against these bad ideas that they don't adopt them and try to bring them into, you know, our legislative bodies and our society and our culture.

00:05:05.000 So, you know, getting a handle on that and using satire effectively in that way, I think that's, you know, that's one of the things that we've done well over the course of the last several years.

00:05:17.000 It's one of the reasons that our site resonates with a lot of people.

00:05:19.000 You know, they see it as having an impact for precisely that reason.

00:05:23.000 What you mentioned a minute ago, though, about the best satire being really close to the truth.

00:05:28.000 That's absolutely true.

00:05:29.000 I mean, you know, jokes are funny because of their proximity to the truth.

00:05:32.000 They have to be like somewhat believable or they're not true.

00:05:36.000 If you're so detached from reality that you can clearly tell that it's ridiculous satire, it's not going to be that funny.

00:05:42.000 And that's one of the attacks.

00:05:44.000 One of the ways that the left tries to come after us and censor us is by suggesting that we're riding too close to the truth on purpose so that we can mislead people and spread misinformation and get people angry and fuel the flames of discord or however Snopes puts it.

00:06:00.000 And that's, you know, it's really disingenuous on their part.

00:06:03.000 They're the ones actually putting out misinformation by saying that about us because all we're doing is trying to make jokes, trying to make light of things, trying to, you know, with mockery and irony and sarcasm, you know, do our satirical thing.

00:06:14.000 So it does have to be close to the truth.

00:06:17.000 And one of the challenges that we're finding today is that it's difficult to go beyond the truth a little bit and exaggerate it when reality is as crazy as it is.

00:06:28.000 It's absolutely insane.

00:06:29.000 Yeah, it's like the work is already done for you.

00:06:31.000 I'm going to read four of these.

00:06:31.000 I love these.

00:06:32.000 They're hilarious. 1.00

00:06:34.000 Senate Girls Big Tech on How to Get Their Printer Working. 1.00

00:06:37.000 Perfect. 1.00

00:06:38.000 Fauci, quote, we must obey the government without question as the founding fathers intended.

00:06:43.000 Yeah.

00:06:44.000 Gavin Newsom claims expensive dinner party was a setup.

00:06:47.000 This is perfect.

00:06:49.000 And modern day rebels just plan on celebrating holidays just like normal.

00:06:53.000 I mean, that could be an article on the Atlantic.

00:06:56.000 I mean, it is so incredibly within the kind of, it's like one interval or one or two degrees away of something that I was probably reading, you know, right near there.

00:07:06.000 Skynet introduces new line of voting machines.

00:07:06.000 I love this one.

00:07:09.000 Perfect.

00:07:10.000 Now, I don't know if you've seen it or not, but sometimes like Kyle, our editor-in-chief, who wrote probably half of those, he will highlight sometimes these fulfilled prophecies, he calls them, where, you know, we'll write one of these pieces and then like 10 minutes later or 10 hours later or 10 days later, it actually happens.

00:07:10.000 Yeah.

00:07:26.000 That happens with regularity.

00:07:27.000 Like once a week, one of our stories comes true.

00:07:30.000 And it's precisely because the world's so crazy.

00:07:32.000 What we do is we take a look at, okay, what's happening in the world today?

00:07:36.000 What are the major headlines? 0.94

00:07:36.000 What are the silly things and ridiculous things people are saying and doing? 0.94

00:07:39.000 And we exaggerate it a little bit. 0.94

00:07:40.000 That's what satire does.

00:07:41.000 We exaggerate it.

00:07:42.000 Well, it's just a matter of time before our exaggerations bump up against reality and somebody goes and does something as absurd as what we joked about them doing.

00:07:50.000 So that's happening constantly.

00:07:52.000 No, I see some of these that, I mean, I'm not even sure if, because they're published, they could already be true.

00:07:58.000 I mean, I love it.

00:08:01.000 So you have a greatest hits area.

00:08:04.000 And, you know, some of these say, Kai, these are the best stories you've ever had.

00:08:10.000 This one actually, I think, almost came true from March Biden.

00:08:14.000 I'm the only candidate who can beat Ronald Reagan.

00:08:16.000 It's pretty close.

00:08:18.000 It is.

00:08:18.000 It is close.

00:08:19.000 Who was it?

00:08:20.000 He said Bush, right?

00:08:21.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:21.000 I said it's close to what he said.

00:08:23.000 Yeah, it's very close to what he said.

00:08:24.000 Yeah.

00:08:25.000 Yeah.

00:08:25.000 We would consider that like partially fulfilled.

00:08:28.000 Yeah, there you go.

00:08:29.000 Based on the tech ability to censor.

00:08:33.000 So you get censored a lot.

00:08:35.000 You're in these constant fights against Twitter and Facebook and all of this because but you tell jokes.

00:08:41.000 You are a comedy website.

00:08:43.000 You are satire.

00:08:44.000 You don't have an investigative news division.

00:08:47.000 You have a bunch of witty, you know, probably late 20, early 30, you know, people that could have been screenwriters, but they aren't Bolshevik enough to get into that community that work for you that purely tell jokes in the news cycle.

00:09:00.000 Tell us your experiences with censorship.

00:09:03.000 So it manifests itself in a couple of different ways.

00:09:06.000 And with satire, you know, it's a unique thing.

00:09:08.000 It's not like they're not coming after us by saying, you know, that one of our stories, well, okay, I'll give you the first example.

00:09:18.000 This really started back with Facebook when they first started implementing fact-checking with third-party fact-checkers, right?

00:09:22.000 It's a couple years ago.

00:09:23.000 They're concerned about misinformation and how it's going to affect elections and stuff like that.

00:09:28.000 So they partner with Snopes.

00:09:30.000 And then Snopes starts fact-checking our stuff.

00:09:32.000 And the piece that they fact-checked that set this whole thing off initially was the most absurd thing ever.

00:09:37.000 You may have seen this.

00:09:39.000 The CNN purchases industrial washing machines to spin the news in before publishing it.

00:09:44.000 And it's like, it's on the face of it, it's a clear joke.

00:09:47.000 That's not one of those ones that's like you could mistake it for reality.

00:09:51.000 But Snopes fact-checked it, claiming that a lot of people were confused by it.

00:09:55.000 They needed to set the record straight.

00:09:56.000 So they rated it false.

00:09:57.000 And jokes are not true or false, by the way.

00:09:59.000 Jokes are funny or not, but they're not true or false.

00:10:02.000 So Snopes tries to apply this true or false binary to our stuff, rates it false.

00:10:07.000 Facebook looks at that and says, okay, you guys need to quit putting out false information or we're going to ban you.

00:10:12.000 We're going to demonetize you, whatever.

00:10:14.000 So they threatened us with that stuff.

00:10:16.000 So we had to push back against that.

00:10:17.000 And we've been dealing with that ever since.

00:10:18.000 I mean, they continue to use fact checkers and we continue to get our stuff flagged as a hoax or something like that.

00:10:25.000 So that happens all the time.

00:10:27.000 And Snopes, what was really difficult with Snopes and the reason that it was really concerning to us where it wasn't just like, okay, you know, sometimes people misunderstand jokes.

00:10:35.000 They take them seriously.

00:10:36.000 So whatever, a fact check is harmless.

00:10:39.000 Their fact checks weren't harmless because when you looked at how they fact-checked the onion, it was always, okay, this is a satire site, the funniest satire site in the world.

00:10:46.000 Just laugh it off and move on.

00:10:48.000 That's kind of how they would treat the onion stuff.

00:10:50.000 But our stuff, when they would fact check it, they'd be like, oh, this is skirting dangerously close to the truth.

00:10:55.000 It's maliciously misleading and it's dangerous, harmful misinformation.

00:11:00.000 You know, they were impugning our motives every time they fact-checked us.

00:11:03.000 And so we actually had to get legal involved and send them a cease and desist to stop slandering us, basically.

00:11:11.000 So that's one area is with the fact-checking.

00:11:14.000 The other thing that's been going on where there's been kind of like, I wouldn't say it's a concerted effort, but everyone seems to be in sync on the left with how they approach us.

00:11:22.000 And you've got these people like Brian Stelter, Donnie O'Sullivan, and Kevin Roos at New York Times.

00:11:29.000 You've got CNN personalities, New York Times people out there talking about us on Twitter all the time about how we're a fake satire site.

00:11:36.000 You know, we're pretending to be a satire site so we can get around Facebook's rules.

00:11:41.000 And what they're trying to do there is just set a predicate for censorship.

00:11:44.000 They're trying to suggest we're not really satire.

00:11:46.000 We're a fake news site.

00:11:47.000 So Facebook needs to shut us down.

00:11:49.000 Twitter needs to shut us down.

00:11:50.000 That's the implication.

00:11:51.000 They don't come out and say it, but they imply that that's what we're doing.

00:11:54.000 That's what needs to happen.

00:11:55.000 And oddly enough, we did have Facebook suspend us recently out of nowhere.

00:12:00.000 And they claimed it was a mistake.

00:12:02.000 We get hit with these mistakes all the time.

00:12:03.000 So the censorship is a weird thing.

00:12:05.000 It's like people are constantly working the angles to try to find a way to put us in violation of the community standards of these social networks so they can shut us down.

00:12:16.000 And it's, you know, they're reaching far to try to do it too.

00:12:21.000 Have the best Thanksgiving and Christmas ever with Good Ranchers.

00:12:25.000 Free hickory, honey, holiday ham.

00:12:27.000 Every new subscription gets a Berkshire Hickory honey smoked ham for free.

00:12:32.000 The Berkshire hams are 100% no antibiotics ever, 100% hormone free, and 100% born and raised in America.

00:12:40.000 Hands down, the best ham you'll ever eat.

00:12:42.000 Berkshire pork, which is a heritage breed, is known as the world's best pork.

00:12:46.000 And the best part is 100% free with every new subscription.

00:12:49.000 Sign up today and get yours before we run out.

00:12:52.000 And as always, Good Ranchers is 100% American beef and chicken and now pork.

00:12:57.000 Steaks are always USDA choice and higher.

00:13:00.000 Chicken is 100% all-natural, no hormones added ever.

00:13:04.000 Good Ranchers began with the standard of bringing top quality, 100% American-born, raised, and harvested meat to families across America.

00:13:11.000 This vision was instilled into them from their grandparents that owned community grocery stores and believed in trust, charity, and family values.

00:13:16.000 Goodranchers.com partners only with American ranches from across the U.S. to bring the highest quality meat straight to your door.

00:13:22.000 So go to goodranchers.com.

00:13:24.000 That's goodranchers.com.

00:13:26.000 It's the place to go.

00:13:26.000 It's goodranchersofthenest.com.

00:13:28.000 For the price of a family going out to dinner, you go to goodranchers.com, use the promo code Charlie to save $20 off your purchase.

00:13:34.000 Goodranchers.com, promo code Charlie.

00:13:39.000 So I have an idea for you.

00:13:41.000 I think that you should start writing satire about the fact checkers.

00:13:44.000 I think you should go after Snopes and say Snopes now rates Winston Churchill's famous we shall never surrender speech as mostly false.

00:13:54.000 I think you should go after the people that try to attack you.

00:13:56.000 The more you do, the more you ridicule them, the harder it will be for them to actually censor you.

00:14:01.000 I'm a big believer in that.

00:14:03.000 Yeah, we do that.

00:14:05.000 We slap back at them all the time.

00:14:06.000 We've hit CNN a bunch of times every time they criticize us.

00:14:09.000 I'll read you this headline we did on Snopes because Snopes published a survey that said too many people believe satire is real.

00:14:16.000 So we did a piece that said concerning survey finds too many people believe Snopes is a legitimate fact-checking.

00:14:21.000 That's terrific.

00:14:22.000 You know, so we just hit them right back.

00:14:22.000 I love that.

00:14:24.000 So we do that a lot.

00:14:26.000 So you were mentioning being censored by these tech companies, and you said that Brian Stelter and many others say that you're not a real satire site.

00:14:36.000 What is a real satire site exactly?

00:14:39.000 Isn't that somewhat self-contradictory?

00:14:42.000 A real satire?

00:14:43.000 Okay, yeah.

00:14:44.000 A fake satire site.

00:14:46.000 It would be like it's real artificial turf.

00:14:49.000 I don't quite understand.

00:14:50.000 Right.

00:14:50.000 A double negative or something, right?

00:14:53.000 Well, you know, I think that they think satire, what they consider fair game is anything that doesn't poke at them and their sacred cows and their views and values.

00:15:05.000 You know, they love humor.

00:15:06.000 They love satire.

00:15:06.000 The left love satire and they're good at it.

00:15:08.000 They're great at mocking people.

00:15:09.000 They're great at making fun of people.

00:15:11.000 You know, all of their late night shows and SNL and The Onion and all of these things are quality.

00:15:17.000 They're all really funny.

00:15:19.000 Well, I mean, SNL has faded a lot, but you've got a lot of good humor on the left.

00:15:24.000 They're very good at it.

00:15:25.000 They're just not good at taking a joke.

00:15:26.000 All of a sudden, they get really serious and they bristle and they think of it more as an attack.

00:15:31.000 And it's like, okay, well, if you can dish it, you got to be willing to take it.

00:15:35.000 But as far as fake satire, I mean, I don't even, yeah, I don't even know what that means.

00:15:39.000 What does that even mean?

00:15:40.000 Satire is fake.

00:15:42.000 But they, well, right.

00:15:44.000 And their own site.

00:15:45.000 I mean, so you say that one out of 10 of your predictions come true.

00:15:47.000 Is that right?

00:15:48.000 And they're not even predictions.

00:15:51.000 I don't know about one in 10, but once a week or so, we have something.

00:15:55.000 Well, that's a much better, it's a much better track record than Nate Silver.

00:15:58.000 So I'll take that.

00:15:59.000 I'll take satire over a 538 or Cook political report every day.

00:16:04.000 So, what do you think that the fight that you're currently engaged in to be able to still mock, show irony, and use sarcasm and be able to tell jokes?

00:16:04.000 Yeah.

00:16:15.000 What do you think your fight tells us about the broader cultural struggle we're in in our country?

00:16:19.000 What do you think your placement in it tells us that could kind of fit into a broader narrative?

00:16:24.000 Well, I mean, it's just kind of an indication of where we're at right now.

00:16:27.000 I mean, we're in this, you know, with all this cancel culture stuff and this intolerance, extreme intolerance of views that the left doesn't like, opinions, beliefs, whether they're religious beliefs or political ideology or whatever it is.

00:16:41.000 The deep intolerance that's there is manifesting itself to the point where we can't even make jokes anymore.

00:16:46.000 I mean, comedy isn't even allowed.

00:16:49.000 And the fact that they're being disingenuous and dishonest in their efforts to try to like stamp it out and shut us down, it's just, you know, it's indicative of the dark place that we're in.

00:16:59.000 I think it's all the more reason.

00:17:00.000 You know, people will say, oh, you know, the world is so crazy, you know, you can't even do satire anymore.

00:17:05.000 It's that much more important, I think, for us to be doing satire right now.

00:17:09.000 It's more important than ever because we have to be able, there has to be somebody that's there that's really, you know, the arguments and refutation, the kind of stuff that you do is extremely important to engage people and shut down what they're saying and offer your case, your positive case for what you believe and why you believe it.

00:17:26.000 But, you know, there's a great quote by GK Chesterton.

00:17:29.000 He said something to the effect of, you know, humor can get under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle.

00:17:36.000 And I think that that's, you know, one of the reasons that satire is so important to keep going, to keep having a voice, because the humor is just so effective in making its points.

00:17:46.000 It's incredibly effective.

00:17:48.000 And I mean, I've said for a long time, we did a whole segment on this on our program that America isn't laughing nearly enough because we take ourselves so seriously.

00:17:56.000 And that's part of the biggest problems with the left is they have no capacity for self-deprecation.

00:18:02.000 They have no tolerance whatsoever to actually allow any form of criticism or any form of cross-examination of their horrendous ideas.

00:18:13.000 Yeah, and even to the point where they're eating their own at this point.

00:18:16.000 You know, they're going after their own comedians, their own voices, people who ordinarily they considered heroes and idols.

00:18:22.000 You know, they're attacking them.

00:18:24.000 And you look at Joe Rogan, I mean, they try and cancel him all the time.

00:18:27.000 I would put him and Dave Portnoy in the uncancelable category.

00:18:31.000 And the funny thing is that I hardly agree with everything that Rogan and Portnoy say.

00:18:37.000 That's not the point.

00:18:38.000 It's not, I really don't find, I don't seek out comedians for agreement.

00:18:42.000 That's not my op, that's not my optimal box that needs to be checked.

00:18:47.000 It's do they make me laugh and do they make me look at things differently?

00:18:51.000 And Rogan does that.

00:18:52.000 Again, I philosophically agree with him on some things and I totally respect what he's built.

00:18:56.000 It's unbelievable.

00:18:58.000 But he's funny and he has a good way about him.

00:19:00.000 And I think it's interesting.

00:19:02.000 But people say, I don't like him because he says mean things about, you know, transgender people or whatever.

00:19:07.000 Like, okay, well, maybe he was joking and you can't take a joke.

00:19:13.000 Black Friday, Cyber Monday, one day only sale.

00:19:16.000 Wouldn't you just rather work with a company who puts you on a pedestal every day?

00:19:20.000 That's what you get with Peer Talk, a veteran-run wireless company who understands what it means to serve.

00:19:24.000 Verizon ATT and T-Mobile, if you're with them, you're overpaying pure and simple.

00:19:29.000 Peer talk can easily save you over $400 a year.

00:19:34.000 Listen, this is all you need.

00:19:35.000 Unlimited talk, texts, and two gigs of data for just 20 bucks a month.

00:19:38.000 I wouldn't be putting my name behind this if I didn't know that these were veterans that love their country, unlike other people that are in the corporate space.

00:19:45.000 I can tell you, if you go over on data usage, they don't charge you for it.

00:19:50.000 What a novelty, a company that actually puts their customers first.

00:19:53.000 Switching to PeerTalk is the easiest decision you'll make today.

00:19:56.000 You can keep your phone and your number or get great deals on the latest iPhones and Androids.

00:20:00.000 Grab your mobile phone, dial pound250, and say Charlie Kirk.

00:20:03.000 When you do, you'll save 50% off your first month, dial pound250, and just say Charlie Kirk.

00:20:08.000 It's the password, secret word, Charlie Kirk, PeerTalk, simply smarter, wireless.

00:20:16.000 So, Seth, we were talking about the death of comedy.

00:20:19.000 And as we've mentioned before, if you look at late night comedians, the audience that they have in front of them does not laugh.

00:20:26.000 They clap. 1.00

00:20:27.000 I was watching Bill Maher recently, and Bill Maher, he's a little bit of a jerk. 1.00

00:20:31.000 He could be a little prickly. 0.99

00:20:33.000 I think he can be funny.

00:20:34.000 I think he does have that in him.

00:20:36.000 He's, I think, overly political at times.

00:20:38.000 And I can't stand, I should say, can't stand.

00:20:41.000 I completely disagree with his opinions on religion.

00:20:44.000 But it was super interesting.

00:20:45.000 He had about an eight and a half minute monologue where he went off on the Democrat Party, where he said, we are now, the Democrat Party is the party of every woke, fragile, you know, social justice warrior Karen out there.

00:20:58.000 It's like, that's no way to be able to win elections.

00:21:01.000 And what was so stunning is that he had a studio audience in front of him and it was dead silent.

00:21:07.000 No claps, no laughs.

00:21:09.000 You could hear people say, that's not funny.

00:21:11.000 That's not funny, Bill.

00:21:12.000 I thought I liked you.

00:21:12.000 Stop it.

00:21:14.000 And what's very interesting is that the Democrats and the left, they're okay with using humor and mockery against the other side, but the definition of comedy is being able to also look introspectively and also be able to make fun of yourself.

00:21:27.000 Jerry Seinfeld always used to say is that you are not a comedian if you cannot lead with a joke about yourself.

00:21:32.000 And Seinfeld, the greatest television show ever created, bar none, because it was the most brilliantly written comedy ever, because it really is about nothing and it was allowed to be done with no swearing and no inappropriate material.

00:21:44.000 Sometimes there were some veiled references, but they did a great job, is because the whole idea of Seinfeld is we're going to make fun of ourselves first. 0.74

00:21:53.000 We're going to make fun of people living on the Upper West Side who are Jewish mostly that kind of have a certain like pattern of living and we're going to make fun of that and then we'll make fun of everyone else with it. 0.52

00:22:04.000 And they were enormously successful. 0.94

00:22:07.000 Yep.

00:22:08.000 Yep.

00:22:08.000 And I think that's one of the things when I was first looking at the Babylon Bee is that it was so refreshing, the self-deprecating humor that was there.

00:22:15.000 I mean, it was cost, you know, it's a Christian site. 0.84

00:22:18.000 It's a conservative site.

00:22:19.000 Christians and conservatives aren't spared on this site.

00:22:21.000 We make fun of worship leaders and pastors and, you know, little theological stuff and inside church jokes, you know, all kinds of stuff.

00:22:30.000 We're poking at ourselves all the time.

00:22:31.000 And that's one of the values, like you said, of the purposes of comedy is to sometimes, obviously, just to entertain you, make you laugh, but also to make you think, to make you like look at kind of your own issues, your own beliefs, some of your own hypocrisy and challenge yourself, convict yourself a little bit.

00:22:46.000 And I think the Babylon B has done a pretty good job of that.

00:22:49.000 We continually try to do that.

00:22:50.000 And our audience holds us to that all the time.

00:22:51.000 They're like, look, you're making fun of the left too much.

00:22:53.000 Make fun of yourselves more.

00:22:54.000 And, you know, fair enough.

00:22:56.000 We do need to make fun of ourselves and balance that out a little bit because I think that's healthy.

00:23:00.000 It's very healthy to do that.

00:23:01.000 Just like it's not healthy to be in an echo chamber all the time hearing people who agree with you.

00:23:05.000 It's good to confront other ideas.

00:23:06.000 It's also good to confront yourself with your own jokes.

00:23:08.000 Yeah, there was one you guys wrote a year, a year and a half ago, which said like mega church pastor checks Instagram follower count, you know, in between worship, like in between standing ovations or like people like just kind of looking.

00:23:20.000 It's something like that.

00:23:21.000 That just kind of goes at the heart of kind of big Christian ink and kind of, it was something of that variation. 0.98

00:23:28.000 So you run Babylon B. You also have thinker.org, which we talk a lot about on this program that allows people to consume big ideas very quickly and succinctly.

00:23:37.000 Tell us about why you either bought or you started that project.

00:23:42.000 Yeah, we started Thinker because there's a market for this stuff.

00:23:47.000 You know, people are, first of all, they're short on time, you know, and they're not finding the time.

00:23:52.000 They're not fitting reading into their lives the way that they want to.

00:23:56.000 But a lot of the apps that are catering to that market that's looking for something like it aren't providing them with books that really give you a well-rounded view of things.

00:24:08.000 You'll get a lot of like self-help stuff or just like top-selling bestsellers or business and marketing.

00:24:15.000 There's lots of little focuses and niches and stuff like that.

00:24:18.000 But what we're trying to do with Thinker is expose people to ideas that they otherwise wouldn't encounter in these other apps or even in their schools.

00:24:25.000 You know, a lot of like what Turning Point is doing or what Prager U is doing, you know, addressing a lot of these issues from another perspective that people who have been so indoctrinated with leftist stuff, it's like it's refreshing to see that there are other viewpoints that are articulated well.

00:24:41.000 There are intellectuals on the other side.

00:24:43.000 And so we try to really offer a balanced library there.

00:24:46.000 I mean, you'll read things like C.S. Lewis books on Thinker that you're not going to find on these other apps.

00:24:52.000 And it exposes you to ideas, religion, theology, philosophy, political ideology that you otherwise wouldn't encounter.

00:24:59.000 And we have our promo code thinker.org/slash Charlie, and people should sign up right now to do that on our program.

00:25:06.000 So, Seth, I think what this all really comes down to, especially when it comes to comedy and it comes to the expression of ideas, it comes down to are you going to tolerate speech that you do not like?

00:25:17.000 And the left and the entire kind of power structure that runs our country, instead of trying to win the argument, they try to destroy the arguer.

00:25:27.000 This is a pattern that they use time and time again.

00:25:30.000 Instead of actually trying to do the difficult thing of winning an argument, which actually usually no one actually wins an argument.

00:25:36.000 This is one of the biggest kind of fallacies out there when it comes to free speech.

00:25:41.000 It's very rarely when you have a debate, is there a clear winner?

00:25:45.000 Typically, there is a slight favored person, but there's some nuance.

00:25:50.000 And usually, the audience will say, I think both sides made good points, but I tend to be more on this side, but I can see where they're coming from.

00:25:57.000 All of a sudden, then it kind of deflates a lot of the rigid dogma that guides a lot of the political conversations in our country, almost all from the left.

00:26:06.000 And that's one of the reasons they don't like speech, is it's really, really hard to make a country in your image when you allow speech to occur, because from a utilitarian standpoint, it actually, by definition, makes people less outraged and far more understanding of where the other side might come from.

00:26:22.000 But the speech that they really don't like is critical speech, and jokes and comedy are that kind of speech.

00:26:29.000 And so now you guys have been victimized by big tech, specifically because you're a successful form of ridiculing speech against the ruling class.

00:26:38.000 And look, Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot, Mussolini, they all went after the comedians, right?

00:26:43.000 They all had public executions of court gestures and kind of people that had fun with things.

00:26:48.000 And they would make, they'd always be mocked.

00:26:51.000 Those are the first people that were always attacked in these countries.

00:26:54.000 Can you talk about the role that you think you're playing right now in the battle for freedom of speech?

00:27:00.000 Because I don't think we do a good enough job of explaining exactly why we need freedom of speech.

00:27:04.000 We sometimes just say, well, it's important that everyone gets their voice heard.

00:27:06.000 Like, that's not actually the reason.

00:27:08.000 The reason is actually a lot more moral and fundamental than that.

00:27:13.000 Yeah.

00:27:14.000 Geez.

00:27:15.000 Well, I mean, we are certainly on the front lines of it.

00:27:18.000 And I don't know if in this case, they're coming after us first necessarily.

00:27:23.000 We may not be big enough for us to have been the first target, but we're certainly one of the main targets right now.

00:27:29.000 And as far as the importance of it, I mean, you know, when it comes to exactly what you're saying, it's this ad hominem approach on the left, right?

00:27:39.000 Personal attacks rather than engaging the arguments. 0.83

00:27:42.000 And even that is something that we have to make sure that we're targeting with our satire to point out how ridiculous and fallacious that is.

00:27:48.000 You know, rather than actually engaging on the points, you know, they want to tear down and attack the person who's making them.

00:27:54.000 And we've been, I've personally been a victim of cancel culture myself, where I was disinvited from an event, you know, because of things that I had said on Twitter.

00:28:02.000 University or something, right?

00:28:04.000 Yeah, yeah, my own alma mater had been a little bit different.

00:28:06.000 Which one was that?

00:28:07.000 Palm Beach Atlantic University.

00:28:08.000 Yeah.

00:28:09.000 Palm Beach.

00:28:10.000 I thought they were civilized over there.

00:28:13.000 Well, they weren't until the Twitter mob decided they didn't want to.

00:28:16.000 Oh, I had no idea that it was.

00:28:17.000 I thought it was some other Bolshevik institution.

00:28:20.000 PBA did that to you.

00:28:23.000 Well, what they did, I was supposed to talk in the chapel, and some, you know, some students were objecting to that.

00:28:28.000 And so they tried to move me out of the chapel, citing the same reason the students were giving that it's a sacred space and someone as controversial as me shouldn't be there.

00:28:36.000 And I'm like, well, if I'm not welcome in the chapel, I don't feel welcome there at all.

00:28:39.000 So they were catering to the mob and trying to do what the mob wanted.

00:28:43.000 They're going to hear from me.

00:28:44.000 I will go to every one of their major donors.

00:28:46.000 I know all of them in Palm Beach and I will tell them to divest all of their gifts from PBA.

00:28:50.000 I will make a personal mission of that.

00:28:53.000 Well, you know, it's an unfortunate thing.

00:28:55.000 You know, we need to have more backbone when it comes to dealing with these things.

00:28:58.000 But yeah, the importance of free speech, like you said, is absolutely a moral thing.

00:29:01.000 I mean, it's the healthiest thing for our society is, you know, people being able to engage in the ideas, talk about what they believe and why they believe it, have the freedom to do that, and let things win on their merits.

00:29:14.000 And so, you know, to live in a culture where, and this is the thing, the authoritarianism isn't really coming from the government right now.

00:29:23.000 It's all the tools, it's the media, it's the big tech companies working together in concert.

00:29:29.000 The concerted effort they're putting on shaping what you're allowed to say and when you're allowed to say it.

00:29:34.000 All of that is coming.

00:29:36.000 It's all our society itself. 1.00

00:29:38.000 People, little Karens are everywhere enforcing this stuff. 1.00

00:29:42.000 It's an army of them that are out there. 1.00

00:29:44.000 So it's at every level.

00:29:45.000 It's not just in the government, which is actually, it makes it very insidious and scary that it's that pervasive.

00:29:52.000 And so it has to be, you know, it has to be fought on different fronts, I think, than it's been fought before when it comes directly.

00:29:57.000 When the boot that's on your neck is the governments, it's a different battle than what we're dealing with right now.

00:30:02.000 Well, and when you hear something you don't like, if you want to respond and say, and clear the record, then you're a believer in free speech.

00:30:12.000 If you want to repress and shut that person up, then you're not.

00:30:15.000 It's that simple.

00:30:16.000 Because you're always going to encounter things you don't like.

00:30:18.000 So when I watch one of the comedians come after me or whatever, I'm not like, oh, I'm going to go try to get them.

00:30:24.000 I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should, or I'm just going to ignore it.

00:30:27.000 Like, I don't really care that much.

00:30:28.000 It's, I mean, and this is something that's so interesting.

00:30:30.000 It's completely opposite than how people view conservatives in the mainstream press.

00:30:35.000 And it's completely opposite that what people think that Christians and conservatives have, which is you and I are not plotting here, being like, you know what?

00:30:42.000 How are we going to go shut down the atheist Facebook pages?

00:30:45.000 That's what we wanted to spend our time today. 1.00

00:30:47.000 How are we going to organize boycotts and try to say we need to shut down the instead?

00:30:52.000 We're kind of like, how do we make better arguments so less people are atheist?

00:30:55.000 It's a completely different way to approach kind of our desired objective.

00:31:00.000 And what's so creepy is that the left views this so much, so theologically.

00:31:05.000 I mean, they believe that if you dare disagree with them on a singular policy point, you're a heretic and that you must pay a very serious price for that.

00:31:13.000 And so I want you to comment, though, on kind of the silent censorship that exists.

00:31:18.000 I call this the invisible handcuff.

00:31:20.000 You know, Adam Smith had the invisible hand, but there's an invisible handcuff that exists in our country now where people feel as if they can't speak out because of the potential fear of retribution.

00:31:31.000 You dealt with it at Palm Beach Atlantic.

00:31:33.000 How are young people supposed to deal with this?

00:31:36.000 Well, okay, so this is one of these things where it's either we either all get bold and courageous or we all suffer the same fate.

00:31:44.000 And I've told people this before when they, when I've had students come up to me or people, young people in their careers who are like, I can't talk about what I believe or why I believe at work because I think I'll get fired or something like that.

00:31:54.000 And that fear, they end up self-censoring because they have that fear.

00:31:58.000 But as long as they continue self-censoring, what they're doing is they're fueling this whole system.

00:32:04.000 They're fueling their own repression by doing that.

00:32:09.000 And I understand that, you know, for someone like me, running my own business and not working for somebody else, I can say what I think and not have to worry about that.

00:32:17.000 And I understand that it's a different situation for somebody else in another circumstance.

00:32:22.000 But if people don't get bold and actually stand up for what they believe and why they believe it and be willing to say, you know what?

00:32:29.000 I'm allowed to have different viewpoints than you.

00:32:32.000 I'm allowed to think and feel what I think and feel.

00:32:34.000 If people don't do that, then we will all suffer this fate.

00:32:37.000 I mean, we're all that the pressure that's there, it is only allowed to succeed because of the passivity of the people that it's being applied to.

00:32:46.000 That's right.

00:32:46.000 Yeah, the culture of the left will push you.

00:32:50.000 The cultural left will push you as far as you allow them to. 0.99

00:32:52.000 And these people are actually brittle cowards. 0.97

00:32:54.000 The moment you speak out against them, they run to the hills. 0.99

00:32:57.000 They hate controversy.

00:32:58.000 They hate confrontation.

00:33:00.000 They have no reason whatsoever to be able to do what they're doing.

00:33:06.000 It's never too easy to start gift shopping for the holidays, especially because today you can save big on a gift they'll use every day, Raycon wireless earbuds.

00:33:15.000 With seamless Bluetooth pairing and a comfortable noise isolating fit, you can start listening right away and keep listening for hours.

00:33:21.000 So this Christmas season, get them something that they can use for calls or music, for work or play at home or on the go, or pick up a pair yourself.

00:33:29.000 Trust me, you're going to use them every day.

00:33:31.000 Go to buyraycon.com slash Kirk today to unlock exclusive deals up to 20% off your first Raycon order.

00:33:38.000 But hurry, this offer is only available for a limited time today and you don't want to miss it.

00:33:42.000 That's buyraycon.com slash Kirk.

00:33:45.000 BuyRaycon.com slash Kirk.

00:33:47.000 They're amazing wireless earbuds.

00:33:49.000 BuyRaycon.com slash Kirk.

00:33:56.000 Seth, I want you to talk about the aspiring business owners that are listening to us.

00:34:01.000 You've built a very impressive kind of business track record.

00:34:05.000 One thing that drives me the most, let's just say, mad is when young people say, I'm going to college to study entrepreneurship.

00:34:15.000 I say, why would you go to study entrepreneurship?

00:34:17.000 You're not going to learn anything to study entrepreneurship.

00:34:20.000 You do entrepreneurship.

00:34:22.000 You don't study it.

00:34:23.000 And you're probably learning from people that have never created anything.

00:34:26.000 How did you build your business?

00:34:27.000 How did you do this?

00:34:30.000 What is your advice?

00:34:31.000 And what would you tell someone that says, well, I want to go be an entrepreneur, which by the way, half infuriates me because this really cool buzzword where they think you get to have all the nicest cars and all the freedom.

00:34:40.000 And it's actually pretty awful at times.

00:34:43.000 I think that a lot of people, when they describe themselves as entrepreneurs, they're basically unemployed and they're using a different word for it, right?

00:34:49.000 That's right.

00:34:51.000 But a more glorified term, I guess, but it's been sullied by that overusage.

00:34:56.000 I think, you know, well, okay, my history, my experience started out in the internet marketing world.

00:35:01.000 I got into a booming industry early on in like 2004, 2005.

00:35:05.000 I started working in like the search marketing and search engine optimization world, you know, with Google AdWords and these different marketing platforms that companies were starting to dump billions of dollars into.

00:35:16.000 And so I was managing ad campaigns for a lot of different companies.

00:35:18.000 And so I'm like, I'm running ads for like insurance companies or lawyers or people that do like garage storage build outs or steel-toe shoes or waterproof boots, stuff like anything, anything you can imagine.

00:35:31.000 And so I kind of learned the ins and outs of how to like drive traffic to websites and monetize it on the back end and make it all work, get a return on your ad spend.

00:35:40.000 And I learned that for a number of different businesses, whether you're selling in retail or generating leads or whatever you're doing.

00:35:46.000 So I got a really good feel for how all of that worked.

00:35:49.000 And I decided I would strike out on my own and just run my own internet marketing agency.

00:35:55.000 So I started doing ad campaigns for my own clients.

00:35:58.000 And I very quickly realized.

00:35:59.000 having clients is like having bosses.

00:36:01.000 You know, I have like 30 clients and it means I have like 30 bosses.

00:36:04.000 I'm answering to all of them.

00:36:06.000 So I quickly wanted to transition out of that and I basically decided, look, I know how to make money online because I've run all these campaigns.

00:36:15.000 I just need to work with someone who knows how to build applications, web applications, apps, things like that.

00:36:20.000 And so I partnered with my brother back in 2012.

00:36:23.000 We struck out kind of on the side.

00:36:25.000 He was working as an engineer and I was working as an internet marketing manager.

00:36:29.000 And I said, hey, look, I've got all kinds of ideas for sites I want to build.

00:36:33.000 If you can do the back end of it and build this stuff, I'll do the marketing and the business development and manage all of it.

00:36:39.000 And so we started dabbling on the side a little bit.

00:36:42.000 And within like six months, we were bringing enough revenue on our side business we could quit our jobs.

00:36:47.000 So we just very quickly got our feet wet just trying stuff.

00:36:51.000 And not everything succeeds.

00:36:52.000 You know, we've had acquisitions that failed.

00:36:53.000 We've had startups that failed.

00:36:55.000 But the idea has always been to throw some stuff out there and see what sticks and just keep at it.

00:37:01.000 And it doesn't have to be a situation where you quit your job to do it.

00:37:04.000 You can always get started on the side and play around with it.

00:37:06.000 But it's a trial and error thing.

00:37:08.000 I don't think I ever could have studied anything that would have prepared me for it or taught me how to do it.

00:37:12.000 You just got to dive in.

00:37:14.000 So it's very good advice.

00:37:17.000 What do you say to young people that are under the belief that you can't succeed in this country, that there's too many barriers, kind of that victimology viewpoint that has really kind of infected a lot of young people?

00:37:32.000 Oh my goodness, man.

00:37:34.000 Look, based on my experience, it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, especially in the internet age, with the tools that are available at our disposal, anybody can succeed.

00:37:45.000 Literally anybody.

00:37:46.000 All you need is a computer and an internet connection.

00:37:48.000 I mean, it might help to have a credit card that has at least a few hundred dollars of available balance on it.

00:37:54.000 But, you know, you can, anybody can get started with something, have an idea and push it out there and make it work.

00:38:02.000 I mean, the methods of advertising, just like in my background in search marketing, search marketing allows you to connect with buyers, searchers who are looking specifically for what you're selling.

00:38:12.000 It's not like putting a billboard out there where like maybe someone who wants your service will see it.

00:38:16.000 It's like you only show your ads to people who are actively searching for whatever you're selling.

00:38:21.000 That's so efficient and effective.

00:38:22.000 You're going to do sales in that environment.

00:38:24.000 So it's so easy to just with the internet in these days to start something up and just make your own, you know, make chart your own path.

00:38:33.000 I completely agree.

00:38:34.000 How do people follow you and find out more about your websites and the projects that you're doing?

00:38:39.000 Babylon Bee and thinker.org?

00:38:43.000 Yep.

00:38:43.000 Yeah.

00:38:43.000 Babylon Bee.

00:38:44.000 We now have NotTheB.

00:38:45.000 I don't know if you've heard of NotTheB, but that's our.

00:38:47.000 Tell us about it.

00:38:48.000 Not the Be is the news so crazy it should be satire, but somehow isn't.

00:38:55.000 So it's every bit as entertaining and funny as Babylon Bee, but it's actually all true news stories.

00:39:01.000 So that one's a lot of fun.

00:39:02.000 There's a social network on the back end of that if you're a subscriber.

00:39:06.000 But yeah, we have like, we have, we now have a bundle you can subscribe to where you get Babylon Be, NotTheB, and Discern, which is like a more serious news site run by Adam Ford.

00:39:15.000 So yeah, I mean, those are, those are the main things.

00:39:18.000 Thinker as well, if you want to check that out, that's a great educational tool if you're looking to expose yourself to new ideas.

00:39:25.000 I'm just looking at NotTheB.

00:39:26.000 It's hilarious.

00:39:27.000 I thought this would be satire.

00:39:29.000 This one right here that says, Watch this guy eat an onion like an apple because he has COVID and can't taste anything.

00:39:33.000 It's hilarious.

00:39:35.000 Seth, you're great.

00:39:36.000 Thanks for joining us.

00:39:38.000 Everyone, thanks for tuning in.

00:39:39.000 CharlieKirk.com.

00:39:40.000 Check out the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:39:42.000 Type in Charlie Kirk Show to your podcast provider.

00:39:44.000 Hit subscribe.

00:39:45.000 As always, email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:39:48.000 Thanks so much, Seth.

00:39:49.000 Thank you, Charlie.

The Charlie Kirk Show - November 19, 2020

Exploring the Death of Comedy with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript