'I Lived With A Stinkbug, AITA？' Matt Walsh Decides
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
219.54549
Summary
M.I. the A-hole has a stinky bug in his house, and he won t let it go outside. Plus, should his dad get a membership to The Daily Wire? And should he pay for it?
Transcript
00:00:03.220
Oh, it's not my fault the kids would cry, baby.
00:00:13.380
Hey Matt, I have two M.I. the A-hole questions.
00:00:15.380
I travel occasionally for work and I spent some time in Kentucky.
00:00:17.720
When I returned home to Ohio, I apparently brought a stink bug back with me in my luggage.
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The stink bug kept appearing randomly in our house,
00:00:24.760
and my daughter who loves bugs gave it a name, Roger.
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My wife wanted me to get rid of the stink bug or put it outside in the freezing cold to die,
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This poor bug has traveled across two states and successfully hid in our house for a month,
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So I told my wife I would not let it go until it gets warmer outside.
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I know this is a weird story, but am I the A-hole for allowing it to live peacefully in our home?
00:00:50.280
You're the A-hole for making me read that entire thing,
00:00:53.720
thinking that there was some sort of good punchline.
00:00:55.720
Why am I spending, it felt like, hours reading that story about a stink bug in your house,
00:01:02.160
and there's no, like, I thought the punchline ended up in somebody's food and they ate it,
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we've lived in parts of the country that have a real stink bug problem,
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It makes no difference to the stink bug whether it's alive or dead,
00:01:26.660
so I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but that's just what you should do.
00:01:31.780
Me and my dad are both huge fans of The Daily Wire, and especially you.
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He listens to the free shows on YouTube every day.
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He really wants to see your movie, What is a Woman?,
00:01:40.480
but I refuse to let him use my membership to watch it and tell him that if he wants to see it,
00:01:44.680
that he should support the company and get a membership.
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Am I the a-hole for not letting him be a bum and watch it for free,
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Also, this is not a situation where he can't afford a membership.
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Okay, that's a much better story because it all comes back to me,
00:02:01.880
So you are a day-hole on one, not on the other, so they kind of cancel out.
00:02:05.640
But it's a bit of a controversy, and I hear this from people sometimes.
00:02:10.340
They want people to see What is a Woman?, for example,
00:02:12.040
or some of the other great content The Daily Wire is offering,
00:02:13.940
and it's like, well, should I just show it to them, let them have my password,
00:02:18.760
And I think that if there's no financial obstacle for your father,
00:02:27.000
then he should get the membership and stop being a cheap ass.
00:02:31.680
Did you notice that big tech companies today are masquerading as private companies?
00:02:35.360
Are we supposed to believe that a big tech wolf has now turned into our sweet grandma?
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Big tech literally feeds on your information by collecting and selling off your data.
00:02:43.900
They can't stop themselves from looking at what you do online.
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That's why to protect myself against big tech's prying eyes, I use ExpressVPN.
00:02:50.980
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00:02:56.080
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00:03:00.760
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00:03:04.060
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00:03:09.680
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00:03:11.580
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00:03:18.460
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00:03:23.780
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00:03:27.760
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00:03:35.100
My wife and I got married after only knowing each other for a few months.
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Everything went fine until it came time for parenting strategies to present themselves.
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Both our sons had suffered tremendously mentally from what I believe was our inability to be cohesive.
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I told my wife we needed to be firm, and what we agreed upon together is how to parent and not sway.
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I would periodically find out that she would not enforce our rules when I wasn't around,
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which resulted in many arguments behind closed doors.
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I ultimately told her that I couldn't do this anymore if things wouldn't change.
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The deciding event was when my son was physically beaten up by her son,
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and she believed her son acted in self-defense,
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to which I reiterate that we don't condone violence of any kind in our household,
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She didn't agree, so I declared that I wanted a divorce and swiftly moved out with my son.
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As always with these things, I must begin with a disclaimer that I'm only getting one side of the story.
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But in this case, I'm getting your side of the story,
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and so I have to assume that you're giving me the most generous version of events,
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most generous to yourself, because that's what people tend to do, right?
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And even based on that, I would say that, yeah, you are being the a-hole.
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On a number of levels, Zachary, first of all, you don't threaten divorce like that.
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You don't use it as a weapon in an argument, and you did that.
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And you use it as a weapon in an argument over parenting strategies,
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which is the kind of thing that every married couple has disputes about that, okay?
00:05:06.820
They might be, some disputes are more serious than others, depending on what exactly is the subject of it.
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But every married couple, this is like a tension that you have.
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You're different people, and so you'll have slightly different ideas about how to parent,
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and what's the best way to handle certain situations, and what should punishments be,
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and what sort of things should be punished, and all that kind of stuff.
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To throw out a divorce threat is way over the line,
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and then you actually moved out of the house and said you wanted a divorce
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You made a promise, and that's supposed to mean something.
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Okay, it should mean something because you made the promise and you made the vow.
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You should also want to demonstrate to your son what it means to be a man of your word.
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And so you fight for your marriage, and you try to work through this.
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This is not, there is nothing about this that's really, you know,
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we hear about irreconcilable differences, which I don't believe in that really,
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And also, I got to tell you, I think you're wrong too when it comes to this situation with your son.
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And first, I mean, it's a problem that you're referring to as her son and my son, okay?
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You're married, so they should both be your sons.
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But this dispute between the two boys, I think you're wrong on this.
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But if it's true that your son attacked his brother and that his brother was defending himself,
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I don't know if it is true, but you're saying it doesn't matter at all.
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That if you engage in violence at all, you're equally punished.
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So if a kid goes along and instigates it and initiates the violence by punching another kid
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in the face and that kid responds, you think they both should be equally punished as if
00:07:01.180
This idea that it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who started it.
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Now, if someone else starts it, that doesn't mean that whatever you do in response is automatically
00:07:15.780
I mean, in a court of law situation, it matters legally, and it should matter.
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Finally, from Dan says, Matt, you seem like the best person to ask if I'm the asshole
00:07:32.200
because my situation is about a conversation about a video on YouTube.
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An acquaintance of mine posted a group chat that her TEDx presentation was live on YouTube.
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She asked people to check it out, like, comment, and share.
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The message was during the work day, and I write code for work.
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After about 40 minutes after she sent the news, I had a moment where I could listen to the
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I noticed that the TEDx people made a mistake when editing the video and left a portion that
00:07:55.520
The bit that shouldn't have been included showed the acquaintance getting upset with
00:08:01.340
Then it cuts to her repeating herself and saying her lines correctly.
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I sent the following message, quote, around 5.03, they left in a part where you get upset
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I recognize that my message was short, and I'm not a YouTuber.
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I don't know the level of involvement in fixing an editing error.
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I intended to provide the exact timestamp and the issue as quickly as possible so that
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she could have the necessary information if she would contact them to fix it.
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Sometimes we should just keep things to ourselves.
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I responded, I figured maybe they could fix it.
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I understand how my message's brevity could be misinterpreted.
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Am I the a-hole for not spending more time to develop a longer message?
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Maybe I'm the a-hole because I shouldn't have been, I shouldn't have provided any feedback
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unless I also had the time to write a lengthier response that included uplifting language.
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Ultimately, even though I can understand how my message could be misinterpreted, I don't think
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her reaction can be interpreted in any other way other than rude.
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You make videos constantly for public consumption.
00:09:05.600
I know you think that I'm a perfect one to judge because I make content all the time,
00:09:08.220
and so I get feedback from people all the time, and that's true.
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But that also has made me, I'm just, I'm not a normal person when it comes to this kind
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of, because I put creative content out into the world every single day.
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And so for most people, you know, she did a TEDx, and she felt very excited about it,
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and this might be the first time she's ever had a video that's on YouTube, right?
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And so this was like a bigger deal to her, and so she wanted a bigger response.
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Now, I think putting you in a position where you have to watch someone's TEDx presentation,
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And if you have a TEDx presentation, yeah, your friends and your family, you can send
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But to put an acquaintance in a spot where they have to watch it.
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So like, I'm already kind of on your side because she shouldn't have done it.
00:09:58.040
Don't, like, nobody wants to watch your TEDx talk.
00:10:02.020
But the only people who should have to watch it are those who are close to you,
00:10:07.400
but your acquaintance, you shouldn't make them do that.
00:10:11.000
However, because I make content all the time, I appreciate just, like, quick, basic feedback
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And if there's an error somewhere, something that needs to be cut out, and someone says,
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Like, I'm fine with that because I don't need all the big speech.
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Like, if there's something there that I can change, you know, like, just tell me, okay?
00:10:34.540
But I think for most people, when you make something creative, it's kind of a vulnerable
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And so if you're going to give feedback, especially if it's to a woman, you know, then if you want
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it to be received well, then, yeah, it does help to preface it with something.
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So you could have said something like, this was great.
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By the way, not sure if it's something that could be fixed, but there's a little flub
00:11:05.180
Something like that probably would have been received a little bit better.
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Just add the, you know, that's what they're looking for.
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It's just that she's looking for, there's only a reason.
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Almost nobody really wants honest feedback about anything.
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And especially if it's something creative like that, they just want to be complimented.
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I'll give you a, it's borderline on the edge, but she mainly, but she, she wins out as the
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a-hole here for making you watch the TEDx in the first place.
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That's how I, that's how I'm going to King Solomon this thing.