The Matt Walsh Show - INSANE： Prisoners Are Being Granted WHAT Now!？ And MORE

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00:00:30.000 All right. Time for five headlines. Fans of the show may have noticed that we don't do this segment on the show anymore. And the reason is that we decided to make some format changes to the show. It was time for a change. So we've, as you probably noticed, we've gotten more into longer in-depth analysis of a single topic per show, expanded the range of topics that we cover, doing a lot more cultural analysis.

00:00:57.620 Why do we make that change? Well, because honestly, I was talking about this yesterday.

00:01:03.120 It's like everything is getting very boring. And I felt that about the show as well.

00:01:07.720 I was repeating myself way too much. Even worse, repeating other commentators in the space,

00:01:13.460 not on purpose, but when you talk about politics and news of the day every day,

00:01:16.820 you end up inevitably hitting the same subjects and you make a lot of the same points as everybody

00:01:20.960 else. It's just that's just it's just the way it works. And this is the whole problem with the

00:01:26.520 space right now, to be honest with you. I think conservative commentary in general has gotten

00:01:31.420 incredibly boring. I'm certainly not the only one that feels that way. I think the audience

00:01:35.660 obviously feels that way because it's the same takes, it's the same arguments, the same points,

00:01:40.780 the same squabbles and feuds over and over and over again. It never ends. Just the same thing

00:01:47.840 every day. Tedious. It's very tedious. It's redundant. Like, we get it. We get it.

00:01:56.320 And there's just this total lack of creativity among conservative commentators. Everyone has

00:02:01.160 basically like three opinions, three to five opinions that they just repeat over and over

00:02:05.840 and over again without finding any kind of new or entertaining way to deliver the opinion.

00:02:11.500 I mean, it's one thing if you have a few basic ideas or opinions, but you find interesting ways

00:02:17.560 to convey them and to sort of package them, but you don't find that in conservative media very

00:02:24.540 much. It's just, it's the least creative, least imaginative way of just, here's what I think

00:02:31.160 over and over and over and over again. So now in my own defense, I've always tried to find

00:02:36.000 creative ways to approach these subjects. That's why I've made two movies. I've done two different

00:02:40.040 series, not to mention books, you know, over the last few years. But the show itself had not changed

00:02:46.700 for like five years. And you got to keep changing. You got to switch things up. If you don't switch

00:02:53.540 things up, if you don't change, then you just shrivel up and die. At least that's how it feels

00:02:59.700 to me. So we have switched up to how we do things, but we'll still do five headlines probably once a

00:03:08.400 week as a separate thing. And that's what we're doing now. Okay, so let's start with Chris Ruffo

00:03:14.240 over at the City Journal.

00:03:16.700 He's not a part of the boring

00:03:18.220 right-wing punditry problem

00:03:19.580 because he's been doing

00:03:20.380 great journalism for years.

00:03:22.480 And here it is again.

00:03:25.100 Headline is,

00:03:26.100 watching porn on California's death row

00:03:28.460 under Gavin Newsom,

00:03:29.520 state prisoners are turning

00:03:30.680 taxpayer-funded tablets

00:03:33.120 into personal sex machines. 0.99

00:03:38.020 Personal sex machines. 0.99

00:03:39.540 Sounds like the name of a rock band, 0.77

00:03:41.680 if rock bands still existed.

00:03:42.720 anyway under uh governor gavin newsom california sought to transform its massive prison system

00:03:49.520 into a nordic style rehabilitation program newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions

00:03:54.200 transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state dismantled san quentin state

00:03:58.720 prison's death row and turned the notorious prison into a therapeutic center with art classrooms a

00:04:03.660 cafe and podcast studios oh my god um because that's what we need that's definitely what we

00:04:10.960 We need more. We're so in need of podcast studios that we have to we have to convert prisons into them.

00:04:20.040 Podcasting feels like a prison sometimes. So maybe it's appropriate. I'm joking. Not really.

00:04:25.940 As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a one hundred eighty nine million dollar contract to provide new digital tablets,

00:04:32.720 generic flat screen devices in a plastic shell to every inmate in the state prison at no cost to offenders.

00:04:38.520 The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates' old tablets, which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023.

00:04:46.960 And as the story goes on, which you can go to City Journal and read it, and you should, it goes into detail about how all these different prisoners are, including prisoners on death row, even though there really is no death row now in California, are using these tablets, which are given to them.

00:05:00.040 And they are looking at porn.

00:05:02.060 They are, in some cases, able to connect with minors, with children, you know, and groom them.

00:05:12.520 Really horrible stuff.

00:05:14.840 Now, Newsom's office has responded to this, and they put out a statement that said,

00:05:17.720 This is flat-out false.

00:05:19.220 This MAGA nonprofit provides zero evidence for its outrageous claims.

00:05:23.040 There are sources, convicted murderers, and a random guy who doesn't even live in California.

00:05:27.280 Fact.

00:05:27.740 Prison tablets do not provide open Internet access.

00:05:30.040 Fact, communications are monitored, recorded, searchable, and investigated

00:05:33.460 Fact, these tablets are used for education, rehabilitation, family communication, and re-entry support

00:05:38.500 Proven to reduce crime

00:05:40.240 Conveniently omitted from this propaganda post

00:05:42.880 Now, first of all, Rufo has a ton of sources for this

00:05:46.040 Prisoners and prison officials

00:05:48.480 People on the record and off the record

00:05:50.600 I mean, he covers every base possible when it comes to sources

00:05:54.980 And it's funny that Newsom says

00:05:59.220 oh, well, his sources are convicted murderers.

00:06:03.760 Yeah, because they're the ones who have the tablets.

00:06:06.140 And so Ruffo spoke to them.

00:06:09.080 In that case, it makes sense to talk to them.

00:06:12.800 But it's funny coming from Newsom because what he's saying is that,

00:06:16.800 well, they're convicted murderers.

00:06:18.020 We shouldn't trust them.

00:06:19.060 Well, okay.

00:06:20.300 But if we shouldn't trust convicted murderers, which we shouldn't,

00:06:23.000 then why are you trusting them with a tablet?

00:06:24.740 If convicted murderers are so untrustworthy that you cannot believe what they say about their own tablet usage,

00:06:33.000 then does it not stand to reason that they are not trustworthy enough to have the tablets to use in the first place?

00:06:39.860 Also, if a prisoner was going to lie about this, wouldn't they lie and say they aren't using the tablets for porn?

00:06:48.320 Why would they lie and say something that is going to result in them getting their tablet taken away?

00:06:54.740 Like, why would a prisoner who is very fastidious and is making sure to not look at any inappropriate content with his tablet and is only using it for education, right?

00:07:06.280 He's learning about American history.

00:07:07.940 He's watching PragerU videos.

00:07:09.980 Why would a prisoner who's only watching PragerU videos, if you asked him what he's doing with it, why would he say on the record with his name attached to it, oh, I'm looking at porn, if he's not?

00:07:24.740 So the denial makes no sense

00:07:28.660 And it's not even really a denial

00:07:30.440 Because the main point is that Newsom is taking millions of dollars

00:07:34.560 From taxpayers to give tablets to every inmate in California

00:07:37.500 He doesn't deny that part, that's happening

00:07:39.960 He just says that the usage is monitored

00:07:42.460 Which even if it is, which it clearly is not, not well enough anyway

00:07:46.020 But regardless, it's totally outrageous to give tablets to prisoners anyway

00:07:50.720 To spend taxpayer money, tens of millions of dollars

00:07:54.040 to give tablets to prisoners. I don't care if they're doing nothing but playing Subway Surfer

00:08:01.160 on it or something. I don't care if all they're doing is going to Instagram to find fun new

00:08:07.360 recipes that they can try out in their prison cells. It would still be an outrage that they

00:08:14.440 have tablets. Because here's the thing. Prison is not supposed to be fun. I don't know how many

00:08:19.000 times I have to say this. Prison is supposed to be a painful experience. The pain is the point.

00:08:25.700 It is the point. If we got to a point where prison is not painful, then it's pointless.

00:08:30.440 It basically doesn't exist. You might as well not have it. And nobody wants to say this for

00:08:35.340 some reason, but pain is the point of a punishment, of any punishment. I mean, it's the same thing when

00:08:44.580 you punish your children. Now, hopefully you're not inflicting sadistic pain on your kids because

00:08:49.800 you take pleasure in causing them pain. If you do that, then you're abusive and you should go to

00:08:53.620 prison. Or by the way, you should not have a tablet. And I don't even mean physical pain. I

00:08:59.660 mean even something like you put your two-year-old in timeout for five minutes, okay? When you put

00:09:05.780 your two-year-old in timeout, that causes him some measure of discomfort. Now, it's not very

00:09:11.400 much. He'll be fine. It's a very low stakes situation. But for him as a two-year-old,

00:09:19.500 being in timeout is really horrible. That's why it's a punishment. It causes him a certain small

00:09:25.580 amount of discomfort. And that's the point, right? If it didn't cause him any discomfort

00:09:33.680 at all, then it wouldn't be a punishment. If you're punishing your, and a lot of parents make

00:09:39.140 this mistake, by the way. They punish their kids in a way where their kids go, oh, okay, sure.

00:09:42.940 Like you send them to their room where they have like a TV and a tablet and video games.

00:09:47.400 That's enough out of you, mister. Go hang out in your room and play video games for an hour.

00:09:52.720 And your kid says, oh yeah, sure. Great. Oh, awesome. There's no pain there. There's no

00:09:59.940 discomfort. And so, and so therefore it's not a punishment. So that's the whole point. Now,

00:10:04.420 take that logic and apply it to convicted murderers. And in this case now, their misbehavior

00:10:13.220 is astronomically worse than what your two-year-old would do. And so the discomfort,

00:10:18.440 the pain that they should feel should also be astronomically worse. Otherwise, it's not a

00:10:23.960 punishment. And not punishing murderers means we don't have justice, which means we don't have a

00:10:28.460 civilization, which means we should be making prison more painful, not less. We should be

00:10:33.640 coming up with ways to make the whole experience even less comfortable than it already is.

00:10:38.540 That's what we should be doing.

00:10:39.900 And giving them tablets, I mean, I can certainly see why.

00:10:42.920 Even if you gave prisoners tablets and you did lock it down so that they could never access any inappropriate images at all,

00:10:48.960 which, again, is not what they're actually doing.

00:10:50.340 But even if you could, still, like, having a tablet in prison would, yeah, I mean, that would make the experience so much easier.

00:11:00.720 Now, you still wouldn't want to be there, but being able to get a tablet, being able to have a tablet, especially like a tablet full-time, whenever you just have it in your prison cell, that's got to improve the prison experience exponentially.

00:11:17.220 I mean, just being able to distract yourself in that way, that's got to make it so much better, for sure.

00:11:26.220 That's exactly why you shouldn't do it.

00:11:27.940 I mean, you could give them a recliner in their prison cell with like, you know, give them an expensive massage recliner chair in their prison.

00:11:38.780 That would make the experience so much better.

00:11:41.880 Again, that's why you shouldn't do it, because then it's not a punishment.

00:11:45.800 And if you really want to rehabilitate these people, then they need to actually be punished and suffer for what they did, or there can be no rehabilitation.

00:11:52.560 Also, by the way, if they're on death row and Newsom says, well, we've got to give them the, you know, this helps to reduce crime rates so that they can reenter society.

00:12:01.600 They're on death row.

00:12:02.380 They're never reentering society, I would hope.

00:12:05.160 So that doesn't work either.

00:12:07.980 Okay.

00:12:08.460 Well, I also have to talk about this.

00:12:09.960 I feel almost a moral obligation, which is the UFO files.

00:12:15.000 Time reports, quote, on May 8th, President Donald Trump ordered the release of more than 170 files on a Department of War website,

00:12:21.200 some dating back to the 1940s.

00:12:22.960 The accounts are made available

00:12:24.020 just as they were originally reported

00:12:25.260 with neither clarification

00:12:26.520 nor explanation by the government.

00:12:28.020 Some of them are from farmers

00:12:29.020 and other lay folks.

00:12:29.940 Some are from commercial pilots.

00:12:31.320 Some are from Navy pilots

00:12:32.600 who've captured videos.

00:12:34.200 The release is an effort

00:12:34.840 to make good enough promise

00:12:35.640 the president made on April 17th, 2026

00:12:37.400 that those eyewitness accounts

00:12:38.660 would be released soon.

00:12:41.100 A number of UAP accounts

00:12:42.300 had been already widely reported

00:12:44.180 and were even subjects

00:12:45.100 of congressional hearings

00:12:45.980 in 2022 and 23.

00:12:47.840 But the ones just spilled

00:12:48.880 by the Department of War

00:12:49.700 were previously unknown.

00:12:50.660 many going back generations. On August 9th, 1952, for example, in a teletype labeled urgent,

00:12:56.180 expressed to then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, two employees of the DuPont chemical plant at

00:13:00.820 Savannah River, South Carolina reported seeing a blue light with an orange fringe shaped like a

00:13:05.460 saucer. Other incidents were a bit more intimate. On September 27th, 1952, officers with the

00:13:11.040 Philadelphia Police Department patrolling in their squad car when they saw an object descending

00:13:14.640 toward the ground to first appear to be a parachute, but according to the officer's account,

00:13:18.380 decidedly wasn't. Measuring about

00:13:20.440 six feet in diameter, it landed in a nearby field.

00:13:22.880 The officers, upon examining it, noted that it gave

00:13:24.560 off a purple glow. The officers summoned

00:13:26.640 two other officers. After looking at the object

00:13:28.600 for some time, they attempted to pick it up.

00:13:30.380 The object broke, leaving a slight odorless

00:13:32.640 residue. Over a period of

00:13:34.600 about 25 minutes, which the officers

00:13:36.120 spent watching the object, it completely

00:13:38.240 disintegrated.

00:13:40.080 And then there's a whole bunch of other...

00:13:42.520 I mean, it's a lot of files.

00:13:45.740 So,

00:13:46.380 maybe you've seen some of this stuff already,

00:13:48.260 And there were some videos and pictures as well, but they're mostly just lights and blurry spots in the sky, basically what you've seen before.

00:13:58.000 And that's the thing.

00:13:58.920 These UFO files so far, from what I've seen, are mostly stuff you've seen or heard before.

00:14:03.740 In some cases, they're the exact same, I think, UFO reports you've heard about.

00:14:07.940 But in other cases, it's reports you haven't heard, but they're very similar to ones you have.

00:14:12.860 So it's the same kind of thing.

00:14:14.320 and anyone who was hoping for video, you know, of actual aliens, like anyone who was hoping for a

00:14:20.640 video of an actual alien climbing out of a spaceship and then, I don't know, Will Smith

00:14:25.080 punching them and saying, welcome to Earth. If you were hoping for that, you were disappointed.

00:14:29.280 And I was hoping for that. I got to be honest. I mean, I didn't think we'd get it.

00:14:32.840 I had no confidence that that would happen, but I hope for it. I wish. I wished we would get

00:14:38.800 something like that and we didn't. So the whole thing has been a total letdown. And I say that

00:14:44.180 as someone who wants to believe, and you know that about me, I want to believe that these UFO

00:14:49.360 sightings are real. I cannot wrap my head around the people who say that they don't care at all

00:14:55.660 about this, even if they are aliens. I mean, it's one thing to say that, oh, you know, you don't buy

00:15:00.580 any of the UFO sightings or you think the files are, you know, dumb or whatever. So you're doubting

00:15:07.860 the legitimacy of it. But that's one thing. OK, fine. But the people who take the position,

00:15:13.320 a lot of people do, that even if this is real, I still don't care. Someone said that to me the

00:15:18.520 other day. They said, well, why does it matter if there are aliens? Who cares? Well, who cares?

00:15:24.900 I mean, you don't have to believe that aliens have visited Earth, but you're brain dead

00:15:30.640 if you can't at least admit that it would be incredible and endlessly fascinating if they did

00:15:36.140 advanced beings, a whole new species from another planet in another solar system,

00:15:41.140 from a civilization we don't know about,

00:15:43.360 an entire history that we've never heard about,

00:15:46.660 if that were to come in contact with us,

00:15:49.220 that wouldn't interest you?

00:15:51.400 You would find that boring?

00:15:53.860 Well, then you're just empty inside.

00:15:56.460 I mean, what do you find interesting?

00:15:59.580 Right?

00:15:59.920 What does excite you?

00:16:01.280 The next Avengers movie?

00:16:02.480 Is that what gets you all jazzed up?

00:16:05.420 The next Avengers movie?

00:16:07.400 If there was a choice between going to watch

00:16:09.220 the next Avengers movie in theaters

00:16:11.000 or going to the site of where an actual UFO just landed

00:16:15.540 and aliens are going to get out of the spaceship,

00:16:18.960 like, which one would you choose?

00:16:20.320 And here's the thing.

00:16:20.920 I think a lot of people would choose the Avengers movie.

00:16:23.240 They would rather see, I mean, really,

00:16:24.860 they would rather go to a movie and see aliens in a spaceship

00:16:30.720 and, like, Iron Man fighting them or something

00:16:32.780 than see actual aliens.

00:16:35.100 They're more interested in the Hollywood slop than the reality,

00:16:37.940 which I find I just can't understand.

00:16:42.160 Now, that said, I have to admit that it pains me to say it.

00:16:45.940 It grieves me, I must say, with a heavy heart, a heart broken, really,

00:16:54.400 that I am increasingly persuaded that perhaps, perhaps,

00:16:59.220 aliens have never actually been to Earth.

00:17:01.520 I still believe they exist, for sure.

00:17:04.460 Absolutely, I believe that.

00:17:06.360 But have they been here?

00:17:07.940 I'm, I'm, my faith is wavering in that, in that, in that, you know, I've never seen any evidence

00:17:15.380 that's really all that compelling. And I, and I'm, I'm not even objective. Like I'm saying,

00:17:20.660 I'm saying this as someone who's not objective. Anytime someone has what they claim is proof of

00:17:24.680 aliens visiting earth, I looked at that wanting to believe it, totally biased in your favor.

00:17:31.160 When you come to me with a video of a UFO, I am completely biased in your favor. I want to believe

00:17:36.720 I am not an objective observer at all, and yet even I, I look at it and I go, okay, I mean, this again, like, come on, can you get, it's always just, it's always just every video, it's like a light, it's a blur, it's some weird blur in the sky, and it's moving all around, and they're always just like whipping up and back and forth, up and down, all around and disappearing.

00:18:05.020 And sure, that defies the known technical abilities of earthly aircraft.

00:18:09.400 I get that.

00:18:10.040 But also, why would an alien even be doing that?

00:18:14.500 You know, it kind of cuts both ways because when you look at these videos and they say, oh, well, you see this object.

00:18:19.380 And it's like you can't ever really – I'm not sure if I see an object.

00:18:22.520 I see a – I guess, I mean, I see a light.

00:18:25.160 I don't know.

00:18:26.080 I don't – like maybe it's a physical object.

00:18:27.920 It's hard to tell.

00:18:28.420 But I see some – you know, there's – I see movement.

00:18:32.040 I certainly see that.

00:18:32.700 And then they go, well, no earthly craft can move this way.

00:18:41.060 So it must be a space alien from another solar system.

00:18:46.260 But why would they be doing that?

00:18:48.660 What, are they drunk?

00:18:50.500 Are these like alien teenagers doing the equivalent of donuts in the parking lot?

00:18:55.140 Are we a giant parking lot?

00:18:57.160 Is that how the rest of the galaxy sees us?

00:18:59.940 Is that all we are, is basically an empty parking lot?

00:19:02.700 alien teenagers, they just come here to kind of mess around and then they leave and their alien

00:19:08.920 parents get mad at them. Their alien parents call them and say, where are you? It's 11 o'clock at 0.76

00:19:15.200 night. Your curfew is 10. And they make up some excuse. And then the alien parent is like, you're

00:19:20.880 on earth again, aren't you? Mister, come back here this instant. You have five seconds to get back

00:19:27.820 here. 10 trillion miles. Is that what this is? I don't know because it doesn't make any sense to

00:19:33.420 me. Why would they travel 90 trillion miles just to do some wheelies in the sky and then turn around

00:19:38.140 and go home? What are they doing? They're not observing anything. They're like doing this and

00:19:42.220 up and down. What is the point of that? The other problem is that there are so many of these strange

00:19:47.280 sightings. I actually think the volume works against the alien theory because look at it this

00:19:52.320 way. You take one of these videos of reports of some strange object twirling around in the sky

00:19:57.460 behaving in ways that seem to defy our technological ability,

00:20:01.480 okay, well, if there is an earthly explanation for any one of those,

00:20:06.820 then there's an earthly explanation for all of them, right?

00:20:09.960 Like if there's an earthbound reason why you might see strange objects

00:20:13.640 whipping around in the sky, then that reason or something like it

00:20:16.620 probably applies to all or at least the vast majority of those objects.

00:20:21.460 And I would think that there probably is an earthly explanation

00:20:24.800 Because if there isn't, if there's no way to explain it but aliens, then that would mean what?

00:20:30.800 That we've actually been visited by aliens like hundreds of times in the last 60 years alone?

00:20:37.700 Aliens are coming here all the time?

00:20:39.960 I guess that's what it is.

00:20:40.620 At first, you would see an alien sighting or you'd see a video every once in a while.

00:20:45.980 And then when this really caught on, now you're just seeing 10 of them a day.

00:20:49.760 and then they put out these files

00:20:52.200 and it's like there's thousands.

00:20:54.660 So what are we supposed to believe?

00:20:56.460 That aliens are just,

00:20:57.900 I mean, Earth is a tourist destination for aliens?

00:21:02.200 And if that were true,

00:21:03.580 then we should have a lot more evidence.

00:21:06.360 I mean, if they're coming here that often,

00:21:08.540 if they're here all the time,

00:21:11.000 then shouldn't we at this point

00:21:13.500 have seen some better,

00:21:16.420 shouldn't there be a better picture by now?

00:21:18.380 Something, anything?

00:21:19.760 I mean, if Earth is like the, I don't know, the Cancun of the universe, sort of a tourist destination with a couple of nice spots, but the rest of it is pretty shitty.

00:21:30.300 It's like you go, you know, you go to Cancun.

00:21:32.380 It's like, here's the little strip of land where you can hang out, but don't go anywhere.

00:21:36.820 You don't want to be anywhere else.

00:21:38.240 Just there.

00:21:38.980 That's it.

00:21:39.380 And then leave.

00:21:40.740 And is that what it is with Earth?

00:21:44.620 They just come here on a sightseeing thing and then they leave immediately because they don't want to hang around.

00:21:48.840 I get it.

00:21:49.600 I mean, I would understand that.

00:21:51.200 I'd feel that way, too.

00:21:53.500 So I don't know.

00:21:54.340 I'm forced to concede, finally, that aliens probably haven't been to Earth.

00:21:59.020 Though, again, I still believe they exist.

00:22:00.960 Absolutely.

00:22:02.160 Of that, I am confident.

00:22:04.280 I don't know if they've been here.

00:22:07.020 And now, with my luck, we're going to get a full-on alien video like tomorrow.

00:22:11.900 Now that I've said this, now, 24 hours later, we're going to get a...

00:22:16.900 Now a UFO is going to land on my yard tomorrow because now I've said this.

00:22:21.220 And can I just say, if that were to happen, I still get to say, I told you so.

00:22:26.200 So I'm kind of retreating a little bit, but I still think, I think I get time served on

00:22:31.020 this because I've been a UFO believer for so long that if it does end up being real,

00:22:36.860 that I still, I think I still get credit for that.

00:22:38.960 Can we just agree on that?

00:22:41.740 So if we do get evidence tomorrow or next week or even next month, I am going to come

00:22:46.300 on here and say, I told you so. And I think you all should be cool about it. And what you shouldn't

00:22:51.180 do is say, well, actually you said on May 14th at this timestamp that you don't believe it anymore.

00:22:57.700 Like, don't do that. Just be cool about it. Just be, just be cool. Let me have my moment. Okay.

00:23:03.780 I've, you know, I'm whatever. I complain both sides of the fence now on this thing. That's,

00:23:09.600 I guess that's what it's going to be. So just, you know, anyway, supposedly there are more files

00:23:15.840 coming out. I've heard that the really crazy stuff is still coming. That's what they're saying

00:23:21.380 on social media. That's probably not true. That's never true, actually. Here's a general rule of

00:23:27.100 thumb that I think holds true in like 100% of cases. I think in 100% of cases, it holds true

00:23:31.940 that if somebody is releasing something, some kind of information, whether it's a government entity

00:23:37.300 or a journalist or an influencer, whoever, the craziest stuff is never coming later.

00:23:45.840 And they say that it is. It never is. It never, ever is. Whatever they drop initially is the best they got. That's as good as it's going to get is whatever they first tell you about. And then they'll always try to string you along and say, oh, hang on, hang on, the real stuff is coming. Oh, if you think this is crazy, it gets so much crazier. That's never true.

00:24:08.240 Because if it does get crazier, why would you not have just told it?

00:24:11.980 Like, if you have video of an actual alien, you know, greeting the Pope or something, you probably would lead with that.

00:24:21.200 You wouldn't put out a week's worth of blurry stuff in the sky and then say, oh, hey, by the way, we actually also have this.

00:24:29.380 and a corollary to that by the way is that anytime the release of files or a story or

00:24:37.120 news of any kind is hyped up ahead of time anytime anytime anytime you hear ahead of time

00:24:46.280 about some big news some big thing that's dropping whether it's from the government or a journalist

00:24:52.940 or an influencer on Twitter or anyone else,

00:24:56.340 anytime they hype it up ahead of time,

00:24:58.860 it's going to be a letdown.

00:25:00.760 Always, always, every time.

00:25:03.120 Because if you have an actual bombshell,

00:25:05.280 you would just put it out.

00:25:06.840 If you have a bombshell, you would just drop it.

00:25:09.220 You don't need a marketing campaign.

00:25:10.860 You don't need a release strategy like you're a movie studio.

00:25:14.820 If you have the thing, if you have a bombshell,

00:25:17.040 if you have something huge, you would just release it.

00:25:19.900 And then we would all see it and we would go,

00:25:21.540 wow, that's huge.

00:25:22.240 you don't need to hype it up and um you know i said at the beginning

00:25:26.740 how conservative uh media in general is getting so boring and repetitive and this is part of it

00:25:32.580 you've got these people i mean it's like the slot posters on on x and everywhere

00:25:38.060 a youtube that are breaking news this oh this is the biggest thing oh you're never going to

00:25:44.000 believe this is the biggest is it this is this changes everything and it's always just

00:25:49.440 Yeah, I've already heard that.

00:25:50.780 It's just stuff.

00:25:53.440 These people that post breaking news, they've never broke any news.

00:25:56.120 You understand that?

00:25:56.840 So many people, and they make a lot of money now, that post breaking news but have never actually broke any news.

00:26:04.020 They've posted a thousand times the term breaking news, have never broken a single bit of news ever.

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00:27:39.400 All right, finally, headline here, probably the most important. 0.88

00:27:43.820 HackySack mounts a comeback with Gen Z. 0.52

00:27:45.740 A couple of weeks ago, a gaggle of freshmen at McCallum High School in Austin, Texas, this is from Seattle Times, pulled out a pouch the size of a clementine and began battling it back and forth between their feet.

00:28:00.120 Took a minute for me to realize, wait, this is a hacky sack, said Sandra Primo, 56, a teacher at McCallum.

00:28:06.080 Haven't seen one of those in a while.

00:28:07.460 Young customers at Play It Against Sports in Concord, California, have been clearing the shelves of suede-paneled sandmasters and multicolored Buddha bags for at least a month, said Billy Ball, 46, a sales associate.

00:28:21.200 He works at Play It Against Sports. His name is Billy Ball. Really?

00:28:24.260 I mean, you couldn't ask for a better name.

00:28:26.920 You couldn't ask for a better name.

00:28:29.420 I guess if your name is Billy Ball, you have to work at Play It Against Sports.

00:28:33.760 Or be like a Little League coach or something.

00:28:37.460 You got to be in sports in some capacity with a name like that.

00:28:40.640 Anyway, so hacky sack's making a comeback.

00:28:45.920 That's the story.

00:28:46.860 I don't think I need to read it.

00:28:48.880 And I think it's great.

00:28:49.660 I was never much of a hacky sacker myself, but it's good to see it make a comeback. 0.97

00:28:54.520 And I got kind of annoyed when I was first reading this article because it was a bunch of Gen Xers who were reminiscing.

00:29:02.040 A bunch of Gen Xers were saying, oh, man, I haven't seen those in a while.

00:29:05.480 Hacky sack was not a Gen X thing.

00:29:07.240 It was a millennial thing.

00:29:08.760 And I get really tired of Gen X constantly trying to attach themselves like barnacles to our stuff. 0.77

00:29:14.860 I get tired of these Gen Xers with their inferiority complex, which is well-deserved because they are inferior. 0.98

00:29:22.300 I mean, their generation is in terms of like the culture.

00:29:25.900 They just attach themselves to our, they're just, you know, Gen Xers are mad because the 90s belonged to millennials because it was our coming of age decade.

00:29:33.420 you know it's the age it's the decade you count came of age and that's kind of your decade

00:29:37.920 and jet extras came of age in the 80s with like crack and aids and boy george that's what the

00:29:45.580 80s are known for is a is is is aids and crack and boy george that's like those are the main

00:29:52.520 things from the 80s and they're so embarrassed that they try to glom on to millennial stuff

00:29:57.020 that's why whenever whenever we're talking about the 90s you know a bunch of millennials are

00:30:02.400 together talking about the 90s, because what else are we going to talk about? A Gen Xer will show

00:30:06.440 up and go, oh, yeah, I remember Nickelodeon. It's like, okay. Oh, cool. Anyway. Oh, cool. Oh, 0.92

00:30:14.420 you do? Yeah. Anyway, Gramps. Now, all that to say, I think it's generally cool when 90s stuff

00:30:21.720 makes a resurgence like this. And in the 90s, we had a ton of random little trinkets and toys and

00:30:28.480 things. We had hacky sacks. We had the skate, the little finger skateboard things. We had

00:30:33.760 Tamagotchis and we had GAC, which was basically like a ball of mucus that sounded like farts,

00:30:42.100 smelled like a two actually. And it was a thing, you know, and they had commercials for it.

00:30:47.600 Back in the 90s, they had commercial. They sold a ball of mucus and there were like tons of

00:30:52.000 commercials. They were making so much money on the GAC. And I don't know, you were a kid and you saw

00:30:57.340 a commercial for GAC and you just said, what do you do with GAC? Nothing. You don't do anything

00:31:01.940 with it. You just have it. You just have it. And then you lose it under the couch.

00:31:07.900 And then three and a half months later, your mom pulls it out from under the couch and it's

00:31:11.640 covered in like cat hair, you know, and then she throws it away. And then you ask her to buy you

00:31:19.060 some new GAC. And she says, no, I'm not going to buy anymore because you lose it under the couch

00:31:23.720 every time that that's that's the experience we all had anyway uh gack you know yo-yos you bring

00:31:32.160 a yo-yo to school i'm not saying we invented yo-yos but it was a thing in the 90s uh it was

00:31:37.380 a big thing for a while where we all we had yo-yos you brought them to school you carry around your

00:31:41.520 pocket your yo-yo you always made sure you had it on you you go up to a group of people in the

00:31:45.460 hallway at school and you'd say hey i could walk the dog watch this and they would say oh you're

00:31:51.080 a dork leave us alone it was it was awesome you know and but here's the issue though the resurgence

00:31:55.160 of the 90s 90s trends 90s toys 90s fashion um and there's a lot of that happening now and and 0.85

00:32:03.220 all of that is is kind of cool if you were a 90s kid and now you're old as hell like me

00:32:07.220 so you see that there's part of you that's you know feels nostalgic for it and so it's kind of

00:32:11.840 cool but it's also a sign of something deeply wrong you know that kids today have to go back

00:32:18.920 and resurrect trends and fashions and toys from the 90s

00:32:22.780 because they don't have any of their own.

00:32:25.100 Like, that's the problem.

00:32:27.000 Every decade in modern American history

00:32:29.520 can be identified and defined, you know,

00:32:34.140 in certain ways by its own style,

00:32:38.700 its own fads, its own trends,

00:32:40.420 its own approach to music and film and fashion,

00:32:44.160 its own aesthetic, right?

00:32:45.820 And it's so, it's very vivid, it's very clear. And it's so vivid that if I were to say to you,

00:32:54.180 oh, I'm throwing a 90s party, which I would never do. I'm not exactly the guy that throws

00:33:00.880 themed parties. But if I were, if I were to throw a 90s party or a 70s party, you know,

00:33:09.120 and I said, hey, come on, you would know exactly what to wear. You would know exactly what kind

00:33:13.540 of music is going to be played. You would know what kind of food will be served. You know how

00:33:19.120 it's going to be decorated. You know what the vibe is going to be. You know what kind of party

00:33:24.100 favors I might be handing out, right, if I'm going all the way. If it's an 80s party, I'd be handing

00:33:29.220 out like crack rocks and that sort of thing. But that seems to have stopped around 2010, almost

00:33:36.440 exactly. The 2010s don't really have their own unique feel, even in retrospect. The 2020s

00:33:44.340 certainly don't. We're more than halfway through the decade. What are the movies? What's the

00:33:53.120 music? What's the style, the trends that this decade will be remembered for, or the previous

00:33:58.920 decade? If I were to throw a 2010s party, if I said I'm throwing a big party, it's themed,

00:34:06.040 It's a throwback.

00:34:07.040 It's a 2010s party.

00:34:09.520 Make sure you're dressed up like you're from the 2010s, right?

00:34:13.640 And get ready to listen to some 2010s music.

00:34:15.980 What are you supposed to wear to that party?

00:34:19.360 Maybe skinny jeans you would know, but that's like, what else?

00:34:22.740 What kind of music are we going to play?

00:34:24.780 What's the vibe?

00:34:28.320 For you to walk into a room and it's all 2010s, what's the 2010s vibe?

00:34:33.800 We all know exactly what the 80s vibe is, what the 90s vibe is.

00:34:36.720 You walk into a room, and if it's that vibe, you immediately get it right away.

00:34:41.060 70s, 60s, you immediately know.

00:34:43.320 50s, 40s even, you immediately know.

00:34:48.480 But what's the vibe of the 2010s or the 2020s?

00:34:53.160 I'm throwing a 2020—10 years from now, I'm throwing a 2020s party.

00:34:56.120 What are you going to wear to that, a COVID mask?

00:34:58.820 I mean, what is the defining thing of this decade?

00:35:00.740 It kind of feels like we fell into some kind of cultural black hole about 15 years ago.

00:35:08.700 And, you know, I was talking about this on X today.

00:35:11.080 There's people that were trying to argue the opposite.

00:35:14.260 And somebody was saying, oh, no, the 2010s.

00:35:18.400 Oh, the 2020s, it's defined by, you know, female pop artists. 0.70

00:35:26.780 This is exactly what I mean.

00:35:28.080 I mean, female pop artists, we've had female pop artists for decades, and the female pop artists of 30 years ago were far more iconic, ubiquitous, distinct than the ones today.

00:35:40.220 Like the female pop artists of 30 years ago or 40 years ago, they take Madonna or go to the late 90s, Britney Spears or something, right?

00:35:49.520 Like, but they were, like, even if you didn't like the music, you knew who those people were, and you knew at least some of their songs.

00:35:59.320 Maybe not by heart, but, like, you knew, you could probably name a couple of the songs at least.

00:36:03.900 Even if you didn't want to.

00:36:05.160 It's just they were, they dominated the culture that way.

00:36:07.800 They were a part of the shared culture.

00:36:12.900 But these days, who is that? 0.94

00:36:14.780 Like, I don't even, Sabrina Carpenter?

00:36:16.800 Like, I know her name.

00:36:17.580 I couldn't tell you one song of hers.

00:36:19.520 I couldn't tell you one.

00:36:21.680 And I know you would say, well, it's because you're old.

00:36:23.340 But yeah, if you were 40 in 1998 and someone asked you to name like a Madonna song, you'd be able to do it.

00:36:35.460 Even though you're old and you don't listen to that music, you'd be able to name a song or two because it's part of the culture.

00:36:41.940 It defines the culture.

00:36:44.620 And my point is that that doesn't exist anymore.

00:36:46.620 and we've talked about this a lot about the the death of the monoculture the advent of the kind

00:36:52.680 of fractured atomized culture um which is a non-culture is an anti-culture and i've pointed

00:36:58.980 at 2007 as the peak of the monoculture and it's it's death happening right you know around that

00:37:04.720 time thanks to the advent of the iphone and i think that's like kind of true but i've been

00:37:10.000 thinking about it more i think it could be a little bit more specific and i think and i have to

00:37:13.780 consider this a little bit more. But I think everyone comes up with their diagnosis. What

00:37:22.820 is it that killed the culture? Why do we live now in this sort of non-culture?

00:37:28.960 And a lot of people point to political things. They say, oh, the wokeness or things like mass

00:37:34.820 migration. Certainly, those all play a part, for sure. No question about it. But I think there's

00:37:40.760 something that happened in 2009. There's a reason why the 2000s, the early 2000s, the aughts feel

00:37:47.280 like the last decade in some ways. That's what we're kind of experiencing now because decades

00:37:52.780 don't really exist anymore. Decades are kind of, I mean, they're a human construction anyway,

00:37:58.240 really. And they're just how we sort of organize time in our minds. And it's just, it doesn't

00:38:04.820 exist. I mean, they exist on the calendar, but it doesn't really exist as distinct eras anymore.

00:38:08.760 They just kind of like, they just bleed into one another and it doesn't mean anything.

00:38:12.780 And I think there's a reason why that stopped right at 2010 about, because in 2009, you

00:38:19.120 had something distinct happen.

00:38:21.300 It was the advent, basically, of the algorithm.

00:38:25.000 You know, algorithms prior to 2009 were working behind the scenes with social media since

00:38:31.640 the beginning.

00:38:32.140 the social media existed pretty much all throughout the early 2000s. But then iPhones

00:38:40.560 came along in 2007. You could bring social media with you everywhere you went with a smartphone.

00:38:45.740 But it was really until 2009. 2009, your feed, and Facebook was the first to do this,

00:38:52.380 where your Facebook feed, by far the dominant social media platform at the time,

00:38:57.220 became now personalized and algorithm-driven.

00:39:02.100 And before that, on social media,

00:39:05.400 whether you're on Facebook or going back to MySpace days,

00:39:10.160 your social media feed was just a chronological list

00:39:14.260 of people, of your friends,

00:39:17.180 most of whom you know personally,

00:39:19.080 or people you've chosen to follow.

00:39:20.660 It's just a chronological list of everything they're saying.

00:39:24.320 And if that's all it is, then it really becomes a way for culture to spread and for people to interact with each other.

00:39:34.700 But in 2009, it switched to it's driven by the algorithm.

00:39:38.660 It doesn't really matter what your friends and people you know are posting.

00:39:42.040 It doesn't really matter.

00:39:43.320 The chronology doesn't matter.

00:39:44.980 The algorithm is going to decide based on what it perceives your interest to be and your personal preferences.

00:39:50.520 It's going to decide what you have access to and what you see.

00:39:53.440 And pretty soon after that, Twitter followed suit and Instagram and all the social media companies, and now everything is controlled by the algorithm.

00:40:01.720 And I think that if I were to point to one thing, it would be that.

00:40:07.180 And we now have a culture defined entirely by algorithms.

00:40:10.680 That is the issue, really, more than anything else.

00:40:13.780 I mean, there's a lot of other factors that play into it, but I really do think if I had to point to one thing, it's probably that.

00:40:20.600 but that's maybe a topic that deserves a deeper dive and uh maybe we'll do that soon

00:40:27.280 i don't really know how to end this now because it's not really a show so

00:40:31.240 see you later ready or not summer is coming and wayfair's memorial day clearance is on now

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The Matt Walsh Show - May 15, 2026

INSANE： Prisoners Are Being Granted WHAT Now!？ And MORE

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