The Matt Walsh Show - Matt Walsh vs Annoying Social Behaviors

00:00:00.000 For our daily cancellation, we are canceling the dreaded, the stupid, the pointless, pay-it-forward drive-thru chains.

00:00:16.380 Now, if you aren't familiar with this thoroughly first-world phenomenon, here's a story about the latest one to pop up from CNN.

00:00:22.840 There's a bunch of stories about this yesterday, but CNN says,

00:00:25.940 What started as a random act of kindness from one man paying for the car behind him in a Dairy Queen drive-thru resulted in over 900 cars also taking part in the pay-it-forward chain.

00:00:37.140 At a drive-thru in Brainerd, Minnesota, over 100 miles north of Minneapolis, people stepped up in a small way to show one another that they care.

00:00:43.740 Tina Jensen, the store manager at one of the two Dairy Queens in town, told CNN,

00:00:47.260 A man came by the drive-thru window on Thursday and asked if he could pay for his meal and for the car behind him.

00:00:51.940 Jensen told her cashier, This tends to happen once in a while, but at most it lasts for 15 or 20 cars and fizzles out.

00:00:57.940 This time, the chain continued for two and a half days, with over 900 cars participating, raking in $10,000 in sales.

00:01:04.500 When the next customer came to the fast food chain's window, Jensen explained what the man in front of them had done, and the act of kindness continued to multiply.

00:01:11.380 Jensen said, There's all different types of ways to help people.

00:01:13.880 I think this touched a lot of people that we didn't even know it touched, deeper than we know.

00:01:18.540 And you don't know what's going on in a person's life.

00:01:20.800 When the chain closed for the night, on Thursday, one car left $10 to begin the chain back up on Friday morning,

00:01:27.460 and then the same thing happened on Friday night, and it began on Saturday morning.

00:01:30.740 Okay.

00:01:31.420 So that's how it works.

00:01:32.820 Somebody pays for the meal of the person behind them in line, then that person pays for the person behind them, and on and on it goes.

00:01:39.040 But do you know who the real hero in this story is?

00:01:41.440 Not the first person to pay for the next person.

00:01:43.620 No.

00:01:44.240 The real hero is whoever broke the chain and simply accepted the charity from the person in front and drove away,

00:01:50.980 leaving the person behind them to pay for their own damned fudge sundae.

00:01:54.060 All of the people in between the first guy, who may have been well-intentioned but should have thought more about the consequences of his actions,

00:02:02.380 and the last guy who had the courage to end the whole charade, everybody else, these were just sheep.

00:02:08.100 They weren't performing acts of kindness.

00:02:09.800 This wasn't charity.

00:02:10.880 They did it because they were too embarrassed and felt too much social pressure not to do it.

00:02:14.860 If it's charity at all, it's coerced charity, and not for a meaningful cause either.

00:02:19.760 The people in the drive-thru line have disposable income that they were already planning to spend on the same kind of junk that you're buying.

00:02:26.900 They don't need your money.

00:02:28.540 Really, this kind of charity, if it is charity at all, again, is similar to the sort of charity that you perform when you're checking out at the grocery store,

00:02:37.460 and the cashier asks if you want to round up and donate your change to, you know, orphaned sea otters or whatever.

00:02:44.860 The only reason you say yes is because you'd feel like a cheap ass refusing to give your 27 cents to the sea otters.

00:02:50.900 It's not something that comes from the kindness of your heart.

00:02:53.960 If you wanted to help the sea otters on your own time, you would.

00:02:57.560 Right now, all you want to do is pay for your carton of eggs and your package of paper towels and leave.

00:03:02.220 The grocery store is taking advantage of your sense of shame to bilk another few cents out of you,

00:03:07.940 another few cents of which they will surely take a cut, by the way.

00:03:10.480 But while the grocery store charity gambit is a calculated ploy to take advantage of people who don't have the spine to say no,

00:03:17.120 the pay it forward chain is more of a case of collective insanity.

00:03:21.340 Everyone is doing it, but nobody knows why.

00:03:24.280 If you want to understand how crazy it is, imagine how it would come across if you took,

00:03:29.520 you know, take the fast food and the cars out of the equation.

00:03:33.320 OK, now imagine you're standing in a long line of people waiting for something and the guy in front turns to you,

00:03:42.120 gives you five dollars out of his wallet and then suggests that you turn around and give the person behind you

00:03:47.400 some money out of your wallet and on and on and on.

00:03:50.420 Now you're all just passing money backwards for absolutely no reason.

00:03:55.200 Nobody wants to be doing it or knows why they're doing it.

00:03:57.760 But it continues until some free thinker accepts the cash from the person in front and says,

00:04:03.160 hey, thanks for the money, puts it in their pocket and gives nothing to the person behind.

00:04:07.420 That person, again, is the admirable character in this strange saga.

00:04:12.420 Now, if I sound like I'm speaking from a place of personal trauma when I talk about this, that's because I am.

00:04:18.080 I used to live near a Starbucks where this would happen frequently.

00:04:21.180 I was duped by it, I'm ashamed to admit, one time and one time only.

00:04:26.220 I pulled up to the window to pay for my one single coffee for $2.65

00:04:29.960 and the girl at the window told me that the bill had been paid by the guy in front.

00:04:34.920 Then she informed me that they were doing this pay it forward thing where each person pays for the one behind.

00:04:39.920 And she asked me if I wanted to participate and told me that, you know,

00:04:42.260 they kept the chain going for 50 cars so far or however many it was.

00:04:45.840 So I said, yeah, okay, sure.

00:04:51.360 And then she said, okay, that'll be $43.50.

00:04:55.280 I had just traded in my $2 coffee for a whole SUV load of lattes and frappuccinos and God only knows what else.

00:05:03.560 It was the worst deal in history, as Trump might have said if he had saw it.

00:05:06.440 So I drove away, broken, confused, my coffee now tinged with a taste of betrayal.

00:05:15.580 And I resolved then to never allow myself to be shamed into empty gestures of pointless charity.

00:05:21.100 And from then on, whenever someone in front paid for my drink, I said, oh, great.

00:05:25.600 I accepted the free coffee, drove away with no remorse.

00:05:28.720 In fact, proud that I had saved others from this farce.

00:05:33.500 And even, you know, when the cashier asks me now about the sea otters, I say, no, thank you.

00:05:37.660 I don't want to help them.

00:05:39.000 In fact, the sea otters can go to hell. 0.90

00:05:41.180 And I walk away feeling fine.

00:05:43.800 Though wondering if I was a little harsher towards the sea otters than necessary.

00:05:47.720 Anyway, this is why the pay it forward drive-through lines are canceled.

00:05:52.520 Forever and always.

00:05:55.040 By the way, I must also acknowledge my own debt for the cancellation today.

00:05:57.680 This was inspired by Amanda Prestigiacomo, a writer for The Daily Wire,

00:06:00.840 who spoke out against this yesterday.

00:06:02.640 The pay it forward lines on Twitter got me thinking about this.

00:06:06.300 So she is the opposite of canceled.

00:06:07.840 But everybody else in that 900-person chain in Minnesota is unfortunately canceled.

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00:06:19.100 Big tech literally feeds on your information like parasites.

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00:06:26.200 But collecting and selling off your data is big tech's, that's their MO.

00:06:29.960 It's in their nature.

00:06:30.960 They can't stop themselves from looking at what you do online.

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00:07:32.220 So today we're going to cancel this man, Ryan Dorsey, and all his kind, all his ilk.

00:07:37.640 He's a Baltimore City Council member, I should say.

00:07:40.800 And I don't mean that kind.

00:07:42.320 That's not the kind I'm referring to.

00:07:44.060 Though, sure, we can cancel the Baltimore City Council, I guess.

00:07:47.820 Why not?

00:07:48.340 They really haven't been doing much good recently.

00:07:50.360 And by recently, I mean for the past, I don't know, five decades or so.

00:07:53.480 But that's not the point today.

00:07:55.140 The point is this tweet from Dorsey.

00:07:57.580 And there's a picture there of a FedEx truck and a bike lane in the city.

00:08:00.600 And it says, quote,

00:08:01.880 Hey, FedEx, I told your driver here to get out of the bike lane he was obstructing,

00:08:06.100 which I happen to be biking in.

00:08:07.540 His response was, get a car.

00:08:10.800 Now, needless to say, this FedEx driver is awesome.

00:08:15.000 Ryan Dorsey, on the other hand, is the lamest dork this side of Justin Trudeau.

00:08:19.420 Not only is he riding a bike and bitching at a delivery guy,

00:08:23.700 but after the delivery guy verbally backhands him,

00:08:26.900 he posts his own humiliation on social media,

00:08:29.540 thinking he'll get sympathy from the public rather than the relentless mockery and scorn he deserves.

00:08:33.940 Quick tip here, even for people who aren't lame dorks,

00:08:37.420 when the internet has to choose between sympathy or scorn,

00:08:41.720 it will always choose scorn.

00:08:43.560 Always.

00:08:44.900 So keep that in mind.

00:08:46.460 Or learn it the hard way, as Ryan Dorsey has.

00:08:50.300 But this behavior is what I would expect from Dorsey,

00:08:53.700 given that he is a cyclist.

00:08:55.100 Cyclists, and I mean those who ride bikes on the street,

00:08:59.940 and you know, streets, those things where cars go,

00:09:04.280 those kinds of cyclists are a cursed breed.

00:09:07.460 They are among the worst people on earth.

00:09:09.800 The absolute dregs of humanity.

00:09:12.800 No offense intended.

00:09:14.200 Every time I'm driving down a busy street and traffic is backed up for miles

00:09:20.200 because everyone has to navigate around some weirdo on a bike,

00:09:24.400 I am perplexed anew.

00:09:26.980 How is this even legal?

00:09:28.820 I think to myself,

00:09:29.900 why are we allowing people to ride their bikes on roads where cars are supposed to go?

00:09:35.740 Now, I get that you want to exercise.

00:09:37.440 That's fine.

00:09:38.440 But why are you exercising in the damned street during rush hour?

00:09:43.180 However, I like to exercise too.

00:09:45.780 I'm not going to set up a bench press on the freeway.

00:09:48.660 I'm not going to take an ab roller down to the nearest intersection.

00:09:51.760 Hey, give me a minute.

00:09:52.360 I got three more sets, all right?

00:09:53.640 Hold on.

00:09:56.260 Why won't I do that?

00:09:57.420 Because I'm not a lunatic.

00:09:59.000 And I care about other people.

00:10:01.620 Sort of.

00:10:02.860 At least, I'm not going to go out of my way

00:10:04.640 to make their commute longer and more stressful than it already is.

00:10:07.320 I'm not going to do that.

00:10:08.320 Cyclists do that.

00:10:09.740 Now, what gets me about the bike riders

00:10:11.080 is their sense of entitlement.

00:10:12.800 It's not just that they have the audacity

00:10:14.800 to play with their toy in the street.

00:10:16.960 It's that they get angry at you for being there.

00:10:20.320 They act like you are inconveniencing them.

00:10:23.240 They act like you just jumped on the same elliptical

00:10:25.620 that they were using at the gym.

00:10:27.660 But the street is not your elliptical.

00:10:30.000 It's a street.

00:10:31.660 If you want an elliptical, go use an elliptical.

00:10:34.860 And if you want to play with your bike,

00:10:36.840 go to a park or a bike trail in the woods.

00:10:40.000 Or maybe daddy can take you down to the tennis courts

00:10:42.360 near the playground so you can ride your big wheel around.

00:10:44.780 Maybe that.

00:10:46.100 Or better yet, ditch the bike and be an adult.

00:10:49.400 Find a hobby that isn't as likely to make you a victim

00:10:52.020 of vehicular manslaughter.

00:10:53.720 Just a thought.

00:10:55.460 Now, I know I'll be told that some people use bikes as transportation,

00:10:59.080 not as toys or exercise equipment.

00:11:00.660 Fine.

00:11:00.860 But the street is for a certain type of transportation.

00:11:05.900 Vehicle transportation.

00:11:08.520 If you can use your bike as transportation on the street,

00:11:11.440 then why can't I use a pogo stick?

00:11:14.080 Why can't I pogo down to work?

00:11:16.840 Maybe the city can build me a pogo lane just for me. 0.56

00:11:22.440 You know, why can't I take this office chair right here?

00:11:24.300 It's got wheels.

00:11:25.120 I just roll it down the highway.

00:11:26.300 Why can't I go out to 10th Avenue and do cartwheels for five blocks?

00:11:33.280 It's just transportation.

00:11:35.220 Hey, this is how I get to work, all right?

00:11:36.860 I cartwheel to work.

00:11:39.000 We all have our methods.

00:11:41.620 Why not?

00:11:42.300 Because, again, that would be insane.

00:11:44.460 And the road isn't made for it.

00:11:46.400 The road, in fact, is made so that 5,000-pound hunks of metal

00:11:51.140 can fly down them at high speeds.

00:11:53.100 That's what it's there for.

00:11:54.420 It's not made so that middle-aged vegetarians in spandex shorts

00:11:57.880 can burn off some calories on the way to work.

00:12:00.180 Commuting is not a time for burning calories anyway.

00:12:02.900 That's the other annoying thing.

00:12:04.740 The rest of us are jamming donuts into our fat faces

00:12:07.960 while we sit in traffic and stew in our own body fat and misery,

00:12:12.120 and you're riding by all brisk and healthy and happy.

00:12:15.380 It's irritating.

00:12:17.740 Especially around Thanksgiving.

00:12:19.560 And it's grotesque.

00:12:21.340 And it's dangerous.

00:12:22.420 And it's an inconvenience to me.

00:12:26.580 So, cyclists are canceled.

00:12:29.380 Take an Uber next time.

The Matt Walsh Show - September 10, 2022

Matt Walsh vs Annoying Social Behaviors

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