The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - 153. The Education System, Social Politics, and The Daily Wire ｜ Brett Cooper

00:00:00.000 my immediate family is libertarian conservative but my extended family is not and so that has

00:00:06.660 been difficult for sure same yeah and so it's how do you handle it do you i usually

00:00:13.400 try to prioritize the relationships over like minuscule political disagreements and that's

00:00:19.400 what i've tried to do but their response has just been to completely walk away and shut you out

00:00:24.860 uninvite you from things that sort of thing so it's been difficult but i don't know what

00:00:27.380 has your experience been um I usually don't bring up certain topics too yeah family members that I

00:00:33.500 know don't hold the same opinions like it it doesn't matter if it's going to upset that person

00:00:37.580 I don't need to change their mind like you don't need to change everybody's mind so I usually avoid

00:00:41.840 it uh for people who don't talk to me anymore I just don't care like at all

00:00:48.100 welcome to episode 153 of my podcast i'm michaela peterson in light of my dad joining daily wire

00:00:58.860 this interview features brett cooper she's pretty impressive she's only 20 years old and she's grown

00:01:04.440 her social media following faster than anyone i've seen i think period but definitely in political

00:01:10.580 commentary you might recognize her from the comment section at daily wire that's the show

00:01:17.180 she hosts Brett Cooper has done way more than the vast majority of people her age she was

00:01:22.900 homeschooled and went to UCLA when she was just 16 she's been a successful actress for years and

00:01:29.900 she's been making waves as a very very sharp young conservative who says exactly what's on her mind

00:01:35.860 kind of appealed more to Gen Z we spoke about private education leaving Hollywood changing

00:01:42.160 people's minds, Brett's background, The Daily Wire, and more. I hope you enjoy this episode.

00:01:47.560 This episode was brought to you by Better Fed Beef. I don't know if you guys keep up with my

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00:04:39.880 and i hope you enjoy this episode with brett cooper

00:04:42.720 brett cooper welcome to my podcast thank you happy to be here yeah this should be fun i want

00:04:52.320 to learn a little bit about you you started popping up all over my youtube and i was like

00:04:55.840 who is this? Who is this girl? So now we're going to find out. Before we get started,

00:05:02.580 can you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do?

00:05:06.360 Yeah. So I am the host of the comment section at The Daily Wire. It is a daily pop culture

00:05:13.020 and social media and political commentary show. It differs from a lot of traditional,

00:05:19.500 more like right-leaning commentary because I'm obviously younger I'm Gen Z and so a lot of

00:05:27.160 my commentary focuses on what's going on on social media so what my generation is interested in what

00:05:32.020 is trending what the political stories that are you know getting the most traction on social media

00:05:37.020 that's usually what I comment on and so that makes it a little more unique it makes it more fun and

00:05:42.000 relatable for me as a young person because it's the stories that like me and my peers are you know

00:05:46.280 DMing back and forth about that we're talking about in our group chats. And it makes it more

00:05:50.060 tangible and, you know, relevant to my generation. So that's what I'm doing with Daily Wire.

00:05:54.720 Prior to this, I attended UCLA and then did a program at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

00:06:00.680 And I was an actor in Los Angeles for 10 years prior to that. So I did the child actor Hollywood

00:06:06.180 stint, then UCLA, then somehow ended up here doing political commentary. Okay, we're going to get

00:06:12.080 into all of that I did some I did some background because I was like this okay you said UCLA there

00:06:17.380 was something about law school it was like how old is this chick so before we get started how old

00:06:22.440 are you yes I'm 20 okay okay so yes that that is young to have accomplished all that most people

00:06:29.460 aren't even done university at 20 so how did you end up graduating university before you were 20

00:06:34.640 So I started at UCLA when I was 16. I was homeschooled for almost my entire undergraduate

00:06:41.560 or like primary school career. Was in a magnet school for like two years at the kindergarten

00:06:47.420 first grade. Did one year at public school. Hated it. So because I was homeschooled I had the ability

00:06:52.420 to skip grades, move faster, test out of things. Started college at 16 and then finished in three

00:06:59.860 years. So I graduated when I was 19 last year. So did you go into classes in person at UCLA?

00:07:06.680 I did, yes. I only did for, so I did dual enrollment for one year at the end of my

00:07:12.080 high school career, and then I went to a community college in Los Angeles and knocked out a bunch of

00:07:16.720 my general ed credits, which I'm very glad I did. There's a stigma around community college

00:07:23.560 for sure, but I think that I got a better education in many respects at this community

00:07:28.060 college than I did at UCLA just because it was more tailored and the professors were there for

00:07:32.060 the students rather than for the prestige and the research so as a result I think that I got

00:07:36.560 more hands-on exposure there but then I transferred to UCLA as a junior and did a year and a half of

00:07:43.300 in-person classes and then COVID happened so then the rest of it was all on Zoom but yes I was in

00:07:47.340 classes starting when I was 17 and then turned 18 during my junior year. Was it weird being younger?

00:07:53.600 did people notice not really people didn't notice until they specifically like asked my age or

00:07:59.860 something would happen where it was like oh I can't really do that because I'm not you know

00:08:03.020 I'm not 21 or I'm not whatever but because I had worked in Hollywood for so many years

00:08:08.780 my all of my friends were much older I had been around adults you know I started working

00:08:12.860 professionally when I was seven I believe so I was in an adult world at a very young age

00:08:18.100 and I think that made me mature faster and made me more socially adept and as a result it wasn't

00:08:24.480 like oh there's this kid in class and most people got to know me prior to figuring out how old I was

00:08:29.320 and so it wasn't a huge deal especially because a lot of the freshmen that were coming in they

00:08:34.500 were my age so it wasn't like I was yeah you know 15 if I had started and we did that intentionally

00:08:39.640 my I applied to some universities straight out of high school but my mom said socially like it's

00:08:44.980 going to be awful for you if you start right now so save your money get your general ed at a

00:08:49.400 community college where it is a more you know non-traditional set of students and then transfer

00:08:55.040 in when you are actually the same age as at least some of the peers so that it makes the transition

00:08:59.120 a little bit easier and I think that was a smart move on her part sure okay that's interesting so

00:09:04.440 what does your mom do how come you guys went this non-traditional route she is the most

00:09:10.380 untraditional person you'll ever meet so she has had a myriad of careers she started out as a book

00:09:16.280 publisher a textbook publisher for ww norton she studied under ayn rand and she's an objectivist

00:09:20.740 wow that's cool and that's very yeah and so she was part of ayn rand's philosophical like world

00:09:27.300 in the 80s right before she died she actually adopted ayn rand's cat right after she died her

00:09:31.280 cat tommy was named after thomas aquinas um and so she was deep in that world actually published

00:09:36.860 a few objectivist textbooks at WW Norton but ended up leaving academia for political and

00:09:44.560 philosophical reasons because everything that she wanted to publish that she felt strongly about

00:09:49.520 that were in line with her values it was like an uphill battle and I'm sure I mean your family

00:09:53.020 knows that firsthand but everything that she wanted to you know work on was nope Diane that's

00:09:58.420 not mainstream enough that's you know that's too controversial we can't do that she left that moved

00:10:02.980 to California, started working in real estate. And since then, she's just been a real estate

00:10:07.700 investor and was able to have that passive income and be a stay at home mom. So then her entire

00:10:12.180 career has just been being a dynamo parent to me and my three brothers. Wow. Wow. So you guys all

00:10:19.460 did homeschool? No, we all, my brothers did it for a couple of years, but they had very

00:10:25.160 non-traditional. They moved around a lot. My mom's whole philosophy with parenting

00:10:29.340 was to create the most resilient and independent children that she could so as a result we moved

00:10:36.500 constantly we never you know stayed in place for longer than maybe eight years or so always wanted

00:10:42.920 us to be you know forced to make new friends adapt to new places try a new school so my brothers

00:10:47.700 homeschooled for a while did public school did a small christian school two of my brothers went to

00:10:52.420 a military school one went to a boarding school so it was always um it was never her forcing us

00:10:58.300 to do those things it was you know whatever one child was interested in if she felt if they

00:11:03.080 together felt like this is going to be a great experience for you you're going to be pushed out

00:11:05.860 of your comfort zone we'll figure out how to make that happen for me it just ended up being that

00:11:09.520 homeschooling allowed me the flexibility to pursue a career in something that I was very interested

00:11:13.840 in at a young age which is something that I don't take for granted because it's not a lot of people

00:11:19.020 have the opportunity to do that but that's just for I was the baby and so that kind of ended up

00:11:24.100 working out is mine on traditional route I guess that's very cool that's very cool I did a podcast

00:11:29.260 on homeschooling it was an opposing views so pro and against homeschooling yep and I think it

00:11:35.960 depends on who your parents are but your mom sounded more than capable at homeschooling that's

00:11:41.140 really interesting like um my dad tried to pull me out he used to pull me out for the really

00:11:45.640 politically correct weeks so it was like if somebody came into the school or standardized

00:11:50.060 testing yeah he'd pull us out and be like oh you get to be homeschooled for a week we didn't know

00:11:54.980 what was going on at that point in grade four like oh we're missing a week oh that's fine whatever

00:11:59.620 we don't like school anyway uh yep so so that's that's fun did you enjoy acting what was being

00:12:06.620 in hollywood like and what movies have you been in i loved it and there is still i don't think

00:12:13.740 that there's anything that i love more than performing uh i was deathly shy when i was

00:12:18.500 younger. And so as a way to get me out of my shell, my mom encouraged me to, um, I did like

00:12:24.720 musicals at my brother's high school while they were in Chattanooga, um, which is a town outside

00:12:29.860 of Nashville where I lived for a while. And, uh, while we were growing up and it was just her way

00:12:35.640 to get me on stage and to make me comfortable being in front of people and talking to people

00:12:39.980 because I was so uncomfortable with it. And so it just, it was kind of like a utility thing at first

00:12:44.580 and a way for me to be social and try something new ended up falling in love with it clearly came

00:12:49.180 out of my shell um and then I just kept going around and doing different you know theatrical

00:12:54.540 productions and that ended up being like okay now you're moving from you know community theater to

00:12:58.300 you've auditioned to a regional production of something okay now you're doing like a month and

00:13:02.100 a half long run of something and you're getting paid for it now we were driving from Chattanooga

00:13:05.820 Tennessee to Atlanta to do a show and I would live there for five days of the week with my mom and do

00:13:10.280 a professional show come back to Chattanooga on the weekends was performing with the Atlanta

00:13:14.220 symphony opera and then ended up being in New York, um, auditioning for Broadway shows and

00:13:19.680 doing workshops. Um, and then I had a whole team there. I had agents and managers and it was at

00:13:25.060 around the age of 11 or so that they said, we want you to move out to Los Angeles and start doing

00:13:30.260 film and TV. So I ended up going out there, which at that point, my mom had said she never wanted

00:13:34.460 to live in California ever again. She was born while my brothers were born. She was like, damn

00:13:38.600 it. Like this child is like pulling me all over the country. But like I said, she is the kind of

00:13:43.760 parent we had the flexibility and she had you know the resources and the interest and the commitment

00:13:48.440 to us you know being developed as very distinct individuals that whatever any of us were interested

00:13:54.600 in she found a way to make that happen for us and so thankfully my brothers are 12 and 14 years

00:13:59.140 older than me um I was basically an only child at that point they were off either at a boarding

00:14:04.500 school or one of them was in college at that point that she was able to say okay we can go to Los

00:14:09.320 Angeles for six months out of the year and you can work. And so I loved it. Hollywood in itself

00:14:13.600 is a ridiculous industry. It's very corrupt. It's very difficult to work in. It's very unstable

00:14:19.820 and it's hard on the creatives. I don't think that's talked about a lot, but you're really

00:14:24.460 whipped around by the people who run that world. So the technical side of it is very difficult.

00:14:29.780 I lucked out. I had a great team for the entire time that I was working there. So I was protected

00:14:34.120 from a lot of that by again a fantastic parent and a really really great team but it is difficult

00:14:41.420 and that's why we see so many you know former child actors come out of this world just being

00:14:46.100 absolutely messed up for very good reason like it they chew you up and they spit you out but

00:14:52.720 the art form itself I love it I did more tv shows than film so I did the reboot of Heathers which

00:15:01.000 probably my biggest thing that actually got canned because it was too anti-woke um which is

00:15:07.620 it was kind of uh ironic that I got to do something that was politically more aligned

00:15:12.800 with me I think unintentionally but they were making fun of woke culture when they were rebooting

00:15:17.280 the classic cult movie Heathers into a tv show and really flipped all the woke stereotypes on

00:15:22.440 its head and we were supposed to come out around the time that the Parkland shooting happened and

00:15:26.740 because there's gun violence in Heather's they scrapped it and basically recut the entire tv show

00:15:32.800 took out a lot of the offensive parts and then aired it and then Paramount said you're not doing

00:15:36.940 another season this was too politically incorrect um so in a way that was sad because that was

00:15:42.420 supposed to be this entire cast we were all working actors but none of us had been like

00:15:47.980 never had that like skyrocket now like oh my god you're a public you're like a household name

00:15:52.980 and it was supposed to be that was the project that was supposed to do that for us so it was

00:15:56.380 sad in that sense but it also kind of feels like a badge of honor in a way because it's like i

00:16:00.720 actually got to do a project i actually got to work on something that was you know fighting at

00:16:05.780 least a little bit of a fight against um some of the industry you know political standards that

00:16:10.420 hollywood has but so how did you yeah that's cool that's cool yeah okay no keep going keep going

00:16:16.420 oh no i was just gonna say and then just some like kids tv shows growing up i did a fox miniseries

00:16:21.920 which is actually about BLM ironically so I've done you know projects on both sides of the

00:16:26.640 political spectrum lots of indie films that sort of thing commercials all over the place but

00:16:30.360 worked consistently for 10 years and I think a lot of people don't they're they'll like look at my

00:16:37.000 IMDB or they'll you know the people that disagree with me politically and I'll get like you know

00:16:41.700 hate comments and that kind of thing it's like oh my god I can't believe Daily Wire hired like a B

00:16:45.100 list like failed child actor and it's like yeah well I didn't end up being like a household name

00:16:49.200 and that was never something that I oh come on anybody who would say that also has nothing going

00:16:54.240 on in their lives at exactly and it's like what are you doing I was like I don't really care but

00:16:59.780 it also is if you have that many credits it's like from the age of you know 10 to 16 I was

00:17:06.140 paying I was funding my apartment in LA I emancipated myself at 15 and so at that point I

00:17:11.140 was like fully financially you know independent in a way from my acting and it's like even though

00:17:16.120 I wasn't you know had I didn't have millions of followers and wasn't you know talked about at the

00:17:20.700 Emmys or whatever it's like there are thousands of actors that make a living every day and you

00:17:24.500 don't even know what their names are um but it cracks me up that that's their usual they haven't

00:17:28.740 been able to find many things to hate on me about and so usually that's the one that they go for but

00:17:32.820 it just cracks me up she graduated university too early right I could be one yeah yeah yeah

00:17:39.160 wow good for you that's a lot that is a lot to do before the age of 20 or at the age of 20 it's a

00:17:47.480 lot yeah yeah that's that's really cool okay where does law school come into play there

00:17:52.660 when i graduated from ucla i had decided that i wanted to walk away from acting for myriad of

00:18:00.280 reasons part of which and i usually talk about the political one but i don't think like personality

00:18:05.160 type wise I am it's not that I'm not cut out for that industry it's just not something that I think

00:18:11.680 I'm you know that my personality type fits in with because as an actor as a creative you're out of

00:18:17.580 control like you are told like you have an audition at this point uh you know at this time of day you

00:18:22.660 have to change your entire schedule for it your shoot you know starts at 3 a.m and then you're

00:18:26.800 you're off at 2 or you might have a night shoot that starts at 10 p.m and you have to work around

00:18:30.900 that uh within like a three-day notice you could be you know sent to you know vancouver to shoot

00:18:37.020 something or i would be on vacation and they would say you have an audition right now like you need

00:18:41.000 it like this is huge you have to film it i don't care if you're with your family um and as a result

00:18:45.520 it makes it very difficult to have any autonomy over you know your life and things that you want

00:18:50.120 to do outside of acting everything really has to be boiled out into this little bubble that you're

00:18:54.200 in and i'm interested in way too many things so it made it very difficult to explore that

00:18:59.080 um a lot of my team my agents and managers didn't like that I was focusing on my education

00:19:03.640 um it was like you're going to college like oh okay well can you still act and I was like well

00:19:08.740 I can you know do auditions outside of my class times and it was like I made it in my college

00:19:14.780 career was incredibly difficult in a way because I was working around a career and that's a choice

00:19:19.380 that I made and I'm not upset about it but I my classes were like exclusively you know 7 30 a.m

00:19:26.620 to 11 a.m. so I could be available for auditions and then I would do like classes that would start

00:19:30.480 at 6 30 and would go to 10 p.m. sometimes in the middle of my day had to be free you know for

00:19:35.220 appointments and I just hated the fact that I had no control over any of it um and as somebody that

00:19:41.960 like my Myers-Briggs type is like ENTJ and I'm a what I did an Enneagram test the other day I think

00:19:48.140 I'm an eight maybe but have you taken my dad's have you taken I haven't but I need to that was

00:19:53.240 in the comments. You need to take that one. I'm doing like a series where I go through all of the

00:19:57.780 tests and like your dad's is on the list to do that next. So I'll film that and I'll make sure

00:20:01.500 I send it to you. Yeah, please do. I bet I can guess it. Yeah, we'll see after this. Maybe you

00:20:07.160 can you can type me. But all of my personality types are and what I value and I know that I

00:20:13.680 value is having control over, you know, my life, where I move, what I do in that industry does not

00:20:18.380 allow it. So all that being said, I knew that I didn't think long-term I was going to be happy

00:20:23.420 having that as a career, especially because I just value control and stability. So I had considered

00:20:28.120 going into production and I had had, you know, a myriad of internships at different production

00:20:32.320 companies, but I'd hate in how political that side of things got. Like every production company I

00:20:36.300 would work at, I was working on projects that I completely disagreed with. And so as any, you

00:20:41.680 know, student who comes out of a university with a liberal arts degree, it was like, well, law

00:20:45.280 school. Um, so did the whole application process, took the LSAT, got into a few California schools

00:20:51.820 and then decided I wanted to get out of California. So I applied the last day for the University of

00:20:57.220 Idaho for their dual MBA JD program. Cause my mom had just decided to move to Idaho and got in,

00:21:03.440 got a scholarship, decided to do that. And then the day my orientation was supposed to start in

00:21:08.040 September, I withdrew and it was kind of, it had been brewing for a couple of weeks. I talked to

00:21:13.820 a few mentors um and I just in my gut thought I this is kind of a cop-out like I don't really

00:21:20.700 think I want to be an attorney I think I'm just buying myself for more years because I feel like

00:21:26.280 the world is like in a very like the industry that I wanted to be in I didn't feel comfortable

00:21:32.220 I didn't know what I wanted to do next I was already writing for a few political journals

00:21:36.280 I'd worked with PragerU a bit I already kind of had my foot in the door with politics and it felt

00:21:40.460 like Brett you're just trying to you know shut yourself away and do four more years of school

00:21:46.480 so that you don't have to go out and actually figure out what you want to do and so it was a

00:21:50.320 bit of a freak out moment and I spent a couple of months in Boise continuing to be a waitress

00:21:58.780 and I was like being a waitress at a like a fine dining restaurant writing for the Foundation for

00:22:03.200 Economic Education I continued doing videos for PragerU I got a job at Young Americans for

00:22:07.120 liberty i was like okay i guess i'll just do this political thing uh and then daily wire dm'd me in

00:22:12.320 october and said uh could we bring you in to like audition for a show we've seen your content we

00:22:17.700 want to like build something around you um and it was kind of like i don't know whether that's

00:22:21.940 you know a god thing i don't know if that's a you know just i always i always wonder if it's

00:22:26.880 because people have asked me like do you think that this is some like freak like you were blessed

00:22:29.640 or you know but i do think i i worked for 10 years in an industry that is you know on camera

00:22:35.920 I developed this stuff so I obviously worked for it um but I'm just very grateful to be here so

00:22:40.720 that's kind of the law school aspect of it I almost did it but in the end it's it wasn't

00:22:44.980 something that I was ever you know really vying for wow okay that's pretty fun okay let's let's

00:22:51.620 get into that yeah no it's fun I was like I know this girl's popping up all over my YouTube and

00:22:56.380 then I did some background research and I was like wow there's really like there's really something

00:23:00.140 here. Yeah. She's, she's smart. Yeah. Okay. So, so how is it working at, I mean, you probably

00:23:08.360 can't even tell me, even if you were over there hating it, you probably couldn't tell me, but

00:23:11.840 regardless, I'll assume you're telling the truth. How do you like working at the Daily Wire? Do you

00:23:16.760 have your freedom that you need? I do. Yes. I am very grateful. So I, I have a lot of people that

00:23:23.800 will, again, people that are critical of the show or whatever will say like, oh, this must be a top

00:23:27.740 down show like you're told what to say you're just an arm of you know Ben Shapiro and Jeremy

00:23:33.100 Boring but it's not the case at all like I have total you know veto power over you know my show

00:23:38.140 I write the segments I put it together I have a very different brand than the other hosts which

00:23:44.400 is recognized and appreciated and they know that I'm you know I'm younger I'm a woman I am not you

00:23:50.460 know the more traditional conservative woman and I feel very appreciative that I'm in an environment

00:23:56.720 where that's amplified and we're going to build something around you, not try to fit you into a

00:24:00.660 mold to make you, you know, more popular in this audience. It's like, no, we value you because

00:24:05.480 you're intelligent and you have something to say that's of value. And so we're going to work around

00:24:09.760 that and amplify it. So I definitely have the freedom. I definitely, I mean, this whole team

00:24:14.520 is the best of the best when it comes to, you know, people in the conservative movement. Like

00:24:19.060 the people who come here to work are incredible and they know that they are coming to work at a

00:24:24.920 company that is totally mission-based and it's not an easy company to work at and Jeremy says

00:24:30.900 that and he is very public about it like we work hard and we hustle and it's day in and day out

00:24:36.580 because it's not just that we're creating some product that's going to make money but it's bigger

00:24:40.460 than that we are fighting this kind of uphill battle culture war and we're the only for-profit

00:24:46.420 company in the conservative space that is doing it and so you know a lot of not I've worked in

00:24:53.180 the non-profit sector and non-profits make money by losing basically. I was working in fundraising

00:24:58.620 for a while at Young Americans for Liberty and I was doing marketing strategy for that and the way

00:25:02.800 that you make money and get donations is like oh my god we got to platform can you please send us

00:25:06.020 money oh this awful thing happened can you please send us money and it works but that's how the

00:25:10.300 non-profit sector works but it's really empowering to be in the for-profit sector where you really

00:25:17.680 have to like you have to fight tooth and nail to win and to win the consumer's respect and support

00:25:23.100 and earn their dollars and as a result it means you have much more skin in the game and it it's

00:25:28.600 like I said it's empowering but it just goes to show like the free market and capitalism like it's

00:25:32.480 it works and for me at least with my personality and how I like to function it's a great

00:25:38.600 environment to be in it's all about the hustle it's all about creating something

00:25:42.340 number one for our culture and for this country but also for the consumer actually creating

00:25:46.620 a high quality product that people actually want to you know click on buy subscribe to

00:25:51.540 yeah well daily wire is pretty good at being entertaining you know for a more right-wing

00:25:56.680 platform no it's good compared to and i don't want to say anything negative about prager you

00:26:01.460 but i'm not associated with anybody so i can prager you is well they're catchier daily wire

00:26:06.560 is catchier like they're good that ad jeremy did for the razors it's incredible it was great

00:26:13.260 yeah yeah he always says he's like he he gets to he runs this company and as a result he gets to

00:26:19.480 do like very expensive jokes and he gets to do the things that he wasn't able to do before

00:26:23.580 and it's very cool because like this company what a lot of people don't know is that it is run by

00:26:29.380 people who started in Hollywood so it's not just a bunch of political pundits like even Ben was

00:26:35.860 working on being a screenwriter before he like fully transitioned into politics and Jeremy

00:26:40.380 produced films and people on our creative team are like high level creatives people people on my team

00:26:45.840 who actively worked in Los Angeles were working on films started in Hollywood so it's not like a

00:26:50.900 bunch of conservatives that just kind of all right we'll pick up a camera and figure it out

00:26:54.500 but who truly have that background and are exceptionally talented and as a result like

00:26:58.880 the entertainment comes with that and again like I love PragerU but they are at the mercy of you

00:27:04.540 know their donors and the expectations of you know people that are giving them a lot of money because

00:27:08.980 we are outside of that we in general just have a lot more freedom with the things that we get to

00:27:14.240 produce that's fun that's fun yeah okay are you also allergic to Tennessee I'm not actually but

00:27:23.040 I know that you are that's why you're having to leave I'm in Miami now yeah do you like it I've

00:27:27.900 never been to Miami um yeah I do I'm I'm a city person like I grew up in downtown Toronto so I

00:27:34.960 come to Miami and I'm like yeah I feel more comfortable plus there's the beach and it's

00:27:39.540 sunny and yeah no tennessee almost killed me so it was i feel my dad is like that um and so he's

00:27:46.880 still in tennessee and i don't know how he's surviving but his allergies come every year i

00:27:49.820 don't know if i'm a unicorn or if i was here at a young enough of an age yeah i just kind of became

00:27:54.540 immune to it uh but i've never had the issues the only come like july and august i'll be wanting to

00:28:00.480 cut my hair off again because of how freaking humid it is but that's the only really bad part

00:28:05.020 about it no no it sounds good okay let me see what other questions do I have I have a whole

00:28:11.580 bunch of questions for you that was a good that was a good background what's your plan with your

00:28:16.480 platform are you just going to keep doing what you're doing and see where it goes or do you have

00:28:20.860 a long-term strategy I don't have a like a laid out long-term strategy I think because all of this

00:28:26.400 happened so fast my move to Daily Wire my move to Nashville was I mean that all happened I came in

00:28:32.760 in October for the first time but once I you know signed the deal it was like within 10 days I moved

00:28:38.760 here and started and then developed comment section and uh released it in who end of February

00:28:45.380 I believe early March and I don't think anybody here had any you know idea that it would blow up

00:28:51.320 how it did I mean we got 100,000 subscribers in the first two weeks we're almost at 500,000 now

00:28:56.560 I mean it's like and I didn't even have a real perception of that because I was never like a

00:29:01.980 YouTube kid um one thing another unique thing about my family and my mom is that we were raised

00:29:06.600 without television without we barely watched any movies we were kept yep kept off the internet

00:29:11.880 didn't have a phone until I absolutely had to when I was like 15 but it was a flip phone

00:29:16.120 that kind of thing um I actually didn't get like an iPhone I think until probably my my senior year

00:29:23.340 of high school so I guess it would be 15 16 and my flip phone was when I was like 14 or whatever

00:29:29.300 So I was kept off of the internet.

00:29:30.920 So as a result, I was never a YouTube kid.

00:29:33.100 And so I, like in that first couple of weeks, I was turning into my team and I was like,

00:29:35.920 this isn't normal, right?

00:29:37.540 Like this doesn't happen.

00:29:38.940 And we didn't put any paid.

00:29:40.200 Yeah, we didn't put any paid behind it.

00:29:41.400 We didn't even do a big marketing campaign.

00:29:42.860 It was literally Daily Wire was experimenting to see like, would people respond to this

00:29:47.900 girl and this type of content that is so outside of our traditional, you know, podcast style?

00:29:52.480 And apparently it worked.

00:29:53.120 So as a result, I have not laid out any long-term whatever.

00:29:56.380 So yes, we're just going to see where this goes.

00:29:57.760 we're developing additional content you know under the daily wire brand under the comment

00:30:01.540 section brand and we'll see where it goes hoping to get that all started soon but it's kind of been

00:30:06.600 like oh gosh okay people are excited about this let's figure out what we're going to do next so

00:30:10.460 do you know what your audience demographic is yes so the majority of it is i think i'm 40 percent

00:30:19.200 in the 18 to 24 year old wow okay yes wow um and then it's pretty evenly split uh

00:30:27.520 that might be like 38 to 40 percent and then uh the older generations are pretty evenly split and

00:30:33.860 then on youtube it's 50 50 male and female and on my personal social media it's 75 male which is

00:30:40.720 interesting i thought that it was going to be a lot more heavy just because like even hasan piker

00:30:44.900 made a whole video the streamer made this whole video about me and said that i was only getting

00:30:49.040 views because like guys would watch me and i was thinking about my social media and i was like well

00:30:53.320 on instagram it's kind of true because most of my followers are guys and maybe they follow me

00:30:57.480 because i you know am a young woman or maybe they follow me for my opinions but then when i went and

00:31:02.500 i was you know kind of responding to his video about me i went and i looked at my youtube you

00:31:06.640 know demographics to confirm i was like no like it is evenly split and so yeah it's very even and

00:31:12.500 mostly my generation which is cool okay give me background on hassan piker who's his okay so

00:31:19.260 So Hassan Piker is probably the largest political streamer on Twitch.

00:31:26.120 He's fascinating.

00:31:27.060 He is Cenk Uygur's.

00:31:31.560 Did I say that for a minute?

00:31:32.500 I had to say that.

00:31:33.200 I had to get my team to confirm.

00:31:35.360 But yes, he is Cenk Uygur's nephew.

00:31:38.180 And Cenk Uygur runs the Young Turks, which used to be like the biggest.

00:31:42.540 Yes.

00:31:43.060 Yeah. So he started with them as like an intern and started producing shows for them, said a few controversial things like the United States deserved 9-11 and that kind of thing.

00:31:54.700 And then left the Young Turks and started doing his own streaming.

00:31:59.540 And in his mind, his argument about me was that I was basically copying him.

00:32:04.180 I never even heard of him before I watched his video, but he's huge.

00:32:07.340 But he said she's trying to copy me and be like a fake streamer.

00:32:10.440 But he was, by any means, he was not the first political streamer on Twitch.

00:32:13.640 But at this point, he is the largest.

00:32:14.760 He has a huge following, very left-leaning.

00:32:18.460 He's probably 28 to 30-ish, but has a huge, I mean, massive, massive influence on Twitch.

00:32:24.280 So yes, he made a whole video about how I was, I think in his words, he said I was stealing

00:32:28.680 his flow.

00:32:30.940 Wow.

00:32:31.220 And so that was...

00:32:31.720 It's so attractive when a 28-year-old dude goes after a 20-year-old girl for stealing

00:32:37.720 their flow.

00:32:37.740 Oh yeah, it was great.

00:32:38.280 low that's really that's really attractive and then saying that you know i only had any popularity

00:32:43.020 because i was a woman and i think he called my subscribers uh incels he was like i'm sure your

00:32:48.740 subscriber base is only like young incels who care about you because you're a girl i was like well

00:32:52.620 that's you know they're so progressive of you that's funny okay that's lovely yeah well you're

00:32:59.940 bound i mean as soon as you get followers you're gonna get hate online especially doing what you're

00:33:03.540 doing yeah who came up with the comment section idea uh it was a joint effort between a couple of

00:33:11.720 uh our creatives here at daily wire um one of which is uh my brand manager now but he is the

00:33:18.300 he's one of my producers but he is a youtube kid um and he had his own youtube channel for a long

00:33:23.620 time so he is deep into you know understanding the trends on both the left and right um and he

00:33:29.440 in all of his you know work here with us had realized that there's kind of this hole on the

00:33:34.360 right where we're not all of our content on YouTube especially is just like this daily news you know

00:33:40.640 sit in front of a camera do very traditional podcast or it's like Fox News and Tucker Carlson

00:33:44.760 that kind of thing there isn't any kind of streamer laid-back traditional YouTube like

00:33:49.840 YouTuber style and so he wanted to create something like that and wanted to so he started the search

00:33:56.200 to find you know uh he wanted it to be a girl um but someone who was already sort of engaged in

00:34:01.840 politics but had a smaller following uh to then build a show that was somewhere in that world so

00:34:07.040 they brought me in and they sort of had the idea for it but we did a couple of months of like trial

00:34:12.680 episodes you know figuring out is it purely going when I was originally brought in it was going to

00:34:18.480 be completely apolitical and they were like we just kind of want you to do culture and pop culture

00:34:23.540 sort of like the tpusa poplitics sort of model um and i was fine with that but i really pushed

00:34:31.800 for the political content and they were worried that it was going to be you know it was when i

00:34:38.700 if i would do political content it would become too traditional and the things we wanted to avoid

00:34:42.000 and i was like i promise like let's just like massage it let's do a bunch of episodes i promise

00:34:46.100 that i can present it in a way use this structure that we've come up with but do it in a way that

00:34:50.020 will be palatable to young people and will hit that market that we're trying to do so it took

00:34:53.600 a little bit of like time of figuring out like well what stories am I going to focus on okay

00:34:57.400 let's just focus on like the social media ones this that's the stuff that interests me um and

00:35:02.120 then I'm able to joke about it I'm able to you know read the comments figure out what people are

00:35:06.680 actually saying not just hear what like pundits and what you know the mainstream media is responding

00:35:10.860 to these stories about but literally if you go into the comment section on any videos you can

00:35:15.180 kind of figure out what the general public is thinking and feeling and it's highly entertaining

00:35:19.540 so that all sort of came together so started with one person and then molded once I got in and you

00:35:25.220 know really changed and then popped out on YouTube in March wow okay so I must have come across you

00:35:31.480 in March or April like right at the beginning yeah huh impressive okay how do you choose stories to

00:35:38.080 comment on you have to be pretty on top of that yes yeah it's a daily once I so I film comment

00:35:45.600 section in the morning I come in around 7 38 a.m usually and I will go over what I've picked out

00:35:56.780 because I usually pick it out the night before and just in case anything has dramatically changed

00:36:00.940 if there's a story that's you know coming overnight I want to make sure that I have ample

00:36:03.480 time to change direction if I need to usually go get ready and then we start filming around

00:36:07.060 nine or ten then it's all edited in one day and it's released that evening so once I'm finished

00:36:11.860 filming. I have a bunch of other projects I work on with Daily Wire. I write a lot of articles for

00:36:16.180 our website. So I'll be doing that sort of thing. But throughout the day, I'm constantly monitoring.

00:36:20.940 It's usually Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit. And Twitter is where I get a lot of my biggest stories

00:36:26.800 because you can easily go on their trending page, same with Reddit, and see what like are the hot

00:36:30.320 stories, that kind of thing. And I start there. I never, even though I know that things are going

00:36:35.500 on in the world, I will never pick a story just because like Fox News is talking about it, CNN

00:36:40.220 is talking about it i intentionally wait until it makes its way to social media because there's

00:36:44.300 some stuff that is interesting to me that's like okay that's a big story but nobody cares about it

00:36:48.820 on reddit nobody's making tiktoks about it my generation that is online truly for some reason

00:36:54.180 doesn't care about this issue and so that is like okay that's a signal to me that's probably not the

00:36:59.360 story that i want to cover so i wait until you know i see that it has you know 75 like thousand

00:37:04.520 likes that this got ratioed that the comments are you know going crazy people are making memes about

00:37:08.420 it that kind of thing and that kind of directs like this is where I want to put my energy and

00:37:14.800 it's yeah it's been pretty foolproof and obviously social media moves so quickly so that makes it

00:37:21.380 easier because I'm not just sitting around waiting for something to pop up there's always something

00:37:25.000 but it's kind of you know determining what is the most the other layer on that is that I also never

00:37:31.660 want it just to be like a fluff story because I could sit here all day and just talk about the

00:37:36.740 Kardashians or talk about something Taylor Swift did or there's this funny video that's going around

00:37:40.560 that has no context the other layer of something that I look for is can I relate this to either a

00:37:46.880 broader political conversation a broader cultural conversation a lot of stuff that I've been talking

00:37:51.080 about recently um goes back to like the mental health crisis that we have in this country in

00:37:57.460 the world right now especially with Gen Z um if I can relate any of those stories even if they are

00:38:01.400 pop culture if I can bring it back to okay this is a message that I think that my audience and

00:38:07.800 that you know society as a whole that would be beneficial for them to hear talked about that we

00:38:11.120 can relate it to something that's more important that way I'm not just sitting around being like

00:38:14.000 oh my god can you believe the Kardashians wore that I'm going to talk about them I usually talk

00:38:17.920 about their terrible political takes or you know how out of touch the elites are that sort of thing

00:38:23.540 or you know based on the men that they're dating why are we going towards very like feminine men

00:38:29.360 or you know this like very uh you know different cultural trend so as a result it makes it more

00:38:34.140 interesting to me because I you know I'm using my brain I'm being more intellectual with like

00:38:39.980 the content that I'm picking so all of that sort of goes into it wow okay that's quite a bit I like

00:38:46.360 the Kardashians I like them I've never seen I've never seen their show and I had not just true but

00:38:52.340 in order to make that much money those people have to be smart particularly the mom who's the

00:38:56.300 mom no yeah she's a snake it's fantastic like everything she really knows she really knows

00:39:01.660 what she's doing yeah she's coordinated years in advance she's yes she's smart everything is laid

00:39:07.000 out everything you have a contract for everything yeah um and i do have a problem when people say

00:39:12.200 oh they are only like they're only famous because they put their asses out on instagram only

00:39:17.240 whatever and it's like yes that is true they are influencers but those women do run like

00:39:21.860 billion dollar business so and like kim is going to law school she's or whatever she's doing trying

00:39:27.620 to be a lawyer and it's like you have to have some level of competence and intelligence to manage all

00:39:33.140 of that so i give you creds for that even though sometimes i think that their takes are weird and

00:39:37.100 they can be out of touch it's like okay i'll give you that well out of touch that's for sure did you

00:39:41.620 see did you see her recent ad for beyond meat where she oh my god yes didn't actually eat the

00:39:47.640 burger and it was chewing it was so funny that was so funny it was great I love the uh the chief

00:39:54.140 taste consultant brand that she's putting on herself and people were just laughing about it

00:39:58.820 and then when you do your research and you see that beyond meats like stocks are tanking I think

00:40:02.220 that it's gone down 80 percent in the last 11 months or something like that it's like this is

00:40:06.000 their desperate attempt to save their company is Kim Kardashian faking loving their fake meat

00:40:11.800 fake eating i wonder how much i know i wonder how much that tanked their stocks that must have

00:40:18.660 cost a lot too to get kim kardashian on there that must have cost a lot yeah okay i'm glad we

00:40:25.580 covered homeschooling i think homeschooling is important right now uh given how scary the

00:40:30.460 schooling system is i got scarlet into a school in miami that seems pretty good it doesn't seem

00:40:35.300 ideologically possessed and i've been thinking too i was like well what do you do with a kid

00:40:39.580 so she's four she's about to go into kindergarten the school looks good they've got a pontoon boat

00:40:43.680 as if that's necessary for somebody in kindergarten and like tortoises and things yeah you're right

00:40:48.200 just they teach programming and robotics and I was like that sounds that sounds that sounds

00:40:52.700 pretty good but the entire thing so you can tell me your opinion on this I think the entire thing

00:40:57.140 is kind of a farce so I went to university and I did I did half of my degree degree in psychology

00:41:03.660 and classics and then uh I dropped out because I was extremely ill and I went to makeup school

00:41:10.100 of all things for about six months my dad was like what are you doing you're not going to get

00:41:14.780 enough intellectual stimulation in makeup school I was like what do you know dad and he was right

00:41:19.880 but uh so I went back to school and I went into biomedical sciences for a couple years

00:41:24.240 and then I got pregnant and had scarlet so I dropped out for that and at the same time dad

00:41:30.600 kind of shot to fame and I started managing his affairs I guess you could say and growing his

00:41:35.980 social media presence online and I was like what's the purpose of going back to university

00:41:39.680 like this is a full-time job what am I going to go take more science yeah courses like for what

00:41:45.500 purpose if the purpose of school is to get a job right so you already have one yeah yeah so you

00:41:51.800 said you went to a community you got your general education degree I don't know how this works at

00:41:55.520 and you you could do that early so can you just get that at any point yes so there's even another

00:42:02.000 layer of weirdness in california there's the thing there's a thing called the chesape which

00:42:06.160 is basically california's equivalent of their ged certificate in high school so i took it's called

00:42:11.540 the california high school proficiency examination and you can take that um once you've hit a certain

00:42:17.180 level in math or when you are like a second semester sophomore in high school i okay hit

00:42:22.820 those requirements when i was 13 so i went in and you do like a state sanctioned test and you

00:42:28.220 basically get your chespe certificate and once you have hit those requirements it basically says

00:42:33.100 you have gotten that which is kind of sad and not that a 13 year old could have done that but that

00:42:37.280 the the baseline is so low but they say once you have passed that test you have gotten like the

00:42:42.880 baseline you know knowledge that you need from high school and you are then with the chespe it's

00:42:48.520 a good system when you have this chesapeake certificate you are then allowed to work as a

00:42:52.540 high school graduate as an 18 year old and it was designed for people who um you know kids needed to

00:42:58.660 work to be able to support their families or and it helped with like child actors especially because

00:43:02.940 then a lot of the labor laws change when you uh turn 18 and you're a high school graduate then

00:43:08.420 you don't need a tutor on set it's less expensive to hire you because you don't have to do like set

00:43:12.180 school hours i could just kind of i would be on set and be in my trailer i would do my school

00:43:15.840 myself i wouldn't have to have a you know production teacher being there to monitor

00:43:19.920 everything so there's a lot of things that go into it but the other uh thing that you get when

00:43:25.320 you take the chess beat is that you are then able to take community college classes outside of a

00:43:30.580 coordinated uh there's a lot of programs the united states where high schools will set up

00:43:36.060 agreements with community colleges or just universities in general where you can take a

00:43:39.900 couple of classes as a high schooler it's outside of the ap advanced placement uh curriculum and so

00:43:45.240 that allowed me having that certificate allowed me to go just take community college classes

00:43:49.700 so I stayed in my online high school that I was doing I was not by the by the time I got into

00:43:56.440 high school my mom stopped building my curriculum and I was in an online private school so she

00:44:01.480 built or she stopped teaching me she didn't stop building the curriculum so she would create the

00:44:05.680 curriculum she would work with the teachers at the private high school and she you know looked

00:44:11.480 at all the book lists I remember at one point like when my 10th grade year they were only gonna have

00:44:15.120 me they were only going to have me read uh like five books for the entire semester and she was

00:44:20.000 like my daughter reads two like one to two books a week like this is not enough she's going to be

00:44:24.260 sitting around doing nothing so we bumped that up to like I was reading 30 books in a semester

00:44:27.400 yeah and none of them were it was like all classics she was like I don't want her reading

00:44:31.360 anything you know written after the year of 2000 like we need to focus on all this um history

00:44:36.260 classes she because she worked in publishing she knew what textbooks she wanted me to read for like

00:44:40.980 U.S. history she was like this one was written at like this time I love the author this is great

00:44:45.640 so she was very involved but she was not the one grading my paper she didn't have to like hold my

00:44:50.860 hand while I was sobbing doing calculus even though she watched the tears when I had to do

00:44:55.020 that or chemistry that kind of thing because she knew that those were not my strengths and did not

00:44:59.180 want to be a part of that but anyway so I was doing by the time that I took the Jespy I was

00:45:04.040 able to go start doing community college classes in addition to the online program that I was doing

00:45:08.140 um so started knocking out those credits but I and I got an associate's degree through the

00:45:14.340 community college um and I don't this whole culture especially United States I don't know

00:45:20.880 how it is in Canada um that tells young people that their entire like middle to high school

00:45:25.140 career is all about getting into a university Canada and it's like you have yeah and it's like

00:45:30.040 everything all of your extracurriculars it's not about what are you interested in it's what is

00:45:33.580 going to look good on your application when you're volunteering and you're doing you know charity

00:45:38.940 that sort of thing it's never about what am i actually interested i want to do good work it's

00:45:42.220 like i need to show that i did like 50 hours at a freaking animal shelter to prove that i'm a good

00:45:46.680 person so that harvard will let me in it's all so manufactured and it strips young people from

00:45:51.860 being able to actually be innovative and be creative and find their passions and actually

00:45:56.700 work that's why gen z is the least experienced generation going into the workforce because we

00:46:02.360 were all so damn focused on getting into Ivy Leagues rather than flipping burgers at McDonald's

00:46:09.000 working I worked at Trader Joe's for five years throughout high school and college because acting

00:46:14.020 is very inconsistent I never wanted to take social security like a lot of my friends in Hollywood did

00:46:18.160 and because my mom all of my brothers you know worked traditional like after school jobs my mom

00:46:24.580 worked her way through high school and college she was like just because you're making money and

00:46:28.300 you're in this like fancy career doesn't mean that you get to skip out on having real world

00:46:32.600 punching a clock having that experience um but a lot of I honestly look at that as like a privilege

00:46:39.020 that I got to do that um and somehow you know still got into college even though I wasn't you

00:46:44.320 know on every sports team you know volunteering at the animal shelter that kind of thing but this

00:46:48.620 whole push to say that you know your entire life is culminating to your 18th birthday when you have

00:46:53.820 to like you know apply for these colleges get in and then you have four years and then you figure

00:46:57.400 out how to get a job because like you're saying if you're already working if you already know what

00:47:02.220 you're interested in yeah why waste all of that time especially if it's something that you could

00:47:06.400 just go do now if you could go to a community college knock out a few of those credits and

00:47:09.360 then go get a job if you could go to trade school and like especially the push for the private like

00:47:14.480 liberal arts schools like I I had a member of my family tell me when I was applying to the UCs so

00:47:20.740 UC Berkeley and UCLA primarily he said are you going to apply to any real colleges I said

00:47:26.920 yeah and all of his kids were like ivy league bound he and his wife my uncle went to um you

00:47:32.940 know harvard and columbia william and mary um and they were like are you going to apply to any real

00:47:38.100 colleges like those are state schools it's like ucla is the best public university in the country

00:47:42.060 do you think because it is like state-run because it's not a private liberal arts school that it's

00:47:46.280 not good enough but i mean there's this entire culture that is like royally effed up gen z in

00:47:51.800 a way i mean the last two generations honestly where i think we've been stripped of our ability

00:47:55.920 to, you know, really mature as workers and, you know, mature our interests and our, like, adult

00:48:03.300 skills because we're so focused on just trying to get into a stupid, you know, gender studies

00:48:08.000 program, basically. Yeah, that's pretty miserable. Everybody should have to be burnt by grease at

00:48:13.280 some point during, I guess, teenage years as a job. Yeah, here you go. Exactly. But no, so I

00:48:20.700 totally agree with you and if you're already working i mean i would see you know friends who

00:48:26.840 one of the conundrums for me was i grew up working as a professional actor everybody in my like friend

00:48:32.400 group and community we were all professionally working and when they would turn 18 they'd be

00:48:36.780 like okay well i have to go to college and i'm going to go for theater and acting and i would

00:48:41.060 look at them and i'd be like you've been working professionally making money doing this why would

00:48:45.260 you go spend 80 grand a year being taught how to do something that you are already doing like you

00:48:50.440 can go take an acting class outside of college like if you do want to go if that's important

00:48:54.100 to you is important to me go for something academically that's interesting or learn a

00:48:57.460 tangible skill go to a trade school while you're doing it like don't just go and do theater classes

00:49:02.060 when you've been it was just mind-boggling to me and I truly didn't understand it but it was so

00:49:06.400 ingrained in their brain that it was like well no I want to be an actor after I graduate so I must

00:49:10.300 do the acting program and I utterly rejected that I was like no that's ridiculous like I want to go

00:49:14.720 read literature and I want to go learn about business and biological anthropology and like

00:49:17.760 all of that um so it's just a whole the whole culture around it is weird yeah it is weird I

00:49:24.140 think it was hard for so my well you know my dad he's a university professor yeah so it was pretty

00:49:29.640 hard on him for me not getting a degree right even though I was running his business I was like dad

00:49:34.460 like I don't have time it's like well you finish school at the same time I can't like you don't

00:49:38.200 understand the background work that goes into like building things like I can't do it um like

00:49:44.160 we could get somebody else to do it you want to get somebody else to do it and I'll finish my

00:49:47.380 degree it's like well that doesn't really make sense and i was like yeah it doesn't really make

00:49:52.440 sense like what's the purpose what's the purpose of the degree right and if you're educating yourself

00:49:57.360 too i mean you can get an education online you don't have to go anywhere like everything is

00:50:01.940 available online for free yep yes yeah i think it's just that jobs require it right they're like

00:50:07.660 what's your degree yeah right and that's one that's one fantastic thing about daily wire is

00:50:12.180 that we don't ask for because a lot our execs a lot of them didn't graduate from college and so

00:50:17.080 we have this culture where it's like we don't ask you don't have to be a college graduate and it's

00:50:20.420 it's we get so again we get so many talented people because we are looking outside of the

00:50:25.300 traditional the conventional you know job market and i think a lot of companies shoot themselves

00:50:30.280 in the foot by saying you must have this you know bs degree and whatever it's like yes they might

00:50:35.040 have you know learned some critical thinking they learned how to be a good writer i totally believe

00:50:38.700 in those skills but you also don't have to spend that much money at a university you know have to

00:50:43.580 sit through the intersectionality classes, deal with all of the, you know, political in the sense

00:50:48.660 of policy, but also like the bureaucracy of a university. You don't need that. And if you are

00:50:54.520 an academic, if you are interested in that, then by all means, go for it. I loved it. But not a lot

00:50:59.740 of people are built like that. And it's just completely backwards to think that everybody

00:51:05.100 can fit into that, you know, perception, that mold. Yeah, for sure. I think that's how Elon Musk

00:51:10.980 hires people too you should hire based on competence right yes yeah yeah for sure okay

00:51:17.620 right what's your favorite book um god probably it's very cliche but i don't actually don't know

00:51:29.760 if it is but jane eyre is jane eyre is a great book yes jane eyre is a great book yeah it's one

00:51:36.280 have you read weathering heights i have i didn't like it as much i appreciated it but there's

00:51:45.260 something about jane as a character um that has always stuck with me and the it's it's an incredibly

00:51:52.720 complex novel i think a lot of people just like focus on jane's you know relationship with

00:51:57.380 rochester like rochester and that sort of thing but the whole mad woman in the attic narrative

00:52:02.600 uh with rochester's wife that is still living up there is a there's so many different lanes that

00:52:08.920 you can go down when you're studying it and understanding it where it's like there's also

00:52:13.160 the that was at the time when women who were um more outspoken vocal opinionated were uh what was

00:52:21.020 it called hysteria where you had like an upside down uterus um and you were called you were

00:52:25.500 literally mentally insane you were deemed mentally insane it's like that short story is written in

00:52:29.780 America the yellow wallpaper I think it's by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore I believe but it's

00:52:36.220 about a woman who was diagnosed with hysteria locked in a room and then is made to go more

00:52:40.880 insane because she's not allowed to leave these four walls yeah and start seeing the wallpaper

00:52:45.400 that kind of yeah yeah and so there's this whole conversation of was his wife actually

00:52:50.120 batshit crazy or did they make her that way because they diagnosed her with this mental

00:52:54.640 illness and then there's on the other side because they talk about the color of her skin

00:52:58.320 a lot that there's kind of the race angle that goes in with like did they deem that she was

00:53:03.040 insane because she was like a native they talk about her being like a savage and that kind of

00:53:06.700 thing so that is probably my favorite part of the entire book because it's all of these like

00:53:11.260 socio-cultural undertones that are underneath this like romance and this like beautifully set

00:53:17.660 gothic novel uh that really makes it come alive so I love that uh semi more modern because of

00:53:24.520 course my mom said it under ayn rand um i love we the living which is i don't know if it's one of

00:53:28.820 i don't think it's her most obviously it's not her most popular because everybody usually goes

00:53:31.820 with um atlas shrugged and the fountainhead but it's her more autobiographical work and her

00:53:37.600 heroine read that oh you would love it it is absolutely fantastic and it is i mean she writes

00:53:44.140 female characters better than anybody in my opinion and it's very cool because even people who

00:53:50.440 like passionately disagree with everything that she stands for can still read especially the

00:53:55.740 fountainhead and me the living and still appreciate the fact that she's a brilliant novelist and that

00:53:59.640 her characters are you know absolutely dynamic and she really walks that line of her philosophy

00:54:05.420 and objectivism comes through everything that she writes but she does it in such a way that you don't

00:54:10.400 feel like you're being like punched in the face with it um it really is embedded in all the

00:54:14.540 character so I love that The Alchemist is a fantastic book and probably the um more modern

00:54:21.100 uh most modern would probably be um A Secret History by Donna Tartt it's probably my favorite

00:54:26.640 more modern in the last you know few years I like it okay uh do you have advice for other 20 year

00:54:35.320 olds um be okay with being unconventional and I think strive to be unconventional and think

00:54:46.640 outside of the box and I don't mean like oh just be like quirky and be yourself because I think

00:54:50.800 that's like a very overused and cliche thing but it is okay to go against the grain again it's like

00:54:56.860 if you don't want to go to college if you want to focus on you know building a career um if you

00:55:02.080 want to have a non-traditional like education even if like even with your family I don't have

00:55:08.240 and it's interesting being in the conservative world I don't have like a very traditional

00:55:12.240 healthy nuclear family which is something that people talk about a lot and I kind of sit there

00:55:18.120 and I'm like yeah well somehow I made it out without that very traditional but it's like

00:55:21.400 I am very much I don't believe that blood is you know thicker than water in a lot of ways I do

00:55:27.000 think that you choose your own family I think you have to take accountability for the people

00:55:31.720 in your life and what is serving you and you have to figure out where to set those boundaries and

00:55:36.100 if that means walking away from something that is traditional that society is telling you that

00:55:39.580 oh you need to focus on this it's okay to take account for um you know what is making you a

00:55:45.160 better person what is making you productive and if you know things in your life are holding you

00:55:48.640 back figure out how to readjust and move away from that and find something that's healthier

00:55:51.980 um I also think this is my again my objectivist upbringing talking but I do think that like

00:55:59.160 productivity is the most important you know thing in our life because we are constantly striving to

00:56:05.440 make the world a better place to contribute something tangible whether it's you know thoughts

00:56:10.220 communications or you're building something find like I don't know the enjoyment in building and

00:56:16.880 contributing something to society because if you do that you will have an incredibly fulfilling

00:56:22.100 career and you will be able to make money if you're just sitting around you know asking other

00:56:25.920 people for handouts what can they do for me that kind of thing you need to start figuring out what

00:56:30.120 you can build what you can offer other people um I think for me at least that's been my path to

00:56:35.560 success I love it that was an excellent answer uh what what's the most uncomfortable thing that's

00:56:42.620 happened to you since you kind of got a following something online um has anything been particularly

00:56:51.760 upsetting not really and i think that's because i'm very i'm grateful for that because obviously

00:56:58.220 it is out there and i you know get the threats i get hate you know there's people and i haven't

00:57:04.740 really talked about this a lot because i usually talk about the positive stuff but i mean people

00:57:07.580 dm you and say like i hope you get raped like i hope you die like that sort of lovely yeah and

00:57:11.580 yes exactly and it's like okay wonderful you are like a 45 year old like fat old man sitting behind

00:57:15.960 a screen or you're some like 12 year old that thinks you are like edgy by saying this and a

00:57:20.660 lot of that stuff I'm kind of like okay that's normal every person that's you know right of

00:57:23.660 center that has an ounce of common sense and breaks from the narrative you're going to get

00:57:27.000 that it doesn't matter what industry you're in if you break from mainstream narrative

00:57:30.800 in our culture right now it's so polarized people are going to lose their damn mind

00:57:34.020 but it rolls off of me very easily I think because I was in a career where I was judged

00:57:42.200 constantly for my entire youth okay acting you get told no 99% of the time you audition six

00:57:48.840 times a week and it's like you are too thin you're too fat you're not blonde you don't look enough

00:57:52.880 like uh the person who's playing your father oh you're too tall because you're a head taller than

00:57:57.220 the boy who'd be playing your love interest oh we didn't like how you did this um your crying wasn't

00:58:02.340 you know authentic enough whatever it's like every day you are shot down and a lot of the times you

00:58:07.580 are judged purely on things that you can't control um and as a result i got very good at handling

00:58:14.280 rejection I got very good at people not liking me for whatever reason and even though it's a

00:58:19.360 very different career and they're not liking me for different reasons that became something that

00:58:23.340 I was comfortable with and I actually did a post about this recently when I started branching out

00:58:28.580 politically not branching out but talking about it openly on my social media and you know coming

00:58:34.620 out to my friends which kind of you have to do weirdly when you are in a very like leftist world

00:58:39.940 I guess being in Hollywood being at a university um I kind of had to relearn that and apply what

00:58:47.040 had served me as an actor and like let me you know have success in that industry without being

00:58:52.900 like depressed and anxious all the time because everybody was judging me and apply that to a new

00:58:56.400 career where it's really like I I understand that not everybody will like me I literally I cannot

00:59:02.080 please no matter how hard I try I cannot please everyone on the internet everyone in the world

00:59:06.420 and understanding that is incredibly freeing because it's like great then you know screw it

00:59:11.040 I don't really care yeah and I'm going to do my best to be a kind person and be empathetic

00:59:17.120 but also not shut up about the things that I think are important and my opinions because there are

00:59:22.500 people out there who agree and there are you know minds that I can change people that I can connect

00:59:25.980 with and if you don't like it that's fine and so as a result I think it's been easier for me so the

00:59:30.640 stuff that has been hate or whatever has not made the biggest impact what has been has the stuff

00:59:38.260 that's offline and it's literally like the responses of family and friends just because I

00:59:43.500 was in I was in such a leftist world where my opinions that I have that I'm not talking about

00:59:50.300 are like you are the devil if you speak about these so lost a lot of friends I have people

00:59:56.200 that will call me like drunkenly at 11 and like 11 at night and say like why are you being mean

01:00:01.460 to people online like you need to stop and it's like damn okay I think I need to like change my

01:00:05.420 phone number at this point um because I have all these people from like a past life basically

01:00:09.720 that despise the fact that I'm speaking out against like things that they believe in um

01:00:15.920 you know I have a very my immediate family is libertarian conservative but my extended family

01:00:23.400 is not and so that has been difficult for sure same yeah and so it's how do you handle it do you

01:00:30.800 I usually try to prioritize the relationships over like minuscule political disagreements and

01:00:37.380 that's what I've tried to do but their response has just been to completely walk away and shut

01:00:42.780 you out uninvite you from things that sort of thing so it's been difficult but I don't know

01:00:45.340 what is your experience been um I usually don't bring up certain topics too yeah family members

01:00:51.300 that I know don't hold the same opinions like it it doesn't matter if it's gonna upset that person

01:00:55.700 I don't need to change their mind like you don't need to change everybody's mind so I usually avoid

01:00:59.960 it uh for people who don't talk to me anymore I just don't care like at all I don't care I don't

01:01:07.060 have enough energy to to care at even a little bit I think maybe initially I cared but now it's like

01:01:12.780 really really you're gonna walk away okay I have tons of other things to do so so probably by

01:01:22.280 trying to be compassionate to people who don't agree and avoid the topics that make people

01:01:26.500 uncomfortable if it's family or just like okay we're not going to be friends we don't have to

01:01:32.020 be friends with everybody yeah if they still want to be in my life in some capacity because I have

01:01:38.560 had a lot of you know friends and family members just be like okay well now I'm just not going to

01:01:41.840 talk to you with that it's the same like you said um I think energy is a very good word it's like I

01:01:46.500 can only give so much of myself to people and if you are not even willing to take a step in my

01:01:51.640 direction to meet me halfway because we're blood because I've known you since birth since you were

01:01:56.240 there when I was born then why would I try um and for the people that are willing to take that step

01:02:01.820 and you know stay in contact in some regard still have an ounce of kindness and it's like okay I

01:02:05.320 won't bring it up but it is difficult when you are a public figure in a way because obviously

01:02:09.040 there's no hiding it like they know what you believe they know what your dad says you know

01:02:13.020 the same with me like they want they can see my videos and other things that I say

01:02:16.240 and if they are willing to like overlook that and still be here then it's like okay I don't

01:02:22.060 need to fight with you I don't need to bring it up if you say something absolutely ridiculous

01:02:25.320 then like I'll be fine just sitting because at least you're here I think a lot of people

01:02:31.760 get into meaningless fights it's like okay well I still value this relationship so yeah and some

01:02:37.940 people can't change their mind that easily like there are more open individuals and you can have

01:02:42.240 a conversation with them and no one's that neurotic and then you can end up in a place

01:02:46.160 where you're like oh yeah maybe I said something wrong or did something wrong or believed something

01:02:50.060 different and then you grow and then there are some people for some reason probably lack of

01:02:55.600 openness that just say no I don't want to hear it I can't handle it makes me emotional I don't

01:03:00.960 want to go there and there's no point in engaging with those people unless you're trying to hurt

01:03:04.880 their feelings really right so it's tricky which progresses nothing yeah yeah there's no point

01:03:11.960 right a waste of time yeah oh well that's good so can you tell me what an average day for you

01:03:18.600 looks like yeah so I like I said come into work 7 30 to 8 a.m every day um and I go into hair and

01:03:28.580 makeup at 8 30 that's one of the things with daily wire that we're very fortunate to have is because

01:03:32.800 everything is like a very high quality production value um do have which is great because i don't

01:03:38.620 know how to do my own makeup and i'm terrible at it uh did not go to makeup school for six months

01:03:42.300 so i we have a team that does that and i came in handy ha dad said it wasn't gonna come in handy

01:03:48.380 there we go look at that now you're on camera exactly so it's worth it um i go into hair and

01:03:53.140 makeup we start filming around 9 30 and i'm usually out of my shoot depending on how long

01:03:59.360 my segments are how many extra things I'm having to do around 10 30 to 11 um my editors who are

01:04:05.940 fantastic get started on um clipping the show together and usually um I run through it pretty

01:04:13.600 quickly there isn't a lot of like oh I want to say this you know I because it's not really scripted

01:04:18.260 I know the points that I want to make but it's very off the cuff so the only like retakes that

01:04:22.560 I'll do are I I mispronounce a lot of words and so if I say something sort of incorrectly it's

01:04:26.620 like, okay, I know that word was not said correctly. Um, so it's them kind of cutting

01:04:30.020 through that and changing camera angles. And after I'm finished, uh, I start pulling things for the

01:04:35.900 next day's show. I write articles. We work on development for other projects. I do promotion

01:04:41.060 for the other daily wire, you know, movies and films that we're doing. I'll do collaborations

01:04:45.600 with our other hosts. Like the other day I was doing, you know, you know, a shoot with Ben for

01:04:50.400 like a social media thing. Um, Matt Walsh came on my show and I went and did a book signing with him

01:04:55.700 And I'll go like hop on to Michael's show.

01:04:57.420 So it's a very, it's like I'm bouncing around.

01:04:59.720 Yep.

01:05:00.140 Doing different social media hits.

01:05:02.520 We do kind of news videos that go on our Daily Wire social media.

01:05:06.300 So I'm usually in that where it's like, okay, Brett, there's this story just happened.

01:05:10.040 Let's pull some bullet points together and do like a three minute video on this.

01:05:12.640 So I'll go shoot that.

01:05:13.220 So it's a lot of running around doing different, you know, film projects while also writing

01:05:17.660 an article pulling stuff.

01:05:19.540 And then by the end of the day, I usually have the outline of what I want to talk about

01:05:22.960 in the morning.

01:05:24.280 and we get out at different times every day it's kind of they often say I mean it's a news

01:05:30.300 organization so our office is open you know 24 7 365 days a year because there's always something

01:05:36.280 going on so if you know what is a woman is premiering then we're here until you know

01:05:40.480 however long it needs to be if there's a film coming out we stick around so it's very I think

01:05:45.500 that's why I like working here so much is because and my job is because my days are never the same

01:05:51.520 it's always a different story that I'm covering it's always different projects there's no

01:05:55.600 okay I'm gonna go in I'm gonna do the same thing and talk to the same people I'm gonna hit the

01:05:59.760 same buttons um that I feel very grateful because I know a lot of people aren't in that situation

01:06:04.320 but for me yeah somebody who's interested in a lot of stuff and I get very bored easily uh which

01:06:10.100 is why I've moved jobs so much moved places that kind of thing and so it keeps me entertained

01:06:14.800 yeah I feel that okay that's great oh well I'm happy for you that's really fun

01:06:20.160 it's fun growing these things yeah yeah and you pour your you know your heart and soul into it

01:06:27.580 and so it's and it's nice to not just be the face of it but to really have like my hands are in all

01:06:35.140 of the development and where I want to take the show and that sort of thing so every day it's like

01:06:38.780 a challenge okay this video didn't get as many views why is that let's figure it out let's

01:06:42.420 problem solve I want to do this okay I want to create this with daily wire who do I need to

01:06:46.200 talk to in order to get this ball rolling so it's always like if you want six it's the same thing

01:06:51.360 with acting where it's like if you want success in this industry in this company you have to be

01:06:56.260 absolutely hungry and you have to be innovative and you have to be willing to try new things and

01:07:00.060 take risks so it's exciting uh exhausting and sort of scary at times because you never know

01:07:05.800 what people are going to say but keeps it interesting good good okay well if people

01:07:11.120 aren't following you where can they go online to follow you uh on my social media platforms you can

01:07:16.340 find me at I'm Brett Cooper on Twitter and Instagram I also have a TikTok that is uh the

01:07:22.680 comment section with BC and then on YouTube it is the comment section with Brett Cooper and that is

01:07:27.060 my daily show okay I would recommend checking it out it's very entertaining I'm not used to that

01:07:32.420 content I think I missed it I'm 30 and I'm just not I kind of watch it I'm like I get it I get it

01:07:38.600 But I think it's more of a Gen Z thing, which I guess corresponds with your audience.

01:07:43.600 Yeah.

01:07:43.780 It's catchier.

01:07:44.580 It's catchier than a podcast.

01:07:46.620 Mm-hmm.

01:07:47.100 I was like, well, it's good for our Gen Z attention spans because Gen Z with the world

01:07:53.980 that we grew up in with, you know, how fast, you know, our videos go, it's like Gen Z

01:07:57.600 has like a three minute, like you have to be hooked or else like you're losing most

01:08:02.560 of them.

01:08:03.240 But it was sort of the same thing when we were pitching the show and we were like fully

01:08:06.080 getting it approved and greenlit.

01:08:07.580 i remember sitting in a meeting and jeremy has said this publicly too um he was on a couple of

01:08:11.740 podcasts where he told the story but we were sitting in the meeting and he looked at me and

01:08:15.340 he was like i don't get it but he was like but i know it's good and i know people will get it but

01:08:19.260 he was like this show is not for me and i don't understand it but it's going to reach somebody

01:08:24.660 and clearly it has um so he's able to he's incredibly creative and he's able to see what

01:08:28.940 is going to work and what won't even if it doesn't fit like his purview his generation and i think

01:08:34.820 that's another fantastic thing about you know the leadership here is that they are willing

01:08:38.300 to step outside of the traditional you know conservative model the traditional whatever

01:08:42.260 because they know that you know different kind of content will reach different

01:08:45.600 generations types of people genders that kind of thing yeah that's really good oh that's good

01:08:51.020 that that indicates success too for sure i couldn't i couldn't get into tiktok either

01:08:56.320 i don't know i don't know what it was like instagram i get youtube i get like long form

01:09:01.400 content i get and tiktok it's like no no i can't do it i don't know what it is i don't know what

01:09:06.960 it is but yeah their algorithm is different the type of content is different and the audience

01:09:11.520 has very different wants too it's a whole different ball game it's not they're not

01:09:14.420 synonymous at all so you're not alone in that because it's a very it's wildly different

01:09:18.480 interesting okay brett uh i'm gonna let you go thank you very much for coming on it was nice

01:09:24.600 meeting you you're definitely yes gonna go places you've already been places so i'm excited to see

01:09:28.880 what happens. I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much. This was tons of fun. I'm glad we were able

01:09:32.540 to do it.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - July 07, 2022

153. The Education System, Social Politics, and The Daily Wire ｜ Brett Cooper

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