The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1129

00:00:00.000 Hello there and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1129. I'm your host Harry

00:00:07.560 joined today by Josh. Hello. And we've got some right slop for you today. We're going to be

00:00:13.340 talking about the Trump war leaks and whether they're legitimate or not and what they mean.

00:00:18.860 The unexpected, the most unexpected thing ever being that Snow White flopped and Assassin's

00:00:24.360 Creed is bad. And we're going to finish off by talking about Netflix's Adolescence, a true

00:00:29.660 false story that's being used to allow for more surveillance state in Britain.

00:00:37.260 Yay. And propagandising children as well. I mean, that's all television's ever been for.

00:00:43.060 That's true. That's true. Including if you're a grown adult watching television, you are a child

00:00:47.640 being propagandised too. And with that, I think that's all I need to say. Let's get into the news.

00:00:54.360 Okay, so this fellow is Jeffrey Goldberg. He is the editor-in-chief at The Atlantic. And he was

00:01:02.100 seemingly, and I say seemingly, accidentally added to a group chat where the top brass of the Trump

00:01:08.140 administration discussed their upcoming bombing campaign in the Yemen. And apparently he found

00:01:15.000 out about key details of this operation two hours before they happened. And this guy is also very much

00:01:21.500 a Zionist. And that is worth mentioning when it comes to the person who accidentally added him.

00:01:27.000 So he wrote this article about it, because of course, that's what you do when you get invited

00:01:30.640 into a secret government chat, is you write a mainstream article about it.

00:01:35.280 To be fair, if you're the editor of The Atlantic, then yeah.

00:01:40.120 But also, he does claim to have omitted key details of national security significance, as well as

00:01:49.080 certain people who held secret service positions. So some of the stuff that he's apparently seen,

00:01:57.840 we don't know about. So we're just going to have to believe him, take him at his word for some of it.

00:02:04.020 But, so supposedly this guy, Jeffrey Goldberg, moved to Israel to work as a prison guard in the IDF

00:02:13.200 before returning to his career in journalism in the US. So that is important, because the person who

00:02:19.360 was in charge of this group chat, Mike Waltz, is known as being particularly hawkish. It could be

00:02:26.780 that they share a foreign policy agenda, I don't know.

00:02:29.780 I would imagine that, I mean, you'll go through the article, I've not read it, but I would imagine

00:02:33.760 he must be in favour of strikes against the Yemen and Houthis, right? 0.99

00:02:38.560 Yeah, it seems like it.

00:02:40.440 It'd be pretty shocking if a former IDFA member wasn't.

00:02:44.080 It would be very strange, wouldn't it? And this Mike Waltz guy, you know, I respect his service

00:02:51.840 in Afghanistan. He did multiple combat tours, and he received four bronze stars, which have received

00:02:57.840 for bravery. But in terms of his politics, he was defence policy director for Bush and counter-terrorism

00:03:05.100 advisor to Cheney. So this might give you a little bit of an idea about how he views foreign

00:03:11.480 policy, which might explain why he might have accidentally invited this guy in.

00:03:17.140 Accidentally on purpose.

00:03:18.680 It's possible.

00:03:19.700 Yeah. So most Trump supporters have been calling Goldberg a liar, from what I've seen.

00:03:24.220 There have been a few that have taken what he said at face value, and I can see why, given 0.98

00:03:28.400 his track record, because both he and Trump have been critical of one another, and he

00:03:34.360 often writes things that are critical of Trump. So the fact that he can't necessarily be trusted

00:03:39.640 I think is fair. But he has provided screenshots, and it's not been denied as fake news by anyone

00:03:47.140 involved.

00:03:47.780 I believe it was confirmed as true by one of the agencies, correct?

00:03:52.340 Correct. I'm going to get to that. I'm going to read the exact quote. And you often see

00:03:59.180 J.D. Vance as well posting about stuff, because I've seen him do this on a couple of occasions

00:04:03.580 while there's been a mainstream story doing the rounds. He did this about when he said

00:04:08.900 a lot of European countries haven't fought a war in 40 years. He said, listen, obviously

00:04:13.040 I didn't mean Britain and France, because they have, and I know that. And quite often he corrects

00:04:18.660 stuff. And he's not done that in this instance, which makes it more likely, I think, that it's

00:04:23.300 genuine. But I think the nail in the coffin for the fact that it's all made up is the fact

00:04:28.740 that, and this is a quote from the article, so if you take this at face value, so be it.

00:04:34.360 But Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, responded two hours later

00:04:39.640 to him reaching out to them saying he's been added to this chat because he messaged the

00:04:45.260 people involved, like what the hell is going on. And confirming the veracity of the signal

00:04:50.380 group, this appears to be an authentic message chain and we are reviewing how an inadvertent

00:04:55.340 number was added to the chain. So that doesn't sound like they're denying it exists. It seems

00:05:00.360 genuine.

00:05:00.820 And that's a confirmation.

00:05:03.200 Yeah, I would say so. And I'm just wondering, you don't accidentally add the main editor of

00:05:10.580 The Atlantic to a chat of lots of senior politicians in the executive branch of government accidentally?

00:05:18.180 Seems like a pretty major cock-up.

00:05:20.060 He either has very, very fat thumbs or there has been speculation that he might have done it

00:05:26.680 on purpose. And although I'm more willing to take this sort of thing as just an accident,

00:05:32.420 personally, it is possible, and I'm going to walk through the arguments, obviously make

00:05:36.800 up your own mind, you don't have to agree with me.

00:05:39.160 Because if this was done on purpose, surely it makes basic security at the current administration

00:05:47.120 seem completely incompetent.

00:05:49.380 It does, and I think that that's one of the major arguments against it, is why would they

00:05:53.220 do something that makes them, first and foremost, look incompetent? It doesn't make sense to

00:05:58.760 me that they would do that.

00:05:59.600 And also shows them actively bad-mouthing their European allies as well.

00:06:04.960 We'll be getting on to that. So there's a couple of things that I think it helps sell.

00:06:11.860 Obviously, there's potential similarities between the person who added him and the guy himself

00:06:18.360 in foreign policy agenda. We can't necessarily know for certain. I haven't seen a sit-down

00:06:22.780 conversation with the two people talking it over, so it's a certain amount of conjecture.

00:06:28.260 But what it does do in leaking this is that it sells to the MAGA base that they're authentically

00:06:33.140 America first, because they complain about Europe not dealing with the rebels. And never mind the fact

00:06:39.500 that previously in the conversation, if it's to be taken as genuine, they admit that only

00:06:44.280 4% of US trade goes through, what is it, the Red Sea? That little gulf.

00:06:50.100 Yes.

00:06:51.640 That's where the US ships are attacking.

00:06:53.180 That's right, yeah.

00:06:54.360 Basically, American ships and those countries that are aligned with...

00:06:58.520 It's America and Israel, basically. 0.92

00:07:00.060 Yeah, and Israel, which is interesting because they're leaving a lot of European ships alone

00:07:05.220 because most of them aren't signed on to Israel.

00:07:09.820 Exactly.

00:07:10.840 And 40% of European trade stands to be interrupted by the group.

00:07:14.900 But they point this out as if to say, we're doing this for Europe, but also Europe's not

00:07:20.900 having their ships attacked because of our either neutral stance or actively siding with

00:07:27.060 the Palestinians.

00:07:27.980 I'm not saying our, as in this is what I think.

00:07:30.120 I stay out of it.

00:07:31.160 The government's position.

00:07:32.040 Exactly, yeah.

00:07:33.280 And so, the reason the US is intervening, I think, is because it's interrupting their

00:07:38.180 trade and Israeli trade.

00:07:40.180 And of course, they wouldn't want that, would they?

00:07:42.440 And this should really be the elephant in the room of this story, is that they're sort

00:07:49.380 of misrepresenting it, even in their own internal chats, as we're helping Europe, but

00:07:53.780 Europe isn't being bothered by this thing.

00:07:57.040 It's bothering America and Israel. 0.93

00:07:58.580 I mean, surely America's biggest complaint with Europe is how much they're putting into

00:08:04.260 NATO.

00:08:05.140 Yeah.

00:08:05.520 Which is its only separate...

00:08:06.240 It shouldn't really relate to Houthis.

00:08:07.940 Yeah, I think it's a separate thing.

00:08:09.880 And although we, you know, we should be protecting our own trade routes and the Houthi rebels, I'm 0.98

00:08:15.540 certainly no friend of them either.

00:08:16.900 I think it's a weak argument because it's not interrupting our trade and it's very far

00:08:24.840 away.

00:08:25.460 And there isn't the same appetite in Europe for foreign adventurism as there is in the

00:08:31.280 US government.

00:08:32.200 And this is something that US citizens are, of course, going to have to foot the bill

00:08:35.720 for.

00:08:36.040 So I'm not having a go.

00:08:37.800 I'm actually kind of annoyed on your behalf that they're going out and interfering, not

00:08:42.000 learning the lessons of, you know, post-2000s wars.

00:08:47.640 But here we are.

00:08:49.940 I'd also argue that one of the main beneficiaries of this bombing campaign are the Saudis, as 1.00

00:08:55.020 well as Israel.

00:08:55.740 Israel benefits the most out of all of them, I think, because they're Iran-backed. 0.99

00:08:59.820 But of course, the Saudis and Israel are both opposed to Iran.

00:09:03.740 And so by the US doing this, they're basically saying to their allies, look, we got your

00:09:08.540 back.

00:09:09.300 We're putting pressure on the Iranians, basically making sure that resources are wasted and 1.00

00:09:13.520 they don't get more influence on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula.

00:09:16.800 So that's what I think is actually going on here, which isn't necessarily part of this

00:09:22.900 leak.

00:09:23.320 It's just the operation that it concerns.

00:09:25.360 And the second point about this, why it could possibly be linked, other than showing that

00:09:32.720 America is being guided by America First people, although you could argue they're wasting money 0.65

00:09:38.840 here, is that it solidifies Vance as an anti-war candidate, as he voices his objections in

00:09:45.680 the chat to all of it, despite everyone else seemingly in agreement.

00:09:50.300 I've seen the same thread that you're going through right now.

00:09:52.980 Yeah.

00:09:53.260 Now, Vance is obviously the favourite for 2028.

00:09:57.880 And I think that that much is, you know, the reason he's been appointed is that he's like

00:10:03.280 a mini-Trump.

00:10:04.300 And that's what Trump wants, is he wants someone to carry on his legacy after he steps down.

00:10:09.620 Yes.

00:10:09.800 And Trump was very vocally in 2015 an anti-war candidate.

00:10:13.140 Exactly.

00:10:13.860 Very critical of the Democrat and former Republicans' wars.

00:10:16.580 And he sort of remains untainted by the justification for the strikes that the others make.

00:10:25.720 And so he has this clean reputation that, you know, okay, hey, I've got this unblemished

00:10:30.700 record of not being in favour of any foreign intervention.

00:10:34.420 Which I think is a plausible argument, because it's the best of both worlds for Trump.

00:10:41.700 He still gets to do what he wants, without necessarily tainting his successor.

00:10:46.260 Which, of course, if we look at Kamala Harris, she had to carry the burden of look at what 1.00

00:10:50.880 Biden did whilst he was president.

00:10:53.960 And you were part of that.

00:10:56.020 And so there's a very real concern there.

00:10:58.600 But I think that it could also just be an accident.

00:11:02.640 And it's worth mentioning as well, to call them war plans is very strong.

00:11:06.300 That's how it's presented in this title here, in the headline.

00:11:10.240 But as with many headlines in mainstream outlets, it's a bit misleading.

00:11:14.200 Because as many of the people involved in this chat have said, this wasn't, you know,

00:11:20.260 this wasn't necessarily discussing classified information.

00:11:22.740 It was just us coordinating with each other about various things.

00:11:27.600 But none of the top secret stuff was really in that chat, despite what he's claiming.

00:11:31.860 Which I can believe, actually, because you wouldn't, there are lots and lots of different

00:11:37.060 protocols in place to make sure that this sort of information doesn't leak.

00:11:41.080 And you're not supposed to talk on Signal about these sorts of things.

00:11:43.820 And so my guess is that they were sort of talking about it in a more informal way.

00:11:49.180 I mean, I've seen the leak of Mike Waltz with his fist American flag fire emojis.

00:11:55.240 So yeah, that seems pretty informal to me.

00:11:57.820 It does.

00:11:58.500 And I think that...

00:11:59.260 I wouldn't like to know that there's top secret classified documents going around communicated

00:12:03.140 by emojis in the American administration.

00:12:05.940 Yeah.

00:12:06.140 My read of the situation is that it was a genuine chat, and he was probably added accidentally,

00:12:13.500 but I don't know for certain, but it's just my guess.

00:12:17.200 And that it was just more informal, and it's been exaggerated to drum up a good and interesting

00:12:23.560 article for The Atlantic, which I think is the most likely, but it's not impossible that

00:12:28.620 it could be the other things I've discussed, which is why I've brought them up in the first

00:12:31.820 place.

00:12:32.060 It's difficult to know.

00:12:33.060 Again, it does seem to be a major screw-up to even an informal chat with these people,

00:12:40.640 because it also had people like Stephen Miller and others in it, to add a journalist, and

00:12:45.740 not just any journalist, a head editor of a hostile publication to your own administration,

00:12:52.020 and then not notice that that's what you've done. 1.00

00:12:55.300 That seems implausibly stupid. 1.00

00:12:57.940 It would be interesting to see whether there's any sort of discipline handed down from the 1.00

00:13:03.820 top in the executive, because I think they are treating this like a legitimate mistake.

00:13:08.540 That's the sort of word.

00:13:09.680 Although there have been sort of attempts to deflect it and say it's not genuine, to try

00:13:13.440 and brush it off.

00:13:14.300 But it does seem to be genuine, at the very least.

00:13:17.240 But it is worth mentioning as well that a lot of the bombing campaign had already been

00:13:20.140 planned before the guy was even added to the group in the first place.

00:13:23.700 So all of the Marshall stuff was probably not dealt with in Signal Chats, as far as we're

00:13:29.820 aware.

00:13:29.860 I would hope so.

00:13:30.680 I would hope so as well.

00:13:33.040 But he basically just saw behind the scenes about what they fought, and a lot of it is

00:13:38.300 stuff that if you know the people involved in the administration, you probably would have

00:13:43.280 guessed that they would have fought these things anyway.

00:13:45.600 But it's just solid confirmation.

00:13:47.020 Some people have been saying things like this, why didn't you just delete the messages or

00:13:52.160 let them know you were incorrectly added to the chat?

00:13:55.180 Sounds like you're more interested in publishing a salacious story than doing the right thing.

00:13:59.020 I think that this criticism is fair, but I think it misses the interesting parts of this

00:14:03.600 story in the first place.

00:14:05.320 I'm sorry.

00:14:06.960 No journalist, right or left, if you realise that's what you've been added into, is going

00:14:12.500 to do that.

00:14:13.140 Because I think in the article he explains this, to his credit, he says, I thought at

00:14:18.580 first it was some sort of trap trying to get me to potentially do something silly.

00:14:25.880 I forgot what he called it, the specific term, but basically like a trap for journalists to 0.97

00:14:30.360 make them say something stupid, and then you publish it and show the world, like, look at 1.00

00:14:35.160 how stupid they are. 1.00

00:14:37.340 That's why he stayed in it. 1.00

00:14:38.760 He was sort of observing it to see what the nature of the thing was, which, to be fair,

00:14:42.940 if I were added to a chat like that, I'd probably do the same.

00:14:46.520 You just added into a random group chat out of nowhere with a bunch of people who were

00:14:50.740 some of the most powerful people in the world.

00:14:53.000 Oh, sorry, my mistake.

00:14:54.260 I'm going to go now.

00:14:56.500 Yeah.

00:14:56.980 You're not going to hang around and see what they're talking about.

00:15:00.400 So maybe that's dishonest of me, but if you don't think that you'd do that, I think

00:15:04.940 you're being dishonest with yourself. 0.80

00:15:06.220 Lots of people point out that he has played a key role in peddling for the American war 0.61

00:15:13.980 machine, the Iraq WMDs, Ukraine, Russiagate, Ansi Marni, I'm not sure what that one's referring

00:15:21.860 to.

00:15:22.240 I probably should know, and loads of other things as well.

00:15:26.560 Here's another one, another article that he's wrote. 1.00

00:15:28.940 Trump, Americans who died in war are losers and suckers. 1.00

00:15:32.820 So he's just trying to smear Trump's name, isn't he? 1.00

00:15:35.820 It's pretty obvious.

00:15:38.000 And he's also the Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda are working together. 0.94

00:15:43.600 Again, they're mentioning the Russia collusion. 1.00

00:15:46.220 And the Trump said veterans are suckers and losers. 0.99

00:15:49.100 And I think that last one is very difficult to sell, but it's all part of the throwing 0.99

00:15:54.180 mud at a wall and seeing what sticks.

00:15:55.600 So yes, obviously, lots of people are cynical of this guy at taking his word because look

00:16:02.580 at his track record.

00:16:04.020 It's about as bumpy as it could possibly be, right?

00:16:07.320 And let's have a look at some of the screenshots from this.

00:16:09.980 This is the stuff that he did share because some of it he didn't.

00:16:13.220 Here's JD Vance tagging Pete Hegsef.

00:16:15.740 If you think we should do it, let's go.

00:16:18.160 I just hate bailing Europe out again.

00:16:21.040 Let's just make sure our messaging is tight here.

00:16:23.420 And if there are things we can do up front to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities, we

00:16:27.440 should do it.

00:16:29.920 Sounds fairly reasonable.

00:16:31.320 And then Hegsef says to Vance, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. 0.99

00:16:40.420 It's pathetic. 0.96

00:16:41.480 But Mike is correct. 0.98

00:16:42.700 I think I'm not sure which Mike that is.

00:16:45.700 We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this.

00:16:49.840 Nobody else is even close.

00:16:51.900 Sorry.

00:16:52.280 Question is timing.

00:16:54.300 I feel like now is a good time as any.

00:16:57.000 Given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes, I think we should go.

00:17:00.700 But POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.

00:17:04.860 So this isn't exactly top secret, but there is a certain degree of coordination going on

00:17:10.260 with their sort of more their messaging.

00:17:13.100 And then when it sort of happened, it was just them saying, good job.

00:17:19.040 And there's John Ratcliffe there.

00:17:21.400 I think MAR is Marco Rubio.

00:17:24.840 But there's not a lot there when you actually see the screenshot proof that

00:17:30.200 things were going around.

00:17:31.940 And then we have the article itself here.

00:17:35.540 It's a very long article.

00:17:38.000 They always are in the Atlantic.

00:17:39.900 And it goes on and on and on.

00:17:42.080 And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:17:45.500 That's all stuff we touched on.

00:17:48.200 Let's start here.

00:17:49.240 This is where Pete's head, Seth, and I come in.

00:17:52.480 On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as

00:17:58.200 Michael Waltz.

00:17:59.600 And it goes on to explain what Signal is.

00:18:01.360 You know what Signal is.

00:18:02.280 It's a messaging app.

00:18:03.460 I assumed that Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump's national security

00:18:07.660 advisor.

00:18:08.460 I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz.

00:18:12.620 I have met him in the past, and though I didn't find it particularly strange that he might

00:18:16.340 be reaching out to me, I did think it was somewhat unusual given the Trump administration's

00:18:20.640 contentious relationship with journalists and Trump's periodic fixation on me specifically.

00:18:26.020 I love the way he phrases that like he's completely innocent of anything.

00:18:29.440 Why would he pay attention to little old me?

00:18:31.440 I know.

00:18:32.500 It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow

00:18:36.620 entrap me.

00:18:37.380 It's not all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share

00:18:41.400 information that could be used against them.

00:18:43.240 It's entrap the word that you'd been looking for.

00:18:44.900 I think so.

00:18:46.580 I then accepted the connection request, hoping that it was the actual national security advisor

00:18:50.760 and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine or Iran or some other important matter.

00:18:54.720 Two days later, Thursday, at 4.28pm, I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal

00:18:59.740 chat group.

00:19:00.780 It was called the Huthy PC small group.

00:19:03.000 And yeah, it goes on and on and he just lists what they were talking about.

00:19:08.440 A lot of it is quite uninteresting, unsurprising.

00:19:12.300 There's a lot of just coordinating with one another about small things and there's not

00:19:19.180 really that much to it, to be honest.

00:19:22.000 But if you want to read the article, go ahead.

00:19:23.960 I'm not going to go through it all because there's just too much and it's a lot of boring

00:19:30.460 slog detail.

00:19:32.140 But the gist of it is that they were probably discussing things that should have been kept

00:19:36.500 private.

00:19:37.040 And I think that that's a fair characterization.

00:19:39.180 However, it's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be from the headline, as is always

00:19:44.840 the case.

00:19:45.340 And here is the press secretary for the White House saying this, Jeffrey Goldberg is well

00:19:54.220 known for a sensationalist spin.

00:19:55.860 Here are the facts about the latest story.

00:19:57.320 No war plans were discussed.

00:19:58.780 No classified material was sent to the Fred.

00:20:00.840 The White House counsel's office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms

00:20:05.120 for President Trump's top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.

00:20:10.720 And they're looking into how he is inadvertently added.

00:20:12.920 So, complete confirmation here, but they're saying similar things to me, really, that

00:20:17.900 it's not as big a deal as it's being made out to be, but at the same time it's still

00:20:22.220 a bit of a mistake.

00:20:23.140 It's still a bad look, which I can believe. 1.00

00:20:25.560 It makes your administration look stupid. 1.00

00:20:27.700 It does. 1.00

00:20:28.460 And there are a couple of memes that I'm going to end on because they're fun.

00:20:35.980 I do enjoy this.

00:20:38.620 That's quite funny.

00:20:39.800 Of course, it has to be Big Fat Baby Vance as well.

00:20:46.560 I'm sorry, JD Vance.

00:20:47.760 You've not really, you know, put that many feet wrong so far, but the edits of your face

00:20:52.120 are funny.

00:20:52.700 I know you're watching, of course.

00:20:54.320 And then another one here.

00:20:55.800 This was actually replied to the post of the article.

00:20:58.720 And finally, the reaction in Europe hasn't necessarily been about the leaks themselves.

00:21:16.160 It's been about how the top team rips into America's European allies, saying how they 0.98

00:21:21.680 loathe having to bail out the pathetic freeloaders. 0.89

00:21:24.500 So, obviously, it's being presented as sensationlessly as possible, as is the media's way. 0.91

00:21:29.900 And also, I think that the European media, in particular, is pushing massively for a rift

00:21:36.720 with the United States.

00:21:37.980 And there's a massive amount of intersecting agenda here for this to happen.

00:21:44.200 And so, this has been capitalized on by lots of those forces.

00:21:47.740 But, yeah, that's my sort of two cents on it.

00:21:50.920 But, this leaking basically serves to strain the relationship between the US and Europe

00:21:55.760 more generally, and even further than it was already.

00:21:59.260 It might spur on more European independence, which I wasn't personally offended by what

00:22:03.920 they were saying.

00:22:04.900 It's sort of like, Europe's not standing up for itself, and they need to be more independent.

00:22:10.260 Well, it was strange that they were having that discussion in reference to the Houthis,

00:22:13.840 which, as we've discussed, isn't really as much of our problem.

00:22:17.740 Yeah, and I think in other domains, it's a lot more legitimate, like NATO.

00:22:20.920 Although, I don't think NATO should exist.

00:22:24.040 If it is to exist, it's fair enough that America could object to being disproportionately 0.66

00:22:30.640 contributing to that, I suppose.

00:22:33.840 And, yeah, it strikes me as sort of a non-story to a certain extent, but it's important enough

00:22:41.960 to actually talk about, because I think there's been a lot of smoke and mirrors about the whole

00:22:46.360 thing.

00:22:46.680 And just breaking it down and looking at it slightly rationally is a good way of seeing

00:22:51.960 that it wasn't a big deal, it's slightly interesting, but yeah, I think the Trump regime is going

00:22:57.680 to carry on.

00:22:58.340 It's not a deal-breaker for them.

00:23:00.980 And, yes.

00:23:02.460 Also, if you didn't know America was bombing Yemen, now you do. 0.69

00:23:08.440 There you go.

00:23:09.020 America's always bombing somewhere.

00:23:10.680 It's got to be done, according to them.

00:23:13.740 Engaged few.

00:23:14.600 This leak, while undoubtedly embarrassing, clearly wasn't a serious security breach.

00:23:18.460 We know this because if it had been, we would have disappeared into Gitmo before ever writing

00:23:23.400 this article.

00:23:24.360 He would have disappeared, sorry.

00:23:25.660 That's true, yes.

00:23:26.880 We pretty much agree on that one.

00:23:28.940 And also, he covers those sorts of things and so understands what he can and can't publish,

00:23:34.780 which probably helps.

00:23:36.760 And, again, if this had happened during a President Hillary term, he would have committed suicide

00:23:42.400 by shooting himself twice in a park that most lifelong DC residents have never heard of.

00:23:48.540 Yeah, did you see, actually, that Hillary Clinton commented on this when the article came up

00:23:55.960 on Twitter and she put, are you kidding me?

00:23:58.680 And it's like, you, Hillary? 0.96

00:24:01.840 Emails, Hillary?

00:24:03.260 Emails on a private server or anything?

00:24:05.600 No, I guess nothing, you know.

00:24:07.360 She never did nothing wrong.

00:24:09.540 Inxio says, Trump isn't a Muppet.

00:24:13.380 This would have been done on purpose.

00:24:15.160 He's been playing everyone this entire time.

00:24:17.800 And, well, hopefully that's the case.

00:24:22.080 Again, personally, outside of some very, very potential benefits that they could get

00:24:32.620 that you were talking about nearer the beginning of the segment, what do you get?

00:24:36.280 Well, it might serve their agenda to cut further ties with Europe, seeing as they seem to want

00:24:41.460 to pull out of Europe as soon, well, begin to pull out of Europe as soon as the Ukraine 0.97

00:24:46.500 war is over.

00:24:47.940 To be honest, that's not something I'm completely against.

00:24:50.600 I do think that Europe needs to be able to stand on its own.

00:24:53.420 Yeah, I agree with what they were saying, in a way.

00:24:55.620 And I don't think that American influence has been particularly positive for Europe since

00:24:59.960 the end of the Second World War, outside of working together in the Cold War, of course.

00:25:04.180 So there's that, the Vance anti-war stance.

00:25:09.460 That seems like a bit of a stretch to me, because that relies on a lot of interpretation

00:25:14.100 from the people who are actually reading the article and looking at the messages.

00:25:18.080 It's a very esoteric way to go about it, if that's what they were doing.

00:25:20.840 And in most of the messages that have been, the screenshots that have been shared about,

00:25:25.620 doesn't even really seem to convey that as much as is in the article itself.

00:25:29.760 So most people are only going to come into contact with stuff that doesn't really push

00:25:33.340 that.

00:25:33.740 So, I mean, I'd be interested if this is some kind of 4 or 5D chess move. 0.99

00:25:40.840 And it does seem very, very stupid. 1.00

00:25:42.680 But again, ultimately, it just makes them look stupid and incompetent. 1.00

00:25:46.000 It does, yeah. 1.00

00:25:47.080 And I think that it probably is genuine.

00:25:49.820 But I can understand why people would think otherwise.

00:25:52.780 Anyway, so moving on to something a bit lighter.

00:25:56.000 The most unexpected thing ever happened, which is that media that hated its audience and had

00:26:02.700 actors and producers and directors who actively said that they hate you, hasn't done very well.

00:26:10.120 And also, Assassin's Creed Shadows is getting somewhat of a mixed response.

00:26:14.420 So I'll go over those two things, which is Snow White has flopped, Assassin's Creed Shadows

00:26:19.100 is...

00:26:20.420 has not yet caused a second Pacific War.

00:26:24.620 It's on the right track.

00:26:25.900 But we'll see how it goes.

00:26:27.380 But first, you missed out.

00:26:29.520 If you've not bought Islander 3 yet, too bad.

00:26:32.300 There is no yet.

00:26:33.360 You don't get it.

00:26:34.400 You're done.

00:26:35.340 It's over.

00:26:36.660 You lost.

00:26:37.640 It's gone.

00:26:38.660 It's gone forever.

00:26:40.100 All right?

00:26:40.840 No reprints.

00:26:41.940 No reissues.

00:26:43.060 It's done.

00:26:43.680 You missed out. 1.00

00:26:45.140 You loser. 1.00

00:26:46.320 But you can still buy a shirt. 1.00

00:26:50.880 And isn't that a nice consolation prize?

00:26:53.520 You know, it's not something that anybody's going to be congratulating you for.

00:26:57.240 It's not like you'll actually have Islander 3 or anything.

00:26:59.700 But you will have a nice t-shirt so that you can kind of cozy up and pretend like you're

00:27:05.180 one of the cool, influential people that did buy Islander 3.

00:27:09.180 And if you did get Islander 3, you know what?

00:27:12.000 A shirt would go perfect with it, wouldn't it?

00:27:13.820 So buy them.

00:27:14.800 Buy them now, freeloaders. 1.00

00:27:16.900 Pathetic. 1.00

00:27:17.840 Anyway. 0.99

00:27:19.700 So Snow White's done terribly.

00:27:23.820 Big surprise, right?

00:27:24.920 Was anybody looking forward to Snow White and the seven unidentified human beings?

00:27:31.700 I think they did eventually make them dwarves again, but I still remember Peter Dinklage 0.92

00:27:36.540 trying to pull up the stepladder behind him when he was very angry and salty about it.

00:27:41.720 So they tried to replace the dwarves with a diverse and representative cast of other people.

00:27:47.820 You know what they say.

00:27:48.740 Once you have a meteoric rise to fame and stardom, you've got to remind yourself of the

00:27:53.720 little people.

00:27:55.520 Ba-dum-tsch. 1.00

00:27:56.720 There you go.

00:27:57.480 That's one for the clips out there.

00:27:59.600 So, yeah, unsurprisingly, it had a ridiculously large budget.

00:28:04.920 $250 million, which just seems to be the go-to budget for overpriced films these days.

00:28:12.640 It's where they go, right, we want to make something where we have to make at least half

00:28:18.000 a billion dollars to make our money back.

00:28:20.580 It's like its own marketing ploy is how much money they've spent on it, which is...

00:28:24.740 I wonder how many backhand deals are going on there and if anybody's shifting money around.

00:28:29.140 That's just...

00:28:29.480 The only thing being done with hands in Hollywood offices, I'm sure.

00:28:32.720 For God's sake.

00:28:34.600 Backhand-y deals, yeah.

00:28:36.180 Anyway, so, yeah, it's $250 million budget.

00:28:39.740 Again, as always, double it for marketing.

00:28:43.140 That's the rule of thumb.

00:28:44.440 So, let's say it needs to cross $500 million in pure revenue to even break even, okay?

00:28:52.660 It made globally $87 million over its first weekend.

00:28:59.540 Well, they went wrong at the first hurdle.

00:29:01.960 It's called Snow White because of the complexion of the protagonist and they've gone for...

00:29:08.140 Of course, metaphorically, her purity is a character.

00:29:10.640 She can get the birds and bees to sing with her at all.

00:29:12.740 They've sort of gone for Snow Latina, I believe. 0.94

00:29:16.080 Yeah, not only that, but this woman, Rachel Zegler, Ziegler, Werner Ziegler, was very, very

00:29:25.540 annoying in the lead-up to it.

00:29:30.140 She didn't make a... 1.00

00:29:31.060 She didn't come across great in all of the interviews where she was saying things like

00:29:34.960 Prince Charming basically stalked Snow White in the 1937 original.

00:29:40.660 This isn't a film where she's just worried about what kind of man's going to come and marry her. 0.72

00:29:45.400 She's worried about her future.

00:29:46.880 Basically, I'm going to make Snow White a girl boss because that's all Snow White was ever about, right? 1.00

00:29:52.060 There is the weird thing of she's asleep in the woods and he comes up and kisses her when

00:29:56.620 she's unconscious.

00:29:57.740 That's a little bit weird.

00:29:59.060 It's a fairy tale.

00:30:00.000 It works on romantic logic, not like your Saturday night's logic, all right?

00:30:05.860 What?

00:30:06.280 I'm objecting to it.

00:30:08.660 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:09.400 Great cover, mate.

00:30:10.560 But there's also the fact of like...

00:30:15.180 Disney's been doing this for a while now.

00:30:17.160 They've been doing the big remakes since at least Alice in Wonderland when Tim Burton

00:30:21.960 did it, which was a big hit for some reason.

00:30:24.640 I really didn't like that film.

00:30:26.520 But since then, they've been ramping it up and they're starting to really get to the

00:30:29.820 bottom of the barrel.

00:30:30.660 They did Dumbo because everybody was really eager for...

00:30:33.920 Wasn't it Guy...

00:30:34.840 Did Guy Ritchie do Dumbo or Aladdin?

00:30:37.820 I don't know.

00:30:38.660 I'm a grown man.

00:30:39.500 It doesn't matter.

00:30:40.340 It doesn't matter.

00:30:41.520 But now they get to Snow White, which is a classic.

00:30:43.920 One of the original big animated films that Disney put out.

00:30:50.480 People weren't really looking for a remake of it, were they?

00:30:54.980 No.

00:30:55.240 It's kind of a charm...

00:30:56.060 In fact, no one wants remakes anymore.

00:30:57.960 And I think the audience have been...

00:31:00.000 As in the film audience have been pretty clear that, yeah, remakes are not doing good

00:31:04.040 anymore.

00:31:04.760 Especially when they all end up having the same tone, the same look.

00:31:07.800 For films that are so expensive, they all...

00:31:10.180 In all the screenshots and clips that I see from them, they all look really good.

00:31:13.920 Really cheap as well.

00:31:15.240 Do you remember Will Smith as the genie in Aladdin?

00:31:18.140 That looked absolutely terrible.

00:31:20.940 But they did it anyway.

00:31:22.860 They inflate the budget.

00:31:24.020 And then they act shocked when, after a terrible marketing campaign that everybody said,

00:31:28.900 This looks terrible.

00:31:29.960 It doesn't make the money back.

00:31:32.480 So in the US, it had $43 million over the first weekend.

00:31:37.900 And they were actually estimating $50 million.

00:31:41.280 So it didn't even reach that.

00:31:43.100 One of the most scathing reviews came from The Guardian, of all places.

00:31:48.060 A film made by people with cartoon dollar signs for eyes, and not even the tiniest glimmer

00:31:53.000 of art in their souls.

00:31:55.220 I agree with The Guardian.

00:31:56.420 I know.

00:31:57.000 That was...

00:31:57.300 Pop that out of context.

00:31:58.440 That was a pretty...

00:31:59.400 That's a pretty good insult to them then.

00:32:01.500 And another critic said it was a misguided and hollow attempt at modernizing the classic

00:32:05.720 tale, while a third said the reimagined take was missing charm and depth.

00:32:10.160 That's just the...

00:32:11.600 Copy and paste those reviews for every Disney remake.

00:32:16.020 Remember when they did...

00:32:16.880 Most films.

00:32:17.380 The Lion King, which was a really charming 90s animated film.

00:32:21.440 And then they decided to use CGI.

00:32:23.640 Remember, live action.

00:32:25.180 CGI the entire thing.

00:32:26.520 So they just look like normal lions.

00:32:29.020 So they can't emote.

00:32:30.540 So it's just...

00:32:31.140 You're just looking at cats pulling blank faces.

00:32:34.160 I tell you what I really dislike as well, that anything that tries to give human speech

00:32:38.760 to animals, I find it annoying.

00:32:41.660 I don't know what it is about it, but there's something about it.

00:32:43.680 Even in like the original animated, 2D animated versions as well.

00:32:46.840 No, because it's animated.

00:32:48.120 But if it's like a real life lion and they've got its mouth moving and it's talking like

00:32:52.160 a human, it's a bit tacky. 0.97

00:32:54.980 Yeah, it looks rubbish. 0.98

00:32:55.960 I don't know why I'm whispering. 0.86

00:32:56.900 They're not in the room.

00:32:57.780 It looks...

00:32:58.120 Disney's waiting...

00:32:59.600 My...

00:32:59.760 What's his name?

00:33:01.420 Eyes...

00:33:02.140 I...

00:33:02.500 Which...

00:33:02.920 Who's the guy in charge right now?

00:33:04.060 Bob Iger.

00:33:04.600 Bob Iger.

00:33:05.240 That's the name.

00:33:05.860 The guy who forced Twin Peaks to reveal the murderer early.

00:33:08.820 Right, he's got a kill squad outside the studio right now.

00:33:11.960 No, no, he's got his knuckle dusters on.

00:33:13.660 Samson's got him waiting in the hallway just for you once we're done with this.

00:33:17.760 So what's it looking like in Rotten Tomatoes?

00:33:20.320 Well, surprisingly, here, I'm going to assume that the critics are actually more on the money

00:33:26.040 than the audience because the critics have given it 42% Rotten Tomatoes.

00:33:31.720 The audience have said 74%.

00:33:34.360 I don't know if this is because there are a load of Disney shills on Rotten Tomatoes.

00:33:38.820 Just giving it positive reviews to try and bump up the score.

00:33:41.400 The number of people who will suckle at the teat of Disney slop is worrying.

00:33:46.640 Like if...

00:33:46.980 It is.

00:33:47.480 Grown men, young Gen X and millennials.

00:33:51.300 I remember someone said to me once that an adult woman being into Disney films is up

00:33:56.560 there with being a feminist for making a woman be undateable. 1.00

00:34:00.740 Which is so true.

00:34:01.980 If they're into the modern ones, then yes.

00:34:03.860 Even more so.

00:34:05.040 Absolutely.

00:34:05.880 But what does IMDb have to say?

00:34:08.160 1.7 out of 10.

00:34:11.220 That is one of the lowest scores I've ever seen on that website.

00:34:15.220 I wonder what the Room got on IMDb.

00:34:17.920 I reckon it will be higher.

00:34:19.900 It probably will be.

00:34:20.980 I'm going to look it up.

00:34:21.720 Yeah.

00:34:21.860 The Room has actual rewatch value and actual funny parts to it.

00:34:27.500 So let's take a...

00:34:28.220 I just want to take a look at some of the user reviews.

00:34:30.340 3.6.

00:34:31.180 So the Room has almost double the rating.

00:34:33.620 Almost double.

00:34:34.260 It has over double the rating, in fact.

00:34:37.260 So the Room, by the classic genius auteur, Tommy Wiseau...

00:34:42.180 Is that how it's pronounced?

00:34:44.040 Close enough.

00:34:44.980 It's about twice as good as Snow White.

00:34:47.340 I would actually argue it's probably about a thousand times better than Snow White.

00:34:51.500 And also, you can find it free on YouTube.

00:34:54.600 But also, so let's take a look at some of the reviews.

00:34:58.820 Giving shoutouts to Tommy Wiseau films now.

00:35:02.440 Tommy Wiseau is great, man.

00:35:03.800 You can't hate the guy.

00:35:04.640 Oh no, of course.

00:35:05.160 You can't hate the guy.

00:35:06.080 Come on.

00:35:06.420 And he's a talented fellow.

00:35:08.120 So, 1 out of 10, Poisoned Apples All Round.

00:35:11.620 1 out of 10, Rooting for the Apple.

00:35:14.880 1 out of 10, Hollow Uninspired Reimagining.

00:35:18.000 2 out of 10.

00:35:19.580 Being a bit generous there, aren't you, mate?

00:35:21.540 Soulless, Unnecessary Remake.

00:35:23.460 1 out of 10, Sleepy Dopey and Now I'm Grumpy.

00:35:26.620 2 out of 10.

00:35:27.280 And it just goes on.

00:35:28.380 It's very creative titles, actually.

00:35:29.920 Yeah, you've got to appreciate the IMDB user.

00:35:32.400 More creative than the film.

00:35:33.860 They are, actually.

00:35:34.560 A very mirrored movie.

00:35:35.900 Oh, that one was trying to be a bit too clever.

00:35:38.180 Be a bit too clever.

00:35:39.600 As well as the terrible reviews, terrible performance,

00:35:42.360 you can get an idea for just how terribly it's doing in the cinema

00:35:45.240 by the fact that people have been sharing all over on social media.

00:35:48.480 Here's the latest screening of Snow White.

00:35:51.820 Empty Seats.

00:35:53.080 So sleepy.

00:35:53.720 Here is it again.

00:35:56.880 There's the film on the screen.

00:35:58.540 Empty Seats.

00:36:00.980 Empty Seats.

00:36:02.540 Almost all of the seats for Snow White were empty.

00:36:04.760 There's every single one of these pictures.

00:36:08.180 Oh yeah, here's one.

00:36:09.020 This guy, opening Friday night for Disney's Snow White in IMAX.

00:36:12.980 One person bought tickets.

00:36:16.420 There he is.

00:36:17.700 Ever wanted an IMAX cinema to yourself?

00:36:20.420 Yeah, I've never thought it would be possible.

00:36:23.100 But apparently, you can if you go to see Snow White.

00:36:26.540 That's the only drawback.

00:36:27.900 Yeah, is that Snow White will be playing in the background.

00:36:30.000 The Lord of the Rings in a cinema like that, that would be another thing.

00:36:32.880 That would be nice.

00:36:33.960 That'll be a rich man kind of thing.

00:36:36.420 When we're rich, then you can hire out an entire IMAX for yourself and just sit there.

00:36:40.360 Dead before I'm rich, I think.

00:36:41.680 Yeah.

00:36:42.340 But they say the crisis, blah, blah, blah.

00:36:44.720 Poor opening weekend.

00:36:46.260 Empty cinemas.

00:36:47.500 Meanwhile, in mainland China, which we know Disney likes to try and rely on for profits,

00:36:51.700 the film made less than $1 million in its first three days.

00:36:58.640 Whomp, whomp.

00:36:59.900 The senior vice president at the box office company has said,

00:37:02.940 while it's been a disappointing opening weekend,

00:37:05.880 we can't write off the film's performance until we see how it holds up in the coming weeks.

00:37:10.460 Well, given that the film box office drop-off from opening to second weekend

00:37:14.200 tends to be about 50% and then exponentially after that.

00:37:19.700 That's not going to be great.

00:37:22.020 It's over, yeah.

00:37:22.780 It's completely over.

00:37:24.100 And that was massive, massive cope.

00:37:27.520 And it's just part of this trend.

00:37:29.980 As I mentioned at the beginning of this,

00:37:32.360 one thing that this article brings up is just that the budgets for these things are ballooning

00:37:38.580 completely out of control.

00:37:40.880 So obviously, they made a lot of money from some of the early ones.

00:37:44.140 Like Alice in Wonderland made $1 billion.

00:37:47.680 So that, especially given the fact that it probably would have been a smaller budget than

00:37:52.200 this had, would have been a big success for them.

00:37:55.600 They could have possibly, you know, doubled or more than doubled their money.

00:37:58.640 But then you get films like Pinocchio and Dumbo,

00:38:02.580 and they don't really make the money back unless they have a really small budget.

00:38:07.660 Even the Little Mermaid remake opened to a $118 million weekend domestically,

00:38:15.200 so that's just in the US, over the four-day Memorial Day weekend in 2023.

00:38:19.640 It finished with $569 million globally,

00:38:23.000 but was not considered a major success because of its $250 million budget.

00:38:28.020 Again, double it, and you've made, what, $69 million back.

00:38:31.560 Which is, sounds big for us, but for a major motion picture studio like Disney,

00:38:37.860 it's not enough.

00:38:38.900 My thoughts about this is that even if they are sort of a roundabout making their money back,

00:38:46.000 they can stick it on their streaming service and sort of pad out the shows available on there

00:38:52.780 and justify the rolling subscriptions to a whole ton of people.

00:38:56.560 So it can just be another bit of slop that people scroll past

00:38:59.720 while they're taking two hours to decide what they're going to watch on streaming that evening.

00:39:04.100 That will probably help make up a decent amount of money for them, at the very least.

00:39:09.060 It makes you wonder why they even bother releasing them in the cinema in the first place.

00:39:12.560 But then again, if you're not going to do that,

00:39:15.040 why bother even throwing $250 million into it?

00:39:18.320 Well, I think the whole company should dissolve, personally.

00:39:21.660 They've had their time, it's over.

00:39:24.100 Absolutely, but I tell you what is a big success,

00:39:26.560 what's a huge success?

00:39:27.740 According to the company themselves,

00:39:30.380 Assassin's Creed had 2 million players,

00:39:34.420 surpassed the launches of Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey.

00:39:38.960 Thank you for joining the journey in feudal Japan.

00:39:41.460 Now, we actually covered the launch of it,

00:39:43.780 or at least on launch,

00:39:45.140 you went through the entire background of all of the controversies leading up to the release of it,

00:39:51.040 with the ultimate message,

00:39:52.640 don't buy it.

00:39:53.580 Alright, that was...

00:39:55.020 So if you're looking for all the context of Assassin's Creed Shadows,

00:39:58.480 we've already covered it in great detail.

00:40:00.280 Go to the video from last Thursday for the proper context of it.

00:40:04.280 I'm going to cover how it's been doing since then.

00:40:07.660 Since it came out.

00:40:08.740 Well, first of all,

00:40:10.580 Grums has been doing a lot of posting about it.

00:40:14.100 So, Assassin's Creed Shadows did about 27.5% worse than Dragon Age Veil Guard,

00:40:20.820 the latest terrible Dragon Age game,

00:40:23.740 on Steam,

00:40:24.940 which already was not amazing for Dragon Age.

00:40:27.900 So they got 89,418.

00:40:30.260 That was the all-time peak.

00:40:31.700 Yeah, peak players concurrently, isn't it?

00:40:33.960 Yeah, and the all-time peak for Assassin's Creed Shadows over its opening weekend

00:40:38.020 was 64,825 players.

00:40:45.440 So that's not great.

00:40:46.960 And as a result of this,

00:40:48.720 the Assassin's Creed Twitter page

00:40:50.780 decided to do exactly what you do

00:40:53.020 if you're having a good day

00:40:55.480 and your game is doing great

00:40:57.360 and everything is nice and successful, right?

00:40:59.300 Which is you start to get into fights with Elon Musk

00:41:02.540 and Grums himself.

00:41:04.040 So this is in response to

00:41:05.040 Hassan doing a paid ad for Assassin's Creed Shadows

00:41:09.140 to come watch him play it on Twitch, I would assume.

00:41:13.220 Does Hassan even play video games on Twitch?

00:41:15.300 Or does he just sit there?

00:41:16.180 I don't know.

00:41:16.880 Does he even sit there on Twitch?

00:41:17.820 Or is it just an empty chair still?

00:41:19.540 That's what I need to know.

00:41:20.460 Those nuggies aren't going to eat themselves. 1.00

00:41:22.520 Elon Musk responds, 0.99

00:41:23.740 Hassan is a fraud. 0.98

00:41:24.740 He's a sellout, actually. 0.97

00:41:26.600 And then Assassin's Creed official Twitter account

00:41:29.160 decides to be,

00:41:30.260 you know when those brands decide

00:41:31.880 that they're going to be nice and sassy on Twitter?

00:41:34.120 They get nice and sassy at Elon Musk.

00:41:37.840 And then when Grums responds to them,

00:41:40.900 they get sassy again.

00:41:41.860 And that's how you know that

00:41:42.860 we're not desperate.

00:41:44.040 We're not butthurt.

00:41:45.180 I'm not owned, alright?

00:41:47.440 Okay, brand account.

00:41:49.060 I'm not owned.

00:41:50.720 We're doing great.

00:41:51.780 But the thing is,

00:41:53.000 what's Metacritic looking like?

00:41:57.040 Okay, critics loved it.

00:41:59.100 The Irish Traveller,

00:42:00.800 or whatever it was called.

00:42:02.860 Irish Independent.

00:42:06.100 Gypsy reviewing. 0.84

00:42:08.460 They absolutely love it.

00:42:09.960 But the Irish Independent gave it

00:42:14.080 a hundred out of a hundred.

00:42:15.820 Perfect game.

00:42:17.260 We got this,

00:42:18.340 whoever these,

00:42:19.040 we got this covered,

00:42:20.300 gave it a hundred out of a hundred.

00:42:22.180 Game Informer,

00:42:23.400 85 out of a hundred.

00:42:25.620 Okay?

00:42:26.280 Amazing game.

00:42:26.960 Now, the best I've got in terms of

00:42:28.560 actual people giving me

00:42:30.020 experience of their time

00:42:31.120 is that Samson,

00:42:33.160 for some reason,

00:42:34.480 has decided to give his money

00:42:35.880 to Ubisoft.

00:42:36.820 I have already whipped him for this,

00:42:38.840 don't worry.

00:42:39.760 And has spent 20 hours playing it.

00:42:42.180 And so far,

00:42:42.880 the best that he's given me is,

00:42:44.800 it looks nice.

00:42:46.820 It looks nice.

00:42:47.480 The art direction's nice.

00:42:48.520 Character models aren't very good.

00:42:49.700 But it looks nice

00:42:50.300 and the art direction's good.

00:42:51.600 And it plays like Assassin's Creed,

00:42:54.800 so that's kind of just like fine.

00:42:56.900 He said he would give it

00:42:58.000 a nice five or six out of ten.

00:43:01.380 And he's not got to the part

00:43:03.220 where you play Yasuke yet.

00:43:04.940 But let's take a look

00:43:05.780 at the user reviews

00:43:06.780 if we want a better consensus.

00:43:08.640 And it is,

00:43:10.060 for a 5.9 mixed or average user score,

00:43:12.660 as you would expect,

00:43:14.120 straight down the middle.

00:43:15.820 Zeros, ones, and twos,

00:43:17.180 or eight, nines, and tens.

00:43:18.780 That's it.

00:43:19.460 Look at these.

00:43:20.940 Zero, nine, nine, three, zero, ten, zero, nine, ten.

00:43:27.280 So it's either one, one, three.

00:43:29.640 You either love it or hate it, basically.

00:43:30.820 Yeah, it's just,

00:43:31.760 well, it's not just that you love it or hate it.

00:43:33.860 It's that you're on one side of the aisle

00:43:36.060 or the other with it, right?

00:43:37.540 You have to love the game

00:43:39.500 because it pissed off 0.63

00:43:40.800 all of the anti-woke chuds.

00:43:42.540 Or you have to hate the game

00:43:44.540 because it's woke.

00:43:46.640 So partisan lines

00:43:47.820 are now dictating game reviews.

00:43:49.800 Wonderful.

00:43:51.860 I'd just rather not play it at all

00:43:54.100 as some of the top two reviews.

00:43:56.460 I just don't want to play video game.

00:43:58.240 Yeah, the thing is,

00:43:59.680 there are plenty of things,

00:44:00.920 by the sounds of it,

00:44:01.620 to complain about with the game.

00:44:04.100 And some of the Steam reviews,

00:44:05.640 this one in particular,

00:44:07.940 seems to be having,

00:44:09.820 going into a little bit more depth

00:44:12.420 than the war that has broken out

00:44:14.300 in Metacritic,

00:44:15.480 are very, very well written,

00:44:17.340 particularly ones that get voted

00:44:18.380 for the top like this one.

00:44:19.660 I think this is a particularly

00:44:20.960 good Steam review.

00:44:23.020 This is one of the top two.

00:44:24.160 Just saying,

00:44:24.520 microtransactions in a single-player game

00:44:26.680 with $70 price tag.

00:44:28.660 Why?

00:44:30.080 Reasonable question.

00:44:30.980 Assassin's Creed games

00:44:31.880 have been doing this

00:44:32.480 ever since Origins.

00:44:34.080 Remember I showed you that thing

00:44:35.300 about how they were

00:44:36.200 discussing with shareholders

00:44:37.840 how to extract as much money

00:44:39.460 as possible from the game?

00:44:41.440 Yep, there you go.

00:44:42.380 So, Ubisoft themselves

00:44:44.440 responded to this one,

00:44:45.860 saying,

00:44:46.400 in order to bribe

00:44:47.060 the best visibility of our teams,

00:44:48.600 we should strongly encourage

00:44:49.560 to share your feedback

00:44:50.400 on one of the following,

00:44:51.380 basically saying,

00:44:52.700 do not put these reviews on Steam.

00:44:54.840 This makes us look bad.

00:44:56.060 Put it somewhere

00:44:56.580 where we can control

00:44:57.520 who can see this or not.

00:44:58.900 Please.

00:44:59.500 This makes us look terrible.

00:45:01.080 This will get shared around.

00:45:02.480 But, this is a good question.

00:45:04.460 Why is it that one of the first things

00:45:06.320 that you can find,

00:45:06.920 Samson did this by accident, actually.

00:45:08.780 He told me he just got into the game,

00:45:10.800 accidentally hit the select button,

00:45:12.900 and the first thing that pops up

00:45:14.160 on his screen

00:45:14.640 is this microtransaction store.

00:45:17.440 Look how much there is

00:45:19.040 that you can buy 1.00

00:45:20.000 in this damn thing. 0.99

00:45:21.640 This is at the launch of the game. 0.99

00:45:23.160 Yep.

00:45:23.580 So, they've created stuff

00:45:25.100 and deliberately paywalled it

00:45:26.760 to go out when the game has launched.

00:45:29.920 This is one of the reasons...

00:45:30.420 And it's all just, like,

00:45:31.260 cosmetic skins.

00:45:32.380 Oh, you get a magical horse. 1.00

00:45:33.860 Oh, you get some silly eyes. 0.98

00:45:35.260 You get some really cool armor 1.00

00:45:36.840 that's cooler than all the base armor

00:45:38.960 that we put in the normal game.

00:45:40.040 It also, always...

00:45:40.940 With all of these sorts of microtransactions,

00:45:42.840 they always look like

00:45:43.520 they're marketed towards children

00:45:44.760 because it's like,

00:45:45.440 oh, you get a shiny sword.

00:45:47.380 You get a horse that's a ghost.

00:45:50.160 I mean, if you're an adult,

00:45:52.840 this stuff's not going to appeal to you.

00:45:54.480 You're not going to want to spend money

00:45:55.500 on this stuff

00:45:56.220 unless you really like the game.

00:45:57.580 Well, I think part of it is,

00:45:58.940 as well, obviously,

00:45:59.680 you can buy resources in it.

00:46:02.280 So you're able to buy resources

00:46:04.160 that you can then use

00:46:05.560 in the actual gameplay itself.

00:46:07.780 So that's an incentive for people.

00:46:09.560 If you're lazy,

00:46:10.740 not necessarily a child, 0.90

00:46:11.720 but if you're a lazy gamer,

00:46:13.380 or, as was one of the big problems

00:46:15.540 with Odyssey,

00:46:16.300 the game is intentionally set up

00:46:17.940 to mean that if you're not buying

00:46:19.520 the microtransactions,

00:46:21.140 it's a huge grind,

00:46:23.140 and you'll actually halve the time

00:46:24.780 it takes to level up in Odyssey

00:46:26.660 if you buy using real money.

00:46:29.480 It's really scummy game.

00:46:31.160 You're not buying a game then, are you?

00:46:32.780 You're buying, basically,

00:46:34.720 access to a slot machine

00:46:36.200 of some kind, really.

00:46:37.460 You're buying a resource extraction machine

00:46:40.720 that's designed to funnel money. 1.00

00:46:42.800 It's designed to drain money from you. 0.91

00:46:45.420 But it's really scummy.

00:46:47.860 It's basically the same thing.

00:46:49.520 I mean, look at this.

00:46:50.740 They do this in all of them,

00:46:51.940 but if you don't feel like

00:46:53.840 exploring the whole map

00:46:55.620 and unlocking the map that way

00:46:59.580 like you do in lots of games,

00:47:02.360 like in Elden Ring, for instance,

00:47:04.180 you have to find the map fragments

00:47:05.860 and then you open up the map to yourself,

00:47:07.700 and it's a really great and rewarding

00:47:09.140 bit of exploration in that game.

00:47:11.200 Assassin's Creed, you can just buy it,

00:47:13.560 spend $10,

00:47:15.140 and get the full map for yourself.

00:47:17.460 You don't even have to play the game anymore.

00:47:20.820 You can just buy the game

00:47:23.920 and then you just keep spending

00:47:25.460 more and more money

00:47:26.480 until you win.

00:47:28.380 The thing is, as well,

00:47:29.140 the game's so simple

00:47:30.320 that you're basically paying

00:47:32.040 to get yourself out of the misery

00:47:33.920 of playing it.

00:47:35.540 It's like, buy our game,

00:47:36.860 and you've got to pay

00:47:37.700 to have shortcuts

00:47:39.520 so you don't have to play it as much.

00:47:42.660 That's a bad game,

00:47:44.340 by definition.

00:47:45.300 And it's something that's completely pervasive

00:47:47.520 throughout lots of games.

00:47:48.600 Which is why I'm just not interested

00:47:51.060 in most games that come out of these,

00:47:52.580 especially like AAA Studio ones.

00:47:54.620 Well, there's an incentive here

00:47:55.540 to make a bad game

00:47:56.480 because you can pay

00:47:57.320 to skip the boring bits.

00:47:58.760 If you have to pay to skip it,

00:48:00.800 it shouldn't have been

00:48:01.420 made that way in the first place.

00:48:04.280 Oh, I agree completely.

00:48:05.920 And what else have we got?

00:48:07.100 Well, of course,

00:48:07.620 they say they've got 2 million concurrent...

00:48:09.360 Well, they say they've got

00:48:10.080 2 million people playing the game.

00:48:11.520 I would assume that's across

00:48:12.360 not just Steam,

00:48:13.060 but all platforms.

00:48:14.420 Apparently, it set some record

00:48:16.000 except for Valhalla

00:48:17.660 on the PlayStation,

00:48:18.600 PlayStation Store

00:48:19.160 because Valhalla

00:48:20.420 was the biggest release

00:48:21.420 that they've ever had

00:48:22.140 because it was right

00:48:22.820 in the middle of lockdown.

00:48:24.180 So, of course,

00:48:24.720 it was going to be.

00:48:25.920 But it's not showing up

00:48:28.200 to be that much of a hit.

00:48:29.980 And this is probably due

00:48:30.920 to all of the controversies.

00:48:33.020 Ubisoft triumphantly announced

00:48:34.300 a couple of days ago

00:48:34.920 that 2 million players

00:48:35.740 have already picked it up.

00:48:36.800 Today, it's been reported

00:48:37.640 by VGC

00:48:38.500 that in terms of sales revenue,

00:48:40.440 it's achieved

00:48:41.040 the second biggest launch

00:48:42.380 in the series

00:48:42.920 behind Valhalla.

00:48:44.580 By being available

00:48:45.440 on Steam on day one,

00:48:46.480 it's also now

00:48:47.040 the leading game

00:48:47.720 in the series

00:48:48.560 on Valhalla's platform.

00:48:50.320 Assassin's Creed

00:48:50.820 Shadow Steam Cells

00:48:51.680 also pale in comparison,

00:48:53.380 though,

00:48:53.600 to some of 2025's

00:48:54.840 true mega hits.

00:48:56.160 Three days after launch,

00:48:57.680 Shadows has apparently

00:48:58.620 sold 310,000 copies.

00:49:01.300 In a similar time frame,

00:49:02.860 Split Fiction,

00:49:04.080 not heard of it,

00:49:04.820 shifted 882,500 units.

00:49:08.180 And the gargantuan 0.75

00:49:09.220 Monster Hunter Wilds,

00:49:10.440 I had to double check

00:49:11.320 this number with Samson

00:49:12.260 because he's been

00:49:12.760 playing that recently.

00:49:13.380 I needed to check this

00:49:14.580 because this just didn't

00:49:15.300 sound like a real number

00:49:16.460 for a game like this,

00:49:18.660 but Monster Hunter's

00:49:19.800 hugely popular.

00:49:21.000 I need to actually

00:49:21.620 give it a go myself.

00:49:22.900 Sold almost 10 times

00:49:23.860 better than Shadows

00:49:24.420 with 3.7 million units sold.

00:49:27.780 I'm not surprised.

00:49:28.540 It's a popular,

00:49:29.840 much beloved franchise.

00:49:31.340 It is huge,

00:49:32.460 but I've just never played it,

00:49:33.380 so I just hear that

00:49:34.060 and I go,

00:49:34.540 okay, maybe I should

00:49:35.680 give it a go.

00:49:37.080 A few of my friends

00:49:37.740 play Monster Hunter

00:49:38.780 quite a lot,

00:49:39.660 but I've never really got it.

00:49:40.220 Samson is shaking his fist

00:49:41.560 at me for some reason.

00:49:43.240 Oh, he's giving me

00:49:43.660 a thumbs up.

00:49:44.300 Oh, okay.

00:49:45.200 Have you played

00:49:45.600 Monster Hunter World?

00:49:46.680 Was that the one

00:49:47.140 that came before?

00:49:47.980 I think so.

00:49:48.560 I can't remember.

00:49:49.200 I only played it

00:49:49.880 for about five hours

00:49:51.340 and then I played

00:49:53.140 something else.

00:49:53.760 I mean, it does look

00:49:54.400 kind of awesome.

00:49:55.420 It looks like you're

00:49:56.100 exploring a massive world

00:49:57.840 where every encounter

00:49:59.240 is a boss fight

00:50:00.000 with a gigantic dinosaur monster,

00:50:02.240 which sounds a lot more

00:50:04.320 interesting than any

00:50:05.400 Assassin's Creed game,

00:50:06.680 if I'm honest.

00:50:08.160 But Ubisoft are having

00:50:10.200 to send out emails

00:50:11.220 saying, like,

00:50:12.320 listen, listen,

00:50:12.780 don't compare it

00:50:13.540 to Valhalla, okay?

00:50:15.060 Don't compare it

00:50:15.740 to Valhalla.

00:50:16.500 We're doing great.

00:50:17.900 Everything is fine

00:50:18.960 and perfect.

00:50:19.880 But also,

00:50:21.160 the founding

00:50:22.020 Guillemot family

00:50:25.020 who owns,

00:50:26.460 who founded Ubisoft,

00:50:27.900 are currently,

00:50:29.820 because of all

00:50:30.620 of the high-profile

00:50:31.840 flops, layoffs,

00:50:32.900 studio closers,

00:50:33.880 and game cancellations

00:50:35.000 in the run-up,

00:50:35.860 are currently in talks

00:50:37.120 with Tencent.

00:50:38.220 to sell it

00:50:39.700 to the Chinese.

00:50:41.100 And other investors

00:50:41.840 on a buyout deal

00:50:43.320 to let it preserve

00:50:44.900 control of the company's

00:50:46.660 intellectual property,

00:50:47.800 but they need some

00:50:48.620 cash revenue coming in.

00:50:50.240 They need some cash flow.

00:50:51.840 And that's probably

00:50:52.540 because,

00:50:53.260 one of the things

00:50:53.860 that would spur them

00:50:55.460 along to do

00:50:55.920 all the microtransactions

00:50:56.880 as well,

00:50:57.360 we don't have a

00:50:58.120 clear, perfect idea

00:51:00.400 of how much the game

00:51:01.320 costs to make,

00:51:02.560 but we do know

00:51:03.420 that the delays

00:51:04.700 that were started

00:51:05.500 in 2024

00:51:06.320 cost an extra

00:51:07.740 20 million euros.

00:51:09.720 And so the estimated

00:51:10.820 budget of the game

00:51:11.860 overall is between

00:51:13.600 250 to 350 million dollars.

00:51:18.960 That's pretty big.

00:51:20.480 That's a lot of money.

00:51:21.860 I hope they're losing

00:51:22.780 a lot as well.

00:51:23.240 That's a lot of money

00:51:24.120 to have to make back

00:51:25.160 as well.

00:51:25.700 Again,

00:51:26.320 all of the high-profile

00:51:27.620 controversies,

00:51:28.620 all the marketing

00:51:29.300 that goes into it,

00:51:30.440 that's going to add up

00:51:31.980 as well.

00:51:32.740 And you wonder,

00:51:34.000 how does a game

00:51:34.760 end up costing that much?

00:51:36.600 How does a game

00:51:37.220 end up costing that much?

00:51:38.660 Well,

00:51:39.240 I've got an idea.

00:51:40.680 Bloat.

00:51:42.100 Massive amounts of bloat.

00:51:43.640 We won't sit through

00:51:44.340 the full thing,

00:51:45.640 but this is not a joke.

00:51:48.780 This is the credit sequence

00:51:50.280 for Assassin's Creed Shadows,

00:51:52.060 and it is two hours long.

00:51:55.660 This is actually

00:51:56.040 the most interesting

00:51:56.880 part of the game.

00:51:58.360 It certainly is,

00:51:59.340 especially when you get

00:52:00.200 to the Indian branch

00:52:02.240 and see how much

00:52:03.180 of it was made there.

00:52:05.560 But seriously,

00:52:06.260 do you need that many

00:52:08.240 people developing the game,

00:52:10.140 most of whom

00:52:11.140 it's going to be

00:52:12.080 not necessary?

00:52:15.880 And then,

00:52:16.340 what's this?

00:52:17.700 Is this just

00:52:18.360 almost half an hour

00:52:20.320 of credits

00:52:21.160 dedicated to

00:52:25.400 credits here?

00:52:26.540 20 minutes of it.

00:52:27.580 Good God.

00:52:28.440 But you shouldn't have

00:52:29.420 to have two hours

00:52:30.480 of credits

00:52:31.040 for your video game

00:52:32.580 when, for instance,

00:52:34.180 Rockstar is able

00:52:35.040 to make GTA

00:52:35.840 with, what,

00:52:37.180 a thousand staff members?

00:52:39.260 Yeah, there are

00:52:39.660 some fantastic games

00:52:40.760 that have been made

00:52:41.320 by a handful of people.

00:52:43.520 There are games

00:52:43.980 that I play,

00:52:45.060 like Manor Lords,

00:52:46.820 for example,

00:52:47.200 was made by one guy.

00:52:48.400 I'm pretty sure

00:52:50.740 that that has

00:52:51.580 had more concurrent

00:52:52.960 players on launch

00:52:54.740 than Assassin's Creed

00:52:56.120 did as well.

00:52:57.020 Guess how many

00:52:57.700 employees FromSoftware

00:52:59.360 has?

00:53:00.340 250.

00:53:02.460 423.

00:53:03.380 Okay.

00:53:03.940 I was giving them

00:53:04.440 too much credit there,

00:53:05.260 but it's only because

00:53:05.780 I love them.

00:53:06.540 That's it.

00:53:07.240 And they were able

00:53:07.880 to make Elden Ring,

00:53:09.760 Sekiro,

00:53:11.340 Bloodborne,

00:53:13.040 presumably those

00:53:13.900 older games

00:53:14.420 when they had

00:53:14.820 a smaller studio

00:53:15.720 as well,

00:53:16.920 which are all

00:53:17.380 critically acclaimed.

00:53:18.760 They've been given

00:53:19.140 the video game mandate

00:53:20.180 of heaven,

00:53:20.780 though, haven't they?

00:53:21.440 In that they just

00:53:22.400 unequivocally make

00:53:23.640 great stuff.

00:53:25.120 I can't think of a bad

00:53:25.980 FromSoftware game.

00:53:26.900 Whereas as far as

00:53:27.540 I'm aware, right,

00:53:28.620 Ubisoft development team,

00:53:31.780 Assassin's Creed,

00:53:32.560 I'm just going to see

00:53:33.100 how many.

00:53:34.460 Ubisoft,

00:53:35.100 how many are there?

00:53:36.740 How many employed?

00:53:38.560 Because I think

00:53:39.180 it's in possibly

00:53:39.920 tens of thousands.

00:53:41.740 Okay.

00:53:42.000 Initially had around

00:53:43.280 2,000 developers

00:53:44.600 working on Assassin's

00:53:45.580 Creed with plans

00:53:46.100 to increase this

00:53:46.780 to around 2,800

00:53:48.820 by reallocating

00:53:50.480 personnel from

00:53:51.520 other franchises.

00:53:53.140 It's too many.

00:53:54.480 You don't need

00:53:55.420 that many to make

00:53:56.260 a game,

00:53:56.860 especially when

00:53:57.740 it causes bloat,

00:53:59.300 it causes a lack

00:54:00.200 of vision.

00:54:00.960 If you have a

00:54:01.560 smaller, tighter team,

00:54:03.100 you can make

00:54:03.760 smaller, better games.

00:54:06.040 They don't even

00:54:06.560 necessarily need to

00:54:07.160 be that much smaller

00:54:08.380 as FromSoftware

00:54:09.620 showed with

00:54:10.020 Elden Ring.

00:54:10.780 But yeah,

00:54:11.020 still, glad

00:54:12.400 it's flopping.

00:54:13.300 Well, I'm glad

00:54:13.980 it's causing

00:54:15.060 so much division.

00:54:16.600 It probably will

00:54:17.640 turn out to be

00:54:18.660 a financial flop

00:54:19.760 or at least

00:54:20.240 not a mega smash

00:54:21.640 like they're hoping

00:54:22.300 for.

00:54:22.860 Maybe they're hoping

00:54:23.540 that the microtransactions

00:54:24.680 will make up any

00:54:25.420 shortfall in the profits,

00:54:27.100 but don't buy it.

00:54:30.240 Got a few

00:54:31.080 rumble chats.

00:54:32.480 There we go.

00:54:33.500 Occupant42,

00:54:34.340 anyone know

00:54:35.560 how many people

00:54:36.200 Notch had

00:54:36.860 helping him

00:54:37.460 develop Minecraft?

00:54:39.200 Wasn't it just him?

00:54:40.360 I don't know,

00:54:40.920 actually.

00:54:41.960 That's a random name.

00:54:42.940 The first 0.99

00:54:43.360 ass creed 0.95

00:54:44.560 was made by

00:54:45.180 fewer than

00:54:45.740 100 people.

00:54:47.200 Same thing for

00:54:47.700 every single one

00:54:48.360 of those

00:54:48.700 classic games

00:54:49.640 from the 2000s.

00:54:51.140 Also,

00:54:51.620 Harry on

00:54:52.200 Chudcast 1.

00:54:53.880 I mean,

00:54:54.340 if you have me on,

00:54:55.260 I'd happily go on.

00:54:56.400 It was interesting

00:54:56.940 because I actually

00:54:57.420 caught some of his

00:54:58.180 Assassin's Creed

00:54:58.820 shadow because I was

00:54:59.660 on Proper Horror

00:55:01.240 Show's stream,

00:55:02.060 somebody told me

00:55:02.820 that he'd actually

00:55:03.440 watched some of the

00:55:04.840 video that we did

00:55:05.800 on stream,

00:55:06.420 so I managed to

00:55:06.960 catch him watching

00:55:08.020 the Super Chats

00:55:08.760 near the end,

00:55:09.420 so that was really

00:55:10.000 interesting.

00:55:10.720 I was in the chat

00:55:11.500 myself,

00:55:12.000 but I got lost

00:55:12.840 in the flush.

00:55:15.540 Scanlines,

00:55:16.240 arcades used to

00:55:17.040 make games difficult

00:55:17.940 to get you to

00:55:18.600 pay more for

00:55:19.380 extra lives.

00:55:20.360 Now we pay more

00:55:21.140 to skip the boring

00:55:22.020 padding because we

00:55:22.940 have lives.

00:55:24.100 Yeah.

00:55:26.240 Ogopogo776

00:55:26.920 says,

00:55:27.380 I never got people's

00:55:28.520 fetishes with

00:55:29.120 diversity.

00:55:30.100 As a kid,

00:55:30.700 I loved the

00:55:31.320 Lord of the Rings

00:55:31.820 trilogy,

00:55:32.540 despite being a

00:55:33.200 black man,

00:55:33.740 second generation

00:55:34.720 Nigerian immigrant,

00:55:35.980 people who need to

00:55:36.580 see themselves in

00:55:37.260 media lack

00:55:38.260 imagination.

00:55:39.160 Yeah,

00:55:39.340 certainly with

00:55:39.720 something like

00:55:40.080 this,

00:55:40.240 the whole point

00:55:40.700 of wanting a

00:55:41.500 game to be set

00:55:42.000 in feudal Japan

00:55:42.620 is that you can

00:55:43.660 imagine yourself

00:55:44.640 in the setting,

00:55:46.100 in the shoes of

00:55:46.960 that character.

00:55:48.460 This may be

00:55:49.440 an out-of-date

00:55:50.720 take,

00:55:51.260 but when I

00:55:52.620 play a game

00:55:54.380 or watch a film

00:55:55.180 or a TV series

00:55:56.540 about another

00:55:57.180 culture,

00:55:57.620 I don't

00:55:58.740 necessarily need 0.95

00:55:59.820 a white man 0.91

00:56:00.780 insert to be

00:56:01.640 able to be

00:56:01.980 interested in

00:56:02.600 it.

00:56:03.740 I didn't need

00:56:04.500 it to be a 0.90

00:56:05.440 white man

00:56:05.780 insert in

00:56:06.300 Sekiro to

00:56:06.880 enjoy it.

00:56:07.600 No,

00:56:08.140 and in fact,

00:56:08.880 lots of

00:56:09.300 things,

00:56:09.640 I prefer it

00:56:10.180 to be authentic

00:56:10.760 to itself and

00:56:11.940 speak of

00:56:12.460 reality.

00:56:14.080 When I go back

00:56:14.780 and play GTA

00:56:15.540 San Andreas,

00:56:16.440 it's like

00:56:16.820 refreshing to

00:56:17.420 be like,

00:56:17.740 wow,

00:56:18.060 I really feel

00:56:18.880 like a drug

00:56:19.640 addict and

00:56:20.260 I really feel

00:56:21.380 like a drug

00:56:21.920 dealer right now. 1.00

00:56:22.780 I'm a scumbag. 0.99

00:56:24.600 So anyway, 1.00

00:56:25.060 I'm going to

00:56:25.300 go to KFC.

00:56:28.340 It's

00:56:28.780 clucking

00:56:29.140 bell in those

00:56:29.900 games,

00:56:30.340 actually.

00:56:30.460 That's true,

00:56:31.160 actually,

00:56:31.560 yeah.

00:56:32.000 You can tell

00:56:32.440 they were made

00:56:32.940 by Brits,

00:56:33.740 can't you,

00:56:34.180 with little

00:56:34.520 jokes like

00:56:35.140 that.

00:56:38.240 Anyway,

00:56:39.680 so you might

00:56:40.800 have heard about

00:56:41.440 the series

00:56:41.980 Adolescence,

00:56:42.980 which,

00:56:43.520 if you live

00:56:44.180 in Britain,

00:56:44.720 it would be

00:56:45.100 impossible not

00:56:45.820 to.

00:56:46.220 Everyone's

00:56:46.660 talking about

00:56:47.200 it and it's

00:56:47.620 annoying.

00:56:47.940 People who

00:56:50.260 are talking

00:56:50.680 about it,

00:56:51.420 such as

00:56:52.040 Keir Starmer,

00:56:53.060 the Prime

00:56:53.340 Minister,

00:56:54.100 he's apparently

00:56:55.120 worried about

00:56:55.880 toxic masculinity 0.68

00:56:56.700 after he

00:56:58.000 watched a

00:56:58.860 drama on

00:56:59.720 Netflix.

00:57:01.160 Okay.

00:57:02.440 Starmer,

00:57:02.840 I don't think

00:57:03.300 you have

00:57:03.600 anything to

00:57:04.080 worry about

00:57:04.540 regarding

00:57:04.940 masculinity.

00:57:05.940 So it

00:57:06.620 deals with

00:57:07.080 things like

00:57:07.660 toxic masculinity,

00:57:09.260 knife crime,

00:57:10.480 online radicalisation

00:57:11.780 and Andrew

00:57:12.380 Tate,

00:57:13.120 all the favourites

00:57:14.100 of the British

00:57:14.580 establishment,

00:57:15.280 all of course

00:57:15.800 excuses to

00:57:16.580 regulate

00:57:17.120 perfectly

00:57:18.260 legitimate

00:57:18.800 online activity

00:57:19.680 and it's

00:57:20.500 all just

00:57:21.000 a smokescreen

00:57:21.700 for further

00:57:22.680 government

00:57:23.300 control of

00:57:23.800 the internet.

00:57:24.880 You've not

00:57:25.060 watched it,

00:57:25.520 have you?

00:57:25.980 Oh god,

00:57:26.500 no.

00:57:27.340 Because I

00:57:27.580 have had

00:57:28.000 random people

00:57:28.840 I've encountered

00:57:29.440 in my day-to-day

00:57:30.220 life raving

00:57:31.140 about it to

00:57:31.860 me,

00:57:32.100 but all

00:57:32.780 they're actually

00:57:33.280 talking about

00:57:34.040 is how

00:57:34.500 technically

00:57:35.060 impressive it

00:57:35.700 is that it's

00:57:36.200 all apparently

00:57:36.760 shot like it's

00:57:37.500 in one big

00:57:38.080 long take

00:57:38.640 each episode,

00:57:39.960 which,

00:57:40.260 you know,

00:57:40.520 fair play.

00:57:41.760 Yeah,

00:57:42.000 I mean,

00:57:42.300 it can be

00:57:42.920 badly,

00:57:43.660 the messaging

00:57:44.300 can be bad

00:57:44.960 and the

00:57:45.180 production can be

00:57:45.840 good.

00:57:46.420 This is

00:57:46.700 possible.

00:57:47.120 That's the

00:57:47.540 funny thing

00:57:47.980 is when I've

00:57:48.320 been talking

00:57:48.680 to normies,

00:57:49.380 all they care

00:57:49.980 about is

00:57:50.320 talking about

00:57:50.840 the fancy

00:57:51.260 production of

00:57:51.880 it.

00:57:53.320 Message isn't

00:57:54.040 getting through.

00:57:54.980 It's big and

00:57:55.520 shiny,

00:57:55.980 therefore how

00:57:56.400 can it be

00:57:56.780 bad?

00:57:57.200 Yeah,

00:57:57.360 look at the

00:57:57.700 jangling keys,

00:57:58.540 look at them

00:57:58.840 jangle,

00:57:59.360 ooh! 0.96

00:57:59.900 It's basically

00:58:00.620 that,

00:58:01.000 isn't it?

00:58:01.560 It's insulting

00:58:02.180 to your

00:58:02.540 intelligence to

00:58:03.260 enjoy that

00:58:03.680 sort of thing.

00:58:04.600 If I see a

00:58:05.440 sleek production

00:58:05.980 now,

00:58:06.280 I'm so

00:58:06.640 programmed by

00:58:07.780 the way the

00:58:09.480 media is,

00:58:09.980 I just assume

00:58:10.820 I'm going to

00:58:11.380 hate it.

00:58:12.120 It's actually

00:58:12.460 surprising when

00:58:13.360 something looks

00:58:13.880 good and I

00:58:14.340 like it,

00:58:15.660 which sounds

00:58:16.140 very spiteful.

00:58:16.920 My favourite

00:58:17.340 one take is

00:58:18.080 still the one

00:58:19.040 at the end of

00:58:20.060 that episode

00:58:20.500 at True

00:58:20.820 Detective.

00:58:21.500 Oh,

00:58:21.740 that's brilliant,

00:58:22.620 isn't it?

00:58:22.760 Yeah,

00:58:22.920 episode four.

00:58:23.920 Yes,

00:58:24.440 you're correct.

00:58:25.240 That's one of

00:58:26.220 the ones that I

00:58:26.860 really appreciate,

00:58:28.360 but the show's

00:58:29.380 great despite

00:58:30.180 that as well.

00:58:31.300 Yeah,

00:58:31.520 the whole show

00:58:31.940 is fantastic.

00:58:32.300 need to have

00:58:32.840 the one shot

00:58:33.440 for it to be

00:58:33.920 an amazing

00:58:34.300 show.

00:58:35.860 That is very

00:58:36.340 true.

00:58:36.720 And let's

00:58:36.960 remind ourselves

00:58:37.540 of the original

00:58:38.320 case that this

00:58:39.200 show is based

00:58:39.900 on.

00:58:40.300 It was a

00:58:41.440 black adult 0.98

00:58:42.140 who stabbed 0.98

00:58:43.280 a 15-year-old

00:58:44.520 girl and this

00:58:46.760 has been changed

00:58:47.400 to a young

00:58:48.280 teen boy because

00:58:50.440 of course it is

00:58:51.200 because obviously

00:58:52.500 they're not going

00:58:53.000 to present the

00:58:53.540 reality because

00:58:54.180 they're not going 0.93

00:58:54.560 to show black 0.99

00:58:56.220 people as violent 1.00

00:58:57.480 criminals because

00:58:58.160 that's never shown

00:58:59.200 for some reason

00:58:59.940 despite the

00:59:00.720 statistics on it.

00:59:02.300 as the reality

00:59:03.440 of the situation.

00:59:05.100 And if you

00:59:06.220 point this out,

00:59:07.140 I found this

00:59:08.180 article, 0.98

00:59:09.160 you are racist 0.99

00:59:09.940 and excuse a 1.00

00:59:11.640 little tangent

00:59:12.140 here because I

00:59:12.980 just couldn't

00:59:13.400 believe it.

00:59:14.420 So pointing to

00:59:16.060 the real life

00:59:16.900 case that part

00:59:18.040 of it's based

00:59:18.620 on and saying

00:59:20.180 why have you

00:59:20.720 made him white

00:59:21.420 and not kept

00:59:22.040 him black is 0.94

00:59:22.980 racist. 1.00

00:59:23.720 Apparently so.

00:59:24.740 I thought we're

00:59:25.520 all about representation.

00:59:26.640 Adolescence,

00:59:27.240 Netflix's new

00:59:27.860 hit show that

00:59:28.520 has the nation

00:59:29.100 in a chokehold.

00:59:30.080 What doesn't

00:59:30.580 come to my mind

00:59:31.160 however is an

00:59:32.160 agenda to

00:59:32.700 demonize white 0.98

00:59:33.420 British boys 0.52

00:59:33.920 and men.

00:59:34.720 Well, you've

00:59:35.240 not been paying

00:59:35.680 attention to

00:59:36.260 British politics

00:59:36.800 for the past

00:59:37.500 30 years.

00:59:38.760 And yet,

00:59:39.360 despite the

00:59:40.140 series growing

00:59:40.700 critical acclaim,

00:59:41.660 countless social

00:59:42.260 media users are

00:59:43.520 in uproar over

00:59:44.360 the series depiction

00:59:45.120 of a very young

00:59:45.860 white male murder

00:59:46.700 suspect, with some

00:59:48.080 even stating it

00:59:48.960 should have been a 0.84

00:59:49.540 black boy instead. 0.80

00:59:50.460 The series' true

00:59:51.160 message of preventing

00:59:52.120 gender-based youth

00:59:53.160 violence is at

00:59:54.200 risk of being

00:59:54.720 hijacked by

00:59:55.560 reactionary rhetoric.

00:59:57.280 At no point in

00:59:57.980 this, by the way,

00:59:58.920 was it mentioned

00:59:59.540 that the original

01:00:00.440 case that it's

01:00:01.480 based on, the

01:00:02.140 true story, was

01:00:04.200 presented that way.

01:00:05.160 It's just making

01:00:05.680 them sound like

01:00:06.280 racist cranks.

01:00:07.780 And why was

01:00:09.020 this?

01:00:09.660 You might ask

01:00:10.580 because this was

01:00:11.360 the person who

01:00:11.900 wrote it.

01:00:13.660 No ethnic 0.99

01:00:14.520 interest whatsoever

01:00:15.360 in misrepresenting

01:00:16.720 reality there.

01:00:18.200 And it all comes

01:00:19.600 at the same time

01:00:20.520 as the UK's

01:00:21.900 Online Safety Act

01:00:23.040 takes effect,

01:00:24.020 which is interesting

01:00:25.480 because the people

01:00:27.180 who made the

01:00:28.500 show were invited

01:00:29.360 into Parliament,

01:00:30.340 which is weird.

01:00:31.360 It's kind of like

01:00:32.040 a seal of approval

01:00:33.220 for, you made

01:00:34.180 good propaganda,

01:00:35.160 come and join us

01:00:35.940 in our cesspit of

01:00:37.580 evil.

01:00:39.120 And it's almost

01:00:40.260 like it was made

01:00:41.360 in tandem with

01:00:43.600 this legislation.

01:00:45.620 Brings to mind

01:00:46.460 the phrase

01:00:47.340 manufactured consent,

01:00:48.800 doesn't it?

01:00:49.780 But there we go.

01:00:51.320 And what I am going

01:00:52.600 to talk about is

01:00:53.600 The Lotus Seat is

01:00:54.580 merch because

01:00:55.440 unlike that show,

01:00:58.720 that Netflix show,

01:00:59.880 we don't have

01:01:00.780 governments batting

01:01:02.160 for us.

01:01:02.600 We don't have

01:01:03.060 people out there

01:01:03.640 supporting us

01:01:04.180 other than you,

01:01:05.040 dear viewer,

01:01:05.820 because we're

01:01:06.300 entirely audience

01:01:07.400 supported and we

01:01:09.100 rely on you to

01:01:11.240 sign up to our

01:01:11.920 website to support

01:01:13.320 us.

01:01:13.620 You get lots of

01:01:14.460 premium content in

01:01:15.280 return and also

01:01:15.960 buying our merch.

01:01:17.360 We have lots of

01:01:18.080 nice t-shirts for

01:01:19.300 sale because

01:01:20.120 Islander has 0.99

01:01:20.900 sold and out,

01:01:21.820 sold and out,

01:01:22.780 sold out,

01:01:23.600 can't speak as

01:01:25.000 usual.

01:01:25.980 And yeah,

01:01:27.420 that's all you've

01:01:27.960 got left.

01:01:28.700 But they are

01:01:29.160 cool t-shirts.

01:01:30.320 I like a nice

01:01:31.340 simple t-shirt with

01:01:32.220 just a stylized

01:01:33.640 logo.

01:01:35.380 Check them out if

01:01:36.240 you want to support

01:01:36.740 us, get something

01:01:37.220 in return.

01:01:38.520 Other than that,

01:01:39.280 you can sign up to

01:01:39.900 the website.

01:01:40.680 But with all of

01:01:41.500 that out of the

01:01:41.920 way, all of this

01:01:44.740 huffing and puffing

01:01:45.900 about how great

01:01:46.960 this show is,

01:01:48.640 has made it across

01:01:49.520 the pond to

01:01:50.840 America.

01:01:51.540 Here's NBC

01:01:52.200 News saying how

01:01:52.940 toxic masculinity 0.68

01:01:53.940 Andrew Tate and

01:01:55.420 the online

01:01:56.040 manosphere inspired

01:01:57.080 Netflix's

01:01:57.780 adolescence.

01:01:58.360 No, actually, it

01:01:59.040 didn't.

01:01:59.940 The case of a 0.97

01:02:01.120 black man murdering 1.00

01:02:02.080 a teenage girl 1.00

01:02:02.700 did.

01:02:03.380 But brush over

01:02:04.360 I mean, he did

01:02:04.840 say it was based

01:02:05.760 on two cases and

01:02:07.320 that's one of them.

01:02:08.060 I don't know if we

01:02:08.680 know what the

01:02:09.180 other one was.

01:02:10.080 So maybe it was

01:02:11.120 some incel rage

01:02:12.560 Andrew Tate fan

01:02:14.040 murdering somebody

01:02:15.400 as is common in 0.99

01:02:17.560 London.

01:02:18.020 That's the people

01:02:18.620 doing the knife

01:02:19.440 crime.

01:02:19.720 Drill wrappers are

01:02:20.780 just really

01:02:21.540 frustrated about

01:02:23.700 their lack of

01:02:24.500 access to women 0.81

01:02:26.320 apparently.

01:02:26.640 And they're all

01:02:27.520 white English as

01:02:28.540 well.

01:02:28.820 That's definitely

01:02:29.520 true.

01:02:30.660 They definitely

01:02:31.520 don't wear

01:02:31.980 balaclavas and

01:02:33.160 have those little

01:02:34.020 effeminate man

01:02:35.380 bags that they

01:02:35.960 carry around with

01:02:36.540 them.

01:02:37.280 Yeah, we know

01:02:37.780 who's doing the

01:02:38.880 knife crime.

01:02:40.080 It's not white 0.91

01:02:41.220 people.

01:02:41.620 You've actually

01:02:42.100 looked into the

01:02:42.800 statistics on this.

01:02:43.940 I have, yes.

01:02:44.760 shockingly similar

01:02:46.900 to the American

01:02:47.680 statistics as well.

01:02:49.100 Yeah, despite

01:02:49.600 being 14% of

01:02:51.440 London's population

01:02:52.240 I believe it was

01:02:52.960 over 60% of both

01:02:54.360 knife attacks and

01:02:56.480 gun murders or

01:02:57.840 the other way

01:02:58.380 around, knife

01:02:58.900 attacks and

01:02:59.600 something like

01:03:00.700 that.

01:03:01.200 But either way,

01:03:02.100 gun crime and

01:03:02.560 knife crime is

01:03:03.240 majority.

01:03:04.260 You posted about

01:03:05.000 this so I'm just

01:03:05.600 going to search

01:03:06.160 up despite under

01:03:07.640 your name.

01:03:08.480 I should do it.

01:03:09.440 It will come up

01:03:10.460 actually.

01:03:10.840 So yes, it's

01:03:13.360 also gone around

01:03:14.540 Europe as well.

01:03:15.640 Here's Euronews

01:03:16.660 talking about it.

01:03:18.120 And so lots of

01:03:19.220 other governments

01:03:19.860 and countries have

01:03:21.180 clocked on to the

01:03:22.220 fact that, hey,

01:03:22.960 this is a good way

01:03:23.720 of propagandising

01:03:24.640 our population.

01:03:25.840 You've done quite a

01:03:26.480 few despite tweets

01:03:27.660 actually.

01:03:28.400 You're saying that

01:03:28.900 like you're surprised.

01:03:29.960 Yeah, you've got

01:03:30.500 despite making up

01:03:31.620 0.05% of the UK

01:03:33.620 population, Albanians

01:03:34.980 make up 1.6% of

01:03:36.700 all prisoners.

01:03:38.340 Yeah.

01:03:38.740 Interesting.

01:03:39.680 32 times

01:03:40.420 overrepresented

01:03:41.060 if I remember

01:03:41.680 off the top of

01:03:42.120 my head.

01:03:42.620 Exactly.

01:03:43.340 Hey, that's my

01:03:45.720 own statistic.

01:03:46.560 So no wonder I

01:03:48.120 can remember it.

01:03:49.280 But anyway, my

01:03:51.500 despite statistics

01:03:52.580 aside, this is

01:03:56.140 something from the

01:03:57.120 Guardian from the

01:03:57.940 police to the

01:03:58.620 prime minister.

01:03:59.280 So it's also being

01:04:00.260 paraded around the

01:04:01.980 police as well.

01:04:03.400 They're trying to

01:04:04.220 target toxic

01:04:04.820 masculinity.

01:04:06.320 But I found it

01:04:08.000 by the way.

01:04:08.540 Okay.

01:04:08.760 Tell me. 0.84

01:04:09.600 Black Londoners 1.00

01:04:10.260 make up just

01:04:10.900 13% of the

01:04:11.800 population but are

01:04:13.100 responsible for

01:04:13.860 61% of knife

01:04:15.060 murders and 63% 0.86

01:04:16.480 of gun crimes.

01:04:17.400 Okay, so it's

01:04:18.080 that way around.

01:04:18.560 I think it's

01:04:19.320 important to always

01:04:20.080 mention with these

01:04:20.800 things as well that

01:04:21.520 the victims of that

01:04:22.620 will always be 0.95

01:04:23.840 disproportionately black 0.98

01:04:25.080 themselves.

01:04:26.600 Overrepresented on

01:04:27.380 both perpetrator and

01:04:29.340 victim.

01:04:29.620 So just a completely

01:04:30.440 unnecessary tragedy

01:04:31.920 going on in our

01:04:33.320 capital city every day.

01:04:34.920 Funny thing is,

01:04:35.420 when I posted that I

01:04:36.340 did have some black

01:04:38.260 Londoners saying

01:04:39.220 thank you for

01:04:39.820 sharing this, you

01:04:40.820 know, part of the

01:04:41.380 dealing with the

01:04:42.240 problem is admitting

01:04:42.960 it and they were in

01:04:44.020 a very, very small

01:04:44.960 minority of people.

01:04:46.520 Most people say

01:04:47.140 that's racist.

01:04:48.200 It's like it's

01:04:48.660 government crime

01:04:49.380 statistics.

01:04:50.080 I'm sorry.

01:04:51.140 But anyway, yes, the

01:04:52.020 police have seen it as

01:04:53.640 well.

01:04:54.460 And also, Elon Musk

01:04:58.280 has been blasted for

01:04:59.200 spreading concerning

01:05:00.360 misinformation about

01:05:01.360 the show.

01:05:01.880 So, what is this

01:05:02.840 concerning misinformation?

01:05:04.400 Well, I think Ian

01:05:08.040 Miles Chungus posted

01:05:09.500 something saying it's

01:05:10.720 basically an anti-white

01:05:12.040 piece.

01:05:13.220 Actually, for once, he's

01:05:14.540 saying something that I

01:05:15.420 agree with and he's

01:05:16.420 not.

01:05:16.780 I'm shocked that Ian

01:05:17.760 Miles Chungus could even

01:05:18.520 bring himself to type out

01:05:19.720 anti-white.

01:05:20.840 I know, yeah.

01:05:21.840 And then one of Elon's

01:05:23.360 Indians said wow in 0.97

01:05:25.000 response to it.

01:05:26.260 And that's the extent of

01:05:27.820 it.

01:05:29.200 So, is that just what

01:05:31.460 we're assuming now?

01:05:33.020 Well, obviously.

01:05:33.600 He's got a farm of

01:05:34.520 Indians using his 1.00

01:05:36.120 Twitter account.

01:05:36.800 Of course he does.

01:05:37.420 Yeah, no, I know.

01:05:38.700 There's been lots of

01:05:39.600 speculation that some of

01:05:40.580 the turns of phrase are

01:05:42.220 sort of suggesting that

01:05:44.400 there's an Indian.

01:05:44.720 The grammar has not been

01:05:45.980 fantastic if English is 0.94

01:05:48.060 your native language.

01:05:49.340 I mean, it's not to say

01:05:50.460 Elon isn't potentially

01:05:51.520 illiterate.

01:05:52.300 There is that possibility.

01:05:53.820 It might be drunk or on

01:05:54.840 ketamine.

01:05:55.540 That's true as well.

01:05:57.180 Well, but yes, there's

01:06:00.580 also this, that MPs were

01:06:02.200 calling for action against

01:06:03.300 toxic masculinity.

01:06:05.340 What a concept that you

01:06:06.680 created yourselves.

01:06:08.040 We need action against

01:06:09.020 this.

01:06:09.280 What are we going to do?

01:06:11.280 If you're over a certain

01:06:13.240 size of musculature, you

01:06:14.840 pay extra taxes.

01:06:15.820 I don't know.

01:06:16.740 What are they going to do? 0.99

01:06:17.340 I'm screwed. 0.99

01:06:18.180 I'm not. 0.94

01:06:19.620 I mean, farm taxes out of

01:06:21.100 this body.

01:06:21.780 I'm running it in just so

01:06:25.200 that I don't pay additional

01:06:26.420 tax in the future out of

01:06:27.800 spite.

01:06:28.460 Yeah, that's your excuse.

01:06:30.400 Any old excuse, really.

01:06:32.780 And there's even this where

01:06:34.800 video games can't escape

01:06:35.980 their role in the

01:06:36.660 radicalization of young

01:06:37.600 men.

01:06:37.860 The Guardian's gone so far

01:06:39.120 left that they've become

01:06:40.360 the Christian right in the

01:06:41.440 90s.

01:06:42.340 We've wrapped around to

01:06:45.000 Jack Thompson.

01:06:46.900 Yeah.

01:06:47.340 I don't think it's violent

01:06:48.600 video games.

01:06:50.240 No.

01:06:50.720 I don't think the urban

01:06:52.840 youths are playing.

01:06:55.660 I don't know.

01:06:56.960 I'm trying to think of a

01:06:57.640 violent video game now.

01:06:58.600 Call of Duty.

01:06:59.480 Assassin's Creed.

01:07:00.420 It's shadows.

01:07:01.380 Well, they might be

01:07:02.000 playing.

01:07:02.420 They might be playing

01:07:03.020 that, yeah.

01:07:03.560 Their target demographic,

01:07:04.760 the protagonist.

01:07:06.040 So, yes, there's been 0.74

01:07:06.900 ridiculous about it. 0.64

01:07:08.560 And the Guardian's also 0.97

01:07:10.160 been talking about this.

01:07:12.060 The terrifying truth.

01:07:12.920 Smartphones are poisoned

01:07:13.760 for young boys' minds.

01:07:15.200 Girls apparently 0.97

01:07:15.960 unaffected, but I do

01:07:17.760 think that children

01:07:18.720 shouldn't be allowed

01:07:19.520 smartphones until

01:07:20.700 they're old enough to

01:07:21.820 have the responsibility

01:07:22.660 of, you know, having

01:07:24.760 the ability to access

01:07:25.660 the internet.

01:07:26.720 And people are giving

01:07:27.360 them to them far too

01:07:28.340 young.

01:07:28.760 I agree with that.

01:07:29.840 And I think that that's

01:07:30.500 down to the parents being

01:07:31.380 responsible.

01:07:32.020 It's not for the

01:07:32.580 government to decide

01:07:33.520 these sorts of things.

01:07:34.980 But maybe schools could

01:07:36.780 be a bit harsher on it.

01:07:37.820 Who knows?

01:07:38.360 I had to hand my phone

01:07:39.380 in when, you know, I had

01:07:41.260 a big brick phone that

01:07:42.420 you couldn't really do

01:07:43.120 anything at all.

01:07:44.300 And I had to hand it in

01:07:45.120 at the reception desk in

01:07:47.040 primary school.

01:07:47.700 This is when I was like

01:07:48.780 11, about to leave.

01:07:50.520 I think that's reasonable

01:07:51.340 given the environment.

01:07:54.400 You don't want to be

01:07:54.900 distracted by things.

01:07:56.200 I think the school should

01:07:57.000 have the right to be able

01:07:57.820 to say these are the

01:07:58.920 rules, stick by them.

01:07:59.940 But back then, no one

01:08:00.900 texted or called me

01:08:02.260 except my mum.

01:08:03.840 And it's not going to be

01:08:04.780 distracting me at school.

01:08:05.740 It's not exactly as bad

01:08:07.000 as that other school that

01:08:07.900 we were looking at last

01:08:08.760 week, was it?

01:08:09.620 That's true.

01:08:10.320 So, speaking of schools

01:08:13.040 actually, schools are

01:08:16.740 giving children anti-misogyny

01:08:19.060 lessons, apparently.

01:08:21.420 Oh no, this is, there we

01:08:23.800 go, that's what I was

01:08:24.440 looking for.

01:08:24.520 I'm sorry, is this

01:08:25.460 basically like they're

01:08:26.680 finally implementing that

01:08:28.220 old feminist tagline of 1.00

01:08:29.820 they said, we need to

01:08:30.860 teach men not to rape?

01:08:33.780 Apparently.

01:08:34.180 That's what this is.

01:08:35.320 Or stab, apparently. 0.50

01:08:35.960 Or stab.

01:08:36.500 This is, I mean, it's

01:08:37.440 kind of...

01:08:37.960 Or be an incel, or

01:08:39.280 watch Andrew Tate.

01:08:40.440 Or be a boy.

01:08:41.340 Or be a man.

01:08:42.360 Yeah, just don't be...

01:08:43.120 Grow up to be one.

01:08:43.880 Because the whole point

01:08:44.820 of the toxic masculinity

01:08:46.000 is it's just a way of

01:08:47.440 demonising masculinity.

01:08:50.080 Yeah, well, people, it's

01:08:51.660 such a sort of ill-defined

01:08:53.300 term that anything that's

01:08:54.600 basically associated with

01:08:55.980 men is now made bad.

01:08:57.260 Well, here's what it is.

01:08:58.040 Anything that upsets

01:08:59.300 hormonal women is toxic 1.00

01:09:01.600 masculinity. 0.92

01:09:03.400 Okay, long walks and

01:09:04.840 waking up early.

01:09:06.580 Yeah, productivity.

01:09:07.960 Ambitions.

01:09:10.180 A slightly curt message.

01:09:12.560 Having a social life.

01:09:14.420 Sorry.

01:09:15.040 Enough of us whinging.

01:09:16.040 Yeah.

01:09:17.780 There's also this.

01:09:18.740 Schools to give boys 0.88

01:09:19.480 anti-misogyny lessons

01:09:20.480 to stop toxic masculinity

01:09:22.180 in wake of Netflix

01:09:23.180 hit adolescence.

01:09:23.980 So it's explicitly

01:09:24.740 cited as the reason.

01:09:27.180 And I've been provided

01:09:28.240 with some of the things

01:09:28.960 that have been presented

01:09:30.200 to kids.

01:09:32.560 So, due to the response

01:09:34.600 from schools and

01:09:35.260 professionals regarding

01:09:36.140 the recent Netflix

01:09:37.040 mini-series called

01:09:38.020 Adolescence, we have

01:09:38.840 created this fact sheet

01:09:39.760 for awareness about

01:09:40.760 the content that was

01:09:41.900 raised during the show

01:09:42.760 relating to incels,

01:09:44.380 misogyny, and the

01:09:45.180 manosphere.

01:09:45.880 And now, allow me to

01:09:47.100 point something out.

01:09:48.320 If you're talking about

01:09:49.160 children, them being

01:09:51.260 involuntarily celibate

01:09:52.880 is sort of a good thing.

01:09:54.340 I hate to break it to you,

01:09:57.140 but that's not something

01:09:59.220 they should necessarily

01:10:00.060 be doing if they're

01:10:01.100 particularly young.

01:10:02.120 I mean, if you're

01:10:03.380 teaching a class of

01:10:04.340 like 10 and 11-year-olds,

01:10:06.720 incel is not the

01:10:07.680 appropriate insult to

01:10:09.060 throw at them.

01:10:10.200 No.

01:10:11.980 Unless you're in

01:10:12.920 Liverpool, maybe.

01:10:14.400 Yeah, they're different

01:10:15.480 standards.

01:10:16.400 So it says

01:10:17.480 Manosphere.

01:10:18.300 The Manosphere is a

01:10:18.980 collection of website,

01:10:19.920 blogs, and online forums

01:10:20.980 promoting toxic

01:10:21.880 masculinity, misogyny,

01:10:24.120 and opposition to

01:10:24.840 feminism is also 1.00

01:10:26.160 equating all of those

01:10:27.220 things.

01:10:28.260 I'm not necessarily a

01:10:29.780 misogynist, but I am

01:10:30.820 opposed to feminism.

01:10:32.440 I would like to think of

01:10:33.580 myself as non-toxic,

01:10:35.360 but apparently now if

01:10:36.460 you're opposed to

01:10:36.960 feminism, you're all of 1.00

01:10:39.220 those things and more.

01:10:40.200 What they're basically

01:10:40.700 saying is you're one

01:10:41.360 step away from being a

01:10:42.260 murderer.

01:10:43.020 Pretty much.

01:10:43.980 While the Manosphere

01:10:44.620 used to be limited to

01:10:45.820 dark corners of forum

01:10:47.000 websites like Reddit and

01:10:48.100 4chan, which is...

01:10:49.620 You think Redditors?

01:10:50.560 Redditors were

01:10:51.300 participating in the

01:10:53.600 Manosphere.

01:10:54.240 You do realise how

01:10:54.940 left-wing they are.

01:10:55.820 But anyway, even 4chan's

01:10:57.960 getting left-wing these

01:10:58.780 days.

01:10:59.060 It's terrible.

01:10:59.960 It's now permeated

01:11:01.620 regular social media with

01:11:03.040 Manosphere commentary

01:11:03.780 present and popular on

01:11:05.040 Instagram and TikTok.

01:11:06.560 Let me tell you that the

01:11:07.440 Manosphere is more

01:11:09.000 diverse than even

01:11:10.860 Britain.

01:11:11.880 There's a lot of

01:11:12.960 swarthy gentlemen in

01:11:14.840 it.

01:11:15.480 It's not necessarily a

01:11:17.220 white person phenomenon.

01:11:18.980 And in fact, many of the

01:11:19.920 incels are surprisingly

01:11:20.900 diverse.

01:11:21.660 I spoke to one person

01:11:23.780 who was a researcher,

01:11:25.720 a psychologist looking

01:11:26.580 at them, and he said

01:11:28.340 that black men and 0.93

01:11:30.680 Indian men were 0.92

01:11:31.560 massively overrepresented

01:11:32.780 in the incel community

01:11:34.500 and lots of other

01:11:36.140 minorities as well.

01:11:38.180 Also, the Manosphere is

01:11:40.080 itself, again, an

01:11:41.000 incredibly broad term

01:11:43.500 where there are loads of

01:11:44.940 different people with

01:11:45.840 different views giving

01:11:46.720 different kinds of

01:11:47.580 advice.

01:11:47.860 Yeah, you get pickup

01:11:49.000 artists as well.

01:11:50.220 You also get men on

01:11:51.520 forums who are saying,

01:11:52.720 ah, my relationship's not

01:11:54.040 going that great.

01:11:54.960 I've been drifting away

01:11:55.920 from my wife.

01:11:57.320 Can you guys help me

01:11:58.420 figure out how to

01:11:59.260 reconnect with her a bit?

01:12:00.460 You mean there's some

01:12:01.160 nuance here, man?

01:12:01.980 I know, right?

01:12:02.940 I know.

01:12:03.460 And some of them are also

01:12:04.540 just young men going,

01:12:06.160 I need to learn how to

01:12:07.340 talk to women. 1.00

01:12:08.060 Is there any way that you

01:12:08.880 can give me some advice on

01:12:09.940 how to talk to women? 1.00

01:12:10.840 Where they're not just

01:12:11.500 saying, just pick her up 0.99

01:12:13.060 and stealer, they're 0.96

01:12:14.780 saying, here, here's how

01:12:16.260 you can talk to women. 1.00

01:12:17.360 It can be a supportive

01:12:18.600 atmosphere for a lot of

01:12:19.820 young men who society

01:12:21.420 has otherwise abandoned.

01:12:23.660 Case in point.

01:12:24.980 There certainly are some

01:12:26.360 unsavoury figures that are

01:12:27.880 in that domain, but there

01:12:29.720 is also legitimate stuff,

01:12:30.980 as you rightly point out.

01:12:32.260 They go on to toxic

01:12:33.000 masculinity here.

01:12:34.480 Toxic masculinity is a 0.96

01:12:35.740 term that refers to

01:12:36.520 gender stereotypes

01:12:37.360 associated with how a

01:12:38.520 man should act.

01:12:39.760 Some of these stereotypes

01:12:40.540 say that men can't cry, 0.99

01:12:41.960 or they're expected to

01:12:43.000 provide for their family.

01:12:44.740 Sorry, sorry.

01:12:45.460 It's toxically masculine 1.00

01:12:46.720 to provide for your family. 1.00

01:12:48.320 Shut up. 1.00

01:12:49.020 No, it's not. 1.00

01:12:49.980 Who put that expectation

01:12:51.360 on us in the first place?

01:12:53.780 Biology.

01:12:54.940 Women. 0.81

01:12:56.600 Do you think a woman's 0.99

01:12:57.480 going to respect you 0.99

01:12:58.720 if you're a leech to the 0.99

01:13:00.280 household?

01:13:01.280 I'm sorry.

01:13:02.900 Give it a try, if you

01:13:04.520 want.

01:13:05.060 You, if you're a man,

01:13:06.800 doubt it, but if you're a

01:13:07.860 man who wrote this fact

01:13:09.020 sheet, tell your wife. 1.00

01:13:11.040 Tell your wife.

01:13:11.540 You know what?

01:13:11.960 You know, you are the

01:13:12.840 girl boss. 1.00

01:13:13.860 You wear the pants in

01:13:14.920 this family.

01:13:15.740 You're right.

01:13:16.220 I'm going to quit my job.

01:13:17.760 I'm going to stay at home

01:13:18.680 and look after the kids.

01:13:20.020 You can be the bread

01:13:20.920 winner.

01:13:21.460 See how long it lasts.

01:13:23.680 See how long it lasts.

01:13:25.280 Simple as.

01:13:27.500 Also, the reality is

01:13:29.660 that you see all of those

01:13:31.220 posts about men saying,

01:13:32.980 well, you know how we're

01:13:34.120 told about opening up to

01:13:35.240 our girlfriends or

01:13:36.100 whatever, then I opened up

01:13:37.500 to her and I cried and

01:13:38.500 now she doesn't want to

01:13:39.380 see me anymore.

01:13:40.040 Now she doesn't respect me.

01:13:40.960 Many such cases.

01:13:42.440 And it's not to say that

01:13:43.160 you can't have an emotional

01:13:44.040 life, but people rely on you

01:13:45.660 to be strong.

01:13:46.660 And it's not that you need

01:13:47.940 to be emotionally shallow

01:13:49.420 and not acknowledge your

01:13:50.600 emotions.

01:13:51.180 Actually, I think it's very

01:13:52.180 important to do that and to

01:13:53.440 be in touch with them.

01:13:54.780 But also, you've got to be

01:13:55.540 strong enough that when

01:13:57.020 it's necessary, you can

01:13:58.560 ignore them and get on with

01:13:59.660 the task at hand.

01:14:01.320 Because that's what is

01:14:02.280 expected of men.

01:14:03.320 Because it's biological.

01:14:05.000 They go, ew, that's gross.

01:14:06.480 Because it's not a behavior

01:14:09.300 of a high-status man.

01:14:11.300 And people are attracted to

01:14:12.800 signs of people who are

01:14:14.160 high-status.

01:14:14.840 That's biologically programmed

01:14:15.900 into you.

01:14:16.980 Also, you can habituate

01:14:18.060 yourself into depressive

01:14:19.720 behaviors.

01:14:20.640 If you ruminate too much on

01:14:22.200 negative emotions, those

01:14:23.380 negative emotions will

01:14:24.420 become the primary drivers

01:14:26.060 of your actions.

01:14:27.120 Whereas if you try to work

01:14:28.800 past them, and this is

01:14:30.580 something you can do with

01:14:31.440 many things, you can just

01:14:33.180 try and be productive, try and

01:14:34.380 work on a goal, go to the

01:14:35.560 gym, lots of different

01:14:36.720 things, that will habituate

01:14:39.000 you into more positive

01:14:40.360 behaviors, which will

01:14:41.520 reflect on your mental

01:14:42.460 state.

01:14:43.040 Yeah.

01:14:44.060 Here's a little trick for

01:14:45.180 you.

01:14:45.660 Just pretend you don't have

01:14:46.900 the problems and tackle

01:14:48.960 life with a fresh face, and

01:14:50.400 you'll be surprised how much

01:14:52.040 just a slight change in

01:14:53.160 mindset helps.

01:14:54.200 It's helped me, you know,

01:14:55.700 even with all of my

01:14:57.400 psychological expertise,

01:14:58.460 sometimes simple tricks like

01:14:59.580 that are the best.

01:15:01.020 I thought you were going

01:15:01.420 to say, even with all my

01:15:02.360 psychological problems.

01:15:03.420 I'm surprisingly

01:15:05.460 psychologically healthy,

01:15:07.740 despite...

01:15:08.380 You were pretty low on the

01:15:09.820 dark triads when everybody

01:15:11.140 did them.

01:15:11.660 And when I did the big

01:15:13.100 five as well, my

01:15:13.880 neuroticism was quite low.

01:15:15.920 The only thing that I did

01:15:17.220 poorly on is I'm quick to

01:15:18.440 anger, which given this

01:15:19.480 job, I mean...

01:15:20.580 I've seen it happen

01:15:21.280 before.

01:15:22.120 I do get angry.

01:15:22.580 He's a terrifying man.

01:15:24.220 It just snaps.

01:15:25.400 Don't mention pay in front

01:15:26.560 of him.

01:15:26.820 These kinds of stereotypes

01:15:30.280 are harmful to men and

01:15:31.180 boys' mental health.

01:15:32.100 This is because they might

01:15:33.960 feel like they have to keep

01:15:35.000 their feelings to themselves,

01:15:36.160 struggle to talk about

01:15:36.940 their struggles, or like

01:15:38.260 they can't ask for help.

01:15:40.960 Not necessarily, but it's

01:15:42.580 just talking about an

01:15:43.460 ideal.

01:15:43.920 If you fail to live up to

01:15:44.780 the ideal, it's not the

01:15:45.580 end of the world.

01:15:46.500 But you can't pretend that

01:15:47.320 there's not an ideal,

01:15:48.320 because there is, and

01:15:49.740 everyone has it.

01:15:51.060 Misogyny is a form of

01:15:52.060 online hate that targets

01:15:52.920 women and girls.

01:15:53.660 It's promoted in different

01:15:54.720 communities online, where

01:15:55.880 influences promote a

01:15:56.860 narrative that women 1.00

01:15:58.020 should be treated as

01:15:58.880 less than men. 0.85

01:16:01.260 Okay?

01:16:02.260 And then it goes on to

01:16:03.280 talk about incels and

01:16:04.580 Andrew Tate.

01:16:06.080 This was interesting to

01:16:07.400 me.

01:16:07.580 He believes that women 1.00

01:16:08.460 should belong to men. 1.00

01:16:09.620 Men shouldn't... 0.82

01:16:10.460 They shouldn't drive and

01:16:11.820 shouldn't leave the house.

01:16:13.000 Where do you get that

01:16:13.600 belief from?

01:16:14.180 Is that an Islamic 1.00

01:16:15.100 belief, or is that a

01:16:15.860 misogynistic belief?

01:16:17.380 He has also said women

01:16:18.580 should bear responsibility

01:16:19.440 for their own sexual

01:16:20.620 assault.

01:16:22.040 He has said stuff like

01:16:23.240 that.

01:16:23.480 I don't know how serious

01:16:24.300 you should take him, but 1.00

01:16:25.120 he is a scumbag. 1.00

01:16:26.160 I mean, I don't like 1.00

01:16:26.740 the guy.

01:16:27.540 He has spoken out in

01:16:28.780 favour of Russell Brand.

01:16:30.160 Is that really the

01:16:30.960 thing that they go to

01:16:31.760 to condemn him?

01:16:33.420 Conspiracy theorist Alex

01:16:34.500 Jones and the Nazis

01:16:35.920 questioning whether they

01:16:37.180 were really the bad

01:16:37.880 guys in World War II.

01:16:39.360 I mean, I've seen his

01:16:40.280 tweets talking about

01:16:41.040 that.

01:16:41.280 That is true, but I

01:16:43.700 think there are better

01:16:44.380 things to condemn him

01:16:45.360 for, like being a 0.94

01:16:46.360 pimp.

01:16:47.760 Yeah.

01:16:48.340 That's probably better.

01:16:49.760 Yeah.

01:16:50.240 Even the theme of what

01:16:51.840 you're saying here more

01:16:52.700 rather than putting in

01:16:53.520 left-wing talking points.

01:16:54.420 Yeah, rather than where

01:16:55.500 he just trolls and stirs 0.99

01:16:56.940 shit on Twitter. 1.00

01:16:58.160 Yeah, exactly. 1.00

01:16:59.380 And then there's more.

01:17:00.360 It talks about the red

01:17:01.840 pill.

01:17:03.400 Looks maxing.

01:17:04.880 Yeah.

01:17:05.380 No!

01:17:06.820 Also, keep mewing,

01:17:08.420 brothers.

01:17:09.000 You know your title,

01:17:10.460 Sigma Sisson.

01:17:11.380 Apparently that was

01:17:12.080 toxic masculinity because 0.91

01:17:13.360 alphas, betas and

01:17:14.240 sigmas are now, that's 1.00

01:17:16.440 an incel term.

01:17:17.660 Well, that just goes to

01:17:18.520 further prove that Harry

01:17:20.040 Sisson's our guy.

01:17:22.540 He's our top guy.

01:17:23.780 He's an inside agent.

01:17:25.080 Sorry, it's now common

01:17:25.880 that the term maxing is

01:17:27.000 now applied to things

01:17:27.860 ironically, i.e.

01:17:29.860 if you get your 10,000

01:17:31.060 steps in, you're walk

01:17:32.440 maxing.

01:17:33.620 Mm-hmm.

01:17:34.480 So what's wrong with

01:17:35.360 looks maxing?

01:17:36.760 You're just trying to be

01:17:37.740 attractive.

01:17:39.060 While this term may

01:17:39.880 have originated in the

01:17:40.720 incel community, it is

01:17:42.060 often used ironically in

01:17:43.300 ways entirely unrelated

01:17:44.500 to incel.

01:17:45.240 Okay, so what's the

01:17:46.000 point?

01:17:46.460 Who cares about any of

01:17:47.460 this?

01:17:48.320 Also, the red pill emoji

01:17:49.840 mentioned in Netflix's

01:17:51.060 adolescence is indeed a

01:17:52.240 reference to the 1990

01:17:53.160 film The Matrix, although

01:17:54.480 it has now become

01:17:55.080 incredibly convoluted and

01:17:56.240 warped by the manosphere.

01:17:57.820 What?

01:17:58.180 No, it hasn't.

01:17:59.160 It's not associated with

01:18:00.100 the manosphere.

01:18:00.880 It's associated with

01:18:01.900 politics.

01:18:02.720 To be fair, I think red

01:18:03.480 pill does come from

01:18:05.380 manosphere potentially

01:18:06.640 originally.

01:18:07.240 I don't know if it's

01:18:08.080 used sort of

01:18:08.780 ubiquitously by most

01:18:10.980 of the online right

01:18:12.460 now.

01:18:12.960 Yes, that's true.

01:18:13.900 It's not specific to

01:18:15.940 that.

01:18:16.180 It's just about being

01:18:17.100 aware of the way the

01:18:18.240 world works, isn't it?

01:18:19.220 That's what it's meant

01:18:19.800 to mean.

01:18:20.280 I hear people talk about

01:18:21.300 red pill influencers and

01:18:22.600 I still know that they're

01:18:23.280 basically talking about

01:18:24.060 like pickup artists or

01:18:26.740 people in the manosphere.

01:18:28.500 Yeah, and then they

01:18:29.840 show the emojis and

01:18:31.100 explain what they mean.

01:18:33.580 The dynamite, which

01:18:34.300 refers to an exploding

01:18:35.380 red pill, means that

01:18:36.680 someone is an incel.

01:18:39.080 Some of these are like

01:18:40.260 brass eye level

01:18:41.180 misunderstandings.

01:18:42.780 Incels have long used

01:18:44.020 a coffee cup emoji to

01:18:45.540 express disdain for

01:18:46.620 women, often on its 1.00

01:18:47.920 owner with the word

01:18:48.840 women. 0.81

01:18:49.960 Have you seen that

01:18:50.640 meme?

01:18:51.140 The Team Fortress 2

01:18:52.280 meme?

01:18:53.500 I think so, yeah.

01:18:54.360 Where they go, ah,

01:18:55.120 women, and then sip the 0.99

01:18:56.260 coffee.

01:18:56.960 Are they really upset?

01:18:58.520 Does this need to be on

01:18:59.340 a fact sheet?

01:19:00.400 There are a bunch of

01:19:01.040 all these different

01:19:01.760 hearts mean different

01:19:02.640 things.

01:19:03.060 Because apparently it's

01:19:03.760 to do with your

01:19:04.480 opinions on sex for

01:19:05.820 some reason.

01:19:07.280 I've never come across

01:19:08.460 this.

01:19:08.740 Maybe it is.

01:19:10.560 I'm 30 this year, so I

01:19:12.420 don't know what young

01:19:14.000 kids are doing.

01:19:15.940 How do they develop this

01:19:17.180 incredibly complex code?

01:19:18.840 Some of these are

01:19:20.600 correct, like the

01:19:21.820 aubergine.

01:19:23.140 They've understood that

01:19:24.160 one.

01:19:24.580 The peach.

01:19:25.040 And the water and the

01:19:25.920 peach and things like

01:19:26.640 that.

01:19:26.860 But some of these are

01:19:27.620 very convoluted.

01:19:29.020 Is that a brain for

01:19:30.300 aurels?

01:19:31.620 I don't know.

01:19:33.160 But the one that made

01:19:34.400 me laugh was the eyes

01:19:36.920 used when sending or

01:19:39.000 receiving news, which is

01:19:40.720 not true at all.

01:19:42.320 From my...

01:19:43.840 I don't really use

01:19:44.560 emojis because I'm an

01:19:46.520 adult.

01:19:46.800 But when I've seen

01:19:48.340 them used, the eyes are

01:19:50.820 like, oh, this is

01:19:51.640 awkward.

01:19:52.080 You're like looking

01:19:52.520 side to side.

01:19:53.500 Just like, oh, what's

01:19:54.260 going to happen?

01:19:55.300 There's something about

01:19:55.780 to go down.

01:19:56.660 It's not anything to do

01:19:57.760 with that.

01:19:59.020 I don't care what any

01:20:00.580 of these are supposed

01:20:01.520 to mean from this fact

01:20:02.720 sheet.

01:20:03.440 Also, like, a magic wand

01:20:06.660 is used to refer to

01:20:07.660 sexual activity.

01:20:08.960 Is it?

01:20:10.380 I don't know.

01:20:11.400 Maybe this is also the

01:20:13.140 eyes with that in the

01:20:14.900 middle.

01:20:15.100 A response that

01:20:17.120 means it is what it

01:20:18.040 is, apparently, which

01:20:19.720 is not true.

01:20:22.600 I've seen people

01:20:23.600 respond with that to

01:20:24.960 surprising news.

01:20:27.240 It's a way of saying,

01:20:28.240 what?

01:20:28.880 But who cares?

01:20:29.920 Also, the hourglass used

01:20:31.340 when someone has an

01:20:32.480 hourglass body shape, I

01:20:33.600 use it to signify one of

01:20:35.840 my friends is taking a

01:20:36.700 long time to get ready

01:20:37.620 and I'm annoyed that I'm

01:20:38.460 waiting.

01:20:39.200 It's like, come on.

01:20:40.560 Normally accompanied with

01:20:41.420 a snail.

01:20:41.860 I know I said I don't

01:20:43.840 use them, but only

01:20:44.700 ironically to annoy

01:20:45.640 people, which is

01:20:46.780 allowed.

01:20:47.620 But yeah, we get the

01:20:48.340 gist of this.

01:20:48.820 This is so out of

01:20:49.580 touch.

01:20:50.240 It's obviously just

01:20:51.100 propaganda. 1.00

01:20:52.200 Pathetic. 1.00

01:20:52.640 And I can tell you it's 1.00

01:20:53.320 going to be a one hour

01:20:55.180 special class that they

01:20:57.600 get instead of form

01:20:58.860 time at school or

01:21:00.040 something.

01:21:01.020 Everybody's going to be

01:21:01.720 bored.

01:21:02.340 Everybody will be

01:21:03.320 laughing at this.

01:21:04.240 Yeah, and I think the

01:21:07.380 actual reality of this is

01:21:08.640 it's going to have more

01:21:09.440 of a reaction than people

01:21:10.600 actually listening to it

01:21:11.640 because they're children,

01:21:12.500 right?

01:21:13.120 Anyone who's susceptible to

01:21:15.060 any of the things they're

01:21:15.780 worried about is going to

01:21:16.920 have this stuff approach

01:21:17.880 them and they're going to

01:21:18.460 find it hilarious and 0.97

01:21:19.400 ridiculous because they 0.72

01:21:20.700 know what these things 0.99

01:21:21.440 mean because they are the

01:21:22.500 generation that's trying

01:21:23.600 to be understood.

01:21:25.220 And now, Toby Young

01:21:26.540 actually had a pretty good

01:21:28.300 perspective on this.

01:21:30.020 He's saying, I think one

01:21:31.220 of the reasons it's met

01:21:32.600 the series that is, what's

01:21:35.380 it called, Adolescence,

01:21:36.660 it's been met with a

01:21:37.620 course of approval by the

01:21:38.880 mainstream media is that

01:21:39.920 because it's just repeating

01:21:40.980 back to the liberal

01:21:41.880 metropolitan elite what

01:21:43.140 they already think about

01:21:44.420 knife crime and then

01:21:46.480 they use it in a loop as

01:21:49.080 citing it as evidence.

01:21:50.360 Like, there's this thing

01:21:51.440 and he points out that

01:21:53.320 Keir Starmer accidentally

01:21:54.440 with a slip of the tongue

01:21:55.400 referred to it as a

01:21:56.080 documentary and I think

01:21:58.420 that that's how they view

01:21:59.340 it, isn't it?

01:21:59.840 That this is actually

01:22:00.760 evidence that this is

01:22:02.580 the way the world works

01:22:03.860 when actually it's not

01:22:04.980 look at your own crime

01:22:06.020 data, look at the

01:22:06.740 ethnicities responsible 1.00

01:22:07.680 and you'll have a more

01:22:10.120 reasonable view.

01:22:10.840 And speaking of a

01:22:11.420 reasonable view, if

01:22:13.520 you're a young boy

01:22:14.140 watching, this is a

01:22:15.420 better way of looking

01:22:16.700 at what a man should be

01:22:17.880 doing.

01:22:19.420 Biology has endowed you

01:22:20.920 with a role in society.

01:22:23.000 It is basically, your

01:22:24.860 foremost role is to be

01:22:25.960 able to protect people,

01:22:27.320 to be able to defend

01:22:28.020 them because, as you may

01:22:29.680 be aware, your physical

01:22:31.560 prowess is the determining

01:22:33.900 factor by how social

01:22:35.240 hierarchies are determined

01:22:36.220 in men.

01:22:37.000 This has been the case

01:22:37.880 forever and will never

01:22:39.560 go away because it's so

01:22:40.580 entrenched in our biology.

01:22:41.980 You should be able to

01:22:42.700 provide for your family

01:22:44.260 which you create through

01:22:45.280 procreation.

01:22:47.560 And the idea is you have

01:22:48.900 a family, you provide for

01:22:50.440 them, you are stable, you

01:22:51.820 are able to protect them

01:22:52.800 and then there are lots of

01:22:53.820 virtues like courage, honour,

01:22:55.960 resolution, industry as in

01:22:57.560 you are productive, you

01:22:58.700 are self-reliant and you

01:22:59.880 mastered the things that

01:23:01.040 you put your mind to.

01:23:02.180 This is a much healthier

01:23:03.060 way of looking at male

01:23:04.860 psychology, I think, and I

01:23:06.600 much prefer this because it

01:23:08.640 basically gives people a

01:23:10.200 purpose that is pro-social

01:23:12.240 and good and doesn't deny

01:23:15.380 the biological realities of

01:23:17.280 how men operate and

01:23:18.640 function.

01:23:19.580 And this would do a lot

01:23:21.100 better, actually, if you

01:23:22.280 wanted to guide boys and

01:23:24.960 young men off of the 0.97

01:23:26.200 straight and narrow into a

01:23:27.540 healthy life.

01:23:28.600 Well, a female school 1.00

01:23:29.680 teacher might tut at you.

01:23:31.560 Yeah, well, funnily enough,

01:23:33.480 you don't exist for the

01:23:34.760 approval of female

01:23:35.520 school teachers and in many

01:23:36.600 ways them henpecking you 0.92

01:23:37.740 only makes you stronger.

01:23:40.540 Alright then, have we got

01:23:41.520 any video comments,

01:23:42.560 Samson?

01:23:45.840 And we've also got a

01:23:47.400 rumble rant for you.

01:23:49.840 Okay.

01:23:51.880 Glee777 says it's true,

01:23:53.400 I've been radicalised by

01:23:54.360 Thomas the Tank Engine.

01:23:55.900 Well, to be fair, the

01:23:56.980 Reverend Audrey was quite a

01:23:59.260 radical, even in his day.

01:24:01.180 I mean, I like the lesson

01:24:03.180 that you don't even talk to

01:24:04.440 the trucks.

01:24:05.440 Like those underclass types, 1.00

01:24:06.640 you don't even talk to

01:24:07.420 them.

01:24:07.660 See, I always thought that

01:24:08.680 you were trying to emulate

01:24:09.480 the fat controller.

01:24:11.140 Well, I've been going for 0.87

01:24:12.700 his body type.

01:24:13.300 I've just been trying to

01:24:13.940 emulate his wealth.

01:24:15.020 Yeah, spirit and body as

01:24:16.440 well.

01:24:16.780 I like his top hat as well,

01:24:17.860 very Victorian.

01:24:18.480 Yes.

01:24:19.040 Yes.

01:24:19.140 Yes.

01:24:19.200 Yes.

01:24:21.200 This is, I'm trying to read

01:24:34.860 what it says backwards.

01:24:36.020 Even robo-waifus like the 1.00

01:24:39.060 Islander 3.

01:24:40.180 Hey, there you go.

01:24:41.360 Very glad to hear it.

01:24:42.460 I'm looking forward to our

01:24:43.580 future robot dystopia now

01:24:46.260 because they're all going to

01:24:47.320 be fans of Islander magazine.

01:24:49.340 This is great.

01:24:50.000 Yeah.

01:24:50.260 Great news.

01:24:50.780 You've saved us.

01:24:51.720 Josh is secretly hoping for

01:24:53.060 his robo-waifu.

01:24:55.660 At least she'll do the

01:24:56.520 dishes.

01:25:02.520 I can't hear anything, but

01:25:03.740 it's a nice little chipmunk.

01:25:04.940 Is there any audio for this

01:25:05.900 one, Samson?

01:25:06.580 Okay, there's no audio for

01:25:07.560 this.

01:25:07.780 Yeah, that's lovely.

01:25:08.240 Like the video.

01:25:09.360 Look at that thing. 0.92

01:25:10.300 That's so cute.

01:25:12.080 The urge to pet is

01:25:13.520 overwhelming.

01:25:15.520 Like a grey squirrel, but

01:25:17.060 better.

01:25:17.440 Cuter.

01:25:19.700 Less invasive.

01:25:22.800 Well, probably would be

01:25:23.600 very invasive, but still.

01:25:26.980 That was very sweet.

01:25:28.200 Thank you, Jen.

01:25:28.720 I needed that.

01:25:29.300 That was a knife palate

01:25:30.280 cleanser.

01:25:31.200 There we go.

01:25:31.720 I think that's all of the

01:25:32.560 video comments.

01:25:36.980 Okay, so George Hap

01:25:39.160 says, while the so-called

01:25:41.340 war plan might not be

01:25:42.500 final, Trump should be

01:25:43.800 aware of the Warhawks

01:25:45.600 and his administration,

01:25:46.620 especially when it comes

01:25:47.440 to a certain country in

01:25:48.280 the Middle East.

01:25:48.980 I have no idea what you're

01:25:50.260 on about.

01:25:51.120 Also, I think Trump

01:25:52.020 probably shares their

01:25:52.940 views.

01:25:53.460 He does.

01:25:54.020 On that country.

01:25:55.160 Yeah, I think, if anything,

01:25:56.840 the policy coming out of the

01:25:59.180 White House is Israel first, 1.00

01:26:00.680 America second, but hey.

01:26:03.080 Wouldn't necessarily say

01:26:04.160 that, but to be fair, I've

01:26:05.240 not.

01:26:05.400 I mean, I know that Trump

01:26:06.580 has said that Israel should

01:26:08.160 finish it up as quickly as

01:26:09.500 possible with Gaza.

01:26:11.500 It's like a dad who's just

01:26:13.680 walked in on his son and

01:26:14.820 his girlfriend.

01:26:15.620 Just finish up.

01:26:17.040 Get it over with.

01:26:17.880 And then he can build a

01:26:19.440 basically New Vegas strip

01:26:21.120 where Gaza was.

01:26:22.420 Horrifying.

01:26:25.300 Thomas Howell says,

01:26:26.460 Trump is burdened by what

01:26:27.680 has been.

01:26:28.280 Vance is not.

01:26:29.360 That is true.

01:26:30.700 And I suppose I'm going to

01:26:33.520 read out this name.

01:26:34.480 Josh Firm, lover of

01:26:35.840 married women and bane of 1.00

01:26:36.980 single mothers. 0.99

01:26:40.420 If by that you mean I like

01:26:42.060 women to be married and 0.99

01:26:43.540 don't approve of single

01:26:44.540 motherhood in the abstract,

01:26:47.500 sure.

01:26:48.040 But I have never had any

01:26:50.600 altercations with married

01:26:52.500 women before. 1.00

01:26:53.560 Altercations got into a

01:26:54.580 fight with them in the

01:26:55.440 street.

01:26:55.500 That's the wrong word.

01:26:57.280 I've never punched a

01:26:58.440 married woman.

01:26:59.340 Only the unmarried, 0.99

01:27:00.140 apparently.

01:27:01.620 I've never punched a

01:27:02.760 woman before. 0.98

01:27:03.080 You walked past women 1.00

01:27:03.760 standing by themselves

01:27:05.060 with prams in the street

01:27:06.320 and he's overcome with

01:27:07.920 rage and he must beat

01:27:09.700 them. 0.56

01:27:10.200 Well, to be fair, I am

01:27:11.160 because I'm thinking to

01:27:12.000 myself, I'm paying for

01:27:13.020 this.

01:27:14.400 Fair.

01:27:15.620 Tim Pool argues these

01:27:16.700 plans were leaked on

01:27:17.480 purpose to a journalist

01:27:18.440 thinking they would write

01:27:19.380 an article about it and in

01:27:20.660 the process explain to the

01:27:21.700 masses about who's

01:27:23.080 getting bombed so the

01:27:24.080 American people know it's

01:27:25.140 not some random act of

01:27:26.040 aggression by America.

01:27:28.400 It's possible, but I don't

01:27:29.680 think it's likely.

01:27:30.380 That's a very roundabout

01:27:31.360 way of getting that

01:27:32.480 information out to the

01:27:33.220 people.

01:27:34.060 Lord Inquisitor Hector

01:27:35.440 Rex says Ubisoft has

01:27:37.300 allegedly been caught

01:27:38.560 inflating player numbers

01:27:40.300 in Assassin's Creed

01:27:41.160 Shadows.

01:27:42.200 I mean, they only said

01:27:43.420 that they had two

01:27:44.220 million players, which

01:27:46.300 doesn't seem to match up

01:27:47.920 with the Steam sales or

01:27:50.080 probably the PlayStation

01:27:51.220 sales.

01:27:51.320 Saying it's less than

01:27:52.200 two million.

01:27:52.860 Or the Xbox sales.

01:27:54.840 So it seems like they

01:27:55.460 just pulled that number 1.00

01:27:56.300 out of their arse. 1.00

01:27:57.080 You were a Shadows 1.00

01:27:58.040 denialist.

01:27:58.700 Perhaps I am.

01:28:00.300 I better not visit

01:28:01.120 Germany anytime soon. 0.71

01:28:02.640 Geordie Swordsman says

01:28:03.860 sure would be a shame if

01:28:05.080 anyone were to mention

01:28:05.840 the cheat engine tables

01:28:06.980 that let you unlock the

01:28:07.900 entire MTX store in

01:28:09.200 Origins, Odyssey, and

01:28:10.200 Valhalla.

01:28:10.680 I hope nobody would be so

01:28:11.680 awful as to say they're

01:28:12.500 called inventory editor.

01:28:14.060 That would just be

01:28:14.500 terrible.

01:28:14.920 Not that I'm saying that

01:28:15.620 you should steal.

01:28:16.100 It would be really

01:28:16.560 terrible if you heard

01:28:17.460 about inventory editor,

01:28:19.060 wouldn't it?

01:28:19.320 It would be really

01:28:19.940 terrible inventory editor.

01:28:22.400 Maureen Peters says

01:28:23.620 speaking as a girl who's

01:28:24.740 girlbossing her way 0.94

01:28:25.720 through life, aka having

01:28:26.920 the same responsibilities

01:28:27.720 as a dude, only with

01:28:28.980 more bragging and

01:28:29.760 complaining.

01:28:30.500 A woman who doesn't want 1.00

01:28:32.180 to be old-fashionedly

01:28:33.440 wooed and treated like

01:28:34.260 she is deserving to be

01:28:35.320 protected every now and

01:28:36.420 then is lying.

01:28:38.020 Big time.

01:28:39.240 Being feminine and

01:28:40.040 wanting someone in your

01:28:40.760 life to compliment that

01:28:41.880 isn't a weakness.

01:28:43.500 Hear, hear.

01:28:44.100 And that's a very good

01:28:45.060 attitude.

01:28:45.740 Yes.

01:28:45.940 And fuzzy toaster,

01:28:46.740 Assassin's Creed peaked

01:28:47.600 as a series with Black

01:28:48.500 Flag.

01:28:49.260 Microtransactions are 1.00

01:28:49.840 really buggering up the

01:28:50.760 games industry.

01:28:51.420 It's not that they exist,

01:28:52.240 it's that incentivizing

01:28:53.280 in-game purchases

01:28:54.100 shouldn't be a thing.

01:28:55.720 Cosmetics only.

01:28:56.520 Remember when Oblivion

01:28:57.340 Horse Armor was an

01:28:58.620 outrage?

01:28:59.020 Yeah, Oblivion Horse

01:28:59.880 Armor really started this

01:29:01.220 whole thing.

01:29:02.160 But yeah.

01:29:02.580 It's hard, it all comes

01:29:03.480 down to you.

01:29:04.140 Basically developing the

01:29:05.360 game and the gameplay to

01:29:06.820 incentivize in-game

01:29:08.220 purchases is one of the

01:29:09.680 most scummy business

01:29:10.920 practices I've ever seen

01:29:12.440 in my life and why you

01:29:13.380 should honestly just

01:29:14.140 boycott any game that

01:29:16.300 gets involved in that

01:29:17.060 kind of business

01:29:17.540 practice.

01:29:17.740 I always avoid it on a

01:29:19.380 matter of principle as

01:29:20.360 well, Samson, by the

01:29:21.820 way.

01:29:22.040 Yeah, good point

01:29:24.340 actually.

01:29:25.080 Boo.

01:29:25.640 Everyone boo.

01:29:26.340 Everyone boo Samson.

01:29:27.620 No, don't boo Samson,

01:29:28.460 he's doing a very good

01:29:29.020 job.

01:29:30.580 So, North FC Zuma says

01:29:32.780 Starmer has now has a

01:29:34.780 favorite TV show.

01:29:35.840 That's true.

01:29:37.100 Yes.

01:29:37.680 I have watched and

01:29:38.400 approve of current media

01:29:39.720 and then finally, Justin

01:29:42.540 B says, I used to teach

01:29:43.520 English, do not use

01:29:44.920 grammar structure as any

01:29:46.200 indication of ethnicity.

01:29:47.860 I actually had one

01:29:48.760 English child argue that

01:29:49.880 saying,

01:29:50.220 twas bare good was

01:29:52.040 appropriate grammar for

01:29:53.060 a CV.

01:29:55.320 I take it, it was more

01:29:56.700 of an urban environment

01:29:58.220 that you were in.

01:29:59.180 Twas bare good, were

01:30:00.760 they trying to get a

01:30:01.380 little bit of the old

01:30:02.000 Renaissance poems in

01:30:04.080 there or something?

01:30:04.960 I got told off in

01:30:05.940 school for using too

01:30:06.880 many 19th century words.

01:30:09.580 It's like, no one will

01:30:10.140 understand you, Josh.

01:30:11.860 They were, they were,

01:30:12.880 that was, that was the

01:30:13.900 school system beating you

01:30:15.880 down.

01:30:16.480 Yes.

01:30:16.900 Imagine how toxicly 0.81

01:30:18.180 masculine you could be

01:30:19.420 right now.

01:30:20.620 They had their boot on

01:30:21.500 your neck.

01:30:21.940 No wonder you ended up 0.92

01:30:22.820 the way you are.

01:30:23.440 Going to be Victorian 1.00

01:30:24.160 maxing soon enough.

01:30:26.100 Maxing, oh my goodness.

01:30:27.320 Oh no.

01:30:27.940 We got an incel over here

01:30:29.160 folks.

01:30:29.400 Anyway, that's all the,

01:30:30.840 the, the, the, the, the,

01:30:32.700 that's all we've got time

01:30:34.180 for today, folks.

01:30:35.400 Thank you very much for

01:30:36.420 joining us.

01:30:36.880 We'll be back again

01:30:37.640 tomorrow at the usual

01:30:38.960 time.

01:30:39.400 So see you then.

01:30:40.320 Take care.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 26, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1129

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript