TRIGGERnometry - Babylon Bee CEO： Mocking the Woke Left and Woke Right - Seth Dillon

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00:00:30.820 We're here to speak the truth to a post-truth culture and challenge these bad ideas that we think need to be ridiculed.

00:00:37.120 We shouldn't have to depend on benevolent billionaires to bail us out.

00:00:40.940 The joke was about somebody who is, Rachel Levine was named Woman of the Year.

00:00:45.180 Like this is someone who's receiving awards, a white male high-ranking government official.

00:00:50.000 And we make a joke about this person and we're punching down on the marginalized and the oppressed.

00:00:54.460 Make sense of that. You can't.

00:00:56.380 Why is the right now kind of infected with its own sort of woke mind virus where the same type of tactics are being deployed to protect their ideas?

00:01:06.020 But to get that reaction from the right is new and kind of surprising to us that people on the right are having that sensitive snowflake response.

00:01:14.000 Somebody's got to push back on that stuff.

00:01:17.380 And if it means that we get a lot of backlash from the right, oh well.

00:01:22.360 Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:25.300 Great to be here.

00:01:26.180 It's great to have you on the show.

00:01:27.440 So you are crushing it, making great satire.

00:01:32.160 I see your stuff being shared all the time.

00:01:35.480 And we want to talk about satire and lots of other stuff.

00:01:38.600 One of the things I actually wanted to talk to you about right off the bat is you made a very principled decision,

00:01:44.420 which I imagine would have been a hard decision for someone like you who has a bunch of people working for him,

00:01:48.820 when you were basically, you had a choice about being banned from Twitter and staying banned from Twitter under the old regime

00:01:56.240 and sticking to your principles or giving in.

00:01:59.340 And you actually did what very few people did, and you stuck to your guns.

00:02:02.900 Tell us about that.

00:02:04.560 Yeah, well, I mean, the details are, should I flesh out the context for what actually happened there?

00:02:11.980 USA Today had named Rachel Levine their pick for Woman of the Year.

00:02:16.480 And Rachel Levine is, if you know who that is.

00:02:18.560 We'll have a photo.

00:02:19.560 Okay, we'll throw the picture up.

00:02:20.880 Rachel Levine is a transgender health admiral in the Biden administration. 1.00

00:02:24.980 And so, you know, we saw that headline, and it was, you know, that's a comical headline.

00:02:31.860 It's illustrative of how absurd our culture and our world has gotten that you have an adult male who has won an award as Woman of the Year.

00:02:41.800 Like, that would have been a joke just recently.

00:02:45.080 And now it's, you know, it's like straight out of a South Park episode from like six years ago, and now it's happening.

00:02:50.860 So, it was a struggle to try to think of like, how do you satirize something like that?

00:02:56.020 Like, what's the joke that you tell to exaggerate that and make it funnier than it already is?

00:03:01.480 And one of our writers suggested that we just kind of put our own spin on it where we name Rachel Levine our pick for Man of the Year and just like make a true statement about who this person really is.

00:03:14.660 Which is provocative in a culture that denies your right to identify males as a man if they don't identify themselves as a man.

00:03:23.480 Misgendering.

00:03:24.580 So, Twitter had a policy against that hateful conduct.

00:03:28.960 It's hateful conduct if you misgender somebody. 1.00

00:03:30.920 And so, we were mindful of that.

00:03:32.540 And so, he pitches this idea, and our editor-in-chief, his name is Kyle, responds and goes,

00:03:36.960 Dude, you're going to get us kicked off of Facebook and Twitter if we do this joke, you know?

00:03:40.880 And he goes, Yeah, I know.

00:03:43.100 LOL.

00:03:44.200 So, there was that little back and forth.

00:03:46.460 And it's actually, it's interesting that that, when a back and forth like that takes place before you put a joke out there, and you've maybe experienced this yourselves, like, it used to be like the number one rule of comedy was just to be funny.

00:03:58.560 It was just to elicit laughter, try to get a response.

00:04:01.680 And even to be controversial on purpose, you know, and get a rise out of your audience sometimes.

00:04:06.560 And now, you have these rules about what you can and can't joke about.

00:04:10.920 You know, it's prohibited to punch down on the marginalized and the oppressed and all of these things.

00:04:16.020 And so, you have to be mindful of whether or not you're going to step on a landmine, get yourself canceled, get yourself suspended from the platform that you use to reach your audience, all of those things.

00:04:27.400 And so, I think that conversation that went back and forth, it was kind of like, you know, they were laughing about it.

00:04:33.080 Like, we might get canceled for this.

00:04:34.660 We might get deplatformed.

00:04:35.820 But it's a very real thing.

00:04:37.320 This is like, this is how they want you thinking.

00:04:39.280 They want you thinking to yourself, if I say this, I'll have a penalty.

00:04:44.700 So, I shouldn't say it.

00:04:45.680 I'll just hold it back.

00:04:46.560 And that kind of soft censorship, that self-censorship, I think, is way more pervasive than the hard censorship, where they're actually, like, taking down user content.

00:04:55.920 It's that soft censorship that's really more widespread and more problematic, in my opinion, because it's cowardly.

00:05:01.440 It's people who are doing the tyrant's work for him by censoring themselves.

00:05:05.720 And so, we have a policy against doing that at the Bee.

00:05:10.920 And it really wasn't even really stated explicitly.

00:05:13.760 It's not like I had a rule written somewhere on a whiteboard, like, never censor yourself.

00:05:17.340 It's just kind of like the attitude that we have about all of this stuff is, we're here to speak the truth to a post-truth culture and challenge these bad ideas that we think need to be ridiculed.

00:05:26.800 And so, we're going to do that, come what may.

00:05:29.720 So, we published the joke.

00:05:31.040 We published the headline, you know, the Bad Mom Bees pick from Man of the Year is Rachel Levine.

00:05:35.400 And it quickly got flagged for hateful conduct.

00:05:39.200 And we got a warning notice saying that if we didn't delete it, we would remain locked out of our account.

00:05:43.880 They basically locked it.

00:05:44.960 They didn't ban us.

00:05:45.860 They locked us out of our account.

00:05:47.940 And so, within a matter, like, we talked about it back and forth.

00:05:52.040 We were like, what should we do?

00:05:53.320 Do we delete it?

00:05:54.000 Do we not delete it?

00:05:54.700 And we're like, we can't in good conscience delete it.

00:05:57.180 It's a joke for one thing.

00:05:58.600 It's true for another.

00:06:00.200 We can't take it down.

00:06:01.380 Like, we can't.

00:06:02.240 We just can't do that.

00:06:03.600 So, we stood our ground.

00:06:04.860 And yeah, I put out a statement.

00:06:05.980 I'm like, we're not deleting the suite.

00:06:08.100 And we had no idea, by the way.

00:06:10.660 No clue that, like, Elon Musk was considering buying Twitter and that he was, that those wheels were in motion.

00:06:17.020 That was unbeknownst to us, it became apparent to us very shortly after that.

00:06:22.240 And he did reach out to us not long after that happened to confirm that we had been suspended and all that.

00:06:28.900 But anyway, that's kind of like the, sorry, a shorter version, as I can tell, of, like, what actually went into that decision-making process and what we were dealing with and trying to decide, you know, do we censor ourselves or not?

00:06:39.200 And we refused to.

00:06:40.700 It worked out for us.

00:06:42.220 Yeah.

00:06:42.360 But, you know, ultimately, as I say all the time, you know, we shouldn't have to depend on benevolent billionaires to bail us out when we, because, you know, the tyrants that control the public forums are restricting our speech so much.

00:06:55.340 Like, there's got to be an answer to that besides just, you know, some rich guy coming in and saving the day.

00:06:59.240 Sure. And I imagine part of the conversation, at least for most people, would be, well, you know, we were talking before we started, you have a bunch of people working for you, you have a staff, you have bills to pay, right?

00:07:10.420 Yeah.

00:07:10.800 Like, how did you work, think about that? Because you're cutting, you're being cut off from a pretty sizable chunk of your work.

00:07:17.360 I maybe didn't think about it enough.

00:07:19.980 Okay.

00:07:20.360 I was like, it's the principle of the thing. We're never deleting the tweet. Now, how do we generate revenue?

00:07:25.600 Right.

00:07:25.920 No, it is, it is, it is an important thing. And that's one of the other, you know, that's the one of the other, it's one of the pressures.

00:07:32.080 It's one of the reasons people do censor themselves. It's just like, well, this is my audience. This is my livelihood. This is how I generate revenue.

00:07:38.100 YouTube is one of the biggest ones with that. You know, you don't hear of a lot of creators.

00:07:41.520 You do more now with X now actually sharing revenue with creators, but, but it's not like a lot of people were actually, they had a following maybe on Twitter, but they weren't generating a lot of revenue on Twitter.

00:07:50.420 Whereas like on YouTube, for example, people with popular channels are generating a substantial amount of revenue.

00:07:55.560 You know, they're going to play by the rules to not lose that. The last thing they want to do is lose that and be like, oh, where do I go now?

00:08:01.540 So yeah, Twitter was one of our largest platforms and it was, it was certainly a consideration.

00:08:06.800 I remember, I was confident at the time and we had already kind of set ourselves up where, you know, when I got involved with the B in 2018, one of the first things that I wanted to do is make sure that we had a subscription platform in place where we had our readers able to subscribe to support the B so that we wouldn't be so dependent on big tech.

00:08:26.580 When I got involved back in 2018, we were being fact-checked all over the place. We were getting flagged for incitement to violence.

00:08:32.620 Just for people who don't know, you run a satirical news website.

00:08:35.660 Satire site.

00:08:36.700 Yeah. Fake news you can trust.

00:08:39.240 So yeah, we, we, we, we published jokes. I mean, one of the most notable first fact checks we got was a joke we made about CNN.

00:08:45.720 And the headline was CNN purchases industrial size washing machine to spin the news before publishing it. 1.00

00:08:51.440 And it's a stupid joke. You know, it was funnier that it got fact-checked than the actual headline was. 0.99

00:08:55.740 Right. Yeah.

00:08:56.520 And, and so, you know, Facebook was threatening to take us down for, for sharing stuff like that.

00:09:00.900 But that was already starting when I first got involved.

00:09:04.340 And so immediately I was like, we need, we need revenue that doesn't come from big tech directly.

00:09:10.140 We need revenue that comes from our readers directly. So I started positioning us to be in a place where if we had to take a stand or if we got kicked off Facebook, for example, which back in 2018 was driving a ton of traffic for us, we would still be in business.

00:09:26.040 So I think we were positioned to be really the only reason I say this honestly and sincerely, the only reason we were in a position as a business to survive making a decision like that is because of reader support.

00:09:37.020 Hmm. And did your audience step up in that moment? Did you see a big surge in, in subscriptions at that time?

00:09:43.600 Yeah. I mean, anytime you have, uh, anytime you have, if you already have somewhat of a platform and it's newsworthy that something's happened, you know, like these cancellation attempts that happen to guys that are already popular, like when they try to cancel Joe Rogan or they try to cancel Dave Chappelle or somebody like that, it only makes them more popular.

00:10:01.520 Yeah.

00:10:02.020 It draws more attention that more people want to see their show. They want to see the controversial things they're saying that are getting them canceled.

00:10:07.020 Um, we definitely had a little bit of that Streisand effect happen where, uh, we got a boost out of it. We got more traffic. We got more revenue for a brief period of time, but it's a punctuated spike and that stuff, people get super fired up initially when you, when they see one of their favorite websites has been, you know, banned on Twitter.

00:10:27.360 Sure. I'm going to go subscribe. I'm going to go share their stuff, whatever. And then the news cycle moves on and people get worked up about other stuff. And then it's not like you can just ride that for forever. It's just a brief wave.

00:10:38.300 And so, uh, very quickly, you know, on the, on the backside of that, once that starts to calm down and people aren't fired up about it anymore, it's not a thing anymore and you have no Twitter account.

00:10:48.400 And so now it's, well, what do we do? So again, very fortunate that, that Elon Musk was, you know, at the exact same time this all went down was like positioning himself to buy Twitter.

00:11:00.460 I think that's crazy lucky for us. Um, but also, you know, just the fact that it, that it played into his equation for dealing, like he, he was looking at the town square as he calls it, the de facto town square Twitter and, and what you're allowed to say there, what you're not allowed to say.

00:11:18.600 And, and he loves comedy. He loves jokes. He loves memes. He loves like even stupid, like, you know, uh, uh, like, uh, childish, like poop humor and stuff like that.

00:11:29.720 Like he loves comedy. He's just a funny guy and he's like a lighthearted guy and he likes to laugh. And the fact that comedy was like essentially outlawed as he saw it on Twitter and then the Babylon Bee, which he followed and engaged with regularly. 0.99

00:11:44.840 Um, he had already had an interview with us at the end of 2021. So he knew us, um, you know, us getting kicked off, you know, that was upsetting. He's like, this sucks. You should be able to make jokes.

00:11:57.200 So, um, I mean, if we played even a small part in his, in factoring into his thinking that, you know, he needed to buy Twitter, then, you know, great.

00:12:07.040 It was not our plan, but, um, but we're proud to have said that, you know, we stood by the joke that we made and we stand on the principle that we shouldn't censor ourselves.

00:12:15.900 Isn't it amazing that we've got to this point?

00:12:19.560 Well, I think it's really important that we just take a step back and realize what we're talking about.

00:12:25.880 Yeah.

00:12:26.960 Do you know, just to get a little bit of perspective on this, it's insane.

00:12:31.860 It's insane. It's absolutely insane. It's very much, there are things that you can make fun of. There are things that you can't.

00:12:38.720 Yeah.

00:12:38.800 And if you do make fun of these things, your entire livelihood will be damaged.

00:12:44.080 You'll pay a price. Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:45.840 And you go, how have we come to this point?

00:12:48.240 Yeah. It didn't used to be like that.

00:12:51.260 And, uh, you know, social media has a lot to do with that.

00:12:55.260 I mean, what do you think is the main reason why things have gotten to that place now where you can't make those jokes?

00:13:00.480 I have my own, you know, ideas about it, but what do you think?

00:13:02.800 Look, I think it's a combination of things. I think it's a combination of an ideology that sees words as violence.

00:13:08.280 I think, you know, this idea of punching up and punching down is insidious.

00:13:12.280 You know, you can't make a joke about this person because that means you're in a position of privilege.

00:13:16.740 And coming from, as a stand-up comedian and seeing people within my industry,

00:13:20.840 I just see as people love being part of a mob.

00:13:25.800 They love to feel right. They love to feel morally righteous.

00:13:29.720 Yeah.

00:13:29.900 And if that means that they can take somebody down who's successful and maybe slightly jealous of, even better.

00:13:36.980 Yeah.

00:13:37.180 I think there's probably another element to it, which is what social media has done and the internet more broadly,

00:13:42.580 is it is putting content in front of people who never would have sold that content out.

00:13:48.420 So we basically just found out what happens when you shove jokes in front of the half of the population that don't get jokes as well.

00:13:56.780 I think that's probably a part of it as well.

00:13:58.640 Because the people who are going to be upset by the B's jokes are not your subscribers, generally speaking.

00:14:06.540 That's true.

00:14:07.280 I mean, there's an element...

00:14:08.360 We do upset our subscribers from time to time, too.

00:14:10.420 What I was going to say, you actually do piss people off on the right as well.

00:14:14.760 As we should.

00:14:15.520 As you should.

00:14:16.080 Yeah, we should.

00:14:16.540 Exactly. And we should talk about that, too.

00:14:18.300 Yeah, yeah.

00:14:19.060 Why is it so important to piss people off on the right?

00:14:21.700 Well, I mean, you don't want to be pulling punches on your own side if your job is to be a satirist.

00:14:32.320 Like, if you're writing satire, your job is to be commenting on whatever deserves ridicule, scorn, mockery, criticism, correction.

00:14:42.220 You know, the vices in our culture aren't all on one side of the scale at any point in time.

00:14:47.460 So, and I also think it's a very healthy exercise just to kind of examine yourself, your own beliefs, your own motivations, your own potential double standards or hypocrisy, like, and take yourself a little less seriously than maybe most people are inclined to.

00:15:04.560 Because it's a healthy thing to laugh at yourself.

00:15:07.340 You know, it's a constructive thing to be able to say, look, I'm not perfect.

00:15:12.220 You're not perfect. 0.99

00:15:13.340 We're all passengers on the ship of fools from time to time, right? 0.86

00:15:15.880 I think our culture was a lot healthier, was in a much healthier place, was in a much more unified place when humor was seen as something that was not just comical and not just fun and entertaining, but unifying. 0.82

00:15:31.460 People would get together in a room, you know, the guy on stage would be making fun of people in the audience.

00:15:37.760 He would be trolling them and, like, you know, roasting them right there in the front row.

00:15:42.520 And it was like, and people were throwing back their heads and laughing at themselves.

00:15:47.440 And it wasn't, there weren't people getting up on stage and charging the comedian and trying to slap him in the face or punch him, you know, or trying to get him canceled from the network.

00:15:56.080 Like, if somebody wasn't happy about a joke back then, you know, maybe they would be offended by it, whatever, but they certainly wouldn't, they certainly wouldn't try to take away the guy's livelihood as a result of that.

00:16:05.940 So that's, that's definitely been a change. But yeah, I think humor, humor being treated is harmful now.

00:16:11.520 It's what you were saying a moment ago about, you know, the punching down thing, which is what we were guilty of with this Rachel Levine joke.

00:16:18.920 That's just wokeness applied to comedy.

00:16:21.580 Yeah.

00:16:21.700 All that is, is what it's the, it's the, there are oppressors and there's the oppressed and the oppressor can do no right.

00:16:30.240 And the oppressors can do no wrong. I'm sorry. Did I get that backwards? The oppressors can do no right, uh, right.

00:16:36.160 You said it right.

00:16:36.380 You said it right the first time.

00:16:37.440 The oppressed can, can do no wrong. So, so you, uh, you, you have this weird situation where, you know, so much is joking about people that fall into a specific, uh, uh, category or set of categories is seen as like this criminal act.

00:16:54.180 This, this, this egregious act, uh, almost like an act of violence or something against them punching down is a, it's violent, you know, to punch somebody, you know, we're treating it like you've actually assaulted someone when you, all you've done is made a joke.

00:17:07.180 And, and it's, it's the most insane thing to be thinking to yourself as a comedian, like, okay, I'm up here. They're down here. I shouldn't joke about them. They're beneath me.

00:17:16.260 You know, like that's condescending for one thing. And it's also not true that a lot of the people that fall in these categories are in fact, like actually marginalized and oppressed.

00:17:26.620 Yeah.

00:17:27.120 I don't think that Rachel Levine is marginalized and oppressed. I think, well, first of all, the joke was about somebody who is Rachel Levine was named woman of the year.

00:17:35.420 Like this is someone who's receiving awards, a white male, high ranking government official and receiving awards. And we make a joke about this person and we're punching down on the marginalized and the oppressed. Make sense of that. You can't.

00:17:50.760 And it's also as well, it's deeply patronizing because what you're effectively saying is these people can't take a joke.

00:17:56.600 Yes, exactly. And that's more offensive to me. Like if you were to, if you were to tell me, look, because of you certain characteristics about who I am, maybe my religion, maybe my race, whatever, that you don't want to joke about me.

00:18:10.960 And you're going to be hands off because I, I'm what, what am I too fragile to take the joke? Like I would be more offended by that than any joke you could tell at my expense.

00:18:19.920 That's deeply offensive. I think to tell somebody, look, you're too delicate. You're too fragile to handle comedy.

00:18:26.600 And you think as well, like a lot of these, you know, let's call them for at one point marginalized communities produce some of the greatest comedians of all time because part of comedy is being an outsider.

00:18:39.880 Yeah.

00:18:40.060 I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the greatest standup comedians in the history of the world have been either Jewish or black.

00:18:47.580 Right.

00:18:48.460 Because it's that outsider eye. It's that ability to be on the outside looking in.

00:18:54.420 But also as well, it's that ability that you're tough, you're resilient, you live a tough life.

00:19:00.980 So what are you going to do? Are you going to cry or are you going to laugh?

00:19:03.400 Right. Right.

00:19:05.300 It's not just, you know, a racial thing either.

00:19:08.060 Like, like overweight comedians, for example, you know, and joking about their, their own issues that they struggle with or with their weight.

00:19:15.440 You know, like they're, they've been made fun of a lot and they're up there leaning into it and making fun of themselves even while they're up there.

00:19:22.680 And that's, I think it's a healthy thing to have that kind of mentality. It's a great, it's a great thing that comedy does that.

00:19:28.620 It's a, it's a way of dealing with, you know, any adversity that you might be facing and flipping it on its head and seeing the funny side of things.

00:19:35.740 But it is also unified, to see, to see humor as harmful instead of healing, I think is a mistake.

00:19:41.980 And so our culture has really gone off the rails and treating, and treating comedy in that way.

00:19:46.760 So coming back to that, you are, we asked you why you think that is. Then you asked us, we gave you a bunch of our reasons.

00:19:52.500 Did you want to add anything to what we said or does that kind of cover it, do you think?

00:19:56.440 I think that kind of covers it.

00:19:57.780 Um, yeah, yeah. I mean, we went all over the place on that one.

00:20:02.860 Yeah.

00:20:03.480 Do you see the pendulum starting to swing back now where we have, before we had, you know, the craziness and the nonsense, whereas now you start to see different voices pushing back, becoming, Chappelle was always successful, but Chappelle wasn't canceled for the closer, which for me was a seminal moment in, in all of this stuff that we're talking about here.

00:20:26.040 Because it was the power of one person, his success, his audience. Netflix stood by him. And as a result of that, I think things calmed down a bit.

00:20:36.400 Do you think we're starting to see the pendulum swing back? Or for once in my life, am I being overly optimistic?

00:20:42.820 I like to try to be optimistic about this stuff, too. I do think, to some extent, the pendulum is swinging back.

00:20:48.720 Uh, largely because people are, there's an audience for real comedy. There is an audience for humor. There's an audience for truth.

00:21:02.380 And so when people are willing to, to say what they think, to challenge the narrative, you've seen a lot of that with like Joe Rogan's show. Um, you guys were just on there recently, right?

00:21:12.920 Um, he's challenged a lot of narratives on his show. He's faced cancellation attempts and Spotify has stood by him and his shows only gotten more popular and the audience just grows and grows and grows.

00:21:25.740 And so there's a realization that, uh, you know, you will be not just in, in raging, but cutting off your access to a large audience of people by just selecting, you know, what can and can't be said and heard.

00:21:40.200 Um, so I, I, I, I think that to some extent, what I'm, what I referenced is the Streisand effect that we benefited from earlier, um, communicates to some of these platforms that, you know, this backfires.

00:21:56.840 And hopefully they're starting to see that because it does routinely and regularly backfire.

00:22:02.520 So that's one thing. But I also think that people are, you know, some people have put it like waking up from woke.

00:22:10.200 Um, Elon Musk has put it that way. I don't know who was it, who it was that said that originally, but like this, there is a bit of a trend, I think, in the culture to, uh, reject this idea that we have to go along with just whatever, no matter how insane it is.

00:22:25.080 At some point, you know, like parents at schools are hitting a wall where they're saying, look, there's, there's certain things we just can't tolerate.

00:22:32.600 Like we're not going to tolerate the kinds of books that you're wanting to put into the classroom that have pornography in them.

00:22:38.540 Like, that's my line. Like, I'm not going to stand for that. Like, there are a lot of these things where there's overreaches happen.

00:22:44.680 And some of these things that we make fun of at the Babylon Bee are so insane and so absurd. It's hard to tell what's satire and what's not, uh, that people are really starting to resist that.

00:22:55.060 And so I am optimistic with you that, yeah, the pendulum is maybe swinging back the other way on some of that stuff.

00:23:01.080 Because there's always these people who, even in the worst times, you go, how did they get away with that? South Park is the ultimate example.

00:23:10.280 Oh yeah. Great example. Yeah. Family guy too.

00:23:12.620 Yeah.

00:23:13.160 Yeah.

00:23:13.360 And you go, how do you get, because I'd love to get your take on this. Is it because it's a cartoon? Is it because the writing is just sublime? Or is there something else going on?

00:23:25.820 Uh, probably being a cartoon helps.

00:23:29.380 Yeah.

00:23:29.680 I think that that helps. It like, and I don't know exactly in what way it helps. Maybe because it softens it a little bit and takes it away from like it being associated with an actual real person who's making the joke.

00:23:42.060 Mm-hmm .

00:23:43.060 Either it's one step removed from the person who wrote it. Excuse me.

00:23:48.360 Um, they also, they take aim at a lot of the people that the left wants them taking aim at regularly.

00:23:58.500 Mm-hmm .

00:23:58.720 South Park mocks Christian conservatives all the time. Um, they are aligned on a lot of issues and spray their bullets in a lot of different directions.

00:24:12.000 And so it's not like they're just hitting one side over and over and over again, relentlessly.

00:24:16.640 That probably helps a little bit. So there's some balance there, but they do go so far and so hard at times, you wonder how did they get away with that and not get canceled?

00:24:24.880 Yeah.

00:24:25.880 Have there been any canceled attempts on South Park? Like, has the left ever gone out in arms and like said, we have to get rid of them?

00:24:31.880 Yeah.

00:24:32.880 No, I've never known this. And the other part of it, which makes me really think is like, how did you get this approved?

00:24:37.880 Yeah.

00:24:38.880 Yeah.

00:24:39.880 How did you get this?

00:24:40.880 Yeah.

00:24:41.880 By who? You mean like the network?

00:24:43.880 By the network, yeah. You know, so when you do, you know, one of their episodes on the trans athlete.

00:24:47.880 Yeah.

00:24:48.880 And the guys are clearly roided up dude with an incredibly deep voice.

00:24:51.880 Yeah.

00:24:52.880 I mean, it's hilarious, but you go, who approved this? And well done, sir, if you're watching, thank you.

00:24:57.880 But that came, didn't that come though a little bit ahead of all of this stuff where it's like, now it's actually happening?

00:25:02.880 Yeah.

00:25:03.880 Like it hadn't yet happened. And so it would, maybe it was still mockable then because it hadn't yet happened. Like if they did the joke today, like would it fly today? I don't know. It all depends on who's, who's, you know, the decision makers.

00:25:16.880 The decision makers at Twitter at the time that we made this joke, it was, no, this is punching down. This is off limits.

00:25:21.880 And maybe it's because they're generating as well. Look, money always talks as well. Maybe people would argue, well, look at Disney and whatever else, but money does talk.

00:25:30.880 If you've got this cash cow, which is an absolute juggernaut and they are producing content and it's going great and you're making, and it's one of the few things on your network, which is actually making money because TV is collapsing as we speak.

00:25:45.880 That's what I'm saying. Netflix stood by Chappelle. Well, Chappelle has like the most watched specials on the, on the platform. Like why wouldn't they stand by him? It would be very foolish not to.

00:25:55.880 This is one of the things that I think the leftist has done. It's, it's interesting because there's a bit of a contradiction there where, you know, money, money always talks.

00:26:03.880 It's felt like they've been so dedicated to the principle of the matter. Like it's a moral crusade for them where they're willing to sacrifice money to advance a lot of these things.

00:26:12.880 Like Target was willing to implement a bathroom policy that was controversial, even if it meant their stock would plummet because it was the right thing to do.

00:26:19.880 You've seen that happen with Disney too, you know, like a lot of these pushes and sometimes it pushes so far and they get so much backlash that they like, they only, they have to reverse course, but only because they were really forced to.

00:26:31.880 Um, but it does seem to be with the bigger ones, the juggernauts, like you're saying, there's enough momentum there that they see, like, this is something that we can't stop. We have to keep this going because it's making us money.

00:26:42.880 Yeah. And it's also as well, because you look at the late night shows and you look at these comedians and Stephen Colbert is a perfect example. Great comic. And there'll be people who disagree.

00:26:52.880 But when Stephen was at his peak, he was wonderful. He was funny. He was incitive. He was incitive. He was biting. He was satirical.

00:26:59.880 And you just see him a couple of years ago, dancing around saying the words, the vaccine, you know, to tequila.

00:27:07.880 The vaccine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going, you're destroying your own product. Right. Right.

00:27:16.880 Which is look great for you. Great for us. But you go, is this, are you aware of what you're doing?

00:27:24.880 I, I always wonder with stuff like that. Like when you are, if your job is to be a comedian and you're taking whatever, like the popular narrative is,

00:27:35.880 and you're just promoting the hell out of it aggressively, like, how do you not see how you're like derelict in your duty?

00:27:44.880 That you're not trying to make fun of the things like the cultural institutional power is at your back and you're applauding everything that they do.

00:27:52.880 And you're going for, you know, there's someone called a claptor from your audience instead of just straight laughter. Like, I don't understand.

00:27:58.880 I don't understand. I don't understand how comedians find themselves that I, I much prefer when people ask me like who my favorite comedians are.

00:28:04.880 I'm like anybody who's willing to make the jokes they're not supposed to make.

00:28:07.880 Like, those are my favorite comedians. I love hearing jokes like that. Like, I love the one.

00:28:12.880 It's a simple joke, but Bill Maher was doing a monologue, I guess you call it, you know, he does his, his monologue before he opens it up to his panel.

00:28:24.880 He was doing a monologue on the, the rise in the trans trend among young people. And he was talking about how we just, you know, we can't just affirm whatever kids want.

00:28:35.880 That's insane. Like the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses if you just made kids, whatever they wanted to be. Right.

00:28:42.880 Um, and he goes, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pirate, but thank God no one scheduled me for peg leg surgery.

00:28:49.880 You know, and it's like, it was amusing and his audience did laugh. I was impressed that his audience laughed, but like, I was more impressed that he told that joke.

00:28:58.880 Cause this was maybe a year ago. I think when he did this monologue, maybe not even quite a year ago.

00:29:03.880 And it was a joke that was chipping away at the validity of an idea that never should have been taken seriously in the first place, which is what jokes should do. Right.

00:29:14.880 They should poke at those things, but he was telling it at a time when it was considered hateful conduct to tell jokes like that.

00:29:20.880 You know, this is recently when he, when he told that joke.

00:29:23.880 And so I see, I see jokes like that is not just, uh, you know, it was mildly amusing, but I think it was profoundly important in the sense that it was challenging a prevailing narrative that everybody, including on his own side, this is on his own side where this is being pushed.

00:29:40.880 And he was willing to say, uh, this is absurd and insane. And I'm going to laugh at it. So whenever someone's willing to do that, I'm like, that's, you know, that's the comedy that we need right now.

00:29:51.880 Well, Bill is a very important voice. And one of the things he's done, you mentioned being surprised by his audience laughing at the joke.

00:29:58.880 Yeah. One of the things he's actually done, and you can see it as he's taking his audience on a journey with him, um, because he's, he's recognized the threat of this woke ideology.

00:30:10.880 Yeah. And he's now talking about it more openly. And there are a lot of people in his audience that also recognize him, by the way, probably some that don't like him talking about it and now don't think he's progressive enough or whatever and go watch someone else.

00:30:22.880 Um, but from a comedy and especially satire, which is what you do perspective, that's really what satire is. If you stop doing that, then you're not doing the thing that you signed up to do.

00:30:33.880 Exactly. Right. Yeah. You're becoming like a guardian of the narrative. Yeah, exactly.

00:30:38.880 Instead of like someone who's poking holes in it.

00:30:41.880 Exactly. Yeah.

00:30:42.880 Which is why I was really interested in the fact that you piss your own audience off and you talk, uh, yeah, I've seen, you know, we, you and I are tweeting the same stuff about kind of like the, the snowflake around the right that exists as well.

00:30:54.880 Yes. Talk to us about that because it seems very controversial to, to raise, but I see almost mirrored situation that to some degree in terms of how sensitive people are becoming about their sacred cows being slaughtered.

00:31:08.880 For sure. I'm seeing that too. Um, yeah, I think we were talking about like, what's the name for the woke mind virus on the right?

00:31:15.880 Well, I call it the woke, right? Some people have taken to that. Other people freak out. You could be friends of mine. You know, I don't know if you, how you say it, but tell us more.

00:31:23.880 Well, this is interesting.

00:31:24.880 I mean, like when you think of woke, when you define wokeness as like this sociocultural Marxism and like being awake to social injustice and trying to be an activist who corrects that problem by addressing systemic imbalances and all of that nonsense, like that's not what the right is doing.

00:31:40.880 No, so that word doesn't really work, but it, it works in the sense that it's like the same type of tactics are being deployed to protect their ideas, I guess.

00:31:50.880 Well, let me, this is great that we're having this conversation because I'm still thinking about this so we can flesh it out.

00:31:55.880 What I would say is completely agree with you about like Marxism and stuff, obviously, but what I would say the woke right is characterized by is number one obsession with victimhood.

00:32:04.880 We are the victims, right? And both sides have a pretty good argument that they can make that they are victims.

00:32:10.880 You know, if you're a black person in America, it is a fact that, you know, throughout history, your ancestors would have suffered and that generational stuff will be passed down.

00:32:19.880 I think that's a fact. Now, is it true that white men are now being discriminated against unemployment?

00:32:25.880 Well, we know that DEI is discrimination against them, against Jews, against other successful minorities.

00:32:32.880 So it's true that there is that going on. But this obsession and wallowing in your own victimhood, number one, hypersensitivity to jokes and criticism, number two.

00:32:42.880 And also there is a lot of kind of that people don't think about left wing conspiracy theories as conspiracies.

00:32:50.880 But the idea, you know, of institutionalized this and structural that these things are kind of conspiracy theories, really.

00:32:58.880 There's things that no one can find any evidence for, really, but they are put forward as the thing you're supposed to accept.

00:33:03.880 And I think on the on the right, there's a lot of conspiratorialism of that kind going on as well.

00:33:08.880 So I guess there that is why those things are all mirror image. Yes, that's what I mean when I say it's mirrored.

00:33:13.880 Yeah. And the humor thing we've experienced that with, you know, whenever we and this didn't used to be the case.

00:33:18.880 This is a new thing. That's what I'm saying. If you go back to like I mentioned, I got involved with the B in 2018.

00:33:25.880 We did not have this problem. We were we were regularly.

00:33:29.880 So the B was launched as a Christian satire site.

00:33:32.880 So it was your trusted source for Christian news satire. That was the tagline initially.

00:33:37.880 And there wasn't really anything like that. Right.

00:33:42.880 And a good percentage of the jokes were targeted at Christians.

00:33:46.880 This was self-deprecating humor, largely.

00:33:49.880 I didn't know that. Yeah. A lot of the even evangelical Christianity culture, church culture stuff like it was a lot of jokes inside jokes that you would know if you're in that world.

00:34:00.880 Jokes for Christians about Christians. Yeah. Yeah. 0.98

00:34:03.880 You know, one of the first the first headlines that caught my attention was Holy Spirit unable to move through congregation as fog machine breaks.

00:34:13.880 It shows this like it shows this, you know, this cloudy auditorium or sanctuary where you like you can barely make out the stage and and and, you know, just like inside jokes that you would get, you know, depending on what kind of church you go to and whether or not you're in that world.

00:34:28.880 And but it was a lot of self-deprecating humor, a lot of humor aimed at our own side.

00:34:32.880 And, you know, when Trump was was in the rise politically and and and one, you know, there was a lot of Trump jokes and a lot of making fun of Republicans for basically idol worship and, you know, like putting putting basically treating Trump as their savior.

00:34:47.880 And so there was a lot of challenging the right in addition to, of course, mocking the left and some of its insane ideas that was always there.

00:34:56.880 And the right always handled it well, appreciated the fact that it was this is a satire site.

00:35:02.880 This is what they do. They make fun of everybody like that's their job.

00:35:05.880 Like there was this understanding of that until very recently.

00:35:09.880 I'm trying to think of like when it really wouldn't really change, but probably most notably in the past year or so.

00:35:16.880 Like this is very recent where now, you know, if we make a joke about, you know, a favored candidate and one of their like them flip flopping on a policy or position or something like that, like the reaction to it is you can't joke about that.

00:35:33.880 This is it's harmful to the cause. You're subverting your it's detrimental. We're not going to win the election if we do this. It's this hypersensitive. That's not funny.

00:35:45.880 The Carrie Lake campaign came at us with a joke that we did about her when she kind of flip flopped on this Arizona abortion law. 1.00

00:35:52.880 And they told us that our joke wasn't valid satire. That's not valid.

00:35:57.880 And so then, you know, we mocked that response and, you know, our audience kind of piled on and there were a lot of people who saw that for what it was.

00:36:05.880 But but to get that reaction from the right is new and kind of surprising to us that people on the right are having that that sensitive snowflake response.

00:36:13.880 And why do you think it's happening?

00:36:15.880 Well, some of it has to do with with the fact that.

00:36:25.880 Well, I think a lot of it is rooted in there's some insecurity that comes along with.

00:36:33.880 There's insecurity fueling responses like that to jokes about your own ideas.

00:36:39.880 If your ideas are for whatever reason indefensible or or difficult to defend and articulate, then then mockery that exposes them for what they are.

00:36:50.880 I mean, how are you going to respond to that rather than having like a rational response and saying or in a meaningful defensive response?

00:36:59.880 It's to have this, you know, outraged response where where you try to say that this shouldn't have been joked about in the first place.

00:37:05.880 I think I think that signals insecurity.

00:37:08.880 But I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out.

00:37:12.880 I'm trying to kind of work through, like, where does this why is the right now kind of infected with its own sort of woke mind virus where there are almost like these cult like attitudes where there are untouchable people that they follow and anything that they might contradict themselves all over the place, but the people will follow them wherever they go.

00:37:34.880 And one minute they're cheering on a and then the next minute they're cheering on not a and it's like these two things contradict each other.

00:37:41.880 But because someone told you that you should be supporting it, you've just changed your whole world view like that's just wild and insane to me.

00:37:49.880 But there's a lot of that happening on the right.

00:37:51.880 And some of the right the right's response to the left, I think, has been an equal but opposite reaction to the way the left is treated the right.

00:38:02.880 There's been a little bit of that. And I guess maybe to expand on that, it's like some of the attacks we talk about, you know, the victimhood mentality.

00:38:14.880 There are people who have been beat up so much white men, for example, or white Christian men, you know, may have been so maybe feeling so like the jokes.

00:38:24.880 They're always they're always the butt of the joke. They're all they're discriminated against by all these, you know, these these mechanisms that are in place to write past wrongs are now committing current wrongs against them.

00:38:36.880 And so their response to that is to get is to be irrational and angry and racist and and be the caricature that the left thought of.

00:38:46.880 They were, you know, like back when Trump was was was was first elected, you know, the caricature was that Trump was going to lead all these neo Nazis and like basically reign as Hitler as an authoritarian.

00:38:58.880 And that like wasn't really what happened. But you do see now this rise in like anti-Semitism and and the gripers and the neo Nazi hatred and everything on the right.

00:39:08.880 And it's like and it comes under the banner of Christ is King. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Is this like this is like the caricature that the left had of the right.

00:39:16.880 And now it's like manifesting itself. And why is that? Is it it's like a self-fulfilling thing that, you know, they were accused of this and now they're owning it and becoming it.

00:39:26.880 That's really interesting. What's interesting to me with the you see, I see those what happened on the left is certainly my conception of feel free to disagree was the the sensible left simply didn't say anything when when the crazies went crazy.

00:39:40.880 Mm hmm. And that's why I'm worried about what's happening on the right, because I think that's exactly what's happening.

00:39:45.880 The crazies are going crazy and crazier and no one wants to be the one to go.

00:39:50.880 Oh, I don't think Macron's wife is a man or I, you know, or whatever, whatever that particular thing is that is now the new thing that everyone on the right now suddenly has to believe because one person said it.

00:40:02.880 Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think this this seems to be just an element of and also the other thing you add on top of that is.

00:40:08.880 If it's wartime, if this is truly about the survival of Western civilization, if if the foundations of our society are being taken apart, then the instinct is to go, well, this isn't time to to like look at our own flaws.

00:40:24.880 Now is the time to like go out and fight and win at any cost. And we'll deal with that side later. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

00:40:30.880 Yeah. Feels like those two things are probably part of it. I think they probably are. Yeah.

00:40:36.880 But I don't know. I mean, the right the right is certainly failing to you did maybe.

00:40:44.880 OK, so maybe an example of like what you're talking about, where they weren't holding their own side accountable or whatever.

00:40:51.880 There's a whole never Trump movement. Right. Yeah. You had the never the right was at war with itself over Trump. Right.

00:40:56.880 And then that's kind of gone away. And there's a lot of support now for Trump on the right.

00:41:01.880 You know, he's he. It's his party now. It's his party now. He trounced the competition in the primaries and he's and he's the guy for this for this round.

00:41:11.880 The never Trump thing didn't. It was like shooting a BB gun at a freight train. It wasn't going to stop this this whole movement. Right.

00:41:20.880 But there was that effort. There was an effort for the for people on the right to try to hold the right accountable to like, you know, standards that they felt were important to try to maintain.

00:41:30.880 There is right now. I think I agree with you that there's a lot of crazy stuff being said and a lot of like weird ideas being floated in the conspiratorial thing and all of that.

00:41:42.880 You got a lot of that stuff going on. And there are it's like people are afraid to step into that because they don't know like what kind of what kind of reaction they're going to get like because the crazy side actually has a wild amount of support.

00:41:56.880 It's it's insane. Like, do they actually or does it just feel like it every time you open Twitter?

00:42:02.880 Yeah, that's where I think is most people are a little bit misunderstanding.

00:42:07.880 Twitter is definitely not real life. It's not reflective of real life. It's exaggerated there for sure.

00:42:13.880 But it is true, though, that you can have a very you can have a personality.

00:42:19.880 You know, somebody on the right adopt crazier and crazier positions over time and still maintain their audience and their support.

00:42:27.880 And it's not like people are just shunning them in large numbers and saying, no, this person's gone off the deep end.

00:42:32.880 We're not going to continue to follow them. They fall right along.

00:42:35.880 So it is it is the case. I agree with you that, you know, Twitter exaggerates things and there's bots and there's trolls and there's swarms and mobs.

00:42:43.880 And when you go out and actually talk to people, I go all over the country and I speak at events and I see people all over like real people in the flesh and talk to them.

00:42:52.880 And they're much more sane and reasonable than a lot of the discourse and stuff that you see on the Internet.

00:42:56.880 But I do think there's a weird thing going on where the right is not checking itself against this stuff.

00:43:02.880 They're not. And that is one of our responsibilities.

00:43:05.880 And it's one of the reasons why I dig in and and, you know, the more people can get as mad at us as they want to be.

00:43:13.880 But we will continue to mock and make fun of whatever deserves it, even if our own side is upset at us.

00:43:19.880 Like, that's what we should be doing. That's what we need to be doing.

00:43:23.880 There have to be people willing to to to just stand for the sake of rationality, reason, truth, consistency, consistency.

00:43:34.880 Exactly. Like the principles of the matter rather than just simply whatever is popular, whatever is going to gain power.

00:43:40.880 Like, OK, this is the way to win. So we need to adopt this position.

00:43:43.880 What are you talking about? Like, like, OK, I'll be principled once you give me power.

00:43:49.880 That's not how it works.

00:43:51.880 That's not how it works. We've heard that before. Yeah.

00:43:54.880 Yeah. So I think I don't know. I not to put too much responsibility on the Babylon beast shoulders. 0.97

00:43:59.880 But, you know, somebody's got to push back on that stuff.

00:44:02.880 And if it means that we get a lot of backlash from the right. Oh, well, you know, it's interesting because in the UK, I used to see comedians eulogizing.

00:44:10.880 You know, you're Bill Burr's, you're Chappelle's, you're Rock's. Yeah.

00:44:13.880 You're going, oh, they're my favorite comedian. And and then they wouldn't push it out.

00:44:20.880 They wouldn't even take the first step along the path. Now, I know it's a very difficult path.

00:44:24.880 And you can make a quite coherent argument that it's actually far more difficult in the UK, if not nearly impossible.

00:44:31.880 But you want to say to these people, look, if this is what you aspire to be, if you aspire to be Rock, if you aspire to be Chappelle.

00:44:40.880 I mean, a great example is Norm Macdonald. So many comedians love Norm Macdonald.

00:44:44.880 When he was working at SNL, his producer said to him, you were doing too many OJ Simpson jokes. Stop doing them.

00:44:52.880 Right. And he went, OK. And then he went out and did more and got fired.

00:44:55.880 Mm hmm. But that's why he's Norm Macdonald.

00:44:58.880 You know, it takes if you want to be great, it it takes that.

00:45:03.880 Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. And it's, uh, it's certainly not the best thing for comedy to have somebody telling you, like, what jokes you should and shouldn't be telling.

00:45:19.880 Especially somebody who's, like, at the corporate level, you know, like, dictating how the comedy should play out.

00:45:26.880 Like, let the comedian tell his jokes.

00:45:28.880 And the comedians themselves, if they find themselves in a situation where they're too restrained, then go out on your own and do your own thing.

00:45:34.880 Like, there's an opportunity to do that now. And people need that. So, yeah.

00:45:39.880 Do you feel it's a great time for satire or do you feel it's a difficult one?

00:45:43.880 Because people always used to say when Trump first got elected, oh, this is a great time for satire.

00:45:47.880 And for a lot of people, it was like, yeah, but these jokes are getting old.

00:45:51.880 And it's kind of it's hard to satirize someone that kind of who draws that intensity of reaction anyway.

00:45:58.880 We're obviously certainly looks from the outside. You tell me you live here.

00:46:02.880 We're going into a pretty heated election and this year is going to be pretty crazy.

00:46:07.880 How do you feel about, you know, comedy, the state of comedy, the state of satire?

00:46:13.880 I think it's probably the most common misconception about the bee is that in doing satire right now is that it's easier than ever because of how insane everything is.

00:46:27.880 It doesn't really it's on the one hand. Yes, it's true. It's a target rich environment. There's a lot to make fun of.

00:46:34.880 On the other hand, like depending on how you're making fun of it, like if you're trying to exact if you're trying to caricature something or parody something by by exaggerating it, it's difficult when it's already exaggerated.

00:46:45.880 That was the challenge that we had with that Rachel Levine joke was like, how do we take this to like, how do we how do we parody that?

00:46:53.880 Like it's difficult because it's already funny. It's already funny.

00:46:57.880 And so like one way of putting it is like, and this is it's a politically charged way of putting it.

00:47:01.880 But I say, like, imagine if your job is to write jokes that are funnier than what Democrats are doing in real life.

00:47:06.880 It's a challenging thing to do. Or imagine if your job is to write jokes that are funnier than a Kamala Harris speech.

00:47:12.880 I mean, her speeches are hysterical. They're absolutely hysterical.

00:47:17.880 We did a little comedy sketch about how her speechwriter we profiled her speechwriter and it was like the six year old boy. 0.97

00:47:26.880 It's like, you know, it's just it's it's ridiculous. 0.94

00:47:29.880 So I think on the one hand, you know, these guys like Biden is absolutely a caricature of a president. 0.69

00:47:37.880 Like he's not it is literally comical listening to him speak and the things that he says, you know, to say to see him stand there trying to read the teleprompter and say, you know, four more years pause.

00:47:51.880 And he reads the things that he's not supposed to read, you know, like that stuff is really comical and really hard to make fun of other than just simply quoting what he said.

00:48:01.880 So there are it's definitely challenging. It's challenging, but it is at the same time, you know, if you find the right angle, you find the right way to cover these people.

00:48:11.880 Like a lot of times, like like Trump jokes, like one of the best ways to make Trump jokes is to like joke along with him rather than like attacking him.

00:48:19.880 Like I think a lot of the left jokes about Trump aren't funny because they're they're coming from a place of like literal hatred.

00:48:26.880 They hate the man. Yeah. And so they just want to bash him, which isn't really that funny.

00:48:31.880 But if you can kind of like put yourself in his shoes and think like him a little bit and then like put words in his mouth, like one of our one of our more popular jokes that we did about Trump was a headline about how Trump claimed to have done more for Christianity than Jesus himself.

00:48:45.880 And it was just it was just this like playing off of his ego and the kinds of outlandish things that he says.

00:48:52.880 And people believed it was true. Like it went crazy viral because they thought it was true.

00:48:55.880 And then it got fact checked and rated false. And then like two years later, he goes on a radio show and says he's done more for Christianity and religion in general than any other person in history.

00:49:03.880 And so it actually happened that he you know, it's like he was fulfilling the prophecy those kinds of jokes that like get into his into his voice and his way of thinking and kind of like lean on who he is.

00:49:16.880 Those can be very funny. Yeah. Oh, for sure. There's a lot of opportunity for comedy there.

00:49:20.880 Well, right, because and this is the thing about left and right now, you know, needing to be made fun of both sides is everyone has things about them that are naturally funny or naturally observably kind of different to other people.

00:49:32.880 You know, for example, when I was opening for Jordan, I would make I would talk about how we had this debate on stage and we ran out of time.

00:49:41.880 We couldn't finish the discussion because we only had two hours. Right. And it's a joke about the fact that he speaks for ages about it. You know what I mean?

00:49:47.880 And his audience appreciate it. He does. He goes on and on. Right. But but it's not it's not to say that I hate Jordan Peterson.

00:49:53.880 I just one of the people I respect the most in the world, but it doesn't stop him from having certain features that make him different from other people, which is where humor comes in.

00:50:02.880 And your point about Trump is even his I don't think even his like kids or his wife would deny he's got a big ego because it's obvious.

00:50:09.880 Yeah. Right. And so that's kind of where humor is supposed to come at it from.

00:50:13.880 Yeah. But I think you're right. I mean, the one thing you said really made me think is like so much of left wing humor, what it became.

00:50:21.880 And it's actually one of the reasons we started trigonometry when we would stand up comedians in the UK circuit is it stopped being making fun and it became like seething hatred disguised as a joke.

00:50:34.880 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I and I just I don't think that's a healthy way to make fun of.

00:50:40.880 Yeah. If we all loathe this person enough, maybe we'll we can laugh about how much we loathe it.

00:50:46.880 Like that's not really like where comedy doesn't come from that place.

00:50:49.880 That's right. And that's where the claptor comes from.

00:50:51.880 Yeah, that's where the claptor comes from. It's like I agree with this hateful point. He's so terrible.

00:50:55.880 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's just, you know, there's an audience for that. Obviously, there's there's people who want to see that. 0.52

00:51:02.880 I wouldn't call it. I wouldn't call it comedy. You've got to call it something else. I don't know what you call it. Trevor Noah.

00:51:09.880 Yeah. You know what? I always have to say this. Trevor Noah used to be a great comedian.

00:51:16.880 Yeah. You go and watch a set at Life of the Apollo. It's brilliant. But this is what happens when you go into the space and that's all you do.

00:51:23.880 Yeah. It can break your brain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's yeah. The comedy has to come from a place of, you know, it's going to sound cheesy to even say this. I hate putting it in these terms.

00:51:36.880 But like a comedian like loves humanity and wants to see people laugh and be happy. Like that's why he does what he does. He wants to tell jokes to elicit that laughter.

00:51:48.880 And it's and it's like it's love for your audience that makes you want them to laugh. And it's also love for your audience that that allows you to kind of see their, you know, the things about them that are funny.

00:52:03.880 The things about us as humans that are funny and draw them to the surface, like, you know, in a way that, like I said before, is healing rather than harmful. Like it really is. It genuinely is.

00:52:15.880 And I think I think comedy rightly considered comes from a place of genuine affection for humanity and not just disdain for people you don't like.

00:52:24.880 And you can even like when you're laughing at people that you don't like it.

00:52:30.880 Oftentimes you're laughing at the ideas that they are advancing and ridiculing their ideas precisely because you think those ideas are going to be harmful to people.

00:52:41.880 And so you subject them to scorn and ridicule and mockery, which sounds so negative.

00:52:46.880 But it has this like the upside of it is that if you can tear down an idea and make it seem foolish because it is, then it won't be taken seriously, which is something that you do if you actually care about people.

00:52:59.880 If you care about people in their well-being, you will mock that which deserves mockery.

00:53:03.880 And, you know, going back to your point about the left be when they do satire and they attack people like Trump, it's angry and vitriolic.

00:53:12.880 The reason that it doesn't get laughter is because in order to be funny, you've got to be playful.

00:53:18.880 If you think about the original type of performances, but let's think about plays.

00:53:23.880 What's it called? It's called a play. The original actors were play years. It comes from play.

00:53:28.880 If you're not being playful, then you're not being a comedian.

00:53:32.880 Right. It's impossible. Right.

00:53:34.880 And that's why if you're angry, people just go, ugh, because you're not being playful.

00:53:41.880 You're not being fun. You're being something else.

00:53:44.880 And that is a very different emotion entirely.

00:53:47.880 Yeah. Well, listen, man, it's been great having you on the show.

00:53:49.880 You do some great work. I hope more people check out the Babylon Bee.

00:53:52.880 We are going to go to locals in a second to ask you questions from our supporters.

00:53:58.880 But before we do, always end with the same question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that you think we should be?

00:54:05.880 Well, to some extent, I think we did actually touch on it.

00:54:09.880 Because it was on the tip of my mind when you mentioned that we were going to be addressing that.

00:54:14.880 It was like this, the way that the right, and we didn't get into a lot of specifics.

00:54:21.880 So maybe it's time to get into some specifics.

00:54:24.880 But the way that the right has adopted some really terrible ideologies and advanced them the way that the left has advanced them.

00:54:34.880 And the way that that's being accepted and not challenged, I think it's something that we do need to be talking about more.

00:54:39.880 One example of it is Christian anti-Semitism. Christian anti-Semitism. 0.75

00:54:44.880 I don't know if you guys have seen the rise in Christian anti-Semitism.

00:54:47.880 But you've got Nick Fuentes now returning to Twitter and X.

00:54:53.880 Sorry, don't want a dead name.

00:54:57.880 And this army of people that are listening to the ideas that he's promoting.

00:55:05.880 And some of the more mainstream people that are adopting some of these ideas and are going out there and saying, 0.97

00:55:11.880 literally engaging in hatred of an entire people, you know, villainizing and vilifying the Jewish people, basically, as being corrupt, deceivers, Christ killers. 0.99

00:55:28.880 They run the world. 1.00

00:55:29.880 They're trying to, you know, destroy everything.

00:55:31.880 And they do it all under the banner of Christianity, as if that's what Christianity teaches.

00:55:37.880 And I take personal offense to that because I myself am a Christian.

00:55:41.880 I run a Christian satire site.

00:55:43.880 That's what we were talking about earlier.

00:55:44.880 You know, your trusted source for Christian news satire. 0.99

00:55:48.880 And the Christian religion is worship of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

00:55:57.880 God came to, in human form, as Jesus, to redeem the world from its sins.

00:56:03.880 And by the world, what's meant by that is Jew and Gentile. 0.79

00:56:07.880 Everyone.

00:56:08.880 Everyone can be, anyone can be saved by placing their faith in Jesus Christ.

00:56:12.880 That's the fundamental teaching of the gospel or the Christian message, right?

00:56:16.880 And so, to see the Christian religion being hijacked by people who want to hate on Jews and using Christ's name to do it, which, by the way, Christ was a Jew.

00:56:28.880 And to be Christ is to be, like, the word Christ is talking about the anointed one.

00:56:32.880 It's the Messiah, you know, who has fulfilled the Jewish prophecies for who would come to save his people.

00:56:37.880 Like, there's all kinds of inconsistencies and incoherences in it, but it's really crazy to me to see the right at war with itself right now.

00:56:45.880 There's really the Christian anti-Semites at war with, you know, Christians who don't believe that we should hate Jewish people.

00:56:54.880 And these people, the Christian anti-Semites, are finding themselves aligned in a lot of ways with these pro-Hamas protesters, you know, who are cheering along what happened on October 7th because they're aligned in their hatred of the Jews.

00:57:10.880 Like, why are we not talking about this? Why is this not something that's, like, mainstream? Let's have a conversation about this and deal with this and try to figure out, like, why these ideas are taking root and why they're flourishing on the right.

00:57:23.880 Seth, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.

00:57:26.880 Oh, so we're not going to talk about it.

00:57:29.880 Well, I guess the question is, I don't really know what to say because I am a little bit conflicted because I don't know how much of it is this online stuff.

00:57:41.880 And I just, I see so many things that get a number of likes and retweets that I don't believe is real.

00:57:50.880 Maybe that's being naive. Maybe I'm sitting there going, like, I don't know anyone who voted for Trump and then he gets elected.

00:57:56.880 Yeah.

00:57:57.880 But I somehow feel that there is a, when I see what happens in reality, when I talk to people from different walks of life, I don't get the sense that our society is now being overrun by left and right wing anti-Semites.

00:58:14.880 I think there's something happening on campuses, which, by the way, has been happening on campuses for a long time. I don't think it's good.

00:58:20.880 I think it's quite clear that Israel is not being treated in the way that other belligerent nations would be treated in the same situation.

00:58:30.880 But again, that's not particularly new as far as I'm aware.

00:58:33.880 And then this.

00:58:35.880 What is new is seeing the right act like the left in that way, which we already touched on.

00:58:39.880 Yeah, yeah. And that, I think, is a product of why I always oppose the left going crazy.

00:58:46.880 It's not because I'm on the right and we keep saying this, but no one believed this.

00:58:50.880 It's because it was quite clear to me that if the left is allowed to push further and further in this direction of chaos, the people on the other side would want to respond in kind.

00:59:00.880 And people will openly say this, right? Well, if they're going to cancel us, we're going to cancel it. And it just, it's that's happening.

00:59:09.880 But I guess you probably know more about this because the whole Christian thing is much bigger in the US than it is in the UK.

00:59:16.880 It's kind of pretty secular at this point. There are a lot of Christians.

00:59:19.880 There are not many Nick Fuenteses in the UK, to be honest, you know, so it's not. So you tell me if there's anything else you want to say on that.

00:59:26.880 Oh, no, no. I was just raising it as something. It's something we do need to talk about.

00:59:29.880 Yeah. Yeah. No. Well, we'll continue talking about and we'll have people on to talk about as well.

00:59:34.880 Now, head on over to Locals where we ask Seth your questions.

00:59:37.880 On a recent Bill Maher appearance, Don Lemon revealed for the 753rd time that he's both gay and black.

00:59:47.880 What accomplishments of yours would you say compared to his?

00:59:52.880 We'll be right back.

00:59:53.880 We'll be right back.

00:59:54.880 Bye.

TRIGGERnometry - June 23, 2024

Babylon Bee CEO： Mocking the Woke Left and Woke Right - Seth Dillon

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