TRIGGERnometry - Comedy, Censorship & Victimhood - Neel Kolhatkar

00:00:00.840 You honed in on the fact that the truth has become secondary

00:00:05.100 and people's feelings have become primary.

00:00:07.680 Like, you were so early to that.

00:00:09.720 It became more about just having the correct opinions

00:00:12.320 rather than actually being inclusive.

00:00:14.660 I just felt very excluded.

00:00:17.180 That's my experience as a person of colour,

00:00:19.240 so they can't really argue against that, can they?

00:00:21.900 I mean, they can, mate.

00:00:23.460 I think a lot of these diversity initiatives

00:00:26.260 are actually just diversity for the upper class.

00:00:29.040 They're creating this world

00:00:30.620 that they've been supposedly trying to prevent us from.

00:00:36.220 Neil, so good to have you on the show, man.

00:00:38.220 I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

00:00:40.320 We'll get into your career and all the other stuff,

00:00:43.140 but the reason I'm looking forward to it

00:00:44.320 is long before we even started this show,

00:00:47.320 I remember seeing a clip on my Facebook

00:00:49.480 which was about modern education.

00:00:52.380 This was like nine years ago, way, way back,

00:00:56.000 which was absolutely brilliantly done.

00:00:58.240 It was kind of a sketch about, you know,

00:01:00.940 a lot of the stuff that we've talked about on the show,

00:01:03.080 the erosion of truth, the erosion of the concept of reality,

00:01:06.180 all of this kind of stuff.

00:01:13.700 Ignore that.

00:01:15.080 It will end.

00:01:15.880 Now, our first question.

00:01:23.280 One plus one.

00:01:28.220 Yes.

00:01:29.080 Two.

00:01:30.100 Incorrect.

00:01:31.360 Yes.

00:01:32.340 Multiculturalism.

00:01:33.200 Well done, Simon.

00:01:35.040 Next question.

00:01:36.640 What is three times three?

00:01:40.700 Yes.

00:01:41.740 Nine.

00:01:42.580 Wrong.

00:01:42.940 Yes, Penelope.

00:01:46.040 Gender equality. 0.78

00:01:47.200 Very good, Penelope.

00:01:48.420 Is this a joke?

00:01:49.380 You think gender equality is a joke? 0.99

00:01:51.760 No, but isn't this a maths class? 0.65

00:01:54.100 Don't be so racist.

00:01:55.520 I just asked a question.

00:01:56.740 We don't ask questions.

00:01:58.840 Questions are offensive.

00:01:59.960 Yeah.

00:02:00.780 Now, students,

00:02:01.540 I trust you've all completed your research assignments.

00:02:03.880 And remember,

00:02:05.920 the person with the highest mark

00:02:07.600 will be flying to New York

00:02:09.280 to present their paper

00:02:10.280 at the World Mathematics Summit.

00:02:14.780 Well done, Penelope.

00:02:16.040 Six out of ten.

00:02:22.160 You too, Simon.

00:02:23.420 Six out of ten.

00:02:27.200 Hey.

00:02:28.660 Be careful.

00:02:29.780 You've been staring at her for ten seconds.

00:02:31.640 What?

00:02:32.400 It's a form of harassment

00:02:33.500 to stare at a woman 0.88

00:02:34.300 for more than 15 seconds straight.

00:02:36.280 And when I use the term straight,

00:02:37.300 I don't mean to offend any persons

00:02:38.680 of a non-traditional sexual preference.

00:02:40.780 And when I use the term non-traditional,

00:02:42.340 I don't mean to offend any persons

00:02:43.560 who oppose historically normalized...

00:02:45.200 Okay, I get it.

00:02:46.820 Unfortunately, Sunshine,

00:02:47.920 your research assignment

00:02:48.900 is only worth a one out of ten.

00:02:51.320 I've used Fourier transform

00:03:01.420 and mathematical methods

00:03:02.520 in the electronics

00:03:03.140 to analyze the electrodiagrams

00:03:05.060 of at-risk patients

00:03:05.980 and calculate their risk

00:03:07.460 of experiencing a heart attack.

00:03:09.720 I mean, it's a new method,

00:03:10.740 but it could potentially

00:03:11.540 save thousands of lives.

00:03:15.060 Seven.

00:03:17.000 You barely even read it.

00:03:18.560 You used red pen.

00:03:19.820 What?

00:03:20.800 Red is considered defensive

00:03:22.060 in many religions.

00:03:23.200 Why would you belittle

00:03:24.100 everything down to a singular colour?

00:03:26.820 Well, humanity is a rainbow

00:03:28.700 of beauty and spirituality.

00:03:31.420 Yeah.

00:03:33.380 Okay, fine.

00:03:34.380 Seven out of ten,

00:03:35.080 but that still means

00:03:35.680 I get to go to the summit, right?

00:03:37.020 The marking process isn't over yet.

00:03:40.220 Now, because we live

00:03:41.860 in a society based on equality,

00:03:44.280 the total amount of marks

00:03:45.760 are to be divided equally

00:03:47.520 among our students.

00:03:49.460 You've got to be kidding me.

00:03:52.220 Well done, students.

00:03:53.800 We're all equal.

00:03:55.340 We're all average.

00:03:56.840 Yay! 0.99

00:03:57.800 But then who gets to go

00:03:58.560 to the summit?

00:03:59.280 Oh, we haven't added

00:04:00.420 our privilege points yet.

00:04:02.580 Don't you know anything?

00:04:04.000 That is correct.

00:04:05.640 Now, Penelope,

00:04:06.840 you are female,

00:04:08.600 so that's plus one privilege point.

00:04:11.180 However, you are white, 0.89

00:04:12.640 so that's minus one. 0.76

00:04:14.000 I'm also bisexual.

00:04:15.640 Plus one.

00:04:17.040 That leaves you

00:04:17.720 with a total score

00:04:18.460 of six out of ten.

00:04:20.900 Simon, unfortunately,

00:04:22.400 you're straight, white, 0.97

00:04:23.520 and male.

00:04:24.400 And cisgendered.

00:04:26.280 Yes, so that's minus

00:04:27.700 four privilege points,

00:04:29.220 which leaves you

00:04:30.100 with a total score of one.

00:04:31.720 It's only fair.

00:04:32.520 Now, you.

00:04:36.100 You're male, 0.96

00:04:37.520 and I don't like you, 0.98

00:04:38.860 so that's minus

00:04:39.980 two privilege points, 0.96

00:04:41.680 but you are brown 0.99

00:04:43.080 and sexually ambiguous, 0.98

00:04:45.180 so that's plus two.

00:04:47.180 That leaves you

00:04:47.980 with a total score

00:04:48.900 of five.

00:04:51.000 Wait, why am I

00:04:51.780 sexually ambiguous?

00:04:52.820 And finally, sunshine.

00:04:54.100 Um, I'm gay.

00:04:57.000 I'm trans.

00:04:57.780 I'm Asian.

00:04:59.380 I'm overweight.

00:05:01.060 I'm lower class.

00:05:02.340 I'm unintelligent.

00:05:03.160 Unattractive.

00:05:05.040 I've got hairs 0.98

00:05:05.840 on my nipples. 0.89

00:05:07.080 And I also got body odor. 0.95

00:05:09.120 And I can't really run properly

00:05:10.580 or tie my shoelaces

00:05:11.600 by myself.

00:05:13.700 I once watched

00:05:14.900 a pigeon die.

00:05:16.960 Wonderful, sunshine.

00:05:19.020 That's 13 privilege points.

00:05:21.460 That leaves you

00:05:22.020 with a total score

00:05:22.820 of 18 out of 10.

00:05:25.500 Well done, sunshine.

00:05:27.140 You're going to New York.

00:05:28.740 Hooray, sunshine.

00:05:30.120 We knew you could do it.

00:05:31.260 Let me see this.

00:05:34.400 They've just written

00:05:39.340 equality

00:05:39.860 and drawn love hearts

00:05:40.960 on a piece of paper.

00:05:42.180 He expressed himself

00:05:43.800 and it's beautiful.

00:05:45.340 He didn't even spell

00:05:46.700 equality correctly.

00:05:47.960 We don't discriminate.

00:05:49.060 This has nothing

00:05:49.720 to do with mathematics.

00:05:51.120 Do you think you're so great

00:05:52.220 with your maths

00:05:53.000 and your science

00:05:53.960 and your facts?

00:05:55.860 What about feelings, huh?

00:05:57.880 Yeah.

00:05:58.640 Feelings are more important

00:05:59.600 than facts.

00:06:00.240 Yeah!

00:06:01.040 This is wrong. 1.00

00:06:02.420 You're all crazy. 1.00

00:06:04.120 Stop violating me 1.00

00:06:05.780 with your different opinions.

00:06:07.400 I have the right

00:06:08.040 to speak my mind.

00:06:09.080 No, we have the right

00:06:09.940 not to be offended.

00:06:11.140 And that's more important.

00:06:12.960 And if you don't stop

00:06:14.000 verbally assaulting us,

00:06:15.360 we will be forced 0.99

00:06:16.040 to attack you

00:06:16.800 in self-defense.

00:06:18.020 Can't do that.

00:06:18.700 Actually,

00:06:19.660 we have every right

00:06:20.880 to do so.

00:06:22.080 And it's illegal

00:06:23.120 for you to fight back.

00:06:24.420 Yeah!

00:06:25.320 This is insane. 0.87

00:06:26.520 Prepare to die

00:06:27.760 a noble social justice 0.98

00:06:30.120 warrior death!

00:06:31.440 Ha ha ha ha!

00:06:33.220 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:34.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:34.660 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:35.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:36.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:36.660 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:37.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:38.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:39.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:40.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:41.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:42.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:43.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:44.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:45.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:46.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:47.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:48.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:49.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:50.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:51.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:52.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:53.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:54.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:55.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:56.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:57.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:58.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:06:59.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:00.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:01.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:02.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:03.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:04.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:05.160 TARGEE! 1.00

00:07:06.160 And that was you!

00:07:07.160 You did that nine years ago, man.

00:07:08.160 It was, yeah.

00:07:09.160 It was a long time ago now

00:07:11.160 and I'm still riding the coattails off it

00:07:14.160 and I'm very proud of it.

00:07:15.160 I mean, that's every artist's dream

00:07:17.160 to have a piece of work that withstands the test of time

00:07:21.160 and people can look upon it and say, you know,

00:07:23.160 that was maybe ahead of its time.

00:07:25.160 So that, well, it was simultaneously ahead of its time

00:07:28.160 and a lot of us, I feel, including Francis

00:07:30.160 and I almost like catching up with what you did then.

00:07:33.160 But also, it was on its time because even then

00:07:36.160 people already could feel the stuff that you were talking about.

00:07:38.160 Definitely.

00:07:39.160 And, you know, I'm sure you guys can relate to this.

00:07:41.160 When you're in the art scene,

00:07:43.160 I came up in the Australian comedy scene.

00:07:46.160 Those sorts of ideas had spread early on

00:07:51.160 and before they really infected the corporate world

00:07:54.160 or the business world, they were really prevalent

00:07:57.160 in, I suppose, the university and the art scene.

00:07:59.160 And that's when I was just coming out of university

00:08:00.160 and going into the art scene.

00:08:02.160 So there was a lot of that there.

00:08:05.160 And what was the inspiration for that?

00:08:07.160 Well, so probably just my experiences being

00:08:09.160 in the Australian comedy scene and the art scene

00:08:11.160 and being around people who, I guess, growing up,

00:08:15.160 being, you know, brown, I just assumed, yeah,

00:08:17.160 I guess I'm on the left.

00:08:18.160 That's just the standard thing.

00:08:19.160 And I never really thought about it until I started

00:08:22.160 to see the repercussions of some of these ideas.

00:08:24.160 And I started to realise, oh, you're just saying

00:08:26.160 a lot of these things.

00:08:27.160 But deep down, you're not actually inclusive.

00:08:30.160 You're not, you know, they say they're inclusive

00:08:32.160 to people of colour.

00:08:33.160 I've never felt more excluded in my life, to be honest.

00:08:36.160 So I guess I just was able to abstract a lot of those ideas

00:08:40.160 from their behaviours and really just then conceptualise

00:08:46.160 that in a film, in a short film.

00:08:49.160 And yeah, a lot of it was really just based

00:08:51.160 on my experiences coming through the art scene.

00:08:54.160 And Neil, you said you've never been more excluded

00:08:56.160 in your life.

00:08:57.160 Yeah.

00:08:58.160 What do you mean by that?

00:09:00.160 Well, it's just the sort of thing that you guys

00:09:02.160 have experienced as well.

00:09:03.160 I mean, you just don't get a lot of opportunities.

00:09:09.160 And the last thing I want to sit here and be a victim

00:09:11.160 or anything like that, I have a great career.

00:09:13.160 I'm very happy with how I'm going.

00:09:14.160 But everything is sort of picked apart and criticised.

00:09:20.160 And I grew up in a very sort of multiracial area in Sydney

00:09:24.160 where we'd all make fun of each other and make jokes with each other.

00:09:27.160 And I built up a fan base online.

00:09:29.160 It's quite a diverse fan base, I would like to think.

00:09:32.160 And, you know, people like those sorts of jokes, racial jokes

00:09:36.160 or jokes about gender or sexuality or whatever it is.

00:09:39.160 But then I sort of went into this scene and it felt a lot more,

00:09:44.160 maybe it's more upper class or I don't know what it was necessarily,

00:09:47.160 but they just weren't fond of that style of comedy.

00:09:50.160 And it became more about just having the correct opinions

00:09:53.160 rather than actually being inclusive.

00:09:55.160 And I just felt very excluded.

00:09:58.160 That's my experience as a person of colour.

00:10:01.160 So they can't really argue against that, can they?

00:10:03.160 I mean, they can, mate.

00:10:04.160 Yeah, they can and they have.

00:10:06.160 But what I found interesting about that short film you made as well

00:10:09.160 was you really honed in on something which I think is so crucial

00:10:12.160 to the modern world, which is in that video,

00:10:15.160 which I will put a link to and I hope people go and watch it

00:10:18.160 because I think it's a really fantastic piece of work.

00:10:20.160 Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:10:21.160 You honed in on the fact that the truth has become secondary

00:10:26.160 and people's feelings have become primary.

00:10:28.160 How did you, like you were so early to that.

00:10:31.160 I'm really, and you're a young guy as well.

00:10:32.160 I'm just super impressed that you picked that up.

00:10:34.160 Why did you notice that? How did you notice that?

00:10:37.160 Well, I think being in the later years of my high school

00:10:40.160 and then going into university, I'd want to have discussions.

00:10:43.160 I'm very interested in sort of ideas and abstract thinking

00:10:48.160 and I love to sort of engage in that sort of discourse

00:10:51.160 but I found that there were a lot of roadblocks and people saying,

00:10:54.160 oh, no, you can't have that idea.

00:10:55.160 No, that's just the wrong idea to have or you can't say that.

00:10:58.160 Yeah.

00:10:59.160 Yeah, again, that's just sort of my experience

00:11:01.160 that really engendered the inspiration for that film.

00:11:04.160 And that was in Australia.

00:11:06.160 I mean, I was in Australia earlier this year.

00:11:08.160 It feels to me that I wrote an article about this when I came back

00:11:13.160 but it feels to me like Australia isn't quite as far down

00:11:16.160 the slippery slope as a country.

00:11:18.160 In Sydney, perhaps, and Melbourne you probably are as far

00:11:22.160 in terms of all the work stuff.

00:11:23.160 But in the rest of the country, you know, broadly quite sensible.

00:11:26.160 How kind has time been to Australia in the last ten years?

00:11:31.160 Yeah, again, it depends sort of which circles you operate in.

00:11:33.160 So, again, I think the media and the arts world has a lot of those ideas

00:11:37.160 but I think there's a big class distinction as well.

00:11:40.160 So Sydney in particular, eastern Sydney is considered quite, you know,

00:11:46.160 posh and affluent and western Sydney is working class. 1.00

00:11:49.160 I like to say eastern Sydney is very my pronouns are they, them,

00:11:52.160 and western Sydney is very my probation entity.

00:11:54.160 It's a very classic thing.

00:11:56.160 And then we've actually had a few referendums recently where, you know,

00:11:59.160 the eastern part of Sydney you could actually just draw a line

00:12:03.160 and say that everyone voted yes on these particular referendums.

00:12:07.160 One of them was the gay marriage one and then the other was the voice

00:12:10.160 for the indigenous Australians and there was a very clear distinction

00:12:14.160 along class lines.

00:12:16.160 So it just depends where you are in Australia, I think.

00:12:19.160 I don't think it's hard to say whether the whole country has gone down

00:12:24.160 a certain route or anything like that.

00:12:26.160 I just think, like with the rest of the western world, it's very divided.

00:12:29.160 Yeah, and it's really interesting to me because you take the stereotype

00:12:33.160 of an Australian, an Australian male, you know, no nonsense, straight to the point,

00:12:38.160 you know, beer drinking, masculine.

00:12:40.160 And then you put all this stuff that you see in Melbourne and Sydney,

00:12:44.160 you go, that really doesn't fit.

00:12:47.160 Surely they're not buying into this stuff.

00:12:49.160 Yeah.

00:12:50.160 Yeah, they're not.

00:12:52.160 They're definitely not.

00:12:53.160 So, yeah, again, there's sort of pockets of Melbourne and Sydney

00:12:58.160 that are considered very progressive and I think the comedy scene is very progressive

00:13:03.160 in Australia and a lot of normal Australians have just turned against it.

00:13:08.160 And it's sad to see because I, well, I love Australia and I love comedy,

00:13:11.160 but I don't like Australian comedy.

00:13:14.160 I think there's some great comedians there, but the system, I suppose,

00:13:17.160 isn't serving the general population well and a lot of people are just dismayed

00:13:24.160 at what they see in the mainstream media and also what's coming out

00:13:29.160 from the Australian comedy scene.

00:13:30.160 And it's sad.

00:13:31.160 I hope it can change.

00:13:32.160 What's interesting about that is obviously we spend more and more time

00:13:35.160 in America nowadays.

00:13:36.160 That was the case in the US, but because they have a large number of scenes,

00:13:41.160 a lot more freedom, there's people with huge amounts of money

00:13:44.160 and big audiences that have been able to engineer new scenes from scratch.

00:13:48.160 You know, Rogan and Austin is a good example.

00:13:50.160 They've been able to respond to the stuff that you're talking about

00:13:54.160 by building new things and now the big comics are all not woke

00:13:58.160 or anti-woke, you might say.

00:14:00.160 But that doesn't seem to be the case in the UK or in Australia.

00:14:04.160 Like, it's one scene and if you don't fit, then you've got a problem.

00:14:07.160 Yeah, unfortunately it hasn't really happened to that extent in Australia.

00:14:10.160 There's a lot of internet comedians that are doing good things,

00:14:12.160 but none have been able to do what Joe Rogan has and build an entire scene.

00:14:16.160 It's incredible what he's done because now when you think about the cities

00:14:20.160 in America that have a big comedy scene, it was always just New York

00:14:23.160 and Los Angeles.

00:14:24.160 Now it's New York, Austin, Los Angeles.

00:14:26.160 So he's done incredibly well.

00:14:28.160 And, yeah, unfortunately we haven't had that in Australia.

00:14:31.160 We've had a lot of people who've come up and built an individual career

00:14:35.160 outside of, I guess, the traditional routes of making it

00:14:39.160 in Australian stand-up, but no one's sort of built a scene in that sense yet.

00:14:44.160 I hope they can.

00:14:46.160 Go for it.

00:14:47.160 I was just going to say, you seem to be doing very well though now, right?

00:14:50.160 Like, I don't think you've been cancelled or had your opportunities

00:14:55.160 genuinely curtailed.

00:14:56.160 You seem to be one of the people who's leading the charge in terms

00:14:59.160 of pushing back against that.

00:15:00.160 Yeah, thank you.

00:15:01.160 I'm doing all right.

00:15:02.160 I've done it full-time, which is a good thing to be able to say

00:15:05.160 you've done in Australia.

00:15:07.160 No, I've never really been sort of overtly cancelled or anything like that.

00:15:11.160 But actually I wanted to talk about this, which is I was talking to Andy,

00:15:14.160 who runs Unleashed comedy gigs.

00:15:17.160 There are people who have been sort of overtly cancelled, but what has also

00:15:21.160 happened is there's, you don't think about the people who haven't gotten

00:15:24.160 the opportunities.

00:15:25.160 So Chappelle or Ricky Gervais, if they were 20 or 30 years younger,

00:15:29.160 no one would know who they are because they didn't have a profile to be,

00:15:34.160 I suppose, cancelled, but they just don't get the opportunities.

00:15:37.160 And I think that sort of thing is happening.

00:15:39.160 And it's not just me saying this, it's the whole Australian comedy scene,

00:15:43.160 basically saying the scene's not serving Australian comedians anymore.

00:15:47.160 What they're putting out there, the people they're handpicking is just,

00:15:50.160 it's not even just, it's just not good for the brand off Australian comedy

00:15:55.160 or the Australian arts.

00:15:56.160 So, yeah, look, to answer the question, yeah, I'm very happy with how I've done

00:16:00.160 and I'm very happy with my career and I'm doing reasonably well

00:16:05.160 and there are a lot of people who are in the same boat I am

00:16:07.160 and I'm trying to help build the scene as well.

00:16:09.160 I run a few comedy events and things like that in Australia.

00:16:12.160 So, yeah, you can sort of circumnavigate that now and still,

00:16:17.160 it's not like I want to avoid that.

00:16:19.160 You know, I've always said I want to be able to make, I guess,

00:16:22.160 a progressive audience laugh.

00:16:24.160 I think that's a good goal to achieve as a comedian.

00:16:27.160 You can go to a more traditional audience, make them laugh,

00:16:31.160 but you can go to a more progressive audience and make them laugh as well.

00:16:34.160 So, yeah, I'm just trying to do the best I can, be the best comedian I can be

00:16:39.160 and hopefully build the scene as well or help build the scene.

00:16:43.160 So, when we're talking about the people that they're picking,

00:16:45.160 what seems to be the criteria for people like organisations, I should say,

00:16:50.160 like the Melbourne Comedy Festival, what type of people are they picking?

00:16:53.160 Just, obviously, they go really hard on the diversity,

00:16:57.160 but it's diversity within a certain window of political beliefs.

00:17:03.160 You know, you never really get a person of colour who's conservative 0.97

00:17:07.160 or anything like that.

00:17:08.160 It's just these are the people we like and these are the people

00:17:12.160 that we want to present to the Australian public.

00:17:14.160 And the whole thing is the Australian comedy scene,

00:17:17.160 it's taxpayer funded because the comedy festival,

00:17:20.160 it's a publicly run organisation.

00:17:22.160 And so it's Australians tax money going to create a scene

00:17:26.160 that they don't even like.

00:17:27.160 It's just a farce.

00:17:28.160 It's a parody of itself, which is the best comedy they can produce, ironically.

00:17:32.160 But, yeah, they're just, I think they're also very risk averse.

00:17:38.160 I think they might, even the people who are making these sorts of decisions

00:17:43.160 might like certain comedians who take more risks and have edgier material,

00:17:46.160 but they know that their job might be on the line if they pick a comedian

00:17:50.160 to have this TV spot that upsets a few viewers.

00:17:53.160 So they just avoid that and they take the most sort of sanitised, safe acts

00:17:58.160 and that's how you make money because, you know, if you're on TV

00:18:02.160 and there's a bunch of corporate interests and also corporate gigs

00:18:06.160 and things like that, they don't want anything too risque.

00:18:09.160 They just want good, safe, reasonable comedy that doesn't upset anyone.

00:18:13.160 So the financial incentives are just to not rock the boat.

00:18:17.160 Is that true? Because in the UK it certainly hasn't proven true.

00:18:21.160 You know, if you look at several big TV shows here that pursued those policies,

00:18:26.160 they don't exist anymore.

00:18:28.160 So when you say it's how you make money, I'm not even sure that that's true, you know?

00:18:34.160 Yeah, I mean, that's true over the long term.

00:18:37.160 Yeah, I don't think it's a good monetary financial strategy, right?

00:18:41.160 They say that's go woke, go broke.

00:18:43.160 But in the short term, I think if they have a sort of act that people might find objectionable,

00:18:49.160 they're just worried about the blowback on social media, I think.

00:18:52.160 So, but you're right.

00:18:53.160 In the long term, it's not a good strategy.

00:18:54.160 When I grew up, there was so many shows on Australian TV that were really funny.

00:19:01.160 I mean, Chris Lilley, everyone knows him across the world.

00:19:04.160 He was hilarious.

00:19:05.160 I grew up on guys like that.

00:19:06.160 And now there's, I think there's just one.

00:19:08.160 Now we have one panel show in the whole of Australian TV.

00:19:12.160 So yeah, mainstream media is just not what it used to be.

00:19:16.160 It's a very slow decline.

00:19:19.160 And yeah, part of why they're declining is because they've made, at least I believe they've made bad artistic choices.

00:19:30.160 Neil, do you think part of the problem is you said they're state funded, which is the comedy festival.

00:19:35.160 So correct me if I'm wrong, Melbourne Comedy Festival is state funded.

00:19:38.160 Look, I don't know the exact details, but I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's a publicly funded organization.

00:19:43.160 Yeah.

00:19:44.160 So isn't that part of the problem, that if the government is mandating and funding a comedy festival,

00:19:51.160 are they really, number one, the best people to be putting on a comedy festival, you could argue?

00:19:55.160 I mean, have you met government bureaucrats?

00:19:57.160 Yeah.

00:19:58.160 They're not the funniest people out there.

00:20:00.160 Unintentionally, number one.

00:20:02.160 And then number two, well, of course, they're not going to take risks.

00:20:05.160 Because would the government put on a transphobic comedian, whatever that means?

00:20:10.160 Well, of course, they're not going to do that because it's going to be blowback on them.

00:20:13.160 That's exactly right.

00:20:14.160 That's the problem.

00:20:15.160 And, you know, I think the original idea behind funding the arts in a country like Australia is because we're a small population.

00:20:23.160 We just don't have the means to fund large projects or large comedy festivals in the same way America or even the UK does.

00:20:30.160 And we also get exposed to a lot of American film and TV.

00:20:34.160 So I think once upon a time, the government thought, well, let's just fund the art scene here because that will help grow the scene and allow artists here to have a career without having to move overseas.

00:20:45.160 But, yes, what's happened is that they now have a monopoly over that.

00:20:49.160 Well, it's slowly declining for the last couple of decades.

00:20:53.160 They've had a monopoly.

00:20:54.160 And, you know, when you have a bunch of people in the professional managerial class choosing, you know, the comedians that they personally like, they're not necessarily a reflection of the greater population.

00:21:07.160 And they pick a group of comedians that a lot of people are just, it's not just me, it's like a lot of people are just really dismayed at what they're seeing.

00:21:15.160 And it's a tragedy because, you know, if there was, I guess if there was more of an incentive to actually make money, because if it's government fund, obviously they don't have to worry about the profit too much, then they'd be forced to at least appeal to the masses to some degree.

00:21:30.160 I mean, you can also take some risks with some alternative acts and whatnot, but that's why I like the club scene.

00:21:37.160 I think the way that, I guess, the way that the system is in America is that, at least from what I can gather, is that you sort of make it in the club scene and then maybe you get on a talk show or TV or whatever it might be there.

00:21:53.160 Now there's the internet, obviously, but I just think the incentives there are just much better because to have a good club, 10-minute set, you have to be very funny, you have to be very punchy, you have to appeal to a broader audience.

00:22:06.380 Whereas to sort of appease the festival scene and the sort of arts bureaucrats, you've got to be a bit, you've got to just be weird, I guess.

00:22:14.520 I don't know.

00:22:16.400 That's how it seems.

00:22:17.480 Yeah, you know what I find really interesting is that we're talking about this, and on the one hand, we're talking about the Melbourne Comedy Festival, but we could just as easily be talking about the BBC.

00:22:27.500 Or Edinburgh.

00:22:28.260 Or Edinburgh.

00:22:29.120 It seems that these things, it's not only happening in Australia or the US, it happens in Canada, just for laughs, went broke.

00:22:37.780 We're seeing the decline of all the festivals in relevancy, but also in the amount of money they're making.

00:22:42.920 Melbourne Comedy Festival is just, when I started out in comedy, that was one of the dreams.

00:22:48.080 You'd want to do Melbourne.

00:22:49.260 You would want to do so well in Edinburgh that you'd get transferred to Melbourne.

00:22:52.620 I think if you talk to a lot of comedians, young comedians now, and ask them if they want to do Melbourne, you'd probably get at best a shrug of the shoulders.

00:23:00.080 Definitely.

00:23:00.720 Yeah, the comedians of my generation, late 20s, early 30s, I mean, people will still do it.

00:23:06.000 You sort of, you have to, but they're just not happy with it at the end of the day.

00:23:11.560 They're not happy with how they've been treated, and we're paying into it as well.

00:23:17.680 Often you don't make a lot of money doing these festivals, and to just be despondent at the final product is just sad.

00:23:24.920 I think the people who run the organisation need to look at it a little bit.

00:23:30.080 Look, I don't think these people are sort of bad individuals, but I just think they've been in an echo chamber for a long time, and they haven't gotten out of that and sort of have tried to be too controlling with the sort of styles they want to put out there.

00:23:44.640 And a lot of people just, again, it's not just me.

00:23:47.440 It's just a lot of people just don't like it.

00:23:49.520 Well, that thing you said about incentives, I think, is very true as well.

00:23:53.820 One of the things I remember Jordan Peterson talking a lot about when I was on tour with him was how the market profit motive is not necessarily the purest always and the right one always, but there's a lot worse ones.

00:24:08.760 Absolutely.

00:24:09.200 And a situation when you have a bunch of people who don't care about whether a festival they organise makes money or not is a problem because there are perverse incentive structures there, and people then start to imagine that they are the arbiters of taste for the entire nation.

00:24:26.640 And the feedback that comes from poor ticket sales and all the rest of it just doesn't register.

00:24:33.140 Yeah.

00:24:33.580 Yeah.

00:24:33.840 It's really elitist, if anything.

00:24:37.180 It's we know what good art is and, you know, there's a bunch of critics who don't even do comedy.

00:24:43.420 They're art critics and they're sitting there judging a comedy show as though it was a theatrical performance.

00:24:48.840 And, yeah, I think they actually just look down on the art form of comedy.

00:24:53.740 A lot of the critics and things like that, I think they like the theatre and they like cabaret and they like all these sort of highbrow forms of art, which are great, don't get me wrong, but comedy isn't that, you know.

00:25:04.120 It can be, it can be, it can be very intellectual and there are great comedians who do political satire, but for the most part stand-up comedy is for the everyman.

00:25:14.000 It's performed at clubs and it's for people who are drinking and it's not this sort of highbrow intellectual artistic pursuit.

00:25:23.100 It's something that's fun and for everyone.

00:25:25.240 And I think they don't like that and they're trying to control that and it's not working and they don't realise it.

00:25:32.080 It's such a good point.

00:25:34.060 They always seem to look down on comedy.

00:25:36.220 Why do you think that is?

00:25:37.580 Why do you think that they think the theatre is more worthy of respect and, you know, to be considered whilst somebody going up on a stage making an audience cry with laughter?

00:25:51.080 That is a real art form and it's a real skill and very few people can actually do it.

00:25:56.600 Why do you think they're so contemptuous of it for want of a better word of it?

00:26:00.360 I think they're just comedy illiterate. 0.98

00:26:02.400 Like they, on face value, if someone's going out there and making lowbrow jokes and sex jokes and things, the vibe is that it's, oh, it's dumb and it's not particularly smart. 0.87

00:26:13.340 But as you guys would know, to write good jokes on that particular subject matter, it's very difficult.

00:26:19.520 And I just don't think they've been, I don't think they've sort of been educated in the art form of comedy, ironically.

00:26:24.420 Now, they think everyone else is uneducated.

00:26:26.200 I think they're not educated in the art form of stand-up comedy because I think people confuse lowbrow comedy with being dumb when actually you can do very smart lowbrow comedy, if that makes sense.

00:26:39.260 You can do really smart comedy about topics and subject matters that some people would see as crass.

00:26:47.500 But I don't think they realise that.

00:26:49.040 And I think they see it as a lower form of art and they just, you know, to do good art, you need to make people cry and you need to have a message and you need to have a narrative in there.

00:27:01.720 And I actually think that's easier to do.

00:27:02.960 Like there's a lot of, I don't know if you get that in the UK festivals, but you get these sort of hybrid comedy shows where someone get on stage, do a couple of jokes and then say, well, this is, this is, I'm taking the mask off now.

00:27:15.160 This is my true story.

00:27:16.400 And, you know.

00:27:17.540 And there's no jokes from that.

00:27:18.520 Yeah.

00:27:18.780 Someone told me I was brown and then I was depressed for four years.

00:27:23.060 And it's just like, what is this, man?

00:27:25.120 Just like make some jokes.

00:27:26.820 Okay.

00:27:27.180 It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's harder to actually be funny for an hour than it is to say, you know, something like that and evoke empathy from an audience with your sad stories.

00:27:39.500 Everyone's got some sad stories and things.

00:27:41.480 It's not hard to do that.

00:27:42.560 That's all.

00:27:43.760 So I think it's actually an easy way out.

00:27:45.860 I think, I was talking to you about this before the show, right?

00:27:49.620 There was a comedian I was gigging with the other day and she was doing a test for the dark triad traits or something like that.

00:27:56.980 And one of the questions for narcissism was, have you ever fantasized about being a comedian?

00:28:01.700 So, yeah, they've really, they've really, the psychologists know what they're talking about there.

00:28:07.640 And I think that's what it is.

00:28:10.500 It's a sort of covert narcissism where if I can sort of present myself in this way that evokes a lot of empathy from the audience,

00:28:17.980 I get this social status and it's easier for me to do than to actually write good jokes for an hour.

00:28:26.160 Have you ever seen that De Niro movie?

00:28:28.940 It's from way back when, I think it's an 82 movie called King of Comedy.

00:28:33.160 No, I don't think so.

00:28:33.900 If you want to talk about the psychology of comedians, check that out, man.

00:28:37.980 That is scary in many ways.

00:28:40.280 I feel like Joker did a pretty good job as well.

00:28:43.120 Joker is, yeah, similar.

00:28:44.640 But actually to answer your question, man, I think it's also partly about who the audience are.

00:28:49.560 It's like you were talking about the class side of this.

00:28:51.840 Yeah.

00:28:52.240 It's like the audience for comedy is different to the audience for theatre.

00:28:55.460 Yeah.

00:28:56.500 Yeah.

00:28:56.980 And they're trying to, I think a festival is generally going to appeal to a more partial upper class audience,

00:29:04.560 which is fine.

00:29:04.960 I'm not saying those people shouldn't enjoy comedy, but if it's...

00:29:08.640 They don't.

00:29:09.120 Yeah, they don't enjoy.

00:29:09.940 I don't know what they enjoy.

00:29:10.900 They don't enjoy anything, but they should.

00:29:13.760 They're wealthy.

00:29:14.720 But if it's to the detriment of other people having a good time, I think that's a problem.

00:29:22.700 In fact, I think a lot of these diversity initiatives are actually just diversity for the upper class,

00:29:28.680 because it's usually people who grew up quite wealthy and sort of know how to speak that language

00:29:35.800 and agree with all the politics of the professional managerial class.

00:29:40.620 So really, it's just it's people of colour and different sexualities, but within the top tax bracket.

00:29:45.720 That's what it seems to be.

00:29:48.500 So, you know, it's really interesting.

00:29:50.060 I was reading Hubert Selby Jr.'s last exit to Brooklyn, which was written in, I think, 1952, 53.

00:29:57.360 And it was a very controversial book at the time.

00:29:59.140 I think he was banned over here for a long time, and it dealt with drug addicts, people

00:30:05.140 of the lowest wrong of society living in Brooklyn, transvestites, as he called them at the time. 1.00

00:30:10.680 And he told these stories of their lives.

00:30:12.860 And it's fascinating.

00:30:14.040 It's beautifully written.

00:30:15.200 It's really powerful.

00:30:16.700 But what made it interesting for me, it was like there wasn't a victim narrative in it at all,

00:30:22.580 even though these people were being discriminated against.

00:30:25.600 Their lives were tough and miserable. 0.99

00:30:27.160 And he, for instance, in one, he talks about the rape of a prostitute. 0.97

00:30:33.140 But what he does is he tells a story brilliantly.

00:30:36.820 And what I find interesting now is when somebody says, oh, I'm X or I'm not, whatever it is.

00:30:43.820 The story isn't good.

00:30:46.580 You go, that's not enough.

00:30:48.280 There needs to be the story.

00:30:49.880 What's the story?

00:30:50.860 That's why I actually really liked Baby Reindeer, because the transgender woman was a legitimate part of the story. 0.95

00:31:01.760 She wasn't put in there as like, oh, look how we're meeting targets.

00:31:06.160 It was, no, this person is a part of the story.

00:31:08.600 Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen Baby Reindeer yet, but there really is this obsession with presenting people in these sort of protected classes as purely just victims and nothing else.

00:31:21.820 And, you know, I don't really see myself as a victim.

00:31:25.060 I mean, there's times where maybe I've been victimized, but I wouldn't sort of classify that as the main story of my life.

00:31:32.800 I wouldn't want to either.

00:31:34.520 I think that's maybe that's actually a symptom of a deeper mental illness or something.

00:31:39.340 I mean, I'm not I'm not trying to be too cruel here, but I think a lot of these people maybe I actually think.

00:31:44.800 There's these sort of collective, almost abusive relationships, like you're in some sort of cult because in a sort of controlling, abusive relationship, there's someone who's the savior.

00:31:55.640 Like, I need to do this for you.

00:31:56.940 This is how you can be a better person.

00:31:59.040 You don't know what's good for you, but I know what's good for you.

00:32:01.040 And those are the sorts of language that people who, you know, express those sorts of views tend to articulate.

00:32:08.500 Like, we know what's best for you.

00:32:10.440 You are a victim.

00:32:11.640 We need to do this for you.

00:32:13.340 And you need to vote for these policies.

00:32:15.000 And they're always the policies for one particular political party, usually.

00:32:19.300 So I think a lot of people are actually in a kind of cult.

00:32:23.120 And then when I was young, I just sort of just natural that if you're a young person and you're in the arts, you're creative, you're also a minority.

00:32:32.520 You just think, OK, obviously, I'm this.

00:32:35.580 This just makes sense.

00:32:36.480 But eventually you realize, oh, this is actually more about you being a savior than genuinely wanting to help anyone.

00:32:44.920 And actually, people on the left will also talk about the savior complex.

00:32:48.860 So I think more people need to be aware of that.

00:32:53.340 And we're so cognizant now of an abusive dynamic in a relationship on an individual scale when it's a romantic relationship.

00:33:03.400 But I think there's sort of a covert narcissism and covert abuse that's going on on a collective scale here as well.

00:33:10.680 Because when we were in the Edinburgh Fest, we were walking around and we're going, is everybody in here queer?

00:33:17.780 And I realize that doesn't sound good in my voice, right?

00:33:20.620 OK, but you're just walking around going, what, literally everyone?

00:33:25.060 There is something going on here, surely.

00:33:27.200 Yeah, because even then, OK, maybe the initial goal of diversity was let's create something that's reflective of the general population.

00:33:35.360 And the general population isn't 100 percent queer.

00:33:38.080 It's maybe, what is it now, 10 to 20 percent?

00:33:40.420 So, look, if 10 percent of the shows had a queer performer, then maybe, OK, that seems like, OK, that's a reflection of the general population.

00:33:49.100 And, of course, just because something isn't a reflection of the general population doesn't mean it's fundamentally flawed.

00:33:55.300 But when the whole thing is queer, you're like, all right, this is not actually a reflection of the general population. 0.99

00:34:01.360 Well, this is where you come back to this almost kind of like state planning of things, because that's why the state planning system doesn't work, because it's like overreacting to things 10 years too late, 10 times too much.

00:34:16.420 Yeah, I don't think the state is particularly good at influencing culture.

00:34:19.200 If anything, it creates a rebellious streak in the population and they do the opposite.

00:34:25.500 So, yeah, I think.

00:34:27.100 Are you seeing that in Australia?

00:34:28.340 Are you seeing people kind of starting to get fed up with this or do they still have the kind of control over this?

00:34:34.300 Yeah, I think people are starting to get fed up.

00:34:36.420 But then a lot of people might not necessarily want to go too far to the other side either, which is a fair thing to be wary of.

00:34:45.520 Definitely.

00:34:46.200 I mean, we see in America a lot of people are going too far to the other side.

00:34:49.860 Exactly.

00:34:50.440 So, you know, I'd probably be in that boat as well.

00:34:52.860 So, yeah, look, even the people who you would consider would fit the stereotype of being super progressive, you have a few drinks with them and then they'll vent about it as well.

00:35:07.200 So I think there is this despondency with the way things are, but people just are unsure how exactly to rebel against that because they are afraid of the opposite reaction as well.

00:35:19.480 But that's what I find frustrating, Neil, because the number of times I'm in a comedy club and, you know, people look around and they go, oh, you know, one comedian always made a joke.

00:35:30.760 Hey, you know, I agree with everything you say.

00:35:33.020 I wouldn't say it in public.

00:35:35.320 Yeah. 0.97

00:35:35.720 And you go, well, then we're all screwed. 0.98

00:35:40.100 There was one instance where I was in a comedy club a few weeks ago and there was this comedian and they were saying, oh, I wouldn't, you know, you know, this trans stuff is insane. 1.00

00:35:49.320 It's just insane. 0.59

00:35:50.400 It's so insane what's going on.

00:35:52.100 And then I was in the green room and I got challenged by a comedian about free speech.

00:35:58.420 I went, well, of course there's things that you're not allowed to say.

00:36:00.880 And this person then went, like what?

00:36:04.380 And I'm like, you, that, that, what?

00:36:09.080 Yeah. 0.98

00:36:09.860 Until we, there is a cultural change and by cultural change, what I'm trying to say is grow some balls. 0.98

00:36:17.620 Yeah. 0.97

00:36:17.940 This ain't ever going to change.

00:36:19.680 Yeah.

00:36:20.000 There's a particular form of gaslighting that occurs, doesn't it?

00:36:22.860 Like, oh, you can say, what are you talking about?

00:36:24.760 Like, everyone's free.

00:36:25.980 You can say what you want.

00:36:26.880 No, I mean, yeah, maybe you can legally.

00:36:29.860 Well, I don't know here.

00:36:30.720 There's people getting arrested.

00:36:31.840 So I don't know about that.

00:36:32.960 But yeah, it's, it's, yeah, there does need to be a cultural change.

00:36:38.360 Although there's something to be said.

00:36:39.480 Tell me what you think about this.

00:36:40.320 Because what seems to be happening is there's a lot of tension and I completely understand that.

00:36:44.500 But then if people are just saying the thing that they're not supposed to say just as a, as a form of release, as a form of catharsis, I don't know if that's necessarily the healthiest thing either.

00:36:55.400 No.

00:36:55.680 And I think even in comedy, which is maybe a subset of culture at large, you're getting these comedians now who are saying, oh, I'm not allowed to make that joke.

00:37:05.840 Fine.

00:37:06.120 I'll just make the most, the worst joke that, that will, that'll just defend this part of the culture.

00:37:12.100 And I also don't know if that's the highest form of comedy either.

00:37:15.880 I think you can still make better artistic choice.

00:37:19.040 I think I can understand why there is a growing demand for that and why there's a sense of catharsis that comes when you hear people saying that.

00:37:26.860 But I still think there's something to be said about finding a nice middle ground where we can all just joke with each other and have a good time and not feel threatened by what's, by what's going on.

00:37:39.800 Because then there's also another problem arises, which is then the actual judgment of art or comedy is then becomes hyper partisan.

00:37:49.780 And, you know, it's judged based on not, not on any sort of objective criteria of whether that was a well-written joke, but whether they said the right thing for this political tribe or whether they said the right thing for that political tribe.

00:38:01.080 And it's just, yeah, I mean, I mean, like people like you, though, are doing a great job at changing that.

00:38:06.880 And I think there are a lot of comedians who are saying, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to be either left wing or right wing.

00:38:12.880 I'm just trying to make some jokes here and, and, and laugh at everyone.

00:38:16.120 And I mean, that's the best thing we can do right now.

00:38:19.720 Well, the interesting thing is what you're saying.

00:38:21.700 It's very true of comedy, of course.

00:38:24.280 There are some people who've forgotten to be funny and they now just want to be offensive because that's, that's what they think is cool.

00:38:31.080 But I ask you, I actually think the same is happening in, in the realm of ideas and the realm of culture and politics more broadly, because now you have people who think that like they took the idea that let's say the media weren't always honest, which we all know, through to you can't believe anything anyone says.

00:38:51.220 And now we've got to go and unpick every single thing that we were told to believe.

00:38:56.760 You know what?

00:38:57.320 Let's take World War II and turn everything on its head. 0.55

00:39:00.120 Let's take this thing and turn everything in its head.

00:39:02.700 And they've become addicted to this.

00:39:04.300 I'm just asking questions.

00:39:06.520 Yeah.

00:39:06.720 Which is, they're not really asking questions anymore about things that are true.

00:39:11.360 They're just pursuing that edge that you were talking about.

00:39:13.960 And it actually validates the progressives.

00:39:16.600 Totally.

00:39:16.840 Because they were always the one that said, well, we need to protect speech because we need to have, you know, guardrails and hate speech laws because then that just opens the door for these really extreme views.

00:39:27.020 And then if you're doing that, you're just, you're just giving them what they wanted.

00:39:30.100 Right.

00:39:30.460 So I think there's still something to be said.

00:39:32.660 I get it, you know, it can be so frustrating dealing with the bounds of what we're allowed to say culturally.

00:39:40.380 But I still think there's something to be said about actually having a bit of discipline with what we say and, you know, trying to appeal to the other side.

00:39:48.020 I think that's sort of a lost art where you can, I get, I try to go to the comedy rooms that are considered woke or whatever.

00:39:54.180 I mean, I really try to make an effort to go there and have a good set and make them laugh because I think that's saying something.

00:40:02.800 I still want to be able to appeal to people like that.

00:40:06.120 And I, yeah, I don't, I don't really think it's healthy to just vacillate between one extreme to the other.

00:40:13.200 And I think there's just an, it's also just a big identity crisis where people are latching onto political identities because it gives them a sense of purpose.

00:40:21.360 And, you know, we're in a very individualistic.

00:40:23.100 And a pre-made audience, a pre-made audience to play to.

00:40:26.220 That's a big one too.

00:40:27.100 Yeah, the money that comes with it, all of that sort of stuff.

00:40:30.780 And then you get audience capture and all of that.

00:40:33.400 So, yeah, it's tempting to just go one way or the other.

00:40:37.680 And, you know, when I was younger, I think I did make artistic choices that maybe I look back on now and I think, okay, was that the best artistic choice I could have made?

00:40:46.260 Or was it something that was just fulfilling?

00:40:48.860 You know, I just felt a release of tension because I got to say the thing that I wasn't allowed to say.

00:40:55.080 And so, yeah, I can totally understand why there is this growing movement to just say it and be really open with what you think.

00:41:05.680 Like, I mean, something like Andrew Tate's probably a perfect example of that where he's just said, whatever people are saying you're not allowed to say, I'm just going to say the complete opposite.

00:41:15.380 I'm just going to tell young men, like, this is how you do it.

00:41:18.260 And I can understand why there's a lust for that.

00:41:21.520 But I still think there's something to be said about curtailing, well, not sort of limiting what you might want to say, but expressing things in a way that can be accessible to all sides of culture.

00:41:36.860 I mean, that's still a skill people can hopefully aim for.

00:41:40.220 The thing that I find frustrating when we have these conversations is what people don't seem to realize on the kind of progressive left, for want of a better term, on the extremes is, you know, the cancellation, the silencing people, the shaming people for having mainstream political opinions or cultural opinions.

00:41:58.040 They don't seem to realize that they're then fueling this rise on the opposite side of the spectrum.

00:42:03.940 And the more they push down here, the more this rises.

00:42:07.600 And then they start complaining about what's happening in the culture.

00:42:12.120 And you say to them, do you not understand that this is partially being created by what you were doing here?

00:42:20.040 Well, they're manifesting that reality into existence because by having this narrative that, oh, everyone's so hateful and, you know, you're going to just get, if you just let people say what they want, there's just going to be racism everywhere.

00:42:31.720 People just get so fed up that they might just say things then because they think, well, I'm going to get called or whatever anyway.

00:42:39.340 And I would bring it back to that sort of dynamic of maybe a relationship where some people will have this narrative about the opposite sex or about a particular person where, you know, on a matter what relationships, everyone's out for themselves and everyone's trying to get and people just leave you at the end of the day.

00:42:57.940 But then that makes you act in a way where someone will leave you.

00:43:01.980 And so it just validates your narrative.

00:43:03.540 And so subconsciously, you actually attract that.

00:43:05.600 And I think on a collective scale, that's what's happening.

00:43:08.320 Subconsciously, they're creating this world that they've been supposedly trying to prevent us from.

00:43:15.340 And it's a great point because you see the way that we have discourse online.

00:43:19.520 And maybe it's my algorithm.

00:43:21.100 Maybe it's what's being fed to me.

00:43:22.520 And it's just so reductive, particularly the gender conversation.

00:43:27.200 The way that we're talking, and particularly a lot of people now are talking about women on the right.

00:43:33.540 Now, I don't know how much of that is bots and artificially boosted.

00:43:36.560 You go, this is deeply toxic.

00:43:39.220 This is deeply, deeply toxic.

00:43:41.800 And then you've got people on the left going, well, who knows what a woman is? 1.00

00:43:45.040 Let's come and invade your space and let's make sure we can take part in your sports. 0.98

00:43:49.160 So you're looking at both sides and you go, this is awful.

00:43:51.560 Yeah, the discourse online is pretty horrible.

00:43:54.780 I got off Twitter a few years ago and I'm pretty happy.

00:43:57.400 So I think that's helped me a fair bit.

00:44:01.180 And yeah, it doesn't help anyone if there's this sort of vitriolic essence that just permeates our digital spaces.

00:44:09.680 And yeah, I wonder how do you think we fix that?

00:44:13.840 Like, what's the solution?

00:44:15.500 Because yeah, I can see that.

00:44:16.740 I look on my social media and I think, my God, this is horrible.

00:44:21.560 Do you know the difficult thing is, and here's the honest question, is that I don't know.

00:44:26.740 You will have people taking responsibility.

00:44:28.860 People need to take more responsibility, but that's on the individual.

00:44:31.820 How many people are actually going to do that?

00:44:33.780 And as for the social media companies, I mean, more government regulation of social media companies makes me feel,

00:44:41.480 as somebody who creates a YouTube show, which I'm proud to say is in the centre and hosts discussions.

00:44:48.200 That makes me, and I'm sure it makes Constance feel very, very worried because I'm going,

00:44:52.700 I don't want you coming in deciding what is and what isn't acceptable,

00:44:56.980 considering that we've already seen the Overton's window shrink for many, many years now.

00:45:01.380 Totally, yeah.

00:45:03.280 I mean, what do you guys think of Elon Musk's takeover of X?

00:45:07.600 Because at first I was very inspired by that, but then it seems like he's now just doing the opposite thing,

00:45:13.800 where he's clamping down on speech from the left and saying,

00:45:17.260 well, you can't say this word and you can't say these sorts of words.

00:45:19.620 Really? Like what?

00:45:20.680 Didn't he, did he ban the word cisgender on X or something like that?

00:45:25.260 I heard that.

00:45:25.740 I haven't, I haven't heard that.

00:45:27.260 I'm not to say that it hasn't.

00:45:28.260 Maybe it has happened.

00:45:29.780 It's not a word I use often to say.

00:45:32.100 It could be why, no, but that could be, it could, I didn't know that.

00:45:36.140 I think that one of the things that's definitely happened is it's opened up the conversation,

00:45:40.420 which is good.

00:45:41.860 Has it opened it up perhaps too far?

00:45:44.980 I don't know if it's, it's a case of opening the conversation too far.

00:45:48.300 It feels more like there's just some bad actors now who are able to be bad actors without any punishment.

00:45:58.380 Yeah.

00:45:58.680 I mean, and that's the, that's the trick that there are, I guess,

00:46:00.820 people who now are in favor of liberal, liberalism, free speech, all of that.

00:46:06.180 How do you convince people who are not in favor of it?

00:46:09.320 Because you can easily point to people online who are saying really horrible things and say,

00:46:13.860 well, I don't want to live in a world where people can say that.

00:46:16.100 I want the government to clamp down on that, but it's a very, and it's a very hard argument

00:46:22.540 to make sometimes because I've been talking to people who maybe are more progressive and

00:46:26.220 I would say, well, yes, I accept the risk that people will say things to me that are

00:46:32.100 quite hateful and toxic, but I think we flourish as a society and as a civilization when we have

00:46:38.980 the ability to articulate ourselves fully and say what we want to say.

00:46:42.660 But there is a cost to that.

00:46:43.940 And I think, I think both sides of culture and politics would, would benefit.

00:46:50.280 I mean, look, I'm just a comedian, but I think they'd benefit if they'd sort of try it rather

00:46:54.260 than just validating their, their supporters, try to actually speak the language of the other

00:47:00.360 side.

00:47:00.700 So I've always found it interesting how people on, maybe on the left will say things like,

00:47:05.260 you know, you're, you're misogynistic or you're racist or you're, you're too macho or

00:47:09.840 you're too masculine. 0.67

00:47:10.580 And people on the right will be like, well, that doesn't upset, like, great.

00:47:13.460 I want to be, I'm aiming to be masculine.

00:47:15.260 I'm aiming to be, um, strong and, and, and tough and stoic.

00:47:19.340 And then similarly, people on the right might say something, this is culturally speaking,

00:47:24.820 they'll say, you know, you're so sensitive and this and that.

00:47:27.180 Whereas people on the left might be like, well, great.

00:47:29.000 I want to be sensitive.

00:47:29.980 That's what I'm aiming for.

00:47:31.180 I think there's something to be said about framing an argument in a way that actually appeals

00:47:34.900 to the values of the other side.

00:47:36.260 So I guess, how do you, how do you frame free speech in a way that appeals to people's

00:47:42.240 empathy?

00:47:42.620 Because I think a lot of people maybe on our side can understand the sort of abstract concepts

00:47:48.260 that are involved with free speech.

00:47:49.840 And we say, well, yeah, I can, I can see how as a, as an abstract point of ethics and morality,

00:47:55.600 this is beneficial.

00:47:56.520 But someone on the left might just immediately feel for someone who's being upset or hurt

00:48:03.040 by someone who said something mean to them.

00:48:06.540 So how do you, how do you frame free speech in a compassionate way?

00:48:10.040 That I guess is the, the challenge maybe for, um, people in the, you know, in our space.

00:48:17.560 Yeah.

00:48:18.780 It's a really tough question because I think part of the realization when it comes to free

00:48:25.380 speech is accepting things, people are going to say things you fundamentally disagree with.

00:48:30.880 People are going to say things that you find offensive, hurtful, racist.

00:48:35.460 There are times that I go on Twitter and I see what some people are saying.

00:48:39.600 And I think this is violent.

00:48:41.240 This is awful.

00:48:42.640 But what's the alternative?

00:48:44.140 You kick those people off Twitter.

00:48:45.440 They're all going to go somewhere and they're all going to go to places like 4chan or 8chan

00:48:49.780 or whatever it's called.

00:48:50.720 And they're all going to create their own little subgroups there.

00:48:53.680 Is that better?

00:48:54.580 Is that a better thing to do where they can all radicalize themselves in their own little cesspool?

00:49:00.040 I don't know.

00:49:00.720 I think from a progressive perspective, probably yes.

00:49:03.100 They would prefer that, I think.

00:49:05.120 Um, I think one of the arguments that might make sense there is actually, if you think

00:49:10.120 about progressive movements that have achieved genuine results throughout history, whether

00:49:15.460 that's, you know, integration in America, whether that's, you could give lots of different

00:49:20.200 examples, a lot of them have used speech.

00:49:24.500 Yeah.

00:49:25.300 So the moment that you prevent people from expressing ideas is the moment you prevent people from

00:49:32.240 being able to move society forward.

00:49:34.760 And I guess the reason progressives haven't been keen to believe that is their viewpoints

00:49:40.620 have been the dominant ones on social media.

00:49:42.560 And so they've had no reason to worry about their speech being restricted.

00:49:47.660 Um, but that's, that's, I think one of the arguments about.

00:49:51.740 And once you set up the government institutions that are there to protect us all and wait till

00:49:58.820 there's a hostile takeover, I mean, if there was a fascist government and then they took

00:50:02.960 over that institution, you're done.

00:50:03.960 If you think Trump is a fascist, why would you want him controlling what you can and can't

00:50:08.260 say on social media?

00:50:09.040 Absolutely.

00:50:09.400 That's a good question.

00:50:10.040 Yeah.

00:50:10.540 And I think I, even I've seen a few people on, I guess, the progressive side of culture

00:50:15.020 now changing their mind on, um, on speech and things like that.

00:50:20.100 Because in Australia, we have these very strict defamation laws and they're being used, um,

00:50:24.020 to silence people on just willy nilly everywhere.

00:50:27.920 And it's a compelling argument.

00:50:30.120 It's a, it's a hard argument because yeah, you're accepting that you're going to be upset

00:50:34.300 and hurt and, and some groups probably will be more upset and hurt.

00:50:37.840 But I think, uh, for the reasons you guys have, um, expressed, it's still the best situation

00:50:44.620 that we can have.

00:50:46.360 One of the things I heard a lot when I was out in Australia was a lot of people kept saying,

00:50:49.760 well, Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world.

00:50:54.140 Um, and that seemed to be like a point of pride for a lot of people left and right.

00:50:58.460 Uh, how do you feel about that?

00:50:59.920 Do you, do you think that's true?

00:51:00.920 Do you think Australia is doing very well in terms of, you know, it has a very mixed population. 1.00

00:51:05.700 Uh, do you think that's working out well?

00:51:08.440 Wow, man, that's a very, uh, that's a big question.

00:51:10.920 But I think the first thing I'd say is most people use the term multicultural and multiracial

00:51:16.380 interchangeably.

00:51:17.420 So multiracial is great, you know, bringing people of all different looks and races and

00:51:23.660 ethnicities.

00:51:25.460 Multiculturalism, I think is great up to a, up to a point because if it's just different 0.97

00:51:29.920 foods and different types of dancing or different costumes and things like that, yeah, that's

00:51:35.080 great.

00:51:35.320 That's beneficial for society that allows society to flourish when it starts to get to

00:51:39.540 different ethics and different values and things.

00:51:42.980 Yeah.

00:51:43.720 Things start to get murky and confusing.

00:51:47.940 And I know that's, even I say this, it's, it's crazy for a brown person to say this because 1.00

00:51:53.340 people just immediately say, oh, so you hate multiculturalism, you're racist to your own 0.93

00:51:57.840 people.

00:51:58.280 And again, there's, there's a big distinction between multiracial and multicultural.

00:52:02.700 And I wish more people would understand that distinction.

00:52:05.940 Um, but again, another thing I was talking to with, um, a guy from a few days ago is I

00:52:11.820 suppose if you have a, a, a liberal democracy, a society where people are free to follow the

00:52:17.600 religion of their choice, what happens if 60% of the population does follow a religion

00:52:23.740 that is fundamentally illiberal or a creed that is actually hostile towards liberalism?

00:52:30.360 So how does liberalism deal with that tension?

00:52:32.980 How it sort of affords people the opportunity to follow ideologies that aren't particularly

00:52:38.060 liberal?

00:52:38.400 Because then if you say, oh no, you can't follow those ideologies, well then it's not

00:52:41.500 very liberal, is it?

00:52:42.500 So that's a, that's a pretty interesting question to grapple with, I find.

00:52:47.000 Um, well, I guess one of the things you might want to do if that's a concern is make sure

00:52:51.420 that when you welcome people to your country, they are compatible with the values of liberalism,

00:52:57.680 uh, or they're required to adapt to those values.

00:53:01.420 Mm-hmm.

00:53:02.080 And because if they don't, the eventuality that you're talking about is inevitable.

00:53:06.560 Yeah.

00:53:07.320 Yeah.

00:53:07.700 So it's a, it's an interesting kind of tension I find.

00:53:11.440 Yeah.

00:53:11.660 Um, because yeah, you don't want to ban people from following particular creeds or religions

00:53:17.720 and that, because that is actually very illiberal.

00:53:20.140 But if, uh, people are, uh, you know, following, um, a set of ideas or values that are just hostile

00:53:28.760 to, uh, a nation that actually allowed them to follow those sets of values.

00:53:34.600 Yeah.

00:53:34.880 Well, that's quite a contradiction, isn't it?

00:53:36.680 And it doesn't even have to be framed as good or bad.

00:53:38.840 I mean, if you think, let's say, let's say you were vegan and your wife was vegan and all

00:53:42.620 your kids were vegan and you had a vegan household.

00:53:44.720 Mm-hmm.

00:53:45.560 Would you invite lots of meat eating people to your house all the time? 0.98

00:53:50.140 Probably not.

00:53:50.900 Probably not.

00:53:51.360 Probably not.

00:53:51.840 Not because you, you think they're immoral or evil or bad.

00:53:54.820 It's just a compatibility issue, right?

00:53:56.960 Mm-hmm.

00:53:57.480 So with cultures and religions and ideologies, it's not a dissimilar thing.

00:54:02.240 You might not think that those people are good or bad or whatever.

00:54:05.280 You might just think, well, if you want to be in this household, this is how we do things

00:54:09.580 here.

00:54:10.140 Do you know what I mean?

00:54:10.900 Yeah.

00:54:11.100 Yeah.

00:54:11.160 I think that's fair.

00:54:11.820 I think, uh, you know, a lot of people in the West are sort of really embarrassed and,

00:54:17.460 and ashamed of what the West did over the last two centuries.

00:54:21.320 And as a result, they're just trying to do the direct opposite.

00:54:25.440 Um, but then that's another pendulum swing that is going too far away.

00:54:29.700 What did the West do over the last two centuries?

00:54:31.280 Well, they probably, and they also have a quite a myopic view of it and think, you know,

00:54:34.760 well, they just look at the bad and they say, uh, look, there was racial inequality and there

00:54:40.980 was certain laws where, you know, people of different races weren't allowed to.

00:54:45.080 And again, yeah, the argument is then, well, compared to which country and all that sort

00:54:48.160 of stuff.

00:54:48.480 Don't get me wrong.

00:54:49.500 But, um, yeah, I think they look at that and then they say, well, we're just going to

00:54:53.760 do the complete opposite of that.

00:54:55.100 And that's not necessarily healthy either.

00:54:56.720 I remember I was on the plane coming back from America and there was a, an Indian businessman

00:55:02.940 who sat next to me.

00:55:03.660 We had a great conversation and I, and I, it's, it's, again, we could use this word gaslighting.

00:55:09.020 And I said to him, oh, you know, cause I'm sure, you know, everybody, you know, people

00:55:12.860 in India, you know, hate the British.

00:55:14.360 He was like, no, he goes, the British empire did some bad things.

00:55:19.340 Of course it did.

00:55:19.920 He said, but it also left us with a wonderful legacy as well.

00:55:23.160 We love the British, you know, British people always welcome in India. 0.94

00:55:27.140 And I was kind of, again, you just have to be reminded of this, of this, this rubbish

00:55:32.940 that has been pumped into our head.

00:55:35.260 The rest of the world doesn't think like that.

00:55:37.880 And actually former colonial countries have a much more balanced view of history than,

00:55:43.880 you know, some, some grad from a liberal arts university.

00:55:46.960 It's very true, isn't it?

00:55:47.960 Yeah.

00:55:48.380 Often the parent, the act, the people who emigrated to the West have a very positive view of the

00:55:53.040 West and then their kids don't, which is kind of ironic.

00:55:57.120 So yeah, it's a, it's a weird space that we're operating in, isn't it?

00:56:04.640 Have you heard of the, I don't know if I want to address this, but like, have you heard of

00:56:07.940 the incel to Islam pipeline?

00:56:10.080 No.

00:56:10.400 No.

00:56:10.860 So.

00:56:11.260 Sounds sexy though.

00:56:12.940 Yeah.

00:56:14.240 Yeah.

00:56:14.840 Um, I guess the name probably explains it, doesn't it?

00:56:18.400 There's a lot of incels that are thinking, well, I'm not having any success in this current

00:56:23.600 society.

00:56:24.080 And I am forlorn and I'm just depressed and nothing's working for me.

00:56:29.240 And I'm seen as this enemy.

00:56:31.180 Well, look at Islam. 0.99

00:56:32.300 It's giving me all these things that I desperately want.

00:56:34.560 It's giving me camaraderie.

00:56:35.600 It's giving me brotherhood.

00:56:36.820 It's giving me a purpose, meaning, a community.

00:56:39.680 And so then a lot of them are turning to Islam.

00:56:43.260 And, uh, I find it, uh, sort of interesting when people talk about young men and how they're

00:56:49.120 going conservative and why are they going conservative and why are they adopting these

00:56:53.740 right, these sort of quite sometimes, um, I don't like using the term far right, but I

00:57:00.140 suppose.

00:57:00.560 Sometimes some of them are far right.

00:57:01.680 Some of them are definitely far right.

00:57:02.540 Some of them are very extreme.

00:57:03.660 It's just that that term's weaponized so much, but, um, they never actually ask, well,

00:57:08.980 why not?

00:57:10.180 I mean, look at the current culture today.

00:57:12.300 If you're a young man growing up and what's in it for you compared to these other ideologies.

00:57:18.560 Right.

00:57:19.400 And it's, it's also as well that, look, being a victim, I compared to scratching eczema in

00:57:26.040 the moment it feels good, but afterwards you just feel worse and it makes the problem

00:57:31.300 worse.

00:57:31.760 Exactly.

00:57:32.760 And there's only so many times you can scratch it before things are going to start to get

00:57:37.740 pretty ugly.

00:57:38.320 It's a pleasant villain.

00:57:40.040 Yeah.

00:57:41.000 Yeah.

00:57:41.500 It's, it's become, if, if, if anything victimhood is encouraged tacitly now with, um, all this

00:57:46.880 talk of, you know, tell us about your trauma and tell us about this and look to a certain

00:57:51.380 extent, fine.

00:57:52.760 You should, people should be open about things that have happened to them and, and the harsh

00:57:57.420 experiences that they've endured.

00:57:58.900 But when it becomes your entire identity, um, and then there's this sort of.

00:58:02.580 Well, right.

00:58:02.700 What you're supposed to do is get help, overcome it, learn from it, grow from it, form scars

00:58:07.660 that then protect you.

00:58:09.200 Absolutely.

00:58:09.500 Like that's what you're supposed to do.

00:58:10.880 Right.

00:58:11.040 Yeah.

00:58:11.220 And by the way, to your point earlier about some of these things being replicated on

00:58:15.980 the other side, if you think about insult them or whatever else, all of these other ways

00:58:20.540 of looking at the world, that's a form of victimhood just flipped on its head.

00:58:24.020 Absolutely.

00:58:24.420 I'm a, I'm a, I'm a man, I'm why I'm this, therefore, you know, instead of like, how do

00:58:29.340 I overcome this?

00:58:30.400 Yeah.

00:58:30.700 You know, absolutely.

00:58:31.940 And, uh, it's just a pretty toxic way to see the world and yourself.

00:58:35.960 Um, we all do it at times.

00:58:39.380 It's something deeply human that we're all going to see ourselves as hard done by and

00:58:44.740 downtrodden at times.

00:58:46.360 And I think if you, if you have a community that can sort of sift through when someone actually

00:58:51.300 is a victim and when they're not, it's probably a better situation.

00:58:54.420 Then just leaving it all on the individual.

00:58:56.380 Cause I think actually we're maybe more biased towards ourselves and, and might see ourselves

00:59:01.820 as a victim more often than we need to.

00:59:04.120 And more often than that is beneficial to us.

00:59:07.180 And, you know, I, I, when I was young, I would always think, oh, this didn't happen because

00:59:11.960 I'm Brown or this didn't happen because, um, I'm Indian or whatever.

00:59:16.080 And then I look back on it now and I think, oh no, there were, there were, you know, countless

00:59:21.100 other factors that contributed to whatever that situation was.

00:59:24.840 And it's just not healthy to, to see yourself as, as a victim because then it absolves you

00:59:30.540 of any personal accountability and personal responsibility is the best way to, to grow and

00:59:36.840 to better yourself and to, um, improve your position in the world.

00:59:41.020 And you can't do that with a victim mindset.

00:59:44.500 Now, how did you snap out of that?

00:59:45.860 How did you shift?

00:59:47.480 I saw a more extreme version of it, um, among my, my peers and colleagues.

00:59:53.360 And then that was a mirror.

00:59:54.820 And I said, oh my God, I've been doing that because they would be saying things like, well,

00:59:58.680 this is happening because I'm this skin color and this and that.

01:00:02.220 And I'm thinking, I mean, I was probably validating at the time, like, oh yeah, maybe.

01:00:05.700 Okay.

01:00:06.140 Let's think about it.

01:00:06.960 But thinking, wow, I used to do that and that's not healthy.

01:00:10.600 And I don't think that person's going to grow by just seeing themselves as a victim based

01:00:15.320 on their race.

01:00:15.920 And there's, there's some instances where I think, okay, maybe that's, that's fair

01:00:19.220 or that's, that's valid.

01:00:20.720 But I think in, in most instances, it's far more complicated and, you know, in a weird

01:00:27.100 way, you actually maybe get a few, particularly in the arts world, you might actually get some

01:00:30.880 benefits now.

01:00:31.580 And I probably have a bit more of an artistic license with, um, the race jokes I can say 0.95

01:00:36.060 and things like that.

01:00:37.160 So check my privilege actually.

01:00:40.660 Um, yeah, it's, uh, it's just not healthy to, to see yourself that way.

01:00:45.080 But I was miserable as well.

01:00:46.180 When I always saw myself as like, oh, I'm not on TV because I'm, because I'm not white

01:00:50.560 or this isn't happening because I'm not white or particularly with, even when I was dating,

01:00:54.860 when I was younger, I thought, well, girls don't like me because I'm not white and things

01:00:58.200 like that.

01:00:58.640 And I thought, well, actually, if I'm sitting there in a negative mindset and, you know,

01:01:03.600 that's rubbing off and, and people can see how, um, you know, nihilistic and, and bitter

01:01:09.900 I am, that's not going to be attractive.

01:01:11.740 It's got nothing to do with me being brown.

01:01:14.200 And so, yeah, you need to, uh, achieve a bit of self-reflection there and start to realize,

01:01:19.860 oh, this is a really harmful way to see yourself in the world.

01:01:23.520 And I would even go so far as to say, even if there was a hypothetical situation where,

01:01:27.740 uh, being a certain race is, you know, disadvantageous in a, in a, either a minor or even in quite a 0.99

01:01:34.080 moderate way, it's still not healthy to see yourself that way because it won't allow you

01:01:39.100 the best, the, the, uh, it won't afford you the, the most expensive potential for growth.

01:01:46.920 Well, I've always said this, you know, the people who really can't afford a victimhood mindset

01:01:51.660 is people who are actually victims.

01:01:53.580 Yeah, exactly.

01:01:54.400 If you are actually a victim, you really can't afford to wallow in it.

01:01:57.900 Yeah.

01:01:58.300 You don't have time probably.

01:01:59.880 You don't have time, you don't have money, you got, you got, you know, you got things to do.

01:02:03.520 Like if you have things to overcome, that's when you need the bad-ass attitude.

01:02:08.860 Absolutely.

01:02:09.680 You know?

01:02:10.080 Yeah.

01:02:10.560 Yeah.

01:02:11.020 And pressure makes diamonds, you know?

01:02:12.580 Yeah.

01:02:13.000 People should, um, as long as it's not completely debilitating, embrace the adversity and the

01:02:18.800 challenges in your life.

01:02:19.900 And, you know, even coming back to what we were talking about earlier, like, I just, I

01:02:23.980 think it's important to be honest about certain things that you might feel are, uh, unfairly

01:02:30.320 treating either you or your contemporaries or whatever.

01:02:33.160 But at the same time, there's something, there's a difference between being honest about it

01:02:37.140 and then being a victim about it.

01:02:38.200 Because being a victim makes you powerless and, you know, you're not going to do anything

01:02:42.260 about it.

01:02:42.760 Whereas you probably have more, um, power than you, than you think you realize.

01:02:47.460 And, you know, you can say like this, these festivals or whatever are bad, but at the same

01:02:51.700 time, I'm not going to let that stop me.

01:02:54.020 And, and, you know, I'm not going to just like lie down and do nothing and think, well,

01:02:58.680 I'm never going to, don't have a chance to, to make it or whatever.

01:03:02.480 Anyway, I think, uh, got to have a positive narrative because it's just important.

01:03:07.180 It's just important for your mental health as well.

01:03:08.840 I mean, you talk about the mental health crisis.

01:03:10.300 I mean, how many of that, how much of that is because people have been trained to think

01:03:14.140 of themselves as, um, a particular type of victim.

01:03:18.340 And it's also as well, the power of reframing, I find really helpful.

01:03:22.560 So if you're in a particular situation, like for instance, where you were, where you looked

01:03:27.400 at the festivals and go, they're not going to give me a chance because they only want

01:03:30.840 X, Y, and Z.

01:03:32.180 Well, that means there's this huge market that's not being catered for.

01:03:35.140 Absolutely.

01:03:35.840 And people always want to laugh.

01:03:37.900 People love comedy.

01:03:38.820 People will always love comedy.

01:03:40.820 People love laughing.

01:03:42.620 It's a release from life.

01:03:44.860 There's this whole, now the whole swathe of people that I can connect to who are ready

01:03:49.640 and waiting for the content.

01:03:50.800 Just like when we created this, conversations had become, were being shut down.

01:03:56.200 People were shamed.

01:03:57.440 We created a place for people to have conversations.

01:03:59.940 That are shameful.

01:04:00.700 That are shameful.

01:04:01.520 Absolutely.

01:04:02.180 Involving shameful people of all different races. 1.00

01:04:04.400 So much shame just being here.

01:04:05.720 And colours.

01:04:06.900 But they created a vacuum which we then filled.

01:04:10.200 So it depends how you want to look at it.

01:04:13.080 If you want to look at it positively, you will see opportunity.

01:04:16.520 If you look at it negatively, you will see misery and victimhood.

01:04:20.040 And those are your choices.

01:04:21.100 Yeah.

01:04:21.300 Your personal narrative is so powerful and will just be so significant in the way you

01:04:25.640 see yourself and how your life will ultimately turn out.

01:04:29.120 And people should be, I wish they would actually teach kids that.

01:04:32.400 You know, the way you see yourself and the story that you give yourself in the world.

01:04:35.620 You've got to teach your own kids that.

01:04:37.040 Yeah.

01:04:37.200 Because no one else is going to.

01:04:38.380 Yeah.

01:04:38.740 Yeah.

01:04:39.480 Yeah.

01:04:39.980 Neil, been great having you on, man.

01:04:41.540 Thank you for having me.

01:04:42.780 We're going to go to ask fans questions in a second.

01:04:46.760 But before we do, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

01:04:50.160 Before Neil answers a final question, at the end of the interview, make sure to click

01:04:56.680 the link in the description where you'll be able to see this.

01:05:00.540 Favourite Australian comedians growing up.

01:05:02.900 Wasn't he cancelled, Chris?

01:05:04.140 Because he used to do that.

01:05:05.340 Yeah.

01:05:05.780 The indigenous kid, didn't he do that?

01:05:08.900 Yeah, they took him off Netflix.

01:05:10.600 I mean, it's wrong to assume people of the culture that he might be making fun of can't

01:05:17.480 handle that.

01:05:18.200 That's actually the racist idea.

01:05:20.480 What are your favourite cities in Australia and why?

01:05:23.040 Which city is the best for gigging in?

01:05:26.020 I was going to say, well, I feel like I covered everything that I wanted to talk about, actually.

01:05:31.340 So how about this?

01:05:33.160 The way, how, with the arts world the way it is, just how bad that is for the collective

01:05:39.800 sense of just meaning and mental health in society.

01:05:43.880 Because I know a lot of people look at artists and say, well, it's not really an essential

01:05:48.160 service.

01:05:48.960 It's not like, you know, construction or, you know, whatever it might be.

01:05:52.500 But the arts are so important.

01:05:54.920 And having a good art scene in a society and a civilisation is just vital.

01:05:59.020 And right now it's pretty bad.

01:06:01.400 I mean, most people don't really like Hollywood or they don't really like what they're being

01:06:05.580 fed by the media.

01:06:07.200 And I think just the impact of that on people's psyche.

01:06:11.740 I think you really need a flourishing art scene and we need good people to get into the arts

01:06:17.460 and hopefully try and change it.

01:06:19.600 So, yeah, maybe that.

01:06:21.500 If that's the, I think we should talk more about that.

01:06:24.300 Amen.

01:06:25.300 Perfect.

01:06:25.620 Thanks a lot.

01:06:26.820 Thanks for having me, guys.

01:06:29.620 What do you make of the whole kind of Nanette Hanagad street?

TRIGGERnometry - January 05, 2025

Comedy, Censorship & Victimhood - Neel Kolhatkar

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