TRIGGERnometry - How I Left the Social Justice Cult - Keri Smith

00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:00:22.660 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:00:27.120 Get tickets at murvish.com.

00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kitchen and this is a

00:00:40.660 show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people our brilliant guest today

00:00:46.700 is a former social justice warrior and she's also the co-host of the unsafe space which i've had the

00:00:52.500 privilege of being on kerry smith welcome to trigonometry hi guys thanks for having me it's

00:00:57.500 so great to have you listen tell everybody who are you how are you where you are what has been

00:01:03.100 the journey that leads you to being here talking to us so i currently host the unsafe space podcast

00:01:10.280 with my friend carter laren and we are more we're not a political podcast we're more of a i would

00:01:16.640 say we're a cultural podcast a bit like you guys um i just i think that we necessarily end up

00:01:23.060 talking about politics, sometimes more than others. I mean, with the elections recently,

00:01:27.940 we're talking a little more about politics. So it's sometimes necessary, but most of what we

00:01:33.360 focus on are ideas and philosophy. And on the show, we do interviews, we do a live show on

00:01:40.560 Mondays and Fridays. And then we do a deep dive show called Deprogrammed, which is more of an

00:01:47.500 examination into my old ideology, which I most often call social justice.

00:01:52.960 Right. And you talk about being deprogrammed. It's called deprogrammed. Tell us, first of all,

00:01:59.440 how you got programmed. So, yeah, I was indoctrinated is the way I view it

00:02:07.540 into social justice ideology. I know some people call it identitarianism. Helen Pluckers has called

00:02:14.520 it that. But it's basically this sort of mutated form of Marxism that's based around

00:02:21.720 identity and power rather than around wealth and class. So I was indoctrinated into that

00:02:29.640 in college over 20 years ago. I went to Duke University. I was a biological anthropology

00:02:35.500 and anatomy major, but my minor was women's studies, which is, I don't think exists anymore.

00:02:40.700 it's now called gender studies. Women's studies was problematic. Through my minor in women's 0.99

00:02:47.780 studies, I took a lot of the critical race theory, queer theory classes. And the way that I kind of,

00:02:54.700 I look back on it now is it, it's sort of moved in for me, it became a kind of religion. And I

00:03:01.720 think it, I think it operates that way for a lot of people who are in it. So it's a way of

00:03:07.140 feeling like you were doing good in the world. And, and it's a, it gives you a moral plan for

00:03:16.220 how to operate in the world. Now it contradicts itself a lot and it's not, I would say it's not

00:03:22.240 internally consistent, but it is, I think for a lot of people, it functions in the place where

00:03:28.280 religion might be. Um, so yeah, I was indoctrinated about 20 years ago and then.

00:03:34.200 And Kerry, when you say you were indoctrinated, did some guy or girl or someone, gender, non-specific, come up to you and go,

00:03:43.000 shh, shh, come over here, I'm going to give you a little taste of this? 1.00

00:03:46.100 Don't ever do that again, mate, that's awful.

00:03:48.600 If it were that easy, I mean, the one thing that, the reason I think it's sometimes hard to talk about this belief system,

00:03:56.000 especially with new people who are getting into it, when I say, yeah, I was in it for 20 years,

00:04:00.760 And I think it operates like a cult. And when I try to explain what it really is versus what it says it is, it sounds a bit like, oh, conspiracy theorists, someone indoctrinated you. And that makes it a little harder to criticize. It meets a lot of the cult characteristics with the exception of having one charismatic leader. So that's a bit more, you know, you can't point to that person.

00:04:23.440 but you can look at all the other characteristics of a cult and see that it lines up with a lot of

00:04:27.320 those. I mean, you're not allowed to question dogma. There is a pressure to isolate yourself

00:04:33.780 from people who are non-believers to cut people out of your life if they're not in the ideology.

00:04:39.520 So it meets a lot of those characteristics, but no, there's no shadowy room. I wasn't pulled into

00:04:45.740 a gender study, women's studies office and force fed stuff. It just, it sort of happens

00:04:52.160 over time. It happened to me over a period of years. So what starts off as something that I

00:04:59.260 think, I think there are some really good things about studying race and gender and,

00:05:05.720 and, and studying racism and sexism and, and different kinds of bigotry. And what happens

00:05:12.980 is that a lot of people who who get into it they sort of start to adopt some of the tenets of the

00:05:18.940 belief system slowly it's not all at once so one of the things they're very concerned with for

00:05:24.460 example they're very concerned with language and we were talking about uh orwell before the show

00:05:29.340 and he knew this i mean you can control people if you can control their thought and you can

00:05:34.560 control their thought if you can control language and so one of the early things they get you to do

00:05:39.380 is they redefine words like racism and sexism.

00:05:42.760 So they say racism and sexism are prejudice plus power.

00:05:46.880 And they say they're doing this

00:05:48.980 so you can talk about structural

00:05:50.840 and institutionalized racism and sexism

00:05:52.860 separately from simple prejudice,

00:05:55.580 what they call simply prejudice.

00:05:57.420 But the outcome of doing that

00:05:59.900 is that you now are saying

00:06:02.520 that it's impossible to be racist

00:06:04.480 towards a particular race

00:06:06.860 or sexist towards a particular sex.

00:06:08.660 and you're also you're basically taking people many many of whom have good intent

00:06:14.520 who are in it because they're trying to end racism and sex that's what they think they're doing

00:06:19.920 and you're telling them well the way to do that is to judge people and treat them differently on

00:06:25.620 the basis of race and sex well how do you get well-intentioned people to do that well you

00:06:31.060 redefine those words so then they don't they're not as concerned about like i can treat you

00:06:36.140 differently Francis uh as a white man and it won't be called I can judge you I can I can even

00:06:43.700 point to your race and to your sex and and and I can use slurs about you know I I can use words like 1.00

00:06:52.720 yeah I'm not going to justice I can even do those things and I can have this race-based hatred of

00:06:59.680 you and I can have this sex-based hatred of you and that's okay because they've said that doesn't

00:07:04.120 That's not real racism. That's not real sexism.

00:07:06.580 I didn't know I was a social justice warrior, man.

00:07:09.380 But now you do.

00:07:10.860 And one of the questions I wanted to ask, Carrie,

00:07:13.420 were these theories presented as facts or were they presented as theories?

00:07:19.600 That's a good question.

00:07:21.820 I think it was presented more as fact,

00:07:26.520 and it was presented as this sort of undiscovered knowledge

00:07:30.980 that if only we had, if only people would read these authors,

00:07:36.440 if only people would read Kimberly Crenshaw or, you know,

00:07:41.640 Robin DiAngelo, who came along later and did White Fragility,

00:07:44.900 if only people would read Peggy McIntosh, you know,

00:07:46.920 these people have it figured out.

00:07:48.300 And it felt a bit like discovering,

00:07:50.040 I guess it's akin to someone discovering a religion

00:07:54.220 or any other kind of faith for the first time and thinking,

00:07:56.620 oh, this has all the answers.

00:07:57.640 and you talk about it being a religion and one of the things religion gives you is it gives you a

00:08:03.380 structure in a way that that you see the world how did this particular religion how did it get

00:08:11.180 you to see the world what did it do when how did it influence your life so that's another great

00:08:17.360 question it basically says so i this is this is the way i try to explain it for people who are

00:08:22.280 new to it and are telling me what they think it is. Marxism of old told us that the best way 0.90

00:08:28.660 to look at the world was as a struggle between class groups for wealth. And it was all about 0.92

00:08:35.820 who's in the oppressor group and the oppressed group. And they believed in redistributing wealth

00:08:41.000 to make things equal. So this is sort of similar, but it says the best way to look at the world is

00:08:46.500 as a struggle for power. Power is what's at the center of this belief system. So they say the

00:08:51.580 world is a struggle for power between identity groups and we need to redistribute power and

00:08:57.240 because you're doing that because you're being told to do that I would say the way that it

00:09:03.400 operates in an individual person is that you go into interactions I used to go into interactions

00:09:08.940 just looking for the sexism and the racism you're it's like putting on glasses every day

00:09:14.880 and you're trying to find it in everything that's why um when people have as it's become more

00:09:20.860 mainstream in the past few years become more culturally dominant i would say people have

00:09:25.880 started to bump up into this ideology people who didn't learn about it in school weren't indoctrinated

00:09:30.820 or whatever they're starting to come into contact with it in different ways and so it might seem

00:09:35.020 like some silly thing at first the way in which they're introduced to it like the song baby it's

00:09:41.140 cold outside the christmas song right oh that's so offensive and to women and it's patriarchal and 1.00

00:09:47.160 it's about rape culture and and for a normie who's hearing that they may not understand why

00:09:53.040 is everyone attacking this song but wap is being lauded like one of these is offensive the other's

00:10:00.500 fine um and and it's because it's it's part of something much bigger and so we're starting to

00:10:06.820 see these little uh there's always something in the media these days there's several things a day

00:10:11.080 to be outraged about and they're they're they might seem silly if you're just taking them in

00:10:15.480 isolation, but they're all a part of this belief system that tells people you need to find the

00:10:20.640 hidden racism and sexism and homophobia and everything. Um, and it also, I would say

00:10:26.740 when you start to do that over a long period of time, it affects your self-confidence. Um,

00:10:33.520 especially if you are a person who's in one of these so-called marginalized groups. I used to

00:10:38.880 go into rooms, um, in, in the entertainment world. So after I graduated, I moved into entertainment

00:10:45.420 I had my own company. My partner and I managed comedians and musicians. And she wasn't indoctrinated the way that I was. And I was always really, I would look at her and say, wow, like, I remember saying to her, you walk into a room with the confidence of a straight white man, you know, and I couldn't figure it out.

00:11:06.560 But that was because she walked into the room just as herself.

00:11:10.340 And I walked into the room more as this oppressed, this member of an oppressed group who I was automatically expecting everyone to treat, like all the men in the room to treat me differently because I'm a woman.

00:11:25.360 And I was expecting the sexism.

00:11:27.860 And was there sexism in some of these rooms with, you know, network executives or agents and what have you?

00:11:34.560 Yes, sure.

00:11:35.220 but but there was there were also people who were not who did not have that opinion of me just

00:11:40.580 because i'm a woman and it's sort of you walk in with that chip on your shoulder and then you

00:11:44.420 you set up the interaction to unfold that way because you're already in this weird defensive

00:11:50.460 place and you're not self-confident and you're not you're not really operating with authenticity

00:11:56.420 in a way because you're coming in just assuming what people are thinking of you and do you think

00:12:02.100 part of the reason that it's so pervasive and dare I say addictive is because it's a very very

00:12:07.760 narcissistic way of looking at the world well it's all about you you don't look outside you look

00:12:14.480 inside you make yourself the focus I would say that's that's right in one regards that

00:12:21.280 it is narcissistic and that it's all about you um basically portioning up your identity

00:12:29.240 and putting yourself in all the different groups.

00:12:32.180 So it encourages you to say, you know, I am straight.

00:12:37.920 And in that way, I'm an oppressor, but I'm a woman.

00:12:40.560 In that way, I'm oppressed.

00:12:41.960 And I'm white.

00:12:42.960 And in that way, I'm an oppressor.

00:12:44.920 And in this belief system, it's a form of social currency almost

00:12:49.340 to have more of the oppressor groups because then you get more voice.

00:12:54.700 So that's why you started seeing all these people like on Twitter now and stuff.

00:12:58.720 they've moved into other areas of identity like mental health issues so people will put in their

00:13:03.740 twitter bios like i'm depressed and i have anxiety and i've bpd and they they view that as an

00:13:10.220 oppressed identity which think about that for a second i think it almost it encourages people to

00:13:16.960 stay in whatever mental health problems they might have or it encourages them to develop

00:13:20.820 mental health issues because now they have this other oppressed identity they get to claim um

00:13:26.040 it's moved into, uh, weight, you know, so colleges are now teaching fat studies. So if you're fat,

00:13:31.340 you're oppressed. If you're not fat, you're an oppressor. So people will put that in their bios 0.99

00:13:35.720 and, and it just continually, it's, it's just this very navel gazing, like what are all of my

00:13:40.900 multiple different kinds of identities? So in that way it's narcissistic, but in another way,

00:13:45.160 I think, um, it's the opposite for instance, is that it, it tells you that the, um, solution

00:13:52.700 to all of your problems are outside of you that it's not it's not about like working on yourself

00:13:58.820 or figuring out what you have control over in your life and what you can take responsibility for and

00:14:05.260 what things can you actually fix it's not about that at all it's about saying all of your problems

00:14:10.020 stem from this oppressive uh systemically unjust culture that you grew up in that that all of your

00:14:18.220 problems come from the patriarchy and white supremacy. And the problem is with all of these

00:14:23.580 other people who haven't adopted the belief system yet. And if only all of these people would get on

00:14:28.400 board with this, you know, we could have a utopia, but it's, it's not about fixing yourself.

00:14:32.860 So in that way, it's, I think, yeah, it's very much about looking outside of you.

00:14:37.360 Kerry. And one of the questions I imagine you've probably thought about quite a bit is what was it

00:14:42.960 about you that made you susceptible to this sort of indoctrination as you describe it what makes

00:14:48.460 what makes somebody susceptible to becoming a social justice warrior well i'm a woman i'm just 0.99

00:14:56.280 kidding immediately i went holy fuck well i'm kind of joking uh women i think are a little 1.00

00:15:08.680 more susceptible to it because women on average tend to be i think it's in the big five women are 0.98

00:15:15.840 a bit more higher on the openness scale and also um i think it's the neuroticism scale yes you're

00:15:23.500 allowed to say that we are not but yes yeah but yeah my lived experience tells me this carrie

00:15:29.160 mate you're a straight white man no one cares about your lived experience shut your trap i'm 0.97

00:15:33.300 I'm going to play my Latino card soon.

00:15:35.540 But seriously, I mean, your point is women are more open-minded on average. 0.97

00:15:40.940 I think women, yes, and women are concerned with, 0.98

00:15:45.060 this is something I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about with Camille Paglia.

00:15:49.560 I think I'm saying the name right.

00:15:50.860 I heard them do a conversation once and it was really interesting

00:15:54.560 because they were talking about women

00:15:56.900 And and there seems to be maybe something of the innate drive to protect children that might be that might be being transferred into this belief system a bit because it's about, you know, it's sold to you as protecting and defending these, you know, defenseless, marginalized groups of people.

00:16:18.500 It's about protecting the underdog and speaking for the underdog.

00:16:21.440 And I think that women on average, not all women, women on average might be more drawn to this belief system because of that, because they are interested in people.

00:16:31.960 I mean, and that's another thing.

00:16:32.900 Women, on average, self-report that they're more interested in working with people than with things. 0.76

00:16:38.020 and um this is sold as a way to help people and especially to help people who are discriminated

00:16:45.920 against and who are suffering a kind of injustice so i think that's one thing but that's just a

00:16:51.380 small part of it um i think the other thing is that i had this is just in my particular case but

00:16:57.880 there was a hole in my life. I was raised Southern Baptist. I was raised with a belief in God. And I

00:17:08.960 had walked away from that over a period of about three years, starting when I went to a science

00:17:15.000 and math high school. And so starting about the age of 16, I started questioning those beliefs

00:17:21.200 and questioning if I actually believed there's God. And over about a three-year period, I pretty

00:17:26.180 much walked away from god and um for me i'm not saying this is true of everyone but for me this

00:17:31.620 uh looking back it absolutely filled that hole it gave me a way of interpreting the world and

00:17:36.900 saying just like a religion does this is the way the to view the world we're going to view the

00:17:42.740 world as a struggle between identity groups for power and the way to be a good person in the world

00:17:48.600 is to try to redistribute that power and you know and then there's all the many rules that come with

00:17:54.980 it after that and you start like I said it's sort of a slow boil you're accepting okay here's the

00:18:00.880 new definition of racism here's the new definition of sexism and then and then you know fast forward

00:18:06.140 20 years later you're suddenly being asked to apologize for and try to justify censorship

00:18:14.700 or violence and and that was those were the things that started to wake me up if if at the

00:18:22.160 very beginning I felt like I was being asked to do all of ever all of that stuff at once

00:18:26.400 I might not have fallen into it so quickly but um it was a slow boil and I think that's the way

00:18:33.480 I think that's the way they get people into it and was there one particular moment where you thought

00:18:38.540 hang on a minute well yeah so 2016 during the presidential election I went down a rabbit hole

00:18:51.440 on YouTube of videos of people on the left who were attacking Trump supporters. And I don't

00:18:58.540 remember what got me to the first video, but once I watched one, this is back when YouTube's

00:19:02.840 algorithm actually recommended things that were similar to what you're watching. And, you know,

00:19:08.840 I watched video after video and I had, I didn't know that these things were happening. I mean,

00:19:14.080 I saw videos of guys being bloody. They were hitting people with bricks. There was a girl

00:19:17.900 being pelted with eggs. It was just mobs of people surrounding these Trump supporters as

00:19:22.800 they were coming out of rallies. And it was in more than one city. And it really emotionally

00:19:28.740 affected me for a while. And I didn't wake up and, you know, I didn't become a Trump supporter that

00:19:34.520 day. And I didn't leave my belief system that day. But it was the first thing that made me start to

00:19:39.280 question the narrative that I had believed before. And also, like, who are these people on my side

00:19:47.600 supposedly this is my side that's doing this that's attacking people physically and um at the

00:19:53.500 same time i was seeing i was seeing people in my echo chamber so my echo chambers that i had

00:19:58.960 i had constructed of my own choice were almost exclusively social justice and then comedy

00:20:04.820 related and they're same as me until a few weeks ago whereby i was summarily ejected but anyway

00:20:12.260 carry on uh and well deserved too but carrie before we get too far into your sort of what

00:20:17.500 we might call a detransition um jokingly broadway's smash hit the neil diamond musical a beautiful

00:20:25.900 noise is coming to toronto the true story of a kid from brooklyn destined for something more

00:20:31.500 featuring all the songs you love including america forever in blue jeans and sweet caroline

00:20:37.060 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.

00:20:41.480 The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:20:44.280 April 28th through June 7th, 2026.

00:20:47.300 The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:20:49.220 Get tickets at mirvish.com.

00:20:54.940 Do you enjoy watching problematic content online

00:20:57.920 that you don't want your friends or family to know about?

00:21:00.900 Of course they do. They watch trigonometry, mate.

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00:21:51.900 out for them it doesn't sound patronizing at all absolutely oh and by the way all those little

00:21:55.760 words you use i've got no idea what they mean let's talk about you talk about the eco chambers

00:22:03.880 that you built up for yourself so you leave you leave university yeah you go into comedy

00:22:09.060 entertainment uh and what was that like because i know you managed a lot of quite high level acts

00:22:14.720 comedians uh what was that like yeah so i moved into comedy sort of by accident i started working

00:22:25.300 for Margaret Cho's old manager pretty soon after I left school. And I was attracted to Margaret's

00:22:32.300 comedy because I felt she's a comedian who's addressing issues, all these issues I care about

00:22:37.560 now that I'm coming out of Duke. And I've got these, this idea on how to like, change the world

00:22:43.340 and be a force for good. And here's a comedian who's doing subjects. Her material was about race 0.61

00:22:50.000 and sex and sexuality and you can you can actually you can change people's minds with comedy because

00:22:56.620 you're getting them to laugh you can introduce new ideas with comedy and it's a really good

00:23:00.800 vehicle for that and I her first uh special the first one that I watched was uh I'm the one that

00:23:06.420 I want which is still one of my favorite specials and I really wanted to I fell into it because I

00:23:13.760 wanted to work with comedians people who were pushing the ideology but doing it with laughter

00:23:18.460 is the way I viewed it. And so, um, I started working for her old manager and then we moved

00:23:24.340 to another company. And then a few years after that, my, we left together and, uh, my partner,

00:23:30.480 Emily White and I started Whitesmith Entertainment, which we're a very small boutique company. Um,

00:23:35.800 we got to pick our own artists. So she managed musicians. I managed comics. So I worked with

00:23:41.320 Margaret Cho. I worked with, um, Debbie Kamau Bell, who's now on, yeah, uh, we sold a show

00:23:47.760 together, Kamau and I, called Totally Biased on FX. I was very proud of the show. I felt like

00:23:54.600 it was one of the first explicitly social justice-based late night shows. And I thought

00:24:00.120 it was doing, we were doing great work in the world. You know, we had pieces on rape culture

00:24:05.560 and whether it was okay for men to tell jokes about rape. We had Hari Kondabolu on doing jokes

00:24:12.100 about Apu and how Apu was a racist caricature.

00:24:16.620 And, you know, we can see,

00:24:18.120 fast forward to what's happened to Apu now.

00:24:21.020 R.I.P.

00:24:22.160 It's all your fault.

00:24:25.240 But it was really a different kind of late night show.

00:24:29.880 We had, Chris Wack was one of our other executive producers.

00:24:33.640 And Chris is really not from the social justice world.

00:24:36.740 And then one of the other EPs in particular

00:24:40.420 was not from the social justice world.

00:24:42.600 And so there was a lot of head-butting happening

00:24:44.340 because most of the writers,

00:24:45.980 the other comedians we were able to bring on as writers

00:24:48.040 were squarely, you know, in the same belief system.

00:24:52.000 And, you know, it felt like we were having to fight

00:24:56.040 very hard to do something very different

00:24:57.920 and revolutionary and, you know,

00:24:59.940 not to make the easy, you know,

00:25:02.060 I remember there was an argument, for example,

00:25:04.380 once about whether or not we were going to do

00:25:08.100 a fat joke about Governor Chris Christie

00:25:10.160 and, you know, taking a stand and saying,

00:25:12.740 even when it's a Republican,

00:25:14.120 we're not going to engage in fat phobia.

00:25:17.180 It was that kind of a show behind the scenes.

00:25:19.640 It was interesting.

00:25:21.160 But that must have presented real challenges

00:25:25.600 because, I mean, that's very, very difficult to do comedically

00:25:31.340 because any element of comedy involves something

00:25:34.600 with punching down, does it not?

00:25:38.340 I'm not sure about that question.

00:25:40.160 because as you probably know, people on the social justice left use that line a lot. They

00:25:44.960 say you have to, you have to always punch up and not punch down. Well, I guess I would agree with

00:25:51.960 that, except it depends on who's holding the dictionary of which direction is up and which

00:25:56.160 direction is down. Because yeah, they, how do you define up and down? They do a lot. Social

00:26:02.440 justice comics do a lot, in my opinion, a lot of punching down, but they're, they believe they're

00:26:08.000 punching up. So I don't really, I would have to ask who's defining up. How are you defining it?

00:26:16.680 And, and, and so, yeah, it's hard for me to answer that one.

00:26:19.360 So, so you, so you go into this world, you're the feminist manager, I think, as you put it. 1.00

00:26:24.740 Yeah. I was known as the feminist manager. 1.00

00:26:27.120 What does that mean?

00:26:29.660 Um, that means sort of, I had a reputation for being the manager who first of all,

00:26:35.260 worked with these comics who at the time social justice was,

00:26:38.740 was not a huge thing in comedy.

00:26:40.320 So I was working with acts who were talking about things that, um,

00:26:44.620 seemed a bit more, uh,

00:26:46.800 intellectual or academic and maybe not what was being sold at the time.

00:26:51.400 And I also worked with a lot of social justice nonprofits.

00:26:54.680 I was on the board of several nonprofits like women action in the media.

00:26:58.800 I worked with others, um, with, with, uh,

00:27:02.180 to promote their causes and for them to promote my comedian.

00:27:06.300 So we would do like with Margaret's tours, for example,

00:27:08.940 we would do ticket giveaways. We would do VIP packages. Um, we would,

00:27:13.720 we would do all these different kinds of add-ons for organizations like the

00:27:17.380 HRC, uh, now planned parenthood, um, race forward,

00:27:22.240 the color of change or orgs like that ACLU.

00:27:25.320 And what's funny is that when I started leaving the ideology,

00:27:31.440 and the nature of my post started changing,

00:27:34.640 I did get a funny phone call at one point

00:27:37.060 from a comedy promoter I hadn't heard from in a year or two.

00:27:40.820 And he wanted to talk to me

00:27:42.440 because he worked at Live Nation

00:27:45.140 and they were considering,

00:27:46.360 they were about to bring on Jordan Peterson

00:27:49.140 and they were thinking about taking him out for some dates.

00:27:52.260 And he's like, I'd like to talk to you

00:27:54.520 because you're the feminist manager, 1.00

00:27:56.880 but you seem to really love Jordan Peterson.

00:27:59.740 You're sharing lots of his stuff lately.

00:28:01.440 And we're getting all this pushback at Live Nation internally.

00:28:05.260 They're saying he's a sexist and a misogynist and we can't work with him.

00:28:09.440 So can I just, can I talk to the feminist manager about it? 1.00

00:28:12.080 And I was like, okay, I don't know if I'm going to be very helpful.

00:28:16.400 I'm kind of a pariah now, but we did have that conversation.

00:28:19.920 That's what I was going to ask you.

00:28:21.160 So you're managing comedians as an agent or as a representative?

00:28:25.280 As a manager.

00:28:26.240 As a manager, right?

00:28:27.120 So you're always potentially as an agency, you're on the lookout for new talent.

00:28:31.440 right? That would be part of what you do, correct? Right. Correct. So what would happen if Francis

00:28:36.220 walks through the door and like, you know, he's a funny guy, but he's maybe not got quite the same

00:28:43.540 views as what you want. And, you know, he happens not to be from a minority background. What would

00:28:49.620 old Kerry have done in that situation? I, this is embarrassing, but I'll be honest. I probably

00:28:56.920 would not have worked with you um because i felt like my niche was racial justice comics like

00:29:04.460 feminist comics comics who were talking about all the social justice stuff and honestly even if i'd

00:29:10.340 wanted to there were some straight white male comedians i liked but i didn't know they did

00:29:15.020 their comedy wasn't about the same issues and so i didn't know how to even promote them i knew how

00:29:22.460 to promote the social justice comedians, but I wouldn't, I didn't think I would have even been

00:29:27.600 useful. Um, so it's kind of interesting because social justice says, right, like as a woman, 1.00

00:29:32.820 I don't have the power to be sexist. I can only be prejudiced. I can't be sick. I don't have the

00:29:38.240 power. Well, look at my career. I had the power to say yes to certain comics and the power to say

00:29:45.080 no to others and my roster oh gosh uh I think I only had one straight white male comedian

00:29:53.820 I had you know it was all it was all people of color women Jesus Christ that dude must have 0.96

00:30:00.440 been so fucking progressive well he dressed as a woman he did a lot of comedy and drag 0.96

00:30:06.660 but yeah i worked with trans comics i worked with lgbt but yeah like there weren't a lot of 0.96

00:30:15.900 straight white guys and did you see in the industry kerry a lot of people go

00:30:23.440 i have to jump on board this particular narrative and way of looking at things

00:30:28.960 otherwise i'm not going to get ahead i'm not going to get to where i want to be

00:30:33.160 Yes, but it didn't happen for a while. So I was doing my thing for a long time, kind of struggling to promote comedians who were not in the mainstream. And then, well, social justice became more popular and became more mainstream. It started over time.

00:30:54.600 And so like when we sold the show Totally Bias, for example, that was a new sort of I still I view that as a new sort of thing.

00:31:03.020 I mean, the late night comedy shows were always leftist, but they weren't explicitly social justice.

00:31:08.840 And I and I think our show, you could look at that now.

00:31:12.380 And even now, that was that was an explicitly social justice thing comedy show.

00:31:16.280 And then slowly after this, that was around 2011 or 2012.

00:31:19.920 And then after that, I started to see a lot of comics who had never really done social justice comedy before or really had not made it the majority of the material were suddenly doing it.

00:31:32.140 I mean, you've got Jim Jeffries doing social justice.

00:31:37.740 Mr. Rape Joke in chief. 1.00

00:31:39.640 Suddenly he's woke, is he?

00:31:41.240 Yes. Suddenly he's woke.

00:31:42.940 Moshe Kasher did the show Problematic.

00:31:45.640 There were all these social justice themed comedy shows that were coming out.

00:31:48.660 And at the time that I kind of came out as a wrong thinker, which took me a while because we haven't really talked about the transition yet.

00:32:00.320 But there was a period of time there, about six months, where I was really, my beliefs had been changing.

00:32:08.360 I had written a letter to Jordan Peterson right before the election in October of, I think it was October of 2016.

00:32:17.260 and sort of about some of my changing beliefs.

00:32:21.240 And it was called A Liberal Feminist's Point of View 1.00

00:32:24.060 or something like that.

00:32:25.300 And he read it on his YouTube channel

00:32:27.500 and then emailed me afterwards to say,

00:32:29.840 I read this, I was so scared.

00:32:31.540 He's like, I changed some identifying factors,

00:32:33.620 but I was still scared.

00:32:34.520 I'm like, it mentioned that I worked in comedy.

00:32:36.820 I was thinking I'm gonna lose all my clients.

00:32:39.940 Somehow people find out this is me.

00:32:41.800 And I told him I was scared.

00:32:43.180 And he said, you have to figure out

00:32:44.340 how to get over your fear.

00:32:45.280 and I knew he was right, but you don't, that's why when I talk to people now who are afraid,

00:32:50.460 I totally understand why people are afraid. There's a real reason. People are afraid of

00:32:57.240 losing their job. They're afraid of losing their whole social circle. They're afraid of losing

00:33:02.740 friends and family, their reputation. In some cases, their safety, their anonymity. So there

00:33:09.060 were a lot of fear you know fearful uh things going through me and i it took me about six months

00:33:15.780 after that six months of time before i finally um i wrote an essay called uh leaving the social

00:33:24.100 justice cult and that was sort of this was my way of explaining to my friends all my colleagues in

00:33:30.980 entertainment all my social justice friends what was happening to me they had been meeting they

00:33:36.420 had been my my best friends had been getting calls about me for months you know what's going on with

00:33:41.460 Carrie why is kind of stuff she's sharing changing you know she's sharing Jordan Peterson video or

00:33:47.140 she's doing you know whatever whatever it is she's sharing she's trying to figure out why Trump won

00:33:51.080 and instead of just accepting that it's racism and sexism and um so that was that was sort of

00:33:59.340 my coming out essay and then after that um pretty shortly after that I think we we folded the

00:34:06.200 company uh but but before that so during that six months of fear right i was flying back i had moved

00:34:13.920 to texas by then but i was flying back to la to film a social justice comedy pilot with one of my

00:34:20.220 comics that i had we had worked on we had been writing it like a year or two prior you know it's

00:34:25.000 a long process to get we've gotten a production company involved and then we'd finally sold the

00:34:29.760 pilot to network and then they greenlit the pilot we're going to go make it and they were it was up

00:34:34.540 against a lot of other pilots and and a lot of those were also social justice thing i knew some 0.96

00:34:38.960 of the other comics we were up against and you know i'm out here i was out there in la shooting

00:34:43.440 that and i was feeling so conflicted because by the time we were actually working on it i was

00:34:47.520 thinking i don't believe in this stuff anymore and so i don't even know like if the show gets

00:34:52.260 picked up i'm excited for the comedian i work with i'm excited for her um but i don't know if

00:34:59.640 i want to work on this you know it would be good money but i don't believe in this anymore

00:35:04.200 and fortunately the universe didn't make i didn't make that decision it was made for me it didn't

00:35:10.120 get picked up and so pretty soon after that i was like i guess i'm out i'm gonna because i would

00:35:15.100 rather like say what i think be able to say what i think and not work in entertainment anymore

00:35:21.880 and work gig jobs but be able to say what i believe it's so it's so much better like any

00:35:29.600 Anyone who is, we get people on our show occasionally, as I'm sure you do, people who are afraid, afraid of saying what they believe to be true.

00:35:39.820 And I hear from people in the entertainment industry still all the time, especially since the summer when social justice kind of went really big.

00:35:48.060 I hear from people in entertainment and academia and the media and people who feel like they're in this kind of self-censorship like I was in.

00:35:57.940 and i know they you it's hard to believe when you're in it but i always say to them whenever

00:36:04.580 however long it takes you to get out of it on the other side of it it it doesn't matter like all the

00:36:11.300 things that you're gonna lose you and you will lose things and you will lose people but the

00:36:16.040 things that you get out of it are so much more meaningful like i i don't know it's hard it's

00:36:22.280 hard to explain i had a friend being able being able to be honest and authentic i think is what

00:36:26.140 are talking about and piss people off on twitter and delighting in doing so which i do every single

00:36:32.300 day well with facts and logic no i'm joking but um kerry what do you think this the landscape is

00:36:39.240 like now in entertainment so it's you left entertainment 2012 2013 2016 oh sorry sorry

00:36:45.080 my apologies 2016 yeah and then obviously you know then they had me too and then blm what is

00:36:51.520 it like now do you think in entertainment yeah well i don't as you know i don't work in it now

00:36:57.020 but just as an observer as someone looking at what's happened since june it's become the

00:37:03.280 predominant belief system in entertainment and i think um i think that it's that that offers a

00:37:12.760 unique opportunity because because things move in cycles in entertainment you remember when

00:37:18.480 anthony everybody was looking for an anthony bourdain style show everything every pitch we

00:37:23.080 were doing was like oh this is a great pitch but could you make it more like anthony bourdain

00:37:26.580 and you know it's like could we make it more like what he's doing and so right now everyone's

00:37:32.420 looking for social justice themed shows i think but at some point they're going to get tired of

00:37:37.360 that cycle and there's going to be have to be there's going to be something that's a breakout

00:37:41.820 show that's totally different that's not woke that's a hit and that will change things i think

00:37:49.280 because then they'll start to say oh can we get something kind of like that show you know can you

00:37:54.120 put just something like that and um i think it it's a it's an opportunity for people who are

00:37:59.760 courageous enough to to continue working on their craft their comedy their series ideas whatever um

00:38:06.540 without regard for where we're at culturally right now,

00:38:10.520 without regard for what's currently popular.

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00:39:27.760 things that you immediately are confronted by if you are in the entertainment world, if you are in

00:39:33.240 comedy, is that there is a tiny number of gatekeepers who control all the points of access

00:39:39.800 to television, to radio, to whatever. And so if your brand of art or comedy or whatever it might

00:39:46.760 be doesn't fit what that Anthony Bourdain or SJW or BLM or whatever in the current moment,

00:39:52.920 well you can play the clubs maybe but really you're not going to advance anyway is that also

00:39:59.500 the case in the u.s or is a a bigger market then therefore you do have more opportunity

00:40:04.780 there are it's like the uk there are gatekeepers um but those gatekeepers are

00:40:15.820 the people at the networks are are um i think i think a lot of them they're they're just jumping

00:40:23.940 on this bandwagon because it's the popular thing that's selling right now like i think back to a

00:40:28.820 lot of the kind of douche mail here's some of my social justice coming out but some of these sort

00:40:36.280 of the classic stereotype of douche network executives i worked with at fx there were some

00:40:41.000 gross ones there were some good ones too but there were some real gross ones like used car salesman

00:40:44.840 kind of guys if they're speaking social justice now which they probably are it's completely

00:40:50.940 because only cravenly because it's what's popular um and as soon as they see the potential for

00:40:57.660 something that's not woke i think those guys will be buying that thing next you know so uh it's just

00:41:05.040 a matter of something breaking out despite all the gatekeepers whether it's on the internet or

00:41:10.120 you know getting someone high profile enough you know we um tried various routes to sell totally

00:41:17.800 biased you know you're always pitching in different ways and we were pitching at different

00:41:21.200 networks and um it could have happened a different way possibly but the way that it happened was we

00:41:27.100 attached chris rock so you know if there's a big enough name that attaches to something that's

00:41:32.760 really different and out of the box and there are some names now i've been watching um john cleese

00:41:38.820 get more based i guess you would put it on twitter he's a bit more it looks like his

00:41:45.520 patience is running thin for wokeness which i really appreciate he's always been one of my

00:41:49.840 favorite comics ricky gervais he's not bowing to the belief system there are some bigger names who

00:41:56.700 are refusing to do it and then there are the ones who are um having their come to jesus social

00:42:01.540 justice moment and confessing all their privileged sins and um you know sarah silverman

00:42:06.920 sarah silverman came on our show totally biased and i consider that episode that we did with her

00:42:15.600 that was her come to social jesus moment social justice jesus yeah she had a because she had done

00:42:21.260 uh the host of our show come out back before back before very really anyone knew who he was he had

00:42:28.940 done a blog entry about her and how she was a racist called her right called her out you know

00:42:34.660 fellow comedian she's a racist these jokes are racist etc so then fast forward several years

00:42:40.800 we get the show and social justice has also progressed a bit and she came on the show and

00:42:47.480 they had like um a reconciliation where she sort of I felt like it was sort of this is where you

00:42:53.220 come and confess your white privilege and and you you get you know anointed in the social justice

00:42:59.340 faith and i look at there are some comics now who i used to just really enjoy their material and

00:43:07.020 um i i can't i can't really watch their stuff anymore because i feel like it's become so

00:43:13.380 tainted with this and it's it's this has become primary this has become more important than

00:43:18.900 making people laugh which is what a fundamentalist faith that's how it operates no matter if it's

00:43:24.920 moving into your art or if it's moving into your company or your hobby group or your church

00:43:31.700 wherever it's going to become the primary the primary um objective is pushing the belief system

00:43:38.900 i mean i had go ahead no no i was going to say carrie are you not fearful that we're going to

00:43:45.860 go so down this path that essentially companies are going to bankrupt themselves almost because

00:43:51.560 they've progressed so far down this path

00:43:53.580 and nobody's going to want to watch it.

00:43:54.960 Nobody wants to watch a one-hour tedious lecture.

00:43:58.240 I mean, that's the Edinburgh Festival,

00:43:59.620 but nobody else.

00:44:00.960 That's a very small section of people.

00:44:02.860 That was a very niche joke.

00:44:04.320 Kerry didn't get it.

00:44:05.280 Well done, Kerry.

00:44:06.540 Yeah.

00:44:07.220 Don't worry.

00:44:07.980 It's just Francis letting out his existential angst

00:44:11.060 about the Edinburgh Festival.

00:44:12.360 Don't worry about it.

00:44:12.920 Hatred is the word, mate.

00:44:14.620 Well, you're making me think of,

00:44:15.980 I just talked with a friend yesterday.

00:44:17.600 We got to interview,

00:44:19.040 I was telling you beforehand,

00:44:20.000 this actor um and it hasn't aired yet but we're going to put it out soon anyway in that conversation

00:44:25.740 we were talking about what's happening with DC and Marvel and how there are all these independent

00:44:31.340 comic book creators now who are filling the gap and who are crowdfunding and are making beautiful

00:44:37.980 work and people are supporting it because yes I do believe not all but a lot of companies are going

00:44:44.880 to put this ideology ahead of profits and as long as you have a large enough number of social

00:44:52.360 justice diehards in your company they don't they don't care about i think that's hard for people

00:44:58.340 to wrap their head around it they may care about profits but profits are secondary to being

00:45:02.960 ideologically correct and ideologically pure and so i think we will see a some kind of shift

00:45:09.600 happening the the question for me is it's easier not that it's easy but it's easier to make an

00:45:16.320 independent comic book than it is to make an independent game of thrones no or you know a

00:45:24.020 television show or a movie so uh we i haven't really seen a lot of people do you know filling

00:45:31.160 the gap yet and doing and anti or unwoke um series and and movies yet this is where the internet is

00:45:39.580 interesting because yeah you're right you can't make an unwoke massive budget thing but what you

00:45:44.480 can do with comedy for example is short sketches or things like that which you know we're going to

00:45:49.640 start to do some of that and you just see that on the internet what works is what works as opposed

00:45:56.400 to what what is in demand according to three people and a dog who's barking in the background

00:46:02.280 you're getting heckled by a dog mate reminds you of your comedy career it reminds me of my

00:46:08.920 open mic comedy career. Exactly. Three men and a dog and only the dog is paying attention. But

00:46:14.600 yeah, so I guess my point is, I think with the internet, there is also an opportunity. And I

00:46:20.080 think I can certainly speak for myself. I think maybe a year and a half, two years ago, I was

00:46:25.220 quite bitter and resentful about how things were going more broadly, not even in terms of my own

00:46:31.900 career, because I was progressing, everything was going pretty well. But in terms of the industry

00:46:35.700 as a whole, I kind of felt like you have to toe the line in order to get anywhere. Whereas now I

00:46:41.980 feel like these people who are the gatekeepers, they're very much dinosaurs. They're trying to

00:46:47.520 hold on to something that's very much a dying model. And what you have with the internet is

00:46:54.460 the opportunity to circumvent all of that, to go around all of that, and to go straight to people,

00:46:58.340 the people who watch the show, who enjoy non-woke stuff. So I think there's maybe

00:47:04.940 be a reason to be optimistic there, in my view. But I want to come back to what you were talking

00:47:12.520 about, how in 2016, you start to watch videos of Trump supporters being assaulted. How do you go

00:47:19.960 from that to like, I'm leaving? It was a long transition. So just like getting into it is slow.

00:47:28.340 Getting out of it was slow for me. It's not something that happens overnight. If anyone

00:47:33.400 tells you they leave this ideology like that. I just don't, I don't buy that. Um, it's,

00:47:40.260 that was one of the first things I remember sort of changing, cracking, cracking my belief in,

00:47:47.120 in, um, how the world works or what the truth is that, that really put a crack in, in, um,

00:47:56.340 my belief that I knew how, you know, what was really happening. And then after that,

00:48:01.280 or maybe it was right before that there was another significant thing um there was there

00:48:05.400 were the shootings of the cops at the blm rally in dallas and in my echo chamber my social justice

00:48:13.080 echo chamber online i saw a lot of people um almost not really celebrating it but making

00:48:22.000 excuses for it and in some ways sort of saying well i remember one comedian even saying a lot

00:48:27.800 of white men are going to have to die and you know trying to excuse that sort of sentiment is

00:48:33.940 like i'm just half joking guys like i was half joking earlier about being a woman that's um 0.99

00:48:39.920 i don't know it just felt like i i didn't i didn't sign up for this is not progressivism

00:48:45.420 for murder of you know to support to support some guy just taking a rifle and shooting a

00:48:51.720 bunch of people and it's okay because they're cops somehow. Um, so that really stuck with me.

00:48:58.220 And, uh, and then I discovered who I've mentioned a few times in this, this interview, I saw a video

00:49:05.200 of Jordan Peterson. Someone had sent me, um, a video saying he was transphobic and I clicked on

00:49:12.140 the video fully expecting to hate on him. I was still in the social justice world, you know, and

00:49:16.640 I watched the video and I really listened to what he was saying and I didn't find him to be

00:49:21.180 transphobic at all. I thought he was making a really great point about compelled speech

00:49:25.880 being codified in law. And, and the more I listened to him, I listened to a lecture he gave

00:49:33.600 about, it was an old lecture. It was about tragedy versus evil was what it was called.

00:49:39.980 And he gave this, he talked about the Cain and Abel story in the Bible. And he talked about

00:49:43.940 how you can view that story as an allegory for how to be in the world. And so there are these

00:49:49.620 two different ways of being in that story. You can be like Cain and you can refuse to make

00:49:55.220 necessary sacrifices for what you want. And you can be resentful and you can blame God and blame

00:50:02.800 your brother, blame others. And that is a path towards murderous rage. And he's like, or you can

00:50:08.560 be like Abel in the story and you can make the necessary sacrifices and you can be humble and

00:50:15.100 full of gratitude and you can and you can be blessed and it and i started thinking about that

00:50:20.800 a lot and about how my ideology was really about it's it's a way of being like cane it's it's very

00:50:29.460 resentful social people and social justice especially ones who are like living it every day

00:50:35.140 waking up putting those glasses on where's the sexism and racism you know they're very resentful

00:50:42.060 people. And, um, I, I, I started questioning almost every choice I was making, even little

00:50:49.980 choices throughout the day. Is this like Cain or is this like Abel? And trying to root out

00:50:55.720 the Cain in me, I'll put it that way. So, um, yeah, he was really, he, he helped me see,

00:51:03.720 he helped me put a, uh, words to what I was seeing in my belief system. So, you know,

00:51:09.500 And when you first start, if you're in a cult-like belief system or ideology and you first start questioning it, well, everything in the belief system is set up to make you think you're crazy if you're questioning it or you have some deep-seated racism and internal misogyny against yourself or something.

00:51:26.240 And so to be able to say, wow, this person is perfectly articulating the problems that I'm finding in my system of belief, that was really helpful for me.

00:51:37.140 so um so yeah and and like i said it wasn't a it wasn't a short thing it even after the six

00:51:44.280 months it took me to get over my fear and have my sort of coming out essay um i still

00:51:49.140 i still believed in a lot of the tenets of social justice i've discarded most of those now there's

00:51:55.780 still probably a few i could i could agree on with social justice people and the few who have

00:52:00.420 not unfriended me i'm still friends with some i'm still friends with the comedian whose pilot i was

00:52:05.960 pitching at the time that I got out and you know when she comes to Austin we have lunch and we have

00:52:13.580 completely opposing worldviews and it's okay because I know she is in that belief system for

00:52:21.120 the same reason I was she thinks that it is the way to end racism and sexism so at if I tear down

00:52:27.960 everything you try to find like what's our base point of agreement and then from there we can

00:52:33.160 figure out where we diverge. Well, the very base, she and I both agree that racism and sexism are 1.00

00:52:37.720 bad and we want to end those things. It's just that her philosophy, I think, is due. I think

00:52:43.120 it makes those things worse. But I know she's in it with a good heart. So if she hasn't unfriended

00:52:49.080 me and she's one of the few, why would I, why would I unfriend her? It's a really, really good

00:52:56.080 point. And sadly, that's what we don't have a lot of, which is tolerance of each other's opinions

00:53:00.460 and points of view the question I really want to ask Kerry is do you think we've reached peak woke

00:53:05.640 yet oh I would like to hope so but I don't think so I think it's going to get I think it's going

00:53:14.640 to get a lot worse thanks Kerry thanks mate wait but here's the silver lining here's the silver

00:53:22.360 lining I think we're close to hitting peak wokeness um unfortunately I think I think things

00:53:28.900 are going to have to to get bad economically too uh in this country and i'm sorry just because

00:53:38.860 a lot of the younger people who have who've been in see i was indoctrinating college i didn't learn

00:53:44.280 any of the social justice stuff in elementary school we've since been indoctrinating kids in

00:53:48.900 elementary in kindergarten in the states i mean kids are learning about critical race theory

00:53:54.420 and they're learning these things at a younger age and so I think unfortunately you almost have

00:54:00.400 to get to a place where things are really hard before people start to question it so when people

00:54:05.820 ask me what woke you up there's an important part I didn't mention guys I was going through a

00:54:10.840 personal transformation too I I was going through a divorce so I was and I was going through a it

00:54:17.200 coincided with the spiritual search like I was going I started going to a spiritual center for

00:54:22.420 the first time in 20 years, I was open to the idea of God again. Um, I was going to, uh, Agape

00:54:28.280 in LA, which is like this big sort of non-denominational church. Oprah is friend. I

00:54:34.440 think it's her pastor there. She's friends with him. And it was really beautiful. It was the only

00:54:39.740 kind of church I would have gone to at that time in my life. And, um, and so I was, I was trying

00:54:45.960 to figure out who i was like what i wanted out of life i i got to a very dark place personally

00:54:55.380 when all these things were happening and so i almost i think you i think that can happen for

00:55:02.980 a country too and for a civilization it's almost like you have to get you have to get to a really

00:55:08.200 dark place sometimes because that's sometimes the only place you can see the light it sounds cheesy

00:55:13.460 but I say that as something that absolutely, I know is true because it happened to me.

00:55:19.060 So what if-

00:55:19.780 I know exactly what you mean. I mean, it works with addiction very much like that as well. Like

00:55:25.000 someone who's an addict, you can't pull them out yourself. They have to get right to the bottom and

00:55:31.280 find themselves in the gutter with a heroin addict pissing in the face. And then they go, 0.68

00:55:35.660 this is a really bad place. We need to get out of here.

00:55:37.480 Yeah, exactly.

00:55:39.040 I see what you're saying. Listen, you brought up something very interesting there, which I think

00:55:44.000 we ought to talk about, which is the impact that viewing the world in the way that you used to view

00:55:50.460 it versus the way that you view the world now on your well-being and your mental health, because

00:55:55.600 you and I have talked before. And as I look at you now, it seems to me like this is a person

00:56:00.200 that is perfectly aligned, like you've clicked, like you come across to me as someone who's

00:56:05.340 content, who's very clear on what she thinks. And I imagine this has done a tremendous amount

00:56:10.880 of good for your well-being. How much do you think this viewing of the world through the

00:56:17.720 prism of victimhood and oppression and searching out actively for things that confirm that view,

00:56:23.460 what sort of impact does that have on a person's mental health, do you think?

00:56:26.760 That's a great question, Constance. And it's, it is, I think it is to the detriment of people

00:56:34.000 who stay in it for a long time because as i mentioned earlier it affects your um self-confidence

00:56:41.980 it it it it's your whole outlook is in some sense it's negative because you're going into

00:56:50.920 situations looking for the hidden racism and sexism you're going into situations in bad

00:56:57.080 expecting bad faith instead of expecting good faith i'm in a couple of social justice groups

00:57:02.820 on Facebook still. Cause I like, I haven't gotten kicked out of some of them. And then others, I

00:57:07.700 like to see what's going on. There's one here for my, my little town in Texas I'm in, and I will

00:57:13.300 see them talking about how don't assume good faith of people always assume bad faith. I'm like,

00:57:20.180 no, you should assume good faith and treat people with good faith until they give you reason

00:57:26.760 to change that but to go in can you imagine every situation you go into in bad faith like what that

00:57:34.360 does to your psyche over time so I truly believe and I know I know people friends of mine who are

00:57:41.480 still in it who like I said it's almost like they're encouraged to celebrate their mental

00:57:47.180 health issues um and to hold these things up as who they are so I have one friend who all of her 0.67

00:57:54.740 posts are you know she's she's a white woman all of her posts are white silence is violence and you 1.00

00:58:00.660 know the t-shirts and the fists and um and it's just a continuous her stream is just a continuous 0.95

00:58:06.420 virtue signal against all the evil in the world that she's not a part of she's a virtuous one

00:58:11.780 right and then that is interspersed with posts about uh bpd borderline personality it's time

00:58:21.480 for you guys to get acquainted with my mental illness this sort of like you know like this

00:58:27.080 weird it's not it's not just about awareness of bpd it's more about like i want the world to

00:58:33.740 conform around my problems and and and i i see the way that she posts about borderline personality

00:58:41.220 disorder as as being unfortunately um i think the way she views it as a part of her identity is

00:58:48.320 going to keep her locked in it as like a prison forever and and you you can get if you read over

00:58:53.260 some of these personality disorders um or mood disorders you can over time change some of those

00:59:00.960 behaviors you know cognitive behavior therapy has been very helpful but but you can't do that

00:59:05.960 if you look at it as like here this is who i am you know uh like i think her bio would probably

00:59:12.760 it's like, you know, I'm queer and fat and white and borderline personality disorder. And, you

00:59:20.420 know, and it's, well, okay, that's part of who you are. You're never going to try and change any of

00:59:26.140 that, you know, like, uh, it's, it's not very good. And, and a lot of the people I know who

00:59:31.960 are in it have struggled with depression and it doesn't it, because it's not about fixing yourself

00:59:40.160 or fixing mental health problems or weight problems or depression problems like it encourages

00:59:45.520 you to stay in that and I've I think um I think your surroundings are sometimes a reflection can

00:59:53.380 be a reflection of your mental state and you know one of these friends it she basically lives like

01:00:00.480 a hoarder I know this is anecdotal I'm just talking about one social justice warrior but

01:00:04.920 I I think there's a type did you see the New York was it the New Yorker cover recently of the

01:00:10.020 the woman on the laptop and her house is just going, you know, to ruin. And I'm like, 0.99

01:00:17.660 you know, what does that say about your mental state?

01:00:21.620 And what impact is that having on your mental state in reverse? Because it's a feedback loop.

01:00:25.980 If you are surrounded by chaos, then you create chaos in your life, then you have more chaos than

01:00:30.860 it can. And it just, it's a loop. Yeah. I think the mental health aspect of this is something

01:00:36.720 people really underappreciate because it's a defeatist ideology. It's an ideology that never

01:00:44.440 allows for personal growth, personal improvement. It never allows you to be happier than you are

01:00:49.140 because the world's evil and terrible. Like when you were a social justice warrior,

01:00:54.660 when were you allowed to be happy? That's a good question because it's funny. I just wrote down a

01:01:01.640 word i didn't want to forget to say this i think of them as like joy eaters

01:01:05.320 they really really don't like expressions of joy um and if you are celebrating something like uh

01:01:18.200 at the wrong time for example i have a friend whose daughter's in high school and she posted

01:01:23.640 some graduate beautiful graduation pictures with her grandma or something

01:01:27.600 in june right when right when social justice was going huge she got taunted and piled on online

01:01:35.960 by her fellow students for posting these joyful photos at an inappropriate time right you should

01:01:43.480 be posting the black square of solidarity for blackout like how dare you celebrate this really

01:01:49.200 momentous occasion in your life that's your privilege that's your white privilege that's

01:01:54.060 or straight, whatever. So they, they, they take any kind of, uh, any kind of joy that you're

01:01:58.980 taking out of life is sort of seen as, um, at the very least, an expression of your privilege

01:02:05.360 to have that joy. And so that encourages you to do what? Well, I've, I'm really serious about

01:02:11.920 the fight. I can't be joyful. I need to always be fighting and everything has to be this sort of

01:02:17.520 outrage and, and how, you know, me being out and posting outrage about things that are happening

01:02:23.380 and showing that I'm a good person by not having these moments of joy or frivolity.

01:02:29.560 They also do the same when people start to improve themselves.

01:02:32.800 So one of the early pylons I saw in the social justice world, and this was years before I

01:02:37.800 left it, was there was a huge dust up and pylon on Maria Kang.

01:02:44.100 Do you remember who she is?

01:02:45.640 She was called Fit Mom by the press.

01:02:48.660 So Fit Mom, she did fitness classes for mothers and toddlers. 1.00

01:02:53.180 she for free she was teaching moms how to work out with their kids and she had a poster with

01:03:00.380 her you know looking all fit with her three kids and it said what's your excuse oh

01:03:06.720 oh you know she was they said she was fat shaming it made it into the national news 1.00

01:03:13.760 that was one of the first social justice like feminist pylons i saw happening um in all of my 1.00

01:03:21.240 in my echo chamber and on all the feminist blogs and stuff I read that made it into the mainstream 0.95

01:03:25.980 press. And she did the interview circuit and they piled on her two or three times. And, and really

01:03:33.700 at the root of that is they don't like anyone saying that you can improve yourself if you want

01:03:40.660 to. They, they view it, you know, that was somehow fat shaming. Although I mean, I don't, and at the

01:03:46.420 time I didn't believe it was either, but I was quiet because I was squarely in it. I didn't like

01:03:50.700 what was happening to her but I was one of the people who stayed quiet through cowardice you

01:03:54.960 know I didn't push back I saw the pylons happening to her and just was sort of I don't think this is

01:04:00.000 right but I don't want to say anything and draw the ire my way because it's ideologically correct

01:04:06.720 to be opposed to what she's doing right and I've seen that just anecdotally with countless times

01:04:12.800 with friends on social media who are in the who are in this world if a friend starts to

01:04:19.080 lose weight or work out or say, you know, hey guys, I saw one that's like, I want to give you

01:04:25.340 an update. You know, back in January, I made a resolution to get healthier and it's been six

01:04:31.460 months and here are my progress pics. I'm so excited. And then immediately in the comments

01:04:36.680 from fellow feminists, you know, how dare you? This is very triggering to see. I don't want this 1.00

01:04:41.840 in my feed. Triggeredometry. But seeing your workout pictures are triggering. Really?

01:04:49.080 Like, you can't take joy in your friend doing something

01:04:54.480 to improve themselves that they're proud of.

01:04:57.120 So that's kind of a long answer, but yeah, they're joy eaters.

01:05:02.320 Well, Kerry, thank you so much for coming on the show.

01:05:05.980 We always end our interviews with the exact same question, which is?

01:05:10.440 What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:05:13.020 okay i'm gonna say we are not currently talking about all of the possible

01:05:21.460 psychological effects of mask mandates and especially on children who don't know a time

01:05:30.960 before this and i look around at four-year-olds at outdoor concerts in austin who are more than

01:05:41.400 six feet away from other groups, socially distanced outside wearing a mask the whole

01:05:45.540 time. And I wonder, does that four-year-old remember a time before seeing masks on everyone

01:05:51.640 and wearing masks? And what does that do to people over time collectively? I just went,

01:05:57.420 I heard a sermon, my preacher here in Texas gave the sermon about, well, it was about other things,

01:06:04.020 but a portion of the sermon was about masks or veils as being a kind of ritual and a symbol.

01:06:10.960 And he said, you know, I'm not here to talk about the medical application of masks.

01:06:16.160 I want to talk about the symbolic and ritualistic application of masks.

01:06:21.160 And I was so happy to hear someone talking about that finally.

01:06:24.320 Like, we don't even know what this is doing to us collectively.

01:06:29.040 And I don't see, at least here in the States, an end in sight yet.

01:06:34.500 And so I wish people, instead of just reflexively saying, if you don't wear a mask everywhere,

01:06:40.620 You must not care about people. I wish they could understand that, again, take things down to our base point of agreement.

01:06:47.620 We both care about people. I just might be a person who thinks it's worse for people to continue seeing this everywhere.

01:06:56.200 And it's I think it's hard for them to wrap their head around that.

01:06:59.180 Like, I don't want to wear my mask around your four year old at an outdoor concert.

01:07:04.800 I don't think it's healthy for your kid to see every person wearing one.

01:07:09.540 But that's probably very unpopular right now.

01:07:12.540 There you go. 1.00

01:07:13.100 Kerry wants to kill everybody. 1.00

01:07:14.480 Well done. 1.00

01:07:15.500 Particularly the four-year-olds.

01:07:16.820 Yeah, the four-year-olds.

01:07:18.280 No, I hear exactly what you're saying, Kerry.

01:07:21.340 There's been a lot of stuff going on with that, which we could get into, but we weren't.

01:07:25.840 Listen, everybody should definitely check out Unsafe Space because it's a great show you and Carter do.

01:07:31.600 Interesting interviews with all sorts of people.

01:07:34.040 And as you say, it's not the usual political fair.

01:07:36.340 There's a lot of culture.

01:07:37.360 There's a lot of acting, theatre, comedy.

01:07:40.620 Obviously, you talk about social justice as well.

01:07:42.940 So there's some good red meat for the base there too.

01:07:46.100 Thank you guys so much for having me.

01:07:48.880 Thank you so much for coming on.

01:07:51.120 And guys, thank you for watching.

01:07:53.080 And we will be back with another episode or a live stream

01:07:56.920 always going out at 7pm UK time.

01:08:00.220 See you soon.

01:08:04.040 We'll be right back.

01:08:34.040 This musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, now through June 7, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

01:08:42.520 Get tickets at Murbish.com.

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TRIGGERnometry - December 09, 2020

How I Left the Social Justice Cult - Keri Smith

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