This week on Trigonometry, Francis and Conner are joined by Lou Perez, producer and head writer of We The Internet, a comedy news channel that takes a look at the world of politics and culture through the lens of a conservative perspective.
00:04:40.720Well, even in the United States, libertarians, people don't necessarily know what that is.
00:04:46.780I think sometimes libertarians will be labeled Republicans who smoke weed,
00:04:50.840which is a very oversimplified way of putting it.
00:04:58.380For me, as a small L libertarian, I'm not a part of the Libertarian Party,
00:05:03.780My whole thing comes down to this idea of of voluntary exchange between between people that I don't want any initiation of force.
00:05:15.600I don't want people forcing others to do their do their bidding.
00:05:20.640And I sort of take that from the personal, you know, the personal place between this is all voluntary and then sort of expand that to, you know, groups and et cetera, et cetera.
00:05:32.080And a lot of times that includes, for the most part, things like smaller government and rights as far as what you can and cannot put in your body.
00:05:42.920The idea is if you're not hurting anybody else, you should be able to put whatever you like in your body, that sort of thing.
00:05:49.000And what challenges do you face when it comes to writing political comedy?
00:05:54.220Because to write, for instance, a Trump joke is phenomenally difficult.
00:05:58.820because there's so many people, like you said, going after the same terrain.
00:06:04.640Yeah, I think it's like anything, you know, being original is a tough point.
00:06:11.440And then also being able to do a joke and not lose the audience right from the get-go.
00:06:18.120So sometimes there'll be videos that we put out and people are like,
00:06:21.580oh, this is just right-wing propaganda.
00:06:23.860And it's like, well, I didn't really consider right-wing propaganda.
00:06:26.140Again, I thought it was me taking an idea and developing it and trying to do something with it.
00:06:32.240And then other times, we'll be called you libtards, which is – do you guys have libtards here?
00:06:50.480But it's funny. It's like depending on which if you have a if you have a weird nuanced view of the world, I think people are so used to, you know, everybody sort of being in a box where if you believe this, you must believe this, this and this.
00:07:05.620Therefore, I can see one thing that you did over here and make all these sweeping assumptions about where you fall on these other political issues.
00:07:14.600I would do you want to. OK, I usually it's me interrupting you.
00:07:18.320So I'll be the I'll be the gentleman. OK, it's unusual to hear Russian use a word that gentleman.
00:07:24.640But anyway, the question I was going to ask you is, so how do you approach your comedy in the sense that normally when you're a political comedian, you have a political agenda.
00:07:35.620So you're a left wing comedian. That's your left wing agenda or whatever else. Do you have a political agenda or is it just finding the funny?
00:07:42.500um i think it's just for me it's it's finding the funny a lot of stuff that i do i also do stand up
00:07:49.700as well so um when i'm on stage a lot of things are you know self-deprecating humor i guess if
00:07:55.480you want to call it that or talking about uh things in my own life and i i feel like a lot
00:08:00.060of times uh when it comes to political humor there's this risk of going full-blown activism
00:08:06.680and i think when you go full-blown activism people can sniff it out and then it's like well now i'm
00:08:11.540I'm no longer seeing an act or no longer hearing jokes. I'm hearing, you know, an activist speak.
00:08:18.900And that's something that I'm trying that, you know, I think everybody should be really conscious of when they're when they're doing that.
00:08:25.720Well, it's like you said, though, it's becoming quite difficult because I do political comedy as well.
00:08:30.460And the problem is that whenever I mean, making fun of a politician or political movement or a party or whatever, it's now automatically interpreted as criticism.
00:08:39.560And it used to be, I feel, that you could make fun of both sides.
00:08:43.500And if you kind of went through your 10 or 15, 20, whatever minute set or an hour show and you kind of punched at everybody, that was fine.
00:08:51.140But now people would just go, you made this one joke about Trump or one joke about Hillary or one joke about whoever.
00:08:57.140And that's you now. And now we've disagreed with you. And now, do you know what I'm saying?
00:09:01.460Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of times political comedy is supposed to be this idea of holding up a mirror to society.
00:09:08.660And I think one thing we have to be careful of is to remember to actually turn that mirror around and look at ourselves and be like, I don't have all the answers and I don't necessarily know what's going on with everything.
00:09:24.460We had an incident very recently, actually, in this country where a comedian who hosts the only real equivalent we have to your late shows, who was doing a show to a group of people who were kind of the blue collar type of audience at a charity gig.
00:12:35.260I think it almost seems like it used to be if you were offended by a joke or, you know, you found something that was, you know, like, oh, that's just wrong.
00:12:45.120You would say, I'm not into that and then move on.
00:12:47.940Whereas now it's almost like it's incumbent upon you to talk about how offended you are and how wrong that joke was.
00:13:25.860No, no, well done, but not factually accurate, but it's a good joke.
00:13:29.580But you talk to people who host shows or MC shows like that, and the level of complaints about a comedian being whatever, offensive in some way, has never been higher.
00:13:43.360Even as a comedian, we're becoming increasingly careful about the kind of stuff that we do.
00:13:50.020So certainly in this country, it has been happening.
00:13:52.780I don't know whether it's the case in New York or elsewhere in these states.
00:13:56.320Yeah, I haven't. Luckily, I haven't experienced it that much. I have a friend of mine who owns a club. And it'd be interesting to hear what he has to say because.
00:14:11.180Yeah, I guess it's one of those things where also how do you quantify it to, you know, if you have, you know, 200 people packed into a room and five of them leave a terrible review, are we to assume that the other 195 either had a good time or, you know, they had an OK time or some of them had a bad time, but they were just they were so offended and so traumatized that they're not even able to talk about it.
00:15:26.280You know, of what is and isn't acceptable,
00:15:28.920and aren't we making things too safe at the moment?
00:15:32.080Well, I think, you know, comedy is a way to go after sacred cows, right?
00:15:36.660So whatever the sacred cow is, it's sort of, you know, might be the duty of a comedian.
00:15:44.200You know, and you could you can volunteer for the job to take on whatever that sacred cow is.
00:15:49.740And I remember talking to people about that, that Chris Rock bit.
00:15:53.560And apparently it took him a really long time to get it to the point where it wasn't offensive to also black audiences.
00:16:01.020Yeah. Apparently he was working on that material a lot and it wasn't it wasn't working in in black rooms.
00:16:08.020So I think I think there I think there's something there to, you know, being willing to fail as well.
00:16:16.120I mean, I mean, I'm sure if you guys look at your notebooks and just how many jokes are just they were great in your head or like or even like, oh, man, this is going to piss some people off or or.
00:16:27.620And then you go and you do it live and you're like, oh, what a waste of my life.
00:16:41.660But also I think it comes down to, you know, how are you going to choose on, you know, what art to, you know, to spend your time looking at or listening to.
00:16:55.080I want it to be something that I haven't heard before.
00:16:57.440or something that the best thing about about laughter is when it's uncontrollable so you know
00:17:01.880even you know some of the most horrendous jokes if it got you laughing it's like it did something
00:17:06.940right yeah yeah well the thing with uh the chris rock bit is really interesting what you say there
00:17:13.600about him having to work on it for a long time this is where i feel the the issue may be is that
00:17:19.740if you need to work on a routine which we all do to try and make it find that place between
00:17:25.160funny and offensive where it sits just right. You're going to have to go to, oh, this is just
00:17:31.160offensive at some point, right? And you have to have the space to do that. If you don't have that
00:17:38.740opportunity, then there's going to be routines that are never going to be born because they're
00:17:43.520going to be just killed at birth because you go, oh, no, it's too offensive. I can't try this out
00:17:48.560and you can't get it to its logical conclusion. Yeah. The challenge is there too, because it's
00:17:54.320not like all subjects are equal. Obviously, it's much easier to talk about a relationship,
00:18:03.020like a bad date, than it is to talk about a bad date that leads to an abortion.
00:18:08.580Like, ooh, then that's it, right? No, I mean, that, you know, it's a tough one. So there's
00:18:13.520a challenge there. Well, how do you make these really sensitive, controversial subjects palatable
00:18:18.220and funny um and um you know there are people who can do it and others who can't and others are like
00:18:25.120i i don't even want to touch that i i find that the whole you know chappelle special thing very
00:18:31.240very interesting as in you know the mainstream media's reaction to it as opposed to you know
00:18:36.680the average punter or audience member who loved it and i mean the thing that summed it up the best
00:18:42.620was a Rotten Tomatoes review from the critics
00:19:12.240I watch with my wife and like every five minutes I'm cracking up and like balled over in laughter.
00:19:19.120And it's like, yeah, that's what that's what it's supposed to do.
00:19:21.700I would love to actually it would be great if all the critics who, you know, who panned it, it would be great to set up a camera in the room when they were actually watching the special and see how many of them were actually laughing.
00:19:35.680But but afterwards, like, well, no, I have to pretend like I wasn't laughing.
00:19:39.420you know it's not it's not right for me to to uh agree with this comedy special have you met a lot
00:19:45.840of critics lou no this is why you think that if you meet critics they're people who have absolutely
00:19:52.520no sense of humor by and large like there's a guy here the guardian in the uk who um
00:19:58.340oh what a funny guy um he he's known for having absolutely no sense of humor so
00:20:07.280like he's known for coming into a show watching it for an hour and like people say yeah he smiled
00:20:12.240twice i think he's going to give it a good review uh so that i we we are in a position where there's
00:20:18.180a lot of people who are judging comedy who don't seem to enjoy it which is why chappelle and jimmy
00:20:24.760carr and and they get very bad reviews and a lot of it seems to be quite political like coming back
00:20:29.940to what we were talking about earlier but uh talking about sacred cows what kind of stuff
00:21:34.960And that subject in particular is something that I've noticed over the years because people often begin a sentence with, you know, speaking as a person of color or speaking as a woman or speaking as a man of faith.
00:21:50.980But no one ever starts by saying, you know, speaking as a stupid person.
00:21:56.260No one ever admits that there are certain identity markers
00:23:20.080Even the racial stuff transcends race.
00:23:22.940It's sort of like these universal ideas.
00:23:26.160One of the coolest things, when I was living in Los Angeles, I got to host a show where Bill Burr was a special guest, like unannounced guest.
00:23:35.600And he did 20 minutes goofing on Michelle Obama, the first lady, in a room in Los Angeles where, you know, obviously it's a very left-leaning room.
00:23:48.620And he was able to do this material and get everybody cracking up.
00:23:53.600And I think his approach has just always been so good, too.
00:23:57.300And it might be some of that, you know, hey, I'm an idiot.
00:24:03.320He's just a very skilled comedian, isn't he?
00:24:05.200But, Francis, I have to say I'm disappointed in you for getting to point out one of the greatest comedians in the history of comedy, Hannah Gadsby.
00:25:18.400And none of your questions are completely useless, therefore.
00:25:21.340Well, you know, it might be some I think I think what's great about doing comedy today is, you know, from we have the technology where, you know, anybody who wants to wants to do comedy can do it.
00:25:35.620You know, they could start their own podcast or vlog and all that.
00:25:39.480And it's it's it's helped to get rid of the gatekeepers, you know, because there might be, you know, certain gatekeepers where Hannah Gatsby would never be able to get to where she is today.
00:25:50.400like selling out arenas and all that thing.
00:25:53.680And I think no matter what you think about Hannah Gatsby
00:25:57.120or what you think about Bill Burr or Dave Chappelle,
00:25:59.680it's wonderful to have all those choices where it's like,
00:26:03.780oh, you know what, I can go my whole life without seeing a Hannah Gatsby special,
00:26:09.460but all these people who are into that can go and support her.
00:26:14.540And I think that that's something that sometimes we forget.
00:26:18.900It's a pretty good time to be doing comedy, no matter what your comedy is.
00:26:38.020I think there are just all these different avenues where you can make stuff happen.
00:26:42.320And I'll, you know, sometimes see, like, comedians that I know who've, you know, been in the game for, you know, five years or something like that, complaining about the state that they're in.
00:26:53.720Like, oh, you know, I'm being held back or this theater won't have me, this club won't have me.
00:27:00.840And it's like, well, you have an opportunity there to be a little bit more entrepreneurial and show people that you have an audience.
00:27:06.820You know, if you could if you can pack 10 people into a room every week, you know, to see your show and then build that up and then build an online your online brand and all that, I think you need to you need to do that.
00:27:20.740excuse me um i've always sort of been of the mind that i um ever since i i've been doing comedy
00:27:28.460where i can't rely on on you know gatekeepers or the people uh uh you know sort of in the
00:27:36.960business or in the industry it's like i i need to just be doing my own stuff because once you
00:27:42.100start relying on other people then you know you're subject to what they want and what they don't want
00:27:49.880I guess that's probably why you're not seeing some of the stuff that we're bringing up because if you do what you do for yourself, just like we're doing trigonometry, we don't answer to anybody.
00:28:03.600That gives you a level of freedom where you don't even have to worry about the stuff.
00:28:07.540But certainly in this country, I don't know whether it's the same in America, if you're just a club comedian, which there's obviously lots of, you are at the mercy of the gatekeepers, as you say, which is why it's a great time to be doing comedy, not necessarily to be a stand-up comedian, making your way up through the standard industry, but it is a great time to be doing content, let's say.
00:28:32.640Yeah, that's a good way to put it because I know people in the States who are great stand-up comedians, but they have side jobs.
00:28:42.800They have side gigs because even when things are going well and they're hitting the road and doing those road gigs, they're still not able to sustain themselves and they need to work other jobs.
00:28:55.400So, yeah, I've never just done stand-up comedy or even tried to go that route.
00:29:04.220You're more interested in what you're doing now with the internet?
00:29:07.240Yeah, production and using that as a way to book gigs and to do live shows and all that.
00:31:43.240of sort of, you know, relying on the comedians to come and take the president to task.
00:31:51.200And, yeah, so I think now it's sort of the executive branch has been, you know, maybe
00:31:58.680a little, will be a little less respected, you know, moving on and hopefully more people
00:32:03.080are a little more cognizant of just what, you know, what powers are being wielded.
00:32:09.800And I think, you know, what you do with the internet is actually very valuable because more and more people have, you know, they look at, you know, for instance, the Tonight Show and they go, well, you know what, this clearly has an agenda.
00:32:23.320I'm now feeling that I'm being lectured to by a sort of liberal left intelligentsia.
00:32:28.280And we get it here in the UK, you know, anti-Brexit, which is fine.
00:33:05.180So I like to, you know, have people who are able to disagree with you but still support your work.
00:33:14.220And it's a challenge, too, for myself because it's so easy to just support those who you agree with and, you know, kind of fall into that same trap.
00:33:25.960So I'm hoping that we do get to the point where more people are able to do that.
00:33:30.880Well, we have that with trigonometry as well.
00:33:33.060you'll get people who who say oh i watched your show for you know a year and a half or whatever
00:33:38.140but this video yeah how dare you have you know this person yeah or they'll start to like we had
00:33:45.840this video we didn't into posy parker who's a gender critical ex-feminist and she was pretty
00:33:53.700strong let's say i think that's a fair statement on on trans stuff and so we kind of pushed back
00:33:58.260on her probably more than we did with others and someone on the mumsnet feminist forum went through
00:34:03.640and said oh you had she was speaking for this many minutes and this other person you interviewed by
00:34:08.500the same thing they spoke for that and it's because you're two men and it's like come on
00:34:12.160but but eventually you kind of what i what we always talk about is like you have an audience
00:34:17.460that is your core audience and over time that will shape up to be what it is and people who
00:34:23.200who thought it was like a right-wing eco-chamber or this kind of eco-chamber or that kind of
00:34:28.480eco-chamber, they all get filtered out. And what happened? That was taken down, right?
00:34:32.360Yeah, it was taken down as hate speech and then eventually reinstated, probably because
00:34:37.700there was quite a backlash against it. It was starting to get traction in the news and
00:34:42.480stuff like that. Have you ever had any problems with Facebook or anything like that?
00:34:46.160Yeah, we've had problems. So we had one, it was, I forget how long ago,
00:34:52.900But I ran a poll. Right. Yeah. And I and I asked who was responsible for Hurricane Florence. Right. And let's see. Twenty five percent of the people said Donald Trump and the other seventy five percent said the gays.
00:35:12.060thank you thank you for laughing and there was only two there was only two options right right
00:35:19.900and obviously anybody reading this knew that it was a joke it was a play on you know who controls
00:35:24.800you know yeah you know should have included jews yeah yeah yeah yeah uh and i think it was like
00:35:30.200over 10 000 people voted in this in this poll and shared it around and it was taken down because it
00:35:36.300went against community standards and it got me thinking you know like man um you know here is
00:35:43.020here it is like the censors on facebook are doing away with what's clearly satire yeah man who knows
00:35:50.000what else they're doing away with and we've had an issue recently with we have an old video
00:35:54.920that i shot like right after i think it was a i think it must have been 2017 or something like
00:36:01.340that right after the inauguration, the presidential inauguration, it's making fun of Antifa.
00:36:07.280It's like, here are six rioting tips for Antifa.
00:36:10.880And that was flagged recently for promoting violence.
00:36:16.180And I wonder how much of it is sort of the attempt to get an algorithm that can catch
00:36:21.580every, you know, every single problematic thing.
00:36:24.440Then, you know, you're going to have a lot of stuff that just sort of gets caught up
00:36:39.100I think this last one we called for a manual review, and I'm not sure what's happened yet.
00:36:44.240But until then, now we're thinking, oh, no, we have to be wary of certain keywords, violence or anything that could get picked up as potential hate speech.
00:36:58.720And it's tough when you're creating content to try to stay ahead of the curve and knowing, you know, what it is that we can and cannot publish without worrying about it being taken down.
00:37:08.980Well, this is the problem with censorship is that if you, even if it's an algorithm, which I actually, in our case, it wasn't in when with the Posey Parker video, it was taken down based on a manual review of it. And then we had a manual appeal again that changed it back. But even if it's algorithms, it forces you as the person who's putting stuff out there to censor yourself.
00:37:33.760Yeah. And then you won't tackle the issues. Like you say, the sacred cows, you'd rather stay away from it and do a video about something that's going to be less controversial.
00:37:43.720Yeah. And when you're talking about demonetization, you know, there are places like like Prager University that'll PragerU that talks about their videos.
00:37:52.620But a lot of people on the left who produce videos, their stuff has been demonetized as well.
00:37:58.200And you wonder, is it keywords? Is it manual review? Is there a type of vendetta? I don't know.
00:38:05.660And do you think that they've become more draconian as the years have gone by, social media?
00:38:11.700I think so, yeah. And they're dealing with a lot.
00:38:16.700Companies like Facebook, they're dealing with having to do congressional hearings, so they have to go before Congress and answer questions.
00:38:27.800Then they're dealing with people who are using the system and hate it.
00:38:34.120And then they're also dealing with some weird stuff that they've done before regarding sharing personal information and security breaches.
00:38:44.000and then also the work that they do in other countries as well.
00:40:59.000so uh where is uh where do you think the future is kind of the culture it's an interesting time
00:41:06.580we're recording this just after the election here in the uk where the the right of center party has
00:41:12.820absolutely crushed it uh and it seems like a lot of the reasons that that happened was
00:41:18.840the cultural stuff to some degree so uh the landscape seems to be shifting what do you think
00:41:26.600if this were to happen, if let's say Donald Trump is reelected in 2020, which seems certainly
00:41:31.900credible as possible, what do you think the kind of cultural landscape is going to look like?
00:41:36.320I'm afraid that things might get worse before they get better. Yeah, it's almost like everybody
00:41:47.140needs to hit rock bottom before we're able to rebuild again. Well, like an alcoholic.
00:41:51.680Yeah, but 350 million alcoholics need to hit rock bottom.
00:41:58.100I was talking to someone who works in Silicon Valley about tech and, in particular, cancel culture.
00:42:06.480And I was telling them how I really would like to explore that idea of cancel culture in tech
00:42:11.660and how technology and social media has basically facilitated that
00:42:17.860And with the hopes of, you know, getting bringing our culture back to one of forgiveness, one where, you know, hey, you posted something stupid a few years ago.
00:42:29.680We're going to let it slide and let it not make you lose your job and you can go about go about your day.
00:42:34.760And he said, I think it's a great idea.
00:44:57.700Well, listen, man, it's an interesting time, and I really enjoy what you do.
00:45:02.160So please keep it up, and we'll keep watching it.
00:45:04.140Uh, the last question we always ask is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we ought to be talking about?
00:45:11.880Ooh, um, well, I think, you know, sort of with the holidays coming up, I, I think it's so important to, um, really embrace the, uh, real life relationships that we have and to let the people who are important to, you know, how important they are.
00:45:29.720um and i don't think it happens enough and i i'm in a really great position you know being able to
00:45:37.800do comedy and i also get to have interactions with fans of mine and a little while back i had
00:45:44.740a fan of mine reach out on facebook and he you know said said to me something that i said pretty
00:45:52.260heavy he said you know i'm thinking about trying comedy because uh i think it would give my life
00:45:58.540some meaning to create. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, you hear that and it's like, Whoa,
00:46:03.960you know, what's going on? I asked him what, you know, what, you know, what's going on in his life.
00:46:07.580And he said, well, for the past year or so, he's been taking care of his, his grandmother who has
00:46:14.020dementia. Right. And I said to him, I said, man, you know, you know, what you, what you're doing
00:46:20.500for your grandmother is such an incredible thing. I mean, um, you know, what can be, you know,
00:46:25.660more life affirming and then taking care of those who need, who need the most. And, and he,
00:46:32.580he said, wow, you know, um, thank you for, for reminding me of that. I didn't think about that.
00:46:37.900And I was thinking like, here, here you have a, you know, a young man who's, you know, doing good
00:46:41.920in the world, who's been blinded to the good that he's doing. And he only needed was one person to
00:46:47.280remind him, Hey man, what you're doing is, is, is amazing. And yeah, you can do comedy too. And
00:46:52.760that could be a part of your life but what you're doing is very meaningful and can have a big impact
00:46:57.720on on people and i just you know i wish more people would uh uh would do that and embrace it
00:47:03.000because it can go a really long way well you said that with the holidays coming up this video will
00:47:08.080probably go out after there's always a holiday if you haven't done that you're a bad person but try
00:47:14.360and do it now i love it that you deliver that message when everyone's come back from christmas