Creed-Maxxing Conservative Media w/ Karl Dahl: Ep. 549

0:00Man in the life man, you like this man. You like the butterfly flattening wings, dig down in the forest, man it gonna cause a tree fall. Let it five thousand miles away man, you think nobody's seeing nobody. Man you see like you don't need money man, you don't need money, you don't need money, you don't need money, you don't need money, you don't need money, you don't need money, you got to like it, you feel like that man, that that's the more you like it man. You're like a dang little kid, man, you don't get it, no better man, that's the only way. The host of the J-Birden shows back, Carl Dahl returns to talk over a few recent events, some connected, some not. We start off on a little bit of a lighter note, but really we're talking about culture. Why can't conservatives make culture? And why despite the sort of engines of it, Hollywood, the mainstream press being so bad,

1:01is there seemingly no alternative? Or at least yet? I think you'll really appreciate what Carl and I have to say on it, he's talented guy, good writer, dear friend of the show. Before I turn you over to him, these episodes are sponsored. Axios remote fitness, coaching, Fox and Sun's coffee. I'm going to the gym in a little bit. I will be using an Axios program, and to this morning when I woke up. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Uh, that was gay, I'm going to cut that out. I drank Fox and Sun's coffee. You should too. Uh, if you want the episodes early and add free, give me money. Carl, I think that's exactly the way to describe these podcasts. What I am about to do to you. It's true. So I've prepared a number of things that you may not have heard of. And I figured, you know what? Let's go to the sort of less covered news.

2:01You know, everyone can get all wrapped around their axle about some woman who's killed her kids or whatever. You shouldn't do that. That's bad. But did you read about the guy from Pakistan that glued his dick shut to Cures and Contents? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Uh, dick shut to Cures and Contents? No, that's fascinating. It went about as well as you'd think. Yes. That sounds problematic to use the, the parlance of our times. Yeah, it turns out it's not, uh, it's not great. And, uh, according to doctors, he self-treated for two weeks, going after this, uh, unusual medical solution. Uh, any guesses on what happened? Did he die? Well, uh, no, somehow.

3:01But let me tell you, I'm not going to read this whole thing out. Uh, the cure was most certainly worse than the disease. Uh, not all of it. But he lost, uh, you know, two centimeters, uh, you know, uh, uh, and apparently they found it just and took the physician. They observed brittle fragments of superglue. Yeah, I got nothing. I really just read this. So he was, he was a leaky man. Instead of treating it, he was like, I'm just going to glue it shut. Yep. That's creating a child's balloon in, in like a, a fourth of July, lawn party situation. Yes. Uh, in his penis. Yes. And, uh, oh, sorry, I have my mistake.

4:03He's actually Iranian, which means that there's a non-zero chance that this story is, is fairly propaganda. That's true. That's just as far, uh, which I will say if we're going to get, uh, propaganda from our stronger salad, this is what I want. I don't want fake war crimes. Uh, I don't want, you know, supermodels dressing up in IDF uniforms. I want penis stories. Israel. Give them to me. Only the stories, folks. Not pictures, not videos. Look, we're not degenerates, Carl. But come on. I look, I get all my news. And this is less of a joke than, uh, perhaps it should be. Is from, uh, the New York Post. Really, the only news that's fit to print. So effectively, everything I get in my feed is animal news, uh, horrible mishaps. For instance, like a, a failed, uh, you know, sort of superglue application to your weiner.

5:05Like that. That's really what I'm interested in because like the discourse, the dialogue has never been worse. Like, I don't care about like whatever is still happening and I ran or why we're supposed to be mad at JD Vance for being an anti-Semite. All that stuff is boring. I want penis news. Someone clipped that. Now I have my own soundboard and I'm clipped farming for someone else. Did you see what I sent you this morning? Uh, on what platform giggling about some audio when I sent it to you? So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gave you a nice clip for that. For every time you talk about Jeremy boring. Jeez, man, that, that was tough. That was genuinely tough. Uh, I, these sort of reaction episodes are really fun. Uh, they're actually a surprising amount of work to make. I guess not surprising. Uh, but exposure to Gen X conservatism, man, it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst

6:13enemies between him and, uh, Shadis Kestinbaum. Yeah. To be fair, is this somewhere? It's so dark, man. And it's one of those things where it's like, you feel like you're clubbing baby seals because it's just so easy, but it is kind of fun, much like clubbing baby seals. And so I guess I'm just, I'm not, I'm not about it. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, above clubbing baby seals got it. I'm just determined to, uh, to implicate myself, Carl, the moment you get on this show. It's comedy gold. And, you know, what I, I texted you this morning saying, thank you for your takedowns of these, you know, excrucible, quote unquote people. Because I mean, it's just brutal. It's just brutal to have to see these clowns like do their thing. And unfortunately, like it's for a vanishingly small and shrinking audience.

7:15Uh, but for them to pretend and for them to lie that they're approaching this stuff in good faith, it's just completely laughable. Well, did you go through, so did you go through the sort of daily wire news from last year? No, I must, so specifically about their financial issues. Oh, yes, I did. Yeah, it was very funny. It was, it was, it was very, very funny. Yeah, so I, it's been a while. I think it's been roughly a year since it's come out. But obviously, you know, Jeremy Boring was sort of most famous as the co-founder of the daily wire, right? And he announced last year that he was stepping down. Now this was before a lot of the financial news came out and we'll get to that.

8:19But you may remember that at least part of his departure first stepping down and then actually leaving from his project, the pen dragon cycle. Have you heard of this, Carl? I'm familiar with it. Yes, that it hasn't been fairly disastrous. Yes. So it was as far as I understand, some sort of kind of legacy fantasy property, I assume a book series. I was not familiar with it, right? He buys the rights to it, makes an incredibly expensive TV show, despite filming it in Hungary with like an on-English speaking actors, like you shooting a porn or something. But it's a absolute, complete and unmitigated disaster, right? The number you hear thrown around is $50 million. Which, okay, compared to Game of Thrones isn't crazy money, but like that's a lot of money for TV, right? A lot of our favorite movies had a budget to tend to that size.

9:20So he ends up leaving. The company ends up sort of in disgrace, right? They're going through a bankruptcy, they're laying a bunch of people off. And he pops up as sort of discount Tucker Carlson running with a very specific line of reasoning, a very specific attack factor. Now sure, he's going after the kind of big figures, you know, Tucker, Nick Fuentes, all those guys. But it's a really interesting angle because a lot of it is at least nominally asking that question of what is the purpose of the right of the conservative movement, terms he uses interchangeably. And he defines that as basically, well, individualism and capitalism. The idea that you aren't responsible to anyone else, you don't owe anything to anyone else and you aren't owed anything. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, move wherever you got to move.

10:23And look to cut to the chase, that is sort of a... Martin Bailey, right? It's basically... Exactly, Carl, exactly. And so to your point about a declining audience, I do think it's interesting. How much the tenor in conservative media has switched towards attacking sort of us in ours at least obliquely, which, you know, to kind of quote Starship Troopers, it's afraid. It's sort of a point of hope if you see what I'm saying, Carl. I'm muted for some reason. Of course, right before I was about to speak. No, yeah, it is a point of hope. And, you know, the really important thing here is that this is them flailing, right? That no one cares. Like, they're this, they're this, Artifists that's held up with dollars, probably quite

11:26a few fewer dollars than they used to have through various institutions that were washing that stuff around. But like the tone is shifted and the attention and focus is shifted. And they're just blatantly telling you what they're doing at this point. And then just continuing to prop it up with this very like 90s fake conservatism, but stripped of all the stuff that would give it like the cultural legitimacy that would allow it to relate to like normal Americans, right? This is something that they've become very bad at and you know, flooding the zone and propping their stuff up with bots. Like, I was honestly surprised to tell you like 10 years ago, supposedly there were there were a significant number of like real people who were subscribing to like daily wire and watching Ben Shapiro. Like supposedly real people are telling us this online.

12:29Like I used to subscribe to this and I unsubscribed because they disgusted me and I'm like, I was shocked to hear even that because you know, I always assumed that it was just like Ben Shapiro's like editorial writing career, which was he was he was pushed and there was money involved to get him to in all these papers like when he was fresh out of college in the early arts. And he was just this, you know, what he's always been, which is this smarmy little insert slur of your choice here. And no one could this slimy little shot this custom bound. Yes. I've got others. I pulled a pet a page from Dawson's notes here with that one too. I got all kinds of sound effects, Carl. And I seemingly only bring them out when you're here.

13:31I'm glad you can bring it down to my level. So yeah. So it's it's it's not surprising and I and I feel like this is such promising, this is such a promising trend. And that's what I want to say to people out there. Like you should everyone should be seeing the good in this like the positive trend because you know, these people, they're not fooling anybody who isn't choosing to fool themselves at this point. And these are all people. Let's say, you know, from a recent electoral pattern in Kentucky, 55 and over, right? No, exactly. And I think that it's interesting you bring up the kind of anecdotal response. There was a definite period in time where I would hear about Ben Shapiro for his own sake.

14:31Right. Someone would be like, Oh, you know, whether it was on Facebook or just someone be like, Yeah, look at this. Look at this guy. He really destroyed that feminist. He got her. He showed that 18 year old girl. What for? And that's completely and totally gone. Now the only time I see these guys is basically when they're getting clowned on. And I think that there's another kind of broad trend we can identify within the conservative movement, which is when they're talking about something they're sort of psychologically preparing themselves to cuck on it. You know, like if you look at how they've sort of reacted to, you know, whether it's the feminism or the gay stuff, any of this, it's talk about it, complain about it, deal with it, make a deal with it is basically, you know, the sort of pattern. Uh, and I think that look, these guys are irritating and aggravating. But I think that Tevin Deanna's whole point that conservatism is a market, not a movement,

15:37is quite apt because to be honest, I don't think these guys have the courage of conviction to actually take a hit for it. You know, I think that to be honest, they're cowards. So a couple of other, I guess, stories that are worth bringing up. Uh, so obviously Dolly Parton's death was perhaps the most significant. You had others, Gloria Steinem, a woman who I have, shall we say, limited sympathy for. Yeah, she is being Kentucky fried in hell as we speak. Uh, that's going to get to sound effect. That's probably a bit rude. But I thought that the reaction to the death of Dolly Parton was interesting. Look, Dolly Parton is a famous woman, mostly composed of plastic. I'm not going to pretend that I have, you know, a huge emotional attachment to her. Jolyne might be the greatest song ever written. She's obviously a very talented performer.

16:39But what impressed me about her is, I think something that's fairly rare among, you know, very prominent celebrities, which is the care she had for her own people. And look, you know, her book program, or I think it was every kid under 18, and her home state was entitled to a free book a month. Like, yeah, sure, is that the most life-changing thing? But symbolically, right, and also kind of as a, as a directional indication, I think that that's a laudable thing, right? That is a thing that rich people should be encouraged to do. And when you look at the history of wealthy people in our nation or just in the West, more broadly, this sort of thing was very common. I go back to John Hancock. He personally funded a great deal of the American Revolution and lost quite a lot of money doing. You have basically everything clueless built in Rome.

17:40You know, any number of different opera houses. And look, Daly Parton was big into gay stuff. I think that's cringe. She was a woman. I think that's cringe. But that being said, I think we do have to recognize her as a genuinely magnanimous woman, if nothing else, Carl. Yeah, no, certainly. And, you know, I'll never forget that I saw it recently posted where it was some extrable, let's just say, New Yorker, whose family was from the pale of settlement, interviewing her and like using the term like Hilbilly and Hick. And this was in the 70s or early 80s. And the poise with which Daly Parton made her look like scum while being polite and charming

18:44went a long way towards respect. And it's like, like you said, you know, wow, she has friends who are gay and it's like, we should be nice to people. Like, wow, a woman thinks that we should be nice to people, you know, stop the press. Like this is kind of like you said, to be expected, why would you get upset about that? You know, why would you melt down about that? But yeah, like she also is kind of from a vanishing type of person in a lot of ways where she was intensely regional. Now, I'm not saying there aren't people from these areas. But our culture, as we can tell by Mr. Burden's accent and mine, the culture has this, has leveled largely in relation to the amount of media that we consume and people moving around and settling in different areas. Like, there's this leveling where she comes from, you know, to use atomicism, you know, you know, she lived historically.

19:44She grew up, you know, in a place that was intensely local and she cares about her people. And she would always talk about that and then show it. And, you know, I always had a lot of respect for her because of that and not just her singing talent, etc. So yeah, no, it's, you know, there's a lot of people who are on their way out just because of time and age. And we're going to see an awful lot of this. It's going to really intensify because, you know, our culture has been, you know, and I'm going to say for better or for worse, it just is, our culture was completely dominated by the boomers, you know, and in many ways still is, you know, in that things are, you know, oriented toward their taste because they're the largest generation in America and they have the most money. And, you know, so we're going to see an awful lot of that.

20:47And, you know, she's someone who I think normal people could respect, you know, regardless of any of these other things. Well, and you actually bring up something really interesting about the fact that we're sort of in this weird change over from a previous era of celebrity where for a long time, the A-listers were kind of eternal. Like, you know, how long has Al Pacino been Mr. Famer's famous actor man, right? Same thing with Demiro. And, sure, there have been more modern stars. I would argue many of those have been around for much longer than you think. When, you know, in the grand scheme of things, Chris Pratt is a relatively new star and, you know, his breakout role was 12 years ago, 11 years ago, plus or minus, right? And you have this huge backlog of, well, to be honest, famous boomers. Another one who recently died was at Tim Curry. He didn't, he recently passed as well. Honestly, great actor, right?

21:52Great character actor. I don't know anything about his politics, which is board of his credit. But point is, right, that's a man who has been, sure, less prominent in recent years, but it's remarkable how still relevant he was. And, yeah, sure, there are younger, you know, less established actors that you might see and might know. But that sort of widespread recognizableity is sort of age-gated. And I think another part of it, Carl, is that we have really moved out of any sort of unified pop culture into an era of just disintegration. For better or for worse, right? There's positive and negatives to that. But I think it's very hard to have more than just one or two people who are famous on the level of, you know, a Robert De Niro in current year. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of it is the, the result of the cultural shaping, being less organic.

22:55Then it used to be fairly organic in that, you know, of course, people are chosen and always have been and people would be promoted over others within, let's say, the film industry or just media in general. But generally, like a person could come and then they would be a vessel. And if they're like charismatic and good looking, you know, then they would have, they could have this great career quite easily. And then, you know, at some point, after the odds, you know, they really, really tried to gate who that was, right? And have it be, you know, your, you know, your black lesbian and a wheelchair, you know, which was what we would say 20 years ago. And now we would add other, you know, other colorful things, usually, you know, associated with the, with the flag with a butthole on it. And, you know, to keep it eyebrow. But to keep it high brow, Carl, we started this

24:00with 10 minutes of penis news. That's true. Lujad penis. That's true. So, um, which is notable. I mean, if you want to make sure it hits the news, I have more podcasts to fill. But anyway, yeah, so that they would, they would try to create these stars. And there's people that are still around, like getting movies who are in this class that are totally unappealing, like Zendaya, like, you know, it ultimately worked out, like she's a, she's a horrible Chani, but in, in the kind of the real logic of the doing universe and that final scene in the throne room, like that's so great. And you're like, and so you compare that to the old days, where it would be some great star that would have a, you know, that would have a career, like a normal career. But then there would be new people coming in. And, but none of these people are appealing. Like, um,

25:02what's her, I was going to say, Elliot Roger. What's her name? Elliot Page. Ellen Page. Yeah, the, the new Supreme gentlemen, welcome back. I mean, that's such a funny idea of an in-sale mass shooter being reincarnated. You know, after. Yeah. Because if you think about it, like, like, Tranny mass shooters are just in-sale shooters. Yeah. Yeah. But Ellen Page was complaining that she wasn't getting, um, yes, I'm going to continue doing it, people, uh, that she wasn't getting movie offers because, you know, even though the Odyssey was massive, and it's because of some, you know, some strange prejudice. Well, it's like, you're a five foot two woman. Who's a mew boy? Yeah. They're self. You look like, you look like Danny DeVito on ozempic. Like, there's, it's hard to cast you at a role.

26:05You know, and you're not even funny, like Danny DeVito. Like Danny DeVito, his comedy comes from being an OB-Freec. It was borrowed when he was 20. He looked like he was 50 when he was 20. So what is he doing? He's sort of a monkeless, yeah. He's like, I am going to be the funniest person in the room and just a genuinely, genuine force of nature of, of comedy. And, you know, instead, she is like, well, I'll become a man and get male privilege. And then she's like, oh, wait. Dude, so this is the, this is the connection, right? So we are watching this sort of Hollywood fail for a couple different reasons, right? One, you have this aging issue. And what's interesting is that in other areas of the film industry, we've seen this turnover a little bit earlier because to be honest, outside of nerds, no one recognizes even the most

27:07famous screenwriters, right? There's a few, maybe. And even then, you kind of have to be a nerd. So we saw this changeover happen earlier, five to 10 years, depending on who you ask, which is why if you're wondering why everything is such hot garbage, that's a big part of it. There's been a generational change over there. But nonetheless, it is failing, right? It's a dysfunctional market. Let's bring this back, Jeremy Boring. What did Jeremy Boring try to do? Well, he tried to do conservative Hollywood, right? We'll do a pro-Christian fantasy TV show. It's the the mega version of Game of Thrones. That's not how he described it. That's how I'm describing it. And it doesn't work, right? It fails. To be fair, because I follow him on Twitter, apparently it's just been added to Amazon Prime. So if you want to see it, I mean, I guess you can, for what that's worth. But that's sort of an interesting model, right?

28:08To say, well, Hollywood is failing. We'll make our own. All right, we'll lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. And Carl, as an American Protestant, you were no doubt familiar with this exact same thing. The idea of we'll make our own. This has existed in the American Protestant world for years. It might be kind of rude and kind of punching down, but I do think it would be really funny to make you do a review of courageous with me someday. Oh my lord. I've never seen it, but like I should. I got to take it in youth group to see it. I will counter your previous movie recommendation, which somehow, even with a penis gluing podcast, I determined your last movie recommendation was a little bit above my content limits. It'll counter that by making you watch a horrible amateur crime drama about a deeply Christian police officer in Georgia.

29:11Anyway, but nonetheless, or you see this same pattern of we'll do it, we'll copy what they did, but make it conservative. And there's this really sort of infamous picture that I think about all the time. Do you remember Gina Carano, who got canceled a while back? Yes. She was in the Mandalorian. Did she say something about gay people, Jews, or black people? I can't remember which one. I think it was gay black Jews. Okay. Sorry. I mean to have this taken away from me. I'm not enough of an adult that was soundboard. But regardless, she gets canceled, she goes over to daily wire studios. They put her in some movie. I don't even know what movie it was. To be honest, I never cared enough. But they did this red carpet. Again, kind of copying Hollywood. We'll make our own. And it's like the lamest thing in the world. It's the lamest thing in the world. And look, you're a creative from a certain perspective, you are doing it yourself.

30:16So what do you make of that? One, why are conservative so obsessed with copying failing liberal business models, failing liberal institutions in that way? And why are they so bad at it? So I think the key thing is that the people that are doing this aren't actual artists. And what they're doing is they're literally just copying. And they're the believer who is running around doing the legwork. And it's like we can do exactly that. But they don't have a grand vision. And the most important thing that you need to understand about creating things is that it needs to come from somewhere authentic to where you're letting it flow and you're passing on like a vision that you're given. It isn't like if you think that you can like chart and graph your way into creating a a, you know, a Christian version of anything and have it be good

31:22because like years because you're a good person or whatever or you hire the right team to make it happen. But if no one has like an authentic vision where it's coming from something, it's just going to be trash. And it's going to be a obvious copy and it's just going to be a low budget version of things. I'm going to say something slightly controversial here. Look at Creed. Creed was like decent musically with a talented singer. You know, and you can say whatever you want. But there was an there was an ironic fun to what they were doing which made them really popular at the time. But in 20 years or people going to care about Creed who weren't of a certain age to enjoy them like at that time, you know, that's a big question. And they're way better than a huge amount of other bands.

32:24Like there's genuinely good like Christian musicians who are making music and their Christians and that's informing them. But they're not making quote unquote Christian music in like the way that the like that South Park episode which accurately conveys like a certain percentage of the people doing that. They're like failed musicians and they go there for the money, you know. I'm going to really trigger about 30 people listening to this. I'm sorry, they do. They work good enough to be their own band. So they started doing the Christian conference circuit. I'm sorry. Anyway. And I think that that's a you're bringing up something exactly which is one. Why are you going about this artistic project? Right.

33:24Is it basically to immediately make money? Because obviously there's a lot of money and entertainment. Exactly. There's a lot of money running through Hollywood. But you see this actually in a lot of right-wing media. For example, this podcast which is because there is no real institutional support for right-wing culture, it has to be commercialized. For instance, if you're listening to this for free, you cheat bastard. You're getting slapped with apps. Now why is that? Well, to be honest is because I don't really have another choice. In order for this to sustain itself, well, that has to happen. And you see that same thing with kind of conservative media endeavors. That is very short term. And it's very much the thought process is exactly Hollywood sucks. So if we make it alternative, we could all make a lot of money. And there are two problems. There's one, anything especially that is creative in that way.

34:25Right? You spend a lot of time with that sort of long-form content in that way. If it's commercialized, it's just shit. I'm sorry. And look, again, people make a lot of money out of movies. But there's a meaningful difference between either kind of daily wire studios, grift. And something you see in a normal movie theater. You can tell the difference. You can tell that they're filming it in Hungary with actors that don't speak English. Right? You can tell that they're basically trying to get you to sign up. And that's true of any business I get it. Right? But you're already starting to see this with things like Netflix. Right? Whereas if they have moved from a growth model to trying to jam up their profitability, the product is suffered. Right? There was a time when Netflix producing something was maybe not prestige television, but generally signified a certain amount of quality. Right? The early seasons of Stranger Things, not my favorite show ever, but clearly someone put a lot of work into them. Queen's Gambit. Another example. Not a great movie. I don't like it.

35:26But it's a real move. Right? How's that for damning by faint praise? So I think that commercialization part is an aspect here. The other part where you're talking about how didactic so much of this is is another, I mean, that's another feature. And I think one of the best examples of someone sort of turning this on his head is actually the Will Stancell show. Because it's obviously a product of right wing internet culture. Sam Hyde, another great example. But it's not like they're sitting you down giving you the freedom tune style, argument against. And look, I have nothing against whoever that Patty who does freedom tune. He seems like a nice enough guy. But point is, that is very didactic. That's basically schoolhouse rock for autistic libertarians. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And that's what's really important here. There's a huge opportunity for the people who are financing this stuff,

36:28who aren't doing it for the reasons that like the Jeremy Boreings of the world are doing it. Who are not doing it in good faith for the reason they say they're doing it. They're creating this stuff to get your money one and to two, to direct your attention and influence your opinion to serve their preferred interests, which are not yours. But there's other people who are financing those things because they're seen as the only game in town, or that's just where the momentum is. And they seem right wing. Like there's a certain type of like very rich guy who can back something with $50 million, who's expecting a return on it, of course, which Jeremy Boreing is incapable of providing. But wants to back like real things.

37:30And so there's huge opportunity there. And that's something that we need to start, people in our milieu, who are actual artists and are creating things, need to start going after those and finding those people and getting the right connections. And sometimes that means toning it down slightly, but still keeping it dialed into get the message that you really want to get. So I think that and this is I can provide no details, but you can affirm the veracity of the statement. There are production companies sniffing around for the rights to books our friends have written. There are people who make culture right part of the existing industry who are looking for well, something they can't do anymore, which is well authenticity.

38:36Now, there's a couple reasons for that. One, the sort of shit testing that goes into ascending the cultural ladder towards winning a Pulitzer, towards winning a Newberry Book Award. That requires you to buy into a whole bunch of bullshit, right? And either you're not particularly insightful and you just believe all that bullshit, or you actually are, but you're just lying to yourself in which case there goes the authenticity. It sort of precludes anyone actually capable from rising up those ranks. So that's part of it, right? I think another one is that look, you know, if you are publishing a book on your own without the help of random house, without the help of Simon and Schuster, you actually care. You're doing it because you want to do it, not because you are immediately at least looking for a return. Like Carl, I'm not trying to get you to divulge financial information, but something tells me you probably could have made more money doing something else than writing

39:37faction with the Crusaders, right? If you broke down the hourly rate. Absolutely. The return is not great at this point in terms of time investment, but again, that's not the point, right? And the point is to not only communicate something, but also to be able to influence culture. And it takes time and ultimately, like the way I would put it is that it was worth it, regardless of the financial measure, for me at present, but it was worth it. And that's how we have to think about these things in a lot of ways. There's a certain point. One of the funniest stereotypes of the people from a certain

40:38now relocated now to a Mediterranean country. One might say a certain... Shabbos Kestinbaum? Yes. Sile of individual. There's this funny thing about them being cheap. And it's like, they will throw massive amounts of money at things that are associated with influence and growing their power. That isn't like cheapness. That isn't being cheap with money. It's being selective and there are situations in which there are expressions of personal preference, which appear to us as being cheap. But that's not really a thing. Money is power. And if you can get that same influence through art that you create or podcasts or whatever,

41:45that's a real thing. You can punch way above your weight class if you create something that's authentic and honest and that speaks to people. Because people want authenticity. People want honesty. People want to see things that have explanatory power that aren't just like lying to them. And that lying to them thing, I think, is kind of interesting. Morgoth did a great review. There was a Robin Hood movie that came out recently. I cannot remember the name of it. But Morgoth had a great response to it. You could find it on substack and maybe on YouTube. I'm not sure if it's a paid one or not. But point is, right? He's talking about this movie and he said it was sort of his least favorite movie you'd ever seen. Because, Carl, if you could

42:45imagine, you know, what is a 2026 version of the Robin Hood story like? You could guess. He's old and bitter. Robin Hood's merry men were actually a bunch of, you know, raping, murdering psychopaths. And now he's just waiting to die. It sort of, you know, Luke Skywalker in the sequel trilogy all over again. Little John Quavius. Yeah, exactly, right? It's this is so you have failed. Oh, white man. You are bad. You need to apologize. And he was specifically talking about this attitude that we're too cynical for straight up and down sort of, I guess you would say, non-critical heroes anymore. The kind of 1940 Superman, you know, a guy in tights who stands for truth justice in the American way. And okay, maybe there's something to that. I get it. You know, tastes have changed. Although I argue

43:49they haven't changed all that much. If you look at what, you know, properties, what, you know, genre's affiction actually are growing. But his whole point, and I think this is is an apt one, is look, you know, you can have a character like that. But they need to be telling you something true. They need to be giving you something because otherwise it's just pure nihilism. Carl, have you seen, I don't know if there's no reason you should have. Have you seen the A24 film Green Night? No, I think I watched the first like minute of it and was like, yeah, I'm not going to watch this. Yeah, fair. It's my wife and I watched it when it, not too long after it came out at a kind of cool art theater and Richmond birds for those who are wondering, kind of this kind of crumbling art nouveau building creepy and a cool way. But point is we watched it and genuinely, I hate this film for any number of reasons. And my wife ended up rewatching it. She had a girl

44:54for anyone to watch it. And so I'm kind of being reminded of this film that she's talking about it. And it is legitimately the most subversive film ever. It's a retelling of Sir Goaine and the Green Night. You know, this kind of archetypal story of honor and commitment. And in this one, one, Goaine has been cast as a, as a pejite. So there's that, right? In this kind of otherwise, you know, very non-diverse English setting. But he is just the most passive cowardly man in the world. He refuses every quest set before him. Anytime someone comes to him for help, he won't do it. Very Indian. And the moment where he returns to the Green Night, this sort of mystical creature that he cuts his head off at the very beginning. And part of this deal that sets up this whole plot

45:54from the original story is that in this Green Night comes in and he makes a deal with Sir Goaine, which is you get to hit me with a sword. But in a year, I get to hit you. So Goaine, of course, says, all right, chops his head off. And then the magical night picks his head up the floor and says, well, guess what? In a year, I'm going to kill you. So, you know, the sort of ethical focus of the first one is, well, do you go to your do? Right? Do you follow Goaine on your promise? Of course, he does. You spend. Yep. Well, in this one, the same broad strokes, although really the whole time he is refusing to resist temptation. He gets one of the, in this is a phrase I never thought I'd say, one of the grossest on-screen hand jobs I've ever seen. It's quite a degenerate film. But at the end, that's quite a signifier. Yeah, believe me. It's exactly what you

46:56think. But at the end, what does he do? Well, he goes and meets the green night. And he has this moment of waiver when he either go leave or go through with it. And he has this sort of premonition where he sees what he would be. And he would go back. He would be the, you know, the talk of the town, King Arthur would select him as his successor. He would rule the kingdom, but it would all be for not. It would all turn to dust. He would eventually be killed by barbarians. Nothing actually matters. And so he basically goes through with it. He voluntarily lets the green night kill him. And he does die in this one because it would just be too much, just too much bother. And that's the problem with that sort of narcissism, right? The narcissism of, you know, either this film or the kind of version of Robin Hood that name I can't mention is that it's just pointless. If everything is this dark, if everything is this dim, if there is no point to it all, just kill yourself and stop making movies. And so I think that there is an appetite for life affirming generative culture.

48:03You're seeing that. You're seeing that as sort of a leading indicator that money is coming into, you know, hour and adjacent spaces for cultural output. And that cultural output doesn't need to be courageous. It doesn't need to be fireproof. It doesn't need to be daily wire studios. And in fact, that stuff is just as bad if not worse. So there's a huge opening car. Yeah, there's a huge opening. And I agree with you, Mr. Burton. My Christian ethics prohibit me from restating your declaration as to what these people should do, but I agree with you. Like that's what that's literally what the message is in that kind of stuff. It's like why bother, just give up or just like crawl back into your Goon cave, you know, like a 57-year-old, you know, Gen X edgy Gen Xer who still wears t-shirts to work and, you know, has a bad attitude and, you know,

49:05the classic like Pacific Northwest game developer look that's like a suit jacket over a graphic I will say anything that'll, you know, debase people like me as long as I get to keep my, you know, my collectibles and my wall of fun copop, you know, trash, you know, and again, it's like it's so not even morally bankrupt, but spiritually bankrupt really. And that's why I feel so positive about the future is because the vibes, you know, the vibes shift is one way to put it. I prefer the use of preference cascade because the preference cascade drives the vibes shift, right? People are sick of it. And people aren't supporting these things, you know, they're not doing very well. Like if you look at the dollars for the Odyssey, like it's a

50:06quote-unquote did well, but, you know, that's a, that's a anomalous example. Like the rest of the media stuff, they're just losing money like crazy unless it happens to like look really good or, you know, a lot of it is that, you know, the international audiences love trash. But what's really profitable are these small films that are authentic that people get, you know, literally a couple million dollars for like the backrooms movie. And then they just like a serious group of people sits down and works really hard to make these things. And they make great art that is culturally relevant, you know, whether or not everyone loves it, like it doesn't matter. You're making it for a specific audience. Kind of like you were talking about before is that these, we now have these niche audiences that the days of like everyone thinking of a specific song

51:11when they think of like summer 1995 or something like that, those days are gone. And so, you know, there's a huge opportunity there for people, for people to fill. And it's just, it's literally, there's just a series of crowns lying in the gutter in all aspects of our culture and society. It's an interesting dynamic because you see the sort of broadly correct inclination from kind of the conservative mind, which is like, hey, the culture engine is broken. And they apply their kind of basic free market economics, which is like, oh, we'll propose Pepsi to Coke. And the problem is, ultimately, they really aren't that different from the progressives function.

52:11They're not different enough to be distinct and they're a lot less talented. So what you basically get is, do you remember that? I think it was Lady Ballers was another one, you know, very, very courageous movie about, you know, men and women's sports. And as far as I can tell, it was basically just kind of a low effort remake of Dodgeball. And really, that's what it is. Is that they aren't in communication with anything transcendent, with any idea outside of, I hate lib tarts. And I don't even hate them dramatically enough, you know, or all that drastically. And so you get this sort of just rehash, you know, where it's sort of like, it reminds me of those like mid 2000s parody movies, you know, scary movie or whatever. Yeah, where it's this kind of like low effort flip, where it's like, oh, hey, we have our own version of that. You know, we tried to be Pepsi, we ended up as Dr. Perky,

53:15right? As Dr. Thunder, whatever the like grocery store brand soda. And you're sure, you know, they have something, I'll give them that. But it's really no surprise that these people are failing, these people are, you know, completely and totally ineffectual. Because again, I think that that that connection to the transcendent and that doesn't even necessarily have to be something super, I don't know, chin stroking, something super philosophical. Like I think a big part of the reason that, you know, pulp entertainment has enjoyed a huge resurgence, whether that's, you know, lovecraft or, you know, more cock or any one of these things is because in a way they're, they're sort of adivistic. They are sort of simple. They are sort of archetypal. And they connect to something that sure, you know, may not be a perfect reflection of like evolution, politics or something, whatever you're kind of high brow philosophy of choices. But it is human in a way that, you know, so much of this modern product is, it's an expression of those things.

54:20Or an illustration of the, the ideas behind them or the, the, you know, the feeling that it comes from, right? Because that's really important. Like a feeling is incredibly important to these things far more than ideas, frankly, that express it better than, you know, to the vast majority of people than, you know, 150 pages of charts and graphs. Like that, it's incredibly important for to understand this. Like the big brains, like Mr. Bird and Mr. Kenyones, you know, and Mr. 777, read the, read the theory. Read the, I almost wanted to say ideology, but you don't really use ideology. Ideology is a post-hoc rationalization for what you're doing. And, and then you have to

55:26like distill it. You have to explain it for people. And then, and then what people then do is they go out and they distill it and express the feeling that they have associated with those things. That's human. And that's the thing about art that, you know, the, the theory cells don't get. And that's another thing like that these copies don't capture. They don't capture a feeling like an authentic humor. Like, like you said, for example, those parody movies from the 90s, that was literally like, we have 10 million dollars. And so we're going to make, we're going to, we're going to poop out some worthless trash that, you know, with, we can get enough money to do backing and like basically have a career and just cranking out trash. So I will be fair, some of them are really funny. Like, a good one is like hot shots and hot shots part due. Like those are hilarious. They're trash,

56:27but they're hilarious. And, but there's, there's like a feeling there. Like it has to be genuinely funny. Otherwise, it's just like you said, it's just a carbon copy. And like Jeremy Boring, who, again, you'll notice that there's, there's a section of his, of his Wikipedia that is lacking. You know, it's, it's a two-word label that people generally consult to, to get an idea of this person that, that happens to be missing. And, and people who portray themselves in certain ways are often, you know, in this, the shroud of mystique in that fashion. But people like that, they can only just do a copy of a copy and try to like shoehorn in their ideas and it will always fall on its face. Which is, of course, the deep irony of literally making your media career into the Tucker Carlson

57:31we have at home. Yes, exactly. And just like, you know, they, they hate liberal Hollywood and they end up making a worse version that is marred by it, right? It's sort of the film negative version. Well, he's done the same thing with Tucker. And look, okay, sure, there's only so many ways to do an interview show. I get that. But at the same time, it's very, very clear what's going on there. That someone in some smoky boardroom said, we need our own. We need our version of that. And so the fact that this guy is the same thing. Right. The fact that this guy effectively started his career by making in Neocon Buzzfeed pivoted into the Game of Thrones we have at home. And then now is living as Kirkland's best Tucker Carlson. It's sort of like, what, what are you? You know, are you, what do you do? Do you, do you simply just find things and make a worse version of it? Like we, we have countries for that. That's what China is for. Like we don't need your help.

58:36You know, it's, and it's funny because in the things you were playing, he was complaining about podcasters. He was using podcasters like as an appellation, right? Like, fair. Isn't that what you're doing? Like how are you not a podcaster? And you can tell that the signals went out from conservative HQ, uh, Intelliv to basically say like, oh, your new biggest enemy is the podcaster. And look, we all know, you know, you can, you can attack the podcaster. You know, you can, you can call them out and call them names and roll off his back. You know, like, like water off a duck's back. But name him the podcaster and watch how he recoils in fear. You know, it's like paraphrase of something. Like I said, I think about podcasters. But nonetheless, it's so clearly artificial. And watching it be inserted into this sort of new online access of evil is very funny.

59:38Like I'm not sure if you've heard Mark Levin talk about this. Reyes, this turn of phrase, that he, he pulls out all the time, which is, uh, uh, Jew haters anti-Semites islamicists and podcasters. Yeah. And you know, maybe there's some overlap between those. I think that's what he's implying. Maybe you know, I mean the same thing in a different way. But come on. It is funny that now podcasters are on a similar level of threat as like, I don't know, Hezbollah, you know, or, or the I at all. You know, people actually, you know, taking the mic and talking in a way that relates to people is a bigger danger to them than, you know, an RPG 7V, you know, crashing into their Marcava and giving us like, you know, it just like, it genuinely is. And the, but the funniest part of it is that like, it's this novelty to him because he's old. He's like, these podcasters,

1:00:43like, it's like a slur. And, and it's like, okay, so because you have the financial backing of a, you know, ethno state, your ethno state, and you're in media like you aren't a podcaster. Like the joke is like the podcast was just like a regular person could record these things or like, you know, there's podcasts from all these like Hollywood stars that are paid for by these big media companies, you know, very few people actually listen to them, you know, except for Black people. But, um, but, you know, like so Mark live in is complaining about podcasters, but it's just a different form of media. Like it's just using the internet instead of like radio. Well, and to that point, the comparison to radio is apt because it's like, well, as opposed to what?

1:01:46Like who listens to shortwave radio? I think the last time I did was 10 years ago because I had a car with broken stereo. And then I just listened to like classical music and bluegrass on NPR. That was it. Been exposed to it recently and it's, it's worse than ever. And they do this big thing. This is the tell they do this big thing where they're like radio is free. I mean, sure, sure, but, you know, so is podcaster. Yeah, exactly. It's so bad. Well, and here's the thing. Here's what really bothers me about conservatives. I say that as if that's one definable trait and not just, you know, all of it. But these people love to talk about the free market. So for instance, you know, Hollywood's offering woke slop will offer nonwoke slop. Therefore, we will take over will be the new Hollywood. And what they'll say to people like you

1:02:48and I, Carl is build your own. Why don't you build your own internet? Why don't you build your own? Okay. And they apply this exact same argument to the marketplace of ideas works the same way. The idea is well, if you can convince enough people to take your ideas, then you deserve to win. You did it. You won the game. Until they start losing. Until they start actually having to compete until their monopsity, whatever you want to call it, right? That is Tom Woods would say three by five index card allow opinions until that becomes a non viable product. And then it's these people are a threat. Then that that wonderful conceit of the marketplace of ideas goes out the window. And what do they do? They they shriek. They wine. They kvetch whatever. All of these principles are secondary to their real goals, which are money and foreign allegiance. And let's be honest,

1:03:50those are sort of one in the same. Yeah. It's it's so transparent. It's so transparent. You make your own and then they're like, Oh, no, you're not allowed to have that or, you know, Oh, well, you need to let us in. You need to let us move into your new thing that you created because you didn't like the old one. It's it's it's over. And you know, it just takes time to play out. But it's over. No one takes them seriously anymore. And they they just like like you I encourage everyone to listen to Mr. Burton's show on Jeremy boring because you just beautifully take down like all the contradictions inherent into his framing. And and it's so easy to do like they're just deligit, deligitimized. You know, Shabbos Kestimbom. It's all. Well, Carl, thank you for the kind

1:04:51words. And you know what? I think it actually might be kind of fun. Both to kind of continue. We've had a number of these conversations on, you know, the nature of art and the nature of media. And I think it might be kind of interesting to have you back on to go through. And now maybe I won't pick courageous. I'll find some, you know, hideous example of kind of conservative culture, quote unquote, and make you watch it. Uh, they're look, there's some heaters in there. In this house, we believe Bible man is the greatest superhero of the last 30 years. Oh, wait, we're seeing the lost behind any of the lost behinds. Um, by the way, do you know that there's a whole like cottage industry of Mormon science fiction? Yeah. Like not that worsen Scott card, but like the real cookie stuff. Yes, yes. Dude, it's wild. It is so much fun. It is. Maybe not suitable for a movie episode of this show. But if you're at home, listen, or just go on Amazon and just you can find it.

1:05:55There are elaborate series about like, you know, white people in Eden, which is America, like riding dinosaurs and fighting demons. It's going to be honest. A lot of fun. Anyway, Carl, by book, we've talked about his book. I like his book. I can be honest, man, I think I've lent out my last copy of it, which should be an endorsement. I'm literally giving it to people because of how much I like it. That'll be linked. Your sub stack and your Twitter. Is there anything I'm missing, man? No, there's also more merch. So I have, I have my own Marikha DeRia that's linked to via my sub stack and my ex account. But I also just went into a partnership with the WBS apparel guys who made some cool, cool gear. So check that out. Thanks, Carl. It's great talking to you. Never at home. Keep your head up. Well, I can't last forever. Good night.