The Cringe Obsession Needs to Stop.

0:00College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oho, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. Holiday Rush? Skip the mall traffic and shop online with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores like eBay, Fanatics, Walmart, Sephora, Target and TikTok shop. And choose to pay now or pay later at checkout. Plus pay in four with no interest and no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Pay in four subject to approval. Learn more at PayPal.com slash pay in four. PayPal Incorporated NMLS 910457.

1:00I'm just kind of tired of people ripping on anyone who has like some level of notoriety. Anybody calling out the cringe and all of that stuff? I don't think they realized if they were on camera in front of a microphone. It's gonna go bad. We've been stuck in this cringeyer for quite a while. I don't see us coming out of it any time soon. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? I don't know. You can be put on display in Judge Tarshley by more people in real time. Right now, then could even be fathomable to somebody 50 years ago.

2:09Hey, welcome to the create unknown the home of make something mean something I am cringe Kevin Lieber and with me as always is Matthew table. Yeah, yeah, I've got some cringe in me too. Not a lot. I hope not a lot, but a little bit more than average. That's what I'm saying like 55 55% tile cringe. That's where I think I put myself. Where do you rank yourself on the cringe? Percentiles. I mean, how are we governing this is it like based upon you know cringe levels when we were younger? Is it based upon today's cringe levels? You know, that's really the topic at hand because I think that the the markers for what is and isn't cringe. I've gotten a direct dramatically out of balance. It's a something that I've thought about for a while. I've seen people talk about it here and there.

3:14But I saw a tweet come up today that was kind of the catalyst for finally talking about cringe this this this poster named city of no end says that cringe has become a slur for a sensory designed to kill joy and talent starting when we're children adults need to exercise it just like any other school or a form control word which I'm sorry, but school marm control word is incredible. That's really good. I like that a lot. Do you think that this is an accurate statement? Is cringe being used to kill joy and talent? It's 100% 100% cringe used to used to kind of mean something and it had a valuable a valuable like social label right or or you know with a particular action or whatever something somebody said it had a use.

4:27It doesn't it doesn't because when I see cringe now it's generally like I don't I don't like that person. I don't like the thing they like it's a judgment it's a value judgment instead of describing a social phenomenon. And you know it's usually deployed in a way that makes me hate the person saying it's cringe a lot more than the supposedly cringe person. Yeah, I think that the fear is so so my fear at least as someone who has you know a podcast called the create a known I'm pretty interested in people's creativity and know their ideas sort of fulfilling their potential of what makes them unique right like that that's pretty high on my level of interests. And without a doubt the fear of being labeled cringe is certainly an impediment to taking risks as an artist as a creative as a content creator as an athlete as really doing anything I think at this point.

5:40It's like someone is going to call me cringe because I like this music or I like this video game or I do anything I breathe a weird way I guess I don't know last last football season 2025 season I remember somebody I think a punter maybe a punter a place kicker may have been special teams I can't remember the precise role. But this guy ran off the field at at like after the plays happen that he was in he ran off the field to the sideline at like close to top speed right everybody else is jogging and whatever and he got made fun of for doing that running too fast that because he was like dead serious you know in this happened in baseball a long time ago to where there were a couple people in the transition of. You know hard knows ball player to cool ball player where there were guys who when they hit a home run they made a b line around the basis you know they didn't they didn't go at you know even a trot that's a very recent thing when Ted Williams not to be confused with the author Ted Williams.

6:59When Ted Williams hit a home run you know he's dipped around the bases and got back in the dugout. Even when he hit his final home run which John updike wrote about in the October 22nd 1960 issue of the New Yorker he got in the dugout and stayed there even though Fenway Park was was going bananas for him and wanted him to come out and do a hat tip and all that it was his last at bat for the red socks and he had a home run in it. And this you know this brought the line Godstone answer letters from updike but such was you know the 60 as a good line. It's what makes it such a fantastic piece but anyway you know people used to just be like yeah I hit a home run Barry Sanders got a. Go back to football this was in the documentary by by Barry did you watch that no I haven't seen it I did like Barry Sanders as a kid though me too and it's a good documentary that basically just like why did why did he stop playing when he did see I've such a short career whatever and Jeff Daniels is a huge lion's fan the actor Jeff Daniels and a.

8:21He in this interview saying you know I like that Barry Sanders would square touchdown and it was you know I remember Jeff Daniels saying it's that saying act like you've been there before. Because Barry Sanders would square the touchdown hand the ball to the referee and you know run back to the sideline and that was it he wasn't doing the Icky shuffle. He wasn't doing a fortnight dance he wasn't pulling a sharpie out of his sock and autographing the football oh he was serious about it and the last few people to be like that in any sports or like this guy now who does the be line to the sideline after his. Kick get hate for it because it's see that that sort of professionalism is seen as cringes sorry to go on this tangent but like 10 different things popped into my head about it where it used to be so normal and that used to be the the sort of pinnacle of behavior that you would execute something in a serious way and and be somewhat dispassion about it.

9:36And now that has become something to make fun of. Yeah we see this and so you know obviously since I've been writing and thinking of stories and reading a lot of fiction it's been on my mind and you know I went to school for film so like you know I like movies in as a concept but I have largely stopped liking movies for many years. Because of the fact that so much of the writing is afraid of sincerity it's afraid of being French it's it's it's it's afraid of being genuine. And that it's almost like a horseshoe theory thing where it like comes back around then to become cringe in my opinion like so much of the writing that's like self referential and deprecating and you know constantly undercutting itself with jokes rather than you know resting on an actual genuine moment.

10:44Is cringe to me like in the in the effort to avoid being cringe it then swings back to being cringe in my opinion and we've been stuck in this cringe era for quite a while and I don't really see. I don't see us coming out of it anytime soon I like is there any light at the end of the tunnel I don't know it doesn't seem like it. So I think now we we take a step back and and talk about what cringe is because I think that's what that's what really matters with what you're describing and shows what has changed over time. Yeah so traditionally the idea of cringe was that you know you are feeling secondhand embarrassment like intense embarrassment for someone else's behavior.

11:46You know what when before we started recording we were talking about the office we were talking about Michael Scott and yeah. More importantly David Brent which is right you know Ricky Jervais is original cringe character for the British office and you and I were talking about how. David Brent is by far the most cringe like the embodiment of cringe I think of all time as far as like fictional characters. Michael Scott was a much softer version of that what what are you laughing at serically about. The the British office is so loaded with just there's nothing nearly as good in terms of presenting cringe you know Michael Scott is a lovable guy he really is if he was your neighbor you wouldn't mind if you worked in the office well you'd probably mind a lot but like you wouldn't.

12:51Michael Scott so this is actually part of the development of this is this is why the office did not the American office didn't get canceled is because they actually changed Michael Scott I don't know if you know the lower here. But in the beginning they tried to carbon copy David Brent and the American audiences hated him so much that they hated the show. And the response to that so that the show didn't get canceled was that they dramatically softened and made Michael Scott sympathetic so that he had some qualities that like the American audience would find somewhat endearing rather than being the like most horrendously like making your skin crawl in your spine tingle cringe character of all time like Ricky Jervais is David Brent. And the most perfectly low some character and television history. That's my that's my statement is that he is the most low some character in television history and when when you do have an emotional reaction to David Brent.

14:01Definitely situations where you feel bad for the guy is not malicious though I mean like loads some is like a really heavy word to use for someone who's not malicious is just evil he's not malicious horrible to be around. That's what to me that's what makes him so perfectly low some is that he achieves what a terrible person would achieve but he does it without even trying he's not even meaning to. If if he were an evil person what would be different about what he does nothing nothing in the fact that he's not evil and still achieves that same result is what makes it incredible. But yeah you never you never like find him endearing at all occasionally you feel really bad for the guy you feel really sad for him yes but you never you're never on his side. You're just not you know that's kind of incredible but like the little tiny details of cringe so this is in the movie where he goes on his his his musician tour his bus tour of like an eight mile radius.

15:16He goes to get a tattoo do you remember this and no I saw when it first came out I don't remember the movie at all though. Yeah he he winds up with a tattoo that just as Burke be our B.E.R.K. and he's from I'm trying to think I'll see this. Burke Sheer Hunt in the UK and so he's getting like his town tattoo whatever I guess it hurt so bad he had to quit so it was just as Burke well Burke is Cockney slang and you know that the rhyming slang the way that works. Do you know I'm talking about no what's an example of this John Cheetle did it really well in oceans 11. If if you remember this I'm trying to think of an example that that you know the the word that you're trying to express you express it with some kind of rhyming unrelated word.

16:23Okay so if you say like I ask you what you know if it's going to rain tomorrow and you say well I don't have a Scooby that's you saying I don't have a clue because Scooby do rhymes with clue. Okay okay and so you get this huge lexicon of slang of words that rhyme with the intended word but have nothing to do with them. Okay okay yeah and one of those is Burke being short for Berkshire Hunt but hunt rhymes with a C word I don't want on video so if I say yeah he's a Burke that's it so he intends to get this Berkshire Hunt tattoo on his arm it hurts so bad he has to stop at Burke and then David Brent has Cockney slang for the C word tattooed on his arm.

17:25That is such a fantastic fringe moment. Yeah these things another one I thought of is somebody somebody telling porkeys. They're telling porkeys. Pork pie rhymes with lie so you know if he if he's a Fibre he's a guy who tells a lot of porkeys. Yeah so it takes a long time to get the I mean they're not super into it oh we've got some apples and pairs rhymes with stairs so apples equal stairs yeah exactly. It's just a thing and anyway he has seemingly no idea of how cringey his Burke tattoo is. There's nothing quite that bad in in the American office you know so the level of cringe that David Brent brings to the table is.

18:33I don't see how it's ever going to be topped because it's effortless cringe and topping it would require it would be like to self aware. But what's interesting is that it was too cringey for America right yeah like like American audiences could not handle how cringey it was and they rejected it to the point where they had to they had to take it down like 12 notches in order to get to Michael Scott who does in the thing but who does embarrassing things but it is is it even things yeah yeah he does a bunch of cringey things. Yeah but it's not to the point where you're like I don't know physically uncomfortable with it anyway there was a you know there was a time where. Watching somebody be cringe was the most popular thing like the British office was wickedly popular and then the American office was absolute sensation.

19:34You know one of the first shows to oh not just the Christopher guest the Christmas guest style yeah a mighty wind was kind of one of spinal tap all of those. That's right those that's the list yep they were awesome they're very funny but yeah those and that's in the past now now like everything is cringe and one of the things I wanted to mention that I think has changed about our relationship to cringe has to do with our phones it just has to do with the fact that like people. Can be recorded at all times doing things and then potentially be put on blast for it and things that aren't even remotely cringes just like totally normal behavior I wish this is so annoying because I can't remember what the example is here but it was like literally somebody just waiting in line for something and someone took a photo.

20:46And then someone took a photo of them and made a post about you know basically look at this guy can you believe this guy making fun of them yeah you know unbeknownst to the guy the guy is just waiting in line and someone else is you know voyeuristically putting him on blast for the entire world to see and the guy wasn't even doing anything weird. I don't remember the exact reason why this other guy even thought to be like ha ha check this out but a lot of the replies were like what are we doing here like this guy's not even doing anything like this is where we're at now we're just like a guy being a dude standing in line for a movie or whatever it is hot get hot dog is now like this subject of ridicule for no reason but that's a thing. College football is back so Hilton called me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality need a room to match your lucky number we got you want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey.

21:53Oh that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition even a marching band wake up call it 55 and 55 seconds hit it. When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day it matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. Do you remember the kid. Yodeling in the back of a tractor supply. The kid I thought it was in Walmart is that a different yodeling am I thinking of a line dancing kid. He's dressed sort of like line dancing and he's got you know the sort of botanist that was trying to supply okay well regardless I remember the yodeling kids. Yeah you know that was funny to people because it was like what is happening here like this is just he's the way he's dressed and he's in a store just yodeling in the aisle awkwardly seemingly awkwardly as somebody records him. That was one of those like this is just so cringe it's entertaining things.

22:54But there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. It wasn't he wasn't misbehaving he didn't think he was didn't present as if he was the coolest kid in the world he wasn't trying to impress anybody he was just for whatever reason. Yodeling in the back of a redneck Walmart just what tractor spy is. Should that have been cringe. I don't think so it's entertaining there's no question that you can look that and be like Jesus I've never seen anything like that in my life. But it's not it's not cringe you know cringe is to pull this into the YouTube world. Colleen Ballinger. What was that her name Miranda sings. Right right right yeah Miranda as a character.

23:55Was 100% cringe because she thought she was an amazing singer she was not she thought she was absolutely beautiful she was a mess with the makeup and all of them. So this mismatch between the self perception and the actual perception. And that generates a judgment from other people that are just like oh no oh no that's cringe. You know so. Now it's like look at that loser waiting in line that's cringe no it's not you're just an asshole. That's exactly right. You know the key and peel the key and peel sketch where there's the the gay guy in the office who has like weener lally pops and is like making sexual innuendo's all of this stuff. Did you see have you ever seen this no no I've seen that. And this is seemingly straight laced coworker is just trying to do his cubicle job.

25:01And and this guy is is extremely over the top flamboyant in all ways and making a big spectacle of a sexuality whatever. And he he accuses the straight laced guy at the end of being a homophob. And you know you you got to watch the sketch to get why he's not. But it ends with the guy saying like you know like I'm not being persecuted I'm just an asshole. You know and it's that same sort of thing where most of the time when I see you know cringy stuff. No like you're the jerk for pointing it out. So is that how we got here. I mean I don't see any other path. You know did we get here because people have been incentivized to point the finger at cringe to say hey look at this cringy thing. Wow look at all the engagement that I have on my post pointing and laughing at something that's cringy.

26:03I think that's it right where it's become I get value out of expressing my disapproval in showing what I like and what I don't like. What my judgments are that's the that's the the impetus now as opposed to like excuse me you know it used to be like politicians used to do. Gaffes like this all the time they were the primary generators of cringe in the world because they were like the few people who had cameras on them all the time. And they weren't trained to deal with it and experienced in dealing with it the way like actors were right. So actors had very few cringe moments when they did it was big but they had very few politicians who are overwhelmingly doofuses in real life generated cringy gaffes constantly constantly. And that's where you know the primary source was you know eventually they got better at that right and you get fewer of them.

27:09If you remember Hillary Clinton I think it was just a journal or truth quote that she was reading she put on she tried to put on this accent that was like elderly American black woman to read this to recite this poetry line. Do you remember this so yeah she did like an accent yeah so the line is is I think it's from a speech actually and the line begins I ain't no ways tired. You know she was very old right and so she was saying like I'm continuing to essentially you know fight for the rights of my people even though I'm you know 85. No she's expressing is when Hillary Clinton does it she has this terrible accent that's like I ain't no ways tired and it's it's so cringy this was like 2015 2016. It was serious yikes and it should have been like legendary cringe that everybody knew about but the people who liked her well if if the game now is the value of your disapproval well you're not going to get any value disapproving of the person who's on your side.

28:36You know and so there wasn't that much of that there was a lot coming from the right because it was a great like Hillary Clinton is punching bag moment. But since that was processed as like here's your judgment of the situation not pointing out the cringe well it's expected from the enemy side. You know it works this way with Donald Trump to he's a probably the best surviving cringe generator of the human race with some of the things that he doesn't say and says. Whether you point that out or whether you care about it depends on whether you like him or not. But if we're being objective about it I know like three times a week there's a video of him doing something hilariously cringe worthy and not caring. I have a side bar that's that's that's tangential to this topic that I've been thinking about lately I have not mentioned this to you so I'm interested in what you think about it.

29:47It seems to me that almost anyone who like has a has a podcast or is just like continually talking let's just put it that way someone who is like continually talking is seen as an idiot. And hated in my opinion and I feel as though it's like do you really hate that person and think that they're an idiot or are you just sick of seeing and hearing from them. I don't know if I'm articulating that well enough that the distinction would be like if you were in their shoes if you were talking as much as they talk. Would would you sound any smarter. Or would everyone think that you were an idiot as well or perhaps even stupider than the person you're thinking is the stupidest person alive. It's just that no one hears from you very much.

30:49Like do you have any idea what I'm trying to say I do and I had lots of sympathy for the guys who made mistakes. We're really I you know I'm I'm stumbling because I'm wondering how many people listening to this even remember the recent stuff. Like when I bring up Don I miss do you remember Don I miss getting in trouble. Yes, I do remember that I will don't think I will ever forget that that was a very big deal. That was a really big deal. Don I miss raised oh I want to say something like $45 million for children's hospitals over his career. I had no idea you had no idea he was shockingly successful at at fundraising annually for I don't know if it was St. Jude's but the same sort of thing. Right tens of millions of dollars he was amazing amazing and this guy talked four hours a day it's 20 hours a week every week of his adult life pretty much.

31:54And then he said something he regretted and the other people thought was inappropriate. Well how long can you think which it was. Oh, whatever you know my I'm just saying it wasn't like you could take it that way it's like it was not good. It was what he said was was gross and ridiculous. Well sure you know what I the way I'm thinking about it is you put anybody on the air for literally 1,000 hours a year year after year. What's going to happen. Are you going to say something Don I'm a style that's a liner to that erases your 50 million dollars of charity or are you just going to sound like a moron 18 out of the 20 hours a week. And a lot of sports people this is how they have careers like like Colin coward people process him this way that he says so many stupid skip bail us so many stupid things.

32:58Well because you're talking about subjective stuff 20 hours a week a lot of it's going to be wrong or stupid. It just is right you know it's a weirdly incredible accomplishment that we have done let's say 500 hours of this podcast and not ever had to add anything out that that was like inappropriate. And I don't think we've been too stupid we've had we've said some meaningless and stupid things I'm sure a lot of it but nothing where it's like whoops. She shouldn't have done that because you either look like a complete idiot or you've done something bad to do that for 500 hours and not have to you know not go into that territory to me I feel great about that that's a huge accomplishment. But but everybody else like you know you have to work very hard to do that you know you have to work hard to avoid that kind of stuff.

34:08Anybody calling out the cringe and all of that stuff I don't think they realize that if yeah if they were on camera in front of a microphone. It's going to go badly yes thank you that's exactly my point is like there's no you know there this word gets thrown around all the time it's called empathy right and it's the idea of like well you know if I could use my mirror neurons in order to project myself into the perspective of someone else then I would have a greater you know sense of what they're going through or whatever. And first of all almost nobody does this okay regardless of how much they throw that word around. And second of all I just I don't I don't see that happening with a lot of people who Conrad says everyone is suffering from overexposure. Yes that is my point is that I see this a lot where it's like this person stupid I'm glad you brought up sports because it's like less contentious to be like oh Colin coward or Stephen a Smith is an idiot or even someone like you know like the play by play people or the commentary like Joe Buck.

35:32Oh I hate Joe Buck he's such an idiot it's like okay would you like to try calling NFL football game I I I can't even imagine how stupid I would sound which is not to say like all just because like you can't do it doesn't mean that someone else doesn't suck at it and I'm not saying that but at the same time like there seems to be like no respect at all for something being really good. Something being really difficult when to a casual eye it seems very easy oh you're just talking why don't you say things that aren't stupid like well people are the people are stupid like everybody is stupid at some point on some level on some topic. How everybody know anything everything it's ridiculous and the crazy thing is they know it if you start to bring up the examples they understand and they know it and they acknowledge it but then they never deploy it so like first dates are really hard precisely because you're trying to avoid being stupid and boring.

36:43When you just meet anybody doesn't have to be a date you're trying to you know if not impress them you at least don't want to depress them you know you don't want to look like a fool whatever and everybody knows oh yeah that's a little anxiety inducing there's a force to play there that's like I'm a little tight because of that yeah okay so it's obvious how hard it is in a situation like that. But then you expect you know and I do this myself with sports all the time I was listening to the Red Sox playoffs and they had I think it was CBS peacock I don't know. They did a new thing this year where there's like the normal straight broadcaster for playoffs but they brought in a guy familiar with each team to team with him so you had you know like a guy familiar with all of the Red Sox in addition to you know the main guy who knows his stuff really well but not nearly at the level of the guy who's been announcing you know 150 games that year of that team.

37:58In the main guy said something that just wasn't quite right he described one of the pictures as as the ace of the Red Sox staff and he's not he's like you know number two or three in the rotation he's very very good I can totally understand how he did that but I'm sitting there and I'm just like like how he doesn't know ball like what a moron saying that you know Peyton Toli is the ace of the staff. Right. Like get him off the TV he does not know the exact hierarchy of every starting pitching like clubhouse in the entire MLB wouldn't what a door. Yeah. And I you know internally lashed out about that and that's precisely the phenomenon we're discussing where people are idiots. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bit of a tangent but it's just something I've been thinking about lately I'm just kind of tired of people ripping on it and anyone and everyone who has like some level of I don't like using the word notoriety but maybe that is the right word to use in this instance.

39:14It's just doing anything. College football is back so Hilton called me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality need a room to match your lucky number we got you want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey. Oh that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition even a marching band wake up call it 555 and 55 seconds hit it. When you need a team that would do whatever it takes on game day it matters where you stay Hilton for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal holiday rush skip the mall traffic and shop online with PayPal shop your favorite online stores like eBay fanatics Walmart Sephora Target and TikTok shop and choose to pay now or pay later at checkout plus paying for with no interest in no late fees. Shop now with PayPal paying for subject to approval learn more at PayPal dot com slash paying for PayPal incorporated NML S 910457.

40:16It's anybody doing anything which which ties into the cringe topic because that's what is really worrisome to me is that if anybody doing anything is a bullseye for people to blast with like you know the cringe gun. Then people are discouraged from trying and that blows you know you know what is cringe and I am so happy it exists. You know that scaband that is like a meme where they do that like weird dance do you know what I'm talking about with the blonde the blonde woman singing with the blonde woman who's wearing that like strange overalls outfit that's like pink and black. That those things every time it comes up on my Twitter feed I watch that video and full every time I can't stop myself do you know what that is cringe I know it's cringe that is cringe and it is delicious it's like the most like perfectly seasoned cringe steak.

41:21I do I eat it every single time it comes on my on my feet I turn on mute it so I can hear it. You know the dance pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump. Great so glad it exists it makes you know what it does it makes life better. It literally makes life better that that exists and I don't care if people hate it and I don't care if they find embarrassing it genuinely improves life yes. A lot more oddly a lot more than if it had been a good song a good performance good everything. Oh yeah right it being what it is makes it like a thousand million trillion times more valuable to humanity. It's been like excellent quality and but they're putting themselves out there like they're doing it like those people on that stage are friggin doing it regardless of what anybody else thinks and like that is such a superpower that I don't know I don't know why.

42:30I'm afraid that a lot of people are shying away from putting themselves out there because of that and you know you'll never everyone starts out cringe no matter what it is that you're doing. Because you're going to stink at it to begin with so like this is a natural progression no matter what you're trying to do or hope to achieve or whatever is like you know if you want to be an art. Want to be an artist man the stuff that you draw for a long time is gonna be cringe it's gonna blow you know why cuz it's really hard it's very hard to draw something well and so you're gonna be cringe for a long time but so does that mean never go through your cringe period because that's the worst thing you can do I hope not. I so since you brought up the cringe topic you know earlier today I've been thinking about my cringiest moments and qualities and the amount of cringe moments that I've had internationally is more than almost anybody you will ever know in life from the sheer like volume of interactions where you know it's the person me means well.

43:51But hilariously sucks at something whether it's you know just plain understanding it or you know whatever and you know I remember this is like 12 years ago. I had a group of kind of semi friends I saw him a lot hung out with him a lot you know whatever but you know I'm not like the best man any of their weddings kind of friend right. Anyway they would ask me to say things normally like normally for me all the time including a riva d'Archi because at that time and glorious bastards was quite popular and they you know the way Brad Pitt butchers the Italian saying in that movie and doesn't care. Like the way he pronounces things is like hilariously American kind of red necky right and well they had somebody they were hanging out with who could generate exactly those mismatches and sounds on command and who didn't you know who didn't care like I found the humor in it whatever and it was because it was so cringy to them.

45:19To hear to hear me try to say things in Hebrew and Arabic and have come off the way Aldo does in glorious bastards it was just like cringe with a spotlight on you you know and there are two ways to respond to that you know and I could have been extremely embarrassed by my legitimate ignorance or I could you know. Have a good time. And they're just a ton of misunderstandings and mispronunciations whatever that are just if you're watching it if you're seeing it it's just like oh Jesus this is so embarrassing for that person. But I you know I saw that death think posted a meme like right before we started total coincidence what was it what did it say do not kill the part of you that is cringe kill the part that cringes.

46:26Nice it's like a death think maximum the cringe maximum yeah it's good it's got you know who the frog with his pissed pants on a mountaintop. But that's kind of that's the mindset right is that you you ignore or get rid of the part that cringes otherwise you're defining everything by what other people are going to think. You know many many many years ago I met this girl who I know that when she was in elementary school this wasn't near out so you wouldn't know her. She literally went to another school yeah I grew up in this another school yeah I remember her telling me that she listened to she went home and watched MTV. Like every day after school so that she could be familiar with the songs that the kids on the bus in the morning would play on their like boom boxes.

47:34Because she didn't want the embarrassment of not knowing those songs. So she would stay familiar with you know the top 40 basically. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier if she was just like yeah I don't listen to that music and it's okay that I don't know what. That would have been way easier yeah yeah but she was factoring in the judgment of all those those kids so severely. That it that's harder to do when you're a kid that's what's almost impossible to have that confidence when you're a kid yeah and I think she was like 10 in this story it's about what I remember the worst era to not to be left out. Yeah so I'm not like making fun of her for that because she was 10 but how many you know 30 year olds and 25 year olds and 20 year olds are doing precisely that all the time especially online. And I think that's a really significant force where the average person has kind of become that kid on the bus getting you know knowing all the words to songs they don't even like.

48:44Because of the judgment. Right which flatens everything and makes everything boring I mean there's no to go back to death thinks maximum. The cringe part of you is probably this the thing that makes you unique like almost certainly kind of I think definitionally. You know if the the things that everybody already kind of understands and knows and agrees like yes this is not cringe if you're just in that pool well then you're not standing out in that pool you've you know merged with everyone else. And to a amorphous blob in that pool. Yeah the thing that's going to make you not in that pool. And recognized as being an individual has to be has to have like some level of cringe to it especially according to someone I mean someone's going to think that that's cringe and what can you do I mean it's.

49:50Yeah you know there's this is definitely like a double edge sword kind of situation where. You can be put on display and judged harshly by more people in real time right now. Then could even be fathomable to somebody 50 years ago. Not kidding 500 million people can make fun of you within an hour of you doing something now that's ridiculous. There there you can do something stupid and there's like an Eskimo in a hot wiping snow off his iPhone to laugh at you better. That's really wild but on the other side you can be into anything. And it's never been easier to connect with like a million people who are also into that very weird cringy stupid topic.

50:59Yeah and I will say there has been how would I describe this there's been a lot of support for people I've seen well is it people or is it hasn't been kids mostly. It's been kids mostly that I've noticed who have really like niche interests so one of them is the bird calling kid you know the bird calling kid it's remarkable. It is amazing he is another one that when when one of his videos comes up I watch the whole thing because every single one of his bird impersonations is like freakishly good. And as far as I can tell really seems to receive like resounding support right whereas like perhaps that's someone when definitely when we were younger would have been considered cringy and made fun of and like kind of like left out.

52:05Another one is this toilet kid have you seen the toilet kid. No okay what what what can toilet kid even mean. Toilet kid collects toilets and not only collects toilets but like enthusiastically describes what it is about the different toilets in his collection their features the years that they were manufactured the make all of this stuff. Loves toilets just has like a backyard full of toilets literally a backyard of toilets. Yeah some of my neighbors are like that but I don't think they're they're doing the same thing this kid is I don't think they are enthusiasts I think that they are scumbags very different. I mean they're just too lazy to go to the dog yeah maybe it's in the eye of the beholder but. So this is this is another kid like a really idiosyncratic you know life really who I as far as I can tell has received like just a lot of encouragement and support so there are there is that as well.

53:21So it is possible to be like. Definitio definition Lee cringe like historically cringe but actually be loud for it on social media that can happen so it's not like all. Diarrr the situation is not all dire cause football is back so hilton called me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality need a room to match your lucky number we got you want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey. Oh that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition even a marching bandwink up call it 5555 seconds hit it. When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. However I think those are exceptions. And like as a general rule what what really bothers me like.

54:23To be totally honest you know a lot of this stuff is going to be on a case by case basis and I'm not ever going to know one way or the other. The thing that I do know has to do with the writing of fiction like the TV shows that come out and the movies that come out that also suffer from this and this is this was a large reason why the he man movie did not land for me is that I wanted it to take itself seriously like I wanted it to not that it needed to be this like. Gritty Christopher Nolan Batman or something like that but at the same time like not literally constantly talk about how much it hated itself and was embarrassed of itself like. That I don't understand the purpose of that that takes me out of the movie and it makes me feel like well if you don't like this why would I you know and. I read a lot of fantasy that's like mainly the genre that just interests me i've been reading these tad Williams book I finished the dragonbone chair over the weekend which I loved but let me let me explain something to you okay.

55:36The big bad guy in the world of Austin art is named the storm king. Like that could be easily very cringe like oh the storm king and he's like an ancient elf and he's going to you know devour the world from the top of his mountain in the north. Like you could very easily make fun of that yeah but i'm not I read the book it's totally sincere it's like yeah this is a storm king don't even say his name. Like he's going to wipe out all of humanity like we have to find these three swords in order to feed him and you know what i'm like yeah. Like let's go let's find the swords let's kill the storm king like let's bands together all of the different you know section factions of mankind and I love it it's great if it was like the human movie and it's just like constantly having these.

56:42I'm undercutting jokes all the time being like now the storm king what a stupid name that is you couldn't come up with something better than that like i'm throwing that book away i don't want to read that book like why would i want to read that book. I can make you know I can be cynical i don't need a story to be cynical for me this is the fistos scene in the masters of the universe scene it's like three times they mentioned. Yeah, but there was definitely that like that's the best you could if it's a arc yeah like that's the best you could do was big fist guy column fist oh like it never occurred to me how how dumb that name was until watching that movie because it didn't matter that it was a dumb name like a really on the nose description of the character it just and he man to it's like oh you've got this muscular. This muscular masculine guy and his name is he and man like this is the least creative thing on the plan it doesn't matter it just doesn't matter fisto being fisto doesn't matter.

57:54Yeah Skeletor is a skeleton and his is a Skeletor it's like yeah and he's awesome that's a great character it's the coolest like cartoon villains ever it's completely fine you know I did think of a there's there's a there's a formerly cringe thing that has been rehabilitated over time that I just realized you know there's so many memes now with like the the Chad who deeply loves his mother or his grandmother that I'm not familiar with that so it's like the Chad meme and you know he's got like a flowery or paisley umbrella or something like that and it's a mismatch that's the match with the like big burly muscular Chad with this sort of feminine umbrella you know in the second frame of it is just like you know my mom doesn't want me to get wet and I love my mother that's it you know or he's like working out in the gym or something like that and it's like here's why I do it and it's like so he can carry all the bags of his grandmother's groceries in the next thing.

59:04Yeah, it's wholesome right and you know it used to be like mama's boy used to be an insults for somebody who respected and loved their mother or grandmother or something you were you were that was cringe. It was a cringe thing and and now it's like you know it's not a bad thing at all for like a man or a woman to love their father or mother. Like like why why did we call that cringe for 40 years it's actually a very good thing and it's you know from wholesome to just plain decent. Right that's not so cringe anymore you know and if if you had some out of character gaudy sweater and you said I'm wearing this because my grandmother knitted at nobody would think that's cringe anymore they'd be like oh that's that's awesome.

1:00:04Yeah, the fact that that you look goofy and don't care is awesome. That's a nice thing so there's some hope there's some hope in the cringe world is my point. Yeah, no that's good it's good that there's there's yeah and my you know mentioning of toilet boy and bird call boy are also you know. So you know the thing is so funny to me those are in the in the hope column for it. I just I struggle with why why we became scared of sincerity in stories I don't have an answer for that. I don't know why that happened maybe it didn't happen in the way that I'm thinking of it and it was just a side effect of sort of like the weed and weed inization of like rapid fire quips being super entertaining and maybe you can't do both.

1:01:07Do you know what i'm saying like rather than there being this like shadowy cabal who's like no more sincerity in our stories rather than that being. Like a top down. way that this flowed maybe it just naturally emerged instead. From the diminishing interest in entertainment in general like going to the movie theater and the like hyper ADD attention grabbing of social media. And needing to compete with that and in order to compete with that then the types of scripts that can compete on that level are this like rapid fire joky everything silly every single character is like the funniest person you ever met is that is what do you think of that.

1:02:08I think it's a mix of lazy and being bad at it because it is so easy to do what you're saying it is ridiculously easy to be so if people didn't like it then they wouldn't do it right I don't know how much they like it I mean which which is a stupid thing to say because we can see like quantitatively that they like it with how many watch and like. So when I say I don't know how much they like it reality proves me wrong instantly. But I don't I'm not convinced that i'm wrong. I don't. I don't really like that he man movie I mean even though it felt like box office the people who watched it like resoundingly liked it there there enough of them yeah I and I don't know how long it's going to last I don't know. How 40 years of quips.

1:03:10Holds up I don't think so you know I thought about this a long long long time ago where um you know let's say 25 years ago somebody's in a retirement home. And they're playing records for all the oldies sitting in the chairs and it's like Benny Goodman's orchestra. I know what I mean oh yeah yeah yeah and then they get really crazy and put on some like buddy Holly and Elvis. Uh whatever this makes a lot of sense well what's it going to be in in 30 years are they going to be sitting in the chairs around a room as their blasting DMX. I don't see that happening I don't see that happening at all because I think. I think there's an expiration date on on that sort of music in terms of the appeal to the person I don't think 80 year olds when the time comes are going to be listening to gangster rap.

1:04:13Um I think it's the same sort of phenomenon with with the super quippy we nice whatever where it's like how long can you do that. You know it's it's really fun when you're you know in your 20s and 30s and as a kid and all that stuff is it going to be just as fun when you're 70. I bet it's not I don't think it is any more than uh you know listening to some of the very popular aggressive rap is going to be for 78 year olds down the line. Conrad says can't you say that about most things yeah a lot of things age he's arguing with me about what I said about he man yeah so what's it like well yeah. Um I don't think the snarky stuff is going to last forever. Think about how comedy has has evolved.

1:05:14Jerry Lewis was like the number one funny man of the world for a long time. He was another one who had one of those slight downfalls if you remember. Uh got memory hold. Yeah he said some very regrettable things during a telephone and at that point it was like he's getting too old for this and that was the end of Jerry Lewis. Um but for how long was his style of comedy. Just like number one worldwide in terms of appeal well at a point people kind of got past his style of funny and that's okay it happens. Um I think it's the same with the snarky red at mod as Conrad's in the chat. Uh it redidized you know cringe on top of cringe and knowing that it's cringe and all that I think it's great now.

1:06:24I think it's probably going to be great for a little while. I don't think it's going to be great in 2060. I mean we've already seen the decline in terms of the interest for the superhero movies. And then what Conrad and I were arguing about is I was saying that like most people didn't like didn't want to see the he may movie had bombed. But those who were interested in it and saw it seemed to like it. Um and yeah he was basically saying aren't most things like that and my answer to that is no like some things a lot of people are interested in and they see and they like like Avengers endgame. Yeah some some things are like this digger movie where apparently no one wants to see this movie and then. And then the few people the few people who have seen it seemed like totally split on likes you know either you love it or you hate it and that's that of like the tiny portion of people who actually will go watch the thing.

1:07:29It's a I don't know a lot about it. It seems to be like a satire of. I'm a change I don't know environmentalism environmentalist advocacy or films or something I don't know I've heard it's really weird and you kind of have to see it to know what's going on like it's meta. I don't know it's bizarre for one I understand. I've only seen a little bit about people talking. You know analyzing it. It's so rapidly split and like people that we know so like you know Sean Malone who's been on the podcast he. He didn't seem to think it was any good. You know and he was in that critical camp and then you know NRM bear bites who's quite active in the discord etc. He's known a long time he loves it. He absolutely loves this movie and thinks it's really important. You know a woman I mentioned when we talked about he man who who loved it because she'd seen he man you know somewhere in the Soviet block growing up as a kid.

1:08:36She also is a tremendous fan of digger. I don't know enough about it to know who's right and who's wrong on this. But it's extremely polarizing I haven't seen anybody just be like yeah I saw digger and like that was cool. What's really interesting to me about it is that the stuff that I've read about it like virtually everyone who has gone to see it gone to see it. I mentioned that the theater has like seven people in it and out of the seven people like three of them walk out. What is the corner tweet about this and say like I'm seeing digger this morning and basically have the theater to myself. Everyone says this I mean no one is seeing this movie it you know it made like seven six and a half million dollars or something which is like nothing. I just find it particularly interesting that out of the no one who are going to see it half of them leave during it like that's insane I can't remember anything that's ever been like that before.

1:09:41Have you ever left a movie? No I've never but no no I've never walked out of a movie you pay for the thing you went you went through the trouble I don't know if I was a type of person who like lived near or movie theater and went to them often then probably I would have walked out on them. But I'm so particular about what I would even go to see to begin with that like the odds that I remember when amc had that like movie past thing. Yep I'm pretty sure a friend of the podcast Sean Malone had that and was going to see every freaking was maximizing that. Yeah everything and he was a guy who everything I walked for something yeah yeah he was max and I you know my best friend in college was a television major. He watched a lot of TV and movies it just was a huge part of his life whatever and I remember him telling me the only movie he ever walked out of was little Nicky.

1:10:41You know that I'm Sandler really bad movie really bad movie and I like Adam Sandler. When I think of this movie is so bad that I'm walking out of it all I can think of is him being like little Nicky is the benchmark for bad movies that's like the it's like the Mendoza line where this is the movie that defines where you walk out. What made little Nicky is really bad what made it worse is that it came really off the heels of like a lot of very funny Adam Sandler. I don't know where exactly it was it after water boy I don't know yeah yeah it was film I think it was 2003 maybe films in order yeah see now I'm interested in this. So it was after it was after water boy it was after big daddy. Yep. So he Adam Sandler had like not only have his game not only banger movies every year in 1998 he had to he had the wedding singer and the water boy in 1998 that's crazy 1999 big daddy which was huge success.

1:11:54And then 2000 little Nicky oh 2000 was little Nicky I was way late then okay yeah so he had not made a stinker really yeah until big Nicky or big Nicky little Nicky which was a big stinker big stinky you know that is considered a cringe movie because it you have this expectation. And you've seen it so many times in a row he's got these great movies he's funny in all of them whatever his character was bad the movie was bad everything about little Nicky was bad right and so you're looking at it saying well I know this is kind of overly clinical but you're like I know the talent that's on this screen. I know what it's capable of I'm totally familiar with with how it is they put a lot of money into this tried very hard they made a good move or they made a real movie. And it's really embarrassing I'm embarrassed for them it's not just a bad movie but it's like I'm embarrassed for Adam Sandler right that was the reaction to little Nicky you know that's actual cringe.

1:13:03College football is back so Hilton caught in me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality need a room to match your lucky number we got you want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky Jersey. Oh that smells lucky he'll since unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition even a marching band wake up call it 5555 seconds hit it when you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day it matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. Yeah I saw something last night are you familiar with soul man you know this movie was that Tim Meadows. No this was in the eighties with see Thomas howl. No okay I'm I was thinking I have the ladies man now no this see 1986 I'm cheating here because I don't want a clipable moment. In I describing the plot of this.

1:14:04This see Thomas howl I don't know if you know him he was in the outsiders. He was like the main kid okay real fishyatoes of movies will know that he was in getty spur you just quite good in that. I'm he was Lawrence's brother well yeah I've seen the outsiders I've seen red dawn so yeah I've seen yeah he was red dawn to yeah see his work. Soul man the plot of soul man is see Thomas howl. Pretending to be black so that he qualifies for a scholarship only awarded black students. And that's the plot of the movie the plot of the movie is he's going to Harvard law he the financial aid doesn't work out and his only opportunity is to get this scholarship that only goes to black students. And so he takes pills that make his skin brown.

1:15:07So he presents as a dark skinned. And so this is the opposite of white chicks it's the opposite of white chicks yes. But you know it's 1986 effects are what they are whatever it's just see Thomas howl in blackface for the whole movie. Yeah he takes more than he should on the pills so he's like it's it's not subtle right it's not subtle and then he goes to Harvard law everybody. It considers him to be a black man and he navigates that world as a fake black man. Oh I'm looking at screenshot. It's not good is atrocious is atrocious yeah it it was yeah I mean one of the greatest probably mistakes career mistakes in Hollywood history it's real yeah genuinely it's hard to believe that this is real. Well especially in 1986 and I like not not 1956.

1:16:12Yeah where you have during Jim Crow or somewhere yeah where you have Mickey Rooney in breakfast at Tiffany's. And you have you know John Wayne is Genghis Khan kind of thing right like this is way past the time when it was obvious that this was a bad idea. However James Earl Jones is in this Leslie Nielsen's in it too but James Earl James Earl Jones is has a really great performance in this movie. And he defended the movie and his performance in the movie throughout the rest of his career. Yeah it's pretty fascinating so you have this like this is the closest movie situation to a David Brent situation that exists. It is like you remember he wanted to do like reggae David Brent did reggae music and how the song was something about like prosperity street or something like you remember this.

1:17:19Yeah yeah yeah well this is really close to like if we ask David Brent to make a movie what would it be and it's this. Yeah boy it's it's got some serious parts it's got a lot of cringe elements it has some excellent performances oddly James Earl Jones. It's it's cringed to the max you know and there's a reason you don't know of it because it wasn't it wasn't on TV through our childhoods. Yeah no I never even I never even heard of it so I don't out of morbid curiosity I just googled where can you stream soul man prison to no one. Close close to be close to be everything is on to be yeah that's why I thought it was funny it's like of course it's on to be yeah you should watch it for the like cultural knowledge of watching this movie.

1:18:26I'm gonna end up on a list. Seriously how long is it even going to be on to be is my question I'm shocked that it's there in the discord con red made a tables movie nights soul man events. That's great I would sooner like I remember like birth of a nation was on Netflix at one point when Netflix came out you know it was like oh here's the movie that started it all. Well that's what I'm not really relevant like that was that was really important for the history of film yeah yeah genuinely eventually. And that had to be memory hold very much so yeah despite the importance right and I don't think that.

1:19:30You know some of the movies like this the cringe aspect now like that's really important to watch and kind of understand why it wasn't cringe. The same way when it when it was out you know same with Mickey Rooney and breakfast at Tiffany you know who I'm talking about the character I'm talking about yes I do actually seen breakfast at Tiffany's oddly enough but you know the character yes yeah. You know that was not cringe in the same way it would be now right even simple things like in a Christmas story when they go to the Chinese restaurant at the end there's this very funny scene where they're trying to sing Christmas carols and the halls yeah and they can't do fall all all all all this is very funny could you make that now. I bet not no no I bet not no and in 1984 whenever Christmas story came out that was not a problem at all you know so the definitions change big time that's worth that's worth knowing that's worth thinking about you know the evolution of cringe is fascinating stuff.

1:20:56And it's very very easy to get a handle on it because we have access to all of all of these things. You know this is such an obscure twist but do you know of oh since I know you're into fantasy literature. I got a look at John Norman. Yeah John Norman wrote the series of novels in the 60s about I think a planet called Gore G.O.R. Do you know of this no that's like sci-fi not fantasy. It is it's like so it's described here as sword and planet so it's a combination of like sci-fi and fantasy. But a huge part of the Gore series is about the like sexual dynamics of the Goreans which is basically like slavery slash BDSM.

1:22:06Okay. This developed in I've never read these I don't even know why I I'm as familiar as I am with the Gore stuff. I'm not telling on myself here. I don't like any of this genre. I don't like any of this genre fiction at all. When it comes up in court in your testifying in my defense you'll be like he never would have read these. But it was so influential with a subculture of people that like Gory and fetish communities like developed where they would try to find like minded people to basically live out like the Gore dynamics sexually and romantically. Where women would be like control the slaves like it's crazy shit. You can hit a crazy rabbit hole which you can do on Wikipedia if you want you don't have to go to bad sites to do this it's fascinating.

1:23:08That was extremely cringe to anybody remotely into literary anything. It was cringe to the sci-fi people a lot of them it was cringe to the fantasy people this is the mid 60s they're coming off. You know they're coming off like talking on the fantasy side. 20 years later and then they get this and then the sci-fi people are coming off classics like hg wells whatever and getting into that sort of star trekky era right. Yeah this is a good development Clark and Philip K. Yeah all them yeah yeah and then they're looking at this and saying like what are you doing to our genre so nobody was happy it was just cringe to the max except for the people who were into this. That's kind of weird fetish thing well. This is precisely the sort of like filth bullshit that dominates the best sellers now.

1:24:08Like it's totally on par with with the romanticy weird shit going with this sidebar and yeah no you're right it's like the only thing people read. Yeah if the Gordon novels came out today fresh. People like us would say this sucks. You know they'd be like that's trash whatever how many copies of 50 grades of shades of gray were sold 150 million yeah yeah you know and it's it's very much that that kind of thing in a strange genre right. But if this came out you'd have serious literary people saying this is garbage whatever but you it would be acceptable in the current marketplace nobody would think twice you know I don't know if people are still reading them my my sense was that the actual books were not written very well.

1:25:12So I don't think they've had staying power because I think they're badly written. But would it be cringe and weird not to a lot of people not now. Why do you need goreans when you have milk maids and minotors. Yeah yeah better yeah that's a fascinating kind of comparison. You know by the way I just looked this he taught philosophy at Queens College he was a serious academic. John Norman was and then on the side wrote sword and planet sex roms. Yes it only come from a very serious and thoughtful mind. Yeah yeah so you know what's cringed and what's not. A lot of formerly cringy things become completely okay and formerly okay things become untouchably cringe like soul man.

1:26:15Yeah yeah so understanding where the embarrassment comes from and how it changes over time. It's huge you know and it should factor in to like I think the thing we haven't talked about because it's so obvious is that you have to not care it's the death think mean. You have to not care that your fascination is toilets which is hot which is harder than ever and that needs to be you know mentioned harder than it's not even close. Now how hard it is now is so much harder than ever that like you said earlier it's just unimaginably harder than ever. It is and it's more valuable it's more valuable than ever yeah you know when you see people and increasingly too with everything being so synthetic and so manufactured. These people stand out like crazy I can't think of his name he's a British guy somebody in the chat will surely know this but he's obsessed with trains actual trains in real life and makes these fantastic videos of him going on the trains he likes and Britain.

1:27:30You know the guy I mean I know exactly you're talking about I don't remember the name of his channel yeah yeah it's amazing the bird calling kid is amazing. It's amazing on his face oh yeah the source is knows yeah yeah yeah it's awesome to see these sorts of people and you really get into what to to them liking the thing even if you're not into the thing they like I don't have a fascination with trains but I like his videos they're really cool the people who do this and are just real about things. The value in that is skyrocketing I cannot express how quickly the value of that is blowing up it's more than that that's all we're going to be left with like pretty soon. The alternative is just the equivalent of like a snap a snapchat filter on all of life it stinks it's lame it doesn't stand out everyone you see every person like that that you see where you can read tweets and be like yeah this tweet was written for engagement not because it matters it stinks.

1:28:46You know now you can have a I write high engagement tweets for you you know and a lot of people do it stinks you know I want I want to see real life I want to see the goofy stuff you know I want to make that content myself where I know that like you know not many people are into telephones you know what I mean like there's not going to be a story that pops on my feed where it's like I was in this deceased persons kitchen unscrewing the phone from their wall and boys that weird. You don't have to care about telephones to be more engaged with that kind of story than you know somebody holding a selfie stick. Rumping around on a beach. There are a million of those.

1:29:46There are none of what what I talk about somebody posted the other day. About an old rifle that was like their grandfather's or something like that and this really interested me even though they didn't even have a photo of the rifle they said it was JC Higgins and that was the house brand of Sears Robock way back in the day. JC JC Higgins guns were like what you'd get out of the Sears catalog in the 30s where at the store when you went to buy them. You know and it got passed down a couple generations and it's a simple little 22 rifle. It would be classified as a boys rifle back in the day that they still like shooting. Well it's been five days and I still remember that tweet it's real it's good I still don't know what the rifle looks like. That's reality that person doesn't care about the cringe factor where everybody else is like shooting crazy guns and like shooting into ballistic gel and have barely legal firearms like whatever.

1:30:57They don't care this like yeah I've got this shitty $75 gun but it's awesome. That person is going to succeed the one who who's like trying to look amazing on a range has a lot of competition. Not only a lot of competition but like that's the kind of thing that AI is just going to turn out stuff that you know anybody else can do not all of a sudden robots will just do it. Yeah and what so that's why it's more important than ever to embrace the cringe you've got to love it. You have to love it you know and we've talked about this with clothes so I want your opinion on this I know we're running long whatever. Do you remember the discussions we've had and this came from a conversation you had with with Fred orator about looking like a schlub.

1:32:00And we've talked so many times over the years about basically how to dress to not be cringe. Yeah yeah I mean he would probably still call me a schlub. I think he would say what I'm wearing right now is schlubby for sure. I don't think I ever grew out of that start your big core. Shlubberator channel. Yeah a shlubberator that's actually a pretty good name. I like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah I mean his whole point was like you know the way that you present yourself is how other people are going to perceive you. And maybe you should take stock of that. Like maybe you should consider how other people are receiving you because especially at that time you know working in New York City it's like you want other people to take you seriously. If you want opportunities you're not going to get any opportunities if people don't think that you're a serious person so yeah probably you should put some effort into that which is true.

1:33:12It's true it's a real force. He's exactly right. And that to me is the interesting like like what do you do in the middle where do you behave by the perception and judgment of others in that case. You probably do and there's a real benefit. And then when do you just not care at all. You know it's a slider and you know different situations are different points on that slider. And it's fascinating to me that there's even a slider and that you have to you know you have to adjust. Yeah I don't know I don't have an it is it's there isn't an easy answer to that. And also I have the belief that a lot of. Content creators get away with murder on this like they are absolute disasters. And they can be because they actually don't have to work with anybody else they don't actually have to play any sort of social game at all.

1:34:19They can just do whatever they want whenever they want and succeed wildly I mean they're there is as been gold maxing is what you're describing. Where it's like who cares that cockroaches are crawling on my desk. Yeah I mean I guess I don't know I don't know I'm not familiar with him or is cockroach situation but that is real that is real. There are a lot of content creators who I know personally who I would not hire to do anything. Yeah I would not trust them to show up I would not trust them to deliver on the thing that we talked about. It's that or accept I mean go you go down the line of like responsibilities tasks. Any of that stuff never ever ever ever ever but meanwhile wildly successful because yeah.

1:35:19Like online YouTube in particular. You can it affords you that opportunity for people who actually are complete disasters like Uber Schlubs. Uber Schlubs. Yeah there are Uber Schlubs who are making six figures sometimes seven. Yep and they are Uber Schlub disaster human beings. It's real that's that's that's a thing that's spire to be one. Yeah good luck that's what I desperately desperately want to become an Uber Schlub. Pretty much I want to be immune to the term. Uber Schlub is pretty good it would be a great screen name for a lot of things is just a Uber Schlub. Yeah but I think that you know really is the goal where it just doesn't even occur to you to factor in anybody else's judgment.

1:36:19Whether what you're doing is cringe whether it's embarrassing. If you can hit that point and you're happy with how you're doing it. It doesn't mean that the pinnacle of life is showering twice a month. But it's it's I'm not making my decisions based on if somebody else is going to think this is cringe. It's hard for me to beat that in terms of like being the pinnacle goal. Uber Schlub. All right we're out of here thank you to all of our patrons for supporting the podcast and thanks for hanging out with us during the livestream always appreciate that we will be back next week until then we will see you space cowboys. Thanks for listening to the create unknown we make this show with the support of our patrons 100% of that goes directly to keeping episodes going every week. And the recent support has been amazing Sid Pope NRM Venture addicts we are good you all really do make this show happen. Thank you to the Tots and the dumpster crew old and new who saved tiny little lives every month and thank you to our grizzled battle hard and child infantry.

1:37:27Clemente de Los Santos Dan the last Métrius Andrews Erica Ferry Kunjen Maffesanti Kevin Menard Mikhail Stinky Manna him not to Penny Pedler. Ryan Steer Ryan Kinder Samuel Manser Sean S Sean Malone and Tom videover and they tremendous shout out to our elite baby gang commanders. Atrocious scuff cat Dojangles Graham Roberts and James Gallagher Jeff Davis Orange Vanilla Coat Patrick Pister T.C. used personal pilot Andy Ryan Carroll base weight Vympos Yitas the lead is Jonas Walton Nathan Robinson and of course Kravstad you are the elite thank you as well to our indentured servants producer editor Ben Webster Minecraft mogul later meant discord kitten Wrangler Conrad and producer emeritus Dan Yoswa. Thanks to base weight for use of created in the unknown for the opening fee thanks to electro voice forgiving a smikes to sound good on top of it and thanks to main gear for powering all our PC endeavors. The create unknown is an unknown media production and partnership with studio 71.

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