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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign.
- [00:24]
Cameron Caskey
Hey, liberals. I'm Cameron Caskey and this is a new episode of the FY Pod where me and expert cutting edge journalist Tim Miller really get into what the hell is going on with Gen Z this week. We've got some crazy topics for you, and Tim's gonna kick it right off.
- [00:39]
Tim Miller
What's happening, Cam? So, yeah, we've been doing the fypod as like a double the Tim and Cam moment, followed by the Three Way. And we couldn't do that this week because of my Mardi Gras flu, which I thought was just a hangover, but turned out to be like a very debilitating flu. And. And so this week we're separating it. But sometimes good things come out of bad things. That's like a life lesson I've learned as an elder millennial. And I don't know, we'll see what the audience thinks, tell us in the comments. But I kind of think this might be better. Give you guys a double dose. Maybe we don't need the Joe Rogan marathon pod. Maybe just little nuggets. I don't know. What do you say, Cam?
- [01:20]
Cameron Caskey
We don't need to run long. We got to be respectful of people's time.
- [01:24]
Tim Miller
You guys got shit to do. You've got little gaming clubs, you're meeting up with people irl. You've got third spaces you're going to. You got to walk the dog. You've got a doom scroll. The one thing that I think we haven't covered that I wanted to start with this week is the Doge Twinks, because it occurs to me that it's been a total failure on my part to kind of get you riffing on this because they're your peers. The people that are shutting down the government are in fact the Gen Zs that we are exploring on this podcast. And so I just kind of want to let you cook on what's going on with Big Balls and his colleagues over over at Doge.
- [02:08]
Cameron Caskey
Well, it's interesting because people are talking about how, you know, Gen Z men trying to be alphas are the real plague of Gen Z, but I truly don't think there's any effort to be tough or cool from these Doge dorks. I think that they are reveling in the fact that they're sort of revenge of the nerds, right? These kids clearly didn't make any friends in high school. Nobody sat with them during lunch and they said, okay, veterans, you're not going to eat anymore, you're not going to get health care, farmers you guys are fud because we didn't have any friends. And it's very sad because I think everybody deserves friends but these doge kids. I mean, what are we, what, what can we even say, right? You know, we can speculate on when Trump and Elon are going to get in a Real Housewivesian fight with each other and like exchange mean tweets about each other until all of our post World War II alliances are fully deteriorated. And it, and it seems the cracks are already showing whether or not Trump is tweeting that he's going to buy a Tesla. And it's really interesting because it used to be that buying a Tesla was almost a sign. You're a liberal, right? You see the Tesla parked in the driveway and you're like, oh, there's another blue voter. But now suddenly it really seems like buying a Tesla, which is a, a really cool car. You know, I, I, I can't say what I think Elon Musk deserves live for people to hear, but I will say it's a cool car whether or not it breaks all the time and kills people. But it's, it's kind of a right wing symbol now, right? Especially in the cybertruck, that fucking ugly piece of shit. But before we get into these Doge Wunderkins, a word that I see them use, which makes a lot of sense because it's German. And I'll let you fill in the blanks. What do you think about an impending breakup between apartheid daddy and sexual assault daddy? What do you think it's going to happen?
- [04:10]
Tim Miller
I don't. So here's, I'm not sure that it's gonna happen. Here's why. I mean, everything dies in this world and it doesn't seem like really either of them have a lot of longtime friends. So there's that. I guess Elon is I guess 50, 50 with the PayPal mafia. One of his old friends, Reid Hoffman, he's accusing, he's libeling as a sex pest and making random Epstein island attacks against. So eventually Elon does turn on you. As we're taping this, Donnie said he's buying a Tesla. Donnie Trump is buying a Tesla. And it's a very strange, it's a very third world kind of thing that we have the President out there just like hawking product for his biggest donor and a staffer. It's kind of something that we would have frowned upon in the past. But he's showing that he's standing in line with him. And I think part of this is because I think there are two things happening. One is Trump knows that he still needs Elon in a way that he doesn't need a lot of his other staffers for the money, for the muscle. He knows that Elon can go bully any congresspeople that don't vote for the agenda and run primaries against them and spend ungodly amounts of money because despite his failures in his businesses lately, he still has ungodly amounts of money.
- [05:33]
Cameron Caskey
Well, that's what I think this Trump Tesla tweet is. I think Elon, who is the puppeteer, not as though it's any sort of secret, said to Trump, hey, my businesses are all failing. I need a bump in Tesla sales. I need you to tweet an ad.
- [05:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree that I think this is what's happening. Who the hell knows whether Elon asked or whether Trump came up with this great idea himself, whichever genius came up with it, though, I do think that it's backfiring. To get to a point that you were referencing earlier, like there was a period of time we're kind of my peers, really like West Wing elder Millennial libs, Gen X libs, and even some boomer libs were out there buying Teslas as almost, you know, in part because they wanted to help the planet, in part because it was kind of like a little NPR tote bag in vehicle form. Right. And so now all those people are horrified to have a fucking Tesla. The brand is becoming shit. Foreign sales of Teslas are going down. So does Trump tweeting he's going to buy one? Does that help staunch the bleeding or does that make it worse? I don't know. To me, I feel like it's a misdiagnosis of the problem. I have to imagine that among your peers and we spend a lot of time talking about the zoomers that are lurching. Right? But still, it was still the generation that voted the most for Kamala. And I just can't imagine a lot of your 24 year old peers that don't live in Brooklyn, who are living in real cities where they have to buy a car, are itching to go buy a Tesla right now. I think he's probably struggling with the new consumers coming into the marketplace.
- [07:14]
Cameron Caskey
Okay, well, first of all, New York is the realest city of all time. I'm not sure if you are familiar with a man named Eric Adams, but he has already gone so far as to say that New York is the Islamabad of America. So cool your jets over there. But yeah, it's interesting, you know, Elon's businesses are all failing. It's sort of like Trump, right? Like they just fail and fail and fail. And because of the way that our society is structured.
- [07:42]
Tim Miller
Well, let's be fair to Elon. Elon's businesses at least succeeded for a while. Trump never had any businesses that succeeded. Really?
- [07:49]
Cameron Caskey
Totally. Regardless, turns out when you're really fucking bad at managing stuff, sometimes it doesn't go very well. And I appreciate you pointing out the fact that Gen Z was the generation that showed up the most for Harris, because it seems like a lot of older liberals who are rightfully and understandably so disappointed in how many of us voted for Trump. All you fucking other generations did it too. So yes, I agree there is poison in Gen Z and it's only going to get worse. But why don't y'all look in the mirror first? But anyway, speaking of Elon, but you.
- [08:24]
Tim Miller
Don'T have any pals. I mean, you don't have any pals buying Teslas. I mean, you have a broad social network. Do you have anybody out there who's like U30 who's purchasing a Tesla?
- [08:34]
Cameron Caskey
My brother purchased a Tesla, but he skews to the right, so that's not surprising to me. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, right? If I had enough money to buy a Tesla and was living in a bigger city right now, I just lived in Los Angeles for two years. You know, a couple years ago I would have been like, oh, I'm going to buy a Tesla, right? So cool. You know, to be honest with you, I wouldn't have thought of the environment at all. But it would have, it wouldn't have hurt. But it's like, oh, it's such a great car, right? It's just smooth drive. But now I would, I would absolutely buy competitors electric car. Because buying a Tesla at this point is almost an endorsement of fascism, right? I mean, I'm a Jewish person and this guy's doing Sig Heils. You can call them Roman salutes all you want, I don't care. So I don't know how I'm supposed to support this guy, but this kind of brings me.
- [09:24]
Tim Miller
It's almost, I mean, saying that buying a Tesla is like supporting fascism is, I guess, like, it's true, but it gives it a seriousness, you know, that. I think my point is even more broadly within the generation, like, wouldn't buying a Tesla just be kind of like getting an I have herpes tattoo? I mean, it's just, it just is a very unappealing brand right now.
- [09:48]
Cameron Caskey
Yeah, I certainly wouldn't want a tattoo like that, nor would I want herpes. But this brings me to people that have herpes.
- [09:55]
Tim Miller
Like, just people are having a good time, Cameron, Be safe.
- [09:59]
Cameron Caskey
Nobody in my generation's having sex, so it doesn't matter anyway. But this brings me to the doge losers who I really want to talk about, who are all, you know, it's these, it's these dorks who, frankly, and I'm a really nice person, I kind of want to shove into lockers, you know, not unlike some of the Pro Biden content creators. Except the Pro Biden content creators weren't advocating for the destruction of the United States. So I guess those kids are a little cooler. But all Elon basically imported these little thralls. These, these, these children who, of course they're going to listen to Elon Musk. He's the most powerful man in the world, you know, kind of hard to argue. And he's telling them, ooh, we're going to give you super secret government clearance to do whatever the fuck we all collectively want. And these kids are all direct, or at least mostly direct, directly linked to Elon via one of his companies or of course, Peter Thiel, America's answer to the question, could you possibly get more pathetic than Roy Cohn? So there's a couple Doge losers I want to emphasize. You know, I think Elon and Trump are really going after the people who name these kids. And I obviously don't want to be the target of the United States government like some college kid using the First Amendment. But hypothetically, if I were to name any of these kids. Excuse me, if I get any of them wrong, we've got Akash Bhabha, Edward Corestine, Corestein, Luke Ferritor Gotti.
- [11:33]
Tim Miller
Or is Luke the guy that was uncovering the scrolls?
- [11:36]
Cameron Caskey
There's definitely one who calls himself Big Balls, and I highly doubt his balls are big. And if they are, slay, but I doubt it, there's Gaultier.
- [11:45]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, I apologize. We have to get this right. It's important in the woke left in the woke liberal, never Trump media environment that you get everything right. It's Edward Corsatine that calls himself Big Balls. So we regret the error.
- [12:01]
Cameron Caskey
Sorry. Yeah, that's Big Balls. Gavin Clager, Cliger, Ethan Xiao Tran, aged 19 to 24. So these are some of the kids that are coming in and saying to the veterans, hey, veterans, they're not even saying thank you for your service. They're just saying, no, thank you for the service. No food, no health care. Hey, social services that the Americans who voted for Donald Trump rely on. You're gonna go away. I saw this thing on wire.
- [12:33]
Tim Miller
All of a sudden, Cameron's like, J.D. vance over here on this podcast. Like, where is my thank you? I have not heard you say thank you yet.
- [12:41]
Cameron Caskey
Also, like J.D. vance, you know, one of the things we have in common, I will openly compare Donald Trump to Hitler, which J.D. vance was doing quite recently. So there's this kid named Marco Elez, all of these. I'm having a hard time pronouncing any of these Doge kids names. He's 25 years old, he's a former SpaceX employee who holds administrator access to IT systems, handling tax payments for the US Treasury. Now, with these Doge kids, they erased all of their digital footprints and locked their social media accounts, which is no loss for the world, because it was just going to be memes of Pepe the Frog saying the N word. But the important thing here is while we look at the impact all these kids are having, the dark and terrible impact, we need to recognize that they're fucking losers. The Doge kids are dismantling United States democracy and they are attacking the citizens of this country, and they are losers. And losers are scary people. Because when you're a loser.
- [13:43]
Tim Miller
For you, Cameron, when you're a loser. Ready?
- [13:47]
Cameron Caskey
Let's hear it.
- [13:48]
Tim Miller
Here's my surprise for you. You were planning on this, and we're just mind melding. You're planning to just. I didn't know what your take was gonna be on the Doge Kids. I mean, it's not a surprising take, but I didn't know exactly what it was gonna be. And I'd prepared you a TikTok that I came across from a girl who's peer of yours, young woman, excuse me, who knew one of the Doge kids. And I wanna play for you as a surprise. This TikTok of a young woman who used to go to frat parties with one of the Doge boys, the Doge.
- [14:14]
C
Employee, Jordan Wick, who is posting on his public GitHub classified government information like the locations of our undersea cables, was in the same fraternity as my brother at MIT. And this guy Jordan was asked to put 90 beers on ice for a party. He poured the bag of ice into the bucket, cracked 90 beers and poured them over the ice. That is the kind of brain power that we're working with at Doge. Pray for America.
- [14:44]
Tim Miller
We're praying for America. That's pretty good. That's pretty Good material.
- [14:49]
Cameron Caskey
Here's a similar story. During the fires in Los Angeles, these, these slow little boys, Tyler Hassan and Brighton Shang, they flew to California to open the pumps themselves and catch a photo while doing so, CNN reports. But two issues stop them. This is all part of Trump's more water means less fires narrative that really took off with people in America, because people in America, they like the simplest, dumbest explanations for things. So when you see the fires going on, you don't talk about how Los Angeles is basically a city that might as well have been designed by a fire the way that it's laid out. But you're like, oh, more water, good. Anyway, first of all, the power was off due to planned maintenance when they were trying to release more water. Second of all, shang, probably like 23 himself, he wasn't an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn't access the pump, nor could the other kid. And they didn't get their photo op. An unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told cnn, adding, it represented what Doge has been this entire time, this slapstick operation of 20 somethings they're seeing as whiz kids, but have zero knowledge. Now, of course, the Doge still touted victory by posting a pic of these little slow boys and saying they did a great job, which is just like the fucking participation trophy ass loser shit that the right's always talking about. And by the way, it'll be so much easier to talk about these kids if it wasn't misogynist to say the P word. Like, if I could just say the P word and not be associating cowardice with the feminine body. And in doing such diminish women as weaker, I would have the best thing to call these guys. I digress.
- [16:41]
Tim Miller
Why haven't you guys, like, come up with another word? You know, I mean, like, you changed what the word bet means. Like, why don't you just come up with another word for pussy that doesn't have to do with female body parts and then start using.
- [16:56]
Cameron Caskey
For those of you, for those of you who don't know, bet is a colloquial word for essentially you bet. And like, yeah, so if somebody says something and I concur, I could very well say bet.
- [17:11]
Tim Miller
Now I bet means. I concur.
- [17:13]
Cameron Caskey
Now. I learned what bet means from when I was probably about 15 years old and I was buying drugs from this guy named Bishop. And I texted Bishop, hey, I'll be in the neighborhood in about 15 minutes. And he said, bet. And I didn't know what he was talking About. So I didn't know if he was saying, like, you know, I bet you won't. And I said to my friend who was driving, I was like, is he telling me that he's like, watching BET right now? Like, did he forget to say, I'm currently sitting in front of the television watching BET B T? But then I learned that it's like, you bet your bottom dollar. That's. That's a phrase Gen Z should bring back. Nobody's betting their bottom dollar anymore.
- [18:00]
Tim Miller
That's true. So just what? Let's just come up with a new P word. I'm gonna charge you with that. You've got a lot of friends with influence on social media. We've had a lot of influencers on the pod. Like, can you just kind of like, do it? Can you just make it up a P word?
- [18:13]
Cameron Caskey
Yeah. But anyway, these, these Doge kids, they're doing all of this stuff without security clearance, and they're more powerful than the United States government. And obviously there is no rule of law anymore. First Amendment's gone. Trump is, you know, talking about taking Canada. Like, so something like people needing a security clearance to deal with classified information, that's sort of one of the things that's gotten lost in the cultural dismantling that's happened. Right. Like, everything is so crazy, everything is so violent and aggressive and dangerous that during the Biden administration, not to Biden would get in trouble for this and Trump wouldn't because, you know, that's fucking everything. But during the Biden administration, if people who didn't have security clearance were, you know, getting access to and leaking this kind of information, the Republicans would be suggesting an armed takeover of the government and, and would be saying that the Democratic Party is completely compromised. But today it's like, no, it's just something that happens and it hardly even gets reported on because there are bigger issues. So kids my age who, you know, they didn't get somebody to sit next to during lunch, they are taking out their anger on the world, on the people in society who need support the most.
- [19:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah. One thing that this podcast clarifies is as many differences as we have generationally, there are also so many similarities, because the same diagnosis you offer of Ed Corsatine and Marco Elez could just equally be applied to elder millennial villain Stephen Miller, who also had no friends in the cafeteria. I do wonder. This my one question for you about these guys, these Doge twinks, is you're Gen Z is stereotypically very anxiety riddled and kind of fraught. With worries and concerns. Now we're talking about various things.
- [20:18]
Cameron Caskey
This is where I'm an expert, baby.
- [20:19]
Tim Miller
Okay, yeah. So explain to me why a generation that is so filled with anxiety has produced these overconfident 23 year olds who feel like they know better about how NIH should be funded than. Than people who have spent their entire degree, their entire careers and have multiple degrees gaining expertise on the sciences.
- [20:46]
Cameron Caskey
I'm going to do you one even better, Tim.
- [20:48]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [20:49]
Cameron Caskey
I don't know what an NIH is, but anyway, International Institute for Health. Okay, well, that's going to be gone by the time I'm old enough for my gubernatorial run, so I don't care. No, I think that lonely people are very often the most kind people you'll ever meet. But lonely people can also be very dangerous. And these Doge kids and people like Stephen Miller, J.D. vance, these losers, they. They get angry at the world for not having a place for them. And I think that that's one of the things that powers Gen Z conservatism. The very most young white men feel as though this world that is moving towards equity and inclusion doesn't have room for us. And it's a lonely feeling. And people who are lonely and have no friends, some of them become more gentle. Totally. But some of them say, if the world is not going to have a place for me, fuck the world. I'm going to inflict as much pain upon other people as I possibly can. And that's something you see a lot of. But this kind of ties into the next and I guess second to last thing I wanted to talk about this week, which is Gen Z dating. Because Gen Z isn't dating. Okay. I'm just thinking about how like I'm thrilled.
- [22:04]
Tim Miller
I'm curious, did you, did you raise this topic because you've dated so prolifically that you just wanted to bring this up as an opportunity to brag?
- [22:13]
Cameron Caskey
No, I think about how these DOGE kids, if they had the right girlfriend, boyfriend, gender non conforming friend, if they had the right romantic partner, there's a chance they wouldn't be sitting here. You know, to each their own. If, if these DOGE kids, you know, ever had like a girlfriend or any sort of significant other during high school, I truly think there's a chance they would not be trying to dismantle the government. Because it's in our connections with other people that we get the values of supporting other human beings. So I saw this post on R Gen Z, a subreddit that I really don't like to be on because I like to use Reddit for fantasy novel conversations. But I went on R Gen Z.
- [23:03]
Tim Miller
For the we have a Great Bulwark subreddit Reddit.com thebullwerk There are mixed views about you on that subreddit, but we appreciate the community.
- [23:13]
Cameron Caskey
If everybody at the Bulwark liked me, I would be embarrassed. I'm very happy to be controversial. I want. I want half the Bulwark to like me and I want half of them to be like fuck this guy. But I saw this post that did pretty well on R Gen Z. Actually did extremely well. It was one of the top posts of the week. Man, I wish I had a girlfriend or at least went on dates or something. I'll redownload a dating app but you tried them for months and very rarely got matches. Which Side note, of course I'm sure we all know these dating apps are not designed to match people up. These dating apps are designed to get people addicted and keep them using the app as long as possible. Back to the post. I should at least try, but it also really hurt your self esteem. It's because I'm fat. I just need to lose weight. I've been trying so hard to lose weight and hardly made progress. It's going to take years. Damn. That's this person's line of thought. It was really popular on R Gen Z and sort of inspired me to put together three dating tips for young Gen Z men and I'm gonna present those right now. Yeah, it it's re I always talk about this. The most beautiful and extraordinary women I know. Their hearts are always getting broken by the ugliest fucking dudes. So if you're one of these young men who thinks that your looks are why you are not picking up chicks, you are completely wrong. Looks have virtually nothing to do with it and there's more to it than that.
- [24:48]
Tim Miller
So here's Especially in the South. Before we get to your first three tips, I just want to say especially in the south because maybe this is my one tip as somebody that has moved to the South. I'm walking down the street and they're hideous dudes with beautiful women every other block. It's unbelievable. It's truly a miracle. I'm happy for these dudes and hopefully for these women. Hopefully it's a meaningful relationship that they have. But certainly it refutes the notion that that it's all just about looks. All you got to do is just walk down the street in Baton Rouge and you can see that that Is not true in big parts of the country. Anyway, I'm excited to see hear your tips.
- [25:27]
Cameron Caskey
Yeah, look, if you're a cute guy it helps, but at the end of the day, if you, if you don't have it, you don't have it. And I know very, very hot dudes who don't do very well in the dating market. And I also know dudes who are like handsome and could very well be really good looking who just don't take very good care of themselves and they don't handle themselves very well. And it's like, dude, you are, you're getting so mad at women for not wanting you, but you're like a couple self care steps away from jumping several points out of 10. Like there are guys who could go from 6 to 8.5 with just like a little bit of work and it's like easy stuff to do.
- [26:12]
Tim Miller
One of our advertisers, One Skin, check them out.
- [26:15]
Cameron Caskey
Yeah, use OneSkin if they're advertising on this specific podcast. So here's three dating tips for Gen Z Men. This is gonna blow your mind. And it's all pretty easy. Number one, if you are not friends with any women, if you can't be friends with women, you are not fit to date a woman. Dating, love, sex, these are not your first concern. Make female friends, get to know them, understand how they live. Can't do it in person, do it online. Make an effort to understand other people before you try to get in their beds. Number two, approach women with the goal of making friends. If it turns into something else, okay, cool. If it doesn't and she's not interested, you made a friend. And friends are good to have. And beyond that, if you aren't okay just being friends, if this isn't someone you could be friends with, you probably shouldn't be in a relationship anyway. Number three, most importantly, be true to yourself. Some of the smoothest guys I know are total nerds. The best way to look like a loser is try to be someone you're not. If you're a little weird, own that. Be who you are. It's very magnetic. Trust me. The biggest crush I had in high school when I, when I told her how I felt about her, the thing she said that really made me understand this, when she was kind of saying yes and no at the same time, very high school, she said, I've always appreciated that you are unapologetically yourself. This doesn't mean you should be brazen, doesn't mean you should be aggressive. It just means if you can act like somebody who is being true to themselves and comfortable in their own skin. People respond to that.
- [28:09]
Tim Miller
I've got a couple notes. I think those are great tips. I agree with all of them. I'm going to add a fourth tip and then give one addendum to your second tip. Tip four, attempt to approach a woman in real life. I know it feels crazy out there, but I don't know, just try. Possible rejection might possibly happen, but going up to a woman at a party or a coffee shop, not being creepy about it and just saying, hey, I like your vibe. I'm interested. Can we share social media accounts? Worst they can do is give you a fake social media account. That's happened before, you know, but you live to fight another day. And I gotta tell you, I don't think.
- [28:53]
Cameron Caskey
Addendum to your addendum. Sorry.
- [28:55]
Tim Miller
Yep. Please.
- [28:55]
Cameron Caskey
Tip four. And then a little bullet point after bullet point. Yeah, or just try to talk about stuff first before.
- [29:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, we're trying to talk about stuff first.
- [29:06]
Cameron Caskey
Great point.
- [29:06]
Tim Miller
Thank you. Good bullet point.
- [29:08]
Cameron Caskey
Be like, grab your friend who has a mustache that he doesn't need and say, hey real quick, I'm so sorry to bother you. This guy's got a shave, right? And suddenly you're talking about something that's.
- [29:20]
Tim Miller
Much better than my advice. Yeah, that's much better than my advice. That's great. Cam is giving you very actionable guidance here, but anything, I really think that your odds, I guess let's just put it math wise on the apps. People that are upset on the swiping because you're getting compared against the pool of the whole universe of people that are looks, maxing and mogging and doing all the other Gen Z shit. You're being compared against this entire pool on the Hinge app or on Tinder or whatever in real life. That's not true. As far as I can tell, a lot of women, people aren't flirting with them anymore really as much in real life. I mean, obviously they're getting flirted with some, but you know, so it's kind of nice, it's refreshing, it's new, it's flattering. You're not competing against Dylan Gike, you know, who is also swiping the same person. You're only competing against the other people in the coffee shop.
- [30:19]
Cameron Caskey
Go back and listen to episode one if you want to know how hot Dylan Gike is.
- [30:23]
Tim Miller
So yeah, so that's it. Just give it a try. That's my fourth piece of advice. My addendum to your number two Is what was the repeat how you said number two?
- [30:36]
Cameron Caskey
Number two, approach women with the goal of making friends.
- [30:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with that. But don't trick them. Okay? Part of this was if you don't actually want to be their friend, if you're only interested in sexy time, which is fine, nothing wrong with little casual sex, then you're only setting somebody up to be sad if you trick them. So. So on number two, just yes, if genuine. That's my agenda.
- [31:06]
Cameron Caskey
Totally. It's more like approach them with the goal of making friends. And if you're interested, you don't need to be smoking yours about it. You don't need to hide it. But if you can convince yourself, if you can have a conversation with yourself where you truly can believe, maybe it's good sometimes to just make friends. And you walk into it with that mindset. You have to mean it and you have to be earnest. But if you can understand that making friends is a good thing and that turns out women could be your friends, you can accept that truth. You will be in a great position. And then if it turns into something else, as some people in this generation, many of the most annoying people in this generation say, slay.
- [31:47]
Tim Miller
We got one more thing to talk about. When I was sick, you took over and offered an intro to the podcast with Deja, which was great. I fucking love Deja. And you told the listeners that you'd be providing some thoughts about something related to Hilaria Baldwin. So I'm teeing you up to give people what you'd promised.
- [32:07]
Cameron Caskey
Okay? So there was this reality show that I watched with my friend Elsie on Friday. That is TLC family comedy series about Alec and Hilaria Baldwin. Obviously, in the wake of the tragic murder that he accidentally committed on the set of the movie Rust, which is actually coming out, it's actually getting released. They went and they finished it.
- [32:32]
Tim Miller
This is on the cable channel tlc.
- [32:35]
Cameron Caskey
I got it on a streamer. I think it might have been Max. I don't really know. God, I hate calling it Max on hbo. I don't really know. But they made this reality show about Alec Baldwin and his family. And it's got this very odd tone where they keep on weaving in and out of the fact that he was on trial for murder. Prosecutorial misconduct got him released. And now there's another trial coming up. So they'll mention that and talk about how tragic it is that a mother lost their children. And then they'll frame it in this position where Hilaria, in her not very Consistent accent will talk about how tragic it's been for the Baldwins, and they'll sort of, you know, try to strike this balance by talking about, yes, it's a terrible tragedy. Here's why. It's also a terrible tragedy for us. And then it's like three minutes straight of them playing with their seven children with, like, war, like, heartwarming TLC music behind it. And it just makes me feel so fucking bad for these kids because, like, you know, a lot of parents share pictures of their children on social media. And it's nice because it's almost like if. If done appropriately, it's the same spirit as a family Christmas card, right? You do a family photo shoot, you share it online, and one day your kids will grow up and they'll see that you were documenting their childhood, but you were doing it in a way that was normal. Some parents way overshare their kids. And then you've got Alec and Hilaria Baldwin, who are not only bringing a camera crew into their house with their seven children while they're all, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5 years old, they're also doing so, interweaving this narrative about this guy committing murder. So it's so strange thinking about these toddlers growing up and being like, oh, here's this strange, you know, totally inconsistent documentation of my childhood. And here's me and my daddy playing and playing with toys and pets. And then also here's, you know, this sad music and this murder trial. And then here's mom talking about how she was unfairly roasted for her strange relationship with her heritage. And all I can say is, do.
- [34:53]
Tim Miller
They discuss the cucumber? I mean, the only thing that brought me joy in whatever year that was, you know, the year 2021, was Hilaria Baldwin not being able to, pretending that she couldn't pronounce the word cucumber.
- [35:09]
Cameron Caskey
I didn't even know about this cucumber.
- [35:11]
Tim Miller
You don't know about this?
- [35:13]
Cameron Caskey
No, but it's interesting. Alec Baldwin played Trump on snl. I think he did a great job. It was very funny. And he's got this wife named Hilaria or Hilaria or whatever, and she's very Melania coded. Both of them sound so odd when they're speaking. There's something so uncanny about it. Almost like somebody told an AI voice generator, like, make an accent that's sort of hard to place. And also have somebody, a beautiful woman, sound at all times like there's somebody off camera pointing a gun at her. Maybe Alec Baldwin, maybe It was even Alec Baldwin pointing a prop gun at her. But, yeah, all this is to say, this is just my message. My message to parents that you ought to be careful what you're posting of your children. It is so often that the. The pictures of my friends that are the ugliest are the pictures their parents post. Because when you see your kids, you're like, there is nothing more beautiful in the world than this child. So you. You don't really have a good sense of when they look ugly. But my friends are always talking about how the pictures mom or Mom's posting on Facebook, they look terrible. And mom doesn't understand because mom is like, you are the most beautiful thing ever. Please make sure your children look cutting that.
- [36:34]
Tim Miller
At least ask them. No, don't cut it. Just ask them. Just ask them. Ask your kids. Be, you know, be considerate or don't ask your kids. Fuck you. Who cares? They're your kids. You can do whatever you want. You know, I got a kid. I'm going to post what I want, all right? You know, she's going to find love with or without, you know, whether I post the most beautiful picture of her. But here's the thing. Every picture is great. You're right. I'm sorry. I can't decide between the good and the bad. I do have one bone to pick with you before we leave. I've not watched. You did not give me the homework assignment to watch this TLC show that streams on an unknown streamer, possibly Max. But is that not life, though? This notion that you have a trauma that you're dealing with, and for some minutes during the day, you're really consumed by this trauma, and then for other minutes, you're just playing Candyland with your children. Like, is that not. Is that not the reality that we want from our reality TV show?
- [37:29]
Cameron Caskey
Well, listen, I have, you know, the trauma that my classmates and I carry with us every day from the school shooting that we were in is eternal. And we'll never fully understand it, and it will be with us for the rest of our lives. But what I think I've done an extraordinary job doing is establishing my individuality and my identity as somebody who would be really disturbed and fucked up anyway, shooting or no shooting, I would be an unwell person regardless. And I agree. You know, the trauma and the fun and the happy moments are interwoven. Right? So often my friends and I who were in this school shooting will laugh through the pain, but also think about the PR that this is doing for Alec Baldwin. He has another fucking trial coming up. There's going to be civil court, and he's making this sob story about how unfortunate it is that he killed somebody and he's dragging his fucking kids into it.
- [38:34]
Tim Miller
Got it. Okay. I just wasn't. I wasn't quite figuring out the critique. Your critique was not that it did not feel true to life, that there were moments where you have sappy music and moments where it's dark. The critique is, why are you doing a documentary and traumatizing your children at this very century?
- [38:52]
Cameron Caskey
Traumatizing your children and also just making yourself look worse ahead of further moments in court. So with that, I'm going to say thank you, everybody, for listening to FYpod. Please do not mistake what I have said about this Alec Baldwin show as a recommendation of the Alec Baldwin show, because whether or not there was actual murder involved, it is tonally inconsistent. And if you're going to make a piece of nonfiction, a documentary, it has to be around an interesting subject. And they somehow managed to make Guy who Got Away with Murder boring. So do.
- [39:28]
Tim Miller
Do watch the hilarious Baldwin cucumber clip, though. Couldn't recommend that. Couldn't recommend that more highly.
- [39:34]
Cameron Caskey
We have tomatoes. We have cucumber. Cucumbers. Tune in next week. We're going to be talking about even more Gen Z topics, and maybe Tim will feel a little better. Thanks for listening and please patronize all of our advertisers.