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Narrator
From the age of Big Brother.
Blake
If they want to get you, they'll get you. DNSA specifically targets the communications of everyone.
Jack Posobiec
They're collecting your communications. These days we seem to spend so much of our time and energy surviving and reacting to the unhappy events and the strife and the conflict in our overcrowded world.
Narrator
But the bicentennials seem to awaken a
Jack Posobiec
certain feeling, a rather dormant spirit that
Narrator
too often seems to be missing from our modern life. Call it patriotism, call it a rebirth of pride, call it whatever you will, but if you mingled with the crowds who watched Upsell and the fireworks yesterday or came down for a last fling, like these people at the South Street Seaport this afternoon, you might have felt what we did. A great sense of joy and well being for the first time in many years. New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds out in force celebrating together. It reminded you of a small town celebration of the fourth of July, an idealized Norman Rockwell tableau. Only it wasn't a small town scene, not with these hundreds of thousands out to see the ships. Young families, older people, in many cases, grandparents, parents, children, celebrating together. And if you talked to them, you found they articulated what your eyes were seeing. A patriotic euphoria. Bitter, angry, controversial. Years forgotten, at least for this moment. Unity, reborn. Pride. Are you a patriotic nut?
Jack Posobiec
No, not at all.
Narrator
Then what?
Jack Posobiec
What happened to we just got caught up in the feeling. I didn't think I was going to care. And then when the day came, there we were.
Andrew
Just felt great.
Jack Posobiec
Everybody is in the spirit of the birthday mood. Yesterday morning on the train, one lady came in and said, happy birthday, everybody. And everybody chimed in and singing, Happy birthday, America.
Tyler
It was a beautiful spirit.
Jack Posobiec
I think people are closer together than they have ever been in a long time. I saw us pulling apart 10 years ago and maybe people becoming very antagonistic. I think this weekend showed us what we're really like, really won. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard to this week's edition of Thought Crime Thursday. What you just watched, there was video, I believe, out of Boston of the tall ships and the bicentennial. Okay, it was new, actually. New York. They're telling me it's New York. I know. The tall ships are in New York and Boston from 1976. 1976, the bicentennial. Was the bicentennial a little bit bigger than the 250th. And why does it seem that way? We are going to talk about it and we're going to commit a lot of thought crimes while we do it. But let's check. Who do we have with us today? Oh, my gosh. It's the original four. Up, up. Thought crime. What's up, guys?
Andrew
How you doing, Jack? What did you just say?
Jack Posobiec
I just.
Blake
I just want to remind everybody that that video might seem nice and nice, but then they marched down to the polling booths and they elected Jimmy Carter right after that, so.
Andrew
It's a good point. You know what? It struck me, I know how white
Jack Posobiec
that because one of the major reasons that Ford was that Ford lost in 1976 was that America still believed the lie that, you know, that Nixon was worthy of impeachment and that Ford had pardoned Nixon. And so they were sort of just mad at Ford over that.
Blake
But my point is, is the way that we can be better than in the 250 celebration is to make this 250 celebration so big and so impactful that we win midterms.
Tyler
Are we going to make it big enough? It seems. It seems pretty muted. I mean, we're five. Five months.
Andrew
July 4th is when it's going to.
Tyler
July 4th will be. But they had stuff throughout the year
Andrew
and we just did rededicate 250.
Blake
There's guys Trump's building an arch and he's repaving the reflecting pool. Like there's so much stuff happening.
Jack Posobiec
So, so, so yeah, we. I've been talking about this on. On X like all day. And this all started actually with my mom, believe it or not, because she wrote an op ed and she was, you know, talking about this to me the other day because she went to Valley Forge in for the 250th or excuse me, the 200th the bicentennial in 1976 and rode horses in the end of the wagon train there when Gerald Ford came. And that's when Valley Forge park was. It had been a state park for its entire history up until 1976. And Ford came and designated a federal park. So this year will be the 50th anniversary of it becoming a federal park. And it's kind of wild that it wasn't a national park prior to that. But anyway. And she just always told all these stories about how it was so big, how it was such a huge deal that there were covered wagons from all 50 of the 50 states there. I have no idea how they got Alaska and Hawaii, but that's what she said. And she was surprised at how this year it seems kind of muted. And what she was saying is that it wasn't so much about that the President, you know, isn't Doing anything. And there. And there aren't, you know, these events going on, but just that the general mood of the country doesn't seem to be as swept up in the anniversary as it was 50 years ago. And that's kind of what I wanted to get into. So it's not a knock on anything the President's doing. It's just that in 1976, you saw this massive grassroots outpouring of love and national pride for the country after a time, as we just said, we saw a president resign. We saw the Vietnam War had, you know, it was just kind of coming to an end back then. So there was a lot of tumultuous activity going on in the country. But there was something about that, that spirit of 76 that really took off in the bicentennial that we're just. We're just kind of not seeing this time around. It's more. It feels like it's more top down.
Tyler
Well, I think a big reason. It would have felt different. I'm looking at the numbers over time, and this is something that's been pointed out a lot. The percentage of Americans who were born abroad in 1976 was almost the lowest it had ever been in American history. I'm looking. It's by decade here. So in 1970, only 4.7% of Americans were born abroad. How much for 4.7% in 1970? So a few years later, that had gone up because we'd started doing immigration, but that's still the lowest it was.
Blake
So that was the.
Jack Posobiec
The.
Blake
The most American America because. So, Jack, that explains why the 76 bison was. Because everybody.
Andrew
Actually, I looked at those videos and my thought was, wow, we used to have a white country.
Tyler
Yeah, that too. But it's. Yeah. So we had.
Andrew
Sorry, white people are more into, like, the patriotism thing.
Blake
But also in an American country.
Tyler
But also black American,
Jack Posobiec
by the way,
Andrew
just to be clear, black Americans, I disagree with them politically mostly. But I consider. I mean, listen, you cannot tell the American story if you just tell the white story. You have to tell the black story, too, as much as it's been absolutely bastardized. And the Tuskegee Airmen were, like, not, you know, at all as, you know, talented fighters as the movies. It doesn't matter to me. You cannot tell the American story without telling the white and the black story. Okay. They're as much Americans as we are. So. So it doesn't surprise me that you'd see them also being, you know, supportive.
Jack Posobiec
Zuzu Maths was always like, 85, 15, 90, 10 kind of, kind of around there. It's always been that traditional mix.
Tyler
Zuzu's petals asked in the comments, what was the percentage of non Americans in America in 1776? Really high. We actually, crazy enough, we had very high. We had like very high immigration. Even during the revolution, people just kept pouring in. Thomas Paine. That's one of my favorite facts. Thomas Paine was an immigrant who basically showed up and wrote Common Sense and then fled the country to go to France. But yeah, no, so that was.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah.
Tyler
1976 is one of the most American generations because we had high immigration until the 20s, we cut it off. And then that generation of immigrants got heavily assimilated by World War I.
Andrew
You got to remember World War II, right? So my dad is in his, like, early 20s in 1976. He was raised going to high school, elementary school. All of his teachers were World War II vets. His college professors were World War II vets. There was nothing. I think those of us who didn't live through it, I think we fail to probably understand just how unifying winning World War II was for the body
Tyler
politic, for the culture, how good for the country. It's so interesting. So, for example, you know what caused the baby boom? Pretty much like before the Great Depression, before World War II, the US birth rate was actually only about what it is today. It was really low. And then World War II happens. We win and we think, oh, we have all these veterans. How do we celebrate these veterans? Let's pass the GI Bill and help a bunch of them go to college and get jobs. And let's create all these veteran preferences. So male status for all these World War II winning veterans goes way up. So the marriage rate goes way up, their wages go way up, the birth rate goes way up.
Andrew
In the graphs, right, where it was like status education, like male to female. It turns out when you're male, the males in your culture, status wise, earning wise, education wise is higher than the females. You get a crap ton of babies
Tyler
and so many other things. Like, I think one reason you had all these guys who'd served in the military, they got useful, even stuff. Like, for example, if you watch old Star Trek. This is a funny thing.
Jack Posobiec
Go on.
Tyler
Star Trek is made by this huge lib, Gene Roddenberry. And yet if you watch it, it just. It feels vaguely. It's like you're watching actual US military propaganda. In some ways, Starfleet is this super effective organization.
Jack Posobiec
I know what you mean.
Tyler
Yeah. Highly competent men. And it's because all the guys who made it had served in the military in World War II.
Jack Posobiec
And it's like. Even. Even, like, when they go on missions and the way they talk to each other, it's. You can tell it's written by. And it's in a lot of media from that timeframe. That's a great example.
Andrew
There's honor, there's duty.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. You can tell that it's written by people who are actually drawing on their own experiences. I think. I think Kurt Vonnegut was actually in, like, the bombing of Dresden. And, you know, there's a ton of you, just authors and writers who reach back to Orwell, of course, was. Well, that was the Spanish Civil War, but, you know, who are drawing on their own experiences that led to that. And so it was this massive, you know, forged, you know, nation for event like World War II. We had a shared identity, creates that shared identity. And this. That's a picture of Valley Forge right there. You actually see a Confederate flag in that photo, which is kind of interesting. That, like, that was an event that the President was going to, and nobody had a problem with the Confederate flag being there. In this image, you can actually see Gerald Ford in one of the Conestoga wagons. That image. Hold this for a second. That if you look the. The. So the woman on the. Very far right here, that's my mom in the brown. The one in the pink is my mom's cousin. They're on together. And the woman with the cowboy hat. Cowgirl hat is my grandmom.
Andrew
Very good. That's great.
Jack Posobiec
There's just.
Andrew
Yeah, there you go. Huge crowd.
Tyler
So for the 250th, we have a few interesting celebrations that are very near and dear to the President's heart. I only learned this today. I knew about the UFC fight that we're doing. That's gonna be fun. But I didn't know. Apparently, we're doing an indie car race through the streets of D.C. yeah, that's gonna be. That's gonna be something. I like that.
Andrew
That's what I'm saying. Like, wait till the summer kicks into full gear. We might have a whole different perspective of this, but I think the larger point that you're making, Jack, that we are more divided. We're more ethnically divided. We have way more foreigners and their children here that have no idea, no loyalty. Many of them. Some have them. Okay. And then we don't have this galvanizing, victorious, triumphant event just 25 years in our past, namely World War II, where we defeated the Nazis and tyranny and the Japanese Instead we've got, you know, our boomers are Vietnam vet eras, right? So they summer of love, Vietnam vet. We've got many costly wars and the cost of living is through the roof. And there's all of these. You know, there's a sense of national decline. Whether it's warranted or not, there is a sense of national decline that is pervasive. And so all of these things mix into this goo, this soup. And I do think it's gonna be muted. The other thing that I would just like to add is that, you know, back in the day when we had a president that wasn't the party that you were. So if we had a Democrat, you were registered Republican, there was still a sense that he's your president. Now we do this game, he's not my president. So half the country is instantly turned off to the 250 because Donald Trump happens to be president right now. And that's too bad.
Tyler
True enough. And it shows the greater obsession with politics. Cuz it's not like 1976 had no political split. The splits in the 60s were incredibly bad. The rioting was a lot worse then. And we just come out of Watergate. Watergate was psychologically devastating for America. In some ways, we've never recovered from what happened in Watergate. If you look at the general respect and status of the president in the 50s and 60s and it's just, it's lost after Watergate. That's after, after. That's when we get all the cynical political stuff. It's when we get frankly, a big increase in like conspiracy theories involving the President. There's just a lot more sense that you can't trust the government. I think Congress has basically been stuck at 20% or below approval rating ever since Watergate happened.
Andrew
Did Nixon do the wrong thing in taking the fall?
Tyler
I think Nixon did the wrong thing in not having a bloodbath of his staff immediately after the break in happened.
Blake
I think that's what went wrong. He 100% did the wrong thing.
Andrew
But just to be clear what we're talking about, Jack, you should probably just do the primer here because there's probably some people that haven't got this full story, but Nixon took the fall for the sake of the nation when it came to Watergate, big time.
Jack Posobiec
And by the way, I just. Before we go down too much, too far down the rabbit hole. So this, this had just taken place. Nixon resigns in 74. So those, those images you're looking at with Gerald Ford there, he's already pretty unpopular as a president in this, in those images of Ford speaking at Valley Forge. And he would go on, I pulled it up. He, you know, he loses to 97 to 240 later that same year. So he loses the presidential election. He wins a fair amount of states, actually wins more states than. Than Carter. He actually loses Pennsylvania, which is the state that he's campaigning in right there. But, yeah, that's. That's a losing president in, you know, the course, the president that no one ever elected. But again, to. To Blake's broader point, the idea was that, you know, he was still the president. It wasn't. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to go see that Republican Gerald Ford. It's like, I'm going to go see the president. And, you know, so that was sort of seen as separate. The role itself was seen as separate from the person. Does that make sense?
Andrew
Yeah, of course. I think that's the larger point. The Americans could still put their nation above politics, and we've lost that ability. I think we lost that ability starting with probably Iraq, honestly. And it accelerated under Obama and has continued to accelerate under Trump. Sadly. Biden certainly didn't help. Calling MAGA conservatives the greatest danger and existential danger to the country. And then the villainization of white America, the white supremacy. They still go on about how we're the greatest threat to the country. That's the most retarded thing I've heard in a long time. I really came to this conclusion, like, I've known it's dumb, but the villainization of white America by the progressive left is literally one of the most retarded things. It doesn't hold up statistically, it doesn't hold up anecdotally. It doesn't hold up economically. It doesn't hold up in any way, shape or form. Actually, white Americans tend to be pretty darn good citizens. And the country's lucky to have, like, a vibrant, you know, robust white, you know, population.
Jack Posobiec
So go look at. Yeah, I was gonna say go look at. Go look at those images. Go, go look at the images again. That there's, you know, does. Does that look like a problem? Right, right. There's always so much lying about the left where they. They say, like, oh, people weren't patriotic in the past. There was no Norman Rockwell America. That was all just made up. And it's like, this is something where there are people who. I'm sure there are people watching the show. There are people who remember it that have living memory of. Of this America and being this patriotic and having American bicentennial fever just took over. And I was taking, and I'd love to throw out to the chat, you know, do you guys, if you can remember it, do you, what do you remember about the bicentennial? The quarters were a big part of that. I remember growing up with like bicentennial quarters was a big deal. They made that was like the first special edition of the quarter that was made. Now they kind of do it like every year. No offense to Secretary Benson, but you know, it's just, it's just not as cool because it's like the first one that, the first time it happened like every, every company was doing something, literally every company, you know, patriotic Zippo lighters and, and they, which were made in the usa. I don't know if they're still made in the usa, but it's, it just on and on and on. Whereas today it's sort of like, yeah, I think Coke is doing cups. You know, that's, that's one thing I've seen at like my kids Little league games. But other than that it's, it just feels very top down.
Andrew
Well, we've had, we've had some hits to the brand. You know, that's just, you know, that's the bottom line. America's had some hits to the brand and the hits keep saying hits keep coming unfortunately.
Jack Posobiec
But I, you know, you always talk about how a lot of this goes back to Obama and we just, we sort of, you know, give him a pass on it, but it really does.
Blake
It's all Obama. The whole thing.
Andrew
It's not all Obama.
Blake
It's all Obama.
Andrew
It's a lot Obama. I'll agree with you, it's a lot.
Blake
It's 100% Obama.
Andrew
Okay, make your case.
Blake
The shift, the shift happened during the, it's very clear.
Andrew
Started apologizing for America.
Blake
I mean everything.
Andrew
That's when you also saw a lot a rise in the publications, you know, New York Times, Washington Post, use of the word race.
Tyler
Yeah, racist. That all blew up. That all starts to go up a lot. And I want to say 2009, 2010, it goes really, really up in 2012. But if you just look at the
Blake
graphs that, that Blake had just up. I mean America was pretty consistent with its foreign born population and then obviously hit a huge spike in the Reagan decision.
Andrew
And then 1990. People, people, look, everybody goes to Hart Cellar, which was big, but 1990 might have been like just fundamentally bigger because we went from 500,000 green cards a year to 1.2 million. And we've just been going on that
Blake
race and then it's just been 90. It's just been seen ever since during the Obama years. I mean obviously Obama. The Democrats figured out during the Obama years that eight years was so devastating for America because they figured out all the things that they could do within the framework of the Constitution to fundamentally change America. And that goes to packing the Supreme Court. This idea didn't pop up until you know, basically starting with Holder and co. The redistricting games. Part of the everybody's like, you ask any old person be like hey, did you ever even, or were you even aware about redistricting? Nobody was aware of redistricting. These are now gamesmanship that was basically conducted again. Eric Holder and co initiated this entire process. The concept of flooding the country with illegals to change how redistricting is impacted is the primary, I believe the primary reason why we have such increase in foreign born, foreign born nationals that are coming to the country. You have a huge amount of things that have now changed. Now you talk about California, the top two primary system. You talk about ranked choice voting. Again. We lived 250 years in this country. Most of these ideas have sprung up in the last 15 and really they got.
Andrew
Judicial activism is another thing. And they really got the national injunctions, the lawfare and they got their legs
Blake
again under Eric Holder and co dei,
Andrew
all this like race crap.
Blake
Everything got changed during the Obama administration. So I mean if you don't like the direction America's going and lots of people, I've heard lots of people complain, they're like, oh, I don't like that Republicans are engaging in the redistricting fights or you know, you know, I don't even know why we're talking about X, Y and Z. It's like, well because all of this was brought to the forefront because Democrats, really bad Democrats, radical Democrats who want to hijack the government were put into positions of power during the Obama administration.
Andrew
So I'm, I'm going to. We're hitting back. We've taken some hits to the brand, but we're hitting back. And I want to, I don't want to like people get like bummed out about everything. This is a big white pill moment. So the day we're recording this, if you're listening on podcasts on Saturday, but we're recording this right now live on Thursday. So there's this big autopsy, right? Throw this graph up if you would. Jack. I don't know if you saw this or not, but look at the gains that conservatives have had since the Obama mania of 2008. Look at that. So in 2009, it was 60 Democrat senators.
Blake
Yep.
Andrew
To 40. Now we're at 53 Republicans to 47. That's R plus 13. Congress were R plus 41. Governors were R plus 5. State legislators were R plus nearly a thousand. So can I follow up state trifectas where we have both houses and the governorship? R +13.
Blake
So my follow up to that is that some of these ideas and the. And the people who are implementing them are highly unpopular. Right. So the Democrat shift, this radicalism to basically take over the government is, I think, organically. I don't think there's been like an actual great national narrative that's talked about this, but I think that people in general, Americans in general, have rejected that. I mean, the reality is that Democrats worked harder to hijack the country and they've lost ground to this point.
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, they tried. I mean, the question ultimately, and I know Jack and I have ruminated about this before, is you have to sort of ask yourself how much virtue is left in the body politic, how much Americana is still coursing through our veins, how much patriotism, like that's a big question, especially when you've had the largest movement of humanity move in to our country in the last 40 years.
Tyler
We have 50 million people who were born outside America, but on top of
Andrew
that, all their kids.
Tyler
I mean. Yeah, all their kids. And. And I'd say it also matters that I think they come from overall more alien cultures. And it's a lot easier to avoid assimilating today because you can, if you're, if you move here now from, let's say, India now, you can be on social media from India, you can easily fly back to India.
Andrew
Your India content.
Tyler
Exactly. You can. You basically can live in your Indian neighborhood and basically live in little India in the U.S. yeah. And. And you have fewer vectors that would cause you to assimilate, because if you are an immigrant here 100 years ago, it's going to be aggressively pushed that you need to know English. But also you'll probably be Christian, so you'll probably be involved in US Christian churches. Whereas if you're Hindu, there are not really any American Hindus other than Tulsi Gabbard.
Andrew
But you've made this point. I forget what the article was, but it was brilliant. But it made the case. And maybe you could.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, no, I remember.
Tyler
That's the Arctic theory of two American nations.
Andrew
So you talk about how alien a culture is and somehow we need to systematize our thinking on this. Because if you go back far enough, let's take our brains back to 1880, right? You still have a majority Anglo America, America. And they were freaking out about Italians and Polish and they were freaking out about the Irish. They thought that those cultures were going to be impossible to assimilate. But you had aggressive assimilation pressures from native born Americans, from the economy, from jobs, from churches, from civic society. And it really didn't work for a long time. And a lot of those populations caused massive problems. What happened, you had the Great Depression and you had World War II that galvanized the nation and reforged a national identity. But the big problem was is that it created this myth. The myth was we're a nation of immigrants. And that myth has blown open the doors to this even more alien cultures from the American core culture. And the question is, can you assimilate cultures that are so alien, that don't share your religion, that don't share a love of Western civilization or inherent understanding of it? That's the open question.
Jack Posobiec
I mean, I didn't say this when we were having this conversation earlier because I brought this up on, on my show on human events, but, you know, and I hate doing the whole like, oh, well, my wife. But so, you know, speaking as a guy who does live with a, you know, in a family where I have a wife who's an immigrant and has children, whose mother is an immigrant. And I know she listens to the show every week, it's it. I just got to say it though, you know, she loves this country. She is totally assimilated to this country. Not just patriotically though, but also culturally and in terms of her background. And for our kids, when they're going around, you know, playing Little League or whatever, they have no problem whatsoever fitting in, even though they are in a sense first generation immigrants. And they don't run into that experience that many of the people who, you know, cite issues of alienation and isolation run into as first generation immigrants because just because she's from Europe and because the majority of people in America are from Europe. And Andrew, to your point that it's, it's actually okay to say that and it's actually okay to have immigration from Europe. And yet for some strange reason, all of the hart cellar and 1990s and other immigration policies have always attempted to dilute that, the level of that population. Yet I just know from again, anecdotal personal experience that when, you know, when someone comes over from, from Europe and wants to settle down here and have a family. It's seamless. It's just seamless.
Andrew
I totally agree. Not all immigration is bad, even though I'm very much pro net Zero immigration moratorium. Because at this point, we can't get what we want. Like, you can't. You can't get cultures that are easily assimilable. Assimilatable. Because, you know, the Democrats being like, Blake.
Jack Posobiec
Blake craps on. On Eastern European food. He's just. He's just completely wrong. It's so good.
Andrew
Wait, I don't even know what Eastern European.
Tyler
If I have some borscht, I Kielbasa.
Andrew
Listen, if I. I was going to say, like, if all. If all it is is like pierogies.
Tyler
Oh, boy. Pierogies you guys have.
Andrew
I've had.
Tyler
You mean your culture has meat surrounded by some dough? That's such a unique cultural.
Blake
First of all, it's pierogi.
Andrew
Jack's face.
Blake
Pierogi in American. It's in Russian.
Andrew
Look at Jack's face. You're.
Jack Posobiec
We are pirates.
Andrew
I've never seen him again.
Jack Posobiec
There's something wrong with them. Like, what's wrong with them?
Tyler
I think a lot of cultures have.
Andrew
You know me, Jack. I'm with you, bro.
Jack Posobiec
Nothing.
Blake
They're incredible.
Andrew
I think Blake has been on jihad
Jack Posobiec
against Eastern European food, Slavic food forever. And is it poor people food? You bet it is. It's definitely poor people food.
Tyler
I don't even jump on it that hard. One of my favorite restaurants is. I was in. When I was in Poland, in Gdansk, I went to a baked potato themed restaurant, Bar Pod Riba. Bar under the fish. Yeah, man, it's under the fish, man. And it's got 80 different types of baked potato. I had two types of.
Jack Posobiec
I see there we're being asked. We're being asked to segue. And I believe our next topic does actually have something to do with food as well.
Andrew
This is a good segue. That is a good version.
Jack Posobiec
Is that Note, I did not intend this. This was unintentional.
Andrew
Okay, let's do it. Okay, Jack, let me do this one. Okay. So many, many moons ago, many moons, a Polish American not hyphenated, an American of Polish descent named Jack Posowiek lamented repeatedly online about the fall of a once great American institution. And that institution used to be the gathering point of American families, rich and poor, black and white, rural and urban. And that institution, of course, was none other than the great Pizza Hut. Now, unfortunately, like many institutions in American life, it fell upon hard times it forgot itself. It forgot what made it great. But out of the ashes arose one who remembered its former greatness and called upon it to rise once more to reclaim its throne as America's gathering place. Where families could feel safe and play bad video games and put quarters in to beat their old records and their personal best and have those plastic cups that were red and sort of. Sort of see through and get the crushed ice. That's right. Pizza Hut is rising once more. And Jack Posobec deserves to take a very, very well deserved bow, because I'm pretty sure this started with your Twitter account and an entrepreneur took hold of the vision that you set forth, Jack, and is making Pizza Hut great again. Yes.
Jack Posobiec
I mean, so, I mean, it's just one of those things. Look. Thank you. It's just one of those things where
Andrew
it's like, credit where it's due, you
Jack Posobiec
know, during COVID I'll. I'll never forget this, man. I. I have my kids and I was just like, let's go out to, you know, get some. Something, get some food. And I was like, you know, I haven't been to Pizza Hut in forever. And gosh, I had so many great memories of. We had one within walking distance of my house where I grew up. And I was like. I was like, you know, this is something I should repeat with my kids. So I go in and it was a. A former classic Pizza Hut. And it had like, boxes everywhere. It was clearly operating as just a door dash kind of place. It was. I'm gonna say it was dirty. There was like just junk all over the place. And I went in and said, hey, can we, can we sit and eat here with my son? And I think Tanya had. Because our other ones was, was. Was really little. And I'm like, what's going on? And they didn't even think that people could eat inside. And it went crazy viral. I think Elon engaged with it and some other stuff and it. And for years I've been talking about Pizza Hut nationalism, about how we just used to have these Pizza Huts that were centered around families and Pizza Huts that were centered around people getting together and having a good time. And if everyone remembers, I think it was the old land before time VHS video and the Ninja Turtles VHS video, that when you would get them, they would have a Pizza Hut, like a long form ad that was, you know, front loaded.
Tyler
We have the ads. We have ads here.
Blake
No, no. For kids in the late 80s, early 90s in particular. It was like, if your parents took you to Pizza Hut. You were extraordinarily wealthy, and you were, like, really well liked. You did something really great in school. It was the book. Remember the book thing, too. What was it?
Tyler
We have it like, guys, let's show some of these ads. So let's do the book it promo first. Let's do SOT 5. Teaching a child to read is a gift. The BookIt program from Pizza Hut encourages
Andrew
kids to read by giving them their favorite food, pizza. And since 1985, we've helped over 200 million children discover the joys of reading,
Tyler
because reading is a gift that everyone should share.
Andrew
Man, we. We look pretty recent.
Tyler
That doesn't even look like an 80s.
Andrew
The 90s were amazing, dude.
Blake
That. That, like, the feeling of, like, getting to go to, like. Because there was one thing. There's. There's two differences. There was getting pizza delivered to your house, which was special. That was cool. That was like. But getting to go to actual. The actual Pizza Hut and, like, walk up to that salad bar and, like, get. Like, sit down and you get the full pizza and, like, the full pizza experience with that look. Like there's nothing else. There's nothing better than that.
Tyler
Let's show a few of the other ads.
Jack Posobiec
I want to go. I want to play that ad because, like, as cool as it is, right, It's. It's something bigger than Pizza Hut. It's always been a bigger thing because you're. You're trying to hearken back to that bicentennial Americanism that. That classic Americanism. Family friendly, a community get together. And the minute you turn on one of those ads, you just get that feeling. It hits you right in the feels. And. And I think there's. There's none. And I know you guys like to do it because it always gets me, but now I actually get to be happy because it's happening. It's finally happening. Let's roll it. Off.
Tyler
In the distance.
Jack Posobiec
The game's dragging on. There's strikes on the batter. Some runners are on. But suddenly everyone's looking at me. My mind has been wondering, what could they point to the sky?
Tyler
And I look up above, and a
Jack Posobiec
baseball falls into my glove.
Tyler
I play right field.
Jack Posobiec
It's important, you know, you gotta know how to catch. You gotta know how to throw. That's why I play in right field. Way up where the dandelions grow. As a proud sponsor of Little League
Narrator
baseball, Pizza Hut welcomes all the kids
Jack Posobiec
who make it great.
Blake
Is that Goldberg from the Mighty Duck?
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, it's Goldberg.
Blake
That's Goldberg. Wait Wait, wait, wait.
Andrew
Hold on.
Blake
The catcher is literally Goldberg. Like, the most iconic fat kid from Fat Kid, 80s 90s movies.
Tyler
I feel the need to point out that, like, does kids in your Little League have uniforms that nice? In my league, we just kind of had crappy sponsored T shirts that say, like, beach equipment and supply on it. I think that was actually who sponsored us. We didn't win any games, unfortunately.
Andrew
But I. I love it all. I just. I. I'm. I'm getting emotional because now I got kids, and I. I think about Little League and. Okay, we used to have a country, guys. We used to have a country.
Tyler
This show is called Thought. So I'm going to provoke all three of you guys right now. I have a few things. One, I feel like a lot of this stuff, even if it went away from Pizza Hut for a while, it didn't go away from America. You can still find these things.
Jack Posobiec
I don't know.
Andrew
I'm sure it's strong.
Tyler
So there are still. There are still pizza buffets all over.
Blake
Yeah. But the point is that there was an iconic. We had a monoculture environment that was built by Pizza Hut that every kid yearned for. Like, if you were a normal kid, and again, the late 80s, early 90s, you wanted two things. A Nintendo.
Andrew
Yeah.
Blake
And you wanted to go to Pizza Hut as regularly as possible. And if your parents took you, you were like, oh, my gosh, my parents love me. The same way that if your parents under the Christmas tree put, like, a Nintendo or super Nintendo, you were like, my parents love me.
Tyler
Well, okay, that's cool and all, but there are restaurants, people, like today as well.
Blake
There are food stores. Yeah, but there's not like a. And here's.
Jack Posobiec
There are no family.
Andrew
It doesn't exist.
Jack Posobiec
It literally. It literally doesn't exist.
Blake
If you would have called children in 1992, like, where would they go? Like, where would they, like, basically kill to go? Or have your parents take them? Most of them, like, would have said. It would have been. An overwhelming majority would have been like, pizza. It's so cool. Because of this whole book it thing. Like, everything.
Tyler
Kids did not love pizza because of book it.
Blake
I'm telling. I'm telling you.
Tyler
People like to book it because of pizza.
Blake
How did I, like, how do we just, like, know about it then?
Andrew
I. I.
Tyler
So I'll be honest. I only mostly know about this from the cultural spillover. I only think. I think I only went to Pizza Hut a couple times.
Jack Posobiec
No, I, like, I love getting happy, very popular, and. And I'm Really? But here's the thing to suggest that it's, you know, that there might be, you know, some regional differences where people weren't as into it. Sure, that's fine.
Blake
But, yeah, I mean, like, nobody had anywhere but, like, everywhere. The reality is that, like, in normal suburbia in America, there was, like, you were, like, blessed to get a happy Meal. That was cool. But what's really interesting about this cultural I scene at. At Pizza Hut is that kids weren't getting toys and stuff. You were just going to eat pizza as a family.
Tyler
Okay, yeah, you can still go get pizza. I think you're going to eat the ability to get pizza. Family. This is.
Blake
But this
Andrew
is.
Tyler
But this is my point.
Blake
Like, I didn't even want.
Jack Posobiec
I feel like you missed the first part of this where, like, I tried to do that and I couldn't. And then I couldn't find a place that was even, like the original Pizza Hut. Like, that's what actually started all of this.
Blake
And now it's back.
Tyler
Okay, Right.
Jack Posobiec
And now we're bringing it back.
Tyler
Go to a pizza.
Blake
Oh, all right, here's the deal. We're going to get you hooked up, you have kids, and you're going to take them to these re.
Tyler
And I'll go to Peterbourne or whatever we call it. Peter Piper Pizza, something like that. That's a pizza buffet here in Phoenix.
Blake
Peter Piper Pizza feels like autism in real life.
Tyler
Like, I think autism in real life. That's hilarious, Tyler.
Blake
Like, it feels like physical autism around you. Like, if you're in, like. Like inside the body of autism, like that. Like, that is. That's what you've. There was a calming. Am I right about this, Jack? The calming experience. You're 100, right.
Jack Posobiec
Everything you're saying is exactly Tyler and Tyler, I'm trying to explain it to you on opposite ends of the country. So, I mean, yes, like, what you're talking about is exactly the same thing I experienced on the. On the East Coast. You grew up in Arizona, and yet it's the exact same feeling, the exact same childhood, and, you know, at least experience in terms of this. And Pizza Hut was able to take that. I'm not saying there aren't other regional brands that have done this. I could think of a couple on the east coast that. That do kind of get there, but there's. There's. There's nothing as nationally iconic as the Pizza Hut. And my point is, is that in Pizza Hu. National chain, you can actually see the slip between a place that was a family restaurant. In its heyday, that moved to the sort of like, go, go, hey, just pick up your pizza and leave sort of place, as McDonald's, by the way, has. You know, if you're in fewer playgrounds, as is another sort of example of what we're talking about here. Because. Because they're just not designed for families anymore.
Andrew
No. But the average American family doesn't feel safe in them. You get a bunch of weirdos hanging out at McDonald's now.
Tyler
Like, I think it's probably insurance stuff,
Blake
but that's the point. Like McDonald's, like, again, it was like, exciting to go play. Place was dirty and grimy. It was disgusting. Like, there's like loose diapers.
Jack Posobiec
You always got hurt on the metal bars.
Blake
It's just disgusting. Like, and you got to go, like, get a Happy Meal, whatever. Like, and as a toy. And like, that was.
Jack Posobiec
Can we get a picture of, like, the old McDonald's playground?
Blake
The really special part about Pizza Hut that was interesting was that to this point was that there was nothing flashy. It wasn't like cheap dopamine stuff. It was. It was you. You went and it was the family experience. And it was like, you gotta hold a plate as a kid, walk up to the salad bar, get what kind of whatever you wanted. You sat down, they brought you the pizza. As a family. You're there and it's this calming vibe. And it was like you spent time there. Like, it wasn't like, you're in and out, rushing in and out.
Andrew
How much of this is legitimately back to our first conversation? Like immigration. Like, I'll just thought crime. It. Okay, so an average white family in 1980 would go to a 90% white neighborhood. McDonald's. Poor people, rich people. But they shared the same culture.
Blake
Yeah.
Andrew
And they would go in and it felt like you were next to your neighbor. And now you go there and it's like you've got people you don't relate to. They don't share culture. Some of them are like, make you feel unsafe and it just kind of loses its luster. You see this with public parks.
Tyler
This is what I'm gonna say. I think. I think some of this is. I'll be.
Jack Posobiec
I'll put it.
Tyler
Be honest. I think it's on white people. Because first of all, you say it feels unsafe. America was way more unsafe in the 80s, 1980s. That like, the period we're remembering is peak murder wave America.
Andrew
Part of its vibes.
Tyler
America now is super. Yeah. That's how you feel.
Andrew
But you feel you don't really? Okay. Why do people feel that way? If. Let's assume. Concede me the point.
Tyler
A lot of people. I think a lot of people are. I think we have helicopter parent. I think a lot of people are paranoid. I think they've trained themselves to be paranoid social media and to be downbeat. And I also think a lot of this is also. I think white people have elevated their expectations for food, so they. They feel irresponsible taking their kids to a bunch of junk food. You know, a giant junk food buffet. Like, oh, should I actually feed my kids a ton of pizza at a buffet?
Andrew
We do. We take our kids, like, parties all the time at like, these trampoline.
Jack Posobiec
But that's also the whole movement is about that.
Blake
Which.
Jack Posobiec
Which literally the whole Maha movement. Trampoline parks is a massive political movement, like, literally dedicated to this question. The.
Blake
The real life autism thing, though, is like, what your trampoline parks feel like.
Andrew
What.
Tyler
What do you mean by real life autism?
Blake
All the sensory stuff overload. It's like kids everywhere. It's smells like it's disgusting, like, it's dirty.
Andrew
My kids love it because they're kids.
Blake
No, I know, like, the same place dirty.
Tyler
You don't think Pizza Hut had like, you know, like garbage, like, dirt and grime Everywhere in the 80s? 80s was a pretty dirty, grimy time.
Blake
But the point is, it's like I just threw in the chat is like there was a totally different vibe to this. The point is the kids like this instead.
Tyler
I think the vibe was just that
Blake
you yourself were like eight thousands, thousands of people.
Andrew
There's probably a little bit of the both going.
Blake
But my point. My point is, is like the kids still like the sensory overload stuff that still exists. It just. It looks different now. Like you have like.
Andrew
Yeah, what I was gonna say is we would. We do pizza party. So when we do a birthday party at a trampoline park, right, they have a venue where like, a person comes in, they light a cake, they cut the cake, they serve the cake to the kids. And then when they have usually served pizza. So it's not a Pizza Hut, but,
Blake
you know, the Pizza hut of the 90s was like, again, it was the vibe. It was different. Kids wanted it. But the fact I'm saying, it's just weird.
Andrew
Here we go. We don't have to play this whole thing, but I feel like we're missing a big chunk of this conversation because this is what the guy did to fulfill Jack's vision. Maybe we don't have it loaded yet. Do we have it loaded? But this, I wanted to make sure we actually played the story because this guy's been putting this out there. I think he's at like 80 locations. These pizza Huts again, is it, is it loaded, guys? I'm sorry if it's not. There's.
Blake
I have a second video I just dropped into loaded.
Andrew
Okay, 37, you can play. You don't have to play the whole thing, but go ahead, 37.
Blake
You miss it at night. Like they need a good video at night.
Bradley Blackburn
A familiar red roof catches the eye. Inside the vinyl booths, Tiffany style lamps and yes, the salad bar you may remember from decades ago.
Jack Posobiec
I mean, it's amazing. The comments we have about they have the red cups. Yes, we do.
Bradley Blackburn
Tim Sparks got his start working at a Pizza Hut that looked like this. He's now president of Dalen Corporation, which owns this franchise and more than 80 others around the country. They've redecorated many restaurants to rewind the clock. It looks exactly like the one that I remember from when I was a kid.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, that's what we were after.
Bradley Blackburn
Some Pizza Hut classics are now top performing locations. Customers show up for a piece of their childhood.
Jack Posobiec
It just brings back memories to share
Bradley Blackburn
with their own kids.
Andrew
When you finally find something that tastes how you genuinely remember it, tasting like you can't let it go.
Jack Posobiec
People come from two and three hours away, and I'm not making that up.
Bradley Blackburn
More restaurants are serving up nostalgia. Franchises like Burger King and KFC returned to old school logos and packaging in recent years. At Pizza Hut, they even brought back Pac Man. But for Sparks, this is much more than a game. It's a mission to rebuild places where families can connect.
Jack Posobiec
If we can get them in here as a family, they do tend to put their phones down and actually have conversations and speak with each other. I'm not going to tell you I know how to fix the world, but I do think that family is a good place to start.
Bradley Blackburn
He hopes to renovate more of his restaurants. As long as he can find enough of those lamps. They're hard to get. Yeah, they're almost impossible to get a familiar taste. Well, cheers. Bringing people together just like I remember anyone. Again, Bradley Blackburn, CBS News, Tunkanock, Pennsylvania.
Tyler
Yeah, that's like lost technology. Like, oh, we can't, we can't make.
Andrew
Gotta go to China to get the.
Tyler
You probably would have to go to China to remake them from scratch.
Andrew
But I love that guy's whole vibe. He's like, I don't know much and I don't know how to fix everything. But. But Fam is pretty good.
Tyler
I like it, but it doesn't sound genius. People, they show. They're saying, oh, it's a piece of my childhood. I want to revisit that.
Andrew
Like, I was just.
Tyler
Okay, that's cool.
Andrew
But you know what's upsetting?
Blake
Wait, time out. These are in Pennsylvania. So, Jack, you get to go to these?
Andrew
Yeah. Have you been to one?
Jack Posobiec
Jack, they are not in my corner of Pennsylvania. These are, like, central pa. So we haven't been to one yet.
Blake
What are you waiting on, dude?
Tyler
Hold on.
Jack Posobiec
Where. I would have to be one of those far away in two, three hours.
Tyler
Tun. Cannock.
Andrew
Okay.
Tyler
You have to drive three hours.
Andrew
Okay, so it's, like, normal, but, like. Okay, so I'm a Dodger fan. Everybody hates on me for whatever. You know what upsets me, though? And they talked about this how, like, Burger King's going back to old logos. KFC is going back to old logos. For the love of God, baseball. Stop doing this, like, University of Oregon garbage where you're, like, changing up your. Your jersey all the time. Give me the iconic. Like, the old school. You know, you saw it with the Little League thing. They were the old school baseball jerseys. They look great.
Jack Posobiec
You know, the. The Eagles and the Phillies have been doing it. The Eagles and Phillies have been bringing back the classic jerseys. And it's amazing. So much better. So good.
Andrew
So much better. Anyways, that's just like a. I think we have 37.
Blake
Just shows you. Shows you the walkthrough of the Pizza Hut class.
Andrew
All right. Wait, don't. I thought you wanted the. The playgrounds from McDonald's.
Blake
Oh, no. 30 is 37. Yeah. This is the walkthrough. This is the guy.
Andrew
Yeah.
Blake
I mean, guys. And again, nighttime, it's a totally different vibe. Like the lamp. Those lamps at night.
Jack Posobiec
Oh, yeah.
Andrew
Caboose is just, like, nostalgia baiting everybody. Like, it's true. We are.
Jack Posobiec
I was. I was joking when I put this up the first time. I even pointed out that they should. They should really nostalgia bait these for. For, like, elder millennial Gen Y parents. But even, like, you know, working in. For, like, the TikTok. So you should set up, like, old TVs and have, like, the Land Before Time playing and stuff like that throughout the theater. Throughout the.
Tyler
What's so funny about this?
Jack Posobiec
You know, just, like, go lean in and absolutely embrace all of it.
Tyler
What's funny about this is, in some sense, it's actually the opposite of making it more. I don't want to Say the opposite. But it's not. It's not quite related to making it more pro family. Because if you're deliberately nostalgia baiting millennials, you're basically saying, we're aiming this kind of a. You're actually kind of saying, I'm aiming this at childless millennials in their 30s and 40s because parents go where their parents go where their kids want to go.
Blake
No, no parents.
Tyler
Pizza hut in the 80s, designed to appeal to children in the 80s. Now it's designed to appeal to people who were children.
Blake
Parents have a combination of.
Jack Posobiec
I get what you're saying. It won't work if you don't have kids.
Blake
No, but appeasing your children with what they want and then showing kids what you like. Parents. Parents. Part of the reason why. I totally agree. There's a totally weird, you know, Disney adult thing that exists. Then there's a certain. And there's people who will show up to this because of that. But there's also a huge base of consumers that want to show their kids, like, their experiences.
Tyler
They do.
Blake
Although a big portion, I think an underrepresented portion of Disneyland is parents forcing their kids to go on rides they liked when they were young. Like, I make my. My kids go to the Tiki Room every time.
Tyler
And I wonder, is it one of
Blake
the most boring things at Disneyland? Yeah, but I like the Tiki Room because my. My dad liked the Tiki Room.
Andrew
You know, it's crazy.
Tyler
This is like my dad making me listen to.
Jack Posobiec
Do you like going in the Tiki Tiki, Tiki Tiki Tiki Room every time?
Blake
So without a doubt, you do not. You do not go to Disneyland without going on the. On the boring old rides.
Andrew
This last week, my kids have been like. My kids have been like, we want to go to ihop. Ihop. It's the strangest thing. And I'm like, why do you want to go? No, we can't go to ihop. It's, you know, it's eight at night. We're not going out. And they're like, they were obsessed with the idea that something is open 24 7. That's all it is.
Blake
They don't want. The kids are strange.
Jack Posobiec
We lost a lot of that during COVID We lost a lot of 24. Seven operations.
Andrew
That's true. Here, play the. Play the. You asked for a jack. They put it together. The playground at McDonald's. The old school playground. So play some.
Jack Posobiec
I just wanted a picture.
Andrew
Oh, they got. They put together a whole B roll thing of it because that's not the old one.
Jack Posobiec
That's the old one.
Andrew
That's old. Yeah.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. With the. With the Hamburglar jail.
Andrew
Yeah.
Jack Posobiec
That was like around in that thing.
Tyler
Another thing. I'll say. One reason some of this stuff has gone in decline is there's like cooler versions of it. Like we have that, like that Andretti adventure stuff or whatever on the fringes of town here. Like, you can go to like, race cars.
Blake
Yeah.
Tyler
It's like big deluxe go karting and virtual reality stuff. Like that stuff is way cooler.
Andrew
Yeah.
Jack Posobiec
It is actually like actual reality.
Andrew
No, no, no. These are actual go karts that you're racing and they're like E carts now. So they're not even loud and they're really fast. So we did one of those trampoline parks are also, like I said, this place called Slick City in town that's like these, like a new thing that wasn't around, but you get on a mat and you go down these really cool slides. That is legitimately cooler than what we had.
Tyler
Yeah.
Andrew
So there is a point to be
Tyler
made, I think people. I get why people miss this sort of thing. It's a lot of us miss things from our childhood. What I will note is you can tell this is a somewhat universal thing because I am now seeing young millennials, old Gen Z, who have nostalgia for things from the early 2000s that I know were terrible.
Andrew
So. But what is driving the nostalgia? That's the question. That's the deeper question.
Tyler
I think it's a natural feeling.
Jack Posobiec
It's the same thing as the bicentennial versus 250th. It's the same, people miss things dynamic.
Andrew
I think then there's a market for Overland.
Tyler
An interesting thing is it varies over time too. I have strong memories of, like when I was in my early 20s, just out of college, I would experience nostalgia feelings all the time for stuff from my childhood. And I think it's like it's probably mingled with maybe the amount of change that comes from living independently for the first time. You've moved out of home, you're experiencing life in a new way for the first time. It's mildly depressing to do this. You might be homesick. If you've moved across the country, all of this comes together. And this manifested in weird ways. Like, I was collecting Super Nintendo games because I had nostalgia for that sort of thing. And what I will note is I don't dislike those things from my childhood, but I don't have nearly as much nostalgia for them either. Where. Because you know, Nostalgia, it's mingled with depression. That's, you know, whenever we're saying we used to have a country, everyone's sad about not having this thing anymore. And I think that's even what the word itself comes from. It's like a combination of, like, memory and sorrow, something like that. And I just think you actually, as you age, you do age out of these things, or you out. You hopefully outgrow these things. And you can love things from your past, but also love things from the present and have. Have more perspective on stuff. And I say that all because I
Jack Posobiec
can speak on that a little bit, because you. Because you do also have such a thing as tradition. Right? And this is where like, like Lindy Mann comes in. And the concept of Lindy that at. Some things are fads, to be sure. Like, Like, I don't. I don't have nostalgia for, like, pogs, you know, or like ALF or, you know, was that one. That one showed, like, the Herman and the. And the, like, the alien thing. Tanya was into that. But. But there are certain things that do become traditions, and traditions do become something that you can hand down. And so, you know, baseball. No, no, it wasn't alf. It wasn't. It was a different one. And so, like, Little League baseball is a huge one of those where, you know, I haven't really been following baseball for years, but now my kids are into it, and they love playing Little League baseball. And it's like, oh, so we're. We're a baseball family, you know, all over again and, like, begging me to take them to games and, you know, all sorts of things. And it's like that I don't just have nostalgia for, you know, my memories of it. It's like, that's a tradition that I had that my dad had. Now my kids have.
Andrew
So there's a Bible verse that's interesting. Ecclesiastes, 7, 10. And it goes like this. Say not. Why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
Blake
So one thing I wanted to bring up was this commercial. Do we have it ready? Do we have it? Not yet. Okay, never mind.
Tyler
All right, One thing I would. We have other Pizza Hut commercial.
Andrew
Well, and I do want to get to this other day.
Blake
Let's get a Pizza Hut commercial.
Tyler
We had, like. We had, like, like eight. You guys.
Jack Posobiec
Can I. Can I throw another piece on this? Just. Just to just talk about that. So. So another slice. Yeah, so another topping maybe. And that if there were, you know, if there wasn't a Market for this. People wouldn't be putting all this money into it, that's for sure. It's a huge gamble. And, you know, it's, It's. It seems to be popular right now. We will see if it goes well. I certainly think it will. If there were other places that people could go to get the same experience, then they wouldn't be making all of these Pizza Huts, the Pizza Hut classics again, because that shows that, you know, there isn't an alternative. But also, like, when you go to countries like in Eastern Europe, like Hungary, like Poland, and even just European airports in general, you find them to be very, very much more family friendly and family oriented. There's kids stuff everywhere. There's so many outlets for, like kids. You know, you go to a nice restaurant in Poland and they have a kids area right at the front and they, hey, drop your kids off here. Mom and dad, you can go.
Andrew
Yeah, but there's places like that and
Jack Posobiec
have a nice dinner.
Andrew
There's places like that. So. So for example, I went from LA to Santa Barbara, LA was terrible for kids. Just terrible. Santa Barbara, much better, Much more kid friendly. And then we went from Santa Barbara to Phoenix and I would say Phoenix is even better still. There's tons of kids options in Phoenix for like all this stuff. You can go to a gym and they have. But did kid. Child care. You can go to restaurant.
Blake
But did you have kid options like clip 4, 40,
Rachel Wilson
running swing here?
Jack Posobiec
I don't think so.
Blake
Climbing slide here?
Jack Posobiec
I don't think so. Then where I'm going, DZ at Discovery
Blake
Zone where I can cut loose and beyond my own.
Jack Posobiec
DZ is made just for me.
Andrew
The place where I can really cut loose.
Jack Posobiec
It's all here, jump and jumble here. I don't think so.
Blake
Dz.
Andrew
Yes, we have kids want to be. Yeah.
Blake
So by the way, wait, hold on, hold on.
Jack Posobiec
Those places are coming back there. There's a bunch of chains that are very similar to Discovery Zone.
Blake
Now, Discovery Zone was a kingdom, and it was the only thing that existed. And you got in there and there was endless tunnels. How long do you think McDonald's were? Like small, cheaper versions of it.
Tyler
How long do you think Discovery zone existed?
Blake
Like five years?
Tyler
Yeah, actually it was 10 years, but yeah, it was not.
Blake
It was like nothing.
Tyler
It was also.
Blake
They went out of business.
Jack Posobiec
There's a lot of places.
Tyler
And a prominent investor was actually. This is an amazing way to segue to our next topic because a prominent investor was tennis star Billie Jean King.
Andrew
Was it really? How does that Segue to our.
Tyler
Because she's a feminist icon for her fake tennis match against that one drunk male tennis player that she beat. And it proved that women could be as good as men. If you ignore the fact that she was the number one tennis player in the world. And the guy was like the 400th best tennis player in the world and was smoking and drinking and was also basically paid to throw the match anyway.
Andrew
Was he really?
Tyler
Yeah.
Andrew
I love it.
Tyler
And that we had a real match between Venus and Serena Williams and male tennis player who was actually trying, who was ranked like 200th. And he absolutely annihilated them.
Andrew
Of course he did.
Tyler
True story. But anyway, that all brings us into
Andrew
feminist icon Alex Cooper.
Tyler
So you have to explain who Alex Cooper is for those of us who.
Andrew
She's a podcaster. She's a provocateur. She says raunchy things. She has a body count that would make Genghis Khan jealous. Whoa. She is Alice Cooper, host of the Caller Daddy, Call Her Daddy.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah.
Andrew
Podcast, which, like, Kamala Harris.
Blake
I just wanna. I just want to correct the record. I Googled it. She allegedly said that her body count's only eight. So not Genghis Khan.
Tyler
Allegedly.
Andrew
Yeah. She's pregnant. Expecting first baby Kaplan.
Tyler
Whose daddy is it? Why are we calling someone's dad? Is it her daddy? That work?
Andrew
That's her podcast.
Tyler
But what does that mean, call her Daddy?
Andrew
It just took off. I don't know.
Tyler
Do you call someone's dad?
Andrew
Why did she name her podcast call her dad?
Blake
She was a. She started on YouTube. She had a really popular YouTube that took off. Dave Portnoy found her. He basically gave her the opportunity to launch her podcast career on.
Jack Posobiec
Oh, my gosh.
Blake
On his network. And they had a falling out. So she had a co host that was on there. They had a huge following out. And she went and launched her own podcast on her apparently. And she has made a zillion dollars.
Tyler
It's apparently called Call Her Daddy because it comes from the. Okay, PG13 warning here that men will say call me daddy to assert dominance over women. And it flips the dynamic. So there's a trans subplot to this. The idea is that we have to call her the woman daddy because she is the one in control of her relationships.
Andrew
Right.
Jack Posobiec
So it's. So it's. It's right there like a female dominance kind of mindset. And funny enough to. To what Tyler is saying, I think it was the original co host that came up with the. With the phrasing of that, whereas Alex Cooper wanted it to say, call him daddy.
Andrew
Mmm. Okay.
Jack Posobiec
It's just girl bossing.
Blake
Girl bossing.
Andrew
So basically it's like, you know, I think there's like the, the, you know, the three headed horsemen or whatever. What is it? The three horsemen of the Apocalypse. So we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about like the three horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Tyler
There were four horsemen, though.
Andrew
Four horsemen there. It's even better because I'm always struggling to get 3. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's like wokeism, mass immigration. Feminism is definitely on there. And now we got the Islamification of America. Those are my four. You could substitute one of those. I feel really strongly about feminism being one of the truly corrosive elements that exist and are propagated and celebrated in Western civilization, Western culture, especially America. So this is a fun topic for me because I find her particularly galling. But now she's pregnant.
Tyler
Yes, she's pregnant and married.
Andrew
Yeah. So what do we do with that? Do we celebrate it? Do we. I don't know. I tend to, like, I've. Listen, a lot of people are like, well, this is perfect for, you know, high status women because they get to go have their raunchy podcast and lead everybody astray. And then they get to hold out even as they get into older years. I don't know how old she is. She ended her early 30s, I would presume, something like that. And they get to like have their cake and eat it too, while they let all their, you know, peons astray, telling them to girl boss. And so some people are upset about this, some people are celebrating it. I like to think Charlie would probably celebrate it because he did that with Taylor Swift. He's like, God bless you, Taylor. I hope that your marriage to Travis Kelce makes you happy and more conservative.
Tyler
Well, so the reason people are worried about this and it's getting discussed is that. But she is definitely. She's definitely pushed this big female empowerment narrative. And I think that is actually what does make her a little different from Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, she was actually kind of. Even though she had a large number of famous boyfriends, she was kind of trad in her orientation. She makes songs about falling in love forever and wanting to be with someone forever. And, you know, she's always been chasing that and finally got it. Whereas Cooper is her. It's often a run podcast that it's like about. It's about sex stuff. It's about, you know, jumping from relationship to relationship. And the idea is, is that she is pulling the successful Houdini act of being allegedly, you know, you thought she had a Genghis Khan like number throughout her 20s. And then she hits. She hits 30. She's 31 right now. Yeah, she hits 30 and then suddenly says, oh, well, I want to settle down immediately. Does land high, you know, relatively appealing, attractive husband, has kids, and that this is going to lead a large number of women astray. To think I can copy this same life script. And if you're not carrying a, you know, $60 million Spotify deal, it's less likely to work out for you.
Jack Posobiec
It's a total rug pull. It's a total rug pull to her audience. The same way as if she had done, like one of those meme coin scams, right? She runs this podcast all about, you know, have free sex and go do whatever. And let's talk about all the sex he had.
Andrew
Are you calling this the pump and dump? I am.
Jack Posobiec
It's a total pump and dump. It's an Alex Cooper pump and dump, where she's come in and she's. She's making money. And it's consistently rated, I think one of the highest podcasts out there. And she presented by Sparkling ice. And it's like, you know, got mainstream advertising, you know, backing, because we just put. We just put lust and fornication everywhere these days. And yet she doesn't actually do it herself. So she's preaching this to everybody while also, you know, not following the lifestyle that she is popularizing. And that's why it's a scam. And that's why I think it's.
Andrew
She didn't practice what she preached.
Blake
I just want to insert this call. Her daddy was ranked the second most popular podcast in Spotify from 21 to 24.
Tyler
It's pretty big behind Rogan, of course.
Andrew
Or did she not. I don't follow her.
Tyler
I feel.
Andrew
Did she. Did she say, like, you can only get married if the guy submits to you and is a 9 or a 10 or above and has his own career? And so I'm just asking the question, did she rug pull? Did she pump and dump? Or is this like. Well, so.
Jack Posobiec
And this. Here's the thought crime. Here's the thought crime, right? And. And I saw some people. I forget the original post was when we were chatting about it, American find it, but the original one was saying that here's the issue is that this advice works if you are a 9 or a 10, but if you're like a 5 or a 6, if you're a mid then this is actually like the worst possible advice for you. And you're just leading all these people astray. And here they are listening your podcast, thinking that it's going to work. But those are the ones who are going to find themselves hitting, you know, mid-30s to late-30s to 40s saying, hey, wait a minute, you know, why isn't, why isn't anyone calling me daddy? And suddenly the guys in their peer, you know, you know, her age range are all going to be going for zoomers. They're going to be dating girls that are like in their 20s because they're not interested. So it doesn't actually work. And yes, actually like we were talking about, you know, male status earlier. Female status does exist. Pretty privilege is real. It's just real. And that is the thought crying, ladies and gentlemen.
Andrew
So I'm looking it up, Jack. It says so I, I just asked AIs and it says yes. Alex Cooper has frequently downplayed or expressed ambivalence about marriage and children in the past, particularly in her 20s and early podcast years, while heavily, while heavily promoting hookup culture, casual sex and prioritizing career fun over traditional milestones.
Tyler
Well, I'm gonna want, I'm gonna want
Andrew
citations though, because she says she they have them.
Jack Posobiec
Right. Gina Florio had the original one, by the way.
Andrew
Her Instagram, her TikTok.
Blake
She, she re. She commonly said online that she would never get married. So part of the reason why people have lost their minds on this is she had said numerous times that she would never get married and then now feels this way.
Andrew
Yeah, she said she couldn't fathom motherhood in her 20s. This is, this is what Jack's point might maybe is like more hinging on. She said her podcast built a brand around sexually explicit content advice like use him before he uses you don't catch feelings embracing. Embracing casual hookups and viewing relationship as a chaotic roller coaster, quote unquote, without long term commitments. This resonated with and influenced many young female listeners in their teens and twenties. Then she talked about shifting views later, for example, developing baby fever in recent years after meeting her husband, Matt Kaplan, and episodes where she discuss discusses timelines for marriages and kids with him. But early content leaned heavily into anti settling down vibes. So they got married in 2024 around age 29 or 30, can't decide and recently announced their first pregnancy as of May.
Tyler
Yeah, I really don't think this is a rug pull. I think, I think this is actually the peak of feminist propaganda, radical feminist propaganda. Because it's totally that. It's always her maximum autonomy. She can be against it in her 20s, and then she can just change her mind later in her life and she's able to again, pull the Houdini act of gets married, has kids, and can pivot in her life trajectory. And in real life, as we know, because, I mean, Charlie talked about this all the time going on campus in real life. For a lot of people, if you want to get married, especially as a woman, it has to be a priority early on. You have to build and take steps towards that right away. And if you think, I'm going to build my career until my early 30s and then start focusing on this, there's example after example where it's gone really badly. They've been unable to find someone.
Andrew
You might not be able to have babies.
Tyler
Yeah, exactly. You might.
Jack Posobiec
Charlie. Charlie's life might be too late. What was the line?
Blake
It was.
Jack Posobiec
It was. You know, you shouldn't. You. More. More women should. Shouldn't be pursuing their PhD. They should be pursuing their Mrs.
Andrew
He was a big, big believer in the Mrs. Degree.
Tyler
Mrs. Degrees are great.
Jack Posobiec
The Mrs. Degree. Yeah.
Andrew
Yeah.
Jack Posobiec
Such a good line.
Andrew
You know what, speaking of which, that is interesting because there is a stat that says that 62% of all degrees now are going to Women, which is 62%. 62%. 2/3.
Tyler
Before we jump into this, we got two donation messages I want to hit because Kyrie donated five DOL. Christian families need to be having lots of children and teaching them the values and blessings of the Bible. That is how we combat these insanities. And Zuzu chimed in again, and she said, Alex Cooper should bring her husband and kids to Pizza Hut.
Jack Posobiec
Well, exactly.
Blake
That is a good point, Zuzu. I'm just going to say this. The most famous marriages, like, people who are famous, they're largely business relationships. And again, I know a lot of people say that whatever, like, people have made that. And, and I'm not saying that I don't hope that she's not in love and that she doesn't have kids and, like, yeah, slows down and, like, wants to just, like, spend time with her kids and all that. I hope that that's the case with Alex Cooper. The reality is that I actually feel bad for a lot of these. These famous couples because their kids usually take the brunt of it. And this is why I think a lot of kids like that come from famous couples end up so screwed up. And you'll see this. Some famous people will take a. Take a Step back from the spotlight and they'll raise their kids and they'll stop and they'll slow down and they'll, like, focus on motherhood or fatherhood or whatever, right? Sometimes that's not the case. I just don't know. I mean, we'll see what happens with Alex Cooper. But I think the point is she's not living on the same planet that most of us are living.
Andrew
So Jack's point is, I think, pretty well made where he said, this script, this live script, will work for nines and tens, maybe sevens and eights too. But if you are maybe not so attractive and you get into your 30s and you're not so rich and successful, I don't think you have nearly as many options as Alex Cooper. And so she is selling a bad vision of reality, of what's lived, reality and experience. But the upside here, my glass can be half full. I can be honest about the fact that I think this is a terrible life script to sell to young women. But she's got this huge audience by, you know, being authentic and being raunchy and being real and saying it out loud, saying it like it really is or whatever. Well, they're also hearing her go through this evolution of getting baby fever, getting married. And so she, you know, the upshot is maybe she's got millions of fans that are like, oh, now I want to get married, too. So, okay, all right. Hopefully they can skip the premarital sex stuff. I agree with our listener that was like, we need. Christians, need to have lots of babies. Completely agree with that. We're gonna outbreed them, folks. That's part of the strategy. So I've played this.
Jack Posobiec
You rebel, start a family.
Andrew
But I played this clip before to tie in the 62% of all degrees. But I think it's so important. This is Rachel Wilson, occult feminism author. And she's talking about why women are so unhappy. So keep in mind, now 62% of all college degrees are going to women. And now think about why they're unhappy. Cut. 41.
Rachel Wilson
Women just overall reporting dissatisfaction, unhappiness, a feeling of being really torn, trying to have it all. Trying to have a career and be a career woman and also have a family and. And do all of that. Women don't know what to do with relationships because on the one hand, they want men who make more than they do. They want men who are higher achieving than they are. Yet this creates a paradox. Whereas women have become the number one earners of college degrees, they have now got salaries that compete with men, and they've got more equality than ever before. They're finding that the men are not suitable to marry. They're finding that, you know, they just can't find a guy who's on their level or higher, which is what they really want.
Andrew
So now think back to the baby boom, where you had the GI Bill and the status of men from earnings, college degrees and all these things. Job opportunities was here and women were down here, and you had this huge baby boom as a result. Now that script is flipped and we have a fertility crisis. We're losing our fricking playgrounds at McDonald's. We got. We got all kinds of societal problems. The men and the women don't. They don't like each other. The expectations of the relationships are off. You talk to any of our turning point kids, by the way, it's the number one thing they'll talk to you about. Dating sucks. It's awful. You get a few that have found somebody or whatever, but it's like things are out of whack. And I think, I love that Rachel Wilson clip because she talks about this driving force of feminism. We want equality now. Okay, you got it. You got beyond equality. You got 62% of all the college degrees, and you're unhappier than you've ever been. Maybe people like Alex Cooper need to rethink the script that they're selling. That's all I'd say.
Jack Posobiec
Maybe our traditions have been traditions that have been handed down from generation on generation for a reason. Maybe there's a reason that all of civilization was built certain ways and successful civilizations have maintained those traditions. And maybe we shouldn't screw around with them. I mean, you go to bring it full circle like you. You look at where the society was in the 1970s and 1976, and I think we can all look at that and say, you know, that that just looks like a better time. Just. It just looks like a better time.
Andrew
Well, Jack, I have to say it. I have to say it because the Bible says it, you know, say not. Why were the former days better than the. Than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this, but I would agree there's certain parts about our history.
Jack Posobiec
But that's what I'm saying is, is I don't, you know, I'm not some curmudgeon who just sits there and says, oh, you know, oh, the past was better. It. I look at those things and I say, hey, can we bring any of this forward? What can we do to make our Material conditions today Better. You know what I missed to make the streets better? And I just bought Breck fricking Pizza Hut. Okay.
Andrew
Yeah, you did a good thing. You know what I miss, Jack? I miss the monoculture. Like. Like, we're all old enough to remember America that had a monoculture. And it was. It was cool. It was great to know that, like, it didn't matter who I was walking down on the street that they were going to be doing. They were going to be watching the same shows and reacting to the same news. There's benefits of having bifurcated culture or, you know, siloed culture. Cultures you get maybe more. It's maybe more individually satisfying. But there's something beautiful about having a culture that's all singing from the same hymnal, if you would like. For example, Matt Walsh made this point, and I thought it was spot on. I'm watching a show that he happens to be watching. So I read the tweet, and it was about Widow's Bay, which is on Apple. It's phenomenal.
Jack Posobiec
Was that good? I was thinking about checking that out.
Andrew
It's excellent. It's so good. It's so funny, and it's, like, actually scary. It's like a comedy horror and. But, like, a show that good deserves to be, like, monoculture good. But it's not. It's probably got, like, 1/30 of the culture watching.
Tyler
I'll bring it up, though. How many shows from when we had a monoculture for television do people still watch?
Andrew
Say what?
Tyler
Says, how many shows from when we still had a monoculture do people still watch Seinfeld?
Andrew
I still watch.
Tyler
Seinfeld is from the 90s. That's when the monoculture is already starting to fray up.
Andrew
But the monoculture was.
Jack Posobiec
No, but Blade, Blake. Those shows are consistent compared to Mass. And how many. Wait, wait, I can answer this question. Those shows are consistently, like, the number one shows on streaming. Tyler. I think we were talking about this at one point that, like, Friends reruns, when they go up on Netflix or,
Andrew
you know, Friends was terrible.
Jack Posobiec
It's literally, like, number one every single time.
Tyler
Friends is not funny.
Andrew
Okay.
Tyler
It is a good thing that
Jack Posobiec
in any way, I'm not a Friends guy.
Tyler
Seinfeld is good. Seinfeld's a good show.
Jack Posobiec
But it is extremely popular.
Tyler
I think people, including internationally people, are say they're depressed that the monoculture went away.
Andrew
But again, I'm depressed. I just miss it.
Tyler
I think, personally, I think it's actually pretty good that there's a wider Variety of cultural material that is available. And you can still, if you want to get a community, people that's into it, you can still find these things. You can find them online, for starters. And yeah, do you lose the fact that you can't go into work and say, hey, what did you guys think of TV show number seven last night? And everyone's like, I love TV show number seven. So personally, I like that I don't have to watch TV show number seven necessarily.
Andrew
Okay. I think these things could be matters of degrees. I think monoculture is probably, if I had to just approximate 70% good, 30%. Maybe it's better that you have. So, like, you're pointing out you're being contrarian here, but it's like, I still think it's better for culture to all be sharing, have shared experiences because it brings us together in small ways that are important. Right. So the last sort of cultural moment that we have altogether is the Super Bowl. Right. People talk about this. That's a valuable thing. I don't know. It makes America feel like. America makes my neighbor feel like my neighbor.
Jack Posobiec
I think if you went back, it's. It's them screwing around with the super bowl that let us to be able to do what.
Andrew
But I'm this. I will be the first to say that I don't want that, but I actually would prefer they don't screw it up because I want everybody to.
Tyler
Do you think America has more of a monoculture?
Jack Posobiec
That was our goal.
Tyler
Do you think America more of a monoculture in 1990 or in 1930?
Andrew
I would think 1990, probably, definitely.
Tyler
So, like, what I would say is, if you went back, if you went back 50 years ago years, the complaint from conservatives like us would be about the loss of any regional identity in the United States. Okay, this is regional accents.
Andrew
I like this regional culture.
Tyler
It used to be country music, for example.
Andrew
Really good.
Tyler
Totally a regional culture.
Andrew
No, no, I could see this point. I. I told. I wasn't thinking about like that. And I actually totally agree with it. I would say, okay, so for 1930s, right, we had more regional culture. And there was also like a huge ethnic. Ethnic boom of immigration that we were absorbing.
Jack Posobiec
And then church.
Andrew
It stopped the Great Depression through the end of World War II, basically. Okay, so you had about 15 years of just like zero immigration.
Tyler
The Great Depression, 1930 to 1930 to 1980. 90 or so is probably the peak in world history for creating national monocultures because you're able to have mass communication, but it's still resource intensive. To generate those. So you have also the effects of the world.
Andrew
We're getting to worst of both worlds, though, because we're like.
Jack Posobiec
A lot of this is media driven, too.
Andrew
Yeah, I was going to say we're getting the worst of both worlds, though, because we're eroding regional culture. Because as you said earlier, Indians in, you know, outside of Dallas are still watching like, you know, India play the music. Yeah, exactly. Cue the music. They're still watching the content from their home country. Country. Right. But so they're not really Texas. You don't get the charm of a Texan in their, you know, their brisket. You're getting, you're getting something totally different. Nor are they a part of a monoculture, so nor can I share something national with them. It's all, it's all fubar at that point. So, I mean, the point is I'd rather have a monoculture that we can all share, at least in this day and age, as opposed to just bifurcated, where regions don't even matter there.
Jack Posobiec
So Marshall McLuhan, if you read any of his stuff, he just totally, in the 1960s, called all of this, and he pointed out how the rise of television, to Blake's point, led to the loss of regional culture. But then he also predicted that as information became more democratized and that these sort of mechanisms by which we create media would become easier and cheaper to, you know, the, the, the, the methods of production, as it. As it were, means of production, as it were, that we would become bifurcated. And, and, you know, that monoculture will be smashed apart again. And so what we're seeing now is we, rather than have regional identity, so we have regional identity which still exists. And you see that a lot with sports teams more than anything else. Then we also have our, our general monoculture, which has taken the biggest hit. And that's why we have the loss of the national pride of being an American that we're currently fighting to get back. Right. To get back to that bicentennialism, which also coincided with the. Probably the peak of that monoculture, or at least proceeding to that peak of the 1990s. And then with the rise of the Internet, now we are subdividing yet again. But we're not subdividing by region. We're subdividing also by sort of like Internet identity. So it's like, it's like you're, you're getting into these trans identity. That's what I identify as, or identify as this crazy group that I found On. And then I go into the discord chat.
Andrew
And now we got feminists, and we got feminism. So, you know, so Angela's saying we should wrap because we. We. We've gone over time. But this has been a really fun conversation. Lots to think about. But I'll put it to the. To you guys, the crew. Do we want to rap on a CK clip.
Jack Posobiec
Clip.
Andrew
Talking about how feminism has failed women, or do we want to rap on a Pizza Hut clip?
Tyler
Do we have a Charlie clip talking about Pizza Hut? Charlie wasn't. They said Charlie wasn't allowed to eat pizza, so he would.
Andrew
Even when he was a kid.
Tyler
Well, no, I'm just saying he wouldn't eat it today. He would just say that pizza was really unhealthy. And he would probably say everyone should just eat ground beef and lettuce.
Andrew
And how about we do.
Jack Posobiec
It's cheese, it's bread, it's meat. I mean, it's like all the food groups right there.
Tyler
Brett.
Andrew
Yeah.
Tyler
You think Charlie's gonna eat bread to. Let's go out on.
Andrew
So this is. Remember.
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, go out on Charlie.
Andrew
Of course, 62% of all degrees go into women, and they're unhappier than they've ever been. And Charlie understood this. Until next Thursday. Keep committing thought crimes.
Charlie
Feminism is the. The glaring thing in front of us where we have fertility rates down, we have marriage rates down, we have unhappiness up. And we did something in the 1960s out of the universities of Bretti Friedan and Gloria Steinem and all these feminists that basically said, you're trapped in a home, go get a job, freeze your eggs, take birth control, and all of a sudden, women are way unhappier than they were 40 years ago. And I just have to ask the question, why is that? Is it working? And maybe there are biological differences between men and women that we should respect and that deep down, a lot of women want to get married and have children. In fact, we should applaud it and we should support it, and we should say it means nothing. If you're going to go be a CEO of some shoe company or be some banker in London, what matters if you raise children and you have something to pass down long after you're gone,
Jack Posobiec
It.
Date: May 24, 2026
Host: Jack Posobiec
Panelists: Andrew, Blake, Tyler
This episode takes a deep dive into American cultural identity and nostalgia, using three major themes as entry points: the muted celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary compared to the 1976 Bicentennial; the revival of Pizza Hut as a locus of “monoculture” American family life; and the cultural and social implications of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and its host’s pivot from raunchy, girlboss narratives to marriage and motherhood. The panel grapples with the reasons for America's declining sense of unity and patriotism, explores the longing for a lost monoculture, and commits "thoughtcrimes" about current social trends, especially regarding feminism and demographic change.
Summary prepared for listeners seeking the pivotal topics, arguments, and cultural commentary of the episode.