Nyetwork

Summary

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Red Scare – “Nyetwork”

Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Anna Khachiyan & Dasha Nekrasova
Episode Focus: DNA ancestry, the limits of online identity, and a deep dive into media culture and industry via Network (1976), legacy vs. new media, identity politics, and the messy state of the American right.

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Episode Overview

In “Nyetwork,” Anna and Dasha blend their signature irreverent banter and cultural analysis, jumping from tongue-in-cheek updates on their DNA results to a sprawling discussion of media, television, mergers, internet culture, and contemporary right-wing politics. Central to the episode is an extended review of the 1976 film Network, which prompts reflection on the trajectory of media outrage, the changing forces of consolidation (with nods to contemporary TikTok/Paramount mergers), and the uniquely American addiction to both grievance and performance.

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Key Discussion Points and Timestamped Highlights

1. DNA Results & Ethnic Identities

(00:39–09:40)

• Anna and Dasha compare their latest 23andMe updates, joking about the arbitrary division of DNA categories:
  • Anna: "I was very unsatisfied with my ancestry, with my DNA test because it said that I was basically like half Baltic and then half Eastern European and Russian… That's like so much of the world." [01:16]
  • Dasha: "You'll never be more than either of your parents, but you'll be some mix of whatever." [04:48]
• Explore the complexities of “Russian-ness” and the porous boundaries of genetic identity.
• Jokes about longing for Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and the algorithmic randomness of ancestry updates.
• Anna: "I keep waiting for the ashkanaz to show up because… it just seems, like, likely that you would be, like, 1% or something." [03:55]
• Dasha: “Horse. Long time. I found the perfect sw–” [10:34]
• Reflections on regional identity (Baltic vs. Slavic vs. Russian) and a comical yearning for pagan-Baltic roots (“maybe I should look into my original faith…bought some beeswax candles…now I want to go to a swamp” [09:00]).
• Ethno-narcissism and performative identity quests: “Time to think about my new identity…” [10:29]

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2. Legacy, Mergers & the State of Media

(10:47–15:18)

• Announce the episode will include a movie review of Network, connecting its themes to the present-day media landscape.
• Quick satirical remarks about Jews, Arabs, and shifting stereotypes of media control.
• Network as an incisive look at the origins of media-driven outrage:
  • Dasha: “In Paddy Chayefsky's Jewish world, the media is run by Arabs.” [12:06]
  • Anna: “It's quaint to watch because...now we have literally people…dying on live streams all the time.” [24:00]
• Remakes and reboots—a recurring motif: why do we keep recycling old IP?
  • Anna: "Like, network could honestly be remade…You could tell kind of a similar but different story in the same universe." [15:18]
  • Dasha: "Amadeus is one of those few movies that's like pretty much the platonic ideal of a movie. It's like remaking Barry Lyndon." [19:14]
• Comment on identity casting in Hollywood: “They should have made [Mozart] black, tbh.” [14:22]

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3. Deep-Dive: Network (1976) – Parallels and Meta-commentary

(20:06–45:13)

• Extended analysis of Network, with both hosts highlighting its prescience on media outrage, spectacle, and the cynical cycles of news.
  • Dasha: "It does have quite a bit of foreshadowing…how media functions in today's contemporary landscape." [20:22]
  • Anna: “Everyone on X is basically like mad as hell.” [14:06]
• Faye Dunaway’s character as proto-girlboss/exploiter of rage, contrasted to contemporary social-media dynamics.
  • Dasha (on Diana Christensen): "She's not fighting the system. She is the system. She's like an upstart faction within the system." [30:50]
  • Anna: "What's his catchphrase? — 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.'" [30:27]
  • “It's a dark and cynical version of people, like, beating their pots and pans and clapping during COVID.” [30:30] – Dasha
• Reflections on gender inversion, the “great feminization,” and the way both legacy and new platforms foster outrage and nihilistic consumption.
• Discuss the Helen Andrews essay on feminization:
  • Anna: “It’s useful in the same way that like talking about narcissism is useful. It’s like an imperfect umbrella catch all term…We’ve all noticed that there are more women in positions of power.” [38:32]

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4. New Media Mergers, Barry Weiss, TikTok, and the “Control of the Narrative”

(72:28–83:12)

• The hosts provide a rundown on contemporary media mergers—Larry and David Ellison's Oracle-Skydance-Paramount-CBS deal, shifts in TikTok ownership, and the implications for information control.
  • Dasha: “You're telling me now for the first time that Jews control the media. I'm so scared. Well, oh my God.” [72:54]
• Pointed speculation that these mergers aim to reassert pro-Israel sentiment in mainstream and social media:
  • “Obviously the big concern here is that this merger will lead to like a media monopoly on pro-Israel sentiment.” [75:49]
• Skepticism about whether legacy media can claw back relevance in an age of decentralized, independent content:
  • Anna: “I guess my big question is whether any kind of legacy media channel will be able to have any inroads against…young people on tiktok.” [80:34]
• Reflections on algorithmic outrage; the self-radicalizing, engagement-optimized ecosystem.

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5. Algorithmic Outrage, Online Discourse & Abortion Memes

(83:12–91:01)

• Media influence is less about gun-barrel coercion, more about stochastic (distributed) incentives, social-emotional blackmail, and endless outrage loops.
  • Dasha: “I'm gonna rebrand as like a libtard pro abortion activist and just wear an abortion is rad t-shirt. Like…getting a Pap smear is rad.” [84:39–85:54]
• Satirical feminist takes on medicalization (“Any medical procedure that you get is not rad by definition. It sucks.” [85:59]) and weaponized empathy.

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6. The Young Republicans Telegram Leak & American Right’s Dysfunction

(99:40–127:46)

• Politico leak exposes the disarray amongst Young Republican groups (with speculation about Gavin Wax as the leaker), as well as the tendency for right-wing organizations to eat their own even when not externally pressured.
  • Anna: “The big takeaway from the story…is that Republicans are like spineless and scheming who will throw their own kind under the bus when it's not even expected of them and no one's calling for it.” [102:15]
  • Dasha: “Matt Walsh has been pretty good on this. …Many of the messages are being taken wildly out of context. …How have you not learned by now to take absolutely nothing from the leftist media at face value…” [104:26]
• Criticism of the right's failure to unify (“We’ll just lose instead, the left will keep up the united front…” [104:15]), contrasted with the left’s equally notorious purity testing.
• Secure messaging, backstabbing, leaking, and the collapse of IRL community—no trust is possible, everyone is just doing personal brand management in the void.
• Comedy about the “griperous and dysgenic” physicality of the Young Republican crowd (“They're all like…I have like Catholic pedophile face where it's like, the guy looks like a pedophile priest. Sure.” [118:33]).
• Satirical self-awareness (“If you’re not using hard R in your group chat, you may as well be a liberal…” [114:03]).

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7. Ethnic Food, Nostalgia, and Liminal Belonging

(61:10–70:58)

• Evocative talk about Russian/Eastern European food stores in NYC, nostalgia for “ancestral foods,” musings on the dangers of deracination and longing for belonging.
  • “It’s so easy. You take the F to West 4th and you’re there. But I was up in there buying food thinking…you literally cannot get fat if you eat ancestral foods. But that's so delusional, because you definitely can…” [66:13]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “No one really knows what Slavic is.” – Anna [02:32]
• “My strange, erotic journey. Okay, you guys, I am literally more Jewish.” – Dasha [04:35]
• “It’s like Mulholland Drive for Men, but like, ain’t nobody care about classical music in this day and age.” – Dasha [15:55]
• “You would think the original would be better. It’s worse.” – Dasha on Purple Noon vs. Talented Mr. Ripley [17:09]
• “It's all brandy. Mel.” – Dasha, referring to her internet shopping addiction [52:32]
• “Having a normie husband is a blessing.” – Anna [96:29]
• “The whole point of privacy…is that you're protected from public retribution.” – Anna [112:25]
• “I'm not really looking forward to conservatism being overtaken by like fat and dysgenic people, but that's kind of the way it's going.” – Dasha [119:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic Overview | |------------|---------------------------------------------| | 00:39 | DNA results, identity, and ancestral mishaps| | 10:47 | Media, mergers, Jews & Arabs, Network intro| | 20:06 | Deep-dive: Network film summary | | 38:32 | Helen Andrews, feminization, workplace gender| | 72:28 | Media mergers, TikTok/Paramount/Oracle drama| | 83:12 | Social media outrage, abortion as meme | | 99:40 | Young Republicans Telegram leak, right-wing drama| | 112:25 | On privacy, leaks, and the meaninglessness of scandal | | 118:03 | Looks, griperism, political aesthetics | | 123:40 | Organizational malaise, trust issues, general cynicism|

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Conclusion & Tone

“Nyetwork” is classic Red Scare: looping, discursive, funny, and world-weary, lampooning both boomer and zoomer anxieties while providing genuine big-picture critique. The episode offers both nostalgia and resignation—whether brooding about the loss of sophisticated screenwriting ("We don't have the skill level to make a movie like this" [73:20]), the flattening/dumbsizing of outrage and ideology via algorithm, or the endless personal and political grifting on the right. The conversation ends as it began: playful, sardonic, a little nihilistic, and ultimately seeking meaning (and belonging) in an increasingly frictionless and friction-filled world.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode:
You can expect a winding but insightful drift from personal DNA woes to trenchant breakdowns of legacy media, new media, American cultural politics, and the role of rage, gender, and identity in the terminally online era—with more than a few spit-take worthy quips along the way.

Transcript

[A]

Hang on. We're back.

[B]

What's up?

[A]

Not much. Jack?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's up with you?

[B]

Nothing. Did you get the DNA update on 23andMe?

[A]

23Andme and ancestry.com I was wondering about.

[B]

That because we use different platforms for our DNA profiles.

[A]

I think Allison did 23andMe and also got like a more granular breakdown.

[B]

I did via email, but I haven't checked, to be honest.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, what the fu.

[B]

I was like, huh? I was like.

[A]

I pressed the button right away.

[B]

Okay, so what did it say? That you're less Russian and more Lithuanian, whatever that means.

[A]

Well, prior, it was really, I was very unsatisfied with my ancestry, with my DNA test because it said that I was basically like half Baltic and then half Eastern European and Russian.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which was like a huge, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's like so much of the world.

[B]

Yeah. And they're obviously like a little bit cross pollinated. Right.

[A]

I mean, obviously it's not. I'm not a DNA. We need to get Rizzi back.

[B]

No, we don't.

[A]

But basically I'm no, I'm no percent like quote genetically quote Russian.

[B]

Yeah. Razeeb comes on and he's like, dasha, I liked you before you were married. And Anna, I like you with a longer hair. Why? Why did you have short hair? Even though I haven't for like half a decade.

[A]

Well received. I sent him my husband's DNA stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I was curious about the. But you know, I was like, you're Indian.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, I'm just. I found out I was basically more Baltic than Russian.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Which is all kind of Slavic.

[B]

Right.

[A]

No one really knows what Slavic is.

[B]

But hold on, explain that because let's say just for the purposes of this example, you're 50, 50 like 50% Baltic and then 50% Russian and Eastern European. Don't they just mess around with the specific categorizations within those larger umbrella categories?

[A]

I think they get more data that then is able to map more accurately.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And prior, they just had, you know, kind of. There was a lot of genetic information that was not so specific. Uhhuh. But now, I mean, who knows? But basically, yeah, I'm like Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish, a little Ukrainian, a little Balkan.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But basically no, like technically like Russian.

[B]

I mean. Yeah, define Russian.

[A]

Exactly. Divine. Divine Slav. Define, you know, but lethal. You know, the Baltics do certainly have a distinct culture, I'd say.

[B]

Well, how about we do a little unboxing? I'm going to see if.

[A]

Yeah, open it up.

[B]

I'm going to open it up, but I doubt it's even going to work.

[A]

Because you have to.

[B]

I know. I know you are Jewish.

[A]

I keep waiting for the ashkanaz to show up because that.

[B]

Yeah, I could have. I mean, it just seems, like, likely that you would be, like, 1% or something.

[A]

You would think, but. But no.

[B]

Then I hear the purist gray pat.

[A]

It's not like my dad is Baltic. My mom is.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, it's like they both are also a similar mix of the same stuff. Right. And then when you look at your, like, ancestral map, mine's extremely small. Like, my ancestors have lived in the same. It's like, from your. It was like, your journey, and it's like, from Minsk to central North Belarus. I was like, wow, my family's come so far.

[B]

Okay. My strange, erotic journey. Okay, you guys, I am literally more Jewish. Let's.

[A]

Let's go. How much? 13.

[B]

The evil, unlucky number. I was 12.8 before. I don't know how that's even possible. That seems fake because, like, just telling you. Well, if you just do the brute mathematical breakdown, it's like, okay, my mom's a quarter, my grandpa's half.

[A]

Apparently, it doesn't work that way genetically.

[B]

Like, you know, somebody was explaining that even among siblings who you would think would have the exact same genetic breakdown because they come from the exact same parents, that some children inherit more of something and some children inherit less. And actually, if you cross compare me and my sister, I'm just more ethnic across the board. I mean, you can tell by the way we look. She looks a little bit more white.

[A]

What do you mean, ethnic?

[B]

I'm both more Armenian and more Jewish than my sister. I mean, she's the same thing, but I think her.

[A]

What is she more.

[B]

She's more Russian or Slavic or whatever.

[A]

Genetically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I think it's like you inherit. It's not an even split.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, you'll never be more than either of your parents, but you'll be some mix of whatever.

[B]

Yeah. Mine says 50.1% Western Asian and North African. 50.1% Northern West African, Iranian, Caucasian, and Mesopotamian. And then within the. And 49.9% European, 36.9 Central and Eastern European, 24.4% Russian, 12.5% Belarusian, Polish, Ukrainian. Hey. And 13% Ashkenazi Jewish. That's, like my breakdown. So there you have it.

[A]

That's a nice. Allison's so many stuff.

[B]

Allison. What?

[A]

Allison's like. She's all European. But then within that, it's like she's got. What does she have? I think she's mostly British or Scottish and then a large percentage of like Greek. Okay.

[B]

Oh, right. Okay.

[A]

And then like other like French, Portuguese, Spanish, like all kind of Euro stuff all mixed up, which is why she's so beautiful.

[B]

She looks very Slavic to me.

[A]

She does.

[B]

Weird. She could literally lie and say she's Slavic and no one would second guess her. So wait, what's the occasion of this big new data update?

[A]

I think they just got more information. They probably did a merger or something and like acquired more data.

[B]

I think like Larry and David Ellison should acquire Ancestry.com and 23andMex. Why not? Since they're going for it. Go big or go home.

[A]

Just tell everyone they're Jewish. Yeah, Just say we got new results.

[B]

What are they? They're fully Jewish.

[A]

Yeah. They're ash.

[B]

Yeah, whatever.

[A]

I'm confused about the Ashkenazis.

[B]

I'm confused how they pulled an extra 0.5% out of my Jewish heritage. Somebody receive, please.

[A]

Yeah, I'm. I'm confused too.

[B]

I'm trying to do a pivot here and rebrand as more anti Semitic. This isn't really working for me. The optics are bad.

[A]

I thought I was Rush and you're.

[B]

You're 0% Russian.

[A]

Technically, yeah. How is that possible? I mean, like, what is Russia?

[B]

Yeah, but my. But mine says 24.4 Russian, so they're.

[A]

I'm not rushing.

[B]

That doesn't seem possible. But yes. Okay.

[A]

Because people in Belarus are mainly from the Polish. Lithuanian. Right, yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then there's some other Eastern European stuff mixed in and like, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's not so much westward drift. I guess it's just been a very homogenous ethnic society. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, when. I think when we had Sailor on, he explained that obviously all of these Eastern European groups are more or less genetically similar, but the Russians are more Asian.

[A]

I'm more so. Yeah. Last night I was watching like Baltic pagan videos. I was like, maybe I should look into my original faith. And I bought like some beeswax candles, like nettle from Etsy, from like a Lithuanian Etsy store. Uh huh. So I was like, I should be, you know, eating the foods. And now I want to go to a swamp.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because of where I'm from. Because I'm from like a marshy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, so I was. I want to find a place in America that's similar to my homeland, to immerse myself. Washington, D.C. the swamp. Let's go. Well, I will be in D.C. on Halloween, right?

[B]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

[A]

So maybe I'll love it.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

But there are swamps around there. Mm. I found in Virginia, there's something called the Dismal Swamp, which they called because it was so home sweet home.

[B]

Depressing.

[A]

And now it's like an animal life refuge you can visit. But the Dismal Swamp sounding pretty good. I don't know. But ethno narcissism strikes again.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm like, time to think about my new identity.

[B]

Horse. Long time.

[A]

I found the perfect sw.

[B]

I'm moving.

[A]

We're gonna talk. We're doing a movie episode, basically.

[B]

We are. Yeah.

[A]

That's. It's pertinent. It deals with the media and mergers.

[B]

And the Jews running everything. Well, though, in, like, Seinfeldian fashion, we're.

[A]

Talking about network 1960. 1976. Sydney Lumay. Yeah.

[B]

And what's his name?

[A]

Patty Chayefsky.

[B]

But, like, in Seinfeldian fashion, I guess the Jewish element is sort of beneath the surface and not fleshed out. And also, I think this was probably at a time when media control was a little bit more heterogeneous. I guess it's still it. The media.

[A]

I mean, in network, the fake. It's called USB or something.

[B]

Ubs.

[A]

Ubs.

[B]

United Broadcasting System.

[A]

It gets taken over by, like, a Saudi conglomerate.

[B]

Well, the parent company, which is cca, like, Central Communications. They're all, like, standards form something like this. Yeah.

[A]

But. Yeah, in the. In Paddy Chayefsky's Jewish world, the media is run by Arabs.

[B]

Right. Yeah, I caught that and thought it was funny, but.

[A]

But it's still.

[B]

But I think that was also at the time of, like, all the big oil wars.

[A]

So.

[B]

Arabs were, like, on the map.

[A]

And it was more. Yeah. I recently we watched the Palestinian chicken episode of Curb youb Enthusiasm.

[B]

My least favorite episode.

[A]

But it really, like, whoa. It takes you back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To a time not so long ago when it was kind. You know, there was. You could talk about kind of like a mutual animosity in the region. It wasn't so char. It was like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It was not so charged.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There wasn't such a, like, colonialist overlay.

[B]

Right. Well, I think, like, again, like.

[A]

Which was nice. Nice.

[B]

We all. The death of television and the rise of, like, online platforms and independent media has good effects and bad effects. The good effect is that you can be.

[A]

Antisemitism is on the rise.

[B]

But the bad effects are obviously that we're all subject to this like great feminization that Helen Andrews talks about. Which again has less to do with women than with technology or at least as much, let's say.

[A]

Yeah, the algorithm.

[B]

Yeah. In that being like censorious and acrimonious is rewarded now, which dovetails nicely also with the. The plot of network or the message of network. Right.

[A]

I mean everyone on X is basically like mad as hell.

[B]

Did you see that there? I guess they. They did already remake Amadeus.

[A]

I saw the trailer for it and.

[B]

The guy sort of what I think the actor who portrays Mozart, he's like part of Asian. Yeah, he's hapa. They should have made him black. Tbh. That was the movie I was watching when my water broke. So I'm very protective and possessive over it and I like take umbrage with them remaking it, but also don't care that much. Should, you know what they should do? They should remake Idiocracy. They should just remake movies that nobody really wants remade.

[A]

Well, no one wanted Amadeus remake.

[B]

They should remake Office Space.

[A]

The thing about the Amadeus remake is that it's not. It just looks like a shittier. You know, I think if you're going to, you know, use some Legacy ip. Yeah. You have to at least like put some. A spin on. You have to freak it in some way or. Yeah. Like make them all black. Make them, you know, like do a different take. But it just literally looks like a shittier Amadeus.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's still like a period. It's still. I don't know what they think they're bringing to the table or why anybody.

[B]

Would tune in for that.

[A]

Cuz yeah, like network could honestly be remade and like totally up. You know, there's. It's.

[B]

Yeah, you can see that being remade with like, I don't know, like Rachel Senna and like Charlie XCX and like the cast of snl, Hassan Piker.

[A]

But yeah, you could, you know, tell kind of a similar. But different story in the same universe.

[B]

Yeah. But this is just weird, especially because also like, yes, it's a movie about like intrigue and jealousy. It's like Mulholland Drive for Men, but. But like ain't nobody care about classical music in this day and age.

[A]

No. And no one likes Amadeus or like, you know, wants cuz sometimes like I. Well, I recently watched the Straw Dogs remake. Oh, right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which isn't as good as the original, but at least it's like it takes place in America. It's about like instead of like English country, kind of like rough necks it's about, like rednecks in the American South.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Well, that makes Kate Bosworth. And it's like. Yeah, you're like, I could take either.

[B]

That's an. Yeah, it's an inventive and fresh spin on an old story.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Have there been any remakes that are superior to the original? The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is probably the talented Mr. Ripley, which is based on Purple Noon. What.

[A]

The one with Gwyneth Paltrow?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is it a remake?

[B]

It's a remake of an Elaine Delon film.

[A]

Oh, no, I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah. Which you would think the original would be. I thought it was better. It's worse. I mean, they're. They're both pretty good as far as movies go. Yeah. In the original, the bad guy, the villain is the handsome one and the guy he kills is sort of like the heir is like, kind of like the playboy is like ordinary looking, like, he's cute, but he's not Elaine Delon.

[A]

Whereas Jude Law and.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

Jude Law is more attractive. I think most women would agree.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But they're relatively matched in attractiveness.

[B]

Yeah. Their looks matched. No, Jude Law is like the hotter one. But it makes more sense in. In the context of a movie like that because obviously, like, the unassuming, nerdy one would be the one with like delusions of grandeur and like a dark triad personality. But maybe not. I guess you could make the opposite case that like, a penniless, handsome upstart would be the exact type of guy who would like, worm his way into high society. I haven't seen a horrible murder. You should watch it. It's a pretty good movie.

[A]

Find the Funny Games.

[B]

Remake.

[A]

It's like a Shop for shot remake. Right by this. By Hanicki as well. But I would say is better just because they're speaking English and it's going to be Nimmy Watts and Michael Pit and stuff, you know, I don't. They're more for me. Better to look at than like random, whatever German. Like, if I had to pick one version of Funny Games, I'd watch the. Of course, English speaking one.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But yeah, my day is already in English already. Really good already. You know, true to the period.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's no need.

[B]

I would say that, like Amadeus is one of those few movies that's like pretty much the platonic ideal of a movie.

[A]

It's like remaking like Barry Lyndon.

[B]

Yeah. Somebody should like remake Barry Lyndon with Hasan Piker.

[A]

He should get into Adam Frameland.

[B]

A lot of chicks think he's hot.

[A]

He needs. He can't. I think that's something wrong with him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's something twisted and broken inside his.

[B]

Jacob Elordi as Hassan Piker in the streamer.

[A]

Shocking your damn dog.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyway, but you'd never seen network before.

[B]

Weirdly, no. So I was really glad that you suggested it. I thought it was like a good.

[A]

Idea because it was a. I thought it'd be a better idea than it was, to be honest. But.

[B]

Sure. But that's how things. That's how it always be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But this is gay and trite to point out, but I guess it does have quite a bit of foreshadowing of how, like, media functions in today's contemporary landscape or whatever.

[A]

But it's quaint almost to watch because there's so much of the, like, conflict and tension is about. Faye Dunaway's character is like a ambitious upstart executive who. Well, for.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

First of all, there's this alcoholic newsman named Howard Beal.

[B]

Yeah. He's like a. A beloved old school news anchor who's been on the air for decades but ratings are down. Yeah.

[A]

He is told that he's gonna lose his job. And then on his. The next broadcast he says that he's going to kill himself on air. And Faye Dunaway takes the initiative. Diana Christensen is her character's name. She takes the initiative to sort of capitalize on his fervor and anger and.

[B]

To.

[A]

Market it in a way that maximizes his ratings.

[B]

Yes. That's sort of like the core point of the film. One of the most amazing features of that film is this, like, very correct commentary on how people are too distracted and checked out to actually pay attention to what's going on as it's transpiring. Like when Howard is first sacked, he goes on a drunken bender with his best friend, who's also an executive of the news division at ubs, Max Shoemaker, and announces his plans to kill himself on air. Then he merely threatens to kill himself. And nobody in the studio picks up on this except for, like, one woman and one guy. And then he is allowed to walk it back and apologize, which leads him to go into his rant about, like, how, you know, the system is or whatever. Yeah. Which. Yeah. Diana Savily exploits this crisis like, never let a good crisis go to waste. There's another moment that comes later in the film where. What's his name? Frank Hackett. The Robert Duvall character.

[A]

The boss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The guy who's above Shoemaker.

[B]

Yes. Where they're at some network gala in Los Angeles. And after the thing wraps, all the waiters and bartenders are watching Howard Beale chimp out over this proposed buyout by the Saudi conglomerate. And he's, like, yelling at them to turn off the TV because he's about to take a phone call, which is about. Yeah, Howard's chimp out. Yeah. So, yeah, it's like people don't pay attention until the crisis becomes too bad to ignore or whatever. I was thinking about how, like. Well, first of all, when I watched the movie, I literally was thinking about how, like, I didn't even internalize any of the lessons or foreshadowing of this movie because my attention span is so blown out that I was, like, taking little breaks to, like, scroll the tl.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is, like, the real takeaway, I.

[A]

Mean, in that way. That's what I mean by its quaintness. Because it's about, like, the television generation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That, like, Diana Christensen represents this woman who's, like, kind of vicious and, like, hollow because she's just got the T. You know, she's been raised on tv and now we have literally, like, people. Did you hear about that guy in France who got, like, tortured to death on a live stream?

[B]

No.

[A]

Horrible story, but literally. Yeah, there's people dying on live streams all the time.

[B]

Yeah. And that's. And, you know, spoiler. The movie ends basically with the conclusion of Howard's premonition about killing himself, except he's assassinated live on air.

[A]

Well, the beginning of the film is the. Howard Beale is the man who was killed for having low ratings. And then.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As Diana becomes more powerful at the network, she produces all of this other kind of, like, cynical programming about, like, leftist violence. Yes. There's. It's not. It's the. What are they called in the movie? They're supposed to be kind of like the symbionese. The Patty Hearst, whatever people.

[B]

Yeah. So the. The whole Howard Beale arc sort of falls into her lap by chance or luck. Her original idea is something called Joseph Stalin and His Merry Band of Bolsheviks, which eventually becomes the Mao Zedong Hour, which is kind of like a docudrama. It's a proto reality show featuring this group. It's like a left wing anarchist terrorist group called the Ecumenical Liberation Army.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, like, there's this meta commentary that's running in the background at all times because the network is overrun by, like, petty intrigue and backstabbing. The only reason that Howard gets the chance to do his rant, which Boosts the ratings of the show and the network is. Because his boss,/BFF Max, is fired and wants to seek revenge against the top brass. So he lets, like, Howard do his thing. But there was also, as you mentioned, some actual, like, petty intrigue and backstabbing over the casting of Vanessa Redgrave.

[A]

Well, I don't know if there was.

[B]

Backstabbing exactly, but they were, like, fighting over it.

[A]

It's just. Well, Paddy Chayefsky's a very interesting figure who was a playwright and then in the 50s, was a very, very successful, like, teleplay writer.

[B]

He won his first Oscar, also quaint.

[A]

Yeah. But he was, like, chronically unsatisfied. You know, like, he stopped doing theater, then he started doing tv. Then he thought TV wasn't letting him, like, express himself enough.

[B]

He's so Jewish.

[A]

Well, he. That's for sure. And then he kind of fell on hard times, and the network was kind of his, like, comeback. Not hard times exactly, but he was sort of, you know, he tried the Doghouse. Yeah.

[B]

His star was on the Descendant, but, yeah, there's a lot of these elements.

[A]

So such a prolific screenwriter. He was given a lot of creative control, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he worked very collaboratively on all the films that he wrote.

[B]

Yeah. And there's, like, a lot of these ingredients seem very familiar now. This, like, ranting and raving newscaster who becomes kind of a political influencer, like a populist prophet. The girl boss executive who's, like, incapable of love and can't enjoy sex because she's so fanatically devoted to her job.

[A]

She has a masculine temperament.

[B]

In the bedroom, the black Marxist revolutionaries. And they're like white leftist handlers. The backdrop of leftist violence and political assassination. The movie opens on these failed assassination attempts against Gerald Ford. Laureen Hobbs, who's like a kind of Angela Davis stand in, who ends up, I guess, being an accessory to murder.

[A]

Well, Dog Tom Wolf, Dog Day Afternoon, also directed by Sidney Lemay, also has a lot of this, you know, it's Time is a flat circle.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

History repeats itself. There's a lot of, like, very pertinent films from that era.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Touch on a lot of things that are irrelevant.

[B]

So Diana Christensen, the Faye Dunaway character, says the American people want someone to articulate their rage for them. I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. And she talks about how Americans have been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam and Watergate and inflation and depression. How the public is, like, weary and wary. And we should be, like, tapping into their rage and reflecting it back at them. She wants more podcasts, more street. She wants America first. But she has this very noble and socially conscious explanation for what she's trying to do. And, of course, there's, like, no nobility or social consciousness involved at all. It's all about the ratings. She wants to become the top dog at the network, and she wants the network to be, like, number one in America.

[A]

She's very Weiss.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

At cbs.

[B]

And she's taking the rain. Yes. And she says of Howard Beale, which is the Peter Finch character, he's articulating their popular rage. He's a magnificent, messianic figure inveighing against the hypocrisy of our time. But of course, she's not really, like, interested in harnessing or channeling people's rage to, like, expose the hypocrisies of American life and society.

[A]

She wants them. And this is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Particularly prescient, I feel like, with social media, which basically runs on outrage and rage, straight up. Yeah. But you can kind of, like, participate in real time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In a kind of like, pity, jealousy, rage, fruitless. Yeah. Just like Howard Heal. Like, gets people mad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But all they do is, like, watch tv.

[B]

What's this catchphrase?

[A]

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.

[B]

And it's like a dark and cynical version of people, like, beating their pots and pans and clapping during COVID And she understands that the way that you do this, again, is, like, by appealing to people's, like, lowest basist impulses.

[A]

Right. They want to feel mad as hell.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But they don't actually want to do anything except, like, watch tv.

[B]

Yeah. And she's. She's not fighting the system. She's like. She is the system. She's like an upstart faction within the system. Yeah.

[A]

And in. Yeah. When her relationship falls apart with Max Schumacher, who's married, she, like, endeavors to have an affair with him, ostensibly, sort of just to kind of, like, take the reins more. Get him fired, basically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then they kind of, like, reconnect, but then he sort of sees her for what she is, which is, like a void. And he says, there's, like, nothing inside you that I can love because you're just. You're just like that tv.

[B]

Yeah. True.

[A]

Only you. You knew how bad things really were.

[B]

Patty, Patty, the Great Feminization. What was the. The. Was it a Nietzsche quote about the public being a woman?

[A]

He says, truth is a woman.

[B]

Everything's a woman.

[A]

What is a woman?

[B]

But I was thinking about the Faye Dunaway character, which is like, a really great. One of the best movie characters of all time, I think. When their affair finally ends, he tells her, I'm tired of finding you on the phone whenever I return. I'm tired of being an accessory in your life. Which is, like, so true and on point because, you know, modern women always be playing on their phone and they want, like, handbag husband who is an accessory to all of their experiences that they beam out on social media. It's like, I want boyfriend or husband in this, like, Instagram reel or on Twitter when I show off my, like, engagement ring. Yeah. Who's taking the picture if it's not a selfie? It's the poor, loathsome handbag husband.

[A]

I think the woman who plays his wife won an Oscar, actually. That's a great scene, I think. Oh, yeah. The movie was well regarded in its time.

[B]

And one of the. The notable things about the Faye Dunaway character is how, like, self aware and articulate she is about herself. Not in the way that, like, contemporary women are, where they're like, kind of like precious. She's like, yeah, like, I have a male libido and I'm allergic to commitment and I. I love my job and that's all I care about.

[A]

Well, she's a exempl. Not exemplary. Exceptional. Yeah, she's a very special woman. And I think originally when Chavsky was writing the script, it was going to be because he had this other movie called the Hospital that was like a satire of. He's an amazing. I first read Paddy Chayefsky when I was studying acting, and his plays and teleplays are very popular for, like, scene work. Because he's such a good dialogue writer and he. His scripts have a lot of, like, heart and kind of, like realism, even when they're, like, wacky and satirical. But he does a good, like, ensemble of characters, which is present in Network as well. I forget what my point was. Oh, that. Yeah. Originally there was the. Diane's character was maybe gonna be, like, a man, but then he wanted to, like, kind of shoehorn in this kind of love story, which I don't find particularly romantic.

[B]

Well, it's not. No, but. But it does have elements of, like, humanity or authenticity. Yeah, authenticity to it. Because obviously Diane strikes up the affair with Max because she wants more of a controlling share in the network and she's trying to insinuate herself and, like, infiltrate the management or whatever. But their romance does have some, like, genuine attraction and affection to it because they have, like, an age gap relationship. And he's like a father figure and she's this, like, I guess, like, exciting, thrilling young woman that gives him a new lease on life that his, you know, old lady brings up to him.

[A]

Yeah. She said, oh, she's going to be your winter romance.

[B]

And he keeps saying that he's, like, intrigued by her or infatuated by her. And the wife is like, tell me you love her. Just say it. And then she asks at some point, does she love you? And he answers, quite honestly, I don't think that she's even capable of love.

[A]

Yeah. And then, yeah, there's that scene where they go to her house and she loves. She looks like a total chud. She has this very, like, masculine living space as well where she's. Yeah. Basically just in love with, like, television. Yeah. She's in love with the game. She's awesome. The sauce. She doesn't have, like, a nice home.

[B]

Setting aside the fact that most people, male or female, could not be that honest and candid about their private motivations, the. Her dialogue does at times feel like it was written by a man because she is so, like, high powered and masculine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was thinking about that in light of Helen Andrews essay, which I propose that we discuss on the podcast. But then I was like, no, we should just, like, have her on and discuss it with her because it ticks so many of the boxes of what we were talking about when we started out.

[A]

It was a good. What was it called?

[B]

The Great Feminization.

[A]

Great Feminization, Yeah, it was good. But I was kind of like, well, duh.

[B]

Yeah. No, I know. It does feel.

[A]

I've been. We've been saying this. Yeah.

[B]

I guess if I have one critique. Well, I have two critiques of this essay. Number one is that it almost feels like 10 years too late.

[A]

It's a little dated. Yeah.

[B]

It's very strange and unusual that it would be published now, though. I'm glad that it's being published to such fanfare.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

And, like, I even asked, like, on Twitter, like, what would have happened if this essay was published, like, at the height of MeToo, where you couldn't say this stuff or you would be, like, canceled or whatever. And then the other thing is that, like, I'm sympathetic to her theory and I think it holds water, but obviously it's not, like, purely scientific. And there are a lot of other elements that explain, like, why society seems so, like, soft and weak now. And it's not just because women now outnumber men at all the important institutions.

[A]

So we can all agree that that's not how it ought to be, I think.

[B]

No, I mean, I broadly agree with her thesis.

[A]

But yeah, I'm not so compelled by like the pop psychology of like, you know, men are do this and women are doing this and like there's like some truth to that, but it's a little like shallow, it's a little flat.

[B]

Well, it's, it's useful in the same way that like talking about narcissism is useful. It's like an imperfect umbrella catch all term for like what Saylor calls anecdot, like, which is like data that you glean from your lived experience. Like, we've all noticed that there are more women in positions of power and more women in the workplace in general, and the balance has been tipped. And in some ways the Faye Dunaway character is not exactly reflective of that because she's one of those rare outlier women that thrives in a male dominated workplace.

[A]

She's a pick me. She's one of those.

[B]

She's a guy's girl.

[A]

Yeah, she's not. She wouldn't thrive in a modern network setting where there was a large like female HR and like bureaucratic president.

[B]

They should remake network except everybody's a woman and the, the Faye Dunaway character is a young white man.

[A]

What was that? I forgot what I was gonna say, but it'll come to me.

[B]

But like, obviously at that time when women were just entering the workplace, the women who thrived in, under those conditions were selected for by the system and that they could hang and they could handle the pressure. They like performed well under pressure and they, they weren't like overly like emotional. They didn't want to talk about their feelings.

[A]

Polya talks about this too. How the, you know, she has like a, a very romantic, like a fetishized view of like the 1980s corporate power suit woman who is like up in the boardroom chopping it up with the boys and like using her feminine wiles but also using her like masculine temperament to achieve things.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

But what I was gonna say was that like what we, I feel like woke, there's gonna be like. It's another one of these articles that's about like wokeness and like trying to like do the post mortem, the biopsy on wokeness and then like attributing it to one kind of thing that there's some anecdotal evidence for. But wokeness broadly is something that is not so well defined, but we all know it like pornography. We know when we see it.

[B]

Yeah. And you have all these, like, competing explanations for why wokeness was able to take hold. You have the Chris Ruffo explanation that it was like a Marxist cultural revolution in academia trickle down through the. Yeah. You have the, the Richard Hanania explanation pilfered from Christopher Caldwell that it was a matter of civil rights legislation which made everything presumptively illegal, but was contingent on who holds the reigns of power and how they enforce legality. You have the Helen Andrews explanation, which is again. Yeah, there's too many. The balance was tipped in favor of voids. And I, I think, like, I try. I guess I would view all of these explanations as complementary versus peing.

[A]

I see them all as like symptoms of something else.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That I can't quite diagnose.

[B]

Yeah. It's like, very hard to articulate. And then you have again, like the, the rise of like.

[A]

But, yeah.

[B]

Social media.

[A]

Who let the take the reins.

[B]

Yeah. Why?

[A]

Like, there were things, there were conditions already in place to allow for like a feminization to happen. It didn't just happen organically because more women happen to be going to college and getting jobs.

[B]

Yeah. And like, one thing that you, you see with network is even though the now the networks are fairly sympathetic if performatively to like, progressive causes because they want to boost their ratings. And even if the movie itself is sort of like almost left wing, which I'll get into in a minute, like how much more like conservative society was in a way that people then and people now take for granted. Yeah. Like even leftists were pretty conservative back then.

[A]

I mean, they were not so dissimilar.

[B]

What do you mean?

[A]

In their propensity for political violence. Yeah. You know, there's certainly a lot of parallels, but Chayefsky's critique is a little like, it's not about the Arabs so much as it's about like the corporate structure.

[B]

Right. Well, that's why I was thinking about how the movie is obviously a very like, boomer critique of the system. And in that way it's also a very like, left wing film. But it's almost charming and innocent. It's like before the software update because, like, the message is that people don't actually have morals or principles outside of self interest and profit motive. You know, it feels quaint in this day and age when everything is so ideologically loaded.

[A]

Well, in that way, I think it's not really left wing, but I think.

[B]

That was like almost the original Left wing critique. It's not like, fight the system, like, fight the power. And there's this. There's that moment where the CCA chairman, Arthur Jensen gives an impassioned speech to Howard Beale, who at this point is like, totally, like, psychotic, where he says, like, there's no nations, there's no races, there's no gender, there are no borders. It's just a holistic system of systems. The dominion of the dollar, the international system of currency. So they're basically making like a economic class based critique of how things function.

[A]

But is that not true? It's true.

[B]

It. I mean, it does, of course, like, have truth to it, but it's so quaint.

[A]

Yeah, no, for sure, it's charming. And Chayefsky was someone who knew the system very well, thrived in it for a period of time, and then, you know, started to develop this, like, critique when he felt hindered by it.

[B]

He was the Matt Gazda of his time. Oh, God. No.

[A]

But I don't think his aims were ideological. They were very like, for, you know, subversive Joe. You know, he like, just had, you know, he's kind of taking a, like.

[B]

I mean, outsider Jews are really good at like, metacognition and meta commentary, except when it comes to their blind spot of Israel. But we can also get to that later.

[A]

But at the time, that wasn't, you.

[B]

Know.

[A]

That was okay. It was like he was a total Zionist.

[B]

Yeah, but the movie is very like, wake up, sheeple. The system.

[A]

But I think it's more like fatalistic than that. It's about, like, the futility of fighting the system. Like, Howard Beale's not the hero of the film.

[B]

No, he's like an old goat.

[A]

He's like a patch. And yeah, I love the scene when the ratings are up and he's wearing that, like, black turtleneck and they're like, how about it? You want to channel your messianic fervor and be a big TV star? And he's like, hell, yeah. Every single person in the film is. Except Schumacher maybe. He's kind of like the human amoral. But he's like the. A human. And everyone else is kind of like a caricature or.

[B]

Yeah, who's. Who's like, opportunistically defaulting on their stated principles to pursue their self interest. Like, even the makeupless, like, Afro sporting black feminist activist lady Laureen Hobbs is, you know, she. She also is giving all these impassioned pleas and like, throwing up the fist, but ultimately, like, caves to the network's proposal that she do.

[A]

Yeah, well, the way she's like, I'm not gonna do this, honky ass. I ain't doing that. Like, what if we give you a bunch of money? And she's like, okay.

[B]

And then she's like, brokering a deal with like, what's his name? Ahmed Khan, who's like the. The fake Nation of Islam. Like fried chicken eating, lip smacking.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A Tom Wolfian race grifter. Figure.

[A]

She's more of the race grifter.

[B]

You can really see this, this film coalescing now with all the big personalities. Tariq, Nasheed, Hassan, piker, Nick Fuentes. They're all in it.

[A]

It's really. Yeah, it's. And it's been said before. I feel like there have been think pieces like, you know, even decades ago that were about like, you know, kind of a more surface, like. And they're mad on Fox News. Fox News is like network. You know, like, people been saying stuff is like, network.

[B]

Networks are like network. Yeah. So true.

[A]

So true.

[B]

I. I was being such a irritable. I was like, ooh, you. You made a movie about how profit motive trumps all other calculations in the contemporary age and how it's all like, super meta and whatever. And I was like, wait, at the time, this must have seemed novel. Yeah, for sure, because people had one. Like, as everyone, every, like, media theorist is fond of pointing out, people were under the sway of like, a mass consensus, a mass narrative. There were like three major networks. I mean, there still are.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I mean, we can get into the Larry and David Ellison business.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is why you chose to review this movie in the first place, I guess, because it dovetails so nicely with like, contemporary reality.

[A]

I watched it when, like, the Kimmel stuff was kind of going down, though. I'd seen it before and was. Have been fond of it, though. When I first saw it, I was like, in college and the Faye Dunaway character was very, like, aspirational.

[B]

Yeah, to me. Yeah.

[A]

Like, I was like, oh. I was like, okay, I'm gonna start wearing like a blouse and like a watch and like, act like, you know, like if I want to come up in this world, like, this is like the kind of like, woman you kind.

[B]

Of gotta, like, you have to have like, honey blonde hair and braless tits. She's very Mariam Nasser Zadeh. She's wearing like a striped bow blouse and beige chinos and like a wide belt or, like, yet tall boots.

[A]

She looks great.

[B]

Her outfits are so good, which a.

[A]

Little bit doesn't but her lifestyle. Yeah, but that's the magic of the movie.

[B]

That's so true, by the way, because it's true of all of us contemporary women who have, like, really cute fits, but, like, live in a hovel. Like, you live like this. I'm, like, getting Net a porter concierge to come to the stoop of my, like, shitty ghetto, like, apartment.

[A]

Would you get it?

[B]

Net a portier Isabel Morant wedge sneakers. Yeah.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

I'm a fan of those because they're like, a real nostalgic throwback to when I was truly a broke ass. Boop. And like, living in Bushwood in Williamsburg. And girl, like, really hot rich girls were always wearing the Alexander Wang, like, pebbled leather stud bag and the Isabel Marant taupe colored suede wedge sneakers. That's.

[A]

It's an interesting throwback.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I stopped doing the net app Fortier like, impulse buys when they stopped carrying, like, beauty products. Because that was always. I kind of. Because, yeah. I like when they bring it so quick.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I'm kind of broke, so, you know, I'd buy like, some skims and, like, a candle and, like, I'd buy like, some homewares and then, like, some. Some makeup.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And like, they still bring it to your house.

[B]

A black guy to come to your house and give you the bag. Like, hand it over. Like a hostage situation, Money exchange, ransom. No, this is. I think this is the first time I did it because I'm, like, hormonal, so I'm making all sorts of unwise purchases on the Internet. Yeah. My mom's calling me up and she's like, are you still blowing a ton of money on Shmiel? And I'm like, no, no.

[A]

The real world's returnable.

[B]

It's all brandy. Mel.

[A]

I'm gonna try some of it on and then probably return some of it.

[B]

But they do make that easy. They facilitate it because, like, yeah, some. Some guy brings it to your doorstep, you try it on, you send it back.

[A]

It's nice for the environment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I have to pee.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Go off. What were we yapping about?

[A]

The CBS Tick tock Allison media takeover. No, wait, but what.

[B]

There is, like, a specific thing. I don't remember. Whatever. Oh, yeah. Buying crap off of Net A port.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Net A porter. There is an interesting moment when Diane and Max's affair ends. Yeah. Where he's talking about how she's, like, on the phone too much and views him as an accessory. And he says, I'm your last contact with human Reality. And that painful, decaying love is the last contact between you and the shrieking nothingness you live with for the rest of your day. I'll be destroyed like you and the institution of television. Destroy your television incarnate, indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. Gaza, the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. Which sounds like social media.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I know. And like, we still had like, we had a golden age of television, like 20 years, you know, like TV was still. He, like, foresaw something that wasn't even going to transpire until even after, like, what he foresaw was going to be way worse. But having way later. Yes, but in the same way.

[B]

Yeah. And there's this, like, gender inversion where, like, women are now in charge and men are, like, superfluous in Longhouse. But there's also this like, age gap thing where, like, nobody wins and everyone is fucked because, like, the older generation is guilty of, like, too much sincerity and moral. And like, the younger generation is, like, guilty of being too ironic and desensitized.

[A]

Nihilist.

[B]

Nihilistic. Clout.

[A]

Hungry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Engagement. Horny.

[B]

And both sides are wrong and right. Yeah.

[A]

Everything's reduced to, like, engagement.

[B]

Yeah. But it does.

[A]

Which is really far worse than just people watching tv.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. And I remember, like, when we started out, we were like, critiquing the excesses of liberal feminism and making fun of Audrey Gelman for running the wing. But that seems so much more like innocent and desirable now because you have all these like, right wing females on the Internet who are like, basically girl bosses by another name who are like, jostling, jockeying with other women. With other females.

[A]

What are they being like?

[B]

Yeah, like, here's my engagement ring. Look how fertile I am. And they're doing the girl boss thing within the confines of like, traditional femininity and domesticity, which is even more evil.

[A]

It is.

[B]

Well, it's working.

[A]

Talks about that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, at least the way you. At least you get a blowout at the wing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I keep getting Google name alerts about Chris Kraus's new bun.

[B]

Oh, right. Oh, wait, tell me about that. Because. Okay, so you had some tweet like years ago that was like, chris Krause is a landlord.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is funny. But it's like not like in. In your history of posts. It's not like the most notable or viral one at all. Yeah, it's not like the don't over sexualize my tight wet one. Or like the one you had about, like how you should do something crazy and risky for love. Whatever. There have been like many of them, but like, that wasn't a banger.

[A]

I don't even remember why that one was.

[B]

Well, it was too.

[A]

I was definitely on my, like, it.

[B]

Was some like gay art world shake up that you were responding to because I think people were probably fighting with Chris Kraus over something. But yeah, it was too inside baseball to like be meaningful to people.

[A]

Yeah, but it really. Apparently she wrote a whole book about how being a landlord was actually a act of Trumpian resistance or something. I don't, I haven't read the book. I don't know.

[B]

I want to read the book. No, I don't know if I do. Actually. I'm a fan of crisscross.

[A]

Me too. Yeah. If I, I don't even, you know, I was just mad because I want to be a lamp.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

I was just pissed because I was poor and I'm still like, I'm like, she's still landlord. I'm still don't even own any property.

[B]

Say that she's also still poor.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Probably like a low millionaire. Not a high millionaire, which, like, let's be real, like in order to. That's not really like secure your, your fate and the fate of your descendants in this day and age. You need like minimum 20 million. 10 million. Ain't nobody going anywhere with a million in the bank. If you're, if you have a million in the bank, you're kind of like a middle class loser like the rest of us.

[A]

Well, I don't even have anything close to that.

[B]

I know, but, and, but Google lists your net worth as 5 billion.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

I'm gonna Chinese. Let's see. But hold on. Dasha.

[A]

No, but it was a little, it was a little depressing because I was like, I was like, damn, she's still a landlord and I still don't have nothing. And she's so mad.

[B]

There are no pub. There are no reliable public sources detailing Dasha Nekrosova's net worth.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Okay, let's try this one.

[A]

You have to go on like some.

[B]

Chinese Anna Kochi on net worth. Yeah. There are no reliable. Okay, all right, I guess.

[A]

Well, I told you earlier tonight not to use grock because I was using grock last night to aid me in my re. I was just, I, I basically I was like, are there like, give me a list of like essays or critiques of network that deal with blah, blah, blah, these themes and it told me that there was a, that Paul Schrader wrote a review of Network and that Edward Said had an essay about Network. And then neither of those were. I was like, well those sound. I gotta read those. Neither of those exist.

[B]

Yeah, you can picture, you can picture it now. You can picture Paul Schrader being like, this critique isn't going deep enough. And Edward Said being like, this is a racist and imperialist movie that condemns Arab influence in the.

[A]

But that's exactly what CROC did where it like hallucinated that these things existed. Told me they did this is. And then I was like, what happened? I was like, what? I can't find these essays. It was like, they listen, they're fake. I mean I was like, why would you just. Why would you say that?

[B]

I mean I just recently. Because I gronked some blood work results and it spit out this thing which was like, this finding is totally normal and yet it's totally abnormal.

[A]

It lied like.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I.

[A]

I'm like, you shouldn't be allowed to lie at the very least because what if I was slightly, even slightly dumber and came on here and was like, as Edward said, you know, so many people are probably doing that.

[B]

No, they definitely are. I mean it's like so many people think that the guy who shot Charlie Kirk was a maga or a griper.

[A]

Still to this day they're just taking this like language. So if you, if you Google hallucination.

[B]

Anacol net worth you get the people also ask thing and it says is Anacach on a Trump supporter? Where does Anacachon live? What is Dasha Nesova's ethnicity? Interesting. Well, okay. Yeah.

[A]

What, what is Anna's address? Where is Sasha? Lithuanian. How Lithuanian is she? I mean really? They clearly don't have any data sets for Belarus.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And if they did, it'd probably say I was predominantly Bella Russian, whatever that means. So it's just defaulting to Lithuanian because that's the closest thing. Yeah, but I, you know, my wedding was pretty Lithuanian.

[B]

Yeah, I mean listen, I think we default to the wisdom of my mother who early on you said it is.

[A]

A higher ethnic group.

[B]

Group.

[A]

Yes, that I can hang.

[B]

I can hold my proud that she is a nobility.

[A]

She should hold her head high as a possible descendant of a schloa class that like a third of Polish people.

[B]

Cuz my mom is always on this like Russian supremacy now after she's been debunked from her Jewish supremacy where she's like oh yeah, like Ukrainian bell Russian. Those are Lower race.

[A]

But ball toys, you know, she's loving.

[B]

Bostonia, but ball toys are at the. The top of the hierarchy.

[A]

Yeah. Because they're almost Scandinavian, which in your mother's view is like the highest.

[B]

The best fashion. Yeah.

[A]

And. Yeah. They're all, like, in the tech sector and kind of like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, Westernized in a autistic way.

[B]

Yeah, true.

[A]

But I don't claim my Estonian heritage, but maybe I will.

[B]

Maybe I'll do.

[A]

Maybe I'll watch some more YouTube videos. Maybe I'll think about it. But I was almost thinking, like, I.

[B]

Gotta go back to Estonia.

[A]

No, just to the. The, like, when it showed me the zone that my family's lived in for 300 years or whatever, I was like, it seems wrong that I'm not. That I'm so outside of it.

[B]

Well, you have to think that you and I specifically, and many people who came here under similar circumstances are basically deracinated twice over. So, like, we're. We're like ethnic minorities within the Russian Empire or the Soviet Empire, and then we're also ethnic minorities twice over in the American empire.

[A]

Yeah. I don't have anywhere to go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where's Ruthenia? The Carpathian Ruth? I can't go back there.

[B]

True.

[A]

I gotta find a nice swamp over here to live in.

[B]

Either way, I think both of us, in our own way, have some small ancestral claim on the origins of Slav Dom, which is Kievan Rus, for sure. All the. The churches and chapels that they built without nails. Yeah. Out of wood.

[A]

Beautiful.

[B]

Andre Rublov. Whatever.

[A]

Yeah, it's all. That's all real. I. I have those. I have those blood memories coursing through me, for sure.

[B]

Well, I went to, you know, like, Tashkant Market, which opened on 6th Avenue, and they have, like, a bunch of other locations, like mostly in the outer burrows, like Brooklyn, Queens.

[A]

No ethnic grocery store.

[B]

It's an. It's like an Ueck market. It's. It's basically a Russian market. That's.

[A]

What's it called?

[B]

Tashkent.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Market. And they have like a Pl station and like a hot bar and a cold bar. They're like Whole Foods for. What's that? Like, the ice cream.

[A]

The Russian ice cream.

[B]

I don't even know what that is.

[A]

You've seen it. They have it at all the Russian grocery stores. It's like, just like a little. I don't know, it's like a Russian drumstick soft serve, frozen thing probably. Yeah. Bielka.

[B]

Bielka. They have all that shitty candy. Yeah. They have the worst candy. They have all this whack candy that I have a distinct memory of being, like, the best candy in the world. And then you taste it now and you're like, what? This sucks.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, from the Soviet era. It's like. Yeah, it's like 40 years old, but.

[B]

They have, like, you know, like, whatever. Lots of different breads. I've never even seen that in my life.

[A]

If you go to, like, a freezer.

[B]

They have in Brighton beach, they definitely have that here, I'm sure. Without having it.

[A]

Yeah, it's like the same kind. Little wafer. But, yeah. I'll go up in there.

[B]

It's so easy. You take the F to West 4th and you're there. But I was up in there, like, buying food, thinking, like, wow, like, this is, like, so amazing and, like, nostalgic. But I, like, I had this thought, like, oh, like, you literally cannot get fat if you eat ancestral foods. But that's so delusional, because you definitely can. And it's only because I have this, like, narrativized nostalgia for the past.

[A]

I think there's some truth to.

[B]

There's a minor truth to it because your biome is. Is, like, primed to accept certain foods that you.

[A]

I mean, if you turn salo, you'll definitely get fat.

[B]

But you.

[A]

You know. But yeah, you should probably eat things that are, like. Your metabolism is, like, prime to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Take in for nutrients, which is like.

[B]

Buckwheat slop and French bread. Yeah.

[A]

But that's what I like about Russian food is it's not very good.

[B]

No, it's just kind of. But that's what makes it better.

[A]

You're not supposed. It's not about, like, enjoying it.

[B]

Russian people eat to live, not live to eat.

[A]

Exactly. So you won't get fat, mostly because it doesn't taste very good.

[B]

Yeah. So they kind of choke it down. Yeah.

[A]

But I like kasha. There was they. There used to be a place on 6th called Balkan Street Eats that was like a Boo Rack kind of Chavapi spot, but it closed pretty quick. Not a lot of demand. But I. When I lived over there, I'd go there a lot.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I remember when you lived next to, like, Vesuvio.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were the days. That was nice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now there's all these Turkish spots opening up by me.

[B]

Yeah, that makes sense. Because aren't Turkish people, like, actually, like, making serious gains in the New York real estate market? Like, people always worry about, like, Chinese.

[A]

But it's actually Turks Eric Adams, famous?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, he's, he sold a lot of the. He, he gave him a lot of power for the, for the business class flights.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I would do too. I do the same thing.

[B]

Yes, I know, I know.

[A]

But also the Turkish mission, embassy, whatever is pretty close, so that might have something to do with it. But they don't look very good.

[B]

You know, I hate to say this because obviously half Armenian and I hate Hassan Piker, but I do like Turkish people. Yeah, yeah, they're like beautiful and smart.

[A]

I haven't had that much.

[B]

I mean, they're very diverse.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ethnically it's a big country. But I've, I've really like never met a Turkish person that I didn't like.

[A]

I don't know, I'm prejudiced.

[B]

Wait, why?

[A]

Just. Cause.

[B]

Wait, what's your beef with Turks?

[A]

Well, they're meeting a genocide. Just that they seem to get away, you know.

[B]

Yeah, they did get away with that.

[A]

And Constantinople, you know, the Turkish turban.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I think I like them because they're like a liminal case. And they're like, they're not brown. They're mostly white, I guess. And they're also kind of like bohemian and degenerate in a way that most Muslims aren't.

[A]

Right. They're almost Balkan in there.

[B]

Well, they are. I mean, Balkans are like the runoff of like Ottoman Empire.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is like why you have like blonde haired, blue eyed Muslims in like Central and Eastern Europe.

[A]

I watched, I watched a couple some like 10-7-style programming and I watched one documentary that made the case that because they were doing like the Putin thing of like. Well, you have to go back. They were like, they were like Islamic conquests actually means that they colonized Jerusalem. And so it's not that the Jews, it's not that Israel is colonizing Palestine, it's that Islam is colonizing Judea. Exactly.

[B]

Originally Judaic. Yes. Okay, yeah, we get it. Get knit and bull. Now that you mention it, there was this beautiful blue eyed and I assume blonde haired, not that I would know, Hijabi at Tashkent market. And she looked like one of those like British converts.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But she was clearly just like a girl from the Russian empire who came from like Islamic ancestry. Right. I want to see her 23andMe.

[A]

I know, I wish we just, I wish we had that on the.

[B]

I want like an influencer branding deal with Tushcat market.

[A]

Hello.

[B]

We agree to sell your pastries and.

[A]

Honey, I know, but we always do this. We Always start shilling some crap. I'm like, the freckle pen is the.

[B]

Best one on the market.

[A]

And then they're like, well, there's no incentive for them to. I know we've already done the shilling, but I'm willing to mention it every.

[B]

Episode from here on. I want free unlimited lifetime supply of buckwheat. Caution cost like borscht. Please, I don't want to pay.

[A]

We need the herring.

[B]

I am Jewish.

[A]

I need special honey. What else is on our.

[B]

Well, the Paramount.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

CBS/Warner. CNN. Ellison merger. The Politico Young Republicans business.

[A]

There's so Sky Dance.

[B]

What's Sky Dance?

[A]

Paramount. Sky. Sky Dance is also a company that I guess sounds Oracle. Oracle is a company.

[B]

You're telling me now for the first time that Jews control the media. I'm so scared. Well, oh my God.

[A]

Apparently they've lost their grip at some point.

[B]

Well, they did. Now they did. And now they're coming back. Yeah.

[A]

Thank God.

[B]

I mean, that's really the.

[A]

When I watched my, like, network, I'm like, we don't even have the skill level to make a movie like this.

[B]

I mean, it's so true. Yeah.

[A]

Like, we don't have the screenwriting talent. We don't have the directing, we don't have the actor. We don't have. We cannot make a movie like network today.

[B]

No, you couldn't have the. You can make a cheap knockoff remake with like IO Ed de Beery as the Fade Dunaway character. She's not only a woman, she's black, but she's not ados.

[A]

What's ados?

[B]

That's like African Descendants of slaves.

[A]

Right? Like what's her face with the talk show that got canceled? Z Way.

[B]

Oh, Z Way. Oh, yeah.

[A]

Z Way can be in it.

[B]

Okay, so Larry Ellison, right, is now.

[A]

Going to own Tick Tock.

[B]

Basically. He and his son have acquired Paramount and CVS and cbs.

[A]

David Allison.

[B]

And are making a bid for Warner and cnn. And these are cross platform deals because they will now involve social media platforms and apps such as Tick Tock. They also obviously acquired the Free Press and installed Barry Weiss as the head of cbs. This is from the New York Times. Many elements of the new Tick Tock remain unclear, including the exact ownership, show shares and who will run the company. About the only safe assumption is that the app will be controlled by people sympathetic to President Trump. The Murdoch family. The owner of Fox News probably will be another investor. The President said last weekend in an interview in Fox News. Congress has ordered the Chinese company ByteDance to invite itself to divest itself of Tick Tock for national security reasons in a law whose enforcement was delayed by Mr. Trump. Oracle already has a relationship with the app, using its cloud servers to handle US Users data. But the new deal could give it access to consumer facing sides of the business.

[A]

Okay, so.

[B]

Okay, so they already run the back end, and now the question is whether they will run the front end.

[A]

Because the whole deal with the Tick Tock ban was that the Chinese had too much control, that it was a security issue.

[B]

So they were. So they were saying, like, the only way that you can run Tick Tock in the United States is if you sell the Tick Tock property to an American firm. Yeah. To a Jewish person. Yeah.

[A]

So that we can cut back on the.

[B]

And obviously the big concern here is that this merger will lead to like a media monopoly on pro Israel sentiment.

[A]

Well, they need to do damage control. Bad.

[B]

At like, at a time when pro Israel sentiment is being successfully rolled back.

[A]

Huh. Because people can go on TikTok and then see the atrocity.

[B]

Yeah. Because people are also. Yeah. They're younger and browner. They don't really like, buy into the old school pieties, whatever.

[A]

They just don't have again, the Palestinian chicken episode of Kirby. You know, you're like, wow. They're really.

[B]

Just.

[A]

Because no one was mad. Like, no one was mad about that at the time.

[B]

Like, you. You can complain about how this.

[A]

Well, it was just kind of a given that, like, Jews and Palestinians don't get along and there's this tension between them and it's like both sides are kind of complicit and there was just a. More obviously the curb.

[B]

You're in this. Larry David is Jewish. Well, okay. But there's the obvious problem that any merger of this caliber or the stature would lead to like a monopoly, a consolidation power.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, it wouldn't be an ex. A total monopoly, but it would be more or less there. But also, obviously, all these people are heavily pro Israel.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big time.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Or if they're not, it's. They don't care. You know, they're definitely not anti Israel.

[B]

Yeah. And I have no, like, insightful or riveting stance to take on this, but it seems like the future standoff in media is literally between Nick Fuentes and Barry Weiss for who gets to run the right. And the Tick Tock youth and so on and so forth.

[A]

Well, Barry's not even really right. Yeah, she's right. Of course she's right.

[B]

But but all the, all the liberals and leftists see her as a right wing figure because I don't consider her one.

[A]

But she's like anti woke or whatever.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Oh well, she's not. She's a centrist and a Zionist. She's like, is she doing her thing now? But she doing her thing though. And I feel similarly though not, you know, like Fuentes kind of underdog Barry ousted now on top. There's something satisfying about it, sure. But however you feel that.

[B]

Well, I guess my question is like who's the bigger threat to the longevity of the actual right? Is it very wise or Nick Fuentes? A lot of people would argue that it's very wise.

[A]

I mean, I guess I don't feel like I have a dog in the fight so much.

[B]

What do you mean?

[A]

Like I don't really care whatever threat Barry Weiss poses to the so called right. I don't, I don't, I don't know. What is she gonna really.

[B]

Well, okay, my thing is like I don't care about the specific opinions of like right wing boobs on Twitter, but I again, as I said on our last episode, would like a final and definitive defeat of like progressivism in America because I think it's bad for everybody. And you see this play out time and time again, you know, and you.

[A]

Think Barry Weiss could undermine.

[B]

Yeah, because she. Well, you know, I love buried to death. I think she's a cool chick. I find her personally charming and likable and don't like when people like dog on her randomly for her like appearance or life choices. I think that's rude. But I think that she represents a bottleneck to like, like organic popular opinions and ideas that are coming out of people to the right of her. Like obviously.

[A]

But she's not gonna have a real like information has already been so decentralized, even if you have cbs, cnn, whatever.

[B]

Well, I guess my big question is whether any kind of legacy media channel will be able to have any inroads against.

[A]

Well, that's the thing is independent media.

[B]

I. E. Young people on, on TikTok.

[A]

The thing about the merger is that it's not just about like a conglomerate of mainstream media. It's like cross pollinated streaming. It's going to be like more all encompassing. So it'll have more wide.

[B]

They're going to massage the messaging of Tik Tok through like indirect channels of like censorship and cancellation. Obviously they're going to like determine the tos, Right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean BB was saying this, this is Like a front, you know, of their war is to recapture hearts and minds through influence on social right.

[B]

I don't know how convincing or plausible this will be because I can also see a scenario where like sheeple. Yeah, but I can also see a scenario where like something like tick tock is captured and people come up with alternate channels to air their opinions. Like obviously like that might happen, but yeah, it is like troubling.

[A]

I think there will be counterbalances because things will are so evolved and expansive that it's not, it's not like the Saudi conglomerate in network that's just gonna like have the reins. It's just gonna be like some voices will be suppressed, but then they'll find new channels and there's always going to be like, yeah, information wants to be free. I believe that. And unless you're in some kind of like totally authoritarian, you know, like there's three television channels.

[B]

That's the funny thing is like, everybody's always crying about like fascism and authoritarianism. And it's obvious that the real threat is like a coercive, gynocratic type government that doesn't force anyone to do anything at like the barrel of a gun. Like that time is behind us. And it's funny because when I was reading the Helen Andrews great feminization essay, I was thinking about how like there's like almost a one to one analogy with like stochastic terrorism where like the liberal and left wing media will accuse like right wingers of inciting violence but do it themselves.

[A]

What's stochastic terrorism?

[B]

It's like the, the idea that like if you as a public figure invite or incite violence, that it is statistically likely but unpredictable. So somebody might heed your message and go out and assassinate somebody.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They love doing that. I forgot where I was going with this. It's a good thought too. Damn.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

No, no, no, no worries. It's my fault. Something about, oh, the idea that there was like a, you know, there was a whole like cohort contingent of feminists being doing the Handmaid's Tale fantasy. But we have reverse handmade now where like women are cracking the whip and running things. Are they? Yeah, like on like a, like cultural or messaging level. Yeah.

[A]

And because of like empathy politics.

[B]

Yes, like empathy, compassion. Just be a decent human being or whatever. And they're doing it kind of like covertly and indirectly, but it's a project. When they, when they accuse, when, when they say like, oh like the Trump administration is going to ban abortion and institute fascism, it's production.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because they're gonna.

[A]

They're gonna use their soft power.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna rebrand as like a libtard pro abortion activist and just wear an abortion is rad T shirt. Like, what the is wrong with you? Do you have toxoplasmosis?

[A]

It's like a Halloween costume. Super scary.

[B]

Abortion is rad. Is so funny.

[A]

With like a slice of pizza.

[B]

Like, even if you get an abortion and you're okay with it and not traumatized by it, it's like not rad because you have to go to an office and have your like, baby sucked out of you. It's unpleasant. Even if you have no sympathy for the baby and you're not like, emotionally invested in it, just as a medical procedure, it sucks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You have to get your suctioned.

[A]

Even if you don't believe in, like.

[B]

Concept, like insolent conception, whatever. It just like, sucks. Like, would you say, like, getting blood work is red or getting shots. Getting vaccine is red?

[A]

Getting a Pap smear. They probably would say getting a vaccine is rad.

[B]

I'm gonna do the. Getting a pap smear is rad.

[A]

Getting your HPV vaccine so rad.

[B]

Like, literally any medical procedure that you get is not rad by definition. It sucks. It's unpleasant. It's an intrusion. No, you're.

[A]

You're a slave.

[B]

You're ward. You're in the.

[A]

You're in the ward of a ice cold medical industrial complex.

[B]

But Barry is very brilliant because I'm happy for her. She's very nice and easygoing and acts nonplussed. And that's how you get your way.

[A]

And being Jewish and starting like a little media website. I don't know, People have. Have doubts as to the actual, like, value of the free press.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And how much it was acquired for. But whatever. I'm happy for her.

[B]

Right. I mean, you could be happy for somebody on a personal level and not be happy for what that means for society as a whole. I guess.

[A]

I mean, I would just be happy.

[B]

If, like.

[A]

Entertainment got better.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't think it.

[B]

I don't think it will. But that's like, again, I feel like that's more of a technological versus ideological problem.

[A]

Exactly. It's all, like, gonna look when I go on rumble if cozy TV malfunction. And I have to type in Nicholas J Because he's still shadow banned. And I see all the other, like, streaming content. It's so like, I'm like, how could anybody but so many people do so many people watch streamers? They are.

[B]

They do.

[A]

They literally watch like a Howard Beal version of whatever.

[B]

They're like a streaming channel. Well, I mean, that's my thing. It's like, okay, when I say that I'm not a princess, I'm not a fan of America First. That actually has nothing to do with like my disagreement with Nick Fuentes. It's just like, I can't. I'm a boomer and that's not a media. That's for me, I cannot watch streaming. And so my experience of him is mainly through viral clips on like Twitter or Instagram, of course. And I think that that goes for like a lot of elder millennials. Gen X people.

[A]

Yeah, I. Fuentes was off putting to me at some point and then I got like kind of like lulled into parasocial comfort response. So now I like dark admission that I like, you know, some like low grade stimulating chatter late at night.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's like filled that void. But watch like, I definitely. Well, I realized I'm right in between you and Nick, age wise, because he's 27. Yeah. I'm 34. I'm six years older than him and you're six years older than me. So it's like I'm right in the middle. So I'm kind of like bridging this. So I'm not so keen on streaming, but I can like, yeah. Accept, you know, I'm coming straight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I'm definitely not like seeking out. I can't imagine, like just seeing the thumbnails of like, other streams. I'm like, why would I. Why would I be watching this person, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ranting and raving. But so many people do. It's really bleak. I mean, it really is, Nile. Like, nihilistic. It really is so much more of a void than like television ever could have hoped to be.

[B]

Yeah. And then you have this like dating and gender discourse. It's like endlessly exhausting and like recriminatory. But it's like really doesn't come down to. It's like not anyone's personal fault.

[A]

It's probably the faults of like the people.

[B]

Women and Jews. No.

[A]

Not in this case. I'd say it's more so the fault of like someone like Elon Musk who creates the algorithm.

[B]

Right. That.

[A]

Prompts people into. That's why there all is this discourse is because people are fed like alarmist inflammatory content algorithmically that they respond. They're more likely to respond if they're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore than if they're like feeling good and healthy or whatever. Which nobody is.

[B]

Which nobody.

[A]

Literally every single post on X may as well say, I'm mad as hell.

[B]

Yeah. Like that's.

[A]

Everyone's just saying that over and over in different ways. It feels like.

[B]

Well, I was thinking when we had T chat on, he was like, anna, like, you're such a nice person in real life. Why are you mad and so mad on Twitter? And like, I fumbled and botched it. I didn't answer that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There are certain things because I was like, I'm not actually mad, but there are actually certain things that you should be mad about. There are certain situations where like, righteous anger is warranted. And those situations are like when they flood your city with random third world migrants, when they try to urge you to trans your kids. Like these very stock, like, corny, cringy right wing talking points. Like, you should be mad about those things. Right.

[A]

But much like the like captured audience in network is mad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And responding to madness.

[B]

And you're just. Yeah. You're making yourself feel better being mad. Yeah.

[A]

By being mad. And you're not. Those things are like righteous to people.

[B]

They're legitimate concerns.

[A]

But you're not doing anything by sounding.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You're just feeding back into like a algorithm that like has, you know, MK.

[B]

Ultra dude.

[A]

And you're mad at you.

[B]

That was like my disagreement with like, Martin where, you know, he's like, why are you lying? But it's like, it's true. Like, I'm not his enemy. I'm even willing to get along with him. I've never had any beef with him. He's not my fave person, not my fave poster. But like, it's very obvious that he cares about like things like follower count and engagement metrics.

[A]

He's completely lost in the sauce. He doesn't exist outside of the Internet.

[B]

Yeah. And that what pisses me off because it's like we are like, ideally we're all working toward a common mission, which is like securing the health and longevity of MAGA post Trump. That's what I care about. And when you talk about like shame and honor, as he is fond of doing, which is something that I do a lot too, is like a Virgo and Armenian. Like, you have forfeited all shame and honor talking points if you care about your metrics on Twitter. It's very simple. You have like literally forfeited your founding stock American status if you care about that.

[A]

He's Canadian, but whatever so true.

[B]

Okay, let's be generous to him. Let's be generous to him. Let's be charitable.

[A]

North America. Let's go north and central.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Yeah. But in a way, almost you forfeit it by even participating in. You know, I think about this a lot. Like a fabricated kind of discourse that's meant to infl. It's designed to be inflammatory, to have these responses to get this engagement that ultimately doesn't serve you. It just.

[B]

Well, it does serve you in the short run because it gets you like followers and payouts and so on and so forth. But it.

[A]

But for what?

[B]

It doesn't serve you in the long run because it doesn't serve the society.

[A]

And you ultimately serves X.

[B]

A grip on the bigger P, the.

[A]

Company that runs so network, the website.

[B]

Everything comes down to personal self interest and profit motive. I mean, it is very depressing.

[A]

And that's why I think X has really like declined so much.

[B]

Yeah, well, and like removing like the censorship guard rails, that's one thing.

[A]

But then the monetizing of the posting has just caused the posting to be so sloppy.

[B]

Engagement oriented. Yeah.

[A]

And so people go on there and they say, women are disgusting. What do you think? And then everyone's like, what the. I'm not disgusting, but everyone's disgusting.

[B]

Everybody's like, oh, yeah, postpartum bodies.

[A]

Yeah, women have the worst tits. And then women say, no, I don't look at these.

[B]

Somebody is like, women have the worst postpartum bodies.

[A]

And then everyone takes the bait. Everyone. The one that I. The thing about using X on the laptop is that it does give me enough because I am. I do wake up. My impulse is like to look at it on my phone. I'm like, no, it gives me like a little buffer. Yeah. And then when I do go on the computer and then I look at the feed, there's like just an extra. Like, I'm like, why the am I looking at this on the computer? You know, I'm like, I could. I don't need to look at this. And if I get upset and I start to type something out, then I get like a kind of like cognizance.

[B]

Do you do that?

[A]

What?

[B]

You get upset and you type things out. That's so. Excuse.

[A]

You know, like if some. If I read something inflammatory, I'm gonna respond.

[B]

Sometimes I do, I do that sometimes. But it's very sweet to know that people. I guess people do that. Yeah.

[A]

But then I. But then I'm like, I'm on my computer, I'm typing something and it just gives. There's enough of a lag where I'm like, just don't. It's not worth it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then I just don't. And then I just don't abstain. Huh?

[B]

You're like, I'm a beautiful, fertile human woman.

[A]

I'm fine. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Who's in touch with the moment. And I'm going on a laptop.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Typing out. Yes. That's so true. Yeah.

[A]

And having a normie husband is a blessing because he's, you know, when I'm trying to tell him, you know, he's like, how was your day? And I'm like, I'm just fighting with.

[B]

Captive dreamer on Twitter.

[A]

I'm like, there's a guy. I don't know who he is, what he does, anything about him.

[B]

So get this. There's a maga influencer called Jack Posobiak, and he shares 75 of my ancestry with me because he's Polish and Lithuanian. His wife is from Belarus.

[A]

Yeah. And he's just like, what are you talking? He's like, well, that doesn't matter. And I'm like, so true. I'm like, you're right. But yeah, I just. I'm too sensitive. I just had a breaking point where I couldn't. And on the phone, too. It just feels too, you know, it all. It feels like someone's like, it's too personal. You go on X, it's like they're texting you this, but they're not true. They're also basically on a computer just like you. And then if you can just have like one degree even of like, it gives you just a little bit enough clarity. For me, I have. Obviously I can't get off it completely. I'm addicted. I know it's horrible, but not going on the phone helps because then I also don't look at it at night. Spec my cortisol.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Try to get a good night's rest. I can wake up at noon, nice and fresh and play some online chess. Should we talk about the young Republic?

[B]

Yeah, but I have to pee, so I'm gonna do that. I'll brb. Okay, I'm back. Yeah. Some people think this is a left wing podcast that has lost touch with its roots.

[A]

They do.

[B]

And some people think this is a right wing podcast that lost touch, that has become unmoored from empathy and humanity. But this is really a podcast about women taking a piss. It's like women taking pee breaks, going to the bathroom, having small, weak bladder.

[A]

Joe Rogan doesn't do that.

[B]

No, he. He podcasts for, like, four hours every day and doesn't take a pee break.

[A]

Yeah, but he's not chugging wine and Celsius and Fiji water.

[B]

I like to have three or four beverages going at once. As you know, wine, Celsius, coffee, water.

[A]

I like an electrolyte drink if I'm hungry.

[B]

We like to maximize the dehydration hydration cycle, because, mind you, you look much thinner when you're dehydrated.

[A]

The blow. But you also look older. Yes, because your skin's crack. All craggy.

[B]

Okay, so the. The Young Republicans thing. There was a Politico expose, a leak. Leak of a Young Republican's group chat. It was called Restroom Whatever. Hold on.

[A]

Well, I saw today at the gym that the New York State Republican, the actual. The real Republicans, disbanded.

[B]

Wait, what?

[A]

Oh, the Young Republicans Club.

[B]

Huh. Due to this. Okay, so a lot of people got fired.

[A]

A lot of people got fired. But now the New York Young Republicans just don't even exist anymore.

[B]

Okay. Interesting. This exchange is part of a trove of telegram chats obtained by Politico and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening. The 2,900 pages of chats shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid August chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization, a hardline pro Donald Trump platform. People are speculating that the leaker was Gavin Wax, who's, like, the head of the New York City branch of the Young Republicans and works in the Trump State Department. He's apparently Jewish. I was really holding out hope that he wasn't Jewish because there was, like, a period of time where people were saying that Gavin Wax was the son of Amy Wax, and I had to be like, no, no, no. He. She has two other sons. He's not. He's not. He's a different Wax.

[A]

I don't know if I've ever spoken to him. I must have. He must have said something to me. I guess.

[B]

We met him when we went to the MSG Trump rally.

[A]

Oh, he was the guy who was.

[B]

Like, at the head of the staircase.

[A]

Okay, okay. Well, we did that. Roger Stone, he was taught.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

That was extremely poorly organized. Yeah, I had some problems with my medication that night. I said some group chat style things in a loud voice that I regret, have since apologized to some New York Young Republicans members that I was quite mean to.

[B]

Wait, what did you do?

[A]

That's when I had my like, Mel Gibson style was.

[B]

Yeah, I just remember that you were like, slamming your fists on the table and like, screaming at some like, calf boys.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I was yelling about how the Vatican was infiltrated by Jews and Masons and stuff. It was really. Again, I was. I was on Wellbutrin, I shouldn't have been drinking. And the Nixon teenies were flowing and I had a really bad feeling all night. So I just really.

[B]

It was really depressing about Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior advisor in the office of the General counsel within the U.S. small Business Administration, claimed that the tax logs were extorted from him by wax and like, given to Politico. I think like, the big takeaway from the story, which is otherwise a non story, is that Republicans are like, spineless and scheming who will throw their own kind under the bus when it's not even expected of them and no one's calling for it. It's literally a knot. Yeah. For what?

[A]

For what? For some like, interseen election. Some like petty drama organization.

[B]

Like there's a vibe shift underway. Like, Helen Andrews can publish a story about the Great Feminization to great fanfare in a way that wasn't possible before. You can literally openly discuss group differences on social media without getting banned. You can call people retard and on social media without getting banned, though the latter will get flagged for hate speed speech. Yeah, if you say, if you type out, they will, like, flag you and.

[A]

Yeah, but we won the R word.

[B]

Yes, Overton window. But people are like, no longer caving to the. The pressure of being, like, empathetic and compassionate and a decent human being. So, like, why are these people going out of their way to throw their own.

[A]

I saw some Matt Walsh posts about how the right won't unify and they're addicted to losing. And it sounded. It's. I was. It was very reminiscent of what people used to say about the left.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That they also, like, would do this kind of like purity testing and backstabbing. And so I think this is something that's just like true across organizations, the political spectrum.

[B]

Matt Walsh has been pretty good on this. I have two tweets by Matt Walsh. He's. This is what he said about leftist media. If you actually read that Politico hit piece, you'll see that many of the messages are being taken wildly out of context. For example, the guy who said I love Hitler was clearly being sarcastic. It's explicitly meant to be a sarcastic joke. And yet Politico put that quote in the headline of the article and conservatives are lining up to offer denunciations. How the hell is anyone on the right still falling for this trick? How have you not learned by now to take absolutely nothing from the leftist media at face value, especially if it's a blatant political hit piece? Well, because no one reads the article, people just read the headline. Also, the outreach is clearly fake, but he's correct about that. And then he also laughed out the right and said the right doesn't stick together. That's our biggest problem by far right. This is the conservatives are quick to denounce each other, jump on dogpiles, disavow and attack their allies. I said a few weeks ago that all we need, that we all need to band together in the wake of Charlie's death. And the answer I got back from a lot of people on the right was basically no. Well, okay then guys, we'll just lose. Instead, the left will keep up the united front and defend their guys no matter what while we keep throwing each other to the wolves at every opportunity. Great plan.

[A]

I think that's true. Except for the part about the. Because the left does the exact same thing. The left is not on lower levels.

[B]

That's true. Like the dirtbag leftists are always infighting. But this is also a dissident, right. Yes, but there was like the case of. Yep. People were like pushing back and being like, yeah, this isn't just any group chat, it's a political group chat. And like, we need to, you know, maintain some professionalism in politics. But that wasn't very convincing because the point that bears repeating is that it's a private group chat. Right. And it wasn't like an official or public statement. And the, the other thing that people were pointing out was that there was this like nominee for Virginia Attorney general who claims he. J. Jones.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Who was like caught in leaked text published by the National Review calling, you know, joking about, calling for the deaths.

[A]

Of his political opponent.

[B]

Yes. And his wife and his children and people. The Democrats really kind of rallied around him and he wasn't like fired or cancelled. Yeah. And then of course there's the matter that there was like a guy who was just like shot in front of his wife and kids by a leftist activists for, you know, in part for being pro free speech and open debate. So like Matt Walsh is like broadly correct. I, I'm So naive and stupid. I was hoping that Charlie Kirk's death would be like a unifying moment for people who are not leftist.

[A]

I mean, I think it was galvanizing for people who aren't online, who are of a right. More right word. Persuasion, who aren't online. They're less likely to participate in this kind of, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Infighting and stuff because they just don't participate in it. Yeah, they're not like, they're not involved in it. People in their life who kind of share their values.

[B]

I mean, that's like a thing I said to. To Fuentes on our last episode. It's like, okay, like, would you be willing to set aside your internecine beefs if they offered you an olive branch? And he said yes. I mean, that remains to be seen, but, like, that's like the operative decision there. It's like, are you willing to, like, band together? And apparently, like, people are not. I mean, it's ridiculous that, like, all these, like, right wing pundits and organizations are coming out to like, condemn the things that are said in this group chat, which are like. That's completely like innocent. And softball. It's like, okay, they're making, like, the most corny, pg, like Hitler and rape jokes. It's like, it's like they're like branding. They're. It's like a brandy. And it's like also like NPC behavior where it's like running on a script.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Like, they're absorbing, like secondhand like, based talking points and like incorporating them into their own private communications, which is so sad.

[A]

Yeah. So you're saying there's gripers, but they. Yeah, like, the nothing that was said I found particularly.

[B]

Nothing is at all. Nothing is scandalous or beyond the pale. It's all just like, corny and like.

[A]

Maybe we're desensitized to be, you know? To be.

[B]

I don't think so. I thought about this, but I don't think so because this is like the kind of stuff that like. Yeah. Like, people.

[A]

I think if you're a boomer and you're watching the news, you know, and you don't go on X and you don't know. You know. Yeah, you don't know about. You don't even know what the dissident.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Could be. And you're just watching the news and they say they leaked these texts. They're saying they love Hitler. You're gonna say what?

[B]

Sure, they love Hitler.

[A]

Said the gas chambers. They said what?

[B]

Sure, that's true. But I know Enough boomers who are. Are basically all libbed hearts. And they're extremely racist as. Because that was, like, the norm. Like, casually racist. Not actually racist, but, like, they're okay with making racist jokes. That was, like, the norm throughout the 90s. Everybody made racist jokes against each other. Come on. I know, but it's, like, so crazy.

[A]

Where they're like, like.

[B]

Oh, they. Here's. This is a quote from Politico. They referred to black people as monkeys and watermelon people and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery. Okay, two things. Isn't watermelon people a reference to, like, pro Palestine activists? Not, like, could it be? No, it's not.

[A]

Not.

[B]

And then also, like, if it is, in fact a reference to black people. That's so innocent. It's like, what they're accusing black people liking watermelon and fried chicken. This is like, such a trope.

[A]

I mean, it's like, broadly, I guess.

[B]

It'S like, literally true. Like in Network, Ahmed Khan or whatever his name is. It's literally eating a chicken wing.

[A]

Well, the 70s were just a different.

[B]

You know, and this was just like.

[A]

You know, but there was, you know, like, black exploitation movies of that same era also played on these tropes.

[B]

It's like, it's only like.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, contextually racist. Right.

[B]

And like, also, the opponents that they're talking about is, like, fellow people in the Republican Party who are not falling in line with their ultra Trump message. They're not. They're talking about gassing other Republicans as a joke because they're not based enough.

[A]

I mean, whatever they said is. And this is what I say to my girlfriends when they want to go through their boyfriend's phone or something, which I, you know, have done. We've all done it. But I think that just because you're seeing something private doesn't mean it's more true. It doesn't mean it's less true than something someone says in public or something. Something they say to someone else privately. But, like, people say things privately for all sorts of reasons. And the whole point of privacy is.

[B]

That you're free, protected from public retribution. Yes.

[A]

You have the freedom to privately and say whatever. A fleeting thought, anything you have, like, you know, you're joking, a joke.

[B]

You know, you can wish that your ex boyfriend might relapse.

[A]

You can say whatever, you know, and it doesn't mean that's, like, the truth. Just because someone, like, whistle blew on it or leaked it or it was previously private and is no longer.

[B]

This is beyond that. This isn't even true or false. It's just, like canned NPC talking points that they've gleaned from even more hard right elements on Twitter.

[A]

But the way that it's being portrayed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that they've, like, uncovered the truth of how these people really feel based on their private.

[B]

Yeah, but, like, the flip side of that is, like, everyone from, like, Matt Walsh to Ben Shapiro, all these people that we like to, you know, make fun of for being, like, corny dorks have pointed out, it's like, well, the left does this out in the open. They, like, openly call for white genocide, the death of their political opponents. It's, like, completely, like, acceptable and normal. Like, of course everybody is being, like, racist and sexist and anti Semitic, and they. Group chats. That's what group chats are for.

[A]

Group chats are. Yeah.

[B]

This is also a funny quote. William Hendricks, the Kansas Young Republican's vice chair, used the words N slash, slash, ga and N slash, slash, guh, variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in chat. It's like, okay, well, the tell is that he didn't use hard R. He didn't use hard R because. Because he's so, like, longhoused and socially.

[A]

Anything wrong if you're not using hard R in your group chat, he may.

[B]

As well be a liberal with a, uh.

[A]

You may as well be a liberal if you're not even.

[B]

They're also accused of saying. And again, yeah, I thought we moved.

[A]

The needle on that. Which is fine.

[B]

J.D. vance, he had the best response to.

[A]

It, which he had a good response, and I understand what he's doing, but I really. What I would really. I resent is he said specifically young boys.

[B]

I know, I know people get mad at him because he's. I'm not mad at our college kids. They're young kids.

[A]

They're not. They're old as they're in their 30s.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's always been my feeling about the younger, quote, Young Republic. Yeah.

[B]

The old republic is.

[A]

When I went to that. When we went to the Nixon teeny party, I was like, what the. I was like, ever. I'm the youngest person here, and I'm old. Like, What?

[B]

Okay, but J.D.

[A]

These people aren't young boys. If Nick Fuentes gets in trouble for stuff. He said when he was 24.

[B]

18. Right.

[A]

18 when he started. But, oh, you know, like, he's been young. His Entire life. And these people are old and sets of privately.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That they shouldn't be, but they're not have this problem. I mean it's good. I think what he said was good because it sets like a tone or a, you know, it's like young boys do say problematic things and they shouldn't like suffer for it. But in this case they were like.

[B]

Take the age out of it. It's like you should be free to say like problematic things in your group chat without being for sure leaked and exposed and like canceled or whatever. I'm just surprised.

[A]

Like that's why I wouldn't have said they're just kids. They're just a bunch of 30 something.

[B]

He's 46. He's just a kid. He was only 38.

[A]

You pervert.

[B]

JD Van said, this is far worse than anything said in a college group chat. And the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia. I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence. And he linked a screen cap of the like the J. Jones text to.

[A]

His like I was a little confused by that because. Is he not joining in the pearl clutching?

[B]

What do you mean?

[A]

Well, is, doesn't pearl clutching imply being outraged?

[B]

Yeah, well, he's, he's saying he's, he's like refusing to participate in the denunciations of the Young Republicans.

[A]

But he is pearl clutching about Jay Jones.

[B]

Well, he's not really because that guy like literally called for the.

[A]

But that's what he's saying. He's not going to participate in the pearl clutching when powerful people call for violence. But he is literally pearl clutching and drawing attention to a power which he should be pearl clutching. I'm just saying I was confused because I didn't, I didn't understand what he was saying.

[B]

Well, he meant like the pearl clutching of Republicans against fellow Republicans.

[A]

But those people aren't powerful.

[B]

Who.

[A]

Oh, he means he's refusing to participate against the pearl clutching against the Young Republicans. When there are more powerful people. I see.

[B]

Yes. Like nominees for Attorney general.

[A]

Who he is pearl clutching about because they're powerful. Just I would have edited a little bit. I would have made that more clear.

[B]

What he was trying to say. But. Okay, but I didn't understand. Yes, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. When people.

[A]

Clutch win powerful people. But he meant he's not going to pro clutch about unpowerful people.

[B]

Yes, when there's like powerful like liberals and leftoids who are doing this and that.

[A]

I get it.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

He just should have spoken a little better. And they're not young, but I mean, he had. They're obvious adults.

[B]

They are. And it's true. Okay, so another thing that people pointed out was that the, the young Republicans. Yeah. They're not so young and they're not so fit. They're like pretty griprous and dysgenic.

[A]

They literally look like a griper.

[B]

Like a big. Yes. But I would push back on. On that and say that we're talking about like regional chapters for the most part. New York. Well, Kansas, like Missouri, whatever. And just most people as a whole are more GR. Gruporous and dysgenic.

[A]

I would think.

[B]

Like people. People think Republican. They think like Mitt Romney, like, fit, handsome.

[A]

I show up to the Young Republicans gala. Yeah.

[B]

And they're all like.

[A]

I'm like, what the.

[B]

And have like Catholic pedophile face where it's like, the guy looks like a pedophile priest. Sure. Yeah. I mean, okay. The other thing that you have to like, acknowledge that's like, you know, unflattering and shitty is that like, like anybody who's like a vociferous like political activist is going to be like, up and have emotional and mental problems almost without fail.

[A]

I mean, I don't even think they have necessarily emotional problems. They seem high functioning. They're like lawyers and work for assembly men and whatnot. I don't think. I think it'd be nice if our like, political class was a little more attractive.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Because being attractive is connected to being disciplined, which is connected to, you know, other like quote, right wing values that they claim to hold. And yet.

[B]

Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to conservatism being overtaken by like fat and dysgenic people. But that's kind of the way it's going.

[A]

But it doesn't, you know, I don't know, left or right. It'd be nice if people just had to tighten it up a little bit.

[B]

Yeah. Be great if most liberals, leftists, look like Gavin Newsom and his wife and family. Sure.

[A]

It's not that hard.

[B]

No, it really isn't. You just really have to like set that as your intention and like follow through with it. Even whatever.

[A]

It can be husky.

[B]

But the point is that like, this is truly like such a non story. Like, okay, some, some old kids, some old young boys said some vaguely racist and sexist and anti Semitic shit in a group chat and they didn't really because all of their conversations were like memeified and canned and none of them have like an authentic sense for any of these differences that they're making light of. And now some, like, liberal publication is publishing an expose about it. It's like, also fake and gay.

[A]

It's really. Yeah, no, yeah. It's not as if they were going like, mask off and revealing their true thoughts. They were like doing meme jokes in their group chat, which shouldn't even be admissible. And somehow these people are suffering repercussions.

[B]

Well, yeah, A lot of them got.

[A]

Fired because even the Brandy Melville guys didn't get in trouble and they were saying way worse stuff. And they're actually racist because they're Italian.

[B]

They are. Yeah. Yeah. But if Gavin Wax did. Did in fact, I think leak these documents, that's a loser move. Very Soviet. Yeah.

[A]

That's the thing about it that really stands out to me is that the snitching.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And informing feels like not a good omen.

[B]

No, I know.

[A]

And like. Yeah. It betrays a kind of like, desperation that even, like the right even gains a little bit of power that they'll start this kind of like vicious backstabbing.

[B]

Well, it betrays the lack of vision because you're ultimately concerned about your own stature, your own position, and not the bigger picture, which is what you claim to be concerned about. And like, the most noble thing is to be able to set aside your own ego and your own livelihood for the bigger picture, which one would hope that people are willing to do.

[A]

What were the Young Republicans even doing? I guess they were just kind of.

[B]

Like a. I don't know.

[A]

What were they?

[B]

Well, I don't know. I actually don't know what. What their function is. I'm assuming that some of the people that are within the Young Republicans organization go on to leadership positions within the Republican Party, like one would assume. I don't know. I think they're mostly organizing and like chairing various events.

[A]

Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't. Gay and depressed. I don't have like, a mind for.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Organizations. I don't really, like, understand how they work, how they work or what the goals are or who. It seems like they don't either.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's probably for the best that they've disbanded.

[B]

I mean, they'll be back. I don't know.

[A]

There'll be a new thing. It'll be just fine. It's fine.

[B]

It's just like, depressing because sometimes, like, I get really dark sided and cynical and I think like, well, the only thing that you can count on in this life is that you can't count on anyone. I don't think that's actually true.

[A]

Network killed.

[B]

Yeah. But it is a very sad thought. And sometimes it does, like, bring to bear and, like. Yeah, this is, like, very sad that, like, completely unforced, unprompted. All these Republican entities and organizations are, like, denouncing their own kind. This is why you're losers and faggots. Like, everybody except for the Young Republican branch of Arizona, who are like, we don't stand for this. Like, whatever. They issued, like, a statement hit piece.

[A]

Yeah, right. Yeah. It seems like the. The move would have been to just.

[B]

Like, laugh at it, but by the way, it's like, whatever. What's that meme phrase? Like, you can just do things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You literally can just like, you can.

[A]

Just decide not to be.

[B]

Yeah. You can laugh at it and ignore and nothing happens.

[A]

Exactly. I mean, like, why do heads have to roll because of a group chat?

[B]

Yeah, they don't.

[A]

And yet they do. They did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't have, you know, I have a New York Young Republican's pin on one of my barber jackets, and I'll leave that on. That's probably gonna be a collector's item. But I don't have any real. I'm not. I'm not really a member. I don't have any affinity. They didn't invite us to the gala last year.

[B]

Didn't we go to the Young Republican.

[A]

Scala or the year prior?

[B]

I think we were photographed at the Young Republicans gala.

[A]

The one after. The one we went to, I think we didn't go to.

[B]

What was the one with. Well, the Gavin McGinnis one.

[A]

Yeah, that was before.

[B]

There was another one after that.

[A]

I think there was another one after that. And they didn't invite us, which I don't care about.

[B]

But, yeah, somebody said to me, no more Young Republican Parties and whatever gives a.

[A]

All right, well, I guess I'll go to a different party. Maybe with some. Actually young people would be nice. No, I don't even want to go to a party with real young people.

[B]

Who cares?

[A]

I like being the youngest person at a party, which is why I go to the New Criterion Gala, which would never do something like that.

[B]

We shall see. I don't know.

[A]

No, hopefully they're just.

[B]

No, they're.

[A]

There's like a little be a fatigue about this kind of sabotage.

[B]

I'm just constantly, like, periodically. Like, you would think that at this point, one would be, like, desensitized and resigned to all the petty infighting, but it's always, like, still, like, a shock every time it happens. Like, I was surprised that people condemned and denounced the Young Republicans group chat because, like, again, we are in the middle of the so called vibe shift where it's acceptable to say things, say certain things that were not acceptable before. And the vibe shift shift is supposedly a good thing. I mean, it is objectively a good thing, but at the same time it reminds you of how ghetto and depressing humanity is because everybody is so susceptible to like arbitrary rules and protocols. Like, why does the vibe shift even have to happen? Like, can't we just agree on certain objective realities?

[A]

Can we just say something's.

[B]

Yeah, like why does a vibe shift even have to occur? Even though I'm glad it did.

[A]

Anyway. I mean, it's Hegelian.

[B]

It is. Yeah. It's dialectical.

[A]

Anyway, there's a synthesis. Anyway, we can wrap it up.

[B]

Yeah, we can. I think we did a good job. Yeah.

[A]

Check it out. In Dog Day Afternoon, there's a part where he's yelling attica. And I like, look that up. I was like, what the? Yeah, I was like, what the. And there was like a prison riot in Attica. And I was like, oh, damn. Yeah, it's crazy. And also with the Gerald. I didn't know Gerald Ford was. They attempted to assassinate him twice. Like, I didn't know that. But all this stuff, like, feels so, you know, like they make these movies, they think it's going to be in the cultural consciousness forever and then it just becomes kind of like a relic. And then people go on their phone and watch it on Amazon Prime.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And yeah, I'm kind of like doing a fade down away network. Yeah, you said that video of her watching Howard Beal and like eating in her gross apartment. I was like, oh, that's me. I'm like, like eating McDonald's waiting for the stream to start.

[B]

We're living the mattress on the floor, takeout containers everywhere.

[A]

Eating a bean burrito on the ground. Loving life anyway.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Well, we'll see. We'll see you in hell. You in hell. It's.