Matt Walsh Reviews The Worst TikToks of 2024

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Matt Walsh Show – "Matt Walsh Reviews The Worst TikToks of 2024"

Release Date: December 27, 2024

Introduction

In the December 27, 2024 episode of The Matt Walsh Show from The Daily Wire, host Matt Walsh delves into the most controversial and problematic TikTok trends of the year. Known for his unfiltered perspectives on cultural, religious, and political issues, Walsh offers a critical analysis of how certain TikTok challenges and influencer behaviors reflect and shape societal norms.

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1. The Proliferation of TikTok Challenges Targeting Men

Walsh begins by addressing a surge in TikTok challenges specifically designed by women to test their male partners—be it husbands or boyfriends. He criticizes these challenges as “tests” that aim to evaluate men's reliability and character, suggesting that such dynamics are inherently flawed.

"These challenges are really tests. And every week someone on TikTok comes up with a new way for women to test the men in their lives. And if the men fail the test, they're bad, I guess." ([00:12])

Key Points:

• Nature of Tests: Walsh argues that these challenges are fundamentally manipulative, setting men up for potential failure based on subjective criteria.
• Gender Assumptions: He points out that these tests are created by women without consulting men, leading to misaligned expectations and misunderstandings.
• Psychological Insight: According to Walsh, men are better positioned to understand male psychology, and the absence of male input results in ineffective and biased tests.

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2. The "Bird Test" Explained and Critiqued

One of the prominent challenges discussed is the "Bird Test," which ostensibly measures the success of a relationship based on how partners respond to mundane observations, such as spotting a bird.

Explanation of the Bird Test:

An unidentified speaker elaborates on the concept:

"The bird test theory is basically a predictor for whether or not your relationship is going to succeed... if your partner takes interest in the mundane, little, small things that you talk about, the relationship is just more likely to succeed." ([01:12])

Walsh's Critique:

Walsh dismantles the logic behind the Bird Test, emphasizing its impractical expectations:

"In the real world, which is populated by actual human beings, nobody on earth will ever be genuinely interested in everything you say." ([02:12])

Key Points:

• Unrealistic Expectations: Walsh argues that expecting constant engagement on trivial matters is unrealistic and sets relationships up for disappointment.
• Lack of Depth: He suggests that meaningful relationships are built on substantial interactions rather than overemphasizing minor details.
• Potential for Misinterpretation: A positive reaction to such tests could indicate insincerity or ulterior motives, rather than genuine interest.

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3. Intervention: Advertisement Break

At [04:15], the episode features an advertisement for Armora Colostrum, a health supplement. As per the podcast’s guidelines to exclude advertisements, this section is acknowledged but not elaborated upon in the summary.

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4. Analyzing a Coping Strategies Video

Walsh shifts the discussion to a viral TikTok video where a woman shares her emotional coping mechanisms. While he acknowledges the utility of such content, he remains critical of its execution and underlying implications.

Content of the Coping Video:

An unidentified speaker delivers a heartfelt message about dealing with fear and embracing emotions:

"I'm here. I know you're scared... Crying is beautiful. Crying is healthy. Crying is not negative." ([06:34])

Walsh's Reaction:

Using humor and personal anecdotes, Walsh relates the content to a mundane situation, highlighting what he perceives as overdramatic expression of emotions.

"That was basically me at Chipotle last night when they said they ran out of guacamole." ([07:49])

Key Points:

• Emotional Expression: Walsh critiques what he sees as excessive emotional display, suggesting that resilience is achieved through active coping rather than passive emotional venting.
• Cultural Commentary: He implies that contemporary society may be encouraging vulnerability in ways that are not always constructive.

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5. Critique of Influencer Paige’s Domestic Labor Stance

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Walsh's analysis of a viral TikTok video by Paige, an influencer and mother of four, who discusses her refusal to perform certain household tasks for her husband. This segment serves as a focal point for Walsh's broader critique of changing gender roles and domestic responsibilities.

Paige’s Claims:

In her video, Paige outlines various domestic tasks she refuses to perform, framing them as non-essential acts of kindness rather than obligations:

"I don't do my husband's laundry... I don't cook dinner... I don't make his doctor's appointments... I am his partner. I am his equal." ([12:01] - [13:12])

Walsh’s Analysis:

Walsh dissects Paige's stance, identifying multiple red flags and underlying issues within her approach to marriage and domesticity.

"There are two major problems with this video... she made the video in the first place... she's proud of not doing them. You're taking pride in what you don't do for your husband." ([13:57])

Key Points:

• Pride in Non-Participation: Walsh views Paige’s public declaration of not performing domestic tasks as a negative indicator of marital health, suggesting it reflects deeper relational issues.
• Impact on Relationships: He warns that such attitudes can lead to dysfunctional relationships, where mutual support and shared responsibilities are lacking.
• Gender Role Reversal: Walsh criticizes the rejection of traditional domestic roles, arguing that it undermines the foundation of partnership and equality in marriage.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Matt Walsh offers a critical perspective on certain TikTok trends and influencer behaviors, emphasizing the importance of realistic expectations in relationships and constructive coping mechanisms. By dissecting the "Bird Test," emotional expression videos, and influencer declarations against traditional domestic roles, Walsh underscores his belief in fostering genuine, balanced, and supportive interpersonal dynamics. His analysis calls for a reassessment of how modern social media trends influence personal relationships and societal norms.

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Notable Quotes:

• “These challenges are really tests. And every week someone on TikTok comes up with a new way for women to test the men in their lives. And if the men fail the test, they're bad, I guess.” — Matt Walsh ([00:12])

• “In the real world, which is populated by actual human beings, nobody on earth will ever be genuinely interested in everything you say.” — Matt Walsh ([02:12])

• “That was basically me at Chipotle last night when they said they ran out of guacamole.” — Matt Walsh ([07:49])

• “Doing his laundry, cooking him dinner, making him lunch... That's domestic labor. Those are chores. Those are not acts of kindness.” — Paige ([12:01])

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Final Thoughts

The Matt Walsh Show continues to challenge prevailing social narratives by scrutinizing popular culture through a critical lens. This episode serves as a reflection of Walsh’s commitment to examining and questioning the societal shifts influenced by platforms like TikTok, advocating for a return to what he perceives as more stable and traditional relational dynamics.

Transcript

[Matt Walsh]

So there seems to have been, at least according to my producers, who send me this stuff because they like to see me suffer, a proliferation on TikTok in recent weeks of viral challenges that women draft their unwitting husbands and boyfriends into. The challenges are really tests. And every week someone on TikTok comes up with a new way for women to test the men in their lives. And if the men fail the test, they're bad, I guess. And if they pass the test, then they're good, at least until the next test comes along. The problem with these tests is that they are tests in the first place, as we'll discuss. The other problem is that they're invented by women for men with a lot of womanly assumptions about what they mean and what a man's failure or success signifies. It's very clear that no man was consulted in the devising of these tests, which is a problem, because men understand the psychology of men much better than women do, or at least better than women on TikTok do. So let's go through these one by one. First, we'll go back a few weeks to something called the bird test. And here's how the bird test works.

[Unknown]

The bird test theory is basically a predictor for whether or not your relationship is going to succeed. And it kind of goes like this. Let's say that you and your partner are sitting at a coffee shop and you see a bird outside and you mention it to them. There's a couple different ways that your partner can respond. Your partner could be like, oh, that's a really cool bird, and engage with you and take interest in what you just said.

[Matt Walsh]

Or.

[Unknown]

Or your partner can dismiss it all together and be like, okay, it's a bird. What about it? Basically, the Gottman Institute, which is this really big psychology institute for relationships, calls that a bid. And the idea is, if your partner takes interest in the mundane, little, small things that you talk about, the relationship is just more likely to succeed because your partner has genuine interest in whatever you say, regardless of whether that thing is a small thing or not. On the flip side, if your partner kind of keeps ignoring your bids, that's kind of a sign that the relationship is going to fail, because whether small or big, your partner is not giving attention to the things that you personally care about just for the sole reason that you care about it.

[Matt Walsh]

Now, this is the kind of thing that makes sense if you've never been in a relationship that lasted more than three months. If you are incredibly naive and inexperienced and you get your relationship insights From TikTok, you might have the expectation that your partner will be, quote, genuinely interested in whatever you say. But in the real world, which is populated by actual human beings, nobody on earth will ever be genuinely interested in everything you say. And they shouldn't be. You're not that interesting. Nobody has ever been that interesting. I don't care if you're married to Socrates, you're not gonna be hanging on his every last word all day, every day, forever. Now, I find my wife very interesting and intelligent, but if she came into the room and said, I just saw a bird, I would not be especially interested in that information. I just wouldn't be. My only interest would be in the fact that my wife has apparently suffered some sort of brain damage. Otherwise, why would an adult be screaming about a bird, bird, bird, Looky at the birdie. Like, what are you, 2 years old? Now, if you saw, say, a bald eagle swoop down and catch a baby deer with its talons and fly away or something like that, then that would be the kind of headline that would interest me. So there needs to be something spectacular about the bird to garner my interest. If you saw an ostrich ride by on a scooter, that would be a bird related announcement that I would like to hear. Otherwise, what do you want me to say about a regular bird? How do you want me to react? She said that you have to engage about the bird. What do you mean engage? Say what? Oh, really? You saw a bird? Cool. Was it, did it, did it have wings? I don't know what the follow up is. I don't know what a bird conversation would even be. Therefore, this entire test fails. If your husband passes that test, it either means that he's being extremely patronizing. Oh, you saw a bird? Did you tell me about the bird? Or that he's an ornithologist? Maybe he just really is into birds, who knows? Or maybe he sees the cell phone in your hand and he knows that you're filming him for a TikTok challenge. That could be the other reason why he responds.

[Unknown]

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[Matt Walsh]

Here'S another video I want to show you. Well, I don't want to show you. Well, I do want to show you don't want to see it but I want to show it to you because as you know, I had to watch it and so now you're going to see it too. And maybe there's, maybe there is a, a more positive way of looking at this. I know I can be hard on tiktokers sometimes, but every once in a while the TikTok community provides something useful. And so here's a viral video of a woman showing us her coping strategies. Here's how she copes. A lot of people have difficult lives and looking for ways to cope with it and ways to deal with it. And this is her way of doing it. And it's a strategy you might want to try out yourself. Here it is. Let's watch.

[Unknown]

I'm here. I'm here. And I know you're scared. I know you don't know what to do. But I've got you and I won't leave you. I love you and I'm so sorry that you're scared. But it's okay to feel. It's safe to feel. It's safe to cry. It's safe to move through it. I can feel big emotions. I can hold space for myself. Crying is beautiful. Crying is healthy. Crying is not negative. It's okay to Feel it's okay to surrender, Keep breathing.

[Matt Walsh]

I mean, that's relatable. That was basically me at Chipotle last night when they said they ran out of guacamole. No warning, by the way. I went through the whole line. There was no sign saying, oh, we don't have guacamole. Because then if I had known that, I would have gone somewhere else. But I went through the whole thing. I built the burrito bowl. I get to the guacamole station, they said, we're out of guac. How does it even happen? You have all the other ingredients, but you don't have guac. How does that. Did you notice are people going through the line and asking for a burrito bowl with only guacamole? And that's how you end up. That's how you end up with this disproportionate situation. So in situations like that, I think it's okay to react that way, but most of the time, I would say not. And what. What is so sad about these videos? I mean, what's sad about them? Like, besides literally everything else about them, what's sad is that I'm sure. I think it's an important point. I'm sure that this woman does have serious trauma in her past. And I don't say that sarcastically. I mean sincerely. So we see stuff like this and. And we're tempted to go, oh, what's. Why is your life so hard? Yeah, look at you complaining, right? You snowflake, Gen Z. But this woman, this is. She has blue hair, okay? This is a woman with blue hair. And that alone, even when we. Putting aside what she's doing in the video, that alone is a blaring, deafening alarm signaling that she probably had a terrible home life. Almost certainly comes from a broken home dad. Not in the picture. We can assume that either her dad is not there or he's a terrible father. He's failed utterly. You know, if your daughter. If you catch your daughter wearing blue hair and you failed like you as a father, that is an F. You got an F grade failure on the report card the moment you see the kid wearing blue hair. Unless it's like a Halloween costume and they're going, they're dressed up as Smurfs. Do Smurfs even have blue hair? They have blue skin. So that's a good indication that she has actually suffered, like, real trauma in life. And so I'm perfectly willing to believe that this woman has legitimate issues. Real substantive reasons to be upset. The problem is that first of all, she's obviously never received any good counseling. Nobody's told her how to actually cope with the problems that you face in life and indulging yourself, right? Indulging in tears. Now you know how I feel about men crying. Women, I give a lot more latitude. Women are, you know, women are criers. They like to cry. Okay, I can't relate. But we have to accept that men and women are not the same. Fine. But even for a woman, it's possible to vastly overindulge in tears and especially in feelings of self pity. And this is what she's doing. And that is not healthy coping. Okay? If you want to cope with whatever you're dealing with again, even if it's something real, like you had a terrible childhood and your parents failed you, go, go for a walk, like go for a hike. Go get some exercise, pick up a hobby. Invest yourself and your time and your energy in something other than this. Rather than dwelling on whatever it is that upsets you, go just do something else. Don't think about it. Take all that energy and channel it into something rather than just stewing in your own pity to the point where you start to enjoy the feeling of self pity. A lot of young men are worried about getting married because they're afraid that they'll end up with a bad, selfish woman as a wife. But the good news is that the bad wives generally announce themselves, they're proud of it, and they'll tell you all about it. So take this woman named Paige. Paige is a TikTok influencer, also happens to be married with four children, and she's a bad wife and is very eager to alert the public to that fact, including with this video watch.

[Paige]

A few weeks ago I said, I don't do my husband's laundry. And a lot of people are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. Those are small acts of kindness. Why wouldn't you want to do that for your partner? But here's the thing. Small acts of kindness that are mostly domestic labor to just add up to work at the end of the day. So here's a list of things that I don't do for my husband. You all know I don't do his laundry. He can do that himself. I do my laundry and we do the kids laundry, but he does his own. I don't cook dinner. He cooks dinner every single night. I do breakfast and lunch for us and our kids. I don't pack him a lunch. If he's hungry, he'll figure out what he's going to eat for lunch. The same way that I do. I don't make his doctor's appointments because guess what? He's not making mine. Would it be kind of me to do that? For sure. Is it my job? Absolutely not. I want him to be healthy, but he's a grown ass man and he can book his own appointments, right? There's a lot of things that I don't do for my husband. I don't schedule his haircuts, I don't pack his clothes for vacation. Right? I don't do those things. I don't buy him new underwear when it's got holes in it. All of those are things that he's a grown man and he can do himself. Can I do small acts of kindness for him? Of course I can. And I do. I see a vinyl that I think he's going to like because he's creating a vinyl collection. I buy it. I'm at the store and I see something that I think he might enjoy eating. I buy it. I find a new non alcoholic beer that he wants to try out. I buy it.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Paige]

Those are small acts of kindness. Doing his laundry, cooking him dinner, making him lunch, booking his doctor's appointments, all those things, that's domestic labor. Those are chores. Those are not acts of kindness. Do I do them occasionally when he's working a lot? Of course. Do I cook dinner sometimes when he's at a really long day? Of course. But me not doing that does not mean that I don't show him love or kindness. They're different things. It is not my job as a wife. It is not in my job description to do all the domestic labor as small acts of kindness to my partner and receive nothing in return. I agree with this commenter. If it's going both ways, fantastic. But oftentimes domestic labor, especially when you have children, adds up. And so, no, I am not my husband's personal secretary or his personal assistant. I am none of those things. I am his partner. I am his equal. And I do not have to do things to cater to him and serve him at all times, to be kind and loving for him.

[Matt Walsh]

Now, the video has gone viral, with many women in the comments gushing over how much they respect and admire her for this approach. Which is good because it gives single men the chance to go through the comments and cross all of these women off of the list of potential wives in the future. A video like this provides a perfect litmus test. Like, show it to a woman you're dating and if she nods her head and says amen, break up immediately. Just cut it off right there. Because there are two major problems with this video, and anyone who endorses it also shares in these having these problems, beginning with the fact that she made the video in the first place. Like, even if I could agree that it's defensible for a wife to flat out refuse to do any of the things she lists, which I don't agree, I would still be. It would still be a major red flag that you're proud of not doing them. You're taking pride in what you don't do for your husband. You are bragging about all the ways that you don't help him and don't care for him. That alone tells us that your marriage is deeply sick and will not survive for much longer unless you change dramatically and quickly. There's really no reason why you needed to tell the world who does the laundry in your house. Nobody asked for that information. And if they did ask for it, you could just ignore them. But you're proud of not doing the laundry. Proud of the fact that apparently when you do a load of laundry for yourself and the kids, you specifically separate his clothes and refuse to throw them in the washer with the other clothes. It takes actual effort to not do the laundry for one person in the house. That's how dedicated you are to not helping your husband.