LOLCOWS: A History | Too Many Tabs 3.07

Summary

Summary of "LOLCOWS: A History" | Too Many Tabs 3.07

Podcast Information:

• Title: Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500
• Host/Author: Pearlmania500 (Host 1) and Mrs. P (Host 2)
• Episode: LOLCOWS: A History | Too Many Tabs 3.07
• Release Date: February 9, 2025
• Description: A husband and wife duo delve into the world of online exploitation, discussing how individuals are targeted and used for content creation, drawing parallels to historical phenomena.

---

1. Introduction and Core Values

The episode begins with Host 1 (Pearlmania500) reinforcing the show's commitment to human rights, particularly emphasizing respect for trans and disabled individuals.

• Host 1 [00:30]: "Trans rights are human rights... Disabled people, whether it be physical or cognitive, have a right to exist."

This sets the tone for the episode, highlighting the importance of respect and the negative impact of harassment.

2. Defining LOLcows

The hosts introduce the concept of LOLcows, explaining it as individuals who are exploited online for amusement and content generation.

• Host 1 [11:15]: "A LOLcow is a person that you milk for the lulz."

They clarify that the term goes beyond mere ridicule, encompassing a systematic exploitation where individuals are used to generate entertainment and engagement.

3. Historical Context: From Freak Shows to Daytime TV

Host 1 draws parallels between historical freak shows and modern-day media exploitation.

• Host 1 [13:33]: "Freak shows have existed since medieval times... In America, from 1840 to 1940, the freak show was one of our top forms of entertainment."

The discussion highlights how society has long exploited marginalized individuals for entertainment, transitioning from physical exhibitions to media platforms like the Jerry Springer Show and Howard Stern’s radio show.

4. The Evolution to Online Exploitation

With the advent of the internet, the hosts explain how the exploitation of individuals has transformed.

• Host 1 [49:20]: "Chris Chan is one of the first viral videos to burn across the Internet."

They discuss early internet phenomena like the "Star Wars Kid," illustrating how individuals became mascots for online ridicule and meme culture, amplifying their suffering through widespread mockery and manipulation.

5. Case Study: Chris Chan

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Chris Chan, a prominent example of a LOLcow.

• Host 1 [57:02]: "Chris Chan is a high functioning autistic trans woman from Virginia... She was targeted by internet trolls who created a perpetual cycle of harassment."

The hosts detail Chris Chan’s journey from creating the "Sonic Chew" webcomic to becoming a focal point of online harassment, highlighting the psychological toll and the relentless nature of internet trolling.

6. The Cycle of Exploitation

The hosts outline the vicious cycle that perpetuates the LOLcow phenomenon, where content creators and trolls feed off each other’s actions to maintain engagement.

• Host 1 [83:17]: "Chris Chan makes content. Trolls use the content. Chris Chan reacts to the trolls. The trolls gleefully laugh. It just loops and loops and loops."

This cycle ensures continuous exploitation, with the individual being trapped in a loop of harassment and content generation for others' entertainment.

7. Modern Examples of LOLcows

Beyond Chris Chan, the hosts mention several other individuals who have fallen victim to similar exploitation.

• Daniel Larson: A TikTok personality mocked for his jumping jacks videos.

• Boogie2988: Once seen as wholesome, now criticized for abusive behavior.

• Eugenia Cooney: Documenting her struggles with anorexia, leading to increased online harassment.

• Host 1 [84:06]: "Daniel Larson is someone with mental disability who was very popular on TikTok... People were mocking him without understanding his struggles."

These examples illustrate the widespread nature of LOLcows in various online platforms, from TikTok to YouTube.

8. The Role of Platforms and Communities

The hosts discuss how platforms like 4chan, Kiwi Farms, and social media sites facilitate the proliferation of LOLcows by providing spaces for harassment and content monetization.

• Host 1 [70:20]: "Kiwi Farms is one of the places that has really taken the term lolcow."

They emphasize the role of SEO and algorithm-driven content in keeping these individuals perpetually in the spotlight, often without their consent or understanding.

9. Impact on Individuals and Society

The episode delves into the severe psychological and social impacts on those labeled as LOLcows, including isolation, mental health struggles, and distorted self-perception.

• Host 1 [56:33]: "Chris Chan eventually leaves school, becomes isolated, and continues to be harassed online, leading to real-life consequences like legal issues."

The hosts argue that this culture of exploitation dehumanizes individuals, reducing them to mere content pieces devoid of empathy or understanding.

10. Conclusion and Call for Empathy

In wrapping up, the hosts urge listeners to recognize the humanity of those targeted online and to foster a more respectful and empathetic digital culture.

• Host 2 [112:52]: "Listen, let's all be nice to each other because the Internet's dark and fucked up."

They advocate for moving away from mockery and towards support, highlighting the importance of treating all individuals with dignity regardless of their online persona or actions.

Notable Quotes:

• Host 1 [00:30]: "Trans rights are human rights... Disabled people, whether it be physical or cognitive, have a right to exist."
• Host 1 [11:15]: "A LOLcow is a person that you milk for the lulz."
• Host 1 [57:02]: "Chris Chan is one of the first viral videos to burn across the Internet."
• Host 1 [83:17]: "Chris Chan makes content. Trolls use the content. Chris Chan reacts to the trolls. The trolls gleefully laugh. It just loops and loops and loops."
• Host 2 [112:52]: "Listen, let's all be nice to each other because the Internet's dark and fucked up."

Final Thoughts:

"LOLCOWS: A History" serves as a critical examination of how society has evolved in its treatment and exploitation of marginalized individuals. Through historical parallels and contemporary case studies, the hosts shed light on the detrimental effects of online harassment and the importance of fostering a more compassionate and respectful digital environment.

Transcript

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[Host 1]

Welcome to Too many tabs. Trans rights are human rights. I want to open the episode by just reminding everybody that this for multiple reasons, which will become very clear later in this episode. But I feel like we have been getting away from that messaging in general as a nation and as people, Mrs. P. And I feel very strongly, absolutely, that trans people are human beings who. Who deserve respect and are human beings who live on a shitty planet just like the rest of us who are just trying to get through their day. Okay, we wanna start there also. Disabled people deserve respect. Disabled people, whether it be physical or cognitive, have a right to exist. The reason I'm opening the episode this way is because I did my research for a topic this week, and that topic is Low Cows. Some of y'all are like, oh, lol. Cows are fun. No, no, no. This is going to get different. We're gonna be covering some pretty deep dark. Okay, There's a whole section on Chris Chan in here. I just want you guys to be prepared, but I also want our fans to know what we believe before we start going into this episode, which is that trans rights are human rights and that all people deserve respect and to not be harassed. And so as we get into this, we'll have some sillies. We'll have some fun. This is still too Many Tabs. A podcast where a husband and wife duo sit across from each other at a desk where one of them does research that hurts their soul in a way that they didn't have to dump on to their partner.

[Host 2]

I didn't agree to that.

[Host 1]

Yeah, well, no, you did. You did. We stood before a priest, our friends, our family, and God.

[Host 2]

Oh, he was there.

[Host 1]

He was there.

[Host 2]

Oh, gross.

[Host 1]

She was there. Oh, hey, they were there, all right? Because God's probably non binary. Am I right, y'all? Come on.

[Host 2]

Well, I mean, because God in the Catholics is three, right?

[Host 1]

Gets three parts.

[Host 2]

Son and Holy Spirit. That's three.

[Host 1]

That's not a binary. That's a trinary. God's non binary. Anyway. This is a show where one of us does research on topics.

[Host 2]

And it wasn't me this week.

[Host 1]

It was not you this week. Instead, it was me. And now you're going to be tortured for it.

[Host 2]

Yeah, I figured that. I just noticed that that was going to happen.

[Host 1]

Yeah, that's 100% what is about to happen. Welcome to too many tabs, Too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real. Too many cons and too many spammers. And we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs.

[Host 2]

Open it.

[Host 1]

Too many tabs. Remember to smile.

[Host 2]

You do always say, oh, too many tabs. An audio forward podcast. But then you dance like that. And I say, people deserve to see that.

[Host 1]

Well, I dance on the YouTube during the theme. A little bit.

[Host 2]

A little bit.

[Host 1]

Just a little bit.

[Host 2]

Listen, you just looked like the flying spaghetti monster.

[Host 1]

We did a. We've gotten a lot of feedback from a lot of different things. I've been scrolling through some of the comments. All right, I'm blocking many of them. But no, it's been good. It's been good. And I'm again, once again, to everybody out there, we're playing around with the audio, as always.

[Host 2]

We're working on it. I'm talking louder.

[Host 1]

You're trying to talk louder.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

And then when you have a coughing fit, just know y'all. It's your fault for saying in the comments. No.

[Host 2]

Well, I'm sorry.

[Host 1]

No, it's not.

[Host 2]

I'm still healing from chickenpox as I throw you.

[Host 1]

It's not you I'm pointing out. I'm pointing to the people.

[Host 2]

Oh, you're blaming me.

[Host 1]

I'm pointing to the people out there in YouTube land. But no, in general, we're having a great time. This episode is going to go some places. So before we do that, we just want to do our usual announcements before we get through to get into the show.

[Host 2]

All right.

[Host 1]

And a couple announcements to people are, as we always have said, get your library card. Mrs. P, do you have anything you'd.

[Host 2]

Like to say about that? How do I elaborate on the most perfect sentence? Get your library card. Sign up for the events at your local library. When I talk about libraries, a lot of the time I'm looking at it through the perspective of development, which is how do they get their funding? And one of the ways that libraries get their funding is that they offer all these different events and benefits and classes. But you got to sign up for them because they got to prove that they're working and that people like them. So please, go to your local library, get the card, you get lots of free books, audio books, digital books, all the books. Also take the classes, go to the events. We're having our library seven, a big Chinese New Year event. Have the Dragons. It's gonna be super cool. Yeah, definitely going.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Gotta go to all the stuff, virtual and in person. That's how they get their funding and we gotta stay funded. And also, if you have the capacity, the time, the energy, the, the rage that lives in your gut that fuels you to show up to things and yell and be a problem if you have that same thing I have, go to the board meetings. Go sit at the board meetings of the library. Make sure they're not banning shit. Make sure they're not around with your ability to access literature, to access education and that for your community, that's all 100%.

[Host 1]

There we go. That's a great message.

[Host 2]

Thanks.

[Host 1]

Beyond that, if you want to join us on Patreon, we're patreon.com Pearl Mania 500 or Pearl Mania 500.net to join the frozen Chosen. That's when we start calling them. Maybe.

[Host 2]

Wait, can you share with everybody that one inbox message you got?

[Host 1]

Which one?

[Host 2]

About why they. They. They rejoined the page? Because I think it really is perfect.

[Host 1]

One one of the best ways to reach us is to join the Patreon and then message us through there. Because once you start paying, we're going to, we're at least going to look at it.

[Host 2]

Okay, that's not the thing. It's actually just so much easier to see the messages.

[Host 1]

They're also all centralized and it's on every week.

[Host 2]

And also because the messages on all the other platforms, there's also like spam 4000 RFK, Jill Stein, Trump, people threatening to murder us. So it's hard to find you guys.

[Host 1]

There is that. And also things like Instagram, TikTok and others often like to flag random people as spam.

[Host 2]

Yes.

[Host 1]

And then throw them into hidden spam filters we can't see. Yeah. So if you want to message us, the best way to do it is to join the Patreon and then shoot us a message through there or shoot us an email. But we did get a message from my saying that they, they had let their Patreon lapse. They've been a Patreon member for a very long time and they message us, let us know that they were coming back. And they had to because they were so tired of hearing better help ads. And that if they. They said, and I quote, if I hear one more better help ad, I'm going to better help myself off a cliff. And so I want to thank.

[Host 2]

And that is everything to me.

[Host 1]

Yeah. So I want to thank them in particular just for just pointing out to us.

[Host 2]

We had such a laugh that that.

[Host 1]

Was incredible for us. And we'll have more about sponsors and other things later in the video, but for now, we're going to take our first break and then we're gonna come back. And Mrs. P, I'm gonna explain the definition of LOL cows to you.

[Host 2]

I feel like I am excited, but. But, like, nervous. Like, the roller coasters, like, ticking up, and I'm like, this could be really fun and interesting, but also everything I've ever heard about this has me weary and scared that I'm on the most.

[Host 1]

You're not on the roller coaster.

[Host 2]

I'm not on the roller coaster?

[Host 1]

No, no, you're in line. You're in a very long line for the roller coaster.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

And you've been waiting in that line for, like, three, three hours, and you've been watching people go past on fast passes, and now the roller coaster broke down and you just watch a car full of people on the roller coaster fly off to their death.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay. So this is a comedy podcast where a husband and wife duo sit across from each other at a table and hold hands and share lure. But you're staring at me very aggressively and it's making me pretty nervous. You gonna hit that button? Gonna. Nope. No. He's making eye contact with the camera.

[Host 1]

We'll be right back.

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[Host 1]

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[Host 2]

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[Host 1]

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[Host 1]

We're back. Here we are. Okay, Mrs. P, do you know what a LOL is?

[Host 2]

LOL.

[Host 1]

LOL.

[Host 2]

Yeah, we're laughing out loud.

[Host 1]

There we go. Thank you. That you've already proven that you're not that old.

[Host 2]

Okay, cool.

[Host 1]

Because some people believe LOL means lots of love.

[Host 2]

Who?

[Host 1]

Old people.

[Host 2]

Oh. They think that every time I say okay dork LOL that I'm saying okay, dork. Lots of love.

[Host 1]

No, not every one of them, but I have known multiple people who had like a grandparent or a mom who thought LOL meant lots of love. And so their mom was replying LOL to stuff.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

Inappropriately.

[Host 2]

I love that.

[Host 1]

It's a. It is a. You know what? Lots of love to that.

[Host 2]

Lots of love to that situation.

[Host 1]

Do you know what a cow is?

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Okay.

[Host 2]

Okay, okay. Cow is a four legged mammal that are very sweet and cute and are very furry when you go to Vermont. And I like them Vermont ones because it's so furry and cute. And then there's dairy cows where you get milk from.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And then there's the cows that we eat. And then there's bulls and steers and there's all kinds of other stuff about cows I don't really know a lot about.

[Host 1]

Okay, good, good, good. So you understand that Lowell means lots of love and that cows are large creatures that can be milked. Okay, okay.

[Host 2]

When you say it like that.

[Host 1]

Okay. So a low cow is a cat is a person that you milk for the luls.

[Host 2]

Oh, I immediately don't like that.

[Host 1]

Yeah, that's. That's what this is. That's that's what we're gonna be discussing the whole episode.

[Host 2]

Cool.

[Host 1]

If. If you came to this episode being like, what is a locale? That's the answer. I'm now going to spend a lot of time explaining how that's horrific.

[Host 2]

Oh, you don't even have to explain. It's in the name.

[Host 1]

I know it is in the name. But the thing is, is the name has actually been so disassociated now that people don't connect it back to the fact that what is happening is horrible.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Because what is happening is people are being used as content minds.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And the people who are doing this view themselves as content farmers, not as what I'm gonna call from here on out, milkmaids.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

Because what they're doing is they're typically picking people who are kind of cringy and kind of different. Sure. Whether that be through cognitive or faith, physical appearance or ability, or through their beliefs or all these other different things. And they're trolling these people.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And these are people. The. The locale themselves are people who are targeted by people on the Internet, whether it be through brigades or by individuals who are then being used to generate content to make money from it.

[Host 2]

Okay. So this. Okay, okay. So I was gonna. I was about to say, who has time to do all this?

[Host 1]

Mm.

[Host 2]

But then you just said they're gonna make money off of it from the Internet. Making time for it.

[Host 1]

Yes, they're making time. At first, it starts as for the lulz. Now, do you know what for the lulz is?

[Host 2]

I'm assuming for the laughs.

[Host 1]

Yes, 100%. It is actually a 4chan term. It just means that any action that you're doing for personal enjoyment. But a lot of people hide that they're actually doing it for monetary gain behind claiming that they're really just doing it for fun.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

You know, like this podcast. We just do it for fun. Or patreon.com mania500 so let's go ahead and go back.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Okay. We're gonna listen. This wouldn't be a YouTube video. This wouldn't be a podcast. This wouldn't be anything talking about Internet culture if we didn't travel back to medieval times.

[Host 2]

I'm sorry, what?

[Host 1]

Freak shows have existed since medieval times.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's true.

[Host 1]

So you know the. The ancient idea of a freak show, which are traveling carnival shows that were full of mainly disabled people that would show off these people to local villagers.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

We have records of them in the English speaking world in England going back at least 400 years. There are versions of this going back even deeper into ancient times. But like, the exact idea of what's like a freak show, carnival, sideshow that is being put on as like an exhibition for money. That idea is about 400 years old.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

But in America, from 1840 to 1940, the freak show was one of our top forms of entertainment.

[Host 2]

Yeah. There's a whole American horror story about it.

[Host 1]

There's America. Exactly. There's the American horror story of freaks. But then as also there's the movie Freaks, which is like really good from the 1930s. It's like it humanizes people a little bit more while also kind of being a horror. But there's a lot of other things about this. But one of the reasons that people really miss out on, the reason why freak shows existed, especially in the middle of that period for me, 1840 to 1940, is in America we had a thing called the ugly laws.

[Host 2]

Yes. Do you want to explain that?

[Host 1]

Yeah. Do you know what they are?

[Host 2]

Mm.

[Host 1]

Okay. So the ugly laws were a laws that were passed across municipalities across the entire United States that were designed to hide anyone that was visibly quote, diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in other way deformed from being in public. This was mainly aimed at homeless people.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

And. And this was mainly aimed at beggars. It started out in Chicago in 1881 in a local ordinance there that was known as the unsightly beggar ordinance. It then spread to other cities, including our state of Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was one of the few areas that had a statewide ugly law.

[Host 2]

No uggos.

[Host 1]

They said no uggos. But there in Pennsylvania, the law also included people with cognitive with disability. That law passed in 1891. Our society at the time did not have social safety nets. So things like welfare, things like snap, things like basic education.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

All these different things weren't there. So if you had somebody who had a physical, mental, or behavioral rarity.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

Or disability, they didn't really have much of anything to fall back on. And a lot of these different disabilities would be dwarfism, conjoined twins, just being obese.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Literally non binary. And trans people. Peoples of colors like you would have freak shows where they would be like, look, here's a Native American. Oh, here's somebody we that was, quote, found in a rainforest where they would say, jungle of South America. All these different things. These people in America would not have a lot of choices or options on how they were to be able to survive if they could get a job and survive from maimed in a wheat thresher or any of these other different things that were happening, especially in the 1890s. Great. That would be great. But for the most part, they would be shunned from local communities.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Which is how they ended up banding together or ending up inside of freak shows tied to carnivals. We also have. There's a Mandarin this time named P.T. barnum, which I'm not going to get too much into, but he's a whole episode. He's a whole episode. He's a horrific monster that Hugh Jackman did a musical about, but.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

The greatest showman. But, you know, it's crazy. I don't think in that musical, I'm pretty sure they don't mention him dissecting his dead slave. No, it doesn't come up once.

[Host 2]

It doesn't. He doesn't sing about that.

[Host 1]

He doesn't sing about that. He's not. He's not doing the clap and being like, oh, I'm Hugh Jackman. Oh, please don't drag me into Ryan Reynolds with Blake Lively.

[Host 2]

Oh, I hope he does it. Just a little touches a little bit. A little bit.

[Host 1]

But. But, you know, a lot. P.T. barnum was like the Henry Ford in that way of, like, he really figured out how to market. Yeah. But also, what P.T. barnum did, more so than a lot of these other ones, was a lot of things he put on were fake.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And drummed up. He would come up with a great marketing idea and then figure out how to make the exhibition.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Versus, in a lot of these cases, you had like, the bearded woman or other people like that were just being literally just sitting there.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

They're just sitting there knitting. And. And then people walk in, go, oh, look at that great big fat lady. Yeah, look at that fat lady. Look at the pinheads. And they would point at these different people and just. Oh, look at that. And the thing is, is this. This felt good for the townspeople.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because the townspeople, who had sad, empty lives across the middle of the country, and in a lot of these areas where they don't have a lot to look forward to, they're like, what are we going to do this week? Oh, we're going to sit here until we invent the radio. Go to church. My revivals. Hey, maybe if we're. If we're good enough, our kid might die in a war.

[Host 2]

Whoa.

[Host 1]

Gangrene.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

But what the traveling freak show gave them was a chance once or twice a year for them to point at people and Say, at least I'm not those freaks. And so it allowed them to do that and also allowed them to gin up all sorts of other different feelings in them. This is ingrained in American society. It is kind of what a lot of us, like, a lot of our world is built on, and we ignore it.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

This was really held up real quick. Yeah.

[Host 2]

It's very much. It gives me that, like, sometimes disabled people will say, like, people will come up to them and be like, oh, my God, you're so inspiring. And they're like, my existence is not inspiration for you. That's crazy. And also demeaning.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Like, don't say that. Like, what a weird thing to say.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

To someone, let alone out loud. Bad enough thinking it, but real bad saying it.

[Host 1]

But also, these ugly laws are the reason why, like, right now, as we're recording this, RFK Jr is going up for a vote whether or not he's going to be healthy. Human Service Secretary, this morning, the President of the United States posted on True Social. He posted that 20 years ago, there wasn't that many autistic people, and now there's one out of every 34 kids are autistic. Right. The reason there were less autistic people. One was diagnosis.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

But two, literally, it was against the law.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

To be seen. I had family members in my family who were diagnosed as having, you know, different mental and cognitive disabilities. They were put in homes.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

In the 40s, in the 30s, in the 50s, they were locked away for their entire lives. RFK is out here talking about how, oh, when I was a kid. When I was a kid, nobody had peed on allergies. When you were a kid, they drove an ice pick into a girl's brain, and then they hid her from her family.

[Host 2]

You mean Rosemary Kennedy.

[Host 1]

Yes, Rosemary Kennedy. I couldn't remember her name.

[Host 2]

Yeah, I got you.

[Host 1]

But I was like, she got it. I know she knows what I'm talking about. They literally lobotomized her.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Hey, but RFK, with 14 years of heroin usage, he gets to be in charge of the vaccines. Maybe. I don't know.

[Host 2]

I don't. I don't really know.

[Host 1]

But my point is, until 1974, these laws were at least on the books.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

1974 is when the last ugly law was repealed in America. And they weren't really enforced too hard, but they did exist enough to be part of our culture. They did exist enough to be a threat. They did exist enough for people to point to these laws and then threaten people. So they would end up having to be pushed further and further to the margins of society, further and further to the edges of society, to where they had to band together to be used by ringleaders. Literal ringleaders of circuses.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

To be the geek biting chicken heads off and all these other things.

[Host 2]

Yeah. I was just Googling because I thought it was the 90s, but I wanted to get the exact date. July 26, 1990. That's when the American with Disabilities act was passed.

[Host 1]

Literally, my next.

[Host 2]

Oh, really?

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Because I was thinking about, like, the time frame, because it was like, 70s, they got rid of the ugly laws. And then the 80s, the 80s, Reagan emptied out all the mental health facilities, the institutions. The 90s, we got the ADA because the horror of witness, witnessing someone have to crawl up the stairs without a wheelchair shifted because it was on television.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

People finally witnessed because again, everything had been hidden. Everything had been secret. But then when the protesters and the advocates were fighting for the ADA to get passed, I do not remember the person's name. I know that one of the protesters who was wheelchair bound, got out of their wheelchair and began to climb the stairs.

[Host 1]

The front steps of the Capitol.

[Host 2]

The front steps of the Capitol. And it was caught on tv and the incredible pushback that came towards the White House. Bush pass this.

[Host 1]

Yeah. George H.W.

[Host 2]

Bush. Because so many people were like, oh, my God, you need to build ramps.

[Host 1]

Senators literally had to step over the bodies of the disabled.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

On national television to go to their jobs. Now, one of the big changes that we've had in this country since the ada.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

Is people are no longer allowed to climb the steps of the Capitol. That's why it's not open to the public. To do it in that way, you have to get, like, clearance to get to certain areas.

[Host 2]

They said, you're not going to protest over here like that again.

[Host 1]

I literally yelled that. I remember when I go into the Capitol in the early 2000s, because I'd been there as a kid and going there in the early 2000s, and they had a whole area fenced off. I said, why is that fenced off? Like, oh, because they're building a. They're building a welcome center. I'm like, controlled entrance. Controlled entrance for the people.

[Host 2]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Host 1]

Oh, God, I got it before we could all just walk through the front doors. Now. You can't do that. If you do, you have to wait four years and then your dude will pardon you now. Sorry, that was just thinly veiled. January 6th. Now.

[Host 2]

Thinly veiled. Come On. You even said it out loud.

[Host 1]

I know. Anyway, what I have written here before, Mrs. P just ran ahead. Sorry. She's so smart.

[Host 2]

My bad.

[Host 1]

The Americans with disabilities act, the ADA of 1990. This is a law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination, but also says that businesses moving forward have to build accommodations for disabled people.

[Host 2]

People.

[Host 1]

So wheelchair ramps, Making sure there's elevator access, making sure we have braille, making sure there's all these different things. And also then getting into cognitive disabilities, making sure that there is a teacher on staff that can help someone with autism, making sure that kids with down syndrome have extra staff to help them at their schools. This was all written and changed with 1990. That really did change American culture around disability. Suddenly you started to see more of a push, especially in media, of showing disabled people the reason. The reason why Drake was in a wheelchair. Because the ADA changed culture in that way where they're like, we need a wheelchair kid. Put Drake in it. How are we going to get him in a wheelchair? Shoot him.

[Host 2]

Well, that is on the show on Degrassi, Kendrick Lamar.

[Host 1]

I'm not saying it five Grammys. But it became a way. It became a big change. Slowly.

[Host 2]

It.

[Host 1]

It took a decade plus. But pointing and laughing at people for the sole reason that they were disabled was frowned upon and looked at as shitty culture.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And looked at as being bad.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because these people in many cases had no choice. They were literally born this way or they had an accident or something else. Right. Now, this is where we're going to get into our shift, okay? And that shift is going to involve the guy named Jerry Springer. And I'm going to get into that shift, okay? Right after this break.

[Host 2]

All right?

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[Host 2]

Jerry Springer, baby. Okay, here's what I know about Jerry Springer.

[Host 1]

Okay?

[Host 2]

Number one, daytime tv.

[Host 1]

Okay.

[Host 2]

Number two, always had a stripper pole at the end. Little dance, dance.

[Host 1]

Remember that later? Yeah, he did.

[Host 2]

Yeah. A little stripper Dance at the moment. That was always funny. Also a lawyer.

[Host 1]

He was a lawyer.

[Host 2]

Also a politician.

[Host 1]

Yep.

[Host 2]

Also wasn't born in the United States.

[Host 1]

No. His parents were Holocaust survivors. Yep. So let's talk about Jerry Springer. So Jerry Springer was a former Cincinnati, Ohio, city councilman that resigned in disgrace from his seat after paying a prostitute with a check.

[Host 2]

Damn. I need to know. I didn't know that, but I laid out the red carpet for that.

[Host 1]

Oh, man. Yeah.

[Host 2]

No, I just told you the bio that I remember.

[Host 1]

Yeah. It was like, 1974. 75, I think he. He had to drop out. Like, he was. He was known.

[Host 2]

Remember when people resigned in disgrace?

[Host 1]

Oh, God, do I remember. Remember those days?

[Host 2]

Y'all remember? People would have shame.

[Host 1]

Y'all get in the comments and say, yo, I remember when people used to resign in disgrace. But Jerry Springer was considered a gonzo politician.

[Host 2]

Okay?

[Host 1]

So he would do Love Chickens. He was a Democrat, and he would do a lot of crazy stunts. So, like, you know, I don't have anything in particular that I wrote down about it, but, like, he was just doing, like, crazy press conferences. He just knew how to get the radio and the TV and the anchors talking about him and to get a lot of local press.

[Host 2]

Perfect.

[Host 1]

So when he. He resigned in disgrace with the prostitute check thing, I don't think the check bounced. I think they were just like, dude, you wrote a check to a prostitute?

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That's crazy.

[Host 2]

Not till we see Matt Gates will.

[Host 1]

We see this again. Oh, with the check, Literally, he wrote Venmo and checks.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Like, that's crazy.

[Host 2]

Does cash not exist, my dudes?

[Host 1]

I. Well, you know what? We're talking. My mom earlier, it might not because she couldn't even understand the ATM today. So. ATMs are getting complicated, y'all. I haven't touched one in a while, though, so I don't know. I don't know. You have to leave the house to touch an atm, and it's getting scary out there. Planes are falling from the sky. Now, listen, two weeks in. Listen, Jerry Springer was so good at politics, okay. That after resigning in disgrace, guess what happened?

[Host 2]

What?

[Host 1]

He got elected. Back in.

[Host 2]

Perfect.

[Host 1]

He came back and he was there. And then eventually the city council made him mayor of Cincinnati for a year.

[Host 2]

I love that.

[Host 1]

Yeah. He was just, like, so good at it. He also, though, was doing, like, local journalism, a bunch of other stiff and stuff. And in 1991, Springer created the show, the Jerry Springer Show.

[Host 2]

Yes.

[Host 1]

Now, this is a daytime talk show that covers topics that Springer felt extremely, extremely strongly about he was aiming for that Oprah market, but also like, he wanted to be like a daytime reporter. He wanted to do spotlight pieces, he wanted to have discussions. And if you go watch early Jerry Springer, same thing with like Phil Donahue. A lot of these times, the early talk shows were really about like we're doing a deep dive.

[Host 2]

Yeah, honey.

[Host 1]

We're having on audience, we're having on guests. Like the way some podcasts will like highlight a topic and go into guests. Like that's what daytime talk shows were supposed to be.

[Host 2]

Okay, so are you gonna tell me what happened?

[Host 1]

Yeah. So he would have people on to cover things like politics, drug use, racism, gun violence. The show did well enough to garner local. Local ratings.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

It did well enough to get picked up by NBC.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

But after three years, it was facing cancellation.

[Host 2]

Boo.

[Host 1]

It wasn't doing well. So they revamped the show.

[Host 2]

They changed my teenagers. Goth, baby.

[Host 1]

They stopped having on like experts in that sort of way. They stopped having on these deep discussions. They started having regular people, quote, regular people, mainly lower income people from lower income regions of the United States. And they were brought on the show and the entire episodes were designed to take these people from the middle of nowhere and confront them with topics that they were known to be taboo.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Affairs, homosexuality, transgenderism, racism, obesity, disability. More and more and more. And then the fights would start and then the fights. But the big thing is that Jerry Springer and his producers leaned into heavily the freak show aspect.

[Host 2]

Also the. What you were saying earlier about how like early freak shows, they would go and like point at them and be like, ah, look at you. And then they always did that on Jerry at the like very end. Right. Like right before the stripper poll, they'd get. They'd hand the mic out to the audience and people would be like, oh, the lady in blue, you look like a bag of shit. Yeah. Just wanna let you know.

[Host 1]

No, they would do that completely. And on top of that, the whole point of the show was these people who would be either, you know, rednecks or be considered ghetto or just be from poor areas would be put out up there to who? They would then act out a character and then the crowds would jeer at them and yell like you're saying like, fuck you and you. I just remember watching Jerry Springer and the frothing of the mouth of the crowds.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Of how much they hated the people on stage. And like that was an. That was a subsect of all of this. Was like it was that moment. I think it's from the. Was it 1984? The moment of rage. It was like, here's the thing I remember as a kid, for me, the Jerry Springer episode that I remember anything else? I remember the fights and all that stuff, but I remember our local station would play Jerry Springer sometimes in primetime.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And it was a special episode where Jerry Springer confronts the Klan.

[Host 2]

I know it. Yep.

[Host 1]

And I remember watching that episode. I remember being so mad because these Klan morons get up there and they got their. Their hoods on. I just remember this one guy just yelling about black people hair. Because the one person is like. One person in the audience is like, you're an idiot. Racist.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And there's no difference in black people and white people. And he was like, the black hair follicle is hollow. The white follicle is full. And I was just like, what does that do with fucking any. I just remember sitting at home just being so mad. But like, that was the design of the show. Get me mad. So I stayed through the commercial break.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Get me mad. So I tune in next week. Get me mad. Because that way I'll stick around because this person might get hit with a chair also. Hopefully their comeuppance will come to them.

[Host 2]

Yeah. You do hope for that. Also, you're describing how everyone's pop up got addicted to Fox News.

[Host 1]

It's a hundred percent how everybody's pop up got addicted to Fox News. But also what this did at the beginning was it wasn't aimed so much at people with physical and mental disabilities as much because it was really just the coastal elites.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Laughing. And daytime people laughing at these poor fucking idiots.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Especially aimed at ones with accents from the south and especially aims for ones at the Midwest. And then they could pull forward and go. And then guess what? Here's the freak show feel. I'm not them.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And the. But the extra spin on this time, what Springer did. That's different. Versus the ancient for the old medieval freak shows and the 1840s ones is Jerry Springer. Let them apply.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Meaning Jerry Springer and his producers, they didn't go out looking for people. Those people came to them because they targeted narcissists.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Who at that time did not have a little trauma box with a camera that they could yell into and broadcast their face to the world.

[Host 2]

Oh, wait, are you describing yourself?

[Host 1]

Yes, I'm 100% describing myself.

[Host 2]

No, you would have been on Jerry Springer. You know what I was thinking? When you're like, oh, they. They didn't have to go and search. They'll show up to them when we were still living in South Philly and all of our neighbors. Okay. We lived on, like, this one small block in South Philly, and all the neighbors once a year. They never invited us, which was rude.

[Host 1]

No, they did.

[Host 2]

They didn't.

[Host 1]

They didn't invite us. I was like. But there was. They would rent a bus.

[Host 2]

Yeah, they would. The. Our neighbors would get together. It was like a block party.

[Host 1]

And I was like, I'm not getting on a bus with you guys for two days.

[Host 2]

They would get all their money together, rent a bus, and then as an entire block, go to the Steve Wilco show. And it was like the highlight of the year. And then when they came back, it was like, I'll never forget is like the bus parked at the end of the block. And they would all stream off and they all got their Steve Wilkos shirts on.

[Host 1]

So let me explain who Steve Wilcos is, because some of our listeners won't know. So that's the thing you have to remember is j. So Jerry Springer, it was very. The fights became very, very famous.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And. And to the point where it became physical fights. Physical fights.

[Host 2]

Not yelling.

[Host 1]

So what you would have. A lot of times. Let me. Let me just give an example of an episode. Okay, go ahead. A guy and a girl are sitting on the stage.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

And then they're talking about how much they love each other. And then, ladies, gentlemen, we got the. But guess what? He has a secret girlfriend.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

And then comes out a girl named. And they're all wearing, like, hoochie mama dresses, like, very short. And the guy is dressed.

[Host 2]

Dresses from a bag.

[Host 1]

Yeah. All of them are really bad. And then the second the secret girlfriend.

[Host 2]

Comes out, she comes out running.

[Host 1]

She comes out running this. And they just start beating the shit out of each other and being pulled apart by security. And the security, for the most part, were larger bald white men.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And, like, really muscle. Like black guys in, like, black shirts.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

They pull them apart as they're kicking and scratching and screaming and doing all this different stuff. This became so popular that eventually they added in sound effects where as the one would enter the stage, you would hear literally, a fight bell go, ding, ding, ding. And then they start beating the shade, shutter throwing chairs, all this different shit as the crowd's going crazy. And the thing is, is a lot of this is staged.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

A lot of this is fake. But a lot of this plays into the zeitgeist because, again, you have to make decisions as an audience member. Someone on the stage Is good. Someone on the stage is bad. They're having a fight. Someone has to win.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And this gets played into this. Steve Wilkos was the head of Jerry Springer security.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And over time, Steve himself became a character on Jerry Springer so much that Steve then eventually got his own spin off, where he was also doing basically the Jerry Springer show with even more fighting.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

It was basically just Steve no longer was the one pulling them apart. He had a whole gaggle of new guys.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

But this.

[Host 2]

And our neighbors loved it.

[Host 1]

Yeah, well, everybody did. Because again, this is all about making you, the listener, the viewer, feel better again. There but for the grace of God, go I. Instead of looking at somebody and saying, oh, isn't it inspiring that they were able to overcome all this adversity? I wonder what I can do with my place of privilege. Instead, you look at them and go, these freaks think they're as good as me. And that's what the whole point of this, the whole build of these shows. And slowly, between Jerry Springer and also Howard Stern. Howard Stern had his own.

[Host 2]

It's interesting. You keep. I, like, I knew Jerry Springer, like, once in a while. I watched it.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

But it wasn't something I really liked, and I definitely didn't like Stern. So, like, these are things, like, I know.

[Host 1]

So I grew up with Stern. I grew up listening to Howard Stern because my dad really liked it. Liked Howard Stern. And, like, so I would always hear what I called the bus hour.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Which was from 7am to 8. That was when I'd be supposed to be waiting for the bus and all those things. So sometimes when it's cold to be in the car, my dad would be listening to Howard Stern. He would turn it off. It got, like, too crazy, because sometimes, like, term would get too sexual. But, like, Stern had this. I can't remember what he called him. But basically, it was a bunch of people. There was Hank, the angry, drunken dwarf. There was Beetlejuice, who was a man who also had, like, disabilities. He would just have these people on and that, like, he was Be like, play around with them. It was like his little gang. And it was that. That way he would lean in of being like, no, no, we're being nice. When we flew him out to New York, we're doing all these different things. They want to be on tv. It's like, yeah, but, like, you're putting them on there for a very specific reason.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And what the reason he's doing is he was milking them for content. Howard Stern has. Still does have. But had at that time a four hour radio show that he needed to fill.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

We do an hour to two hour show once a week.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

He had a four hour daily radio show five days a week that had to cover the entirety of most of the United States. At that point, he was being played syndicated across the United States. And so he needed to fill time. So what do they do? People remember the porn stars, People remember the rock stars. But he had a lot where he would bring in people who. Where the job was for these people to stand there and be mocked.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And it was 100%. Stern knew what he was doing. All these different people and Springer did the same thing. Springer would go on the Stern show. They were. They were friends. They go back and forth. This became part of the culture, though. They start. It's called Crash tv.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

It's the idea though of. You create this format of just like chaos and weirdness. But a big part of it is pointing and going, look at this weird. Look at these weirdos. Aren't they fucking weird? Don't they deserve what they get? It's reverse. Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen says, you're doing well because God loves you.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

You're doing great because God loves you. It's because you see, you've been blessed by the Lord. Which is why you need to bless me with 10%. Stern and Springer say, look at these freaks. Isn't there some. Isn't there something. Maybe they did something wrong. Now Springer and Stern, to their credit, also would have segments where they would push and say, like, listen, there's no. Homosexuality isn't evil. Transgenderism is evil. All these different things aren't evil. But that isn't. After they played up.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And into the tropes a lot.

[Host 2]

They need to exploit them first.

[Host 1]

Yes.

[Host 2]

For the.

[Host 1]

Exploitation was huge.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And they were milking them.

[Host 2]

I really don't like that. Milking is our main term.

[Host 1]

This is going to be the term because remember, this episode is about what locals. Exactly. This strategy, though, while initially looked down on Stern and Springer in particular were considered gutter trash.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because look what they were putting in front of the American people. It became one of our chief forms of entertainment. Reality TV takes off.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Reality TV at first was supposed to be mini documentaries, but what they realized is reality TV is very, very good at making heroes and villains.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And pushing them up. But even better, though, a specific channel, the Learning Channel, tlc, where we learn stuff. Yeah. Which used to be cover things like insanely. Like smart things like literally you will learn history, science, mathematics, how it's made. I don't think all these different things. The Learning Channel, they turned and they became a reality based television show. The History Channel became a reality based television show for the History Channel. You.

[Host 2]

History Channel. Aliens. Ancient Aliens.

[Host 1]

Yeah. And Swamp People.

[Host 2]

That's on History.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Swamp People was History Channel. Ice Road Truckers was History Channel. Pawn Stars was his channel. You and I talk about all the time. Because you and your dad used to say this to each other, which is for years, your dad would walk in the room, you'd be watching History Channel and your dad would say, is Hitler still losing? You say, Hitler's still losing on History Channel.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And one day Hitler stopped losing on History Channel because would said we had to talk about ancient aliens. And the point of the ancient alien show is not to make you believe in ancient aliens. It's to make you believe. Look at lunatics who believe in ancient aliens and feel smarter than them.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Until eventually you stop watching history and you don't.

[Host 2]

Same thing with the Swamp people anymore.

[Host 1]

And then Hitler's not losing anymore. One, one day Hitler stopped losing on TV and we started moving our history content to YouTube. And then one day, YouTube demonetized anyone who was saying Hitler or mentioning Nazis. And then suddenly these things start happening where now look where we are. But on the tlc they went similar, but that different route. I wrote down the most popular shows from tlc.

[Host 2]

Let me guess, hold on.

[Host 1]

And web based. The popularity was how many seasons they had a run.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

Okay. And so this isn't in any sort of general order, but go ahead, go ahead and name me some. Okay, some. The Learning Channel.

[Host 2]

The Learning Channel.

[Host 1]

Okay, so this is original programming.

[Host 2]

Oh, God, I feel like it's gonna be John and K plus 8.

[Host 1]

Yeah, they're on there.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Which. Which their whole show was. They had. They had eight children in one go. Yeah. And their relationship was falling apart.

[Host 2]

It did fall apart. It ended very poor.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And.

[Host 1]

And, but the thing is, the big point was, look at these weird freaks that had as many kids the way a dog has kids.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Yep.

[Host 2]

Okay, Then I would say there was that. The Evangelical family. I forget their name.

[Host 1]

Here comes Honey Boo Boo.

[Host 2]

Okay, I forgot about Honey Boo Boo. Yeah, here comes Honey Boo. But that was gonna be a killer. That's gonna be. That's gonna be real pop.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Host 2]

The mom stole all the money and did meth. Honey Boo Boo got no money for college. Real sad. Yeah. What else was on tlc? The Duck Dynasty.

[Host 1]

Duck Dynasty was a different channel. Ah. So let me go. I can only download my 600 pound life.

[Host 2]

Oh, right. With that little dog.

[Host 1]

Hugely popular. Which is just again, showing people who are morbidly obese for the entertainment of people who aren't.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

To feel better that they aren't £600. 19 kids and counting.

[Host 2]

I think that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah, that's the one with the.

[Host 1]

The Duggars.

[Host 2]

The Duggars. Yeah. That's the Duggar family again.

[Host 1]

Look at these religious freaks.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

At least we're not them. Here comes honey boo boo. Which is. Hey, look at these people. They're poor and dumb.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

The little couple. Oh, shit.

[Host 2]

I forgot about that show that a lot of.

[Host 1]

They had a lot of spin offs on that one. Yeah. Long Island Medium.

[Host 2]

Oh, my God.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Oh, my God.

[Host 1]

Which I included because remember, a lot of carnivals used to have tarot card or the crystal ball, ladies. And this is literally we're building a carnival. When I was looking through the reality shows on tlc, but also shows that they purchased, one that caught me.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

With the freak show. Monteith. Got it. This is literally a show called I am the elephant man.

[Host 2]

Oh, no. Yeah, on the nose.

[Host 1]

On the nose.

[Host 2]

Trunk.

[Host 1]

Now this same thing that's happening across cable also happens on broadcast.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

On primetime.

[Host 2]

Primetime.

[Host 1]

Because I want you to think about what, the early 2000s, what was a show. Who was a lady that you and I talk about all the time? Who singers are terrified of?

[Host 2]

Oh, Kelly Clarkson.

[Host 1]

Yes. 100. Yeah, 100. Kelly Clarkson, though.

[Host 2]

Kelly Clarkson starts warming up to one of your songs.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

You gotta get out. You gotta get out.

[Host 1]

She's gonna destroy it.

[Host 2]

Send a season desist. She's about to crush your.

[Host 1]

She's about to do your song in a way that you're never gonna be able to cover.

[Host 2]

I'm about to buy Kelly Clarkson's album cover of your song. But not listening to you no more.

[Host 1]

But here's the thing. Kelly Clarkson wasn't the most popular part of American Idol.

[Host 2]

No. Simon Cowell.

[Host 1]

But specifically Simon Cowell during the open auditions.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Being mean to everybody.

[Host 1]

And the one that broke the mold for all of them was William Hung. William Hung was an Asian man who, like, I couldn't find if he was diagnosed with anything in particular, but he sang the song she bangs by Ricky Martin.

[Host 2]

Oh, right. I remember this.

[Host 1]

Incredibly offbeat. It's incredibly out of tune.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And it became super viral. It went viral across the Internet. And it was people mocking because a lot of people assume that he had down syndrome because of his look, because of the way he speaks, he has a thick accent, all these different things. Nobody gave a shit who won season three of American Idol. Yeah, nobody cared. William Hung, who didn't even make it, I think on. I think he might have made it on the actual show just again because he was a ratings driver. But like he was the one who got dragged out and that people would mock to feel better about. And this is part of our culture. While all of this is happening in America, another revolution is happening on the web. Okay, on the Internet, something has changed, which is in the early 2000s, for the first time, we are now able to share videos with each other other gross through Real Player and Windows Movie Maker and on forums and on other places. Viral videos become born and that's what we're going to talk about. The first person that was attempted to be milked.

[Host 2]

Oh God, I cannot with the milking references. Oh my God.

[Host 1]

We'll be right back right after this.

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[Host 1]

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[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And wait until you have headphones. I just want to throw that out there just because the first part's going to sound innocent. And then we're going to talk about Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

Okay. I don't know who that is, but I have been told that there is a content warning on this.

[Host 1]

Yes, exactly. And that's exactly where I'm putting this right now. Is, is they are going to be this. It's going to get dark and then we're going to go and have a general discussion about this stuff. So let's go ahead and start before Chris Chan. The.

[Host 2]

All right.

[Host 1]

And what that is is the. One of the first viral videos to burn across the Internet.

[Host 2]

Sure.

[Host 1]

And that is Star Wars Kid. Do you know who Star Wars Kid is?

[Host 2]

No.

[Host 1]

You don't know who Star Wars Kid is?

[Host 2]

No.

[Host 1]

For real?

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Oh my God. Okay. I feel like I should have actually pulled up a video for you, but you know, you can just go, you describe it. Okay. Basically what happened is this. There is in November 4, 2002, a 15 year old French Canadian high school student named Ghislaine Raza was playing around in his high school's television studio. Now, he didn't go to a shitty Catholic school like you. Yep. That's the video you just.

[Host 2]

Okay, so that's a. So he has a nice studio.

[Host 1]

It's a nice studio for 2002. There's a black curtain. He's a larger kid and he's swinging around on the video. That pole is actually a golf ball. A golf ball retrieval stick.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

Okay. So he's swinging this around. It gets kind of manic after a little bit because he's acting like it's a double sided lightsaber.

[Host 2]

Okay, cool.

[Host 1]

Because this is shortly after Star Wars Episode 1 came out, and everybody thought Darth Maul was really cool. Darth Maul, he. He's got everything. He's got spikes on his head. He's got red and blue, red and black skin.

[Host 2]

There was a lot of marketing around that guy for someone who, like, I never heard from again.

[Host 1]

Yeah, but he dies in the movie. Like, he just, like, shows up. He's like, I'm the Phantom Menace. And then he gets cut in half and falls apart. And then they spend years figuring out a way how he didn't die so they could bring him back so we can actually have a really cool fight. Let me tell you something. They did some pretty cool work with Darth Maul when it came to all the secondary side stuff. And I can't wait to raise our son on that story.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

It's really cool. And it does teach you a lot about rage and how you shouldn't lean into it because eventually rage will destroy you completely.

[Host 2]

What? Oh, wow.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

That's strange that you would like a storyline like that.

[Host 1]

I don't want. I want to break the cycle.

[Host 2]

This video has 38 million views.

[Host 1]

Yes. Because that video was not supposed to be on the Internet.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

As you're seeing it, as you're watching it, you can agree with me that Raza isn't athletic. He's not impressive. He's just a kid swinging a stick.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

He made the video like most kids who make a video, right?

[Host 2]

Yeah, He.

[Host 1]

He. He just goes and makes it. It was the same way people would do back in the time where you be in a store. Remember being in a kid, and you go into a store that has. That shows you you're on camera. Yeah, it's the. Hey, don't shoplift from us. You're on camera and you go, oh, my God, look at us. We're so cool. It's the same thing. It's the same idea. It's 2002. Cameras weren't everywhere.

[Host 2]

Everybody else flipped on the bird. I always flip the cameras of the bird.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah. You're one of them kids, because you're a bad kid. Yes, you are a bad kid.

[Host 2]

I know. I'm still a bad kid.

[Host 1]

But he just commit crimes. He's just playing around, and he gets to. He's playing out a little fantasy, right? He watched back the tape. He thought that was fun. And then eventually that tape accidentally got left in a basement.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

I don't know if it was this high school basement or a church basement somewhere else, but somebody else found the tape.

[Host 2]

Okay. And their thought was put it on the Internet.

[Host 1]

No, their thought was, this is so funny. Let me show it to a classmate and let me show it to another classmate and let me show to another classmate. And eventually one of those classmates is like, oh, I know how to digitize this. I can just make it a file and then everyone in the school can see it.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

So now online bullying, which is American Pie, it's the movie American piece. So that's what happened. It gets digitized and it gets sent out to everybody in the school. And then somebody then uploads it to a forum. It was uploaded around April 14, 2003 with the title Jackass. Underscore Star Wars._ Funny dot WMV. Okay, now I know you're what, you watched it on YouTube. That where it was viewed 38 million times. Yeah, it's actually closer to a billion.

[Host 2]

Times, if not more billion times for that video.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Raza was renamed the Star Wars Kid by the Internet because most people didn't actually just see the video of him swinging that.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Most people saw edits where people with. With digital editing software wanted to show off what they were able to do. And people realized, oh, I can make the stick lightsabers.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

I can add the Star wars training ball and have it shoot lasers at him. And he's blocking the lasers. Yeah, I can put TIE fighters in there. Oh, look, we can do this whole thing. I can clip them into other different videos. And he became a meme, but it was a mockery meme. People were downloading it, editing it, adding in extra jokes. And then in the comments, people were commenting on Raza's appearance. Again, they weren't viewing him as Raza anymore. He's not this kid. He's not a 15 year old. He is Star Wars Kid. Star Wars Kid is now its own content. We can now get more laughs. Oh, I can show I'm a better editor. People were using his video because you could then compare editing styles between each other.

[Host 2]

Oh.

[Host 1]

So on places like 4chan, Something Awful forums and others, he starts to spread. He just starts to show up in all these different places and he's getting shared more and more and more. And people are using it for clout. Look what I can do to this video. And then on top of that, people are also making jokes about his appearance. They're making threats. They're saying he should kill himself. They are going on. People are trying to find and dox him. People are going through all these different things because again, it's now slowly turning into a mob.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Raza eventually leaves school for a time. Yeah, for a couple years, I believe. He basically is homeschooled. He eventually came comes back for his senior year and then he graduated from that high school and then he graduated from law school. But he spent years denying or even hiding from the fact that he was Star wars kid. It wasn't until he was adult, many years later he came forward because he wanted people to know that what online bullying could do. So like by 2813, it was like 10 years later, he had a little bit of disassociation from it. And again, we call it on. We just focus on, oh, no, this is online building this on the building. No, no, no, no, no. This was the Internet trying desperately to milk somebody for content so they could then build. Hey, this way more people come to my website. Oh, come to my website and come see these different things. Oh, this way they'll come check out. Instead of going to ebam's world, come to this forum. Instead of going to this place, go to this one. Oh, we have all the best. You know, Star wars kids memes, come over here. Even before people knew how to make money, they knew how to generate clout, they knew how to generate engagement. And they didn't have to show their face. They could show his face. Is.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And that's where it starts. And the thing is, is people had actually reached out to Raza and tried to get him to do interviews, all these different things. And he knew and he stayed away from them then.

[Host 2]

Yeah, smart.

[Host 1]

Because in his words, he said, I'm going to be shown as a circus act, freak show situation.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

He knew at 15 to just hide.

[Host 2]

No.

[Host 1]

To stay away from the Internet, to take it back, back. But since that moment, other people don't recognize that they are in this viral trap.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Other people, since the Star wars kid think, oh, no, they're not making fun of me. No, I have total control over this situation. No, no, they actually like me. They're making jokes with me, okay. And that's where the true nature of a lolcow comes from.

[Host 2]

Okay? So they, they're, they think they're in on it, but they're not.

[Host 1]

They are being, they're being manipulated.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And they think that they're actually the manipulators.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And that in many of these situations, they believe the person who is being used for content and is generating views and money for other people, they believe that they are actually the one deciding what's going on.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Which brings us to Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Now I'm gonna refer to this person as Chris Chan. They are. Chris Chan is a high functioning autistic trans woman from Virginia who has gone by many different names. Okay. But they're most mostly known as Chris Chan. I'm going to be using she they pronouns moving forward just because it's going to be easier and in some cases we're going to do a couple jumps of back and forth. The biggest thing you need to know about Chris Chan. Chris Chan is currently a 43 year old high functioning autistic trans woman.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

She, when she was younger, she wrote a webcomic around 2000 or so called Sonic Chew.

[Host 2]

Like for Sonic the Hedgehog?

[Host 1]

Yes.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

It was a mashup character of Sonic the Hedgehog.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And Pikachu.

[Host 2]

Oh no.

[Host 1]

That are mashed together. It's basically just a yellow Sonic. So remember in the video that you and I made, I was just going.

[Host 2]

To say, is this original content?

[Host 1]

Yes, this is O.C.

[Host 2]

No. Because I learned what O.C. is and I was like, no, that's. I don't understand. Okay.

[Host 1]

Yeah. And that's where.

[Host 2]

And then lots of people started saying that I need to learn all kinds of other things.

[Host 1]

Yes. And this. And here we are three years later. You're now doing it now learning who Chris Chan is.

[Host 2]

So Chris Chan has to do with Sonic. Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because there is. There is a weird thing on the Internet, especially with all autistic people, where they are like really drawn to Sonic.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And like that Sonic OC and there's a lot of like fan forums and there's just like a lot of different ways that like to interact with this content. And so there is a lot that gets pulled in there now. There's a lot of information about how neglected and abused Chris Chan was as a teenager.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

I'm not going to get into most of that.

[Host 2]

Thank you.

[Host 1]

Because it in 2007 is where the story really starts. For our purposes, the Internet discovers Chris Chan 2007 on 4chan, the Something Awful forums and Encyclopedia Dramatica, they all created pages and started accounts mocking Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Chris Chan is actually both this person's name and a self insert character from the con. The Sonic Chew webcomic. So in the Sonic Chew webcomic in the first two issues, it's really focused on Sonic Chew and his best friend Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

Got it.

[Host 1]

This is a fantasy of somebody who has friends and is loved.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That's what this is. It is a sad, poorly drawn comic strip.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

That is being Uploaded the Internet. People started mocking the shit out of Chris Chan. They started mocking the shit out of the comic, and then they started taking pictures of Chris Chan and other things that they. That he started load. They started loading onto the Internet. Okay, because around this time is a right when YouTube shows up. 2006 is when YouTube starts to take off. So Chris Chan starts making YouTube content, all these different things. They're just making content and uploading it, and people are gobbling it up. And it's doing well. It's doing better than other people who should be doing great. Yeah, People with charisma, people with talent, people who aren't getting any because there aren't legit psychopaths who are now making whole pages of content and devoting their days into asking, what's Chris Chan up to? People start to hunt and stalk Chris Chan, both in real life and on the Internet. They start tracking down personal information about Chris Chan. They start to figure out the local game stores that Chris Chan goes to. They figure out what college Chris Chan goes to. They pose as people and catfish Chris Chan, what to make Chris Chan believe that they're in a relationship. They then also reach out to other people that know Chris Chan or that are seen in Chris Chan content and then poison those relationships between them and say, what do you know about this? Different things. There is brigades of people, okay? Dozens, if not hundreds of people who are gangstalking Chris Chan for years. Chris Chan's entire life.

[Host 2]

When does this happen? What years?

[Host 1]

This starts from 2007 through 2011 is like the first chunk. And again, so these people.

[Host 2]

These people are still in society is what I'm. What.

[Host 1]

These are faceless people on the Internet hiding behind names on these forums who don't actually own. Who don't actually have their faces out there who are just saying, look at this freak. Look. Look at this freak. Look at this freak. But Chris Chan isn't. Again, there's no such thing as a perfect victim. And victims can also be abusers. And that's where we get into the weird thing with this one, because Chris Chan doesn't help themselves. Because at the same time, Chris Chan's obsession, their. Their autistic, like, hyper fixation is getting a girlfriend, okay? And they're awkward, and they don't know how to do that. And so they keep going. And they're following pickup artist.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

And they're also posting horrific shit about because, again, they live in Virginia and they've been raised Southern Baptist or whatever. So they're posting awful about Homosexuals, about gay people. They're posting awful shit about all this other stuff. So at the same time, there's this like, weird thing where it's like, oh, we're mocking a conservative who also hates women, who is harassing women, but we're doing it because they're a freak and because we can punch down at them.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

So it's that idea of you feel good watching the Klansmen on the Jerry Springer show, and you sit there and you see the rest of the Jerry Springer audience say, look at these fucking freaks. But you're not once asking, why is this person doing this? Why are we doing this? There's never a break there. And so Chris Chan starts to get banned from public locations, like different stores and gets banned for. From churches and things like that for trying to basically like pick up women. Oh, like he's hitting on women. He's like all these different. She's. She's hitting on women. All these different things. And this is get. But part of this is also played into by the trolls who are also reporting Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because Chris Chan is going to these different forums. Because Chris Chan thinks right now it's normal for people who are isolated and alone to turn to forums to find community.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And these exact forums are the exact place that are being used to mine more information to then harass them more.

[Host 2]

Yo, this is crazy sick behavior.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Because what I was thinking and kind of saying out loud is that the people that are doing this for fun, like this is their hobby. Me gardening.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Me baking. The hobby thing I do outside of work and family stuff.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Their hobby is doing deep dive research on a person that they don't like to hurt them more.

[Host 1]

And again, Christian's not a politician.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Chris Chan's not a community leader. Chris Chan's not a business owner. Chris Chan's just some person.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That in many of their cases, they saw one or two things when that person's kind of cringe and then someone said shows up and goes, oh, you think they're cringe? Well, look at this horrible thing.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And then this person who, like, if you were at the store, you'd be like, well, that guy was weird.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That would be it.

[Host 2]

What, us at Target?

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Like, cashier is pretty weird.

[Host 1]

Oh, well, listen, I mean, Christian also has. And it's has the, the vibes of the awkward person you meet at the anime convention.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

It's that sort of thing. I say like the strip mall weeibos, like somebody who's super into anime and swords.

[Host 2]

Is that anime?

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's like anime, but like that. That kind of like emo mix, like anime 2006 type of vibe of like hanging out at, you know, the 711 and then going to the strip mall to go hang out.

[Host 2]

The guy that does the.

[Host 1]

The.

[Host 2]

The fedora guy.

[Host 1]

Yeah, m'lady. Like that type of. But it's all that. It's that type of cringe. But Chris Chan at that time was like all of that combined. And so, like, we have the personification and we can nail this down and we can keep.

[Host 2]

And he's not perfect because he's. He's also has this false and sounds like he's not a great. She's not a great person either. So then they feel vindicated.

[Host 1]

Yes. 100.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And so this goes. This becomes this huge feedback loop where Chris Chan makes content. Trolls use the content. Chris Chan reacts to the trolls. The trolls gleefully laugh. It just loops and loops and loops. Around early 2011, Chris Chan states that she was a tom Girl with gender dysphoria. With many people claiming online that this was a lie, that Chris Chan was actually using this to be able to get a chance to solicit lesbian women on the Internet and in real life.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay.

[Host 1]

This is the early of the. Trans people are trying to enter our bathroom.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And so this again, is a person who is going through something, who is trying to put this out there. And again, this is this way. And I understand. I can already feel people writing this. I. Listen, here's the thing. I got this information from a wiki that is being run by people who are still currently harassing this person.

[Host 2]

Really?

[Host 1]

It has over 2,500 articles.

[Host 2]

It's 2025.

[Host 1]

It's a total wiki that they are currently still running. And so, like, y'all can point. Oh, you didn't cover this little minute. I'm not. This is high level. I don't give a fuck about this person. This person, Chris Chan, whatever. They are like fucking whatever. Like they. They could be walk past me and I wouldn't even fucking notice them. That's it. That's how we should be treating people most of the time. When it came down to this, though, and Chris Chan is going insane.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

This entire time. So 2011 comes out, says that they're.

[Host 2]

Going insane or being driven insane?

[Host 1]

Both.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

In 2016, Chris Chan stated that her name was Christine.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

So she goes. Her official name is Christine Chandler at this point. Okay, Later, Chris Chan. And then it also says fully that she's trans that actually she came out as trans in 2014. Chris Chan then goes further nuts and starts stating that her name is now actually the goddess Blue Heart and that she is actually a goddess herself. And she starts calling herself her followers, the devotees of Chris Chan Sonichu. Now most. She didn't actually have any mostly real followers in her fake little cult. Most of her. Her cult followers again are trolls mining her for content.

[Host 2]

Did she start drinking colloidal silver?

[Host 1]

No, she did not start drinking colloidal silver.

[Host 2]

Oh, get better at running a cult.

[Host 1]

Over time, she goes deeper insane. And she starts to begin to preach that her comics were real.

[Host 2]

Oh. And that Pikachu Sonic comics.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah, the Sonic comics are real. And that all OC Is real. And that actually there's going to be a dimensional merge soon.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And that.

[Host 2]

So she's definitely drinking the colloidal.

[Host 1]

But that everyone. Sonic OC will come to life. 41% of all people will die in the dimensional merge.

[Host 2]

41%.

[Host 1]

41%.

[Host 2]

Like the guy with the glove.

[Host 1]

Guy with the glove.

[Host 2]

The jewels. Bing bang, boom.

[Host 1]

Oh, Thanos.

[Host 2]

Yeah, boom.

[Host 1]

You know what? Yeah, you just kind of pick that one apart. It was around that same time. Now this is where we get to the dark part.

[Host 2]

Oh, I felt like that a lot of this was already really dark.

[Host 1]

No, this is where we get to the part where people feel vindicated. Making fun of Chris.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

August 1, 2021, Chris Chan was arrested on charges of incest.

[Host 2]

Oh. Oh, no. Okay, that's. I don't like that.

[Host 1]

She was charged by the Richmond Police Department of having sex with her 78 year old mother, Barbara, who suffers from dementia.

[Host 2]

Oh, okay. All right, all right, all right. I didn't know a minute. I didn't know that's where this was. I thought we were talking about S. Hedgehog Pikachu. Okay.

[Host 1]

Now again, I'm not going to spend time defending Chris Chan.

[Host 2]

No.

[Host 1]

But I'm also going to point to the fact that these charges came in from the same people that have been gang stalking Chris Chan. Because Chris Chan was having conversations with people and telling them that this had happened. And then those conversations were being leaked to forums. And then those forums contacted the police, which began the investigation. So again, we're back in the feedback loop. We're back in the feedback loop. And this is where I first heard of Chris Chan was just that this person had been arrested.

[Host 2]

Whoa.

[Host 1]

This. I never heard of them. I. Because I wasn't. I had. I had a wife.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

I. You know, I would go out I would leave my house. I would drink, I would have fun. I would go if you know what happened if I got bored during the summer, I'd go tubing with my buddies. I wouldn't go fucking sit all day and be like, oh, I wonder what a fucking trans woman who plays Magic the Gathering and likes Pikachu too much is doing today. I would just leave my fucking house, you losers. But Chris Chan was jailed and off and on between jails and mental institutions for two years awaiting trial.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

The shocking part was eventually she was released from jail. In March of 2023, her lawyer requested an autism disorder of deferred disposition.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Basically they were like, what are we gonna do? Like, her autism is so bad that, like, keeping her in and out itself is like. Is a cruel and unusual.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Now again, there are whole wikis that are dedicated to Chris Chan. The one that I went to is run by Kiwi Farms.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Do you know what Kiwi Farms is?

[Host 2]

No.

[Host 1]

Kiwi Farms is one of the places that has really taken the term lolcap.

[Host 2]

Okay, wait, I'm. I'm gonna just pick something apart here.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Farm.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Cows.

[Host 1]

Yes.

[Host 2]

Did I nail it?

[Host 1]

Yes.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Yeah. That's part of it also.

[Host 2]

I just, I. I'm so deeply, like, that's. That whole Chris Chan stuff that's so up and leaving an awful taste in my, like, brain right now. And like, it reminds me of what we were talking about when we were watching the Grammys about the perfect victim thing.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Is because, like, like this idea that, like, if someone is a victim, like, they have. Everyone expects them to behave perfectly. But also victims can do fucked up shit.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And like, so, like the, like the whole thing of, like, a molester could.

[Host 1]

Have been molested like that. Like, that just.

[Host 2]

It's like what you could be a victim of. I don't know, interpersonal violence. But then you're going and doing something outside of that. Maybe at work you're being abusive or you're. You're committing crime somewhere else. Like, I don't know, like, there's like this perfection that we require from victims. And then as soon as they don't have it, we're like, well, fuck you then.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And so, like, my brain is like, oh, like, this person was clearly so abused, but also they are an abuser. And so, like, nobody's right. No, nobody's right. It's all wrong.

[Host 1]

It's a bunch of. It's a bunch of psychos who exist.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Kiwi Farms, which is the farm where.

[Host 2]

We Milk the low cows.

[Host 1]

Yes. Gross.

[Host 2]

So I don't want to know this.

[Host 1]

Kiwi Farms runs a site called Sonic Chew dot com.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Which is the Chris Chan Wiki. And it's the third or fourth result on Google when you just type in the name Chris Chan. The site has 2678 articles as of February 4, 2025, which was yesterday. And it also has a running notation on it that says, it's been 46 days since Chris Chan has been spotted in public.

[Host 2]

Yo, get. Oh, life, bro. What? They're. They're stalking her outside just like when she was last spotted.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

JLO doesn't even get this.

[Host 1]

No, that's crazy. No, that's what I mean. It's like. That's one of the things.

[Host 2]

It's like you're stalking a mentally ill person.

[Host 1]

Yes. That's because they know this mentally ill person can't ever fight back and won't. And because they feel righteous about it.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because to them, you can't do anything wrong to a criminal. And also, oftentimes, oh, well, a lot.

[Host 2]

Of our criminal justice system.

[Host 1]

Listen. 34 felonies. But listen, when one of the things that, from reading through and scrolling through a lot of this different stuff is like, as Chris Chan came out as trans in 2014 and all these different things, you start to see the bubbling of. On the alt right. Of people being like, oh, wait, look at how these guys are reacting to Christian being trans. We can just attack all trans people.

[Host 2]

Oh, because of the alt right. People were on 4chan.

[Host 1]

Yeah. And on all these different places. And so a lot of these guys, like, are, like, straight up Nazis.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And a lot of these are recruitment tools. And a lot of them are also super young.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And so you have, like, a mix of, like, some of these guys are 35. Some of these guys on these forums are 12 years old.

[Host 2]

They don't have the thing in their front of their prefrontal cortex.

[Host 1]

But also they are being told by people that they're cool for doing this. So the peer pressure picks up on it.

[Host 2]

Let me be the one to tell you. Not cool.

[Host 1]

The reason why I brought this up and the reason why I decided to do this topic was actually because of the WWE Royal Rumble.

[Host 2]

Okay. The Royal Rumble. You watched it. I didn't.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's my favorite Pay Per View.

[Host 2]

It's the best one. We used to do the thing.

[Host 1]

We used to do a drawing for it. And I love the Royal Royal Rumble this year. Sucked. I hated it. But I wanted to watch it because Wait, real quick.

[Host 2]

I just want to discuss how we roll the Rumble.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host 2]

Very. The His. Historically, we'd have a party house party. Friends come over.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Because again, friends come over. Yeah.

[Host 1]

We have friends.

[Host 2]

Then you don't end up on a farm.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

On the Internet. Yeah. So friends come over and I would. It was my personal move is you get a big barrel of cheese balls. Right. And you got to eat the barrel. Cheese balls before people get here. Because we're going to use that barrel.

[Host 1]

Yep.

[Host 2]

And the way we're going to use the barrel that I've eaten all the cheese balls out of is we're going to put all the Royal Rumble numbers in it. And then everybody picks numbers, and then you bet. And then you fill it up with money in the barrel after you take the numbers out. And then whoever wins the Royal Rumble, if you have their number, you get all the money in the cheese ball barrel. Best party ever.

[Host 1]

It was.

[Host 2]

I get to eat all the cheese balls in anticipation for people coming over.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And then we get to put money in it.

[Host 1]

Yeah. I think the last one we did was, like, right before the pandemic.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And then we, like. I think we did one since then, right?

[Host 2]

I think one since then.

[Host 1]

Yeah. But a lot of it, like, we moved further away from our friends, and so it's difficult to come over. But in the old.

[Host 2]

So we're like, I don't want to drive at night.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Also, it's not over. Well, actually, now it's.

[Host 2]

They've.

[Host 1]

They've. We didn't want to be done at, like, Sunday at midnight and have to drive an hour home. But now I'm looking at, like, they're like, Saturdays at. Over at 10, probably. Cody Rhodes, the WWE Champion neck tattoo aficionado, was doing a live event, okay. Where they were doing a promotion for a Royal Rumble, and it was live streamed to the world.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And he was. I think it was Indianapolis. And so he's at Indianapolis for all these different fans. He's standing on stage and he's, like, talking to a microphone, and somebody held up a sign, and he points to. He goes, what does that sign say? Hold it up for me again. And the person held the sign up, and the sign says, christine Chandler loves Barb.

[Host 2]

That's so up.

[Host 1]

Barb is Christine.

[Host 2]

Yeah, I got it.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Context clues.

[Host 1]

The Internet's reaction to this was, quote, cody Rhodes is now part of the lore, because that's how they view it. They don't view it as human beings.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

They view it as lore. And the thing is about Kiwi Farms is Kiwi Farms has been banned from the Internet. It's been chased off the Internet a couple times now. It's had interactions with a streamer named ke who. We've gone there. They exist. I'm not going into detail about them, but there's just a bunch of different stuff about the ways they've gone about it and how they've been deplatformed and replatformed.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And so it's just this cesspool.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And they're happy about it. They're happy about being a cesspool. And like. But the thing is, is from there, other people have grown entire micro industries from IT industries, and I would call IT industries. I'm saying it's hundreds of thousands, not millions of dollars can be made from doing this to other people. Oh, and like, for. Right here, I have a. I'll pull it up here on my screen. But let me just do this so you can kind of half see it. Hold on.

[Host 2]

Oh, YouTube videos.

[Host 1]

Yeah. This is a channel called Kiwi Tapes.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Which I don't know whether or not it's associated with Kiwi Farms directly, but it is called Kiwi Tapes.

[Host 2]

Is that what's her name right there?

[Host 1]

Yeah, that's Gypsy Rose. Wow.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Daniel Larson.

[Host 2]

Don't know who that is.

[Host 1]

Boogie 2988. But if you go through here, this person is making hundreds of thousands of views per video. I mean, there's some of the most popular down here. A year ago, 1.8 million. Talking about Donovan Mayo. I don't know who that is, but the name is TikTok's dream degenerate, Leslie Clark. TikTok's queen of degenerates. The diaper degenerate, Andy Andrew Ditch. $1.5 million. Nova Online. Another TikTok degenerate, Lachey Hinton's. TikTok's worst mother. Oh, that's a million views. And all of these are just TikTok personalities. And it just starts with their video being played. And a lot of it, a lot of times it's people coming over and saying, who is this person? And then they go to YouTube or in this case, they go to Google. Yeah, Google fed me this person.

[Host 2]

Oh, really?

[Host 1]

Yeah. Because we're going to get into the next section here about where we're going to be discussing, you know, some other locales and other people and how it's kind of changed. But a big part of this is, is that when you go to Google, these people are all using SEO to become the story.

[Host 2]

Oh, man. They're so like, SEO.

[Host 1]

Yeah. They are really good at SEO and they are really good at thumbnails. I mean, look at this. This is. These are good thumbnails. I'm just saying, is for, like, for what they want to do. But in this case of Amberlynn Reed, that's literally an overweight person that says the scale stopped working. So, I mean, like, these are people.

[Host 2]

I think she's from the TLC show.

[Host 1]

Is she?

[Host 2]

I think she might be one of the tlc.

[Host 1]

Yes. But I mean, like, this person. Keemstar.

[Host 2]

Keemstar and Keemstar. I know that name.

[Host 1]

You know that name? I know the name. He's one of the Internet drama people from back in the day. The one with a big, long beard.

[Host 2]

Right. Who always has hair. Bandana. Because he had no hair.

[Host 1]

Yes, exactly.

[Host 2]

Look at me. I know Internet stuff.

[Host 1]

He has a podcast.

[Host 2]

Oh.

[Host 1]

With Boogie 2988.

[Host 2]

I don't know.

[Host 1]

That is exactly. Well, touch on it briefly.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

But the podcast is literally called Locals.

[Host 2]

Oh.

[Host 1]

But Kiwi tapes. Another one of these is Turkey Tom.

[Host 2]

So these farmers are getting subsidies from the.

[Host 1]

No, these milkmaids.

[Host 2]

Oh, these milkmaids. Sorry.

[Host 1]

They're milking these people for content. If these people are locales and you are getting sustenance from them, if you're paying your mortgage, if you're paying rent, if your car note is being covered, because you just love to loathe and tell people how much you hate this person. You're a milkmaid. That's what you are. At the end of the day, don't pretend you're otherwise. Oh, no, I'm a farmer, sir. Your first thing. It would be a rancher.

[Host 2]

Sorry.

[Host 1]

It would be a rancher. But you don't keep them in a pen.

[Host 2]

Nope.

[Host 1]

They're loose in the field. You just pull them in from time to time and pull on the teats a little bit and fill up your bucket, and then you dump it out for everybody else. But do you pasteurize the content? No. Their biggest goal is to make sure that they pick people who are poor enough, mentally ill enough, and just disgusting enough that no one will defend them, that they can do this at will.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And so with that, we're.

[Host 2]

This is like the. The craziest abuser situation I've ever heard of.

[Host 1]

And it's. And it's a large section of the Internet.

[Host 2]

Yeah. It's just like. It's this abuser mentality of seeking out these victims and then so many people getting together to continue this abuse.

[Host 1]

And it's normalized. If you go, you can go to TikTok comments. You go YouTube shorts, comments where people like, you'll see literal children be like, oh, this person's a local.

[Host 2]

That's crazy.

[Host 1]

And we'll talk about it a little bit more after this.

[Host 2]

I need a break.

[Host 1]

You do need a guy.

[Host 2]

I need to wash my brain.

[Host 1]

Don't worry. After this, you know what we're gonna do?

[Host 2]

Brainwash.

[Host 1]

Brainwash. We're gonna watch a little bit of Traders. Oh, you promise? Yeah.

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[Host 2]

And we're back.

[Host 1]

And we're back.

[Host 2]

And we got our brains washed.

[Host 1]

We did get our brains washed.

[Host 2]

I just looked at Instagram.

[Host 1]

Yeah, but, you know, we feel a little better.

[Host 2]

I feel. You know what? Sometimes a little scroll through the Instagram search clears my brain in a way of, like, melting it.

[Host 1]

Oh, where?

[Host 2]

I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Brain doesn't work anymore.

[Host 1]

Listen. What? My Instagram search.

[Host 2]

Yours is horrific. Yours is a lot different horrific.

[Host 1]

It's just like, here's Jiggledy wiggledy Jiggledy Jiggle. I don't. Why. Just show me the X Men. I just want to see the X Men.

[Host 2]

Mine is like, it's. It's weird because some days it's like the weirdest stuff in the world, like, AI sludge. And then sometimes it's just like, hey, eating disorder. Yup. It's just. I don't know, it's. It's just the weirdest stuff.

[Host 1]

But let's talk a little bit more about. I want to. This is kind of more of a general discussion about locals.

[Host 2]

Let's talk about LOL cows.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I know. I mean, I do. I do.

[Host 2]

When you pitched me this episode, you're like, I had an idea. People been asking for it. Let's do it. And I was like, local. How bad could it be? I didn't know.

[Host 1]

Well, because, you know, I have this Thing called this basic thing called empathy for human beings. So when I see situations like this, I get mad because I'm like, no, these are people you're doing. Like you're making the world worse every day the way you're doing this. Yeah. One thing I did pull up here, which is the. It's the locale cycle, but also the Chris Chan cycle.

[Host 2]

The local.

[Host 1]

So it starts. We'll start at the top. Chris Chan comes back on the Internet, post a new video. Many laughs are had optimism about new trolling. Opportunities arrive. And then a new sweetheart slash troll appears. Numerous videos and chats are done. The trolls are skeptical about the latest troll ploy. A saga ends. Numerous documents are leaked. The community analyzes a lot of new information that is revealed. Trolls still divided on opinions and then leaving the Internet. Krish claims they will leave the Internet and stick with IRL encounters only, which is in real life encounters only. Trolls cry about dry spells. Trolls also say that Chris has dried up as a locale. And then Chris comes back on the Internet and this is true for so many different people. So I did make a list of some notable ones. Let's start at the top. Daniel Larson.

[Host 2]

I don't know.

[Host 1]

That is a great. Daniel Larson is also someone with mental disability who was very popular on TikTok especially and some other places who would do like jumping jacks. And it was one of those like awkward ones where they're like, I'm doing jumping jacks to end racism. I'm doing jumping jacks for George Floyd.

[Host 2]

Oh.

[Host 1]

And it became this joke that like. But again, he didn't know. He doesn't quite understand that people are making fun of him.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

He just sees raw analytics. He just sees raw content. He opens up and says this video got 200,000 likes.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And so there's a difference between like a Daniel Larson or a Chris Chan or. Or that very mindful, very demure Jules. Jules, like Jules understands the situation and is, is using it.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And Jules knows to block people who are being dicks.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That when, when I've gotten into this content creator influencer world and met more and more of these people, it's so often these people who are famous now and who have these interactions, they have very low self esteem and so they're terrified to ever push somebody away because engagement is engagement.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Onision, which is an episode that people wanted us to do early on that I actually pushed back on and said we'll never do.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Or at least until, well, you started.

[Host 2]

Doing research on it and Then you got really upset and then we. You were like, we're not doing this. And I said fair.

[Host 1]

Exactly. Onision, though, has now fallen so far that the only people that interact with onision are either truly devoted mentally ill people or trolls who are trying to then make for four hour documentaries about onision.

[Host 2]

Okay, so he's a locale. Got it.

[Host 1]

The quartering.

[Host 2]

I feel like that's the guy that peed in the basement.

[Host 1]

Yes. Ha.

[Host 2]

I know.

[Host 1]

Exactly. Well, because you know about it because of Ethan Klein.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Who himself is now becoming a locale.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Because now that I know what a locale is.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

That the behavior is that of a locale.

[Host 1]

Exactly. The quartering is somebody who makes conservative content specifically aimed was huge. On attacking Brie Larson for Captain Marvel is really big on.

[Host 2]

People don't understand that.

[Host 1]

But it's because she literally made like two comments about hey, it's crazy how there's so many white reporters here. And then she also, like, I think posted once or twice, being like, feminism's great. We should maybe.

[Host 2]

Cuz she is Captain America. Right.

[Host 1]

Captain Captain Marvel.

[Host 2]

Marvel, yeah.

[Host 1]

And they were like, this is also. It was a woman stepping into a superhero role as a. They're trying to. But it's the same thing as black stormtroopers. You know, all these different things. The quartering is one of these weird freaks who likes to say that everything is woke now and has been ruined. But at the same exact time, people, not necessarily on the left or just people in general, know that he himself is a sad person.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Who is constantly now fighting for engagement. And whatever engagement he can get is whatever engagement he'll fucking take. And so a lot of his comments are people trolling him. Like people knowing that I think he pooped in his basement drain or something like that. Yeah.

[Host 2]

I don't.

[Host 1]

Something weird. But there's these things that come up from their past that people will bring up all of the time to drive them insane. Next World of T shirts.

[Host 2]

I don't know who that is.

[Host 1]

World of T shirts is from Tick Tock. Again, high functioning autistic person whose name I think his name is Joshua Block. Who had people liked. You know, they're making wholesome videos at home. Got into music, got into DJing, all these different things. Moved to New York, got into drinking, got into alcoholism.

[Host 2]

Do you know who this is?

[Host 1]

He wears a captain hat. Has.

[Host 2]

He gets really drunk and it's really concerning how much he drinks.

[Host 1]

And people legit stalk him, people legit chase him. So there's. You'll see random videos sometimes of him being chased down the street by people who are just like, there he is. Because they don't view him as a person anymore. He's not a human being. He is a piece of content that you can now interact with in real life. Boogie2988, which there are fucking whole documentaries on what a bag of shit this guy is. But he is an overweight man who built up an online presence over the year, who many people thought was very wholesome, who was, you know, eventually outed for being kind of a bag of shit that, you know, abused fans, abused women, abused all these different stuff. And it's still. But the thing is, has no discernmental skills.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Besides existing on the Internet.

[Host 2]

But he's the one that has a public podcast called Locals.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Who the podcast is called Locals because he's leaning into. Well, if you'll sit there and call me a freak, if I threaten to harm myself, all these different things, you'll tune in and at least then we'll get Google AdSense.

[Host 2]

At least he's Barnum and bailing it.

[Host 1]

He and Keemstar.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And the people running the circus. Yeah. This is what he thinks he is.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And again, now we're back into the spin of. Is is Boogie using the people that are mocking and attacking Boogie? Or are the people mocking. Attacking a boogie using Boogie?

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

What part of this toxic, parasitic relationship is going on? Up next, Eugenia Cooney.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Host 1]

So who you want. You can describe her.

[Host 2]

She. She's a. A woman on the Internet. She's started on YouTube, I think probably some worms, but she is. Has a really. I mean, I'm not a doctor, but from the outside looking in. Has a critical case of anorexia nervosa and is just documenting it in real time. The. Her slow demise.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

From it. And it's. I don't look at that. I. If she doesn't pop up on my. For your page. Because I blocked her.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

I block her on everything.

[Host 1]

Again, all of these people. I know.

[Host 2]

But I know she makes content because I've seen things about her for sure. And like, now that you've described to me this idea of, like, what a locale does. Like, I know that, like, if something happens with her, she leans into it. So, like, I know one time it was all over TikTok, maybe last year, the year before. All the years have blended together now. Somebody was like, oh, is Eugenia wearing a diaper? Because I guess it looked like she was wearing a diaper in one of her live streams. And, like, that can happen. You can lose your ability to control your bowels when you have a really bad eating disorder at that point stage of life. And so people were like, oh, my God, she's definitely dying. And, like, she's wearing these diapers now. And so then, like, I, after that happened, it was like a huge thing on the Internet about it. And then she started making more and more videos where, like, she would accidentally show her underwear. You know what I mean? So she started feeding into it so more people would tune in to see if we were going to be able to see if she's really wearing a diaper.

[Host 1]

If the analytics say.

[Host 2]

Mm.

[Host 1]

That 5% of your audience really likes seeing you put gameplay footage on your video podcast.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

And that they're the ones subscribing to the Patreon, then you're gonna put video game footage.

[Host 2]

Just maybe smaller, just not the whole screen.

[Host 1]

No, no.

[Host 2]

Also, can we really quickly segue about the sheer number of comments of people being like, you don't need to show us playing Balatro. We are already playing Balatro.

[Host 1]

While listening, realizing that most people are. Most people are watching us on YouTube. YouTube. Our second screening us made me feel so happy because we've had so many discussions about what the video aspect of this should be without trying to be had a detriment to the audio listeners.

[Host 2]

Because we are an audio forward podcast.

[Host 1]

Audio forward podcast. But you know that that was a big part of it. Yeah, but that's. It's 100. Like, she is aware of what gets views.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And what gets views, gets engagement. What gets engagements, gets paid.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Depending on all these different things. Nikado avocado.

[Host 2]

Yep. Okay.

[Host 1]

You know.

[Host 2]

Yep.

[Host 1]

He just did mukbang videos. And then after, like, claim that he actually had a one up on everybody because he lost all this weight, I, again, these, none of these people have I ever directly interacted with.

[Host 2]

Yeah. I've never seen people a nicado avocado video.

[Host 1]

All of these people have existed because other people have made content mocking them. And that content mocking them became popular enough to then enter into my feed.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

I learned about them the same way I read Moby Dick by a Simpsons joke. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's. I've never read Moby Dick, but I know it's Ahab going after a white whale. Yeah, I know. Call me Ishmael. I know these certain cultural contexts about it because it exists out there.

[Host 2]

I, I, oh, God. I think that it's not so much Moby Dick as it is Mean Girls.

[Host 1]

No. Oh, yeah. Well, no, even better. But the. The Sock mogul, The Sock Mobile, the Kardashian. Rob Kardashian.

[Host 2]

Rob Kardashian.

[Host 1]

Rob Kardashian. There's a. There's an episode of 30 Rock where they keep mentioning Rob Kardashian. Someone says the Sock Mobile. How do I know that?

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And that's 100%. I've never watched the Kardashians. I know who Rob Kardashian is. Could I pick him out of a line lineup? No. But if you ask what he did, he makes socks.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Why do I fucking know that?

[Host 2]

I don't know.

[Host 1]

Because the Kardashians are locals. It's their whole thing. You start looking at how we as people just literally go in and go, oh, there's money to be made. Fucking making fun of this one.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Kanye west is now a Lolcow. Used to be talented. Is now a literal insane person that everybody takes time attacking and making fun of. Alex Jones. LOLcow. Alex Jones is just. Is screaming nothing into his. There is a literal conspiracy theory happening that Alex Jones was a part of to overthrow the United States federal government. He is the fucking conspiracy guy. He. He keep. He doesn't know what to say anymore. So he just takes Ozempic or talks into us. We're out here, there's demons. Nobody fucking cares. Alex Sneako another one these streamers. Once you get into streamers. I don't.

[Host 2]

I don't want to get into streamers.

[Host 1]

Hold on. But when you get into the streamers, like Andrew Tate, all these other ones, there is a huge percentage of the audience who not only hate watches them, but also on top of that is then creating counter stuff.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Once you. How much of misinformation debunking is actually platforming the misinformation itself.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

You know, one thing I think about a lot. I have a video I made a While ago on TikTok that got community guideline violated, but was pointing out that all of these guys who make content to debunk MAGA people to debunk flat Earthers. I'm getting five seconds uninterrupted of this person's bullshit.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

I'm getting five full seconds of ancient aliens garbage. I'm getting five full seconds of somebody telling me that gay people shouldn't exist. I'm getting five full. And then this other thing shows up. But here's the thing. On other platforms, like on YouTube shorts, like on instagram on these other platforms that aren't TikTok. You know what happens, guys? The fucking thumbnail that shows up is just people wearing MAGA hats.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

So suddenly you have made my feed be full of MAGA hats, and I have to understand the context that you are actually milking the elder Millennial. You weird, fucking gross people.

[Host 2]

Oh, why'd you have to. Come on.

[Host 1]

Speaking of milking, Jordan Peterson. Lolcow.

[Host 2]

Wait, why would you say. Oh, speaking of milking. Oh, no.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

Those who know. No, those who know.

[Host 2]

No, I wish I didn't know, but you showed me that tweet.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Where Jordan Peterson thought that the Chinese were literally milking men through fetish content that somebody told him was from China. Ben Shapiro, locale and his milkmaid is Hassan.

[Host 2]

Oh.

[Host 1]

J.D. vance. His career is built.

[Host 2]

How many people are milking Hassan right now?

[Host 1]

They're trying.

[Host 2]

Oh, my gosh.

[Host 1]

I mean, you look at. It's Ethan. It's Ethan Klein.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

It's destiny.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

It's a bunch of alt right fucks at the same exact time. It's like half a Twitter depending on what your fucking algorithm is. All of these people again. We're just all running around. Everybody's a local for everybody. There's people who are currently making content about me.

[Host 2]

I know.

[Host 1]

Hey, guess what? I'm a fucking locale to a couple people.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

I don't engage.

[Host 2]

Remember that time we went to the farm show?

[Host 1]

It was three years ago.

[Host 2]

It was the prettiest cow. Do you remember that cow? Oh, can I tell you this? I saw a cow that looked like one of those cartoon butter cows from the 50s.

[Host 1]

Like it was her mom. It should have been on. It should have been on a box.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

That's like buttermilk biscuits. And there's a big cow with big doe eyes.

[Host 2]

Big eyelash. It was. She was the prettiest cow. I stopped everything. I was like, oh, my God. You know, number one, I never been to a farm show before, let alone seeing the prettiest cow.

[Host 1]

It wasn't a farm show. It was literally the county fair. And you were weirded out that they had farm animals there. I was like, well, part of the county. This farms.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Pennsylvania.

[Host 2]

Well, the tent that we went in said farm show.

[Host 1]

Yeah. That was the part. That was a farm show. Part of the county fair. Well, I went there to get on a Ferris wheel. And then you were like, we don't do that.

[Host 2]

I'm not gonna do.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Ferris wheel.

[Host 1]

Yeah. That's part of your lore now. Add it to the wiki every.

[Host 2]

I think we already talked about how. I don't like first.

[Host 1]

No, I know we have.

[Host 2]

Okay, don't. Also don't make a wiki.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I don't want. That's how. But saying with all these different people, like there are whole wikis. There are people whose whole career right now is about writing down about Andrew Tate. There's people's whole career about writing down about Brett, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, all these different guys. J.D. vance, the Vice president.

[Host 2]

Does Charles Ponzi know that he is my little cow and that I just look to see who's out here? Ponzi scheming.

[Host 1]

I mean. I mean, to be fair, we are also milkmaids when it comes to guys like Jeremiah the Bull Evans.

[Host 2]

Oh, you don't want to milk a bull.

[Host 1]

We milk that bull milk. We milk that bull, baby. Last week's episode, I walked up and grabbed it by that one te and I just started pulling.

[Host 2]

Oh, no, they're going to clip that.

[Host 1]

I'm. You know they are. That's the point. Cuz here's the thing.

[Host 2]

Stop making milk content for these people.

[Host 1]

Oh, I'm making milk content.

[Host 2]

Stop it.

[Host 1]

We getting milked.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

This is not going to be a milk for the audio.

[Host 2]

This is not our making a lot of aggressive hand gestures when I just.

[Host 1]

Want you to know this is not going to be a milk podcast.

[Host 2]

No, it can't be, because I don't even like milk.

[Host 1]

No. Aquarius. Oh, no, I'm not done. J.D. vance, though, is our vice president. Our current vice president, who I'm older than.

[Host 2]

You're a lot better.

[Host 1]

I look so much better.

[Host 2]

So much better.

[Host 1]

Your eyeliner is on fleek. Do people still say that?

[Host 2]

I don't think they say that anymore.

[Host 1]

Well, I'm gonna say it.

[Host 2]

I don't even think I Violet her on.

[Host 1]

You know what? I was lying. You don't have to.

[Host 2]

Okay, sorry.

[Host 1]

It's for the content. Just get milked.

[Host 2]

I don't want to be milked.

[Host 1]

J.D. vance through Hillbillyology. Yeah, that whole entire thing was basically. Yeah, here you go. Fucking make fun of. Make fun of my pill head mom. Make fun of my upbringing. Make fun of these different things. You please mock it and then I can defend it and then we can do a back and forth for this forever. Elon Musk is a local. Elon pretending he doesn't understand things. Elon acting dumb. Elon jumping up and down like a baby and showing his little tum tum is local. So that way you aren't talking about him plugging illegal servers into the fucking OPM offices, Elon Musk throwing the Nazi salute, and then us all discussing it for fucking days on end when it was clearly a Nazi salute, the Roman salute. That is local. Because in that moment, we weren't talking about any other different stuff. It's distraction, but it's also part of it. Because a lot of us, a lot of people on the Internet want to talk about the dumb, inconsequential shit for the lulz instead of the actual fucking things we need to handle right now. Because our sky keeps lighting on fire, our cities keep fucking burning down, and everything seems to be slowly turning into poison, including our discourse. Which brings me to the biggest locale of them all, the one who's worked the system more than any other, the literal President of the United States, Donald Trump. Donald Trump. His entire career is being a local. Donald Trump would go out onto the news and would let the press fucking make fun of him. He would let rich people mock him so that way poor people would think he was on their side. He would go on the Howard Stern show and let Howard and him discuss all sorts of crazy stuff so that way the callers could mock Donald Trump. He would go on WWE so that way he and Vince could pretend like he was the one being made fun of, so he could then show more poor people that he is the true viewing of what a rich people should. Rich person should be. He had a roast where the only rule was you weren't allowed to say he wasn't actually a billionaire. Nothing else. Not one other thing was off balance, was outside of the bounds of being able to make fun of him. The only thing you couldn't say was that he wasn't actually rich. He went and did Apprentice, where he would be yelled at and screamed at and say, you're fired. He mocked Obama and said that Obama wasn't actually a US Citizen and was the fake president. He went to the White House correspondence dinner where he was openly mocked by Seth Meyers and Barack Obama as he sat there in that crowd and had the entirety of the Washington, D.C. establishment media mock and laugh at him. And he used that. He used all of that to build a media system in parallel with our own so that way he could point to them and say, they've always done this to me. Look at them. They hate me the same way they hate you. And slowly the fucking cow put on an apron and now it's milking all of us. What a episode that was. My Jerry Springer. Final thought right there.

[Host 2]

I. I felt the need to obviously just let you go. You were.

[Host 1]

I was almost your preacher. I was on my.

[Host 2]

You were telling us all a story for sure.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I.

[Host 2]

Okay, here's what I have to say. What a crazy episode. Ups and downs.

[Host 1]

You're welcome. That's for Katy Perry. That's for Katy Perrying me all those years ago.

[Host 2]

Katy Perry, local. Yeah, I. I don't know that I learned anything good. I just learned.

[Host 1]

Oh, you didn't learn anything good.

[Host 2]

I. I only are aware now I'm more aware.

[Host 1]

You're more aware.

[Host 2]

My horse blinders to the Internet keep getting smaller and smaller is what I'm saying.

[Host 1]

I. You know, can I tell you what's nuts? What is, is the day I. I turned my camera on, on tick tock and started yelling is. I was aware of all, all of this when I started.

[Host 2]

Oh my God.

[Host 1]

That's the part that's terrifying.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Is. I was like, yeah, yeah, we can get through it.

[Host 2]

Oh, no.

[Host 1]

But yeah, Ethan Klein, total locale.

[Host 2]

Oh, gosh.

[Host 1]

Let me just close it there. Clip that. Okay. No, we're good. We still.

[Host 2]

I don't know.

[Host 1]

No, we're gonna do our shout outs now.

[Host 2]

Okay.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Yes, please. Let's get to like some good vibes.

[Host 1]

No, we just did good vibes.

[Host 2]

I mean, I feel like we did close on a high for sure.

[Host 1]

Yeah, we all feel good, right?

[Host 2]

We feel good.

[Host 1]

We all feel good.

[Host 2]

We're gonna have to put warning in the SEO of this one, buddy.

[Host 1]

No, I'm leaving it open. No, that's the whole thing. Trigger warnings. Yes, that was all part of locales.

[Host 2]

Wait, what?

[Host 1]

Those guys who went after like people who did trigger warnings or all these other different things, like memeing people. Yeah, like, especially from that era of the Internet of like trigger warnings and like it's like 2015 Internet. Because Ethan, Ethan Klein himself did that. He had all that bullshit where he was leaning into the pipeline, the alt right pipeline, and fighting SJWs and all that different stuff. Yeah, it's. You're memeing these people and making new content out of them, trying to meme it.

[Host 2]

I just know that we have listeners that sometimes are putting us on like audio or playing the YouTube.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah, that's right. Don't listen to your kids.

[Host 2]

That's what I mean. Like we need to some type of warning. Yeah, okay.

[Host 1]

Okay. But before that, we don't need a warning for this.

[Host 2]

What?

[Host 1]

That we're going to do the shout outs. We do our shout out to the.

[Host 2]

Hey Huns and the feds and Elon's tier for his Fed tier.

[Host 1]

You're not gonna make one.

[Host 2]

Yeah, you gotta make the Elon tier.

[Host 1]

All right, we'll be right back after this.

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[Host 1]

500.Net that's where you can go to.

[Host 2]

Join our Patreon, which is where I just made a joke before the little break there that it was on the warm up, which is the Patreon exclusive, which is we were joking about how if Elon Musk is listening to our podcasts, that we should make a special Fed tier for him.

[Host 1]

Yeah, that is just.

[Host 2]

That's like double the fed tier cost. It's called like the. The Elon suck it tier.

[Host 1]

Well, I don't think we can say suck it.

[Host 2]

Okay. Bucket.

[Host 1]

I feel like I used to drink.

[Host 2]

At a bar called Buckets.

[Host 1]

Okay, okay. You know what?

[Host 2]

It all booze came in a bucket.

[Host 1]

We're going to get into that.

[Host 2]

Okay. We are.

[Host 1]

I know. All right, let's go and start our. Hey, Huns. And to everybody here, we have, I think a lot this week. And I wanted to say thank you to everybody who's been joining everybody who's been s. Supporting the podcast and supporting us so much.

[Host 2]

It's been really cool, helping us create a better podcast.

[Host 1]

And I can't wait to crash out for you guys slowly. Over a decade. Yes, that's. That is going to be pulled. That right there is 100% going to be pulled for the documentary.

[Host 2]

Perfect.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Remember, send Turkey Tom that timestamp. All right, so Luann Taran.

[Host 2]

Hey.

[Host 1]

Honor that. We have Lizzie.

[Host 2]

Hey, Lizzie.

[Host 1]

After that we have Josh.

[Host 2]

Hey, Josh.

[Host 1]

Just Josh. You know, there's four Democratic governors named Josh.

[Host 2]

That checks out.

[Host 1]

Yep. After that we have Danielle Wright.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that we have Jennifer Z.

[Host 2]

Hey, Jennifer.

[Host 1]

After that we have comic 199-99-9999. I don't know. I don't want to figure out what that number is because again, there's no commas. I love it when there's no. Wait, hold on. It's 1 million 999. Oh, no, I was wrong. It's actually 19 million. Fuck it. I'm a. Thank you.

[Host 2]

I hope that when she was just putting it in, like, she just, like, dropped her phone.

[Host 1]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when the cat would walk across the keyboard. After that we have Kate Shemanski.

[Host 2]

Hey, Shymansky.

[Host 1]

That we have Chana Kudan.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that we have Scaramouche.

[Host 2]

Scaramouche.

[Host 1]

Do you do the fandango Blunderbuss of lightning? Very, very frightening me, I'm just a poor boy Nobody loves me.

[Host 2]

He's just a poor boy from a.

[Host 1]

Poor family fair in his life. From this monstrosity. We're gonna stop there, okay? Okay. Or else we're gonna keep going. You know why you don't. We don't know why I needed to do that for Scaramuchi. There. Or it could be Scar. Yeah, yeah. That's Scaramouche. Because the next person, okay, Their name is undo. Undiagnosed ADHD ruined my credit score. Oh, hey, bud, can you tell Buddy. Hey, bud, listen, I. I 100% get that. I 100% get that, bud. And if you check with a local credit union, that is the credit union is a nonprofit bank, not for profit banking institution. A lot of times they have credit fix orgs that they partner with that might be able to help you kind of figure out some of this different stuff out. Part of it might be about going and finding ways to take a bunch of different credit cards and put them together into one centralized loan and get it paid off in a schedule. There's a bunch of different things there. So undiagnosed ADHD ruin my credit score.

[Host 2]

Hand.

[Host 1]

After that we have Aretha Thornton.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that we have Ash Steinbaugh. Hey, Ash, thank you so much for writing the phonetics pronunciation at the end of your name because it looks like it says Ash Steinbach, but then in parentheses, pronounce Steinbach. And so I nailed it the first time. I appreciate you. You're a great person. After that we have Jon Krantz.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that we have Bull. Ken. Bulkin.

[Host 2]

Bulkin.

[Host 1]

Yep, I know there's a C in there. It threw me off. After that we have Joe Hill.

[Host 2]

Hey, Joe.

[Host 1]

After that we have Maniac. Cuzco.

[Host 2]

Maniac, Costco.

[Host 1]

Cuzco.

[Host 2]

K, U, Z, C, O, A. Cuzco.

[Host 1]

After that we have Riley flavored Snacks.

[Host 2]

Riley flavored snacks.

[Host 1]

That's what it says. Riley flavored snacks. After that, we have Hale Masterson. Martin. Sorry, Hal Martinson.

[Host 2]

Oh, my God. You just had three different names.

[Host 1]

Such a long episode. I went, Miss. Listen. I went Mrs. P. Book Club on this one.

[Host 2]

You really did.

[Host 1]

After that, we have Bonnie Hildebrand.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that, we have Brie xoxo.

[Host 2]

Oh, I also love Brie. It's a delicious cheese.

[Host 1]

And after that, we had. We just had such a really good cheese at Longwood Gardens recently.

[Host 2]

Oh, that's right. For my birthday.

[Host 1]

Yeah, we went. It was your birthday recently. And we went. And we had such a nice meal.

[Host 2]

We had such a nice lunch. And we got a cheese plate, obviously. Gotta get a cheese plate.

[Host 1]

Gotta get a cheese.

[Host 2]

And I was like, hey, I have this celiac, so I can't have any crackers or bread. And they were like, oh, we can bring you sliced apples and sliced pears. And I said, that sounds great.

[Host 1]

And they were. Rose.

[Host 2]

They were the best. I've never touched, like, fresh from an orchard. They probably grow them there or something. It was so good. And there was this cheese. Yeah, we were. There was, like, couple cheeses, but we were fighting over this one. It was so good, y'all.

[Host 1]

We listen, if you want to know where your Patreon money went. No, it went to this meal for Mrs. P's birthday. You didn't see the bill? I looked at that bill. I went, damn.

[Host 2]

But also, as I said, truffles. Let's go.

[Host 1]

Everything fresh grown on Longwood Gardens. Like, a lot of it is fresh. Everything was just so good. They're good farmers over there. That's the farmers we want.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

After Brie xoxo, we have Nicole Murphy.

[Host 2]

Hey, Nicole. Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that, we have one good night.

[Host 2]

One we're all hoping for.

[Host 1]

1. We're all hoping for one good night.

[Host 2]

Hey, hun.

[Host 1]

K, N I T, H, let Night. Like, as in milady.

[Host 2]

Oh, my lady.

[Host 1]

Yeah. After that, we have Jennifer Renard.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

After that, we have cb.

[Host 2]

Cb.

[Host 1]

Just CB hey, hon. Like, CB Radio. After that, we have Alicia Smith.

[Host 2]

Hey, Alicia.

[Host 1]

After that, we have Adam Warnham.

[Host 2]

Hey, Adam.

[Host 1]

After that, we have Arabella Benson.

[Host 2]

Hey, hon.

[Host 1]

And finally. Okay, we have Mrs. P. Underscore. Dark. Underscore. And underscore. Mysterious. Underscore. Pass. Mrs. P's dark and mysterious past.

[Host 2]

This is what you're talking when I said I used to drink at a bar called Buckets?

[Host 1]

Yep.

[Host 2]

It's fun because they would bring out, like, the tin Buckets. That, like, you would serve, like, a sixer of cold beers in.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

But they would just fill it up with whatever drink. I would always prefer skippies. And they'd put it. They'd fill it up with skippies and then they'd give you, like, four straws for you and your four friends to drink out of the bucket together. But me and my bestie, who I'm not going to name, were like, just two straws, please. Or sometimes we're like, we're each getting our own. And that on those nights we just. I'll never forget the time we almost got kicked out of that bar. That bar closed. Their. Their profit margin too low. But we went. We had, like, gone to 7 11, like, a week before and got, like, the Slurpee straws. Like, the ones like, you could whip around. They whistle, you know those biggest drones.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

And so we had them and we're like, let's go to buckets with these. So we put them in our purse, we head over to the Buckets bar. We're like, two buckets of skippies. Please don't. No straws. We brought our own. And then they're like, what is that? We're like. We're calling them suckets. Anyway, I had to stop drinking a long time ago, so. Because I was too good at it. That's what it is.

[Host 1]

I want to. We. We need to have a comment for the end of the. For everyone to write. For the end of the video. Okay. And video and audio and everything else. For the engagement.

[Host 2]

Yeah, for the engagement.

[Host 1]

And so I think that this week I would like everyone to write. Mrs. P, thank you for sharing that epic bucket story at the very end of the podcast that everyone should totally wait after all of the Patreon shout outs to hear.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Because, oh, my God, that is the greatest thing I've ever heard. That's a really long comment I want you to write. Mrs. P. Guys, thank you so much for listening this episode. Do you have any final words, Mrs. P?

[Host 2]

Listen, let's all be nice to each other because the Internet's dark and fucked up.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's dark and it's fucked up, and it's been like this for decades, and it's just very few of us are willing to notice.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

And then mention it as we see it. But. Yeah.

[Host 2]

But anyway, thank you all for listening. I hope you have a great week and I don't know what else to say.

[Host 1]

There's nothing else to say. This. This is too many tabs. We'll see you next week. If you want to hear any more of our stuff, go check us [e-mail] and join our Patreon for even more content. Too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real Too many cons and too many spammers and we're starting to feel like we've got too many, many tabs Open it too many times, remember to smile.