HealthyGamerGG - An Honest Conversation With @PirateSoftware

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

In this livestream podcast, Dr. K sits down with PirateSoftware—the discussions get real and sometimes tense. They explore communication styles, honesty in critiques, and how being straightforward can come off as harsh. Highlights include: How “being an ass” can be part of a creator’s brand and how that can backfire The difference between blunt honesty and empathy Behind-the-scenes on how creators process feedback Live coaching moments where Dr. K helps Pirate unpack intent vs. perception This isn’t just about conflict. It’s a conversation about how we talk to each other and why tone matters, even when you’re being “real.” This Episode on YouTube: http://bit.ly/4ld9RQB HG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3Szt HG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Alo Kanoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. Welcome to another Healthy Gamer Gigi stream. My name is Dr. Aolo Kanoja.

Just a reminder that although I am a medical doctor, nothing I discussed on stream today is intended to be. be taken as medical advice. Everything is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you all have a medical concern or question, please go see a licensed professional. So today, we're going to be talking with Thor, pirate software. And I understand, I don't know the details, chat, but I understand that there has been some drama. I saw that there was drama. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I think we're going to be talking some about that. I mean, I don't know exactly what we're going to be talking about. We're going to talk about whatever Thor

wants to talk about and wherever I feel like talking about. But I think that there's been some stuff that's been going on. It kind of feels like one of these like elephant in the room situations where if we just like pretend nothing happened, it feels like super awkward. But I don't know. I don't know, to be honest. Like I don't really follow like streamer drama very much. But yeah, whatever, whatever happens. So we're going to see. We're going to just talk. So I really enjoy talking to Thor. We've talk to him a couple of times before. It's usually been a great conversation that people have enjoyed. I understand that people are, a lot of people are unhappy with him, more unhappy.

So we're going to just figure out what's up with that. As always, we are, you know, we try to be like compassionate and understanding. That doesn't necessarily mean we're non-judgmental, right? So that's not one of our key values, but our values are to be authentic and compassionate and recognize that like, you know, people sometimes struggle, sometimes make mistakes, sometimes have stuff going on. So we try to be as like understanding of that as we can. And I'd ask you all to be like as understanding as you can. So let's hop in with Thor Lord.

Okay. Yeah, so how you been, Thor? It's been rough. Yeah, I hear that. So I don't really follow much of, you know, internet drama. So are you going to talk about what's been going on? Or you want to, like, not talk? Oh, which is like totally fine.

I don't even know where to start with it. What's going on? I think recently, I recently have actually been dealing with the ferret rescue. So I guess we should start with Vags and recent stuff. We had, and this kind of ties back into it too. So we had two deaths in the rescue this last week, which is rough. you know, and like, I'm finding, because we're at about 60 ferrets now, we hover around 60, and we lose about one to two a month because it's a rescue, and that's kind of how it works.

You get animals in that are really messed up, really bad position, and just kind of how it goes. And I'm finding that I can't emotionally connect with every animal. You just can't do it. It's not humanly possible to do that because you're going to lose them, and you can't, like, absorb that at all times. It's not, like, a healthy thing to do. And I've been going through that through, like, the last couple of them, but the last one really messed me up because it was it was ghost and ghost is one of,

she was one of the first rescue ferrets. A couple of weeks ago, she suddenly started coughing and it turned out she had Hodgkin-like lymphoma. Okay. Which is hyper-aggressive cancer killed her in about two weeks. There was no way out. Couldn't save her, couldn't do anything. We normally get months for that.

We can do chemo, all kinds of stuff, but it just killed her. And going into like the, how that ties in with stuff is we've got, we've got people really pissed off at me over like World of Warcraft from about a hundred days ago. It was on January 14th. And they're mad because I ran out of a dungeon and hardcore well. It was part of this thing called Only Things and

you kind of meme around. You make characters but it's hardcore if your character dies, you lose it forever. But it's a character in a video game, right? So we're doing this dungeon and the call was made to run. But it's kind of before that is we did the dungeon before that in a group and we failed. And it was like

oh shit, everybody's running. Everyone's freaking out and we all made it out alive on that one. So we decided to go back in. Probably shouldn't have done that. When you have a group that falls apart like that, you probably shouldn't do it again. But we went back in. And on this one, a poll was made that was way too big. We weren't ready for it. And then all of us fucked up, like every single one of us did, including me. And I talked about it online for it. But there was a pinnacle moment where one of the guys said, run, run, run. So we all ran because you're letting a guy be a shot color. And then as I ran, And he goes, why are you running to me?

And I'm like, I could be a dick right now and be like, you told us to run, right? I could just like reflect that. Be like, what are you talking about? Like, you did that. And I was like, what do you want me to do for you? Right. And I said, what do you want me to do for you? Look at my mana.

Because it was mostly at a manate, but I had resources that I could have done for it. And I tried to make like kind of a light of the situation. And I was mostly irritated. It was an irritation response, not like a real accurate response. And it turned into this massive meme. And these people in chat getting bad. ban for it right now even. So for over a hundred days now, these people that spam

Mana gem and you're out of resources and run away from your friends and all this kind of shit. And the thing that's crazy about that is tying back into the ferret stuff is when Ghost died, my YouTube got littered with comments saying Ghost died because she was out of mana. Oh my God. That's the shit

that I'm getting every day now. Because these aren't people that give a shit about World of Warcraft. They're not people to give a shit about those characters. They're not people that care about any of this stuff. They just want to hate me and they're doing everything they possibly can to do that in the most vicious and fucked up way I've ever seen. And it is thousands of people. It is not a small amount of people. It is thousands. And I get this shit every day. And then there's people that come in and they go,

oh, it's so funny. I just said man in his chat and I got banned. It's like, yeah, we've banned 50,000 people on Twitch alone for this shit. 50,000 accounts so far for that. And about 14,000 have gotten unbanned because they put an unband request because it's like, oh, I didn't realize it was that big of a deal. It's like, dude, this is crazy. It's been going on for over a hundred days now. It's, I think it's like, yes, it's about over a hundred now. And it's not just that. It spiraled out into other things where people made all kinds of wild ass accusations on me. They tried to say I was a pedophile at one point because I had a friend back when I was like 19 and they were like 17. We're still friends today. We're both almost 40. And they tried to make up

allegations about the two of us and she had to come out or he had to come out and say like no this is bullshit that never happened like what the fuck's wrong with you so like we keep getting like these basically i got gish galloped for a while where it's like what does that mean shit a little weird gish gallop is like i say a whole bunch of lies about you and you can't respond fast enough so it looks like they're true it's basically the way that it felt so it was like a whole bunch of like weird accusations all at the same time as quickly as possible and it's weird because when you fight against them, I found something that's really odd to me is I've never seen this before on the internet. Normally when you ignore stuff, it kind of goes away. You can't ignore things now.

If you ignore something like that, people immediately think it's true. And when it's serious allegations like that, you have to respond. So immediately responded to it, shut it down. When I did that, there was a very large number of people to go, no one thought that was real anyway. And then there was a whole other group of people to go, oh, you're fighting it, which means it's true. I see. Where is this coming from? It's like the most,

it's the most whiplash, strange behavior that I've seen on that stuff pretty much ever. And it, it kind of freaked me out, man.

But yeah, it's invested in it internet trolling. Yeah, I think, I think it's the most invested that I've seen with this kind of stuff.

It reminds me a lot of like Coney 2012, which is just like, people are, they've absorbed into their personality that they need to kill me by whatever means,

right? And when I, say kill, I mean it. Like, I've gotten swatted over this. I've had weird phone calls to my phone where they're trying to like, like set me up to try to get me arrested and all kinds of shit. I've had death threats, thousands of death threats over this, which is just insane. It's weird, man. Like it's, I've never seen this kind of vitriol for something that's just so not a big deal. And for such a long period of time, too. Yeah, so I'm kind of curious. So first of all, that sounds

insane. It is, yeah. Like, you know, I've certainly seen that there are people who... I don't think people on the internet realize how much power they have to really, like, mess up someone. So there's this perception that, okay, if you're, like, successful or famous, that... I don't know if this makes sense. It's like, almost like the things that you have going well in life are in the same. same HP pool is the psychological attacks. But that's not how it works. Right? So, like, I can have

a really, really, really, really strong biceps, but that doesn't protect me from, like, Hodgkin's lymphoma. Like, it just, like, the dimensions of a human being, and maybe people understand this, right? So, like, you can have some dimension of your life going well. And if some other dimension of your life like goes really, really bad, there is a certain amount of resilience that carries through with like the human body. But generally speaking, you know, having a great relationship doesn't make up for a toxic boss. It can help you withstand it.

And I think the other big thing that people don't really appreciate is that like, you know, when someone has an emotional thing that happened to them, like it sounds like you lost a ferret that you were very closely attached to and it had, it's sort of. sort of connected with, and when they kind of like attack you in that way, like, that's very, like, hurtful. Well, I mean, it's intended to be. And, like, I think what it came to is, like, I can identify that and be like, okay, this is an unreasonable attack, right?

There's, there's kind of like reasonable attacks or like, hey, I'm upset at you for, like, legitimate reasons. This is why I'm upset at you. And we go, okay, cool. We either resolve that or we don't resolve it and we kind of go from there, right? And then there's unreasonable attacks, which I think that is an unreasonable attack, of like going in and be like, you're ferrets out of mana.

That's why it died. Like that's, that's designed to just, it's designed to get in your head. It's designed to fuck you up. There's no, there's no someone trying to fix a scenario there. They just want to hurt you, right?

And so I kind of package those in different ways. But yeah, no, they still hit you. There's no, dodging that. So what I'm kind of curious about Thor is like, so first of all,

you know, I don't think that what you're going through is, I guess, I mean, it's not my place to judge, but also like, you know, it sounds like what you did was, I'm still not quite sure. You made a snide comment and then ran away in a hardcore dungeon. I made a snide comment as we were escaping the dungeon and two people died in that runaway. Okay.

And I, and that was it. And then all the people in five, this is the funny part. the person who made the rude comment to me at the first place, it was like, why are you running? He ended up getting caught in some other drama with it. They don't even know what happened. And I stepped away from it because they stepped out.

I was like, I don't want to deal with any of this. I'm out, right? After all that shit. But what ended up happening right after that was it just exploded, man. Like, it just detonated into the sun of just like people being, I feel unreasonably angry. Because to me, it's like, that's a character in a video.

video game, we just go make new characters. And you just, the whole point, the whole motto for that entire thing was we go again. You, your character dies. Yeah. So, so I think that this is where things get like, like if you're open to talking about this, like I think it could be helpful. Because I think there's two things that can be true at the same time. One is that the amount of hate that you've received is not acceptable.

That I think is true. like in this moment I believe that to be true like that's not okay and the way that you are describing the story and the response that you got

there's a big gap there that I think does not so even if it's unfair it seems like there's something missing to evoke so what I'm thinking is like if there's a hardcore raid and people die sometimes there's a weird

situation on the internet where it's like Tinder catches fire and then things get blown out of proportion. Sure. So there's absolutely like an unfairness to that. But I'm also imagining and thinking about my experiences on the internet. And the way that you're describing it seems. So there's no question that things are like objectively, in my mind anyway, maybe I'm wrong here.

But there's no way in my mind that you deserve what is happening to you because I don't believe that someone getting death threats is warranted for anything that happens in World Warcraft. I just don't think that that's like, I cannot envision a scenario in which those two points get connected. And at the same time... I do understand the route that it carried, though? And I can't explain that. Anyway.

Yeah. So that's because I think that like the nerve that you, so what I'm getting is that you struck a nerve, you really pissed a lot of people off. And running away in a hardcore. wipe, like a hardcore raid that is wiping, I do not think is the nerve that you struck. Does that make sense? No. No, it was the fact that I was smug on the way out. Because I made a, like, the comment that I made was made with a smug face, right? Because like at that point, it was like, the, the group had already wiped once. We were in the process of wiping again. And I'm like, dude, like, everybody who's

involved in this is screwing up. Why are you calling out just me specifically? I'm going to make a smug comment and response. And then it turned into this is just this guy's fault. It's just my fault. Shouldn't have made a smug comment for it. Know that, obviously. But the response for this to be 100 days of this and all these crazy allegations being made against me,

that doesn't make sense. So you made the smug comment on stream? Oh, yeah. No, all this was live. Okay, so this was live. And then was there some kind of aftermath? So usually when this stuff happens, it's like, if things go to Twitter, that's when people, I think, really dig themselves into a hole. No, I didn't go to, like, I posted a post on Twitter saying, hey, this is all this stuff.

I said in there like, hey, this, you know, everybody screwed up, including myself, this is everything that was going on. And that was that. And I have the post if we can go pull it up. I'm going to grab it. So what I'm curious about is the people who got mad at you at the beginning, I'm not. not talking about the death threat folks. The people who got mad at you at the beginning, what were they mad about? They were mad that I was being smug. That was, that was like the general initial catalyst for it. The problem was what I ended up seeing is a whole bunch of content creators, because this is a content guild, they took a whole bunch of clips of me to make it

look as exaggerated as possible and then turned that into content all over the internet. And they kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. Since there's so many content creators pushing it at the same time to try and get as many views as possible, it pushed this narrative, and that spiraled it completely out of control. And when I say making content out of it, one of those creators actually had his child on video, with the face splurred out, say,

Pirate Software is a disgusting roach. Like, this is wild shit. That's not a small creator. It's like thousands of viewers, right? So you see this kind of shit, and you're just like, what's wrong with you, man? Like, why are you doing this? I get it.

That's why I put out the video of, like, anything for views. and it's like, dude, I get that you're trying to do this for views, but you're doing it to cannibalize people around you in the same space as you. That's not sustainable long term. Maybe they don't care that it's sustainable or not. But that's fucked up. I don't think there's any other way I can describe that, is to try to cannibalize some other creators so you can get a quick view.

It's nuts to me, man. Especially because throughout that event, I was trying to do things like, hey, let's go make content with this at the creator. I was sending our community over to other people. Like one of the people that actually turn around and just immediately tried to turn it into memes and views and everything like that and trying going on me. We had had the whole community go over there and gave him a level 25 hype train. Like just, hey, you guys should support this dude. He's a smaller stream.

He's got like 100 viewers. Go and support him and everybody jumped over there and it was like $20,000. It was like $20,000 on a hype train, dude. And then immediately switches around and does that shit. And it's like, what? Like, what's wrong with you? Yeah. So I know this is going to sound weird, Thor, but like, I'm getting some missing, missing

qualities here. Have you heard that phrase? So do you know what missing missing means? The missing missing reasons? So, so, I mean, we can take a look at your, your Twitter post. I feel like, so I mean, I think we've actually got a couple of options here. So like, I, I enjoy talking to you. I like you, you. I think that sometimes streamers make mistakes. And at the same time, I think, think that something about what you're describing feels like there's a chunk that's missing. So I totally... I think it's all disconnected, timeline-wise.

Okay. I guess it's hard to describe each individual piece. So the event inside of that dungeon happened, then afterwards I got brought into a call with the person who called me out. I left the call because he was shouting over me. And I was like, I don't want to deal with this. I'm not going to have a fight with you. I don't want to deal with it.

and I left. So that kind of made that more. And then content creators started to make big deal about it. I started to receive death threats in the game from other players. And I said on stream, I'm going to start reporting people for doing this shit. I'm going to go after them. That got clipped, sent out onto the internet. And then when people sent that out on the internet,

they tried to say that I was going after other streamers. When in reality, I was going after the people were sending me death threats. And the only streamers that I reported were ones that had done things like said on stream, I'm going to go to Pirate Software's community and harass him because I think it's good content, saying that live on stream, which is like two or three people. And I don't think that's a wrong thing to report. So they clip that one, and this all kind of got spread onto live stream fail and all these little pieces out of context. I guess the basic way to think about it is, imagine you're driving your car,

and there's a guy sitting in the side seat, and he handcuffs you and takes control of the wheel, and you just get to watch the car drive. and no one will listen to you saying, hey, I'm not driving the car. This isn't accurate. They don't listen to that anymore. They just see your car driving in that direction. So they've taken full control of the narrative at that point.

I can't do a damn thing about it. And that's what happened on live stream fail. And we get that all the time now, too. So like anything that I do on stream, this will probably be clipped out of context and put up on live stream fill as well. I'm not really surprised if something like that is. And they'll bring it up and go and do that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Does that make sense? but there's still more. I would love to hear what else there is. And I think what bothers me the most about this is this is making sense for me on two major levels. One of which I think is, I'm just debating now for a second. Because I think one of the things that I'm starting to hypothesize, I just really have to think about this. Could really add fuel to the fire.

So I have to think about whether I even want to mention that or not. So let's start with just getting more context. Sure. So after all that live stream fail stuff went off, eventually it started to kind of fall away. But then at any time anything happened with live stream fail, anything, or at any, anytime anything happened with the only things, the guild, I'd get blamed for it. They would think that they thought it was part of some kind of a narrative that I would show back up and it was like a bit. The whole thing was a bit and all the hate was a bit.

And I was like, no, I don't want to be a part of this. I'm out. I don't like, you know, I got kicked from the guild. I don't want to deal with any of this. I don't want to be a part of this. And then somebody actually didost Blizzard in the middle of one of the only things raids to kill the Raiders. So they didost a multi-billion dollar company, which is wild. Like, that's crazy to me.

So they didos that. And then I had a ton of people dive in a chat saying like, oh, it's, you did it. Why did you dedos only things? Why did you go after only things? And then I found out, husband gold made a joke about that and he was like oh it's probably pirate software and it's like no that has nothing to do with me and i i said it on stream it's like you can't make those jokes people believe them they just believe it and it's it's not everybody most people realize that a joke

but some people just believe that shit and then they run with it you know and that's that's kind of where that's gone yeah it's it's one of the most disturbing things that i've seen and in my chat right now We're actually banning constant. So this is definitely already up. What are you banning people for? People that come in and say like calling me a roach because the act of running out of a dungeon is called roaching in the game. Still 100 days. It's been 100 days.

People that are spamming, manage them, which is the resource item that I could have used in the game at that time, just over and over again. See, they're just getting banned constantly. It's just like a constant stream of bans right now. And I knew that was going to happen. How do you understand that? how do I understand what? Why that's happening so much. What do you mean?

I'm not sure I understand. Yeah. How do you understand why people keep showing up? You're saying it's happening constantly, right? You're saying that... It happens if I talk about it. It happens if I don't talk about it. This is every day.

It's just more right now because we're talking about it. Right. So I understand that it happens every day. It sounds like it's like... awful. I don't, I don't think you deserve this. At the same time, I think that if we want to, we can try to understand it. Is that interesting to you? Sure. I mean, I think I do understand it. What do you understand? I think it's become a popular thing. I think that's really what it is. It's become kind of like a signpost in the internet, like, hey, stop by and do this thing, because it's

funny. And I get that. Like, I understand that. You know, it's, because for a lot of these people, They've never engaged with their community before. They don't know who I am. They're not really interested in who I am. They just want to pop in and say a thing and then get banned. And that's it. And some of them are chat hoppers from other communities, from creators that don't like me from that event,

and have created negative content about me. So they're doing that, and they come over from that community, and they think that that's part of it, you know, or they want to be a part of that in some way. Some people describe it as parisocial within the community, but to be real with you, I think it's just people that want to be part of something.

And if that's something is just hitting me, like whatever. Okay. Can you show me that? Do you feel, okay, so like, do you, is this what we're talking about today? Like, I mean, I guess. I mean, you want to know how things are going. This is it.

Okay. So, so I think this is, has the potential to be great. And the reason for that is like, I think that there's a lot that everyone who is watching right now can relate to and understand. the thing that I'm concerned about is that I'm going to challenge you in some ways. And the main thing that I'm concerned about is how the way that I challenge you could be clipped out of context, misconstrued, used as evidence that Thor is the worst human being on the planet. Does that make sense?

Like, I'm actually, like, genuinely concerned about that. That, like... I almost guarantee that it will. Right. So then I think we have to make a decision about... So I think that there is a way... I'm hopeful, but I don't know. I think there is a way that if we have this conversation,

it can actually decompress a lot of the emotional energy that's on the internet. But I think a lot of... No, I don't talk about it. Huh? Like, it's, I'd be down to talk about it because to be real with you, it's not really changing anything at this point. Like, the route of trying to ignore it, the route of trying to talk about it, route of trying to reason about it. We've done pretty much everything that I can think of at this point over like 100 days. And like I've sent over to Kronos, Kronos would be there.

I sent him the tweet so he can get it over to you. Okay. Let me take a quick look at this. So, because I think this is like, I'm really sorry you're going through this. And I think that there's a lot that we have to be careful about. And also, I think the reason that we're here is to try to have some challenging conversations. So can I actually, while I'm waiting for that tweet from Kronos, can I, I'm going to go grab an iPad because I think drawing here could be helpful. Sure.

Okay. Yeah, do it up. Okay. So, this is going to be interesting. I was talking about the chair stream that they just got to experience. I know. That's great. So let me see if I can pull this tweet up.

And Thor, let me know, you know, the second that this feels like not a good use of our time, please let me know. Yeah, no. Okay. So this only thing stuff actually sucks. Lots of weird attack posts. There's a couple of links in there as well. Yeah.

They go to the original, like, posts about this stuff. I think you need those for context. Okay. So let's take a look at that. And, and, okay. So, okay, so to start with it, here's my response to the Dyer Mall, raw. From my perspective, I didn't feel I could save anyone else with the resources I had left,

even with the Man ojerman robe cool downs. Since the call was to run, was made, I followed the call and got out as quickly as possible. In every other instance where stuff is at the fan, A shot caller is called a specific target, and nobody died. You call run, run, run. Okay, Yamato pinned the entire thing on me. So this was live on stream, right?

Yeah, all of it was long. And so it was also live who made the call to run? Yes. Yeah, he made the call to run. Okay, so it sounds like here's the hate raid that you're talking about. Okay. So, thank you so much for... We expected, and that's why I wrote in there, I was like, you know, those trying to defend me, don't worry about it.

We expected that to last, like, maybe 10 days. The internet generally doesn't care about things a super long period of time. A hundred days. Yeah. So people in chat, like, spamming and getting banned and, like, that's wild. This is, you were right. This is wild. So we're going to, like, try to understand this, okay?

So this is going to be tough. Okay, so let me start with this. So let's say that you do something, right? Let's say you take an action in life. And the response, would you agree that the response that you are getting is disproportionate to the actions that you've taken? I would absolutely agree with that, yeah. Okay. So let's understand.

It doesn't mean I was in the right. It doesn't mean I was in the right. I do think the response is disproportion. I'm with you. Okay. So I'm going to start by, huh? I don't think it's disproportionate on an individual level, to be clear. I think each person individually that responds with that thinks that they're the only one responding.

with it or that they don't feel like it's that big of a deal because it's just one person and they don't understand scale. Okay. So I concur with that too. So let's start with a couple of like really basic things. So the first is I do not believe, this is a judgment that I'm making. You're welcome to disagree. But I think the majority of people who are on the internet, I would hope can agree that something

that happens on. a stream involving a hardcore raid does not warrant a death threat. That's my first axiom. Okay. The second thing is that even if we think you're an asshole, that the amount of psychological punishment you are experiencing is at this point sufficient. So, and I would encourage, everyone who is watching this, listening to this, if shit gets clipped out of context, and because I think this could, you know, go wahoonie-shaped real quick, please, if y'all are disseminating information about this conversation, please include this part, which is that we're all human beings who do the best, generally speaking, that we can. Do people make mistakes,

absolutely? Are you allowed to get mad at them? Absolutely. Should you do death threats? No. but also I want everyone who is a hater on the internet to really stop for a second and think about what the hate does to you. Right? Like you're hurting another human being, but like for what purpose? Like I think it's just kind of,

it doesn't make the world a better place. I know that in the moment you feel like, oh, I want to put someone in their place. Like, you know, like he needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to be talking to you know, he's like, oh my God, like he did this. And I understand those feelings. I'm not even saying that those feelings are wrong, but also, like, I don't know how else to say this.

Like, you know, it's just a bit much. I don't think it's actually helpful in the long run. You guys are doing all this crap to Thor. It's not clear to me that he understands why you're doing it. Okay? And I think that's the first place where we're going to start. Does that make sense, Thor? Yeah, no, I mean, like, I can understand being mad about at the beginning.

Like, I get it. Your favorite streamer's character died. You know, like, that's going to make you upset. I was smug about it at the time. I get it. You know, I made a mistake in a dungeon. The dungeon didn't go well. Everyone, like two people died.

Like, I understand being angry then. I don't understand thousands, and I mean thousands of people, a hundred days later, still on it. Like, that's really weird to me. That's not something I could get, right? So this is going to be a little bit tricky. I'm wondering if actually, if there's some way that I can, I'm going to play around with. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, they're piling in, though.

That's okay. So I'd encourage everyone who's watching this right now to just give Thor a break for just a hot second. And just don't just reflexively knee jerk, like, okay, like we're going to talk. Can you see this? I can, yeah. Okay.

It is now on stream as well. Okay, let me see. Okay, so hopefully this isn't too laggy because I think I'm just doing a ton of screen sharing. My UI is not the best for this. Okay, hold on. Then here's what I'm going to do. What I'd like you to do, Thor,

because I think this is a bit too much for something going on with my capture. Okay. So what I'd like you to do, Thor, is pull up my stream and watch, mute it, but watch the iPad on my stream. Can you do that? Yeah, I could do that. Okay, cool. Because when I screen share with you, I just start lagging too much.

Actually, maybe this one. Okay. So let's start with this. Over here is death threats. Got it. Okay? Over here is your actions. And the other thing that I want to do here is like I'm going to, we're going to use you as an example.

But I think that like literally every human being on the planet could benefit and is guilty of what I think you were quote unquote guilty of. So I think there's a fundamental thing going on here, which like, I think once people understand, my hope is that every human being who is watching this, I have a couple of goals. One is to hopefully develop a little bit of compassion towards you. But the main goal that I have here is to try to offer some potential, because I don't know if I'm right here, okay, some potential insight into the guess. between what happened to you and the response that you receive. So the first thing is that this is disproportionate, right? So... Yeah, I can see that.

What they're responding to is something in here, in between your actions, like you're evoking a response. So here's your actions. And then there is some kind of equation that maybe has a, let's call it a multiplier. and then over here we end up with harassment. So does this make more sense?

Like if we want to understand why this is happening to you, how this is happening to you, okay. So if we look at it, right? So there's your actions. And then there's like various amplifying effects that result in the level of harassment that you receive, right? Yeah.

Okay. No, I can understand that. So, and then let's like toss in. Like there's another variable here, which is like meming. There's another variable here which is like momentum. There's another variable here which is like content creators hopping on. Content reactions. Right?

So each of these things is an amplifying effect. Agreed? Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you, in your gut, do you think that this plus these things is sufficient to explain, Not say that it's justified, but explain what you are going through. I don't think so. Because I think the Internet would have given up about it.

I completely agree. So I think there's a big variable. There's a big variable. You've tapped into something that people really don't like. Okay. So, and here's what I'm kind of hearing. So I'm going to just like write some things out here, okay? So these are just kind of things that you've said.

And I wonder if this will like, if something will click. Okay, so first thing is that there's death threats. That's bad. Yeah. There's banning a lot of people. There is ghost dying. There is people. That wasn't even the first time that that happened.

Trolling you about this. There's people calling you a pedophile. There's someone's kid calling you whatever. Yeah, the roach thing. Okay. Right. And then the other thing is there's your like making sense of it. So there's like kind of this gish gallop.

There's, um, you said something about these people like dot, dot, dot. Like, you know, these people are like, like, why are they doing this? Like you were talking about like what these people. The best thing they put it is, it seems like some people think, that they want to be a part of that because it's something that's like great of themselves. Like they're part of a story, they're part of a narrative. A lot of people that were engaging with Only Fang stuff were seeing it as like being part of that and they can't. There were some of them kept coming back and saying like, when are you going to jump back in and go and kill the

people that called you out in that dungeon and like they thought it was like a story and they didn't realize like this is this is not like a, this is not like a reality show. Like what are you talking about? Yeah. Right. So I, I think there was a lot of that, which I also didn't expect that. That was really, yeah, they thought it was like WWE. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. Okay.

So, like, you think that they think it's WWE. Right? Yeah. Yeah. They think it's like, they think it's like a show, right? They don't think it's real. And then, so then you use this car analogy of like, I'm, you know, someone else has taken control of the car. Yeah.

And then I'm driving. I'm not driving. I'm being punished. Someone else is responsible. Does this make sense? I would say someone else is fully responsible, but I think with that level, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So when I write- You can't control it. And when I say like someone else has grabbed the wheel, it's more like, that's not what happened. Here's what happened. But like, I guess the basic way to put it is like if, if you're having a conversation with someone, they make an accusation at you. They say, you're a terrible person because of this thing. And you go, well, I didn't do that thing. And they go, that's just what a person

who did this thing would say. Like, where do you resolve that at that point? That's a, that's a great question. So, so do you know people, or have you heard of people who get accused of things and say, I didn't do that thing? But there are other people who can. continue to insist that they did that thing. Yeah, it's called every day that ends in Y on the internet. Okay. What about things that are not on the internet? I don't know.

Like, that seems like a pretty normal thing among humans. Yeah, so has there ever been someone in your life that you felt was, like, had done something? And you were really confident that they had done something. And they were like, that's not really how it happened. I was confident, like I felt that before my life. Yeah. And then I either want like proof or not proof. If I don't have enough proof, then like I'm not going to, what am I going to be mad about at that point?

I guess is the basic way that I usually feel about that. Like if I have an accusation against somebody, I'm going to be like, hey, this is how I feel about this. And then they go, hey, well, here's evidence to the contrary. Let me talk it out. I's generally how that is. I think when I was younger, it was a lot worse at that, obviously. And something I think that you learn over time is like how to conflict resolve in a way that is saying, if that makes sense.

Okay. Yeah. So is sane. When I say is sane, I mean more like conflict resolved based on things that are provable or not provable, not just gut feelings. I'm with you. And how does that work out? Well, when I'm talking to people who are older, it's fine.

Okay. Yeah. I find that for me, there's very few people that are younger that can have conversations like that. There are still ones that will. but I find like usually people pass their mid-20s is when they start to be able to do conflict resolution better. Okay. I want more of a trust but verify kind of approach, which is like, I trust that you're telling the truth from your perspective, but I need to verify your claim before I get mad.

Okay. So I want you to just like, we're going to tunnel down into that for a second, okay? So let me just understand this. So like people who, your method of conflict resolution sounds super reasonable, right? It's like, if you've got proof, then you push forward. If you don't have proof, you kind of let things go. And then when I ask you, how does that work? And you're like, well, if people are mature, it works great.

But if it doesn't work for them, they're immature. I wouldn't say they're immature. I know you wouldn't say that. I'm using that word. You use the word young. But I think the implication of that is that there's like a value judgment on people who that works for and a value judgment on people who that doesn't work for. Oh, definitely. Yeah, no, I absolutely do a value judgment. Like when somebody comes in and goes,

you're this, this, and this. And I go, no, I'm not. They're like, and then they just spew a bunch of vitro. I just ban them, right? Like, that's, that value judgment at that point is like, okay, this is a person that is not able to have a normal conversation. They don't want to have a normal conversation. They just want to spew some like garbage. They don't care what's true. They just want to fight about it. And then I, I don't want them here, right? And that's where I do that kind of evaluation of like, are you cool enough to, like, are cool-headed enough to have a conversation, or do you just want to shout what you saw on Reddit? You know, that's really what that is. So what is you,

so this is the, the trolling that you receive is fine, but for the people who got upset with you, what is your understanding of the most rational reasons why people got up? upset with you. Let's forget about the cold for a second. Huh? You know, 100%. It's because it was smug. What does that mean? It means that in this situation, in that moment, it appeared that I didn't feel remorse. And people thought that I didn't apologize. They thought that I didn't care. They thought that I wanted those characters to die or some weird shit with that. But no one stopped to actually ask me. They just saw the clips out of context that made it look like I was a big villain, right? And like, I get that. But if you want to talk about that stuff, if you want to believe that,

you should probably just come ask me. So hold on a second. How do you know that they formed their opinions based on the clips? Because they repeat verbatim, the same message over and over again that we can only find on places like live stream fail, the Reddit. It is copy-pasted information, the same exact messages, the same exact thing. They had like the same phrases over and over again. again for this kind of stuff. And the only way that you get that is if people are getting it all from the same source. Okay. You've done more than during your treat? Yeah, and I said so in social posts, but nobody cared about those. I think that was one of the weirdest things about it is like, I said, yeah, I could have done more in this. I said everybody made mistakes in there,

including myself, but no one cared. Okay. wanted to continue the drama. So Thor, when I point this stuff out, do you notice anything with all the stuff that I've written out? Like, does anything kind of pop to you or not so much? Trying to deflect from, like, personal ownership over something, but I don't think I'm doing that, so I'm not sure. Why do you say that?

Because you put I'm not over in the right side. Okay. Yeah. But that'd be the only reason for that. Yeah, so I think what, I think your, your assessment is somewhat correct. I think there's like a couple of things that are like blind spots is what I would call them. So the first is that I've noticed that this is what's so tricky about this. I think that objectively you're correct.

I don't think that anyone deserves the degree of harassment that you've received. I hope people stop. I really wish they stop. And I mean that genuinely. And at the same time, I notice, just the way that I hear you speak, I notice certain blind spots or narratives that are constructed. So the first thing that you- It's because I'm nervous about talking about it, to be clear.

Like, it's a defense mechanism entirely because of the fact that this has been going on for so long. It involves all of my staff. It involves my family. It involves my general well-being. it involves my physical security at events. It involves all that stuff. And it makes me nervous to talk about it. So it's hard to articulate in a time like that without, I don't know, it's just hard to articulate, if that makes sense.

Okay. So that begs two questions. One important one, which is, are you sure that we should be talking about it? Well, I mean, it's already too late. No, it's not. I'd rather talk about it. No, it's not too late. We can stop right this second.

I would rather talk about that. And the reason why is because I find, and this is a very serious part, right? I find that if you don't talk about this, it's not going to help other people, right? Like, I get it. I'm going through it right now. But this is something I think needs to be talked about

because the amount of hate and abuse that's going on from this isn't just going to happen to me. Okay. I know that's going to happen to somebody. I agree. I think that you are pretty unlucky here. But I think you are the unlucky person who is tapped into something very fundamental in human psychology that has like triggered the shit out of people. Likely.

Yeah. Okay. So I want you to notice what just happened. Okay. So now that you're insisting that we talk about it, fair enough. I said, hey, I'm noticing something about your narrative. And what was your answer? That I was like deflecting.

What do you mean? unless we're talking about something else. No, no, no. We just talked about it. I said, hey, I'm noticing something about your narrative. And then you said what? That I was, like, deflecting or trying to push off blame onto somebody else. Okay.

Yes. And then what did you say after that? I don't remember. Okay. So then what you said is the reason I'm doing it is because I'm anxious. Yeah. Oh, you know, 100%. Right, I'm worried.

There we go. Okay. Right. So the interesting thing is that, like, you're doing something really interesting, which is that, like, you provide a very logical reason, which is very compassion-inducing for why you are doing the thing that you're doing. Right? So, like, who in their right mind, when you say, yeah, the narrative that I'm creating,

is because I'm afraid for my physical well-being. Like, how is that challengeable? It's not. 100%. Yeah. So I think what you are doing is something that is, I don't know what word to use, has a negative valence to it. You're doing something that's bad in the way that you respond to it makes it unchallengeable.

Like you're doing this thing over and over and over. again. Okay. Right? So the way that you're... Huh? ...negative about that, though. What? That's what I'm trying to understand. I said, what about that is negative? That's a very excellent question. So now we get to something really interesting about human psychology. So if I'm pissed at you and you take away my reason to be pissed at you, what do I do? You get pissed, more pissed. Absolutely. So how, So you're saying that basically it's created a bunch of anger and that by having a situation and talking about it and showing like, hey, this is what's going on, it's created a scenario where people are more angry because they don't have a vent. They have a way of getting it out.

That is where we're, hold on, let me just fix this real quick. Because I wonder if you're going quiet again. So I just jacked you up. So I think that is the first step to it. Right. So there's something that you were, there's something that people deflecting is maybe a good word. There's something that you're deflecting. That then triggers people to like, because they're not getting what they want from you. Does that make sense? Yes. It's an alarm going on. So now the question kind of becomes like, I don't know if this sort of makes sense, but I think when I hear your story, what I hear is. and this is what's so tricky about it is like I think everything you've said is logical

because you're you kind of base things on sort of proof right um but i i'm noticing that like the way that you accept responsibility is like one percent of what your narrative is so you say that you were smug yeah right i was super smug about it and i think that that feels like a tiny, tiny, tiny part of your narrative. I think it's only a tiny part of the narrative because it's the flashpoint. It's the moment that started, right? Sure. So it's hard to make that larger in this story.

But yeah. No, I mean, I was smote. I think it sounds to me like, and like now I'm going to say something that's like, this isn't, I don't really, I don't know what better word to say. I think it's not the flashpoint. I think it's the fuel. Okay. So you think that was a catalyst for something else?

I think you've, this is, this sounds judgmental, but I think the way that you responded in that moment. So you said early, early, early on, you made some kind of like joke, right? Where you, like someone said run and then you said, I don't want to be like, I don't want to piss them off. So I'm going to make a joke instead of saying, bro, I ran because you told me to rain. run. You remember when you said that? Yeah. So I think that there's like little things that you're doing that so if if I made the call to run and then you ran and then I was like, bro, why are you running? And then you say you made the call to run. How is that? Why would you not say that? Right. Like the reason I'm doing this is because I was listening to you.

Yeah, no, legitimately, that's the one thing, and I've talked about this before, is like, if I would have just turned around to be like, you told us to. If I would have just said that, I feel like this whole thing would not have been like this. I agree. So I think that the interesting thing here is that I suspect that there are a dozen other things like that. So just the way that your narrative sounds to me, and let me know if, like, this is robbing you the wrong way or like you think I'm an asshole or if this is like, please, please let me know. But I think that something about this story has something that I would call the missing, missing reasons. Okay.

I'm not saying. For me, it's whatever it is, it's a blind spot. Yeah. Because for me, I'm just like, this was me being smug. And it exploded out of control. And for me, on this side, it just feels like a lot of content creators leaped onto it because it got popular to talk about. It became kind of like an it issue.

And it generated a lot of views. Yeah. So. And it just kind of went nuts. And so I want you to just pay attention to that for a second, because you're doing it again. Why did this blow up? Because I was smug? No.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Why did it amplify? Who's to blame for the amplification? The amplification I could generally say is Reddit and other content creators. Like, I feel very steadfast in that opinion on that. I don't think this would have reached the audience that it did or became, become as large as it was on the internet, without that. You're talking over 100,000 viewers worth of people. Yeah.

So that I think is 100% true and is indicative of what the problem is, right? Because what happens, what I'm noticing that you're doing is like every step of the way, you made one tiny mistake. But the way that you are reacting, I don't think a fire can get this big without a content creator's interaction. And the way that you're responding to each of these situations is only fanning the flames. And I think, like, you're saying this, right? Like, you've tried everything.

Like, you've tried doing nothing. You've tried doing nothing. You've tried doing everything. And nothing seems to be working, which I know seems like nothing is working. But if you are consistently getting the same result and you are altering certain variables in that equation, what that implies is that there is one variable that's not being altered. Yeah, and that's why I look to the outside source, because I'm like, I've altered the way that interact with the line.

But the outside source is relatively consistent because people go through drama all the time. And maybe this is a leper to eat my face moment. Maybe this is a moment where I can say this now. And a month from now, when I'm in your position, I'm going to be like, holy shit, was I wrong? Right? Like, like maybe, maybe this is not the way. But your whole point is that the amount of hatred that you're receiving is disproportionate not only to what you did, but is even outside of the norm of what other content creators experience. Like, I've been through shit. I've had people get on my case and stuff like that. And then stuff usually calms down, right? For most people, most of us, we all get these kinds of problems where people like are really mean to us. I don't think they understand.

No snowflake thinks it's responsible for the avalanche. But what I see is a guy who is everyone thinks they're snowflakes and you're getting swamped by an avalanche. They don't understand that. I think people on the internet don't now know how to understand it until you are on the receiving end of hate from thousands upon tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. and people who are just piling on once the bully starts kicking you when you're down, the internet is like a thousand other people who are like going to get in a lick because it feels good. And I think you're doing something that is like absolutely hitting a trigger point. And I suspect that what you're getting into, just with the way that you describe things,

it's very much like I did this tiny thing. And then all of this stuff is happening to me that I don't have any. influence over. And objectively, these people are wrong. Objectively, I am correct. And when someone does that and says, I am objectively wrong, I mean, I'm objectively right and you are objectively wrong. This is not what happened.

This is what really happened. And by the way, all this shit is happening to me now. It's like a very, like, it's a very, like, does you kind of get what I'm saying? I'm trying very hard not to say. certain words. I don't see it that way, though. I don't see it as like an objective, that.

I see it as, it's more of a deep emotional response from people that don't care about me or they don't care about resolving the situation. They want it to continue in some way. Yeah. So I think, I get it, but like I don't want to be a part of your story.

Right. Right. So I think that's what's fueling the flames. You don't see it that way. Yeah, okay. I don't know how that... Right, so when I live... Why would you care for so long? We'll get to that in a second.

But I think that this is another thing, which is that you're thinking a lot... The... Okay, so we're going to talk about something called mentalization. Okay. So when you imagine what is going on in someone else's head, I don't think you are doing a nothing you're saying is incorrect, but I think everything you're saying is pretty incomplete, right? So you're saying like, okay, there's a parasycial aspect.

You're completely right. Like, you're right about everything you're saying. I just think the main mistake, if you can call it that, the cognitive process that is really getting you in trouble is incompleteness. So I don't understand. I know. You're trying to sound. I know I'm like 99% confident that this is going to be

very hard. And I think this is why you're in this situation because this is like, you're like, I don't know what the fuck is going on. I don't know. I've tried everything. What they're saying is just not true. The reason that I know that these people are not valid is because they copy past each other. Right. Do you see how, like how much. I think, I think that's not everyone, right? There are some people that are just upset because they saw me as like some pure holier than thou content creator, which that's not realistic. I'm a human being. Hold on.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. No, I don't, I don't, I don't agree with that. No, I definitely do, because there are some that have messaged me with stuff like that. There are definitely people that felt that. Yeah, I know they felt that. But I don't think that you're an ordinary content creator. I don't think you're an ordinary human being. I think you're a super human being. What? Yeah.

How do you think about yourself? I don't know. I don't generally. I think therein lies another problem. Right? So if you don't think about, I know it's weird, like I'm sending you a lot of weird stuff. Right. So I think that if you don't think about yourself on a regular basis, the version of yourself that you will have on your mind that then projects out to the outside world is not going to be an ordinary human being. I think you project exceptionalism. I'm not sure I understand. But I can understand that.

So I think that this is going to be a situation where it's going to be very hard and I'm going to do my best. So the first thing is I'm not right. But I think that there's something about the way that you construct narratives. There's something about the way that you are objective, but other people are subjective. How do you know that you're not the subjective one? and they're not the objective ones. I absolutely am subjective. I don't think that that's the case at all.

There's no way that everything that I say is objective. That would be ridiculous. I think that would be absurd. And if we go back and listen to the conversation that we've had from now, would we be able to predict that's the way that you feel about yourself based on how you've been talking? I don't know. I think the answer is going to be no.

Right? So when I ask you, why do they feel this way? How do you know that they're wrong? You say, well, objectively, you rely on proof. And if you're dealing with people who are mature enough, then they understand that. But if there are people that are younger than you, that means that they don't, these young kids nowadays are not proof oriented. There's parasocial. And the tricky thing about this is that you're not wrong. So I would agree with every single one of the statements that you've made. But I think that this defense mechanism for that. 100%. But defense mechanism meaning what? No, it's a defense mechanism on my end. The reason why I did that is because this is, it's gone on too long. And it's gotten to that point where it's hard for me to have a response that is not an emotional response. Like we talked about this before is like whenever I feel like I'm having an emotional response, I just stop and I walk away for a moment, come back to it. But with this, I'm getting back into that old habit of like, I need to deflect this. I need to defuse this. This is kind of a wall in front of this. you want to, you know, and you just kind of put it up there and walk away from the scenario.

And that's literally what that is, which is, here's my evidence, take it or leave it. And the reason why it ends up being, here's my evidence, here's how I feel people are, here's how, this is the objective fact of this, is because we've had tens of thousands of people bringing that up and it's just turned into like a callous, if that makes sense. I think it makes a lot of sense. How are you feeling about this call, by the way? Like, is this okay? This is fine. Okay.

Yeah, no, this is so. So, and I think this is, this is what you're, I, so here is what is contributed to this situation, which doesn't mean that you did something wrong. I don't think you're bad or anything like that. But I think that this, this tendency to walk away from your emotions and lean into logic, I don't think works very well. So I think, like, remember how we said that something that you're doing about the way that you respond to this is like triggering people harder.

They're getting angrier and angrier and angrier. They're not letting up. Whereas like most content creators, people basically move on to trolling someone else. So anytime a content creator, you know, like reaches out to me and they're like, hey, I'm really struggling. I'm like, the best thing that you can do is wait until they move on because the internet is an ugly mob. And they, and this is the other thing that you're running into, which we haven't talked

about. I do, I do think that what you project is exceptional. And one of the things that the internet absolutely loves is to take a, an exceptional person and make them bad. So we love tearing down people who are good and we love redemption arcs as human beings. Right? There's like, this person thought they were the best thing since sliced bread and we're going to fucking tear them down.

I've been on the receiving end of that a lot. And then the flip side of that. Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. And to be clear, I don't think of that about myself. like at all. Like, I'm constantly going over anything that I can do right, anything that I can do wrong. I remember all of my own mistakes and beat the shit out of myself for them whenever I do that. Just like I feel like a lot of people do. I believe, I believe you do that for the stuff that you are aware of. Yes. You can't do it otherwise, right?

Like how can... For the things that I'm aware of, you're sure. 100%. So I think that there's... I don't think I'm better than other people. I do think that that it's funny because you key on that. There's a lot of people that brought that up. And it's like, I never said that I was.

But you'll see there's a number of people that are in there that are getting like banned for this shit right now. It's like they come in and they're like, did you know that he worked at Blizzard for seven years? Like, yeah, that was my career. And I'm proud of that. So of course I'm going to talk about that because it gives context to talk about other things. around the games industry, which is what we do on the stream. Yeah.

So I think sometimes the things that I talk about in regards to those types of things is misconstrued as arrogance or boasting. When in reality, I'm just trying to give context. So that is the problem right there. So I want you to listen to this phrase. This gets misconstrued as arrogance, but in reality, it's this. That is the most arrogant statement on the planet, bro. Like, tell me I'm wrong.

Okay. I don't see it that way, but all right. Right. So, oh, yeah. So you don't see it that way. You're wrong. No. Right. I'm right. So you're subjectively, you're thinking, you're blind spots. You're wrong. Like, I'm objective and you're subjective. No. This is not the way it's perceived. It's, this is really the way it is. I think that turns into, I guess, conversational PVP for the sake of it, if that makes sense?

Absolutely. It absolutely turns into conversation. That's what you're doing. When I say, I'm doing this for context? Yes. When you're saying other people get it wrong and here's the reality of it. Like go back and like we can like rewind the stream and just listen to the structure of your sentence. That is me being adversarial against people that are trying to.

to make it out like that is an arrogance thing, that it's a boasting thing, like I'm trying to push somebody else down. That is absolutely being adversarial against that kind of speech. I'm not, I don't think it's, so I think there's a construction in your speech, and there's a theme. If we listen, I know it's kind of hard, but you do things that are objective, right? And subjective, no, human being. Which ones do you represent? Which ones do we hear when we hear you, talk. I'm not sure I understand. Okay. So, for example, if we, if we were to code statements as subjective or objective, okay? Okay. Like, so coding a subjective statement is, let's say like,

I'll just give you an example. You know, why are people getting mad at you or you said something about, you know, I rely on proof. So if I were to code that... It doesn't mean you don't. I know. I feel like somebody could take it that way, but that's not... No, no, no, no. I'm not going there.

So if we were to code that, that gets object... That gets coded as objectively, right? That's an objective statement. Okay. Sure. So here's a subjective statement. I feel like this is unfair. Okay.

Have you said that at any point? Yes. Over this conversation? I feel like I have said that because I was talking about the response is not proportional. There we go. Hold on, hold on. No, no, no. That's beautiful.

The response is not proportional. That is not a statement of subjectivity. That is a statement of fact. Okay. Do you understand how I'm coding it? I guess I could see that. I mean, like, that's me making an objective statement when I guess somebody else could say, no, it is proportional. You deserve this sort of a thing.

I don't. I guess the thing is, is I just don't agree with that stance. So I state it in the way that I do, right? With that. And I don't know if that's wrong, though, because I feel like there's a limit that seems sane. And by saying, I mean, correct. And, like, not. Absolutely, man.

There's absolutely a limit that seems sane. Yeah, and I think it's going to be different for everybody. No. Whatever their version is. No, it's not. Because you didn't say there's a limit, because you use the word sane. Sane is like an objective thing, right? Sane is like crazy insane versus sane.

That's not a subjective thing. That is an objective kind of assessment. Right? So like if we say that someone is insane, we're not saying that they're subjectively insane. we're saying that they are objective. Like those words are about an objective dimension. But I'm not, I'm not sure I understand the direction of this. And I think the reason why is because when I'm talking about these things of an objective stance

of this is too far is because the statements that people are making are really fucked up. Like, I do think that it is correct to make an objective. statement to be like, you shouldn't be sending me pictures of my house from Google Maps. I agree. I agree. I don't think that's wrong. So, great, great. So I, so I, so let's take a step back for a second. Are you sure this okay? Yeah. No, I'm just, I'm, I guess I just don't understand the direction of subjectivity versus objectivity. I'm with you. I'm with you. So, so I'm slow playing it. So, so let me just, let me be explicit. So remember, this goes back to what you are dealing with is disproportionate,

right? So there's a variable that's missing. Something about the way, and now I'm making an objective statement, okay, is not about blame. This is about assessing the way that you are existing on the internet and the response that happens to you. There's something in here objectively that is disproportionate. Yes. Okay? And this is completely, and even if we say, oh, here's the reason and you're to blame for it,

I don't think that there's any reason that we can come up. up with that justifies other people's behavior. Does that make sense? On some of these cases, yes. Yeah, okay. So. Yeah. I think there is a limit. Now what I'm trying to get into is precisely this, which is your, and this sounds arrogant, but I'm going to say. So it's clear to me that you have blind spots about this, because something about the way that you are navigating, you have a rubric for how you interact with people. and something about that rubric is fucking triggering people.

So what we're trying to do, so how did you feel when I said that? I thought it was funny because, like, I guess for me, it's a, kind of a dumbing down of the scenario, right? Of like, yeah, it's just, it's triggering people, but it's so much more than that. But yeah.

Okay. I think it's leading them to do things that, I don't even understand the reasoning behind it on a lot of that stuff. Right. So I think the end game that I have here is to hypothesize what could be responsible for that gap. So in my experience, when something like this happens to someone like you, I think you're a decent dude.

I think you made, it sounds like you made a smug comment and you ran away from the raid. It's a fucking hardcore raid. So I don't know what people were expecting. you know like when you play wow hardcore and you raid sometimes things go bad and people die like that's just what happens in a wow hardcore raid like what were people expecting but i think what you're you're tapping into you're tapping into some energy that is like that i think you're blind to you don't understand it doesn't make any sense and my point is that the reason

it doesn't make sense to you is because of the way that you were looking at the world which is that if you pay attention to your statements, your statements are coded very objectively. And so then what happens is once you start looking at the world in terms of proof or not proof, I don't know if you're right, I don't know if you're wrong, but the question then becomes, how do two people that think that they are both operating based on reality

who disagree, how do we patch that up? How do we bridge that gap? I mean, generally what I see with that kind of stuff is you, the way that I like to do is you kind of present evidence and stuff, you talk about it, you find out if you were right or if they were right. And sometimes you're both wrong, right? Like, it just comes out to that. You learn something. You move on.

Sometimes when it's like, I find it to be disingenuous, right? And I will use that as an objective term. Yep. I find it to be disingenuous to have a person come in that is not. interested in a resolution that just wants to cause a hateful situation. Absolutely. Right. And that's that's most of what I'm getting with this.

And when they can't get me, it makes them angrier. When they can't hurt me, it makes them angrier. When they can't do anything about it, they can't shut down the stream, it makes them angerer. We get tons of people that'll come in and say things like people still watch this guy. It's like, yeah, we still have a massive community. People, you know, hanging out here and doing stuff. So like I feel like when I make those objective statements, it's because I go,

this is how I have this situation for communication. And if your only reason to be here is to cause problems, it's not going to be compatible. But if you want to, and I tell people all the time, it's like, if you want to talk about this, we can talk about it. But if you're just here to copy paste something off of Reddit, cause a scene and then get banned, like, we just don't care. It's going to ban you.

Okay. So I think what makes this. That's why I'm objective about that if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So I think what makes this really challenging is, is not that you're wrong. I think what makes this hard is that you're right.

Okay? So when you're wrong, it is easy to show a correction. Right? Yeah. When you're right, but incomplete, it becomes harder to show a correction.

So, so like, let's say that I, I'm trying to think of an analogy. It's like, if I develop a product that is crappy, that is successful, that happens to be successful, it is way harder to understand how that crappy product is crappy. Does that make sense? And I'm not trying to analogize you to a crappy product. I'm really just using this as an example of, I mean, I love your content. Like, I really do. I think you're a great guy. Like,

I don't think you deserve this. I'm in your corner. Okay. But you say, see what I mean. I'm just using that as an example of like if you make a crappy video game, right? And then like people play it. That doesn't make the video game good. And trying to explain to someone, hey, I know you all think that oblivion is an amazing game. I'd give it a 10 out of 10. But oblivion is the start of the decline of the Elder Scroll series. Ablivian is the first step in the wrong direction to what ended up as Starfield. That is something for a lot of people to have difficulty understanding, right? Because oblivion was a great game. It's a 10 out of 10. But if you want to really understand the glory that was Elder Scrolls, you have to play Moroind.

Chad is very divided on this topic. Chat is wrong. Like, they're wrong. It's okay. Sometimes, sometimes I get to be right and they get to be wrong. It's very objective statement. Absolutely, right? So, and how do people respond to that? I mean, it depends on the context, right? I think that there are moments where you can make statements like that, and it's funny.

Yeah. So I think what makes this hard in your situation is that everything that you say is correct. I just think it's incomplete. So what I'm basically getting a sense of is that you tend to, since you move away from some of this, like, emotional energy and you lean in. So the first thing that that happens is once you suppress your like emotional search, your emotions still influence your logic. Okay. Okay.

I can see that. I think in times of deep stress, that gets more so. 100%. It gets very, very, very good, right? So it's not that the emotions stop. It's just that we start dissociating from them. Dissociation doesn't mean shut down. It means unaware.

And then what happens is the emotions will shape our logic. And it's not that they're illogical. It's that it becomes more selective. Sure. I can see that. That makes sense. And so I think what's going on is like the story that you tell me has what I would call missing, missing reasons. So I know that's confusing.

There's a great post about it that I think a therapist made many years ago. But sometimes when people tell stories and like bad things are happening to them, they are leaving out things that evoke the response of the other people. So when you tell a story that other people are just like crazy and it's the internet

and it's parisocial and people are reacting, there's something missing there. I don't think you can evoke, I mean, it's very possible that you are just incredibly,

incredibly unlucky. I don't think that that is a good attitude to take. I don't think it's a good descript you. No. Right?

That removes any chance of fixing that. I suspect that there is something around your smugness. I suspect there is something around the way that you perceive yourself as ordinary, but you act anything but. Maybe even some degree of, because I don't think you're ordinary. Like, I don't think that's objectively correct. Like, I think you're exceptional.

Like, if we look at human beings, I think you're exceptional. Like, if we look at the range of various things, you are not ordinary. If we look at the bell curve of content creators on Twitch, you are not ordinary. I would say in terms of that maybe, but like I just feel like a normal dude. I feel like a normal dude that sits in a chair for 12 hours a day.

I think that that makes a lot of sense. I think there are parts of you that are, and it sounds like you sometimes push these away, I think there's a lot more there. I said, you know, I feel like a normal dude. I think that that makes sense. But I think there's a lot of feelings there about being a normal dude that maybe are not super conscious.

Okay. I'm not sure I understand, but I think that's kind of the point. Yeah. Yeah. So, and the challenge that I have is that I'm making statements that are unfalsifiable. Right? So if I say subconsciously, you don't think you're a normal dude. How can you ever disprove that?

So this is one of the frustrations with my professional. is that sometimes people like myself will make these statements, right? So I do this carefully where, like, I'm not saying this is correct. I think it's worthwhile for you to explore how you construct a narrative. What people, and this is where I think what happens is when people react to you, you look at the objectivity. I think that's a mistake because nothing you perceive will be objective. The human brain is not capable of objective perception by definition.

I do think there is an objective reality, and I do think that's something that there is value in striving for in many situations, because something I don't like is perception is reality. And I know that perception is reality for the grand majority of situations. It has nothing to do with the objective reality of what is truth of the situation, what actually has occurred or anything like that. It's how do I feel about what occurred? And that's something I've always felt. And that's kind of like a big thing for me. Great. I love it.

I agree with you 100%. And I would love to talk about that with you maybe today, maybe on a different day, just about the philosophy side of it. But I think my point is, so you're right. So like there's an objective reality. Agree. And perception is not objective reality. So when you look at objective reality and you conclude that this is what really happened,

what are we, where are. are we? Is that objective reality or is that your perception? That is my perception. Very good. Right. But when I talk about it, I think the disconnect is this. When I talk about something and I say it with, I, you know, this is what happened. That's from my perspective.

And I think maybe I'm not doing enough in terms of explaining this is from my perspective. This is how I feel about it. Because I don't talk that way generally. Yeah. That's not what you should be doing. So I think this is key point. This is exactly it. So I think this solution space seems hard for you to grasp.

You shouldn't be further explaining yourself. You should be further trying to understand why people feel this way about you. Right. So this is not about what is objective. It is about what someone else's subjective perception of you is. and that will give you insight into how you were perceived, which in turn will give you an insight, an ability to bypass your own cognitive biases of your own perception.

So if I want to understand what I really am, I have a certain amount of information from myself, right? This is what I think I am. but then I have another very valuable piece of information, which is things other people's perceptions of me. Now, this is where things get really hard because if people are sending you death threats, it becomes very difficult

to get a reasonable perception of who you are from a heavily biased individual, right? Yes. Yeah, no, it's impossible at the point I think. I get that. So not impossible, right? So this is where it's really interesting, but sometimes the people who hate you the most can still be very valuable information about how you exist in the world. I agree with that. No, I'm super agree with that. And the classic example of this is like in a relationship where there is one person who is narcissistic.

So anytime we're dealing with narcissism, it becomes really hard for that person, like, this person will perceive other people as hating them. I think this is, I'm not saying you're narcissistic or anything like that. And I think that there's a difference between a narcissistic family member who believes that I lost weight to make them look bad. There's a huge objective gap. What? Yeah, so I lost weight. So I feel insecure about,

person a feels insecure about their weight person B loses weight person A gets mad at person B for losing weight so that it makes them look bad that shit happens I think there's a weird it's it's a wide gap between death threats that you're receiving which I really do hope stop and but my point is that I think the mistake you're making is that you say I'm smug and then you go on to all of these other issues whereas I think you're really downplaying, whether consciously or unconsciously or whatever, maybe it's even objectively correct. I don't know. All I know is that when you do that,

people are not going to be happy with it. And when they respond to you, we're not talking about right or wrong here. We're talking about efficacy or not efficacy, trying to understand where they're coming from with their complaints as opposed to. So basically steel manning their argument

instead of straw manning their argument. Okay. No, I mean, I think the thing is that that's what I tried to do in the beginning. And I have not done that since. I think it's been, I think I stopped doing that about 30 days in. I tried to sit down and talk to people about it.

I tried to ask people like, hey, why are you saying that? And each time that I tried to do that, like I said, the callus kind of built up, it would end in just screaming the same thing over again until they get banned. And I haven't been able to get like a valid real conversation out of it. I think the biggest thing is that I've only been able to receive really polarized responses.

I either get people from our community, they're like, no, you're the best. You didn't do anything wrong, which is not true. Like obviously I screwed up in the dungeon, right? Like that's obvious and I was smug about it. Like, get it. And then there's the other side of it, which is you're a piece of shit and you deserve to die. And I'm like, dude, these are so polarized. what am I supposed to get?

Yeah. So the solution that I am suggesting works with humans. I don't know if it works on the Internet. That's a very different thing, right? No, absolutely, right? So in the real world, when someone gets mad at you, like, I want you all to think about if people behaved in the real world the way they do on the Internet, shit would be crazy.

That's actually already started happening. So like this has spilled over into people interacting with me that way in real life. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's like, you know, even if someone does something, I don't know what Thor did to hurt y'all. But I don't think he did very much objectively. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

Like so that that's where like even when I say that, the way that I attach a statement to it, maybe I'm missing something. Right. But my understanding of the situation is that you were. kind of an ass about something involving a wow raid. And then my guess is that you were kind of an ass with the way that you responded to it. Because you're really good at being an ass. Like in a way that I really appreciate.

But you're like, you're an ass. So it's what makes you. That's the same. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So like what I love, I've sent you a couple of DMs because like I'll see your shorts or whatever and

I'll be like, this is fucking amazing. That assholery that you exhibit where you have these kind of base takes is like what makes you amazing. And when that energy, when that kind of emotional energy comes out where you did something wrong, and then I think what happens is the way that you frame your response is it's not that bad. I didn't really do too much. Everyone made mistakes. Like, it's like you'll say you make a mistake, but that's not what comes across. Right? So if you and I have a fight. Right? So I feel like I'm being direct and other people feel like I'm being evasive.

100%. Okay. So I want you to think about this for a second. I've always had problems with that. I can tell. I can tell. 100%. See, that's the thing. I couldn't have this conversation with anyone else because it was just polarized and obnoxious every time I try to have that conversation. And yeah, no, I get that. I've had issues with that my entire life because it's hard for. for me to be like, if I say something, I go, hey, here's the thing. And they go, oh, he's hiding something. And I'm like, but how else can I say this? Yes. And that's, yeah. So, so, so I, I think that's huge. So now I'm going to ask you a question. If you believe you are being direct, and other people believe you are being invasive, evasive. Yeah. What kind of model would you develop

for like shit happens on day one and what are things going to look like on day 100? it's just going to get worse, right? Because the more that you are, you're pouring a liquid on the fire, you think it's water, they think it's oil. And things are just... That's why I tried...

This is... That's why I tried all those different, like, things along the way of like, hey, we'll talk about this, we'll do this kind of a thing. You know, try to communicate this in some other way. And I just, I feel like I ran out of options. Jesus. Yeah, so, so I really do,

and maybe it's like me giving... you the benefit of the doubt and this will trigger people as well as well i think you've done the best that you know how to do i think you've done a really good job in managing this really shitty situation i feel like it but i don't know if that's true right like i i don't know so i think what's true is so i think most human beings do the best that they know how to do and oftentimes we don't judge people based based on what they're capable of we judge people based on what they do So like, like, we, when, when someone is hurtful to me, like, you just, I'll give you, I know it's kind of a weird abstract sentence. So when someone, when I'm in the emergency room, someone is high on crystal meth and calling me an ass fucker or whatever.

Sorry, maybe that needs to be, maybe that was too much. That's, that's fine. I've heard it. That's medicine. Okay. So, right. So, so when they say things like that, like, the objective impact of those words is, like, that's what they're doing, right? That's, like, that's hurtful.

And at the same time, the most peaceful and harmonious way to go through life is to do our best to, like, understand where this person is coming from. Right? This person is crashing off of crystal meth. Their dopamine transmission was 10,000 times normal two hours ago. And now they are completely dopamine depleted. The more that we can do that, objectively did that. they did was unacceptable. And also, like, if we treat people that way, like, it doesn't work well. It just doesn't work well. I'm not saying it's fair. I'm not saying it's just. I'm not saying it's

right. I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying it's like it doesn't, it's not harmonious. And I think what's been going on with you is, is first of all, people are not doing that for you. They're doing the opposite, right? People are not saying, hey, this guy is like, so for all the accusation. So like, I remember seeing something on LSF about people accused you of cheating in Outer Wilds or something. Like, this was one of the things. I don't know if that's true or not true. People seem to think that they have very convincing evidence of that. I don't really get into it. I still need to play the game. Please, no spoilers. My point is that in those moments, even if they're objectively correct, I think the right thing that we need to do as humanity and the Internet is

cut people as much slack as we can. And this is where a lot of people will say, oh, we cut them playing. No, you guys don't cut them slack. Like, we don't. Let's be honest. On the internet, when you feel judgmental towards someone, the most knee-jerk reaction is to not cut them any slack, but to dog-pile them. That's what happens. There's this very primitive human psychology thing of like, when one bully is beating someone else up, we're going to get our kicks in, especially if it helps us feel good. Now, the problem, Thor, is that I think you are guilty of exactly the same thing. We all are. It's a human deficit. Sure. Okay. But you're guilty of it too, because I think what you say, hey, I was just smug.

That's not how it felt to other people. I think that's, that was me dumbing it down. Yes. To a flashpoint moment, not the full story. Absolutely. So, and that's where you're, you're screwing up, because you will dumb down your flaws to one word, but you will extrapolate and hypothesize other people's flaws to the nth degree? I don't think that that is a fair assessment. Okay. Yeah.

And I don't feel that that's a fair assessment because that's, I don't feel like I do that to people. When I'm talking about, hey, these are all the things that came after this, that's because that has gone, like the moment was like a day. The attacks for that have been 100 days. So there's so much more content to talk about in terms of how much negativity there has been. I rescind my statement. Yeah. So I accept that there is, okay, so here's how I would modify it.

So I think you're right. I take that back and I apologize. Yeah. And I think the perception from my end is still the same. Okay. Right. So we heard a long story from you, even if it's a, it's, it's, uh, congruent with reality. One word of what you did wrong, smug. And then 99 words of what other people did wrong. Even if it's correct. I'm, I'll, I'll, I'll agree that it's correct. My point is that when a human

being shows up and says, I did one tiny thing wrong and everyone else did 99 things wrong, the reception that they're going to receive is not. going to be pleasant. The thing is, is I don't know if that's always the case. It's not always the case. Because what I've found more often than not is I'm trying to give context of like, here's all this stuff that happened from my perspective. This is the response that the person has from it. At this point, because it's so exhausting, it's like take it or leave it. It's like, here we go. You have the thing. You're right. You're 100% right that it is. So I think the big difference is who the person is. Yeah. I can see that. So if you were,

human being who was physically assaulted on the street. You could say, here's the one thing I did wrong. Here are the 99 things they did wrong, and everyone would be on your side. You, however, have some combination of luck or the way that you interact with people, which you kind of said, like, you've struggled with this. So I see that this is like, it's like a difficulty with mentalizing. is what we call it. I don't know what mentalizing means.

Mentalizing is the ability to understand other people's thought processes and internal experience. Now, I know this seems confusing to you because you are really good at cognitive calculation of those things. But there's a big difference between understanding their internal experience and calculating their internal experience. Okay. You're really good at calculating, which is, I think, what you've managed to do. You use that, and you're not alone, by the way. A lot of people have this. I have this.

Where we have a lot. We calculate our way to understanding other human beings instead of like understanding their subjective experience. It's cognitive empathy versus emotional empathy. I think you have to do both sides of that. You do. 100%. Yeah.

And like, no, I, because I, I, I, I, I, I, I, because I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, for other scenarios, I feel like I have done that. Yep. Of like, hey, I can understand, hey, this person is doing something illogical, but they're doing it because from their perspective, it makes the most sense. Like, you explain the person who's, like, high on meth, right? And they're having a freak out and they're screaming stuff at you. What they're doing doesn't make sense for everyone else around.

But from their perspective, maybe they feel like they're getting attacked. Maybe they feel like all this kind of stuff is going on, right? So I understand that side of that completely. But with this scenario, like I said, it was exhausting at this point. point, that's fallen away. The layers of, of, I guess, giving a shit about empathizing with attack people that are coming in is just gone. I completely agree. So what I'm, what I'm sort of, this is more of like a long term thing where like, and I think this is also where like if any of y'all are in this situation, right, this idea of like, I keep on doing what I think is the right

thing and it keeps on messing things up. And I think you had a brilliant way to, like, for me, it clicked. I think I'm being direct. Other people think I'm being evasive. So I think for people, if you all find yourself in a situation where you're like, I'm doing everything right. And by the way, this is like

in the line of a narcissistic defense. Right? So, so a narcissistic defense is one where you think you're objectively correct and people around you are like wrong. So that is like... I don't think I'm objectively.

correct. I'm just giving my... I'm not saying you are. I'm saying this is in line with a narcissistic defense. So I'm talking about the general principle, not about you. So, and this is just what happens. So this is what all human beings do. When we feel attacked, we tend to, the narrative that we portray is shaped in a certain way that, like, we don't really control. Like, so if I'm, if I'm talking to a narcissist, I think, so let me just take a step back because I got to do a better job of this. So the first thing is that the narcissistic defense mechanism is something that all human beings employ. In yoga, it is called the Ahamkara or the ego. So like we all, in order to function in life, it is very difficult for us to look at ourselves objectively.

Now, what makes it harder to look at ourselves objectively is how much people, attack us. So the more people attack us, the more our emotional and mental reaction is to defend. In the same way that if I was standing next to you and I tried to punch you, if I made a fist and I tried to punch you in your abs, your belly would harden. You can't even control it. You couldn't, you had to have no choice but to harden your abdominal muscles as I tried to punch you in the stomach. In the same way- have some, but yet. In the same way, when we are attacked by someone, and this is true of all streamers, because we get attacked a lot, our narcissistic defense must compensate. For every action,

there is an equal and opposite reaction. I'm not calling you a raging narcissist. Please, no one take that away, okay? Oh, they will. I know they will, and that's why I'm going to call attention to it. But this is something that if they're calling attention to that, they're missing the point, if anyone is listening to this conversation and still thinking this is about how Thor is a bad y'all are fucking missing the point of this conversation. What you are going through Thor is something that every human being on the planet will go through in some form. Every human being on the planet will do something where they make a mistake and a lot of other people. And you all, like you guys tell me if you're, I'm wrong, chat.

Have you ever been in a situation where a lot of people made mistakes, including you? And then you owned up to your part, but people dogpiled on you anyway. And when they dogpile on you anyway, you did something stupid. You behaved like Thor did, and you defended yourself. And you said, hey, objectively, here's what I think happened, here's my perspective. And the more you try to defend yourself, the more angry people got with you. I would be stunned if this has not happened to every person in chat at some point in their lives. And so what we're talking about now is this cycle, this idea that, okay, I'm objective.

Other people are subjected. Because I absolutely think you have that bias, by the way. We all do. But like, I think it's very prevalent in the way that you talk. The really tricky thing there, and I have to acknowledge this, is it's not clear whether that is actually what's in your head or that is just the way it comes across because it absolutely comes across that way. So when I said you owned up to this one thing

And then you talked about all this other bad stuff that happened to you And you're like objectively I disagree I did this one thing and I literally have 50,000 people and I was like okay you know what you're right But even though you're right What people are going to hear their limbic circuits of the brain Are going to hear yeah I was smog and all this shit happened to me And it's not my fault that's what people are going to hear

And when people hear that That's weird for me, legitimately. Yep, I know. Because like, from my perspective, I'm like, hey, you know, I screwed this up. This is how this went down. Here's my perspective on it. And then the response is, you didn't take any accountability. You're a piece of shit.

Why won't you just say it? And I'm like, what? That doesn't make sense to me in response. Yeah. Like for me, that's such a disconnect between those two conversations. And this is not about right. or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust, true or not true. Now what we're talking about, like, so we're a channel that talks about the mind.

So you're saying, I said this, someone says you don't take any fucking accountability. And you're like, that is a disconnect with me. I completely agree. That is the one thing that I think we can all agree on, is that whether they like you, dislike you, whether they like, whatever, the one thing we can all agree on is that there's a disconnect. Other people think that you're disconnected. You think they're just, it's not even about you.

or other blame. There is absolutely a disconnect between the kind of response that you're getting and what you're doing. There is a disconnect for other people between what you did and what you're owning up to. That's my point. So like when I started this conversation, the key thing is that there's a circle that's empty. That's the only way this can be explained. And the question is what's in the circle? And what I found, if y'all find yourself in a situation like Thor, I find the hardest

thing is oftentimes the best thing to try to do, which is to try to understand when someone says, I don't take accountability, or they say, they accuse me, they say, you don't take accountability to do your best to try to understand that. And I think you've done that, because it sounded like for the first 30 days, you engaged with people in conversation. Yes. And when you And I found that the reactions started to get more and more. I could use the word unhinged, but it really just comes down to more and more unbending of, I just want to make an attack. I just want to go in the chat and make an attack.

I just want to go on your YouTube and make an attack. It wasn't in good faith to have, like, I want to have a conversation about this. It was, I just want to be here to throw a punch and then leave. So I think that there's two things that I hear there. one is once again this pattern of the more I do something right, the more wrong someone appears to be. Right. So I tried to listen to them. They became more unhinged.

They became more unbending. So that can absolutely be the case. But do you see how this is another scenario where you behaved correctly and someone else behaved incorrectly? I feel like that is an incorrect response. Because the first thing that will be brought up is they always say, you didn't accept any blame. I go, here's in this post where I said that. No, no, no.

I'm, what did you hear me say? Maybe I misunderstood. Yeah. So I'm just pointing, your statement was, I tried to listen to people and they became more unhinged.

Yeah. So I want you to code. I think that the people that are still. No, no, don't worry about the people. Hold on. Okay. Code that sentence.

Look at the grammar of that sentence. I did. Because it's objective? I did something right and they did something wrong. That's the way, that's what I hear when you say those words. And this could be where your disconnect is. I'm not saying you're wrong, by the way.

I'm just saying here's another statement that you made. I tried to talk to people. They're crazy. I don't think, I think there's an objective reality there, though. When someone comes in and says, you didn't take any accountability for this. And I go, here in this post, I said I did this wrong. Here on this video, I said I did this wrong. And they go, that never happened.

Like, okay, okay. What am I supposed to do with that? Very good. Now we're getting somewhere, okay? So, I know it's crazy. I know it's crazy. I know it's crazy. Okay, so bear with me, Thor.

Try. Don't read chat. Focus. Ignore chat. Okay. So here's the problem. You're not wrong. That's what's so wrong.

That's what's so hard about this. So when you engage with people for the first 30 days, I think there's absolute, let's think about it, okay? There's a selection bias. Who's going to come talk to you? The raving people. I think it was the initial wave and then it calmed down to people that were kind of willing to talk. And now it's just the raving.

Whatever. So like when you open yourself to conversation on the internet, let's be honest, the likelihood that you get a balanced person who really is willing to take a step back and admit their flaws and understand how they're wrong. not like projecting something on you is low. That's not what the intention of me talking about it was when I was engaging in those conversations. The way that I feel about that a lot of the times, you're not going to get through to the person who's angry on the internet. Okay.

You generally won't. They're not going to sit down and have a valid conversation with you. They're not interested in resolving that. Most of the time that person doesn't care, I find. With that in mind, if you don't say anything, I feel that on the internet today, if you do not say a thing in defense of yourself at all, everyone believes the only voice in the room,

which is the one that's negative. Okay. That's exactly what happens. So I put out a video about all this kind of stuff, release that, and immediately everyone was like, oh shit, maybe this is too far. And I got a whole bunch of people actually sending me positive posts for the first time since all that happened.

Cool. So the stance that I've taken on all of this is I go, here's what I saw from my perspective, this is what's been going on to me. and then there's kind of a camp of people that say, fuck you, I hate you. And then there's a camp of people that go, that seems reasonable.

And I just kind of hung out with people to think that it's reasonable. Because I don't know if there's another solution to that scenario. Yeah. So I think that there is another solution to that scenario. And the thing, so that's what I'm trying to point out to you is there's a certain way in which you communicate, which I don't think is wrong. but gets consistently perceived, like we mentioned earlier, direct into evasive. So when we, like, you just, and I don't know if this makes sense, but I want you to like,

I don't know how to say this, but you're a programmer, so maybe this will make sense. I'm trying to put in language that I don't understand that I hope you will, because I don't know what I'm talking about. Code your statements. I tried to talk to people. I presented proof. They became unhinged. So like if we code that statement, I did something right, they reacted wrong.

What I hear frequently in the way that you communicate is that structure. Now, what makes this so confusing is that I'm not saying that that statement is factually incorrect. And if you, if anyone who is dealt with other human beings knows this, you can tell another human being something that, is factually correct, and they cannot give a damn and double down. In fact, that is usually what happens. So what I'm sort of getting is like, this is the disconnect. I do wonder whether you are blind to, there's a certain kind of accountability that people are looking from you,

that you're not giving them. That doesn't mean. What is it? So this is what I'm digging into. So one is like, one is, maybe you're, maybe it's in the way you're giving it. So it's not that you're, I'm not saying you need to take more accountability, okay? I don't, I wasn't there. I don't know what happened.

But my point is that when I see this pattern, there, and it could be just like, it's like a perceptual thing. Because the way that you're talking is making people more upset. Which doesn't mean that you're wrong. It's just like the way that I'm communicating. communicating is ineffective at resolving this issue. So a simple thing, and I'm not saying that you should do this, but I'm curious about this, is I've noticed that you tend to be incomplete. I mean, sorry, I've noticed that you tend to be complete with your answers. So when I look at that X thread, right, you try really hard and you do a great job. You're like, here's what happened,

here's what happened, here's what happened, here's what happened, here's what happened. Have you ever tried to be incomplete with the smugness? Just talk about the smugness. If I try to be incomplete with it? Incomplete with the whole story and just focus on the smugness. What does that mean? Let me agree. Like not give any context whatsoever?

Yeah. Let's say yes to that. I don't think that's, I think that's a bit of hyperbole, but... Just an emotional response? No, just say, hey, guys. So basically, you know, when you tell the narrative, you start with like, I made a mistake, everyone made mistakes, I was smug. And then there's a lot that comes after that. How would you feel about just ending it after that first paragraph?

I hate that. Okay. I have like an immediate, emotionally angry response against that. Very good. Because it feels like idiocracy. Okay. it feels like that's too long didn't read i don't need all those words when few words do gooder that i hate that shit like i i i super hate that kind of communication of like like

there's a lot of people who just say like oh you should just say my bad guys no that does not in any way explain a situation that doesn't tell you any information that is real it's it is hand waving for the masses in a way that is disingenuous to what has happened and disingenuous to the people that are involved. I feel like to do that would be just me lying for the sake of lying so that people would fuck off. I really hate that. That absolutely feels like idiocry to me.

100%. I don't like doing hand-waving gestures for the sake of hand-waving gestures. I don't like that at all. And I don't know if that's a wrong thing to feel, but that feels fucked up to me. No, I think it's great. I could go on the internet and just be like, oh, yeah, my bad guys, but like, that's not real. It doesn't make sense. I think that's great.

So I think what I liked about that response, so my hope, so we're not here to like rehab your PR, right? We're just here to have a conversation. And at the same time, over this whole, over the last two hours, there's something about the way that I hear you talk that rubs me the wrong way. there's something about the way that you talk that seems dismissive. So I'll tell you where that... I agree with that.

Right? So it's like, I made a mistake. We all made mistakes. Okay. Right? So there's something about your sentence construction. It's like, oh, yeah, Thor, I'm sorry, I cheated on you, bro. I really do love you.

You know, we both have flaws in this marriage. Like, do you see what that... We're not married, but... You see what I mean? Now that you've cheated on me. Yeah. So there's something, and I don't think, and this is what so tricky is like, I don't think you're wrong.

Like I don't, and what we got from you. The way that I feel about it? Yeah. Is it, I don't even know if the word, it doesn't feel like a lie. It feels like. Appeasement. It feels like appeasement for the sake of appeasement. Yeah.

It feels like they're asking for something that they know is not real. And I'd be giving them something that we both know is not real. for the sake of giving something that's not real so that they stop being mad about something that doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, so I think out of, so, and I think the key thing there is I was trying to figure out what won me over when you said that.

And I'd be super curious if like, how chat reacts to that as well. I'm not looking. I don't think you should, but, because I think that that's what people are missing from you. Is like when you, and this is what I think makes you great, is when you actually,

Your best content is not when you're logical. Your best content is when you're emotional. And the logic supports it. Like there's logic there. But you're like, look, I'm not willing to do that. Could I do that? Absolutely. I just don't think that's right.

I think that this is like a stupid fucking appeasement world. I'm not going to be like all of the other streamers who post bullshit apology videos for the sake of appeasement and virtue signaling. I think that I kind of fucked up. I'm not done. This is a fucking hardcore wow. people die in hardcore wow like I think you've been accused of making fun of another major something like that too like I saw some post about that I don't know if that's true or

not true but look it's Twitch I we can talk about that if you want and and and and yeah and like it but like that's fine right like I mean I fucking I play Dota like not as much as I would like to anymore and I got to play Expedition 33 but when I play an online video game, especially in an MMRP where tensions are high, I'm going to blame my teammates. I'm going to blame my teammates. I do it all the time. Right? And if I say something like that, it feels dismissive.

But something about what you just said, you're like, this is the line in the sand that I'm drawing. I've tried my best. I admit I have blind spots. Some of this stuff is a disconnect for me. I think you've got to really work on that. right so i would like i'm thinking about how what that practically looks like but i i really think that something about the way that you construct your sentences which is objective on one hand but i think it's also i think it can be both i think it's objective and i think there's a little bit too much dismissal

it feels that way when i listen to you so when i when i'm talking about this kind of stuff what i'm trying to get across is this seems like the most realistic scenario. This is what I saw from my side. It's not me trying to cast blame away from myself. It's going, no, we all fucked up. That's the reality of the situation. We all fucked up. And I think what people want is they want me to go, no, it's my bad. But my bad is a lie. So, so sure. I don't want to do that because it It feels like I'm being asked to give bullshit for the sake of giving bullshit so that other people can be like, oh, I love this bullshit. We're cool now because we both realize that we've both bullshit at each other in a situation.

It's not real. None of that is real. It's hand-wavy. I'm with you. I'm with you 100%. Now, I'm going to ask you a question that please don't clip this out of context. Or if someone clips this out of context, please add someone post underneath with a reply this portion, okay?

So you say you do your best to look at it objectively and you conclude this is bullshit. And I'm not saying you're wrong. Okay. So I look at it objectively based on my subjective experience. Yes. So let's assume for a moment, let's assume for a moment that you are a narcissist. Okay. That's going to get clibb.

I know. I know. But it's like, I think this is really where the money is. And this is not just about you. This is about everybody. Myself included. I run this exercise with myself all the time. If a narcissist goes through the process that you go through, they will end up in the same place that you end up.

Which is likely why people make the accusation. I didn't know they did that, but yes. Yeah. Okay. So, like, that's the problem that you're dealing with. And it's not. Huh? That's, for me, I didn't know that.

Yes. I know. Right. So think about that, right? Like, that's the problem. And this is the problem. Like, like, I don't know if this is maybe. That's the problem, is that if I listen to you, are you someone who is objective, who has done

like all the, like, is your representation thorough and objective, or is this the construction of a narcissistic mind that's just defending itself and things like that? The problem that leads into is that goes down to, are you willing to have a conversation with me? or do you just want to believe the narrative that you already want to believe? Agree 100%. That and that's why you're fucked, bro. Because the internet is not interested in having, like 90% of the internet is not interested in having conversations. And you will see this all the time on, take any political subreddit or any political streamer.

And you'll see that people are not interested in having conversations. And I do think there's a lot of weird stuff going on with YouTube, but like, that's like, parisocial and stuff like that. The thing no, legitimately, dude, is we've built up a community of specifically people that have conversations about things. That's why, after all of this, we're still sitting at like 6 to 10,000 people on a daily basis. That doesn't happen in a situation that is, like, I meticulously made sure that we had a

community where we could talk about stuff on a logical basis and try to work things out outside of that. And I've been pushing that on this channel for eight years. And I don't think I'd have a community if I built one that was based on instant emotional reaction. Because they'd just be like, oh, he's a piece of shit. Yeah. So there are absolutely communities like that. And I think it's great that you're, you don't.

And maybe that's why people are coming from other communities to you because it was a, you know, a group wow thing. So there's like a lot of other communities that are interacting with yours. The thing that I would encourage you to do, and this is for everyone, I do this on a daily basis, is assume. for a moment that you're a narcissist and think about if I'm narcissistic, what would I be missing? Right? Like, even, so I'm trying to think of an example. So I recently had an interpersonal conflict where I felt hurt by someone I'm close to. Okay.

And as I was thinking through all the things that this person has done wrong to me, I stopped for a second and I was like, am I just being a little bitch? Am I like is this genuine? Is this fair? Like what are all of the counter examples? Am I just glossing over all of the stuff that they do right? Am I ignoring all of the stuff that I do wrong? Am I ignoring when this person lets me down? What is my contribution to this system in which I am disappointed? So these are the-

That seems normal to me, though. Okay, good. Yeah. So, so, so, but I think a lot of times when we feel hurt, we're not, we don't do that. Right. So, so, so. No, that's the first. Okay, cool. I think, I think that's great. I mean, if you're already doing that, that's awesome. Then I, I think the main thing then that I would encourage you to really think about is like this disconnect. And what's the variable in there? And what I would strongly encourage that you do is that variable is going to be divided into two portions. One is that. That. The amplification, the disconnect, the question mark of this situation. You understand what I'm saying? Or not really. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm kind of understanding, but I think it's hard for me to understand how I'm supposed to respond to that. If the requirement for the response is you need to make it incomplete and dumb it down and hand wave it.

Because that makes me feel like I'm just lying to people. No, no, no. I think your response to when I said, what do you think about that, your response to, your response of that kind of won me over, I don't think you should do that. So now what we're talking about is for anyone who is in a situation where I behave in a certain way, the world responds to me in this way, and there's a gap between these two things. This is the scenario that I'm talking about. So in that scenario, what's the question mark? What's the amplifier? So there are certain things that we can attribute to things outside of you. So people have parasocial relationships,

people are projecting, people don't like me, whatever. Like people are upset, they, whatever. There's all the stuff that they do. And then there's all the stuff that you do. And this is where I think it's hard, but I think a really good example of what came out of today, which hopefully feels okay to you, is when I'm direct to other people think I'm evasive,

I think those are the kinds of nuggets that I have seen transform lives and literally save marriages. It's just funny because, like, I've had effectively the same conversation with the moderation team. It was like I use the same terminology as like that feels like idiocry. I don't feel like dumbing down my language and just being dishonest about it to hand wave it makes sense. And I feel greasy doing that.

I don't know how it's to describe that. Are you hearing me talk about dumbing things down at this point? When I say dumbing things down, I mean like the idea of like, oh, my bad, bro. and just kind of leave it like that. That doesn't make sense. What are you hearing me say to you right now? Of a way to resolve the language of, you know, I feel like I'm being objective. They feel like I'm being evasive.

And to me, it comes across as I'm over explaining. I'm giving too much context. I'm making the scenario of myself as a player within that rather than this is what I did and that's it. And then we walk away. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I understand where our disconnect is. Okay.

I have removed dumbing down from the equation of my solution space when I talk to you. Take it off the table, done. Doesn't feel right. I agree. What I'm saying is that if we look at I'm being direct, they feel like I'm being evasive, the tactical options to solve that involve way more than dumbing things down. Okay. So that's what I think...

Yeah, I would focus on that. So like, don't dump things down. Be authentic. But there's also a way, because like, right, so fundamentally this is an issue of communication. It's an issue of understanding. It's an issue of getting your point across, arguably listening to other people's. And so that is a skill. It is an art form.

There's a way to do it well and do it poorly. Now, what a lot of people do, which I think is bad, which I really appreciate you standing up against is dumbing things down, virtue signaling, pro forma apology. I hate that. I hate it too. I don't, I hate the idea of here's my ukulele sad YouTuber video. Yep. Let me just line to the camera for five minutes.

I hate it too. So my point is that if we look at like, you know, like. And I feel like that's what I was being asked to do. And I'm like, no, here's how I see it. They're good. Yeah. So, so, so I, my point is that somewhere between the pro forma apostrophe. and what comes out of your mouth, there's going to be something in the middle there,

which is an adaptation of what you do, which feels authentic, feels truthful, feels complete, and there's literally something about the way that you talk, where if I code your responses, that's the best way I know how to put it, it's kind of like there's a, there's just a, there's a theme of what feels like a lack of accountability from a listener's perspective. I don't think you're not taking accountability, objectively. But what I'm saying is that the limbic circuits of my brain, the emotional circuits of my brain, when I hear you talk,

it feels like you're leaving something out. It feels somehow incomplete or unbalanced. And I know that's a very difficult problem for you to solve. I don't like that doesn't give me a lot of tools, right? It really, it's hard. So that's where like I'm going to think a little bit about how to bridge that gap, but like something in that is where the money is. I feel really confident about that. It's not a pro forma apology, but it is also thinking about the way that you make statements that rubs people the wrong way.

And then the other interesting thing that I really have to like encourage you to think about is, is it hard for you to see a different way to use your words? Because in your mind, you're only able to see things one way. The way that I put that up, the way that I put out messaging like that, especially public messaging, the internet will find any chink in the armor to try to unravel it into saying that you're a liar in some way. Yep. We've both seen this. So what I try to do is I go, okay, so instead of putting the ego first on this and being like, I did the best thing or I did the worst thing or being in emotional platitudes for this kind of shit or virtue signal for a day's go, here's everything that happened from my perspective. and that's my story. Okay, here's, you ready for the mind fuck?

Sure. You said that what you put out, people will try to find the chink in the armor, right? They're going to do it anyway, but yeah. No, they're not going to do it anyway. The way that you put things out makes them want to find the chink in your armor. It doesn't make sense. I know. That sounds, to me, sounds obsessive.

It's, I need, like, there's a necessity to find a problem. when there isn't one? No, I think you're missing the point. The way that you communicate information, the way that you speak makes people want to find the chink in the armor. Because people communicate, yeah. I know, it's hard, man. It's wild.

It's crazy. I'm with you. Right? So there's something that you're doing that from a logical perspective makes perfect sense. the emotional energy of your words, and I'm not right about this, okay? I could be wrong. But I really suspect that this is where the money is,

where something about the way that you present yourself, which, by the way, went away when you got pissed off about when I was like, what do you think about just doing a Mia culpa? And you're like, fuck that. I was in your corner. But here's the thing. The way that you talk...

So what you need more of an emotional interaction? Because what, why do I want to poke you in? the armor. Because of your logic? No, because of your emotions. That reflex, this is what you got to understand, Thor. That reflex comes from the emotional energy that you're sending and the emotional energy that they're receiving. Now, this gets more complicated because you are right that this is an unsolvable problem, because there is only so much that you can do in this situation, that at the end of the day, there are going to be people on the internet that are just there to meme, that are just there to make your life worse, that have little lives where they feel frustrated, and then

they look at a punching bag and they say, hey, I'm going to punch this person, I'm going to knock this person down a peg. And the tragedy there is that they don't truly have little lives. They truly have far greater lives than they have the potential of far greater lives. if they stopped spending all of their cognitive emotional energy trying to knock some random fucking guy on the internet down a peg. Then they would really be happy. All the things I try to do on the internet. That's why I do all that's...

Yeah, it's tough, man. That aspiration that you put there, that's why I do the stuff that I'm doing. Yeah, I think it's great. That's why I generally run game jams and all that shit. Yeah, yeah. It's because this shit is a waste of fucking time. Yep.

It is the same reason that I have a shortout that's like stop looking at shorts, go the fuck outside. And I know that that sounds like self-inflation area of like self, you know, grandizing for that shit. But like, dude, the internet's a fucking mistake. No. So here, here, now we get to it. You said, I know it sounds that way.

It doesn't sound that way. If I read your words, huh? When I say it that way, it sounds that way to me. But it doesn't sound that way to me. That's ridiculous to me. Yes. I know it's ridiculous. So, yeah, I know it's hard.

So here's the point. The words, if I were to write them down and we said, hey, is this person arrogant? Maybe it would be the answer that you get. The emotional energy that you add to that doesn't make it come across as arrogant at all. It makes it come across for me. I get inspired by that. I believe that. That sounds believable to me.

So there's some... The perception disconnect is when I talk about a situation while removing the emotion. from it when to me that sounds like the most logical way to communicate and the most not the most objective way to communicate which seems like it would be the best way for people to understand the scenario fully and that's the most disconnected for other people because it makes them feel like i'm i'm being evasive i think that that is one step in the right direction for you and that's because human beings are not logical communicators.

We are all aware of that. We're emotional communicators. Right? So I think the energy that you add to the equation like matters a lot. And what you're trying to remove. So, and it sort of makes sense, right? Because you have a strategy. You're like, you're like, you've got a particular strategic approach.

And that's what got you to where you are. And I know you've tried a lot. But I think this fundamental thing, I don't think, I don't think this has changed over the whole course of this. No. And I think the really hard thing is I don't know that it needs to change because I think part of what makes you who you are, part of what makes you valuable, part of what attracts the community because there are a lot of people out there who think like you, who are tired of emotional communication, who have people in their lives where you're like, look, this is the reality of the situation. I cook dinner four nights a week. You cook dinner one night a week and you order take out the other two nights of the week. That is the objective scenario.

This needs to change. And they're like, so I think that the way you communicate is like an oasis in a desert for a lot of people. So it's not bad. It's just like this is like something that I think can be leveled up. And a big part of that... The more that I have to deal with this just slew of shit with this,

the less have been emotional about it. Because it's effort. Well, so if we were to take that statement as true and we were to make a predictive model, what happened to you would be in line with this prediction. That if our hypothesis is that emotional communication is what connects with people, especially on the internet.

And as you have become more burnt out, which by the way is absolutely going to happen, as you've become, as your corpus callosum, you're just fried. You're just blackened at this point. You've got no emotional energy left. And the more you communicate, the angrier people will get.

I really hope people leave you the fuck alone because I think it's like enough is enough. I'm happy to say that. Like, you know, I don't usually advocate for people doing that. Maybe people think that I'm a narcissist or whatever. Like, that's fine. But I don't think this is about you.

I think this is like when someone makes whatever kind of mistakes you made and whether you were mean to people or not, whether you went to the bathroom and looked something up or you have a butt plug that is vibrating in Morse code to give you the solution, you know, like is connected to like, like, I really don't care. I don't know about the reality. I think it's just like we all make mistakes. I'm not saying you did or you didn't. It's just like, come on, y'all, right? Is this really what we're doing now? Like, is this how we're spending our days, how we're spending our time? Are you perfect?

No. Are you a regular human being? Yes. So that's kind of where I am. I know it's confusing for you. No, I mean, that starts to make sense. I think the thing that bothers me is, If someone were to go to me, right, and talk in the way that I'm talking in that objective fashion, I go, oh, cool, here's all the information.

I'm going to compile that with other information and then come up with my own way of how I feel about this. And what I'm seeing more and more now, especially on the Internet, right, is loud, bombastic, emotional response is what everyone wants for stuff. But we've never had it that way. I've never interacted that way. I've been not that way this entire time. And now for me, suddenly that's a problem. Suddenly, that's a bad guy thing. Which is like, that's really fucking weird for me, man.

Like, that's not what I expected. That's not the response that I expect. It doesn't really make a huge amount of logical or emotional sense to me. So I'm just like, okay, so you don't think I'm doing this thing. Here's more information. That's not enough? Here's more information. That's not enough?

Here's more information. Then eventually it's like, fuck you. I don't care. There's no other solution at that point. There's two things. Like I had one kind of emotional response which is like, you're like, that makes sense to me.

The really interesting thing is your response of that makes sense to me. I'm not saying, don't read too much into it. I was just laughing because what I sent you in that moment was not logical. What I sent you in that moment was emotional. Yes. Right?

I have the capacity to understand emotions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, so I, but it's, interesting because there are so many times where I've tried to send you logical signals, and then there's a disconnect. But you can easily argue that it's apples and oranges. The second thing that I want to say, and I know you have emotional capacity, like I get that. You love your ferrets. They show up there. So the other thing that I think is interesting to note is that I think that you are on the receiving end of not just you, but basically this happens. So there's a group

of parissocial nomad haters on the internet. That's what I call them. Chat hoppers is what they're generally called on Twitch. Okay, cool. I didn't know that. But like, so what I've jumped from one community

to another when there's like a big drama. Exactly. So these are the people that follow the drama. So whoever, and then the problem is if you've created a community that values a certain kind of communication and the chat hoppers show up,

everything that you've built will get dominated or swept way. That's why we ban it all. Yep. knowing that full well. And there's a couple of ways to handle that, right, that I feel is when someone comes in and they just make like a, the copy paste hate statement, it's very clear that they don't care. We ban them. And then we, and they put an unbanned request. And sometimes they'll be like, hey, I didn't realize it was that big of a deal.

And then they come back in and they're like, hey, I like watching the stream. Or they tell the mods to kill themselves. Right. And like, obviously, if they're going to tell the mods to kill themselves, they just stay banned. And that happens all the time. But if they're like, hey, you know, this, I didn't realize. this mattered so much, sometimes they end up joining a community. And it's fine. It's just that first interaction, we don't want that like a million times in the chat. Like that shit sucks. And it's not

50-50, but the mods do get a lot of hate, man, like a massive amount. It sucks for them. Cool. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. It's hard to deal with. It's something that basically every streamer deals with where the moment that you're at the top of LSF, you get like this influx of audience, which also, I don't, I mean, I don't think that's like LSF's fault. It's just That's just the... I think it's just, it's the nature of like a gathering of people that are either rooting for the downfall or rooting for an emotional big moment or like want to be, you know, part of that. But I do still think that there's a large amount of people that are engaging in that because

it's, it's like their reality show. It's like they're like, they're like, oh man, I'm part of that moment. Remember that moment when that thing happened? That was so funny. And like, I feel like there's probably even some of those people that will meet someone like at an event where they engaged in one of those things and they won't think it's real. They think it's just like a cartoon character, you know?

Yeah, I've seen that a lot too, unfortunately. But anyway, we've been at it for like almost three hours, bro. How you feel like? Yeah. Fine. Like to be honest with you, I think so far this has been really productive. Because to me, like, dude, I don't know. Like, that seems wild to me that people just want it. Like, I don't know.

It seems wild to me that people, just want an emotional response for that. When in reality, I find that, like I explained earlier, I find that to be a disingenuous thing. I don't want to be that guy that goes and makes a fucking apology video. Yeah. So I think there are a lot of people who would be satisfied by that. But please don't take away. I think, like, I mean, you convinced me, right?

And I've not done that when people get upset with me. So I won't just say, yeah, my bad, unless I really believe that. So there have been times where I've made mistakes where I will say, like, I, I, still remember, I'm happy to say it again. There was one time early on in the days of streaming that I made fun of people with micropenuses. And that is like one of the things that I regret the most. Because it's like easy to do that.

That's an easy fruit. Yeah. It's easy, but it's like out of all of the people, like in terms of like punching down and stuff, like out of all the people who have it so hard for, you know, just us to pile on and like ha ha ha, ha, you have a small dick. Like that's not something that's in their control. And by the way, you can have a fulfilling sexual life with a micropinus. And I thought about, I just became a degenerate gamer for a moment and stopped thinking about people in my office who struggle with those kinds of problems.

Yeah. I think that's actually really interesting because that's like the internet, man. It's like, I don't even know. Like I feel like if somebody's going to call you that like on the internet, if somebody's like in a lobby and they're like, you have a micropenus. They don't actually mean that. They just want to say something. some shit. That's like, that's like some kid on Xbox saying he fucked your mom. Yeah, right. So, so like deep within me is 4chan, like much like chat chvety, deep within my bones

is 4chan. And, and so anyway, I was just saying like, so sometimes I've made mistakes and, you know, I'll alone up to those. But I don't think you should, don't compromise that. But I think there's like something in the middle of letting more of your authentic emotion them out and also be super careful about the way that you, even in your own head, sterilize your interactions and sterilize your contributions, which I think you do. It's comfortable. It's comfortable. Yeah. It's comfortable. But I think you do that. When the scenario is like super vitriolic, it's comfortable to sterilize that. It's comfortable to have like more of a logical conversation about it because it's easier to process. It is less easy to

like if I'm going to have a big emotional response, I feel like I'm being manipulative to another person because I could do that. I could just sit down and be like, I'm going to have a big emotional response now, but that's not how I am. That's not the person I am. So I think it's an issue of,

so you mentioned at some point that this has been a challenge that you've had before. I don't even remember what we were talking about. So I think it's really about, and this is for anyone else too, like, you know, we all just have to decide when you say this is the, person that I am, we all just have to decide whether we want to continue. Am I just saying,

hey, this is who I am and I don't want to change this? And then... No. No, I don't think that's the case. Well, I'm giving options. So I'm sort of speaking rhetorically, right? So we all, we all have to make decisions for ourselves about if this is the way that I am, do I want to continue to be this way? Do I not want to be continue to be this way? And then there's going to be a line in the sand of like what a level of compromise feels authentic and okay and what doesn't what feels like growth what feels like giving a piece of yourself away yeah because like for me i i feel pretty happy with the way that i communicate generally i don't generally have a problem with that and i i like being able to communicate objectively either with you know in my relationships friends you know

people in the community, that feels fine to me. And I think there's a lot of people that I actually like that about the way that I communicate. It's like, hey, you know, Thor is talking about all the things of all the, because we'll get a whole bunch of stories in that come in from the damn internet that are like, the fucking sky's on fire. And then you look at it and like, the sky's not on fire. This outhouse over here was on fire.

It's not that big a deal. Right. And I find that there's very few islands of that shit online, man. Like, there's very few islands of people who will be like, wait a minute. Let's look into that before we start freaking out. Would it be easier for me to just like dive into the emotion first? Yeah.

Would it be honest? No. Would it be quick views? 100%. Yeah. None of that shit makes sense to me. I'm with you. That's why I've always communicated that way.

And it's not even a thing of like I'm not willing to change. It's, I'd be lying. Like I'd just be straight up lying about all of these scenarios if that was the case. If it wasn't like, here's all the things. I see it, here's all the facts as I felt them, right, as the things that I went through, I'd be a piece of shit.

I'd be just like a grifter on the internet that's just trying to garner as many views as possible. And that's fucking atrocious. Like, I hate that. I really hate that. What are you hearing me say? I think I went on a rant there. It's not even really about like what you said. It's more like that kind of just like triggered an internal monologue.

And I was like, no. I just went on to a rant with it. And I'm with you there. I mean, I think that there are plenty of emotionally manipulative grifters on the internet. I'm not even saying that like that's, that's, I'm not even like calling people out and saying like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I. It's more like, dude, like, I can see how easy it is to manipulate people emotionally to gain money on the internet. Yeah.

So I don't ever even want to get near that. So I'm going to. So I have those kinds of thoughts. And I'm pretty sure that they're pretty narcissistic in my head. So when I have a thought like that, I'll just like leave this for you all. I'm not accusing anyone or certainly not you. But this is just what I've noticed is that sometimes when I'm like jealous of people, there may be just me who are taking the easy path on the internet.

It's really easy to get self-righteous. I don't think it's easy. No, I mean, not like that. I think it comes with other negatives, right? I'll give you an example, right? You've got somebody like Keemstar. Kimstar makes a bunch of content that's based on like calling out scenarios, making a lot of drama,

runs drama alert, right? I don't envy that. That's got to be a tough as fuck job. That dude probably absorbs more hate than most people on the internet, just by the nature of the content that he provides to the internet, which is bombastic, which is divisive,

which is emotional. I don't want to get near that because it sounds fucking awful to me and everyone that was engaging. my content. I see what you mean. So if I went down that route, I don't think it's easy. I think it would be easier to get a reaction, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's...

But the reaction is not one you want. So then I think that's more from me. Like, I think that's narcissistic. So I think the thought process I have in my head is different from what you're describing. Okay. But, and usually I'll walk myself there, but I have that kind of thought. But anyway, yeah, any last thoughts or questions? before we wrap up for the day?

I'm interested in what your thought was now. What do you mean? When you said you had a different thought from like the different pathway for that? Like what did what did you mean? A different pathway for, uh, for thinking about that scenario of like the narcissistic scenario. Yeah. So I think it's similar to what you do, but I think, uh, what I usually do is I, I notice that I'll see that there are creators that are doing things.

that I think, so there's one creator in particular that I used to like their content. And I noticed that they basically made a piece of content where there's a subreddit that I frequent. And they basically, what they did is they looked at the most upvoted content on that subreddit, made a video where they're literally reading out the top voted content things there. I see it a lot. And so I was in the their video did incredibly well. Yep. And so what I realized is like, oh, there's this niche subreddit.

They're taking the best of this niche subreddit and basically distributing it on another platform. And so it really like, it's never fun to see. So I was disappointed for two reasons. One is that like I respected this person's content. Like when they sit down and they actually open their mouth, when they offer like commentary, which I assume is maybe it's not. Maybe they're just repurposing it from elsewhere. But I really got the sense that this person had done a lot of like thinking about and their commentary was what I really valued.

And then I also, so when I saw this piece do well, there were two things that happened. One was that I felt like disappointed in the person. I was like, this is like this is trash content. It's just like repurposed React kind of content. And it was, I guess, React content, but it wasn't like, I started to realize why people don't like React content in that moment. It's the description that people give of Slop. Yeah. And then the second thing that I realized is like, it's always sad to see how well Slop performs.

It does amazing. It's the same thing that we're seeing with like AI generated art, man. It's the same. Yeah. So. I see it now. Now, I think the scariest thing that I see, like in the gaming space, AI generated ads for games.

And like you get into the game and it's like a phone game and everything is AI generated. The art is like just trash. And they do amazing. Yeah. Hundreds of thousands of downloads and you're like. So there are people and it's interesting right because like game recognizes game. And one of the interesting things about being someone who is arguably knowledgeable in a couple of fields is I see how easy it is to be success. when you actually don't know what you're talking about.

So in like the wellness, medicine, self-help space, there are a lot of people who will talk about science. But there's a big difference between a scientific paper and the implementation of like a clinical intervention. And so a big thing that I see a lot, especially in the wellness space, is people will talk about things like dopamine detoxes and stuff like that. There's actually no data behind any of that stuff. They're like, I did a dopamine detox for 10 days and here's how it changed my life. And it's like that makes a good story.

Yeah, so it makes a good story. So I think that there's, what I've noticed is that as you kind of dumb things down and make things accessible, your likelihood of like increasing in success goes up. But also you've got to be like super careful. But I think a lot of the stuff that some content creators in the wellness space say like works doesn't really work. Right. And that's not the success of the content is not based on whether it works or not. The success of the content is whether other people think it's or interested in it, basically, right? And the most hilarious example of this is something called, what's it called?

not anal bleaching sunning sunning the butt or something I gotta remember so there was this trend on TikTok is that one where they show their butts to the sun like to the sun yeah so people would do that right

because they're like oh this is part of the sun through their ass and then like gain medical shit for you I heard about this so the really the really scary thing is that so you know they'll say like oh like the butt doesn't get sunlight right

And then what people don't understand is that since the butt doesn't get sunlight, it is not designed to receive sunlight, which means that you will get a sunburn. You're going to sunburn your, oh. Yeah, people were getting, so there was a, there was like a medical, it was like a medical concern, it was like a public health issue. Like dermatologists were dealing with a bunch of sunburn butts. Like not butts, not the cheeks, like the inside.

Because people would, you know, they'd, like, open it wide. And because you don't, people don't understand that you don't, like, if you shaved your scalp, I mean, if you shaved your hair today and you walked out in the sunlight, you'd get a sunburn on your head. Yeah. So you need a certain amount of melanin. And like, we don't have melanocytes in our bunghole. Inside. No. Like, we don't have them there.

And no, that's, that goes into like the craziest area of. See, the medical disinformation is scary. Like super, super scary. That's like the scariest thing in the planet. Because, like, I think what it goes into is people want to believe it. They want to believe that they can do something. They don't want to feel powerless in a situation like that. And you have the secret knowledge.

The secret knowledge is just behind a $5 paywall. That's only $5. And, like, I hate that shit. Like, I fucking, like, that. That was like, That is actually the reason that we set up the Discord in the way that I have it. Like the Discord is literally set up in like,

here's focus groups. Pay nothing. Go talk to people in the field. If I don't know it, one of them will. Go. Right. Go interact with them.

Because the idea of like siloing knowledge leads to that shit. It leads to the like, I'm going to make up some shit. And when I make up some shit, you're going to sunburn your ass. Like that's. Yeah. So that opens up,

I think, other cans of worms, medical disinformation. So, like, we have paywalled content. And so arguably we're guilty of that, but I think we're not in the same way. And I'm not, I don't feel it this way is it's for areas I don't have knowledge in. I can't answer that. But maybe one of these other people can.

And there's a consensus, not just like a silo. Anyway, I think it's a fair complaint and it's a criticism that we have been accused of. Really? Oh, yeah. So people think we're very, very, like, money oriented, which were sort of money oriented, but like not really. Your business. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that that, that too is something that I think is like, I don't like that connotation. So people think that there's like a homogeneity there. So for example, like we launched like a membership in 2023. We have like some paid content and stuff. And the TLDR of it is like, you know, I think this is, it's so interesting to hear, but it was, the more free stuff you provide, when you build free stuff for a lot of people, it costs more. Which is not something that I understood when I became a content creator. That is absolutely the case.

And so that was something that like, I think a lot of people, I feel bad when, people think of as a business because, yeah, I mean, we're like technically a business, but we're not, we don't operate like a bit. I mean, in some ways we do. But I think the problem is people don't know how to understand that business and doing something good is not mutually exclusive. So I would even argue that business and doing something good is the best way to do things. Yes. And the reason for that is really simple. I went to a lot of places where doing good was very separated from business. So the number,

at the top of the list is like ashrums, non-profits, spiritual teachers, people who are like philanthropic and we're doing things for the good of the world. Generally speaking, I saw the largest abuses of power in those kinds of scenarios.

There's a lot of, like the moment that you become a nonprofit, like I've seen so many, toxic work environments in investment banking and nonprofits. Because in nonprofits, it's like we're doing it for the ferrets. We can't pay you a lot, but we're doing it for the ferrets. So one of the really interesting things that we tried to do very intentionally was like, I'm not your guru. If you want my help, I'm going to give you some stuff for free.

And if you want this other stuff that takes a lot of energy and resources to build, you got to pay for it. And I think that, that interestingly enough, when I was training, to become a psychiatrist, like creating a transaction protects us from a feeling of indebtedness. And the moment that you add indebtedness to the equation, the moment you start doing extra for your patients, doing things for free, if you do something for free, then it, like, it makes things muddy.

And that's what happens with a lot of these, like, spiritual organizations. So we kind of very intentionally did it. But we also get criticized for it, which I think is, like, also a fair criticism. Like, I think that the people who say those kinds of things, I think they usually don't have information. But I think that they're, you know, it's a valid criticism on some level. I think that makes sense. I mean, like, with the rescue, I intentionally did not make it a charity.

Like, I was like, I'm not doing that. Because the first thing and I talked to people, I was like, hey, we're thinking about starting a rescue. First thing that showed up in chat is, oh, you're just going to try and take a tax break. And I was like, that's valid. I'm going to look into this more. And I was like, I don't want to take money from my left hand and put it my right hand and be like, I'm not paying taxes on that. Like, that's fucking weird, right?

Because it's still technically all, it's all the same thing. We're all just meeting the same objective. So it's made a part of the business. And now I can just pay employees and do the whole thing. And like, yeah, Ferret rescue makes money. It does. The ad revenue off of that allows me to hire people to run a rescue. Yeah.

And pay for their medical and pay for their food. And like, that's not small. I've also seen, I was, I had a job at a job. at a place that was a nonprofit with a charitable mission, but was also like, and the problem is that oftentimes, if you don't structure it like a business, it doesn't stay self-sustainable. Like, yes. So that's where things, and I found that so a lot of times like early on when, you know, we started our coaching program, a lot of people wanted to volunteer and we wouldn't let them.

And so here's, I don't allow that. Huh? Yeah. I don't allow volunteers. Yeah. It's the biggest thing for me is I've had a rule since the very beginning, which is you work for me, you get paid. That's it.

It's so complicated otherwise. It's so complicated. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. So I think once you are in a position of like managing other people and also consistently delivering services, volunteers get, it becomes really hard. So when you're doing stuff for free. There's like legal issues. There's all kinds of shit.

When you're doing stuff for free and when you're not paying people, like both. of those things. I think it's just way easier. It's like, hi, I'm going to make a donut. The donut cost a dollar. I'm going to try to make it as affordable as possible. And that's something that if people think our stuff is overpriced, I think that's not really a fair criticism.

Anyway, but so I think that there's, anyway, we're kind of getting off track, but it's fun. Anyway, any last thoughts or questions before we wrap up for the day? No, I think it's it. I think this makes sense overall.

Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think overall this makes sense. Yeah. It's mostly just interesting, interesting to me because it's like, it's really easy to get into a state where you're just like, I'm fucking done with it. Yeah.

It's really easy to get there. Um, I also don't believe that human beings were meant for the social interactions we have online. Yep. I just, we're not. I don't think humans were built for this. I think we were built for like a little bit of friction inside of small social groups, but when you expand that to hundreds of thousands of people,

no one's going to react correctly because it's just that that's not what we're made for as human beings completely agree man yeah all right man well i i hope things calm down for you i hope if people like watch this like you know i'm sure that thor made mistakes but i i don't think the i don't i don't think it's fair i'll i'll say that i don't usually say those kinds of things but you know i'm i'm going to go ahead and say that maybe i'm wrong i wasn't there i didn't watch it i I haven't seen everything that happened. But can't we agree that, like, death threats and harassment and things like that is enough at some point? Yeah.

I think you're split groups when you say that. And some people will be like, well, yeah, of course that's not okay. But this thing over here is okay. But what I found that I think is something that a lot of people forget online is when you make something either a company or a person or a group, the subject of ridicule en masse, it empowers the people that think that that is an okay step. Like, we see that all the time. You see that with any type of social movement. You have people that legitimately have a concern.

And then you have people that like cars on fire. Like, that's just how that goes. And the more people you have, the more that isolated extreme response group also expands. And I don't think that everybody who would. dislikes me is throwing death threats at me. That's not how that works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The more people that don't like a person or a group, the more that that increases. Yeah, cool. Well said. Yeah. All right, take care, man. Thank you for coming. Let me see if I can. There we go. G.G. There we go.

Okay. Thoughts, questions? How do you all feel about how that went? Post-game analysis. easy. Meet people where they're at. Right? Meet people where they're at. That is the post-game analysis. So people saying this was anticlimactic? Yes. So this is not supposed to have a climax. So I think this is a really good example of what we were talking about, like even Thor and I were talking about. But what kind of content do you want to make on the internet? You know, what did people come here for? today. There's what some of y'all may have come here for, and then there's what we're here to do. Now, sometimes what we're here to do overlaps with what y'all come here for, and sometimes it doesn't.

Right? So I think that, like, I thought today was very illustrative. And I hope if y'all paid attention, it was illustrative for you, too. Um, And I still think that noticing the disconnects is really important. So this is a process, right? So this doesn't make sense to me is a great way to start your learning. The one piece of advice that I would give to you all to you all is that the moment that someone says this doesn't make sense to me, don't jam it in. right like like things need time and space to process to understand things like that um and and and so like that's okay like i can understand why people felt like they were disappointed with today and that's okay

so the i think the climax that people are looking for there's two versions of it one is that it's not I genuinely don't think that the climax that I would want is possible. The second thing is that if we pushed for that climax, there would be something that is LSF worthy, but it wouldn't be helpful for anybody. Yeah, can you elaborate on the missing, missing reasons? The missing, missing reasons. Members of estranged parents' forums often say their children never gave them any reason for the exchangement, then turn around and reveal that their children did tell them why. But the reasons

their children give, the infamous missing reasons are missing. My sons consistently refused to reply to my emails and let my calls go to voicemail or barely speak if they do answer. They accuse me of being a terrible person, but won't elaborate about exactly what I've done. Well, sometimes they do, but it doesn't make sense, at least to me. For example, it's hard to be part of the birth of a grandchild if I didn't even know that I was going to have one. All of this started because of a personal email they felt entitled to read on my work computer. Okay. What were the other reasons her sons give?

Not knowing about the birth of her grandchild can't be the only one. What was in the email that caused both her sons to cut her off? We're supposed to be distracted by the hinkiness of the sons reading the email and never noticed that Vagnoni just told us that she knows exactly why her son's cut her off. Pay no attention to the missing explanation behind the curtain. A mother's account from abandoned parents. I was abandoned by my daughter six years ago this June. I received a text that said, the keys are under the mat.

I've moved out. Don't come looking for me. I never want to see you again. You have ruined my life. I got home and found my husband standing in her empty room. She had a prepared speech that she emailed to me. She did not even say, mom or dad anywhere in it was blah, blah, blah,

or my husband's first name. She stopped communicating with me about one year after that. But each time I asked why I got the prepared speech or some slung together four-letter words that I didn't appreciate. All my husband said was, I was 18. She's 18. I was expecting this. I wasn't.

What was in the prepared speech? why did her father expect her to move out at 18? The mother has two different sources of explanations at her fingertips, and she turns to neither, nor does she repeat so much as a scrap of her daughter's allegations. So strongly recommend if y'all, like, it's a great read. Like, it's significantly longer. I don't think, please don't take this as a,

don't take this as like a license that this is what Thor is, this is a one-to-one with Thor, I think this happens to all of us. So what I heard in Thor's story today was missing, missing reasons. I was smug. And then all of this stuff happened. There's a disconnect there. And this happens to all of us, right? When someone does something mean to us, we say, oh my God, this came out of nowhere.

I can't believe they did this. This is unfair. We say this stuff all the time. Like we see it all the time. I was banned unfairly from the subreddit. I was banned from the Discord. This is unfair. Happens all the time.

I got banned from chat. And so like in your life, this is the important thing, right? So why do we have these conversations? I mean, like who knows what really happened? I don't know. I don't know what's appropriate. I don't know what's inappropriate.

I think death threats are too much. I really, really, really doubt that Thor has done anything to warrant the amount of psychological suffering that he's gone through. And a lot of the reason that people don't realize that is because when you're one person posting something in chat, once again, the avalanche doesn't feel responsible for the snowfll. I mean, the snowflake doesn't feel responsible for the avalanche. Right? You're like, I just did this thing. It's not that big of a deal.

But what you really have to think about is that thing you are adding on. So if someone is getting beat up by 15 people and each person kicks them 10 times and you go in and you give them one kick, how many bones they have broken is not dependent on your one kick, but it is one of the 150 kicks that they're getting. It is an aggregate responsible. This is dog piling stuff I don't think is healthy. Okay. that being said we also I think there's disconnects so I think some of this stuff kind of like we got to a couple of them right one is like I'm trying to be logical but it's not working in the right way and if you're if you experience that then I think you need to reevaluate and this is why it's so hard is because it feels so counterintuitive I'm being direct I don't want to be emotionally manipulative I think I am doing the right thing. Now, when you think you are doing the right thing

and other people think you are doing the wrong thing, that is when you'll see this kind of escalation. And so the key thing that's missing is the key thing that we're missing here is feedback. And it sounds like Thor did his best there too. We're like, you have to like talk to people. But the problem is like when you're dealing with trolls on the internet,

talking to them doesn't work. So it's kind of like in a regular human society, we have one option to resolve things like this, which is communicating directly with the person who has a problem with us. Now we have a real problem because that is not an option in today's world anymore. It becomes way harder to do.

Because people are just going to show up. They just want you to be wrong. They don't care. The last thing they want to do is show up and them be wrong. when you try to communicate with one of your haters, what is the likelihood that even if they're wrong, they're going to apologize to you? Very low.

When y'all deal with people who are mad at you, how often do they apologize? Interestingly enough, the more wrong they are, the more you pointed out to them, the more their psychological defense mechanisms get triggered, and the more they dig their heels in. How is this guy supposed to win? So I think you meet people where they're at, you know, like I think it's hard.

So as you get attacked over and over and over again, you start to get more and more and more burnt out. It's hard to do the right thing. You start, you try this thing, you try this thing, you try that thing. You've tried everything. Now you kind of give up. And I think that's like completely reasonable to feel that way. I think that's how we end up in those situations. Yeah, so this is a great question.

Maybe we'll do a video about this. Is there a common psychological explanation for having such a disconnect between your own and others' perception of your actions? Absolutely. So I pulled this. I wasn't sure if this was actually worth reading from because this is a bit extreme. So there's a text called mentalization-based treatment for personality disorders. It's a great book. So I don't think Thorough has a personality disorder.

And I think that mentalization is a skill that is hard to grasp. If you don't know how to mentalize, it feels incredibly foreign. So mentalization-based treatment is very effective for personality disorders in particular. And the reason for that is because a common root of many personality disorders is the inability to understand someone else's perspective. So the missing, missing reasons is about parents who get cut off by their kids. That's what the context is. And please don't like extrapolate from that that Thor falls into that category. Okay.

I think it's in the ballpark, but huge difference of degree what we're talking about here. And the other thing to keep in mind is that, like I mentioned, is that the more you get attacked, the more you will develop missing missing. reasons. The angrier you are, the more defensive you are, the bigger your blind spots become in life. Right? So when I have to defend myself, my mind automatically stops thinking about all the things that I did wrong. It thinks about all the things that I did right. When I go to my partner and I say, hey, you don't take out the trash. Their first automatic response is, well, you don't take out the recycling. Does that make sense? It happens to everybody. I think what we're seeing

in streamers is not personality disorder. I think it's like burnout and overwhelming, like, psychological pressure. But the question was, you know, what do we call that? It's mentalization. Okay. Mentalizing is the ability to understand actions by both other people and oneself in terms of thoughts, feelings, wishes, and desires. It is a very human capability that underpins everyday interaction.

actions. So I think what we see in a lot of people is not a deficit, but the better you are at understanding yourself and others in terms of thoughts, feelings, desires, like in actions. Like once we understand that there's a complex person inside here and in other people that determines what they do, it changes the game drastically. So I think my favorite example of, so, and people on the internet are terrible at mentalizing. So my favorite example of this is when I post about, this hero is OP, this champion or whatever, this character is OP in this video game. How do I beat it? And then when I get answers and when people say, yeah, this is the way you beat it.

And then you respond, the OP responds with like, yeah, that doesn't work. And they get downvoted to oblivion. Have you all seen these posts? Like, oh, this thing is OP. This is crazy. And people like, it's not actually OP. And they're like, yeah, it is. Like, look, if you want to beat it, this is how you do it.

So if you kind of think about it, what that person is missing, first and foremost, is why did they make that post in the first place? They think they made that post because they saw objectively that this hero is overpowered. It's objectively overpowered. and then they think they're operating from logic and when people respond to them with logic, they don't accept it. This is because there's a failure of mentalization. You made the post because you were emotional.

And if people don't, like, what are those people wanting to hear? What that person would make that person happy is if you said, yeah, that hero is completely busted. Dude, I played against this game. Like, there was an enemy that had this hero or champion or character or whatever. got out of control, we couldn't do anything. That's what the person wants here.

That's not what they ask. So mentalizing helps us understand our own actions. Why am I mad at this person? Why am I avoiding breaking this bad news to my friend? Why? Why? What is the internal calculus that leads people to act in a particular way? And generally speaking, when we have difficulty mentalizing,

we see other people as one-dimensional. So how do you know if you need to mentalize? Do you see other people as one-dimensional? This person is bad. This person is just a bad person. And we see this all the time on the internet, right? So like, this person is a hypocrite. Done, finished.

Right, we see this in politics. Oh, this person is the embodiment of the devil. Everything that's going wrong in this country is because of this person. We don't think about other human beings as complex organisms with thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Sometimes people change their mind. What happens when someone learns from their mistakes? We call them a hypocrite. Right?

So when people say mentalization struggles in neurodivergence deep dive, sure. So people who are neurodivergent isn't mentalizing about empathy, though. it's not about empathy. This is important to understand. Empathy is a capacity. Mentalization is a skill. So oftentimes, when you have a high capacity,

you do not require a skill. It's basically like, if I've got an 18 on strength or a 20 on strength and I get like a plus five on my role, I never have to develop like proficiency in the particular thing. So it's related to empathy.

But I would say that empathy is one capacity that is involved in mentalizing, but that mentalizing includes more than empathy, and empathy is involved in other things besides mentalizing. Perspective taking is one of the things that you could call it. Where does Thor fall on the scale? I don't know. Right? So it's beyond the scope of our collabs, interviews,

just call them whatever you want, to assess where people fall on scales. So he wanted to talk about this particular thing. We tried to understand this particular thing as best as we could and offer some insight. Are we right? Are we wrong? Did we do mentalization-based therapy today? Absolutely not. And if y'all are confused about what we did today, here's an example of what mentalization-based

therapy actually looks like. Goals and follow-up phase. maintain gains and mentalizing that have been made, stimulate further rehabilitative changes, support for return to education or employment, negotiation of further interpersonal or social problems. We didn't do any of those with Thor. There's all kinds of stuff that is therapy that we don't do. I know it's confusing. The book is, I mean, I wouldn't recommend that you guys read this, but it's mentalization-based treatment for personality disorders. It's a really good book.

Does self-degradation impact mentalization? 100%. Is there ever right or wrong in mentalization? I think so. The whole point of mentalization is that, so when we were looking at the missing, missing reasons, when a parent says, I had no idea that my daughter was going to leave in the middle of the night

and leave a note, saying that they're never going to see me again. And the dad says, she's 18, I saw this coming. So I think that there is right or wrong in mentalization. There is an accurate way to mentalize your own thought process, your own actions, and an accurate way to mentalize somebody else's thought processes. So a really good example of wrong mentalization is I will work with a lot of people who blame a certain attribute, a demographic attribute of, their identity or who they are for why they are behind in life. So I believe that things like systemic bias and systemic racism exist.

And if you get fired from your job, it's not necessarily because people are racist. So I see failures of mentalization. Like I've had patients that like, because if you struggle with mentalization, I don't think it's that, and this is where I think it's a chicken or egg thing that we need to understand, if you suck at mentalizing, you are going to latch on to something that allows you to not mentalize. So I don't think people who are sensitive to race are narcissistic. I think people who are incredibly narcissistic will latch onto issues of identity as a means of propagating their identity, like their narcissism, sorry. But they're absolutely failures.

to mentalize. So if you have level one autism and ADHD, and I talk and think a lot like Thor, does it mean that I'm coming off as narcissistic and some people without realizing it? The answer is there's a good chance. I wouldn't quite jump to narcissistic, but if you communicate in a very logical way,

will you rub people the wrong way? 100%. And this is literally the nature of communication difficulties in neurodivergence. like literally the nature, right? So the empathic circuits of our brain function differently. And so we tend to be hyper logical

and other people don't like that. Now, are you coming off as narcissistic? We don't know, right? We'd have to talk to the other person. We'd have to ask them, what is your experience with me? So the short answer is we don't know but what we do know, like, scientifically, statistically,

is that if you are neurodivergent, you have autism or ADHD, you are statistically likely to have difficulty socializing. It is a feature of the condition. And we also know that treatment of the condition involves filling in some of those gaps. Okay. Thank you all very much for coming today. for those of y'all that are Thor haters like seriously like enough is enough right like what are you really gaining by doing this like go do something productive with your life and I don't just say that because I like Thor and just general compassion for human beings I genuinely believe that for 95% of the time 95 to 99% of the time giving it to hate and trolling does not help you so here's the thing everyone like Why is hate bad?

Hate keeps you stuck, usually in the past. Now, there may be some situations if we're talking about things like genocidal conflicts or whatever, where it's like kind of justified, but if we're talking about like your ex or a content creator on the internet, hate is usually just a waste of time and an exhaustion of your emotional energy. So anytime you hate someone, you feel motivated to do something about it. Here's what I want you all to understand. The brain has a limited capacity for emotional experience. We have like an emotional battery that's full at the beginning of the day.

When we experience one emotion, we lose that capacity. So this is why like, you know, if you've been through something that's very emotionally difficult, at some point you just start to feel numb. The more, I would describe it not as a battery, but actually as a water balloon that's really full. And at the very beginning, the moment that you open it, a lot of water comes out. The pressure is high.

But the more that your emotions get drained, the harder it is to get them out and the less momentum you've got. The other big thing that people don't really appreciate is that emotions are the primary source of motivation. The simplest way to motivate a human being is to activate their emotions. So we see this in political theaters all across the globe. If we can get people emotionally excited, we'll win the election.

So when we hate, when we spend hours of our day or even minutes of our day with a surge of hatred, the amount of emotional energy and motivational drive that we have for the rest of the day is depleted. And what you will find is one of two things. People, 95% of people who are incredibly productive don't get emotionally caught up in things. You just won't see it. We interviewed Mr. Who's the Boss, 20 million subscribers on YouTube. Doesn't get emotionally caught up in shit. I think there's like, that's like, that's a correlation.

The second thing is that there's a minority of people. who stoke the emotion and that becomes their primary motivator. I'm going to prove people wrong and every day I feel insecure and I'm going to show them and every day it drives me to work harder. Those people can be successful, but they're almost never happy. So be careful about hatred. It hurts you a lot more than it hurts the other person most of the time. So there's good comments here.

So my understanding that Thor's response mirrors a response common to narcissists and people who recognize it assume his communication is coming from the same place is the nark in their life when it's not. So I think that's a really brilliant insight, celly beans, chely beans, because you're right that people will look at that and say this guy is narcissistic because he exhibits some features of that.

but when it's not now that's the tricky thing so is he narcissistic or not we don't know so i think this is where it's not quite as black and white because when you're under stress the narcissistic defense mechanism is naturally going to arise so i would expect any human being when they are attacked to defend themselves and the reflexive way that we defend ourselves against attacks is that we defend ourselves against attacks is a narcissistic defense. So even if he is exhibiting a narcissistic defense, which we don't know, then that still doesn't make him a narcissist.

And I doubt people on the internet have that nuance. Okay. Thank you all very much for coming today. It's been fun. So we're like streaming a little bit more nowadays. It's nice to be back, y'all. I think, you know, we took a little detour there for like 18 months. And it's nice to be.

back talking to people hanging out with chat, answering questions. I'll prepare a lecture on mentalization. It probably won't happen in May because we're already stacked for May. But we'll see. And then wish me luck. I'm going to play Expedition 33. So I heard great things. So let's, I'm done. It's the weekend. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.