It Could Happen Here - Behind The Daily Wire, Part 2

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Garrison and Robert discuss the Daily Wire's anti-trans campaigning and the launch of their new streaming service.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.
Starting point is 00:00:22 You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and
Starting point is 00:00:55 it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech I started the episode garrison really really what a what an energetic entry into i'm tired tell me things that make me sad oh i don't worry i will i that is my favorite
Starting point is 00:02:01 thing to do let's let's yeah let's talk about things that are actually sad for the first half of this episode. You know, the past few years, it's kind of been increasingly profitable to be friendly to the gays, which is kind of a new trend, you know? If you look at the past 20 years or so, it's becoming more profitable. If you're a queer accelerationist anarchist, maybe that's a bad thing, right? But if you're just trying to not get killed in the interim as the climate collapses, it's maybe a good thing that generally queer acceptance has been improving. queer acceptance has been improving. But as it's been improving, there's also been a pretty sizable backlash from some members of the Christian right who don't really like this or are trying to use this backlash as a way to promote their own economic interests. And I don't think this
Starting point is 00:03:01 needs to be an either or. I think this can definitely be a both scenario speaking of matthew walsh the catholic self-described fascist this is going to be kind of the the the topic of the first half of this because he he's been able the work he's done has been able to really propel the Daily Wire as an actual political entity in a way that Shapiro just never really has. Shapiro was really good at creating eye-catching YouTube videos, clickbait and stuff, but we never really saw him campaigning hard for any political cause. He was never really doing that type of stuff. They come out of different eras in different communities. For one thing,
Starting point is 00:03:46 Ben Shapiro is Jewish and came of age and came into prominence in the early 2000s when conservatives had political power, but basically zero social cap power as they saw it, right?
Starting point is 00:04:02 And so he was always positioned as like, I am sort of the um i'm the insurgent conservative like i i'm rush limbaugh you know i'm going to provide a safe place for you even though you control the government to a large extent where i can be yell at and make fun of the people that you think are bad right and that's that's the only thing he ever really sought to do is like, LOL, liberals dumb. Walsh comes out of the Christian kind of dominionist adjacent movement at the very least, and their goal has always been capture the seven pillars of culture, right? And so he from the beginning has thought of this more as like, I am waging a Christian war against secular society and and doing so like kind of methodically so they they
Starting point is 00:04:48 just kind of have approached what they're doing fundamentally from a different way and came into it at different times walsh is definitely the most evangelical catholic i've ever seen and which is weird because like back when he was a popular christian blogger his stuff was very popular in evangelical circles, even though evangelicals generally are not very friendly to Catholics. But his stuff was widely shared because he was quite provocative. Now, he spent a few years just kind of laying low, running a podcast at the Daily Wire. And then what is a woman really, really propelled him into the spotlight. And he got a glimpse of fame and popularity that he's been endlessly trying to replicate.
Starting point is 00:05:32 And because this fame was based around hating trans people, that is what he's decided to pivot his whole career to doing. That is his now, his entire focus in life is about how he doesn't like trans people, because it was very profitable for him in 2022. So, as a part of an ongoing right-wing harassment campaign against TikTok influencer and chronic theater kid Dylan Mulvaney, Matt Walsh started a viral boycott campaign against Bud Light for having a brand partnership with a trans person. Now, I'm not going to spend too much time here talking about right-wing boycotts. I'm sure we've all watched, you know, like Nike shoe burnings and Gillette razors being
Starting point is 00:06:14 flushed down the toilet and people dropping their Keurigs off rooftops. Generally, boycotts don't tend to work. But this Bud Light thing did show some success. And success in this instance specifically refers to Walsh and the Daily Wire cronies receiving a lot of attention and free publicity. So they sought to replicate this strategy while publicly telegraphing their harassment methodology. Here's two tweets from Matt Walsh. goal is to make pride toxic for brands. If they decide to shove this garbage in our face, they should know that they'll pay a price. It won't be worth whatever they think they'll gain. First
Starting point is 00:07:11 Bud Light and now Target. Our campaign is making progress. Let's keep it going. So as Walsh said there, Walsh's next target was Target, the department store, due to the store's history of prominent pride displays. In the lead up to Pride Month during 2023, Target was met with online and in-person harassment with a wave of emails and calls to individual stores accusing them of grooming and indoctrinating kids with the presence of pride-themed apparel. People started ransacking stores, destroying pride displays, threatening violence against employees in person, as well as calling in multiple bomb threats into
Starting point is 00:07:50 many, many different stores, mirroring the harassment campaign against trans clinics and hospitals the year prior, which was also spearheaded by Matt Walsh. We've seen this tactic gain prominence. This bomb threat tactic is now quite common among the right. We saw it be called into,
Starting point is 00:08:07 there was a lot of bomb threats called into like 400 synagogues this past winter. That was most likely done by some form of neo-Nazi. But we've just seen this specific bomb threat tactic pick up a lot because it provides a pretty sizable minor or short-term disruption to regular services. Now, in response to this wave of harassment, Target corporate mandated that many stores remove their front-of-store pride displays in late May all across the country, but especially in the South. Target released a statement saying they were, quote,
Starting point is 00:08:45 making adjustments to our plans given these volatile circumstances, unquote. And these adjustments included relocating or removing pride displays due to, quote, threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and well-being at work, unquote. Employees were also instructed to specifically remove items, quote, at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior, unquote, like shapewear, binders, and a tuck-friendly swimwear, and to, quote, replace them with swimwear to better meet our sales goals, unquote. Now, Walsh claimed that the tuck-friendly swimwear was being marketed to kids, but it only came in adult sizes. A lot of this sort of harassment campaign isn't really based on anything truthful, but it only came in adult sizes. A lot of this sort of harassment campaign isn't really
Starting point is 00:09:25 based on anything truthful, but that doesn't really matter. Here's a quote from Walsh again, quote, I think this Target boycott has real staying power. Target has now branded itself as a far left organization to the point where it's embarrassing to shop there. This is the branding that makes the boycott stick. It happened to Bud Light. I think it's happening to Target. So after a around 5% sales drop in the second quarter, and again, it's hard to actually figure out what that can be attributed to. Beer sales also hit like their lowest level in recent history. Yes. Last year, just kind of across the board.
Starting point is 00:10:13 It's hard to see if these things are actually working, but that doesn't matter because the right can claim them as a success. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, I hope many of us aren't shopping for pride products at a store like Target, but for a lot of kids and even adults in more conservative areas of the country, Target was really the only place to get gender-affirming clothing like binders and trans-friendly swimsuits in person. These things can be tricky to buy online, sometimes you don't want a package showing up to your door if you can't be the one to open it. So Target really was the only place for a lot of people to have access to this kind of stuff. Now, last year, Michael Knowles tried to kind of replicate the Matt Walsh strategy because it proved to be very successful. So they had Walsh going out on doing very similar kind of anti-trans speeches. He spoke at a lot of the big conservative conferences talking about how we need to eliminate transgenderism. He jumped on this boycott stuff
Starting point is 00:11:31 and addressed his viewers saying, quote, we need to make the pride symbol toxic for brands. We need to make companies think twice. As we're making these symbols culturally toxic, we've got to come in with more political force to ban this stuff. Don't back down. The progress conservatives have made on this just between 2021 and 2023, the fact that companies are trying to back off shows that we are winning. Keep pushing much, much harder, unquote. And at the very least, local governments were responding to this sort of thing. In another instance of the government being in cahoots with the Daily Wire, on July 5th, 2023, the attorneys general of Indiana,
Starting point is 00:12:12 Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Carolina sent a joint letter addressed to Target's CEO, ostensibly threatening legal action against Target for carrying LGBTQ merchandise. I'm going to read some quotes from this letter because it's a really interesting thing that I've never really seen done before in terms of like five or six of these states all coming together to actually affect the market. Quote, Target's pride campaign not only raises concerns under our state's child protection and parental rights laws, but also against our state's economic interests as Target shareholders. Target's management has a fiduciary duty to our states as shareholders in the company. The evidence suggests that Target's directors and officers may be negligent in undertaking
Starting point is 00:13:00 the pride campaign, which negatively affected Target's stock price. Moreover, it may have improperly directed company resources for collateral political or social goals unrelated to the company's and its shareholders' best interests. It is likely more profitable to sell the type of pride that enshrines the love of the United States. Target's pride campaign alienates, whereas pride in our country unites. Target's management has no duty to fulfill stores with objectionable goods, let alone endorse or feature them in attention-grabbing displays at the behest of radical activists. However, Target's management does have a fiduciary duty to its shareholders to act in the company's best interests. Target's board and management may not lawfully dilute their fiduciary duties
Starting point is 00:13:46 to satisfy the boards or the left-wing activists' desire to foist contentious political or social agendas upon families and children at the expense of the company's hard-won goodwill and against its best interests." And it's just generally not a great sign when the government is trying to convince a business that it's in their legal and financial interests to throw the gays to the wolves now it's also yeah that's not how fiduciary duty works like it's not a legal principle it's a more of a philosophical principle among capitalists that is dominant, but like you actually are not breaking the law by doing something that's not in fiduciary interest of your,
Starting point is 00:14:30 of your shareholders. That's among other things, basically impossible to pre anyway, whatever this is all like it, but it's a question of like what you can get away with, right? This is what fascists always do. And it's,
Starting point is 00:14:42 it's from a strategic standpoint, if you're looking at the culture war as a kind of mutual insurgency it's a strategy of denying terrain to the enemy in this case access to a place that is available in basically every state where trans people can purchase stuff like binders and get to try them on like it's making life it's it's reducing maneuvering space for the enemy, as they say it. Yeah, and this campaign worked specifically
Starting point is 00:15:09 because of the Christian right's willingness to use physical violence, property destruction, and threats against workers to achieve their goals. That is why Target caved, because enough of their employees were feeling threatened, enough of their displays were being destroyed and ransacked, no one was held accountable, because they're not going to arrest these people for this stuff. And that's what caused this to really have any level of success. Now, during Pride Month back
Starting point is 00:15:36 in 2023, Starbucks union members began coming forward saying that Starbucks and store managers weren't letting employees put up their usual pride decorations, telling workers that it was a safety concern, citing recent incidents at Target and the manufactured Bud Light controversy. Now, Starbucks corporate claimed that they made no policy changes regarding pride decorations, but that, quote, retail leaders continue to work with store teams to find ways to celebrate their communities, keeping in mind our safety standards, unquote. So I think this was more up to kind of like local ownership and local management.
Starting point is 00:16:07 The union publicized confirmed instances of managers not letting workers wear pride pins or put up flags. And then in early June, a regional director ordered a collection of 100 stores across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri to throw out pride decorations from previous years and were barred from putting up any pride-related decor inside stores. The union claims that there was workers in a total of 21 states that were not allowed to put up pride decorations. And I think for the Daily Wire hosts that are pushing this sort of stuff, especially Michael Knowles, especially Matt Walsh, their motive is deeply theological for this. But for The Daily Wire, this is deeply economical because all of this also serves as free advertising for The Daily Wire and it builds the personal brand of their hosts,
Starting point is 00:16:59 which is the very thing that Jeremy Boring was trying to get started with Ben Shapiro back during Truth Revolt. This was his whole idea, was building up the personal brand of these right-wing media figures. And all of this anti-queer stuff provides really, really great marketing to propel these one-time, very niche figures into actual national spotlight. Do you know what else deserves to be put into the spotlight robert no that's a crime uh all of my ideas are to suggest crime so let's just move on let's just let's you know i think ads are what deserves the there we go the spotlight
Starting point is 00:17:38 great Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:18:44 Curious about queer sexuality, cruising wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance
Starting point is 00:19:19 to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHe. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards all right we are back it's once again time to talk about the daily wire plus and their and their hit new streaming service so when jeremy boring announced the Daily Wire Plus back in 2022, the early marketing was made in response to the Disney company having very, very, very, very slight pushback on Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill. Now, a big part of the Daily Wire Plus announcement was about how Disney has been woke-ifying children's TV shows.
Starting point is 00:20:27 And so, the Daily Wire decided to position itself as a safe alternative media hub for conservative families. I'm going to play a short clip from the announcement. There is unbelievable kids' content in the market. The beauty of kids' content is that unlike adult content, there's always new kids. And they go back and watch it. So there's an unbelievable library of content. Most of it's at Disney, let's be honest. But it's not that the content isn't great. It's that you can't trust the platform. You can't put your kids in front of a classic piece of Disney content because you don't know
Starting point is 00:20:58 that the very next thing that plays won't be that not-so-secret gay agenda that teaches your daughter that she's a boy. That's why we have to have Daily Wire Plus. So that is what they're framing the Daily Wire Plus as. That's why the Daily Wire Plus is important. Also, I love how he said that kids' content is so profitable because there keeps being kids in unlike adult content, which doesn't make any sense because, yeah, kids. We stopped aging, but like a plague hit. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Starting point is 00:21:36 Like, yeah, that's like a reverse Children of Men sort of deal. Anyway, God, what a mess that would be. Man, that's not that's not a bad idea for a movie just people keep making more babies but they never grow up so just like a a dwindling number of adults and infinite babies that's not bad not a bad idea this is why i like watching jeremy boring because there's so many moments like this because he's so not charismatic but his his complete void just make i i i just can't stop staring into the void yeah i already just listening to 30 seconds of him i've had an idea for a multi-million dollar adaptation gritty adaptation of the rug rats i
Starting point is 00:22:22 think we could really we can make a lot of money with this. So, a press release put out by the Daily Wire itself went into more detail about the company's child content initiative. Now, I'm going to read this. This is a direct quote. Quote, On Wednesday evening, the Daily Wire's co-CEO and god-king, Jeremy Boring, announced at the Daily Wire company town hall that the company will invest a minimum of $100 million over the next three years into a line of live-action and animated children's entertainment on its
Starting point is 00:22:57 streaming platform, unquote. And that term, God King, is constantly how Jeremy refers to himself, That term, God King, is constantly how Jeremy refers to himself, which I guess is supposed to be a joke. But the fact that he does it at all is the actual joke. The fact that he just calls himself the God King is, what a perfect look into the soul of just a completely dead man. Yeah. The God King of the Daily Wire. of just a completely dead man. Yeah. He, the god king of the Daily Wire. That's been like rewritten in like Deadline, Variety,
Starting point is 00:23:32 like actual publications have been forced to write the god king, Jeremy Boring. Anyway, so to start this child content initiative, Jeremy brought some writers from Netflix's VeggieTales and the Babylon Bee to head up their kids' content. I have a picture in my script here that Robert can see of Eric Brandscum, which is a great name.
Starting point is 00:23:56 Yeah, that is an amazing name. Who is the co-creator of the first Daily Wire kids' show, Chipchilla. And Robert, do you want to describe what's in this picture of Eric? Yeah, well, there is a heavyset man wearing a t-shirt that is, to be frank, a little tighter than is comfortable. He's got a red beard.
Starting point is 00:24:17 He has sunglasses on. It looks like right up above his hairline. A massive Confederate flag lines the wall behind him. And he appears to be casually pointing a handgun at his penis at his dick yes yes can't tell if his fingers through the trigger guard but i hope so yeah um so that is the co-creator of chip chilla which we will we will get to in a sec now i i don't know also there are four to six moist spots on his shirt and it does not it doesn't it's not a flattering look i'm not body shaming the man i'm just saying
Starting point is 00:24:55 there are four to six moist spots on his shirt and i wouldn't want to be filmed with with that many moist spots on my shirt while pointing a gun at my dick in front of a Confederate flag. Now, I don't know if this is either despite or because of The Daily Wire's constant attacks on how Disney has a gay agenda, but The Daily Wire did manage to acquire some talent from Disney. In August of 2022,
Starting point is 00:25:20 they recruited the showrunner of the Emmy-winning animated series Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Chris Sonnenberg, to be the Senior VP of Animation Development and Production at The Daily Wire. Now, they most likely got this guy via Jeremy Boring's
Starting point is 00:25:36 and Sonnenberg's mutual friend, Zachary Levi, who again was in Boring's first movie, and Zachary Levi also starred as Flynn Rider in Tangled and this Tangled animated series for the Disney Channel. So I'm guessing this is how this connection was
Starting point is 00:25:52 made, but yeah, so this guy who was actually a very successful mainstream showrunner for animated shows, somehow decided to agree to get hired by the Daily Wire. that this is this is now his job is overseeing the animated production for chip chilla yeah which is the bluey knockoff i
Starting point is 00:26:13 mean yes i get it among other things there's been a lot of layoffs in animation i have no doubt that a number of people who don't align ideologically but are desperate for a job and just more morally flexible than others, are going to wind up working for this project. Yeah, yeah. So this past October, the Daily Wire's multi-year initiative to create a slate of children's programming finally had something to show. In another live streamed announcement, Jeremy Boring ranted about how Disney is using their parent-trusted brand to, quote, indoctrinate children into the LGBTQIA cult, unquote. Now, while he praised Walt Disney as an American entrepreneur, Jeremy Boring derided the current state of the Disney company as, quote, pushing all of the worst excesses of the woke left,
Starting point is 00:27:07 including paying for employees' abortions, promoting anti-racism training, and, quote, going to war on behalf of the left-wing social policy in Florida, unquote. Boring framed Disney's quite tame political stances as a huge cultural loss for conservatives. And here's a part of that announcement. It would be impossible to overstate just how big a loss this is for Americans who believe in basic reality. Disney controls the greatest content library ever created. Their cultural reach, particularly with children, is beyond anything that's ever existed. Recognizing the scope of this loss, the Daily Wire announced that we would spend $100 million over three years
Starting point is 00:27:47 to begin our own kids' entertainment company. And today, on the 100th anniversary of the day Walt Disney founded his company, I'm proud to announce the launch of ours. Introducing Bent Key, an entirely new company from The Daily Wire, a company dedicated to creating the next generation of timeless stories that transport kids into a world of adventure, imagination, and joy. Okay, okay.
Starting point is 00:28:10 So, Bent Key. Robert, how do you feel about one, the name Bent Key and the Bent Key logo? The Bent Key logo looks like a flaccid penis.
Starting point is 00:28:27 It does kind of look like a flaccid penis, doesn't it? I don't know. It's not an appealing name. One thing you've got to say for Walt Disney, and I guess it's impossible to say. My head says there's something just kind of inherently attractive about the last name disney yeah like made it always a good brand but maybe if like if he'd been named bluppo would it have
Starting point is 00:28:51 worked would bluppo entertainment be that be the cultural powerhouse that it became um i can't even we can't answer disney's such a thing you can't answer it even yeah they could have gone with boring entertainment but i guess they didn't yeah that was not gonna happen bleppo's a better one than boring but yeah bent key that's that's the word bent and the word key and yeah the logo is this lowercase b with a little droopy arm connecting to the letter k yeah which doesn't really look like a key but does look a little bit like an abstracted penis you've got the b part kind of forming the head you've got the tines of the key are two balls i would have given it three times if i was making the key just so it didn't look like balls uh well do you know what else is a really important announcement that we have for our audience?
Starting point is 00:29:48 No. It's these products and services that support this podcast. Pay close attention. This is crucial information about the fight for America and to secure our values. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.
Starting point is 00:30:27 Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Starting point is 00:31:02 or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:31:34 New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards.
Starting point is 00:32:01 That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. All right, we are back. Back to talk about Bent Key Entertainment, the new hit streaming service that your kids can enjoy. So, the Daily Wire Kids content used to be under the banner of just Daily Wire Kids or DW Kids, right?
Starting point is 00:32:29 And the choice to rebrand, even with a name as silly as Bentkey, I think is actually one of their smarter moves here. They recognized that the Daily Wire is a very politically charged and possibly limiting title if they want to create a growing children's media company. Now, ever since What is a Woman and up to their most recent releases, like Lady Ballers, the name The Daily Wire has actually been hidden or not included in legal contracts and forms when people are signing up to these projects. So I think BentKey allows them to cast the widest net possible to not only you know get people to buy their service but also to get people to collaborate with them on media and it also like it also works to attract parents that might not even be aware of what the
Starting point is 00:33:16 daily wire is it's just this new kids streaming service company and uh also uh bent key ventures also happens to be the name of the daily wires parent company so that's probably why they picked it i still don't know what bent key means but it's also the name of the parent company for the for the daily wire which is probably the name they're going to use for a lot of like their contracts and they're trying to like get like actors and like producers to sign into their stuff because Because whenever someone sees the Daily Wire on something, if they're smart at all, they'll be like, absolutely not.
Starting point is 00:33:51 But if the word bent key is on there instead, maybe that won't raise as many red flags. So the new child-focused app is available for only $99 a year. Hell, hell of a steal. Wow. And at launch included 150 episodes across 18 different shows, four of which were produced in-house, with new episodes airing every Saturday morning.
Starting point is 00:34:19 Their flagship show, Chipchilla, is about a family of homeschooled chinchillas. Now, some have pointed out that this this appears to be a blatant conservative ripoff of the very popular kids show bluey yes and i have i have a picture comparing bluey and chip chilla here the same fucking animation style yeah except except i think this also shows if you've seen any of the bluey art you can compare it to the chip chilla art they do look similar in like color palette but there is a massive difference in like the appealing design of bluey which actually looks
Starting point is 00:34:57 pretty good versus the the design of the chip chilla characters just looks slightly off. It looks kind of like they're all on half a tab of acid. Yeah. Versus Bluey has pretty good character design. It has a lot of range for expressions. Versus everyone in Chipchilla just all has the same wide-eyed look. Pretty widely considered to be like a one of the better children's animated shows that's that's just existed yeah so somehow the somehow the blue dog show must have been too woke so instead in the daily wires version the kids are all homeschooled
Starting point is 00:35:42 and operate as like a stereotypical nuclear family so this was this was the first show they announced but they have others uh their other original content includes a show where a middle-aged woman talks to a dog puppet god so yeah lamb chop okay and and two other original live action shows star child actors that teach fitness and history to kids and all of between all of the daily wire original content i've watched the thing i feel most uncomfortable about is the amount of child actors who've been forced into doing this who don't know anything about the daily wire or politics they're just these poor kids who've now been forced to participate in this like evil machine um now i'm gonna play a one minute one minute trailer for robert i'm not gonna play it for
Starting point is 00:36:29 the audience here because you don't need to just hear this ad but you will hear our reactions afterwards so here's for robert here is the trailer for bent key oh god how do you feel about the bent key trailer, Robert? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we'll see if it takes off. I'm sure it could be a profitable business, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in terms of capturing the wider cultural market,
Starting point is 00:36:57 I don't see it being a Disney-level success or even like a Nickelodeon-level success. I'm looking at it right now on Twitter. It's got 490 likes and 600 something thousand views so again i can see them getting enough downloads to make this maybe worthwhile if they're if they're spending 30 million or more a year on production that is going to be kind of hard especially given like bandwidth costs and shit to to i don't know we'll say yeah i wouldn't be surprised if it's able to be a functional business i don't think i don't see anything on there that makes me think oh this is kids are gonna fall in love with this shit most of these most great
Starting point is 00:37:34 like children's networks and children's like entertainment companies were driven by iconic successes that like absolutely took over and were like dominant culturally you think about like um in the early 90s shit like uh uh uh aladdin right and like or or um the lion king how fucking everywhere when how a generation before you had you know the earlier generation of disney animated movies you think about stuff like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or like the that kind of stuff was was not just it was dominant among kids, but it also like adults continue to watch it for generations. And I've never run into anybody outside of weird right wings, not even weird right wing circles. I've never run out into anybody who is not work for the Daily Wire talking about these shows yes and i think there's a few things about that i think one they don't need kids to like it they only need parents to pay the annual fee yeah for it to make sense as
Starting point is 00:38:36 a business for it to for it to do culturally what they want rather more as required at least a few years ago they were pulling in over $100 million in revenue per year. And one thing that Daily Wire has shown is that they are kind of playing the long game with this sort of stuff. They're not looking for short-term profit. They're looking to slowly build dominance in this industry, mostly to just fulfill Jeremy and Ben's dreams
Starting point is 00:39:02 of working in Hollywood. That's all this is, is that they're trying to fulfill their childhood dreams of making movies. So all of this is just being put towards making industry connections, to be able to actually just make TV and films. That's all this is actually for.
Starting point is 00:39:18 So, which leads us to the most ambitious upcoming Bent Key production. A live-action action fairy tale adaption written by Jeremy Boring in response to Disney's own upcoming remake of their classic film, Snow White. The company Disney founded doesn't agree with their founder and visionary. They're remaking their own iconic film nearly 100 years later. They've decided to make some key changes. Their lead
Starting point is 00:39:45 actress, the new Snow White, Rachel Ziegler, has summed it up, saying, quote, I just mean, it's no longer 1937. We absolutely wrote a Snow White that she's not going to be saved by the prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. While Disney still uses Walt's name, they've all but abandoned his legacy. Instead of telling stories about timeless truth, what the ancient fairy tales were all about, Disney's new Snow White is an apology for their past and will expose children to the popular but destructive lies of the current moment. Which is why, in addition to announcing the launch of our kids' entertainment company,
Starting point is 00:40:27 I also want to announce today that company's first live-action feature film. It's a story about a princess and a prince, about beauty and vanity, about love and its power to raise us from death to life. It's our own adaptation of an ancient fairy tale. It's coming in 2024, and it's called... So, before I play the rest of the trailer for Robert, there is a few funny things about this clip that I just played for the audience as well.
Starting point is 00:40:53 Mostly when he's describing the new Disney Snow White, it's a very sensible message that the lead actor was talking about. He's like, this is horrible! Imagine! I also don't even think it's a great message like it's a very conservative message that like this woman is born to lead and it is about her finding her place in the bread in hierarchy of her of her state like that's a pretty conservative message they just hate it because a womp said it yes but now i will i will play you the the very brief like 30 second
Starting point is 00:41:25 trailer based on like this one this one thing they've shot jesus christ so bad a tale of timeless truth wow little on the nose That's so bad. A tale of timeless truth. Wow, little on the nose. Oh my god, she's even got a basket of red apples. The kind of apples that don't exist anywhere but a gene-engineered farm. Oh my god. Oh, and it's clearly Snow White. Oh my god. Yes it's clearly snow white oh my god yes oh fuck so i i actually i actually do want to play that for the audience because it's just so funny keep
Starting point is 00:42:15 that in there that's that's because like the song they've got in there is like completely without wonder it's just like once upon a time a prince will come or some shit yeah she's like in the woods picking apples that are like the a color of red that you don't even see in the like not a natural red at all just just profoundly off-putting and weird so 170 17 000 views so i don't know we'll see if this beats the original snow white or whatever snow white real actors and writers are making so this is this is snow white and the evil queen and i'm not sure if you pick this up this is this is starring failed actor and the daily wires own gen z female clone of ben shapiro brett cooper as snow white it's that it's that other daily wire host that looks like a weird female version of ben shapiro is starring as snow white and it
Starting point is 00:43:15 all just looks like really bad cosplay like the it is it was quite something so that is that is their first bent key upcoming original movie so i'm sure everyone's going to be excited for that one and like it seems the entire bent key strategy is to either be so banal that it appeals to like unassuming parents who don't know what the daily wire is or to create create these fake culture war outrage moments to scare parents into thinking that woke corporations are trying to turn their kids gay or are trying to turn their kids into feminists. And the only way to stop that
Starting point is 00:43:56 is to give the Daily Wire $100 a year to watch failed screenwriters and actors poorly imitate better pieces of film and TV. I think the trouble they're going to have here is that there's a i think a discrepancy between what would do the best job of achieving what they claim is their social mission right which is uh incepting conservative ideas into mass culture by taking over pop entertainment um and they And what is clearly their more important goal, which is making a lot of money.
Starting point is 00:44:29 Because the best way to make a lot of money, and I think there's a good chance they can succeed, building a content network for their weirdo fans that costs $100 a year. But if they want to reach the most people, the best thing to do would be to get to a point where they can sell their videos streaming to netflix and the like um but that doesn't keep people in their walled garden and
Starting point is 00:44:51 also probably is less profitable over time than having a monopoly on this shit and i so i i don't know what they're going to choose to do um that'll be interesting to watch but yeah i mean it's the kind of thing as a business this could work for sure we'll see about the other stuff and again so this is this is only half of their efforts because on top of the 100 million dollars put towards children's programming which has resulted in bent key the daily wire plus was also putting an additional 100 million dollars into more adult oriented entertainment now most of the daily wires production effort has been going into adapting the Christian Arthurian novels The Pendragon Cycle into a live-action, seven-episode miniseries directed
Starting point is 00:45:35 by Jeremy Boring. The upcoming fantasy series just wrapped filming in Europe this past fall. The cast is mostly made up of, like, C-list actors. Never, never, I don't know where they made this garrison but never has a production seemed more croatia than this um it's still been hungary in italy so oh my god ah i was close i was close there you go there you go ah okay the cast is made up of mostly like c-list actors some daily wire staff and actors from small roles in like game of thrones and the witcher so this is coming out later this year it's based on this series of
Starting point is 00:46:10 novels that or that came out in the in the 2000s it's it's it's like an arthurian story but set slightly before um the the rise of like england it's it's it's during like uh uh the fall of like british rome i think is what they call it now guys i'm sorry we all got to see the a great arthurian cycle movie recently and something tells me this one's gonna have a lot less of a guy coming into a scarf you you don't think you don't think this will be as good as the green knight i i don't think we're gonna get a real fucking clear shot of one guy's come in a scarf i'll tell you that i i trust director jeremy boring's vision so oh man um but the project i am the most excited about is that the daily wire has acquired exclusive rights to adapt ayn rand's atlas shrugged into a television series oh good
Starting point is 00:47:07 oh my god that's like that's like being an opponent of the nazis in 1941 and hearing that they've just invaded the soviet union like oh thank god okay okay we're on the downswing of this one boys i am i am so excited to see the libertarian wet dream that's gonna be this atlas shrugged tv show i there is no one else i would rather adapt to atlas shrugged than the daily wire in part because atlas shrugged is like famously like the least filmable thing of all time like it's it's the fountainheads actually could be like a fine movie but atlas i don't i'm i'm excited i don't think you can make atlas shrugged and do i i hope i hope they do shot for shot that one like 70 page speech that what's his name goes on oh yeah that's that's what i really want uh so yeah um i am actually excited to excited to not like hate
Starting point is 00:48:08 watch but like curiously staring into the void watch their atlas uh their atlas shrug show but the one daily wire plus series that i am not very much excited about is an upcoming adult animated scripted series created by adam carolla entitled Mr. Bircham. God in heaven. Yeah, I saw ads for this one. Yeah, this show's description sounds like the most old man yells at cloud premise I've ever heard. Quote, Mr. Bircham attempts to navigate a world he doesn't understand or approve of. He's befuddled by his gaming streamer son, Eddie, annoyed at his selfie-taking snowflake students. So that's the description of the show, which I don't know about you. That sounds like a horrible time.
Starting point is 00:49:07 The cast includes Corolla as Mr. Burcham, Megan Kelly, Roseanne Barr, conservative comedian Tyler Fisher, Daily Wire hosts Brett Cooper and Candace Owens, comedian Alonzo Brodin, a former Amy Schumer writer, Kyle Dunangan, and unfortunately, Danny Trejo and Patrick Warburton. That last one hurts. That last one hurts. I know. It can't be that hard up, Patrick. Come on, man. I am going to play this for the audience because, oh my. I guess I'm not
Starting point is 00:49:44 surprised that being in venture brothers didn't pay enough for him to avoid this yeah and apparently warburton is is a conservative um yeah i i am interested to see what some of these people were told before they agreed to this because i know the daily wire's name has been hidden in in a lot of contracts well and adam carolla is a real comedian yeah like i didn't say good but like he is somebody who established a career in hollywood yeah i get it so yeah and it looks like fucking brickleberry and all those other like dog shit sheep shit cartoons yeah it looks bad um yeah let's let's have fun listening to this though just tell me what you need Jumping in the first one Rolling
Starting point is 00:50:25 Speed Action Sawbucks looking a little chubby Amazing voice acting by Megyn Kelly Dogs are supposed to eat meat They're descendants of wolves You ever see a vegan wolf on the nature channel? I'm a vegan
Starting point is 00:50:40 Very, very funny vegan show Listen up. Oh, my God. Don't do anything stupid. Er than last year. I'm a heteronormative, cisgendered white male. For which I apologize. I'm black and that used to be enough,
Starting point is 00:50:57 but I'm also bilingual and I'm non-binary. We're the army. We drink more before 9 a.m. than you Navy pukes do all day. He rubbed all the fur off his emotional support ferret the damn thing looked like a four-legged oh roseanne bar oh god charity and work two words that should never go together like women and opinions they're salty and make me dizzy sorry i just need just need to find a thingy to fix my gaming chair. When I was on the construction site, my chair was a five-gallon bucket.
Starting point is 00:51:32 It was also my toilet. See, what's amazing about that, all of the Megyn Kelly and terrible voices, no character to them. Adam Carolla sounds like a parody of himself. He's going too hard into gruff. Maybe if I see the show, it'll be better because it may just have picked some lines
Starting point is 00:51:53 where he was doing that, but there's not much character to his voice. What I will say is I hate that he's in this, but Patrick Burton, still a pro. That man can do a line read. That man knows how to do a fucking line read no it's weird how many of these are like actual comedians who have been who are being forced to read like non-binary and they're like they don't know what non-binary means they're
Starting point is 00:52:19 just being forced to read a script written by ben shapiro and they're like what are these words it doesn't matter just keep going yeah get your paycheck i don't know it's it's it's a bummer um i it's weird because like adam carolla i've never felt anything positive towards or particularly negative towards until recently i guess now i'm on the negative side even with this i still feel overall good about patrick warburton he's just giving me too much it'll take a lot so this this that is most of what i wanted to talk about because the only other daily wire project i have anything to say about is the movie that came out a few months ago project I have anything to say about is the movie that came out a few months ago, Lady Ballers. And I could not fit my Lady Ballers thoughts into this episode because that is going to be its own
Starting point is 00:53:14 special event. That's going to be your Finnegan's wake. Yes. So a few weeks ago, I watched it for the first time. I took a lot of notes. I'm going to watch it again here. We are going to go deep into the production of this movie. This thing was shot just as a peek of the writing quality you're about to hear about. The whole script was written in two weeks. It was shot in like a month.
Starting point is 00:53:41 It stars the only Daily Wire hosts. Every single actor they approached for this turned it down because they're like absolutely not no fuck this shit and it is a it is a a insightful insightful look into the soul of jeremy boring he wrote directed produced and started this thing it was shot right in Nashville, Tennessee. So that is going to be after the weekend. We're going to have a special episode of me diving into what makes Lady Ballers tick.
Starting point is 00:54:14 And is it any funny? The answer is not really. But we will go into the production of this movie, the way this movie tries to work, and what we can learn about how The daily wire is going to try to be producing these sorts of comedy films and try to insert itself into, into the entertainment industry. So that will be,
Starting point is 00:54:33 that that will be the start of next week. Our special on lady ballers, any, any, any closing thoughts on, on, on bent key or, or the daily wire plus as,
Starting point is 00:54:43 as, as, as the daily wire enters the streaming market, Robert? Patrick, you don't have to do this. Just let us know you need help. We can take care of you. Patrick, blink three times. We love you.
Starting point is 00:54:57 If you need help with the mortgage, we can crowdfund. It doesn't matter. We can make this work, buddy. We can make this work. Anyway. We can make this work. Anyway, well, that does it for us today. I hope you learned something about
Starting point is 00:55:11 Jeremy Boring, the most forgettable man with the most accurate name. Yep. Alright, guys. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts All right. at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast,
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Starting point is 00:56:31 Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
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