Might Delete Later - Ep 11: James Acaster

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

Gina and Stevie are BACK for series 2 and their first guest is award-winning stand-up James Acaster. Want to know the reasons why the Off Menu podcast co-host became a Twitter quitter? All is revealed…👉🏼Remember you can find all posts discussed on Instagram @mightdeletelaterpod and we're on twitter too @mightdeletepod.Listen to James Acaster’s podcasts Off Menu here and Perfect Sounds hereBuy James’s books Classic Scrapes here and Perfect Sound Whatever hereFollow Gina on Instagram @ginamartin and Twitter @ginamartinukFollowing Stevie on Instagram @5tevieM and Twitter @5tevieMWant to help us make more episodes? Support Might Delete Later at https://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelaterHosted by Gina Martin and Stevie Martin.Photo by Joe Magowan.Artwork by Zoe Harrison.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams.Produced by Plosive Productions.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelater. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you love Mike Delete Later? I bloody hope you do. You can support our show by using the new ACAS supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there is no regular commitment. Just smash that link in the show description and support us now so we can keep making this podcast. Thank you. Welcome to Series 2 of Mike Delete Later. Yes.

Good to be here. Great to be here. I'm Stevie Martin, a person who feels social media erases their soul. And I'm Jeune Martin, a person who thinks social media. kind of builds it up in different ways. Wow. Yeah, deep. Every week in this podcast, we go through people we find interesting social media timelines, and we dredge up some good juicy business. And our guest today actually came off social media, so it's a very short episode. Yes, very short episode. No, our guest today is James A. Caster. He's been on every comedy TV

panel show I've ever heard of, or you could name, but he also hosts Hypothetical with Josh Whitacom. He's written two books, classic scrapes and perfect sounds, whatever. And he also co-hosts a podcast with Ed Gamble, off-menu, and has his own podcast, James Acast's perfect sounds, where he basically tries to convince everybody that 2016 was the best year for music. Is it? Listen. He's not wrong. He's not wrong.

Yeah, he seems to, like, never stop working. And he came off Twitter in 2018, and that's what we're going to dig into today. Why he came off it, did he miss it? The conversation for me was genuinely, like, so fascinating. Yeah, I found it really interesting because you kind of want to know what it feels like when someone comes off. and when he talks about it, the fact there were so many things that went into that decision. Go to at Mike Delete LaterPod on Instagram to not see James's posts,

but for some great quotes from the episode. And also, maybe like a blurry screenshot picture, because we recorded this remotely. So before we get to our excellent guest, our new feature they were doing for this series is basically, as at the beginning, asking each other what's in each other's draft? Like, it's a really clever, unclunky way of basically saying, what's happening in your social media mind and land at the moment?

Gina, what is going on with you? Okay, so this week, I've had lots of saved things about lifestyle. So I'm like, you know, I talk a lot, politically a lot of stuff. But it's like, I kind of want to just be able to share like the things I'm doing. Like, here's this lovely face. I'll look at my love. Because I just like, it's another thing to add to the thing of like, I guess I should also share what I'm doing. And also like that then puts pressure on, you know, it's like self care.

So I don't really want to share the self care because that's the thing that I switch off from the political stuff with. Understood. But it's almost like this small pipe dream of like, imagine if I didn't talk about subjects that only ever invite people to come into my inbox to be like, you're wrong. And instead was like, look at this lovely vitamin C cream. But then so, sorry, you're wrong. It's a shit for a C cream. You'd be like, oh my God, it's vitamin C cream. Let go. Absolutely right. So I've had this small pipe dream doing more lifestyle stuff. And I did like one night where I did like a little routine. And it felt very nice. And then I thought,

well, that was good. But I think I'm just going to have to carry on being myself. So yes, I'll never be an influencer in that sense, but I'm kind of okay with that. But I do have a hankering sometimes to just do things that simple. Well, you could do because I don't do like lifestyle stuff ever. But what I do is like, I actually don't know what I do want there, if I'm honest. It's not all other people's posts and stuff. So I'll be like, I've got a lipstick. Here's my face.

I know it'll be like a stupid face. Like I don't know. It's just life stuff more than like lifestyle. Yeah. There's a balance. And if you feel odd being like, so in the morning I get up and I wash my face with rose hip oil like so and it would be so odd because I don't that's the thing yeah lying as well just lying so that you put the lie in lifestyle oh my god very good that's the thing I could never be that

because I just I don't have a morning skincare routine I don't have an evening skincare routine I eat hummus with my fingers I don't get dressed so it's like maybe I'll just show that yeah also I don't think you shouldn't worry about because you do it's very hard you have everyone must think about what they're putting out and that's the hard part but you do a lot and you also do show yourself chatting about those issues that you're talking about. So we still see Gina like in her flat, but you are always like making food or you're always in your pyjamas, but it's unclear that they're your pyjamas. I only know because it's that big old blue tie-dye shirt and it looks like it could be a normal

shirt, but I know you slept in it. Baby girl, that is a shirt dress, but I do sleeve in it. Got it. Okay, well tell me what is in your drafts because it'll make me feel better by my weird lifestyle stuff. Ask me. Okay, so mine's very like, treat a form. At the moment, I'm really struggling to do.

tweet. No. Yes, because nothing I can think of is interesting and funny, and I don't have any, like, hot takes and things. It's just like, there's a lot of news,

and the news is quite harrowing. And I don't, I just like to read that rather than then be like, here's my thoughts. But I like reading other people's thoughts, and I've basically just been going on Twitter and I'd be like, God, everyone's knocking it out of the park

with this stuff. Like, they're all, everyone, so many people are thinking of funny things all the time. And I think maybe, yeah, like, how are you thinking? tweeting four times a day and all of it is funny. I'm not saying all of it like is going viral.

It's not even that. It's just like, that's a fun thought. Also, of course you feel like that when you're watching 4,000 people and more, because it's not just how you follow. And you're saying all of their funniest shit that went viral. Like, of course you feel like that. But how to go through it? Like I said to tweet something about my show or something the other day.

And then left it on for two minutes and they got one light as a little later. I've done that about 17 times. So then I also have had that before and I've tried tweeting things like. like, I've got nothing to tweet, but I'm just having a nice time reading your things. And then I just feel like what was the point of saying that. So also what's very weird is that I don't need to, I shouldn't be worried about not being able to tweet. I should just be like, oh, I haven't had a thought this week.

That's cool rather than being like, oh, my, the algorithm is going to put like, Yeah, fuck the algorithm. You can't, like we said in the previous episode, you actually can't keep up with that because there's too many things changing all the time. And like, I feel like that sometimes. Like, I don't feed post a lot on Instagram, really. And I might not feed post for a week. and it's like, I feel like, I went to, oh my God, all the Instagram business the evening said you went to post four times a day on your feed.

Four times a day. No. But step back, like if you feel that pressure to be like producing content, I just think, do the opposite because you'll always just feel like what you're putting out isn't good enough because you'll force yourself to do it. Yeah, wait until you've got a good thought. Yeah. And that's fine because no one has a good thought every day. No, I know. I know.

Well, it was good to see what was in your drafts. And the takeout is that you shouldn't. feel pressured to post all the time and I shouldn't feel pressured to post lifestyle stuff because I just want to be more simple. Yeah. Okay. Good job. Enjoy the app. Doids. Have fun. James, Acaster, what would you like to delete this week if you were able to delete something? During lockdown, I have had a lot of kind of flashbacks to every single social interaction I've ever had in my life because I haven't had any social interactions properly for months. And I don't think I can think of a single positive memory of a time I have

interacted with another human being apart from my girlfriend. So I would like to delete every single social interaction I have ever had before lockdown happened, please. Because none of them, None of them have brought me any joy remembering them. I'm not going, oh, yeah, that was nice. I can't believe you said that. Oh, those people must think you're a dickhead. So, just, I kind of late, every time I've interacted with another human being.

Yeah, you can do that. You know what? That's so great. I think that's the strongest one we've had, actually, to be fair. Yeah, normally it's like, uh, sandwiches. I said toasters, I think, once. That's quite deep and emotional. Gina, what's yours?

Mine is my next-door neighbor, who can probably hear me, and this is sort of a sub-tweet, but for my own bedroom in case he hears it. My next one neighbor who is deaf and plays hardcore violent porn every night and day and has done for three years and I've had to shout at him and he came out with holding a belt and I was like, what was the belt for? So I would delete him. A whole human being.

I can back that up because I lived in the bedroom of Gina's flat. I lived with Gina as well I'm trying to say. Gina doesn't own the flat. Even my bedroom with me. Yeah. And I used to hit the porn. and I could not believe it was the man who lived... I mean, what are the things like,

he doesn't look like the sort of man who would have violent porn and come out with the belt? He does so, doesn't he? He looks like Mr. McGregor from Peter Rabbit, but like the evil twin. And it obviously looks like the guy who listens to porn all day. It's really upsetting. How many episodes of this have you done?

We've recorded eight. I can only imagine what your first seven things you wanted to delete were, if that's number eight that you got to. Well, they were actually all boring. and I think I didn't have the confidence to really say what I wanted to delete. I was just going for like shit sausages and stuff, but now I'm really feeling it. So, Stephen, what would you like to delete this week?

I'd like to delete onions, not in food, so very specific, because I saw the thing we were supposed to grow an onion. There's all different types of ways. Basically, there was an onion in the cupboard, and it grew a chute, and it was like, that's fun. I'll put that in a plant pot. That's not how I was supposed to grow an onion. So I've been watering it every day, and then I've discovered that it hasn't grown

because I needed to have, basically, I've got a very wet onion in some soil, and I've had it in there for four weeks, and so I'm trying to smell horrible. And I was just in my head, I was going to be somebody that would recycle onions. But I'm not. I think we all had that sort of dream at the beginning of lockdown

that you're going to become somebody who, like, lived off the land and, like, just lived a different way, and then we all put, like, old food in wet buckets, and now no one has anything to show. James, you... came off social media. I was going to say you famously came off social media. I mean, sure, kind of was.

Maybe. In a way. Some people, all they did. So before we talk about that, I wanted to ask you, what your relationship with Twitter was like when you were on it? I stayed off of it as long as I could because I didn't want to be on it. I was already on Facebook and didn't like how much I checked it. And I didn't want to have another thing that I was checking all the time.

and I had my first ever TV appearance coming up and my agent at the time said it would really, really help if you were on social media, you've got to be on Twitter so that people can know where to find you afterwards and you can get a following and blah blah. So I started it because of that and I don't think I ever liked it. And so it was like a professional thing more than anything else?

Yeah, I wouldn't have been on there otherwise, I don't think. And I do think there were positives to it as an idea and as a thing. But just for me, personally being on there. I hated just constantly checking it. And it's really hard to describe what it does to, I want to say my head, because I don't want to speak on behalf of everybody, because I know some people like it and find it very good. But like I just find, I just, like my brain is just getting deader and deader, the more that I check on it, because I'm not really doing anything on there. It's so weird, being on your phone,

it's so different to being on your computer. Yeah, it's a good screen, bad screen. Why? And it just never made me feel that good. Even when there were little moments that were good and that I enjoyed, a few and far between. But most of the time, even when it was like people saying nice stuff, because as a comic,

you check it after gigs, you check it after a TV appearance or whatever. And, you know, famously people say, you know, you'll have 95% of people saying it was good, 5% so it was bad and you focus on the bad lot.

And I actually didn't really do that. I would just read it all. And the bad, comments would sometimes bother me, but I actually had a break off of it won Edinburgh and then had to decide to go back onto Twitter. And when I decided to go back on Twitter, I stopped caring about the negative tweets and didn't care about any of them. That's good, because that's actually quite hard. People struggle with that. Yeah, I always try and come off and then within a week, I'm over Edinburgh and within a week I'm on it because I just can't, for good, for nice reasons

as well, like I want to see, if I've had, if I'm feeling shit, I want to see that people liked my show. Like, I want to see that people are like, oh yes, that was a bad. valid thing to have done on a stage sometimes. And it's hard to have that self-belief. But when you came on it for professional reasons, but you used to tweet funny things. So did you find yourself getting like drawn in? Would that be a good tweet?

And then like having drafts and being like, oh, what should I tweet? Or were you quite chilled out about it? Yeah, I didn't have drafts or anything. But I guess part of it professionally being on there is being funny. You think if I'm going to be on Twitter as a comic, I can't just be tweeting constantly, watch me on this, buy this that I've done, you know, download this.

it has to be that I'm being a comedian on there and there's some reason for people to be following me. So I would just, I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about the tweet. In some ways it was good right in practice because, you know, you had to make it concise and you had to make it clear what the joke was.

Especially because like, you know, if you do word it badly, I mean, for one, best case scenario, if you word it badly, people don't understand the joke and just going, I don't, I don't think that makes sense and then you've got to deal with all those people.

Or worst case scenario, you word it badly and everyone's like, you're cancelled. So it's quite good for that Going like, writing better And thinking about how to convey stuff But you could do that in other ways That's the thing

Like you could also do that in your spare time Yeah Before you came off it Did you do what a lot of people do Where they kind of like Try different things So they'll delete it for a bit Or they'll like

I don't know Put their phone in another room And all that stuff Did you do that or did you just go from like I'm on it I'm using it I can't bother with this shit anymore Actually at the minute

I've only deactivated the thing Because I did it on my phone And I think you can only deactivate it on your phone, you have to delete it on a computer. You haven't taken that big step, then you haven't, like, fully deleted. And I'll tell you why, it's because I can't be bothered to go back on the website again.

I don't want to go on there. I don't want to put Twitter into my computer and have to enter into it again. But I guess I will at some point have to do that because at some point this year, otherwise, the account is going to activate itself again. So I need to go on and do that. Yeah.

I've deactivated it for a year. That was the maximum amount of time I could have done. And it said you have to delete it on your actual computer. Oh, God. I tried to, like, give it up before or, like, wean myself off of it without deleting my profile. And all that means is that you delete the app on your phone and then you check it on Safari. Yeah, Stevie does that. You just do that all right.

Yeah, I do. As soon as I actually deactivated it and didn't have an account anymore, it was amazing. Just like, the soon as it's gone, it's gone. And I didn't feel any, like, I want to go back on and see what's going. I just felt a weight off my shoulders. I felt way more relaxed for not being on there. Actually, weirdly, so during lockdown, I started, but I didn't search my own name.

It was a new podcast that I've got out. And people were saying, all of the tweets about it are really nice and like all this. I was like, oh, I'll look at that. And then just the act of looking at it, even though there was nothing that was negative or horrible, made me feel gross. So I don't like it.

So interesting, isn't it? That is interesting. I remember when I graduated, I did an MA in journalism, and I graduated and I had no job for like 18 months after it and people were just posting status whenever they got jobs being like just a bit of personal news. I look who's finally like a staff writer at Women's But Magazine and it was like, oh, okay.

And I remember really feeling very strongly even though I was young and hadn't like sorted my head out with social media. I think that's why I was actually the kernel of why I hate it so much. I was like, oh, you're literally doing that just to show what? And it made me feel so shit about myself. So I've never once done that. I've never once gone like, whenever I've got a job, I'm very careful to not do like a big thing.

Because I know it makes people feel terrible. But at the same time, I know a lot of people do use it. And there's a whole, for that reason. And there's that whole like, it's okay to love yourself and be really confident, especially for women as well. And it's like, yes, fine line though, isn't it? Between being like loving yourself and being like, if I can prick about it.

But I do agree that, like, when people say about you've got to love yourself and stuff like that, that is important as well. So there's a fine line because you don't want to be one of those people's constantly going, no, I'm pretty shit actually and you're just constantly saying that and starting to believe it as well

and just playing yourself down. So there is, I mean, with all this stuff, there's a fine old line and what is nice, it's just not being anywhere near the line and being off of the fucking app. I was going to say, like you,

like you say before, it's like, you don't know, you can't even explain why it makes you feel gross, but even just talking about the fine line, I'm covered in sweat and I hate myself and I haven't been anything.

Why did you? Why did you come off Twitter? Like, what was the, was there a moment? There was a moment, but I don't know if that was the reason I didn't like Twitter. So, like, the moment was, it was just me having an extreme, very, just feeling very anxious about something. So the podcast to do off menu, we had supported the Podstrike, which was like the Greta Thunberg, like Climate Strike stuff. And it was like podcasts supporting the climate strike. And we had supported that and post it by the social media.

but we couldn't attend it ourselves because we were already going to a wedding of a friend of us. The wedding was in Italy. So on the day of the strike, we had to fly to another country. So in that moment, I was like, well, this is like,

I don't want to not support this thing because I obviously want to support it. And I can't drop, text my mate and go, I'm not going to come to your wedding anymore because I'll look like a hypocrite. So forget it. And you think to yourself, most people who read this are going to have flown at some point. And most people who support climate change.

So you shouldn't feel bad about that. But also me and three friends who had all gone to this wedding. A couple of years beforehand, we've been involved in something that blew up a little bit on social media when we had gone abroad and we had got stranded in New York. And so this is the first time we were going to be on a plane together again since then. And one of them was like, let's take a photo of us before we get on the plane, took a photo and we were all looking worried. I didn't think that was going on social media

it did and then some of I think only one person was like oh excuse me this and this what the fuck's this I think oh yeah I've got a platform now so it's different and all that and I started freaking out so much about like oh I just can't do anything

yeah yeah that I was just like after what it took a while of me thinking about it and then eventually was like I'm just getting off of it it was the reason the time that I deleted it but looking back it was like this straw that broke the camera back it was like Coleman's him yeah but looking back it's not what I didn't like about social media so I don't look back and go that was the thing that annoyed me all the time and that I hated it wasn't what I hated was constantly being on it constantly checking it needing people to tell me I was good

like I didn't like any of that and that made me feel gross you can go on it and you can feel so bad about humanity so quickly because just for some context James I do love it but I also like just gobble content that is like which is a weird that's a weird I heard you say that we've gobbled before in our entire life. Just gobble content that's just like, this guy made a roller coaster for his tortoise. And I'm like, oh, people are good. But it takes me like two hours of the tortoise content

to get away from like the two alt-right comments. Like, and it's exhausting. You talk quite a lot about mental health and have been quite open about mental health in a sense of your shows and stuff. I would say that for me, it's not good for my mental health. And it's just because, yeah, I just don't feel like I'm engaging with the real world a lot of the time when I'm on there. If I'm feeling bad anyway, going on there wouldn't make me feel good for a whole bunch of reasons.

So, yeah, I wouldn't ever, like, recommend it to anyone who's feeling down. Yeah, I wouldn't either. struggling. I'm going to be like, you could go on there. And, you know, I mean, I really do appreciate for some people, for some people, it's like this thing of like, oh, I can interact with people and I can't do that in my normal life and things like that. So I can only speak for myself personally, but like I just don't. It's been really interesting during lockdown, not seeing anybody and not being on social media. And not a single part of me is like, I miss it. I want to go back on there. I want to, I just haven't. And even though there's been loads.

of important stuff being talked about on social media, but I can still read about that and watch videos about it on YouTube. If someone said to me, do you want to get rid of all social media forever and it never existed? I would say no, because I think there are too many positive movements that have really benefited from social media. You just don't know how long it would have taken for something like the Me Too movement or Black Lives Matter to get to where they are now without that.

So you can't like get rid of those things. But you're right in saying that you can go and find that stuff yourself and curate that stuff around you. Like I think a lot of the time people say, yeah, like in social media, you can get in a bit of an echo chain, but a lot of people are without knowing it. You have to go out and try and find that stuff, and you can still do that without being on social,

just not serve to you every day. We had that little thing we did for a while, where Stevie has a similar thing where, like, she gets really overwhelmed with all this stuff that's happening and the amount of information, and it means to be, like, best friends and sisters. And when she was having a really difficult time like that,

I would like, I was always on social, and I would find things, and then I would, like, be her, like, curator of stuff. Like, oh, you should look at this. Oh, this is it. So she wasn't on it, but she'd get, like, a few handpicked things that I thought would be interesting for her dream that she could handle that at that point, and you would read them and be like, oh, they're amazing.

But it was just the overload of stuff at the time was so bad for your head. You don't have a first post, James, so that's fine. That just deals with that very quickly. I don't know what that is. That whole section's gone. Great. Next. Your worst one.

you've brought is a Facebook one it has a special place in my heart because I've also done it it's so bad and I think like maybe once a year Nish Kumar brings this up because it was like the highlight of his stupid life when I

did my first TV bit appearance or whatever I was just my own name on Facebook and loads of people who had seen it requested me on Facebook but I didn't know and I was so giddy about I've suddenly got fans that I just accepted every single

request. That's really nice though. It's pure, but not great. Ridiculous. So I just said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Excepted all of them. Oh, my God. And then I had a thing where I approved someone's friend request and they had

DM'd me, which wasn't even called that, whatever, private message of me, saying something. I can't know what it was, but it was too, like, I didn't know them and it was too much. It was like they crossed a bit of a kind of line that I wasn't very comfortable with. So I ignored the message. and then they message again being like what is your problem I've just said you're just messaging

and then a third one and I was thinking I need to not have this as a problem so I was like I'll just do a cult and I'll get rid of everyone who I don't know and that's all I do so it's just a tip for everybody out there if you are going to do a cull

just do it and don't tell any what you're doing it you don't need to announce it you don't owe the people who you've never met before an explanation you can just leave it so nowadays I would never do this so I wouldn't think I owe people that I've never met, fans, for one of a better word, anything. I'd be like, all I owe them is my comedy.

They've got that. I do not owe them anything else. I do not owe them an explanation for defrauded them on Facebook. However, at the time, I thought I don't want to upset them all, so I better do that. But also, on Facebook friends with everyone that I actually know. And everybody is going to see this post. So I did a whole post of like, over the years, I've been a bit too liberal with how many friend requests I've been accepting. tomorrow I'm going to do a call

everyone I don't know ahead of time as well great oh something like that defriend you you can like my fan page and get updates about me on that all the best and then obviously

just cue every single comic that I know commenting underneath it being like oh James are you going to defend me or do I have to like your fan page I'm like oh god they've absolutely got me here I've read ragged to a bull

and I can't believe I did this and all of them just having having what, Joe, I was envious of how much of a good time they were having so I'm man, if this was someone else, I'll be right in here. I'll be doing exactly what they were doing. But the worst part of it was

is that I was befriended people and one of the people I defriended was my friend's wife because, I mean, they're married now at the time they were a boyfriend, girlfriend, but like basically, I only knew her at the time

by her first name and I knew her as a shortened version of that first name, not her full first name. And so when I was just going through, and this call was big, there was a lot of, I'd accepted every friend request I'd ever got. So I was, I was having to do loads. I wasn't clicking on everyone's

profile and looking at who they were. I was like, don't know that name, don't know that name. Oh, so you click, it wasn't an accidental click, you clicked her name, be like, nope. Yep, nope, because like it was, it was a name I'd never seen before. It was, it was, it was her full first name and her surname, at which point I was not familiar with either, defriended

her, and then, obviously, I mean, which is like, I'm making excuses for it, but it's no excuse. I should have known her name. I've met her. So like, you know, it's not, it's not an excuse. Obviously, that came back to haunt me because I think she was talking to one of her mates. It's about comedy. And she was like, oh, you've heard of James Davis?

No, it's just like, oh, you, no, you will have. Hold on, I'll get him. It's my Facebook friend. And then not on there. No. Obviously felt awful. And she is such a nice person, but I wouldn't blame her if every time she sees me, a part of her thinks, you're a dick. Wait, have you not re-friended her?

Yeah, I did, and then I deleted my Facebook account. Oh, shit, yeah. Well, she does now. She now thinks he's, like, fully blocked her. Because when you block someone on Facebook, it's like, you don't exist. Oh, God, yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Steve, you did the same thing, are you? I didn't do the same thing for the same reasons, but I basically just got fed up. I was drunk on Christmas Day, and I was bored on Christmas Day, and I just decided to, I didn't announce it. I just did, like, a stealth call. And then it was like, half of my Facebook friends, and I realised that I called the person I was supposed to be moving

in with that in January. So, and I was lodging in her house and doing her a great favour. And then when she tried to message me to be like, you're moving in, then she was like, right, well, you've also befriended me. It was, and I had to be like, a drunk muster. And it was, I just felt, it was just so stupid. Have you done it, too? I hate that. Yeah, I did it with the campaign when I was doing the campaign. And I did, like, a political campaign. And I got loads of, like, I just got, like, a lot of abuse from guys. And I changed my name because I was getting so many abusive messages and, you know, rape threats

and shit like that. And then I was like, every time there's a post because I was posting about trying to change law and then like all these debates would happen underneath it where it'd be like people who didn't know me in school who like bullied me and well shit would be like, oh my God, so proud of my gal. I totally believe like women's rights and I was like, oh my God, you literally hated me.

Like we haven't spoke for 10 years. And it started to get in my head like, this is really annoying I'm trying to do this work and like every time I go on Facebook people like, Gina, what do you think about like when people are catcull? It's not a compliment. I was like, I don't want to talk about it. So I just deleted loads of people that I haven't seen in 10 years. Like, you know, people you collected when you were 15 on Facebook or whatever.

And then about two days ago, I just got, like, loads of friend requests back. So they'd seen it and then gone, no, can I? No, can we be friends? And I was like, well, now I feel like I'd have to, but I deleted you for a reason. Did you just accept everyone? I just left. I just left them. Best post is next.

Right. I have no context for this. but apparently involves the hashtag Wang Banga Carl and Jada Banga Mash. And I'm assuming the first one is something to with Phil? Yep, Phil Wang. This is not only the thing I enjoyed most when I was on Twitter, but this is why I can't fully write Twitter off either. It's probably one of the high points of my life.

So it requires a lot of explanation. But Phil Wang, the comedian Phil Wang, had done a tweet. I can't now remember what the original tweet was. Part of the tweet, it was something about the Batman Be. and there was like a sexual innuendo in there or something. I think maybe myself, maybe Steve McNeil, I'm not sure exactly who, replied to it saying, are you saying that you want to bang a car?

Then it's one of those things where I, one thing I really like, and this is going to make me sound like a complete hypocrite, but I think it's very different. When you all know each other, it's very different. I like collective friendly bullying on social media. So when it is, like when everyone did it to me, with my Facebook status.

I was like, fair enough. Really wish I was a part of this and not on the receiving end of it, but it is great. So a bunch of us jumped on Phil Wang, teasing Phil, and calling it a sicko for wanting to bang cars and using the hashtag Wang Bang a Car

and insisting that every time people tweeted about it, they had to use the hashtag, including Phil, which he did every time. Oh, hang on a minute. When I was researching this, one of the tweets I saw was Phil lying down, like, topless, and then it zoomed it on his speech. face and then it got to his pupils and he had like a mini or something right in his

pupil this makes so much sense. It was like photoshoped images of him like getting now what I realised is getting horny for cars. Yes. I didn't realise that at the time. Obviously all your tweets are not there. So all we're seeing. No, so there's no context. Right.

Great. I mean, I can't remember exactly what I tweeted. This isn't why it was the best thing because that day was fun. Sure. And we did it for a while. Then I think a year later, Napoleon Metcalf got a notification like, hey, remember what was happened on Twitter last year or whatever? It was like the Wang Banga Car thing.

So he tweeted us all again saying Twitter's just alerted me that it's exactly a year since hashtag Wang Banga Car. And then it all kicked off again. And then it just happened every year. And every year, we would do Wang Banga Car again at him and he would have to deal with the fact and people were finding videos of men kissing cars and all sorts of stuff. Loads of fun.

But that was not the best day on Twitter. The best day on Twitter was when Jane Adams bought a potato masher. And she got an email from the people she had bought the potato masher from whatever company it was, John Lewis, I think. Jay Adam is a comedian. She's great.

Jay Adams, also a fantastic comic. And she'd get emails every day from John Lewis saying, hey, Jage, just wondering how that mashers working out for you. And she's done a tweet, done a tweet being like, I'm bloody sick of this. Every day they're sending me emails asking me to rate the masher out.

of five stars and how happy am I with the masher. I haven't even used this masher yet. I'm absolutely sick of it. And then obviously, I replied to it immediately going, so how's the masher working out? And then Steve McNeil replied, going, so seriously, the masher, any good? And there was like, oh, the old crew's getting back together and we've got a new target. And then that went on like all day. And she went, when do you guys actually drop this sort of stuff?

How long does it usually go on for? and someone said that pretty long asked at Phil Wang and then we started using the hashtag Jade Bang and Mash and it is my favourite hashtag ever

I laughed so much the first and I'm going to say it it's the best week I've ever done because I was the one who came up with Jade Banga Mash I was I was the one who incorporated it and it's the most I've ever laughed at anything that I have done myself

I'm so pleased with it because it's the stupidest thing ever It's so stupid I love it. There was nothing sexual about Jade and the masher. It was just that we've now bought in Phil Wang again. And so it was Jay Banga Mash. And he's like, for goodness sake, it's still going on.

And then Jade really amped up being furious at us, but also using the hashtag Jade Bang a Mash every single time. Which.com got involved. What? So which.com we're asking about the masher, but also using the hashtag Jade Bangor. No. Oh my God.

This is so good. And it went on for a long time. Ed Gamble turned up at a gig with Jade wearing a Jade Banga Mash t-shirt, which he had made for having sent to himself with the hashtag Jade Banga Bash. I ended up actually going to Jade's house and having a roast dinner and having to use the masher for the roast dinner. And that was a very nice meal. It was brilliant. I laughed.

The first day that we did Jade Banga Mash, it lasted all day. And I laughed out loud at every single tweet that everyone did. I was giddy with how happy. There's so much joy from that. That's what it's good for. It's like this silly, like, stupid fun stuff that you do between your friends. Like, that's so much fun.

I mean, it happened once in the decade I was on there. Yeah. True, good point. I've had more laughs with my actual friends in the real world during that time. But that was a lot of fun. I feel like this episode's giving me a lot of food for thought. Just so you know.

No, I genuinely. Well, no, I genuinely do, because all the other ones are like, and this one's like made me go, you're probably right. I'm used to doing podcasts. There are thoughts about food. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much, James. That was really great. Thank you, James for coming. Thanks for having me. Follow James nowhere, but you can follow James A Castor, an account which was created because on Russell Howard's Good News, they misspelled your name, correct? Yep. Who runs the account, do you know? Yes, but I'm not allowed to say publicly. people think it's me which is so bad people are like oh it's it's it what? Follow us at My Delete LaterPod on Instagram

and My Delete Pod on Twitter and email us any guests you think we should have and also any of your old weird embarrassing tweets or Instagrams you can email us at MycdeleteLatatatatat at Gmail.com and look subscribe give us a lovely review that would be nice and remember social media is meant to be fun or a billionaire industry that's sucking out your brains

yes but however you feel about it if it starts making you feel bad you can always just delete everything later Thank you, James. Thanks, James. Bye. Bye. Thank you.