Some More News - Some More News: The Next Generation of MAGA Influencers

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Hi. You may have noticed a new crop of influencers like The Nelk Boys and Bryce Hall taking over online spaces. Today we’re looking at who these people are and how MAGA influencers garnered so much... well, influence. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Rachel Van Nes and David Christopher BellAdditional Material by Cody JohnstonProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #MAGA #influencers Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off TUSHY with the code SMN at https://hellotushy.com/SMN Feel good... and mean it when you say it!! For a limited time, get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to http://Headspace.com/somemorenews to unlock all of Headspace FREE for 60 days. Check out at https://shopify.com/morenews ALL LOWERCASE and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity.Chapters0:00 - Introduction2:10 - The Influencer Election4:59 - The Nelk Boys10:45 - Xaviaer DuRoussau12:58 - Bryce Hall19:38 - Trump’s Fringe Group Calculus26:20 - Shiloh Hendrix Said The N-word and Raised A Bunch Of Money32:27 - The Right’s Proud Racists34:34 - The Problem With Surrounded?!?43:29 - Our Social Media Influencer Dystopia49:13 - The Russian Influencer Network53:37 - The Desperate For Search For The Liberal Joe Rogan55:44 - The Billionaire ProblemSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay. Gen Z slang. Some cool Gen Z slang. Listicle from Parade Magazine. That's gonna help. Oh, hey, fam. It's me, your Bussin Chad gooning at you in 4k. I do not think that's the correct use of gooning at you in 4K. I do not think that's the correct use of gooning. Okay, so no cap. That's not gonna work. Listen, here's some news.

It appears that the far right is knuckled deep in online media these days. According to this Media Matters graph, right-leaning shows have a far larger audience than left-leaning shows. I mean, we're not even on that graph. Come on, Dave Pac-Man, he doesn't even have a far larger audience than left leaning shows. I mean, we're not even on that graph. Come on, Dave Pac-Man, he doesn't even have a beard. His name sounds like the worst Atari spinoff game.

I'm not mad. I've never been mad. So anyway, I was talking with Harris and Biden and all my other pet gerbils, and we were brainstorming ways to make a buck in this new online climate. I asked Rock, that's my other gerbil, and he pointed out that if you really want

to make money these days, you apparently just have to say the N-word in public. He also started talking about white genocide for some reason. Anyway, a lady called a child a slur and is now crowdfunding over $700,000 and counting. Cool World we're living in. Kind of makes you want to check out forever.

Remember the movie Cool World? Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, um, fam. Anyway, fam, today we're gonna talk about all of this. The racist ass internet, the right wing dominance of online media, and the apparent appeal of Trumpism for Gen Z men. It's all deeply connected and interwoven into insidious forces from above. Just like my gerbil maze.

Riz. MAGA. The Next Generation. Kids love 90s Star Trek references. Also, I don't actually have gerbils. Kids love 90s Star Trek references. Also, I don't actually have gerbils. I lied to make myself seem cooler and succeeded. So, obs, obsiously,

traditional media has been dead for a while now and social media is the rat palace nesting inside its chest cavity. The social media is now how one in five Americans get their news. This means that influencers are basically the new journalists, without all the pesky standards. And since the entire influencer economy is based on parasocial relationships with specific online personalities,

it makes people far more susceptible to misinformation. People tend to explicitly trust the names they closely follow, as well as any lie if it's repeated enough times, even if that lie directly goes against common knowledge. In other words, influencers are uniquely effective vessels for propaganda. That isn't to say they're all propagandists, mind you, but rather they are to propaganda what Burning Man is to staff infections. If you're getting all your news on, say, TikTok, you are far more likely to be blasted with misinformation.

And boy, as of 2024, 39% of young people are doing just that. On an unrelated note, Donald Trump, the 78-year-old Republican President of the United States, is popular with the youths or rather in the last election, Trump improved with young men and young women. The latter still very much being majority blue voters. This obviously depends on which poll you're reading, but the reason the media is so focused on young men is because that margin is a lot tighter.

They are somewhat up for grabs, but still leaning Trump. And what was particularly shocking, at least for the mainstream media, was that Trump seemingly won over the social media generation while also spending significantly less than Harris on TV and digital ads. But of course, if you spend any time online, you probably know what happened.

Just ask Dana White during Trump's victory party. I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the NELF boys, Aiden Ross, Theo Vaughn, Bustle with the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan. Look at that big baby man thanking that other big baby man. To be clear, we're not going to re-examine the last election or claim that this was solely why Trump won.

But it's worth noting that Trump had spent a lot of effort ingratiating himself with online influencers. And that effort did pay off. An investigation by Bloomberg found that prominent podcast influencers like Aidan Ross, Andrew Schultz, and Sean Ryan, while presenting themselves as non-political entertainers, have been constantly repeating Trump's exact talking points

over the last few years, or boosting Trump himself. One of my main theories for this is that they're credulous and ignorant, but for example, there's the Nelk Boys, a group of 20-somethings from Canada who run a YouTube prank show. Here they are pranking both sides right before the election. So we have these Harris signs.

We're in Trump territory here in Florida, South Florida, and we're gonna be putting these on people's lawns. We're gonna do a little social experiment today. We're gonna see what happens pretty much if we just set up a Trump house in like the Bay area. Sure, I guess. Okay, it's like Jackass or Tom Green or whatever us olds watched. Except here's the thing, watch how they PRANK the Trump supporters.

Hi. Hello there. Hi, I work for the Harris and Waltz campaign. I'm just doing a little patrol of the neighborhood. Definitely not. Take it out. No, I'm gonna leave it there. No, you're not gonna leave it there.

Oh, why? Because I can't stand them! Do you not support tampons in men's bathrooms? Wait, don't touch my sign! No, I'm gonna leave it there, cuz... No, you're not gonna leave it there. Oh, why? Because I can't stand them! Do you not support tampons in men's bathrooms? Wait, don't touch my sign! Get it out of my property! That's my sign!

I don't give a shit! Get it out! Nobody told you to put it in my fucking property! You don't even address me by my pronouns! That's a piece of shit! There are a bunch of communists! You didn't address me by my pronouns! So basically, they just play out the stereotype of a cock liberal, violate these people's property

and then let them rage on them, which again, sure, fine. Now watch what they do to the Harris supporters. Someone tries to take the sign. We have this water bucket contraption because they got to pay the price for entering private property. You shouldn't be touching people's shit. You shouldn't go on someone's lawn and take it off.

Water's harmless too. What in the? Huh. Why didn't they just do the same prank? I know it's weird to think this hard about a YouTube prank show, but I can't help but notice that the segment where they prank conservatives

involves them mocking pronoun and trans stuff and putting signs on people's lawns. And the prank on liberals is actually flipping that by baiting people to go on their property and even talking about how you shouldn't go on people's property, the thing they did before. And so in both pranks, the non-Trump supporter is doing the bad thing, aren't they?

This isn't actually a prank on both sides. Also, and I kind of buried the lead here, this entire video is a prelude to them going on Trump's plane and gushing about it. That's Kamala's greatest achievements. Ah. That's very good. I love it.

They're always working. So yeah, the video is literally titled Donald Trump invited us on Trump Force One and it's just a campaign video for Trump. Also, I know this is subjective, but these are just dad jokes, right? Like do better pranks guys. Their very first hit video was them going to Venice beach

offering people Coke like the drug, and then, get this, presenting the soda. It got 50 million views. I don't know, boys. That's a joke from the 60s. Literally a joke from the 60s. These guys are fucking millionaires, by the way. God, my head hurts.

I keep getting these nosebleeds, and I swear my hand vanished the other day. I was looking at it, I was like, where'd my hand go? Anyway, from those humble soda prank beginnings, these guys got more and more Trumpy and conservative. Seems like getting rich does that. Their first big turn was when they got temporarily demonetized on YouTube after holding a college rager

during the pandemic. Since then, the group's founder, Kyle Forgeard, has hosted multiple right-wing personalities on his Full Send podcast, including Trump, of course. Forgeard started off the episode by complaining about how bad America has gotten, citing typical right-wing grievances like trans people in sports and the open border,

which, you know, we don't have. That video has over 8.8 million views. The Nelk Boys also joined Trump for his Vegas rally, where Kyle criticized Tim Walz for an apparent Minnesota state tax levied on Zin, a nicotine pouch. You know, tobacco dip? It's basically that, but all dot com.

It's owned by Philip Morris for Pete's sake. And while it's not officially endorsed by them, according to a lot of influencers, Zin will free the mind, increase productivity, and enhance sexual performance. Of course, all Zin actually does is constrict blood vessels, so the only thing it enhances is erectile dysfunction. Again, it's newfangled dip. Also, Tucker Carlson loves it too. On the Nelk Boys podcast, he proudly states,

I use it every second I'm awake. Great, thanks. So every time you look at Tucker, know that he is completely flaccid. I mean, we already knew that. I guess another Xen side effect is seeing demons or maybe you think a literal demon scratched you because you're high wired on nicotine all day

and you sleep with a couple of big dogs in your bed. Also, I'm sorry, I'm spending so much time on Zinn, but Tucker would later have a falling out with Zinn after the company got upset that he kept implying that their product would make your dick bigger, which it doesn't. In response, Tucker said Zinn was run by quote, humorless left-wing drones and started his own non-woke nicotine pouch called ALP.

Those lefties at Philip Morris, my goodness. Remember when he was on TV? No. Anyway, when it comes to a lot of these new influencers, a similar pattern pops up. They are people naturally looking for an audience who run into some restriction or shame that doesn't exist in conservative circles.

The pandemic was a huge moment for this. It of course helped radicalize Joe Rogan, but there's also Xavier DeRusso, a 27-year-old MAGA influencer and member of the RNC's Youth Advisory Council. DeRusso claims he was a woke supporter of BLM until he did his own research and red-pilled himself so hard he started criticizing COVID-19 mandates and affirmative action. DeRusso is black, by the way, so he's filling in a role that conservatives are constantly and desperately looking for.

And like anyone with a genuine or not, why I left the left story, he's become a prominent PragerU influencer and contributor to Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. His entire schtick, as he himself has said, is to present like a young liberal while pushing conservative values. The result is a man who looks like he's been freaky Friday'd with Ann Coulter.

For those of you who don't really pay attention to politics, let me make this very simple for you. When it comes to our presidential election, you essentially have two choices. You can vote for Donald Trump, you know he's kind of an asshole, probably going to offend you and your entire community. Or we can become North Korea. The choice is yours. Oh yeah, thank God we didn't become North Korea. Those guys would never have a military parade

to celebrate the president's birthday. Anyway, he most recently sparked controversy for posting a picture with a Make Gaza Jewish Again shirt last year. While DeRusso admitted the shirt could be polarizing, for posting a picture with a Make Gaza Jewish Again shirt last year. While DeRusso admitted the shirt could be polarizing, he said it felt necessary because quote, "'Sometimes you have to do something very bold

"'and borderline polarizing "'in order to start the conversation.'" All right, he was just starting the conversation. Like how whenever it's my partner's turn to do the dishes, I take a dump in the sink. It sparks conversation, you see. Nevermind that Xavier didn't take on this hard right Zionist persona

until after he worked at PragerU, whose CEO is a former Israel Defense Force intelligence officer. Hey, check out Xavier's merch store where he sells a Zionism is Demure shirt for $65. It's very embarrassing. It's very un-Demure. Another very obvious grifter or genuine person

trying to fill the MAGA slot is Bryce Hall, one of them Manosphere guys, and of course an amateur fighter. Here he is hanging out with a grown man who wants people to call him sneeko Debating tip percentages saying the n-word dude stuff. Yeah, it was included and I gave another cent You know when like a clues it and then you can press plus seven. I gave him like a 27 percent tip I did we're good Thanks, of course

You just call me Of course, of course. You just call me S***. What the fuck? 27% tip. Not bad. In that same stream, Sneako thanks a commenter for giving him 15 bucks after saying white power. But all right, good tipper.

Not great, it's fine, it's a fine tip. So these guys are like Nazis. Or at least they seem to openly and happily court Nazis. And like that other guy, Bryce got in trouble during the pandemic. Specifically, he was charged by the LA city attorney for holding a massive birthday party during lockdown and was banned from the playlist live influencer convention

for peeing off the balcony. After the assassination attempt on Trump, Hall, shocker, endorsed him with a tweet of that fist-raising picture and the caption, this is my president. A few months later, Hall gave Trump a half-assed endorsement at a rally in Las Vegas. Afterward, internet sleuths found an old photo from Hall's Instagram where he compared Trump to a trash can, which Hall deleted.

Because again, these guys are all looking to fill a specific slot, have soured mainstream audiences, and found that conservatives are far more forgiving of bad behavior, especially if they're being told what they want to hear. It of course doesn't hurt that his TikTok video bashing Kamala Harris is one of his most viewed. This is a symbiotic relationship for both these influencers and Trump, because one of the interesting things about Trump's shift to TikTok and podcast influencers is how well-timed and smart it actually was. After all, remember the people who boosted Trump back in 2016? Sites like Infowars and Breitbart, The Drudge Report, and conservative radio hosts?

All of those sources are now struggling. Probably in part because a lot of them got sued into oblivion. It's almost like Trump uses people up like a box of tissues, huh? The point being that Trump, or let's be honest, someone working for Trump, has done a very good job at keeping up with a rapidly changing grifter landscape of lying idiots. He's also harnessed a very specific type of person, or a group of people. Or to be more specific, and yet somehow more cryptic, he's harnessed a bunch of groups of people.

Bundles of bunches of groups of people. People that we are going to talk about later, perhaps after the break. For ads. Bunches of ads. Bundles of bunches of ads for products, bunches of products. That's it. Diets are terrible.

Boo! They're bad for you and they make you feel bad. News diets on the other hand, nobody has any complaints. We all love news and want to subsist on a diet of, exclusively, news. all love news and want to subsist on a diet of, exclusively, news. So why not fill your news stomach with ground news,

which you can find via the QR code on the screen. Ground news is a website and an app that we sought out to sponsor us. They gather news from left, right, and center and compare coverage so that you can be sure you're keeping up with your news-tritional goals. News such as U.S. food rations going to waste after the Trump administration's aid cuts.

With ground news, you can see that it's mostly left-leaning and down-the-middle news organizations covering this. And of the news stories from the right, well, those are mostly sources from outside the US. So odd how none of America's many, MANY right-leaning news outlets seem to care that 60,000 metric tons of food that could go to people around the world is going to rot in the US government warehouse. Why do they care about that?

They're not doing anything about that. It's weird. Anywho, you can get the headlines and all the contacts you require over at ground.news.smn. With that link, you will save 40% off unlimited access. Ground News gives you a factuality chart and reveals the bias distribution of every major story. As Benjamin Franklin said, that's news to me. Again, go to ground.news slash SMN to get 40% off

unlimited access for yourself or someone you know. The link is in the description and the meal is delicious. Oh, that one's about Stephen Miller. Uh, summer, the season that's full of big moments, weddings, vacations, ranking the snack offerings at baseball stadiums. But if you are dealing with thinning hair or shedding, comparing chili, cheese, waffle fries and churro dogs can be pretty stressful. Enter Nutri-Full. Nutri-Full's whole body approach and clinically tested formula will have you

ready to get back out to the ballpark and down a couple of Fenway pranks. Nutri-Full is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people, see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with NutriFull. They've got formulas that work for men, women, and multiple dietary lifestyles, so I promise there is a NutriFull product that is right for you, whether you're vegan or on a nutrition plan that's, I don't know, exclusively smoked Gouda cheesesteaks from Philadelphia's beautiful Citizens Bank Park.

So start your hair growth journey with Nutriful. For a limited time, Nutriful is offering our audience $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping. When you go to Nutriful.com and enter the promo code SMN find out why Nutriful is the best selling hair growth supplement brand at Nutriful.com spelled N U T R A F O L.com promo code SMN that'so-l.com promo code SMN. That's neutrophil.com promo code S-M-N. Ow, ow!

Ow! That's the sound I make when I see a chili dog. Okay, shucks, we're back. We were talking about Donald Trump for a change. Trumpo, it seems, has done a very good job of pivoting from the old guard of right-wing propagandists to this new generation of influencer freaks. It's like the new mutants in that no one wants this,

but it exists. You remember that film? You don't have to remember the film. It's worth noting that this absolutely isn't an organic or grassroots movement, but rather a very clever and calculated political move by the exact freaks you're picturing. Those freaks being Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk, which has trained and facilitated over

400 conservative influencers since the 2016 election. Tee Puss, as they like to be called, has hosted influencer summits all over the country to teach young conservative influencers how to post smarter and harder. They've given advice like, be influencer first, conservative second, so that they appear normal or less like political pundits and more like bar stool sports.

You may notice that is exactly the kind of tactic those Nelk boys seem to be using. Oh, and hey, coincidentally, here's one of those Nelks hanging out with Charlie Kirk at the whitest frat party in the universe. Who's voted already, huh? Who's already voted? Who?

Hey, this guy looks like he's a happy camper. He's a happy, that's right. What's up, home slices? I'm gonna give you guys a phrase. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind, okay? Illegal immigration. Yeah, nothing cooler than the phrases happy camper and home slices.

Holy moly, Jeepers O'Malley. Are college kids just not cool anymore? What happened to college kids? Were they never cool? I was. Yeah. So this may look like a totally natural hangout between college kids and a 31-year-old man who never attended college, but wouldn't you know it? It's a bit more sinister. Tee Puss and Char Kirk have very much built a web of young internet warriors. For example, they've absolutely operated troll farms before,

as in they have paid young people to mass comment, right-wing talking points, and lies in order to make those ideas seem more popular. According to the Washington Post, one of Puss's social media efforts led to nearly 4,500 tweets full of identical, false and or partisan content. And that's just what they found.

Folks associated with the organization said they were directed to post at precise increments, probably to maintain the illusion of popularity. Really can't stress how not grassroots or counterculture this is considering that PUSS's budget for its media branch was over $7.2 million. This is just such a clear propaganda machine. And I know it's really easy to laugh

at how obvious it seems, but it's working. So far, there has been one turning point influencer, Anna Paulina Luna, who is now a Florida Congress member. People like Tim Poole are now there in the White House in his little citizen journalist costume and shame hat, asking the president why he's so mighty and elite. And where Tim once sat, a bunch of new freaks are vying to take that spot. There is upward mobility here for these bottom feeders. The demand for conservative influencers is so high

that it spawned its own little entertainment ecosystem with spinoff groups like Today's America, a talent agency that manages over 200 conservative creators. But much like this new and improved grifter landscape, a talent agency that manages over 200 conservative creators. But much like this new and improved grifter landscape, there is another evolution at play. The MAGA tent has very sneakily found a way to widen itself to ensure an ever expanding base of supporters, even when the old supporters drop out.

Like, do you remember QAnon? Is QAnon even a thing anymore? Or has it gone the way of Newsmax and Infowars? When it comes to the new generation of MAGA voices, we've gone far beyond some fringe group of conspiracy freaks. Because actually, those conspiracy freaks are just like in the administration and FBI now. In some cases, the administration is in them.

But what's absolutely wild is that these days, and FBI now. In some cases, the administration is in them. But what's absolutely wild is that these days, a Trump supporter can look like this. So first of all, a bucket and a mop for this wet ass P word. So first of all, she had to clarify whether wet ass P word was a description of the P word or whether one of the clinical symptoms here

was also diarrhea. Or they can look like this. Okay, I'm gonna turn you into a damn owl, homie. You know what I'm saying? It'll, you'll be, you'll be out on your own porch. Or they can look like this. Here's what not to get the love of your life for Valentine's Day. First, any of these classic little treats, they actually have food guys which are linked to hyperactivity in children, and they also have seed oils which are inflammatory and linked to cancer. That last one is a wellness influencer who,

along with her father, is big on RFK and Candace Owens. See, this is the Elon Musk RFK Trump trifecta. It's why he's keeping those dudes around, despite them seeming like a total bummer to hang out with. Instead of courting one fringe group of conspiracy theorists, Trump has managed to bring together several different fringe groups that otherwise would never talk to each other.

That's how you have barstool crypto bros in the same camp as raw milk hippies in the same camp as, uh, Nazis. In every case, these are people who felt underrepresented, often because their ideas are bad or wrong or racist, and have now found a warm welcome home under Trump. It's sort of like how there's a subreddit devoted to images of bread stapled to trees with over 300,000 members. Individually, those perverts go to school

or work their jobs without getting to celebrate their love of jacking off to bread. I mean, I guess it doesn't have to be sexual, but... Come on. come on. Come on. Look at that. That's hot. Hold on.

Let's see. Join group. What am I talking about? Bread? Probably not. Okay. My point is that the internet can be beautiful in that it defies physical constraints and brings together niche interests.

Which of course is why it's ugly, too. Because it also brings together people who think the moon is a giant microphone created by the Jews. And in every case, these groups feel shunned by mainstream society. And that's why MAGA is now a grievance party. It always has been, of course. QAnon was built on people resentful that their conspiracy theories were laughed at.

During COVID, Trump validated anti-vaxxers who didn't like being told to do stuff. Elon Musk has become the hero for unlikable edgelords with too much money. The Manosphere, of course, is based on men feeling undervalued in society, and in many cases, just hating women. And here comes RFK.

When RFK Jr. ended his campaign and backed Trump, Trump's social media network expanded to include health nuts, even more anti-vaxxers, and other wellness influencers who are perhaps on the fringes of mainstream thought. You know the ones, right? It's weird to lump in wellness like it's all bad, because it's good to be well. But we're talking about the raw milk and anti-vax weirdos,

as opposed to people correctly pointing out that perhaps our food is over-processed and stuffed with corn. Trump is now going whole hog on this, having just picked a completely unqualified wellness influencer named Casey Means as the surgeon general. Here she is on Joe Rogan because of course she was on Joe Rogan. It's like with vaccines like yeah I bet that one vaccine probably isn't causing autism but what about the the 20 that they're getting before 18 months like we don't look at it in synergistic you know. See the reason anti-vax beliefs were always fringe is that they're getting before 18 months, like we don't look at it in synergistic, you know. See, the reason anti-vax beliefs were always fringe is because they're incorrect. That's it. That's the reason. This is a bit of a deviation, but the overall right-wing party has

become this weird backlash to backlashes. What I mean is that because Trump is now scooping up any fringe group, there's now this general solidarity where simply being canceled is enough of a signal for support, no matter what they were being canceled for, or if they were even canceled in the first place. It's actually become anticipatory now, such as with the case of that lady

starting a crowdfunding campaign after calling a child the N-word. There is a video circulating on multiple social media platforms that was reportedly recorded at a park in Rochester. The video shows a woman holding a small child making racist slurs in reference to another child at the playground who she claims had taken something

that belonged to her child. So that video was taken on April 28th. It's hard to know exactly, but the racist in that video would post a give send go page shortly after that incident. On that page, she claims she was raising money for the backlash. But it's actually really hard to find any backlash

before this point. Like, I'm sure there was some, but for example, listen to how Matt Walsh describes it. There's a guy who put up on the screen who wrote a letter to CPS, which he published on his website, claiming again the child was a danger to her own child and that the child should be taken out of the home.

And pretty soon, with thousands upon thousands of people whipped into a pitchfork mob, she had been identified by name, but not just her name. Her phone number was posted all over the internet, her address, her social security number, her alleged places of employment. But that is where the M. Night Shyamalan twist ending comes into play. Because Shiloh Hendricks did not apologize.

Instead, she posted a crowdfunding campaign on Give, Send, Go, where she doubled down and defended her actions and asked for help to relocate and get her family to safety. So his narrative is that this lady called a kid the N-word and then got uber-harassed online, and then started the crowdfunding campaign to rebuild her life. Except, did you see that tweet he gave as an example of the harassment? That tweet is after she started the crowdfunder. By the time that tweet was made on May 3rd, she had already begun to raise a quarter of a million dollars

and had people on X posting about her like a hero. You see what I'm getting at, right? It really seems like this lady called a kid the N-word on video, and then a day after it went viral, she started a crowd-funder and was celebrated as this hero before she really got any huge backlash. There wasn't really any time for that, was there? Again, I'm kind of speculating, but it seems like the moment you're on camera being racist,

there's a group of people who immediately have your back simply for being racist. You know, other racists. But to hear Matt Walsh talk about it, it's bigger than that. It's about the principle. This is the most devastating attack on cancel culture that we have seen, possibly ever. Shilohendricks has, without really trying,

effectively ended cancel culture. As Mark Dice said in his video about the incident, Shiloh is the final boss of cancel culture, or maybe rather the final boss that cancel culture, or maybe rather the final boss that cancel culture has to fight. Yeah, it is unsavory. You wish that Shiloh had said or done something that we could affirmatively defend, that would be much easier. Nobody wants to affirmatively defend cussing out a five-year-old, even though I don't think the kid's actually five. But none of that is the point. The point is that the only way to put an end to this routine, the routine where the outrage

mob mobilizes and assembles to destroy somebody's life, is to disincentivize the routine. And the only way to disincentivize that behavior is to reward the person who's being targeted. And there it is. Exactly what I was saying. There is now a general solidarity among the right wing, not for any specific belief, but for anyone simply causing public disdain. You don't actually have to do anything of value. You can just shoot some people, or kill a homeless man, or say the N-word, and you will

be rewarded. You might even get a job at a venture capital firm if you kill someone homeless enough. Or you can start your own Give Send Go, a site that seemingly exists to make money off of people too despicable for other crowdfunding sites. The right has made it so that you can simply just be a racist, proudly so, and receive support on the big quote, principle of it. There are influencers like Lily Gaddis, whose entire offer is that they are racist.

They literally have nothing else. I mean, would you use the N-word out of interest? Yes. You would? I do, quite frankly. You use the N M word quite frequently. Why, other than the fact you're a despicable racist? Are you?

I somewhat say I am. I guess according to the ADL, I'm a white supremacist. I'm a neo-Nazi. Hey, Piers. Just don't have Iran, right? Like I know your entire thing now is spectacle and having random people just shout at each other under the guise of conversation, but some people aren't worth talking to. You're not getting anything out of it except, as I just said, spectacle. Empty attention.

In case you don't know her, Lily Gaddis literally rose to fame for saying the N-word on a TikTok video. That's it. There's no politics here. You might also notice that she's not even very charismatic or interesting to watch. Her heart doesn't really seem to be in it. She's just like, oh, I can say racist stuff. Let's do that. It's boring.

Juiceless. Rizzless. These people aren't arguing specific policies or standing up for any values. They're being boosted just because they make the right people angry. It's Jerry Springer shit, which I realize is a really cool reference for the Youngs. This doesn't exclusively go one way, for the record. Not to both sides, this. But what I mean is that there's an increasing economy around going viral for owning one particular side, as opposed to creating productive debate.

Hello everyone, I am Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, and I am surrounded by 20 woke college kids. Okay, we've all enjoyed our surrounded videos. For people who don't know, it's exactly what it looks like. They take a single conservative or a single liberal or lefty or anti-vaxxer or flat-earther or whatever and surround them with the opposing view and they debate it out. And while that's fun to watch sometimes, there's almost nothing productive about them. They exist to create viral clips and give attention to whoever's in them. But politically speaking, they exist in the same way a rug cleaning video exists.

It's filler. For starters, no matter what actually happens in the video, they will be cherry-picked to deliver whatever conclusion someone wants. This Charlie Kirk video, for example, has been endlessly shared as an example of Kirk totally owning Libs, and of Libs totally owning Kirk. People simply see what they want to see based on their pre-existing politics. I mean, maybe some people watching have changed their minds because of it. Who knows? I'm not trying to come down too hard on these. But like, watch what happened when Sam Cedar

was on one. And same with xenophobic national- like what's the problem with xenophobic nationalism? Don't you think that's better for Americans in general? To be xenophobic? Yes! Nationalism is better? We should have a coherent culture. Everyone should be a part of the same culture.

We should have assimilation. Which—do you get to choose what the culture is? We already have a dominant culture. What is the dominant culture? Based on European and Christian values and identity. That is the dominant culture. White, Christian values and identity. That is the dominant culture. It's rooted in European identity. So your argument is that

That has been the dominant culture. And we're not letting people assimilate to that. We're saying you should keep your culture and this is why our culture is so divided. A melting pot literally means assimilation too. It means melting. It means you're assimilating to the dominant culture. Is that not what melting means? And now instead we're saying there's something wrong with xenophobia. It doesn't mean that it's assimilating to the dominant culture.

No. I mean, look, I gotta be honest with you. You and I have a fundamental disagreement. We will never see eye to eye on this. Right. That woman is a proud Christian nationalist. That's just what she is. Also someone who apparently doesn't understand how to make fondue. As Cedar himself realizes, there's just no point in debating

her. Just like there's no point in debating Charlie Kirk, a propagandist who, as we keep discussing, has been crafting an artificial right-wing influencer network for years now. Charlie shouldn't ever be invited to any respected political stage, period. Nor should a fucking Christian nationalist. They don't care about debate, nor do they have the country's best interest in mind. They have a specific agenda based around self-interest that they are trying to inject into our national discourse. And they succeeded exactly because of videos like this. But Surrounded doesn't care.

It's just about going viral. Put one mouse in a cage with snakes, et cetera. It's like the Ben Shapiro Olympics, where everyone is trying to get their best talking point for TikTok so they can amass enough followers to start the real news report or the very racist streamer hour. Like what political value does the video

can one woke teen survive 20 Trump Supporters Have? That's Mr. Beast shit. And what is that fucking teen doing in that video in the first place? He should be out with his friends smoking bath salts and shoplifting. I'm not some old mule who thinks that young people shouldn't be allowed to vote or get involved with politics. But this isn't politics. It's spectacle and it's exploitative. It's propaganda. At best, it's punditry.

And what kid wants to be a pundit? You know who became a pundit when they were a teenager? Ben Shapiro. Is that what you wanna be, kids? Do you wanna dress up as John Adams every Halloween since you were five? Yes, Ben did that. That is not normal behavior.

Don't be Ben. Don't get into political punditry and professional lying before you can even vote. Go to the mall and get high. Well, I guess not the mall. They bulldozed the mall. Go to the DMV parking lot and get high. Or get into actual politics and not debate bro politics.

Because this online economy built completely on who owns who and who triggers who, is the absolute perfect breeding ground for propaganda. And after the break, we're gonna talk about why. We're gonna talk about how the influencer culture and social media as a whole have been a godsend for liars and propagandists. And Cody, thanks for watching my show, buy these products. Ah, the toilet.

It's everyone's least favorite bathroom seat. So much less luxurious than a recliner, slipper chair, bean bag, or any other assorted chairs we definitely keep in our bathrooms. But let me tell you, that doesn't have to be the case anymore once you install a TUSHI VIDEI! It's a piece of cake to install and leaves your butt feeling like polished Italian leather. Why it is so comforting you'll move that Chase lounge out of the bathroom

and into the billiards room. Because you see, Tushy's Elevated Bidet Collection nurtures your bottom with instant warm water that never runs cold, a soothing heated seat, and UV sterilization for top notch hygiene. I love my Tushy bidet, sincerely. And also, sincerely, I have moved all my other chairs out of the bathroom. Seriously, these days I could read Ulysses on the toilet. Reclaim your comfort. Zone in the toilet. Reclaim your comfort. Zone in the bathroom. For a limited time, our audience

gets 10% off your first bidet order when you use code SMN at checkout. That's 10% off your first bidet order at HelloTushy.com with promo code SMN. You'll be so clean that you'll be like, go ahead, ask me about my butthole. The brain, it's the heart of your head. And just like you take care of your heart with, I don't know, running, you should take care of your mind as well. But your mind can't and shouldn't jog. Instead, there's Headspace,

an app that helps more than 100 million people with guided meditations, mindfulness practices, breathing exercises, and more. It's like leg day at the gym, but in your noggin. And the beauty of it is that it takes far less effort and requires no moving. Headspace combines the scientifically proven benefits of meditation with modern practices

so you can get your prefrontal cortex jacked and your hippocampus swole. Plus, you'll just feel better when you do it, even if some other guy at the juice bar has a bigger amygdala. So feel good and mean it when you say it. For a limited time, get Headspace free for 60 days. Go to headspace.com slash some more news.

That's H-E-A-D-S-P-A-C-E dot com slash some more news. That's H E A D S P A C E dot com slash some more news to unlock all of Headspace free for 60 days. Headspace dot com slash some more news is the place to go for this product. product. Starting a small business must have been hard enough back in the horse and buggy days, but in 2025, the internet and buggy days? It's positively mind boggling. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all

e-commerce in the US, including household names like Mattel and Gymshark. You can get started with your own design studio, build a beautiful online store to match your brand style and get the word out about your business and or Buggy with Shopify's many valuable tools. Plus they can help manage inventory and shipping. Did you know that only 100 years ago, it would take months to ship something via Horstrom Buggy from Independence, Missouri to Oregon.

Well, now it takes just a day or two and nobody even needs to get dysentery. Problem solved. With Shopify you can also create easy email and social media campaigns and accelerate your content creation. So turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash more news.

Go to shopify.com slash more news. For the river, cock the wagon. shopify.com slash more news. Hey kiddos, Cody's back and he's bearder than ever. We've been talking about the right-wing influencer culture and being generally rad while doing it. Kids still say rad, you see. And now I want to take a step back

and look at the state of the internet as a whole, which dare I say is bad, not rad. I don't know if you've noticed this, but everything feels like a dystopia lately. And that's likely because the internet feels like a dystopia and everyone is on the internet all the time, or more specifically, social media, which specifically boosts politics to keep you on it.

I mean, you apparently can't ask a grok a question without it bringing up white genocide right now. It feels like we're living in one long election season forever, right? We used to have this thing called television, great band, but also it was a box in your cocaine den that sometimes had news and political programs on it. You could watch them or not. They came on at certain times, but not all the time. Then on occasion, there were political ads

pushing a specific side. Those ads would tell you who was paying for them. And yes, people still did sneaky things. The people owning these channels weren't always apolitical, but it was a lot easier to regulate misinformation and keep track of who was paying whom. Then the internet came along, and was generally seen as a more authentic space where individuals could talk directly to each other and build communities. There were these things called

webpages that anyone with an AngelFire account could whip together. You could make cool moving images. Look at that. Look at it go. And for a while, we still had that separation where we could choose what pages to look at. We knew who was a political personality versus an entertainer. And we kinda knew who was paying for what.

This was all condensed with social media, which drove everyone off of websites and put all the discourse into one terrible spot. Memes became useful in the sense that someone could simply post an image to convey an idea that everyone would pass around. But I can't help but point out that, when applied to politics,

memes function almost exactly the same way as a propaganda poster. They have no sources or factual information, are often just an image and a few words, often exploit emotions like disgust or fear, and everyone just decided to share and believe them. They are the perfect delivery system for lies. They're actually easier

than propaganda posters because the liars don't even have to go around physically nailing them up. At a certain point, you don't even know where a meme came from. And so what has the appearance of authenticity could be a calculated political tactic. Now take that and put it into influencer culture. The Biden administration recently invited the public to recommend areas in the Western Arctic to be protected from new oil and gas leasing. This open comment period just started. It's only open for 60 days. We need as many comments

as possible to make it clear that the Western Arctic needs protection. The bad news is that big oil companies are putting up a fight to open up as much of the Arctic as possible to drilling. If you want to fight for a better future and you're between the ages of 18 to 26, you've got to check out this program that'll match you with opportunities to fight climate change. AmeriCorps NCCC is a program that lets young people in the US work on climate, travel the country, and gain valuable skills.

But if you're in a swing state, your vote will determine the context of the progressive political struggle over the next several years. And with that in mind, I think you should vote for Kamala Harris. That's Michael Meszzatesta saying stuff that I don't disagree with. I'm certain he also believes what he's saying. I have nothing against him besides that decorative plate collection he has up. Plates are for eating, Mike, come on.

But at least one of those videos you just watched was paid for as a political ad. And according to Michael, while he often marks his videos that are paid ads, he doesn't always. He also says he gets between 10-20% of his revenue from them. And while, from what I can tell, I generally agree with his stance on things like climate change, that's really weird. The idea of a friendly face on your screen instructing you politically while secretly being paid for by politicians used to be a dystopian concept. And these days, it's just common practice as more and more influencers are just flat-out funded by super PACs.

How did this happen? Did you guess because of Citizens United? Easy guess. You don't get points for that. Yeah, in 2010, the Supreme Court declared that unlimited independent political spending by corporations and groups is protected by the First Amendment. These groups then pay an agency to middle manage and pay influencers to spread specific talking points. It's dark money.

Even when social media sites try to regulate or ban these ads, they very often slip through. After all, what is the difference between an ad and a person just voicing their opinion? Especially since they aren't required to disclose the difference. These are influencers, they're kids, entertainers. They aren't a TV station or large corporation. And so this is how we get the perfect loophole for the larger propaganda machine.

And the money is flowing from both left and right wing groups. Tana Mongeau, an influencer with 6 million followers on Instagram, told her podcast co-host that she was offered millions of dollars to support a certain political party, just like that. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent almost half a million dollars on CreatorGridInc, whose website promises to connect Republican candidates with the internet's most powerful conservative influencers,

which just sounds like a dating app made by Elon Musk. And then of course, there's Russia. One of the greatest enemies of our nation right now is Ukraine. Influencers like Tim Poole, who worked with Tenant Media, were clear about who they didn't like and about who they did. Trump, remember what they've done to you. Remember what they were trying to do to you.

And please, please destroy these people once you get into office. A U.S. federal indictment says those opinions were bought and paid for by the Kremlin, which funneled $10 million in part through Roaming Millennial, a Quebec company belonging to Canadian influencer Lauren Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan. Oh, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, what do you got to say for yourself? Nope. So I barely even talked to Lauren.

And it's kind of crazy, I've known her for a long time. So Tenet Media, co-founded by Lauren Chen, who Tim barely talks to, but is known for a long time, was a $10 million front for Russia's effort to destabilize the United States and win the war they started by invading another country. This is one of several times Russia has been caught using the internet and social media to push propaganda.

Tim's defense is that he wasn't explicitly asked to push any talking points, and that his political views just happened to align with foreign rivals rooting for the destruction of America. And you know what? I believe you, Tim. Are you gonna reflect on that? Nope.

I believe you, Tim. Timmo wasn't the only hilarious Mark who got funded by Tenet Media. He's joined by Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson. And in defense of these very stupid dupes, it is quite hard to fully know where the money is coming from. I mean, if someone was offering us millions,

I'd personally look into who they are, but that's just me. But being an influencer or having a YouTube show, as I personally know, means that you're always looking for funding. You try your best to vet stuff, but as we pointed out, these efforts tend to go through middleman companies.

So if you're a young kid or an idiot and liar like Tim Pool, you can see how easy it would be to get tricked into serving as the propaganda arm of a political party. Or maybe you actually know you're doing it and don't care and then pretend you were tricked after. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. This is all to say that we very clearly need to fix this

and can't leave it up to the individual. Some countries have started to do that at least. In 2021, France enacted legislation aimed at protecting child influencers in the same way child actors and models are protected. And in 2023, they required influencers to have a written contract for every payment or gift of a certain value. The UK followed suit with the 2023 Online Safety Act, holding companies accountable

for removing illegal content like hate speech and material promoting self-harm. But here in the US, we have positively leaned into it. Just look at this where's Waldo of Tech Monsters from Trump's last inauguration. Was that pianist seriously playing What a Wonderful World? Brutal. Brutal irony. Great job. So we have gone from television having very specific and clear political content and ads, to social media trying to self-regulate political content, all the way to Elon Musk buying Twitter

for the explicit purpose of turning it into a right-wing propaganda site that boosts white nationalist talking points. Remember when social media used to have political bubbles within it? Now we don't even have that. We have the lefty social media site and the Nazi social media site. This is so dystopian, so polarized, and so far from rational politics. And going back to why the right dominates online media and why Trump has more sway over influencers despite spending less on campaign ads, well, he doesn't really need to spend that much, does he?

Other richer people are doing that for him. The reason right-wing media is bigger is because it has more money. And the reason it has more money is because right-wing media says the stuff rich people want said. They don't need to actually make money. They just need to spread the message

and support their ideological project, which will end up making them more money. In fact, we're now hearing that the Democrats are realizing this way too late and are trying to bankroll their own influencers and propagandists. So I guess an army of people who will defend Joe Biden no matter what, thus earning people's trust?

We're not gonna spend a lot of time on this because there might be a whole other episode about it and it isn't what this episode's about. But there's this attempt to find or literally create this liberal Joe Rogan figure. I've seen people literally suggest that Bill Maher is that person, or claim that the success of the Midas Touch podcast

indicates that it's possible. Unrelated, I am willing to shave my head and lift a bunch of weights. But these aren't in the same category or world at all. Those are exclusively political shows for people interested in politics. Joe Rogan spent years and years being apolitical and talking about whatever, and eventually he got rich enough and dumb confident enougholitical and talking about whatever. And eventually he got rich enough and dumb confident enough to go all in for Trump.

You can't manufacture a person to talk about whatever and be normal for years. And then right around election time, they'll be like, hey, you guys ever noticed that tax credits are pretty based actually? It doesn't work that way. That being said, yes, left-wing media does need money and support.

They just also need to not be on the Democrats leash so that they can be authentic and actually point out when, for example, the president is old and dying, or we're financially supporting a genocide and how maybe that's bad without being attacked by those Democrats. They're just different ecosystems and parties. Also, not for nothing, but an alternative

to pumping millions of dollars into propagandists and influencers to convince people that your party is good is just doing and believing in good things. Find your message and the messengers will follow. But again, not what this is about. I'm sure it'll go great. Just pump billions into Gavin Newsom's podcast to appeal to the youths.

More like Goonvin, new skippity. Can we please get a fact check on what goon means? I feel like we're off somehow. Meanwhile, fracking billionaires like the Wilkes brothers pump millions into sites like the Daily Wire. Libertarian weirdos like Peter Thiel and his pet JD Vance Meanwhile, fracking billionaires like the Wilkes brothers pump millions into sites like the Daily Wire. Libertarian weirdos like Peter Thiel and his pet JD Vance invest millions in Rumble,

the right-wing alternative to YouTube. Because again, why bother buying the media sites when you can just own the internet instead? And so for the right-wing specifically, there is now a direct pipeline between TikTok and Twitter influencers and the President of the United States. Trump could, if he wanted to, turn to Elon and tell him that he wants to see more posts

about reopening Alcatraz. Elon could change the algorithm and have Grok talk about the movie The Rock a bunch. And then the individual influencers would follow suit. Charlie Kirk could have 1,000 commenters supporting those posts. It is, as I keep saying, a propaganda machine. And the other social media sites aren't far behind. Zuckerberg is nuzzling up to Trump to get this antitrust lawsuit office back, and also ending Facebook's fact-checking program. Then, of course, there's the TikTok of it all. In 2020, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok, claiming that China would use it to spy on us or do propaganda or because of COVID,

who cares, because he then unbanned it because of, quote, freedom of speech, causing the site to personally thank him. Who knows what conversations led to this decision? I don't know, maybe Trump just figured out that TikTok posts generally favored him over Biden. Maybe it's about to favor him a lot more. He saved the Gen Z site after all. Or maybe it's because one of Trump's largest political donors, billionaire Jeff Yass,

has a trading firm with a 15% stake in TikTok's parent company and a personal stake of 7%, which works out to around $21 billion. Hey, I bet that's the one. Conveniently, Trump's 180 on TikTok came a week after a brief meeting with Yas and his wife on educational matters. Those educational matters were probably a financial lesson

on how Yas's stake in TikTok means a lot more money for Trump. It should be noted that Trump has only stalled the TikTok ban, which requires the site to be purchased by an American company. Trump's latest proposal to save the app is a 50-50 split between an American company and the parent company ByteDance, rather than a full divestment. When asked about which private company that might be, Trump said, every rich person has called me about TikTok.

You know, because if an American company manages to acquire half of TikTok, that company would become super valuable and incredibly indebted to Trump. Such potential suitors are speculated to be former Los Angeles Dodgers owner, Frank McCourt, AI startup, Perplexity AI, and you know it baby Elon Musk. You know I'm generally against banning things. So I would probably not be in favor. I mean it would help Twitter I suppose suppose, if TikTok was banned, because then people

would spend more time on Twitter and less time on TikTok. But even though that would be, even if it would help Twitter, I would be generally against banning of things. Yeah, Elon hates banning things unless they personally disagree with him on politics or use the word cisgender. For the record, Musk has maintained that he's not interested in buying TikTok. But I mean, he didn't want to buy Twitter either. He legally forced himself to do that because of the lols. What's more disturbing is that he could buy TikTok, and that Trump,

the fucking president, seems to have a direct part in choosing who gets it. The extremely partisan and vindictive crime president, looking to wet his thick beak as sloppily as possible, is now lording over every social media platform, which now happens to be one of the primary ways in which Americans get their information, the youth of which specifically following individual influencers who may or may not be getting paid by political operatives working directly for that president to put out misinformation.

It's like that book. You know the book. We all read it in school. No, not the K. Do kids even have to read the K these days? I don't know. It's the other one. 1984 or the Hunger Games. Whatever. The new right-wing influencer is this guy. More so than ever, a smiling personality-driven propagandist pretending to be an entertainer. Romain Tweedleclit, I think. That's his name. Do kids even still like The Hunger Games? I don't know, that came out like over 10 years ago.

Oh God, it came out over 10 years ago. Where is my time going? I'm just dying so fast. Give me back my time. Am I vanishing? I am. I'm vanishing. Somebody help me.

It's just like Back to the Future, which is that film. Okay, so Back to the Future is this film from the 80s with Michael J. Fox. He was from this show called Family Ties. Back to the Future, which is that film. Okay, so Back to the Future is this film from the 80s with Michael J. Fox. He was from this show called Family Ties. Back to the Future, it also had this sequel where they went into the distant fantastical future of 10 years ago. Bring me back my time.

["Back to the Future Theme Song"] New Cody, begin. Hey everybody, here's some more news. There are a hundred of me back there. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe and comment and like and subscribe twice. We've got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to it or you can watch it

on this YouTube channel twice a week. We've got this show as a podcast if you prefer to listen to it instead of look at me. That's mean, but I understand. We've got a patreon.com slash some more news and we've got a merch store with stuff on it. Oh, so many things on so many other things. As a nice little treat for you finishing the video,

hey, a different Cody, come on out here. Okay.