The Blindboy Podcast - Joneses Groan

Episode Date: August 8, 2018

Dealing with online critics, A Gin conspiracy theory, A DNA Conspiracy theory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast is supported by you, the listener, via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast I create five hours of content a week, or a month, sorry, for free. If you'd like to give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee, please do. If you want to continue listening for free, do that as well. Thank you. Dear Gwit. You steaming Keyans.

What is the crack which eat? You delicious, delicious shower of pricks. How are you getting on? Did you have a good week? I had a magnificent week. I bought myself. A steel carbon. Steel carbon.

Or no. Carbon steel frying pan. Which is something I've been wanting to get for ages. Because I've been using Teflon. Or T-Fal. Or whatever the fuck you call it. For years. And they're grand like. But but as soon as the non-stick coating goes you're fucked you know you have to throw it away and you're continually just buying new frying pans so I'm like I want

to use what the chefs use which is like either cast iron or carbon steel and technically if you get a carbon steel frying pan you should have it for life if you look after it you can have it for fucking life and you're not allowed to wash them first of all you have to wipe them clean and the steel has to undergo this continual process known as seasoning where you get the pan really really hot and the grease in the pan kind of burns itself into the steel, creating a perpetual non-stick surface. And you can fuck the frying pan into the oven and whatever. And what it's great for is searing meat in particular.

Like if you're cooking burgers or a steak, if you've got a carbon steel fucking pan or a cast iron pan, you can roast the heat up and it will caramelise the meat so you get maximum taste. But you have to be careful you don't put acidic stuff into it, like tomatoes or anything vinegary, because that can strip away that seasoning. But I've seen videos on YouTube of people with, like, cast iron or carbon steel pens that were passed down to them from their fucking grandparents, I've seen a lad with a cast iron pen, covered in rust, he scrubbed all the rust off, and then seasoned it,

and it was as good as new, so, I was like yeah fuck it I'll give it a go, give it a go, fuck TFL, 2018, that's my new, my new thing for 2018.

Now I'm looking forward to today's podcast. Because I have. A roasting hot take. That I can't fucking wait to get into. I can't wait to speak about it. A really kind of. Do you know. Conspiracy theory. Basically. a really kind of do you know conspiracy theory basically

this is going to be a real pinch us all podcast an entertaining podcast but I'm looking forward to doing it but before I get into the hot take em because do you know the other thing as well I think this hot take is going to be quite long so i don't think i'm going to get answer fucking get to answer your questions at the end

and looking through will say the dms that i get sent all the time from ye asking me questions by far the question that i get asked the most is how do I deal with online criticism or online trolls or whatever, you know. Mainly from people going, you know, how do I deal with it? And from creative people going, how do you deal with it? Because a lot of you that listen to this are either musicians or fucking painters or work in theatre or whatever. Somehow creative. It tends to be a lot of creative people that listen to this podcast. And you're always asking me, how do I deal with it? I also get an awful lot of online shit. I do.

shit I do um not because I'm a cunt but because it's just it's proportionate to the size of your audience like there's 250,000 of you that listen every week and then between Twitter and Facebook and the whole lot of nearly 700,000 followers so that's a lot of people, so, I would have a lot of, um, critics, we'll say, online, I'd be on the, I'd be on the end of a lot of hatred, and it's part of the job, it is 100% part of the job, that's it, it's, you know, it's like playing a video game, if you're playing a video game you you expect there to be obstacles in it sure it's not a game without the obstacles and i've been doing this i've been online putting out creative work since i'd say nearly 2004 online anyway and even back then dealing with fucking negativity and criticism you know so you have to learn to

embrace it as part of the process but i will answer that because again it's just people keep fucking asking me and here's the thing too and this is why this is so important if you are not even a creative person but someone who's doing anything whereby you're kind of invested in it and you're open to critique whereby the risk of putting something out there means that you may get critiqued and it's important to kind of speak about it because the biggest obstacle I find right and this is with people i've met and people i know who are artists or creatives or whatever aside from finances okay because some people can't be fucking artists because their day job just overtakes it and they've no time or energy to create but aside from finance the second greatest

obstacle to a creative person is actually having the courage to do the work okay people that i know that are quite disappointed are who let many years go past without realizing their creative goals Who let many years go past without realizing their creative goals. The reason it happened is the fear of trying. The fear of making the attempt in the first place and continual procrastinating. Has led to 5 missing years we'll say or 10 missing years of no creative work. And often the fear is what if people don't like it and if the platform you're putting it out on is the fucking internet chances are people are not going to like it and they're gonna tell you

do you know what i mean so healthily recognizing and embracing it is essential i tweeted during the week i said there's two types of critic that you'll face online if you create people who genuinely don't like what you do they usually express it through disinterest right now that's the first type of person who's going to critique you online people who actually you know whatever it is you make you have to accept some people are actually going to think it's shit in their experience of reality and in their personal aesthetics that thing that you're doing that you might love to someone else is actual shit and that's fine that's okay because think of something that you don't like that others love.

I adore Bob Dylan. I know loads of people that think he is shite. None of us are right or wrong. I'm right for me. They're wrong for them. So number one, accept that people are going to think that you are shit. However, most people that think you're shit, they tend to experience it as as a disinterest they just they walk past your work do you know what i mean they just walk past it they're

they're so uninspired by what you or i have created that they can't even be arsed writing shit online about it that's how little of an impact you made so accepting that that's going to be the case for some people it's a very healthy part of a creative process the opposite of that would be thinking that everyone needs to like your stuff it's impossible fucking impossible what's the only thing that everyone likes is oxygen that's it everyone loves oxygen aside from that people are going to have a problem with something

now the second type of person you will actually within the category of A you will also get people who critique you who, just well meaning well meaning people usually i get to every

week i'll get a mail off one of ye and you'll say to me uh blind boy i'm a fan of your stuff but i listened to the podcast last week and that thing you said i disagree with or i loved the podcast from two weeks ago but i just didn't like last week's podcast. It didn't do it for me. And I get a lot of those mails. And to be honest, I don't even feel that as criticism. That's just one of you mailing me in a very kind of nice, amicable way and having a conversation. And I'm open to that. And that's actually quite constructive.

That's constructive criticism. That's like, thanks for letting me know. And I encourage you to do that as well. If like. There's some podcasts that you love. And other ones you're not mad about. Just fucking let me know. And I can tailor it.

To suit ye. We've had that going from the start. So that's the A. Criticism. But then. The B. Criticism. And.

That's begrudgers. Right. Now you have begrudgers. Right. Now you have to be careful as well. Because you see this a lot online. People will. Creative people. Can protect themselves from criticism. By labelling everyone who has a problem with their work.

As a begrudger. Don't fall into that fucking trap. Because it's an illusion. Okay. You must accept that some people are going to not like what you do. don't fall into that fucking trap, because it's an illusion, okay, you must accept that some people are going to not like what you do, and that's okay, but, begrudgers are a thing,

they're real, they exist, you can tell a begrudger, by, their obsessiveness, to be honest, do you know, the person who online

if they're criticizing your work it's it's if their critique is unnecessarily mean or unnecessarily nasty or if it's very public and they're clearly doing it to get likes or retweets you know like i said there before when i get good criticism off ye it tends to be through direct messages it tends to be a more private thing there's no sense of threat to it but begrudgers will be more public about it they want other people to see it to either get retweets or likes or whatever the important thing to remember about begrudgers and this is why you can generally dismiss them a begrudger is somebody who you're it's it's not it's not jealousy right a begrudger isn't jealous of what you're doing they don't necessarily want to be in your position or in

my position a begrudger is someone who your attempt at creativity right your very act of trying unconsciously reminds them of their own failure or most likely their own fear of trying. Okay, so you even drawing that picture, or putting up that song, or fucking hosting that nightclub night, or whatever it is you're doing, you doing that has reminded them of the part of themselves that would love to do something similar, but they're too scared.

And it's, you know, what are you going to do with that emotion most people aren't going to straight up take ownership of that and go do you know what i need to kick myself up the arse that's not what happens what happens is that it's experienced as a sense of hurt the hurt then transforms itself into anger towards the object or person or thing that reminded him so begrudgery exists too you gotta just fucking accept it and don't compassion try and have compassion towards the begrudger now by compassion i don't mean contact them and say i understand your pain what I mean is what would be uncompassionate would be to get into an argument with the grudger like I will

never fucking argue with someone like that just don't bother like if think of it in real life imagine you're at home enjoying a cup of tea watching television someone knocks on your door and decides to start talking shit about the job you did earlier on what would you do like you're either going to box him into the head or you can just fucking shut the door do you know what that's what you do with begrudgers you shut the door in their face because it's not constructive criticism it's kind of meanness and I used to I used to leave them off on the grounds of free speech and I used to think look fuck it even if someone's being nasty to me online I'll continue to let them do it because it was taking my skin but I remember there was one person and once a month

for about four years I just noticed that every single thing they kind of tweeted at me was a really mean stab and after four years I said and every time they'd do it as well I'd actually get kind of hurt by it

a small bit hurt by it and then I said to myself, Holy fuck I'm being bullied. I'm being bullied. So I blocked them. And there's no shame in blocking people. It depends on the context. But if someone's actually. If you're a grown adult.

And someone's trying to bully you. If you roll around in the mud with them and argue that's just gonna make yourself worse because you're fucking arguing with someone online over a lot of bullshit a lot of personal bullshit that has to do with them just block them and get on with your day they've knocked at your door knocked at your door said your haircut is shit close the door on their face go back to your cup of tea fuck it it is grand and the other thing to remember

as well about if you're the type of person that's like I just can't do it I have to get into an argument with this person who's talking shit if you're that person

you're like I have to get into an argument here's a good approach a compassionate approach to the person who's being mean when that person is highly critical your work and being very nasty and very mean right that's how

mean they are to themselves when they try and create that's why they're in the situation whereby they're being nasty to you online. Because they're so fucking hard on themselves. They think about doing that thing they want to do and they just don't. Because their inner monologue is vicious and brutal towards them. And that same viciousness and brutality is directed at you when you try and create. viciousness and brutality is directed at you when you try and create and when you think of it that way it's quite easy to have compassion then you know to have compassion for them and go fuck it they're probably pretty sad i know they're calling me a prick and they're being really mean but ultimately it's a line with a thorn and they're in its paw so i'm not gonna fucking

sword fight with it but i will walk away there's nothing wrong with walking away so just walk away block them that's what the block button is for because and here's the other thing if you're a professional artist right if if you're are semi-professional if you're art if you earn income from your art then you have to look after your emotional well-being because if you're going online which you have to do like i have to check online every day i have to check who's talking about me all of this stuff just to keep my business going and if you're doing that and you're seeing a huge amount of people being mean to you then that can actually affect how well you do your job and earn money like how are you supposed to go and paint or create a song or write a story if you've just read 10 people being horrible

and what that's known as is it's it's emotional labor that's the emotional labor of your work okay and emotional labor is it's afraid that gets disused a lot online um but what it really refers to in Marxist terms emotional labour is I don't know people who work in the service industry for instance you know if like I used to work on

I used to work in a call centre years ago and one of the toughest parts of the job of working in a call centre was regardless of how I felt inside having to be nice to someone on the phone all the time. Incredibly fucking draining. Really draining. That is emotional labour. My emotion there is, that's what I'm getting paid for essentially.

Badly paid for. there is that's what I'm getting paid for essentially badly paid for so if I'm fucking listening to cunts online being you know behaving like shitheads towards me and I allow that to affect me that's emotional fucking labour

so I gotta walk away from it because if I take too much of it I'm bored because the thing is like we're all human beings I'm a fucking human being and it's the daily struggle to have an internal locus of evaluation and to not allow aspects of my behavior to define my value as a human being that's a daily struggle that's something I work on but actually to use a metaphor um the fucking frying pan earlier now I know I was talking about that for a fucking reason that's flow and action now

that frying pan that I have the carbon steel frying pan like like I said that frying pan is non-stick assuming I season it maybe once a month or whatever I have to continually look after and service that frying pan and put effort in so that it becomes non-stick okay but if I don't put that effort in then it stops being non-stick it starts to rust and the frying pan is no longer impervious to water or liquids and it rusts and it's the exact same with my emotional well-being if I want online criticism to roll off and to not affect me I have to work on it it's not autonomous I have to work on numerous things so that i can get to that state i have to season myself like i'm a fucking cast iron pan or a carbon steel pan but autonomously you know taking it back to the transaction analysis that we were speaking about a few weeks ago when i see someone online being particularly mean, sometimes, it depends, it depends on the type of criticism.

Like, a lot of my fucking people who criticise me online, about 80% of them, they just really don't like me because I'm kind of liberal or because I said the word feminism a couple of times. I genuinely don't give a fuck about those people because they fucking, their anger is interchangeable, they're just as angry with me, and we'll say they're angry with Una Mullally as well, or they're angry with Russell Brand, I don't give a fuck about them, that's interchangeable, it doesn't affect me, it's the more kind of personal stuff that I don't really like but I'm a human being so like

I'm insecure I like getting approval from other people and I like when other people approve of me I experience it as hurtful when people disapprove of me and my mental health journey and struggle is to keep that under wraps to keep it in check so that it doesn't so that i don't want irrational levels of approval or that i'm not irrationally getting very upset by disapproval so when i see mean shit sometimes it actually hurts and i can't afford that i gotta fucking walk away from it you know and i gotta check in on myself and i gotta go no that's that person's opinion or that's that person's pain do you know and i have i have a responsibility to my fucking work and i'll say it again i've said i've said it before if you don't want if you don't want to feel the heart of negative criticism you can't suck your own dick too much with the positive uh praise and it's as simple as that if you do something good

and you get a lot of praise from people and you take this on board to mean that you are now a good person if you place your happiness in that praise that's all well and good it feels lovely but when the negativity comes around you haven't protected yourself and the key is the mantra no aspect of my behavior and that includes your artwork your creativity no aspect of your behavior can define your value as a human being and that's what i try and tell myself so most of the time criticism is kind of water off a duck's back um and most of my fucking critics as well they're like because you know if someone's talking shit you might look at their fucking

facebook or whatever or their instagram or twitter they just tend to be lads who actually like the same fucking shit as me they're lads who are like I'd look at their profile and I'd actually be thinking Jesus you should actually listen to my podcast because I just noticed there you were talking about disco I did a full podcast about disco or something like that and again what it is is there you they tend to be men i tend not to get a lot of female fucking critics for some reason now i know girls get criticism from other girls a lot i just don't get a lot of shit from women i don't know why but the lads that do it's like I'm looking at their stuff going fucking hell we're interested in the same shit

why do you dislike me so much and then you'd go alright okay oh I noticed you'd like to be a writer or there's no evidence of it or you'd like to be a musician or you'd like to be a painter and then I see it, it's like they don't fucking hate me at all,

it's just, I remind them of the part of themselves that won't try because of failure, and that must be very tough, do you get me, and what it is too actually, is one trend I find with serial procrastinators are people who tend to talk a lot about becoming an artist or writing that album or writing that book or doing that exhibition. A trend you tend to find with them is they focus on reasons why successful people became successful through in an easy way they would look at someone and go or they became successful because their uncle works in rte or or that person became successful because they have rich parents. Or that person became successful because they're from Dublin.

They live in Dublin and if you live in Dublin it's easier to become successful. You'll find that narrative a lot. Searching for the reasons why other people were successful in their craft because they had it easy. And yes, that fucking exists exists that's a real thing there there are successful people out there who had a lot of fucking advantages whether it be nepotism or money or whatever that's a real thing does happen just not all the time i mean for me you know if i was a woman i could multiply the criticism i get by about four or five times so the fact that i'm a lad has definitely been an advantage to me. Especially being outspoken in my career.

I do get shit, but not as much as I'd get if I was a woman. And I see this with just female friends of mine that are artists. Holy fuck, the shit that they get is ridiculous. I don't have to deal with that. So I've had that advantage. I don't have to deal with that so I've had that advantage but back to the kind of begrudgery and an obsessive non-evidence based narrative of unfairness and it's it's a way to procrastinate because then you can tell yourself the reason I don't have that book written or that album done or that painting painted is because uh it's the environment is unfair and lads who are very similar to me in terms of their interests or the part of the country

they're from or that if they see me actually doing well for myself it's a reminder of oh fuck maybe he actually just worked really hard oh shit maybe he conquered his demons and he actually tried he attempted he attempted and had a go at it and it worked out fuck that means that

I actually can have a go at it but I'm too scared and I don't want to accept that it's too painful for me to accept it so I'm going to get furious with the cunt do you know I could have fucking gone that way myself i could have easily gone that way and it's when i look at something like my book that i just wrote you know i'm fairly fucking proud of that but again i watch myself and this can be the same for you if you if you've done a

piece of work that you're proud of what i try and take pride in with my book it's not necessarily that the book gets you know has sold well or get good praise what i take pride in is when i when i wrote that book or when I write a song or do anything I have to battle fiercely with my insecurities and my fear of failure and the vice inside me that tells me that I'm not good enough that tells me that don't sit down to write today you're gonna fail and they're gonna laugh at you I fight that vice and I go no I'm gonna try and i'm gonna give it my best and it might fail and that's okay because failure is good so when i look at my book i'd be proud of it for that reason the process i conquered personal demons to do it and and tomorrow when i write i'm still gonna have to conquer the same demons and that's the success of it not necessarily if it sold well

or whatever because you don't as well art art is fucking this is the thing i spoke about in last week's podcast we have a tendency to commodify and and monet uh commodify and monetize art in terms of value and money and it's like fuck that everyone should be creating something right even if it's a coloring book and do it for the process and the joy of doing it if you can make money out of it fucking brilliant then you're a professional artist it isn't that great but what if your day job is just you know something that has nothing to do with creativity and then in the evening creativity is your way of looking after mental health. You're creating for the sake of it.

Everyone should be looking at it that way, even if you're a professional artist. And if you make money out of it, great, that's the bonus. So, yeah, that is my response. That's too long a fucking response. Now, what's that? 25 fucking minutes. And I still have a big long hot take to do so yeah i answered that at the fucking start because i didn't think i'd have time at the end to answer any questions so that is the i probably got about five questions this week how do you deal with criticism so i've answered all five in one

probably got about five questions this week how do you deal with criticism so i've answered all five in one yart now on to the boiling hot steaming stinking take so i'm gonna start off by having a bit of a stab at gin now i've spoken about gin i think three times on this podcast because it's it's just fucking it's a fascinating spirit it's historically it's fucking fascinating um it's it's the first spirit to be industrially produced you know when it came to london in the industrial revolution it was like heroin it destroyed the city it created pathological alcoholism on a level that humanity hadn't seen because humans were drinking beer and spirits were this very rare thing that only kings and princes drank but the average person on the street did not drink gin 17th 18th century gin was being made in factories everyone had it it destroyed fucking london very fascinating also you know

gin is gin became a thing because william of orange you know the orange man king king billy he was a dutch man gin was originally called gen genever it was a dutch spirit and when King Billy was ruling England and fucking Ireland, he promoted gin as this English drink, you know, it wasn't Jennifer anymore, it was an English drink, gin, because fuck brandy, brandy is for the French, and this is the time of colonial empire, so I'm fascinated with gin, but gin is having a massive resurgence at the moment it's everywhere okay and now i don't have like i love a fucking gin and tonic and i'm not one of these hipsters too that's like you know give me simple schweppes tonic and gardens gin in a normal glass with a slice of lemon i find that bland i like whatever gin is

gone elderflower tonic in one of those big stupid glasses with a lot of fruit and some ice i like that because i'm a cocktail boy so i have no problem with that i think it's a good thing but gin is it's a 90 of it is a fucking scam. It's a real, real scam. There's bottles of craft gin, right? Loads of them, right? The market is flooded with craft gin. And you can buy bottles of this shit. 60, 70 euro for a bottle of craft gin.

You are being robbed. You're being ripped off. I'll tell you why. Gin is, it's mostly just grain alcohol, straight up alcohol that can take a weekend to make. Like vodka. And then it's soaked in botanicals, which are just herbs and spices, nettles. That's all gin is. Then it's put into this fancy bottle and it's sold to you for 60 quid as craft gin.

You're spending 40, 50 quid there on a fucking bottle. Okay. The only thing that should cost 60, 70 quid spirit is a drink that's taken 30, 40 years to age. It's okay to spend money on that. You're buying its heritage. It's taken decades to make. That's a different story but craft gin is marketing itself alongside spirits that have taken 30 40 years to make and you're being fucking robbed it's bullshit absolute horseshit so that's my gripe with gin but here's

the thing here's where i get hot takey why has this happened all of a sudden, who are these fucking gin companies, where are they coming from, well, here's the thing, and this isn't really a hot take, because a lot of them are quite honest and open about it, but these new gin companies, these craft gin companies, they are distilleries that they either make the grain alcohol or they buy it from fucking Poland or the Ukraine and bottle it. But what they want to be are whiskey companies. That's what they want to be. So now in 2018, they're selling you bullshit gin for 60 quid.

But their whiskey has just gone into the barrel. Now in 2018 they're selling you bullshit gin for 60 quid. But their whiskey has just gone into the barrel. Now what whiskey is essentially, I might be wrong. Whiskey is just again a straight cleared grain alcohol. That's put into a barrel of wood that sherry used to be aged in. And over the course of time the The wood changes the taste and colour. Of the grain alcohol. Into whiskey.

And you open it up in 30 years or 20 years. And there's your whiskey. That's a craft process. Thousands of years old. That's worth money. These gin companies. Their whiskey has just gone into the barrel. They're waiting 30 years. And they're selling you.

Bullshit packaged gin. To line their pockets. To keep themselves sustained as a company. has just gone into the barrel they're waiting 30 years and they're selling you bullshit packaged gin to line their pockets to keep themselves sustained as a company until the gin is ready to consume now this is where we start getting conspiracy theorist this is me going a bit mad why do i think they they're looking at new emerging markets specifically in my opinion North Korea right

South Korea South Korea is a country that recently enough exposed to capitalism you know during the Korean War Korea was divided between North and South South is a very westernised country they consume massive amounts of alcohol they have a huge appetite for western spirits because they're they're kind of like a little america you know and they place great kind of cultural value in irish whiskeys so a lot of irish whis exported to South Korea I think these gin companies know

that with we'll say the relations between North Korea and the West are the best they've ever been it's fair to say I think North Korea is going to open itself up to a free market like South Korea has I think that's going to happen in the next 10- 20 years and I think the gin companies and the whiskey companies know this too and I think what they want to do they want to

be selling Irish whiskey to North Korea in 30 years when the whiskey's ready and when the market is free and they'll have this huge new billion fuckingion fucking euro empire. To take advantage of. Because. Kim Jong. The last Kim Jong. Not the current one. Like he fucking. I don't know was it Jameson.

Or was it Hennessy. But he used to keep like. I think it was Hennessy. He bought like. 50% of their stock. just for his personal supply. Do you know, they love their spirits, but they don't have access to them. So I think that's what's happening. They're playing the long ball.

That bit, that's my hot take. That is, I have pulled that out of my hole and it is just opinion. The gin companies selling you bullshit so that they can become whiskey companies that's the truth you can ask them they'll tell you so on to hot take number two that it's kind of similar you know the thing with the gin

is like it's gin now right we're taking a risk because we think it's going to pay off in 30- 40 years. Where else is that happening? On a much larger, possibly more sinister scale. This process of waiting decades is most closely echoed in the online heritage and dna business right um sites like fucking ancestry.com

specifically 23andme and you know what what is this this is fucking it's it's they're online sites that basically you spit into a cup you send your spit to them in the post and then you get online results that will break down your heritage and your ancestry right this is big business and it's a very new business because with dn you know with scientific advances in dna and what's the name it's called personal genomics that's the name of the industry now in 2001 the cost of we'll say finding a person's individual dna the cost of this in 2001 for one person would have been around 100 million to do that for one one person that would have meant you know a scientific fucking funding now in 2018 the cost of individual uh genomes individual finding out your heritage to your dna it's gone down to a grand it's a thousand euros how much it costs and there's companies like 23andme and they're very very popular at

the moment a lot of people are doing this and there's a couple of reasons kind of why people are into it it's mostly an american thing right when i i first heard about these personal genome websites about five years ago and it was the type of thing that all the yanks would do or an older member of your family would do you know seven ten years ago when it was a bit more expensive everyone in the family might chip in and one person would send off a cheek swab do you know but you i tended to associate it with old irish americans wanting to find out how irish they are or whatever but with the current kind of u.s climate now america's always fucking obsessed with race but in the age of trump it's very very evident both on the left and on the right in in under the greater umbrella of a controversial

fucking word that i don't like using but identity politics um so you've got we'll say young groups like who would consider themselves the alt-right who let's face it are just fucking nazis they believe the same shit the nazis believed in they just have cold haircuts and hats or whatever and you know they're obsessed with that genetic purity they're you, they want that Aryan shit, they want to find out what their white European heritage is, so they are signing up to 23andMe to prove their whiteness, then on the opposite end, you've got the left, who, who, you know, there's not a lot of cultural capital in being white and young in America anymore, it doesn't make you particularly cool, so cultural capital in being white and young in America anymore that doesn't make you particularly cool so I'm guessing you've got liberal white kids who are dying to find out if they might be a little bit Native American or black and then you've got young people of color who want to celebrate

their diversity and find out just how diverse they actually are so all these groups are signing up for 23andMe at a young age to find out their DNA and heritage also 23andMe are very much you know they promote a lot a lot of YouTubers I've heard about 23andMe the company through a lot of YouTubers that are

sponsored by them you know travel YouTubers in particular a guy called Mark Wiens he was sponsored by Ancestry.com i think but that industry and they're deliberately pitching it at young people basically also as well with young wealthy americans young wealthy americans do a kind of like americans are never really comfortable just being fucking american they're always polish american or irish american or asian american you know they're never just american that that's a

very american thing and rich americans there's this thing in in not victorian times but the one before it around 17th 18th century there was this thing that young people used to do called the grand tour where rich wealthy young people when they do called the Grand Tour, where rich, wealthy young people, when they got to about 19, would fuck off around the world to the great classical sites, such as Pompeii and the ruins of Greece, and they would get their education that way

and then return back to their land at 23. Yanks do this. Wealthy yanks, when they get to 19, they just go to Temple Bar and see all the 19 year old americans calling themselves irish americans falling around the place drunk they do this so when you go to 23andme's website they have a specific kind of testing kit that will give you your specific uh heritage what countries your genes came from and then they tie that up with the ability to travel to those countries you know so it's big business and it is very much

taking advantage of the current political climate and people's obsession with race and identity and ethnicity. But. The interesting. I mentioned earlier that. It was 100 million per person in 2001. And. It's a grand now. But if you go to 23andMe's website. I think it's like.

$129. If you want to get your DNA tested now. I'm not fucking sponsored by this by the way. If you want to get tested for this now it's about a hundred dollars hundred twenty nine dollars that is not a grand so they're losing a lot of money on that right that's deliberate the on the personal genome stuff is it's it's economically it's what you'd call a loss leader product okay a loss leader product is a product that is how do you explain it it's a product it's sold beneath its market value to stimulate something else okay milk and bananas are loss leader products if you walk into a supermarket you'll find that milk and bananas are just stupidly cheap they're possibly sold

who the fuck is texting me milk and bananas are sold at ridiculously cheap prices banana that quite unethical what cunts are am i getting texted hold on i gotta turn off sorry milk and bananas that's stupidly cheap banana is quite unethically cheap because of what goes on in honduras and countries like that but these are known as lost leader products the supermarket will sell you bananas and milk. Incredibly cheap. Because they understand that you are going to walk into the shop. And spend money on other shit. Maybe a 60 euro bottle of fucking gin.

So that's a lost leader product. Um. Amazon Kindle. Like an Amazon Kindle. Is a pretty good fucking tablet. They're quite good. And they cost about 60 quid. Amazon are losing money on the physical Kindle.

Because they know they're going to make that money back. On the books that you buy. A Kindle book is a tenner. You're going to fill it up. They'll make their money back. To be honest this fucking podcast. I work on a loss leader model. I do this podcast for free. There's 250,000 of you listening. To be honest, this fucking podcast, I work on a loss leader model.

I do this podcast for free. There's 250,000 of you listening. But a small percentage of that gives me money every month through Patreon. And that helps me to earn a living. So this podcast is a loss leader. But why are, you know, the genetic industry, industry the heritage genetic heritage industry why would they be operating in a loss leader fucking uh model what do they want well what they want is your genetic data and this is where it gets spicy this This is where we're going to veer into fucking conspiracy theory territory, lads. And I want you to take it with a pinch of salt.

And I want you to understand that this podcast is essentially just fucking entertainment. I'm not Alex Jones. I'm not a lunatic. A conspiracy theory is the most interesting story, not the most truthful one. So let's go into conspiracy theory territory why do 23andme want our genetic data why are they willing to lose money on dna tests what's the big payoff and when is the big payoff going to happen now the importance of data as a word it's been very evident in the news this year in particular um with facebook and

cambridge analytica you know and as well we have a law in europe now called the gdpr which you know protects your data but data is it's your online it's your online fucking everything that's you know nothing is free online for the past 15 years we've been experiencing it as free like if you think of your fucking smartphone and what it can do there's a camera on there there's it is limitless with the amount of apps and most of these apps are free and we're there going fuck it look at all this free shit wow it's not free you sign an agreement that basically says take all of my data and that data is it's the photographs you take it's everything you write it's listening to you on the fucking on the microphone of your phone it is everything about you

and this data is then sold to advertising companies so that the advertising companies can best correctly advertise to you very shortly, actually let's do it now where the fuck is my ocarina I can't find the ocarina lads

we're gonna have an ocarina pause now i don't have the ocarina so i've got a bit of metal and uh a pen we're gonna have a short pause for a digital advert right now okay now if you hear a digital advert your digital advert is going to be different to the digital advert of somebody else because the company acast have purchased your data from google or from facebook or whatever and you're going to get an advert that is targeted just to you depending on your interests on what you've spoken about around your phone what what podcasts you've listened to what you posted about last week where you were you know if you went to river island last week and spent half an hour in there you might get an ad for river island but we're going to have a pause now

for digital advert that's going to come in and it's going to be targeted just to you based on your data that has through your apps that has been sold to advertisers so here's the pause oh that sounds shit I'll make a on April 3rd you must be very careful Margaret it's a girl witness the birth bad things will start to happen

evil things of evil it's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six.

It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen.

Only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind.

So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. A-hoating noise. haven't done that since I was about fucking 14 so there should have been a digital advert in there and it was your data okay so that's

your data is what swayed the fucking you know our data caused Brexit our data caused the election of Donald Trump because the election campaigns went to a company called Cambridge Analytica

Cambridge Analytica took data that Facebook was selling or whatever was breaching data that was supposed to be used just to sell you products, okay? Because sometimes there's a good side to it. I like opening up my Instagram and being recommended products that I'm actually interested in. I like that.

But with Cambridge Analytica, it's a company that took the same data that should be used to advertise you goods and services and instead they used it to advance political campaigns, so if you looked, if your data suggested that you were going to vote Hillary Hillary Clinton

Trump targeted you with specific shit, same with Brexit if you were going to vote no for Brexit, the pro brexit campaign targeted you specifically with some shit that would change your mind and they did it through facebook they did it through google all of this that's your data so 23andme a company that is you're spitting into a fucking cup and giving them your dna that's what you're doing you are giving them your personal dna the blueprint for your body they are mining and collecting this data

okay genetic fucking data and for instance uh two years ago, they partnered, I think it was 300 million, they partnered with GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. So, GlaxoSmithKline, who make medicine, are now using the genetic data of everyone who's used 23andMe to create medicines, either to use the DNA as research or to create tailor-made medicines. Doesn't sound too bad, right? But where it gets kind of shifty is,

like I remember in 2006, lads, conspiracy theories flying around Facebook saying, oh, Facebook is actually it's a CIA plan to gather everyone's identities and if you said that in 2006 you were considered a lunatic but it did turn out to actually be true

through the NSA the way that the NSA used Facebook data and Google data it turned out to actually be true if you really want to go further if you look at the the roots of Google going back to Silicon Valley

in 94-95 the two lads who founded Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin like they would have when they were in Silicon Valley and when they were in college they were benefiting from funding grants that came from the cia and the nsa they were benefiting from these grants and

the to develop kind of surveillance software and this surveillance software you know no one would have thought that it was going to be used on the american people themselves but it turns out it was so even the roots of google if you stretch it long enough you can see its its original mechanics can be traced to covert government fucking funding so recent history has objectively showed us that our data is not being used responsibly it's not just being used to improve our lives and and make you know advertise to us better it's being used against us through political means or whatever through breaches and whatever that is never really safe so sergey bring who founded Google what if I told you that the woman who founded

23andMe, the genetic company what if I told you she was married to Sergey Brin who runs Google they're now divorced but they were fucking married so now you've got this company 23andMe who's got all of our DNA so we can find our heritage

married to the CEO of Google her sister is the CEO of YouTube also owned by Google that's where it starts to get a little bit fishy we know that 23andme are selling data to pharmaceutical companies now this is where it starts getting very boiling hot, in 2009, 23andMe, they filed a fucking patent, and the patent that they filed was for gamete donor selections, right, now I don't, I know nothing about fucking genetics but what i can tell you that is is it was basically designer babies okay and they were called out on it by the center for genetics

and society saying can you please retract this patent for using the data from 23andme for designer babies what that means is now designer babies can be a good or bad thing we already have a thing called genetic counseling there's certain diseases we'll say um huntington's disease for example or cystic fibrosis that are genetically inherited and wouldn't it be great if they could be eradicated a designer baby would allow what it what it suggests is that 23 and me are planning on a service in 15 years or 20 years or whatever where people with enough money can search ideally for the right sperm or the right egg for their child so that when the child is born, they can do positive things such as, you know, eradicate its chance of certain cancers or diseases. But also, you know, make the child a certain height when it grows up or change its skin colour or hair colour or whatever.

That's where it starts to get iffy. Now, you might say sure that's that person's business do you know we do it with dogs what if someone wants to have a fucking six foot seven brown haired child with massive ankles or whatever you do so what that's their business where it gets dodgy is only the most only the richest people will be able to afford that. And if designer babies become a thing, you end up with the potentiality for genetic discrimination. Imagine a world, and we kind of have it now a little bit, but not as extreme. But imagine a world where diseases are only things that affect the poor.

That you now have an elite ruling class that are not just different to us economically but genetically that's a bit dystopian i'm not into that so why the fuck are 23 and me filing patents for some designer baby shit that's a bit freaky lads. That's a real thing. So how am I kind of. Associating this with the gin. You know the gin. Whiskey. In 30 years time.

You know. Well. This is. A kind of a theory. That's happened around online. Something that's. I kind of. I think it's possible.

I think this is possible one of the hottest uh technologies at the moment that they're making advances in uh especially using stem cells now this relates back to to do you remember i spoke about the theory of biocentrism about five or six podcasts back the robert lanza the stem cell man the guy who's 60 and looks 40 the fella who i think his main kind of achievement in stem cell research was to discover the parts of dna that's responsible for aging that's a huge thing right now finding out how do we age and where in our personal dna is the aging process triggered there's a theory that what 23 and me are doing right now the reason that you know this heritage technology like i said it's something you associate with older people you think of the your granddad going i'd love to find out where we came from but they're targeting it

deliberately 23 and me are looking for an audience that are 19 20 21 they're sponsoring youtubers you know um i'm not saying they're taking advantage of identity politics, but it's certainly working in their favor. Young people online who don't have a grand to spend on their DNA analysis, but they do have $100. And that's why 23andMe are operating at a loss. This is where I think the big payoff is going to be. is going to be i think if everyone is getting their dna tested now while they're young in their early 20s right in 30 40 years time the percentage of those people that become very wealthy the technology will exist for those people to reverse their aging process and in order to do this what's needed is their actual dna from when they were younger and i think that's what it's going to be you're going to have

super wealthy people who can go back to being 23 years of fucking age in 30 40 years time. I know it sounds nuts. But like. 25 fucking years ago. Like I'm old enough to remember a cartoon. Called Inspector Gadget. And that was about 25 years ago. And in Inspector Gadget. I remember looking at it as a little kid.

And the girl in it. She used to have a book. And she'd open up the book. And in this book there was a video screen. And on this video screen, in her book, she had access to all the information in the world. If she wanted to find out about cheetahs, she would open her book and a video about cheetahs would play. This, when I saw it as a kid, or even when the adults around me saw it, was nuts. You know, it's like, no way, you can't have a book that has all the information in the world with videos of cheetahs well we have it now it's called your fucking iphone you're listening to

this podcast on it so that was 25 years ago a complete leap in technology that we thought was impossible is now part of our everyday lives the research into the dna our dna and how it ages is happening right now and 23andme like on top of that google have invested like fucking millions into this company millions so the people who have shown themselves to understand the future and to invest in the importance of data, they're already pumping their fucking money into this genetic heritage stuff. And these genetic heritage companies

are farming our data and our DNA. So I think that's what the payoff is. They're going to be able to reverse the aging process for the richest people. And probably, They're going to be able to reverse the aging process. For the richest people. And. Probably. Now I'm going to go mad spicy. Now I'm talking out of my hall lads.

I think it's going to be on Mars. Because. Throw a bit of Elon Musk into the mix. Spice it up with some Elon. With some Musk. The richest people are going to fuck off to Mars in the next 50 years and we're going to be stuck down here with our rising sea levels

and irradiated deserts and the ozone layer depleted and the soil bleached and a small amount of rich people are going to be able to travel to Mars Mars will be terraformed and they'll start colonies there. And they'll live there.

And these people. Will be able to live. Very very long. And stay young for very very long. Now let's fucking. The pot is boiling over now lads. Right. There's steam.

Coming out of this pot. And it is boiling. And it's pouring all over the kitchen floor. And I've gone mad. And I'm smearingaring myself with shit that's how hot this take is right let's look at a potential future using genetic data mining where you've got people living on mars and they're living to be a thousand years old right now let's go young in with that okay what is that story it's the fucking garden of eden what happened in the garden of eden right garden of eden it was this perfect beautiful land where there weren't that many people and everyone was beautiful and everyone lived to be a thousand

years old adam and eve got where you know they were going to live to be be a thousand years old. Adam and Eve got where, you know, they were going to live to be like a thousand years old as long as they want until original sin came along. Now let's look at fucking, there's steam all over the kitchen now, lads. The neighbours are knocking on the wall. Now let's bring in the bizarre cyclical nature of time and a bit of Carl Jung.

If we take time as a construct, is it possible that the archetypal story, deep within the collective unconscious, the story of the Garden of Eden, is not the story of human origin but through the cyclical bizarre nature of time actually stuck in our dna the story of where we're ultimately going to go which would be mars with people living forever and they've escaped say, the ark, Noah's ark. The ark is going to turn into Noah's ark, rising sea levels. And we know this in our collective unconscious. But it's not our origin, it's our future. Now that is some hot, boiling hot takes.

I choked on my vape. Please don't take me seriously cause that's some Alex Jones shit that's just me riffing that's me talking out of my arse and trying to be entertaining and getting a good crack out of it so please don't go to your colleagues and your loved ones

or your next door neighbor and tell them have you heard blind boy's theory have you heard his theory that if you spit into an envelope and send it to america we'll all end up on mars we'll all end up on mars as tall giants until someone eats a snake and it's because of the cyclical nature of time please don't tell people on the internet that that's what I'm saying. Because I'm not. I'm just presenting it as an interesting story. With a few possibilities.

I don't believe it. Alright. I'm just trying to fill up some space. I haven't had time to fucking advertise the bastard in Patreon. Look at that. I've ranted so long. It's a fucking hour. This podcast is supported. supported supported by a patreon page

all right um I do the podcast for free on the lost leader model I give five hours a week is how much podcast I put out and you're free to listen to it for free if you like but if you really enjoyed it and you want to support me as an artist, give me the price of a pint once a month or the price of a cup of coffee and go to patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast if you want to do this. And if you don't want to do it, if you don't want to give me money, that's fucking grand. You can listen for free.

It's a socialistic model. And if you can't afford to give me the money as well remember you're paying for someone who can't afford it as well which i like that too but please do if you can i really appreciate it and it helps me to earn a living and keep doing it so i'll leave you go you gorgeous delicious boys and girls i hope you enjoyed that that was one of the silliest fucking podcast I've done in a while but I thoroughly enjoyed it I really enjoyed that now

I needed a fucking release of a hot take like that like a pot of steam boiling you know God bless, yart have a tremendous week be compassionate to yourself, show a bit of compassion to other people and back to what I was saying earlier about you know if people are too

harshly critiquing you, extend compassion to them as well because you'll grow from that, don't roll around in the mud with them. Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.