The Chris Cuomo Project - What Comedians Understand That the Media Doesn't

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Why do comedians so often see the culture more clearly than the people paid to cover it? Chris Cuomo sits down with three of the sharpest comedic minds working today for conversations that go well past the jokes — about what's really happening in media, money, and what you're still allowed to say. Tim Dillon (comedian and podcast host, "The Tim Dillon Show") argues that cancel culture burned out because ideological purity is exhausting — and that the real credibility crisis belongs to the "expert" class, who failed on everything from Iraq to the pandemic and lost the public's trust. He and Cuomo get into why audiences now reward authenticity over corporate media, and why "agreeable nihilism" became the American mood. Adam Friedland (comedian and podcast host, "The Adam Friedland Show") gets honest about money and precarity — the middle-class squeeze that politics ignores while catering to the extremes — and how he taught himself the craft of interviewing by studying Howard Stern and leaning into self-deprecation. It's a look at ambition, purpose, and why he stopped coasting. Max Amini (comedian and actor, @MaxAmini) breaks down where the real red lines in comedy are — why fear holds artists back, why authenticity always wins out, and how he navigates what can and can't be said performing across wildly different cultures, from America to the Middle East. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Get 30% off at https://GetSoul.com with code CUOMO. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/cuomo. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of 8/1/2026. Unlock your best hair, skin, and body with @iRestorelaser and HUGE savings on iRESTORE with code CUOMO at https://irestore.com/CUOMO ! #irestorepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the end of summer. I'm just getting back into it also. So before we really ramp it up, I wanted to remind you of some of the best moments we've had on this show as kind of a statement of purpose as we move forward together into the midterms. Enjoy. I wanted to talk to you about what is working and this world of comedy and cultural criticism, which I think is a really, important space. George Carlin is a personal hero of mine, and it was obviously way ahead of his time because his rants were spot on to where we are. What is your take on that? We won't look at it through the lens of your own success because you're being too humble about it. But in terms of what works in the world of American culture when it comes to comedy, how do you see it? I think Anything can work as long as it's funny and as long as people feel that it resonates with them for whatever reason.

So there are great comedians who talk only about their families and themselves and don't go into that cultural space. There are people like me who are on the internet and you do the show every week and you end up, you know, you read the news all week and you digest it and you spit it out, you know, hopefully in a funny way. but you have a lot of great comedians that are from every different genre. You have really funny people that are on Saturday Night Live who do sketch comedy. There's very funny, you know, stand-up comedians that, again, could speak about, you know, perhaps only their personal life. Then you have comedians that are more in the space and I'm in.

And it's, I think, the demands of the medium, being on the internet every week, you have to find things to talk about. after a while you've told all the stories from your family and your childhood or whatever and you kind of look at the world around you and you try to make it funny because a lot of it's insane a lot of it is very crazy and I think comedy does a great job of you know putting out you know a I don't want to say positive per se because a lot of it isn't quite positive of the stuff I talk about, but like it's a way for people to digest what's happening in hopefully a funny way and a lighter way than they would by just reading a newspaper

or reading an article online. Let's unpack comedy. Where are we on the curve, in your opinion, in terms of what's allowed, and what isn't allowed. Where do you think we are on that? I think everything's allowed. I think people got very tired of being hyper-judgmental. I think movements that are based on ideological purity are bound to fail because they're

exhausting. People get very tired of these litmus tests, the word police, people like that. Eventually, movements that are based on that either become, you know, sex of a religion, they become a violent, you know, whatever anti-establishment movement, or they just peter out because people get bored. And I think that's where people were, you know, after we had that kind of moral panic, people just got bored.

And now people are just kind of sitting back, laughing at stuff. I think nuance is back. I think people realize that we're all fallible, flawed human beings and that most things that most people believe live in that gray area between right and left. And I think that's the moment we're at now. That doesn't mean we'll be there forever. And I'm sure that pendulum swing from one extreme to the other.

But it feels like we're in a pretty good place now with what you're allowed to talk about. You think that the Tom Brady roast was a watershed moment? I think so. It was where the canceling died at least in one context. I think people enjoyed it. I had several friends on it that did a great job. You know, Nikki Glazer, phenomenal.

And I think people really just sat back and said, this is really fun, it's enjoyable, these are words. I also think if we look around the world now, we have wars in the Ukraine, wars in the Middle East, India and Pakistan exchanging missiles. They're both nuclear countries, right?

Really, to be upset only by words now, you have to be a special kind of disconnected because you're looking at real life tragedy all over the globe. So if you're invested in a joke or you're getting angry about a specific set of words or beliefs you don't like, you're probably the most privileged group of human beings

to have ever existed on the planet. Who do you think owns the extreme, of canceling in our culture. Do you think it's the right or the left? I think both the right and the left can utilize that weapon. And it's a weapon. I saw it in the 90s and the right employed it often, but Timpigour also employed it with music that she didn't like.

She found vulgar, Al Gore's wife. I saw it in the 2000s with the Iraq War, where the right was saying anyone that didn't fall in lockstep with their aims in the Middle East was a traitor or was it anti-American, I saw it then. Then it emerged, you know, around 2015, on the contemporary left as a tool in which to marginalize people that they disagreed with

or found to be objectionable in some way. I also think it was motivated, as many things are, by careerism. I think people saw it as a way to, like, you know, elevate themselves at the expense of other people. It was a way for a lot of mediocre people, be they writers, comedians, actors, whatever, directors to get work by falling lockstep in line with that ideology and then reaping a lot of professional benefits because of it. So I think that's what it became. I think it was very cynical. And I think it was employed by people to advance themselves. And I think that was a huge feature.

And then it didn't work because all these companies lost a lot of money. Viewership dropped in a lot of these areas where they were just doing a paint by number strategy of green lighting things based on, you know, how many people of color you have, how many gay people, how many trans people. how many trans people, how many women. And you forgot that all of this at the end of the day is to entertain people and to earn money. And it didn't work. And then when it didn't work, Hollywood, which famously doesn't believe in much,

outside of success, was like we tried this, it didn't work. Hollywood will go which way the wind is going. The wind started to blow the other way. And then immediately all those executives forgot that they had ever championed any of this stuff. because they got big mortgages, you know, and kids in private school, and they need to earn a living, and then they went the other way. So when you see it going the other way,

how come Louis C.K. hasn't been brought back into the bosom of Hollywood when he is arguably one of the most talented guys in this space? Well, he's touring around the world. He's doing arenas. His fans are there. He's one of the top comics in the world. I think Hollywood. By his own hand.

By his own hand. He did it all himself. I'm a huge fan. Yeah, he's a best. Yeah, he's a friend. But why haven't they brought him back if we're in? Right now, they're in a weird place. And that has to do with many different aspects of that business.

So right now, it's a hard question. I think prior to now, the reasons were the ones we're talking about, right? They're scared. They're terrified. They're, you know, chase, they're afraid of these Twitter mobs or whatever. Now I think it's such a weird place. they really don't know what to do. I don't think it's political right now.

I think really they're unsure about the future of the business, how it's going to be shaped by the internet, by AI, by all of these things. So right now it's a very difficult, I mean, the smartest people I know in that world are very uncertain about what comes next. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Seoul. Look, you know that I am looking for alcohol alternatives that allow me to have an adult experience when I'm out and wanting to relax, right? If booze, I'm not judging, but if booze doesn't work for you, you should try souls out-of-office THC gummies and sparkling beverages, all right? They've launched something new, mood gummies, okay?

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You play music? I do. I'm a drummer. Really? Yeah. That's why I have these Java Man forearms. Who's your, like, legend? Easy. Neil Purt.

Neil Pert. From Rush. What about, so you could play like really proggy, techy shit? No. I can't be, I could never play most of what Neil Pert played. How big is your kid? Huh? How, how many tombs do you have in your kit?

I used to have a, I had seven. But then I remember I got. It's really egotistical of you. Very under the say, very biblical. Very under the sway of Buddy Rich and Stuart Copeland and these other guys who had smaller kits. Stuart Copeland from the police also in a phenomenal drive. drummer. Terry Bosio from missing persons. His sister was Dale, who was the singer. He was also amazing. You don't need a big kit to make a big sound. One of the most underrated ever was,

Mr. Mitch Mitchell from the Jimmy Hendrix experience. He should have joined the Who after Keith Moon died. That's my alternate history. That's strong. Although the guy, I'm a boomer, dude. The guy who took over for Keith Moon was pretty good, too, though. I forget what his name was. Yasser Arafat. No, when they did Eminence Front, they gave him a nice video there. He was good.

I forget what his name was. Anyway, let me ask you. You ever notice how much Ringo looks like Yasser Arafat? Ringo looks like a lot of Mideastard despots. I wouldn't say despot. I would say a great guy. Yeah, I know you would. I know you would.

are at the top of the... Herriff? I don't think... I don't know. I don't have a strong opinion. Either way. He died a very wealthy man. I do know that. Well, I don't know where he got it from. If you die, there is no wealth. It's true. You can't take it with you. That's why I...

I'm bad at money because I'm like... I didn't want to sign up for a 401k. Why? Because it's like, I don't give a fuck when I'm like... 65 years. What am I going to do? Who cares? I'd rather go to dinner. That is a very... I'm terrible at money. That is a very young man's perspective.

I don't know. It's like, what's the point? You're going to get married. You're going to have a family. You don't think you have to plan for taking care of people? She has no concept of it. No, I think genuinely speaking, but I was quite poor. I struggled financially in my early adulthood. And my parents,

my parents also, like, came to America and they did quite well. And then in the savings and loan crisis, in the early 90s, you remember Keating? Mm-hmm. Bush won.

My dad was an architect, and the market just got wiped in Southern California, where we lived. And, yeah. I mean, like, so, like, I saw the stress that,

kind of stressing out about money did to a family. And so like, ever since I've been, like, free from precarity, it's just like there's no point to having it other than to, you know, take care of the people you love.

And a 401 can't. Who the frick cares about that? Like, it's like, it's, I'll make war money later on. Isn't that how it works, Chris? I don't know. Look, I mean, you know, it can work that way. Some people believe in saving.

Well, I know, but it's so, you don't have to pay tax on it. I think that's what they said to me. You don't pay tax on the growth. I thought it's tax exempt every, all your payments, your, I don't freaking know, dude. I like that you use the word

precarity. Yeah. You know, that's a good, that was a good, that was a good grab. Precarity? You don't hear it a lot. You hear precarious. You don't hear precarity. Well, being stressed about money is, It's a precarity.

It's a precarity. It's precarious and it's a precarity. You're right. Most people live that way in America. Most people in America are one crisis away from being proper fucked. Yeah. I think over 50% can't get $1,000 out of the bank. Yep.

Yeah. That is a big truth that we don't deal with. We deal with. the top and the absolute bottom, and we miss the majority of Americans. And our politics caters to extremes. So you have this growing disaffection. You don't think that those guys that can't get $1,000 aren't the bottom?

I mean, like, that should be the bottom. So, but, but then, like, what's our definition of the bottom? The bottom is where you're broken on assistance. Well, I mean, those people are also broke, you know? No, they are working and they are paying bills and they are paying credit cards that are greatly extended. You know, they have homes. They have multiple cars with notes.

Oh, come on. And they are buried under consumer debt. That is uniquely American as a plight. You think that the guys that don't have $1,000 have a lot of cars and stuff? Not a lot of cars, but I'm telling you, There are people all over this country fully functioning, not on assistance, that fall into that group. Yeah. That's how you got MAGA.

So you're saying we're paying too much attention to people that need, like, entitlements? We pay too much attention to the very top and the very bottom. And what used to be called the middle class, which I always hated as a term, the majority is what we should be talking about. we don't. Our politics caters to the fringes, not to the main. I'm trying to understand. I don't understand. Like, I think that if wealth is distributed more and more, like, with less equality, I don't think it's because of catering to the fringe. I think it's just that people are broker, right? I mean, like... I'm having deja vu right now, by the way. Isn't that, do you believe in that? Deja vu?

No, I don't believe in that. I don't either, but I'm having it right now. Isn't that about? About what? This, I've had this conversation with you. Well, I guess so, maybe. And it's going to get weird, and I'm going to be misunderstood about something. That's what I...

Well, I'm operating in good faith. I think you always operate in good faith. People loved seeing you on News Nation, by the way. They found you very refreshing. I thought you came across a little hapless. What are you talking about? What do you mean? You know, I was like, you know, like, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had, like, gotten up and walked off at any point.

I got picked up in the trades. Did you see that? I heard. In the Hill, it said, comedian Adam Friedland, comedian Adam Friedland, Trump and Elon are in pain. Yeah, that was deep. And there is great. When they go low, we go high, Chris. Yeah, I don't buy that.

I go wherever it comes at me. Wherever you bring it is where it's going to be. You come at me low, we're going to be low. If you come at me high, we're going to be high. You get what you give with me. How do you feel the new podcast is going, and I'll answer my question first. It seems to be going very well, and I actually want to know why. But how do you feel about it?

I don't know. I just want to get better at doing interviews, I think. And so I'm doing it in a more consistent way now. So it's, you know, one can develop when they do something, you know, more frequently. Do you believe that you suck as an interviewer? I did at the beginning, definitely. I didn't know how to do it at all. I Googled journalism.

And what did say? What did chat GPT tell you to do? No, I looked at Wikipedia. No, but then I was like, I was like, who's good at interviews? So then I was like, well, Joe Rogan. I guess is, you know, pretty successful. And then I watched him. He is not a good interviewer.

He is a good listener. Well, he's good. No, he's good because he agrees with everyone. So like every guest. I will tell you who I would study if I were you. Let me finish. Let me finish. Every guest, well, I'm getting there.

But every guest feels like they're crushing, right? If he's agreeing with you. So he can accidentally get a lot. He also has huge guests on that used to speaking at people. So he gives them a platform, he gives them space, and he gives them time because that podcast is so fucking long. But I'll tell you who's an amazing celebrity interviewer.

And he has developed into one also. Howard Stern is a great interviewer. I realized that after I was like trying to find who to kind of study. and emulate and they kind of clicked with me because I like I listened to Howard growing up all the time. And yeah, he's incredible when you like kind of like watch it for its craft. Like within the first like 90 seconds, he has the person becomes his best friend. Yes. And then he can do anything.

He can like he disarms them immediately. But I can't really emulate that because when I like, if he's like you're a huge star, everyone loves you. If I do it in my stupid Jewish voice, not his Jewish, my voice, it sounds sarcastic. So instead, I kind of like self-deprecate and that kind of disarms the guest, I guess. If I'm like, I'm an idiot and a schmuck,

like I'm not taking myself too seriously, then the guest has a choice whether or not they want to be like, no at all still or whether or not they want to kind of drop their guard. And that's kind of what I've, but it really comes from me, watching a ton of Howard and going through a ton of Howard like in the last like two, three years. Why do you think people like your content?

I don't, I don't really think about it. Like, I just want my friends to like it. And the fact that my dad can watch it now is good because I used to peddle and smut. But like, anytime you, anytime you like kind of do something and then consider where it exists in the zeit guys, I mean, like, you're just like, it's not, it's a waste of time. Well, how is this different than what you used to do? Well, I was on a podcast for a while, which was like a good, it was admittedly, like, so funny. Like, you know, it was like three 30-year-old men behaving like young, like babies.

And we had this genius. This guy Nick was on the show, and he's like fucking comedic genius. And he was the one really who encouraged me to do this. And I wasn't sure of it. Like, I was like, why did, like, one of, one of the people of the three left, Stav, the other one, who's now a huge comedian. He's also a friend of ours. And I was like, well, we have a brand, Nicholas, we have a brand.

And I was like, well, let's keep, why do we have to change the brand? And he's like, no, he's like, you have to trust me. So I really owe it to Nick, to be honest with you. But, yeah, so then we started doing this. And I guess it was kind of the first time I ever, like, invested myself in this way. Because I guess our old podcast was, we, like, it was ironic, right? So if it was bad or if I was, like, not funny, I could be like,

well, it's not, I wasn't trying, you know? You can kind of protect yourself that way. But this, like, if I'm working hard at this and it's bad, then, like, you know, that sucks if it's bad. That means I suck. feel that you are different by design or by evolution of age and stage? In what, in what's, oh, the show is different? Yeah.

Like, it's a different Adam. Why? Because you're trying to be different or life has changed you? Oh, I was a lazy. I was one of the laziest guys ever. I mean, we had a very successful podcast. I had to work two hours a week. And, but I kind of found that I was just like kind of, once you commit yourself,

to like invest, you know, just having a purpose and going all out and trying as hard as you can. You can't really go back to lazy. You're like, oh, I think I was just fast forwarding to being dead. You know what I mean? And it's like you only have a certain, you know, it feels more like I'm not wasting my time as much like this. What do you want to do? What is your ambition? What do I want to do?

Yeah, like what do you want a podcast to be? I want the show to get better. I want to get better at doing this. See how far we can grow it, you know. See, I do see, like, with the interviews, like, it feels like a kind of a trajectory. I think I didn't really see a trajectory prior to starting the show. I'm very lucky, you know.

Like, it's kind of an accident this even happened. I don't believe in luck. How do you define it? Well, it's a combination. Like, you know, of course, it's circumstances. You know what? There's so many fucking amazing. talented comedians I started with, that just, you know, it's, it there is a, there is a

right place, right time aspect, you know, but like also I'm like, I, I don't want to, because I feel fortunate I get to do this, I don't want to fuck up the opportunity, you know, because like I have so many other friends that's like, I'm so lucky that I can do this thing and have a studio and like, you know, like, it's, I just like, uh, want to, I don't want to take it for granted, I guess. Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027-volt and 2026 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from ethos.

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Bring body-focused light therapy into your routine, support a more sculpted look, feel more confident in your skin, all from the comfort of your. home. Just head to irisdore.com and use the code Cuomo. That's Cuomo at irisdore.com. Please tell them I sent you. How do you negotiate what is a safe space for comedy versus what can get you canceled? Well, the cancel culture is trending in different areas, right? I think it's if you worry about it all the time, it's going to hold you back. If you reckless, it'll catch you nowadays. you know, people are bringing sound bites back from 10, 15 years ago. I think we're living in an era that authenticity is the most important.

And if you got some skeletons in the closet, you should sort of find a place with your demons because I believe everyone's true side eventually will come out. And as an artist, you constantly expressing yourself. So I think everybody should, you know, work on themselves and bring the most honest, you know, part of themselves out in public and hope for the best. You can't fight the haters.

You can't. There's, it's a crazy world nowadays with social media. And there are some people that are really out there to get you, many different intentions. I mean, we hear all these conspiracies about different artists that they were huge and they fell. And they said, oh, he rubbed somebody the wrong. way, all of this is fake, is, you know, they're setting him up. Who knows? I just, I just don't want to

live in fear. So how do you, how do you not in the world where you're supposed to be taken chances? The whole gift of observational comedy is when you make me laugh at something that I didn't really see that way, or I believe the gold standard, which you do well, um, is you make me laugh at something. I'm not supposed to be laughing at. That, to me, is the genius of that form of artistry. Very dangerous, though, now. In a way, probably not since Lenny Bruce before both of our times, right?

I mean, even Carlin and those guys, they were all, Carlin is to me a gold standard, right? Genius. But riding the wave of, we'll never let that happen again until we just started to right now. So how do you do that dance? I personally, I try not to think about it so much in that sense because Chris, it's like an MMA fighter.

You go into the ring and you want to fight. If you think so much about how that guy is going to punch you, you're going to lose that fight. You go in there, you've done your best, you've done your best practice, you know your rights and wrong, you go in there if you genuinely believe that I'm standing on the right side with this topic, then you should throw your punches.

You know, I tell you with my comedy, I give you an example. When I go to the Middle East, that's where sensitivity is the highest. And certain topics... Dave Chappelle says he's safer to speak in Saudi Arabia than he is in America. Unless he says some shit about the Saudis, and then he'd be coming home in pieces. Exactly, exactly. And also, Chappelle is referring to something very specific. Right.

He went through a really bad experience, a hell of a topic. with the transgender. So the transgender topic, yeah, it's a lot more comfortable to speak about it in the Middle East because the Middle East doesn't really have the most open-minded side about this topic, right?

So what do you do when you're there? I have to understand that there are certain red lines, right? You go to another country, you go to another culture. You're not there to be a rebel and to poke the bear in a disrespectful way. But at the same time, this is my belief, personal belief.

I'm there to create positive thoughts. I'm there to create a sort of a situation where I send a message to where families will have more respect for one another. And what I mean by that, a brother will respect his sister more so than certain maybe. cultural habits or certain things that have made women, you know, suffer more in a household versus, so with my way of storytelling, with my way of telling my experiences in my family as a Persian person with my sisters, I try to show aside that a great man respects a woman

this way. And I present the topic. And I think once people listen to it, they realize, okay, His heart is in the right place. Now, maybe some people might disagree with that. But then I'm okay. I'm okay with, you know, just standing by sort of my beliefs. Here's what I think, you know, this is where I stand with women, and this is how I present it. You're an unusual commodity,

because most people's story, your generation, is we barely got out in time, 79, you know, and we were running from this, We were running from that, and we came back here, and we had nothing, and then we built it. You're the reverse. You were born in Arizona, went back. Yep. How'd that go over in the house, once you were old enough to have conversations about it?

What was the decision to go from America back to Iran? It was tough from day one. It was never an easy topic. How old were you? I was eight years old. So you're eight years old, so you don't have a say in it. You do what you're told. Yeah.

You get there. How are you received? Well, the family is very loving. You know, as a kid, you go to Iran. It's a very warm culture. All that part was amazing. But when I went to school, I didn't even speak a Farsi. So it was really, it was a culture shock in so many ways.

And the teachers would just smack you. And not lightly. They will beat the shit out of you at times. Like, if you were late, they literally had a stick, and they would be you at the door of the school. So it was a mind fuck, but, you know, really at that age, you just adapt. You don't know, you're not having an opinion. You're not going home and saying, what's the problem?

You know, here's the problem, what's the solution? My father was a very loving, naive character in the sense that the backstores, my grandfather was a very well-known scholar, wrote over 100 books, very impressive character. He was paralyzed at age 16, taught himself four languages, became a very wealthy, very well-known writer, had his first newspaper in Iran. And his wish was to send his kids abroad to become educated and come back and serve their own country.

My grandfather passed away two years before the Iranian Revolution. And he didn't get a chance to write in his will. Well, if there's a revolution, kids, don't be stupid and come back to Iran. So here's my dad You know Finishing his He got his master's from GW And he said

I promise my dad I'm going to go back And serve Iran So he took us all back And my mom My mom I never forget My mom was extremely

Sad about the move And she She grew up in London From the age of 13 So we were all It was just like It was a huge shock And I go to school

As an American You know kid Now I'm in Iran in the first day of school, the first hour in school, the kids are shouting, death to America, and I'm standing there going,

do they know I'm American? Are they trying to kill me? I'm freaking out. I mean, it was probably one of the most, to this day, I remember even the smell of that day. That's how, how memorable it is to me. How did you process how aware,

or at what point became aware, that I'm living enough? fucking crazy place right now. There's like a schism here between what I understand as my family's lineage as Persians and Persians has like disappeared into this regime that came from other countries, right? The Ayatollah and everybody who came in there,

everybody thinks they came out of Iran and rose up. It's not how it happened, obviously, you know. How did you process that? What was that lived experience? Well, again, as it can, kid, I feel like, first of all, we were always aware that this is different, this is crazy, but we live a pluralized, like a pro-lized, I'm getting the word right, you're living a double life. You're going to school, you go out in public, it's one life. You come home is a complete different

life. So you come home, you have your family, you have your parties, you have fun, your cousins are around, And it's amazing. You go out in public, you cannot play music. You can't, you can't, you know, you can't dance. You know, boys have their own school. Girls have their own school. You see your little sister wearing a hijab. And so there's, you live two different lives at the same time.

Extra sucky for the girls. Extra, yeah, absolutely. But at the same time, Iran was fun. It was, it's not, you know, Iran is, To this day, Iranians are really forward with their Western culture. They listen to the best music. They wear the best clothes. They're very fashion forward.

So it's this duality that's happening. You've got the government and this face of Iran. That's what they're promoting in the media. But behind the scenes, Iranians are living a very Western life.