The Daily Beast Podcast - How ‘The Daily Show’ Host Search Became Such a Disaster

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

In this week’s crossover episode between The New Abnormal and The Last Laugh, we break down how Hasan Minhaj’s “emotional truths” upended The Daily Show’s seemingly eternal search for a new host (or hosts), the downfall of TikTok-favorite standup Matt Rife, and the emergence of Nick Bargatze as a bonafide star of the industry. Plus, a conversation with author Raquel Willis about her new book, The Risk It Takes to Bloom, a memoir exploring her experiences as a Black transgender activist from the American South. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great episode we have for you today.

Author and trans activist Raquel Willis joins us to talk all about their first book, The Risk It Takes, to Bloom, on life and liberation. Then it's a crossover episode as The Last Laughs Matt Wilson is here to do a deep dive on the year in comedy. But first, let's have some fun. Okay, since we're on vacation, I figured we'd treat the listeners to another round of questions. Let's start off easy. So far in 2023, who's the politician that has made you the most angry? That's the easy question you want to start with? That's the joke.

I don't like, who's been the most racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic person in 20203? Man. See, for me, this is easy. This is meatball run. And then it's Trump running. up in the background for the end of the year? Like is the horse is gaining on the meatball? That's definitely the first name that came to my mind. I'm just trying to think of, I mean, you almost can't say Trump, even though that's ultimately probably the right answer.

God, I don't know. There's so many crews, J.D. Vance. Tommy, Tuberville. Tommy, yeah. Oh, my God. There's so many. It's insane. I'll join in and go with Ron because we're looking at the entire year. Yeah. Because really front of mind for me is Mike Johnson and all the revelations about his fucking weirdo-ass life. So, but that was like end of the year. But if we're looking at cumulative, I'm going with meatball. With Kevin McCarthy exiting Congress this week, how long do you think he takes off?

And what do you think his next gig is? Fox hates him. So he's definitely not going to go there. Yeah. Yeah. And he's too much of a quarter. corporate chill for Newsmax and the other weird ones. Yeah, I think you just answered your own question, though.

I mean, he's a corporate chill. So what better ridiculously high-paying post-Congress job is there than being a corporate chill? Yeah. If he still wants his close-ups, his camera, I'm pretty sure CBS or CNN completely lack morals. So he can go there while he's writing his tell-all book. I would imagine that to be, because it's not just about making money.

He loves a camera. He loves a spotlight. So I don't think he's going to go the quiet, let me rake in millions being a lobbyist route. Like, he wants a splash. I think he'll do both. He loves a camera the way John Boehner loved making books with him drinking on the cover. That's true.

It's true. He's definitely writing a book, though. You're right, Daniel. Yeah, yeah. No, you're totally right there. Who came on your political radar this year that really impressed you? Oh, wow. Actually, a lot of people.

I'll let you guys think, and I'll say Senator Megan Hunt from Nebraska. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Damn you. It's an obvious answer. She's incredible. Yeah, she's absolutely fantastic. I interviewed some time in this year. My date memory is fuzzy.

Anna Eskimani, who's a Democratic member of the Florida House or Assembly. And she was absolutely amazing. And I remember saying at the end of that interview that I hope that whatever the future of the National Democratic Party is, it includes her because that's how much I just thought she was terrific. For me, I will say the Justin's out of Tennessee. And while I still would like to interview them, because that did not happen, I think that everything that they have done, that they have done, that they, They really are a shining light of the Democratic Party, of the youth vote, of amazing black men who refused to be silenced. I was just, I was in awe of them. Yeah.

Folks, I am so very excited to welcome to the new abnormal author, trans activists, all around badass writer and just extraordinary person, Raquel Willis, who is the author of the new book, her memoir, The Risk. it takes to bloom on life and liberation. Friend, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo, on this book. I'm going to ask the first question that most people ask, which is, this is your first book. Why now? What prompted you to say, you know what?

I want to tell my story and I want to tell it now. Well, thank you for having me on. I guess the short answer is I was laid off at the start of the pan. pandemic. So I had a lot of time on my hands. But I guess the longer answer is I felt like it was time to tell my story as a black trans woman, but also as someone committed to social justice, because I think, or I like, I like to hope that we have moved a bit beyond just this kind of obsession with trans people's bodies and kind of the reductive pieces of our gender. transitions and that maybe we're in a time now where we can have some richer discussions about

what it's like to be openly trans and in the workplace or what it's like to be openly black and trans within various social justice movements that in many ways we're not crafted for us. And then of course also what it means politically to be black, trans, queer, and relatively conscious in this time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What I would love to believe is that we are at a place where we want richer conversation. The politics and the policies that we have seen over the last several years beg to differ. It showcases that your story is so necessary because we need to move outside of the stereotypes, the statistics,

and the nastiness with which we have seen come out of the MAGA political right as they try and stake their claim to American democracy that they want to put that stake in the backs of LGBTQ people, but particularly trans people. And I think that what makes your story, there are so many pieces that make it compelling, but I want to give you an opportunity to talk about being from the South, because in these blue states, in these, you know, coastal elite and the blue state elite, we think that everyone who is LGBTQ lives in New York or San Francisco, lives in Washington, D.C., or in LA. And that is not the case. Your story and upbringing happened in a geographical location that we don't really think about often unless we hear about horrific stories. So can you talk about

giving light to that? You're absolutely right, Danielle. Telling my story and particularly the southern aspects of my story felt very important. Just as you said, I mean, I grew up coming into my nonconformity in a sense in the 90s in 2000s. So much of the media in general was situated in New York or in San Francisco, maybe Chicago, somewhere else. It was never in the South, not even really our big cities in general. But of course, queerness and transness felt like something I would have to go away from my home and my home region to tap into. And I'm very, very interested in the interventions we can make around the ideas that queer and trans people have to leave our homes so that we can breathe, so that we can move from under those suffocating

expectations that are put on all of us. And it felt important to tell a Southern story here because it also gave me an opportunity to share how I realized actually that I had so, up this narrative that the South was only defined by its oppression and its oppress of history, that the South was only defined by being, you know, largely the site of the Civil War and, of course, Jim Crow and on and on. But no, there's something that I was able to tap into, thanks to the beautiful black, queer and trans community I found in Atlanta that was invested in social justice just after I graduated from the University of Georgia, who was really showcasing how actually there's always been resistance,

resilience, and liberation in the South. People didn't just accept the dynamics as is. They carved out slivers of liberation in their lives. And so that's what I was able to reclaim in delving into social justice. And I think that we all have an opportunity to do that as well. You're so right. Like I'm just sitting with what you said. about the South being defined by its oppression.

And I'm just like, yes, because everything that I've ever, you know, I'm from New York, born and raised in New York, and then, you know, lived in D.C. and other places. But how I understood the South as a kid and even as a young adult was it's dangerous for people who look like me and love like me. And it never occurred to me that in all of the. tales that we're told about this country's move towards progression, whether it be from being enslaved to freedom, from non-voting to voting for women, from being taken seriously outside of the home and in the workplace, and moving from being forced out of the closet to like declaring who you are

and the fullness of that, that I never thought that those good stories, those good tales, came from that place. And so when you were determining and yourself, what came into conflict for you? As you're like, I'm a daughter of the South. Like why do I have to leave this place? Like you said, you know, in order to go someplace to like to be the fullness of who I am.

Like talk about that conflict because I feel like so many people, regardless of, you know, of their background in a lot of ways, struggle with being who they fully are where they were born. Yeah. What gave me kind of the bits and pieces I needed to really, I guess, come up with this plan to leave the South because I did develop that as I started to get older and mature into my teenage years was, I guess I want to tackle the feeling of isolation.

Like, I felt very isolated as a young person. especially one that was being bullied by peers for being gender non-conforming, being called gay as a slur, being told I was just like a girl, all of these different things. But it was the internet really in connecting with LGBTQ youth from any and everywhere in Yahoo chat rooms in the early 2000s that really gave me this glimpse of or glimmer of an idea. That really gave me a glimmer of an idea that there were other LGBT. BTQ plus folks out there. And I just had to find them.

And so that was a piece of it. But I also wasn't just dealing with the southern aspect of my life. But I was dealing with growing up Catholic in a very devout family, the kind of family that sits in the front pew every Sunday, talks to the priest after church to the whole nine yards. And I guess maybe more poignantly to a lot of the readers of the risk it takes to bloom. so far has been these expectations around masculinity and particularly black masculinity. And that, I have a feeling that those expectations feel stauncher and thicker in the South just because they're such a necessity to figure out how to, if not assimilate, navigate the world in a way that you don't draw more attention to yourself than you're already

going to. And to be black in America, you're already going to do that. To be black in the South, you're already going to do that. But to be queer, and let's not even talk about being trans, because I wasn't even quite there yet as a teenager, but being queer was going to put another marker, another target on me for discrimination, for harassment, for violence. And my parents were very aware of that. So I think it's important to dismantle all of those things, but I hope that what folks take away from me sharing these stories and the risk it takes to bloom is that we're all kind of battling these expectations that others set for us or that systems of oppression set for us. And the sooner that we let that shit go, the sooner we can even really

start having a conversation around what liberation can look like for all of us. What I think is so true is that, right? That once we get over this piece, then we can actually start to imagine what we are fighting for. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it taste like? I think that so many times that we have created our resistance,

which is just a reaction to what is bad, which is necessary, but it doesn't also give you the space to be able to imagine what could be when you're battling against what is. And so I think that that's such an important part. In the book, you leave, you could concoct your plan, you know, to see what else is out there. And I kind of want to fast forward into your profession of being a writer, being in these spaces, being in these writing rooms, newsrooms, and what have you.

And now the experience of yet again having to. reveal another piece of who you are? Well, that's a big one. I mean, it was. I set out on a journalism career after graduating from the University of Georgia. But this was the summer of 2013. And it would be two months after I walked across the stage that Laverne Cox would star in Orange is the New Black.

And about nine months later, when Janet Mock would release the groundbreaking, redefining growness. So I was coming into maybe what we consider to be a truer adulthood, post-college, post-undergrad, and also coming into my career in a time where there was really just the beginnings, the seedlings of a transvisibility era. I felt like I had to stay secretive about my transness. So I tried to bury it in the workplace in my first job in a small newspaper in a small town in Georgia. I hated the feeling that I was being stifled, that I couldn't express myself fully, that I couldn't show up at workfully.

And also I wrote an opinion column each week alongside the rest of my colleague. on the editorial team. And I couldn't fully even express my opinions and thoughts on the world. I had to couch it in a way so that I wasn't implicating myself too much around clearness or transness or anything. And no one should have to feel that way. No one should have to hide their values in the workplace, especially values that are about all of us being able to even grasp at something like equality or equity or, again, collective

liberation. And I think politically we see so much of that, right? Even in this time, I mean, when I think about the numerous folks who have been fired or stifled because they have spoken out about the genocide of Palestinians in this time, I think about those moments in my career where I felt like I was silenced or I felt like I couldn't speak up for fear of losing my livelihood and knowing that I was right and knowing that so much of it wasn't as much about my belief as it was about shielding systems of oppression and those who prop them up. And that is a problem. When I think about our workplaces and why this idea that any of us can pretend to be apolitical, I think of the lies that we've been told that there isn't an inherent bias in a

white supremacist society or there isn't an inherent bias in a cis heteropatriarchal society or one that revolves around your value being tied to your wealth or your potential for wealth or the way that you look or your body or your heritage, all of these different things. We have to be building workplaces that allow us to show up fully, but workplaces that are not hiding what their true values are. And I use values with an understanding that there are beneficial and benevolent values. And then there are definitely malevolent values. That's absolutely right. Oh, so much, the workplace. Right. But I mean, I think for me as a black trans woman to be in a position now where I can be candid about

how I've been treated in professional spaces or even treated in social justice movements, right? And some of these spaces that are painted as the most progressive. I'm very much interested in how we can shake up that fallacy, that places that deem themselves liberal, or progressive don't have any more work to do because we know that that's not true. Let me ask you, the last question for you, let me ask you this. What do you say to those folks that are like, we're trying to hang on, barely hang on to the progress that we've made, the democracy that we have, even as imperfect as it is, we can't be in a space of expansion because we're just holding on.

What is your response to that? Well, my response is that none of these states of progress are permanent. And that should be very clear from the last several years of the shattering of democracy in the United States, the ascension of white supremacy and other systems of oppression in a different way, particularly under Trump, of course. But no one should be tricking me. themselves into thinking that whatever privileged or platform status they have now is permanent. It's not. This is all cyclical.

Every generation is called to fight for folks on the margins. And if you're not doing that work in this time, you need to keep the names of freedom fighters out of your mouths. You need to keep the quotes of freedom fighters out of your mouth and on and on. I mean, I think in this time for me, I can't see a separation from the way that bodily autonomy is attacked when trans folks and particularly trans youth can't access puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy or someone who needs an abortion can't access that. That is a discussion around bodily autonomy. We need to be fighting this together because we all should be agreeing that we. We deserve the right to direct the destinies of our bodies.

Come on. But then there's also a self-determination piece. And so this constant hand-wringing around, oh, well, gender is too complicated now and what makes a woman and what makes a man? That idea of self-determination and someone telling me, I'm not who I say I am, is connected to the self-determination fight that our Palestinian fam is up against, right? in a world that says, oh, well, your life is valueless because we don't recognize your state or we don't recognize your political existence.

That's a problem. I think about self-expression or access to information, you know, from the drag bands to the curriculum bands around the true histories of marginalization around race, ethnicity, and of course, queerness and transness. So it's all connected to me. And when folks are uninterested to do the work to see those connections, it hurts me because it tells me that there are a lot of qualifiers that they are grasping onto to own and see their own humanity.

And they aren't doing the work to understand that even without all of those things, even without the packaging, the trappings, the platform, and all of that. You still deserve to be human, honey. Yeah, 100%. Raquel Willis, always, always appreciate you. Folks, the book is the risk it takes to bloom on life and liberation, and it is out now. Grab yourself, your friends, your family, a copy. Sharing is caring.

As per tradition, we have our The Last Laugh and New Abnormal crossover episode, and we're going to discuss the year in comedy. Yes, we are. So Matt Wilstein's here, Andy Levy's here, and I'm Jesse Cannon. I'm excited to do this. Matt, what have you cooked up for us? Well, I feel like there's not always a lot to talk about in a year, but somehow this year there is, even though the entertainment industry disappeared for five months with the strike. But it still feels like we have a lot to talk about this year. I don't know, Andy, were you affected by the strike at all, emotionally, logistically?

No, not really. I showed up to my podcast every week as ordered. Yes, yes. Jesse said, fuck those commies. We're putting out a show. So I was like, all right. That sounds like, that sounds like Jesse. Yes, yes.

Noted socialist saying fuck those comies. He can absolutely hear in his voice. But, no, I mean, look, I have, you know, I have a lot of friends. who are comedy writers, I guess few or so who are actors. But, you know, obviously a lot of people that I'm friendly with were greatly affected by this. So, you know, I did everything I could do to help them, i.e., I sent out a tweet saying I supported the strikes. It was a very weird year I thought for late night TV with the strike, obviously. But also, to me, the kind of the late night TV story of the year was this ongoing, as of now,

search for a host for the Daily Show. I don't know how much you follow this, Andy, but they spent the year outside of those months when everyone was on strike, trying out a new guest host every week with big celebrities and correspondence and all kinds of people who succeeded to varying degrees. I'm not sure how much, like, the greater world

cares about who is going to host the Daily Show in this day and age, but I still care. And it's been actually pretty fascinating to see this process play out so publicly. Yeah, you know, from day one, I know I'm not alone in this. I've been sort of just give the damn job to Roy Wood person. Yeah, I'm with you. And I mean, he is legitimately one of the funniest people on the planet. He's proven he can thrive in that sort of setup. And I thought he did a good job as host when they gave him the sort of his part of the tryout. Because look, I understand that there are personality types and there are strengths. And it may well have been that his strength was not. hosting the Daily Show, even though he's incredibly good at being a correspondent and at stand-up and just at being funny in general. But I thought he sort of shot that down and did, you know, at least a good enough job in a fill-in spot that, you know, give the guy a shot at the job

full-time. And I'm a little confused as to why that hasn't happened. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Just to give a little preview for Last Laugh listeners, we have an episode coming up in the new year that I already recorded with Roy Wood Jr. and Jordan Klepper together because they're about to go on tour together for what they're calling a series of comedic town halls, which I'm still kind of trying to figure out what that's going to be. But it was pretty interesting to talk to them about it because everyone sort of thought Roy had it in the bag. I think Jordan Klepper certainly thought that as well, even though he was sort of competing for the role as well. So it really kind of shocked everyone when Roy basically announced that he was stepping down as a correspondent

because he didn't want to just like keep holding on and waiting to find out. Contrary to what I think a lot of people thought when he made that announcement, he's still open to taking the job if they go that direction. I don't know that they are. And it seems like, seems like they're not, but we still don't know. You would think with them coming back after the strike,

that would basically be a no to him. Yeah, yeah. You know, the other thing I thought was maybe they would do like a Jost and Che type thing. Two people. Yeah, have Klepper and Roy Wood be co-hosts. because I think, you know, obviously they have great chemistry, and I think that that also would have been a good idea. And it would have been almost like a, you know, like a fresh start for a show that maybe could use a fresh start. Yeah, I could still definitely see them doing two hosts.

They've tried out a couple of pairs already. They tried out Klepper with Leslie Jones, who actually surprised me, I think, did even better than I thought she would have on that show. She's now done a couple weeks of guest hosting. So I thought when they tried the two of them out together, that was maybe a hint that they were thinking about. something like that. Huh. But we'll see. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think getting a woman in there is probably a priority. So I think if they did two men, I would be kind of surprised, as great as Klepper and Roy would be. No, that's a fair point. And look, that may be also the reason why it wasn't just given to Roy Wood, obviously, is that they thought it was time for a female host, which is understandable and not a bad goal. Yeah. Of course, that goes against the fact that they had, by all reports, basically given it, to Hassan Minhaj privately before his whole controversy blew up about him exaggerating jokes on stage.

And we've talked a lot about that on my podcast with various people. And he was actually a guest this past year talking about that special that he was accused of making a lot of stuff up in. I was pretty shocked by how that all went down, both, you know, the fact that that story came out and the fact that he apparently had the job taken away from him because of it. But yeah, I don't know. I also just saw that he's on tour and is now actually talking about it on stage. Jason Ziniman from the New York Times just wrote up his report from a show in New York.

That was pretty interesting to see because I had previously just watched Hosson on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, sort of curious to see if they would even touch on it at all, which the fact that it was that show, I did not expect much. But they really ignored it to like a kind of ridiculous degree, I thought. So I'm actually kind of pleased to hear that Hassan is to be. talking about it on stage, even if I don't necessarily fully agree with his take on it. But at least he's addressing it and sort of working through it, as opposed to just pretending like it never happened, which seems kind of ridiculous. Yeah, I agree. And I'm, I don't know. I don't know if

comedy people are split on this or not. I feel like, at least on Twitter, a lot of comedy people were defending him. And I actually thought a lot of the defenses were ridiculous. And I saw someone kept comparing him, you know, or people kept comparing him to Anthony. He who just makes up ridiculous stories about his family as part of his act. Yeah, or being like, why is he allowed to do this, but Hassan isn't? To me, there are two completely separate things. And first of all, Jezelnik is playing a character. But even if he's not, there's no quote unquote greater truth behind the things that he makes up about his family.

They're vehicles to get to a punchline. And in Hassan's case, I mean, it was pretty clear that the point of the stuff that he exaggerated or, or in some cases it appears made up, you know, out of whole cloth, or they happened to someone else and he took ownership of that. I mean, there was a point. He was making up stories, but the stories had a point. To me, that's wholly different than a comedian. You know, I don't think you have to have seen an actual chicken cross a road to make a joke about it.

But that's not what he was doing. I sort of was taken aback at the fact that he made up a lot of that stuff, or, again, exaggerated or took someone else's story as his own. And look, I think he'll be fine. And I think he should be fine. I don't think he should be at the point where I hate the word canceled, but I'll use it. I don't think he should be canceled and banished forever. No, I don't think he will be.

But he did lose a pretty big opportunity, which maybe was justified because that job in particular is such a trusted institution. I mean, that's the whole thing with John Stewart, that he was, you know, the most trusted man on television, even including all of the actual news anchors. Yeah. And that was the thing that used to bother me. I mean, Stewart is, you know, a genius. But I did used to get bothered by his, as it was short-ended to, the clown-nosed-on, clown-nose-off sort of attitude where someone would say something, he'd say, oh, I'm just a comedian. And it's like, no, you're not just a comedian, you know, not in this role.

And that's sort of how I, I guess, similar to how I feel about Hassan, if you're telling stories that have to do with the treatment of Muslims in this country, and again, that are aimed at getting at greater truths than just a punchline, I think you have a different obligation than a comedian who's making up a story about how his dad is an alcoholic because he's got a funny punchline that only works if his dad is an alcoholic. Or when a comedian says, I was in Alabama last week and they, and no, you weren't. But it was actually last year, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

But who cares? You're just trying to get a laugh in that case. So anyway, yeah, it's a fair point that maybe the host of the Daily Show needs to be above stuff like that because they are more than just a quote-unquote comedian. The reaction that I've heard a lot from comedians is like basically why are we fact-checking comedy is sort of like the easy response. But yeah, I think the thing that really got me was reading the New Yorker article. They mentioned the interview that he did with me on my podcast, Hassan, where he just repeated the stories and elaborated on them as if they had really happened in them, in particular one about something that he thought was anthrax falling out of an envelope onto his daughter. I asked him, you know, how did that real experience, you know, make you feel?

And he didn't say, oh, well, it was, it actually happened like this, but I talked about it in this way on the special. He just kept pretending like it really happened to the point where I'm wondering whether he convinced himself that it really happened. No, exactly. And again, like, like that's the point is that a story like, a horrific story like that, that's not a joke. You're whatever the opposite of stolen valor is, you know, but you're pretending something

happened to you. That was, that is a horrible thing. That actually happened to someone else. And in effect, you're taking someone else's story away from them of an actual, you know, horrific thing that happened to them and claiming it as your own. And it's not fact-checking jokes at that point. I got really annoyed by a lot of that on Twitter. I sort of kept my mouth shut because it didn't seem worth it, but it really annoyed me. Yeah.

Well, you mentioned Anthony Jesselnick, and you just shared with me before this conversation a clip that I hadn't seen of Anthony Jasselnick, who's a comedian who I love, I'm talking about the other sort of biggest figure in comedy this year. unfortunately, Matt Rife. Can you share your reaction to that clip? Well, it's funny. Matt Rife is someone I had never heard of, and I don't know if it was, I guess it wasn't during lockdown. It must have been later than that.

But my TikTok feed is at this point mostly comedy bits and some sports and whatever. And so I got introduced to Matt Rife through his ubiquitous. Can't avoid him if you're there. No, there was no way. It was just his ubiquitous crowdwork videos. And I remember first thinking, all right, you know, he's not unfunny. And then after a while, I had to actually, I don't remember if I muted or blocked. Not because of anything in particular.

He said, it's just like, man, I'm tired of seeing this guy do crowd work. Yeah, you have to tell TikTok, okay, I've had enough. Yeah, exactly. Like, scrolling past it at the speed of light wasn't enough for the algorithm for some reason. You know, and then the whole controversy erupted and the sort of nasty joke he made about the waitress. The joke that kind of made light or advocated domestic violence. Maybe this is a weird thought.

I don't know. But my first thought when I read that was, you know what? That sounds like something a dude would say at a table of other dudes in a restaurant. And it's not a nice joke. And obviously, domestic violence has no funny component about it whatsoever. But the fact is, if he had just left it at that, nobody would have ever known about it. But he decided he should go on stage and tell this joke. Yeah, and open his Netflix special with it, which is his biggest moment, his biggest platform yet. Yeah, and a lot of this, I think, is just, I don't know if it's a generational difference at the risk of sounding like a kids today thing. Yeah, I'm starting to worry we're sounding like that as well. No, I know. But I think it's just a fact that there's a generational difference between in terms of what is appropriate or okay or you can get away with it in a private conversation with your buddies and what needs to be broadcast out to the world, at least for my generation there is. And I wonder, I think maybe that there's no difference for a lot of Gen Ziers between what they experience or what happens to them around their friends and what they're going to broadcast to the world. And I'm not even taking a side on that. I'm just saying I think it is a generational difference.

A lot of it because we didn't grow up with the ability to do what Matt Rife and every other Gen Zier can do in terms of just jumping on social media and broadcasting it. So that was like my first thought when I read it. And, you know, Jezelnik, you mentioned that clip I brought up. I saw a clip of him on TikTok, which is the one I sent to you, and someone asked him about Matt Reif. And he was like, look, I'm not Matt Rife's audience. Matt Rife's audience is girls and slightly older girls and older girls. And it was really funny. And it, you know, it's also true.

But he also said something interesting where he said, he said he's never seen a comedian sort of tell his audience, you're not the audience I want the way Matt Rife seems to be doing. and in this new special trying to be like a dude's comic. Yeah, I mean, he said as much in interviews. He's talked to, I think, variety or somewhere saying, you know, yeah, I felt like my audience was too female heavy, and I want to be a comedian for men now. So I guess maybe the domestic violence joke was a deliberate attempt to do that, which is kind of even sicker.

Yeah, and really sad. Sad if, A, he thinks that's the way that you connect to men in comedy and B, even sadder if he's actually right. Yes. That is very true. Yeah, well, I don't know. We'll see if 2024 continues to beat the year of Matt Rife, but I can only hope that something changes. I brought this up, and we were chatting a little bit about it. I want to talk about Nate Bargazzi. Yeah.

He is someone who I did discover during lockdown. Yeah, he got pretty big over the last few years. Yeah, and I discovered him also on TikTok. And I was like, hey, this guy's really funny. And I discovered that he had a bunch of specials on Netflix, and I watched them all and thought they were great. and just thought, you know, this guy just, like, in addition to being unbelievably funny, he seems like the kind of guy you would just want to hang out with. Like, he seems like he would be fun to be around.

And he's just, he's like aggressively unaggressive. He's as non-political as you can possibly be. He sort of, to me, stands in contrast to a lot of what we're seeing now, where it's the way that a lot of comedians have found to get ahead now is to, you know, try to be shocking and mean. and you can't cancel me and I'm going to say what I want. I'm a truth teller. And he just gets up there and tells just hysterically funny jokes and stories.

And I'm really glad to see that he has completely sort of, you know, blown up and was hosting SML. Yeah. Because, look, I was not anywhere near the first person to discover him. By the time I did, he'd already had several Netflix specials and people knew who he was. But when I would bring his name out to people, they'd be like, no, I haven't heard of him. And I don't think that's the case now. Yeah, I think maybe he's finally turned a corner in that sense. He's been out there working for so long. But yeah, it does seem like this was the year that he really blew up. The S&L thing was just, I was so impressed by his performance hosting that show. I think in general, that show has been pretty awful this past year. And, you know, I'm like a masquist, I guess, so I continue to watch it. Or I'm just obsessed enough that I'll never stop. But I thought his episode was exceptional from the monologue to, you know, of course, when you have a great, stand-up comedian, the monologue is usually great.

Right. But he was so good at the sketches, and I couldn't really believe it, because I don't really think he's ever acted before. And he was, yeah, he was really great. That George Washington one for anyone who's seen it really stood out, I think. And the top chef one was actually really funny as well, where they had Padma Lakshmi come out. But both of those really played into his strengths. And I mean, it was impressive how well the writers were able to write for him.

I think he may have brought some people with him as well. And he obviously did some writing. But, but yeah, he was so great. can confirm since I have had the pleasure of hanging out with him and talking with him now three times for the last laugh, that he is as genuinely nice and down to earth and easy to talk to as you would imagine. Yeah, that's great to hear. And I sort of had that impression just from seeing how many other comedians were hyping up his S&L appearance. And yeah, look, that's the only episode of S&L that I watched start to finish this year. And it was solely because I like him so much.

And I was realizing also one of the reasons I think he's very funny is a lot of the jokes he tells are at his own expense. And he talks about how sort of, I mean, he calls himself, you know, kind of stupid or dumb or simple or whatever. Yeah. And I think that feels like a lost art. And that gets back to really the comedians who are trying so hard to be edgy and are trying so hard to be, I'll say anything, I'm a truth teller. A lot of those people, and I think you also see this when people on the. the right, try to do comedy a lot. They cannot be self-deprecating. To me, it's really hard to be very funny if you can't be self-deprecating, if you can't make some of the jokes about yourself.

And Bardsetti will tell a story, and the story is on the surface, it's about his wife doing something crazy. But if you actually listen to the joke, his wife is actually doing the right thing. And what's crazy is that he doesn't understand that. And that's part of the joke. And I don't want to oversell it and say it makes, you know, it turns it into some kind of a huge, intellectual exercise, but it makes the joke more interesting and to me makes it funnier anyway. Yeah, well, let's hope for more Nate Bargazzi and less Matt Rife in 2024. Amen to that, man. Yeah.

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