The Daily Zeitgeist - Circle of Zeit 6/8: Dan Bilzerian, Congressional Democrats, 38% of Americans, KPop Stans

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

On this edition of the Circle of Zeit Jack and Anna discuss Dan Bilzerian wrote an autobiography and it brought up some hilarious anecdotes, Congressional Democrats are wearing Kente garb in "solidarity with Black Lives Matter", a new poll shows 38% of Americans approve of Trumps COVID/Protest response, and KPop stans are flooding a Dallas snitch line with BTS memes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions,

sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar. Just kidding, I'm Amber Reffin. What? Okay, everybody, we am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar. Just kidding. I'm Amber Revin. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey,

Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. This season, we make new friends, deep dive into my steamy DMs, answer your listener questions and more. The more is punch each other. Listen to the Amber and Lacey Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen, okay? Or Lacey gets it.

Do it. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. They try to save everybody.

Listen to Spiraled on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hello the internet and welcome to it's a circle the circle of zeit uh that is courtesy of johnny davis uh i'm jack o'brien that is super producer an Hosniak. Hi. She is in a dumpster that is currently being loaded. Yeah. Sorry if you guys hear beeping. The trash men are taking out the garbage outside my apartment. So, you know, I can't really ask them to stop. They're essential, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's that that seems fair i mean uh in a just world sure they would stop to uh let us record the most important podcast and in the universe but uh you know we don't live in that just world uh anna how how are you doing right now um i you know i feel a lot of things uh mostly just like i got my gas my foot

on the gas pedal and i'm really hoping you're gonna say you've got your get i have i have gas um i'm i'm pumped to i'm pumped that like the world is coming together to be like this that's enough like yeah and i i understand like maybe it's even more heightened because we're in a pandemic and you know the fact that everyone lost their jobs and people are struggling and people are dying in masses and our government's not helping us like it's like the perfect storm of that's enough. Like you have treated black people in this country poorly for too long. And poorly is taking it lightly, honestly. And you've disenfranchised people of color for too long. And now you need to start acknowledging the pain you've caused.

And it's, I mean, it's an amazing time to be alive. I mean, I know a lot of people are struggling. A lot of people are, you know, I feel like white people have taken a very emotional toll of like, what do I do? But that's a good thing because it's making everyone look within themselves and be like, how have I been the problem? themselves and be like how have i been the problem so um i'm this is a this is a great time for change and i'm excited for it to actually happen and you see it so you see it happening left and right and that that's huge like we are taking steps i mean yes we had to bring out thousands hundreds of thousands of people to march. But, you know, that seems to be the case in America. You really have to burn shit down for them to listen to you.

Shouldn't be the case, but that's the country we live in. So, yeah, to answer your question, feeling good. Good. Yeah, and you are inspiring a lot of people with your Google Docs, with places to donate and your form letters that people can send to their mayor or their city council. Very cool. And yeah, good work. Thanks, Dad.

Finally. Let's talk about some less inspiring things. Let's talk about some less inspiring things that are happening, that are currently trending uh starting with dan bilzerian dan bilzerian i mean that's truly how you say it i think yeah so this is a guy who uh pays my so he works out a lot He's like a ripped dude with a beard, uh, and he owns a lot of guns and he pays models to hang out with him. And then, uh,

he is like a Instagram influencer who, uh, turns out has fooled a lot of, uh, people who I know who, uh, I went to school with. They're like,

man, Bill's Aryan did it again.. They're like, man, Bilzerian did it again. And yeah, he is, his main thing though, he's like the gun guy. He's like a cartoon of masculinity and toxic masculinity that doesn't realize it's toxic and just thinks it's rad. But I always thought he was the um the master of posing

with almost phallic imagery of like look at my big gun you could also have a big gun if you know what i mean and it's always like what is this what it's so tough like you said it's just pure toxic masculinity of like hot babes and big guns. And you're like, oh, no. Yeah. The text is toxic masculinity. It's not even subtext. But he just finished an autobiography, which I feel like we're going to have to read just for entertainment purposes on the podcast.

He said, all right, just finished my autobiography, $5,000 to someone who gives me the best title. And in the comments, in the response to that, somebody pointed out this amazing anecdote. They said, remember that time Dan Bilzerian ran up to cops during the Las Vegas massacre and demanded they give him a gun and they told him to eat shit and then they screen capped an article that I couldn't find but uh I believe it's a real article uh it's starts give me a gun Belzerian said in the footage showing the officers something in his wallet very likely a gun permit you don't want my help oh boy and then in response the cop says no get the fuck away from me right now i don't know who you are the video which was posted by the instagram

user f1 firearms is below gunfire can be heard in the background so um that's pretty great that is some true privilege yeah that's privilege, but also we have got to stop building up white men to think they can just do that. Who is giving these people the confidence to run up to a cop and say, give me a gun? We got to cut these people down. That is not okay.

It's unbelievable. We talk on tomorrow's episode about action movies that sent me the wrong message when I was growing up, and this guy has clearly just been mainlining that shit. Congressional Democrats are trending. Nancy is trending. The kente is trending. The African kente cloth scarves are trending

because Nancy Pelosi and a bunch of lawmakers took a knee while wearing the African kente cloth scarves in what was obviously meant to be a show of support and solidarity. Yeah. It was just so weird. But came off as weird and tone deaf

and just cultural appropriation what everyone is telling you not to do that's a great example of listen just listen also read the room just read the room I don't know.

I've found myself being more and more just kind of surprised and distanced from the mainstream sort of liberals of the world during these past few weeks just because it feels like they're trying to address the situation with a lot of cosmetic changes and fixes that will just get people to quiet down, I guess. Or in this case, that will do nothing but just make them look like they care. 38% of Americans is trending.

That is trending because a new poll is showing that 38% of Americans approve of the job Trump did with coronavirus and the past two weeks of protests and uh i think it's 52 percent uh disapprove um something it's an all-time uh low or it's the lowest it's been

for over a year which makes me feel slightly better at the same time i don't know who like the the fact that there are 38 of americans who are still like living in that separate of a reality from me is concerning yeah enough that are like i don't know i was okay so i have no sense of anything else oh boy so yeah we'll we'll see how this plays out um one another uh trend that's happening is k-pop fans are using their internet powers for good yes so it So it started with this. I watched Dallas app, um, where, uh,

it was basically a snitch app, like a, an app that made it very user friendly to snitch on people who are protesting, uh, in the city of Dallas. And instead of getting photos and videos of citizens committing crimes, uh, the Dallas PD received a bunch of short clips of BTS

and is it ITZY or I-T-Z-Y? I don't know how you pronounce that. Red Velvet. But basically, K-pop fans flooded the app with clips of their favorite performers and at least temporarily shut down the app. It was so overwhelmed. Which is what we should be doing.

It's like when the FBI tweeted out do you have video of any protesters and it's like citizens who are creating a dangerous environment at protests and it's like yeah flood them with police brutality videos. Here are your citizens who are causing police brutality videos here are your citizens who

are causing the problems here are your citizens who are beating up people for peacefully protesting yeah that's what we got to do yeah uh they're they're also on on twitter using hashtags like white lives matter all lives matter blue lives, and hashtag MAGA on posts featuring, and I was surprised to learn this, Korean pop sensations. Yeah, so similar tactic in all of their human rights efforts, but it's effective because the hashtags become useless. Trump was right. I saw it trending over the weekend, and when I checked it out, it was a lot of people talking shit about that idea

and also Korean K-pop clips. And apparently this isn't the first time K-pop fans have gotten political. They also supported protests in Bangladesh following a bus crash that killed two students. They helped fund school lunches in the UK. The Chilean government even blamed K-pop fans for their part in supporting the mass protests in 2019.

And meanwhile, on the other side of that, QAnon is becoming even more mainstream relating to that 38 percent um there was apparently a q anon channel on roku for two full weeks before it was noticed and removed last week republicans voted uh a q anon supporter to be their candidate for Senate in Oregon. In Oregon, QAnon followers are spreading truly just vile misinformation claiming that George Floyd's death had been faked and 1.3 million people saw that on Facebook because Facebook

doesn't care how horrible the people they're connecting and the messages they're connecting around are um and yeah i don't know it's just so i think i've been talking about this but it doesn't become less true or scary to me that uh you know the thing that the first thing that this book about the uh end of the weimar republic and beginning of nazism talked about was people being actively willing to go out of their way to believe things that weren't true that were like politically expedient um right i i do feel like people like it's an easy escape to be like no this can't possibly be happening in our world so you like look to things like that and it's easy to be like yeah sure i mean the world is

ripe with secrets conspiracy theories i'll turn to that versus like kind of like just facing the facts of like this country is you know run by white supremacy and by ignoring what's going on you're just adding to it by like turning to q anon you're not you're not i don't know q anon man what a mess i accidentally clicked on an anonymous not accidentally i was just like anonymous and clicked on that hashtag on twitter and was in such a deep hole of like, what? Every tweet I'd be like, wait, what? Everything. I mean, some stuff I was like, okay, well, that's just interesting.

I don't even know what you're talking about, but I'm intrigued. And then other stuff I was like, how is it possible to so easily spread this kind of misinformation so quickly. There's so many people retweet it. Yeah, it's more popular and more widely believed than I think we realize. All the people who have been cut off from their family, they're just like, this is my family now. So K-pop stars took on QAnon

using their hashtags for more clips and photos of K-pop. But QAnoners took that as further evidence that the deep state was coming after them. And that seems to be what is so powerful about QAnon is that they will use information that gets in the way of their message or information that disproves their theory and take that and turn it into evidence for their theory.

It's really, they just don't, it's like a machine that is just designed to craft more theories based on whatever, you know, raw information you feed into it. And so there's literally nothing that can be done to stop it. It seems like. So valiant effort though,

by the K-pop stands. And I do love, love the work they're doing. And anyway, they can undermine the attempts by the police to interfere with these marches and actions for change. Actually, I want to correct myself. I say let's do it. I said earlier I clicked on an anonymous hashtag. I meant to say a QAnonymous.

Anonymous is separate from QAnon. Sorry, I didn't mean to say a q anonymous anonymous is separate from q anon sorry i didn't mean to although there is no there but there is a new anonymous like anonymous is back was the thing you were seeing a couple weeks ago but then there were like all these weird things where people think it might not actually be anonymous interesting who knows i didn't know what anonymous is and like it's easy to see it would be easy for q anon to take anonymous and be like and we're for q anon now because uh interesting yeah well the original anonymous was predated q anon right oh yeah yeah okay that's what i thought so they go way back anonymous goes way back there yeah but q an, the real right-wing QAnon,

is like a whole other journey of darkness and misinformation. Yeah, it's terrifying. Well, Anna, it's been a pleasure having you on The Daily Zeitgeist on this trending episode because you weren't on the regular episode wanting you to tell people where they can find you. You can find me at Anna Hosnia on Twitter. I'm posting a bunch of stuff to help resources

just because I know people get lost and don't know where to start when they feel like they want to help. But it's a lot of information to take in. So, you know, I'm posting stuff. I made a whole resource doc that's pinned on my Twitter for where you can donate. It's growing every day. I add to it whenever anyone messages me or tells me more places or if I see another GoFundMe, I'm constantly adding to it.

Also, we dropped an ethnically ambiguous episode, me and my co-host Shereen Younes, today about Black Lives Matter, where we talk about different resources and how you can help and just kind of break down a lot of feelings you might be having and how you can talk to your family members as well about what's going on in the world and help, you know, show people how their privilege allows them to say and do whatever they want. And maybe they haven't realized it at this point, which, you know, a lot of our older folk don't, you know, like they've, you know, I don't know.

I use my father a lot as an example because my dad and I have come a long way. He's an immigrant man who growing up would say a lot of racist things, not realizing the damage he was doing and how me and my siblings really had to step up and say a lot or basically explain to him why he's being racist and how. And he's come such a long way. Like now when you speak to him,

I mean, he still gets, he still every once in a while gets confused. He has issues with the looting of small businesses and we are still having these discussions with him to this day. And I think it just shows you it can't stop. The discourse must continue because racism isn't just going to stop because of these protests. We have to keep it going. Like defunding the police is one step, but we have to keep moving forward with all the discussions with the listening the learning

this is going to be a long process we have a very long way to go i know we're making we're taking steps right now and it feels like we are making advances but don't stop here like we must keep moving forward and we must keep learning and listening and doing our part to um you know keep the black lives matter movement going yeah agreed so jack we will have a talk about your racism later just joking i'm sorry yeah i knew you were sub tweeting me that whole time you're talking my dad my immigrant father jack o'bBrien. He's from Ireland. All right. That's going to do it for this afternoon.

We hope you guys are doing well. Go out. Don't do nothing. And be kind to each other and be kind to yourself. We'll talk to you tomorrow morning. Bye. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years I have a proposal for you

come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do what was that? that was live audio of a woman's nightmare can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? there's nothing dangerous about what you're doing they're just dreams Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know, lately I've been overwhelmed by the whole wellness industry. So much information out there about flaxseed, pelvic

floor, serums, and anti-aging. So I launched a newsletter. It's called Body and Soul to share expert approved advice for your physical and mental health. And guess what? It's free. Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash body and soul. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash body and soul. I promise it will make you happier and healthier. I promise it will make you happier and healthier. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. They try to save everybody.

Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.