The Daily Zeitgeist - FOXic Workplace, Burger Kringe 7.20.20

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

In episode 675, Miles and guest host Jamie Loftus are joined by There Are No Girls On The Internet host Bridget Todd to discuss Black Fox News staffers erupting over network's racism, Trump's election campaign polls, Burger King's new publicity stunt, and more!FOOTNOTES: Fox News Staffers Erupt Over Network’s Racism: Bosses ‘Created a White Supremacist Cell’ Kellyanne Conway Urges Trump to Resume Coronavirus Briefings to Boost Approval Ratings Cook shifts 20 House districts toward Democrats Disapproval of Trump coronavirus response jumps to 60 percent amid surge: poll Burger King Introduces 'Reduced Methane Emissions' Whopper as It Changes Cows' Diets Amid Climate Change WATCH: Burger King | Cows Menu Mexico Burger King is selling a burger made from cows on low-methane diet US farmers' beef with Burger King over cow fart ad Op-ed: Burger King’s New ‘Reduced Methane’ Beef May Be All Hat, No Cattle Inside the Race to Build the Burger of the Future WATCH: Cornelius - MIC CHECK 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.

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Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the piñocola from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits?

Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast rebel spirit where i head back to my hometown in kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot the rebels into something everyone in the south loves the biscuits i was a lady rebel like what does that even mean it's right here in black and white and prints they lie bigger than a flag or mascot listen to rebel spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, hello, the internet, and welcome to season 143, episode 1. 1, 4, 3, I love you. Anybody use a pager?

Okay, just me? I'm old. Of this show, The Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. This is the podcast where we take a deep dive into America's dark, fucked up, shared consciousness and say officially, off the top, fuck the Koch brothers, fuck Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, fuck Sexton, Ben Shapiro, JK Rowling. Okay, you guys still in? You still into this? Because here we're all about inclusion. Okay? Except for people who are racist. And it is Monday. Except for the above list. It is Monday, July 20th, 2020. My name is Miles Gray, a.k.a.

Turf, turf, turf, turf, turf. J.K. Rowling is a turf, turf, turf, turf, turf. She say women have to menstruate, menstruate, menstruate, menstruate, menstruate. So we call her a jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk. Okay, thank you to Literate Platypus at LiterIt Platy P1 for that work by Rihanna. Wonderful, inspired, aka. Very appropriate for the times we're in. And I am joined today.

Because you know if you hear my voice first, that means something has gone awry. That means the co-pilot is now in the pilot seat and steering this plane. Jack pulled his parachute. He's out. He's out of the plane. I said, don't open that chute so close to the door. It will pull you out. Gotta be careful with that.

Sure as anything. That's something to be aware of. Exactly. Anyway, that is a long way of saying that I am thrilled and honored and pleased to inform the listeners, the guests, the general public, that I have a wonderful guest co-host today by the name of Jamie Loftus. Teeth bleeding, my teeth keep bleeding blood. My teeth bleeding, my teeth keep bleeding blood.

My teeth bleeding, teeth, teeth bleeding blood. On all my cameos. That was someone who wrote me. That's from Official Dickhead, who was roasting me for the fact that my gingivitis was acting up while I was making cameos last weekend. Oh, okay. Well, what's happened? Sometimes my problem is that just my mouth is bleeding and I don't know it. And then I'm like, well, I already finished the cameo. Yeah, well, look, when your brain is using so much blood to power those next level ideas you have, sometimes...

It's some mental shit going on. Yeah, exactly. High rates of gingivitis. Wait, hold on. Well, if your gums don't bleed when you're recording a cameo, might not be a genius just some light burnage from me just something to think about something you might want to ponder over yonder uh jamie we have a wonderful guest probably the first time you have interacted with this guest in podcast form i have had the pleasure to interact with this guest many times, podcast, real life, in the nation's capital, you name it. But she is the just brilliant host,

activist, digital activist. She's in the streets and in the digital ones and O's streets, and just a fantastic podcaster. Bridget Todd. Welcome back. Oh, thank you for having me. What a lovely welcome. And Jamie, I have to say, you have a beautiful singing voice. Oh, thank you so much. No lies there. My quarantine mixtape. I've been workshopping it. Do you do warmups? Do you do like a vocal? Because I know you to be yeah you can get into a process much in the same way you got like shredded off a ironic jane fonda workout tapes now you i feel like could just be there was nothing ironic about it my friend i'm i am sick of this irony narrative well i guess in the beginning i wanted to get shredded and she got me there. Yeah. Period.

How's the singing? No, yeah. Can you sing yourself? When I knew I was going to be covering for Jack today, I did. I was on vocal rest yesterday, and I was only drinking hot honey tea, did apple cider vinegar, and so that is why you got the performance.

Oh, you're like Mariah Carey. She has to have her hot tea when she performs. That's a real fun fact about Mariah Carey. That's like in her rider. She must have hot tea. Isn't there, what was the other thing? Didn't she need like cats or like kittens? There was like one rider that she had that was like,

okay, what do we do with these kittens now? I think it's kittens, really specific lighting for her mirrors. Yeah, she's a very, you know, Jamie, you and Mariah have this in common. You know, genius takes specific needs. And it takes being really frustrating to the people around you. A 2015 article said, yeah, 20 white kittens. Oh, they had to be white kittens? Yes.

And mineral water for her dogs to bathe in. Whoa. I was not expecting that sentence to go that way. All right. Everyone Google PDF for how to build a guillotine. Okay. Now, let us move on to give our listeners a preview for the topics of the day. Wow.

Buckle up, everybody. I mean, we're going to get to know bridget todd even better i mean like you thought we knew everything but she will un she will uh unveil things uh facets of her personality we have yet to see uh but then we'll move on to talk about uh the black employees of fox news are not happy at the moment um and it's a very strange story. I, for a moment, thought no black people worked at Fox News because it's so outwardly racist. But, of course, like any company, there are people who find themselves in a position where speaking out typically can lead to a lot of bad results for you. So now people are starting to find their voices. This is a very interesting read and it's sort of it almost like when you some of these anecdotes from this daily beast piece almost are like that's almost exactly how i thought working at fox news

as a person of color would be like uh then we're going to talk about uh you know the president there's a lot a lot a lot's not going right apparently based on something called a poll where they ask people their opinions on certain things he He is getting a slump when it comes to his pandemic response. And rightly so, because needless there's there's just been nonstop preventable loss of life. And we will sort of look into some strategies on how the White House is going to hopefully right that ship. the White House is going to hopefully right that ship. And then we'll move on to talk about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just to check in with her, just to make sure everything's okay.

If you need more motivation to vote, then when I read you this piece, this should get you registered and getting whatever you got to do. Line up now to vote. And then maybe we'll talk about Burger King's new weird fart-based ad campaign. I was very upset to see that in the doc that was a story that once i saw it i was like i didn't i didn't want to know i didn't know i needed it uh so we'll look into that and hey maybe there's some real science in there uh maybe not who knows but before we do all that bridget todd bridget marie todd if i may just use the whole name that's me you reminded me of my dad just then that's how i know like i'm in real trouble bridget marita oh you got the full name

yeah it's funny because my mom being japanese didn't know that wait like that rhetorical device of calling your child out by their full name and my dad would just be like hey so it was i never got the full name also like i don't have a middle it's a whole thing it's we can talk about that later but first bridget todd what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are something from my search history that is revealing about who i am is the question, do you ever see Maris on Frasier? I never watched Frasier growing up. I'm doing a deep rewatch now. I'm in the middle of a rewatch. And then I thought, wait a minute, you never see Maris.

Like, where's Maris? You hear about her. You hear a lot of descriptions about her physical characteristics, but you never actually see her. So I just wanted to know if you, like, maybe the big reveal, you see her, you meet her. And I guess the answer is no, you never see her. She i just wanted to know if you have like maybe the big reveal you see her you meet her and i guess the answer is no you never see her she's never on screen who is i'm sorry i don't know the first thing about fraser who is maris so maris is um niles who plays fraser dr fraser okay david hyde pierce i know that much it is is his ex-wife. When the show begins, they're married and they get separated on the show.

So it's his wife, soon to be ex-wife. But the show really, she's a real comedic part of the show because they're always dogging on her. But you never see her. Oh, love it. There's definitely some sexist tropes in there. I used to think it was really funny that I was like, oh, Maris, she's so out of control. She can't be, you know. And I think that also it's the joke that Niles is kind of like a beta guy

and he's afraid of her, but she's never seen. She's just a looming presence. That is a joke on a lot of TV shows, weirdly. Like unseen. Yeah, like Bob Sacamano in Seinfeld. You know, like Craneroy's referencing. We've never seen Bob Sacamano. Or Lomas.

Yeah, there was a girl on Degrassi that you never saw. Her name was Heather Sinclair. She was just an off-screen Canadian. Who knows? Was that another woman that the characters would just attack and she wouldn't be able to defend herself? So we're left with the other characters' idea of what this person is?

Yeah, it's such a bizarre trope. Yeah. I just want to see if there's characters from TV you never see. Oh, okay. So there's a... Yeah, you're true. See, the things I can only remember are very early, but I guess Juanita Beasley from the

Andy Griffith Show, whatever that is. Mrs. Columbo. Oh, Mrs. Columbo. Okay. Whoa. One more thing. Oh, another one is on Gilmore Girls, you never see Lane's dad, but they refer to Mr. Kim sometimes, but you never actually see Mr. Kim.

Which is so bizarre. I feel like people assume that he is dead, but they refer to Mr. Kim sometimes, but you never actually see Mr. Kim. Which is so bizarre. I feel like people assume that he is dead, but he is not. Yes. The president in Veep. Oh, shit. Wow. I watched Veep religiously, and this is just now occurring to me. I think because we're so used to it, you know,

like whether it's like things from the Mary Tyler Moore show, like it's just been this like ever-present thing of yeah that now we never actually take a second to be like that's right we never did see bob sacamano or heather sinclair or mr george steinbrenner on steinfeld so they never got to speak for themselves ugly naked guy on friends i mean the list goes on whatever that is but based on the screen grab looks like a bunch of people are groaning in front of their window um so that's one topic down let's move on to another thing let's dive deeper let's take another layer off this onion that is bridget

marie todd um what is something that you believe is underrated something that i believe is underrated? Something that I believe is underrated is Portia Williams from Real House in Atlanta. You know, people think of her as just a frivolous woman on a reality TV show. But just this week, she was arrested protesting, demanding that they arrest the killers of Breonna Taylor. And she caught a felony charge. Her and 87 other protesters were arrested in Kentucky and she was held without bond and she's now facing five years in jail with a felony charge for the

simple act of demanding that the killers who killed, the police who killed Breonna Taylor should face consequences. So I think that she has come a long way since she thought the Underground Railroad was a physical train on the show.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say she is underrated. I mean, especially because I remember, look, I'm well aware. I may not know about Frasier, but I damn sure know about the first five seasons of World Housewives of Atlanta. Up to maybe the season where, who said that? Candy, are you a lesbian?

That season, I think, was probably one of the last ones I fully watched. But I remember when they presented her, her grandfather, Hosea Williams, is a very, very significant figure in the civil rights movement. He was MLK's right hand,

really responsible for organizing a lot of nonviolent protests. So yeah, I remember early on being like, how is this? she's coming from this historic family and she's like it's a railroad um so yeah growth it's all about growth and she had that whack-ass marriage to cordell stewart oh my god like cordell was like i was so happy when they got i mean maybe i shouldn't say this was happy when they got divorced i was happy to not have to see him on the show and i hated how on the show he was always hated how on the show, he was always getting involved

in like the drama that the ladies had. It's like the whole point of the show is that you want to watch the ladies have drama. Nobody gives a shit what your opinion is. Like he would often be trying to get, like trying to get Portia to like not be involved in the ladies drama on the show. And I would be like,

well, that's kind of the point of watching the show. Nobody cares about you, Cordell. I mean, okay. The people that would care about Cordell Stewart would be a very specific type of person and they were big fans of the 1994 University of Colorado Buffalo's football team in which he threw a Hail Mary pass to beat Michigan uh and in that sense yes but they come from the church of slash but I remember initially when I saw him I was like dude I don't Cordell Stewart is so washed I don't even care about him in this show now.

Anyway, we digress. And we've said too many names that Jamie has never heard of. I was going to say, I'm like, I want to participate. I was like, we're searching for a name, a concept. Do you watch, have you seen any Housewives shows, Lofty? No, I thought that I would in quarantine, but it hasn't happened. Maybe, you know, we'll be here forever. So I've got time. So, I mean, I'm just going to pivot because you know what happens when I host a show. It's just

a stream of consciousness conversation show. Were there shows that you thought you would be watching because of quarantine? Like, I would not deign to put cast my gaze upon this show but unless it's in quarantine maybe and you thought a housewife i thought i thought a house i thought i would get really really really deep into reality shows i'd never seen that had a million seasons right uh but it just didn't end up i didn't end up especially early i didn't end up binge watching stuff as much as i was expecting i would. But let's be real here. Let's be real here. Which is embarrassing.

But let's be real. We've also been watching the same trash reality shows we found out. Were you not watching Selling Sunset on Netflix? I did. Oh, shit. That show was good. That show is so fucked up. Chris Shell.

Oh, anyways. Again, PDF guillotine schematic. Whenever I watch that show, I'm like, what is going on? These people are scoffing at a $40 million home like it ain't shit. I'm like, this is so violent. It's so absurd. It really is. But it was like the closest thing to that movie Elysium where you're like,

these motherfuckers live in another dimension where human suffering does not exist. Five miles away. It's so weird. I know, and they're like, the valley. I'm like, yeah, come through to the valley. I got something for you.

I got something for you. No, I have to say, the two of you live in California. I grew up on the East Coast, so I sort of grew up fantasizing about California. This is what I thought California was like

when I was growing up. I was like, oh, this is how everybody in California lives. I gotta get out there. Everybody just like lives like this. This is what I thought for a very long time about California. Yeah, the California that most people see is the one that's on the other side of the hill.

And then the valley, like growing up in the valley, whenever I saw that on TV, I'm like, that's the west side. That's Beverly Hills. Like, talk about Moorpark and, you know, like, another intersection I know. Anyway, so that's just what that is. Bridget, what about you? Were there any shows that you thought you'd watch in quarantine or are watching because of quarantine? Yeah, I've been like, nothing is too trashy for me. Like, the trashier, the better in the quarantine, right?

Like, it's funny. I thought that in the quarantine, I was going to have time for a lot of the prestige dramas that I never really got into um it and so like I would love to say that I've been binge watching like that HBO series Rome or something like something like very high no it's like it's like 90 Day Fiance it's like um Love is blind also a couple of weeks ago um mtv played the first season of real world and i dvr'd that shit that like go back and watch it it's so good um another forgotten reality show that they replayed and i dvr'd and watched in one sitting is gallery girls which is on bravo briefly um it is so like it is. Like. What is it?

It's about the art world. Gallery Girls. It's about. It's about the cutthroat world of the. The cutthroat New York art world. And I think it only lasted one season. But truly. It is like.

A masterpiece. Like if you ever get a chance to watch it. It is. Like they have. They really do a good job of illustrating the sort of like. Manhattan versus Brooklyn. And you know. Hipsters versus like. you know, people who live in Murray Hill. It is all of this shit when I was first watching it.

Had never lived in New York yet. Like didn't know what any of this stuff was. But at the time watching as a young person, I was like, is this what the New York art world is like? So my television habits have definitely just gotten deeper and deeper and deeper into trashy reality TV. Oh, man. This makes you want to come back to be like, you know, watch Princesses Long Island again. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

I feel like we had a golden age of reality TV where it just was like, we were still figuring out what it was. And so some of the shows were like truly unhinged. Like if you go back and watch that show rich girls with tommy hillfiger's daughter and um yes oh yes some of it was like rich kids yeah like some of it is so wild like the wild west of reality tv yeah i did re-watch a uh this was like months ago at this point but i re-watched a reality show like from early reality shows where they were still really expensive. And they would go to a different country in every episode that was hosted by Anderson Cooper called The Mole.

Did either of you ever watch that? Oh, shit. That was fucking wow. That was a competition show, right? Yeah. There is a mole in the cast and you have to figure out who is like having their strings pulled by Anderson Cooper. And this was like my favorite part of it.

I watched it originally in college because I read on like Anderson Cooper's Wikipedia page that after he like hosted this show for two seasons, then 9-11 happened. And he's like, I can't do the mole anymore. I have to be a journalist. Oh, okay he's like i can't do the mole anymore i have to be a journalist oh and so he oh my god he abandoned the mole and uh pivoted that is a blast from the past yeah it is a goofy reality show anderson cooper is in a leather jacket the whole time

just standing in various countries being like who is the them all? It's great. I always loved reality shows where they traveled from place to place. Or they went abroad. Like Road Rule, Semester at Sea. Stuff like that. I lived for that. Semester at Sea. What I would do for a semester at sea. Okay, what do you think is something that is overrated, Bridget?

I am so glad you asked. Ellen DeGeneres I don't know if you all read the BuzzFeed piece that just dropped I have been a long she's bad Ellen truther I have I have always said we were not being told the full truth about Ellen and the story is finally here and I'm I'm so excited what what is the story there's more stuff basically just you know her whole show the mantra of her show is be kind. And her whole kind of ethos publicly is like being nice to people, being respectful to people, you know, especially people like George W. Bush, but whatever. And that whole time, people who worked on the show have been sort of whispering about the fact that she's kind of a monster.

When I say monster, I mean stuff like staffers, if they see her in the hallway, they're not allowed to make eye contact with her or look at her. Stuff like that. And, you know, these rumblings have been happening for so long. And then just last night, BuzzFeed dropped the piece that was like, you know, here are all the stories. It was the things that she was accused of.

Honestly, I always knew something was up. And so for me, I feel vindicated because I've always thought this whole public persona of being really nice and being really kind, I found it to be almost weaponized. When she was photographed with George W. Bush being like, oh, well, my whole thing is respect for others. And it's like, yeah, you're just using that as a smokescreen to evade questioning about the fact that you're hanging out with someone that actually made the life of like less privileged lgbtq folks really hard so like what's up and destroyed a whole section of the

world exactly exactly and like you can't wipe that away with saying like oh you're like be kind be respectful and in fact trying to do that is kind of like, it's like gaslighting. It's like, no, like you're just using this as a way to avoid having to have a conversation about, you know, what it is you're actually doing. So I was like gleefully reading every piece, every comment about that story. We talk about that a lot on the show because I think in like LA and just in entertainment in general, it's like, it's one of the like just generally accepted pieces of wisdom that has not been documented on an article form yet like you go

and like like most people like if you know anyone who's been in orbit of that set or production they only come back with the worst things to say and then like when it's starting to bubble up i feel like a lot of people and they're like yeah right oh that's right like this is local local knowledge that hasn't quite got to the you know the top yet i feel like every city has stuff like that i'm really glad that this is finally being formally like formally reported um i also got so confused and i thought you were saying helen was underrated at first and i was like wait a second what does this take um but it never but it's. But it has been like, it's interesting to see how it's kind of built up where it was kind of early.

It was like, okay, the Dakota Johnson thing kind of blew up of like, oh, Ellen's really petty and someone called her out on it. Interesting. And then there was that Kevin Porter thread. I think it was a couple of months ago. Half real, half funny, but yeah. But it was like, therevin porter thread i think it was like a half real half funny but yeah but it was like there were so many like real accounts on that thread that you're like oh shit and then

now there's the full-blown news report and this shit has hit the fan and and rightfully so well who'd have thought who'd have thought i mean i remember too when like all the lockdown happened and like talking to people who work in late night and like TV production, how like a lot of productions either ceased or shifted to some sort of zoom format. Apparently like a, she like left her entire crew out on like, on a, like just out to dry where they're like,

yeah, I already found another company that does this. So I'm hiring them. Like, what are you talking? You employ us to. Okay. Loyalty.

Huh? Other shows like Desus and Mero. They've been able to continue their late night, you know, their late night production via Zoom. So like what is happening on Ellen that's not happening on other shows? That's so special that she cannot continue to respect. All she did was continue production. She went to a leaner production company that specializes in zoom stuff versus getting her entire show to just be able to pivot to doing zoom like it was like a very easy thing to do but completely has no consideration for the people you employ and what that means for their own livelihoods i don't know

what's changed since then i'm not trying to you know put that out there but i know that that was a thing that was going on at the very beginning. Finally, Bridget, what's a myth? What's something people think is true? And you're like, that's false. That's not true. Or vice versa. I'm going to keep with my celebrity sort of theme here. And something that people think is true is that Monique, the comedian comedian is that she's like a complainer that

she like you know it's difficult blah blah blah but just today she got a major win on her gender and racial discrimination lawsuit so i feel like the common idea about the comedian monique is that she i don't know if folks remember this this is something that like i remember quite well she spoke out when she got a netflix special basically that like she was offered a lot less for her netflix special and she alleged that it had to do with race and gender and people were like actually she's hard to work with actually like she's unprofessional and i guess today a court that says otherwise a court agreed that she has that her case has merit so that is a myth that she is like just a difficult black woman actually it sounds like she is just a difficult black woman.

Actually, it sounds like she's got a point. Well, I think that shows you how entrenched these stereotypes are that very just reflexively a company like Netflix or their surrogates, allies in the business can go, well, she's actually difficult to work with. And people go, oh, okay, right. Angry black woman who's probably making it

really difficult for people. They're just trying to do their jobs. And if she wasn't so angry, maybe we could come to some kind of consensus yeah it's just so fucking lazy so i'm glad uh that she's uh wait so wait that there was a judgment made i didn't i didn't realize there was a movement on her legal case or that or did they try and get it dismissed or something so this was just yesterday this is a deadline um article from 20 hours ago netflix loses move to axe monique's sex and racial discrimination suit over comedy special so essentially it's not it's it's an incremental win for her right i guess netflix was trying to have

it thrown out and a judge said no there's there's there's a case here to be heard yeah they just all she did was show me what amy schumer got and what she got paid. And I'm like, OK, something's up here. Even there. Exactly. Even if you want it. The comparisons are like really hard to look at. Which is something that like people getting specials like that should be doing is like I mean, you like if male comics who are and white comics who are getting specials would just be more forthcoming about like, here's how much I would pay.

You don't lose anything by doing that and you're helping like it's just like how much did fucking chris delia get paid for his piece of shit special prior to his camp like you almost certainly more but he's a piece of shit and there's no financial transparency in that community it's just like that the stigma around that needs to stop because yeah like yeah like i feel like in a in a It's just like that, the stigma around that needs to stop. Yeah, like, yeah. Like, I feel like in a corporate Zoom call, like your salary should be like

in your, next to your name. Yeah, I agree. It's immediately accessible. You're like, oh, interesting. Okay, that's their title. Yeah. Wouldn't have thought you were worth that much. And I also think that like the idea that,

you know, if you, and Jamie, I would actually be very curious to hear your thoughts as a comedian, as someone who is in the industry as well. I feel like there is a stigma, as you said, around getting offered something and then questioning or pushing back. I feel like as marginalized people, as women, as people of color, I feel like the implication is that if netflix is going to offer you a special you should have just taken it and shut up but we should like that doesn't do anything to protect you as a creator and it certainly doesn't do anything for the creators who are coming you know coming after you who might not have as big of a profile as monique and so i think it was i think it's good that she in public is saying like it's okay for me to ask questions about how I am being compensated. Another good example is, like, the woman, the showrunner behind the show, the HBO show, I May Destroy You.

It was, like, there was this great piece of, to, didn't want to, you know, have a Netflix, a deal with Netflix because she was like, it's not clear to me, you know, how I'm going to be compensated, how it's going to be treated. And I think we should normalize particularly marginalized creators, asking those questions and doing so in public and feeling empowered to be

like, well, wait, is this going to be a good move for me? I don't have to just say yes, because Netflix comes knocking. Like I can have some agency and push back and say, I know my worth and I want to ask some questions.

And I don't have to just be grateful because you deigned to have me join your slate. That interview is so fucking incredible. And I'm so glad that she shared that anecdote too because when she kept, I mean, I love how that anecdote ends where it's like she keeps pushing on this Netflix exec saying like, why can't I have a percentage of my own work?

Like what, what is the point of that? And there's kind of getting like a corporate deflection of like, oh, well it's really not that big of a deal. And so Michaela Cole says like, well, if it's not that big of a deal,

then give me 5% of it, knowing that they were going to keep saying no. And before, like, I think, doesn't it go that before she, you know, when Michaela Cole is kind of like, I'm not going to do this with Netflix.

And the Netflix executive on the phone, who was a woman, said, good for you. Like, off the record, good for you. You're doing the right thing. Click. Like, they know what they're doing. Yes. Yeah. And like, we should keep pushing, keep asking.

Yeah. And like, we should keep pushing, keep asking. A thing about that anecdote that I like so much is that she's like, she has a one of her negotiation tactics is just like continuing to ask questions, even when she already knows the answer. So like, to get them to admit it, like, I just think that's like, we have to normalize, like asking these kinds of questions and not being afraid to walk away and not being afraid to ask them and not being afraid to look ungrateful or look annoying or look whatever like fine you think i'm annoying you you're sick of me emailing you fine be sick of it but i'm gonna i'm gonna get my money rhetorically it's like yeah it's a good rhetorical strategy because you're saying i'm gonna get them to articulate that the reason they do it is probably because of some kind of racist or misogynistic reasoning uh but they're gonna couch it in this corporate speak but if you if you keep actually, you know, examining it and be like, well, can you actually explain that for that for like at a certain point, they're like, look, man, the company just doesn't pay black people that way. OK, like it's almost like that's what you know you're going to get. And then they can be like, OK, great.

And because of this, I am not interested in working with you. Good day. And that that definitely changes the tone versus what it is now which is you know we come for our scraps as creators and they're like here have a half half a chicken bone and that's all you're gonna get because i have the infrastructure to get your to make you famous but no you know it's it's about and doing what's right fighting for what's fair and that and that whole you know like mentality of like being whatever quote-unquote grateful for the opportunity of like you can't ask any follow-up questions or you are ungrateful

towards this right yeah it's it's extremely manipulative but i mean i don't know i fell for it for a long time oh me too i didn't fall i stopped falling for it still am sometimes hey i've yet to have an opportunity to show that i haven't followed for it falling for at one day getting paid in exposure okay see you there i'll transport myself to indiana oh you can get me twitter verified oh no oh okay what about instagram oh no okay okay all right i'll check back in eight months okay oh thank you it was good experience it was good experience all right uh let's take a quick break and we'll be back with the main stories of the day after this. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever.

Please stick to policy. Don't get personal. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume.

My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in a relationship with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds.

Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. My reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing.

It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way.

Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.

And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday.

This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Smokey the Bear. Smokey. Then you know why Smokey tells you when he sees you passing through. Remember, please be careful, it's the least that you can do. It's what you decide. Don't play with matches. Don't play with matches.

Don't play with fire. After 80 years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smokey Bear lives within us all. Learn more at SmokeyBear.com. And remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester, the ad council and we're back and let's talk a little bit about fox news or talk a lot a bit about fox news uh there's a the piece in the daily beast uh just talking about how a lot of the staffers especially the black staff at fox news have been in a constant battle with the company, their employers, especially after a June 9th company-wide call where a lot of employees were... I think this

happens in many companies around the time of all the uprisings from May 25th onward, but where companies have opened the phone, the phone lines, the zoom calls or whatever to speak their piece. And in this one, it became very contentious very quickly with a lot of the black staffers asking like, what is going on here? There has to be some recognition here that you're actively promoting like racism and with everything that's going on in the country right now this at a certain level we have to know what's going on right uh but it seems like the the opinion side

of the building which is the tucker carlson's ingram's hannity's of the world who are like we're not news that's why we can say like just you know unhinged racist bullshit because we're not news just opinion this is my fucked up racist opinion okay but i'm on a news channel so i know it's confusing to you you'll take my opinion as news but that's the that's the gag um they are the ones i think causing a lot the most friction or clearly they are uh they said over the past month it's from the daily beast article uh the network's black employees including on-air talent have begun to openly confront management over fox's anti-black rhetoric especially that of network's biggest stars laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. And so in one of the, you know, there are many anecdotes that are in this article about sort of points that these employees were

raising. And in this one specifically, they're talking about on June 29th, Ingraham had an anti Black Lives Matter monologue quote, which included a line that many viewed as a racist dog whistle and threat. And she said, quote, We will remember those who desert their colors, end quote. Now, a lot of people are like they're like, this is what we're talking about. You know, you're in the midst of all this. They are trying to stoke a race war, uh, and however effectively or ineffectively they want. And when the HR complaint was filed about this thing of like, how did this even get made? How did this get to air? I want to understand through HR,

what the process was for airing something like this. That was so this like racist dog whistling nonsense. Their head of like diversity inclusion said that the remark wasn't racist who's a woman of color by the way wasn't racist and it was actually a military reference uh to the civil war yes okay and strange yeah and strange fruit is a song about produce uh exactly like what the fuck are we talking about here we know this is sort of you know some of the goings on at the moment. Yeah, I mean, something about that is I've noticed that places like Fox News, they say these things that everybody knows are racist, but they say them in this sort of like wink, wink,

plausible deniability way. So it's like that allows room for a diversity and inclusion specialist to be like, oh, well, that wasn't technically racist because yada, yada, yada. Civil War, Confederate greys or we're in Union blues. Remember your colors.

The idea of getting away, like getting off on a technicality and issues like, I mean, it is like very the Fox News playbook of like, well, if you break it down word by word, you know, where exactly is the harm? But that's just like when companies feel the need to do that,

it's because they are unequivocally wrong and just don't want to have to own up to it at all. Yeah. Absolutely. And another thing, I mean, like I worked for a news company. I worked for MSNBC for like a very brief window. It was not for me, so I left. But I've seen a lot of people on Twitter being like,

you know, well well what did they what did these black journalists expect like why would you go work for something like Fox News and like like what did you expect and I definitely understand that criticism but the reality is is that like it's very difficult to get a job in media right not everybody not everybody has the the the choice to be like I was offered this job but I'm not going to take it because it's Fox News, right? Like, if you're just out of college with a journalism degree, like, good luck, right? It is not easy to find work. And so I get where that criticism is coming from, but it just doesn't, it's not, it's almost like not fair. You should be able to get a job and not worry that like a white supremacist sleeper cell is

brewing within your organization while you're just trying to do your job like like it doesn't matter where you work like it like i think that like shifting the blame onto these black journalists who who join the ranks at fox news is really letting the fox news infrastructure off the hook for the fact that like they are cultivating such a hostile, toxic, racist workplace. Yeah. Well, I think it shows some of the nihilism people experience around even trying to address this issue, too, where it's like, OK, then I guess we just have to accept that these people are out of control racists. And like, that's what you're doing when you go near there, because I don't know how we change their minds or do anything about that. So what we're trying to do

and I get that because at a certain point, you look at all the examples you have in the news and legislation, like maybe not much is changing. So what hope do we have? Uh, but to your point, there's a story, even like this woman, Patricia Pert, uh, who works as Fox news, booking director, another woman of color. She had constantly been like seeing this pattern of her training, younger, inexperienced white men and women who would eventually just leapfrog her into higher positions, better pay and a lot and like going through all kinds of, I'm guessing, like discriminatory treatment. And many of her co-workers were telling her, get a lawyer and sue these people like you got these people dead to rights like they are fucking with like this is bad, like this is all kinds of bad. And for the longest time, she did not. And to your point, I think to anyone's point, you go in to any business or any kind of situation where your livelihood is on the line and you are not and you are in the minority group of people.

and you are in the minority group of people, it takes, unfortunately, many people when your whole survival is on the line, rocking the boat isn't an attractive option because you run the risk of having no income and then what? So even though she didn't file a lawsuit, she was very recently promoted and got a salary bump and things like that.

And she did give one comment to the Daily Beast. And I think it's kind of interesting that she did. She was like, you know what? I will give you guys a comment. I know other people who are working here aren't, but I will say this. She said, quote, there have been a couple of issues that have happened with one person and it got to the point where a complaint was made, but that was not made by me. I was asked to meet Suzanne Scott. We had a conversation about it. I was given an option of what I wanted to do. Did I want the person fired? I said, no, I received an apology and the issue never came up again. The N word That's already like a soundbite from somebody who was... Whether she was asked to say that or not, clearly somebody who could not fully express how they felt about it, especially when you read something like, well, the N-word wasn't used.

Not really. And it's like, oh, no, no, no, please, Patricia. And I have no, I don't fault her in any way, but these are the dynamics of what it's like even to be woman of color, person of color, LGBTQ. If you are not like, you know, in the mainstream of what people look at as our workforce in this country, it is very difficult to advocate for yourself, especially when the dynamics are like this. But it's hopefully these are the kinds of changes we can see where people can be a little more vocal about it. Clearly, everything that was going on in the country had motivated these employees on this call to like take a stand and actually speak up. Unfortunately, none of the people like the Tucker Carlson's and Laura Ingram's were on this call to be able to even like account for their own nonsense because Tucker Carlson, you know, last week, he's like, I'm going on

vacation because my head writer was, you know, outed as like a terrible white supremacist anyway that's not my problem though like i gotta go i'm fishing with my kids talk around on an unrelated note i'm sleepy you're like get the fuck out of here you're you're what now yeah it's it's so frustrating to i mean so many the way that so many of these stories seem to be playing out is that there is an increased like look uh and there's increased perspective on what experiences at and in professional environments are like but then it just resolves as a pr move on the part of the company and then exactly how much does change where it's like,

I think that companies seem to have this very real and present fear of their marginalized employees being mad at them, but they don't, it still hasn't led to any meaningful, like, you know. Well, it's like the same reason

why there is no progress on like having a real racial reckoning in this country because white people have the same thing. Like much you say, the company assumes that their minority employees are already mad at them it's like the way white people assume every minority person is mad at them that's why right like because i know it's bad and i know white people do bad stuff and like i get i'm pretty sure they're mad so i don't know if i'm gonna even like talk to them because i don't want the smoke even though

i am pre this is all preconceived smoke that I have not seen myself. You know, that's like a barrier to even having these discussions because one side is looking at is like, these people are so angry. I don't know what to do. And I'm not even going to deal with it. Cause I wouldn't know the first thing to say to even get these people to not be mad at me. So like, fuck it. I'm just going to let that problem fester in the corner until it becomes a situation that I'll have to deal with when it becomes fully chaotic and out'll have to deal with when it becomes fully chaotic and out of control. When really just having these discussions very openly and being able to hear a person

of color say, you know, I wasn't comfortable saying something because I felt like if I had been openly telling this company about some of the racism that exists and the racism that employees experience, that there would be retribution against me. And I think that's something as an employer, I would like you to consider that you may not have been hearing these things because the environment feels that there will be retribution and retaliation for advocating for ourselves. And I'm sure someone would be like, well, that would never happen. I mean, that's what the HR and legal team does, but like they would never say that.

But we have to like – these are the things. We can't go into this with some inbuilt awkwardness rather than just trying to be able to speak to each other too on some level. It's very frustrating. It is. And honestly, not to get too personal, but in a different time in my life, I worked nine to five full-time jobs in mostly white spaces, nonprofits, corporate media companies, places like that. Same. And right now, yeah, we have a very similar experience.

Now, most of my work, like my work structure has totally changed. I work for myself. I'm happy to work sometimes alongside those structures, but never fully within. And I used to, you know, when I was working in these offices, these like white offices, I never felt comfortable. I had to smile through inappropriate shit on a regular basis. I had to like, just like, I kind of have told myself that like part, part and parcel of working in mostly white spaces as a marginalized person is just like, this is, this is what it feels like. This is what it's like. And when I got sick of that,

I started working for myself and decided I would only, I would never kind of like have to work in someone else's nine to five infrastructure. And I always just thought like, well, I guess I couldn't hack and I guess something was wrong with me. I guess like I wasn't strong enough to take

what was like, what I convinced myself was like, just the climate of like of like the reality of what i had to deal with looking back now nobody should have to put up with this like going into a workplace shouldn't be a daily process of you know grinning grinning through stuff that makes you feel really invisible and hurt and unseen that shouldn't be part of anybody's workplace and the fact that the fact that I was experiencing it and like couldn't hack it wasn't because I was weak. It was because some it was because like that was going unexamined. Like no one was talking about the kind of things that like their marginalized employees were having were being asked to like swallow every day just to

get their work done. Right. And I think that's just that thing of just we've been so conditioned to just accept white supremacy for what it is like that it exists and we just have to deal with it you know what i mean like we just got to deal with it and that's like the change now is being like well hold the fuck on no no nobody has to deal with this shit actually and if there are enough people if we're have each other's backs we can effectively do a lot to move past this sort of frame of thinking of just sort of like accepting that white supremacy is just going to exist at every level. And there's just really not much we can do about it because I think we're seeing signs that there are things that can be done. It's just a matter of, you know, standing together to do that and do the right thing. Let's move on to another group of people that also need some help.

The White House and the Trump administration. And when I mean help, I mean they need help getting their shit out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and put in a storage unit and getting the fuck out. They need a cube. It is. Oh, yeah. Or what's the other one where they're like they put in a storage center. It's another box you can leave. And it's a pre-roll.

There's another box. There's another. Look, dude, abandoning your property services are fucking in right now um it's true yeah i mean i would love to be one of those at the cube right is the other one we see a lot the cube yeah whatever i don't know why i've done the cube when i've had to skip town so it is pretty well documented at this point that the president's pandemic response has been uh what i would say less than uh to put it very lightly um and in the beginning it seemed like many people were willing to sort of tolerate just a little bit of death as a treat

um as long as it was happening away from them uh And I knew at the time when we were talking about this very early in the choir, we were looking at these polls and being like, what the fuck is going on? But we were in cities where the pandemic had hit and was already disrupting things. Many other places in the country had not at this point, so it was still kind of obscure.

Cut to now, and the landscape is completely, completely different. Now, 60% of respondents to this national poll said that they disapprove of the president's handling of COVID. Now, that's a pretty big shift because in March, 51% of respondents said that they approved. Then in May, it was 46%. So it's slowing going down. Then cut to now, it's 38% that approve. So that's a lot of support to lose. I mean, that's always the thing I'm interested in is how many people are willing to be like, yeah, it's fine because these deaths are fake or that I'm willing to like rationalize that they're necessary but that's it that's pretty significant and the disapproval rating they started off at 45 percent

in March so it's a pretty it's the swing is in is in full effect well and it seems I mean unfortunately I'm sure it's directly tied to you you know, the kind of death spiral getting closer to people of like, you know, if you if you felt one way in March and then in June, you have lost someone to this. It's very likely you're going to feel different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even on top of that, I think that shows one thing. Everyone's like this administration is utter trash.

The party itself is trash because Charlie Cook, for all of my wonks out there from the Cook political report, he has shifted 20 house races to the left. That's pretty big. That means 20 things that were like toss up or maybe solidly red or whatever, or moving basically in favor of Democrats. That doesn't mean everything is going red to blue, but the trend is going away from the Republicans.

The Republicans needed to pick up 18 seats if they wanted to get the majority back. And the fact that 20 seats right now are shifting leftward is really, really bad sign for them as well. That's assuming everybody goes and fucking votes rather than looking at it and be like, Oh, they're cooked,

man. Too many people are dead. The people who give a fuck enough to vote will vote. No, everybody has to fucking vote. So there's a lot. They've got a huge, huge battle ahead of them. Yeah, and I also think to Jamie's point, like, I think in March,

you know, the number, the jump that you said, you said 45% in March, like, I think in March, people were still thinking that this was just like a city problem. Like, it was like, oh, well, it's just New York or whatever. And I do think that as people see like they had a day with no deaths from coronavirus just a couple of days ago. Right. Like as we see this getting worse in other places, I think people are really grappling with what does it mean for me and my family and my loved ones to have this person, like they have just a complete failure of leadership in the White House.

And I think like even people who were once Trump allies like Hogan and Maryland are coming out saying like, yeah, I had to do, it was clear that, you know, Larry Hogan said it was clear that there was no federal leadership and it's my job as governor of Maryland to like make sure my citizenry doesn't die. So I had to act in absence of federal leadership. I'm no big supporter of Larry Hogan, but he's completely right that I think the more people who just wake up to the deadly death cult that is the Trump administration, the more that happens, the more people are seeing like today it's New York, tomorrow it's me, right? Like how

like when you sit back and say like oh well who cares it's just immigrants or who cares it's just New Yorkers or who cares it's just women or who cares it's just black people it's like like it will devour us all right yeah it's Hogan is actually in the news too because he he apparently got a ton of tests from South Korea uh when a like a a U.S. manufacturer was offering him he's like now i'm going to south korean ones and they're like what they're right there and then i don't know there's there's there's some other test test things going on uh there was a there was an article just this morning too in in our area miles about how you know la county was the hot spot for

corona for the first several months but now it it is starting to beat the suburbs around us in Orange County and other areas that are starting to have higher rates. And it's like, yeah, you can't fucking ignore this stuff and just be like, oh, it's like you were saying, Bridget, it's city people, it's poor people. They think it's like a fandom, right? It's like, nah, nah, nah. We're fucking Patriots fans over here. That's a fucking Rams problem.

It's like, no. We don't do that here. No, no, no. You live... Okay, how do I fucking put this? Imagine a bowl of water. Now put some food coloring in it. It may be on that one part at one point,

but it will begin to... Actually, there will be... will be diffusion will take place. And your seemingly interconnectedness will you will you will you will begin to see that this is all the same biosphere we live in. And it can come to your doorstep as well. But I think that really is this mentality that people have. people have like it's i think it also the partisan divide also adds to it too where people have created like oh that's a thing that happens to democrats or that's a thing that happens to republicans like on the left and the right there's this like weird there's still this these two you know like multiple multiverses that are like happening at the same time that very few people

are willing to be able to be like no it's kind of the same thing but people are looking at it have arrived at this place in their own fucked up way but we also need to be able to be like, no, it's kind of the same thing, but people are looking at it, have arrived at this place in their own fucked up way. But we also need to be able to see objectively what's going on. Y'all, it makes me like this is something that I almost can't even talk about because I get so infuriated when we talk about this kind of thing. Like the conversation with the masks, it's like it is the literal least you can do. It is a piece of fabric on your fucking face. If you wear it if you wear my face not covering my face if you wear it people people might not die the worst thing that could happen

if you wear one is that it might there might be a piece of fucking fabric on your face just wear it like it's like it's like one of those things that just like in the fact that people have politicized it so much and it's such a like like i saw i can't remember who it was but i saw some lawmaker who was talking about like how he would never wear a mask in a grocery store and the anchor was like grilling him like what's the big problem with masks like what is the big deal and he was like well yeah it's like is it really like the fact that we have politicized empathy just like basic empathy for others it's like well fuck that i'm an american it's my right to not give a shit about people you know it's just so fucked that shows you how the pathology of this country and the mentality of what some americans think it means to be american which is i don't dude get the fuck

away from me this is america i'm gonna do whatever the fuck i want to do and like that's what they've reduced it to like don't ever tell me anything it truly is just like i mean and it's becoming worse and worse but it's like the idea of individualism is completely it's like fucking killing people like this rugged individual uh american mentality is genuinely harmful to other people because it discouraged you know depending on where you're coming from, it can that mindset actively discourages empathy for people who are not exactly like you or even just you specifically. Like it's it's such a fucking slippery slope. The well, the the good thing for the White House is Kellyanne Conway actually has devised

a plan to just turn these poll numbers just right around. You know, let's just invert these, baby. What about 60% approval? Her plan is this. She believes that the president needs to bring back the daily coronavirus briefings, explicitly stating that, quote, his numbers were much higher when he was out there briefing everybody on a day by day basis about the coronavirus. End quote. Now, that makes sense if you completely forget why they fucking pulled the plug, because that's when he was telling people to mainline Lysol to fucking fight the coronavirus. And that's like, yo, yo, yo, get this man off, get this fucking man off the fucking screen.

And they were saying we were so young. All all of the reports from the white house at the time were people saying oh man these these briefings are killing him he's just up there saying all kinds of nonsense it's causing more confusion this is actually not good but but what's wild is they are so superficial or like reactionary and they're thinking they're like well poll numbers better then so let's do the thing from then even though that's not it wasn't tied to the fact that he was doing briefings it was tied to the fact that people knew less about how awful the situation was yeah i feel like he he trump doing those briefings he would get on stage and say nonsense. And it would be like, well, is someone going to like, so, so should I drink Lysol? Like, will you be like, kill it?

Like, you know, it's like, like. I haven't thought about the Lysol in a while, honestly. I'm like, God. Yeah. We were so young. Put a tube sock over your mouth and just hit it with a spring linen, crisp linen. That was 900 boxes of Franzia ago that that was going on. Right.

And I think also like thinking about like, you know, all of the dumb shit Trump and his administration, like the whole thing with the Goya beans, like people are dead and you have time to like, two different people in your administration have time to pose with a photo shoot with some goddamn beans. Like this is what you're doing as people die. Like this is like what we get as a leader it's not at least that's the thing

it's like you'd think in the history books they're gonna be yelling at us they're like what did these people think was going on like everything was so out in the open and it was like i don't know like we just we've it's everything's become so unstable that it's even hard to like land on like, oh, what? What? Where do we go from here? What is what are the actual transgressions that are occurring? Because there's so many and so frequent, it's hard to even know. OK, well, let's take a break, actually. And we'll be right back with some Burger King fart-based news.

I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki.

It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in a relationship with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful.

I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI

in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a Black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens you will be okay when we learn the power of hope recovery is possible find out how at startwithhope.com brought to you by the national council for mental well-being shatterproof and the ad council and we're back and let's just check in with the king let's check in with the bk real quick um there was a video that came out with uh mason whatever his the walmart yodeling boy i believe that was him because there's yodeling in this video it's mason ramsey so it is

and so he's out here yodeling we were so young yeah i know right uh he's out here um yodeling his little butt off to like a fun commercial talking about how you know methane is a huge huge problem uh in terms of like our agriculture uh because cows are releasing a lot of methane a greenhouse gas and the gist of it is sort of like, well, Burger King knows methane bad. So what we're going to do is make a new burger that will solve the methane problem. And you're going to be able to eat so many burgers, you don't even know what to do. So yes, methane is a huge issue. And the logic of this burger king campaign is that they are going to offer low methane beef patties meaning that by adding lemongrass to the diets of like the cows that

they can reduce the methane emissions by about one-third i think on paper that sounds pretty interesting i'm like oh that's all you had to do? You can cut down methane emissions by one third by just giving people or these cows a little bit of lemongrass? What's that, Mason Ramsey? Yeah. Yeah. Go on, Mason. Tell me more. Now, there's a couple of things about this.

First of all, these beef patties are only for a limited time and are only available in a handful of cities. So if you don't live in Miami, New York, Austin, Portland, or LA, you're not going to see this shit. Even though this campaign was meant to be like, Burger King has solved the greenhouse gas problems with our red meat consumption. The other thing was that the fart stuff, right? This whole idea that the farts are causing the methane, that's actually not true.

Many agricultural scientists and people who are like researching this like this is so fucking lame this commercial because 60 of the methane actually comes from their burps uh and not from their their manure 40 comes from manure uh and yeah this one uh scientist was saying it's not the cow farts nearly all enteric methane from cattle is from belching suggesting otherwise turns this serious climate topic into a joke i i and it's it's funny how the commercials really like they really want to talk about farts like the commercial has like a that kid going into like a cow ass like it's like they are really hyper focused on the farts they want to make

sure that you got the like the farts are part of the conversation. They definitely, and so it's like when you add the context that it's not even really about the farts, the farts, not even the big problem that becomes even more weird. It's even more weird of a choice. I'm absolutely.

I mean, this, this is just like a miss on so many levels because it completely misunderstands what it doesn't know what it's talking about it's using this like you know kind of like irony poisoned aesthetic that was really popular five years ago to give this misinformation to everybody and it's not funny i think that they think it's funny and it's not i just oh god i mean these this trend of i feel like we've been talking about this on zeitgeist for years at this point of, like, cool brand. It's like the curtain has been pulled aside.

Like, it's not funny. It's not cool. And in this case, it's just, like, not even accurate. Yeah, the scientific part of it is really fucking just so lame. Yeah, the science, the scientific part of it is really fucking just so lame. So, you know, they're claiming they're like, yeah, 100 to fucking just 100 grams of dried lemongrass is reducing it by 33% the methane emissions. So a lot of people who are looking at this like, okay, can I see your scientific receipts, please? And here's where it becomes a fucking issue the study that they're citing hasn't even gone through any kind of peer review which i think is important because that's usually when your peers go what the fuck is this bro this is not nah nah nah yeah yo the fuck nah y'all not this bro get go back um which you know is very important with any sort of scientific study so all the claims are relying on like it was like i think a cooperative study with like a lab in mexico and one in the u.s

that they're saying oh we're going off the the results in the mexican lab uh because the u.s part of this study when they concluded theirs they said quote the research was inconclusive and so far showed no methane reduction from lemongrass, end quote. So like, OK, shut the fuck up. I don't talk about that part. That lets us get away with this just like ridiculous claim. And, you know, I think while that's interesting to talk about methane, I mean, like there's like, you know, there's like restorative agriculture that's used for raising cattle. That's like an actual way to like look at how destructive that kind of uh this certain aspect of agriculture can be but you know they make it a fart joke with the yodeling kid and then it's just like global

warming kind of rich coming from burger king too of just like are you really gonna make this like standing on a pedestal style like we get it kind of joke when it's like, no, you're Burger King. Like, you've done fuck. No. That's like their M.O. Do you guys remember back in 2019 when they had, they released their real meals for mental health awareness? So it'd be like, instead of a happy meal, it's like, you can get a pissed meal

or a like, yes meal. Like, I think that Burger King... Oh my god, I forgot about the yes meals. Yeah, like I think that they often like swing for the fences. And I guess I kind of, like, respect that, but often it's like... Babe, but Bridget, you know where this goes, based on this logic. So if we had mental health last time, big swing on climate, what's been one of the bigger stories this year in society that Burger King could wade into? Not racial justice.

I mean, they might wade in the waters of racial justice. Thank you, Burger King. I know. They're going to have burgers named after slain civil rights icons or something. It doesn't always have to be this cringe to be part of the conversation and part of the solution. It doesn't always have to be some sort of really over-the-top, cringey marketing campaign. Stop trying to be part of the fucking conversation. Just be part of the fucking solution.

I don't give, like, this doesn't, you wasted millions of dollars for what? To just, like, get, I don't know what this doesn't you wasted millions of dollars for what to just like get i don't know what that does for your sales and in their minds like it's actually a great like sort of like sort of earth restorative justice kind of thing we can do with this why don't you just commit to becoming carbon neutral as quickly as possible right right let's do that because it's not i mean but again yeah right the cynicism of like all this marketing and yeah but it only ever results in negative blowback. But I guess that that just ends up being a second wave of, you know, a second press cycle for them is the fact that they did it and the fact that everyone hates it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it's just like more greenwashing. This is like what companies do. They there are there are like corporations have so much they can do to combat climate injustice, but it's so much easier to be like, oh, we have a little campaign with the yodeling kid about cow farts. Boom, boom, done. Hi, we're Clorox. We may have destroyed the earth with our chemicals. Can we give the Sierra Club

a ridiculous donation so we can put their logo on our new green products and then you can completely forget what this company has been about since time immemorial okay thank you like that kind of cynical it's dude remember like when bp was coming with their green washing ads like right after the the oil spill in the gulf i was like wow we're really acting like you guys are part okay but it's i think for the most part though people look at what's going on the TV and take that like a lot of the slick marketing is like, okay, well, that's the reality. I guess they're thinking about it. So I don't have to. And I can just can just eat my Mason yodel burgers. real bad tangent but i thought mason's career would be a little bit further along than it is right now because he came he was you know i think that's the thing when you go viral real quick on twitter it's it's hard to take that you know to the next level but really hoping i worry about me i hope mason has good parents i i don't i every time i see mason there's just kind of I start to feel a little concerned is he okay? Are people looking out

for him? He's like 13 He's so little He's so young I was watching that Showbiz Kids documentary that was on HBO He's entering that age where

he's losing his baby face and that age where like he's, he's losing his baby face and is now becoming like a pubescent child. And that's when like the industry goes, oh, look, bro, like calls back

when you grow into your face, kid. It's one thing. We see what happened with Frankie Munez from Malcolm in the Middle. Yeah. Yeah. Chew up and spit you out.

I hate to see it. But I hope we'll see what happens to Mason Ramsey. You know, that's how far he's come. I hate to see it. But I hope we'll see what happens to Mason Ramsey. You know, that's how far he's come. How far he has come. All right. Well, Bridget,

thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Zeitgeist. It's always an honor to have you. Please come back again and again and again. We always love having you.

I'm such an honor to be here. I will be back. And before you go, please tell people where they can find you and follow you. Maybe listen to your new show. Well, I'm glad that you asked. If you want to hear my new podcast, it is on iHeartRadio.

You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's called There Are No Girls on the Internet. If you are listening to this on Monday, it's probably still on your new and noteworthy on Apple Podcasts, so check it out. It explores the intersections of gender, race, marginalized identities, and all things online.

So please check it out. And I don't think of a better person to guide us through that than you, Bridget. So yeah, if you like this show, then you have to listen to Bridget's show. That's just the rules. If you like Bridget. That's an order.

Yeah. Feminism is the law now. And then also, so was my podcast. Show me the, yeah. Show me some of the, show me some of the metrics.

And I'll know if our entire audience didn't migrate. I can do the, I'll do some subtract, some track subtraction and shame on y'all. I can't get it. It's just important. It's really, I think a very important topic right now too.

Especially when you consider some of the feedback you've been getting from just anonymous people who like read the thing and they're like, what are you talking about? Yeah. It's funny. People really, there are some people out there that really don't like when whiteness and maleness are decentered in conversation.

So, you know, we want all listeners. So, you know, everybody can benefit from hearing the history and the stories of marginalized people. So come one, come all. All right. And is there a tweet that you like or other social media act

that you want to shout out? Well, you can follow me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in D.C. You can follow me on Twitter at Bridget Marie. And a tweet that I loved came from Ian Carmel. This is when all of the verified accounts were being locked on twitter because of the twitter hack that happened last this week and he said verified accounts weren't locked out of twitter we were all getting the vaccine early because we're better and more valuable than you pathetic insects who didn't write three articles for buzzfeed or appear on comedy central once or our general mills dude wrote on buzzfeed man there are times when i i used to man when the blue check used to mean something like five years ago to me and i would always be like what the fuck this how you can get it just for doing that yeah i picture like a one-time ny t op-ed person like shaking their

fist being like the blue check used to mean something in this town. Back in my day. First of all, before you tell me that my reservation didn't go through for this table, I'm just going to show you my Twitter account. Look next to my avatar. What's a blue fucking check, you? Don't look at the number of followers. Just look at the check.

Sir, you only have four followers? I have a blue check, though. I have a blue check. See, that's the difference. Okay? Jamie, where can people find you, follow you, listen to you, and what's the tweets you like? You can follow me on Twitter at Jamie Loftus Help, Instagram at Jamie Carst Superstar, listen to the Bechdel cast, and I'm going to just give a quick shout out to a hometown

hero who passed away this week. So there's losses everywhere, gang. Stay vigilant. Protect your people. My elementary school principal and my mom's boss passed away this week. His name was Brian Rogan. He was the best. And so that's something that my community at home has been dealing with and um

they're encouraging people to check out the brockton educational foundation and route donations there if you're feeling so inclined he was the best we're all really sad and so r.i.p mr rogan oh man yeah rest in peace oh, is there what else? I guess I got to talk about some some some of the nonsense I like. OK, well, first, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and PlayStation Network. Sometimes I've been gaming as much because life at miles of gray. And also, if you like 90 Day Fiance and just want to hear two stoners just rant about their favorite reality show, check out my other podcast, 420 Day Fiance, because this is all 90 Day Talk. Now, some tweets that I like. First is from my co-host, actually, of 420 Day Fiance, Sophia Alexandra at The Sophia.

She tweeted, quote, Jews control the media. And she says, we don't even control you putting cinnamon and raisins in bagels greg uh good important fact uh another one from another uh just you know legendary guest on the show lacy mosley at diva lacy she says i love that gen z talks shit about millennials economic progress like they aren't about to pay 100k for zoom university oh my god and the last one lacy is so funny and the last one at sni red s-n-y-y-r-e-d is just i don't know i just the reading of it out loud just made me laugh it just said how you 15 years old in 2020 yeah i don't know i just for whatever that reason i I'm like, yeah, how the fuck are you 15 and 20? What the fuck? Mason? Yeah. Account for yourself.

You can find us, the show, at Daily Zeitgeist on Twitter, at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, dailyzeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes. Footnotes. Thank you. Cheers, mate. Where we post all episodes and the songs we write out on. Today is no different. This is a track by Cornelius.

He's a Japanese beat maker from probably the 90s, actually. But it's from his album called Phantasma. And the track is called My Chick. And it's got like, it reminds me of DJ Shadow or like the Cut Chemist, Numark tracks that are like on a Jurassic Five album. But it's cool because it's a really interesting mic check sample that I think he's actually just voicing himself. The whole album is really kind of a trippy, like sample based trip. And it's always interesting, like like Japanese sample based producers.

I'm always interested in. Shout out to people. You're the best. Okay. We're going to ride out on that. I guess we'll see y'all later today. Talk about what's trending. Until then, peace and blessings.

And goodbye. Bye. 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 from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z.

We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean?

It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like, what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.