The Daily Zeitgeist - Should Auld AcquainTrends... 12/21: Garret Gilbert, Armie Hammer, AirTags, Adam Silver, Jesse Watters

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

In this edition of Should Auld AcquainTrends..., Jack and special guest co-host Jody Avirgan discuss the war on X-mas, Garret Gilbert starting for the WFT, Disney proceeding with ‘Death on the Nile��� despite Armie Hammer scandal, AirTag staking, Adam Silver not planning on pausing the NBA, and Dr. Fauci calling for Jesse Watters to be fired. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour.

If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. Hello, the Internet, and welcome to this episode of should all the quaint trends be forgot uh we'll we'll go there uh i don't know who suggested that but i will have it by the end of the episode but thank you for that short show title appropriate because this is the second to last trending episode we will be recording in the year 2021. We have a bunch of good year-end content, best movies of the year or the year in movies, year music, best holiday songs, all sorts of goodness coming at you. But before any of that, I am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest co-host. to be joined by a very special guest co-host.

He hosts the podcast This Day, an esoteric political history from Radiotopia. Executive produced Adam McKay's podcast, Death at the Wing, about tragedy and basketball in the 80s. You probably heard him hosting 30 for 30 on ESPN and the 538 Politics podcast back in the day. It is the brilliant and talented jody abrigan what's up jody hello thank you has your voice ever been hoarse while doing that have you ever

had a no i just don't talk for the rest of the day yeah yeah my kids haven't heard my voice yeah in years it takes you 23 hours and 50 minutes to recover from screaming the guest's name and then you're back at it. I'm getting a call from Nepal right now, not to flex too hard. The Nepal. Yeah, the Nepal, the one and only. So, yeah, my spam calls come from all over the world. No big deal. Jody, how are you doing?

I'm doing okay. We're recording this as, you doing? I'm doing okay. We're recording this as you know, I'm in New York. Things are going pretty moving pretty fast. Uh, and so, you know, yeah, it's, uh, it's a whole thing, but yeah. Ferris Bueller wasn't lying. I'm doing okay. Yeah. Good to hear.

All right. Well, here are some of the things that are trending right now. Actually, I wanted to, you know, some of the things that are trending right now. Actually, I wanted to, you know, one of the things that's trending always around this time that we talk about a lot on the show is the war on Christmas. One thing we noticed this year was especially popular was freaking out about Christmas shortages. There's a Christmas tree shortage, uh christmas shortages there's a christmas tree shortage supposedly uh there was a candy cane shortage uh that isn't real um but you're on your show you uh did a special on on the war on christmas can you talk about that yeah we actually did this last year and we're rerunning it this year because like you were taking a little time off but you know it was a two-part special looking

at the history of the war on Christmas. We did it with Michael Hobbs, who's just this brilliant podcaster who does this show called You're Wrong About and another show called Maintenance Phase, which is his current show. Yeah, I love You're Wrong About. But, you know, we looked at the recent history of the war on Christmas. I think Bill O'Reilly in 2005 was really when the main modern war on Christmas. I think Bill O'Reilly in 2005 was really when the main modern war on Christmas. But it goes back as a sort of moral panic around both culture and religion mixing in interesting ways. It goes all the way back to, you know, kind of wending their way into the war on Christmas. I mean, that scans with kind of how I've come to understand it, which is the war on Christmas in many ways is just an example of a sort of framework of thinking into which you can plug in a bunch of grievances and sort of build a case.

grievances right and sort of build a case right um and it is not really about religion or even about the holiday as much as it is about cherry picking and finding little things to then you know wind up the outrage machine which is what bill o'reilly was really good at um and a lot of people continue to be really good at do you guys talk at all about uh the fact that a lot of newspapers are doing the same thing we're doing which is trying to create a bunch of content before going on like taking a break uh the thing i've i've talked with a lot of folks about is that it's a it's a trap the idea that you can create a bunch of content before on break you go on break is actually harder than just creating the content through the break and everyone i know in in our little world of podcasting, at least, is killing themselves

last week and this week to create shows so they can give themselves time off. And part of me is like, it would probably just be easier to just like actually just take the hour and record the show or just take the time off entirely. But because you're like, oh yeah, we're going to give ourselves time off. We're going to do a best of clip show where we're going to pull like 15 different things across the whole year and then have to record intros and outros to each one to contextualize. And all of a sudden you've ended up working a lot more. But yeah, content is content. The Christmas season, as we discuss in our War on Christmas specials, full of all sorts of content that you can you can fill in. And, you know, Michael Hobbs is just really smart. He's i would say one of our best watchers of moral panics and how they work and um he's really smart about how the war on christmas is was just is just classic like take a bunch of little anecdotes that aren't really related and all of a sudden you can sort of build a big narrative um yeah and certainly social media just makes that even easier now for sure but But you know, yeah. Yeah. Everybody should check out,

uh, first of all, the war on Christmas episode of Jody's podcast, uh, that is going to be rerun, uh, in the near future. Also,

uh, you're wrong about has a really good episode on human trafficking that changed, uh, how I view a lot of the headlines and stories around that. Well, speaking of, uh,

headlines and stories, let's get of uh headlines and stories let's get to it uh someone named someone named garrett gilbert is trending uh because okay uh that is a person who is starting uh at quarterback tonight for the washington football team in uh the nfl and as far as i can tell he's never played football before. I don't think. Which seems to me like, you know, Mr. Gilbert walks into your office for a job interview. It feels like maybe one of the first questions I would ask is,

have you played football? I don't know. I just got a good vibe from him. You know, he just seemed like he had that locker room guy. Right. I'm sure he's like a fantastic athlete, but they literally picked him up. I mean, we're seeing this in a lot of sports right now where these random people are showing up because of COVID or injuries or just it's just wonky. It is important to remember

that the person you've never heard of before is probably the greatest athlete to have ever stepped foot in their high school ever. Yeah. And is an absolute legend, um, uh, from wherever they came from.

So yeah. To, uh, impugn this person. Yeah. When I was in a lot of, there's a lot of fast Googling going on in the world of sports these days to figure out who these people are.

When I was in, uh, I lived in Lexington, Kentucky. I played basketball, uh, against this guy, George.

Uh, I won't say his last name, but he was like six, four had the best handle I've ever seen. It was dunking in eighth grade. And, you know, I was like, all right, well, we'll be hearing about him for years. And, you know, for whatever reason, like that's, you know, if you heard that the nets picked up Georgeorge tomorrow you would be like what the who the fuck is george but you know the world is just full of like so many uh incredibly talented athletes who we've never heard of it is one of the more remarkable delusions though as you get people mouthing off

on the internet saying that they could probably hang with like you know a person who had a cup of coffee in the league and it's just like like, especially the NBA. Yeah. Hey, if I took that many shots, I could put up 30 points again too. That was the standard Jordan. Yeah. All right. Army hammer is trending. Disney is proceeding with a movie called death on the Nile.

Despite, you know, the army hammer scandal and unveiled a new trailer and poster. It's directed by Kenneth Bar brana it's a mystery thriller and he's part of the cast he's not it's not like a army hammer vehicle as far as i can tell although i i'm assuming if it were an army hammer vehicle they would have edited the trailer so as to look not like an army hammer vehicle but i think this is just interesting and worth watching like the amount of brain power going into strategizing around like the comebacks

of uh you know canceled people like that i i'm sure is probably something we're underrating like the number of so is this as you see it an attempt to like pretend that the scandal is over or to just not acknowledge the scandal or at least like is it an attempt to rehabilitate here yeah uh yeah i mean part of me wonders if disney was like it's disney right yeah part of me wonders if they were like okay look everyone's going crazy about omicron right now there's millions of things just sneak this trailer out let him trend on twitter for 24 hours we'll do that five more times before the movie actually comes out and that'll just like hit the release valve enough and then uh uh it'll be palatable by the time the movie yeah the movie comes out yeah like all the very

smartest people who went to all the very best colleges like so many of them work in like marketing and like you you know, strategy. The greatest minds of our generation. Or just like working in advertising. All right. Let's take a quick break actually. And we'll come back and talk about AirTags. I'm Jess Casavetto,

executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling, firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.

accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed 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? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the biscuits.

It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On the segregation academies, when the civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that.

Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest.

I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible.

Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. 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. You thought you had fun last season?

Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Spring, Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J. and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just you know what?

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. And we're back and in case you couldn't tell by the uh old ass way i said air tags like i just heard the phrase uh that that is a fact i had just heard the phrase a super producer becca just um kind of explained it to me these are basically uh apple's version of tile it for me really uh it generally just made my uh keychain clunkier uh and i never remembered to replace the battery and so it was always out of batteries by the time i lost my keys weeks where it really changed everything right yeah i think i went through the same experience. Yeah. But anyway, so they have this thing. It's called AirTags. It seems like it's a little bit simpler, more straightforward, and it's also fairly cheap. It's $20.

And so the availability of it, though, is causing some problems because people are actually using it to track other people. Like people are finding, uh, these notifications on their phone that like the location of this air tag can be seen by the owner, uh, is not what you want to see pop up on your phone, but basically it's, you know,

people are being stalked. Someone is dropping an air tag on another person unbeknownst to them. Yeah. Like physically track them. Yeah. Yes. There's like track them yeah yes there's like track them and they're they're you know the size of a quarter yeah it's very yeah very scary

uh would probably be a really horrifying thing to uh discover in your bag some people are like finding them in the wheel well of their uh car and it's just like maybe this is not a technology like from the bond films that we want to be giving out at twenty dollars a pop um right i i mean i think it's important to sound the alarm about this i also think you know just if it's not this it's going to be something else is part of how i feel about you know i think i just think we've like democratized the surveillance state to a point where whether it's an air tag or it's like airdropping, you know, inappropriate things to strangers on the train, which was happening for a while until they, I think, changed the settings and so forth. I just think it's always going to be something along these lines. And so, you know, I think the problem is probably further upstream than just

the technology that manifests kind of behavior like this. Right. So what Apple is doing to prevent this, it might make this better than this thing not existing because normally when someone plants a tracking device on you, uh, in my experience, uh, watching spy movies, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't like shoot you a notification on your phone being like hey you got a tracking thing on you fyi so yeah that that is kind of cool um but i don't know also scary scary times man speaking of scary times adam silver uh is still uh has has said he's not planning on uh delaying the NBA season. So,

you know, kind of similar to the story we were talking about with Garrett Gilbert, you know, you're going to be hearing from a lot of people who are like the best player on the college team that you like a couple of years ago, the Chicago bulls just signed to Mac McClung who played for Georgetown and then transferred and then transferred again. But he was a pretty good point guard.

And yeah, it's kind of fun. It's like, you know, seeing people get a shot. Yeah. A cup of coffee. Why not? Just in the middle of a pandemic. Exactly. But yeah, it's nice to see people get a shot.

I mean, you know, hopefully they got a shot, but you know, I just don't think the product is going to be that good. And I mean, we talked about this, that the NBA seems so fixated on these games at, on Christmas. And I just don't think people are going to tune in i think people know like they they see what's happening you could like convince people this is still nba basketball or that we're not living in a pandemic i mean you know i just this is how i feel in a larger sense about all efforts to kind of not acknowledge that the pandemic is changing everything and just to sort of say oh we can still grit our teeth and go about things normally i mean we should you know and i just feel like the nba gives me those vibes too like yeah we're just still gonna do this thing you're gonna love it yeah i mean the nfl delaying a game like two days is the the most early covid thing possible like when we were delaying meetings like a couple days um the yeah the nba season has been well first of all, the Christmas day games will have to compete with, uh, the NFL for the first time. I think, uh, I think that's because of COVID, although it might

just be because, uh, Christmas is on Saturday this year. Um, but yeah, it's as a Sixers fan, it's easy for me to be like, well, you you know top heavy teams are at a severe disadvantage uh than like compared to deep teams like the bulls but um i don't know it's it's definitely a season that will probably if not an official asterisk what people will be like that was that was a weird one well and i mean i think that probably you, that's the case with the entire world is right. We, we, I think had a capacity to look at 2020 and say, okay, weird year, blip year, asterisk year. I think the fact that 2021 is clearly that as well is sneaking up on a lot of people and, you know, sending, sending a lot of people into despair. And I have found myself

thinking kind of like, wait a minute, which one, which one of these was the weird year? which one of these was the blip year or like do i have to think of it it's just one yeah it's pretty much and pretty much march 2020 or february 2020 like forward at this point yeah i don't think we can consider anything back to normal you know i will say that to me this is one of the places where i host a history podcast I just sort of try and think about stuff a little bit through that lens. This is where I feel like a lens of perspective is very useful for me personally of just like, we talk about the Spanish flu, you know, uh, as the 1918, 1919, you know, we group years, we talk about stuff in periods of time. We realize that stuff flows over a number of years. and i just think it's like this is one of those moments this is one of those stories that is so big and so overwhelming that it is

absolutely a multi-year thing where it is the dominant story and it's tough to live through it's really brutal and it's a grind but i also remind myself that yeah this is like probably a two maybe three year thing and then not to mention you know the the long-term ripple effect yeah uh the last trans jesse waters threatened like telling people to fucking kill shot uh fauci for god's sakes but i do want to just like in general in terms of where we're at on the spectrum of like fascism and populism and all that stuff like as somebody who i feel like like that's something i'm always trying to do in my spare time is like read back on history put things into a bit of perspective but i feel like your show does that extremely well like and i

don't know i feel somewhat hopeless about the 2024 election not hopeless but like uh pessimistic about the 2024 election like how well just like two minutes give me two minutes on two minutes how you're feeling about the uh state of the country in terms of fascism i i am i am very very very worried about american democracy um i think it is you know in peril in a way that it hasn't been in a long time, you know, for all sorts of reasons that are a product of what's happened over the last 20, 30 years, a sort of drop in trust in institutions, media environment, you know, turning every every cultural issue has become a political political wedge issue, not to mention things like gerrymandering and campaign finance and all the sort of like

technical ways that our democracy, the wheels, the gears of our democracy operate are being messed with. That said, I do think a historical perspective also lets you realize, and it's one of the things I really kind of have come to see is just that history moves and shifts for very, very unpredictable and often very small, weird reasons. And, you know, to me, I view like the history of this country as one, it's like you throw up a bowling ball down one of those lanes that has the bumpers on it and it's just crashing back and forth and every once in a while it'll like skip out or every once in a while it'll bounce in and

knock all the pins down and be successful. And you know there's just so many incidents over this over this country's history many of which we discuss on the show where things could have completely fallen apart you know and it could have been much much worse than you know our history has proven and vice versa where sort of things just seem to just coalesce and the course of the country changes so all the conditions we have to be honest are really really worrisome right now yeah and you have to work really really hard to change stuff but that also when good stuff has happened in this country's history it has been because people have seen the moment for what it is and just put their you know put their shoulder to the grindstone or whatever the mixed metaphor is and sort of tried to tried to get things done yeah yeah um and there are things in front of us that we can do to try

and improve voter access and restrict gerrymandering and you know that's the stuff i think about is just the kind of like can we get the little wheels of our democracy working again and build from there yeah i think i've been a little bit too like deterministic about like trump's gonna get elected again uh 2024 that's very good point that like you know the smallest things can shift that the dumbest things can shift that him bragging about getting the booster could make him suddenly very unpopular with his with his base i also do worry about like, I like the metaphor of the bumper bowling, but I also think that America from the time of the baby boom forward, like was,

and maybe even like from the time of world war two forward was like benefiting from a wild, uh, string of like good luck based on like demographics and economics and like a really good dependency ratio and so it felt like man we got bumpers on this thing we could reel in any wild direction we want to uh and maybe the bumpers are off but we we will see i know you do this on the other segment of the show but you know that that reminds me of a tweet i think about all the time all the time yeah which is someone wrote basically like,

it really sucks to have basically been born at the end of the fuck around era. And now we're living in the find out era, you know, and it's, I think about that and it really does feel like the 20th century was the fuck. Let's fuck around and find out. And now we're about to find out. And we are.

All right. Well, Jody, uh, it's been truly a pleasure, uh, having you co-host this trending tomorrow's full episode. Great having you. Where can people find you and follow you?

I do This Day in Esoteric Political History, a Radiotopia show. You can get that wherever. And then maybe my website's a good place because I also have a list of all the work I've done. You know, as I do stuff, I pop it up there. So Jody with a Y, Avergan.com, and you can track me down there. Yeah. All right. And by the way, the person who gave us the short show title of all of Quay Trends is Eat the Rich Jefferson at Device Knoll. So shout out to you. And that is going to do it for us on this Tuesday afternoon. We're

back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show and another trending, and then a bunch of year end content, uh, that I think you'll really enjoy until then be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, wear a mask, don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all then. Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films

and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties

you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's

sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Keri Champion and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.