The Daily Zeitgeist - The House That Whiteness Built, Reckless TikTok Gumshoes 05.10.23

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

In episode 1481, Jack and Miles are joined by activist and podcast host, Saadia Khan, to discuss... You don't have to be white to be a white supremacist, Elon Musk retweeting racist bullshit... again, TikTok being overrun by amateur sleuths and so much more! 1. Kathleen Belew on Twitter: "My twitter people, the category of "whiteness" we use right now in the US is not the only one. We've only had this one for about a century" 2. Elon Musk retweeting racist BS 3. TikTok is overrun by amateur sleuths – so which clues should I leave in case I go missing? LISTEN: Pink and Orange - GoonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 286, Episode 3 of... Third Elyse Eyeguys! Yay! A production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It is Wednesday, May 10th 2023 oh yeah world lupus day world lupus day national lipid day national third shift workers day national shrimp day national school nurse day oh shout out mrs lee the school nurse who i'd always pretend i have a headache just so i could go there and then i could get like water or juice just a little attention little tlc yeah yeah i mean that's what the school nurse is I'd always pretend I have a headache just so I could go there and then I could get like water or juice. Just a little attention, a little TLC. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

that's what the school nurse is for. You know what I mean? They're kind of like, you're like, I don't want to do this right now. I think I hit my head. And then they would just give you a bag of ice and then you would just eat the ice bag. Yeah. That was me. Eat the ice bag. Oh yeah. You would, you would feign like an impact injury. You're like gel one? No, no, no. Because I remember in the nurse's office, they had a big ice machine. So then if like when kids bump their heads and stuff, they would just take like a plastic bag, like baggy, give you a scoop of ice. And then you put that on your like boo-boo. But really, when it was hot in the valley, I would do that and just eat. Like I would just let the bag melt and just eat the leftover water in the bag.

Anyway, shout out school nurses. And also it's national clean up your room day clean up your damn room kid make your bed clean up your room were you a big uh clean up your room guy kind of person like like was i told to clean up my room like were you were you good actually were you a sloppy sloppy baby yeah i time sloppy boy. Big time sloppy jalopy on this side of the cast. Yeah. And then I remain sloppy. Like it's a, it's a battle for sure.

Hey, parenthood has actually made me less sloppy. I gotta say. Yeah. I mean, it does by necessity, but for sure. But I guess when you're already like at extreme sloppiness, just going a few degrees back, you're still kind of in the sloppy category. Yeah. I like to take my clothes off and just leave them where they lay like where i you know took them off in my closet oh her majesty calls it the clothes pile that i have by the bed because i can like just disrobe in a very efficient way and then i'm like i don't put my clothes away

until the morning and she's like she calls it the clopa. It's getting out of control. Clopa? Yeah. Miles, your clopa is getting out of hand, man. Infantilizing it even for me. Thank you. All right. Well, my name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a.

Potatoes O'Brien. And I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hey, it's Miles Gray, who's enjoying what he's seeing from his L.A. Rakers. Yes. Really, really liking it. I's seeing from his LA breakers. Really, really liking it. I'm just going to say it lightly.

It's nice to see Darvin Ham make adjustments that seem to be translating in the game. Shout out Lonnie Walker, the fourth. Lonnie Walker, the fourth, baby. Lon-he Walker, the fourth. Just came in, microwave oven. Can we give it to another? I mean, most of NBA fans today don't know about Vinnie Johnson being the microwave oven.

Can we give that nickname to a new player? But yeah, he just stays wet. It's pretty cool. He stays ready, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, Miles, we're thrilled to be joined by a rights activist, an award-winning podcast host,

and producer of the weekly podcast, Immigrantly, Sadiya Khan. What's up, Sadiya? How are you? Hello, both of you. I am really excited to be here. And I was just listening to your conversation back in Fort Panther and I'm really enjoying it. Thank you so much. Okay. I like a compliment to begin. It makes one of you, you know. Although I will say this, I did not get a few references because I did not grow up here. So a lot of stuff that you were talking about, at least some of it was a bit unknown, alien to me, but I still enjoyed it. Okay. What can I, what, like, like what was it was it the school

nurse thing to start off with no the school nurse thing i could understand because i have kids so i've had those conversations with my kids and my kids have done that um but in terms of you know la lakers i'm not into sports not at least american sports i am a huge fan of cricket okay which i grew up watching which was a lot of fun so yeah uh test cricket one day both yeah okay okay whenever enough people on the internet are talking about cricket i i sometimes check out the highlights because it's like one of those sports that i actually have watched a lot of but don't know the rules because like it's close enough to baseball where I'm like,

oh, I'm like, he hit that wicket though. I know that's good. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, hit for six. I'm like, yeah, okay. I know all these other things, but yeah, love, love cricket. Where are you coming to us from now? New York.

I like to think New York, but I am based, I live in suburbs of New York. Got it. I go to New York City a lot for recording and stuff. But today I'm recording from my home. Love that. We'll allow it.

You can still say you're from New York. Big city of dreams. Yeah. How long have you been in New York? 18 years. Okay. Nice. Yeah.

Is it true that everything in New York is not always what it seems? Sorry, this is a reference to an old rap lyric. Rap song. From a song that wasn't even very popular. I'm sorry. Well, it was on the West Coast. The Dog Pound is very popular in the West Coast. So it is what it seems?

Yeah. Just to confirm. Important question. Yeah, I mean, for me, if you ask me, it reminds me of Lahore. I grew up in Lahoreore which is a metropolitan city in pakistan and people are nice but they are blunt and they they are very honest about everything so i feel like new yorkers i like that um they don't pretend to be anybody else right and that's what i love about new york is there like an inverse of like Lahore and Pakistan?

Like is like in America, we'll say New Yorkers are not nice, but kind. And people that live in L.A. are nice, but not kind. Oh, in Pakistan? No. Okay. So is it is everybody is that kind of like just the general vibe? It's like, yeah, we're blunt. But at the end of the day, we're kind. That's the general vibe. We are kind, but blunt. Yeah, I like that. I like that.

Well, we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we are going to tell our listeners a couple of things that we're talking about. Elon Musk is on some white supremacist shit big time, more overt than usual, I guess you could say, on Twitter. I guess you could say on Twitter. So we're going to talk about his response to the Dallas Nazi mass shooter. And just generally, he's retweeting a bunch of misleading racist bullshit. So we'll go through some of his tweets. And kind of tying into the Elon Musk story in a weird way, we're going to talk about TikTok's worst detective, who is currently off the case, but he claimed that there was this conspiracy of like a secret serial killer

that was drowning drunk people walking home from bars. It's very strange. Anyways, all of that, plenty more. But first, Sadia, we like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? So I recently searched how to water indoor orchids. And the backstory is a friend of mine gave me orchid as a gift. And I was like, oh, I'm going to take care of this plant because I'm not big on taking care

of plants. I've never done that in the past. And I was really excited. And I did not Google how to water it properly. So I just let it be. And I was either watering it every day or watering it at night or watering it with cold water. And I don't know what I was doing, but in the end, unfortunately the plant died. And because of its untimely demise i was just shocked i was so sad i you know the american in me was feeling so bad because you know the usual joke about americans um taking care of or being more concerned about plants and animals than humans look like them yeah so anyway i was really sad and i was like okay i'm going to go and buy an orchid and i did that and now i'm doing a whole google search about how to take care of an orchid and i've been doing that for a couple of days and i hope i'm really hoping and praying this orchid will not die on me yeah yeah some orchid stores in la that have my picture up uh because i i spent a number

of years as an orchid serial killer like i just could not keep those things alive for the life of me it's so funny my mother loves orchids so like i'll always get her orchids like for like because she loves them but she's also like you know like when the blue after the bloom a lot of people are like, oh, it's dead. And like, they'll just be like, I don't know what to do with this. And my mom, she'll be like, give me that. Like, she's like, I will take them and I will get, I will bring them back to bloom life. And she has like in her, yeah, yeah. In her like living room, she has like this window where she has like about maybe 10 orchids in different state of bloom that she just like always kind of takes care of so i love hearing about orchids like talking about orchids but yeah the watering is like

super key because like yeah it's really easy to overwater bring they bring good luck they bring good luck to you right that's what what that's what i'm hoping for yeah i mean we could use some of that i feel like it's one of the higher difficulty like it's you know what you should do once you get really good at caring for other plants in my case or what i should have done after i got it yeah that's the majors and i just stepped right in and was like don't don't ah it's dead again this one too that one um yeah so uh but my wife liked orchids so what was i gonna do you know hey just take care of them. They just need a little bit of light.

Don't put them in direct sunlight, but make sure they get good light and just give it a little bit of water. You want to clip the little new growth, uh, like closer to that. There's like, there's a few tips you can do. And with a little bit of patience, it's, I think that's one of the most satisfying things is watching like an orchid rebloom and and you're like oh yeah do your thing orchid it's giving you up for dead what is uh what's something you think is overrated the british monarchy hell yeah what not on this podcast we are a monarchist we are royal watchers we love them

king chuck iii as we call him i yeah interesting thing is, and I'm asking both of you this because I'm confused. Sure. As far as I know, America fought a bloody war to separate itself from the British monarchy. But American media, American public is obsessed. Obsessed. Yeah. And I don't get it. Why?

Because honestly, I mean mean monarchy is what racism on steroids and people are still so intrigued by it right why you just answered your own question racism on steroids and out in the open and with fancy stuff america loves racism uh loves money and you know loves yeah and loves like just terribly concentrated power in the hands of a very interesting looking group of people. Billionaires. They love billionaires who didn't do shit to get their money and just pretending that they did. So it kind of fits. But, yeah.

Oh, okay. Now it makes sense. It's all coming together for me. I think, yeah. now it makes sense it's all coming together i think yeah and also there's like just this romanticism i think of like just being like oh like like americans feel like that's the fancy for like something i don't know i i there's like an aspirational aspect to it i think too and this weird way i feel like it's classy to think that the king like the monarchy is cool versus joe biden or something uh but yeah it's to each their own i mean i definitely i mean when i

think of them i think of i don't know looters and thieves yeah and people who invaded the subcontinent and basically took everything away so i i have my colonial hangover i can't get over that oh yeah no i think most most american people i mean i think who are like savvy when it comes to history or like yeah i mean like i mean if anything they taught us how to to be the empire we are today in the united states and we just uh iterated on what we learned from the english i guess uh but yeah it's you think that's a good thing no i think no is that a good thing not at all it's the worst fucking thing ever and i think it's only i look at we were saying yesterday when we looked at a picture of

charles during the coronation i'm like if you could like assign uh like a human scream value to each jewel and piece of gold or fur that adorned his body how many screams worth of shit was he wearing because it has to be in like the trillions that's what gives him the power though and i think i think like for me that's when i look at those things all i see is pain like i'm like this isn't it's like you mind that gold or those emeralds or things like that no all this shit's stolen in fact how many like former colonies are like we want our shit back yeah but we do yeah give us our koh-i-noor back yeah exactly it's still is it still like yeah yeah he does make it

all look a few clicks more ridiculous than any king that i've witnessed before i haven't witnessed that many kings but like he puts the lie to the whole thing and like just makes the monarchy look bad so i will say in that respect i'm glad that he's the king because he just is like this pouty old man who's just like i want my pen won't work camilla okay this blasted pen okay yeah but i do see this narrative about good monarchs and bad monarchs and i really don't buy it because anybody who's benefiting from the institution itself is is part of perpetuating that you know harmful paradigm so i don't give a fuck if it's like good monarch or bad monarch they're all monarchs and they are benefiting from it yeah i mean prince

harry good for him i mean i do feel bad for him in some ways, but to be honest, I don't feel bad for them either. He's doing all right. He's got that monarch guilt creeping in, but you know, it's like the same way of like, you can't be a US president and not be a war criminal. You know what I mean?

And it's like, at the end of the day, we're like, oh, what about him? Like, no, also war criminal. Actually. Yeah. Look up what was done under their command no one gets out of here scot-free uh what is something you think is underrated sari non-european english accents okay i see a lot of people again americans

obsessing over british accent and french accent and German accents. But when it comes to non-European accents, they are pretty mean. So I would say they are underrated. Absolutely. I love my accent. I think it's so good. So yeah. Yeah.

As well, you should. It's a great accent. Yeah. I think it's like so much of it too is like, again, there's like this thing from media where they're like, oh, an English like Americans are so easily fooled by an English accent. It's kind of creepy. Yeah.

You know, like you could grift so hard on an English accent. Like if you were just talking like American people, like there was a guy who I saw coaching youth soccer at a local park. I'm pretty sure this dude is not english because his acts like i watch a lot of english programming i love the premier league i watch a lot of english media his accent sounds like an america like he sounds like me fucking around pretending to be english and but i know this guy is charging parents through the fucking teeth to be like their footy coach and i'm like i think this guy's got the grift man he's just out here doing a bit of like you know he watched a couple episodes of eastift, man. He's just out here doing a bit of like,

you know, he watched a couple episodes of EastEnders and now he's out there, you know, grifting on that. You know, what's interesting to me is that accents are not universal. So there are multiple

English accents as well, right? So it's not like just one English accent or one French accent or one. Somebody once asked me if my accent was Pakistani accent. And I was like, how do you define Pakistani accent? There are multiple accents within Pakistan, especially people who speak English, which by the way, is our colonizer's language.

And it's fine. I mean, I've learned it. But at the end of the day, it's like, how do you define a universal accent? People in America have so many different tracks oh yeah new yorkers you know long people living in long island have a completely different got that tri-state you know yeah this obsession with acts and certain accents and this hierarchy which exists really bothers me because it really impacts people in ways that a lot of people don't recognize. And so, yeah, own your accents.

Yeah, absolutely. Wherever you are. It's a way to center yourself. To just like, in a subtle way, just be like, I am the center of the universe. Because everyone who doesn't speak the way I do has an accent. And it's like, well, you can't hear your accent. You can't hear your parents' accent. I can hear my accent, man. Now give me some water me some water water yeah give me some water rice there are so many immigrants who are really traumatized by how people view their accents and they are almost

scared to speak up because it's like oh my gosh people don't understand me or they can't comprehend me so yeah something that people really don't think about when they are conversing with others. Yeah, it's weird. My mom's from Japan and she first immigrated to England when she was like 20 years old. So she learned to really speak English in England. So she has this like hybridized Japanese, like quasi English accent. And when she came to the US, people were so confounded by like how she spoke. They were like, are you from is what country is that and she's like i'm japanese like but your accent it's like well i just came from england it's like yeah but it's like as if there's like another shoe that has to drop because you can't wrap your head

around a human being just moving from place to place and picking up language skills in a way that isn't again like congruent to yours uh yeah i definitely feel too many categories coming at my brain it's japanese but english no how yeah i mean at the end of the day it's just i think it's it's for people who care enough it's how they determine like how much someone is assimilated based on like their accent and then yeah if you have that kind of xenophobic worldview, then I guess that's your terrible cross to bear. All right, let's take a quick break and we will be right back with some news.

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You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. 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. 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.

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 France. 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. Segregation academies. When 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. And we're back. and we're back and there's been a lot of crimes that have happened in the past week you know jordan neely was murdered by a white man and then a mass shooter who was an avowed nazi with like

nazi tattoos uh went on a killing spree in d. And the right has chosen to like greet this by saying that it's like unfair that we're talking about it when it happens. Oh, it's this, like this really terribly bad faith argument that they're saying, like the libs are reaching by saying the Dallas shooter was a Nazi. That's just what they say about everyone. Oh my God. Everyone's a Nazi. That's just what they say about everyone. Oh my God, everyone's a Nazi.

That's just what they say about everyone. But like, sadly, even the most casual look at this person's social media would confirm that he was in fact a white supremacist, like Heil Hitler-ing neo-Nazi, and even made a post where he was explaining his own beliefs despite his perceived ethnic identity because many people were like there's no way someone with a hispanic last name could

be a white supremacist what are you guys going on about that's impossible you have to be white to be a white supremacist um and i just i'll throw some names out for people who are up on you know the really gross figures on the right. How about Enrique Tarrio? That had a proud voice. Okay. He's a Cuban-American, but he's also a white supremacist. You also have Nick Fuentes, who's also has met up with Donald Trump many times and was courting Kanye West and just like the grossest parts of the Internet. White supremacist.

So just it does. It does my head in. Okay. As the English say, because first first of all whiteness is a fucking social construct that has shifted over centuries you know like you can even look at uh there was a thread from this professor i want uh kathleen baloo who even pointed out like how much the race box on the u.s census has like shifted over time and how like it's not just white or whatever if you go back to 1910 it's just saying

like color or race was the box it said there were no other categories or even in the 1890 it says whether white black mulatto quadroon octoroon we don't use these terms at all anymore yeah chinese japanese or indian and over time these things shift and so to this idea of like because this person isn't a like i guess you know the aryan type of variety of white person is maybe what they're thinking has to that's the standard to be a quote-unquote white supremacist they're completely missing the point and i think because most americans would most likely look at this through a like black or brown versus white lens um whereas like places in south america have very different ideas of what whiteness is or who a person of color is it's like are the white people those that descend from the iberians that colonize the land and the

people of color the indigenous and that's how they began to you know separate like on those kinds of racial lines of class etc and again you look in, you look in Texas and the Southwest in general, the United States, you have a lot of people who have last names that are Hispanic, who might not see themselves as people of color. And some might see themselves as just downright Nazis. So at the end of the day, the ideology kind of like in its current state

isn't based on the purest sense of like Aryan supremacy that they're thinking of, of like Hitler's master race kind of thing. But it's just, it attracts people because it's a violent system of power that targets women, Jews, trans people, Muslims, whoever, who is not outside of like the deemed hegemonic class or whatever. And, you know, the murderous post confirm all of this. Like he was aligned with all

of these beliefs and his white supremacy is on full display um through his tattoos so i was like yeah what the heck like you could tell that this guy is hardcore white supremacist and you're absolutely right about this ideology being internalized by other races as well especially in america because it lends itself to approximation to whiteness and where you stand um in this society because america is obsessed obsessed with race yeah right but won't admit it to themselves um yeah yeah of course oh we're past that we're past that but it is wild to see because it's just that they are just telling on themselves that they think of race as a genetic like differentiator and not a social construct used to discriminate and economically exploit

people like they are like well he has a last name and because of the one drop rule that we all adopted after the civil war wait we didn't all adopt that that was just me and the people in the back room where i make the decisions about the society um right it's fucking wild to your point saudi about for all of those you're like i don't know if he's a nazi he couldn't have more naz Nazi tattoos if you'd even try. I guess he could have had Mein Kampf tatted in its entirety on his body. But SS bolts and a swastika, there's no ambiguity about it. And again, this is just their bad faith argument because they can't really argue anything on the merits because it's all about obscuring the existence of this, like the heavy hand of white supremacy that looms over everything in this country.

It's like, no, no, that's not how this doesn't exist. So you were saying how this ideology even attracts people of other races and cultures. You know, he posted a meme that basically said, like, when you're Hispanic, like it's like a fork in the road. And on one side, it says, act black. And the other said, become a white supremacist. side it says act black and the other said become a white supremacist and that just kind of shows you what his entire worldview is of what your perceived options are if there's even such an idea of options for how you live your life but that was his very specific worldview that was that was the shooter that was the shooter yeah who posted i actually couldn't tell if that was

the shooter or elon musk that's where we're at with Elon Musk at this point. No, truly. And I mean, he was also parroting the same thing. I was like, well, I'm not sure. Like, really? But again, fine. Like, this is why he bought the website to bring even more nonsense and misinformation to the masses and normalize that. But it's really like getting to a point where it's systematic.

He's doing it frequently, constantly, and just in the most bad faith way as possible. Yeah. But what's worse is that a lot of people in America will buy into those narratives, whether coming from Republicans or Elon Musk. And that's more problematic than anything else, right? Why are people buying into it yet? Because they want to maintain their racial hierarchy. It's as simple as that. There's nothing else to to it right i mean it's oversimplified but one of the major reasons why people are so hung up on these narratives and they don't want to let go is because they don't want to um give up on their racial hierarchy whatever form it takes right yeah because it's like well at least i have that you know in a world yeah world of limited options. Well, at least I have my whiteness and I can lord that over people and still feel good about myself because I'm in the white head Christian group or whatever it is that's become very attractive to these people recently. meme tweeted by end wokeness uh at end wokeness on twitter there was like a comparison of interracial

violent crime incidents 2018 and the statistics from this are complete like they use a percentage and then like apply it to the population and it's all sorts of fucked up and what we'll get they're extrapolating like just based on like the demography to be like that's actually that's actually how overblown this is if you actually do the demographic extrapolation yes but like we'll get into debunking in a second but it's just wild that we have the head of a major communication platform like openly doing straight up white supremacist like openly white supremacist shit it's like you know i think when he bought twitter we were like this is like if henry ford bought like a major newspaper but it's like you know henry ford was putting the protocols of the elders of zion

and like the model t glove compartment when he was selling that like this is more insidious and just overt and damaging than that like the shit that he's doing the like this meme is obviously like reiterating the myth that the local news and fox news and even the supposedly centrist media uh tell people every day that like using selection bias to tell people that more crimes are committed by black people on white people. And that like black on white crime is extremely common. And that like white people should be afraid of black people. And they do that usually through selection bias. And this uses like some bullshit math and also just like a misunderstanding

of the context of like, what is a crime is a crime an objective an objective thing that happens always and that there is some objective system for determining but like the big piece of missing context from this is that they've applied a percentage to the population and because white people are a larger part of the population, they just have a higher number. And people were pointing out, if you add white on white crime, it dwarfs everything else. It is by far the vast majority of crimes in the United States, but they have omitted that for very specific reasons. This is a great example of how data is distorted to perpetuate a

narrative that already exists. And what's worse is people will again buy this, buy into it, and it will resonate with people because it reinforces their ideas, whatever their preconceived notions are about certain racial identities and ethnicities. So it really reinforces what they already believe. And my question would be, how do we hold consumers of information accountable, right? So how do we become intentional consumers of information and critical thinkers? Whatever is presented to us, we don't have to really internalize it. And how do we make that shift in American society rather than saying, oh, you know, Elon Musk, yes, he is tweeting because he's an ass, he's a racist.

But why are we buying into it? Yeah, like, I feel like I agree with that. I wish this was not as effective as it is and has been for years with the wayton window on this has shifted and we have somebody who is like one of the most famous people in the world just openly spewing white supremacist lies and people are just kind of taking it for granted like there's not a conversation about like it should he be allowed to do this because also Also, the media that we'd count on to comment on this, they're completely unable to have this

kind of nuanced conversation. We saw that time after time. We saw it in 2020. It's like they just, they can't because to them, it's not like he's not posting like a Sambo meme or like a Mammy type shit, like black caricatures, so that doesn't register as quote

unquote racist and to this it's like oh it's a it's just a really it's it's it's it's an inaccurate statement and not understanding again this is why we have such trouble with even wrapping our heads around like the concept of white supremacy because the media certainly doesn't know how to define it they're just like oh i think it's when it's a nazi It's not like, it's not our, like, these systems of power that exist within the country. And we can't, because you seldom do you hear them talking about it in those terms, unless they bring on like a sociology professor or someone who's, and it's just for like three minutes. And they go, oh, wow, that was a very interesting point.

All right, moving on. Elon Musk's new car. It's like like what the fuck like that's that's actually the conversation that needs to be had so it's like a failure on multiple levels i think yeah yeah and what does elon musk represent right success capitalism in whatever form people want to see so you're right going back to the point about how americans view certain personalities and individuals and how much they believe in them because of what they've achieved again through their success or career

trajectory um it's difficult for people to question that right that authority in a way yeah exactly because we've seeded like you know we've we deify these billionaires you know what i mean like they're to the point where we have no ability to critically analyze how they got there the context in which they became successful like no one talks about how bill gates dad was able to get him in front of a computer before any child basically in america but it's like man he's such a genius like no his fucking dad would like yeah it's every every person has this story it's like man he's such a genius like no his fucking dad would like yeah it's every every person has this story it's like how did he do it it's like well i don't know a fuck ton of money from their family and because of the way the american system is set up somebody is going to

be that rich like somebody is going to be that rich and it is usually going to be the person with tons of advantages all along the way yeah so. So, yeah, I mean, I think until like Americans like in mass can understand that, like all of this is a fucking illusion and it's merely meant to be this like really interesting carrot to dangle in front of people so they can kind of just like accept their lot in life and not really consider if there's more that can be done or we deserve better. It's going to be very difficult because everyone can kind of have this thing of like oh my god i could be like elon with if i buy crypto and or fall into some other fucking predatory industry that promises this kind of like stratospheric upward social mobility um but at the end of the day you're just falling

prey to the exact same fucking grift, just in a new fucking, you know, new shiny coat. Yeah. It's so dangerous because it ties directly into the, like one of the core American myths, which is that it is a meritocracy. Right.

And so when this guy who is the richest person on earth is spreading shit like this, people have the implicit assumption. And I think the media ties into this a lot that this guy is smart and what he's saying well and this one has statistics so it has to be you know good instead of just it's statistics being used to lie it just feels like we are frogs in a gradually boiling pot with this motherfucker. And the madness of what we are seeing from him is pretty shocking and is kind of just being excused at this point.

It's kind of like the same thing, even like Kanye West, when he was saying all this antisemitic nonsense, like the reporting on it just sends it, just sends it out further too. Yeah. And there's going to be a lot of people have been like, Oh,

what does Elon Musk mean with this thing? Or like the lateston musk and already you're already putting in front of more people because of it and it's hard to like because we have this like we're all about outrage clicks in the media like and that helps engagement that like it's just it's it really is this like snake eating its own tail kind of thing where on one level, you'd have to be like, no, we're not talking about this because this is racist drivel. This is not even worth your time to even tell you. Well, we might as well report on every ignorant thing

that every person says at that point. And just because of this person's place, we're like, well, let's treat it as something that should be talked about, even if we don't agree. And I think that already is a tremendous disservice because for every person who can see that and says, this is fucking bullshit. Like,

what is this nonsense? There is going to be someone who's like, well, hold on. I'm currently in a situation where like, I argue with friends because of my limited worldview. And this helps reinforce that. Oh,

now I have something to go deeper into and go further into. And that's the, that's the real danger. But this is how it's playing out pretty consistently, we see. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about some other stories. Some TikTok crime fighters. I've been thinking about you.

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We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. radio app apple podcasts or wherever you stream podcasts and we're back and uh one of the most dramatic stories playing out on the internet this month involves a series of real murders and an amateur detective and a bunch of uh pissed off people on

tiktok so you know this has been a thing ever since Serial invented podcasting in 2014. This has been something the internet loves to do, but it's been especially prominent on TikTok lately. And TikTok is so clogged up with stories about real murders that one company started using the platform to sell $50 in case I go missing binders for people to put all their key, like you can put a hair sample, fingerprints, dental records, dental records, all in a binder that you then, I don't know, submit to this company that then sells it to credit card companies, I'm assuming. But it's like your own handwriting too like this is what what a specific market that is so bizarre so enter ken wax ken waks a tiktoker with more than a million followers

who started posting videos about a series of allegedly unrelated deaths in Chicago. So officially, the deceased men got drunk, fell into a nearby body of water, and accidentally drowned, which is unfortunately a thing that happens a lot anytime there is a body of water near a place where people get drunk, which is everywhere. And Chicago is kind of known for that sort of thing.

A river runs through it yes um so he claims something's fishy here um he claims to have been quote offered a ride by a stranger in an unmarked vehicle while walking around chicago at night multiple times and his theory is that the person who offered him a ride or the people who offered him a ride multiple times. And his theory is that the person who offered him a ride or the people who offered him a ride multiple times are actually part of some organization that kidnaps and drowns drunk men in their 20s and 30s for no reason that anybody can discern. And the police are just like, what the fuck are you talking about, man? This is like, so, and, but he's, you know, re raising these like tragic deaths in the lives of the families.

You know, suddenly these families are like trending because of this horrible tragedy that happened to their, you know, brother or son like a year ago. And these videos have received millions of views thousands of comments he claimed that the police ignored him and even denied him an opportunity to speak at community meetings and then he claimed to have cracked the case of nine drownings in texas also alleging that they were connected to the deaths in chicago and also pittsburgh wisconsin and minneapolis uh perhaps the handiwork of a team of killers is he white oh is he white i'm just like it's just the caucasity the caucasity of this yo man you know how vulnerable we are bros

they're coming for us like that's what's so funny about this it ties into the the last story we were talking about because it's like the safest, least targeted, least endangered group of humans in the U S like 20 and 30 year old white men fantasizing that they're being systematically hunted down. And his evidence is people stopping to try to help him because he's staggering drunk in the street. And he's like all the U S ever does to white men in their 20s and 30s is like give them the benefit of the doubt and people are like hey man are you all right you need a ride

hey you want to be in the supreme court hey you want to be in the supreme court you want to be a senator no all right cool all right yeah do your thing do your thing all right yeah that's what it was you know as you're talking about this the, the first thought that's coming to my mind is, oh, my gosh, my teenager gets a lot of information from TikTok. And it's okay to get restaurant recommendations. But this crazy shit is dangerous, right? So how do we regulate it? We can't really regulate social media. Does it make sense to even think of regulation?

really regulate social media does it make sense to even think of regulation because i sometimes think about this and i worry that there is so much information out there not just tiktok by the way i mean facebook um bog in this yeah right what do we do i mean it at the very least it has to be better moderated uh you know to be able to find those things but again it's like a slippery slope where you see things like where people who are like talking about the cop city in in atlanta and like video like rightly information that should be shared with people about the police trying to build this like multi-million dollar complex and people are getting killed for trying to stop it or people being put in prison for trying to obstruct the construction of this thing without any real due process like that stuff

worth noticing but you do see that stuff get suppressed too so i it is like what do you do but i think in terms of this this is like following in what's really dangerous is like all this vigilante shit that is happening right now so many people feel empowered to fucking intervene or create such in louisiana a man shot a little girl in the back of her head because they were playing hide and seek and he thought people were like trying like he was gonna get got they were kids playing hide and seek and they some kids got onto his property yeah and there's so many people who already just hopped up on this like cruel and unusual world shit that they can't even like

see children playing without putting it through this like lens of like oh this is a threat to me because because i live in a world where everyone's out to get me spoiler alert they're not they're not yeah so this guy wax who claimed everyone's out to get him and his other fellow 20 and 30 year old white drunk men, um, like started posting this shit about how like a private investigator showed up at my apartment and recruited me to be part of a secret team investigating the smiley face killers theory,

which is another like internet conspiracy theory where people are found drowned in a river and like a smiley face is nearby and everyone thinks that it's like this killer as opposed to accidental drowning deaths which are you know it's again it's again like one of those sampling biases where people drown constantly and it doesn't make the news the only thing that makes the news is violent crimes and so people assume that anytime someone dies that there's got to be more to the story. But he posted a video about this private investigator and was like, he's downstairs right now feeding the meter. So I just jumped on here real quick to talk to you guys.

He's coming back in. I got to go. Clearly inventing this guy. And everyone was like, huh. So people started to get suspicious at that point. And that skepticism was later rewarded when wax started, including what amounted to sponsored content in his videos, uh,

which again are videos about real life tragedies, but he's part of a launch of an app for a social calendar startup company for which he was the chief marketing officer. And all this bullshit was just about promoting some dumb fucking app. The CEO of the app bragged about how good the murder videos were for their business and bragged that wax clever formula is highly reproducible in a post that was later deleted. He said, best of all, this marketing strategy comes at no cost to the company. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. I knew capitalism would rear its ugly fucking head somehow. It's just like, yeah. And it was a marketing. It was a fucking promo. Yeah. Turns out it's an ingenious marketing trick to yell fire in a crowded theater because the amount of the attention share that you get when you tell people that they're about to die, that their death is imminent, is amazing.

And what? It's irresponsible? More on that later. How many people who don't know this are going to ingest this shit and be like, man, if someone offers me a fucking ride when i'm drunk they're trying to murder me right and you know and now that open carry yeah yeah is out here just wandering the streets because there's enough of this just wacky ass content where someone is clearly fucking lying like the second is like yeah they asked me to join a secret detectives club motherfucker this ain't the inciting incident in some thriller movie. What the fuck you talking about?

You're lying. And I feel bad that there are people who are, because there are so many people who are obsessed with the tragedies that befall others, that they get sucked into this, and then next thing you know they're violently threatening someone who maybe tried to be a good Samaritan. Even if

he was offered a ride. I doubt he was even offered a ride. But again, i don't know how kind chicagoans are if you're stumbling drunk to through the streets zeitgang let me know is that something where y'all would be like hey man you need a ride you good because i know in la it ain't fucking happening well it might be happening if they're and they might be trying to rob him which uh okay yeah there is totally there right uh i don't think they were trying to uh poison and drown him uh late like he assumed because what the fuck is the point of that also we actually don't have to imagine the psychological damage he did because one mother of a man who died in chicago's calumet river years ago reached out to him thinking he could help answer some questions that she had about her son's death.

And he just added her son to his database of possible victims. Didn't bother to email her back. Then she paid him for a 15 minute zoom meeting, uh, which he flaked on. He just like, didn't show up. Oh my God.

Yeah. Just like truly. That's brutal. Yes. Fucking piece of shit. Wow. Wow. truly. That's brutal. Yes. Fucking piece of shit. Wow. Wow. Wow.

So any, what's, what's the next step for him? He's, he announced it in a video. He's dropping the case, but just because of the controversy, he isn't admitting to being full of shit.

Uh, he avowed that he was merely concerned about public safety and also has a personal connection to the case. Again, his personal connection is he claims uh some guy tried to give him a ride two times and also he issued this apology about like toying with the lives of people and making them dredge up and revisit like the deaths of loved ones uh he did that with pokemon dolls pokemon stuff stuffies in the background, just like over his shoulder.

Very serious. Very, very serious, man. I can see the contrition in Pikachu's face. Yes. Yeah. So in that sense,

I, I, I do feel that. But again, like this is the hard part too, right? The, the other side of this social media coin is it allows people with their

mendacious and like spurious claims that they know are bullshit to go out there, chest out, try and get people into some kind of frenzy. And then also like when they're found out, just continue to be like, oh, I don't know, you know, and it is what it is. And yeah, maybe I did re-traumatize this mother who tragically lost her son and I maybe grifted her for 30 bucks. I mean, that also like on some level that has to be criminal behavior you know what i mean to be taking advantage of someone who's gone through this kind of

horrible thing and even pretending like you could get to the bottom of it and like saying like oh yeah and i'll take your money if you want to talk about these cases like come on yeah i don't know when we were talking about like well obviously you can't regulate social media i feel like you should be able to i feel like we we just that needs to be if you want to create like a lot of good government jobs try and make the internet like a regulated place where people can't do shit like this it does feel like in a rational world like 40 years from now we'd look back on this and be like man that was really fucked up and we've now learned our lesson and now you can't openly grift people on on social media and just get away

with it yeah it's just yeah it is it's really hard it's really hard to like think of how it all works but i guess in a way like as a people maybe we don't deserve social media we can't have nice things that could be used for nice things but i think on some level it incentivizes the worst parts of like our human character as well and it and it does it in a way that is just becomes attractive like you look at all these people who just become like right-wing grifters like people who are like yeah i was a failed comedian but i know if I say a lot of like awful racist shit, I actually have another gig and I don't really have to believe it, but these people love it because it's social media and it is what it is. And I'm benefiting from it. And I think that's the biggest part we're seeing with all

of these accounts and are just like these influencers rise up to is that, you know, it's hard to know like how you can use it for good or in a way or keep people from using it uh that is just going to lead to just a bunch of pain yeah and what's sad and ironic is that what gets clicks and likes and views is deployment of trauma of some sorts right somebody else's trauma but at the end of the day it is how traumatic it is and how that is commodified. So that goes back to human psyche and human nature and how we look at things that don't impact us directly. Right. Yeah.

Also, because we live in a very lonely world, like all these things have sort of cordoned us off into our little capitalism cells where we do the most work and work as efficiently as possible and order our food to get here so we can you know have as much free time as possible don't you don't cook food no order you gotta order and just have it left at your front door. And then get back to work. And no, but I mean, they, there's skyrocketing loneliness in our society. And I think worldwide and these sorts of things, like you're saying, like packaging and distributing other people's trauma, I think praise on that. It's like, here's, here's some human connection.

people's trauma, I think preys on that. It's like, here's some human connection. Here's some human emotion that you can feel because we no longer have deep, enriching friendships or community to build on. So you just get to watch TikToks of people trying to solve other people's murders that aren't actual murders. Yeah. And it's even disingenuous to call some guy solving murders. Really, what you can be is duped into a really fucked up cynical marketing campaign for some stupid fuck you app. Get out of here.

Well, Sadia, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? You can follow my podcast immigrantly at immigrantly underscore pod on twitter and immigrantly pod on instagram and they can follow me on twitter at swk k-h-a-n and and listen to immigrantly listen to invisible hate which is another podcast that I am creating with

Refillion Media. And it's about ethical storytelling. And we highlight injustices against minority groups in America. Amazing. And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? So I read a tweet yesterday, which goes back to the conversation we were having about the British monarchy. And I really want to share that because it spoke to me and I am thinking it may speak to a lot of people who are listening to this. So let me just share this. And this is by Sana Saeed. Her handle is at Sana, S-A-N-A-S-A-E-E-D. She's a journalist and her tweet is, Camilla's necklace, worn by queens

for coronation since Victoria, contains a 22.48 carat pendant called the Lahore Diamond. It was stolen, among other jewels, relics, gold, when the British invaded

and looted the Lahore Fort in 1849. an empire of thieves dressed like thieves and it really spoke to me especially because it's lahore diamond i grew up in lahore it's personal yeah and is it one of those things too where people can see it like where the like the monarchy can thumb their nose at the people who are like that should be ours like and you can see it here and pay to see your thing okay yeah yeah i mean i i don't know about this particular necklace because she's wearing it and if people go and just you know google that lahore diamond they'll probably see camilla wearing it but i'm sure it's on display somewhere right right right people can probably check it out. But that's the irony, right?

Yeah. All right, Miles, where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Grey. You can check Jack and I out

on our basketball podcast, Miles and Jack got mad boosties. And also check me and Sophie Alexandra out on 420 Day Fiance, where we talk about our favorite terrible trash reality show, 90 Day Fiance. And we also talk about Love is Blind, actually, in the most recent episodes. Tweets I like.

It's just been funny reading about the writer's strike. Andrew T., past guest and writer, he quote tweeted this thing from WGA West. That's Joe Biden's quote. He says, this is from the president, quote, I sincerely hope the writer's strike in Hollywood gets resolved and the writers are given a fair deal. They deserve as soon as possible. Andrew tweeted the first terrible omen of this strike. This sounds great. Unless your memory goes back more than six months. I'm scared to find out what Joe Biden believes is a fair deal. I deserve. Yeah. Harkening back to that, uh, when he broke

that railroad strike. Uh, and also it was just really interesting to see there was in deadline which is like one of these industry blog magazine type things they wrote up this like union action like of labor they called it how a wga hit squad is shutting down hollywood one shoot at a time and all they really are mentioning is that the writers are very savvy in where they pick it because they know like unions they're not going to cross picket lines and they're just saying like oh they found this shoot where maya rudolph was shooting a show in beverly hills and all it takes is two people to create a picket line i think what is really interesting about this is it can happen outside of la too there's a lot of shoots that happen in atlanta in georgia there are other states that

offer a lot of tax incentives where you will see productions happening. You can pick it. And Teamsters should not be crossing those lines or IATSE members. So they did do a solid in the end of it by talking to the people who were actually organizing these like very specific, like intentional picket lines. And they're saying, hopefully this inspires people, you know, in other places where production is happening to also get involved because that would be something as well. So anyway, just good to see, you know, at least the writers doing their thing. Unfortunately, they have to because they're not getting their fair shake. Yeah.

You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. A couple of tweets I've been enjoying. The Onion tweeted, local brother-in-law heard you can make shitload of money doing that uh just really resonated and then another onion tweet uh no one at laser tag prepared for how hard dad was going to bring it yeah yeah man he's talking about you talking about you that's right uh you can find me on twitter at jack underscore o'brien you can find us on twitter at daily zeitgeist we're 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. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode. What was the song that we think you might enjoy? Miles, what's the song you think people might enjoy? This is from this California band called Goon. And there's like an interlude on it that I really, really love.

You know how sometimes you hear a song that's only a minute and 15 seconds. And you're like, I wish that was a whole song. Well, this is like just a very beautiful instrumental little jam from their album, Hour of Green Everything. This track is called Pink and Orange from Goon. And it's like a very ethereal kind of synthesizer kind of, I don't know how to describe it. It's just, it's just, it's nice. It's light and it feels like, I just really like the melody and how it sort of builds on itself. So, check it out. Pink and Orange by Goon.

We'll link off to that in the footnote. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this morning. Back this afternoon to tell you what's trending and we'll talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption

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