The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 303 (Best of 12/11/23-12/15/23)

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 317 (12/11/23-12/15/23)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.

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.

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 Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti

and I'm Jermaine 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. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one non-stop infotainment laughstravaganza. Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by an award-winning journalist who's worked for places like the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Financial Times of London.

He's also the author of the books The Jakarta Method, Washington's Anti-Comm like the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Financial Times of London. He's also the author of the books, The Jakarta Method, Washington's Anti-Communist Crusade, and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. And more recently, If We Burn, The Mass Protest Decade, and The Missing Revolution. Please welcome to the show, Vincent Bevin!

Vincent! Hello. What's up, man? Thank you for having me. Thanks for doing that. Yeah. Is tomorrow really National Ambrosia Day? Is that a real thing?

Did you look that up? Yeah, no, no. It's legit. There's an entire website that just has, every day there's something nonsensical or of deep consequence. Yeah, sensical. Deeply sensical.

Yeah, exactly. Runs the gamut from sensical to deeply nonsensical deeply nonsensical yeah but yeah like mainly it's consumer groups corporate groups or lobbyists just naming something a day to yeah yeah give themselves a reason to collect a paycheck you know exactly exactly the bullshit economy thrives we like to cover the bullshit economy as much as possible. And you're coming to us from London. Yeah, I'm in London now. I'll be back in Los Angeles by the end of the year for, you know, home for the holidays.

But I'm currently in the United Kingdom. Is that where you, is that your home base at the moment? Yeah, it has been. I mean, I've been on the road like actually for years for the second book between Sao Paulo and London often. But like at the end of this book tour, I've, yeah, resettled into London for a bit. Cool. Cool. Love it. And you've been at some of the protests in London for, you know, Palestinian rights and survival. Depending on where you get your news.

I heard it was a pro-Humas demonstration. Yeah. I kind of, yeah. Yeah, I've been at the protests weekly here, like not far from where I am now. Yeah, absolutely. And like absolutely that presentation, they tried it here, certainly. I mean, the government here is quite committed to demonizing anyone

like to the left of i don't know uh joe biden even or even like to the left of rishi sunak so yeah there was there was quite a big narrative that was either actually like mostly anti-semitic or quite about supporting hamas and then when i went there you know even though i should have known better i even kind of expected to see some elements maybe there are out there but what I found was like quite a lot of families and kids and quite a lot. If they're out there, they'll find them. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's kind of what I've been working on is that. Yeah. You can if a protest is large enough, you can usually find an element in the crowd. You can usually find a fact to support your narrative if you look hard enough. Yeah. And sometimes the narrative will be you know anti-semitism and sometimes it'll be they just like really fuck with america they just want to like be america just like whatever whatever honors their preconceived notions

coming in this this rises to the top quite all almost all the time usually when you send a cadre of u.s based or uh correspondence for the u.s media you send a cadre of U.S.-based or correspondents for the U.S. media to cover some uprising in some part of the world, someone will see a desire to become junior, like B-League America, which often shocked and horrified some of the actual people that I met that put together protest movements in the last 15 years,

but it almost always happens. Yeah. What is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? The only thing I can think of is that I went out to eat with one of my friends the other day and I had to search what is the sushi that's a taco but not really a taco.

And it's tamaki because it's like the open face like sushi but i didn't know what it was okay okay so you're talking about just the little bed of rice with the sushi on top of it but it's like wrapped in the seaweed but yeah like oh okay like a hand roll yeah yeah yeah i'm like a foodie but like i don't always have the right names for stuff so i'm like okay well what is the sushi kind of taco hybrid it looks like an ice cream cone filled with fish kind of right yeah it does yeah and it was good i mean we went to the place and it was amazing there's a there's like a place in la that's just all hand rolls that i know like i don't know i'm sure they have that kind of westwood right yeah and like they have it by the i forget the name

anyway but yeah temaki is like my one of my favorites usually you eat it at the end like when you have like a sushi meal because like the mentality is you like it's it's meant to be the closing sushi that you eat to make sure like oh oh, so you think you're full now? Well, then try this one and now go home. Pack it down. Yeah. That's why I like the philosophy behind it. It's like, no, hit yourself with the big one at that.

Is there a study of food that like passes through you at like different speeds? The speed at which you go from full to not full anymore? like different speed, the speed at which you go from full to not full anymore. Because sushi, I can eat myself to like stuffed to the like very bottom of my esophagus. Like I can feel the sushi down there and then like be hungry an hour and a half later. Whereas like Thanksgiving dinner or something like that, I'm done. Like I'm cooked for like, yeah, it's i don't i don't know what it is korean food also goes right through me i feel like i feel like it's a lot of the foods from asian countries that are like that you're able to eat it i mean it's probably you're able to

eat a ton and then be hungry at like the next time a meal rolls around you look into it we like to eat man we like yeah so we're not gonna get slowed down and i think i don't know i mean i know the same way i think a lot of it like when eating sushi there's also the part of it you're like how much fucking money is this costing so like you can't i mean unless you want to really go there like you could you i'm i'm sure you could eat that amount but i'm sure there's also like a psychological effect of like okay do i do another 15 thing and see if that will do it you know what i mean versus like what 15 bucks gets me a chipotle or something i think there's that part of it too i don't know if anyone's eating to their full potential yeah yeah i mean starches make you feel full right yeah like starches and they stay fiber

stuff i don't know but i feel like it's like things that are super fatty or whatever like they make you want more because like if i eat bacon i never want to stop you know it's like if i eat like pork belly or something i never want to stop. I want to keep going. Oh, so you like the luxurious, kind of juicy, fatty parts of... Look, when you said bacon and pork belly, it's the same part, but we're doing it different ways. I love eating pork belly. Yeah. I'd say the number one food for what I'm talking about is pancakes. Because pancakes, you eat them and then get less and less hungry after you've eaten them as they expand in your stomach.

You know. Oh, right. Right. Like I get more and more full, like even after I've eaten them. Right. So like there is a science that I'm sure like chefs and culinary artists pay attention to of like, OK, this is how it's going to feel going down. But also like once you've eaten it. Because you do have like taste buds in your stomach.

You know? That's a part of there's definitely stuff that when you eat it or drink it it's like, oh, I liked it when I was having it in my mouth but then like there's just something about it that fucks me up once it's in my stomach, you know?

What is something you think is overrated blair oh thank you for asking jack but boy do i have an idea for you okay overrated i don't want a small salad bowl okay i need a big daddy salad bowl i need room to work without shrapnel going everywhere. I need room to throw elbows like Ron Artest. I need to burn calories. You need a Dexter room to eat that salad. Well, I'm eating salad in my gigantic bowl. I'm digging in a well. I'm finding creatures down there without any fear of lettuce flying out.

Okay? I'm working. I'm swirling. Can't do that with a small salad bowl. How big are we talking? Like, what's a small salad bowl what how big are we talking like what's a small salad bowl you want to be able to get some torso in there like some of your torso oh above elbow shit okay wow these small salad bowls you know the ones that the standard size the standard size these little tiny bowls I said this is not correct for a salad. Oh, a plate.

Oh, no, no, no. Do not even get me started on salad on a plate in a restaurant that you pay to go to. These people are sick. Yeah. Maybe if you give me a cubicle with like dividers around it, but otherwise shit is going to be,

there will be projectiles and people are going to have to like take cover there's casualties there's liabilities i don't want to do that is your like salad eating style just fucking tasmanian devil is that the deal just a blur of four miles you would think that you would think that but it's not i'm steady i'm polite i just don't want to be sort of feeling castrated in that situation okay i'm trying to have it be a relaxing spa like experience i'm not trying to do too much i'm just being appropriate i'm just saying there's a flaw in the system of what we're doing right now and what we have been doing yeah i like whenever i eat a salad like i eat a trader joe's bag salad i eat that in a gigantic

mixing bowl yeah exactly that's peace that's peace that's well-being because you gotta toss it to yourself you can't do that shit in the time i can't get jiggy with no fucking tiny bowl when i'm doing that oh yeah how am i supposed to spread the salad dressing in a tiny bowl when there's no room to even there's not even any air in there thank you thank you and do you toss do you put like the salad dressing on and then put something over the top and shake it up? Are you mixing it? I'm even more delicate than that.

I'm lighter than that. I just do a quick swirl with the spork. I'm not trying to do anything crazy. I just think these people are gaslighting with these tiny bowls. I do dressing in the bowl first. Like the cereal hack? That's smart, Miles.

That's like a Pinterest bitch. That's just how they do it. Every time I watch behind the scenes shit in a restaurant, they'll dress the bowl and then put the leaves in. Do they really? Yeah. Damn, man. That just fucking blew my mind.

That's great. Great advice. Because you all you do is like if you just keep scooping from the bottom like all the dressings there and it kind of mixes really well so yeah anyway blair's right it does sound like some pinterest ass like it does i actually make my nachos on my tabletop just directly on the tabletop Yeah, yeah. Sloppy stuff. Sloppy stuff. Yeah, sloppy stuff. What is something you think is underrated? Okay, you guys got to

bear with me on this one. Underrated? Taylor Swift. Hear me out. Okay, go on. Now, what is it about Taylor Swift? I've been wondering. Okay, yes.

She is so overexposed. We're hearing news about her every single day. She's a billion dollar business. She has like a million products. She's always selling something. But the way I still see like half of people would be like, I don't like her. No, she's like, I don't like her music. Get her off my TV screen. The thing that I love is we now have like another, like a princess Diana, a Michael Jackson. We have a single person to focus our whole culture on, which is so unifying and fun.

And I think I don't want people to like her. I don't care if they like her. I want them to accept that it is her world. She is our leader. We're the Taylorverse. Yes. When the aliens come down, why would I send Joe Biden a test? Send Taylor Swift.

You know what? If the aliens are smart, they might just pull up straight to Taylor Swift's place in Manhattan. Oh, she's got the aliens. I remember early on, we were like, is she? She just has has she looks alien a jace can you run a full marathon while singing songs i know okay or is that some kind of alien technology i feel like she would be if i had to guess who has access to the alien technology a la independence day it would probably be her right like that's who first

of all they would want to give it to because they're like you're like i think what do they call the really tall slander like pale aliens gray thing made the grays the no the grays are the short little ones with the big eyes oh then the nordic nordic the nordic aliens i feel like they might be like yeah or they might be like you're one you're not one of them okay she's like oh you're just really rich she's they freak her the fuck out i'm not what the fuck i'm a person yeah no no you're one of us let's go let's go we've talked about this before quite a bit on the show as a show that like tries to take a look at the national shared consciousness and the the zeitgeist uh taylor swift may have come

up a time or two and the the question that i feel like we come up against is is she like so time person of the year has never been a entertainer really it's been uh bono made it for his humanitarian work yeah with and i am making the jerk off hand gesture yeah as i say that but she's the first one who's just like she was so popping this year yes exactly so is this one of the theories that we like to talk about is that as humans in this modern world have lost access to religion, like our Beyonce's and Taylor's Swift have come in to replace those foundational spiritual myths. foundational spiritual myths do we think that she is like it's on par with michael jackson and princess diana or is she even like above that at this point she's not quite there i still contend she's not quite there she had a not quite mj level no no no no no like anyone you're gonna have you're gonna you're gonna need to pull up to like sub-saharan africa show the picture and they all gotta be like

like if they're not doing that then it's not quite you're not getting globally but i because like everywhere else you know like europe uh fucking north america and south america even i that's definitely i mean she could be on her way for sure i think at this like Europe, fucking North America and South America even. It's definitely, I mean, she could be on her way for sure. I think at this moment, it's not quite there. But I think more interestingly, we were talking about an episode. I hate to show our hand for a future episode that's coming up. You know, we were actually asking, is she the Antichrist?

And like, and not in like a, ah, get away. But the, you know, the influence that she has and the fear that she strikes in the hearts of conservatives and religious figures. I'm like, that might be something there. Yeah. Yeah. And people love, people are always looking for labels for themselves so that they can feel like they have a spot. That's what religion does. That's what being a Swifty is. Yeah.

She could use those. I mean, not that I'm not a Swifty. She could kill all of us if she wanted she could just be like swifties attack honestly i have a feeling she could manage to do like irl damage in physical space more than like trump could with maybe mega people if you really wanted to start turning the dial up you know Just World War Z level waves of humans just running. I feel like it could scale like a wall.

But they're all 17-year-old girls. Don't never underestimate a 17-year-old girl. I like this argument. I think it is counterintuitive, but I do think that people are sleeping

on Taylor Swift. I just want people to stop resisting. Stop resisting. Go with it. Just fucking become one with the Borg that is Taylor. You'll be happier. Do we just see this continuing?

On some level, I've heard people say, you can't get much bigger, and America loves to see someone torn down. Right. On the other, I think saying it can't get she can't get any bigger is a little like saying like, well, it's not like it can get any worse politically. Well, you just lack the imagination. Yeah. Hold all these beers, please. Yes. So I do think she could get any bigger. But I think as she gets bigger from here, we do start to enter unprecedented territory.

because she's been re-recording those albums and just putting them out in the middle. So she's been in the news every day for over a year now. And usually with, you know, Olivia Rodrigo just put out her new album and that was huge too. But we didn't hear from her for a couple of months before we got a breather. So I have no idea what it's going to look like.

You know, is it going to explode and everyone's going to hate her all of a sudden? Do you think like that sort of like American misogynistic pattern is going to come for her? Because like you say, Jack, anytime anyone gets big, there is a teardown phase with entertainers,

no matter what. And I'm curious, because I know even in reading interviews how she said she was much more affected by things that people said when she was younger, but she's older and now it doesn't nearly affect her her so maybe she's like i've reached my final form you can fucking try motherfuckers but i'm like the madman stones and horcruxes horcruxes yep yep yeah yeah i feel like i think oprah like left the planet a long time ago but it's still

very consistently oprah you know like there's nothing that changed i feel like i could see taylor swift just evolving in that direction of like no longer on this planet because i think the thing that often happens first of all people want to see a giant giant celebrity taken down just because for the same reason they watch like buildings being detonated. But I, I think that also just, it is such a strange like level of fame and like psychological experiment that it's hard to maintain one's like coherent gravitational equilibrium of reality at that level. And then,

so it, you know, if the whole world is rooting for you to fail spectacularly kind of even if they don't admit that and also you are in a bizarre psychological experiment where like nobody has told you the truth in 20 years you know like everybody around you is just like whoa yeah killing them and killing that it it's almost an impossibility that you maintain anything resembling normalcy but the kind of how you get weird can go in a direction that just keeps making you more and more famous right like so and she's so weird by the way Taylor I saw the the concert the way she like

pauses for applause after every three words is so funny and I love how crazy she is and but like also yeah that's a good example of she is every single gesture and micro gesture and micro expression is perfect. Like that's how she's gotten weird. That's how she's become inhuman. Well, that's like, that's just dialing it in tighter and tighter into exactly what people want from her.

Right? Yeah. So I feel like that's gotta be the point at which fame actually is purely worse than it is good when nobody's being honest with you anymore. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's got to be it. The thing that like you really don't want to see is when they like build their own universe that has its own name, like Graceland and Neverland. And right, right, right.

I think like Eddie Murphy had that for a little while and it's. Yeah. And then he came out Jamaican. That reggae album. And we were like, what the fuck, Eddie? Yeah.

Yeah. Prince had it. And Prince maintained his princes up until, up until the end. But he got weird too. You know, you got to get weird. I think that's the thing.

It's like, we got to get. Oh yeah. Yeah. But he was weird. He was known for being being weird that was kind of his whole thing and he just like kind of honed it and honed it more and more she is famous for being like very broad and miss americana but she is seems able to hone that more and more and more somehow right yeah yeah yeah we seem to find out that she has like a like a secret dunkin donuts in her garage or is seems able to hone that more and more and more somehow. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. We seem to find out that she has like a, like a secret Dunkin' Donuts in her garage or some weird shit like that. You know what I mean? Like bring on the weird. People just like Dunkin' Donuts more, I feel like. I know, right? It's so crazy. That's what I'm saying.

I don't, that's why I need to see the weird Taylor phase. Like get weird, Taylor. Take everybody with you, please, to the weird lane. I just like want to see what her media diet, what her intake is like. Is she reading Barbara Streisand's memoir or is she reading books about Napoleon right now? Right.

What does she think is next for her? Right. She's like, I'm reading a lot of bell hooks, actually. Yeah, I would be dumb. Damn, nice, Taylor. All right, Taylor. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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 gotta watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you gotta 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. 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. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right. The challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all. And we are coming along for the ride. Woo-hoo.

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we're interested inherently in the zeitgeist the idea that there is a zeitgeist or a collective consciousness and you know you open your book which is about like one of these and the idea where like revolution is happening across the globe all at once almost like there's something in the air right and this is you know 60 years before social media and you know these protests and uprisings sweep around the world and even in communist countries so i'd just be interested in first, just for framing of the entire conversation, like hearing you speak about what are the dynamics that are at play there? Like, how do you think something like that happens? Yeah, absolutely. So whether or not we really truly understand, I think we can come up with theories. But historically, revolutions, uprisings come in waves.

They cluster around certain years. And, you know, the best way we have to explain this is people hear about things happening elsewhere. They think, maybe I can do this here. Even if their conditions are different, even if the things they're protesting against are different. And I think media has to be part of the story, right? Because before media, it would be impossible for people in Germany to find out what's happening in France, you know, unless somebody came and told them that's the story. So even like in 1848, like, you know, the Spring of Nations in Europe, you saw like common commonalities across countries. And I think you've seen an acceleration of that process,

the more media ties we become. So 1968, you have quite a lot of back and forth happening between Western Europe and the United States, especially California. And but also like they're doing slightly different things. Like if you if you just if you just like look at the pictures of it, it may look the same, but there's different things happening. And certainly the people in Prague or in China or in Egypt, which in my book, I kind of say that they all do kind of have their own type of 1968. They're all very different types of movements and protesting very different types of governments. But like this seems to be a thing, at least in the histories, in the history of revolution, most serious thinkers do think that

there is some kind of like a zeitgeist of rebellion in the air, that there are waves of rebellions, there are clusters of uprisings. I think media has to be part of that story. But again, we have to, that's something we, that's an explanation we pose on retroactively to make sense of what's happened after it all explodes. Yeah. I mean, there's also the phenomenon of like parallel invention where, you know, the light bulb is invented in multiple places around the world, like within, you know, months of each other, like at least, you know, years of each other. And so we're all kind of working from the same book and coming up with the same ideas. So, yeah, I'm just interested. It's not really the central thesis of your book, but just as somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about that i was curious to hear your thoughts on that so yeah i mean i guess zeitgeist is kind of a

hegelian idea right and like in this book and in like this the understanding of what's supposed to be happening in protest there is kind of some like deep hegelian assumptions that there is kind of like a world historical spirit like this like history with a capital h moves forward right in some grand and mystical way and so whether or not that's true or not i think we can all you know probably most people are not hegelians but some people but you know i think a lot of people do kind of have this deep deep down feeling or assumption that there is kind of like a history with a capital h that moves forward and this yeah this this ends up actually coming up in the book for better or worse. Yeah. Another thing you talk about is just this sense among revolutionaries of, and this is

something that I've just noticed across, you know, reading about history of like the joy that people feel and reading about protests, like the fading out of these capitalist roles. And, you know, you mentioned the idea of a medieval carnival where they would kind of topple hierarchies for a set period of time. In the book Dawn of Everything, David Graeber talks about like, you know, of everything david graber talks about like you know doing uh archaeological studies of these tribal native american civilizations that have like that that was actually built into the structure of how they operated where there would be these holidays where people would change and you know the chiefs or the the police the people who acted as the police would become clowns and you know just all of these like switching of the roles the people had so and it was it was kind of built in

that if somebody had a really great hunting season they would then be kind of ritualistically humiliated in front of everybody so that they were not attached to their kind of hierarchical role. But yeah, I don't know. It's just interesting, like giving people an environment where they can forget their capitalist lives and dissolve into a collective seems to more and more like connect with people. And I feel like is kind of an important part of the equation and part of what makes me hopeful about the fact that there could be some people driven change is how much there is just that that urge there. But obviously, you know, this is something you think about and put in the book. So just curious to hear your thoughts.

the book. So just curious to hear your thoughts. Is that part of the thing that makes you come away from this and still be hopeful, even though the aims of the protesters often get thwarted repeatedly in these stories? Yeah, it's part of it. I mean, I guess the main thing that makes me hopeful is that I came away from this book that I did, you know, through 200, 250 interviews in 12 countries. And almost everyone, even if they had been, you know, through 200, 250 interviews in 12 countries. And almost everyone, even if they had been, you know, apparently defeated in the short term, had experienced some kind of a crushing defeat. Almost no one had given up on the idea of getting together with other human beings and tried to build a better world. They had thought about new strategies. They had thought about doing things differently. They maybe had to leave their home country or gone to jail, but they had not given up. And a lot of people have said,

even if they knew, even after they knew how things ultimately turned out, even if they now know that the story ended in disaster, they would say things like, I could relive that day every day for the rest of my life. It's the most alive that I've ever felt. And that feeling is something that I will never stop reliving. And I think that the, that feeling is related to not only what you said about this historical practice of, of inverting hierarchies and sort of creating more direct links between

people that you see in all kinds of any civilization of any complexity. I think when you see these things, kinds of things popping up, the medieval carnival, the case you just outlined, I've read a lot of Graeber's books, but not that one. But I think it's also related to that other phenomenon we spoke about earlier, like the feeling right now, which I think drives the elections of people like Schwarzenegger and Trump and Bolsonaro and Millet, that we're not actually in control of what's happening. The structures that you're supposed to represent us are not actually representing us. That you're part of something like is I guys that you're actually working, connecting with other people and actually imposing your will in the most positive sense, like trying to reshape reality in a way that actually matters at all. And so when those feelings come around for people in this day and age at this level of like social complexity and in a world of interconnected political systems, which I think it is right to believe don't really represent us that well anymore. It feels so incredibly powerful. It feels like this is something that I've been starving for because the like right now what I'm

actually doing feels like it's really changing things. And that is a feeling that I think that even if we didn't have to improve the global system, which I think we do, it would it's like there's a deep there's a deep yearning for for that in humanity to connect with other people and build something, connect with other people and do something really like to make a difference. And there's not we don't feel that way very often often we're you know right watching movies there's like a meaningless that has like been encoded into everything that is pretty frustrating and i think people assume might be like something that we just like take for granted as like part of day-to-day life but it really when read hit you know historic accounts

and like interviews with people who are parts of things like this in your book. And it's really like, there is something that makes you feel alive, which suggests to me, maybe that's how we're supposed to feel is like during our lives, you know? Yeah. I mean, yeah, you don't feel a lot, you know? Yeah. You feel something when you, you know, like scroll in social media all day and like get mad at a post and then do a post and people get mad at you you feel something you don't exactly feel alive right yeah yeah it's not that omnipotence that like being in the streets or being with a collective can kind of bring you when you're just kind of yeah when it's the digital response version you're getting to feel something and i'm like i'm curious that, you know, like that feeling that allows people to come together and be like, Yeah, you know what, I'm also not pleased. I'm angry about this thing. You know, in your book, you know, for people who aren't fully aware, you're examining a lot of these mass movements that, you know, most of the time didn't actually end up bringing about the change that the people

were seeing. And in fact, movements get co-opted and, you know, can turn into, as you say, like almost bringing the opposite effect of what they wanted initially. Is there something, do you think there is something woven in that? Like, obviously there are very politically minded activists and people who are organizing and understand like maybe mechanically what has to happen but because so many are just sort of taken up by this larger feeling that we kind of get stuck in the loop of doing the explosive like this is our feedback to the the leaders of the world kind of thing and then forgetting what happens after that i think that yes partially i that, so the phenomenon that I choose to build this history around is mass protests that get so big that they either overthrow governments or fundamentally destabilize governments. So these are movements that, at first, unexpectedly, appear to be incredibly successful.

Like, enough people came on the streets that actually the president or the dictator is, like, fleeing the country or is so scared and so desperate to stay in power that they'll give something up to the people in the streets in order to stay in power.

Now, what happens next ends up being the focus of my book is what I try to do is I go back and see what actually happened in the years that followed after a lot of the foreign journalists have stopped, you know, reproducing the very inspiring images on screens around the planet. What really happened? And to answer that question as to what actually happened, I think is related to your question, somewhat indirectly, but related, is that the way that we are living starved of this feeling

starved of this actual connection with other you know we are like digitally quote-unquote connected because we're you know we're we're sending you know messages on screens but we're we're living more individualized lives than i think most of humanity ever has, we are often responding to like hosts. This way that we've been living for several decades shaped the types of responses which were easiest to put together to real injustice. They shaped the types of things that we did first when confronted with real abuses of power. And I think that is, yes, part of the story. And a lot of the people said this at the end, like, you know, we, at the end of the book, you know, after I've interviewed everyone, I asked them to look back

and what happened. And a lot of them said, yes, it was not only this system that we thought that had been oppressing us, but that shaped the way that we understood political change. It shaped the way that we could put together responses to injustice. And that ended up meaning that we couldn't get through that first apparent victory to the next step, which was actually creating something better.

So yeah, I do think it's all related. I think that we, and that's part of the learning process, right? That's part of the, what happened in the 2010s is a lot of people got much further than they expected and then realized where the, the barriers were. But I think that the fact that we have been living this way for so long is part of the reason that explains why it was the mass protest that came together very, very quickly. That was the way that often was the automatic response, like why the 2010s, the dominant mode of the 2010s rather than other of these years of uprising was mass protest or

the mass protest. It was a mass protest decade, if you want to use the subtitle of my book. or it was a mass protest decade, if you want to use the subtitle of my book. You know, I think one of the things that you end up pointing to is that a lot of these protests were coming at the right time, right? There was this energy and this desire, but they were specifically horizontally organized or organized to resist leadership.

And is that kind of the big takeaway that you just you think that future protests, protest movements need to kind of take away from this book is that some manner of organization, some manner of like, you know, if you aren't prepared after you create the change to step in to lead, somebody else is going to lead for you. Is that would that be kind of the big, you know, because there is the example of this actually working. the big thing there was that the leftists who created the change then involved themselves in national politics right right so like would you say that is the big takeaway that they just need to be ready to organize and then lead the that dynamic i think that you just outlined is goes a big goes a long way towards explaining a lot of what happened in many of the cases in the book.

There's like 10 to 13, depending on how you, how you count them. But that damn dynamic, if you, you know, if the book, the book is indeed built around the question,

how is it possible that so many mass protests led to the opposite of what they asked for? You've outlined, I think, yeah, a major part of the answer, which is that what happened unexpectedly is that more people came out into the streets than was planned for. They joined a very specific type of response to injustice, a very specific type of mass protest, which has various elements.

It is apparently spontaneous, leaderless, digitally coordinated. Often, you know, people are finding out about this because of social media or media in general. And then horizontally structured, which means that there's not hierarchy and there's often an idea that there shouldn't be. And then these are protests in public squares or in public spaces. And when more people come than are expected, then, yeah, the government is perhaps dislodged or the government is so weakened that power is up for grabs. And often what happened, and this is where cases really diverge, but often what happened is whoever was already there, organized, waiting in the wings, steps in and takes power. The person that was like waiting, you know, off camera, off stage, takes over. Or, you know, sometimes that is the local national elites. They're not always on the right.

Sometimes they are on the right. Or, especially in the cases of countries that are weaker than the U.S., you often had some neighbor or the U.S. itself coming in to fill that vacuum and crush the movement. And then when that kind of counterattack comes, just like it did in 1789 or in the revolutions, in previous eras of global revolution, there's usually a counterattack, a counterrevolution. that protest that had it planned on going to war with anybody that had not planned on even actually overthrowing a government is really was really not really ready for it was really not ready to to to defend this project which really concretely consisted of millions of different people with different ideas as to what it was because they came together so quickly and you know that part of it i think is a strength in the beginning is you can get so many people together very quickly because they're sort of everyone's invited. But once you get past

that first moment, often there was a brief moment when there was an opportunity. And usually the people that took the opportunity were already organized, already ready, and already waiting in the wings to seize power, whereas the street movements couldn't decide if they believed in taking power or who was supposed to do it or what would they do with it if they would. And while that sort of non-conversation was not happening, like the military sweeps in or a right-wing populist sweeps in or NATO bombs your country and so on. When it comes to like kind of like looking like, cause you know, looking at the book and just kind of thinking about everything, I'm always thinking of like, you know, like how this

like relates to the United States too, and how we've, we dabble a lot. I mean, yeah, we've seen a lot of mass protests. I mean, like in 2020 felt like a huge moment with black lives matter and people beginning to sort of be able to articulate like sort of what is wrong with our system of policing only to just get like nancy pelosi kneeling in a kente cloth at the capitol right and then like we're like what about qualified immunity there's like a lot of things we could do and so i look at things like you know like united auto workers or organized labor right now and they've been able to wield some really inspiring like collective power and were able to extract tangible concessions but i feel like that

a lot of that is because these groups are organized around worker power and in a specific industry and their tool is to withhold their labor which then affects revenue which then affects the leadership and then that's how they bring them to the table. When, you know, how do we take sort of like, you know, what's from your perspective, what are the learnings like, that's a very obviously potent tool that is like, it's very specific. And I think that's probably the benefit of those kinds of movements is because they're all they're very focused on like some very specific things. But we're talking about sort of like, the discontent that people are experiencing in the United States based on inequality, etc, how do we take that going merely past the point of these sort of huge gestures,

you know, these expressions of anger, and translate that into outcomes, because a lot of the times, like you're saying these movements, they're not there are horizontally organized or they get so big like people like at the picket for police brutality some guy's got a sign he's talking about like batteries give you cancer and you're like well what the fuck is what like what are we doing now like so what do we do when it sort of falls outside of that realm of something as specific as like the workplace or outcomes as workers yeah that's that's a good that's a good way to pose the question because those two phenomena, I think, are interrelated in different and important ways.

On the one hand, one of the things that people said in Egypt or Brazil or Libya or around the world at the end of the book is, I wish we would have been more organized before the explosion came. I wish we would have organized when it seemed like nothing was happening. Like the lesson, the lesson off being essentially building the off season, because you don't know what's going to come. And when something, an opportunity does, does arise, you want to already be, you know, connected with other people that believe in the same things as you. And this is

kind of the story of the UAW, right? Like in 2017, you do have people that are from the kind of the world of progressive politics realizing, oh, we could try to reform the UAW. There's the UAW reform caucus. This is a process that starts in 2017 when it seems like you know there's no opportunities for organized labor right now you know donald trump's just won the presidency what you know you know it but but it it ends up paying off much much later and it pays off because as you say you withdraw you withhold your labor and not only do you withhold your labor because this is a this is withhold your labor, because this is a really hard move that is almost impossible for the horizontally structured mass protest to pull off,

is that you withhold your labor asking for a raise. You may ask for all kinds of things that you think you're not going to get. You ask for them. But you know that there is a amount of money that you can get that will lead you to go back to work. And the boss also knows that. The boss believes, the boss will make an offer. And then the union says, oh, yes, if we get this amount of concessions from you, we will go back to work. And that's why the boss gives it, because there's this exit ramp, right? Like everyone can, you know, even if you could, even if you use the strike to raise consciousness about working class power in the United States, even if you make all kinds of some demands

that you're not going to get this time, the only reason for the boss to give the raise is the credible promise that the labor is restored the next day. And this is something that this was a very strange, like it really confounded everyone that was living through it. Like as it was happening, the politicians and the original organizers, for example, of this unexpected mass explosion in Brazil in 2013, didn't know how to deal with this phenomenon because the president wanted to give the streets something but could not figure out what it was that could be given and then that the streets could say,

oh, yes, that's great. We'll take that for now. And again, in these moments, you may ask for really, really radical reforms. You may bring up the possibility of entirely changing or getting rid of the current policing or carceral system.

That is a thing that can be part of this larger process. But when there was no ability for the people in power to understand that they would somehow get out of this like because they're often like i said they're scared so if you're not willing to actually overthrow the government form a new one but you can scare the government then what you want is to use that moment where they're kind of on their back on their heels to get something but they're only

going to get it if they think that okay well they're not that means that i can stand again that right if i do give this thing i will be get it if they think that, okay, well, that means that I can stand again. If I do give this thing, it will be demonstrated that mass protest extracts goods from me. It will be proven, you know, on the other side of this equation, there might be all this radical energy that's born. But at least I can hold on for now. And a lot of times in the 2010s, the government couldn't even figure out what to give in order to restore order. So then they just, they end up opting for, and this depended on context, repression, just like cracking down

or just waiting it out, which turns out kind of works. And that dynamic that you brought up too, like, because I, you know, in 2020, I mean, I didn't write, I know very little about the George Floyd uprising. I spent a lot of time learning about the rest of these in the book, but I did get like, I did watch of course. And, and this was something that I started to talk about with my friends that were in, you know, involved on the streets that if the government just kind of does nothing,

the longer things go on, the more likely it is that that guy with the sign that says batteries give you cancer will get on television. Right. Even if, and again, to go back to the very beginning of our conversation, even if like that's an FBI agent, you know, if like it makes sense for the government

to just send three people out there to do the dumbest thing that you could imagine, point camera at them and be like this is what you are is that what you are and in the case of these horizontally structured uprisings the uprising cannot say no we're not no it's not which is something that the black panther party and core and sncc the civil rights groups in the 50s and 60s that inspired so much of contemporary protest as we know it so much of the 60s movements in the student new left were really inspired by the civil rights organizations in the 50s and 60s.

They absolutely would have had an ability to say, we don't know that guy. But that was lost in the... It's a mixed bag. There's positives and negatives to the dynamic which allows a lot of people to come to the streets at the same time.

Whereas often it took like two years to put together the mass demonstrations that were common in the 50s and 60s because they had to like slowly, slowly, one by one recruit people and vet them. Whereas now we can, everyone can show up, but then there's no one to say really anything on behalf of the

streets. Right. Yeah. Like when Boogaloo Boys showed up at like BLM things and they're like, wait, what? Well, hold on, y'all. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We like this, too. And it's like, OK, no, this this this is not it. Not over here. But yeah, let's let's take a quick break. And then, yeah, I want to keep talking about this. We'll be right back. 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 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 podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. to podcasts. MTV's official Challenge podcast is back for

another season. That's right. The Challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all, and we are coming along for the ride. Woo-hoo! That would be me, Devin Simone. And then there's me, Davon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of, drumroll please. No, no, no, no, no. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of,

drumroll please, the Challenge 40 Battle of the Eras. Yes. Each week, cast members will be joining us to spill all of the tea on the relentless challenges, heartbreaking eliminations, and of course, all the juicy drama. And let's not forget about the hookups. Anyway, regardless of what era you're rooting for at home, everyone is welcome here on MTV's official challenge podcast. So join us every week as we break down episodes of the Challenge

40 Battle of the Eras. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. And BuzzFeed has dropped what I hope will be a tradition going forward. A tradition unlike any other.

That is 2023's most out-of-touch celebrity moments. And I had missed some of these because I don't pay that close attention to what bryce dallas howard and kim kardashian are doing on social media jack you're missing a whole world of nonsense a whole new world and foolery was what was bryce down i remember she was getting like the neo baby thing. Yeah. I think that was that what was going on. Yeah.

So in May, she did an Instagram post that was about the challenges of breaking into the film industry. And in the comments, people were like, Is that one of the most successful directors working and has like a massive production company. Right. And your first roles were, oh, let me see here, in Ron Howard films, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas. By the way, she does have the perfect nose. I feel like the noses of the Who's in that movie were modeled off of her. Damn, I would die to be a Who.

Oh, you kind of have like a great who vibe yeah i think i would kill it as a who fucking murder are you like the who that they're all like they're like blair's kind of like a little different than us right what's up motherfuckers i got a lot of love and holiday cheer in my heart to spread around. I think it fit right in. I think they would be like, you're the Who that we never knew we missed, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. All right. Petition to have Blair transported to Whoville. There we go. Also, she was in A Beautiful Mind, which I didn't even realize. Oh. I need to.

I gotta watch that. I gotta re-watch A Beautiful Mind. See Bryce Dallas Howard. That shit hits different when you realize Bryce Dallas Howard's in it. And see her out of touch celebrity moments. That was just an example of teeth acting. Someone was like, oh, yeah, you remember Russell Crowe's teeth in A Beautiful Mind? Oh, no.

No. He's tooth acting? He's tooth acting. I didn't know that. Tooth acting to nactum. mind. Oh no. No. He's tooth acting. He's tooth acting. I didn't know that. Tooth acting. Toenact him. Yeah. All right.

We also got, uh, Kim Kardashian promoting a wildly expensive, totally unnecessary, according to medical science, MRI scan for some reason. Yeah. Oh,

I saw that one. Yeah. Pre new vote scan. Yeah. In an August Instagram post, Kim Kardashian promoted a $2,499, so kind of a deal, medical scan, which, sorry, did I say scam or scan? It doesn't matter. Medical, yeah. They're interchangeable.

Actually, both are correct, which isn't covered by insurance because it's, to medicine completely unnecessary it's her in a picture next to an mri machine i believe she is wearing figs like the form-fitting medical scrubs and she wrote someone knows wait that's a thing they got like they got like uh sexy medical scrubs i mean they're not like they're not sexy, but they're seen. It's not just a medical scrubs. They are like cut to fit box. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They're like built for Minecraft characters. And yeah, figs were just like, what if we like recognized that humans were these? Oh, OK. All right.

Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, Kim said, I recently did this at pre-nuvo scan and had to tell you all about this life-saving machine. It has really saved some of my friends' lives.

And I just wanted to share, hashtag not an ad. That's, that's, that's, that's a potent endorsement, I guess. But like to your point,

I like that the American College of Preventative Medicine and the American College of Radiology, they're both like, this is not necessary. This isn't something you need. But hey, it saved some of our friends' lives. But it is, if you talk to doctors, like a thing, everybody's like, I think I'm going to need mri on this one to confirm what's going on in there it's good though that they say that though because like i saw that and i i i mean i'm very easily influenced uh one of my flaws i was like i need that i need that right my head hurts i i didn't breathe that deeply for a second i need that kim Kim Kardashian MRI. I need that Kim Kardashian MRI. That'll save me.

In the David Wayne movie, The Ten, where these two neighbors get competitive about collecting cat scan machines. There's like an arms race between two neighbors collecting cat scan machines. I feel like that is...

We're not far from that. People are going to be like, I got my own damn MRI machine at home. I just love the way that this country just makes money off of deep medical issues in humanity.

And neurotic people. It's soulful. I'll include... I'll throw myself... It soulful yeah i'll include i'll throw myself it's a it's a soulful nation and i'll throw myself in the neurotic yeah i would love like if it was somehow a scam and it's just about like it was just somehow like tracking like your brain activity to be like okay we've we've downloaded another person with the pre-noob it's a thanos girl she's working from prison there it is there's also a trend of rich celebrities pretending to be working class there's a moment in the beckham documentary where victoria beckham claimed to come from a working class background and like david beckham was like what was like, my father would bring me to school and pick me up.

And David Beckham's like, in what kind of car? It's not really relevant. It's not relevant. In what kind of car? What kind of car was it? A Rolls Royce. She's like, a Rolls Royce. What?

A Rolls Royce? And then he looks at the camera and he's like, is this your queen? A Rolls Royce. Yeah, because Beckham definitely had a different upbringing than Victoria Beckham. But I love how he couldn't stand for the cosplay. He's like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I mean, her name was Posh Spice. Like, that was her whole.

You can't go back on that. It wasn't like trade spice, you know, because she's a tradie or something like that. Right. Then there were celebrities actually cosplaying as people with real jobs. worked as a Walmart cashier for, I think, one belt's worth of food in a video to promote her new snack brand.

But she found it so amusing to be like, and then, what do you do? You do like this? Oh, okay, here I am. I'm scanning the groceries. Oh my gosh, you guys must love your jobs. Yeah. Ed Sheeran worked at a

Starbucks. I had missed that. That's like going in the trenches, though. We gotta give him that one. I mean, that job, whenever I go to Starbucks, I go, these men and women are the bravest people I have ever met. The things they go through, what people tell

them, I'm like like i would blow my brains out i mean these people yapping in their ear about fucking almond milk and shit yeah oat milk come on now you know how we get down in la oh you're sick damn you moved on to oat milk you know you watched it you heard the oat milk Yeah. You heard my views on oat milk. I'm just dropping little references here in the special for people to get involved, get invested. Not a fan? No, I'm not. I am not a fan.

Absolutely not. Feels like it has a little more viscosity. It's a little more like, I don't know. It's the best of the fake milks, I'll say. Wow. We're doing too much. How do we even get to oats? Oats are not milkable. viscosity it's a little more like i don't know it's the best of the fake milks i'll say wow we're doing too much how do we even get to oats oats are our oats are not milkable we're that we've gotten way too we've strayed too far you sound like that like uh american dairy lobby right now we need to come back they did help pay for the hour.

The taste is at warrant. We need to be honest. I truly love milk so much. Like cow's milk? Yeah, I really do. And the fact that they have lactose-free milk now is like, why are we doing anything else? I need that toast, bro. I need that toast. Oh, the toast fucks

me up. we we have a lot of non-lactose digesting individuals in my household yeah yeah but it makes sense it really like i don't i don't notice a difference between lactose free like does anybody make the claim that they're like no this tastes like shit without the lactose actually i've never even tried like like lactate yeah i've never tried it either well yeah, it used to be just a product made by lactate, which are the people who make the chalky little chewables that you eat before you have lactose. And so that was kind of gross.

Like that got lactose-free milk off on a bad foot. But now like all the regular milk companies now have lactose-free milk. And it tastes exactly the same. I did not know that. See, I have learned so much in this short time together. It is crazy. I've always seen lactaid, but it sounds so pharmaceutical, it keeps me far away.

Right, right, right. It got us off on the wrong foot. But try lactose-free milk if you don't fuck with almond or- I will. Thank you. I love a challenge. Yeah, and also if you dare. Yeah. You're fucking built for it.

Yeah. David Letterman made a video in which he pretended to work at a grocery store. We'll forgive him for that. I cannot. Prince William served veggie burgers out of a food truck and looked wildly uncomfortable. But this was, I think think his attempt to be like, I'm the people's Prince, not Harry. Look at me. He's like,

he's like using like fucking hand sanitizer every time he hands something off to a regular person. Oh my God. Okay. What's the next one? All right. Anyways, a shout out to Buzzfeed because I talking a lot of shit about how bad the

internet is these days. And it is bad. Everything is written by AI now, it turns out, it looks like. But BuzzFeed still doing their thing out there. Yep. Hashtag not an ad. Hashtag not an ad. Hashtag pre-nuvo scan saved my life.

Hashtag really though. Hashtag not kidding. Hashtag just kidding. Hashtag beautiful on the inside and the outside. Hashtag you-nuvo scan saved my life. Hashtag. Hashtag really though. Hashtag. No, kidding. Hashtag. Just kidding. Hashtag beautiful on the inside and the outside. Hashtag. Um, all right. Hashtag.

This Christmas gift will change your life by getting you to finally shut the fuck up. Exactly. Put your ass on mute. I'm all ears, bitch. Okay. So we,

like we talk about all the time on the show, like how we're always every day getting closer to like a WALL-E type world. And I'm curious what you guys think of this thing. Is it dystopian or useful? So there's this picture, if you could all look in the doc, that is not a virtual oral sex simulator. That's actually a device called a mute talk and if um and you're like thinking like what the fuck is this guys were in a vr headset with like

a box strapped to his mouth and you're like so if it isn't a cunnilingus simulator then what is it well it's a bluetooth device that serves as a microphone but here's the thing it also slightly muffles the sound of your voice. So people nearby can only kind of hear what you're talking about. Does it like suck the words out of your mouth? Like, like, like someone speaking from beyond the veil in a horror movie? Like, it sounds like it's being spoken backwards. No, it's what I want. Okay, look, if you're really into the science of it, it's using something called the Helmholtz resonator principle, which is just a muting. I don't know, man. It's about like taking a Helmholtz resonator. Say less, man. Thank you.

It's a Helmholtz resonator. Exactly. It's using car mufflers and things like that. It's like, I don't know. Look, I'm not a, I'm not a science guy. I'm only into weird digital S and M products. That's why this thing caught my eye. It's being marketed as a device for people who are on the phone who want to be on a wild-ass conversation in public or something or at gamers. That way you don't wake your family while just getting totally pwned on

Fortnite or some shit. Can we put one of these things on Donald Trump, please? Oh, boy. Yeah. That's going to be on. Can we send a pack of these to Congress? Maybe. Thanks, Bill Marr. But yeah,

I mean, I get the need for something like this if I guess you're a loud talker in public, but it's it doesn't might it just doesn't make sense fully. Blair, what are your thoughts on a device like a fucking box that you strapped to your mouth? I'm conflicted, honestly.

There's part of me that loves the idea, but then also if I get the fantastical side of my brain, it's like, that sounds cool. The other more responsible high school principal in me says, we must stop this now before we are taken over. Yeah.

What's next? It looks like a viewfinder like that one, you know, like it looks like a viewfinder that goes over your mouth. It looks like an Oculus for your mouth. Oculus is such a sick word. Oculus rules. Yeah, they got the good name. Oculus is such a sick word. Oculus rules. Yeah, they got the good name.

Bad guy got the good name. They should call it the Talk U Less. I like that. Talk U Less. Yeah. I want that. New Talk fucking sucks. That was my main note for this is that it looks like an S&M device and the name sucks.

It sounds like something having to do with mucus or something. Yeah. Talk you less, Miles. Look. How are you not a billionaire? I ask myself that every day. Because I have so much debt that all my billions go to servicing my debt. I have billions in debt, Jack.

I am underwater. Somehow I have a billion dollars worth of debt but the reviews are also decidedly meh like people are like i don't know you can use it it kind of sounds like it's definitely muffled but your kind of mouth has to get used to talking like in those little tiny box the whole time but the company behind this is japanese which now makes a lot more sense to me because since being audible in public is like peak rudeness, like you do not want to be out here on your phone in public. So I guess like if you absolutely had to, this is like the wave. But they also, this same company makes this other device called the wear space.

And it's like horse blinders for a human. And it's like horse blinders for a human. It looks like a, it's like a noise canceling headset that can basically like envelop your entire head. Blair, I know you're laughing just by looking at this thing. Well, no, I mean, I got to, I got to make a hard turn and say this. Actually, this company seems suited for my needs. Cause I was like, that sounds like my heaven. I am trying to check out.

Take me blind. Take me to horse blinders blind me mute me right gag me yeah put me in the matrix they this is how they describe it all looks like like you know how every year there's a new american horror story like cover like cover art that comes out right this all looks like that shit to me. Oh, yeah. Between the wear space and MewTalk, the wear space from the designer says, quote, it's a device that allows users to wear a personalized space equipped with noise

cancellation technology and a partitioning function that visually blocks portions of the space. No, it's a horse blinder. It's not a space. You're not wearing space. You, it's a horse blinder. It's not a space. They're horse blinders. You're not wearing space. You're wearing a horse blinder. You stay in your lane. It also allows

wearers to, quote, instantly create a psychological boundary with their surroundings and acquire a personal space while being in such open environments. Blair is so psyched. Blair just did 10 burpees. I was like oh fuck

yeah that's incredible actually psychological barrier this is coming up give me that psychological barrier I've been searching for that my whole life this is interesting too it says it's equipped with a visual angle adjustment mechanism which just sounds like some kind of like

bendable thing to just maybe block off your field of vision operated by opening closing the partition a noise cancellation function and a sound filtering function that allows users to customize only those sounds they don't want to miss such as someone calling their name or knocking on the door this is uh this is this does invent a new rudest thing to do when someone asks you a question. Slide this on. Put one of those on.

And then block yourself. Yeah. And then look at them again and then put the mute talk over your mouth. I need one of those. I need one of those. I will spend all my money on that. How would you use this horse blinder for humans? What context are you thinking?

Okay, this has Blair Saki written over it. I'm thinking 23 hours a day. It's like, you know, I've always looked at turtles. I've been so extremely jealous of turtles. I say they can just retract inside their home, built in. It's incredible. I said,

no, thank you. Go back inside now. Right. Someone's mid-conversation, the turtle just goes back, bye-bye, in the shell. And this would be

like that for me. Yeah, like a, like a, like a online dating app date isn't going well. And you're like, actually,

just one second while you're talking about crypto. Hold on, let me get, just one second. While you're talking about crypto. Hold on. Let me get this one. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Blair is no longer in this conversation right now. Yeah. I do like that it has like ego adjustments. So it's like, I mean, the one thing you do want to cut through is someone saying your name. Yeah. So, you know, that will wake you out of your digital coma. How it does it learn your name i have a feeling i don't know just open it up a little bit more yeah it's probably like any noise canceling stuff that can kind of give you brief like fil sound filtering but yeah again this thing is all it's all very futuristic i don't know

what it's saying about us talk about mother's little helper just tune those kids out baby talk shit about them to your friends and into the mute talk right like i can't believe him he's so fucking embarrassing my kid so fucking selfish anyways uh true nightmare that we're living in. I mean, for some, a fantasy. As we've learned, Blair, this thing might be purpose-built for you. Oh, no. I mean, this person we've never met, but they're my greatest lover of all time.

They're in my soul. They're in my spirit. They're in my mind, body, spirit, soul. You just see a couple both wearing wear spaces with mute talks like just like holding hands that's my dream that's my literal dream like i just like to feel that someone's there i don't want to acknowledge them really beyond that that is pure romance in my heart oh fuck amazing. That's going to do it for this week's weekly zeitgeist. Please like,

and review the show. If you like the show, uh, means the world to miles. He, he needs your validation folks. Uh, I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday.

Bye. Thank you. 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. 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. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. 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.