The Daily Zeitgeist - Who Is A Rodent Trend 6/12: Hot Rodent Men, Kevin Spacey, Taco Bell Art Heist, Chic-Fil-A Summer Camp, Bryan Johnson

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

In this edition of Who Is A Rodent Trend, Jack and Miles discuss the internet being horny for "Hot Rodent Men", Kevin Spacey turning in a great performance on Piers Morgan, the great Taco Bell art heist, the Chic-Fil-A "summer camp", Bryan Johnson claiming to have "cured" aging and much more!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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just

starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. 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 iHeart on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you

get your podcast presented by elf beauty founding partner of iheart women's sports hello the internet and welcome to this episode of who is a rodent trend alternately who is a road trend man but that i feel like that would be hard to understand in a title uh object that is miles these are some things that are trending on this wednesday afternoon wow um okay a little musical little yeah shout out to you so there is an article making the rounds from the New York Times. Oh, hell yeah. The gray lady. What are you telling me?

So you've seen all the president's men. Everybody's all self-serious in a newsroom, smoking cigarettes, being like, we got to break the rodent man story. Is this like a humanoid that's haunting haunting that's been seen in the background of pictures of the white man prophecy yeah no this is basically uh they've taken everybody knew somebody grown up though that people were like okay rat boy because they had big ears or you know a certain face shape and uh know nothing about big ears yeah me neither yeah but they have taken that and been like okay uh what if instead of calling them rat boy which they don't seem to like

called them a rodent man um and that is so basically this comes back to when i heard that it was a thing that was trending and that it was like people who it's like a new type of hot guy yeah rodent man I immediately thought of the dark haired guy from challengers did you see challengers yeah yeah yeah yeah

you know the curly haired dark haired guy I feel like they're both rat boys I didn't I didn't see it for the other guy but he is listed. Yeah, Josh O'Connor, I think. A rodent man. No rat boy, I am rodent man. I think Mike Faced or whatever,

that dude also, he has, I don't know, one's a gray rat, the other's like a little mouse? Brunette rat? Yeah. He's got mousy but yeah that dude definitely got i guess what we're calling hot rat face yeah hot rat face people were trying to put it on uh jeremy allen white from uh the bear the bear chalamet apparently called it the rat

it's like all different actors who could with just makeup effects star in a live action remake of an american tale fievel goes west you know willem dafoe is up i guess also they consider that rat boy you can find a picture of most people that will be like oh okay yeah i see it i mean simu lu they wait they're really calling Simu Liu a rat guy, too? He's a rat boy, too? So the thing that defines it is face angularity. Right. So it's important for their, according to Gina Sherluth of the New York Times,

it's important for their faces to be angular. That's the dead giveaway. That and big ears. They come off as edgy and elusive just based on that face and ear shape. Right. So you can't have a chiseled face like Brad Pitt or Chris Hemsworth.

So another person says that it's sort of fanning too wide. Johnny Depp has been called a rat boy. I don't feel that but kieran colkin on the other hand i could see him playing a little mouse okay little little ass you know yeah yeah yeah what about barry what's his face from salt burn like he also counts as a oh yeah yeah yeah he might be the most rat face it of all the rat king what about adam driver adam

driver because i thought the dark hair guy from challengers was basically they were like wait we can't get adam driver but he's in all of these types of movies uh okay let's go with the other guy who i thought was wonderful by the way josh o'connor yeah he was great he was great but didn't he like don't you feel like he is of the same facial genre as Adam Driver? They're like, yo, make Stuart Little kind of pop in. And then you get him. I get it because he has the sort of...

If you blur your eyes and the way a child would draw a mouse or something is big looping ears and some kind of pointy face. Or a seventh grader would draw adam driver i feel like like i get that it's said like with like affection but just like reducing like humans to rodents is a little uh but i get this is this is how the kids they're expressing their love hey i'm i'm the year of the rat so yeah uh i'll take it um i've always been down with rats i feel like rat culture has been here for a while and maybe this is now we're just talking about how cool rats are some people uh some important questions raised in the article like so all you're gonna say rodent man i guess because you want to be nice and not rat man so saying rodent man does this apply to all types of rodent because in this case jesse plemmons

might be a beaver type you know oh wow jesse plemmons is a beaver i can't little little possum i would say yeah i would say willem dafoe is a snake like not in a bad way no no you're now you're bringing your personal relationship with willem into this. That motherfucker is a snake and he will snake you on a business deal. If you try and open a mini golf course with Willem Dafoe, he will fuck you, Miles. Oh, man. Yeah.

I could honestly talk to anybody for five hours about what animal every different person is. It's not interesting. How would you describe yourself? It's interesting to me. Have you looked at your own face and you're like, I'm a bit of a what?

Somebody once told me I was a deer or a bear. And I can see that a little bit. Both ends of the predator prey spectrum. I like that. My eyes are very forward facing. So I would say they like kind of close together so i guess that would be i feel like anytime someone was referred to me looking like an animal it's had some kind of racial undertone so i typically don't remember what that is nor do i

seek to be compared to an animal but i do embrace my ratness i like being ratty like but but in my own way it's really nothing to do with rats it's like just sort of like a vibe you resist animal comparison actually you don't have a clear animal corollary thank you that means actually dude that means a lot to me man you're spamming the chat you're like this full straight up rat dude um but like do you remember it's funny that this kind of has maybe this predates it but i don't know if you remember in the other two there's like i think it's in season two where wanda sykes is talking about how chase dreams like he's looking all disheveled and shit and they're like what's going on i'm just like oh yeah this

is part of his shitty little rat face so i know that being kind of like scruffy ratty yeah is kind of like a way to describe someone but like the character chase dreams is like based on Bieber so there's like all sorts of like little details about like and Bieber went through his little shitty little rat phase you know what I mean he's still kind of in it yeah and then he hits 18 and has to release a uh an

armpit photo like it's the the hot thing is to have a photo where he's showing his armpit to people yeah love that episode uh anyways that's so that's uh mostly what we're talking about uh there's there's other things happening and there's kevin spacey cried about his money problems on uh pierce morgan's uncensored youtube so he just has a youtube show now piers morgan yeah he did a really cool long look this motherfucker is he stays acting because like

one of these questions about like yeah you're like hey man how's it been and he does just like this long pause and cries here you can i'm sorry to subject you to the sound of kevin spacey's voice but unfortunately it's relevant in this moment he's holding back to oh head down sniffles uh well it's funny you asked that question because this week uh where i have been living in baltimore is being foreclosed on it my house is being sold at auction and he goes on he's like and i have to put my stuff in storage and what the fuck's going on baltimore that if you had given me 20 different i know as to what city kevin spacey was living it was not baltimore but apparently baltimore would not have he said it coincided with him doing house of cards i guess and then he never left. But yeah, he's claiming, he's like, I've been ruined with all my legal troubles for fucking groping and assaulting people.

He was like, damn, Alex Jones got a lot of heat for pretending to cry on a shitty YouTube show. Maybe I should do that. He's like, let me try these alligator tears real quick. Crocodile tears. show maybe i should do that he's like let me try these alligator tears real quick crocodile tears like alex jones did a little bit better of a job acting than kevin spacey in this one like you know why yeah well because i don't think alex jones real at like alex jones is like in this fog of like you know narrative uh kayfabe like am i a real person am i this character i play right so he's just it's all

like happening it's just this cloud of like wild shit happening inside his head uh so i don't know if he knew he was faking crying uh in that video whereas kevin spacey's definitely like oh yeah you know this is this is just acting it's and. And some of his worst performances, I gotta say. Really bad. When you watch, you're like, yeah. I think what it is, too, it's also the context. When you're a transgressor and you're begging for forgiveness and you do the crying shit, you just basically,

all we can do is see you in the pattern of men who have committed crimes and try and cry their way out of it like it always has the same feel like when our guy was like i'm fighting for my life you know what i mean i was like yeah huh we get it we get it damn man that must suck oh yeah that sucks dude what all right you know what let's let's call it let's get kevin spacey back in the like what did he think we were going to think about this video well he clarified you know what his behavior was i think that was part of this like that's wild he he was continues to be completely uh unaccountable for his behaviors i okay maybe i was pushing the boundaries like you know a modern artist or right you know maybe i was a little

too handsy um yeah what i never really wrote anyone i just caressed them and apparently they didn't want me to yeah he was like gropes kind of like a weird word it's like dude shut up also pushing the bell of what of what consent is like what are you even fucking talking about yeah i love like having to reframe it as if like no man i'm just like it's kind of on the fringes you know of like what's legal i'm avant-garde when it comes to respecting other people's bodily autonomy and, uh, sexuality. Oh, okay. I'm like the Basquiat of consent. Yeah. What?

Um, it's, it is interesting. Like, I feel like he has this concerted strategy in his brain where he's like, what is the thing I'm good at? It's acting and I'm going to act my way out of this bitch. Um,

and so he's done those weird like youtube videos annually where he's like let me be frank and he like plays that character yeah um and it but those videos all come across like he's taunting the public like a bond villain right he's just being like unapologetic and being like you love it you love having me out here fucking weird being a pervert you need me uh sexually assaulting people that's what you need he's in isn't he in some fuck wasn't he in a movie recently and i was like god y'all really don't know how to quit these people i don don't know. Was he really? That's why. I feel like he was in something called Control in 2023.

He's managed to kind of appear in shit. He is the most canceled of the canceled people because Louis C.K. can still go out and like sell in a comedy theater but this motherfucker needs people to put him in movies to have a career and oh that's right he did that video with tucker carlson i almost forgot yeah but it was like a bit where he was being frank underwood from house of cards with yeah yeah his white supremacist best friend nothing nothing says guys i'm i'm a decent person than doing a character bit with tucker carlson over the holidays nothing more impressive than a canceled person trying to go right and like

really hard to fail but like honestly what is kevin spacey gonna do from this point like he doesn't really have a skill set that lends itself to like right wing grifting like right nobody's gonna buy you know nutraceuticals from because kevin spacey told them to yeah peter 5 8 is a film that came out this year that he's the theular Peter. That sounds like a movie from the like K-Pax era, you know? Yeah, Peter Five, Eight. Where it turns out Kevin Spacey's an alien and also maybe Jesus Christ? No, this one, he's just a guy with a bad hairpiece and a gun. Damn.

All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk to you about a lucrative new black market for Taco Bell art. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted,

just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions.

Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.

Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry,

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports.

Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things

sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. And we're back. We're back. And when you think of art heist you probably picture pierce brosnan using a glass cutter break into fancy museum yeah or um what's the one

with katherine zeta jones and the lasers entrapment entrapment yep yes so many lasers gotta have lasers anyway there's definitely lasers they drove the trope of like disappearing a train going by and you disappear uh they drove that shit into the ground in that movie entrapment to the point that it's like a bit at the end where they just keep like doing that like that's how they flirt is like disappearing behind trains guys sexy you can do that once in a movie you can't do it like five times because then we start to have to picture sean connery being like lightning fast yeah somehow or dislocating his shoulder every time he tries to grab the train as it speeds yeah yeah fuck oh god i gotta but so that's probably what you picture i picture a random dude rolling up to a taco bell dumpster and loading up uh some old taco bell art uh stolen taco bell art baby this is so funny man like

do you remember these paintings yes i mean vaguely like when i saw them i'm like oh yeah okay i remember when like they tried to do the glow up inside the Taco Bell and like leave their like yellow and brown colorway scheme that they had through like the 90s and shit yeah um but yeah apparently like these paintings by Mark Smith are people are just fucking going at like they're not even a writ like they're just printed they're just prints that are in a taco bell the art not that great but so yeah he his whole pitch to them was like i'm gonna class up the inside of your taco bell with these prints of like his style is basquiat like like he seems to be consent yeah yes he seems to be trying to you know channel that sort of vibe

um and instead of like putting the prints on a poster the they're like stretched on a canvas and so it like kind of makes taco bell seem classy uh but they're popular basically purely for nostalgic reasons. Right. But there is, people are coming up on, like people who have renovated Taco Bells, for instance, are managing to get these out on the black market and they're selling for like thousands of dollars. Yeah, $750 and a thousand bucks. Some people are listing for $10,000, but no one's fucking buying that shit. Nobody's buying them for $1,000. Some people are listing for $10,000, but no one's fucking buying that shit.

Nobody's buying them for $10,000. Yeah. I did not. I honestly did not. It's just such a weird thing. No one's paying attention. When I saw it, I was like, oh, sure. I remember these vague shapes when I would stroll into the restaurant high.

I don't remember these at all. Yeah. I was usually pretty high when i went to a taco bell yeah it's uh it's it's not great it's not great um but anyway yeah this is uh sure take take your taco bell art and go on with it but again no one was in the taco bell looking at the art it's just so weird it's like people being like oh do you see the art at that strip club it's like no one gives a shit of what you have like people are just there for the fucking chalupas man for the crunch wrap supremes yeah so like the paintings are kind of

dark they're like troubling like one of them is like trying to channel the the feeling of a uh like hunger like low blood sugar and hunger pains right um so and like when they when they gave him the gig they were like yeah as long as it doesn't contain uh devil worship or displays of carnality which just imagining like the draft that he the the pitch that he gave where they were like yeah okay but none of the devil worship and not none of the devil face like somebody eating a chalupa we need to need to cut that part out yeah right well look i'm glad that they've found a way to create as one person put it the game stop of art heists yeah it's sad i mean like i wish i it's funny there was a listener that's so wild i remember like early a few years ago someone from zeitgang's like yo man i found some like taco but it's like

from a shut like shut down taco bell like if you want to hang it up at your house but it wasn't this art it was more like signage oh that like had like legit that taco bell aesthetic to it rather than like this is taco bell art this is gonna be the future of like art museums is just like recreating a taco bell from the early 90s right yeah sf gate uh reported this trend began when paintings from an ohio taco bell were stolen in 2011 and again in 2015. So, wow, I didn't realize that those lasted that long. But anyways, on to a fast food company that actually knows how to make money. Chick-fil-A is having a summer camp in Louisiana where children can go to learn what it's like to work at a Chick-fil-A.

Yep. Yep. It's a very, I've seen this post go around for like the last week and the way it reads, it's like, they're trying to make it seem like, Hey, we've got some really cool sessions for our Chick-fil-A summer camp.

Uh, but basically it says you pay them. Yeah. $35. And in return, your kid gets a kid's meal a t-shirt a name tag and what they do is quote spend some time with the chick-fil-a cow and chick-fil-a team leaders okay get a behind the scenes look of hospitality and service have a fun time getting behind the scenes views of what it's like to work at america's favorite quick service restaurant

enjoy a vip lunch and go home with some goodies they're expecting things to sign up fill up quickly i mean we're saying 9 a.m to noon is and it's like three days so this is this is part of like summer camps there is a cottage industry of just people realizing parents realizing too late oh shit i haven't signed my kid up for summer camp right and they'll sign up for fucking anything they're like fuck it three hours i'll take it i'll take it yeah exactly just get this kid out of here for three hours but um this seems fairly underwhelming and reminds me of my uh middle school where for winning student oh yeah the month ljs's yeah you got to go to long john silver's corporate headquarters and just look at a um bunch of spreadsheets and like a powerpoint and watch so you guys are commercial huh yeah

this place is pretty rocking huh kids just like what do you think i don't know what do you do you think i mean i get somehow you would be like wow i got to pull the machine to make a frosty you know what i mean like that kind of shit would be fun to a kid but then the like the just everything else about it really i mean that would be a very specific child like doesn't like it's pretty basic right like there's not like that much iconic shit like at mcdonald's at least like they used to have the playland like i could like see i don't know what they have inside a chick-fil-a no yeah there's like nothing in chick-fil-a like just chick-fil-a food so like yeah this does feel like a great way

to just like look man we just want to socialize your kids indoctrinate your kids inoculate your kids you know against unionizing you know what i mean we will not talk about that that'd be cool if someone set up a counter camp about unionizing fast food workers there you go um but then they're like can we make frosties they're like i'm sorry you'll learn about solidarity and the kids are like i'm you lost i'm i i know this is good but you lost me they're gonna give me a vip lunch of nuggets over here. Would you ever want to do something like this for your kids? Only if they were really good, you know? Yeah. If they earned it. If they earned it. Yeah, they could go.

You know what, you brought home straight A's. Someone's going to Chick-fil-A camp this Monday for three hours. Just seems like it sends so many bad messages to the kid about like, first of all, what's good food. And then like, what is okay. Any corporation being like,

that's really built on like underpaying their employees. That doesn't feel like an option. One thing, if a kid's like, I want to learn about the forestry service and like how we protect the like you're like okay learn about that you know what i mean but here it's like you want to learn about depressed wage jobs feels a little bit dystopian yeah get them early that's what we say here at chick-fil-a yeah yeah it's corporate grooming is essentially what it is as yeah ironic the editor

pointed out a company that put so much money or you know used to put a lot more money into like uh homophobic causes so yeah yeah who's grooming now and finally uh tech mogul and millionaire b try and get younger he claims like he's basically fixed aging or at least cut it in half he now says he only celebrates his birthday every 19 months instead of uh the conventional 12 he's aging at a pace of 0.64 compared to the rest of us. That's so stupid. Dude, you don't look that. You're not like, I wouldn't believe it if Pharrell said that shit. Yes.

You know what I mean? This guy looks like the human version of a toupee. Where it's like, I see what you're getting at here. You look younger, but I can tell that you're fighting. You're fighting the natural order of things with tooth and nail his tweet it says so weird it says my new record 0.64 pace of aging my birthday is now every 19 months previously i built brain tree venmo now i build human with a goal to slow and reverse aging now i build human yeah now i built human yeah yeah why what's your problem um the i also don't think

he looks young i think he looks no skinny and weird like his yeah he just i he he definitely just has the face and general vibe of somebody who is on a diet that is extremely restrictive and then like has had some facial work done and like has that like glassy skin thing going on right yeah and again yeah uh brian the editor good question what metric is he using 0.64 pace of aging for what because i'd imagine there's no fixed scale for aging like everyone's bodies are rotting at different paces you always hear like old people be like yeah i went to the doctor they said i got the you know liver of a 45 year old but i'm 70 and it's like that's just a thing they made up to make you feel it's more to say like okay these numeric these measurable values are more present in this age cohort.

Yeah, yeah. Sure. But like, so what? You're going to basically live 40% or what? 36% longer than the average human as a result? That's right. Okay. That's right.

See your ass soon, motherfucker. Pass you. All right. Well, those are some of the things that are trending on this wednesday afternoon we are back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show until then be kind to each other be kind to yourselves get your vaccines get your flu shots don't do nothing about white supremacy and we tomorrow. Bye. Peace. and we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.

And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.