The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Most Replayed Moment: Tim Dillon’s Brutal Truth About Gen‑Z

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

In today’s Moments episode, comedian Tim Dillon offers his candid perspective on how different generations approach life and work. From Gen Z’s growing rejection of traditional success, to his sharp critique of fame, Dillon cuts through the contradictions that shape today’s culture. Tim Dillon is a comedian, actor, and host of The Tim Dillon Show podcast, known for his unapologetic takes on culture and politics. In 2022, he released his first Netflix special, Tim Dillon: A Real Hero, followed by I’m Your Mother in 2025.  Listen to the full episode here! Spotify: https://g2ul0.app.link/2hFDeAJJ4Ub Apple: https://g2ul0.app.link/rOBImYPJ4Ub Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcasting. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's taken on a life of its own. What do you think of podcasting? I mean, it's been on a bit of a journey. Obviously there's, there was this big, I think podcasting was like the OGs of podcasting like Rogan started out and then- Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Keith and the Girl are showing New York City, Mark Maron, those

guys were in the very, very early- Before it was cool, before anyone was really like- Yeah. Before the money was there. That's right. And then the celebrities show up. It was like a bit of an experiment for a couple of years. It seems Spotify kind of rolled back from that.

Yes, because they have nothing to say. Most celebrities don't. A lot of them are invented people who are created in a laboratory. The laboratory is CAA, my agency. And they create a person and they get public relations people, they get lawyers, they get all these people, business managers, agents, they come in and they go,

this is who you are, this is what plays, these are the things you highlight about your past, these are the things we don't talk about, let's leave the Confederate flag at home. You know, they create a person. That person then goes and they're now famous. It's a terrible idea to give that person a microphone and tell them to talk for an hour.

It's terrible. You know, many of these people aren't that talented. Some of them are. Some of them are amazingly talented. Some of them are very kind of banal people. People tend to think of Hollywood as this place where it's all satanic pedophiles eating children. Now, undoubtedly some of that is true,

but a lot of it is just very banal boring people that have been created by these corporations that when you realize how boring they are and then you look at how much money they have and where they live that's what will drive you. You'll go oh my god. So that's why podcasting is a really really bad idea for these people. They should be kept somewhere. They should be kept somewhere. They should have very managed things where they come out on the red carpet and they go, how are you doing?

And they just go, climate change, and then walk into the auditorium and get an award. They should be allowed to speak two to three words at once and they should know what those words are beforehand. It is a terrible idea to give someone, again, these people that all of their interactions are with other famous people, all of their thoughts are filtered through a prism of

corporate lawyers before they can say anything. This is not what podcasting is in my estimation. Is there any celebrity podcast that you think is? I'm sure there's some that are really good. This is not everyone, right? I'm sure there are people that have really good podcasts. But like, if we're just talking in general about let's give A-list actors a microphone,

probably not the best idea. Which is probably not the best idea, you know? What's your... Because I know they give Meghan Markle money, they give a lot of people money there at Spotify. You know? What's your... Because I know they gave Meghan Markle money, they gave... They gave a lot of people money there at Spotify. And, you know? And so I don't know that that...

But then they came out and said, we made a mistake. We shouldn't have given these people money. Do you think you should have gotten the money instead? Of course. I absolutely believe that. But you know, I can't compel them to give me the money. I can't compel them, I can't get a member of the royal family to marry me. And I would have stayed in that castle,

no matter what was said. But I can't have that happen, so I can't, you know, Oprah doesn't interview me, so you got, I have enough money. But the, sure, you know, I think it's podcasting to me, the fun of podcasting is being unfiltered, free and just having fun. What's your assessment of these sort of different generations? We have these Gen Z's, millennials, and we have the boomers. What's your read on these? Well, we've given up on the children. The future is not the children. The children are no longer the future.

The future is AI. The future is robotics. We're very clear on that. We don't even talk about the children anymore. We talk mainly about AI. No one's even said anything about the children in months, years, really. We've given up on the children.

They're dead-eyed little monsters. They're running around killing each other. We can't deal with it. It's very traumatic. I've even stopped thinking about what they're doing because it's crazy. I'm more excited about AI than the children, just like anyone else.

Who's reviving the economy of San Francisco? The children? No, AI. So AI's next. We don't know what we're gonna do with the children. Build prisons, that's what I say, for children. They're crazy, they're being raised by algorithms, they're all on fentanyl, they're all on drugs,

we're all running around trying to kill each other and record it. There was a case in Phoenix, Arizona, these rich white kids running around, beating up kids at random, filming it and putting it on TikTok, no motive, nothing, just for clout, just for things, and they killed a kid,

and finally, now because they're all white, of course, the cops didn't do anything for a year, and they killed a kid, and finally, now, because they're all white, of course, the cops didn't do anything for a year, and they were like, wow, just a couple of kids having fun killing the other kids. This is how people grow up. So the Gilbert, Arizona Police Department does nothing about the whole thing. Finally, they just arrested these kids

because they killed somebody. But this is not only there, I mean, it's kind of an epidemic where, like, all over the place, you see, like, I mean, it's kind of an epidemic where like all over the place you see like, young people, unfortunately, these crazy acts of violence that are now being uploaded for clout. People go and look at what I did, and what they did was like assault someone or kill someone.

This is a real problem. So we have to deal with the kids in some way, jail them, put, I don't know what to do with them. But AI's big, robotics is big, that's what is next. The Boomers, I have a book coming out about them. I love the Boomers, they're a selfish generation of people. The state of the Boomers, these paranoid people who refuse to leave their McMansions,

they will not leave, they will not retire. They lord around their houses. They diminish their children. They say, I can't believe you don't own something like this. They like holding these houses over their kids' heads. They retire to bigger houses. They have thousands and thousands of square feet. They're very sick people.

They refuse to give up their jobs. They're dying in the Senate. They're collapsing in Congress. They will not leave up their jobs. They're dying in the Senate. They're collapsing in Congress They will not leave they will not cede any of their power. They're emotional terrorists And and I grew up with them. They're very interesting people They they've proven the lie of the 60s these hippies that everybody thought were like progressive. They're actually not they were always just selfish drug addicts They never cared about Anything they purported to care about. They just wanted to get high and roll around in the mud. And then as soon as the drugs changed from, you know, whatever

from, you know, acid to money, they, you know, became this very like materialistic, soulless group of people. But the funniest generation that has ever lived, nobody's funnier. Nobody's funnier because to be funny, like we talked about, you kind of have to just not care about anything. And there's no generation of people that have cared less about the future of this planet,

about their children, about anything than the boomers. They're all little islands and they all are about themselves forever and ever. There's something actually refreshing about that, funny. And they're holding the planet hostage. They won't die. They won't leave. I've suggested they be forcibly evicted from their homes and committed to mental institutions. Legally, we have some problems. That's not easy to do. I've spoken to some lawyers, there are problems doing that. And then the

Millennials were this very shitty generation of like pin a metal on me, pin a ribbon on me, I'm right, I went to the right college, I got the right internship, I believe the right things, I tweeted the right thing, I did the right thing, I have all the right beliefs, I have the good politics, I have this, shower me with, tell me I'm good, because my boomer parents, they don't care about me, but you tell me I'm good. my boomer parents They don't care about but you tell me I'm good The world needs to fill the void that exists inside of me and these Millennials are these kind of ambitious people that Want to constantly be patted on the back and told how great they are

So they're kind of shape-shifters that conform to any popular sentiment. They crowd source all of their opinions They just want whereas the boomers just kind of didn't care about anyone or anything. You have the millennials who are kind of like more like, I am good and you tell me that I'm good because they're good to be told to be good. Their politics are aesthetic. They want everyone to look at them and to tell them how great they are. And then the zoomers are the younger generation after the millennials. They seem to be somewhat like they're self starters.

They're very skeptical of institutions or a little more cynical. That's some of their positive qualities that they're more independent minded. The negative qualities are the aforementioned murder and the filming of the murders and the killings and the drugs and the fentanyl vapes and all of that, that seems to be less. I mean, we need a draft to be honest. Now that I'm kind of older and fat, now we need a draft. Young people should probably just go into the military.

I know that's gonna be a controversial thing to say, but if they're just going to do fentanyl and attack each other in malls and put it on TikTok, they can go die in the Ukraine so that Boeing can make some money. Are we still on YouTube? So you would you consider yourself to be optimistic about the future? There's a lot going on in the world. No, no. No, I don't, I'm sane. So I don't, I think there's good things happening, but I mean, optimistic about the future overall, I don't know, that's tough to be, maybe, right? I mean, you've got elections coming up this year as well

here in the US, which is a big- Yes, well, we all know elections solve everything. We all know that's where the real power lies, the elections. When you're talking about refusing to linguish control and power, the boomer generation, I was thinking a lot about Biden there. Sure. Because it seems like your presidents are getting older and older and refusing to.

Yeah, I mean, Biden seems to be a bit old. Trump's old. Biden seems to be in a stage of mental decline, though. He was really good at the state of the union. They gave him something, they shot him up with something, which is great. We have no new talent in the country. Nobody wants to be a politician anymore

unless they're psychotic. You need young people that care about the country and that want to change it. And what you're getting now more and more is, all of the interesting people in our country are, and the people that are ambitious and the people that have talent, they don't wanna be in politics.

They wanna be somewhere else. It's more fun to go to Miami and trade Bitcoin on a yacht. You know what I mean? They just don't wanna be in politics. They don't wanna do it. So you end up with these octogenarian, drooling, somewhat, you know, dementia ridden elderly people who are incapable of even understanding what's happening in the, because they don't even know what it is.

They barely know what TikTok is. TikTok is something their grandchild shows them, you know, at some party they're having in Maine. They're sitting on a hill in Maine eating lobsters falling out of their mouth. They go, look grandpa, look at the TikTok. And then they have to then go into Congress and hash this out. No, so I mean, the problem really is we just don't have

young people that care enough about the country because the press is gonna rip their lives apart, right? They're going, there's so much more money elsewhere, there's so much more, and the system's so toxic and so corrupt, they go, I don't want to get involved in that. They get a banned TikTok, aren't they? They're talking a lot about banning. They're talking about it. I have no followers on it, so I'm for the ban. You know? For personal, completely personal reasons, I'm for the band. And I also think it's probably... I don't know.

I don't know anything about it. I just know that people are making a lot of money on it, and so if I say I'm for the band, people get angry with me. It's not a good... It's not a good cultural force. But what is? And you said at the start of this, you said the phrase that, like, you can... That it's bad advice that you can do anything and be anything. But to us, that's always been like the American dream,

is you come here and then you can do anything and be anything. That's what we see as the American dream in the UK, like the land of possibilities. You can become anyone and you rise to the top. Well, yes, we market that quite well. And sure, I mean, listen, yeah, I mean, could you? Yeah, but the reality of the situation is that journey is a bit more involved than people say.

When you go, oh, you can be the president of the United States. When you tell a kid who's an eighth, you know, eight years old or whatever, you can be the president. Yeah, but the journey's a bit involved. You leave out a lot, you leave out a lot about the compromises that you have to make

to become the president of the United States. It's kind of like telling someone they can be a superhero. Yes, I'm sure that you can be a version of that, but there's a little bit you're gonna have to do. I think it's a very bad overall thing to tell masses of people that they should, without regard to reality,

without regard to their own limitations, or their own, without regard to their own tolerance for work, and how much work they want to make, without regard for any of that, telling them that they can just be anything they want to be, it's such a deeper conversation and it's such a, it's a catchphrase, it's a license plate, it's something to put on a shirt, it's a bumper sticker,

it's not a philosophy for life because there's a lot more, there's a lot more that goes into that statement. And I think that's what I mean. Not that people can't do great things. People can absolutely do great things. I think people can do great things in the UK too, right? People can do things in the UK. I mean, maybe the class systems are more stratified there

than it is here. But I just think that like, you know, what we mean when we say you can be whatever you want in America is you can make as much money as you want. That's what we're really saying. We're really pushing this idea that the only route to happiness is this upwardly mobile vertical where you have to grab everything and be a boss and be an entrepreneur and run an empire and that's the way to happiness. That's not the way to happiness. That's what we're

pushing. We're not telling everybody they can be anything they want to be so that we have a lot of challenges to like our ideas and stuff. We're not looking for that type of feedback. We just want people going out and working themselves to death. That's what we really want. When we say that you can be anything you want to be, the translation is work yourself to death. I'm going on my boat. But this younger generation aren't apparently working themselves to death. If you observe things like TikTok where they're having like the mocha chocofrappa lattes and doing the yoga and working at the big tech company and quite quitting.

Some of them have figured out that the country's a scam. And here's the good news. They're not wrong. And when you figured out the country's a scam, you can approach it the way a con artist or a scammer would approach it, which is what a lot of them do. They invent mental health ailments they don't have. They take days off on end, they terrify their superiors into respecting

their mediocre, shoddy quality of work. This is something that Gen Z has latched onto. This is something that I fully support. This is their way of rising through the ranks. They're taking advantage of people that they work with and making them tolerate less and less work and work of lower and lower quality because they've realized that a lot of this is bullshit. So they're like, why shouldn't I get in on it?

And there's obviously the remote work now as well. That's a big thing post-pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. We've realized over the pandemic, I think a lot of people that a lot of the things that we thought were guarantees aren't, and a lot of the things we tended to believe in fervently, we at the very least right now question. I think young people like,

why in the hell should I spend 40 hours doing a job I hate when I can pretend to do it and threaten my boss if they try to fire me and fake a mental illness that I don't have and demand everybody conform to what I want and then use whatever diversity chips I have to go out and throw a scare into anyone that tries to call me to account for any of my behavior. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

I mean, it's very interesting. It's really destabilizing a lot of society. Now, obviously the same thing is to shut those people up and say, shut up. You have to do these things or get out, but nobody's gonna do that. They found the flaw in the system. They've kind of exposed the scam

and once the scam is exposed, it's for all to be seen and now everybody can kinda just approach it the way it is. Everybody now is kinda like, even big companies, everybody's like in it for themself and just trying to figure out like, how do I get the most? And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the most American thing ever, right? Is to try to get something for yourself. There's no, there shouldn't be any hate for that.

It's a bit silly, ridiculous, and crazy how they do it, but they're only taking the tools that you've given to them and that you've allowed them to use, right? So they use these things, you know? They go, why are you late today? They go, I'm gay. You go, don't worry about it. You know, like, it's the most American thing ever

to use the playbook that someone hands you and goes, here's the playbook. And you go, great, I have anxiety. I have anxiety. You keep coming into my physical space, great words. You keep coming into my physical space, you're using volume right now. I have anxiety, I using volume right now. I have anxiety.

I need time right now. This report is not ready, but I need time right now. And you know what I need right now is just to be a little quiet. So it's great. I mean, I'm for it. What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description.

Thank you.