The Iced Coffee Hour - Meet The Female Ben Shapiro | Brett Cooper

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

Click on the link: www.fundandgrow.com/icedcoffee for this amazing opportunity today. Fund&Grow is also extending a special $500 discount for all subscribers! Start creating high-quality content easily with Streamyard: https://clickurl.ca/ICH-streamyard NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselbyhttps://www.instagram.com/gpstephanhttps://www.instagram.com/alex_nava_photography Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w TIMESTAMPS: INTRO - 00:00:00 Tree Total's Bretts Cars - 00:03:29 A Career In Acting - 00:05:27 Physical Shortcomings - 00:14:28 Going To Public School - 00:21:35 Is Homeschooling Better For Kids? - 00:25:32 Emancipating Herself At 15 - 00:31:44 Making $$$ As A Teen - 00:38:10 Graham's BRUTAL Rejection - 00:47:14 The Start Of Brett's Career - 00:53:08 Ayn Rand Gift To Brett's Mom - 00:57:18 Finding Her Political Thinking - 00:59:20 Joining The Daily Wire - 01:10:17 Current Events vs Emotional Anecdotes - 01:22:27 Why Gen Z Don't Want Kids - 01:29:09 Are Your Kids You're Best Friends - 01:35:42 Legalizing Drug Use - 01:47:28 Opinions On Andrew Tate - 02:08:06 When To Change Your Opinion - 02:17:49 The Biggest Threat To Humanity - 02:25:33 Anti-P*** Philosophy - 02:30:35 Questions For Jack And Graham - 02:48:10 For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] GET YOUR FREE STOCK WORTH UP TO $1000 WITH OUR SPONSOR PUBLIC - USE CODE GRAHAM: http://www.public.com/graham MY NEW COFFEE IS NOW FOR SALE: http://www.bankrollcoffee.com/ The Equipment used: https://tinyurl.com/y78py5g2 Audio Equipment Used In Podcast: Shure SM7B mics, cloud lifters, rodecaster pro audio interface The YouTube Creator Academy: Learn EXACTLY how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube, rank videos on the front page of searches, grow your following, and turn that into another income source: https://bit.ly/2STxofv $100 OFF WITH CODE 100OFF For Podcast Inquiries, please contact [e-mail] *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So today we're going to be speaking with Brett Cooper. She's one of the most prominent Gen Z political commentators who's quickly grown an audience of more than 2.5 million through her outspoken opposition to the woke agenda with the Daily Wire. I guess you might also know her as the female Ben Shapiro. What surprised me most about this episode was just how shocking her story was and how that led to her beliefs today. I was emancipated at 15.

I moved to California to pursue acting about 10 years ago. I was acting in Atlanta first, lived in New York for a bit, doing theater, then went out to L.A. for film and TV. and so I was working there professionally for about 10 years. You're going to want to make sure to subscribe because next week, we're also posting our discussions with Hassan Piker, who's on the complete opposite end of the political spectrum. And you don't want to miss out on that.

So subscribe. And now with that said, a quick message from our video sponsor first. By the way, man, now that we're off camera, I wanted to run by you my next business idea. It's basically like drop shipping, but for endangered animal species. Cameras are still on. Nobody steal my idea.

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dot club because the dot com was taken. We're actually doing this kind of right now. We're filming an episode just with Jack and I about business and behind the scenes and all that. So if you guys are interested, check out iced coffee hour.combe hour.combe. Or the link is down below in the description. Go check it out. And now let's get into the podcast. Welcome back to the ice coffee hour. I'm Brett Cooper. We are here in Nashville at our studios. I just made some ice coffee at my office for Jack and Graham. How do you think it is? I think it's fantastic. It's growing on me. first few sips were, I would say, eight out of ten. Okay.

Now, nine point five out of ten. Awesome. I mean, I took a risk by putting the Chick-Palay ice in there. Yeah. I knew it was going to melt faster. It's bold. I didn't put it in yours, though. No, I got the regular ice.

Mine's great, though. I put hazelnut in this. It's good. 20-cent ice coffee. I love that. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Thank you.

So much for doing this. Yes, I'm so excited. Mad you just start choking on it, Jack. We came all the way here to Nashville for you. and you were so gracious, this entire set, you guys set it up, extremely appreciative of it. We just, I feel like we can't not mention what just happened. We went to go tour some homes.

You and Graham were like filming because you're looking to buy a house. We can talk about that later. And while you were filming, just after we arrive at the house, there was some banging, loud banging. I thought Jack had fallen. He thought Jack had fallen. He thought I had slipped down the stairs. Yeah, no, I didn't fall. Because Jack was about to walk up the steps.

I was like, oh, crap, he fell. I was, yeah. He thought I felt. But actually what happened was a, like huge limb off of a tree fell over, crashed over, probably total two. Yeah, three cars. Three cars. Yeah. I mean, that was freaky.

It was like your entire cruise cars. So we have a tornado warning all day today, but the storm we thought was going to be over, obviously. So we were going to cancel the video because we weren't even sure because it was storming or like, should we even go out there? And then it was so sunny. So yeah, it was wild. I'm grateful that everybody's okay though. You know, it works out better for my video. I get excited for this weather though.

I have to say like when it's windy like that. raining earlier. I was so excited. I told Jack earlier. Like, it's supposed to, uh, there's supposed to be lightning and thunder. Like, I was looking forward to that. Extreme conditions are the best. I grew up in like Ventura, which is a very temperate place. And whenever I see extreme temperatures or extreme winds and stuff like that, it just excites me because it's so normal there. Yeah. And it's a blessing. Yeah. It's very fun. So, well, tell us a bit about your story. I first found you, I think, on Twitter. Okay. Because of the female Ben Shapiro. And I saw the resemblance. And I thought, okay, you guys are related somehow. To clear there, you guys are

not related. We're not related. Although you gave me the great idea that we should do a DNA test, just to see if there's any connection. There might be something there. Yeah, I mean, because I didn't see it. I think it's the eyebrows, but I really don't know. We should actually do a side by side, but I've seen it in some photos. But the mannerisms too are like very similar. I would say so. Yeah. And I didn't grow up watching Ben. So that's one like I don't think I adopted it because of that. I was like a hardcore like Michael Knowles fan. I loved to like, you know, Candice before coming here. But I would listen to Ben and I knew who he was. But I was. But I was. and somebody who religiously watched his show.

And so a lot of people, you know, have said, you know, oh, you know, you're right wing. You probably, like, grew up watching Ben. Like, that's why you talk. I'm like, literally, no, we just speak very, very quickly and talk with our hands a lot, apparently. But no, so, yeah, I am a Daily Wire now. I host the comment section was not hired because of any relation to Daily Wire,

even though many people think that. But I am originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then I moved to California to pursue acting about 10 years ago. I was acting in Atlanta first, lived in New York. New York for a bit doing theater and then went out to LA for film and TV. And so I was working there professionally for about 10 years. How did you get into acting? So I was deathly shy as a child. Okay. And my brother's high school was doing a production of The Wiz and which is like an adaptation of Wizard of Oz. And they needed the siblings of some of the kids at school to be like the munchkins

at the end of the show and like to stand like do a couple of songs and then come out and be like cute and tiny. I think it was five at the time. No five or six. Um, deathly shy. My mom knew some people. that were working, you know, on the show. My brothers were not into theater whatsoever. And she was like, this is the opportunity to get my kid, like, over this because I would not talk to people. And this was like something that she was actively working on. My mother is incredible. She was a very, very intentional parent.

And so she knew I was very shy. So she would, you know, stand outside of a gas station, bring, you know, make me go inside with a $5 bill and buy something. She would watch me, like, go up with, you know, to the counter with a candy bar and have to talk to the person or something like that. Do you remember, like the reason? Was it nervous of strangers? Not really. I don't really know. I just think I was uncomfortable.

Not to go in a totally different direction, but one of my brothers died when I was five years old. And so I think, I mean, that totally blew up the dynamic of my family. And I think at a very young age, that was something I didn't really understand. I remember at one point, like we had a bunch of people at our house shortly after he died, like, you know, bringing castles and that sort of thing. And I was literally like hiding in a cupboard. And I was just like, I didn't really know how to process it. My whole family was very chaotic.

I didn't really know how to interact with people at school. After that, it was very, very defensive. And I think I just kind of shut down because it, you know, five years old, how are you supposed to process anything like that? I think my family was so concerned with, you know, my older brothers who were, you know, seemingly more impacted by it than I was. So I, I would say that is the root cause of it. Obviously, I don't have that issue anymore. I credit a lot of that to acting. So I think that was why, but she was very intentional with getting me out of my shell and making sure that, you know, once she noticed that this was a pattern, she was like,

I want to make sure that this is addressed. So she signed me up to basically do this show and was like, Maybe she'll like it. I don't know. Never, you know, did any theater herself, was never a stage mom, never wanted that. I thought it would be a one and done, and I fell in love with it. Like, I just came alive. I loved music. Even before that, I, you know, I was already doing ballet, and I just loved performing and I loved storytelling in any capacity. And then I just kept begging to do more shows. So I did a few other shows with the high school, just being like the, you know, one of 10 siblings that would be on stage, like doing a little dance number. to community theater, auditioned for a few regional professional productions. My first professional job was singing with the Atlanta Symphony and Opera, and I was one of their chorus kids and was paid to do opera basically at, I think, seven years old, eight years old.

I started doing like long running regional productions. I did a production of Annie that I think ran for four months when I was 10 years old and then got representation. So I had an agent and manager at the time. Who's idea was that? There's a big leap between doing life. This was all. what you were doing and getting into that, like in a manager.

So I, with doing professional things, I just kept asking for more. And so, you know, our community theater didn't really have a ton of productions where they would, you know, have kids involved. And so I would say, like, where else could I audition? Like, where else can I go? And so we would, you know, my mom and I would sit at the computer and I would find, okay, well, this one's an hour away. Let's try to do this. So you go on the computer and find your own? We would go together, yeah.

What did you like so much about it? I love the fact that I could tell stories as somebody else. Something that I've dealt with for a very long time is that I felt like I could not actually effectively communicate what I was feeling. I was like very, very bottled up and I, you know, credit a lot of that to my family. Not only did my brother die. My parents had a very, very messy divorce. Just grew up in a very, very turbulent home.

And I think that acting gave me the outlet that I needed in order to express myself. and I loved telling stories. I loved being able to be somebody else for two hours. So it might have been a bit of an escape in a sense. It's just like you zone out. You could be somebody else, tell a story, make people laugh. The adrenaline rush of it. I loved connecting with an audience too.

I mean, I did TV and film for 10 years, but when I am on stage, it's like nothing else. Like the energy of having hundreds of people in the room and they are along the journey with you. And I think that's the beautiful thing about theaters. So whenever I hear people be like, I don't really like musical theater, I don't like theater.

like just try it because you're sitting in this room together as a community going through this like hour and a half long journey together and as the actor on stage it's a much more demanding task because you can't really take breaks it's not like oh you know screwed up that line let me try it again it's like you are in it for an hour and a half the adrenaline rush is insane you are outside of yourself basically for an hour and even as a kid I think I needed that and I just became a totally different person um and it broke me out of my shell I had so much fun yeah it was a bit of a bit of leap so I started doing professional stuff and I had this one goal I wanted to be Jane Banks in the Broadway production of Mary Poppins which was currently on Broadway at the time I think it was probably 10 or 11

I had seen the musical multiple times I was like that is what I want I want to play that role it's so fun so then and this is all people sometimes people don't believe it but like my mother did not want me to do this she wasn't like actively like going against it but she was like I'm not going to push you to do this like we live in Tennessee my brothers were in college she was dealing with a failing marriage This was not the time to be like getting her kid into professional whatever. I wrote a letter to a manager who repped three of the girls that had been Jane Banks on Broadway. And I found him because I would actively watch interviews of like young women that were on Broadway. Like anywhere from my age to like 15 years old, like how did they do this?

How do they get to do that? And I saw this guy like for the interviews and like, and he was their agent at the time. And then he became a manager. So I found where he was currently working and I wrote him a letter and I said, you know, these are all the things that I've been in. I desperately want to be Jane Banks. And then I, he still has it, I think. But I did a drawing of myself in the Jane Banks outfit on a stage.

And I sent it to him. Wow. I'm somebody that like I will take any risk. If I can give one piece of advice to anybody my age, it's just like, just ask. If you just write a letter, if you just like the worst that somebody can say is no, but at least you tried. People are so damn terrified to just shoot your shot. It's like, please, just go for it.

Anyway, so I sent this letter and I got an email back and he was like, well, you fly up to New York and meet with me. So I remember going to his tiny office in Manhattan and I sang a song and I did a monologue. How old were you at the time? I was 10 years old. So my mom flew off with me and she was like, this is insane. What are her thoughts? Like you're flying to New York to meet with a guy who's reppping these people on Broadway? She mean, she did like, you know, research about him and was like, we're going into that kind of thing.

Wait, were you sending this directly to him? Was she like the intermediary? Like, you're giving it to her and she sends it to him? Yes, like we would go. Like we went to the mailbox together and like send it off. But I was the driving force behind all of it. I bet she's thinking like, oh, this is cute. Let's just do this.

Exactly. Yeah. And to her, you know, parenting style, I don't think that she would have done this if my brother had not died. Her parenting style totally changed after my brother David's death. And she has made most decisions since then based on, especially in my youth, you know, if she had known that David was only going to have 17 years, would she have said yes to doing this? So if, you know, he had wanted to go pursue something, if he had wanted to travel to do some, he was an artist. If he had wanted to do some, like, crazy art program and go, you know, would she have said yes, knowing that he only had 17 years? And so I'm the youngest, and it totally changed her perspective for me.

And so obviously, I don't think that these were easy decisions to say, like, all right, let me allow my child to go into this room and pursue these things. But I was so, so excited about it. I was so passionate. And, you know, she and anybody in your, in my family will be able to tell you that, like, my self-confidence, my personality, it totally just blossomed. with being able to do performing. But hold that thought, Brett. Of course, the Daily Wire is a hundred plus million dollar company that probably spends millions of dollars on video production every year,

but it really shouldn't cost that much to create high-quality content. Like, if you're looking to get started, one of the best ways that you could begin is with a software like our sponsor Streamyard. Streamyard is a live streaming software that allows you to create high-quality content with the click of a button. All you need is a camera and an internet connection to be able to stream directly from your browser. And one of my personal favorite features is that they allow you to multi-stream, which basically means that you can stream to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more all at the same time.

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Thank you so much, Stream Yard, and back to the podcast. But yeah, I signed with this manager, and so I started auditioning for things on Broadway. I ended up getting the role of Jane Banks, and I was going to be coming in. I had to come back for one last meeting and the girl who was currently playing the role, her contract was going to be up.

And there's a thing on Broadway where if you are under the... age of 18, you cannot be taller. I think at the time it was like, you cannot be taller than five foot one because from the back of the house, they want to make sure that you look shorter than the adults that are on stage. So you need to look like a child. And I had a huge growth spurt over those two months periods, two month period. So I came back. They measure you first thing when you walk in the door and there's the audition height. And if you are taller than that, you can't audition. And then there's show height where they will literally end your contract if you go, if you get too tall. And so I had

surpassed both the audition height and the show height. And so that totally kicked me out of the running for any other Broadway shows. Doesn't that make you really critical of like your body at that age where you're just like, I hated it. Like I would stand there and I would like hunch myself down. And I continued auditioning for a few months after that. Like there was the revival of Annie that was coming up. I was way too tall for Matilda. Matilda was on Broadway. Billy Elliott had just closed. This is all just a bunch of like theater nerd stuff. But there were a ton of shows that had kids in them at that time. And I literally could not audition for any of them. How tall were you? I was like 5-2.

I was barely over, barely over. But I was 10 years old and 5-2. And so I was like, that was it. And so I had this whole management team. And I remember going into a meeting and sitting down and they were like, so you can go home to Chattanooga and wait until you're 18. You can wait eight years. And then you can start auditioning for Broadway again.

You can just keep doing the regional theater you're doing. You know, we'll stick with you. Or if you wanted to, you could go out to L.A. and try film and TV. And my mom was like, absolutely not. Like, she's from California. We talked about this in the car. She spent most of her adult life in California prior to moving to Tennessee. see she just wanted a different pace.

And she was like, I'm not going. Every time that she's left California, she said, I'm never coming back, even though she was born in L.A. And I begged. I was like, please, like, I can't just sit at home, do this. And so I started auditioning via tape. And so she was like, let's just see if there's any bites. Like, let's try you doing film.

Let's get you in a film class. See if you even like doing this before we literally send you to L.A. to do something. I still loved it. I started getting callbacks for things. And so we rented out. a friend's apartment in L.A. And my mom and my dad and I drove across the country, did Route 66, and I lived there with her for three months.

And I did like every, you know, casting director workshop. I did all of these acting classes. I was auditioning nonstop. Did a few commercials. I got a L.A. management and agency. And then from that point on, for the next four years, I would spend six months at home in Tennessee and then six months in Los Angeles. So I would go in the fall and then the spring in L.A.

And spend the rest of the time at home. And I loved it. It was like, I mean, it was absolutely crazy. And I feel very, very fortunate that I got the chance to have a professional career at young age. And I don't think that that's many, you know, I don't think that's something that many people would want. And I definitely sacrificed a lot for it. But I loved it so much. Tell us about your schooling at that time. Yes. Because how do you balance the two? So I was in public school from kindergarten to third grade. My mom pulled me out in third grade because my reading level was above that of my class. She had a meeting with my teacher and said, could I give you know, could I give you some books for Rhett to read so that, you know, she stays interested in it's not falling behind or anything like that.

It's not getting bored, not being complacent in the teacher's head. I just have too many students. I can't do it. So my mom pulled me out and she created the curriculum up until sixth grade. So you're homeschooled from third to six. What was that like for you? Like being pulled out, you liked it. How are you making friends through this whole process?

Especially if you're living in two different states and then being homeschooled, how are you meeting people? When we were still in Chattanooga and I had not gone out to L.A. yet, I was doing ballet multiple times a week. And then I was a competitive gymnast. So I did that multiple times a week. I was in a choir, some of the people through that. Every show that I did, I would make friends through that. You know, friends in the neighborhood that I still knew from public school. That is like the primary question that anybody who's homeschooled gets.

And some people, you know, hate it because their parents did not go out and find them extracurricular opportunities and did not find them ways to be socialized. I literally would not change my experience for the world. I had the most diverse group of friends because rather than having, you know, one group of people that you go through, you know, K through 8, then you go into high school or whatever and it's, you know, the same demographic from that same neighborhood, I was friends with people of all different ages, you know, on my gymnastics team from all different parts of. town, you know, boys and girls, I had to interact with adults constantly because I was, you know, dealing with my ballet teachers and my gymnastics coaches and spent a lot of time, you know, wherever my mom was volunteering or my dad was working like I would go and do school at his office. And so I was constantly interacting with his secretaries and, you know, his coworkers. So at a very young age, I became adept at socializing with adults, which I think is so beneficial

and it made me a lot more confident and, you know, willing to network and start working at a young age. So I remember, you know, being in high school and I wanted a side job. And so, you know, I would be talking to my friends and say, I want to go, you know, apply at this place. I'm like, you just go in and you talk to them. It's like, yeah, it's fine. And so I would go into Trader Joe's, drop off my resume, go to, you know, lush beauty, drop off a resume. I was just so comfortable with it. And then on top of that with acting, you're constantly interacting with, you know, casting directors, directors, producers, writers, you know, adult actors that you're working with a professional environment. You have to be able to work at that level.

Yeah. With child actors, they will give you some grace for being. kid but you also like they won't hire you if you're an idiot that's like rolling around and being super immature so you kind of have to up your game um so that is how i you know socialized for those few years and then i did an online private school but in this online private school you could still customize your curriculum that's something my mom cared very much about prior to investing in real estate and being a stay-at-home mom she was a textbook publisher with w w norton so she was deep into academia knew what she wanted me to be reading knew what textbooks you know she wanted me to be reading So with my teachers, she would work at the beginning of the year, and we would all go over the curriculum.

And it was usually tailored to things that I was very interested in. I'm a super, super heavy reader. I love, love literature. And so rather than reading, you know, six books in a semester, I was reading 30, maybe. What sort of books were you reading? Just classic literature, primarily. Yeah. And every week was like a different, you know, we'd do American literature.

We'd do it from this time period. We would do British literature. I remember, I think I read Jane Eyre when I was 10 years old for the first time. Oh, my gosh. Here I was reading goosebumps. I love this book, though. I mean, I had my Nancy Drew phase. I think I read all like 55 Nancy Drews, you know, about three times.

But I had a very, very academically rigorous upbringing, even though I was also working. And it all sounds very, very intense, but I had so much fun. And I loved, it was worth for me, you know, having to time block, I guess, and time manage my school if I was going to be on set. and I would, you know, work on it at night or, you know, on set you usually have like a tutor, and so they would make sure that I was going through all my schoolwork and I would have my laptop there and be doing things. And that's what I did, you know, until graduation,

except for one year, I went to a normal public school in Atlanta for my ninth grade year. What was that like? Terrible. Absolutely terrible. I asked to go. My friends were going to this Performing Arts High School, and I knew these friends from doing theater in Atlanta,

and I went and I saw one of their, like, school productions. I was like, this is insane. It was called Pebbleburg. high school. It's one of the best like public performing arts high schools in the country. I looked at my mom and I was like, I want to go here. This is insane. Like I want to try to be normal. I want to take a break from LA for a year. I'll still audition, but I want to go see what this is like. And I thought it would be really, really cool. I hadn't sung in a long time. And so I could be a vocal major and, you know, do all the musicals. So I auditioned. We got a rental house in

Cobb County, Atlanta. And I went for a year. And within like two months, I knew it was not for me. What did you dislike about it? I did not like that my time was dictated by somebody else, basically. So I felt like I was so unproductive, which seems absurd for like a 14-year-old to be saying in ninth grade. I was actually, I think, 13 in my ninth grade year. Because I graduated college at 19, I think. 19-20. So I think I was 13, 12, turning 13 in my freshman year of high school.

And I hated that for six hours of the day, I was sitting in a classroom when I knew because I'd been homeschooled for so long, I could get all of this work done in a two-hour span. Like the busy work I didn't need to do. I didn't like having to watch other people's hands being held. I didn't like the disruptions in class. And then I would stay late for dance rehearsals, musical rehearsals, auditions, and that sort of thing. And then I would go home. And because I didn't feel academically and challenged, I went to my counselor and I said, can I do online AP classes?

So my entire time there, I was doing a normal class load at school. I stayed an additional hour afterwards if you were a magnet performing arts high school or a magnet performing arts student at the school you stayed an additional hour and did like a dance class of a vocal class or whatever and then i would often have rehearsals afterwards then i would come home i would do my work and then i would do ap classes why couldn't you have just dropped out i know like it seems silly to me that you were homeschooled for so long go for two months i would just say let's go back to homeschooling what's what kept you there because i made a commitment and i wanted to see it through yeah well you moved your entire parents yeah exactly decision doesn't mean you have to commit like what's the benefit of committing at

that point. I would just say like, you know what? I guess following through and being able to say that I did it. Okay, sure. You know, I made this commitment with myself. I wanted to try it. I also wanted to be able to say later down the line, I did go to, I went to a public school. I tried it. And I know both sides of the story. And I had also kind of fed into the assumption that being homeschooled made you weird and that I was off by that. And I wanted to see if normal high school was like the movies basically depicted it. I wanted the letterman jacket. I wanted to

like go to homecoming, do all that stuff. It just wasn't for me. Yeah, sure. But it also was one of the, because I did all those extra AP classes, it was one of the best academic years for me. At 13 years old, I don't remember how many people were in, it was a huge school. I think it was maybe over 2,000 people were in my freshman class. I ended up first in my class.

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going to be for me, but I wanted to make the best of it. I did every musical. I auditioned for everything. I tried to, you know, basically suck the marrow out of life as much as I could have. But by the second semester, I felt so tied down and so unhappy that I hated who I had become. I felt like I was not being a good friend, people that I had loved in the first semester. I was, I didn't feel like I was treating them as well. I just felt very distant. I wanted to get out. And I was so much happier when I made the decision to leave. And now I'm, you know, still friends with them. We stay in contact and they went through all, you know, three years. But it was the best decision, I think for me to go and learn that, I think it forced me to kind of realize that what I was doing

was the right thing for me. And it was a challenge for sure, because it was a different learning environment, forced me to adapt. So I remember seeing homeschool kids as a kid. And they were always kind of weird. Yeah. That would be my biggest concern of like ever doing homeschooling is feeling like they're in a bubble that they don't get the true experience. They're not going to be like out there kind of like forging their own path. What are your thoughts about that? I think it comes. comes down to the parents and how you dictate it. Because obviously, if you keep your kid just inside and you don't facilitate any other kind of extracurriculars, they're not going to benefit from it.

But the benefit of homeschooling is the opportunities and the freedom and the flexibility that you do have. So if you are in, you know, like my online school that I went to, I didn't have to finish all my classes by a certain period. I had like nine months. And so if I wanted to get everything done in two weeks, I could have. If I said, hey, you know, I'm shooting this movie. I'm not going to be able to do this for. three months. I could pick it up later. You know, with home, I didn't go to a, we tried to co-op for a bit where you would go,

you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday for like two hours in the morning and you would get graded. Didn't really love that. The opportunities weren't great in Chattanooga. But I had so much flexibility, so I was able to do everything that I was interested in. I took art classes. I did gymnastics. I volunteered. And that was only because I had the time to do it. I was not, you know, in school until 3 p.m. I spent so much time with my family. I spent so much quality time with my brothers. My relationship with my mom is one of the things that I'm most proud of. And we really developed that over, you know, that period. I also think I inherited, and you know, this could be a benefit or a drawback, depending on other people like me or don't like me.

I inherited a lot of her values because of that, because I spent so much quality time with her that she was the one who raised me, not a teacher. And I think that that is so important because when you look at the statistics of how much time kids are spending with their parents these days, I think that the Department of Labor, it's like 35 minutes a day. That's it? Yeah. When you... But what age...

What is it? We got to figure out the parameters. Yeah, so I need to look at like what the actual, you know, ages. But when you remove like bathing, making dinner. Watching a movie together? Like that's not... Because that doesn't count.

Because that's a quality time. When you are face to face with your kid bonding, doing an activity where you are interacting. Yeah. Not just like sitting in front of a screen or not like, oh, my kid's in the same room, but farther away. But like, that's an average of 35 minutes a day. I think that was in 2021 was when, you know, I saw that stat.

That was not the case for me. Like, I mean, I was with them all the time, whether I was at my dad's office doing work, whether I was with her, whether I was with grandparents, I spent so much time with family. And I'm very lucky that I, you know, love my family. But that's something that I also, you know, do not take for granted at all. But I think that that's something that parents should be concerned about. And obviously, you know, depending on your, you know, financial situation, your job situation might not be possible. And obviously you do need to consider, you know, the education system,

the public schools and that sort of thing in your area. But it's really taking into consideration, like, who is raising your kid at the end of the day? Who is spending that, whether it's the media, whether it's teachers. And my mom didn't homeschool me because of that, but I think that that is a result of this. She was never pulling out of school because of an ideology or anything like that. It was simply because she wanted a better education for me. But by default, like I think I got a really incredible physical education, but also, like, emotionally, you know, the interpersonal side of it. But why do you feel like there's sometimes a stigma, let's just say, if the homeschool kid goes out to the real world, they go crazy. They start parting. They do drugs. They'd like get in

trouble. Why do you think that is? And what held you back from that? Again, I think it's, those are usually the kids that have not been pushed out in the world at a young age, have not been able to take advantage of the opportunities that you can usually have when you are homeschooled. And it's interesting because the recent stats show that homeschoolers, at least in high school, going into college, drink less, do less drugs, are not partiers. And I think we're getting better at that. Also, academically, our scores are off the charts. We're getting into better schools. The Ivy League seek out homeschoolers these days.

And so, again, it goes back to the parents of if you are making this decision, you are not only taking on your children's academic life, you are taking on their social life. And you have to remember that. Because just keeping them in their house, that is why. It's because they do not have a social interaction. They do not have a social life outside of the home. And obviously, you know, spending time with mom and dad is great, but you have to be around other people. And so I think that, you know, you see one side of homeschooling and that is kind of the loudest

group and people oppose it for that group. But I also like the smartest people I know in my life are homeschoolers because they, you know, advanced so quickly in their academic careers because they started working at a very young age. They're incredibly self-reliant. And I think those are some of the benefits. But again, it does go back to the parents. And so if you want a homeschool but you are not in a position to take all of that on,

it's like then maybe they would be maybe better off in some other school. And if you are concerned about academics, or try private school. Maybe a public school or a private school. Sure. But it's really like I understand the stigma because of that. But I would also push back on people saying that homeschoolers are inherently weird because I definitely was weird. I was a total nerd.

I was a theater kid. I had a career. And I look at kids that are normal these days. and I'm so glad that I'm not one. Like, I'm very glad that I was not partying. I'm so glad that I did not succumb to the same peer pressure that a lot of my friends who, you know, grew up in the normal school system did. I was totally oblivious to all of that.

I didn't go through it. I've had people say, you didn't get bullied. So, like, you haven't been knocked around. No, hell, yeah, I've been knocked around. Like, I had an entire acting career. Like, I was told no, 99% of the time. Like, my brother died. My father, you know, has serious mental health issues.

I had enough, like, happened in my life, basically. So I don't think that you are completely. you know, exempt from bad things happening or being toughened up. So I guess that those are some of my pushbacks against it. But obviously, there's a reason why that stigma exists. There obviously are homeschoolers that, you know, have come out that way. Sure. So what happens when you left public school?

Yes. Where did you go after that? Went back to L.A. was still splitting my time between L.A. and Chattanooga. Started doing film again. I think it was like the next summer I shot a fox. miniseries called shots fired so I was living in North Carolina that summer doing a show um that fall actually I emancipated myself so I was emancipated at 15 why um myriad of reasons um I was about to shoot the second season of a show it had been picked up we didn't have a lot of

details yet but it was supposed to shoot in in Prague um and at the time my parents are going through their very very messy divorce my oldest brother uh this was mostly in my opinion due to the death of of his twin, who's my brother's way of brothers who are identical twins. And Reed, who is the surviving twin watched David die. And he has, you know, I don't think ever really recovered for that. I don't know if you can recover from watching. Can we ask what happened? Is that?

Yeah, he had a cardiac arrest. So they were on the rowing machine and he just had a cardiac arrest. The rowing machine? Was that like an underlying heart condition? We had no, we like didn't know. Just at the gym? Yep. At school?

Yeah. At school? Yeah. And the school didn't have defibrillators. And so they did see. PR but could not revive him. What we think is that he had something called long QT syndrome, but we're not sure the autopsy really didn't bring back much.

We didn't want to just spend a lot of time doing tests. But I mean, my whole family, it's crazy. We still really don't know because Reid, who is his identical twin has no signs of it, has never had any signs of it. And they are genetically identical. And so truly, the only one that has had a sign of it is me. Like, sometimes on my EKGs because I do them yearly, like something is popped up. That's kind of weird, but I think it's been alarming.

But Reed has had no signs of it. Oh, my gosh. But it's been 16 years since David's death now. And Reed spiraled years after that. So at the time, I mean, he took, he left college and went to India for four years, did hard, hard drugs and came back totally different. He was his way of coping. My parents tried to keep him from going, held money over his head.

My grandparents gave him money and he ended up, you know, going. And it was just a whole, you know, obviously, a lot of turbulence, I would say. And he really, really struggled when he came back and then he had a psychotic break. So my brother is now, at this point when I'm 15, he is diagnosed schizophrenic. Yikes. Yeah. I can't imagine that with a twin because I hear a lot of the times that there is that connection between them. And I believe that.

I think it's like a part of yourself is dying at the same time. And so you know when you're growing up and there is, I don't know the psychological term for it, but therapists talk about it a lot where you are, you know, moving into adulthood, it usually happens around college age for us people in the modern age now, but where you break away from your parents. You start to see them as individuals rather than as parents. You differentiate yourself from your family. As you're creating your own family, you're creating new relationships.

You're not living at home. Twins have to go through that on another level with each other because they spend their entire lives like Reed and David did everything together. We're in the same exact class. They lived in the same room. They went to boarding school. Lived in the same room. They went to the same group of friends looked exactly the same. Throughout their entire life, David would wear red, Reed would wear blue.

So my mom dressed them as a baby. They kept it up in high school. But it's like they were connected, looked literally identical. friends couldn't tell them apart they had not at 17 years old had not gone through that break and so it was like literally this person instantaneously was ripped away from my brother. And he was at an all-boys school. And so at 17 years old, had no outlet, he has often said to me,

he was like, Brett, I cried once and I was fine. I was fine, I promised, like, it didn't impact me. And it's like, you're bullshitting us. Like, I know you did, and you don't need to do this for your friends. And so I think because he never actually processed it, it just festered and festered and festered. And then he did a lot of drugs

that literally changed his brain chemistry. Like he would do things in India where he would wake up two weeks later in a totally different part of the country. I'm serious. Yeah. I mean, he's done probably everything in all the books. Yeah.

I came back, was continuing to abuse drugs, got him in front of doctors, and then refused to take medication for any, and I have my own thoughts about, you know, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and that sort of thing. And I really believe that there are a lot of lifestyle and diet changes that people can make to help mitigate that. And he did not want to do any of that. He said, I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem.

And it's like you're literally having psychotic breaks in front of us. And so he was at the time on the street. and he refused medication and schizophrenics can often be violent. So my mom said, you cannot live with us, you cannot live with your younger sister. Unless you were on these meds, you need to figure something else out. So he was like, well, I can get drugs on the street. So for two years, he was homeless. And so I had this TV show that I was possibly going to Prague for.

My parents were getting divorced. I got pulled into the divorce. At 15 years old, I should have been able to say, like, I want, you know, I don't want to have to split custody or whatever. And at the time, I was like, I have a career. I'm living in Los Angeles. My brother is a mess. I cannot be dealing with, like, my parents' stuff in Chattanooga right now. I should not be involved in it.

I kind of felt like I started being used as a pawn in it. So I got a lawyer. It was not contentious. You could lower your 15? How did you do that? Was it publicly, like, they gave it to you? No, I went and I found one in Chattanooga, so I did it in Tennessee. I bet you just walked in with your resume.

Yeah, it was like, hey, here I am. I was still in L.A. at the time, but because I was a resident of Tennessee, my, you know, Blurner's permit was in Tennessee. How do you pay for that? I imagine a lot of lawyers at that point would just do it pro bono. Maybe in Los Angeles.

It's very, very difficult to do because a lot of families will try to do that because it's easier to be an actor if you are not a minor because they don't have to pay the additional feed. Right.

A tutor, you can work longer hours, that kind of thing. So a lot of parents and families and stage moms and that kind of thing will try to screw with the system and get their kid emancipated to do it. I didn't want to deal with that and I was still resident in Tennessee.

So we had a couple of couple of family friends. My mom actually helped me because I went to her and I said, I cannot be a part of this. Like, you know, your intention, you know, your attention to split between, you know, Reed and, you know, being at home in Chattanooga and she was going to move Reed back to Chattanooga. And she was like, you're going to have to come. And I was like, I don't want to. I'm, you know, I'm a professional. I'm literally have a career. Please just like let me try to do this. And so she was like, okay. So once again, me like dragging my mom along for this journey. But had, I don't even remember, he was the.

father of a family friend of ours and who's a family lawyer and so it was a relatively like not a difficult process but yeah I brought my resume showed the money that I was making and I he said you know it's not consistent enough because acting's you know ebbs and flows so that was at the time

when I got a job at Trader Joe's so I was 15 got a job at Trader Joe's worked there until 2021 I kept that job throughout all of my asking yeah all throughout college how much were you making at 15 um $17 an hour that's really good. That's fantastic. Trader Joe's great pays awesome money. Yeah. And you get full health care and all that. So I got my health care through them. How do they hire you at 15 though? Because in California, you could start working at 15. So I could get my own insurance because I was emancipated. So I started working there and I kept auditioning. And then I lived in L.A. for a summer when my parents were finalizing their divorce just in an apartment in our apartment by myself. What did your parents say about you getting emancipated? Did they have any thoughts on that? Did they try to stop you from doing that? Or were they like, well,

you know you could make your own decisions my dad was more concerned with it my mom was on board because she did not want me to be involved in the divorce um you know I won't get into details but it was my dad who was I don't I'm not very close with him it's kind of all water under the bridge now but it's been a very very difficult relationship at the time he was one that was pulling me into it and I think it was kind of a power move and so I went to him and I said this is unacceptable and I said I'm doing this because of the things that you are doing and the impact you're having on our family and I was like I'm not going to blame my brother's read right now, but I was like, I just

cannot, I physically cannot be a part of this. So if it's not contentious, your parents can both sign, and if the judge agrees that it's okay, sure, then it's okay. So that's ended up being what happened. So my parents both agreed on paper and then it had to go to a judge.

And then I was emancipated, so I was able to live in Los Angeles. I worked to Trader Joe's. I kept auditioning. I kept doing, you know, projects. I did a couple of movies. I did a few other TV shows, started going to community college, because it worked better with my schedule. So I went to Santa Monica Community College.

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Yeah, it's a great school. It has the best transfer rate of any community college in the country. My parents wanted me to go to SMC. It saves you money. It was great. I went to community college. Really?

I loved it. Yeah, Venture College. Yeah, then UCSB. Yeah. I say I would not change it for the world. I feel like I got a better education at SMC than UCLA. Like 100%. Honestly, I would probably agree with that.

Yeah. With my community college experience. Because the classroom sizes are a lot smaller. It's more intimate. And also a lot of the professors at community colleges. They want to be there. Yes. Because it's more desirable to be a professor at a community college a lot of the times

than like the really nice institutions. And at UCLA you have to be doing research. It's a research university. And so most professors are there. Yeah, that's another continuing education or whatever it is. And so UCLA is known for its research. And so a lot of the professors there, you know, are, you know, writing their own books in the English Literature Department, you know, working on their theses, that sort of thing.

In a community college, they are there for the students. And, you know, again, like the through line with my life is I was around a ton of different people. And so there would be people like me who were younger. There were people who were coming back, you know, 30 years later working on their education. I met the most interesting people. And in California, where it's very normal, the people go to community college, there was not really a stigma. But, I mean, truly, my education was better there. So much.

And guess what? It was $7. Yes. $7 for a semester. Yeah. Yeah. How? There was a California bill.

What's the point is? What do you know? what I'm talking about. I used it, but it's only for the first semester. The next semester, I think, was like a hundred or something like that. But if you're an in-state, yeah, if you're an in-state student. I think it's also your district has like a community college, something, you have to go to the according to community college. And then if you get academic scholarships on top of that, because community colleges make money by, you know, having the students there and they want their, you know, stats to be higher. So if you're really, really good student and you're from here, they make it

really desirable for you. So I saved so much money. And it's totally flexible because you don't have to be a full-time student. You don't have all the premiums. Yeah, exactly. So I would do night classes or, you know, 8 a.m. and then go, you know, audition in the middle of the day and then go work up, you know, a 5 to 10 p.m. She had to Trader Joe's. And that was my life. So you went from that and then you transferred to UCLA? Yeah. Okay. So two years in. I was a English major with a minor in biological anthropology at first and then dropped that because UCLA, if you are not already getting a BS, you have to do like chemistry and physics for all of those things. I was like, no, not interested in that. But I love anthropology. And I

I was more scientifically inclined, I would have probably tried to do some kind of double major, but I did not want to do chemistry, did not want to do physics. I just love bio, and I love anthropology. Anthropology made more sense to me than any, like, psychology or sociology class have ever done in, like, understanding basic human instincts and what we're, like, wired to do. It's like the perfect, I guess, explanation for how even, like, men and women are totally different, like we are literally wired different ways. But anyway, and so I did that. And so I did that. for a bit, dropped that minor, and then was a film minor until the end. I don't even think I finished up my film minor because I realized that I'd gotten to the end of my major. And it was

in the middle of COVID. I was like, I don't want to be on to do anymore. I'm just going to dip. But that was, I probably did not finish that minor because I went to the UC Berkeley's High School of Business. And they had a program where if you were an undergrad, you could go to their grad school and do a business program. So I did that during COVID. And then as COVID was wrapping up, I was, at least in California. I didn't really think I wanted to go back to acting. I didn't love the lack of control that I had as an adult.

Growing up as a kid, it just was like this crazy adventure, and it felt like this hobby that I happened to get paid for. I wasn't thinking about the money. I didn't see any of the money. It all went into a savings account, and then legally with being a child actor, there's a thing called a Kugan account. It's a percentage of your money goes there. And my parents

did not use any of the money. It just went into a savings found so I used like part of that to buy my first car and for you know some of my UCLA tuition. Um, but I was ever motivated by money because I wasn't getting like a, a slew of American girl dolls or anything like that. Yeah. It was just, it was so fun for me. How much was in that Kugan account by the way? Oh gosh. Do you remember? Um, is that accrues. Now, can you invest within the account? I don't think you can invest within it. I don't even remember. Okay. It's a, like tens of thousands, not nothing like crazy. But that's still. Isn't the Kuggan account? It's like a certain percentage though. Yeah. So it's like 15 or so percent. I think it's 15

I don't remember what it ended up being and it doesn't accrue a ton of interest. It kind of just sits. But it's your legal protection in case you are in an environment where your parents are taking your money. They want to make sure that when you turn 18, you have something. And I think it's a great production. So I don't remember what it, you know, how exactly much it was, but I know I did my down payment for my first like Kia Nero and like bought it with that money and then paid some of my UCLA tuition with it. But yeah, so I graduated and once it became once the money part became a little bit. more close to home for me. I was like, okay, I'm about to turn 18. This is like, this is a career career. I started thinking about like, whenever I get married and have kids, because that's always like the thing that I've wanted most is to be a mom. My mom is an interesting, incredible example of, I think, what a mother can be. And she just dedicated her life to being a really, really engaged parent.

I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to be able to, like, build humans. I think that's so cool. And I was like, I don't really want to be a parent and be in this unstable of an environment. And I really admire people that are okay with doing that. But I also didn't like that at the drop of a hat, I could be told to flight to North Carolina. And it would be something like, okay, you have this audition at 4 p.m. today.

Tomorrow you could be on a flight to Toronto and shooting this thing. You literally have no control. You have to say no to everything in your life. That was really hard for me as somebody that really values control and having autonomy over my life. I didn't love the fact that sometimes you might crush an audition and they'll be like, well, you don't really look enough like the person who's playing your father. You're too skinny. You're too fat.

We've rewritten the role and you don't fit anymore. So we're firing you on set. Or like here you've, you know, you've filmed the entire project. We don't think your role really reads anymore. We're cutting it. So it's just like constant. It's very, very normal and it comes with it. So it was ever something I really wanted to like try to change or combat.

But it was like, these are all things that bother me. And even though I love storytelling, I think I can do this in another way. So I went into production. So I did multiple like producing internships. At the end, I was working for big beach productions. They produced Little Miss Sunshine. Incredible. I mean, one of the best internships I ever did, I learned so much.

but during COVID we obviously went virtual. I hated that. And then during BLM and COVID, the entire industry just became so political. And my job became less about find good stories and more about could you find a Native American story for us? Could you find a black story for us? Like rather than just reading scripts for the value in them,

it was like we need something that is like politically woke, we need to be on the cusp of this. And I understood it because that is what was making money at the time. That's what people wanted. And there was a lot of pressure. I was like, okay, now I don't like this. Like that doesn't feel authentic to me. So I did what every liberal arts confused graduate does.

And I started for the LSAT and I applied to law school. So I did that also during COVID. It took the LSAT. It's crazy. You just decide on a whim. Be like, no, I'm just going to take the LSAT now. Yeah. And so I was still working.

I still doing all of that. And I went back and I got my old ACT tutor who also does LSAT stuff. And I called him. I was like, so buddy, you want to work with me again? Wow. And so I cited for that for about nine months. and then took that, applied for all the California schools. I was aiming for Pepperdine because I thought value-wise, I would be better there.

That was the only college I applied to is Pepperdine. Yep. And they said no. I didn't apply there. It was so, I was devastated. Really? Yeah. Were you actually sad?

Yeah. What were you applying for? So I, well, I want to, they, I think had a really good business program. So I was like, I'm going to go there for business. But I had terrible grades in high school, like really, really, really bad. A horrible SAT score. I thought I would wow them and just like write a great application, do a cool story because I was really into like reef aquariums and I was working all through high school. And I thought like my resume.

Sounded like a homeschool kid. Yeah, exactly. But I was like I was I was promoted in high school as the assistant manager, not the assistant to the manager, but the assistant manager of this whole like reef aquarium place. And I loved it. I worked there. So I thought like I was going to wow them and I applied. And that day that they were sending out the acceptance letter. I went to Disneyland.

And I was at the Blue Bayou in Disneyland pulling up the email from the first-gen iPhone, okay? Okay. And I wait. I got the email in the morning, but I waited to open it at the Blue Bayou. Because I thought to myself, if I get in, we'll celebrate. Yeah.

And if I didn't get in, we're at Disneyland. It's great. And I didn't get in. My God. The only one is what you applied to. How did it feel? Walk us through your emotions. At that point, because I had no backup plan.

Well, first of all, I didn't know how to pay for it. Like no one had, so, so I didn't, yeah, so in my mind, it was like 40 grand a year. I had no idea. Like, no one in my family had money to pay for that. Okay. I think all of them were like. Well, you were going to wow them with your reef aquarium, get a scholarship. Maybe get a scholarship.

Yeah. Like that thing. Maybe start the marine biology program at Aberdeenians. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. But, yeah, I had no backup plan. Okay. And I thought, maybe I could be a drummer.

So, because I was in a band as well in high school and I thought, you know, maybe I could do this drum thing. Like, maybe it'll work out. Yeah. But I think. like a month or two after I ended up getting my real estate license that was like my backup plan do that for a year and then I could reapply but that's what I was thinking about going to SMC during that time like maybe I just take a year in SMC or I get my real estate license

it was real estate license well that is so funny the dichotomy between Brett's you know growing up and Graham's going up seems like Brett would pivot in any direction just be like success success success and then Graham's like well like I don't want it to be a drummer but who knows like yeah I just I wanted to make money worked out and I felt like I remember because we used to play shows. I think he made the right decision because Pepperdine you would have lost money. Oh yeah.

Pepperdine would have been terrible. Yeah. Drumming would have been interesting though because there are now ways to make money as a drummer. He's a good drummer. He's a very good drummer. I'm terrible. But I would play shows on the sunset strip, you know, like the Roxy and all those places.

You'd play at the Roxy? Many times. You played at the Roxy? When did you play at the Roxy? We did the Viper Room. Do you ever play at the Tribador? Yes, actually. We've done all of them.

We would do every single thing. did you get the because we were good and then they would make you sell tickets are you you playing it yeah i can't believe yeah i love the roxy that's an incredible yeah i've been there a few times it's an incredible venue it's like iconic yeah but we would have to sell tickets you need to bring it back so this was bring back the band i would be down i'd be can i join what would you do the triangle i'll do the cowbell i could see well i'd be a backup yeah i'd be a manager yeah i could be the i could be the guy that like brings a coffees to everybody here's the thing so we would usually play like we wouldn't be like a headline on a friday or saturday night so usually we would be like

a weekday night, 8 p.m. And we would have to sell like 70 tickets between the three of us. So we each had like 25 tickets to sell. And we go around school, be like, they were like $14 tickets and just like trying to get people to buy tickets. And then our base player's mom would sometimes just say, I'll buy the tickets, just hand them out.

No way. So she would sometimes, you know, pick up the slack. We'd just be handing them out. It's all about the hustle. That is so cool. That is so cool, Graham. I did not know. You know, it's interesting, too.

We played a Battle of the Bands for Southern California. It was sponsored by Coca-Cola. We came in seven, sorry, second place. Second. And technically it was a high school competition. But that's still really impressive. We lost to freshman college students because their base player was still, yeah. You got scammed.

But they were like three years older than us and were really talented. You should make a video about that, man. Exposing this. Bring it back. But if we won, we got, I think it was like seven songs recorded for free, plus a trip to, I think it was Scotland or Ireland. I forget what was there. It was one of those.

But we came in second place to them. I'm so upset. But we went through, like, we competed and then like they ranked us and we go to the next one and we'd like play again. So I think it was like four of them. We lost. That is cool. I love that.

I have no excited childhood thing like that. That is dope. I'll find the link. Yeah. That's impressive. But anyway. We could have been Pepperdine alum. We could have been SMC alum.

You ruined all the opportunities for us. Could have see me at the Roxy? I know. But my point with being a drummer was that I remember seeing such talented musicians and they were broke. And I remember seeing these drummers like on stage and thinking they are incredible, like way better than I was. And they had been playing their entire lives and they were broke.

And I'm like, if that guy can't make it, why could I? Like what would make me different from that? And then I thought too if like the band broke up and I was like on my own. session musicians like a dime a dozen is very difficult it's a powerful realization yeah like to have that at 18 yeah it's hard it's hard to walk away from something that you're like especially when it's artistic that you've literally like poured your heart and soul and I mean that's how I felt with acting where it's like you come to this realization that like logically on paper especially if you're somebody that is very like I consider myself a pretty like rational person and I'm like I have to do what's

practical it was like this doesn't it doesn't make sense and so I think for some people It not making sense is what's so exciting about it. And I'm like going to do it regardless. I was never going to be one of those people. Graduated at 19. I was going to go to Pepper Dine. I applied to Pepper Dine, Loyola, UCLA. And then one other, oh, Chapman in California.

And then my mom decided she was still living in California at the time. My parents had totally split. My dad still in Chattanooga. My brother was doing relatively better at that point. He was, you know, med compliant. He was living in, you know, a, I don't know what you would call the living facility, but was like a like half independent

assisted living sort of but for like psychiatric thing so we had like a nurse there and a psychiatrist on site but he was able to live like semi-independently he was doing better but still he was so close to like all the drugs that were on the street

and it was really hard for him and my mom just did not want to be in California anymore and she had always had this dream of having a farm and we'd always lived in rural areas like Chattanooga we lived on a lot of land I was actually born on an island in Washington State where we had a farm so had a lot of space there

but she had always wanted to have like animals and huge gardens and run a homestead. And so as I was getting older, she was like, all right, last one has totally flown the coop. The other one seems stable. My oldest brother has been great for years. He's totally fine. Been out of the house, but he's 14 years older than me.

So he was long independent. So she started looking at Idaho because I was going to stay in California and go to law school. My oldest brother was thinking about moving up to Seattle to take a job, leave Florida and go up to Seattle. So he was looking at jobs. She was like, this is great. I'll be like directly. in between you guys will be on the same coast.

Reed, my middle brother could either go with her or could stay in his living situation. And then I said, I just, I can't do California anymore. And I was like, I don't even really want to stay here. I don't really know why I'm saying here other than for acting. I just can't do it. And so I moved to Boise with her and lived there for nine months, helped her get her farm started, got a house there, started. Started settling in. I got a job as a marketing strategist at Young Americans for Liberty, which is Ron Paul's former organization.

so very libertarian. I was writing for the foundation for economic education, which is the longest running free market think tank. So I was doing economic journalism for them and was like fully leaning into this because I had already, during COVID, I started working with Prager You. I just kind of struggled with friendships due to political reasons at UCLA during COVID. It just got so polarized. And I just a lot of that. How did that begin though? Did you start bringing up maybe certain viewpoints and getting. When did you recognize? your political leaning.

Gosh, I'd probably say the beginning of college, but I didn't really even think that it was that important. I just kind of realized as I would look at news stories and, you know, talk to people. It was like, oh, okay, I think that this is my opinion. I guess that this is political in nature. It was just, you know, values I'd been raised with are things that I just intrinsically thought. And I started kind of connecting the dots with politics and being like, oh, okay. So if I believe this, then that means this. slowly started formulating all of that.

But I was not raised in a political household by any mean. My mom is a student of objectivism. She adopted Einrand's cat after she died. What? Yes. I mean, she was in textbook publishing was, you know, always more, you know, freedom leading, I would say. My older brother is very libertarian.

And so, but we were not raised in a political household. Like my mom would listen to Rush Limbaugh in the car. when my oldest brother was young, but like, I never heard any of that. I never listened. She never listened to Ben. At most, maybe she would pull up a Dennis Prager, you know, radio show, like once every year maybe or something like that. We never discussed politics, ever. I had no idea what my dad believed, other than he loved the environment. I mean, truly had no idea. I honestly think that that's, I'm so grateful that that is how I was raised, because it was all based on values. It was like how you treat people, how you see the world, like you intrinsically value freedom,

you value individualism, you know, you value independence, people not telling you what to do, the government not being involved in your life, but it wasn't even the government. It was just kind of, you know, free thinking, independent. Those are the values I was raised with. So as I started being confronted with politics, it was like, oh, okay, this makes sense. I'm seeing the connections, but was not right. We literally never talked to politics whatsoever. And I didn't even know that I ran was a political figure. How did she get her cat? I had, yeah, how did she get her cat? She left in the middle of the night after graduating college. My grandmother wanted her to go to secretarial school. My mom said absolutely not. So she left with her best friend from college.

They drove to New York City in the middle of the night and she was like, I'm going to get a job as a textbook publisher. And her friend had some connections, I think through college. They're still good friends. I literally saw him a couple of months ago. He's a wealth manager now, like a free market wealth manager. So he's helped me with some stuff. But he had some connections. I believe it was through their college. They went to Davidson College with people in Einran's Circle and her two protegees who now run her like two biggest organizations after her death you know published her books with her like that sort of thing got in contact so they started going to these like philosophical salons and getting literally trained and philosophical lessons from these protégés and ian ran died

soon after my mom moved to new york her cat tommy named after thomas aquinas because thomas aquinas was the only person to argue the existence of god from place of reason and even though iron rand was like totally atheist she respected people who were arguing the existence of god from place of reason because reason was paramount to her reason you know healthy selfishness and productivity you know the biggest things for objectivist really in my like boiled down sense I guess um and so Tommy needed a home and so they were like Diane can you take Einrand's cat so she had Einrand's cat she lived in a tiny room that didn't even have a kitchen or anything like that she worked night shifts at a hotel doing like the the call person um works like three jobs and

finally got in the door with W. W. W. Norton and she published the first objective like libertarian textbook and it's still published today. So she did that and then lived in Chicago about doing it. But anyway. Jack it. I'm not. We're saying too many things. I know.

Today we have been on the exact same wavelength. We just go, hmm. At the exact same time. But not only that, but other words. We've said, yeah, the same thing. The same time. The same phrase. You guys spend time together.

We spend a lot of time together. I like to the same time you guys went like this. I know. It's bothering me. It's too much. Gosh. Okay. It's going to be okay.

But anyway, so that is how I was raised, the values I was raised, but I appreciated that it was not political. Because I, you know, I've had people say, like, your mother indoctrinated to you. And I was like, well, what would you say would be indoctrination?

Like, I was not, you know, being told about political policies or anything like that. She just raised me as any good parent would with the values that she believed were important to create a, you know, a healthy, independent young person. And those happen to be these more, you know, I would say,

objectivist, libertarian freedom, leaning, whatever. Anyway, so that is how I, I guess, started seeing that. And obviously, with COVID, it became very, very politicized. But even before that, at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, midterms, it became a huge topic for people. And I had already noticed some tension because people knew that I was originally from Tennessee. And that was something that I didn't think was contentious, but apparently it was. And so being from Tennessee. Yeah. And it was like you're from the south. You're backwards. You're racist. And I remember my friends being super drunk at a party and I walked in and one of them said there's our racist friend Brett from Tennessee.

And we hadn't even talked about politics yet. How does that make you feel? It was just, it was stupid to me. But I still thought that they were good friends. And I remember coming home, you know, calling my mom or calling my brother and being like, yeah, they said this. It's so funny. And my brother would be like, that's not friendship.

Right. Like, those are just random attacks. Like, why are you a lying that to happen? I was like, oh, everybody, you know, shoots the shit. It's fine. And they would insinuate other things like we'd be talking about our families. I would say, oh, yeah, well, my, you know, my dad's side of the family is all for North Carolina, old, like, dirt, poor farmers. And they, you know, fought in the Revolutionary War.

So, like, technically, I guess, could be part of, like, daughters of the American Revolution. I think my, like, great-grandfather, like, fifth great-grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War, but, like, dirt, poor tobacco farmers. And so we were talking about our lineages, because most of my friends were in this friend group, you know, one was Turkish, one was Indian, or just talking about ancestry. And when I said, like, farmers in North Carolina, they were like, oh, so your family owned slaves. And I was like, how did we get there? And I was like, I, it just said. So I blew it off, but I think that's kind of how it started. And I thought back against that.

I was like, we were literally, we didn't. Like, I would know. And even if it, you know, even if my family did, how does that impact, you know, the person that I am now and the friend that's sitting in front of you? And so that's kind of where it started. That was even before all of, you know, the midterm started and all of that. And then midterms, I believe it was no. Oh, no, no, no, it wasn't the terms. It was primaries, primaries for the presidential election.

And so then, obviously, there were a lot of conversations about, like, Bernie and Joe Biden and that sort of thing. And I knew enough at that point, and I was, like, clued in enough to know. I don't really think that I would vote for either of those. I wasn't, like, rah, rah, Trump. I never really have been. But I did not hate him. I didn't understand the vitrole about him. And so people started bringing it up to me.

saying so like who are you going to vote for i was like i really don't know like maybe i'll vote for you know joe jorgensen she's like the libertarian i don't i don't really know i said but i don't love joe biden i don't love brady sanders and i mean they lost their shit um and it just became like a huge argument and debate constantly i remember you know all of us voting in the primaries and me not voting for either joe biden or bernie and then being very very angry one of my friends voted for Joe instead of Bernie. Her father was a policeman and she thought that Bernie was just like a little too much

and she got slandered because she wasn't far left enough. And that was my big and my sorority. And I remember thinking like, why is this such an issue? Like this is just crazy. And then COVID happened. And I remember friends, you know, making me ride into car by myself like six months in

because it's like, well, you know, you're on the right. So obviously you don't care about COVID. So you can't, you know, hang out with us because you're probably like not taking things seriously. I was like, well, no, it's still a, I wasn't even thinking that it was political at the time, even though I didn't think that lockdowns economically were going to do anything good for this country.

I thought that it was 100% government overreach. BLM started taking off, and I stayed out of that for most of it until it just kept continuing on and seeing the way that businesses were then, you know, taking steps for racial action, all this stuff. And I was like, I think that a lot of this is, you know, blown out of proportion, and why is the media lying about what's actually happening?

Like, I'm living in L.A. I'm seeing these protests. It's totally different than how they're painting it. But the kicker for me was, and this is why I left LA, there was a business in Burbank that got taken away from the owners because they stayed open during the second lockdown of COVID. And they didn't even stay open completely. They left their patio open and it wasn't any kind of like political FU or anything like that. They left it open. People could sit on the patio and enjoy their takeout food, whatever.

Got reported to the city council. It went on for nine months. Their electricity was turned off. The, you know, the business was boarded up, was chained up multiple times. And then it became personal for the owner. And he's 22, and he inherited it from his father. He became a really good friend of mine. His name was Lucas Lapagian.

And then it became, you know, he had the whole community rallying behind him. He would break through the doors every time. He would open it back up. Community donated generators. They kept shutting down electricity. So he just had grills. And his staff kept coming back to cook. And then, you know, policemen on their days off would come and, like, protect it.

And that sort of thing. Like, it was wild. Got tons of donations. He was arrested, I think, four times. Multiple, multiple, you know, city council meetings about it. And the kicker for me was there was one last city council meeting with public comment. And I think public comment went on for like four hours. And, you know, I called in, everybody was calling in. And this was going to be the determining factor of whether they could keep the

business open. And what it looks like was going to happen was that they would have to shut down for two weeks, you know, pay their due diligence, pay the fines that they had accrued and then opened back up. Because at this point, every other business in L.A. was open. Like you could go inside and eat. Except for this one. Except for this one. And by the end of the city council meeting, Everything seemed fine. They were like, all right, we'll get back to you tomorrow. In the middle of that while public comment was going on, the city of Burbank sent out a construction crew,

and they built a wall around the business. A 10-foot barbed wire with like the, what do you call the? I guess that is the barbed wire. So it was chain-linked barbed wire on top, 10 feet, so they literally could not get into the business. All their, you know, they were paid up on their taxes. They were paid up on everything. They owned this building.

I think they had owned it for two generations. It was a two-generation business from Burbank was like a staple in the community. And they totally, I mean, literally just took it from the owners in the middle of the public comment. And I was like, so I'm living in a place where the government can literally come in and take your home, take your business because they disagree with something that you've done and not listen to the community members that are literally on the phone for hours calling in and say. Did they take the business though? Or is it more, they're just deterring people from going inside. Because it sounds like the fence is more just like, you know. Basically what it is.

And saying that you, you know, the business owner cannot operating. operating saying you you know you must shut down was basically what it was um i think the building has been demolished now um i think he just sold it well i'm guessing he sold it what was the verdict of the the hearing that they it was just going to be shut down but they made that decision before so they said oh we'll come back tomorrow and so lucas woke up the next morning in the house and the the restaurant was totally surrounded so it was so they basically just wanted to punish him for his past yeah exactly um and the guy who did that who led that was a burbank city councilman who ran in the DSA party.

So he was a Democratic Socialist of America, ran on that party, was elected as such. And that was a kicker for me. And then during, in the middle of 2020, LAPD also slashed a huge part of their major crimes unit, which included the sexual assault unit, which included the gang unit. And as a woman that really freaked me out

because I already knew that I couldn't defend myself with a gun. I'm trained with guns. I've shot my entire life. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in the city by myself. I started doing self-defense training when I was 11 years old because my mom was concerned about me going into audition rooms with, you know, adults by myself. Because obviously the casting couch is a real thing. We know about the Me Too movement. She was like, I never want you to feel insecure about that. So I did that for seven years,

every single week, you know, helped teach self-defense. I was a very, very competent person. Still am. And part of that was because, you know, as adult, she knew, like, you're not going to be able to carry a gun in this city. You're not going to be able to protect yourself. But they took away that extra level of protection. The LAPD response time, dropped like crazy. Gang presence in Burbank started skyrocketing again in the span of like two months.

There were three shootings and two stabbings in my like one mile vicinity alone, which had never happened before. And I just felt totally unsafe. And so my mom was leaving for Boise and I was like, I don't know if I want to be here alone.

I don't like this. I don't like the values that are around me. Why would I stay in a place that, you know, does not value my security or safety and where the government is so willing to punish you for having a differing opinion.

I was like, I don't think that this is where I really want to start my adult life. I could do it somewhere else. And so I was like, I'll figure it out, I'll go to Boisey. I loved it. I loved her farm. I loved the remote work that I was doing. I got into Boise Law School, so I was going to do a dual MBA and JD program, which was four years.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do constitutional law, specialized in 2A, which was what I was really interested in. And then I actually met over the summer with a bunch of constitutional lawyers, and they said don't do it. They're like, you're going to make no money. It's a waste of money. Because unless you're going to one of the top, top schools and you're going into corporate law, you will make no money. You're going to waste five years, four years, because I was doing two programs. And they said, you know, you're already working in politics. You're doing adjacent, basically. You are, you know, making videos for Prager You. You have this marketing strategist job. At another organization, you're writing,

you're doing journalism. You have the connections now. You don't need to go to law school to make those connections. You can do advocacy. And the exact words he said was you can do everything we can do except sign the brief. Why would you go to school for four years just to do that and go into debt? Because I got somewhat of a scholarship for it, but I was still going to have to pay a lot of money for it. And if you look at the discrepancy between the amount of legal jobs that are available in the amount of law schools, it's just insane. I mean, we are pumping out so many JD students and there are not enough positions. I think the base salary for a law student that did not go to like one of the top five is like in the 65-75 range.

Yeah, it's not that much. Plus laws, I believe, the unhappiest career. Yeah, and I'm such a creative person. The people in my life are like, oh, this doesn't make sense, but I was like, I'm smart. Like, I am academic. I can make a difference. I want to fight for this.

I was really politically engaged at the time. And then the day that orientation started, I was like, I can't, you're all right. I can't do it. Yeah. So I withdrew. I had no plan. I was doing that journal, writing at fee.

I was being a marketing strategist, and I was a waiter. at a restaurant in Boisey. So I was doing all three of those. I love Trader Joe's. And I was like, I'm just going to figure it out. And my mom was like, you just blew up everything, basically. You need to figure it out. And I was like, I'll come up with a plan. So I was in the process of coming up with a plan. I was still making videos for Prigger You, for Young Americans for Liberty. I was running all their social media accounts when I got a DM from Daily Wire. And they said, we've seen your short form videos. We love your content. Would you be interested

in having a meeting with us? And I thought it was a joke. And I was like, this can't be real. So I responded and I was like, okay, and I've respected the Daily Wire for a really long time. I'd actually looked and applied for jobs with them. I applied to be Candace Owens' assistant. Be serious. Yeah. And her manager rejected me before I didn't even do an interview, which she knows now what she thinks is so funny. What was the reason for the rejection?

I didn't live in Nashville. Oh, okay. Yeah, she just didn't even respond because they were only looking at people that were in Nashville. Makes sense. Okay. But I was like, I'll move. I'll move. I'll move.

And it's funny because her manager and I, her ex-manager and I are now like friends and I, like, Was that worked out for a reason. Yeah, exactly. I applied for like an associate producer role on Ben's show in Florida. Like I was like, I just, I want to be involved in this company somehow because I loved what they were doing in the entertainment sector. And I was like, I could get back into storytelling where my values are more in line with what they're doing. And that could kind of give me the balance that I'm looking for. And I could be on the production side, so I would have more control and a little more stability, which is also what I was needing.

And so I had wanted that. But I also in the back of my head thought, you know, this organization, it's skewed older. All the hosts are older. You know, it's a bit more established. I don't know if they're going to want to be hiring. I was 19 at the time, a 19 year old kid to do any of this. I was like, you know what? I will continue working at Young Americans for Liberty, which is a student organization. Prager U really focuses on students. And I was like, I'll stay here for a few years. I'll apply again later on. And maybe I'll, you know, get my foot into the door with Daily Wire. Or maybe I'll go back to acting. I don't know. I'll just, you know, leave it up to whatever

happens. So I got this DM. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is insane. Respond back. we start emailing back and forth. I do a Zoom call. Really like the people. All of them still work here except one. You guys met the girl earlier who sent me the DM. And she was just scrolling on. She ran the TikTok account and found me.

And here we are. But then they said, you know, you only do short form content. We'd like you to do like I did reactions and like my reactions to news stories and that kind of thing. And they said, could you do like longer responses to news stories? And then could you also show us like maybe a pop culture thing? And I said, okay. So I did that and then they hired me.

I was, you know, I think we negotiated for about three months. I had, I found out that I got the job while I was in the field with my mom in her pasture, like wrangling a donkey or something like that. And I got a call from our CMO. And I was grilled for like an hour. What? What did that sound like? It was basically like, are you, you know, we're taking a risk on a 19 year old kid and we're going to bring you here and we're going to try to create something with you. We want to make sure that you're not some like fluke.

And so it was basically like, I've seen your resume, the people below me are advocating for you. I want you to tell me why you deserve to be here. And I was like shaking. I was like sitting up in the mom's bedroom shaking. And it was like, how are you different than other 19 year olds? Like this is and Daily Wire is like very, very hustle oriented. We are constantly, you know, we're past startup mode, but we are growing so fast every single day. Like you'll see Jeremy boring speeches about the fact that this is a objectively a hard place to work because we do so much.

we pump out so much content every single day. And the benefits, I think, definitely outweigh the fact that it's a lot of hard work. I think we're doing really good things and I'm really proud of everything that we do. But they wanted to make sure that my ambition and that my, you know, hustle and what I was willing to take on matched what they were going to be expecting. And if they're going to take, again, take a risk on a 19-year-old. Ended up working out. I guess I did a good job. I remember coming in and meeting that guy and literally being like, I'm so smart.

I hope it worked. Like, whatever. And then I, you know, I think that was solidified at the end of November. I had 10 days to move. I fought with them. I was like trying to be able to start in the first of the year. But they were like, we really want you here now to get started on developing the show. Now, why didn't you decide to go off and do that on your own?

Because you could have just as easily said, okay, you know, I can make YouTube videos. I can make TikToks and shorts. I'm doing it already. Why have the management of the Daily Wire? The mentorship. Yeah. And I've said this before. The value of being in this building where I am next to Candice Owens, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, Jeremy Boring, Jordan Peterson, where I get to interact with these people often on a daily basis is immeasurable to me.

Like that is truly priceless. And I feel like, you know, they have been very, very gracious with, you know, and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. You know, as the shown has grown, they have, you know, changed by compensation like that kind of thing. Like they are very, very proactive with making sure that, you know, the talent is supported and that sort of thing. but I would literally be fine with barely being paid and being here because the things that I am learning, not only about how to navigate this space, but also on an intellectual and an ideological level from these people who all have very, very different opinions. Like if you watch the backstage events that Daily Wire does here,

you will see the differing opinions of all of the hosts. And the fact that we all get to be here and work and debate and go back and forth and still respect each other and still support each other's shows, it's, I mean, truly priceless. and I knew that I was not going to get that anywhere else and it felt like this was just an incredible opportunity and in my head I was like if I hate it I can leave in a year because I wasn't signing on a multi-year anything at the time I was just coming or going to try a show

and I was like if I hate Nashville I always have a backup plan I had house and voice day I can come back I can go to law school again I can try to do something else I can go back to acting whatever but I was going to kick myself if this didn't happen but I almost didn't do it I almost didn't even send in the longer reaction they were asking for because I was so nervous. And I don't know what it was.

I was so insecure. I hadn't acted in a really long time. And it isn't acting, but it's still like putting yourself on camera. It's a presentation. Exactly. And I hadn't been judged in that way in a really long time. I'd just been doing my like stupid little like minute long videos.

And my, I mean, it's weird to say it was like growing, considering where I am now. But you know, I started a new Instagram and I think by that point I had like 7,000 followers, which is still like for,

I was not really promoting it. Right. And I was like, okay, I'm doing this and it's fine. And I just I kept pushing it off. And I was like, I'm just so scared. I'm so, I just don't know if it's right.

I don't really want to do it. Like I loved Boise. And I was like, I'm happy here. I'm happy working on your farm. I'm happy with this house and this life I've created. And my mom literally sat me down and looked me in the eyes. And she was like, I don't care if you take the job or not, but you were going to kick yourself in five, 10 years a year. If you do not send this in.

If you don't at least try. Yeah. And she was like your entire life, you've taken all of these risks. You have literally been like balls to the wall, sending letters to managers, like showing up, emancipating or whatever you're doing like going and doing a business program applying for law school like you pointed out like i literally would take any risk and just do it because it sounded interesting to me and if i hated it then hell at least i have a good story about it um going to public school and she was like i don't know what has changed over the past year and i think that i kind of felt like a beaten dog in a way sure like after covid i lost most of my friends i left l.a which is all i knew i wasn't acting anymore i think i just lost all my confidence and she was like this is an incredible opportunity for you and it is also incredible opportunity to just get back on the horse try something you're literally a waitress right now

like you have literally nothing to lose and I was like fine you're right Diane's usually right so I sent it in they loved it anyway I came here and then I was here in December and we developed the show together and it launched a year ago yesterday wow it's crazy you've done all of this in a year

I keep thinking you've been doing this for like five years that's insane so like two million subscribers one year I think how many did you get in the first four months I think it was like 700,000 subscribers in a few months We, I hit a million in six months, in five months. What was that like for you?

Where did that audience come from? Was that Ben's audience navigating over to you? Because maybe there's a bit of a resemblance. I think initially, yes. So we did not do any paid ads for my channel at all. In fact, we did a very, or Daily Wire did a very, very soft marketing campaign. Like, there was barely anything. I remember in my pitch with Jeremy when we like brought the show in front of it.

He didn't even know really who I was at the time. And the CMO had brought me on. And I was like, hey, I'm the, the critical. kid that's here trying to, you know, get a show approved. And he watched the pilot, which was so bad. And he looked at me and he said, I don't understand the show. It's not for me, but I know it's for somebody else. It's not really for our audience, but I know it's going to reach somebody else. So let's try it. And I mean, literally through us, like, a few grand to put together a set, took some team members from, like, our social video team and we're like, just try it and see what

happens. So I did my own promotion on my, like, social video channel or my social media channels, and I had been doing like some Daily Wire videos, like news hits and that sort of thing. So I think I was probably up to like 20,000 like followers at that point. It still didn't have a YouTube channel. So there were some people who knew who I was in the Daily Wire circle. And then I did one hit on Ben's show and announced the show. And that was it. I don't think any of the other hosts talked about it.

Candice didn't even know that I had a show or who I was for like six months because nobody told her. Yep. We literally, it was like a trial and error. They did not put any paid or anything. So I think some of it migrated over. and your Daily Wire would repost me every once in a mile so I think the initial like bulk I would say maybe under 100,000

came from the Daily Wire audience but then it's just been Where did the rest come from? Was that just a series of videos that you posted that did well? Yeah, what was the... And shorts. Shorts, yeah.

Okay. I mean, that was not something I really knew a lot about but I was already doing a ton of organic content for Instagram and TikTok and so that made its way to YouTube and one thing I think I've done differently is that all of my shorts content was original it wasn't clips from the show wasn't anything like that it was all like this is designed for yeah YouTube

so in the beginning how did you pick topics to talk about is this on you or would they would they come to you and it still is on me still I create the show I pick the topics I pull all the comments if there's anything that I want to write sometimes it's off the cuff these days I'll kind of have like bullet points of points I want to hit if there's a message that I want to leave people with sometimes I'll write that out if it feels a little more touchy, but it still is pretty improvised. And I just researched the subject really well, and I try to become an expert on that, like, one little thing every day and then share it.

So I still do all of that. But it was basically just living on social media, and it still is. And so most of my content is social media heavy. I will only cover something if it is, like, trending on social media or if I notice that it's about to. So that can mean, like, literally trending on Twitter, or if it's a trend on TikTok that is, like, picking up, or a thing in society that has, you know, whether it's a social media trend or just a trend in general in the original sense of the word. And so I would find things through there.

And then, you know, it's called the comment section. That was kind of the get of the show and the angle was that I wasn't just like talking about a subject, just my opinions, but I was going into the comments and actually trying to get people's actual opinions about it. Yeah. So I'd get people on both sides of the aisle, on both, you know, sides of whatever issue I was talking about

and read those comments. And it was fun to, you know, kind of act them out use my acting background and make it really, really fun. And then I wanted it to be really, really punchy because I know my generation, I know that I hate watching long form content because our attention spans are dead due to TikTok. So it was very, very fast-paced. So I wanted like memes. Like we had our first, you know, editing run.

It was like we need more. It was like more cowbell. Like more memes, like more fast cuts. Grimm. I hate that. Yeah. But it works. I mean, that's like what my generation needs.

It's like I need my attention. Yeah. I hate it. I'm saying, he always rejects it. I watch my own TikToks like sound effects, sound effects, zoom in. That's what I love. B roll over here, sound effects, sound effect. I'm like, why.

I wish I didn't love it. But it works. But for young people, it's what we are. Text on screen. Yep. You got to have so many things flying. So we really like worked very hard on creating that, you know, that style. And then I wanted, you know, the comments were kind of a unique thing.

And then obviously that I was going to be, you know, more right leaning was a different thing. Because there wasn't really anybody in that space that was doing this kind of like, laid back cultural commentary streamery type stuff that was really on the right that was my age yeah because it's like there's a lot of them that are you know 35 year old dudes but like an 19 year old girl like that's not really the normal thing right it's right um but yeah so it was on social media primarily and i started off doing more newsy political things i strayed away from that just because i've gotten far more disinterested in that um why did you lose interest because I obviously think that politics matter and I'm interested in politics on like an academic and intellectual level.

I think it's interesting. I care about learning about it. But Andrew Breitbart once said, and I think it still holds weight, that politics is downstream from culture. And so it starts with culture and the conversations that we're having every single day. And it starts with values. And that's how I was raised. That's what I care about. I care about, you know, looking at trends on social media and saying, why is this something that people care about? And I think that we can talk about, you know, social media trends and cultural things and movies and TV in Hollywood without a political angle, but just talking about like what is driving these people to believe this way. And in my mind, a lot of that goes back to like my current critique with my generation, I would say, is that it's driven by this desperate need for both attention and to victimize themselves. I think that victimization is holding most of my generation back. I think we hold ourselves back a lot of the time. And we know that being a victim these days does give you more attention. And so it's things like that where it's like I'm not directly talking about politics and theory and like this new law,

but I'm talking about things that do by default influence politics. And I also think that talking about things that are more cultural and are more value-based. Number one, they interest me, but I think that it's easier to connect with people on a human-to-human level that way. It's less polarizing. I get that. I can have so much more empathy with people and I think people find me more relatable because of that. And when I'm talking to people who are on opposite sides of the political aisle, that is where we find the most common goal. ground is by talking about this.

And then being able to say like, oh, okay, so now I see why you think that the way you do, you know, because of this value that you hold or because of this, you know, let's talk about in the context of culture. And you're able to reach so many more people and you're able to find so much more common ground. And I think it makes my content maybe more digestible for people, I would say, because it doesn't come across. It's like, I'm going to hit you over the hammer.

Yeah. Let's talk about Trump. Let's talk about Biden. It's like. But I think it's also easy to talk. little bit more about like drama topics or maybe topics that hit on a more emotional level. Yes, exactly. Logical.

Yeah. And people are driven by emotion these days. And I've said this publicly before on the show. And I love Ben and, you know, he's a mentor of mine. And I think, you know, facts don't care about your feelings. It's such a fun, punchy line. But I think, especially with my generation, they don't really care about facts. It's like emotions are dictating so much now of whether that's better or worse.

That's something we can all relate on. That's the human to human connection. and obviously facts are important at the end of the day. But if you can't reach somebody emotionally, whether that's a positive emotion or a negative emotion, like facts will go out their ear. They don't care. And especially in a time when we see so many,

you know, whether it's, you know, scientists or politicians, the media lying about facts or changing them, like literally just, you know, saying an outright lie or, you know, getting the facts changed in order to fit an agenda or a narrative. It's like, okay, so then if they're doing that, then how do we reach people with emotion? And that also, as like somebody who,

comes from like an acting and a storytelling background and why I loved acting so much in addition to it being an escape was that it allowed me to tap into the emotions that I was too scared to deal with as a child and was too scared to feel or express. And so I really, really understand the importance of connecting to people on that level and reaching people at that level. And so it makes me happier too. And so as a content creator, I feel more fulfilled in what I'm doing because I read my comments and it's less about people being fired up about some political policy

or being angry at Joe Biden which gets so tiresome. I don't want to talk about him anymore. It's boring. I don't want to talk about Trump anymore whether it's positive or negative. It's boring. But hearing people's anecdotal stories

and the way that they are emotionally responding to things in the world right now is really interesting to me. And you really understand where people come from. And so I think that's why I'm able to connect what I grew up doing my career prior to this and what I'm doing now, I think it kind of fuses together

in a really, really nice way. Yeah. It's a really interesting quote that politics lie downstream from culture. Yeah. I actually completely agree. And recently, actually, I shouldn't say recently. I say probably about a year ago, I became a lot more disinterested in politics. Growing up, I was kind of interested in it.

And I had gone to like some political meetings and stuff like that growing up. And then you're laughing. A year or so ago, I realized it's kind of worthless. It's kind of useless. Like a lot of the times, like you said, it's just all filled with vitriol and you can't really focus on like bigger picture things. is like hating on certain people. It's mostly on like incidental, anecdotal with one person. Yeah.

And also on top of that, what I noticed is that conservatives and liberals, and I could get lame for this, actually have a lot more in common in terms of values, like core values, than people think. Yeah. And a lot of the times, the values are just masked by culture and certain like frameworks of where you grew up, how you grew up and stuff like that. But the value systems are virtually the same. And there's very, very extremes on both sides and those are, you know, out to liar.

And that's what gets the attention. Yes. Exactly. And a lot of times, you know, those, you know, very, you know, polarizing sides, like obviously they get very angry at each other. And it's important to talk about them because those obviously feed into the masses. But I think if you find, like, commonplace people on the street, they will have things in common. And I think they get pulled in either direction and they feel like they have to have allegiance to like, okay, this really intense crazy side. This really intense crazy side. I think it's important to show people that it's like, it's okay to have common sense. If I could say that like I could boil down my content into like one word, it would be common sense. And it's like, I just want to have a place where you can, you know, laugh, where you can feel like the world isn't too crazy on either side. You know what's funny? That could be your second channel. You're talking about this earlier. Oh, yeah.

Common sense with Brett Cooper. There you go. Yeah. That's good. That's good. That's clever. Yeah. Yeah.

That works. You're welcome. I'll call that with so many great ideas. I know. He's been like, yeah. That's good. Even for the sponsor earlier. I'm like, you've got to get a sponsor.

Yeah. Exactly. But no, and I think that's something that's something that a lot of people are missing these days because that isn't inherently political. And I think what you were saying about it being worthless is that especially as a young person, I mean, you probably relate to like, Gen Z, there's a reason why we feel so hopeless all the time. Like, the world is just filled with fear porn. That everybody's telling us the world is like burning around us or, you know, we're, you know, born into 9-11. I mean, all of this stuff. Like, it's just like constant anger. But there's a reason for that because that's what gets the clicks.

Yes, exactly. And so, of course, it's going to feed into that. And it gets people super angry and that sort of thing. But we live in a very, we have grown up in a very strange world where, we're the most digital of any generation before. And so that's a totally new thing. It's like very, very heated and polarized. And I think that a lot of Gen Z is just exhausted. And there's a reason why I think so many Gen Zers say, you know, I don't want to have families.

I don't want to have kids. And I think having children is like the most hopeful thing that you can do. You feel like every generation says that, like, millennials say that I don't want to have crazy. I talk to people and they're like, I do not want to have kids. That's a deal breaker, stuff like that. Yeah. And I'm just completely.

I'm like, think that like 30 years ago is just as common. I don't know. But I really don't know. I'm just saying I think every generation says the same thing. That'd be interesting to see what people say. Yeah, because imagine like going through World War II and thinking like, oh, I don't want to bring up a kid in this environment or, you know, Vietnam. I think it's a part of the culture. Like people like the rebellious nature of, oh, I'm not going to have kids and stuff like that.

I'm a lone wolf. I want to be by myself. That's also because life can be pretty good if you just default to like going on your phone and like. Yeah. And not having to. But I think there's also less societal pressure now to have kids. Yeah. You don't need to have it.

Yeah. I think it's even in the opposite side. I remember having conversations with my friends in high school and I would say, like, I want to have kids. And they'd be like, you would throw it all away for a child? Like that? And I was like, we're 15. And you're like, you're like I, you're so angry about this already. It was, you know, like, even at that young age, they were so anti-int.

It's also kind of cool to like say that you don't want to have kids. You know, you want to be a lone wolf. I see a lot of people doing that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a benefit in waiting. That's what that's my belief. Yeah.

I mean, you should probably wait for, you know, while you're ready. But at the same time, you're saying about, like, you know, getting an established career. For a lot of people, they can have a baby at a younger age, and then they're kind of forced to take in the parental role and then mature. But I don't think that should be done out of a pressure to, like, you know, that's the right thing to do is like. But I feel like for a lot of women, there is that pressure where it's like, you know, your mid-20s, like, when are you going to start having kids?

And I feel like that shouldn't be. Still biological. Like, obviously it's a societal pressure. But you could also be, you could also be 30 and have just as a successful. full of as a, I mean, my mom didn't have me, I think it was 42. But as somebody who literally wants like five or six children, I'm like, really? Obviously, like not right now. But I do think about that of like, I don't think I want to be having a kid at 42.

And so I'm like, it's kind of a tough thing because you think you want to have it at like, you know, 24, 25, 26. Yeah. Because you want to be young while your kids are like growing up. You play catch with them and stuff like that. Your shoulders don't hurt. But at the same time, you want to be able to enjoy your 20. So I don't know.

It's a tough situation. I think, though, when you have a balance of balance. I think, though, when you have to have a balance balance. think though when you have a kid at least what i'm hoping for who knows if it's actually like this that just everything in your life becomes so much better everything and my life's already very very good but as you have a kid you have someone like i'm not giving you like but having but having your 20s and having that freedom to pursue anything like you know you moving here would have not have been probably as doable if you had a newborn as like that's something you have to consider i mean i mean your mom did move you around

quite a bit when you were a young i was going to say i also felt in a different situation where in a obviously it's not the same thing as like the freedom of near 20s, but I feel like I've experienced a lot in my 21 years where it's like I've literally moved all over the country. I've traveled internationally. I've had multiple careers at this point. It's like, all right, cool. I feel very stable in the job that I have now. And so it's kind of weird.

I had this conversation with a couple of friends of mine who are still kind of in this like flux of like, I don't know where I want to live permanently or whatever. And I was like, you know what? I'm not really in a position where if like I got pregnant, I wouldn't be like, oh my God. Like what's what I'm going on? It's like, oh, I'm actually like there. stable and that's terrifying that's actually scarier to me because I you know was thinking like oh you know farther down the line it was like oh I'm an adult now that's very very weird to be like

very comfortable with that um but no but I do I definitely think for a man like obviously it is you know societal but for me at least it is biological because it's I had you know my brothers were 12 and 14 years older than me my mom had me when she was 42 they had a totally different relationship with my grandparents than I did because my grandparents were young super fun I barely saw my grandparents growing up because they were older they were moving into assisted living they didn't want to deal with like a you know my wife one cousin that's closer to my age and we like barely saw grandparents because of that totally different they my brothers traveled with them did all of this stuff and I remember growing up being like I don't want that like I don't want my parents to be

tired I don't want my you know grandparents I don't want my kids to have that experience but it all goes back my mom was 38 when she had me okay so for me that just seems kind of normal yeah and it seems like at least from my perspective you pursue everything that you want to do you know, on your own, have that freedom, go and travel the world. Like, have those experiences. And then once you've done those, then it makes sense. I think, uh, do you think you would still, like, travel the world and do that kind of thing with kids?

Probably not. Mm-hmm. No. I'm very set. Like, I, even for me, like, even for me, traveling is just like, it's not something I necessarily look forward. That's crazy. That, to me is crazy, man.

It's a household. I love just, like, being home. I will say, okay. It's comfortable. I do agree with that. I don't like menial traveling. I don't like just how. Like if I'm just like popping over to do like a work thing.

Oh my God, it's exhausting. Really? I don't like. I mean it's. That's his favorite kind of traveling work travel. No, well, I mean it is paid for it. So that's nice. But these days where it feels like travel is so screwed up post-COVID, in my opinion,

where I feel every time I travel like something goes wrong. And I was in the midst of like the Southwest chaos over Christmas and I was like, I cannot do this anymore. However, like international travel still excites me. And I've always said that I would love to like spend a year abroad with my future kids and like teach them another language and do something like that. But I also think because I was homeschooled, And because I had so much flexibility, I think of, like, having kids is like, oh, my God, there's all these opportunities. Like, this is so, so cool. See, for me, I want to do van life with Macy and just travel the United States in a van.

I'd love to take the iced coffee hour on the road. Like at some point, I think it would be, get an RV. I wouldn't be opposed to it. Here's the thing. I'm a very open-minded guy. Like, anyone can pitch me anything. I'm like, sure, why not? Let's see what happens.

So I would be down for that, test it out for a year or so. You can have the bunk. That's the one thing. I could have the bunk. I could have the bunk. It's crazy, though. Even like having a dog makes things difficult because you can't necessarily take the dog everywhere you go. Having a cat easier.

But having a reef aquarium is probably the most limiting thing for me. I can't believe. He wanted it so badly this reef aquarium. How big is this? 350 gallons. It's really big. It's huge. Yeah.

But it's so delicate. It's like someone's got to be there to like fill up the water for the reservoir like every two days. Do you have like a caretaker? I mean, obviously there are a couple people in Vegas that can do it. Yeah. They know the ends and the outs. But still, like, if I'm there, I test the waters. I make sure, like, if something fell over, I like, I keep it pristine.

So leaving that for more than a week at a time is difficult. So that's... So then thinking about kids, obviously... I can't do that van life. Yeah. And are you going to take the refueling with you? No, I wish I could. Put it in the van.

Custom-built van. I heard this analogy, and I loved it. Because I always grew up planning on having at least two kids. And I was like, okay, maybe two, maybe three. And then I heard from somebody, they're like, I want to have a bunch of kids. And I was like, why would you want to have a bunch of kids? And I was like, why would you want to have a bunch of kids? He's like, man, 10, 11, 12.

I'm like, why do you want somebody? He's like, hear me to say? Meet Kevin said it. He's another finance YouTuber. Okay. And he was like, and I was like, why do you want to have so many kids? He's like, think about it this way, man. They're your best friends.

Why would you not want more best friends? And I was like, well, that makes sense. You don't have to give birth to your best friend. I have so many, I have too many friends. Families are great because you're bonded by something. Like, it's kind of like a marriage. It's like a marriage, right? Where you're existing with somebody and you're living with them and you're happy and

everything, but as soon as you sign that contract, it's another level that you have to break through if you want to leave it. Which I also think is a societal thing where so many people think that marriage is like so much easier to throw away or it doesn't mean as much. And, you know, they're like, oh, I can get married. I'll just get divorced if it doesn't work. Oh, no. And it's like people can make it work. That's the thing. And they don't think that they do.

I think people are way more compatible in general. What about instances of cheating? Do you want to be with somebody who's cheating? I'm not somebody who's like, I don't believe people cheat anything. There's got to be a line there or it's like, you know. Absolutely does. But they don't want it to work out at all. The thing is you have, it has to be two people that both want to work out.

You can make it work out regardless of circumstance. I think it's about the ending of marriage and more about like as you're entering into marriage. And I see a lot of my friends and I see some of them that are, you know, a little more trivial with it. And then some that are, you know, I mean, they take it so, so seriously. And this is the end. And I'll be all. And even if you're, you know, already living with each other or something like that, still they say like things change. And, you know, you could become just like, oh, we're basically roommates, but you have to like actively work.

And so that's something I see with at least like our generation of it being like, oh, you know, it doesn't work. And it doesn't, you know, we can just break up basically and get a divorce. I'm like, oh. That's crazy. That was like one of the. That was like one of the. worst, you know, as a trial and that sort of thing. I'm like, it's not easy.

It's not a quick fix. Like that thing took five freaking years. It's exhausting. But anyway, that was just my side about marriage too. But I do. It seems like it's a good thing to be like, I want to have friends. So I'm going to have kids. It's just like that's not friends, man.

You got to do it for yourself. Grame. Best friends. Okay, have you ever had a best friend before? Yes. And what was that like? Fantastic. I've many best friends.

And you can have more as long as you have kids. I think, look, you have kids. And not only that, but I feel like you're also contributing to the greater good, especially if you're a good parent. That seems selfish. That seems like you're bringing life into the world because you want a best friend. No, dude. I think if you can raise kids and you can turn them into great citizens and they're productive, they help out people, they help out, they advocate for the community. Yeah, but I feel like you have to have a kid with no expectation.

Like you have to go in thinking I'm going to do. do this give me the best shot. No. You go in, you have to be so intentional about having children. Like, you have to, that's what I'm saying. But that's what I'm saying. But that's what I'm saying. But you can't go in with like, they're going to love me and they're going to do this and

do that. I feel like you can't. They're going to love me. I think that like. How could they not love me, man? They're going to love Jack. I was going to say, I think that, you know, as somebody who, like, with my brother and that sort of thing, I've watched his relationship with my parents be so fractured over the

years of, you know, with his, you know, drug abuse and like that sort of thing. I've also watched. you know, with my father, you know, the way that, you know, our relationship was, you know, totally destroyed at some point. And my mom and I have also gone through periods, you know, where we're closer, we're not closer, but especially with her, even in dealing with my brother, like, I feel like, you know, I watch her as a parent and no matter what happens, like, that love is unwavering. And her desire to force you, it's like, you look at parents and your job is to, like, get the kid to leave the nest, basically, to create, you know, this productive.

fulfilled, independent, go out and do good things. And that is like constantly her goal. That's the reason why she was encouraging me to, you know, take this job, do this thing, move across the country, do all of this with my brother. It was not just like, oh, honey, I just want you to be. It was like, I want you to be able to get better so that you can go out in the world and continue doing good things and living your life and being fulfilled. Like her job is not to keep you.

It is to bolster and continue working. And even with like, there were times where my brother like hated my mom, hated the things that she was trying to get him to do. I don't want to take these meds. I can't believe you're kicking me out of the house. Like all of this stuff. Unwavering. And even now, it's like he permanently lives in a psychiatric facility.

He's no longer in like an assist or whatever. Like he is nonverbal. He will be there permanently. Even like fully on meds. Like it went so far. And he was like totally sober, was not abusing drugs, was med compliant living with me in Idaho for a year and it just snapped one day. And so he permanently lives there.

And even still like she still holds out hope. Like she would still drop anything and do everything, even though he has like, in many ways totally blown up some of the stuff that she offered. And that is the coolest thing to me to be able to like from her perspective of like you get to experience a love like literally nothing else. And also it's literally your job to mold these humans to like send them out into the world to hopefully be good people. And also like I said earlier, it's sort of like for the greater good, but also I think that

having kids is hopeful and saying like I do think that there is like a world to be left for you. like I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that the world that I leave behind for you, like my legacy or whatever, is, you know, something that's good for you. And I do believe that you can change things and you can continue or continue making change. It's incredibly helpful. And that's when I look at our generation who's like, no, the world's doomed. I don't want to have kids because of that.

It's like, oh, my God. Like, no wonder, Gen Z's. Is that the general consensus, though? Because I feel like, again, we're just getting the extremes and either end. It's a pretty popular opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. It's a reason. This is a serious conversation to have if you're dating at this age. Absolutely. I just think it's, you know, people are. are having kids later because there's more opportunity out there no it might be for millennials but for Gen Z it's like super common yeah really oh dude but then again it's crazy you don't have conversations I'll have and they'll be like like it comes up and they say I don't want to have kids immediately it just yeah ends it ends it but don't you think that's also can

be an opinion that changes over time it could be but why would I risk it yeah that's a pretty hefty but I'm just saying if you're talking to your bodies and you're just saying you want to have kids no no I'm you know and they're 19 I feel like that's a lot more common my buddies they want to have kids ask them 10 years for know the same people who said no how many who said no we'll have kids just change I don't really keep in touch with the people that say really do you just like just audios friends are I like to think that they're reflections of me in some capacity and yeah they all want to have kids in fact one of them you got married already he's probably going to have a kid soon yeah same age so I mean like on the

flip side like my brother the oldest brother thought about you know wanted kids and then never you know really met anybody that he wanted to have kids with and so he's just kind of been like resigned himself to not having kids So I mean, I think it can change on the opposite end. But I think as somebody who like, you know, dates intentionally and like looks for a potential partner and that sort of thing, it's like if you're even wavering on that right now, like now. Yeah. It's even like it's like I think it's like a value thing like from the get go. It's like I'm so hopeful.

I'm so excited about. If you are not like that on board with it of like wanting this kind of life and it's like I know that I will probably want to homeschool my kids for at least part of my life, which means or part of their life. which means that I will have to you know he or I will have to make a certain amount of money in order to you know give that opportunity or if I want to you know travel and live like a year abroad with them or whatever

like that's kind of those are the kinds of things that I bring up because it's yeah I think I brought that up in the second date with Macy see? Yeah she asked if I want a kid and I said one day not right now I want to do van life and do the ice coffee hour but I was very out of it about one

and she's two so I'll have that I'd be okay with two That's good. But I grew up really as like an only child. So for me, I loved just having like all the attention. I get everything. I don't know. I think there's a great relationship between siblings. I have an older brother.

And we grew up together two and a half years apart. And the things that I learned from his mistakes, I didn't necessarily have to learn them myself. Because I could see him acting out of line. My parents will like, oh, you better not do that. And I'm like, oh, my God, like hiding behind the corner. Like, okay, I'm never going to make this mistake my brother made. And at the same time, I can go out and experience things my own way. And the way that they parented me, the way that they parented me is completely different than the way that they parented him.

And I think that like the first go around, you're like, okay, I'm kind of figuring it out, learning as we go. Second time, not saying on. Oh, definitely. Notting on better than my brother. But I'll just say like it was. I'll think that I was. It was for sure. Oh, they were, how were they on you compared to your older siblings?

Well, also because, like I said, my brother's death, I think changed a lot for my mom. But my oldest brother once said, and I think he'll still say this is he had more freedom at military school. He wanted to go into the military for his entire life. He went to the Marines private high school. Then he went to the Air Force Academy and he served for a while. Still works for the Air Force. He had more freedom of military school than he did at my mom with my mom. I mean, she was very, very strict.

And he respects it now. But at the time, you know, as a 15 year old boy, hated it. And I watched their mistakes as well. But I think my mom relaxed a lot. She was also, you know, I think I got her at a point in her marriage when she was a lot more confident and knew that things were wrong. my dad very, you know, has dealt with very, very severe mental health issues. And those are kinds of things that, like, she stuck with him for so long through it and it just got to a point where it's like was not good at all.

And so they divorced. But I got to see her, you know, one story I think I've ever told before is that my brother David, a week before he died, my dad had this like major blow up blind rage. And I don't remember even what it was about. He threw something. It was awful. My brother came into my mom's room crying and was like, why are you so married to this man? Like, why do you allow him to treat us like this?

Like, I understand that he's ill. I understand that things are wrong, but this is not healthy. This isn't wrong. You're not happy. We're not happy. And he died a week later. And I think, I mean, she was like ripped apart. And I mean, and I was five at the time.

And so my then childhood was totally changed. And that was like a snap for her of like, I cannot raise this child the same way. And I think constantly, you know, with my brothers, she was battling between prioritizing, you know, her first husband, you know, was also, I would say, had a lot of demons, but he got brain cancer when the middle brothers were one, and then he passed away. So my mom was dealing with like a terminally ill husband and three boys and then was a single mom and then quickly got remarried to my dad who she knew in college and then realized that that was not what she had expected either. And so it was constantly for their young adult life going back and forth between like, I have to care for the husband. I have to care for you. I have to

go back and forth, back and forth. And I don't think. I think she was so wound up and so stressed. And my oldest brother now totally understands that. But, it, we were raised so differently because of it. Obviously, like, our values are the same. It was still the same mother, but the way that she, you know, reprimanded us, the way that she, you know, gave us opportunities, I think was very, very different. It's interesting to watch that. But I also, in ways I felt like an only child because my brothers were 12 and 14 years older than me, but I still had that brother connection. Like when things were really bad with my dad, my oldest brother who's 14 years older than me became like that father figure in a lot of

ways. And it's been like the support system that I have, I mean, could not repay him for. of like he would be in Florida, he would answer the phone at 4 a.m. And I would be, like, sobbing, having some kind of panic attack over something. And he would just sit there. Fly me out to him, offered, you know, you can live with me, would get in the middle of my middle brother and I, when my brother was having, like, psychotic breaks and that kind of thing. I mean, truly, like, stepped the hell up.

And because of that, I want to have, like, a lot of it, I want to give them that, but also hopefully closer in age. But it just, you know, that's a kind of relationship that I don't have anywhere else. I think it's very, very empowering. That's not the right word. It's just really, really meaningful. Sure. Yeah.

Is your older brother still in Seattle? No, so he never moved up there. So, oh, that was the part of the story that I never finished. But I moved to Boise. My mom was thinking that she was going to be so close to all of us. And then I moved here. My brother stayed in Florida. So now my mom was just in Idaho.

Fires up? She was like, why did I stay here? I could have gone back to the south. But no, my brother's in Florida. Okay, I was going to say that would have been a wicked coincidence. So my brother's in Seattle. Nice. Yeah, no.

He's in Florida doing Air Force stuff. Here's an interesting topic. What do you think about legalizing drug use? or decriminalize it. Gosh. It's a really, really hard subject because I have this like personal, emotional

like tie to it. And so my gut reaction is like, I don't want anybody doing that. I don't want any family to have to go through what we did. But I also kind of look at it philosophically. It's like it's not my job

to tell you what to put in your body. We already know that, you know, drinking is a toxin and that's legal and people, you know, drive drunk and that has. happens and so you know drugs are not healthy for us and you know most senses um it shouldn't be my job to tell you to dictate what you put in your body um but i also think that so many drugs are just not studied well enough we just don't really know the long-term impacts especially on young people

um so i don't really know if i have a firm answer um for hard drugs i you know i'm not in favor of it i think it's just there's too much that's unknown i think it's a sure incredibly dangerous for people and purely because of the and I don't and maybe that's you know philosophically inconsistent I try to say really consistent but I think I can be clouded by the fact that I have seen with my brother and with the people that he was on the street and I mean literally it can destroy you yeah and you and you have we have no idea yeah see part of me feels like if a lot of these were legalized or at least decriminalized to a certain extent that you wouldn't have drugs laced with fentanyl and all these other randoms that could probably do more damage than

if that person went like hey here's a trusted source. I'm going to do it anyway. Yeah. At least I could go through this avenue. We could regulate it to a certain extent. We could tax it. I think that was my kind of where I started with all of this and I thought that. And then one thing that kind of threw me for a loop

is looking at California after they legalized weed is that now it is so heavily regulated and taxed that illegal marijuana growth and selling is popped back up again because it got so expensive. And the labor laws are terrible. People are dying. Like their route. But my thought is on that is that they only issued so many licenses. Yeah.

And so it was like this lottery system. And whoever didn't get a license, like, well, I'm just going to do it anyway. Yeah. And I think it was a terrible system to begin with. Yeah. And seeing actually how they steal water now from the state and they do them illegally and they take water away from fighting fires is nuts to me. Yeah. But that shows me that there's a huge market for it.

And they may as well embrace it. People are going to do it anyway. Yeah. You know, allow, make it easier for people who want to get into that to do it. properly. And I think that that's where it goes back to culture, where it's, you know, if we talk to young people who think that, you know, drugs are harmless and that sort of thing, it's like, that's objectively a lie. And maybe in some cases, you know, it's fine. But I do think if we are able to have the tough conversations of saying, you know, this is not like a easy fix-all. You can't

take this to cope and fix everything. You know, there are drawbacks to it just like with drinking all of that, I think, you know, at least in my generation, I see that people have just gotten, in my opinion, way too comfortable with it. And I think that is difficult for me. And so I think that's why I would focus more on changing the culture around it, of, you know, being more responsible if you're going to be. Because either way, when the government gets involved, it's going to be screwy regardless. There's never going to be a perfect situation. Nobody's ever going to be happy. There's always going to be fault. The government's going to tax something too much, regulate it, not enough, whatever. And so the only thing that I can do as a person in my situation is tell, you know, my family story, share my opinion about it. and maybe keep some kid from doing something that's like totally irresponsible i guess let's i think good role models especially online are really important um i like to actually we met a while ago with the stradman and he's like no alcohol no caffeine no nothing i'm just like working i'm having a great time you don't have to do this either even danny duncan is very much against everything and i think when he is an audience of millions of people who watch every single video that that goes a long way like i guarantee some 14 year old kid is going to expect kids to have these role models in the same way that you can't expect a family

to provide all of the reasonable values. Everyone looks up to somebody, though. Yeah, but just because they look up to somebody doesn't mean that it's a good idol. You could have a false idol, you know? And I think that it's a tough conundrum that I've always deliberated in my head. It's like, okay, when should the government step in to take care of people? Because in my opinion, like, I have a pretty anti-drug, just like philosophy in general. But at the same time, like, similarly to you, it's like you want people to be able to make the choice that they want to make and have freedom.

So I feel like for drug use specifically, I don't think drugs should be legalized. I think they're incredibly dangerous. No. I think they're incredibly dangerous. And I think it is so hard for me because I like to say philosophically consistent. But at the same time, I think that some people just can't make the right decisions for themselves and doing drugs. Objective. I won't say objectively.

I will not say objectively. But I think it is a terrible, terrible decision. People have addictive. personalities and they'll make they'll make bad decisions and it goes so go down a rabbit hole and screw yourself over everybody that cares about you too where do you draw the line at what drug weed let's let's start there well with weed for like i you know i have friends that have you know battle with autoimmune diseases and you know cancer and that sort of thing if it is like medically like for people going through chemo if you are you know given like a medical

cannabis thing and it's going to you know help you through chem or you know chemo i've seen that be beneficial for people. It's like, okay, I think that's different than like recreational use. But I would say like, that's probably where I would. So you would say, draw the line on my comfort level. That's where you draw the line. So you both would draw the line. I would say medical marijuana would be fine. Really? Yes. I think honestly, even recreational marijuana, I'm like, well, here's the really? I don't think it's like super damaging. But the thing is, it becomes a lifestyle. And that's the part where it becomes damaging. It's like if you want to do it for a little escape at the same time, it's like, it's like a weapon. I think it could be used.

be used. Really? But, okay, from my perspective, they're happy. They don't fight each other. They're not, like, really getting in trouble. I see it largely as something harmless. And, you know, you could argue. Maybe it's a gateway to other things.

I don't know. I would say, like, medically, I don't see it as harmless with what is coming out about how it changes your brain chemistry with heart stuff. Smoking weed can be detrimental for people who have, like, that's one of the reasons why I never was going to do it because my family has this history of, you know, cardiac arrest. There are links there. especially with young people.

And if you are smoking pot before your brain is fully developed, it's like we just don't have those studies. Because drugs have not been legalized, they really have not been studied. And we have not had, you know, the generational period, you know, to see what happens to the kids that have spent their entire, you know, teen years, college year's smoking pot, what happens to them in 50 years?

We just don't know. And that's like a risk that I'm not willing to take. Well, don't we know what happens 50 years later? I feel like a lot of adults, like 50 to 70 have been. sort of thing. But again, I think that the drugs now are so different. It's dangerous because I like to compare it to a weapon. It's like you can use it in a good way to defend yourself. You can use it as an escape. Sometimes if you want to lay low and whatnot. But at the same time, you can use it to do serious harm to yourself and people around you. But at the same time,

the difference between obviously like a weapon and weed is one is altering your psychology. So that's going to impair your job and everything. Yeah. I say this by the way, so we've never done drugs. Nothing. I've smoked weed twice. Two or three times I think in my entire life is as curious as like 16 years old. That was it. Never anything else. But I feel like alcohol is way more harmful. Okay. So I was going to bring that up. So I have a really good friend of mine who is probably the most like anti-drug person I've ever met and like can

run circles around people. It's so intelligent. But she also gets drunker than anybody else in my life. And so that's something I brought up and I don't really drink a lot. And honestly, I drank more before I turn 21 and I probably, you know, could count on one hand the amount of drinks I've had since October when I turned 21. and I think I'm moving more and more towards probably stopping drinking and I did like dry January and I loved it. I think I've had one drink since then. And it's honestly, I don't know if you've noticed with our generation, like being sober is beginning. It's cool.

It's very, very popular. It's cool, which is really exciting to me. But I'll bring up drinking a lot and I'll, you know, look at her and I'll say, so what is the difference? And she doesn't really have an answer. And it's like it is literally a toxin. We know now there was a new report from, oh, God, it was in Canada. What was the organization? It was like the Canadian Bureau of Substance Abuse or something like that,

and it talks about the links of alcohol to cancer. And even like one drink increases the likelihood of Alzheimer's in cancer. And so it's like... Doesn't it depend on the drink, though? Because I've heard so many studies on wine. Like red wine, I think, can be a little different, but still alcohol in general and intoxication. And the impact that it has, you know, with DUIs and people, you know, being belligerent and killing people on the road and that sort of thing.

And it's like, so, you know, we know, we see all these facts. So how does it differ? And I think that's one point that I get stuck on because obviously we've tried banning alcohol before. That didn't work. So that's where I get so torn on it. And I just don't. I just feel like people are going to do it anyway.

Yeah. They're going to choose to do it. Alcohol is something you could make, and it doesn't take many resources to make something with alcohol. Same with weed. True. True about weed, yes. I think there's a lot of drugs that people could just like.

I lived next door to somebody in LA who was growing pot in their apartment. I mean, yeah. In their apartment. Oh, yeah. Closets, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's stunk.

I've never grown me. I'm not really sure. I'm just saying, I think people are going to do it regardless. Okay. It makes sense to regulate tax and offer something pure where you know you're not going to get like something laced in it that shouldn't be in there. I do wonder though, if you change something in the government, right, to criminalize all drugs and whatnot to a higher degree, will that filter down into a cultural change? I feel like for the most part, I feel like no. I think it can, though.

Over time, over time, if you give it enough time. Okay, so I think not to bring in another, like, very polarizing subject, but in one instance this year where I feel like I was even kind of proven wrong on the culture as downstream, or no, where I was proven wrong on the politics is downstream from culture was the Dobs decision to the overturning of Roeby Wade. It was fascinating that in the, like, two months after that, you know, we saw all of these girls going on, like, sex strikes and saying, I'm not going to have sex because of this. And there was a whole Washington Post article about girls my age saying, like, guess I'm not going to be hooking up anymore.

Like, guess casual sex isn't going to be for me because I can't do this. And, you know, guess I'm going to have to be more safe. And it was all of these things that it's like I think about as somebody who is pro-life. And that, you know, I run back my head and I'm somebody, you know, I don't really value hookup culture. I think it's detrimental, especially women's health and that sort of thing. And they were having, you know, they were making all these decisions because of a law that was put in place. And then a lot of them, you know, months on the line were like, oh, this is so healthy. like I need to be anti, you know, hookup culture, that sort of thing.

And I was like, okay, so I guess in many cases, it can also be downstream from politics when they were forced to. But it was such a, it was a weird, I don't know, that was trippy for me because I, it was just interesting to watch them inadvertently kind of fall into like, no, this is actually healthy. But in the drug case, you have to also think of enforcement and the cost of that and the cost of putting people in jail. Does someone really deserve to be in jail because they have an addiction or they have mental illness to the COVID? coping with through drugs and they have no violent defenses. They're minding their own business and they got caught up because they bought something on the street that they shouldn't have been buying. It's like, is that the type of person who deserves to be in jail?

Yeah. So that's what I think. And maybe there's a difference, you know, a different debate to be had between like legalization and then decriminalization and then like what should be criminalized. I think more mental health facilities I think would be fantastic because I think a lot of these. I don't know the statistics. It is.

But a lot of it, I think. goes down to mental health. Yeah. And I think we have a culture that on both sides at the political aisle, I don't think we know how to deal with mental health. And this is somebody, you know, saying this is somebody who was growing up in this environment, which you guys now know a lot about, you know, in addition to my brother, like I said, my dad is out with a lot.

And that's been a huge part of my life of, you know, in and out of therapy, on and off of meds and that sort of thing. Both sides of the political aisle do not know how to deal with it. Conservatives have a reputation of believing that mental health does not exist. I'm friends with a lot of people who believe that who say it's all stupid. None of it is real. And I'm like, I literally have a brother in a hospital right now that cannot even function. I know.

And obviously a lot of that is now like chemical in his brain, but it's like that is mental health. I know that it's real. I spent years in therapy. I can tell you that it's real. But, you know, I understand where you're coming from because I think so many people, especially in my generation, use it as a crutch and will self-diagnose and say, oh, I'm so depressed. It's like, no, I think you're dealing with a minor inconvenience. I think we've normalized it a little too far and trivializing it.

I think there's also this kind of social contagion of people adopting mental health things. I'm thinking that it's kind of cool to be depressed. It's very cool to be like a tortured soul these days. But then on the left, you know, they claim to be, you know, very caring. We're going to fix this. But then their solutions are, you know, social security and, you know, telling people that they, you know, affirming all of their problems rather than saying, like, here are the solutions to make you get better. It's like, we'll give you, you know, $1,200 every two weeks and say, yes, it's okay that you, you know,

have depression rather than saying, no, let's, let's fix this. Because it is a lifestyle. You know, it is something that you can take measures, whether you're going on meds or not, to make things better in your life. If it's literally just getting off of your phone and sitting out in the sun and eating a better diet, that does wonder for your brain. Yes. And for some people, it doesn't.

Like, my brother needs to be on Mets. Must be on Mets. And for him, it's like, what other, I do think that there need to be better mental health resources because for somebody like him, his only option right now is a state hospital. There is no place. There is one private place in the country that I have identified that if like my mom passes away and he's in Idaho right now and I need to like step in like as part of the, you know, is taking care of things. There is one place that I can get him to if I don't want him to be, you know, 11 hours away. I think he's more than that because he's a couple of hours away from her one place.

And this is in Tennessee that does like intensive care and that's private and it costs thousands of dollars. But that's something that I think about in the back of my mind of like, okay, I know that I will want to take that on. I agreed to take care of his estate and that sort of stuff. There's one of them. And obviously, I don't think that the asylum system was great. And that's one thing that, you know, Reagan got rid of. But, and they were obviously, they mistreated a lot of people, but there's nothing like that anymore.

It's like what happens to those people. Instead, they just end up on the street. Yeah. They end up abusing drugs. That's what I've seen in Los Angeles. I think a lot of the people on the street, they're mentally ill. Yes. And they don't have any resources or places to turn.

It's like, what are they going to do? They're on the street. It's either they get picked up by police, go to jail, get released right afterwards. That just doesn't solve anything. No. And in my opinion, just giving them cash every week also does nothing. Because you can get more money if you're crazier. I remember my brother was with like this community of homeless guys and one of them who actually passed away a year ago.

We planned his funeral. He became a really good friend for my brother. I mean, this man was like 50 years old. He lived on the street for most of his life. It was so tortured, knew that he was dying and like took care of my brother in a lot of ways. And if Reed was in trouble, like, he would call me and be like, and he would be high out of his mind and still be like, Reed's in trouble, Reed's passed out.

Like, you need to come get him. And that's where I mean, it was incredible. But he would fake seeing like aliens and have visions in order to get more money because the crazier you are, you get more money. And so a lot of that is like put on. How is that? How do they do that? How do they judge like how severe?

Like, you like go in front of a psychologist or psychiatrist or it's like some other What does money help with in that scenario? Is that because like you're that much less likely to work? Yep. That's what it is. But then they don't actually like my brother never tried to get a job. The people that he was around never tried to get a job. One of them got into a halfway house.

You have to apply for those. Like the living facility that my brother was in in L.A. He had to apply to get in and he had to pay like $50 a month or something like that. So he used his social security for that. You would get food stamps, but food stamps were separate than the social security cash that you were literally just given. And so there wasn't an incentive for him to do that. And when you are that mentally gone, like, all he cared about was getting drugs. So if he was getting $1,200 every two weeks to go just smoke pot and, like, trip on acid and that sort of thing, like, he was going to do that.

And so I think, you know, as somebody who is not really in favor of a lot of government intervention, but I still think, you know, we do have these resources. I think that you're just allocating the wrong resources to these people. and you think the money is going to fix it, and then you're going to pat yourself on the back, like the L.A. you know, government. Like, this is so great. We're fixing all this. It's like, look at the people on your streets.

They're literally suffering, and they just die there. And there's no other resources and just giving away taxpayer dollars or something. And there are so many incredible organizations and nonprofits and churches that step in and try to help, but there's only so much that they can do. But then on the conservative side, I think that there is such a missed opportunity on the right

because we talk about personal responsibility and accountability, and you need to be a productive member, of society and take care of your health. Like there are all these studies that, you know, conservatives are happier than liberals. You know, conservatives take care of themselves more because they care about personal responsibility. They don't want to rely on anybody else.

That is an opportunity to reach those people and say, like, you are worth more. Like we can help you. Rather than like affirming this literal illness, it should not be, hey, you don't have a problem. You're being stupid. It should be, okay, what are the necessary steps in order to get you out of this because you deserve more, because you have more potential. Right.

And it's like, that is such a good. Whether you care about politics or not, it's like, that is what we should be giving these people. It's not just throwing them cash, being like, oh, so sorry that you are mentally ill. So how do you make a change on that? I have no idea. And maybe cultural.

Again, I go back to like changing the conversation about it. I'm very, very open about talking with my family's mental health issues, which I think is something that is very not really seen on the right. I'm really the only person that I know of that talks about this stuff very, very publicly. I spent years in therapy.

I would have like panic attacks weekly when going through stuff with my brother. And right after I got emancipated, my mom was back in Tennessee dealing like finalizing her divorce I would go have to like find my brother on the street and would like maybe see him passed out or like he was tripping on something like it was awful um and I dealt with that for years I had therapy before a lot of that started I did therapy with my brother to kind of deal with my his twins death and we did therapy together because he only agreed to do it if I would do it with him and then I had therapy to deal with that brother wow so I've been in it a lot um and it's like I know that it's real I know people deal with it I

know that our generation is the most mentally ill generation in history. So it's like... Why? There's so many reasons. I think social media has a lot to do with it. Technology. Yeah. I think that's a huge portion of it.

Not being present in the real world, I would say. I think that the fear porn in the world around us where everything, you know, the media is designed to get clicks, like you said, the world is ending, you know, everybody's worried about, you know, gun violence. People are worried about, you know, the future of this country, democracy ending. climate is actually, it is the number one stressor for our generation. Like there is climate, anxiety, climate, depression is now like an actual diagnosis that you can have. And our media like feeds into that.

And so I think that's a big part of it. And it's interesting that a lot of these, the stressors for our generation is external rather than like, I always thought of mine is like it came from my family. It was very internal. But all of this is like all the external stuff. I think it's just because we have more access to everything. And it's immediate. Yeah. And I still think it's the extremes.

Like I keep going back to TikTok. I'm just showing like the worst of the worst of the worth on either end of the spectrum. Just to get like clicks, comments. I think it was on Facebook. The angrier someone gets, the more likely that is to be at the top of the page. And it was anger that they went after. Not fear or sadness. It was like, how angry is this going to make them to stay on here and write a comment?

And I think that, you know, we can have that conversation too about like how many people are actually diagnosed with things. because, you know, we look at the stats for Gen Z, and it's like our numbers are off the charts, but some of those are, you know, self-diagnosed, self-proclaimed, whatever. So I think that's another conversation. But also, like you said, we're being fed this very extreme content. So what is the impact that that is having on the viewers? So then if it's constantly angry, if everybody around you was constantly depressed, they're all anxious, everybody's having this, like, identity crisis constantly.

It's like that becomes then the norm. And whether you have that extreme or not, I just see people kind of becoming complacent and believing that that's just the norm. Yeah. Well, speaking of extremes, what do you think of Andrew Tate? You know, I think that he's done good. I watch his clips, and I think that he's done a lot for, you know, some young men. I think it's, I think he's an interesting figure. I think he started a lot of really important conversations. Do I think that he is like a masculine role model? No, I don't. And I think partially because I just don't love that lifestyle, I'm like, I look at a man and I don't qualify his masculinity because of how rich he is. or how fast the car he has or how many like high, you know, S-tier women he's able to get. Even if it's a Bugatti though.

Well, yeah, do not care. Like, I would rather you drive a truck or some kind of Bronco and be a normal guy and have really great values. And like, I don't care how many cigars you smoke. And so I think that kind of turns me off a bit. Maybe that's very superficial. But I'm like, I just don't, you're not appealing to me. But I understand that guys like that.

And I understand that it's like, and like, cool for them and that sort of thing. and maybe you can, you know, I don't know what you think about him, but I know I have guy friends are like, oh, he's so cool. Like, he's making me feel like empowered and he's speaking to me. Part of me is shocked that people can't see, like, I see in terms of politics. I see both sides equally. And I'm like, I love these things about this. Yeah.

I love these things about this. And we could like bring them together. But I don't identify necessarily with one or the other. I just kind of pick and choose bits and pieces, but I do the same thing with people. It's like I might disagree with some things they say, but I'm like, that one thing. I kind of like that. And I'll pick and choose from that.

Do you think people have the ability to do that, though? Because it seems like now it's less, it's less about saying, I like this one thing about this person. And I agree with like taking accountability. I think people are more close-minded when they get a little bit younger, though. So like I think like our generation, Gen Z is like they would like you either hate them or you love them. But for an older generation, I feel like it's it's much different. Like I.

Older. Am I older? You're a millennial, right? A millennial. You are older. There you go. True. Like I got blamed.

I actually wasn't terrible. terrible, but I definitely did see some pushback in my comments because I was talking about Jeffrey Starr and he was talking about, you know, was talking about, you know, gender binary and that kind of thing. And he came out and he was saying like the they, them stuff, which just doesn't make sense. And he's also spoken out against, you know, gender transitions for children saying they're not ready for that, that sort of thing. And so I made a video and I said, you know, obviously this YouTuber has a lot of controversy. He's done a lot of stuff. People hate him for many reasons. But this is something that we can commend, at least that my audience can commend. He's saying protect. children there we go and people were like no but he's done all this all like other stuff and I don't like him I'm not like ra roj every star I love all your videos but I'm like hey that was a that was a good thing I think some you know conservatives also think that that means like you're bending the knee you're compromising your values I'm like no I'm not becoming a fan I'm just acknowledging when somebody does something that you know might be beneficial for a listener might open up their eyes to something new and I think it's the same thing with Andrew tait like you're saying

his lessons and his messages of you know taking accountability as a young man and speaking to young men and saying, I know it's hard for you right now. I know that, you know, modern feminism, you know, tells you need to be effeminate and, like, all of this stuff. Like, I know it's tough. But here are some of the things that you could do. Do I like the way he speaks about women? No, I don't. I think it's very weird. And obviously, you know, there's a lot of back and forth about what he was doing in Eastern Europe or whatever. I don't love the way that he's spoken about that. Like I remember he said, you know, I think it was about sex trafficking or no, it was like, you know, he doesn't condone rape, but, you know, in some countries, it's technically legal.

so. And I was like, well, like, there's still a moral wrong there. There's still a moral wrong. I think that kind of goes back to like, even if something's legal or whatever else still. Yeah, I would believe that it is wrong. So I obviously don't support those things. But I think he's had viral moments. And I think he has started important conversations online. Maybe that's how I would kind of frame it. Yeah. I would agree with that. I think he's a disruptor. And I think disruptors are extremely needed because it's super easy to just go with the flow. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like. He gained a lot more power than I feel like you should probably give to a disruptor just in general because usually disruptors are more extreme and you don't want someone super extreme to be like. Exactly. But there's more gravitational pull with people that are extreme like him. So it makes sense. What I noticed with Andrew Tate people that people that are like, like, big Andrew Tate fan boys is the fact that he kind of gave that whole victimhood mentality to dudes, which a lot of people don't really see. But that's what I saw because he was like, you know, it's hard to be a dude. Dudes are depressed at rates that have never been seen. before and stuff like that and guys are like oh my god and everybody yeah i don't say everybody

wants to be a victim but a lot of people it's easy to be a victim because then you have an excuse so people were like okay yeah this sounds good and then he's like but there's light at the end of the tunnel yeah and people are like oh wow that's cool and everybody every dude wants to be a hero and he's also playing to the fear but i think he he offers some like solutions i think he acknowledges like oh things are tough and i think you brought up an important point because I kind of struggle with, you know, talking to, you know, my audience of, like, young men and young women and saying, like, you have it really bad. And this, like, society is so screwed up. But I try to make it pretty even talking about, like, the boy crisis. Because I also think that there is a huge, like, young woman crisis. Like, there's a reason why the majority of young people transitioning right now are girls. Like, there's a reason why, like, I think girls committing suicide at the young age is now above. I mean, it's like, girls have so many issues. As, like, a young girl, I knew what it was like. I understand going through puberty and literally feeling like you don't belong in your body and what's going on and all of this stuff. But I think only telling people that you are a victim and the people hate you is not the best.

And so I do think with things like Andrew Tate, it was like I wish that he had offered more solutions in a way of like. All it was was like getting rich buying my program and also work out, which is great. Get a six pack. That was very interesting. But it's but it's like go. But at the end of the day, go to the gym. Go to the gym and bring value. Yeah.

Yeah, because I also get rich and get like a harem of women. Which I feel like is, like, okay. Yeah, it's like, okay, we could take what we want the ideas that we want to serve us. But by making money, but by making money, you're adding value in some way. It can be, you're being a productive member of society. It could be, it could bring a lot of purpose depending on what you're doing. If you're adding value to somebody else, could be setting goals. I don't think money bring purpose.

But I'm saying if you're doing something of value. I think the way that you are making money. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Not the money itself, but like to bring value. you. You have to be doing something to society. You have to be doing something of value, hopefully, to do that. No, I think that there are really good takeaways and really poor

takeaways for it. Absolutely. But I think the best way that you said it was a disruptor. And I agree we need more of those. Because I think people get so caught up in this very polarized group think. I think if one person on, you know, other sides pops through and it's like, I disagree with this and it causes like mess. It starts conversations, whether or not that changes people's minds. I think polarizing figures like Joe Rogan is a great example and he's somebody that's kind of wrote it really well, I think. Um, of like he's unafraid to say things that are super controversial and have people on that are, you know, controversial and opening up those conversations and he'll say something every once in a while. People are like, oh my God. But you like him so much

now he's gained this audience and it's like, okay, you respect it. But I think having those people pop up is so important for this culture where everybody is so terrified to say something that is out of line. And it's like that isn't what it should be. How do you balance that, though, between maybe, because you have a very big audience at this point. A lot of people listen to what you have to say. How do you balance your own thoughts and think, you know, maybe I have some biases here. Yeah. How do I present both sides?

Because my whole thinking with my channel is generally presenting both sides and letting people come to their own decision. Be like, here's for and against, you know, I kind of am somewhere in the middle, but I'll let you decide. Yeah. How do you go about that? I think for the most part I will try to explain my bias. and so like for example if we're talking about drugs I will explain my family's history with that if I'm talking about something like as a young woman where I have a personal

experience I will explain that and I try to be as personal as possible and it obviously like I walk a fine line because you know I am a public figure now until people you know get a lot of insight into my life but you kind of have to draw that line of like how far am I willing to take it and I think the best way I've described it is like there's a point where like online Brett ends and like real life Brett kind of continues and I you know decide when I'm keeping private

but for the most part I try to be totally transparent to the people know exactly where my biases come from. Sure. Because if you don't, if you don't know, then it's just me as like some idol telling you what to think. But if you understand how I have come to the conclusions that I have come to, that is the thing that I respect in listening to the people, you know, that I listen to. So for instance, when I'm listening to Ben, understanding his religion and his values and his culture makes so much sense. And it's like, oh, I relate to you. I understand. Obviously, don't relate because I'm not a Jew. But it's like, I can understand how you have come to this conclusion.

And I think that creates more of a human-to-human connection, which is always what I'm trying to achieve. It's like appealing to emotion. And then also, I always try to leave people with a more empowering message. And so maybe that makes me, you know, I'll, you know, land on one side or the other, but I will usually try to land with the thing that does, you know, make people most empowered and makes them turn against a victim mentality. Sure.

And so if there is an opportunity to present that, it's less about politics. and more about, you know, as I've said before, you are deserving of more, you can do more, and you are holding yourself back. If you are claiming that you are oppressed nine times out of ten in this society, it is because you are doing it yourself, whether that is like physically or your mindset. And that is something that I don't think should be political. It sadly has become political anymore. And so if I can encourage my audience to just push themselves even more, then I would do that.

But I think with the biases part of it, it's just explaining my own. And how often do you change your opinions on something? Because you're mentioning debates a lot. Yeah. At what point or maybe give us some examples of sometimes you've debated and come away from it, be like, you know what, they have some great points. I agree. I think drug legalization has been one that I've, like, struggled with because I came probably,

you know, in the last few years, I think I've become more pro or I guess more anti-drug legalization, even though I had my own, you know, family's history with it as I just learned more about the impacts of, you know, legalizing it. what happened, the impact on other people outside of my own bubble, because I was just kind of thinking of it in my family's bubble. And so I thought that's probably not the best way to look at it. And being around people who, you know, have differing opinions. And I've, you know, tried to debate people who are, you know, not pro-legalization. And I just kept falling short. I was like, okay, so maybe that is a sign, especially when morally I kind of lean that way. But I think the biggest one was I used to be pro-choice. And I was in my part, morally I knew that was something I could ever do. That was ever something I was ever something I was.

would do I knew that it was objectively wrong. However, I always, you know, thought of it as there are two lives that are at stake here. We're talking about the mother. We are talking about the baby. And if I am somebody who is anti-government intervention, I don't want the government telling me what to do with my life, my body, why do I have any say over what, you know, this woman is doing and I don't know her life experience, whatever. Right.

But then I'm just leaving this unborn child with nowhere, whatever. So that was very, very complicated for me, but as somebody who at the time, I was a lot more libertarian and I still think that I probably lean a little bit more that way than a lot of people that I'm around. I have very conservative values but I think I can fluctuate on that when it comes to how far I want to legislate that. But anyway, then I got to UCLA and I started to see the pro-choice people that I was around were not really just pro-choice. They were pro-abortion. And that was kind of when like Miley Cyrus did like the abortion cake and it was like literally celebrating abortion. But do you think maybe that you saw the extremes on that side and that maybe

a lot of people land somewhere else in the middle, but you just don't see them. Yes. Yes. And there are, you know, the majority of people in this country, I believe, you know, would, you know, support abortion up to a certain point. And they do believe that there need to be restrictions upon it. So I know that there are people there who like understand that this cannot be, you know, extreme. But as I'm thinking about it on a cultural level, the fact that just in the last few years, people getting so pro abortion, like they are so angry about this issue that they just take it to the extreme, that they are, like the media and I think that the media, you know, is a lot to blame for this because they just stoke this fire over and over again. And so I put a lot of the blame on them, but it is, you know, creating this entire culture of people that whether intentionally or unintentionally are becoming so like just angry and pro-killing something.

And it's like, how did we get here from saying, I just want autonomy to now the majority of the rhetoric that comes out about this is pro-abortion? It's like the Jessa Dugger story that just happened a couple of weeks ago. where she had a miscarriage and, you know, the 10 media outlets that covered it all said that it was an abortion. It was like, it wasn't. You just saw this woman crying on YouTube for 18 minutes about her miscarriage. I was a missed miscarriage and she had to have a D&C to have the fetus removed because she did not pass it naturally. And you're saying that because she did that, it's an abortion was not. You're like, she's lying about it.

It's like, so you're using this story twisting somebody's personal experience for your agenda. And it's like that's where I had a major problem with it. Sure. But then it doesn't seem genuine. So I saw a lot of that at school. I saw, you know, my sorority sisters who were on like abortion number two because they weren't on birth control and just saw it as kind of like a backup plan. Like, oh, yeah, it's fine, I'll just use it as birth control.

And then the kicker for me was learning that my dad wanted me to be aborted. And that was like, whole. Like my parents' marriage by the time that I was conceived was already over. My mom knew that she wanted a divorce. Wow. She stayed because of me. And we can argue whether that was a good thing or not a good thing. And we talk about that a lot about what that would have changed in my childhood.

sort of thing and I'm happy with how things turned out. How did you learn about that? Like where did it? That seems like a tough. Yes. That was ever told to me. But I was calling my mom about abortion. And I was like, I'm just so conflicted right now. Because I was like, this is something I could never do. I like I know

that I could not. I know that it's morally wrong and we are going back and forth and my mom is incredible at showing both sides of it. And so she would argue it, you know, kind of play devil's advocate. She would argue it from, you know, the perspective of the mother. She would argue it from, you know, over protection of the unborn trial. All of this would go back and forth. what makes the most sense. I mean, she,

and this is something she's changed her opinion on a lot because she used to be pro-choice as well. But I mean, back and forth, back and forth. Hours of talking about this. I just don't. It's such a complicated issue that deserves so much empathy and so much grace. And I think people on both sides of the political aisle

just do not give it that. There's some people on the right as well who, you know, villainize mothers who have had abortions. I'm like, that's not freaking productive either. And there's so many people who literally do not think that they have another option. And it is our job to show that there is another option and to amplify, you know,

the pregnancy centers. and the resources that are available to you because they outnumber abortion clinics. They actually, like, on paper they do. And, you know, you can have these resources. And so, anyway, that's just a whole aside. But we would go back and forth, back and forth. And I was like, I just don't know more than I was really torn up about it. And she was like, I'm going to, you know, be very personal with you.

And she was like, when, you know, we found out that I was pregnant, Mike wanted you to be aborted. And she was like, we knew our marriage was over. this wasn't obviously planned at all. And he was like, I want you to make an appointment and go. And she was like, that totally changed my mind because she said I had not even considered that this would impact me personally. I was a mother of three. That would never be a concern of mine.

And she said having like a life inside of me and being told that like I would end that. She was like after going through multiple pregnancies and like in that moment feeling I knew that that was never anything that I could do. And I think then her perspective shift shifted because for her it had always been about the rights of the mother and she was like like this is somebody that you know is the most vulnerable person in our society who literally has no autonomy that is fully dependent on this other person and i think that is where her perspective shifted um and for me making it very very personal it was just like okay that's you know it did a lot yeah don't you think saying that though would would automatically

push you to one side like that you can't get more personal than that i don't think so because a lot of people will say like I you know I you know they've had an abortion and they still support it. I was watching a video at one point and a girl was like yeah my parents almost supported me I wish that they had did it probably would have been better for my mom and that kind of thing so I know that there are people who have different responses and maybe they are already predisposed to that opinion that's fair but as somebody who was already predisposed to that pro-choice opinion it was interesting that's just like flipped you know but I wish you hadn't heard that I don't think so no okay because I think it gave me

A lot more empathy for my mother for what she was dealing with at the time with my father. It obviously created another fraction with my dad's in my relationship. That's water under the bridge now. And we've talked about it. And, you know, he would never have, you know, suggested that now. And he came from a place of fear and anger and, you know, that sort of thing. But I'm glad that I did because it gave me a greater perspective about, you know, the way I was raised, the dynamic. I've had a lot of confusions, you know, with my relationship with my dad.

And I just didn't understand a lot of stuff. And I think that, you know, as I got older, the transparency that my mom, you know, gave me about my family and being able to, like, I wasn't really shielded from a lot. And some people would say that that was a bad thing. But I think that it was, it forced me to grow up quickly. But it also, like, I knew what to expect in my family. I understand why I am the way I am because of my family. Like, none of that was hidden from me. So no, I don't, I'm not upset that I learned that. Got it. Yeah. What do you think is the biggest threat to humanity right now? Oh, gosh. Ourselves. people's mindset people's mindset what what about their mindset um i would say people are so desperate to be i've said it a lot today but they are so desperate to be victims and i think that they are like as a society we're holding ourselves back whether that is you know and i think a lot of the victimization is fueled by a desperate need for attention because victims get attention you know what i think it's acceptance

because it's easier to be a victim and other victims love to wallow and misery and what is it misery loves company so when you're upset and you could gossip with someone else and say this sucks and blah, blah, blah, and go back and forth. You feed on that. And you feel like I'm not alone. And I had that feeling of just like, yeah, exactly. And I feel like that's, as you begin to get more successful, it becomes harder and harder to find those connections. Yeah, exactly.

But I will say I do think attention is part of it because we've seen that like the marginalized communities that say that they're marginalized, they get a lot of attention. It pays to be an activist. It's like that sort of thing. And so I don't think that that is the case for everybody because obviously not everybody ends up making money in that. But I think that there are a few examples that glorify it. people are like, oh, this is cool.

Like, I will get the attention. I will get this community. I will be affirmed. I will be accepted into this because I'm not alone. And I think that there's a lot of, you know, very, you know, hurting people. And I think that as a society, we have, you know, allowed that mentality to take prevalence. And so if I could leave, you know, people with one message is that, you know, it being empowered is the most, like, freeing thing that you can do for yourself. Saying I don't care what other people think is the most freeing thing that you can do for yourself.

Being self-reliant. there was literally no better feeling. Like me walking out on the street knowing that I can beat somebody up because I did years of self-defense that I carry a gun that I'm totally self-reliant. I don't depend on, you know, a family, mommy and daddy's mind, anything like that. That I am totally, it's like the most empowering thing in the world. There's literally no better feeling. And it's like, why would I sacrifice that just to be like accepted by a group of people that is also like down in the dumps and not productive and not.

Yeah. So I would say I think it's ourselves. Interesting. And also elite. and government towing with our lives. I would say it's like at the very base level of society because we push ourselves forward as a culture. But I also do have to admit, you know,

there are people that do not have our best interests at hurts because all they want to do is make more money and be more corrupt and have more power. Well, that's why I think it's important to teach objective thinking. I would love a common sense class. Just like taught in school, like this is bad, this is good, but make common sense choices for you. Yeah.

And just pick, like we were talking about earlier, picking and choosing, like the bits and pieces that you identify with, I think, is really important. I think that people overlook the importance of like logic classes and ethics classes. And I'm so grateful that I took those in college. One of the most important classes I took also was political philosophy. Understanding where my opinions come from on a philosophical level was so important. To be having to advocate.

Like I remember having to write a paper in support of Marx, which is like the farthest thing that I could have ever like done. But having to get into that mindset and understanding like on a human level, why are they driven in this way? what were the benefits of this ideology and having to learn all that, seeing every single side, especially if you have a really good professor, I did all of those classes at community college. It was exceptional. But I did logic. I did ethics. I did political philosophy. And then I did a couple of other like political theory classes. They were incredible because I had to do every single slide. But I was also in a good situation where, you know, they also had people like Nozik pop up who was like the father of libertarianism. We talked about Ayn Rand and like her, you know, philosophy behind.

So I was getting both sides. And I had to advocate for and against things that I like loved and believed and things that I hated. That's the one class I wanted to take was debate. Yeah. Because I feel like that's such a useful thing to know. Yeah. And debating is a skill. Yes. Because even if your idea might trump somebody else, like, if you can't communicate that to another person. Like, I know you're going to meet with Hassan Piker. He's an incredible debater. Because he's fast. What do you think is more important in debate? Do you think it's the actual stuff that's coming out of your mouth, like the words, the transcript, or do you think it's the ability to use rhetoric? It's the ability to use rhetoric. I would say, like, my opinion isn't necessarily, like, swayed because I will always try to, I don't think that my opinion, like, quickly changes in debate.

But I think who you determine, like, wins. I think most people pick and choose who wins a debate because of the rhetoric, not because what's getting said. I think when you're writing, I think that's a different thing because it's so much slower. But when you are back and forth and back and forth with somebody, it is the ability to be very, very nimble with your diction. And there's a reason why it's like literally a skill. Yeah, and confidence. I feel like if you go in with confidence and you don't take anything personally and you remain. objective

that's what I think does it whoever sounds more confident in their belief I think generally and doesn't take any BS right and doesn't give in and that's why it's like I might be a terrible debater because I'm always somebody who's like oh yeah tell me more like oh I'm like you let me understand

I always go in thinking that I could be wrong yeah I just think like hey I'm open minded to a lot of things and I'm okay to change my opinion if it's wrong so like I'll hear the other side and be like you know what there's some good points in that like I'm open to it yeah so it'd be a terrible debate Yeah.

I want to hear more about your anti-porn stuff. Oh, got. All right. All right. Here we go. I also think that porn is one of the things that is destroying my generation. Why is it so bad? Okay.

So, first of all, with the porn industry, we know that, like, it is fueled by criminal activity. I mean, the sex trafficking industry is, like, funneled through porn. Porn hub is dealing with, I mean, at this rate, 10 plus 15 lawsuits. children being molested put on the site it's just it is a breeding ground for terrible behavior for women i think we are fed this lie um whilst that you can as women i think we are fed this lie that you can have this super happy and productive and like fulfilling life by just selling your body um it will not be that way you look at the mental health of sex workers you look at the mental health of you know porn stars it's not good there's like the one percent like on only fans

who makes you know they make millions of dollars and they're great And that, you know, will sustain them whenever they stop doing this kind of work. But for the majority of them, it is a terrible, terrible, terrible industry. I'm going to play devil's advocate. Yes. And very much devil's advocate. Okay. Yeah.

Graham's laughing. Yeah. Okay. So I think a lot of people, they fall into the porn industry because it's just like, oh, by happenstance, I may as well do this. I can make a good buck here. 100%. So I could see why that would probably not work very well mentally for people.

It's like falling into something where, like you said, selling your body. But those that do intentionally move into the industry and they know that that's something that they enjoy, don't you think in that situation? I guess you did allude to the 1% of people. Yeah. If it works for you, then that's fine. And I will never say to your face like you are lying to yourself about it because I'm sure that there's some people that just like genuinely don't care and they have a good experience with it. But I think on a whole and looking at like the entire gender, like women are not, you know, and maybe this goes back to like coca culture and that kind of thing. But when you look at men and women, men are biologically designed to go sow the seeds.

There's a reason why you do not carry a child for nine months. For women, it's like, I need to find this one specific partner. I can only be pregnant for nine months. Like I can only carry basically, you know, I can only have one pregnancy at once. I have to protect these eggs. I only have, you know, a set amount of eggs that I, you know, created. And so we are very, very protective over that. With men, you are literally designed to go repopulate the earth, literally.

And so with women, there is a reason why, like, biologically, hook up culture and just living with a bunch of people and leaning into that. And I guess, you know, porn is a little bit different, but still this, like, sex positive culture for women, I don't think it's healthy because it's going against how I believe we are literally biologically designed. And I think for young men, it is allowing them to be complacent with just living online and not having real relationships.

Like, the violence in marriages has, like, sky. Also, I mean, I'll just finish that thought and then go into it. But I mean, like, violence in relationships, domestic abuse, has like skyrocketed with the normalization of porn. Often in domestic abuse situations, the man is like addicted to porn or has a history with it. 52% of divorces in this country cite porn as an issue, which is just an insane stat.

But it makes sense because if you're unhappy and you're trying to find fulfillment or pleasure somewhere else, you're going to go that way. But I was reading this Reddit post from this person. They were arguing the benefits and the drawbacks between only fans and porn hub and they were arguing that only fans was better and one of the arguments for only fans being better was because they were subscribing to an individual girl and they could create this like parisocial relationship with her and it's like it feels better because i'm not really

objectifying her and we have a relationship we can chat and i can feel better it's like then go out into the real world and ask a girl on a date like porn is allowing young men to stay in front of their computers and not strive for anything else like overuse of porn over the masturbation it fucks with your hormones, like biologically, it has impacts mentally men who are porn addicted, who even just are not even porn addicted, but watch copious amounts of porn are mentally very, very unhealthy. Like, it is not natural. And it's just like, and then on top of it with the industry being so dangerous. It's like, why is this something that we have just become, you know, so accustomed to? And this happened really fast. Like my mom and I were talking about it, my producer,

Matt Scheller, who never, ooh, but my former producer doesn't work here anymore. He was in his 40s. We were talking about, like, with he and my mom, where if you wanted to watch adult content, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, you had to go to a theater, and you had to watch, you know, with a lot of people. Like, there was a reason why,

I'm forgetting who the actor was. It was, like, arrested for masturbating in a theater, like in an adult film. Or then later on with, like, blockbuster, and that sort of thing, you had to go into, like, the adult section, and you, you know, we're in public renting it out, and that sort of thing.

But it has become more and more private where now it is literally on your phones you can do a quick Google search it is so at people's fingertips that there is now not really a stigma around it women are almost like encouraged to go into it in a lot of ways you look at you know things online you see girls that you know we're making millions you know basically objectifying themselves and you know selling their bodies it's almost appealing with men it's become so commonplace you know boys start seeing porn with they're like 13 years old I saw porn for the first time when I was I think probably 14 or 15 it's just it's become so normalized so quickly. And that is like the most shocking thing to me. And I also think in a similar

ways we were talking about like the culture around smoking weed. I do think that there's like a culture around young men who just sit in their homes and they just watch porn. I do agree. I think the accessibility to porn is the real issue. Porn itself. I don't know if that's like a huge issue of guys know exactly what they're doing and they're very intentional about it. And the girls that go into the business are very intentional about going to the business. They feel pride with what they do. I feel like There's probably no problem with that. Well, I would say there is a problem with sex trafficking for sure. Yeah.

Well, yeah, yeah. I think now porn home, don't they verify IDs? You can still get around. That's still like, I mean, Netflix is about to drop a whole documentary, I think, next month, literally just about the sex trafficking part of porn. I mean, trafficking, objectively. Yeah. Of course.

That's a bad part. I'm just talking on the theory of porn itself. Yeah. But something that's crazy to me is that laws are just now being put in place where you have to verify your age to get on porn hub. Like before it was like you could just put in any. birthday and get on and watch it. States are just now rolling out you need to verify like if I was verifying my student discount on Spotify putting in a student ID whatever imagine a data breach like if we can't

trust Equifax yeah I'm just I'm just saying yeah there's there's lists you don't want it's imagine going through the list yeah just like you know control F and like what are they going to check IDs and everything like you submit you scan it wow and so and then there's the debate that a lot of people will agree that porn hub and sites like porn hub is objectively bad because they do not protect their creators. It's dangerous. It's just slipped up one too many times. So people say like OnlyFans is better.

OnlyFans was not created as like adult content site. It was created as like Patreon without any kind of like content regulations. They are not a sex site. And they're very, very clear about that. So they do not have any protections in place for their creators. Well, I thought that would the way around that was for their banking by saying like, hey, we don't just focus on this. We allow anything.

And that's one of the ways around. how they can get like lines of credit and a bank account and stuff like this. Exactly. But also they were started initially. It was during COVID that it blew up as like a sex site because sex workers like escorts didn't have jobs during COVID. So they created OnlyFans. And people think that it is safer because of that or that it's like feminist porn because women are producing it themselves. But it is often more dangerous because there are no regulations on the site because it is not an adult site. So OnlyFans has no way to report if like, there's some guy that's trying to pimp you out.

They do not have many verification things. There's all of these studies, mainly in the UK, of looking at kids who have gotten onto OnlyFans as creators or as consumers. Because their age verification, you can submit an ID that is not yours and still get an account. So if you could, like, one, there was this, like, story of a girl who used her aunt's ID, made an OnlyFans.

And at 17 or 16 years old was doing OnlyFans content. And then got exploited, like, some crazy guy, like, found her and, like, a bunch of stuff. So they just do not have those protections. So like if the industry itself is not even safe, like I understand like, you have a right to do whatever work you want to. Devil's advocate. Yeah,

exactly, yeah. But I don't think that, one, I don't think it's healthy for society as a whole. I don't think that that's doing anything good for any of us. But it's like I get it if, you know, you want to.

That's your progress. Let's say, what about prostitution? Because don't they'd say that's, okay. Let's go back to porn. Let's go back to porn. Okay.

So is it the culture of porn itself? Or is it porn in general? It's both. So I agree. I think the culture around porn, yes, is extremely toxic and it's very bad. Probably an objective bad, right? Yeah. Let's take porn itself.

Okay. With two very intentional, no, no, no, two very intentional people consenting into this whatever transactional relationship. Yeah. How is that bad? If they are doing that, then I guess that's fine. Like, if you want to make videos in your own haul, I guess maybe it's the selling of it. I don't know.

What is it exactly about the selling of it? Because people sell their bodies another way. That's very true. I guess I think in my mind that goes back to the industry. Like, will there ever be a safe way to present that pornography? But if there was, then it would probably be okay in the mind of Brett Cooper. I think on a moral level, I would still say no. I think you value intimacy and having something that's like you feel is protected and is yours and is sacred.

I do too. I 100% I value intimacy. I value all that stuff too. But at the same time, I'm very much the type where I don't want to be telling people that know what they're going into what they should and shouldn't be doing. And that's where I think about point. I think in a perfect world where it was totally safe. Maybe. I can't give a solid answer because I still do not believe that it is a good for society. I think people are on a whole negatively impact. It is a bad for society. I would probably agree that. Yeah. And also I don't know. Yes. And I think it's for the viewers. But also I would look at the people who even if they are, you know, consenting individuals,

I would still look at that and be like, you know, as Brett Cooper, I don't think you're making the right decision. Yeah. Like if I had control over your life, I would say, do not do that. It is not going to be healthy for you in the long run. Like, you are literally blowing up your reputation. What's unhealthy about it? Do you feel?

Because you're selling. From the actresses or actors perspective. Yeah. I guess I keep going back to number one, the industry is like very dangerous, but also on an emotional level if you are just selling the most like, like, yes. Like mentally, emotionally, you are selling like the most biologically intimate thing that you can do. And you're putting like a price tag on. Like after that, what else do you have to give?

It's like you are literally breaking through every barrier. Like you have no privacy. Like this is the most intimate thing that you can do. I like I will never say that that is objectively healthy. It goes against biology. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Like this is the most objectively private intimate thing that we are now like commercializing and selling. I will never say that that could ever be healthy. So you would say biological truths are axiomatically correct morally. Yes. What did you just say? I'm so lost on it. Okay, that's something I would actually kind of agree with to a certain extent. Okay, so just so everyone knows, okay, because I feel like people are going to start thinking like, oh, Jack, he's like this crazy porn guy, whatever.

Okay. Because we've had two porn stars on the show before. Okay. And people said that it looked like I fell in love with the porn stars. Which is not the case. Okay, but that's like what the viewers got basically out of that. I have a very intense stare. Yeah.

Yeah. I do. But like I agree. Porn culture is extremely dangerous. And I think porn itself, you're just taking too consenting people. I think that's probably fine. I'm not this crazy porn person in case if you guys watching are wondering, okay, I don't even watch porn.

I will say openly, I used to watch porn. And you know this, Graham. I don't watch porn anymore. No, and I've found my life. And that's incredibly admirable. Thank you. very, very hard to do. It's also very, very rare defined method will openly say that. That you used to porn or that you quit porn.

Yeah, both. But yeah, that you like used to and that you quit or that you like actively don't. That's very rare. And I'm somebody that like brings it up. I'm like, so let's talk about that. It's like, hmm. See, I feel neutral. Like, I just don't care either way. I think, I think if two people are consenting and they're not hurting anybody, I'm all for it. Right. I think there's a place for it. I think there's a market place for it. I think there's a market for it. But you also have to think on the side of the consumer. Some people are able to. If you get rid of like the audience But then it's going to go underground

Then there's going to be something else The pop-oh, I was meaning like making it illegal or whatever But if like the culture changes and we start to kind of like Like a similar way to how like sobriety is very very cool now Like there's all of these like mocktail bars that are opening up and that sort of thing It's like if the culture starts changing around it The market starts changing I still think that's such a small subset

Yeah Like the mocktail industry I think that's so cool Macy was even she ordered a mocktail for the five I had no idea those things existed and I tried it It was actually really cool. I like it. But I see these changes, but I think it's such a small part of the market. But I still have hope for that.

Because I still see it as like a productive change. I still see those people as people that are going out and having conversations in their community and maybe changing minds or, you know, opening people up to a new thing. I think that that's exciting. But I do put a lot of fault on the consumers because if there was not such a porn culture and consumption of porn, there would not be a market for it. People would not go into it thinking that it was some kind of... What about prostitution?

Because isn't that the oldest profession, don't they call that? I think so. Yeah, I would say, I don't support prostitution. I know, but isn't that similar on a similar way. Yeah, but just because it's existed for a long time doesn't necessarily make it. But I feel like that should also be legal. I mean, if two consenting adults are, are, wanted to enter into a business arrangement. I actually, I probably agree prostitution should be legal.

Yeah, you probably disagree with this, but I just think people, you know, give them the right to do whatever they want. For the most part. Yeah. I think that the. again I always go back to the industry around it of like and maybe the argument that it's like that you know it's legal and there's more you know protections

and all of that stuff maybe it could be a different thing but I just because something has been around for a long time or has been done in my mind does not make it right or immorally right so I look at that and I still think that I don't think that people you know should be doing I don't think that that's the healthy thing to do would I legislate that I don't know

that's why I would never be a politician because I like to be able to have nuanced conversations I think I would be a terrible position but I do believe that it is unhealthy for people. I believe that, you know, selling your body is unhealthy. I believe that paying for sex is unhealthy. And so I will like never advocate for something. But technically in the bigger picture,

when you consider the entire timeline of humanity, slavery has only not existed for a very short period of time. That's crazy to think about. And it still does exist in many countries. Yes, of course. Yeah. So I will say this, though. I just want to make sure we wrap this up.

Okay. If you guys want to quit porn, I would encourage it. I saw my life improve. And I want to openly say this because it's an uncomfortable conversation because I know my grandma watches this. Hopefully she's not going to be tuned in this long. Say,

Hey, Gigi. Say hi Gigi. Yeah. Say hi Gigi. Hello, Gigi. My dad sometimes watches. Sorry, dad. But yeah,

I don't watch porn. And I've saw my life extremely like drastically improved. And the way that I saw improved, I don't want to go into too much detail, but mostly I think that I stopped seeking like instant gratification with certain things. And I started seeing the world through a lens of like, okay, I'm in this for the long haul. I'm going to find. someone, I want to like settle down. You felt like that was holding you back from finding somebody?

It definitely made me so much less motivated to try to find someone. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Because you got that and some gratification. Exactly. And then you're good. Why would you need to have a real life woman? Yeah.

Just like, okay, we're good for the day. Let's whatever interval of time it was. Okay. I'm not disclosing too much right here. Yeah, we're good for the minute. No. And that's, and that is the experience of a lot of men. And if you look at like the studies.

Yes. About, you know, especially men. But it's interesting now because there's so many more women that are, you know, But here's the thing. My argument on that is boredom. When you're bored, you look for things to do. When you're working and you're, oh, that's the most dangerous one is when it gets to bored.

But I'm saying, but if someone is like on a mission and they have stuff to do and they're busy and they're working and they're doing something productive, that's not something you think about. It's like when you're bored, there's nothing to do. Well, boredom, I will say, contrary an opinion right here, I think boredom is actually extremely productive. And I think during boredom when you're in solitude and you're like not being like. Allowing kids to be bored is, I think one of the, like, 100% yeah being exposed to like technology and all that stuff I think being bored is extremely

powerful it forces you to like create your own fun yeah an introspect and like question your beliefs which I think people just don't do nowadays and I think that's like one of the biggest problems open-mindedness and questioning your own beliefs absolutely I don't know I hate boredom I just think a lot of this could be to still down the like I don't think it's like people love boredom like I don't think it's necessarily something to love but I would say like it yields yeah yeah I just think a lot of this can be taken down to when someone has stuff to do, they're less likely to partake in things that are maybe not the most productive for them. I think it's a symbiotic, symbiotic relationship. We're like both if you obviously, like if you're occupied all the time, you're working all the time,

probably not going to do this. But at the same time, if you refrain from this, it's probably going to somehow translate back to more work ethic and motivation, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. What questions do you have for us? Oh my gosh. I would say, I guess right off the bat for something that's not political. I'm just interested in your hottest take. I think I'm so like in the middle of so many things. I don't really have any extremes on either end. That's wild. Honestly. I just like people that as long as they don't hurt anybody.

If you're an open thinker, if you're an open thinker with nuanced opinions, you have to have some sort of opinion because the masses are not open, open-minded things. I'm not a fan of rank control. I think we need to build more property. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's crazy. I hate rent control. Yeah. I don't like I'm all for people doing what they want to do like that that's it like fiscally I'd say we could you know cut back and we could you know be smarter with the fact that that's like controversial these days is wild to me it's like you don't even takes like two percentage of a brain to see like there we are in a terrible terrible situation yeah all right let me think of some other ones that are less controversial for you jack depression meds and anxiety meds are overprescript yeah that's also extremely. I do as well. popular opinion. And I also think people have, I also think people have way more control over their life than

they think so. I also think that ADHD is overdiagnosed. I 100% of it. That's, I mean, that's, and I think it's screwed up an entire generation. I was diagnosed with ADD and I took Adderall for like two years. I also think hormonal birth control is bad. I don't think the image should be on birth control. I don't know anything about that. It's terrible. Why is it? Um, well, it's chemical birth control. So, you know, doctors will tell you like, oh, we can, you know, help your acne. We can do all this. We'll regulate. your cycles, but they don't actually regulate your cycles being on the pill. All it does is, like, chemically disrupt your hormones and stop, like, needed hormones for your body, not just for your

reproductive cycle, but for your full, like, mental well-being as a woman, it will be disrupted by that. It's artificial. It is chemical. Long-term effects, like a lot of women have a lot of, you know, problems getting pregnant after being on birth control for a long time. It changes who you are attracted to because your pheromones are different and your hormones are all screwed up and we are naturally so attracted to people based on our biology. And when that is like chemically altered, that takes a toll. Different kinds of birth control. I mean, obviously we see the impact. Like, how does a pill cause you to like, you know, gain so much weight, change so much about your body, your periods just stop? Like, our periods are not supposed to just stop. Like, that shows a serious

imbalance. If you are like an unmedicated, not on hormonal birth control, your cycles are unregulated or you are like not regular, like that's a problem that you go to like a hormone specialists and you fix it because you want to be like that is because they have the biological hormonal they do so like the copper iud is probably the most popular one um but that i recently learned because i you know have a lot of friends on that um the way that that works is that you know they usually say just keeps it from going in it you know gets the sperm way that kind of thing it actually makes the uterus an inhospitable environment for any kind of sperm and any kind their pregnancy. It is a inflammation of the uterus, but that inflammation is not localized.

So when you have a copper IUD, your entire body is inflamed constantly because you have a piece of metal in you. And so it's full inflammation, which is why a lot of women say that they have like, you know, they struggle with mental health after, you know, having that. There's a reason why your periods get super heavy. I mean, you get awful PMS makes it really, really bad. Usually your iron gets depleted when you have one because you are losing so much blood more than you need to. be. And it does not stop fertilization. And that's the thing that like woke me up is that you can still have a fertilized egg and then you have like what, you know, it was often described to me. It was like kind of a spontaneous abortion of like it just does not allow the egg to stay.

And so that isn't great either. Obviously, I would probably say that that's better than like a hormonal thing that's like screwing with your hormones. But it's still like there really isn't a great option. But I do think that we do not talk to young women enough about and I say this as a young woman who did not learn any of this about how to regulate your cycle naturally because there are things that you know you can eat there are toxins that we are ingesting and interacting with that screw with women's hormones we should all be very regular like that is how we are naturally designed so that you can literally track you know those 28 days and know exactly when you're ovulating and you can only get pregnant for three to five you know it's really just three days in that cycle um and you

know even if that's not like a 99 percent but if you are religiously tracking if you use other forms of protection, like it's very, very secure, but we don't even teach girls that. Like, they don't even know where to start. When I started learning this, I had no clue where to turn because that was never even presented as an option to me or something that was so, like, scientifically modern. Like the FDA is now approved like natural cycles as an actual form of birth control now. It's the only actual non-hormonal, non-invasive form of birth control. And so I would say that I think hormonal birth control is bad. I don't think non-hormonal is much better, even though it's probably better for a lot of people and I have friends that have had great experiences with the copper IUD,

but I just think we need to better equip women because you literally have no idea how your body works. I had no idea about the hormones that I go through every single month. I had no idea about any of my cycle and the fact that it is so scientific down to the day that you can regulate it. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I want to know what your most hot take is.

I want to see if there's a thing we can disagree on so we can have some sort of like quasi-debat. I'm anti-death penalty. I could go either way on that. Morally, I do think that there are some offenses that I would be, you know, like child rape and that sort of thing. I'm like castrate the fuck out of you. Like I do not care. Yeah. But the way that the system is set up, I wouldn't.

I'm anti because of that. Like there are so many, you know, cases where even if in one case, they ruled it wrong and we took a life. Like, why do we have, like, why are we allowed to play God? Why is a jury or a judge a lot of God? Yeah, I would say life is the most precious thing. Oh, I saw TikTok on that. It was so sad. The kid was put to the death penalty.

I think he was like 16 years old, 17 years old, and then they found out like 40 years later he was innocent. Oh, that's like a substantial statistic. Yeah. And also one thing that I think really struck me is that a lot of people say that it's cheaper, but it's not because you have to go through years.

Yeah. And the litigation too. And the victim's family has to keep coming back. Yeah. Like imagine, you know, something awful happens to your child, your loved one, whatever, and you have to keep going back year after year after year. Testifying, doing all of this.

It's like at that point, I just wanted. get on with my life. Put them behind bars for life. Oh, how about this? How about assisted suicide? How do you feel on that? I'm anti it. Anti. Yeah. And I just, oh, God. So I'm looking at what is happening in Canada right now. And it's happening to the most vulnerable population. So we were talking about like the mentally ill on the street. They're, you know, going up to these people and that's kind of, that's their solution right now. Is that, oh, if you're so mentally, if you're, if you are so unhappy, here's this, you know, state assisted suicide. It's like, that's your best option. But you go for that. What if,

someone is terminally ill. I think that's a totally different conversation. Oh, it is? Yeah. I think if you are... So the legality of assisted suicide, not necessarily the culture of it. Yeah. But the legality of it in general, like, do you support the theory of it?

Um, I think if somebody was terminally, terminally ill, I think that would be the only time that I would be morally for it or, and like, think that it was like legally, you know, maybe okay. I think it would be very hard as like the family member that was watching that or being involved. I don't think I don't know how I would. react to that but I also know people who are you know there's no other way and they want to go you know at their own especially like older people who it's like I don't want to suffer anymore I can understand

that argument but what really bothers me is that like people are touting this around is like oh we're you know we're helping all these people you know all these homeless people you know they don't really have like a point to live and it's like that that's your option you know we're talking about like what do we do for this you know vulnerable population how do we clean up our streets how do We make it safer. And it's like, this is what Canada is trying to do. And it's, you know, and I'm looking, I just see the videos of people who, you know, have been offered assisted suicide. And it's like some of them were talking and, you know, they were saying like, if this had been offered to me like a year prior, I would have taken it.

And then over the last year, like my life has gotten so much better. I finally, you know, took the leap and I, you know, made all these changes. It's like, that's terrifying to me. But again, it's less of like somebody else playing God. But it's like we're offering that to people as this like. Right, right. As an out. Yes.

I don't think that that's like a cop out for me on the government. To mentally tell you. Ill people as well. Yeah. And it's like that feels like taking advantage of them. And if that's the best you can do, then I have a real problem with that. Keep trying. Yeah.

Come up with something. I mean, keep trying. Because I still. Yeah. What is the goal of going into political commentary? Is it to strengthen the base of the conservative population or is to share your opinion and hope to be heard and understood by the other side of the liberals and maybe change their opinion? I think it can be both.

I don't think it needs to be either. Or I was talking about. this actually on a live stream yesterday. I think a lot of conservatives get themselves caught up and trying to change people's minds when I think back to, you know, me feeling very alienated as, you know, a college student sharing my opinions, you know, losing friends, that sort of thing. Somebody speaking directly to me and saying your opinions are not crazy. There are people that, you know, think like you and being empowered and being told it is okay to speak up and, you know, having somebody that is unwavering in their values. And I think Matt Walsh is somebody who is in

credible at that because he does not bend at all. He is not somebody that's like, I'm not going to like find, he like says it. I'm not going to find common ground with you because most of the stuff that he talks about is in regards to like his children's lives and like that kind of thing. He will not waver. And I think he is incredibly empowering, especially at his audience of parents of like getting them to speak up and say, it is okay to defend your children in this way. It is okay to have this opinion. There are others like you. And I think if we forget the base and if we are consistently just trying to like spend all of our time going out and reaching everybody else and it's like what happens to everybody, you know, here.

So I think you kind of have to, you know, I think it's important on both sides. I would, I like to try to do both in my content. And I think that the manner in which I speak and the topics that I speak about make it more palatable for people who disagree with me. And I like that. I like the fact that I look at my comments and I see people disagreeing, but in a healthy way. It's like the most inspiring thing to me.

And people having like healthy conversations at a YouTube comment section is absurd. And I'm like, that's actually very, very cool. And I like the fact that I see. comments where somebody says, you know, I'm like more center left and I actually relate to you on some things and I've learned a lot. Even though I disagree with you on things, I, you know, I find your content enjoyable. It's like that's a huge win for me. But I also look at comments and at the same level, seeing like a 16 year old kid who's like, I, you know, live in Los Angeles. Everybody thinks differently than me. I feel so alone and I hear your content and I feel empowered not to feel scared to talk about my beliefs. That's a huge win because I was that kid. And I felt like I was totally alone. And like everybody around me was crazy. And I literally, I did not. know who to look up to. And if I can be that for somebody else, then that's also a win for me. See, the problem that I see with some of the leaders of the conservative and the liberal movements is the fact that they are so aggressive to the other side. And it's like constantly shooting down the other side. And I feel like if you actually really wanted to make some

grounds, and hopefully transfer some people who open up the other side's perspective, you wouldn't be so aggressive, but come from more of a place of like compassion and understanding. And that's the one thing that I just, I can't seem to get over as a viewer because I watch Ben Shapiro. And I also watch Destiny and I watch Asan and I watch you and I see all of this stuff. I literally watch from both sides, but that's the one pill I just simply cannot swallow. That frustrates the heck out of me when I'm watching content like this. It's like if you really care about the end goal of achieving what you want to achieve and hopefully like if you really believe your ideology is better than the other one and you want this ideology to take power, wouldn't the

most effective and efficient way to get there to be hopefully transferring some of the people on the other ideology side over to your side. Therefore, people, People respond very poorly to criticism, like negative criticism, right? At least in a negative light, right? But they respond very, very well to compassion and understanding. Yeah. And I feel like if the sides could just have a little bit more compassionate understanding to the other side. I think pride's a big part of it though.

Yeah. Is imagine someone else comes at you and you're like, okay, well, maybe, you know, they had some points. You do that. And then everyone questions, well, what about everything else that you said? Yeah. Maybe you're going to change those beliefs, too. It's like if you do that, you lose that audience as well. need to be consistent.

So I think the important thing to do is that I don't bend my values to appease anybody else. I don't change my opinions to appease anybody else. But I am very open with my audience. Like I've talked about Dylan Mulvaney a lot. Who's the, you know, the transgender person who, like, you know, blew up on TikTok now has like 10 million is like a transgender influencer. Talked about them a lot. Very, very controversial. And there's a lot of things they've said that I do not agree with, especially in regards to children.

But I am always very open about. the fact that I like their personality and I used to subscribe to Dylan's channel and, you know, Dylan's TikTok before, you know, he became she Dylan because I thought his content was hysterical and super funny. And he was like a great, like this cute little gay guy and all of this stuff. And I, and very few people on my side of it are willing to acknowledge that. But I've like, I watched Dylan's stuff for ages, like all throughout COVID. And I'm willing to say I still have that like fondness. and I want to be compassionate for what Dylan is going through and that sort of thing. But I won't bend or change how I feel about the subject and about the ideas that they are sharing,

but I will find a way to have some kind of human connection with the story that I'm talking about. Same way as if I'm dealing with a celebrity, you know, I will say like, oh, I still like their music, whatever. Like, I will acknowledge the fact that I'm not so black and white that if I hate like a singer's, you know, ideology or things that they will say, I don't really like her songs. Like, that's cool. I am also unafraid to criticize my own side if we're being idiots about something

I think a big part of that is just criticizing people for absurd stuff like Emma Watson when she had that really unflattering photo of her taken back in the summer people were like this is what wokeism does to you it's like no she's a 30 year old woman who has not gotten any work done which I thought that we were promoting that we didn't want women to be like fake and whatever she's natural she got caught in a bad light

and you're now slanderering her I've never seen the picture it was like her forehead was all like it was like huge on right wing Twitter And they were like, this is what wokeism does to you. And they would like put a photo over from like 10 years ago and then photo here. It was like that. Why are you spending your time debating that? Like you're attacking somebody who has done nothing right now.

Obviously, we could have a conversation about Emma Watson's, you know, like hatred of JK Rowling about her policies. We're going after a woman's looks to have a quick dunk on Twitter and feel good about yourself. And I think being able to criticize your own side when they are genuinely being stupid, I think that that humanizes you as well. So you don't feel so polarized. And I think the best people that I follow and the best mentors I have are willing to do that and are willing to say, you know what?

This was actually a win on the left. They did a good job or something on the right of like we royally effed up. And this is not productive whatsoever. Yeah. Because if you are so caught in just winning, winning, winning, winning, winning constantly at the expense of everything, especially winning a quick, like click or a media hit or that kind of thing. It's like, what's the point? That's the thing. Like I remember Ben Shapiro, honestly, he kind of went viral and he built his entire career based off of like,

Ben Shapiro destroys like, you know, Facts and logic or something like that. And it's just like some kid walking up to the podium. Yeah. Oh, gosh. You know, just completely destroy. My favorite one was one kid said like, well, how do you know boy scouts or boys? Yeah, because it's in the name.

Yeah. Like it's like those moments. Yeah. But the only thing is it's like, okay, obviously for profit, like that makes sense. It's a business. You got to get the clicks and everything. But I just wish I'm like, look, he could say something like, look, I understand you're coming from a place of.

hurt and it's probably not and you know something like this and like feeling like he has compassion for the other person because then he wouldn't have well he probably still still would maybe not I don't know have these like hordes of people are showing up and like protesting him when he goes to speak at these colleges because they want to hear what he has to say they want to hear this quick comebacks that's what they come that's what they come for i know but i feel like it's like 80 20 like you still get like 80% of the value when you still like destroy them but like hear those like moments from his things but if you like listen to like Ben's full like four hour for that's yeah so I think it is like you know in those like quick debate things like that's the format of them and they're supposed to be very very fast but when you hear him do his like his Sunday special that he does is one of my favorite

things because he usually brings people that he disagrees with and it's like a four hour conversation and it's the most like respectful like he really is compassionate and he's like the most digestible relatable person um and I think in that form but it's hard in yeah have you thought about doing that with like bring yeah bring someone on we just like disagree I would love to see that because I think that you know those conversations are not had very often but also they're very difficult for short form stuff they like really lend themselves

the long form you have to spend you know over three hours of people really diving into it and that's what you know Ben's Sunday specialist is hours and hours and what Jordan Peterson does hours and hours are speaking to people but most people don't want to sit through and watch all of that so they only see the clips and those viral moments obviously yeah bring fame and that sort of thing but they're viral for a moment or for a reason Right. I just do think that there could be a shift in general for like Daily Wire, other like liberal media companies to have a little bit more compassion for the aside.

I think that there's a huge contingent of people right in the middle. Still, I know it's hard to believe, especially with like how aggressive everybody is on each side and the gravitational pull from each side. But I think there's still a lot of people in the middle. And that could really be claimed by other side if you just came with a little bit more compassion and care for the other side. I forget how many people were in the middle, but it's like 90% of people are in the middle. but the 10% on either side, they're the ones who really show up to vote. Yeah. And so you get like those people really getting together. Yeah, exactly. No, I agree with you. And that's something that I do try to do. And I think

that that's something that shows through in my content. And I think that that's why most of my audience is younger. Because Gen Z wants that. Gen Z values like emotional connection and that sort of thing more. And there's a reason why I do make a very, very concerted effort to be human when I'm dealing with these stories. And they're all like very personal to me, especially when I'm dealing with like gender ideology. that sort of thing. Like if I get like emotional with those stories, it's because like these are all people I grew up with, like a majority of my friends from, you know, high school and that sort of thing. Have either transitioned or are, you know, gay, have literally chopped off their boobs and that kind of thing. Like, these are literally friends that I, you know, know, know, and so I'm never going to, like,

scream in their faces and that sort of thing and say, you're not real. But it's like, I will speak out about, you know, my opinions, I won't shy away from that, but I will always acknowledge that it's like, this is still a person. And, you know, if you are going after children, that's a different thing and I will not pull any punches and I do not give a shit at all. But if you are or an adult, I will still have compassion for you. You're still a human being. I think it's just different strokes for different folks about how the tone that they use.

But I do think that's one of the reasons why my content is effective, especially with this generation. So with that said, I don't know when the audio cut out. Guys, this has been a super long episode and we've done something outside of the norm. We want to leave our comfort zones and have on people with very challenging opinions. So with that said, you guys,

if you enjoy content like this, please leave a comment down below because we are very very very, very excited for our guest coming on next Sunday. Yeah. That's going to surprise you guys. There's going to be some drama. Okay.

And yeah, let us know if you want more content like this. Graham, you want to do your thing? Yeah, as usual. Make sure to subscribe. Add me on Instagram. Add J-O-L-L-E-L-E-L-E.

And you can get free stock down below. So thank you guys so much. And until next time. Dude, wait, wait, actually, what's your name? Carter. That's a great name.

Carter has been what I've wanted to name my son, for the last like 10 years. I've told everybody since I was like 11, no, I guess it made me 14. I was probably 12 when I made that decision that was going to name my son Carter. You have a fantastic name, my friend.

Thank you, Carter. You're a great guy. Everyone shout out Carter, W. Carter. Okay, down in the comments. He did everything, so thank you. Thanks.