The Michael Knowles Show - Michael REACTS To "HopeCore" TikToks: Try Not To Smile!

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

Michael REACTS To "HopeCore" TikToks: Try Not To Smile! - - - Today’s Sponsor: Express VPN - Protect your online privacy today by going to https://ExpressVPN.com/MichaelYT and you can get an extra 4 months FREE - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is finally here. Episodes 1 & 2 are now streaming exclusively on DailyWire+ 🍿 Watch Episode 1 "Island of the Mighty" here: https://dwplus.watch/ThePendragonEp1 - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Focus features in Blumhouse present. Obsession. When I have a crush on a guy, no one knows. Be careful. I wish Nikki love me more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for. Obsession is 96% fresh on rotten tomatoes. I love you so, so, so, so much.

It's blood-soaked nightmare fuel. We're gonna sponge and put on her. You have been warned. Obsession, rated R. Under 17, 90-a-without parent. Only theaters May 15th, with special engagements in Dolby. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot.

Good news. Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here. Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon.

Best Network based on Route Metrics, Best Overall Mobile Network Performance, U.S. Second Half 2025, all rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person, redeeming me the deal, additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, uh, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy. How many discounts will you stack up?

Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Your highness, the transmission we received. What is it they've sent us? Hope. The West is falling. We all know civilization is on its last gasps. Everything is bleak.

all black-pilled. We doomscroll on our phones and that sense of doom grows greater and greater until the enormity brings us to the brink of despair. But sometimes there are little glimmers of hope. As my producer team, as Professor Jacob in particular, has apparently found on his feed. So there's a new challenge. Very often the challenge is Michael watch some crazy video and try not to laugh. try not to get angry this is the opposite Professor Jacob is going to pull up those little signs of hope that just creep into the algo

every now and again and I will do my best not to smile take it away I've seen these little baby with the classes with that goofy little eyes yeah I've seen the last one is kind of cute but all the rest of them really wow

I've never had a birthday cake before is that real wow yeah all of it the kid my dad my dad's tough it's tough wow like i i come home from work i usually don't get home too late sometimes i travel but if i'm in town i usually don't get home too late come in and you know my kids will come often my kids will come to the door oh hey day da hey this but now my youngest who's like a year and a half or so he's now old enough to kind of get it when i come he just comes in and he starts dancing when i come doing a little jig he's so happy it's very really melts your heart

Wow, the fact that after years of just increasing viciousness, invective, polemic, nasty, demonic kind of stuff, there's little glimmers of hope in the alga. What does that mean? All right, give me the next one. A big surprise today for one channel 8 eyewitness news reporter when her longtime boyfriend showed up to propose to her. Wow. That's from Eva and Tony's as you can get. This one was very laid back, very casual.

What are you doing? What are you doing here? I'm just here to say that I've loved you since the day I met you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't like this. I was very unprofessional. I don't like this one. The first one was cuter.

This one is unprofessional. He's making it all about him. Yeah, okay. I lost it a little bit on the first one. Because she seemed so genuinely surprised. and it was like a clever way to do it. The middle one I didn't like though, because it's just this guy sauntering out,

hey, Tuts. Hey, Ron. Hey, Billy. I know you're working or whatever, but hey, let's make this about me. They decided to marry. But the first one is really sweet. Because she didn't know,

you know, she really didn't get it. I guess the reason I like the first one is she was led unawares into participating in this very sweet act that she desired. That you, You had your, you could, you do. Whereas in the second one, the girl was just interrupted.

Was she, yeah, I, okay, but I like, it was, I want partial credit for keeping it despairing, you know, in the, okay, next one. Of life, and with the rise in drought cases, it is afterwards to be giant of our natural world. Save our wild species and provide a home. Am I supposed to turn around yet? Shut. The problem is these days that could be real. Yeah, that's kind of whatever. The elephant one is the best one.

Because that's a real, it's not just a contrive. What I don't like, look, why is this creeping into the algo now? This is actually a great sign. And it's the same reason that the despair crept into the algo. It's that reality exists. and you can't divorce yourself from reality forever. So whenever we're saying, everything's great,

ha, ha, ha, ha, we're great. The borders are open and crime is skyrocketing and we're castrating kids and we're killing babies and ha, but it's all great. The reality creeps in and you can't really deny what you're seeing.

No, it's, this is bad. This is getting worse. Things aren't going to get better if we don't acknowledge the reality that they're bad right now. But just as that is the case. So too, I think, now that we're all black-billed and despairing, the reality that is creeping in is actually there

is hope in the world. Actually, we can do good things. We can choose virtue over vice. God exists and he extends grace to us and we can cooperate with that grace. And we're not necessarily destined eternally to death or torment, but actually we might have everlasting life and you might. And like kids are cute and animals are kind of funny. And that is just as real as like all the bad things in the world. And so sometimes people cynically, or not even cynicism, it's not even cynicism. It's like a jadedness. They'll say, well, you know, kid, you don't understand how dark it is out there.

And that can be true. You could be correcting for an optimism. But you also need to correct for pessimism, which are two sides of the same coin. That's why this is creeping back in. And the thing I don't like about these, like be happy. happy videos is when they're just totally contrived when it's like forced, when it doesn't feel real. But the elephant one, that's like real. It's just like a delightful little thing that happened. Okay, keep going.

I need you to lock in because you've actually cracked on every single one of these. So let's see if you can do it. Right now, go to expressvpn.com slash Michael, letter Y, letter T. Did you know that your internet provider watches every move you make online, tracks all your clicks, all the endless time that you spend online, doom scrolling, searching, building a that they sell to the highest bidder. Sounds illegal, probably should be, but it isn't. Why? Well, one reason is the government benefits, too. It creates a loophole around your Fourth Amendment rights. Normally, the government would need a warrant to collect your information without consent,

but when they buy the data from the brokers instead, it's totally legal, no warrant required. These data brokers are eroding our freedoms as Americans. Well, fortunately, there is a solution that I've used for years now, probably eight years or something, and that is ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN. VPN allows me to keep all of my online activity secure through their encrypted servers. Nobody, not even the internet service provider, can track any of my movements or infringe on my privacy. I love it. It's great. It's easy, too.

I'm a total Luddite and it makes it just much, much easier for me. If I can do it, you can too. Push one button, all your devices, you're good. Find out how you can get four months free by scanning the QR code on screen, clicking the link in the description box below. Or by going to expressvpn.com slash Michael, letter Y. letter T. I've already seen this one, so I'm going to succeed. Yeah, do you want to say hello to the camera? Yeah. Say hello to the camera.

I almost lost it there at the end. And you know what it was? It wasn't even though it was the it was that. It was that. I almost lost, and I hadn't seen that video before. The one with the baby on the news clip, I had, we've all seen that. That was, that one got me. Okay. Did I, did I pass that one? It was a great effort, Michael. I was smiling. Does it count? Does it count? I was kind of doing a little bit of like a. I'm so hopeful. now that I'm going to give you a point to that. Thank you. Wow. What an act of grace. The quality of mercy is not strained it, though justice be thy plea consider this that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. Okay, all right. Is that it? Are there any more clips?

There are like so many more. Oh, there are? Okay. All right. Keep going. There's a black on my screen. I don't know. It's a black feel on my screen. What will be seeing right now? You've seen 7,000 years of lava flow. 7,000. Opa, what do you see? I see Grammy. And?

Just Grammy? When I look at Grammy, I don't see anything. As nobody else. What did you guys do for your anniversary? We looked at these. Same thing we're doing right now. And he kissed me on the forehead. You kissed her?

Yeah, he always kisses that cute. It is cute. He kisses me on the neck, he kisses me on my head. He kisses me anywhere. Yeah, it almost got me. It almost got me. I passed that one. I think I passed that one. Next one. I got to be honest. The reason why I stopped you is because you got a child in the car with no child seat. Are you positive about this? Are you saying I do?

Okay, all right. We do have a child in the car with no car seat. Hurry up in the car. Yeah, all right. Yeah, the thing with the wife with the pregnancy test. Because I don't like, there was a period for a while when everyone was attacking cops. Well, that could be any year, I guess.

But this was around the L.M era. And then these cops would pull people over. And it would be like, all right, you know what I'm pulling you over? To tell you to have a great day or whatever. There was like a PR campaign. And I was like, don't do that, man. You can't. That's not your job.

Don't do that. It's like bringing the force of the state in to like make people smile at you. No. But that is so great where the wife obviously coordinated with the cop. It's like, you're driving around with a kid without a car seat. on. There's no kid in the car. Yes, there is. That's good, man. That's good. You keep a straight face for that. You're not going to succeed. All right. What I do? I made it through two of them without breaking. Yeah. Okay. I can't. I can't. I'm just, I am too hopeful. You know why? It's a not only a theological

virtue, but a demand. You got to be hopeful, man. Future is so bright. We've got to wear shades. you know what I'm saying? I don't have my sunglasses on me. Doesn't matter. I'll get them later. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Nulls show. See you later.

I'm going to hug, Professor Jacob. Wow. Wow. Wow.