Tomorrow - Episode 89: Jason Koebler Says What He Memes

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

On diz week's episode of tomorrow, J0$h sits down w/ Jason Koebler of Motherboard (hez dank) 2 discuss da impact of da internets deepest meme mines & who iz spending time doin dat. such wow. much amaze. do da edgelords & meme masters truly swing elections & control da mindz of da populous? is it ethical 2 lol at a non-offensive memes if dey come from NAZIS? & where has da doge gone? diz & more on episode 89. Sumthin sumthin McDonald's Mulan Szechuan Sauce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host Joshua Tabulski. To hit the podcast, we discuss shit lords, edge lords, and dank memes. But first, a message from our sponsors. Can't build tomorrow's innovation on yesterday's technology. You idiot. Don't even try it. That's why industry leaders, disruptors, and transformers like Cisco, eBay, GE, Marriott,

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available. It's an organization that provides opportunities for you to collaborate, create, and lead. Find your purpose with the USAAA. Visit USAAAjobs.com and join the team. My guest today is a fascinating individual and intelligent man. Great writer. Well, I'm making it up. So, a great writer and also the host of a show called Radio Motherboard,

which is a podcast. I'm of course talking about Senior Reporter at Motherboard, Jason Kebler. Jason, thank you for being here. Thank you. Have we had two Motherboard people on the internet? In a row, we've taken over your podcast. This is actually some news, some personnel news, some personal news. So we're going to talk about one of the things that we wanted, I wanted to talk to you about,

is Donald Trump and the internet. We're going to talk about one of the things that we wanted I wanted to talk to you about is Donald Trump and the internet And we're going to get into that but but we were just talking before We started and you were saying you go into these phases of writing about specific topics like you get obsessed with them Would you say obsessed is the right word? Yeah, I think it's the right word and so the law What was the last one that you were that you were writing on? I was very into the right to repair and I'm gonna continue to be obsessed with that. That's, I put it on the back burner for a while, but I used to report about drones

and I was writing like five or six stories about drones for years. And then I was like, I'm over it. I don't like drones, or peak drone or past drones. Is drones over? Drones are over. I haven't written about drones in a year. Do you think that means that drones are gonna be widespread?

And now they're just gonna be commonplace? Or do you think the drone is the drone thing of fat? I don't think it's a fat because they're still popular, but there's no news stories about drones that are interesting at all. What would a drone have to do to get you interested? I think it'd have to knock down a plane. But even that, I mean, even that, like we've played that out. Like I've discussed with people like what would happen if a drone took down a plane and you know you can get a drone up that high

I mean you mean like on takeoff or something. Yeah on takeoff or landing. I think that's the big concern But what kind of drone would you use? I mean, I think it'd be an accident like it would probably be an accident It would probably be an idiot like flying there. I'd put the drone with an explosive. Yeah, then fly it up No, I never thought about that. You think it would just be an accidental thing. Yeah, I think it be accidental Like it's part in the road Exactly. We get a drone and knife We put drones in the road Isis is doing that these days. No, I know. I know. I actually that almost brought me back to the game for what it's worth

I thought that was interesting. The time story No, the time story, but the fact that Isis is using like DJI phantoms to yeah Well, the times did a story on that. I did like a little like snippet version of it that I was like this is using like DJI Phantoms to- Yeah, well the times did a story on that. I did like a little like snippet version of it that I was like this is interesting and I was like I'll just throw it up on the site. It was like I was literally like midnight or something and I was drinking. But I thought it's very super interesting

because it's like very William Gibson. It's like very, it's very cyberpunk. Like they're like retrofitting these like commercially available, you know like consumer drones with explosives and shit. So the thing that I find interesting about that is not that they're doing that, but that DJI has a bunch of geofences

that restrict where you can fly the drones. And so it's like this weird concept of ownership and what you're allowed to do with the drones. Oh, interesting. And so they have a big no fly zone over Syria and Iraq right now with their drones. And you've written about this? I have not.

I ended up not writing about it. That's super interesting though. Yeah, maybe I should. You should definitely write about that. I feel like I just learned a very important piece of knowledge. So they must have to hack them so they can't, they have to like, they just don't update them.

It's like unclear. It's like only the latest versions of the firmware don't allow you to fly in Syria. That's crazy. So interesting too, actually, when you think about it, this is the thing about, I don't know if you've done it. I know Motherboard has covered this. I think Motherboard has covered the fingerprint gun debate

where it's like, wouldn't it make sense to have it be accessible only by a fingerprint, which makes perfect sense. But it's interesting to think about the technology controls that are suddenly put on things that are classically outside of the realm of control. I mean, explosives obviously, but the idea is you want to fly an explosive somewhere or whatever, now you have this other problem where DJI is like, no, sorry, we don't allow you to fly these things in a specific location. Yeah, and it's like, should ISIS be allowed to use the drones

that they've purchased to do whatever they want? Probably not, but should have dropped it. But should like, into your other stuff, the right to repair or whatever. That's usually how it works, too. I get very interested in one topic, and then I'm like, oh, wait, this topic about ownership or it just kind of flows into the next thing. And so what I wrote about recently was John Deere owners, John Deere tractor owners in Nebraska

have been hacking their tractors with Ukrainian software because John Deere won't allow them to repair their own tractors, which they've been doing for hundreds of years. That's crazy. Yeah, so like, So what is the John Deere position on that? Like what do they, why wouldn't they let people

repair their own tractors? So, maybe 10 years ago or so, they started putting software locks on, say, like, the transmission, or the engine, or all these sensors that you need to run a tractor. And their position is, if they can prevent individuals from repairing their tractors, they have to get them repaired at a John Deere dealership. And so it's just. It's good business. They're making tons of money off it. It's the same thing with an iPhone. You break your screen, Apple wants you to bring it back to them,

but the guy down the street can do it for half the price. Right. But isn't the guy down the street always doesn't he always replace it in a bit, in a terrible screen? Well, that's part of this whole rights-repaired debate. There's legislation moving through eight states right now. What it would do is require Apple or John Deere or IBM to sell replacement parts. It's sort of crazy, right?

If you buy an oven or an appliance, you can get every part of it repaired. You can buy every part of it. The idea that you would spend $1,000 on a phone and then you can't every part of it repaired. I mean, you can buy every part of it. Right. The idea that you would spend like $1,000 on a phone and then you can't, like that it can only be repaired by Apple, you have no access to it, it's kind of annoying. I didn't really set that much bad, because I never, I've only broken one iPhone. Yeah, it pisses people off though. Like, it's a big topic and it's kind of complex

because if you break your screen on your iPhone 7, you can't replace the home button because there's software on it that doesn't allow you to do so. And so you have to take it to Apple. Because of the fingerprinting. Because of the fingerprinting and the secure enclave that's in it and stuff like that. So it's like Apple's argument is like,

you can't just swap the screen out because you would, you mean you could swap the fingerprint scanner out as well and then you could access the phone. So no, actually you can't, but that's, I think it's really weird because Apple will never talk about it. And I've spent two years trying to get Apple to talk to me about this, like sent them 30 emails or something. No response. They're not that talkative. They're not super talkative.

They're like very controlled, very clear messaging. They're not big fans of off the cuff conversations. Yeah, I've been talking to a lot of geniuses off the record and on background and stuff. What do they say? I mean, a lot of them are annoyed because customers come in. They usually happens in the Midwest

because there's one Apple store in all of Nebraska, for instance. And so you break your phone in some corner of Nebraska, you drive three hours to the Apple store, they don't have an appointment and then it costs $200 to get your phone fixed and they're super pissed. Like people say at hotels to get their phones fixed

in the Nebraska and like, really? Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, and so. Because otherwise I guess you just amale them. Can you imagine being a farmer and being like, you don't own your seeds and you can't plant them. You can't fix your tractor or your car. Yeah, and you don't get health care. So don't heal. It's bad. It's bad in the Midwest. Like what's going on? Yeah. I mean, literally they're cut off

at every, I guess it is tougher for white, the white working class. Hey, there's non-white farmers. Well, yeah, but you know, like Nebraska, lot of white farmers. I watched one of the like state, sorry. I watched one of the state legislature like hearings about this. I did not see any black people. Yeah, it's not so white people.

Yeah, I mean, I think like, yes, there are of course there are many diverse farmers in America, but I think we can agree that like in certain areas, there's probably a lot of what. It was, it was a God. Yeah, it's absolutely a God, your moment. So this is interesting. So you were like, so this thing about the right,

it's right to repair, is that what it's called? Yeah, that's what they're calling it. I mean, fair repairs, another thing. I think right to repair is really stuck. Yeah, I think it's interesting, no, because we've moved really far away from, I mean, you think about like the PC culture, and I know there's still a kind of a thriving community of PC enthusiasts, but that idea that you can swap in any, and I guess Apple kind of talked about

this this week, they were talking about how they screwed up with the Mac Pro, but the idea that you can put in any graphics card you want and whatever RAM you want, and swap the hard drive out, that has become something that's pretty alien to what we think of when we think of technology, right? It used to be like you can upgrade your car, like you can do all these different things to the exhaust or the engine or whatever, that was how we saw computing power. And now it's like these very homogenous, seal, literally sealed devices. I mean, is that, does that speak to like kind of a broader philosophical change in people where like we just expect, we don't have any expectation that we have access?

I don't know that it's a philosophical change in people. I think it's more of a cash grab by companies. Apple in the quest to make things thinner has made things harder to repair and a byproduct of that has been they sort of dictate what you can can't do with your MacBook. But do you think it did that on purpose? I'm not sure. I don't think that they did on purpose, but it was a side effect and it's been a lucrative one. Like the iPhone, the smartphone repair business is like $1 billion and Apple takes a huge chunk

out of that. Interesting. Yeah. And so I don't know. I think people still do get up in arms about this. Like, I got into this actually like four or five years ago when I was at a hotel and I was sleeping with my MacBook as I usually do.

Sleeping with it. Sleeping with it. Sleeping with it on my bed. Sleeping with you. Yeah, and I don't know where else that is. Yeah, right. And I kicked it off the bed and it landed on a chair and the LCD screen, the LCD cracked.

And I went. You really kicked it hard. I did. It landed on chair. I know I say okay. It landed, it was very unfortunate. That's rough. I wanted to get a fix and it was going to be $800

to get a fix at the Apple store and like $700 to get a fix anywhere else. And I went on eBay and the LCD screen part was $50. And I was like, then you have to do it yourself. You have to do it yourself. And I was like at college too. And I was like, I guess I got to try this. I didn't have $700, but I had $50. And it was one of the hardest things I ever done. It took 12 hours to do it. I had like exacto knives and things to pry open the screens, which is not what you're supposed to do at all. There's highly specialized tools that you can use.

But did you cry at all during the process? I didn't, but I fell asleep with my MacBook in like 9,000 parts. Like there were screws everywhere. And it made a really bad clicking noise when I got it put back together. And like I had like three screws left, which is never a good thing.

Oh, that's always been. Yeah, and it's like, You're like, where did these go? Yeah, it's complicated, Ikea furniture of all time. Yeah, and you end up with like a bolt, you're like, this definitely is important. But did it work? It worked, yeah, and it worked for like four years,

and I just saw that some sucker on eBay. You're like, you're like, you have this perfect condition, and how good did it feel to replace the screen on your own? It's like a huge accomplishment for you, me. Yeah, I feel like my dad would be very proud. It was very mechanical thing that I did. No, so when you were describing it,

I've definitely been in situations where, I grew up being real, I was like a nerd, and I was really into building PCs and the concept of like these like swappable sort of components. But I definitely have been in situations where I was doing something where it's like your dip switches. I don't know if you're familiar with like dip switches or the...

Is that the thing you stick in the engine for dip sticks? No, they're like little things that you flip, but then there's also these, I'm why I'm blanking on the name of them right now, but there are these little things that a lot of PC hardware used to have, which were these tiny little black, I'm blanking, they have a name, I wish I could think of it. And they join together like certain pieces of circuitry so you can like, it's like, okay, on or off essentially. And there's like six settings, like a hard drive will have like, this is the master

drive, or this is the slave drive. And so you can, when you build a PC, you have all these tiny little pieces that you need to like kind of clip in and clip out. And I remember like very distinctly, sorry, I'm just now just rambling about this. Now I like how I like this story. Getting to a moment where it was like, I had like a needle nose pliers and I was holding the drive with some other thing and like trying to get this fucking wire into the back of it while like moving this other piece. And I was like, I felt like kind of frustration you feel like when you're gonna burst into tears,

you know, like, why does this have to be so hard? I feel a similar frustration when I'm buttoning my shirt sometimes or putting my socks on. You're doing this? You're like, I can dress like immediately after I get out of the shower and then I spend spend 25 minutes just waiting to put my socks and shoes on.

So where's part? Is that a tall person? No, a damp foot and a sock, a dry sock and damp foot. Not good. No, it's terrible. It's a nightmare scenario. But that's how I feel. I'm just thinking here in your story

and thinking about that monitor. There's the screen being exposed and you haven't like. Yeah. The thing I learned while I was doing it though, was that I wasn't being hard enough on the electronics. They can kind of withstand some pressure and like, crying and stuff that I didn't think they could. There's always been this belief that electronics

are these really sensitive. I remember you'd get RAM, memory chips, and it would be like, you couldn't touch the connectors and I never really paid any attention to that and nothing ever happened. And it was like, they and it would be like, you couldn't touch the connectors and I never really paid any attention to that and nothing ever happened. And it was like, they put them in these little, like, you know, anti-static bags and it's like,

you know what? Like shit generally, it's very uncommon that like, somehow you zap something with static electricity and it never works again. I've had that happen zero times and I've built like 50 computers. So I feel like that's kind of bullshit, right? And it looks like you want to chime in on this.

Have you built some pieces? I was gonna say, I always have those like grounding bracelets or whatever. Oh, you used those? I never thought that was a point. You used to get out of it. That's what I'm talking about. John is disgusted by your story.

But all I'm saying is prepare for email and tweets. One time. Listen, I had an argument with people on hacker news today. So it doesn't really, I'm ready for fucking anything at this point. Somebody told me that our website was bad because it couldn't fit on a floppy disk. Sorry.

I was like, are you seriously like a, is this about the web is ugly story or? Yeah, exactly story. I really like that story is a great story. I mean, by a vice guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, sorry, I don't mean to segue in. No, we can segue if you want. I mean, it was fascinating. Yeah, well, so we wrote, I don't mean to say a way in. No, we can say a way if you want.

It was fascinating. Yeah, so we wrote the story of the web as shit. The web looks like shit, which it does. And people were like, whoo, funny coming from you guys. And it's like, no, you don't understand. We made all these choices. If you don't like the purple background,

like I totally get it, but we want it to be a purple background. And like aesthetically you may not enjoy that, but we think it's cool. And it's like no advertiser forces in doing it. The article's actually about like these forced compromises that you have known that the web, the people on the web have had no decision making power in. Anyhow, I have never had an argument on hacker news. I've read it for a long time, but I never really participated. I don't know if you're a participant.

I have had arguments on hacker news. It's a very different type of argument than like a Reddit argument. So one of the first things that somebody was like, the web sucks now, I used, when the web was my 56K modem and my Pentium 3 computer, the web was blazing fast and now it's slow. And it's like, you mean when it was all fucking text? Like yeah, I'm sure it was very fast. But then there were people who were like, you know, aesthetically, they couldn't, like, they didn't like it

and they couldn't get around the idea that there wasn't an empirical, like, we weren't making an empirical judgment about like, aesthetic, we were talking about like bad ads and like bad user patterns, like dark patterns and stuff. But, um, Scrimson ads and pop-ups. Yeah, and shit that's like really offensive and really, you know, we do stuff. But uh, crimson ads and pop-ups. Yeah. And shit, it's like really offensive and really, um, you know,

we do stuff that's like, I think, well, I'm not, look, we're not in a glass house. Like, certainly there are things that we can make better. I think everybody can. But like we're actually thinking about how do we make a better? And I feel like most people don't have a choice because the internet, such a disgusting place that's, like, basically controlled by a controlled by a botnet of advertisers at this point.

Do you ever accidentally click on an IB Times or Washington Times link and you're just like, oh God, I may as well have gone to a porn torrent site or something? We think that Forbes is bad, right? Where it makes you wait to read a message. It is bad. No, it is bad.

But then you go in like IBT or Washington examiner or whatever the fuck it is, Washington Times, and it's like apocalyptic. It is, it's not good. You can't fucking read a story. Like you can't get to the story. And people don't, I don't know, I mean, I think in media we're a little like, I think

we have a more of a sensitivity to this. I don't know, do we? Like, I like all the time when we tweet something and like, someone doesn't have a great experience on our website, because we have a pop up or something's not working right. Like, a lot of people get very angry. Yeah. So people get angry a lot on the internet. Yeah. It's actually a really good segue into the top. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about. It is. Could we talk really quickly about this, the ugly web, though, a little bit more?

Definitely. I love talking about that. Yeah, I don't want to give away my content necessarily, but I've been wondering this for a long time and wondering if you've had this problem. I'm something of a power user of Chrome, and I don't have a great laptop, but I have a somewhat recent laptop. And I open like 40 or 50 tabs at a time, even more of your tab.

I'm a tab guy. Yeah, Adrian gets triggered like when she's in a desk. Tabs are crazy. I see, no, Elias Rothblatt, who works here, is, I just saw his tabs recently, and it's a disgusting situation. I mean, it's like this tiny little,

you can't see the icon. You don't know what it is. That's my life all the time. At Nightmare, you're living in a nightmare-ish world right now. The thing is that Chrome allows us to happen and it just kills your computer. It gets to the point, it's working, it's working, it's working. Okay, the computer is completely done. And I feel like Chrome doesn't handle the memory like allocation properly. And I think a lot of that has to do with one or two tabs are using three gigs of RAM.

I go to Intactivity Monitor and there's a gig or two going on. I'm very curious what's going on there. What are the, what do you do, can you think of the sites that you're on? You can't tell. It just says it's a Google Chrome helper if you open up activity monitor. It's 80 instances of that.

And then two or three of them just have like three or four games. I think also I will say, I think that Apple has done something where they are like specifically calling out Chrome. Like they want Chrome to perform badly on their computers. I just wish to opera. It's you did. Yeah, I feel really weird about it, but it's been pretty good.

Really? Yeah, it's much better. It's much faster than Chrome on on an app. Is it based on WebKit now or is it still it's based on webkit. So it's still it still takes up a lot of memory. Yeah. So I don't I don't know the ins and outs. I'm not like a perfect. But Webkit is like kind of at this point. I mean, it's kind of a standard. Yeah. It is a standard is Chrome not based on Webkit. Chrome is very much based on Webkit. Yeah. But I offer a long time had its own

it's own architecture. I hear Opera is owned by the Chinese now as well. That sounds right, which, they're definitely getting on with it. Yeah, everyone was like, it has a free VPN in there and I was like, just so you know, nothing is free, but trouble. Yeah, trouble is exactly what it's free.

I would not be using Opera if I were you, but I'm not, I'm not endorsing any other product here. I will say Chrome, like Google is a really, they're really good at making some things. And like I feel like they did a pretty good job with Chrome. But to your point, but then again, if you've 70 fucking tabs open or whatever, that's like, I think it's my problem, but I can't fix it. I feel like there should be a computer that is capable of handling like these various. What there is, it's a, it's a a PC like a desktop PC that with like a really sick

CPU and a really sick graphics card all right and a ton of RAM and I'm gonna play no games on it and just Relics 60 no honestly can't it but I'll tell you this I got a surface because I got the new MacBook Which sucks the MacBook Pro mm-hmm, which was ironically stolen unrepairable by the way the way. Can't replace almost anything in it. It's a piece of garbage. That doesn't matter because you can't, it's a piece of shit anyhow, so like, but here's the thing. Are you saying keep it?

To the view? I'm saying, yeah, I actually was like, kind of like, this is sort of a blessing to disguise. I could get the insurance, money for it, and just like put it back in the bag. Yeah, I'm not even joking. I bought a Surface Pro 4 afterwards because I was so annoyed.

And I got the mid-level version and browsing the internet is so much fucking faster on a PC than a Mac, on Chrome. It's not even funny. It's a night and day. In fact, many things about the computer are faster. That is my main computer for the most part now, which is insane.

A lot of motherboard has switched to PC of late. So I mean, people here, our video guys are all working on PCs now. It's just like, I mean, that's pretty weird. I mean, considering how media's worked the last like 10 years, everyone's on Mac, but yeah, it's a big switch. I think it's a kind of a very telling sign for Apple

that like, it's no longer, like, it's not like a badge I think it's a kind of a very telling sign for Apple that like it's no longer, like it's not like a badge of honor to have a Mac. Nothing used to be like this kind of thing where it's like the cool computer, like the night, this clean computer. I feel like Windows is, I mean, it's a shit show, but it's kind of like a, you can like deal with it. Yeah, I have a Surface Book Pro, I think.

The one with the little... The one that like you click in and you can open it and you can, it and you can yeah It's like a laptop. It's like a MacBook but Windows version. It's the but it's still with like the little like a curved Yeah, yeah, it's got like a hand just it's kind of it's cool I don't like it that much though, but we don't need to get into it Yeah, should we take a break Ryan should we take a quick break? We're gonna only take a commercial break We'll talk about the memes.

We're gonna, and then we're gonna get into some memes. We'll be right back. Glasses are meant to help you see better, right? Sure, I know you're thinking, of course, what else would they be meant to do? But then why is it that all too often scratches smudges and glairs on your lenses obstruct your vision and inhibit you from seeing clearly? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose? Thankfully, Crisol, no glare lenses give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to scratches and smudges, meaning no more fingerprints from taking your glasses on and off or scuffs from cleaning your lenses on your shirt.

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and London, and listeners to this podcast can get a hundred dollar credit when signing up at getwiplash.com slash tomorrow. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ We're back with Jason Kebler and he's just revealed to me an extremely shocking fact that I'm going to want to hear a lot more about. He said, you said that there's another Jason Kepler. There's one other, yes, in existence. I believe so.

Maybe there is another. And what did you just say about him? He copied my life. Okay. So he owns Jason Kepler.com. He owns Jason Kepler, like, at Jason Kepler on Twitter, like, he was a first mover. He's a little older than me. But I studied abroad in Chile like 10 years ago

or whenever I was in college. And he mess, he friend him on Facebook because we had the same name and then he messaged me and he was like, hey man, like Chile looks pretty cool. And like three weeks later, I was like, yeah, it was great. Three weeks later, he moved there. No.

Yeah, he just moved there. Like he was taking pictures in like all the same places I was. Really? Yeah. the same places I was really weird. Yeah, he doesn't look anything like me. Have you ever written about this? Is that him right there? Oh, I know. I think I know.

That's him. I know this guy. Yeah. What does he do? Jason Camp. Yeah. Part two. He he's from Wisconsin has a scoband.

Oh, wow. So just like you, just like me, I'm from Maryland. Just outside DC. OK. Yeah. Yeah, Maryland. Great area. Yeah, it's good Near Virginia near Virginia, but yet not Back of Farms in Maryland. There are yeah, you know, you know, many field trips when I was younger crabs Yeah, like crabs everything crabs old Bay

Is that where old Bay is from old Bay is from Maryland season two like the seasoning? That's what I's the concept of it I can't in my mind. I'm trying to think what a taste like tastes like crabs does it is it made from crab? It's not made from crab what every crab has old Bay on it. So I think you about a big crab fan. They're good I think they're okay. I feel a lot of work. I feel like There's a real insect quality to a crab, lobster, shrimp, all very insecty. By the way, I like insects.

I just don't feel like eating them. Yeah, you know? I'd rather hang out with them. Everyone in Shark Tank disagrees with you. What does that mean? They're always pitching like cricket protein. Fucking hate Shark Tank. Anyhow, it's one of the worst shows in television.

It is very watchable though, I'll say that. There are people, you hear them talking, you're like, how did you get rich? You seem to not know anything. And yeah, I'm talking about Kevin. He's gonna be an ex-wife. We're gonna watch it. I don't even know why, why is it so?

This is an off topic. All right, let's get to the meat. So you just read this story. The secret chat rooms where Donald Trump memes are born. I did. Can we talk about that? I would love to. Explain this to the tomorrow listener.

They don't know anything about this. They haven't read the story yet. Take us on a little trip into this world. Okay. So remember during the election when Hillary Clinton stood in front of presumably some crowd and talked about Pepe the frog, do you like recall this? I don't, not really. She gave like one very, I don't know if his famous,

but I remember her time, but she called, she called people deplorable and she did, yeah, the deplorable rights speech. And then like there's a blog post on her website, that Pepe the Frog, this like green ugly frog that, and said this guy is a hate symbol. He is a Nazi. He's part of the alt right.

Yeah. I don't think she said the word Nazi because you don't know how I've said but not and during the speech. I don't know. Pepe mentioned Pepe. Okay. Well, I was there's a blog post on Hillary Clinton dot com. In any case, I would know.

Hold on. Can I just pause you for a second? Yes. Pepe, I just want to say before all of this alt-right bullshit, Pepe was one of my favorite memes. So he made a Pepe that looks just like me in fact. And like now I can never show it. They like took my avatar, my Twitter avatar and did a Pepe.

That's exactly the same. But now I can never show it to anybody because it's become a symbol of hate. Well, before the alt-right stuff, Pepe had been taken over by the normies as they say and like, it became this weird, like, the normies, can you? The normies are the normal people who like share like minion memes or just like normal memes on Facebook, like your mom's version of a meme. Like me. They're not normal.

I don't know. Doge up there. Is he a normie meme? I don't know what that is. Oh, doge. Doge is incredibly normie. Yeah, right. Yeah, I've heard, I'm post doge up there. Is he a Normie meme? I don't know what that is. Oh, Doge. Doge is incredibly Normie. Yeah, right. I'm post Doge.

Yeah, well, everybody's post Doge now, but Doge, Doge, doge, what happened to him? Yeah. That's a very Normie. A lot of people with Doge is now, though. I feel like it's going to have that 12 year. The dog. Yeah, the dog.

Yes, the dog. That's right. Yeah, so anyways, after Trump won the election, there were all these attempts to explain why Trump won the election. And a lot of it came back to this idea that somehow Forchan and Reddit, like R slash the Donald, which is this subreddit on, yeah, like deepened tailed about this.

Yes, early on in the outlines existence, but how we don't think that memes had any and re-hugin packed on the election. Yes but how we don't think that memes had any and re-huge impact on the election. Yes, I also don't think that it did. However, there has been like, there is a cover story in Time magazine, which you guys talked about on an earlier podcast, I just listened to.

That was like, yeah, the all right trolls and their memes helped Donald Trump win. Right. And the narrative going around there is that somehow this is like meme magic. There's like some element of like Russian bots and trolls and it's like unclear where this comes from. Well, the media is very extremely stupid and bad. And sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but I just want to say the media, I mean, just

this week, it's like the times it's like, who is Mike Surnavitch? And like, you know, 60 minutes puts Surnavitch on television and they're so fucking stupid. Like they don't even know how to talk to him. And Mike Surnavitch is like a complete fucking nobody loser who nobody cares about and doesn't know anything. And it's just a huge troll. Like he's a he's a Pua. He's like a gamer gate Pua fucking troll nobody like let's just be very clear and he doesn't know anything and he's like he's just not a good guy. He's like the pizza guy. Yeah, he's like a fucking liar. He's just a person who lies on the internet, but the media is so thirsty and has such a boner for anything that looks like explanation

that they can't help themselves. And they see a certain of it. They're like, let's profile this fuck. Anyhow, sorry. Yeah, no, it's a very good narrative. Like, it's a great narrative, which is kind of stored. It's a great narrative, which is kind of stored. Milo and like, you know, these people on Reddit and the Donald, or Reddit, the Donald

are, are slash the underscore Donald. Yeah, just in case you look searching for and like various Twitter eggs, like propelled Donald Trump to victory. And it, there's no evidence that that's the case. No, and there's also, there's a lot of evidence that people voted down party lines and cherrymandering is really fucking effective. And he only won by 70,000 votes, which is like a like the narrowest goddamn margin you can basically get. Anyhow, go on. Right. And so, we wondered for a while, like, how much should we cover this?

And I think, like, last week, I was like, okay, I'm just going to do it. So I went searching for the people who make Donald Trump memes. Like, I tried to get as close to the meme vein, the main vein of memes as possible. And it took me to Discord, which is this slack-like chat app that was designed for gamers. It's both voice and chat. And on there, there's this channel called Centipede Central, because Donald Trump followers are called centipedes. And they're nimble navigators.

I don't really know. That's like what they say. Like human centipedes? It's a nerd. Not because of really know. That's like what they say. Like human. The men's on a piece? Because of nerds. It's just like I should. It's just like I should. It's like it's not worth getting into. It's like eight levels of irony and mean.

It's like unclear. I don't know the answer. People, this is by the way, I think evidence that like we do need to put people back to work in America. Because like I feel like these people are good evidence of people who aren't working. It's like evidence of people who need jobs, so they have something to fill their time with.

This is a good point. Anyhow, this is a very good point. Yeah, and so I went there and like... So, Trot and that respect I agree with Trot. Yes. And so I joined Centipede Central, and I was just like sitting there for a while, and they have this whole channel dedicated to you. You were lurking and I was just like sitting there for a while and they have this whole

channel dedicated to working. I was lurking. I was lurking at first. Now I'm more of a, I'm in with the mods who are like actively not to. And they love, which is very. They love attention, right? Yes, they love attention. So there's this big debate like, should we amplify their message?

Should we like, by writing about them, you're inherently amplifying them, and that's a concern. And so for a while, we weren't really writing about them. And then what are we worried about? They already fucking won the election. Like, at this point, I think the goal is to demystify it because it's really incredibly boring what they do.

It's boring, it's easy. It's been done a million times, it via various, anyone who spends any time on it. But it's not a fine's been done a million times, it by like various, anyone who like spends any time on it, any- But it's not the fine line that like, you know that and you may write that, but like then 60 minutes is like, discord is the epicenter of me making that got Donald Trump in the White House.

Like literally that's probably they're working in the fucking store right now. That's a good headline. You like that? You gonna call it headline and TV, I guess, but- Yeah, it's like a tag. It's a tag, I don're like, you're gonna call a headline in TV, I guess, but it's like a tag. It's a tag. I don't know what they call it.

Ryan, do you know? Elite. Elite. No. I think it's a tag. Doesn't matter. Anyhow, at the epicenter of the alt-right community that got Donald Trump elected, next thing you know, your story is just fodder for some garbage, 60 minutes report, where they're

like, this is why Donald Trump's in office. And then those guys, and those guys are serenowitching around. They're like, check me out, check me out, bro, and they're like, you know, pooing and like, whatever they do. Yeah, I mean, it kind of like raises the question like as a journalist, like what am I supposed to do?

Like I know that this thing exists, I know that it's boring. It's like, I may as well report on it. Like, you know, I in college and high school, like I spent plenty of time on like weird message boards and stuff. Like I have seen this type of behavior. You must be able to pull up. I did not become. No, no, no, no. I was, it was more like a Scott message boards and like gaming message board. Very nerdy stuff. We should say the same type of thing. We should say, Poo, I mean, pick up artists, which is like code for like date rapists basically.

But Poo makes me feel very uncomfortable. Sorry, I didn't mean to. No, it's okay. You could say. Oh, the word Poo. Like saying, like I don't wanna say it. I like you because it sounds, it sounds really limp, very limp.

Yeah, sounds limp to me. But you know what's funny is like, I, this is the thing about Pepe is, you just ain't got like you were on the gaming boards or whatever, I was actually just having this conversation with Adrian about Rick and Morty. A friend of mine was like, oh, I don't like Rick and Morty because I feel like it's like gamer gate people

are into that. And I was like, but I really like Rick and Morty. I think it's very funny. And then I was like, wait a second. Is this a gamer gate thing? And it's like, these people, like what sucks about it is they ruin things. They are literally those people's like, you ruined, like what sucks about it is they ruin things. They are literally those people,

like you ruined it for the rest of us. Like that is their career. Right. And so our, what we wanna do is ruin it back to be completely honest. You know, like shine like, take it, just make it so boring. It's just like, oh, I've heard about this.

I know about it. Like I, like we can talk about this in a minute, but like I was in the, where we can talk about now. I'll just talk about it. Yeah. So I was in the discord chat and they made an announcement and they said at 1 p.m. yesterday there was a, well, sometime this week, I don't know when it was, there was a French presidential debate.

And the Trumpies are very pro marine lapen because she's a racist. Exactly. And so nationalists. And so they wanted to hijack the debate hashtag with Pepe memes, French Pepe memes, memes that are in French and feature Pepe. La Pepe. La Pepe, yes. And so. La, la, la lot, a lot, a bunch of frog. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. That's perfect meme for France.

Yeah. And so like, and so there's a message post and it's like at 1 p.m. Everyone used these memes using this hashtag on Twitter, tweet these. Yeah. And it's literally a zip file of 120 pre-vetted memes that some overlords on the Discord chat were like, these are sufficiently dang to influence the election. I use what you've seen. Steve Bannon now has a lot of free time.

Yes. I mean, Steve Bannon is like a shit lord, right? He is a shit. He's an ex-lord, like. He says, Cuck, he called Jared Kushner a Cuck. No, I know, so good. A Cuck in a globalist. Yes. Which is the worst thing you can be.

And what a compliment that Jared Kushner would have such an interesting part of his sex life that he would be a Cuck. Well, Cuck is removed from sex now. It's just a state of mind. Cuck. He's a Cuck. I'm into it, when people call me a Cuck

and I'm like, you damn right, I'm a Cuck. Anyhow, go on. Yeah, and so they organize these 20. They organize these raids or actions, or whatever you wanna call them. They're like here are the memes, download them from this website. Like here's a zip file, it's like on media fire.

It's like, you've been making a doubt look. Yeah, it's like a mega download. It's called, literally the folder is called French election. So good, it's so good. It's just like, click upload on Twitter, like tweet it, you're done. It like, it doesn't take a lot of effort. It doesn't, it's just like, click upload on Twitter, like, tweet it, you're done. Like, it doesn't take a lot of effort.

It doesn't, it's just like a couple people. There's like some meme geopolitical, like, alliances formed between like the French Discord channel and the like, centipede central Discord channel. And it's like, next time Donald Trump needs a meme raid, like, these people will ask the French nationalists for help on Twitter. Yeah. I mean, if Twitter was shut down, these guys would immediately see to have any visible power, correct? I believe so. Like, literally within one, in a blink of an eye, these people wouldn't see to exist in reality.

It's such a shame if I like to. They would go to my Twitter. Yeah, man. I just signed up. No, not. So what are you guys doing? I'm a bastard on. I signed up. No, not. What are you guys doing? I'm asking on, I signed up today on mastodon.club or whatever, which is a different instance. Now I have an account there, but it's not, it doesn't carry over. Yeah, I have one on the bad one as well. I have like, massed on the XYZ, but I don't have a massed on social. If a massed on takes off, that's going to matter a lot in a couple years. When the massed on social, there has to just one, or like a single repository of users,

because how the fuck does it work if you have a thousand different social networks? Well, they're called federations. Why couldn't you build it like email? I've never understood that. Why could there be a social network but like email? That's what this is. I mean, it's like, you have a post email account or you have an AOL account. But it isn't.

You can interact. You can follow. You can be Joshua Topolski on a completely different massed on, right, instance with a different fucking email. And the two are not, there's no overlap. But I can be like Jason Kebler on Gmail and I can be, and someone else can be Jason Kebler on Hotmail. It's like the same thing, I guess.

They're called federations and they can interact with each other. It's different. They can interact. Yeah. That's the problem is like, well of course you can send an email to somebody, but the idea of these networks is that you have a permanent sort of like space. My space is what I would call it,

or your space. Yeah, that's a good one. You have a permanent like location, thanks. The your space, that's you should start that. You have a, what was the one that AOL bought? I think it's called the outline. No, that is my space. That's your space. What was the one that AOL bought? I think it's called the outline. No. That is my face. That's your face. What is the one that AOL bought? It's called like Boba or B-B-O-L-E-B-O.

Oh, yeah, B-B-O. I was bringing the UK. Yeah, Brazil. Brazil also, I think. Listen, Plurk was the best social network. If you don't know Plurk, you've never heard of Plurk. That's really embarrassing. I've never heard of Plurk.

No, I haven't. Plurk was the shit. God damn it. Plurk was the amh casual. It was the anti Twitter. You don't even know. That's the thing. There were like, Twitter competitors, they might have broken through. We could have been all on plurk right now. Plurk did not take off. What is it re plurking? Do you re plurk?

So you're not Twitter's up and down. Plurk was like a sideways. Oh, that's was like a sideways. Oh, that sounds like a timeline. No, but think about timelines. You could go back and forth in time and there are all these little animal avatars. It kind of pre-saged stickers in a lot of ways. Anyhow, it was not as a compliment. I don't think Macedon's gonna take off.

No, it's not. There can be an alternate, it's something that's better than Twitter, but somebody really has to get their shit together to do it. Yeah. Like there could be a new Twitter. Twitter is totally killable. Facebook totally killable, in my opinion.

I feel like we're stuck with what we have, which is very naive of me. Why do we think that? I don't know. We're stuck with the rotary phone. It's just that's the pinnacle of fucking communication. But we did use the rotary phone. We used like a phone for a hundred years. Yeah, but then we got an iPhone and that's how it goes out.

All right, so see you on this VR. VR, just work in all day. Yeah, when VR, or rockman, or reality becomes a thing, like Twitter, if Twitter doesn't jump on that shit or Facebook doesn't jump on it. Did Plurk precede the twerk? Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's PL, you are king. The social network for Asshade. All right, so anyhow, way, way earlier, way, way. It's PLURK.

The social network for Asshake. All right, so anyhow, so you infiltrated Centipede Central. Yeah. You got to the beating heart of the Donald Trump meme factory. And inside you found a bunch of powder. I did. Yeah, so there are basically, no, there's a bunch of powder A.

There's like three or four people who kind of run against, I don't know where I picked that up. Are you partially Canadian? I'm not, I've not known. What I've picked up. You said you're from Maryland, but Maryland, Ontario? Maryland, Hunn, I believe this a Hunn there, but I'm from like Metro DC, Maryland.

We don't have anything interesting there. Do you work with a bunch of Canadian people? I do actually. I price I do, actually. Yeah. I try to do it with this. Yeah. I think I go on. So there's like three or four admins of this centipede central discord.

And what they do is they monitor the chat room. And when people say funny things, and by funny, often this means racist, misogynistic, nationalist, Nazi-esque, for sustained periods of time and that they think are funny. They tap them on the shoulder and pull them into these private rooms where they are told to make memes. It's like meme workshops. Who are these people? Are they like young men?

I believe them to be young men. I have not. Are there any women involved in these conversations? So currently one of the moderators of the Donald, which their centipede central grew off of the Donald, because okay, so centipede central is an offshoot of the Donald because the Donald was too restrictive of speech. Like there are too many rules at the Donald. So it's for like further, right? and then you go on Centipede Central and there is a rules list.

And it says, if you're in search for, quote, free or speech, message this guy and he'll hook you up. So I messaged that guy and he sent me to this discord called the portal. And the portal is so tight. And this is like, everything your time is the best. Yeah, just the best. So the portal has like thousands of other Discord servers and like this is where you can

get like like, like special channels for just people who specifically hate Muslims and just channels for like really, really specific. You can say like really fuck up shit. Yeah, I mean, I've read a bunch of things that's, that Discord has a big like child porn problem. Like this goes deep and dark with this. No, that doesn't sound right to me, hold on. Uh, I can't, I can't, I can't,

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't,

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I don't know, into child porn doesn't check out. Doesn't check out. Yeah. These people suck, they're sucky people. They're not like part of the continuum of progressive human culture. They're part of some other, they're in aberration. Yeah, they're aggressive. It is a regressive aberration, and it's like not part of where culture is moving

in any meaningful way. And like they hate that. Like, I think we're both white, white-ish. I'm half half Latino. Okay. Well, I, I, I, I appear white, yes. I'm completely Russian, which I don't know. It means I'll be deported any day now.

Um, but like, okay, but your experience in the world is, I mean, it's that of a white man. I'm like, hey, this guy, I gotta get him into a camp or something. But like, you know, I think there's just an incredible threat, this feeling of threat to like white men. And this is the reaction to that feeling of threat. And they are threatened. Like white men are over. Their rain of terror is coming to a close.

Yeah, like good. I'm going to be unseated at any moment and have to leave the outline. I would flip out if someone turned God mode off on my game too. That's very good. You should be in here, I think. But anyway, my point is, I feel like this is all just kind of like the end times for them. Yeah, I mean, that's what this election was, was the last gasp of sort of a regressive culture, was a not like, hopefully, hopefully.

No, I think it's like, is it? I mean, think of the gophoto-talitarianism, I think, then maybe not. Yeah, maybe they can, I don't know what I was saying. Maybe they can, and mash it for a long time. Well, they would essentially like circumvent laws. Yeah, laws, constitution, the human evolution. Yeah. So any house, I'll ask.

Yeah, no, it's interesting because these memes, like they are not that powerful. There's not a lot of magic to it. This is like very lame. It's not a lot of magic to it. This is very lame. It's a very lame thing that they're doing. I don't think that it really has that much of an effect. I think it's weird to say, I talked to Donald Trump's ship posters on Discord.

I voice-chatted with a bunch of Nazis all week. However, I mean, they're very polite. They're of the like Richard Spencer frame. Like, we are the presentable Nazi. And it is, it's like concerning the talk to these people and to know that they exist. However, I think it's important. And I don't know why. I don't know why I think it's important,

but I think that you have to, like, there's nothing special about it. It's like fucking lame. It's stupid. Like what they're doing is stupid. Like, there's tons of internet communities that make really cool memes elsewhere and they're like not racist.

And they're like, can I name one? I really like the surreal memes. If you see any surreal memes. No, what are those? Surreal memes. That's also on Reddit. Surreal memes. It's all so on Reddit. Surreal memes. It's like disembodied heads.

And it feels like you're on ketamine, possibly, which I haven't done ketamine, but I talked to someone who has an issue. It's great. Yeah, I don't recommend it. I was very young and it's really an animal tranquilizer. Oh, yeah, that's cool. That's kind of like the share zone.

You know, the share zone. No, he found a that's cool. That's kind of like the share zone. You know, the share zone. No, he found a bad one though. That's not it. Fine one doesn't do somebody head in like various, it's like, this is associative. Is all of like just internet graphics. Well, whatever. They're good. You don't like the share zone?

Or you're not a share zone? The share zone's good. I do like him. Who is that? Probably a shit poster. It's probably a Donald a shit poster. Yeah. It's probably a Donald Trump shit poster is within the reality is.

So I've been writing all week, like in very serious, but not serious, but it's weird to say like there are meme geopolitics and there are like meme alliances and shit posting is real and I've been talking to like various academics about the ethics of memes, which doesn't be segueing into another thing. Because on Discord, on these various Nazi channels,

there's a lot of shit posted there. And some of it is funny and some of it's not offensive. Some of it is inoffensive and funny. Like there's a Venn diagram of like racist, they're two separate circles. There's like racist, terrible, and there's like funny, not terrible, but they're being made by the same thing. Same people. Like, the memes that you'll see on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever, like, many of those memes are made by like Nazis. But the ones that are not racist.

Yeah, just like normal memes that are like, like there's one that I really like that's like Drake's head Photoshopped on like this absurdly busty woman. And I don't, it's like a very good Photoshop and it's pretty funny. There's like some crock memes going around. There's like some crock memes going around. There's like various dank weed memes that have nothing to do with like things that we would consider.

Don't you mean, or do we not know? Well, so it's unclear, I guess, maybe. And so I, like I got on Discord, like maybe a month ago, and I've been talking to various like meme scholars about whether it's problematic to source your memes from Nazis if they're like, if you believe them to be fine. Oh, so if I wanna be ahead of the curve on getting lots of RTs, yeah, I can go on Discord and get some early memes that are not racist, from racist.

That's exactly what it is. And then I could be some drill, do some drill shit. Yeah. And get some really hot memes going. And people be like, this guy's got fucking amazing memes. He's got a dank meme stash. Where is he getting his memes? Yeah, but Discord.

You don't have to say. And it's like, oh, I got him straight from the fucking source. So that's what's actually happening. Yeah, I think so. And so I had this ethical quandary, like, is it okay to do this? It seems like it should not be doing this. Did you do it? Yeah, I've been tweeting memes taken from Discord

for a couple of weeks and a lot of good engagement. A lot of RTs, RTs. Interesting. And I see those same memes later on Reddit or Facebook or Twitter. Do people not call you out for it and not like they know where they come from but nobody is nobody's aware of the fact you're just boosting these from people on discord i don't think so i'm not i'm not making this call they're just like non-stop and there's like

chatting all time yeah like uh interesting thing about with the job situation in in this country yeah so on the centerpiece i'm many of them are actually from America? A lot of them are from America, I think. There's some of them are British, a lot of British people. The British, we got to keep our eyes on them. The British voice chats. There's a lot of like voice chats, like they're doing a D&D game in the Donald Trump.

A Dungeons and Dragons game. A Dungeons and Dragons game in the Donald Trump. A D&D, or have they just just converged all that into one world? Advanced than drag, it's versus Dungeons and Dragons. I think it must just be one thing now. I'm old enough that I can touch speak with some authority about the existence of both of those. They're also doing public readings of art of the deal,

which so if you wanna hear someone like read you art of the deal, you could go on there and just sit around. Here's what I really think. I think there was a time in the world when like, you know, you had to go and work, you know, or you die of hunger. And I'm starting to wonder if maybe you know, do you get back to that on a kind of a global scale?

Like I feel like what I'm hearing about are people who really do in every way have way, way too much time on their hands. Like it's like having no sense of community and then you find something and you're at all mentally ill, you want it to be like as like all enveloping as possible and like we're not treating either of those things. Like how I felt after Avatar, after I saw Avatar

and I was like, why can't I live in this world? Remember that? Do you remember that phenomena CNN do the story? Yeah, everyone in the live and fucking avatar. Yeah. Did you feel that way? I didn't like Avatar that much. I don't know.

It seemed like a cool world, but I didn't like the movie very much. Well, it was cool about the Avatar. They had a tree internet. I don't understand. James Cameron's still making more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a theme park.

Yeah, Avatar World. Good. It's coming in next year. It's like it's so long ago. It's already opening. It is. It's coming in next year. It's like it's so long ago. It's already opening. It is. It's in May. Yeah.

May. I don't know why they built that. Can you imagine spending so much time on Avatar World? Is that what it's called? I mean, how's that? I need to hear from spending time on animal kingdom. Let's call Pandora. Yeah.

I know that from hating it. Oh yeah. That's where I'm at. The Navi, right? It's the Navi. The Navi. You can go and become a Navi on Pandora. I yeah. That's where I'm under the planet. The Navi, right? It's the Navi. The Navi. You can go and become a Navi on Pandora. I understand.

In the theme park. I see. You actually do the avatar thing. Yeah. Anyhow. So we should probably, I don't know how, how, how, how, yeah. We like briefly just, yes of course. Like, end this thread about the ethics of, because I am, I am not Nazi.

I feel like I stomped all over your ear. No, you didn't, you didn't. So I like reach out, there's like various people at Harvard's Berkman Center who have studied. Who are nots? Who are, yeah. No. And I was like, is this, first I prefaced the email,

like I'm so sorry I'm asking you this question. Is it ethical to source dank memes from Nazi meme minds? Like, minds. Is that OK? And they're like, actually this is like a-running question in the art world, in the philosophy world, et cetera. Like, there are various like Nazi philosophers who have, like, actual Nazis from like Germany in the 1940s, who have like, impact on philosophy today, and I am blank in the name.

But like, people worry about whether they're able to cite them like with a clear conscience. Well, this is right. This is like, can an awful person have occasionally good ideas? Yeah, basically. Basically, it's a question. Yeah, and so I actually spoke to them a lot and they basically said as long as you're sure that you're not spreading like hidden messages, so like as long as you're sure that you're not spreading like hidden messages, so like as long as you're sure that the crock memes don't have some like

antisemitic undertones, then what you're doing is you're possibly making it lame. Like you're making their memes lame because you're spreading in the mainstream and like then they will like hate you and that like that's fine. But they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're spot and-

They have to make like,, dank or memes after that. I guess yeah. They're means we can increasingly dank. Yeah, which is good for all of us. If they're not offensive. I think what you're describing is sort of like, and this is gonna sound really bad when I say it, okay? So I just wanna prep everybody for a possible edit.

Okay. But you're kind of, it's kind of like the Bible, right? You're sort of like, it's like the Bible, if you're not a religious person, there's a lot of shit in the Bible, you're like, this is fucking totally awful and screwy. But then there's things in the Bible where you're like, you know, love your neighbor and be a good,

but I don't know what's in the Bible because I don't fuck with that. But you know, like things like be a good person. That's the whole thing of it, right? don't know what's in the Bible because I don't fuck with that. But you know, like things like being a person, don't do a murder, don't cover your neighbor's wife or what, you know, it's kind of like good life lessons. You could, is it like, can you separate out the religion from like kind of good advice? Yeah. I think it's a similar argument. It is.

It's like an age old question. I mean, and so there's no like a period. I've read the Bible to Austin. I'm just gonna say, can you get some dank memes from the old test? You definitely can't, you definitely can't. Like in fact, why aren't there more Bible memes? There probably are, but it's like a Facebook story.

That's a story for you right there. Thank you. It's like out in the open. I don't know, I think it's important that we. That's a story for you right there. Thank you. It's like out in the open. I don't know. I think it's important that we take memes seriously just because like, I don't, why not? Why not?

I mean, what's the most important meme that has ever existed to you? Oh God. I don't really get, I've got to be honest, I gotta be honest, impartial journalists, I don't like any memes.

Yeah. And I think that's really a take seriously. This is where you're 60 minutes attitude, you've got. be honest, I gotta be honest, I'm an impartial journalist, I don't like any memes. Yeah. And I think that's really- You really take me seriously. This is where you're 60 minutes attitude, you've got to. I know. We don't understand this. I have to care about it. Even the Seshwans, I was once.

You. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Oh, I saw a second. Has there ever been a meme that has met anything and done anything? Well, so Occupy Wall Street was a meme, possibly. Like, 99% was a meme. Like, if you read, there's books about memes. Like, there's a book written called World Made in Beam

by a guy named Ryan Milner, who got his PhD writing this book. And he argues, yes. So he argues that Occupy Wall Street is a meme. Like, Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is a meme. Is that a meme? No, what is hashtag? But a Lives Matter is a meme. Is that a meme? No, what is hashtag?

But a hashtag is on a meme. Yeah, I mean, this is like Richard Dawkins, who fuckhead, but he coined a meme and it's like a unit of, you know, cultural, like genetics essentially. Did you see this Lenderman documentary? No, I haven't seen it. Oh my God, they talked to him in it. No, I talk about Sonderman.

Because they want to understand memes. And he says, yeah, it's like genetic pairs. He's like it's cultural genetic pairs. So basically everything's, I mean, it was essentially him expanding the thing he invented to encompass everything. Well, everything can't be mean. It has no definition of it.

It's not bad though, because it's things that mutate and people add to it, et cetera. It's like a, it's a good, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Maybe meme is like a, actually a bad idea, like a broken idea, because maybe these are just ideas. That needs like improvement. Well, are they just ideas that people like take? Beams are social constructs. But is, is a meme just an idea that people take and then kind of remake and they're in

their own, in a form that's bet, it's more suited to them or that they prefer. I mean, isn't that just like all of human knowledge? Yeah. Is it just like the Bible is probably the Bible? No, but to the point of the Bible, the Bible is passed down and fucking mutated and altered. So if that's a meme, then I feel like we shouldn't even to be psyched by memes because they don't exist. Yeah, and like a lot of people think knowledge is like this image with like white impact text

on top and bottom, but like clearly that we've evolved past. That's like a, it's like, that's like a two, that's like an early 2000s internet variant. Yeah, but that's not like an actual name. I can't believe I blanked on that meme question. I still don't have an answer for you. I feel like that's like a job in a real question.

It's like what books do you read? And like I don't read books, I like them all. You don't have it. But I do. I'm just saying. Didn't that actually really help people with L.S.? I don't think it did. It did.

Like they raised it. I spoke a challenge, definitely a meme. It's in the book. It's in the meme book. It was in a book, by all means, it must be real. I was surprised. I found it that helped actual people, but I think it did. Okay, that's interesting. You really see, I mean, how bad it has to be to be helpful.

Look at how far you have to get for something that's funny and interesting to be helpful. I'm not gonna need Huda-Cott B. It's a day job. What a weird thing. Humanity is truly doomed anyhow. Jason, I think this is a good place to leave it. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Me too. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. We were all over the place,

but that's kind of how I like it. Yeah, I've always wanted someone to have me on a podcast where I could just talk about the things I like for an hour. Oh really? I don't get to do that on my podcast. I have to let other people talk about the things they like. Well, as you're a pitch here, as you're sort of like plug for me,

so I have two podcasts. Wow. I know it's too many podcasts. One is called Radio Motherboard, which is kind of like this. We talk about things in science technology. It's webby nominated, whatever that means. Okay, vote for it. The webby is.

We gotta have to. We have to say that. And the other one is called Plus Plus Podcast. It's all one word, all squished together, which makes it almost impossible to find on anything. Plus and plus put together. And then podcast also. It's like plus plus plus.

It leaves a very bad decision by me. And what's that about? That one is like we go out in the field and report because I don't do all my reporting on the internet, I go places sometimes. So. Your reporter. I believe so.

Yeah. It's exciting. And so we have an episode coming out tomorrow or probably we'll be out when you listen to this about right to repair. So if you cared about the things at the beginning, I followed some right to repair activists in Albany, New York, as they lobbied lawmakers trying to get their bill passed. Yeah, I don't want to spoil it, but did they get it? Do they do it?

Not yet. No, you shouldn't have told me. Still going. Still going to get it. Still going to get it. I mean, oh god, I, I'm, I, I, I will believe it. You'll have to wonder. Thank God. Yeah. Anyhow, Jason, thank you so much for being here and you've got to come back. Next time you find like a new set of shit lords. Yeah, I'm all. Edge lords. Edge lords. Shit lords. What do you call them? I call them meme lords, but

you know, they're also edge lords, I believe. Yeah, edge lords. Most of the most. Am I just, am I just blending shit, posting and edge lords together to call them shit lords? Shit lords is good though. It is good. I like it. I've been using that. Is that not a thing? I think it is.

I think it might be a different thing though. But you can meme it if you'd like. I will. Yeah. Okay, good. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow and and as always, I wish you and your family the very best. But unfortunately, I've just found out that an edge lord on Set-Apeat Central has made your family into an extremely dank meme, and now they've been publicly shamed all across

Twitter. you