TRIGGERnometry - Comedy, Censorship & Victimhood - Neel Kolhatkar

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

Comedy, Censorship & Victimhood - Neel Kolhatkar Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You honed in on the fact that the truth has become secondary and people's feelings have become primary. Like, he was so early to that. It became more about just having the correct opinions rather than actually being inclusive. I just felt very excluded. That's my experience as a person of colour. So they can't really argue against that, can they? I mean, they can, mate. I think a lot of these diversity initiatives are actually just diversity for the upper class.

they're creating this world that they've been supposedly trying to prevent us from. Neil, so good to have you on the show, man. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. We'll get into your career and all the other stuff. But the reason I'm looking forward to is long before we even started this show, I remember seeing a clip on my Facebook, which was about modern education. This was like nine years ago, way, way back, which was absolutely brilliantly done. It was kind of a scale. about, you know, a lot of the stuff that we've talked about on the show, the erosion of truth, the erosion of the concept of reality, all of this kind of stuff. Ignore that, it will end.

First question, one plus one. Two? Incorrect. Yes. Multiculturalism. Well done, Simon. Next question. What is three times three?

Yes? Nine. Wrong. Yes, Penelope. Gender equality. Very good, Penelope. Is this a joke? You think gender equality is a joke? No, but isn't this a maths class?

Don't be so racist. I just asked a question. We don't ask questions. Questions are offensive. Yeah! Now students, I trust you've all completed your research assignments. And remember, the person with the highest mark will be flying to New York to present their paper at the World Mathematics Summit. Well done, Penelope. 6 out of 10. You do, Simons.

Six out of ten. Hey, be careful. You've been staring at her for ten seconds. What? It's a form of harassment to stare at a woman for more than 15 seconds straight. And when I use the term straight, I don't mean to offend any persons of a non-traditional sexual preference. And when I use the term non-traditional, I don't mean to offend any persons who oppose historically normalized... Okay, I get it. Unfortunately, Sunshine, your research assignment is only worth a 1 out of 10.

I've used Fourier Transform and mathematical methods in the electronics to analyze the electrosy retro diagrams of at-risk patients and calculate their risk of experiencing a heart attack. I mean it's a new method but it could potentially save thousands of lives. Seven. You barely even redded. You used red pen. What? Red is considered defensive in many religions. Why would you belittle everything down to a singular colour?

Well humanity is a rainbow of beauty and spirituality. Yeah. Okay, fine. seven out of ten but that still means I get to go to the summit right? The marking process isn't over yet. Because we live in a society based on equality, the total amount of marks are to be divided equally among our students. You've got to be kidding me.

Well done students, we're all equal. We're all average. Yay! But then who gets to go to the summit? We haven't added our privilege points yet. Don't you know anything? That is correct. Now, Penelope, you are female, so that's plus one privilege point. However, you are white, so that's minus one.

I'm also bisexual. Plus one, that leaves you with a total score of six out of ten. Simon, unfortunately, you're straight white and male. And cisgendered. Yes, so that's minus four privilege points, which leaves you with the total score of one. It's only fair. Now you, you're male and I don't like you. So that's minus two privilege points, but you are brown and sexually ambiguous.

So that's plus two. That leaves you with a total score of five. Wait, why am I sexually ambiguous? And finally, sunshine. Um, I'm gay. I'm trans. I'm Asian. I'm overweight. I'm lower class. Unintelligent, unattractive.

I've got hairs on my nipples. And I also got body odour. And I can't really run properly or tie my shoelaces by myself. And I once watched the pigeon die. Wonderful, Sunshine. That's 13 privilege points. That leaves you with a total score of 18 out of 10. Well done, Sunshine. You're going to New York.

Hooray, Sunshine! We knew you could do it! Let me see this. see this they've just written equality and drawn love hearts on a piece of paper he expressed himself and it's beautiful he didn't even spell equality correctly we don't discriminate this has nothing to do with mathematics do you think you're so great with your maths and your science and your facts what about feelings huh yeah feelings are more important than facts yeah this is wrong

you're all crazy stop violating me with your different opinions I have the right to speak my mind. No, we have the right not to be offended. And that's more important. And if you don't stop verbally assaulting us, we will be forced to attack you in self-defense. Can't do that. Actually, we have every right to do so.

And it's illegal for you to fight back. Yeah. This is insane. Prepare to die a noble social justice warrior. Death. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Tudjah! Welcome.

Ignore that, it will end. And that was you. You did that nine years ago, man. It was, yeah. It was a long time ago now and still writing the coattails off it. And I'm very proud of it. I mean, that's every artist's dream to have a piece of work that withstands the test of time. And people can look upon it and say, you know, that was maybe ahead of its time. Well, it was simultaneously ahead of its time. A lot of us, I feel, including Francis and I almost like catching up with what you did then.

but also it was on its time because even then people already could feel the stuff that you were talking about. Definitely. And I'm sure you guys can relate to this. When you're in the art scene, I came up in the Australian comedy scene. Those sorts of ideas had spread early on and before they really infected the corporate world or the business world, they were really prevalent in, I suppose, the university and the art scene. And that's when I was just coming out of university and going into the art scene. So there was a lot of that there. And what was the inspiration for that? I said probably just my experiences, being in the Australian comedy scene and the art scene and being around people who, I guess, growing up, being, you know, brown, I just assumed,

yeah, I guess I'm on the left. That's just the standard thing. And I never really thought about it until I started to see the repercussions of some of these ideas. And I started to realize, oh, you're just saying a lot of these things. But deep down, you're not actually inclusive. You're not, you know, they say they're inclusive to people of, color. I've never felt more excluded in my life, to be honest. So I guess I just was able to

abstract a lot of those ideas from their behaviours and really just then conceptualised that in a in a film, in a short film. And yeah, a lot of it was really just based on my experiences coming through the art scene. And Neil, you said you've never been more excluded in your life. Yeah. What would you mean by that? Well, it's just the sort of thing that you guys have experienced as well. I mean, you just don't get a lot of opportunities. And the last thing I want to sit here and be a victim or anything like that, I have a great career. I'm very happy with how I'm going. But everything is sort of picked apart and criticized. And I grew up in a very sort of multiracial area in Sydney where we'd all make fun of each other and make jokes with each other. And I built up a fan base online.

It's quite a diverse fan base, I'd like to think. And, you know, people like those sorts of jokes, racial jokes or jokes about gender or sexuality or whatever it is. But then I sort of went into this scene and it felt a lot more, maybe it's more upper class or I don't know what it was necessarily, but they just weren't fond of that style of comedy. And it became more about just having the correct opinions rather than actually being inclusive. And I just felt very excluded. That's my experience as a person of color. So they can't really argue against that, can they? I mean, they can, mate.

They can and they have. But what I found interesting about that short film you made as well was you really honed in on something, which I think is so crucial to the modern world, which is in that video, which I will put a link to it, and I hope people go and watch it because I think it's really fantastic piece of work. Thank you. Thank you very much. You honed in on the fact that the truth has become secondary and people's feelings have become primary. How did you, like, he was so early.

early to that. And you're a young guy as well. I'm just super impressed that you picked that up. Why did you notice that? How did you notice that? Well, I think being in the later years of my high school and then going into university, I'd want to have discussions. I'm very interested in sort of ideas and abstract thinking. And I love to sort of engage in that sort of discourse. But I found that there were a lot of roadblocks and people saying, oh, no, you can't have that idea. No, that's just, that's the wrong idea to have or you can't say that. Yeah. Yeah, again, that's just sort of my experience that really engendered the inspiration for that film. And that was in Australia. I mean, I was in Australia earlier this year. It feels to me that I wrote an article about this

when I came back, but it feels to me like Australia isn't quite as far down the slippery slope as a country. In Sydney, perhaps, in Melbourne, you probably are as far in terms of all the woke stuff. But in the rest of the country, you know, broadly quite sensible. How is how kind has time been to Australia in the last. Yeah, again, it depends sort of which circles you operate in. So again, I think the media and the arts world has a lot of those ideas, but I think there's a big class distinction as well. So Sydney in particular, there's, Eastern Sydney is considered quite, you know, posh and affluent and Western Sydney is working class. I like to say, Eastern Sydney is very my pronouns, are they then? And Western Sydney is very my probation industry. It's a very

class of thing. And then we've actually had a few referendums recently where, you know, the East part of Sydney, you could actually just draw a line and say that everyone voted yes on these particular referendums. One of them was the gay marriage one and then the other was the voice for the Indigenous Australians and there was a very clear distinction along class lines. So it just depends where you are in Australia, I think. I don't think it's hard to say whether the whole country has gone down a certain route or anything like that. I just think like with the rest of the Western world. It's very divided. Yeah, and it's really interesting to me because you take the stereotype of an Australian, an Australian male, you know, no nonsense, straight to the point, you know,

beer drinking, masculine. And then you put all this stuff that you see in Melbourne and Sydney, you go, that really doesn't fit. Surely they're not buying into this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, they're not. Definitely not. So yeah, again, there's sort of pockets of Melbourne and Sydney that are considered very progressive. And I think the comedy scene is very progressive in Australia. And a lot of normal Australians have just turned against it. And it's sad to see because I, well, I love Australia and I love comedy, but I don't like Australian comedy.

I think there's some great comedians there. But the system, I suppose, isn't serving the general population well. and a lot of people are just dismayed at what they see in the mainstream media and also what's coming out from the Australian comedy scene. And it's sad. I hope it can change. What's interesting about that is, obviously we spend more and more time in America nowadays. That was the case in the US, but because they have a large number of scenes, a lot more freedom, there's people with huge amounts of money and big audiences that have been able to engineer new scenes from scratch, you know, Rogan and Austin is a good example.

They've been able to respond to the stuff that you're talking about by building new things. And now the big comics are all not woke or anti-woke, you might say. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the UK or in Australia. It's one scene, and if you don't fit, then you've got a problem. Yeah, unfortunately, it hasn't really happened to that extent in Australia. There's a lot of internet comedians that are doing good things, but none have been able to do what Joe Rogan has and build an entire set. It's incredible what he's done, because now when you think about the cities in America

that have a big comedy scene. It was always just New York and Los Angeles. Now it's New York, Austin, Los Angeles. So he's done incredibly well. And yeah, unfortunately, we haven't, we haven't had that in Australia. I've had a lot of people who've come up and built an individual career outside of, I guess, the traditional routes of making it in Australian stand up. But no one sort of built a scene in that sense yet. I hope they can. But go for it. No, I was just going to say, you seem to be doing very well though now, right? I don't think you've been cancelled or had your opportunity genuinely curtailed. You seem to be one of the people who's leading the charge in terms of pushing back against that.

Yeah, thank you. I'm doing it. I'm doing all right. I've done it full time, which is a good thing to be able to say you've done in Australia. No, I've never really been sort of overtly cancelled or anything like that. But actually, I wanted to talk about this, which is I was talking to Andy, who runs the Unleashed comedy gigs. There are people who have been sort of overtly cancelled, but what has also happened is there's, you don't think about the people who haven't gotten the opportunities. So, Chappelle or Ricky Javias, if they were 20 or 30 years younger, no one would know who they are because they didn't have a profile to be, I suppose, cancelled, but they just don't get the opportunities. And I think that sort of thing is happening.

And it's not just me saying this. It's the whole Australian comedy scene, basically saying, the scene's not serving Australian comedians anymore, what they're putting out there, the people their handpicking is just, it's not, it's not even just not good for the brand off Australian comedy or the Australian art. So yeah, look, to answer the question, yeah, I've, I'm very happy with how I've done and I'm very happy with my career and I'm doing reasonably well. And there are a lot of people who are in the same boat I am. And I'm trying to help build a scene as well. I run a few comedy events and things like that in Australia. So yeah, if you can sort of circumnavigate that now and still it's not like I want to avoid that either you know I've always said I want to be able to make

a I guess a progressive audience laugh I think that's a good goal to achieve as a comedian you can go to a more traditional audience make them laugh but you can go to a more progressive audience and make them laugh as well so yeah I'm just trying to do the best I can be the best comedian I can be and hopefully build the scene as well or help build the scene so when we're talking about the people that they're picking, what seems to be the criteria for people like organizations, I should say, like the Melbourne Comedy Festival, what type of people are they picking? Just obviously they got really hard on the diversity, but it's diversity within a certain window of political beliefs. You know, you never really get a person of color who's conservative or anything like that. It's

just these are the people we like and these are the people that we want to present to the Australian in public and the whole thing is the Australian comedy scene is it's taxpayer funded because the comedy festival it's a publicly run organization and so it's Australians tax money going to create a scene that they don't even like so it's just it's just a farce it's a parody of itself which is the best comedy they can produce ironically but yeah uh they're just I think they're also very risk averse um I think they might even the people who are making these sorts of decisions might like certain comedians who take more risks and have edgier material, but they know that their job might be on the line if they pick a comedian to have this TV spot that upsets a few viewers.

So they just avoid that and they take the most sort of sanitised, safe acts. And that's how you make money because, you know, if you're on TV and there's a bunch of corporate interests and also corporate gigs and things like that, they don't want anything too risque. They just want good, safe, reasonable comedy that doesn't. upset anyone so the financial incentives are just to not rock the butt and is that true because in the UK it certainly hasn't proven true you know if you look at several big TV shows here that pursued those policies they don't exist anymore so when you say it's a it's how you make money I'm not

even sure that that's true you know yeah I mean that's that's true over the long term yeah I don't think it's a good monetary financial strategy right they say that's go work go bro broke. But in the short term, I think if they have a sort of act that people might find objectionable, they're just worried about to blowback on social media, I think. But you're right. In the long term, it's not a good strategy. When I grew up, there was so many shows on Australian TV that were really funny. I mean, Chris Lilly, everyone knows him across the world. He was hilarious. I grew up on guys like that. And now there's, I think there's just one. Now, we have one panel show in the whole of Australian TV.

So, yeah, mainstream media is just not what it used to be. It's a very slow decline. And, yeah, part of why they're declining is because they've made, at least I believe, they've made bad artistic choices. Neil, do you think part of the problem is you said they're state-funded, which is the Comedy Festival. So correct me if I'm wrong, Melbourne Comedy Festival is state-funded. Well, I don't know the exact details, but I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's a publicly funded

organization, yeah. So isn't that part of the problem that if the government is mandating and, you know, funding a comedy festival, is they really, number one, the best people to be putting on a comedy festival you could argue? I mean, have you met government bureaucrats? They're not the funniest people out there. Unintentionally, number one. And then number two, well, of course they're not going to take risks. Because would the government put on a transphobic comedian, whatever that means? Well, of course they're not going to do that, because it's going to be blowback on them. That's exactly right. That's the problem. And, you know, I think the original idea behind funding the arts in a country like Australia is because we're a small

population, we just don't have the means to fund large projects or large comedy festivals in the same way America or even the UK does. And we also get exposed to a lot of American film and TV. So I think once upon a time, the government thought, well, let's just fund the art scene here because that will help grow the scene and allow artists here to have a career without having to move overseas. But yes, what's happened is that they now have a monopoly over that. Well, that's slowly declining. For the last decade, a couple of decades, they've had a monopoly. And, you know, when when you have a bunch of people in the professional managerial class choosing, you know, the comedians that they personally like, they're not necessarily a reflection

of the greater population. And they pick a group of comedians. that a lot of people are just, it's not just me, it's like a lot of people are just really dismayed at what they're seeing. And it's a tragedy because, you know, if there was, I guess if there was more of an incentive to actually make money, because if it's government fund, obviously they don't have to worry about the profit too much, then they'd be forced to at least appeal to the masses to some degree. I mean, you can also take some risks with some alternative acts and whatnot, but that's why I like the club scene. I think the way that, the way that, I the way that the system is in America is that, at least from what I can gather, is that you sort of

make it in the club scene and then maybe you get on a talk show or TV or whatever it might be there. Now there's the internet obviously, but I just think the incentives there are just much better because to have a good club 10 minute set, you have to be very funny, you have to be very punchy, you have to appeal to a broader audience, whereas to sort of appease the festival scene and the sort of arts bureaucrats, you've got to be a bit, it could just be weird, I guess, I don't know. That's how it seems. Yeah, it's, you know what I find really interesting is that we're talking about this. And on the one hand, we're talking about the Melbourne Comedy Festival, but we could easily, just as easy to be talking about the BBC. Or Edinburgh. Or Edinburgh. Or,

you know, it seems that these things are just, it's not only happening in Australia or the US happens in Canada, just for laughs, went broke. We're seeing the decline of the decline of of all the festivals in relevancy, but also in the amount of money they're making. Melbourne Comedy Festival is just when I started out in comedy, that was one of the dreams. You'd want to do Melbourne. You would want to do so well in Edinburgh that you get transferred to Melbourne. I think if you talk to a lot of comedians, young comedians now and ask them if they want to do Melbourne, you'd probably get at best to shrug of the shoulders. Definitely. Yeah, the comedians of my generation, late 20s, early 30s, where, I mean,

people will still do it. You sort of, you have to. But, um, they're just not happy with it at the end of the day. They're not happy with how they've been treated and, you know, we're paying into it as well. Often you don't make a lot of money doing these festivals and to just be despondent at the final product is just sad. I think the people who run the organization need to look at it a little bit. Look, I don't think these people are sort of bad individuals,

but I just think they've been in an echo chamber for a long time. And they haven't gotten out of that. and sort of have tried to be too controlling with the sort of styles they want to put out there. And a lot of people just, again, it's not just me. It's just a lot of people just don't like it. Well, that's what you said about incentives, I think is very true as well. One of the things I remember Jordan Peterson talking a lot about when I was on tour with him was how the market profit motive is not necessarily the purest always and the right one always.

But there's a lot worse ones. And a situation when you have a bunch of people who don't care about whether a festival they organize makes money or not is a problem. Yeah. Because their perverse incentive structures there. And people then start to imagine that, you know, they are the arbiters of taste for the entire nation. And the feedback that comes from poor ticket sales and all the rest of it just doesn't register. Yeah. Yeah.

It's really elitist, if anything. It's we know what good art is and, you know, there's a bunch of critics who don't even do comedy. They're art critics and they're sitting there judging a comedy show as though it was a theatrical performance. And yeah, I think they actually just look down on the art form of comedy. A lot of the critics and things like that. I think they like the theatre and they like cabaret and they like all these sort of high-brow forms of art, which are great. Don't get me wrong, but comedy isn't that, you know. It can be.

It can be very intellectual and there are great comedians who do political satire, but for the most part, stand-up comedy is for the every man. It's performed at clubs and it's for people who are drinking. And it's not this sort of high-brow intellectual artistic pursuit. It's something that's fun and for everyone. And I think they don't like that. And they're trying to control that. And it's not working.

And they don't realize it. It's just such a good point. they always seem to look down on comedy. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that they think the theatre is more worthy of respect and, you know, to be taken, to be considered, whilst somebody going up on a stage, making an audience cry with laughter, that is a real art form and it's a real skill, and very few people can actually do it. Why do you think they're so contemptuous of it for one of a better word of it? I think they're just comedy illiterate. Like, they, they, on face value if someone's going out there and making lowbrow jokes and sex jokes and things,

the vibe is that it's, oh, it's dumb and it's not particularly smart. But as you guys would know, to write good jokes on that particular subject matter, it's very difficult. And I just don't think they've been, I don't think they've sort of been educated in the art form of comedy, ironically. Now, they think everyone else is uneducated. I think they're not educated in the art form of stand-up comedy because I think people confuse low-brow, comedy with being dumb when actually you can do very smart lowbrow comedy, if that makes sense. You can do really smart comedy about topics and subject matters that some people would see as crass. But I don't think they realize that. And I think they see it as a lower form of art. And they just, you know,

to do good art, you need to make people cry and you need to have a message and you need to have a narrative in there. And actually, that's easier to do. Like there's a lot of, I don't know if you get that in the UK festivals, but you get these sort of hybrid comedy shows where someone get on stage, do a couple of jokes and then say, well, this is, this is, I'm taking the mask off now. This is my true story. And, you know, someone's no jokes from that. Yeah, someone told me I was brown and then I was depressed for four years.

And it's just like, what is this, man? Just like, make some jokes. Okay. It's, it's, yeah, it's harder to actually be funny for an hour than it is. to say, you know, something like that and evoke empathy from an audience with your sad stories. Everyone's got some sad stories and things. It's not hard to do that. That's all. So I think it's actually an easy way out. I think, I was talking to you about this before the show, right? There was a comedian I was gigging with the other day, and she was doing a test for the dark

triad traits or something like that. And one of the questions for narcissism was, have you ever fantasized about being a comedian? So yeah, they've really, the psychologists know what they're talking about there. And I think that's what it is. It's a sort of covert narcissism where if I can sort of present myself in this way that evokes a lot of empathy from the audience, I get this social status and it's easier for me to do than to actually write good jokes for an have you ever seen that De Niro movie it's from way back when I think it's an 82 movie called King of Comedy? No, I don't think about. If you want to talk about the psychology of comedians, check that out, man. That is scary in many ways. I feel like Joker did a pretty good job as

like. Joker is, yeah, similar. But actually to answer your question, I think it's also partly about who the audience are. Like you're talking about the class side of this. Yeah. It's like the audience for comedy is different to the audience for theater. Yeah, and they're trying to, I think a festival is generally going to appeal to a more partial upper-class audience, which is fine. I'm not saying those people shouldn't enjoy comedy, but if it's... They don't. Yeah, they don't, I don't know what they enjoy it.

They don't enjoy anything, but they should, they're wealthy, but if it's to the detriment of other people having a good time, I think that's a problem. In fact, I think a lot of these diversity initiatives, are actually just diversity for the upper class. Because it's usually people who grew up quite wealthy and sort of know how to speak that language and agree with all the politics of the professional managerial class. So really it's just people of color and different sexualities,

but within the top tax bracket. That's what it seems to be. You know what's really interesting? I was reading Hubert Selby Jr.'s last exit to Brooklyn, which was written in, I think, 1952, 53. It was a very controversial book at the time. I think it was banned over here for a long time, and it dealt with drug addicts,

people of the lowest wrong of society living in Brooklyn, transvestites, as he called them at the time. And he told these stories of their lives, and it's fascinating. It's beautifully written. It's really powerful. But what made it interesting, for me, it was like there wasn't a victim narrative in it at all,

even though these people were, been discriminated against. Their lives were tough and miserable. And he took, for instance, he talks about the rape of a of a prostitute. But what he does is he tells a story brilliantly. And what I find interesting now is when somebody says, oh, I'm X or I'm not, whatever it is, the story isn't good. It's, you go, that's not enough. There needs to be the story. What's the story. That's why I actually really liked Baby Reindeer, because the transgender woman was a legitimate part of the story. She wasn't put in there as like,

oh, look how we're meeting targets. It was no, this person is a part of the story. Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen Baby Reindeer yet, but there really is this obsession with presenting people in these sort of protected classes as purely just victims and nothing else. And, you know, I don't, I don't really see myself as a big. I mean, there's, there's times where maybe I've been victimized, but I wouldn't sort of classify that as the main story of my life. I wouldn't want to either. I think that's, maybe that's actually a symptom of a deeper mental illness or something. I mean, I'm not, I'm not trying to be too cruel here, but I think a lot of these people maybe, I actually think, um, there's

these sort of collective, almost abusive relationships, like you're in some sort of cult, because in a sort of controlling abusive relationship, there's someone who's the savior, like, I need to do this for you. This is how you can be a better person. You don't know what's good for you, but I know what's good for you. And those are the sorts of language that people who, you know, express those sorts of views tend to articulate. Like, we know what's best for you. You are a victim. We need to do this for you. And you need to vote for these policies. And they always the policies for one particular political party usually. So I think a lot of people are actually in a kind of cult. And then when I was young, I just sort of just natural that if you're a young

person and you're in the arts, you're creative, you're also a minority. You just think, okay, obviously I'm this. This just makes sense. But eventually you realize, oh, this is actually more about you being a savior than genuinely wanting to help anyone. And actually, people on the left will also talk about the savior complex. So I think more people need to be aware of that. And we're so cognizant now of an abusive dynamic in a relationship on an individual scale when it's a romantic relationship. But I think there's sort of a covert narcissism and covert abuse that's going on on a collective scale here as well. Because when we're in the Edinburgh festival, we were walking around, we're going, is everybody in here queer? And I realize that doesn't sound good

in my voice, right? Okay, but you're just walking around going, what, literally everyone? There is something going on here, surely. Yeah, because even then, okay, maybe the initial goal of diversity was let's create something that's reflective of the general population. And the general population isn't 100% queer, it's maybe, what is it now 10 to 20%? So look, if 10% of the shows had a queer performer, then maybe, okay, that's, that seems like, okay, that's a, that's a reflection of the general population. And of course, just because something isn't a reflection of the general population doesn't mean it's fundamentally flawed, but when the whole thing is queer, you're like, all right, this is not actually a reflection of the general population.

I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly real offer down to the penny they're picking it up tomorrow nothing went wrong so what's the problem that is the problem nothing in my life goes a smoothie i'm waiting for the catch maybe there's no catch that's exactly what a catch would want me to think wow you need to relax i need to knock on wood do we have what is this tablewood i think it's laminated okay yeah that's good that's close enough car selling without a catch sell your car today on carvana pick up fees may apply well this is where you come back to this almost kind of like state planning of things because that's why the state planning system doesn't work because it's like

overreacting to things 10 years too late 10 times too much. Yeah, I don't think the state is particularly good at influencing culture. If anything, it creates a rebellious streak in the population and they do the opposite. So yeah, I think... Are you seeing that in Australia? Are you seeing people kind of starting to get fed up of this or do they still have the kind of control over this? Yeah, I think people are starting to get fed up, but then a lot of people might not necessarily want to go too far to the other side either, which is a fair thing to be wary of. Definitely. I mean, we see in America, a lot of people are going too far to the other side. Exactly.

So, you know, I'd probably be in that boat as well. So, yeah, look, even the people who might, you would consider would fit the stereotype of being super progressive. of, you get, you know, you have a few drinks with them and then they'll vent about it as well. So I think there is this despondency with the way things are, but people just are unsure how exactly to rebel against that because they are afraid of the opposite reaction as well. But that's what I find frustrating, Neil, because the number of times, I'm in a comedy club, and, you know, people look around and they go, oh, you know, one comedian always remember, and made a joke, hey, you know, I agree with everything you say. I wouldn't say it in public.

Yeah. And you go, well, then we're all screwed. There was one instance where I was in a comedy club a few weeks ago. And there was this comedian and they were saying, oh, I wouldn't, you know, you know, this trans stuff is insane. It's just insane. It's so insane what's going on. And then I was in the green room and I was like, and this, I got challenged by a comedian about free speech. I went, well, of course there's things that you're not allowed to say. And this person then went, like what? And I'm, like, you, that what? Yeah.

Until we, there is a cultural change. And by cultural change, what I'm trying to say is grow some bulls. Yeah. This ain't ever going to change. Yeah, there's a particular form of gas lighting that occurs, doesn't it? Like, oh, you can say, what are you talking about? Everyone's free. You can say what you want.

No, I mean, yeah. maybe you can legally. Well, I don't know, here, there's people getting arrested, so I don't know about that. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, there does need to be a cultural change, although there's something to be said. Tell me what you think about this, because what seems to be happening is there's a lot of tension, and I completely understand that, but then if people are just saying the thing that they're not supposed to say, just as a form of release, as a form of catharsis, I don't know if that's necessarily the healthiest thing either. And I think even in comedy, which is maybe a subset of culture at large, you're getting these comedians now who are saying, oh, I'm not allowed to make that joke. Fine, I'll just make the worst joke that will just offend this part of the culture. And I also don't know if that's the highest form of comedy either. I think you can still make better artistic choice. I can understand why there is a growing demand for that and why there's a sense of catharsis that. when you hear people saying that. But I still think there's something to be said about finding a

nice middle ground where we can all just joke with each other and have a good time and not feel threatened by what's going on. Because then there's also another problem arises, which is then the actual judgment of art or comedy becomes hyperpartisan. And, you know, it's judged based on not on any sort of objective criteria of whether that was a well-written joke, but whether they said the right thing for this political tribe or whether they said the right thing for that political tribe. And it's just, yeah, I mean, like people like you, though, are doing a great job at changing that. And I think there are a lot of comedians who are saying, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to be either left-wing or right-wing. I'm just trying to make some jokes here

and laugh at everyone. And that's the best thing we can do right now. Well, the interesting thing is what you're saying, it's very true of comedy, of course. There are some people who've forgotten to be funny and they now just want to be offensive because that's what they think is cool. But I actually think the same is happening in the realm of ideas and the realm of culture and politics more broadly because now you have people who think that, like, they took the idea that, let's say, the media weren't always honest, which we all know, through to you can't believe anything anyone says. And now we've got to go and unpick every single thing that we were told to believe. You know what? Let's take World War II and turn everything on its head.

Let's take this thing and turn everything in its head. And they've become addicted to this, I'm just asking questions. Yeah. Which is, they're not really asking questions anymore about things that are true. They're just pursuing that edge that you're talking about. And it actually validates the progressives. Totally. Because they were always the one that said, well, we need to protect speech because we need to have, you know, guardrails and hate speech laws because then that just opens the door for these really extreme views. And then if you're doing that, you're just giving them what they wanted, right? So I think there's still something to be said. I get it. You know, you can be so frustrating dealing with the bounds of what we're allowed to say

culturally. But I still think there's something to be said about actually having a bit of discipline with what we say and, you know, trying to appeal to the other side. I think that's sort of a lost art where you can, I get, I try to go to the comedy rooms that are considered woke or whatever. I mean, I really try to make an effort to, to go there and have a good set and make them laugh because I think, um, that's saying something. I still want to be able to appeal to people like that. And, um, I yeah, I don't, I don't really think it's healthy to just vacillate between one extreme to the other. And I think there's just an idea, it's also just a big identity crisis where people are latching onto political identities because it gives them a sense

of purpose and, you know, we're in a very individualistic. And a pre-made audience. A pre-made audience to play to. That's a big one too. Yeah, the money that comes with it, all of that sort of stuff. And then you get audience capture and all of that. So, yeah, it's tempting to just go one way or the other. And, you know, when I was younger, I think I did make artistic choices that maybe I look back on now and I think, okay, was that the best artistic choice I could have made or was it something that was just fulfilling, you know, I just felt a release of tension because I got to say the thing that I wasn't allowed to say. And so, yeah, I can totally understand why there is this growing movement to just say it and be really open with what you think. I mean, something like

Andrew Tate's probably a perfect example of that where he's just said, whatever people are saying you're not allowed to say, I'm just going to say the complete opposite. I'm just going to tell young men like, this is how you do it. And I can understand why there's a lust for that. But I still think there's something to be said about curtailing, well, not sort of limiting what you might want to say, but expressing things in a way that can be accessible to all sides of culture. I mean, that's still a skill people can hopefully aim for. The thing that I find frustration, when we have these conversations is what people don't seem to realize on the kind of progressive left, for one of a better term, on the extremes is, you know, the cancellation, the silencing people,

the shaming people for having mainstream political opinions or cultural opinions. They don't seem to realize that they're then fueling this rise on the opposite side of the spectrum. And the more they push down here, the more this rises. And then they start complaining about what's happening in the culture. And you say to them, do you not understand that this is partially being created by what you were doing here? Well, they're manifesting that reality into existence because by having this narrative that, oh, everyone's so hateful and, you know, you're going to just get, if you just let people say what they want, there's just going to be racism everywhere, people just get so fed up that they might just say things then because they think, well, I'm going to get called or whatever anyway. and I would bring it back to that sort of dynamic of maybe a relationship where some people will have this narrative about the opposite sex or about a particular person where, you know,

oh, no matter what, relationships, everyone's out for themselves and everyone's trying to get, and people just leave you at the end of the day. But then that makes you act in a way where someone will leave you. And so it just validates your narrative. And so subconsciously you actually attract that. And I think on a collective scale, that's what's happening. subconsciously they're creating this world that they've been supposedly trying to prevent us from. And it's a great point because you see the way that we have discourse online and maybe it's my algorithm,

maybe it's what's being fed to me. And it's just so reductive, particularly the gender conversation. The way that we're talking and particularly a lot of people now are talking about women on the right. Now, I don't know how much of that is botten artificially boosted. you go, this is deeply toxic. This is deeply, deeply toxic. And then you've got people on the left going, well, who knows what a woman is? Let's come and invade your space and let's make sure we can take part in your sports. So you're looking at both sides and you go, this is awful.

Yeah, the discourse online is pretty horrible. I got off Twitter a few years ago and I'm pretty happy. So I think, you know, that helps me a fair bit. And yeah, it doesn't help anyone if there's this sort of vitriolic essence. since that just permeates out digital spaces. And yeah, I wonder how do you think we fix that? Like, what's the solution? Because, yeah, I can see that.

I look on my social media and I think, my God, this is horrible. Do you know the difficult thing is, and here's the honest question, is that I don't know. You will have people taking responsibility. People need to take more responsibility, but that's on the individual. How many people are actually going to do that? And as for the social media companies, I mean, more government regulation of social media companies makes me feel as somebody who creates a YouTube show, which I'm proud to say is in the centre and host discussions.

That makes me, and I'm sure it makes constant feel very, very worried because I'm going, I don't want you coming in deciding what is and what isn't acceptable, considering that we've already seen the Overton's window shrink for many, many years now. Totally, yeah. I mean, what do you guys think of Elon Musk's takeover? of X because at first I was very inspired by that. But then it seems like he's now just doing the opposite thing where he's clamping down on speech from the left and saying, well, you can't say this word and you can't say these sorts of words. Really? Like what? Did he, did he ban the

word cisgender on on X or something like that? I haven't, I haven't heard that. Okay. I'm not to say that it has happened. It's not a word I use often to say. It could be white. No, but that could be I didn't know that. I think that one of the things has definitely happened is it's opened up the conversation, which is good. Has it opened it up perhaps too far? I don't know if it's a case of opening the conversation too far. It feels more like there's just some bad actors now who are able to be bad actors without any punishment. Yeah, I mean, that's the trick that there are, I guess, people who now are in favor of,

liberal liberalism, free speech, all of that. How do you convince people who are not in favor of it? Because you can easily point to people online who are saying really horrible things and say, well, I don't want to live in a world where people can say that. I want the government to clamp down on that. But it's a very hard argument to make sometimes because I've been talking to people who maybe are more progressive and I would say, well, yes, I accept the risk that people will say things to me that are quite hateful and toxic, but I think we flourish as a society and as a civilization when we have the ability to articulate ourselves fully and say what we want to say. But there is a cost to that. And I think both sides of culture and politics

would benefit. I mean, look, I'm just a comedian, but I think they'd benefit if they'd sort of try, rather than just validating their supporters try to actually speak the language of the other side. So I've always found it interesting how people on maybe on the left will say things like, you know, you're, you're misogynistic or you're racist or you're too macho or you're too masculine. And people on the right will be like, well, that doesn't upset. Like great. I want to be, I'm aiming to be masculine. I'm aiming to be strong and tough and stoic. And then similarly, people on the right might say something, this is culturally speaking, they'll say, you know, you're so sensitive and this and that, whereas people on the left might be like, well, great,

I want to be sensitive. That's what I'm aiming for. I think there's something to be said about framing an argument in a way that actually appeals to the values of the other side. So I guess how do you, how do you frame free speech in a way that appeals to people's empathy? Because I think a lot of people, maybe on our side, can understand the sort of abstract concepts that are involved with free speech. And say, well, yeah, I can see how as an abstract point of ethics and morality, this is beneficial, but someone on the left might just immediately feel for someone who's being upset or hurt by someone who said something mean to them. So how do you frame free speech in a compassionate way? That, I guess, is the challenge maybe for people in our space.

Yeah. It's a really tough question because I think part of the realization when it comes to free speech is accepting people are going to say things you fundamentally disagree with. People are going to say things that you find offensive, hurtful, racist. There are times I go on Twitter and I see what some people are saying. And I think this is violent, this is awful. But what's the alternative? You kick those people off Twitter. They're all going to go somewhere.

And they're all going to go to places like 4chan or 8 channel, whatever it's called, and they're all going to create their own little subgroups there. Is that better? Is that a better thing to do where they can all radicalize themselves in their own little cesspool? I don't know. I think from a progressive perspective, probably yes. They would prefer that, I think. I think one of the arguments that might make sense there is actually,

if you think about progressive movements that have achieved genuine results throughout history, whether that's, you know, integration in America, whether that's, you could give lots of different examples. A lot of them have used speech. Yeah. So the moment that you prevent people from expressing ideas is the moment you prevent people from being able to move society forward. And I guess the reason progressives haven't been keen to believe that is their viewpoints have been the dominant ones on social media. And so they've had no reason to worry about their speech being restricted. But that's, I think, one of the arguments about.

And once you set up the government institutions that are there to protect us all and wait until there's a hostile takeover, I mean, if there was a fascist government and then they took over that institution. If you think Trump is a fascist, why would you want him controlling what you can and can't say on social media? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think even I've seen a few people on, I guess, the progressive side of culture now changing their mind on speech and things like that. Because in Australia we have these very strict defamation laws and they're being used to silence people just willy-nealy everywhere. And it's a compelling argument. It's a hard argument because, yeah, you're accepting that you're going to be upset and hurt. And some groups probably will be more upset and hurt. But I think, uh, for the reasons you guys have expressed, it's still the best situation that we can have. One of the things I heard a lot when I was out in Australia was a lot of people kept saying,

well, Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world. And that seemed to be like a point of pride for a lot of people left and right. How do you feel about that? Do you think that's true? Do you think Australia is doing very well in terms of, you know, it has a very mixed population? Do you think that's working out well? Wow, man, that's a very, that's a big question. But I think the first thing I'd say is most people use the term multicultural and multiracial interchangeably. So multiracial is great, you know, bringing people of all different looks and races and ethnicities. Multiculturalism, I think, is great up to a point because if it's just different foods and different types of dancing or different costumes and things like that, yeah, that's great. That's beneficial for society that allows. society to flourish. When it starts to get to different ethics and different values and things,

yeah, things start to get murky and confusing. And I know that's, even I say this, it's, it's crazy for a brown person to say this because people just immediately say, oh, so you hate multiculturalism, you're racist to your own people. And again, there's a big distinction between multiracial and multicultural. And I wish more people would understand that distinction. But again, another thing I was talking to with a guy from a few days ago is, I suppose if you have a liberal democracy, a society where people are free to follow the religion of their choice, what happens if 60% of the population does follow a religion that is fundamentally illiberal or a creed that is actually hostile towards liberalism? So how does liberalism deal with that tension, how it sort of affords people? the opportunity to follow ideologies that aren't particularly liberal because then if you say, oh no, you can't follow those ideologies, well then it's not very liberal, is it? So that's a,

that's a pretty interesting question to grapple with, I find. Well, I guess one of the things you might want to do, if that's a concern, is make sure that when you welcome people to your country, they are compatible with the values of liberalism or they're required to adapt to those values. and because if they don't the eventuality that you're talking about is inevitable yeah yeah so it's a it's an interesting kind of tension i find yeah um because yeah you don't want to ban people from following particular creeds or religions and that because that is actually very illiberal but if uh people are uh you know following um a set of ideas or values that are just hostile to uh a nation that actually allowed them to follow those sets of values.

Well, that's quite a contradiction, isn't it? And it doesn't even have to be framed as good or bad. I mean, if you think, let's say you were vegan and your wife was vegan and all your kids were vegan and you had a vegan household, would you invite lots of meat-eating people to your house all the time? Probably not.

Probably not. Not because you think they're immoral or evil or bad. It's just a compatibility issue, right? So with cultures and religions and ideologies, It's not a dissimilar thing. You might not think that those people are good or bad or whatever. You might just think, well, if you want to be in this household, this is how we do things here.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, you know, a lot of people in the West are sort of really embarrassed and ashamed of what the West did over the last two centuries. And as a result, they're just trying to do the direct opposite. But then that's another pendulum swing that is going too far away. What did the ways do over the last two centuries? Well, they also have quite a myopic view of it and think, you know, well, they just look at the bad and they say, look, there was racial inequality and there was certain laws where, you know, people of different races weren't allowed to.

And again, yeah, the argument is then, well, compared to which country and all that sort of stuff. Don't get me wrong. But, yeah, I think they look at that. And then they say, well, we're just going to do the complete opposite of that. And that's not necessarily healthy either. I remember I was on the plane coming back from America and there was an Indian businessman who sat next to me had a great conversation

and I, and I, it's again, we could use this word gaslighting and I said to him, oh you know, because I'm sure you know everybody, you know, people in India, you know, hate the British he was like, no, he goes, the British Empire did some bad things of course it did, he said, but it also left us with a wonderful legacy as well. We love the British, you know, British people always welcome in India And I was kind of, again, you just have to be reminded of this, of this rubbish that has been pumped into our head. The rest of the world doesn't think like that. And actually, former colonial

countries have a much more balanced view of history than, you know, some grad from a liberal arts university. It's very true, isn't it? Yeah. Often the parent, the people who emigrated to the West have a very positive view of the West and then their kids don't, which is kind of ironic. So yeah, it's a weird space that we're operating in, isn't it? Have you heard of the, I don't know if I want to address this, but like, have you heard of the in-cell to Islam pipeline? No. No. So. Sounds sexy, though. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the name probably explains it, doesn't it? There's a lot of in-cells that are thinking, well, I'm not having any success in this current society and I'm forlorn and I'm just depressed and nothing's working for me and I'm seen as

this enemy. Well, look at Islam. It's giving me all these things that I desperately want. It's given me camarader. It's giving me brotherhood. It's giving me a purpose, meaning, a community. And so then a lot of them are turning to Islam. And I find it sort of interesting when people talk about young men and how they're going conservative and why are they going conservative and why they adopting these right these sort of quite sometimes um for i don't like using the term far right but i suppose sometimes some of them are definitely far right some of them are very extreme it's just that that terms weaponized so much but um they never actually ask well why not i mean look at the current culture today if you're a young man growing up and what's in it for you compared to these other

ideologies right and it's it's also as well that look Being a victim, I compare to scratching eczema. In the moment, it feels good, but afterwards, you just feel worse and it makes the problem worse. Exactly. And there's only so many times you can scratch it before things are going to start to get pretty ugly. There's a pleasant villain. Yeah. Yeah, it's become, if anything victim would is encouraged tacitly now with all this talk of, you know, tell us about your troma and tell us about this. and look to a certain extent, fine.

People should be open about things that have happened to them and the harsh experiences that they've endured, but when it becomes your entire identity, and then there's this sort of... Well, right, what you're supposed to do is get help, overcome it, learn from a growth from it, form scars that then protect you. Absolutely, that's what you're supposed to do, right? Yeah.

And by the way, to your point earlier, about some of these things being replicated on the other side, if you think about insult them or whatever else, all of these other ways of looking at the world, that's a form of victimhood just flipped on its head. Absolutely. I'm a man. I'm why I'm this therefore, you know, instead of like, how do I overcome this? Yeah, absolutely. And it's just a pretty toxic way to see the world and yourself. We all do it at times. It's something deeply human that we're all going to see ourselves as hard done by and downtrodden at times. And I think if you have a community that can sort of sift through when someone actually is a victim and when they're not, it's probably a better situation than just leaving it all on the individual.

Because I think actually we're maybe more biased towards ourselves and might see ourselves as a victim more often than we need to. And more often than that is beneficial to us. And, you know, when I was young, I would always think, oh, this didn't happen because I'm brown or this didn't happen because I'm Indian or whatever. And then I look back on it now and I think, oh, no, there were, there were, you know, countless other factors that contributed to whatever that situation was. And it's just not healthy to see yourself as a victim because then it absolves you of any personal accountability. And personal responsibility is the best way to grow and to better yourself and to improve your position in the world. And you can't do that with a victim mindset. Now, how did you snap out of that? How did you

shift? I saw a more extreme version of it among my peers and colleagues. And then that was a mirror and I said, oh my God, I've been doing that because they would be saying things like, well, this is happening because I'm this skin color and this and that. And I'm thinking, I mean, I was probably validating at the time. Like, oh, yeah, maybe. Okay. Let's think about it. But thinking, well, I used to do that. And that's not healthy. And I don't think that person's going to grow by just seeing themselves as a victim based on their race. There's some instances where I think, okay, maybe that's fair or that's valid, but I think in most instances, it's far more complicated. And, you know, in a weird way, you actually get a few, particularly in the arts world,

you might actually get some benefits now. And I probably have a bit more of an artistic license with the race jokes I can say and things like that. So check my privilege, actually. they're not way better. Yeah, it's just not healthy to see us over that way. That was miserable as well when I always saw myself. It's like, oh, I'm not on TV because I'm not wide or this isn't happening because I'm not wide or particularly with even when I was dating when I was younger, I thought, well, girls don't like me because I'm not white and things like that.

And I thought, well, actually, if I'm sitting there in a negative mindset and, you know, that's rubbing off and people can see how, you know, nihilistic and. and bitter I am, that's not going to be attractive. It's got nothing to do with me being brown. And so, yeah, you need to achieve a bit of self-reflection there and start to realize, oh, this is a really harmful way to see yourself in the world. And I'd even go so far as to say,

even if there was a hypothetical situation where being a certain race is disadvantageous in either a minor or even quite a moderate way, it's still not healthy to see yourself that way because it won't allow you the best, it won't afford you the most expensive potential for growth. Well, I've always said this. You know, the people who really can't afford a victimhood mindset, people who are actually victims. Yeah, exactly.

If you are actually a victim, you really can't afford to wallow in it. Yeah, you don't have time, probably. You don't have time, you have the money, you've got, you know, you've got things to do. Like, if you have things to overcome, that's when you need the bad ass. attitude absolutely you know yeah yeah and pressure makes diamonds you know yeah people should um as long as it's not completely debilitating embrace the adversity and the challenges in your life and you know even coming back to what we're talking about earlier like I just I think it's important to be honest about

certain things that you might feel are unfairly treating either you or your contemporaries or whatever but at the same time there's something there's a difference between being honest about it and being about it because being a victim makes you powerless and you know you're not going to do anything about it whereas you probably have more power than you think you realize and you can say like these festivals or whatever are bad but at the same time I'm not going to let that stop me and and you know I'm not going to just like lie down and do nothing and think well I'm not going to don't have a chance to make it or whatever anyway I think got to have a positive

narrative because it's just important. It's just important for your mental health as well. I mean, you talk about the mental health crisis. I mean, how many of that, how much of that is because people have been trained to think of themselves as a particular type of victim. And it's also as well, the power of reframing, I find really helpful. So if you're in a particular situation, like, for instance, where you were, where you looked at the festivals and go, they're not going to give me a chance because they only want X, Y, and Z. Well, that means there's this huge market that's not being catered. for. Absolutely. And people always want to laugh. People love comedy. People will always love comedy.

People love laughing. It's a release from life. There's this whole, now, the whole swave of people that I can connect to who are ready and waiting for the content. Just like when we created this, conversations had become, were being shut down. People were shamed. We created a place for people to have conversations. That are shameful. That are shameful. Absolutely. Involving shameful people of all different races. So much shame. So much. shame just being here. And colors. But they created a vacuum, which we then filled.

So it depends how you want to look at it. If you want to look at it positively, you will see opportunity. If you look at it negatively, you will see misery and victimhood. And those are your choices. Yeah, your personal narrative is so powerful and will just be so significant in the way you see yourself and how your life will ultimately turn out. And people should be, I wish they would actually teach kids that. You know, the way you see yourself and the story that you give you.

yourself in the world. You've got to teach your own kids that. Yeah. No one else is going to. Yeah. Yeah. Neil, been great having you on man. Thank you for having me. What is, we're going to go to us fans' questions in a second, but before we do, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Before Neil answers a final question, at the end of the interview, make sure to click the link in the description where you'll be able to see this. Favorite Australian comedians growing up? Wasn't he cancelled, Chris? Because he used to Because he used to do that, the indigenous kid. Didn't he do that?

Yeah, they took him off Netflix. I mean, it's wrong to assume people of the culture that he might be making fun of, can't handle that. That's actually the racist idea. What are your favorite cities in Australia and why? Which city is the best for Gideon? I was going to say, well, I feel like I covered everything that I wanted to talk about, actually. So how about this?

the way how with the arts world the way it is, just how bad that is for the collective sense of just meaning and mental health in society. Because I know a lot of people look at artists and say, well, it's not really an essential service. It's not like, you know, construction or, you know, whatever it might be. But the arts is so important. And having a good art scene in a society and a civilization is just vital. And right now it's pretty bad. I mean, most people don't really like Hollywood or they don't really like what they're being fed by the media. And I think just the impact of that on people's psyche, I think you really need a flourishing art scene and we need good people to get into the arts and hopefully try and change it.

So yeah, maybe that, if that's the, I think we should talk more about that. Amen. Perfect. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me, guys. What do you make of the whole kind of Nanette and a gad to?