TRIGGERnometry - We the Internet TV: Satire for Polarised Times

Episode Date: March 15, 2020

Lou Perez is Head Writer and Executive Producer at the comedy news show We the Internet TV  Check the channel out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1DgvQUuQnJmMCwlxZ7SSg?sub_confirmation=1 Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you fly with Hawaiian Airlines, it's hard to tell where your flight ends and family vacation begins. From the moment you bored, feel the Aloha spirit. Hear the sounds of Hawaii and relax with local entertainment at your seat. Let us welcome your family to our island home. Hawaii starts here. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constance and Kitchen.

And this is a show for you. If you're bored with people arguing, on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our fantastic guests this week is the producer and head writer, We, The Internet. Lou Perez, welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks for having me, guys. It's great to have you. I've been watching your videos and really enjoying them,

but for anyone who doesn't know what you do, just tell us a little bit about it. Sure, We The Internet TV is a comedy news channel. We mostly do political satire. Satire, we take on politics and culture and that sort of thing. And we're available on YouTube, Facebook, all online social media platforms. And you've got an interesting angle. I was showing the guys some of your stuff. It's really funny.

There was this bit about an edgy comedian. Doug. Doug Allen. Yeah. For those of you, you know, across the pond who aren't familiar with the edgiest comedian who dares to make fun of people like Donald Trump and all that, that's Doug Allen. And that came out of, there's a writer named Luke Spolino. So he and I both developed Doug Allen.

And we put on these fake comedy trailers for Doug Allen's stand-up specials where he's saying outrageous, edgy stuff that no one is brave enough to say. And what's amazing is the amount of people who watch it and think that it's real. Like it's actually, it's gotten to the point where they're like, oh, you see that on late night television all the time, man. Like, this is ridiculous. And then, like, going into the comments and, like, try and actually deal with these people. So occasionally, you'll have someone, you'll call them out, be like, hey, you know, he's not a real character.

And then they'll be like, oh, my God, I can't believe I fell for it. Then other people just, you know, sort of dig in. They're like, you guys suck, you know. Well, our friend who wrote, who created the character, Titania McGrath, Andrew Doyle, he has the very same thing with Titania. Like, he posts the most outrageous things. Like, you know, there's nothing white about me except. my skin color or something like that. And he gets loads of people taking it at face value.

It says quite a lot, I think, about where we are culturally. But in terms of with the internet, what's the kind of angle that you guys are coming at things from? Yeah, so we describe ourselves as equal opportunity offenders. And, you know, when you're making fun of politics, we're dealing with a lot of competition. So you have professionals in late-night television. you have comedy shows and all that,

and everybody is going after the same material. So it's sort of our job to see what angle isn't being taken, you know, to try to be funny and original and have original takes on it. So that's sort of where we're at. Because a lot of, from what I see comedy, and, you know, particularly like, you know, the late night shows, the Tonight Show,

they tend to have a liberal bent to them. But I don't see a lot of conservative comedy coming from the US. Would you describe yourself as being a conservative hour? Well, it's tough now to even to know what conservative means because I have so many friends of mine who were, you know, liberals, Democrats, and they tell me, you know, like, Lou, I believe the same exact things I believed five years ago, but for some reason, if I talk about them, I'm worried that I'm going to get in trouble. So it's sort of like people are being kind of pushed into the conservative, you know, the conservative

bent or whatever that or uh they're being labeled as conservative they're being labeled as conservatives without even considering themselves uh conservatives there's a lot of work that i've done in the past like i got my my first job out of out of college i wrote erotic fiction for a living i wrote i wrote dirty stories for a living like that was my first job that's not really a job that i would say a conservative would really take you know writing um so uh i can't believe i there's no reason for me to bring that up But I'm glad you did. Just in case the comedy thing doesn't work. I don't want everybody to know that I could go that route again and write dirty stories.

That's the only reason you've come and trigonometry. You wanted some jobs doing that. Exactly. My erotic fiction career needs to be picked up again. It's funny that you say that because we have a kind of more libertarian comedian in this country, Simon Evans, who used to write pornography for a living. Do you know this? Yeah.

Yeah. And so maybe that's where you kind of said you're libertarian, which no one in the UK knows what it means, but it means you're problematic. Very, very problematic. Well, even in the United States, you know, libertarians, you know, people don't necessarily know what that is. You'll, I think sometimes libertarians will be labeled Republicans who smoke weed, which is a, you know, like a very like oversimplified way of putting it.

For me, as a small L. Libertarian, I'm not a part of the Libertarian party. my whole thing comes down to this idea of voluntary exchange between people, that I don't want any initiation of force. I don't want people forcing others to do their bidding. And I sort of take that from the personal, you know, the personal place between this is all voluntary and then sort of expand that to, you know, groups and et cetera, et cetera. And a lot of times that includes, for the most part, things like, you know, smaller government and rights as far as what you can and cannot put in your body. The idea is if you're not hurting anybody else, you should be able to put whatever you like in your body, that sort of thing.

And what challenges do you face when it comes to writing political comedy? Because to write, for instance, a Trump joke is phenomenally difficult because there's so many people, like you said, going after the story. same terrain. Yeah, I think it's like anything, you know, being original is the, is, is, is a tough point. And then also being able to do a joke and not lose the audience right from the get-go. So sometimes there'll be videos that that we put out and people are like, oh, this is just right-wing propaganda. And it's like, well, I didn't really consider right-wing propaganda. I thought it was me taking an idea and developing it and trying to do something with it. And then other times, we'll be called, you know, you libtards, which is, do you guys have libtards here?

Yeah, I'm a libtor. Are you a libtor? You're really not. I actually, I want to take that back for libertarians. Like, I want a libtard to be the libertarian thing. It's not working out well in the U.S. But it's funny, it's like depending on which, if you have a weird, nuanced view of the world, I think people are so used to, you know, everybody sort of being. in a box where if you believe this, you must believe this, this, and this.

Therefore, I can see one thing that you did over here and make all these sweeping assumptions about where you fall on these other political issues. Do you want to? Okay. Usually it's me interrupting you, so I'll be the gentleman. Okay. It's unusual to hear Russian use a word that gentleman. But anyway, the question I was going to ask you is, so how do you approach your comedy in the sense that normally when you're a political comedian, you have a political agenda.

So you're a left-wing comedian, that's your left-wing agenda, whatever else. Do you have a political agenda, or is it just finding the funny? I think it's just, for me, it's finding the funny. A lot of stuff that I do, I also do stand-up as well. So when I'm on stage, a lot of things are self-deprecating humor, I guess if you want to call it that, or talking about things in my own life.

And I feel like a lot of times when it comes to political humor, there's this risk of going full-blown activism. And I think when you go full-blown activism, people can sniff it out. And then it's like, well, now I'm no longer seeing an act or I'm no longer hearing jokes. I'm hearing, you know, an activist speak. And that's something that I'm trying that, you know, I think everybody should be really conscious of when they're doing that. Well, it's like you said, though, it's becoming quite difficult because I do political comedy as well. And the problem is that whenever, I mean, making fun of a politician or a political movement or a party or whatever, it's now automatically interpreted as criticism. And it used to be, I feel, that you could make fun of both sides.

And if you kind of went through your 10 or 15, 20, whatever minutes, or a hour show, and you kind of punched it everybody, that was fine. But now people would just go, you made this one joke about Trump or one joke about Hillary. or one joke about whoever. And that's you now. And now we've disagreed with you. And now, do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah.

And I think a lot of times political comedy is supposed to be this idea of holding up a mirror to society. And I think one thing we have to be careful of is to remember to actually turn that mirror around and look at ourselves and be like, ooh, you know, I don't have all the answers. And I don't necessarily know. I don't know what's going on with everything. We had an incident very recently, actually, in this country where a comedian who hosts the only real equivalent we have to your late shows, who was doing a show to a group of people who were kind of the blue-collar type of audience at a charity gig. And he was doing his very anti-Brexit material, which I guess it would be a bit like doing anti-Trump material. you know, in the Rust Belt somewhere, something like that. And he got pelted with bread and boot off stage.

And it was really the first time that we've, I think it's the first time that that's really happened. I mean, a couple of other people have been talking about it. So it seems like it's becoming very polarized in that way. And I think, like you said, comedians maybe need to take a bit more responsibility as well for just being activists on stage rather than just doing jokes, right?

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mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. I think we're in really weird times where, like in the United States, if you are a Trump supporter, people are support him so much where it's become almost a, you know, sort of a personality trait in a way where they don't trust the mainstream media. And, you know, sometimes there's good reason, you know, to be, to be skeptical of, you know, stories that, that you're seeing in the media. But they, they don't trust the media so much that they start to take any form of criticism as a personal attack. And I've noticed that, you know, you know, with my own stuff

where fans who have been following me and really enjoy when I make fun of social justice warriors or when I make fun of Antifa, the second I make a joke about Trump, it's like, oh, I'm done with you guys. It's over.

It's like, really, this is what it like this one punchline, that's all it took for you to, you know, think that that, you know, I'm garbage now, no longer worthy of of having you around. And so it's a, it's, a little scary because I

fear that the divisiveness is just going to it's just going to keep separating us and separating us until we can't tell what is a joke and what what is true, what you know, what's fact, what's fiction and all that and we're not talking and I think that's a really

big problem. And do you think audiences have become more sensitive since you've been so for instance when did you start stand-up or comedy? I started comedy I think maybe like 17 years ago I I started in college, and I started with improv and sketch comedy. And then I've been doing stand-up, I think, for probably like 10 years or so.

And in that time, so you're mainly New York-based. Yeah. You must have seen audiences change. Do you think we've become more sensitive as a society and as an audience in a comedy club, or do you think things have remained kind of similar? You know, I'm not sure. I wonder, it might be that nowadays you have an outlet to talk about, your sensitivity, you know, whether it's, you know, going on social media and talking about a

comedian that you saw. I'm not sure. I think, I think it almost seems like it used to be if, if you were offended by a joke or, you know, you found something that was, you know, like, oh, that's just wrong. You would say, I'm not into that and then move on. Whereas now it's almost like it's incumbent upon you to talk about how offended you are and how wrong that that joke was. I'm not sure. You have to call it out now. Call it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, now you can, that's sort of your way of being part of the fight in a way. Yeah, so it's not necessarily the more people are becoming offended. It's more that when people are, they amplify that to a great degree. I mean, look, in London, I know I speak to a lot of people who, and Francis hosts a lot of

different shows at some of the better clubs in London. I speak to other people. Best clubs. Sorry, Gary. No, no. Well, done, but not factually accurate, but it's a good joke. But you talk to people who host shows or MC shows like that, and the level of complaints about a comedian being whatever offensive in some way has never been higher, even as as comedian, we're becoming increasingly careful about the kind of stuff that we do. So certainly in this country, it has been happening.

I don't know whether it's the case in New York or elsewhere in these states. Yeah, I haven't, luckily, I haven't experienced it that much. I have a friend of mine who owns a club, and it'd be interesting to hear what he has to say, because... Well, let's get him on trigger on. I know, I know. We should have had him, that we've got used to... I know. Yeah, I guess it's one of those things where...

Also, how do you quantify it, too? You know, if you have, you know, 200 people packed into a room and five of them leave a terrible review, are we to assume that the other 195 either had a good time or they had an okay time or some of them had a bad time, but they were just they were so offended and so traumatized that they're not even able to talk about it.

I don't know. Don't you think it's also part of comedy's remit to offend to push the boundaries? I remember the first time I saw Chris Rockers when he did the whole black people routine. Do you want to do that routine? Yeah, let's do it. In my voice, it would sound fucking excellent.

That'll be one way to end the channel. Anyway, and I was the... There was about eight people in the room. I was in university, and I was the only white guy in the room, and we were watching it. And I was watching the reaction from everybody else. And I was like, are you allowed to laugh at this? Am I allowed to laugh as it?

Black people laughing it as a white person allowed to? Isn't that the purpose of comedy to test the boundaries? Racism. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To test the boundaries of racism. You know, of what is and isn't acceptable? And aren't we making things too safe at the moment? Well, I think, you know, comedy is a way to go after sacred cows, right?

So whatever the sacred cow is, it's sort of, you know, might be the duty of a comedian. You know, and you could, you can volunteer for the job to take on whatever that sacred cow is. And I remember talking to people about that Chris Rockbit, and apparently it took him a really long time to get it to the point where it wasn't offensive to also black audiences. Apparently he was working on that material a lot, and it wasn't working in black rooms. So I think there's something there to being willing to fail as well. I mean, I mean, I'm sure if you guys look at your notebooks and just how many jokes are just, they were great in your head or like, oh, man, this is going to piss some people off or, or, and then you go and you do it live and you're like, oh, what a waste of my life. That was just the worst. No, never happened.

Never, never happened. No, it's all gold, man. Never in the best clubs. The better. The better club. But also, I think it comes down to, you know, How are you going to choose on, you know, what, you know, what art to, you know, to spend your time looking at or listening or listening to. I want it to be something that I haven't heard before, something that the best thing about laughter is when it's uncontrollable.

So, you know, even, you know, some of the most horrendous jokes, if it got you laughing, it's like, it did something, right? Yeah. Well, the thing with the Chris Rock bit is really interesting what you say there about him having to work on it for a long. time. This is where I feel the issue may be is that if you need to work on a routine, which we all do, to try and make it find that place between funny and offensive where it sits just right, you're going to have to go to, oh, this is just offensive at some point, right? And you have to have the space to do that. If you're not, if you're not, if you don't have that opportunity, then there's going to be routines that are never going to be born because they're

going to be just killed at birth because you go, oh, no, it's too offensive. I can't try this out and you can't get it to its logical conclusion. Yeah, the challenge is there too, because it's not like all subjects are equal, you know, obviously it's a lot. It's much easier to talk about, you know, a relationship, like a bad date than it is to talk about a bad date that leads to an abortion. Like, ooh, that's it, right? No, I mean, that, that, you know, it's a So there's a challenge there. Well, how do you make these really sensitive, controversial subjects palatable and funny? And, you know, there are people who can do it and others who can't and others who are like, I don't even want to touch that. I find the whole, you know, Chappelle special thing

very, very interesting, as in, you know, the mainstream media's reaction to it as opposed to, you know, the average punter or audience member who loved it. And I mean, the thing that summed it up the best was a rotten tomatoes review from the critics and then the audience rating. Right. Yeah. And that was in sticks and stones. Yeah. And I hadn't, I, I, I wasn't looking forward to seeing the special or anything like that. I had no interest in seeing it. It's on Netflix and Netflix is just full of, there's so many specials and I'm like, I can't get to all of them. The only reason why I watched it was because of the controversy, you know, everybody talking about it, you know. And then finally, I watched it. I watched it.

with my wife and like every five minutes I'm cracking up and like bawled over and laughter and it's like yeah that's what that's what it's supposed to do I would love to actually it would be great if all the critics who you know who panned it would be great to set up a camera in the room when they were actually watching the special and see how many of them were actually laughing but but afterwards like when I like I have to pretend like I wasn't laughing you know it's not it's not right for me to agree with this comedy special. Have you met a lot of critics, Lou?

I haven't. No, this is why you think that. If you meet critics, they're people who have absolutely no sense of humor by and large. There's a guy here, the Guardian in the UK, who, oh, what a funny guy. He's known for having absolutely no sense of humor. So, like, he's known for coming into a show, watching it for an hour, and, like, people will say, yeah, he smiled twice. I think he's going to give it a good review. We are in a position where there's a lot of people who are judging comedy who don't seem to enjoy it,

which is why Chappelle and Jimmy Carr and they get very bad reviews. And a lot of it seems to be quite political, like coming back to what we were talking about earlier. But talking about sacred cows, what kind of stuff are you interested in going at at the moment? What kind of stuff are you working on with We the Internet? Yeah, so we released a video not too long ago titled Higher Minorities to Voice Your Minority Opinions. That's what we've done in the show, man. I'm the foreigner here so I can talk about. You're a refugee, right?

Yeah, not quite. Not quite, just pretend. Yeah, yeah. Just go. I'm a refugee, guys. I escaped war-torn Russia. There you go. The idea being if you're a straight white cis male, oftentimes there are certain subjects that you're not allowed to have an opinion on.

So this service will allow you to select a member of that marginalized group to express the same exact opinion and it'll be taken seriously because it has the authority of coming from a person of that class. Yeah, that's awesome. And that's something that, that subject in particular is something that, that I've noticed over the years because people often begin a sentence with, you know, speaking as a person of color or speaking as a woman or speaking as a man of faith. But no one ever starts by saying, you know, speaking as a stupid person. No one ever admits that, you know, that there are certain identity markers that you'll lead with, but you'll never lead with, you know, a state of. ignorance. Like, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about, you know, before I get going here. That's a very, very Bill Burr technique. The fact is like, nah, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm going to hit you with this stuff anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Is that like an example of

Socratic irony? Like, I'm an idiot, guys, but, and now I'm going to hit you with some really wise, some wisdom here. Yeah. I was going to talk about Burr just very, very briefly, because in this era of political correctness and, you know, you know, where you can't say this and you should apologize, you know, if you're a straight white man, we've heard enough of your voices. It's ironic, isn't it? That actually, probably one of the biggest comedians of his generation is a guy who goes on stage and is entirely unapologetic for being a straight white man. And I think to myself, do you think that's part of the reason why Burr has, you know,

resonate so hard? Oh, I don't, I'm not sure if it's, um, if it's that necessarily. I, I think Burr just has a, like a great. track record of just doing really great bits. Bits that kill in any room, you know, whether it's an urban room, if it's a, you know, a white room or like that. His stuff just transcends. I think it transcends. Even the racial stuff transcends race. It's sort of like these universal ideas. One of the coolest things when I was living in Los Angeles, I got to host a show where Bill Burr was a special guest, like unannounced guest.

And he did 20 minutes goofing on Michelle Obama, the first lady, in a room in Los Angeles where, you know, obviously it's a very, you know, left-leaning room. And he was able to do this material and get everybody cracking up. And I think his approach has just always been so good, too. And it might be some of that, you know, hey, I'm an idiot. I don't know what I'm talking about. And then hitting you with it. He's just a very skilled comedian, isn't it?

But Francis, I have to say I'm disappointed in you for getting to point out one of the greatest comedians in the history of comedy, Hannah Gadsby. Oh, right. Yeah. Have you seen her special? I haven't seen the special, but I saw her TED talk about the special. Same thing. What did you guys think of the special? Is it worse?

I never actually saw it. Did you know? No, I never saw it. It's one of those things. A moment something becomes extremely hype and polarizing on both sides, I just wait for it in a couple of years and I evaluate it on its own merits. Well, look, it's half an hour of decent jokes followed by a TED Talk. So, there you go.

But this, we are in this sort of era of woke comedy, which you could say Hannah Gadsby is the apex of. And she has her critics, but what is undeniable is that she is, resonated. She sells out tours, you know. There's lots of thousands and thousands of people who've watched her special. Number one, what is woke comedy and why do you think it's resonated and why do you think people enjoy it? I'm not sure what well comedy is. There we go. And none of your questions are completely useless therefore. Well, you know, it might be some of it I think I think what's great about doing comedy today is, you know, for

from we have the technology where, you know, anybody who wants to, wants to do comedy can do it. You know, they could start their own podcast or vlog and all that. And it's, it's helped to get rid of the gatekeepers, you know, because there might be, you know, certain gatekeepers where Hannah Gatsby would never be able to get to where she is today, like selling out arenas and all that thing. And I think, I think, no matter what do you think about Hannah Gatsby or what do you think about Bill Burr or Dave Chappelle, it's wonderful to have all those choices where it's like, oh, you know what, I can go my whole life without seeing a Hannah Gatsby special, but all these people who are into that can go and, you know, and support her. And I think, you know, I think that that's something that sometimes we forget or,

it's a pretty good time to be doing comedy, no matter what your comedy is. Do you really think that? Because there's a lot of people who would argue, oh, you can't say what you think, anymore and everything's getting shut down and I'm oppressed and all the rest of it. But you say it's the best possible time to be doing comedy. I think so. I think they're just all these different avenues where you could, where you can make stuff happen. And I'll, you know, sometimes see, like, comedians that I know who've, you know, been in the game for, you know, five years or something like that, complaining about the state that they're in. Like, oh, you know, I'm being,

I'm being held back or this theater won't have me, this club won't have me. And it's like, well, you have an opportunity there to be a little bit more entrepreneurial and show people that you have an audience. You know, if you could if you can pack 10 people into a room

every week, you know, to see your show and then build that up and then build an online, your online brand and all that, I think you need to do that. Excuse me. I've always sort of been of the mind that I, ever since I've been doing comedy, where I can't rely on, on, you know,

gatekeepers or the people, you know, sort of in the business or in the industry. It's like, I need to just be doing my own stuff because once you start relying on other people, then, you know, you're subject to what they want and what they don't want. I guess that's probably why you're not seeing some of the stuff that we're bringing. up because if you do what you do for yourself, just like we're doing trigonometry, we're not, we don't answer to anybody. That gives you a level of freedom where you don't even have to worry about the stuff. But certainly in this country, I don't know whether it's the same in America.

If you're just a club comedian, which there's obviously lots of, you are at the mercy of, the gaykeepers, as you say, which is why it's a great time to be doing comedy, not necessarily to be a stand-up comedian, making your way up through the standard industry. But it is a great time to be doing content, let's say. Yeah, that's a good way to put it because I know people in the States who are great stand-up comedians, but they have side jobs. They have side gigs because even when things are going well and they're hitting the road and doing those road gigs, they're still not able to sustain themselves.

and they need to work other jobs. So, yeah, I've never just done stand-up comedy or even tried to go that route. You're more interested in what you're doing now with the internet. Yeah, yeah, production and using that as a way to book gigs and to do live shows and all that. Oh, you guys do live shows as well?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did a tour, a Four City tour back in November called the funny thing about hate speech. That's a great title. And so when you're looking at what is happening in the US, because everything is so ridiculous now. I mean, take, you know, even like George W. Bush, when things were ridiculous and he was coming across saying ridiculous things,

it was easier to parody him. But now you see Trump and, Like literally yesterday, he's just been impeached. I mean, how do you satirize that? It must be impossible, isn't it? It seems to be, yeah, very hard. Especially, I just don't have the bandwidth to be able to take everything in. You know, there are so many people who seem to live their lives on Twitter.

Yeah. And they're, you know, always reacting to whatever, you know, to whatever's happening. and I think Trump has done a really good job of we're just going to clip that by the way he's got a really good and then you'll do a montage

of like children in cages and then and bombing and stuff like that happening he's done a really wonderful job and we're just going to put that on a look oh my God with Twitter he's done a great job with Twitter

he's done a really great job you know sort of misdirecting and diverting attention away from, you know, really important things that are happening. But I think also he's, as I guess as a libertarian, I like when people are more skeptical of the powers that be, and skeptical of those in government. And you talk about when George W. Bush was president, I absolutely loved the Daily Show at that time. I love the Colbert rapport. I think the Colbert Rapport was on around the same time.

Well, Colbert actually made his name, if you remember, by when he was invited to speak at the White House Correspondents. Which I thought was brilliant. Yeah. And it was probably, yeah. And then what happened was when Obama came into office, I was like, yes, they're going to continue that. They're going to continue to, you know, to speak truth to power, if you will. And we really didn't see that. And that was unfortunate.

I was like, oh, man, here I was. It was sort of, you know, relying on the comedians to come and take the process. president to task. And, yeah, so I think, so I think now it's sort of the executive branch has been, you know, maybe a little, will be a little less respected, you know, moving on. And hopefully more people are, or are a little more cognizant of just what, you know, what powers are being wielded. And I think, you know, what you do it with the internet is, is actually very valuable

because more and more people have, you know, they look at. you know, for instance, the Tonight Show, and they go, what, you know what, this clearly has an agenda. I'm now feeling that I've been lectured to by a sort of liberal left intelligentsia, and we get it here in the UK, you know, anti-Brexit, which is fine, do anti-Brexit jokes. There are some brilliant ones. But if that is your consistent narrative, then, to be brutally honest, it gets tedious. And then for somebody like with the internet to come along and goes, look, we're going to make fun of Trump, but, you know, we're also going to make fun of Hillary.

You go, how refreshing. This is what comedy should be. Yeah, one of the things that I absolutely love is when you post something, you post something online on Facebook or whatever, and you have fans who say, yeah, normally I like your stuff, but this one was kind of meh. And then they come back and they're like, oh, I love this video, though.

I like to, you know, have people who are able to disagree with you, but still support your work. And it's a challenge, too, for myself, because it's so easy to just support, those who you agree with and you know kind of fall you know fall into that same into that same trap

so I'm hoping that we do get to the point where more people are able to do that yeah well we have that with trigonometry as well you get people who who say oh I watched your show for you know a year and a half or whatever but this video how dare you have you know

this person yeah or they'll start to like we had this video we didn't into Posey Park who was a gender critical ex-feminist. And she was pretty strong, let's say. I think that's a fair statement on trans stuff. So we kind of pushed back on her probably more than we did with others. And someone on the Mumsnet feminist forum went through and said,

oh, she was speaking for this many minutes and this other person you interviewed by the same thing. They spoke for that. And it's because you're two men. And it's like, come on. But eventually, you kind of, what we always talk about is like, you have an audience that is your. core audience and over time that will shape up to be what it is and people who thought it was like a right wing eco chamber or this kind of eco chamber or that kind of eco chamber they all get filtered

out and what happened that was taken down right yeah it was taken down as hate speech and then eventually reinstated probably because we had there was quite a backlash against there we was starting to get traction in in the news and stuff like that do you have you ever had any problems with facebook or anything like that yeah yeah yeah really yeah we've had problems yeah yeah So we had one It was, I forget how long ago, but I ran a poll, right? Yeah. And I asked, who was responsible for Hurricane Florence, right?

And let's see, 25% of the people said Donald Trump. And the other 75% said the gays. Thank you. Thank you for laughing. Yeah, yeah. And there was only two. there was only two options, right? And obviously, anybody reading this

knew that it was a joke. It was a play on, you know, who controls, you know, you know. Should have included Jews. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I think it was like over 10,000 people voted in this poll and shared it around.

And it was taken down because it went against community standards. And it got me thinking, you know, like, man, you know, here it is like the censors on Facebook are doing away with what's clearly saddivism. Yeah. Man, who knows what else they're doing away with. And we've had an issue recently with, we have an old video that I shot like right after, I think it was a, I think it must have been 2017 or something like that, right after the inauguration,

presidential inauguration, it's making fun of Antifa. It's like, here are six rioting tips for Antifa. And that was flagged recently for promoting violence. And I wonder how much of it is sort of. of the attempt to get an algorithm that can catch every, you know, every single, like, problematic thing, then, you know, you're going to have a lot of stuff that just sort of gets, gets caught up in it that, that shouldn't be. But, yeah, we've had issues with that. And then on YouTube as well. In those cases, were they manually reviewed and then reinstated? Or was, I'm not, I'm not sure.

I think this one, we, I think this last one we called for a manual review. And I'm not sure what's happened yet. But until then, it's, you know, now we're thinking, oh, no, like, We have to be wary of certain keywords, you know, violence or anything that could, you know, get picked up as potential hate speech. And it's tough when you're creating content to try to stay ahead of the curve and knowing, you know, what it is that we can and cannot publish without worrying about it being taken down. Well, this is the problem with censorship is that if you, even if it's an algorithm, which I actually, in our case, it wasn't. with the Posey Parker video, it was taken down based on a manual review of it, and then we had a manual appeal again that changed it back. But even if it's algorithms, it forces you as the person who's putting stuff out there to say and see yourself.

Yeah. And then you won't tackle the issues, like you say, the sacred cows. You'd rather stay away from it and do a video about something that's going to be less controversial. Yeah, and when you're talking about demonetization, And there are places like Prager University that'll, Prager You that talks about their videos. But a lot of people on the left who produce videos, their stuff has been demonetized as well.

And it's, you know, you wonder, is it keywords? Is it manual review? Is there a type of vendetta? I don't know. And do you think that they've become more draconian as the years have gone by, social media? I think so, yeah.

Yeah. And they're, you know, they're dealing with a, with a lot, you know, companies like Facebook, they're dealing with, you know, having to do congressional hearings, so they have to go before, you know, Congress and answer questions. Then they're dealing with people who, you know, are using the system and hate it. And then they're also dealing with, you know, some weird stuff that they've done before regarding, you know, sharing personal information and security breaches. and then also the work that they do in other countries as well.

I don't think it, who knows, I mean, in the United States, it's probably not as bad as it is in, you know, Saudi Arabia. Probably. Yeah, probably. Saudi Arabia has, you know, allows people to have Facebook. I don't know. Yeah. I was going to ask you, so in terms of this, you said you had some problems on YouTube as well.

Was it just demonization or if he had stuff taken down? I think, yeah, I think we've had stuff demonetized. and there was for a little while, there was another video, it was another Antifa video. It was called Should Antifa Stop? And it was taken down for a little while because it, again, it was saying that it was like sort of promoting, promoting violence. And if you watch this video, should Antifa stop, it's not promoting violence. But now it was reinstated, but now it's age restricted. So you have to be 18 or older.

Okay. So, yeah, it's... Do you think we're rapidly coming to a point where people are misunderstanding irony? They just don't get it anymore. And, you know, you can make a joke that is ironic. You can put a video out that is comedic, and people will go, oh, we'll just simply take that literally, therefore get rid of it. Well, yeah, I mean, look at...

You have Snopes fact-checking a satirical site like the Babylon B. and that's almost its own case of oh this can't be this can't be real yeah I don't know what it I don't know what it is that why that's the case that people just aren't getting irony

I mean well we have the stereotype in Britain about Americans Americans don't understand sarcasm and irony so it could just be that it's run by Americans well you guys are really good at it well done I'm gonna say you know you talk to enough

Briss and you're like was he was he making fun of me the whole time. It's because we're deeply emotionally repressed. And we can't actually say what we enjoy. So the only thing that we can do is just take the piss out of it. Be calm, carry on. Yeah, yeah.

And then, yeah, die of a heart attack. Anyway. Be passive, passive, aggressive. Carry on. Yeah. Be passive aggressive. Because that's just fine. So where is, where do you think the future is kind of the culture?

It's an interesting time. We're recording this just after the election here in the year. UK where the right of center party has absolutely crushed it. And it seems like a lot of the reasons that that happened was the cultural stuff to some degree. So the landscape seems to be shifting. What do you think if this would to happen, if let's say Donald Trump is reelected in 2020, which seems certainly credible as possible? What do you think the kind of cultural landscape's going to look like? I'm afraid that things might get worse before they get better.

Yeah, it's almost like everybody needs to hit rock bottom before we're able to rebuild again. Well, like an alcoholic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but 350 million alcoholics need to hit rock bottom. I was talking to someone who works in Silicon Valley about tech, and in particular, cancel culture. And I was telling them how, you know, I really would like to explore that idea of cancel culture and tech and how technology and social media has basically facilitated, facilitated that. And with the hopes of, you know, getting, bringing our culture back to one of forgiveness, one where, you know, hey, you posted something stupid a few years ago, we're going to let it slide

and let it not make you lose your job and you can go about your day. And he said, I think it's a great idea. It's not going to happen. Really? It's not going to happen. He's like, no, it's going to get worse and worse and worse. More people are going to be mob, you know, joining, you know, mobs and trying to get rid of people and that sort of thing. And I'm like, oh, that's, he's like an insider.

That's great for trigonometry. Yeah. Oh, that's hopeful, isn't it? But we are kind of in a bunker right now. Yeah. When the bombs start falling, you know, we'll be, well, you guys will be safe. I don't know where I'll be. Yeah.

This structure is very weak. And this isn't going to protect you from Twitter anyway. Yeah. No, no. So it's going to get worse, you think. We need to hit Rob. Why do you say that?

Why do you think the polarization will continue? Is that your sense? Yeah, I'm afraid that it will happen. And I don't, while there are, you know, a lot of people, I guess, in the states, they call the exhausted majority who are very tired of the squabbling. I wonder how many of them will be exhausted and go to one extreme, you know, go to one extreme or the other. I'm sorry, this is such a pessimistic view.

It might be because it's raining in London for the past few days. Welcome to England, my friend. I have lived in the shitty weather, not shit, great country, shady weather for 25 years now. And you never get used to it. To be honest with you, I'm inclined to agree with you. I think the problem is with Twitter. emboldened shitty behavior and narcissism.

And as a result of that, I can just, you know. And I've seen comedians go through it. They take these extreme positions. And then get on a positive feedback loop where people are retweeting them and then getting more likes and then that encourages that position. It's fucking brilliant, mate.

I'm enjoying it. I wonder too, just how many times I've, you know, tweeted something and then, you know, look back on it a couple of weeks and think, oh, if everybody just knows me from that, you know, it's like, oh, that's a shame, you know, because there's a lot more to me than this shitty take. Well, nuance is very hard, isn't it? Like, I've thought about this often if you just look at my Twitter feed, you would make

assumptions about me that aren't true. Yeah, they are. All right, all right, fine. I'm in Nazi. It's fine. Okay. Well, listen, man, it's an interesting time. And I really enjoy what you do.

So please keep it up and we'll keep watching it. The last question we always ask is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we ought to be talking about? Well, I think, you know, sort of with the holidays coming up, I think it's so important to really embrace the real life relationships that we have and to let the people who are important to you know how important they are. And I don't think it happens enough. And I'm in a really great position, you know, being able to do comedy. And I also get to have interactions with fans of mine. And a little while back, I had a fan of mine reach out on Facebook. And he, you know, said to me something that I consider it pretty heavy.

He said, you know, I'm thinking about trying comedy because I think it would give my life some meaning to create. Yeah, yeah, and, you know, you hear that, and it's like, whoa, you know, what's going on? I asked them, you know, what, you know, what's going on in his life. And he said, well, for the past year or so, he's been taking care of his grandmother who has dementia, right? And I said to him, I said, man, you know, you know, what you're doing for your grandmother is such an incredible thing. I mean, you know, what can be, you know, more life affirming than taking care of those who need, who need the most? and he said, wow, you know, thank you for reminding me of that. I didn't think about that.

And I was thinking like here you have a young man who's, you know, doing good in the world who's been blinded to the good that he's doing. And all he needed was one person to remind him, hey man, what you're doing is amazing. And yeah, you can do comedy too. And that could be a part of your life. But what you're doing is very meaningful and can have a big impact on people. And I just, you know, I wish more people would Would do that and embrace it

Because they can go a really long way Well, you said that with the holidays coming up This video will probably go out after the holidays There's always a holiday If you haven't done that, you're a bad person But try and do it now I love it that you deliver that message When everyone's come back from Christmas

And is entirely fucking sick of their family You gotta go back It's family again No, I'd rather do comedy You might not have enjoyed Christmas dinner but they are really important. Yeah. So be nice.

Lou, because that's where your inheritance will come from. Sorry. This is the cynical pretty sense of humor. Well, thanks very much for coming on,

man. If people want to watch your stuff and follow you, where do they do all that? Yeah, We, the Internet TV on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter. And then I am Lou on the subway

on Twitter. Perfect. Fantastic. And as always, we'll see you in a week from now with another great episode. Take care. See you next week, guys.