What Now? with Trevor Noah - Oobah Butler: The Digital Mirage

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Trevor and Eugene sit down with journalist and filmmaker Oobah Butler, whose work lives at the intersection of prank and social experiment. From creating a fake top-rated restaurant to exposing how easily online systems can be manipulated, Butler has made a career out of blurring the line between perception and reality. Together, they explore the rise of “scam culture,” how algorithms quietly shape what we believe, and just how much of the modern world is built on illusion. It is a funny, unsettling look at how easy it is to fake almost anything—and how hard it can be to tell what is real. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Where did you grow up? I grew up in a little village called fecanim in England. Sorry. That was ridiculous. I'm sorry. Feckonym is like, why do you look at me? No, come on. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that.

Feckonim. You seem like you're from feckoning. In fact, from now I'm going to say that about you. My friend Eugene from feckonem. You've been feckoning my whole life. You're a feckonim if I saw one. As you say, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad. Trevor Noah was saying feckon.

That says, I'm already, I'm cooked it. I'm done, I'm happy. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. Solitary athletes, it's sort of like they are paying for their wife to be able to be their companion in the world so that it's not a solitary anymore. So now when you're riding a bike in the mountains, preparing for the, you know, during the off-season, you're not alone. Yes. And then when you have to fly to the Alps to go and skisks. ski every day to prepare for the thing.

You're not alone. And you know what I mean? Yeah. Because the fundamental truth is, if she has to work. She won't be there. She just won't be there. And then you will, you, like, you know what it was like, comedy on the road?

That was not. Lonely. Yeah, it's, it's, the amount of comedians who committed suicide in like a random hotel room somewhere. It's actually like a really high number. If you look at the industry, it would always be like random comedian, dead by themselves. Yeah. It's always them alone. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? So I can see that way it's like it's more them going. Yeah, I'm like sort of paying for her to be able to do this. Let's go. I suppose it changes when they have kids as well. Because then what do they bring the kids with them as well? Yeah. They do.

They do. They do. They do. The kids live on the road with them. Also remember that most of them started being on the road when they were 13, 13, 14. Yeah. They had to get out of school. That's all I know.

That's all they know. They always, all of them say one thing. I missed out on my metric dance. I missed out on university. I don't know what it's like. So they always say they look at their old friends as a distant memory. Oh, that's interesting. Like they think when they were 13, their life stopped when they were 13 having school lunches.

And all of a sudden, all of them have a common story. Their parent came to school, spoke to the principal. Then the principal was like, yeah, I'm sure you can. Then I never saw their friends again. and all of a sudden they were in a camp. They were wearing sponsored clothes. They were going downhill. They were surfing.

They were doing all of this. And they've never returned again. So through their wives, they get to live vicariously, you know. They get to hear about how is it when you are at, and then, and then. But most of them don't also know how to be parents. Right. Because they're strangers to their kids. The biggest fear of retirement is, what am I going to do when I,

offseason is a torture when their kids get older because they think, what am I going to say to this person? We don't know the routine. Or he or she doesn't know. I'm a stranger. I show up. they go, what are you doing? Yeah. At least if you've got that like Red Bull sponsorship,

you got money, whereas with like the Olympic athletes that it seems like they have. Yeah, they're just, they got no money either. That might be for me the, the most depressing trajectory. Yeah. Olympic athletes.

Yeah. Because most of them don't get anything in that way. Yes. They don't get the endorsement deals. No. Yeah. They don't get the ad campaigns. They don't get the reward money.

They don't get anything. Yes. you it's almost worse for the ones that like win the gold or something

but like you know those like golds that means skit shooting I never hear you say that you see get in there I'm saying

get in there twice today I could TK number one like a TK 60th minute or when you had the assist from Sala

Yeah, it's a good girl. It's a nice girl. You have something to say to me, Trevor. You know who you are? Who am I? Who am I? You're the great Gatsby of football. No, football.

Because Eugene knows nothing about football. And his greatest joy is acting like he's fully invested in it. And then like he'll absorb everything we say. And then first he'll like throw it back at us. a little thing. Oh, but like impeccably, impeccably. And he'll just, I remember the first times he did it, I didn't pick it up. So you'd say something.

And then someone would go like, they'd be like, oh, man, today's game. They'd be like, ah, sob a slide. And then he'd be like, dude, sobberslide. And then they would just go off. They'd be like, man, I just don't get rid of it. And then like the last thing would be like, like, why is he on the right? Then Eugene's like, well, why is he on the right? Those are all very quick.

And you'd watch it. Yeah. You do. I mean, I'm just saying it. You're talking sense. Yeah. What is he? You need him in the middle.

Yeah, you're right. You'd watch people. You'd watch people have a conversation by themselves. Just prodded on by Eugene. Just prodding him on. Just prodding him on. Just happened. You just got me.

Yeah. He's fantastic at it. I just started, I've been living here a white lady two years now. And I just, I like love sports. So I watch it. I watch anything. But you're one of those people.

Well, kind of. But I love football. I love cricket, which is why I asked because I was like, it's interesting. I don't watch much of it, but I watch like the England national team. Yeah. I don't watch much else. I'm not watching like Indian Premier League and like if it's on great.

But I started watching the Knicks this year because of the playoffs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was amazing. That was like, that felt like, okay, I'll get it. And watching basketball without ever properly. Having people around me who know what's going on. You don't understand where the jeffidy is. But I feel like that's all sports.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's all sports. And the story, you need a story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah, and it was cool.

I went last week, this week. When was it? Monday. Like that game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to Knicks and there's some terrible team. We all looked about 14 years old. They beat them.

North Carolina? I guess, I don't know. South Carolina. I don't keep up at all. It was, it was sick. It was great. I don't keep up at all. It was an accident.

I was like, oh, probably like baseball hasn't happened. Like, maybe I'll like hockey. No, but if you like cricket, if you like cricket, I think you will like baseball. Yeah. So when I was, I've always, I don't even think I haven't liked baseball. Baseball, I've just been like, what is the point of this? What are we doing here? When I went to a baseball game recently, I had a friend who came and sat with me.

for, he would just happen to be at the game coincidentally, and then he came and he said, I was like, oh, what are you doing here? And then he's like, so do you know what's happened? Score was zero, zero. We're in like the, I don't know, seventh inning or something. Nothing was moving. I was just like, what are we doing here, guys?

And then he sat down, he's like, man, what a great game, right? And I was like, ah, man, sorry, I don't. I was like, I'm, zero zero. It's not happening. But more than zero, because, like, you know, like, zero in soccer or in football for me has a lot of like, Oh, yeah. It's a lot of tension.

Because you're invested. Yeah. And you get how. And also depending on where the time is. Where the jeopardy exists. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

The jeopardy. So now he came and introduced that all to me. So he's like, okay. So you see this picture right now, he's getting close to his hundredth pitch. And so now they're trying to wear him out and get him to 100 pitches. Because once he gets to 100 pitches, then they have to bring in the new picture. Oh, I didn't know that. And you see exactly.

That's what I mean. I didn't know any of this stuff. So then I realized. Baseball is all a game of like... No, go. Thank you. Baseball is almost like a... Have you ever played those games?

They're normally mobile games, but I used to play them back in the day on computer as well where you were like chipping away at something, chipping away at something, chipping away at something. Then the wall bursts and then it's like, now the war starts. Or those where you hit the ball and then the balls get increased.

Actually, yeah, or think of it this way. Like, think of a TV show, right? sometimes you'll watch a great show where it's like a Game of Thrones or one of those and if you don't know the show like six episodes can be about what's going to happen in the war. Do you know what I mean?

Every episode is just people looking at maps my lord my lord if we assail their forces from this direction my lord then it should be easier we're never going to get through them there what do you mean and like you don't know that show you're so sucks you're like this is terrible

What is what has happened? Nothing's happening. Yes. Nothing's happening. Yeah. But to your point, because you know the jeopardy, you're like, oh man, what are they going to do? Are they going to go here? That's baseball.

Yeah. So baseball is one of the sports where if you don't understand the jeopardy. Yeah. I don't think you can understand the, I don't think you can appreciate the sport because unlike basketball, unlike other sports, like, oh, ball goes there in. Ah, ball goes there in. No. Baseball is like, oh, what are they going to do? Are they in now?

going to put him in and you know a right hander throwing to a left batting. Oh, this is you know, it's going to be like this stressful. What are we? Oh, oh, oh. And there's this whole tipping point. I don't know this before. There's a whole tipping point where when the picture gets, a hundred pitches is basically it.

I had no idea about that. I had no idea. So you put your best, you put your best pitcher in. Yeah. You try and get as many outs as possible in as few pitches as possible. But if you get to a hundred pitches, you like sort of have to take them out. Wow.

Or they have to leave. Yeah, because they have to go rest their arm. It's like an Uber driver. So after 12 hours. Oh, is that right? Yes. They have to. No, you can't.

After 12 hours, look, you've done your past, okay? Dropped off a few grannies, two drunk people. This is it for you. Yeah, so you've got to, you got to take them and you got to. Yeah, you've got to, you've got to take the person and then rest and then. And then you get the really shit Uber driver in. Yeah.

That's basically, yeah. No, but that's basically why it. Then apparently the drop-off, because I was confused by that. But the drop-off to the second pitcher is apparently quite high because all the best pitchers on a team. Yeah, they want to all be the main guy. Yeah, they're the best pitcher. So the drop-off to the second one is like they're way more hitable. Like this is where the home runs are going to come now.

This is where the ball. That's where the scoring is supposed to sort of happen. So it becomes this tactical game of like, when do you switch your pitches? when do you not switch your pitches. And just because that guy came in and introduced it to me, I was like, oh, okay. Okay, now I understand the tension. Yeah. Now I get it.

Now I get why everyone in the stadium is like breathing these collective like, oh, yeah. So the only time baseball became fun is when it turned into the Kardashians. That's one way to put it. It became dramatic. There was a lot of tension. Or rather when someone showed me that it was the cost. Kardashians. It didn't turn into. You know if there's one thing I want to, have you been to the Super Bowl?

No, I want to do that. You want to go to the Super Bowl? Yeah, yeah, but not for the football, for the pomp and ceremony. It's a thing. How's that thing? Yeah, yeah, I liked it. I mean, it didn't flag up. You didn't flinch once, no.

No, I didn't flinch. But Uber, welcome, man. Welcome to the podcast. This is. No, no, no. What do you mean? It's okay. Were you going to drink from the floor?

Well, yeah, I was a couple of... You're just going to like... He's like, through your sleeve. Oh, no, man. Can I tell you, you're one of those... You know when you form an idea of somebody in your mind before you meet them? You're one of those people where the first time I heard about you, I was just like, wait, who is this person?

Because the first time I heard about you, It's when you created the world's most popular restaurants that no one could get into. Yeah. No one could visit. Everyone wanted to go. It was number one on TripAdvisor. Everyone in the world was like,

you've got to go to this restaurant is the greatest restaurant. It had like how many thousand reviews at one point? It was actually that many, but it was more the algorithmic hack. Oh, yeah, yeah, like it had put it at the top of the thing. Exactly, yeah. It was enough and they were done at the right time. And that was an accident. That wasn't being clever.

Excellent. Well, no, it wasn't. but it was, it was lucky, tremendously lucky that it worked, I think. So I'm saying. Yeah. The fact that it actually, I mean, I'm interrupting you. No, no, no, no, you're not.

You can't interrupt me. No, it's not. Trust me. You can't. You can't interrupt. Okay. I need to see, I need to understand where the jeopardy is, so I need to know. Tin, tin, tin, tin, tin.

Yeah, no, I mean, that, yeah, I mean, you said, That was the first time I think anybody heard of me, I think, at all. It was, yeah, tremendously lucky. Like, it was kind of one of those things where it was like this, like, idea that was like, I was doing on the side of other ideas. Yeah. I was like, okay, I'm going to slowly build this up. And the longer it went on, the more silly it got on the momentum.

That's life. Yeah, the more people bought into it. And I was like, at some point, someone's going to knock on my door and be like, what are you doing, your child, you know? And I was going to get in trouble and it would be taken down. or what I just didn't think I thought at some point it would go wrong

we're presuming now that the viewer understands what the hell I'm talking about Oh yeah we'll give them a little context that'll be fine but for those who don't know it was basically a you created a fake restaurant in London and it was a place that everyone was dying to go to and then at some point publication started picking it up

and they were like oh the best restaurant in London that you can't get into it and then they wanted to cover it and then publicists wanted to be a part of it and it was a whole thing and it becomes this whole word And then I think at some point you did, because it didn't exist, right? Yeah, it was completely made up.

Yeah, you created this fake world. I'm so into this. Yeah, this is one. Now, I'm in. So I'll tell you, you know, people always go like, why do you have somebody on? Yeah. Through and through for me, you made me realize, so you live my dream. That's why you're here.

No, genuinely, you live my dream. And I'll tell you what, because my dream, because my dream, you know, because my dream, you has always been to be like a massive like fraudster. But then I go, you go to jail. And then you do it and I was like, oh, there's a way to do it and not go to jail. It's good being white. Chiche.

Because I was like, this to me is fraud. This seems like massive fraud. But if you film it and if you have a camera where you're like, so I'm going to do this fraud, then it's not a prank. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's a part.

It's a fraud and a, hey, my friend. It's a loophole. Yeah. It's a loophole. Yeah, the loophole is you've got to say ahead of time to a camera. Oh, it's like, hey guys. So day one of planning this prank, then it's not fraud. So let me get this right.

So if you are. Move your thing there's so Hannes doesn't shame. If there's a camera and then you're just talking to it. Yeah. Then it's a diary confession. Yes, exactly, exactly. But if there's a car behind it, it's a deposition. That's the difference.

Basically, it's who brings the camera. If you bring the camera, it's a porn. so I'm you're not wrong if you bring a camera it's a porn if someone else brings the camera it's a sex tape

yeah that's against the law yes you see so but like so let's talk through this and then I want to get

into like how you yeah how you even get into this world yeah you have the number one

talk me through how you start the scam like where did you even begin the idea of I'm going to create the world's most popular restaurant that doesn't actually exist but

gets all these reviews and then gets written about and then people want to pay exorbitant amounts of money to come to, but they've never been to it. Because there's a few things that you do here. You encapsulate in one story hype, you encapsulate myth. You encapsulate like just

how we in the world all want things that aren't even real. Because people were dying to go to this restaurant. Yeah, yeah. People were like, oh, when I go to London, like, you know where I wish I could go, but I can't get in. And the food is amazing. But it's not real. I was like, this man has tapped into every single thing that's sort of like wrong with the world.

And not today, just like it's sort of like the human brain. So walk us through how you created the greatest restaurant scam. How does it start? So, yeah, I mean, I suppose that I'd been, when I was younger, I used to work. in sort of bars and restaurants and stuff like that. So I'd been in those contexts. I'd been... Where was this, by the way?

Where did you grow up? I grew up in a little village called feckonum in England. Sorry. That was ridiculous. I'm sorry. Feckonem is like... Why do you look at me? No, come on.

You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. Feckonim. You seem like you're from feckoning. In fact, from now I'm going to say that about you. My friend Eugene from feckonem. You've been feckoning my whole life. You're a feckonim if ever and so on. As you say, this, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad.

Trevor Noah's same economist. That says, I'm already, I'm cooked it. I'm done. I'm happy. No, I mean, so I grew up in the middle of nowhere, basically. Yeah. My mom's family had been there for hundreds of years. Got web toes to prove it and all that.

No, not really. But may as well do. And then my dad's family are from Birmingham and Ireland. And like, so we grew up there. I'm the youngest of six. So, sort of desperate for attention, that kind of type. We were sort of token working class family in a kind of village of like lots of very, hello, it was it going there?

Oh, sort of like a posh vibe. And then farmers, posh farmers. You're right in the middle. And then a lot of the people, yeah, and a lot of the people who would have worked in the mills and stuff have moved a long time ago. But my mom's family, our family's still there. So it's like a fun environment to grow up in. And yeah, I suppose I just did like, I didn't go to college.

I stayed in Feckham way too long. And I would take jobs that I could get. And one of the first sort of set of jobs I would get was working in bars, working in restaurants. And in those contexts, I remember just hearing about TripAdvisor constantly and how if someone left a one-star review, it would be a problem, you know, for everyone, what happened last night? You know, it would be like, it was a very serious platform. It holds that much power. Yeah.

I've sort of heard about this from that. But really, so if you work in. a food or beverage establishment if someone leaves a one-star review it shakes the place up it's still the same way I think it's migrated slightly I think Google reviews is probably the number one

I would say but like it's Mike like when I was doing that when I did that trip advisor was the biggest tourist website on the planet I would say it's probably still it's still big probably one of the top three or something no it is definitely but yeah I mean

it still happens now if someone leaves a one-star review it's on you so it's interesting yeah so wait wait wait so when they leave the one-star did they say it was him that I'm leaving the one star for well that does happen yeah it does happen yeah yeah yeah it's like a daily petty version of the Michelin star

it's terrible it really is have you never read I love reading Google no I don't know literally and then they'll they'll literally go we do have Ryan they'll literally go they'll just be like one star and then I read I like reading the one stars because I go to leave one star for a place because remember that's the lowest you can leave

basically So you left one star. Yes. The worst experience you could possibly have. Yes. This is the, so I want to know what the worst experience in your life could be.

So you go in there. So I go read one star reviews. Yeah. I always want to read the one star reviews. Yeah. And then it's like, especially in a place that has like, let's say a place has an average of 4.6 or 4.7.

And is that one one star? Thousands of people have said this is 4.7 worthy. Yeah. And then someone has a one star. I'm like, okay, I want to know what happened to your life. The shop across the road. And then you go in. It's competition.

Yo, you go in. Yeah. You go in. That is that definitely happens. Definitely, definitely. Yes, because the number one whistleblowers in any situation are people who didn't get the contract. Oh, I like that. Anyway.

Yeah. So then you'll go in and then it'll be, it'll sometimes be like great food, great ambiance, great atmosphere. So compliments first. Yeah, all these things. They're not reasonable. They're establishing that they're reasonable. Yes. I like this actually

I like this then they'll go then they'll go like appetizers were a little expensive but still great and then they'll be like Eugene our server

totally unprofessional didn't like how he treated us should be fired just like that that's it one star one star so I'm the problem yeah

yeah yeah yeah so so So I ended up, I actually before I did the restaurant thing, so what happened was, so I had that little experience, years, five, six years pass. Then I start working as a writer, trying to work as a writer, to move to London. Yeah. Try and start hustling. Try and like, what can I get paid for?

What gigs can I get paid for? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this life. And there was like a freelance website when it was called people per hour. And they would, like, people would advertise, like, writer, we need a writer to do X, Y, or Z. One of the gigs on there was writing fake five-star reviews for restaurants to juice their ratings. God loves you. Yeah, yeah. So I started doing that.

And I would just go like, go on their website, go, all right, okay. I went there. I had the whatever. Not way, way, wait. Uber, you can't just skim over this. I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Because right now what you're doing, I think for me and I think other people is you are exposing the very underpinnings. of how like we think society works.

Yeah. Right. No, because a lot of people, like people trust reviews. Yes. Do you know what I mean? And more than that, people trust well-written reviews. Yeah, definitely. You know what I mean?

So if you go on like Amazon or if you go on TripAdvisor, you go on Google, you're on any of these. The better written the review, the more you trust it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not a regular user of drinking glasses. And so when I began this journey, I thought to myself, where would I find? the right drinking glass and you're like, oh, I'm in, I'm in. Yeah.

And now you're telling me that this is a freelance job that people get hired to do. I mean, I would say now it's way more advanced than that. This is eight years ago, seven or eight years ago. So I think that now it is the manipulation of it is far more sophisticated. I mean, we all know this, that our lives are curated by, I don't know, manipulated realities, aren't they? And, you know, people's decisions with my thing, which we're getting onto, was based on a false reality that had been constructed and sold to us as legitimate.

And I think what my, the reason why this ended up becoming this huge viral story in that you saw it and everything was like that it tapped into this whole thing about this like, oh my God, this, it's like taking, what is it, the blue pill or the red pill? I don't know. I've lost track. The red pill. The red pill. Yeah, the red pill.

You take the red pill. You take the red pill. And then you see how things work. And like, I don't know now. It was, it's fascinating how many bots there are. How many things like that? How much of our online experience is falsified? I think back then, yeah, I was getting paid.

You were the bot. I was the bot. I mean, look, I didn't know. I never knew there were human bots. You're writing these fake reviews. Yeah. You're in this world. What made you a good fake reviewer?

Willingness and open us to mistruth. No, I look, I, I want to know. Yeah, I suppose, I mean, literally what I just said is true. Like, I think I'm a bullshitter at heart. My dad is a bullshitter. I actually, my great uncle, no, no, great granddad moved to the US, right? Temporarily he came back, went back to the Birmingham, England. He came here, and this is a real story, came here and sold rabbit droppings.

So rabbit shit, rolled in flour and sold as a medicine. That's real. that I didn't know about this I did not know about this until this year it's in your DNA there is rabbit shit in my DNA you know

I'm like in all honesty like there was always like it felt I suppose it felt faceless and it felt I didn't do loads of it you know I'm not like I'm earning bank by writing these things

How much did you earn per review? 10 pounds so what $13 50 Yeah no I mean that's a 10 pounds. Eight years ago, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. 10 pounds per review?

Yeah. Pumping those. Did you have like a limit? I would guess that I probably only wrote about 20 of them. And then what happened? Well, I mean, I just found other gigs. I was doing other things. So, so, but it was that, it was not like the main job that I had.

I was in London. I'd just moved there and I had no, I hadn't been to college. I had no reason to think I could be a writer. But I was trying to do stuff just get to get paid for it to literally. Right. And trying to do something. Whatever you have to love white confidence. You truly do.

I was going to, but in the middle of writing, I realized I'm not qualified. But anyway, yeah. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. It's his medicine. Have a bit of that. Take the red fill.

Take the brown film. With rabbit drummings. Okay, sorry, sorry. No, no, it's true. No, you know what? You're absolutely right. I mean, we grew up, we grew up in a kind of. like a weird kind of like a we as I said we were kind of the weird kind of scumbag family in

the village that everyone would throw their kids that so all the rich kids would hang out at our house and it was all loads of fun but I was raised by my elder brothers basically mom and dad were out mom was a nurse dad was sold records oh really yeah mom was a nurse yeah yeah yeah so um dad sold vinyl records on the markets and always had loads of office jobs mom was a nurse was loads of us and it was sort of just like it felt fun and naughty and And life, when it feels fun and naughty, is kind of always, I don't know, there was, I suppose I didn't engage with like the gravitas of what I was doing. I was lying in order to manipulate people's experiences, but I was being paid to do that. Yeah.

But it like, it didn't seem that unusual. But having worked in restaurants as well, I was like, this is crazy. And I was like, because wait there, I used to get told off if someone left a one-star review. So, like, I'm now in the, the environment. is not trustworthy. So I suppose that's stuck in my head. And what made me think about this was when you guys were talking about one-star reviewers, I actually, so what happened was I started writing for, I'd do an internship,

like websites, music websites generally, started doing more gonzo journalism style stuff, kind of weird, music reviews, weird stuff like that. And then eventually it led me to work with Vice. And that was that you remember Vice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But like that that then changed my life and then I started making a living doing it. So then it's like I'd write three or four things a month, different weird things.

And like one of the things I did on the journey to get into the fake restaurant was I wrote a piece about TripAdvisor's harshest reviewers. Okay. So I took them out for lunch. I contacted them and said I'd love to go to lunch because I wanted to understand the psychology of like, why would you go to a restaurant and just leave a one-star review? Like, you know, it's such a funny thing to do with your time, unless like you've been, you know, uppercutted by the waiter or whatever. It's such a weird thing to do with your time. Well, that's your fault.

Don't come to uppercutts if you don't want to kid in uppercut. Pay extra for the upper cut. Special interest. But like, so yeah, I took out these, these, it was actually three different guys. I took them all out and I, and I reviewed them. So I reviewed them like a restaurant. And I did that. And all of them were kind of very strange,

quite evasive and complicated. One of them was one of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life. And he made me take him to the posh's restaurant in London or one of them at the time, Lagavroche. And he went through the whole meal and he was complaining the whole time. It was like being with Larry David. He was just the whole time being like, excuse me,

is that actually a, oh, sniffing the wine, doubting the semelier. I have a high bar for like shame, public shame, but this guy was insane. I don't even get this right about, talk to us as a while, but like he was like, he said to me, it was like the whole time he complained and I was like, this guy is fascinating. And he was like, you know, the reason I do this is I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, he saw himself as some like vanguard.

I'm doing it for people, self-sacrifice, I'm doing it. I'm holding the door. And he, yeah, exactly. At the end of the evening, I remember saying to him, so what, what do you think about like have rushed? And he said, oh, it's one of the best restaurants in the world. I was like, after spending two hours with him, he was complaining through the whole meal.

It was insane. And I was like, how many stars? He went, three. And that was it. For the best wish around you. Yeah, exactly. So I'd been in those, like, that's psychology of reviewers and reviewers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting to me. And then, but then while I was doing that, I started thinking, that was when the idea for the restaurant kind of came. It all kind of fell together. And I knew I had to write three or four pieces for vice a month. And The Guardian, I was writing for a little bit. And it and yeah, I kind of found a style, luckily, which was this kind of like, uh, um, gonzo style social experiment e style thing.

Did another thing where I went door to door. I pretended I was joining, uh, joining the Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, nice. And I went door to door and learn how they sell door to door. How do that? How does that work? Because I don't, I don't know any of anybody who's opened the door. Yeah.

Or like, how does that work? Well, the numbers. No, I don't. It's the right question because I was singing the same thing. That's why I got interested in it. Because I'd been in a band and we'd failed. And I was like, it must, it's so hard to sell a CD. It's like 2015-16, this was.

And I was like, you can't, no one will buy a CD. What do people want to buy less than a CD? A Jehovah's Witness at the door. And I was like, if I could compete with them, this is all over the place. I'm sorry. No, this is great. But it's, uh, but it's, uh, it's, uh, But basically what happened was I then started going around with them from door to door and building data and how many people out of 100 doors would let me.

Wait, where did you find Jova's witnesses that were looking for? No, they found him, Eugene. Come on. They saw a lapsed Catholic and they thought opportunity. What's that medicine in his pocket? It's like. But yeah, it was just like this. It was in South London's.

There was loads of like, you know, new churches and stuff like that around there. It was very active religiously, South London. And yeah, so it was like, I started going from door to door. I went to these seminars they had where they would go, they would be like, okay, and they would do like a role play like you're in a. Oh, so they teach you how to do that. Oh. And then they'd be like, they'd go like.

Okay. There is. So role playing now, pretend your answer in the door. Go, Eugene. So it's your house. Yeah. Hello. Oh, hello.

Wait, you don't open your door? Are you talking through the door? Yes, I'm going to make sure. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Sorry, sorry. I apologize. Oh, before ringed over ring. When your face was the camera.

Yeah, he said the CDs. He said the CDs. Hello. Hi there. Would you like to learn about God? What about him? No, listen, you need to learn about God. Stop.

What went wrong there? I'm still holding the door handle? No, you know, you were aggressive? You were too aggressive. Yeah, you were too aggressive. Okay, great. So what could I have done differently? I think what you could have done differently there is you could have asked him,

maybe he has troubles in his life or would he like to learn about the love of Jesus? Or would he like to learn about something good? You've got to offer him something, I think. Do you want to try the second attempt? Do you think you could do better? I was just watching, no, I don't think I can do better. I was just watching this. No, no, no, no.

He thinks he can do better. No, I don't. If he doesn't do this now, I'll be tortured with him. all day. Trevor, you are overzance. First, I want to see a better version. Because he just gave me the feedback. This is that went, but I got excited about the idea of you too. That's how it should be. This is that one. Okay, okay. Take two.

Okay. Knock. Hello. Hello there. What a lovely day. How are you? Would you like to hear about the love of Jesus Christ? How are you feeling today? Yeah, he loves me too? He definitely loves you. Although I'm not wearing pants right now as I open the... He loves that.

He's got a lot of space in his heart. Come in. Come in. Stop, that's fantastic. So that's basically what it was like. The seminars are kind of like that with more nudity. Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this. this is great because you're showing me how

you know to pull off one of the greatest scams that's ever been pulled off you needed to have all the tools your origin story so you had it in your DNA right you've got the grandfather who's like literally the snake oil salesman yeah genuinely yeah you've got like your dad's who's a bullshit about just like in life he's like he's got it in him

yeah okay you're the you're the runt of the litter so you're like how do I get attention how do I make my way all right so you got this vibe Then you go to Jehovah's Witness training, the ultimate sales camp. So now you're learning how to like that deposition. How to sell people on a thing that they can't see and like you just have to get them to believe in it.

And you know what I mean? And notoriously they are not like. And you meet the reviewers who teach you about reviewing and what reviewing is. So you got all of these pieces. And then you go, okay, this is it. Yeah. I'm going to launch my fake restaurants. Yes.

Yeah. So I basically just. kind of had an idea, a thought about the platform that I knew that the reviews were, a lot of them could have been falsified. It was very easy to falsify them. Wait, I have one question before you get into that, though. Yeah. I don't understand how you put the restaurant on TripAdvisor. Does nobody confirm these places exist or don't it? How does that work? So yeah, no, I'll tell you, but basically like, I looked into it. So the reviews were very easy to leave. The accounts you can create

very easily. Okay. And the restaurants themselves felt out, it felt like something that would be impossible to falsify. Yeah. So I kind of just like, just started trying it out. I was okay. So, okay, so went on it, create a restaurant on Tripvisor. What do I want as the name? So I was living in a garden shed at the back of someone's house. So I just moved to London and it was like the only players I could afford. It was a 800 pounds a month. She's still not that cheap. But anyway, whatever, 800 pounds a month. Just, just all of it. It's literally a, it was a jet blue. I just, sorry, sorry, I'm so, sorry, I'm so, so.

No, it's good. It's good. It's good. It was a... Say it per person. Oh, you're talking about the... Nothing beats. Yeah, that is absolutely hilarious.

And yeah, so I called it the shed at Dulwich. I was living in a garden shed in London at the time. Yeah, genuinely. You had to put like an address, so I just put the name of the road. Okay. And it didn't make you specify. And I was like, well, no, I was going to know, because I'm at the back as well. So it was like a load of...

You've got cover. There's a load of people who, six people who lived in the house, the main house. Yeah. And then at the very back, I was in a garden shed. And then, what else? She needed like a mobile. So I bought like a kind of drug dealer phone. I love it.

Love it. Love it. You're living. Yeah. You need a website and you need an email. That was easy to do. And I made this website with a help of my mate. So it was like all these photos on there that looked like gourmet food and it looked like

Michelin Star Quality Food. But the images were actually like cropped. versions of bigger images that like six months later when this all went viral and came out, I revealed was like one of the meals that looked like a delicious meal was like an egg on my foot and like another thing. And another thing. And another thing was like, it was like, you know, these urinal cakes you get? And that was like a pan-fried scallop and like had it with Doesn't look like a cellar. Yeah, it does, it does.

Put some honey on there, some stones from a fish tank. And that was genuinely, it was like me and my mate Chris and shaving foam. Or zip so sea foam, like shaving foam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's me and my mate Chris who I'd been working with for Vice, who used to have loads of fun doing these weird pieces. And I was like, come over and do this thing. It's not going to be paid.

Because I was doing this on my own at the time. Vice weren't even aware that I was doing this for a while, actually. And yeah, that kind of, I sent all this stuff off. to Tripaweiser. The kind of concept behind the restaurant was like, it was an appointment-only restaurant. Like, you can only get a table if you were,

you have to apply and we'll, like, vet you and we'll see what happens. Yeah, it was like, yeah, that was kind of the concept. The meal, the menu was like you order moods at the shed, not meals,

like you have comfort or whatever. It's all like mood-based, which was just, I was just trying to think of wanky things that would like sound like a... I mean, it is brilliant, though, because,

you know, this is the weird thing about a scam is oftentimes a scam is more well thought out than a real thing. Because I'm listening to this and I'm like, I want to go to this restaurant. Even though I know it's a scam. Because think about how many times you go to a restaurant and you like, actually, it's the mood that I'm looking for. Yeah. Not the food.

Like, can I specify? Yeah. I would like that actually. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I... That's a genius idea. To be honest, another one of the things I was weirdly even thought about this in a while. but like I was also doing little reviews for like a newsletter, you know, like a, what's new in London newsletters?

They would send me to restaurants. So I was already getting a bit of a seeing what it was like. Right, right, right, right. I remember going to this meal in London at this restaurant and it was like, it was a small, it was like a taster menu. But it was like a 3D projection of like Marco Polo, like, and it was so crap. And it was just like so all about the song and the down. And the food, you're getting like this much like a tea every half an hour and then you're back to watching Marco Polo dance around your plate.

Keston Blumenthal must never hear of you. I think we'd make money and maybe a deposition. But like, yeah, it was just so I'd already had that kind of like, it was one of the many things I was trying to do to make a living and writing these food reviews and it was sort of like exposed me to the bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like... So you just compounded all this?

all the bullshit on this thing. You're like, if you're one thing on top of this, on top of this, on top of this. I think any good satire, and you know this from doing the day show and everything, it's like, any good, it has to be monkey see monkey do. It has to be. Yeah, that's true. It has to be what's going on out there in the world. Yeah.

Like, how do we take that to it sort of a logical conclusion? Like what, okay, there's this, this Marco Polo restaurant, you know, would be even more interesting if the restaurant didn't exist at all. Yeah. But this is all, I have the privilege now of thinking about this project like this. At the time, I was just sort of putting. it together and seeing what would work and expecting it to not work. So like I sent all that off, like all the all the idea of it, the concept, all that, sent it off to Tripaviser and expected

it to not work, you know, to not go live, but it went live. No vetting, no verification. It was completely easy to do. I was live on the website and that was when I was like, okay, I suppose I'll try and get some reviews for this now. So then I started contacting friends and family. I hope you didn't call that another guy. Which one? From Mr. Bad Review, Joe.

Oh, him. Oh, no, he needs to be kept away. He needs to be kept away. I think he's spiritually the opposite to this. He sees it as his like great cause in life.

Oh, he was a sweet art. But, you know, horrendous to be around. But he, yeah, so I just started having people write these reviews and I was getting family

and friends, roping them into it, implicating more people. Nice, nicely done. That's another part. Yeah, called conspirators. That's right.

But I was filming little bits, you know, because I was mainly writing at the time. I wasn't doing documentaries yet. I only went on to do those. So I just liked writing because it was really nice to write something. It's just you. It's your voice. You have an editor. You collaborate.

And that's it. Right. Whereas when you're making TV, which I do now, there's 30, 40 of you and that's great, but it's different. It's different. So everyone's jumping in. Everyone's leaving these five-star reviews. We're going up the rankings.

feels surreal. Wait, wait. So you start you start going up on the TripAdvisor rankings. Is this that moment where you go like, oh shit,

we're on to something? Yes. Yeah, exactly. It was, we were number 18,000 out of 18,000 in London. And then slowly it was like, you know,

within about six weeks, we were up to number 1,400 or something like that. And I was higher than my local restaurants in Dulwich where I was living and I was like, that's bizarre.

And, but it felt like nothing. And then one day, the phone that I'd bought, for the drug dealer phone. The drug dealer phone calls. And it's like an actual human on the other end of the phone being like, oh, hello there.

I know. I love the sound of your mood-based meal. Please can I have an appointment this Friday or whatever? And it was the first time that a real person started with parroting the mythology to me. And, you know, I just said to him, I'm sorry, we're fully booked for the next six weeks. Put the phone down. That always gets them. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, it genuinely does. It gets me. Like, this is it. It's like, I could have easily been on the other end of that phone. I'm not saying I'm better than that. No, we all are. That's what I mean. It's like it's so funny how that, like it always doesn't matter who you are.

Yeah. Fully booked for the, when you find out the thing you want is, has been overly wanted and it's gone. Yeah. You can't, now you can't stop pining. You can't stop thinking about it. Exactly. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Fully booked for the next six weeks. And that was like my mantra from then on. Just fully booked for the next week, six weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it was like, you know, started out cute.

few calls a day. I was getting emails. Then it's just starts good. It just keeps on going up and up and up. And the people that you tell no to are the ones who 100% will call back 10 times, you know. And it's, it was just the momentum just started gathering. And that would be, so that that's like four months in. Do you know what I mean? That's like been going on for four months. Slow drip of reviews. Because I'm doing it while I'm having to make living doing other things. Like, it's not like my mom and dad are paying for my rent and I can just sit down. I'm working. And then I'm like, oh, I need to do. And scamming. scamming and scamming.

I like that. But like, you know, it was like, it, it, it just got more exciting the more it went on. Got more real people like the local council being like, we want to relocate you to an an area with gentrifying at reduced rates. No way. Come on. What are you talking about? People applying for jobs, things like that.

Like it was, it was very, it showed how the government is reaching out to you. Yeah. and offering you tax incentives. Yeah. But you don't exist. Yeah, that doesn't exist. Can I tell you something? You've exposed a lot about politics.

This is my thing. And politicians. This is what I mean about you, Uber, is like, you... I don't think you understand what an impact you've had on my life from afar. Because you're the reason, like, Ryan, who's, like, sitting here, like, Ryan, we'll always, like, try fine food, try fine. And Ryan's, like, a super foody guy. But one day, randomly, Ryan was like... I've started doing something crazy.

And I think it was like after this. It was like, we just go to a place. We don't look at the reviews. We don't even look a place. We just go find a place near you. Yeah. Walk in and eat the food. Yep.

And then afterwards, look at the reviews. Interesting. You'll be shocked at how many times the review doesn't match up. Yeah. With how you felt about the experience. Yeah. Your personal experience. Just your personal experience.

But a lot of that came from you because we were like, wait, wait, wait. If you can create a whole fake world of the best food, then maybe there's also a fake world of the worst food. Right. Like maybe this place is getting shit reviews because people just don't like its vibe. They haven't got the mood right. Just walk in and eat the food. And then the second thing you did, like,

and I didn't even know about the government side of it is, you just made me realize how much we all, all of it. Like you said, no one's sort of better, how we all are so easily duped into. accepting a version of reality that we like willingly, you know what I mean? Like every, the fact that the government contacted you

and wanted to give you tax incentives, but had never been to the restaurant. Never seen it. Had never seen it, had never seen a tax return, had never seen, nothing. Then I'm like, who else did they move there? Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

Because you know, sometimes you're in a neighborhood and then all of a sudden there's random restaurants that pop up and you're like, how did these restaurants get here? Yeah. You know the first restaurants to move into a neighbour Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now it's just a bunch of Uber's, no offence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Taking chances. All the other, all the other Jova's witnesses and me. It's just like, so okay, so this thing, so okay, now you're at like the peak because I mean, once government's calling you, it's on now. Yeah, I mean, I was getting called constantly. Yeah. And what the clientele starts changing from like locals to then like tourists.

to then like influencers, different people from like kind of who were high up professionals, like having their teams reach out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm calling on behalf of. Yeah, I mean, I think I can say it now because I don't think they exist anymore, but like Universal Studios wanted to bring their teams at their team over. Yeah, yeah, it was kind of interesting. I've actually never said that before, so there you go.

And it was like, yeah, it was fascinating having like, and we weren't even number one by that. We were getting into the top. 50, you know, it was like, and, and I think the thing is, is like, you said earlier about we had loads and loads of reviews. We actually didn't. We had, we just, all of our reviews were five stars. And there was the way the algorithm was functioning was like about almost like it, maybe it function like momentum. Because I was doing it part time until it started getting crazy. I was like, okay, this is the best project. So, ever, I need to land the plane on this thing. Who knows where it's going? You were like, I need to get into this restaurant.

Yeah, yeah. Six weeks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, um, Yeah, and then it was just like one of those things where I was in a meeting actually with VICE is a we were talking about another project wanted me to do and my phone kept ringing and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And I was like, well, actually, I've been working on this other thing on the side and they were like, oh wow, this sounds like an epic. Yeah, this sounds amazing. And I was like, well, I've been filming all my, me taking all the calls.

I've been filming myself. So yeah, okay, sounds good. And I wanted to write about it anyway. but that was the first time where I was like, okay, maybe I could do on camera stuff as well. This feels like it could be that. So then they started, I started thinking about how I wanted to, what next? And I thought, if I can get as many people as possible to leave reviews in the next two weeks, maybe we'll make number one. Maybe we'll maybe we'll do that.

It was like a final push. Then I started noticing things like people were leaving reviews who had never been there, who, who I didn't know. I'll never been there. Of course they've never been there. People, I'm bringing my own cool. This is how big it is, yeah. I know. It's, yeah.

Do you have a table for tune? I've had the blue pill. In the next six weeks. But like, yeah, there are people who are leaving reviews who I didn't make leave the reviews. So it's almost like they said that the kudos of having been there. And so, you know, I reviewed. But they were leaving five stars. Yes.

Yes. Exactly. That's crazy. We have, we have, now we have reached peak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, yeah, that was sort of, I think it was November 2017. That was then. And when we became, yeah, the number one rated restaurant. Congratulations, man. Yeah. It was, it was crazy. I was, I was, I remember checking the thing, because we'd gone up. We were like top three and then we went down to number eight. And I was like, wow, what a story. Top 10.

Were you upset about the number eight? No, I was just like, this is insane. And then it was number one. And I was like, this is happy. then you popped. It's just like the local councilman. It's just like one of those moments where you know that your life's changed and it's not because it's such an insane thing that would happen. For it to happen was so crazy and so unlikely. And I was like, oh, okay, this is this is probably the craziest thing that's ever going to happen to me. You think you had maybe a little bit of an imposter syndrome, like you felt like you didn't deserve to be there?

No, I thought I did. You know what? You know what? You know what, Trevor? Who are you? You know, I did think, no, I've worked hard to get here. The investment, the website, the burner phone. I mean, I did all the work.

What a funny thing is? It's like, no, go on. No, no, so now tips in. So now, this is what I love because I remember seeing the footage of the people, the night. Yeah. The night itself. This was just like where I was like peak. So.

So what is it supposed to be? Opening night? Yeah, well, so this is where you've changed another thing. I'll tell you what I've changed in my life. This literally happened because of you. Really? Literally because of you. And then you'll tell the story of the night.

So when I order food now, especially like in New York, but when I order food, I'll go to a restaurant. Like I'll see any place, whatever it is. Restaurants are strong. So we could take out whatever the food is. But now I cross-reference it with like an actual map. So I'll go, you know, it'll be like, Eugene. And I'll be like, oh, this place looks good. But then I go to Google Maps or whatever.

Look. And then I look for the address rabbit. Yeah, right. And then if I, you know on the little street thing, I'll zoom in. And I want to see this place exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you do a 360. Yo, yo, yo, let me tell you something.

Try it. You're going to see how many times the place doesn't exist. Yes, that's true. You're going to see. But the food does. Yo, you're going to see how many times. Was it urine cakes all over again? My friend, the place doesn't exist.

Now, apparently they came up with a term, they call it ghost kitchens. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The place doesn't exist. But the food does. Even in South Africa, Johannesburg now, it started as well. Yeah. I'll be like, oh, this place looks good.

The food looks good as well. That's the main thing. It's got good reviews. Yeah. And then I go, but where is this? I'm like, I don't know. I've never seen this. And then I look nowhere.

And they'll also, they do this thing as well. They have three different names for the same. Yeah, yeah. Be like, oh, you know, they'll try some in. They'll get the like, Zuma, whatever, girls and then they'll get millennial guys, whatever, they'll have different

marketing schemes. Same place. Same menu, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Same place. And all of this changed because of what you did. So tell us about the night. Because now you took it like, I mean, you went fully into this thing.

Because the reviews is like, all right, whatever. But then you're like, I'm gonna make a real night and people are gonna come to it. Yeah, it was, I mean, I lived in it. It was like pretty much a shit And it was, you know, it was, which was number one. It was number one. It was number one.

And it was, you know, it didn't look like the best restaurant in London. It looked like just a shack. And I kind of thought, you know, I'd done so much. And I'd proven this big point about online reviewing and like this platform was able to be manipulated. Wow. The crazy. All these people want this thing. But there's almost like the most crazy thing would be to now try and get away with opening it

one night only and serving sort of real customers, real food. Yes. So we, you know, had a plan that was all just based around trying to control the environment, but also, so basically I had eight real customers come in. He had a table of two who had two locals, who'd been

trying to get a table for three or four months. Had a table of four who were from a big fashion agency. I actually still can't mention because they weren't happy. And then Try having shame. phone on your own cake. If you'll be happy.

It sounds like a Balenciaga piece. It's not them. And then we had two American newlyweds from California. I know, I know, I know, I know. But they were like, oh, you know, they've been in Paris, eating on the banks of the Sen the night before. Oh, man.

And then, yeah, there was, they were the final table of two they were going to be eating at the shed. So it's quite hard to like, I want to like, just try and capture this in like the best way possible. It was November. It was basically, yeah, it was basically seven, it was eight years ago. This is so fucking crazy. And it was cold. It was kind of wet.

So I borrowed all of these heaters from my neighbors. I went around asking, do you want if I borrow these for the night? Got him a bottle of wine. I borrowed a, my friend ran a cafe around the corner. So I borrowed a load of the tables and the chairs. And then I had half of the people who. who were eating there, my friends who were pretending to, that everything I served them was delicious and that they'd been loads of times,

completely normal. One of my friends actually, who now, people might know her, but Lali Adafopa, she's in like shrill, she's in ghost, she's in, she was in the new Armandio Anucci. She's so funny. But like at the time, she wasn't that famous and she was one of the local celebrities who I had. Like she was, she was, yeah, she's one of the patrons. And it was, yeah, the plan. for them was to try and create the same psychological space as Tripabizer. You know, you have people

around you saying something's great. Will that deny you your own senses? Damn, man. I deny you your own, you know. And I hired this animal handler as well, so we had all these chickens running around. And the idea was that, I mean, we never actually did this, but the idea was that we said to all the customers, you know, this is like lobsters at a fancy restaurant. Like, you can, you can pick a chicken and have it. And then we kill it live. Exactly. But the whole point, and I had a table of two of two of my mates, eating on the roof on a table, which looked like bizarre. It looked like something from a cartoon.

But the whole thing was like I was trying to short circuit their brain as much as possible to try and make them not engage with the reality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were separating them from reality. I was trying, yeah. So the way that I did it as well is I met them on the street and blindfolded them and walked them two or three minutes down and then down this garden path because I genuinely thought if they'd have seen the front of the house And they'd sit it.

And we had a, it's all coming back to me and I'm talking about it. We had a DJ playing the sound of a real restaurant as well. And he had a little sample pad that when he pressed it, it was the ding of a microwave. And the reason was because the food we were serving on the night was actually just microwaveable TV dinners, like ready meals, but made to look like Mitchelink quality food. So we put like edible flowers, microherbs on it. And yeah, I mean, it was like, it basically, we opened for about three hours. I'm trying to think of like a way of encapsulating the vibe.

It was, it was, it was weird. And I'll focus on the newlyweds, the ones who are on their honeymoon. Because we, I remember they did, they look kind of like, they're kind of slightly confused. But I like came, I brought them out there, like their meal, which was comfort. And it was like mac and cheese, basically, but made to look like fancy mac and cheese. And I like my friend Phoebe, who now, weirdly, again, she writes on a Ted Lasser. Not anymore. I like that it's like a super, I really do like that you created a, from this moment, it's like a, you know, spin-offs.

Yeah, it's like an Ocean's 11 that everyone went off to do their own thing now in the world. Genuinely, yeah, yeah. Because at the time it was like, yeah, I don't even know. We were just like, we were like, this isn't going to work. Um, yeah, and she, she was like, put it down. She was like, namaste. And then she like, said, she disappeared to a part of the restaurant. And we're watching on, watching them on.

And the late, I remember looking at the lady. So she's like this, she's the new, the bride. Yeah. And she looks at the food. And she was saying before she's a foodie. She loves restaurants. She loves eating and all this stuff. She looks at the mac and cheese through her phone.

And like pauses for a second. We're all just watching her. And then she just puts it away without taking a photo. That's funny. And it was like, I was thinking that, you know, this isn't, people are buying this, the jig is up. And it was actually one of the table of four. I was seeing them out at the end of the night. You can ask more questions.

It's just this is how this is all coming to me. Yeah. And the guy, like, he would look, he like, didn't look happy. He put me to one side. And he was like, so that about tonight, now that we've been once, is it going to be easier for us to book again next time? life, which is like, yeah, it was, that was like. I was there. Yeah, the big moment.

It made me think, you know. Made you deserve number one. No, it just made me think that we trust, like, online hype more than what we put in our mouths. Well, I trust all hype. Yeah. Like, we trust, I mean, yeah, that whole, you know, here's what I, what I loved about the scam is you didn't make me feel like any of those people were idiots.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So even when you watch the footage, when you see what's happening, I genuinely didn't think to myself, ha, what a bunch of idiots. No, it made me go, we take for granted how easily we all are manipulated. We also take for granted how we think of what is and what isn't in society.

And we're all just, you know what I mean? But you can take it to, you can extrapolate it to everything. So politics is a simple example. You know, so people go, oh yeah, this, this is politics really good. it really small. And then if somebody says it around you, then do you think that now? Or do you not think that the comments

that you see on your social media? What are they making you think or not make you think? So when you go down, like you know how sometimes, I don't know if you've ever done this, I'll watch a video or I'll see a post or, you know, whatever it is. And I started saying to myself,

I don't know where this came from. I started going, what do you think about this before I went to the comments? because I realized at some point I was clicking on videos or posts and then I would read the comments and I realized the comments were slowly shaping what I was thinking about it.

Yeah, definitely. So I would watch a video that I would think is funny and then I'll go into the comments and people like, disgusting, I can't believe that this is not. Then I'd be like, yeah, man, that wasn't nice. I'd watch another video and people, you know, I'd be like, oh man, I'll be like, that's cool. And people would be like, this is so lame.

And I'll be like, yeah, that is late. Yeah, yeah. But you don't realize how it's actually happening to you. Do you know what I mean? I think there are very few people. There's obviously people on the fringes. But I'm sure, like most people don't realize that this is happening to them. Like you're saying, the yum around you, you sit at a restaurant.

Yep. The person next to you's like, oh my God. Oh, my God. And you're like, what are they? Oh, that looks good. What are they having? You lean in and, hey, wait, yeah. Excuse me.

I'm that guy. Yeah. A restaurant, if I'm undecided, look at what looks good from other people's table and I'll be like, what are they having? But I also have realized that if you watch on YouTube, if something's happening live and the comments are live as well, reading the comments while you're watching the content

makes you realize we're not watching the same thing. Because also their comments are influenced by where they find themselves. Some people are watching from work. Some people are just catching the tail end of it. Some people have been watching, they're fatigued. And then you're watching it going, that comment that you just made is totally unrelated to what's happening now

but everyone else who comments after it is like yeah you must be right although we're using fake names when we're making comments our opinions are real but they're not factual then it gets interest around how many I mean I mentioned it slightly earlier

and it's 100% true how many bots are now used on social media isn't it like 40% now is it 40 or I don't know the number but it's a shocking number I remember reading the other day that about 40% of all internet, like, comments and content activity is bought. And that, how can that not shape your reality?

If like my one review for the Greek restaurant in whatever, Peckham can influence people's minds and my mind, then like, how can that not? 40% of everything we're reading is, did you see it the other day where they changed, they very briefly changed the Twitter? or X, I'm not calling it X, Twitter policy, so that where you could see where the account was based. Hmm. Do you see this? I did not see this. Oh, it was interesting. And loads of quite prominent, noisy accounts were all just based in India.

And they were saying, you know, I'm based in the US or I'm in. No, no, no, no. And then they changed it back. Oh, they put it back immediately. And it was, it was, it was really interesting. And I think basically India, the significance of that is a load of the, a load of the farms are in India. so it's cheap, you know, loads of online labor is based out in India, isn't it? Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I mean, I just thought, well, there's bigger and better scams to come.

No, I didn't think that. No, no, I believed you. No, no. Yeah, but you're right about that. And you know what I, this is what I think about is like, in society, we struggle with certain paradigms because, you know, they're not, not physical, they're not easy to touch, they're not.

Like, let's say we found out, and I mean, we still don't really do much about this, but if we found out that certain people, companies, actors, whatever, were poisoning 40% of our water, we would act a certain way and we would think a certain way, right? For the most part, people start putting regulations into effect, they go, oh, you're not allowed to do this, you're not allowed to do this, if we found out that people, companies act as well, we're poisoning 40% of our air. We would start acting. You know what I mean?

And I know there's outliers and people like, oh, but there's companies of pollutant. That's part of the problem. But we don't think about that when it comes to our minds. Yeah. We don't think about it when it comes to this thing that we can never see. And yet is almost more important than everything else in the world. Yeah.

Your children are online. 40% of the stuff that they're consuming is poisoned. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying the stuff that comes from other people. I'm just saying like fake, completely poisoned stuff is going into their heads. So your little daughter's on the phone, 40% of the shit that's coming to her is poisoned.

Your little son is on the 40%. Your grandmother is on the, your grandfather, your uncle, your aunt, you. 40% of the things you're consuming are poisoned. And yet we don't think like that, for instance, should just be like a rule in a way. You can be anonymous, but the way you're posting from should have to be.

But I always think it's going to be. be the human weakness for the longest time. Any dilution to any poison is just adding the human element. What do you mean? If you're selling something dangerous, as long as you put someone in there, that's why they had to put regulation for advertising with cigarettes. People were having such a good time smoking. Gen it was the same. Mainstay it was just like, look at the rest of your life. Then people were just having a good time, the Marlborough man. All of the stuff. It was once you put the human element, the danger, the poison gets diluted. because you think this person is doing it,

I could be doing it, I could be having a good time as well. And I think the scourge or the opposite of what we're feeling with bots is influencers. So the bots can do exactly what the influences can do, but once you put a human in it,

is it really that bad? Because also I've seen the trend now, the content that influences are taking is not taken by the influences anymore. It's more stylized, now is more cinematic. They're actually featuring in the ad where they were supposed to be doing it from the point of view.

So now you see all of them, where else before, used to see their hands or their feet and them interacting with the product but now I'm like who's the other person operating the gimbal the editing has become so great and then these apps

that apparently it's funny you say the story to interrupt you I saw a video the other day about this it was just so good man there was a video and it starts so sad it's this TikTok

and it's this woman and she's by her bed and you know the caption reads that you know the thing and you know that voice comes on it's like, why you choose the person in your life. You know the voice. You know the voice. You know, personally, do you?

But you know that voice. But you know that voice. But you know that book. Because there's only like the two voices, right? There's the one that's like, when I found out, I was good. It's that voice. The AI one. Yeah, whatever that voice is. And then there's the other ones like, these men were fighting their way out of the man.

Yeah. But this one was like. You are that voice. I love that voice. Who'd have thought they were bops? It would be so funny if they were real people somewhere. You know, there's somebody like at a restaurant and they're like, I called for a table for two.

Could you tell me what time my reservation will be ready? So like, in the video, there's this woman and she's by her bed. And the caption reads, like, be careful who you choose as your partner because they will need to be with you in the toughest times, blah, blah. And she's like, this is the day I found out. my dad died or the moment I found on something like that. And you see her like she's like crying by the bed

and then her husband comes in and like looks at her and then she like sort of tells him, oh I just found out my dad died. And he's you can see he's like no and then the video and he embraces her and it's been sad and it's beautiful. And then it jump cuts to some guy who's like okay, okay hold on, hold on he's like who put the camera there?

He's like who? Yeah. Who was filming this? Did you put a tripod? Did he start? filming. Because you found out your dad died in this moment. You're saying that you found out

in this moment. So when did he, how did this? And he was just puncturing this world. This thing you're talking about. Where like influences now, to your point,

the way influences sort of started was from a very authentic place. Hey guys, so I went to this place today. Like you said, point of view and vibe. And then they became like a part of it. And then they started synthesizing things. And then you run out of content so you've got to like make the content.

Now you have to suffer tragedies. You have to discover things. You have to fight. You know what I mean? And so sorry, you get what I'm saying. It's exactly the world you're talking about. I think. And the whole point was that it was democratized, right?

That was the whole thing. It was like, okay, anyone, you know, I can just do whatever. Yeah. Now it's like, now it's almost like every single member of the public views themselves as an influencer. Oh, that's fully what it is. And then there's these people above who get, you know, who get paid money to do, who actually still get money from brands.

And also sold us almost autonomy of some sort. Because you can name your price. You can do it your way. But we'll obviously have the last day of how it's done. And then you can just put it out there and you have no control of it from then onwards. Yeah. Because that's what happens with influencers. But when I realized what ring doorbell was, because it's not popular in South Africa,

but it's popular here. Yeah. I was thinking to myself, there's only two ways that they can sell this thing. It's either by fear, break-ins, how it can prevent a break-in. And they started with the ads like that when people were shouting, but then I realized their other strategy was Amazon packages being stolen from the door. Right. And then all of a sudden two steps running away, blah, explode.

And people start finding that funny and they thought, well, if I have a package that gets delivered and I want to make sure that, then I think to myself, this, these people are actors. Because the package is always explode before they get to where they're going. No one ever gets out of shot. You mean the when they fill it with like confetti? Not all with paint. Paint, yeah, yeah. Yes.

But no one has ever caught inside the car and the thing exposed because that would have been funny and genuine at the same time. Right. But everyone is. And I'm like, oh, there's one way to sell this thing. Yes. And the packages are unmarked. Who gets an unmarked package delivered to their door? But even just the pump in a viral content from ring doorbells.

that is packages being stolen is an amazing advert for a ringed doorbell. You're so right. I've never even thought about that. That sucks. God. Have I punged your reality? I mean, you constantly, you are a puncture in my reality. That's, I mean, come on.

I drink, sir? Yes. No, it's like, yeah, I, because I understand that, you know, living life is the paradox of what is and what isn't all the time. So I don't ever want to be one of those people who goes, nothing's real, everything's fake. Yeah. Because most things are sort of fake, and that's a good thing. You know, like our names are all fake. Yeah.

We respond to them, but that's not a thing really, you know what I mean? So there's certain constructs that society has to agree on for things to, like a traffic light. I'm always fascinated by traffic lights because I go like, it's just the color. I don't know, I swear on my life. I don't know why I get, I like get giggly. When I'm at a traffic light and then I go, guys, this is not real. Yeah. It's like, it really makes me happy when I see people stop or go.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just like, yo, it's the, it was juvenile. You know what I mean? People really stop. Yeah. Like when I see a car screech to a halt. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, the light.

Just ruined that for me. Yeah, but I'm like, but. I'll never see the same again. No, so, so, so, but society needs these things. Acceptable absurdity. Yes. Society functionally needs artificial constructs for, us to function.

Language, religion, culture, all of these things. Could what was it? There's that book, Harold Garfinkel book in 60s, some studies of ethno methodology or something like that, where he had a living books in the 60s. You're going to have to, you're going to have to go with you. No, no, no, it's exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

Basically, he's a, I find academic writing often really bad. I'm really hard to get into because it's just so dense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of academics can't write and they kind of hide behind language to cover it up. But that's fine. Shots fired. No, no. And that's not their job. No, no. Yeah. I'm going to be an academic. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean. It's like when I've got like, you know, you have writers who then read all that and then make it like something

I want to read. But anyway, there's this book that he wrote, this Howard Garfinkel guy. I think this is a guy. And he just had a load of his students doing loads of really absurd things that subvert. I think it was in New York maybe. Subvert the, um, just like things like the rules of waiting in line or going into a restaurant. And I can't. There's There's so many, they're very funny, they're very funny, but now I think ethically, slightly dubious, like, I think as an academic to do them. But like, yeah, I think that there was, I think you would might, you might like it. I'll check it out. Because it's just like, it's, it's, it's, they're just, they're just very funny. It's funny. It's like, oh, it just

breaks how you, exactly, how you think reality is supposed to work. All right, loads of students. He's going to get all of his students to wait at the same set of traffic lights. And the whole day, they're going to cross on the red on when it is, don't cross. That, that would be like an experiment he might do. Yeah. Yeah. That's like an example. And then you see what happens to the people around them.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's the impact on the people around. You see where the tipping points is if one person crosses at a red light. Are they going to follow or not? No one will. Two people. No one.

Three. And then you get to a tipping point where like the group does it. And you see a person go, oh, I guess that's what we do. And they just like, they just waddle across with you. Yeah. And if you all turn and we're like, what are you doing? They'll be like, ah! But it, but it, but it, but it.

Don't do that the end of traffic. No, but I don't know, man. I just think like, yeah, like the reality that we accept or the reality that causes us to fight, the reality that causes us to hate other people, the reality that causes us to think the way we think is so fragile. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Don't press anything.

We've got more, what now, after this? I did another, I did another, so I made a fellow couple of years ago with Channel 4, which is like part of the BBC. It's like it was all about Amazon, because you mentioned Amazon. ringed all about it oh the urine yeah oh i love this one man tell me about it this the urine i'll give you the backstory and you you got to tell them yes so remember story came out um about amazon workers

being so pressed in their environments yeah in the warehouses everything in their environment was timed their their performance was measured they tracked across the floor some of the worst like working conditions in that way right and because they weren't unionized no one could do anything about this is a whole thing modern-day sweatshop yeah Yeah, basically. And like one of the worst things about the story was the drivers and the workers in the warehouse would talk about how their time was so, you know, like, it was like in a draconian way measured to the finest degree

that they couldn't even risk going to the toilets. They couldn't go to the bathroom. So what they would do, yeah, what they would do is in the truck, in the way out, they would just pee into a bottle. Exactly, yeah. And then just carry on working. No one would leave. No one would.

So yes, modern day sweatshop. And then the story like blew up and it was like the Amazon workers are peeing into the bottles and then Amazon was like, man Did you cover it on the show? Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did.

And it was, we were just like, what the hell? What did Amazon say? Like the cost of con. What does Amazon ever say? Do you know what I mean? Come on. These people, they've never come out and be like, yeah, we make them pee.

I mean, you know how it is, bro. Hey, who lost the business. No, but like, really. I wish one day a company would do that. Yeah, and then what? We made them pee in bottles. Did you get your package? Yeah, you get your package?

Man, shit. No, but they don't. Don't dust it for fingerprints. Yeah. But they didn't. They basically, and they were like, oh, we're looking into this, but it's not what you. This is no, this is fabricated, blah, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, so that was the story.

Yeah. I now hand over to my favorite scam artist in the world. So I did the, so basically I did this film, our long special about Amazon a few years ago, or two years ago. And one of the things I did is I went and worked. in one of the warehouses, which is near where I grew up in Feckenham. So you got the job? I got a job.

I worked there on the cover and I had a camera on. But how? You see, I need you to explain these things. He's white. Can you stop with the how already? He ever had blue eyes and blonde hair? It's true. It's true.

It's true. It's true. It's true. It's a world that you had night. You will never understand. Because can I tell you what's funny about Uber's stories? In Uber's stories, he gets a job as part of a scam. Then there's someone else like, I just want the job.

How did you get the job? Uber is the reason why Idris Alba will never be James Bond. He never just work in you. Be white. The TV has to go, are you white? Oh, God. But you see, you know what I like Uber? You're using your privilege, my friend.

Because these experiments, we can't be, Eugene and I can't be missing around now. We would go to an Amazon factory, we'd be like, I'm undercover, and then 15 years later we'd still be there packing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd be like, what happened, Eugene? What happened, Trevor?

I work here, man. I'd be like, you can leave. You came on it. It was a scam. No, man, Jeff's not going to be happy. If we don't get these packages, hold on. Yeah, yeah. It's true.

It's true. It's true. No, you're absolutely right. Like, you're absolutely right. Remember when I first started doing stuff of icing, because I grew up somewhere, I was 100% white, basically. And the feck andem was 100% white. Yeah, no, feckonum, come on.

Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, about half an hour away in Redditch. She says the cloak, well, that's not even half an hour, 20 minutes away in Redditch, really close to where we grew up. I didn't have a car. I just in the village is like, you know, there's a big South Asian diaspora. Yeah. And traditionally, there was a Caribbean diaspora as well,

but it's sort of less than over the years, more in Birmingham. And it was interesting having that experience of having my white privilege called out for the first times in the comments and stuff. And having grown up as white but without money, I was like, my privilege, but I grew up working. And now, particularly since I've moved here, I'm like, oh no, like I've had to obviously completely be educated in that by friends. and I try to get my head around that. But yeah, it's massive. And I was an idiot for, I wished I was taught about that in school. Yeah, but here's the thing that's complicated about it.

I'm not an academic, but I fight with academics about this all the time. I think some of these concepts, while true, are not explained correctly to people. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I remember when people would talk like, you know, because some of these things become, you know, in vogue. Fashionable. You know, like so white privilege there was, it really had its meaning. check your privilege, check it at the door.

Post your black square. Yeah, yeah. You post that black square. You know what I mean? So, leave a review. Yeah, five stars. Jerk chicken fantastic. I tick up.

Exactly. Carried. And I got curry goods. They go on the fish and chips, one star. Yeah. The, um, yeah, the food was terrible. But I understand why. Five stars.

No. So here's, so here's, this is just my opinion. But I mean, a lot of these things are even the academic ones. And that's maybe my first issue, by the way, is that a lot of the time academics will make it seem like it isn't their opinion. They distance themselves. You see what I'm saying? Yes.

So they'll put forth an idea. Yes. And they work in a space where they study and they were... Research is their favorite word. Yes. Yes. Yes. but it is an opinion.

Right. It is an opinion. It may be an opinion that holds true for the most part, but it is still an opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the argument I would have with people is this. You may be right. You may be wrong.

But you also have to acknowledge the way you're explaining this to somebody isn't correct, right? Because you make it seem like it's a hard and fast rule that is constant in every single environment in the exact same way all the time. Yeah. So when people were like, why privilege, check your privilege.

When I would talk, to white people and who'd go, the thing that I saw people struggling with is, there were people who were like, I'm poor, I'm homeless, I'm struggling. Where's the privilege? Yeah. Please can you help me figure out where,

because I would like to access it. I would love to access this privilege. And the best analogy I came up with was golf. Golf is one of my favorite, like, ideas for a sport. because even though golf is the most, you know what I mean, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the most like, it's like, this is like elite.

You've just this, not in Scotland. Yeah, I would, yeah. You'll grow up on a council state playing golf. Yeah, because of, it's crazy. It's like cricket in India. That's where it's, yeah, the home, because of the home of it. Exactly. Whereas cricket in England's posh down, properly pox.

And like, and I don't know, South Africa, I'm assuming. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, cricket schools are the, one of the best schools. Yeah, but cricket itself, though, in the township, they play it as well. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And we have a- Not as much anymore, but yeah.

We have a huge South Asian diaspora in England. No South, well, very few South Asian players play for England. It's kind of insane. It's all posh private school. Oh, yeah. I mean, but that's who you know, where you know. No, it's just weird, isn't it? Because football has become democratic.

Yeah, it has. I think it kind of always has been, to be honest. But football is democratic, whereas it's interesting that like these old school sports like cricket, we're on a different thing now. Go ahead. No, no, no. Just like it's interesting in the way I always look, when I'm watching cricket as a fan,

and I'm like, new players come through, great. And I go and I do this every time. Wikipedia, what school? For fuck sick. It's always like the top. I just want him to not be going to a posh school. Oh. I just gone to a normal school.

Government school who made it. Just a normal state school. Oh, man. Good normal state school. That's all I want. So wait, all the English cricket players are like most of them. But then the really great ones are always not posh kids. This is my.

This is now. Coming in my, like, this is, that's the thing we're, I mean, this is a classic, isn't it? But we're obsessed with class in England. It's different. But you see, now that comes back to what we're saying about privilege. Yeah. The loop of privilege is this. When you go white privilege, if you're not careful, you make people think that that privilege

attached to your whiteness is a constant thing. Whereas you see like in golf, they go to your handicap. It's a very simple principle. It means at your current position. in the game. This is how much we need to adjust the game so that you have a fair chance. But that handicap can change.

It can go down and it can go up. So if you get good enough, we're not going to give you any advantage. But if you get bad enough, we're going to give you as much advantage as you need. But they acknowledge that the handicap can change. And I think that's interesting. The variable, yeah.

So it's not, because I don't like that we make these things seem permanent and constant regardless of the situation you're in. Because class, and there was a writer, I wish I could remember her. name was one of the most brilliant writers. We'll just put it on the screen while I'm saying this. Her name is. Reni at her lodge. Maybe, maybe, but she said something about, she said, the phrase and I'll paraphrase was she said about the US and many places. She said, I can't wait for America

to finish the conversations about race so that they can understand that they're just at the bottom of discussing class. Yeah. Because race is a proxy for class for most people. Yeah. You know what I mean? The shorthand for class. It is shorthand. So it's like, yes, black attached to being poor. Poverty. Yes, but it does not mean that black itself will always be the thing that suffers. It means that poor will always be the thing that suffers.

Yeah. Yeah, I would say that just having an accent, I have a subtle accent, but I've lost it, the more time I've spent in London and the more time I've spent nine years in London, I've been here for two years. But like, it's interesting, just how obviously here it's like, you know, I'm just in English guy. Yeah. I know what English guy, but I'm an English guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like in England, you know, you, you're always where, what class you grew up with, you know what I mean? It doesn't matter how much money you have, really. I can assume, even like the way

you say class, I'm sure people are like, hmm. Are you sure you can afford this? Yeah, right. No, it's true, though. Yeah, but you're either part, you're either part of the, I mean, you're either part of the, so, 4% of the population in the UK go to private school and they represent most of the executive positions in all the companies. And now they're getting into entertainment, which is fantastic as well. Let's have that. That's fantastic. But like, you know, you either want, so basically it's like, and then they have, you have

hereditary positions of in the government, the house of lords, you have lordships that you can inherit, all that stuff. So we still have like a proper, proper, ruling class, a proper ruling class. A proper ruling class. And that's like, probably the English people watch this now, be like, fuck, you. you, you don't, whatever, it's changed or whatever, but I don't think it has. And I think that like it will never change. And being here is in crazy how it's a different system. As you said, race pays a much, much, much bigger part of it. You said race is a proxy. Yeah, but I, yeah,

but I would argue in the US, what happens is money becomes the class. Like, so, yeah, so what happens is yes, race is a big one. But then one of the tools that can help you is money. And not necessarily the possession of it, but the access that it gives you to things. Yeah. So if you are in the business class lounge, there's going to be an element. But still, your race might be the difference where, like, let's say you walk ahead of me into the business class lounge. Yeah. You might just walk in.

And then when I walk in, someone will go, excuse me, are you business class? You know what I mean? But now because of maybe fame, someone will be like, oh, of course, Mr. Noah, come in. Like recently, when we were in Australia, this was so funny because here, he has my. thing. I was in Australia. Yeah, he wasn't. He wasn't. No, we, so me and the crew, we're in Australia. The Royal We.

Yeah, the Royal We. I was just, I was there by myself. I was very classes. No, so we're in Australia and I was on tour there. And there's moments where, I think you know what I'm saying, there's certain racisms or whatever you want to call it, prejudice, where you just have to laugh at it and poke it. So we're standing in, and it's very distinct. We're flying Qantas airlines.

That's really how you get around Australia in that way. And I think we're flying out of Perth. And it's myself and my two friends from South Africa. So it's me, Ryan's Lebochos, so here we are. And we're standing together in this line. And then the promoter, Sebastian, he's with us. So Sebastian's the only white guy. So we're all there together.

But we're together in the line. Airport's basically empty. we're in the business class line, right? Confidently in that line, it's clearly marked and we're in it. Do you have the business class line cockiness of headphones? Not even. I'm just, we're just there. Away suitcase.

Yeah, the cockiness of business class. One of the employees comes over. She walks up to us, walks past Sebastian. That was the key thing. Walks past Sebastian. who's like in front of us says nothing to him comes straight to me

and then goes she's like oh excuse me oh this is a business class line oh god yeah and then I said yes yes it is

and then she just stared at me because now she was hoping that I would now do the whole like oh sorry I'm not it but I was just enjoying it so much I was like yeah and the way I said it

I was like yes this is the business class time And then she went Pick that wrong guy Oh, are you Are you in business class? And then I was like Why else would I be standing in this line?

Who's asking? Then she's like Oh, all right I just wasn't sure if you're in business class Then I was like I don't know if this guy's in business class She'd ask him And I pointed

But she didn't know that I knew Sebastian Yeah, yeah, yeah So I'm just pointing at this random white guy out Then I was like, I don't know if he's in business class Yo, are you in business class? This is a business class line And then she's like, oh yeah, I'm sure he's in business club I'm not in business club

And then you could see she just like She had this moment where she's like So those are moments where I go Yes, you know Your money Maybe your favorite It happens in your building all the time My man, all these things

All the time All these things So you But yes But what I mean No no for sure For sure for sure You hear the dial-up facts

That's But that's what I mean It's like I feel like what we don't do enough of is the handicap analogy is really good. Yeah, we don't, we don't, we don't discuss these things dynamically. And then, and then we live in a world where, and maybe the bots don't help, right? Is that we don't get into a position where we can then discuss it as people and say, okay, so when does this happen?

And when doesn't it happen? And how does it happen? Because otherwise, you're just going like, hey man, white guy, you're a superhero. Nothing can go wrong in your life. And then white guy goes, a lot of shit. I don't have a job. I'm living in my mom's basement. I'm selling rabbit shit.

Do you know what I'm saying? Times are tough. Times are tough. You can never live that one down. Your grandfather's like, come, huh? Only that one time. It was just once. And he deserved all of it.

All the shit he got. He deserved it. That's good. That's really good. So now we're like, you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. So what I, this is part of what I like about your work is sometimes I think as people the academic discussion of ideas

limits us because it's like how do we see the world how do we think we see the world how do we want to be seen to be seeing the world how do people see us seeing the world how do they respond to how we see the world how do we see them seeing it's too much

it's too much but then when you conduct it as like a just an experiment as a thing that people do you just do it you just do it yeah it first of all I feel like it removes the lens

So we're watching people leave fake reviews or write fake or come to a fake restaurant. We're watching, we're watching people, you know what I mean? So like your Amazon thing, which I want you to talk about because it sort of goes into this world. Yeah. It's one thing to write an article about, hey guys, Amazon doesn't really do a good job of protecting you as a consumer, as a customer. They're really unscrupulous. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're great.

But you know, at the same time, we have to ask ourselves. if these people, you can go into that for everness or you can just sell urine on Amazon. You can sell Amazon workers urine on Amazon. And prove that it exists. Yeah, but and it makes such a, sometimes I feel like the, you know. It's trying to, yeah,

I was trying to do is it's sort of trying to figure out like what is a, it's essentially like that same thing of like what is a symbol or a often in like in the world, The stuff that catches on and the stuff that actually starts changing people's minds or something is like just a really simple symbol. Yes. Like something. I remember when this is an example you guys won't, won't know, probably. Why because we're black?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just had. Yeah. And you were waiting. I was waiting. You had that in the chamber. You were like, oh, yeah.

You're like, oh, yeah. I got you little Uber boy. I got you. Any move. You know what you were waiting? Next thing he says. Next thing he says. Because I'm black.

You could have said anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. You could have said that. And Eugene was written with it. Yeah.

Yeah. Eugene was ready. The blaster. The blaster. Eugene was ready for you. Han solo. Oh, man. I've had a great time with you guys.

Because I'm black. Oh, man. I didn't think I was going to say that. Oh, man. I suppose myself sometimes No, there was a guy There was a politician When we, anyway, whatever

He was a Labour politician He was a guy called Ed Miliband He uh I remember Ed Miliband Yeah, yeah, yeah His whole thing He looked like he was going to become The Prime Minister

This was like, you know After five years of like bad Conservatives and Lib Dems And he ate a bacon sandwich badly And then it was like it was all It was done It was done

And it was almost like that Cot encapsulate He was this out of touch You know, whatever And it was like you know the son that printed it, which is a, like, you know, rag that... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rupert Murdoch is a... Run. One of those conservative tabloid, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, he printed like a picture of him eating a bank, he's struggling with a bacon sandwich, and it was kind of over. It was bizarre. I remember that was stuck in my head.

It was like, there's a million examples of that here. You'd probably sit and think of one. There was one where... Mini Mike was one that Trump did to Bloomberg, that just killed it. Yeah, that one destroyed it. Yeah. But there's also one where...

Who ate pizza with a knife and fork in New York? They were running for presidents. Was it, was it, was it, Mitt Romney? Maybe it was. It was over just like that. Pizza, pizza, have you ever seen an ad, but this is a completely off topic? We ever seen an advert where Trump eats the pizza backwards?

It's insane. Can I tell you, that's why I think Trump doesn't eat anything in public anymore, but it's it backwards. I'm going to go look at this now because I... It's a pizza advert. You can do it now. I actually didn't think of that Thank you

We're not the BBC here No I actually need to see this Freewheeling I need to see this It's very bizarre You know what What sucks though

Is like now In like a few years All of these things will become boring Because people are like Oh that's probably air Image is a yeah Yeah We're losing that now

Yeah Should I Should I Should carry on with piss Yeah tell us Tell us how you sold urine A nice segue That's

A nice segueue! while he pulls it up. Tell him because he knows the story. I'll help your appetite. While I prepare the pizza. While the backwards pizza is in the oven, I'll prepare you an aperitif. Yeah.

I love that word. Apperative. It sounds better than palate cleanser. Pallet cleanser sounds like mouthwash. I hope I haven't got this wrong. There it is. Wow. This is crazy.

It's an interesting image. Yeah, look at that. He survived it. It almost helped him. Yeah. Gee. That's what he says before he eats pizza. Dude.

I love pizza so much. Give me my slice. Dude. It's funny, is that how they do it in Queens? I mean, this is a person who's probably never eaten pizza or like just lived in another world. And he's like, yeah, regular people do it. Is this how you do it? I do it all the time.

I do it all the time. You end with the finger. It's bizarre. Yeah, so basically, I went and worked at this warehouse. I got a job there. Didn't keep the job. I was, I worked there for a few days because it was the closest warehouse outside of the one in Staten Island. Okay.

To unionizing. He went and worked there. We'd heard all this stuff. And now I was working with like Channel 4, which is like the BBC, public service broadcaster, is like six months. of legal work to get in there with a camera. I can't just start writing reviews. Now I'm working in TV.

It's different. So we had to prove wrongdoing. We had suspicion of wrongdoing. We went in there eventually. It was crazy. It was like this dystopian. You have airport-style security scanners. You have to go when you come off the warehouse floor.

And I worked back in Studley near Feck and I worked in a car factory. It was nothing like that. There's a level of respect that you have when you're working in a warehouse even. in Amazon it was privacy yeah it's just like you scan you like you're like like you don't know going to through TSA whatever every time you come off the warehouse floor and um they monitor you so you have this score that this is what happens they they they everybody on the you have this thing that's connected to your account and the more you scan and the slow you scan the worst your score is basically um what else was there oh there was a there was another worker who actually went

public after this but didn't want to go public in the film. Who left had a, it was a couple weeks before I got there for I started working there, had a heart attack on the warehouse floor and then was had to leave in an ambulance to the hospital and then got a warning, formal warning for leaving work early. Yeah, it's crazy, absolutely crazy. And yes, it's this sort of dystopian thing. I got caught on the third day, someone recognized me for my other work and pull me to one side and they're like, what the fuck are you doing here?

And I got pulled off there. And yeah, it was interesting. And then basically I wanted to do something about their workers. I wanted to come up with a stunt that would cut through and would have a level of impact. So I was hanging out outside a lot of the fulfillment centers and noticed there were bottles of piss everywhere outside of the fulfillment centers. It was initially I spotted them in Glendale, just the one, the closest one in L.A. In California. Yeah, yeah, just in L.A.

And then I was in, I did it in London, the one in Queens. Every single one I've been to, and I probably still exactly are saying there's bottles of piss outside all over the world. And I stopped, spoke to drivers and they told me that this was them. And the reason why it worked that way, I stopped someone else. And she was a manager who had a dispatch manager who manages the drivers. And she said, the way it works is if they catch you, you come back into after your shift with a bottle of piss in your car, then you get a point against your name. And if you get 10 points, you're in trouble.

So what they do is as they're driving back in, they chuck it out the window because they think, okay, right, I need to get rid of it where I'm going to get in trouble. So what I did was sort of like I collected a load of the bottles of urine, repackaged them as like one of those kind of new influencer energy drinks called release energy. And then I actually... Release in fetching. Blood and. So I let no, no, then I put it on, I put it on.

So yeah, we, another thing as well was, we spoke to female drivers who got UTIs from holding it in as well. Like so the guys would pissing bottles. They would get UTIs. And then listed it on Amazon as a drink, said what it was on the label, didn't hide what it was. It was like, this is bottles of urine collected from Amazon drivers. And then I made that in the same way that I kind of did the restaurant because I knew it would be a story if it worked. Again, I didn't know it would work. I thought we'd be flagged because it said urine, urea on it everywhere.

It was listed as a drink, as an energy drink. And I made it a number one drink on Amazon. So it was literally a number one drink on Amazon on the platform. It became this big story, came out and massively viral again, was covered everywhere. But what it meant is that people were talking about this story that if it was earnestly reported. Basically exactly what the model that you guys had at the show was how do you make people talk about this thing? How are you going to break the spell of like, because Amazon's in the way they run their,

the user experience as a, as a customer is amazing. Yeah, flawless. So it's like, how do you break the spell a little bit? And I never once in the film said, delete your Amazon or whatever. It's like, no, no, let's just like make people think about this thing. But it ended up being like a, yeah, it was crazy and, you know, it ended up going viral that stunt when it came out and it was basically exactly what I wanted it to do, you know. And I had this other whole thing about, uh,

filling in potholes at Amazon's expense as well. Like I basically noticed how Amazon, you know, don't pay much towards taxes, essentially. They avoid a lot of corporate taxes. Like in 2020, they paid zero in corporation tax in the UK. So I thought, you know, Amazon still uses the infrastructure that our taxes pay for, but they don't contribute. They don't contribute to its growth and maintenance. Yeah.

Oh, fair play, Amazon. make your money do your thing but you got to pitch in and like how quick can amazon make a prime delivery without the roads that our that our taxes pay for yeah so what i did is i ordered a load of cement from amazon and then i went in fill in potholes around in california and in the uk and filled them filled them in and then i went down to the beach for a refund filled the packages with sand and then sent it back and they just gave you your money they gave me my money back and i remember tell it in the film that i made about this i tell my lord and he's like, that's not clever, that's just fraud.

Where were you? Finally. My whole life. Exactly. The camera doesn't matter. You've committed fraud. But basically what I'd done, and this is kind of the, this was to make a bigger point, was before I did any of that, I went and I made an offshore company in Belize that has very

secret privacy laws. And I made an Amazon business account for that company. And then so technically, the crime was committed by this offshore company in It was an offshore issue, which is the same mechanic that Amazon uses to avoid paying taxes. It's like the same set up. This is, man. So, yeah, I managed to get around getting in trouble by using the same way that they avoid paying taxes. And yeah, the name of the company was Whole Maintenance and Repair Corp, which as an acronym is HMRC, which is the British IOS.

Yes. But yeah, that was like, you know, that's like that film two years ago. The first one we talked about eight years, seven, eight years ago, you know, in that time, you have to, that sort of, I suppose, maybe captures how slightly the works moved on. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're kind of slightly trying to, I don't know. It's a similar thing. And I think that the world has changed a lot in that time.

I think that like now where it used to be that, you know, I was creating these things that were like fictions that would somehow almost go up to the line before they go, they cross it. Yeah, yeah. I open the shed for one night only. When we opened the shed for one or not only There was a company in Dubai Wanted me to open up the shed in Dubai And to make it a real

Restaurant chain and all that stuff If I'd have wanted to If I was just making money I'd have been like Well screw the film Just do this thing Let's just have a chain of restaurants Called The Shed

And get a load of investment Whatever burn it Would make the take some money I mean that's one of the more recent projects You've started working on That I think has Has also given me A clearer view

of how how fragile the money ecosystem is that we live in you know because like it's also it's another insane project but you basically set yourself the target of making was it a million dollars? A million pounds a million pounds. One point three

million dollars in 90 days. 90 days yes but you but you it has to be legal and it had to be yeah that's right yeah yeah so this came out two months ago this is the latest film for British television but what it you know that film what it was a kind of reaction to

hustle culture and how much of our cultural oxygen is just around making money and how much of that you know so here's what I what I don't like is and this happens with various different fields and spheres you know as when people talk about hustle culture it's now been co-opted by a group of people

because hustling was a thing that a lot of people did in like a really meaningful way I know it sounds crazy to say that but it's like a lot of people hustled yeah you're all hustled yeah you hustled yeah you hustled your parents hustled your hustling was like I gotta I gotta hustle I gotta No you're right yeah yeah

Really what this is like it's scam culture It's not hustle culture it's scam culture it's scam culture It's how can you make as much money as possible As quickly as possible As quickly but also most importantly Most importantly With somebody else being the victim in some way, shape or form.

Are you selling some sort of online course? Are you getting people to invest in a thing that will never pay money back? Are you, you know, that whole? And this is the thing that you're 100% right. And I think that the thing that, as I said, from the start of when I started doing what I was doing to now, the whole world's changed. And now we are living in the fake reality. Like, we are all, we're all dining at the shed. The fake has become real.

We're all eating the microwave-ready meals. We're all eating my egg on a foot. Like, the way that I see, I look at the, stock market, the biggest eight companies, how many of them actually, in video, apart from them, they make chips. Yeah. How many of them, the value of these stocks now have no semblance to reality. No.

It's like now that everybody is making a shed. And it's all, it's all been, the whole economy has been remade. No one's actually making anything. So it's like, when you were saying about, you're exactly right about the culture of these money, the hustle culture thing is the grift is taking place when you are. convinced that this person can lead you to the promise land of financial security. Yeah. The moment, like my mom and dad when we were kids were lost a load of money in a pyramid scheme,

well not a load, but enough that it was significant in our house. And a very popular one, which everyone would know. But like that, that like kind of made me kind of a little averse to those types of things when I hear about constantly having people say, oh, you should buy into this crypto client, buy into this, this, this, this, um, you know, this course that can help you make a load of money and make you rich or whatever. I've always thought the structure of the way that a lot of people are monetizing their audiences is like they're selling them hope, as you're saying.

That's the biggest thing for me is like it and they do a good job of conflating it with the hard work that people are doing. Because what they do is they're really good at, I find they're really good at hiding in crowds is the way I like to think of it. So what they'll do is they go like, so what are you saying? There's something wrong with making money? It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

You're slick. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with me. Are you saying it's wrong to sell things? I'm not saying that. Are you against capitalism? I'm not saying any of these things. What I'm saying is you are running scams on people, right? I ask people this all the time.

When you're going to go to a course where someone's going to teach you how to make money, ask yourself where they get their money from. Exactly, exactly. Right? I'm not saying don't go. Yeah. But ask yourself where they get their money from.

If that person gets all their money from you, from you, telling you how to make money. Yep. But they aren't going off and doing the investment things that they're making their money from you. Yeah, it's like getting a financial advisor once you're successful. You're like, where was the advice? Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's like all of these things, if we're not careful. But it is true.

It's really that. It's like it's like the and it has become it has become way more scammie in in that world. But then the art and craft of hiding in the crowd is then making it seem like it's like the all of us. So what are you saying? We shouldn't. It's like no, I'm not saying don't advertise a thing. No. But don't act like you did use it.

Yeah. Don't act like you know what I mean. Don't act like you. There's certain things where you're like, oh man, at what cost? The crypto thing is fascinating. Making this film. So it was literally a follow doc. A lot of the stuff I do is way more, like, it sounds a mess, but I mean, the red, the shed thing, no, but like the Amazon thing planned out.

I'm kind of what I'm going to do. You never know you're going to get caught when you're working at Amazon on the floor and they pull you off and say, what the hell are you doing it. You should have been like, man, my life fell apart, man. Get upy. Before you kick me out, can I use the toilet? Yeah, you'd be like, you know what's funny is after they kicked you out, you got a, you got to notice on your record. They're like, left early. I remember getting loads of emails from them saying,

why haven't you shown up to work? No. After you were kicked out? I remember saying, I said to like, because I had to get training to do undercover because I was like, this guy's basically a bullshit and we're letting him do a proper journalist job here. Like, we're training him. And I was like, if I get caught, can I just say I'm doing undercover boss?

And just say, congratulations. Congratulations, you did it. You are promoted. They found her, though. It took a while, but you found me. They were like, we are going to rescind your permission to do this. No. But, yeah, so coming back.

Yeah, so that doc, the one about making a million, you know, you follow me around for 90 days. The thing that I just kept and getting thrust down, because it's basically I moved to New York while I was making that. Yeah. It's reacting to being in New York. It's a very unique culture, I think, in terms of. In what way? Hustle, just hustle. Yeah.

And the way and that comfort with which people, and I don't necessarily mind this, but it's very different to Europe. The way people talk about money, the way people breathe money, the possibility of money, the way it moves around. You know, you meet someone, you know, one of our main contributors in that is the co-founder of Venmo, who's got Ikram. And within 10 minutes of meeting him, he's like, we're making a company together. It's worth $10 million already. And I'm like, what? Like, what is this guy talking about? But like, he's made Venmo.

So clearly he knows what he's talking about. Yeah. And then, you know, in the time that I know him throughout the thing, he tries to say to me, you should make a cryptocurrency with me. I said, I don't know, man. You know, I don't like that stuff. I don't love it. Not saying it's bad, just personal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just have a little bit of an aversion to it. He asked me to get involved in a coin with him. And then if I'd have invested in that point, we tried to factor this and it's tricky. But he basically, the coin that he asked me to get in with him on was like, ended up becoming, this is the easiest of fact yet. The number one trend of meme coin on the planet for a day, like $250 million. This thing did. And it was like if I, and I think the thing that I can't fact check, but he said, if you'd have put him $500 that day, you'd have made a million. And it was just like one of those things where I was like.

Yeah, but you see, the sentence that isn't completed is, this is what I like about these money stories. They say you would have made a million. Right. What they should say is you would have taken a million. Right, right, right, right. That's my issue with all of these ideas. There's no way you made it. Yeah.

Yeah, because you didn't make the thing. It comes from somewhere. Because if we look at like, that's 100% right. But you get what I'm saying. A lot of the time people make it seem like, the reason I would say people used to use the phrase you're going to make money is because really it was an exchange of a service of a good, of a good.

All right, I need a leather shoe from you, Eugene. You need oranges from you. And we're going to use money to help smooth over this. It makes sense. It's a promise. Yeah, but then at some point it became, I'm saying this is worth this. I'm going to take all of your guys' money.

It's going to be worth this for a moment. And then it's not going to be worth that. instantly overnight. All I've done is I've gone and then sucked in all your money. Yeah. It's true. I've just sucked in all your money. The only money that exists within that coin is stuff that other people who have also had hope

have put it in that. And they put it in. Yeah. It comes from somewhere. That's the, and that was like what happened to my mom and dad when we were kids. It's the same thing. You know, it's the same thing. So look, I'll be honest.

I have no regrets. I would rather not have that money. And that sounds high and mighty, but I just wouldn't. Like I just. Ah, but also those things are shortcuts to jail. Well, no, you never know, though. It's true. I mean, now people are getting pardons and now people are, yeah, yeah, but those things are all temporary.

They genuinely are. I think they're all temporary. It's a shortcut to jail at the end of the day. That's like, see, that's like, because when do you stop? Yeah. It's true. You put 500 and you make a million. Why would you not put in the next 500,000 to make 10 million, 100 million?

When do you stop? It's true. And then we wonder why these guys get to that point. It's because along the way, like, you know, there's no need to stop. You don't need to stop. You don't need to stop. You don't need to stop. And then at some point you're just like, oh, do it.

But it exists as a, the way that it's regulated now is exists as a sort of loophole, isn't it at this moment in time? Yeah, this moment in time. It didn't a year ago. Yeah. It's changed. It's now not a security. Crypto is not a security.

So it's regulated by some other debt, some other regulatory body that has like one guy, one guy at a desk. It's just the guy who just vibe checks it now. He's just this thing. He's like, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Put his finger in the water. That's all right.

So, yeah. What would you say your dream and your goal? Because like when I read how people have tried to categorize you, people call you a prankster, people call you a, but I don't know. You know, and I don't want to put too much weight on this. I feel like it's sort of evolved in your world and now there's like a mission behind it in some ways.

What would you say you're trying to achieve with these films? When somebody's watching them, what are you hoping to reveal, or what are you hoping to change or, you know? Yeah, I mean, I suppose that it's hard. There's definitely a worldview, isn't there? There's definitely. And that's, as I have the privilege of doing this now for nearly 10 years,

which is fucking nuts. Like, you begin to take your work more seriously and you understand, like, okay, I know what I can offer and I can see things about the world that I've learned in this weird journey. Yeah. Like, you know, I can look at the Amazon. piss thing and be like this is probably possible and I think because of my experience I know that

or you know going like that film we've just made about get rich quick and being in those rooms and asking a billionaire to give him give me a million why not please and just like seeing I don't know I suppose that you said the grand omission I'm kind of distracting myself thinking about asking a billion out of money what is the goal is that what you're saying to try and change people's minds I don't know. I don't know. I think first and foremost, I do just consider myself sort of an artist and a creator of stuff. And I want to make really interesting things that are in conversation with the world.

And, you know, humor is a massive part of it for me. I'm trying to be entertaining. I want it to be funny. I want it to be. But I do also want it to be illuminating. And what I will say is when you're working with, like, Channel 4, which is like a public service broadcaster. Yeah. And maybe even empathized with this with being on the show.

Like you have a different, almost like you take a different set of questions that you ask about an idea while you're coming up with it. You're like, okay, well, this is going to be, I want to talk about this company, Amazon, but also I need to justify that I can talk about piss and stuff. So I'm going to evidence worker exploitation. Yes. I'm going to evidence this and I'm going to, but working on projects here now. I'm really excited by looking at like culture here and how that really plugs into the moment that because I think culture is actually a really great way of talking about all of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, it is.

If you focus on little pieces of tech, like, you know, I think there's almost like culture. I always think culture is a manifestation of what the society is experiencing. Yeah. It just has to be. and becomes easier to, like, why is the clothing popular at the time? Why? Yeah.

What is or isn't popular? Why is it? Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. All of that is just, it's like the plant that grows from the soil. And then sometimes it's hard to know what's happening in the soil. But if you look at the plant, you can know. Yeah.

It is interesting. This is the first time in my life I've been an immigrant somewhere. That's quite interesting. I'm moving here for the first time and being, you know, I moved to London and then I moved to, I moved to New York. And that is an interesting experience. And I suppose that's what I'm propelled by at this moment. in time.

Is being the outsider. Yeah. Yeah. And I think... Yeah. And I think that... Yeah. I'm kind of...

I feel like I'm making no sense at them. No, no. I think I'm realizing what you're saying. I think two things that I picked up from here is... We're constantly fighting this battle between gatekeeping and democracy. Advertising was one of those. It was a well-regulated and gate-kept industry until it was not. Now, people are creating their own adverts without safeguards and research and experimentation being done.

Damn, that's true. think about that. And the other one is basically what we started with when we were speaking about academia and how they write papers. It's just basically a debate between experimenting as a scientist, which is what we're enjoying now. You do experiments and we get results quicker. Instead of someone taking five years to write the paper and do research. So now we've circumvented that whole process and actually inverted it because you create the experiment and then we do the research. So you're basically going, here's what I've experimented. Go ahead and find out if it's true and as your lawyer would say, it's very illegal.

I think what you are doing is you're setting off a Tinderbox for us to start having conversations and doing our own research so we can arrive to a conclusion that we're happy with. Because it's one thing if it's popular opinion. But if you came up with that, like we're saying when you're watching a live, anything on YouTube and the comments are different because it just depends on where you're watching from. And right now what you've just done is you've given us all a POV and access to just look at it and go, What am I seeing?

Yeah. Yeah. Great. I mean, as you were saying that, I think that I was thinking about you watching it when it came out. I mean, it wouldn't even think about that, the idea that you were watching this restaurant thing.

And I never watched it and I heard it from YouTube. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So you never, you never, oh, amazing. All right. So if it made sense to you, hopefully it makes sense. Oh, no, it completely makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's why I say that's what the thing, that's what it does. Yeah. I love that you said scientists or experiments or sociologists, whatever it is, it is finding the right lens or mirror, putting it on society, and if you show it in the right way. You know,

I think of one of the most impactful videos. It keeps going viral every few years. It's from a long time ago in the US, though. There was a local sort of news channel thing. They just did this simple experiment. They put a bicycle in Central Park or one of these parks, and it was locked to a pole. And then they just sent different.

people to break the lock and they just wanted to see what happened and they sent like a white guy and he's like cutting like cutting it full on like with a sore like very like like hokey I'm breaking a lock not like subtle at all very like bang bang he packack ha ha ha ha ha you know what I mean

and people would just walk past me like oh okay whatever and then they said like a white woman people would help help you'll be like yo hold on hold on you're doing that wrong hold on hold on let me Let me get that for you. Let me. Merv-rah-rah-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-h.

Yeah, just wherever. And then no. And then at some point, someone, to even like push it, someone was like, oh, is this your bike? Yeah. And she was like, no. And they're like, and they were like, ha-ha, all right. Was it having a fun Sunday? Yeah.

And then they sent like black teenagers to go and do it. Yo. Minute. While they were just like standing there. People were like, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? And they were like, no, my bike. I locked the, I didn't, I lost the key.

They're like, no, no. I'm calling the cops. No. Then they would even like pull out the key and be like, no, no, no. They're like, no, no, no, no. I'm calling the cops, you know. And that small, it's not a paper. Yes.

It's not a newspaper article. But the one thing you saw from the people who were watching was they were just like, damn. Yeah. And I think the thing that was interesting about it, and you said something about this in a conversation we had, is it allowed people to observe it in a non-judgmental way. way.

You know, so it wasn't them saying like, you white guys, you have, look at your privilege. No, you could just use your own language in your own head to see the world and come to your conclusion. And I think that's what you're doing is genuinely, you made me think of, you made me laugh, definitely. But you made me think of restaurants differently. You made me think of reality differently. You made me think of influence differently. I was like, oh, damn, you got to, you know what I mean?

But I appreciate it. I'm excited to see what you come up with. Thank you for joining us. This was amazing. I love it. Thank you very much. Feckinem and Find out. That's what he's doing.

That is going to be, I tell you, on the sign. Feckon him and find out. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. If I achieved one thing in America, that's good enough for me. And as you leave Feck and I would say, did you? Oh, no, no. They did. I tell you.

Two miles down. He did. He did. Oh, man. Uber, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. It's really great. Yeah.

I loved it. Enjoy New York. Yeah, thank you. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaziamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer.

Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Paduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.