to have some people that are like completely caught up at internet culture, writing about internet culture as internet culture strangles and drowns them. It's like actually like a kind of interesting from a performance art way of actually capturing the reality of this crazy whirlwind that is internet culture. I'm Cal Newport here with Jamie Kilstein for Cal and Jamie Explain the Internet.

If you're new, the premise here is simple. I don't use social media. So I have no idea what's happening online. Jamie is weaning off of social media. He too has no idea about what's happening online which makes us the two worst people in the world to try to explain up to the moment internet trends.

So that of course is exactly what we're gonna do on this show. We have five trends from the last week of internet culture that Jamie and I will struggle to understand and explain to you, our long suffering audience. Jamie, this is our second episode. So we're one episode in.

How do you think we're doing with this experiment so far? As people or as podcast hosts? Because as podcast hosts, I think we're killing it. As people, I had to glance at Twitter a couple times to kind of see what was going on. So I feel like while you don't know at all what's going on, this show also brings about a certain type of PTSD for me who used to be engulfed in that culture.

I thought we were short a story this morning. So I just went to see, I logged on to see what people were talking about and Fire James Gunn was trending. And I kid you not, I had to scroll through a hundred angry comic book fans to even figure out what was happening, what was even happening.

And I still kind of don't know. I think the Superman thing got fired and then James Gunn made a pedo joke like a decade ago. I have no idea. All I know is like, I like Groot. And that's as far as my, that's where my alliance is, which with Groot.

- So you're basically saying the first sponsors of this video series needs to be our personal therapist and Groot. - Yeah. - Basically sponsored by our therapist who we're gonna have to see a lot more after doing this show. And then also Groot. Actually, ironically and coincidentally, my therapist looks a lot like Groot.

So I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. - I basically talked to a tree. This is what I'm trying to say. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cal has been drugged is what's happening. Is he was drugged by a family member. He goes out into nature, talks to a tree.

He comes back and he goes, "I don't know, I feel better." And then his wife goes, "Great." And then that's it. - His name is Solomon. I've carved a face into it. We have a good relationship. Good relationship. - This show, look, not to hype us up, but if you are new to the show, here's why it's great.

You get to hear about the garbage that is happening on Twitter, that people are consuming their lives with. And then you get to go outside and hear birds chirping and realize the world's actually an okay place. And I'm not saying this show is to make you feel better than them.

I would love to say the show is about bringing people together, waging a war on tribalism. But also it's like kind of reminding me what I used to do and why I'm off it and reminding you guys why it's probably better to read books and stay off Twitter. But if you're at a Christmas party this week and someone's like, "Man, James Gunn, right?" You can at least be like, "You stupid idiot," and know what they're talking about.

- Exactly. It's the way I describe it on my podcast. The episode is coming out around the same time as this one. I was explaining it to my listeners this show. And the way I said it is, I think there might be some benefit as well in othering internet culture.

So when you hear two idiots that don't know anything about it trying to figure it out, it does kind of emphasize the absurdity of it all. So if you're really stuck in the middle of that world, maybe hearing me have no idea who, actually I know who James Gunn is, but I don't really know what you're talking about, just emphasizes a little bit, this is not the center of world culture right now.

It's its own weird thing that feels like everything when you're on the phone, but you step away for about nine minutes, you spend some time talking to your tree therapist and you're like, "Wait, there's more to life than this." At least that's, so we're hyping ourselves up so much now, Jamie, like we're awesome.

- No, no, no, this is good. This is good. This is what my tree therapist told me to do. Where isn't it, wouldn't you rather go to see the new Superman movie and just be like, "That was fun. "I like Superman, he comes from Krypton." Instead of being the guy in your pack of friends that's like, "You know, when they were making this, "James Gunn really said some problematic things "and I liked it better." You will never be invited to a movie again.

Guys, two people I know died this week. Two people I know died. The idea of living a life where you are engulfed in Twitter drama or just cursing about Glenn Greenwald, like live a life where you don't know who Glenn Greenwald is. Isn't that a better life? Again, no offense to Glenn, but isn't that a better life?

Just go out and do real things with real people and you realize that so much of this shit doesn't matter. With that said, me and Cal are about to dedicate an entire episode of a podcast to the shit we're making fun of 'cause we're hypocrites and it's fun. - This is probably the wrong time to introduce our guest host, Glenn Greenwald.

Come on in. - Glenn Greenwald. - Via satellite from Brazil with all of the dogs he's adopted. - We're gonna have to start with explaining Glenn Greenwald, but let's get into it. We have, tell the audience, you can confirm, you and I have not pre-discussed any of these five trending internet topics that we're about to go through.

- No, the show's also affecting our friendship. We can't talk to each other. Correct. - Yes, I ignore you. Okay, here we go. I am going to click my magic button here. Item number one, it's a tweet. - Okay. - For those who are listening, it says, "This is ridiculous.

"Shame on FIFA for allowing him to touch, kiss, "and hold the World Cup. "Salt Bae, B-A-E, drops salt on meat. "What is he doing here?" This is tweeted from someone named Terry Fleurs. Jamie, I have no idea what's going on here. What do we even? - Not a clue.

- Okay. - Don't know. - But this is trending. It was trending a couple days ago. This was one of many. I mean, the outrage, there were, I don't know who this guy is. I sort of, this is where our age is gonna show, I sort of know what Bae means.

I believe Bae, and you know, our 16-year-old girl demographic, which is huge and mighty, they're gonna be very mad that I don't have this right. I remember Bae first coming out. I believe he was called Prison Bae, where there was a picture of this dude in jail. I don't know what he was in jail for, but he was, Cal, look at me, stunning.

Like, he had these insane, like, turquoise eyes, and so they were like Prison Bae. So I think Bae is what you would call your partner, kind of like Boo or Babe or whatever. So some point, people must have liked this guy. I've put together he has some kind of maybe cooking show or whatever.

Hence, he originally got the name Salt Bae. But now, dude, people were so outraged. There were soccer players who refused to take pictures with him. He was going around, like, taking selfies with every player, and every player kind of looked annoyed. But I don't know how he got there.

I don't know how he got famous. I don't know who he is. I do know what the World Cup is, and that's it. - So here is, I've done a search for the name. As I'm showing on the screen now, a Google search for Salt Bae. This Washington Post article, I think, maybe wins the award for, like, all internet stuff put together.

It says, "From Jared Kushner to Salt Bae, "here's who Elon Musk was seen with at the World Cup." So that wins the award. But here's the thing. Let's not figure out who this person is because there's the broader point here, which is the World Cup was fun, right? I mean, it was like this final game, and it was a tie, and they went to penalty kicks, and there's this Argentinian guy who's having some redemption story of leading up or living up to his promise as this super athlete.

You look at Twitter, you look at this. This seems like this impulse of, "I gotta have a negative take. "If I don't have a negative take, "no one was gonna pay attention to me, "no one's gonna think I'm smart." Why would you focus on this? Some guy touching the cup, when you could say, "I just am happy this was fun.

"I watched it on Saturday. "I had a good day." - I am in the trending topics right now. This has 11,000 likes. Salt Bae can kiss my ass, wanting all that attention, and touching the cup. Who the fuck are you, bro? Your two minutes of fame of up next.

Now, that is nothing compared to @billcorbett. Someone please give me Salt Bae's current assassination coordinates. Okay, so I believe me and Bill follow each other on Twitter. So mad. Now, it's like, I love your point, dude, because I feel like even new trying to be off social media less, definitely trying not to be, or not being negative on social media, Jamie, looked at that and still was kind of like, "Oh, I wonder who this asshole is." Like, dude, I'm not part of outrage culture anymore, and my brain still goes there.

And I'm also a really positive person. I'm always a look on the bright side, whatever, and I am still so much getting over what social media does to your brain that the idea of, what you just said is advice I would give to anyone else on any other topic that is not on social media.

- Right. - And I didn't even think about that. - I mean, this is-- - Like, how, why does anyone even know that he was on the fucking field? - That's what I'm saying. That tweet thread or topic is like the Lionel Messi of outrage culture. It's like the, like a peak, this is an incredibly skilled application of professional outrage, to be able to find an angle.

Like, I can find an angle in this kind of feel good, fun thing. I can find an angle to be upset with. Yeah, it's a little esoteric, but I can get whatever, 10,000 likes. I mean, look, it's possible that like in the day leading up to the World Cup finals, this guy, Salt Bae, had said, look, to his local community, I am gonna pay to gather for all of the children in the town.

I'm gonna pay for a bus. We're gonna take them to the stadium. We're gonna give them a World Cup experience. And everyone was happy, and they gathered the children in a bus, and they're like, thank you, Salt Bae. Thank you, Padre Bae. - Slowly locking the door to the bus.

- Yeah, slowly locking the door to the bus. They're driving towards Qatar. You know, they take the turn into the sea, drowning all the children. Okay, if that had happened, he shouldn't be touching the World Cup. - Let's say Salt Bae takes all the kids. He goes, hey, we're gonna meet Messi.

Aren't you excited? And they're like, hooray, hooray. Finally, something good in my life. - Bless you, bless you, Father Bae. Bless you. - Bless Father Bae, Father Bae. And then again, leaves the bus once again, slowly locks the door, calls over the government for Qatar, and goes, I found a bunch of gay kids.

Go do what you do. Go Qatar 'em. And then he runs onto the field with his little autograph book, and he's like, it's me, Salt Bae. - And grabs the cop. Yeah, I get it. Then I would be upset. I would be upset. - What if Salt Bae, you know, he is a person of color, but what if he took that cop, and, you know, he drew, he just wrote white power on it.

Not good. - I would get it. I would get it, yeah. (laughing) - Let's make that man trend on Twitter. Let's make the man who just homophobically had a bus full of children killed who just wanted to meet a soccer player. - Before, in an unrelated incident, writing white power on the World Cup.

Okay, I get it. This is someone we should be upset about. - That should be a trending story. - That is appropriate outrage. All right, story number two. Let's see what we got here. Chrome tabs. Ooh, this is completely blind. All it says on my screen share here is Twitter.

Tweet/Twitter. - Oh yeah, all of mine, 'cause again, I don't have TikTok. - All right, here we go. For those who are listening, this is from Franklin Graham, blue check verified. Here we go. Franklin Graham is the president of Samaritan's Purse. Okay. Amy Grant announced that she and her husband, Vince Gill, are going to host a same-sex wedding on their farm for her niece.

Amy is quoted as saying, "Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things, "love God and each other." All right, this is another trending tweet. Is that right, Jamie? This was getting a lot of attention this week on Twitter. - At least, here's the problem. If I go to check trending things because of the algorithm, it's only pro wrestling and fighting, mixed martial arts.

So I just have to go to what is overall trending. And this was indeed trending a couple of days ago. - And Vince Gill, is that the Breaking Bad? Am I thinking of the right person, the creator of the show, Breaking Bad? - Definitely not. That is Vince Gill again.

Vince Gill, I believe, judging by his name, I think he's a country music star. - That makes more sense, I suppose. - Amy Grant, you may remember, because I assume, as my mom did, you took many car rides to your elementary school with her blaring Amy Grant. My mom was very big into Amy Grant, very big into Celine Dion.

Those were her jams. - All right, so let's look at some responses here. This will help clarify what's going on. - So the responses, I think, I didn't read the rest of Franklin's thing, but I'm looking at responses. And the story itself is just a story. And I think it's a good story.

- Oh, this is about Franklin. Franklin is just the son of Billy Graham. So this is an evangelical. - Oh, I didn't know that. - That was- - So that makes this even more interesting. - Because look at his, it's a thread. He posts a story, but then the next thing Franklin Graham says is, yes, we are to love God and love each other, but if we love God, we will seek to obey his word.

Jesus told us, if you love me, keep my commandments, John 14, 15. God defines what is sin, not us. And his word is clear that homosexuality is a sin. Also, what the hell is Salt Bae doing at your wedding? That's his follow-up. That's his follow-up tweet right there. - Okay, so this is like- - Hey kids, you want to go to a wedding?

- It'll be fun. There's definitely not boxes full of poisonous vipers that I will release in the bus once the doors are locked. (laughing) So this is like old school. This is what's his tweet. Okay, so this is like old school, like anti-gay marriage, homophobia stuff. - Back in the 90s, baby.

- It's like retro. I see, so there's sort of a, it's like a retro, what's the word? Like a retro hate type thing. So there's sort of like a nostalgia to this going around. Like this guy looks old. I'm looking at a picture of Franklin Graham here. - We all remember Amy Grant, the baby, baby, like, yep.

And then, yeah, we all remember Billy Graham. And here's the thing. Many people might not know this. And in fact, this is going to sound sarcastic. I'm Christian and I love that Amy Grant's doing this. And I think that like, look, man, there's a lot of things in the Bible that are sins.

You know what the biggest one is? Pride. Like we do this shit every day. The whole point of, you know, Jesus dying for our sins and whatever is being like, hey, we all fuck up every day. We're all sinners every day. How many of you waited until marriage to have sex?

I know I didn't. Got me in a lot of trouble. We all do it every day. And the point is we are trying to be a good person. The point is we are trying to be better people every day. That's it. And if you are, you know, this story, and I'm gonna dunk on the left as well, is you'd also have people on the left who I'm seeing, they would repost this story and they'd be like, fuck you, you Christians.

Screw you, look what Amy Grant's doing. Look at all these little bitch ass Christians like getting mad. And it's like, hey man, Amy Grant's a bitch ass Christian and she's being awesome. If you're mad that a couple is getting married, you should reevaluate things. And also if your first instinct isn't to be like, oh my God, how awesome that this gay Christian couple isn't gonna feel alone or not gonna feel like they belong.

And like you have this like person with a good voice and platform officiating her family members, by the way, family members wedding, like that's a beautiful thing. If on either side, your first instinct is like trash someone, I think that's rough. - That's Twitter, that's Twitter. What's the angle?

What's the angle? Either we can use this to push it in someone's face or attack. I mean, but let me say, here's the, you know, there's progress in society. I think it's progress that you and I look at just the description of this story and we can't figure out why the hell this is trending.

I think that's a good sign. I mean, I'm thinking like, so is this farm haunted? Like where is this going? Is this like a murder farm? Like did it actually took some digging to be like, oh, it's Franklin Graham. And it's a kind of like a retro like Christian thing.

That's, you know, the fact that that wasn't obvious that this would be, yeah. I'm trying to find some positive. - I haven't heard an Amy Grant song in a while. If it was Amy Grant came back from the dead to officiate a wedding at her haunted farm. - Let's trim that.

- Let's trim that. - Zombie Amy Grant. - Yeah. (laughing) - Host wedding at haunted farm. - Attempts to perform ceremony with zombie limbs falling to ground and being sucked in by other zombies. Yeah, man. - Amen. - It's a trending story. And Hey, I want to talk, you know, this story actually came up on my podcast, Advice Not Taken.

And I used it as an opportunity to promote this because, you know, I have been talking about religion, but in a sort of like feed the poor, help people kind of way. And when this came up, I was sort of reminded that a lot of people will use religion to discriminate or whatever, which is a real bummer.

And, you know, I think to me, to me, one of the things I said is, look, man, if you're a kid raised in a household and you're gay and you're being told that you're going to hell, you're being told that you're broken, you're being told that you can't be a Christian, worst case scenario, this kid is going to act out, self-harm, drink drugs, sleep with people you don't want them sleeping with, blah, blah, blah.

But best case, if you really care about Jesus and religion and God, they're certainly going to turn away from that. You know, I mean, I'm not gay. And despite what many of you have told me on the internet and I'm, Twitter's so bad. - Sorry, next story. Okay, go on.

(laughing) - Is co-host of Cal and JB explain the internet gay. And the reason I turned away from God was religion. I just saw shit like this and I'm like, oh, is this the priority? I don't want to be a part of that. When your religion is so bad, it makes people be like, I don't want to get to know God, the maybe creator of the universe.

It's like, you're fucking up, man. You should be prioritizing, whether it's on social media, whether it's religion, whether it's in your community, how do you prioritize lifting people up instead of just cutting people down? Which is what social media is. - Which is, I think a very good point, very fair critique of Franklin Graham.

If he's the son of the most famous Christian evangelist of the 20th century, he's an evangelical Christian. So that is a Christian with an imperative to save souls. - Yes. - How is there any sort of evangelism in that tweet? Like that is entirely just dunking for the benefit of your existing audience.

That's like, clap for me, I want more followers from people. I mean, what about that tweet would ever make you think this is definitely going to bring more people in? So I think your point's very well taken, that if you grow up and think religion is the key to salvation in life, you would say, what I really don't want to do is find a way to ensure my kid will not be religious.

To pick out one thing and harp on it in such a way that I've definitely driven that kid away from religion. I'm not an expert on Jesus, but it doesn't seem very Jesus-like. - Geez. - All right. - People, if you're watching the video, my computer is about to die and I'm just scrambling to plug it in really quick.

- Next article here. Co-host of "Cal and Jamie Explains the Internet," computer almost dies, worse than Salt Bay. - Gay co-host. - Gay co-host of "Cal and Jamie Explains the Internet" has never seen a computer before. (laughing) - Well, what's funny is to shout out to producer Jesse. Cal and I actually worked very hard to make it look better this time.

Every show, by the way, you guys are just the hipsters who are gonna remember when this show is huge. We really did work hard to fix it, and now I've completely screwed it up. - I think it looks good. Actually, this one looks good. I think we got a good position here.

All right, well, in the meantime, I'm gonna load up the next story. This one I'm gonna hope, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna assume this next story is gonna be more uplifting and make us feel, this for sure will make us feel better about ourselves and the internet. Here we go.

- Let's do it. - All right, Megan McCain. On the first night of Hanukkah, the anti-Israel New York Times issues a crossword puzzle that looks like a swastika. - There we go. Wait, keep reading the tweet because you have the Twitter sass coming. - Oh, yeah, can't make this shit up.

We see you, New York Times. We see you. Yeah, very, very haunted. We see you, New York Times. We see you. It sounds like something you would hear at Amy Grant's haunted farm. - Yeah, we see you, devourer of souls. We see you as you emerge from the haunted halo.

What, okay, first of all, sound of loud sighing. I think we all just kind of agree with that. Is the idea here that the New York Times, there's people at the New York Times, they got together, like in a conference room. - Yes. - Okay, we all agree. We all agree that we hate Israel.

Okay. What we need to do is get the vague shape of a swastika in the paper. - Ooh, and can I chime in here? - Sure. - What would be the most hilarious day to do it on? - Yeah, and we need to wait till-- - Isn't one of their weird holidays coming up?

- And we also, one of their weird holidays coming up. So we're gonna put a swastika in the paper in the hopes of encouraging Nazis. I mean, what's the, let's just like, let's pull this thread. - You know what, fellas, we've talked about it a long time. The Washington Post, they're still really well-known for Woodward and Bernstein breaking a lot of stories and people are still kind of upset with us for the weapons of mass destruction thing.

How do we make ourself relevant again? Nazism? - We're gonna be pro-Nazi. - I mean, look, I am looking at this thing. You know, I see the, what would you call it? The arms. It has like two out of the three pieces of the swastika arms, but it kind of falls apart when you would have the final piece.

I'm giving this a lot of attention, Meghan McCain, and I see you have, it's swastika-esque, but I think it's missing the key component. - How as a, look, as an art contesseur, is saying he doesn't see it. Also, I feel like this is a bit of a Rorschach test kind of situation, which is like, if you see a swastika there, why are you thinking about swastikas so much?

Do you know what I mean? Like, who, I would have never been like, there it is, there's my boy, there's a swastika. Like, I'm just, I'm not looking for that. And also, look, even if the New York Times was indeed anti-Semitic or whatever, which, pick a choice, guys. Do the Jews run the media or are they anti-Semitic?

Which one is it? - And also, it's Will Shorts. It's not even like the New York Times writ large. It's like the nicest man in the world. Have you seen Will Shorts? I have watched a documentary. I have watched a documentary on Will Shorts and how they make these crossword puzzles.

I know a lot about Will Shorts. He looks like Calvin's father from "Calvin and Hops." He has a mustache. He's like a short, cappy-looking Midwestern guy who does his entire life- - All of his answers to questions are about building character. - Yeah, and I guess he is the last person I guess you would assume is like, he's decided late in his career to secretly move Nazism into- - And also, like, (laughs) you know how people, when they realize that maybe they've been chasing superficial things for the first half of their life, they really dedicate the second half of their life to doing something altruistic?

That's what Will Shorts did with Nazism. - Exactly, that's his second act. Here, I'm gonna put a photo up. - His second mountain. Yeah, as David Brooks, also New York Times writer, would say. Yeah, man, why? - Here we go. - Also, if we're just, can we just like be- - That's it.

(laughs) - That's it. - The 2022's face of Nazism. - Yeah, he's like a guy with a mustache. - Yeah, yeah, well. - No one with a mustache has ever been associated with any sort of anti-Semitic behavior, so we're good. - Come on, guys, come on, guys, get it together.

Can I just say one more thing, though? - Yeah, please. - If we're just talking pragmatically, also, like, I don't wanna get political, but like APAC, like the biggest Israeli lobby, they have bought ads, they have had full-page ads in the New York Times, but also, like, pragmatically, even if they were a bunch of people who didn't like fucking Netanyahu or didn't like Israel or whatever, there are so many checks that you have to go through, you know this, as a writer, right?

That if anyone, besides, I don't know if Meghan McCain was the one who started the outrage, but if anyone, and I saw a lot of, like, blue-check, respectable, respected people talking about, if anyone at the New York Times caught this, if an intern, if you're about to post anything that resembles a fucking swastika, I feel like someone's gonna flag it and be like, "Hey, guys, let's add a couple more black dots, "this is looking very Hitler-esque." - Right, there's a checkbox on the copyedit form.

- Yeah, dude. - Does it look like a swastika? So now I'm looking at the responses, so there's a lot of, like, that's disgusting, hateful, but look at this right here. It's a Hawking cruise, the ancient Hindu symbol. So isn't there, yeah, there's an ancient Hindu symbol that the swastika is a perversion of, but it's like faces the other way or something like that.

- And if you were a bored kid, you'd try to make, like, a square out of those. - I definitely would, that's a great doodle. - Yeah. - Man, people are just, here's what I'm getting from these reactions. - Just cancel my subscription. (laughs) So that's why you cancel your subscription, guys.

- I will give you-- - No weapons of mass destruction. - An over-decade war, countless of soldiers' lives lost, and you're canceling your subscription because this kind of looks like, my God. - I will give you $10,000 if that gentleman was subscribed and canceled because of this. I will give you $10,000.

Oh my God, this is starting to get, all right. Oh, and then we get January 6th references. Man, look at this, this is just terrible. All right, for people who are listening and not watching, I'm just scrolling through the comments. And again, I go back to my same point from last week.

- That these are people that follow Meghan McCain. - Yeah, I mean, okay, if you're Meghan McCain, okay, maybe you're like, I wanna build a following. There's a commercial or political value to that. This type of content attracts followers, right? It might be a little slimy, but you get it.

I just cannot for the life of me understand why you would be, I'm looking at like, this is the 15th responder. Like why are you this deadly spell saying, I'm ready to believe it wasn't intentional, but I'm not prepared to believe it's obvious. Then Ethel Faust talking about the rotational symmetry.

And then- - Wait, is that real? The New York Times Games one? - Ooh. - Hold on. - No, no, look at the, yeah, but look at the date. Look at the date, 2017. Look at this nonsense. Yeah, so they went back and found something. It is funny though.

So in 2017, New York Times Games tweeted, yes, hi, it's not a swastika, honest to God. No one sits down to make a crossword puzzle and says, hey, you know what would look cool. That's funny. That's legitimately funny, but that's from 2017. So they've had this issue, which goes to show crossword puzzles have to be, I learned this from the Will Shorts documentary.

They have to be, there's some sort of symmetry that the designers like to do. And so this is a common form of symmetry. I think like this shape, that rough shape probably comes up a lot. It's just an artifact of the constraints of making a crossword puzzle. - So funny.

- All right, this is- - And even like when I saw like, there are people on the left trying to dunk on Meghan McCain and like, they'd be like, for the record, I am very pro-Israel. And then they would have to make their, like you would have to preface it.

You have to, you know, on Twitter, when I was super political, you'd have to give all your like bona fides before you make a dunk, just on the left. So if I'm gonna dunk on someone on the right, I'd have to be like, while I am aware of my white straight cis privilege, also, Ted Cruz, you're a fuck face.

You know what I mean? Like I would always have to like, whatever. I used to call it like progressive disclaimers. - Well, because you have, you get dunk splashback is what you're trying to avoid. Like you're coming in the dunk, but then you get the splashback dunk of like, okay, I get it.

Dunk splashback is something you have to avoid. I get it. And it always, and I'm sure it always works. You have to carefully do all your disclaimers. Okay. - Yeah, everything was fine for me. - Yeah, and you were happy. So moral of the story. Oh man, I feel like the internet's like extra, extra slimy this week.

- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. - All right, let's see here. This one's not gonna help us. - Something good, roll the dice. - Here's an article that was trending in the New York Post. I'm sure it'll be fine. All right, here we go. Elon Musk briefly suspends Taylor Lorenz's Twitter account for doxing, doxing in quotation marks.

Oh my God, there's so much internet culture again, injected in one headline. - I always assumed if there was a headline that somehow found a way to combine Elon Musk and Taylor Lorenz, just like the pits of hell would actually open, like that was the code in the lock where you had to put all those letters together.

And then suddenly you just heard like a cackle in the distance, bells start to ring. And you're like, this is it. - Birds fly by overhead and Amy Grant emerges from the ground. Yeah. - Yeah. - Salt Bay ascends to his throne. (laughing) He's sort of an anti-crash type figure.

So they've done it. You've done it New York Post. You got doxing, Musk and Taylor Lorenz all in the same. Can I just say before- - Good work you pack of assholes. - Before we get into this, let me just say this page also features why I think the internet is an urgent necessity.

Look to the trending now second article. I'm gonna read this headline. - Okay. - Man with World War I explosive lodged in his rectum sparks a bomb scare, hospital evacuated, including a picture of a glove doctor's hand holding a very large piece of ordinance. I'm just, that's what we need the internet for.

That's what we need the internet for. - We're doing it. - There it is. - Cal can you, it's weird. I know I've been outraged by Taylor Lorenz stories before, but I feel like they've all just become this sort of like gobbledy goop amalgamation like in my head of this just like internet monster lady that when someone goes, who's Taylor Lorenz?

I just go, ah, she's that, you know, the awful, the reason I'm not liberal anymore. She's like one of those. But I don't remember, I remember like, I think one of the most recent ones wasn't even political, but she like posted a tweet about how like she keeps her thermostat up to like 90 degrees every day or some shit and everyone was like, you're a lizard.

And then that was like two days of the internet. I think she tried to get someone at her work fired for being problematic. I don't know, but I think she's just been like a problem for years. And, but I, can you define for people who don't know? Taylor Lorenz, by the way, that's a better example than Glenn Greenwald.

That's the example of like, if you are on social media too much, you know who Taylor Lorenz is. - Right. - She's just a writer. - Right, so it's a name that either, like for some people, basically the right, and also some, I think of the like, whatever you call it, like the alt middle sort of new centrist, intellectual dark web crowd as well.

The sort of like slightly left or slightly right of center, but are annoyed at elite culture. For them, yeah, she is a lizard person. All right, so I can kind of explain it because technically we have sort of the same job. Like we're, Taylor and I both exist within the larger world of journalists who write about technology.

So she writes about it. - Oh, I didn't even know she was a tech reporter. - She's a tech reporter, yeah. So she writes about it for the Washington Post. I think I have that right. Sort of like I write about it for the New Yorker. There's like a- - I've never heard one story about her involving that.

- That is interesting. So you didn't even know that. So you know, like she's a hated figure from some people. - I've seen every story. I'm pretty sure like Tim Pool took out like a billboard, making fun of her like a couple of years ago. - And you have no idea what she actually did for a living.

- Never seen her and the word tech in the same room. - Interesting. - Fascinating. - Interesting. Okay, so here's the deal with Taylor Laurent. So in the world of tech reporting, she is of this, there's a group of reporters who sort of emerged in the last five years that focus a lot on internet culture, right?

And the, it's a, the school of thought from these writers is it's so of the moment and complicated that you have to yourself be immersed in internet culture. Like you are a figure of internet culture. You're in it, you're up to your eyeballs in it, and then you report on it.

And so the reporting has more of a like timely, but also more of a subjective type bent to it, more of a conversational type into it. So it's very different than, you know, like an old Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal article on the Apple II, where it's, you know, let's talk about this new company and it's grown to this size and here's the new features.

It's like, I'm in this world. And the idea is, and there's a couple other reporters in the same vein, all of them have become, it's all, it's very, it's a controversial way to do it. You attract controversy because you throw yourself into internet culture so that you can better report on it.

So I think that's part of what's going on. So she's a reporter and so she's really involved in internet culture and has built up her own brand. - Is she like an agent provocateur, essentially? Like throws herself into it, does some dumb shit, internet attacks her, and then she gets to go as someone who's immersed in this, you know what I mean?

- Yeah, I think, and I don't know her reporting super well, though I am a post subscriber. I mean, I think the issue is she's involved. So like the whole way this particular sub niche of tech reporting works is you get involved in it. Like you're like talking to people online, you're on Twitter, you're on these different platforms, you're going back and forth.

So she's kind of involved in internet memes and causes and things that are happening and writing about it. And I think it's the collision of the two that creates all of the controversial heat around her. So it's not someone just saying from a distance, for example, you know, this is going on, she'll sort of get involved in the fight.

So I think that the right, and then the sort of centrist, right of center crowd doesn't like her because I think she has like a standard sort of East Coast, you know, educated coastal city sort of perspective on these types of issues. Like her perspective, standard- - Yeah, she's trying to get people fired.

She's like, well, she'll like post pictures of people, like not wearing masks, like still on the airplane. And she's like, I'm the only one with a mask. Like just like that type of thing. - Yeah, so I think it's this collision of like, okay, we all have, we all, this is like every like 38 year old we know who lives in Manhattan, but she also writes for these big papers.

And so it's like this kind of melding, those two worlds kind of meld together. It's more personalized. It comes across sort of like more subjective. And so I think that, so it's like someone on Twitter who also has a column. So I think that's kind of going on, but also I think it's just the case that if you, once you become like a fully 3D person online and some sort of figure, some sort of figure of power, like you're a writer or something, it really brings in like a lot more hate.

Also like, you know, not to go left wing on it, but people don't like women online. You know what I mean? Like it's, if you're, there's a lot of that going on. So it's a whole messy thing. So that, but yeah, so basically I think she's on the standard left-wing side, a lot of issues.

She's involved in an online, she's tweeting about it. She gets involved in controversies. I don't know this story well. I am assuming that Doxine is referring to the fact that she went hard against libs of TikTok and supposedly, I think she put not on Twitter. - She named it.

- The address, yeah, she named the name and gave the address of the founder. I've also, I was trying to look at this a little more. I think there's something about like, she does a lot of, she'll really push hard to cancel people. And then when people push back, we'll say like, why is everyone being mean to me?

And like, this is harassment. - She's complained so much about harassment. I remember the libs of TikTok one. She complained so much about harassment. And then yeah, straight up was just like, here's who this person is. And it's like trying to reach members of, you know, libs of TikToks like family to like, you know, whatever.

And then, but she says, you know, that's part of being a journalist and blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it's just at the center of all the wrong things, man. - First of all, I think it's the most stressful, like the most stressful job you could have in the world would be like Taylor Lawrence or to be like Matt Walsh or Ben Shapiro.

Like if you constantly have to be like litigating online cultural battles with tweets and this and that, like how stressful, but your career depends on you constantly being visible. A, I just have empathy for all of them because that sounds incredibly stressful. B, I think as an outside observer, it's actually kind of an interesting thing to have a few, it's a train wreck for them and it's messy, but to have some people that are like completely caught up in internet culture, writing about internet culture as internet culture strangles and drowns them.

It's like actually like a kind of interesting from a performance art way of actually capturing the reality of this crazy whirlwind that is internet culture. - Dude, I meet a lot of celebrities who are just like, they're like, I love it. I love going at people and like, I don't give a shit.

And like, I just think me and you don't have that because even when I was doing it, I was who you're talking about. I was miserable. I was having panic attack on panic attack. I was like, couldn't put my phone down, but like there are some people, and I don't know if it's just, they have this fucking American psycho part of their brain where they can turn it off or maybe they're just more mature than me, but they can just go to war all day, like playing fucking Call of Duty, but it's real life.

And then be like, all right, peace and go. But I remember dude, I got into a fight. I got into a fight once with Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo. And I even took a screenshot 'cause he said the exact quote he said to me, I forget what bullshit I said was, "Fuck you freedom fighter." And I was like, ha ha ha.

But like later he tweeted, I'm like, I was ignoring my partner, right? While fighting with this guy. And then later he tweeted like, all right, I'm going back to the beach with my kids. And I'm like, were you fighting with me while you were at the beach with your children?

And I think that's where me and him, right? Like I was in a fucking failing relationship. That's where you have to kind of check yourself and be like, all right, now it is pathological, it is bad. You have to get your affairs in order. - Well, that's where I have, see my issue is I have a very hard time sustaining madness at people.

I like people, maybe it's 'cause I don't use the internet. I knew that would change, but I like people. I can see, I have a very easy time imagining the sort of goodwill, just lurking behind people, getting past what they say. I have- - A more frat boy way to put that is like, I'm rooting for a good time.

- Yeah, and I like people, like people are interesting. I don't know, people are interesting. I think most people are interesting. I think, you know, yeah, I like people. I've heard I'm getting mad. I look at Taylor Renz and I'm thinking, it might've been bad for their career, but man, if Elon had done a permanent ban of her from Twitter, from a mental, like she would probably look back at that 10 years from now from a mental health perspective and been like, "This is the best thing that ever happened." Like she was free.

- I give it- - She was free, it must be a terror for someone like that. - I would give it three days before Taylor Renz was like doing ayahuasca in Peru and like finds God. - Universe's love, yeah. - Sets her thermostat to a normal person temperature, and which is like, "What have I been doing with my life?" Like literally like you come out of a fucking coma.

The days that I, and by the way, I wanna ask you advice at some point or now. I take Instagram off my, Twitter just doesn't exist on my phone, only on my desktop, like you said. Instagram I have to post, so I've been doing what you told me, and I take it off my phone on the weekends.

But when I was with Tim Kennedy at the range doing all these courses, and this weekend was the first time I actually had my phone completely off, much different. Because even when my phone is on, I catch myself going down, "I" for Instagram, and then being like, "Oh, it's not there." Or even suddenly if a giant weight comes up, if I suddenly have to go to the mechanic or something, I'm like, "Oh, I can just re-download the app, and then it sends me a code, and then I can get back on it." Whereas when my phone was just completely off or away, that's when you have that ayahuasca in Peru, and I'm free.

- Yeah, like all the time. Look, I'm a big fan of that. Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. Don't bring it to the range, don't bring it to the mechanic, or have the burner phone. - Don't bring it on a date. - Don't bring it on a date, yeah. Yeah, for God's sakes, don't.

Yeah, don't. - Yeah, or with your kid. - Let me ask you a quick follow-up question on that though. - Yeah. - Is Instagram like Twitter, or is it different? - It's so different. There's different negative aspects to it. So for me, I like it more because for the most part, it's people sharing positive things, and it doesn't move as fast as TikTok.

Like TikTok, I was on for two minutes, and it was like the first time someone, maybe the only time someone offered me cocaine in like a shady bathroom, and he was a shady guy, and you just immediately go, "I don't wanna be a part of this, and I'm just not gonna, my life is not gonna involve cocaine." That's how I felt with TikTok.

It was my friend, Kendall Rusing, who's this awesome jujitsu world champion, she just did my podcast, I just did her podcast, and she was like, "Look," and it was just like, "New video, new video, new video, new video," and I was just like, "How do you do this?" And she's such an emotionally intelligent, rad person, and it was her and her sister, and they were trying to explain TikTok to me, and it was that cocaine thing, where I was like, "It will ruin me.

You will find me in a gutter with my phone on top of me, and some fucking Asian-Korean dance team, whatever." But Instagram, at first, I'll say when I go on podcasts, you know, I'm more popular on Twitter, but follow me on Instagram, it's where I'm happier, 'cause it is, it's a lot of self-help memes, and a video of a puppy doing a dance, or whatever.

I only follow fighters, spiritual people, people who I can learn from, you can get instructionals and tutorials. Where it does get bad is just all social media, except maybe not Twitter. Actually, this might just be Instagram-specific. People are posting their highlight reel, right? It's like me going on a date, and just being like, "Oh, I played the Sydney Opera House, I did this, I did that." And she's like, "Aren't you divorced, though?" And I'm like, "We don't need to talk about that.

Here's a picture of me at the opera house." So it's just your hits, so it will make other people, and I'm saying this as a 40-year-old dude, let alone if you're a kid, you look at other people. That's why I post mostly mental health stuff, like, "Hey, man, today was really hard for me.

I was really depressed. I'm going through this. You're not alone, blah, blah, blah." Because for the most part, remember, I don't follow any negative accounts. There are still, there are angry political accounts on there. There are still whatever. But even with that, following just positive people, I'll look at my pastor posting a Christmas picture with his kids and his wife, and be like, "I'll never have that." You know what I mean?

You still have that forced comparison, which you have to be very careful about. - So it's different poison. So like Twitter, you spend all day on Twitter. You're convinced that we're like 12 hours away from Nazis forcing your kids to gay marry drag queens. - Right. (laughs) - And you go on Instagram, and you're convinced that like everyone got in one last workout at the gym before their Caribbean vacation.

- And you're so alone, you're gonna be forced to marry a Nazi drag queen because no one else wants you, and you'll never have the beautiful family that all your friends have. Like, I guess it's okay the Nazis are gonna force me to do this because I'm alone in the world.

And yeah, and look at how happy. Interesting. Okay, so different. And then you're saying TikTok is just- - And you also do get addicted to scrolling because there's also like, all of my fighters, yeah, man, they're posting like Musashi quotes, and they're posting get to the gym or whatever.

But if you're just scrolling and half reading them, as opposed to you're reading "The Book of Five Rings" by Musashi, or you're watching a documentary, or you're immersing yourself in something, you're kind of just getting, you know, half digested, repurposed, - Yeah. - Brown quote. You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah. - And so, yeah, so that's hard too, because you feel like you're doing positive things, but you're not retaining any of it. So you're under the illusion like, well, I just, before you know it, you spend an hour scrolling through self-help memes, when what you should have done was take a walk or go to the gym or call a friend.

- Yeah, you know, I once, a Brene Brown story, I once spent some time in the green room at Lincoln Center backstage, just me and Brene Brown, we were both speaking at the same event, and we spent some time together. That's my Brene Brown story. - I would have gotten jealous if you posted that picture on Instagram.

- Brene Brown story number, oh, and this event, by the way, this was back when they used to have all these conferences that were sort of vaguely based on blogs. And so I just remember the surly teensters who were back in the backstage that were just like bemused and confused, like what the hell is going on?

Like, who are these kids? - Not interested about Brene Brown telling them to like discover their shame. - This is my other, and this is gonna make me seem like a completely out of touch, you know, patriarchal whatever. But then we used to run in a lot of the same circles 'cause I used to give a lot more talks at these conferences.

First time I saw Brene Brown, this would have been like, I don't know when this was, 11, 2011, 2012. We're again, speaking at the same event. And I was there with a couple of friends. I won't say their names, they're well-known. And she came up and gave her talk and the crowd was literally dancing.

Like she had them up there dancing. And just the energy was off the charts. Like, clearly this is a star, right? Like she was gonna be a star. And I remember turning to my friend, another guy, and saying, "I literally don't understand "a single thing she just said." Like, I cannot tell you what this talk was just about.

And she had the entire audience down. I guess it just shows, right? Everyone has their own love language. So that was my first experience with Brene Brown was she was clearly on her way to being a superstar. And as a like 27 year old dude, I did not understand what she was talking about.

- I've had so many moments like that where I'd be watching some new comic and I'm like, this is terrible. Pause, they're gonna be a star. - Oh, you could just tell. I could just tell. I was like, she's gonna be huge. I mean, yeah. Okay. All right, we got one more story here.

Let's see here. - Let's put it on a high note. - Yeah, before we bring in our other guest host, Brene Brown, come on. Come on in. Here we go. All right, from Kiss the band. A tweet. Happy 77th birthday, Peter Chris. We hope your special day rocks. Enjoy.

It's good news, happy Twitter. - It's good news. Happy Twitter. You have to dig so hard that it has to be just the corporate intern of the band. Unproblematically, there's no take. It's just this man is 77. - Yeah, looks great. - Remember him from the band Kiss. I hope you have a special day.

And that's it. Did I click it? Because I thought Peter Chris was killed in like a murder suicide. Of course I did. Of course I did. But it made me, you know, when I see, I don't know the last time I've listened to Kiss, but Cal and I grew up listening to guitar rock.

There was a kid named Ben. There was a kid named Ben in our class. Kind of bigger. Do you remember who that was? - Ben. All right, keep going. Let's see if I remember. - Well, I just never hung out with him ever. And just one day he goes, "I have an extra ticket to see Kiss.

Do you want to go?" Ben like Goldsmith or something. - Yes, that sounds familiar. - Yeah. Someone that Will Shorts would not have liked. - Not sufficiently, yeah, exactly. I get you. Oh, there we go. I get you. I get you. - And we went to see Kiss, I think with Ben's dad.

'Cause again, in high school, you were going to see, I saw Dave Matthews Band with John Evans' dad. I saw Santana with my dad. - Nice John Evans poll. That's a good Pennington poll. My first friend, my first friend moving to Pennington, New Jersey. - Stop it. - Jonathan Evans.

Jonathan Evans lived behind me. - But before he moved, he lived down the street, two houses down from where we, there we go. So first of all, fascinating for our audience. I think everyone is loving this. - He was the manager of our high school band, which just meant, guys, if you were ever in a high school band and you had a manager, it was just the kid who you couldn't tell not to come and he doesn't play an instrument.

And so he would just sit there and like one day have dreams of, you know, making money from us in a Paul Giamatti, NWA type fashion. - Well, and not to go on a tangent here, but we've talked about this before you and I, I don't know if we've talked on the air before, but this is the key with high school rock bands.

It's the aura, the aura you put off. So the fact that he wanted to be a manager for your band is because your band was cool. - Yep. - Right? What was it? Yeah. What's it called? Progressions or something? Am I thinking about the right band? - Oh, you are not.

It was a Simpsons reference, which will make you very happy. Pray for Mojo. - Okay. It was Pray for Mojo. Okay. - Homer gets a helper monkey and Homer starts getting the helper monkey drunk and stuff. And the helper monkey's handler finally comes back to get Mojo and Mojo could only type into a thing.

And he just wrote, "Pray for Mojo." And that was it. - Whereas my band in high school, we were technically proficient. - Yes. - We wrote our own songs. We were good at our instruments. Right? But I went to Dartmouth. Our lead singer went to Stanford. Our drummer went to NYU.

Right? - We were the Brene Brown of the high school bands. - Yes. And I was the, yeah, the Cal Newport of high school bands giving a speech about whatever. And so we couldn't, and so we just did not have the right aura. So we actually wrote, "I gotta find this tape." So it was down at the beach.

This was a high school student with our drummer and our lead singer, Chris and Mike. And we had our four track recorder with us. And we recorded this. I've told you about this, it's an awesome song. It was a song called "Our Bands Unpopular." - I'm so nervous. - No, it was a great song.

We wrote a song about our band called "Our Bands Unpopular." We were good. And by evidence is, every time we would play at our school at a battle of the bands, we would lose no matter what. We, as soon as we left and went to the Princeton FET, like an open to all bands, battle of the bands, we won.

It's like we had the chops, but if you knew who we were, if you knew who we were, there you go. - That's so sad and funny. - It's sad, it's funny. It's of great interest to the audience. But I'm looking at these replies to the tweets and it's all nice.

- It's all happy birthday. - Yeah. - There's no, "Hey, happy birthday, Peter, Chris. Gene Simmons is a rapist." It's like, I mean, probably, but like, that's not what we're talking about. - That's not what we're talking about here. Here we go, "Master, the only cat mat ever. Congratulations." - Looking good.

- "The guy looks fantastic. Playing the drums is the best workout you can get." - Hell yeah, dude. - Yeah. - The best workout you can get, well, it's kind of weird, but that's fine. - It's weird. - That was a drummer who just got dumped because he spends too much time at practice and he's just like, "Ugh, she saw this.

She knows I'm jacking again." - Yeah, man, I was gonna get my biceps, my trapezoids. My trapezoids. All right, this makes me feel good. - I've seen a lot of potbelly drummers, you guys. - So now I'm kind of really scrolling here. Now I'm kind of curious if there's a- - Are you digging for the first bad one?

- I kind of am digging for the... Here's, okay. - By the way- - Is this a secret bad one? Happy birthday, Peter. Mine is January 6th, soon to be 58. See, maybe that's a little bit of a subtle- - January 6th was like a code. Yeah, maybe. I also feel like if you're looking to say something bad or cancel a band from that era, it's not hard.

Like they all probably did terrible things to underage people. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - And so the fact that it wasn't in the first like 50 that you scrolled, looking good. - Yeah, so that's happy Twitter. That's like 2006 Twitter. It's like, I'm not really sure what we're doing on here.

It's kind of a party. Like not that many people are here yet. Kiss is fun. Yeah, this guy is fun. Hey, happy birthday. Look, here's what I ate today. That's great. You know, this is, yeah, this is good, right? You know? It's like, look, I made my crossword puzzle look like a swastika.

That wasn't easy. I had to align it and be like, it's great. You know, you're like good. That's difficult, you know? - A lot of alignment involved. So guys, I hope you know, when you listen to this show, we will always try to bring you at least one or two, also happy ones.

You're gonna hear the happy one. And at first you're gonna be very suspect, a little bit of Stockholm syndrome, not really know what's going on, wondering if you're walking into a trap. Sometimes it's just the guy from Kiss's fucking birthday. - Yeah, or a guy has a piece of ordinance in his record.

- I mean, we still made it about simple stuff, simple house ad band, but you know. - Yeah. All right, well, we should wrap it up then. So Jamie, tell us about the podcast or where we, your podcast or where people can find you. - You guys, I host a mental health comedy podcast called Advice Not Taken.

We're actually doing video now. So since you guys are on YouTube, it would be sweet if you went over to youtube.com/jamiekilstein hit subscribe. You can fucking mute that shit. I don't know. Just give me enough subscribers where I'm getting money. And then Advice Not Taken is on Spotify and iTunes.

I'm really proud of it, especially around the holidays. We've been talking a lot about depression and mental health shit and being alone for the holidays, but in a way that's funny. And I talk about what a fucking disaster I am. Once again, you can follow me if you guys are on Instagram @thejamiekilstein.

And that's it, Cal hit it. - Yeah, you can, my podcast is called Deep Questions with Cal Newport. I also play in a band called Amy Grant's Haunted Barn. - That's such a good name for a band. - Isn't that a great band name? That'd be awesome. Yeah. So there we go.

All right, everyone, we'll try to be back next week or the week after. I guess it's the holidays. We'll have to figure that out. - Holidays next week. But guys, I gotta tell you, Cal and I talk off the air about, I mean, to be honest with you, this show will probably go on even if it doesn't get popular because it's so fun.

But I really do believe in the show and I think it could be something cool. And it's a way for me and Cal just to decompress and make jokes with you guys. And we wanna get to the point where you start sending us in articles. Leave things in the comment section that you want our producer to get to us and talk about.

It's a way that we can talk about politics without it taking over our lives. We can still kinda know what's going on. We can laugh from afar as we're trying to lead happy, healthier, deeper lives. So please spread the word about the show. Like, review, leave comments, all of that shit you hear on other podcasts.

- All right, so enjoy your holiday. Put down your phone. We'll see you soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)