“My Autism Keeps Upsetting People” - Vittorio Angelone - #1119

54:13So if we can make him aware of this thing, we can kind of point him like a rifle and then you can pull the trigger and he'll do something and that'll take down. I've been kind of obsessed with this idea that I heard this week of a cringe cancellation. So you can cancel somebody because they did something illegal. You can cancel somebody because they said something reprehensible or whatever it is. But there's a much more pernicious type of cancellation, which is, I think, what people are attempting to use comedians for, which is I want you to make this person's brand equity so toxic to be associated with that they become cringe cancelled.

54:47Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably quite powerful as an idea. I wonder who would I, what's an example of someone who you think has been like cringe cancelled? Somebody made a joke about them that was so funny. Shetty and Bartlett got close to it when you and Mike did that clip. That's the canonical example.

55:11wizards of nothing that was the one that's true that's one of my favorites that that went interstellar but that's what that's the kind of thing that i'm talking about which is like if if if and this may be not even it's done in advance we're gonna try and say this thing to make it so uncool or whatever but for the most part like uh a lot of criticisms around russell brown this is a this is a two-pronged assault right the real cancellation but also the cringe cancellation which comes in because a lot of the time if someone's uh virtue gets chipped away at that opens up the opportunity for oh maybe the momentum's slowing which means that we can also get in there and do the and do the cringe thing too yeah but it's not always prefabricated i'm not saying that every single time but that these things can happen by accident or they can be uh someone can try to construct them but either way if you make it basically uncool embarrassing to listen to someone yeah that is you know what they remember the r0 number from covid like for every person that gets infected however many more people so for instance um the psychology of money book by morgan housel my friend for every person that buys the book another 1.2 people buy the book okay wow because they like it so much and it's so widely applicable and managing your money is such an important thing.

56:33The total addressable market is like 8 billion people. So they, da, da, da, da, da. So every month, I think I'm still right on this, every month since it launched, like three years ago, it sold more copies. Yeah, that's crazy. Which is fucking insane. Well, that's like books. Word of mouth is like the only way to sell books. Yes. Like you can't put up a billboard of a book. Like nobody fucking cares. I don't care. But if you say, dude, you need to read this. Or better, I bought it for you. So there it is. money right literally um but if you can do the opposite of that if you can make the r0 number less yeah that for every person that sees this thing fewer people want to be associated you know what i mean it's this sort of negative i listen to jay sherry's podcast so you don't have to

57:20well i think uh uh um uh brian callen good friend firing the kid that has been on the receiving end of this that is a real difficult spiral to come because how do you reverse engineer someone that's having a that is saying this is not something that you should listen to and because i'm saying that you shouldn't listen to it fewer people want to listen to it which means it's very human and then if you try to push back against that it's just more cringe and more cringe and more cringe it's a horrible sort of spiral to get yourself into but it's like i think it's a worry of like social isolation isn't it right of like it's cringe to be into that it's like oh better not yes well it's like that um bill burr joke about uh roller skating do you know he said like roller skating was massive until that one homophobic joke in the 90s and then everybody put their roller skates in the bin which is what's the hardest thing about roller skating telling your dad you're gay Okay.

58:19Okay. So yeah, it's like a roller skating cancellation. That's exactly what I mean. Yeah. That's precisely what I mean, but it can happen for anything, right? It can happen for bands. It can happen for TV stations. It can happen for whatever. And overexposure is a big thing. I think for like actors as well, where people are just sick of seeing somebody. Who would be an example of that? I think Nick Cage was probably not far off it at one point, but then actually went through it so far. He kind of did the full horseshoe that he full circled and came back out the other side of the cringe thing. The Rock actually got cringe canceled without being properly, The Rock is actually the canonical example of this.

58:55And then it seems to me like he's trying to do another, he's trying to do a rebrand with being edgy, swearing more, less family friendly and the Kevin Hart roast thing. Yeah, because that felt like, oh, cat's out of the bag with saying retard. The Rock said it. You know what I mean? like the rock is the overton window that's exactly that is exactly what my friend george said precisely he's like holy fucking shit the rocks there yeah that is yeah he's as hollywood as overton window as you can get yeah i don't know if that's a good thing that the rock is the rock is the center of culture yeah that doesn't feel great that doesn't feel like all of the generally accepted opinions are represented in an enormous sort of freak like he is a freak you know what i mean pisses in bottles on set and stuff apparently i didn't hear about that yeah that's interesting because he's working hard chris uh that's what i need that's what i need i need one of those down here to show just how hard i'm a little catheter that'd be cool that'd be cool yeah uh i i don't You know, it's very surprising to think, how far back would you need to go for that roast to not be allowed on the internet?

1:00:14Three years? Four years, maybe? As in the Netflix roast, allowed on the internet? Oh, sorry, allowed. On Netflix, I broadcast. Yeah. Shows how much I've seen it online. But then it's just cycles, isn't it? Isn't it just pendulum swinging and stuff like that? You know, if you look at the Don Rickles roasts, I mean, you all see racist jokes. Like, talk to Don Rickles. But, I mean, you couldn't have put that out in 2020. Yeah, people went a bit mad. But when was, at what point would that have been allowed? This year? One year ago? Two years ago? Three years ago? Because it wouldn't have been six years ago.

1:00:51Probably pretty recently. It's probably one or two, really. Yeah. And I try not to, like, I don't know, pay much heed to that stuff. Like, what is allowed, what isn't allowed. is that because you're purposefully not trying to be an edgelord yeah well i'm purposely trying not to come across as an edgelord i'm not saying things because they're edgy aside from the fact that you have to say things that create tension in the room to be a stand-up comedian and like you know if if you're in a topic that people aren't comfortable with then you can get a nice laugh at the end of it but it's not just for the sake of being edgy well that's something everyone's talking about at the moment, which is how often are the jokes funny and how often is it just a forbidden sentence?

1:01:34Yeah. I mean, having been around America for a few weeks, there is something a little bit embarrassing about some of American comedy, where it's like, if you have a joke that doesn't work, if you just stick a slur at the end, people will clap because they think you're like fighting this good fight to like it's the right wing equivalent of we don't like that orange guy exactly yeah it's all just clatter and it's all really really boring and pandering and sort of nonsense like a big thing with my show that i'm touring at the minute is like i don't think anybody uh should be comfortable the whole time but for different reasons like i think some people who might lean more towards the right or be more there for the edgy or dark stuff.

1:02:25They'll be uncomfortable because I'm like reasonably vulnerable in the middle of the show and sincere at points and talk about difficult things personally. But then the people who like that vulnerable narrative, thematic stuff will be uncomfortable with some of the jokes that I make later on. And it's just like, yeah, you want to stretch your audience. You don't want to like give them what they want. And I think a lot of American comedians are big into getting big rounds of applause for saying naughty words. It's like, do you know when you're like 12 and you find out what a female dog is called and all your mates are like, oh my God, you can say bitch, you can call it a bitch because it's a bitch.

1:03:02That feels like what a lot of American comedy is at the minute where it's like, we're allowed to say this now. Naughty. I don't know what's happening with the vulnerability side, but there's definitely a performative element of both. There's a performative element of pushing beyond what is allowed. this is the this is the oven window i'm going to push on that side but then you also create the incentive to perform in the other direction which is to just have endless amounts of vulnerability like i heard this term recently uh speed running relatability someone trying to like hurry their way through just trauma dumping on you in a desperate attempt to be like i am a real person let me show you how much of a real person i am yeah and uh that also is performative and that also has the potential to be cringe but like when authenticity is uh incentivized because people people seem to like that they seem to resonate with that what you end up with is a world of people trying to work out how to reverse engineer authenticity that genuinely looks authentic but doesn't have to be authentic like it doesn't have to be sincere it just needs to appear authentic it just needs to align with whatever your brand is and whatever your shtick is your whatever sort of whatever people want to hear from you like i think that's a big thing with a lot of comedy audiences they want to know what angle you're coming from from the start you know particularly in america i think it's like nobody in america is american everybody i'm italian or i'm irish this or i'm that it's like and then all their jokes are filtered through that lens where i sort of am slightly averse to that where it's like i can tell you what i think it's nothing to do with me being Irish.

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1:05:48Right now, you can get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and that 30-day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com slash modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com slash modernwisdom. you built a show around a clip of a 10 pin bowler big time what is it about that clip that made you so fascinated with it so what's interesting is i so the show is called who do you think you are i am the 10 pin bowler is pete webber uh who you might have seen on the internet shouting who do you think you are i am and i knew when i was like working towards the show that it was going to be a show about identity and how people perceive me and how i perceive myself And I just thought that was like a funny meme title for that show.

1:06:35But as I was writing the show and performing the show, I realized that like loads of people hadn't seen the clip, which is crazy to me because in my mind it goes viral like once a month to a crazy level. Um, but like most people I performed on the tour hadn't seen the video at all. So I had to like write an explanation of the video at the start of the show, which was a fucking nightmare but like actually very fun and like exciting like a fun bit and a fun thing to explain um and then as i was working on the show i was like oh this is like i think he's me like in the show like i didn't sit down being like i'm gonna write a show where i sort of in the subtext of the show i am this professional bowler who is like kind of my hero because of this clip like it just sort of became evident to me as i was talking about my experiences of that last couple years of like coming across very arrogant to other people pissing people off without realizing i was pissing them off and then trying to re-find a bit of that swagger having like put myself in a bit of a box and avoided that for a while and like like doing that sort of like wrestling thing and pete weber's a big wrestling fan of like the heel turn of being like fuck you this is like a fun thing to play with they of like staring into this gate of being like i'm arrogant and therefore like you know Pete Webber is the bad boy of bowling which is like a very funny thing to be like it's a crazy thing to be the bad boy of but so stand-up comedy like it's a very embarrassing sort of weird art form kind of and it's like so yeah it just came out of it um naturally and I was really annoyed because he lives in Nashville but he was away when I was doing my show there and I was supposed to do my that show about him in Nashville and I really wanted to do it for him and i don't know if he's watched it he follows me on instagram and i did message him being like oh hey this special came out on youtube and he was like yeah man i'm gonna watch it this week then he hasn't replied since but i don't know if he just really didn't like it what was the uh putting yourself in a box thing like regressing back and then coming back out i'm interested in so the story from that uh show is like i a clip of my podcast got screen recorded and sat around lots of comedian whatsapp groups uh where i was saying talking about having an unexpected having an unexpectedly good run at the edinburgh fringe festival and i was like oh people keep telling me i'm the guy this year like it's my year to be the guy i'm the fucking guy and i was saying that i was finding that really stressful i was having lots of panic attacks like how am i going to live up these weren't people who'd seen the show they just heard the buzz or whatever and i was like how do i live up to whatever this is kind of the lewis capaldi effect yeah i'm just like god like i can't i mean on a much smaller scale but like that kind of thing and then so i was being made fun of but like they cut off the podcast clip out of context where it's just me going people keep telling me i'm the fucking guy this year and that and that got sent around and then people come up to me during the festival and be like oh it's the fucking guy and i'd be like oh it's happening again because i didn't find out i didn't find out about the whatsapp groups until a month after so i'd had this month of my life that i was like this is the best month of my career so far so exciting really proud of what i achieved and i had a really fun time with lots of different comedians like it was difficult to points but i had a really fun time and then a month later all of that was like oh fuck like everybody was making fun the veil got lifted behind my back it's like my throwing water on yasmin dream yeah it's that i thought we were all having fun i thought this was a good time yeah and everybody just thought I was like a wanker which is like truly like if I'd been sent that clip of another comedian I would have like ripped into them endlessly because it's like funny um and I get how it came across but I think for fear of that happening again there was like maybe a year and a half two years where I like tried to put a lid on like a bit of the self-promotion a bit of the like bravado yeah that stuff which I think is like part of my like has always been part of my approach to comedy but from doing that show and touring that show like building that part of myself back up and being slightly less ashamed of like yeah i'm like ambitious i want to like like do lots of cool stuff and i i think i can be really good at stand-up comedy and like the reason i do stand-up comedy is i think i can i think i can be one of the best in the world at it and i didn't have that when i was like a musician or whatever but i felt like with stand-up comedy i was like i'm not saying definitely and it's also objective but i was like i think i can be one of the best in the world at this so i've kind of been working on getting my mojo back in that sense and you kind of have to because i tell you what's hard to do without any bravado is promote a stand-up comedy tour on instagram authentically yeah to be like hey come see the show it's like it's fine it's not gonna work and there's loads of comedians going around and go oh fucking hate doing this self-promotion stuff and i'm like yeah that's the job i'm sorry you're sort of in marketing but you're also going to be sad if you only play to a half-filled theater so like you yeah i mean that's something else that really resonates with me uh i think certainly from childhood maybe this is working class you know i'm from stockton right stock nonties it's i i i've tried to put across just how horrendous the place is.

1:12:04There's a beautiful theater. Yep. And then everything else. Correct. Is off. Yeah. You've played in Stockton. I've done the Ark in Stockton. I went to go and see that. What's that fucking World War I play about a horse? War Horse? War Horse. You stupid.

1:12:24It's like my dream. You said all of the words. It's like my dream. You said all of the words. World War I play about a horse.

1:12:33sorry that was so mean of me but that

1:12:46that was close what's that book about the jungle

1:13:07anyway i went to go and see that in art in the arc yeah in art um for a good while i don't know whether it's just a British thing, northeast of the UK, whether it is, you need an amount of charm to be able to carry off bravado or ego or like confidence. There's definitely the tall poppy thing. If don't get too big for your boots. I mean, fuck me how many times I heard. I know Ireland's got that like - Notions is what we call it. He's got notions. As in you have notions that you're somebody. Oh. If you're accused of having notions, that would be a bad thing. I think I would be accused of having notions.

1:13:42Too keen. Don't know your place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's tall poppy. It's the exact same thing. You're right. I like that. Well, I don't like it, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And what I learned as being an incredibly unpopular kid in school, highly under-socialized who played cricket. So like, you know, just in case I was going to make it worse on myself. Yeah. I'm going to play cricket at a moderately high level and wear whites all the time. what I learned was if you really aggressively downplay what it is that you've got going on if you don't talk about your ambitions if you don't sound like you're too big for your boots I think I reverse engineered that a lot of people find you more likable in that way that they don't see you as a threat it's not quite the same thing as humility it's like it's kind of like performative humility in a way it's meekness isn't it correct yeah That's a good way to put it.

1:14:35Well, they're going to inherit the earth according to the Bible. Jordan Peterson would agree. Yeah. But it's not genuine meekness. It's more a fear of judgment where you're, I'm not going to say too much. I want to do too. Do you know what changed this for me? The movie Coach Carter. I don't think I've ever seen that. Brother, what is the point in talking to you? You have to have watched Coach Carter. I haven't. What's it about? basketball so sam l jackson is a basketball coach okay in a sort of impoverished neighborhood richmond the richmond oilers and there's this recurring thing where he asks a player timo cruz what's your deepest fear and he like refuses to answer and then he like just but it keeps coming up what's your deepest fear what's your deepest fear and then when timo cruz i think like a family member of his gets like shot but he's like he turned his back on the team because he want to go to class he didn't want to do all the strict like classic sports movie stuff like you have to have this gpa you have to turn up you have to blah blah blah and like be respectful wear a tie all that stuff he'd like stormed out but then he had like really horrible family stuff and then he got back into the team and blah blah blah blah really dramatic moment in the film uh he stands up and says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate it's that we are powerful beyond measure isn't it is um it is not our darkness but our light that scares us the most and it's this poem that already exists i can't remember who it's by but he does the whole poem and like like i think at some point in my life i was like yeah you know if you shine your light it emboldens other people to shine theirs as well and i think yeah it's so easy to be like that tall poppy thing and yeah when do you think you got over that because it's like you're probably a very good example of that of like being like i'm gonna interview people like there's a level of like who the fuck are you and why would we well yeah for sure i think to be honest i think i'm still playing it i'm still certainly still downplaying whenever i get asked about what's going on like i did this big interview with um for like high life magazine which is the british airways thing i did something in the times recently i did a bunch of others and if you read through it it sounds like it sounds like a comedian try it sounds like a very very bad comedian trying to do self-deprecating, like every single line is trying to be self-deprecating.

1:16:58Because, well, you know, being from the Northeast of the UK, I didn't have particularly big dreams anyway. So it's nice that I've surpassed them. Some shit like that. Like at every single step of the way. Rather than like, you have goals that you haven't. I'm the eighth biggest podcaster in the world. Yeah. Right? Like I just, that's something that I can... And also you're not done. You're annoyed that you're eighth. Yes. You want to be seventh or sixth or fifth or fourth or third or sixth or first. maybe but like that's okay like it's okay it's certainly still there it's certainly still there and i think it gets to a point where it actually starts to seep inside of your own ambition a little bit and you go i'm believing my own reverse hype yeah in a way yeah it's nothing yeah i'll just i'll i'll sort of keep it where it is i don't want to make waves get too big for my boots have notions you know be a kino etc and uh like trying to work through that i think is is a really interesting challenge i i to be honest i still think it's there like i'm doing the thing in spite of it not because of it yeah i mean like in a way it's a good thing to keep an eye on not to have a runaway ego yeah and i think that's the sort of what the ego the super ego the id like all of those things balancing each other out and like you got to keep a little bit of it in check but you just got to know what it is and when it's useful when is ego useful and when are you bragging versus being like grateful for what you've managed to achieve do you know what i think it might be i think it might be a deep down belief that i'm so unlikable that i need to compensate for that unlikeability by doing by adding in additional upgrades to the personality which includes not ever, well, I know that for the most part, there is a, you need to have like surplus likability to be able to have an ego.

1:18:49So if I don't ever display an ego, that means that the likability that I think is probably lower can be lower, which means that I'm not going to push over and accidentally cause some sort of an issue. I think that that's, I think that's probably a big part of it. And yeah, it's interesting. But one of the things that I certainly talk about at my live show is doing the thing in spite of not thinking that you should be able to like doing it anyway and being able to turn up and do the Apollo or sit down with Matthew McConaughey or you know whatever whatever the fuck um or turn down Donald Trump on the podcast like to say no to opportunities too like that you turned on only podcaster that did last year no two years ago I picked the right part of the manosphere yes we did it yes I was fucking I was so we've met twice and I'm so proud of you that rocks and I know you're like meek about like that I mean it shouldn't be a high bar to surpass to not like interview a guy that's sort of bringing in fascism but like nice one man i think fucking cool it was it was definitely a rarity to the the media team reached out to me after the election that's made my day i'm sorry this is so great is it really put on put the hat on i'm gonna put this on instead so yeah the media team reached out to me and they were like you know that i think of all of the people that got offered it the only one that said no was you you are aware of that and i was like okay i guess i don't know i didn't have i what what am i gonna i'm not gonna get anything out of that conversation was my yeah i would be far more interested in speaking to him now and i think it's far less um um influential and potentially yeah well it's not like world changing or cantankerous or whatever and there's less pressure i was like i don't i don't i feel like i am going to be able to do the job that is necessary regardless of what you think about trump the guy is a generational communicator and in the space of 55 minutes i'm not going to be able to i sat down with bernie sanders and he was like a slippery eel and i i'm like wow this is um but he's like rolling with a brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt or something it's incredible more times than you can even imagine he's been in congress longer than i've been alive yeah so i'm like this is an unfair fight yeah uh But anyway, saying yes to things, saying no to things, having the dreams, doing the stuff, all of that.

1:21:31But definitely is a good role model for, hey, you cannot believe in yourself and still make it. Isn't that an incredible fucking motivational thing? You've got to see it before you achieve it or whatever. It's like, hey, what about if you achieve it and you still don't see it? Because that is also a path. And far more people, I think, have got, at least in the UK, have been held back by a lack of confidence than a lack of competence. It's like, hey, you're way better than you think you are. And there's a guy out there who's half as good as you with twice your confidence making 10 times the progress.

1:22:09Yeah, yeah. Because they're just putting themselves in the right situations and going to the rooms and all the rest of the things. But, yeah, you can kind of, you can just do things. Yeah. You can just do things. And apparently that is kind of the same as believing in yourself. But I think you sort of have to believe in your like inherent, like good stuff about you, but like that you will keep yourself in check, you know, in, in like a way where it's like, like knowing deep down, like, no, I'm like a, I'm not a bad guy. I'm not a complete narcissist or whatever. so I can step a little bit out into the world.

1:22:44And like, even if I push with like everything I have to be as out there and confident as possible, like, because you've got all these worries, like you're really, it's so unlikely that you're going to really overshoot. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. It's so funny to think about

1:23:04the fear that you have of being that thing, meaning that you're almost certainly never going to be that thing that line about like if you worried that you're a psychopath you're probably not a psychopath yeah i worry about that with the autism stuff very similar like that you've manifested your own autism no very psychopathy symptoms sociopath versus autism there's like there's like one thing that's not the same what's the thing i can't remember what it is but it's like you're perilously close to being a sociopath yeah it does people probably Do you reckon anyone's ever thought that before? Yeah, I think lots of people who aren't diagnosed with autism, before they get diagnosed with autism, they're like, I'm really worried that I'm like a terrible - Incorrectly pattern matched.

1:23:49Yeah, I'm a bad person. I don't care about other people. I don't care about whatever. I don't know. That authenticity thing is really difficult though as well. I think it's very easy for that to just make you do nothing. It's like, what do you want to do? What aligns with who you are deep down inside? it's like, I don't know, I probably just want to sit in and like read my book, you know? But like what? I think I have like quite bad like anxiety maybe to do with the autism stuff. So I've never been able to trust the gut thing. You know when people go like, oh, just trust your gut. I'm like, I am terrified of everything I ever do.

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1:25:33But it's interesting. I've heard you talk as well about how all of the interactions or many of the interactions that you have are kind of prefabricated. There's a response that before somebody asks me a question, I have an idea of what it is that I'm going to say already. And I think that is a way to not need to rely on instinct as much. I think because as well, my instincts are so like intense conversationally. Like, I just want to ask really like difficult questions. Like I was hanging out with my uncle and he travels loads for work. Like he's all over the world doing this like big corporate thing.

1:26:12And I was like, we were just like, I have a boring chat of like, how's this person in the family? How's that person in the family? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, are you still like enjoying the travel stuff? And he was like, no, not really. and i was like oh okay like what's your and i sort of stopped myself from going okay well well how does it make you feel like what are you how can you fix that what's this what's that like i really want to interrogate people's like and it's not to be like i think they're wrong or they're doing the wrong thing and i want to pick it apart it's like i just want to like them to talk me through their thought process and just so i find that so interesting like the reasons people do things also because there's often no reason like they haven't actually conceptualized that there are other options and they might like want to do something else momentum is a fucking hell of a restrictor on that oh this is what i've always done this is what i do do or whatever it's the next logical step let's keep going yeah yeah there's a a cool idea of sliding versus deciding and it's like from couples counseling stuff that you move on to the next step of the relationship.

1:27:20We're hanging out on an evening and then it's a situationship and then it's a relationship. And then, you know, you come over a bit and then you got a toothbrush and you got a drawer and we're kind of living together. And now there's a golden retriever and, oh, we should get married. And now there's a kid and you wake up with a couple of kids and a golden retriever in a house and you go, at no point did I feel like I decided to get into this. And it happens with a lot of things in life. People slide through a career. Well, you know, I didn't know what to do at university. So I did business, did business studies.

1:27:47And then, you know, I got a job at, I got a job at KPMG. KPMG's great. And then, you know, I just like, you stay here. Got a promotion. Yeah. I think it's the same with comedy. Like the next logical thing for me to do is like tour, tour, tour, write another show, turn it around, get another tour on sale. Every year, every year, every year. Yeah. I want to try and do like no stand up in 2027. What are you going to do instead? Just like write scripts, maybe write a book, like just live. You know, you've got the podcast that keeps the lights on. Mm-hmm. build that a bit more, but like, it'd be cool to do a year of like not doing it and then really want to go back to it.

1:28:24Yeah. Well, also, in order for art to imitate life, you have to live a life. Yeah. See comedians where all their stuff's about like airplanes? And dinners. Yeah. And backstages or green rooms. Yeah. It's like, gotta get out in the world a little bit and live a bit. Where did the name? Shit yourself at the 9-11 memorial. That's true. That was part of tour. That's great. The name, Guide to Parenting? Yes. People think it was like a jab at like parenting podcasts it truly wasn't it was mike and i had done like a couple of trial versions of the podcast and we were like okay we're idiots like we are just talking absolute shite the whole time and it's all silly and i was like right so we could call it mike and vittoria was very stupid podcast and that would be like an accurate description but surely the naming protocol should also match the vibe of the podcast where we just name it the stupidest thing that we can think of and we landed on mike and vittorio's guide to parenting do you think many people listen hoping to find some parenting advice we get a few messages i've put it in the children and family section of spotify so it's like in people's recommended pods if they like are new parents they like they get recommended us on spotify i started i started listening to the Manosphere version, thinking that it would educate me about what to worry about for my eight-year-old son.

1:29:52And I was horrified at what I heard. Yeah, so we just thought it was the stupidest name ever. And the joke answer is we're trying to attract an audience of young moms.

1:30:09What trouble have you guys gotten into? Has there been anything coming out of that? Of like the naming thing? No, no, no, no. of the show generally the podcast yeah no i think like look every so often we get a little message where someone goes oh i didn't like that bit i didn't like this bit and we have like i think we have all sorts of people listening to the podcast and i think a lot of people think it's like guys listen to the podcast but it's like girls with fringes i think there's something about like guys talking shit in like a playful silly fun way is a way where i think women generally like socially are like very good communicators and talk about their feelings there's that like kind of like hack stand-up bit of you know I went for a beer with my friend we spent three hours together I come back home and my partner goes how's his mom how's his work going is he seeing anyone and you're like why would I know any of that stuff and she's like you spent three hours together how did you not talk about that stuff and they can connect emotionally and really like learn about each other and sort of love each other in that way but i think men while we're shit at that first one and i'm trying to get better at it we're good at just abstract fucking around chat and like silly fun chat and i think like for some men listening to our podcast would be like well i can kind of just like chat to my friends and fuck around with them and that's what this is and that's nice when you're maybe like in a new city and you like don't have that set up yet but i think a lot of the women that listen to the podcast are like they don't get those conversations from like their group of girl mates and some this is all generalizations and all that stuff you know there's some women that are like have those conversations and have those chats or whatever but i think like we're providing a service that like isn't as readily available to women in a way which is quite it's like i wasn't expecting it we weren't targeting a demographic at all but it was like exciting do you know the basement yard you familiar i do yeah they're so funny so joe santagato was there in the last week or something and uh they did madison square garden sold that out 90 women unbelievable isn't it i think it's probably a similar thing it's the exact same thing it's the exact same thing and the sound when they walked out on stage the screams were so loud that everyone's apple watches went off warning people that they were in an unsafe noise environment like some fucking harry styles concert yeah unbelievable that is and i think like that's probably a shame like like why women feel like they can't be stupid or silly or fun in that way you know they're supposed like i guess they've been told they're supposed to be buttoned up and like responsible maybe and men have more freedom to i think it's i definitely think when it comes to comedy podcasts it's hard most of them are guy-centric about guy stuff and then begin to push into an amount of edginess that deselects for a lot of that female audience, right?

1:33:05Especially one of the more linear paths to pod success or online content creator success is to start to skew right if you're going to do that sort of stuff, I think, which again, deselects for a lot of the women. And it's always going to get into some kind of, you orbit manosphere, manosphere adjacency stuff, which I'm aware that you brought it up earlier on. I do need to clear my name. You're not in the manosphere. I'm not even fucking close. They hate me. They hate me. Yeah, but I don't know. You're closer than I am. That's true. That's not hard. That's not hard. Yeah, I'm a little bitch. With your female autism.

1:33:44I'm a low-T... Female autism. ...moustached sort of with a little earring. Yeah. I get called gay on the internet every day of my whole life. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I don't know. It's funny. Like, it's funny. Like, you... Maybe... You sit in a very interesting place, I think. Like, you're not in the manosphere. But I think to some people, they would say you're, like, the... And I don't think you're guilty of any of that shit either, like, the really problematic stuff. But for some reason, like, maybe because you're, like, jacked. Like, is it just that you're, like, in really good shape and maybe talk about it?

1:34:19Or, like, because there's a Venn diagram of, like, talking about health and fitness and mindset and, like, those things, which does exist in a more problematic male media landscape. But I think you managed to sort of, I don't know, an unkind view is you're like the narrowest end of the wedge. Correct. The accusation I got after me and Bartlett went viral at the start of the year was that I'm the gateway drug to the manosphere, that I'm the little pebble at the top of the avalanche. Well, yeah, you start off listening to Chris Williamson, but before you know it, you've pipelined your way into Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate.

1:34:55despite the fact that the day after the Louis Theroux documentary came out, I managed to unite feminists and the Manosphere in agreement that the worst part of the Louis Theroux documentary was him coming on my podcast. That was what they were tweeting about the next day. It wasn't about the documentary. It was about me. It was like a full half AI. Is it Louis coming on? Yeah. Louis coming on my podcast got me every single... Most of the people who were in the documentary weren't tweeting about the documentary. They were tweeting about me platforming Louis Theroux. Wow. That was unacceptable. But only a couple of months before, when I'd been on Bartlett, I got called the Lux Maxxer, which I actually think is kind of a compliment.

1:35:37All of the newspaper articles about that were right-wing, manosphere, misogynist. But then when I went and did Tucker Carlson's podcast, only a couple of months before that, I was accused of being riddled with blue-pilled thinking and infected with feminist lies. There's a quote yesterday, literally yesterday on Twitter, the big reply that happened to like something I put up that was like some C.S. Lewis quote that I thought was really like cool and cute. And it like talks, it's both sides of the fence about, uh, the homemaker is the ultimate career and all other careers are just built to support that one.

1:36:05I was like, oh, wow, this is really interesting. Cause it's like both it's supportive. It's progressive. It's regained to old school, whatever the fuck. And, uh, someone was like more feminist bullshit. I, in fact, I answered that fucking question yesterday. Like, um, when are you going to admit that all that you do is spew the exact feminist lies that you, that are creating the problems in the world. I'm like, I'm getting ideologically spit roasted. Because it's a difficult thing because we, I've had like TV producers come to my and Mike's standup shows and be like, do you ever worry that your audience are the type of audience that might be in the manosphere or might like have some of those incel tendencies or might drift towards that Andrew Tate type of thing?

1:36:45And I'm like, that's really the opposite of a worry for me. because if I because if me and Mike can get a hold of them before Tate does then they're not going to become these sort of fucked up like misogynist violent like abusive partners these women because we make fun of those guys and we're softer and we're more open and like I think a nice thing that I try to emulate on our podcast again not super actively but like is you know Mortimer and White House gone fishing. Yes. And how like lovely they are to each other as like older men. And they like say each other, I love the way they say each other's names.

1:37:21Like, how are you going? How are you doing, Bob? She's lovely. Like there's some real - Intimacy. Yeah, male intimacy with like in a friendship that I think is represented on that. And these like TV people were like, oh, we're just not, you know, that's a bit of a worry for us. And I'm like, but someone has to talk to these people. Someone has to talk to young men. Or else you're abandoning that to all of the influences that you have the biggest concerns about. And it's hard to talk about young men feeling abandoned or without feeling like you're heading towards that manosphere thing. But I think that's why I found that benefit from the Jordan Peters and stuff.

1:38:01It was someone talking to me in a way that I could understand in how I can take up a positive space in the world. It wasn't patronizing. it wasn't pushing you in a direction that you felt was unethical and it wasn't telling me i was like a piece of shit for being like a man yeah you know yeah i look i uh you're right i think it is it is definitely an interesting whatever middle of the venn diagram of talking about personal development health and fitness and and you know sex differences and challenges between the sexes and birth rates and stuff like that because i think they're important issues but it's the internet's really quick to pattern match and especially if you present yeah maybe you could like fucking hell like you know someone could look a little bit fruity and you're like might be might be might swing both ways and then this is well he might be you know he could be manosphere but then also again insufficiently masculine for the manosphere because the gay accusations come thick and fast um but like them coming thick and fast sorry

1:39:04one of the things there's this great great article that i saw the other day about grind slop so this is and i think this is something that i've been feeling for a while that 1000 you'll be episode 1110 or something like a lot right uh and much of that is me as a young man going, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to operate in the world. I'm confused about emotions. And I sometimes have self-doubt and I sleep. I think I should sleep. I should probably sleep more and I should probably work out what I need to eat. And I'm going to find whoever I can get a hold of to understand that and understand myself and understand the world around me, especially as the whatever late adolescent onset, like whatever the opposite of precocious development is.

1:39:53I'm like in my 20s starting to understand me. But there is a degree, at least when I have the conversations, where I'm like, a lot of the 80-20 of the development side of stuff, like how to sleep well, what a productivity strategy looks like, this is how you should eat, this is how you should train, you need friends in your life and all of these things. Like, I think a lot of that has already been covered, if not by me, then by other people. So one of the reasons that I've got this studio and we've got this big table and we're doing these episodes with lots of people is I get the sense in the age of AI that just raw information dumping is probably not more of what people need.

1:40:36It's probably not more of what I need. I certainly want to learn about things and there'll be progress to make. But given that lots of that territory has already been covered by me and by other people, and I think people are feeling more alone. And I know that even I as somebody that's constantly around people have that sense too. I'm like, I want to listen. I just want to listen to Matt and Shane. I just want to like have a hang and like, or I'll tune into you guys, I'll tune into like Jacob and Jake and just listen to them talk bullshit. I just want to listen to them talk bullshit. And that's something that I'm actively sort of nudging the show in that direction.

1:41:09And I'm going to lose a big chunk of the audience from doing that because once a week or once every couple of weeks, it's me and my friends sat around talking about whatever the fuck has happened. and having that degree of male intimacy and just having a hang and not like, it doesn't feel like homework. And when you've left, you go, did I learn anything? I had a nice time. Yeah. I had a nice time. Yeah, yeah. And that's, it's just like an interesting pivot. And that's kind of where I'm feeling at the moment that the grind slop, like work until your eyes bleed thing. I don't, definitely been through that era, but I don't think that more of that is necessarily needed.

1:41:44So anyway, I don't even know what I'm saying. There's a lot of funny parodies of the sort of grind slop thing. was his name Doug Baldwin with the tiny little sunglasses he was sat in that seat yesterday yo get pissed call the police that's me on the floor he's so funny some of the bits that we did yesterday are fucking unbelievable he is so funny you know him and Timmy No Breaks are partners in a lot of things oh great okay cool yeah I think he's the funniest guy he was here yesterday that's so funny yeah it was great so uh but yeah exactly exactly that and um i have a little hope for ai okay that it really like that it'll put a premium on like live experiences and music gigs people will buy tickets for them and stand-up gigs people buy tickets for them because you can't trust anything that's on your phone anymore yeah because it's like what like even watching the winter olympics i was like is this i don't think i don't think trump competed like you know yeah like there's just something about it where you go like it makes me the phone is slightly giving me the ick at the minute because it's like i can't quite trust it and i just go it already was no one was already that much of a fan of it and now but it's just like even the silly fun videos aren't like you know like like this propaganda cat videos but like cat videos were like what the internet was sort of built on and now you can't you don't know if it's a cat or if it's just some ai thing so it's i think being in the real world might become back in fashion i think so too i mean nightclubs aren't nightclubs are dying a death right which was my old industry for a long time i think it's an one one nightclub a week is closing down in the uk at the moment there's not that many to be able to go through i'm aware in the u.s it'd be like fucking rounding error on the number of nightclubs you can't get away with that many and most of them were already a bit shit like you know when it is it's when flares closes down that's when you know that there's a real issue okay that's their patient zero for like they're the they're the overton window for nightlife they've weathered a lot of storms they do they have indeed yeah with their light up dance floor uh speaking of that what's the most belfast way that anyone's ever threatened you threatened me i mean there's like fun like there's a thing that's happened twice now on the tour and this doesn't feel like a threat but it does a little bit there's a bit in the show where i ask if anyone's from where i'm from and i talk about and the joke is about the naming conventions of like some people don't say northern ireland because they don't agree with the fact that it exists some people say the north of ireland because they think ireland should be one whole big thing and that's like a big divide where catholics would call it the north of ireland protestants would call it northern ireland that's like i think so i have jokes about that and uh in those jokes i go obviously notice i haven't named where i'm from because in the first chunk of the show i don't name where i'm from i say belfast but i don't name northern ireland as a place and i say um oh have you noticed that i haven't named it and it happened in newcastle upon town and it happened in philadelphia and no it was last night in nashville happened in nashville in Newcastle where somebody shouted out the word trench, which is the street my dad grew up on in West Belfast, which doesn't on the face of it scream threat, but it's a bit like, oh, that's intense.

1:45:17How did they know that? Like their family knows my family. And in a show that's maybe a little bit contentious about Northern Ireland stuff, it's just a bit like okay noted noted was the threat scarier in newcastle or nashville i would say newcastle that felt a bit more connected to the whole thing um but it feels like i was reading a london falling patrick radden keefe's new book um you know patrick radden keefe he wrote say nothing um you should read say nothing i think you'd really like it is that a hint um no shut the fuck up um um and in it he was talking about when he was like interviewing gangsters who were like around this murder that the book's about um and they would always mention like his kids names and his like dog's name it's just a little flex we know where you're from we know who you are i know exactly where you're from and who you are French.

1:46:17Fucking hell. I was thinking it was going to be some fun, jovial, little strange, and in fact, it's actually a private investigator guy who knows something deep and dark about. But West Belfast is so small. I'm not from West Belfast, but my dad is. But it's a small little word. Everybody knows everybody. Paddy Galloway, good friend of mine, there's something about the entirety of Ireland. That seems diplomatic enough to say. The entirety of Ireland. The island of Ireland. Diplomatically. Also, people are trying to spitball new names for the concept of the British Isles, because that claims over-ship over Ireland by Britain.

1:46:57So you can't call them the British Isles. I think somebody said, what if we called it the East Caribbean?

1:47:11So Paddy, every single person I know that's from the island of Ireland has a story where there's some sort of family drama feud thing that goes all the way back, despite the fact that England is just as old and Scotland is just as old. I don't hear, I don't know anyone that's in England that's got that same kind of heritage, my family and their family and this thing in the farm next door. It just, I don't know there seems to be way more like ossification do you think it's just rurality maybe of like like agricultural communities probably do like they're more embedded in their communities and they rely on each other in their communities you're less cosmopolitan you're moving and grooving around yeah and that's like a sad thing about living in a city but i try to like be connected in a city it's like a nice thing to try and build a community living in north london like what's the community of north london like jewish uh the uh the uh there's a lady who lives in my block of flats um who's this old italian lady and she feeds the foxes so you'll just see her in the bushes every day like throwing chicken to foxes um and if she sees one of the foxes has like mange uh she'll phone a fox charity get medicine delivered put it in the chicken she's a fox lady give it to the fox she looks after the foxes and it means there's a real fox problem which is increasing around our block of flats because they're very well looked after by this little Italian lady and and but every so often she needs help sending a whatsapp so she comes up and knocks on the door and I like you're fully integrated so it's like nah I try to build that stuff and like I think it's really important and like I'm not even doing nearly enough of it as I should but like I think it's a really important part of life that's like, like not easily fixable because it's really scary to just like say hello to somebody like on the street or your neighbor or whatever.

1:49:12But like it is, it's doable to build a community. It's nice to be needed. It's nice that that person's got something that they need you for. Yeah. Because the worst thing would be everybody else is a solopreneur, digital nomad, degen, just WhatsApp in their way through their day. And you go, none of us need any of us at all. Yeah, yeah. That's not fun. What do you think is something that Italian families do that British people would consider psychological warfare? Psychological warfare. I mean, it's maybe, so have you heard like, so Santa has become global, but it wasn't always global, like Santa Claus.

1:49:50Okay. Like, you know, there was like a weird German one called like, is it the Krampus or something? Who like eats kids if they're naughty. Like that's instead of like a lump of coal, like you just get eaten by a sort of weird goblin. reverse santa claus yeah yeah but i think you do get nice stuff if you're good or maybe you just avoid being eaten but our version is i think of labifana and i think i fucked this up but this is what i was told um where when the wise men were looking to find jesus they were knocking on all the doors in bethlehem because like they look for under a star but like that's not a good it's hardly google maps you know what i mean so they had the vague area that they were supposed to be in but couldn't find them so they were knocking on doors going oh we're looking for the son of god who's to be born or like who's just been born and uh we're trying to find him and basically this old lady who's like sort of an old witch type character just tells them to fuck off but then when they leave she feels bad and she's like god if that is like if that is the son of god like that's a pretty terrible thing that i've done not to help these guys sort of bestow gifts upon him so what she does to cover her bases she was like i need to give a gift to the newly born son of god but she obviously didn't know where he was.

1:50:57So she gave gifts to all the children in the whole area in the hope that one of those would be the newly born son of God. So in Belfast growing up, we would go to like a community hall with a bouncy castle and sandwiches and all this stuff and like have a fun day. And then we would all sit down and a late, an old lady dressed as a witch would come in and give us all presents.

1:51:24Isn't that fucking mad? Was that traumatic as a nervous, slightly panicky child? No, I think I was scared by weird things. La Bifana, the witch was absolutely fine. It's the, what's his, I remember I went to Disney World when I was a child, terrified of the Little Mermaid, burst into tears. Of the mermaid herself or Ursula? No, the mermaid herself, like the lady, like the actress or whatever, the struggling actress who's playing the Little Mermaid at Disney World. Eight hours a day. Yeah, sweating in like a wig. And I think I was just like really freaked out that she didn't have legs.

1:52:05You're overwhelmed by the fish lady. Yeah, it was just a little bit much for me. Yeah, I remember I went there as well. And what was that? What was the elevator? You're going to do the same thing. I'm terrified of saying the sentence with the name of the thing in it. the elevator that went up and down and that was the ride do you remember this tower of terror glad that it wasn't the tower that was terrifying you were fine uh i remember i went on that and someone's thing came loose as they fell and uh there was all of this hubbub there was a big i mean that's you know you said if you die on a plane there's going to be paperwork i think there was a lot of paperwork well i haven't really done roller coasters since was it alton towers where somebody lost their leg on nemesis didn't that happen twice can you chat gpt how many people got injured on nemesis at alton towers the smiler yes 16 people the smiler that seems tough name that seems ironic tough name crash the injured 16 five what was just say what was the one where someone lost their leg legs i think it was alton tires but i truly haven't been on a roller coaster since and i don't know it's just like i obviously know that's a possibility but you sort of think i'll be all right let's check all the safety on those things it's a great name bargazzi joke you think he's thinking the smiler a traveling funfair yeah fuck me leg amputations two people they must have got crazy money five million it doesn't really matter you've lost a leg How much for a leg?

1:53:43My leg? Yeah Fuck It's a tough conundrum isn't it? I really like my leg I like both of them Equally If you had to lose one Which one would you lose? That's Oh that's weird Because you know the way you like You have your kicking foot But then you like You jump off the other one Oh no Which do I prefer? Kicking or jumping? I don't think I would be doing much jumping as like a one-legged guy so how much kicking would you be doing loads i think you're mostly kicking crutch bang i think yeah i think i would keep my right leg and train for the paralympics as a one-legged football guy i think i'd keep my right leg as well i think that's the important one i don't know i've been thinking about are you left-handed by any chance no because that sometimes happens right with uh i think autistic people have got really we've swapped the as in you're right-footed and left-handed no that uh there's a disproportionate number of people who are autistic that are also left-handed wow i think let's google this one i'm worried about the whatever the whatever it is water usage or whatever it is that you're concerned about um uh my left hand is essentially for show it doesn't do anything well i had a lot because when i was a percussionist right a lot of the focus of that sort of training just bringing the other hand up to the quality of the get this to stop being so fucking useless and do nearly what you can do is like basically the whole thing uh dude double wow what's what the fuck is that word echo echo echolash echolalia echolalia that's when uh uh you sort of repeat words it's sort of like audiological stems or repeat words or noises so someone will repeat words or noises yeah and uh and they just sort of like get stuck in a loop.

1:55:40I get that sometimes. My girlfriend has to go, hey, well, stop. What was the last time that that happened? I just got like, if I like the way a word sounds, either that I've said or somebody else has said, or like in a song, I'll just be like, indigo, indigo, indigo, indigo, indigo, indigo, indigo. And she goes, da, da, da, da.

1:56:05Fuck, Vittorio Angeloni, ladies and gentlemen. thank you so much for having me this is this is this was really good you were about to say actually no yes you were no yes i was gonna say this was actively enjoying uh where should people go to check out everything you're doing vittorio angeloni on instagram uh i'm a i'm touring stand-up comedy i don't know when this comes out but i've got two specials on youtube um that's probably the best place i always think like it's crazy after a podcast to be like buy a ticket to see me watch my shows on youtube see if you like that and then buy a ticket it if you fancy it i can appreciate you man all right until next time everyone lovely dude fun super fun