Keith Edwards on Hip Hop Embracing Trump, Candace Owens Losing It, Charlie Kirk Memes & More

34:15This issue has really just been weaponized by billionaires to keep us because they're like, oh, this is a good one. We got a good one here that's going to really divide people. So I don't know, to the 14 people who this affects in this country, who are trans athletes and want to compete, I want them to be able to just do what's best for them in their communities and in their, you know, whatever league they compete in. Sometimes it's like bowling, you know? It's like, okay, is a trans woman bowling going to— But male bowlers do, like, destroy female bowlers on average, right? Okay, all right, all right.

34:54I don't know. I don't know. I'm pretty sure. I don't know. It seems pretty similar to me. Yeah. Or, like, I truly don't know. Like, a trans pool player? I don't know. I have, like, looked up some— There's a lot of like random sports that you would think would be very equal where there's just little things that I feel like a lot of it, too, is just that men have like the bizarre ability to like really hone in and focus on things and kind of take their actual ordinary life. Like I was at like a parent dinner the other day, like from my kids school, and I was kind of like seated in such a way that I could hear what the women were talking about and what the men were talking about.

35:31and the women were talking about their kids the whole time and the men were talking about AI the whole time. And that just really stood out to me. It was like, this is the difference between men and women. Yeah, there's definitely a difference. And probably all these women really wish that we weren't talking about AI and that we were talking about what soccer program to put our kids in. That's my thing. I feel like the differences should be celebrated. There are differences and they should be celebrated. And it's the same thing with trans people. There's a difference and that's okay. Like it should be, but it's just, it should be celebrated, but there is a difference, you know?

36:03For sure. Okay. I'm glad I get a chance to ask a gay man this question, but do you feel like, is there any truth to the narrative that gay people had essentially like won all of the major concessions that they would have asked for in society? And then at that moment, the movement was kind of like hijacked by non-binary people and trans people and people who really like wanted rights and acceptance and ability to like move around the way that they wanted to move but in such a way that was like really debilitating to the larger LGBTQ movement so I don't know I don't know I'm not any I don't expect you to fully jump on board with that but do you have any sympathy for that argument does it feel like there's any truth to that i don't i don't okay i i think there are like the groups right there's the groups and there it has been said that they needed like the next thing because they gotta they gotta fundraise they gotta for sure how are we being but that's what i've that's that's what i've read before right i don't know if there's any validity to that um but i mean people people are like discriminated against in this country right okay just because they happen to see things differently because they might want to live their life slightly differently than outside the norm that's not a new thing um and so i don't i don't think it was like all right let's oh okay lgbtq all right time to focus on i don't think it was like that no i don't know i mean that's like really conspiratorial you know i think like i think with all these things it's like the simplest explanation like i imagine that um like i don't know like probably more and more trans people were like getting attacked and killed and so um it became um a bigger issue to defend yeah so definitely i mean it also stands out that like a lot of the weirdest uh you know trans non-binary adjacent things are things that no human being would ever encounter in the real world it's just that they're like you know the libs of tiktok style accounts like have really figured out how they could make content which by the way is awful yeah it's awful right but they're like that there was a moment where i like sort of realized as that account was become popular like oh like all they have to do is like mine the social media content of the people that they most disagree with and they have just like an infinite supply of content for better for worse yeah for worse yeah yeah definitely it's weird when you go like bro because you're from uh where you're from i'm from warren michigan right just outside detroit there's been times where i go down south i'm like nashville and it's just like oh shit like i'm really in the culture war out here where you have like a lot of different businesses blatantly have signs like describing their bathroom policy because it's actually controversial out there and you've got all these right-wing companies like buying billboards.

39:19I noticed you have an all-gender bathroom here. Very progressive. I'm being honest, we had this building for like three years and that sign was there when we got there. I was like, whoa, okay, all right, woke. No, but literally like sometimes the rappers will look at that sign and be like, oh no, y 'all want some weird shit. And I'll be like - But it's just a one-person bathroom. It's all gender and it is one star, which means that a man or a woman or whatever could use this bathroom and it's just amazing that like the gender thing they just see the word gender and they're just like yeah it's like when people are getting upset that there was an all-gender bathroom on the plane it's like well what do you expect yeah it's for everyone yeah every airport bathroom you have ever used has been an all-gender bathroom yeah um okay um so So when it comes to your YouTube content, is there a weighing in your head that takes place of like speed versus accuracy?

40:14Like how important do you consider it to be to have the story 100 % authenticated before you're willing to make a video about something? And like how much does it matter that you get this video out about something that Trump did right now versus eight hours from now? Well, I don't know. No, it's like some of them is like if Trump farts and you can hear it. Right. You don't really got to. There's no. Fart is a fart. Yeah. You don't got to fact check that. Right. But sometimes it could be like, you know, it's a noise and we don't really know where it came from. Sure. But you can assert. Yeah. You can assert that was a fart.

40:46Right. I will assert that. I think it's a fart. Yeah. So I don't know. I think I try to not be fast. I don't try to be first. I try to be I just try to be I just try to make sure that I'm finding the best stories for my audience and so if that happens to be something that's breaking right now it won't matter because in three hours I'll have more information about what's happening with the White House Correspondents Dinner stuff you know there was a shooting there was almost a shooting there which you were sort of adjacent to I was adjacent to I was stuck at the subsac party um wow but uh but i rushed home to make a video about it not because like all the facts had been uncovered i mean we we at that point already knew the who the shooter was and all that sort of stuff um but it's just i think important to get some facts out there uh and a lot of my audience thought it was a false flag.

41:48And so I don't know either way. You know, I'm going to assume the simplest explanation is the right one, which is Donald Trump hires people who are idiots. Idiots attract idiots. And so he's got maybe not the best people trying to keep him safe. But it's like the Secret Service, right? Yeah, it's the Secret Service. But like, it just feels like that to me is a simpler explanation. then it was yeah then like then like then donald trump who like right i don't know can't string five words together is a master manipulator that can construct this this drama and theater of this guy running it doesn't make sense to me i mean that clip of the guy running through the lobby past all the security guards and everything was pretty astounding because it really made you feel like oh shit like i guess that's what this would look like if somebody was going to be able to assassinate the president in the scenario.

42:44I mean, if you could run past 20 security guards, then maybe that's all you need to do. Yeah. And people act weird when weird things happen. So it makes sense to me too, that people are like standing around being like, what do we do? You know, like I just think that, but, but I will say I do not trust anything coming out of this government like at all. I don't think I ever should have, you know, I think there should be a healthy skepticism of what the government tells us, what our leaders tell us, what the media tells us. But especially with this administration, who is – they're just not trustworthy.

43:23I don't – I just don't know what to believe. For sure. And then, you know, that shooting takes place and then almost immediately you just see like every right-wing personality that you follow putting out the same messaging about how clearly this that was weird yeah wasn't that weird it's weird but it makes so much sense because just a few weeks ago i think ashley sinclair is her her name the one that elon put a baby in uh but she had kind of like aired out all this shit and said like oh this is how it works is that there's these there's like a white house led group chat that's basically like telling everybody what messaging they should put out there and when you see it like that where like you know everybody bringing up like oh this is the justification for why trump should be able to build his ballroom or whatever that like that makes so much sense that's not just like an obvious talking point that comes to mind after you see an assassination attempt on the president is like well this is why they should have let him build his i know there was a viral treat that was like of course the false flag is for a ballroom yeah to remain in power indefinitely yeah I mean that just like made so much sense to me right there and I've kind of like heard over the years of like oh there's all this like sort of dark money that's going to right-wing commentators and everything but like right there when I saw everybody latch onto that ballroom thing I was like oh okay clear as day there's nobody could ever tell me that this wasn't coordinated well the messaging was yeah for sure yeah yeah and that that but a lot of people see that messaging and they're like oh the shooter was part of this plan as well and it's like no this is them being opportunistic yes something bad happened let's use it to our advantage yes let's leverage this so we can what's funny though then the next day the courts were like no you can't do the ballroom yeah yeah that's hilarious but is there any equivalent to that on the left are there signal chats in which i'm not in those i people ask me to join them i always say no i don't want to be in those really but you've heard about it okay yeah there's and they're not paid things it's just group chats uh if they're paid i don't know about that okay but um but there are like yeah there's a lot of signal chats i'm in some chats with content creators that i like right but it's not like organized by anyone right you know and so when the eric swalwell stuff started happening for your audience maybe they don't know but like a candidate who was running for governor right um was accused of rape and uh and sexually harassing his staff and it's something that I had slightly heard about a couple of years ago.

46:01I knew someone that he had DM'd and like sent dick pics to. And so, uh, when he was getting polling very high, I was in a group chat with a couple other content creators and we were like, how are you going to like expose this piece of shit? Okay. So like we were coordinated in that way. And like Ariel, who was in that group chat was one of the main people who was able to organize taking him down. But we all decided on March 22nd to push out some blind items about Eric Swalwell just to blow up, at least to let reporters know that there's something going on. And when we did that, that actually did make a big difference and reporters started to look into it in a more serious way.

46:40So coordination can be really useful. That's why they pay for it. but from what I know uh Democrats have not found a way to be useful coordinating with money well there's like I mean if you want to take what uh the Ashley St. Clair girl was saying at face value I mean she was very much saying that like there's just billionaires who have all these pet causes and they're willing to dump money into it and the money's like pretty inconsequential for them good money too yeah like there was some creator on TikTok who said that a Republican uh aligned organization was going to give her 30 ,000 for like a post and the Democrat aligned one was going to give her like 2 ,000.

47:23Yeah. So that's the, that's like what we're up against. Yeah. Or if you want to take it back to like what Tim Poole was allegedly paid to post all this sort of Russia friendly propaganda is like 400K a month or something like this outrageous amount, like more than any content creator is realistically probably making off of AdSense or whatever their main business models are. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so that just doesn't exist on the left because there aren't a lot of billionaires on the left who want to help destroy the system that created their ability to have as much power as they do. So that's like the imbalance here is that there's a lot of money in politics, but a lot of it does go towards the conservative side because they want to remain in power.

48:10They want to make sure they have as much money as possible. And there's only like really left wing creators are only ones that are like really against that. Actually, that's not true because I think Steve Bannon is really much so against like oligarchy and corporate control. And he's a populist. So I think that does exist on the right. He seems like he would be the one facilitating the billionaires spending all this money. He would, but not about that. About like immigration or some shit. you know but um but there are populists on the right too who are against corporations and um and greed right no definitely um i was just listening to the new uh sam harris and ben shapiro uh podcast that they put out which i found really fascinating them to speaking to each other but like there's one dynamic that keeps coming up which is like sam keeps basically like listing off all of these terrible things that Trump has done.

49:04And Ben, to his credit, really has this mastered in terms of like how to justify anything that Trump has ever done, which is to basically say, listen, is it fucked up that he basically danced on Rob Reiner's grave like the day that he passed away? Yes. But ultimately, I'm willing to choose somebody who is advancing the policies that I believe are important. And if he says mean things on Twitter, if he goes on shitty rants and says unkind things about women, etc., I'm just perfectly willing to accept that when in comparison, if I were to go and vote for Kamala Harris or support Kamala Harris, it's like all of her policies are working against what I believe in.

49:47This is from Ben Shapiro's voice. And it is kind of hard to think of the opposite example of that where there would be like a... left-wing candidate that we were all willing to support despite thinking that they were a horrible person. But from your perspective, is that an acceptable justification of Trump from somebody like Ben Shapiro? Or do you feel like that's a cop-out to not be willing to... And to his credit, Ben does say that Trump does bad things. He'll say that. Whereas a lot of people on the right are jumping through hoops to try to justify literally anything that he does. I guess. I mean, but if he does bad things and you still support him, then what's the like, so, so it doesn't bother you that then are they truly bad?

50:37So I don't know. I mean, I expect, I, I missed the time when we expected the most out of our leaders that we actually held them to a higher standard. Remember that? When the president was supposed to be the example, doesn't mean that it didn't fall short, but there was this expectation that the people that we put in front of us to lead us had to actually be maybe a little bit better versions of who we are. Right. So I don't know. I think what Ben Shapiro is doing is really insidious. I think it actually helps degrade democracies because part of like part of electing someone to represent us isn't about the policies.

51:20It's about representing like who we think we are, you know, like who our better selves can be. Maybe that's a little too naive. But but I think to just like justify it because it's like, well, he he likes the policies I like, which, by the way, is not even true. Right. Like Donald Trump doesn't believe in anything. Right. You know, like I don't like what has he advanced that has helped Republicans or even this country? I mean, some of the examples Ben Shapiro was given was like, you know, dismantling DEI on a federal level. Oh, wow. That's really helped me. That's important to Ben Shapiro. That really helped our lives, right?

51:59Right. Well, OK, that DEI is gone. So, you know, life's great. Yeah. But I mean, if he believes that I could, I guess I could. I do have some sympathy for this viewpoint just because I could like hypothetically imagine that the perfect Democratic presidential candidate that we would both agree it would be like this is the guy but then once in a while he'll just you know tell a female reporter that she's just a disgusting piece of shit or whatever like these things that trump does you know but it's not once in a while that's the thing it's like we're like we're like battered right we can't even remember what normalcy was like yes yes and there's like a whole generation of people coming of age who are going to be voters that only know politics with Donald Trump involved.

52:46You know? Yeah. So don't even know what like a more relaxed version of this can look like. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's a cop out. I mean, would you vote for someone that acts like Donald? Like, did you vote for Donald? I don't even know. No. No. But so you wouldn't. So like, but why do you think, like why do you think it's okay for Ben Shapiro to support someone like Trump just because his policies? Like shouldn't? I wouldn't say I think it's okay. But I get, I think that's probably the best justification justification that he could possibly land on and it's it's hard to it feels like a cop yeah yeah i mean he obviously really has no choice in this matter like he he's already in enough of a bad situation in terms like well my girlfriend beats me but the sex is good it's like yeah it's like okay yeah yeah i know some guys in that situation

53:38one person came really to mind for both of us right there yeah no yeah but i mean like ben shapiro's already in a tough space because the right is so fractured and him being the guy who's really just israel guy he's the pro-israel republican and that just seems like the least palatable stance on the right at this point and the right being so split it's like he is already in a little bit of a weird position and he's got people like Candace Owens who's an avowed enemy of his and yeah I mean he does seem like he's been kind of really marginalized over the last couple years. I think what Ben Shapiro doesn't realize is that he thinks he's fighting for his party but the party's already left him.

54:20Like he's no longer like he is like whatever he thinks he believes is not going to win the next election. Because you know there's all these anecdotes about how all of the younger staffers on Republican campaigns, et cetera, are all Nick Fuentes fans. They're all racist. They all say terrible things about women. And Ben Shapiro really does a lot to try to negate that on that particular episode in terms of him saying that it's an extremely fringe phenomenon and that it's just really not indicative of the average Republican at this point. But I don't know. I mean, most of the people who are right-leaning that I know definitely have some time for some Nick Fuentes.

55:02You know, he's pretty popular. Yeah, he's entertaining. Yeah. It's scary. But, I mean, you've watched him. I interviewed him over Zoom at one point. He's funny. Yeah. He's funny. He's an entertaining guy. I don't actually know. Like, I don't know what his impact is writ large on the party. We'll see because he's saying, like, in the midterms, don't vote for Republicans. Right. You know, he I think he's going to go after J.D. Vance if J.D. Vance decides to run for president. So I don't I don't know how much political power he has. You know, I know that he has a really large megaphone. Yeah. But I don't I think it remains to be seen how powerful he is other than just getting attention.

55:42You know, like, can he actually get people off the couch to vote? We don't know. Right. Because, I mean, I remember when I interviewed him and when it came out that I was just astonished at the rate at which the comments were coming in. And then years later, I read the study that's basically like, you know, a huge percentage of his Twitter engagement is all astroturf. And like they're just huge armies of bots that are basically like filling in to make his content look a lot more popular than it is. And I feel stupid because in retrospect, when I was reading those comments, those comments were just like clearly there was just this big either they're bots or they've just got like a big discord.

56:21and like every single thing that Nick does on a public level, people are just like, hey, like you got to get in there. Every single person in this Discord has to go leave a positive comment within, you know, two seconds of the interview going up. So, I mean, it does stand out to me a lot that like the right gets the power of optics perhaps more than people on the left and they're willing to like invest into that because a lot of that, you know, people just don't have a lot of time. And when you see that this person averages 50 ,000 likes on their tweets, it just goes a long way in the average person's mind.

56:54Yeah, it does. It has a way of making people feel like, oh, this person is saying must be meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how to fix that problem. But yeah, you're right. The left really just doesn't understand optics at all. We don't understand storytelling. We don't understand optics. I don't know what it is about people on the left, especially people on the left who are consultants, strategists, or elected officials. They just don't have that thing where they understand that advertising works because it appeals to something beyond our rational thought. They're trying to get you to buy something that you don't need.

57:35How does that work? you know so like that's that's that's that's the thing that i think democrats just don't fully get is that like this isn't this isn't about like giving someone an idea it's about selling it and like how do you sell something there's been times where i've been like in miami in a room full of like manosphere type creators and someone just like said like you're voting for trump right and i was like no and like you know i might as well have said i was a an axe murderer oh really just the way that like that was received and they're like you're voting for kamala and i'm like yes and it's just like the craziest vibe switch in that room but what but but they'll still with you right they'll still with me in some way but it's clearly a line is drawn in the sand at that moment interesting because i feel like on the left if it was a group of left-wing creators and someone said i'm voting for trump it would be like what are you doing get out of here yeah you have to leave yeah so i think i think that's also an interesting but but if you're saying that there was like a vibe shift yeah that's interesting to me definitely a vibe i'm talking about like some of the guys who are in that like netflix manosphere documentary where it's like they could still accept me as a dude because it's not like me saying that really like affects what our conversation is like while we're all hanging out.

58:59It doesn't mean that they can't trust me, but it negates my manhood in such a serious way to them. Yeah. I am not a real man because I'm a Democrat. You get kind of used to that in those circles that that's the vibe that they'll leave you with. When did that shift? With Trump, yeah, for sure. Because I remember back to 2016 and stuff, YG puts out fuck Donald Trump which was this big hit record at that time and no controversy every person in hip-hop was like on board with that song Donald Trump sucks and then you fast forward to like you know 2024 and that song just feels way different because if you're at like a sort of hip-hop concert or whatever it just feels like the the brand of masculinity is just so in lockstep with Trump at this point that just something fundamental has really, really changed.

59:55That's interesting. I wonder, but I guess like the one thing is if it shifted that quickly, it can shift again. It definitely can. And I think Trump's, like, it's just so crazy to me to think about how many people sat on this podcast and told me that they were Trump supporters. And especially when it's coming from black dudes, like they're aware of the fact that this is a iconoclastic viewpoint to take on. And they like that. They like saying that they're a rebel. And like, of course, I am not falling in line with the Democratic Party who thinks that they own the black vote. And none of those people are bringing up any conversation about Trump at this point or even throughout like the last six months.

1:00:35You know, it just doesn't, there's no follow up. It's just like they were happy to support him. And now that he's doing a bunch of shit that they don't agree with, it's just, eh. Yeah, it's like, oh, okay, well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the frustrating thing. Yeah. It's a frustrating thing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how to solve that problem. But but I think that is the thing is like Democrats used to be the counterculture party. We used to be the people who would get folks pissed off. Yeah. And now it's kind of the opposite. You know, and it is fun to be like, you know, the rebels.

1:01:09Yeah. You know, definitely. So I get it. For sure. Um, do you think that a clavicular is being fun? by Peter Thiel? One of what I understand, no. I don't think he is. Okay, so that's... I mean, I see people, like, gossiping about it constantly. When I was around him, I didn't want to bring it up. I feel like I've heard pretty definitively he's not. Okay. Yeah, so no. Sorry to... It feels weird that Peter Thiel would want to invest his time and energy into someone who is so, for the most part, not political and has really made that, like, extremely clearly. He's walking out of interviews. A drug addict.

1:01:43Yes. Like, he's, you know, you gotta show up to work right so i don't think i mean the idea of this like billionaire gay man wanting to fund clavicular who's like constantly hounded by rumors of him being gay despite the fact that he's like seemingly having sex with a different woman every night on stream well he he reads kind of effeminate yeah to me for sure like i can see like he seems gay and i i've heard so many gay people say that that i'm forced to believe it even though i know he's not yeah but he seems gay yeah i mean the extreme interest in how you look no even the way he talks i think he talks gayer than me really yeah he's got like a really effeminate way of existing interesting i didn't really get that from him but i i could see it for sure like there's certain clips the clip of him wearing the glasses where he's surrounded by girls i mean i still see that quote tweeted like daily of people just saying that this is somehow like definitive proof that he's gay yeah well he's not yeah but it's okay you know you can be straight and sound gay it's okay definitely but the best quote tweet i've seen in recent memory or no it's just like a tweet it was somebody saying like uh oh you support gay businesses but but you won't support palantir or gay owned businesses or something like that.

1:03:07That's true. That's pretty good. That's good. Yeah. That's like signing up for OnlyFans saying, I love supporting small businesses. Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, shit. A lot of girls on OnlyFans really are the smallest business you could ever imagine. Yeah. Support small business. Does make sense. Okay. So I guess I wanted to ask about your dating life. I heard you were attached to Jake Shane at some point. No. No. Well, we went on an A date. Okay. We went on an A date. Okay. I think I messed it up. Really? I messed it up. How? What'd you do? Well, I went on, we got connected to a friend because I put on my close friend's story, like, I think this guy's cute.

1:03:53And then someone that I know knew him. He was like, do you want me to connect to you? I was like, sure. And then we went on a date and I thought it went pretty well but uh we were supposed to hang out the following day and i didn't like i didn't confirm that until like six o 'clock when we're staying at nine okay and so then i he had already made other plans okay and then that was it that was it yeah but we like made out on the street you made out on the street wow that sounds romantic is it i don't know it It seems kind of like it feels not romantic, but it happened. Were you sprung at that time?

1:04:32Did you think like, oh, this might be the one? I was really interested. Really? Yeah. I was like, yeah, I caught a feeling. So, but, you know, whatever, that happens. And I tried texting when I was here and no response. Do you feel at all ostracized in Washington as a gay man or is that kind of old school at this point? No, I don't even think about it. Okay. Yeah. no don't think about it all yeah yeah i mean that kind of says a lot but it's almost like an absurd question right i guess i mean but that's just me yeah you know it might not be the case for everyone right i i'm constantly coming out so i'm not i'm not as worried again getting clocked as they say you know because you don't really like read gay i don't that's what i've been told you know whenever my audience is always growing so I'll say occasionally I'm gay and a lot of people will be like what?

1:05:26They don't care but they're like I had no idea. I was like well yeah I never mentioned it. But maybe that's part of the reason why but I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be a gay black man trying to work in politics for instance who's like effeminate. Maybe that's harder. Do you have any aspirations to actually run for office at some point or be involved in that world? uh i'll just say like never say never but i i i enjoy what i do right now but does it stand out to you that you probably enjoy your life a lot less if you were to go into politics in that way well i think that's like the one of the best ways you can make a difference is by being in the rooms where big decisions are made right so i don't know i don't i don't i but But I do believe like if God wanted me to do that, then it'll happen.

1:06:19You know, it would be fascinating to see somebody who is like really in office and really maintaining like a consistent YouTube presence. Can you imagine if I'm like breaking news, Donald Trump just farted and the next day I'm like voting on a procedural bill in the Senate? I mean, do you think that that would be hard to pull off? I mean, like what you do does take a lot of time. Those would probably be the biggest issue. I think it would have I think yeah if you're a politician and you have a YouTube channel I think it just has to change the type of content you're doing it changes like you're not doing breaking news content but certainly there's a way to do it when you read a tweet from somebody who works in politics for the most part do you just assume that it wasn't written by them because I was listening to you with the Gavin Newsom conversation and you were kind of acknowledging that at a certain point you just like went to work basically writing tweets for organizations but quite frequently I'm just like does this guy seriously have time to just sit down and write this tweet in the middle of the day it just seems kind of unlikely who like Gavin just certain politicians but Gavin sure yeah like I mean he's got a lot going on it's not like his tweet yeah right but the perfect tweet that like you know well that's the problem there's no perfect tweet right you should really just be writing your own stuff that's how I feel I mean I know popular musicians that have people that like work for them that just write tweets about whatever well I mean, it just depends the type of politician you are, the type of artist you are.

1:07:48I write my own tweets still, even though I could have a social media person do it, just because I just think it's really just, it's like another way of talking to people. And I do think that as we keep going, like it really, really should be the politicians who are, like it's basically like giving a speech. It's like a small short snippet of like. But most politicians don't really write their own speeches too. I know. It's a problem. Yeah. It's a problem. But that's kind of how we got here because it's all so fake. It's all so theatrical. It's all so made up that Donald Trump kind of just like broke through the fourth wall and said this is all theater.

1:08:33It also just stands out so much that like politicians are some of the last like big public figures who are still tweeting consistently like it's just not like celebrities don't tweet ever anymore no i mean there was a study that showed that um that was because elon musk bought twitter and completely changed it a hellscape yeah yeah but it used to be celebrities treated the most yeah i was actually and that is somewhat true of all social networks i think in the sense that people just don't really see as much value to be deprived from or to derive from creating content on social media but like i was watching this youtube video that a guy i know made about jonah hill yesterday and at one point jonah hill had a public controversy because don lemon attempted to say hi to him in a hotel lobby and i guess jonah hill was kind of rude to him and didn't really acknowledge him and don lemon just hopped on twitter and tweeted about how rude jonah hill was in this moment and just reading those tweets it just felt so quaint of like holy fuck i remember when celebrities thought that it was appropriate to use twitter to call out other celebrities and like you can't rihanna yeah rihanna was so good at twitter right she was so good at it but you can't imagine jonah hill ever hopping on twitter or anymore yeah no i don't know if don lemon's actually like off that but even with him like it's just not going to take some petty personal grievance like that to twitter it just feels totally inappropriate maybe your instagram story even that instagram stories is where a lot of the action happens now yeah and i think tiktok i think tiktok has taken a lot of the like twitter used to be really cool because you'd like you'd have a sense of where what's happening like what's the biggest thing happening in the country and sometimes in the world and that's really what we've lost now is i don't really feel like you have a it used to be that twitter was like it was just like this ongoing narrative of like funny things happening interesting things you're being brought into doesn't exist like that anymore but I think TikTok is kind of that I'm not really on TikTok though are you I my wife was telling me the other day that she's trying to read x amount of books this year and I told her I want to look at TikTok for an hour a day and she looked pretty disgusted by that but I really feel like I need to pay closer attention to TikTok because just given what I do you know like I see Logan Paul interviewing some guy who's super viral on tiktok and i have no fucking clue he is and then i've realized like oh this guy has millions of followers on tiktok from doing whatever kind of content like that's where a lot of the stars are born these days on social media it actually really stands out to me that what you do is way harder in modern times because of tiktok like doing your exact content but making you know one or two minute versions of it for tiktok would probably be so much easier having a youtube audience for that kind of content i think is more difficult now because the content is less bite-sized you know getting people watch 10 minute videos is way harder than you watch a one minute video well yeah i mean well they're they're watching on their tv yeah they're not watching on their phone and that alone means that this is like a replacement for them watching netflix which is you're competing against netflix as opposed to a bunch of other talking heads on TikTok.

1:11:52Yeah, I'm competing with Warner Brothers. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. But, you know, people watch me and then they're also scrolling on their phone. You know? Yeah. A lot of that. But it's not... It's... No, it's... I wish I made vertical videos. It sounds easy. I mean, you could probably get somebody to take your YouTube content. I tried. It doesn't work. It really doesn't seem like a translator? It doesn't do as well. No. I mean, I don't... Maybe it's like a skill issue. Maybe it's a me problem. But they do want you to make content in app like if you're using tick tock to film it does that make a difference i don't think it matters doesn't really matter it makes a difference clearly it's not like a complete difference it's not like a one-to-one thing but for sure it makes some sort of difference or when you watch somebody and they're clearly recording the video like sentence by sentence and they have to reach over and press stop every time they say a sentence which just really stands out to me it's like how the you're not cutting that out but yeah it's part of the language they have going on over there i guess um how do you feel when you see your peers or i guess maybe it's not your peers but like just the internet in general um using charlie kirk's death as a punch line and even after all these months still like a lot of people making memes out of this i don't like it i don't like that my sister died you know my sister was uh murdered and so i don't like that i do with making fun of Erica Kirk because I think the way she's acted has been bizarre.

1:13:21I know that everyone grieves differently, but I don't think grieving, I don't think what she's doing has been helpful for her, honestly. And I do think she has weaponized his death in a way that's kind of disgusting. And she's also capitalized off it to make money. So I don't like making fun of his death. I think think charlie kirk was a good guy you know i don't i don't think he deserved to be murdered in front of you know the entire world right so definitely but it does it feels like the joy that a lot of people on the left get out of making memes out of charlie kirk is very much like a response to the unabashed cruelty of the right of like we're doing this because we need to call attention to how hypocritical you guys are when you'll let Trump like literally do anything?

1:14:16I don't know. Maybe. I just think people are shit posters. I just think that's a lot of shit posters. Who even knows? Like what prominent Democrat or political content creator on the left has made fun of Charlie Kirk's death? Yeah. Almost nobody who's really well known at all. Somebody like Destiny who's like a streamer but like okay he's like an admittedly mega an edgy streamer. He's like a provocateur too. But like Donald Trump literally has celebrated someone's death. Yeah. Over and over. He's a president. So I don't know. I just think we're kind of maybe putting too much emphasis on random people on the internet and not enough on the actual leader of the free world.

1:14:57I also, when I see somebody making a meme where they take Charlie Kirk's head and put it on a picture of Chief Keef from 2011, I just don't think that that's really like getting to the right. like I don't I don't know no I don't know how much of that they're seeing or if they get it changing hearts and minds I don't think that they on average have the understanding of the world to know what those memes represent and it's just like I doubt it's like ending up in a lot of their feeds no I mean I don't yeah no I don't think I think you're right yeah and I don't think it's helpful yeah but I don't know there's always gonna be shit posters and I don't know there's always going to be like memes so but i don't but there has not been many people on the left who are like prominent who has who have like yeah celebrate his death but from what you see elon tweet you would think that every democrat in congress was posting memes about traitors death like they love to i know but that's the thing doesn't that bother you it's like yes that they're just like i just think they think we're so stupid yeah they like they have they have no respect for us the amount of lies yeah i've seen elon tweet 10 times about how the guy that was attempting to murder trump is like oh this the democrats want you dead and like look at what they will do yeah like that guy represents the average democrat and i'm sorry your average democrat's like a 50 year old wine mom right i just feel like that it feels like that messaging doesn't go anywhere like as much as Elon has the biggest account on the biggest, well, not the biggest social network, but a very, very big social network that is very important.

1:16:38It feels like he says these things that should be mocked and at least discussed and then nobody cares or talks about them at all, which it feels like that's important. I mean, I know, but I don't know how to solve for that, but you're right. Like, I just think we're so used to the lies. We're just used to them just lying all the time. It doesn't impact, I don't think, the broader electorate, but I do think it revs up Republicans. And it does create that feeling of division, that they think that people like me want them dead. I think there's probably, I don't know if it's a majority, but I imagine there's a lot of Republicans who think that Democrats just want Republicans dead, which is just not true.

1:17:26It's insane. It's an insane thing to say. It's an insane thing to say when you can't find a example of anybody who's in government. The best example, if we ask Chad right now, is going to be such a stretch. Yeah, it's just insane people. It's just we have a problem with guns and access to guns. And insane people shouldn't be allowed to get access to them. That's kind of the problem. what do you feel when like i was watching the sam harris ben shapiro conversation that ben shapiro you know he mentions hassan at least once or twice and it it feels like they're kind of leaning on him to paint this picture of the democrats as being very very extreme and all the most fringe things that he's ever said on stream will now be recontextualized to like i don't know maybe actually affect the next presidential election like does is that surprising do you think that that should change how hassan communicates like even if he doesn't want to because he's just such a big voice at this point what is he i don't i truly don't know what he said that is like so extreme but when you stream 10 hours a day each day right seven days a week you're gonna not say everything perfectly right so i don't know like the i don't think i like donald trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes.

1:18:51Although he was kind of duped into it by Kanye, just dragging Nick Fuentes along with him. Oh, yeah. Poor Donald Trump. I don't think we have a reason to believe that Trump actually knew that he was going to be there or had any idea who he was. But that, to me, is even worse, that they're letting such an important person just have dinner with whoever. It's not a good answer either. So I don't know. I mean, I think Hassan Piker is not a bad person. I think he has views that are antagonistic of some people who are center left, some people on the right. But I don't think that he is someone that we should not engage with because some folks disagree with him.

1:19:37Right. But I also don't think he speaks for Democrats at all. Well, he admittedly is not a Democrat. No. encouraged people not to vote for Kamala. I don't think he did that. He at the very least said either candidate that you vote for you're going to get the same outcome. Which that seems kind of laughable at this time. He did say that. Yeah.

1:20:02There's a lot less pressure on Republicans to divorce the more extreme right wing people from their party. Laura Loomer is a crazy person. She literally calls the president. Yeah. She has literally her family, like what is it called when you put someone in a mental, like they like. 5150. Yeah. They did that to her. Really? Yes. Yeah. So I don't know. I think we're focused on the wrong stuff. Yeah. You know? I don't know why more liberal leaning people have such a hard time controlling the narrative. Because Laura Loomer, literally. who's like texting and calling the president but she's like not useful to the left whereas it would appear that hassan is pretty useful to the right their audience is just going to eat this shit up in terms of like the making most extreme things he ever said are going to be like recontextualized to basically be viewed as like the average democrat yeah but i mean laura loomer said 9-11 didn't happen or it was like a false flag or something yeah right so i don't know and And even as you say it, we both know that they won't care.

1:21:13No, they won't care. That's a crazy world. Okay. So what do you have going on besides just the YouTube channel and what's the future of the YouTube channel? Like things that you haven't done that you'd like to start working on going forward. I don't know. That just stressed me out. I don't know. No. You're in the constant race to keep the YouTube channel relevant. Yes. That makes it hard to think about other things. We're talking about a podcast. which technically I have a podcast. It's like the number 150th most watched podcast on Spotify, even though it's not technically a podcast, but like something long form.

1:21:50I think there's going to be a long form moment. I think we're talking about a book at some point. So there's like that sort of stuff. But I truly, I truly believe that it's just going to like, this is like a child, you know, do you have children? One five-year-old daughter. Yeah. Okay. I don't have children but I imagine being a good parent is just being like you try to expose the child to as many things as possible and then the child figures out who they are I kind of feel like that's like the same thing with this is like I don't know what it's going to be but it's my job just to try as many things as possible and the path will reveal itself Hmm.

1:22:34Does the book thing feel weird? Because probably, you know, you could write the most explosively popular video and it's not going to be seen as by as many people as view like your worst performing video this month, probably. Right. What do you mean? If you do a book, it's like, you know, you're probably not going to sell a hundred thousand copies, whereas you probably look at a YouTube video with a hundred thousand views as not particularly successful. yeah but it allows you to talk about a subject in a really in depth way and then you also get to promote the book where you get to talk about the ideas with a lot of different types of people so I don't know but my goal is to not make a book that's like Trump bad buy my book there's a lot of those I want to create something that hopefully will be useful and can help people definitely Keith, very nice getting to know you yeah, thanks for having me everybody out there, definitely tune into his channel he's got a lot of good content out there I don't know where my camera is, but hello it could be any camera at any given moment thanks for sure man, I appreciate your time thanks so much Keith Edwards, Nojumbert, coolest podcast in the world check us out on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc like, comment, subscribe, and shout out to our members thanks man thanks