Men Are Taking More Viagra Than Ever - Zack Telander

Zack Telander is a weightlifter, coach & YouTuber. More serious problems are afoot. The number of men using Viagra is at all time highs, BatGirl has been cancelled, Beyonce has become an ableist abuser, a basketball star gets jailed in Russia and TikTokers are wearing blasphemous bikinis. Obviously, me and Zack must fix all of this. Expect to learn how long you can flog a dead franchise before it stops making money, how men can think themselves into performance anxiety, whether a Russian arms dealer is worth a WNBA player, how many times Demi Lovato can announce a change of pronouns, whether Addison Rae would wear an Adidas Burqa and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://bit.ly/cdwisdom (use code MW15) Get 30% discount on your at-home testosterone test at https://trylgc.com/modernwisdom (use code: MODERN30) Extra Stuff: Subscribe to Zack's YouTube Channel -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC94_fvLx7abZgs9LIkM7jxw Get Zack's Program for $1 - https://www.patreon.com/zacktelander Follow Zack on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coach_zt Check out Zack's WeFunder - https://wefunder.com/the.weight.movie.llc Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #viagra #beyonce #addisonrae - 00:00 Intro 01:55 Brittney Griner’s Sentence 09:59 Why Young Men are Turning to Viagra 22:59 Addison Rae’s Blasphemous Bikini 26:50 Demi Lovato’s Updated Pronouns 33:39 Heated, Ableist Beyoncé Lyrics 42:25 The Harsh Future of Outrage Culture 52:35 Batgirl Movie Scrapped 1:06:50 Where to Find Zack - Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Listen to all episodes on audio: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  According to one 2018 study, around half of British men in their 30s report difficulties getting or maintaining an erection. This is only going to get worse, I think, with Gen Z because the most socially anxious generation that we've ever had, highest rates of introversion, social anxiety disorders and stuff like that. Getting naked with somebody, you know, that's going to push a lot of people's buttons.

• 0:21Chris Williamson?

  Zach Telander, welcome to the show.

• 0:23Zack Telander?

  I'm here.

• 0:25Chris Williamson?

  We're both here.

• 0:26Zack Telander?

  Again, and every time I'm on your show, I'm closer to you.

• 0:30Chris Williamson?

  So for the people who aren't aware, we live together and you are sat on the other side of that wall because I don't have an in-person recording set up. So we're doing it this way, which is virtually, but also kind of in person. And we can kind of hear each other through the doors.

• 0:48Zack Telander?

  Yeah, that's the most concerning part is I can hear you through the door and through my headphones, but, but it's all good.

• 0:54Chris Williamson?

  Double.

• 0:54Zack Telander?

  It's all good, baby.

• 0:55Chris Williamson?

  Double, Chris, how are you doing? You good?

• 0:57Zack Telander?

  I'm good, man. I'm good. Had a good week so far, good content. I don't know, man. So much has happened since I was last on the show, but it's hard to know exactly what has happened because you and I live together, so.

• 1:12Chris Williamson?

  Talking about it all the time.

• 1:13Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I can't really update you, but uh, yeah, still doing the same thing. You're doing the same thing, even better, better and brighter, bigger, bigger guests and also being on Joe Rogan too.

• 1:25Chris Williamson?

  That was wild, wild experience. Yeah, man. Absolutely wild. It's been strange. I mean, it's the number one podcast in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and England or the UK at the moment. It's the number one podcast episode in all of those places, which is, is just a terrifying

• 1:44Zack Telander?

  No way.

• 1:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46Zack Telander?

  Wow. That's because I shared it.

• 1:49Chris Williamson?

  You think?

• 1:50Zack Telander?

  Yeah.

• 1:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:50Zack Telander?

  I got you the most shared tag on Spotify.

• 1:53Chris Williamson?

  Good. I'm glad.

• 1:54Zack Telander?

  You're welcome.

• 1:55Chris Williamson?

  Other things that have been happening in countries outside of ours. WNBA star Brittney Griner sentenced to nine years in Russian prison.

• 2:05Zack Telander?

  So I saw that. I didn't really dive deep into that. But does that mean that she still can't get extradited or traded for?

• 2:14Chris Williamson?

  So this is the most recent update. This is from Daily Wire. WNBA star Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison on Thursday. Russian prosecutors had argued that Griner, who was convicted of sneaking marijuana vaping materials into the country, should serve nine and a half years in prison. So she saved half a year, I guess. The request came during closing arguments in a court outside Moscow, nearly six months after the six foot nine inch WNBA star was nabbed in an airport with contraband. The US has been trying to negotiate her release, reportedly considering offering a notorious Russian arms dealer imprisoned here as a trade. So I'm not sure if that guy is maybe gonna be swapped out for her or something, but it's a difficult situation. I mean, do you want

• 2:57Chris Williamson?

  to let a notorious Russian arms dealer go? No. Do you want a WNBA star that had a vape cartridge on her get jailed for nine years in a Russian gulag? Also no. Kind of, kind of hard to thread the needle. "I never meant to hurt anybody and I never meant to put in jeopardy the Russian population. I never meant to break any laws here," Griner said. "Prior to the delivery of the verdict in Kimkey City Courthouse, I made an honest mistake and I hope that your ruling, that in your ruling, it doesn't end my life here. I know everybody keeps talking about political porn and politics, but I hope that is far from this courtroom." Blah, blah, blah. She said that she only brought them to Russia by mistake, only used cannabis. This is it. "Griner, who plays for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury,

• 3:40Chris Williamson?

  had flown to Russia to finish a season for UMMC Eka Turinburg when she was arrested. Team competes." So she was over there playing, dude. Can you imagine accidentally having, or even on purpose, thinking, "I can fly a vape cartridge in and then getting nine years in Russia." She's been there for six months already. She's already detained. Nine years in prison.

• 4:03Zack Telander?

  Yeah, so I think a lot of the WNBA stars, the best of the WNBA, they go to other countries to make more money. I think they they pay athletes for for women's basketball and particularly a lot more. So a lot of women do this. This is a very common practice. But this is also not just Russia that has rules like this. A lot of Middle Eastern countries. Doesn't Bali have like crazy drug rules as well?

• 4:35Chris Williamson?

  Thailand is death if you're caught with the wrong drug. I think they still have the death sentence for people that are caught with the wrong drug.

• 4:41Zack Telander?

  James was telling me about some guy who had some marijuana and I think it was in Singapore. And or I'm not entirely sure what country it was. I know it was Southeast Asia and he had whipping, like they had to, they whipped him.

• 4:59Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 5:00Zack Telander?

  Or like a certain amount of lashes. Yes.

• 5:03Chris Williamson?

  What is this? Are we on a pirate ship? Is this the 1700s? What's going on?

• 5:08Zack Telander?

  Dude, and then he was telling me another story about how, well, he had a bunch of stories about this because he's covered it a lot. But there was a guy who he was a a football coach, so soccer coach. And he um he was taking his buddy to the airport, okay, in I think it was Dubai or something. And his buddy messaged him on WhatsApp saying, hey, by the way, I have a CBD pen that I left in your car. And the authorities were able to hack that message and arrested him like they they stopped his car,

• 5:50Zack Telander?

  took him out of there, found the CBD or whatever, and I think he's rotting in jail.

• 5:54Chris Williamson?

  What's that?

• 5:56Zack Telander?

  I I think this one is a Middle Eastern country.

• 5:58Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay.

• 5:59Zack Telander?

  But again, I'm not entirely sure what the, he said it was like a football coach or something like that.

• 6:04Chris Williamson?

  Dubai and the United Emirates is somewhere you do not want to get caught with drugs. So I remember reading this story a few years ago about a guy that had a trace amount of marijuana on the bottom of his shoe. On the bottom of his, so he'd stood in maybe some marijuana, maybe it was his, maybe it wasn't. He was jailed for that. I've got another news story here, which is from April 2021. American facing years in Dubai prison after cannabis traces found in urine. A man who legally enjoyed some cannabis in his home of Las Vegas is now facing three years in prison in the United Arab Emirates after being caught with traces of it in his urine. Peter Clark flew to Dubai on February 24th on a business trip looking for a recording studio. The retired game designer then went to hospital following a pancreatitis attack. He was reported to authorities when doctors found hashish traces in his urine,

• 6:48Chris Williamson?

  which is considered possession in the UAE.

• 6:53Zack Telander?

  Oh my God.

• 6:58Zack Telander?

  Oh my God. That is insane. That's, that is insane. That's crazy, dude. Medic, medic. They were probably forced to do that, right? It wasn't like, like it's part of their job. I'm sure.

• 7:15Chris Williamson?

  I think they'll probably be obliged. They would be obliged if they see it to report it. Yes. I don't think they're probably going out of their way, but they'll have said, what is it that I'm going to do? Blah, blah, blah. We found some weed. We need to, we need to report this to the authorities.

• 7:30Zack Telander?

  And if we don't, we'll get in trouble.

• 7:33Chris Williamson?

  Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh, but yeah, that, that Brittney Griner thing is, I mean, Rogan posted about it earlier on today, saying that, uh, there's people that are still in jail now in the US for drugs, in states for drugs that are now legal in those states.

• 7:52Zack Telander?

  That's wild. And what's the, what is, I can't believe I can't think of it. Um, after a law is,

• 8:00Zack Telander?

  like, once the law is changed, you can't get charged for it or something like that. It was, uh, I can't think of the, the term. But if they change the law after you've broken it, you can't go to jail for it. And I think vice versa. Works as well.

• 8:16Chris Williamson?

  Oh, interesting.

• 8:16Zack Telander?

  I don't know what the term is, but.

• 8:17Chris Williamson?

  Well, there's that, what's that thing? It's double jeopardy or whatever it is where you can't be tried.

• 8:21Zack Telander?

  Tried twice.

• 8:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's definitely, but dude, I mean, I just, I feel so bad for this Brittney Griner girl. Like, can you imagine being a, an athlete, peak of your sport, randomly got something in your suitcase nine years in a Russian prison?

• 8:39Zack Telander?

  I wonder if it plays out. Like, what are the odds that she is never traded for to come back to the United States? And it has to play out and live out these nine years. What if she like learns Russian, has to join a gang, you know, to survive and shit? That'd be so cool. And then like, once she's let go, she's like, like, kind of never the same and like, wants to stay in Russia, you know?

• 9:05Chris Williamson?

  Russian double agent.

• 9:06Zack Telander?

  With her like new family. She gets like a new lease on life.

• 9:09Chris Williamson?

  Well, I'm glad that you're being very hopeful about this. I, I wonder whether she feels the same, but uh, yeah, dude.

• 9:15Zack Telander?

  You gotta lean into it at that point, I think.

• 9:16Chris Williamson?

  Fucking wild. That's one of the things, you know, for all that there's problems with the Western stuff, look at some of the drug laws in different countries. Look at some of the drug laws in the Middle East, in the Far East, in Russia.

• 9:30Chris Williamson?

  Nine years for a vape cartridge. I just, yeah, it's very, very, very strange, but yeah, I guess we'll wait and see. And also the other thing is, let's say that the best possible outcome here

• 9:44Chris Williamson?

  is that the US loses a arms dealer. We get an arms dealer back out into the world.

• 9:50Zack Telander?

  Yeah.

• 9:51Chris Williamson?

  That's the best possible scenario. And then we get a WNBA star back.

• 9:58Chris Williamson?

  But also something else I wanted to talk to you about is, uh, why young men are turning to Viagra. I was really struggling to get it up. More men in their twenties and thirties are taking little blue pills for a variety of sexual ills. From erectile dysfunction to anxiety about their performance in the bedroom. Ben Bryant speaks to users, doctors, and relationship counselors about a very curious phenomenon. This is on The Independent. And we spoke about this last time, one of the previous episodes that you'd been on, we were talking about. Girls have an anxiety around not being able to orgasm during sex and like performance anxiety during. Guys, equivalent of that is not getting it up.

• 10:35Zack Telander?

  And Yeah, and also, how many commercials do we have now where you can just get Viagra sent to you? Right? You, you, you kind of do, you, I don't know if anyone's done these before. I've had sponsorships like Keeps where you get it put in touch with a doctor. The doctor fills out a prescription and you get it sent to your house. And, and that can happen in like, within a half hour.

• 11:00Chris Williamson?

  Well, remember that you can get over the counter Viagra. You don't need to have the consultation with the doctor. And this is actually one of the things that comes out of this.

• 11:07Zack Telander?

  Really?

• 11:07Chris Williamson?

  This news story. Yeah, you can just buy them over the counter. I mean, BlueChew, right? BlueChew is Viagra chewing gum, I think. They actually asked to sponsor the podcast and I was the not quite right, I don't think. But he was saying, um, after a breakup from a five year relationship, James was nervous about dating again. He was 27, healthy and had a good sex life, but when it came to sleeping with new people, he was experiencing performance anxiety. I was really struggling to get it up. I get to this point where I was having sex with lots of people with like a 75% error rate. James assumed that the problem was just nerves. He didn't seek advice from his GP. Instead, he started self medicating with sildenafil, better known as Viagra. It worked instantly. When you take it, you can actually focus on enjoying sex and being in the moment as opposed to going, oh my God, my dick is failing. No, no, don't stop. Keep going.

• 11:53Chris Williamson?

  Like, that's, that is exactly what your mind says.

• 11:56Zack Telander?

  Exactly.

• 11:57Chris Williamson?

  For the girls that are listening, the fear that you have as a guy, as you notice that that's slowly creeping in, is just this downward spiral of, and as you focus on it, that is exactly the, the first thing that's going to cause it to go away.

• 12:13Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I mean, uh, I'm not gonna lie, Christopher, it has happened to me, for sure.

• 12:19Zack Telander?

  I have, uh, I have been in that situation, usually when I'm been drinking a little bit. And sometimes, you know, in the past, I have said, this is just not gonna happen. And it's actually much more of a relief than to just say that.

• 12:33Chris Williamson?

  Just it's not gonna happen.

• 12:34Zack Telander?

  Not tonight.

• 12:35Chris Williamson?

  Not tonight, darling, I'm afraid. Yeah, well, I mean, it's very difficult for girls to not feel like they've done something wrong. It's like that that whole scenario is just a it's just a litany of embarrassment and men feeling pretty ashamed of themselves, right? Like, it's the one thing that you're supposed to always be able to do. There's an expectation, I think, by society that men should be hot to trot all the time, that they should always be ready for sex and wanting sex. And, you know, the same is not expected of women. Now, there's other things that are expected of women, which, you know, like to be able to orgasm during sex and to be casual and all this sort of stuff. But it's pretty uncomfortable. There was a period while I was in uni, and if, looking back now, it's so obvious. I'd had too much to drink. I hadn't been able to get it up when I was drunk.

• 13:19Chris Williamson?

  Then I had a fear that that was going to creep in when I was sober. And over time, it did. So I'd managed to think myself into performance anxiety. Physiologically, absolutely fine. Training in the gym, gaining loads of weight, health, relatively healthy, as healthy as a 21-year-old club promoter can be. And what I did, how I fixed it, was I started to taper down a dose of Viagra during normal sex. So I would start with a half and then less and then less and then less. And over time, you realize I'm like licking the outer coating of this. This is evidently not doing anything. And you go, I'm kind of back. But it was all about performance anxiety, and it's brutal, man.

• 14:00Zack Telander?

  My theory, a lot of it has to do with masturbation and the prevalence of it in young men. I think, like, it's something that definitely cannot be ignored. Right? Like, you find a way to self-stimulate. I think Huberman talked about this on your podcast. You recently made a post about it. And I think that that's got to be undeniable, right? Like, the getting used to watching other people for arousal, being in the comfort of your own home, you know, having your setup, you know.

• 14:32Chris Williamson?

  Your playlists and your suggested videos on X.

• 14:34Zack Telander?

  Yeah, getting the right video, you know, all of that. That factors into somebody being like, well, you know, I might not have that when I'm with a girl. There's different situations that can happen. I'm not used to this person. What I have found is, whatever that anxiety is, it dissipates the more comfortable you get with that woman.

• 14:54Chris Williamson?

  I would agree.

• 14:55Zack Telander?

  The more and more, right? And I think. Chris, it would be hard to do your technique of less and less of a dose with a new woman each time.

• 15:05Chris Williamson?

  Because the

• 15:05Zack Telander?

  I'm not sure if that's what you were, I'm not sure if that's what you were doing, but I feel like that would be harder to do when, when you have a new woman, new stimulus every single time and the new pressure comes in. If you're with someone and you've been with them before, I think it's only natural that that sort of, that, that sort of anxiety goes away. And that's the beauty of actually having a long-term relationship.

• 15:28Chris Williamson?

  I agree.

• 15:29Zack Telander?

  Right? That is one of the most underrated aspects of it is that the romantic side of things will undoubtedly get better. And if it doesn't, then I think that's, you know, a, a big point of error in your relationship and, and it might say something else about the relationship.

• 15:45Chris Williamson?

  I always thought for a long time that people that said, you know, sex in a relationship is always going to be better than one night stands, just as like a young stupid guy, always thought that that was like just not accurate wisdom. And I've come to believe that it's the complete opposite, that guys often need to settle into who they're having sex with, the girls need to learn what it is that they like to do and you become more comfortable with each other and the intimacy and all of that actually ends up enhancing the way that you have sex. Looking at some of the stats from that article, it says more than 60% of UK Viagra users are between 25 and 54 years old. So one of the things that you would think is, well, younger people should have better testosterone levels, which should mean that their sex rise higher.

• 16:30Chris Williamson?

  But I guess the other thing is that people over the age of 54 years old are not having as much sex. So you have two parameters going on, right? Like one group of people is physiologically more predisposed to being able to get it up, but needs to get it up more. The other group is less so, but also needs sex less or is having sex less. So I think there's that little balance there. It says, according to one 2018 study, around half of British men in their 30s report difficulties getting or maintaining an erection. And this is only going to get worse, I think with Gen Z because the most socially anxious generation that we've ever had, highest rates of like introversion, social anxiety disorders and stuff like that. Getting naked with somebody is, you know, that's going to push a lot of people's buttons.

• 17:14Chris Williamson?

  If they're uncomfortable going out of the house or going into nightclubs or loud noises, clapping.

• 17:20Chris Williamson?

  Getting naked with somebody is going to be a little bit too far.

• 17:23Zack Telander?

  I think that the testosterone and the biological factors are the least important when it comes to getting it up. For sure. You know, in both our cases, uh, it had nothing to do with that. It was purely anxiety. It was purely in the head.

• 17:39Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 17:40Zack Telander?

  So, so I think, I don't know. I think that the availability of Viagra for sure has gone up 100%. Like it, the, the fact that I could right now, over the course of this podcast, order Viagra in, in a half hour and have it delivered to my door within days. That was just something that never occurred. And now, now it's out and it's like, well, you might as well, if you're going to get some drinks on it, takes away the anxiety. We don't really know the, the negative side effects. I mean, they, they list them, but a long time of using Viagra over time. Like, we don't know exactly what that is, but uh, it's definitely an option that men have now.

• 18:19Chris Williamson?

  There's a bit here, uh, the possible side effects include a reduction in efficacy over time as well as more serious outcomes. Long-term use of Viagra can potentially increase the risk of physiological dependency and has also been associated with various problems affecting the bearing, the hearing and visual, visual systems and vision. So, I mean, it's a.

• 18:38Zack Telander?

  But it's like, it's like any drug though, if you, any drug, it's suggested to taper off of it and to come back into it. And you know, it's the same thing with caffeine, the efficacy of caffeine, what, what the side effects of that are. You went off of caffeine for how many days?

• 18:54Chris Williamson?

  500 days, yeah.

• 18:55Zack Telander?

  500 days off of caffeine, right? And um, a lot of people can cycle these drugs that they just don't. And that, that's another thing too. I mean, I think that the caffeine industry is like one of the craziest industries around. Caffeine and nicotine industries, you know, people are slinging a psychoactive drug that is proven to be very effective, but they're not doing it really in a responsible way. I think if you look at what some of these people order, I mean, I, I know women who are like 100 and. Fifteen pounds, getting three hundred milligrams of caffeine in their Starbucks. You know, like a, a, a very, what's the large one, the venti?

• 19:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Zack Telander?

  A venti cold brew, right? That's gotta have around three hundred milligrams of caffeine. And to do that and have that be part of your morning, like, thing, it's pretty freaking intense. Wouldn't you say? Rather than like one little eight ounce cup, you know, one little eight ounce cup of coffee to start your day and then maybe another one later on. Now people have like monster, you know, glasses of caffeine, filled with caffeine.

• 20:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a whole mosey quote where he talks about how if you need to use a substance as a, uh, if you can't function without them, they've stopped conferring a benefit. Be able to stop them and only use them when you really know you can crush. On off, on off is typically good enough for most, but if you can't function without them, they've stopped conferring a benefit is so on the money. That's exactly how I felt with caffeine. It's like, look, uh, this isn't a performance enhancer, it's a crutch. It's the only thing that's actually keeping me going here. But another element to, I guess, add into the Viagra conversation is what it means or how girls interpret it. So this guy mentioned that he wasn't telling his partner. Wendy thirty seven says that she would be unhappy to discover that her boyfriend was secretly taking Viagra

• 20:47Chris Williamson?

  because I would feel like, oh, am I not good enough? Uh, but then I get more, but then I get that erectile dysfunction is more common as guys get older. So it's kind of brutal. It's like, i- it's not about you. It is not a you thing. It is almost exclusively inside of my head and yet women are, all that they're going to be able to see is all of this self-image concerns and the anxiety and the performance anxiety and I'm not good enough. And it's like a really, really bad situation.

• 21:14Zack Telander?

  Yeah, and it's difficult. I was just kind of having a retort to what you were saying in my head and then I just flipped it a little bit, but it is a difficult conversation or at least a difficult position to say, no, it really isn't you. Like, and I don't know how to prove that to you, but it's really not you. It's just overall anxiety. It, it's hard because you don't face this anxiety, but again, the only thing you can hope for is communication with your partner, like just open communication. Like, look, this is what I've dealt with. This is, you know, whatever. As long as you are having sex and you're trying to get better and you're pleasing your partner and your partner's pleasing you, there are no real issues, right? There are things that you can work on together as long as you're open about whatever that thing is, I think.

• 21:58Zack Telander?

  But it is still a difficult, you know, hill to get on top, to get, to get over, to, uh, to then try and convince them or try to explain to them what this anxiety really is.

• 22:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 22:11Zack Telander?

  And I don't think, it's not comparable to women and orgasms because they don't have to necessarily explain why they didn't have an orgasm. They could, it might improve their sex lives, but it's not the same thing, right? Because they can still-

• 22:23Chris Williamson?

  Certainly less obvious, right?

• 22:24Zack Telander?

  Right.

• 22:25Chris Williamson?

  Women can either fake it or guys just don't. I mean, there are guys that'll ask, like, did you come after you finished having sex? But, and I guess that that's probably a pretty awkward, especially if you're a girl that maybe has performance anxiety in bed, that would probably suck to hear. Uh, but it's, I mean, at least you've been able to have sex. I would say, yeah, being pushed about orgasming during sex is uncomfortable, but it, it doesn't get into the same league really as not being able to get it up. Speaking about, uh, hot, like weird sort of sex things. TikTok star Addison Rae deletes blasphemous Holy Trinity bikini photo after backlash. Did you see this?

• 23:04Zack Telander?

  Yep, saw it.

• 23:05Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so TikTok star Addison Rae on Tuesday was hit with backlash for posting a blasphemous bikini that was Holy Trinity themed. The father on her right breast, son on her left breast, and Holy Spirit on her bottom. Rae reportedly wore an Adidas collaboration swimsuit, prying's Holy Trinity bikini in white, priced $100. Uh, Instagram post showing off the bikini has been since deleted. Uh, this is disrespectful to Jesus. Sad what you all are doing for money, one comment reportedly said. Another user adding, so messed up. This is not okay. Blasphemy, someone wrote. Is nobody going to talk about this disrespecting religions? Another user reacted. Um, bikini blunder, it's been called, and would she do it with Islam or Buddhism? Asked conservative beauty guru Amanda Enzing.

• 23:48Chris Williamson?

  Uh, former White House photographer Andrea Hanks commented, any other faith and this would be an issue. Tacky. One thing that's interesting is, this is an issue. This isn't something where the Christian community has just rolled over and let this sort of stuff happen. So saying any other faith in this would be an issue kind of is a bit dumb because it is an issue and it isn't any other faith.

• 24:13Zack Telander?

  Yeah. Also, just to interject here, the son should be over where the, you know what I mean? Because it goes father, son down here. And she had father and son on the left and right breast. The son should have been on the bikini bottom.

• 24:27Chris Williamson?

  And Holy Spirit up top.

• 24:28Zack Telander?

  Yeah, but that would be weird, though, right? To have a son.

• 24:31Chris Williamson?

  Very weird. Very, very, very weird. What's she famous for? What's Addison Rae famous for?

• 24:36Zack Telander?

  TikTok. So she does dances and she's, she's good looking.

• 24:39Chris Williamson?

  She was in a movie, right?

• 24:40Zack Telander?

  Yeah. And I heard it was horrible. I heard it was horrible. It was like a remake of-

• 24:44Chris Williamson?

  Thirty percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

• 24:47Zack Telander?

  Right. Yeah, but you know, they made a ton of money on it just for the fact that she was in it. How many Gen Z kids watched it just to be like, oh, my God, that's Addison Rae, you know? But what's the company called that, that did it? That made the, it's called like, oh, no, no, but I thought, I thought that they had done it. Wasn't there another company that called like prayer or something?

• 25:10Chris Williamson?

  Uh, I'm not sure.

• 25:12Zack Telander?

  I just, I just saw a Phil, Phil DeFranco video on it. And like, if you, if you look at their Instagram, they have a lot of stuff exactly like this. I forget what it's called. I just watched this. But yeah, I think this company, I don't know if it was Adidas.

• 25:29Zack Telander?

  But it should be Adidas, right? Because it's Adidasler.

• 25:34Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yes. Well, you're the one that's ruining it. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely, it definitely seems like the world hasn't allowed this one to slide under the, under the radar, so to speak. I think if it had been, I wonder if it had been a plus size model, if there would have been the equivalent amount of backlash because there would have definitely been accusations of sizeism and fat phobia and slay queen and stuff like that. There's definitely upper bounds on that.

• 26:05Zack Telander?

  Also, yeah, I mean, this is this is definitely typical outrage, but I gotta tell you, if it was this company that I'm thinking of and not Adidas, I don't know what Adidas is affiliation with it, maybe, I don't know, but I mean, I didn't really know much about Addison Rae, I do now, you know, and it's the same thing with with any of this sort of backlash. It's, it is brilliant marketing, but it's also, I don't know if that's a legitimate way to go about marketing. I think this whole, you know, brand, their whole thing is to try and create something like this, and this was their golden ticket.

• 26:45Zack Telander?

  Their sales are gonna go up, undoubtedly.

• 26:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they are. Well, speaking of people that have been using headlines to pump current albums and stuff like that, Demi Lovato has changed her pronoun, or she's added pronouns back in. Did you see this?

• 27:01Zack Telander?

  Yes, I did. And I didn't know that it had that an album was coming out as well.

• 27:05Chris Williamson?

  She's got an album coming out later this month and didn't really make many headlines, it doesn't see, but she she updated her pronouns. Another day, another tiring pronoun debate. Pronouns are simple, they have been for centuries, and yet people are acting like their brand new concept. This is from the Daily Beast, it's very pro Demi. This time, the hot button topic is being discussed not because of some horrible remarks from bigoted politicians, or a terrible tweet from a certain she who will not be named TERF, but because singer and performer Demi Lovato announced that she she is using, that, sorry, this is so hard to read. Performer and Demi Lovato announced they are using she/her pronouns now in addition to the they/them pronouns they already utilize.

• 27:49Chris Williamson?

  Lovato opened up about this in a recent development in her gender identity journey in an interview with the Spout podcast. Recently, I've been feeling more feminine, so I have adopted she/her again, said Lovato. I'm such a fluid person. Lovato came out as non-binary in May 2021, blah, blah, blah. And then she reflected on coming out and said that she's now expanded. Wow, this is impossible to read. Lovato reflected on this coming out. Journey and also explained why they are now expanding their pronouns to include she, her. But if she's used.

• 28:20Zack Telander?

  So if she did, then we can say she and her.

• 28:23Chris Williamson?

  Apparently, I don't really understand at all.

• 28:26Zack Telander?

  That sentence doesn't make sense. If it probably never did. But now we can say she and her. So stop saying they if you don't have to.

• 28:33Chris Williamson?

  I mean, Lovato's Instagram bio has been updated to include all the pro, all their pronouns. They, them, she, her. What is so shocking about this? Gender identity, much like sexuality, can be a very fluid thing, blah, blah, blah. So I am, I've always, I'm friends with Blair White. Like, I'm happy to call people by their preferred pronouns. There has to be an upper bound on how many times someone can cause headlines and change them. And then there's a ton of outrage, misleading headlines. This is still in the Daily Beast article, misleading headlines about how Lovato reverted back to she, her pronouns. Because people said that she'd stopped being they, them, and was exclusively going to she, her, which isn't correct. The Daily Mail has got it incorrect.

• 29:18Chris Williamson?

  And basically, people are being, this Daily Beast article is shouting at other coverage, saying that you need to do better. You need to be able to understand this bigotry and the social media chatter and all this stuff. And you go, look, it's, it's really hard. And if someone's going to continue to update their pronouns, like you have to. She even says, I understand that the world of pronouns can be a little bit difficult for people. We just have to hope that everybody's doing their best. And yet, most of the people that are commenting about this are using it as a political football that they can kick around to say, you're a bigot because you don't understand what, to me, is another level of complexity on top of the pronoun thing.

• 29:58Zack Telander?

  So let's think about language for a second. Pronouns themselves are to make the language simpler, easier. I don't have to say Chris every time. I can say he, I can say him. It's a placeholder. And what you're doing is making something that's simple, you're making it much more confusing. Right? So even just a minor amount of confusion is kind of a big deal in the English language because we don't know how to speak then. And what's really weird is that the Daily Beast says they and then calls her she, and then also says that it's okay to call her she and her. So.

• 30:36Zack Telander?

  What is like, what's going on? Like, what's the statement being made? So she wants to say that we can call her she now. Great. But I don't understand how that fits into what we were doing prior.

• 30:49Chris Williamson?

  I'm not, I mean, it says here, I've actually adopted the pronoun she/her again, she told the host on this podcast. So for me, I'm such a fluid person that I don't find that I am, I felt like especially last year, my energy was balanced in my masculine and feminine energy. So when I was faced with the choice of walking into a bathroom and it said, men, women and men, I didn't feel like there was a bathroom for me because I didn't necessarily feel like a woman and I didn't feel like a man. I just felt like a human. Recently, I've been feeling more feminine. So I've adopted she/her again, she said, adding that the purpose of using they/them pronouns is about feeling human at your core. Lovato went on to assure others that nobody's perfect and everybody messes up pronouns at some point, and especially when people are learning, it's all just about respect. So Demi Lovato seems completely fine with people trying their best to keep up with this stuff.

• 31:34Chris Williamson?

  There has to be an upper bound on how many, I mean, if she decides to add in more pronouns, is this, is there another wave of headlines that should come out about it? Should people be lambasted for not using, it's, there's going to be more pronouns that you can use than can't use. Like it's, I don't know, it, it's a very interesting situation to get into because I've never, I don't think there's been a real public situation where somebody has added extra pronouns in now. And I, I don't understand what the rules are supposed to be around this.

• 32:05Zack Telander?

  Well, I don't think there are rules, but I think that, again, I would agree with you in that I don't really care if somebody wants some sort of preferred pronouns. It's just going to be very difficult for me to unlearn years of speaking to people. If, if I misgender somebody, like honestly, I will feel bad and I will try to actually call them what they want. But it's, it's much more difficult when you mix in plurals. That's where for me, that sentence that you were trying to read, that is, that's very frustrating. Right? I don't actually care that she, she can name herself whatever she wants.

• 32:44Zack Telander?

  Okay. But the moment that we start mixing in plurals and shit like that, that's where I start to be like, hey, this is, uh, this is kind of bullshit. Because then I can't formulate a sentence properly without being like, I don't, I don't know what to do. And that's, that's ultimately what I'm not a fan of.

• 32:59Chris Williamson?

  Originally, I think this was what Peterson was concerned about, whatever, back in 2015 or 16, that it was a way for people to enact power over others, that you can force other people to change their behavior based on a claim that you make. There's very few things that I can force you to do, right? Like, you could even walk into me if we were going down a corridor on the same side of the corridor. I don't even, I can't even force you to move. But by using this, that does give people the opportunity to have a little bit of power. But I don't know, it seems like it's just a very, very strange situation. It's a very strange situation. Speaking of strange situations, Beyonce, heated lyrics. You mentioned this

• 33:42Chris Williamson?

  to me, and I've gone and had a look. Beyonce's new album Renaissance has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, but the acclaimed singer faced backlash from activists after Friday's record-breaking release for a lyric deemed ableist. On the song Heat, which Beyonce co-wrote with Drake, she sings, "Spazzin' on that ass, spaz on that ass."

• 34:09Zack Telander?

  Bro, I tried to, I tried, so.

• 34:13Chris Williamson?

  The word spaz is a derogative.

• 34:14Zack Telander?

  That's the first time I've heard the lyric. I knew it was spaz.

• 34:17Chris Williamson?

  Let me give you the full lyrics here, okay?

• 34:19Zack Telander?

  Well, it's about, it's about spastic cerebral palsy, which is an actual term, right? It's a, and is that now a term that we're not allowed to use?

• 34:30Chris Williamson?

  Well.

• 34:31Zack Telander?

  Right? Similar to saying someone.

• 34:32Chris Williamson?

  A British thing, I think.

• 34:34Zack Telander?

  So, but saying someone is retarded medically, so, is actually not allowed even now, right? And I would, is, is the term spastic? Cerebral palsy, or however you say it, is that now in that same boat? That's just what I want to clarify first.

• 34:53Chris Williamson?

  People would still be referred to as whatever retarded and spastic. That's like a medical diagnosis. The concern is when it becomes a pejorative, right? And people start using it as a slur. I think the

• 35:06Zack Telander?

  I don't even know that they're allowed to medically say that anymore. About retarded.

• 35:11Chris Williamson?

  Well, they definitely are around the spastic thing because the person that brought the term up is like self-referred as that. So presumably it is at least a little bit. So let me, let me give you some of the lyrics. Bad, bad bitchy, make that bad bitch glitchy. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Liberated living like we ain't got time. Yada, yada, ya, yada, yada, ya, ya, yada, yada, yada, bom bom, ka ka. Spazzing on that ass, spaz on that ass. Fan me girl, fan me quick girl, I need my glass. Fan me off, my wrist goes click, dimples on my hips, stretch marks on my tits. Drinking my water, minding my biz. Monday, I'm overrated, Tuesday, on my dick.

• 35:56Chris Williamson?

  The worst thing about that apparently is the spaz.

• 36:00Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I have no idea. I feel like I just blacked out and I have no idea what you just said. I have no idea what just happened. That was really, really weird. You know how you just kind of like space out while someone's talking? That's exactly what I just did to you. I apologize, but it was like, I was just hearing noises come out of your mouth. And in no way did they make sense at all. And suddenly we care about the word spastic.

• 36:28Chris Williamson?

  You are not, you are not Beyonce, one of the greatest songwriters of a generation. So you wouldn't know. But they've gone back and they've, she's retroactively changing the lyrics. She's going to change the lyrics so that it says blasting instead of spazzing. I remember as well in

• 36:45Zack Telander?

  They already did it, by the way.

• 36:46Chris Williamson?

  Oh, they updated it already?

• 36:47Zack Telander?

  Yes, but there have been some vinyls that were pressed already. Uh, vinyls and CDs that were pressed already. So I imagine those would actually be the resale on those.

• 37:00Chris Williamson?

  Oh, you got the spaz edition of Beyonce's new album, bro?

• 37:11Zack Telander?

  Oh, God.

• 37:12Chris Williamson?

  Dude, I'm all for, I mean, I've always thought that that word was a bit touchy because in the UK, that's a word that's been used quite a bit as a pejorative. And I remember watching Iron Man, and in it, Tony Stark, do you remember when he's got social anxiety, he's got anxiety and he's having anxiety attacks, and he's with a little kid, I think it's in the third one, and it's snowing, and the kid's saying like, what's going on? Where are we going? Can you help? What's happening? Are you okay? You're breathing fast. And he's trying to calm himself down and can't, goes and sits over a far side and says, see, you made me spaz out. He says that. Tony Stark says that. Coming out of Hollywood, and that was only maybe within 10 years ago.

• 37:52Zack Telander?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Chris Williamson?

  Um, so I always, that stuck in my mind. That bit stuck in my mind because I always thought, fucking hell, that's a bit of a heavy word to just be thrown around like that. So.

• 38:04Zack Telander?

  Well, look, you know where this is going, correct? That in, people will bring issues about certain things that have already been made and demand that they change them. And what's wild is that we're doing it to something that we thought we couldn't change. Given that, so, given that most people stream music now, we can actually take songs out and put them back.

• 38:25Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:26Zack Telander?

  And that's a wild thing.

• 38:28Chris Williamson?

  You can't even do that with YouTube videos, right? You could do that with, you'd have to re-upload the YouTube video.

• 38:33Zack Telander?

  Yeah. Well, I think they probably re-upload it. I don't know how it works.

• 38:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Zack Telander?

  But it's just a very weird thing. But now this is where, where the conversation is ultimately going to go is like, the, the potential for slippery slope. And obviously, the.

• 38:46Chris Williamson?

  So how far back do you need to go in order to correct content?

• 38:49Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I mean, are we just gonna, there's gotta be very, very problematic content that so many rappers, so many songs have used the word spaz, so many things have like said horrible things.

• 39:03Chris Williamson?

  Eminem songs with it in, 50 Cent songs with it in.

• 39:06Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I mean, it just it it's endless. So what are we gonna do? We just gonna go through and pick apart all these things? This is, you know, this is the the slippery slope. I mean, and then we have the the Monica Lewinsky thing.

• 39:18Chris Williamson?

  What happened with that?

• 39:20Zack Telander?

  So Monica Lewinsky, she said, while we're at it, you can change the lyrics to this song where you mentioned me like sucking Bill Clinton's dick or something. I don't know, actually, if they'd had anything. I don't know what the lyric is.

• 39:33Chris Williamson?

  It was I I looked I looked at it earlier on, so it was like Monica Lewinsky on my dress. So she was used. It was like someone's come on her dress.

• 39:42Zack Telander?

  Yeah. Okay. So then, so, yeah, but here's the thing. It's like Monica Lewinsky. Uh, what are you doing? Why do we care about you? Type of thing. That's kind of my re reaction. Monica Monica Lewinsky, why do we care about you? I at least I don't know. Is she big on Twitter or something?

• 40:00Chris Williamson?

  She did a Ted. She did a TEDx talk or a TED Talk a couple of years ago that was pretty big. I guess she's just been at the center of.

• 40:07Zack Telander?

  Okay, well, maybe that was rude of me because like I personally, I'm I'm because I I have no idea what Monica Lewinsky is up to.

• 40:14Chris Williamson?

  It was before our time, I think, that whole situation and tracking the Monica Lewinsky. Uh, did you see that Stranger Things went back and changed something in season three because fans pointed out a plot hole?

• 40:28Zack Telander?

  Uh, that's dude, this is gonna be endless. Endless. How many things have we seen where they've gone back and taken episodes out? I mean, whole thing, whole seasons of shit has been altered on Hulu. I can't, off the top of my head, I can't think of. But there have been people who have had scandals and then they've gone in and taken their stuff off of streaming. That that for sure has happened, for sure.

• 40:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, people.

• 40:54Zack Telander?

  Chris Delia.

• 40:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 40:55Zack Telander?

  He was, uh, taken out of a movie completely and they reshot his scenes. Um, with obviously a much less funny person.

• 41:05Chris Williamson?

  But that's different to going back and after it's been published and is out there retroactively. So for me, I don't think that the plot hole thing is. Not that big of a deal. Like if you've missed something and the fans tell you, go back and fix it. That seems-

• 41:20Zack Telander?

  Oh, oh, oh, that's, oh, I didn't know that's why they did this, that for Stranger Things.

• 41:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, it was, there wasn't something problematic.

• 41:26Zack Telander?

  It was outrage.

• 41:27Chris Williamson?

  No, it was, people were outraged, but they were outraged because there was a hole in the plot. And they went back and fixed that. So that's, that's one type. I guess another one is during the production or before it's released, you find out something about somebody that's contributed to it and they get removed. That's also an element. I don't have any problem with that either. But when it comes to getting rid of stuff from many, many years ago, I can absolutely see, I could absolutely see that happening. And the difference being, is it better to alter? I actually don't think it is. It's definitely not better to go back and alter something than delete it outright. I think it's better to completely remove content from the internet. Like if you have to give me which version of hell do you want? The version where stuff gets deleted for all time?

• 42:11Zack Telander?

  Instead of altered.

• 42:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, precisely. Because that's not the original vision for the piece of work.

• 42:15Zack Telander?

  But they're both versions of hell, correct?

• 42:18Chris Williamson?

  Correct. Yeah, it's like that, uh, that guy, the meme of that guy with his hand up and he's got to pick one of the two buttons.

• 42:22Zack Telander?

  Yes. Yeah, he's sweating. Yeah.

• 42:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Zack Telander?

  So, uh, this is something that I was just thinking through. This whole outrage culture is, is bad because it's becoming, it might become less viable to use outright outrage for good. I think that there's actually been a lot in cinema that's happened where outrage was good. So for instance, the Sonic the Hedgehog outrage.

• 42:48Chris Williamson?

  What was that?

• 42:48Zack Telander?

  They released the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog and the, and he looked horrifying. Okay. So what they did was they fixed the way that he looked, went back in and changed him completely. And everyone was like, thank you. This is a better movie now. Straight up. This is a straight up better movie. Um, there's a lot of, there was a lot of people saying, okay, hey, we need a Deadpool movie. And we need it to be rated R. It needs to be legit. Came out one of the most successful superhero movies at the time. And so I think that outrage, that kind of feedback is really awesome. But what you're gonna see is people are gonna be like, well, this is just outrage.

• 43:31Zack Telander?

  You know, this is just outrage culture. Fuck them. We're not gonna listen to them because this is what people do now. Right? So you get that kind of the boy cried, boy who cried wolf effect. And I think that's gonna suck a lot if it hasn't already happened.

• 43:44Chris Williamson?

  It's a problem that people have around overusing the accusation of racism, right? If everything is racist, then nothing's racist. And when you actually need to call out some real racists, where do you go? It's this ever, uh, intensity increasing situation. And yeah, you know, if, if outrage occurs at every corner, every opportunity. Then yeah, when some real outrage is needed, you're going to be so desensitized to it that you're not even gonna notice.

• 44:11Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I mean, and also how many people are gonna be like, oh, like, I guess, I guess I'm a fucking racist. If, if everyone's just gonna call that and then they're just gonna go.

• 44:21Chris Williamson?

  Lean into it.

• 44:21Zack Telander?

  They're gonna lean into it. That is what trolls do. That is what the alt-right is all about. Right? You tell me what I am? Fine. I'll fucking be that and I'm gonna troll the living shit out of you.

• 44:31Chris Williamson?

  I'm gonna be the worst version of that that you can imagine.

• 44:34Zack Telander?

  Yes. That's essentially what like the, the whole issue with the alt-right is, right? You, it's almost like the left creates it. The okay symbol is a great example of this. Okay. The okay symbol is, what was it like?

• 44:46Chris Williamson?

  White power.

• 44:47Zack Telander?

  White power. It looks like a W and a P.

• 44:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Zack Telander?

  That was something that was created on the backboards of 4chan. Brought up and then they're like, look, we fucking got this, these guys. And then the actual, you know, white nationalist parties were like, fuck it. We'll use it. Sure. If it pisses off the left, we'll fucking use it.

• 45:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Zack Telander?

  And we don't know what's real. We don't know what a joke is. You know Poe's law? Have you heard of Poe's law? It's, it's basically states that there is absolutely no way of knowing that something is satirical on the internet unless it is stated.

• 45:22Zack Telander?

  Because what you can get into this endless feedback loop of people saying it was satirical, but then taking the satire and making it real and making it a part of it and kind of creating this weird cycle. And Poe's Law is a product of the internet. And I think that this is sort of the stuff that we'll end up running into more and more. How many things have been created off of 4chan that have become something?

• 45:45Chris Williamson?

  Did you see that free bleeding? Did you ever see this?

• 45:50Zack Telander?

  No.

• 45:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so people on 4chan wanted to try and troll women into believing that showing period blood on your clothes was a way of standing in solidarity with people that don't have access to birth control, maybe, or people in the Middle East. So they created this campaign, and many, many, many women started doing what was called free bleeding and just allowing period blood to go on the outside of their clothes because that was in solidarity with their sisters in Asia or whatever it was.

• 46:24Zack Telander?

  I mean, the biggest one we can think of is the Bored Ape Yacht Club, right? That is something that was directly created as kind of a joke. And it ended up being a billion-dollar troll.

• 46:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for people that don't know what we're talking about, once you finish this episode, go over to Phillyon's channel on YouTube and watch Bored Ape Nazi Club. Even if you don't think that it's true, it's one of the best hours of independent filmmaking. It's so, so thorough. And it's fascinating, all of the different imagery. Basically, he's saying that Bored Ape Yacht Club is a larp-y sort of troll of alt-right imagery, references, stuff to do with Heil Hitler, stuff to do with the Jews, stuff to do with Auschwitz, all sorts of stuff. And he just lays it out over and out. So you should go and check that out once we're finished.

• 47:10Zack Telander?

  And I think this is also something interesting, especially with the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Are they actually racist, even though they're putting racist things in there?

• 47:22Zack Telander?

  To get something out of it, but they themselves might not be, or they might be, but it's all about the troll.

• 47:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 47:31Zack Telander?

  Right? The real life troll. And what we need to distinguish is,

• 47:36Zack Telander?

  does trolling mobilize actual racism? Which might be true? Or is it just trolling for trolling sake?

• 47:45Chris Williamson?

  Like, this is- How are you supposed to deal with it as well? Like, are you, are you suggesting, or would it be the case that you should let troll racism go? In order to not galvanize one side?

• 47:57Zack Telander?

  But that's the thing, we cannot, again, this goes back to Poe's law. We cannot discern what a troll is and what isn't. You could point to something and say it's satirical, but the creator of it could be like, no, this wasn't satire. He could say, he or she could say whatever the fuck they want. It's super interesting.

• 48:14Chris Williamson?

  It's very, very complex.

• 48:14Zack Telander?

  And it's, it's, it's very important to understand this because like meme culture and meta culture and, and, and this 4chan, it, it is where we are headed if we're not there already. Whoever can create the, the most clever, timely, maybe contrarian opinion in a funny way that is relatable wins. And by the time it's either proved incorrect or, or correct, it's already too late because it's viralized. So many people like just love the way that that meme is formatted because it speaks to them. It doesn't matter, but now their opinion is not, is like, yeah, fuck yeah. You, you, you gave me my opinion on a platter. It's the biases that people have. And this is just how it works.

• 48:59Zack Telander?

  Like the power of memes is limitless. And there's a, there's also like a meme economy. I don't know if you know much about this. I don't really know too much about it, but essentially it's like stock in memes. You can see which meme is going to outperform, right? Like there's, I, I think there is a list of current memes and like where they are ranked and, and certain things like that. And think about that for a second. If you want to say something that makes a difference, you find a powerful meme. And you can throw that out into the world.

• 49:33Chris Williamson?

  Oh, I tell you where I've gone. So I've just typed in meme economy online and you know, the website that's come up to explain it to me, know your meme.com.

• 49:40Zack Telander?

  Know your meme. Yes. Who was, he was a guy on your show, correct?

• 49:43Chris Williamson?

  No, we met him. We met him. I met him at Malice's party a few weeks ago, the guy that owns it.

• 49:48Zack Telander?

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 49:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. He was fascinating. I met him with Sky and.

• 49:52Zack Telander?

  So how much of that could then relate to crypto, which also could then relate to the stock market?

• 49:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Zack Telander?

  It's fucking crazy to think about this. Were we always as a culture, were we always doomed or headed to something like this where everything is meta, everything is?

• 50:10Chris Williamson?

  Well, think about, think about it this way. We're talking about movies and stuff like that. How long has it been since there was a normal superhero movie that didn't have to have some weird quirk on the side of the character, you know, that, I mean, we've got hero movies now that are based on the villains. That's what Suicide Squad was, right?

• 50:33Zack Telander?

  Like, right.

• 50:34Chris Williamson?

  You have movies like The Boys on Amazon Prime, which everybody should go and watch because it's amazing.

• 50:38Zack Telander?

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 50:39Chris Williamson?

  And all of those characters, that's super, super sort of fourth degree removed, fifth degree removed meta commentary about. So it's interesting. I wonder whether part of it is because once you've played out very easy to guess archetypes and roles, you know, if we just did another, the first Superman, right? From whatever the 50s or something. If we just put that out again, we've already done that. We've already, you know, that's been done to death. So I do think that it's kind of an inevitable progression of the art form. But when it leaks over into news, into normal culture outside of the creative world and the creative world and the cultural world and news

• 51:22Chris Williamson?

  and politics have all become intertwined because everybody's a pocket creator now, right?

• 51:28Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 51:28Chris Williamson?

  Your dog does something funny. You take a photo of it. That could be the most famous dog ever. Remember the guy that did that lightsaber thing? What's that 20 years ago now? Probably on the internet, the lightsaber dude, he, chocolate rain. You remember him?

• 51:41Zack Telander?

  Yes. Yes.

• 51:42Chris Williamson?

  All of this stuff, man, like you get turned into memes, the fish and rice cakes dude from England. He got invited. So here's a funny one. The guy that did fish and rice cakes got invited onto First Dates, which is a dating program in the UK. It's one of the biggest ones. He got invited on there and he looks great and he's got like half sleeve tattoo, pretty cool, good looking guy. And he was explaining about how he was misrepresented on there. And then I think he also did a video on Lad Bible explaining it as well. It's not nice. I mean, Sony gave those four lads in jeans that were British as well. They gave them a contract for noise cancelling headphones because of like keeping the haters out. So this is meme culture then getting fed

• 52:26Chris Williamson?

  back into advertising and Yep. Back into the cultural machine. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's clickbait, man. Speaking of movies and stuff like that, Batgirl and Scooby Doo Holiday Haunt scrapped at Warner Brothers amid cost savings push. So Batgirl budgeted at around $80 million with costs rising up to nearly 90 million due to COVID. In a surprising development, Warner Brothers will no longer be releasing Batgirl, the DC film that had already completed shooting and was expected to arrive on HBO Max this year. The unusual move comes after a change in leadership at Warner's with newly installed Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslove prioritizing cost cutting measures and refocusing Warner's on creating theatrical films rather than just projects for streaming, as had been a priority

• 53:10Chris Williamson?

  for former Warner Media CEO Jason Killer. Batgirl was budgeted at around $80 million with costs rising to nearly 90 million due to COVID-19 protocols. It's a hefty sum but significantly lower than DC theatrical releases. Thus, the film is said to not have the spectacle the audience have come to expect from DC Fair. The Batman released in March had a budget of 185 million before marketing costs. Warner's also decided to shelve animated feature Scoob Holiday Haunt, which had a budget in the 40 million range. So I am not a massive fan of the Current trend that we're seeing of trying to rinse every single franchise and squeeze it as hard as possible. You know, we had She Hulk not long ago. That came out in the cinema

• 53:53Chris Williamson?

  and it was, it didn't even make sense in the Hulk universe because the Hulk wasn't able to speak when he was Hulk. He was enraged. She's able to go to work. She's like a high powered boss bitch lawyer with a briefcase. There's a scene where she picks some guy up that she's having a one night stand with, picks him up from the couch and walks him into bed. It's like a total reversal, like gender role reversal thing, but it sucked. Let me see what She Hulk, She Hulk, Rotten Tomatoes. What did it get? She Hulk Attorney at Law. That's literally, literally what it's called. Uh, is it out? TV series?

• 54:34Zack Telander?

  It might not be out. I think.

• 54:36Chris Williamson?

  Oh, release date 2022. Yeah. Well, I've seen a lot of, oh, premieres on August 18th. So it'll be out pretty soon. So something tells me it's going to have a brutal Rotten Tomatoes score.

• 54:46Zack Telander?

  Outside of the content sucking, right? What makes me the most angry is the ridiculous waste of money. Okay. As somebody who is currently trying to make a feature film happen, who's trying to raise money and really passionate about a certain project, to see someone go through an entire, is it a single film or is it a season?

• 55:10Chris Williamson?

  Series.

• 55:10Zack Telander?

  Okay, a series for eight, sorry, $90 million, shoot it all and then never put it out. That is so unbelievably frustrating, but it points to the fact that the best culture cannot possibly be created by the top. Not always. Like the best music for this, this person, or the best cinema for this person will likely not be created at the top for that person. At least not to the degree that we think it is.

• 55:44Zack Telander?

  Okay, if, if, if production is just a money throw, like throw money at it, pump it out, send it out. And we have the biggest market, we have the best streaming service. Eat it up, people. Right? That, that happens ad nauseam. And like, to kind of circle back to the Beyonce thing, right? The, the, another part to this was that she took a sample from Khaleesi.

• 56:10Chris Williamson?

  The Milkshake song, right?

• 56:12Zack Telander?

  Milkshake, yes. Actually, kind of a good song, kind of a banger.

• 56:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 56:16Zack Telander?

  But before any of that happened, before she didn't give credit at all, the Neptunes, which is Pharrell, they owned the song and basically tricked her out of not getting any money on, I think, both of her first two albums, which they both produced. She signed a contract and she really did not make the money that she should have made. And what happened was Beyonce then used Milkshake, which then brought that back into the fray.

• 56:44Chris Williamson?

  She used Milkshake without the vocal, though, right?

• 56:46Zack Telander?

  Right.

• 56:47Chris Williamson?

  She just used the sample of the instrumental, which was owned by Pharrell, which, who was also helping to produce Beyonce's album.

• 56:52Zack Telander?

  Exactly. Which all it pointed to was that this fucking weird world of production of creativity still exists and it still fucking sucks. It's still absolutely blessed. Yes. And we live in a world now where you and I can go on the internet and create our content without any oversight at all. And I, I do believe that the fact that that's happening is awesome. To put more and more stress on the people up top who fuck over the real creators in this world, or the very talented people in this world. I, I honestly, I honestly believe that.

• 57:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Man, I mean, there's another element here, I think of, um,

• 57:34Chris Williamson?

  Cherished and treasured franchises and series being ruined. What's that quote about you either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain?

• 57:45Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 57:45Chris Williamson?

  That's what's happening with media now. Every company, every franchise is just rinsing. You know what the most impressive thing I think is? The Avengers finished. The Avengers stopped. That has to be the most successful movie franchise of the last, maybe ever, but certainly of the last few years, maybe since Harry Potter, something like that. It'll be, it'll be definitely up there. And they just went, spoiler alert for people that haven't seen it, we're going to kill the main character at the end and then it's going to finish. And obviously they've got, you know, low key series, they've got all sorts of split offs. So maybe Marvel isn't an amazing example because they're still rinsing the universe outside of it, but they stopped that bit. And that felt like, do you not think that it's sad, but it's kind of satisfying and

• 58:29Chris Williamson?

  it almost makes that series, or what would you call it? That sequence of movies feel more special because you know-

• 58:35Zack Telander?

  I love it.

• 58:36Chris Williamson?

  There's a full stop.

• 58:37Zack Telander?

  Yes, no, I love it. I think Ozark did a great job of that.

• 58:40Chris Williamson?

  I haven't seen-

• 58:41Zack Telander?

  They're like, hard stop, it's over, we're done. They, you know, they built the fucking story. I think from day one, they had the same story. It wasn't they were building as they were going, they weren't trying to see where-

• 58:50Chris Williamson?

  They knew the end already.

• 58:51Zack Telander?

  They knew the end. And I think, you know, if you look at my, debatably, one of my favorite shows ever created was True Detective, season one.

• 59:01Chris Williamson?

  Never seen it.

• 59:02Zack Telander?

  Okay. So that's Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, a couple of other people, but a fantastic story. And not only that, like very, very good cinematography and direction. Uh, and at the time, I mean, I still think it's for me, top five, maybe top three, maybe the best one that I can think of off the, off the top of my head. They ended that series, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were done. So now they have to start, they do True Detective, but they start a completely new- Uh, place on a new idea, a new story arc.

• 59:38Chris Williamson?

  New investigators, new cast.

• 59:41Zack Telander?

  Yes, and it has nothing to do with that first one. I think that's okay, but in my opinion, that was their way of being like, look, we can be legit, we can end this story, but we can keep this series alive and hopefully milk people for more money, when they should have literally just been like, that's it, we're done, one season, we're out.

• 59:59Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so I'll push back against that. Think about if they'd come in with the second season and the second season was better than the first season. If they'd been able to do that, I think that you would have gone, and you know what they did? They came back, it was really good, it was different, it was... My point being that a lot of what we're saying here, we're trying to rationalize like a hard and fast rule about don't make female versions of fucking existing superhero films.

• 1:00:20Zack Telander?

  But if it's good, it's good.

• 1:00:21Chris Williamson?

  Precisely. What we, what we really mean is don't ruin shit. Don't make terrible movies and series. The same thing goes for Game of Thrones. I, I've just spouted on for ages about how we shouldn't be rinsing the shit out of franchises and making terrible things. And House of Dragons and Beyond the Wall, or whatever the one that's about the north is, uh, both of those are coming out pretty soon, and I can't wait. I'm absolutely gassed for those to come out. I think that Game of Thrones was particularly unsatisfying the way that it finished, and I also think that this will probably be pretty cool, and I like George R.R. Martin's universe, so I want that. So I'm basically, I'm difficult to please.

• 1:00:59Zack Telander?

  I like they were, that they were rinsed solely because they were trying to get out of there, those two guys, Ben Ahoff and whatever.

• 1:01:05Chris Williamson?

  Dan and Dave.

• 1:01:07Zack Telander?

  They were trying to get the fuck out of there. They were like, we're done with this, we're gonna go make a Star Wars movie. We're going over to Lucas Pictures. That's why I, that's why I think fuck them, rinse them, destroy them. Um, not only did they make a piece of shit ending to an amazing series that was actually pretty accurate to the books, and even though they were allowed to finish how they kind of wanted to because the books hadn't been out yet, they, they were like, let's get out of here. And that's how it felt. Maybe that's not how it was, but you could even see, um, did you see the cast table, the video of them at the casting table where they like, look at the shit and they're like,

• 1:01:41Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:01:41Zack Telander?

  What?

• 1:01:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Zack Telander?

  You know? Like, people were watching this and they were like, this is not who I am, this is not how I am. Another, another one of that is, um, the guy who plays Luke Skywalker throughout the whole series, I can't think of his name, it's pathetic of me, I'm sorry. Oh, Hamel, something Ham, Hamel, I think, whatever. Uh, he... He was like in interviews, I think he might have been a little boozed up or something, but he's like, this shit sucks, you know, or like, not, not that, not that, but it was like, he virtually had said, like, this is not

• 1:02:16Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen?

• 1:02:17Zack Telander?

  Good. What we just made was not good.

• 1:02:19Chris Williamson?

  So there's a, a bunch of interviews that people can go and watch with the cast of Game of Thrones, after they'd finished filming season eight, but before it had been aired. And in all of the interviews when they're being asked, so tell us, you know, is it exciting? Or is it whatever? Kit Harrington's the best because he's British and pretty much unable to keep his like emotions to himself. And it's just so obvious. They're dying inside. They don't, they're like, they're just completely unsatisfied with it. Another person that's amazing when it comes to media interviews, have you seen Tom Holland, the guy that does Spider-Man?

• 1:02:51Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 1:02:52Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen how much he fucks up?

• 1:02:53Zack Telander?

  Yeah. And how much he gives away, like what ends up happening?

• 1:02:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. People, what people were saying-

• 1:02:57Zack Telander?

  Don't let him fucking speak anymore.

• 1:02:59Chris Williamson?

  They said about, um, was it Avengers, whatever the one where Thanos snaps his fingers? And during the press tour for that, it was something like, uh, um, with the interviewer had said, we're scared of losing more people or something, something, something. And Tom Holland's literally responded and said, well, half of everybody dies in this episode.

• 1:03:20Zack Telander?

  Okay. Okay. This is a crazy one. Ready for this? So a star is born. I'm going in to see it with my buddy. I'm actually really stoked for this movie. Uh, and it's one of those movie theaters where you get food served to you. And so we go to sit down and our waitress comes out and she's like, she's like, hey, look, the ending is really sad. So I'm actually gonna, um, try and get you guys to pay before, about 20 minutes before it ends. And we're, I literally look at her, I'm like, okay, so Bradley Cooper dies. This is what you're telling me, right? I didn't say that. I didn't say that to her, but my jaw dropped. She walks

• 1:04:02Zack Telander?

  away and I just immediately knew it. I knew what happened. You, all you had to say was, it's sad. You just had to say that. How about just don't fucking say that. And now I was thinking about it. How many people's movie going experience did this woman-

• 1:04:15Chris Williamson?

  This one lady ruin?

• 1:04:17Zack Telander?

  Thinking that she was getting on top of her job.

• 1:04:21Zack Telander?

  You know what I mean? Like, not only, not only on that day, but over the course of the month. Yes, she ruined that.

• 1:04:29Chris Williamson?

  Fuck. So my housemate, my housemate back in the UK, Toby, has this unbelievable ability to see what's going to happen in series. So if it's a murder mystery, within half an hour, he's like, he did it. And sure enough, it's him. So I imagine that if you're really smart at being able to detect narratives, I'm completely not. So I'm always surprised at the end and oblivious to whatever's going on. I imagine it's kind of the same. If you're one of those people that's really talented at being able to pick out who did the thing and looking for nuance and she went to the left or whatever. This is basically the same thing because you, there's no surprise at the end of it. I don't know whether you know about a YouTube channel called Emergency Awesome. He does, he does analysis and breakdowns of trailers and series.

• 1:05:14Chris Williamson?

  And one of the best things that happened during Game of Thrones was I'd watch the episode and then I'd go and watch his half hour long breakdown that explained all of this stuff. And I knew that, uh, Jon Snow was a Targaryen.

• 1:05:29Zack Telander?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, I've watched a ton of that. And also, yeah, I, I was just really into a Wiki of Ice and Fire. I don't know if you know what that is. It's basically the, the Wikipedia for that series. So when I was bored, I was just, because I was, man, I was really, really obsessed with not just Game of Thrones, but, uh, um, A Song of Ice and Fire. Like, I was really, really into it. So very early on, mind you, I was a sophomore in college when it started coming out. So it's like, my consumption of this was considerable. I mean, it was literally 10 years of my life or over that, where I was like into this thing. And to have it end like it did was, that was the slap in the face. But sorry, I interrupted you.

• 1:06:09Chris Williamson?

  No, that was it, man. Just that I, I imagine that if you've got an unbelievable insight when it comes to movies.

• 1:06:15Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I, I wouldn't say I have an unbelievable insight, but with A Star is Born, I knew because like, the trailer had kind of alluded to Bradley Cooper being a piece of shit, right? Or, or have, or being this, this, uh, doomed rock star. Okay. And the moment the woman comes up to me and says, hey, it's a sad ending. So I want to get out of here. Like, I don't want to like interrupt the ending or something like that. And I'm just like, oh, so he dies. Thanks. He dies. Okay, cool. Let's get on with the movie. Thank you.

• 1:06:48Chris Williamson?

  Look dude.

• 1:06:49Zack Telander?

  Immediately, yeah.

• 1:06:50Chris Williamson?

  Let's bring this one home. Your current movie project that you're looking for funding for, where can people go to check that out?

• 1:06:57Zack Telander?

  Go to wefunder.com and then search The Weight. So it's The Weight LLC. We created an LLC. We created a lot of stuff to get this.

• 1:07:05Chris Williamson?

  It's Weight, W E I G H T.

• 1:07:08Zack Telander?

  Yes, The Weight. And right now we have over $150,000 raised and we have a lead investor. We have a lot of things in place. The backend is completely full. Like we have everything we need to get this thing going. And people can not just donate, they can invest and actually have the potential to make their money back and make more money, but also be part of the production of the first weightlifting based narrative feature film.

• 1:07:37Chris Williamson?

  And your socials and all that stuff as well? Where should people go?

• 1:07:41Zack Telander?

  Yeah, coach underscore Z T on Instagram and my name, Zach Tullender on YouTube.

• 1:07:47Chris Williamson?

  Alright dude, appreciate you.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:08:05Zack Telander?

  What would happen if I stopped going? You start, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:08:12Zack Telander?

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.90 without parent.