Tweeting Elon and Pouring One Out For Cancelled Homies
This is the Bee Weekly for 3/12/21. Kyle and Ethan are joined by CEO Seth Dillon and Managing Editor Joel Berry. They discuss the eccentric Elon Musk tweeting at The Bee while roasting The Onion, all those who have beenย recently cancelled in the culture wars, and Alabama kangaroos. Talk turns to Big Tech censorship in the subscriber-exclusive lounge with The Babylon Bee's CEO and, of course, there's plenty of weird news and glorious hate mail. Intro Seth and Joel arrive in beautiful Southern California and everyone announces their preferred pronouns. They want to know what Trump's breath smells like. Subscriber Dare We'll do anything to get you to subscribe. In today's edition of a segment some call "Dance Monkey Dance" we all wish Knox a very happy 11th birthday! Weird News From NTB: "Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden" group says they feel "used and betrayed" by his radical abortion platform In one of history's biggest "I told ya so" moments, the group called Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden has written a letter to the president saying they feel "used and betrayed" for the Democrats' exclusion of the Hyde Amendment from the recent stimulus bill The Hyde Amendment is a bill renewed each year since 1976 that makes it so that federal tax dollars can't go toward abortion. There's a whole money laundering scheme Lefties have created with Planned Parenthood and others to give them support in other ways, but it remains illegal for my tax money to be used for the bloody evisceration of unborn babies. Wolf enclosure at Chinese zoo contains only a domesticated dog A Chinese zoo's wolf enclosure is gaining attention online after a visitor captured video of a domesticated dog in the enclosure labeled for its wild canine cousins. The filmer said a zoo employee told him there used to be a wolf in the cage, but it died of old age. An official with Forestry Bureau Office of Xianning City said the zoo told authorities the dog was being temporarily housed in the wolf enclosure to prevent people from trying to sneak into the zoo by scaling the wall into the habitat. TWO CATS in different states reunited with families after four years Story 1: North Carolina family reunited with lost cat after four years Story 2: Missing New Jersey cat turns up four years later in Pittsburgh What's up with all these cats disappearing for four years? Theories? Turkey crashes through window into California dentist's office "It clawed up multiple walls to where we're gonna have to repaint in there. Some of the glass that came in cut the dental chairs ... and we'll need some deep cleaning," McDonald told the Sacramento Bee. Animal control referred McDonald to Gold Country Wildlife Rescue, which sent someone to the scene to evict the turkey. "There was no wrangling this bird as an amateur. The wildlife lady kind of struggled with it," McDonald said. Escaped kangaroo captured after two days on the loose in Alabama The kangaroo was supposed to spend a few days at a farm in Winfield before continuing on to the home of a buyer in Tennessee, but the marsupial slipped loose from one of its handlers Monday and fled. What did the Kangaroo do during it's two days loose in Alabama? 15th century Chinese bowl bought for $35 at Connecticut yard sale ย A small bowl bought for $35 at a Connecticut yard sale was identified as a 600-year-old Chinese antique and is expected to sell for up to $500,000 at auction. Sotheby's auction house in New York said the seller, a man who is not being identified, purchased a floral bowl for $35 at a yard sale in New Haven in 2020 and sent photos of the object to auction specialists to see if it was a genuine antique. The porcelain bowl was identified as a "lotus bowl" from the court of the Yongle Emperor, who ruled from 1403 until 1424. Only six other lotus bowls from the same period are known to still exist. The auction house said the bowl is expected to fetch a high bid of $300,000 to $500,000 -- up to 14,300 times the amount of money it sold for at the yard sale. From NTB: Woke madness: 6th grade teacher divides her students into "privileged groups" and "targeted groups" to teach about "oppression" A Minnesota middle school teacher taught a lesson on "different types of oppression" and then had her students separate into "Privileged Groups" and "Targeted Groups" based on their group identities โ race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and place of birth. The lesson taught by Odelis Anderson, choir teacher (yes a choir teacher did this) at Sunrise Park Middle School in White Bear Lake, MN For Kyle: Teenager spends 36 hours on swing to break Guinness record A 17-year-old New Zealand boy broke a Guinness World Record when he spent 36 consecutive hours swinging on a playground swing set. Patrick Cooper, 17, of Hawke's Bay, began swinging at a park in Taradale at 10:23 a.m. Saturday and completed his attempt at 10:23 p.m. Sunday. The teenager said he was supposed to start at 9 a.m., but the attempt was delayed when he slept through his alarm. Elon Musk Tweeting The Bee The Bee has taken on some strange bedfellows. You know like the previous president and the richest man on earth. Elon Musk just trolled The Onion by replying to them on Twitter with a plug for The Babylon Bee ๐๐๐ญ Gone but not forgotten: remembering the cancel culture icons we've lost Hate Mail Sometimes Seth will personally respond to your hate mail. A dramatic re-enactment. Subscriber Portion Cancel Culture/Big Tech Censorship with Managing Editor Joel Berry and/or CEO Seth Dillon, what The Babylon Bee is seeing right now in the war on free speech The Ten Questions for The Babylon Bee's CEO and Managing Editor! Bonus Hate Mail Abigail calls us racists over our recent coverage of the former royals: Harry and Megan. Subscriber Headlines of the Week Got any cool stories?
In a world of fake news, we bring you up-to-the-minute factual inaccuracy and a heavy dose of moral truth with your hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
This is the Babylon Bee.
Fake news you can trust.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to the Babylon Bee podcast.
Kyle Mann, he, him.
Ethan Nicole.
Is that with an end?
X or Z.
I don't know.
Seth Dylan.
What?
How'd he get here?
Yeah, I don't know.
Plain.
May he live forever.
May he live forever.
Who's Seth Dylan?
Who's Seth Dylan?
Oh, he's the CEO of the company.
What's that stand for?
That you work for.
Is that a big thing?
What does CEO?
Oh, chief executive officer.
Yeah.
Chief?
Did you say chief?
It is chief, right?
Ooh, chief.
Can we just call you chief?
I'm part Cherokee, so I'm deeply offended by that.
Alrighty.
We're after a bad start.
We're off to a bad start.
Who's he, though?
Hi, everybody.
This is Joel Berry.
He's the managing editor for the Babylon B.
They, them?
They, them.
I mean, they are the theme.
We get Seth says.
He's just sitting there.
I don't have any pronouns.
You don't have any pronouns.
You can refer to me as the CEO.
We can have a little talk later.
All right.
So.
Yeah, so these two came out, some business meetings and came out to beautiful cold Southern California.
Seth wanted to see what he has built out here.
Yeah.
He's like, I employ a dozen people in Southern California.
I don't know any of them.
So we flew out to say hi.
It's past due.
I should have been here a while ago.
It's really cool to be here and see everyone face to face and work side by side in the same room after working remotely so long.
It's really fun.
What about the experience all the interesting things?
It smells.
I was just going to say that.
Smells.
You feel like you can smell them through the screen.
Sweaty sock smell that you just, yeah.
It's wonderful.
Nothing like it.
Yeah, you read a Babylon Bee headline and you can tell it was written by like a smelly white guy with a neck beard.
Absolutely.
And now you get to experience that.
We interviewed somebody once who that never went up, but they worked with Trump and I asked, what's his mouth smell like?
And they were really offended by that question.
Only working really closely with someone do you know that answer that so it's not an interesting question.
I'm actually really curious now that that's going to be in my head forever.
Fruity notes.
Is that one of those questions that you think about long in advance of recording a podcast?
I've written down on the spot.
That was written down.
That was in the notes.
I had a team of 12 writers to come up with that question.
It was like right after a very serious question.
And they, them, did not answer.
They them did not, if I remember or not.
Yes.
Correct.
We never found out what drugs and breath smells like.
We will, though.
I think the answer was, I don't even know what that means.
Something like that.
We will not stop searching and asking until we'll find out where on the case.
Post your guesses in the comments.
This is off to a great start.
Do we need to introduce them anymore?
Is it obvious?
I don't know.
I'm the managing editor.
I'm the Kmart brand, Kyle Mann.
Yeah.
Four man's Kyle Mann.
Kirkland.
Five below.
Kirkland brand.
Yep.
I run it when he's doing whatever Californians do in their spare time and have a great time doing it.
Well, usually it's when I'm doing this.
Yeah, right.
Sitting down to record.
I just, in my head, I picture that you're surfing and climbing a mountain, snowboarding, and stuff like that.
But you're actually working.
He's reading Board Gamer magazine in a giant beanbag chair.
Board Gamer Weekly.
Drinking Code Red.
Are we telling your origin story while we're here tonight?
Oh, yeah, we should get to that.
I was thinking in the subscriber portion, we could because that's a good story and it would encourage a lot of subscribers, I think.
Well, actually, maybe we should tell it outside the subscriber portion because it might encourage subscription.
Oh, because he was a subscriber, he was, yeah, yeah.
We can tease it a little bit.
Yeah, okay.
You'll laugh, you'll cry.
So, whatever.
Whatever makes more money.
Yeah, whatever.
True.
We'll tell the fake story before.
Let's do it during the main portion because we'll have stuff to, you know, we're pretty much just going to banter anyway.
Yeah, that's it.
All right, guys.
So, this week we're going to do weird news.
We're going to talk about Elon Musk and his bizarre love affair with the Babylon Bee.
We're going to talk about cancel culture a little bit.
We're also going to have an in-memorium segment where we remember those that we've lost.
Touching and moving everyone we've lost in the past year.
And then we're going to do hate mail.
We're going to our subscriber lounge after that and do some more fun stuff.
Oh, yeah.
So throw the 10 questions at these two clowns.
Yeah.
They'll answer the 10 questions.
I would never.
Okay.
It's all good fun.
We're bantering.
Right?
Yeah, but first, subscriber dare.
Speaking of subscriptions, this is subscriber dare.
We hear the Babylon Bee will literally do anything for money.
And so we will dance like monkeys if you will only subscribe.
Yes.
Developing taking us up on these things.
Have you danced like monkeys?
We haven't.
We did a rap battle.
Yeah.
That was a fun one.
I slayed Kyle.
I did get destroyed.
Was that a request?
Like, if you did that, they would subscribe.
They would subscribe, yeah.
And did they subscribe to it?
We check.
We make sure.
We make sure.
Okay.
And if they don't, what's the penalty?
We need some concepts.
We stock all our social channels.
We can strike them or something.
Yeah.
We can't subscribe yet.
We can't subscribe yet.
We got to cancel it.
We dig through their Twitter history.
Yeah.
All their reviews.
We use the B Twitter to just slay them.
Just destroy them.
Roughly.
All right.
So this one is from Andy.
My middle one just turned 11, got shafted by COVID.
Does that mean he didn't get it?
No, it's because, look, we've got to keep reading.
Okay, we were going to fly anywhere to see 21 pilots.
What's that?
What is that?
That is?
That's a band?
Yeah.
Okay.
It's like an extremely popular band.
That's two years younger than me.
He knows incredibly music.
Really?
I'm a homeschooler, so I don't.
I don't know.
I thought it was like a screen name or something.
We're going to find out who this is.
21 Pilots.
That's a lot of pilots.
I mean, they have a show?
That's kind of weird.
Yeah.
That's not happening.
So he wants a subscription to the Babylon Bee.
I know.
He loves the podcast.
Rap Battle was Fave.
I don't know how they do that.
This thing wanted to see if you guys could send a 10-second birthday message to him in exchange for he's speaking in like leet.
He's speaking in Gen Z. That's what that is.
I think he's a court reporter.
They don't use vowels in Gen Z type.
These Gen Z people.
They shouldn't be having kids.
Yes, his name is Nox.
So we're supposed to give Knox a happy birthday.
Yeah, he turned 11 last month.
He's a huge Dwight Schroot fan.
Who isn't?
So who's the most Dwight Schrute like in here?
It's kind of a combination between our two video guys, I think.
Maybe.
I don't know.
There's something in you.
I don't know.
And probably some me.
If you're like an introverted writer, you're a little from the outside.
Everyone's Dwight Schrute.
Everyone has a little Dwight in them.
He mentions bears a lot.
That's true.
Yeah.
See?
I got some.
I got some Dwight.
Well, Knox, happy 11th birthday.
10 seconds.
21 Pilots is awesome.
I hope you get to see him soon.
And, you know, the Babylon Bee just wants to wish you a really great 11 years on planet Earth.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
And I don't envy you.
I hated being 11.
Terrible age.
Really?
Wow.
I got picked on so much.
You're really bringing up a lot.
Sorry, this is bringing up some painful things for me.
Sorry.
All right, let's do some weird news.
This news is weird.
All right, Not the Bee reported on this.
Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden group says they feel used and betrayed by his radical abortion platform.
What a shocker.
The guy who campaigned on radical pro-abortion platforms enacted radical pro-abortion things.
I don't even know what to add to this.
I'm shocked.
Can you shock?
They wrote a whole letter.
I don't think they're shocked.
I think that them saying that they're shocked is like to save face.
They knew exactly what Biden was going to do, and they have to save their pro-life bona fide.
So this is just, it's all theater.
That's my theory.
They wrote in an open letter, we are very disappointed about the relief package's exclusion of the Hyde Amendment, a long-standing bipartisan policy that prevents taxpayer funding for abortion.
We're even more upset that the Biden administration is supporting this bill.
And then they go on, we feel used and betrayed and have no intention of simply watching these kinds of efforts happen from the sidelines.
Many evangelicals and Catholics took risks to support Biden publicly.
President Biden and Democrats need to honor their courage.
To be fair, are there Biden voters that don't feel used and betrayed right now?
I feel like that's everyone's story at this point.
Biden did issue a response to this.
It was, was that an evil cackle?
It was an old man.
Yeah, you got to add the cough in there.
That helps.
This is what I understand it.
They're a pro-life group and they're for a pro-choice candidate.
Right.
So that was just a contradiction to begin with.
I mean, really, what do they expect from somebody who's pro-choice?
And why is a pro-life group supporting a pro-choice candidate in the first place?
Like, what was it that Biden said that they were hopeful for?
Or, you know, what was the positive that they expected?
Yeah, when did he ever say that he wouldn't?
Yeah.
I think it was the whole delusion of the pro-life movement that it's not just about you can't kill babies.
It's also about universal health care and pro-life from womb to tomb, no more kids in cages, all that stuff.
They kind of expanded the definition of the redefinition of pro-life.
Well, maybe that's what they're going for.
I don't know.
I don't know enough about that group.
Well, one thing that killed a lot of babies was Trump's tweets.
So at least that's over.
That's a solid point.
Millions, millions.
Are they disappointed about the kids in cages situation?
I bet they are.
Yeah.
All right, now on to a really stupid story.
Wolf enclosure at Chinese zoo contains only a domesticated dog.
A Chinese zoo wolf enclosure is gaining attention after a visitor captured video of a domesticated dog and labeled as being a wolf.
Clearly Rottweiler.
Somebody's dog in there.
I mean, all dogs are really descendants of wolves.
It's true.
Think about it.
I mean, it's just a wolf's great-great-great-great-grandson.
Yeah, but what breed is it?
Was it like a little multi?
It's a Rottweiler.
It'd be great if it said wolf in underneath it said, if you think about it.
Put a wiener dog in there.
Oh, this is great.
It's just very clearly a dog.
Yeah.
Like with the image.
Oh, my gosh.
He was supposed to be being temporarily housed there to prevent people from trying to sneak into the zoo by scaling the wall.
They're like, oh, we don't got wolves.
People are scaling in here trying to steal all the monkeys.
That's what I'd steal.
I've always wanted a pet monkey.
You guys want to do a story?
Yeah.
What order are we going in?
Go for it, Joel.
Okay, what's two cats?
So this says two cats in different states reunited with families after four years.
Wow.
So here's the thing.
I was looking at weird news and there were two stories and it was back to back in different states where two families had had two different cats reunited after four years.
They're independent of each other.
The stories were.
Oh my goodness.
So the weird news site didn't make the connection.
That's me.
I should be a journalist.
There's something happening.
Something happening.
They went to cat high school.
That takes four years.
So is the weirdness of the news the fact that the cats were found after four years or the fact that it was two different cats and two?
I think it's two layers of weirdness, layers of it.
Yeah.
They need to make it's become going to become an inspirational movie at some point, I think.
Is this a thing?
Do cats find their way back home the way dogs do?
Not usually.
Yeah.
So if your cat's gone for a week, you're like, well, yeah, it's gone.
Yeah.
Kids went off to the farm to be with grandma.
How do you know?
What's your cat?
Because they have no soul, so you can't tell by like their personality.
Well, I think it's and I think Frank one time said that having a cat is like 95% the same as not having a cat.
You just don't even know that.
So maybe they were just around the whole time.
Yeah, it could have been there the whole time.
Do we even know they wanted to be reunited every time?
Yeah, like, oh no, they found me.
I've been wandering for four years now.
Wait, where am I going?
No.
Oh, gosh.
It's like the Chestertonian thing about coming back to the place you left and rediscovering it.
GK Chesterton.
All right, turkey.
Turkey crashes through window into California dentist's office.
I didn't mean to.
Is this an animal segment?
I don't know.
I tend to pick a lot of animals.
It clawed up multiple walls to where we're going to have to repaint in there.
Who's saying this?
Some of the glass that came in cut the dental chairs and will need some deep cleaning, McDonald told the second IOB.
So this is like the receptionist lady there, I think.
So yeah, I went crazy in there.
That's a wild turkey.
It is.
Wow.
Wild.
They have pictures and video.
Yeah, they have video.
Yeah.
Or no, they don't have video.
It's just like a sideboard.
Wild turkeys are fierce creatures, really.
Yeah, my brother got bit by one.
A farm turkey.
So who wrote the next line?
Animal Control referred McDonald to Gold County Wildlife Rescue, which sent someone to the scene to evict the turkey from the story.
It's great in skated, taking up a residence.
Listen, you have this squatting.
You have to go.
I'm sorry.
He's been here too long.
He was served with a notice.
There was no wrangling.
This bird is an amateur.
That wildlife lady kind of struggled with it, McDonald said.
So that's not on video, which is sad.
Escaped kangaroo captured after two days on the loose in Alabama.
The kangaroo was supposed to spend a few days at a farm before continuing on to the home of a buyer in Tennessee, but it slipped loose from one of its handlers Monday and fled.
So it feels like a Disney movie.
I know.
So that's what I was trying to think.
What does the kangaroo do when it's loose in Alabama for two days?
It's like, I got two days before I get caught.
So when I maybe crashed a huge family reunion and ate some pecan pie and sweet tea, that's what I would do in Alabama.
Shoved a bunch of like chitlins in his pouch.
Do they have chitlins there?
Cheetos.
That's what I would probably go with.
Attended a snake handling church service.
That's big in Alabama.
Is it?
I don't know.
That feels like it.
I'm guessing.
Went lion dancing?
Snake?
Stuffed its pouch with cornbread.
Just imagine being in Alabama and seeing a kangaroo hop past you.
Yeah.
You lower your sweet tea.
Darn agent.
You just start drinking your bourbon again.
Keep drinking it.
Drinking moonshine.
They're all heavily armed down there.
I'm surprised.
Yeah.
No one shoots.
Survived.
Yeah.
I wonder if it went shooting.
Am I up?
Yeah.
15th century Chinese bowl bought for $35 at Connecticut Yard Sale.
Here's the real kicker.
It's expected to sell for $500,000.
Oh, boy.
It was a little bowl.
So sad.
Can you imagine being the person that sold that?
Yeah, you just kill yourself.
I don't know if they know.
So the guy that bought it was like, cool, thanks, man.
And then he snuck off.
And then went to Sotheby's auction house in New York.
And they confirmed, well, this thing is a Lotus Bowl from the court of Yongle Emperor.
So he knew he had a deal when he got that.
He must have known.
Yeah.
How do you just, how else would you find out?
Are you like eating ice cream out of all your ancient history friend is over at their house?
Like, whoa, whoa, stop.
Don't do that.
You have Indiana Jones in the house.
Are you kidding me?
No, Microwave that.
Apparently, only six of these Lotus Bowls from the same period are known to still exist.
Wow.
So they're going to auction that puppy.
So we got to find the other six.
Yeah.
Tour some garage sales.
It could be a good movie.
Starring Nicholas Cage.
Lotus, Lost Bowl.
That's crazy.
This is like, I used to buy a lot of stuff at thrift stores and go resell it on eBay.
And this is like the dream.
You know, you buy something with like 30 bucks and you sell it.
The best I ever did was a $2 board game I resold for $250.
Holy cow.
I didn't know anybody still used eBay.
When this whole eBay story came out where they're like pulling books down, the Curious Curious George, what is it?
The cat in the hat and dog stuff.
Yeah.
When they start pulling this stuff down, I'm like, well, this is, where's this coming from?
eBay?
Who uses eBay?
Is Craigslist still hiding?
Do people try to use these sites?
I get first edition Chesterton books off eBay.
Yeah, they're good for used books.
Like the prices are really inflated on Amazon, but you can get good stuff on eBay.
Interesting.
All right, Joel, woke madness.
This is from Not To Be.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
Woke Madness.
Sixth grade teacher divides her students into privileged groups and targeted groups to teach about oppression.
Good God.
Oh, man.
You just broke Joel's brain.
I almost flipped.
Go down the list of the privileged groups.
White, male, Christians, heterosexual, U.S.-born.
Boom.
It's just, you know, nailed us, targeted us, got us.
Homeschool your kids, folks.
So, what I thought was funny is that the this is a choir teacher, like right in the middle of like okay, good job on the scales, we're gonna do a little bit of these worksheets.
Yeah, instead of soprano, alto tenor bass, it's like you know.
And the white people and the oppressors yeah, so the oppressed uh oppression, category 3b, you will be doing the bass, and and this is a district that's 90 white, of course it is.
So, you know, in that classroom there was some lone, poor kid, you know, a bunch of white people on one side of the room, and then some poor minority kid was singled out and thrown on the other side of the room.
How awful would that feel?
Do they give like the most oppressed kid the solo, no matter how bad he sings?
You, you have to sing the solo.
Oh, can I just be oppressed, especially if they have like male and female.
Targeted groups are female, so there's a sexism category there, so it would be like boys and girls if you divide them in half.
You know yeah yeah yeah, you know, seems really healthy.
I just wonder if, at any point, these people that are like segregating people by race, they ever stop and they're like, wait a minute.
Am I the bad guy here?
You just don't know.
I mean, do they ever have that kind of self-reflection like and and the kids who are being singled out as the terrible evil oppressor, you know?
Do they think they're feeling privileged in that moment?
They're probably singing imagine, right before they get this sheet out.
All right, Kyle, this one's for Kyle.
Oh, man.
Teenager spends 36 hours on swing to break Guinness World Record.
Wow.
36 hours.
That's impressive.
Swinging on a playground swing set.
That could give you hemorrhoids.
He's not made for long sitting.
My legs would go to sleep.
Yeah.
He began swinging at a park at 10.23 a.m. Saturday and completed his attempt at 10.23 p.m. on Sunday.
It's inspirational.
Human beings are capable of such incredible.
Is there anything about the damage that it did to him in here?
I didn't catch that last time.
Did he suffer damage?
May have.
Are there bathroom breaks during record setting stuff like this?
I don't think so.
So he must have just been going.
That's probably the real challenge.
Sprinkling.
Sprinkling the playground.
Yeah.
Was he in pants?
We really zeroed in on the important detail.
You asked the questions no one thinks of, Ethan.
He raised more than $1,600 for Starship Hospital.
So totally worth it.
Totally worth it.
What I'm wondering is, considering you love Guinness World Records so much, Kyle, when are you going to break a Guinness World Record here on the show?
We were looking at some Guinness records trying to find one.
You have to have a judge or something.
There's a whole official thing.
If there's a category for most GK Chesterton references on a podcast, I think you might already have that one.
Well, there's the Chesterton Society.
We could have a conservative site to have three jokes.
That could be a world record.
Let's not go too fast.
I mean, start small.
Let's stick with the second one that works really well.
I'd rather swing for 36 hours.
Try to make them with another joke.
All right.
Well, we're going to now look at some tweets from Elon Musk.
We're stalking Elon Musk.
There's that podcast.
So when did this whole thing with Elon Musk and the Babylon Bee start?
I'm looking at these tweets that we've pulled up.
November 25th, 2020, he goes, The Babylon Bee is savage.
I think that was the first time, if I remember right.
I think he had commented on something.
I feel like he flied or something.
But this is the first tweet that just mentions us.
And it's an out-of-nowhere, like you just get the feeling that he's sitting in his Texas star base or whatever he has out there.
And he's just browsing through Babylon Bee articles.
Classic.
Imagine him sitting in some chair that looks like a big weird orb.
Yeah.
And he's like, all the silk.
And he's kind of, he can tell it to rotate and it does it.
He's like, Babylon Bee.
Maybe he has a robot that laughs for him.
Computer.
Tweet about Babylon Bee.
And it's like, Babylon Bee is savage.
Well, I know he's working on technology so that monkeys can play pong with their minds.
So he probably has some beta version of that.
He's probably browsing the Babylon Bee in his mind.
Did we know what we read that day that made him say we're savaged?
No, it was just so funny about this.
It was just out of the podcast.
Oh, really?
Babylon Bee is savage.
He just did general.
Just a general?
We are pretty savage.
This is true.
I agree with you, Yellen Musk.
That's funny.
And then, so the next one, evil fascist dictator censored and voted out of office.
And he responded.
So is that, he's talking about horrible Trump?
Because a lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high-tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech.
True.
Very true.
Yeah.
Care to expand, anybody?
That's a weird thing to say in response to that article.
That's true.
He's replying to that.
Yeah, I think the article alluded to the fact that he had been kicked off of Twitter.
Oh.
Oh, that's true.
That was right when that happened, right?
Oh, censored, yeah, because it says that's that's such a big deal, though, for someone high-profile like that to come out against big tech.
I mean, that's with one tweet, you're making some very powerful enemies, you know.
Yeah, he's and his comment under our tweet got 90,000 likes, and our original tweet only got 25,000.
We get ratioed by Elon Musk.
I think we did.
He's overshadowing us here a little bit.
Yeah, we need to do something about that.
Uh, I don't see it on here, but he replied to we did that random article about it was about women or wives or remember, yeah.
So, we did one about um it was when uh Jen Pisaki, the White House, um, what is it, what is she called?
Press press secretary, she kept saying circle back all the time.
She'd never answer a question.
So, the headline was, you know, wife promises to circle back about how much she spent at Hobby Lobby last week.
And it's this very innocuous joke.
It's a silly joke, but at the end of the article, there's a reference to buying Dogecoin.
And so, he must have read that article.
Yeah.
And he replied to it saying, Hey, everybody.
He's like, Read the article.
So, what are the results of that?
Did people read the article?
Yeah, like he went huge that day.
I instantly put it behind a paywall.
He did.
I joked about it.
You know what was cool though that day?
I can't tell if you're kidding.
He would do it.
After Elon Musk tweeted that, Dogecoin went through the roof.
Like, you know, like, yeah, I saw on that day.
He's like, read this article.
So the Babylon Bee is like affecting the market.
Yeah, it's incredible.
We did the one where he's got the big flamethrower mech and he melts Texas out of the snow.
And he goes, why don't we have these already?
Why are you asking us, Elon Musk?
That's your thing.
And then, really, the best, our favorite probably.
He replies to The Onion because The Onion wrote an article making fun of him.
And he replies, Have you read The Babylon Bee?
It's great.
Well, he calls us savage.
I have to say, Elon Musk, you are savage.
That's pretty.
And that was another one.
I don't think that Onion article got a lot of likes, right?
And then his response.
It got totally ratioed.
Yeah.
Yeah, he ratioed him pretty hard.
But he can kind of ratio anybody because people will just like anything he says.
Yeah.
He could just reply with random, you know, kangaroos or whatever, and he would get like 20,000 likes.
He just put an emoji up and then it just tens of thousands of reactions.
Yeah.
And we did do a not so well-received cartoon of Elon Musk as a hobo.
But I just want to say he responded to this tweet and he shouted, tunnels, just like the cartoon character.
And I hear you.
I'm glad you liked it, Elon Musk.
Well, Elon, thanks for being a fan.
And remember, guys, one of the richest men in the world is a fan of the Babylon Bee.
So he's doing something right.
I'm not saying that if you're a subscriber to the Babylon Bee that you're going to become this wealthy entrepreneur, but I'm not saying it.
Just throwing that out there.
Do what rich people do.
And Elon, the Babylon Bee is for sale.
It's for the right people.
Please send in your subscriber dare.
Price.
It'd be great if we got him as a subscriber finally.
But he only signs up for like five bucks a month.
Five bucks a month.
Come on, man.
What if he wants to just come in and clear house and start fresh with the team?
It could happen.
Fire, everybody.
Bring the onion guys in here.
Edit that out.
All right.
Let's do some in-memorium.
It's been a rough year.
It's been a rough year.
A lot of people have been canceled.
A lot of people have moved on to the other side of the cancel.
Their ghosts remain with us.
Their memories sit in the air.
So, we wanted to take a minute and remember all those that we've lost.
Is there like a montage that's going to play?
Yeah, we'll have some music play a montage or now.
We'll go run through them.
And if you guys want to put a little emotional music and some and some visuals, um, first, we wanted to uh remember the great chase from Paw Patrol.
Paw patrol, paw patrol, be there on the dark targeted for being a cop.
Who's a good boy?
Not Chase, fly high, little guy.
Fly high.
Who else we got?
Now, wait, is it is he still canceled?
Was that a temporary thing?
There was just buy this stuff in stores.
He never got actually like removed from the show.
There was just like a movement.
People were writing scholarly articles and wherever these scholarly journals are about how he's like an oppressive.
He tells kids that cops are good.
Well, and the show has shifted slightly a little bit.
And I know this because I have kids that watch it, and he's not quite a cop anymore.
He's kind of like a spy and he has he has a drone and everything.
So he's a drone, really?
He's kind of more like Obama now.
He's more work.
Isn't that worse?
Now he's the secret place.
Yeah, we're cool with them.
He's bugging people's phones and stuff.
As someone who is a card-carrying Cherokee Indian, it really hurts to say goodbye to the Land of Lakes Indian Girl.
Oh, Land of Lakes girl.
I know you're in a butter place.
Very famous pair of knees.
The Land of Lakes Indian Girl has been there silently judging us as we ate entire sticks of butter at 3 a.m.
No longer.
Get a stick of butter for the homies on this one.
Now that was legitimately canceled.
It's gone.
Yeah, wiped out.
Now they just show the land with nobody on it, right?
Just empty landscape.
They move.
Yeah, they kick the Indian off the land.
Right.
Did nobody think about how that would be perceived?
Right.
Is she really that insulting?
She's so pretty and nice.
Okay.
Well, with all this stuff, they never actually consult Native Americans and say, what do you guys feel about this?
Because they're like, I don't care.
Put the Indian on the butter.
Ethan, I would like to come to you as a person of BIPOC.
And just like all Native Americans, we all speak on behalf of each other.
And we all have, none of us disagree on anything.
So on behalf of all the Indians, what do you have to say about them?
I had a huge crush on the Land of Lakes girl because she combines my favorite things: an attractive woman and a stick of butter.
Those are your favorite things.
Those are two very fine things.
Are you guys on this?
No, I don't.
What are we going around the room and doing this?
No, okay.
Okay.
Next, we lost Western Civilization.
Western City, you had a good old bond.
Goodbye, Western Civilization.
It's hard to say goodbye, especially when you're saying goodbye to society as we know it.
After a solid 2,000-year-long run, Western civilization said goodbye, surrounded by its friends and loved ones this year.
It is survived by a bunch of screaming babies.
Snowflakes melting all around us.
Sad.
What is it now?
Just civilization?
That's not even that anymore.
No, just uncivilization.
People.
Just people.
People happen to live in the same area.
Well, what's our next one that hurts?
The Washington Redskins.
And I know I will see you touch down.
Oh, football.
I don't appreciate you saying that word.
Sorry.
Can we bleep that as I speak it?
It's the Washington Redskins are survived by the Washington team that plays with an oblong ball.
Please don't be offended by any of these words.
It's almost unparodyable that they are called the Washington football team.
Yeah, it is.
What did they change it to?
The Washington football team.
Really?
That would have been a great joke.
That's like the Dixon.
That would have been a great joke.
I know.
It's like one of our two conservative jokes, and they actually did it.
The Washington football team.
I guess, yeah, everything you change the Indian to would be, oh, what?
Indians are wolves.
You just make it an animal or something.
But wouldn't that immediately be like, oh, what?
An animal?
What?
I don't know.
I don't know.
They probably had tons of meetings about this.
Was the Washington football team a placeholder?
Supposedly.
That's exactly what it's supposed to be.
Supposedly by next year, they're going to have a name.
But they've now been playing as the Washington football team for two seasons.
So it's just.
By the time they get around to changing the name, everyone will be really mad because there will be a technology.
Don't change my Washington team.
You got to think that's got to be a collector's item.
Do you remember that season when they played as the Washington Falls?
And the pressure that'll build up for what the new team name is going to be.
Yeah, that's got to be better than Washington football team.
So what's the Jeep going to turn into?
The Jeep motorized vehicle?
Yeah, I know, right?
Jeep, SEA.
The Jeep Cherokee that they're talking about.
On behalf of all Indians everywhere, how do you feel about Jeep Cherokee?
It's fine.
I mean, you're cool.
Cool.
Okay.
Jeep, you're fine.
It's not a bad car, right?
It's not an insult.
If it wasn't stronger, the Redskins were a bad football team, so that's why now all the Redskins fans are canceling.
We also wanted to say goodbye this year to the bottom half of People's Faces.
R.I.P. The bottom half of People's Faces.
The bottom half of People's Faces.
We miss you.
No longer can the world see your dazzling smile or your glorious mustache.
Those are now symbols of your intent to kill grandma.
We don't know what you look like anymore.
And at this point, it'd be a little weird if we did.
Just keep yourself covered up.
Our minds have already created a face for you just from seeing you in the mask for so long.
So this actually happened to me.
The guy that I, the personal trainer that I have at the gym, he always wears a mask and he's very worried about COVID.
And it was fine.
He wears a mask.
It's fine for him.
He doesn't make me wear a mask or anything.
And I'd never seen the bottom of his face.
But your brain fills in the black guy.
I just kind of assumed how he would look.
He pulls it down and he's got just a total thick mustache.
And I'm like, oh, like I just did not expect that.
It's weird when seeing somebody's actual face is giving you the same sensation as you walk in on somebody and see like their genitals.
What?
You know, just like, ah!
Sorry.
Should I bleep class?
Should I bleep?
No, just saying it's awkward.
You don't know what you're going to get.
Ethan will expand on that in the subscriber portion.
Your mind goes strange places, Ethan.
It's true.
They're going to have Playboy mags that are just like the bottom half of what's facing.
For decades, she presided over Saturday morning sugar comas.
Smiling from her plastic bottle as you consume 32 pounds of corn syrup for breakfast.
Maple syrup, really.
She was the coolest aunt we ever had.
Well, we're going to miss Aunt Jane.
Pour one out for the homies.
Pour out a bottle of syrup.
Be really slow, pour out for the homies, boys.
They were thinking about getting for a while.
They really waffled.
Good one.
This is one of those areas where eBay could come in handy, where you can get all this stuff that they canceled, but then eBay cancels it too.
So how do you buy this stuff?
They're going to have Freedom Bay or something.
Aunt Jemima bottles on eBay.
Babylon Beast story, everybody.
Keep an eye out.
We'll have Aunt Jemima bottles on there.
There needs to be like a new version of eBay that's just for canceled teeth.
So we have cancels up stuff that's going to buy on the.
Or a company that just makes labels that you can put back over.
Like if you want to buy an angel and stick it right on your syrup, it fits right on there.
I do really appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit of people that go and sell Aunt Jemima stuff.
I go out here and the very first listing, Aunt Jemima's Pancake Syrup and Pancake Mix.
Rare.
Rare.
Ultra rare.
How much is it?
$49.
Buy it now.
How much is it in the store?
Retail.
Oh, I'm sure it's like $5.
$3 or something?
Yeah.
Wow.
Do you think this whole thing is a plot by entrepreneurial resellers to make money?
And they're like, oh, we can't.
They'll cancel something and they'll buy a budget.
They're buying it all.
Yeah.
Brilliant, brilliant plot.
It's a good idea for a business.
You should do it.
It's kind of hard to find on here, actually.
All right.
Well, who else are we saying goodbye to this year?
Uncle Ben.
With great power, with great power comes great.
Responsibility.
Oh, Uncle Ben's rice.
It was rice, right?
Isn't that what it was?
Yeah.
All your hard-fought progress for representation in rice mascots was erased overnight.
The white corporate food overlords decided you were no longer welcome, but you'll always be welcome at our table, Uncle Ben, and in our hearts.
Perfect every time.
I don't think they ever had Uncle Ben's.
Uncle Ben's.
It's like instant rice, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Microwave it.
Microwave rice.
Well, Seth, who's our next Mr. Potato Head.
Mr. Potato Head will miss your potato head.
Cause now you're potato dead.
Gone but not forgotten.
Wow.
You were dead, but now you alive again.
You live again.
Oh, now you live.
Okay.
I can't read.
We will never take your angry eyes and derby hat for granted again, sir.
And we can say, sir, because we know your gender.
It's right on the box as God intended.
This was one of the most insane, like 24 hours of controversy I've ever seen on the internet.
It's just fun.
Like all of a sudden, it's like, hey, Mr. Potato Head no longer has a gender.
And then like within eight hours, Hasbro came out and they're like, we're leaving the mister on the box.
Oh, they left it?
Yeah, they left.
So he's not really canceling.
But they never really said like we were going to do that, but we changed our minds.
They just said, no, no, no.
All the rumors are false.
Yeah, it was weird the way they presented that because they really made it sound like he was completely genderless now in the original announcement.
Yeah, I always wonder because Mr. Potato Head has extra noses that he carries and they're in his butt.
Does he like smell check himself?
Good.
Dr. Seuss books.
Dr. Seuss books.
Red fish, blue fish.
Yeah.
Chinese boy eating with sticks.
By the way, the guy singing this song is Chinese, so I'm allowed to say that.
Dr. Seuss gave us laughter and phonic skills, countless bedtimes reading these beloved stories with mom and dad, countless moments of wonder and whimsy.
All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.
He's like the top-selling author on Amazon.
Just all the way through like the top 10, right?
Yeah, and this was like put forward by the Dr. Seuss Foundation or whatever.
So they must have known like, if we cancel a couple old books, we're going to make tons of money.
Yeah.
You know what was funny is that Jordan Peterson's new book came out recently and it sold millions of copies.
You know, when it, the day it premiered, it was number 12 on the Amazon bestseller list because the top 11 were Dr. Seuss books.
It's a bad time to release a new book.
I think that's what they thought.
They're like, these are, because they're all ones that aren't as popular, right?
All the ones that got canceled.
What are we going to do to get the sales up on these puppies?
Yeah.
Oh, we'll call them racist.
Maybe they had like a whole warehouse somewhere of all these obscure Dr. Seuss books.
We're like, we got off Lodley somewhere.
Let's create a social.
Racist.
Yeah.
Amazon hasn't taken them off yet, have they?
Someone's catching in.
As long as they're making money, I'm sure, though.
I don't know.
I get a couple of them that was like obviously dated stereotypes that you wouldn't draw today.
But I didn't really see anything that was like, this is racist.
And then a couple of them were just so outlandish, like the Eskimo fish one.
Did you see that one?
Yeah.
One of them was like, it's just fish that just kind of have like a furry, you know, like they're wearing a coat.
You know what drives me nuts about that?
It's like, anyone who, you know, you draw cartoons.
Anyone who's drawn cartoons, you exaggerate like the facial features of different people to reflect their personality and their ethnicity.
And that's just what cartoonists do.
You know, there's nothing racist about it.
They're vastly racist.
Look at Moana.
Like you've seen Moana, like they have a very like, you know, Pacific Islander look to the way their faces are.
You know, is that racist?
You know, will we be canceling Moana in like 10 years?
You know, it's that's the thing.
I think I remember there was a list of, if you look at what terms are considered racist, over time they weren't racist than they are.
Like all the different terms that you use on African Americans, I mean what you call them now, black or African American, all the different terms down through the history.
What do you call those people?
They keep getting changed.
Like the bar keeps moving.
And I think that that's part of it too, because I think that some of the drawings at the time, like it wasn't, it wasn't they were like, I hate Chinese people.
I'm going to draw a Chinaman like this.
They're just reflecting that culture of those people.
Yeah.
Anyway, people just can't.
They just can't.
Yeah, that one that they kept pointing out was racist was like a Chinese boy who eats with sticks.
And there's like a guy's got slanted eyes and he's holding chopsticks.
But how many different places can you find that type of animation?
Right.
Over the, you know, I mean, do you have to cancel them all?
Yeah.
It's probably in Disney movie somewhere.
Yeah.
I mean, if you, if you drew a Chinese character in a Disney movie and you didn't, and you made them look like a white person, people would freak out.
That's whitewashing.
Yeah, it's whitewashing.
But if you make them look like an Asian person, that's, is that racist too?
Make him like a really beautiful, radiant version.
I had this cut under my, I would do caricatures.
And if somebody, like, if a black guy or someone sat down, like, I would go crazy on the white people, just like, ah, just embarrass them.
They walk off crying.
And then, like, a bug I walk and I try to really just like just a stick figure.
And his lips are honestly this guy.
Just not, I'm saying not by me, but his lips are big, and I'm just trying not to draw.
I'm like, I'm just trying.
It's hard.
It's self-censorship, even.
Yeah, it is self-censorship.
Everyone does it.
All right.
Well, here's our last, our last canceled thing this year.
Trump's tweets.
This one hurts.
stings.
We've shouted into the heavens asking God why.
We'll never forget you.
Trump's tweets.
Cofefe.
Cofefe.
So say we all.
Well, moment of silence.
I good.
We'll never forget.
We didn't bring it.
What about Gina?
The Claire Carradoon.
I guess she's not canceled.
She's back.
Well, she's canceled.
His character's canceled.
She's been resurrected by Ben Shapiro.
Gina's too painful.
You couldn't put it in.
It's not funny.
There's no jokes.
You can laugh at jokes there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Sorry.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be real news.
I really miss Adam Ford.
All right.
We're going to do some hate mail.
Now, this is a fun hate mail because Seth Dillon is here, our CEO, and he actually responded to this hate mail and started a dialogue with an angry woman named Claudia.
So Seth gets to actually read his own responses to the hate mail.
It's like one of those audiobooks read by the author.
Yeah, this is great.
I often respond to hate mail because what happens is the customer service agents field these emails and they don't know what to do with it.
You know, the person's angry.
They're just like spouting off at us.
And so they tag me in it or assign it to me and they say, Seth, how would you handle this?
What do you want me to say?
And instead of telling them what to say, I just, you know, they're trying to be sensitive.
They're like, how do we respond?
Oh, they're so diplomatic.
They've got all these canned responses and they're trying to, you know, they're trying to diffuse the situation and calm people down.
I'm like, no, Let me take this one.
Let me handle this.
Who wants to be Claudia?
Joel, do you want to be Claudia?
Oh, man.
Okay.
What does Claudia sound like?
Is it some old lady?
Well, you can.
She sounds like Karen.
Oh, she's very Karen.
Karen-ish.
And Seth, you will be Seth.
Here we go.
This is a hate mail thread.
Okay.
Now, wait, hold up.
This is how this played out because we're going to do this back and forth.
But this was like, she sent an email and I replied.
And then a little while later, she emailed me back.
And then a little while later, I replied.
This took place over the course of like two days.
She kept at it, huh?
Yeah.
Were you like lounging around or walking down the hall or what are you doing at this time?
I was going about my business and my life, and her emails would come in as they came in, and I would reply when I got a chance.
So you're like in the middle of a business meeting where they're showing you the reports, and you're like, hold on.
In the middle of a nap during a business meeting.
Okay.
Okay.
Here we go.
Sorry.
The views in your email disgust me.
I will be unsubscribing.
Some people hate truth.
I gotta say, just right out of the gate, went for it.
I think that needs to be read in Batman's voice.
I think that would work better.
Some people are uneducated and can't handle the truth.
Some people don't know when to end a conversation.
Some people don't know when to see a therapist and stop the delusions.
Some people think they're funny when they're not.
Some people don't care what the ignorant think.
Some people think insults are a substitute for arguments.
Some people think their arguments have merit.
Some people think suggesting an argument doesn't have merit is proof it doesn't have merit.
Some people, that would be you, talk out of their donkey.
I love the clarifications.
Well, we're talking about you.
Just talking about it.
Make sure you get off track.
Some people curse when they're losing.
Some people are just an...
Some people run out of things to say and just repeat themselves.
Like yourself.
Do you think she feels like she won because she got the last word in?
She probably feels like she won.
But I love how she stuck with it.
She kept coming back at it.
She did.
That was a lot of fun.
Sometimes the way this plays out, when I do this with people, sometimes they're like, you know what?
I'm going to resubscribe.
This was fun.
Or, you know, I've gained newfound respect for you or something.
Sometimes it has the opposite effect.
That's so funny.
Not in this case.
You know, she sent that like yourself and she just went, yep, that's it.
I got it.
I got him.
Roasted like you.
I just want to propose, I'm sure commenters will agree with me.
We want a sequel.
So I don't know if you can dig this email up and just get it going again and see if we can get a part two going.
I don't know how long ago this was, but it might be good to just, as a reboot, could just reply.
You got a delay.
It's been a little while.
Just reply.
No, you're going.
Yeah.
See if it'll get back going again.
If any of you know Claudia, ask her to email us again.
Let us know.
Well, Seth will reply and then she'll be like, what is this?
He's back.
She's probably been waiting at her computer for however many weeks for your reply.
Yeah, do enough until we can publish a book.
All right, we're going to move into our paid subscriber portion.
But first, Joel wanted to give a testimony.
A testimony of how he got saved.
And share.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what am I telling?
I'm telling the story of kind of how I got.
How you got involved with that one?
Because it's interesting.
It has to do with the subscription.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I started as a, you know, a subscriber on the forum, you know, the four headline pitches a day.
I, like a lot of people, I think, became a fan when I saw the Holy Spirit Fog Machine article that kicked it off.
It was the first one I ever saw.
So I was a fan from the beginning, always loved it.
I was, you know, I'm from a homeschool family, you know, fundamental Baptist, you know, Arminian Baptist, just classic, all the tropes that we make fun of at the B.
That was my life.
Plus, I came from a very sarcastic family.
And so I was, you know, I was prepared, I think, for such a time as this to write satire.
So I worked in a very lame corporate job for 10 years for a long time.
You know, it was a career.
It put food on the table, but wasn't happy in it.
Found the B, subscribed, started pitching.
Were you in a gang or drugs or anything?
Tattoos?
I was going down a dark path.
No, but it was the thing that kind of brought this whole thing to a head was towards the end of what was my career before, I had a conversation with my boss at the time who said, you're miserable.
I don't think you like this.
And you really should probably find something else to do.
I'm not going to like it, but I have to have that conversation.
Those are always uncomfortable conversations.
Yeah, so it's the nicest way of basically kicking me out the door, so to speak.
So what happened was I kind of reevaluated.
I had a few other job offers out there.
It was in the logistics supply chain world.
Got a really exciting, fun offer or lucrative offer, not fun offer, that would have been good.
But it just made me miserable thinking about doing it.
And so my dear wife, I'm going to credit my wife for this.
She said, don't take the new job.
Take a year off and just start writing, start writing, start podcasting.
She took extra shifts at the hospital to help us through.
And I started my own blog.
I started writing satire.
I started a podcast, writing op-eds for different publications, wrote a couple of things for Discern.
And in the meantime, I was just pitching four headlines a day.
So the first headline that I successfully got published was the reversible coexist resist bumper sticker.
That got published.
It was really, really exciting.
And to thank you guys, I actually made a reversible bumper sticker.
And in our kitchen over there, still there on the fridge.
I wrote a satirical letter, form letter from the CEO of Mandatory Tolerance, who was the character in the copy that you wrote.
And I got a few more pitched after that and published.
And from there, it was just, you know, writing a little bit more and more each day.
And it worked really well.
I think Kyle and I kind of really get what each other are trying to do and the voice of what the B is saying.
And it's the most fun I've ever had.
That was a very long story.
Yeah.
Edit it way down.
Condense it to two minutes if you can.
That's the one thing I think people need to understand.
I saw him, how can I write for the B?
I got great headline ideas.
And yeah, he was in the forum, but he also note, he did his own satire site.
He did his own stuff, his own blogs.
Almost all of our top writers already did their own satire on the side.
It's a proof, the proofs of the pudding, you know, kind of thing.
And you have that.
You've already weeded out all the bad ideas you start to think of when you start thinking about doing satire that are all the obvious jokes.
So if you really are serious about it, then start your own site and maybe we'll take you from it.
We'll buy your site for $5.
And we're always in the forum and we publish a lot of stuff.
So there, you know, and on occasion, writers will rise to the top.
So there's, you know, if you keep pitching, you keep honing that craft.
It is wordsmithing.
It is kind of almost an engineering aspect to it where you're shaving things off and switching things around so it punches just right.
You get good at that.
You can do more.
Awesome.
So when you were in the forum, did you feel like you were paying us to do our job for us?
That's a common complaint.
At one point, I wrote a headline for that.
It was that Babylon Bee subscribers unionize and demand a pay increase to negative $4 a month.
The way I look at it is we could either go the route of you need an agent and representation to submit your articles to us, which is its own.
You're already paying them money.
You have to have a career.
We have created a different way that makes we can even like sift through the amount of stuff we get.
You get to be involved.
You get to be part of a community and you get to possibly write for the B.
Yeah.
Well, when I originally conceived of that idea of having this headline forum, it was more of an idea of like, not like, how can we find future writers for our staff or how can we steal good ideas from our audience so that we can benefit from them and cash in on them and we'll charge them to do it.
It was more like, well, I want our audience, because they send in ideas all the time.
They want to send in emails.
They're sending us stuff on like DMs and whatever.
It would be great for them to have a forum where they could be a little bit involved in that process and share ideas with us and interact with us a little bit.
And I figured that would be a great perk.
Like people might want to go behind the scenes and be involved in that process.
And so I wanted to add that as a benefit to the subscription platform.
I wasn't thinking of it in terms of how can we leverage their great ideas and make money off of their ideas.
We really don't publish a ton of ideas out of that forum.
It really is.
Just being honest, it's a very small percentage of them that actually get published.
But that's true with our own headline pitching internally as well.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to pitch a lot before you get some of the gold.
Yep.
Unless you're Kyle.
What?
Just kidding.
Kyle.
100%.
There's gold.
We're publishing it, baby.
I pitched it.
It must be good.
Yeah, it's true.
If I pitch in the afternoon, it's usually good.
If I pitch at 3 a.m., it's terrible.
All right.
Well, we're going to go to our subscriber lounge where we're going to ask Joel and Seth the 10 questions.
We've got some bonus hate mail this week.
And we're going to look at subscriber submitted headlines like we were just talking about.
We're going to look at the top ones of the week.
And we'll just talk.
And we'll just chat a little bit.
So here we go.
Let's jump into the subscriber portion.
If you're not a subscriber, subscribe.
Do it.
If you're poor, see you later.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
Like your quarters at your house?
How's this compare as far as luxury and it compares?
It is quarters.
There is one.
There are chairs.
There's a comparison.
We were going to talk about big tech censorship.
They're evaluating sources, news sources, and determining whether or not they're quality and should be shared widely.
Oh, yeah.
Dime store Ben Shapiro got canceled.
Ha And he tagged me in it.
I think a social media site where you just customize your timeline.
Enjoying this hard-hitting interview.
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.