The Bee Weekly: Big Tech Challenges With Dan Dillon and The Voice of The Bee
CTO Dan Dillon and the Voice of The Bee, Austin Robertson, join Kyle and Ethan this week to talk about big tech challenges, The Bee's ambitions for the future, and how there's always money in the Lakewood Church bathroom. Dan Dillon designed Not The Bee too. The guys play a game to find out who knows the most about The Babylon Bee and Dan Dillon discusses the challenges of running conservative websites in today's internet environment. This episode is brought to you by Issues, Etc. radio talk show and podcast which features expert guests, expansive topics, while extolling Christ. Go to http://issuesetc.org/babylonbee to see their special interview with Kyle Mann and Joel Berry today! Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee's sister site, Not The Bee, which has real news articles that we can't believe aren't satire and a full-fledged social media experience. Kyle, Ethan, Dan, and Austin go through the week's weird news including an Italian man avoiding the vaccine with a fake arm, a breastfeeding airline passenger whose child might actually be a cat, and the money that is pouring out of the walls of Joel Osten's church bathroom. They talk about the week's Banger and Bomb of the Week at The Babylon Bee, including how the unemployment rate both Cuomo brothers has gone up 100%. Of course Austin Robertson reads the extra salty hate mail in his super sultry voice. In the subscriber lounge, CTO Dan Dillon answers questions submitted by Not The Bee subscribers before the guys read subscriber-submitted headlines, read love mail, and Dan Dillon and Austin Robertson answer The Ten Questions!
An Italian man attempted to avoid the vaccine by wearing a fake arm, but the nurses knew something was off when he spoke using only one hand.
A Delta passenger was found breastfeeding her hairless cat mid-flight.
Worst got milk commercial ever.
A British man got a World War II mortar stuck in his rectum.
Dang near killed him.
3,000 envelopes stuffed with cash were found inside a bathroom wall at Joel Osteen's church just behind the toilet paper dispenser containing a huge roll of $100 bills.
Babylon B CTO Dan Dylan is here.
So keep all criticism of the website design to yourselves.
And we got cartoon voice master Austin Robertson sit next to me.
And we're going to quiz our guests to see how well they know the Babylon Bee.
All this and more on the Bee Weekly.
Hey you guys, Kyle here.
We've recently been doing a lot of interviews and promotion for our new book.
And I wanted to highlight one interview I did with a podcast and syndicated radio talk show called Issues Etc.
Now if you've never heard of Issues etc, it's a show that features solid, serious, substantive interviews with experts in theology, apologetics, ethics, philosophy, law, and culture.
And a lot more.
It was one of the more in-depth interviews that I did.
It went about 40 minutes and we talked about a wide range of topics.
Host Todd Wilkin asked questions and just kind of let us go off and talk and he didn't interrupt us, which is a great thing.
Sometimes in these shorter radio shows, you end up having to just fire off a real quick sound bite and then you get interrupted by a commercial break or whatever.
So it was a great time.
I encourage you to check out Issues Etc.
Now if you go to issuesetc.org slash Babylon B, you can hear that interview and I encourage you to check that out and also check out their other episodes as well.
Welcome everyone to the Bee Weekly.
I'm hanging out here with my friends Dan Dylan, Austin Robertson, and Ethan Nicole.
Good day to you.
Yeah, this is a crazy packed house today.
We've got a bunch of people off camera as well.
Yeah.
Babylon Bee has all gathered for our Christmas party.
First ever.
First ever Christmas party.
A bunch of people are in town.
We've got all these strange faces, people, you know, you meet people off the internet.
And it's really weird.
It's weird.
Like you feel catfished sometimes.
And then also sometimes you're like, whoa, you're way better looking than I expected.
Who are you talking about?
You don't ever expect writers to look good.
We have an exceptional amount of good-looking writers, not including me.
Yeah.
So who's our writer?
Do we want to rank?
What happened when you saw me?
Am I a catfish?
Yeah.
That guy's Mormon, so that explains why he's good-looking.
How does that?
Mormons are always good-looking.
Oh, okay.
That's like bread into him.
That's true.
I'll bet they don't think that.
It's a fact.
No, it's just, yeah.
Have you walked around Salt Lake City?
No, I haven't.
It's weird.
It's like everybody's.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's like the factory there cranking them out.
Well, they are cranking them out, but I don't think it's a factory.
Ethan doesn't know how babies work.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's different.
And they have a different system.
It's a different process.
It's all the different wives.
I don't know.
All the stuff they do.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, so Dan Dillon, he's like, I mean, we've seen Seth Dillon.
Yeah.
He's a looker.
But Dan Dylan's a good-looking guy.
Is this whole episode just you raiding the literating of Babylon B?
Ethan Dynamo?
People?
All right, which one is it?
Swipe.
Swipe and swipe, right?
Dan, he's what are he's the so why the samwise to Seth's Frodo or something?
I'm trying to come with a good Lord of the market.
They're not brothers.
I mean, brothers.
Who's Frodo's brother?
And Frodo doesn't have a brother.
Who are brothers in Lord of the Rings that we could use as a reference?
Four Amir and Faramir, perhaps?
Okay.
So which one's he?
Faramir.
Okay.
I'm Faramir.
I don't die.
Okay.
TV Farmir or Movie Farmir or Book Farm here?
I was thinking Book Farmer.
He seems like a pretty good guy.
Okay.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
That's really nice.
So you like made.
Well, okay.
So you didn't technically make the website because it existed before you guys came around, but you made the version that's on.
We rebuilt it.
It's very different.
Yeah.
It looks exactly the same.
Yeah.
But it works different.
It's like he unveiled the new site to me.
I'm like, this is exactly all new tech under the hood.
Want me to nerd out on you for a second?
No, it's good.
Yeah, little do they all know that I actually didn't do anything.
I just like, oh, yeah, yeah, it took six months.
I went to Cancun.
It's all under the hood.
Yeah, it's all under the hood.
Don't worry about it.
Lots of optimization.
You would understand.
Yeah.
And Austin, Austin, people have been asked us what happened to Dave D'Andre?
And I just want to explain.
Dave D'Andre is a very good friend of mine.
And, you know, we love him and we'll still use him now and then.
The previous voice.
The previous original.
Yeah, the original.
Yeah.
The OG.
Austin, we found Austin because he started sending us all these great voiceover things.
He'd read articles.
I can't remember what else he sent, but he basically wanted to make animation and he kind of launched me into it.
He started sending me this great audio that I wanted to animate.
And so he just like, he's kind of like, you know, on Seinfeld when Kramer just decided to start working at that place and act like he worked at that work there.
Austin did that and he works with us.
So now we finally met.
Have we paid him anything?
I don't know.
Let's discuss that off.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Sorry.
People get paid.
People get paid.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Well, that's your introduction to these guys.
We don't have a subscriber there.
We had a few, but most subscribers people send us now are like sing a song or like parody this or yeah, I don't know.
I'm wanting something more original.
Yeah.
So send your original hilarious ideas to us if you want to, if you're willing to describe it.
We'll eat gross things, we'll eat spicy things, we'll punch each other, physically harm each other, physically harm each other, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, heresy.
Well, you can watch Star Wars.
See, but again, it's a two-hour commitment.
Yeah, that's a big commitment.
Yeah, I won't.
Give us 50 bucks.
The new movies are even longer, aren't they?
It's getting longer and longer.
It's getting longer.
Yeah, that's true.
Hey, we have a banger of the week from the Babylon Banger of the Week.
Unemployment rate among Cuomo brothers rises to 100%.
Sorry on Adam Yenser's joking.
Adam Yinzer.
Good job, Adam.
Good job, Adam.
Polite claps all around.
So Chris Cuomo got fired from CNN, and I guess he had gone farther than he had previously let on in trying to defend his brother Andrew Cuomo while he was still working for CNN.
Andrew Cuomo was still governor.
I guess is that the real story?
Yeah, okay.
No, that's not from the joke.
Is this one of those things like where George Costanza sleeps with the cleaning lady at his work and he goes, Was that wrong?
Should I not have done that?
Yeah.
Everything's got a Seinfeld under reference.
Is that two Seinfeld references?
Hey, and you referenced a show.
I'm proud of you.
Well, it's Seinfeld.
You know.
Yeah.
We were just talking about, I think, before we hit record, about how you don't reference pop culture that much.
I like to keep things timeless.
Yeah.
I'm very Chestertonian.
GK Chesterton.
They were just giving crap too.
It takes like two minutes for me to mention GK Chesterton.
So get that in there.
We had a bomb of the week.
Bomb of the week.
Family's Christmas card photo clearly taken inside Bass Pro Shop.
Maybe, I guess that was just my family.
How do you guys measure the bomb?
Is it by shares?
So it's really, yeah.
You guys know I make that number up, right?
Yeah, completely random.
I assume on the site it's made up.
You guys have no idea.
It kind of is, like, right?
Like, you calculated.
Oh, it is made up.
It is, it is absolutely made up.
It's best guess.
You like, you just manually put a number in for each one?
No, there's no way based on if he likes the joke or not.
You guys want to know the reality of it is that Twitter doesn't give an API for you to actually be able to access the shares.
Okay.
So I have to take historical data and guess based upon previous shares between Facebook and then likes on Twitter and create a formula.
So it's a guess.
It's a best guess.
Yeah, I assume all those algorithms are like not super accurate.
So it's they've gotten worse too now that Facebook doesn't get any likes.
I had to change it.
Yeah.
But then people didn't know that I changed it.
And then like the old ones now share like 20 million shares.
Oh, wow.
And they didn't, I don't think they actually got 20 million.
I mean, they got more than that.
It's fun to imagine together.
You know, 20 million.
I could just put whatever we want.
100 million shares, a billion shares.
Do it.
I'm going to do it.
Well, I noticed the worship generator says infinity shares.
Yeah, we noticed that.
Accurate.
Yeah.
So, oh, you know, so you guys.
I think it was the bottom of the week, but it was actually the most profitable.
My wife does make us go to Bass Pro Shop and get a family photo every year.
That's faster.
She wants to get one all the way up until the kids are like our four-year-old is 18.
Like, she's that committed.
We're going to go to the bathroom.
She's very proud of them and she lines them up.
Isn't Bass Pro Shops closing?
Are they?
Or is it Cabella?
That'd be a relief.
Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's are the same company.
Now the same group.
Oh, they're going to absorb into each other.
Yeah, I think they're closing all Bass Pro Shops.
I had not I could be completely wrong.
Oh man.
In fact, my wife will be devastated.
Let's find out.
It doesn't sound right to me.
Well, it used to be JC Penny, right?
Or Sears that everybody would go to.
Oh, they're going to say Sears turned into Bass Pro Shop.
I'm confused.
Well, let's get into our weird news because there's some, it's a good week.
It is a weird week.
It's a very good week.
This news is weird.
A man used a fake silicone arm to try to get a vaccine certificate off the bat.
It's like a Marx Brothers skit.
It sounds like a sketch that we would have come up with in films, you know, or something.
And the deception was spotted by a nurse who noticed something odd about the arm.
Yeah, like that is made of silicone.
Why is that flapping in the wind?
I can't find it.
Does it have joints, or is it just kind of like a floppy gelatin arm?
I don't know.
I want to see this one.
Yeah.
Did you put hair on it?
Did they start squirting out saline or something?
I just imagined like a prosthetic breast implant plastic or something.
I figured it was like a prosthetic.
Yeah.
It was the one-armed man.
So that's why you're a pop culture reference.
She says, I felt sorry for the man.
She thought she had a fake arm and wondered that maybe she had accidentally gone to the wrong arm to the wrong arm.
So she didn't want to say anything.
But then he admitted he was wearing the fake arm on purpose to avoid getting the vaccine.
Why would you admit that?
Why not just not go?
Oh, never mind.
Because they want the vaccine card, obviously.
Yeah, the Italian government signed a decree making COVID-19 super green pass mandatory in bars, restaurants, theaters, and other indoor entertainment venues.
Well, well, well, he really wanted to.
I like what he wears heads at.
Yeah.
And his arm.
And his arm.
He should have tried both arms.
But wouldn't they?
There's got to be other body parts you can do if the arms don't work out, right?
That they can inject with.
Yeah.
So he was thinking they'd inject it into the silicone and be none the wiser.
Did you guys hear about the doctor?
Did you guys watch forensic files?
No.
I always watch it.
My wife is worried about how much I watch forensic files.
But there's a doctor, John Schneeberger, and he did the something similar.
Twice got away with murder.
No, rape, because he injected a, he put a tube in his arm and injected somebody else's blood.
And then when they did the DNA testing, they were pulling the blood out from this tube.
So it's kind of similar, but he got away with it twice.
Wow.
Got away with rape twice.
You got to admire commitment to what you, you know.
I don't think you have to admire to a cause.
You got to really mind somebody the cause and believes in themselves.
Almost worked.
He could have gotten it.
He really set his mind to it.
Wow.
Hey, a British woman accidentally listed her baby for sale on Facebook.
Lucy Battle was attempting to advertise a sofa she wanted to get rid of on a local Facebook group, but accidentally made the main image on the post a picture of her seven-month-old son, Oscar.
The mistake was made even worse by the lack of context in the caption, which simply read, need gone today.
You know, we all have those days.
We've all been there.
It's out on the curb.
Come pick it up.
I just somehow managed to upload the wrong photo when I was choosing them for my camera roll, Lucy said.
And unfortunately, it was of Oscar.
The baby was not purchased by anyone.
What was the price?
Yeah.
Yeah, was there a price on there?
Yeah, I like that it was an accident.
Maybe it wasn't an accident.
Who knows?
There are days when you kind of want to do it.
That sounds like a cover.
How about Dan Dylan?
You get my favorite story of the week.
A Delta passenger was breastfeeding a cat mid-flight and refused to stop.
You know, it's funny.
I flew from Fort Lauderdale here into Los Angeles last night, and it was the first time I'd been on a plane, and there was a cat on the plane.
I've seen dogs.
You see dogs on the floor.
Was this an emotional support cat?
I guess.
It was meowing the entire time.
It was meow.
Just in the middle of the flight trying to fall asleep.
I'd never seen that before.
And it coincided with this story.
So I don't know if there was something funny going on back there.
I don't know.
It could be a new thing.
Was it feeding?
I don't know.
There's any feeding going on.
I didn't see.
Did not see.
Well, this story gets better as you get into it.
This female passenger on the airflying flight stunned her fellow travelers and cabin crew when she was reportedly observed breastfeeding her pet cat and refused to stop when asked to stop.
The flight attendant recounted, this woman had one of those like hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket, so it looked like a baby.
Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn't put the cat back in the carrier and the cat was screaming for its life.
So there's like all these elements to this.
First of all, when you first see that, you're thinking, that's a baby.
That's a weird looking baby.
And then you start to think, is that a cat?
And then you have that, like, you start to have to wrestle with like, do I confront her and say, is that a cat?
Because that's like that moment where you like ask a pregnant woman if she's, or you think a girl's pregnant and you are afraid to say it because like, what if it is a baby and it just looks cattish?
So then there's that whole process.
And then, and then just, you know, the fork in the road there, whether it's a cat-looking baby or an actual cat, then you have to figure out what, you know, and then also the fact that cat does not want this.
So this is like, you know, against its will, cat being forced is some form of, you know, cat violation.
Is she all scratched up?
This woman just like got claw marks all over her?
I want for pure scientific reasons, I want photos.
We need more information.
Yeah, we do.
You can blur the nipples, but I want to see photos.
I'm just saying.
Like, I just want to.
Picker didn't happen.
Was this while the plane had already left in the air?
It's his mid-flight.
And they didn't land, but she refused to stop.
So, I guess the suckling went on until they landed.
And then it says they called the red coats.
I guess the Delta has some people called the Redcoats that like come out.
I don't know if they're British.
They bring rifles.
Yeah, muskets, muskets, muskets.
And they're the high-security people that drag the lady out with the cat.
Just specifically for cat violations.
Yeah.
Now, Delta fully supports a woman's right to breastfeed on board Delta and Delta Connection aircraft and in Delta facilities.
But I guess they now have to reconsider what they mean by fully supports.
Yeah, it seems like a poor adjective choice.
I became fascinated that there's a whole Wikipedia page on humans breastfeeding animals.
And apparently it's not as uncommon as you'd think.
So, yeah.
Anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole?
It's available on the internet.
But mid-flight?
Mid-flight.
It's a new page.
All right.
Austin, you want to take the bomb squad?
Bomb squad called to UK hospital after a man gets World War II mortar stuck in his rectum.
I love that in your newscaster voice.
Like, it's just your natural voice.
You just, you're bored talking like a newscaster, right?
Or did you train yourself?
In a past life, I worked radio news for a time.
Okay.
Yeah.
Got it nailed.
So the bomb squad was called to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on Thursday, December 2nd, after a patient was admitted with a mortar shell stuck in his rectum.
Troops from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, everybody knows those guys, rushed to the Gloucester Hospital after being notified by police that a patient had presented with a munition in his rectum.
I can't do British accent.
That's how they talk.
Now he claimed it was an accident.
He claimed that just like the lady selling fell.
Tripped.
Yeah, tripped.
He fell and it was just right there.
Fell.
Was he not wearing pants?
He was obviously naked.
He was screen cleaning.
I was in the middle of applying lotion to my buttocks.
I don't know.
Because you need, you'd need, I'm just thinking.
You'd need help.
I don't know how big it is.
That's big.
That mortar's big, right?
There's a picture on there.
On the not-the-b.
There's a picture on there?
There's a picture.
Okay.
I'm clicking.
Oh, yeah, that's big.
Holy cow.
How did he, he would need when this stuff happens, so they feel the need to come up with an excuse.
They have to.
Yeah, you don't want to just go in there and just be like, this is what actually happened.
I thought it would make a good chair.
It was a bad judgment call.
Or yeah, I could come up.
Okay.
Oh, so it shows it next to a hand and it's like about that big.
How do you get your, how do you get a World War II mortar, by the way?
I guess you can just have one at your house?
Where was he?
I'll bet you can buy him at a military surplus store.
Probably.
Man, it's a military enthusiast.
He found the shell while clearing out, but somehow tripped and fell onto it.
Somehow.
It's possible that it was, you know, because I fell and sat on a nail before.
Is that similar?
Nail sticking up?
I didn't go perfectly dead center though.
Wasn't went to the bottom.
I think we should not dwell too much.
Do we move on?
I'm fascinated by this.
I don't think it's, yeah.
Okay.
I think you're up, Kyle.
Am I?
A leopard ran off with this lady's child, but she chased it down and let her kid go.
Nice leopard.
This isn't very funny.
It's just like crazy that a leopard ran off with a kid and also that she just chased it down.
It was like, all right, fine, geez.
He was like five years old sitting in his hut with his mother and siblings when a leopard approached and snatched him up.
Man.
She ran after him for a full kilometer while screaming and yelling at it.
And the leopard dropped the child and ran away.
It's a happy ending.
How does this make it to the news, though?
I want to know, like, you're in like a, you know, a bunch of huts, and then a leopard runs up with a child.
Like, how does this news get back to a journalist?
Anybody?
Anybody have any answers?
I don't have any idea.
Like, how does the news travel?
Yeah.
In where there's huts?
Nobody?
Anybody?
No.
Comments?
Anyone comment?
Do they have ring doorbells?
Can they just make it up?
It could just make it up.
Because she's not running after it with the phone camera on, right?
Because she's been doing it.
She can make it up.
Yeah, she could make it up.
This could be totally made up.
But if you're making it up, you'd be like, I kicked the cat or something.
You just chase it and dropped it.
It could be cooler than a leopard, too.
Yeah.
Breastfed the leopard on it.
There you go.
All right.
Well, I get the next one, right?
The story's on Not the Beast, so we know that it's real.
We know that's real.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
A plumber found 500 envelopes full of cash.
Now, this is kind of misleading because it was actually 3,000 envelopes.
A plumber found 500, but actually 3,000 envelopes full of cash inside the bathroom walls at Joel Osteen's church.
Is it misleading or just wrong?
Well, I think the initial founder found 500 and then found 3,000.
Did you guys watch Righteous Gemstones?
Oh, yeah.
I haven't seen it in a hundred.
That happens in that, right?
I watched it, but they hit a bunch of money in the walls of the church.
And they get in envelopes.
And they go and they break open the wall, just like the truth.
It happened in that show.
Another content warning if you watch that show.
Prophecy fulfilled.
Highly recommended for our audience.
For homeschooling families.
A plumber called into a morning radio show to discuss the discovery he made when he was called to the church on November 10th.
There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile.
He said, we went to remove the toilet, and I moved some insulation away, and about 500 envelopes full of money fell out of the wall.
So it's just like, that's a movie moment, right?
You crack it open on a stage.
It's a breaking bad moment.
Yeah.
It's like totally a breaking bad.
Or another show, they did that on Ozark.
Seen Ozark?
Packed the money into the walls and then drywalled it up or whatever.
But originally, so around 3,000 envelopes stuffed with cash recovered.
Lakewood Church confirmed in a statement discovery an undisclosed amount of cash.
So many questions.
I read that there was a robbery like 10 years ago.
I don't know if it was 10.
At the church, $600,000 missing.
Missing $600,000.
But why would you steal the money and then put it in the wall?
I mean, unless you, it was an inside job.
Is this a way that God blesses people?
Literally.
It's a inside job.
If you've been a great Christian, he just stuffs money in your walls.
That's an old expression.
And it's kind of like...
Yeah, it is.
And it's one of those things where you think, oh, man, the toilet's broken.
But really, it's a blessing in disguise because once the plumber comes to fix it, there's like hundreds of thousands of dollars stuff in your wall from God.
God says there's always money in the banana stand.
There's always money.
When God breaks a toilet, hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's stuffed on your head.
He opens a wall.
He opens a wall of money.
And it's my favorite Bible first.
And we have our Guinness World Record.
Sure.
Read it to Kyle.
Scared him.
I'll read it directly to Kyle.
44-foot washing machine pyramid sets Guinness World Record.
A washing machine recording.
Was there a 43-foot record previously?
Yeah, is there?
It should be in here.
How do you apply for a world record?
Because there's a world record you can make for almost anything, right?
I mean, we have this discussion every week.
We're going to have to go on this wall directly.
That exact wall in that exact spot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, is there any pre there's hardly anything in this article?
So who can calculate how big the base was?
Did they watch the news for CNN?
There's ads covering the whole article.
So it was 256 washing machines in the base.
That's a lot of washing machines.
Is that square?
Do they have to be enable to operate?
Yeah, was this like a 2D pyramid or was this like a 3D pyramid?
No.
Was this a Mario?
Way more dangerous.
Super Mario Black.
It's like a Ziggy rat.
It's like a Zuggerat because it's a bigger thing.
This is like Qbert would jump up there and fight some coily snakes.
Right.
I hated those snakes.
Yeah, those stupid snakes.
Okay.
Well, cool.
Congratulations.
All right.
So we have put together a quiz here.
Me and mostly Adam Jenser, who you might hear laughing at his own jokes now and then off camera.
We wanted to see how well you guys know the Babylon B. Hey, I bet you've been itching and wondering about becoming a subscriber to the Babylon B podcast.
I mean, we're always prodding and poking you to do it.
Well, here's another poke.
10% off.
How's that sound?
Just enter the code podcast next time you go to that BabylonB.com backslash plans page.
You go there, backslash plans, you put in P-O-D-C-A-S-T, 10% off a whole year of Babylon B bliss.
We'll see you there.
How well do you know the B?
Testing, we're testing you.
It's not that great.
So we got a little quiz here.
I'm going to go find my answers because I have the answer key.
Kyle probably has all the answers in his mind.
It'll be interesting to put, maybe we could give Kyle like a handicap or something.
Is Kyle in it?
Like he's competing?
He could compete if we give him like naked companies.
I would like him to compete.
Yeah, you want him to compete?
I'll compete.
Or give you guys a handicap.
I don't know how that works.
I don't know.
I'll compete.
How does it work?
I get the handicap.
You get the handicap.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So let me find my notes real quick.
How you guys talk amongst yourselves?
How are you guys doing?
How's the flight?
All right.
Oh.
Ready?
Never mind.
I don't care.
What was the first Babylon B headline ever published on the site?
Oh, Jesus.
The only answering?
I know.
I know Kyle's first.
I don't know.
The first.
If you go back in the history to the very first one.
This is a little.
Okay.
Kyle knows.
You have to have been in the site.
Okay, well.
Austin definitely won't get it.
Your first was the Foggy.
Oh, actually, you could look right now.
You could go.
There are 17 possible answers because when the site launched, there were 17 articles.
If you look at the date of publication on the article.
Right, but they, when they rebuilt the site, they kind of messed up the order a little bit.
When Dan did it, don't refer to me as they.
I can tell you the first one on people talk about they, you're there.
They're freaking tech guys.
Everybody wants to be among the they.
I actually, this is interesting because I was thinking about this the other day because I was, everybody wants me to do NFTs, and I was like, the perfect NFT would be the database entry for the first Babylon B article, right?
Wouldn't it?
But I have no idea what it is.
I don't know.
I don't know what I know.
I know what Kyle's first B article is.
I don't know what Adam's was.
I don't understand what NFTs are, but I do have AxeCup ones for sale.
Do you know, Austin?
The only guess I have is the Holy Spirit unable to move.
That was the first one to go viral.
What was that on there?
So the first Babylon B. Oops.
At least the first one to hit social was Christian News Satire Site Launches.
That's.
But that, yeah.
So the first one, according to whatever number is.
Very self-referential.
Yeah.
Popular internet atheists still thinks last book of the Bible is called Revelations.
It's called Revelation.
Yeah, there's no way.
There's no way.
That was it?
Yeah, that was it.
That was.
I actually, can I start with a bang?
Hold on.
I will verify this by pulling up the actual database.
That's how we got it.
I wanted to pull up the database and see what the published on date is for the first article.
The created at date for all of these is exactly the same.
Interesting.
So it may not be 17 all have the same.
Let's go with nobody got it.
Nobody got it.
All right.
Well, I got it.
Closest without going over.
How many headlines involving Jolestine has the bee published?
I have a way of cheating, but I'm not going to.
No, I'm not going to have a loop of cash found in his tree.
I would guess 20, because I just looked at this the other day for some reason.
I would guess 22.
I'm going to say it's way higher than that.
I'm going to say closer to 35 or 40.
I'm going to say.
Let's say 40.
Let's close without going over.
What was yours?
40.
41.
65.
I was going to guess 70 something, but you guys are way off.
Well, I was going to be close, but it's close to the 10.
What are your guess of actually?
You almost said I was going to say 77.
Oh, okay.
That would be my guess.
I'm going to look for title contains.
Okay, so we already got the first Babylon headline to go viral.
The fog machine one, right?
Yeah.
Is that correct?
All right.
I thought that was that could have been Urban Legend.
What is the Babylon Bee's most viewed video on YouTube?
Oh, we know this.
I know this one.
We worship the video stats.
Yeah, we do.
Is it the bike bicyclist?
Austin, what's your guess?
My guess would be Norm Hiccup.
Norm hiccup.
That is normal.
If you haven't seen that one, you're going to watch it.
It's fantastic.
Let's go Brandon is rapidly approaching.
Yeah, Let's Go Brandon is catching up fast.
I like the Elmo vaccine one.
That's my one.
That's good.
And that is now children's videos.
It's tagged as for kids.
I know.
You can't comment on it.
It's tagged as for kids.
So there are children that are browsing YouTube that are watching this horrifying video of YouTube forcing Elmo victims.
YouTube vaccination.
Just so people understand, YouTube forced that on us with our Elmo video.
And we said, and we said clearly for adults.
We did not make it for kids.
And they said, and they did a manual review.
Like, no, it's for kids.
And sent us back and said, no, it's for kids.
We're keeping it this way.
I email our YouTube contract and you never email me back.
So bizarre.
It's bizarre.
It makes you think that like, then they'll be like, later, be like, you made this video for kids and now we're taking your channel down.
It just freaks you out.
So bizarre.
It's weird.
Like, why did they do that?
Which of the following headlines was not fact-checked by Snopes?
One, California considering a tax on breathing.
Two, thanks to new laws, VeggieTales finally introduces new cannabis character.
Three, FBI investigation into Hillary's email use reveals she is above the law.
Four, Georgia lawmaker claims Chick-fil-A employee told her to go back to her country.
Later clarifies he actually said, my pleasure.
I have my answer.
You guys have your answer.
I know the first and last one were definitely fact-checked on it.
The second and third.
Read two and three again.
You don't have the notes right there?
I don't want to look at them.
Oh, okay.
California, the tax on breathing or the Levy Tales cannabis.
Three is the investigation of Hillary's email or the Georgia lawmaker.
I have my answer.
Okay.
C. That's my answer.
C. You mean three by C?
I was going to say B and then they both said C, so I'm going to say C.
That is correct.
That is weird.
You should just have to write it on a piece of paper and hold it up.
Okay.
What is the Babylon B's most watched interview show episode?
Oh, actually, I don't know.
Oh, you don't know this?
It's not a.
I thought it was a.
Because it might have changed lately.
It might have changed.
Oh, I know it.
I know what it is.
It wasn't, you know, I thought that Larry the Cable guy was going to get more, and it didn't do as good as I thought it was going to.
It wasn't a Michael.
The thing about interviews is that people get interviewed by a lot of places.
Yeah, so they get it.
I would say Bridget Fetti or Michael Malice, one of them.
It's Michael Malice or James Lindsay.
And I don't remember if Michael Malice passed you.
You get one answer, guys.
I'm going to guess.
I'm going to say I'm going to say Michael Malice.
You got it.
I'm going to get.
I didn't get to guess.
Okay, then I'm going to say James Lindsay.
I guess they're getting scored because I don't know.
You keep shouting out the answer before we get the answer.
When was the Baby Babylon Bee?
I think you call it the Babylon Bee.
When was the Babylon Bee's first reference to skinny jeans?
I know this one.
You know the exact date?
I don't know the date, but I know the article.
Okay.
Article.
Well, you know, it was probably in no, it was probably March 2016, and it was that the worship leader invokes Philippians.
Yeah, let them guess first.
Let me try.
No, no.
I don't know the date.
I don't know the date.
I don't know.
The Jaws of Life.
Oh, it was the Jaws of Life.
It was April 26th.
That's pretty close to March.
Good job.
It's like you work here.
It's like obsessively.
Check all this stuff.
Which of the following celebrities has never retweeted a Babylon Bee story?
Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Baton Oswald.
I'm going to go with Pope Francis.
Go with C.
Yeah.
Final answer.
I'm noticing that it's always C so far.
Whose name has been featured in more Babylon Bee headlines?
Hillary Clinton or AOC?
Well, with Hillary, it's always a different name.
Right.
Yeah, it's AOC.
She's NC, so yeah, AOC.
Yep, 47 versus 40 is what we found.
Oh, well, closer than I thought.
All right, now.
But why, guys?
What's so funny about AOC?
She's really dumb.
She's just so stupid.
I think someone at the B has a giant crush on her.
That's true.
I think so.
Hey, by the way, what happened to my AOC poster in my room?
In mine.
In my office.
Above my bed on the ceiling.
No, the one in my office is gone.
Bettina?
You're welcome for framing your article.
Is it?
Did you throw it away?
It's around.
Okay, so this is a no, we got two more.
Which of the following Hillary Clinton aliases was never featured in a B article?
Hilzakaya Clintonstein, Henrio Clinton Han, Hidalgo Clintonina, Hiluigi Clintonelle, Phil Ari Quinton, Hildi Clintonberg, Hilaro.
I mean, Hilarole Clinton.
Hiltasha Clinton.
Oh, Hiltasha Clinton.
There's more.
Oh, Hilga Clintenheimer or Hilarita Clinton's.
All right.
Yeah.
Hilarita Clinton.
I'm not good at accenting.
I have my guess.
I know it.
I know it.
Did it say something?
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure it's number six.
No, this was definitely one.
Fillery was definitely one.
Oh, okay.
That was when she was the mailman.
I mean, if Kyle says something, you should just go and Kyle knows.
That's number six.
My answer is whatever Kyle says.
I don't want to do that.
It's Hilda.
Clintonberg.
I knew that.
All right.
I knew it wasn't five.
And finally, how many identifies as jokes has the Babylon Bee published?
Well, how many articles do we have?
Seven thousand, so it's roughly half, right?
Because we have two hundred.
Okay.
I think we have over 8,000 articles published.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We have over 8,000.
I'm going to say.
Let's see how many we have.
I'm going to say 25.
That might be high.
I'm interested.
There's not.
How?
I don't know how Adam found this number.
If you just search the word identifies.
Yeah, young used to search identify.
You got 8,135 published articles, so I'll go with half of that.
4,000 something?
Plus one.
I was at 25, guessing that that's a little high, maybe.
14.
It's not as many as you think.
It's just that each one feels like five.
Yeah.
You know, all right.
And are those also coincidentally our top 14 jokes?
Yeah, probably it's half of our traffic.
Yeah.
It's half of our ad revenue.
The motorcycle one killed.
It's 3% of what we do.
Yeah.
The motorcycle one killed, the grizzly bear one kill.
That motorcycle one.
Yeah, they're crazy.
Yeah.
Oh, the t-ball one.
Oh, the t-ball kill.
Those are probably the only three that are that exact joke.
Oh, no, no.
There's another one.
The one about the leopard that competes against Marathon.
And then there's the Norm Hood Cup.
Well, I have a video.
That's not the video.
The video.
Yeah.
Video version.
Because the dog identifies as transgender.
See, the other ones I think are more neutered.
Some versions that are like stupid.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
Well, Dan's here.
Austin's here.
We don't have notes for this part.
We're just talking to you guys now.
All right.
So welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Why don't you guys tell us your, how did you come to the Babylon B?
You can go first.
Mine's a long introduction.
Mine's a long story.
Okay.
Not too long.
Come on.
Not too long.
I remember when the B stories started showing up in my Facebook feed, and it just was my kind of humor.
I got hooked right away.
And so I kind of, as you said in the beginning, I kind of was looking for ways to use my very short skill set and try to kind of figure out a way to contribute.
And you guys have been very accommodating and it's been a lot of fun.
Yeah, we love having you.
Guy Curtis, you know, our little news guy we used to have on.
We're trying to bring him back.
We're working on it.
But yeah, Austin Robertson.
Nice.
Cool story, bro.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I actually tried to talk Seth out of buying the Babylon B.
Okay, I want to hear that one.
I mean, Seth came to me with this idea.
We had run a couple businesses that were successful and we'd gotten some money that we always want to reinvest and continue to grow.
And Seth reached out to Adam and said, you know, I want to help the Babylon B grow, not I want to buy the Babylon B.
And Adam was like, do you want to buy it?
And Seth was, you know, obviously very interested in it.
And he came to me and he showed me the numbers and all this other stuff.
And I was really skeptical because Seth is very risk adverse and I'm not.
I'm very conservative.
And so when it came to the numbers, I was like, oh, well, Facebook could shut us down in three days and Twitter can shut us down in five days and all the worst case scenarios I looked at basically.
So I tried to, I tried to say, this is too much money for us to take this unknown leap into this industry.
And then Seth kind of convinced me that, you know, it was more important to grow this voice than that.
And I said, okay.
And so me and Seth are pretty much 50-50 partners on everything.
And so we went in on this together and bought the Babylon B.
And honestly, I mean, we were fans before that, but it's been life-changing.
I mean, it went from being like, maybe this will be something that we can do and grow, but maybe it will get shut down tomorrow to being the primary thing that we do and our main passion.
So that is the irony of it is, I mean, I love the Babylon B and I didn't not want to buy it because I didn't love it.
I just thought this is real money, you know, that we're throwing at this thing.
And it was hard enough to people who had to spend five bucks on it.
You guys just come down.
Yeah.
The price was much lower back then than it is now.
So we did get out of a bargain.
You bumped it up.
But I told him I would rebuild the website as part of my investment.
And then he didn't know that I went to Cancun.
Yeah, you do.
It's just a WordPress.
And he doesn't watch the podcast, so he'll never know.
What are some main issues right now with the just from the tech point of view?
Are you griping about the website right now online?
No, I'm talking about from like the fears of the tech industry.
Oh, yeah.
And all that stuff.
Yeah.
Are we going to be shut down like Parlor?
Are we taking countermeasures or pre-emptive?
There have been a lot of questions asked to me on a technical side, what we're doing to preemptively plan for getting shut down.
And the long story short is that there's not really anything that you can do.
There's so many different points of failure where a liberal company owns the cable that comes to your house.
A liberal company owns the server that your site is hosted on.
A liberal company owns the transatlantic cable.
A liberal company owns all the satellites that are going up into space that eventually, if they didn't want your website to be on the internet, it wouldn't be.
That's what happened to Parler.
Parlor got shut down on Amazon.
And it's like, well, why were you on Amazon?
They hate you.
But it's like everybody hates you.
It's like you literally don't have a solution in the tech space where people like you.
And I was saying this, even with our email stuff that we've dealt with with MailChimp, it's like, okay, MailChimp hates us.
They literally do.
They hate us and they want to shut us down.
Why are you on MailChimp?
Well, we're looking for alternatives that like us.
But the problem is, even if we get onto this alternative platform where they will send our emails and not censor us, Google and MSN and Hotmail and all these other places, they could just not allow our emails to get through, right?
So it doesn't even matter.
So MailChimp doesn't shut you down and you go find a replacement for it.
But then you send your emails and none of the, it doesn't get into anybody's inbox.
So at some point along the line, you don't have any control over whether or not people can actually.
Access all the way to payment processors.
Payment processors, we can't do our subscriptions anymore because it's funding hate speech or something like that.
So there isn't an answer of you can't 100%.
At the same time, you can plan for it.
And we are.
We're moving away from MailChimp.
We don't have anything on Amazon AWS right now, as far as servers are concerned.
So we're trying to be smart, but at the same time, there's nothing you can ultimately do.
We should have a plan for if the internet completely goes down, a way to pass B articles around on sheets of onion skin or something.
Yeah, some sort of papyrus.
Yeah, some kind of papyrus that gets passed around and like reproduced every morning.
And there's these metal bins.
Yeah, and like openings or no, bees.
Bees could carry them out to people or something.
I don't know.
Or maybe carry your bees.
If you buy a giant compound and build a massive projector that projects all the Babylon B articles into the sky so that at least half the world can see them every day and there's nothing they can do because it's our land.
Nothing they can do.
The power company would shut us down.
We'll have to get our own generators.
Solar power, baby.
Solar panels.
And then what if the sun shuts down?
Because they don't like us.
Sun is sun's.
Sun's liberal.
Sun's got to be liberal.
Like Mr. Burns, it just blocks out the sun.
I don't mean to paint I don't like to live in a fantasy world, Kyle The nice news, the good news is, and most of many of our subscribers may not know this, but we know this internally.
A lot of times when things that are bad happen, it actually ends up being a positive for us.
Yeah, so far.
Because it's so ridiculous the measures they're going through, Facebook and Snopes and all these other people trying to shut us down.
And it's obviously just comedy that the backlash against them and our appearances on Fox News and things like that actually end up growing our subscriber base and making us less susceptible to being shut down.
So it's actually an interesting little situation.
Yeah, they say like we should if we if we can only get like a buddy over at CNN or something to like every six months try to get them to shut us down and they're like you rub our back They can get a bunch of traffic meet a bunch of people subscribing, you know anybody listening anybody listening make a little deal No, not a Cuomo brother Yeah, Cuomo's gonna yeah, you might need some work.
Yeah oh I was looking at the notes and I just saw the real talk with Dan Dylan.
That was it.
Yeah, so on talk on not the bee, we which I don't know.
Yeah, we talk about not the beef.
We've gone over that.
Yeah, because there were some questions here, I guess, that somebody wrote.
We're going to hit those in the subscriber line.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, those are subscriber lines.
Not the B subscribers.
We're asking a bunch of questions directly to you.
Yeah.
Do we have not the B that now?
One of your babies.
You can kind of talk about Not the B and then.
Let's talk about Not B and then we'll hit the questions in the subscriber launch.
Okay.
Yeah.
So Adam and I obviously were friends when we bought the B and Adam is still on the board of the Babylon B or whatever, but we built Discern together and Discern was a real news website and it was pretty popular amongst the people who really liked it.
But it was really difficult in the age of suppression of news and Facebook feeds, not just conservative news, but I think conservative news was suppressed more.
It was really difficult to grow Discern and we felt like the voice wasn't really big enough.
So we were always kind of thinking about ways that we could be, you know, have a bigger impact in news.
And one day I slacked Adam and I was just like, hey, I've got an idea for a website.
He's like, I do too.
You say yours first.
And I was like, all right, it's this idea.
You know, it's not the B, basically.
It's just news headlines that are so crazy.
They sound like they're satire, but they're not.
And written in that voice.
So you almost write the headline as if it's a Babylon B headline, but nobody could believe that this was actually real news.
And he's like, that's the exact same idea that I had.
I was like, all right, I guess that means that we should do it.
And he's like, yeah, why don't you build it?
And so I did.
And so, you know, I neglected my responsibilities of the Babylon B. I'm a professional.
You didn't notice.
Yeah, nobody noticed because the website's the same.
That's why the Babylon B still looks like a MySpace page.
Exactly.
Geocities.
And we went and we built Not the Bee, and it was probably, it was one of the quickest turnarounds, I would say, for a major website launch ever.
I mean, it was like a month from Idea and the Slack messaging to launch.
And I mean, we, the Babylon B is incredibly successful.
Not the B is successful because of the Babylon B.
So I don't want to like take too much credit there, but Not the Bee is on a trajectory that's way ahead of where the Babylon Bee was when it first launched.
And obviously it has the Babylon B to drive traffic to it.
And the Babylon B didn't benefit from that.
But Not the Bee is just without the Babylon B be called Not the Can You Believe This stuff?
Yeah, just be called Not the Nothing.
But it's a different approach to the news.
It's more like a barstool sports sort of colloquial news.
And people like that more.
It's more shareable.
It can actually get somewhat viral traction on Facebook and Twitter.
Whereas real news stories can't.
We couldn't make everybody's mad about Discern going away, the people who were fans of Discern and the Babylon Bee.
And we just couldn't make it work as a business.
If there was a way to make it work as a business, we would have kept it going as a business.
But you have to eventually cut your losses and look for something different.
And Not the Bee has been way more successful than we expected.
The social network has been insanely successful.
Like, I mean, I post the same thing on Twitter and Facebook and Not the Bee, and I get five times more interaction on Not the Bee than I do anywhere else.
Yeah, I post up on Not the Bee.
You know, you might get 100 likes on something.
I posted a Babylon Bee link to my Facebook page the other day, and I got one comment from Dan Coateswife.
That was it.
I'm just like, that was a pretty funny article.
I don't know.
Yeah.
So eventually the goal is to kind of more marry the two websites that they have a shared social platform and stuff like that.
And that's behind the scenes.
In reality, we're working on a lot of stuff with the Babylon Bee website.
We're reprogramming it right now to talk the same language as the NotTheB website so that the two can eventually just be coexisting and kind of have this platform together.
So there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with that right now.
But yeah, NotTheB has been just huge for us.
It's unbelievable.
I mean, Not the Bee gets more than half of the traffic of Babylon Bee right now, and it's only been a year old.
Yeah.
Well, our little baby, Not the Bee, fly up.
Fly, little kid.
What do you say to a year later?
Good job, honey.
Okay, I know, honey.
That's awesome.
Well, we got more questions from NotTheB Social subscribers with Dan Dylan in the subscriber launch momentarily.
But first, we've got some hate mail.
You know what the worst thing in the world is?
It's when you're laughing at something and really enjoying it and you're not paying any money for it.
That sucks.
You feel really guilty.
You're like, man, there's all these people that are like giving their lives to making this stuff.
And, you know, that's their whole job.
And I didn't even give them any money for it.
Now you can give us money.
You can become a Babylon Bee subscriber and ease that guilty conscience.
Go to BabylonB.com/slash plans.
And for a limited time, you can insert the promo code podcast and you get 10% off.
It's not 7%.
It's not 8%.
It's not 9%.
It's not 11%.
It's not 12%.
It is 10% off your subscription.
So go to BabylonB.com slash plans and subscribe.
That's what enables us to continue making all the amazing content that you enjoy 24-7 right into your brain.
I really miss Adam Ford.
This is from Tim, and we want it read in the rich, siltry, jazzy voice.
And you can just, you know, whatever.
The cuss words are going to be.
I love reason.
Oh, yeah.
Complain.
Do what you want on the cuss.
I love the reasons.
This is from Tim.
Yeah, reason complain.
Erasing.
That's on our website.
That's a drop-down.
It's on the drop-down menu.
Complaining.
But it makes it sound really funny.
Like they typed in, come reason.
I'm a whiny baby.
Big poopy pants.
Erasing your site from my list.
Tired of the anti-Christian fake news there that cannot get over whatever sorry little trauma that made them detest religion so vehemently.
You're also sophomoric, unfunny, and frankly just throw the F up, kiddies.
So do they know it's a Christian website?
I guess.
Oh, yeah, because, yeah, they're calling us anti-Christian.
Fake news.
I want to know what his list is.
Is it like a document?
A word noticing.
Yeah, he has a notebook with his favorite websites.
He's never heard of a bookmark.
What website shall I visit today?
Pro-Christian websites.
Wait a minute.
These guys are anti-Christian.
I like that he's just cussing like a sailor when he's mad about anti-Christian.
Because we're not Christian.
Pick a lane, man.
Well, sorry, Tim.
Sorry, Tim.
Sorry, we can't make you a really devoutly Christian website full of swearing.
One day.
One day we will launch a new website called Not NotTheB.
And that will be ours.
I actually thought about doing that as part of the launch.
Yeah.
Rebranding the Babylon Bee for a day or two as Not Not the Bee.
Or I could do maybe the Bee.
April 1st.
Guess if it's the B. All right.
Well, we're going to move over to the subscriber lounge where we're going to put on festive outfits.
And we got some subscriber questions for Dan.
We've also got some love mail and subscriber headlines and the 10 questions.
It's going to be a packed episode.
It is jam-packed.
So let's get over there.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
So, yeah, we got a jam-packed subscriber lounge.
So let's jump into it.
We've got some questions from Not the Bee subscribers for Dan Dylan.
Seth and I have embarrassing stories that involve both of us, for sure.
Is that a question?
I think these are demands.
Demands.
Seth and I both obviously come from the idea that we need to be as loud as the opposition.
Wondering what they'll say next?
The rest of this podcast is in our super exclusive premium subscriber lounge.
Go to babylonbee.com slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
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.