Funniest Outlet On Planet Earth | John Cooper Interviewed The Babylon Bee
John Cooper from Skillet got the chance to talk the funniest outlet on planet earth when he interviewed Kyle Mann and Adam Yenser for his podcast Cooper Stuff. They talk about speaking the truth, freedom of speech, and comedy in a world gone crazy. Check out Cooper Stuff on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CooperStuff Buy John's new book Awake & Alive to Truth: Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World: http://www.johnlcooper.com/awake This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Better Help: http://betterhelp.com/babylonbee/ Become a premium subscriber: https://babylonbee.com/plans?utm_source=PYT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=description
If you've been watching the Babylon B podcast for any length of time, you know that John Cooper of Skillet is a friend of the podcast and website.
We love hanging out with John.
And he was gracious enough to have me and Adam Jenser on his podcast, Cooper Stuff.
So please go follow Cooper Stuff.
You can check out all the podcasts that he has on there.
Great podcast.
And he was gracious enough also to allow us to repost the interview that he did of us.
It was a great conversation, lots of fun, lots of laughs.
So we're reposting it now so you guys can enjoy it.
Let's talk to John Cooper and see what kind of hard-hitting questions he has to ask me and Adam.
Here we go.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Cooper Stuff.
This is going to be, it better be funny.
If these guys aren't funny today, then I don't know why I'm wasting my time.
I'm going to be doing this sweet interview with some of the guys from the Babylon B. How's it going, guys?
We've got Kyle and David over here.
We're doing the Kyle and Adam.
Kyle and Adam, yes.
Sorry.
It's funny already.
We literally told you his name like a minute ago, dude.
How old are you again?
I know, but it's good to be here.
I'm a big fan of Striper.
Yeah, see, we're getting started right.
I'm such an idiot.
My wife's like this.
She's going to make fun of me so bad because I'm always getting names wrong.
Something about my brain.
I do too.
I don't hold that against anyone.
I forget names all the time.
Oh, man.
I'm so good.
So you can call me Striper or Skittle.
Yes, either one.
That's Stittle Ban.
Yeah, we've been introduced as Skittle more than a couple of times.
That's fantastic.
Anyway, thank you guys for joining me.
How's it going over there?
It's going great, man.
Good.
Telling jokes.
And Adam's the funny one, by the way.
So we're all funny here.
I write funny things, but he writes funny things and he does stand-up.
So he's the actual funny one.
Ah, that's cool.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, I got my start in stand-up.
Yep.
Oh, no.
I had no idea that that was the case.
So how did you go from stand-up to doing this?
I started stand-up about 15 years ago.
I worked in Hollywood, basically.
I started in New York.
I was an assistant at Late Night with Conan O'Brien for six years, moved out to LA when he took over the tonight show.
Then I got a writing job at Ellen.
I wrote for Ellen for 10 years.
And while I was there, I started doing stand-up, got a couple of TV gigs, doing clubs.
And then these guys had me on the podcast as a guest comedian.
And then after I left Ellen, I started freelancing here and then became full-time.
Wow.
So you finally stepped up to a real gig after Ellen and Conan.
I was slowly trying to work my way up to podcasting.
Living the dream.
He's got a climb of Ellen, stand-up comedy, Babylon B.
Yeah.
So he's arrived.
I don't know where there's nowhere to go after that.
But in fairness, in fairness, and I know that I'm biased, Babylon B is the absolute funniest thing on planet Earth right now.
I mean, there's no question about that.
So really, there is nowhere left to go, quite seriously.
Do you think it's funnier?
You think it's funnier than Ellen?
I think it is.
Ellen's funny in a different sort of way.
Yes.
I wonder what the Venn diagram of our overlapping audiences are.
Yeah.
There's probably a little bit.
I like a little bit.
Like my wife likes Ellen.
Yeah.
I don't know sometimes.
He's plugging his ear.
You're not the Ellen demographic, I guess.
No, and I'm pushing my earbuds in.
Whoa, I thought you were plugging your ears.
Plugging my ears.
I'm done listening to you guys.
We had an ice storm here and it knocked my internet out.
And right before the interview, I had to rush up here and put my phone on.
So that's why we're doing it here.
Anyway, so I've got these little earbuds on, which this just looks cool when I do it.
It's a new thing the young kids are doing.
It looks like this.
And where is it that you're based again that you got an ice storm?
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cold.
Wisconsin.
Yeah.
That's what I've heard.
So, all right.
So one of the things I want to say about Babylon B that is so funny is that, all right, there's two things.
Number one, you really, well, I'll say the greatest thing.
You really have to know the Bible really well to make half the jokes you guys make.
And I wonder, like, is it a prerequisite that everybody has to go through some sort of a Bible school training in order to be a writer for the religion jokes?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's, there's an intensive course.
It's like a 15-year graduate program before you can write a Bible joke.
I mean, I think the Bible humor is great because that inside baseball stuff, it's the stuff that I like the most, you know, because it's, I think when we started writing our humor, you know, we weren't writing it thinking we were going to make these giant viral hits because we wrote a joke about a worship leader.
You know, it was just writing stuff that was true to our experience in the church.
And we all have different, we all have tons of different backgrounds, like where we come from denominationally and stuff.
But we were just writing stuff that was true to us.
You know, like I grew up in, you know, the fog machine and the lasers and the, you know, worship leaders that were singing skillet songs on Sunday mornings, you know, that kind of stuff that we would just make fun of.
And it was like crazy how viral that would go that people were like, oh, that happened in our church too.
You know, so it's just, there was something about writing something that had a kernel of truth to it that people connected with.
I think I'm probably the one that they gave the biggest waiver on on not having a theological back.
I was raised, you know, I'm Christian.
I was raised Christian.
I appreciate the Christian humor here.
But sometimes, you know, when we do podcasts and there's like theologians on and stuff, I feel like I'm in over.
Well, no, but I feel like you're pretty theologically or biblically aware, but you don't have the Christian pop culture experience.
That's exactly it.
I know the Bible well, but I didn't grow up in a church or a family where we were kind of immersed in all the aspects of Christian pop culture.
Those are the references that are kind of lost.
He's one of the actual Lutherans.
Yeah.
Like not the ones that are like with the rainbow.
No, not the, yeah, there's, there's the, yeah, right.
Missouri City Lutheran.
The actual.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny you say that because what I was going to say and I decided not to was when I said there's two aspects.
And I said, well, let's just say the one.
But it's funny you mention that it's because to do the Christian humor, you kind of have to know both aspects.
There's the cultural aspect, which is the things that we all kind of go to church doing.
And we go, oh, yeah, that is kind of funny.
And there are some Christian comedians that are quite funny on those aspects.
It's the things that we do that we think are normal in pop culture.
But what Babylon B has that a lot of other Christian comedians don't have is that it is inside baseball.
You kind of have to, you kind of have to know these characters to even understand.
I just wonder how many people look at this and don't get it at all.
And it'll make me laugh out loud.
And my wife is constantly going, did you see this?
And I think, how do people even know what this means?
It's just so funny.
There's some pretty, there's some jokes that we do where I'll pitch the joke or one of the writers will pitch the joke and I go, I know that there's only about five people who are going to get this, but I love it so much that we have to do it.
You know, you just have to be committed to the character and voice of the website.
You know, that you know that when you when I go to when I go to like a convention or I speak at a conference or something, there's always someone who comes up to me and is like, you know what my favorite headline is?
And they like list something that I'm like, I didn't think anybody read that joke because it's something that was so, you know, that was so inside.
One of the really early inside ones we did was the Amiraldian basketball team.
Do you know what Amiraldianism is?
No, I don't.
It's four-point Calvinism.
Oh, really?
And so we did a joke that was like Amiraldian basketball team only scores four points, which is like dumb, right?
And I'll get, I will get like more than one time, someone has come up to me and said, that's my favorite joke on the Babylon V. You know, and you're just like, really that one?
But it's cool.
I love when someone like the humor works because someone feels like, oh, there is someone else out there who, you know, that they feel like they're inside because they get this really obscure reference.
Some of the ones, some of the religious ones are the funniest ones, though.
Yeah.
Like one of the ones I loved before I even started working here, it was, it was Seventh Day Adventist goes out for delicious hot fudge Saturday.
So dumb, but I always love it.
Super dumb.
Super dumb.
Yeah.
What is the missing letter?
Is it limited atonement?
What's the missing letter?
Oh, for Amiraldians?
Yeah.
It's limited atonement.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That they won't subscribe to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then all the Calvinists go mental.
You have to have all five or you can't have any of them.
You're a five or you're a five-point Arminian.
It's one or the other.
They'll spit you out of their mouths.
If you don't have all five points, five or nothing.
And by nothing, we mean completely unsaved.
Yeah, it's quite funny.
My friend Matt sent me the video that you guys did.
It was the walkout theme music for pastors.
It was like, do you know what I mean?
It was like each one of the, there's like five speakers.
They had like their song, the theme.
Yeah, I don't think we did that as a video, but we did do it as like.
Oh, not video.
Excuse me.
Yeah.
We did the walkout.
You know, I don't remember.
Like John MacArthur comes out to ACDC's Thunderstruck or something like that.
We had all the different.
That was pretty epic.
Did we pick any Skillet songs?
Now I feel bad if we didn't pick any Skillet songs.
Well, that's why I'm bringing it up.
I would like you to feel a little bit repentant.
Would be nice.
Well, I could edit it real quick.
I could add one.
Is there a specific pastor or Christian personality you would want to have your walkout music used for?
Can we do James White?
James White walking out to Monster or something like that?
I don't know.
That's the thing.
It depends on who you pair us with because when you pair somebody together, oh man, that's what was so genius about it was the various pairings just really made me giggle.
So we could have Benny Hinn walk out to a Skillet song.
Would that be okay?
Yeah.
Well, we already know what Benny Himms is.
We've all seen that video.
The Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.
Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.
We already know.
Have you ever seen that video?
I have, yeah.
I actually have seen that on YouTube.
Pop culture, Christian culture reference.
More because of my familiarity with Let the Bodies Hit the Floor than my familiarity with Benny Himmler.
Have you seen the one where they put like the Hadouken blasts coming out of his hands?
Yes.
That's what I'll say to you, man.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
This guy understands Christian culture.
Those are videos I have seen.
He's ready to work at the Babylon B.
Yes.
We could have had in our list.
I don't know if we did.
We could have had Joel O'Seen with some flogging Molly or some Irish rock coming out.
Joel O'Seen.
He's the Irish version of Joel Osteen.
You put a little apostrophe, Joel Osteen.
Joel Osteen.
Yes.
Osteen.
One of our hate mails that we received, someone misspelled his name that way with the apostrophe.
So we've just been calling him Joel O'Seen.
Joel Osteen.
It's really funny to us anyway.
It should be.
You guys take a particular hire, I've noticed, Joel O'Seen.
You do.
So before we get into it, I want to ask you only one serious question, but beforehand, I got to give a shout out to the book here.
You got the book.
Look at that.
The Babylon B Guide to Wokeness.
Yeah, my wife bought like 10 of them for Christmas gifts.
That's where all of our sales came.
It was all from my wife.
We thought it was doing well, but it was just one family.
We're big supporters, man.
We're big supporters.
I mean, this book is absolutely hysterical.
When it came out last year, I was just dying.
Here's the best, the best and truest definition of woke.
Right on page one.
Being woke means wokeness isn't a private religion.
You can keep to yourself.
Once you see the world through woke eyes, you'll never be the same and you'll never be able to stop telling your friends about your new beliefs.
Kind of like when you join CrossFit.
That's just like the truest, the truest analogy ever.
I mean, the minute you start, my friend always says that CrossFit is the opposite rules of Fight Club.
You know, like Fight Club only rules to not tell people.
CrossFit.
Anyway, this is hilarious.
So how many people got involved in order to write this book?
There was a team of four or five people that worked on the Guide to Wokeness.
And so it was a lot of like, actually, that book was crazy to write because we had about a month to write that and get all the graphics together and turn it in.
Really?
You did it that fast?
Yeah.
And we did that really quick.
So we have a new book, The Babyloni Guide to Democracy.
And this one, we had a little extra time.
We had about another month or two.
And we had a larger art department.
So we actually managed to take our time and draw like because a lot of those that you see in there are kind of like clip art.
Like we take a stick figure and we quickly slap on a hat on them or something like that.
And this one we had custom art for almost every joke that we did, which was really cool.
But yeah, that was a lot.
So wokeness was a ton of fun to write, but I almost died.
Oh, no.
That's so fast.
Actually, three months is really fast.
I mean, you get 10.
Yeah, most time in a book, you get a year or you get six months, 12 months to work on it.
This one we had about a month.
So yeah.
That's crazy.
Now, let me ask you a question.
This is going to sound really dumb, but or not dumb, but it, but, but, you know, you get it.
So, like, to what level, like, when I, when I read the book when it came out last year, I mean, it's really hysterical, but it's actually, um, it sounds like a brown-nosed thing, but it's actually very profound.
Like, it's saying really deep things about what's going on.
It's actually explaining what's going on.
Unfortunately, maybe a little clearer than a lot of, I would say, maybe even a lot of pastors in America or church leaders.
I don't think they grasp what's going on half as clear as this book, even though the book is polemic.
I mean, to what level do you guys think, hey, we're saying something that matters, we're making a difference, or I don't know.
That sounds cheesy, but to what level do you feel that is what I'm saying?
Well, it's a balance.
I mean, I can't, it's hard because comedy, comedy can suffer if you make that the main thing.
You know, like if you if you say our whole goal is to just like I want people to understand this thing that I'm trying to communicate, I mean, then you're not really looking for the funniest thing to say.
But there's definitely truth in that, you know, the reason that people laugh at a joke a lot of times, especially a political joke or a worldview joke, is that there's truth to it.
You know, it's funny because it's true, is kind of the old standby comment that we get.
But I think, you know, but comedy does communicate truth.
And there's a there's a reason you laugh at something because you go, oh my man, that's so true.
Whether it's political or observational comedy where someone's like, you know, what's the deal with grocery stores?
And you're like, oh, yeah, you know, do you have any grocery store stand-up jokes?
I don't think I talk about groceries.
No grocery stores.
The hackiest area I probably have is I have some plain airplane.
We have airplane jokes.
But it's not the airplane food.
But that's that whole topic, you know, is a very tried and true sort of area.
Yeah.
Well, I think every time I'm an airplane, I start to think of ideas because it's like, oh, this is crazy.
It's such a weird, like, all these people smashed together in a two.
But as far as like the comedy and the sort of driving a point with it, it's like, I always want to try to write a joke that is funny enough to make someone laugh, even if they disagree, kind of.
And I think, you know, sometimes you hit that mark, sometimes you miss it.
But that's always the goal, I think, is you can really get people to kind of open up their mind to ideas that they might not be open to before.
They can lower their apprehension about discussing things that they disagree with.
And that's always the goal, I think, is to write a joke that's funny enough on its own.
And then you can kind of work the message in under that.
We had a joke that we did that was the we're all in this together celebrities spell out with their yachts.
You know, and it's like during the pandemic.
And we had a great Photoshop of all the boats lined up and saying we're all in this together.
And people thought it was real.
But we had a, we made fun of, what's the guy's name of Patton Oswald?
We made fun of Patton Oswald in the article, you know, because he was one of the guys who was like making fun of people for wanting to leave their houses and go to work.
Yeah.
It was his tweet about FUD Ruckers.
He had some, you remember this?
He had a tweet about FUDRUKES and it was like, open up FUD Ruckers, scream the people as they bash on the door.
And there's all these people who like got fired because of this.
So it was like really insensitive, obviously.
Anyway, he shared our article and he's like, okay, guys, I got to admit, you got me on this one or something.
And I think that's cool.
Like we made fun of him and he shares it and goes, this is funny, even though you're making fun of me.
And I like, I like that too myself.
Like when I read an onion article that makes fun of Christians or conservatives or Trump or something, they had the one where it was Trump kept saying Obama was spying on him.
And they had the one where he like holds up the drill to his head and he's like, the listening device is here.
And he's like drilling.
He's about to drill his own head.
I like when I can laugh at something, even though I'm like, well, I kind of disagree with you.
And Trump turned out to be right.
There's that, you know.
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Yeah, I mean, I'm about to say something that's so completely obvious that everybody has said, but to kind of jumping off of that, I mean, I don't mind laughing at myself at all or Christians.
If somebody says something funny, touche, you know, you see that on clips of South Park or something, you know, making fun of things that I love.
I'm like, at least it was funny, but this is what everybody has noticed.
Things aren't really in general all that funny anymore.
And that's what's so strange is I was kind of curious from your perspective, to what degree do you think that that's the case?
Or it's not the case that we're just getting more sensitive or anything, right?
I mean, I remember thinking things used to be funny, even if I disagreed with them four years ago.
Now the humor just doesn't seem funny.
It just seems stupid.
I can't like, dude, you guys can do better than that.
I feel like I can make fun of me better than you are.
You're not doing a good job.
Well, I think that's a big part of it is to keep that sort of sense of self-deprecating humor alive in it.
You know, we make jokes.
Obviously, we're a Christian platform.
We're more conservative leaning.
But a lot of the jokes we do, they have a sense of humor about our side.
We're not afraid to make jokes about Republican candidates or the failing of the Republican Party.
Or, you know, like we're talking about Christian culture.
I think you always need to keep a sense of humor about yourself and be able to laugh at yourself.
And I think as humor's gotten more agenda-driven on both sides, people feel like it will undercut their message if they admit any sort of fault or take a shot at their own side.
That's not in a heavy-handed way.
So, yeah, I think that's been lost a little bit.
People really are getting more sensitive.
You know, I hate to say that, but I noticed that even going out at comedy clubs, there are jokes that used to get laughs and now will get like, oh, you know, or people, yeah.
I think people are getting more sensitive about things.
But yeah, I think we need to keep both having a sense of humor about ourselves and making jokes that, like I said before, making the funny part the most important part.
And then you can kind of work your message in through that.
Yeah, for sure.
I like what you said, that you feel like you can make fun of yourself better than they can.
Because I feel the exact same way.
You watch like the late night show or Stephen Colbert trying to attack Republicans or something.
And you're like, I can think of a better joke.
And I completely disagree with you.
That's funny.
But what I was going to say with Stephen Colbert, I think what sort of has disappointed me about him is I used to love Stephen Colbert.
And he was making fun of Republicans.
Back when he did the Colbert report, he was doing it conservative character, but it was funny.
And I think the way the sort of polarization has hurt comedy a lot is that like there's this theory in comedy called benign violation theory where you kind of have to violate a rule where you have to kind of do something either illogical or against a rule.
When you have Colbert on his side doing jokes just for people who agree with him, and then you have sort of right-wing comedians doing jokes just for people that agree with them, there's not really fun there.
You're not breaking any rules anymore.
There's if everyone is already on the same side, there's very little to work off of there.
It's like, you know, the cliche of like claptirits.
You're trying to make a point and not a joke.
Stop us if we ramble too long, but it's so like, yeah, it's almost just boring at some point.
Like it's just not even fun.
And another thing that drives it too is the Facebook algorithm and the social media algorithms.
And that hurts us even because it's like sometimes we'll have a good joke against Trump or against Republicans or making fun of our own side.
And I'm like, you know, this joke is going to take a lot of work to write and Photoshop and whatever.
And I know that it's not going to do well.
You know, nobody's going to read it.
And that's what I was talking about earlier, like the joke that we have to be committed to, even though I know nobody's going to read it.
It's so much easier.
The algorithm kind of like pigeonholes you to go, we just have to make fun of Democrats because that's what's going to get people to click on our website and keep our lights on, you know, which sucks, which brings me to another point, which is like one of the fun things that we can do, even though we know like a lot of our headlines have to make fun of the other side, you know, to get the clicks or to get the following or whatever, is especially in longer form comedy like our videos, we can, and you have a good knack for this, Adam, when we're writing a sketch,
even if the sketch is completely making fun of Democrats or liberals, we can throw in jokes that surprise people that are making fun of the conservative audience watching it.
And I really like that when someone's watching, we did the one, we did one where we had an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dating game.
You know, and she's like talking to people and they're like, I disagree with you.
And she's like, oh, you want to date me?
And, you know, making fun of the way that she, that's her defense for everything is people want to date her.
But in the middle of it, you had that line about the like a Republican senator or something.
Yeah.
And he's like, I don't want to date you.
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Patcher number one.
Why do you want to date me so badly?
I told you, I am a married Republican senator.
I don't want to date any other woman besides my wife, my mistress, and my side piece.
My mistress and my side piece.
And my side piece.
You know, so you can make fun of immorality within the Republican Party.
And you know, a conservative is watching that going, yeah, get AOC.
You know, and then you're like, oh, oh, yeah, that's pretty good.
You're making fun of me too.
So their guard's kind of down, and you can make fun of, you know, people on our own side in that way, even if you're kind of pigeonholed with some of the algorithm stuff.
So I don't know if I'm still answering your question.
Well, and where the algorithm stuff bothers me a lot, especially coming from like the television world and stand-up world, apart from any sort of politics or cancel culture sensitivity, those algorithms are always driven by these like key words and key phrases and what's trending that day.
And it almost has nothing to do with whether the joke or the content is good.
It's like if you have, you know, a hot phrase like liberal destroys conservative or conservative destroys liberal or whatever the buzz topic is that day, that will get way more views than something that's a, you know, a joke that's more subtle.
Well, and conversely, the topics they don't want you to talk about, the algorithm immediately red flags.
And I'd say, I know I can't put the word, you know, vaccine in a headline or it's not going to do well.
You know, every post that we did this week on YouTube has like the election information warning on it.
If you mention the word election right now, YouTube is like, God is sovereign in election about election and it gets flagged.
That's funny.
You know, it's actually a good transition to the one, the one kind of serious question I want to ask, but it really is true.
I've experienced that on this little podcast that I do, which is, I'm like, why is I know that this is getting pushed down.
I know this isn't getting the reach it typically does.
I'll have like six comments, you know, and I'm like, all right, come on.
You know, like, you know what I mean?
Like my, my kid could post, you know, hi and get more comments than this.
You know, what is going on?
And it'll be because you said a word or something.
And it does kind of present a very kind of a false reality, as you said, to the world, because when you see something getting a whole lot of views, you go, oh, this must be what everybody thinks.
And then if something's not getting any views, you go, everybody disagrees with it.
So it kind of, it's a way to kind of create a false, a false world.
And all of a sudden, it begins to change the way you think about things, which is kind of what I was going to ask you guys when that serious, that all of a sudden what you do becomes very serious when you guys got taken off of Twitter.
Of course, that's changed now because of the new ownership and stuff.
But all of a sudden, that injects a very serious moment into Babylon B, the fact that you make your living online and now you don't have the access to do it and whatnot.
Yeah, yeah.
And we are still locked out of Twitter.
We're not really sure when that's going to come back.
Yeah, we are still locked out.
But, you know, fingers crossed, hopefully, that I'm sure everything takes time for all that stuff to change.
But, yeah, it's, you know, that's something where...
Do you think that they will, what do you think will take longer to get you back on to Twitter or to finish the vote count in Nevada or wherever that is?
Which one?
We're taking bids.
Taking bets, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, the Arizona vote count price still going on.
I don't know.
I think they finished the governor count.
You know, it's weird.
I voted and I turned in my ballot and I had to do the mail-in ballot this time.
But I turned it in on election day and they're like, okay, your vote will be counted within seven days.
And I'm like, what?
That is so weird.
It's right there.
And then that night on New York Times, like they already declared the winners of the races.
And I'm like, well, good thing I voted then.
Yeah.
Which is just crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
so we got we got locked out of twitter for our joke we were we called rachel levine who's a a man It's a man.
We called a man a man.
Right?
It's a man, baby.
I don't even remember, I guess, deputy secretary of health or something.
Admiral Rachel Levine, the assistant deputy secretary of health.
Yeah, so we did a joke.
USA Today named Rachel Levine one of their women of the year.
Yeah, so we said we gave Rachel Levine our Man of the Year award and we were locked out.
And it was so bizarre because the wording on the way that we were locked out was, you're not really banned.
You can come back at any time, but you have to click delete tweet and then acknowledge, read our hateful conduct policy, and then click the button saying, yes, I violated this policy.
And the policy is so broad.
It's like you called for violence against somebody.
You called somebody hateful slurs.
We just said man of the year, which is just a dumb little parody of what USA Today did.
So obviously we're talking about truth and humor and there was truth to it.
And obviously they objected to the truth we were pointing out.
At the same time, it was just a dumb joke.
Can we just tell a dumb joke like that?
And it's bizarre to me that that is the joke that got us banned.
Yeah, of all the things that we've said that we've said and all the things that are on Twitter.
Like people, people do the crassest jokes.
Stand-up comics do horrible jokes.
If you go look at any comedy special, it's like, oh, that's really gross and vile.
And then us, it's like, we tell this one joke and we get banned.
But that's crazy.
And I think it is important that Seth and Joel and everyone here, they were kind of on the same page that we were not going to delete it just to get back on.
That is a big source of revenue.
It's a big source of audience for us is getting stuff out on Twitter.
But like Kyle was saying, that thing where you have to delete it yourself, it is a thing.
They want you to bend the knee.
It's part of this culture war where they want you to say, I did something wrong.
We shouldn't have done that.
I apologize.
And, you know, it seems like a minor thing to some people.
Why don't you just delete it and get your account restored?
But I think it was an important stand for them to do that.
And we could have.
I mean, we could have rolled our eyes and just been like, whatever, you know, and I'm not going to act like we changed the world or anything.
But it was definitely like a moment where we said, okay, if we're going to die on any hill, it's a hill that you can call a biological male man and not be, and not even in a hateful way, not like we were like in Rachel Levine's replies, like, yeah, you're a horrible transgender person.
We hate you, blah, blah, blah.
And then whenever our account is restored, we're going to impersonate Elon Musk's account and get banned again.
Immediately change it.
Immediately change it.
Sounds like a great idea.
Yeah, I mean, it is a little bit serious, but I really do mean it.
And I just think it's a moment to, I don't know, to mention.
I mean, as you said, look, you guys are a satire site.
It's funny.
It's comedy.
What's the big deal?
Delete the pose.
I get it.
But the fact that you did it, because you're like, hey, we're not going to kind of bow down to somebody trying to force you to either say something that you don't believe or to not be able to speak what you believe.
I just think it's worth, honestly, I just think it's worth commending, especially at a time when I see so many churches who are unwilling to do the same, just unwilling to stand up for anything that's going to cause, I don't know, any sort of blowback in the least.
I mean, they will just run from it.
And I'm just trying to understand what kind of world we live in when churches won't stand up for the truth, but the Babylon B will stand ground.
It just, it's honestly blowing my mind.
But then I thought I would ask you, because you've been doing this a lot longer than I have.
Up until two or three years ago, I didn't even know there was the internet.
Okay.
Like, do you agree that as far as the church goes, the way the church has a voice?
Am I right?
In other words, has it changed or was it always like that?
And I just didn't know it.
Does that make sense?
Has what changed?
The church?
Yeah, has the church become more timid or was the church always timid and it just was never put to the test?
I think there was a, there was a tipping point with the wokeness thing.
And I don't know when it was, like four or five years ago, where it became kind of like, even I was a little bit like, okay, like, let's not freak out about the wokeness thing because it always felt like that was just a thing on college campuses and it wasn't going to escape into the real world.
You know, but like a zombie movie, like the virus actually got out, you know, and now those people are the people running HR departments and companies and the people that are going to seminaries and running seminaries and getting into churches.
So I think there was kind of a progression where you saw it was happening in the schools and there were some people sounding the alarms in the seminaries and the schools, but we weren't listening, you know?
And then that stuff kind of got out into the wider culture.
So you do see it.
I mean, there's tons, I mean, but there are, there are tons of faithful churches that are just doing nothing but preaching the gospel and not really worried about that stuff.
And that's great.
Obviously, those people are going to save Christianity in the West, you know?
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you think that you think that maybe there were people maybe saying it that they were in the university and saw it happening, but maybe the wider church or wider evangelicals were like, I think they're maybe overstating it a bit or something like that.
Yeah, or just you put your head in the sand.
I mean, you don't want to think it's going to be a big problem.
And you think we can just kind of mock that stuff and it'll go away, but it won't because those people that graduate college get hired into all these positions, whether that's at churches or seminaries.
Yeah.
I don't know as much of it, you know, from the sort of church and the different denomination aspects as maybe you do.
But I think what I have found just from talking to Christians personally, and for instance, I grew up in the evangelical Lutheran church, which then became much more left-leaning, kind of progressive.
You know, I think there's two factions in the church.
There are people out there who, you know, consider themselves Christian, who believe in Christ, but have this interpretation of the Bible that is very left-leaning.
And they do these sort of things, which I equate to like in the Bible, where it says they'll raise up teachers according to their own passions.
They basically believe, well, if God loves everyone, everything they want to do must be okay.
And it's the sort of divide between loving the sinner, but hate the sin.
They think, well, the sin, we can celebrate it.
And it's just part of who they are.
And we have to celebrate it.
And I think that's a very unbiblical sort of interpretation.
Now, I think where it also took root in the church, I think there's a lot of people out there who their theology is in the right place, but in an effort to be loving and compassionate, they kind of don't want to rock the boat.
They want to be like, well, we want to welcome these people.
We'll sort of back down on this argument.
We'll kind of just say, well, you know, they're welcome here.
But because that social movement in our culture pushes harder and harder, it's like you have to take a stand.
You can't just say, well, we're not going to comment on this or we'll just kind of take the passive route because then you just kind of get steamrolled by this in the culture, I think.
Yeah.
And it's, I mean, it is, it is kind of a cultish religion where they won't, you know, you see people apologizing or trying to appease, and that's not like that's not going to work with the woke crowd.
I mean, Elon Musk, when he bought Twitter, he's, he's, he was like immediately like, well, I'm going to be sensitive to these needs of the ad companies that are canceling because they want to be next to inappropriate content.
And he's like, I'm going to meet with all these groups, you know, to, I don't know, all these sensitivity groups and diversity groups.
And then like a day later, he tweets, well, there's no appeasing these people.
Yeah.
It's just like, yeah, you know, no matter what you do, they're going to, they're going to eat you alive.
I'm glad at least he saw that.
Wow.
Yeah.
What a strange time.
All right.
So what is next for Babylon B?
You got the new book out.
What else is up with you guys?
Yeah, we've got a lot of stuff going on.
Actually, today we launched, and I don't know when this is going up, but today we launched the Be Live ticket sales for our Be Live event.
We're doing kind of a little mini B convention, a Babylon B convention out in Dallas on February 24th.
So that's going to be a lot of fun.
That's our first live event.
We're going to have a live podcast recording and some addresses and discussion panels from the stage and then a hangout with cigars and non-alcoholic beverages, possibly.
So that'll be a lot of fun with the Babylon B crew on February 24th out in Dallas.
So that's going to be a lot of that's at BabylonBLive.com if people want to check that out.
What else we got coming up?
We've been growing the YouTube channel a ton.
So that's been one thing we focused on a lot this year was doing a lot more of our comedy sketches to kind of add to our articles.
So we've still got the articles and the headlines that people share.
And then we've got a lot of video sketches.
And we brought people like Adam on to help us write those scripts.
And we just passed a million subscribers on our main YouTube channel.
And then if any of your viewers are not subscribed, we also split off our podcast onto the Babylon Bee podcast channel.
So there's sort of two different destinations now, but it's all of our content.
Yeah.
And yeah, so check that out.
Awesome.
Yeah.
The YouTube video you guys did about deconstruction.
I don't know, it was a girl.
She was like, she's like, I deconstructed it and now, oh my gosh.
Everybody I know got that video from me.
It was like the funniest thing in the whole world.
Yeah, what was it she was talking about?
That was Chandler that did that one.
She was talking about the deconstructing her faith and how she has this totally unique story of leaving Christianity.
Was that the existence?
Evangelical.
Ex-evangelical.
Yeah, but it was just like everybody else's.
It was just like everybody else's.
Yes, yeah.
It was just so genius.
And then she's like, and now it's basically that.
And then also, you know, now, like, I've learned how to love everybody, you know, except for those terrible, you know, those terrible Christians.
You know, it was just so funny.
People really need to go see that.
Anyway, I appreciate you guys coming on.
I just wanted to talk with you because I've just enjoyed your post so much.
Sometimes things are so insane.
It's the only, the only funny, the only fun thing that happens in a day is to watch one of the posts come up on Babylon B.
And it's like letting a gas get off.
It's like a pressure release because you know that you're not.
It's like a fuzzy.
It's like a humongous fart.
Yes.
And then you know you're not crazy because someone else has noticed it too, you know?
Yeah, anyway.
Yeah, I appreciate it, guys.
And hope everybody had a great time watching this.
Go check out Bablumby's YouTube stuff and get the new book and all that sort of stuff.