Lucy Goosey and Dave Bell dissect reality TV's dark side, citing a 2019 Sun study linking 38 suicides to shows like Love Island, where contestant Sophie Graydon died after online harassment. They condemn the Jeremy Kyle Show for exploiting poverty, noting Erica Pawson's suicide after being told to leave her husband and Steve Diamond's death following a false lie detector test. While producers eventually added welfare teams, the hosts argue the industry monetizes suffering through toxic conflict grading, comparing the show's dystopian violence to The Running Man before ITV canceled it amidst public outcry. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trust Your Girlfriends00:03:19
This is an iHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say that: trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I got you.
I got you.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modern.
My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
He goes, just give it a shot.
But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of life.
Listen to Thanksgiving on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Grego Lesbi and Michael Mancini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trapped.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots five, City Hall building.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
Jeffrey Woods.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
They screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
A tragedy that's now forgotten.
And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh, yeah.
We're back.
Behind the bastards.
Behind the bastards, Lucy Goosey talking about reality TV week.
Dave.
Woo.
How you doing?
How you doing, Dave?
I'm well.
Guest.
Yeah, I'm David Bell, your guest.
Co-owner of the gamefully unemployed network.
That's also true.
Arch capitalist podcast entrepreneur David Bell.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I rule this city, you know?
You own an entire pair of pants, Dave.
An entire both pockets.
Not even leasing them anymore.
Paid off.
Yeah, I mean, listen, one of the pockets isn't in great shape, but you know, you know, these things happen.
It's your regular wear and tear on your pair of pants.
The Problem with Pockets00:02:27
How many pockets do you really need?
An honest man?
One.
One.
Any more than one pocket?
I don't trust that son of a bitch.
I don't trust anybody who's not holding everything they're doing.
Yeah.
That's why people wearing dresses are the only people you can trust.
Exactly.
Unless it's one of these like modern decadent dresses with pockets.
Right.
No pockets.
No pockets.
No hands.
I don't trust anybody with pockets.
Why would we?
Why would anyone trust anyway?
Dave.
I'm Dave.
How are you?
How are you doing here?
How are we feeling?
I'm pretty good.
You know, I'm, I mean, Okay, well, you know, what I'm learning about reality TV doesn't, it's not great, you know, I've lost a lot of faith.
I'm pretty sure I've lost several years of my life at this point.
Yeah, it's tragic.
You did have I Love Money 3's logo tattooed on your heart before that last episode, which is really.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll probably just turn it to like i Heart Honey.
Something like that, which is just as true.
It is true.
Yeah, and easy to do.
You know what, Sophie?
We didn't play it last time.
Would you pull up the intro to I Love Money 3?
I just kind of want to hear what that looks like.
I love it.
Yeah, let's do it.
Money 3.
We're just having a good time with the buds, talking about reality.
Watching intros to reality shows.
I'm super scared as to how bad it is.
It's going to be bad.
How could it be good?
Why would it be good?
I don't know.
What would be the last episode ended with a brutal murder, but this one is going to have a higher body count.
But first, let's watch the I Love Money 3 intro.
Let's see what was going on with this fucking show.
Do you know what it is, Robert?
Because this is 27 minutes.
Yeah, let's just play the whole thing.
There we go.
We'll just play the entire thing.
So I imagine it's not season three, right?
It's I Love Money Part 3.
Is it season 3 or is it 3?
Yeah, I Love Money 3 Revival.
No, it must be I Love Money 3.
We're learning a lot here.
Is it the squeakel?
There's so many things.
Why are there so many things?
I don't know.
I don't know if I could, I don't know.
It doesn't always matter.
Just find an episode.
Yeah, I think just any old episode will have the intro, right?
It'll be fine.
I feel like you chose the one that won't have it.
Watching I Love Money 300:16:15
Yeah, this is not.
You picked the wrong one.
This is like a fan-made montage, which I don't even want to think about that world.
I love the three.
Just find like an episode.
Episode four there.
Season four, episode four.
Yeah, that'll be fine.
I just want to see the intro.
There we go.
Yeah.
Beaches.
Hold on.
It is.
It is.
I'm going to turn the volume down because it's horrifying.
Okay.
Yeah.
Let's restart.
Okay.
All right.
We found it.
Here we go.
I'm so sorry, Liz.
I'll narrate it.
Beach bird just waiting.
It's remote tropical beach.
18 former celeb reality cast members are about to start the adventure of cheering on a boat, hugging on a beach.
It just so happens that they're not a bunch of white people riding a boat on television.
Looking at still white people riding a boat.
This chain is not for you.
Your tour ends here.
They may not have.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Was that Brett Michaels?
Yeah, that was Brett Michaels.
That was from the show we mentioned last episode where people are trying to marry Brett Michaels.
Yeah, I feel like he said Brett Michaels and your brain protected itself by erasing that memory.
I wish I didn't know.
Yeah.
Well, you do now.
Well, it's keeping him off the streets, right?
It is keeping him off the streets.
That is the number one goal of an ethical society.
Keep Brett Michaels off the streets.
Yeah.
So that seems fun.
That seems like a good show.
That was the season of the show that had the murderer on it.
So that's good.
So Dave.
I'm Dave.
Id Bell.
In 2019, The Sun, a British tabloid, conducted a study that found 38 suspected suicides, which had been linked to reality television since 1986.
Now, this is fun because like both, of course, you know, that's unsettling, but also probably not related to anything.
38 suicides in an industry with thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of contestants in like a 30-year period.
Not really a big deal.
That's actually surprisingly low.
It's really low, actually, if you really think about it.
But that's not how it's like marketed.
There's just all of these because the sun is a shitty tabloid, and then a bunch of other shitty tabloids and stuff like the Daily Mail put up articles being like 38 suicides linked to reality TV.
And it's like, yeah, in half a century.
Like, it's not really that big a deal, honestly, if you look at it.
But so, you know, there's probably more suicides linked to like stamp collecting.
Absolutely.
Oh, my God, Dave.
If you've ever been to a stamp convention, I mean, the biggest danger is that someone is going to shoot themselves and you'll be like, it's like a fucking typo-negative concert there.
Yeah.
It's pink.
Oh, that's a fun reference for three of the people listening, Dave.
So, you know, this study, quote-unquote, is not really evidence of an epidemic, but the study doesn't come out of nowhere.
It sparked, and again, the sun is really gross.
So, like, the thing that makes them conduct this shitty study is a series of terrible suicides that occur on a UK reality show called Love Island.
So, three contestants on the show killed themselves over a three-year period.
Since about a hundred people have been on the show, this means Love Island contestants have a suicide rate like three times as high as the rest of the UK.
Yeah, that's one a year for just one show.
So, that is worth looking into.
Yeah, I think the average for TV shows should be around zero.
Yeah, zero-ish.
Zero-ish.
Obviously, you can't always get your zero.
No, like that is.
Shears famously lost 11 norms in the first two seasons.
Oh, yeah.
They had to burn through norms.
They went through norms like nobody's business.
But yeah.
So, yeah, this is probably worth looking into.
So, let's look into it a bit.
Yeah, the UK Guardian describes the show thusly.
Love Island, a constructed reality TV show, thrusts a collection of 20-somethings into close quarters in a Majorca villa for about eight weeks.
During that time, the contestants are given the task of pairing up, going on staged dates, and strutting around in beachware.
Every week, the public vote on which couples they want to boot off, while opportunities to recouple also arise, which can lead to some animosity when contestants leave their lover for another islander right in front of them.
I feel like we should watch another intro here, Sophie.
Yeah, show us Love Island.
Yeah, that seems like something that would spawn something that could cause problems for people.
Yeah, or maybe the villa was haunted, but it's like the woman in black where they're compelled or something.
But it's probably the first thing where the reality TV show is bad.
There must have been like a found footage movie or something about a reality show that gets haunted by a ghost that makes everyone kill themselves, right?
That has to be.
Yeah, there has to be.
One of the foundations of found footage is finding a reason a bunch of people are filming.
So, yeah.
Fuck.
Ebbs.
Oh, he's a little bit of a shit.
Fuck Ebs diving in a pool.
Awesome.
Oh, yeah.
That's the good shit.
Was that a label bead?
Yeah.
Well, that was fine.
That was fine.
So, yeah, Love Island.
So, you know, one of the biggest stories about this show came in 2018 when it was announced that more people had applied to be on that year's season than had applied to either Oxford or Cambridge.
And again, this is like the same kind of people who like shared that terrible study by the stun.
Like, Sun, like, shared this as evidence of the decline of Western civilization.
Like, look at how horrible it is that, like, Love Island, more people are trying to get on this show than are trying to get into Oxford.
And it's like, number one, like, how many motherfuckers can actually go to Oxford as opposed to can hang out on a beach?
Like, yeah.
And number two, people used to die by drinking poop water because no.
It's just like, I'm a firm believer that time, we eventually, everything eventually gets better with time.
I'm not saying it's perfect.
Yeah.
It's not perfect.
There's a lot of problems, obviously.
It doesn't mean that there aren't problems and that people's problems don't matter.
But like, that whole idea of reality TV is like, ah, look, look at how everything's declined.
It's like, I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, if you want to look at Oxford and Cambridge, think about how many people who went on to commit genocide in like British colonies were Oxford and Cambridge graduates.
I'd rather have reality stars.
Reality TV show stars at this point have done less damage to society on a global level than graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.
Absolutely.
Like, that's well documented, you know?
It's also worth noting that like the applications thing is kind of like a little bit of a misnomer because only about half of the cast of Love Island are picked because they apply.
Most of them are, again, as we talked about earlier, head-hunted because they have thriving social media accounts.
Like they're already influencers.
Right.
And this is, I think a lot of reality has moved this way.
Why would you pick random people to be on your show in the hope that some of them will turn out to be stars instead of just like find people who already have like thriving fashion Instagrams or whatever and put on the show?
Honestly, that kind of bums me out because it was like you could always at least break into reality TV if you have some like cool maniac.
That was my plan.
I was going to date Flavor Flave.
Exactly.
We were all going to date Flavor Flave.
But now it's like even reality TV, you have to have a resume for.
It's heartbreaking.
Yeah, it's that idea of like to be an intern, you have to have like four years of experience already.
It's that.
It's for reality TV.
It's like, come on.
Come on, guys.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
That's pretty cool.
The first Love Island suicide was Sophie Graydon, aged 32.
She was a former beauty queen who had spent a lot of time raising money for kids with cancer.
She seems nice.
When she showed up on the show, her fan base exploded.
But a ton of people also got angry that she paired off with some guy they had a parasocial relationship with, right?
Like she starts, I think I'm not an expert on the show, but she starts dating a guy and fans of that guy within the community of Love Island fans starts harassing her.
Oh, it's great.
So Graydon said this in an interview with Radio Eerie.
I think it's like the Irish radio station.
Yeah, I think it's Radio Erie or Irie or whatever.
I don't know.
Look, I've been to Ireland a bunch.
It's hard to say things in Ireland.
I usually just nod and smile politely.
Quote, it was horrific.
And this is, again, Graydon talking about the harassment she gets when she dates this guy.
It was horrific.
I think when you get so many comments on the scale we did coming out of thousands of followers, sometimes I would look for it.
There would be so many negative comments.
They are commenting on the way you look, the way you talk.
They would come up with an opinion of you on a TV show where they've watched you for 45 minutes.
And yeah, like that is how the internet works.
Like if you've ever, I fucking, I posted a video of like my cat does this weird thing.
She was never weaned.
You know, Raja.
And she'll like, yeah, you've taken care of her for months.
I know exactly what you're about to talk about.
Yeah.
She'll stick her tongue out and she'll like flip it in the air.
And she likes to stand next to running faucets and just stare at them and do that with her tongue.
That's her hobby.
It's kind of her religion.
She looks like the pervert on the bus.
Yeah.
Like who's like just staring blankly and licking the air.
Yeah, my cat does a similar thing.
She sticks her.
Yeah, when I cat sat, I would have my cat drooling in my armpit and Raja sitting near my shoulder, licking near my shoulder.
She loves it.
You can hear it.
I know.
Yeah, like it's weird.
Yeah, and so I post a video of her doing this because it's cute.
And a bunch of people are like, this means your cat's dehydrated.
You gotta lie.
And like, like, suddenly like this flood of shit, which is not to like compare that to harassment, but it's like, it's overwhelming.
Like whenever a large group of people on the internet decide to all do the same thing.
And if that thing they decide to do is harass you, like it can destroy you.
It does destroy people.
Right.
Anytime I have a tweet that goes viral, it's just like tons of those, which I imagine is like the average experience for a woman on Twitter.
Yeah.
And I only get like a taste of it.
And when you get that taste, it's like, my, it's not even like harassing sometimes.
It's just like people correcting things or like saying the same joke back to you.
And it's just like, oh.
It all takes up a little bit of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's overwhelming.
And like the show, Love Island, to talk about like their culpability, they have to know this is going to happen to their hosts, like to their, to, I don't know what term they use, not hosts probably, but like contestants.
This happens.
We know this happens.
If you don't build a way into like take care of people and anticipate that they will be dealing with this, if you just leave them to like swing in the wind, it is partly your fault when bad things happen.
Right.
I know I said in the last episode that like it feels like people would get used to it over time reality TV, but this is a new component.
It's internet created cyberbullying, which you don't even have to be on a reality TV show to be affected by this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just like the worst version of the things that we all always deal with like versions of.
Everybody deals with little pieces of this.
Sophie gets on this show and deals with just a directed torrent of abuse.
Later the year, that year, like a few months after that interview she gave where she talks about how overwhelming it is, she hangs herself at her family home.
Her boyfriend finds the body.
He kills himself less than three weeks later.
It's a fucking rough story.
Now, the coroner, they find cocaine and alcohol in her system, and the coroner blames her suicide on that, which is probably why people don't ask coroners for opinions on things a lot.
I mean, why was she getting all fucked up?
Sure, yes, if somebody is doing a shitload of cocaine and drinking and then they kill themselves, the fact that they were inebriated, it's not unreasonable to say, well, perhaps that influenced it.
But like also, it's always more complicated than that.
Maybe they were needing to get fucked up because they had like they were traumatized by this like torrent of abuse, you know?
I'm not one of them fancy mind scientists.
No.
But like I imagine if you're contemplating suicide, you get fucked up first to carry it out.
Sure, that too.
Like that's part of it.
It's hard to like, it's that thing of like, I've never gotten, I've never done so much cocaine that I decided to hang myself.
No.
That has to be a decision that I've made before that.
Yeah, and maybe you do the cocaine because you just, again, we could talk about that.
Because you like cocaine.
But yeah, it's worth noting that like this has become a bit of a pattern for Love Island stars.
Less than a year after her suicide, contestant Mike Thalastitis, I think he's Greek, committed suicide in a similar situation after taking a lot of cocaine and alcohol.
Like Graydon, he had stuff going on in his life beyond the show.
I think his grandmother had just died.
He was sad for a number of reasons.
But also it's worth noting like, oh, well, maybe the fact that this is a party show about partying young people where everyone's drinking on screen and everybody's taking cocaine off screen.
Maybe this culture also does things that are unhealthy to people and put them in more vulnerable positions.
Yeah, combined with the internet shit.
Sure, exactly.
It's a perfect storm to take a young, impressionable person and you crank them through this machine and you can't do it.
Some of them will make it.
Yeah.
Some of them will not make it.
Critics attacked the series for not taking care of its contestants or providing any mental health care to deal with the strain.
Caroline Flack, who hosted the show, defended it to Cosmo in an interview.
Quote, it's dangerous, and I'm really, really angry.
It's not just that you're blaming a TV show.
You're blaming people in their jobs.
In life, we all have a duty to look out for each other, but I don't think it's fair to point fingers of blame.
So Carolyn says that attacking the show for having something to do with these suicides is really unfair.
As the host of the show is very vocal about that.
A year later, she's removed from her job hosting Love Island after she was accused of assaulting her boyfriend with a lamp.
She denied the charges and was gearing up to fight it in court when she committed suicide as well.
So that might, again, it's never just the show.
There's obviously different stuff going on with all these people.
But like this doesn't happen because the show's fine.
Do we know what the behind the scenes is here?
Not to a tremendous extent.
Yeah.
It's just wild that like I know I know plenty of sex workers.
I know people who worked for say kink.com.
Oh yeah.
And I'm sure in that industry, there's always scumbags.
There's always shitty things.
But a website like that, they are actually very careful behind the scenes because they know they have to be because they're dealing with something that, you know, could easily something bad could happen if they're not careful.
Yeah, you know you're playing with fire.
And like, obviously there's criticisms to make of like kink.com and stuff, but they had much more built in than you had in Love Island up to this point.
Right.
And that's, I guess that's what surprises me is that we watch reality TV because it's toxic.
Yeah.
And that's the fun of it.
So you would think that because of that, they would be extra careful.
Yeah.
And yeah, it's, it's, it's, I have friends who do heroin and they tend to make sure that like they've got a buddy to do heroin with who has Narcan, which I'm not endorsing doing heroin, but it's.
Toxic Reality TV Fun00:07:49
It's this thing you do.
You know, if in any other facet of life, if you know you're going to do something toxic, you like make sure you take some steps to like, I'm going to go out drinking.
It's bad for me.
I'm going to make sure I take a cab home.
But in general, like mitigate the damage.
Yeah.
If a specific industry is depicting something that's seen as dangerous or seen as wrong, whether or not it is, you would take steps about that.
And that's what's incredible to me about these reality TV shows is that they're more widely accepted than industries that are more careful.
Yeah.
And that is wild to me.
Yeah.
When I was buying random powdered drugs from dudes at parties, some of them would even bring their own testing kits.
And you could be like, oh, yeah, this is an actual, this is actually the drug I'm paying for.
Right.
You know, that's just good business.
That's just good business.
Let my drug dealer from 2007 run Love Island.
That's what I'm saying, Dave.
Well, yeah, because when a group of people are more scrutinized than they're just, or like they have a built-in scrutiny, like they're dealing drugs, like they know, like, okay, I have to be on my best damn behavior.
Yeah, but you got to be careful.
Yeah.
Not all drug dealers are as good.
No, some drug dealers are bad, but as a general rule, they are the most moral people in our society.
I think we can all agree on that.
It's like a mosh pit.
The reason mosh pits exist is because they kind of govern themselves, usually.
Yeah.
And so I guess what this all comes down to that's amazing to me is that they didn't think to do this for reality TV, especially something as toxic as this where it's like they should have people there specifically to work on the mental health of the people here.
It shouldn't take three suicides before the show is like, yeah, we should probably have somebody.
Yeah, that should have been their day.
Like we've been joking about like drug dealers and stuff, but this isn't in its own way as reckless as like, all right, well, we're going to have some guns on set for this gunfight scene.
Who's going to make sure the gun stuff's safe?
Well, how about Mitch?
He's watched a lot of movies.
Let's just have Mitch run it.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think it's big in the entertainment industry because I know, you know, people talk about people like Kubrick and like, you know, big artist directors who sacrifice the mental health of actors for art.
And it's like, yeah, it's weird that we're only now coming around to that, where it's like, you know, there should be someone on any set being in charge of this shit, especially reality TV.
It's just kind of wild.
It is.
It's very wild.
But you know, Dave, you know who does hold us accountable here at Behind the Bastards?
You're not going to say Jesus, are you?
You know, Dave, it is Jesus Christ.
And let me tell you, a lot of people are going to say this is a weird time for Robert to reveal that he's an evangelical Christian and that this whole show has been about trying to get you because you're Buddhist, Dave.
You're fallen.
Now, Dave, let me tell you that you're not fallen.
Let me tell you.
Where are you going with this?
I really don't know.
The funny, if I had spent more time studying, it would have been really funny if I started proselytizing to Dave and it would become obvious over the course of like 30 seconds that it's Zoroastrianism and that I've mixed that up with Christianity and I'm trying to get him like pilled on a hurra Mazda.
But I didn't prep.
I didn't prep.
You know, I'm sorry.
Robert, just go back to please.
Speaking of, I love war crimes.
Shit.
Shit.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.
Just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired, City Hall building.
A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach, murder at City Hall.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that, Jeffrey, what did I?
July 2003.
Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
Everybody in the chambers ducks.
A shocking public murder.
I screamed.
Get down, get down.
Those are shots.
Those are shots.
Get down.
A charismatic politician.
You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
I still have a weapon.
And I could shoot you.
And an outsider with a secret.
He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
That may or may not have been political.
That may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends...
Oh my god, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Laurie Siegel, and on Mostly Human, I go beyond the headlines with the people building our future.
This week, an interview with one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to products we put out in the world.
From power to parenthood.
Kids, teenagers, I think they will need a lot of guardrails around AI.
This is such a powerful and such a new thing.
From addiction to acceleration.
The world we live in is a competitive world, and I don't think that's going to stop, even if you did a lot of redistribution.
You know, we have a deep desire to excel and be competitive and gain status and be useful to others.
And it's a multiplayer game.
What does the man who has extraordinary influence over our lives have to say about the weight of that responsibility?
Mostly Human Responsibility00:11:02
Find out on Mostly Human.
My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh, we're back.
Oh, boy, what a great ad break.
So, Dave, after three suicides, the producers of Love Island decided we should make things less horrible.
And they put in a bunch of like safety measures and stuff.
Like, they actually do institute a bunch of different things to try and make the show less toxic to its cast.
Yeah, it's interesting because I found a Guardian article discussing the ways in which the producers have tried to make the show less toxic.
The attitude it takes is like this is all good and necessary, and also it's going to ruin the show.
So I'm going to read a quote from that article, Dave, which is a bit of a doozy.
The bikini-clad babes and shirtless hunks entering this year's villa will have undergone stringent checks to assess whether they are emotionally and mentally resilient enough to take part in the show.
While intergraphics aired on screen will remind viewers to think before they post about the stars on social media in the hope of discouraging trolling.
During filming, there will be a welfare team on set while contestants will also be offered comprehensive psychological support on exiting the villa, in addition to social media and financial management training.
It is laudable that Love Island bosses are seeking to improve the support packages they offer contestants on such a high-profile and profitable show.
But their efforts ignore one fundamental truth.
You can't make reality TV ethical and entertaining.
Trying to make Love Island responsibly is like enlisting PETA to run a bear pit.
They'll do it, but it will be a snooze fest.
Wow.
There's a lot going on there.
That's a lot.
First of all, the writer is like, I like a good bear pit.
God damn it.
Yeah.
Who wouldn't want to ruin bear fighting?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That is fucking wild.
It's something else.
Comparing it to a bear pit is very telling because it's like that says more about, yeah, the writer who's like, I want to see these young people fucking kill themselves.
God damn it.
I think they're ultimately being, I think ultimately their attitude is like, like bear pits, we don't need shows like this.
And maybe if the fact that performing them ruins them means that we shouldn't have them at all, but it is still a wild way to frame it.
Yeah, they're half right.
I think that reality TV needs to be, and I think is occasionally like wrestling.
I don't think it needs to be real.
Why would it be real?
It could be scripted.
Yeah.
There's no reason it can't be, unless it's like, you know, a great British bake-off.
Although, who knows what amount of cocaine they're doing on the set of that?
We don't know.
They could be doing all the cocaine.
But like, you know what I mean?
Where it's like, unless it's a very, very structured competition, then just script it.
Yeah.
Who gives a shit?
Script it and then also pay the screenwriter, the writer, whatever, the WGA.
Yeah.
Oh, wait, nope, nope.
That's that.
They're never going to do that.
No, I mean, not even Pro Wrestling really pays, you know, their contractors and shit.
So like, you know, they'll do all the things that everybody does to get around that shit, but at least script it.
At least take it.
Try, do a little bit, guys.
Come on.
Right.
And if people are like, oh, that ruins it.
Well, guess what?
They're not going to tell you.
Yeah.
Maybe they already do this.
Maybe they already do it.
And you don't know.
So Love Island, like a lot of similar shows, thrived by plying young hot people with alcohol and behind the scenes other drugs and smashing them together to create fights and drama they could then market to an audience.
When you do that to enough people, your show will wind up at least associated with some suicides.
Yeah.
And the author of this article is probably right.
If it weren't the kind of show that could have cast three, that could have three cast members commit suicide in like a two-year period, it would not be as popular as it has been.
The ugly reality is that people like nasty stuff.
And the best evidence in support of that is the last show we're going to talk about today, Dave.
I have a quick question, though.
Did Love Island, did the ratings drop off?
Oh, that's a good question, Dave, because this all happened pretty recently.
By the way, financial, you said a financial advisor?
Yeah.
I would do a reality TV show just to be paid in a financial advisor.
Like, I wouldn't even need money.
Just like a free person to tell me how to spend my money.
But yeah, I'm curious to know how it's doing now.
Anyway, you were introducing another show.
It doesn't seem like it did great in its last season finale.
The article I found from Rap Pro is not a ton of love for Love Island season finale.
Yeah.
I mean, if your core audience likes bullying people till they kill themselves, they're not going to like the cleaned up.
The show that no longer urges people to do that.
Yeah.
Dave, have you ever heard of the Jeremy Kyle show?
No.
Who is that?
Oh, boy.
Well, it's a British show, and it's an unscripted show.
And it's kind of like a hybrid of Jerry Springer and like Dr. Phil and kind of more like reality stuff like that.
There's a little bit of a game show element to it.
Here's how an article by The Guardian described it.
The Jeremy Kyle show ran for 3,320 episodes over 14 years on ITV and was at times the channel's most popular daytime show.
More than one million viewers regularly watched as its guests argued over paternity, addiction, deceit, and betrayal, while Kyle bait and roared in their faces.
ITV claimed that the purpose of the show was to provide conflict resolution for its guests.
So, we're well aware of the basics of this, but one of the things that makes it really more reality than anything is that, like, the core of the Jeremy Kyle show was lie detector tests, right?
Where people would come in being like, I'm not sure if my girlfriend's cheating on me.
I think my boyfriend's cheating on me, or I think like my son lied, or I think like my friend.
And they would go in and get a lie detector test.
Right, which of course is an exact science.
Yeah, we'll talk about how bad lie detectors are in a little bit.
But, like, so a big part of this is number one, lie detector tests are expensive.
In the UK, I think I heard was like 500 pounds for a test.
And so, a lot of people coming on were desperate because it's like, my girlfriend thinks I'm cheating.
And if I can't get a lie detector test, she's going to leave me.
And the Jeremy Kyle show will give me a free one if I agree to get on screen and let like the host of this show basically like mock me.
And so, Jeremy fucking Kyle is like the ultimate rich kid.
He goes to, I don't know if it's Eaton, he goes to one of these like fancy British boarding schools where he's literally in classes with a future prime minister.
Um, so he's like the upperest crust a kid can have.
He has deep connections in the British media, like that's how he gets this show.
Um, but the whole series is him sitting down with like poor people who are having like poor people problems and kind of snidely mocking them, um, and then giving them these lie detector tests that are to them the most important thing in the world because you know they're at risk of losing their spouse or whatever and turning that into content.
And then, if the test winds up showing that you know they've lied or whatever, he gets to yell at them and berate them.
This like rich upper crust dude attacking poor people in the worst moments in their life.
That's the whole Jeremy Kyle show.
So, he's just it's he's one of those people that makes you wish hell existed.
Yes, absolutely.
And we're gonna, I've just sent Sophie a video that is a lie detector, uh, like the results of a lie detector test.
And so, you can hear Jeremy Kyle as this whole situation happens.
It's it's gonna be a good time.
Spoil alert, punchable face.
Oh, yeah, of course.
How could he not have one?
No, oh man, and is this a hate watcher?
I assume people watch it.
No, well, I think it's like it's closer to Dr. Phil than anything.
Yikes, yeah, Mark's on the Jeremy Kyle show.
Give him a girl.
Um, has my fiancé cheated because she doesn't find me attractive?
Yeah, um, oh, I've had um problems for a long time.
Uh, the way I look, things like that, I've never like looked in mirrors, stuff like that.
You say that she would, when she met you, you're a gacious woman, being with five years.
You say, This all started because when I met her, she would try and change me, she tried to style me.
It got to a point where I just thought, right, you'll have me out how you want it, you dress me how you want me, and she had gone streets putting your gun off.
And she dressed made the way she wanted, and it's the one good enough.
So, not only does she make you feel inadequate because she tries to change you, she tells you you're not good enough.
This is important as well.
People around have told you that she's a cheat.
Yeah, what have they?
They told you, BT getting in and out of cars.
And if I go to look at a phone, I'll play a game on a phone and she'll grab it straight away.
No, it's not fair.
How many people watch the Jeremy Carl show, either here or at home, actually do cheat?
Look at his body language.
You can't trust somebody, is there?
He is.
Yeah, he's so grossed out to be sitting with a poor.
Yes.
Yes.
It's like he's sitting with a monster.
You already love this woman, don't you?
Five years, you say I want to marry her.
She says, you know what, pal?
This is in your head.
This is nothing to do with me.
Just because I look at men doesn't mean I'm going to do anything.
It's just a human reaction.
What happens if she passes this?
This is in your head, right?
Apologizing.
Others are going after.
But what if she's a liar?
Are you gone?
I've got no cats here.
I can't.
Grow up hair, my friend.
Grow up.
Oh, you piece of shit.
Look how he rose up in that chair like a singer.
Like, if I saw someone stand like that in the wild, I would want to hit him.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't think we need to go through all of this.
I don't care if this lady passes her fail.
Because, like, number one, like, that's not certainly whether or not cheating should be just the cause to end a relationship is not a thing to be decided on live reality television.
Right.
None of that.
But also, like, they're desperate.
You know, they're poor.
They can't afford the lie detector test.
They have been lied to by media to believe that a lie detector test is the end-all-be-all.
It's also just none of our business.
It'd be one thing.
I think if she was running an underground bear fight.
Is She a Liar00:02:03
Yeah, that's a good show.
Yeah, I'd be like, I want to know if she's doing that.
But if she's cheating on some guy, I don't know these fucking people.
They're not my friends.
It's because you see, and they like, obviously, some of these end in fights.
They end with people weeping on stage.
Jeremy Kyle gets to like yell at folks and call them scum and say like, you need to, you know, grow, grow up here.
You need to accept reality.
He gets to like, he gets to do like Dr. Laura stuff.
If anyone remembers Dr. Laura, there's a bit of that in Jeremy Kyle.
Part of why I'm not doing dedicating like a whole, you could do, there's a great documentary.
I think it's a BBC documentary out about the Jeremy Kyle show because of the things that we're about to talk about.
More could be done and said, and I hope someone else with a podcast does a good three hours on it.
I'm not in part because a lot of why it's so fucked up has to do with like very class issues in UK society, right?
Right.
Yes.
He's also not terribly impressive.
Like he doesn't look like necessarily a sociopath.
He doesn't look like an evil genius.
He just looks like an asshole.
Like just a rich asshole.
He's a side part.
Like who gives a fuck about it?
He's a side part motherfucker.
That's what he is.
He is one of a long line of British aristocrats mining the poor in order to make themselves comfortable.
He's just doing it in a way that's very directed on TV.
Yeah.
So that's cool.
Like, yeah, he's a lucky wiener.
You know, like, there's nothing special about him.
He would have been somebody else if he didn't do this.
But you know what is special, Dave?
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is special.
In that, I don't know.
You keep pivoting to this, Dave.
And I'm not as good at yes-and-ing, so I don't know where to take this.
You know who's bigger than Jesus, Dave?
Who?
The products and services that support this podcast.
All worshipped by more humans around the world than Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
A Lucky Wiener Story00:04:05
Yeah, that's true.
They could easily take Jesus.
And you know what?
Jesus rose from the dead based off a ghost.
Is there something there?
I don't know.
You know?
I mean, there's only one way to find out.
Only one way to find out.
Listen.
Listen, motherfuckers.
Yeah.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired in the City Hall building.
A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach, murder at City Hall.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
Jeffrey Hood did it.
July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
Everybody in the chamber's ducks.
A shocking public murder.
They scream, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
Those are shots.
Get down.
A charismatic politician.
You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
I still have a weapon.
And I could shoot you.
And an outsider with a secret.
He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
That may or may not have been political.
That may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one: never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
Dystopian Villain Jeremy Kyle00:14:54
And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
He related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Mary, stay with me each night, each morning.
Say you love me.
You know I.
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we're back.
So in 2005, the Pawsons, Paul and Erica Pawson, were having marriage trouble.
Paul had cheated on his wife, and he hoped that going on the show would help them to fix things, which does suggest that Paul's not great at decision-making.
So, you know, this is maybe some people who are not great at relationship conflict resolution as it is, and they decide to go on the Jeremy Kyle show to deal with this problem.
Jeremy Kyle goes out of his way to turn these two even more against each other.
He asks Erica on stage if she wants Paul to leave her.
She says yes, and so Paul leaves her.
Days later, she commits suicide.
The show never airs, which is evidence that the producers felt they may have had some complicity in what happened.
The Guardian continues, quote, guests appeared on the Jeremy Kyle show out of desperation because of some conflict in their private life that they were trying to resolve.
And the program took advantage of that.
Our documentary shows the case of a woman whose doctor was a heroin addict in a very, very ill state.
The family couldn't afford rehab, so they went on the show because when it did items about drug addicts, it would offer rehab.
They claim that they were told that they were in a competition to win the rehab, and that as there were other guests with drug addictions, the family that most needed it would get it.
They say that they were wound up by the production team to heighten the drama of the conflict on stage and that it was a lie.
They were always going to get offered rehab.
Jesus Christ.
Isn't that fucked up?
So wait, wait, wait.
They were always going to get rehab no matter what.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For going on the show, they were going to get sent to rehab.
Okay, well, that's better than what they say to the public.
But they still told them that they have to compete for rehab.
The guests did not know they were getting rehab anyway.
So they were set to pit each other against each other.
Right, and I'm sure that the producers are like, oh, they'll be happy at the end because everybody gets rehab.
No.
So it's okay.
It's actually worse than if you'd given only one of them rehab.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty bad.
I mean, it's both.
I don't know what the, like, I guess the right answer is to just give them rehab and like just give people rehab is the right answer to the extent that it works.
Yeah, the right answer is to.
Just like run an episode of Sherlock where the show would go.
And that's what you do.
The moral answer is to provide people with options for drug addiction treatment that are not reliant upon them showing up on TV and embarrassing themselves.
Right.
Like that is the actual solution here.
Yeah, to have a government that just does that so a reality TV show doesn't prey on people who desperately need this stuff.
Yeah.
Yes, that is it.
That is the option.
And to have, again, a government bureau of people in suits who walk around.
And when someone's like, I want to make a reality show where desperate people suffering drug addiction have to compete in order to get treatment, a man shows up at their door and hits them once in the jaw.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then in America, there needs to be a bureau that makes sure everybody goes to jail, at least for one day.
For one day because of that show.
For that show, for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we're cooking here.
And then finally, one that talks about the power of Jesus Christ to everybody.
Absolutely.
Yes, of course.
Yes.
The power of Jesus Christ to sell Casper mattresses.
Right.
With promo code, he has risen.
You can get a Casper mattress that you'll want to sleep on for three days.
That's beautiful.
Yeah.
And you have Jesus coming off of the mattress.
You do a bit where after three days they're like, why hasn't he come out?
And it's like, because he has a because he's got a sleeping in there.
So he's having a good time.
Yeah.
God damn.
We should make ads.
Come on, I don't think we've ever gotten money from.
Oh, you will now.
We will now.
It'll come rolling in now.
Yeah.
Better than religion.
So, ITV claims that they do not accept the central allegation that there was a bad culture within the production team.
They issued a statement saying they would never condone any of its production staff misleading or lying to guests.
But the documentary showed guests being put into separate rooms while production staff would go back and forth saying, Oh, we've just talked about to this person in the other room and they said this about you.
And then they go to the next person and say, Well, well, they said this about you.
Like, they were trying to get people to fight on stage, and this is how they would do it.
Right.
Yeah.
The Guardian continues.
The whistleblowers of this documentary told us that after filming, the shows were graded with the top grade given to the show with the most conflict.
Junior members of the staff say that the pressure on them to continually deliver guests who would argue dramatically on stage led to them being lax with the details they filed on a contributor welfare checklist.
They were pushed into a place where they didn't think about the interests of the guests properly, and now they carry a terrible guilt.
Many ex-employees are still too scared to speak about it.
Yep.
Yeah.
It's how it sounds like Hollywood, baby.
Yeah, well, it sounds like, yeah.
I mean, it also sounds like how the internet works now, too.
It's like, I know someone who worked for a certain website that, and it's not something we worked for.
I'm not being like coy for that reason.
A certain website that isn't around anymore that would like post everybody's like page counts at the beginning of the day.
And that was the most important thing.
Clicks, clicks, clicks.
Yep, yep, yep.
And it's that thing of like, if you prioritize that over, you know, basic human decency, you know, like, oh, who can give us the loudest, biggest, angriest show?
Well, yeah, it's going to be bad.
It's there, things are going to happen.
They're going to get lawsuits.
People are going to hurt themselves.
It's just.
Yeah.
It's awful.
It's not, you know, it's not good, Dave.
I'll say that much.
No, it's, it's definitely, yeah, I think, I think we can agree that it's not good.
Yeah, yeah.
So obviously.
It's frustrating.
Most of what was on the Jeremy Kyle show was not new.
The way they used lie detectors was, right?
That was really the big thing that they innovated on.
Like a lot of this, the Dr. Phil show made most of their money on people with addiction who they would like send to rehab, but first they have to turn their pain into content, right?
That part is not new.
But the whole like plying people to with like promises of a free lie detector test in order to monetize their pain, that's pretty new.
And Jeremy Kyle made millions doing this.
It's the extra fact that it's people who can't afford things.
Yeah.
It's like if they made a show called Who Wants to Have Healthcare?
Yeah.
Who Wants to Get Surgery.
Oh, you're talking about the opening show for Fox next season.
Yeah.
Who Wants to Not Die of Cancer?
I feel like I just gave some executive a boner.
Yeah, it's not.
Yeah, the guy from episode one just ejaculated spontaneously while he was standing in a meeting, pitching a show where poor people are eaten by bears.
Yeah.
That actually, I would watch a show where people get eaten by bears.
As long as there are people of no, if it's a wide segment of socioeconomic classes getting eaten by bears, that's fine.
A billionaire and a poor person both getting eaten by a bear?
Sure, that's just good TV, you know?
That is, yeah.
That's just good TV.
Absolutely.
Do they get eaten or do they get to fight the bear?
They get to try.
They get to try.
Here's the thing is, I don't want to see a bear get hurt.
It's okay.
We'll make sure they're polar bears.
Okay, so it's like we tell them, oh, yeah, you could totally fight this bear.
But then they can't.
And then the twist in the show, just in case they're like in super good shape or something, is right before the bear gets let out, we hit him in the knee with like an iron bar and then run off.
Yeah.
So they're, you know, it's just watching people get eaten by bears.
Yeah, I feel like you'd only get one season because after for season two, people would be like, no, I've seen the show.
I'm not going to go on.
And we'll be like, we swear you could take the bear.
And they're like, no, I know I can't.
You're going to hit me in the knee.
I think season two would be who wants to fight a bear, but this time we promise we don't hit you in the knee and we give you a gun.
But then it turns out the gun is like a reverse taser.
So when they try to shoot the bear, it electrocutes them and then the bear eats them still.
That's pretty great.
Yeah.
We should talk about another person who got killed by the Jeremy Kyle show.
So in 2019, Steve Diamond was a guest on the show, and he's like in his 60s.
Both he and his partner are like older folks.
She suspected him of cheating, and he agreed to take a lie detector test on camera to prove to his partner that he had not been unfaithful.
The Jeremy Kyle show, you know, was very happy to do this.
So they all go on stage and they take the tests.
And the test shows that he's been cheating on his partner.
Now, later research would show that lie detector tests on the show were at best 70% accurate.
And lie detectors do not detect lying.
They detect a number of physiological symptoms that some people say are associated with lying.
Right.
Or it could be, I don't know, someone who's nervous.
Nervous.
And their whole relationship's on the line.
And like, some rich fucker is making fun of them in front of millions of people.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
So Steve Diamond, who is adamant that he had not cheated on this woman, who he loved and was like his entire life was bound up in this person he had been in this years-long relationship with.
They are not young people.
They've been together a long time.
She believes he's cheated on him.
He goes on the show to prove that he's been faithful.
And the lie detector says that he's lying.
And this is like his family and friends say that he likes Shaw, saw the show as a savior.
The documentary, one of the rough parts of the documentary, is it has a bunch of audio from phone calls he'd made to his partner talking about how like once the show was over, like everything would be fine and they'd be able to get back together.
Like it would be, this was going to solve everything.
So the Jeremy Kyle show says this guy is lying and he kills himself several days later.
And once again, the show has never aired.
ITV actually cancels the Jeremy Kyle show soon after.
Oh, thank you.
I was going to ask, is this show still around?
Because that is, I would argue, a form of murder.
Yeah, it kind of like...
Yeah, they just murdered that man.
It does seem a little bit murdery.
Lie detector on framed him.
I mean, I don't know.
It sounds like we don't know if he's unfaithful or not, but it doesn't matter.
They've framed him as unfaithful through a shitty lie detector test.
He clearly seems like he's innocent.
That's, yeah, that's a good old-fashioned mistake.
So that's good, Dave.
That's good.
Oh, hey, what's this?
I just found an article from last September from the Manchester Evening News.
I'm just going to read from this random article in the Manchester Evening News day.
Yeah, I do that too.
From last September.
Sure, it's just a normal thing.
Jeremy Kyle has announced his comeback after naming which ITV stars reached out after his daytime show was axed.
The TV presenter has broken his two and a half year silence after his program was canceled.
The 56-year-old said he will fight back after announcing his return to broadcasting on talk radio.
Kyle will host a weekday show from September 13th through 4 to 7 p.m.
A promotional video on social media said, after two long years of chaos and division, one man is needed to make sense of it all.
In an interview shared by the station, Kyle suggested he had been labeled by society as he set out his plans for his new show.
He said, in a democracy, you should be able to ask and say what you want.
If you don't like the response, you don't throw your toys out of the pram.
That's what I said.
Listen, I have been canceled.
In this world, it seems now that unless you follow a certain path, you are labeled.
You have to fight back.
Speaking of fighting back, a new show idea.
This guy.
He's fighting a bear.
Fighting a bear.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And we hit him in the knee first, too.
Fuck him.
What's really upsetting is that I now know that there were 17 seasons of this show and 3,320 episodes.
Too many episodes.
Also, one of the first people to reach out to him supporting him was Piers Morgan, which should not be surprising to anybody.
Not to a single soul.
Yeah, this is dystopian.
This is straight up a dystopian situation.
Do you remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie?
Is it The Running Man?
Where it's a reality show, basically, and they're a reality game show that like, and it's this dystopian government that murders protesters and yada yada yada.
Every show in The Running Man is less dystopian than this.
Like every ad they have for a fake show, all of it way less fucked up than this.
Because everybody sort of knows what The Running Man is.
They don't know they're executing the winners and stuff, but they know everyone else dies.
Yeah, exactly.
And like everyone who shows up knows they'll probably die.
And as opposed to, I guess I can't afford a lie detector test, which I have been lied to by a lot of media into believing is like the end-all-be-all of truth.
And so my only option to save my relationship is to go on the Jeremy Kyle show.
Whoops.
Now my life is ruined.
It's sanitized horror.
Yeah.
It's kind of like how a lot of things happen with our rating system and stuff, where it's like, you can show any old fucked up thing, just no blood.
It's that same idea, which is what they're doing is absolutely ghoulish.
It's horrifying.
It's evil.
Yeah.
But it's wrapped around this more sanitized version that they can step back and go, well, it wasn't the culture of our show.
You know, we have no control about what people do.
And it just makes me want to burn it all down.
I'll say it right now.
There's a lot of terrorists who I won't defend, but I have more respect for than Jeremy Kyle.
Because at least, like, you know, they're putting some skin in the game.
Jeremy Kyle is just hurting people to make money for nothing.
Yeah.
Again, dystopian villain.
He is the host of The Running Man.
Yeah.
Essentially.
It is.
God.
That's what.
Arnold, look, I know you're having a bit of a renaissance because you've made a couple of good videos when bad things have happened.
Go murder Jeremy Kyle like you did that guy in The Running Man.
And that's a third act.
Right.
Or at least like slap him in the tank as hard as you can.
If Arnold can live.
If you don't want to murder someone because you're a celebrity, just slap, slap, tap, tap him in the tank.
Choke him out so he poops his pants like Stephen Seagal that one time.
And we promise to forget that you were governor of California.
Right.
Go Murder Jeremy Kyle00:08:40
That's a pinky swear, Arnold.
We've already almost forgotten that.
Honestly, we thought.
He posted a couple TikToks with his donkeys that live at his house.
And we're like, well, I guess I'm not going to think about what he did for the oil and gases.
You're like, that guy, the cute donkey guy.
Oh, the cute donkey guy.
Look, he's nice with his illegitimate sum that he hid with his maid.
There's a lot of uncomfortable dimensions to that we don't really think about anymore because he did make a pretty good video where he yelled at Nazis.
Arnold's family.
Boy, the bar is low.
Boy, the bar is low.
He's relatively fine.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, compared to all the war criminals in politics, not that bad.
Not that bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, even better if he slaps this guy in the tank.
Slap him in the tank, Arnold.
Come on, buddy.
Yeah.
You know what?
Hold him upside down and separate his legs and slap karate chop him in the tank.
You fuck this guy up, Arnold, and we will all agree to give you four more years of being an action star.
And we just won't, we won't say that, like, oh, buddy, you are just an old man now.
And we don't really need to see you hitting people.
That doesn't look great anymore.
No.
We'll all agree to pretend.
We'll go watch the movies.
You fuck up Jeremy Kyle Arnold and we'll get your back on this one.
Don't worry, buddy.
Same offer for Harrison Ford.
Absolutely.
Even though, I mean, he's just doing old proman action, whether we like it or not.
But like, again, I'd love to see him karate chop this guy in the team.
Dave, there was a beautiful moment on one of your podcasts recently where you and I think our old boss Jason Parjan were talking about the most recent Indiana Jones movie, not the one that's about to come out, but the one with Shia LaBeouf.
Oh, yeah.
And we're like, yeah, seeing Harrison Ford like fall onto car windshields and stuff as an old man, it doesn't look as cool.
And I have a bit of a bone to pick because after he made that movie, he survived like three plane crashes.
I do feel like he's actually durable enough for that.
He is a sky hazard.
Yes.
That's true.
He's a durable old guy.
But it's still, yeah, there's a new level of tension.
It's like watching The Undertaker wrestle now, where he's like still around.
Oh, I mean, as of a few years ago, yeah, those old fuckers are still around, and you watch them wrestle, and it's a whole new dimension of horror where you're like, no, your knees, no.
Oh, God.
Like, please don't do that.
You're back.
You're fucking up your back.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's going to do it for us this week.
A little bit of a loosey-goosey week we got for you, but what do you want?
What do you want?
I don't know.
I want power.
I do want power, Dave.
Yeah.
The sweet, sweet power that you can only get from a full night's sleep on a Casper mattress.
Casper mattress, again, we rob the graves of Egyptian peasants to steal the softest Lennings.
And literally make you Jesus Christ.
And we literally make you Jesus Christ.
How's this feel as an ongoing joke, Sophie?
You like this better than the child hunting island?
I mean, Kyle.
I mean, it kind of feels like you're more pro, and then I don't have to bleep it.
Yeah.
Well, right.
Okay.
I know that upsets you because I stopped marking it.
I was like, oh, no, you're actually like selling the shit.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Like, we should make ads for Casper Master.
Yeah, I feel like we're going to get a call any day now.
They're better than Jesus Christ.
Yeah, I mean, like, you're the one religion.
Selling it.
Well, I guess that's my other plan was to start giving random sponsors credit for ancient war crimes, you know?
Yeah.
Like, oh, gosh.
Single-handedly responsible for the siege of Baghdad of 1258, in which the city was burned and the fat of its burning citizens rolled through the streets like a torrent of rain.
That's wiped out Baghdad.
I have to believe.
And I believe that.
I have to bleep that because they did, in fact, actually try to buy ad space in our show.
Right, and also they did do that thing that they did.
They were responsible for destroying the city of Baghdad in 1258.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's tough.
That's tough.
What else?
What can you do?
You got to bleep it, I guess.
You got to bleep it.
Dave, you got to plug anything?
Hold on.
I have a Twitter at Movie Hooligan if people want to follow me.
I have a podcast network with Tom Ryman, Gamefully Unemployed.
If you go to patreon.com slash gamefully unemployed for $5 a month, we have a bunch of exclusive podcasts on there.
We also watch movies every Friday night with our patrons.
We also just have like free shit.
If you just Google Gamefully Unemployed, wherever you get your podcasts, you can see all that.
It's mostly movie stuff.
In fact, it's exclusively movie stuff.
We do movie reviews.
We just did, depending on when this came out, the Ben Affleck film, Deep Water, Erotic Thriller.
Everybody go see it.
Or don't.
So I guess I also want to plug deep water with Ben Affleck.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
It's mostly him killing himbos.
So everybody can get behind that.
Yeah.
Who doesn't support killing a himbo now and again?
I thought you were going to bring up Ben Affleck's back tattoo, which is one of your favorite things to do, Robert.
Oh, yeah.
We all love his back tattoo.
Oh, my God.
I mean, I would say that, but I have a lot of writing to do.
I just can't, I just can't, you know, immediately start masturbating after this call, which is what I do whenever I think about Ben Affleck's back feet.
You should do a behind-the-back tattoo.
Behind-the-back tattoos.
Yeah.
It's just going to be me being incredibly horny about Ben Affleck's perfect back tattoo.
I thoroughly regret bringing it up.
That was my goal.
So that was my goal.
And end of podcast.
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