All Episodes
April 28, 2023 - The Culture War - Tim Pool
02:02:59
The Culture War #10 - GPrime85 Discusses Anime And His new Comic With Razorfist

Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnews Podcast Channel - https://www.youtube.com/TimcastIRL Merch - http://teespring.com/timcast Make sure to subscribe for more travel, news, opinion, and documentary with Tim Pool everyday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Participants
Main voices
g
george alexopoulos
55:06
t
tim pool
01:05:21
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Oh Are we recording?
tim pool
Oh Oh, I didn't notice because I was too busy enjoying this Jeremy's Chocolate She-Her candy bar with only four ingredients and 260 calories per bar.
It's actually some of the best chocolate I've ever had.
Would you like some?
unidentified
Yes, Tim Poole, I would love some.
It's gone.
tim pool
They are not paying me to do that.
You just let it go.
We're hanging out with George Alexopoulos.
He's an artist.
george alexopoulos
Allegedly, yeah.
tim pool
You wanna pull that mic in a little bit?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
You know what?
tim pool
Now I have to finish eating this chocolate before we can start.
george alexopoulos
As you're talking, I'll...
tim pool
How are you?
unidentified
What are you doing?
george alexopoulos
Oh, did we cancel the, we're starting over?
tim pool
No, this is it.
george alexopoulos
Oh, this is so professional.
Hi, I'm George.
I'm also G prime on Twitter and Instagram.
And I draw things sometimes for money.
tim pool
This guy's expecting like a serious, hello and welcome to the culture war.
george alexopoulos
Charlie.
tim pool
I am Tim pool.
george alexopoulos
I've seen your show.
It's good.
I like the informality.
I prefer it.
tim pool
Oh, this, this show.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
So G Prime 85, we got pictures of yours on the wall.
We should probably do updated ones.
But the Joe Biden electrocuting and massacring 200 million people is a personal favorite of mine.
george alexopoulos
Classic.
tim pool
Yeah, it's a good one.
And then we do have the other one, I think it's upstairs, where it's Trump being lowered into the giant bodysuit.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
Which is also very fantastic.
But yeah, you've been making this political art.
And you recently launched a... What platform are you using?
GiveZen Go?
george alexopoulos
Indiegogo.
tim pool
Indiegogo.
And you made the... What's the word?
Moronic.
Mistake of using Patreon.
george alexopoulos
We knew that they were going to cancel me at some point.
I guess I'll start with one at a time just to clarify.
The Indiegogo is not mine technically.
I'm running the campaign.
But the actual book is by a gentleman named Razorfist on YouTube.
tim pool
Oh yeah, right on.
george alexopoulos
It's written by him.
He's the, you know, creator.
He owns the thing.
I'm just illustrating it and running the campaign because I've run other campaigns on Indiegogo.
tim pool
So you're making Razorfist rich.
unidentified
Well, I won't talk about the actual date.
tim pool
I apologize.
george alexopoulos
We're both very pleased with the deal and I can't wait to make the book.
So I'll be printing and we'll be doing fulfillment.
I'll be doing a fulfillment from my headquarters.
tim pool
So I think the importance of the work you do, especially you have like a kid's book chilling right here, is you make art.
Art is culture.
And you're actually one of the most successful, whether you want to be or not, I suppose, culture warrior artists.
Having made a whole bunch of political cartoons that went viral, my personal favorite actually is the Freedom Trucker flying into the World Trade Center.
The KKK trucks?
Yeah, from the Canadian trucker protest.
And you've also got your own art series.
But yeah, you've been making edgy, I guess, what would you call it?
It's called political commentary, political cartoons.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, I mean, Twitter, for better for worse, is the newspapers now.
Newspapers have been falling away for a long time.
So where is everybody?
In the morning, I'm having my coffee, I'm taking my poop, I'm going through Twitter, and everybody's doing that.
It's the newspaper of today.
So I'm just a cartoonist who happens to throw self-published things on Twitter, and enough people shared it around that I accidentally grew a lot of followers.
It wasn't intentional.
tim pool
Well, but it's funny stuff, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I mean... Like that Joe Biden quote about, what did he say?
george alexopoulos
200 million.
tim pool
It is estimated that 200 million people will die by the time I finish this talk.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And then it's him firing lightning bolts from his hands and just vaporizing people.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, Palpatine style.
tim pool
Palpatine style, because he actually said that.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
unidentified
That's the thing is a lot of the better comics... That time is now!
george alexopoulos
The more quote viral strips that ended up getting shared around the most was me taking a direct quote from some fool and just illustrating literally what they said.
tim pool
When they were saying that the trucker protest was a bunch of like terrorists, you made a picture of a semi flying through the air into the wheelchair.
The conservatives thought it was actual liberal cartoons.
unidentified
Right, right.
george alexopoulos
I wanted to do something that's like, I follow some like New York Times and Toronto, whatever, Toronto butts, uh, newspaper artists.
And I'm like, what would they have drawn if they were paid?
And they're so lame.
And like, I, I, I like the New Yorker a lot, but lately they're very propagandistic and stuff.
So when I see their cartoons, I'm like, Oh, I'm rolling my eyes.
It's like NPR.
It's so low and the left used to be sharp.
And it's like, what would you... What does the tower say?
tim pool
It says like society and like... Society and free speech or something.
george alexopoulos
It's the truck.
No, the truck says free speech.
It's flying into values or something.
tim pool
Society and something else.
Democracy maybe.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
It was in such poor taste.
And I was dying laughing in the shower that morning.
I could not wait to draw it.
And then the left was sharing it around like they thought they knew what it meant, the KKK trucks, and they still, no.
tim pool
But conservatives thought it was an actual liberal cartoon, too.
george alexopoulos
Oh, thank God.
And it was perfect.
And I was biting my tongue trying to like, don't clarify, don't explain any of it.
Did George go to the left?
Yes.
Yes, I am.
tim pool
I think a lot of people just didn't know who you were.
They saw the comic and they were just like, oh, I can't believe it.
And then the trucks with Klan hoods on them.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
The perfect move there would be to actually submit that to the New Yorker and get it in the magazine under a pseudonym.
I want to become, maybe I am actually, already a cartoonist for the New Yorker or the New York Times, and I'm intentionally drawing bad cartoons to subvert Yeah, you've had several banned from Instagram too, right?
Yes.
tim pool
Oh, man.
george alexopoulos
I had a cartoon banned from Etsy, actually, where I sell my books.
There was this FBI guy trying to infiltrate the alt-right or something, so he's wearing A Confederate flag, and he's like, how do you do fellow Trump supporters?
Boy, I love guns, right?
And people are just like, who's that?
Can I say the R word?
Who's that?
Dorcas.
tim pool
Dorcas.
george alexopoulos
Right.
And then he's like typing on a typewriter, dear director, I've successfully infiltrated the far right.
And Etsy pulled that comic.
Nobody can buy it anymore because it had a Confederate flag in it.
unidentified
Wow.
george alexopoulos
And they said you can't have anything depicting hate symbols on our website.
tim pool
I just saw the, uh, I'm on your Instagram.
So I'm looking for the trucks one.
And it's the, the, it's the comic where the guy says, what's up my groomer.
And he says, hold on, comrade.
It's problematic to use the hard R words like that.
And the kid's got monkey pox on his mouth.
Do you know how much trouble Twitter suspended you?
george alexopoulos
They, yeah, I think no Twitter.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
Twitter gave me a, um, a S yeah.
unidentified
Week vacation for that one.
And.
tim pool
A vacation, is that what you called it?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, like suspension from school.
It's like, oh, I get chill time now?
Okay, I'll come back in seven days, no problem.
tim pool
Yeah, this was before Elon bought it.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, they made me delete the tweet and stuff.
Unfortunately, Patreon... See, that's where my line was.
Patreon made me delete some of my comic strips from their archives or whatever.
And it's like, oh, we'll give you your money back if you delete your stuff.
And I had sort of had enough of censoring myself for the sake of having a few thousand dollars a month.
Yeah.
So I said, you know what?
I'm just going to leave my account frozen.
Let it be a monument.
I'm joining Sargon and... Yeah, but why?
tim pool
So that's why I was... I was being half-joking when I said Moronic.
It was trying to be over-the-top, but why use Patreon when we know they do this?
And I was talking to Ryan Long and Danny Palaszczuk.
Yeah, I heard that.
I'm like, why are you guys using this?
They're going to ban you.
Like, hands down.
Dude, Ryan Long and Danny are incredible.
But we had Ryan Long, we booked him for a stand-up show, for a show we did, we had him, I think he closed or I can't remember, but he can't say the jokes he said on the internet.
And everybody was laughing because they knew the jokes were meant to be, they were meant to be dark, they were meant to be offensive, but we know Ryan's a good dude.
But if he said those things, or if someone filmed it and put it on the internet, you know what I mean?
Like, why is he using Patreon?
They're gonna ban him.
george alexopoulos
On the public internet.
Yeah, well your advice was good, you know, build your own website and stuff, and he was saying, rightfully, some people are not comfortable doing that, but that is a good solution.
tim pool
Society and democracy.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
The truck's dead.
tim pool
I don't know if you can see it on the camera.
unidentified
The truck flying through the air.
tim pool
Everybody, all of us who are here, we're laughing our asses off, because we understood right away.
george alexopoulos
I think luckily the name, maybe my name is not so recognizable, but if people see G Prime, they would think like, wait, is he joking?
Most times when I say something outrageous, like, can I show you my t-shirt, my magic t-shirt?
tim pool
Sure.
george alexopoulos
As an example of this.
tim pool
What is this?
george alexopoulos
I made a t-shirt.
tim pool
You made a t-shirt?
He's taking his clothes off.
george alexopoulos
I want to show you.
Ready?
This is my new shirt.
tim pool
It says blacks for Trump.
george alexopoulos
But check it out, it's in Greek.
You know why?
Because I recently learned that Cleopatra was black.
Yeah, so my people will rise again.
And so when I wear that shirt, am I joking?
I don't know.
I don't even know.
We're having a good time.
tim pool
Yeah, that's all that matters.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, blacks for Trump.
tim pool
And in this in this world, man, the left does not want to have a good time.
george alexopoulos
That's all I want to do.
unidentified
I just want to laugh in the shower in the morning.
george alexopoulos
I need a laugh.
Lately I have not been laughing a lot and my life needs to... I want to laugh and have stupid... Which comics did Patreon want you to get rid of?
I didn't even check.
I think it would have been the recent ones having to do with trans issues and, um, oh man, I would have to look at the archive right now.
I can't remember.
tim pool
The old comics?
george alexopoulos
No, it would have been probably within the past six months.
Um, having to do with, like you said, the groomer jokes with, um, the kid with the monkey pox or whatever.
tim pool
Oh, the dog with monkey pox.
george alexopoulos
The dog with the monkey pox.
It's stupid.
It made me kind of chuckle, but it's like that dark humor where you feel bad afterwards.
tim pool
You felt bad about making that?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
I often feel like, should I upload these?
And then I just click upload and I'm like, all right.
tim pool
You make it?
How long does it take you to make one of these four panel panels?
george alexopoulos
I'm going to say half a day.
tim pool
So you're sitting there for like 12 hours and then you're like, I'm finally done.
Boy, I should not upload this.
george alexopoulos
No.
I mean, it's all right.
So in the, I think of the idea say in the shower or the night before and then I get up in the morning I draw it four hours later it's done I say do I upload this or not as I'm drawing it I'm saying is there is this too harsh is the joke can it be more subtle because you don't want to There's the line.
It's like even with South Park, there are lines they can't cross.
But you can still get the really, like sometimes the best jokes are the ones that are restrained and you have to think about it some more.
tim pool
You should do one where it's like two big fat middle-aged guys and they're at a barbecue and then they crack open a Bud Light and drink it and then turn into sorority girls.
george alexopoulos
I did want to do that.
But you know what?
The 4chan people beat me to it.
unidentified
Oh yeah.
george alexopoulos
Which they usually do.
So I'm just like, you know what?
If 4chan's already... It's everywhere.
tim pool
Like that joke and I'm just like... There's a guy who drinks a Bud Light and then turns the filter on and that makes him a woman.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And it's like, okay, you can't drink Bud Light.
george alexopoulos
I was trying to find an angle of like drinking urine or something, but that's hard to draw.
I would have to do some research.
tim pool
That would be gross.
george alexopoulos
I'd have to drink pee-pees.
tim pool
What's this new thing you're working on?
george alexopoulos
The latest book is called Ghost of the Badlands.
And it was cool because we were on Friday Night Tights.
unidentified
Shout out to NerdRotic.
george alexopoulos
He's really cool, and he invited me and RazörFist on Friday, and it actually gained $150,000 in like a few hours.
unidentified
Whoa!
george alexopoulos
Of funding.
tim pool
What's it at now, like half a million?
george alexopoulos
Now, no.
I think it's slowed down because it's during the week.
I think it's near 190 right now.
unidentified
$190,000?
tim pool
Yes.
Oh, I thought it was way higher than that.
george alexopoulos
Well, if it keeps, like every Friday if we push, I think we'll be able to get close to a million.
I mean, Eric July, I think is the record holder.
He's passed three million, something like that.
Yeah, that's crazy.
For ISOM.
And there have been other creators who have broken the million barrier, but our goal is just 50,000.
It's a Western, it's kind of in the The vein of like, uh, like one of those Clint Eastwood high plains drifter types of movies.
Um, guy wandering the Arizona desert, you know, shooting bad guys and whatnot.
And I look forward to going out there for research soon.
tim pool
Is, is, uh, is he a minority or, or trans or anything?
george alexopoulos
Well, he is a masked vigilante type.
I don't even know if vigilante is the right word.
He's wearing a mask.
So maybe he is, he can be anybody.
tim pool
Oh, he can.
unidentified
Oh.
george alexopoulos
He's, he's a secret.
tim pool
I'm interested.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
He's got like a, a cool antique looking mask with some, uh, damage on the bottom.
It's really cool looking.
tim pool
Oh, really?
Does he wear gloves?
george alexopoulos
He does wear gloves actually, just like our friend Razorfist.
And, uh, he carries a Bergmann 1890 something model three, which was really hard to draw cause I don't have reference.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
But yeah, uh, Razor's a huge gun guy, so he was very specific about what guns are being used and, and, It looks really good, genuinely.
tim pool
And, uh, RazörFist wrote the story and all that stuff?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, he wrote the story.
And what's cool is he's a huge fan of, like, French comics, Bon Désiré, I think it's pronounced.
And I'm a huge manga guy.
So we sort of married our favorite parts.
I drew it like a manga and he wrote it like a French comic.
And so the style is, uh, I think a really interesting hybrid of our favorite, um, Our favorite, not genres, but our favorite ways of drawing comics.
So it's black and white.
There's going to be a color edition.
And I would encourage everyone to check it out.
It's pinned under my profile on Twitter.
tim pool
Right on.
george alexopoulos
My other book is Goofberry Pie, which I'm very proud of.
tim pool
Goofberry Pie?
george alexopoulos
I like this book a lot.
tim pool
Want me to see one?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, if you want to crack through it.
unidentified
Crack through it, crack through it.
tim pool
What do we got here?
This seems like a very novel.
george alexopoulos
Well, alright, so for children's books, right, I was doing research because there was, I think last year... Oh, that's cool, a little... Matt Walsh, who I want to call out on this show later... Oh, wait, this is a... Oh, the pages... Pages are stuck together for some reason, George.
Must have been the humidity from... Because it's so hot.
The book's so hot.
tim pool
I was making a dirty joke.
george alexopoulos
So much action.
Oh, that's not appropriate.
That's a children's book.
That's a children's book, Tim.
tim pool
Well, you know, there's a mouth on it, so I don't know what you're into.
george alexopoulos
That's a wholesome hundred percent.
Actually, like, all right, so my stuff is very sarcastic, right?
Yeah.
And dark and adult, but this was very specifically supposed to be for kids.
We didn't even put it up on my shop.
It's on my wife's Etsy shop.
So it's completely like for, it's sweet and she makes like plushies and clothes and it's very like blankets and stuff.
tim pool
Is it, is it, are there hidden political messages in it?
george alexopoulos
No, it just has a simple, like it's Winnie the Pooh-ish where There's the little main character, he's like a mouse named Strudel, and he's got to find a berry for his dad's cake.
tim pool
I've got a project that we could work on.
george alexopoulos
Okay.
tim pool
No, for real.
george alexopoulos
I'm listening.
tim pool
We'll like raise a million dollars in a day on Indiegogo or whatever.
george alexopoulos
I'm ready.
tim pool
No, but I can't say it on camera.
Top secret.
You just have to remind me.
george alexopoulos
Well, you guys, yeah, let's hold him to it.
I want a million dollars, that'd be great.
tim pool
I think, so we've had this idea for a while, and I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, you're the guy for this, man.
You're gonna hit it out of the ballpark.
unidentified
Let's do it.
tim pool
Let's talk about it.
But anyway, let's go back to your book.
So the thing about a lot of these kids' books that are coming out, like Tuttle Twins or Brave Books or whatever, is that- Anti-racist, baby.
george alexopoulos
Oh no, that's the opposite, I'm sorry.
tim pool
They're the opposite of that, but they're still political.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And so, you know, people will talk about, I don't want political indoctrination in my content, and I'm kind of like, I do.
Like, I want freedom, meritocracy, individual responsibility as a subtle message in my content.
However, there is something to be said about all of these kids books that they're making are Over the top.
You know what I mean?
Like, they're not just making a book where it's, like, the mouse fights the evil snake and, like, the snake was hurting people and hurting people is bad.
It's more like the snake was taking the acorns from the squirrels and, you know, 20% of every, you know, harvest... It's two on the nose.
Right.
It's too on the nose.
george alexopoulos
In this case, there is an instance of that where a weasel tricks Strudel into giving him a strawberry and in exchange, spoilers, the weasel gives Strudel a rubber ball instead and says it's a berry.
And so he takes the fake berry home and it's like, oh, I've been tricked by a weasel.
And that's pretty much It's about, you know, hey, you should trust yourself and don't bite off more than you can chew and family values.
And that's pretty much that's my message that I'm sneaking into the book.
tim pool
You should do the same thing, but make the story of Gellert's grave.
Do you know that one?
george alexopoulos
Remind me?
tim pool
Gellert.
Oh, I love this story, dude.
It's not for kids.
I'm kidding.
It's actually it's it's supposed to be for kids.
So it's a Welsh legend about... I'm probably going to be butchering this, but Prince... How do you pronounce the two L's in Welsh?
I don't know how to do this.
Weyland or something?
george alexopoulos
I wouldn't be able to.
tim pool
And he goes off to go hunting or whatever to do his business.
And when he comes back, he sees his house is all ransacked, and then, you know, his dog was not with him.
He sees his son's crib flipped over, there's blood everywhere, and the dog walks over with blood dripping from its mouth, wagging its tail.
And then, thinking that his dog killed his son while he was out, he pulls out a sword and thrusts it into the side of Gellert, his faithful hound, killing him.
And then when he does and the dog lets out a dying whelp, he wakes up the baby he hears crying and then he rushes over and he throws debris out of the way and there's his baby safe and sound next to a wolf that Gellert had slain.
george alexopoulos
I see.
tim pool
Absolutely brutal story.
george alexopoulos
That would be worthy.
It's like a battle.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
Somebody should illustrate that.
I'd be happy to if I had time.
tim pool
Yeah, it's like, man.
george alexopoulos
But that's more for, that's more a story for dads, I guess, isn't it?
tim pool
I guess it's for like, if you're 13, the message is not to jump to conclusions, you'll regret it.
And the legend is that he never smiled after that day.
unidentified
Interesting.
tim pool
Bro, could you imagine if you like, a lot of children's stories, and it turned out your dog saved your baby?
george alexopoulos
Do you know when that story was written?
tim pool
Oh, dude, like 1400s or something.
Yeah, it's super old legend.
And there's a place in Wales called Gellert's grave where it's supposedly there's a tree where the dog was buried.
george alexopoulos
Hmm.
tim pool
Yeah, I don't know if it's true.
It's, uh, they say it's like a kid's story.
It's a story to explain why you don't jump to conclusions, why you think before you, you know, look before you leap.
george alexopoulos
A lot of the better stories that have survived over the years has some kind of one sentence or two sentence summaries like that, where this story is about don't, you know, And what's happening with conservatives is they've put out like three books where it's like, if you're a giraffe, you can't be a penguin.
tim pool
And it's like, we get it.
george alexopoulos
The reason I wanted to jump into this was because of Johnny the walrus, for example.
I thought it was a little on the nose.
tim pool
That's the one where a kid wants to be a walrus.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, I get that.
So I like the idea of that book needs to exist.
And then I said, why don't I take it to the next level even and not even have an outright political message?
Where it's just I think the idea is anyone even a left type would Be able to share this book with their kids and it's just a sweet book But you do want subtle messages in it.
tim pool
You know what I mean?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, but just like not over the top on the nose hitting you over the head I mean a lot of the old Aesop's fables and Grimm's fairy tales had that sort of I mean even Hansel and Gretel's was like super dark with His, the dad had remarried another woman and she wanted to get rid of the kids because they couldn't afford to feed them.
unidentified
Right.
george alexopoulos
So because the dad listened to the second mom, the kids were in the woods and stuff.
And there's, I don't even remember, you know, German, German storytelling.
tim pool
And then like in Little Red Riding Hood, like doesn't the lumberjack cut the wolf's stomach open to free the grandma or something like that?
george alexopoulos
I wouldn't be surprised.
I know in Cinderella, they tried to force their feet into the glass slippers.
Like cut them?
unidentified
Yeah, they might have hurt themselves a little bit.
george alexopoulos
But that shows how desperate they were.
tim pool
And then in Little Mermaid, she dies.
george alexopoulos
She does, right?
She turns into stone.
unidentified
Foam.
george alexopoulos
Foam.
tim pool
She disintegrates.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
There was an old version, a cartoon of it.
Telling the actual story as a kid and I was crying because I saw no she dies at the end.
unidentified
No, that's not nice Yeah, it was so sad, but maybe that's what we need.
tim pool
Maybe kids stories should be more brutal.
Maybe you should you should Have the mouse there pull out a blade and come after the weasel for revenge like John wick style on this case Kids can't even read the book.
george alexopoulos
It's written.
It's designed to be read to them Yeah, it's adorable.
in bedtime and stuff.
But they can look at the happy little pictures.
He's holding a berry and stuff.
It's very cute. - Big strawberry, yeah. - Yeah, it's adorable.
But the idea is that we, as a community who wants to fight wokeness, I think one of the best tricks we can do is just pump out stories that are just good And then you kind of, you have to be a little more subtle.
tim pool
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
You know, like, when we, we've put out four songs.
Yeah.
The first one was a long time ago.
And it's not an overtly political message in this in the style of like, FJB, Democrats are bad.
It's just a message about revolution.
It's like a story.
And then we did Only Ever Wanted, which is just a love song.
Then we did Genocide, which is vaguely about institutions manipulating people and stuff like that.
So that one gets a little political.
And then the last one we put out is just about like not killing yourself.
And so the reason we did the two political ones is they were right before elections.
They were intended to be more political, but they're not on the nose.
They're not like calling people out.
The other songs are because we're like, we just got to make music.
And whether it's good, whatever, whether we like it, conservatives, libertarians, disaffected liberals need to just make things.
Yeah.
And it doesn't have to be a book where it's like, little Ricky wants to be an umbrella, but Ricky can't be an umbrella.
You know what I mean?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
The trouble is what's the most viral and shareable is usually the stuff that's really on the nose and obvious.
Cause it's like the lowest resolution.
What's the easiest to share out?
Whereas a subtle good story might not hit as hard.
Like I'm only now learning, this is irrelevant, but there's this book, Blood Meridian.
I was researching cowboy stuff.
It was written in 1985 by Cormac McCarthy, but only now I'm hearing about it.
So it's what, 40 years later?
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
But apparently it's one of the best novels ever written and yada yada, but I never heard of it.
So I think the risk is you can make a great story, it might not go viral, but years later it'll be considered a classic and then maybe it'll have the impact that it was originally meant to, something like that.
Yeah, like getting people's attention right now is the hardest part of marketing.
We can consider that marketing, letting people know that the book exists and do they want to buy it, something like that.
tim pool
Yeah, and with everything being the culture war, with algorithms propping up specific trains of thought, it's really hard to crack through with anything else.
That's why we saw, you know, it was like FJB hit number one on iTunes.
You know what I mean?
Because people are fervent right now.
Here's what you do, you know, if you want to compete.
Make Johnny the Antifa.
And, you know, a little kid who's revolutionary.
And then the left will buy it.
george alexopoulos
The left would buy it.
The right would buy if I did, like, Little Johnny America.
But the problem is, of course... Wait, wait, wait.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
Sorry.
Good idea.
george alexopoulos
Do it.
tim pool
Make the same book with two different skins.
Yeah, wouldn't that be interesting?
george alexopoulos
Written the exact same way with words changed?
tim pool
The pictures are the same, but the skin is different.
So, like, in one, it's a little kid standing up to a bunch of angry people.
And then in the left version, he's wearing an Antifa shirt and the angry people are wearing American flags.
And then in the right version, he's wearing the American flag and they're wearing the Antifa.
george alexopoulos
That's really interesting.
tim pool
And then, see what happens.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, that's kind of like a dunk.
tim pool
It's like a social experiment.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, it's like, you see guys, you're the jerks.
It is you who is the jerks this whole time.
tim pool
I don't look at it that way.
I don't think it's meant to demean either side.
It's to see who cares more and who would support it more.
Because I think the right would.
I think the left wouldn't.
george alexopoulos
Well, if they saw my name, I guess I would have to... Do a fake name.
Do a... Rick... Georgina.
Rick... Applesauce.
unidentified
Smith.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
Joe... Jorgensen.
unidentified
Well, I am a lesbian, so that helps.
Oh, okay.
george alexopoulos
You know, with their side.
tim pool
For, for the, uh, for like the, the, um, what's it called when you have the picture of the author or whatever in the book?
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
For yours, do like a, do a filter.
Ooh, that was not good.
Do a, do a picture of, uh, you, but gender swapped.
george alexopoulos
Into a man, you mean?
tim pool
Into a man.
That's right.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
Cause as a, as a female lesbian with... Georgette Alexina.
Yeah.
That's, I love that idea.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
I wish I had more time.
I wish I could clone myself and do all these books.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
Maybe we'll make a studio someday.
tim pool
You were saying something earlier about how you utterly despise Matt Walsh.
george alexopoulos
He is my sworn enemy.
tim pool
Sworn enemy, that's right.
george alexopoulos
I'm going to look right in that camera and say, Matt Walsh, I'm calling you out, sir, because you said anime might be done.
Anime's demonic or something.
And then there was some guy who looks like Batista, but he's not.
He, like this big guy with glasses.
He, I think Dave, Dave Batista.
Rabboid.
unidentified
Who?
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
george alexopoulos
Mr. Muscleman.
Batista.
tim pool
Dave Riaboy?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
You're talking about Dave Batista?
george alexopoulos
He was retweeting someone that was saying, like, comics are for kids.
And I said, what is this garbage?
tim pool
Oh, yeah, conservatives suck.
It's, it's, it's, they don't understand why they're losing everything.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
They're not culturally influential.
Look, man, conservatives You show up to a conservative event, and it's like a 17-year-old wearing a suit.
george alexopoulos
They want to go to the golf tournament.
The Country Club Conservatives.
tim pool
What is this?
Even Turning Point USA.
I like the stuff these guys do, right?
But they're all wearing suits, and I think the only people who weren't were our crew and Steve Bannon.
And it's just like...
Regular teenagers are not going to, like, bro, who wants to wear a uniform to school?
Like, imagine going to school and there's that one kid that always wears a uniform, even when you don't have to.
george alexopoulos
Or a bow tie.
tim pool
Or a bow tie.
It's just, people are casual and relaxed, and you come off as formal and outside when you do these things.
george alexopoulos
When I used to go to church, I don't know if you went when you were younger, I would never wear suits.
tim pool
Twice a week.
george alexopoulos
Did you wear suits and stuff?
Yes.
Oh, I didn't.
I wore jeans.
tim pool
No, we would wear little suits and your Sunday's best, and then I went to Catholic school, so we would do, I think, Thursdays, so you're in uniform, and then Sundays, the family, you dress up.
george alexopoulos
Okay.
Little suits.
Did you resent having to dress up?
unidentified
No.
george alexopoulos
Okay.
tim pool
No, I didn't.
Look, I was a little kid.
It just was, you know what I mean?
But I got to tell you, I didn't understand a single thing they had said in church.
None of it made any sense.
They never explained it.
And I think that's one of the biggest failings of modern Christianity, because it's only now that I'm older that I'm learning about philosophy, faith, and some of these ideas that I'm actually like, oh, wow, that's actually profound.
If they'd actually conveyed wisdom, you know, but they didn't have it.
They didn't have it.
So it was hollow.
george alexopoulos
It's sort of outside in superficial Christianity that I always objected to.
So I would go to church intentionally wearing casual clothes with, I was trying to make a statement, like everyone in church was wearing formal clothes.
So I was standing out intentionally, but I was trying to say like, this is my best.
This is what I want to show God.
Like he knows who I am.
So why would I doll myself up and be fake?
Because I don't wear these kinds of clothes.
unidentified
Right.
george alexopoulos
I don't want to go like wearing rings and like fixing my hair up.
And there are some churches where like people will wear almost, I don't want to be too spicy, but they will wear clothes that are inappropriate for church because they think it looks good on them.
Like they're going to the club or something.
It's like, what are you doing?
Why are you wearing that?
So to go back to the Matt Walsh conversation, like the reason that I think, Like, these are the same types of moms and dads who hated Mortal Kombat and Doom because they said it led to school shootings way back in the day.
And what you end up doing is just making yourself look lame and irrelevant to the current generation.
Kids nowadays, like, I don't know a lot of teenagers, but you know, they have a certain way of talking.
Bussin and all that stuff.
unidentified
No cap.
george alexopoulos
No cap and whatever.
tim pool
Every generation does that.
george alexopoulos
I'll tease them, but it's like, look, I'm not gonna talk down to them because I'm older than them.
It's like, hey there, young man, you shouldn't.
tim pool
Yeah, this is the story that I like to convey from my life was when I started skateboarding, the cool thing was to wear skin tight clothes, punk rock, skin tight, black jeans, stretch jeans.
Not JNCOs.
Not JNCOs.
And some kids would dental floss the pants onto themselves.
They put pants on and then they'd sew them even tighter.
So you'd get stretchy jeans, you'd skate them, and they were really comfortable, it was easier to skate in stretch jeans, skin tight, right?
And the older crowd would wear baggy jeans.
And so when I started skating, they would start insulting us and making fun of us, telling us how stupid we were.
And then we would laugh at him.
We didn't care.
We don't care what you think, old man.
You suck at skateboarding.
What year is this?
This was 2002, 2003.
Okay.
Yeah, the punk rock, indie rock, skin tight stuff.
george alexopoulos
It was just changing over.
tim pool
Yep.
And so then when I was in my 20s, I'm at a skate park and the dudes that I know are making fun of kids who are wearing, they would wear dickies that were too short for their legs, so they would have this huge ankle, like floods almost.
You know, they'd make like, hey, where's the flood?
You know, dingus, because their pants are too high.
And that was the new trend.
All the kids would wear pants that didn't go far enough down.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
And that's why I would object and I really would like to at least have a polite conversation with Matt.
And I was like, do you hear yourself, dude?
You sound just like they would talk about you.
Bro, I'm all about if they want, if they're having fun, if they like it, that's cool, dude.
I got no beef.
You're allowed to like stuff, man.
george alexopoulos
And that's why I would object.
And I really would like to at least have a polite conversation with Matt.
I'm joking around that I want to debate him and fight him, Matt Walsh.
tim pool
Yeah, he rags on anime and manga.
george alexopoulos
He's wrong.
I don't want to sound too harsh, but the reason you're losing the culture war, the reason you lost an entire generation of people, us and younger, let's say, You're not even relative.
Like, they say video games are for kids and stuff.
Have you seen Doom Eternal?
Have you seen the latest Mortal Kombat game?
tim pool
Bro, Horizon?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, the story-based games.
tim pool
Zero Dawn and Forbidden West.
I'm playing Burning Shores right now.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
So good.
george alexopoulos
And a lot of these games are, like, mature.
Like, they tell stories that only adults would understand and appreciate.
tim pool
but kids need to hear.
Sure.
unidentified
Sure.
tim pool
Right?
So like in Horizon, for those that aren't familiar, spoiler alert, I mean, the original game is now like, what, seven years old or something.
It's basically, there's a military industrial complex guy They build self-replicating war machines.
They lose control of them.
They then calculate that, at a certain point, these things will consume all organic matter.
They'll consume organic matter to the point where it destabilizes the ecosystem, causing a global collapse.
And so, the plan they make is building big underground facilities.
That once the machines die, once the machines shut down because of a lack of ecosystem to support them, they kickstart and reboot the Earth and then clone and create people to repopulate the Earth.
So in this game, you're going around to, you know, thousands of years later, abandoned facilities.
It's fascinating how they visualize people's development, tribes, it's like future tribalism.
There's relics of ancient technology but they're still very early tribalist because they don't know how to make a computer so they can make a ballista but then you find old recordings and it is really really fascinating how they talk about these ideas that we're talking about now with the The imagination, like imagining what would happen.
So in one instance right now, there's a guy who runs a space mining company and there's a disaster.
They're pulling asteroids closer to earth to orbit so they can mine them in outer space and then one slams into earth or something like that and like causes problems.
It doesn't like wipe the earth out or anything like that.
But the video game is basically explaining complex ideas in storytelling so that kids can understand what it means.
But outside of that, I'll say this, cause I love the post-apocalyptic stuff.
The idea like Superman, right?
I grew up on Superman and Batman.
Batman is the best.
I like Spider-Man, but I felt like Batman really was...
Better.
In terms of, he's just a guy.
He's rich, don't get me wrong.
george alexopoulos
He has no powers, really.
tim pool
Right.
And then one of my favorite scenes was in Justice League, when there's Superman in all his power, they're interrogating this guy.
And he's like, do whatever you want to me, I ain't saying nothing!
And then Batman, and Superman's like, we can't get anything out of him.
And then Batman walks up and whispers in his ear, and he goes, I'll tell you anything you want!
And you don't know what Batman said, but the fact was, Batman is the best superhero with no superpowers.
That means that you as a kid, so when I'm growing up, it's like, do you want to be a superhero?
You can be.
You gotta work hard, you gotta work out, you gotta be smart.
You're never gonna be Superman, but you can be Batman.
And they're telling kids not to watch that stuff.
Now, I also grew up with anime, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto was big when I started reading the manga when I was a teenager.
And what are all of these stories?
An outcast kid who has no natural talent works as hard as possible to become the best.
george alexopoulos
That reminds me of like an anecdote of, let's say you and I are archaeologists in Spelunky world, and we're finding a cave, an ancient cave, tens of thousands years old, and we find some drawings on the wall.
And we're like, wait, we can, if we look at them in a sequence, we can see that they're telling a story.
Or if we go to Egypt and we find hieroglyphics and it's like all these pictures, if you look at them in a certain way, it's telling a story.
unidentified
Oh, wow.
george alexopoulos
It's like, it's almost like humans tell stories through pictures and it's almost like pictures existed before language itself.
Cause letters are just really refined pictures and any Asian, you know, language, especially, you know, Chinese, whatever you get, like the symbol for rice patty or the symbol for person.
tim pool
I think in Chinese, if you take the symbol for woman and then put it next to the symbol for woman, you get women.
And then if you add a third symbol, you get argument.
I'm not kidding.
george alexopoulos
That's the genius of...
tim pool
So it was pictures were conveying ideas, but it was writing.
So to them, they see an image, they're conveyed an idea, but think about the complexity.
So that was, I think that's true.
Cause there was this old meme where there was a video online where a woman is explaining Mandarin or something like that.
I think it's Mandarin.
And she's like, here's a symbol for a woman.
If you put two of them together, it's now women.
And that's easy to understand.
And if you add a third, you get argument.
So, think about what that means.
Back in the day, when these dudes were creating language to convey an idea, they drew a picture of three women and then nudged their buddy like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, you get it?
But now it's like in their language.
george alexopoulos
And then it became a meme, which is the word for gene.
tim pool
I want to fact check that.
george alexopoulos
I want to make sure that... Well, I would believe it.
I do believe it, as a matter of fact, even if you fact check it and it's wrong.
But, I mean, pictures and words are just ways of communicating... Yes.
unidentified
Wait.
tim pool
Basic Chinese.
The character showing two women together means argument, so it's two.
The character... Oh, wow, the showing three women actually meant infidelity.
That's crazy.
george alexopoulos
That's hot.
tim pool
Yeah, three... Oh, wow, no... Nice.
Yeah, so it's one, two, and three on top, and it means adultery.
That's so crazy.
So, like, they're communicating through pictures, you know?
george alexopoulos
Pictures as they were turning into letters.
Because the more you refine, the more people are literate.
Like, if somebody can't draw, they can't make a comic telling a story about three women arguing.
But if I draw the woman symbol three times, let's say, But anyway, all this is to say that pictures existed and maybe that's why manga is so popular in like Asian countries because they understand the value of pictures as a tool of storytelling and maybe they respect it more than say us here in the West.
Whereas, you know what even Protestants would say that paintings were like Sacrilegious and stuff.
They didn't want paintings and religious icons in their churches.
tim pool
Did Matt Walsh say it was demonic?
george alexopoulos
He said anime was demonic.
I'm sure he had his reasons because like a lot of anime that he probably saw was like really spicy probably.
tim pool
But that's like that's like saying movies are demonic because of OnlyFans.
You know what I mean?
george alexopoulos
Correct.
tim pool
Cartoon it's it's if somebody's gonna use a video camera to make something really nasty and awful.
george alexopoulos
Let's get rid of all video cameras.
tim pool
Yeah, I'm sure Matt would argue those are great movies.
The issue is Matt doesn't know anime or manga.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, we could introduce him to some good ones, you know?
tim pool
I think he would actually really like Attack on Titan.
george alexopoulos
Akira, Ghost in the Shell.
tim pool
Ghost in the Shell, especially.
But I don't know, he might not like Ghost in the Shell.
george alexopoulos
It has boobies in it, I'm sorry.
tim pool
No, Ghost in the Shell is very transhumanist.
george alexopoulos
But it's cool.
tim pool
Cowboy Bebop's amazing!
george alexopoulos
Cowboy Bebop's the bomb.
tim pool
But yeah, there's a million... It got cancelled because it was too violent?
Is that what it was?
george alexopoulos
You know what he would like?
Cowboy Bebop?
unidentified
No, it just ran out I think of... No, I was reading about it.
tim pool
I think what happened was at the time in Japan they were concerned about the extreme violence shooting each other and stuff like that.
And so they decided to just do two seasons or whatever.
george alexopoulos
Did you ever see Jinro?
tim pool
No.
george alexopoulos
Oh my gosh, you gotta see it.
It was based on, loosely, there was a student protest in Japan in the 60s, I think.
It was like the communists, the students, were taking over and like having riots.
And it's about like the, a dystopian future where the only thing that can stop the constant riots is like kind of a fascist police force where they put on armor.
I know you've seen the image, like the, it looks like the... Probably.
Hell... What's it called?
What's it called?
Jinro, J-I-N-R-O-H.
Um, but it's, it's about a police officer who has PTSD after shooting a civilian who he thinks was.
tim pool
Oh, right.
Definitely.
I've seen this before.
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
That, that movie, it's so relevant to today with Antifa and all that stuff.
I think you should definitely prioritize watching it, but that's something I would show to Matt.
And it's like, dude, this movie means something.
It's great.
And it's not just the whole.
Death Note's awesome.
tim pool
But like, the messages conveyed and challenged in these ideas.
Yeah.
Death Note isn't just a story about a psychopath and a detective.
It's a story about how to make a country better and the ramifications of killing those you deem to be unfit for society.
george alexopoulos
What if I had this tool?
What would I do with it?
tim pool
So, for those that aren't familiar, in Death Note, there's, uh, uh, Reapers, Grim Reapers, they're called, in Japan, they're called Shinigami, have notebooks where they write your name down, you die.
They can write how you die, and then they absorb your life force, and they live forever or whatever.
So, a human teenager gets a hold of the book, and he is an authoritarian... I-I-I don't know what you'd call him, I think you'd call him probably...
Fascistic.
george alexopoulos
Quite a tyrant, yeah.
But he starts out with good intentions.
tim pool
But everybody does.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
And so what he does is he starts killing criminals he sees on TV.
Then there's a detective who's trying to stop him.
The detective's a... it's almost like utilitarianism versus deontological morality.
And that's why I think it's fascinating, plus it's a great show.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, it's just a cool mystery.
tim pool
A question of... Who's gonna catch who?
Yeah, but the moral question within the show is, should you kill people accused of wrongdoing to better society?
george alexopoulos
What if they deserve it?
tim pool
But then how do you know if they deserve it?
george alexopoulos
Even if they deserve it, should you still kill them?
tim pool
That's one thing I think they didn't explore properly in Death Note.
He would see people on TV and kill them.
And it's like, bro, they could be innocent.
george alexopoulos
And then he starts killing people that are just coming after him.
And then it goes more into that gray area, and now he's just killing people just because.
tim pool
He views himself as a god of the new world, and now people are trying to stop him, so he's the only righteous one, he has to stop them.
It's brilliant.
george alexopoulos
So it's genius, but like, I'm assuming Walsh is coming at this because he hasn't seen something like Death Note before, but you can't say anime's bad, you can't say cartoons and comics are bad, or games, because again, you're gonna lose the next generation.
They're gonna say, oh, who are the only adults talking about these things as if they're, you know, cool?
tim pool
But I suppose his idea is if you separate kids from the stuff, they'll never ask about it at all.
george alexopoulos
And they wonder why they're losing the culture war.
tim pool
Right, because they're not making culture, they're complaining about it.
george alexopoulos
You're not making something, like, I just will play a game because it's cool.
unidentified
And if it has a message, fine.
tim pool
Matt Walsh did Johnny the Walrus, right?
Yeah.
And I think it's great that he did, but let's be real, no nine-year-old is going, whoa, Johnny the Walrus, yeah!
george alexopoulos
I love Johnny the Walrus, yeah.
tim pool
Kids are going, I wanna be Spider-Man!
Because they watch these- Because it's cool.
When I was a kid, I don't don't tell me the psychology of it.
I don't know why.
X-Men was awesome.
The idea of being a superhero was so cool.
The idea that you could be you have this power and you want to save the world and you got to check you have these challenges.
I was just so cool.
You want to be a superhero.
Batman, Superman, they never killed no matter what.
And then, you had these stories that were written that explored what if they had to, what if they didn't, and you end up with the story arc, I forgot which one it is, but maybe you know, where Superman kills the Joker and then becomes- Injustice.
Injustice.
george alexopoulos
Shout out to my man, Mike Miller.
tim pool
Dude, Injustice is so good.
And then, who was it?
Damien, Bruce Wayne's son, joins.
He's from the League of Assassins, so he's like, we should kill these people.
Because like, Superman's basically, if you had just killed the Joker, how many people would be alive today?
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
And so he goes dark.
Which, which, which story arc was it?
It was that he poisoned Superman and Superman, it was like a nuclear bomb goes off or he kills Lois or something like that?
george alexopoulos
I thought he killed Lois, I don't remember.
tim pool
Yeah.
I think there's two different versions.
One is...
He, it could be the both, I'm not sure.
But he drugs Superman.
Superman goes on a rampage and kills Lois, who's pregnant with his son.
And that sets him off.
And then he basically creates, what is it?
The Justice Lords.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
So I don't know, like these things are fantastic and they explored these ideas.
So I'm a kid and I'm seeing the philosophy, the pros and cons of these different moral ideas laid before me.
Then we got in the early nineties, The first time, not necessarily the first time, but in the Batman Animated Series with Mr. Freeze, the motivations of the villain was sympathetic.
So dark.
For those that don't know, originally Mr. Freeze was a one-dimensional comic book villain.
I'm going to freeze the world!
And then in the Batman animated series, they made it so that he was committing these crimes because he needed resources to save his dying wife.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And it's just masterpiece.
And then Batman's like, I have to stop him.
He's a bad guy.
But he's like, I just want to save my wife.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
Damn, dude.
george alexopoulos
That's good storytelling.
And as a younger person, I just enjoyed the show and I didn't know why.
In fact, all right, if I can toot my own horn just a little bit here with Goofberry Pie, for example.
tim pool
It's not on camera because people watch him.
george alexopoulos
Hands are here.
But no, not to say something.
All right.
So I had the opportunity to show Goofberry Pie to some kids in a school, let's say, but you know how, you know, the trans stuff and they're going to schools and drag queen story hour and stuff.
I was tempted to like brag about, Oh, I read this to kids in a school.
But then I was thinking, no, I'm an, It would be weird for me to brag that I got to read to some kids, but they loved this book just because it was fun.
They loved the pictures.
They were going bananas, man.
I'm telling you.
All right, so I was there.
I'm reading and I got up.
The teacher has this thing where there's a camera above a sheet of paper where you can draw and it's projected on the wall.
And they were saying, oh, draw Strudel, draw this, draw that, draw a firetruck.
And I'm drawing a firetruck really badly and they are losing, can I curse?
I don't want to curse.
They were losing it laughing.
They were having the best time.
And just because an adult came and took the time to draw and have fun with them.
And it's like, okay, now you guys draw, show me your drawings.
And my God, I have a pile in my house.
I got to show this off sometime.
They all drew like fan art.
Of Goofberry Pie, because their teacher took the time to read it to them over a course of a week.
And they just like the book.
tim pool
I do gotta say, I gotta call you out, man.
It's clearly a strawberry.
I don't know what you're trying to put here.
unidentified
Well, that's the real spoiler of the story, is what is a Goofberry?
george alexopoulos
Does it even exist?
It's actually a cake, not a pie.
There's deception everywhere.
I'm deceiving everybody with this book.
But yeah, I'm told that they just like the book because it's fun to read.
tim pool
And you need to give kids play.
george alexopoulos
And teenagers.
That's why video games are just fun.
And then maybe if you're smart, you know, you do your storytelling well, you can sneak in your little morals and all that.
tim pool
What do we see with the, you know, tiger babies and wolf babies?
They play fight.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
They roll around and they're not trying to... It's what they do.
Humans are no different.
We play these video games.
It's play fighting.
We don't actually want to go hurt anybody.
george alexopoulos
No.
So... If they had footage of us yelling at people online when we lost matches... Oh, man.
You know?
tim pool
I mean, I never did that.
george alexopoulos
But play fighting... Oh, right.
We're really acting out our aggression on each other in a safe way.
tim pool
Like, you son of a... And they want to get rid of that.
They want everyone to be a soy boy.
george alexopoulos
Even Overwatch, which was one of my favorite games, they're now recording all the matches, like your voice, they do voice to text or something.
So I can't even call people names in the game anymore.
tim pool
It's very sad.
I just don't even use voice.
Because people pointed out, you know, I play Overwatch fairly often.
And it's just so annoying when it's like, get on the point, dude.
You play Overwatch?
george alexopoulos
Or yeah, as a tank, it's like, can you heal me?
Mercy, can you stop boosting Soldier and Pharah?
I'm dying as Reinhardt.
Can you heal me, please?
tim pool
To be fair, boosting Soldier is massive.
george alexopoulos
It can be.
tim pool
It's a massacre when you boost that guy.
george alexopoulos
It can be strong, yes.
tim pool
But you need to heal your team.
george alexopoulos
Let's talk about Overwatch the whole rest of the game.
tim pool
Dude, it's so annoying because, you know, I'll be playing D.Va or something and the annoying thing to me is We're playing Capture the Point, and I think this is relevant in terms of culture stuff, so hear me out.
We'll be on attack, and we'll be trying to take the point, and it'll be like, take the point and then followed by like an escort.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
This means, for those that don't know the game, you have to sit on a specific location, uncontested by the enemy team, for what is it, like 15 seconds or something?
george alexopoulos
Like King of the Hill.
tim pool
Like King of the Hill.
And then after you do that, you'll either gain control and a timer starts going up, and once you fill the percentage meter, you win, or a vehicle that you have to escort comes out.
Every time, I'm always on the bad team, I just don't understand why, whatever, random cues.
The enemy team will be standing in front of our base, and all of my team will be fighting there, and I'm like, guys, just walk past them.
unidentified
Yes.
tim pool
And so what I'll do is I'll take D.Va.
unidentified
Yes.
tim pool
D.Va has the ability to do short burst flight.
It's a mech suit.
I'll fly over them, land on the point, and start capturing it because they're fighting somewhere else.
The enemy team then retreats, allowing my team to advance.
And I'm just like, how come I'm the only one who ever does this? - Playing the objective, yeah. - Playing the objective.
And the worst thing is, I lose it.
When it's like, you have 30 seconds left to capture the objective.
Our team is clearly doing decently, but they won't fight on the point.
And then I'm like, just fight on the point.
And then it goes... And it's like, objective lost.
george alexopoulos
You don't get any ticks.
You can get three ticks for anybody who cares.
It fills up and then stops and then it won't go back down to zero.
tim pool
But when it's like you're in overtime?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, that's the end of the game.
tim pool
And everyone's running around the objective.
So if you stand on the objective, the game can't end.
george alexopoulos
You get overtime.
tim pool
But my team is always just running around randomly, and I'm like, please, just go on the truck, just stand on the truck, like, you're fighting, your healer's there, and then you lose, and you're just like, why was I the only one?
I was just playing that new, um, Talantis or whatever map they released for the, uh, arcade mode.
And it's like, the enemy team successfully convinces them to fight off point, and I'm just standing there by myself, and I'm like, why am I the only one trying to capture this, which takes a long time, and then they kill me, and then we lose.
Anyway, my point is this, now that I've vented on that.
A bunch of people responded to me when I said it on Tim Castellaw, they were like, Tim, it's because you're 12 years old.
george alexopoulos
Isn't that so patronizing?
tim pool
They are 12 years old.
george alexopoulos
Look, even my wife teases me because I like Overwatch because she says the art style is cartoony or something.
Yeah, it's Blizzard.
I like a big boy games anyway.
But no, alright, to make a real point though, going back to the Matt thing even, if they say games are for kids, but we're speaking in the language of people who play games, everybody our age and younger will understand what we're talking about.
There are some people who are just lame sauce and they don't understand what a C9 is.
Don't senile the point, get on the point.
And it's like, oh, what is he even talking about?
That sounds demonic.
And it's like, you are completely detaching from an entire generation of kids.
It's like a youth pastor who doesn't know how to use movie references to tell a sermon.
tim pool
This is why the left got started attacking me.
For trying to use pop culture references to explain philosophical ideas.
george alexopoulos
That's connecting dots.
That's how you make a point.
This thing is like this other thing.
Hitler is like Trump or Trump is like Voldemort.
Have you seen this movie called Harry Potter where there's a bad guy named Voldemort?
And now it's like, oh, he's like Thanos.
Can you imagine that?
And I'm sure there'll be some other pop culture thing that we can connect to, but you have to, If you want to influence a generation like I'm reaching at our age and let's say lower maybe up until 18 and I don't care what other kids are doing But like I want to be able to speak in the language a because I enjoy games and that's not going to change B I want to make references that people are going to understand if Biden uses Palpatine lightning.
That assumes people have seen Star Wars.
Yeah.
I have to use the metaphor that people understand or else it's too obscure and I get comments of, what is this about?
But that's why, Mr. Matt Walsh, I want to debate you and discuss why it's so important to get in the culture, make culture and also understand what these references are.
Don't say your hobbies are bad.
tim pool
I think Johnny the Walrus is a good example of why they're struggling to do culture.
Because, look, I'm not trying to rag on the book.
george alexopoulos
Not to poop on it, no, it's fine.
tim pool
No, right.
It's just, the conservatives are very logical in their approach and they're very rigid.
Cold.
I mean, I don't know if cold is the right word.
I just mean it's like very matter-of-factly.
Like, in this book, Johnny wants to be a walrus, but you can't be, you understand, right?
Instead of making, you know, a comic about a mad scientist who begins turning people into animals, and then the superhero has to defeat the mad scientist and explain why, you know, and then the people, you could do stuff where a person's like, I don't want to be a tiger.
No, what's happening to me?
And like, you know, conveying ideas through these kinds of stories.
I guess the issue is for a lot of conservatives, they view the world in a very binary way.
Ones and zeros.
Very digital.
george alexopoulos
Somewhat rational, yeah.
tim pool
But that means it's like, if you want to explain to a child why, you know, these ideas are wrong, they make it very on-the-nose.
It's not very imaginative, it's very direct, you know?
george alexopoulos
And I don't think it's an accident that, like, you and I are rather center-ish, and we grew up around left-leaning people, and the arts are traditionally left-ish.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
And emotional.
tim pool
Well, that's only because conservatives ceded the territory.
Look at Captain America!
george alexopoulos
I think so.
tim pool
He's wearing an American flag and he's beating up enemies of the United States.
george alexopoulos
Well, he was very relevant in the 40s and 50s then.
tim pool
Yeah, I mean, he's Captain America.
It's like you can't get more America first than that.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
And even the left now with Marvel and DC, they're struggling to connect to their audience because sales are as low as ever.
tim pool
Remember the new Warriors or whatever?
Snowflake and Safe Space?
george alexopoulos
Was that a joke though?
tim pool
No, that was real and they cancelled it.
And one of the superheroes was Dora the Explorer.
It was a fat Mexican woman who had a backpack she could pull anything out of.
Everybody, yeah, yeah.
george alexopoulos
Dora?
tim pool
Well, her name wasn't Dora, but she was Dora.
george alexopoulos
It looked like Dora, oh.
tim pool
Yeah, it was the New Warriors.
george alexopoulos
Oh, the magic backpack, yes, I remember.
I do remember that.
I remember that line from the first X-Men movie when Xavier pulls up and he goes, what's your name, Wheels?
tim pool
Yeah, it was the New Warriors.
Oh my god.
Marvel.com introducing the New Warriors.
george alexopoulos
That's Ramona Powers' ability, anyways.
tim pool
Fat Mexican woman with a backpack she can pull anything out of.
george alexopoulos
Nah.
tim pool
Then there was a dude who was called, he was called like, what is he called?
The Internet or something?
Firestar Rage Speedball?
They made a character named Speedball?
That's kinda, that's messed up.
Like, a speedball is meth and, uh, fentanyl combined.
george alexopoulos
Relevant.
Relevant to the children of today.
Man, it's so boring.
That's the biggest problem, is that it's boring.
tim pool
Screen Time!
That was his name.
He's a Mexican kid who is connected to the internet.
A meme-obsessed super teen whose brain became connected to the internet after being exposed to experimental internet gas.
george alexopoulos
That makes me want to read the book so bad.
Doesn't it?
So like, okay.
tim pool
Snowflake in safe space.
george alexopoulos
At these companies, they're hiring obvious duds.
They don't know what they're doing.
How are we gonna connect to the kids of today?
They don't want to read comics.
Which is ironic, because if you go to Barnes & Noble right now, the manga section?
Massive.
I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday at the mall up there, and there's like, let's say 20 shelves of manga, and maybe two, three shelves of Western graphic novels.
Manga is crushing Western comics, and what's crazy is you'll get conservatives that will just say, I don't know why.
It's like, okay, ask your kids.
Ask your kids why they're reading Death Note or Jujutsu Kaisen, is that what it's called?
tim pool
On the cover of New Warriors, the twin brother and sister are lovingly embracing each other.
george alexopoulos
And it's just like... How fun.
tim pool
It's so weird.
Uh, I'll tell you why.
george alexopoulos
Demon Slayer.
tim pool
Why do I like Black Clover or Naruto?
Granted, Boruto is kind of over the top and Naruto kind of went off the rails in the end.
With aliens and whatever.
Sure.
But, it's really simple.
I think Black Clover is an amazing story for kids.
For those that don't know, in this world, people who have magic will eventually get a grimoire, a book of spells.
It appears before them or whatever, it chooses them or something, like comes out of the library, I don't know.
And this one kid really wants to be a, like a, he wants to serve the kingdom and be a knight or whatever in one of the famous knight teams.
He's got no magic!
He's got no magic.
Alas.
So he can't.
So what does he do?
He physically trains to the point where when he goes into the recruitment training thing, I love that scene in the beginning, in one of the earlier episodes where the people with magic powers are supposed to fight each other to show how strong their magic is to in one of the earlier episodes where the people with magic powers are supposed to fight each other to He has no magic.
And then as soon as the fight starts, it's just like, it's like an explosion of speed and he slams the guy and just knocks him out and they're like, whoa.
And what I love with this idea, what's being conveyed, even if you don't have the gifts, even if you are on average or like you're not as good as everybody else, you can work hard and become something powerful and useful.
- Yeah. - You can if you find your path, but you have to work hard. - You can meet or surpass people who are quote, born with it. - Yup.
The message of that and Naruto, Naruto is a story about an orphan kid who's a screw-up and he goofs around and he's really bad at what he does.
Sasuke is the cool kid who's just super talented and then Naruto becomes basically the president.
george alexopoulos
Naruto only knows one good ninjutsu, right?
tim pool
And he's like, yeah, and he's really awkward with it.
george alexopoulos
The clone, what is it called?
tim pool
Shadow Clone.
george alexopoulos
Shadow Clone, yeah.
tim pool
Yeah, so.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, these are basic Shonen Jump-ish.
I assume Black Clover's Shonen Jump.
tim pool
I think so.
george alexopoulos
Probably.
tim pool
Pretty sure.
george alexopoulos
But like that magazine does a lot of like My Hero Academia is similar to that, where it's just work, work hard, make friends, trust your friends.
It's okay to have rivalries.
tim pool
Oh wait, is it not Shonen?
unidentified
Shueisha?
george alexopoulos
But again, look, you and I are talking about this.
I'm in my late 30s, mid to late 30s.
I happen to just be basically literate about all these things.
So if a young person, let's say we're at a church setting, starts talking about Shonen Jump, Black Clover, My Hero Academia.
I can talk to them about, oh, so you remember that the main character can train and maybe they read the story, but they didn't connect the dots of I can become great too if I work hard.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
So maybe a younger person needs an adult to point out that's the moral of the story.
And then they read it again and go, wow, I didn't even know I read that.
That's great.
tim pool
To be fair, too, with My Hero Academia, it's like a similar story.
People are born with quirks.
Basically, they have superpowers.
And this one kid isn't, but he really wants to be a superhero, so he trains a whole lot to become stronger.
But then the most powerful superhero gifts him superpowers.
george alexopoulos
A piece of his hair.
tim pool
By eating his hair.
It's kind of weird.
george alexopoulos
But what's cool is that the power is so overwhelming that he breaks his bones when he uses it, the main character.
tim pool
I love it.
george alexopoulos
That's cool.
tim pool
Yeah, he like flicks and then his finger snaps.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, so he has to train his body to handle the power that he inherited.
Yeah.
Which is a fun idea.
tim pool
And the hero and the villain all for one and one for all.
george alexopoulos
He's very American.
Yeah.
tim pool
Oh, I love that.
george alexopoulos
What, the Chicago Smash or something?
tim pool
It's like, the more powerful it is, it's a bigger region of the United States.
george alexopoulos
Detroit Smash!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's fun.
It's dumb and fun.
But again, this is Japan doing this.
Anyone who's our age and younger, or maybe a little older, your kids are reading these stories.
It would be good for you to at least familiarize yourself with what these anime are about or the manga.
tim pool
I think the concern for people like Matt Walsh is the creepy stuff.
But that's why I said it's like saying movies are only- Anime is a medium, it's not a genre.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, you have to be able to discern what's good and what's bad and what's creepy and what's not.
tim pool
Plus, isn't there a bunch of like Christian anime and manga?
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
Like with like strong moral messaging?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, I grew up with an anime actually called Superbook that I didn't even know was an anime.
But it was fun and I liked the art and I didn't know why and I later learned it was Japanese.
Yeah, they just do a good job.
And I was great.
I gravitated towards it because it looked good.
tim pool
So I want us a lot of it's very traditionally masculine to like, yeah, self sacrifice to save those you love.
A lot of a lot of the most popular stuff.
I mean, obviously, Dragon Ball and bleach, the main characters become stronger in response to needing to protect their loved ones.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
They're occasionally like the lady main character.
Well, Shonen Jump is for boys that are ages, let's say teens.
Preteen and teens.
So that they only make books for that demographic.
In Japan, they specifically say we're going to make stories for men ages blank to blank.
tim pool
And boys... Real quick, it's a magazine, Shonen Jump.
george alexopoulos
Shonen Jump.
There's also Shonen... No, there's Ultra Jump, which is for older guys.
There's...
tim pool
Shueisha?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, Shueisha is the overall publisher, if I remember, and then there's Shoujo Comics, Shoujo Beat here in the States.
Shoujo is for teen girls, and then... Oh, right, right, Black Clover is Shonen Jump.
Yeah, there are stories for older women, there are stories about, like, divorce, but that's aimed for older women, where Erika Sakurazawa, for instance, makes stories for women who are I guess what you would now call like cat moms.
But like, I don't even mean it pejoratively, like she makes stories about like, she had bad luck and love and stuff.
And she's just trying to find her identity, even though she's in her late 30s, early 40s, she's not married.
And you know what, women like to read stories like that over there, because every demographic, every age group, and each of the sexes, I'm not gonna use the word gender, Uh, has certain tastes on average.
I happen to like all comics because I'm a nerd, but a man right now in our age, let's say like I make, if me and Razor are making Ghost of the Badlands, mostly our demographics is going to be men, 20s and 30s and maybe 40s who remember old Westerns or their grandpas showed them old Westerns.
Like I used to watch John Wayne movies with my grandpa.
tim pool
Yeah, but you're going to get, you're going to get mid to late teens.
george alexopoulos
Well, I don't even know if they're interested, but I would happily show the book to anybody.
tim pool
But that's the thing.
It's like the meme is Call of Duty made for adults, played by kids.
Splatoon made for kids, played by adults.
That's funny.
I think what happens a lot is...
Some content will be like it's made for teenagers, but then younger kids are like, I want to be a teenager.
Like, I want to be cool.
Like, I'll watch it.
george alexopoulos
I see.
tim pool
They're inspired by it.
You know what I mean?
george alexopoulos
Yeah, like, well, we were probably, what, less than 10 years old Mortal Kombat came out.
tim pool
Oh, man.
george alexopoulos
It was the coolest.
tim pool
Bloody.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
It was, they probably made it for like- They were trying to get that banned, weren't they?
Like, they were complaining about it?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
Like, moral groups?
george alexopoulos
Moral groups, like Christian mom groups, and back when they slapped the parental advisory label on CDs and stuff.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
Which only made it cooler, by the way.
tim pool
I think it was Democrats that did that though, wasn't it?
george alexopoulos
It could have, like, Al Gore's wife or something.
tim pool
Yeah, Tipper Gore.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, but the irony was, to us as younger people, that label meant, this is cool, watch this.
tim pool
Your mom says you can't watch it, now you wanna watch it.
george alexopoulos
The more you want to ban something, conservative friends of mine, you're gonna make teenagers want to see it.
So when we complain too much about, like, don't watch this show, or, God.
I don't even know if I dare to say, but like, if you demonize drag queen stuff too much, you're gonna make it cool somehow.
unidentified
Rebellious.
george alexopoulos
And you're gonna make them want... I would watch occasionally, like, there were shows about sewing and stuff when I was dating my wife.
She was my girlfriend at the time.
Cool shows about making costumes and stuff, and there were drag queens coming on all the time and showing it off, and they were actually funny.
I would watch them, and I'm like, oh, I didn't know drag queens were funny.
tim pool
But here's the thing about the drag queen stuff.
About 25% of Republican voters want to ban all drag queen stuff.
Most.
george alexopoulos
Not even, like, all, but?
tim pool
Just for children.
george alexopoulos
Okay.
tim pool
Oh, no, no, I'm sorry.
25% want to get rid of it all.
No one can see it, it's done.
Okay.
75% are some mix of, just be an adult, you can do your thing.
Yeah.
There's pros and there's cons to that.
One, it's like, We believe in freedom, man!
You wanna dress up and do your show, do your show.
Just don't let the kids, don't bring the kids to a sex performance.
But the cons then are the left does not feel the same way.
The left is actively trying to ban and shut down the other side.
george alexopoulos
They're turning it into a... They're making it sexy.
I don't mean sexy like actual sex.
tim pool
Now we're seeing a bunch of memes and posts about kids who are rejecting this stuff on the left.
There was a video in Canada of kids protesting a drag queen thing at the school because, look man, I don't think conservatives have the ability to make something uncool by being against it because there's not enough cultural force behind them.
So when Amazon, Walmart, Target, and the government says, drag queens, the only thing to rebel against is that!
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
So the kids are actually being like, nah, get out of here, you're weird.
george alexopoulos
The funny thing is, kids want a thing that's only theirs, like teens.
If you start seeing creepy adults talking about your favorite hobby as a young person, you think like, I don't wanna be around these people.
First of all, they're gonna be narcs or they're gonna be creeps.
tim pool
Yeah, but to be fair, I think that is a mistake.
I think it's an aberration.
Coming from skateboarding, There will be a dad who has a five-year-old son or daughter, and they will ride around on their board holding their child's hands, riding with them.
Those kids grow up hanging out with their dad at the skate park, and they love it.
george alexopoulos
That's good.
tim pool
I think we lost this.
When kids would apprentice, would be the apprentice to their parents, they were deeply involved and would learn and inherit those abilities and those morals and those ethics.
But now we completely sever ourselves so that parents are off at work and tell the kid to go off and do your thing.
Now the kid's getting this influence from other places.
george alexopoulos
And there's too many...
And there are adults who teach these influences, like let's say a college professor or even a creepy teacher in school, who will just get a little too close to the kid and try to mentor them.
And it's like, get away from my kids, please.
tim pool
But the parents aren't there?
george alexopoulos
But the kid likes the hobby and they want to learn more.
And then you end up like that karate teacher who got shot by the dad that time.
tim pool
This is what I think parents need to do.
They need to make sure their kid is doing things with them.
If you're a, like, Matt Walsh should have his kids coming to work with him whenever possible.
And then, and I tell people here at TimCast too, like, within reason, like, bring your kids.
And that's like, within reason for me is pretty wide berth.
You know, we don't want kids running around screaming, making a mess, but have your kids here, let them see what you're doing, and be involved and learn to be adults.
Because what's happening is parents are being like, I'm going to work, bye, and the kid goes to school, and the only thing the kid has to rub off on, to absorb, is these wacko leftist teachers.
And that's what's happening.
george alexopoulos
I've been, this is kind of a rabbit trail, but there's a painting by Francisco Goya, the titan eating his son, you know that famous, like he's like, ah, he's like eating the head of his, it's Saturn eating his son, I think it's Saturn eating, it was one of Goya's black paintings.
It's a really famous painting where he's, yeah.
tim pool
Oh, right, right, right.
unidentified
Yep.
Yep.
george alexopoulos
I've been thinking for a while, like there's a sort of... It's Van Gogh?
Goya.
tim pool
Goya?
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
The image of that is so relevant because a lot of parents of our generation are sort of eating the next generation because they want to... It's a Rubens painting.
tim pool
Oh, that's an awful painting.
george alexopoulos
Let me see.
Oh, that's another version of it.
unidentified
Right.
tim pool
I have the other one too.
george alexopoulos
That image, basically, yeah, Rubens's is better.
That painting was a story of, yeah, there was a prophecy that his, I think his name is Kronos, the Titan.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
One of your children is going to overthrow you.
So in response, he ate all his children when they were born.
And I was thinking, you know, that's not only is that a story, but that's also a relevant story to humanity in general.
Nowadays, like say even abortion, Part of the reason why we are not necessarily eating our children, but we are sacrificing the next generation so that our lives will be better, whereas an admirable parent will give themselves to the children and sacrifice themselves so that the future will be better.
So we're a generation of Saturns eating our children, metaphorically speaking, and it's stupid because I... the reason I bring that up is because I was drawing... Naruto.
tim pool
Naruto.
unidentified
Uh... eating?
tim pool
The story of Naruto is that when the nine-tailed fox demon was about to destroy the Leaf Village, the Hokage, basically the mayor, sacrifices himself to eternal damnation to save the village.
So, quite literally, to eternal damnation.
What does he do?
In order to seal the demon away, he commits his soul to the belly of death itself.
george alexopoulos
And then he put the demon in Naruto?
tim pool
He split it in half.
george alexopoulos
Okay.
tim pool
Because he couldn't deal with all of it, so half of it goes into his son and half of it goes into the belly of death, which is a whole other story.
But anyway, sorry to derail, just the point of the story is the start of Naruto is the leader of the village sacrifices his life to stop something from destroying his village.
george alexopoulos
It's not unlike with Harry Potter and his parents when they did the backfire in Voldemort and all that stuff.
tim pool
I love that.
george alexopoulos
But that kind of story has been told and retold for many thousands of years for a reason.
It's so that we can understand the concept of...
tim pool
We got enough left as Harry Potter, dude.
unidentified
What?
george alexopoulos
Oh, yeah.
tim pool
Finish that thought.
george alexopoulos
And I hate Hogwarts Legacy for different reasons.
But yeah, the idea of the next generation...
In order for humanity to continue, we have to give ourselves to the next generation.
But instead, our generation has become nihilistic and selfish, so let's consume the next generation and sacrifice it to Moloch and all that stuff.
tim pool
We gotta make leftist Harry Potter where it's Lily Potter brings Voldemort to her house for an abortion.
george alexopoulos
Well, he's like, you know, you can just be a witch and live, uh, you don't even have to worry about risking it.
tim pool
You want to get real dark with it?
Bro, you want to get real dark?
george alexopoulos
Harry Potter.
tim pool
Lily Potter is pregnant and goes to a clinic where Voldemort puts her in stirrups and then looks down and says, Avada Kedavra.
george alexopoulos
That is very funny.
tim pool
And then she's like, thank you, doctor.
george alexopoulos
There, yeah.
tim pool
For those that don't know, that's the killing spell in Harry Potter.
george alexopoulos
Avada Kedavra.
tim pool
Avada Kedavra kills.
And so it's like she goes to the doctor and she's like, I don't have a baby.
And he's like, I'll take care of it.
It's Voldemort.
Avada Kedavra.
And then, you know, baby gone.
george alexopoulos
But yeah, there's um, but again, we're we're using what we're doing right now is how you tell people morals and ethics.
Throughout human history, we tell stories to each other.
And unless we're making new stories and reinterpreting it for new generations, the lessons and ethics will be lost, you will not have a way To tell people like, hey, if you work really hard, like Rocky, if I say, we've got to be like Rocky, you know exactly what I mean without even, because we've both seen the movie.
We've both loved the movie, but instead I... It's the Eye of the Tiger, man.
Right.
And we know what Eye of the Tiger means, but to someone who didn't see it, we have to make another Rocky movie about the Eye of the Tiger, but it's not called Rocky.
It's about somebody else.
tim pool
They're just going to do like a reboot where Rocky is like a young Mexican woman.
george alexopoulos
Well, Creed is about that, right?
tim pool
But Creed's good.
george alexopoulos
Well, no, I mean, yeah, that's what they wanted to refresh the story of Rocky for the new generation.
tim pool
Yeah, I've not actually seen it though, but I've seen scenes from it.
george alexopoulos
I think it's a very, I mean, at risk of stepping out of my lane, as they say, like it's a relevant story for...
Guys who grew up without their dads around, like Young Creed, his dad died obviously in Rocky 3.
No, 4.
And, you know, he didn't have his dad around.
He just sort of, he's very, you know, he's living the kind of life where he doesn't know who he wants to be.
And I feel like a lot of guys who grew up in inner cities, let's say, have a similar background where I don't know what a man is because I didn't grow up around my dad.
I feel abandoned.
So I'm going to look up to bad role models and try to be a tough guy.
And then part of the story of Creed is he meets Rocky and it's like, oh, I want to connect with my, how can I know what kind of a man I want to be unless I have positive role models?
So a lot of guys our age who didn't grow up with, I mean, I'm not going to speak for other people, I didn't grow up with my dad around, let's say.
So I would collect male role models in my life and say, I want to be like him in this way.
I want to be like him in this way.
I admire that.
I'm going to adopt a little bit of that.
A lot of younger people, like, again, the stories that connected with me are the stories where, like, Naruto, there's a panel that really touched me, and this sounds silly.
A bunch of kids were having their parents come and see their, um... I don't know, it's like... A progress report or whatever.
Yeah, and then all the parents were, like, hugging the kids.
Oh, son, daughter, you did such a great job, and Naruto's an orphan.
And so there's this panel...
It burned itself in my memory, this panel.
He's just staring blankly at all the kids with jealousy.
I'm like, oh my god, I know exactly what that feels like.
And I loved it.
I never forgot that panel.
tim pool
And so what did that instill in Naruto?
Two things.
One, he desperately wanted to be loved.
And two, he would do anything to protect.
He wanted recognition.
He wanted people to see him.
He wanted to be loved and recognized.
But also, when he started to attain that admiration from, like, Iruka, I think was his first teacher.
I could be getting the name wrong.
george alexopoulos
The eye guy?
tim pool
No, no, that's Kakashi.
His first teacher when he was a little kid, like the preschool teacher, was like a low-level ninja or whatever, who the first person to actually be nice to him and take care of him, he wouldn't let it go.
It's like he had to experience something that no one else had.
And then there was Sasuke, whose brother massacred his whole family, who lost it all.
And there was that contrast to it.
But the important thing to understand with Naruto is you have this kid who he grew up without knowing the love of his parent because his parents had died sacrificing themselves.
You know, I think I forgot how his mom died.
I think similarly.
His dream then is to become the Hokage, which is the president, basically, and protect everybody and not lose what he has now gained when people start to respect him and see him for who he is.
And I think the important thing to recognize there is that he is a powerful young man with spiky blonde hair who desperately wants attention, much like another world leader with blonde hair who really wants attention and will stop at nothing to save this country.
george alexopoulos
Well, he does seem to be filling a gap in his heart.
There's something that's like no reasonable person would keep doing what you're doing.
There's something in him that needs to be satisfied, and I'm not going to speak to that, I suppose.
tim pool
I think the story there is that he's jealous, like you mentioned.
george alexopoulos
He wants everyone to love him.
tim pool
But it's because he didn't have the love.
george alexopoulos
Probably.
tim pool
He was jealous of what everyone else had, and so he wants everyone to love him.
When he's young, he lashes out to get attention, but then as he gets older, he becomes like an unstoppable force.
george alexopoulos
What's interesting about that is that drive of, I want attention and affection, can express itself in negative and positive ways.
Either jealousy and hatred, or I'm going to try to make people like me.
tim pool
And some of the best writing I have ever read in my life.
You've read or watched all of Naruto?
george alexopoulos
More than half.
tim pool
I've told this story before on IRL, but I'll tell it now for everybody because it is a masterpiece.
Naruto is being trained by Kakashi, a very famous anime character who's got one eye covered.
And after the trio advance, all three, so there's Sasuke, Naruto, and... Sakura.
Sakura.
And they each get trained by one of the three legendary ninjas.
Jiraiya, the Toad Ninja, then there's Tsunade, the Slug, and Orochimaru, the Snake.
They're not really those things.
They have those elements.
They're ancient Japanese legendary characters.
The story of Jiraiya saving Tsunade from Orochimaru is a famous Japanese legend.
So, these three main characters go on to train with these three legendary ninjas.
The story of Jiraiya is that he was traveling during the Great Ninja War, and there was a country in between the other countries that was basically used as a battleground because of its location, and it was just wrecked and destroyed.
It's the land of, I think, rain.
And he comes across these three kids who are orphans, who are fighting and desperate for survival, and he says, I'm gonna train you, because what's happened to your country is wrong.
One of the kids' name is Nagato.
And this kid is, like, naturally gifted and has this ability, which is shocking to Jiraiya.
Jiraiya trains him.
One day, Nagato says something to him that inspires Jiraiya, who goes on to write a book, basically about this kid, called Naruto.
Jiraiya, having been the teacher to Naruto's parents, named their son after the character in the book.
Later on in life, when Naruto is trying to fight this evil globalist organization.
I kid you not.
It's called Akatsuki and they're globalists.
They want mass power to unite the world under their boot.
The main guy, his name is Pain.
And he has the ability to basically control corpses.
When Naruto finally confronts the actual dude.
Let me slow down.
Jiraiya goes to confront Pain.
And dies.
When you first encounter this character, Pain, it is, you know, like, it's a bunch of different weird people, all seemingly under the control of one person.
Naruto eventually confronts the real Pain, who's puppeteering these corpses.
Yeah.
And it's Nagato.
And he's, like, gaunt and frail, because he doesn't use his body, he controls others.
Naruto defeats Nagato.
And when he does, he refuses to kill him and then espouses a quote about his ethos, about how, I don't know the exact quote, but he basically says, my ninja way, I will save the world.
I will be the hero to stop hatred once and for all.
And then Nagato, who is desperately trying to kill Naruto because he's an evil globalist, has this profound moment where he says to Naruto, where did you hear that?
Like, why are you saying that to me?
And then Naruto's basically like, Jiraiya, my teacher, you know, instilled these ideas in me.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
Naruto was a young man who had defeated Nagato and then espoused his own ethos back to him, which he had abandoned.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
So Nagato, who is now his evil globalist, Is beaten and then hears a kid say to him exactly what his ideals were and it rips him to shreds.
That moment was just like a culmination of all of this writing that clearly was planned out and was masterful.
The name Naruto.
So I'm just thinking about imagine being a dude in your 30s and you're on this mission of conquest.
And then you come across a kid who is named after you without you knowing, who then tells you your own ethos back to you, reminding you of how you've abandoned goodness to become evil.
And then this triggers a turn.
Like, it's just fucking masterpiece.
That reminds me- I just can't.
I can't even.
And then Pain, Nagato, changes and immediately helps Naruto and says, I can't believe what I've become.
Like the embodiment of all of his ideals standing before him.
Just brilliant, brilliant writing.
george alexopoulos
There's a quote that I like to, it reminded me what you just told me is the pain ends with me.
There's like, um, there's people who have a lot of bitterness in their lives or whatever, because people were mean to them or they were bullied or even abused or something.
And they have the option in their adulthood, let's say they were, they were hit as a kid or something.
Instead of sort of just taking it and holding it and never passing it on, the psychic pain is so much that they have to pass it on because it feels at the time like it's going to be a relief or something.
But what you end up doing is passing it to the next generation.
So there's this generational... let's say alcoholism or something.
If someone's father was an alcoholic or they were abused in other ways, you have...
It takes superhuman discipline and self-control to say, I'm going to end that cycle that has been passed on.
If someone's dad was beaten when he was a kid, I'm just using extreme examples.
Right, so there's examples of somebody who has a psychic wound that they received when they were a kid.
It's not their fault that they had it, but they can or cannot, they might not pass it on.
I would use an extreme example of, you know, people talk about the grooming things and that's why the Drag Kid Story Hour freaks out so many people.
A lot of, I want to say this with sensitivity because I don't know if it's true, they say a lot of people who are in those, the LGBT rainbow stuff, were hurt as kids.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
And so you guys being around kids freaks me out because what if your psychic wound is saying, I want to pass it on?
tim pool
Well, it is.
george alexopoulos
But the best way, like, it's not your fault that you were hurt as a kid, I want to tell them, but like, just don't let yourself be in a setting where you can pass it on.
tim pool
So think about the problem we're facing right now with, you know, conservatives saying anime and cartoons are demonic or bad.
They're literally saying, A positive masculine influence for my child is a bad thing they shouldn't have.
So then what's the alternative?
The chaos of Drag Queen Story Hour?
george alexopoulos
The kids will find entertainment somewhere.
tim pool
But it's... Wolf Cubs play fight.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
Imagine if you were saying, like, no, no, no, you shouldn't be allowed to be inspired by these stories of masculinity and strength.
The story of Naruto is, whenever he confronts a villain, he tries not to kill them.
He tries to turn them, to convince them, and then he's successful in many regards.
The same thing is true for Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z, like, almost all the villains somehow become good guys.
Like, even Frieza has an arc where he teams up with them.
It's amazing.
It's funny.
Yeah, I mean, with Dragon Ball Z, they convert all their enemies.
Krillin was a rival to Goku, then they're best friends.
Vegeta tries to destroy the Earth and then literally becomes the second greatest hero.
I love how they do that.
If you're saying these stories of, like Dragon Ball Z, let's talk about that.
Goku trains at 100 times gravity to become strong enough to save his friends.
Don't worry about the names of the characters, just the bad guy kills his best friend and then Goku loses it and then his power tremendously increases out of rage.
You don't want young boys to learn the lesson of...
Struggle, become stronger, improve yourself, be the hero, sacrifice.
What are they going to get if they don't have that?
What they're going to get is it's going to be RuPaul's Drag Race.
george alexopoulos
Yes.
tim pool
They're going to get whatever they can from TV because you're saying this is bad.
george alexopoulos
Which is ironic because conservatives would agree with the statement of training makes you stronger, helping your friends makes you stronger.
tim pool
Captain America, dude!
george alexopoulos
They're preventing their kids from watching things, like you said, from the very things that will make them have the values that you want to pass to them.
tim pool
You... Here's what you gotta do.
Okay, conservatives?
You give your kids Batman, Superman, Naruto, Black Clover... Let them discover it, though.
george alexopoulos
It has to be theirs, not yours.
tim pool
But I'm not so sure, but I see what you're saying.
But here's the point.
The point is, they go to their friends and they'll say, look at this thing that I have.
george alexopoulos
It's so cool.
Look at this thing I found in the basement.
It's called Dragon Ball.
tim pool
Yep, that's right.
But I don't think it's always true that if dad's doing it, the kids think it's uncool.
george alexopoulos
No, no, that's probably, yeah.
But it has to be something that's special to them and they just want to devour it.
tim pool
Right.
I think, you know, the way I got into anime was just through a friend.
Like my parents obviously weren't into that stuff.
But my dad brought me to go see the Batman movies and stuff like that.
My family would bring me to go see all that stuff.
george alexopoulos
I had a church friend corrupt me back when Adult Swim and the Sci-Fi Channel had like old Appleseed and Dominion Tank Police, even before Ghost in the Shell became hot.
And he corrupted me with all this like, look, I can download all this anime for free.
I'll burn you a CD with Berserk on it.
I'm like, what is Berserk?
Oh my God.
And I was way too young to be watching this stuff, but it was still awesome.
Akira Ghost in the Shell is not for kids, but as a kid I watched it and I was like, this is the coolest.
This is for adults.
This is mine.
tim pool
I think they might not like Ghost in the Shell.
It's so transhumanist.
george alexopoulos
And kids shouldn't watch Berserk, fine.
But if they do happen to watch Berserk, first of all, it's pimp and it's the bomb and whatever.
But that's where...
Kids want to see things that maybe the parents would not allow them to see because They're attracted to the idea of what's this forbidden knowledge that I'm supposed.
I'm ready.
I'm ready to learn about this stuff I'm ready to watch gore and learn about sexy stuff or whatever, but I'm too embarrassed to ask my mom and dad about it But the danger is instead of asking someone who might tell you a responsible answer.
They're going to creepos online Yep And that's why I'm scared of, like, kids being exposed to, like, there are certain types of YouTubers who are the cool, creepy, youth pastor types who do watch these shows and tell- but they'll guide them to, like, places where, no, you shouldn't be going there.
tim pool
This is it.
I mean, some kid is gonna go to their parents, or they're gonna be around their parents, they're gonna say, I found this thing I like, and the dad's gonna be like, no, that's bad.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And they're gonna be like, okay, I can't go to my dad or mom with that.
george alexopoulos
I'm gonna do it in secret and watch it in secret.
tim pool
I'm gonna go find the creepy internet person who tells me I feel good.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, the rabbit holes where they're not supposed to be.
tim pool
You got that dude, I don't want to say his name, who has those videos where he's such a Pennywise the Clown character and he's like, Tell your parents no.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
Run away from them.
Hide from your parents.
It'll feel good.
It's like, wow, this dude's evil.
george alexopoulos
And there's lots of those types.
tim pool
Yep.
george alexopoulos
But why not?
Fathers, especially fathers, like why not?
Watch anime with your kids.
Pre-screen them and find the cool ones if you want to.
But do not let your kids just float around the internet finding stuff that That can lead them into weird, like that, I don't remember that guy's name even, but I know exactly who you're talking about.
tim pool
I don't want to say his name.
Okay.
I don't want to give him- I know who you mean though.
But it's this evil dude who makes these videos where he tells kids to like ignore their parents, to run from them.
It's like, it's demonic stuff.
george alexopoulos
But that, that's how these types of people find kids who, and even kids without their parents around.
Hey, I'll be your family.
I'm your found family.
tim pool
Yup.
george alexopoulos
Why don't we hang out and then, you know, they can do whatever they want to the kid or plant whatever, uh, memes and seeds into their kid's head.
But that's how these weirdos replicate.
They find vulnerable kids.
I hate to say it that way.
They find vulnerable kids and then there's just more and more of them.
And it can be stopped by parents just being a part of their kid's hobbies.
tim pool
We are not supposed to, as a species, separate ourselves from our children the way we do.
Fair.
That a dad says, I'm off to work, kids, and leaves is an aberration, which is causing societal decay.
It used to be, the dad would wake up and say, blacksmith.
And the kid is now 10 years old.
george alexopoulos
The kingdom come.
tim pool
And he'd go into his workshop and he'd be like, son, get in here.
I need a pail of water.
Yes, dad.
And the kid is with his dad the whole time, learning from his dad.
The daughter's with the mom.
And as a family, they're learning and working with the community.
We got to this point in industrialization where it's like, I'm going to work and you will never see what I do.
That moment, separated.
Parents, from instilling their skills, values, and assets to their children, and then we put kids in schools, institutionalized learning facilities, so that government could train them.
george alexopoulos
To train them to be more drones, like the parents in the industrial... Parents gotta bring their kids to work.
tim pool
That's why I tell people here, I'm like, dude, it is a cultural shit that needs to go back.
Like, whenever you're able, we have work parties and stuff, I'll be like, bring your kids, man.
And no one should have a problem with it.
Human beings should not Should not be like, oh, the baby's crying, I'm angry about it.
No, too bad, too bad.
If somebody who works here is like, I'd like to come to the work event, but I have the kids, bring them.
And if anyone has an issue with that, I'm something to say to them, like, dude, human beings are this way.
That's it, that's it.
george alexopoulos
Too many parents of our generation act like their kids are a burden.
tim pool
Yup.
But not only that, I don't get mad when I hear babies crying.
I'm not annoyed by it.
I'm not frustrated by it.
It makes me smile.
It makes me panic.
george alexopoulos
Like, oh, we gotta help them.
But then you learn the difference between actual crying and I just want attention crying.
tim pool
Sure.
When I'm on a plane and I hear a baby crying, I don't get angry about it.
And I hear the mom saying, like, I can hear, like, the parents trying to get the baby to stop crying, stop crying.
It makes me laugh.
I'm like, this is life.
These are humans.
This is what babies do.
So if someone has kids, those kids should periodically visit work.
I understand some things can be disruptive.
You can't have little kids running around knocking over milk and stuff like that.
But within reason, at a certain age, especially like, once a kid's like nine years old, they're old enough to watch their parent work, whatever that work may be, and be involved.
I probably have this in me because my family opened a coffee shop, and I am nine years old, and I am working the register, I am refilling the chili, I am stocking the muffins, and that's how things used to be.
You worked with your family, and so you learned these values, and you earned something from it.
So I'm a little kid.
I bought Pokemon Red with my own money.
I had to wait a tip jar.
The only thing I'd get was tips.
And then once I had, I think it was 40 bucks, I went and I bought Pokemon Red and it was mine.
george alexopoulos
Well, that explains why you want to open a cafe.
tim pool
Well, I mean, not so much.
Cafes are just, to be honest, they're kind of easy.
They're cool.
It's easy to do.
It's a sure shot.
People want coffee.
People want to get coffee.
It's a fun place to hang out.
We want to make a watering hole.
And then I have the added benefit of my mom's opened one before and knows how to do it, so she's helping.
But it's why I think kids should have jobs.
And the left, they get so offended by this, and conservatives are such spineless losers that I have no problem saying children should have jobs.
I ain't talking about a coal mine, dude.
I'm talking about a paper route.
I'm talking about, you know, working at the family business, the grocery store.
george alexopoulos
Little vocations.
Like, kids are very... I've... Alright, so I have lots of family members that I've watched grow up, and they are so curious and...
They're passionate about everything when they're that age growing up.
They want to ask you a million questions.
They want to shadow you.
I've had, I'm not going to say what kind of family members out of privacy, but like when I'm working at my desk drawing, they will hover.
What are you doing now?
How are you doing that?
How do you draw that?
Hey, look at this drawing I made.
They're so interested just because they're seeing an adult do it.
And their mirror reflex, we're all born with it.
I want to copy the thing that I'm fascinated by.
If they're just, they will osmosis anything they're around.
So why not have them around, that's a great idea, have them around the parents, have them around a vocation, and they will learn those things instead of whatever garbage they'll find from strangers.
tim pool
And I think Matt Walsh, it'd be a good example, I think his kids should watch a large portion of his commentary and they should watch him do it.
george alexopoulos
It's fair.
tim pool
I say a large portion because I understand there are things inappropriate for kids, and if Matt is targeting high-level, you know, adult subjects, obviously not that.
But having your kids around, I'm not saying he doesn't do this, I'm just saying, using him as an example, you should bring your kids to work and tell them, sit and watch, here's how I work.
They can learn those things.
george alexopoulos
I like the examples of, like, guys who go to the range, they're teaching their kids how to responsibly use firearms and stuff.
tim pool
Yeah, except for that one guy who gave his daughter, we gave her an Uzi, fully auto.
george alexopoulos
Wow.
tim pool
Yeah, they're irresponsible parents.
And just because they're irresponsible parents doesn't mean you don't teach your kid gun safety or, you know, how to work it out.
george alexopoulos
It makes it more important to be responsible, yeah.
Obviously don't give weapons to kids who aren't... I just use that as an example.
Maybe it's a bad example.
tim pool
I feel like so much of what we hear in movies and TV is anti-child propaganda, to be honest.
Like the people saying like, oh, I was on a plane, the baby wouldn't shut up.
And it's just like, ask yourself why you're mad about that.
Serious question, though.
george alexopoulos
Selfish.
tim pool
I just don't get annoyed by crying babies.
Never, for any reason.
I don't get annoyed by kids.
At all.
I'm at a restaurant, and there are kids, and they're acting up, and the parents are getting angry.
I'm laughing about it.
I'm like, this is human life, man.
In that vein, too, I've never understood the obsession with trying to be permanently young.
Like, I can understand not wanting to die.
But this idea of people getting plastic surgery to look younger, I'm like, dude, being old is a part of being human.
Live.
george alexopoulos
It's like when you find pictures of high schools in the 80s, they tried to make themselves look older.
tim pool
That I understand though.
george alexopoulos
You want to be like the adults.
Yeah.
And now adults want to be like young people, which is puzzling.
unidentified
Right.
george alexopoulos
You know, I'm afraid of more, more mortality.
So I want to look as young and fresh as possible.
That I can understand.
tim pool
I always, look, I understand when you're old, your bones get achy, your muscles hurt.
I'm wrinkly.
I don't care about the wrinkles.
I don't care about the gray.
I got gray hair in my beard.
george alexopoulos
I'm seeing the reaper's hand on my shoulders.
So I want to look, I'm not saying I, George, but I understand why someone would want to look younger because they're afraid of death.
Fine, I get that.
tim pool
Yeah, but I guess my thing is, people... The idea I'm trying to bring up is about children for the most part.
How we create these tropes that having children is bad.
They say, don't have kids because can you afford it?
Who has ever been able to afford kids?
I mean, obviously there are rich people who can.
george alexopoulos
Look at pictures of the Depression.
unidentified
Right!
george alexopoulos
Huge families.
tim pool
In the Great Depression, people had kids.
george alexopoulos
And unfortunately back in those days a lot of the kids you know they got like really sick and they would die of starvation or something but like I'm not and we're in the generation where that kind of thing almost can never happen.
tim pool
It's just it's just really to be honest like the crying baby annoying people is really confusing to me.
george alexopoulos
I think it's it's something it's just selfishness.
I know people our age who talk smack about their kids as if it's like a burden.
And I mean, not to say too much, but you know, I would love to have kids.
I don't yet.
We've been trying, you know, as we get older, maybe it gets harder or something, but it's like, I'm, I'm genuinely jealous.
Like I was at the diner this morning.
I saw a really sweet family, two kids.
One of the kids was looking at me and making faces, and I'm making faces back.
And I'm like, man, you know, I really wish I had a family like that.
unidentified
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
And it's like, I would love to, you know, whatever, pray for me if you guys are of that.
So it's like, yeah, I would love to.
And it's like, it hurts my feelings when I see people our age saying bad things about their kids.
And it's like, you don't know how blessed you are.
You look at people who can't have kids or are struggling, and man, maybe it's a grass is greener kind of thing, but- The grass is greener, no question, hands down.
But at the end of our lives, it's so much better to be surrounded by family.
tim pool
That's my point.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
The grass is greener, period, no question, and everyone knows it.
The point that I stressed with that Chelsea Handler thing, you saw that video?
george alexopoulos
So dumb, yeah.
tim pool
She's like, I wake up at six in the morning, do drugs and masturbate, and I'm happy.
It's like, okay, well, look.
This is a fact.
You will be on your deathbed.
And if you go the Chelsea Handler route, a nurse will walk in and say, I'm sorry, it is terminal.
Is there anyone we should call?
And you will say, no.
And they'll say, press the button if you need anything.
george alexopoulos
Nursing home.
tim pool
And then you're just sitting on this bed, waiting to die, staring at the wall.
Or, you can be like Murph in Interstellar.
And the doctor will say, I'm sorry, it's terminal.
And then you'll be holding the hand of your husband or wife or son or daughter with all of your children and their grandchildren around saying, we love you and we're here for you.
And you can smile knowing that everything you hold dear, all your values, your dreams and ambitions have been imbued in these people that you have created who will carry on your vision for eternity.
Or you can die in a sterile environment knowing that you masturbated and did drugs at six in the morning.
george alexopoulos
You know, I could tell a personal account of that.
Last time I visited you guys, back in August, I was in a rush to get back home because my grandmother was in hospice care or something.
Like, there are places where they can put you in a home, but it's like, you're dying, you're not gonna make it.
Right, hospice.
She had like stage four cancer or something.
And in the few weeks after I came back home, it was in September, we took turns, all the grandchildren and all of her children, my grandmother had, I'm not going to say the exact number, I guess, but there was like 15 people taking turns visiting her in her house, taking care of her.
And man, I think she was so proud.
I mean, there's obviously like little family, like...
It wasn't perfect, but like we took turns taking care of her.
My grandma, like the sweetest woman you've ever met.
She was 90.
She was like losing weight.
She was, you know, it was very sad, but she's like telling me, I'm sorry that you're here and that you have to take care of me.
It's like, you took care of all of us and now it's our turn to take care of you.
And that is probably one of the best ways you can go.
Surrounded by family.
tim pool
Where did that go?
It's like, how did we get to this point?
george alexopoulos
My grandma was from the old country though.
tim pool
No, but I, yeah.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
I just mean like, where did it go?
How do we get to the point where it's like, oh, my parent is ailing?
Time to put him in a home so I can forget about it.
george alexopoulos
We're selfish.
tim pool
Evil.
george alexopoulos
We...
I want to give people room to come back, and I'm not gonna call them evil, but let's not be selfish.
tim pool
I'm saying it is evil.
george alexopoulos
It is an evil thing, yeah.
But it's such a huge, it's very painful, I'll tell you guys that.
People want to avoid pain in our generation especially, I get that.
We're very avoidant of pain.
But I'll never forget these memories of I was holding my grandmother up, she was lying down on the couch, we had to pick her up, And she would like drink water and just like little sips of water.
She couldn't even eat.
It's like we were crying like nonstop, but it's like we honored her so much.
But people are in a generation because they're afraid of the pain of doing that.
tim pool
Yeah.
george alexopoulos
I think they're avoiding it.
Maybe the reason they don't have kids is because they're avoiding what if something happens to the kid?
tim pool
I think we're just becoming permanent children.
george alexopoulos
Selfish, but that's yeah, a child is innocent and avoids pain adults have to bear responsibility and Because we're such as such a fragile generation Adults are piccolo standing in front of Gohan absorbing the blast sure save him.
Why not?
tim pool
That's the meme you'd see this the wolf spaghetti.
No, there's a so in Dragon Ball Z manga and anime Piccolo is previously an enemy.
You know what I'm talking about now.
Previously an enemy of the main character Goku, and then in Dragon Ball Z in the beginning, the villain tries to kill Goku's son, and Piccolo stands in front of the blast, absorbing it to save the child.
george alexopoulos
Raditz?
tim pool
I think it was Raditz.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
Probably Raditz.
And then, uh, I don't know if he dies from it.
Does he die?
He does.
And then they have to go to Namek.
That's what happens.
So maybe it was, yeah, they have to go to Namek to... To bring him back.
Yeah, because the Dragon Balls aren't there.
But someone took a bunch of spaghetti and they took the doll and they put the spaghetti in front of him because it looks like an energy blast.
The spaghetti.
The dry noodles.
george alexopoulos
But I think, yeah, that summarizes the problem with our generation is we're very pain avoidant.
And selfish.
And I would like to encourage people in our generation to take on more pain so that you can lessen the burden on other people.
Cause we are stronger than we think, but we were raised, I think public school raised us.
That's great.
Yeah.
Public school maybe taught us to like, uh, to avoid our responsibilities or something like that.
Um, we, we are stronger than we think.
And I think we need to live as if that's true.
tim pool
Yeah, I think one of the problems we're facing right now is the infantilization of humanity in general.
Everybody wants to be a permanent child, to the point where they're like, you know, sterilizing and castrating people.
The Harry Potter meme for everything, it's like, that's a children's book.
I like the story, but like, grow up, face reality, and people don't want to do it.
george alexopoulos
I think if we show ourselves facing reality and succeeding, people will become almost jealous and want to have a piece of the action.
So that's how we can encourage people to also grab some responsibility.
Look how good we're doing.
Look at this amazing empire you've built.
tim pool
Nobody, I don't know, man.
george alexopoulos
I'm not saying they should emulate it.
tim pool
People don't thrive or strive.
I don't think people actually want to do I'll put it this way.
I think people In our generation, for whatever reason, want the rewards, but not the journey.
They want to stand on top of the mountain and tell everyone they're there, but they don't want to actually have to climb the mountain.
But climbing the mountain is the point!
george alexopoulos
It's like taking a gondola up to the mountain.
tim pool
They want everyone to look at them for having been the person who completed the journey.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, they want to act like being on the peak is the reason to do the journey, but it's like, no, it's all the XP you gained climbing.
tim pool
I think skateboarding shaped a lot of my worldview in this way.
There are people who sometimes strangely lie about doing tricks.
Like I did a kick flip down that stair set just so that people can recognize them.
george alexopoulos
Because the reward is the bragging rights?
tim pool
The issue with skateboarding though is people's response to that is, you got the video?
And it's like, no, it's like, well, show me the video.
There was one dude, I won't say his name, famous pro claimed he did this massive trick down this massively famous location.
And the response from everybody was prove it.
And it was never proven, so nobody believes it.
That's the thing.
It's like, there's a reason we film it, to prove it.
But the other point is, in skateboarding you learn After you land that trick, finally, you've been trying for so long, you get about a second or two of feeling joy, and then it's gone.
And then the question is, what now?
You have to keep on this journey, working hard every day to keep that feeling going.
Because you can't just do one trick and then wrap it up, put the board away, and be like, I'm done, I did it, because that feeling's gone.
It doesn't stick around.
And you can't lie.
There's no cheating in skateboarding.
george alexopoulos
And to earn the respect of your peers, you have to show how many hours you've put into it.
tim pool
Well, I mean, that is an interesting thing too.
Some people are naturally gifted.
And the question is like, can you do the trick and prove you did it and will respect it?
Yeah.
It is though, interestingly, if you go to a skate park, if you right now, like you've never skated before I imagine, right?
george alexopoulos
Just a little, like not serious, no.
tim pool
If you went there and you were standing in the grass trying to kickflip, Nobody would say anything.
If you started getting close to it, people would start clapping for you.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And then when you finally landed, everyone in the park would go, Yeah, no, I'll cheer for you.
Because skateboarding, it's only somewhat about being the best.
If someone comes in and they're really good, everyone's cheering and clapping for how good they are.
But I'd say literally 100% of the times I've been at a skate park, you see, I'm 18 and there's a 50-year-old guy, and he clearly isn't that good, and then he finally ollies over the curb, everyone starts clapping and cheering, they high-five him, like, you did it, and what did you do?
You overcame yourself.
That was the accomplishment.
Today, people want to just appear like they've done a thing, so they're posting on social media, they're trying to fit in, they're trying to emulate things or imitate things.
george alexopoulos
They want the feeling of, oh, people cheering for them.
tim pool
And they're getting it through likes.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
So when I go to a skate park, if I overcome myself, people cheer for me.
If I don't, nobody cares.
I show up to a skate park, I'm skating at Wilson Skate Park in Chicago.
I go full speed, ollie up, do a nose grind on this high ledge, nobody cares.
Why?
Well, because I'm good at it.
Because it's something I'm really good at and it's just another day in the skate park.
Yeah.
But then I try to kickflip into it and I'm screwing it up and screwing it up and everyone's starting to like watching like, come on bro, and they'll be like, all right, you got it this time, they'll fist bump you.
Then you land it, then everyone's cheering for you because it could be the best trick in the world, but you accomplished something, you overcame yourself.
Nowadays, just go on social media, post a picture of your ass and get a thousand likes and each of those likes is someone fist bumping you.
george alexopoulos
I think that's why Superman is not an exciting superhero compared to Batman, like we were saying.
Superman can just punch anybody and he wins the day.
tim pool
There's a limited struggle.
george alexopoulos
But look at how hard Batman has to fight just to like reach even a fraction of that.
But that's what makes the struggle is what makes it exciting.
It's like Rocky.
tim pool
Although I really love that story arc where Batman goes missing.
So Superman puts on Batman's costume.
Do you ever see that one?
george alexopoulos
No, but that sounds fun.
tim pool
And then like he confronts Bane and they think it's Batman and Bane's like, Batman.
And he's like, when he just stops him and they're like, what?
Cause it's Superman.
george alexopoulos
Well, that's fun.
Yeah.
unidentified
Right.
Right.
tim pool
The reason we admire Batman in general is I think we're attracted to the, uh, But there is something about Superman that we, the godlike power and the restraint.
The power fantasy, yeah.
Well, no, it's his moral values.
george alexopoulos
Oh, okay.
tim pool
He doesn't kill.
He holds back.
So when they do create the injustice storyline where Superman becomes a tyrant, it was to explore what if.
But I really do love, they screwed up the movie, Batman versus Superman, in my opinion.
They had a really perfect opportunity.
So in this movie, which I'm sure many people have seen, Batman fears Superman's god-like powers, and then he flashes back to when Zod was destroying, you know, I think Metropolis, and he's like, he must be stopped.
Total wasted opportunity in storytelling, and this is the problem of modern storytelling, in my opinion.
Batman wants to kill Superman for that, just that what?
What should have happened is...
Batman has Superman on the ground.
He's holding the kryptonite spear.
And then Batman should have said to Superman, let this be the day you never forget, the day I defeated you.
And then he throws the spear aside and walks away.
The purpose being, Batman never wanted to kill Superman.
He wanted to instill the fear in Superman that he was not an undefeatable God and that he had to recognize, you know, that his power was defeatable so that he would never become evil.
Instead, he's just like, my mom's name is Martha.
And Batman goes, your mom's name is Martha?
My mom's name is Martha.
Can we be friends?
And that's the story.
george alexopoulos
They tried.
It didn't work.
I think the comic had that line, didn't it?
tim pool
It is.
That's the quote from the comic where he says, you never forget.
And I think in the comic, that was the point.
To show Superman he was not a god.
That he could be defeated and to have that fear within him.
I also love how Batman has a contingency plan to take out all of the Justice League.
So good.
Because he's like, he doesn't care.
There's the comic arc in the movie where someone steals Batman's contingency plans and weaponizes them against all of the Justice League.
And then they find out, they're like, you had a plan to take us all down?
He goes, yes!
You're gods!
Like, someone must be able to stop you if you become evil, like, there's no question.
Batman's the best.
He's the best superhero.
george alexopoulos
He's just good writing.
He's the most human of all of them, and the most relatable.
tim pool
And, I love how basically the approved comic lore is, given enough time, Batman can defeat anyone.
george alexopoulos
But that's a lesson that we could take home for ourselves.
Given enough time, we can get strong enough to do any goal that we decide.
tim pool
Smart enough.
george alexopoulos
Smart enough?
Even a dummy like me.
tim pool
They did the crossover with Marvel, and Batman defeated the Hulk.
So the Hulk, this like, god-like ultimate power, what did Batman do?
He threw nerve gas and then struck Hulk's solar plexus, causing him to inhale.
And then the Hulk collapses.
It's Batman, dude!
He's the best!
george alexopoulos
That's good writing.
tim pool
I love it.
unidentified
It is.
tim pool
Coming up with a way, and given enough time, he can figure it out.
That's why I like Batman.
Granted, he's super rich, so he can like, make whatever he wants.
And uh, but, you know, I do like Iron Man too.
george alexopoulos
Inspirational.
tim pool
Iron Man's a dick.
george alexopoulos
Well, look, anybody could say, if I work hard enough, I can make enough money and then I can achieve X goal.
I have a certain goal that like, I really want to be an author.
So I'm going to look into every way that I can become an author and then I can achieve that goal.
That's a story that is very meaningful for anybody and inspirational.
Like if I try hard enough, even someone who's dumb, like I was saying, like myself, if even though I'm not smart, I can seem smart if I do X, Y, and Z, if I work hard.
And then I can get there.
If my goal is to get respect, I can earn respect through these ways.
tim pool
I mean, this is the thing.
It's instant gratification, America.
Everybody just wants short-term gains.
george alexopoulos
15 minutes, though.
15 minutes of fame.
tim pool
But I mean everything, right?
They want to eat cookies and candies, get morbidly obese, and then be told they're allowed to do it.
It's like, no, you have to sacrifice and struggle and have willpower.
Like, you know, it used to be easier for us.
Cakes and candies were hard to come by.
Refined sugars were hard to make, and we were starving in the wilderness.
Now we're at the point where we are beset on both sides by ho-hos and ding-dongs.
And we have to be like, it is the most delicious thing ever and I will not eat it.
Otherwise, you become morbidly obese and it's bad for you.
george alexopoulos
You need the discipline.
tim pool
What have we replaced it with?
Now, morbidly obese people are saying, no, you should just accept me as this and I should be allowed to be a glutton.
Well, like you're going to live a short life.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, there are consequences to these choices.
If people choose to live that way, it's like not my business, but... Agreed.
Yeah, I would say that it's like working out with low weights.
If I have a five pound dumbbell, I'm never going to get huge muscles.
But if I train with, you know, 20 pounds, 40 pounds, I'm going to get huge muscles.
If your goal is to be strong, you want to give yourself extra training.
tim pool
But maybe this is the problem, when we say, if someone wants to live that way, let them live.
Because I've been thinking that for a while, like, dude, if you want to eat a bunch of hoes and ding-dongs, do it, you'll be fat, whatever.
Maybe we should stop saying that.
Maybe we should say, legally, you're allowed to do it, but I find it bad, and think you shouldn't do it, and I'm offended by it.
You know what I mean?
george alexopoulos
Well, all we're looking at is ads.
So, like, say Victoria's Secret or something is doing ads with people who are overweight.
And I'm not going to act like I'm skinny or anything, but like the reason they're doing those ads is because they want to reach that demographic through marketing.
We're just looking at strict marketing.
They want those people's money.
Yep.
Because we're already making the money of skinny people.
So that's what happened with the Budweiser issue is we already have those rednecks.
We already have their business.
So let's get this other demographic who we can't even touch.
But they didn't realize there would be this backlash.
Right.
tim pool
I think The issue is that as we all start saying stuff like, you know, live and let live, people will then say, okay, if the easy path for me in social acceptance is to just eat whatever I want, be morbidly obese and lazy and stupid, they'll do it.
And that drags all of us down.
Maybe we need to stop.
We need to say, hey, no more, no more fashion ads.
Like I will boycott your brand if you put morbidly obese people in, you know, for your, for your fashion clothing line.
george alexopoulos
What's the difference between persuasion and force?
So I've always felt that laws are too forceful and it will create people like will dig into their beliefs just because it's like a hard reaction, whereas art is more persuasive and gentle.
tim pool
I'm not saying to make it illegal.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
I mean, culturally, we need to be alike.
george alexopoulos
On the right, we tend to call people, like we respond to like, say the bootcamp, Hey, you're fat.
You're a loser.
Get strong, you jerk.
And then people are like, yes, sir.
You know, cause it pumps them up.
Whereas more gentle people who are artistic or left-leaning or something like that, like I don't respond to negative reinforcement at all.
If someone wants to piss me off, you can start criticizing me.
But if you want to encourage me, say, Hey, you're doing really good with this thing.
Do more of that.
And maybe ignore this thing that you're doing over here.
tim pool
I just, I think we've gotten rid of shame.
george alexopoulos
It works on some people and others are, they respond to encouragement.
tim pool
But I think overwhelmingly, it's not that we want people to feel bad.
It's that we need to have societal standards.
And we've, we've gotten to the point now where instead of shame, it's affirmation.
So no matter what negative attribute someone exhibits or engages in, we just say, you know what, we're going to affirm it.
george alexopoulos
Yeah, you're affirming for the sake of making them feel good, whereas feeling good is not a means to an end.
It's like you're trying to charm them.
tim pool
I'm finding, like, I don't know, there's somebody... I feel like it's callous to say to a person who is morbidly obese, you know what, do whatever you want.
I feel like that's kind of mean.
george alexopoulos
It's mean, but it's also, you have to look at what's the motivation underneath why I'm trying to make an ad supporting this lifestyle.
It's because I want your money.
It's like all these Robert Greene books that I love so much.
The reason why you would compliment someone is to try to befriend them, let's say.
Um, but I really dislike it when people compliment me personally.
So when I feel like someone's trying to, uh, Hey, George, you are so good.
And then they're trying to like befriend me.
And then it's like, they wanted, they just want the sneaky backdoor of now you're in with me.
Um, I realized that there is.
In marketing, you notice patterns of, Hey, you're perfect just the way you are.
And I also want to also, Hey, now that we're friends, I want to give you, I want to tell you about this investment opportunity, by the way, now that we're best friends.
So they're finding ways, like really superficial 15 minute ways to quote, seduce somebody or to get in with them.
And the reason is a, I want to sell something to you, or B, I want to impregnate your mind with this meme I have.
So the LGBT stuff is just a Trojan horse.
Um, and I shudder to think what the Trojan horse contains.
tim pool
Misery loves company.
george alexopoulos
Uh, yeah, but it could also be like, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
They believe their lifestyle is beautiful.
Love is love.
Fine.
All right.
So I'm going to start thinking like them.
The reason they think that way is because when they were younger, someone shamed them for being homosexual or For having certain fetishes or something, okay.
And so the reason they want to normalize their fetishes and stuff is because they want to not feel ashamed.
They want to live openly.
I can understand that.
But now, if society starts seeing and normalizing this behavior, Uh, it has a lot of, it comes with a lot of creepy baggage.
You go from, hey, um, there's that meme of if you accept gay marriage, then all this other stuff will never happen.
There's a pie chart.
tim pool
Yeah.
It said, it said, what will happen if we allow gay marriage?
And it's like the terrorists will win.
There'll be a third world war.
A pandemic will wipe out the planet.
Gay people will get married.
george alexopoulos
Yeah.
tim pool
And the pie chart is only that they'll get married, but then, you know, The irony is that like, not necessarily like those things are because of gay marriage, but if you let in this one thing, the Trojan horses, now you're allowing all these other things.
And the reason that there's a quote of, if you move a fence, you have to ask why it was there in the first place.
And the reason that, uh, I guess society always considered homosexuality weird, not, I'm just guessing.
It's not that that itself, if you allow homosexuality and like, um, Normal society, something like that.
It's not that it's going to lead to World War III, but the attitude of we're now going to denormalize the nuclear family is now leading to potentially lower birth rates.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
More permissive attitudes towards things that maybe should stay in private adult places.
Whereas, you know, the Drag Queen Story Hour freaks people out for good reason.
I think it's a provocation, so you have to be careful how you respond to that.
Well, it's a manipulation.
The purpose, I think, of Drag Queen Story Hour is so that when they do overt sex performances, they can Motten Bailey you.
And so what happens now is, you've got Kevin Bacon being like, hey man, they're trying to ban drag.
That's not okay.
No, they're trying to ban adult lewd performances for children, and you're using drag as the shield.
Unfortunately, the only way that society may snap out of that is if you get instances of bad things happening, which it is happening, but you don't hear about it so often.
Um, so some people are like with, uh, trans, um, surgeries, getting people who have regrets there when they start suing their doctors, you're going to see it coming back.
Unfortunately, some, yeah, some kids going to say, or some adult is like, yeah, I was, I had a drag performance in Austin 10 years ago and you know, inappropriate things happened.
Unfortunately, the best thing on an individual level that parents can do is just keep their kids out of the way it's going to happen.
I don't know if we can stop it.
Because the more you legislate it away, it's just going to pull the rubber band and it's going to snap.
I don't necessarily agree.
It's polarizing the country.
Like Dwayne Wade said that he fled Florida with his transgender daughter, his biologically male son, because of the laws there.
It will stop it.
But I don't think it's the solution.
It's a band-aid.
Conservatives need to produce culture to win.
The message needs to go to children.
Hey, like, here's how to be a good moral person.
Take your kid to a baseball game.
george alexopoulos
Teach them baseball.
tim pool
That's right.
Well, anyway, man, GoofberryPie, you've got this new Indiegogo with RazörFist.
You want to shout anything out as we wrap up?
I would love to encourage people to check out, links are in my Twitter bio, pokidot.etsy.com.
george alexopoulos
It's P-O-K-I-D-O-T.
That's our children's stuff.
tim pool
It's really sweet and then goes to the Badlands is funding right now in Indiegogo and Yeah, I appreciate everyone's support and goodwill and I'm just gonna keep making I'm not making as many political comics as I used to but I'm still drawing.
george alexopoulos
So thank you for your support Right on, man.
tim pool
Thanks for hanging out.
For everybody else, become a member at TimCast.com to join our Discord server, where you can hang out with other people talking about episodes like this, share ideas, and even call into TimCast IRL to talk to our guests live on our uncensored members-only show.
That'll do it for today.
Thanks for hanging out.
We'll see you all whenever.
Export Selection