Jamie Kilstein, once a progressive activist and Citizen Radio co-host, recounts his descent into Twitter’s tribal echo chambers—attacking figures like Daniel Tosh for "rape jokes" while hiding his own consensual relationship, only to face fabricated accusations (e.g., Jezebel’s "road fuck" claim) that destroyed his career and nearly drove him to suicide. His ordeal mirrors broader ideological purity: leftists nitpicking "all lives matter" while ignoring systemic issues, media weaponizing labels like "predator," and even Kevin Spacey’s public shaming over disputed allegations. Rogan highlights how social norms—like a 1911 gum ad’s presumptuous kiss logic—shifted dramatically, yet modern outrage often conflates intent with impact, stifling honest dialogue. Now, Kilstein seeks redemption through comedy and jiu-jitsu, but warns that re-entering the fray risks repeating past trauma, proving how performative activism and online mobs warp truth and belonging. [Automatically generated summary]
And for people who don't know, you used to be the host of, or one of the co-hosts of Citizen Radio, like super progressive, lefty podcast, and you were a vegan...
When I wrote Stanhope, when the Weinstein thing happened, I was like, hey, man, you want to, like, push off this return?
He's like, you're fine.
Yeah, so here's what happened.
So it kind of started where I was a comic for years, and as it got more progressive, it got more into that...
Judgmental territory, I guess where you know, I feel like I definitely became one of those people who would just be on Twitter all day and Instead of sort of talking about real issues It just becomes like who are we mad at that day?
Like who used the wrong word that day?
Who can we get fired that day?
Yeah, and it's Twitter mob stuff and it happens on the right and happens on the left It's just like kind of just people who are sad who just live like in their box Which I was like one of them, right?
That's why I think this is such an important conversation because Because you've kind of stepped away from it and you see it for what it is, I think people don't realize it when they're caught up in the swirl of it, the momentum of it, that it's almost like a natural human behavior pattern.
I've gone back and forth with drinking and not drinking and pot and not smoking pot.
And I can tell you that the thing I was addicted to the most was Twitter.
It was refreshing Twitter.
It was like you literally get dopamine hits from that.
I remember when I first tried to get off Twitter, I was fighting with some fucking stranger in my living room on Twitter.
And I was like, you know what?
Fuck this.
I'm gonna go take a walk.
I don't need to be involved in this guy's life.
I closed it.
And before I even knew it, I'm walking in the park, fighting with some other guy on my fucking phone.
And I'm like, it follows you.
If someone's calling you a cunt, they're calling you a cunt at dinner with your girlfriend.
They're calling you a cunt when you go to your brother's graduation.
And you're just refreshing it, waiting for someone to tell you that you're good.
And sort of, so that...
I got addicted to that more than anything, and especially when I finally got an audience with the left of left.
I mean, just to be very clear, it's not like I'm going to come on this show and suddenly do a fucking Shawn Michaels heel turn and be like, I'm Johnny Rape joke.
I thought ableist was just like, that guy's in a wheelchair.
Fuck him.
But I guess like all these different terms, these everyday terms, like I guess idiot is ableist because fucking, I don't know, there was an idiot in a wheelchair?
It's ableist because if you're not an idiot, if your brain works well, you're mocking someone whose brain doesn't work well, they are not able to think correct.
Yeah, but I think there's something that happened where people, around the time of Occupy Wall Street, things got really heated up.
And people started moving way left, and then some folks started moving way right.
And I really, truly believe to this day, the way left is what started the whole Trump movement.
It's in response to the way left.
I think all these shitheads got together and they didn't like...
Being accused of being assholes or ableists or rapists or whatever it is by the ultra-progressives.
So they went far right and alt-right.
I mean, the alt-right essentially was people who didn't identify with these old men who were bankers, but they also didn't want to have anything to do with these ultra-lefty progressives that were calling everyone a racist, everyone a rapist, every man's a piece of shit.
And I think one of the things with the ultra-left, and maybe this is me desperately trying to defend myself, but I think in a weird way, it was harder for me and it's harder for a lot of people to see themselves slipping into the extreme left.
And so what I mean by that is I never thought...
When I heard people say the extreme right is as bad as the extreme left, I was always like, fuck you.
Because, like, the extreme left isn't, like, bombing Palestine, being like, give us free healthcare, or, like, let trans people piss in the right bathroom.
Like, you know, even that, like, the shooter, not in Vegas, but that DC shooter.
Like...
He was like a fucking crazy guy.
He wasn't – ableist, I'm sorry.
He wasn't like shooting the politicians screaming like – I mean he liked the Bernie Sanders page, but it wasn't like we are launching wars against Islam for Christianity.
It wasn't – We're doing this for free market capitalism.
It was, to me, the extreme left when I heard people say it, and the reason I would scoff when someone like you would say it is because I'm like, dude, the left should just stand for equality, everyone has the right to an education, everyone has the right to not go fucking hungry, to have health insurance, gay people can do whatever they want with their dicks, the end, bye-bye.
Well, yeah, that gets to a point, but initially it's like, when is it defined as a life?
I mean, if the moment of conception, if that moment, if 30 seconds later it's an abortion, like if you could hold your breath and then the baby's dead, you know, like if we found out that the moment a guy comes to a woman, if she could just hold her breath for a minute, the baby will die.
Sometimes they have a heartbeat if it gets to a certain age.
What's going on?
I'm not saying that it should be my choice to define whether or not someone should do it or not do it, but it's very disingenuous when people frame this argument as it's a woman's right to choose, period.
Well, and I think that's the whole thing that we were talking about before with these, like, echo chambers where, you know, for the first time ever I've been listening to sort of, like, Both sides of issues.
Again, the majority of people, like, yeah, I'll totally fess up, sure.
Like, I didn't ask a lot of follow-up questions because your Facebook feed is curated and your Twitter is all of your friends and for the most part people you agree with.
And, you know, comedy was actually...
Comedy now, like, I've been listening to, like, a ton of, like, backlogs of your shows because once I was just like, oh, he doesn't hate me, I can listen to the show again?
But I started listening to the show and hearing pretty equal progressive to conservative ideals.
And comedy was always kind of this cool place where you could explore ideas because comedy and jokes and laughter would sort of take the edge off a little bit.
You know what I mean?
And you could actually talk about issues and...
Once I kind of became part of that crew that would even shit on comedy, then it was like, well, I can watch Democracy Now, and I guess that's it.
And I would feel fucking stupid.
I hung out with journalists.
I didn't hang out with comics.
I hung out with people where I felt like the joke monkey, and the high school dropout part of me would get really like...
It's like that's what they yeah, but they reward that yeah, this is the thing It's like so and then it's not the single out Jezebel because I think they've got some great writers sure yes There's there's something that happens with people when you write a lot of mean Very critical stuff.
And you become this attack machine.
And this is how you promote your ideas.
This is how you push your agenda.
By attacking people that some of them fucking deserve it for sure.
Some of them are definitely assholes.
But It becomes almost like the currency that you deal in.
Is that when you're an attack machine like that, and I'm not saying that Jezebel is, but there's a lot of the blogs that are attack machines.
When you're an attack machine, and if you can be- An ally on the other side, or not even on the other side, but an ally to the attack machine, and then they single you out as that, it gives you this feeling like, oh, I'm not going to get attacked by them.
This is good.
And you reinforce that behavior by ramping up the types of things that you say that they like, that they appreciate.
And it becomes a sort of weird exchange where it's implied.
I think this is a lot of what goes on in political circles as well.
There's not as much bribery as there is an understanding that if you do what we want you to do and you say what we want you to do, then you're in.
And when you do find that tribe, and you do find people who are going, yeah, and the more you attack on Twitter, because not just blogs, like remember, like individuals on Twitter, like me, like when I would see like, who's getting piled on today?
Because that's what would happen where, like, I would literally tweet, not even a joke, even if I tweeted somebody sincere, and this, like, sucks to admit, but even if I tweeted something, like, hashtag Black Lives Matter.
I'm refreshing that shit to be like, did Questlove favorite it?
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm not doing it to be, you know, and then you can feel good about yourself.
Then you can go, not saying I did this, but you can go on the street and you can fucking ignore the homeless person, and you can cross the street when you see, like, the scary black guy, because you're just like, well, I'm technically the Rosa Parks of Twitter, because I fucking tweeted that joke at that writer who said that fucking thing that no one's gonna remember tomorrow, but we were all angry about today.
Jesus Christ, this is the first time I've had caveman coffee.
Yeah, and I... I wasn't gonna say off that with man just a sort of sidebar with Twitter When all that shit happened to me and I got off all social media, but you didn't explain what happened.
Oh, right, right, right Okay, so you're the super vegan feminist Yeah, and again like The ideas at their core, right?
Sexism's bad, rape's bad.
These shouldn't be fucking controversial issues, but when you take it to that extreme that you were talking about where you're looking to sort of like, who can I call a sexist today?
Because I'm trying to be funny, and we would have to stop and edit it out.
I would feel like a fucking idiot.
And...
And I remember I did a college once, and it was the first time this ever happened.
Usually they introduce you by my measly credits.
They would be like, he did Conan once.
And this time the woman at the college introduced me.
She didn't give any comedy credits.
She just goes, our headliner tonight is a male feminist.
And I remember going into the mic and being like, that makes me sound like a rapist.
Like, it sounds so fucking creepy.
And that's what I was, like, labeling myself.
That was a label that was thrown at me.
And in my head, I'm like, well, I don't hate women, so I guess, sure.
But male feminist sounds like you're, like, cruising around in, like, a fucking male feminist van.
being like who wants equal pay like it sounds so creepy but I took it cuz there is so much sexism on the other side that you're like I guess man I guess being an ally is good right that's like you're defending people but then it gets to this level where you're like I got to renew my ally dues and call somebody a fucking rapist and that's where got stuck so and then this so this is where it bit me in the ass so I come on this show We have the argument about sexism.
Which is, it all came from a study that, God, I want to say it was out of the University of Arizona, but I forget where the study was, but they essentially looked at almost any uncomfortable interaction between a man and a woman, unwanted or remorseful sex was rape, a lot of different things.
Sex while intoxicated was rape.
There's a lot of different things that they used to define sex where they got to this one in five.
Oh my god, I was with my friend the first time I hung out with a comic, this guy, Luis Gomez, do you know him?
Yeah, I know Luis.
So I was with Luis, and we were hanging out in LA, and I was telling him I think I want to do comedy again, and he made a joke with the word fingering in it, and I started laughing like a fucking kid, and I'm like, I forgot how fucking funny the word fingering is!
I was like, oh, fingering and midget and comedy, there's so many good...
Anyway, so...
So my girlfriend, so I'm breaking up with her, and she starts swinging at me.
And she's like, you can't fucking break up with me, blah, blah, blah.
And I was just like, hey, we can talk about this later, but there's a guy downstairs who is going to, with a hilarious accent, who's going to take my brother's.
You have to stop.
And she's fucking swinging at me and swinging at me.
And that's a great way, but that has to do with these echo chambers where I'm like, well, I didn't fucking hear that part of it.
I just hear the part, you just hear the part that you're supposed to attack.
And then, ironically, I went to one of Burt's podcasts at the same festival, the All Things Comedy Festival, and And fucking Doug and Bert, like, this whole rape thing happened in the audience.
I don't know if you heard about it, but, like, all hell broke loose.
So, what was also not talked about in these articles is that for the last however many years before Alice and I got separated, we were in an open relationship.
We talked about it on the show eventually, but for a while we didn't talk about it.
Which to anyone in a fucking open relationship, it's a nightmare when you're not talking about it because you feel like a lecherous, cheating creep because you're in an open relationship.
And then I was finally just like, we have to talk about it.
And at this point, and I don't want to shit on anybody, at this point, my co-host and I, we were pretty much just really good friends who lived together and did a show together.
And...
So years later, years after me and this girl broke up, years after all this shit, I'm living in LA. I've had a girlfriend for a year.
It's like a very healthy, wonderful relationship.
Years after all this, I guess what happened was one of these girls...
Essentially started to try to find any girl who has been pissed off by me before.
And they found enough for an article that I think like two articles came out.
I left Citizen Radio because the show was getting a ton of complaints because our inner circle started to find out that there were quote unquote accusations, which the word accusation makes it sound Weinstein-y.
So the author, there's one moment in it, and I'll try to make this about journalism and not about the woman, but one of the complaints about me was I had a consensual...
Night with a lady in Nashville who, I guess because she listened to the show, maybe they're like, that's predatory because you're famous.
And I was like, well, no one else thinks I'm fucking famous.
So, here's what happened, and this goes to your question before.
Had called so many people sexist because I had sort of made my almost career by that It was a fucking fun man when people heard about this Like and you see the headlines and this is another like problem with like clickbait journalism The headlines look like I was fucking accused of rape.
There was a One article that used the word sexual harassment sexual misconduct was in all the headlines.
It wasn't like if, you know, a bigger comic gets accused of something.
Well, he has thousands or millions of fans, and then this small community who are accusing him of something.
I had sort of nobody, and when I burnt all the bridges in comedy—and, you know, I never just showed up at clubs to do sets and stuff like that.
I just had this audience— And sort of thought I could never get fired, you know?
Like, when Allie and I sort of became more platonic before the open relationship, I mean, there were days it was so, you know, I mean, I would sleep on the couch, but there were days I would go on the road and I would not cheat.
And I would go back to the hotel and jerk off and, like, my orgasm was better because I'm like, I saved Citizen Radio!
Like, I was trying so hard not to do anything like that.
And so, anyway, I lost...
Yeah, there was no one to root for me.
I just had this small audience.
This small audience either thinks I'm a predator or they're too nervous to say anything.
Yeah, this is sort of the problem with acting like you don't have flaws.
And I always did.
I thought on the show, my favorite parts of my show were when I talked about depression or alcoholism and we would get emails in from people who, you know, it said it really helped them and I wanted to talk so much more about that stuff.
Because I do think it's important to examine your flaws, but on a political level, I held myself up as like an untouchable.
Well, I think you were doing essentially the same thing that you were talking about doing on Twitter, where you're addicted to this positive response and you're addicted to saying these things about people and attacking people.
It's a real problem on the left.
Where there are people that essentially a giant majority of what they do is attacking people.
Well, and the thing is, too, it's like we have such legit racism and sexism in this country and I feel like we should be going after those issues, right?
Well, that's why I think you are this conversation is very important because you're an example of someone who got caught up in the ideology of things where your intentions were good in the beginning But you got caught up in this whole left-wing spiral.
Yeah, that's the thing is if you go extreme Right I feel like, you know, if I had a big Nazi kill the Jews closing prop bit, I feel like I would know I was selling out.
But on the left, it's a creep, man, because you really feel like, again, the baseline of homophobia is bad, sexism is bad, racism is bad.
Those are good things, right?
So when it starts to creep into the language policing and stuff like that, at least for me, I didn't really notice it.
I would notice it sometimes and be like, man, I wish I could say this.
And I wouldn't because I wouldn't want to get in trouble.
And it bit me in the ass anyway.
And, you know, so the suicide stuff was like, yeah, right?
But you need to think about some of the things that you said and realize that you didn't really mean them, but you were saying them because you're trading in the currency of political, correct, left-wing, progressive ideology thinking, right?
And you were getting from that.
You gotta realize these other people are doing the same thing.
They don't really mean what they're saying.
They feel like they have to say, fuck you, I hope you die, Jamie Kilstein.
They don't even know you.
I think we have a real problem, both left and right in this country, with attacking people.
And I hate to say this, but I think we have a problem with doing that with Trump.
Because although he has done some reprehensible things and he said some really foolish things and his ego is ridiculous, there's a lot of things wrong with him, right?
But the attacks on him and all this attacking, instead of sort of laying out A better way instead of explaining what's wrong with it.
So I used that app and I don't know how to reverse it because now I'm friends with the legions of skank guys and I was like, oh, I think I blocked everyone.
It's called like Twitter blockchain or something.
And so I would go to your profile.
If like all of your fans are attacking me and I'm like, fuck this, I go to your profile and then I click it and it blocks everyone who follows you.
It's not just that like people there's there's groups that people have decided I've seen that that they decide you're right-wing right decide you're anti-progressive or whatever I'm like a hate lesson blocked by people that I'm like I never even communicated with this person like I've saw like a Screenshot of someone saying something absolutely ridiculous.
Well, if you're not counting, like, the weird, like, slam-poety music shows I did, like, five, six years, and then it was the first time I've been on stage in a year.
Wow, so first time you've been on stage in a year, and the first time outside of doing...
Because I saw something that you did where you were doing, like, what you're saying, like, sort of slam poetry, where you take these big, deep breaths in between each line.
Yeah, yeah.
It's...
It's almost a performance art piece versus doing actual stand-up, right?
Those guys were absolutely the best friends I had.
But I didn't feel like I had a career.
And I had a couple friends.
I mean, all of our friends were pretty much linked to that same sort of progressive circle.
When I went home to see my brothers, and I could talk how I wanted to, and I could shoot the shit, and I could not police my own language, it was amazing.
I would go walk around blocks just to talk to my brother, Nick, like, for hours.
And we would just laugh and tell jokes and shit like that.
And then I've had depression forever.
And I've been self-hating forever.
And, you know, this is not...
I can't by any means blame it on other people.
But I remember...
And this kind of ties in...
This is really fucked up.
This kind of ties into what you were talking about with microaggressions and stuff like that.
I remember I tried to open up to somebody very close to me about being suicidal.
And they told me that...
I forgot the progressive word for it.
But they said it was, like, manipulative, essentially.
But when you reach out for help, that's fucked up.
And so I didn't feel like I had a lot of people.
I had my family and stuff like that.
that and that's why one of the reasons i moved to la is i came out to here and i did a big show and it was great and i love la and i've always wanted to live here so once my relationship ended i was like i've always wanted to go to la i'm gonna go to la so i go to la and then um the winter right dude every new yorker who's like oh fuck la they're all like fake happy i'm like no bro they're happy happy because it's gorgeous and like we're eating avocados by the pool and it's And everyone's really nice Duncan Trussell was like I want to be a New Yorker man.
And jujitsu in New York, when, like, in the winter, where you'd be so fucking cold, and then you leave the gym, and you're so hot, but you have your dumb jacket on, and then you go to the subway, and you have to rip your jacket off, and then you get off the subway, and you're freezing again.
Yeah, there's a company called First Light, L-I-T-E, and they make really good merino wool clothing for hunting, and they're one of the first guys to figure it out.
But if you have wool on, it retains the heat, the body heat.
Even if it's wet.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
It's really weird.
So, if you just wear a base layer of merino wool, When you go out, like in cold weather, you will get wet from the sweat, but your body will retain heat.
Jordan Peterson had a really fascinating take on Nazism, about these people that became Nazis, and what's most terrifying about it is That if you were in their exact same shoes, you are a human being.
And it is quite possible that you could have been a Nazi too.
And that is terrifying to people.
But obviously that's a very evil ideology.
But ideologies in general, we're all susceptible to them.
I've been susceptible to ideologies my whole life.
PZ, I haven't been on Twitter in forever, but he was always really nice to me.
But the people he's also arguing against are also kind of doing the same thing, too.
And I had this fucking revelation today.
Coming in the studio when I was kind of like worst case like battle planning like ah what if you know he really hates something I say and we're gonna get into a fight and for the first time ever I was like oh I could listen to him and ask a follow-up question like I could just because that wasn't an option before because you have your especially when you start going on MSNBC and these news roundtables no one asks questions no one goes what do you mean by that?
It's either everybody's racist or every Muslim is a murderer and it's like you don't have to pick a side and post This fallout when I've been like, I mean, here's the thing.
I've been healthier than I've ever been in my life.
My girlfriend is fucking wonderful.
I wake up at like five and I meditate and like, jujitsu saved my fucking life this year.
Literally saved my life this year.
Being off Twitter, being off social media has been fucking great.
It's been incredible.
And getting to hear, like getting to listen to Sam Harris's podcast, getting to listen to your podcast, hearing both of you guys say like really progressive things.
Well, not only the more radical, but even just the younger ones, where if you are a 16-year-old Muslim kid in America and you immigrated here because your fucking family got bombed in Iraq or Syria or wherever by us, and now you're being profiled and being called racist names here, it's like, that's how you make extremists.
And so it's not only is the racism racist, but it's also fucking counterproductive in a lot of ways.
Yeah, it's like all these wars that we say we're doing to defeat Islam, they're also creating a fuckload of extremists who maybe would have been moderate, but now their house is in rubble.
And that in attacking, instead of explaining the positive aspects of your positions, instead of attacking the other positions, and attacking ad hominem attacks on these people, and attacking their structure, who they are, attacking them as racist, as sexist, as homophobic, instead of reinforcing the very positive aspects of live and let live, about being open-minded, and being legitimately progressive, like progress.
And I think that one of the things that I know I did and everyone I followed on Twitter did in sort of the progressive world is you would like try to out-progressive each other, right?
So it's like somebody has a progressive take on the news.
How do I make it?
Like, dude, when same-sex marriage became legal, people would be like, yeah, we'll tell that to the people Obama droned.
It's like, fuck, can't we just be happy about like one thing?
Or it's like they're finding ways, like everyone likes Cory Booker.
What can I find that Cory Booker did that was like fucked up, right?
I feel like you gave another example, but it's, you know, I mean, that just happened with Rose McGowan a little bit, right?
Like, she did this really brave thing by coming out against Harvey Weinstein, and then people are calling it, like, white lady feminism.
And it's like, the left is never gonna win if you can't let the rape survivor come forward without attacking her for not being raped progressively enough.
And for a white guy like me, it was like, well, I'm not oppressed.
I'm not going to start calling myself Senior Kilstein.
I'm going to...
Be the ally.
So I'm not oppressed.
Because Twitter was a great tool and is a great tool where we wouldn't have had a lot of, like, really big, I think, social justice victories without Twitter.
All this shit went down, Jezebel writes an article about you, some other people write articles about you, and you just dropped off the face of the earth.
Yeah, so I— You just figured, fuck this, I'm deleting my Twitter.
And so my girlfriend, when it happened my girlfriend was out of town, I totally assumed she was breaking up with me.
So I'm in L.A. in my little apartment with my cat.
My girlfriend, I assume, is gone.
My family's talking to me, which is great, but none of my friends.
Here's something, I'll say this about, this is one of the reasons I came back to comedy.
I mean, besides I always loved it and I missed it, was the only fucking people that reached out to see if I was okay were comics.
Comics who I hadn't talked to in years.
None of the progressive journalists, none of the people who knew about depression or suicide or whatever.
I mean, I don't even know if they read the fucking article or if they just saw...
That word and was like, I will get in trouble if I... I mean, Jim Norton, who I knew when I was 22, I probably asked him if I could do a guest spot for him at like the Stress Factory, wrote me to see if I was okay.
Like, you wrote me a really nice email.
Stanhope wrote me a couple times to make sure I was okay.
And it was so wonderful, where I was like, all I want...
So, before that, yeah, I assumed I had nothing, was literally...
Did you know, when you Google how to kill yourself, the first website that comes up, it's a lie.
They say, like, easiest way to kill yourself, and then you click it, and it's like, just kidding, don't kill yourself, and it's like harp music, and you're just being rickrolled, essentially, by a suicide hotline.
So this this whole journey that you've been on and this is again one of the reasons why I want you to come on I think we can all learn something from it.
Yeah, and I hope both communities learn something from it.
I mean Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I really think like we This idea of right versus left is so goddamn crazy and we have more common ground than we don't and I think reasonable people Think all these core tenets that we were just talking about.
We think that we're egalitarian.
We think that women should be treated exactly the same way as men.
That you should be judged by your character.
You shouldn't be judged by the color of your skin or where you're from.
I mean, the people that I know that are cool people, we have We have black friends.
We have Asian friends.
Especially in the world of comedy.
The only currency that you carry around is your personality and whether or not you're good.
Whether you're funny, whether you work hard.
And when you're around people that are funny and work hard, those people are fuel.
And I don't think any of that shit would have happened if I was still in social media world, if I still just woke up every day and was like, what's the hashtag that I have to tweet about?
What are we angry about today?
Because that's how every day starts is you check Twitter and you go, oh, there's a popular hashtag.
I have to come up with a fucking joke because Trump did a thing.
And it drove me crazy.
And there's part of me that I am like, maybe I'm selfish, but I just I would rather be a better person.
I also forgot that like comedy fans just love comedy.
Like when people came up to me after the Stanhope show, I wasn't political on the Stanhope show, but they were like, hey man, that was really funny.
And I was like, oh, that's right.
Like you don't have to be overtly fucking preachy or political to like make someone's day, right?
I think, I forget if it was like Jocko or Tim Ferriss or one of those guys, but talking about like putting on airplane mode like an hour or two before you go to bed.
And then, like, not turning that shit on until...
Like, I've started doing all that, and I just feel so much healthier.
And, like, I'm telling you that when I was attacking people on Twitter every day, I was depressed as fuck and straight-up suicidal and projecting, and I was just miserable.
Um...
And that happens.
It's a rush.
You have a community.
You have people who go, you tweet, I'm having a bad day, and you got 100 people being like, dude, you're awesome.
He's bringing in these dudes that were, you know, Manafort, and he's bringing in these dudes that were running the campaign, and Trump is unhinged today.
But you know what's interesting, too, then it just came out that Hillary and the DNC funded the dossier on Trump and they spent millions and lied about it for the past year.
Which is, by the way, you're trying to influence the political process as well.
And you're doing it by what you know is fiction, a fictional story on Trump with hookers peeing on people and shit like that.
So everyone's dirty.
And this is, I think, really important.
I think the right has to recognize that you're in a situation where you absolutely have people that have colluded with Russia.
The left has to recognize you are in a situation where you had a really corrupt career politician who almost got in.
And don't hold her up as some sort of high standard for womanhood and progressive ideas.
This is a woman that didn't even believe in gay marriage until 2013. Oh, dude, I said that on stage when I was like, if you criticized Hillary, people would say you're not a feminist.
And I was like, first rule of feminism, don't kill a bunch of fucking women overseas.
You know what I mean?
That was another problem with my whole thing.
If you criticized a woman...
It would be one thing if you said, I disagree with Hillary Clinton's foreign policy.
That should not be called sexist.
If you were like, I disagree with Hillary Clinton's foreign policy, what a whore.
Yeah, and I'll even bring this back to, like, even with the rape culture stuff, which I did not think I would be saying on the show again, which is that...
You'd have guys online who every time a woman got raped, they would be like, well, what about men who get raped?
And you go, well, that's awful.
But why do you only say it when we're talking about a woman being raped?
Or why do you only say all lives matter after like a black kid was shot, right?
And they always want to concentrate on people that are black that make ridiculous claims.
Like, instead of just looking at the idea behind why was Black Lives Matter formed, then they start looking at black people that make ridiculous claims like black people can't be racist because racism is power plus influence and prejudice, which is just not real.
And that's the same shit that people on the left would do, where they would just sort of, like, nitpick at these very specific little arguments, and it's like, there are bigger things to fucking worry about.
Yeah, and I think that's why an organization like Black Lives Matter gets any heat at all, because, right, if people just said, yeah, of course, cops are absolutely shooting black people at a disproportionate rate, you know?
I mean, if you just look at these incidences that we've been forced to see in the news, there's been so many of them, and these people march, and like, what that one black woman who got pulled over and refused to put out her cigarette, and the cop was telling her to put out a cigarette?
And she wanted being dead in her cell like a day later.
You can't expect the average police officer to be able to use hand-to-hand combat on some person when they have no idea what that person's skill level is.
Yeah, unless the cop is fucking Stipe Miocic.
What are the odds you're going to come out ahead?
You might get your fucking gun taken away from you.
You might get shot.
I don't think they should have to use hand-to-hand combat.
Looking like I'm like this guy is a victim like if someone if me if someone just decided to turn on him and punch him in the head He would be unconscious right and he's a cop and he's like this frail cop dude I used to have a friend who did like psychological profiles for people who want to be in the police Academy and she told me some of the answers for like why these guys wanted to be cops like one guy she said Literally wrote like in his essay like I want to become like a police officer so I can finally get the respect I deserve and Oh, Jesus Christ.
And it's like, well, I mean, she didn't, like, you know, he didn't go through, but it's like, there are those people, not all cops, hashtag, there are those people who are just like, they just want fucking power they want, they got fucking bullied, they got...
I mean, there's a lot of people that don't want to be police officers like in LA for a while They had these giant billboards where they're advertising how much you get to start Oh, they're having trouble like recruiting because nobody wants that job.
You're essentially the professional enemy, right?
You're pulling people over most of them have committed some sort of a crime They're gonna lie to you and so they're dealing with liars all day.
Yeah, Jesus I never thought about that but that's another thing where if You also can't, just like the cops should be trying super hard to get rid of the bad ones, if we demonize every cop, then those cops who have, like, a really hard fucking job are gonna be like, well, fuck you guys.
So, again, it's that balance where – and so much of it comes down to just like the economy and people's lives sucking, right?
Like, it's really easy, for example, for people to shit on these, like, black, like, inner city neighborhoods and they go, well, why don't they call the cops?
Why is their neighborhood trash?
It's like, well, because they call the cops and then their dog gets shot or whatever.
I think that's why you saw like Trump and Bernie, right?
People need fucking jobs.
They want to take care of their family.
They're not reading Twitter or the news like I used to or that most of us...
Most of us who live in this Twitter bubble, all these fucking...
So many of these progressive journalists I hung out with who were like 99%, like so many of them were like fucking just spoiled rich kids who wanted to feel oppressed.
You know what I mean?
Dude, you know, I hang out with...
All my, like, white journalist friends were, like, white kids.
I'm like, I see more diversity in fucking jujitsu than I ever did with the people who are constantly talking about diversity.
It was a bunch of white kids trying to feel more progressive or more intelligent, and I'm very much including myself.
And then I started going to jujitsu, and I was like, ah, that's what a Mexican looks like.
Yeah, well, getting back to what we're saying, I think that one of the good things about these groups like Black Lives Matter is regardless of whatever controversy, it's forcing the conversation.
I just think they have to be careful with what they do, like when kids get crazy and they want to block off the highway.
You know, don't do that kind of shit because that gives people a very bad impression of what your organization stands for and you're blocking off the highway and that could stop people from saving your mom who fell down and broke her head open.
I mean, you're gonna you're gonna block off the ambulance, you're gonna block off people that are that have to make a flight.
And you're saying, well, yeah, that's how you make noise.
You know, you cause people inconvenience.
No, you disrupt The very systems that we need in order to make civilization run correctly.
Because the problem is, and this you can blame on the media, where it's like, those are the only protests that get covered.
If you have a peaceful protest with speakers, you know, standing outside of someone's congressional office, then it's like, that shit doesn't get covered.
But I think the media is slowly but surely becoming irrelevant.
I do too.
The real media is what's – look, the only reason why the news – we don't even have to name an organization, but in quotes, the news is the news is because they have a long history of disseminating information, right?
But people regular people are doing that now a lot of people are doing that now through different websites and YouTube channels And I think that that's the future and we don't have to be as long as you're honest and you have a real objective point of view You don't have to be sanctioned by some gigantic corporation to get the fucking truth in No, in fact, you're less likely to get the truth out because of your sponsors.
Actor Kevin Spacey decides, declares he lives as a gay man.
Kevin Spacey announced Sunday night that he will live as a gay man.
I mean, look at all these different, the New York Daily News, Reuters, the Daily Beast.
They're saying that he's gay, but they're saying he's gay because a kid came out, where a man now, came out and said Kevin tried to fuck him when he was 14. Shit.
So this is like saying that he declares he lives life as a gay man.
To link pedophilia always to homosexuality isn't true.
There are a lot of people who would consider themselves heterosexual, whether it was in the church or whatever, who are raping kids because it's a power thing and they're sick.
Or pedophilia is just different.
Being attracted to kids is different than being attracted to men.
And this is also really dangerous to equate trying to fuck a 14-year-old with just going down to West Hollywood to do some gay shit.
But to decide that he's absolutely telling the truth and Kevin Spacey is absolutely covering this up by coming out as gay and using that to sort of diffuse the situation.
But there's a lot of people that just have a Twitter egg, and they, I mean, they're completely anonymous, they have a bunch of random letters and numbers as their name, and they fucking attack people left and right.
And this interaction where there's no social cues involved, there's virtually no repercussions for saying the most evil, vile shit, and then people take it as a badge of honor that they've been blocked.
Yeah, I mean it's almost like you were in a cult because I had Brett Weinstein's brother Eric on recently and Eric was talking about the the cult of progressive ideology that it literally is a cult like the one of the things the core things that people keep saying is that biology and Gender are not related You know, there's some weird things that people say in order to be supportive of trans people.
There's a lot of weird...
But these things that they're saying, they're not supported by science, and they're very culty, and everyone repeats them.
And they repeat them for the same reason why people in certain religions repeat religious phrases.
Yeah, and this goes back to that progressive thing I was talking about where, you know, to me, the reason that I wouldn't fully read a lot of those articles is because I was like, but I want to support those people, right?
And because I don't think trans people should be discriminated against.
I don't give a shit where they want to go to the bathroom unless it's like on somebody, right?
Like I don't care.
I think that everybody should live and feel free as long as you're not being, you know, predatory or like when the Republicans were like, well, it's men are going to dress up as women.
It's like that's that's men like this isn't bosom buddies, right?
Like that's like that was that like trans people are different than men who dress up as women and like sneak in the bathroom.
I think there's an app they were talking about in Sam Harris' show where it tells you if you're reading too many, like, either left-wing articles or right-wing articles.
Like, it's like, hey, we're steering a little too left.
When she had my back and I kind of walked it back and was just like, what am I going to do?
There was another part of me that didn't want to write an article.
I had people say to me...
I had one person who spoke at the fucking Women's March who called me to be like, this makes my job harder.
Because when you start to call fighting with your girlfriend abuse, when you start to call a bad breakup...
Whatever.
When you start to call consensual hookups on the road predatory, it's like, this is what sexists point to when they go, all these girls who talk about being preyed on, it's bullshit.
You know what I mean?
They point to these innocuous, normal situations.
And so that's really, really scary.
But I also had people be like, if I defended myself, and some people told me this, if I defended myself, I would suddenly look like I'm saying don't believe women or I'm saying that because I'm defending just one person, me.
And I'm like, I didn't want to be...
And I don't want to be.
I just want to be a fucking comic.
I don't want to be a voice for like, bitches are crazy.
And I also don't want to be a voice for, you know, every guy is a fucking evil rapist, right?
Yeah, I mean just and this Having this example of how it could all go completely sideways sideways And sideways, you know, admittedly, even before it went bad, it was going sideways.
And then being addicted to this response thing and checking your phone all the time and making sure, you know, that people are on your side where you're battling with someone and calling them a sexist, racist piece of shit.
Also, these progressives are trying to out-progressive each other, so people that consider themselves progressives are also getting attacked, like the Brett Weinstein thing, where he's getting called a racist.
If you'd know him, he's one of the most deeply progressive guys probably I've ever had a chance to talk to.
That guy I heard on Sam Harris's where if something happens to a white person, then someone will be like, well, what if that happened to a black person?
It's like, right, that would be bad, too.
And it's like, well, what if it happened to someone else?
Facing the crowd it was about women this woman shouted him down and you know you're supposed this is our home you're supposed to be fucking protecting us about Halloween costumes and the wife had made a letter that she had sent out and the letter essentially said You there people should be allowed to have like we'll play some of this here I'm looking at the smirk in your face and I'm disgusted.
unidentified
I am sick.
And I'm sick watching them argue with you.
We've been standing outside literally for at least five to six hours.
Between you and Holloway, between last night to now, we've been arguing with people who are not willing to be listened to for a long time.
And all I see from you is arrogance and ego.
I am sick looking at you.
I am disgusted watching Alex argue with you!
You are not listening!
You were disgusting!
I don't think you understand that.
And before I wasn't, before I was not angry, per se, I was disappointed maybe.
I thought maybe there was room for an apology.
You've clearly told us that you do not plan to offer an apology for your words.
You left the meeting last night to go home and then tweet, do not interrupt me, to tweet from your Twitter.
And then the Silliman's Twitter.
You showed no remorse.
You tried to let your wife leave that conversation without having answered for herself.
That is disgusting.
That is sick.
And now...
I wasn't angry before.
I was not angry before, but now I am actually angry, sir.
I really...
Do not interrupt me.
I was not angry.
And now I want your job to be taken from you.
I don't want you to have this job.
I am disgusted knowing that you work at Yale University where I will get my degree.
Where I will look back and think I have to argue with you.
No, I missed my turn now.
Sir, sir, don't do it.
Don't do it, sir.
Do not do it.
This is not the day.
You do not want to play this game with me.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
You don't want to play this game with me.
Okay?
Understand that.
Look me in my face, first of all, and understand that you are such a disappointment to this university, to your students, to yourself, to the things that you claim to agree with.
So when she was saying, like, you're wasting my time or whatever, like, he came out to try to kind of, like, have his wife's back and, like, calling him, like, sexist.
And as someone who has gone after people on Twitter, those people that we tried to get fired from a writing job or whatever, you don't think about them the next day.
Like, the people who tried to get that guy fired on Twitter or whatever, like, they don't think about him anymore.
Yeah, but the Twitter mob behind them, it's like a lot of me's, it's a lot of adults too, you know?
And like, if that dude got fired and his wife got fired, like, I mean, that's like somebody's life who's done a lot of really good progressives, even if he did fuck up legitimately.
I mean, if you had done something horrible, the marketplace of free ideas should step in and say, we're not going to watch his show anymore.
We're not going to listen to him anymore.
That would be normal and real.
The problem with being a professor of a university is a two-fold problem, right?
There's tenure, and tenure makes professors arrogant.
It makes professors realize that they can't leave, and then they suck at it, and they're terrible.
I mean, it's really common.
It's almost like winning the lottery.
They become lazy and weak, or they become the idea, and the ideal situation is they become completely dedicated to being a professor, and they don't have to worry anymore about their job, and so now they completely dedicate themselves to being an educator.
Even though you're trying to get people fired, even though you're going after their jobs, you're attacking them, and you're insulting them, and you're labeling them in the broadest strokes of racism and sexism, and you're calling them terrible.
Dude, but even that, like, I was emailing with Rob Wolf, the big paleo guy, and it's like, you know how much...
There's a lot of shit that vegans and paleo people could have in common when it comes down to, like...
Hating factory farms or like trying to get like the healthiest like that like animal welfare and like I mean eating so many of the these payload guys are like the majority of what you're eating should be fucking vegetables.
Well, what we've done that's a real problem is jam too many people into a small area where there's no one growing any food.
And so to solve that problem, they've figured out how to consolidate massive amounts of growing into these areas, both agriculture in terms of like vegetables and grains and animals.
What they do do is they put a lot of antibiotics in the cows because the cows are eating things that they're not supposed to be eating, like grain, and they get really sick.
But if you eat grain and you're a cow, that's what happens to your body.
You just get fat and gross.
Chicken is another one.
People always think that chickens are getting pumped up with steroids.
Steroids are expensive.
What they do with chickens is it's really a breeding thing.
It's just like the way you make a bulldog, or how do you breed the biggest mastiff?
They take the biggest animals, they breed them with the biggest animals, and they've gotten to this position where these chickens are so fucked up because they've bred them to be so large, they can't even stand up.
And that's why they have what they call ag-gag laws, and I'm sure you're aware of these.
These ag-gag laws are fucking insane, where they make it illegal for people to take footage and film what's going on in these factory farms because they think it will negatively impact the business of the farm.
And I feel like that was one of those issues that, I think Will Potter, I think I knew a couple of those guys, because Mercy for Animals has done a bunch of those undercover operations and stuff.
And that's one of those things, again, that should bring together both sides, right?
But, you know, no one for the most part is like a fucking monster.
No one is like asking for like a tortured animal like this who's like rolling around in their own feces where it's like everybody has the right to know this.
This is something that I think the vegan community could be very mainstream about and should get a lot of support.
And Greenwald's always been like a softie for animals, too.
Like he does all of his like Snowden stuff.
dude has like 15 rescue dogs in brazil and like he loves animals and I'm glad this is getting coverage from these guys.
I'm glad it's getting coverage too and kudos to him for putting that out.
He's highlighting something that's a real issue and that issue is there's a concerted effort to deny people information because that information would change the way they feel about the food they eat.
And the argument is that they have to have these conditions because this is the only way to give people food very cheaply because you have to feed 20 million people in Los Angeles.
But I don't buy that argument.
I think this is just how it's convenient to run right now.
Yes, and you also look at like, what's the shit we actually do subsidize for poor people?
It's garbage.
It's like Coke and like processed food and it's like- Well, we subsidize corn as well, but- But even that is- Even that's not the best thing for you.
No.
Especially when it turns into high fructose corn syrup and shit like that, where it's like people need to be educated.
Doctors are barely educated about nutrition and health.
And if we actually had healthy food, whether it be meat or vegetables or whatever, in these food deserts.
That's why I always got mad when people were like, oh, look at that fucking fat person on food stamps.
It's like, well, it's not because they're eating a ton of grass-fed beef.
It's because their fucking food stamps can buy them Chips and cereal and mac and cheese boxes and shit like that.
But that's another thing where it's like, well, that's not a conversation we have because we go, you're either on the vegan side or this side, or you're either pro-government or you're anti-government.
It's like, there are answers, I feel like, if people put their heads together and weren't just trying to get, like, yeah, the guy who used the wrong...
But I think it's, again, just like everything else, there's more information available now than ever before.
And I think more people are aware of this information.
It's just so many people are distracted by nonsense all day.
Yesterday, Tony and I, Tony Hinchcliffe and I, we did a gig in San Francisco, and when we were coming back, we were at the airport, and we were next to this gal at the airport, and she's talking on the phone about the most inane bullshit.
She was talking about Amazing Race and Amazing Race.
The teams on Amazing Race are just not...
I'm so annoyed with them, so I'm not even watching it anymore.
But, oh my god, I'm so hungry.
And this place has this amazing churro, and this is...
And I'm supposed to be getting this thing at work, but I'm not...
You know, so far my pay increase hasn't come through, and when it comes through, I'm gonna save up my money and I'm gonna get this thing.
Well, it's hard because it's getting fed to you, and a lot of people aren't doing what they actually want to do, and they don't believe they can actually do it, and they go to college because they're told they're supposed to go to college, and then they're riddled in student debt, so they get a job they hate that they'll...
My point was, what I was going to get to, was that you in your obsession with Twitter and your being addicted to it and constantly checking in on it and going back to it, that was your distraction.
This woman is finding distractions in stupid television shows and bad food to eat and nonsensical raises at work.
And because of that, this occupies so much of your time between your job and your family and all this that you don't have time to think about factory farming.
And anybody can engage with a large group of followers just by saying something mean to someone like Glenn Greenwald or someone who has a lot of followers.
Well, you know, you're talking about yourself, and you're talking about your own sort of management of your life, where it had gone completely off the rails, and now you've got it back on track, and you're feeling yourself in a good place and a healthy place.
And I think that having this negative experience and getting through it, That's how you learn and grow.
I mean these bad these big moments are big opportunities for growth whereas The same grind day in day out you become like the gal at the airport.
It's like well these teams in the amazing ranks are really annoying to me But these churros are the best churros and their churros are dry.
You know, there's nothing happening.
Having a big moment where all these people attacked you and things went totally wrong, it gave you this opportunity for self-reflection in a way that you really probably were very unlikely to achieve without this moment.
Yeah, man, I gotta say, listening to you and Bert and Doug, I started listening to Fitzsimmons, all these podcasts about comedy and thinking about how...
You know, just because I feel like I failed, I was like, I guess I shit on all comics.
And forgetting about that, like, even the comics who say the most horrific shit on stage, for the most part, there's a lot of really cool, broken, sweet guys who, like, through all of the bullshit had my back.
Like, I remember I heard Burt...
I told Burt this...
I think actually on the podcast, maybe backstage, but I told Bert that I was going back and listening to a bunch of his podcasts, and I listened to the one he did with Metzger, because I wanted that other fucking side to it, right?
Well, and when I heard him on the podcast and not, he gets a little mouthy on Facebook, but when I actually heard him on the podcast articulate what he was talking about, where he was like, no, I think this, so for people who don't know, like some fucking dude at UCB was accused of rape, I think.
So I listened to this interview with Kurt and Bert, and it's really good.
And I think that was the first time I heard Bert's show.
And at the end, I was like, ah, alright.
They started talking about me.
And they weren't really wrong about a lot of the stuff they said.
And I had this moment...
Where Bert who I only met once we did some weird TV show together in like Amsterdam and I only met him once and he I thought it was gonna be like him just being like this fucking faggot feminist cuz that was the idea I had of like all comics and how they thought about me, right?
And he was just like yeah, man, I was just bummed out cuz I remember like Jamie was nice and then like it just like made me sad that he like didn't stick up for comics and I was like It was just, like, really sweet and sincere and kind of, like, even, like, vulnerable.
And I remember, like, turning to my girlfriend and being like, I want to apologize to Bert more than I do these women.
He sounded so, like, sincere and sad.
And I just forgot about that, like, that sort of comic camaraderie.
Well, I think we're in a boat that's in rocky water, right?
And I think it's gonna rock left and it's gonna rock right and hopefully we're gonna right the ship and we're gonna figure out what the fuck we're doing and I mean collectively the human race has probably never communicated clear ever Yeah.
Than we do now.
And it's because of our access to information.
There's definitely going to be these groups of people that, you know, they haul off and they get confirmation bias and they shore their walls up with this group of like-minded folks in an echo chamber.
There's always going to be that.
But I think that is more obvious for what it is today than ever before.
They just thought it was funny because I was talking to Doug and I was like, yeah, man, I don't really want to apologize because I reread it and I don't think it's...
And he's like, no, no, no, no, no.
None of us think you're a fucking predator.
You're apologizing for being a douchebag.
And I was like, oh, I get it.
It was the turning on comedy, the self-righteousness.
By the way, that's another fucking example, now that I think about it, of what you were just saying, where the last however many years, he went from comic to lecturing, like, black people about how to wear their pants and how to articulate, and he was talking about manners and how to present yourself, and it's like, oh, you're covering up drugging and raping people, where it's like, you know what And that is what bit him in the ass.
Would cause Harvey Weinstein and that's why it's good and that's why you know I would never be like a social media is the problem because you know the The Me Too campaign and Harvey Weinstein and Cosby like it is good that these people are being exposed It's not good when you also then go on witch hunts right for people who like are like to get laid fucking rapists or whatever well,
that's the difference and And this is the thing that a lot of men, like, they see the Harvey Weinstein thing and they start thinking about themselves and go, oh my god, what if every girl that I ever tried to fuck came out and said, you know, John tried to, you know, he tried to feel me up or John tried to get me to go back to his house one night, you know, after we had a couple of drinks together and then, you know, and...
Well, and I think if people could actually go after these rapists, then again, same thing with all of the middle ground issues we were kind of finding, right?
Where it's like, well, let's go after the actual bad guys and then not make...
If there's a day where there's not a rapist, instead of looking for who can we be mad at for being sexist, just go enjoy the day.
There doesn't always have to be a new bad guy.
You can just go after the legit fucking predators and rapists and Yeah, there's plenty of actual real targets.
Or is the thing to do to try to educate humans as to how to behave with each other?
And one of the reasons why he got away with it is because he had this extreme amount of power to control the future of these women.
And so that's how he got away with getting them to do these things and keep their mouths shut because he held this incredible power over them because he could control their future, their career.
He had the money and the influence to get them and give them the career that they desired.
You saw the Harvey Levin, that was his name, who released all the various aspects of the contract that he had, where they had worked in sexual harassment claims.
No, he would get fined a certain amount.
Oh, how he couldn't, yeah.
Like $100,000 for one, $250,000 for the second one, $500,000 for the third.
According to the contract, if Weinstein treated someone improperly in violation of the company's code of conduct, which obviously means rape...
He must reimburse the Weinstein Company for settlements or judgments.
Additionally, you will pay the company liquidated damages of $250,000 for the first such instance, $500,000 for the second, $750,000 for the third, and a million dollars for each additional instance.
And then all the people that are terrified of being outed like him now will recognize the consequences of those actions, and hopefully they're going to change their ways.
It's amazing like that, but it just shows you the way our culture shifted from the 1920s to today.
I mean a hundred years of progress and people recognizing like hey, no, you can't just stare at a woman and then fucking kiss her and not ask permission.
Like you just just like be confident and strong like no, no, no, no.
What if you're gross?
Yeah, she doesn't Sometimes, here's the problem, sometimes that works.
If the woman is really attracted to you and you're really attracted to her and you look at each other and you don't have to say anything and you kiss, but you don't know when the fuck that is, how do you know?
And you definitely can't put that in a gum ad, you piece of shit.
But they didn't know that in the 1920s because no one was there to tell them.
Like, they were dealing with the information that they got just from communicating with their friends and the people they worked with and the limited amount of media that they had at the time.