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June 6, 2023 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:32:00

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #669

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	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for Tuesday.
	I'm joined by Harry.
	Hello!
	We're missing the date entirely today, are we?
	Just Tuesday.
	Any old Tuesday.
	I've been doing it for about a month now.
	Subversive.
	Well, it's less likely I'll bugger it up.
	Deeply subversive.
	You know, I've got a 1 in 7 chance of being right.
	Anyway, so today we're going to be talking about barbarians getting BTF-o'd, Hollywood movies are not made for you anymore, and how do women keep falling for this?
	Which, I'll be honest, I'm not- That's the great question of history, isn't it?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Have you taken a look at my notes for that one?
	I took a skim through and thought I have no idea what he's going on about.
	I don't know either and I wrote it so that might be a bit of a bust but we'll find out.
	Okay I mean we've got a whole like 20 minutes dedicated to this so it better be something.
	I like a risk.
	The column is now completely checked out 100%.
	If you'd like to apply for a podcast host.
	We're going to talk about just women.
	Core.
	No, not really.
	Is this another Who Would You Do segment?
	Is that what's going on?
	Is Dan trying to rig it in favour of Chibble Shepherd again?
	It's a bunch of women getting done by other women and then finding out that they didn't want that.
	Anyway, we'll get to it in a bit.
	You can just guide whether or not I'm mental.
	But to make a couple of announcements first.
	So firstly, Gold Tears.
	The comment system is now back online and you don't have to send emails anymore.
	So you can go back to the original system.
	Whatever that was.
	Presumably carrier pigeons or something.
	Anyway, last thing to mention as well is also the Julius Evola revolt against the modern world book club.
	Part two over there.
	Which will be tomorrow at 3.30 UK time and that'll be live.
	So if you want to see it live, come and join.
	Live in your living room.
	In the expo center.
	No, live in our office.
	Broadcast through internet waves, however it works, onto your personal computer, wherever that may be.
	It's racism across the way.
	Well, it's Evola, isn't it?
	I've only been hearing mutterings from Carl about Evola, and usually he just turns around and is like, so you know racism is a spiritual need?
	And I'm like, what the fuck?
	He does have some interesting ideas on the enification of America, and that's as far as I'll go in describing that particular term.
	Yeah, I was going to say, where's that going?
	You'll need to find the essay online.
	Anyway, if you want to go and listen, I can't remember who it was.
	Someone did describe him as the village idiot because he's just so mad, but at the same time apparently there's some stuff in there to be learned.
	I certainly wouldn't call him an idiot.
	I think he's a bit of a... He's difficult to get into though.
	I have a copy of Revolt Against the Modern World that I've not read yet and it is somewhat intimidating.
	But there we are.
	If you don't want to do the intimidation of the reading, which I sympathise with, go check it live.
	It'll be Wednesday.
	Callum hates reading.
	Well, let's talk about the barbarians, shall we?
	Because the barbarians have been BTFO'd.
	No more.
	Again?
	Which barbarians are we on about?
	Well, the Aztecs, in particular.
	It's their time.
	If anyone deserves a beating, it's the Aztecs in this day and age.
	Is that what this segment is all about?
	We're going to have a very media-heavy podcast today.
	This is good.
	This is where I shine.
	That's things I enjoy.
	We'll start off just by mentioning some other people who got BTFO'd in history, this being the book club we did on Reflections of a Ravaged Century.
	The people who got BTFO'd were, well, the public, really.
	In all of the socialist world, which was, I think about two-thirds of the population, something like that.
	So, you know.
	Great.
	So, go and check that out.
	Otherwise, we shall begin with what the hell I'm talking about, which is Videogames.
	So this Videogame trailer... Time to play Vidya.
	Yeah, Vidya over here was released.
	IGN put out the trailer.
	Well, they stole it off the company and posted it.
	I've always kind of been annoyed about that.
	IGN does that.
	That's IGN's sole role, isn't it?
	I mean, maybe someone can explain this to me.
	I get that it's great for IGN to post your game trailer because, you know, it's free advertising.
	But at the same time, I've always been a bit annoyed that all the advertisements for games seem to go to, like, these soulless corporations like IGN, which, I don't know, I've got no love for.
	Nobody likes IGN.
	Nobody cares.
	Controversial take.
	When was the last time IGN were even relevant?
	Anyway, but you can see here, 45 million views on this one post.
	Pretty good.
	It's pretty good advertising.
	And the game being here that you can play as an Aztec destroying the evil Spanish conquistadors who are, I don't know, the far right or something and have come to destroy your beautiful ways of wearing nappies and murdering your children for the sun god.
	This does not seem entirely historically accurate.
	Well, the point being, you can play as an Aztec, with Spanish Contista, and it's a, you know, survival action RPG.
	You can play a man wearing a nappy, with a big spiky stick, fighting successfully, apparently, against men in full suits of armour, with big sharp swords, big steely knives.
	I mean, they are warriors, presumably, from Spain there, and so the gameplay looks a bit goofy, was my immediate response, you know, these trained, armoured Spanish warriors just being beaten up by a man with club.
	With a big bonking stick.
	Yeah, but the narrative also seems to be pretty simple, which is, you know, defend your homeland from evil Spanish invaders, which is English people we can sympathise with.
	I'm going to buy it and play it and just fail over and over and over again.
	So there'll be less Aztecs in the world, is that it?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And then I will switch it off and return it.
	I got the good ending, thank you.
	Just die once and then hand it back in.
	Anyway, but we'll go to the next link because most of the complaints were about historical accuracy about this Vigigarm, which seems reasonable, I guess.
	I mean, it's a Vigigarm, so why not have some realism?
	You know, just a little bit, such as this chap mentions here.
	Well, I mean, it wasn't just 300 Spaniards who turned up and conquered the whole empire.
	They turned up and got the people who were being oppressed to side with them, to then slaughter the Aztecs, which... It's a pretty common tactic throughout history.
	Yeah.
	We'll get back to them in a minute because there's some wonderful historicism on what they were up to, which is good work.
	We'll get to the next one here because a Mexican archaeologist also had some similar complaints and also some non-similar complaints.
	The main one here being that, you know, why is he dressed in a nappy with tattoos instead of actually how they were dressed.
	Because this is how Western libs think savage tribes looked.
	To be honest, I don't think it's just Western libs.
	I think it's all Westerners when you just think of the barbarians.
	I mean, no one really thinks of the image on the right, do they?
	If you have the stereotype in your head.
	The image on the right looks like average Mexican football fan.
	Wait.
	Give it in for Nagoobu.
	Yeah, basically.
	But he also mentions it, this person, for some reason.
	He says, it's a terrible collection of cliches primed with complaints by Nazis and Spanish nationalists, open brackets, same difference, that can't fathom themselves as anything but the protagonists.
	I don't really get where the Nazis came into this.
	I would assume that they're trying to do the historic connection between the Spanish nationalists on the nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War who accepted money from Germany and Italy.
	Therefore conquistadors are Nazis?
	Yes.
	I don't think so, but whatever.
	We'll get to that more in a moment.
	Because first and foremost, I mean, he is right that more people do need to play map games.
	Because the idea that the Aztecs can't be the protagonists, I mean, no.
	People who play map games have been enjoying this for quite a long time.
	If we go to the next one here, we can see.
	I mean, this is Medieval Total War 2.
	Very good series of videos from this chap here.
	Where he always just replays some nation and then just destroys the entire world.
	Good fun.
	That's the only reason you play these games, right?
	You choose Gandhi, and then you take over the entire world with the glorious Indian Empire.
	And then just map paint.
	Just paint in the map your colour.
	Look.
	And then you show people and they don't care.
	Because why would they?
	Because it's a game.
	Yeah.
	And then you realise you've wasted 3,000 hours of Hoy4 gameplay.
	This seems somewhat autobiographical all of a sudden.
	Just steam my steam profile!
	Shall we carry on?
	So getting back to the medieval filter aspect, because I mean that is true.
	I mean, I spoke to you about this.
	I couldn't find the real image.
	For people listening, there's like the medieval filter, because of course medieval times there was colour.
	And then when the movies come and display what medieval would look like, it's all torches and dirt and everyone wearing grey for some reason.
	It's interesting because you can actually watch this happen in real time in Game of Thrones.
	If you actually go back to the first series, you can see how much more colourful everything is.
	They're taking the time to try and get the colours of everybody's outfits correct to what they were depicted as being in the books.
	And then by the last series, there's a big smudged grey filter.
	On everything.
	Everybody started just wearing black or various blackish shades of whatever color they used to be wearing.
	Everybody's gone from being able to smile and occasionally joke to being miserable and occasionally making a joke about penises.
	There's no summer ever.
	It's constantly like autumn.
	Well, I mean, that's more lore-wise in the series, but still.
	But I mean, the filter is genuinely real.
	It is very annoying.
	I remember, because we found... I couldn't find it for this.
	I was going to say, if you found that one, because you also showed me there was the example of the actual preserved village.
	Museum Village, so a village perfectly preserved in a museum piece so people can go and see what medieval life was like.
	And the historians who upkeep it do a very, very good job of keeping everything accurate.
	And it's quite nice, it doesn't look very bad.
	So then a film company turned up and asked them if they could film a film there about medieval life and they said sure.
	And the film company covered the place in dirt, including all of the buildings, put torches up for some reason, and also destroyed all the windows and replaced them with wooden windows.
	It is funny how these people, when they look back on the world, they think that just because the people living back then didn't have modern tools for hygiene, means that they had no standards for hygiene at all.
	It's almost like Monty Python history, except Monty Python was a joke, and very self-consciously, a joke.
	But that's not the main point of contention with Barbarian Simulator over here.
	Instead, the point of contention is politics, I suppose.
	Because if you go to the next one here, of course a lot of people were posting this meme.
	Oh look, here comes the far right to stop the glorious Aztecs.
	Oh, I saw many of these memes popping up all of a sudden.
	And it is right.
	The demonization of the Spanish as the evil undoers who turned up and destroyed a mostly peaceful empire of peace.
	The stabbings were bloody but mostly peaceful.
	Yeah.
	Overwhelmingly, this was the majority response to the IGN trailer, which is just like, are you kidding?
	Like, we really aren't kidding.
	Like, you can play as the Aztec, that's cool.
	You know, not many games let you do that.
	That's maybe true, but we're not really gonna say they're the heroes, are we?
	I would really love if, just as a complete about-face troll meme that they're pulling, the opening of the game is your guys, like, the human sacrifice, are about to plunge the knife in, and then they show up, and then you start playing.
	You're just bricking babies in the head.
	Yep.
	God, the racists have turned up.
	It's the SNP.
	The Spanish Nationalist Party.
	The phalanges showed up.
	No!
	Yeah, well, we're going to the next link here because there was a lot of S-posting, obviously.
	You know, sorry, but the human sacrifices will stop.
	Chad Conquistador there.
	It's one of my favourite memes.
	So, I mean, these are all good fun.
	And this also came with the demand from the public, which was, let us play as the Conquistadors.
	Come on.
	Why not?
	You know why not.
	Well, we've got the next one here.
	But people started responding, no, the Spanish are evil.
	They're basically murderers.
	Look at these KKK conquistadors over here.
	That's some nice fanfic that they've drawn there.
	Because that's not actually what happened though, is it?
	You're telling me the Aztecs weren't some kind of golems that spit fire at horses?
	Surprisingly they did not have Power Rangers mecha zords available to fight back the conquistadors with.
	But if we go to the next link here, I mean, I don't know man, pretty bad.
	This person posting some history.
	I knew that the Aztec conquest was less than pretty because the Aztecs were horrible.
	I didn't realize how horrible until I brushed up on this.
	So this guy has posted here.
	I haven't even looked into detail of all the Aztec capital, but it's insane how the Aztecs kept sacrificing dudes in the middle of the battle Quick boys keep sacrificing the tides will turn eventually if we kill more babies the Spanish will leave Have you seen those memes where it's like the person digging and he's about to hit the gold and then he turns around and leaves it with just one sacrifice away?
	The gods would have descended and saved them.
	They say right until the end and how the... I don't know how to say the name because it's like T-L-A-X-C-A- whatever.
	Tlaxcalans.
	Tlaxcalans?
	What do they call them?
	The losers.
	Well, they were the losers, but they hated the Aztecs because the Aztecs had been oppressing them and genociding them.
	Oh, all right.
	So then when the Spanish turned up, they were like, yeah, we're going to side with you and genocide the Aztecs.
	Quote here, so the Cullens over here, they had been forced to hand over an annual quota of young men and women to be sacrificed and eaten at the Great Pyramid in the capital of the Aztec Empire and now saw their chance for revenge.
	So there's a historian who wrote a letter to Emperor Charles of Spain.
	Quote, we had more trouble in preventing our allies from killing them with such cruelty than we had in fighting the enemy.
	For no race, however, Savage has ever practiced such fierce and unnatural cruelty as the natives of these parts.
	Oof.
	Because these people had been essentially, you know, butchered by the Aztecs, so when they had their chance to get revenge, they started putting, he mentions, Spaniards on every street, so that there would be a Spaniard to try and intervene, and keep the peace, and they just couldn't, because there's 150,000 natives butchering the locals, and then like 500 Spaniards or whatever.
	I just like the idea of the Spanish conquistador being your local Bobby, walking down the street, hey, what's going on around here then?
	Pulls out his sword.
	That was apparently what they tried to do and then just sort of gave up because they realized they couldn't police the streets because there weren't enough of them.
	And so a genocide concluded.
	I mean, that's the funny part about all of this, which is the claims against, oh my god, the Spaniards genocided the Aztecs.
	No, fact check false, actually.
	Overwhelmingly, it was other natives genociding the Aztecs for being oppressive.
	Well, for genociding them.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, well, you're going to genocide us?
	Well, we'll genocide you right back.
	So in this, the Spanish get there and they have a difficult choice.
	Which genocidal maniacs do you want to team with?
	There is actually a really funny series of first-hand accounts.
	I can't remember the YouTube channel, maybe I should have included it as well.
	I think it's Real World History or History in Their Words or some crap like that.
	Just type in, you know, interaction with the Aztecs, first-hand account.
	And you'll find a guy who just does voiceovers for the diary entries of the Spanish in various trips to meet the Aztecs from the first sightings up until the fall of the Aztec Empire.
	And it's hilarious every single time.
	I mean, like, at one point they turn up and some previous group of Spaniards have been killed on the orders of the Aztec king.
	So they bring this up to the Aztec king and they're like, yeah, you're going to come back with us as a hostage.
	And for some reason he just agrees.
	Oh, okay then.
	Yeah, they were like, that was easy.
	Fair play.
	Just take the Emperor hostage.
	And when they find out that, yes, it was his word as to why they did this, they just launch like a rebellion within the city and the whole thing turns into chaos.
	But I'll let people go and find out.
	What a strange series of events.
	Yeah, I mean, the whole first interactions between the Indians and the Europeans is comical, frankly.
	It's horrifying.
	But the dev team did a cool thing, of course, which is they turned around and went, update, we hear you loud and clear.
	Oh, really?
	You will be able to choose, now join the Conquistadors, when we launch in 2025, to fight the caste... Oh, so they've got enough time in that case to be able to develop all of this.
	Presumably, to fight the caste of sacrifice-making priests, or join the Aztec warriors to repel the newcomers.
	That's actually quite nice to see.
	Because, you know, I have no qualms with actually playing as the Aztecs, but the choice is wonderful.
	I mean, could you imagine sitting there and being like, I hate playing as, I don't know, the Aztecs in Medieval Total War 2.
	I want to play as the Europeans.
	Cool, yeah.
	Great.
	Alright, there you go.
	Vice versa.
	Player options are always a good thing and I support it.
	It's always annoyed me, actually, that you can't play more factions.
	It's the one thing that makes a game worse, in my opinion.
	Why couldn't you side with the Enclave, is all I'm saying.
	They seem like good boys.
	This is true.
	I mean, you went on about Avatar 2 a few months ago, when it came out.
	For the first Avatar, they released the game on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and such, where as part of the story that you play through, the single player, you can choose at one point whether you're going to side with the Na'vi or the human beings.
	And if you side with the human beings, it is literally just Na'vi genocide simulator.
	I didn't know that, is it good?
	It's a generic third-person shooter for 2009, but I've heard some people say it's better than you would expect.
	Okay, well, you know, we're born too late to actually engage in colonial genocide, so we can simulate it instead.
	Have you seen the reviews for EU4 actually?
	EU4?
	So Europa Universalis 4?
	No.
	It's a game about where you play as a country during the imperial era and the medieval times.
	So of course it is essentially European colonial genocide simulator, the game.
	Good game.
	It just happens to have those aspects.
	You don't have to engage in genocide.
	You don't have to.
	You can play as the Ottomans and be even worse.
	Oh my goodness.
	So, I'm a big fan of choice.
	This is great.
	If we go to the next one here, we can see some people making the point that other games don't have such choices, such as Red Dead 2, where you play as a really evil gangster who supports women's rights and fights bigotry and intolerance.
	This is what we call Peaky Blinders Syndrome.
	You can commit crime and murder, but no racism!
	No racism?
	I can't do it, buddy.
	I'm actually miserable.
	But you're totally right.
	Just sound as sad as possible, and you'll sound like a brummie.
	Yeah.
	I know there's the Jimmy Carr way of doing it, but I'm not allowed to swear, so... Oh, yeah.
	I'm being censored.
	Anyway, but we'll go to the next one here, because there's some people who didn't take kindly to all this.
	So you had a million views on this chap.
	So apparently the developers of the Aztec game bowed down to the Nazi backlash, allowing you to play as the conquistadors.
	10,000 likes!
	I wish it was so easy for me to get so many likes on Twitter, my goodness.
	We've been around.
	We know that the word Nazi literally means nothing to these people.
	It means person who isn't a modern day progressive.
	That's all it means.
	That's all it's ever meant.
	Embarrassing though.
	You should feel embarrassed for saying such things.
	What was that noise you just made?
	My goodness.
	I don't usually have coffee.
	I had coffee earlier.
	It's killing me.
	I mean, I only just started drinking it over the weekend and I'm having a fantastic time.
	This is why I don't drink it.
	It's a bad drug.
	It makes you happy, gives you energy.
	Callum doesn't like any of these things.
	Pudge.
	They also say it seems to be delayed, the game too, because they have to add more stuff, to accommodate people who want Genocide Simulator.
	Do you remember when they referred to, what was it, Hogwarts Legacy?
	It was a new genre.
	Genocide Simulator.
	I mean, it is getting there now.
	We kind of do need a tag on Steam, if you're listening.
	Gay Ben.
	Well, I mean, to be fair, from these people's perspectives, if they actually knew anything about the history of the Aztec Wars, then... You already did play as the genocidal.
	Yeah, you were already playing as a genocidal force, so either way, it must be classified as a genocide simulator.
	Yeah.
	There were a fair few responses to, um, oh no, you're a Nazi if you don't want to side with the Aztecs, which is a weak argument.
	A very weak argument.
	Quite a lot of people were like, do I, if you don't side with baby murderers, you're a Nazi.
	Well, um, Zeke Heil, though.
	You get the next one here.
	I don't know if we'll have to edit that bit out there.
	Well, I just, I'm not a baby murderer, so a lot of people just responded with, like, chat images.
	Obviously they're not Nazis because they don't No, like, the Nazis don't have anything to do with this period of history, you weirdo.
	It is a very annoying anachronism that every single conflict throughout history, no matter how morally grey on either side, has to be fit into the black and white moral framework of, ooh, good guy, good guy, bad guy, Nazi.
	You either get it from different sides of the political spectrum that either the good guys won every time in history or the good guys lost in every time in history.
	There's a bit more complex grey area than that.
	Yeah, might be.
	Might be that sometimes the bad guys won, sometimes the bad guys lost.
	Sometimes it was a compromise between the two.
	Sometimes the good guys had to do bad things to win, etc.
	etc.
	Maybe there were no bad guys.
	Maybe there were no good guys.
	Maybe it was just people fighting.
	Maybe it's 2007, bro.
	Wake up, bro.
	Halo 3's just come out.
	Let's hit the couch and get Forge.
	There's a few more responses.
	I mean, this one was pretty bad.
	The local developers of Aztec Game, pictured here, presumably.
	You're really playing around now that we're demonetized, aren't you?
	Well, I can't... No, this is still fine if we monetize, actually.
	Oh, alright, okay then.
	Because it's ridiculous.
	Obviously.
	It's like, why would a bunch of Polish guys who are developing a game about playing as the Aztecs be Nazis for it?
	I mean, it's even more comical whenever you just call a Pole a Nazi.
	I mean, it's just, what's wrong with you?
	I mean, it's like calling Jews Nazis.
	It's just like, why?
	Because they're making a game about the aspects.
	You're high, sir.
	But we're going to the Steam discussions, because that's where the real conversation is at, fellas.
	As we've proved many a time.
	Some fella here decided to post, can you imagine making a Nazi game where you kill off Jewish people?
	Literally the same thing.
	It's not though, is it?
	It's not.
	It's really not.
	We should have kept it Aztec.
	Now you invited all the racist.
	That's not me butchering the reading, that's how he wrote it.
	And guarantee this will be by highly inaccurate and have 300 Contessadors beating a million fairytale.
	Well no, if it was accurate they'd bring in the other natives to kill the other natives.
	Yeah, this is true.
	Doesn't make any sense.
	User was banned for the post below.
	I was about to say, I just noticed that underneath.
	I don't think the developers are naughty because they've been banning anyone who's engaging in such speech, obviously.
	I do remember once upon a time there were even extra credits Actually did bring up the idea that maybe you should play as a evil Nazi properly instead of just the comical Nazi.
	I thought extra credits mainly were known now for that ridiculous video that they did.
	You play an online game and then all of a sudden you're a Nazi.
	You didn't choose this.
	You didn't ask for it.
	Well, maybe I did.
	Maybe I chose it.
	Oh no.
	So the players of, you know, the latest Battlefield.
	Maybe I wanted to play as a black female Nazi.
	Oh yeah, you can do that in one of those, can't you?
	Literally can.
	But anyway, but the idea that, I mean, just a whole side conversation about games set in World War II.
	I mean, they are increasingly worse because they refuse to put the SWAT sticker in there, for example, and make you play as black lesbians.
	Which is just silly.
	Yeah.
	On every level.
	Do you remember back when, I don't know, But before Call of Duty was the main World War 2 genre, what was it, Medal of Honor?
	That was the one, yeah.
	I think Call of Duty was actually a spin-off at first from some of the developers of the original Medal of Honor.
	I have to remember, I think it was Call of Duty World at War was the last one that seemed to take the subject matter seriously.
	I don't know if you finished it.
	I loved World at War when I was younger.
	Do you remember the story mode, how it ends with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a big message comes on screen about, you know, 50 million people died, the most horrific event in all of human history?
	And it takes the subject matter at least, like, yeah, this was serious?
	I also remember the Russian campaign in that one, treating the plight of the Russians very seriously, but not treating it as though the leadership of the Russian side were anyone to be, you know, considered in favourable light.
	Whereas these days, it's a bunch of clowns in clown uniforms, black lesbians on either side killing each other, and they have the Wehrmacht symbol and no Nazi symbols.
	World War II, according to these games, was various factions of black lesbians shooting each other in different uniforms.
	Yeah, so I remember Extra Credits actually made a very reasonable and serious video about why aren't there a bunch of posters talking about, you know, the evil of the Jews when you're walking around Germany, to make the point that no, this was a very serious event where serious things took place.
	I mean, this is also... I never played it, but I remember hearing about, was it Wolfenstein the New Colossus, the second one in that trilogy that they did, where you get this cartoonish vision of the rebel force fighting back, and one of them is a pregnant black woman Who shoots a load of Nazis, and she's one of the leaders of the resistance.
	It's absolutely ridiculous.
	She's unbelievably racist to the white guys.
	Well, I remember.
	It's like, you crackers didn't do nothing!
	And it's like, what do you mean?
	The Blazkowicz is Jewish as well!
	We fought the Second World War!
	And we lost in the game!
	But anyway, a whole other conversation.
	But maybe they should have more horrific things in video games, so then we could deal with difficult questions instead of...
	I'd say good because you're not the evil Spaniard.
	Or we could just play games and have fun.
	That's a remarkable idea.
	I'd rather both of those than whatever the hell this is.
	Modern World.
	Go to the next one though because the user was banned for this post.
	So the dev gave in to the racist, says this guy.
	Because yeah, the devs let you play as conquistadors.
	What a trainwreck.
	Okay.
	Okay, friend.
	If you go to the next one here, I think this is where the user got banned for this post.
	To the people upset about the game, eat steaks, it increases your testosterone.
	True.
	Lift weights, it increases testosterone.
	True.
	Repeat for a year and you should no longer feel upset about video games.
	This is very based advice.
	I wholeheartedly condone this.
	From user whose name is I'mLiterallyRetarded.
	He was banned for posting this.
	He was banned for telling low-T incels to improve their lives?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	Alright, okay.
	Someone else made a good discussion about whether or not they should add the Bible as an in-game weapon for, you know, beating back the Aztecs.
	User was banned for this post too.
	Some guy did make a good point, which is if you do add it, you have to add Wallaloo as the animation for taking them out.
	And also the last thing here just being, you know, typical online discussion.
	You're a bunch of woke minorities.
	They're a bunch of Nazis.
	Nobody learns anything because... Great.
	We'll go on to the last one here.
	Someone did mention a quick reminder that killing millions of natives isn't liberating.
	What if you do it alongside other natives who are also killing them?
	Yeah, I mean, what if you're taking out a bunch of genocidal maniacs who have also been, as you point out, genociding other people?
	Now, as a British person, I disagree with this statement with the following image.
	If we can get up?
	But whatever!
	I think the best result that can come of this is that it turns into a good game.
	Looking forward to it.
	That's the main thing I care about.
	in the video game, which is just good fun.
	Weird debate about politics that wasn't needed, but an awe to enjoy.
	I think the best result that can come of this is that it turns into a good game.
	Looking forward to it.
	That's the main thing I care about.
	Go to Hollywood.
	Let's not!
	Let's not go to Hollywood.
	I don't want to know what goes on there, because I already know too much about what goes on in Hollywood.
	It does not seem like a hospitable place for normal people.
	And, as a result of that, neither are the cinemas where your Hollywood movies are broadcast, because Hollywood movies are not made for you anymore.
	That's right, you watching this, the normal person who, like us, just wanted to play my video games, and also just wanted to enjoy my movies in peace, those films are not made for you anymore.
	And I thought I would do this because Excuse me.
	The latest Spider-Man film is out.
	Ooh, that's right, the new Spider-Verse film.
	Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse.
	And I'm sure you have no care whatsoever about any of this, which is perfectly reasonable.
	Maybe it's just the amount of online stuff I have to deal with, but I'm starting to think, is this transgenderism or something?
	Is this where this is going?
	How did you guess?
	How did you guess?
	I didn't know anything about this, just to be clear.
	You just immediately were able to pluck out of thin air.
	This is about trans, isn't it?
	This is about men dressed as women, because it always ends up being about that.
	I don't know what people watching this video thought of the Spider-Verse films.
	I actually quite enjoyed the first one when it came out in 2018.
	But this new one is one that I'm not interested in watching at all.
	And you can tell me if you have watched it, if it's actually a very good film.
	The animation, I'm sure, like the first one, is going to be excellent.
	Et cetera, et cetera.
	It might have characters and a plot that I could connect with and care about.
	But I don't care, because the filmmakers have made it very, very clear that they oppose me ideologically and hate my worldview and everything that I stand for.
	Therefore, I'm not going to give them my money.
	And I think this is an approach that most people should take with all films that they consume.
	Because, hey, it turns out that Budweiser, that Bud Light boycott, actually worked a bit and got them to turn it around.
	So if people started to do such things with these massive multi-million blockbuster films as well, perhaps we can get similar results.
	The one upside to a recession is that companies are a little bit more worried about money.
	It does help.
	It does help.
	There's a silver lining there.
	If everybody's poor, then so are the people screwing you over, hopefully.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Before I get any further, I think I will point you all in the direction of the website, where you can find some new work that Josh has done, a new video on his Contemplation series, where he's talking about Victorian manners and etiquette.
	Because if there's one thing that you can learn from being on the internet for too long, it's that, my God, we all need to be a bit more polite to one another.
	So perhaps with this, you can go back to a more old-fashioned style of manners and etiquette, and we can all just be a little bit more cordial with one another.
	But, moving on.
	So the new Spider-Verse came out, and it's a massive smash hit.
	It's an enormous smash hit.
	It's made, I think, where does it say here?
	$120.5 million in the first weekend, and that's going from Thursday, Friday, through to the end of Sunday.
	As well, it's the open to the second best Thursday preview ever for an animated film.
	It was $17.35 million.
	Only The Incredibles 2 did better in its first weekend.
	Super Mario Bros.
	Movie opened on a Wednesday and did not have previews according to this Rotten Tomatoes article.
	And it's also the sequel, the original one, Into the Spider-Verse was the lowest-grossing Spider-Man film since 2002, when the first Tobey Maguire classic came out.
	Are you aware of those?
	Did you watch those?
	You must at least be aware of Tobey Maguire's hideous cry face, which has become a complete meme.
	I might have seen it.
	Did you watch the latest ER video, where he's talking about the Little Mermaid?
	Yes.
	You know the part where the Spider-Man is trying to wrench her eyes together?
	That was Spider-Man 2.
	Okay, yes.
	If you've ever watched that.
	It's a glor- it's meme-worthy films, all three of them, so...
	I'd recommend you watch those because I'm sure you could have fun editing some clips together.
	But no, it's doing very well, and if we go to the next link as well, it's not just doing well financially, it's doing well critically.
	It's gotten 95% from critic reviews, but critics are scum, and I will put them to the side because I do not care what they have to say, but typically you can tell the quality of film by the audience score as well, and the audience score here is very positive, even more positive than the critic score, because it's 96%.
	Is it?
	I don't know.
	Is this going to be another case of the verified reviews versus the real reviews or is it actually good?
	I've heard a lot of people say that it is actually a very good film, and this is across the political spectrum.
	I don't know if you're aware of this, but Ron Tomatoes, Carl Buscemi, has done this weird thing now, where they segregate the audience score into verified and all audience.
	Oh, really?
	So they were hiding the real score for the Mermaid movie, for example, for verified users.
	They're not slur-made.
	Yeah, they're not slur-made.
	They had 90% verified users loved it, but if you checked out all users, it was like, no, this isn't good.
	Of course.
	So while that's interesting, thank you for letting me know.
	Did you come up with that?
	That was from the ER video!
	You already watched it!
	You know, there are a few things I pick up and retain up here from those videos, but that was too good to leave behind.
	That was too good for it.
	But, once again, as much as I respect that people want to go and watch films for just the entertainment value, that's something that I can always respect, this is not something that I am going to be watching because, once again, there have been many things that have
	...that I've seen before the film even came out, from the previews and from screenshots that people had released, that made me understand that this film was not made for me, and if I did go to this film, while maybe 95% of it would be something that I enjoy and could get into...
	That 5% would, the 5% left over would be spitting in my face.
	And I'm not going to take that.
	I'm just honestly not going to take that because if a film shows me that it hates me and is not made for me, is made for other people, well, it's not really deserving of my money.
	So this is one that I saw where Indian Spider-Man points out this, uh, oh, this is where the British stole all our stuff.
	Ah, claps.
	Stunning and brave, everybody.
	This is clearly pandering to an audience that is not me.
	Our stuff.
	Yes.
	You didn't exist as a country before we came, though.
	No, no, you didn't.
	And also, you probably weren't looking after that stuff.
	Plus, I mean, like the diamond, for example, that they keep whining about.
	It's from Afghanistan.
	Well, I mean... So when we return it to them, the Afghans can immediately turn around and, uh, return our stuff, please?
	Yeah, it's literally that Stone Toss meme of the Indians killing each other.
	Yes, as it always turns out to be.
	There was also this part of it, which I saw advertised up into the, uh, previews, where there was a pregnant black spider woman, which was, uh, seemed very on-message.
	Very on-point for the message.
	Black women are going out and doing it for themselves, even when they're pregnant.
	Which I found this entertaining interview because I also found out this character is Jessica Drew, who in the comic books, is yes, pregnant, but is white.
	So they took an already silly concept, that of woman with superpowers who's pregnant, and you can make all of these excuses you want, oh it's a cartoon, oh you don't have to apply it to real life, it's not supposed to make sense in the way, oh it makes sense in the universe because of blah blah.
	We know that the depictions of fiction In films and other such places, influence people's understanding of the real world.
	You already get people saying, why can't police just disarm these people?
	Because they watch a TV show that's not realistic where they see a police officer disarm someone with a bullet that they ricochet across a room and just happens to hit their hand, not causing any damage to the hand, just knocks the gun out of their hand.
	You see people thinking that female police officers won't be a problem and then check out footage from London.
	A female police officer trying to arrest anyone.
	Because you've got all of these films pushing girl boss action women who can just stand up to an army of men just by doing roundhouse kicks and breakdancing on the floor while flailing their feet around.
	People watch these things and they think, oh so that's how the real world works because people don't go outside anymore.
	I mean people in cities who are leftists.
	Yes, and people don't even understand how dangerous violence is in general these days.
	They don't understand that if you get a punch in the face and fall over, crack your head on the road, you might be dead.
	Also, for me it's less about that, but just, if you can tell it's obviously motivated by ideology, it's just boring.
	Well, that's the thing, I can tell that this would be motivated by ideology for some of the other things that have come up in this, but also one of the three directors, because there are three directors, because it's a big animated feature, took five years to make, so they needed a lot of people, is a man called Kemp Powers, who wrote for Star Trek Discovery, which is a very political, very leftist television show.
	He wrote a stage play called A Negro by Choice, and has been awarded numerous, I think, four NAACP awards.
	Did you read the plot on that?
	Could you summarize it real quick?
	No, I just looked at the name and said, that's all I need to know.
	I'm gonna give that a read.
	Yeah, yeah, go on, give us a read.
	We can have a nice story time reading of A Negro by Choice.
	I just saw all of that and put it together.
	Okay, this is a...
	Explicitly political actor in the sorts of films that he'll be making.
	Because I think one thing that the right, and centrists as well, need to understand is that the left, when they talk about how media manipulates and spreads particular narratives, are actually right, and they can do this explicitly or implicitly.
	But when you're making a film, the sorts of narrative and depictions of the characters will have an effect on, especially when you're consuming media passively.
	It's a bit different when you're playing a video game because you're actively involved in it.
	But when you're consuming media passively, that's one of the most vulnerable times that you have to having the message shoved down your throat.
	And you need to be aware of this, as many people have become much more aware of it.
	But the actress who was voicing this character, Jessica Drew, said she described Due as the true essence of a superhero, thanks to her status as a crime-fighting future mother, even explaining that it challenged her notion and her beliefs regarding pregnant women being fragile.
	She is the true essence of a superhero in the fact that she is this mom fighting crime and also she's superhuman in that way.
	So I love playing her and I hope other moms appreciate her too.
	And, I have to say, she challenged my notion.
	My sister and friends who have been pregnant over time, sometimes I'm a bit too fragile with them.
	Like, oh, you can be doing this?
	Are you going to be working up until this point?
	And they're just like, yes, I'm completely fine.
	I can still operate.
	Which, have you found much?
	I can't find anything called a negro by choice.
	They're censoring it.
	They're keeping it away from the public.
	They don't want us to know.
	White Google has all of the results censored.
	There are some other book names, though, that came up from black authors, which, uh... Well, he was, uh, he's a playwright, so it's a stage play.
	Yeah, yeah, I did look up play, but they're just... What came up was none of that and instead a bunch of books, which I can't read the titles of, so... Oh, really?
	Yeah, they're from black authors, though, so...
	Are we there?
	But once again, like this, it's a cartoon.
	You're not supposed to be- can think that it's real, but people will allow it to change their perception in the first place, especially idiots.
	And what this is- and this is going hand-in-hand with other things that I've been saying.
	Did you see The Last of Us Part II when that came out?
	Um, you mean the video game?
	Yes.
	I've still, I've done my thing where I declared that fan fiction and just ignored it.
	That's fair, that's probably the best thing to do.
	But in that there is a pregnant woman who is part of an active militia force who goes out and she's quite heavily pregnant, she's got a big bump and she's out there doing it for the girls, doing it just as good as the men, showing the men how it's done.
	It's like, no!
	Heavily pregnant women should be at home.
	Taking care of themselves because they've got a baby in there.
	We're in a post-apocalypse situation.
	You know what we should risk?
	The pregnant woman.
	Yes, the future of our civilization and even our species.
	What is it with the whole turn a pregnant woman into a soldier thing?
	I don't know.
	And I even saw a video posted on Twitter the other day of a quite heavily pregnant, probably 6, 7, 8 months pregnant woman who was absolutely jacked doing deadlifts and doing push cleans with a heavy bar.
	Excuse me, while she was pregnant?
	I just thought that's not good for the baby.
	That's not good for the baby at all, what's going on?
	Do you remember, I think I told you, the German military actually got sued at one point because their new tanks didn't have proper seating for pregnant women, and therefore violated equality law.
	Why do you want pregnant women manning tanks in the first place?
	They obviously never were going to, but the equality law said that they had to have equal access, so if a pregnant woman wanted to mount a Leopard 2 tank and go and fight in Ukraine, You know, if the Ukraine war gets that bad, I think maybe a peace deal is what we should be considering, not throwing pregnant women into tanks.
	Well, there really is the old, the weak and the young.
	Oh my god, it's so ridiculous, scraping the barrel here for soldiers.
	But in the same article, She even references tennis superstar Serena Williams who competed and played tennis while she was pregnant and she said, I think Serena competing and playing tennis while she's pregnant and all the women who do the extraordinary while they're pregnant and are sort of taken for granted in that way.
	So I thought this was a nice commentary and I looked into this very quickly and found that I don't know if it's as a result But Serena Williams had complications and blood clots and almost died during her childbirth, so maybe she's not a role model to take advice from when it comes to what you should do when you are pregnant.
	Anyway, but it has been getting some other very positive reviews, though, is this one.
	Where it says Spider-Man is more than a movie, it's a work of art, so you get people saying that.
	But then people have been noticing the other very obvious messaging in the film.
	What are you going to say?
	Is it the chat?
	Are they being cheeky?
	Someone was saying, well obviously the baby's manning the woman and the woman's manning the tank.
	Like Ratatouille or something?
	I don't know!
	Just like all sorts of leathers and cords down there.
	New Ratatouille movie, just drop boys.
	The baby's just got a little cord it pulls and the steam releases from her ears, honk honk.
	Sorry, just the occasional thing in the chat is funny.
	You've won me over, that makes perfect sense now.
	But there was this big one where people started to notice, even before the film came out, that there was some imagery in the trailer that was a little bit on the nose.
	So, Across the Spider-Verse wants to protect trans kids, and that's a big deal.
	So, in the trailer, there's a character called Gwen Stacy, who is an alternate universe Spider-Man.
	And it shows her bedroom, and on the bedroom wall it features trans pride colours and the words Protect Trans Kids written across them.
	She's got a Protect Trans Kids pride flag on her wall, and you can easily see it.
	It's a direct political statement and a brave line in the sand drawn by the folks over at Sony Pictures Animation.
	It's a small detail to include, but significant in its placement within the Spider-Man universe.
	Of course, Young Zoomers raised in the age of social media, a Trump presidency and Black Lives Matter are going to lean progressive.
	So it's just pushing that.
	These are the people these films are made for.
	If you're just a normal person who wants to go and enjoy a Spider-Man film, too bad!
	One way or another, implicitly or explicitly, this will get pushed in your face.
	And then there was this thread that quite blew up, and I can't actually access it myself anymore, because I was blocked by the person who did it after I quote-tweeted them, but I managed to get an archive link of it.
	This Leia Goth Fox, who's a person who I would trust the opinion of, clearly, pointing out that her story is a trans allegory.
	The whole thing is done in the colours of the trans flag and some people have pointed out, oh well that's just the colours of her costume.
	I'm sorry, this person is probably right.
	This person is probably right on some level because if they felt the need, because it's not just the pride flag on her wall, her father is a police officer in the film as well.
	And in one shot that you can see, he has his badge and it has a little trans pride flag above the badge as well.
	Ah, so he's a British police officer.
	Yes, pretty much.
	So, in all likelihood, as much as you can say, oh well, the idea of having these two separate lives, these double lives that you're trying to navigate, and you don't want the family that you have to be aware of it to keep them safe, is part of superhero storytelling, it can also be taken As a part of this trans allegory, this idea, oh, there's a part of my life I want to keep away from my family, I don't know how they would react, etc, etc.
	And given the explicitly political nature of certain elements of these films, given the way that it feels the need to put these details in the background, I would not be shocked if it is more intentional than some people want to give it credit for.
	I understand the desire to just want to sit back and enjoy your films and just have fun watching it.
	But sorry, the people making these films do not want you to do that.
	Someone pointing out, well what does that mean about Spider-Man with his red and black though?
	Well, red, white and black.
	I have seen people point that out as well.
	But, once again, I wouldn't be shocked if this is something they had considered, and any other takeaways you can have from the film regarding the other colour schemes would not have been as deeply thought about.
	Because also, one thing is that in the comic books, the original Gwen Stacy falls off a bridge and breaks her neck, so if you're going with the trans allegory, that doesn't sound great.
	Do we disavow the movie now?
	That's up to you.
	I presume so.
	That's up to you.
	And Pink News picked up on this as well.
	Oh, is Gwen Stacy trans?
	Here's the evidence where they just point out, Gwen isn't the only spider who's been embraced by the LGBTQ plus community.
	Last year, Marvel revealed details about the origin story of its first ever gay Spider-Man, who made his debut in the fifth issue of the Edge of Spider-Verse comic book.
	This is an organized thing that they're trying to push.
	Yeah, you can see a better view of this image as well.
	We found a multiverse where there's a million infinite types of Spider-Man and the only two we found are to do with the LGBT lobby.
	Yet to find the Nazi Spider-Man universe where he... There is a Stone Toss comic.
	Yeah, I was going to say, I've seen that.
	Have you seen the one where a Confederate Spider-Man is swinging?
	Howdy fellas.
	Now that I would be interested to see.
	I know this is only part two of a three-part trilogy.
	There's going to be a sequel to this coming out next March, so fingers crossed for the south shall rise again.
	But even Rick and Morty did it, in that one episode with the body bus.
	Where he reroutes and then he wakes up and it's in a fascist universe where there's fascist Rick and Morty.
	I don't remember that.
	Maybe that's after I stopped watching.
	Oh, he gets caught and he's like, quick, I found this socialist in my bathrobes, kill him.
	No, he's getting out of it.
	Makes sense.
	And you had other people just whining on Twitter, just saying like, oh, just let me have my pride.
	Even if it's not intentional, just let me have it.
	Trans and even cis fans have the right to say she's trans, even if the movies never outright confirm it.
	Once again, whether it confirms it explicitly or not, I do think that is overtly signaling.
	To these kinds of freaks and weirdos, because the films aren't made for you anymore.
	The films aren't made for the normal person who just wants to go and watch a superhero film with his kids.
	The films are made for freaks, weirdos, outcasts from society.
	I'm obsessed with politics and gender.
	Yes!
	Okay.
	And once again, for some reason, elements of the right wing and elements of centrists just can't seem to understand this, or accept it, or just want to ignore it when it does happen, like this one.
	Ah, from the spectator, Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse dodges all the MCU virtue signaling.
	But it doesn't, though, does it?
	It doesn't.
	It has race-swapped pregnant Spider-Woman, it has trans flags and all that sort of thing everywhere.
	It may not explicitly have a character come out and give you a big speech about it, it may not be integral to the plot, but it does seem to be somewhat subtext of the themes.
	that are going on in the film.
	I want to watch films that I can just enjoy and switch my brain off, but the filmmakers don't want to do that.
	All of these people all believe the same things, and they are all crazy.
	So, that's all I'm saying here.
	Even Critical Drinker, if you watch Critical Drinker, he had a thread where he's talking about the fact that this was elaborating on a point from his pretty decent Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse review that he posted on YouTube, where he's elaborating on a statement that he made.
	Of all of the characters in the film, Peter Parker, who is one of the only white men in it, seems to be being a bit demeaned and degraded by the narrative, portraying him as a kind of a schlubby idiot who takes his brand new baby daughter into dangerous places with him.
	Very silly, but it seems to be something that other people are noticing, even if Critical Drinker overall was quite positive on the film.
	And outside of the realms of film as well, we can just see how these people think, because You didn't play Spider-Man on the PlayStation 4, did you?
	I don't think you've got a PlayStation 4.
	I played a Spider-Man game on PS1 last time I played a Spider-Man game.
	To be fair, the PlayStation 1 Spider-Man game was, yeah, pretty damn good.
	I will give you that.
	But the Spider-Man game on PlayStation 4 was pretty good.
	I enjoyed it.
	But a fringe element of the audience all decided to call it copaganda because Spider-Man, in trying to save New York City and help New York City, collaborates with the police.
	And despite the fact that this was a fringe tiny Just an itty-bitty tiny element of the entire audience of the game, and nobody else cared.
	They decided that these were the people that they were going to listen to, and the developers have said, Copaganda wasn't our intent.
	Spider-Man 2 devs have listened to criticism of the first game, particularly in how it represents cops.
	In a new interview, a dev makes clear that the team is aware that the first Spider-Man game on PlayStation 4 had been labeled as Copaganda as soon as it launched.
	Although, said that this wasn't their intention, so this new game is going to have all of the copaganda elements removed from it, because a tiny fraction of the audience read about it on Twitter, and therefore, that's just where they're going with it.
	So, at the end of the day, this is the audience that new films and new games are being made for.
	Unless explicitly stated otherwise, or unless you can tell that a film isn't going to have those elements, then you, honestly, as far as I'm concerned, you're best not going to see it, because these people They don't like you, they don't like your worldview, they hate you and hate your worldview, and you should spend your money accordingly.
	If you want to go and see a real film, you should go and watch something that is devoid of this sort of thing.
	Like, for instance, last year I enjoyed the films Banshees of Anishinaabe, which was excellent, and also The Northmen, which was my favourite film from last year.
	Both of them are excellent and don't have any hint, as far as I could tell, of excellence.
	equity, inclusion, diversity, nothing forcefully inserted into a narrative where it wouldn't fit.
	And as far as I could tell, I've not done deep analysis of them.
	There was no subtext or subtle themes trying to convince me that I'm evil because I happen to be born ethnically English as well.
	So once again, Hollywood is not making films for you.
	The games industry, for the most part, apart from apparently the Aztecs developers who are happy to change when people complain.
	They're Polish, so...
	They're Polish, so they've got their own views on things.
	So for the most part, these people are not making games for you and films, so spend your money accordingly.
	I don't know what's happened to the stream. - Okay.
	Okay, that seems to be fixed.
	But people were saying at some point the whole thing went green and you sounded like a chipmunk.
	So... That's alright.
	Sorry about that.
	Apparently if you hit Refresh Player... This is just an experiential multimedia kind of experience.
	Does a day go by without something going wrong?
	Maybe somebody who... Maybe the person who commented that just dropped some acid.
	Oh no, everyone was commenting it!
	Maybe everybody drops acid.
	Everyone's just like, bro, is someone hitting your nuts or something?
	Yeah, Callum was kicking me under the table.
	But yeah, if you click refresh player, that button there, just below there, the player should seem to work.
	It's normal, but otherwise, move on.
	Right, I don't know where this segment's going, I'll be honest.
	This might be a complete flop, but I just want to talk about it, alright?
	We'll see.
	So my question today is, how do women keep falling for this?
	And the falling for it is, a lot of women have been having sex with women by accident.
	Which I didn't think would be that hard to avoid.
	By accident?
	Yeah.
	Well, they're being duped into having sex with women.
	At least, this is their version of events.
	We'll get to it in a minute.
	There was that BBC article that got taken down at the end of 2021 where they said, uh, lesbians were talking about, oh, men in dresses are trying to convince me to have sex with them and suck their penis.
	It's not like that.
	Which was not the sort of thing that I was expecting to see the BBC, so it's not like that, this is... Well, we'll start off by promoting the thing on loneliness.com for this segment, being Abigail Shryer's irreversible damage, because transgenderism has nothing to do with this story at all.
	Okay.
	Alright, we good?
	YouTube?
	Not gonna blow my head off?
	Jesus.
	I don't believe you.
	Let's go to the next one here.
	Because I saw this post a little while back, which was, you know, making women look dumb is now a disturbing new podcast trend.
	Coming from the New York Post as well, supposedly right-wing.
	Women Posting Ls just said, have you considered that these women are actually just dumb?
	Which was a fair point.
	I do want to point something out very quickly, which was a criticism of the Whatever podcast.
	Did you see the ...sponsorship that this man took on on the podcast a few weeks ago.
	Well, you know his typical co-host he has?
	The guy without the beard, a bit more chadly... The one who had to shut up about Jesus?
	Yes, that guy.
	He retweeted it saying that if they don't change what they were doing with some of the sponsorships, that he would be...
	Leaving the show altogether, because this man decided that it would be a great idea on a podcast where he's telling thoughts about how bad it is that they're all thoughts, to advertise what I can describe as a pocket fellatio machine for the benefit of men, shall we say.
	I don't want to say it on stream, it's not very appropriate.
	And even all of the e-thoughts he had on the podcast with him were disgusted with what he was doing.
	So, it's not a good look.
	We're not really going into the whatever's podcast, it's just more- I just wanted to throw out some criticism there and make people aware of it.
	Fair enough.
	So I mean, I saw this, a lot of people got up about it.
	Now I'm not going on this rant that I'm about to because I'm on the Pearl Davis train or anything.
	If we go to the next link you can see what I'm talking about with Pearl.
	Society of Women Didn't Vote tweets Pearl.
	Heaven.
	So, I'm not there.
	I mean, I do admit- Why not?
	Women are strange creatures, to say the least, to men.
	I don't know if you noticed this Everest avalanche thing picked off recently.
	If you go to the next video, in which a woman who's about to climb Mount Everest with a group of people is screaming in shock because there are dead people up Mount Everest.
	It's really annoying to listen to, to say the least.
	And also it's ridiculous, because she's like, oh my god, there are dead people at Mount Everest?
	If you go to the next link, just the Oppenhauer meme.
	It's like, what do you mean it's dangerous?
	It is pretty horrifying, but you should be aware of these things before you try and climb Everest.
	And you should also be very aware that you might end up one of those landmarks that they have.
	But my point being, I mean there's some naivety to be found of female creatures, of course men as well, but in media especially, I mean like that one there in real life and also on the girls that go on the whatever podcast and be like, am I dumb?
	Well you did get an invite, so... So, let's get to the story of what I'm talking about, because as I mentioned, a lot of women have been tricked into having sex with women, and these stories seem to have been popping up quite a lot for me, and it wasn't just me, Daisy was saying she keeps getting them on social media as well, What's going on?
	Is my question, because this isn't, you know, very common, but it's common enough that there are now multiple stories about this, you know, one every couple of years, which, strange.
	So here we have the Dale.
	This is from 2011.
	They reported this as the earliest instance of a fight.
	Oh, this has been going on for a long while.
	Woman 26 poses as a man for nine years to trick two women into having sexual relations.
	Um, how?
	Yeah.
	That was one, uh, shocking level of dedication.
	And two, also, what if you're a lesbian?
	No, I'm straight.
	I got tricked.
	No, no, I mean the person, the woman who posed as the man.
	Yeah.
	Surely there are other women that you could pursue that you don't have to pretend to be a man for nine years to obtain.
	I would have thought.
	I tried to find men doing the reverse of this subject before I go forward.
	I couldn't.
	All I could find was rapists.
	So, if a man wants to get with a man, they seem to just, you know, not pose as women to try and trick men.
	I've not been able to find that.
	I'm also a little bit iffy on this segment so far.
	But there seems to be a contingent, or at least some women who instead, men don't do this but women do, they dress up as men and trick women into having sex with them.
	So here's the details.
	A woman yesterday denied tricking two women into sexual intimacy by pretending to be a man.
	In an elaborate ruse, Samantha Brooks, 26, is accused of posing as a man called Lee Brooks in order to have sexual contact with them.
	Wait, so she was 17 when she started this?
	Um, presumably.
	I mean, if she was... There's the data work out there.
	Yeah, if she was not... If it's been nine years, then she started when she was... They did say this went on for eight years with one woman and eight months with another, so it presumably started at 18 then.
	She's two-timing at one point.
	Potentially.
	So, she's even alleged to have proposed to one woman.
	Which is weird.
	Why would you do that?
	She faces two charges of obtaining sexual contact by fraud, which I didn't know was a crime.
	Yeah, I've never heard of it before.
	Yeah, baby, I'm Ryan Reynolds.
	Let's go back to your place.
	You're not Ryan Reynolds.
	I only just figured this up on the morning after when I woke up.
	I'm taking you to court, sonny.
	The charge alleges that she penetrated each woman that suffered from test... Sorry, she penetrated each woman and said that she suffered from test... She pretended to each woman.
	Oh, sorry.
	My reading skills.
	She pretended to each woman that she suffered from testicular cancer and that they could not handle her penis in an attempt to induce each to believe that she had a penis.
	Which she obviously didn't.
	Now, I don't know if women know, but testicular cancer doesn't get rid of the penis.
	I don't know why that was a reasonable excuse for why you can't touch.
	I also, I don't think it's a transmissible disease to women.
	Oh, you're cut!
	If you touch it with your hands, your hands will fall off.
	Whereas if I put it inside of you... We're being a bit... This really is avant-garde podcasting right now, isn't it?
	I just- I don't really understand why anyone would believe that.
	And there's a whole bunch of other excuses in the following up stories which I also don't understand why a woman would believe, but... Okay.
	It alleges she tried to hide her breasts from the women by telling one that she had suffered burns on her back and needed to wear bandages around the chest area.
	Which I also wouldn't believe, but... She alleges to the other that she had suffered a stab wound in the torso, which is why she had to have bandages and cling film around the chest.
	Um, doesn't make sense, but whatever.
	Brooks is accused of placing a condom on an object she purportedly pretended to be her penis, and then had sexual intimacy with both women, which she knew was not otherwise consent to the sex.
	It is also alleged that she bathed in the presence of each woman, but used bubble bath to hide her body.
	This... I don't know what to think about any of this.
	Because part of me is like, there's no way you would be fooled.
	John, can you- Oh.
	Uh, John, can you scroll back up to the date of this?
	I just wanted to- This is 2011.
	No, no, no, I know it's 2011.
	No, it's not April 1st.
	No?
	Okay, no, this is the 15th of January.
	Carry on.
	And this might have been a one-off, right?
	You know, 2011, back before any of the new gender politics, so everyone just kind of laughed at it.
	Um, this happens every couple of years by the seems, though.
	Because if we go to the next link, Gail Newland, woman found guilty of posing as a man to trick friend into sex at new trial.
	Why?
	I mean just why?
	Is all that's on my mind.
	And how would you fall for this?
	A woman has been convicted of impersonating a man over two years in an astonishing deception to trick her female friend into sex.
	Did she read the Daily Mail article and become inspired?
	That's a good idea.
	So, Gail Newland created a disturbingly complex online persona to achieve her own bizarre sexual satisfaction, Manchester Ground Court heard.
	A retrial jury found the 27-year-old guilty of committing sexual assault by using a prosthetic penis without the victim's consent.
	I mean, this brings up a whole other conversation, because you remember how it was sort of an argument that if you go home with a transgender individual and they don't tell you that until the morning after, you're a bigot for being upset?
	According to British law, it's a crime.
	It's, you know...
	Sexual intercourse by fraud and also, well, sexual assault by the looks of it.
	Well, that's something I know now.
	There we are.
	Newland convinced her friend she was a man by putting on a deep voice and using a blindfold, apparently.
	I mean, this sounds like a Monty Python sketch or Blackadder.
	Just the queen comes in and is like, put on this blindfold.
	Ah, yes, I am a man.
	Tee hee.
	Throughout dozens of sexual encounters, she put on the deep voice and made the woman wear a blindfold for a two-year relationship with the victim.
	A dozen?
	Over two years!
	Just put this on before we meet.
	Why?
	Do I still have to do this after two years?
	Yes.
	Yes, just for reasons.
	her victim said she had been made to wear the blindfold at all times the pair were together even when they sunbathed and watched a film her flat one of them was blindfolded was there hugging and watching a movie I mean again I'm she's been convicted of this but part of me is still like do I believe this is real I
	I don't know if I believe this unless the victim was astonishingly stupid, which is not out of the question, but then I just feel Either way, I feel bad laughing at this because, you know, somebody has been manipulated, but at the same time, you have to be exceptionally stupid to fall for something like that, or maybe just lonely.
	I mean, this is like the Darwin Awards.
	Remarkably lonely.
	Of the dating market, I feel.
	You either have to be remarkably stupid or remarkably lonely to fall for something like this.
	I don't know what to say.
	She told the court that she only realised her partner was a woman when she pulled her blindfold off during sex and saw it was her friend wearing a strap on penis.
	Oh my god.
	If it's your friend... This sounds so fake to me, because if it's your friend, then surely you know where they live.
	I mean, what do you do?
	I mean, if you're Newland here, I can explain.
	I don't know!
	Like, if it's your friend, you presumably have been to their flat before, right?
	Yeah.
	So, you go to somewhere right around the corner from where your friend's flat is, and then they make you put on a blindfold, and then they take you maybe up a series of stairs, a flight of stairs, which is remarkably similar in length and distance to this flight of stairs that you're going up already when you go to visit your friend.
	And then you end up in a space that you can't see but it's presumably- It smells the same as your friend.
	It smells the same as your friend.
	It's got a similar layout from what you can feel- What on earth is this?
	This bloke here, he seems to smell remarkably well for a bloke.
	He sort of smells like he's wearing perfume or something.
	And for some reason the voice isn't quite right.
	And like, you can't recognize your friend's voice when they put on a deep voice around you?
	Oh yes dear, I am a man.
	Tee hee.
	This sounds... Conviction.
	Convicted of this, apparently.
	I hope this is a fake story.
	I honestly do.
	Newland claimed her accuser always knew she was pretending to be Kai Fortune, which is the name chosen for the alter ego, she created at 15 using American man's photos and videos as they engaged in what she says was actually a roleplay situation over two years whilst they struggled with their sexuality.
	Which... I just don't know who to believe.
	She said no blindfold was used as they had sex on more than 10 occasions, while the complainant's flat in Chester in 2013, So this is the thing.
	I mean, it sounds like a Blackadder sketch.
	There's conflicting accounts here.
	The person who says they did it was like, oh, there was no blindfold.
	This was some kind of roleplay situation.
	But then two juries convicted this person.
	One of the verdicts was overturned, but then the other jury also convicted them.
	So...
	I just don't know what to say.
	Presumably, it is true.
	The person who said it, yeah, I was blindfolded for two years whilst we went to my friend's flat and had sex and I had no questions about it.
	She told the court she did not strap bandages to her chest or wear a swimsuit or a woolen hat to conceal her appearance.
	But prosecutor Simon Medland, QC, told the jury that she was manipulative, deceitful and a very crafty young woman.
	So she's like a witch or something of the gender world.
	Newland went to such astonishing lengths to conceal the complainant's life, to control the complainant's life, and make her do things the defendant wanted her to do, he said.
	It also emerged that Newland had been pretending to be Kai Fortune with at least three other women she had met online.
	So yeah, maybe there is some truth if she's doing it to other women as well.
	One woman engaged in online telephone conversations over a five-year period, In which she eventually worked out that she had been deceived.
	And at least that one sounds like it would make more sense because you could use a voice changer or something over the phone.
	Just talk like this, love.
	Over the phone.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, cool.
	I like when I'm hard.
	I mean, I imagine the conversations are like 40 years a virgin where she's trying to describe, I don't know, her penis or, you know, desires.
	And it just sounds like the guy talking about boobs or like bags of sand.
	No comment.
	In a statement to the court she said that she started becoming suspicious when she noted that the houses in the background of some of Kai's photographs appeared to be American.
	Not where she lived.
	Not anything else in Manchester.
	Nothing else in this whole bizarre scenario you have found yourself in.
	Tipped you off.
	No.
	Until you started to sleuth around Hold Up.
	You don't have an American accent.
	Gets out Crockett hat.
	Davy Crockett hat.
	Gets magnifying glass out.
	One or two.
	One or two.
	Okay.
	This could, you know, one or two times happen.
	Third time.
	This I found on the way back.
	Well, I just flew back to the UK.
	I got on a train from Heathrow back to Swindon.
	Picked up the paper and this story was in there.
	Woman 40 posed as man to trick woman into having sex with her.
	I mean, I would have thought you would have known, looking at the image.
	I don't know how convincing the disguise is.
	A woman was tricked into having sex in a two-year relationship with another woman who was pretending to be a man.
	The victim, who can't be named for illegal reasons, claimed that she had a sexual intercourse twice with the man and even planned to marry him.
	Blade Silvano, 40, has been accused of a sophisticated scam by tricking the woman into believing she was a male.
	Prosecutors said that the pair met online in 2016 when Silvano had posted her status on Plenty of Fish as a man looking for women and matched with the victim.
	Now, I've used Tinder, as we mentioned in the past, for all of five minutes to check it out and been like, well, this is full of whores.
	One thing I did notice is if you look for women on Tinder, not all of them are women.
	Now, I did assume at first that this was all because, you know, God bless transgenderism or something at the headquarters of Tinder and they're just going along with that.
	Now I'm a bit sus about whether or not there is some other kind of weird fetish out there about deceiving people.
	Who knows?
	They first met in person in December and that year they kissed before going on to have intercourse on two separate occasions, the jury was told.
	But Mitchell Hillman for the prosecution said- Michael Hillman.
	Michael Hillman said Silvano continued to hide her true identity by using an unknown item to penetrate and always kept her t-shirt and boxers on.
	Which again, I would have thought would be a red flag.
	So like, can I have a look?
	Can I have a cheeky d-pic?
	No.
	Why?
	Reasons.
	The shocked victim only discovered the lover's true gender through Facebook nearly two years later after they were planning a wedding.
	Which also I don't really get.
	Like, if the person here is scamming you, why are they planning a wedding with you?
	Go all in, I suppose.
	The defendant says it was all roleplay.
	The same defence as the previous one.
	So, there's that.
	She said she believed Silvano when she told her that she was a vet with the British Army and that it was not part of a fantasy.
	The court also heard that the reason Silvano said that she put off the wedding and an officer's dinner was because she was injured by a cow.
	Which, um...
	You know, typical problems.
	It happens.
	I don't know if you've ever been into a field before.
	I mean, if you're a vet for cows, I suppose.
	I assume you've been into a field before.
	Yeah.
	Have you been in a cow field?
	I've never been bothered by the cows.
	They do occasionally give you a dirty look, though.
	I mean, unless you mess with the cows.
	They give you the look like you're messing with my territory here.
	You gotta sit.
	You've seen the videos.
	I have once menacingly been followed by a herd of cows while I was walking through their territory.
	I'm sure you've seen the videos, but there are plenty of them.
	If you play an instrument near a herd of cows, for some reason it just calms them down.
	They all get mesmerized by it.
	Who told you this?
	The Pied Piper?
	No, seriously.
	If you look up, like, man plays accordion to cows, or little girl plays recorder to cows, etc.
	There's a whole host of these videos.
	That's quite sweet.
	All the cows will come over, because they've got now-else going on.
	John, bring that up for me.
	Whilst I read the rest of this weird story.
	Oh no, must we?
	Must we return?
	Can we not just look at the cows being calm?
	No.
	Oh, thank you.
	The trial heard that she had gone on to try on a wedding dress and even sent the image to the alleged criminal here.
	During the initial police interview she said, when we had sex, Blade would usually blindfold me.
	Ah, that old chestnut.
	Classic.
	And I was never allowed to look during penetration.
	Which I would have thought was a red flag if you were a woman, just... Not that, necessarily, this might be a woman with a strap on, but more... Why?
	Maybe this isn't my love part, maybe I shouldn't be having sex with someone who's like, yeah, no, you can't look at my penis.
	It's all rotten down there.
	I feel very bad for these women who fell for this, if all of these stories are true, because they obviously should not have been let out of the care of their fathers.
	She was also quizzed on why she should not have hair on his legs, and then she responded, no, he did.
	So, I mean, not being rude, looking at the previous file, I'm not sure that that person would have shaved their legs regularly.
	Let's do that one, why not?
	There's an accordion here from presumably Switzerland.
	Oh, they rushed to it.
	Or Serbia.
	Skip ahead so we can... And they just skip to wherever it's most viewed.
	Look at them!
	Oh, that's quite sweet.
	Just to cheer you up in between before we get to the next story of deceit and lies.
	Anyway, loads of them.
	Go and check them out.
	Good fun, if nothing else.
	Yes, this is the most recent one.
	Let's go to the last story, because this is the thing that happened literally a couple of days ago.
	It's just come out of nowhere.
	A woman posed as man to have sex with teenager, and this is supposedly the person who deceived a teenager into having sex with them, Georgina Bilham 21, who... Georgia.
	Georgia over there.
	So, she is said to have set up a social media account under the name George Parry, and started messaging the accuser aged 19 online.
	The pair eventually met in early 2021, and shortly after began a sexual relationship, Chester Crown Court told, Billum denies 17 sexual offences including sexual assault and assault by penetration.
	I mean, again, just follow the conversations about what is a crime in the UK.
	Claiming that he was involved in Albanian drug gangs, George told her that he was afraid to take off his top and was self-conscious about stabbing scars.
	So that's why you can't look at my penis.
	This person really did just read that Daily Mail article.
	I feel like this Daily Mail article is what set this whole chain of events off.
	A load of copycat, I don't know, rapists?
	Sexual assaulters?
	I mean, I don't know why it's not rape.
	I mean, I think in British law the definition of rape doesn't have to involve penetration, so surely this would count.
	Yeah.
	I think British law, someone did correct us, which is it's massively sexless, which is it's penetration with the physical penis.
	So... Oh, alright.
	Presumably, maybe that's why.
	So they have to do things like sex under auspices of fraud or something like that.
	This was sexual fraud, which... Like you're stealing away in the night with a bag full of money.
	I told her I was rich.
	Little did she know I'm penniless.
	That old chestnut.
	Yeah, so I'm also claiming you're working with Albanian drug gangs as apparently, I don't know, turns women on or something?
	I wouldn't be shocked at that to be honest.
	I mean that would be a reason to leave in my view, but average women.
	The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is very short-sighted.
	Ah!
	So, what the... I'm sorry, but these excuses are just not convincing to me!
	So she says that the woman who was pretending to be a man would just take off her glasses, which would render the victim essentially blind, as the jury were told.
	How could I have known?
	But before you took off the glasses... Yeah, I would have thought there'd be a couple of minutes of chit-chat.
	Maybe a date, before you decide to have sex with an Albanian gangster.
	No?
	I'm so confused.
	When she found a bank card belonging to Georgia Bilhelm, the defendant claimed he had borrowed it to pay road tax.
	Which, again, is just a terrible lie.
	Not convincing.
	She began to research George more thoroughly online.
	You know, you don't usually do that before you have sex with someone, but no, do it after.
	That's the correct series of events.
	After the defendant introduced him to her mother.
	So the credit card wasn't suspicious enough.
	She was like, I believe that this is a man who stole a woman's credit card to pay road tax.
	No questions here.
	And then we're on to meet George's mother over here.
	Now the mother could see.
	So...
	What is going on?
	Whereas the woman here, presumably after they met, the other woman who's pretending to be a man was like, I prefer you with the glasses off, love.
	Keep it that way.
	Cool.
	That's sexy.
	Hate a bit of glasses in my life.
	Keep your shorts on.
	Also, if she's short-sighted, does that mean she's blind in the short way, or is that blind in the long way?
	Right, if you're pulling this scam, and you know you've only managed to get away with it somehow, you've been lucky enough to find the one woman who's blind enough and slow enough to not realise before you take the glasses off, hold up, this is a woman, why do you then agree to go and meet the mother who presumably will be able to suss it out immediately?
	The allegation here is that the way that she also tricked the woman into believing she was a man is that she would take her hair and wear a hoodie and put the hair in a bun behind her so she wouldn't see that there's long hair.
	That'll do it.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to do with any of these, because they're all court cases.
	This isn't a case of, I've been tricked, let me go to the papers for money.
	It's, I've been tricked, I'm going to take this to court.
	God knows how many women are also being tricked and not taking it to court or the papers.
	Well, you say you don't know what to do with any of these.
	You certainly sat me down and made me listen to all of them.
	Well, this is what I've done with them.
	There you go.
	Help!
	I don't know what I'm looking at!
	Just as a side note, I don't know why I didn't include it, I read it in the previous one though, with the woman who was, I think, what was it, Newham, that one?
	That she was asked in the cross-examination, well, maybe you didn't touch the thing that was penetrating you, because, I don't know, you just allowed that to happen, but you did say in your police interview that you ran your hands along the waist and then the arse of the person who was having sex with you.
	Did you feel any straps?
	You know, because they're kind of essential to a strap-on, is the strap part.
	And the person says, yes, but I did not immediately conclude it was a strap-on.
	What did you conclude it to be?
	You know when you have sex with men and they're wearing, I don't know, strappy boxers?
	I'm done!
	Doesn't make any sense.
	Well, if there's one thing I've taken away from this entire segment, if there's one thing that I've learnt, moral of the story, is that you really weren't lying at the beginning when you said this had nothing to do with transgenderism.
	So, thank you for that.
	I don't know what to do with any of this.
	I've just had this pop up quite a lot.
	I'm not the only one.
	Daisy had it as well.
	And I thought, is anyone else getting these?
	And in which case... Someone's sending you these via email.
	It's happened again, Callum.
	It's happened again.
	We need to stop it.
	More the question, what's going on exactly?
	Because this never used to happen, I would presume.
	Well, maybe it did.
	It just wasn't getting reported on, apparently.
	Yeah.
	I mean, are there just a series of women who are tricksters?
	It's just a prank, bro.
	Is this some kind of minor fetish that now, thanks to the internet age, as all fetishes have exploded for some reason, and now women are tricking other women into having sex?
	I mean, the fetishes have exploded just because it's easier to access them.
	You know, by next year, will this be a new flag that you'll see at Pride?
	Deceptive Women Inc.
	I don't know.
	But anyway.
	I think it's video comment time.
	Thoughts in the comments.
	I'm worried for the women of the world.
	If you're going to have sex with a gruff man who makes you wear a blindfold, think before you have sex.
	It's a PSA.
	That's what that segment was.
	It was a PSA for all the women of the world out there.
	Check, check that it's real.
	Alright.
	To the video comments.
	Seriously Harry, these things really aren't that bad.
	But if it bothers you so much, don't do a soy face when you get it.
	Instead, get one of these and make a man face.
	By the way, I'm wondering if you guys would be able to get Matt Dillahunty onto your show?
	And ask him what he really thinks about what new atheism has done to the world.
	I think I've heard that name.
	But I'm not particularly familiar with Matt Dillahunty.
	Maybe I'll have to look into it and see how interesting that would be.
	That face he pulled with the switch.
	Instead of it's, oh my wife's boyfriend got me, it's my wife's girlfriend got me one of these.
	Why isn't that a meme?
	What?
	My wife's girlfriend got me this?
	I feel like the Manosphere would jump on that.
	You know why.
	Oh, okay.
	Right.
	You know why that wouldn't be something that people would make fun of anywhere near as much as being cooked by another man.
	My wife's son.
	Anyway.
	And to be fair, when he did appear on the Whatever podcast recently, I've seen clips from it, When Destiny appeared on it with his wife, Mileena, that was basically the excuse that they gave to make it seem like Destiny is less of a cook than he actually is.
	Well, actually, she mainly sleeps with other women and not with other men.
	It's very rare that she sleeps with another man.
	I mean, maybe this is weird, but the more I see of Destiny, I'm actually less bothered by his... The more sad you feel for him?
	No, I'm not feeling more sad for him.
	I'm actually feeling less sad for him because it's not a case of, like, this is ridiculous.
	Clearly there is some section of men who are actually happy with that arrangement and maybe he just is one and that's his life.
	Right he gets to sit on his arse all day playing video games while other men attend to his woman's needs.
	I mean I'm not saying I recommend it.
	No I certainly wouldn't either.
	But I don't know I'm sort of I'm getting to the moment of being at peace with Okay, Destiny.
	That's what you want to do?
	Sure.
	I mean, I never really had a problem with it.
	I wasn't going to ban it to begin with.
	I just found it weird.
	But these days, it's just like, that's what he does.
	No, I think I might get a Switch at some point.
	Just because, to be fair, the Zelda games do look good.
	That does sound like a euphemism.
	It has sadly become a bit of a... Try it out.
	That's what all the lads are talking about.
	Buying a Switch.
	Is that the new word for cuckoldry?
	Yeah.
	I think of men, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Wait for a woman.
	I'm going to buy a Switch for my husband.
	Oh dear.
	Oh, tell him my condolences.
	That's worse.
	That's way worse.
	Anyway, let's move on to the next one.
	I've not seen Tony D in a little while.
	Tony D and scurvy wee Joan here back on the Lotus Eaters all this month.
	It's not pride month, it's pirate month and we're here to tell you all about the pirates of South Jersey, the most bloodthirsty sea dogs that ever visited the the jersey shore and don't forget to get your copy of the pineys books 1 to 11 now at amazon.com those scatlawags are raising their prices on june 20th so get your copies now before i have to charge you more booty i've missed you tony that was a word from our
	John, please screenshot his face!
	That was excellent.
	Thank you, Tony.
	I'm glad to see you back.
	I've been wondering where you've been.
	I was a little bit worried.
	Yo-ho-ho, bottle of rum.
	Did they say yo-ho-ho?
	I thought it was Santa.
	That's ho-ho-ho.
	Somali Santa.
	If Santa comes down your chimney going, yo-ho-ho, I'm worried.
	He's not leaving the presents.
	Mom, Dad, it's Santa.
	He's stealing all the presents.
	Yeah, Calum, it's Santa anyway.
	Get in the back room.
	We're going to call the police.
	Bloody hell.
	Justa Schmuck says congrats on podcast number 600 and nice.
	Oh, this is a nice day.
	Nice.
	You do good work in researching and reporting on important issues.
	Well, most days.
	That's true of the last one, I'm taking it.
	Women need to know.
	There are other women out there.
	Women need to know that this has happened to at least four women.
	All in the UK.
	Maybe this is an epidemic that's just not being reported on.
	Well, in some of them as well.
	They also mentioned we can only report on this because the reporting restrictions have recently been dropped.
	So there's more cases out there right now as we speak.
	But the first report was back in 2011.
	Yeah.
	That one from 2017 that had only been released, the reporting restrictions.
	Then how did the Daily Mail get away with it?
	That was a different case.
	Like I mean, the first one from 2011, that first woman when she was first groomed was 2001.
	So, this has gone on a while.
	Tyler T says, I don't know what it is, but Harry is looking particularly British today.
	Thank you.
	It's probably because I've got a mug in my hand.
	Yeah, but you're drinking coffee.
	Yeah, still.
	You're a Turk.
	George Hap says, kudos to the developers of the Aztec game.
	They took critique seriously and managed to change it for the better to represent reality, which is more than I can say for Assassin's Creed.
	Oh, yes.
	Oh, that's a very good burn.
	Yar.
	Someone online says, imagine being... Argh, we're in a pirate mood now, are we?
	Scurvy dogs!
	Did you not play the Assassin's Creed Black Flag?
	Yes, I did.
	It was a very good game.
	It was, but it took too long to get to the actual ship part, and I got bored of tailing missions.
	You gotta pay the tax when you play an Assassin's Creed game.
	Playing terrible tailing missions, yeah, this is true.
	Another tailing mission, ah, I can't wait.
	Someone online says, imagine being so brutal and awful that during an alien invasion, your neighbours side with the aliens.
	Yeah, this is true.
	That's a good point.
	Aliens visit Britain.
	Right, I'm on these guys' side.
	We're gonna conquer Pakistan.
	Out with you, lover.
	Let's go to the Hollywood stuff.
	Risto Rantanen, a name that I've not seen before, so if you're a new subscriber, thank you very much.
	Says, Hollywood movies are mostly sermons, not entertainment.
	Bingo.
	Right on the money there.
	Base tape.
	I found myself googling movies released in 1999 recently, don't ask, and was astounded at what an amazing amount of cinema came out in one single year.
	Great array of well-written stories with truly diverse characters across all genres.
	I couldn't believe all this came out in a single year.
	We were so spoiled back then.
	Fast forward to 2023.
	Marvel episode 74 just came out.
	DC are rebooting the reboot of Batman.
	Star Wars have achieved 100% diversity in their sequel to the prequel of the sequel.
	Spider-Man Home, Home, Home, Home, Home, and Disney released a movie about two lesbians scissoring for some reason.
	Oh, that was an excellent comment, Baystate, thank you.
	Oh, I'm trying to think of films that came out in 1999 now.
	I'm pretty sure Fight Club came out in 1999.
	Have you seen Fight Club?
	Yeah, of course.
	You've got a pride at this point.
	I think The Matrix came out in 99 as well.
	Have you seen The Matrix?
	You must have seen The Matrix.
	Okay, at least you've seen The Matrix.
	I'm curious now.
	I might Google that in a minute.
	Ross Diggle says, as a father of four, I think heavily pregnant women should make excellent shock troops in the army.
	They scare the S out of me and I'm six foot five.
	Fair play, I don't have much to argue against that.
	Well, I find interest in cinema that actually looks like it's not going to be berating me and insulting me.
	Meh.
	Well, I find interesting cinema that actually looks like it's not going to be berating me and insulting me.
	I think the last two films I watched was Dune and Tenet.
	Meh.
	And it is highly likely that Oppenheimer and Dune 2 will be the only films I'm willing to part with hard-earned cash for this year.
	I think the biggest story is that the golden era of TV also seems to be dying.
	Yeah, I remember when people about ten years ago were going on about how we're in the golden era of television because we had shows like Breaking Bad still airing.
	At that point they were in the fanfic section of Series 5 that you've still not watched and seemingly refused to watch.
	And then, come 2015, I think the last gasps of that golden era of TV, for me the one that was really holding it over, was Better Call Saul, which was excellent from beginning to end.
	Tonally different from Breaking Bad, but still of incredible quality.
	And after that's ended...
	What am I watching?
	I don't really watch television anymore.
	My missus watches television!
	She watches shows like Yellow Jackets and The Power, which are clearly overt propaganda.
	I mean, it's ridiculous.
	There are speeches at the end of every episode of The Power which are about, we need to fight for women's liberation across the world, and we need to fight for inclusivity, because parts of it are set in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and it's talking about, ooh, look at the women's protests in Iran, ooh!
	The first three seasons of Game of Thrones, Jon, what are you asking about those?
	Yeah, they were good.
	Series 4 has its moments.
	Series 5 and 6 have some cool action sequences, but that's about it.
	Do you not think my solution's a pretty good one, though?
	Which one is that?
	If you're enjoying something, so let's say Game of Thrones.
	Yeah.
	Okay, and then the bits where it just gets bad, declare them fan fiction.
	But Breaking Bad doesn't go bad!
	At any point, you just got to a part where you were like, right, I'm done now.
	I was so satisfied that it's not gonna get better.
	It does!
	It does though!
	You can't even judge it!
	Okay, take your wrong opinion on Breaking Bad.
	You can't even judge it.
	You've not watched it.
	But if you just declared the rest of some series fan fiction, is that not a good coping strategy?
	Well, no.
	If I ever go back and re-watch Game of Thrones, I'll watch until the end of the fourth series and then cut it off.
	Yeah, and then the rest of it's fan fiction.
	I have already watched the rest of the show so that I can judge for myself that this is awful.
	Mentally.
	But at the same time, I do understand where you're coming from, because once again, with a lot of the stuff that's coming, I don't need to watch it to know that it hates me, and I don't want to give money to the people making something that hates me.
	For God's sakes, Jon.
	Anyway.
	Joan of Arc asks, why turn a pregnant woman into a soldier?
	Because properly society used to protect women and children, so by failing in that regard with a pregnant woman, it's a twofer.
	Fail them both at once.
	Sophie says... John and Roy are funny, but we're not reading it.
	Spider-Verse is actually really good.
	It's good in spite of the woke-esque, though, but it is really good and nails the themes of lost, sacrifice, responsibility, isolation, due to these very things.
	By keeping the plot personal, it manages to balance the multiverse stuff, unlike the MCU in DC that is just butchering the multiverse stuff.
	It is infinitely better than anything Marvel since after Far From Home.
	Again, in spite of the cringe woke BS.
	That's fair, I'm glad you enjoyed it, but to me that's like turning around and saying, yeah, well, they may have put Dylan Mulvaney on the can, but Bud Light still tastes great.
	Never did.
	Yeah, it never did.
	Anyway, let's go on to, let's see how people reacted to that last segment.
	So Michael Megos says, for the believable women crowd, which women are we supposed to believe in this situation?
	Fair point.
	Christian Anderson says, uh, if the two women fell for this, can we be sure the women on the whatever podcast aren't among the best and brightest?
	This is a good question.
	I mean, I would love to poll the women who apparently fell for this and just be like, so do you have a brain?
	Can we check?
	I've got a torch, could we look in there?
	It's like that episode of The Simpsons where the zombies come out and they knock on Homer's head and they walk away because there's no drain in there.
	It's the monkey going inside.
	So Joan of Arc says, Harry looks like he's going to be taking a long shower after this segment.
	I just had no idea what to say that whole time.
	I don't either.
	You still said a lot though.
	Le French Better Half says, a lot of men would love being made to have sex with a woman by accident.
	Well, no, I think the male version would be that you thought you went home with a woman and then it turned out to be a guy in a wig who made you wear a blindfold.
	And then, ah, yeah.
	An interesting one from Joan of Arc says that I've read that hormonal birth control makes women prefer more beta or otherwise effeminate men, so this is actually true.
	There's a big debate.
	I've seen a lot of women say that when they're on birth control they just go for girlier men.
	So there's a big debate about whether or not you should stop taking birth control before you marry the guy you're with or, like, get engaged with him.
	Ooh, that's a good... yeah.
	Because the question is, like, what if you get off the birth control and don't like him anymore?
	Because it was a hormonal thing.
	That's a good point.
	Seems kind of unlikely to me that it would have that big of a shift.
	But if it's gonna have some of a shift... I have seen some women, like, you know Poe the Person.
	Yeah, I think she did a drawing once where it was a men I like when I'm on birth control.
	It was a man wearing a sweater vest, reading a book.
	He looked pretty sawy going like, how are you doing darling?
	Men I like when I'm off birth control.
	It was a man, muscular, Conan the Barbarian type, ripping his shirt off, screaming about how he wanted to devour the blood of innocents.
	And on that note, I'm going to leave off with one more fact when you were reading your comments.
	Yesterday, I had a bit of a problem.
	I was wondering whether or not they did find the gay gene in the end.
	This is something on my mind constantly.
	What, have you never thought about it?
	Not really.
	You know those people who say, I'm born this way.
	Like that Lady Gaga song, for example.
	Turns out, complete BS.
	Almost.
	So there was a big-ass study done in 2019.
	They found that genetic factors accounted for 25% of same-sex behavior.
	Really?
	I don't really know what that means.
	Like, that's for kissing.
	Genetically, you like kissing men, but not the rest of it.
	I don't want to get too explicit here, but sadly, there is... Environmental factors?
	A shockingly horrible environmental factor that does happen to quite a few when young.
	I mean, I don't know if... This is a BBC article, so I don't know if they go into that depth.
	Probably not.
	I doubt they're going to mention anything like that.
	But yeah, I just think that's a neat fact to know, because I had worried about that for a while.
	I was in, like, Is that true?
	Because I've always been bought up believing it was true.
	And according to 23andMe and UK Biobank Project, who did a study on it with GLAAD, who, you know, GLAAD aren't exactly GLAAD to report that.
	No, they're not particularly happy about it.
	Yeah, there is no genetic factor, or significant genetic factor, to being gay.
	It'd be about 25%, it says.
	Anyway, on that note, time to end the show.
	If you want more, go to our website.
	If you don't, don't.

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