This week Nick of Means TV joins us to talk about Tonight We Riot, their new side-scrolling brawler about a leftist uprising against militarized police, and its oddly good timing for release. We read a snarky but grudgingly positive piece on the game from the National Review, and examine the unhinged and petulant comments section therein. Tonight We Riot is available now for Nintendo Switch and the Steam platform. Means TV is a new, worker-owned, anti-capitalist streaming service that you can and should subscribe to at www.means.tv Support Minion Death Cult and get a bonus episode every week at www.patreon.com/miniondeathcult Music: Beige Eagle Boys - Dirty Laundry
The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today, so stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned guys, we'll show you exactly what it looks like when people are going to get you.
All their environmental stuff.
Stay tuned.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
A lack of right-wing representation in video games is responsible.
We are documenting it.
What's up, everyone?
We have a very special guest today.
Joining us at Minion Death Cult is Nick from Means TV, an anti-capitalist, worker-owned distribution company slash streaming service, I guess I would say.
Which, if you're not subscribed to it, you're fucking up.
It's got Means Morning News.
The Beep Beep Lettuce crew does a video game streaming show called Left Trigger.
There's a show called Art House Politics with shorts that are very funny and weird.
Difficult to describe, yes.
Yeah, it's probably one of my favorite things on Means TV.
You might have seen, it was a Facebook page as well, it was the guy who does the voiceover describing the different ideologies of the Mario Kart characters.
Very funny stuff.
There's a movie or two, I believe, directed by our friend Chris Bell on there, and a Street Fight show coming up that we're very excited about.
So, thanks so much for joining us, Nick.
Yeah, totally.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Excited to be here.
Yeah, we are big proponents of means TV.
We are very excited that something like that is, you know, up and running.
It's, I think, the future of, like, funny, good stuff that doesn't, you know, that you don't have to ignore half of, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
You don't have to ignore, like, the ramifications of what you're watching on Amazon Prime or whatever.
Like, you really don't have to watch any two-second bits of Trevor Noah anymore.
We can just go ahead and get rid of that.
Yeah, I mean, everything is getting fractured increasingly into just micro-audiences, and so it's like... At the very least, we're entitled to that, and I think that just as a sort of socialist, Marxist kind of ideological project, we can expand a lot.
Yeah, I appreciate the kind words.
I mean, there's a lot of funny people on the left, there's a lot of entertaining people on the left, and I love seeing an outlet who's going to platform those people and let them just run wild.
Which I'm assuming you will do.
It's so far, so good.
No.
No, we won't do that.
We'll platform boring people.
The people on the left are extremely funny.
People like Street Fight Radio, like you mentioned, just absolute legends, comedy legends.
And yet, even something that seems sort of counterculture, like a vice media or something, isn't really fucking with them, has no interest, because at the end of the day, they're selling advertising space.
And they have one person that they have to please, and that's whatever brand, MeUndies or whatever the fuck, is paying them for ad space.
So, you know, I think A lot of people who are socialists or leftists in all sorts of creative industries continue to run up against this wall of, like, why can't we get funding or people interested in this project that I keep pitching?
And it's eventually, I think, just drove us to create a platform where we can green light, like, cool leftist projects and we don't have to, you know, have some stupid advertising department that's telling us we need to, like, chill out or have more just like celebrity cook shows or something.
Yeah, more specific type of content or just little ad drops here and there, you know, a little Spawn Con sprinkled throughout.
Spawn Con is such a huge part of TV and nobody talks about it, but watch anything and it's like anytime you see a brand, that brand's not allowed to be there unless they're paying for it, so it's like... Yeah, it's not an accident.
Yeah, exactly.
So the reason we brought you on specifically, Nick, was to talk about Tonight We Riot, which is a new Nintendo Switch video game created and developed by the Pixel Pushers Union 512.
Is that correct?
That's absolutely correct.
Yeah, the video game is a, uh, like a side-scroller brawler in the vein of, uh, you know, Final Fight or, uh, Double Dragon, uh, with a little bit of a twist.
Uh, it is about specifically, like, socialist and leftist, uh, workers rising up against the cops.
I don't know, it just seems to be taking the country by storm here.
I mean, if you, if you look at the news, it seems like everyone's got, uh, riot fever thanks to this video game.
Yeah, I've never seen, like, cosplay pop off that fast.
That's incredible.
You must be pretty happy with the popularity of the video game, Nick.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, I wish I could credit all of that to the video game, but certainly it's a very small indie game that has, you know, been successful with an audience of people who are into that sort of thing.
Yeah I mean it's every time we like as a sort of cooperative like sort of try to project any project I feel like into the next year or two it it sort of ends up hitting on some nerve because Marxism is just like the ability to tell the future unfortunately for better or for worse.
Yeah, I don't know, like, do you think these Americans that we're seeing in, you know, Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Seattle, do you think they're learning valuable skills from the video game Tonight We Riot?
Probably not, but probably, like, I think that there's inherent, you know, like, the best weapons are just sitting there, you know?
I think that that That's something that, you know, I have to tell myself sometimes, like, you know, no, the best weapon is whatever is on the street, whatever I can grab right in the moment and then run away from.
So, I think that, that's certainly a component of, I think, the game mechanics of Tonight We Riot, but that seems to be, like, the most effective.
Like, you know, we're taking, we're taking, people are taking stuff over just with, like, rocks and shit, you know?
It's like, that's tight.
I mean that's beautiful too, even as like a metaphor, it's like in life when you think you have nothing, actually look around and you probably do have something that you could at least bludgeon or smash with.
Absolutely.
And even if that's figurative, you must bludgeon, you must smash.
That's what we have to do.
We were born to.
That's what thumbs are about.
The video game rules, you get to throw bricks at cops, you get to liberate factories, you get to throw Molotov cocktails at cops, you get to swing a monkey wrench at cops.
It's got everything you could possibly want in a video game, I think.
It's like Grand Theft Auto, but distilled.
Distilled to the best parts of Grand Theft Auto, which is just fighting with police officers.
It's Grand Theft Auto with a purpose.
It's Grand Theft Auto where the goal is to get, like, beyond five stars.
To get so many stars that it, like, explodes the actual wanted rating system.
Yes, correct.
Now, I like this game a lot.
I have not completed it yet, so I don't know this for sure.
Does it have a level where you have to fight a knife-wielding woman in a mobility chair?
No.
No?
Okay.
Is there a level where you have to fight through Alabama's child militia?
No, no.
That's a new thing.
The child militia is some new information.
Okay, so you guys are gonna patch that.
There's gonna be like an update or some DLC or something and that's gonna get in there at some point?
Yes, yes, absolutely.
I do think that Knife Wheelchair Lady would be an excellent secret boss.
Yeah.
So, you know, just think about that.
Knife Wheelchair Lady could be a great boss, and then Camp Knife slash Compound Bow Facebook t-shirt guy could be another boss, I think.
Yeah, they're just so confused.
They're such confused actors, like, you know, just thinking you can get out of a car and shoot a bow into a crowd and not have people flip over your car and set it on fire.
It's like, what are you thinking?
For all these instances, there's like, well, not for all of them, but for the crossbow, or not crossbow, for the compound bow guy and for the knife lady, there are like three different videos for each person that just tell a story.
So like you watch one video and you get one part of the story and you get to watch another video and oh here's this car on fire.
You watch a different video and it's like oh here's his ass getting handed to him in a plastic bag.
Oh here's a video where he's walking around parked cars and with a camp knife and like bumps into a woman from behind who doesn't even know he's there.
And he could have just killed her in that moment.
And then there's another video where he's pulling out his bow and drawing on the crowd, which, I mean, that's an attempted murder.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a threat to kill.
It was funny, stuff like that is interesting, because when I first saw the video of the guy in Dallas who got stomped out, I was like, fuck, they stomped the dude out, like, what happened?
And then it only went from the stomp out, that was it?
And then I saw the whole video where, seconds before that, he's like running through the street with a sword.
Yeah, he's chasing them down.
He's chasing them with a sword, and then he gets stomped out.
And like you said, these snippets of video, they all make a beautiful arc when you put them together.
And if you're like, what kind of guy, what kind of like weird crazy person would try to chase after rioters with a sword, would you have guessed it's the kind of guy who does Shakespearean soliloquies into a front-facing camera holding a glass of wine?
Because you'd be right, and that video of him exists on the internet.
Okay, time to break in these longer videos.
To be or not to be?
That is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?
To die?
To sleep?
No more.
And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
To die?
Not shocked.
Okay, well let's get into the first topic of the night here, which is a National Review review of what they're calling Antifa the Video Game, aka Tonight We Riot.
I hope you guys already purchased this video game because if you hadn't you will wind up on a terrorist watch list for buying Antifa the Video Game.
Maybe that's a reason to buy it.
Starting as soon as Trump tweeted that.
As soon as he tweeted that, anybody who ever says I am Antifa is on a watch list.
So this article is written by Robert Verbruggen, dumb name, and the subtitle says, Who's up for chucking Molotov cocktails at capitalist pigs?
Most people.
Most people.
I think, yeah, I want to shout out to Ryan Tennant who is the one who shared this into the Minion Death Commandos Facebook group and then I shared it on Facebook and you hadn't, or Twitter rather, and you hadn't seen this article until I shared it.
No, which is just a failure of Google Alerts, and I think that they should be called out and they should work on it.
Maybe that's why the headline is Antifa the video game, so he could like avoid the Antifa SEO.
Yeah, it would be a lot to look through Antifa Google Alerts all day for like them talking about us.
Well, it's kind of cool.
I do think that what happened was they played the game, saw the game, and they really got genuinely scared of you.
So they didn't necessarily want you to know about it.
And that's fucking tight.
They should be.
Yeah, if they reviewed, like, the new Forensic album, they would have DMs from him at 2am or whatever, talking about his cop rap.
Okay, so I just picked, you know, a few parts of this review out that are interesting, I think.
I can never resist a video game with a political angle to it, even if its politics are repulsive.
That's how I found myself playing Tonight We Riot, a retro beat-em-up in which you lead workers in a violent revolt against an oppressive capitalism where everyone but the rich toils away for a pittance.
So it's this weird alternate reality you're immersed in, where everyone but the rich toils away for a pittance, for just a fraction of what their labor actually amounts to.
Yeah, hard to really put your brain in that space.
You guys really had to think out of the box on that one.
Yeah, I give that to the, you know, the creativity of the developers.
I was really happy with that.
Yeah, I mean, the idea of Tim saying I have to play every political video game is also, like, totally nonsensical.
And, like, I wonder what he qualifies as a political game.
Like, is he immediately playing, like, Division 2 as soon as that comes out because it's so, like, political?
Because I imagine that just seems, like, pretty normal, like, Yep, that's how I think about the world, too.
Like, there's so many terrorists and stuff.
Yeah, he just means all the Call of Duty games.
That's what he considers political... Normal.
Yeah, abnormal political entertainment.
The game's ideology isn't some kind of Bernie Sanders, quote, socialism based on Denmark, either.
The story is full of references to taking over the means of production, and much of your time is spent pelting riot cops with bricks.
You can unlock a, quote, haymarket bomb and get a special achievement for using it to wipe out a whole group of police officers at once.
Yeah, he's scared.
I'm imagining there's like a bonus level that I haven't got to that's like the bonus level in Street Fighter where you just beat up a car.
Except it's like you take Chris Wallace and Robert Verbruggen out to Central Park.
Out to the middle of Central Park and you just see if you can beat your previous record.
Of most, most strikes.
As a political statement, Tonight We Riot comes off as immature and a deliberately offensive cry for help, which I suppose need not be fatal to a video game.
Parentheses, this is the hobby that spurred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment in Grand Theft Auto games after all.
So he's comparing Tonight We Riot to, like, one of the most successful video games of all time.
Aren't you owned, Nick?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and he's also just, he seems like, uh... It's just... The immaturity thing.
It's like, what about it is immature to you?
Like, I don't understand.
Just that word making jokes?
Like, that's immature?
Like...
I don't, it's just that weird, like, uh, because I have this really complicated nonsensical belief system that most other people have, like, I get to just tell you that you're a little immature, you know?
Well, it's the liberal thing of, like, you're the, you know, the socialist ideology is so far outside, like, the mainstream that we're interpreting that discussion or that conversation as inherently unserious.
Just expressing that political ideology becomes unserious or somehow comical or, as he says here, immature.
I think that's really where that stems from.
Well, part of growing up and becoming a real mature adult is giving up and just giving into the system.
That is part of growing up.
It's like, to them, this is like fighting for Santa Claus.
Yeah, you gotta put on your big boy pants and just eat absolute shit every day from your boss.
Every day, yeah.
Until you retire and then the economy collapses and all of your money goes away for some reason.
It's called growing up, folks.
Yeah, it happens to the best of us.
It's pretty funny that socialists are selling an overpriced product via Nintendo's latest console and the computer game portal Steam, which is run by the multi-billion dollar company Valve!
Ding ding ding!
Got us, dude.
Yeah, in your fucking face.
The society-understander has logged on.
Yeah, Nintendo's just a marketplace.
Like, unfortunately, it's a monopoly on a device that's pretty popular, so you have to have, if you want to appeal to that audience right away, you have to be on that platform, which requires certain things.
But I mean, I think we were pretty lucky getting through the approvals we did, because the games available in Japan and in a lot of different countries, and you have to go through review boards For all those countries.
So, because it's an 8-bit game, because it's like a very classic side-scroller, I think that just hitting police in the face with bricks came off a lot less gory or violent.
Well, it's a tradition.
It's a tradition with 8-bit side-scrollers to just fuck up cops.
It goes back.
I mean, you know, it's funny when you watch media from the 80s.
Like, how much more politically incorrect it is, and I mean that in every way, not just like the, you know, making fun of mental illness, or making fun of homosexuality, or women, or whatever.
I mean, like, no, we used to make fun of cops all the time in 80s movies.
Like, they weren't this, like, sacred cow troop, you know, that they are today, and it's kind of the same thing in video games as well.
I think that if this game had come out, I don't know, 2003 or something, it would be a huge story.
And maybe you're kicking yourself here, Nick, for not releasing this video game in 2003.
Ten years earlier?
Yeah.
I thought about it.
I thought about going back in time and doing that.
And maybe even in 2015 or 2016 this would have been way more controversial than it is, but we have the National Review here giving it a fairly good review.
To be honest it's I mean we haven't gotten to the the complimentary stuff but uh he doesn't poo-poo the game entirely and it's it's just I mean a couple commenters were like how dare you give this game a serious review this is like terrorism what what what the game is um and it's just I don't know, maybe it's a positive that... He called it Antifa the video game.
That's not a serious review.
I mean, that's just like a... It's a click post thing.
You're just trying to get people to click your thing.
That's fine.
For sure, but it's not as serious.
He says, I hate to admit it, but this has the makings of a good game.
Like, he actually, like, compliments it several times throughout the piece.
You know, whatever, it is a clickbait piece.
But it's not like...
This isn't like a Mike Huckabee review or something.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, it isn't just like the Blaze TV where they just have like, like some, yeah, just weirdo guy who types like a three paragraph thing like, I hate this, like over and over again.
Yeah, this isn't trying to like scare your grandparents even more with video games.
This is more like, you know, you're, you're like pretentious intellectual uncle or cousin with a bowtie attempting a, you know, I don't know if it's a serious review, but attempting an actual review of what the opposition is putting forth, you know?
Yeah, it's just weird to be taken seriously, you know what I mean?
I'm sure you guys feel that sometimes, too.
But, you know, just as a leftist, as an alternative media anything, it's like, when somebody's like, alright, let's take this seriously, it's like, oh, we're doing that?
Okay, alright.
You know, let's see how this goes, because that can mean all sorts of different things to anybody.
Like, you know, what taking us seriously is.
To conservatives, that's like, all right, we need to probably kill these people.
Like, you know, to us.
I can't remember if we covered it on the show, but didn't Fox News have, yeah, I think we maybe covered it on the show, or at least we like posted about it.
Fox News covered Means TV when it first launched, right?
Yeah, yeah, for some reason they did like a 15 minute segment with like two different people.
I think one of them was from some think tank I forget the name of that's like the classic one.
So yeah, they had a whole debate.
American Heritage Institute or American Enterprise Institute or whatever.
Yeah, that ruled.
It was just them being like, alright, so the debate is happening again, but just to let everybody know, capitalism is definitely the way to go.
You should be scared of socialism anyway.
It's exactly what you hope would happen, is you force a debate, you force a conversation, but it's also a conversation totally on their terms.
They just had two people join who both hate socialism.
Yeah, I think Juan Williams was the left person in that conversation.
Or like some other Democratic punching bag.
Yeah, I think it was all conservative people, too, on that panel.
It was very favorable.
The thing is that things like this review, which is honestly, yeah, at the end of the thing he says he likes the game, which surprised me when I first read it, too.
Nowadays, you can just turn around and make these into marketing things yourselves.
Like, Fox News is gonna cover us?
Alright, we'll make that the center of our, like, launch ad.
Or, you know, these people are gonna call our video game, Antifa, the video game?
It's like, that's honestly great for us.
You know?
Like, fuckin' rules, yeah.
The I want to like fist fight Antifa like weird Patriot fantasy thing is really because it's like we're seeing a manifest right now to like through compound bow guy and through like even last night in Detroit apparently some 19 year old kid who was at the protest like a truck just drove up some right-wing guy just shot into the crowd and he'd like killed a 19 year old get kid and so it's just like
It's like, that's a whole family now that has to deal with that, like, that's this kid's life that's been ended, like, and everybody else who's going to these protests now has to, like, carry that with them and, like, be worried about that, so it's just, yeah, it's like, these violent, weird fantasies towards Antifa, uh, but it's pretty, pretty, like, normal, I mean, it's like, how do you not have a huge cultural How does that not happen to your culture if you even have MSNBC being like, these violent looters, these rioters.
It's easy for everybody to slot that into that narrative.
It's um like I I went to the Seattle uh protest yesterday and I was looking at Twitter this morning and there was some guy who was like I'm up in northern Washington and I got plenty of supplies Antifa if you want to come up here and fuck with me
And it was like a perfect, you know example of like conservative mindset, which is like you really want to kill protesters But also like you're either too lazy or too cowardly to actually go out and find any Now with the exception of that guy in Detroit, obviously and with the exception of like me, you know Psychopaths like the the proud boys or three percenters or whatever, but it's there is like a
I mean it's it's it's we'll get into the Proud Boys stuff in the in the comments here And I maybe that conversations better saved for for that, but um he ends the article with But this so he likes the video game he has to admit He hates to admit, but this has the makings of a good video game, but this is not worth your 15 hard-earned capitalist dollars And I love the phrase capitalist dollars.
As opposed to?
As opposed to socialist dollars.
I'm gonna go to the... It's not wrong.
I'm gonna go to the ATM machine and pull out some capitalist dollars to pay for my subscription to MTV television channel.
If you had to imagine what capitalist dollars look like, they would just look like our dollars, wouldn't they?
Also, I don't have any type of gaming system, but I have a feeling that $15 is not too steep.
I feel like that's probably a pretty good deal for any type of a game.
It's a very good price.
I think I've seen iPhone games for that price.
Yeah I mean it's just you know it's something we thought a lot about and like we like we offer the game at whatever price people can pay so if you can't afford the price of the game you can just DM us or email us and we'll just give you it for whatever you can afford so there's that level it's like we're not there's no barrier to entry but yeah we're a small studio like we're a small you know co-op they're a small developing team so we decided that that felt like the best price and you got to charge something for your work so
Yeah.
No, I mean, that's a very fair price for this game, and I would highly recommend getting it.
And, I don't know, it's just... I guess it makes sense for the National Review to say, like, oh, 15 bucks is too much, you know, because they don't think, like, the average person's hourly wage is worth that much either.
$15?
Wow, that's like what a McDonald's employee should be making for a whole day.
That's too much for a video game.
This should be like costing couch potatoes a few hours of work.
Let's get into comments here.
You ready for this, Nick?
Let's do it.
Okay, David Wallace says, I think he's replying to somebody named Telly.
Telly, I understand Morgan Stanley will give Pixel Pushers Union 512 a percentage point off a line of credit for the next game if they can sell 10 million units of this game.
Pixel is working with a Madison Avenue marketing firm to boost sales both domestically and abroad.
The overseas profits will be parked in Lichtenstein, naturally.
The co-owners are currently looking at matching Malibu, California digs.
So, just because this is a serious outlet here at Minion Death Called, I don't want to think we're too cozy with the people we interview.
I have to ask you very seriously, Nick.
Are you looking for matching digs in Malibu with the owners of Pixel Pushers Union?
Yeah, I think they're saying that the guys from Pixel Pushers Union are trying to buy houses in Malibu.
We've sold, I think, I don't know the exact number, but it's in the tens of thousands.
It's not in the tens of millions.
So right there, I don't know where the bank association came from.
No banks.
I don't personally have any good enough credit.
banks won't work with me but also nobody will work with our business because it seems weird to them uh so there's no we don't we're not able to get loans or anything so no that sounds completely made up i haven't heard about any of those uh components there's no malibu you know every kind everything is kind of out of left field on that one
Like, you know, sometimes you'll get weird conspiracies that are pieced together through like Wikipedia shit, or like, it's kind of like, okay, you're just saying we're CIA basically, but this one is like, I have no idea where that came from.
Are you- I love it!
Are you buying artwork from your friends that is valued at 10 million dollars so then you can write it off later as a tax rebate?
Nick?
No.
No, I'm not.
Okay.
You might want to look into that.
You might want to look into that.
It's a good move.
I also love how in saying that, they're saying like, um, this game is really, really good.
It's going to be wildly successful.
Yeah, 10 million units.
That's like a lot of units for a video game, right?
I mean, I'm not familiar with the business end of it, but I think that's a pretty popular video game.
That would be, that would be in revenue, what, what's 15 times 10 billion, fuck.
150 million dollars in revenue.
Yeah, yeah, so that would be like, you know, my background would look different, everything would be different probably.
Well you do suspiciously have your background blurred.
Oh true.
I just figured that out.
I was gonna try and find like a funny video to loop and then you guys called me before I was able to think of anything funny enough.
Like, is that a three-year-old TV in the background, or a brand new Mazda Miata?
I can't tell.
Yeah, I can't tell.
I don't know what it is, but it looks like it might be made out of precious metals.
I love Malibu, California.
Like, that's the reference point for, you know, opulence for this.
Oh, just Malibu.
Like, he probably, like, has holes Malibu playing in his head when he says this, you know?
JoeJr61 says, if a game were made to portray the Antifa cowards, it wouldn't sell at all.
It would contain leftists standing around crying or yelling when opposed by any comparable foes and only attacking when the numbers are 20 to 1 for Antifa or hitting a lone opponent from behind with a bike lock.
That sounds personal.
That sounds personal.
Maybe this is later in the game.
How many crying chambers are there per stage?
There aren't any, and he's wrong.
The game is about Antifa, and it's sold pretty well.
It's doing pretty good.
People are responding pretty well to it.
He's just bummed out about it, and it's okay.
It's unfortunate, my man.
I thought that when you pause and save the game and go to things, you went to your safe space.
That would be really funny.
I thought you went to a crying chamber.
You could jump in there and do a coloring book for 30 seconds and rejuvenate your health.
Yeah, one thing I noticed about the game is that, like, these socialists throughout the game, they're, like, emerging from factories.
Like, you're liberating factories, and a bunch of workers are coming out and, you know, they have, like, red and black flags or whatever.
They're emerging from factories instead of their mom's basements.
I noticed that about the game.
And we all know that, like, only conservatives work in factories.
So what, Gibbs?
You're right.
Yeah, this is really him just being like, why can't this video game be about my life, which is just much sadder and more... He's saying, I have a hard time empathizing with anybody else's experience or hopes or aspirations, and so I would much prefer a game just about my shitty life where I get beaten with bike locks or whatever happened to this poor guy.
No, he definitely just saw that one thing on the news that happened three years ago where that blonde kid hit somebody in the back of the head with a bike lock and got arrested.
That's exactly what he's referring to.
And it's just, like, occupied a piece of his mind palace for four years.
And it's like, bud, this could be your life if you weren't, like, an awful person.
Chasseur says, absolutely vile and disgusting.
But at least they got one thing right, dot dot dot dot.
When the leftist revolutionary dies, dot dot, he joins Stalin in hell.
So they know they are not on the right side of the angels.
There's like, a march coming down my street?
Maybe?
Whoa, sick.
I can hear it.
Yeah.
I've been like, I just, I've been hearing like, I'll just, we'll go to the bathroom and I'll just start in the very distance faintly hear like, Black Lives Matter.
It's very cool.
- That's so sick. - George Floyd! George Floyd! George Floyd! George Floyd!
Oh, see this?
That's incredible.
George Floyd!
What's his name?
George Floyd! George Floyd!
George Floyd! George Floyd!
That's incredible.
Still coming.
My street's not even like a busy street.
Do you live downtown?
I live Capitol Hill, close to downtown.
Yeah, they went up a hill right now to get there.
Yeah!
They're still coming, but they're not chanting anymore.
I just like that if anybody's like, come on out, you're like, I'm doing a podcast!
I can't right now, I'm podcasting.
Can you see?
Yeah, that's awesome.
Wow.
That's awesome, yeah.
This is like, it's like diluting.
That's, that's crazy.
They just put a curfew in place in Detroit for, at 8pm, so literally in 15 minutes.
Our curfew is 5pm.
Damn dude, I think it's gonna be fucking crazy.
I think, I think it's gonna be wild.
I think they're gonna just be arresting everybody who's standing out there at 8pm.
Yeah, our curfew is in 4 minutes, 5pm.
Fuck.
Yeah, we're supposed to have one at 8pm now, but the vigil starts at 6, so hopefully we can get it all done.
That was funny.
I was like, oh, it sounds really loud.
It's probably coming up like Pike or Pine or one of the major streets.
No, it's on my street.
What this is referring, what this comment, sorry, so, uh, at least they got one thing right.
When the leftist revolutionary dies, he joins Stalin in hell.
That's like a, that's a reference to just what the reviewer wrote, Robert Verbruggen, when he's talking about, like, the, the system of how when the workers leave the factories, they become playable characters, basically, or they become, like, your extra lives.
Like, as long as one of the workers is left, like, the game can still go.
And then when all the workers are dead, that's when the game is over, basically.
And he says something like, yeah, you can play until your last man joins Stalin in hell, and then you have to start the game over.
So they took that literally.
They think there's literally a scene in the video game where you die and descend into hell to meet Joseph Stalin, which is where the leftist thinks Stalin is, in hell.
It's like, it's like the idea of like, the weird, I mean, you know, Americanceptionalism is a hell of a drug kind of a thing where like your Christianity, your like weird religious ideas are intersecting with like your nationality and like Yeah.
national identity like there's gonna be an american heaven and american hell and like a russian heaven and a russian hell it's like in what world do you think that like most people i mean i guess it's again just what we've been told but it's like lenin like led a popular revolution like you don't think that there's like a huge amount of people that are like my man is in heaven for sure yeah yeah so i don't know it's just yeah it's that's it's very strange it's like just so riddled with contradictions all these comments
True.
it's just like are these people hoarders too like what's going on like are they okay you know i think it's a bummer about it not being true is that eight-bit hell always looks sick yeah Yeah, it's true.
It's like basically what Doom looked like originally.
Okay, who said this?
I don't remember who said this.
Violence and the left are inseparable.
Liberals take note.
These people are not your friends.
We're not.
It's true.
I think that's interesting that somebody is acknowledging a difference between the left and a liberal.
It's both welcome and a little bit frightening, I would say, because if history is any indication, I think there's a good chance that once liberals realize that they are not the left, They're going to side with the right wing.
Not like they haven't already been doing that, but just possibly in a more open and unrepentant manner.
Yeah, I mean they're doing that through all this stuff too, I feel like.
Sorry, go ahead Anthony.
Oh, no, no, absolutely.
That's what I was saying.
It's kind of scary that they're onto this because it's smart.
Like, that's how they're going to appeal.
Like, listen, you know, we might be racist, but at least we're not Antifas.
Hey, get a real job!
Class traitors!
Oh, yeah.
I didn't realize there were cops back there.
Yeah, it's like, there's an obvious difference and I think highlighting that difference is good.
I think more people will identify as like, you know, socialist or Marxist or whatever once they realize how hollow, like, our country's progressivism Actually is.
However, that doesn't mean that we're automatically going to gain power just because, you know, that movement is more popular.
Like, the liberals will still be in power, and once they realize that people are, you know, people on the left are leaving, like, maybe they find, you know, even more common cause with the right wing.
Definitely.
I mean, I think that, uh, like, you know, so much of the discourse around the left is like how small and burgeoning it is and all that kind of shit.
And it's like, until we, until those things are start to be like, wow, the left is really here because X and X, or like the left is really, you know, dominating electorally.
And like, we're doing all this different stuff.
Like as soon as that does happen and we're like, wow, we did it everybody.
Like we're the left, like we've, you know, we're kicking ass.
Literally as soon as that happens like the entire thing will collapse because that will signal liberals to you know coalesce power with the right wing and it will be like conflict will happen you know so Yeah, I think that we should all expect that as soon as we're all like patting each other on the back like we did it We're a real political force to be reckoned with it'll be like You know come right down on us So, Matthew Illinois replies to this.
Violence and the left are inseparable.
Liberals take note.
These people are not your friends.
Matthew Illinois replies, Liberals worship chaos.
Violent mobs is a branch on that tree.
And I think this idea is very funny, but just even the way he worded it is very... Violent mobs is a branch on the chaos tree.
It's a beautiful way to put it, Matthew.
Thank you so much for putting it that way.
Yeah, aren't, like, trees not chaos at all?
Aren't they actually really beautiful systems that are, like, oddly symmetric and, like, they work really well?
Well, let me, okay, so you kind of, like, highlighted the main problem with your argument here is that trees are beautiful, right?
And what do we know about beauty?
Beauty is a feminine quality.
What do we know about femininity?
It's the chaos dragon.
So I think this is a very apt metaphor, you know, for it's like it's it's this is a very deep metaphor.
OK, it's liberals worshiping chaos.
Violent mobs are a branch on the tree of chaos.
OK, I don't know, guys.
I think he might have gotten us.
I think he might have gotten us with this one.
Like, you know, Brett Payne.
I know Brett Payne.
My man worships chaos, you know?
Yeah.
Liberalism is literally about beating back any sort of chaotic results of the structures of capitalism, of the contradictions within capitalism.
Liberalism is about maintaining order through an inherently unjust system.
That's what liberalism is.
It's about making tweaks here or there to balance, like, the pendulous precarity that a capitalist system, you know, results in, basically.
So it's very funny that he would say liberals worship chaos here.
The Gray Man replies, and what do we do with a diseased tree?
You chop it down.
And then Leroy replies, finally, yeah, just like Pinochet.
So we started from the point where violence and the left are inseparable.
Yeah, no, that's true.
Liberals worship chaos, the violent mobs.
And what do you do with those violent mobs?
Well, you kill the tree from which they originated, which is liberalism.
You kill liberals, just like Pinochet, because they love violence.
Yes.
It's very good.
It's a perfect argument.
You can only stop violence with preemptive violence.
Yeah.
It's so weird that that's just this accepted, like, you know, in just even conservative discourse, not even like far-right discourse, but just the idea that like, yeah, we got to throw these fuckers from helicopters or whatever, like, these communist motherfuckers.
It's just like, damn, that's like a prevalent way of thinking.
Not great for us.
Not a great thing for our security or health.
No, I mean... Yeah, they're not...
They're not trying to, like, they're not trying to get hearts into minds.
They're trying to, like, stop hearts.
That's all they want to do.
This, uh, what is it, uh, Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, uh, which is USMC, U.S.
Marine Corps.
It's, like, a very popular Facebook page that's had to be restarted, like, three or four times because they keep, like, issuing death threats against politicians and shit.
Um, they were selling a shirt that said, just kill a commie for mommy.
Like, they were selling that on Facebook.
And... Wild, yeah.
Like, I don't even think you could sell a shirt that said, Kill a Nazi for Tchotchke.
Like, I don't think you could sell that shirt on Facebook.
Despite, you know, Nazis being less... I think you have to try.
I think you guys have to put your money where your mouth is and have the Minion Death Cult podcast page try to sell a t-shirt that says, Kill a Nazi for Totsie or something.
Yeah.
Um and uh yeah it's just it's like a bloodthirsty ideology basically and it's funny oh no communists are are the real like evil force they're the real villains in this society which is why we have to like murder every single one of them and you know what liberals are also communists too so they they have to be murdered as well uh democrats or liberals they gotta go uh your your child's teacher at school she's probably a liberal uh she's got to go too
It's this like insane mindset where you think that you look like the righteous party for wishing violence on all these imagined enemies you have, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
They get real fantastical with it, too.
It's really weird.
It's really weird.
They just fantasize about it all the time.
Uh, the, the Tree of Liberty, you know, must be watered from time to time with, uh, the, the blood of my child's third grade teacher.
It's just patriotism.
It's just a fucking video game.
Like, it's just a video game, bro.
Like, calm down.
Like, it's not, you know, it maybe is an attack on your way of life, but at the end of the day, it's still a fucking video game, you know?
It is a video game and it is like, you know, not a representation of reality, which I think why instead of like saying, you know, oh, we want to kill the president in Minecraft or whatever, um, we should all start saying, I want to kill the president in Tonight We Riot.
As like a caveat, as like a legal exemption, you know, from, from any sort of threat.
No, I'm talking about the video game, uh, in Tonight We Riot.
Tonight We Riot, yes.
Yeah, I want to kill Jeff Bezos in Tonight We Riot.
See?
Yeah.
It's already catching on.
I have to pee real quick.
Got anything going on tonight after this?
I was just saying, yeah, vibe lately has been anxiety when you ask that question.
Just like not knowing what's going on.
Worried about people.
Stuff like that.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm lucky that I don't know anybody up here in Seattle so I don't have to worry about anyone's safety.
That's the way to go.
Just no friends, nobody.
Yeah, no.
No, I don't care.
No, I'm just joking.
Of course I care about people up here.
I was like, it was so funny because last night I got, I was like, yesterday I was on Facebook at like, you know, three or something and I saw a post that was like, hey, we're meeting at this park, like Seattle DSA was like, we're meeting at this park.
You know, to remember George Floyd and I was at three and I was like, oh, shit, it's already three.
And I was like, oh, I got stuff to do.
But like, I got to fucking go.
And it's just a short walk.
And so I walked down there and there were a ton of people already walking down there, a ton of people already there.
And like it, I don't know what made me do it, but I crossed through this alley.
And when I came out this alley, I was right by a like police SUV that people were just destroying.
Just like right in front of me.
Wow.
They were just destroying it and it was great and they eventually set it on fire and then we... Damn that's what you want from that.
You want to show up and have that happen right in front of you.
No, it was pretty tight.
It was kind of like, you know, when you show up late to a concert and you skip the opening act that you never heard of or whatever.
Totally.
And then we pushed the cops down this side street.
It was great.
And then I met another Teamster there just randomly, not even doing what job I do.
He was a sanitation dude, but he was wearing his Teamster security jacket.
It was pretty tight.
Have fucking rules.
Yeah.
And then, uh... It was funny because somebody broke into the Gap.
Like, they busted the Gap's window, but nobody was even stealing anything.
Nobody gave a shit.
I'm good.
Yeah.
I woulda came up.
I love the Gap.
I woulda came up.
Like, people were like... I'm wearing all Gap right now, I think.
Interesting.
I haven't worn the Gap since I was, like, 12.
I mean, they probably got pretty good stuff.
Their jeans fit me real nice.
I don't know why.
It was funny just because there were, like, jeans in the street, and people were like...
Eh.
We're like stepping over them.
That's funny.
Okay.
Last little cluster of comments here.
Possibly the best of the night, I think.
The Ban says, It's amazing that Antifa is just accepted by so many people.
I'm just so fucking mad about it.
Antifa's got friends, they probably have girlfriends, probably have kids they're allowed to visit.
I fucking hate it.
It's amazing that Antifa is just accepted by so many people, but I'm sure a Proud Boys video game of people defending themselves from violent lefty thugs would be considered, quote, normalizing hate or whatever.
Yeah yeah of course that's that that sucks I love how it's like yeah that's what it is I love how even in your like video game fantasy right your your fantasy video game where there's a Proud Boys video game Proud Boys are still just a reactionary organization whose like sole purpose is to oppose the left You know, which ironically would be the background or the motivation of a lesser video game's villains.
Like, oh, they're just the villains because they hate the protagonist.
Like, that's why they don't have any other motivating factors.
Yeah, they don't have any reason, yeah.
They just hate the protagonist.
But that's gonna be your protagonist.
It's somebody who's identified purely by who they hate or who they're, like, triggered by.
I don't like them.
Don't like the cut of their jib.
Gotta get them.
It'd be fun to just steal that idea and just make the Proud Boys video game, but they just absolutely get their asses kicked on every level.
You play as a Proud Boy, but it's like one level and it's impossible to beat.
And you just keep having diverse groups of protesters and rioters coming up and just beating you to a pulp.
Yeah, giving you wedgies and rubbing your face in dirt and shit.
Keep releasing screenshots of future levels that you can't get to if you just don't suck at the game.
Yeah.
They just keep trying and trying.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, wouldn't the Proud Boys video game be just like that school shooter video game that was released on Steam?
Honestly, yeah, or just driving a car.
Just GTA, but like more crowds of people.
Yeah, it's just Grand Theft Auto without any of the missions.
Yeah, and just huge inexplicable protests breaking out all over San Andreas or whatever.
And the only crimes are hate crimes.
It's nothing else.
It's not like you're doing anything cool.
You're not like, you know, doing drug deals or anything like that.
You're just doing hate crimes.
Yeah, but I think it's pretty alpha to whine about how there's no video game about you.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Like, I'm gonna do some Western chauvinism by complaining that there aren't any Proud Boy characters in the new She-Ra cartoon.
But the best part is there's so many video games that are what they want to be.
There's a whole industry of warfare games.
There's a whole industry of games that are literally paid for by the U.S.
military.
So you can at least cosplay the guys you think you want to be, the real operators.
Well that's, I mean, the extreme irony of their ideology altogether is that fuckin' society is, like, molded for them.
Society is, like, built with them in mind.
Uh, and they still have to find things to be- to complain about.
They still have to find things to be, like, victimized by.
Yeah, every AAA game is like some weird libertarian fantasy and they're asking for, they're begging for representation still.
Yeah.
Wild.
Yeah.
Um, and then final comment, uh, philllam168 says, ah yes, the Nintendo Switch, the TikTok of gaming consoles.
Again, just like, oh yeah, the Nintendo Switch, wildly successful.
The single most popular thing in existence.
But also, what does it mean?
What does this mean?
I don't know.
Ah yes, the Nintendo Switch, the T-Mobile sidekick of gaming consoles.
Except I'm not aware of any, like, Switch games that are just banked on, like, you know, taking ideas from black people and then monetizing them because you're, like, more Europeanly, aesthetically pleasing.
Does that happen on Switch as much?
I don't know.
I would think it has to.
Somebody's probably made an OK Boomer Animal Crossing character.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah, alright.
Hey, thanks so much, Nick, for joining us today.
Obviously, subscribe to Means TV.
If you have to, cancel Hulu.
Or if you have to, cancel Netflix.
Subscribe to Means TV.
Obviously, buy Tonight We Riot.
It's a very fun game where you get to throw a lot of stuff.
I'm not joking about how much stuff you get to throw at cops.
It's a lot of stuff.
And you get to liberate people from factories.
Everybody's wearing cool little red bandanas.
I love it.
I'm gonna buy a Switch just for this.
I know I did.
Since Tony Hawk's not coming out on Switch.
You know you did, yeah.
Yeah, well thanks.
I really appreciate both you guys having me.
I'm a big fan of the show and yeah, if anybody listening, please check out Means TV, means.tv.
We have like over 20 feature films on there at this point.
We have documentaries, narrative films, series.
We have a weekly news show, Means Morning News, so check it out.
Lots of good stuff on there and we really appreciate it and You're what makes it possible.
We don't have any advertisers or investors.
It's just our subscribers that make the whole project viable.
It's literally worker-owned.
It's worker-owned leftist entertainment giving a platform to independent artists and I don't know what more you could want.
I highly encourage you to go support Yeah, and that's the episode for today.
Thanks so much for listening, folks.
You can support this show at patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash MinionDeathCult.
You get a bonus episode every week if you want to hear us talk a little more about the protests And the Antifa actions going on and the conservative response to that.
We did a Patreon episode where we touched on that stuff before moving on to Skittles rebranding for the month of June for Pride, which was a very big deal, very big problem for a lot of people.
