The high-five is NOT appropriate between parent and child w/SRSLY Wrong
This week the boys from the SRSLY Wrong podcast come chat about their new animated series for Means TV: Papa & Boy We discuss the father-son dynamic as a jumping-off point for comedy about socioeconomic heirarchies before diving into two very fraught topics for papas and boys The local news interviews a concerned Mother Gooch who warns us of the dangers of letting your boy watch Hocus Pocus 2 and an opinion columnist explains why he refuses to "slap the upright palm" of anyone he considers beneath him. Watch the first episode of Papa and Boy on youtube for free: https://t.co/siWaO92CxA Sign up at Means.TV to watch the whole series Help us do the show for only $3.11/month and you'll get a weekly bonus episode as well as instant access to hundreds of bonus episodes right in your browser or podcast app. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult Music: DARGZ, Charlie Stacey, Moses Boyd - Happiness Inside Out - No Spiritual Surrender Prolapse - Tina This Is Matthew Stone
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 yourself all there in Boston.
Stay tuned.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we're Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
A potential boy uprising is responsible.
And we're documenting it.
What's up, everybody?
Thanks for tuning into the show.
We appreciate you folks.
We have a very fun episode, very fun episode, and very, I think, serious one, and one that relates to our show pretty well, because we have Sean and Aaron, co-hosts of the Seriously Wrong podcast, and co-creators of the Papa and Boy animated series that just debuted on Means TV, here to join us.
How are you guys doing?
Doing good, yeah, thanks for having us on.
I'm also doing good.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
I was just gonna say, I'm Aaron, so people can differentiate voices.
Oh yeah, I'm Sean.
Okay.
I play Papa on Papa and Boys.
That's right, yeah, and I'm the boy.
It's good to know that so I know, like, who to respect more and who to just, like, sort of disregard in turn.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It was a bit triggering hearing your voice for the first time.
I was like, oh, oh yeah, that's, that's, that's Papa right there.
That's me.
My name is Dr. Papaford.
I'm a certified boyologist, which means that I study boys and papa boy relations.
We understand that to know the boy is to control the boy.
A boy is like a homing beacon.
Targets locked on destruction, chaos, upheaval, indecency, and it gets worse because this psychological profile matches exactly with the medical diagnosis of criminality.
Which has led biologists to ponder the question whether boys are a type of criminal or whether criminals are a type of boy.
Consider the following.
Both boys and criminals like to take things without giving what is due.
Both enjoy evading capture.
They're both extremely manipulative, posing clever stories to further their own ends.
We could say that the traumatic kernel at the center of both the boy and the criminal mind is that they want their dessert before they eat their vegetables.
We love the show.
I'm about halfway through the series.
It's fantastic.
It's very funny.
Every episode is about 10 minutes dealing with a specific topic.
We on Minion Death Cult, we cover a lot of papas on this show.
Yeah.
And I feel like, you know, we ourselves are kind of boys as well.
And we're sort of doing our own, like, trying to figure out the world from the perspective of boys as it is currently constructed and reinforced by the papa system.
And of course, we're going to get more into what that means.
is uh so you guys have had this show in the works for a while and can you just kind of um i guess for me what it looks like the show is it's it's just funny in general but it also seems to serve as like a good entry point for people who might not completely understand the dynamics of
In particular, capital and labor, but also just like the nature of hierarchies, especially, you know, the hierarchies we have in this country.
And it seems like, you know, the relationship between papa and boy or father and son is like a good jumping off point to explore those relationships, the contradictions that arise from them.
What inspired you to focus on Papa and Boy, these characters, as, like, the way to talk about these issues in these relationships?
Yeah, we kind of stumbled into something that we thought was really funny.
It started with like, we did a sketch on our show that was like, one of us played Papa, one of us played Boy, and we talked about an issue and a lot of funny stuff came out of that.
And at one point, we were like, let's do a full length Papa and Boy episode that takes place in a Papa and Boy universe.
It was inspired by, I'd written down somewhere.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the struggle between papa and boy.
And I thought that was really funny.
We sort of fleshed that out into a 40 minute long sketch we did once that we called Papa and Boy Adventures.
And it was just so fruitful and funny that we did.
We've now done five full length sketch episodes like that on our podcast.
And when we connected with Means TV, they really liked the vibe of it.
They liked the satire of it.
There's a deep connection between the hierarchy of the household as it's naturalized in our society and all these different varieties of command and control hierarchies that you see in the workplace or in discriminatory environments or between men and women.
The relationship between parents and children is used as like the example by hierarchical systems to prove that it's natural.
And yeah, we kind of just stumbled into it, but it's a really rich area of like, there's a lot of weird and funny parallels that come out of it.
Well, I'll tell you, as a papa, as like a real-life papa, I like loved it.
And my first thought was like, especially watching the Rated P episode, I'm like, wait, am I supposed to show my kid this?
Or is this just, am I shooting myself in the foot?
Would I be shooting myself in the foot?
Because I already get read enough.
She already, because I said so, does not work.
I'll make up something fake and mysterious before I say that.
If you want the fairies to come sprinkle sprinkles in your dreams, you gotta do the dishes.
That's a good reason, but yeah.
Yeah, well the warnings at the start of every episode do mention that they contain scenes of disobedience, so if you're worried about your kid disobeying too much, then it might be an issue.
But we do think that the show is watchable by children.
We made it, maybe not with children in mind specifically, but with the knowledge that people could show it to their kids, or might want to show it to their kids.
And we think it would spark interesting conversations for people.
But I also think that, like you pointed out at the beginning or kind of jokingly said, you thought you two were boys.
And like the show is, I think, meant to be read that way.
We all kind of want to identify with the boys, whether we're real life papas or not, or girls, or there's no women in this universe.
It's a absurd comedy realm where there's only papas.
And small boys paired off together in various parts of society, but you know.
The image that's like seared into my mind, I tweeted it out, but it's when Papa, the main Papa, is explaining to the main boy why he has to eat his vegetables despite them being like gross and sickening, is because that's just the system that he was raised in and it's his job to sort of reinforce this system that will eventually supposedly yield a reward at the end.
And like, you know, one of the examples that's, I think on the tape that he's playing for his son, you know, one of the like background imagery is just, you know, of the guy, Papa Fatherson, is that the originator of the theory, the system?
It is, yeah.
Yeah, Papa Fatherson disciplining the first boy by pointing a gun at his bare bottom.
I laugh pretty hard for that one.
I had to pause that right there.
I do, you know, I was wondering about the gender dynamics because I was, you know, I'm only, like I said, I haven't completed the series.
There's five episodes.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I think I just finished the Rated Papa one, the one where they watch the movie Boy Annihilator in defiance of the Papa's Only rating.
I was wondering about whether there are going to be women or anything, and it's...
I think part of, like, the gold nugget of the papa and boy relationship, as you guys recognized it inherently, but as you've also, like, teased it out, sussed it out of there, is that you can, like, use these tropes that everybody understands.
You know, the domineering father who's also insecure, the son who just wants to rebel no matter what.
You know, these are, like, tropes that are ingrained in our in our the storytelling we do but then you also have the fact that they're boy and man and you can make fun of like the gender dynamic and how manhood is culturally reinforced through advertising or through the system and how boyhood is culturally reinforced through advertising in the system like I really like the uh the first episode um
About, you know, product placement and how it uses the struggle to pit, you know, both papa and boy against each other.
And that also got me to another point where I was wondering, because in that first episode, I was like, I kind of feel sympathetic for Papa, because Papa doesn't want to discipline his son.
You know, the son doesn't want to take a bath and the Papa is confused.
He's like, he used to love baths, but then the commercial told him that he doesn't like baths anymore.
So the son decides he doesn't like baths.
Um, and he was wondering how he was gonna get his son to take his bath.
He tried to, you know, instruct him, he tried to, uh, give him his reasoning, but then he had to refer to the ancient manual, which just says, like, make him.
Make him do it, or else you're gonna take something away from him.
And I was like...
Am I supposed to be, like, I didn't, I hadn't seen another episode of the show, so I was wondering, like, I thought going into it that, oh, Papa's gonna represent Capital.
That was, like, my kind of just cursory view of it.
So I was like, so, I was a little, like, I was wondering about that, but I think it's at the end of
Episode three because at the end of every episode there's sort of like a a Breakdown PSA very briefly about you know the story the narrative that you saw and the issues underlying it Which I like a lot and it reminds me of like You know at the end of like one or two King of the Hill episodes where Hank is like, you know We had a lot of fun today, but you know, there's one issue we need to take seriously and that's You know toilet flushing pressure and what you're able to put down your toilet
We've had a lot of fun here today, but it's just a show.
There's a few things that we talked about that are actually quite important.
The first thing we learned today is that bathing is important.
And there's a number of good reasons to bathe.
One, the stench of body odor is unpleasant.
It could lead to social ostracization.
But two, your health and well-being as well.
It's possible to get a bacterial or fungal infection on the folds of your skin if you don't regularly bathe.
That's not pleasant.
And the second thing we learned today is that the fatherson system, the socioeconomic system that runs our society, exploits the tension between papas and boys for the profits of a few papas at the top.
And that this contradiction within the system is both its engine and the seeds of its inevitable undoing.
Bye everybody!
See you later!
Bye!
Thanks for tuning in!
There's a phrase or there's a part of the discussion at the end is that the system exists outside any individual actors.
I'm paraphrasing here just from my notes and the Papa is just a middle manager imposing these strange ritualistic lessons on boy because they were first forced upon him.
And so it appears the system turns its own enforcers into victims.
And the system that was once designed to reward Papa at the expense of boy now rewards neither.
So it seems like, again, you're using this relationship between Papa and boy, not just as like capital and labor, but as a general sense of hierarchy.
And it seems like that particular Explanation or exploration of it refers to more of like the patriarchal structure or just other social hierarchies and not necessarily economic ones.
Yeah, I think it definitely like a lot of the comedy in the show comes from skewering the way that hierarchical systems like conceive of themselves and the justifications they give for why men are better than women or one race is better than another race.
But when you get down to it, like what's that quote you've mentioned a few times in interviews about the white workers and it's a poison pill.
Oh yeah, it's a poison bait.
That's what Noel Ignatieff says about white supremacy and white workers.
Right, right.
Getting white workers to identify with the white capitalist bosses rather than their fellow workers regardless of what race they're seen as.
Uh, is a way that the working class is divided and kept down.
And, uh, there's, there's elements of that in the story too, because yeah, we didn't want to have, uh, the main relationship in the show be between two characters that you can't sympathize with.
And also to see the way that these hierarchical systems get inside the heads of even like well-meaning people like our main papa.
Yeah, and I think also in the example of bosses and workers under capitalism, it's true also in that case that the economic system that we have is destroying the planet that everyone lives on.
No amount of bunkers is going to be able to protect the rich from what will come if we don't change our course ecologically.
So I think there's layers that that works for a couple of the connecting metaphors, but At the most primary level, I think it's really true for Papa in the father-son system, in his relationship with boys, that he is himself this kind of like, yeah, pathetic victim of this system, a boy grown up reenacting his trauma on his own son, in a funny way, hopefully.
Yeah, it is very funny.
I like the sort of world you get a glimpse of in, you know, the opening credits.
I love the opening credits.
I love the theme song as well.
I like the social media platform that he forces Boi to take a, you know, he's finally beaten Boi at making him eat his vegetables, you know, and so he's taking like a glory shot of his His boy, you know, he's like, he's like, okay, now look upset.
You have to look upset to show that I, you know, demanded obedience from you.
Um, and he takes the photo for, I don't remember the name of the social media platform that they use.
It's like a Papa net, Papa net.
Okay.
It's like a Facebook style platform and they get mustaches instead of like mustaches instead of likes.
I love how he posts a laughing, crying Papa emoji and then just a crying boy emoji.
Uh, I really appreciated that.
There's a little visual joke there that's really Minion Death Cult, I think, which is if you look at Papa's avatar, he's sitting in his car wearing sunglasses.
Yep, I did notice that.
Front-facing camera, front seat shot.
Beautiful.
He looks really cool in that photo.
I do have to say, he picked a good photo.
He probably had like three or four that he chose from.
Picked the right one.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Slightly below his faceline.
Upwards.
We are going to get on to a couple segments that I feel like relate very well to Papa and Boy, but I did just again, finally, I wanted to say, I think my favorite episode of Papa and Boy is the one where they do the chore simulator at the Toilplex.
Yeah that's that's amazing and it's in the episode you know uh it seems to be uh you know i i'm i'm not as well versed in theory as any anybody really um it it touches on an issue that i found really interesting uh that was sort of broken down again very briefly like i don't mean to uh These little breakdowns at the end are like 30, 40 seconds at most.
In fact, I think they could be longer.
I really enjoyed them.
But one of the, you know, one of the breakdowns here was that Papas choose to weaponize and industrialize toil as a mechanism of social control.
Because in the episode, the point of the chore simulator at the Toilplex is to create character from your boy.
To build character for your boy and any sort of reward at the end of a chore like having a clean house or having a clean room or having clean dishes actually deters from the goal which is just pure toil.
That seems to be the goal is just inflicting pure toil on the child.
So the kid, boy, he wants to play in the playground.
Dad says, no, we got to we got to make you do some virtual chores.
And so they go to like this massive complex or this like high tech, you know, VR simulator where he just has to do like literal pointless activity to build character.
I think that's great because it's like the opposite of a participation trophy, you know, which we hear a lot about on this show, which is where you get something for doing nothing.
Well, and you know, I do feel like a lot of this ideology that we cover on the show is that you should do something for nothing.
Yeah, and I loved seeing that in this episode.
And I was wondering if you could expound just a little bit, at least for my sake, I was really curious about this idea of weaponizing and industrializing toil for its own sake as a mechanism of social control.
Yeah, well I think like it partially comes from the idea that a lot of the work done in today's society is pointless busy work that doesn't actually need to be done.
Like if you look at David Graeber's bullshit jobs, he kind of goes into this in a lot of detail.
about how there's this industry of like people who act as flunkies to big wealthy people and like these whole networks of like business councils and like seminars being given and a lot of corporations have all this bloat for people who are like following these Byzantine procedures that like
One of the examples he gives is someone having to drive a whole bunch of hours to change a cable that could easily have instructed anyone to do, but because he's the IT guy, they pay him hours and hours to make this big journey to do it.
There's a lot of like pointless busy work in society because we have this idea that people have to work 40 hours a week to like earn their keep.
And that's just kind of like a basis of culture thing.
And also there's a real conservative ideological point of like, Hardship building character and like they take the real fact that like sometimes when you go through something difficult you learn something and you might become a better person off the back of that that can definitely happen in the real world but they use that in like this reverse way as a justification No, we shouldn't repay student loans, because I had to repay student loans.
If you don't have to work to pay off all these loans, then you're not going to have character.
They use it as a way to justify doing horrible things to people that don't need to be done, just because it's good in some way for people to suffer.
Busy people, if you're working 40, 50 hours a week to get by, then you don't have time to be a political advocate for issues.
You don't even have time to think about what matters to you, let alone participate in democratic processes, or get to know your neighbors, or even just to go really family values.
People work too much to spend time with their own children in our current system, and it was anticipated with the rate of automation that we'd all be working 15-20 hours a week now, but instead there's this hustle culture, side gigs, increasing work hours.
So yeah, I kind of see on the large scale like we've been kind of like grifted by capitalism into wasting our lives doing pointless menial tasks for it as a way to prevent us from being politically active.
And that's what Boi is saying there at the end of episode two.
One of my favorite parts of that episode, because like you said, we don't have time for a lot of that stuff, but one of my favorite parts of that episode was the athlete character, the like vague superstar.
I love that.
I love how they romanticized how, well, you know he got there because his dad was like extra hard on him.
Made him score a thousand goals to get one point.
Yeah.
And they romanticize that part.
So even though they still live in some sort of weird hierarchy where even this guy has got a leg up on him, but just like we do here, we admire him for being an athlete.
And I'm a sports fan, but we admire him for being an athlete for really no reason.
But we're like, oh yeah, but he only got to do this because he's got grit.
And I really love that part of the episode.
Did you have a specific athlete in mind when you were doing that?
Because it was so good at being the perfect, vague superstar.
Yeah, I had just, around the time we invented that character, I had just watched the HBO miniseries on the 94 Bulls.
So that was probably feeding into it.
But yeah, it kind of, yeah, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are kind of the ones that come to mind in terms of like, yeah, this mythical, and yeah, like, not that there's anything wrong with liking or watching sports.
Like, I like watching sports sometimes, but the The cultural constructs around it are really tied into a lot of the time the way that people talk about and it's kind of what we tried to extrapolate in that scene a bit is like we can't even talk about people being good at sports without using the metaphors of them being like military commanders or something like there's this dominating the playing field.
Yeah, like a lion, like the king of the kingdom, or the king of nature.
Yeah, he's like a king out there, owning all the land on the field.
He's like a property owner, yeah.
I love that, that was so good.
Yeah well it's I mean that's like there's this viral post going around and I'm sure I'm looking for it right now because I'm not a sports guy.
There's a viral post about an athlete who instead of being aborted his mom adopted him out.
and uh so this is like the gift of life you know never have an abortion because one day your son might be a professional baseball player and it's like you know it could be a wholesome story on one hand that like you know this kid this person came from a really hard background or like really disadvantaged place and managed to like Through the, you know, support and care of a, you know, found family or an adoptive family, like, was able to achieve this greatness or whatever.
But it's mostly being spun into, like, anti-abortion propaganda.
But I think, you know, even below that is what we're talking about, about how, like, work will set you free or hardship makes character wherein be, you know, like, look at what he went through.
That's why he's such a good man, good athlete.
That's why he can hit the ball so far today.
Every time there's an abortion, think about all the points that don't get scored before you do that.
Well, no, the thing about that though is that is how people think about it.
When they go adopt a kid, they're like, I mean, he's, it's not cause he's black.
It's just, he's statistically, statistically, I, I, I don't know, fast twist muscles.
I, I, I can't afford college.
Maybe you can get a scholarship.
Like that's what they're thinking all the time.
And they're really like NBA money, baby.
C-A-C-T-E, but as long as he gets a signing bonus, we're good to go.
- Here we go, NFL, let's run it. - Okay, I wanted to move I wanted to move on to an issue that I think is very close to papas and boys everywhere.
Here we're going to hear from not a papa, but a mama, but she's got the spirit.
I think she's got the papa spirit in her.
Absolutely.
And this is a woman speaking to a local news station in Texas about the dangers of letting your child watch the new Hocus Pocus movie.
A local mom is causing some controversy on social media after coming out against Disney's popular new Halloween movie, Hocus Pocus 2.
News 10's Rissa Shaw sat down with the mother who got emotional over her concerns for other families and the media they're consuming.
Uh, I, I'm so happy that a local news station sat down to talk with, with a crazy ass mom about her war against Hocus Pocus 2.
This is good stuff right here.
This is, I mean, you know, we say to support local news.
This is what we're talking about.
I got to get a local news station to come sit down and talk to me with about my gripes about, I want to grind my gears type section in my local news.
This really feels like, you know, reinforcing Papa mentality.
Just the local news doing a one-on-one interview with a random person who made a post on Facebook about how a movie is evil.
And just, magic is real.
Like, okay, we need to investigate this.
This is what we're paid as journalists to do.
Is magic real?
Yeah, I feel like there's a trend of news stations hopping on viral posts because they're like, oh no, people are paying more attention to this goofy Facebook post than us, so what do we do?
Let's interview her.
Let's talk to her.
Yeah, it is.
You know, the cynic in me is like, oh, they wanted to talk to this woman because she's nuts and because everybody will either hate click on this or watch it and laugh and then tell their friends about it tomorrow about what they saw or post clips of it on Twitter or Facebook or cover it in their podcast.
But then the even more cynical part of me is like, no, the people likely funding this local news network do enjoy the culture war very much, and it's not just a pure economic decision, at least in the short term.
I feel like there's some ideology undergirding this where, oh no, we need to give these people a platform.
Yeah, I think so too.
And like, I don't know where it's local to, but I mean, Christian conservatives who believe in witchcraft and magic and that it's a real danger.
Aren't that uncommon in America?
Like, it's possible the people at the news station, or at least some of them, genuinely believe this is a real problem that needs to be solved or to be put out there.
But, I don't know, some of the editing choices also make me think that, like, they know this is a goof and they're doing it to make people laugh and get those clicks and shares and whatnot.
I think there's actually some sort of conspiracy.
We have to follow the money.
I think there's been some sort of mega church budget cut on candy.
There's always been sects of Christians who were anti-Halloween.
The people who used to be anti-Harry Potter.
Um you know like like that's always been around but there's always been like you know make big churches doing the trunk retreats or still like doing Halloween but just like you know warning against like the devil a little bit but like not canceling completely.
Uh you know like my my family grew up super Catholic and like my they loved Hocus Pocus 1 was like their fucking favorite movie.
Um but like I think there's something that simple.
I think they're just like Somewhere there's a candy manufacturer wasn't gonna meet demands and like that's why they're doing this Yeah, I we love covering the like weird evangelical stuff because it does I mean for every like evangelical Complaint about society.
It really does seem like there's a parallel just like right-wing Secular complaint about that same issue, you know, it feel it really feels like these people are are one-to-one.
Like, they all got the memo and they're just, you know, executing it in their own ways, as we'll see in the next thing I wanted to bring up about Hocus Pocus, which is, oh, it's too woke.
If you're secular, you don't like Hocus Pocus 2 because it's woke.
If you're religious, you can just say, oh, I don't like it because it's the devil or whatever.
Let's get more from this concerned mom.
A worst case scenario is that you unleash hell on your kids.
That sounds cool.
She's like, kind of like what happens in the movie.
Like, you're going to bring the movie to life.
You can't do that.
I don't think she elaborates on how it unleashes hell, but let's listen.
Jamie Gooch is a mother of three and the owner of Gooch Family Farms in Troy.
I love everything to do with house and home.
I believe everything starts here.
I love everything to do with house and home.
Is my brain poisoned or does that sound like a commercial for house and home?
For, like, some magazine called House and Home.
Yeah.
If you feel that way, then keep it in your house and home.
Like, mind your fucking business.
Yeah, this is TV.
This is, uh, you know, statewide television.
What are you doing here?
Here, fall harvest is heavily celebrated in their household, but Halloween is not.
It grieves me, the thought of exposing our kids to darkness.
Great crime.
Gooch says there's a spiritual war being waged against homes in America.
There's a war going on outside no boy is safe from.
They're coming for our homes!
There's a spiritual war against homes!
Yeah, first they want you to watch the movie, then it's seizing all private property.
What is part of the problem, and right now, one film in particular.
The whole movie is based on witches harvesting children for blood sacrifices.
In a recent Facebook post... That's some arguing in favor of it.
Yeah, wow, that's crazy.
That's a really interesting take for a modern movie to come out in support of blood sacrifices.
Child blood sacrifices.
There's like a lesson at the end.
What did we learn today?
Blood sacrifice is good.
It increases your power in the underworld.
Keeps you young and beautiful.
Yeah.
I haven't seen Hocus Pocus 2, but I do know the lesson of number one was that the witches were right.
Give your children over to them.
Yeah.
And yeah, absolutely.
I mean, hey, they did perform a good rock song.
They performed that classic, I'll put a spell on you.
And at that point, I was confused.
I was like, who are we rooting for here?
Oh, they did a bad one in this one.
I forgot what popular song they did, but I was like, this is not of the level of Put a Spell on You.
It was just like some other pop song that they just happened to know the lyrics of, but they also didn't remember the automatic doors.
This is 1993.
There's a lot of muddled things in this new one, but it was fine.
I just didn't finish it.
Yeah, I don't know if you guys read the Facebook post, but she does elaborate on what the issue is.
One of them being that witches and warlocks in the Satanic Church abuse and sacrifice children in spiritual rituals to gain more power in the underworld.
So, yeah, if you're wondering how that works, that's what's going on here.
I guess the movie is either promoting that or maybe even participating in it by, like, sort of sacrificing their minds to this ideology.
Well, as we learned last week, we had a preacher who was a witch.
She used to be a witch, and she turned evangelical preacher.
And she mentioned that she got her idea to become a witch from the movie The Craft.
So even though The Craft, it has negative ramifications for being a witch, a lot of that movie is about how cool it is.
And maybe that's the same thing about Hocus Pocus 2.
I haven't seen it.
The thing is, we live in a different world now.
There's a chance that you might not say the spells, but what if the movie is saying the spells and Alexa hears it?
Or Siri hears it.
Then you're fucked.
You don't even know where that's going to go.
If it picks up correctly, it's going to do a chain of Alexas and Siris doing the spell and we will unleash hell.
Yeah, it might even be like a mass sort of spell cast, like the Super Bowl halftime shows are like these satanic rituals that involve like everyone in the country at once because so many people are watching it.
That Hocus Pocus 2 might be in a similar vein to that, a sort of mass ritual that we're all participating in.
If Disney's lucky, you know, I think that's what they're aiming for.
I was a little bit scared when I hit post because I was afraid of the reaction that I would get.
Gooch advises moms against letting their kids watch Hocus Pocus.
You gotta go by your first name.
You gotta just like, oh, it's for anonymity.
I'm only using my first name for anonymity purposes.
I guess it's the name of their farm though, right?
It's Gooch Family Farm.
Yeah, absolutely.
The space between Butthole and Ballsack Farm didn't fit on the sign.
Choosing to refer to her as that in the piece though feels like one of those producer choices that I think is like, okay, I see what you're doing here.
There's good people involved somewhere.
There's some good ones out there.
I didn't even notice it when I reposted it.
But respect to all the Gooches out there who are good people too.
That's true, that's true.
What's that called?
Like a standard, like each publication has its own standard, you know, practices or whatever for how to like refer to people or, you know, how to add a... Yeah, style guide.
Style guide, yeah.
The style guide for local news says that if somebody's last name is funny, that's what you call them.
Yes, that's true.
That's the style guide.
Gooch advises moms against letting their kids watch Hocus Pocus 2.
I believe whatever comes in our TV screens, there are things attached to that.
I've seen for myself the things that I've watched with my eyes or heard over a TV screen, they become manifested in real life.
What does she mean?
I love the TV is real life to me.
It's like, yeah, we know.
Yeah, local woman cannot tell the difference between television and reality.
Here's five minutes of her talking about it.
She's just totally missing how commercials work.
She's like, that's so weird that I have glade foil.
That is, what is going on?
Oh, I was just seeing folders yesterday.
Here it is on the store shelf.
What?
TV is real.
But I was like, when you brought up Alexa, there was a couple viral posts a couple weeks ago about people realizing that turning on the Hey Alexa feature means that Alexa is listening to you the whole time.
They were like, how could they possibly know?
I said something and Alexa talked back to me and it's like, what the heck?
It's like, yeah, you wanted it.
You bought it, man.
Everybody thinks it's fake and innocent, but they could be casting any type of spell that they want to.
Anything could be coming through that TV screen.
So good.
Over that, when she's like, they could be sending anything over your TV.
They could be casting whatever they want to.
It's a slow zoom in on Bette Midler's face dressed up as the witch.
Yeah, just like her evil expression.
Look, I'll meet her halfway here.
I believe that people can cast any spells they want to, but they can't come through the TV screen.
That's ridiculous.
That's too easy.
If you believe that, then I would, if I really believe that, I don't have a TV.
It's just not worth it.
It's like shooting spells at you every day.
Magic is real and the TV sprays it on you?
My girlfriend, she had a friend growing up, they were like super hippy dippy family and they would cover the TV with like a colorful cloth to keep the evil spirits in.
Like putting saran wrap around a Ouija board.
I mean, did they ever get a curse?
Tell me about the curse they got, because I'll wait.
I think the mom actually got her curse of heterosexuality lifted from her later, so they were doing something right, I think.
Okay, okay, alright.
See, it works.
Too many colors on the thing hanging over the TV.
Oh my god, I'm sorry folks.
I didn't mean to play part of the movie.
Who knows what's gonna be manifested inside your home or wherever you're listening to this.
She says most of the feedback has been positive, but she knows her opinion isn't for everyone.
And that's okay.
She says it's healthy to stir up conversations, just not cauldrons.
How do you feel?
How do you respond to people who are going to say, you're crazy?
It's all in good fun.
It has been and always has been.
Then the post was not for you.
The post was for people that have been on the fence on the decisions they need to make for their family.
Who's still on the fence at this point?
Pick a side already.
God damn it.
I mean, turns out a lot of people... I feel like there's pictures of this woman, like, dressed as, like, I don't know, a sexy cop, like, five years ago.
Right.
No, they haven't been doing it for four years.
That's true.
That's true.
Four years their family has... So, five years?
It could be anything.
Yep.
Yeah.
Satanic rituals galore.
That's why.
They went way too hard on Halloween all the time and that's why they're like, nope, this is bad.
This is bad every single time.
Invited spirits in and now they had to exercise them.
I love this is such a theme like we talked with especially with like I don't know spiritual issues or religious issues like we talked about this last week again like people thinking things are real just because they got scared of them they got you got scared of a fake thing so it's real like this woman was complaining or like warning against quote fake haunted houses You know, like a trick haunted house you go into?
Like a, what do you call it?
Like entertainment?
You know, you go into?
That it's like actually real?
Well, it was real because a guy came up to her face and said, Jesus won't save you in here.
And so that was a real demon she saw, and therefore they're real.
So yeah, don't fall for this like, oh, it's just a fun haunted house.
No, they're all real.
Well, if you think about it, if you were a demon, you would, uh, the first place you'd go to introduce yourself to the world is these places where you'd fit in, like Halloween night or haunted houses.
Like in monster movies, if there's the Halloween scene, you know, then people don't recognize the monster right away because they all have masks on.
That's a great point.
TV's real life.
Yeah.
You have to start it at Hollywood like the Halloween Hunt Night or Not Scary Farm because like one of the key parts of being a demon is knowing how to slide on your knees.
So you actually have to do that.
And like if it's not real, then what scared me?
You know?
Yeah.
It's that simple.
On the fence, on the decisions they need to make for their family.
While Gooch's opinion may not be the most fun, she says if putting it out there changes even one person's mind, it was worth it.
I think at the end of the day, I want people to walk away with discernment.
If you're watching this, just start thinking.
Start thinking for yourself and even overthink.
Consider all the options of what you're partaking in.
Local woman loves thinking.
That's it for us at K10 News.
I love this so much.
If there's anything I want people to take away from my screed against the evils of Hocus Pocus 2, it's just start thinking, you know, for once.
Don't just believe everything that's handed to you, because, you know, it's actually real, so you should believe it, but not in the way that they want you to believe it.
Yeah, everyone says it's not real.
That's big tech talking.
That's Disney.
They're coming for your kids.
The weird ironic thing about this is she's like warning about how some media is like bad for your mind, but that she's like the ultimate victim of like the type of bad media that you, we actually should be shielding our parents from certain media and not sharing, shielding our children from certain media.
And she's a parent victim of this inverted, you know, she, she consumes media that if God is real and Satan is real is satanic probably.
Yeah.
Yeah, her brain has been utterly scrambled and it had nothing to do with, uh, you know, demonic forces or whatever.
It was just, yeah, the, uh, capitalism and the culture war.
I mean, something's clearly wrong.
I can't think of any other day that I have a tummy ache, but every November 1st, tummy ache.
Oh yeah.
Every single time.
My tummy is in knots.
So that has to be Satan.
Tummy ache demons.
Dark hand at work.
And then one real quick.
So like I alluded to, if you want to hate Hocus Pocus, you don't have to be a Christian or evangelical or a scaredy cat weirdo.
You can hate them for other secular reasons, such as it's too woke.
And here I have a post from Facebook.
It's a little meme somebody made.
I can't, I don't, they, you know, they have like a lined piece of school paper and it says woke checklist at the top.
And so this is the hocus pocus checklist.
Oh no.
The first one says domesticated gay couple.
Check.
Mm-hmm.
So it's like those wild gays, not the domesticated gays.
They're doing gay propaganda by not showing you the feral gays roaming our streets at night.
Yeah.
So that's good.
Transgender cameo.
Check.
So I don't know.
I don't know who the trans... I don't know.
Yeah, there's a trans character.
I don't know.
They might have... Yeah, I don't know.
They put an AFAB after their name in the cast list?
Like, what are you fucking talking about?
Derogatory patriarchy reference.
Check.
So there's a reference to the patriarchy and it's not a good one?
Yeah, they're not saying it's positive?
What?
Uh, strong black female lead.
Oh yeah, that's a check.
That's woke as fuck.
That's like, and I mean that in bad, but that's woke as fuck.
Oh no.
I want a weak black female lead.
Yeah.
Not a strong one.
It's funny to be like...
Okay, you know, taking these good faith argument, taking these as good faith arguments, at least in the past, oh, you know, token representation isn't progress.
It's not doing anything for these communities.
It's just, you know, trying to latch onto the next trend or whatever.
That's like the most good faith, least repugnant argument I've heard for like diverse casting or whatever.
Isn't that argument, Like undercut if you acknowledge that the character is strong, like a strong character, and it's an original property?
Yeah, strong isn't like well-written is really what they're objecting to.
Maybe, I guess they mean forceful, but it's like, that's, there's always been forceful kids throughout, you know, history, history, I mean, there's always been strong boys rising to the top in our, in our movies.
Yeah, the idea that even if you accept the argument that tokenism for tokenism's sake is doing absolutely nothing, just having representation doesn't help anyone, that's still not an argument to not do it.
If this had been a strong white boy lead character, is that helping the white boy community at all?
Is the tokenism for white boys better than- like, the argument against tokenism, unless it's followed up with, we need more of these characters with richer histories, with real ties to their cultures, telling their own stories, like that kind of thing, then the argument against tokenism makes sense.
But like, when conservatives do it, they're just using that as an excuse to say, I want more white male characters.
Yeah.
Well, the problem with this one is that, uh, there was, you know, there was a strong, a strong black, uh, femme lead.
And then the only, like, white boy I can think of was like, um, he was like an idiot.
I think they, I think that's who they're talking about, uh, being like, uh, how do they phrase it on this list?
Okay.
Yeah.
Later, uh, later the last and most important, uh, item on the woke checklist is every single white male is an idiot.
Yeah.
So there's only dumb white boys and then a strong, a strong black family.
So I think that's the problem here with that is, uh, is there's no one to combat it because, uh, at some point some white boy should be able to say, hold on, I'm just as good as she is.
Tom McDonald.
That would make sense.
Yeah.
Tom McDonald should show up at the end of the movie and like set them all straight from their witchcraft with a rap.
Yeah.
That would be, that would be great.
Actually.
You could take a good message away from it.
They probably could have saved money shooting it on his lot, so that's the only way he's coming, is if they come to him.
Yeah, I feel like this magic stuff, the hocus pocus thing, it really is just the more schizophrenic version of the trans panic, gay panic, critical race theory panic.
Think of the children, they're coming for your kids with this woke ideology stuff.
If you take that and you go a few layers more surreal and completely off the wall, you start getting into Harry Potter's reel, Hocus Pocus is casting spells through the TV, that kind of thing.
There's a real continuum there of weaponizing people's concern for their children in order to promote religion and political ideology.
Yeah, totally.
I think when you try to, in particular, make the argument against a strong black female lead is woke in the bad way, you're tiptoeing around the racism too much.
If you try to make the argument, Palatable, you're tiptoeing around the racism too much for it to even make sense.
Like the only way that argument makes sense is if you're racist and don't want to see black people on screen.
But you can't say that, so you have to pretend like it's, oh yeah, this is just token tokenism, cash grab, yada yada yada.
Because when you put just the phrase, strong black female lead as a negative in your woke checklist, like it's not helping your argument at all.
So I liked, I liked that item.
They're taking the sort of racist preference to watch, you know, 100% white male movies, and then they're putting it through the filter of accusing the producers of the movie of having some sort of duplicitous intentions, or being Like that's often the right wing critiques of the left do this sort of thing where they personalize it and they make it about someone who thinks they're so great doing it.
It's not just that they did it.
It's that they're so pompous about it.
They believe so greatly in this wokeness that they're like, so they, the, the, yeah, it's something I've noticed is, is that that personalization and that just idea that the people who produced Hocus Pocus, they think they're so much better than us.
And that's why they put a black woman in this movie.
Uh, one thing about that really quickly is that's a really good point that they do try to, you know, ascribe like pretty much even without a quote, even without some direct quote from a, from a producer or from a writer about their intention, uh, in, in the property, they will ascribe that like, uh, What do you call it?
Like propaganda or that like intention of of theirs in making this media.
But they do it mostly by right-wing media like inflating whatever is quote woke in the in the movie.
Right?
Like it was oh here is this is Spider-Man.
Spider-Man's gay now!
Right?
We did an episode on that, and it was like, this is one Spider-Man in a multiverse of billions of Spider-Men written by a gay guy who wanted to, like, see himself in a Spider-Man costume, you know, and tell his story or whatever, but that you would have never heard of.
You would have never... This guy wasn't doing a national campaign to make you look at gay superheroes.
He was just writing a cool story that he thought was cool, and doing art that he thought was cool.
And instead Breitbart screenshot, you know, finds the fucking probably, you know, not not hugely widely distributed comic to get a photo from it and put it in front of everybody.
So now everybody can say, how is this news?
And it's like, you're my guy, you're the one subscribed to it.
I only know about it because you're mad.
Yeah.
So that's how they reinforce this idea, like you said, that the producers have this goal.
And I think it's also very funny because it reiterates how powerful they do think TV is.
Like, you know, TV's... Hocus Pocus is gonna bewitch my children through the TV, and Spider-Man's gonna... or, you know, whatever... Scooby-Doo's gonna make my daughter a lesbian through the TV.
Like, that's how powerful they think TV is.
I mean, it's true.
I think there's a lot of people that wouldn't be scared of black people if it wasn't for TV.
So I think it is power.
That's probably what they think.
They're like, I mean, I clutched my purse for a reason, so I don't want you casting spells by the same logic.
The next item in this woke checklist is genetically diverse sidekick.
Check!
Yep.
When they run that DNA test in Act 2, that was too far for me.
Are they talking about a Frankenstein?
Is there a Frankenstein in this?
Because that's like the only genetically diverse person I could think of.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
There's one guy, he's supposed to be kind of the bully in the beginning, but the thing is, I mean, I picked him up right away as kind of being neurodivergent because he just was so earnest and wasn't being mean, but sometimes came off as being mean because he was just being so honest and everyone kind of like...
I thought that's who they were talking about, and he's so stupid in the whole thing that it's unbelievable.
I thought that's who they were talking about with both those comments, and I can't think of who the neurodivergent sidekick is because that character was not a sidekick at all.
No, genetically divergent.
Genetically divergent.
Oh, genetically divergent.
Yeah, I think they mean mixed race, maybe?
Is that what they mean?
They're talking about the mix.
Also, that's the lead.
She's the lead.
She's mixed and bleak.
I have no idea.
Yeah, this is what they mean.
Somebody did some race mix.
Somebody mixed up some genes.
That's not good.
You want to keep those genes pure.
Why couldn't this have been about a Habsburg prince helping defeat the witches with his enormous jaw?
That's a sidekick.
Yeah.
Like the good old days.
Genetically diverse sidekick.
I can't think of who they're talking about.
I also, like I said, I didn't finish it.
Is there like a brown person or a tan person in the movie, Tony?
That's who they're talking about.
I mean... Is there somebody with curly hair?
Is there like a Jewish guy with curly hair?
Yeah, the main character.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, the main character.
Maybe she's a sidekick to the witch.
I can't figure out.
Alright, well... Maybe they didn't watch it either.
Remains a mystery.
Maybe you'll have to watch to see what all the fuss is about.
I guess, like, they're... Expose your kids to it.
Yeah, I don't know.
Okay.
There's a couple black people, that's really it.
Okay, I was wondering, do we have Boy with us now?
Can we get Boy on the call?
I don't know, Papa.
That's how I get into it, so.
Okay.
Yeah, it's great.
I don't know about that.
I think my hook line is like, Boy!
It's time to do the dishwasher!
Well, I was just wondering, how does Boy feel about Hocus Pocus 2?
Does Boy want to see Hocus Pocus 2?
Is Boy excited about it?
Does Boy acknowledge the inherent dangers in watching such a movie?
Honestly, I think they're just cashing in on the success of Hocus Pocus 1, and I don't know.
I'm personally not interested in watching it.
Okay.
But not because it's woke.
That actually makes me want to watch it more.
Oh, wow.
Boy once again reflecting my own thoughts back at me.
What a program.
I love these characters.
Papa, how does Papa feel about Hocus Pocus 2?
Is Papa worried about satanic forces coming in through the television and affecting Boy?
Well, this is the first that I've heard about this, but obviously any father is going to be extremely concerned about real magic coming through the television to change their boy into some sort of, to bring hell on him.
So yeah, I would say I'm extremely concerned.
Nobody's trying to sacrifice me to gain power in the underworld, Papa.
Oh, you don't know that, boy.
You actually don't know that.
I do know that.
Have any witches tried to, like a trio of witches, tried to perform a song with sort of weird overtones that made you feel different, boy?
Yes, that did happen to a boy.
He might not remember he was too young, but that did happen.
No.
I remember what he's talking about.
It's not what happened.
I don't think you remember what I'm talking about, because you were pretty young.
You had that t-shirt that said "I love witches" that you wore around.
Moving on.
Last topic here.
Again, just really right in the wheelhouse of the members of this episode, the composition of this conversation.
We have a article here from a, excuse me, it is a editorial here from a man who I think has taken his name off of this editorial because I can't, I can't, where's it at?
Is it at the bottom?
Yeah, John Roseman.
This is family psychologist, by the way, John Rosemond.
So we're about to learn about some family psychology here with an editorial titled, Living with Children, You Shouldn't High Five a Child.
So, wonderful title.
I'm interested already.
Oh shit.
It's just common sense.
I'm terrified.
I mean, it is common sense.
It's like, you get that internal gut instinct, but it's nice to have it laid out.
You know, the actual reasons why.
Here we go.
Real expert.
Arrrrgh!
How this article starts.
Will you please just stop doing that, please?
Every time I see it, I want to scream.
And I'm not an emotionally hyperactive person.
I don't know about that.
You seem like you have an active imagination, at least.
I'm talking about adults high-fiving children.
And yes, I'm about to reveal that I am the Grinch, or so it would seem. - - I just imagine this guy seeing me and my kid doing the Fresh Prince high-five together and just losing his mind.
- Arggg!
Yeah, he's just fuming off to the side like, you're enjoying your day.
Oh, and I bet he thinks I'm the Grinch for thinking this.
Knowing my stance on the subject, a parent recently asked, what's wrong with adults high-fiving children, John?
I recognize a rhetorical question when I hear one.
The fact that someone even asks that, quote, question, scare quotes around the word question, is proof we are lost in Dante's dark wood when it comes to children and their upbringing.
That's where we're at.
Imagine writing this article and just drawing out the Dante's Darkwood metaphor for how bad this is.
Sorry, John, that actually isn't a rhetorical question.
They're just literally asking you.
It's not a rhetorical question.
He wants an answer to it.
Why are you like this, John?
And I looked at this rhetorical question and thought, huh?
Why don't I explain via an editorial?
I love yeah it takes like five line breaks uh to even give it begin your explanation of why you're like this.
What is uh what is Dante's dark wood?
Is that like before he goes to hell?
Yeah, I googled it just before.
I don't want anyone to have the impression that I knew this, but yes, I think it's from Dante's Inferno and before he goes to hell.
Oh, just admit you're well-read on the classics.
We're among friends.
The fact that even somebody even asks why we shouldn't high-five children is paving the way towards hell, I believe.
Yeah.
It's proof, actually.
The high-five is a gesture of familiarity to be exchanged between equals.
When you see two cool guys high-five on a movie or television, you know that they're both cool.
They're on an even footing.
Those are the cool guys.
Imagine seeing a cool guy high-five a non-cool... Have you ever seen a cool guy high-five a nerd?
That is a rhetorical question because the answer is no, you haven't.
You've seen a cool guy high-five somebody who becomes another cool guy the instant you high-five them.
Yeah, or vice versa.
You could be lower to their level as well.
That's true, yeah.
You only feel this way if you try to high-five someone and they said, Hey man, you know I can't do that, right?
Like, you know it's... I'm clearly higher than you and you know that.
You know that.
But hey, I think if you believe you can get there.
Like, that's the only way you really feel this way.
If someone had to sit you down, you know you can't high-five me, right?
I love he's like...
He's like, you know, some things we need to reserve just for adults, some things that are just like, you know, the pleasures of adulthood, the pleasures and privileges of adulthood, like high-fiving.
What are you talking about?
And I also love, you know, you read this article and it's like, you know, if somebody just gave you, like, a one-sentence prompt about this article or whatever, and be like, oh, it's a guy who's against high-fiving, you would be like, oh, because he thinks, like, the whole act is demeaning.
Like, it's not a dignified handshake or, you know, elbow grab or...
Or whatever.
No, he reserves the high five for only the privileged few.
It's actually like a mark of status to give out high fives.
When he's at dinner with his family psychologist friends, they're just trading high fives around the table and congratulating each other.
Well, he does clarify in the next line, and you know, this gets eaten by the line break, but I think it's really important.
He says, I have traded the palm slap with adult friends.
Hey, I know that sounds like a guy who's high-fived before.
He's a high-five expert.
I've traded the palm slap with adult friends.
He's just one of those assholes who, like, can't do, like, a casual high-five.
They're always, like, really hard.
And he's like, those little hands can't handle the impact.
You can't high-five a kid.
You're gonna hurt them.
Oh, man.
I have traded the palm slap with adult.
This is like a robot.
This is like a parody of a robot.
Ah, yes, the palm slap.
You mustn't ever do the palm slap with a child.
Hi, my adult friend.
Let us slap palms.
This is like, man, there's like some character who's like, oh, we'll do the slap hands gesture now.
Like, that's like how he's writing in this.
Okay, yeah.
I have traded the palm slap with adult friends.
Quote, dude, give me five.
I can be and am as cool as the next.
The next adult, that is.
I will not slap the upraised palm of a person.
Man, it sucks you had to spend a whole editorial on high fives because now you've got to come up with ten different ways to say it.
I will not slap the upraised palm of a person.
If you don't explain what a high five is, people are going to be totally lost.
So you need to demonstrate, it's the upraised, yeah.
I will not slap an upraised palm, which is typically called a high five for those not in the know.
Um, yeah, I will not slap the- I can be and am as cool as the next, the next adult that is.
See, this is what he's worried about.
He's worried that he knows that kids are just cooler.
He knows that kids are just cooler than adults, and he feels like if he high-fives them, he's acknowledging that.
He needs to, like, he needs to withhold this, like, vital tool of, of, like, social domineering from the boy, I feel.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, uh, I will not slap the upraised palm of a person who is not my peer.
And a peer is someone over age 21, emancipated, employed, and paying their own way.
Insane, like, arbitrary, like, why not 22?
No, the payoff is so good.
It's your 21st birthday, you gotta kick the kid out, the kid's gotta go, and you deliver the most emotional high-five ever.
It's the first high-five between the two of you, and you're not gonna cry until you go back inside, but there's no kid in the house to judge you anymore, so you can cry now.
My dad finally sees me as his peer.
He gave me my first high-five today, in 2021.
We went out to Dante's Wood.
We took a high-five trip out to Dante's Wood.
The high five is not appropriate between doctor and patient.
Judge and defendant.
POTUS and a person not old enough to vote.
POTUS and anyone for that matter.
Maybe this was before POTUS and anyone.
Employer and employee.
Parent and child.
Grandparent and grandchild.
And I'm adding this last one here.
Papa and boy.
Absolutely.
It's really just a list of all the hierarchies you can explore on Papa and Boy, right?
I saw someone in the comment section on this guy's Facebook page who was like, I mostly agree with you, but doctor and patient?
I don't feel like I'm below my doctor.
Well, that's the most obvious one.
I'm sorry.
Your doctor did a lot of work to get above you.
I would say that's like, that's like the closest to a, you know, meritocracy we have.
In terms of like knowing medical information, my doctor, yeah, definitely no more than me.
I defer to their authority.
Yeah.
And if your doctor does not want to give you a high five, there's probably a good reason for that.
Yeah.
Probably.
You should probably listen to what they have to say next.
That's like actually, that's a system you've developed with your doctors when they walk in.
High five?
No high five today.
Oh shit.
All right.
No high five today.
Negative indeed.
Little fist bump, but no high five today.
Elbow bump maybe?
We're getting there.
I also like employer and employee.
Like we're all fucking bustling up at the front of the queue to high five our employer.
Awful stuff, man.
I'd be so mad if my boss tried to high five me.
Dude, I heard of a, you know, I'm a UPS driver and I heard of like a UPS driver either who was retired, they passed away and their fucking manager came and spoke at their funeral.
And I heard about this like eight years ago and I immediately told my mom, I said, no managers are allowed at my funeral.
If anything ever happens to me, they're not fucking allowed at my funeral.
Thank you.
Keep an open casket so they can high-five me one last time.
Are managers allowed to high-five, like, employees from other firms, or does it transfer?
Yeah, any manager.
Are bosses, in general, not supposed to high-five employees, or is it just within the specifics of a particular worker-employee relationship?
That's what I'd like to ask John.
Actually, at the end, there's an email.
You can email the question.
Please flood this guy with emails with hyper-specific questions about his conditions for a high-five.
You do have to go to the link.
I don't have an email address to read on the show.
I believe it's industry-specific.
If it's the same industry, then you've got no high-fives.
But you can go.
It's okay.
Hospitality and construction, it's okay.
You can still...
High five.
Dad, my son once said, quote, parentheses.
What?
He said the subtext to you?
Quote, his then five-year-old doesn't understand why you won't high five.
That's supposed to be brackets, my guy.
I'm sorry.
Like you're writing for a newspaper.
His then five-year-old doesn't understand why you won't high five him.
Quote, I don't expect him to understand and I'm not going to explain myself to him.
So fucked.
Because I said so.
That's why.
And then his son says, well, I don't understand either.
And then the author says, I'm not going to explain myself to you either, I said to his chagrin.
Man, I can't believe why people would think this guy's an asshole.
That's his adult son that he raised.
Refusing to explain.
How did he not?
If he's such a great parent, how come his son is disobedient on the issue of high-fiving and children?
True.
Yeah, I mean maybe he knows it's like pointless now to try and explain it to his son You know, it's it wouldn't do any good at this point, unfortunately His son saw it on TV.
He saw High Five on TV and just wouldn't let go.
But I mean this guy's a whole PragerU video about not explaining things to children so but I don't know why not adults like Right, yeah, I didn't watch this video.
It's literally a praise of because I said so as like a political argument through PragerU by this guy.
Absolutely, yeah.
It's like a four minute video about don't explain anything, just say because I said so, and like stand tall, don't get down to their level like so you're bigger than them, and like talk down to them, use declarative statements.
It's wild.
Yeah, I flipped through, I got from archive.org, shout out to the internet library, Parent Power, his 1981 book.
Which I- Finally, rise up!
Parents, rise up!
I flipped through it, I didn't read the whole thing, but I did read him say that spanking is a matter of first resort and should be utterly arbitrary.
Utterly arbitra- Jesus Christ.
Family psychologist.
Yeah, if I do it, it won't be because I've given it a lot of thought, but simply because I feel like it.
It's something I've learned over 13 years of parenting, to trust my feelings.
Why does your son even talk to you?
I was going to say, did Cesar Millan write this?
But then I realized this is much, this is worse than how you treat an animal.
This is so much, so much worse.
He has a back and forth.
It caught my eye.
It's a dialogue between him and his daughter, Amy, when she was five that he transcribed, which is her.
Telling Amy, I want you to set the table tonight.
I don't want to do it.
Make Eric do it.
Yada, yada, yada.
And by the end of the page, it's gotten to, Daddy, if you send me to my room, I'll stay there forever.
All caps.
And he says, either set the table or go to your room.
And then all caps.
Daddy, I won't be around here much longer.
I'll run away.
And he says, either set the table or go to your room.
All caps.
I hate you.
I'm not your daughter anymore.
I belong to someone else.
This is an example that he shares in his parenting book of what his method looks like in practice.
Yeah, he's a good parent.
Hell yeah.
Oh, and then he reveals after the dialogue that she is six at the time.
But did she set the table?
That's... She did, yeah, but he notes that she did a bad job.
Yeah, she's just like stabbing knives into the top.
I will say that that seems like the most, that's the most like accurate depiction of like that, that will just happen where you just have to be like, no, you just, you just do it.
Can you just do it?
But like, it's definitely not like I'm going to spank someone.
Cause I feel like it, that's a huge leap.
It's a huge, gigantic leap.
I love the, uh, because I said so the defensive, because you know, because it does like, Just reinforce what you're calling a natural hierarchy, but could be apparently totally dissolved by virtue of trying to answer a couple questions, you know?
Like, you could, listen, the whole thing could come tumbling down if you deign to respond to a question from a child.
You just have to say, because I told you so.
He literally just basically says, he says, if you explain yourself at all, it just invites arguments.
So you're, if you try to give a reason, they'll argue against the reason.
And that's obviously a problem.
I mean, from, he seems like he can't defend himself against what I'm reading.
I don't, I'm not, I'm not like a hundred percent on your reasoning capabilities, dude.
Yeah.
That's, that's wild.
That's wild.
He uses the term dictatorship positively in the book as well.
It's for the household dynamics.
Yeah.
Explains that he's not up for reelection.
Said grandson is now 15.
He has not raised his palm to me since he was 5.
Fucking better not.
And we get along just fine.
He's not suffering high-five deprivation, much less PTSD from hearing, sorry, but I don't high-five children.
Respect for adults is important to a child's character development, and The High Five is not compatible with respect.
It is to be reserved for individuals of equal, or fairly equal, status.
It is good for children to view responsible adults as people who exist in a higher plane.
That quote, looking up, causes children to aspire to become adults, which seems to be in short supply these days.
Yeah, when I look at a guy and I'm like, hey, give me a high five, and he's like, absolutely not.
It goes against my core beliefs.
That's definitely a guy I'm going to look up to after that.
Also, he's implying he doesn't respect people he feels he's equal to?
Like, respect is incompatible with high-fiving, but then he will high-five people he's of equal status to.
Like, does he think respect can only be given up chains of hierarchy and not to people you feel are your peers?
It's a weird...
Yeah, that's totally it.
He doesn't respect children, which is like, I don't know, not exactly a controversial statement to make, you know, but in that list of other dynamics where you're not allowed to high-five employer, employee, doctor, patient, like, so yeah, the doctor shouldn't respect the patient, the employer shouldn't respect the employee, like, that's what you're arguing, essentially.
The child who is allowed to high-five an adult has tacit permission to talk to said adult as if they are peers.
Your daughter's gonna be like, go make the table, bitch!
What's gotten into you all the high-five?
Kind of unlocked something in me.
Did like chiropractic on my spine and popped something free.
Now I'm giving you orders.
So very alive, you little bitch.
It fucked me so bad when I learned that the noun is chiropractic.
That's like, that seals the deal.
It's fake.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not real.
It's not like chiropraxy or anything.
It's chiropractic.
Yeah, fake stuff.
The child who is allowed to high-five an adult has tacit permission to talk to said adult as if they are peers.
Do not wonder why, if you high-five your child, he often talks to you as if you are his equal.
By the way, a child does not ever think of an adult as an equal.
He either thinks the adult is his superior or his subordinate.
In a child's mind, there is no middle ground.
Hell yeah, I love family psychology.
Healthy stuff.
Boundaries in relationships are essential to their proper functioning.
Now just that one sentence, sorry, on its own, I think that's the only sentence in this so far I agree with.
Boundaries in relationships are essential.
You know, it's good to have boundaries.
Yeah.
His specific one's not so great, but it's a good sentence to give credit where credit's due.
Yeah, let's see what he goes for.
Praise the light no matter the candle.
Children should not call their parents or any other adults by their first names.
They should not sleep with their parents.
They should not have free access to their parents' money.
Yes, I am saying children should not have credit cards.
They should not be allowed to view certain movies their parents view.
That's the shortlist.
Children should know their place.
Adults should know their place.
The more adults and children co-mingle as if they are equals, the more problematic become their relationships.
Why should a child obey an adult who high fives him and make no mistake?
Like the veil has been lifted.
I see you as a, as a human being.
Wow.
You're fallible.
You gave me a high five.
That was your undoing.
Yeah.
Child psychologists calling everything problematic these days.
Yeah.
I'm not going to let you tell me to get rid of my kids credit card, okay?
Like that's how the one, he's like, yeah, yeah, yes, I'm saying that.
Yeah, I'm saying that.
It's like, okay.
It's like a rich people problem.
Yeah.
But also comparing high-fiving your child to a parent having sex with their child is like really, really weird.
Like that stuck out to me so much the first time through.
Like, whoa, like, wait, wait.
Is that what he means?
I feel like that's another level.
It's like, it's such, he's like a prank the whole time.
I think he does mean sharing a bed with, but it's like... I feel like he's sort of alluding to it with the more problematic their relationships become, but yeah, I don't know.
It does kind of ramp things up when he says it that way.
My mind's just in the gutter, I guess.
That's good to know.
No, it's funny.
He phrased it in a funny way.
I don't know if he has an editor here.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
No, it's like you're talking about high-fiving being the end of the world.
I can totally see you thinking that will lead to parent-child incest.
I have no trouble believing that's where he went with this argument.
It would make sense if high-fives are horny to him.
That would make some sense.
Yeah, it's inappropriate for me to high-five you.
There's just ambient horniness behind every high-five he gives with his peers.
Right.
He gets the sparkle, the tingle from it.
Man, you could make the most low-effort OnlyFans for this guy.
Yeah.
Why should a child obey an adult who high-fives him?
And make no mistake, the happiest kids are also the most obedient.
The research says so, as does one's common sense.
Sincerely, The Grinch.
Well, that's convenient.
It's actually the kid who is most, like, under your thumb and obedient.
They're actually the happiest kid.
They love it.
Oh, you don't believe me?
Hey, you're happy, right?
You hear that?
Said yes.
Said yes.
And they didn't make eye contact, but they said yes.
Yeah, it's reserved for equals.
Oh, and let me guess.
You think I'm the Grinch for saying this.
Well, know what?
The way that you judge people, the way that you're hateful, call me Grinch, I'm standing up to it.
I think the Grinch had, like, a better argument than you do.
I think it makes more sense for the Grinch to be annoyed with Christmas carols than for you to refuse to high-five a child.
Hey, at least Grinch had the medical condition with his heart as an excuse.
Yeah.
True.
Yeah, I made some sense there.
Respect it.
Had a struggle.
What's your struggle, bud?
Okay, I gotta ask, how does Papa feel about giving, would Papa ever give Boy a high-five?
Well, I'd have to check the book, but one little high-five wouldn't hurt, could it?
Oh no, the contradictions are cracking!
Boy, do you even want to high-five your dad?
Will high-fiving your dad make you see him differently?
I think that it might.
I think that the papas are scared of what might happen if they high five the boys.
And I think maybe they're right to be.
Boy, my hand's up.
Don't leave me hanging.
I'm waiting.
Man, I can't wait to see if the boy cult incorporates high fives in their nationwide project to upset the hierarchy.
Yeah, this is, this is, there's so many things, like we started, we wrote this mostly in 2020.
We've been, uh, and the animation process took a couple of years, happened in a couple of layers, stopping and starting.
But it's just wild how much stuff since we did this show that we keeps on, it's like this article just feels like our show come to life in a way.
Like we thought we were doing something more satirical than we actually were.
Yeah.
There's like a PragerU article recently saying that, or David Prager, what is it?
Dennis Prager?
DennisPrager.com article saying that if the respect and authority in the house collapses, so will civilization.
And I was like, that's, that's like a bit, right?
Like that's, that's a bit we do on our show.
It's not a real conservative position, but no it is.
Well, the show is Papa and Boy.
It's on the Means TV worker-owned cooperative streaming service.
I highly recommend subscribing to Means TV.
They have a sliding scale.
Pay what you can if you can afford to pay 10 bucks a month.
It's certainly worth it, especially for Papa and Boy.
I can't wait to watch the rest of this series.
I really love the show.
Why don't you tell people, like, the link is just means.tv, is that right?
Yeah, you can go to means.tv to sign up.
It's like any other streaming service.
I should also mention we've got, on the Means TV YouTube, if you look it up, you'll be able to watch episode one for free starting this week.
Get a taste of the Papa and Boy universe.
And also, yeah, our show is Seriously Wrong, which is S-R-S-L-Y.
Wrong.
Yeah, if you can't get enough Papa and Boy on the podcast, as we kind of mentioned, there's five full-length, 30- to 60-minute-long radio drama Papa and Boy episodes.
You can learn about the origin of the father-son system, it's some dense lore, and then you can go back and re-watch the cartoon show and the depth of it is staggering.
Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining the show, and it was a lot of fun.
A lot of just stuff, like, right down the center for you guys, I feel.
You can support Minion Death Cult at patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult, where you will get a bonus episode every week.
Again, yeah, last week we talked about the dangers of Halloween in general, but also the dangers of inviting a pumpkin into your home when you already have a boy who is undergoing demonic possession.
Oh, geez.
Yeah.
So you your boy watches Hocus Pocus 2.
You're dealing with all of that.
And now the sister or the aunt wants to bring a pumpkin.
And she says it's just for Christmas.
She says it's just a fall or Christmas pumpkin.
You know better than that.
Listen to that episode and hundreds of bonus episodes immediately at patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult.
You can write to me at flieldy, F-L-I-E-L-D-Y, on Twitter and Instagram.
Tony is at wordisbond on Twitter.
The show is at MinionDeathCult on all your social media services, and we'll talk to you again soon.
