It's a jam-packed episode this week as Amazon cancels its "tip your driver" program after only one day, and the company's possible movites for muddying the search terms "Amazon" and "tips" Also: an MDC exclusive interview with the artist behind the Totally Real demonic Starbucks Cup circulating on boomer internet. WE ARE HOLDING HIM TO ACCOUNT. Finally: There's gender cops in England, and they're getting extremely mad at the real cops for accepting a portrait done by a 14 year-old furry artist. Support the show for $5/month and get weekly bonus episodes of Minion Death Cult and our brand new weekly live show: DEATH CHAT 500 (also available in podcast form). Also get access to our entire back catelogue including BUTT FEST 2000; live-reads of My Antifa Lover, Rodham, and Ladies First: A MAGA Hat Romance; movie episodes like Believe, To Die For, and Loqueesha; and hundreds more. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult Music: Elder - Endless Return James White - Christmas With Satan Pat Benatar & Queen Latifah - Love Is A Battlefield
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 go to school in the desert.
Follow their environment, Houston.
Stay tuned.
Alright, I'm Alexander Edward.
I'm Tony Boswell.
We are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
The, uh, Genghis Khan...
Damned souls the man responsible for Probably like a good 15% of the population's One-way ticket to hell is responsible and we're documenting it Very special interview later on in the episode Can't wait to get to it.
But first I wanted to talk about a little News that hits close to home for me.
Amy shared this in the group, but I had seen this story in, in a few places, given, given its nature.
Amazon's $5 thank my driver program maxed out after one day.
Wow.
Wow.
Did you hear about this campaign, Tony?
No, no.
But I do like that it's Amazon.
That way it can hit home for you same day.
Same day as order it can hit home for you.
Which is nice.
Sure.
I've seen this story.
It's...
Amazon introduced this program that allows you, allowed you to tip your driver by saying thank you to your Alexa.
So just remember that thing you turned off.
Remember that thing you denied access to your, uh, to your whatever smart device.
Turn it back on and you can give your driver $5.
And it's, it's that, it's like, if that's the, that's the voice command.
It's Alexa, thank my driver.
Yeah.
Thank my driver, please.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Hit the button.
You hit the NSA button.
And now, does that $5 come out of my pocket or out of Amazon's pocket?
No, Amazon said that they would pay the $5 tip to whatever driver.
That's sick.
That's cool.
Yeah, good.
I'm going to start just saying it to a bunch of Alexas.
Well, as you'll hear shortly, it's already maxed out.
After one day, they stopped doing it.
Yeah, in general, like, to speak on the campaign itself, it's like, of course it's cynical.
Of course it's very cynical, as we'll get to.
There's a reason it's very cynical.
But just in general, anytime a company does something like this, it's because they think that it'll make them more money.
Yeah.
But in this case, fine.
Yes.
Oh, you're so good.
You know what?
I would really love Amazon if they did this every day.
If they did this every day, then I would be forced to say, Amazon, that's a good company, actually.
I just wish they, I feel like they're the kind of company that fires people for taking tips.
So if they would just maybe just not do that, that'd be cool too.
I don't think they do.
I don't want to spread that rumor because I don't want to discourage people from trying to tip.
Dude, Starbucks wouldn't take a tip.
The Starbucks that's in one of my hospital deliveries wouldn't take a tip.
That's fucked.
She was like, Oh, I wish I was allowed to do that.
And I was like, you're not allowed to do that.
And she's like, no, wait, was it, was it inside of like, was it a subsidiary?
It was inside of like a target or something.
Yeah.
It was inside of a hospital complex.
Yeah.
Those ones, those ones, they can't do it.
It's a, those ones for some reason, well, they, they could, but they never do like regular.
Cause it's a, those are franchise ones privately.
That's so shitty, so bad.
So they don't even get discounts at other Starbucks.
Why would you ever mandate that for your employees?
Because you're a piece of shit.
What do you stand to gain?
Like the only argument against tipping is I don't want the customer to feel pressured into tipping, but nobody fucking feels... Nobody's gonna tip if they don't have to tip, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
I always make a big scene out of a lot of places won't take tips on cards.
I'm always like, really loudly, well you better, you know, tell your boss that you really should take tips from cards.
You're really missing out on a lot of money.
Like, I would rather you do this.
That's good of you to do that.
And it's worked a couple places.
If a company wants to virtue signal by paying their employees more, by giving money directly to their employees, I'm fine with that virtue signaling.
Because at a certain level, it's not just signaling.
You're getting money for it.
But of course, they only did this for one day.
Color my shock.
Color my surprise.
How do you say that?
Imagine my shock.
Color me shocked.
Yeah, they stopped doing it after one day because apparently they had, they put a $5 million cap on the amount of money they were going to give to their employees everywhere in one day.
They're like, no, that's, that's good enough.
You know?
Like I'm sure they have like 5 million drivers.
You know what I mean?
Were they hoping like everyone, like everyone just maybe got, maybe got one and a half thank yous.
Okay.
I'm reading here from KHOU.com.
It's a local news station.
Amazon's $5 Thank My Driver program maxed out after one day.
Amazon offered delivery drivers an extra $5 for every thank you a customer sent, but the program didn't last very long.
Amazon has rolled out a new Alexa feature ahead of the holidays to make it even easier for customers to thank drivers delivering their orders.
When you say, Alexa, thank my driver, the Amazon driver who delivered your most recent package will get a notification about your appreciation, according to an announcement from Amazon.
And everybody was like, why would I do this?
Why, why, why would I?
Oh, thank you.
Like, come on.
I like that it's your last package.
So you could go to someone's house and you could say, Alexa, thank my driver.
And if they got an Amazon package whenever, they might get five bucks.
It's worth doing it for.
Well, okay.
I'm saying, well, aside from the five dollars, this says that they introduced just a thank you program.
I think outside of the money, it just says thank you.
Like when they ran out of money, You know, when they quote, ran out of money, when they wanted to stop giving money, they said, no, the driver will still still hear your appreciation.
So there's, they do the thank you without the money.
This was a limited pro time program to get people to start using their Alexa again.
You know what I mean?
And so, because I wouldn't sign up for Alexa just to give a digital thank you to the driver.
Sorry.
Like all, all I say thank you in real IRL.
I do it the old fashioned way, you know, if I'm home and if I'm not home, that's fine.
They didn't have to talk to anybody.
And then it's win-win, you know, I would never thank someone for doing their job.
So I don't like, I don't like Alexa telling me how to live my life.
Yeah.
Continued employment is all the things you need.
Yeah, so I'm just saying, like, I wouldn't have signed up to do this unless it was to make Amazon give them $5.
Oh, sure.
I'll click a button for that.
And then they discontinued the program after one day, now that they had everybody on it.
You know what I'm saying?
I think that's what happened here.
The program launched on Wednesday, and to celebrate, Amazon said its drivers would get an additional $5 for each thank you received, but only for a limited time.
See, the thank you is here to stay.
The thank you is like a heart react on Facebook.
But for a limited time only, that might actually mean something.
Hmm.
Which, yeah, but only for a limited time, which turned out to be just one day.
So you got like $5.
Maybe one guy got $15.
How was I supposed to do that?
How was I supposed to schedule and make sure I got a delivery that day?
That's fucked up.
The promotion was only set to continue until the first 1,000,000 thank yous were received.
Just one day after launching the program, Amazon said Thursday it had reached that milestone in the U.S., so drivers will no longer get the $5 tips.
Oh, I love the, like, language.
Oh, he reached just such a brilliant milestone.
Just, God, we filled up...
We filled up the thermometer that was on the classroom wall.
We did it.
And now you get less money.
Because we did it, you now get fewer dollars.
I love that concept.
The $5 bonus per thank you was also only eligible for Amazon Flex Delivery Partners, delivery associates employed by Amazon Delivery Service Partners and Hub DP drivers.
So contractors, like they, people who contract, you know, other companies.
So if so if a UPS, this is the part that really got me mad here So if a UPS or US Postal Service driver delivered your order Amazon said it will pass along your appreciation to the company, but that driver won't receive any additional money Bullshit, that's bullshit.
Why not?
Am I not delivering a package for you Amazon?
Do you not already have all of your information?
Like, can't you just make it show up inside of my PayPal?
Like, automatically?
I'm sure you could.
Probably wouldn't be that hard to make happen, Amazon.
We, UPS, are literally a separate company that you're contracting through.
Sounds like I'm a contracted employee to me.
So, yeah.
Sounds like you need to thank me anyways.
Really not happy with these people.
Okay.
According to Amazon, the five drivers who receive the most thank yous during the promo will also receive a $10,000 bonus and additional $10,000 bonus to be donated to the charity of their choice.
Again, $10,000.
That's what Amazon makes in like a microsecond, a millisecond.
Yeah.
How are they going to do that?
There's no way that like tied for first is not like a thousand way tie.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
There's just no, there's no way.
Yeah, because it's probably spanned from like a range of one to five thank yous per driver.
That's probably the set of numbers you have to work with when finding out who got the most.
Okay.
On the same day that Amazon launched the new program, the tech giant was sued by the Washington D.C.
Attorney General for allegedly stealing their delivery driver's tips.
What?
Yes.
So there were tips being made?
So, not only was it, in my mind, a way to get people to use their Alexa, use the Alexa feature of their Amazon app, and, I don't know, establish some sort of pastime of digitally thanking your driver, you know?
Like, oh, just hang on a second, nice to see you, but hang on, I gotta thank my Amazon driver.
Like, I don't know if that's gonna catch on, but...
No, it was because they were accused and settled for stealing their driver's tips from like a year ago.
And it's like, okay, so they were going to put $5 million towards driver's tips as like good PR to cancel out the bad PR.
So, I mean, you're Amazon, you can afford to, you know, you can afford to overdo it.
So they probably stole like a million dollars in driver's tips or something and they're doing 5 million to really overshadow that and nope it's 61 million dollars they stole in driver's tips last year.
I'm reading from the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission website.
This is a real website.
This is the most real website you can get with this kind of stuff.
Straight from the horse's mouth with this one.
Amazon to pay $61.7 million to settle FTC charges.
It withheld some customer tips from Amazon Flex drivers.
Settlement prohibits Amazon from misrepresenting driver earnings pay or percent of tips paid to drivers.
Well, it's nice you have to sue to prevent a company from Hey, if you know up until you're sued apparently you can misrepresent driver earnings pay or percent of tips Yeah, I just I love it.
It's 61 million dollars stolen and they're like PR gesture was a twelfth of that Yeah, a fraction.
What sucks is that you know the lasting impression of this is so huge.
You know there's going to be someone out there like years from now, some like sweet lady, some sweet old lady, who is like still advocating like, hey, you know you gotta, you know you gotta thank your driver for your Alexa, right?
Give them five bucks.
So many people are going to think that that's still happening.
How are you gonna like, how are you gonna say like, oh, that's not real.
Like that's not real anymore.
They're like, no, it's true.
And I always do it during the holidays.
I make sure I do it during the holidays.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's going to be a lot of arguments about this.
I mean, the comments, there were already so many, like people thought they were giving their own money.
Uh, kind of a confusing, uh, confusing little promotion, but.
Okay, Amazon will pay more than 61 million dollars to settle a federal trade commission charges that it failed to pay Amazon Flex drivers the full amount of tips they received from Amazon customers over two and a half year period.
Over a two and a half year period.
The FTC's complaint alleges that the company stopped its behavior only after becoming aware of the FTC's investigation in 2019.
The $61 million represents the full amount that Amazon allegedly withheld from drivers and will be used by the FTC to compensate drivers.
So they're not even paying a fine!
They're not even... I mean, maybe this is interest?
Maybe it's 61.7 with interest?
It doesn't say that here.
What is the penalty?
What is the actual penalty for Amazon doing this shit to their employees?
Because it appears to be nothing.
It appears... I mean, I could imagine that this is actually, like, an interest-free loan.
You know?
Like, less... Oh my god.
The fine is like what they had to pay the lawyers to get it to break this even.
That's the only fine.
Yeah just okay cool like you got the employer's back pay that's that's all you did.
According to the FTC's administrative complaint against Amazon and its subsidiary Amazon Logistics, the company regularly advertised that drivers participating in the Flex program would be paid $18 to $25 per hour for their work making deliveries to customers.
When I saw $18 to $25 that Struck me as odd.
Like I thought, oh, are they, do they fluctuate?
Does the, does, does the, does your pay fluctuate like that?
Um, but then I think it is different in different regions.
Yeah, I think you can get hired at those... That's what the listing on Indeed is.
It says you can make $18.25 an hour.
And there's like four people who make $25.
The rest of them all make $18.25.
Right, and they're paying for their gas, they're paying for their car insurance, they're paying for their car payment, they're paying for the clothes they're wearing while they're doing this.
Yeah.
The Flex program, yeah, it's like Uber.
It's like the Uber at personal vehicle delivery.
It's like what UPS is subcontracting to, not subcontracting, but like hiring out to seasonal work.
I guess like they're called PVDs, right?
And they get paid different than us and they get paid less than us.
And they're not part of the union because they're only seasonal work.
And I guess, like, some buildings are using them year-round.
I've seen on Facebook, which is, like, kind of crazy that their local is allowing them to do that.
I think New York, the Teamsters there sued Carol Tomei.
I think, like, they sued over PVDs and won, but we're still using them seasonally.
And somebody else mentioned in the UPS Facebook group, and I think they're right, that the PVDs are going to be our scab replacements if we go on strike in July or September.
Cause they're already kind of like, it's kind of like scab labor, but I don't, I don't mind during the season.
I think it's kind of the best way to do it is to only have them during seasonal because you don't want to hire a bunch of people full time for two months and then fire them like that.
Yeah.
I would I think it would be make more sense to do I you know I'm open to hearing other arguments but anyway I'm okay with them during seasonal but if they're being used full-time that's like to lower wages that's they are doing that intentionally to lower our wages and it's a it's a big deal Well, what sucks is in areas like where I'm at, um, so much of the, of the UPS is being used for Amazon anyways.
So they are probably doing it like year round here because there is still that constant flow of Amazon deliveries, you know?
And like, so it's still Amazon to blame for this.
Well, people are going to shop online no matter what, like, Oh yeah, totally.
No, but I'm saying, but it's specifically being Amazon because of the way the hub is set up here.
The way the Amazon hub and, and the way, um, but the airport and all that, like for some reason here, it's like so much of the UPS is still going to be Amazon for those guys, for those, like, for those like add on guys.
Like, so it's like, yeah, it's like an easy, it's like almost like a second Amazon contract.
Yeah.
I mean, we, we do handle a lot of Amazon stuff, but, Our CEO, Carol Tomei, she did a photo op of her delivering out of a PVD, delivering out of a personal vehicle, and I think the New York Teamsters filed a grievance against her for doing union work.
That's awesome.
I need to look into that to see if it's been processed yet.
To see if it's been heard.
I want that.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Amazing.
Okay, rather than, this is what Amazon did, rather than passing around, passing along 100% of customers tips to drivers as it had promised to do, Amazon used the money itself, said Daniel Kaufman, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
I could sum it up here, what they did was, is they used the tips so that they could like lower a wage so that it was still within that $18 to $25 window.
Like if somebody was making You know, $22 an hour with tips.
They took those tips and put it towards the person who was making $18 an hour so that they could only pay them $16 an hour or whatever, you know?
So they just did it to like keep, literally to keep wages down.
They like, they literally took tip money and put it into the wages instead.
It's like a fucking lightning fast, quantum fast example of the idea of business owners using tips to pay their employees less.
It's funny because that's the thing you'll hear if you work in a place that doesn't take tips and you want to make tips.
They'll tell you like, oh you don't want that.
You don't want to make tips because if you make tips and you got a claim on your taxes You know, you don't, you don't want that.
And it's like, no, no, I want that.
And like, it's almost like they're going to, they're going to, you know, say, oh, we were doing you a favor.
Like we were, we were helping you out.
You don't want that.
You don't want that tipped wage.
Trust me.
Yeah.
This is so fucked up.
Amazon shifted from paying drivers, the promised rate of 18 to 25 per hour, plus the full amount of customer tips to paying drivers, a lower hourly rate, a shift that did not, that it did not disclose to drivers.
Jesus.
That's crazy that you can change your employees wage.
I guess that's probably when you sign a fucking when you subcontract with Amazon, you sign a waiver saying you're like in a in what do you like a The mortgage rate that can go up and down, like not a fixed mortgage rate.
You're in that sort of wage.
Man, that's crazy that that's allowed.
There's like, oh, we felt like paying you less today, so.
That's so fucked.
Like, how can people budget that way?
You know?
Like, how can you do that?
Because, I mean, that's why you're told not to take your tips into your budget because they're not reliable.
You know, you can't always guarantee you're going to make that much every week or whatever.
Right.
So to have just your wages in general go up and down, how are you supposed to plan that way?
Like, that goes against everything that everyone else tells you.
Like, you know, save your money, you know, pull them bootstraps up, budget.
How?
Yeah.
Houseway.
All right, that's it.
Uh, yeah, no, this was a great program, giving your, your, uh, drivers more money.
I, I think, you know what, Amazon, you're, uh, you're now a C- in, in the business rankings, in Minion Death Cult's business rankings.
Uh, I think if you gave another, like, 50 million Uh, maybe 500 million to your drivers.
You'd go up to like, like a B minus.
Probably.
Maybe, maybe at least a, maybe at least a C plus, but no promises.
Yeah.
You can tell this wasn't that big of a deal.
That wasn't that impactful.
Cause I didn't see any videos, any ring, ring camera videos of drivers yelling into the house.
Yeah.
Hey, hey, thank, thank my driver.
Make my driver do it!
Alexa!
I thought you meant you didn't see any drivers jumping for joy when they get a notification that they got a $5 tip.
Be like, thank you!
Like going back up to the ring cam and being like, I know I already delivered your package and I shouldn't be on your property anymore, but I just wanted to say thank you.
Yeah.
This is life changing.
And thank you.
You know what?
Thank you, Amazon, too.
If you're listening.
Yeah.
I mean, we know you are.
Here's actually a dollar you gave me five.
I'm going to give you one back because you know what?
You put that you put that work in saying thank you.
Yeah.
So so thank you again.
I only have one comment for this segment, uh, because, you know, most people were like, hey, Amazon, give the drivers more money, like all the time.
All the time they should get $5.
Should get $5 more, I think an hour, every hour on the hour.
Every hour.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, but there were a couple of people who were like, Amazon leaves my package in the neighbor's yard, so they don't get a tip.
Never.
But Steve O'Meara had an interesting take.
Steve-O on Facebook said, More and more people are realizing that Alexa is just a listening device for the CCP and usage was dropping.
Amazon tugged at your heartstrings to get you to use their spies again.
And man, did a lot of y'all fall for it.
So wow, kind of taking my theory, I guess.
Yeah.
Convenience is what's going to be the death of some of you.
I mean, I fully agree with this.
I completely agree with this.
Do you know how many people have, like, died because of dishwashers?
Like, just wash the dishes, you know?
It's disgusting.
What?
I don't know if that's true, but it sounds good.
Sorry, I zoned out.
How did we get to dishwashers?
It's an item of convenience that people use.
Oh.
Yeah, this is like, it's like the rad lib take of, you need to eat better food before you get healthcare.
It's like that sort of weird individualist take of like, oh, you just like going to Walmart, that's why there's a Walmart, because of how convenient it is.
Maybe if you, I don't know, boycotted Walmart, we wouldn't have them anymore.
That's like what this scans to me as, but it's very funny that he's like blaming China He's like, no, it's not the fucking monopolistic corporate behemoth that is like systematically like working towards eradicating labor protections and just treating its Employees like shit in the meantime.
Killing its employees in the meantime.
No, it's actually the spies from China, like Anthony Kiedis said, are trying to read your mind's elation.
By which, when you say thank you to the driver, they're trying to read you.
And I was like, okay, how are you going to blame China for an American corporation who does this?
Just like anything to avoid indicting your own system, I suppose.
I think there's just something about, it's something kind of like that happens and it's a specific type of racism where it's like, oh this is technology.
You know the Chinese are good at technology.
Yeah, those people.
I really think that's what it is, you know what I mean?
It's like, oh I've seen, I know that in the movie it's always the Asian guy is good at the computer so this must be a China crime.
Yeah, well it's a slap in the face because they come over here to go to higher education, as we know.
Because I have to see them sometimes.
Yeah.
And then they use that knowledge to then spy on us for China.
No, um...
I looked into it, I was like, did China spy on US?
Who's reporting this?
Where is this coming from?
And I found a story where people at Tencent, the Chinese company, it might be partially publicly owned, but it's a private company as far as I think I know.
Demonstrated how you can hack into an Alexa, like after about an hour, I think, of working on it, demonstrated how you can hack into an Alexa and hack somebody's microphone and camera, and then gave that information to Amazon.
They were like, hey, we found a weakness in your system.
Here it is.
Please fix it.
And so I guess he's like, he's not wrong in the sense that you guys have these listening devices in your house.
That part we know is true.
But they were doing like a nice service, being like, hey look at how bad this is.
Anyone can do this.
It took us an hour, it might take a regular hacker three hours.
But either way, it's doable.
It's very funny.
Because the headline was like, China successfully hacks into Alexa users.
Of course.
Audio and video recording devices.
Yeah, you love to see it.
Okay, so more in holiday news. so more in holiday news.
I was online and something came across my feed that was Profoundly upsetting to me.
This is a post from Marilyn.
I'm gonna hide Marilyn's last name because who knows who's looking for her at this point.
Some very dangerous truths on Marilyn's Facebook page here.
Marilyn tells us that Starbucks Coffee releases their Baphomet Yule Cups in time for Christmas.
Under the theme, I like my coffee black like my soul!
Shocked face emoji, which says it all, really.
Yeah, yeah.
And then she's taking photos, I'm assuming she took these photos herself, probably at the Starbucks flagship store on Pike and Pine in that area.
It's the red cup, you know that red cup we all hate?
No cross, not even a Christmas tree.
in there um it's a red cup but on this red cup is an illustration of some uh horrifying demonic monster with horns and a beard and a tongue and um the tongue is wrapping around the cup uh to to caress a crying child they're just not even trying to hide it anymore folks are they Out of control.
Out of control.
Like honestly, all I wanted was a snowflake.
I wanted a couple snowflakes on my cup, some silhouettes, some joy, maybe like a little snowball fight scene on the bottom.
And then they give me this.
This looks like pure unadulterated evil and it makes me nervous that I was right about coffee the whole time.
Maybe it is all just evil.
You know and it's like they do the red cup right and we we politely ask them we say hey excuse me Mr. Starbucks could you please maybe just put a little bit of snow on there maybe a sled maybe maybe a crisp anything to acknowledge the reason for the season you know and they're like oh yeah we gotcha demons demons on the cup devils
I don't remember that part of the story of the birth of Christ.
I don't remember when the demon showed up with gifts for Jesus.
That's because it's not in the story of Christ, Tony.
So, in an MDC exclusive, we are extremely excited and again, a little fearful.
To interview the artist behind this official Starbucks Demon Cup, Mike A. Tidwell from Hidden Hand Tattoo in Seattle.
Well, I guess I'll be polite and say thank you for joining us, Mike.
Thanks for having me.
Before I ask you to explain yourself, Mike, I want to impress upon the listener why this is such a big deal.
And I think Dennis says it perfectly here in the comments on this post.
Dennis says this is sick and disgusting.
People are going to a coffee place and actually are getting demons.
These cups and using these cups when they have to mark names and figure on them is drinking of them.
That's making a covenant with them.
Don't do it!
Don't drink their coffee!
And this is why, folks, it's so powerful when Trump voters go into Starbucks and they have them write Trump's name on the cup.
That's why that's real politics because this is a sort of magic they do when they write a name on a cup and then they speak it aloud.
They speak it into existence.
What really bothers me though is like, I go to my Starbucks, I order my grande white mocha, four pumps pumpkin spice, three pumps hazelnut, and a venti cup, extra whipped cream.
I say, hold the demons.
I say, please, no demons this time.
And you know what?
Sure enough, I'm worried that I'm going to get one of these clearly mass produced, they're clearly everywhere, demon cups.
Um, and that's, I, I, I don't know if I can take that risk.
I don't know.
It's tempting though, because I do love, I do love my, my drink.
Uh, yeah, folks.
I mean, it's, it would be a shame if that, uh, hack didn't work.
You know, we all know of the hack where you go into Starbucks and you say, right after you order your coffee, you say, Starbucks is not entitled to my mortal soul.
And then they can't steal your soul, but if they slip you one of these Baphomet cups, that cancels out what you did.
So you gotta look at the cup and make sure there's not a demon on the cup, and then you should be good.
Okay Mike, so you're a tattoo artist, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Evil profession.
Um, when, when did... Literally keeping people out of heaven.
You're like every, every job you take, you're, you're, you're banning someone from heaven.
Pretty much.
So nothing is shocking me here.
Okay.
Okay.
Is that why you like being a tattoo artist?
Because you know that any, every one of your customers will never see the kingdom of God?
Uh, yeah, you can say it's one of the reasons.
So yeah.
It was kind of nice I guess.
Kind of guaranteeing you can bump into them later, you know?
That's nice.
Yeah, well, I want to have a lot of friends in hell, so... That's right.
Exactly, yeah.
I gotta make sure they get on there with me, so... Yeah, well, while you're burning for eternity, at least there'll be cool stuff to look at, I guess.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Okay, so Mike, when did Starbucks first contact you about making this completely official demonic cup?
Oh, God.
Well, this is right off the cuff.
I thought you were going to ask me the real story behind it.
No, I'm just kidding.
Is this a Starbucks official cup, Mike?
No, no it is not.
Back in 2015, I went to work and it was during the Christmas season and I get to work and my customer called and had to cancel their appointment at the last minute.
So that Gave me four hours of free time.
So I get into the news to see what's going on.
And, um, I realized that a lot of religious people are already pissed off at Starbucks for making their cups just red and not putting snowflakes and Christmas trees and stuff like that on it.
So I grew up a horror movie fan.
I love, I have a dark sense of humor.
I love horror movies.
And I thought, well, what if Starbucks did design a Christmas cup, but Went after the darker side, rather than the cheery, fun stuff.
And they would naturally go with Krampus.
And I'm like, alright, you'd have to have Krampus, and you would have to have a crying kid, because otherwise it just looks like Satan, and that would be confusing.
So... You would think!
You would think you did cover a few bases!
Yeah, so once I got the idea in my head, I started laughing.
You know, I do that all the time, I have funny thoughts, I'll laugh out loud.
I'm like, alright, I gotta do this.
So, I walked over to Starbucks, got a cup, came back, And got to work on it.
And then I later on, it was the next day I posted it and just said, Mary Krampus.
I didn't say anything about it.
I didn't say I got, I went and got the cup and Starbucks offered that.
No, I just posted it.
My friends, all my friends saw it.
They were laughing.
They shared it, but it wasn't until a year later, 2016, that it got out to the public.
And I didn't, one of my friends wrote me, they emailed me and said, have you seen this?
And I think it was, it was a horror movie or a death metal site.
I think it was bloody disgusting, but don't quote me on that.
Uh, one of them put it out as a joke and they said, Hey, check out the new Starbucks cups.
And I guess everyone believed it.
And instead of checking it out themselves, they, just automatically flooded the internet with their opinions about Starbucks.
And I got off scot-free.
No one ever came to me about it.
And I'm just watching the shit show, enjoying it all.
It's hilarious.
Well, I mean, you could criticize people taking, you know, what they see as face value and not really thinking about it too hard.
But it just that to me sounds like a criticism of faith in general.
It sounds like you're criticizing people of faith who have a real strong ability to just believe whatever bullshit they see.
Well, I think there's a part, I mean, I don't know for sure, but it seems like there's people who want to believe that, so they have something to complain about.
Because the thing that got me about it, that I'm like, if I was in their shoes, And I saw that cup.
First thing I would say, there's no way Starbucks made this.
This is a joke, obviously.
But is it really that hard to find out if I wanted to know for sure?
I would just go down to my Starbucks and see if they give me one.
And if they don't, and I say, hey, where are those Krampus cups?
I want one.
They'll be like, what the hell are you talking about?
All right, cool.
It was a joke, obviously.
But they didn't do that.
And also, If Starbucks made that cup so pervasive, why is there only the one picture I took in existence?
Where are all the people holding this cup?
Everybody would be making posts, check out these cups, check them out.
Not one, the only photo is the one I sent out.
So you'd think right there would be a clue to people who could critically think.
And be like, oh, this is obviously a joke, but they didn't, and here we are.
Well, there's another photo of a different cup that somebody made a meme out of, probably around the same time, maybe a little later, that's more of a profile and less detailed.
Your cup, by the way, looks great.
I love the illustration.
Oh, thank you.
It's real tight.
It's wonderful.
This is more like a, it looks like a comic book panel of just a dark shadowy figure and it says Crampaccino under it.
I think I saw that one.
Yeah.
So people, people share that one as evidence that yours is real.
Like, oh look, there's a, there's another one that's totally different that also kind of looks like very stylized and, and like made by an artist, but totally different.
And that's somehow evidence that this is a real thing.
Yeah, and it's like when the obvious evidence is go to Starbucks and get one.
Where, you know, there should be hundreds of them at your local ones.
Well, okay, so I gotta cut you off right there, Mike, because, okay, Scott, in the comments, he's curious, he's asking, he says, what's the validity on this?
I need a link!
And then Marilyn replies to him, the original, the poster, the one who posted this, assuring us that this was Starbucks Coffee releasing their Baphomet Yule Cut.
Not even Krampus.
Doesn't even know what Krampus is when they see it.
Yeah.
Marilyn replies, study the comments.
Very enlightening.
Wow.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Check out what other people are saying about it.
Well, this is... Nothing either.
This could be just the tagline for Minion Death Cult.
Study the comments.
Yeah, study the comments.
Very, very enlightening.
Yeah.
It's like, no, avoid comments.
They're the worst.
That's not how you get your source.
That's how we do all of our research, Mike.
That's how we've come to all of our political opinions and it hasn't failed us yet.
Yeah, forget what scientists are saying.
What are other people saying?
What is, you know, what is the common Joe saying?
Well, for instance, sorry, go ahead, Tony.
No, clearly it's real because so many people are upset.
And like you said, if you know anything about Starbucks, First of all, the picture would have been a crudely done picture by some random person.
You would have seen, like, there are awful, like, nails in it or something.
And also, they just wouldn't, even if they were to do a cool, like, you know, modern tattoo holiday cup, it wouldn't be this cool.
It would be tacky.
There's no way they'd be able to pull it off.
Like, everything about this game is like, there's no way that Starbucks is actually involved with this.
It's just impossible.
Yeah, it's so macabre.
It's like there's no way they would do that.
And it's funny that people immediately thought they would rather think that Starbucks are satanic pedophiles or whatever.
Then believe that, oh, this is a joke.
You know, it's like, clearly a joke.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's that, uh, Michelle.
So you, you know, the, the origin of this is you were like a customer had canceled.
You were in between tattoo appointments and you were just upset because, because you couldn't like, Currently damn a person's soul by tattooing on it.
So you thought why not draw it on a cup and that way I can reach more people.
Everybody on the internet who sees this will go to hell.
Michelle says they just think the devil and death and hell and all that is just a joke.
Is that true?
Do you think the devil and death and hell are just a funny joke?
Uh, maybe in a way because it's people's imagination creating something just... I don't know.
I think people are fascinated.
Even people who claim that they're not horror fans really are because they want blood and gore and bloodshed.
It's like, you know what?
Maybe nothing happens when you die.
Maybe there's not a Satan.
Maybe there's nothing to be punted.
Maybe it's all good.
I don't know, but...
Yeah, to me, in a way, it's a joke.
I just have a hard time... I need more evidence if there's really a Satan.
To me... Me personally.
The devil, death, and hell, they're not a joke.
They're very cool.
I like them.
I think they're awesome.
It's a cool symbol.
I like them.
Yeah, I like... yeah.
See, that's what I was worried about.
You said that when you came up with the idea, I need you to be very honest here.
Did you let out a laugh?
You said you let out a laugh, or was it a cackle?
Because if it's a cackle, I'm far more concerned that this might be more dubious than even we thought.
It might have been a cackle.
I don't know if anyone heard it in the shop, but...
I immediately wanted to make this cup, I wanted to take it out of my head and make it a real thing, so I did.
Okay, a few more questions, Mike, before we let you off the hook here.
You know, you were saying, oh, well, I would just go into the store.
If I were one of these people, I would simply go into a Starbucks and ask.
And well, Terry here, T-E-R-R-I, Terry, says, I looked it up online, it is real.
Thought it might be Babylon Bee and a gag.
Nope.
Real.
And then somebody's like, it's not real though, Terry.
It's not.
And then Terry says, I looked it up because I thought it was a gag or an offsite was making them and calling it Starbucks, parentheses, illegally, by the way.
I don't know.
I'd watch yourself, Mike.
You might be in hot water here.
But then Terry goes on, keeps, keeps, continues here.
I found a Seattle Starbucks that had them, parentheses, this morning.
I will check again to be sure.
What is that?
What does that mean?
I found a Seattle Starbucks that did have them.
Parentheses this it was this morning though they might be sold out already.
I will check again to make you're going to walk back into the same Starbucks where you hallucinated a fake Krampus cup just to make sure they're still there.
I remembered that comment.
That was one I remembered any comment like that because my wife and I were talking about it and we pretty much it's like I think I narrowed it down to two different columns of people that believe that was, that are commenting that it's real.
There's obvious the trolls, like that clearly didn't happen.
It's like, you know, when you posted that, that you are a liar.
You did not go in there and see that.
You know that.
You're just trolling and throwing gas on the fire.
But then there are the other column of people that really do think it's real because they saw it on the internet and it must be real.
So, but I'm, after all of it, I'm just kind of, I'm surprised, one, that it took seven years to get back popular again.
This is more popular than it's ever been.
I mean, in 2016, when it came out, I got a few comments about it, but people let it go.
I think, okay, they finally realized it was a joke.
And then now it's blown up like it just came out and it's pissing everyone off.
And I'm really surprised that I did not get not a single Death threat or anything like that.
No one ever contacted me about it except the fact checkers.
Except the fact checkers?
Yeah, yeah.
Come on.
Yeah, I'm glad you didn't.
I'm glad it didn't come back to you.
I mean, maybe it will now, you know, but our listeners are pretty sensible.
I think they'll treat you with respect.
I'm kind of depressed it didn't.
I'd love to argue with people that just don't show up at my door at all and they just write me and go, you're going to hell.
I'd love to just comment back and You could end up on Fox News though, because we had a buddy of ours, an episode like three years ago, who wrote some tweet that was like, I would rather my daughter date a member of MS-13 than a Republican.
Like just as a joke and he got, like he got fucking death threats for like a year.
He wound up on Fox News.
Yeah.
So that was, that was one of the last interviews we did.
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing is like when it's all said and done, what did I do that was so wrong?
If you wanted to believe that cup is real, that's on you.
That's not on me.
If I want to draw whatever on my cup, I don't need anybody's permission, you know, to post it and all of that.
I can do that.
It's up to you if you believe that.
Well, even if it's not, oh, an official Starbucks or whatever, Marilyn, the comment, the original poster says the image is very real in the spiritual realm.
I was laughing at it.
Yeah, I was laughing at it.
I'm like, yeah, it's real because it exists.
I drew it, but not real coming from Starbucks as the source.
But it has real power, has real power.
And also, I think you were just channeling the demonic spirit of Starbucks.
Yeah, it's too bad we couldn't get Mary on here too and do, you know.
- I mean. - I'll talk to her because even though I could say, "Look lady, I'm the one that did this, this isn't," we'd still get to hear her and not admit she's wrong and just go, "Well, I'm still not going to Starbucks." It's like, "Well, that's fine.
That's between you and Starbucks.
It's not because of my cup, you know, so." - Well, you might be thinking, "Yeah, you have no affiliation with actual Starbucks, but when you made that cup, you made a contract with Starbucks in the spiritual realm." And you're not thinking about your impact on the spiritual realm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
I think this cup would actually...
Would do more good for Starbucks than bad because there is a huge overlap of like people who like horror and that stuff kind of is like part of their like identity and expression and people who collect like the Starbucks tumblers.
There's a huge crossover.
There's a huge crossover of those people.
There's a whole industry of like people who make custom Starbucks cups with those cricket machines.
Yeah.
There's like a whole like Etsy industry, like this would actually... I've had people want... Do well.
Yeah, I've had people that they want one and yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure.
A friend of mine bought the original cup, but they're like, yeah, they should make, yeah, they should make tumblers and all of that.
And I'm like, well, they could, but we couldn't put the Starbucks logo on it.
I'd have to make like a, a fake one or something, you know, so... Well, you can't, you just got to do it on Etsy.
You just can't put your actual name on it.
There's a huge, like bootleg Starbucks stuff is such a huge thing.
You can go find a Niner for Christmas Starbucks cup right now.
It has nothing to do with Disney or Starbucks.
Okay, I thought if I put Starbucks coffee on it, the lawyers would be all over me or whatever.
You'll get that cease and desist, so you just can't do two of the same.
You just do it up until the cease and desist, and then you're like, alright, I desist.
What you could do though, so what I found out while doing research for this segment, is that you know the mermaid, the Starbucks logo mermaid, her bottom half- It's a siren, it's a siren.
A siren is a type of mermaid, alright?
It's specifically a siren, okay.
I wasn't wrong, you were just more specific.
Their circle covers up the bottom half of the mermaid, like the bottom extremity of the mermaid, and that's by design, folks, because what it's doing is it's covering up the original logo where the siren has two tails that sort of split and curl up on either, on both sides of the siren.
And what I found out furthermore is that this is actually an inverted image of a goat's head devouring a woman.
Now, Starbucks, they're trying to play this game where they pretend like they're not evil and they hide these things even though the power behind them is still present.
I think what you could do, Mike, is you could just do it for real.
Have an actual goat's head eating a woman and invert that and that'll be your rip-off Starbucks logo that's more brave, more honest than what they're doing and still skirt the trademark law.
Yeah, Starbucks arrived.
Man, will you just please leave us alone?
Stop drawing on our cups.
I'm so sad about how fast I found that.
How fast I found images and the explanations of exactly that.
Yeah.
And they're like, they're getting mad.
They're like, but Starbucks was, you know what?
They might have flipped it, but they didn't even try to hide it.
There's now three stars in the cup.
Wow.
Illuminati, baby.
Wow.
And there's three stars in the form of a triangle.
And you know, and I know, I know you, I know you tattooists love, love Illuminati type imagery.
Come on.
Yeah.
Yeah, we do.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
How many nautical stars have you tattooed in your life?
Oh God, I stopped counting.
Back in the nineties, I did a lot of those.
I just paid the rent every month.
Those are Tasmanian devils.
I'm so glad I was like just young enough to not get a nautical star.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got, I got one on each hip bone today.
Oh, I have, I have swallows there.
We did so many of those.
We just kept a nautical star in the back next to the stencil machine.
Cause it's like, you're going to do one.
So here it is ready to go.
That's amazing.
See, just real quick for other people, other people who are worried, the trick to going to Starbucks and not Not becoming part of this demonic cabal that they clearly are, and you can still get your drink, is just don't tip them.
Because tipping is agreeing to the contract with Satan.
So once you tip them, that's what I do.
That's why I've been free of demons while still getting my grande white mocha, three pumps pumpkin spice, four pumps hazelnut, and a venti cup with extra whipped cream and toffee sprinkles.
I just don't tip them.
That's how you avoid it.
So just for a little safety warning out there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tony, for teaching the worst people in the world how to be even worse.
Yeah.
Always, however, always tip your tattoo artist.
Yes.
Thank you, Mike, for joining us.
Mike Tidwell of Hidden Hand Tattoo.
If you are in Seattle, why don't you visit the shop?
Throw them some business.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Yeah.
You want to plug your Instagram?
Oh, just Mike A. Tidwell.
Great.
Thanks again to Mike from Hidden Hand Tattoo in Seattle, and thank you to listener Vincente, a friend of Mike's who pointed us in the direction of this very fun story.
So, thank you, Vincente.
Christmas with the devil.
It's gotta be a hell of a party.
They got them down as low as it possible.
Before their evil started.
Okay, we have a very fun, very confusing, very silly also story for everybody today.
Uh, hey, it turns out there's another Cleveland.
Fake-ass Cleveland.
Hold the phone.
There's an old Cleveland.
It's in Britain.
It's the mother Cleveland, I suppose.
I don't know.
I hadn't heard of this.
It's news to me.
I don't like it.
I think that once we've established that one city rocks, the other one should go.
What if this one wraps, Tony?
I'm probably going to hate that wrap.
I have a feeling that the football team isn't the only Browns they're lacking in that area.
Well, isn't Grime, isn't that from Britain?
Aren't there some good Grime artists or any of them in Cleveland?
It's fine.
I'm sure there probably are, but there's no way that Grime rap is going to be as good as American rock and roll.
All right?
You heard me say it.
Okay.
All right.
Fair enough.
You know, just some of us are just born in the wrong generation, I suppose.
Turns out there is like a rap hall of fame in Cleveland, Britain.
Oh, if... Listen, if there were, I think Drew Carey would have told us by now.
He would have had to come clean.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, he would have kept that a secret.
Yeah, uh... Okay, so, let me just open up this story here.
One of my many windows.
Okay, this is a tweet from the other Cleveland police.
Look at this amazing and unique artwork of one of our red car response officers, parentheses, P.C.
Crutchley, by talented 14-year-old Ellie.
She created this after some positive local engagement work by our officers.
And it's two images Uh, one of which is a furry wolf cop next to another image of apparently the officer that inspired it.
Oh, we had an officer-inspired artwork here.
That's, that's a nice change of pace.
Yeah, I like to hear that instead.
You know, that's, that's way better.
Like, uh, it was like, it was red everywhere.
I want it to be because of, you know, paint.
Yeah, oh, that's how the liberal media chooses to frame this story.
Oh, it's an officer-involved artwork.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Looks like a massacre to me.
Looks like a real bloodbath.
I don't know how to describe furry art.
I'm fine with it.
It's definitely an illustration of what they're perceiving to be P.C.
Crutchley's fursona.
Can you give someone else... I mean, if they ask, you can... That's what I'm thinking.
If they ask for it, I think you can give somebody a fursona.
You can't do it without consent.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
Because, like, to be honest, I mean, this is a wolf.
This is a wolf version.
And I'm looking at P.C.
Crutchley, and I'm not... I'm not seeing wolf.
I mean, other type of maybe canine-ish type animals, perhaps, but I'm not seeing grey wolf.
I'm just not.
So a lot of things going on obviously the Cleveland police like posting this from a 14 year old artist named Ellie Question mark they put a little asterisk there because there's some stuff about this story that does not add up Highlighting this Was an organization called we are fair cop who is apparently a
A police the police organization but for transphobes.
Imagine if like watch the film the police or police the police or any or film cops like any of those orgs was just doing it to criticize police for being too hard on transphobes by looking at their tweets occasionally.
Oh okay, so for transphobes, that makes sense.
They verified so.
Someone's gotta do it, I guess is the argument, you know?
Okay, so that makes sense.
They verified so.
Because apparently- Someone's gotta do it, I guess is the argument, you know?
Yeah, who watches the transphobe watchers, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, We Are Fair Cop was apparently started by this woman who is pretty mad online.
Pretty crazy, to be honest.
Her name is Sarah Fillmore.
She's one of these British transphobes.
I don't even want to say TERFs because I don't know if they're actually radical feminists or not.
They're just like assholes who hate trans people.
They're straight up TERFs, yeah.
She was, what did, what was she doing?
She said, okay, here you go.
This is like what you get with, through Google.
Sarah Fillmore.
Sarah Fillmore is a family law barrister and co-founder of the campaign group, Fair Cop.
She is currently crowdfunding a legal challenge against the College of Policing after the police recorded her tweets, which included discussing the need to protect children from rape as quote, non-crime hate incidents.
So, I guess in Britain they have this program where there can be non-crime hate incidents where people are just being huge fucking assholes and the cops go and ask them questions.
Like, do you plan on hurting anybody?
Sort of question.
I assume.
Again, I don't really care that much about Britain.
I assume that's what it is because she wasn't charged with anything and she didn't even get a visit.
It was, she just, somebody tweeted out, Hey, there's now a record of you fucking harassing people and accusing trans people of wanting to rape children.
Uh...
And she was like, wait, is this true?
She contacted the police and they were like, yeah, we got a file on you.
You're nuts online.
You're crazy online.
This is like what we do to people.
We send wild shit to people regularly.
We had, we like, sorry, we don't, we, you know, you know, we don't do this just for fun, right?
It kind of takes a lot to trigger this.
And here you are with the whole file.
It's so funny when just like people who think they're above everybody have to once deal with the police.
Like, they get a sniff of what the police actually do, and they're like, what the fuck?
We need to start a non-profit organization immediately!
And we're gonna sue the police!
We're gonna sue all the police!
Yeah, but it's over them having recorded the shit you're saying in case you, like, finally snap one day.
There's documented evidence.
They're doing, like, the Wayback Machine.
Basically.
And again, I'm not for the surveillance state.
It's just like, this is what the police do, and you're getting the most minuscule dusting of treatment.
They didn't even brush up against you.
You wouldn't have even known they were doing anything.
Yeah, again, you had to go find out for yourself.
They were leaving you alone, but you had to go do what you do, and you found out, wait, you're aware of me, and you're not stoked?
Is that what I'm getting?
Is it you guys know I exist and you're like... You're like bothered by it?
And they're probably only bothered by it for their own accountability.
You know?
How many cops are aware of you, Tony?
Way too many.
I'll tell you about one of the last actions I went to.
It was nice and everything, but some of the people I was there with were... It kind of became like a meme.
There were a lot of people just yelling back and forth, like meme-ish type things.
That sucks.
One of the cops was like, wait dude, this is who you're here with now?
And I was like, man, fuck off.
Like, fuck all the way off.
He's like, you're with these folks now?
Like these, they don't seem very serious.
And I was like, I was like so mad.
I was so mad at that.
He got you.
Yeah, he got my ass.
He got my ass.
Cause it was like, it was like white ladies yelling at cops, you know, being like, you know, like it was, it was about, it was about abortion access.
And, um, it was white ladies yelling cops, like yelling, chanting, like, um, like, uh, no cis men on native land.
And I'm like, well, that's not helping this particular thing.
Wow, it's very nice of white women to do that on behalf of native peoples.
Yeah.
And from what I know, a lot of my native friends, they don't mind some cis men on the land.
Some of them like them even.
I in fact know some cis men who are native.
Yeah.
And so the whole thing was pretty cringe like that.
It was a good reason.
It was executed pretty cringely.
Well, whatever works.
If chanting, no cis men on native land gets your abortion rights back, then good.
Who am I to criticize?
And he literally said my name.
He was like, Boswell?
Is this who you're here with now?
And I was like, fuck, man.
But he was laughing at me.
I'm not mad.
I'm not mad.
I'm just disappointed.
Yeah, exactly.
It was pretty funny.
So another member of We Are Fair Cop is Graham Lyman.
That guy who was so mad at trans people that his own wife divorced him.
Yeah, I remember that guy.
He was so obsessed with other people's genitals that his own wife was like, alright, I'm clearly not doing it for you.
Yeah, I'm missing something here for you.
He's also part of this.
It's so funny, Fair Cop.
We are Fair Cop.
We're making sure the police are fair.
Imagine if the cops were fair, and that's what we're here for.
And what we mean by that is like, hey, if you're going to get mad at me for hate crimes, then you should get mad for the things I'm saying in my hate crime statements.
We are Fair Cop tweeted, the naivete No, they spelled it the American way with a Y. So I don't even think this is real.
Is this how you spell it?
Anyway, the nativity of the police is astounding.
And that's the most generous interpretation we can put in of the quote, 14 year old girl cough proposes, quote, furry domination with the police as a willing militia.
They quote tweeted an account that's at Trashy tech on Twitter.
And their bio kind of confirms what the police said that their name is Ellie and they're a 14 year old furry artist.
Cleveland police are my heroes.
Please shout out to them for spreading furry positivity.
And then they have another tweet that says thank you so much for sharing my artwork with the police department and the world to spread awareness that we the furries exist.
To the furry community, thank you for all your compliments.
We can do better in spreading the furry domination for our voices to be heard and praised.
Okay, so We're Fair Cops, they're on to something here.
They're right.
This is definitely a statement that they're going to use the police as a willing militia to carry out furry domination.
Yeah, that's what I got from this, furry domination.
Okay.
I kind of love this.
This is like the merging of the anti-semitic, globalist, Conspiracy theory with gender critical, which is what this community calls themselves.
They don't surprisingly call themselves transphobes or bigots.
They call themselves gender critical.
We're critical of gender.
We're very serious about this made up thing.
We're very fucking serious about this social construct.
You have to do our social construct of gender.
Alright, because that's how critical we are.
You know how, like, when you read the critics in the newspaper, like, the movie critics, or the, you have, like, when you watch old Mellon on YouTube and he tells you what an album is, you have to listen to whether that album's a light C or whatever.
Sorry, sorry Bucko.
Oh, your gender?
This person's gender?
I'm gonna give that a mid-D.
And you have to accept that as society.
I don't care if you like it.
You're going to listen to this album because Pitchfork gave it a 9 out of 10, okay?
Right.
I don't give a shit if it's not your genre.
It's a good album and you're going to enjoy it.
A 9 out of 10 on the gender critical scale is what?
Just a giant pulsating vagina spitting out babies.
The brain bug from Starship Troopers spitting out babies.
That's a strong 9 on the gender cop, gender critics scale.
Yeah, man, they they merged the two conspiracy theories that now police are going to be the jackbooted shock troops of the furry of the of the oncoming.
Hey, listen, when the furries come, they'll make no excuses for the pain, for the terror.
They'll make no excuses for the terror they cause you.
It's like scary now.
Now when I now when I'm, you know, asleep in my house and I hear I hear that pack of coyotes out here that's always out here every night, you know, and they're killing things and they're howling.
One night it might be a militia and a bunch of furries coming for me.
What if that's what it's gonna be?
Might be something to be really afraid of.
Are they trying to like...
Well, we'll get into what they're trying to do.
They said a lot of stuff.
It's pretty funny.
Um, I do, I mean, I don't know about this story.
The story is interesting because I'll just get this out of the way.
There it is.
Trashy tech on Instagram says that that's not their Twitter.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
It says, yeah, just heads up.
This is not me.
And they're an impersonator.
That's interesting.
But then also, if you go to Trashy Tech's actual Instagram page, that artwork is there on their Instagram page.
They're the ones who did this artwork on Instagram.
They say, after a few people asking for myself to post, YOLO.
It's pinned here.
Why would this make sense?
After a few people ask...
Okay so... This is after... yeah.
So they never posted this to Instagram.
This specific image.
Yeah.
So, so they, I guess they, they never posted this to Instagram until the story went viral.
They posted it themselves.
Okay.
So this is the caption.
After a few people asking for myself to post YOLO, here he is better quality than what I've been seeing going around.
Yeah.
So the shared image is less quality than this original.
Now, a few disclaimers for this piece.
This was a gift that my mom's friend asked for.
He wanted a wolf since I'm not too great at humans.
The walkie-talkie, the walkie-talkie is not an SS.
It is a highlight shine.
I didn't even know that symbol was a thing.
Uh, yeah, if you look at the walkie-talkie, there's two bolts on the screen of the walkie-talkie that I guess are supposed to be glare off the screen, but it just looks like SSS bolts.
So, uh, an honest mistake, probably, although Wolf of the SS, that's, you know, hmm.
No I think this is the first time I am like oh this is like this is like a 14 year old who really doesn't like know a lot of things and like this was not this was like a gift and it's like oh hey you know you're a good artist can you draw a picture of my friend and you know I'm not good at humans and he likes wolves so we went for a wolf like it all seems fairly innocent now.
But then she does hashtag or they do hashtag Cleveland Police hashtag furry community.
So they do know this cop.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think the cop is the mom's friend.
Mom's friend, yeah.
So then they are probably 14 years old.
Why not?
Okay, I'm just trying to confirm.
I'm just trying to get data here because in the tweets the gender cops are like being sarcastic about, yeah, 14 year old Ellie, sure.
They're probably implying that this was a A grown man who identified as a 14-year-old girl or something like that.
Exactly, yeah.
I think that's what they're implying.
I think so.
That makes more sense.
Or at least an adult who is acting like a 14-year-old girl just to draw pervert pictures of police.
Yeah.
This quote, 14-year-old girl, Koth, proposes furry domination.
So whoever did the Twitter bio is not Ellie.
Whoever did the Twitter bio is like trolling I guess or just I don't know being weird online and accidentally used the word domination it seems like and We Are Fair Cop took that very seriously.
That's great.
Okay, so then Cleveland police had to respond and said there is no hidden messaging or political statement being made in the art.
It is an innocent design created by a young girl.
Please can we ask that people respect the talent and consider the impact the negative comments may have on such a young person.
And it's like that's how...
That's what big of fucking assholes these gender cops are.
Like, they are harassing the actual police over a 14-year-old girl's artwork because they're so psycho and couldn't possibly believe there could be a 14-year-old girl anywhere.
Because their minds are so fucking poisoned by the shit they feed it.
I mean, this is like a tale as old as time of people giving these people a photo of, um...
Like Winona Ryder, you know, a less known, like an older photo of Winona Ryder and being like, quote, she's trying to pass herself off.
And they'll just be like, Oh no, you can tell because of, uh, the arm thickness, you can tell because of the arm thickness, this is, this person is clearly a male.
Um, but yeah, just doing it to like an anonymous 14 year old girl.
Now we'll say the Cleveland police, like they should have, If they got these files on these people, they should know that you can't just like randomly post a furry pic somewhere without something happening.
Like I'm not saying that they should expect what did happen, but they should have, they should have been like, yeah, this is going to bring out some interesting comments.
It's just sad that it went the direction it went.
I think they deleted the original tweet.
Cause I couldn't find it.
That's so sad.
Yeah.
Um, WeAreFairCop quote tweets, uh, there's no political statement being made in the art.
Please stop abusing this 14 year old girl.
Uh, WeAreFairCop says the police should exist to protect all people from crime.
They do not exist to promote niche sexual fetish or to help people who like to dress up as animals achieve quote domination.
So this is like tied in with the whole identifying as a cat at your school and suing the school unless they put a litter box in the bathroom for you or seeing the litter box like we all did, we all saw it.
Um, this is being tied up with that.
I didn't see it.
My friend who's a, my friend is a teacher.
Our friend is a teacher.
She saw it.
She's a teacher and she saw it at her school.
I didn't see it.
I mean, Oh, now suddenly the left doesn't want to believe teachers.
Hmm.
Interesting.
And I, for one, I believe teachers.
Um, So not really familiar with the furry community.
You know, I know I have furry friends and all that acquaintances online and stuff like that.
But you don't like identify as an animal, right?
Like that's it's just like a like a cosplay.
It's a cosplay situation.
I think it's I think there's there's degrees.
Sure there's degrees but like but like mostly I think it's like they're they're your online avatar I think or IRL if you if you if you're an arts and crafts type person.
Yeah, I mean either way you're definitely like, this picture is none of that.
This drawing is still just a drawing.
It's not like the cop commissioned the picture because he is a furry and that is his fursona.
I don't think that happened.
I think that might have happened.
I think if that happened he wouldn't have let this be posted.
I don't know, they're trying to do inclusive cops, dude.
That's what they're trying to do right now.
There's Seattle police cruisers with rainbows in the Seattle PD logo across the side of the Ford Explorer.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were like, yeah, furry, that's a band of the fucking rainbow.
I think that we do need to go ahead and, uh, and advocate that if you want to, you should be able to wear your fursuit as a cop, like on, on duty.
Absolutely.
I, you know, there is a weird like crossover because there's a lot of cop, there's a lot of cop furry imagery out there.
There's a lot of, um, there's a lot of blue light blue lives matter type, um, dogs and cop uniforms and wolves and cop uniforms imagery out there.
It's a, it's a big thing.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, I imagine Chase.
The dog had a massive impact on a generation of people wanting to become cops and dogs.
I've seen like cars.
I've seen like cars that are that way.
I've seen the Punisher skull with ears.
The Punisher skull with dog ears.
I will say, okay, one thing about... It's a common thing.
Identifying as an animal or whatever.
As far as I can tell, furries, if they identify, they identify as like some cool hybrid, some like anamorphs midpoint between human and the creature.
They're usually anthropomorphized.
It's usually, I'm not just drawing a dog.
I'm drawing a cool, like sexy human dog or whatever.
So it's not like you would need, you know, it's not like you need a litter box if you're a sexy cat, you know.
No, no, because you know that there's real dogs and cats who can use the toilet, so you would be the best version of a dog or cat, so why would you not just use the toilet?
We're probably like dancing across a minefield with this conversation.
This is coming from a place of total ignorance, FYI.
But I love it, man.
You're just like, you can't not be psycho online.
Like, you have to advertise your mission to everybody is about harassing a 14 year old girl off the internet.
That's what you guys are all about.
It's your favorite shit, yeah.
They continue to tweet, either the police quote, engage with and support every single subculture out there and thus have zero time to do their actual jobs or they stop this bizarre pandering to particular groups which is divisive and spreads distrust.
I mean among some people.
You know how many people you could have saved in the time it took you to post that post?
Disgusting.
The quote furry community claimed that this sexual element is small.
of famer fucking tweet holy shit we are fair cop just go look at them it's still up at we are fair cop the quote furry community claimed that the sexual element is small a google search for furry porn suggests otherwise well i love that like you You would never believe what pops up when you add the word porn to the word furry.
You would never believe.
Like, buddy.
Have fun.
Play a drink game with this one.
Go in through any word in front of the word porn.
Go for it.
See how that turns out.
Your favorite shit.
The thing that you think is the best thing in the world.
You know?
Look up Catholic priest porn.
You know?
Go ahead and see how that pops up.
Uh, my, my daughter was online the other day and some fucking grown man said, go read the dictionary to her.
He said, why don't you open a fucking dictionary to, to an underage girl?
Do you know what comes up when you type in dictionary and the word pornography?
Oh my God.
Yep.
It's fucked up.
It's fucked up.
You think that book's not about sex stuff?
It's got so much.
It's got everything.
It's got all the sex stuff in it.
Every imagine anything, any fucking sexual thing you can imagine is in that book.
Where do you think those words that I yell as I'm having sex come from?
Think about it.
And then they've included a screenshot of, watch the best free furry porn videos online.
So they actually did it.
To prove a point.
Searching furry porn to prove a point.
Yeah.
What is it?
What is it called?
What is it a category or what is it called when there's porn of anything?
Oh, that's like rule 47 or something.
Yeah, like, wait till they hear about that.
Wait till they hear about Rule 47.
Yeah.
They're gonna lose their, they're gonna be like, holy shit.
They're gonna, they're gonna explode.
They continue, they continue to tweet their way out of this, by writing, if this really is a 14 year old, and this really is how the poli- I love, you're like, so mad at a 14 year old girl, at a child, for drawing a cute drawing, that you're looking up furry porn on the internet, and associating it with her, and respo- but they're the, the other people, they're the freaks, not me who starts looking up porn when I hear about a 14 year old girl.
I'm the normal one.
Who are we to knock someone for ruining their search history for the sake of research, you know?
Yeah.
Oh, now what?
Now Twitter?
People at Twitter think it's funny to now insert ads for furry pornography and furry apps in my timeline.
Great joke, guys!
Look, here's a screen-recorded video of me tapping on the ad repeatedly to try and send them a nasty email.
You think it's bad now?
You won't believe what happens after you watch a full video.
Thank you, Elon, by the way, for bringing the advertisers back.
Yeah, we missed you.
If this really is a 14-year-old and this really is how the police came to be promoting her, then we have a serious safeguarding issue.
You guys are the perverts, not me.
The police should not be using their children to gain rainbow points.
And then, oh, listen, okay, here's the tweet.
Here's the embedded tweet from the fake Twitter of TrashyTac.
I know it sounds crazy, but all it takes is knowing the full story behind all this.
Before I created this account, Cleveland Police was deciding what my username would be on Twitter.
My father is a police officer, and it wouldn't have been possible to publish my art without my dad.
So this is like somebody doing, maybe doing a troll job on behalf of transphobes or furryphobes or maybe just somebody like wanting to have fun online and like say that, oh the cops actually... It might just be we are a fair cop.
Could be.
Yeah.
Could absolutely be.
That's only going to make sense here because yeah.
Yeah, I think we'll just say it's probably them.
It was his kid.
Them.
No, it's a...
Yeah.
The artist says it was her mom's friend.
Maybe they're both cops.
I don't know.
Very funny to do outreach using furry art.
There's a guy who does, or I don't know their gender I guess, there's a person who does receiving at one of the offices I deliver to and a couple times I've looked down and he's just, they're just designing furry models.
Did I talk about this on the show?
I know you told me before, you said they're good though.
They're drawn and just not paying attention.
They're just on it, right?
I mean, it's competent stuff.
It's not my style, but you're stealing time.
You're getting paid to do your art, and I appreciate that.
Yeah, I think that was the point.
I love that.
I love that.
I sometimes get paid to edit this show.
Sometimes.
I'm not going to say how.
I will never say how on a non-Patreon episode of this podcast.
So, UPS supervisors, bite the bullet.
Five bucks a month.
Okay.
I don't know.
I think that's the end of this story.
Just a pretty wild one.
I like that these people, I mean, it sucks because they do cause genuine harm and like distress to people, but it's also so nice how unhinged they are.
It really, it's really not a good look for your team.
So keep it up, I guess.
Yeah.
We do need to get to Trashy Tech, though, and let them know that, like, you know, cops are bad.
Stop drawing cops.
Yeah.
Keep drawing furries.
Stop drawing cops.
Yeah, I think they have a different relationship with cops in Britain.
At least, like, they don't have guns.
Even though this furry is holding a gun.
He's holding one.
Yeah, I love that.
Oh, man.
I love that it's holding the gun and that it's also got, like, transparent angel's wings.
Like, your days are numbered.
When I look at this, Officer Wolf, your days are numbered.
That's what I see.
I think that this is a pretty bad, like, stolen art.
I think that there was already a pre-existing American cop, furry, that they just turned into a Bobby.
What makes you say that?
Because of the gun?
I don't know.
This person is a competent artist and the whole outfit is like that of a British Bobby.
I've never seen a cop in America look anything like this.
I think they just want guns and they like cops so much they want to put a gun in that wolf cop's hands.
Surely that cop will shoot Graham Lyman one of these days.
Well, if the cop was a wolf, we could trust it with a gun.
Yeah, that's true.
Alright, that's the episode, folks.
Thanks so much for listening.
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Yeah!
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I got a couple stories about work that I'm about my supervisor trying to guilt me to coming in on Saturday, which he was not successful in doing that.
I got a chat.
I got a chat with everybody on Saturday.
Sorry, bro.
Hello.
Sorry.
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Hope to see everybody there, Saturday, 5pm Pacific Standard Time, patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult.
And we'll talk to you soon.
Peace.
Bye.
Bye.
And it done been a few to come along and test us.
All the envious, they love to stress us.
Even under pressure, bless us, it's just us.
Everybody wanted to be us when they see us.
We was the type to be all over each other whenever we lost.
