Ryan Long and Andrew Chapados critique viral media trends, from Luna’s $40B collapse—dismissed as a scam—to "woke" culture exploiting tragedies like school shootings or monkeypox narratives for engagement. They mock the WEF’s trust-motto, George Soros vs. Koch brothers tensions, and Love Island’s controversial casting, while dissecting magic’s lost mystique via Rob Testa’s hidden gadgets and stand-up’s shift toward business savvy over viral gimmicks. Long’s White Immigrant special and Ricky Gervais’ sharp misdirections prove comedy thrives on nuanced setups, not just shock value, as digital saturation erodes traditional barriers—whether in magic or politics. [Automatically generated summary]
Welcome back to another episode of Andrew Says, my guest, the always wonderful Ryan Long.
How are you, buddy?
Yeah, I just lost all my money on Luna.
What is that?
Really?
Okay, so Luna is this stock, or sorry, like a cryptocurrency scam.
It's a crypto scam that people lost all their money on and like over 10 people killed themselves.
Oh my God.
Yeah, that's the death that no one wants to talk about.
That's a dark, dark start to the episode.
How have you been?
So if you have any money left.
So to me, I think that all the people that committed suicide, it's sort of like a coward's way out because if you think about it, really, you could probably pawn your stuff, steal from your mom, and buy the dip.
I think that, you know, I think Luna is going straight up from here.
This is my mind.
This is Economics 101, I think, about crypto.
So that was a dip that was meant to be bought.
And I don't care where you have to get that money if you have to pawn your mom's jewelry to Harold the Jewelry Buyer.
Sorry.
Yeah, that's right.
That's a good, that's a good reference.
And he, I don't know, I'm bulldozing over you with my Toronto commentary.
That's fine.
Herald the jewelry buyer, as of today, is in court right now for he sells mortgages now, right?
And he essentially scammed this mentally challenged woman out of her house.
Why does that happen so much in Toronto?
Do you remember the old story of the woman who was panhandling and pretending she would have seizures and she'd go back to her penthouse?
Oh, yeah.
That was a classic.
Yo, that was like one of the best hustles ever, though.
That was other people that were, you know, homeless kind of look up to that.
That's their like Gary Vee.
Yeah.
Well, that's New York and New York homeless are, you know, they mean business, right?
They all have that like, you know, because you know how like Gary Vee, it's like every time you take a shit, like that's five minutes of productivity that you just flush down the drain, right?
Whereas the homeless people, when you see them taking shits on the street, that's because they just, you know what I mean?
They, they can't take the time off of panhandling.
So that's when you see that, you're like, oh, this, look at this guy.
He's, you know, he's giving up on life.
He's shitting on the streets.
But in reality, he's just not taking time off.
Well, whereas, you know, you plebeians, and that's how he gets ahead.
You know, that guy probably has five homeless guys working for him.
That's what people don't realize.
But in New York homeless, he goes back to his penthouse on top of the Empire State building.
That's real productivity there.
That's exactly what it is.
Yeah.
Y'all sleep and he's working.
I've always wanted to reconnect with, what's his name?
Cashman, Russell Oliver.
I want to bring him back into the limelight.
If you're talking about Toronto jewelry guys, he was the best of the jewelry guys.
I actually did a show back in the day called Crown the Town with Ryan Long where we interviewed all the jewelry buyer guys, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, Oliver was the coolest one, probably.
He was the biggest personality.
The other one, I mean, it's a scummy business, right?
So you have to, the whole business model is essentially, you know, bring in your family heirlooms and we'll give you 15 cents for them, right?
Like that's essentially what they do.
Why don't you make a music video with him?
That would be off the charts.
I could come back to Toronto.
Yeah, that could be my return.
Me and Oliver start a podcast together, essentially a hip-hop podcast.
I don't know if a podcast is the right way to go.
I don't know how much, how much, how much legs the Russell Oliver podcast will have.
You'll have to be carrying that, I think, unless he's just financially backing it.
You're thinking more of like a white boy rap thing where we rap really fast.
I'm thinking of just straight up make a new commercial for him that can also go on your page as an option.
So, there's definitely a lot of options.
And I'm that's the thing.
There's you can always be doing more.
You know what I mean?
Like every day you wake up and you go, you know what?
I think I did a lot today.
But did you start a rap career with Russell Oliver?
You did not.
So you didn't do everything, did you?
I guess you can't put off today or till tomorrow what could be done today.
How is New York treating you?
It's good.
But yes, I am going on tour.
Look, I have him there.
So I'm coming to Vancouver and Edmonton.
So, yeah, look at the fellas, fellas tour.
Well, those people.
Yeah, in Canada, I'm coming to Vancouver and Edmonton.
And I'm probably going to add more dates.
I'm probably going to do a Toronto and I'm probably going to do Montreal, Calgary.
Go ahead and add an Oshawa show to that one for me.
That's a little bit closer.
Oshawa Yukiok showed out.
Yeah, there's, but the thing is, Oshawa, I think that it's close enough to Toronto that I don't know if I'll do this is just for my convenience only.
Do you live in Oshawa right now?
No, I live close to it, though.
That's a different one.
I'm from Oshawa.
Whoa, bro.
My hometown.
Aren't you from Ajax?
Is this news to you?
Oshawa Show Outburst00:07:23
Is this like what?
People think Oshawa is a this is yeah, yeah, this is the first year hearing of this that Oshawa's a dump this is new to me.
I thought that when you go to the south end and see the dilapidated houses and the people you know doing various drugs that I won't name well my mom lived there for the last 10 years What's her exact intersection?
Well, she's sort of you know, she's uh just different street corners, right?
But I didn't mean different street corners and then hourly motels, essentially.
That sounds like the south end of Simcoe to me.
Yeah, it depends on you know what client she's working with and stuff like that.
Oh, Ajax, how we how we are enemies, I guess, mortal enemies.
Um, the other thing I wanted to ask you about regarding New York, though, is I know that you're most of your skits are done there.
The Tucker Carlson one, though, that you just dropped a couple days ago, it's almost like, do you ever say this is going to be almost too easy?
Do you have to parse through the material that you get to just take the 99% best of them?
Like, I feel like you went out there and just being like, this is going to be too easy.
Well, yeah.
So the video I did was I asked New Yorkers if they wanted to donate to it, Tucker Carlson.
And what was the documentary called you were telling them?
Oh, I just kept making up new ones.
Killery and the something.
I said, yeah, Killery and Liberal Lies.
And then I had told them, they said there's one called Teachers or Pedophiles.
And I said, we can just take your picture and we'll put it in the credits so everyone knows you're part of the project.
And everyone's like, no, I don't want to.
Well, I was doing a bunch of those.
I did one.
I did kind of the same thing before where I was promoting the disinformation governance board.
And I was like, and then I did one like promoting CNN Plus.
And then, yeah, so I was kind of doing a bunch of those where I was getting people to try to like sign up for something that they didn't want to.
You run into a naked guitar player, man, a couple times.
He's everywhere.
Yeah, yeah.
He's been 30 years.
Yeah.
So there's this guy that lives in New York and he's at Times Square.
And he, there's, so there's two regulars in Times Square.
Well, there's a few, but one of them is this.
There's this lady that basically just, she's naked and she plays guitar.
And then there's a guy that's naked and plays guitar, but the lady's like, you know, 60 years old and like big, saggy fucking dick.
And then the naked cowboy dude, every time you're filming a video, he always comes, he always gets involved, right?
So yeah, the naked cowboy guy's always there.
It's kind of Toronto has a few of those guys, right?
They have like the silver Elvises and stuff like that.
But yeah, Times Square has a few staples.
There's a Batman guy that I'm like friends with now.
I think, was he in a video?
I feel like I remember that.
I did a video.
Me and him were talking about which kind of titties he liked.
Yeah.
I love when the videos devolve into just like, I'm sure you went out there for a different purpose and it's just one guy just going who's willing to answer any question you throw at him for 25 minutes.
That's kind of essentially what happens.
Yeah.
There was a, there was a guy that I did.
So I did this video for CNN Plus and then they tried to kick me out of the market.
And then this guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this guy started yelling at everyone being like, you can't kick him out of the market.
And I was sort of like, yeah, this guy is my back.
Right.
And it ended up being a whole big thing.
And the video kind of went viral.
And then so people kept tagging me in this.
Everyone was telling me I need to get that guy on like the podcast and stuff like that, but I don't know what I don't know.
I didn't get his information or anything.
Right.
And I was kind of like, maybe I could track this guy down.
And then I found yesterday people were tagging me in this video where some other guy that filmed was filming him.
Yeah.
And then in the video, he was arguing with this other guy.
And then he goes, just so you know, I was on this comedian's page talking about free speech and it just did 400,000 views like just yesterday.
And he was like bragging about his like fame for my video.
So he's like feeling himself right now because he's like, because everyone loved him in the video.
All the comments were like, this guy's the man.
So he's kind of walking around telling other people, like, I don't know if you know this, but I'm like a viral star currently.
And he's bragging.
So I'm, I'm going to post that clip of him saying that and see if anyone could track him down.
I'm sure now he's just the free speech activist for whatever this, you know, farmer's market is.
Maybe he's hanging around there more.
Well, people liked him because he was kind of, he was this like super liberal guy or whatever, but like a liberal guy that's into free speech, kind of like the old school ones.
So that's why everyone liked him because they were like, yeah, this is a lot of people were like, yeah, this is how I see myself as like, you know, fairly liberal, but like, I don't think that has to include that I'm like trying to shut down speech or whatever.
Yeah.
Everybody sees themselves as a guy roaming the park defending free speech.
That's what everyone said.
They're like, yo, this guy's the man.
A lot of the comments, the gist of it was like, this is how it used to be.
Like, that's a, this guy was the good old days for them.
You know what I mean?
For sure.
Because that gets like a dying breed a little bit.
I mean, there's obviously some out there, but more than a little bit.
Yeah, that's like a dying breed, like the liberal who likes free speech, I think.
The lie.
I sort of say that they kick you out, sort of.
I think that if you're like, oh, if you like free speech, they're like, well, then you're the club.
The last time we spoke, we talked about how you were sort of felt that you were ahead of the curve on like not believing any of the politicians on either side.
Do you feel, I think it's been like six months or something since we last had you on.
Do you think that that has become more obvious to people now?
No, I don't think it's become more obvious to people.
But yeah, politicians are professional room readers, right?
So I don't think, you know, they basically are really good right now, especially as partisan things are right now.
Politicians are very good at, you know, feeling out the same way I might do that in like a comedy club.
They're really good at feeling out what they think their base wants to hear and then, you know, kind of regurgitating their own opinions back to them, right?
The popular opinions.
And that just gets worse and worse.
But no, I think that people are even more, it's almost like, I would say when the, like as far as like left and right stuff, to me, it was kind of like left were getting pretty, you know, wild in terms of like everyone's kicked out of their group.
Now I see that kind of happening again on the right or whatever.
And it's almost like, it's not like one got better.
I'd say that they're both bad, both more bad now.
Like, I would say the two least favorite people on Twitter are if you get like and the people that never get your jokes is if you get like quote tweeted by someone, their thing is like mega 421, mega patriot, let's go Brandon, mom, you know, God, that that woman, or like non-binary, she, her, you know, Ukraine.
If you see those two people tweeting, you can almost guarantee that's not going to be a fun person.
Well, I do this thing where I like to just bait those sort of people.
So when Elon Musk was taking over Twitter, I went ahead and said, if Elon Musk buys Twitter, then I'm moving to Canada, specifically Oshawa, Ontario.
And all the replies were from the accounts you described.
Gun Control Debates00:04:37
We don't want your kind in Canada.
We don't need any more left-wing wusses in Canada.
Too many woozers here already.
And it has, and I think you're right.
It's become even easier.
It's fired up.
Yeah.
And that's just like, you didn't do, you didn't even click on my profile.
Republicans are fired up right now.
They're sick of this shit.
Did you see what happened?
What Beto Rourke did in Texas?
I did, yeah.
Yeah, he just walks up.
Kick-flipped onto the stage with his slingshot.
We're laughing at it, but what he did was he walks into a room where the sheriff and the senator and the mayor of the town where the kids got killed are talking about what they want to do.
And there's parents on stage too.
And he's just like, you haven't done enough.
This is your fault.
And it's like, you talk about reading the room.
I'm not sure what he was reading there, though.
And he had all his cameras with him.
He's looking for a viral moment.
Yes, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
They're like, I don't know.
What's your opinion on because obviously Canada's so much different than America?
Like this stuff, like school shootings don't happen there.
What do you think?
I think that in most of these cases, it turns out that the kid has been spoken to about it before, is on some sort of brain-altering drug.
And usually they ignore, for lack of a better term, the red flags about this kid.
And I don't understand why they don't put, like, in for the last like 30 years, I feel like in like the hood, if you want to call it that, or like violent neighborhoods where gangs will actually come to school to act out gang killings, they've had metal detectors.
They've had clear backpacks.
They've had security detectors.
I had metal detectors in my school.
There you go.
So I don't understand.
And police.
We had police in my school.
I don't understand why there can't be like some people say like one entrance.
That's kind of a fire hazard in my opinion.
But why can't you just have secure?
They don't have to scan everybody that comes in because it doesn't.
I don't know.
They can't really skim off the Ukraine budget, though.
I've been hearing some people say stuff like that.
Like, why can't you just have security just at the entrances and exits?
Like, they don't.
I don't even think you need to go as far as metal detectors.
You can tell when somebody's trying to sneak a lot of guns in.
I think maybe I'm wrong.
But you wouldn't have to scan every person unless there's a, what's the word I'm looking for?
A pattern of people sneaking weapons into school.
Otherwise, in these last few situations, it's just been literally somebody walking up to the school with guns.
There's also a deterrent from, there's also like a deterrent element, just the idea that people know that there is security there.
But I think that that's like not going to be a popular.
I don't think that from partisan wise, that'll be popular because it sort of like concedes that people aren't going to get the gun control they want if they agree to that.
So I think that that's why that's going to be hard to actually pass.
Well, when we look at gun control, I think it comes like some of the most recent evidences of why it's not good to take everyone's guns away is like Australia, for example, to a lesser extent, Canada.
But in Australia, they decided to lock people up in camps for a while if they thought they were sick, Which resulted in some people trying to get smuggled out in trunks of cars and highway patrol catching them and everything.
So I think that there, and I think it was my friend Gary Sheffield who said this: that the reason why they wouldn't even try that in America is because people have guns.
I don't know if that's true.
I've heard that.
Yeah, I've heard that.
I mean, I've been thinking about that a lot over the last two days.
And I think that it's like a narrative people like to believe if you're into guns.
I mean, it's like, I think it's hard to parse out like a culture that's, you know, like freedoms kind of embedded in their thing and the guns.
So you can, there might be, you know, right now that may not be true, but that may be because of the fact that there is like a second amendment here.
So it might, it's hard to like remove those two things and look at them independently, even if it's not at the moment directly connected.
That's very possible.
It's possible if they, if there was like far stricter gun control, you know, red states in America would still have had the same reaction.
Like, obviously, that's a possibility.
So I don't know.
There's a, it is a, it is a tough one.
And it's like, one thing that I was kind of saying that I like, it's kind of interesting whenever you see people, whenever someone, right now, I've seen a lot of people kind of saying like, oh, this is crazy that people are using this for political purposes.
Monkeypox Origins Debate00:03:57
You know what I mean?
People will be like, oh, I can't believe that, you know, that's so wrong of you to use this shooting for, you know, to try to push your political ends.
And I'm just like, yeah, everyone does that.
I'm like, to me, it's like naive to even like to point that out.
You're like, every, yeah, you're, you go, are you, are you, are you blind?
Like, that's what everyone does always on both sides.
The same, you know, the same way that someone on the fucking left wing right now is like, oh, look at there's a, you know, this school shooting.
This is why we need more gun control.
Okay, imagine if there was like 15 trans kids that, you know, transitioned at 50, at 14 years old and they all died with the right not being like, this is why we need this to stop and politics.
Yeah.
Of course, obviously.
I don't even, it's like a truism that that's going to happen.
So I don't know.
It's like, it just seems crazy to me to kind of point out, be, oh, can you believe these guys?
And you're like, yeah, you also do that.
And so does everybody.
That's kind of the game.
Well, yeah, that's why it's surprising that Beto Rourke wasn't actually kick flipping a skateboard.
Zoom in on a picture of that guy and you'll see the sadness in his eyes is what I say.
This is a far stretch from what I texted you about.
You said monkeypox.
Two Canadians talking about guns.
We should.
Oh, that's fine.
I'm just saying I asked you what you want to talk about and you said monkeypox.
I was kind of kidding.
I'm not.
If you want to talk about monkeypox, Ryan Long, and this helps you sleep at night, I will be your therapist about monkeypox.
Well, apparently there's some debate, but a lot of people are sort of saying it came in from gay bathhouses.
So I don't know if you've gotten checked, but I mean, this is what I deserve.
I'm starting to learn now, Ryan, when we do our live streams during the day, we get like the super chats and stuff.
I'm starting to learn that the people that associate with me or watch me or whatever, they do just, they just give it to me, you know, and I think that's what I deserve.
I think the guys in the bathhouse were giving it to you.
I did read a BBC article that said it is.
Yeah, you did.
BBC Magazine.
This is all right.
I'm just going to let you go.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday that said, don't interrupt the comedian when he's free-flowing before.
I wasn't free flowing.
You're just like, you're like, I'm not gay.
I was just, these guys were giving it to me and BBCs.
You're going on and on about BBCs.
I didn't want to.
And I was listening to the village people recently as well.
And no, but the British Broadcasting Corporation article was talking about how it is something that's prevalent in the gay community and that it's one of these things that you can only get through the same way.
You can only get, but I think that was kind of where it started, allegedly.
But it is also some people don't even get symptoms if they've gotten it, which is interesting.
But Belgium has put in lockdowns already, which is an interesting reaction to that.
I don't know.
Right.
It was just making me laugh the idea that, you know, them kind of saying that, oh, everyone's getting monkeypox from the gay bathhouse.
And then some guy with monkeypox explaining to his wife, like, okay, I can explain.
And the idea that, like, because the who was like, you know, we need to do more research and stuff like that.
And that's like, they're sending, you know, Fauci out to the bathhouses in the field research.
He's coming back.
He's like, all right, so I don't have monkeypox.
And believe me, I tried.
I wouldn't be surprised if monkeys, Fauci's new wardrobe was a robe, like Hafnir style.
He should have just started pulling that out towards the end of the last bit, coming out with a pipe and a and a robe and just really not caring at all.
Yeah, just laying pipe with his robe on.
No, but yeah, so of course, you know, I'm sure that monkeypox is going to be like good for the let's, oh, we got another pandemic.
They're like probably revved up because people are kind of over COVID.
But I don't know.
That's what I was saying.
It's like, it just feels like naive to like think that everything isn't going to get used for some political purposes.
Claus Schwab Sex Symbol00:06:59
Like, I always think it's funny when the parents do it.
There's like, there was this, you know, there's a lot of articles like this, but there was a pretty famous one that like went pretty virals.
Like this mom that she's making her son wear a dress to school to kind of fight gender norms.
Right.
And then basically the son comes home and he's like, oh, I was getting bullied and all this stuff.
And her, she's like writing these articles being like, can you believe that these kids are bullying him?
And it's like, yeah, also you made your son wear a dress to school.
So yeah, probably you're like, you're the issue.
It's kind of, there's like a lot of things like that where I was kind of making fun of there's this show In the Dark.
It's about like a blind detective.
You know what I mean?
And there's like kind of a vibe of some of the press materials like, what?
Like, what's the problem?
Like a blind person can't be, you know what I mean, a detective.
Or Love Island kind of puts like, they'll every season, they'll put like a few, you know, like overweight people in it now, just the girls, right?
Like the guys are all still like chiseled, but the girls, they'll put a few like not hot girls in it.
And then they'll kind of get bullied on the internet of people being like, oh, these girls aren't hot.
And then the vibe is like, oh, look at all these bullies.
And it was like, yeah, but you put like a not hot person in a hot person show.
It's kind of like putting a, like, it's like putting like a 10-year-old in the NBA.
Like everyone bets on the everyone bets on like their team.
And then they replace the star center with like a 10-year-old who flubs and everyone loses their money.
And everyone's like, yo, screw this kid.
And they're like, can you believe these people yelling at a kid?
And you're like, no, you're the one who did this.
You have a hot people show.
And then some of the people on that show have like committed suicide.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, but it's like they're sort of put, you put them in this position.
It's like a show where the people, like, who's this helping on a show where the whole thing is the guys pick which one they think is the hottest?
And then they put a girl that's not hot in the show.
She doesn't get picked.
The internet bullies her.
And the show's attitude is like, can you believe these animals on the internet?
And it was like, you kind of put people in these positions to fail.
Well, it happens a lot with the woke stuff.
You look at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit thing.
And it's like, you are setting this person up to be bullied because you know that's what's going to happen.
And yeah, you're looking to get clicks.
Like, and by the way, that girl was not, you know, that, like, it's not like she was like morbid or whatever.
Like, she was fine.
Like, it's not like, if your friend was with that chick, you wouldn't be like, oh, you'd be like, all right, whatever.
It's just like a woman, you know what I mean?
But it is true.
It's on this thing.
They know they're like, hey, we'll put this, you know, woman that's, you know, overweight or whatever on the cover.
And then everyone will get mad about it.
But I guess that's the game for these people.
But obviously that's going to happen.
So everything, everyone does exactly what you think they would do.
And then they kind of, their business model is almost like sacrificing a person, but I guess she gets more famous or whatever, right?
Something that's going on right now, the World Economic Forum, I imagine you're knee-deep into this.
have to imagine um and now i don't know claus schwab he should be on the cover of playgirl i think That's a sex symbol.
Apparently, their motto is a lot of people.
That's where he started monkeypox, probably.
Their motto this year is to regain trust.
So I've been seeing some, there's, I don't know which country he's from, but there's some YouTuber who's like, come on down to the World Economic Forum.
Thousands of smart people come here every year to make the world a better place.
There's presidents, there's prime ministers, there's doctors, there's all these people who want to make life better for you.
Meanwhile, it's like, eat the bugs, don't own anything.
And it's like we've reached this level of dystopian world where we now have social media influencers who think it's cool.
Like, let's promote these billionaires and see how amazing they are.
But at the same time, I'm against the billionaires and I'm against the government.
And this apex or this nexus, maybe.
Yeah, they got people.
Yeah, they got those people wrapped up, right?
That is like one of the greatest sort of political or whatever cultural movements ever is sort of convincing, you know, activism to like support essentially like mainstream power or whatever.
It's pretty, it's almost like brilliant.
To me, the funny part about the World Economic Forum is whenever you see these clips where they're having these like panel discussions and they almost people will, the things that everyone will say was the conspiracy theories, they will kind of like openly be saying, you know what I mean?
And they're talking very, oh, yes.
And, you know, what there could be a future where everyone lives in a cage and we have their TV in the cage and it's actually pretty good.
And the person's like, no, what size would this cage be?
I'm like, eight by ten could be.
And everyone's like, wait, why are they saying this?
Like, shouldn't they be pretending, at least pretending that they don't think this?
It blows my mind the stuff that they say publicly.
And then, so some of this stuff people be like, oh, this conspiracy.
And you're like, well, they're kind of saying it for real.
Like, I don't know if it's a conspiracy when they're like saying it.
There was this one minister from India who was openly saying how he has known Klaus Schwab for so long.
And Klaus Schwab, who's the guy who tells all the capitalists of the worlds, of the world what to do.
And then our reporter's just like, wait, what did you say?
You said that he rules the capitalists of the world.
And he's like, yeah, but you know, I've known him for longer than anybody.
I've known him since before it was called the World Economic Forum.
So he's basically, his point was that he's known Klaus Schwab for so long, ruling the world, that it was before it was called the World Economic Forum.
And that's what he was bragging about.
Not the part where he says that he rules the capitalists of the world and tells them what to do.
This is how disconnected these people are.
He was into him before he was cool.
Exactly.
I mean, there's obviously the, you know, big money on kind of the resistance of that as well.
So there is kind of like a split.
You know, there's the George Soros of the world and then there's the Koch brothers of the world.
So there is big money kind of going in flowing in different directions.
Not, it's not like completely obvious that they're gonna get what they want.
But, like I have, I have.
Uh, i'm not necessarily a pessimist when it comes to the future.
Not necessarily no, I don't think so.
I mean well, I don't have, I don't have a crystal ball, i'm not Merlin, but I do think that uh, I do Merlin.
I've been talking a lot about that.
All people who watch like global tv in the early 2000s know I think Merlin's just like the standard name for any magician, the Merlin in the ball.
He's always holding a crystal ball and yeah yeah yeah no, i've been talking a lot about how girls just love whimsical stuff.
Merlin's Crystal Ball00:07:47
You know like girls are into witchcraft and all that stuff.
But the biggest difference is when you say like, if you think about any guy that went home with a girl, that this is how much little we care.
If we, any guy, was with a girl and she was like oh, i'm a witch, i'm into witchcraft, we'd all be like crazy, we can still have sex.
You know what I mean.
But if any girl went home with a guy and he was like listen, i'm a warlock, she would have, okay, i'm really into the Knights Of The Round Table and Chris Angel and you're, you're out of there, right?
I think you as a crit, just a redo of Chris Angels.
You wouldn't have to change anything if you just do every stunt that Chris Angel did in the exact same way, it would be hilarious.
I mean, in his show you can do his stunts, because they're all camera tricks, exactly.
His show was just absolutely insane.
Like, obviously there's, you know, a lot of magicians and there is a like a super high level talent component to it, you know, especially with the hand movements and card tricks and a lot.
But Chris Angel's tricks on his show were just like okay, i'm here and it's like now look, i'm on the roof.
You just literally using just wires.
The one where he levitates is just literally him pushing himself up on see through, like stands that he's standing on and right transparent, so he just stays.
He just pushes himself up on them and they're like, oh my god, he's floating.
Yeah yeah, some of the the tricks are insane.
There was one where it's, uh yeah, he walks across water and then it's like yeah, there was glass in the water.
It's literally just like let's make a show that's supposed to be magic and it's just special effects and we just won't overtly say what it's supposed to be.
And then people, street magic was better.
Yeah, I actually did.
I directed there's this magician, Rob Testa, and he got some money to you know do some videos and stuff like that.
Back when I was in Canada and I directed his uh, magic specials right, it's kind of like a mini series right um, and so I I kind of was in the you know that world, kind of like submersed in that world for a couple weeks and I kind of found out how all the tricks worked and there was a lot of, a lot of gadgets right, there's a lot of like you know, string you can't see and this and that right.
But um, the funny part was filming that show, the like stereotype that um, like black people are, they laugh more, and stuff like that.
It really was legitimately an issue.
We were filming it on the on the Danforth beaches right, And so you would go and you would get like 10 good reactions from black people and you'd literally have to be like, all right, well, we need, you'd have to try to get because you don't just want to just, you just want, you don't want to just, just have like one type of person that is that you're doing the tricks to, right?
And it really was hard to get like white people to get a good reaction because they're all just like, nah, whereas black people are enjoying themselves.
They're like, yo.
So that's like a trope that actually, you know, I was witnessing in real time where we're like, all right, well, we got 10 great reactions, but it's like, it's all from like a black dude.
Okay.
Now we need to find like an Asian dude or, you know, some girls, whatever, right?
We can't just have the same thing on.
But I don't know.
That always makes me laugh.
It's like so true.
That stereotype is.
Family guy, family guy clip.
But it was, I watched it in real time.
Yeah, it's better.
Over and over again.
Yeah, that's better to be able to be excited about things than to, you know what I mean, be like, I feel like magic has suffered due to like everything.
The internet just gives you so much more knowledge to be able to do it.
I remember when Penn and Teller first came out with their show, Fool Us, there was, it was like a huge deal that somebody could fool them.
And now the last time I checked it out a couple months ago, it's like three people per episode can fool them because people have just been doing it their whole lives.
And it's no longer a kid goes into magic shop in like 1970s Brooklyn and gets intrigued.
It's kid studies magic day in and day out for 30 years and gets insanely good at it and is better than the people who are famous for it.
That's everything right now.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's, you know, doing those hand movements over and over and over and over again.
But I mean, the same way that, you know, if someone from the NBA right now played, you know, 20 years ago, they would just like demo to like a level that's unfathomable.
Right.
And that's comedy and that's everything.
You know, the level of work that, you know, people are putting into their, you know, YouTube and podcast businesses is just so much higher.
So I always kind of talk about how it's a really bad era for like the tortured artist.
The, you know, I'm depressed, tortured artist.
Like, I don't know if I could work today.
I'm kind of just getting drunk.
And it was like, all right, just, you know, like, you'll just disappear and no one will ever hear from you again.
Cause it's like, you know, the same way that in professional sports, the, the, the, you know, the guy that smokes isn't very, you don't see that guy too often, right?
The, the, the kind of, you know, person who's running like a, you know, internet business that's like a mess and they're all over the place and, you know, depressed.
And it's like, yeah, at this level that people are operating right now, it's like you're just going to get murked.
I don't, is that just as true in comedy, though?
Cause I don't see too many, like 20, like, doesn't it still take at least like six or seven years before you're, you have like 20 minutes or something, let's say, and people are going to pay to come see you?
Or are there people coming up now that are like 22 that are just really good?
I'm, uh, I didn't say that they're really good when they're three years in, but the level that people are working is a lot.
Yeah.
So you will see, I mean, there's good parts and bad parts because you do see a lot of comics right now.
It's all about, you know, putting TikTok clips up and stuff like that.
And kind of what you said, that they're not good enough yet, right?
So it's like, they're just putting garbage up.
And there's lots of people that are focusing on putting TikTok clips up and, you know, their social media presence when really you're like, you, it's the equivalent of having like a really great storefront and, you know, a great POS system and a great, you know, employee base, but your product's terrible, right?
So, there is that, but there is also, you know, people that are building their social media base.
Then, by the time they get good at stand-up, they have a fan base to go do it to.
How is your podcast doing the boys' cast?
I looked at the numbers recently, it's doing really well.
I think is it something that you're just doing maybe like a hundred thousand an episode right now?
Yeah, or is it something you're just doing when you have time?
Do you want this to be the like?
Are you just gonna go back and like you because now you're running three things?
You're running stand-up, your videos, and your podcast.
Are we gonna go full board with all three of them?
Is that something you would recommend people do when they're when they're in like this sort of entertainment space?
I mean, yeah, I that's like advice that's four years too late almost.
If you're like, hey, maybe I should start a podcast.
I mean, it's like, I mean, yeah, if you're a comedian, the like kind of base level is you know, putting stand-up clips up and having a podcast, right?
That's kind of the that's like the standard model right now.
It's like as soon as you, oh, I would like that comedian.
What's his podcast?
That's kind of where people go to watch you, you know, for an hour and a half every week if they like you, right?
Um, so it's kind of like your business card in some sense, the same way that your stand-up is.
But I think that uh, yeah, I have those things, and then there's the business elements that, you know, I have my like merch company that I'm wearing right now, so I'm sort of an apparel designer as well.
Podcast Business Card00:02:57
So, that's another thing that I have.
And I have a few other ideas and touring.
So, it's I consider writing stand-up in the city one thing, and then you know, touring another thing.
So, yeah, there's kind of like five or six components of like what I'm doing that I'm trying to always make them work to some degree in harmony.
But the podcast does, I do put a lot of time into the podcast, so I would say that it probably occupies 10 to 12 hours a week.
All right, let's move behind the paywall for the subscribers, give them some bonus content.
You can go to rebelnewsplus.com.
Speaking of podcasts, $8 a month or $80 for the whole year, you'll get the extra segments with Ryan long.
Okay, one last quality before we go to the paywall.
Yes, okay.
Um, okay, so do you know how, um, like, uh, if you're like have monkeypox, you have like an accent, you know, there's like the gay accent, yes, Ryan.
I do, right?
You know what I'm talking about, right?
Okay, people have an accent.
What is this news to you?
What is this news to you that gay guys start to talk a certain way?
Oh, no, okay.
Well, how is that related to monkeypox?
Okay, well, just because, okay, so do you think that gay people that speak different languages, like for example, Chinese, have a gay accent?
Like, or is that just an English thing?
I would say it's just an English thing.
And if we look at something specifically like Chinese, there's too much honor and integrity to denigrate your pronunciation of things or to change them whatsoever for anybody of any sexuality.
You want to be even if so, you can't tell the difference.
So, you think in those countries, like if you see a Chinese guy, you can't like with when you see a gay guy here, you can kind of tell, right?
Like, you can't tell.
I like how you make sure this is before the paywall.
Is this revenge for the technical difficulties?
Well, you can't tell if a guy okay, you can't tell by a guy's accent if he likes big boobs or small boobs, right?
But you can tell if he likes boobs at all.
That's like a fact.
You can generally tell, not always, but if someone has that accent, it's pretty good high percentage that they're gay.
So, in China or other countries where they don't speak English, can you not tell where you go, hey, this guy speaks?
And because I don't know, that's a good, it's a good question, right?
It's a great question.
Is there something?
Is there like a pie chart where this is okay?
Well, anyways, that's a question.
Comment below, I think, Ryan.
Apart from gay accents and the World Economic Forum and your advice for comedians, I'm going to have to ask you then.
If this is stale, this advice, what's the new thing that we should be striving towards?
What should I be doing now to stay ahead of the curve?
In stand-up comedy?
In entertainment?
I mean, sure, in stand-up comedy, but I'm not one of these people who thinks that I can just become a comedian.
Cameos and Quick Jokes00:15:21
Well, I mean, yeah, you guys got a good business.
It's working really well.
But I think that the main thing is just treating it like a business.
Like at the end of the day, like I said, it's very difficult to be like, oh, you know, I'll kind of just half-ass do this.
When creativity hits, it hits.
It's like those errors.
To me, that era is like silly.
It's like all of the people that are, you know, rising the fastest and growing followings and making the biggest dents in culture and, you know, developing a fan base that likes, you know, what they do are all working really hard and operating, you know, this like it's a business.
And then, so then you need to find time to be able to balance those two things where you're like, how do I separate when I'm actually trying to be creative and trying to make good things and when I'm trying to, you know, run a business.
And I think that's like the hardest part, but it's also the people who don't do that fall behind.
I think when I hear you talk about the person who can't half-ass it, it makes me think the equivalent in this is there's all these movies out there where it'll be a young girl who works for like an online magazine and she gets put on assignment and she's got three weeks to cover this assignment and they fly her out to write one story.
This job does not exist.
There's nowhere in the country where you get to write one story every three weeks for like $50,000 a year with all expenses paid.
There was this catfishing movie that's about that.
I won't say the comedian's name.
I just didn't think it was that great of a movie based on that concept where this girl flies across the country to cover a story about catfishing and her editor in this giant building is just like, all right, but if you don't do this story in the next three weeks, you're fired, young lady.
Like this is all.
The Anna Delvey Netflix movie was about that as well.
It was the Christmas movie with What's Her Face from Canada.
And I don't want to say the comedian's name.
I know that's bad when we say comedians' names and say that I don't like it.
So I won't.
But I just think that's probably the equivalent of the journalism world where it's like, just you can do whatever you want and you'll just be the successful writer for teenbeat.net or something like that.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I know.
So it is, it's like on some ways unfortunate.
But yeah, you need to figure out a way that you're like, how do I make things that I think are good, but also have a model that's sustainable?
Like you can't just be, you know, making, so what?
Even if you're like, oh, let me work.
Like right now, sometimes I'm just like, you know, it'd be cool to put tons of time into making these kind of cool short films, but it's like, why?
Like, why would I do that?
It just doesn't make any sense.
So I think that, but then sometimes you got to do those things just to sort of flex and just, you know, remind yourself like what you're doing.
You know, there's a lot of people that started making comedy and now they're, you know, they spend all their time dancing on TikTok to try to get an audience.
And it's like, yeah, you got to find the balance with everything, right?
Yeah, it's used to say one for them, one for me.
I think.
Yeah, the movie industry.
Yeah, and I think there's a version of that and everything.
For sure.
And I'm thinking that you're the first choice for the Bam Margera biopic.
Oh man, I hope so.
That would be amazing.
You're right.
I've never even thought of that.
If they make a biopic, maybe I could beat him.
Yeah, everyone always says that to me.
Yeah.
I get it so much.
And it's like, I don't know if I, because it's like face structure and stuff's not that much.
And he's like a bit a lot bigger than me in a lot of ways.
And I'm kind of like taller and skinnier, but I think maybe our vibe is the same or something.
Maybe that's what people think.
No, I think it's the facial, like the core of your face.
If you were to grab a skateboard and there was no context for how tall you are, and it was Bam Marjer when he was 24, you could just like pass off as him if we were just taking a photo in his clothes.
Right.
Yeah, sometimes I see it.
I just do that for him, please.
Yeah, he just got so fat that maybe people forget.
Pambrills, though.
Yeah.
I refuse to watch Jackass in the theaters because they wouldn't let him be in it.
It's like they won't let him be in it because he's drinking too much.
But what was the first 20 years of Jackass?
What was 15?
I guess we're too old for that now.
Yeah, there is something.
It's almost like it is funny, though, like, hey, the you got to be, hey, come on, you got to be sober if you're going to, you know, be punching us in the face and stuff like that, right?
But I mean, I do get it because they, you know, there's more to it.
They have all these like relationships, and it's not just that.
It's like they feel like he's, you know, not respecting them probably in some ways.
And they have these tumultuous, you know, it's the brother that, you know, kind of gets drunk and steals from your mom.
It's like, how many times do you let that happen?
I think that they probably see it to some degree like that, as opposed to like, oh, it's not going to be good if he's drinking.
Or maybe back on cameo, though.
Are you on cameo?
No.
They message me once a month, though.
Do they?
That's good.
Oh, yeah.
You should do it.
You should spend your time at midnight and beyond just responding to random strangers.
Yeah, that's why I don't do it.
I just, I don't want that in my schedule.
I don't want, no, I really, I don't like you know, you have to kind of guard your time a little bit, right?
And I, I don't want to, I know that I, it would bother me to, even if it was every week, you know, and I think you're supposed to do them when they come in, at least within 24 hours or 48 hours.
I just think it would bother me to wake up and have not like not be able to plan tomorrow.
And I know that you can be like, oh, it's just four minutes, but it's like, it's not just, nothing's just four minutes.
It's brain space.
And if you're somewhere where you can't do it, you got to go.
You know, I had a, it's got Alex Stein in the podcast.
You know, he is.
Yeah, the guy who's going to city halls and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
He's doing these wild videos.
He goes to city halls.
And which is like a genre now of people.
Yeah.
The people are just going to all these city halls and like messing with them.
It's like, there's going to be a point, and I think they've had where it's like two of them.
There's, it's getting to the point where it's like these city halls have like eight people and like five of them are messing with them for like YouTube videos, right?
But he, he's, he does cameos and he was like at our podcast.
He's like, oh, I got to go in the hallway and do a cameo.
And he's like, after we finished, he like went to the bathroom and did these cameos.
And it's like, I just don't want to be doing that.
It's just not going to be part of my business model.
Unless I think that unless I was going to like, if I was going to do it, I would like really go hard and be like, hey, this is a four hours once a week.
And I'm taking it seriously and blah, blah, blah.
But just to sort of like passively do it, I think would bother me.
You're really going to turn into a real Billy Baldwin that way, I think.
Maybe one Gilbert Godfrey apparently was making like millions a year.
He did one for somebody at our company for somebody's birthday and it was amazing.
It was truly spectacular.
Right.
So that's an example of someone that I'm like, I get what he's doing.
Andy Dick had one that was good too that we saw recently.
Yeah, some people are making.
I actually used cameo.
I hired people to do cameos to promote my stand-up special.
I got Rachel Dolezal and the Tinder Swindler.
Who's the Tinder swindler?
He's this guy.
There's this dude that it's a big Netflix series, but he was like swindling girls out of money that he met on Tindler.
Gilbert Godfrey, I saw recently before he died, I was doing this festival skank fest.
Yeah, we talked about that the last time.
Yeah, in Houston.
Yeah.
We talked about Gilbert Godfrey on the phone.
We did.
Oh, okay, cool.
But yeah, before he died.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he was, it was funny that he was very, you know, kind of like old and frail.
And then the minute he got on stage, he killed, which was very cool.
It's a very Aussie Osborne, I imagine.
It was very, it was very like that.
Yeah.
But there is, yeah, there's a lot of those kind of people that are definitely making a career off cameo.
But my special is called White Immigrant.
So Rachel Dolezal was the white woman that said she's black.
And I got her to do a special like, hey, you know, congrats on being an immigrant on your special day for immigrating and like all this sort of stuff and getting your green card.
And it's so funny getting the, the, for my special white immigrant, getting the like white woman who says she's black, the trans, the like famous transracial woman.
What I liked about that special is how quickly it seemed like you were like mid material, you know, if that makes sense.
I'm sure I don't know all the, I don't know all the terms yet, but right off the bat, it goes right into everything I felt like, and I really like that about it.
It started very quick.
I think my style is very, kind of think of my style a little bit like kind of upbeat punk music, in that it's yeah, it's, it's like quick right, like i'm I try to.
I think I do utilize almost like those old principles of like a joke every seven seconds and it's I kind of ever.
Everything is very like, if you actually like parse it out, every joke I do is kind of under 45 seconds and sometimes you know you put them together but they are all all.
All of my jokes are kind of like stories, little stories that take under a minute to tell.
See, we're learning.
I should be taking notes for when I inevitably never do stand-up.
I used to live across the street from that OSHA YUCK Yucks and i've told myself for a year i'd go in on open mic night and never did.
And now here I am, yeah I, I never did that one.
Oh actually maybe actually, maybe I did, but it's fairly.
I used to do YUCK Yucks um, i'm sure that now if I wanted to play them I could, but they're uh their, their business model isn't really to bring in like American headliners, it's kind of like, you know, they just their idea.
I mean, Mark Breslin once said that he was like, you know, I could put a dead guy's name on the sign and it it doesn't make a difference.
So you know, Canadian clubs are way more based on like American clubs.
The business model is like hey, we're gonna bring a comedian in, he's gonna bring his fans to fill up our restaurant twice a night right, and he'll take a big percentage of the door where their model is like, you're gonna come to see a comedian and it doesn't really matter who right, but the yuck yucks i've always there.
It's like it's very cool what he's done, but he also one of the.
They had uh, essentially this thing where if you played yuck yucks, you're not allowed to play the other clubs, and me and my friends all were like the problem is if you do yuck yucks in other spots, you couldn't get in there enough spots, whereas we were doing.
I think a lot of people got a Got a lot worse because they were, you know, doing comedy three, four or five nights a week.
Whereas me and my friends were doing the Corner Comedy Club like two to five spots a night, right?
So I was, you know, especially with other places, I was doing 15, 20 a night when a lot of comedians were doing, you know, three to eight or whatever, especially a lot of the Yuckie X comics.
So I think there's a reason why three or four of the people, I would say, if I look at who's doing the best, you know, there's this guy, Che Dorena, who's doing really well, Neiman Nazira.
Like some of my friends, they were all in this little pocket of comedians that did the Corner Comedy Club all night.
I think a lot of them are doing really well because it was a good place to grow as a comedian.
Yeah, I'm doing something.
I don't want to give it away soon where I'm going to be doing one of these shows in a comedy club.
Hopefully it becomes something else.
But maybe when you're back, I'll try to do something like that with you.
Last thing before you go, have you seen the new The Kids in the Hall reboot?
No, I haven't seen it.
I'll tell you.
It's not good.
No, it's better than I thought it was going to be.
Oh, it's okay.
Yeah, they went immediately into naked, full frontal nudity of a 60 of them.
And I was like, they knew that they had to hook people in somehow.
And episode one, I think the very first skit is them full penis out.
So it's good.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I'm happily surprised and happy to report.
I always thought Scott Thompson was kind of around, then he would do shows like kind of our shows, like sometimes.
And I always thought he was like a nice guy and super funny.
So that's cool.
That's a good show.
I just watched Ricky Gervais' special too.
I know that, you know, he talked about the trans stuff.
So people are getting mad or whatever.
But I thought, I think he's, I think he's, I know that he's obviously like one of the most famous people in the world, but some people will be like, oh, yeah, but he's, you know, he's okay at comedy because he started comedy at like 50 or 45 or whatever it is.
But I think he's funnier than anyone.
I think his special is really good.
I think at this point, if the there's a Twitter moment saying people are mad at the person's trans jokes, and it's probably a good special at this point.
I said that in my special.
I said that you have to do trans jokes.
It's the only way to get pressed now.
I said that.
But I think that Ricky Gervais, what I was thinking about when I was watching it a couple of nights ago, is that he's the best in the world.
I think he's one of the best in the world at doing misdirections where he when you're listening to it, you do believe his premise.
So he always actually does fish you in in the sense that there's a lot of comics.
They start saying something and I'm like, oh, I know you're just going to flip this.
Like, you know what I mean?
But then he never, he never goes too far the other way where you disagree with his point.
Like a lot of people would do a misdirection where they might be like, you know, I think girls are stronger than men.
And then, but actually, then they sort of flip it.
And obviously, but they, during that moment where you said, I think girls are stronger than men, you're kind of like, what?
And then you start thinking and it's like, you think that?
And then they're like, oh, I was just kidding.
And you're like, I think the reason what makes his good is his first part is plausible.
So it doesn't, it doesn't make you think something weird.
Like, why?
Why is he saying that?
Like, it's smooth.
His original premise is something that he's going to flip, but it also is the perfect amount that you didn't start, your mind didn't start to wander.
And I think he's better than that when anyone else.
I mean, even just like on one little joke that it was like just a nothing joke, but he said, you know, I get it for gay people and minorities, you're, you know, 5% of the population or 5%, you know, 10% of the population.
So sometimes it feels like you're this small group that's going against way bigger groups.
And, you know, for me, I'm a straight white, you know, multi-millionaire.
And there's only 1% of us.
So, you know, you don't hear me complaining.
And it's like, yeah, that's a good example of that.
Yeah, because when he said, because he says the first part, and then he goes, and I'm a straight white multi-millionaire.
Like that in itself was like a sentence that didn't need, like, you're not like, they didn't need to be misdirected.
So he actually tells you something that was like a through line that doesn't leave people wandering.
And then he flips you.
Whereas most people say something that I'm, I generally am like, oh, he's going to flip this.
Like, I generally can see that.
So I think that's what I took away from that special a little bit.
It was like, man, he's good at that.
Ryan Long Comedy Insights00:01:04
All right.
Comedy lessons from Ryan Long.
Ryan Long Comedy.
I think.
Fuzzy lessons.
For me.
That was just what I liked.
That's what I brought.
Fun comedians and talk show hosts on news channels.
It's life lessons.
I think it says June 12th up there for Vancouver, BC, Ryan Long Comedy on YouTube.
Go to his website.
Vancouver and Edmonton.
Vancouver and Edmonton for Canadian.
I have a new hour.
It's going to be cool.
It will be cool.
It better be cool.
Yeah, I've been touring it around and I feel like really good about it already.
I've done four weekends with this new hour and it's honestly pretty tight right now.
No attempts at being stabbed, no tacklings, no slaps.
Not unfortunately.
I know that that's a hot thing for people to do right now.
It's a go-to thing.
All right, Ryan Long, great to talk to you as always.