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Dec. 11, 2017 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
58:58
20171211_Mon_7qfyxGDhegY
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annand bunty king virk
40:32
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dave rubin
16:43
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Speaker Time Text
dave rubin
All right, people, we're live on the YouTube, and we are officially kicking off Reuben Report
YouTube Week in partnership with Library Today.
Joining me today is a satirist, a guy who was booted off the Twitter, and a guy just trying to make people sane again.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, totally.
I'm just trying to make people happy again.
dave rubin
Bunty King!
annand bunty king virk
Nice to meet you, David.
dave rubin
Good to meet you, brother.
annand bunty king virk
It's really nice to meet you.
dave rubin
We just met in the last, like, five minutes.
annand bunty king virk
It's true, we have.
You know what's funny?
I've been following you for a while.
I've been following you for a while.
I've been seeing your stuff.
You seem like a guy that you could easily just fit into my city.
dave rubin
I can fit into your city, your fair city of Montreal?
annand bunty king virk
Absolutely.
dave rubin
I haven't been there for about 15 or 20 years.
annand bunty king virk
I know, and we were talking a bit about it, but yeah, it's definitely a city that's played extensively into my identity online and just throughout, you know?
dave rubin
Yeah.
Well, I'm looking forward to this.
Now, we're kicking off YouTube Week with you, but there's something kind of funny happening here, because this is the first show of YouTube Week.
Today's Monday.
We're doing five shows in five days.
I've already shot the other five shows, so you're the last one that I'm doing, but you're the first one airing, and we're doing it live.
I have to say, the others were quite spectacular, so you're under a lot of pressure.
annand bunty king virk
That's okay.
I'm pretty sure it'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
We'll be good.
dave rubin
And I had a lot of people.
annand bunty king virk
You just need to make me laugh.
People love to laugh.
dave rubin
People love to laugh?
annand bunty king virk
If you can throw a joke my way, I'm gonna laugh and everyone's gonna be like, all right, this was the best episode.
dave rubin
I believe in here there is a joke or two in here somewhere.
I feel like we can get some emotion out of you.
For sure, for sure.
You're a smiley guy, you're an emotional guy.
unidentified
You like to yell, make sounds.
annand bunty king virk
I like to yell so long as I know it's gonna be, like it's gonna turn into a joke.
I don't wanna yell at people.
I feel like everyone's yelling.
dave rubin
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
Everyone's yelling.
I mean, listen, you're present on Twitter.
How present would you say you're on Twitter?
dave rubin
Too present, I would say.
annand bunty king virk
Too present?
dave rubin
Yeah, too present.
Well, do you mean present by in the moment?
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, in the moment, yeah.
dave rubin
Well, I'm very in the moment on Twitter, but you've been booted from Twitter.
So you were in that exclusive group.
But wait, let's pause for a sec before we go too deep on that.
I was trying to do a little research just about your background and a little family stuff and that kind of thing.
Really?
annand bunty king virk
Were you trying to dox me?
dave rubin
I was going to dox you.
annand bunty king virk
No, it's cool.
dave rubin
Yeah, I'm gonna have my guys release it while we're doing this.
annand bunty king virk
While we're doing it live, that's it.
That's great.
dave rubin
I couldn't find a tremendous amount about you, so give me a little bit about your history and that kind of thing.
annand bunty king virk
Okay, so where do you want me to start?
Do you want me to start with my mom, my dad, stuff like that?
dave rubin
Mom, dad, growing up, education, that kind of thing.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, well, my dad, he grew up in a region of India called Madhya Pradesh.
And he grew up in a town called Jabarpur.
And he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth.
His grandfather actually was in the British Navy.
He was a doctor.
And he served in the First World War and the Afghan War.
And I, for the longest time, thought it was the First World War and the Second World War, but it's actually First World War, Afghan War.
And yeah, so he was pretty much living on land that was granted to him by the By the British.
dave rubin
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
And so my dad had a pretty nice upbringing.
He went to British schools, English education, you know, Catholic education on top of that, like really just all around.
My mother was a national, like we're just going to skip over my mom.
My mom grew up in poverty, right?
So she had to really kind of climb the ranks.
And she ended up becoming a national field hockey coach in India.
unidentified
Huh.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, yeah.
She was on her way to really becoming very, very successful.
And I don't want to rub my makeup off.
dave rubin
I don't remember my makeup off, but... We put a little extra right there.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, no, it was really good, yeah, because, I mean, I look ugly as fuck, so it's really, uh... Because actually you're white, right?
Yeah, exactly, that's it, that's it.
dave rubin
We did a nice job.
annand bunty king virk
I'm just, I'm literally just the voice box for the right here, guys.
The voice box for the right.
unidentified
Yes.
annand bunty king virk
Um, yeah, no, um...
So, I mean, then my dad came to Canada, and he got his degree in computer science.
He came here to become a systems analyst, and he went back, met my mom, brought her here.
And my mom actually abandoned all her dreams to pretty much raise me and my sister.
So, for the longest time, that didn't click with me.
And just, I would say, in the last year, year and a half, it really has dawned on me that my mother sacrificed her entire life to turn me into the human that I am now.
dave rubin
Wow.
How did you have that moment with her?
Did she bring it up?
annand bunty king virk
It actually was brought up based on all the stuff that I was watching on YouTube.
Just through the anti-feminist movement, things like that.
this whole, just through the anti-feminist movement, things like that, things like about
how, I think one of the things that really stood out to me was this fight back against
the traditional woman.
Which I think is okay.
I mean, I'm cool with women doing whatever they want to do, and they should.
They totally should.
But there's this beautiful thing about a woman that wants to be a mother, a woman that wants to take care of her kids, a woman that wants to take care of the home.
There's so much value in it, right?
And the amount of sacrifice that it requires.
So I began to really appreciate that about my mom, so there's that.
dave rubin
It's kind of funny, I mean, without going too deep into feminism specifically, it's kind of funny how this has flipped, right?
Like, taking care of the home and the family and all that is sort of looked down upon in a weird way by modern feminism.
My mom worked before she had kids, then she was a stay-at-home mom, took good care of us, cooked meals, made sure we got to school on time, all of those things, was home when we got home after school, and then went back to work after, when the kids grew up.
And I think now, back, that like, what a cherished, amazing thing that was.
annand bunty king virk
It is, it totally is.
The idea that I get from a lot of the women that I interact with is that it's okay.
It totally is okay.
A lot of the stuff that we talk about is really just present online.
It's a lot of these voices online.
And because these voices are crazy, they're amplified.
How do you gauge that?
dave rubin
How do you gauge how much of it's online versus how much of it is real?
annand bunty king virk
Before I got into YouTube, I'm a fully established person in real life.
I have a network of people in real life.
These are people who I care about.
These are friends that I've known for 14 years.
These are people who know me way more than anyone online is ever gonna know me.
dave rubin
Let me get this straight.
You exist outside of the internet?
annand bunty king virk
I exist outside of the internet.
dave rubin
You have real friends and family and places that you go and foods that you eat?
annand bunty king virk
Exactly.
That's incredible.
I know, right?
Isn't that nuts?
It's just nuts.
I feel like people are a little contemptuous about that because I haven't shied away from showing that off or being like, yeah, listen, I'm connected.
I know people in real life.
I was involved in local politics.
That's the kind of stuff that I try to do.
What the hell are we talking about?
What are we talking about?
dave rubin
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Well, don't worry about that.
Let's just keep going here.
annand bunty king virk
Because I think... What are we getting at?
What are we getting at?
That's the thing.
dave rubin
We're getting here.
annand bunty king virk
We're getting here.
dave rubin
I think being part of a full person is why I like your videos and I like when you were on Twitter and we're going to get to why you're not on Twitter anymore.
Why I like what you're doing because there's a good... I mean, it's very obvious now sitting in front of you.
Like, there's just a good nature about you.
unidentified
Thank you.
dave rubin
And sort of like a fullness.
annand bunty king virk
Thank you.
dave rubin
And I feel like most people right now are walking around with a halfness, you know what I mean?
They're walking around in this constant state of hating everybody or not sure what they think, or they're now enemies with family and friends that two years ago they weren't.
And I think what you're doing is kind of showing people you can smile, you can laugh.
annand bunty king virk
You can totally smile and laugh.
dave rubin
Yeah, because we talk about serious stuff.
annand bunty king virk
I do, I do.
I think that ultimately, here's the thing, right?
I'm privileged, right?
And I'm privileged to be a Canadian, alright?
And we don't have the issues that the states have.
We really don't.
We don't have, you know, if a mass shooting were to happen, we were not going to have people who are lined up with medical bills that they can't pay.
That's something that's not going to happen.
We don't have race issues to that degree.
We have a problem in terms of how we've treated native people in the past, but those are things that our government is willing to address.
Or is addressing in a manner that, you know, They're addressing it, they're trying to, and they're a lot more empathetic about it, right?
So I have something I'd like to call, you know, Montreal Canadian privilege.
It's just something that, it's like, I grew up in an environment where it wasn't easy for me growing up as a kid, a brown kid in the 90s, but it was, I would say, a lot easier for me than it would have been if I was, like, in South Chicago, South Central LA, or You know, Baltimore.
I have this, I'm happy because I'm privileged to be happy.
That's ultimately it.
dave rubin
Yeah, that's interesting.
So, you are Sikh, which I think people have no idea.
annand bunty king virk
I don't know, nobody knows about the Sikhs.
dave rubin
Nobody knows about Sikhs.
annand bunty king virk
Because the Sikhs are inconspicuous.
They're just chilling.
They're chilling.
They don't need to push their shit on anybody.
I love it.
dave rubin
I love it.
Do Sikhs not try to convert people?
annand bunty king virk
They definitely do not try to convert people.
They're there to live their lives, and I mean, definitely they're down to talk about it.
If you want to talk to me, like right now, you're about to talk to me about it, I'll talk to you about it.
But yeah, no, Sikhs, and this is a great thing, this is something that nobody talks about, but Sikhs were born out of war with Islam.
And this was during the Mughal Empire.
They were invading India, and they were pretty much converting, trying to get people to convert, or kill them.
And nobody wants to talk about this.
You know, because a lot of people want to go ahead and say that, you know, because it's not nice to say things about Islam, right?
For some reason.
You can say things about Christianity.
You can shit on it all you want.
dave rubin
Yeah.
unidentified
Mormonism.
annand bunty king virk
That's it.
Yeah, exactly.
You can shit on Mormons.
Everyone's shitting on Mormons.
Mormons don't do anything.
Just chill!
Anyway, so Sikhs are interesting because they were born out of war and they were pretty much almost the first line of defense against the Muslims when they were invading.
And I'm not saying this is not something that reflects on all Muslims.
A hundred percent.
It's not a thing.
It's so sad that we always have to say these things.
I know, right?
But one thing that I realized about my culture is that obviously, you know, it's still around, right?
Sikhs are still around, which means that at some point they won, right?
And what I've loved about the culture is that they've been very respectful of other cultures
in the sense that they are willing to adapt to whatever their host country is.
So Sikh Canadians are very Canadian.
British people are very British.
Another thing that I find to be really fascinating is that they don't have this animosity towards
Islam.
They don't.
It's very much a religion that from the ground up you're taught to pretty much be like, listen,
let bygones be bygones.
Treat things as they are at the very moment.
So if something is happening and you need to defend yourself, well then, it's fair game.
But if something happened back in the day and it's not happening now, we're not gonna hold against you.
I don't think about, oh my God, I should be upset at Muslims for what happened in 16th century India, you know?
That's something that I don't.
dave rubin
So it goes back to that be present thing that you were talking about before, right?
annand bunty king virk
Be present, yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
dave rubin
So is that really why it's so built into you, do you think?
annand bunty king virk
I would say so.
I mean, listen, man, I'm telling you, dude, I was not the happiest person for the longest time.
I would say I spent maybe about the last... I mean, I'm 29 years old.
I would say I spent 27 years of my life just being miserable.
unidentified
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
Miserable.
And I went through multiple changes.
For the longest time I thought I was maybe... I wanted to be so American, so North American, so accepted by people, that I was becoming someone completely different.
I hated the fact that I was brown.
And then eventually that went away.
And I realized, wait a minute, I'm brown.
I don't give a shit.
It's great.
I like my brown skin.
I don't give a fuck.
dave rubin
What's that like growing up when you're 6, 8, 15?
How does that actually come out, struggling with that?
annand bunty king virk
I don't know.
It was weird.
For me, one of the things I noticed was that When I met other brown people, I wanted to be friends with them, right?
Because I saw them as allies, you know?
And that's, I think, a very normal thing.
They were like, oh, they're brown, too.
I should be friends with them because they're brown, too.
And they're like, we're in among the sea of white people.
But I noticed that a lot of them would actually kind of like either want to be the best brown person.
They'd want to be the token.
And that pushed on to me.
me. I wanted to be the token as well. And I mean, when I was like eight, between that
period of time, I would get my ass kicked by this kid across the street all the time.
I never wanted to go outside because anytime he was outside, it was going to be a problem for me.
A lot of it is very hazy now because I don't spend too much time dwelling on my past in which I felt a little bit disadvantaged because it doesn't matter.
My past doesn't matter to that degree.
dave rubin
People love dwelling on that.
I agree.
The past is something that needs to be looked at and referenced regularly.
annand bunty king virk
the rest of the year.
It's literally what we, the reason why we have channels.
The reason why we do what we do is because people just spend so much time dwelling on the past.
And I agree, the past is something that needs to be looked at and referenced regularly.
You need to look at the shit that we did, right?
But it's come to the point now where we're dwelling on the past where we're either super proud of things
that have nothing to do with whatever we just did right now.
Or we're just really pissed off about things that happened to us back when the people
that are alive today.
I mean, sorry, the people that are live today have nothing to do with it at all.
And yeah, you can go ahead and talk about how the system is set up in such a way and it kind of led to this point, but like, I mean, most of the time when you're talking to people, you're not talking to a crowd of a thousand people, you're talking to, I'm talking to Dave Rubin right now.
I'm not talking to anybody else.
I mean, I know there's a bunch of people watching right now, but like... We didn't even turn the cameras on, did we?
Yeah, it's okay.
We've just been talking.
We've just been talking.
That's it.
It's just you and me.
It's the individual level.
I know that if you look at policy, you can't look at the individual.
You'll have to look at everything, you know?
And that's where race realists come in, and that's where all these policies come in, right?
As human beings, as viewers, as content creators, we are not in charge of creating policies.
We have to be in charge of owning our lives and interacting with people in an authentic way, in a way that's going to be like, you know what, you have to care about people.
I'm not gonna interact with someone I don't care about.
I swear.
If there's someone, I look at someone, I'm like, I don't care about that fucking person, I'm out.
If I care about them, I'm gonna chill with them.
It's just that simple.
dave rubin
How did you have that wake up?
You said 27 years.
The other way, what happened?
annand bunty king virk
I was trying to be somebody else.
And then I realized that myself was good enough.
And you know how I realized that?
I ended up dating a girl.
And it was so funny, dude.
Just the things that she would say to me.
Insane.
Like, completely politically incorrect.
It was amazing.
It was incredible.
It was like a really funny relationship where we'd just be able to say whatever the hell we wanted to each other.
unidentified
Right.
annand bunty king virk
And I was like, wait a minute, this is what I was like.
Because back in college, I was like the Van Wilder of my college.
I stayed around for way too long.
Yeah, I stayed around for way too long.
I wrote a column, and the paper was very politically incorrect.
And then at some point, I got a job at Apple.
I started becoming very politically correct.
I was like, you know what, I'm just not going to say these words.
If you say these words, it's really, really bad.
And it was political correctness on a very elementary level.
And then at some point, yeah, the day of this girl, I was like, wait a minute, this is the person I need to be.
And she really appreciated me for who I really was, because I was really myself around her.
I'm going to burp soon.
I apologize.
dave rubin
You are a decent man.
You're giving me a pre-apology for a burp.
The apology wouldn't have been necessary.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, well, no, it's just that I don't want to burp in front of people.
It's gross, you know?
I've been hanging out with Chris Ragon.
The guy's been burping all the time.
dave rubin
Is the Ragon burping a lot?
annand bunty king virk
He burps a lot.
He burps a lot.
But you know what?
It's great.
It's great.
dave rubin
I feel like he drinks a lot of Mountain Dew.
annand bunty king virk
No, he doesn't.
dave rubin
He doesn't?
He strikes me as someone that would drink... No, he's not a Mountain Dew guy.
annand bunty king virk
Come on, what do you think of him?
Really?
Mountain Dew?
dave rubin
I feel like, you know, with the jump cuts and everything... No, he's not a Mountain Dew guy.
annand bunty king virk
He's not a Mountain Dew guy.
I'm not going to even tell you what kind of guy he is.
dave rubin
Is that offensive?
annand bunty king virk
I'll tell you off-air what kind of guy he is.
dave rubin
Is that offensive if you say to somebody... It's actually very offensive.
annand bunty king virk
That's an offensive.
That's really fucked up of you, Dave.
That's really screwed up, man.
Accusing him of being a Mountain Dew guy.
What is he?
Alright, well...
dave rubin
We'll deal with this later.
Of all the offensive things, you know, the PC ways of talking.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, so pretty much what ended up happening was that I...
I just kind of, I shed that.
I became me.
And I took to Twitter.
And Twitter video was an excellent, it was just an excellent way to be me online.
Something would happen and I would record a video.
I'm telling you dude, the amount of time my videos went for, that's pretty much the amount of time it took me to record that video.
I'd just turn it on, start saying something, probably laugh because I said something and I caught it and I laugh because it's hilarious what I just said.
Because I laugh at my own jokes because I'm a loser.
But yeah, that's pretty much it.
And then that's it.
And then people started catching on.
Next thing you know, I'm being followed by people and people want to listen to what I'm saying.
And I'm like, what's happening here?
dave rubin
Yeah.
Do you consider yourself really political?
Because I've actually, from all the stuff that I've watched, I've never heard you really go directly into politics, but everything you're doing is around politics, sort of.
annand bunty king virk
Well, because what are politics, right?
Politics is just the management of people.
That's all it is.
And I love people.
You know, I had a job at a marketing firm back in May, and I've always been interested in marketing, right?
And in order to be an effective marketer, you kind of need to know people.
And of course, you know, when I say I'm a marketer, people are like, oh, well, I don't trust what he's going to say, because he's going to say whatever is the best thing that I need to hear, right?
And it's true.
I completely understand the stigma behind marketers, but I'd like to think I'm a bit more ethical about it.
But yeah, people is my game.
People is totally my game.
And because, you know, everything that we do ends up involving people, That's how you end up venturing into politics, but it's never my direct avenue.
Because I'm not like Sargon of God, who spends time reading articles or reading books on social issues and stuff like that.
I'm a guy that likes to talk to people, and I want to know people.
And that's pretty much it.
dave rubin
Yeah.
So when you sort of got out of that phase and you start doing Twitter videos, you start putting up YouTube videos and people are into it.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah.
dave rubin
Then it sort of just kind of came into yourself.
That's what I'm getting here.
annand bunty king virk
I mean, it was your birth.
dave rubin
Your birth online was almost your birth as a as a human.
annand bunty king virk
I was like, I felt I felt I felt free.
I felt free because It was amazing because I was being this person that I wanted to be online, and I wasn't seeing repercussions in real life.
People were actually excited.
They were like, yo, man, we love your shit.
It's crazy.
People were coming up to me, my friends at parties would be like, dude, watch what you're doing now.
They appreciated it.
You know, there's obviously some people, there was one guy who I, who actually kind of, I really love this guy because he had a lot of, we'd play board games all the time.
I love board games.
And the strategy element is just something, I love strategy.
Like, I love scheming.
dave rubin
I'm a big schemer.
I got Golden Girl's Clue in the other room, if you want.
annand bunty king virk
No, that's not, not those kind of board games.
Sometimes I'm like Twilight.
Oh, you want like... Yeah, yeah, like the, the, the, the stuff, the stuff where, not Lizard, Lizard... Lizard or Dragon?
unidentified
Not Lizard or Dragon, it's not Lizard, but like... No, what?
annand bunty king virk
There's this one game that I really like called Twilight Imperium, and yeah, that has alien races and stuff, but pretty much you build the board every time.
And you pretty much pick your role at the very beginning of every round.
You can pick a warfare role, or a strategy role, or a politics role.
And when you pick a politics role, you draw it out of a deck that changes the game, essentially.
And you have to vote based on the influence that you have.
And so that's the kind of stuff I like because, I mean, one time I won a game by convincing a guy I was his friend the whole time.
I was like, yo, dude, I'm your friend.
And he was like, yeah, you're my friend, because I'm a nice guy.
And I was like, I'm not going to attack you.
And I never attacked him.
But the best part about it was that he never attacked me.
And I left that whole side completely defenseless.
And I pulled a whole offensive on the other side and I ended up winning the game because I took over someone's home system.
That's the kind of stuff I like doing.
I'm a schemer.
Yo guys, I'm a schemer!
dave rubin
What kind of schemer is up front about being a schemer?
That's a very high level.
annand bunty king virk
The kind of schemer that doesn't want to screw people over en masse.
You know, yeah, I guess I did screw over my friend.
But no, I mean listen, that guy was in direct warfare with me.
He wanted to take me over.
I was being defensive and I took him over.
dave rubin
Is, are games like that pooh-poohed by the gamer community?
Because you're a gamer, too.
Are the gamers, they can go both ways on this?
annand bunty king virk
I think people love betrayal.
People love being the villain.
People love trying to outsmart other people.
I think that's what the most multiplayer games tend to do.
You want to outsmart the other person.
You want to be able to outskill them, you know?
That's pretty much it.
dave rubin
How deep in the gaming world are you?
We're doing this YouTube week thing here.
It's a lot of gamers on YouTube.
annand bunty king virk
I started my channel as a gaming channel.
So I love video games.
Video games, actually this is going to go back to my childhood because I had a rough childhood, right?
Video games, books, and movies were the three things that kept me, I would say, alive.
dave rubin
What was your first system?
annand bunty king virk
My first system was an NES.
dave rubin
The original?
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, the NES.
And it was so sad because my dad Was like, I'm gonna get you a Super Nintendo.
But because I wanted to play the first Mario Brothers so bad, I was like, no no, I want a Nintendo.
Which is the dumbest decision ever.
The Super Nintendo was amazing.
dave rubin
I know people love Super Nintendo.
I was a Sega Genesis guy, which is why there's a Sega Genesis game right there.
I went from NES to Genesis.
I skipped over Super Nintendo.
But I know, I know you people.
You love it, and you demand that we love it too.
But to me, Sega Genesis.
unidentified
I had a Sega Genesis as well.
annand bunty king virk
Sonic 2 is one of the best soundtracks in the game ever.
It's amazing.
Do you remember the Sonic 2 soundtrack?
dave rubin
I mean, I'm sure if we were playing it.
I just caught you.
annand bunty king virk
I just caught you.
dave rubin
Well, I can picture the sound.
unidentified
I can picture the sound when Tails was getting really bad.
dave rubin
Split screen Tails.
I mean, I remember all of it.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, that was so good.
unidentified
It was so good.
annand bunty king virk
It was so good.
Yeah.
Yeah, no.
dave rubin
So that was a little bit of your escape, was going to the video game world.
annand bunty king virk
It was video games, books, and movies.
Like I said, I would say a majority of my character or my personality or my identity is built off of Hollywood movies.
So this whole stuff that's been happening in Hollywood, all the bad shit, the Me Too campaign, Harvey Weinstein and all that stuff, it's affected me a little bit.
I've just been like, fuck, all these people were cool people that I looked up to.
These actors.
No one's said anything about Brad Pitt yet, though.
I love Brad Pitt.
Brad Pitt is my favorite actor.
dave rubin
What happens when they come?
If they come for Brad Pitt.
annand bunty king virk
If they come for Brad Pitt, I'm gonna be shattered, man.
I swear, I swear.
If Brad Pitt's done something crazy, that'd be sad.
That'd be really sad.
I love that guy.
dave rubin
You know, you make an interesting point, because I think part, of course, of course it goes without saying, for the people that have really done the bad things like Weinstein, it's like, of course you gotta go down.
Of course.
If you rape somebody, or all of that shit, it goes without saying.
annand bunty king virk
Of course.
dave rubin
But you're making an interesting point about something that I think is happening at a broader sense right now, which is that it seems like all of our institutions are crumbling right in front of us.
Like the whole Trump thing has the political machine crumbling.
The media is crumbling right in front of us, mostly by its own doing.
Hollywood now is starting to crumble.
And I think that's why people are turning to people like us.
So it's actually kind of cool for us, and I guess it's a little bit of pressure too, right?
Like to do good work?
annand bunty king virk
Well, to do good work and be good people.
Because there's a lot of people who I find that aren't good people.
And that's the sad part about it.
The crazy thing about what we do is we have this opportunity to connect with people.
You have this opportunity to connect with someone right now that's watching at this very moment and be like, oh my god, that speaks to me.
And there's people that are going to go ahead and incite hatred with their voices, and there's people that are going to try to go ahead and bring people together.
And I've encountered so many of the people that are trying to do the former.
It's insane.
People like Tariq Nasheed, people like Richard Spencer, these people are only around to fuck with people.
dave rubin
Tariq called me a white supremacist, I think yesterday.
annand bunty king virk
That guy was rejoicing.
He was so excited for me to be off Twitter.
You know what's so funny about Tariq?
dave rubin
I honestly don't even know.
He did the song, what was it, Bust My Ass?
annand bunty king virk
Wash My Ass.
unidentified
You're telling me I... Somebody said that to me!
annand bunty king virk
Bust my ass!
unidentified
I'd be perfect!
dave rubin
The first time... I'm not kidding.
The first time... He's called me a white supremacist many times.
unidentified
Oh my god!
annand bunty king virk
That's so good, David!
unidentified
Shit, dude!
Bust my ass.
dave rubin
He made me work on that one.
unidentified
I don't know.
annand bunty king virk
This is getting memed.
dave rubin
This is getting memed.
annand bunty king virk
Dude, I'm telling you.
dave rubin
The funny thing is, the first time he called, he says Ruben's a white supremacist or something, and then all these people start sending me memes about wash my ass, and I had literally no idea.
annand bunty king virk
It's wash your ass, yeah.
Oh, wash your ass.
dave rubin
I had no idea what they were talking about.
unidentified
Oh, it was incredible.
dave rubin
Yeah.
Wash my ass?
What?
unidentified
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
Tariq was a rapper before, you know?
Tariq was a rapper and he'd pick up artists and then he was like, you know what?
Pick up artist game.
It's not making that much money.
Oh, I know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to race bait.
And that makes a lot of money because people are really upset.
Race is a big issue.
It's coming up over and over again.
As people's voices start to elevate, people who feel like they don't have a secure identity are going to voice their opinions about how they feel about their place in the world.
And of course, these people are going to kind of speak to that, you know?
And it doesn't matter if they're black, white or whatever.
The crazy thing is that I took on Tariq and he had me suspended the first time, right?
So he got me suspended off Twitter.
I had 26,000 followers.
But because I'm a marketer, I took that opportunity to kind of flex whatever social contacts I had.
And of course, they are down because it's a very mutually beneficial thing because they get to talk shit about Tariq.
And talking shit about Tariq is instant clout.
And the best part is that is that Tariq was still trying to fire at me, and every time he tried to fire at me, I spinned it.
And I boosted way past my original follower count within two weeks.
dave rubin
Yeah.
But that's what these guys do all the time, right?
I mean, that's why it's, I always think, it's like, it's hard to gauge exactly what the level of the country or the world is like right now, because you've got so many bad actors, the people you were talking about before, who just want to revel in hate and get more followers because they hate.
And then you've got some of the good guys, and I like to think we're kind of in that mix of the good guys.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, I definitely think so.
dave rubin
But it's a lot more work to be a good guy.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, because you're constantly... because these guys who've been, like, spurring this level of hatred, you know, they...
They've kind of made this environment in which everyone kind of doubts people's motivations.
And so people are constantly doubting motivations.
People are like, don't trust Bunty King because he's modded this person in a chat or something like that.
It's like bullshit like that.
And it's annoying.
It's really annoying to have to deal with.
But I think that that's just noise.
And that was my problem.
It's very hard for me to ignore the noise.
Um, because I built my brand on being able to connect with people, right?
And, um, I love talking to my followers.
I found that, like, out of the 46,000 followers I had, I felt like the majority were people that I would love to live in a community with, you know?
And, uh, and so anytime anyone tried to engage me, I was down to engage them, especially if they saw they were following me, because sometimes I'd actually go to see if someone was following me and if they were giving me criticism, because I want criticism.
I want people to tell me if I'm doing something wrong so I can know if I can correct it based on, like, Yeah, let's do the shift there.
dave rubin
So I didn't realize that.
So you had a mini suspension at first, not too long ago, right?
You didn't know that?
No, I don't know that I knew about a first one.
So that was when?
annand bunty king virk
The first one was Tariq Nasheed.
That happened June...
Right before VidCon, like literally right before VidCon.
dave rubin
Okay, so that probably was right about when you were coming on my radar in the first place.
So, okay, so that was the first one.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah.
dave rubin
Then you get back on.
How does that go?
Twitter sends you an email saying, all right, you're out of jail?
annand bunty king virk
Well, it literally is like, it was so funny.
I was at this thing called Mural Fest in Montreal.
It's when we have a whole street just decorated by graffiti artists, you know?
And I sent Tariq a video.
And I was like, hey Tariq, how's it going?
Yo, listen, we got plenty of people here.
We got black people, we got Asian people, we got brown people.
Everyone's chilling.
Everyone's having a good time.
I was pretty much trying to remind them that the world is full of happy, nice people.
And so that got me suspended.
Instantly after I sent that video, I got suspended.
dave rubin
Wait, so that's what caused the suspension?
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, yeah.
And they went on to post about how I was harassing black Twitter, which is crazy.
I was harassing Black Twitter, dude.
dave rubin
Unbelievable.
unidentified
Okay.
annand bunty king virk
So that happened, so that was the first thing, and now coming to the second one.
This is crazy.
Do you know what happened with the second one?
Do you have an idea?
dave rubin
I'm not totally sure.
annand bunty king virk
Okay, you ready for this?
dave rubin
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
There was a dude.
Some random dude.
The guy had like 15 followers.
I'm giving him credits because I know he's a human being.
I was like, you know what, I'm going to try talking to him.
He was being really annoying.
And at some point he said, your followers are just full of fascists and hateful people.
And I was like, that's not true.
First of all, I talk to my followers very often.
And so I quote-tweeted him.
I said, yeah, I was like, look, this guy, he's projecting.
He thinks that all my followers are goblins.
I'm like, look, I gave him a goblin name.
His name is GrubJub.
Everyone give GrubJub a hug.
And I said, give him a hug.
dave rubin
I can see where this is going.
annand bunty king virk
OK?
And a lot of my followers went in, and they actually gave him literal hugs.
They were like, here, you have a hug.
You're feeling bad.
We get it.
It's screwed up.
Bunty King's not your enemy.
And someone reported that for targeted harassment.
And that's it.
46,000 followers, gone.
dave rubin
So they only give you two strikes?
This is a two-strike situation?
annand bunty king virk
Well, no, it's not about strikes.
I made a new account.
I got suspended.
A suspension is permanent, by the way, on Twitter.
I don't know why they call them suspensions.
They just call them expulsions or exile or something like that.
So the first account, I had an account with 26,000 followers, gone.
Start from zero again, brought it up to 46,000 followers, gone now.
dave rubin
Man, I mean, see, it's so interesting, because I know a lot of people are watching this that probably aren't too into the Twitter world or whatever, and they're like, ah, why are they wasting time talking about this?
Or like, this seems like so insider-y, or, oh, poor guy lost his following on Twitter.
But there is something very culturally relevant, right?
I mean, it brings up all of these things about what private companies can do and that we opt in on all this stuff, about all the issues around free speech and how they selectively, because we know that there's plenty of people, like Tariq, who's constantly harassing people online.
I mean, let everybody harass everybody.
I don't really care, as long as they're not, you know, directly calling for violence.
Yeah, exactly.
But it does, that's why I don't want people to think this is too, I hope people don't think this is too insidery, because it is relevant to people like you being able to actually get your voice out.
They handicapped you.
annand bunty king virk
Twitter grew my channel.
I totally did.
My channel's had a slump for sure since I... I'm not getting as many views as I was when I had my Twitter account.
dave rubin
Did they then say to you, you can't create a third account now?
annand bunty king virk
I mean, you can create a third account, and I could.
I could go on right now.
I could write out for this interview.
I could just go ahead and pop on, create a Twitter account.
But do I want to?
I mean, look, dude, I built up an account.
To 26,000 followers first.
Got that eliminated, alright?
Whatever.
I was like, screw it.
VidCon's happening.
I want to be able to connect with my friends at VidCon.
Make another account.
And it was going to be fun.
46,000 followers later.
Gone.
Again.
And it's like, how often am I going to have to do that?
I'm not going to be verified on Twitter anytime soon because I don't have the right political agenda.
Because you know they removed Richard Spencer's verification.
They removed all these people's verifications.
Even though I don't like Richard Spencer.
He should be verified.
He is Richard Spencer.
unidentified
Right.
dave rubin
Verification has nothing to do with endorsing political views.
annand bunty king virk
It has nothing to do with endorsing.
dave rubin
It is the ability to find the exact, the person that you're actually looking for.
annand bunty king virk
But they also get a free, a bit of a free, a better, I mean, you're verified, right?
dave rubin
Yeah.
Don't ask how I managed to pull that off.
annand bunty king virk
Well, no, I mean, it's obvious why you're verified.
That's totally okay.
But, but the thing is that at the end of the day, people with verified status are able to kind of do a little bit more.
They, they don't get hit by, by reports as much as someone without a verified account.
dave rubin
Right.
I mean, I guess you get a little more leeway in that.
annand bunty king virk
You do.
dave rubin
In that they see that some celebrity or politician or media person could publicly attack me and then I can attack them.
So it's not like targeted.
See, that's the weird thing to me.
It's like you can have very few followers and still be targeted.
harassment of somebody else very easily.
You could spend, plenty of trolls do this, all day long just targeting me.
I don't care, okay, I can mute them or whatever, it doesn't matter.
But the idea of targeted harassment as a reason to boot somebody like you,
it doesn't really make sense in the way that Twitter works.
Because everyone's targeting people all day long with retweets of, ah, you see what this schmuck said
and this one and that one.
annand bunty king virk
Twitter's built on that.
dave rubin
It's built on targeted harassment.
annand bunty king virk
It's built on targeted harassment.
And it's sad, because you know what?
I would say that my place was one of the, my Twitter was one of the few places that actually encouraged people to have a conversation.
dave rubin
Yeah.
What I really liked about your Twitter was that For all the people that I follow that my timeline's become a headache, and I think most people feel this, it's like, ugh, more of this, more of that, Trump this, Trump that.
You were just at least doing something different, you know what I mean?
Sitting in your bathroom, screaming about something, laughing about something, doing something.
You were one of the few people that I could watch and I'd be like, oh, I know something interesting's gonna happen here, I'm not gonna be pissed.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, you don't leave my videos pissed.
You have to be really upset with life to leave my videos pissed.
dave rubin
So what do you think is the answer to this?
As now someone that's creating on YouTube, so you're in a similar situation as you were on Twitter, what do you think the answer is?
Because there's places like PragerU, and I really like Dennis, and I've done videos for PragerU, they're in a lawsuit right now with YouTube over restricting videos and things like that.
The libertarian side of me always says, don't get the government involved in this.
And yet I know we're all in this weird, precarious position.
Where do you fall on that?
annand bunty king virk
I'm honestly trying to really fall back to doing local shit.
This is really interesting because a lot of people I find that we connect with are people that are involved in the The gathering of global power, alright?
We're in the pursuit of power.
I know you may not want to admit it, but we are- I'll come down this road with you.
Let's go.
Okay, we're in the pursuit of power as YouTubers.
We want influence over people.
We want to be able to go ahead and say something and have it heard.
We want people to listen to us because we feel like we can make some kind of impact in the world.
That's the nature of YouTube, I would say, and the nature of social media in general, people that really grow on social media.
What I was doing on Twitter was I was really attaining a level of- I mean, I was getting millions of impressions a day.
It was a great time.
I was interacting with more people than I ever did before ever in my life.
But these people were scattered throughout the world.
Some people in Denmark, some people in the UK, some people in California, some people in Texas.
It doesn't matter.
They were all over the place, right?
And I felt like I was really kind of avoiding Connecting with my direct reality, you know because I had already built my my network of people in real life Didn't feel like they were always gonna be around it took it for granted But it was really about kind of falling back and and and reconnecting
With my community.
I think that's really what's coming down to.
I'm like trying to... I still am going to be present on the global scale because I want to actually connect with people on YouTube.
I want to make some more videos and talk about things and provide my opinion.
But I think that the focus has really shifted more on really bringing my city up to the standards that I believe in.
dave rubin
Yeah, it's interesting, because I love that, on a personal level, I love it, because it's obvious that you're telling me the truth, and it has meaning to you.
But on the political level, I love it too, because that's what people need to be doing, is stop thinking that the federal government, whether you're in the United States or Canada or elsewhere, stop thinking that just bureaucrats somewhere else are supposed to rule your life.
You're supposed to rule your life.
annand bunty king virk
You have to rule your life, and more importantly, you're gonna look at your neighbor on your left and your right, and you have to make sure that they're okay.
Because if you're surrounded by failures, You're a failure.
It's just that simple.
dave rubin
You know, it's funny.
I don't know if you noticed, so people know that my studio is in my home.
We have new neighbors next door and their dog has been barking like crazy.
A giant husky barking from 8 a.m.
to midnight every day.
And it's like, somebody came over and was like, well, why don't you complain to the city or whatever?
And I was like, what an odd first knee-jerk reaction.
Like, first, they're not around a lot for whatever reason, so I've been meaning to just say hi to them.
I haven't even met the people yet.
But just say hi and be like, you know, I love dogs.
I don't want you to do anything to the dog.
But like, you know, your dog's literally barking all day long, maybe something's wrong with the dog.
Like, it's like calling for help.
But I just thought that my friend who came over and said that, like, called the city,
it's like, that weird thing of like, we're gonna sort of get all of our responsibility
off ourself and give it to the government.
annand bunty king virk
No, it's stupid.
dave rubin
What a scary thought.
annand bunty king virk
It's not scary, it's fucking dumb.
We are actually retarded at this point.
It's insane that the amount of communication that we have in this world, right?
And we don't want to apply it.
We don't want to apply the most elementary level of communication.
If we can't apply the most elementary level of communication, which is just like, hey, I'm standing in front of you.
How are you doing?
Your dog is barking, bro.
Can you please stop your dog from barking?
I don't know why it's barking.
I love your dog.
Maybe I could babysit your dog or something like that, or dog sit your dog, whatever.
You know, like, instead of talking about that, you know, how are we able to handle mass communication like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, anything?
Like, it makes no sense, Dave.
People are completely bonkers.
They don't want to take ownership of their lives.
So instead of taking ownership of their lives, they look to these ideologues, these ideologues that are telling them all the solutions, when the reality is that they're never going to be able to get these solutions because they are currently stuck in their present reality and they refuse, absolutely refuse, to connect with the people that are directly around them.
That's pretty much what I've started to do.
Connect with the people that are around me.
My friends.
My family.
My family.
My mom and my dad.
There was a period of time where I didn't talk to my mom for a year.
I didn't talk to my mom for a year.
I live with my parents.
I love my parents.
Right?
A year I didn't talk to my mother.
dave rubin
While you were living with them?
annand bunty king virk
While I was living with them.
unidentified
Wow.
annand bunty king virk
How insane is that?
No, now I talk to my mom every day.
I go and I give her a kiss on the forehead.
I tell her I love her.
I give her a hug.
You know, that's the kind of shit that I do.
And this is stuff that people aren't doing.
They're not doing.
They're not connecting with people.
They're just getting some other people to handle it for them because they're pussies.
It's annoying.
dave rubin
Or they're just screaming about it online.
annand bunty king virk
Because they're pussies.
Fucking pussies, dude.
We're surrounded by pussies.
dave rubin
There's a lot of pussy around here.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, absolutely.
Which isn't a bad thing.
unidentified
It isn't a bad thing.
dave rubin
So, whatever works.
You know what I mean?
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
annand bunty king virk
Whatever.
I love you, Dave.
You're good, you're good.
dave rubin
I like you.
annand bunty king virk
I really like you.
No homo, no homo.
dave rubin
No, totally homo.
unidentified
You're kidding me.
dave rubin
It's funny, because what you're talking about sort of reminds me of one of the themes
that Jordan Peterson, who's, you know, ancillary in our world,
what's really putting him on the map, which is basically he's saying,
particularly to young men, just get your shit together.
Because that's really what you're saying to me, and that's the through line of everything you're saying.
annand bunty king virk
I don't have my shit together.
I am below the poverty line.
I'm telling you, man, I don't make money on YouTube.
dave rubin
You can't get a fancy sweater like that below the poverty line.
annand bunty king virk
Trust me, this is breaking the bank.
I'm not wealthy by any means whatsoever.
In fact, I started dating a girl, and I told her right away, I said, listen, I don't have a lot of money, but I want to be your king.
I want to be able to fucking provide everything for you.
I'm gonna make it happen.
But it's not there right now.
dave rubin
How's that working out?
annand bunty king virk
She's totally happy.
She's down with the honesty.
That's cool.
dave rubin
I'll give you a little Rubin Report mug when you leave and a shirt.
You can sell them on the black market or something.
annand bunty king virk
Sell them on the deep web.
So the idea is that it's not about getting necessarily your shit together, but it's more about You can get your shit together, but it needs to start from within.
Like, you're not going to be a successful businessman.
You're not going to be successful anybody if you're not going to be able to be happy with yourself or be comfortable with yourself.
And in being comfortable with yourself, that means embracing everything that is about you, right?
And that extends to being comfortable with your direct surroundings.
So if you're in a situation, and I'm not saying that this is... By the way, once again, this is where my privileged point of view comes from.
I may not have these views if I was living somewhere else.
If I was living in a place that was really impoverished or a place where the threat of murder or anything like that was prevalent, I may not have these views, but... Do you think that's really privilege or just reality?
dave rubin
Like, generally, I don't like the word privilege.
annand bunty king virk
I know.
It's a shitty word to use, honestly, because it's used by people that are completely... Like, it's just the reality you grew up in.
It is, it is.
dave rubin
And even though you said before that your father was successful beforehand and all that, No one probably gave him anything, and I'm guessing his parents probably didn't have much before that.
So that's why this idea of privilege, it always flips sort of history on its head.
annand bunty king virk
Well, I'm lucky.
I'm just really lucky.
I'm lucky.
dave rubin
I could have- I like that better.
I like luck.
annand bunty king virk
I'm just lucky.
By comparison to some people, I'm doing way better.
I stand below the poverty line, but I can afford stuff.
I can go out to a bar and have a drink.
That's something that the poorest people can't do.
So I'm definitely lucky.
You know, I'm able to be a YouTuber while not making that much money and still continue to pursue this dream, you know, of being a YouTuber or being someone that's connected with the public because I have the privilege of living with my parents.
I can be like, yo, mom, dad, I don't want to go to school.
I don't want to do this right now.
I want to do this.
And they're like, OK, cool.
Come stay with us.
dave rubin
Did mom and dad ever give you the ultimatum of when that privilege card retires?
annand bunty king virk
I love them, they love me.
They want me to be happy.
They just want me to make the world a bit of a better place.
They'd be happy doing that, yeah.
dave rubin
What do you make of this cool crew that I've seen sort of all come together on YouTube?
annand bunty king virk
What are you talking about?
dave rubin
Well, for example, Lacey Green, who's been on the show before, brought you here.
She's in the green room right now.
Yeah, I love her.
Her boyfriend is Chris Ragon, who I love.
This whole week of YouTube Week, You interviewed Derek, right?
I got some black guy, Derek Blackman, who I found out his real name's not Blackman.
That's just a joke.
We'll get to it in a couple days.
Didn't know that.
But got Derek, got Jacqueline Glenn, who's an atheist, former Catholic.
Have Rukka.
Who's got a really interesting story, and I don't even want to lead to some of the things that I got from him.
unidentified
Who else?
dave rubin
We had Neil Colticar, who's Indian from Australia, great comic.
Like, all of these people, they have some difference of diversity of skin color and all that, but I don't care about any of that shit.
What I like is that all these people from all over the place, we've all sort of found each other, and I think it's incredibly cool, like, that we've come together because of good ideas.
You know, you're talking about it's easy to do the bad idea.
What do you make of this kind of burgeoning community?
annand bunty king virk
I think that there's just this natural evolution of human society.
You know, we've got this platform called YouTube, right?
We start putting our ideas out there, we start using social media,
and next thing you know we're bumping into each other because ultimately people are going to be associating with
the people that reflect their values.
Like, you could be my neighbor tomorrow, and it would be no problem whatsoever.
I'd be like, yo, you wanna come over for a drink?
It would be no issue, right?
dave rubin
Yeah, you got a dog that barks a lot?
annand bunty king virk
No, I don't.
I don't have a dog.
dave rubin
Alright, then we won't have a problem.
annand bunty king virk
That's totally fine.
Totally fine.
And if we did have, if I did have a dog that barks a lot, we could work it out.
We would not have a problem.
But yeah, so I mean, like, that's the thing, right?
So it's like, ultimately we are associating with people that we gravitate towards based on our ideals, based on how we see the world.
You know, and that applies to absolutely anyone.
It applies to the racists.
It applies to the crazy leftists.
They all gravitate to each other.
Have you noticed that?
Get into your own echo chamber.
We're in echo chambers.
We're all in a giant echo chamber that has echo chambers.
That's pretty much it.
dave rubin
We're in an echo chamber with our mini echo chambers.
annand bunty king virk
Pretty much, exactly.
I mean, look, think about this, right?
So, as YouTubers, okay, you get millions of views a month, right?
That's cool.
How many Americans are there?
There are more Americans than there are you getting views a month.
Way more.
dave rubin
Oh yeah, I mean, there's about 350 million Americans.
annand bunty king virk
I'm sure that I could walk up to, like, nobody knows me in my city.
I mean, there's people that do know me, but nobody really, I mean, I can't walk down the street and I won't get stopped a bunch of times, you know?
I could go into my city and be like, do you know who Dave Rubin is?
And they'll be like, no.
You understand?
We do have a lot of influence, but we don't have a lot of influence in the larger picture.
dave rubin
You're saying I gotta take this on the road to Montreal.
We need to do a live show in Montreal.
annand bunty king virk
That would be hilarious.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that, essentially, the best possible thing is that we realize that we don't actually have a lot of influence in the bigger picture.
That we are in an echo chamber.
That, ultimately, we should stop freaking out about things.
dave rubin
So isn't that, though, at odds with what you said, which is you want to influence the world?
How do you reconcile those two things?
annand bunty king virk
You have to inject yourself into real life.
You have to inject yourself into established systems.
So, like, I mean, I've thought about, you know, finding a way to get into the UN.
I've thought about those kind of things.
I've thought about finding a way to get into local politics, you know, and I've gotten involved through media ventures.
I work with this company in Montreal called MotionCore, and what we do is essentially we try to, like, connect with creators in the area and we've connected with our local
politicians.
I'm in a campaign video for our newly elected mayor, which is crazy.
First female mayor in Montreal and I'm in a campaign video of hers on social media, which is sick.
dave rubin
So you're saying perhaps that better than screaming about Trudeau or Trump every day is actually getting involved.
Incredible.
annand bunty king virk
Isn't that crazy?
dave rubin
I wish I had a pen because I'd like to write that down.
annand bunty king virk
Isn't that crazy?
unidentified
It's just like, it's just like, like, it's just getting involved.
dave rubin
Yeah.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah.
Thank you.
dave rubin
Yeah, you got it.
This is vodka, by the way.
annand bunty king virk
Oh, I appreciate that.
That's amazing.
I've been just swigging it.
dave rubin
Yeah, you've been down in it.
I want to finally get to the truth.
I want you to open up, you know what I'm saying?
So we knew we had to lick it.
annand bunty king virk
Finally get to the truth, huh?
I've been lying this whole time.
dave rubin
You're doing a fine job.
So we sort of hit on this a little bit, but what about some of the frustrations with being a creator at the moment?
Now look, you got the boot from Twitter.
Everybody that I've talked to that we're going to release this week frustrated about monetization and Adpocalypse and all that.
Anything else that's high on your list about the frustrations of putting out content the way that we do?
annand bunty king virk
I think it ultimately comes down to being frustrated with... I put too much credence in the opinions of people.
The opinions of people that shouldn't.
Like when someone says something really shitty about me.
Because I understand that that's a human being on the other end, it bothers me.
It actually hurts me.
That someone said something rude about me.
Because I'm giving them the opportunity.
I'm humanizing them.
But they haven't humanized me yet.
So that's something that I have an issue with.
It goes way beyond monetization.
For me, monetization, I wasn't making that much money on YouTube anyway.
I've never been doing this for... I mean, I started doing it for money, and then I realized doing it for money makes you miserable.
And then I was like, I gotta start doing this for me, and for other people, and for wanting to make the world a better place, or how I want it to be.
and so that money left the window.
So for me, anytime I get demonetized, I just go and choose request.
Request monetization or whatever it is.
I request a review.
Yeah, you click it and that's it.
That's it, just wait.
So I've just been doing that, and so I haven't been really too bothered by that.
dave rubin
Literally just this morning, I happened to check our hidden Rubin Report email
that gets all the YouTube correspondences, and we requested a review of something
that we put up three years ago.
So the review must have been from three years ago.
They finally said yes today, three years later.
unidentified
It's like, what are you people doing?
annand bunty king virk
I can only imagine the amount of people that are sending review requests their way, though.
I can only imagine.
It must be insane, the amount of workload they're under.
It's funny, because I feel like you're probably going to get, you probably had a bunch of other people that are like, yeah, fuck monetization, what the fuck is going on?
I'm like not, I try to understand, because I know people that work at YouTube, and I know how much they love their platform, and I know how much they want to make it a better place.
And honestly, dude, like, you know, and just being on Twitter, and now I'm not on Twitter, which I'm thankful for, actually, because I don't ever want to come back to Twitter.
Yeah, I wanna hit that a little bit, yeah.
It sucks because I liked interacting with people like you, I liked interacting with my friends on Twitter, but it was so negative, dude.
It was so negative.
There's people there with 40,000 followers that nobody's ever really gonna know in real life, but they're just pushing this crazy, hateful agenda, and it's just really annoying.
dave rubin
You know, it's funny, right before we sat down, or right before we went live, you sort of half-apologized to me for a tweet that you sent me, and I think it perfectly encapsulates what you're saying.
So I had Stefan Molyneux on, and we talked a little.
annand bunty king virk
about race and IQ but that was related to something that Thomas Salad covered in one of his books.
And I was like, I was like, I would be really interested to see what Stefan Molyneux has to say to this.
And I just commented, and then some people came in and were like, oh, well, there you go, you're trying to, you're
trying to trump Dave.
I'm like, no, I'm not trying to trump Dave, I'm just asking him literally what Stefan Molyneux would think.
I don't dislike Stefan Molyneux, I think he's a very well-spoken dude.
He's a dad. I don't think that bad people can be dads.
dave rubin
Well, bad people can.
annand bunty king virk
Well, you can, man.
I mean, you know what I mean?
He has a dad, he has a proud father in his bio on Twitter.
You can't be a bad guy that way, I don't know.
dave rubin
So, it's funny, though, because some people I saw in that little exchange, some people were trying to get you to fight with Stefan, some people wanted you to fight with me.
annand bunty king virk
Which I'm not gonna do.
dave rubin
Right, and when you said, and I responded to your tweet, and I was like, yeah, I'll...
When I have Thomas on, this is, of course, this is one of the things that I'm going to talk to him about.
But it's that, so in a way, everything that you're talking about here for the last however many minutes has led you to now being off Twitter where you're back in the real world.
You don't want to get back in.
There's sort of a, there's like a beauty, a beauty and an irony or something.
annand bunty king virk
That's interesting.
dave rubin
To the situation you're in.
annand bunty king virk
I miss talking to people.
But I don't miss the hostility that's present on Twitter.
The platform is just built on hostility.
And it's just sad.
It's sad because they've also given too much power to these losers.
The person that got me suspended the second time is an absolute loser.
I'm never going to meet this person in real life.
He had a thousand followers or something like that.
I've never seen him.
I've never interacted with him before.
dave rubin
So getting to my previous question, do we need alternatives?
Like, what's the alternative?
Do we need blockchain Twitters and YouTubes and all of that?
annand bunty king virk
I think that Twitter on its own is not the best platform for communication.
I think that if you want to talk and you want to be a respectful person, you want to be a real human, you can go to Facebook.
And then if you want to just go ahead and showcase parts of your life, you can go to
Instagram.
And both Facebook and Instagram, by the way, in terms of like, and we're going to go and
talk just like, touch a little bit on marketing here, are way more monetizable in terms of
their engagement.
Because engagement on Twitter is a lot of fluff.
A lot of anonymous accounts that don't really matter to advertisers, right?
But Facebook and Instagram are like, the engagement there is raw.
Anytime you like interact with a video on Facebook, you can choose ha-ha, you can choose
like an angry.
So the engagement there is much more real.
And of course, people have associated their full names with their Facebook account.
So anybody interacting on Facebook, you know, their full name, which is way more valuable
to an advertiser.
Way more valuable.
So I'm trying to grow that.
That's pretty much, like, it's a challenge.
Being banned off Twitter has been a challenge and I need to kind of re-strategize.
I can't use Facebook like I use Twitter.
I have to use it very differently.
dave rubin
Where do you see all this going for you?
annand bunty king virk
Honestly, see this, I have no idea.
I wish I could answer that question.
I guess ultimately I'm going to continue doing social media.
I'm going to continue trying to connect with as many people as possible, but ultimately I see this coming to a point where I get to reconnect with my direct reality, because some of my best friends Their names are Brad and Jason, two amazing people that I've known for over 14 years of my life.
These people were seeing me at parties, and I'd be on Twitter dude, at a fucking party.
I'm looking at my phone, I'm like, responding to people who I'm probably never going to meet.
It'd be nice to meet some of these people, but like, I'm never going to meet them most likely, right?
And so, now that that's gone, it's allowed me to reconnect with people in real life.
dave rubin
Do you feel clearer?
I mean, like, your mind?
Because I know for that month that I took off, I felt better.
annand bunty king virk
Yes.
It felt amazing.
Twitter is fucking toxic.
I haven't left social media.
I'm on Facebook and I'm on Instagram.
I'm posting regularly on Instagram.
Anyone replies to my Instagram, I reply to them back most of the time.
But Twitter was absolutely toxic.
It allows people to be anonymous and of course with anonymity is this beautiful thing where someone can really be real.
I met plenty of anonymous people that said really nice things because they felt like they could really be themselves.
But the only thing I would encourage maybe to be if my audience is listening.
Can I go and address my audience?
dave rubin
Address your audience!
annand bunty king virk
If my audience is listening right now.
And my mutuals are listening right now.
The best thing I can say is that people who really align with my ideologies, people who align with my way of living, to just join, just jump back on Facebook.
Because I don't think that you should have a problem, because I don't have a problem in real life with my opinions.
I mean, people may not necessarily agree with everything that I say, but they're willing to talk to me because they know that I'm not a psychopath.
So if you can align with my ideologies, then you can jump on Facebook, you can jump on Instagram, you can be yourself online.
dave rubin
I sense you're basically a live and let live liberal.
You think that's a fair way to describe you?
annand bunty king virk
Yes, I am definitely that person, but I'm also a kind of person that I want people to be honest and understand the level of influence they have.
So when I see people abusing that, when I see people putting out fake news, it pisses me off, dude.
It's not right.
They know what they're doing.
I know whenever I tweet something, by the way, I'd always use the right words because I knew what words were going to hit.
And of course I would kind of craft that within the message that I aligned with wholeheartedly so I wouldn't be called out for being disingenuous.
But I know there's people out there right now that have a lot of influence that really are very disingenuous about their message because they know that it's going to get them further in life.
They know that it's going to go ahead and allow them to get the most people pissed off.
And a lot of that has to do with these race-baiting articles that we see in Salon and stuff like that.
And the only thing I can really recommend to people when they see that kind of shit is just to ignore it.
Because most normal people Don't care about that shit.
dave rubin
They don't care.
They don't even know that the conversation's happening.
But I like that you mentioned the intentions thing, because I think that really is the heart of what's going on here.
Some people are basically good actors.
I'm basically a good actor.
I will make mistakes without question.
I try to correct them when I do.
I will talk to people that maybe have had a bit of a nefarious past.
You may have murdered somebody, for all I know.
I haven't murdered anyone.
annand bunty king virk
I haven't done anything to anyone.
Actually, I fought an anti-Semite, though.
dave rubin
You fought an anti-Semite?
annand bunty king virk
Tell me about that.
Yeah.
dave rubin
What was that like?
annand bunty king virk
It was exhilarating.
Yeah, I had him up against a window, and I was headbutting him.
dave rubin
Who made it physical first?
annand bunty king virk
I made it physical first.
So you were on the punch of Nazis?
It was not the right thing to do, 100% not the right thing to do, but he was being very disrespectful to a woman, and it was a woman that was being courted by one of my friends, and so I punched him in the mouth, and then I pushed him against the window, and I started headbutting him, and then a cop split it up, and the cop So I was like, you look like a nice guy, I'm gonna let you go, but get this over with and then escalated from there.
Ended up in the hospital later.
dave rubin
Well listen, since the demonetization is tough, are you looking for a little extra work as maybe a bodyguard or something?
I'm out there, you know what I'm saying?
I can't be head-butting people and mess up the hair and everything.
annand bunty king virk
You know what's funny?
Walking around with Chris and Lacey, I was talking to them about stuff.
I'm not going to go into details, but it's funny because I was standing there and I told them, I said, listen, if anyone ever said anything to you or tried to do something to you, I'd beat the fuck out of them.
I don't care.
I don't want anyone hurting you guys.
That's the kind of thing.
I really try not to be like that.
dave rubin
You have this inner peace and beauty and all this and then it's also couched in... I do.
annand bunty king virk
I used to get in fights all the time.
I was the most suspended kid in high school.
I used to be in detention all the time in elementary school because kids would always be trying to pick fights with me and I'd always try to fight back.
And yeah, but no, I haven't had the need to fight anyone in over a decade, so it's beautiful.
And I don't want to.
I always told people, I said, next time I fight someone, it'll be to kill them.
And I don't want to do that.
Ever.
It's kind of crazy.
dave rubin
You're ending this with a threat to me somehow?
No!
annand bunty king virk
Are you kidding me?
I don't want to do that.
I really don't want... It's not something that... It's just more about like... There's no need to fight anyone.
You can deal with everything through words.
You can just talk to people.
Understand that I'm here to just help you out.
I want to make sure that you're comfortable.
If we can understand that we both want to be comfortable, then that's cool.
But the only time you're ever going to get into a fight again is if...
As if that's, like, you know, things are bad.
You don't need to fight anyone.
dave rubin
I don't need to fight anybody.
annand bunty king virk
Exactly, I don't need to fight anybody.
dave rubin
Plus, Star Wars is coming out this week.
I want to be in my right frame of mind when I go there and everything, you know, it's a lot.
Well, listen, man, this has been a pleasure.
You know, as I said, you were the last one in YouTube Week, even though this is actually the first one, but I think we kicked it off the right way.
Do you feel we got to where we need to be?
annand bunty king virk
This was a great interview.
Did you have fun?
dave rubin
I did, I did.
annand bunty king virk
Great, I hope the audience had fun.
dave rubin
I think they did.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, we ended it on a bit of a darker note there.
dave rubin
We got really violent.
annand bunty king virk
I just want to let people know that that is not my MO.
I just want to chill.
Please don't fight each other.
Love each other.
It's so easy.
It's nice.
Hugging is so nice.
We hugged each other when we first met each other.
dave rubin
We did hug each other.
It was a warm hug.
annand bunty king virk
Yeah, it was.
dave rubin
You want to hug again?
annand bunty king virk
Absolutely, we'll hug again.
dave rubin
Not right now because we have mics attached.
You know what, really though, it's been a pleasure.
I love what you're doing and I'm going to donate to your Patreon.
annand bunty king virk
No, you're not.
unidentified
Get out of here.
Stop that.
annand bunty king virk
Yes, I am.
dave rubin
No, there's nothing you can do.
It's the holiday season.
I'm going to donate to your Patreon and everybody else.
For more of Bunty King, you can follow him on YouTube.com slash Mr. Bunty King.
Oh, and check out this preview of what else is coming up on the Rubin Report this week.
Coming up on Rubin Report YouTube Week!
unidentified
I did not shit my pants.
Just to make that very clear.
dave rubin
We'll put that in the description.
unidentified
Okay.
Jacqueline did not shit her pants.
You don't have to be an intellectual juggernaut to get a lot of things.
I'm not the smartest guy.
I just like to think things through and sometimes I'm wrong, but at least I'm trying.
There was a huge stigma attached with anyone who was like a YouTuber.
It was like, oh, you just do cat videos.
You're just a prankster.
You can't do anything.
We can create professional, good content.
The first time I heard, hi, my name is Slam Shady on the radio, I was 11.
That just like, I was like, that's it.
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