SIO143: YouTuber T1J @the1janitor

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

[0:00:04] You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 143 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. All right, for today's episode, I've got a fantastic guest in The One Janitor, or Kevin is his name, but The One Janitor is his YouTube handle, and he's a progressive YouTuber, which is, I don't know if I want to say it's a rarity, but it's certainly not the dominant voice on YouTube, at least in my experience, or YouTube atheism, that is. But we're here to talk about that very thing, actually, that and the fact that he made a Sam Harris video, sort of what I thought was a very fair critique of Sam Harris that exploded, has over 100,000 views. And I wanted to talk to him about how that was received, what went into it, and also what it's like trying to be a progressive YouTuber, and then also talk some politics and stuff like that. A lot of fun. So with no further ado, here is T1J, Kevin, the one janitor.

[0:01:35] I'm joined by Kevin, or The One Janitor. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me on. Oh, thanks so much for coming on. I'm a big fan. After watching some of your videos, I had a lot of listeners as well that were like, "God, definitely get this guy on the show." And I'm so glad you're coming on, because me and the listeners are excited

[0:01:53] to have you. Well, I appreciate that. So, um, you recently did a video on Sam Harris and, I, we don't have to obviously focus on that the entire time, but, uh, I would definitely, that's one that a lot of people took notice of, and I really enjoyed it myself because I think you did a good job of being critical but not going overboard. Like, I've noticed that too, with with so many things, you know, I, I criticize Sam Harris more and more lately, and it's like there's also people on our end of things that are like, "Yeah, he's always been been a moron," and like, and they have to go so far the other way, you know, it's like, well, I don't know that I agree with that. And I just thought you found such a good way of walking the line of valid criticism, but not going overboard.

0:02:37 Kevin: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what I try to do in all of my videos. I want to be fair and civil, you know, so. Yeah.

0:02:47 Thomas: Then how did you end up on YouTube? Because that's not usually what goes on there.

0:02:52 Kevin: I mean, I've always been sort of like into creating content on the internet, like even since the early days of the internet, and YouTube was just another way to do that, like I used to, you know, write blogs, and I even had a just

[0:03:11] little web comic at one point, like I just like making stuff. Yeah, that's really cool. I just found my way to YouTube and managed to find a little bit bit of an audience. Around when did you get started on YouTube? Well, I like made my YouTube account in like 2008, maybe. And I began regularly making videos in like 2010. So it's been a while. Yeah, it was a different time back then,

0:03:37 Thomas: For sure. And I'm just so curious because I've had such a bad experience with YouTube atheists. But I'm curious for kind of your journey, because I saw another video you made, I think it was about a year ago, and you talked a little bit about how so many people on YouTube got swept up in anti-feminism. And I actually just gave a talk that was kind of along those lines. So I'm actually curious to hear it from your side of things too. Like, what was that like? And would you mind talking

[0:04:09] about maybe why you didn't get swept away in that because I think that would be really valuable yeah um

0:04:15 Kevin: Well, I didn't even really notice it at first. Well, honestly, like, and I've talked about this before, I was like on the verge of getting swept up into it, right? Um, and I guess maybe it is related to just sort of this, like, the YouTube atheist culture was sort of all about being just, just very, like, it was often like cynical at times. And so you're just inherently critical of like everything. And so that

[0:04:46] was, I guess, just another thing to be, quote unquote, skeptical of.

0:04:53 Thomas: I've always thought it had a lot to do with demographics. I mean, just simply by the numbers, atheism is so, and then atheism in general is already, I think it's, I don't know, 70, 75% men. It could be like 68, something like that. And then once you transition over to YouTube, where, you know, especially back in 2010 through to now, would have been disproportionately male. I've always tied it together with that. I mean, there's just a lot of men and, you know, men tend to have blind

[0:05:23] spots when it comes to these issues. But what do you think of that idea? I mean, I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

0:05:29 Kevin: I don't know, like from my perspective, of like just me personally, like I don't want to speak for other people, and honestly that's probably it, probably applies

[0:05:39] to me as well like as a man um but maybe me being not a white man was helped helped me not get as far into it as some of the others Um, but I mean I I I've I had had some what I think were legitimate criticisms with at least the online sort of tumblr feminist type people but I think the problem was when you sort of label like the entirety of feminism as a whole or paint them with that that sort of brush like based on you know these kids on tumblr that right but as for like why I didn't end up going that that route um it was actually similar to um what I talked about in the sam harris video but a lot of it was it just became sort of very vitriolic and I just, I've never been into that, like, like I'm, I'm down for a good discussion, I'm down for criticism, but when you start being like mean, like actually mean and bullying people, that's, that's where I start to step back a little bit.

And I, and I saw that that's what was happening with, you know, these YouTube atheists and these anti-feminists. And that's the initial thing that made me want to say, "Hey, actually, I don't think I'm down with this." And then from there, I feel like once you start looking at, you know, their claims and the things they're saying, it just becomes very clear

0:07:07 Kevin: That there's not an actual interest in like fact

[0:07:12] checking or, you know, being fair and things like that. And once I realized that, it was like, okay, that's not where I'm at at all. Yeah,

0:07:25 Thomas: That's interesting. I mean, people like the amazing Atheist. I mean, I believe he's the most popular, by numbers anyway, by subscribers, the most popular YouTube Atheist. And if you just look at his stuff now, I mean, it's just, I don't even know what it has to do with atheism. You know, it's just like, it's really weird how far it's come where he started. I used to like that guy's videos, you know? Know and then it's like all of a sudden now everything is sjw's are the

[0:07:49] same as Nazis, and like that's all we're talking about, you know, it's weird. Yeah, there's a few, a few people like that who just completely

0:07:56 Kevin: Shifted their con their content to stuff like that For like, another example is Thunderfoot was a guy, he's sort of back doing like science space stuff, mostly. But for a while, he just completely changed his entire channel to just anti-feminism. And it was just, it was really weird. Yeah,

[0:08:15] Definitely.

0:08:16 Thomas: You know, in that Sam Harris video, I think one thing you did a fantastic job of outlining is some of the ways that Sam Harris has kind of puts a lot of, you know, hedging and specific language into his stuff. And then when people criticize it, he's kind of got all this plausible deniability, but he doesn't really address it. Like, you bring up the example of profiling. And I think

[0:08:42] that's just such a great example.

0:08:44 Thomas: And, you know, one thing I'm curious about regarding Sam Harris is, honestly, for me, one of the biggest things that frustrated me to no end was, it was like a year ago or so, I talked about it a lot at the time, was he just offhandedly in a podcast was like, oh yeah, obviously Black Lives Matter is the worst thing to happen to society and stuff. And like, didn't even really develop the idea, but just gave that offhandedly, like, I'm not even going to bother talking to somebody about it or even going into the argument, but just because it has like black in the name and therefore identity politics or something, I don't even know what the argument is. But I'm curious, that's not something you touched on in your video. So I want to know, is that something either A, you don't, didn't particularly bother you about him, or was it anything like strategic on your part? Or what do you think about that? Yeah,

[0:09:34] I mean, I guess I was, I had to sort of decide what things I was going to focus on. The thing about Sam Harris is just like he said a whole lot of stuff. Yeah, and

0:09:47 Kevin: You sort of have, like, for a video like that, you sort of have to decide what you wanted to focus on. So I, I just decided I was gonna focus on the Islam thing because I feel like he's more well known for that. But I mean, yeah, that's true. I, I don't normally make very long videos. Like, that's, I think that's my longest video by far, and it could have been, you know, like two hours long if I wanted it to, because Sam Harris has said a whole lot of stuff. But I, I think

[0:10:12] it probably would have been useful to at least bring that up because I did sort of have a like a racial theme

[0:10:19] to the video. But I just decided to focus on the Islam thing. Yeah. Plus,

0:10:26 Thomas: The more you do in one of those, the more his fans can just kind of find to like, you know, complain about, "Oh, you said this imprecise thing here." You know, that's usually how it goes, at least when I've criticized him. But let's talk about the reception, because I've seen you say a few times that it's actually been, you know, you've gotten a lot of positive reviews from even Sam Harris fans and stuff like that. So talk about how it's been received. It's exploded. It's got a ton of views. So congratulations on that. I think it's well deserved. But have you gotten a lot of hate? Have you gotten a lot of good responses? What's been the

[0:11:01] fallout? Yeah, well, I've definitely gotten a range of responses.

0:11:06 Kevin: Like you said, I've gotten many messages and emails from people who were like, "I'm actually a fan." And they'll say, "I'm still a fan," but, I think that a fan of Sam Harris, and but they'll say, "I think you made some good points and you made me think about some things," and stuff like that. So I've definitely gotten that, but I've also gotten like some really angry messages. Um, it's hard to gauge, you know, what the majority, like,

[0:11:33] I tend to think, in general, um, for me at least, most responses are are at least civil, but like if you look at the YouTube comments now, it's, it's, it's gotten pretty bad. But I mean, that's, that's just YouTube, so I don't know. Like, I, I learned recently that

[0:11:52] you shouldn't look at like YouTube or Twitter and then just like assume that's what people are like. Right, right. It's

0:11:59 Thomas: So hard though. I mean, that's, that's the thing that's really difficult. It's funny that you say it's one thing if I say like, "Oh, that's YouTube comments," because I'm a podcaster to you, but like you being a YouTuber, like, "Well, I don't bother with that." It's like, that's the thing, you're on though, those are the people floating around there. But at the same time, I totally know what you mean, like it's, it's a problem I constantly face, that I imagine you would have too, which is when you put something out there and you hear from people, you're not, you know, you're hearing from one, one thousandth, if that, even like one ten thousandth, maybe, of the, the people. And like, there's

[0:12:36] no way it's a scientifically randomized, you know, proper, you know, sample of opinion? So like, it's so hard to gauge, okay, did I just hear from 10 people who are really mad about something but are not representative? Or is it worse? Like, did I just hear from 10 normally reasonable people who I'd said something so bad that they were like pissed about it, you know, and it's it's a difficult

[0:13:01] thing. So that's another challenge that I'm curious how you deal with as a content creator. Yeah,

0:13:08 Kevin: I mean, it is hard, and sometimes you, you just honestly don't really know. Yeah, um, on a video

[0:13:14] Like this, though, like, you know, it, you know, it's been shared in the Sam Harris Reddit, or subreddit.

0:13:21 Kevin: So it's like, you know, that there's like thousands of just people who are specifically Sam Harris fans that are coming specifically to defend them, and so that's a, you know, there's a disproportionate amount of a certain type of person that are going to be on that particular video, but I don't, YouTube comments, like I said, I think YouTube comments are just, are just bad in general. Yeah, like, like my, my YouTube comment section is probably not as bad as some other places, but once your video is, is beginning to be watched by people who aren't already your supporters or your followers, that's when it's, it's like the people most likely to comment are people that are just going to try to talk trash, you know? And I've, I've even talked to like some, some of my followers, and they say like, I, you know, I rarely comment because

[0:14:12] I'm, you know, I'm just enjoying the video. I'm not here to start a debate, you know? Yeah. And it's so hard to

0:14:18 Thomas: Know, like, how many of those people are out there. It's like, well, as long as my, you know, show keeps going, I guess they're out there somewhere. But totally, but do you, I'm curious, I'm not, again, I'm not on YouTube, is there any good way to try to moderate, you know, or is that not a thing? Do you, you know, is it worth blocking people who are awful and trying to curate a more, you know, reasonable kind

[0:14:43] of environment? Or is that just impossible on YouTube? It's pretty hard on YouTube. The best way

0:14:49 Kevin: I think to do it is to, well, I don't know if it's the best way, but what you can do is you can just make all

[0:14:56] comments have to be approved.

0:14:57 Kevin: Um, obviously that can be a pain, especially if you have a lot of comments, but yeah, YouTube doesn't

[0:15:04] really have that much in terms of moderation. Like, it has, like, a potentially inappropriate filter, but it's very wishy-washy. Sometimes it blocks, you know, regular comments, and sometimes it yes really bad ones through. Um, and you can't, as far as I know, I don't think you can

[0:15:23] actually block people on YouTube. Oh, is that true? Wow. I think you can, like, sort of shadow ban them, so, like, their comments won't show up, but they can still comment, or something like that. I don't know, I

[0:15:35] could be wrong about that. It sounds like you just decided, like, yeah, screw this, I'm not gonna bother with it. Yeah, no, I mean, when I make a video, I, I sort of read comments like the first couple days, and then I just, I stopped looking at them pretty much. Like, every now and then I'll just go and just see what's going on,

[0:15:54] but yeah, um, I, I have many, many ways for people to talk to me if they want to. They can tweet at me, like, they can email me, like, I've gotten a lot of, of great emails about this

[0:16:06] video. Yeah, so that's the way I choose to do it. Yeah, it's so weird. It's kind of me too.

0:16:12 Thomas: Uh, like when it comes to to my stuff on Twitter, I finally got to the point because I didn't block or mute anybody for, god, five years or so, you know, I was just like, oh, why would one ever need to do that? But it turns out I just hadn't pissed off the right people yet. And also, you know, I'm not a woman, I'm not a person of color, like I don't get that kind of harassment, so it's nice and easy for me.

It's like the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio, like, you know, skipping around. But eventually, as soon as I pissed off the right people, I decided like, okay, if it's somebody who's going to just constantly move the goalposts and not respond in any way to anything I'm saying meaningfully, like if everything I say is, okay, I'll address this thing. And then they go, what about this other thing and never even acknowledge what we just just talked about, I'm muting you. Like, it's just not, it's because you're never going to win with that person. Like, it's just going to waste your time, you know, and take time out of your day.

And I found that, so once I started muting those people, the weird thing is I didn't even have to mute that many. Like I muted like, you know, maybe five to 10. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, this is a utopia. Like, it's just the same five or 10 people that are are wasting all of your time, at least for me and other people. That's not to say that's the only people who disagree. No way. Like plenty of people disagree. And that's, I don't mind that at all,

0:17:32 Thomas: But it's the people who, with that, you know, that I'm sure you've, you've dealt with that way of arguing where you're like, this is not an argument, this is you just asserting something, trying to be mean. And then if you answer it, then it's just onto the next thing, and it doesn't matter, you know? And it's, it's so amazing how much of your time they can waste if you let them, them. Yeah. And so I'm just amazed at, like, there's not that many of them, though. And you get, you get sort of a disproportionate view of, of the internet if you, if you allow them to kind of dominate your time. So just, just along the lines of trying to gauge, like, where people are, it just makes

[0:18:09] it so difficult sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. I was the exact same way, where I didn't, like, mute or block anyone for a

0:18:15 Kevin: Long time. And because I felt like, you know, why, why, why would you need to do that? But then eventually I understood it.

[0:18:21] And then, you know, there's like, there are some people who just completely disable their comments on YouTube. And I used to think that that was like, it's very like sketchy thing to do, but I was like, I totally get it now. Yeah.

[0:18:37] Yeah. I think we're, we're on the same page there. So it's interesting though, you bring out the

0:18:43 Thomas: Sam Harris Reddit and I previously had a really negative view of Sam Harris Reddit because the

[0:18:49] couple times I had appeared on there, it had been, you know, someone who hates me posted and was like, look at this guy criticizing Sam Harris. And then there's a couple, but you know what I found is once that Ezra Klein thing happened, his Reddit is actually, it's not as, yeah, it's, I don't know what the right word is, but like there's, it's kind of balanced a little bit more than I thought, you know, like there were a lot of people on that that read it

[0:19:14] were like, geez, Sam really stepped in it with this and were critical of him. And I was frankly, I was kind of surprised by it. And so what I think is interesting is, I think you highlighted really well in your video, some of his blind spots. And I think once the Ezra Klein thing happened, people realized like, oh, he does have some blind spots. And then in that, I don't, did

[0:19:39] you listen to all that? Are you familiar with that that soul situation? Yeah, the Ezra Klein thing? Right, yeah, I just wanted to check. And in That, when he talks about essentially saying he has no biases and he has no blind spots, and then all his fans are seeing his blind spots, it was, I think, a really stark and just difficult to ignore problem. I think a lot of his viewers and followers or whatever, listeners, I guess, are recognizing, like, oh, maybe he does have some blind spots. Spots. And what you said about how he goes on Cenk Uygur's show for when they had, they had Reza Aslan on and he goes on a show and just the entire focus is how dare you have this guy on your show basically. And then like, he's still in love with Dave Rubin and that's all Dave Rubin is. I thought that was such a good point.

[0:20:30] And, um, I think it's another way that, that maybe people will see his biases.

0:20:36 Thomas: And again, it doesn't mean like, okay, then I hate him forever and never listen to anything he does, but maybe trying to make a crack, put a dent in that, a little bit of that hero worship. Have you heard from people who are like, oh, okay, thanks for pointing that out. Are you hearing and seeing signs of progress there?

0:20:55 Kevin: Yeah. Like I was saying before, I've gotten gotten you know several messages of people that are that I I obviously sort of put some some doubts into their head and you know I didn't set out to like make it make people hate Sam Harris or anything like that but um definitely people are saying you know I didn't really think about it this way and maybe I was a little bit blinded by my hero worship, things like that.

[0:21:20] so that is happening um so that's pretty yeah that's got to be really cool that's that's a that's a a good accomplishment, and congratulations on that.

0:21:28 Thomas: You know, one last thing, and then we can kind of move on from Sam Harris, but I think that another pattern that I found so funny and I think really dominates this is, and it shows how obtuse Sam Harris can be about this stuff, is gun control. You know, you mentioned in the profiling thing where I think you did a great job on how he's a little slippery with that, but Sam Harris on gun control. I've been wanting to talk about this for a minute, and I realize that it might be a decent time right now. He is

[0:21:59] somebody who, he has decided, so he likes guns, obviously, he likes gun ownership at least, but he has said multiple times that he favors far more harsh gun control than we currently have. And instead of just getting online and being like, all right, I'm with the Democrats, let's go harsh gun control. Like, which you would think would be the thing to do if you wanted to actually accomplish anything. Like,

[0:22:26] let's go, let's promote the side that is like, okay, gun control. What he did instead was like find a narrow far left view, which is get rid of all guns and then decide like, okay, what I really need to do is argue with that view. And like pretty much all of his writing on it is no gun owner, if it's safely done, like if you own it it with a safe and a whatever. Meanwhile, it's like, well, why did you pick that

[0:22:51] thing to argue with?

0:22:54 Thomas: And essentially he became an enemy and he was kind of confused by the fact that so many Democrats or people on the left were like, dude, what are you talking about with gun control? Despite the fact that he's in favor of it. And it just makes me think that it's more of like a culture thing. It's more of like a, he's anti-leftist or something more so than he is. You know what I mean? Do you pick up on that, like there's a, there's like an anti-PC, anti-leftist thing that takes precedence over most issues? Yeah.

0:23:25 Kevin: I mean, I think that's, that's how I would, that's sort of what I would say is like his main, like, agenda, like, overall, like, throughout his work, um, he just has this sort of anti-progressive, anti-left, uh, message, and it just seems like he, he has to frame everything through that. And you know, he'll, he'll, this is why everyone thinks that he's like some right-winger, because he'll like casually mention, you know, something, that some policies that he supports, because I would say that if you study or like look up what his like social and economic views are, they're like mostly left leaning, but he just doesn't talk about him that much, and he doesn't, like, you know, debate people about those things. He's, he spends far more time criticizing the left, criticizing leftist ideals, right, um, and you know, chumming it up with you know, right-wing people, and you know, even extreme

[0:24:25] right-wing people so you know yeah at a time when the right controls literally every single branch inch of cover.

0:24:32 Thomas: Like, it's just like, uh, this now is not the time. Like if it was the left controls everything, then okay, sure. You know, that's a good time to be like, hey, let's, uh, let's police the left. Let's make sure we're, you know, whatever. But it's like, now is the worst time to be trying to be more divisive and more, uh, you know, like it's, it's so weird. Cause I agree with you.

I bet a lot of his policy positions, if he were to just take a quiz, would be mostly left-leaning, like it would be mostly liberal, but then why has it become this? It's so frustrating. But anyway, um, I think we should transition here, and this is like where I think we could have the most bitter, you know, just absolutely go at each other's throats debate, which is this: the Four Horsemen is way less dorky than the intellectual dark web. I don't know what the hell you were thinking with, like, come on, man, no way, you, you said you're like, well, at least the intellectual, intellectual dark web isn't as bad as the Four Horsemen. I'm like, no way. So let's have it here, let's have this

[0:25:33] debate, because I feel like this, this is the real heart of the issue: calling yourself the Four Horsemen. Okay, there's four of them, horsemen, religious thing, like, okay, they're atheists, you know, that's a little self-important, but you know, like, come on, there's a religious tie-in. The intellectual dark web is literally just like, we have a few conservative views that that are already the mainstream, by the way. And so therefore we're this like badass intellectual dark web, which by the way, also the dark web is where you go for like child porn and shit. Like it's just the worst name possible. So that's my, that's my opening statement. And I offer you

[0:26:10] time for rebuttal. Go ahead.

[0:26:13] I mean, you make a compelling argument.

0:26:18 Kevin: I just, I guess I feel like the Four Horsemen is just way more self-congratulatory. And I assume that most people take neither of those very seriously, although it seems like some

[0:26:30] people, like Dave Rubin, really likes the intellectual dark web thing. Oh, they are in love with themselves

0:26:37 Thomas: Over there. Did you see Weinstein testifying before Congress and saying, I am a

[0:26:43] member of the intellectual dark web. Here's what, did you see that? I did not see that. Oh, okay. At.

0:26:50 Thomas: Yeah, no, they are in love with that. So I stand by my arguments, and I feel like we'll have to let the listeners

[0:26:57] decide on that one. You know, another thing that's interesting, you referenced the Forsman. I also was a huge fan of them, pretty much all of them at one time or another. And I think you said kind of as an aside in that video, you're like, Dan Dennett was the only one who managed to be more famous for his academic

[0:27:15] work. And I think that's so telling.

0:27:19 Thomas: Unfortunately, he's also, he still seems to be falling into this anti-leftist thing here and there. He just doesn't, he's not as active, so you don't notice it, but like he'll come out and tweet like, yeah, Me Too has gone too far. And then you're like, what, what's

[0:27:32] it? I thought you were just over there philosophizing and being not a douche. What happened?

0:27:38 Thomas: But, but the thing about Dan Dennett that I noticed, which I thought was interesting, I pointed out in my talk, which was if you search Hitchens or Harris destroys on YouTube, you get like 7 billion results. If you search Dan Dennett destroys, there's no results. And I thought that was like very telling in terms of how people went about it, you know? So like, what do you think about that? I mean, would you think of yourself as someone who would never want to be associated with that, because if someone posts a video tomorrow on YouTube and they're like, here's the one, janitor destroys this argument or this

[0:28:15] side or whatever, like, how would you feel about that? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not into stuff like that, um, but I mean, that's

0:28:21 Kevin: Part of, like, I used to be into stuff like that, right, and that's part of, um, I think my, my evolution on

[0:28:27] this whole sort of new atheism stuff, because it does, and beyond atheism, like the whole sort of left-right, right, feminist, anti-feminist, like, a lot of it does seem to be just about, like, owning people and, you know, destroying people. And I think that, you know, the Dan Dennett thing is a good

[0:28:51] example, or it's, like, similar to my approach, like, I intentionally try to avoid doing stuff like that, like, I don't make, I very rarely make, like, you know, like, the response video type videos where you sort of find some person and then just like, just try to do this like long takedown. And there are people that I'm friends with that do videos like that, but that's just not my thing. I don't want to be perceived as like some guy that's like trying to like own people on the internet, like, so yeah, I would definitely be uncomfortable with that if I saw that, um,

[0:29:27] but I feel like that would be unlikely, just because I don't make that kind of stuff. Yeah, and it's hard though, because, like, how do we, how do we destroy that? No, how do we, like, fight back against that? Because

0:29:39 Thomas: It seems to be such a, I don't know what the word is, it's such a shareable thing, it's such a, it's such an appealing thing to so many people, to the point where Ben Shapiro literally does that about himself. Like, at least I'll give Harris and Hitchens credit, they, I, they never would have called their own thing, you know, Hitchens or Harris destroys this, I guarantee it. I don't know, I don't care how far Sam Harris goes down this, this stupid rabbit hole he's down. He never would have said that. Whereas Ben Shapiro, that he realized like, oh, this is a thing. And just, that's his whole shtick. Like, his entire marketing is just Ben Shapiro destroys this college student who thinks that people should make a living wage.

0:30:20 Thomas: It's like, oh yeah, you really, you really got her. But it, but it works. And like, it's interesting to me. It seems that you found a a good niche of not that on YouTube, how do you feel about that? And are you, are you cognizant of, you know, other people around you doing a similar thing? Do you feel like there's a good presence on YouTube of, of that kind

[0:30:42] of content? Well, I think it's certainly, um, becoming more of a thing. Um, the thing

0:30:48 Kevin: About YouTube is YouTube sort of naturally rewards you for making stuff stuff like that. Like YouTube is all about clickbait and, um, conflict and drama. And that's just, you know,

[0:31:00] that that just naturally is going to get a lot of views and it's you're more likely to succeed with something like that.

0:31:06 Kevin: But there, I think there is more sort of thoughtful, nuanced stuff that that's starting to come up these days. But it, at the end of the day, it'll probably, you know, never ever reached the same level as, you know, like the feminist wrecked compilations and stuff like that. Yeah, unfortunately.

[0:31:25] I, I feel like that's probably true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel like you're, uh, you're, you're doing your best

0:31:32 Thomas: To make it. I think you're doing a good job of, uh, contributing content that's not that. But, um, you know, I'm also curious, something else you, you've said in a video, um, and I know it's, it's been like a year, so I don't know how you still feel. But I, I'm curious of your, your view on the political situation? Because it seems like you maybe think of yourself as not necessarily a Democrat, like more of a progressive person. And let's talk about politics. I come from the angle of there are two parties that have any chance at anything. There's no viable third party, and one party is pretty much ruining the planet and the country and everything. So therefore, for, I'm pretty down with the other party. But that, you know, it just, it doesn't mean they're perfect. It just means like, there's only one route to making any sort of change happen. But what is your feeling on that? I've heard you mention you're not necessarily down with the Democrats in some ways. So could you talk about that? Yeah.

0:32:27 Kevin: I'm, I don't know, it's something that I'm still thinking about a lot. But I

[0:32:33] mean, I definitely, I pretty much agree with you. Like, there's Democrats and Republicans, and basically, the Democrats have to win in order for anything to get better, I'm pretty sure. And then I guess we go from there. And I usually vote for Democrats.

[0:32:55] I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, and a lot of people are mad at me about that. Yeah, me too. I mean, I'm mad at you too. Why did you not vote for Hillary? Always open up, I think there's just certain cases and maybe with her that it was just, it was a bit unfair because there was an extra scrutiny. But I think there's, in some cases, where just someone is just so objectionable that I just don't, I just can't bring myself to do that. Uh, I guess voting strategically is, is how you make things better, but at some point I feel like saying I don't want, want to vote for someone that I don't want to be the president is, is fair. But, um, yeah,

[0:33:40] not everyone agrees with that, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, there's two choices.

0:33:46 Thomas: You know, there's two, two people could be president. And it's like, I've never understood this. Well, I shouldn't be forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. And it's like, but that's what it is. You can't get out of that. You

[0:33:58] You know, if somebody just tells you, like, I'm either going to shoot you or hit you with a bat, I'd be like, well, I guess I'm getting hit with a bat. You know, like, there's no, it sucks. But like, that's what we're in. That's the situation we're in. It's kind of a waste of time to, here's what I would say. Were you, so were you

[0:34:17] like a Bernie person or where were you coming from in terms of your not Hillary vote? Yeah, I mean, I originally supported Bernie Sanders. Yeah. Yeah, same here. And I'm just wondering, like, my view is the place to have those arguments and the place where we get to say, hey, if the Democrats are doing this and I don't like it, let's put a stop to that is in the primary. And I just feel like that's where we get the chance to say, if you're like you or even I, because I voted for Bernie in the primary as well, is to say, well, here's who I like between these two people. Let's see where that goes. But then once we've all settled on like, okay, here's where it came down. Unfortunately, you and I lost in that vote. Then I just think, I don't know, I think it's irresponsible to not stop Donald Trump from becoming president. I don't know. Do you regret that? I mean, it

[0:35:06] obviously depends on where you're voting, but I don't know. How do you feel about that in retrospect? I wonder if I would feel different if I live somewhere, because I live in Alabama, which is deeply red. Right. And

0:35:19 Kevin: I don't know if my outlook would be different if I lived in a different state. The whole election process and the whole electoral college system is very discouraging to me in general. I'm sort of disillusioned with the presidential election as a whole. Yeah, I can

0:35:37 Thomas: See that. Another thing that frustrated me to no end about the lower Democratic turnout is like, even if you hate Hillary Clinton, think she's the absolute devil, what you absolutely, in my opinion, had a responsibility to do was still show up and vote Democrats into Congress and just don't even vote for president. Like if everybody had done that, I'd still be happy because that's honestly going to make a bigger difference.

Like we could have stopped Trump from putting in Neil Gorsuch, which is maybe the most harmful thing he's done yet. You know, like that's significant. That's where the real harm comes. And we have to stop that. Like if another justice goes that way, I mean, if a liberal justice, if we lose a liberal justice and gets replaced with an originalist in his early 40s, like we're fucked. And it's real stakes. And I guess I'm just upset that this kind of anti-Hillary, which even if you don't even want to argue that, like even if I just grant, like, okay, maybe Hillary was the worst ever, that, like, somehow gave people license to stay home and not vote for, you know, congressional elections and not care about Democrats in other areas. And I guess that frustrates me quite a bit. Yeah.

0:36:47 Kevin: I mean, I, uh, I fully, I think congressional elections, are in my opinion, they're more important than the president, presidential election. I think they matter more, and I think your vote counts more in those, for, usually, like here in Alabama, uh, it's like thoroughly, thoroughly gerrymandered.

[0:37:06] Yeah, I was gonna say it depends on how badly you've been gerrymandered. Yeah. So I, I definitely, like, I don't, and I try to make it clear, I'm not arguing for apathy, and I'm not arguing for people to stay home. I, like, I never argued that, that particular thing. Like I said, it's something I'm still thinking about, it's something I need to think about, because, like, the Supreme, Supreme Court, uh, thing was definitely something that probably didn't consider as much as I should have. Yeah, like, that's a really big thing. Yeah. You know, I wonder what it would be like if people just actually, like, voted for people they wanted to be, to win, rather

[0:37:43] than just voting for people the most likely to win. Like third party, you mean? Yeah, third party or anybody. Um, yeah, I, I mean, personally, uh, well, we shouldn't get it, I guess, back into

0:37:55 Thomas: This 2016 argument, but I don't, I don't believe any of the third party candidates were better than Hillary. But, um, but, and let's, let's talk about this. Are you, do you, are there any, like, platform issues or broad issues that you have, have a problem with in Democrats? I'm just curious. Or was it more of a, like, this person, Hillary

[0:38:14] is not who I want? That specific case, it was more of Hillary. But I mean, I think the Democrats

0:38:20 Kevin: In general are, I wouldn't, like, identify with the Democrats personally, in general.

[0:38:26] Um, no, I'm curious, what do you, could you explain that? What do you mean by that? In general, like, I would say there's probably a progressive wing of the Democrats, but the Democrats are, I think they're like way behind on social issues most of the time. They're generally like, and I'm not like an anti-capitalist, but they're generally pro, sort of the Wall Street capitalist sort of establishment. Like they don't, they don't go too far in, in or go far enough, I think, in in trying to make things better for, for workers and consumers. They are generally pro-war, which I'm, which I'm strongly against. So things like that, obviously, they're miles ahead of the Republicans, but I just don't feel like, I guess I just don't feel like the Democrats are as progressive on

[0:39:22] most issues as I would like them to be. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. So wouldn't that be an issue no matter where

0:39:28 Thomas: You are? Because we've got two groups, you know, we've got two groups. To simplify it, we've got Democrats and Republicans as the major parties, obviously. And like, no matter where you are, I mean, if you're center-right, there's going to be far-right people who are like insane to you, hopefully. And you're going to be like, well, and you could either say, well, I don't like Republicans. I'm not a Republican because look at those people. Or you could say, well, I'm a Republican, but there's a bunch of

[0:39:53] Republicans I don't like. And I think the same would apply here. I think it's like there's... there's definitely a progressive wing of the Democrats that it sounds like would be you. And I feel like, like, I know a lot of those people, but it's, I'm, I'm just interested in, I mean, is there a fear of, like, if you, if you say you're a Democrat, or if you endorse Democrats, and therefore you're endorsing some of this stuff that you don't believe in. But I just feel like that'll

[0:40:18] be a problem no matter where you are. Wouldn't it? I mean, I don't know. I guess it just depends on how you look at it. Like when I think of Democrats,

0:40:25 Kevin: I feel like the, what I think of when I think of Democrats is not me. So I don't call myself a Democrat. Like when I think of what defines the Democrats as a party, I don't think of me.

[0:40:37] I don't think of things that I would say I identify with, so it doesn't feel right to call myself a Democrat. Well, but like someone like Elizabeth Warren, you know, I mean, she created the Consumer Financial

0:40:50 Thomas: Protection Bureau. She, you know, she, I think she's on the forefront of a lot of these issues of fighting, you know, big banks from being able to just totally screw us over, stuff like that. And it's like she's a popular Democrat. She's somebody that, you know, I identify with. It doesn't mean, I'm sure somebody could dig up something I disagree with with her, but I don't know. I guess where I'm coming from is I'm just so worried about 2018 elections coming up and 2020. I mean, we just had some primaries and I can't, I'm in disbelief that in California, the turnout was still incredibly low.

Like, I thought, we all thought this blue wave is coming and then, you know, it's like, well, we have to do it. And if we don't do it, we're going to end up with more of Trump and more of Republicans in Congress. And it's like, I understand, I guess that's equivalent to me saying we need to stop these other people. And you're saying like, well, yeah, but we also, you know, I want to make sure we're doing good things. And I agree with you. But like, again, I feel like the only way forward is to do that bridge.

Like you got to start somewhere. You got to start with a base of like, we're dealing with people who aren't the worst. You know, you got to start there. And then you get up on that platform. And then, okay, now that we're not the worst, let's try to be not the second worst, you know, and like you build from there. And for that reason, I'm very

0:42:10 Thomas: Firmly on the side of Democrats. And I just, I don't know, I guess I'm worried by the outlook

[0:42:17] You're expressing here. What do you think? Do you think I'm being unreasonable? I mean, I don't know. I think people should just

0:42:23 Kevin: Go and vote and vote for who they want, like that's basically what I think. And I think there are a lot of perfectly fine and even excellent Democratic, Democratic candidates out there that people can vote for. But I, like, I, I'm, I also am

[0:42:42] concerned when there's low turnout. Like, I think people should vote. And I think, I think if, if progressives voted more, than more Democrats would win. So, like, I don't, I don't think that's a problem. I think getting, I don't think the problem is people like randomly not supporting Democrats, because I think that progressives and people on the left are going to vote for Democrats most of the time. Like, if, if the turnout was, was high, then Democrats would probably still would probably win. So that's not really the

[0:43:14] thing I'm, I'm worried about. I just want people to vote, basically. Yeah, you know who stops people from voting? Republicans.

0:43:22 Thomas: You know, like, tries to drive turnout lower and make it harder for people to vote. Yet another reason why I'm firmly on the Democrat side. But I'm trying to parse the difference there in what you're saying. You're, so you're not concerned with people not voting Democrat, you're concerned with people not voting? Is that what you're saying?

[0:43:40] Well, yeah. Yeah.

0:43:42 Thomas: Because, yeah, okay, I guess I see what you're saying. Like, the more people who show up and vote, it pretty much usually favors the

[0:43:48] left. Yeah, I would say that. All right. Well, that's fair. I mean, I wish, if I could change one thing, you know, snap my fingers, I want mandatory voting, personally. That's, I don't, they have it in, like, Australia, and it's totally fine. Like, it's not, it's not like a post-apocalyptic, well, I guess it kind of is in Australia, but for different reasons.

0:44:07 Thomas: But yeah, no, I wish voting were mandatory. I really think that it makes it so weird that the biggest pool of potential voters we have to appeal to is always the people on your side who didn't vote, rather than people on the other side. So like, we never care about convincing people on the other side, it just doesn't matter. It's more like, okay, how do we get the people who decided not to vote, who probably agree with us, how do we get them to vote? And it's like, I feel like if everybody had to vote, we wouldn't be having, that wouldn't be the focus. The focus might be, okay, let's have a dialogue and see if we can convince people not, come on guys, get off your ass and go vote, which, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like that would be more productive.

0:44:53 Kevin: Yeah. I mean, I'd be willing to try it out.

0:44:57 Thomas: All right. Drawing to a close here, what's on your horizon in terms of, if you were were to summarize, like, you know, I don't know, a mission statement of of your channel going forward. What are you looking to to do? What are you looking to, what fights,

[0:45:09] What, what, I guess I shouldn't use that language, what political or what, what ideological, um, you know, areas are you looking to explore more? I don't have like any specific thing that I want to do. I'm, I'm

0:45:22 Kevin: Looking into to like, I used to do sort of more very basic type videos that were like short or shorter, and I'm looking into more maybe doing more like, um, longer, more research videos on different topics, like maybe like deep dives into into certain social or political topics. And I want to talk more about like the the relationship between sort of politics and pop culture, like that's pretty interesting to to me. Yeah, like I sort of like, I, one of my most most recent videos was about the Simpsons, and that's sort of like a similar thing that to to what I'm talking about. So something like that, but I try to keep it pretty broad and try to not sort of pigeonhole myself into certain topics. I got, I don't, I don't like, I don't want my channel to be like a

[0:46:12] political channel, like you don't want to become like, oh, that's the guy who talks about Sam Harris forever. Like, yeah, yeah, of course. No, no, that's always a concern. But it's, you know, I hear, I'm there too, because it's like,

0:46:24 Thomas: I don't want to turn into that either. And I do all kinds of interviews on all kinds of different stuff. But at the same time, it's like, if I'm in that movement, if I'm in that group of people, and so many of them look to Sam Harris all the time, I can't help but being like, okay, but the thing he just said really sucks. But yeah. No, that sounds cool. Okay. So if people want to check you out, I mean, I just go to YouTube and search T1J, right? Is there anywhere else you you want to point people? Yeah,

0:46:49 Kevin: You can search T1J. And I guess just if you want to like get in touch with me or hit me up, just follow me on Twitter at TheOneJanitor, T-H-E, the number one janitor. Awesome. Well,

0:47:02 Thomas: Thank you so much for coming on. I really like what you're doing. And I really hope that, you know, we all should get out there and promote and follow these voices on YouTube that aren't just misogynist, racist, yelling about Tumblr

[0:47:15] feminists or something like that. So, thanks so much for coming on, and I really like what you do. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

0:47:32 Thomas: All right, thanks again to T1J for coming on. Interesting stuff. I didn't necessarily know what to expect in speaking to him. Fan of his videos. But curious, politically, that's interesting. Interesting. I bet there are a lot of people out there, though, that kind of share his outlook. I wonder, I don't know if I made an impact, but it does make me think that I need to think about that and how I can make that sales job. Because to me, it's beyond obvious what we need to do, which is vote Democrat. It's the only way. And no matter how many times I have to say, like, that doesn't mean Democrats are right in all situations, but we get two choices and that's the reality of

[0:48:12] the situation.

0:48:13 Thomas: But I think there are probably a lot of people out there like Kevin who are thinking in the way they are, and that's a problem for Democrats. At any rate, thank you as always for listening and supporting the show. I really very much appreciate it. You can do that at patreon.com slash seriouspod or seriouspod.com slash support if you'd like to cut out the middleman. Either way is great and you you get access to those bonus episodes. And with that said, should be one out real soon. I know it's a very busy time for me. I'm in tech and just about to open in the musical I'm in. So it's been very tough, but I promise there will be bonus content very soon. Definitely before this month is out. I have a good idea of what I want to talk about. Just need to find the time to do it and make it good. All right. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.