WTW32: Best of the Worst of the Woke Awards!

Transcript

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

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I believe this is officially the last episode of the year, I right?

0:00:47 Lydia: Oh, man. See you next year.

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah, what a great year. What an amazing year of wokeness. No, I mean in all seriousness, this was the first year of the show and we've barely gotten our feet wet. There's so much to do, but I'm really excited for today's show. This first off, I'm Thomas Hess. Lydia, how are you doing?

0:00:52 Lydia: I know.

0:01:07 Thomas: Anything?

0:01:05 Lydia: Hi. Let's get to it.

0:01:08 Thomas: New, uh, yeah, that's, how are you doing? How's your day? Our little Remy, is one.

0:01:12 Lydia: Yeah, we celebrated his birthday today. That was so sweet.

0:01:14 Thomas: Yeah. He's a sweet little guy.

0:01:17 Lydia: And yeah, just getting ready for 2024. The kids have said it's 2024. I guess they've been talking about it at school a lot lately in a very like formal way.

0:01:17 Thomas: Oh cool it takes, you know, totally apropos of the show, where there's woke, it takes a while to get your kid to understand what a year is, like, what, not, not, not only like that, what a year is, but like you say 2023, they're like, what the hell? They don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah.

0:01:31 Lydia: Yes. Just Random numbers. Yeah.

0:01:45 Thomas: Like what? And then it's like, yeah, we number the years. And then I think Phoebe's almost getting it now. But if I still ask her like, well, what year were you born? She's like a robot. Her brain just fries. Yeah. No. So it's, it's going well over here. Well, we've established all the niceties, everybody, everybody, uh, we didn't ask the audience how they're doing, but I, yeah, fuck them, no, I'm just, no.

0:01:45 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Write in, let us know. You're So mean.

0:02:09 Thomas: We got, I'm

0:02:10 Lydia: We took polar opposites. I was like, tell me everything, what's been going on with your life, everybody.

0:02:13 Thomas: Really? Yeah. Everyone Please, don't, you'll take up too much of my wife's time.

0:02:20 Lydia: I will.

0:02:22 Thomas: She will respond thoughtfully to each one of you, um, no, I, I forget whose idea this is, but it's the show's idea, it's a great one, um, there, few of the usual suspects that we cover did, like, the Woke Awards, the worst, worst of the woke of the 2023, and so I was thinking, like, we should do the Where There's Woke best of the worst of, you know, like, we'll be like the award show for the award shows, and we're gonna pick out some of our favorite awards for worst woke or best, well, I don't know, it's a mixture, honestly, it's not very consistent because we're trying to, we're, interface between different themes and stuff, but let it suffice to say, this is the best of the worst of the Woke Awards and 2023, and the nominees are,

0:02:28 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:03:04 Lydia: Well, straight out of New Tolerance Campaign, which is an organization that's existed for like two years.

0:03:12 Thomas: We know, have we come across them before? Do we know them? No. Okay. This is, of

0:03:15 Lydia: No, this is the first time. And so this is an organization that was started by this guy named Gregory Angelo, and he is a gay Republican and, yeah, wrote an op-ed, I think back in, like, Washington Post a while back, basically saying, like. I am responsible for companies going woke and I regret it. And it is so dumb. Like you are one guy, one gay Republican who was active in college.

0:03:26 Thomas: Course.

0:03:44 Thomas: Oh, wow. I have never heard of you. I don't even know who you are. I'm responsible.

0:03:48 Lydia: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. He worked for he worked for like the, press team under Trump. And, you Like he's had these other positions in government and stuff.

0:03:59 Thomas: Okay. Okay, now I want to read this. What the fuck is this thesis statement?

0:04:03 Lydia: Well, OK, so it's coming from this efforts that he made as a gay man to petition companies, lobby companies to care about inclusivity for gay people.

0:04:16 Thomas: So, okay. But I guess the question I'm wondering is like, is he saying in his private capacity before he became a conservative, like, I was part of the woke mob, something, or is he saying he held some actual job that was like, you know, I was the media consultant for big woke and I taught them how to woke or something, you know huh

0:04:33 Lydia: No, I I think don't think it was as a private citizen. Like he's always been a Republican from what I can tell, even when he was in college and stuff. And he's also always been gay. And so I guess his organization, I'm thinking maybe it's like the log cabin Republicans or whatever that he was affiliated with through college. I think it was through that that he was lobbying companies and they were trying to incorporate, push to incorporate sexual orientation to be one of the protected classes more explicitly. And because he was involved in that at all, at all like, people also wrote to their senators and they're not claiming that they're responsible for encouraging legislation that made companies woke. But, yeah, he has, he decided that he has played a critical part in that and that his friends all tell him that he played a political part in it. So, you know, so that's great.

0:05:11 Thomas: Okay sure big guy, all right, yeah, but now you regret it or something, is it that kind of thing uh darn

0:05:29 Lydia: Now he regrets it. Of course. Of of course.

0:05:33 Thomas: Well, then you better undo all the nothing you did oh

0:05:36 Lydia: Yeah. So he started this organization called the New Tolerance Campaign. And, is featured on, gosh, a variety of things. You know, Bill Maher talks about this campaign the last couple of years. Thefire.org talks about them. They partner together sometimes. Basically all of our friends here on Where there's woke.

0:05:43 Thomas: That sounds lovely for fuck's sake the usual suspects huh yeah Yeah.

0:06:01 Lydia: He has been rubbing elbows with them and doing mighty fine. So their annual list, I guess this is their third year, second year issuing this list, but it is now annual. It is a tradition for them.

0:06:15 Thomas: It's an American tradition as well. We all sit around the TV television waiting for whatever the fuck this guy's website is.

0:06:17 Lydia: Yeah. The worst of the woke. Yeah, yeah. And they just just released this very recently. I mean, this is barely even cracked the media circuit. You know, there's been some print stuff about it, but

0:06:34 Thomas: Oh, so we don't have time to run the like for your consideration for the word where there's woke and then do like a little sizzle reel of us being woke. Damn. Well, next year.

0:06:42 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, but I think, you even Fox News last year had him on to talk about this stuff. They haven't even had that segment yet. So I'm wondering if we're scooping them, you Know, and maybe it'll come out tomorrow, so why but don't we talk about some of his, you top contenders? And here we go. The first one is, of course, Bud Light.

0:06:56 Thomas: OK. OK, wow. Wow, you're going this early with the Bud Light?

0:07:09 Lydia: It's the first one on their list. Bud Light, yeah.

0:07:11 Thomas: Come on, man. This guy already sucks. I know almost nothing about him.

0:07:15 Lydia: You got to, like, lead up to it, you know, yeah, yeah

0:07:16 Thomas: Yeah, what are you talking about? That's got to be your drumroll. Bud Light, baby. Okay, what's his version of what happened?

0:07:24 Lydia: All right. He says the reason. For decades, Bud light had bragging rights as America's best-selling beer. Until April, when an ill-advised marketing campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney went viral for all the wrong reasons, Bud Light's core customer base felt abandoned, and

0:07:41 Thomas: Hey, hold on. I actually agree with him on that one sentence. It did go viral for all the wrong reasons. Yeah.

0:07:49 Lydia: In turn they abandoned the brand. A sustained boycott led to sales falling a whopping 17 percent. Then executives expressed remorse for the promotion, the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ lobbying organization, stripped the company of its 100 percent rating as the best place to work for LGBTQ plus equality. Anheuser-Busch's attempt at virtue signaling made them everyone's enemy. Will the brand ever recover? That's how he ends it.

0:07:53 Thomas: That's abandoned. Oh, boy.

0:08:24 Thomas: I mean, this thing is kind of nuts because on one hand, a lot of this is like, okay, they're doing a bullshit like this. We've covered so much of this. A lot of times they're trying to claim like, oh, that Marvel, new Marvel movie, that flop, I'll probably be on your list, but that flop because of the wokeness. And it's like, nah, it probably just sucked, you know, like it probably, because also Barbie was super duper woke and that was the most successful movie of the year, I believe. So they do a lot.

0:08:32 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, of many years.

0:08:50 Thomas: Yeah, they do. Do a lot of that, like it's like a psychic where you only count the wins and you don't count the but when it comes to Bud Light, like they legitimately went fucking insane on Bud Light. And I, I actually do think they, they cost Bud Light quite a bit of money. Right, the like part, obviously that's bullshit, is all of the controversy. But the part where Anheuser-Busch actually did suffer pretty rough economic consequences because of it, I, from what I've, from reputable sources, that's actually true. Did you check on that? Well,

0:08:50 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah yeah so I was looking at the stock, you trends for Anheiser-Bush and they they did have a drop for sure in terms of, you know, price per share. And I think where the discrepancy is, is this idea that they'll never recover, right? That that's

0:09:36 Thomas: Yeah of course, then obviously it's weird to be like they had a 17 drop from which they will net really well, what's the 83 doing then?

0:09:37 Lydia: Just stupid. They've already recovered. It's interesting because, you know in April, so April 2023, what I'm showing, I'm just on market watch, I'm sharing each share was at $66.39 in April 2023. And then the drop, you don't see that until June.

0:10:01 Thomas: Well, like yes, you can't use share price, share price is a tough one to do, yeah so the, the people who own shares of the Bud Light, those aren't fucking Kid Rock listeners who are like, yeah, let's whatever.

0:10:04 Lydia: OK. All right. Yeah.

0:10:13 Thomas: So it's like the idiots are seeing that, by the way, we haven't ever said it on the show, I don't think, this is not time for a deep dive on this. But, if you had just woken up from a, from an amni, whatever, from a coma and you saw this story, you'd like, okay, so what, here's what Bud Light did, they ran a Super Bowl commercial with a trans person, fully like as much endorsement of trans people as possible, like you could possibly imagine, and like Bud Light, the trans beer, we

0:10:32 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:10:43 Lydia: Like the opposite end of the Kardashian or Jenner, I guess. Right, Jenner and the Pepsi, right? And like how that was like ridiculed and people are like, what were you thinking, Pepsi?

0:10:52 Thomas: That but for trans like you would just think, oh man, they must have been like, cis people go fucking die because trans people only drink Bud Light go fuck yourself, America, and that's what, but really all it was, if you haven't heard by now, was they sent her a, like, one six pack of custom beer to do one Instagram video, Instagram, that's just like, hey, Bud Light promotion, they're actually fucking, let's play it, why not, this

0:10:55 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:14 Lydia: I

0:11:23 Clip: Hi! Impressive carrying skills, right? I got some Bud Lights for us. So, I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness, and I thought we were all just having a hectic month, but it turns out it has something to do with sports. And I'm not sure

0:11:37 Thomas: Is how I know, trans, trans women are women, by the way, just, just saying that's

0:11:39 Lydia: Know.

0:11:41 Clip: Which sport, but either way it's a cause to celebrate.

0:11:46 Clip: This month I celebrated my day 365 in womanhood, and Bud Lights sent me possibly the best gift ever, a KM with my face on it. Check out my Instagram story to see how you can enjoy March Madness with Bud Light and maybe win some money too. Love ya! Cheers!

0:11:56 Thomas: A, that's a nice thing to do. It's so sad. That's it.

0:11:57 Lydia: This is really nice. Nice.

0:12:04 Clip: Go team!

0:12:04 Thomas: That's the, that, that.

0:12:05 Clip: Whatever team you love, I love too.

0:12:05 Thomas: That's, that okay.

0:12:07 Lydia: Oh, that's really cute.

0:12:09 Thomas: That's the entire

0:12:09 Clip: Okay. Love ya. Okay.

0:12:10 Thomas: Fucking thing. Yeah.

0:12:11 Clip: Break a leg.

0:12:11 Lydia: OK, bye.

0:12:12 Clip: There was

0:12:14 Thomas: Chief's going, that'd be funny. I don't know if she had like a time limit. She had a hit to do to get the money or something. That's it.

0:12:15 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. To get her 60 grand or

0:12:20 Thomas: They sent her a beat like, and it's, it's nice. Whoever did that at, at, but at Anheuser-Busch, I don't know who the fucking was in charge of that. I imagine you have, with a giant corporation like that, you got marketing people who are a different generation than the fucking boomers probably running everything.

0:12:21 Lydia: Whatever.

0:12:35 Lydia: Oh, yeah.

0:12:36 Thomas: Who knows?

0:12:36 Lydia: I actually found like one of the marketing people and they man. And so did, you know, Fox News and stuff. And so they decide that they're someone found pictures of her in college and posted her like drinking and stuff at frat parties because she said that Bud Light had like a fratty reputation. And then they're like, well, you seem pretty fratdy. And it's it's just insane. It was just the person like head of marketing that said Bud

0:12:37 Thomas: Oh, what? Okay. I'm sorry. I can't even follow. What's the logic of the? Okay. So did they, did she, is it a woman or?

0:13:10 Lydia: Woman.

0:13:10 Thomas: Okay. Did she justify this decision by saying, let's get rid of this or let's combat this frat image of Bud Light? And then the gotcha was, oh yeah, idiot, if there's such a frat beer, then why were you pictured drinking it in a fratt... What does

0:13:11 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was saying, you and not even drinking Bud Light. She's drinking other beer.

0:13:32 Thomas: That mean?

0:13:32 Lydia: I don't know. It's so dumb. And then like

0:13:33 Thomas: What is the... At this point, they're just doing word association. I'm sorry. They're not even doing... Oh, my God.

0:13:38 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. And someone like scouring this person's social media to find pictures of her drinking liquor from condoms or whatever they were doing. Yeah. Doesn't matter.

0:13:47 Thomas: It's so irrelevant. Well, if you're such a person, then what is do I hate whatever this is? Like, that's all that... There's nothing. Nothing. There's nothing there. It's a contentless argument. Yeah, what the fuck?

0:13:58 Lydia: Therefore, Bud Light.

0:14:01 Thomas: Yeah, it's nothing. It's, anyway, so it'S the equivalent now of just, like, drawing a mustache on someone's picture. That's all, that's nothing, anyway. So, this video, that is heartbreaking in retrospect to hear, because it's sweet, you know? Whatever this was, was a sweet thing.

0:14:03 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. It's so cute.

0:14:16 Thomas: Bud Light, it still dog shit. I've never drank it in a thousand years, but, like I'll admit that I was 0.0001% closer to drinking it from seeing that. So, like, maybe as a business decision it's actually a good one, separate but the fucking hell that obviously happened. But doing something like this where 99 times out of 100 the the fucking Kid Rock listeners aren't going to see the video because they're not following Dylan Mulvaney's fucking Instagram, which is an advantage of today's media market. You can be like, all right, I'm going to target this to trans people. And then, and probably they're also targeting ads toward like white supremacist fucking gun nuts, too. And we don't follow their, you know, instas.

0:14:19 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah right right Okay.

0:14:54 Thomas: And so that's it. That's all it fucking was. And so I started this by saying you can't look at the share price, most likely. I mean, that might be an indication, but that's going to be more how people are predicting the companies going to long term handle this. That's not necessarily like, oh, you'd have to look at their financials to see, oh. The sales slumped in this quarter or whatever kind of thing.

0:15:13 Lydia: And and I hear you. I guess the reason why I like looked at that is, you know, I'm not a business major, you know, like I didn't study that or or anything. So that's part of the reason. But then there was also a video I watched of like someone who used to work there who was like, I don't know how they're going to come back from this.

0:15:32 Thomas: It's a ghost town. I went in there. It's just skeletons. They don't even know.

0:15:33 Lydia: And yeah, and He was like, "It's going to be a long road ahead." And I was like, I was like, "What are you talking about?" Because it's, it's cited as the, like, top beer company to invest in if you're going to invest in beer companies, like, for 2024. So, yeah, it's just nonsense. But

0:15:47 Thomas: Yeah. That's for sure. Yeah, no, it's definitely not overplayed, but I was just shocked at, like, I just mean it in the sense of how dedicated a lot of these people are, like, they're dedicated true believers and can't, that there's enough of these fucking insane people in our country to make stuff like this happen. So it's scary. That's only reason I say that is that like, Like, it is scary what they can do to a brand like Bud fucking Light.

0:16:08 Lydia: I know. Yeah.

0:16:13 Thomas: Like, it's crazy. I mean, I guess on the other hand, the fact that so many of these assholes drank this beer means they were more able to make a dent, you know, like if it was a product, none of them used anyway, they can boycott it all they want. So that's probably part of it. I am seeing numbers that the revenue fell 13%, 70%. You know, that's not nothing. Like if you were managing, you know, and 13% is millions, if not, it might not be billions, but that's a lot of money.

0:16:14 Lydia: But I was also seeing statistics saying that people were also just drinking beer less often in 2023, like across the board. I don't know. I just I think that there's probably a lot of things coming in play. And it's not just this one particular tick tock. And And it's obviously very overblown.

0:17:00 Thomas: Maybe. I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me either way. They were really dedicated to this fucking thing.

0:17:01 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. None more dedicated than our first little video, which is Rock. Yeah. And he's on our friend Tucker Carlson's new show. This is just a couple weeks ago.

0:17:09 Thomas: Oh my God. Confession time. This is, I don'T if I'm safe admitting this, given that this is what I ostensibly do for a living. I I haven't watched an episode of Tucker's new show yet, like at all. And this is going to be the first. I wish we could hold hands because this is gonna be hard to get through. OK, here we go.

0:17:22 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:32 Lydia: Yeah, I can't blame you. It's terrible. Oh, I know.

0:17:42 Clip: A point in which Kid Rock went from being a musician to an icon to a one-man movement. And that's the... And a friend of ours.

0:17:45 Thomas: OK, the sound quality sucks. What?

0:17:52 Clip: And Uh, and that was when we want to sit down once again With him In studio And Check In On How He's changing America. Good to see you, good to you.

0:17:52 Thomas: What the fuck? What? What? This man is insane. This

0:18:01 Clip: So Uh, I remember doing my text right before bed one night And I read that Bud Light has decided to go that's kind of distressing, the next day was like 12 hours later. You released the video of you executing the Bud Light with, with the card being, "Fuck

0:17:55 Lydia: He's crazy. Crazy yeah

0:18:02 Thomas: Is this is insane, I can't. Can everyone watch this with us? What the? Oh, my God. OK, content. Now, I might bleep that

0:18:12 Lydia: Yeah I

0:18:27 Clip: Bud Light and fuck Anheuser-Busch. Have a terrific day.

0:18:34 Clip: And then, months later, Bud Light effectively apologizes. Doesn't go out business, closes two bottoming plants. But it is terrible for the guys who work there. But then comes back and hands the UFC $100 million, basically to say, we're sorry, we will get better. That seems like a win to me. I think it could be. I think they've got some work still to get, you know, some of that base that they lost. I think to get them back.

Like, you know, I've said a few times, I'd love to see them get triple fratty. You know what I'm trying to say? Hit it head on, kind of make light of the situation, self-deprecation, you know, but, you know, at the end of the day, when you step back and look at it, like, yeah, they just had a black eye, and they got one. They made a mistake. How did you know you moved so fast on that? I mean, a lot of things going on. It's like a lot of people just pissed me off. I was, and I kept, you know, keep a lot of beer on the property, a lot of light beer. Light was one of them. And, I was like, I I know who my consumers are. I was doing marketing to my folks. It was spot on for me, but also a fun excuse to get my machine gun out and have some fun, but also to make a statement like, hey, a lot of us are cool with this. I believe a lot people fought and died for people's right to be whoever they want.

0:19:14 Thomas: What

0:19:42 Clip: But when you have that type of brand, you know who your consumers are?

0:19:44 Thomas: Not to drink a bit. I

0:19:46 Clip: You know, I was kind of startled, I think, when I thought about it. They moved part of their corporate offices from St. Louis to New York City. Okay, let me start hiring these Ivy League progressive people to work for them who don't know shit about working class people in middle America and this country. And so somebody who hasn't watched The Hen House, they're riding high and mighty as number one, and Fox gets in. Yes, it was a mistake. So do I want to hold their head underwater and drown them because they made a mistake? No, I think they got the message. Like, hopefully other companies get it too. But, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think the punishment that they've been getting at this point fits the crime. It's like, I would like to see people get us back on board and become bigger, because that's America I want to live in. Well, it's better to improve than destroy. Yeah.

0:19:42 Lydia: But not that yeah yeah

0:19:46 Thomas: Don't Oh, yeah, do

0:20:05 Lydia: All

0:20:29 Clip: So that seems like a win. You see, when you were talking to Scott Cameron, you said, what would that say about us as like-minded people, who were like, hey, come out. What's the matter with you? You know, if we brought them back up, you know, that's kind of the America that I want to live. It's not going to give them spanking. You know? The kid does something wrong, or maybe he's going to harm themselves.

0:20:29 Lydia: About beer

0:20:30 Thomas: Kid Rock is actually the voice of reason in this conversation

0:20:48 Clip: But they're spankable. That's their life. You know what They're know, someone gets taught a lesson, they say you made a mistake.

0:20:51 Thomas: You don't spank him any of the time okay

0:20:53 Clip: All right, man, let's move on. I mean, we've done it for a whole lot worse. What about Japan? Go Germany!

0:20:41 Lydia: Yeah cool until that point right yeah I

0:21:01 Clip: Drop two atom bombs on Japan, then you rebuild it, and you become allies. You can't say it enough. You know who's getting hurt now?

0:20:57 Thomas: What

0:21:07 Clip: These boycotts and stuff, and people make mistakes. This cancel culture crap. It's the working class people who don't have any dog in the fight.

0:21:01 Lydia: Don't yeah

0:21:07 Thomas: What

0:21:14 Clip: It's like, all right, what do we hurt these people?

0:21:14 Thomas: The the fuck? I can't, I'm, am

0:21:17 Lydia: Yeah.

0:21:18 Clip: Nice and sad. All right. Let's move forward. Here's a bag of ice. Let's put on that shirt and let's talk about it. All right. And

0:21:20 Thomas: I on acid right now? Oh, I just had a weird dream that Kid Rock was talking to Tucker Carlson over a table that looks like a T-bone steak the whole time.

0:21:31 Lydia: Did you see Tucker's face? There were times where I was like, is it frozen? Like, is the video frozen? He couldn't move his face for half of it.

0:21:36 Thomas: Oh, he, so, oh, That's, that's, that' classic Tucker. So he's still, so here's what's weird. So everybody, if you haven't seen this, we're used to the classic Tucker Carlton, stupid resting idiot face, but that's a fate, like a head-on camera shot. I forget the technical terms for these now, we've got a different kind of environment because he's doing this himself, or he hired people, obviously, but he's shooting this in a different environment, so we're We're now getting like a more weirdly, a more intimate view of how that's working. So we see him, we're in it, we're at a kind of a side angle of these two gentlemen and we're seeing his face. It's almost, it's almost more shocking.

0:21:51 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, it's indie. Mandy.

0:22:17 Lydia: It's eerie.

0:22:18 Thomas: Yeah. Cause like somehow the, even though the other one was head on, you would think like, oh, that's pretty in your face. Like, no, this one's like, Oh no, it's like his brain stops or something. It's, I think he's using so much brain power to try to follow like what's happening at all times that he's just like, wow, are you okay, buddy?

0:22:18 Lydia: Yeah.

0:22:27 Lydia: It is bad. Man.

0:22:36 Thomas: Well, that was amazing.

0:22:39 Lydia: And so next, we have to do another big hitter because that's next in their list.

0:22:43 Thomas: Oh, already. Yeah, that's true. We're not gonna have much time to, it'S

0:22:46 Lydia: I know. It s all right. We ll do it. It has

0:22:48 Thomas: Been a good year for what, You know, there's too too many, I look, I wish we could give the award to everybody. I wish we could, you know, a lot of great nominees, tough field. Oh, Target, well, this could be any number of things, right?

0:22:50 Lydia: Been a a real solid year. Yeah. Target. Yep. Yep, yep. Yeah, so this is actually specifically related to Pride Month. You know, we talked about War on Christmas regarding Target and their inclusivity of Nutcrackers and Santas, but this is kind of calling back to what happened in June for Pride Month and the backlash there. I have a little video to send you of this. This is going to, it's new Tucker Carlson. It's going to be Jesse Waters.

0:23:07 Thomas: Uh-huh.

0:23:24 Thomas: Please don't be Tucker Carlson, please. Don, Tucker. Okay. Oh.

0:23:28 Lydia: So is that better or worse? I don't know.

0:23:30 Thomas: Jesse Waters, is... I worse? I think it's not as fun.

0:23:35 Clip: And do women want men shopping in the women's clothing department? Well, someone should tell Target that because they're now selling swimsuits with tuck-ums in the woman's section of the store.

0:23:46 Thomas: Oh, we heard this reference.

0:23:47 Clip: And they even have a line just for kids. We're at Target right now, and there's a lot of controversy going on about all of the pride stuff that's coming out with kids' clothes. Okay, this is the shallow section. This is literally the kids' section. I'm next to a little onesie that says whatever the hell that means. We

0:23:47 Thomas: Right. Oh. Yeah, sure, okay. Yeah. I

0:24:04 Lydia: It doesn't say let me tuck my penis in like stupid.

0:24:04 Thomas: Didn't, I couldn't tell yeah Well,

0:24:05 Clip: Are glad you came out, and I'm so happy that you're queer. In the kids section. Are you kidding me? I'm sorry, but pride and toddler don't belong in

0:24:09 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:12 Thomas: It'd be kind of weird to put a kid's book called, "I'm so happy you're in," the what, the adult section? I'm looking for a new read, let me grab, oh, can I do it on Audible? I think it probably should be in the kids section. Oh,

0:24:18 Lydia: Yeah. A picture book. Also, like kids aren't just kids zero years old to five years old. You know, you have kids. They're 14 years old, you knows. Kids is a wide ranging age.

0:24:42 Clip: You getting me? I'm Sorry, but Pride and Toddler don't Belong in the Same Sentence. Tuck Friendly Construction. They're giving it to your kids. Oh, and it gets worse.

0:24:52 Thomas: Friendly Construction.

0:24:53 Clip: Target hired a Satanist to put together their Pride line. So if you go on the page, what you see are things like, Satan loves you and respects who you are. He's a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty. And then Satan respects pronouns. So if your little Johnny is wearing a Satan respects pronoun shirt over his tuck-in swimsuit, check out your local Target.

0:24:53 Thomas: Okay. Yeah

0:25:14 Clip: It's just a weird thing.

0:25:13 Lydia: A picture of someone who is clearly not

0:25:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:16 Lydia: A child. Yeah.

0:25:17 Thomas: It's a, it's a full-grown person. There, okay.

0:25:20 Lydia: Yeah. An adult. Yeah, Target will do these collaborations with various designers. That is very, very normal for Target. They'll do kind of like little collections with different designers. This happens to be one of those designers that they were partnering with. But they've clued in on the fact that they're a Satanist, apparently, and Pride Month and rainbows.

0:25:21 Thomas: Oh.

0:25:41 Thomas: So this is because, okay, this is the second time we've seen this referenced, right? Or Wait, is this the same one where the guy was like, they hired gay cruel Cruella Deville or something? Remember that? That Was Jesse Waters is This same Person they're talking about, or no?

0:25:45 Lydia: Yeah yeah. Oh yeah Yeah. Yeah. That was. Yeah, I think it's a different person.

0:25:56 Thomas: Okay. Because that, that sounded like they high, they keep saying they hired like, oh, is this the new head of fucking marketing?

0:26:03 Lydia: No, from from my recollection, the the Satanist that they're talking about is a designer that had a particular collection and they had to, like, move the merchandise off the shelves because of backlash.

0:26:04 Thomas: Okay.

0:26:16 Thomas: Wow. There you go, I, cancel culture, that's cancel culture for you, you Know, the, uh, they get mad and they say don't shop there, and that's cancer, what, what do you think you're doing, idiots, if not cancel culture? I, that was what was so funny about the, Kid Rock one is, somehow I think Kid Rock Rock is a little sharper than Tucker because Kid Rock detected, he was like, wait a minute, we don't, we also hate cancel culture.

0:26:16 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:26:37 Lydia: Yeah. We have to figure out how to walk this line.

0:26:39 Thomas: Damn, I just did a video where I literally shot a product trying to cancel it like that's pretty OK. How do I how do I undo that? Oh, It was just just, the abuse that we do to kids. It was that same level of abuse, you know, that same kind of thing. But yeah, they're just doing cancel culture. You you got them to take a product off off the shelves, is that any fucking different from anything that they advocate, rail against when it goes the other way? It's just ridiculous, oh.

0:26:40 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:03 Lydia: Yeah. And there were some reports of Target employees saying that after this backlash with Pride Month, they had, you know, a very, very short window of time where their managers were like, hey, we're making our pride footprint smaller. And you have, you now, two hours before the store opens to make it happen, kind of thing, where they had to move all the pride stuff to a different section and reduce what was available. And, you know, we also saw the Scott Lobeo. Do you remember that from our pizza coverage? And he was the Target guy.

0:27:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:32 Lydia: That walked in and and the target employee was like, sir, sir.

0:27:33 Thomas: Yeah. Can I speak to Mr. Target? Yeah. He's just like trying to talk to nobody. Yeah, good times. Well, And they're all just fucking hounding for their viral moment on Fox News.

0:27:38 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, man. It really made them mad. My God. God. Yeah. Yeah,

0:27:51 Thomas: That's all this is, that's what they're doing all the time. You could tell they know they're going to be on Fox News, or they believe they are, when they're making these fucking stupid things. Okay, here's what we gotta do. We gotta make a fake one of those.

0:27:51 Lydia: That's probably true.

0:28:03 Thomas: I want to, yeah, maybe we find a way to fake like a controversy, get on Fox News and then be like, I made this up, you fucking idiots, like on the air. Let's do that.

0:28:01 Lydia: Yeah? Oh, that would be really, really good. Okay, but we have to like create an alter ego. Right? Because if they get into my socials, it's gonna be so clear.

0:28:12 Thomas: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I know. I don't really want to. We have to like sneak in like a gay sex toy, something. You know, like something really extreme, be like, this was in the kids section and then see if they pick it up, you know? Man, I'm so worried about things like that. I actually almost want to do something like that, but then it's like, ah, but am I contributing to the problem? You know, I don't know.

0:28:24 Lydia: Okay. Yeah Yeah. Okay? Yeah.

0:28:37 Thomas: But then if you get an interview and then you're like, fuck you, I'm not a double middle finger, you know, like I made this up. You're an idiot. Does that help? But yeah, anyway, okay. Pin

0:28:46 Lydia: Who knows? Maybe we'll find out next year when we do this. Yeah, The next one I wanted to talk about from this list, and then we'll probably do one more after this from our friends at New Tolerance Campaign, is country music television, which is generally associated, you know, with this group of folks. But there was a big kerfuffle, I would say, when Jason Aldean released Try That in a Small Town.

0:28:49 Thomas: In that yeah Oh.

0:29:01 Thomas: Wow, oh. Yeah, yeah.

0:29:16 Lydia: Yeah, this was big. And their country music television pulled the music video off the air because people rightfully were like, hey, this sounds like this is a pro-lynching song. This makes us very very uncomfortable. And CMT said, you know, is an area we don't really want to wade in. So we're going to just err on the side of caution and pull it. You know, I don't even know if they actually believed it, but they decided to pull it because it wasn't good business. And that just fueled the fire behind folks listening to this stuff. And it ended up becoming number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after it was pulled.

0:29:16 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:54 Lydia: Because that's what they do.

0:29:54 Thomas: It's it's a strong fucking market force. It's crazy, I was just gonna say, yeah, did they play it on repeat for two hours?

0:29:58 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. But, radio station in Kentucky. Just played it on repeat.

0:30:05 Thomas: The radio station, like, this is great, we only have to buy one song a quarter and we just play that one song over and over to these fucking morons.

0:30:11 Lydia: Yeah. They're just being, you know, fiscally conservative at this point. So, Yeah. The last one that I want to call out is just a little nod to the baseball fans maybe that we have in the audience. The Los Angeles Dodgers.

0:30:16 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Not me. Oh. Okay.

0:30:27 Lydia: That's like the one little crossover I could get you on, right? So this year, the Los Angeles Dodgers invited a group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to receive their Community Hero Award. And people were pissed because this is a group where it's folks that dress up like nuns clown makeup and everyone said, you're mocking Christians, you are mocking Christianity and L.A. Dodgers, you're to blame with this too and, you know, religion is not something to poke fun at.

0:31:01 Thomas: Do they ever get really mad at the whatever that fucking horror movie where the nun, like, this, you possessed by a demon and then, like, crawls backwards on her thing and kills, there, I think they're cool with that because they're like, yeah, no, that's that's Christianity.

0:31:05 Lydia: No, I don't think so. Nothing I've heard Yeah. That

0:31:14 Thomas: Yeah like that, no, that's part of it, that's a of Catholicism, that's fine, but dressing up like a clown, yeah.

0:31:15 Lydia: Tracks. Yeah, that reminds me of my teacher. Yeah. Well, and also it's men dressing up I guess, drag light in a way. And.

0:31:24 Thomas: Ah, well, they're drinking their drag lights and, yeah, I agree, wearing their tuck friendly fucking habits just

0:31:31 Lydia: Oh, man, that's good. Good. So Dodgers, the Dodgers actually disinvited the group at first and then changed their mind and re-invite them a few days later and just tried to, like, make everybody happy and made everybody mad. Yeah. And there's a little bit of that in that same clip I sent you, Jesse Waters talking about it starting around 119.

0:31:44 Thomas: Like fucking everybody yeah oh

0:31:55 Clip: You're a fan of the L.A. Dodgers, get ready for some dinners, because Dodgers are hosting a Pride Night. Now, ball clubs have hosted Pride Nights before, but the one at Dodger Stadium is special. Dudes dressed up as nuns might

0:31:59 Thomas: Dingers.

0:32:08 Thomas: Okay. Get ready for some dingers. So they're going to hit some home runs, I guess, is what you're saying. That doesn't, yeah.

0:32:11 Lydia: Is that what a dinger is? Oh, I didn't know that.

0:32:16 Thomas: What? Or like a good hit, I Guess. But what, what is, is he thinking like zingers? What does he think?

0:32:21 Lydia: Zingers? Yeah, should he say like foul ball, like, uh, swing and a miss it.

0:32:25 Thomas: I mean, some strikeouts. Yeah. Something. I don't know what, I'm trying to figure out what he's, yeah.

0:32:29 Lydia: Is like a swing and miss. Yeah, you're

0:32:32 Thomas: Dinger, is is there like another meaning of dinger?

0:32:35 Lydia: Asking the wrong person.

0:32:36 Thomas: I've just Googled. Webster's Dictionary defines dinger as a home run. Duh. What a thing. Oh, oh wait, hold on. Dated. So there's an older definition. Is this the double meaning we're going for? A thing outstanding of its kind. No, that's still good. Well, ain't that it?

0:32:40 Lydia: The Merriam-Webster.

0:32:54 Thomas: Yeah, like a humdinger.

0:32:54 Lydia: That a ding, yeah. I see that, yeah.

0:32:55 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, like like a humdinger. So, So okay. I just, it's just, I'm sorry. I know, I know it's a minor thing, but one of the other points of this stuff for me is how this movement has become so fucking nonsense that their best and brightest are idiots. Like their best in brightest writers don't know what words are. Hey, get ready for some dingers. Oh, you can't give me some game highlights where they hit some home runs. Is that, oh, what? No, that's a sentence. That's not meaningless. Doesn't make any fucking sense. Okay, I'll move on, sorry, okay.

0:32:56 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:33:27 Clip: Be throwing out the first pitch. These people call themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and what they're really all about is this. Drag queens mocking the Catholic Church. We are 21st century now. I'll tell you a little bit about it. All it takes to become a sister. We use the term ministry very loosely because my ministry is making someone laugh, you know, swallowing someone's face. We realized right away that the nun's habit contains

0:33:48 Lydia: No.

0:33:47 Thomas: They're not dressed as nuns. Okay, one now, I see one of them is

0:33:54 Clip: A lot of social statements all in one. Gender issues, gender identity issues, and religious bigotry.

0:33:54 Thomas: Uh, Oh.

0:33:55 Lydia: It's just a habit.

0:34:10 Clip: So some Dodgers fans aren't happy with the announcement. They didn't want cross-dressing nuns insulting their family's faith at the game. So the Dodgers pulled the invite. But you don't uninvite the anti-Christian guys in drag unless you want to have the mob after you. Don't you get it? You're the problem. The guys wearing wigs ridiculing Sister Mary are welcomed anywhere. No questions asked. So the dodgers caved. Pride night featuring a hate group's back on.

0:34:37 Clip: The dodgers bug-righted themselves for drag queens desecrating the Catholic Church.

0:34:36 Thomas: My god. Okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I would apologize I need I need Okay, the graphic they're putting on it's not like these people don't know sports, that's what's incredible, or don't they? Yeah, okay. I'm actually not sure, because every time they're talking about a sportsy thing, it's revealed that they're actually just you're right, we did watch Lady Baller, song, god awful movies, I forgot. Yeah, we should have said that, they have way more listeners than we do, I'm sure all our listeners already know, but the graphic, it's, it's one of the, the nuns, the sisters of whatever, swinging a bat, and and the words say swing, Swing and a miss, and they are very clearly hitting the ball.

0:34:46 Lydia: I don't know if they do. We watched Lady Ballers. Yeah.

0:35:23 Lydia: What are they doing?

0:35:25 Thomas: They're so dumb. You're so bad at your job. All you would have to do is move fucking, this is all Photoshop, obviously, move it up above above the bad, or below, but the graphic's in the way. So like, move it above. So you're clearly missing the ball, it says swing and a mess, and you're hitting. I'm sorry. It's so bad. Okay. Let's play. Us play on that, what shit

0:35:27 Lydia: Jeez.

0:35:45 Clip: Same thing with Target. Sure, profits and customers are nice, but do you shatter? It's it ever is about. If you shatter hard enough, you can be anything. You can have your own satanic tuck-in brand for kids at Target. You can be on the mound for a Major League Baseball game for mocking Jesus.

0:35:54 Lydia: Shatter?

0:36:01 Clip: Don't mock a lot, though.

0:35:54 Thomas: Shit what the fuck are you talking about

0:36:03 Clip: That's a hate crime.

0:36:03 Thomas: I don't know, man, I, they're in a, like, pre-game, I, if I went to a Dodgers game, I wouldn't see this because I would get there like when it starts, I don't, this is it's not a big deal, you're making it out like that, they now have the key to the city and they run the place you know, it's just stupid, it's

0:36:15 Lydia: Yeah. I know. I know it's nothing. It's nothing, a couple little closing thoughts on New Tolerance Campaign that I want to share. Just about some folks that are affiliated with them. They have a board of advisors, so we talked about the president, the founder or whatever, of New Tolerance Campaign, Gregory Angelo, and some of the folks on the advisory board include, include,

0:36:44 Thomas: It's actually Lebowski, in the movie where he's talking about, like, oh yeah, you heard of the Seattle Seven, those, me and six other guys, just some guy claiming other things that he isn't responsible for whatsoever.

0:36:53 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, so it includes an individual named Desh Amila. I don't know if you've heard of him. He founded Think Incorporated, which is a an organization that's partnered. They actually like hosted Skepticon a while back.

0:36:54 Thomas: No, oh

0:37:08 Lydia: Yeah and he says the event company's debut was a conference held in Melbourne, Australia featuring speakers such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael Shermer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Christopher Hitchens. And then he did a documentary called Islam, Future of Tolerance, featuring Sam Harris and Majid Nawaz.

0:37:08 Thomas: Wow jesus

0:37:26 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. So this guy, like, he's big.

0:37:19 Thomas: Oh wow okay so I am familiar with that person's work yeah, for

0:37:30 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And then he has another documentary that was featuring Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky called Better Left Unsaid regarding political extremism. So So this is, you know, an individual who has, you like pretty significant credentials and is on this advisory board. They share space with at OAN, Liz Wheeler. Yeah. So she is on the advisory board here and she ask your friends to come on. Yeah.

0:37:54 Thomas: Wow so this is one of those things where they just are like, you ask your friend, yeah it's almost, those fucking advisory board things are almost like a book blurb, we're like, can you blurb my bullshit organization, and, and sometimes they can, they could pay them money too, if they take donations, they could be like, hey, I'll, I'll give you a fucking ten thousand a year or something to just be listed on my website as a board member.

0:38:07 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and especially like, you know, another board member is Tim Young, who is a Washington Times columnist. And he also I think I think he hosts like a Sirius channel, Sirius XM channel. And so what ends up happening is now Gregory Angelo has access to all of these media opportunities.

0:38:39 Thomas: I will never forgive the Sirius XM people, because every time I tell someone that my company is Serious Pod, they're like, is it S-I-R-I U-S? Why would it be that? Is there, why would it be that no, it's just serious. Like the word serious.

0:38:45 Lydia: Oh, yeah. A fake word. Yeah, it's like the actual word. Yeah, serious.

0:38:55 Thomas: It's, it'S amazing. They were so effective with that, that like now people think it can't go the other way.

0:39:01 Lydia: Yeah. And then the other person I wanted to highlight from the board is Arielle Scarchella, bio says that she is an LGBT, specifically says LGBT trailblazer, leaving out the Q plus. Us. And yeah, yeah.

0:39:17 Thomas: Oh yeah. That's a, that's a hate crime. That's very specific now. Yeah.

0:39:20 Lydia: Yeah, it is very specific. And she is actually I'm surprised that she's leaving tea in there because she's incredibly transphobic and very biphobic, actually, from what I've been seeing. And he did a video a long time back.

0:39:28 Thomas: Oh yeah, so the person they're just going to say L-G.

0:39:37 Lydia: Yeah. Exactly. That's all that's accepted. And, um, she did a while back called what is woman, which then Matt Walsh, kind of co-opted and we got his film that we've never watched, actually. Oh, I haven't.

0:39:43 Thomas: Oh, well, I've watched yeah what are you talking about it's from we did it for SIO I think

0:39:54 Lydia: Oh I never watched it, though. So then I just listened to your episode. Yeah. I'll count it. I watched it. I never have to see it again.

0:39:54 Thomas: Oh really oh okay yeah god that fucking thing yeah no it's terrible well

0:40:03 Lydia: And so, you know, this is the company of the folks involved in this. Andso we're we're definitely going to keep an eye on them. And then I wanted I to just kind of close out this episode with the other end of it. You know, we've talked a lot about the worst of the woke and our friend Bill Maher is talking about, you know, who stood up against cancel culture and, calls to to be more woke. And they said no. They said

0:40:07 Thomas: We'll keep an eye on them oh okay we're yeah this is the the bravest this is the mm-hmm the heroes this is this is The Pinheads and Patriots that was that was fucking that was O'Reilly's bit yeah his old thing was Pinheads at Patriots And he did like one Pinhead for the week and one Patriot for the week. God, we should find some of those old ones just for fun.

0:40:29 Lydia: No, heroes. Yeah.

0:40:48 Lydia: That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:51 Clip: You know the Emmys. You know, the Grammys, you know, the Tonys. Now say hello to the Cajones. Cajones. Tonight, from Hollywood, the first annual Cajone Awards, honoring outstanding achievement in growing a pair. And now, here's your host. Welcome

0:41:17 Thomas: To look at a fucking ball sack trophy that they had made. Cool. You're just a truck nuts guy now. All

0:41:20 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:25 Clip: To the Cajonies. I'm your master of ceremonies, and if you're triggered by the word master, you're in the wrong room.

0:41:25 Lydia: Yep. Exactly.

0:41:30 Thomas: Right. Shut the fuck up.

0:41:32 Clip: Tonight, we present these solid brass balls to

0:41:35 Lydia: Yeah, ha

0:41:33 Thomas: Are you triggered? Lib. That's all your joke is. That's it. Oh, yeah. Balls. You're this is truck nuts You're just This is not

0:41:40 Lydia: Ha ha. Yeah.

0:41:40 Clip: The individuals and organizations who others have tried to silence and who answered, that's not a rule, fuck you. This

0:41:48 Thomas: For nothing. Balls are the most fragile little danglies. Like, there's no, yeah.

0:41:52 Lydia: Just I have to flick it. And then you're like, yeah, no.

0:41:54 Thomas: Please Don't. I flinched when you said that. There's, they're the most sensitive little thing. Like, then they're these little, they're not like tough. I, you know, I, I know that men have them, so that's why this is like the the fucking macho thing that Bill Omar thinks is macho, but like they're incredibly weak. Let's be honest. They're not, there's no, I'm not proud of them. They'RE just in the way or they get hurt or that you, or you sit on them. Yeah. I don't sit on my balls, but I have heard that other men, what is it? What is the pride? It's just funny seeing the little sculpture of it. Like it's ridiculous.

0:42:15 Lydia: Yeah. Get too sweaty. Eddie.

0:42:32 Lydia: Yeah.

0:42:33 Thomas: It's like a little dangly. It reminds me of like a little bell you'd put on a cat so that you don't lose it or something or they can hear It it's not They're not, if they were like the size of watermelons, then I'd be like, okay, those are, those are Some balls.

0:42:39 Lydia: Yeah, those are cojones.

0:42:45 Thomas: Yeah, hmm.

0:42:48 Clip: Award goes to the president of my alma mater, Cornell University, Martha Pollack. This month, students there demanded trigger warnings before all the lectures in case any of the adult subjects you specifically went to college to learn about came up. And Martha said, yeah, no, we're not doing that. She didn't cave in or hire a new dean of sensitivity, she just said, No, college is for introducing you to new ideas, not for kissing your ass and making you feel wonderful and always right.

0:43:05 Thomas: Like Economics Or Okay.

0:43:24 Lydia: Yeah!

0:43:29 Clip: You're thinking of brunch with your parents. I'm just amazed at how this generation can simultaneously be too sensitive for anything distasteful and somehow also so into eating ass.

0:43:44 Lydia: What?

0:43:45 Clip: So Cornell, I present you with these balls. I sure could have used them when I was there. Our

0:43:51 Lydia: All right, you want to pause it and I'll let

0:43:51 Thomas: Okay. I want to never watch this again, uh, please.

0:43:56 Lydia: You know what actually happened. I'll give you a break. Give your

0:43:59 Thomas: I'm so sick of this guy, okay.

0:43:59 Lydia: Eyes a break, and And so It was a student resolution that, the students at Cornell had put forward asking the university to require faculty to provide trigger warnings about classroom content specifically for material that students may consider traumatic. And the student assembly passed it. And that's why it was brought up to the university leadership to consider. And it would be content regarding including but not limited to is the phrasing, of course, sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial hate crimes, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment and xenophobia.

0:44:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I imagine most, I went to fucking college in 2004 through eight and the English class I took, it was like, Hey, we're this scene today in this movie we're watching. Like, yeah, it's fucking

0:44:46 Lydia: It's tough. Yeah. Yeah, it might be uncomfortable. It might make you uncomfortable.

0:44:49 Thomas: No big deal. You know, we did it. We did a serious inquiries only about, you whether or not that's effective. And it is an interesting scientific question. Um, but it's not fucking hard to just give a content note. Um, so this sounds like no big deal. Everything you mentioned was first off, hey, Bill, did I go to college to learn about like hate crimes and like rape? Are those, the adult subjects that I went to learn about? He presents it like, oh, trigger warning, five plus five equals ten. Yeah, exactly, like, what, what, what do you fucking, I hate this guy so much.

0:44:50 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah macroeconomics. Yeah.

0:45:23 Thomas: I hate it so much. Well,

0:45:24 Lydia: And the students had also included in the resolution that if there were students who chose to opt out, that they wouldn't be penalized as long as they held up to making up any miscontent. So it wasn't saying you're not penalized. You don't have to do any of the work. It's saying it's your responsibility to make up for any misconduct if you left class, but you won't be criminalized outside of that.

0:45:47 Thomas: What does makeup? Well, whatever, it doesn't fucking matter. Who cares

0:45:49 Lydia: You know, if there's classwork or something like that

0:45:50 Thomas: Yeah. But then you wouldn't be avoiding the

0:45:52 Lydia: A missed quiz because you're avoiding like that day because of the content that's going to be in lecture.

0:45:56 Thomas: Right, but how would you make it up without consuming the content that you're avoiding? Oh, just not freak out. Oh, yeah, maybe, I guess.

0:46:02 Lydia: Well, I think it depends on like you're able to consume it in an environment that you are comfortable consuming it. Yeah. At

0:46:09 Thomas: Okay. Well, Whatever, it's his point is moot because because whatever.

0:46:10 Lydia: A pace that makes you comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Because the university said no. The university said we cannot accept this resolution as the actions it recommends would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry and are at odds with the goals of a Cornell education.

0:46:15 Thomas: Okay. Well, that's not true. Okay, that'S also not true,

0:46:27 Lydia: Yeah.

0:46:27 Thomas: But okay.

0:46:27 Lydia: And so essentially what happened is the students said, hey, we'd like you to require faculty to do this. And Cornell said, no, we're not going to require a faculty to deal with this. We're this. Just do it if they want.

0:46:39 Thomas: Yeah, well, that' important. Actually, you know, I' fucking whatever. I' fine with that. Who cares? I mean, I think that if you' a teacher that isn' t a piece of shit, which, you knoW, your average college professor, pretty cool, I thinK, you' going to do this anyway, but this idea that it's, you kNow, should it be required? I don't know. I think I' I'm fine with being like, you could probably do it in a way more respectful way. You know, like if you're this, Cornell person, you can like validate their concerns and you can say, hey it looks like this mostly happens anyway. And we don't want to add like some, you bureaucracy rule thing that's going to possibly cause conflict where it doesn't need to be. You can find a way to just kind of smooth it over rather than being an asshole, which is what this person did.

0:46:44 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah

0:47:17 Thomas: Um, worship, this is like you took a stand, you're amazing, like it's just, it's fucking bootlicking. It's like, yay, the person in charge said no to a thing the kids wanted, wow, they're amazing. He

0:47:18 Lydia: Yeah.

0:47:29 Lydia: Bill Maher's hoping for that honorary degree like invited back to Cornell. No he wants to like get invited back and get like an honorary PhD or something where

0:47:33 Thomas: Already has the yeah yeah has anyone ever gotten an honorary degree from the place they got a degree from yeah maybe a different one I could use another PhD or something.

0:47:40 Lydia: They went to school. I don't know maybe like a higher degree. Yeah and FIRE of course was involved in this as well. They wrote a letter to Cornell urging them not to accept the a student resolution, blah, blah. But that's the Cornell story. It's certainly not as, like you said, to arms that Bill Maher kind of presents it to be, of course.

0:47:56 Thomas: It's just so fucking weak yeah, oh,

0:48:01 Clip: Next award goes to the place where many Cornell grads will be working next year, Trader Joe's.

0:48:11 Clip: Trader Joes, who for years have been selling a line of ethnically themed products trading on the name Joe. For example, they have Trader Jose's beer. So, of course, one teenager on Twitter heard the word Jose and said it was racist, and then there was a petition, and then Trader Joe's management did the right thing. They burnt down all their stores and killed themselves.

0:48:17 Thomas: Yeah, wait.

0:48:40 Thomas: Fucking dramatic. Look, I've said it before, I'll say it again, our daughter Phoebe is a dramatic child, she does, she gets nowhere near this level of fucking drama. What am I supposed to do, burn down my store? It's just fucking, you're such a baby, Bill, you're so such a fucking baby baby.

0:48:49 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He even calls it out one person.

0:49:00 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to say, I was like, so wait, you're, are you giving up the game there? You're, you'RE acknowledging that it's one person on Twitter did a thing to which you're re you're putting airtime on your fucking show about a, Oh, I just fucking hate him so much. Yay. We're still cheering for some reason.

0:49:18 Clip: They didn't. They said, fuck off, you oversensitive little shit, get

0:49:24 Lydia: They didn't say that, but that's fine.

0:49:25 Thomas: Can you just with the audience, can you just,

0:49:28 Clip: A life and a sense of humor, and released this statement. We disagree that any of these labels are racist, and we do not make decisions based on petitions. You see how easy it is? So to the home of the 19 cent banana, here, have some nuts! Wait

0:49:41 Thomas: Okay. Uh,

0:49:49 Lydia: Yeah, it's a nothing burger. Yeah.

0:49:49 Thomas: So funny. Yeah, Yeah.

0:49:50 Lydia: Yeah, so this is something where it's come up a few times, actually. There was a petition back in 2020 that sparked from an individual in San Francisco that the you petition. Trader Joe's initially indicated that they would be reviewing their names. They might be changing some of them. And then they decided, no, you know, we're not going to. And they issued that statement that Bill was talking about. And this year, um, with someone on literally

0:50:17 Thomas: Can you give me a sense of the numbers? Yeah. Like, what are we talking about here? It's clearly enough that they did respond to it in some way. So it's, you know, like that the company is taking the time to actually put out a thing, it's something. But like, what is it?

0:50:18 Lydia: One person yeah

0:50:31 Thomas: How many people?

0:50:28 Lydia: Yeah um so Well, so the 2020 petition, um, was signed just over 2,500 times.

0:50:32 Thomas: Oh, for fuck's sake.

0:50:40 Lydia: Um, but then the complaint this year was on TikTok, and one has 2.1 million views and 150,000 likes. So a lot people are looking at it. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, it's just, let me see if I can find the link.

0:50:41 Thomas: Jesus Christ. You have views and likes. Yeah. Maybe we should play that. What is that? While you're finding this, I want to take a moment to apologize to the audience. I'm realizing I'm a little tired and having to hear Bill Maher and look at Bill Maier's stupid fucking face. I'm little more in the bitter, angry mindset than I want be. I want being more of the funny or poking fun at thing. But I'm just so annoyed that I'm trying to keep it chill. But I can't because I'm fucking so sick of Bill Maher okay POV you just found out Trader Joe's does this to cultural foods it says Trader Ming's oh this is that's all there is that's nothing oh

0:51:18 Lydia: Yeah. It should.

0:51:27 Clip: A damn minute! Wait a damned minute!

0:51:32 Lydia: That's It That's Literally it Yeah It's just the POV, and then she, there's a voiceover, she mouths, you know, the "wait a damn minute" when it shows Trader Ming's for her dinner that she's making. Yeah.

0:51:49 Thomas: Oh is that her kind of mouthing over a black person saying that yeah okay maybe be aware that you're doing that when you're know criticizing cultural cultural appropriation, like, I kind of, anyway, yeah, don't really think it's cool, to be honest with you, like I don'T really think, whatever, I mean, call me, well, I'll be on Bill Maher's award show, or no, not his, I guess I'll BE on the other guys, yeah I'llBE on the New Tolerance one, but I mean personally, I just avoid doing, you know, they made a big deal about it, people called it digital blackface when people first started talking about this, like using black gifs or black emoji. You know, it's like, I don't, I don't think fucking it should be a law. I don'T THINK IT'S A BIG DEAL. I DON'T GET SUPER MAD. BUT LIKE, I DONT IF YOU'RE SOMEBODY WHO'S GOING TO BE MAKING SPECIFICALLY A TIKTOK VIDEO ABOUT LIKE, HMM, THIS CULTURAL

0:51:52 Lydia: Yeah. That's interesting, I Mean, that, that is something like pretty common on TikTok, but I, that is An interesting Thought Yeah Yeah You're Gonna be on Campaign for Next year Yeah Yeah Mm-hmm Yeah Choose

0:52:36 Thomas: Thing is a little weird, like, maybe don't do that. YEAH, I THINK THAT'S JUST TO BE CONSISTENT. BUT YEAH, IN GENERAL, LIKE I ACTUALLY DO TRY TO AVOID THAT STUFF BECAUSE I JUST DON'T, I DON'T KNOW, TO ME IT JUST DOESN'T FEEL GENUINE TO, TO TO, to use someone else's, specifically another culture's kind of way of expressing themselves and to co-opt it. But I also, whatever, like all of this stuff, there's no woke executioner who's going to chop off your head if you do it. It's just something I think in general, as we bring this year, 2023, year of our woke lord to a close, in general wokeness for me, or the thing that I think the good thing that is described and slammed as wokeness or whatever, to me, is just general thoughtfulness. And

0:52:39 Lydia: A Different sound To Use Yeah Mm Hmm Yeah

0:53:21 Thomas: It doesn't mean that you're always going to come to the right conclusion, someone might think of a thing that's like, I don't know, I actually think that's not that legitimate of a concern. Or like, oh, actually, that is a legitimate concern. And the way you distinguish between those two things is just by being open and minded, using your best judgment, and nobody is executing anybody for this. Every complaint of being canceled that we've covered so far, all this stuff, it's all fucking nothing.

The the biggest cancel culture we've witnessed has been right wingers canceling Bud Light and the other thing, Target, you know, and all that stuff. Like, just like I just like to try to, you know, put a little thought into things that make sense to me. And for me, that that that kind of digital blackface thing, I don't know, for me, it's kind of one of those things where I'm like, yeah, I do not really want to do it, but it is also not a big fucking deal. If you come to a different conclusion, I am sure if you are being respectful in any, you know, it is like people are cool with you. To act like

0:54:13 Thomas: There is this monolith of woke police that are going to decide that you have violated the laws is just silly.

0:54:02 Lydia: Mm-hmm Yeah I think that that's a great point to bring up, that that, monolith, right? Like, it is not a one-position mob, like, they often want to say, like, there's nuance within those that consider themselves woke to where we're going to be taking different positions on different topics because we're also human beings, and that's how humans are.

0:54:39 Thomas: Yeah, and I personally do not, I mean, I'm I, a white person, so what my opinion does not matter that much, but when it comes to the Trader Joe's thing. You know, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, they're just using a name, the. I think they usually try to find the same name if they can, but in a different way, like Trader Jacques for French foods.

0:54:56 Thomas: Yeah. It's not, yeah. Whatever. I DON'T know. I Is DON't think people actually have that big of a problem with this. And so therefore giving an award to Trader Joes for standing up to the tyranny of checks, notes, a petition that had 2,500 signatures on it. It's like, all right, man, Jesus Christ.

0:54:55 Lydia: For Their French stuff Yeah Yeah.

0:55:13 Thomas: What a baby.

0:55:14 Lydia: For 2023 and folks that were, the woke and the cojones of 2023. But, you Know, we didn't talk about this at all, but I did want to let our audience know Fox Nation has an annual award show called the Patriot Awards. And I really want to go go next year.

0:55:17 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Ooh. Oh God. Yes. You want to go?

0:55:35 Lydia: I want to go. Is that crazy?

0:55:36 Thomas: Are you out of your fucking,

0:55:37 Lydia: No. OK, because

0:55:38 Thomas: Yes. That's, I will not let you go. I'm sorry.

0:55:40 Lydia: Have to tell you how amazing this was. It's just incredible.

0:55:44 Thomas: Okay, I thought you were going to say we want to review it. Yeah, I saw a few clips from that. Here's the thing, listeners, we have to create like an an account on Fox nation, which I, you know, I've been meaning to do, but like, I'm, I're just dreading it. It's like worse than doing my taxes. I'm like, Oh God, I mean, I have make an account. On a Fox website, but I'll do it.

0:55:49 Lydia: Oh, my God. We're just going to have to do it. Yeah. Yeah, my god.

0:56:03 Thomas: Yeah, but what are you talking about?

0:56:03 Lydia: I want to like, I just want to, like, sit in the back and watch people because it's insane. Because Because, OK, so listen,

0:56:11 Thomas: Why would you want to be that you're as big or bigger of a secondhand embarrassment person as I am. And you're going to go to something like that. I would die of embarrassment.

0:56:20 Lydia: But I also, you with the kids, I can just tune things out sometimes, too.

0:56:24 Thomas: Then why are you going this

0:56:26 Lydia: I don't know, because then when I want to tune in, I'm there. Anyway, most valuable Patriot Award folks went to the MVP.

0:56:28 Thomas: Is nuts. All right, most valuable MVP, most valuable Patriot all

0:56:34 Lydia: Yeah, they had to do that. Went to Moms for Liberty. So congratulations. They won almost of the scoreboard races that they had. This year, they won almost nothing. But, you know, they want MVP. So there you go. I guess that's a consolation prize. James Patterson won an award. The author.

0:56:36 Thomas: Right yeah of course they swept the awards. Yeah, oh right yeah

0:56:52 Lydia: I don't know why.

0:56:52 Thomas: Don't spill all, because I actually still want to do this. I thought this was really funny.

0:56:56 Lydia: OK. All right. Then I won't spill the last little bit. That's hilarious.

0:56:58 Thomas: Yeah yeah Let's, let's hold off on that, so well yeah and And, and perhaps next month we might do this as the bonus or something. This cause is a major, this isn't like a list or like a, you know, eight minute Bill Maher segment.

0:57:01 Lydia: OK. All right, but next year, folks, maybe I'm going to go. No.

0:57:12 Thomas: This is like a whole elaborate thing.

0:57:13 Lydia: This is like the Academy Awards for Fox Nation. Like, this is a big deal.

0:57:15 Thomas: Yeah. I can't, I, I want to watch it. We'll see if we can get, maybe we can gets a guest to watch as well or something, yeah, see. All right. Well, this has been fun, and the award for fucking whiniest fucking whiny baby goes to Bill Maier. That's, that's all I care about. Uh, Yeah.

0:57:21 Lydia: It'll be fun.

0:57:31 Thomas: Jesus.

0:57:30 Lydia: Every year. He's a shoo-in.

0:57:32 Thomas: A monopoly on it, yeah. Will anyone ever touch, is the Wayne Gretzky of being a whiny little piece of shit. God, what a baby, I can't, it drives me, there's a, sorry, here's, I'm, what happened today, folks, I also watched another clip of Bill Maher just for something else that was amazing that we might cover on another thing that was him being a whiny piece of, about, so I'm just, apologies, my blood Bill Mahr level is like way higher than the legal limit, I can't drive it right now, I wouldn't be safe. Um, so that's why it's a little more bitter than normal, but thank you so much for listening, everybody, and uh, make sure to go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke to sign up for, uh, all the bonuses like any future bonuses we might have and the really funny Christmas extra bit of War on Christmas with Tom Curry from Cognitive Dissonance, that was, uh, it was really funny, so you don't want to miss it. But thank, thank you for a great year of Where There's Woke, which only existed for like half of the year, I think.

0:57:33 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, blast.

0:58:27 Lydia: I know this is going to be our first first full year heading into 2024. So excited.

0:58:31 Thomas: With the election, oh God, it's going to be a rough year. All right, well, we'll get through it together.

0:58:35 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, we have each other.

0:58:57 Thomas: Anheuser-Busch.

0:58:55 Lydia: Anheuser-Busch