Folks, we're not joking: You have to become a snob. People have gotten way too comfortable foisting awful bullshit on us, confident we are just gonna sit there and take it as every part of the world gets worse. We must become annoying, mean snobs! People need to be afraid of sucking ass and doing things that are awful! Change starts with you!
[00:00:00] I'm about to start laughing. It's good from the jump, dude. It's so good. Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby for a long time because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far. So we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just because he had gone too far, he did not deny that he had gone too far, did not mean that he should be subjected
[00:00:24] to hanging. Going too far, he said, was something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at the hanging. He said he'd think about it, but it would take him a while to decide. I pointed out that we'd have to know soon because Howard, who was a conductor, would have to hire and rehearse the musicians, and he couldn't begin until he knew what music it was going to be. Colby said he'd always been fond of
[00:00:53] Ives' fourth symphony. Howard said that this was a delaying tactic and that everyone knew that the Ives is almost impossible to perform and would involve weeks of rehearsal and that the size of the orchestra and chorus would put us way over the music budget. Be reasonable, he said to Colby. Colby said he'd try to think of something a little less exacting. Hugh was worried about the wording of the invitations. What if one of them fell into the hands of the authorities? Hanging Colby's
[00:01:23] Colby was doubtless against the law, and if the authorities learned in advance what the plan was, they would very likely come in and try to mess everything up. I said that although hanging Colby was almost certainly against the law, we had a perfect moral right to do so because he was our friend, belonged to us in various important senses, and he had, after all, gone too far. We agreed that the invitations would be worded in such a way that the person invited
[00:01:49] could not know for sure what he was being invited to. We decided to refer to the event as an evening involving Mr. Colby Williams. A handsome script was selected from a catalog, and we picked a cream-colored paper. Magnus said he'd see to having the invitations printed and wondered whether we should serve drinks. Colby said he thought drinks would be nice but was worried about the expense. We told him kindly that the expenses would not matter and that we were,
[00:02:16] after all, his dear friends. And if a group of his dear friends couldn't get together and do the thing with a little bit of a clat, well, what is the world coming to? Colby asked if he'd be able to have drinks too before the event. We said, certainly. The next item of business was the gibbet. None of us knew too much about gibbet design, but Tomas, who is an architect, said he'd look it up in old books and draw the plans. The important thing, as far as he recollected, was that the trapdoor
[00:02:45] functioned perfectly. He said that, just roughly, counting labor and materials, it shouldn't run us more than $400. Good God, Howard said. He said, what was Tomas figuring on? Rosewood? No, just a good grade of pine, Tomas said. Victor asked if unpainted pine wouldn't look kind of raw, and Tomas replied that he thought it could be stained a dark walnut without too much trouble.
[00:03:13] I said that although I thought the whole thing ought to be done really well and all, I also thought $400 for a gibbet on top of the expenses for the drinks, invitations, musicians, and everything was a bit steep. And why don't we just use a tree? A nice looking oak or something. I pointed out that since it was going to be a June hanging, the trees would be in glorious leaf, and that not only would a tree add a kind of natural feeling, but would also be strictly traditional, especially in the West. Tomas, who had been sketching gibbets on the backs of envelopes,
[00:03:42] reminded us that an outdoor hanging always had to contend with the threat of rain. Victor said he liked the idea of doing it outdoors, possibly on the bank of a river, but noted that we would have to hold it some distance from the city, which presented the problem of getting the guests, musicians, etc., to the site, and then back to town. At this point, everyone looked at Harry, who runs a car and truck rental business. Harry said he thought he could round up enough limousines
[00:04:07] to take care of that end, but that the drivers would have to be paid. The drivers, he pointed out, wouldn't be friends of Colby's and couldn't be expected to donate their services any more than the bartender or the musicians. He said that he had about 10 limousines, which he used mostly for funerals, and that he could probably obtain another dozen by calling around to friends of his in the trade. He said also that if we did it outside, in the open air, we'd better figure out a tent or awning of
[00:04:36] some kind to cover at least the principals and the orchestra, because if the hanging was being rained on, he thought it would look kind of dismal. As between gibbet and tree, he said he had no particular preferences, and he really thought that the choice ought to be left up to Colby, since it was his hanging. Colby said that everybody went too far sometimes, and weren't we
[00:05:00] being a little draconian? Howard said rather sharply that all that had already been discussed, and which did he want, gibbet or tree? Colby asked if he could have a firing squad. No, Howard said he could not. Howard said that a firing squad would just be an ego trip for Colby, the blindfold and last cigarette bit, and that Colby was in enough hot water already without
[00:05:28] trying to upstage everyone with unnecessary theatrics. Colby said he was sorry. He hadn't meant it in that way. He'd take the tree. Tomas crumpled up the gibbet sketches he'd been making in disgust. Then the question of the hangman came up. Pete said, did we really need a hangman? Because if we used a tree, the news could be adjusted to the appropriate level, and Colby could just jump
[00:05:55] off something, a chair or stool or something. Besides, Pete said, he very much doubted if there were any freelance hangmen wandering around the country. Now that capital punishment has been done away with absolutely temporarily, and that we'd probably have to fly one in from England or Spain or one of the South American countries. And even if we did, how could we know in advance that the man was a professional, a real hangman and not just some money hungry amateur who might bungle the job and
[00:06:22] shame us all in front of everybody? We all agreed then that Colby should just jump off something and that a chair was not what he should jump off of because that would look, we felt, extremely tacky. Some old kitchen chair sitting out there under our beautiful tree. Tomas, who was quite modern in outlook and not afraid of innovation, proposed that Colby be standing on a large, round rubber ball 10 feet in diameter. Red ball, marketing glove.
[00:06:51] This, he said, would afford a sufficient drop and would also roll out of the way if Colby suddenly changed his mind after jumping off. He reminded us that by not using a regular hangman, we were placing an awful lot of responsibility for the success of the affair on Colby himself. And that although he was sure Colby would perform credibly and not disgrace his friends at the last minute, still, men have been known to get a little irresolute at times. And then the 10 foot rubber
[00:07:17] ball, which would probably fabricated rather cheaply, would ensure a bang up production right down to the wire. At the mention of wire, Hank, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up and said he wondered if it wouldn't be better if we used wire instead of rope, more efficient and in the end, kinder to Colby, he suggested. Colby began looking a little green and I didn't blame him because there is something extremely distasteful in thinking about being hanged with wire instead of
[00:07:46] rope. It just gives you a sort of revulsion when you think about it. I thought it was really quite unpleasant of Hank to be sitting there talking about wire just when we had solved the problem of what Colby was going to jump off of so neatly with Tomas's idea about the rubber ball. So I hastily said that wire was out of the question because it would injure the tree, cut into the branch it was tied to when Colby's full weight hit it. And that in these days of increased respect for the environment,
[00:08:16] we didn't want that, did we? Colby gave me a grateful look and the meeting broke up. Everything went off very smoothly on the day of the event. The music Colby finally picked was standard stuff, Elgar, and it was played very well by Howard and his boys. It didn't rain, the event was well attended, and we didn't run out of scotch or anything. The 10-foot rubber ball had been painted a deep green
[00:08:40] and blended in well with the bucolic setting. The two things I remember best about the whole episode are the grateful look Colby gave me when I said what I said about the wire and the fact that no one has ever gone too far again. Touch a Homer Simpson line at the end. What a relief. Big relief on the
[00:09:04] wire. Also, this fixed all the problems. This has been a reading of Some of Us Had Been Threatening
[00:09:11] Our Friend Colby by Donald Bartleby the Scrivener. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Anime Sickos Podcast,
[00:09:45] the only podcast where we do not go too far. It is a podcast, the only podcast, and a podcast for geniuses about the four pillars of modern misery, anime, gaming, posting, and jobs. I am Tom, an anime sicko. I am Joe, an anime sicko. You know, sometimes people ask me, why do you guys sometimes start your podcast by reading a classic short story? That's so
[00:10:16] highfalutin and pretentious. No one else does that. Before we'd be like, I don't know, you know, sometimes we just show, you know, these crazy white boys, yada, yada, yada. We would say maybe any variation of those, but we've landed on a better answer, which is we're snobs. We're snobs and we're proud. We're going to be snobs now. I'm snobbing hard. You are probably hearing this and thinking they're doing a big joke. This is a long form bit.
[00:10:42] They're pretending like the podcaster's bill of rights or something. That's pretending. That's a funny joke they're doing. No, this is one of the classic anime sickos episodes. It wasn't pretend either. Yeah, well, yeah, that's true, but it was still funny. It was a joke, but it was a real joke. No, this is one of the classic episodes where we become philosophizers and understand the world
[00:11:07] better than anyone ever has. And in our articulating it opens up your eyes and makes you realize that you need to transition today. For sure. And then give us $5, which you won't because you're trans, because it's just, yeah, it just typically you get less money. I see. I've seen the money numbers. It's just opting in to the demographic that is getting the laser site put on it now.
[00:11:34] Right. Like just financially, we should be targeting like divorced cougars, but we're not because we're committed to truth and authenticity. Yes. And also I respect, you see how much I respect my wife. Joe, one time I was at, I was at the Whistler in Logan Square. You want to know why? Because on Tuesday and Wednesday,
[00:11:58] they have live jazz for free. And sometimes your boy Tom likes to go and listen to the live jazz and have two cocktails and go home. It's lovely. And can you imagine what an unusual scenario I'm about to paint for you that my wife does not want to come with me? Can you believe to the jazz show? It doesn't make sense, but it's the truth. Anyway, one time I was there. And so I don't talk to
[00:12:26] nobody while I'm there because I'm listening to the jazz. And also the jazz is loud. So you probably couldn't talk. One time between the sets, the woman who had been sitting next to me the whole time turned to me and it's like, I'm just visiting. I'm not from here. I don't know any of the good bars. Where's somewhere I should go to after this? And I, my like brain sparked into life and was like,
[00:12:52] Tom, it is your mortal duty to fumble this instantly. And I said, Oh, I don't really go out that much. I'm just here for the jazz. I don't know what's good around here. And didn't say anything else. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's so important to just jump on. It's not a grenade because grenade flies like it's a disaster, but it's to snuff it out with your stupidness. Yeah. I've just, Hey, I don't want to lead you on. This is going no place. Anyway, we were talking about the topic
[00:13:20] of the episode. Folks, you hear snob and you think they can't possibly be serious about this because being a snob is bad. It has a bad connotation. Well, why do you think that? How come? Is it possible you've been conditioned by the man to think that? For sure. For sure. For sure. But at the top level, the basic top most filter for snobbery and non snobbery, it is a value judgment. And with it,
[00:13:49] it comes this belief that snobbery equals no fun. And I would like to, I was actually kind of like whatever on this episode is a concept. And then Tom said something very insightful, which was just like the, the, the let people enjoy things sort of like arguments, just like, Oh, let people just enjoy their stupid things, whatever. Don't yuck a yum. Don't yuck a yum. Uh, awful phrase,
[00:14:18] big picture. I could see how I could be tolerant of that. It's just like, what happens when the fun that's not getting ruined is like closing every history department at every college? Yeah. Cause like then, then it's just like, Oh, I didn't care for that new star Wars. It's like, no, there's like implications here. There, there is lasting damage.
[00:14:40] The reason you have a knee jerk reaction negative against the idea of being a snob is twofold. One, cause the man has been brainwashing you in the same way that we need to tell you that complaining kicks ass because you've been conditioned by the man to think that you shouldn't complain. And that complaining is annoying and whiny. No, it kicks ass. You should do it. You have been brainwashed by
[00:15:08] the ambient American society to think that being a snob sucks. And you must understand that American society is Hitler, Satan juice a hundred percent. So if it's told, if it, if American society has influenced you in any way, you got to do the opposite of that. And secondly, because when you think of snobbery, you don't think of it in a macro sense. You think of individual moments.
[00:15:30] You think about a music snob being like, you like that song? It sucks actually. Or a beer snob saying, this beer is not bitter enough. It should taste like a Christmas tree. And you're like, uh, what? I hate that guy. These are all anecdotes. You must remove yourself from the Hitlerite. Hitler loved one piece of
[00:15:53] data. The most Hitlerite mental concept of all is the anecdote. The anecdote is what is driving every anti-bike Hitler who knee jerk responses to we shouldn't kill bikers with, but I saw one run a stop sign once. One time when I was but a boy, I was eight years old doing hoop and stick on Archer
[00:16:16] Avenue in black and white times. And I saw a man on a big bike hit a turnip cart and he just killed that man. And then he said, I love that. I did a murder. Uh, and then he jacked off as he drove away. And because of that, there can't ever be bike lanes on the Southwest side of Chicago. That is true. Anecdotes. And like, obviously that really happened. The turnip thing that happened. You can look it up.
[00:16:42] Yeah. Turnips. They used to eat them. That's true. Joe's not making it as a joke. That's happened for real. Um, we know this at a basic level, like this is how all bigotry functions. Uh, but we're not talking about, cause we're not going to fix that dude. Yeah, no, that's, we're not, they can't have it. If anything, if any, we're, it'll never be taken away the best we can hope for. And what I
[00:17:05] hope that a really full throated supportive snobbery can achieve is just that there's a lot more social pressure to cover that up. Uh, because, okay. So you, you think being a snob is bad because you've been brainwashed and because you're thinking of anecdotes that came, that came with a negative feeling for you. You must take a larger context. You must look at what it actually
[00:17:31] means to be a snob. What is the definition in the most abstract terms? To be a snob is to be a person who complains that things are not good enough. We already know that complaining kicks ass. And I don't know if you've looked at every single aspect of society, but shit is not good.
[00:17:58] It is, uh, we are not clearing the bar, which is on the floor. It is clipping through the ground and we are still missing it. I mean, how can we even begin to communicate to you the ways in which shit is getting worse? The classic term and shitification that's going on constantly. There's AI in everything.
[00:18:22] You try to not use AI. They're going to make you everything's worse. People are also, uh, you need to be sort of braced for this. We're right now. We're teaching you how to have a mental fight and I'm giving you the proper stance to have in this fight and a type of stance you need to be ready is like the sort of like dismissal being like, Oh, things are always bad. Uh, in this decade, like, Oh, the nineties things were actually very bad for all reasons. Crime was very bad. Like this, this sort of attempt to mitigate that. Like, yes, things are
[00:18:51] rough now, but in the large arc of, you know, society, it's still kind of a wash. Stop complaining. That's the sort of thing you will deal with again and again and again. And to which you will say like, the only thing that's better since the nineties is that like John Wayne Gacy doesn't kill kids. Yeah. Like they found all those kids under his house, but fucking Elon Musk kills kids at a much larger scale.
[00:19:20] Oh my God. Every, I mean like attempt, attempt to avoid AI. You can't. Every video game is either the head of the studio says, Hey, the AI, we love it. It's the future of our studio and anyone who doesn't like it, we're laying off or anyone who does like it, we're laying off. We're laying everyone off. There will never be another video game made ever again. It's happening folks. Thank God. Slay the Spire two came out and I haven't
[00:19:48] even really got to it. I just know that it's there for me. Oh, because it's like the door got slammed shut on video games, like no more games. I'm glad that one got in. Yeah. I mean, also another way that everything's worse is that there's, you know, and AI isn't completely to blame because it's just the, uh, you know, the, the latest reasoning. It's the kayfabe reason, massive layoffs. No one
[00:20:12] has jobs, food costs so much more. And when you eat it, it's poison. Uh, the, the two things that made me feel really like, Oh, we're in the pit pit, uh, was one just like, yeah, the FDA is approved forever chemicals of cancer on everything, corn, whatever. I'm like, that's kind of bad. Cause I eat all of those things. And then the other thing just being like tofu now kills you too, which it's just like, yeah, yeah. Like 29 States it was recalled. One of those States, Illinois. I don't
[00:20:40] know because there's a whole mishmash of, uh, partial information because we live in hell, but it's just like tofu is like the thing I associate with. Like that is my consumer choice to avoid the worst, which is not true. Obviously I'm, uh, as vulnerable to supply chains as no one else, but it really pierces the bubble that I can like personally smart shot my way out of this.
[00:21:03] Yeah. You're like, I will not experience, uh, the jungle scenario and eat human meat in my burger. If I just had an, it's now just like, okay, well there's fingers in the tofu somehow. Yeah. Uh, I will have a delicious salad. It's like the salad that makes you shit until you're a mummy. You mean, uh, also it costs twice as much. Also, I mean, I say this as I biked home today
[00:21:31] in early September in heat dome to return of the heat dome, uh, in like this ridiculously humid and monsoony Chicago summer, which didn't use to occur. Climate catastrophe is like happening. It is no longer approaching. It wasn't a heat dome season. Okay. Like, yes, it would get muggy, but like the dome
[00:21:58] is new. The dome is new. They sure didn't use that too. We were like past the heat dome and then there was just like, fuck the world was like, Oh no, we, it's not bad enough. We need to make it worse. Put another heat dome down there. Uh, also, you know, that's going to make it really hard for there to be enough food. And then of course, it's a fact that the reason any food grows in this country
[00:22:22] is because we buy fertilizer from Canada, which we're going to stop doing because the pedophile mummy president thinks Canada's gay. Also another way things are worse. It used to be that the pedophile presidents hid that they were pedophiles. Skull and bones was notably a secret society. Now they don't even, don't even hide it. I wish we went back to like nodding towards things like
[00:22:51] freedom and democracy. Obviously, look, I'll be real with you. When those things were said before it was fake. I was, but, uh, and you were correct to roll your eyes. More importantly, I was correct to roll my eyes, but now that they're gone, uh, when it's just like a, a gaping void of nihilism instead of like, remember to vote. Like I would much rather, uh, uh, like have
[00:23:20] the empty gestures towards institutions than like just the forever darkness that we're dealing with. Yes. I mean, if we're talking about institutions, they're all gone. Like, or rather they're all hollowed out. I mean, some of them are fucking gone. Um, they're all hollowed out and a big core of that. There's a lot of core reasons. The most obvious one of course is just the, uh, howling
[00:23:47] hateful id that is the driving force of conservatism wants to destroy. It wants to destroy what mommy and daddy said is important. It wants to smash the vase, uh, and kill mommy. Uh, I guess this is, this is true that he wants to, I hate wire mother. I hate cloth mother. I will defeat both in combat and become it. Uh, much of this snobbery thing too. Also is just like, when we're talking about
[00:24:17] snobbery, what we're actually talking about is like just resistance to oppositional defiance disorder from children. Yes. I mean, yes, for real, because like oppositional defiance disorder, that, that's the, the part of, part of the impetus of the destruction of institutions is that like, these are people who are too stupid to know what being right is like. They've never been right in
[00:24:43] their life and they're mad and they want it to not matter. And through sheer force of will, they are making it not matter. There are people who, when they do their job about whether or not food is safe and where the food, uh, infections started from and went to, when they do their little tasks, they do it right. And they hated that. And so they fired them all because they were too gay.
[00:25:11] Uh, and now we're trying to get away from the idea of cause and effect, which they're doing a really good work, a really good job on. I just mean that specifically because like kids have died of measles and the end result has been like, but did they do like it didn't really count? And it's gonna kind of work. They get away with it because there is no actual media in a way that matters. That is another thing that has gotten worse because it has become a victim to total institutional
[00:25:39] capture. The oppositional defiance babies who are killing mommy also own that. So they get to say, how dare Abdul Al-Sayed run for Senate when he did nine 11. How disrespectful. Like our age, like he likes, you know, when like we were in seventh grade and they were like,
[00:26:01] oh man, bad news kids. So he got the same news we did. Like the thing is he for sure as like a seven to 10 year old Arab boy caught heat. Yes. Yes. He like for sure then was like, you did it every day of his life. You were saying you did it. And it's like 25 years later, you're an accomplished doctor adults
[00:26:29] running for Senate and the news is like, you did it. This is the anecdote I read about him. They're like, oh man, man, this guy's got the juice. So is when he was like, I don't know how old he was, but he met with Clinton, I think during Clinton's second term. And he was like, oh my God, like, what are you doing? And he was like, Clinton's early. He was like, I'm studying to be a doctor. And Clinton's like, oh, that's like, you can't do that. Like you did. You should do politics.
[00:26:56] So you should do some real shit. Like, like Bill Clinton is a piece of shit, but like he knows ball. He got two fucking terms, dude. Yeah. He, he, he, he recognized the sauce and mind you, that was that sauce was recognized through likely bigotry. Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He's just like, now I know because of my feelings towards Israel that you're like, not a guy.
[00:27:24] The thing, uh, what you just said though, about the total media capture about everything that is different. That gives me the biggest feeling of dread, which is why I wish you could snob your way out of this. Uh, so the most recent piece of news for me that has happened is that like the U S postal service is going to go ahead with their batch destruction of mail-in ballots because of like some bullshit. It doesn't matter beyond that. It shouldn't happen. It's bad, right? It's bad. It shouldn't, it shouldn't, shouldn't happen.
[00:27:50] It's objectively wrong and stupid and there's no justification. And if you look at the rules, uh, you'll see that it can't possibly be allowed, but that doesn't matter. And I agree completely. It shouldn't happen. And, but the thing is I am not specifically distraught over that destruction choice because I also know whatever shitty framing resulting from any ambiguity in the
[00:28:18] election will be repeated wholesale by a media apparatus. So like, it doesn't even matter how good this deal is really like, uh, uh, it doesn't matter if it's right. And that is the same thing. The same root cause is that whether or not something is correct is not important. Whether or not someone has expertise and knows what's actually happening is irrelevant. And in fact, if you have expertise and
[00:28:46] no one's going to know what is happening, that's like people get annoyed at you because you won't fucking shut up. You keep yapping about nuances, the specific dynamic with expertise. In my opinion, it's like they get this pushback. I was saying I'm an expert and I know stuff, but it's like people enjoy the expertise. But the minute you suggest that things have consequences you can experience, that's when like the fun of the relationship has ended.
[00:29:11] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It's, uh, it's quite bad. I do not enjoy it. I do not enjoy the many ways in which shit is getting worse and there is no push for it to improve because there is no taste. There is no hunger in society for the concept of, of goodness and rigor.
[00:29:36] Let people enjoy things. Let people enjoy things. Let them enjoy. No, let them. It's fine. If you want to use AI, it's fine. If you don't want to report the truth, it's fine. If you Hakeem Jeffries want to say like, I love that they're doing all the crime on the other side of the aisle. I love this. I love him. He only, he looks like an oblivion NPC. His head moves the same way.
[00:30:05] And then he like only will like state declarative sentences that are like truisms about what can happen. Like I did take a meet, like you'll never like, did you take a meeting and he'll just, he'll just talk like he's in third person in a weird way. And it's, and it's, you can tell he's, he's talking in a way so that no clip can be cut against him. Like in that shitty centrist way.
[00:30:31] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as a result, he is nothing. There is no, he will never, if he can help it, he will never aid and abet any push or project. The goal of which is to improve something or right are wrong because to even acknowledge that there are things that could be right and could be wrong
[00:30:57] is beyond the hem. And it is beyond the pale of American society. And this is, I think where snobbery has to come into. And obviously I have a Jeffrey's example, actually. Oh, give me. Uh, I was, I was reading, uh, about, uh, this past event that happened, uh, this past week, which was, he took a meeting with Jared Kushner. And then the fact that he took the meeting was
[00:31:23] leaked likely by Jared Kushner's team to make him look bad. So he looks like an asshole. Um, and, uh, just that's what happened in the replies. As I was reading, you're getting like two types of replies when these things happen. One is just like, fuck him. He sucks. He shouldn't die. And then there is the type of reply, which needs snobbery, which is just like, Oh, what? Here's the justification for this. Or there's some reason why this would happen.
[00:31:52] And the, the, the reply I saw that made me, uh, roll my eyes, which is like, Oh, so you don't think that the opposing administration might do this to damage an incoming speaker of the house for the Okay. So you think that cause you're not a snob because you, you expect nothing that he should not have taken the meeting to begin with. Like you would not have be showing your ass right now. If you were just a snob and expected anything. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. And this is what I
[00:32:20] mean when I'm just like, you got to become, we have to not only become snobs in these sort of like life or death political ways that count, but like the way it's going to make a difference is like, there has to just be a total societal tone shift towards, I am a snob and I am proud. And this doesn't mean you have to be snob about everything. You can, you can pick your topics, but you, I really
[00:32:48] think that all of you listening, like you have to start getting like meaner and crueler. Yeah. I'm a snob about music. I'm a snob about not treating people like shit. I'm a snob about video games. You got to pick your stuff now. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because like the thing that I, that I, uh, uh, was thinking about is the classic 30 rock line where Liz Lemon in her classic way
[00:33:16] is having a tough time finding a man. And Julianne Moore takes her to some speed dating event. And, and she's like, let me show you in a ridiculous Boston accent that I can't do. Like, let me show you how to do it. Like, this is how you do it. And, uh, she's like, yo, what do you think about the eye of Sauron? And the guy, she's like, Oh, I like you. You've made a
[00:33:40] great conversation starter. I love how the eye of Sauron is on top of Minas Tirith. And Liz is just like, I don't know what it was, but it was something like that. And Liz very angrily explains what it actually is. The guy gets upset and leaves. And Julianne Moore's like, why did you do that? He, he was like, he was going to talk with us. And Liz just says, what, we're just going to sit here and be wrong. That is the energy that we need to bring in because that is what we are doing as a society.
[00:34:10] We are sitting here and being wrong. You need, it needs to be understood by everyone that if you are wrong and are supporting stupid, low quality shit, that someone smarter than you is going to be mean to you. You need to be scared of this. I'm like, really? Like, it's like you, Joe, you laugh,
[00:34:37] but like, I think like we got to start getting cruel and mean to idiots. Here's actually, I have this post up because I thought it would be very relevant. This is a quote tweet by notalawyer.biscuit.social. He is also a podcaster. So a noble person. This is a, the original tweet is from a British person called Last Positivist. Just massive, massive amounts of political life in the UK is explained
[00:35:07] by the extremely bizarre fact that our intelligentsia, political class, and even much of our business elite feel achingly insecure about failing to meet some imagined ideal of authenticity they attribute to the Volk. And then not a lawyer says in response, this is true in America too, which is why I continue to endorse the loud embrace of cosmopolitan elitism as a counterweight. I am giving a huge cosign to this
[00:35:36] shit. This is like the, the, the nervousness of the elite of like, oh, but I'm not authentic enough is what gets us still in this rural diner. Voters still haven't given up on Trump. The people in the rural diner are pig fuckers who I wish would fucking install Minecraft. I have nothing but fucking contempt for them. They are extremely stupid and have wasted their lives in every
[00:36:04] conceivable way. I have nothing but contempt for them. And you should too. The reason I have contempt for them is because I am smarter than them, better than them. And everything I think is righter than what they think. Tom, that was so cruel and mean and punitive. Yes. Start doing that. It feels good. Just the other day. Now that I am post-surgery moving around better. I took a, a lovely walk around
[00:36:29] my block and I got a coffee and then I sipped it and then I walked some more and then I did an errand and then I stopped in at a bakery and then I sat outside on a bench for a little bit. If you don't think that's cool, you're like a stupid pig and I hate you. Like I just want, I am charging up my attack now. Okay. You need to leave. Anyone who thinks that owning a Ford
[00:36:56] F-150 raised with LED headlights is better than the lifestyle Joe has just described needs to be with the social pressure of meanness and cruelty, snobbery. Uh, they need to be shamed into shutting
[00:37:16] up with that fucking shit. The F-150 stuff as well as how like farmers as in the people who own the land are portrayed as a working class incorrectly is again back to the fact that like the, we have the dweeb problem with the journalists where their fear of being seen as inauthentic or whatever
[00:37:41] causes them to be an absolute fucking rude and to believe like an $80,000 truck or, uh, you know, a fleet of John Deere things is coded as working class. Like those things are very expensive pieces of machinery. Uh, if we're, if we're in, they're doing this intentionally. It's not what it actually is, but it's obvious to say that's the goal here. They're just trying to make it aesthetics only like working class means doesn't matter what your bank account is or how much you
[00:38:09] own. It's, are you wearing overalls? Yeah. Uh, are you wearing overalls? If you have, you have overalls and the big hat and you like Nashville country and you drive the vanity car that costs more than any other car in the market. That means you're a salt of the earth person who is real and everything that happens has to cater to you. And if you are a person who lives in the city and, uh,
[00:38:33] has a, uh, one of those weird genders that I don't understand and is, uh, you, you made a kind of a joke about it. Like being, be a snob about human rights, like the wisdom, the received wisdom on for that everyone in the media has is that if you like won't shut up about the fucking trans people, then you are a gender snob. You are also bad by a contagion. Like it's, it's, it's, it's just unreal.
[00:39:02] It's, it's, don't you know that the real people all want those fuckers to die? And so like, if you are like, let, let them live, please, then you're some annoying snob. I am happy to be a fucking gender snob. I hope everyone who isn't gets put in the Minecraft installation machine. You can't correctly bring up the fact that they keep bringing them up. Like, yes.
[00:39:31] I, these are not largely in response to like anything that's happening. It's just, there's no trans players in the WNBA. There isn't. Yes. If you are, uh, like just marginally following the WNBA thing, you must be like, Oh, they must've had a, like a, a new team. That's all trans. And that's, that's so cool. But like, that's, that's a big deal. I could see, uh, it's very interesting
[00:39:57] that, uh, it's a causing and it's like, no, it's, he rushed onto the court to complain about a thing that wasn't actually, uh, involved in the context, which is insane. And the, and this is sort of like the key aspect of the snobbery thing that I kind of keep coming back to. And I didn't know if it's snobbery or it's just basic functioning human stuff. But I, a question I asked myself, it's like,
[00:40:21] what is the purpose of what we're doing here? And one of those, uh, a good use of that sort of heuristic is like, okay, the WNBA has spent all of this effort building up and developing a league. Many of these, uh, these players are now household names. Like it's very exciting. You've developed a product that has increasingly more eyes on it. Why do you let someone then just
[00:40:51] shit over it? Because it is your right to be a bigoted asshole. And I don't want to be seen in the media as yucking anybody's yum. No, you need to have a snot. You need to be a Frazier about this shit. If there were people at the opera and an episode of Frazier who were yelling that like, just like ruining the event and ruining the vibe by like saying like some of these opera people might
[00:41:16] be gay. Frazier would be like, how boorish get out of here you because he cares about the opera. I love an opera goer that like doesn't like not sold on like gay people yet though. This is, shows this fiction is the work of fiction that we're talking about. Uh, it's just metaphors.
[00:41:38] Um, yes, but good. Well said. Also let's circle back to if there was a new team. I think that I want, what city would it be that had the all trans team? Um, the Portland already has a team, but it would be Portland. The Portland synthesizers would be the all trans team. And that would be pretty funny. I would kind of want to see that, but, but here's the thing.
[00:42:05] I want to see that from the, from the perspective of a refined estate that, that wants to see art and culture. And, uh, however, I can't see that because if it were to be implemented, I would have to suffer the fucking thoughtless rubes having on fucking trammeled access to be loud and annoying and ruin everything for everyone. If only there was some sort of entrenched societal understanding,
[00:42:35] that if you were a fucking moron who said shit, that was very wrong, uh, that you would get yelled at until you shut up and went away and you would feel really bad and personally hurt and insulted. And, uh, one of two things would happen. One of three things, one, you'd just be an asshole forever. And you'd constantly have that feeling too, is you would be so cowed by it that you would stop.
[00:42:59] And three, you might, it was the rarest one, but what a treat. You might be inspired to educate yourself and become one of the intellectual elite. As the other thing, the idea that like the, the, the, the fucking media class is wringing their hands being like, how can I be more like the idiots from the flyover states? It's like, no, I, I'll say it. I think that we, being as we are semi-professional
[00:43:27] talking and thinking guys, we are in some way in the intellectual elite. And I am not ashamed of that. In fact, I think it kicks big ass. It is one of the things I'm most proud of. Fuck anyone who says otherwise. You should be so pleased if you get to the elite in any, any fucking hobby or art form or
[00:43:51] what have you that you resonate with. This idea that like it's wrong to be good and right. It makes me fucking mad. The evil people never really, uh, worry about being good at evil. Do you ever notice that? They don't. Uh, they're just like, look how far our tech tree is developed. Look at all
[00:44:13] the skulls on these various talents. It's I'm thinking about Elon who like, he can't even like do hate speech himself. He's like, grok, please say some Satan shit about this person. I hate. No, not like that. It's too nice. Can you be meaner? And it's just like, fuck it. Fuck you're
[00:44:41] listening to this episode and you can see how to be mean and evil. Natural. Yeah. The other thing that's different is that there isn't like a guy who's had more money than ever. Just like starting like pogroms, like online, just getting it going like the wave. Uh, that's definitely a new thing. Speaking of the most richest people has more money than ever. There's many ways that that's wrong and
[00:45:10] is the result of no one stopping shit. That's obviously wrong. Just stuff getting worse. As we say, that's another thing that's gotten worse. However, back in the day when there was just a culture of snobbery to be expected, even the rich folks would be scared enough by people who had sort
[00:45:37] of cultural cachet being like, you're a little boorish. And like that was so terrifying that they were like, fuck, I have to donate a lot of this money to making opera houses and and library. I got to keep the barbarians out of the gate. Yeah. And this is what I mean when I'm like, I don't just mean you have to be a snob about like rights and the law. Obviously, yes. But like,
[00:46:05] I really think you should pick some cultural, like art artistic things that you like and just start to be a little more picky and a little more mean. And like most people don't have a lot of opinions about Japanese woodblocks. You could start having though. Yeah. And I'm not saying that like the stuff that just doesn't hit you one way or these just like, yeah, it's just not for me. You don't have to
[00:46:28] like performatively hate on that. But like when shit sucks and like people are intellectually incurious, don't do not default to that poptimism, let people like things stuff that has its place and could be the right way for culture to go if things were fine, if we were not in a fucking
[00:46:54] red alert crisis as we are. Right now, we need to do the bent stick remedy from Aristotle and go far in the other direction. Some would say too far, but it's just a corrective thing for now. Like, for example, here's one way that I'm a snob. And I think everyone should do this if you have the capability. Maybe not this specifically, but this sort of thing. A couple of years ago,
[00:47:22] my wife and I just realized like, hey, we're in like a major city that stages big, like world-class opera runs. You've got Frasier buildings downtown. And I'm just like, why don't we go to them? We can't. Like, it's not, it's not beyond us. Like, you just, all you have to do is buy a ticket and they're kind of trying to give them away because no one's going. And then you just show up and there it is. And you go home. Like, it's really
[00:47:50] easy. And we just started to and like, oh my God, the improvement to my life, just from that little fucking thing that I decided to do. And like someone who says like opera is stupid, I'd never go to that. Yeah, I'm going to think less of you now. Fuck off. Try it. The fact that like my wife and I can get reasonably dressed up and catch the bus at our block and be
[00:48:20] downtown at the symphony in legit 15 minutes is fucking awesome. It's, it's the, it's, uh, you know how we don't live in a society famously, uh, as said by the Joker, this is the anti-Joker. This is, this makes me feel like we live in a society downstream from that. Uh, today we were recording. This is also a NITA, the North Illinois transit act goes into effect, which does not mean it's all going to be all better immediately. But here's like a thing though,
[00:48:50] like objectively that bill like doesn't suck. Uh, the, the, the, the, the outcomes for the future of public transit in the Chicagoland area were either this bill, which is like, I believe I would argue is, is, uh, as a medium to long-term view or everything falls apart and goes off the fiscal cliff. So we're off, we're not going to go off the physical, the fiscal cliff with this. And the thing
[00:49:16] that is so crucial, and this is what society is all about. I'm a little excited watching this stuff maybe get a little better, Tom. Yeah. Like I, I am, I'm excited just like at a basic level, like if nothing else happens and I do believe other things will happen, but like they're going to be integrating the, the fair between the CTA, the pace and the Metro, which is, uh, previously been three different things. So just at a jump right there, that makes you feel like you got a real big boy,
[00:49:43] uh, transportation system when you have one thing for all those. Uh, it's, it's just the basic investment in wanting to watch something get better in a way that can be observed by you. Yes. And that would never, there will never be an improvement in anything, but, but certainly not in the trains unless there were some snobbish train nerds who were really persnickety about it
[00:50:13] being right. And like objectively, like not unlike every Wikipedia page, I'm sure this happened because autistic people put in work like objectively. Yes. Yes. Yes. Wikipedia is such a great example because Wikipedia is the 100% snobbishness in physical form. And there are many things you can complain about. Wikipedia does this wrong. It does that wrong. It, that, that, that rewards these bad
[00:50:39] personalities. Yes, yes, yes. I understand that. But you must understand that the incredible utility of Wikipedia existing and being right is, is huge. And because the stops are there behind this, behind the scene, putting in work and look at the dark mirror image of grockypedia, which is Elon being, I don't care about being right or not. I will simply will an evil or version into existence.
[00:51:09] And everyone will start using that because I'm so powerful and it didn't work because it sucks ass. And the snobs at Wikipedia are like, well, this is just a low quality product. So no one will ever use it. And they didn't. And like, that is the sort of, we just have to, like, it might seem frivolous. Like, why would me being a music nerd and saying that, like, Stella lefty's song sucks shit and anyone
[00:51:35] who likes it is stupid? Like, how is that helping politics? Because it is helping to lay the cultural foundation that you're supposed to say because I'm saying it. You should have said because I'm saying it. Uh, because I'm saying it and it's helping lay the foundation of this cultural expectation that if you're just wrong and are making things worse, people will yell at you. And then maybe it'll like,
[00:52:05] maybe it'll trickle upwards. Maybe the rich people will start being snobs. Maybe fucking Howard Lutnick will say some stupid shit that's evil. And his friend, Dorothy Parker will shoot an incredible zinger at him. That'll make them feel awful. Um, uh, I think this is a snob adjacent thing. Uh, let me know if I'm on target here. So one of my current struggles with the moment, no one likes AI.
[00:52:32] I understand that. Uh, that is not unique to me. The thing I'm like struggling with at like a spiritual level is as you said earlier, it's just like, why don't people do a good job because they're afraid of getting yelled at? Uh, so like that was for most of my life, I feel like that was sort of my operating principle, which is not bad. Uh, it's also good when you have like untreated ADHD. That's a, it's like a nice fallback to have, although stressful now that like no one gives a
[00:53:01] shit, how anything looks ever. I just like, don't, I can't care. I, I, I, I am really struggling with just like the bare minimum of masking just because I am just repeatedly being reinforced that like, dude, no one, no one fucking reads anything. Like we are all generating trash and sending each other and not even reading it. We're having the other machine read the trash and summarize
[00:53:30] it wrong and it doesn't matter. And it's like in that environment, I cannot ever care about an email. I mean, the thing that kills me is the restaurants who are using AI posters and, and, and are happy about the fact that whenever you make AI, make, you make AI do a picture of food. It makes it out of worms.
[00:53:56] Like it's out, it's made worms. It's like a hundred percent worms. Look, this is what I mean exactly by like, uh, what are we doing here? Exactly. Because if you are a business, I would say the two main things you are trying to communicate always is like no worms, no worms. Also that like, uh, if you order it, this is what you'll get. And this is what it looks like. And like,
[00:54:19] you are willingly choosing to muddy those informational waters because someone walking in really like, maybe they want the worms and they're going to be pissed that they don't show up. Yeah. Uh, and then I've, I've seen people literally say like, Hey, did you know that like your little, you know, twofold sign outside says you guys do chai latte and you don't. And it's just
[00:54:47] like, ah, yeah, Chad GPT did that. And it's like, what are you like? Okay. But like the people walking by, like, don't know that you don't care, I guess. It's just like that sort of thing is like, this is, this is a time where you gotta be a snob. You gotta not be like, Oh, that's kind of weird, but whatever. It's like, you gotta be mean. Like you gotta be mean. And like, I hate to say this in
[00:55:14] this case. Cause like, Oh, the person, the clerk probably isn't doing it. So like, I don't think you should like dress them down and really like, but like, but if you don't care enough to check that the shit is even like right before you put it down and dust it off on the sidewalk, come on. I think you got it. At least when you get home post about how fucking terrible this
[00:55:38] restaurant is a name names, like you gotta name names. The time for, for mercy is over. You gotta be a snob name names. This shit can't go on. And also you gotta be a snob about the podcast you listen to. I bet some podcasts out there don't even start with a short story. Can you believe that? No, probably not. They probably, they're probably not literary. Uh, we're one of the most
[00:56:05] well-read podcasts of all time. Don't, don't look at workers lit the podcasts that read books every episode. Don't look at them. They're not, we hate that. No, no, they're respectable. You can be a snob about them. Uh, we're very literary. We're so smart. And the fact that we are sort of a niche show should tell you everything you need to know with regard.
[00:56:32] Yeah. We should be running the show. We should be running the planet. Yeah. Would you rather be listening to smart list with Jason Bateman? Those people are not putting in the rigor. They are not putting in the work. You gotta be a snob about this kind of shit. You gotta be a snob. Can I tell you, um, an example of me being snobby about fan art? I usually don't have an opinion about fan art. But I am at the edge of my seat, Joe, because if someone told me, Hey, do you think Joe has an
[00:57:01] opinion about fan art? I would say surely no. Tom, I saw Chrono Trigger fan art. Okay. Uh, it was in this fan art and it was done very well. And I assume it was not AI, uh, because if it was, it would mean I'm stupid and a hog. So it wasn't, but, uh, in this fan art, it was, uh, Luca famously
[00:57:26] the Bulma of Chrono Trigger who was, uh, crying and putting her hands on a deactivated robo in the rain. You know, that scene when they first get him, when it's thought that he's dead and he's repaired by her. And I saw that and I thought it was very good. But then I also thought, what isn't good about this? Like, what am I a snob about? And the reason the snob reason,
[00:57:52] Tom, is because I didn't buy the reason she was crying because she's in Chrono Trigger. She's literally in Chrono Trigger. What does she have? She's going to fix him anyway. You're literally in the best game. Yeah. What, what could be better? Oh yeah. And then also if she gets the, the rainbow stolen or whatever, she gets like the insanely good gun too. That's pretty good.
[00:58:22] I think this might be where we wrap up the episode. That was a really good cap. Uh, folks become more annoyingly choosy about this shit in your life because people are going to try to make you accept some of the worst shit that ever was. And everyone's just saying yes. We got to start saying no. Say no to the worm burgers. I've been Tom and Anime Sicko. I am Joe and Anime Sicko.
[00:58:52] We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Anime Sickos. I've been Tom, a sicko. You can follow me on Blue Sky at Tom Harrison. Joe was also a sicko. You can follow him on Blue Sky at Sharia Uncle. You can follow Anime Sickos on Blue Sky at Anime Sickos or email us at AnimeSickos at gmail.com. You can give us money at Patreon.com slash Anime Sickos if you want. Uh, please leave us a review or something.
[00:59:19] I don't know. Tell a friend. Uh, anyway, until next time, bye.