u/No_Pineapple9928

I’ve been noticed the *audience* has felt cold in the room this season, and Shane Gillis‘s monologue really exposed that.

I think some of it was that a few jokes depended on the audience being titillated by specific word choices, and that he relies on the excitement from more right leaning audiences about taboo/familiar subjects (he had a pause for a Rogan name drop that got nothing), but the guy bombed.

And he knew it. What a horrible feeling. A couple of the jokes he petered off and didn’t land because they required (I guess) a raunchy word? Or he was counting on his mugging to the audience to get the laugh?

When a comedian goes “that was the monologue” because his final joke missed, you know they know It. I’m not saying anything one way or the other about his content - but I’m wondering if there was such an unsuccessful monologue as this - 7 minutes! - in recent memory?

Gad Saad desperately trying to get views by commenting on NYC mayor tweet

https://preview.redd.it/b4kdv7u5pmch1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=dddd58698eb6712e2a3e654dcdee6fc0be52a600

The Onion is throwing high heat

I miss the crazy entourage of Infowars like Harrison and Owen and their cuck destroying stupid nicknames.

Where else am I gonna hear about someone getting shouted down about burning stone buildings?

But I definitely don’t miss Tucker.

I got in, tried 4 tickets, 3, 2, and 1 - then kept refusing to leave, somehow got in the queue for 1 tix

Good luck

My little marching man is at the M in

YOUR TURN IS COMING UP SOON HANG TIGHT AND
---------------------/ |

Not promising.

The single best insight that I got from KF was the damning, specific exploration of the right-wing Christian grift unfolding in real time. As AJ lurched rightward, his grift inspired folks like Tucker, Kirk, Peterson, Crowder, and -- craziest of all -- Russell Brand.

Dan peeling back the layers of AJ's religious kayfabe was absolutely insightful. The ability to code-switch from "God told me my future over a chicken-fried steak" and "God lets me guess the time on my clock" to "let's lick toads with Mike Tyson" is a mode that AJ first mastered, but now all the grifters are doing it.

In fact, there would be times when KF would report on an AJ story -- e.g., protesters outside the Hague pretending to be the Hague prosecuting Fauci -- and then I would see that same story travel through the megaphones of Fox/Newsmax/OAN to my inbox in a forwarded email from my mother-in-law. (Do I need to tell you my MIL is a conservative Christian? Probably not. But she's a former nurse who ran vaccination drives, which she now regrets deeply. Not good, Jordan.)

Understanding the mechanics of right-wing grifters -- and how AJ served the griftosphere by front-lining dumb stories, allowing the next level of grifters to test a story's potential juice -- helped me to see what an absolute charade it all was. There really is very little arguing to be done. The echo chamber is real.

I appreciated Dan's exploration of that two-faced, fake-Christian kayfabe: on the air, we pretend we believe the current story, and then can move on from praying to Jesus to talking about how having sex with your wife is as good as a juicy ribeye to seeing aliens while taking DMT to discussing the lost city of Atlantis.

There's no real center to this apparatus. The grift is attention and grinding through the attentive news cycles. They've never even read the Bible they pretend to like so much. (See Dan's exegesis on "you will know a tree by its fruit" during AJ's DOGE-era love affair with Elon.)

KF gave me specific language about the type of hypocrisy, a way to pierce through the simple defenses -- Charlie Kirk was sincere! -- and an understanding of unfolding charlatanism in real-time. I don't see another pod operating on that level of deep, specific understanding.

Gentlemen, for that, and for all the laughs, I salute you.

Mike down.

I have nothing to say but thanks for the years of research, gallows humor, straining towards justice, and creating a community of pleasant weirdos.

I will forever remember to mic down before I yell, put the Tito’s in the freezer, and eat the red card.

I’m not mad at the crew. 🫡