0:00

Peter. Michael. What's your first nominee for

0:02

the worst take of 2023? I

0:04

think it's Vulture putting us as the

0:06

number four podcast of the year and

0:09

not number one. So

0:11

a few weeks

0:13

ago, we put out a

0:15

call on the Patreon for

0:18

the worst takes of 2023.

0:20

And we received

0:31

a number of excellent

0:34

nominations. Yeah, there was one

0:36

that just said if books could kill defending Hillary

0:38

Clinton. I know. That was

0:40

funny. That was funny. I liked it a

0:42

lot. You know what? There was also one

0:45

person who said something along the lines of

0:47

like, this is just going to be a

0:49

rundown of Mike's Twitter beefs, lol, which like,

0:51

first of all, how dare you? And secondly,

0:53

that's correct. My only real criticism, and it's

0:55

not anyone's fault, is that the recency bias

0:57

is severe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of

0:59

them were from like the last three weeks.

1:02

And I like

1:04

knew that that was an issue.

1:06

But myself, I had no memory of anything

1:08

that happened more than a month ago. Yeah,

1:10

it's insane. I know. I don't know how

1:12

we get out of this cycle, but we're

1:14

just inundated with too much news. And I

1:16

feel like as a society, we need to

1:18

pick maybe like one every two weeks, one

1:20

news story that we talk about for two

1:23

weeks, and then we all move on. So

1:25

as usual, I have over prepared

1:27

for this and Peter has under prepared for this.

1:30

I have three nominees, and

1:32

then an extremely obvious winner.

1:35

And then I have a bunch of

1:37

honorable mentions. And then I have like

1:39

the worst, just like discourse. I

1:41

also have some sort

1:44

of primaries and some honorable mentions

1:46

here. Yeah, I think we're

1:48

on the probably on the same page. I

1:50

am underplaying how much I read for this

1:52

a little bit. Okay, yeah, I've read a

1:54

lot too. I've fried my brain reading The

1:56

Worst Takes for like three days straight. My

1:58

first nomination. nation is

2:01

this was a year with

2:03

a lot of talk about like how marriage

2:05

is good. I feel like this is kind

2:07

of already a memory hold, but there were

2:09

all kinds of like studies and like

2:12

books that came out this year that were

2:14

like, well, the data is in and like

2:16

marriage is really good for kids. And

2:20

one of my most worst takes is

2:23

an Atlantic article by Melissa Kearney

2:25

who wrote this book called the

2:27

Two-Parent Privilege, How Americans Stopped Getting

2:29

Married and Started Falling Behind. And

2:32

I am going to send you

2:34

the opening paragraph. Earlier

2:37

this year, I was at a conference on fighting

2:39

poverty and a member of the audience asked a

2:41

question that made the experts visibly uncomfortable. What

2:44

about family structure? He asked. Single-parent

2:46

families are more likely to be poorer

2:48

than two-parent ones. Does family structure play

2:50

a role in poverty? The

2:52

scholar to whom the question was directed looked annoyed

2:54

and struggled to formulate an answer. The

2:56

panelists shifted in their seats. The moderator

2:58

stepped in, quickly pointing out that poverty makes

3:01

it harder for people to form stable marriages.

3:03

She promptly called on someone else. I

3:06

sighed. As an economist who studies inequality in

3:08

families, I have often found myself in the

3:10

same position as the questioner. I

3:12

have suggested in similar settings that we need

3:14

to consider how marriage and household structure affect

3:16

children's life outcomes only to be

3:19

met with annoyance and evasion. You can't even

3:21

talk about how two parents are good for

3:23

kids anymore. I'm not 100%

3:26

sure that I believe this happened. I know. Oh,

3:28

visibly uncomfortable. The moderator's stammering. The parents, the kids,

3:30

I don't know. They've

3:36

revealed that conservatism is correct. This

3:38

is a thing that I think

3:40

conservatives actually believe that liberals secretly

3:42

know that conservatism is right. If

3:45

you ask them a prodding question,

3:48

they will just literally shake and

3:50

cry. The thing is, I found

3:52

this discourse extremely obnoxious all year,

3:54

both because it just comes

3:56

up on three year cycles. It's just like, well,

3:58

we're doing it again. When I was looking... It takes

4:00

on this. There was a wave of takes

4:02

in like twenty six seen as well and

4:04

like we've as We Document or Success sequence

4:06

episode. The sing of like all You Need

4:09

To Be Married is this is just keep Happening

4:11

people It's literally the same people saying. Literally the

4:13

exact same thing all the time thread. I.

4:15

Don't wanna go over too much of what we said in that episode, but

4:17

it's like. This entire thing seems

4:19

to misunderstand correlation and causation

4:21

which the data itself cannot

4:23

really untangle for you, right?

4:25

It's very obviously true that,

4:27

like. Kids raised with two parents

4:30

are like, more likely to, you know, scratchers

4:32

my school. They earn more in life, whatever.

4:34

But like that doesn't tell you whether like

4:36

marriage itself is doing. Yeah, it could be

4:39

that when you're married, you're more likely to

4:41

be rich. It could also be that when

4:43

you're rich, you're more likely to be married,

4:45

right? And. As Kearney actually admits in

4:47

like a lot of her interviews, what she's

4:50

really talking about, his cohabitation A has, when

4:52

you live together, you're better at raising kids

4:54

because obviously you're sharing resources. sharing childcare against

4:56

nobody really disagrees with this is easier to

4:59

raise. Kids with you people than with

5:01

one person does right. But like how

5:03

many people are living together? raising kids

5:05

as much more difficult to measure. Look

5:07

like the data is kind of garbage

5:09

to begin with and it doesn't really

5:11

tell us anything. She's tough talking about

5:13

evasion. what these pieces all actually evade

5:15

is what is your prescription here Exactly

5:18

where it's Some conservatives will admit that

5:20

what they want. Is. Like. No.

5:22

No fault. Divorce? Yeah, and you know,

5:25

basically social pressure to marry and marry

5:27

young. but not a lot of people

5:29

are willing to admit that. and now

5:31

it's sort of a situation where what

5:34

they're actually doing is this sort of

5:36

like poo pooing other causes of poverty

5:38

and being like, well, maybe maybe the

5:40

real problem is something that is sort

5:43

of specific to be an individual's and

5:45

is not solved by, you know, welfare

5:47

payments. and yeah, Exactly. And that's is it.

5:49

It actually that the thing that I. Kept. Thinking was

5:51

with me and Aubrey keep saying on me

5:54

and says about like sadness that there's this

5:56

entire debate of. Like how bad is it for

5:58

you to be fat? blah blah and. The

6:00

data is more complicated than a million episodes

6:03

about it, but we also kind of he's

6:05

doing episodes about it because the answer to

6:07

that question is kind of irrelevant, right? Because

6:09

even if it's. Straightforwardly true that being fat

6:12

is bad for you. People cannot stop

6:14

being fat. People can't lose weight. Bright and

6:16

so telling a three hundred pound person how

6:18

you be healthier, have you lost weight? Is.

6:20

That useful because. Chances. Are

6:22

that person has tried this and wait a million times. And

6:25

if they try losing weight again, they're gonna engage. In

6:27

a bunch of unhealthy behaviors and two years later the

6:29

going to be three hundred and fifty pounds brands the

6:31

same thing remarriage right there's like, okay, let we. We've

6:33

proven that it's good for kids to get married like

6:36

those have their parents be married? fine, whatever. Even

6:38

if that's true, it's not like

6:40

there's some reservoir of like, well

6:42

earning, well educated, Great dude out there

6:44

and single moms are like oh no,

6:46

I don't want a partner. Is

6:48

like what are people who to do with that

6:51

information? Mary himself. You'll

6:53

eventually get up and running a

6:55

solution for like. The weird sex robot

6:58

saying they sometimes come back to. The

7:00

which is that we need the Jordan Peterson milking. Video

7:03

to be public policy other. Now. That

7:05

was also a contender for one the worst. I. Guess

7:07

someone appears to have attached a machine

7:09

to Jordan Peterson that is milking him

7:11

for. The worst imaginable takes an immigrant

7:13

Ultimate enough op ed set like only

7:16

one percent of the federal budget for

7:18

like welfare, whatever goes to promoting marriage

7:20

or sounds like too much of the

7:22

welfare budget and. I'm an zing

7:24

is this is actually. Already a

7:27

large components of our poverty alleviation

7:29

strategy because imagine any six they

7:31

made welfare be like block grants

7:33

to states. The rain decide how.

7:35

They spend it and a lot of

7:37

states is pretty conservative states and their

7:40

welfare budget on these fucking asinine promoting

7:42

marriage like this is why marriage is

7:44

good classes which are one of the

7:46

least effective poverty alleviation strategy. Well, what's

7:49

what's a less effective Barbara Really be

7:51

successful. Did you know. That it's good

7:53

to settle down there basically asking they're

7:55

they're using irrelevant. Data to promote

7:57

more of something we're already doing.

8:00

It work. Yeah, and then another

8:02

one. This is recently bias. But

8:04

then there was. A couple weeks

8:06

ago, the sort of the the this discourse has kind

8:08

of been around. Bouncing around a year and

8:10

then this has now culminated in this

8:12

atrocious Washington Post's editorial. which I'm sure

8:15

you saw. This is my first. Yeah

8:17

Geico. Who doesn't like popular demand? Yeah,

8:19

walk, walk, walk us through it. Peter

8:21

Are so young. The Washington Post editorial

8:23

board. The

8:26

headline is his attitude: don't shift a

8:28

political dating mismatch will threaten marriage, threaten

8:30

me Reds And I guess even though

8:32

you read it as well, I will

8:34

send you three items. Some of the

8:36

choice quotes Sure, you're I wonder if

8:39

we highlighted the same paragraph? I have

8:41

three Yellow Kill a paragraph? I only

8:43

have two. Oh yeah, this is a

8:45

point where they're calling for a vibe

8:47

chef of acts Americans. Have increasingly sort

8:50

of themselves according to ideological. Orientation

8:52

They are working, living, and socializing with

8:54

people who thinks the same things that

8:56

they do. Particularly. College

8:58

Campuses. Of closer of keeping

9:00

the sameness has set up Young Americans

9:02

for disappointment. They. Expect people to

9:04

share their own convictions in commitments. A

9:07

cultural shift might be necessary, one that

9:09

use politics as part of people's identities,

9:11

but far from the most important part

9:13

Americans ability to live together quite literally,

9:16

Might. Depend on it. I love. That

9:18

they threw colleges and here fear like

9:20

this broad sociological phenomenon to suck these

9:22

kids. Are they

9:24

can't resist Alexis affairs know like deed

9:27

or anything that like be mention that

9:29

Links has directly to college campuses. In

9:31

reality there is a Martin some data

9:33

about younger people drawing like harder lines

9:35

about what our political ideologies they're willing

9:38

to the bone in my mind. The.

9:40

Subtext here is like no one wants

9:42

to date republicans anymore. Yeah, a totally

9:45

Gap, which is. Mainly women because men are much

9:47

more likely to. Be. Conservatives? Yeah right.

9:49

And. I. Feel like this is

9:51

unsettling in two ways. First, in the

9:53

micro, it's essentially like, look ladies, you

9:56

should be open to dating people who

9:58

believe that. You should not. The

10:00

reproductive I spend your life with

10:02

someone who just doesn't respect you at

10:04

all that is. And in Peter that's

10:07

like the sort of solution being

10:09

offered to or implicitly. And then second,

10:11

like in the macro we have this

10:13

broad problem of political polarization which

10:15

has all of these complex systemic causes

10:18

and this is sort of like putting

10:20

be moral responsibility for that issue

10:22

onto individuals as now relation would go

10:24

away if we have just pretended to

10:27

like each other night and reality

10:29

what's happening as. Like as politics

10:31

polarize around you, you are forced

10:33

to make choices like the s

10:35

no matter what you do, right?

10:37

Like. As your median conservative

10:39

gravitates towards being he, he

10:42

went on guy you know,

10:44

even a moderate woman on

10:47

a college campus. Is.

10:49

Now forced to make a choice that she didn't Previously

10:51

athletic, right? The I want to date a T when

10:53

I'm guy or not. or do I want to treat

10:55

him as a fixer? Upper was always works. Ladies,

10:59

you can fix rent layer of adventure

11:01

them in the headline I. Also think that

11:03

kind of honor Logistical Note: It's very funny to

11:05

me that they. Bring up college campuses because

11:07

of course our team is as are

11:09

relatively like ideologically coherent like most people

11:11

do subscribe to like more left wing

11:13

beliefs. but that's kind of the the

11:16

breakdown of this entire article. Is it

11:18

like we are sorting along ideological lines,

11:20

but a lot of that is kind

11:22

of geographical and institutional read if. You're

11:24

conservatives and you live in a conservative. State

11:26

you can the Conservatives because they're all around you. And if you're

11:28

liberal and you live in a liberal city, you can the other

11:30

liberals who that is around you. Yeah, it's. Like. That that

11:32

they're linking this to. This kings The thing. That

11:35

like threatens marriage like. is this the end of

11:37

marriage as we know. It and like as

11:39

we discussed in Our Rules episode, people

11:41

have been fretting about the since the

11:43

literal seventeen hundreds. we're not going to

11:45

stop like coupling up as like asking

11:47

babies anytime soon. See, It's the

11:50

fact that people have different

11:52

ideological beliefs. Has. Nothing to do

11:54

with falling marriage rates. Marriage rates are falling to people.

11:56

are waiting longer to get married basically thrive and

11:58

like the divorce rates are also fall because

12:00

like people might actually be in happier marriages than they

12:02

used to be in previous generations. This is not the

12:04

sort of underlying crisis. It's

12:06

not really a crisis. They

12:09

also, I don't know if you notice this, but they're

12:11

talking about like the ideology gap and like women are

12:13

more likely to be liberal and men are more likely

12:15

to be conservative. And they say

12:18

the ideology gap is particularly pronounced

12:20

among Gen Z white people and

12:22

they talk about white conservatives, whatever, but Gen Z

12:24

is only 50% white. And

12:26

so like it's weird to sort of,

12:28

I don't know how like explicitly

12:31

or like consciously they're doing this,

12:33

but it's like white people

12:35

kind of quote unquote resorting to

12:38

like marrying minorities because they

12:40

have the same ideological beliefs

12:42

as them is not bad. There's also,

12:44

there's just something fundamentally weird about

12:46

this like broad implication that you

12:48

don't have to vote for Republicans.

12:52

Of course, right? This is a democracy, but you

12:54

should be willing to spend the rest of your

12:56

life with one. That's a sacrifice

12:58

that we all need to think hard about

13:00

for some reason. In the same paragraph that

13:02

you sent me, they also say, they're talking

13:05

about these like ideological divides and

13:07

they say, unfortunately, Americans have not

13:09

equipped themselves to discuss, debate, and

13:11

reason across these divides. And

13:13

like this is something that people just kind of say

13:15

now. I don't actually think that there's any evidence that

13:17

this is the case. People are

13:19

fine with like their more conservative family

13:22

members and even having like more conservative friends.

13:24

I think most people are adults

13:26

and like if anything are like

13:28

too reluctant to draw lines in the

13:30

sand about this. Also, one of my

13:32

favorite things because you know, I read

13:34

these like reactionary centrist sub stacks, like

13:36

this whole kind of sub stack world

13:38

I find darkly fascinating. What's your sub

13:41

stack budget? Just the reading, sub stack

13:43

psychos. I do not

13:45

favor any. For the record, I do not favor any. I'm

13:48

imagining you writing off like

13:50

$400 a month in like

13:52

very wise sub stack subscriptions.

13:54

My Jesse single budget. Send

13:58

it to the IRS. No, fuck no. But

14:00

one thing that these people are

14:02

obsessed with is how leftists will

14:05

sometimes be like, it's not my job to

14:07

educate you, right? So like sometimes you're kind of debating

14:09

with somebody and you're like, what's your evidence for that

14:11

claim? And they're like, it's not my job to educate

14:13

you. But like they often use

14:16

this as evidence for like nobody wants

14:18

to debate anymore. But I think

14:20

the key distinction is that people don't

14:22

want to debate on social media with

14:24

some fucking just asking questions asshole. I

14:26

think that it's totally legitimate to have

14:28

like different standards for behavior online and

14:30

in person. Like in person, I do

14:32

actually have friends that are like relatively

14:34

conservative and I'm perfectly happy to like

14:36

walk people through data on like, oh,

14:38

actually like the trans rights stuff, like

14:40

it's not really the case that kids

14:43

are getting surgeries, that assessment, like let's

14:45

talk about it. I'm actually totally happy

14:47

to do that. Online I'm not

14:49

though, online the fucking slightest hint of

14:51

transphobia, you are fucking blocked. That's

14:53

not like, ooh, ideologically like Mike can't handle

14:56

debate or whatever. It's like, that's not the

14:58

experience that I want to have online. Right. When

15:01

you're talking politics on social media, you're sort

15:03

of constantly debating. And so everyone hits their wall,

15:05

right? And it's like, I don't want to

15:07

fucking talk to this with some

15:09

person who's probably not acting in good faith

15:11

and who it wouldn't matter if I change

15:14

their mind anyway. Dude, I was,

15:16

I think I already told you this when we weren't

15:18

recording, but I was in an Uber the other day

15:20

talking about the weather. And then he's like,

15:22

oh, my daughter like runs

15:24

when it's sunny or something. He

15:26

mentioned daughter or something, something. And I was like, oh,

15:28

how old is your daughter? He's like, oh,

15:31

she's 35 now. Her mom's a narcissistic bitch.

15:34

And I was like, ah, zero

15:36

to 60. And

15:39

then he's like ranting about like

15:41

queer people and stuff. And it was

15:44

just like, okay, I guess we're just like

15:46

doing this. But

15:48

I was nice. Good for you. Not

15:50

being immediately clocked as gay. I don't even know

15:52

how that's possible, but. I was so proud. And

15:54

that's all I could think. Oh, my God, do

15:56

you think I'm straight? Like flipping my

15:59

hair around. But

16:02

anyway, I didn't like have a meltdown. Right, right.

16:05

Sorry, I'm dying at this guy. I'm dying at

16:07

this guy who's like, see

16:09

his little, little twink Mike Hobson's back

16:11

to you. And

16:13

he's like, I'm gonna first I'm gonna tell this guy

16:15

about how my ex is a bitch and then I'm

16:18

gonna rant about gays. Only

16:21

a straight person would refer to a 41 year old

16:23

five foot six man as a twink. Very

16:26

adorable to you, Peter. Thank you. And the

16:28

twink was entirely about being short and skinny.

16:31

Speaking of which, this is my next

16:33

this is my next nominee, which I don't think

16:35

I don't think you would have clocked this.

16:37

Okay, so this is we're reaching back

16:39

through time. This is from June. There

16:42

is a New York Times

16:44

op-ed by a person named Richard

16:46

Morgan, who I've never heard of before. And

16:48

the op-ed is called as a gay man, I'll

16:50

never be normal. And

16:53

there's been this kind of wave this year of

16:56

basically straight media plucking gay men

16:58

out of obscurity to be like,

17:00

wow, gay rights has really gone

17:02

too far, right? The

17:04

entire piece is pushing back against

17:07

like over representation. So he

17:09

actually like says this at one point. And

17:11

he starts out by saying, you know, there's

17:14

all this discourse about how like the percentage

17:16

of LGBT people is like growing. And

17:18

it's now 7% of the population identifies

17:21

as LGBT. And he's like, well, you know,

17:23

it sounds like it's so big, like it sounds like we're kind of

17:25

everywhere. But actually, if you

17:27

look into the numbers, more than

17:29

half are bisexuals. And if

17:31

you take the bisexuals out, it's only 3%. I'm

17:34

always controlling for bisexuals. Yeah, why

17:36

would you remove the bisexuals though?

17:39

They're in the fucking acronym. And

17:42

like the danger that he's

17:44

warning against, he has this absurd fucking

17:46

thing. But I like the ACLU

17:49

has tweeted out like trans people belong everywhere, which

17:51

is like a nice little phrase. And

17:53

then he fact checks it. He's like, actually, trans

17:55

people are only 1% of the population. They'll never

17:57

be everywhere. I don't think that's a good thing.

18:00

That's what they mean. That's not what they

18:02

mean when they say trans people belong everywhere.

18:04

They don't mean 100% of the population. Physically,

18:07

trans people could not be everywhere it

18:09

was. Keep

18:12

that voice, Peter. That's good. Save it.

18:15

I can only do a

18:18

super nerd from the Simpsons, basically,

18:21

or the Brooklyn tough guy. That's it. It's

18:23

just like, shut the fuck up. I love

18:25

that he's not counting. You know how sometimes

18:28

weirdly racist people will be like, did you

18:30

know that Obama's actually half white? You know,

18:33

these guys are half straight, keep in mind.

18:36

That's how they view bisexuality as just being

18:38

half straight. He says, the make believe

18:40

of over-representation is a kind of

18:42

reverse closet, where instead of pushing

18:44

queer Americans to pretend to be

18:46

heterosexual, we ask the broader culture

18:48

to costume as more queer than it is.

18:50

I feel, I haven't talked about this on

18:53

the podcast, but I feel like it's us

18:55

straights in the closet now. The

18:59

whole piece, I was just like, just say you

19:01

hate yourself. This is taking forever. Right, it's exhausting.

19:03

And like, this is the same year where we

19:05

had David Sedaris being like, they want

19:08

to call me queer. And that's

19:10

bad. I'm gay. And like, David, no

19:12

one fucking cares what you call yourself. Right, just

19:14

a fucking word. You know, fucking Andrew Sullivan has

19:16

been banging this drum forever. He's like, he's

19:19

like gatekeeping queerness. He's like, oh, these

19:21

aren't like real queers. It's

19:23

like, this is actually the

19:25

future that liberals want, right? I think

19:27

it's fucking great that more people are

19:30

identifying as bisexual and like exploring that.

19:32

And like, it's so demeaning to

19:35

say that like, that doesn't count. Right. When

19:37

like, a lot of people, like I know people

19:39

who are in sort of quote unquote heterosexual relationships,

19:41

like opposite sex marriages, and they're monogamous. There's

19:44

this weird move to be like, oh, well,

19:46

they're not really bisexual. Right. But

19:48

why? Why would you take that away from somebody? That's

19:50

actually fine for them to identify that way,

19:52

even if for the rest of their lives are monogamous

19:54

with an opposite sex partner, because they're

19:57

not bisexual anymore. I'm married to my

19:59

wife. but it doesn't mean that I'm

20:01

no longer like quote unquote interested in women. Like

20:03

I'm not, I'm still straight. Just

20:05

because I've committed to one person doesn't mean,

20:08

doesn't like invalidate my sexuality in some way.

20:10

And like the reason this feels like dog whistle

20:12

transphobia to me is because there's this panic about

20:15

like what if kids are identifying as trans? And

20:17

then it turns out they're not trans. And like

20:19

that's not a bad outcome. That's

20:21

actually fine. If more people are

20:23

open to like maybe thinking they're bisexual

20:25

and then they explore that and then a couple of years later

20:27

they're like, oh, it turns out I'm heterosexual. That's

20:29

fine. That's like a future ally to

20:32

me. I think a world where people are able

20:34

to explore their sexuality is better than one that

20:36

we've had for most of human history where people

20:38

just had to tamp this shit down and never

20:40

really know that part of themselves. Like it's

20:42

so weird to me to see actual gay people

20:45

being like, ah, some of them aren't

20:47

even bisexual. Who fucking cares, man? The

20:49

greatest argument for LGBT rights has always

20:51

just been who gives a shit. This

20:53

is not your problem. Just move on.

20:56

Go like have sex with straight

20:59

presenting gay dudes or whatever you're doing.

21:01

Wow, I have a blast. Do the

21:03

Andrew Sullivan where you try your best

21:05

to present straight and then have an

21:07

extremely dark online life. Wow. By

21:11

what you mean is writing career. There's nothing else that you would be

21:13

referring to there. Okay, but then Peter,

21:15

the entire reason we're talking about this is so

21:17

that we can read. This is not the worst

21:19

take of the year, but this is the worst

21:21

paragraph of the year. So I'm gonna send that to

21:23

you. Do it in a gay voice, Peter.

21:25

Do it. No problem. Do

21:28

it. I

21:30

know you have one in your back pocket. I don't even know what

21:33

you mean. I

21:35

still don't fit in. And not just

21:37

in the straight world. I don't watch Ru- Exhausting.

21:40

Exhausting. I don't watch RuPaul's Drag

21:43

Race. I've never been to Fire

21:45

Island. My

21:48

skincare routine is soap. I

21:50

wear old navy and a raggedy bucket hat.

21:53

Queer folks ask me if I'm a top, a

21:55

bottom, or a verse, and I give the most

21:57

unpopular answer. Why wouldn't I want to love my

21:59

partner? Every way I can. Servers

22:03

get will take you. In

22:06

Attack Iraq did it when this

22:09

fucking thing came out like verse.

22:11

That's verse that's first buddy and

22:13

sorry businesses So fucking stupid. First

22:15

of all, use moisturizer. Every

22:19

street guy I know for the past

22:21

decade has been rocking at the very

22:23

least a basic moisture his and routine.

22:25

It is very funny be one day

22:27

people like do this like straight sitting.

22:30

In shit and then straighten the like you're overdoing

22:32

it. Was

22:34

good. Man, it's final. We're

22:36

We're moisturizing every every cent

22:38

guy has one bravo show.

22:40

We're well past this is

22:42

just like Time culture lists

22:44

and nobody likes me. Yeah,

22:47

and I'm completely unwilling, like,

22:49

as a matter of principle,

22:51

to engage in anything that

22:53

I associate with modern gay

22:55

culture. I hate myself so

22:57

much as invented a bizarre

22:59

fourth category. That doesn't fall

23:01

under top, bottom, reverse. Yeah and I'm

23:03

tired of you ask me whether I'm

23:05

like left or right handed but wouldn't

23:07

want to hold a tennis racket and

23:09

way that I can. He's right about

23:11

is the most unpopular answer cycle. I

23:14

it's the worst way to answer the

23:16

question. Six that do is he had

23:18

imagined hating yourself so much that you

23:20

were. Bucket Hat was like I an

23:22

don't see a man. I

23:25

also I really do blame the streets

23:28

for this whole thing more than I

23:30

blame like this individual person because that's

23:32

what he's expressing here is a very

23:34

typical stage of coming out of the

23:36

I think that like for gay people

23:38

if you're going up gay there's certain

23:41

kinds of representation that you see and

23:43

like when you go to gay nightclub

23:45

you're seeing a certain kind of day

23:47

person. And I get to meet you a little. Bit uncomfortable because

23:49

you're like I don't look like these people. I don't

23:51

really feel like I said him sees people but

23:53

there's this. This. stage where you like

23:55

i want to put a label on it i'm

23:58

not i'm not like those other gays I'm

24:00

into sports. I don't watch RuPaul's

24:02

Drag Race. And, honestly, eventually you

24:05

outgrow that. It's like white people

24:07

having a libertarian phase. You

24:10

eventually realize that no one cares.

24:12

There's no pressure to watch RuPaul's Drag Race.

24:14

I don't want RuPaul's Drag Race. No one

24:16

fucking cares. It's not that interesting. What he

24:18

thinks he's doing is challenging straight people's

24:20

bigotry. He's doing this like, look, not

24:23

all of us are these effeminate prancing

24:25

queens, right? That's what he thinks he's

24:27

doing. What he's actually doing

24:30

is reinforcing their bigotry. He is

24:33

giving them a license to

24:35

when they see those prancing queens on the

24:37

street or as a barista or whatever to

24:39

go, hey, why can't you be like this

24:42

other gay guy? Why can't you be like

24:44

this guy in the New York Times? He's

24:46

not so effeminate. I can't even really

24:48

tell that he's gay. He's like wearing fucking flannel or

24:50

whatever the fuck he's bragging about in this stupid

24:52

op-ed. He is throwing other

24:55

gay people under the bus in

24:58

an effort to demonstrate his

25:00

proximity to straightness. Maybe. I

25:02

mean, you probably have stronger opinions

25:04

about this than me, but there

25:06

is, in my view, sort of

25:08

like a young gay monoculture to

25:11

a degree. And now, that's not

25:13

unusual. There's

25:15

a young straight guy monoculture too. It's

25:17

just that we don't

25:19

wrestle with it as part of our identity

25:22

because we're all quite comfortable sliding in and

25:24

out of it. Oh, don't say sliding in

25:26

and out after we just talked about top,

25:28

bottom, and verse, Peter. What's the problem? What's

25:30

the problem with loving whatever terminology? Yeah,

25:37

I think, I mean, this is something that like,

25:39

I don't think any straight person would

25:41

ever describe what they're doing as like

25:44

exploring my heterosexuality. That is

25:46

something people figure out what

25:48

kind of heterosexual you're going to be. And

25:50

for gay people, this process is oftentimes

25:52

delayed because you're in the fucking closet. And then

25:54

there's also this weird second coming out of the

25:56

closet where you're like, I have to now be

25:59

among gay people. people and like that can be

26:01

really traumatic because we all see these fucking movies where it's like

26:03

oh we're just all gonna be at nightclubs all the time and

26:05

having a great time. That's only like 20% of it. Yeah,

26:08

exactly. And people just beat

26:10

you in the street if you're like I don't

26:12

want RuPaul's Drag Race, just explosion of violence. Leave

26:15

this brunch right now. But

26:18

that is a real, like it's

26:21

something that oftentimes like the broader

26:23

culture because that culture is filtered through

26:25

straight people. Culture doesn't prepare you for

26:27

as a gay person. And so

26:29

we all figure out like what

26:31

kind of gay person we're gonna be and that

26:33

means like trying on different identities for a while

26:36

and for a lot of people trying

26:38

on this like oh I'm not, I'm not like the

26:40

other gays. It's like part of that identity

26:42

formation. So it's like this person is

26:45

arguing against exactly the thing

26:47

that could make him happier, right?

26:50

A future where there's you know 7% of

26:52

the population identifies as LGBT and like oh

26:54

half of them are bisexual. Let's

26:57

get that up, let's get those numbers up, right? Because

26:59

a world where there's more queer people

27:01

is also a world where there's more

27:03

types of queerness and it's easier to

27:05

explore the kind of queer person that

27:07

you want to be, right? This

27:10

was published the fucking month that we

27:12

had like the Target pride display meltdown

27:14

and the Bud Light meltdown and it's

27:16

like street editors are commissioning these fucking

27:18

pieces and being like well

27:20

hasn't it all gone a little too far?

27:22

Like kids are all identifying as bisexual now.

27:24

Let's get our worst-rest gay on the case.

27:28

Let's get our flakiest

27:30

skinned gay to

27:33

write a column about this. That

27:36

was the most heterophobic thing you said on the

27:38

podcast, I'm proud of you. You're

27:40

a self-hating street person. When I'm watching Below

27:43

Deck I

27:46

have to be looking at pictures of hot chicks on my phone

27:48

to balance it out. Okay,

27:51

what is your next one Peter? My next nomination

27:53

is not a

27:55

single take as much as

27:57

a series of takes by

27:59

the same organization and really the

28:02

same person. This is basically

28:04

best summed up as the last month and a

28:07

half of the ADL

28:10

under the helm of Jonathan

28:12

Greenblatt.