Hello and welcome.
My name is Christopher Chandler.
And my name is Chris Schauer.
And we are Generally American.
In our podcast, we discuss events, culture, whatever else we want from a
generally American perspective.
From our differing viewpoints, our goal is that we can offer others and ourselves
nuanced opinions on fascinating topics related to the US.
We invite you to be part of the discussion and we hope that you'll stick around to
see where the conversation takes us.
So let's dive in.
Hello our wonderful listeners.
It's me Chris.
Who else did you expect the other Chris?
No, it's just me He's not here at the moment
Anyway, I have a couple of announcements to make before we begin.
This will only take a few minutes, so please just stick with me for just a
moment.
Chris and I know that we have a lot of listeners whose native language is not
English.
That is one of the main motivations behind this podcast, creating genuine content for
people who want to learn English, specifically American English, and for
people who want authentic, unscripted conversational content.
chapters to the new episodes.
Don't worry, the transcripts are made after the episode, not before.
This means that Chris and I are not reading off of a teleprompter or anything
like that.
It will still be all natural conversation that you have come to know and hopefully
love.
As for the chapters, they allow you to browse the episode and skip to your
favorite part of the episode.
We will also retroactively add all of those things to older episodes, but
Seeing as how we have a lot of episodes and we are a small team, it could take us
quite some time.
Therefore, please be patient with us.
As some of you might know, I study Japanese in my spare time.
I recently learned a phrase that I think works very well here, and it is 褒められて伸びる
イプです.
That means we are the kind of people who love to receive feedback, as that is what
keeps us going.
various websites and that really motivates us to do what we do.
As always, if you like what we do, then please rate and comment our podcast on
your favorite podcast streaming service.
You can also send us an email at our new email address, which is in the podcast
description.
Even if you just say, hey, great job, or I love that episode, every bit is valuable.
It is a small thing that means the world to us.
Thanks so much for your attention.
Without further ado, let's proceed with today's episode.
And we're live.
Welcome back.
We are, and welcome back everyone.
So beautiful weather here.
I think I saw...
the leaves turn brown for the very first time, more or less.
And a lot of people have been raking their lawns, using leaf blowers, all that fun
stuff.
It's incredibly loud.
I hate it.
I don't really see the point of leaf blowers, in all honesty, I really don't.
You know, if I had it my way, they'd all be outlawed, but I can't really change
that.
Well, they do pile up.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
It's been pretty windy here actually, pretty stormy.
It's been raining a lot as well.
I'm really looking forward to...
I'm really looking forward to fall and then winter.
But how's the weather been in your neck of the woods?
We just got a bunch of rain.
Uncharacteristic for us, we had like...
It started with like flash flood raining, like it was quick.
And then it calmed down a little bit, but it stayed raining for about two, two and a
half days, which we don't get very often here.
So it was kind of nice.
Cracked open a window a couple of times to let some air rain air come in.
But it's we had a few nice days kind of holding on the summer for a little while.
But that's over now.
Any day it doesn't snow now is now going to be.
you know i don't think we don't have any snow on the oh my gosh we actually have
some seventies on the forecast maybe i need to be a little more optimistic now
that i look at it so seventy degrees and because it is not out of the question for
it to start snowing seventy degrees in fahrenheit what is that like fifteen
degrees in celsius i gotta double check because i don't
Yeah, it's like 20.
I don't know off the top of my head.
I know it's around the temperature you'd want to keep outside of your house at.
Yeah, yeah, so room temperature about 20 degrees Celsius.
But yeah, the weather here's been pretty nice.
And so yesterday was, I guess, sort of a holiday, but not really.
So Friday the 13th.
I don't know if anything like spooky or magical happened where you're at.
It's it for someone somewhere.
Is there any, do you do it?
Because someone somewhere, what's that?
Do you do anything to like celebrate, you know, Friday the 13th?
Back in the day when I used to actually watch cable, you know, they would always
air the Friday the 13th movies so I would probably watch some of those but Every
Friday the 13th some kid is gonna accidentally watch a Friday the 13th movie
by themselves Way too early than you know, they should be Yeah, that's that cuz
that's what happened to me
I don't know if that happened to me on Friday the 13th, but I definitely watched
IT, the movie IT, when I was, God, how old was I?
Maybe like eight or nine or ten, I can't remember.
And I thought it would be a super fun movie because, you know, it's a movie
about clowns.
Because I saw a clown on the movie, on the movie box, and it definitely wasn't fun.
I couldn't sleep straight for like two weeks.
I was pretty, I was deathly, I was deathly afraid.
Um, no, I didn't do anything for Friday the 13th.
Um, I think some of my coworkers took off to kind of celebrate.
I feel like on Friday the 13th, it's somewhat of a semi-official holiday where
people get together and watch movies or have like Friday the 13th, uh, Halloween
parties or pre-Halloween parties, if you will.
But I didn't do anything.
I mean, in the month of October.
Yeah.
I get it.
You know what really got me as a kid?
You did you ever see Jason X?
Mm, I don't think so.
In hindsight, it might be the dumbest Friday, the 13th movie, but basically, the
U.S.
government was like, man, never really Jason, obviously, just can't die.
So we're just going to movies.
If I have, it's been no, it's even it's even it's even dumb.
Is it?
They freeze him and shoot him into space.
Oh, I didn't know that.
And then hundreds of years later, people find him, bring him on board, and he kills
people, and then at one point they kill him, and then he, like, some nanomachines
bring him back to life, and he becomes like Metal Jason.
And as a kid, that freaked me out.
I was like, oh my God, no matter what you do, he's gonna come back, and he could
come back as like.
That freaked me out, but now I realize it's like the dumbest one.
It's funny.
No, I think I was more into like, Freddy.
I watched a lot of the Freddy movies when I was a kid, but I haven't really watched
them in forever.
But that's not what we want to talk about today, even though Friday the 13th is
super important and interesting, and I'm sure it's a holiday for someone somewhere.
Which I don't think a lot of people watch those movies in general these days.
We want to talk about mega celebrities.
the people that you can't ignore, no matter how much you'd like to, one way or
another.
Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of those, a lot of mega celebrities in the
US.
I feel like that's one of the things that we do the best is just churn out one
celebrity after another.
Most celebrities go to Hollywood, of course, to make it.
And I wonder how many people actually make it they go to Hollywood.
But I think the one celebrity that's on all of our lips at the moment is Taylor
Swift.
You know, I think she's probably the biggest at the moment.
Yeah, probably for two reasons.
One, she was telling young people to vote, which got a lot of other people very
upset.
Then two, she is dating my favorite football player, Travis Kelsey, and every
time I watch a football game now, they cut to her in the booth like a hundred times.
I gotta stop you there.
So the first point that you mentioned, so that she asked everyone to vote, so I
guess my question would be is, or she told everyone to vote, sorry.
So.
My first question would be is when did she say that?
When was that?
I don't know if I recall.
I thought it was like a month or two ago, but I'd been hearing people talk about it
as far back as like a week or so ago.
And so why did that upset people?
uh, because Republicans don't like it when young people vote.
I guess that's true.
I- I mean, that's- there's no tiptoeing around that, that's just the answer.
Yeah, I think that's actually an interesting point before we move on, is
with mega celebrities in general, they wield a lot of power.
And I think once most celebrities reach a certain stage, they start to become
political.
And-
They don't really know what they're doing or saying.
They're just doing it to appeal to the masses, I would say.
So what's her name?
Isn't her name Kylie Jenner?
I think that's her name.
She posted.
Oh, that's just one of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So she posted a couple of tweets on Instagram about what's going on in the
Middle East at the moment.
And she got like a huge, huge backlash.
Because that's not her thing, you know, she's not really, she's not known for
being a political person.
She's known for being a fashion icon, more or less, or belonging to a, you know, a
fashion imperium, if you will.
And so I feel like a lot of celebrities get like super political.
Do you remember the vote or die campaign?
No, I don't.
Okay, so there was, so P Diddy, like I think back in the early 2000s, I believe,
let me double check.
Yeah, so 2004.
So he had this whole like go out and vote for people or die.
And so there was this whole like vote or die thing.
So if you don't vote, I'll kill you.
And there was this whole like spoof on South Park about that, about how P Diddy.
or Puff Daddy, because he changes his name like once every five years, where he was
going around chasing people saying that if you don't vote, I'll kill you.
So vote or die, because voting is super important.
I think I do vaguely remember that.
I must have seen that episode like 15 years ago.
But it actually happened.
I mean, there was this whole, you know, citizen change movement about people going
and...
voting for Congress or voting for their local politicians or whatever they were
called.
But yeah, once celebrities reach a certain status, I feel like they get super
political.
I don't know why.
Well, and I think it becomes non-optional because once you have that level of wealth
and influence, doing nothing is political.
It's a decision.
You have the ability to make change in the world.
And by choosing not to make change, that is still a political choice.
You're just siding with the status quo.
You're just fine with whatever happens.
But that is a choice.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
Like no answer is also an answer.
You know, with as they say, like with great power comes great responsibility.
But moving but moving on from that point, I definitely want to touch on the second
point, which was her dating.
Forgive me.
I can't remember his name, but for her dating the The football.
It's Travis Kelsey.
Thank you.
And the first thing I thought is Chris definitely has an opinion on this Because
it's because it's football So at first there were like little murmurs of this
because there were like little jokes and I'm like It's not a real like cuz my
roommates kept harassing me about it.
Like there's no way that's a real thing like
That's just, this is just a big distraction.
I wish it would go away.
We need to focus on football.
We need to focus on winning.
And then she showed up to...
I can't even remember what the first game was, but she showed up to a game.
And I'm like, well.
I guess it's true.
I was actually really respected the way they handled it, because, you know, I
don't follow Taylor Swift at all, but I don't think she's really said anything
about it.
And Travis has said a little bit on his podcast, but basically like, hey, like
We're just trying to keep this private.
So I'm like, okay, I respect that.
They're not like showboating.
There's actually a clip of him walking through one of the stadiums after a game.
I can't remember which one.
Holding hands and you could tell they weren't planning on getting filmed and
they did.
And Travis's face was just like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh
my God.
Like he was keeping it together, but you could tell he's like, holy shit.
I'm here right now.
Yeah, I was definitely, I was reading a lot of the news about all this and Taylor
Swift and it's impossible to escape.
And so I think I read it on CNN, I can't remember, and a lot of the people or a lot
of reporters were like, are they dating?
Are they not dating?
And they were just analyzing her face and analyzing her mom's face and all of that
because I think
Oh no, it's Travis Kelce's mom.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, Travis Kelce's mom.
That she's always sitting with.
Yeah, yeah, they were sitting together and they were like...
We love Donna Kelce.
Yeah, they were analyzing her facial gestures and...
And they were just going super detailed, like are they dating or they're not
dating?
And then I guess now it's official.
And...
I don't follow Taylor Swift very much, per se.
I do like her music, truth be told.
more of the pop music than like the country music.
It's very interesting to see how far along she's come in her career.
I guess maybe most people outside the US don't know that she started off as like a
country icon.
That was her thing way back in like 2000, I don't know, like eight or seven because
she's been around for god forever relatively speaking.
And so she was originally a country icon, and then she slowly drifted into pop
music.
And now you have like all like the Swifties, I guess is what some people call
them.
Um, and I think that's really when she became like a mega celebrity is when she
became a pop icon.
And I can, I consider it to be one.
Well, what's crazy to me, and I've kind of been, I've been forced to think about it
more lately for obvious reasons.
So she's about four years older than me, right?
Oh.
So not that much older than me.
I remember being in high school, and like everyone was like, oh yeah, T-Swift, let's
go.
Like, and like, it was like the jocks and everything.
And at first I was like, is everyone like being ironic?
You know, teenage me is like, why would these guys be interested in this pop
singer?
But no, man, they were genuine.
I never really listened to her music, but...
So she blew up fast when it happened, because...
like, at that point, she would have been like 20.
Yeah, she's not that much older than me, which is just crazy.
I think it's a relatively benign statement.
But when you compare yourself to other people in the same age...
and you think like, oh my God, we're the same age and we're two totally different
people.
I think like a good example is like, John Oliver likes to compare himself sometimes
to like The Rock.
Like, you know, The Rock.
Or John Cena.
Yeah.
No, not John Cena.
The Rock, what's his?
I know he's...
He's compared himself to John Cena before.
He's like, would you believe we're the same exact age?
Or maybe it was him, yeah, okay.
Maybe you are right.
And it's like, they're almost the exact same age, but they're two totally
different people and they have two totally different, you know, walks in life, which,
like I said, it's kind of a benign, a benign statement, kind of a boring
statement, I guess, if you will.
But I think about that too when I see celebrities and I'm like, hmm, they're
only like one year older than me and they have a totally different life.
But, no, I mean Taylor Swift's been a part of my life for, I mean it sounds kind of
weird when I formulate it that way, but she's been a part of my life since I've
been in high school, so I've known who she is and her music.
And even people back then were like, oh my god, Taylor Swift, we love her.
But I feel, and I could be wrong, but I feel like she was more of like an icon for
like women or like girls, but maybe not necessarily for like men.
I don't know if that has changed per se, but I do feel like that's her biggest
demographic.
Um, women.
Um, yeah, it's definitely the case.
So some recent statistics, um, that were released by the NFL, I think, uh, female
viewership has skyrocketed recently.
Really?
Specifically at the games she goes to.
So there was a, there was a game the Chiefs had versus the Jets recently that
nobody expected to be a good game.
And, um, it w because she was there.
It was like the highest rated game in a while like it didn't get the Super Bowl
levels, but it was like high Because everyone just wanted to tune in to see a
shot of her and they cut and they cut to her like 13 times in the booth That's
crazy and then it ended up actually being a good game which kind of surprised people
but
I think...
But there have been things like the Taylor Swift effect where they're like, oh well
we have to care about football now.
So people are like, here's like a basic understanding of how this game works and
here's why you should care about this and this and this.
Like they're invested now.
Yeah, so I feel like a lot of celebrities have very huge impacts on the economy.
So like Taylor Swift or like Miley Cyrus or...
Selena Gomez or Justin Bieber, where when they reach like a certain level of
celebrityhood or celebrity status, that they become like movers and shakers.
And so I have been reading a lot of articles about her, about the whole like
Taylor Swift economy or like the Taylor Swift effect.
It was funny because I read an article a couple months back about her doing
concerts, I think in Australia or Singapore.
I can't exactly remember.
And the...
I don't want to say that the president's, but like the mayors of the cities where
she was supposed to have her concert said we should introduce like a new holiday for
like Taylor Swift or we should introduce a new holiday for like a mega celebrity so
that when people come and Like watch their shows that they don't like miss work or
school because it's an official holiday Which I thought was I don't know if it's a
crazy idea, but it's very interesting To say like hey, we're gonna have off of work
so that we can go to a concert, which I feel like has been like the plot of like
so many movies where like they skip work to go to a concert or to go on a trip or
something and so it just kind of reminded me of that.
I mean, I'm fine with that kind of thing.
I mean, these days, especially if you decide to, cause they're so expensive now,
if you decide to go to a concert, it's like a big investment of your time and you
want to like enjoy it to the max.
So if you decide, Hey, I'm, I want to go this T swift concert, or I want to go to
this whatever band concert, like do it, enjoy it.
Yeah.
That's another point.
I'm, um,
that a lot of these celebrities, especially the musicians, really complain
about the ticket prices because the ticket prices are asinine.
They're extremely expensive because for the most part, and correct me if I'm wrong
on this, but for the most part, most tickets in the US are more or less sold
through one company that's Ticketmaster, and they pretty much just dictate the
prices.
There's some others, but oh yeah, and then there's scalpers.
So this is something, for some reason this came across my feed lately.
There's this game called Stardew Valley.
What it is isn't important right now, but I guess they were doing like an orchestral
tour around the US for playing the music.
And all of the tickets everywhere were sold out within like minutes.
And because it was all bots and scalpers.
And all I've seen is like, hey I have extra tickets, you wanna buy them?
Like everyone's just scalping tickets.
It's gotten so bad over here for ticket scalping.
And it's just...
skyrocketing all the concert prices.
Like I think I like Taylor Swift tickets can be like thousands.
Uh I guess for those who don't know for like what scalping is um it's a pretty
violent word I would say but basically you buy something and you sell it for a higher
price I guess would be like the easiest way to describe scalpers.
Um I don't think it's illegal though is it?
uh...
i don't think it's illegal it's just immoral awful a lot a lot of these yeah a
lot of these in happens with electronics and stuff too in a lot of companies trying
like building security measures to make sure you know you can have a single pop
come in and buy fifty thousand tickets in a fifty thousand cd arena you know
own everything.
Same thing, you know, when a new electronic drops, you can't just buy out a
stock, but it helps.
But it feels like the scalpers are always one step ahead because obviously, you
know, if, if this Stardew Valley concert set selling out 10 minutes after posting
the tickets, there's a problem.
People like Stardew Valley, but they don't like it that much.
I do like Stardew Valley.
Actually, it is a good game.
I must admit though that my, it is that my wife has spent more.
more time and money on it than I have, but it reminds me of Harvest Moon if anyone
knows who, if anyone knows what that is.
But it's a...
Although I will question...
the music in Stardew Valley is good.
I don't know if it's, I wanna go sit down to a concert of it good.
I mean, I would if it was an option, but I don't know if it's like...
Of all the fantastic game music in the world, I don't know how that got a
concert.
Yeah, I don't know either.
Um, but pretty much just background music.
A little off topic, but it's just weird for me.
Yeah.
So, um, so celebrities are definitely in a position to, you know, influence the
economy on a great scale.
And I guess it's more of like, um, a love hate relationship, I guess you would say.
Because on the one hand, a lot of these mega celebrities don't really have, um,
like any privacy.
So they're not really privy to their own lives.
But on the other hand, if they're too private, then they become uninteresting
and then no one really wants to do anything with them anymore.
And so you have to find a way to like strike a balance between be a part of
society and also have your own private life.
And I feel like a lot of these celebrities don't really cope with that very well.
And if they, well, actually they don't cope with that at all.
I think a really good example of that would be like Miley Cyrus.
Or any of the Disney celebrities who...
for like the longest time were just in the limelight, were really just in the public
eye, and they had no like private life whatsoever.
So if they did anything in private, it automatically affected their public life.
And so you have like Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears or like Britney Spears'
sister, I can't remember her name.
Do you know what her name is?
Uh, I don't.
Oh, I gotta look it up.
Because this is gonna kill me if I don't remember what her sister's name is.
No, no, go for it.
Oh, Jamie Lynn.
Thank you.
Jamie Lynn Spears.
And these are like all like Disney stars that were so often in the limelight that
they didn't really have a choice or a chance actually to develop as people.
And then when they finally became adults, they just kind of went off the deep end
and just went kind of crazy.
I think Miley Cyrus is a really good example of that.
I think she's gotten that mostly out of her system because I feel like she's kind
of mellowed out by now.
But once she became like, once she turned 18 and left Disney, she just like went all
sex crazed and just did like all these wild things.
I don't know how...
how much we can say that they're actually mega celebrities, but I do feel like
Disney celebrities do have a certain kind of pool when they're actually Disney
celebrities.
But once they leave this universe, I feel like they lose a lot of that because
Disney is very family friendly, very family oriented and stuff like that.
And so in order to actually be that, you have to be pure of heart and pure of mind,
I would say.
And that's just pretty much suppressing your whole being while working for them.
Yeah, and that whole world is always maybe kind of uncomfortable.
I, you know, I was just trying to look up the names of the people I was thinking of,
but I wasn't able to find it.
It might not have been Disney.
But there were these twin sisters growing up, basically forced into acting.
And then by the time they hit adulthood, they realized they didn't.
And they were a household name.
I cannot remember it.
It wasn't the- I don't think it was the Olsen twins.
That's what I thought at first.
Oh, okay.
Maybe it was the Olsen twins, but they basically, you know, made their money and
hit adulthood and realized this isn't what they want to do and they disappeared.
There was another Disney star like that.
I can't remember her name.
Again, I would know it if someone said it.
It's not really my wheelhouse, but she hit adulthood and she was like, oh, well.
wasn't a fan of that and i have millions of dollars so i'm just gonna go i'm just
gonna be done now you know who also did that and i can't say i blame them it's
crazy you know who also did that was mccoy caulkin in uh...
home alone well he ended up going through like you know having drug issues and stuff
like that he's still around doing a few things here and there these days
uh...
he's made a few appearances on red letter media which is been kind of interesting he
did like a little home alone parity video like two years ago that was kind of that
was weird but that was kind of cool it seems like he's doing a lot better now
these days which is nice to see yeah i mean i saw him on a podcast a couple weeks
back with drover and he basically said that he
But, you know, if he compared himself to like other celebrities, other child stars
that he more or less had, um, like a, I would say like a good childhood.
And he was pretty smart with his money.
And so he's just kind of living off of that.
But I do feel like a lot of these child stars, they, they're just kind of
overwhelmed with all the celebrityhood, with all of like the limelight, with all,
with the fame and the money and all of that.
and I think it ruins them for the most part.
Some of them do come out the other side clean.
A good example of this I think would be Drew Barrymore.
I don't know if we could classify her as a mega celebrity, but I feel like she's a
household name.
And I've seen documentaries where she talks about her childhood.
It's pretty bad.
And then you wonder how she actually made it and how she's actually okay.
but she went through a pretty rough time as well because of all the pressure of
being a star.
Yeah, and-
I don't know if this is necessarily the root cause.
I didn't look too much into it, but I'm guessing it was the pressure.
I don't know if you know this.
So Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who always played Harry Potter, I think it was the
last couple movies, he was going through like some severe, I think it was mostly
alcoholism, like, but he, I think he's clean these days, but he went through some
rough times.
I think he was like always kind of drunk or something on set.
I didn't know that.
Just, you know, ugly, ugly stuff.
Yeah, I do feel really bad for a lot of those for like this for like the Disney
stars, but not the Disney stars, but the Harry Potter stars.
Because I always describe the Harry Potter movies as being very expensive, like home
videos, because you basically get to watch them kind of grow up.
uh...
within the first week they're literally kids and like in the last movie their
adults and but i've never really actually analyzed what that did to them but i do
know they're kind of cursed because whenever you they talk about any record
the first thing is all of that's the harry potter star it is also unfortunate for
their career
Yeah, I try not to do that.
I try and separate actor from role, but Uh, I think Emma Watson turned out pretty
good.
Uh, Rupert Grint.
I don't I've heard like one or two things.
He's done.
I think he kind of just you know I don't know I haven't really checked.
So I don't know if he's doing smaller stuff or if he's just kind of taking it
easy because I imagine If you have harry potter money From like it was eight
movies.
I imagine you can just
take it easy the rest of your life if you really want to.
That's interesting that you mentioned Emma Watson because if you remember what we
said like a couple minutes ago at the big news episode, that she's super political.
She's super political and she's a staunch feminist.
For better or for worse, I'm not really trying to evaluate that as like negative
or positive, but she's very well known for being a feminist, very well known for like
social justice and all of that.
And I guess I don't even know if she acts anymore, to be honest.
I think that's pretty much her day job as being a, you know, political force.
Whereas the other two have just kind of faded, but they're, Danny Radcliffe has
been trying to revive his career.
Not that it was necessarily dead, but it's really hard to escape the shadow of your
success.
And I think that's just, you know, what he kind of fights with is, uh, the same thing
with Macaulay Culkin, like you think of Home Alone or you-
When you think of Will Smith, you think of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and so you can't
really escape that.
That's another thing I think mega celebrities really have to, you know,
contend with, is...
People love you as long as you're one thing.
And if you leave that, then you lose, like, this mega celebrity status, I would
say.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And he's tried, like, do you remember when he, I feel like this was like 10 years ago
at this point, but it was a big deal.
He was doing like a New York Broadway show where he was gonna go like full nude.
I didn't know that.
Oh.
Yeah, there was a show like that.
And part of me now wonders like, one, I don't think he really cared that much, and
two,
I wonder if he also did it like, I am just trying, like I am not Harry Potter, I am
an actor.
And like, I'm at least gonna put something in people's brains that when they think of
me, they're not just gonna think Harry Potter.
And if it needs to be that I got on a stage naked, fine.
It's something different.
No, I definitely- I do wonder if that was a thought process.
I did not know that.
Which, I guess kind of rolls into the second point.
that I actually want to touch on with mega celebrities.
And we somewhat touched on this a couple episodes ago when we were talking about
influence and advertising.
And I think maybe a year or two ago when we touched on parasocial relationship,
which is, do celebrities or mega celebrities in general, do they have a
responsibility to be a role model?
I would ask you that question.
I would say yes, because anytime you are fortunate enough to have a platform that
you are setting an example, you do have eyes on you, you are responsible for that
to a certain extent.
Now...
I think there's ways you can kind of like
maybe hedge it one way or another.
Like say you're like in a metal band and you're like in an edgy metal band.
I feel like you can get away with more like, yeah, I don't need to be super
family friendly.
Like, you know, our band is called like, you know, the blood cult or something.
Like, we're, you know, we are what we are and it says it on the tin.
If you're like, you know, a singer like Taylor Swift, I think.
you do have some level of responsibility to not, you know, cause problems.
And no, I think rocking the boat is good, but you know, rock the boat for good,
which I think she does.
My example for, I think, a bad use of platform, and I think we've talked about
this in the past, Aaron Rodgers, who is one of the most popular US sports figures,
he,
Every time I get back to kind of liking Aaron, he goes on about vaccines and
stuff, and I'm like, dude, shut up.
And it's frustrating, because it's like, whatever.
If you want to do it, not do it, fine.
I disagree, whatever.
Stop going on TV and talking about it, because other people are going to be like,
well, you know, if my favorite football thrower says he's not going to do it,
maybe I shouldn't do it.
Yeah, that was that like the whole like corona and the covid vaccine that was
really a contentious point for a lot of people He's he's been no he's been
bringing up again lately Okay, so kind of coming full circle on this so even before
the travis kelsey dating thing Because he and his brother launched a podcast last
year that was huge And then they both played each other in the super bowl like
their popularity has exploded and he's in like a million
TV commercials now.
One of them is for Pfizer.
So Aaron Rodgers is calling Travis Kelce Mr.
Pfizer, which is hilarious because Aaron Rodgers plays for the Jets, which is owned
by the heir to Johnson and Johnson, which also makes a COVID vaccine.
So he doesn't really see the hypocrisy there, but he's like, oh, like, let's,
let's debate.
I'll get RFK and you can have Fauci and we'll debate it.
And I'm just like, dude.
Shut up, please.
Yeah, that was a pretty hot point when they were releasing all these vaccines
from these different companies and all the celebrities were like, take the vaccine or
don't take the vaccine.
Isn't RFK, isn't he running for presidency?
Yeah, he was running as a Democrat and then an Independent, now I think he's
running as a Republican.
I don't know, he's just...
He's just paid for to obstruct, which is what he's doing.
Really, you think so?
I mean, he's kind of all over the place.
Yeah, he has big ties to oil money.
He's paid to obstruct.
And I think that's what he's most known for in recent history is him being against
vaccines.
But yeah, a lot of these celebrities do take some sort of political position or
some sort of like role model position.
I don't feel like they do it very well though.
I feel more often than not that a lot of these positions that those celebrities
take are very kind of ad hoc.
Like they're after the fact, basically.
So going back to the example that I mentioned at the very beginning of this
episode was when Kylie Jenner posted a couple of tweets showing support for what
was happening in the Middle East.
That's not what she's known for.
So it comes across as being incredibly fake and her basically being viewed as
being an opportunist for better, for worse.
And I feel like it's a fine line that you walk
um between being like genuine and trying to accommodate your fans and so I feel
like a lot of celebrities just try to accommodate and that's not actually what
they are.
I don't know if I could do it any better.
Yeah.
Truth be told.
Well, and for what it's worth, I think the Jenners and the Kardashians are just fake
people and nobody should be taking what they say serious at all.
And the whole situation happening right now, if anyone has any kind of extreme
take one way or another, I don't think they should be taken seriously.
It's a nuanced and complicated thing.
and anyone advocating for either side about like, yeah, let's go take an action
that involves a bunch of civilians dying.
Like, I don't think, I don't think they should be listened to seriously, but I
might be getting off topic there because I have strong feelings about that.
I mean, I have strong feelings too, but I think there's, there's a time and place
for everything.
And there's a time and place for when you should voice your opinions and when you
shouldn't.
but I'm definitely always very...
I'm always very cautious about what I say and I feel like a lot of people are just
Which by the way, which is my new what my new word, but my favorite word, which is
virtue signaling Which is basically saying like hey, I stand for this I stand for
that and Then because of that you get like a lot of love but you don't actually turn
that into anything Yeah, I definitely feel like celebrities should be role models
but it's incredibly difficult.
My favorite example is Adele.
You know who Adele is, right?
Yes.
Yeah, so for those who don't know, a couple years back Adele was pretty heavy
set, I would say.
And then she just kind of like disappeared from, you know, the limelight basically.
She was just gone.
And then she came back a year later and she had lost like 50 or 60 pounds.
So she was super, I guess slim you could say.
And overnight she got like a lot of hate because basically a lot
because she was overweight.
So she was overweight, she was a beautiful singer, she was a really good singer, and
a lot of people gravitated towards her because of the fact that she was
heavy-set.
And when she lost that, in the eyes of a lot of people, she lost her status as a
role model, more or less.
So it's a really, so it's a, like I said, so it's a really fine line you walk with.
being a role model and being genuine, but I feel like it's very suffocating to
really accommodate so many people.
As they say, the friend of everyone is the friend of no one.
And if everyone's happy, then you're doing something wrong.
And I feel like that's a good way to live your life.
I mean, that's how I live my life, but I'm not a prescriptivist in that sense.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like I might just be repeating myself, but I do like the, you
know, the you can't be everyone's friend bit, because, you know, having actual
principles and taking a stand for something means making enemies, especially
if it's something real in the world.
You know, if you take a stand and say, you know, I like, you know, white meat chicken
and dark meat chicken is garbage, like I think, you know.
people might think you're weird, but I think you can take that stand and not make
enemies.
But if you're gonna, if you have a serious platform and you take a stand on something
that actually means something in the world, then yeah, you're making enemies.
And I think if it's genuine to a certain extent that should be respected, I even
ever so slightly respect Aaron Rodgers for doing it just because, and that feels
gross to say.
But just in the sense that like,
He believes what he believes.
And he's going to keep saying it.
And he knows every time he says it, like, you know, it's, it, it hurts his
popularity.
It helps his popularity with some other people, but like, he's still, he believes
it.
So he says it.
I mean, I can, and in that, in that very small capacity, I respect that.
I mean, I can definitely respect that too.
Um, is that people say what they mean.
even if it you know they don't really get brownie ports for that even though they
lose their popularity um but there's this one song i can't remember the artist's
name um where um basically he i can't remember the artist's name but basically
he was super popular in the early 2000s and i believe he did a song with um the
with the paramour singer from the band paramour
and the song I think is called like Paper Planes, I can't remember, and he was super
popular because of that song and everyone loved him and then he started going off
into like flat earth territory and like vaccines and all that and suddenly his
popularity just tanked, you know, people just stopped following him, but he's never
waved from that position so he's like I'm definitely a flat
Everything else is a conspiracy theory, and I don't care if it costs me fans, I
don't care if it costs me points, I'm gonna believe it.
So even though I'm definitely not of the same opinion, I can still respect someone
if they're true to their principles, which I definitely don't feel is something you
can expect for anyone in Hollywood for the most part.
I feel like your principles kind of come and go with the times.
And same with politics, which I mean, I feel like it's we've set our standards
very low that we just respect people for telling the truth of what they believe,
but here we are.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I do admire people for telling the truth, even though truth be told, I think
the majority of the people don't actually want to hear the truth.
But before we go, I definitely found out I found out people was trying to talk about.
So it's.
B.O.B.
That's the artist's name.
And he did a song with Hayley Williams called Airplanes.
And the guy is pretty much known for being a flight earther.
but he's true to his principles, so you gotta give him that.
Yeah, gotta give them that.
Yeah, so we're wrapping it up here.
We touched on a lot of topics.
I had a lot of fun.
So I hope everyone else did too.
I don't know if you have anything you want to add before we dip out of here.
Um, no, I think we covered it.
Alright, I think so too.
Thanks so much for listening, it was a great episode, had a lot of fun, and we'll
see you all in the next one.
Alright, bye everyone.
Alright, take care, bye.
We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our podcast.
We hope that it was informative and that we were able to expand your worldview,
even if only just a little.
Welcome feedback, comments, and constructive criticism.
If you'd like to provide us with any, please reach out to us at our discord or
email address, both of which will be listed in the description.
Thanks again for listening and until next time.