Super Snake (formerly, “Super Slutty Snake”) has been dubbed “High Society’s Memeologist” - providing biting social commentary and satirizing the rich and famous in an era where the money is flowing and fame is just one viral post away. Super Snake has given voice to many of the peculiarities of our era (“why does every newly minted tech billionaire need their own personal Shaman and a trip to Burning Man?”) and articulated the never-ending Battle for Status in the social media age.
Calvary audio ladies and gentlemen, this is the prevailing narrative. I am at Bolinsky and a smarter man than I. Once described a recent era as the war against noticing, the insinuation being that there were punishments. There was taboo to notice any variety of basic common sense observations and things that are right in front of everybody's face. These days, for some reason, there's this pressure to not notice what's happening right in front of everybody's eyes. UM. One person who is definitely a general in the in the other direction on the war on noticing, who is making sure to notice everything, is the gentleman that I'm speaking with today, Super Snake, that artists formerly known as Super Slutty Snake behind the Super Snake meme account, and Um, I think would be helpful to all my listeners, both those who are familiar with your account and those who may not be. UM, and I'd love to hear your take. Actually, how would you describe the Super Snake formerly Super Slutty Snake meme account? First of all, thank you for having me, Matt. It's a pleasure to finally be on the show, very long overdue. How how would I describe the account, it's it's it's tricky, it's definitely it's definitely not it's not a one sentence job. Essentially, it's a parody accounts satirizing every element of high society, every or it could be kind of you know that the extended network around high society, the whole ecosystem of you know, good life, luxury living, international jet set people. Um, and I tend to be very very dry, very British, and I do these very long captions, which is what I'm known for, where I like to enter to the headspace of my characters and and go crazy. So yeah, it's a satirical mema account about which before and so let's actual leg dig in Beaver here. Hey, we can go through this exercise and even further fleshing out exactly what this mum account is, because I think it's very interesting, right, Um, And one point that you make is that there's an ecosystem now around the elite or around um, the culture of the wealthy. Right think about you know, you're you're a little bit younger than me, so I don't think you're you know, we're around for a show called The Lifestyles, which famous back in the eighties, it is pretty linear, right, there's only you know, you either had old money, some new new wealth detained from recent business. Athletes and celebrities and performers, and Robin Leach would go around and just show you their big houses. Maybe they had a jet and hey, look how which this person is. But now, and this is definitely because we're in a connected age in the digital media and social media age, is that there's an entire ecosystem around the wealthy and how they spend their wealth. Right, it plugs into so many different aspects of society. You satirize all of that, so you're not just satirizing the wealthy, you're satirizing those who end up in there, in there or it, And there's a lot of people who mnd up in the work it. Yeah, I mean it's effectively. I mean I would look at it like, um, you know, like it could be it's some sort of pyramid effectively, right where you've got wealthy person at the top and then everyone that's trying to get something out of them, you know, in the pyramid below. And it's kind of more intricate than that, I guess you draw it up more like a like a spider diagram or some sort of like network, but effectively, you know, at the nucleus there is this rich person, could be male, could be female, and there's a lot of people around them that are trying to get something out of it. Could be money, could be fame, could be status, could be a host of things. It's usually money or fame or status. And that's what I find fascinating is the social dynamics around that nuclear person, that person with influence, with power, with wealth, and how all these different types of people try and gain from them, sometimes very obviously, sometimes in a sly and subs away, but if you look at a lot of the wealth it's been generated over the last years or so, and you know, a fascination of mine is also this kind of like Middle Eastern wealth, you know, like a royal family wealth, sovereign wealth, and how a lot of people can get their starts from just by just by being the driver of a pri or. The the guy that bought them a house one time. They're real estate agent one time. There Jim trainer, that's a that's a major one. Um. You could be the fixed the guy, the promoter, the the guy that picks up their dry cleaning, and all of a sudden, ten years later, these guys are buying buildings for a billion dollars in London. M hm. And that is fascinating, you know, And how we're in an era where these people can At one glance, it might seem kind of pathetic and a waste of time for these people to try to latch onto these ridge forms, but it seems like wealth is more easily leveraged, perhaps because of status, right, that the house status and wealthy're intertwined in let's call at the digital age, right, we're gonna call it about the mid nineties. The Internet comes around, Um, you know, prints a central banks, particularly western central banks, print a lot of money. Um this this century uh, and you know, and the Internet creates a higher velocity of economics and transactions and it allows from a lot more people to become wealthy. So the take taking that kind of what would may in prior it seemed like a bit of a pathetic hill Mary, it's actually not a bad idea like that, people just from being in the orbit of these wealthy people, not even from a professional perspective, can sometimes pay enormous dividends. Yes, abstinantly. And I think it's an interesting point that you made about about wealth equaling status or being kind of interchangeable in terms of terms terminology, which which which is a relatively new phenomenon because of social media, how connected we are, and because of the fascination by people you you mentioned Robin Leach and his show, Um, you know, you know, I would refer to something like Cribs back in the day or Pit My Ride or whatever, these shows where people started to get this real fascination. And I think in l A you've always had it right that, you know, the tours showing famous people's houses. It's it's quite an American construct that we didn't really have in Europe. Um. But now it's like amplified to the extreme. Um. And yeah, if you're famous, you're going to be published published on that Forbes list and people will know about it. And you've got these leechers of all sorts that are constantly googling people finding out what they're worth. And and yeah, it's effectively the same as being famous because you get given status automatically. And I think it used to be cooled back in the day to be a low profile, to be on the periphery to not be fronts and centers showing off and now increasingly, as much as you'd want to be that guy if you're trying to meet beautiful women or if you're trying to network and make business contacts, you can't be that guy that's the the cool dude that's hiding away from everyone, um, because no one will know that. UM I think I would you? Would you say that now in the digital media media and social media era because essentially everyone has a profile and everybody has a press. You know, as as you are evidence of right if what if the profile that you put out out there through these digital channels, in these social media platforms, if it's attracted, when people are interested in it, you will gain attention to eyeballs, and that those eyeballs can be monetized. Whether you're suit someone who's already super wealthy and people just ugly your lifestyle, or if you're someone who has particular talent and is using that attention to accumulate. Well, it seems like because that is, those are the tools now available, so people figure, okay, I might as well use them. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's it's it's incredible to think that kind of out of nothing, out of thin a you can create this, Um I mean, I mean I I referenced my own example. You know, it's just by privy of uh one day deciding to start an Instagram page and post some funny, funny stuff or if I can swear in the show. Um okay, so you know, by by consistently posting funny ship over a period of time, which and it started off with intentions for it to just be a bit of fun and it was never meant to be anything or a business. Um. I'm now getting interviewed by Matt Bolinski for the prev No. But it's you know, in all seriousness. Um, you know, I'm working, as you know, and you know in Hollywood on TV shows and have a fashion brand, and you know I had it. I did an event recently and do you or addressed me for the event? Like stuff stuff that I never thought would ever come out of creating an Instagram page. It's like, you know, I don't think it's I don't think we've ever had that in history where you can kind of come up with something in such an easy way with very low barriers to entry effect. What I mean, all all I need is a phone and internet connection and my brain and I create a business. Um. And you're seeing it other ends of the spectrum, people creating value for themselves and maybe a less mean I like to think that there's value to what I do and entertaining people, and it requires, you know, obviously some sort of level of brain power and creative writing and so on and so forth. But now by preview of being a hot you can create status for yourself and you can monetize it very easily. You don't need a model agency, you don't need a wealthy benefactor necessarily. Um. You can. You can create so much, you know, intrinsic financial value for yourself just by looking good. UM. And that's all through social media. And I think that's corrupted um a lot of stuff. And went back to f point about the ecosystem. It gets more complicated now because now you're only fans girls that are making more than the chairman of JP Morgan. If people a lot of people outside who are just kind of tangentially aware of only fans, if they had any idea, because it's not just the elite, it's not just that top tier of only fans girls that are making a ton of money. There are there are third tier only fans. Girls that are making more have made more money in the last twelve months that your most upper class professional professionals, your parents right ever made in me and and people still have been quite wrapped their mind around. I mean, you want to talk about wealth transfers I always talked about. Okay, this is Bernie Sanders is wet trim. You want to talk about transferring the wealth from you know, a bunch of rich, horny guys to the pockets of you know of women who otherwise are do not have college educations and wouldn't would be you know, finding some sort of let's call it in between blue collar and white collar profession to to enter or have to take a real shot on something entrepreneurial. And they're making a ton of money. I mean, this is the greatest wealth transferred mechanism in modern history. It's crazy, Yeah, I think you know, we've we've perhaps seen elements of it in terms of like leveraging beauty to make money, and you know, in in previous times with modeling and with with film and television. But now you can effectively you don't even need to be that beautiful and you can levelge your body online and be making serious money. You know, I've met a time of actors my my my father and mother have told me stories about back in the day, a lot of them were freeloaders. They weren't actually making that much money. They would spend more money. Now you've got girls making twenty million dollars a month and all they need is a tripod, a phone and yeah, willingness to show maybe someone to help films in a while. But the barriers to entry incredibly low. The cost of production is incredibly low, and these girls are making such crazy money. And I think it's I don't know what it's going to do to society because we're only just seeing it now. This is quite a relatively new phenomenon. But imagine when this expands out and you have a lot of people that I'm making such incredible money by doing very little, what's it gonna you know, Intenua Siam, every kid's gonna want to be an influencer. They're going to watch I mean, it's it's getting there already, right. They've done leves of kids and and that was what was plus that they wanted to be influences. When they got all day. Yeah, well, you think about it, right, because when we were growing up, there was it was just accepted as a fact that unless you really got lucky, unless just lightning struck, you're gonna have to grind it. You're gonna have to make sacrifices, you're gonna have to do things that were unpleasant. And even the quickest, right, even I mean Bezos, right, it still took about seven or eight years. Okay, but between when he started Amazon, between when it really took off, right, or you know, I think about all those types who were retirement wealthy for about fifteen minutes in the first dot com here and then saw that wealth twitter away, and then they might have found their way to a start up that a decade later made some money. And this can now happen. These kids can now attain in financial independence within a year too, just by being interesting and gathering gathering an audience. And that's got to screw with so many kids are in developmental stages. Because if you're staring at one path, which is um be a low person on the totem pole, grinded out long hours in an office, have to you know, have to get crafty and weave your way through a hierarchy at which you're at the bottom of, or you know, they can see so many more examples of their contemporaries who just struck it big and attained serious Well pretty quickly it's got screwed with their minds. Well, I mean definitely, And I think it's so fronts and center. You know, how does it affect a kid to see I was watching videos the other day of that six nine wrapper, who is not a very intelligent man, is not a very impressive looking or sounding or eloquent sort of sort of man, and he's standing there in front of you know, ten super caused getting hundreds of thousands as well as kind of cash out of the trunk and throwing it around, and you know, it's like, I wonder what sort of effect that Hasn't A kid looks at that and I go to school there and I have to learn about maths and science and this kid that can't even talk is throwing around. How do you just focused out there? Like when when I was growing up, I would idolize the Wrappers because I was obsessed with hip hop. But I was idolizing Dr dre M and M two Pac Biggy were very yeah, iconic, incredible lyrics, so intelligent. I wasn't looking and them thinking like, oh my god, you know Tupac is so dumb, but he's so successful. Like I was like, wow, this guy's a genius. Everyone I looked at within the entertainment spased was to me a genius in some way. Um, And it's only since reality TV started and kind of you know, Paris did that, the show with Nicole Richie's Simple Life and then the Clardashians. Because that notion of like you cannot be talented and make it an entertainments been a thing. Yes, historically an entertainment. You could be good looking and make it, but you wouldn't last the test of time because people knew you were a bad actor and eventually get found out. Yeah, but now genuinely there are people with no talent that, yes, they have to grind to some extent, Like I'm not gonna say that the card Asians have not put in work to build a business of course, you know, and someone like Black China's making twenty million a month because she was famous beforehand, famous full that's what I wanted, you know. It's like she wasn't famous for anything that I what was she? What was it dating Rob Card action? And all of a sudden she's making two million plus a year, and it's like, you know, it's the thing that I think is more disorienting and probably is more impactfuls right, Okay, the people at the the the top of the food chain or at a black China for instance, somebody's making that much money throughout time. People have always understood that there's some people who hit paid dirt who become you know, yes, obviously the standard, the standard for dignity of fame and celebrity continues to corrode over time, but idiots have always gotten Rich's always been an exception here. Person there, you know, could be a musician that you thought some people thought was just putting out syrup e pop hits um and didn't deserve it was in a true artist, etcetera, etcetera. Okay, I think what's more dislocating disorienting these days is that there's an entire new class of people who aren't black, who aren't a listers. But once when you know, their choices were to either go grind out some entry level job and just start a normal career, or instead make a couple of million a year, a million seven d fifty thousand dollars a year, Like they're making many, many multiples of what else they would be there, they're most likely other option for income would be. And that's not just a couple of people, right, There's a ton of those people. Right Because even when I, you know, I got back from college early two thousands, I was in l A, I was gone out, I was you know, going to exclusive night spots and whatnot. And the people who were getting tables there they were either one older, older gentleman who already made it um, a couple of trust fund kids, and then there were yeah, the handful of young actors who would hit it or some rappers either couple. Back then there's still a couple of um kind of extreme sports of guys who were throwing money around. But like you understood that there were a few people who just got lucky or hit it or had excessive talent. That now the cohort of that, the volume of people who are making money off their own persona has expanded way beyond just those exceptions, right, And I think that's what's this orienting, Because anyone could say, like okay, so there's two kids my age who somehow hit it rich, when there's two thousand kids my age somehow got rich. How on earth do you try to do any focus on any other productive activity over an extended period of time other than going and trying to be famous yourself. Well, I think, yeah, you're right. I think it's going to be an impossible task. And I think self monetization has never really been a thing. It wasn't It wasn't a thing before the advent of social media. You couldn't just sit there one day at home and think I'm gonna make money for myself. There was so many various entry like I've got to go Let's say I'm you know, I was beautiful back in the day. Let's say I've gotta go to the modeling agency, got to get a contract, I've got to work jobs. I've got a way to get paid. You know, it's a it's a slow burner, it's a slow process. Now in this day and age, you could sit there at home one day and on a whim decide to create something. Yes, of course it could take time, but you could be in an overnight success. You see on TikTok, these people are going from I have some friends and started posting on taketok. They told me about two weeks ago. They're already on seven and a half million likes in two weeks. That's crazy. You can explode instantly out of nowhere. And we've never really seen this before in the past, and I wonder and I'm fascinated to see it and also petrified to see how kid's gonna develop it over time. And I know I'm hypocritical because I do it myself, but I would like to think that I'm exploiting my talent rather than exploit. I mean, as you can see, I don't show my face, I'm not showing exploiting the value that you're providing. I mean, and listen, it's interesting. I asked you what you thought your account was from once again, you know, and now I can say, useful exercise for me to speak to what I think your account is. And as I said at the beginning of the chat, I mean, the war unnoticing, right, is that people who are willing to be very blunt and objective about what's going on in society is that's that's in short supply, right. So someone like yourself who's looking at these things that everyone kind of because all this new stuff that we've been we've been talking about thus far in this conversation that's kind of like new you know, manifestations of wealth status and the way people react to that. I mean, it kind of just sprout sprouts up and you just sit there and people just, uh, it enters people's lives and they just kind of deal with it on a personal level, but it's somewhere in the back of their mind they find it odd, right, and they and someone who can kind of articulate what is peculiar or or how either one just describing it in general and articulating it, but to also why this might be something that you know, I don't want to say concerned because you don't have a negative account, right, it's not a pessimistic account, um, it's somewhat critical um. But giving voice to that, I think is the uh is really what the value is. And I mean you've got a pretty you know, a pretty well educated up scale. I mean you're just describing you know, hot culture in elite culture, but like it's for an educated audience, no doubt. Well, I mean, yes, it is for an educated audience, but it's not necessarily, it's not required in order to understand that. Sure, there's no barrier teatry on it. Yeah, I mean I think to understand the nuances you have to have some level of I guess of education and um and sophistication. Because the nature of the writing, like you said, I mean you said it's a critical account, it's not directly critical. You never hear my tone of voice, like apart from when I do interviews like this or you know, the rare occasion that I might say something on a story um cent of the time I am embodying a character and impersonating a character. And yes, obviously I do things in the in the caption and in the monologue and dialogue that potentially reveal my opinion. I'm not going to deny that, but it's never a direct criticism. I'm never like, I hate So in So Place. The food sucks, it's terrible. I want to bury that place. I will occupy the headspace of an influencer and I'll say, oh my god, babe, isn't So in So Placed the best? Like every time I go there. It's just like, you know, fifty seven blonde girls with extensions that can't you know, name the alphabet and blah blah blah. It's like I'll describe the clientele or or I'll be like, uh, you know, I'll compare the food to another place that's like not so favorable, but I'll never I don't like to directly criticize because I don't want it to be one of these like I don't want people to think I'm bitter and because it could drift into that easily, but you don't let it drift there. Well, no, because then then people are like, oh, this is just the guy that's on the protect Like, yeah, a hater that like can't get into the club and can't get into whatever. Then I'm talking about and he and I do get those comments. It's like I get into all of them. So that that was actually my next question. So what put what blowback have you received and what you know, what do you think that what larger points do you think, uh, the any opposition or criticism you've gotten, what are the larger points to be cleaned from that? Well? I think it's I mean, primarily it's people that don't understand the mechanism of satire, and I think it's quite it's quite bizarre and troubling the amount of people that don't understand what satire is. So just even the concept of using um, you know, parentheses in my or speech marks in my in my captions is beyond some people. They're like, oh, you're homophobic, you're racist, your sexist or whatever, And I say, my characters are and they say, well, you're the one writing it, so you're the racist one. And the example I always use is if you're producing a documentary about a horrible war lord, like an adult Hitler or whoever, or Styling or you know, and you let's say it's scripted um film, and you're you're playing Adolf Hitler, You're playing a horrible character in time, and you're paying them as this great guy that has a puppy and goes for coffee in the morning and does gym class. Everyone would say, hey, wait a second, that's that's not what Hitler was like, you know. And so when I'm painting these terrible people, I have to become them to an extent. You have to be misogynists in the caption, you have to be slightly sexist, you have to be occasionally racist. If I'm describing one of these old guys in the South Front that in partibly racist, obviously racist. I'm I'm shaming them. It's a horrible thing. And I come them in the caption and I obviously I make it so highperbolized, so crazy that people should not be thinking, oh wow, that guy's alleged. That's never the intention. It's never glorifying. Um. And people don't often have the capability to understand that sort of Well do you think it's more less so that people don't have the capability and more so that in our era now you're expected to do nothing but very in a very emotional way, UM, criticize these people, uh with with you know, no iron eating whatsoever, as opposed to find some sort of humor in their awfulness, like because we we can. It's kind of it's kind of a bit of a point of it is that we can find the amusement and the comedic factor in, you know, in their idiosyncrasies and some of their faux pas, and they you know, they trip up on taboos, right, But you're not supposed to find the humor. You're supposed to be humorlessness. You're supposed to be another member of the HR department. Okay, and handing out the demerits and call them, calling them in and and canceling them. You're not supposed to be finding what's amusing. But that's also what people once again would find attractive about and appealing about your account, is that you are finding the humor in these things. Because maybe that's the point, is that, yes, there are people who are retrograde um who are you know, who have bad values, but we can the best way to fight back is to get a get a good laugh at him, because it's not that serious. Because at the end of the day, the world is continuing to turn and the only way that we can see this clearly is to take a detached amusement. Well, I look, I completely agree with you and and and I think there's such massive hypocrisy in terms of the value system of what people think is offensive and abhorrent. When you've got, let's say, for sake of argument, people voting Democrat and praising someone like Joe Biden and then calling my account horrific, and then you go, you see what the America, what America does in terms of foreign policy, whether you know, slaughtering innocent people on a on a pretty much a daily basis, funding warlord countries, pursuing a very aggressive foreign policy where they have to meddle in everything, and those people are very hush hush about those policies. They're like, well, you know, that may go on, but I don't know. But then all of a sudden, something on Instagram is highly offensive and troubles them. And I'm always thinking, do you you're not able to kind of understand that it's a strange perspective humor. Yes, it can occasionally get dark. You may offend people. That's totally cool. Like, I see a lot of stuff that I didn't think it's particularly funny. I don't have to impart an opinion. And I was having this conversation with someone the other day and you know, I put up I put a short reel the other day for a bit of fun. It was something that I just I shot because I enjoyed it, and I put it on my profile and I got so many messages from people were like, this blows, this sucks. Delete this now, You're better than this. Get rid of this, Delete this, And I'm like, I was thinking to myself, I can't think of one post video ever in my life that I've ever commented on in a negative way ever, because I'm comfortable in myself, you know, I I'm cool with myself. I'm happy with who I am. And if someone if if you posted a post that I didn't agree with, potentially if there was like a you know, some sort of debate that could be had, I would say, no, no no, Matt, I don't agree with your point here. But I would never put up a picture of you and your friends at the beach. I would never be like, yo, Matt, this post sucks deleted. You look ship like why why would you do that? And I think so many people are these keyboard warriors are so unhappy with themselves. It's always these people that have terrible lives, terrible jobs, that are unhappy in themselves. That are the ones that are active on social media being the keyboard warriors, being the negative ones. Um and yes. And they're extremely hypoetical people because they'll they'll overlook, you know, America's foreign policy or a lot of other stuff that goes on. Then we were going to get into politics a little bit. Not I just wanted to. I wanted to touch upon because I think there's this and you know, I think you posted something about it recently which I thought was really poignant and I completely as well with kind of like the di vilifying of Russia as a nation. And of course it's one person and one you know, part of government that's doing all the horrific things in Ukraine. But we're very the US and the UK and you know, as as as a British guy, we're the same. We're completely complicit and a lot of the horrible trustees that are going on around the world, but Russia doesn't and that's completely abhorrent. Yeah, yeah, I just you know, people, they everyone has such and I want to get to, you know, kind of the European perspective and kind of how that informs what you do as well. Have it found that very interesting? Um? Yes, we are. Everyone is, so we've trained everyone to get caught up in this minution. You see. I comment on this a lot is that we're making is out of mole hills because these little things that used to be the types of things that you brush off is just maybe irritations in your personal life, and that like if someone you know, whether it's a stranger you bump into on the street or somebody that you work with or that you're friendly with, and they're always gonna aggravate you or do things that you disagree with. But everything now becomes a matter of personal principle that you have to stand on top of and and you have to you know, silence is violence, and it becomes, uh, it becomes it becomes like some a professional, Now should I say this, Um, if let's say your boss abused you right throughout time, like that would be something you consider, like do I take action against this? Right? Do I switch my job? Do I have to make decision? Uh? Now, you know, everything becomes uh is now reflection of your value system and really pose a question of do you do I have to speak up? Do I have to act? Do I cut shut my shut my mouth? And I think this is driving people crazy because up until recent times, the amount of things that they thought that they either had to comment on or act upon or you make a decision to comment to act upon, like, was not that large. There weren't that many things. And now the the just pure volume of things that they have to consider whether or not to act on or comment on or have a position just is exploded and it's driving people nuts. Well, I think, yeah, you're totally right. And I think Elon Musk made an interesting colony the other day when you refer to Twitter as the town square and it's now and I think it's sad that that's the case, because I don't want to necessarily be on the town square every time I look at social media, you know, for a reason, maybe you hide away your house or whatever because you don't want to be surrounded by all these people with their opinions. But I could deal with someone on the street coming up to me and being like, oh, I saw this post the other day and it really I found it offensive because I'd be like, okay, cool or whatever. But I feel like whenever they when they whenever they comment, that effects me trying to like put it in. They're trying to make it permanent in some way and publicize it and like to create into you know. So it's like, so it remains and it's there, it's visible, And do you feel more obligated to respond or does it does it pack more punch when it's in when it's communicated digitally, Well, you know how it is. You've probably had this as well. You put up a video and ninety nine comments are amazing and one comments horrible you look at the horrible one. I think it's human nature, and I think, but but I just I find I find the idea that you could be a fan of somebody and you could really like their content because he's a fans that are saying it to me, And and I just do something completely harmless because I wanted to do it, and people abusive stuff. I find that crazy. That notion troubling because it's like, you like this person. I give you a great example. You know, there are musicians that I like to put out songs I don't like. I would never go onto Instagram and state, hey, whoever cold Play or whatever, Um, that was a terrible song you've put out last week. Just don't listen to it. And I think this, this is, this is It goes back to the idea of being offended, the idea of having to comment people. People now feel like they always have to impart their view on something in a very noticeable public way. It can't just be I hold the private opinion that, UH do a leaper's last song wasn't very good, for instance, it has to be a leaper has to know that. I don't think she has to know it has to be there. I mean, it's effectively like, you know, if this is in the medieval era, it would be like going to do a leaper's castle and I hate your last or whatever or whatever the hell it would have been your sheep. Yeah, I mean it's I find it incredible. I find that notion incredible, and I'd love to I'd love to do some I mean, maybe we should do some studies together these people and say why why do you do that? Why did you feel the need to write that? What is it? Here's your life about how you feel every day that makes you do something like that. It is a fascinating study in human impulse and impulse control. Right because when it was tougher, when it wasn't just at people's fingertips to be able to leave that, when they'd have to go across the you know, go across the British hamlet and you know, go over to Dulipa's house and slaughter her sheep and rub blood all over her larder castle. It was a tougher lift, right, But now is it just because because it's so easy, because it's at people's fingertips, their impulse is to communicate that negative, their critical thought, and thus if you give them the tool to do it, that they will be inclined to do it. I mean, I think that's that's a question. I think that that's definitely for them. Of of of I guess, kind of self therapizing via letting out really a really self destructive way. It's not it's not helping anybody even listen, you see me, I'm one of those people who is naturally inclined to always voice an opinion. But I like to believe that you know, in prior errors, I would have been someone who's would have passed the threshold to be a public commentator even before the social media. You're doing that on your own account. You know, I don't think you're doing it necessarily always. But look, like I said before, our preface this by saying, if it's debate related, that's okay. If someone posts, hey, I think that Biden's latest bill was genius, and you right, I do not think it was. That's different. That's encouraging debate. And then it's a you know, it could be a two way debate, it could be a multiple way. If it's on social media, that's fine, and that's always been the case, and that's town hall esque. But what I do, what I find problem with and find issue with, is when people in part opinion that's not welcomed. Yeah, if I put up a picture, hey guys, what do you think of my outfit? And people are like it sucks, I hate your outfit. I'm asking for it, right if you're just if you're just posting something that you like, doing a piece of work, Like for me, it's memes and many content. You don't have to tell me it's ship. If you don't like it, don't like it, you're voting by not liking it. And we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break. Well, they're so invested in it right there, so personally invested in whether or not what you put out there it resonates with them. And do you know, and this is interesting because a little bit of this today it was from another demographic, but this week actually, are you aware that there's a fairly big female influencer who was under a partial cancelation attempt this week partially because of liking and retweeting some of my comments. Who is this? I'll leave her, I'll leave her nameless for for the audience. I'll tell you later, but a pretty big female TikToker I'm friendly with, yeah, was was in the cross hairs for a couple of reasons, one of which was reposting and retweeting and liking some of my comments. And there's even a Reddit threat about Oh my god, I can't believe she likes all of these Matt Balinsky posts. Anyways, I didn't realize you had that right. I was waiting for it. Finally, it's it's finally come to class. Yeah, after all these years of ships, you just made me think of this story because it was one of the times I almost got canceled. But no one really knows about it really. Yeah, and I yeah, I don't think I've ever spoken to you about it, But there was there was a post that I did, if I remember correctly, it was around June of last year, and it was what I thought was a particularly harmless post. It was it was New York funk boy, and there was all the classic stuff and you can think of, you know, you have Carbone in there, you had Chipriani, you had the outfit of like the Air Force ones and the jeans and the black T shirt, sick stuff. Right. It was like the most bog standard post. And you know, as you know, a lot of a lot of the wealthy guys in New York that get a lot of the hot models are Jewish. M HM, and a lot of my friends in New York. Where the chrome Heart Star of David. It's like it's a statement piece. It's a funk boys stay piece. And so I first so I put, you know, I put on top of the black T shirt the Chromeheart Star of David. I just threw it in there because I was like, you know, so many of these guys are Jewish and it's funny and whatever time passes, the post does really well. Month goes by, two months go by, and all of a sudden, one day I get up and I have a ton of d ms from um Jews against Online hatred, anti submitted blah blah blah whatever, all of these accounts, and I'm getting tagged in all the stories because I can see all the story mentioned and it's like boycott super Snake, he hates Jews, super Snake, the famous Internet anti CMI all of these posts. It was hundreds of them. And then I go and I'm like, which post is this? I mean it was from three months ago. I find the post all of these people, why do you hate Jews? What's wrong with you? Why do you hate Jews? Some people like anti semitism in one Really is this still going? And I'm like, what the hell? Dog? So I'm going through deleting everyone, blocking, blocking, blocking, blocking, The methods keep coming in and I didn't know what to do. So I kept up with blocking every day on my goal and I started thinking to myself, was that anti semitting. They'll make you think they'll get you on your heels, but they But this is some of the weird I don't know if it's the physics or the chemistry or the biology of this. I'm trying to study it. Right, is that once these this these little uh pylon campaigns, they they moreph and they metamorphosized, right, and that just there's you. The content was exactly the same as it was fifteen minutes ago, but there's been some spark, there's been some cancerous growth on the internet kind of attacking it, right, and it just starts to snowball and then for a certain but this is why the saving grace and this is what I try to counsel people on both as an attorney, right, because I have clients that end up in these situations and other people, some people aren't even my clients that when when they're worried about a cancelation, they called me for better for worse. Anyways, I try to tell them there's literally an architecture to the Internet that that puts a timeline on this for a few days, you're going to be getting these after that. It's something for a variety of reasons. It disappears right every time. And this is a fascinating thing to study, that these weird pylons, right. It's it's like these termites go start they find a piece of wooden, they start going, they eat away at it. But then after a couple of days it's like this is no longer tasty, and they just scatter right, and then it just not make you. I mean to me, that screams bot activity. You know, it's it's it's too times I don't know, because I don't know. The one time I got real well, I've gotten really piled on a couple of times. One time I could tell wasn't it mostly wasn't bots. It was it's community. I don't think it's bots Man. I think that the way that social networks work is that once something you know goes out there into a particular network, a sub network, like if the up network contains these types of people, like the cancelation types, it just spreads within that network and then it's But I guess it's like they have fuel. I wish I was struggling for the right metaphor here, But they've got a certain amount of fuel and they burned through that fuel. They go where everybody goes after and then they just it disappears. It's like it never fucking happened. It's pretty trying to tell people coordinated they are, considering how crazy and deluded they are, They're incredibly clapped and coordinated. And yeah, it is. It is scary. And that's why I mean, I find the whole Council Culture movement very It's it's an extremely aggressive organization, if you can call it that, very targeted, very mobilized, similar to the whole Black Lives Matter thing. It's incredibly highly, highly sophisticates and organized and execution, which which makes me think that there's grander power behind the scenes orchestrating everything, because it's just too calculated too well done. It's impossible today, I think, I think you know, okay, but think about it, where animals, just like anyone, just you, there are other species that can mobile that that just take each other's cues without there necessarily being one directive from a centralized authority. They take the cues of the others in the tribe or the herd or whatnot, and they just kind of congeal. I think it's I don't know, That's what I've observed. I'm I'm hesitant to see it as as the grand wizard behind, you know, behind the curtain directing it all right. I literally think that once these weird things get out into into a particular network, is that, like these networks connected through digital means, take each other's cues and move in that direction. Right, And I said, I just tell you a girl that I was friendly with and helped her out legally. This is the dumbest controversy in the history of Internet controversies. Okay, you know who. She got piled on by a community of Mazda miata owners. Okay, like she took I kid you not in the history of dumbass Internet controversies. This was the fucking dumbest. Okay, this girl she takes you know, whatever, wasn't the nicest thing. She popped in a neighbor's Mazda Miata that left her left their uh convertible top open, and she took a photo and she made a snooty comment about like standing in a Mazda mi YadA. And like three years later, and this was probably two thousand, fifteen sixteen, uh, somebody, the car owner finds it. Her former neighbor at that time finds it and reposted as what a bitch like blah blah blah dude. Just a network of literally Mazda Miata owners and these I checked out some of these profiles because I was looking into it for legal and these were real people. These were not bought like Masda Miata owners piled on her, getting death and rape threats for talking about a fucking two door coupe. Okay, it's crazy, and I think it's more so like almost the study of how um like I said that, some people, you know, going to European cultural example, how soccer riots happened, Nobody says, hey, let's go riot. I mean sometimes they do, but that's rare. Right, These things take on a life of their own through networks of people who take, you know, take take certain cues from each other. Yeah, but can I I mean, there's one massive distinguishing factor with with let's say some fans, is that they're all they're all aligned under very very clear goal, which is our team is the best, better than the rest funck everyone else. Okay, but how does their activity further that cause? Well, because because like every opposition fan is an enemy, so they just want to beat up every opposition fan. I'm talking about the hardcore ones. So you would say that all of those maybe this is where my my American is limits me here is that? So these all of these soccer riots and hooliganism, it's all violence against other teams. Fans are person usually yeah, I mean, it's not just destruction for destruction, Like for instance, if it's their own fans, if if they're fans of the same team, maybe they'll like get drunk in a in a pub and and like smash a gloss on someone. But like the real fights, when it's west Ham against Millwall or you know, Arsenal against Tottenham, like that's that's when you see like the proper riots and fans like having the big fight. But but I'll go back to to the example is that they they all are aligned. They are like, you know, west Ham is the best, better than the rest fun everyone else, and that's the goal that they're aligned on. There. What I see with a lot of these militant groups on on on social media and whatever is they don't understand what they're aligned behind. What do they stand for because they go for everything, every single thing. I bet you the Mas de Meado owners a collective are also the ones trying to cancel someone for a tweet that they posted. Nine Sure, but I think that you're where where I would fill in that gap is that their social graph, the social graph in the network which they exist and even though they might not be under one category like a soccer team. First, okay, one that I got piled on in NBA Twitter, I was very active on talking about the people who love to talk about the NBA. You know a lot of it's kind of somewhat focused around act actual journalists, and then these other kind of people who write for the ESPN and the Athletic and Sports Sports Illustrated and whatnot, right, and then there's you know, kind of the the amateur those who don't write for those publications but have gained some prominence in a large following. And these people all have similar followings. There's lots of crossover of the social graph from these different people. So once there's a pylon um on, you know, within that network, that people start taking their cues right and while you know, you and I we think, okay, a sports team or a sports league or a topic like that makes sense to organize around. Everybody else can organize around stuff that we find to be ridiculous, but in their mind, because it's what's right in front of them, they organized around it. Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. I think. Look, it all goes back, doesn't it, to the sense of feeling a part of something in community, And that's behind all these uh frankly horrible in the church's organizations. Is that kind of sad? It's what it's The idea of being a part of the community is not sad, but it's sad that that's what's bringing them all together. The feeling of feeling alone, wanting to feel part of something, wanting to feel like they have friends and people that have the same ideas as them on things. Um and that's what makes them do all these horrible things and be part of these organizations because they want to put a part of something. They're alone, they're all sad, lonely people, and people are struggling for meaning these days. You're a great example. I feel like I'm a good example. If you're happy, content in your life, you have good friends, good relationships, you're not going to be one of these troll like people, and you don't need to get addicted to being offended. This whole idea of the addiction to offense I find bizarre. Why would you want to be offended by things? Don't let it offend you. If something someone comes up to me and screams in my face, you're a motherfucking can't. Maybe that would be harder to handle, but you don't need to be offended. I never get offended by any honestly, never. Well, this is I think it's it's really it's a it's a shift in values, right, because there was a recent era not too long ago, where it was a sign of of personal development and integrity and character to not get bothered by something that the currency you could you could gain more. And I've talked about this before in the podcast is that we've under we've got gone through victimhood inflation. Right. It's like you used to get more status from showing that you weren't bothered by things. Now you can, you know, grab for status. And there's an inflation in the value of being a victim and that is expressed through grievance and offense. And I'm still struggling to figure out what shifted, what where the where it was man timeline around somewhere in the two thousand and twelve to two thousand and fourteen range. I mean, I still find that as such a strange all this crazy stuff. I started seeing it a little bit here, a little bit there in two thousand fourteen, and that's when I started speaking. But it was fringed at the time. But I I I predicted it. If ideas this bad inhabits, this bad are are infiltrating the public square, like oh, they're gonna start spreading because this it means that society is detached. It's it's gone outside certain guardrails. And that's why people a lot of people who thought, Matt, what the funk you five? Why are you you know, bitching and moaning about this in two thousand, fifteen sixteen. By the time two nineteen comes around, all of a sudden, they're like, Okay, I see you were right. Um, so that's I want to ask you a question. I want I wonder why. Um, I wonder why these people that are referring to tends to come from the extreme left and center left. And yes, of course on the extreme right there are a bunch of absolute psychos. But the one way like oh yeah, I got offended by this. That's like it's in a different way, but it's this, this this feeling and this love of being offended is very much a left wing notion. I wonder where that originated from and why that's such. Well, that's now a value that people respect, like it's cool to be offended by stuff. Yeah, it's crazy, And of course, yes, maybe you can be offended by something if someone says something particularly horrible about you or about your parents, or about your country. But they're out there looking for it, they're searching. But one exactly, that's that it's the addiction. They love being offended. So they'll they'll go into that social media and they find a video and they're like, oh my god, this offends me. This offends me. I'm gonna type it. I'm gonna tell everyone this offends me. I'm gonna I'm gonna do a post about it based on some sort of perceived identity based grievance. And so I'll give you my theory on that. Okay, So a while back, and this is even a isn't late two thousand's right, there was a guy that I met and I was far more liberal at that time. I mean, anyone in America who wasn't. I mean, you were standing either the George Bush administration or you know, Barack Obama. Of course, like you know, what was the representation of um liberal America was far healthier back done right, But it was by the way, Yeah, I would have I would have always identified and identified as a Democrat. And I think back then, if you identify as Republican, you're you're a freak. Yeah, And it was a different yeah. And so okay, So I met this guy and he was the only kind of from the South, more traditionally conservative, right wing guy in the l A tech scene, right, and he was you know, he's had a couple of tech companies, he was an angel investor, and I mean, I didn't know that many people from the South, so people with his values were very uh um. That was that was, you know, new to me. And he would always use this term cultural Marxism, and I shut the fuck up, cultural Marxism. Do you people ever stopped talking about You're they're accusing Obama of being a socialist every fifteen minutes. And I was like, Jesus Christ, guy, as you do realize that Bush was the first one who bailed out the banks. Okay, Obama is just dealing with the situation that was laid on his doorstep, etcetera, etcetera. Was like, shut up and say what. I just thought this, this phrase cultural Marxism was crazy. Over the next few years, as this new era of kind of you know, victimhood culture and cancelation and you know, the identitarian based of views of the left kind of you know, cam materialized. I was like, Okay, wait a second, I see what he was saying about cultural Marxism, because what was Marxism every that everything is either and everyone is either filtered into an oppressor. Class is either oppressed or an oppressor. Right, the capitalists and the landlords are the oppressors, and the workers and uh, the not the workers and renters and whatnot, those are the oppressed. And essentially cultural Marxism is you're translating that based on cultural, ethnic and racial lines. Right, So instead of the so you're organizing the world into everybody is either the oppressed or the oppressor, but you're doing instead of uh, through material terms and financial terms, you're doing it based on culture, ethnicity, and and identity category. And that seems to be what we have now, right, So if you're trying to impose that pair and I'm on the universe, you're saying, this is how the world operates. Everyone's either a victim, is a victimizer or a victim right oppressed or oppressor or oppressed. Um, you have to solidify and you have to hammer home why why the oppressed are the oppressed? And that is by continually finding grievance, continually finding offense. If you keep on finding these violations, then that means, okay, these people really are the oppressors, and these people really are the oppressed, and they always want to stay oppressed and they don't have the ambition to become the oppressors. That's affectually what it is, right, It's much you can play the victim cod well because in this case, and much like in actual communists and socialist societies, that's because then you get to fight back, you get to you get to weaponize your status as the oppressed um, as the victim, in order to gather. And that's what you're saying now, either get someone to apologize to you or or denounce themselves or allow you, you know, easier access to certain positions of power or wealth or jobs and things of that nature. And so it's it's really just that that victimhood and kind of uh labeling oneself as a member of the oppressed class now becomes a vector towards um of either status or you know, material ascension. Right. And I mean, listen that the paradigm that I just described, it can't explain all of this, but I think it explains quite a bit. I mean, we really are that this whole, this whole stick from the left these days. It really is this cult, is this intersectionality cultural Marxism, where you know, they just define everything into a power relationship based on identity category and there's different there's different rules for one set of people as opposed to the other based on their demographic characteristics were not just people anymore. We're members of categories and that has to be filtered into a victim hierarchy. Yeah, I mean it's I don't know what to say anymore. I think the idea, the idea of this construct, to this victimhood construct is is the easy way out. And that's why I find I find issue with it is. I think it's it's, you know, a doctrine that's been adopted by a bunch of people because they don't want to be ambitious, they don't want to change the status quote. It's much easier. I mean, I've had moments in my life where I rue something that's happened, a bad piece of luck, something goes wrong. It could be work, it could be life, and it's much easier to sit there and wallow in pain and misery and say I'm the victim. Why me? Why did this happen? You know, as you know, Matt, I think I had, you know, serious health problems. I could have sat there for the whole time and been like, why did this happen to me? Why me? You know, I'm never going to get better, I'm never going to recover, going to be I'm done. I'm just you know, it's it's so much easier to sit there and do that. I don't know, I'm part of the class that things adversity is is the spice of life. That's what makes you stronger, That what makes you the person you are eventually. And I don't know, I've just found that. I found that true. There's another these people. There's not one of them that complains and plays the victim that's successful. Oh, these all these principles run contrary to personal development and success. And that's the thing's right. I was like, okay, we we have developed a kind of body of thought around what what um qualities you know, support a good life and success, whether or not it's purely financial success. But these are the admirable qualities and we've kind of flipped those on on you know, not that necessarily everybody who claims to be exhibiting them does exhibit them. But these are you know, perseverance and hard work and accomplishment and you know, not being not finding offense. I mean, these are the things that that signal integrity, right, and we've kind of flipped those all on their head. And I mean there was an interesting I read a really interesting piece. I forgot, but who was by? But who was someone who claimed to be a philosopher? And you know, I think that is usually a mis mischaracterization of someone in this damage as she read a really good piece, and he was describing the phenomenon that we're talking about right now, and he says, it's now clear that the digital era will not allow for the same hierarchies that the twentieth century allowed for. Right, and so the twentieth century allowed for hierarchies of you know, of looks of wealth, um of status of you know, put the hottest girl on the cover of Sports Illustrated, right, the digital era and we could probably spend the next two hours unpacking why is not going to allow for the spoils to go to the to the victor goes the spoils that ohe the that good looking you know, athletic people who exhibit kind of an ease and success um that that we're going to put them up on a pedestal and they deserve to be on that cover. We're gonna find the digital the digital era will not allow for that. And it could be because there's so many, like we said, more ways for the masses out there to express their disapproval of that. That could be it, But I'm still kind of I'm still pondering that observation. I think it was an interesting one. Well, isn't it. Isn't it usually because these corporations, via the the work mob that doesn't actually tend to be the majority. Well, yes, but then the question becomes, Then the question becomes are they being faked out? Because my thesis is that they are being faked out? Right, is that all this online criticism that they think is going to they're taking the wrong signals they seek that any brand or some brand manager or some CMO or god knows who are Some person in the PR department sees a hundred people get angry for twenty minutes on the internet and you know, screaming at their brand and none of it. But it doesn't matter. It's an illusion. It does not have any tangible impact on on the on the business prospects your business, or how you should react. And that these businesses, because there's so that they don't want. Nobody wants to be blamed for not acting, and nobody wants to be the bad guy. Very few of them can just stare at that situation and say, you know something, this is just tennedy. It's on the internet, and we're not going to react to this. You saw it with the Disney thing recently, right, Disney saw um right. It's insane. You have Disney, the kids entertainment brand, coming out like not just a mild comment in opposition, but just fiercely in opposition to a law against teaching kindergarten third graders about sexual material and gender. I didn't like, what on earth? Like, how does Disney really think that the majority of its customers and people who buy its products support teaching second graders about gender fluidity? Not in a million years, but they always I hope they faced serious consequences because that, I mean, that made my blood boil. It's first of all, the the mass media or the liberal media's miss uh. I mean this characterization, well, yeah, the whole don't say gay thing was an invention. That's fake new You want to talk about misinformation, that's misinformation, incredibly incredibly incredibly faking, like with absolutely no substance foundation at all. I mean, I mean it doesn't take a genius to look over the bill. I mean I looked over it myself because I was, I was fascinated. I was like, surely that convient totally that prevents you know, tisco were teachers from saying the one gay homosexual work looked into It took me two minutes. But but the idea that Disney would and I think run to Sanctis said it really well, would would choose to die on that hill? Why would they? Why they mobilized for that pause? Like the bill? I mean, surely someone at Disney was like, wait, guys, I get that the mob is angry, but it's just a bill that prevents school teachers in Florida from talking to kids that are in kindergarten about transgenderism and gender ideology. I mean none, I'm sorry, but a kindergarten kid does not need to know about that healthy and this was this was something that nobody would even fathom arguing about up until what two thousand fourteen fifteen? How do we go this condon? And I don't know, I mean, I hope there's gonna be ramifications. But I saw one of their I mean, one of the zoom calls was leaked and this idea that over of characters from now on are going to be of a race for minority or transgender or whatever you know, part of the l g B, t q I spectrum. When Okay, I'm all the representation of any kind, sure, but do we really need to have a lesbian rhino? Yeah, but the kids are three years old? I mean, like, is it is it really that important? Like sure some of the characters, Yes, I believe in diversity and and and that's fine, but why make it at least why do we have to go to the other extreme? Because I wouldn't would you say, yeah, well, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily the extreme. It's why do we have to create a bureaucratic mandate around everything? Like is that now everything has to be quantified, right, because that's what bureaucracy does. Because bureaucracy has to measure everything, right that that's what it's there to do. Um, And this is no way to live. We can't be we can't be trying to bureaucratize every single aspect of life. Some people just have to go off there with you know what taste principles and values right as opposed to you know, a memo from HR saying mandating certain specific quantifiable numbers. But now in this idea where we where we decided to define people primarily through the prism of their demographic category as opposed to who they are as people. This is what you get and we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break. Well, yeah, and you just made a good point about a value system, which I mean traditionally, growing up, kids will be taught good values. Be kind, be honest, be generous, be a good person, blah blah blah. Right, pretty pretty bung standard not cultural cultural specific, uh, could be told in any world. And that's what Disney was so good at. When I was a kid. You would see the Disney characters and you sold good and evil, and you saw the good always one out. You know, you saw these like cute little animals being sweet to each other and being ice, and then you saw the bad animal, and eventually bad animal die or something bad would happen. Lying that that's what the kids should grow up seeing values the animals. That you don't find a transgender draw, do you know what I mean? It doesn't of course, because yes, and this is where and I think I don't know if you saw my post today about how we've we've detached we've replaced tolerance with inclusion, and inclusion is is gerrymandering based on identity categories? Right, Is that our values are inherently tied. They're not universal. Values are non non culturally specific, as you mentioned, right, that there aren't the idea that no, there aren't universal values. There's only values that can be viewed through the prism of someone's lived experience as a member of this category. Do we really all just want to be members of fucking categories? That's not healthy, that's no way to live. But that's the that's the current governing ethos, right, So we're categorizing everybody as opposed to finding commonalities. It's like, why do we have the fucking Enlightenment, Why do we have humanism? Why did we try to find universal truths about humanity? Right? If we're all just gonna you know, file everybody into a put everyone to in a spreadsheet based on demographic category. But for some reason, these people are sitting around and they think this is noble, this is admirable, this is virtuous, and it's just it's it's a real head scratcher. And I mean, I think we're starting to see, you know, the first well, Let's say we're now in kind of the second wave of people objecting to this right, and everyone thinks, oh uh, and this is what I I've critic you know, I've pushed back against that. Oh the pendulum just swings. No, the pendulum doesn't swing. You have to fight to regain these values that we have lost, because the people that gain power through this new system, they're not just gonna give it up. Right. So we're seeing a couple of waves. The law on Twitter thing is a fascinating piece of this. Maybe that's the start of the second wave. Um So, but we're not going to kind of we're not going to dismiss this new you know, society of bureaucracy, um way of thinking, an identitarian way of thinking easily right, It's it's going to take a fight. Um But that that's what we're up against now. Um But not to get you go from criticizing identarianism to asking you about about identitarianism. But I did wanted you know, as you make some distinctions between an American point of view and a European point of view, I'm always interested in that distinction, particularly as someone and you're in your very I've said earlier on this podcast. I think to a certain extent, your account is almost a study of status and Britain in the UK is it has a class system. And you know, when you're an American kid growing up, you're taught that, oh, America is so great because the revolutionaries back in seventeen seventies six rejected the class system. The British class system that you know is more reflective of of continental you know, Britain, British and continental European values. And that's why America is the land of the free. So, okay, it's to what extent in in the UK and in you gotta laugh out of that to the to what extent in the UK and in Europe in general, the old world, let's call it. Are are there still vestiges of this class system where beyond beyond you know, which ferrari you flash and how much money, whether you made it yourself or whether it was made generations and go by you know, your great great great grandfather. Um. Are there still vestiges of that? And does it inform the topics that you that you talk about in terms of analyzing the elite? Um? Look, it exists, but it's just it's just incredibly, incredibly irrelevant nowadays. And they, I mean a lot of a lot of the the ruling class, the aristocrats in the UK, they're clinging on to to a sense of power and prestige that they just don't have anymore. They have I always talked about it, the crumbling country estate that they you know, rent out during the day to have tours and you know they let all these tourists go around because there are that's that's I guess the only kind of the remnants of that system that you really see. Of course you see the monarchy. That's the most obvious one, and that's that's the real class system right there. It's like monarchy and then everyone else. Um, you see it to some degree with a lot of the aristocratic families that do have major wealth own real estate in London. So you have, as you probably know, you have all the different estates. Yeah. I actually didn't know that until this last summer. I was like, oh, wait, the city. They're just a handful of families that just on the entire god damn city. It makes no sense. It's incredibly unfair. You have, yes, exactly, these multiple estates that own swathes of real estate in London and they will always own it. You know. It's the other thing called a freehold. In a leasehold, A freehold means you actually own your house. It's yours. It's not entitled to the estate or the government. It's yours and your own a d A leasehold means that after a certain amount of years, you actually have to pay to get to have the lease again, and then it's just renewed. It's still owned by the estate. So as soon as you sell the house, uh, you know, the estate has it back. It's like you never actually owned the house. That's so so crazy it is. It's an incredible construct that we only have in the UK. It doesn't make any sense until you have these families that have these these grand estates um in London and they have commercial real estate, residential real estate, and there's just money coming in NonStop and they don't have to lift a finger, you don't do anything nothing. They have the runs, everything that renews the leases, whatever brings tenants in and out, and that's it. And it's just wealth generation, wealth creation for the rest of the time. And it feels like this is is bolted in by the government, like it's almost encoded in the govern in the system that these families just will can and we always will own these wide swaths of one of you know, the world's great cities. Yes, but I mean there's there's I mean, look at the public and not you know, particularly content about it. But at the same time, they're the one in the royal family, So there's a hypocrisy there. I mean, that's the one construct for me that just makes absolutely no sense and seems incredibly unfair. It seems very it seems very counter business. It doesn't it doesn't make any sense in a in a functioning capitalist economy. It's yeah, it's a history you have, right in history, are just given major parts of real estate. We should be encouraging investors to come in by these properties, exchange them on the open market like it should, you know. And that's a lot of real estate y lines the pockets of seven or eight different families, very very strange. That does seem to be the one vestige of old world, the old world class system. And then it's also and I find London so interesting for the following reason because concurrently, in parallel it is this hub of new money of the new internationally wealthy and a couple of particular you know, uh, cultural groups and the ones that you that you comment on quite a bit on your account that you know, obviously, you have the Russians and forget there weren't any rich Russians until about years ago because there was there was a communist Country's only the rulers, and you know they weren't really they were wealthy, but they weren't really part of Western wealth. So you've got the newly minted Russian rich. You've got you know, the h the the wealth of the Gulf and Arab states were always always present in London, um, you know, the fai Ed families and whatnot. But I feel like that's become more prominent, like they've been the right over the past twenty to thirty years. It's become more acceptable, like a Dote Alphayette and Muhammad Alfa had were kind of an anomaly back in the eighties and nineties, and now any wealthy Arab family it's kind of just unspoken that they're going to go spend some time in London. Is that that the case? Well? Yeah, and also let me let me let me differentiate someone you know, friends and someone like like like Muhammed al Fayed. They were on the whole very quite elegant people, sophisticated wealth. You know that was old money from Egypt. You know it's nowadays what we have is this is this Gulf wealth that's coming to the UK and they're not very um let's just say, low profile about the way that they're spending money. So they used to there used to be some cultural um uh, some guidelines to just playing your wealth, and now there's no. I mean, look that you used to have. We always would have, you know, people from Saudi Arabia, people from the Gulf, they were in the UK that had money, but they were very sophisticated. It was all the sense of old money they had, you know, kids that had gone to the university in UK, or they had gone to university in UK or the US themselves. They were more westernized in terms. And I still have many friends from those areas and their families are extremely sophisticated. But it's a lot of the new money that's been created in the Gulf and in Marusia that that aren't aware about to spend money in a in a in a I guess the I don't want to say no bull fashion, but then just a low profile, sophisticated way. It's very upfront, very in your face. Um. And are they trying to rub it in the face of what they considered to be the most you know, kind of classic global power that like, hey, now we can we're in your city, we can play your game too, exactly. I'm not really, I really do believe in that. And you see a lot of the time with the Russians are extremely rude to people, um, you know, and and a lot of the Arabs too. I don't like to generalize because I have, you know, plenty of friends from that area that are super politely, but they're always the ones that grew up in the UK um. But yeah, they're they're very rude, and they're very much we're in your city and we can do whatever the hell we want because we have money. But when we go to Dubai into Saudi Arabia, we have to behave because if we don't get, if we don't behave, we get thrown in jail. If if we perhaps one night get a little bit drunk by mistake and Dubai and maybe do something slightly silly, you're in jail, you know. Difference. They have a no tolerance policy in that countries and we don't well, and then you're not being culturally pressure that you know, the great British oppressors and colonizers have no right to tell anybody, um not you know one not to enter that you can't have no barrier or no um limitations on on uh, no limitations on immigration, whether it's super wealthy or you know you're kind of Northern African refugees from or Syrian refugees, you can't have any but you can't have any limits on that um or you're just kind of repeating, you know, traveling along the same lines as your great colonial past um. And it's a really odd phenomenon. And also just London as this kind of modern tower of babble of just this all the the you know, the wealthiest. It's like, how l A is this conglomoration of all you know, the hottest people in America. Okay that the prom king and prom queen of every little city in America decides to go move to l A and take a shot at making it big in Hollywood, right, Um, it's similar, it's like almost similar. The the richest family um from every different you know, uh, corner of the universe and you know country that or civilization that generates wealth and values wealth decides to go to London to kind of show it off for you know, roll the dice at being one of the global elite very very much. So, yeah, it's it's a it's an incredible melting pot of of culture and wealth ostentation. It's it's really I mean, you've experienced it and you've seen it, so I don't have to explain it in much detail to you. But but to someone that hasn't been, it's effectively just a pissing contest of of wealth. And it's it's always the new money that are kind of putting it front and sense of the most and um, it is a little bit overwhelming occasionally, like Night's produced to be nice, not so nice anymore. It's lights, bridges. It's all it is is super cars rubbing their engines going up and down the street. You know, people shopping at Harrod's and you know, it's it's not what it used to be. There's no elegance and class anymore, sophistication. I'm not saying you have to be old money to be sophisticated. It's more that, uh, you know, I think a lot of people with old money understand that because they've had money for so long. It's not about flaunting it the whole time. Well, you know, some people would appeal to a certain noblessed oblige right, and that the supposedly and obviously was not always adhered to. But in the in accepting the spoils and the privileges of being upper class, that you have to conduct yourself in a certain manner, in a certain noble manner, that would be you know, that was not uncouth right, and that happened. This great wealth and this privilege required you know, you needed to have some some limits and some barriers. And that's just gone now now now it is everything in your face. Um. Wealth is to show show how few limits you have to live with, as opposed to understanding that you know, there may be some humility. Um is some humility involved in it all, And I think that's just out the window. No, it doesn't exist. And you see a lot of brands that are playing playing into that, that that idea that that there doesn't need to be any any nobless like you described. I mean brands like like Philipplying for Any for example, or a lot of these other you know, de Square, these ostentatious brands that were literally print shirts that say I'm fucking rich or have like a lot of bills on it, and and these guys are buying it up like crazy and wearing it. Did a lot of Monica to Monica is another one of these places that's a real melting pot. And there's a lot of traditional old school wealth. It's that's clashing with with the new money. That's that's the stuff I've never understood. It's like wearing the Rowski Crystal Adorns jacket and wearing that dollar bill T shirt. And sure you can wear brands, you can wear Gucci, I get it. But it's like so obvious and so in your face and so uncouth and lacking class. That's how I understand um industries. It's crazy and continues to grow like crazy because of it. Look at the Chinese, well, look at you know, the Gulf, will the Russia, I mean pretty much you know any any country where this news well, the people have just invaded shopping cities like man. It is so it is so fascinating to meet it, contemplate and it's probably above our pay grade for this conversation. But in how the the vagaries of international economics and the international macro economy over the past ten years has manifested itself in this way culturally, right, you look at it. Okay, Uh, Russia, you know, Russian. You know, I've discussed this a bunch of times on this part because of the Russian thing came up. But it was okay, they Russia switched from a communist country to a capitalist country, and you know, unfortunately a system uh materialized where a handful of people were able to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of mineral companies and natural resource companies for you know, a couple billion dollars and okay, they become this one great source of wealth now that gets to travel the world. Okay, China decides to liberate, you know, without switching governments, decides to shift to a capitalist economy and creates all these billionaires and all these multimillionaires. Okay, you've got that um Central Bank in America, in response to a a mortgage crisis decides to print eight hundred billion dollars and boom, that has to go somewhere. So now you have all these crypto billion crypto millionaires and fucking guys with sassin fintech companies now and that now have all this wealth, and okay, great, that ends up in some annoying American guy who tries to pretend that he's too hooked up in Micano's post on your account, It's like the connection from some idiot mortgage broker in two thousand six in America as part of this, this mortgage bubble leads to a financial crash, prints a bunch of money ends up, whether earned or unearned or partially earned, in the pocket of some idiot who you know was able to raise some money for a fintech company in two thousand and fourteen, and boom, he's running around in miconos getting tables and becomes one of your memes. It's like, I find the links in that chain fascinating. Well, it's incredible. It's like you said that that that one mortgage broker that then leads to a guy having his Apple Watch with a guerrilla on it. That's what that's worth more than most people's houses. Yeah, even yeah, I mean we probably we definitely don't have time to go into the whole n f T crypto, now that that could be a whole. Uh, there's there's elements of it that I find kind of interesting. I think like the underlying technology of of n f T S is kind of interesting. And as a creator, like the idea of being able to like monetize your content and we have some sort of ownership of of your of your of your piece of artwork or whatever it is going awards short, but the trash that I'm seeing, uh, you know, all of this wealth creation in crypto, and how how terrible these guys aren't spending their money, and how cross they are, and it's just watching it all, and you know what, I really hope that one day there's just an epic crash because I just want to see the reactions of these people. I just think it would be It would just be hilarious. It would be fat Listen the a new, a brave, new era for the purview of sup of super Snake. In seeing the manifestations and vagaries and faults and wins and losses of wealth through the metaverse and the n f T space and kind of this new digital economy. I think there's gonna be no shorter topics for you to attack over the next few years. So I think, well, we covered a lot of ground, and not that I anticipated anything less, but you know, you get It's like I said, this conversation has been a long time coming, and and um someone who has been a vote once again speaking for the unspoken or giving voice to things that a lot of people notice but don't quite know how to articulate. And that's why I was interested in having this conversation. And I I hope what I hope, you know, I imagine my audience will find it very interesting. So UM, thank you so much for for for coming on the pod. Um we will be checking out all you know, tell everybody where they can find you on the internet and you know where where they can find the voice of super Snake on on social media. Thank you man for having me. Um. You can find me on Instagram at instagram dot com slash super Snake and uh an online at SSS Landon dot com. And it's been a pleasure. And uh yeah, I hope to be all next time and we can talk about some more interesting stuff, probably crypto and maybe we do the next one. For making us let's do it. Thank you so much. But thanks I am at Bolinski once again, and you can listen and subscribe to The Prevailing Narrative on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening right now. Make sure to follow me on my socials at Matt Bolinsky m A T T B I L I N s k Y. The Prevailing Narrative is a Cavalry Audio production and association with I Heeart Radio, produced by Brandon Morrigan, Executive produced by Danna Bernetti and Kegan Rosenberger for Cavary Audio. I'm Matt Bolinsky