Tone: optimism versus nihilism

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into a fascinating question from a viewer comment: Why did the early 2000s-2010s online atheist/skeptic community splinter, with many becoming the seed crystal for today’s online right-wing culture—while those who shifted left (Atheism+, socialism, Democrat alignment) largely lost their audiences and relevance?

We explore the two major “seed crystals” of modern internet culture:

* YouTube skeptic/debater/edge-lord style (truth-seeking, anti-woke evolution, Gamergate → new right)

* 4chan’s shocking authenticity and owning-it energy

And on the left: Tumblr’s vibe/aesthetic-driven culture (memes, cancel culture, performance over truth).

Why did right-leaning creators like Thunderf00t, Sargon of Akkad, The Amazing Atheist, and Armored Skeptic stay relevant, while figures like Laci Green and iDubbbz crashed out? What makes ShoeOnHead the notable exception who kept a right-leaning audience without fully adopting the politics? And how does ContraPoints prove the rule with her theater-kid, BreadTube style?

We also touch on:

* Vibrant optimism vs. nihilistic pessimism

* Truth-seeking vs. aesthetic vibes

* Why conservatism now feels like “the new atheism”

* Trump’s unique “Christianity,” religious evolution in the community, and more

If you lived through the New Atheist era, Gamergate, or the Tumblr-to-mainstream-left pipeline, this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to explore a question that actually came up through a comment on one of my previous videos. So on one of my previous videos, somebody was pointing out, because I pointed out there was this evolution within online culture of the online atheist slash skeptic community, which then transformed into the online anti-feminist community.

‘Cause first it was dunking on Christians, then it was dunking on feminists, then it was dunking on. Woke people and then that transitioned into Gamergate. And then that became the core of what became the new right. Or at least like the online right culture. And he pointed out, he goes, well, hold on.

There were also people, in fact, you could argue about half of the people involved was that original atheist community, that original you know, online skeptic community. Yeah. That went in the opposite direction. They went. Into the atheism Plus for anyone who [00:01:00] remembers that, that was like atheism plus socialism or something.

And then they became Democrats and they became left-leaning. And, and this is true but one that doesn’t discount the fact that the ones who went to the right ended up forming the seed crystal that became online right-leaning culture. Mm-hmm. But two and more importantly, the key to the mystery that we’re on right now is.

Every single one of them except for one. Notable exception, okay. Who went to the left from that original community ended up losing their audience, losing their relevance, and losing their cultural halt, whereas the ones went right, continue to be mainstream figures in the online. Right. Hmm. And the question is, is why?

And my by the way, if you’re wondering who’s a notable exception here everybody knows who it is. It’s shoe on head. Yep. But, but, but shoe on head. It’s very [00:02:00] interesting and she sort of gives away part of the story here. Who is Shoe On Head’s? Audience shoe on Head’s. Audience is. A right leaning audience.

Yeah, totally. If you watch like for example, we had Leaflet on recently and we’re talking about thing Oh, we were like, oh, something like, oh, shoe want head. Like obviously I know that she watched, she Want Head, we watch Shoe, want Head. You go to Asma Gold. Obviously Asma Gold Watches Shoe Want Head.

Knox will talk about Shoe. Want Head. Oh Shoe Want Head Talk about, you know, everybody on the right watches, shoe on Heads. Yeah. So much so that you go to a Sky Brow video and it’s a bunch of conservative online commentators. And then in every single one, it’s shoe on it, right?

Simone Collins: Amen.

Malcolm Collins: And so what she managed to do was to maintain the audience that was transitioning into right wing political beliefs while not fully adopting them herself.

Why, why would, why is she able to do that? Why do I watch you on head? I think it’s because I, I do not [00:03:00] feel that any of her beliefs are performative. Yeah. Like when I, when I watch her. She really believes what she believes about things. Well,

Simone Collins: she comes across as based in the way that we understand based rather than the way that people on the left define based, which is like, oh, you’re a white nationalist.

Whereas like, I, I see. Based as being unapologetically yourself, she comes across that. Plus she has that unique one, one very dominant element of being progressive these days is like. Non playful pessimism. And unless you, like, even when people are jocular, it’s in a very nihilistic non vivacious way.

It’s like, oh, I’m depressed. Ha ha ha. Like that common comedic bit, you know, of like, it’s very clear that this person is clinically depressed and mentally unwell, but they’re laughing and joking. That’s not her way. And, and it, there’s a sort of, it, it only. It almost all universally shows up on the right.

That when, when people are like vivacious and optimistic and [00:04:00] joking about stuff that, that’s kind of, that’s right coded, but she is that despite being not a. Republican, for example.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yet, we’ll see, I I, I have a feeling, ‘cause recently she came around and was like, oh, I’m a Catholic now, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. As of the pandemic, she got God again,

Malcolm Collins: I think, or was it very loud about because I didn’t know that until the recent video with Simone and I both were like, did you know that she just yeah. I, I think she might be on a pathway to I’m, I’m just saying very the slowest pipeline you’ve ever seen crash.

But, but yo, she’s a mom now, right? So, you know. Yeah. That, that’s after a lot of people change, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. That, that’s also, you know, one point against being progressive,

Malcolm Collins: but. The second thought I had is, okay, well maybe the answer to this is very, very easy because it’s not just that this group became the seed crystal that the online right grew out of.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: [00:05:00] Culturally, they, we’re, we’re very, very heavily impactful for what the online right is like today. The online, right today, when you look at the social norms, conventions, styles of videos, everything like that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It clearly comes from the early. YouTube atheist slash edge Lord videos, right?

Yeah. Like this culture is represented in it. None of that culture. When these people went to the left, I. Was adopted by the mainstream left. And so I was like, well, maybe the answer is that the left controls elite institutions, right? Mm-hmm. Like universities and stuff like that. And that is where they look in news companies, PR departments.

I was like, that’s where they get their cultural talking points. It’s all taught down, whereas the right is bottom up. And that is why the internet didn’t end up influencing leftist culture. Mm-hmm. And then I started thinking a bit more about it and I was like. But that’s not [00:06:00] really true, is it? Because as an online culture watcher of that period the, the Tumblr culture of that period is the modern left.

In fact, I’d say that the culture of Tumblr from that period almost completely, it, it eradicated and replaced whatever was there before. It is heavily, heavily, heavily impactful to the point where, you know. We were getting in fights on Tumblr. Like I, I didn’t have a Tumblr account, but like people were right about like, could you, could you be like a gender identify as like a cloud or you know, an attack helicopter or a turtle or a universe.

Yeah. Yeah. And at the time today we’re like, oh, that’s like normal, weird lefty stuff. But no, at the time that was like a totally new cultural phenomenon, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now that’s gotten huge on the left. Right? And so have a, a lot of other cultural phenomenon. The, the you know, sort of fan fiction culture of, of Tumblr of that period.

Many of the [00:07:00] ways of talking and joking, like the, the memes styles even cancel culture got its start was in Tumblr. And, and I will note, but that

Simone Collins: I thought it came out of gay culture, which wasn’t really heavy on Tumblr, was it?

Malcolm Collins: Well, they, they said, the word cancel came from the hashtag Cancel Colbert campaign, which is

Simone Collins: hilarious.

No, it existed before that, I think.

Malcolm Collins: No, it did not really. It did not. You have gotten into this argument with me before on the show, and we looked it up

Simone Collins: afterwards so you

Malcolm Collins: were wrong.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it came from hashtag Cancel Colbert.

Speaker: To give Simone Du, it was used in the black community before this, but it meant to like break up with somebody. It did not mean to attempt to de platform somebody cancel. Colbert was the first use of it in that context.

Malcolm Collins: That is where it was popularized. And it was popularized by somebody named, I believe Amy Wong, who wanted to cancel Stephen Colbert, who is the most woke, obnoxious person ever for his Chong character.

Where he went like, Ching Chong, Bing Bong, or whatever. Oh my

Simone Collins: God, I forgot. Yes, yes, [00:08:00] yes.

Speaker 2: my beloved character. Ching Chong. Ding dong. I love tea. It’s so good for you. You’re so pretty American. Girl. You come here, you kiss my tea, make all sweet. I no need no sugar when you are around. Come on rickshaw. I give you a ride to Bangkok.

Malcolm Collins: And, and that is wild. That cancellation invented because somebody thought Stephen Colbert was too far to the right. Stephen Colbert. Okay, let that sink in. Where, where culture has drifted over the years. But anyway so, and, and I’ll note here that the right of today had two seed crystals of that period.

Okay. It didn’t all grow out of this online skeptic community of that period. There was the separate, which was the four chan culture. Yeah. You know, the mail

Simone Collins: end of the internet

Malcolm Collins: RB, or I mean, sorry, not RP B polls, stuff like [00:09:00] that. And and Tumblr being where the, the, the, the more leftist culture came from.

Yeah. And, and I’ll note that it’s not just us. So like this is not just, and we’ll go over some of the creators this happened to over this period as we try to solve this mystery. It’s, it’s not just that there were people in these original communities, that were influencers in those early communities and then stayed all the way through as influencers till today.

A lot of the people who became. Or have emerged as right-leaning influencers today who are like of our generation. Were in those original communities, just not as talkers or were thought leaders, like we didn’t have channels or anything. Leaflets a good example of this. When we were talking with her, she was talking about how she was an active.

Member of the community that was the predecessor of four chan raspberry something or another I’m not that familiar with it. So, you know, she’s been in this since the very beginning, right? It’s just she didn’t [00:10:00] have the face until today. You know, you go to somebody like N Taku who is today, you know, everybody who sees him as a, a fairly influential guy on the right.

And. You go back and you, you don’t see his old content because he wasn’t playing culture wars back then. He was an anime nerd who like reviewed anime. Right. And but, but clearly, you know, he would’ve been adjacent to these communities. Right. So many people who were in these communities, like many of the influential people today on the right, started in these communities.

Yeah. And I actually see this as well. We, we in interact with you know, like Trump administration type people and stuff like that pretty frequently. And I, I, I talked to them about four chan back in the day, right? Like the, these people were very

Simone Collins: red in Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Environments, right? Like, we’re like, oh yeah, remember when like X happened or B happened.

So I, I point out that it’s not just the influencers, it’s also many of the operatives. Okay, so we’re [00:11:00] getting into a and, and it’s, it’s also the high level staff like JD Vance. You, you know, you’ve seen the picture of him at school, you know, you know anything. And that guy was a nerd. But he was

Simone Collins: one of us.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One of us. But not just that, but he keeps like, referencing Asma Golden Hassan in like interviews. Right? He is like the song dog, dog shock stuff. You know? He’s, he’s in the loop of the loop that we’re watching, right. You know? But, but, the question is, is there is actually one notable exception as to somebody who is in these early communities and then became a dominant figure on the left.

And they are something of an exception that proves a rule. And this individual is contra points. Contra points had. Online, sort of, you know, anti theist, I guess you could say channel way back in the early days. But she was not popular. Like the community was not affirming of her, I guess you could say.

This is back when she was a guy. Then she transitions and starts the, you know, new type of left-leaning philosophical essay that she does. And she popped [00:12:00] off. And the point that I’ll note here is. She never adopted the cultural norms of this community. Mm-hmm. If you look at her videos that have done very well, and as she began to gain steam, they culturally didn’t feel like the.

Debates, feminist videos or the debates, Christian videos or the debates they were much closer culturally to theater kid videos. Yeah. Like theater kids playing around. Yeah. And so. I think that she was able to create this alternate for, you know, bread tube sort of building up around that because of that.

And then most of the bread tube type videos had aspects of that theater kid energy and much less of the early like, let’s get out there, let’s offend people, let’s debate things, energy that continues on within modern right wing culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and a lot of the leftist [00:13:00] YouTubers that I follow definitely feel like theater kids sometimes even explicitly call themselves theater kids.

Malcolm Collins: But the other interesting thing about bread tube for people not familiar with Bread tube, it was like online leftist YouTube. That was like a community where like they’d all reference each other. Like we, we, it’s, I, I guess sort of like. The old leftist version of whatever the new right is today, right?

Like, like the, the new right content creators in YouTube are like, definitely like a thing, like an algo loop, right? Like, they, we all reference each other, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. When one of us goes viral, we’re on everyone else’s stream, you know? But anyway you know, but the bread tube did not actually leave a cultural or intellectual impact on the left.

And I think that this is something that’s really, you

Simone Collins: really don’t think so. I feel like it, it played a key role in normalizing socialism as an ideal among younger millennials and then younger people in general, like then to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Malcolm Collins: So, [00:14:00] one, I I push back pretty hard and say that socialism is not popular among Gen Z leftists these days.

It’s communism that’s popular. Socialism would be seen as like, you know, capitalism adjacent was in many of these communities and, and, and like bourgeois value systems and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: I beg to differ because. Communism isn’t possible without a GI, and they’re all very anti ai. So Simon,

Malcolm Collins: Simon, they don’t admit, they don’t care what’s actually possible and what’s not.

It’s what they tell each other that they’re fighting for, right? Like we are about to film an episode where we point out that China spins literally a third in cost adjusted value on social safety nets that the United States does. Yeah. And yet Hassan Piker is out there. You sucking the D because he says, well, there’s such great communists out here.

Mm. Functionally the United States is literally three x more communists

Simone Collins: Yeah. Than China. Wait until Hassan [00:15:00] goes to the United States.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He he’s a real communist country. Yeah. No, but the point being is it they don’t actually care about what’s functionally true. You know, that’s, that’s something that’s important within leftist discord is and I, and I think that this is actually.

Partially why you’ve, you’ve hit the nail on the head in a way. Why did bread tube not actually end up influencing the intellectual side of the left? The culture of the left or the norms on the left in the same way Tumblr did.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s because Tumblr was about the vibes, not about what was true.

It was about how you aesthetically,

Simone Collins: right? Yeah. All of it was, yeah, it was all about the aesthetics and the performance. It was not about, it was about the core, like cottage core and whatever core. Yes, yes. And so it, yeah. So Socialist core com. Core com core, yeah. It wasn’t, it wasn’t the real thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

And that, that was, so, so, but, but if you look at what was happening on the YouTube [00:16:00] debating side of the right the, one of the reasons they ended up moving into the right from, you know, originally being anti theists and then anti-feminist and anti woke, and then Gamergate and then you know, mixed with the red pill, diasporan became the modern, new, right.

Is that they, what’s the, what’s the word I’m looking for here? That they were predominantly interested in what was true. I mean, that was the point of all their debates. That was the point of who they mocked. Yeah. They liked mocking people for believing things that they saw as on their face. Stupid.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I guess that their, their, in their pursuit, when you look past the specific themes of what they were discussing was, I like to take this widely believed thing that is disprovable. And I’m going to tear it apart ‘cause I’m, I’m very smart. And

Malcolm Collins: and that’s what our

Simone Collins: channel about making negative.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s gonna, like culturally it’s the exact same thing. It’s just like, let’s take this widely believe.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. So conservatism is the new atheism. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: because woke is the new dominant religion. Right.

Simone Collins: So, but Oh, like, [00:17:00] no, that’s okay. I just, I never thought about it that way, but you’re so right. Oh my.

Aw.

Malcolm Collins: But, but it’s because that community was fundamentally a truth seeking community. Yeah. And read to, tried to create a. Sort of a respectable veneer for the left of like, we, there are intellectual arguments that make us look not stupid, but the reality is, is the demand for those intellectual arguments was not that big because the left didn’t actually care about them.

Mm. It cared about the affirmation that hearing those arguments gave them, but it wasn’t interested in actual intellectual arguments. Mm-hmm. Which I, I think you see from the types of, of, of streamers that have done well, like Hassan does very well, who doesn’t give any intellectual arguments. Destiny has, you know, he’s always stayed as sort of a, a lot less popular than I would expect him to be, given that he seems to like, at least genuinely intellectually engage with the topics that he’s trying to go into.

So, I think you captured one big part of it there, [00:18:00] which is that. The left is predominantly an aesthetic movement that has sort of, like religious, like beliefs about what’s true. And that is focused on a interconnecting memes that reinforce that

Simone Collins: well. But again, this is one of the core themes of our podcast, which is.

A materialist’s. Hatred of mysticism. Yeah. A a consequentialist. Hatred of deontology. So maybe we’re also finding these core divides between vibes versus reality and. And, you know, actions versus,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, and I think it’s, it’s, it’s why somebody like Nick Fuentes can appear so woke to us in a way, right?

Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Because it’s, it’s very, very vibes over reality, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But he has adopted the second core point of early online culture. If the core, which, which is why he can aesthetically sometimes look, equate leaning to people which is, if. The online YouTube debaters were predominantly interested in like taking [00:19:00] something that’s widely believed, but not true and explaining why or challenging people who believe wrong things.

The other core, beginning core to the rightly in culture was. Four chan and the thing that four Chan valued most was doing something that is like shocking and holistically owning it. Like being you Right. In a, in a shocking way. And this is something that we have seen permeate the culture of the MAGA and the White House currently.

Mm-hmm. Right? Like with Trump being like, those crazy pastors in Iran better knock it off. Right? Or I’m gonna destroy their whole civilization. Yeah, they’ve been around for a thousand years and their sitting’s old, you know, you know, he always going over, I might go at Bomb car Island again, just for fun this time.

Oh my gosh. So that is, that is a four chan culture, right? Like that didn’t, that didn’t come from churches, that didn’t come from right wing. Right wing radio shock jocks. They didn’t talk like that. Mm-hmm. That [00:20:00] didn’t come from, that came from one place. Like you can’t be like, w maybe this evolved convergently from some other Right-leaning source or was like a wider right-leaning.

No, it was, that’s just four chan culture that has beamed itself into the wider, right? Mm-hmm. And so it’s, it’s made up of these two things right now. And now I wanna talk about some of the people some of who, who made these various paths the, the sad life of some of the states of them who went to the left.

And we can see through how the ones who tried to go left ended up just completely crashing out out how bad it was to attempt to go left. And I think it comes down to this. Their audience. So we have another video. It hasn’t come out yet where we talk about like the future of the right. But if you look superficially at the right, right, right now you would say that there’s like two large faction.

There’s like the nerdy [00:21:00] consequentialist faction that’s like pro-war in Iran. Not anti-Israel, but like suspicious of Israel. . And, and this faction is, believes in genetic differences between ethnic groups, believes that those are significant and should play a role in how you see reality.

But they don’t have like a reflexive hatred of certain groups, like say Indians or something like that, or Jews. And then there’s the other group which is very deontological. They do you know, elevate sort of. Explicitly like reactionary views to groups like Indians and, and Jews. And that is very anti-Israel and anti doing anything, even if it’s in the United States best interest, like the war in Iran, if it ends up also helping Israel.

Mm-hmm. And there’s this perception, I think that these two groups are. Are equal because they are about equal in terms of the influencers on each side, in terms of the base on each side. And yet, you know, you look at polls and they show that like 90% of MAGA supports the war, right? They’re, they’re [00:22:00] not, the base isn’t actually divided on these issues.

It is an elitist influencer class that is divided on these issues. And I think what we actually saw was this earlier split that happened in the. Movement that started as the online atheist and now has become predominantly many of them, religious, although not all of them community is that the base was predominantly interested in what at the time led to the split, which was anti.

The, the influencer class, you know, your, ,

idubzz.

Malcolm Collins: your Lacy Greens, right? Like they thought. That the base was there with them, right? That they, they, or at the very least, that if about 50% of the influencers wanted to continue to be publicly respectable and cozy up with these progressive ideas, that about 50% of the base was also interested in that, right?

Mm-hmm. And they were fundamentally wrong. [00:23:00] The, the, the base. And I say this as somebody who grew up in these communities, right? Like I, all my friends were into this stuff growing up. We, like, we were all watching these channels. We were all, none of my friends went woke, right? Like, maybe like one or two did because they dated like a woke a girl and then they went off.

And who knows what sweet horror they’re living in now. But predominantly this, this community at, at the base level, has stayed on this journey since the beginning, and I think that that is in part how they had the critical number to end up making the substrate that the new right grew on within online culture.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But to get you, by the way, Simone, thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, keep going. Although I, I know. Do you have a take on, I, I kind of along the lines of what you’re saying of, of Trump not acting like a, a, a real, a religiously driven man, acting more like someone coming out of that atheist [00:24:00] community, even though, you know, we had a whole episode on his.

No, he does have a real

Malcolm Collins: version of Christianity that is very unique. And if,

Simone Collins: if you’re

Malcolm Collins: interested

Simone Collins: in, yeah, it’s unique, but it’s certainly not that old line Republican Christianity. Tucker Carlson’s later latest accusations of him following his remarks given during Easter were like, how dare he say these things about Iran?

There are Christians in Iran who are worshiping on Easter Sunday, and how could he say these things on this holiday and how could he say these things against Islam like never attack someone’s religion. And, he also was like, and he didn’t even put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in, which means that it’s not that he doesn’t believe in the Bible, it’s that he does and he’s gonna go against it, and he’s making all these religious, religiously based accusations, which I guess you could, you could argue is, is along the lines of this divide between the Al Line mainstream Christians and this.

New right movement.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is so this deontological influencer class is very, very interested in being ideologically pure. And [00:25:00] so when they look at somebody like Trump, where, you know, our religious beliefs are different from many right-wing people’s religious beliefs, and they’re very different from Trump’s religious beliefs, which are prob trump’s.

If, if you’re not familiar with Trump’s version of Christianity, it is about. From the perspective of a, a mainline Protestant about as crazy as technical puritanism,

Simone Collins: it’s very different.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It, it is. Just as a, a quick summary. It literally melds 1980s style self-help guru ideas. Mm-hmm. Whi Christianity in a way that Trump doesn’t see as inauthentic because the primary.

Pastor that he had was a famous 1980s self-help guru.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so he

Simone Collins: was, he probably sees him as like, synonymous, you know, like you gotta. Push through and be your best self and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that Christian.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because what he’s hearing at church during his entire childhood, in every, every sermon,

Simone Collins: Yeah.

And in, in the podcast where you go over all [00:26:00] this, you, you demonstrate how this really explains so much of Trump’s actions that if people only understood his philosophical, religious upbringing better, they’d be able to predict his actions more.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you’d be able to like his actions are extremely predictable once you understand his actual metaphysical and religious beliefs.

Mm-hmm. Which I respect, right? Like, I’m okay with being in a coalition with people have different religious beliefs, and I love it when people in the comments are like, they try to trash our, you know, your silly form of Calvinism that tries to meld it with modern scientific beliefs. And I’m like, look, you can hate on this all you want, but.

That was the religious beliefs of most of America’s founding fathers. Yeah. That was the predominant religious vibe in the, the 13 colonies mm-hmm. Is forms of Calvinism that tried to meld it with modern scientific beliefs. Now obviously science had advanced significantly since then, so our form of melding the two looks different than their forms of melding the two.

Yes. But their forms of melding the two were for their time experimental new religions. Mm-hmm. And, and so like. [00:27:00] To, to, to say like, oh, you can’t be this an an no. It’s like the core juice that America comes from. You may find it squidgy, but it is a, a very American type of Christianity. And, I think that, and when I say Trump’s religious beliefs, it’s also actually has a lot in common with the types of Christianity that were being practiced in the 13 colonies that we’re trying to meld it with new psychological ideas, new trends of the time and stuff like that to be a, a, a, a growing and living religion as opposed to totally calcified one.

Mm-hmm. And it’s just different ways of approaching things, right? Absolutely. But I, I don’t think people realize like how ly we believe our religious system now. Like when I came up, I was just like constructing it and now I’m just like, wow, this is a real, this is very persuasive to me. One of the funny things that we always get is when people reach out to us and they’re like, oh, well, here’s why X, Y, and Z about [00:28:00] your belief structure is wrong, right?

And this, the, the, the Bible’s actually saying this, and I’m like, the problem is, is that if you could convince me that the Bible is saying that, then I just wouldn’t believe the Bible. Right. Like, you’re not, you’re not convincing me that I am wrong about like the, the, the metaphysical truths of reality.

You’re, you’re trying to say that the Bible says something that I would find to, to be illogical.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And therefore. This reminds me of a, a, a crash out. One of our, our close family members had this Easter where he went on a long rant about this, which I think, you know shows.

Simone Collins: Oh my God, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it’s an argument that I’d actually never heard before. So I’ve got, I’m gonna, if we’re talking about the early edgy online atheist, I guess I should share this argument because that was actually fairly,

Simone Collins: it’s

Malcolm Collins: a

Simone Collins: great argument.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, that’s, that, that’s actually fairly persuasive where he said that he was really insulted by people.

In, in, in traditional normy [00:29:00] Christianity acting like Jesus made some great sacrifice because he’s like, Jesus sacrificed his life through torture to save the souls of all of humanity and every human that would ever come into existence. He said. Absolutely any remotely decent human being would make that trade.

He’s like, there are. Humans every day that die to save complete strangers

Simone Collins: and just one, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Not even their souls. And die in horrifying ways to achieve this end. And because I’m, I’m used to the atheist argument, which is like, why did, why did his sacrifice matter if he knew he was going to immediately be brought back as an all powerful God?

Mm-hmm. Then he didn’t meaningfully die. Right. But I had never heard the second one, which is to say, even if you don’t consider that, by the way, techno puritanism fixes most of these, which is, and this is one of the reasons why we, we build our own system because I, I couldn’t [00:30:00] get myself to, to, to buy something like that, that like a sacrifice like that had value.

‘cause I kind of think my has a point there. Right. I, I need a, a wider and alternate framing for me for this. To be a thing of value to me. Right. But it, it is completely, it’s just different, right. And it’s different than the way Trump looks at it or anything like that. But just for fun.

Atheist argument that I’d never heard before. And, and if I’m coming at a family member like that who is crashing about something like that, I’m gonna have a much easier time converting them into something like Op Puritanism than I am going to one of these older traditions. Right. Same as my kids.

You know, they, they’d leave the religion for the same reason my dad left the religion. Right. You know, so I’ve gotta, because I would’ve left the religion for those reasons.

I think if you grow up a Christian and learn to accept the elements that don’t make sense to outsiders, you don’t see how loud they look to an outsider. So when I talk about something like when my dad left, it was when he was in Sunday school and he went to his teacher and he [00:31:00] tried to understand the logistics of how Noah’s arc could have worked given the number of species on Earth.

, And, . He was basically just told to shut up, right? Like basically just punished for asking questions, and that’s a big problem. And this is a problem for me, like there’s other, like the, the issues I’ve asked here aren’t the only issues that I consider really existential for me, adopting the religion.

, One of the biggest is why a local revelation, like if God is all powerful and needing to accept, jesus is so important , , to go to heaven. , Why only have Jesus’s revelation in one location in earth at a time before mass communication? Couldn’t we at least have one Jesus per continent or have Jesus teleport between the various continents to give the revelation in multiple places?

Because that left a huge chunk of Earth’s population completely isolated from it for a long time. , . It, it’s funny, Mormons try to solve this by being like, oh, he did [00:32:00] actually teleport to the United States. But the, the point being is these may seem like trivial things to Christians, but if you were not raised in the church, they do not feel trivial at all.

And so when you try to convince me, oh, your alternate interpretation of this stuff is wrong, that I’m left with those initial problems again, and I don’t have good answers for them.

And again, this isn’t me like trashing on Christianity or something like obviously I consider myself a Christian now. , I’m just pointing out that when you say all these fixes that you’ve come up with, , are not correct, that I’m left with the initial problems again.

If you’re new to this channel, have no idea what I’m talking about. You can check out our track series or the, , channel list, Malcolm and Simone’s religious beliefs. , But the point being is it’s like I. I was like, okay, I will, I will slowly patch this thing back together into something that I can find plausible.

And then I take it to someone and I’m like, [00:33:00] here, look, I have found a way to make this believable to me. , And they’re like, well, we just need to remove all the patches. And I’m like, well, then it just falls apart. From my perspective, right, like you cannot remove a patch without explaining an alternate explanation for the thing that the patch was intended to fix.

When you remove the patches, you don’t lead to me believing the original thing, you lead to me believing the original thing was actually broken. , Which I think is something that people don’t understand when they’re discussing something like Christianity with somebody with an alternate understanding of it.

And this matters because not everybody who has done this journey, like say Sargon, who has not converted back into Christianity, . Right. , And, , I, I think the problem is it’s that. Many people who grew up Christians are accepted in some other tradition, , don’t understand how existential , the problems are.

Like take something like the problem of good and evil, , when I posit that God exists in the future and the reason [00:34:00] why. , He cannot just erase evil is because it would have a temporal paradox, , that that solves it for me, that’s like a plausible explanation for me when you say, well, God doesn’t exist in the future, then I’m left with the problem of good and evil again.

It’s not a small thing for me to think that it solves a very, very major problem for me.

So I’ve gotta create something that can work for the, you know, former edgy online atheist community member. But I want to go into some of the specific individuals here.

So of the ones who went right, we have thunder Foot or Phil Nathan Core early YouTube streamer. Why do people laugh at creationist series? He shifted prominently to anti-feminism, Gamergate support, and ongoing anti woke GW critique, and he’s still highly active and relevant in anti woke spaces. You have obviously a, a YouTube channel that I still watch regularly.

Sargon Evade Carl Benjamin started in the skeptic adjacent ki. Commun commentary. He, [00:35:00] he’s still an a CS as far as I’m aware exploded during Gamergate as anti, I love that. S shoe on, had converted to Christianity before gon and I cod. I

Simone Collins: think she was raised Catholic and then she returned to Catholicism during the pandemic.

That’s

Malcolm Collins: what she

Simone Collins: said.

Malcolm Collins: As an anti SJW voice, and obviously he’s evolved. You know, I, I you, you guys know if you are watching this channel, you know how important Sargon ev Acot has been in building the culture of the modern online, right. You have the Amazing Atheist or TJ Kirk major, their a CS provocateur, who became a central anti SJW figure expanded into political commentary.

And while he has critiqued extremes on all sides, he has stayed very strongly anti woke. Then you have armored skeptic a CS skeptic who became a key anti SJW voice in the Gamergate era. And as to the people who tried to go in the other direction the, the really bad one was Lacey Green.

So

Simone Collins: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Lacey Green.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So she peaked at around 1.5 million subs on her

Simone Collins: main. Oh, that’s a, okay. [00:36:00] It’s a lot of people. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s a lot of people. And she has since be because in the, she tried to go into like, against the anti SJW people, but she would do it through like interviews with them, which pissed off her left wing.

Like she, she would kind of wobble as well as she got pushback. And she, she tried coming back, but she’s basically off the internet now as far as I’m aware. And then, steve, Steve Cheves has been a steady bleed to like niche irrelevance. And then the really sad one that I like to still watch videos about is

idubzz.

Malcolm Collins: Who ended up having himself psychologically destroyed by this thought that I, when I say, I mean absolutely she streams on OnlyFans while being married to him.

Simone Collins: Oh no.

Malcolm Collins: Well then we’ve talked about her before and, and, and she basically wanted to make him Hassan ‘cause she had like a crush on Hassan. And they, they still do things with like Hassan and stuff like that. And it is very, very sad.

Speaker 9: My original last name is Washburn. My [00:37:00] new last name is Jama. That’s my wife’s last name. I would what he, I would recommend that he finds God our silence means something. He ha, he ha 2025 has to have been the worst year of IOS’s life by far losing his fans that have stuck by him ever since his reputation started to slip.

Speaker 10: Losing somebody that considered him a friend for over a decade, and of course losing his boxing event. Creator, clash.

Malcolm Collins: They, they get like a few hundred people show up to their streams these days.

Simone Collins: Speaking of Hassan, and I really appreciate in the, a recent episode of ours. We put out the question to our audience, why do women watch Hassan? Because I don’t get it. Explain. So she explained, and this is a Basecamp listener who, who works with a lot of progressive. Women who are also fans of Hassan.

Her understanding of it after watching them talk about him is that despite the fact that the [00:38:00] left is, is on paper very sex positive, they, it’s not really okay to, to be into submission or to be into being dominated. And to also be on the left. And Hassan, like Negs his, I guess largely FMA audience quite a lot.

And I, I just thought it as him being like abrasive and dismissive and mean to everyone. But like, yeah, I guess he does kind of just, you know, talk down to people and insult them, insult his own viewers. But a lot of this is like, leftist women who want to feel dominated and, and by a man who also, like another issue she pointed out is that most leftist men are like various sheep.

She put it soy. So it, they, they want to feel dominated by a non soy like man who also says all the right things. And she pointed out like she, he says all the right things about Palestine and about, you know, capitalism. And so, you know, it’s, it’s important ‘cause you can’t have like. Tate say something because he says the wrong [00:39:00] things, so you can’t think he’s hot, you know?

So he, he, he ticks all the boxes and that explains so much to me, and I’m so glad she explained that ‘cause it didn’t make sense. But now it all fits together that, that they want a, a hot non soy guy to speak down to them, put them in their place. And he, he does that. And he also still says all the right things politically.

So the trifecta. A

Malcolm Collins: trifecta.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, I like that. Yeah. This is. By the way, the reason people who are like, I want to deep dive into how all these people’s careers failed. There are so many YouTubers that you can go to for that that will do it in such a more entertaining way than me. And that’s like not our channel specialty.

I, I’m more interested in like the broader trends and how culture changes. Basically I, I like sort of doing explorative anthropology in real time. But I think that we’ve. Hit on it, which is that the base that was watching these people the base’s [00:40:00] core value never changed. The, the you had one base in the early days that was interested in things that were shocking and extremely authentic, and then you had another part of the base that was interested in things that were intellectually surprising, but fundamentally searching for truth.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the people who were fundamentally searching for truth were of course going to be as anti woke slash anti-urban monoculture slash anti-feminist as they were anti-Christian in the early days or, or the version of Christianity that, that existed back then. Right. Hmm. And, back to Christianity. They did not go back. Their conversions into Christians do not sound like the types of conversions you’d expect somebody from other communities to have. It wasn’t like I hit rock bottom and then, or like one of my parents died and then, or like my family was really struggling and [00:41:00] then it, it, it’s usually often more, well, I thought about it logically you know, which is.

A very, it, it, it, it fits in line with the community. I mean, when you look at the, the, the, the members of the original atheist community usually the, the, the path goes is they first start saying, as. I think all four of the four formen of the a c apocalypse have since said is that it was a mistake to make places like the UK less Christian that Christianity was a good institution and central to the values of our culture.

And that retreating from Christianity was a mistake. And first you hit this position, then you have kids, and it’s like, well, if you believe that. Retreating from Christianity was a mistake and now you’re raising a little one, like, what are you gonna do? Right? Like, of course you raised them Christian, right?

Like, or you try to build an iteration of Christian like we have done, and I, other of our fans have done [00:42:00] an iteration of Christianity for them that they’re not going to just be like, well, explain this. Like, I actually wanna have explanations that Ia the toddler would’ve found. Compelling during, during that period instead of just like, well, we don’t you know, you’re, you’re being as, as, as what happened to my dad and led him to leave the religion before I was born.

So I was never raised in it.

Speaker 6: And , I actually don’t even understand why, , many Christians do not understand how existential these things seem. If I’m adopting a religion I want to pass to my kids, where when I was a rebellious kid, I would’ve immediately been like. Oh, that just seems totally implausible to me.

Right? , The Noah’s arc story that caused my dad to deconvert is important to me because you need an explanation, right? Like, you can’t just say, well, some of this is, , just meant as an allegory. , And some of this is objectively true because then it’s, well, how, how do I differentiate between the two things?

, But as I mentioned earlier, , [00:43:00] the biggest question for me, like the one that. Always got me the hardest is why the local revelation, if it’s an all powerful God, and this is existential for saving your soul. Why the local revelation? That seems like such a trivial thing to potentially fix. , And I think this isn’t just true for my interpretation, it’s true for a lot of interpretations when somebody comes to you as an iteration of Christianity that seems radically wrong or different to you.

. It may be because like , the parts where you’re like, oh, I’m just removing all the parts that are different from my interpretation, or I’m challenging all the parts that are different from my interpretation. , That you are removing all of the patches that made it plausible to them. You are leaving them with something that is just from their perspective, fundamentally unacceptable again.

And I think this mistake comes from the belief that some Christians have that, , somebody doesn’t adopt Christianity because they don’t like the rules or they hate God or [00:44:00] something like that. And if you look at what was being talked about in these early atheist communities, that is not what was being talked about.

It was the logical issues in accepting the religion as it is commonly presented. And the techno Puritan project was my. In Simone’s, , journey to attempt to fix those issues for us, the issues never stopped being issues. It wasn’t like one day we woke up and we’re like, oh, all of those issues never existed in the first place.

The issues are still there for us.

And when people are like, well, just ignore the things that feel like logical contradictions to you, , or that feel like they would imply that God is not a good God. If you take the traditional, , interpretation, what are, like, what are you even talking about? Like I, if I’m gonna actually believe Christianity, which I do now, or at least my interpretation of it, , that’s me choosing.

Like literally the most existential thing I believe about reality. That’s choosing how I think the [00:45:00] metaphysics of the entire universe, reality, morality, everything like that works. I can’t choose to just pave over or ignore. , What to me looked like fundamental cracks, for something so completely existential about my interpretation of reality.

, And I think that this is true for a lot of people, right? And this is why that movement happened to begin with. Just what people came to realize is, oh, civilization doesn’t seem to work without this. And then the question , is, well, how do you fix it? While still accepting that the problems that we saw were real problems.

And again, as I’ve said, even if I could ignore everything that looks like a logical or moral problem to me in a traditional interpretation and just be like, okay, I’m just gonna go with it. I know that my kids wouldn’t just go with it. So. it, it is put upon me if I want, at least within my family, this tradition to survive.

I need to reinterpret it. I’m not doing that on some sort of power [00:46:00] trip or to be edgy or something like that. There is , a utilitarian reason why this project exists for us and our family.

Also for those who would say like, oh, Malcolm and Simone, you guys are starting a cult or whatever, by having an alternate interpretation. , You know, I wrote a book like five years ago saying I was going to do this. I started doing the tracks a number of years ago in that entire time because people have have been able to observe my behavior since then.

Have I ever done anything that would in insinuate that I am doing this to attempt to extract resources from other people, force someone to have sex with me, you know, any of the other stuff that like cult leaders do, right? , That I am doing this for literally any reason than trying to pass down an iteration of Christianity to my children, that they will find plausible and acceptable from their position.

I, I, I, [00:47:00] I don’t think I have.

Malcolm Collins: I did go to church every week, people wondering. I just wasn’t raised to be Christian. I went to church because my school was religious. All of my schools were religious up until, high school. I went to church every week. So, and I’m a big fan of like for people who think I, a huge fan and Simone knows this of me, of Christian Radio.

Simone Collins: Sorry, Texas speaking up. AM Christian radio like not just Christian radio?

Malcolm Collins: My favorite by the way is the cavalry church. Cavalry Church radio I think is just fantastic.

Simone Collins: Cavalry.

Malcolm Collins: Cavalry. Oh yeah. Cavalry Church. They, they do great stuff. And I really, I really like their version of Christianity.

I, I think it’s a really solid, I mean, obviously it’s, it’s not my version of Christianity today, but

Simone Collins: it’s high. It’s high energy. You like that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s high energy and I think it is you know, really close to being biblically accurate. Like it really tries to take the Bible seriously rather than leaning into modern Christian [00:48:00] interpretations, which I don’t always see as you know, sometimes they take our conventions about what the Bible says.

Mm-hmm. Or what we would like the Bible to say over what the Bible actually says. And cowboy Church is very. Much, you know, Bible first.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Which I deeply appreciate.

Speaker 11: what’s interesting to me is this. Love of Cavalry Church and these extremely strict interpretations of the Bible. This came for me when I was still an atheist, like as an intellectual interest perspective. , So for me, this has never been about hating the Bible or not liking to intellectually engage with it.

It was. A number of logical issues I could not get through, and if it’s about my metaphysical understanding of a morality and reality, I can’t just pave over them.

Simone Collins: This is so interesting to me. Yeah. You’re really getting me to think of things about things differently too. I mean, even in the way that intellectual YouTubers on the right and left appear on their channels, like [00:49:00] you have philosophy tube and contra points doing these elaborate.

Costumed lit performances of philosophy, but their performances first and foremost, versus like people literally hiding behind, you know, an avatar. Not even showing up on screen at all, or just like rapid fire talking with very little production on the right. Really just letting the ideas come through. It’s really about the ideas and not the performance of them.

I’m, I’m really seeing a new form of this divide that we’re always returning to on this podcast. So,

Malcolm Collins: well, I think that there’s this, a separate thing that you see with right-leaning influencers that you don’t see as left-leaning influencers is right-leaning influencers. Not all of them, but it is more common in right-leaning influencers, content, like to be seen as having the alternate perspective being aired g explaining the counter argument and trying to counter that, right? Mm-hmm. Whereas this is not something you see on Philosophy Tube or counterpoints as much. And, and like [00:50:00] with you

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no, no. They, they, they put the alternate view, but they like frame it as like, well, and what Satan believes is like, it’s just always framed in such a bad light.

Malcolm Collins: You’re such a strong man. Yeah. The, the other thing of right-leaning influencer culture is that it is extremely happy and high energy much, much more frequently.

Simone Collins: And that’s why shoe on Head is, I think, an exception of someone who leans.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Very. At least libertarian at at the very

Malcolm Collins: nux.

Andor is a good example of this, for example.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, but I mean, that’s, I think it’s normative on the right for people to be high energy and enthusiastic. And optimistic and,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, if you, if you look at some of the original players who got into this space before the four Chan and YouTube cultures merged mm-hmm.

You have players like Sarco who doesn’t fit this. He is

Simone Collins: still very, you have to throw out anyone who’s British. It’s in their nature.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, it’s a, a genetic defect of the British people.

Simone Collins: They didn’t escape to the colonies. It’s the ones who couldn’t make it off. Failure to launch.[00:51:00]

Malcolm Collins: Look at that baby.

Simone Collins: Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I, I I. And this, this exists throughout. Mm-hmm. But you don’t see it as much in left leaning culture. Like Hassan rarely smiles or is happy?

Simone Collins: No. The, the really weird thing with left-leaning culture, like I was saying earlier, ‘cause I, I listen to plenty of people on the left who also like, are more on the comedian end of the spectrum too, like podcasters, but even they, it’s a very dark humor and they, they frame themselves even very openly is like.

Being on meds, seeing therapists actively dealing with anxiety and depression problems, like it’s very clear that they’re deeply unhappy and unwell. And I just don’t see that the same way on the right. Even when people actually are un unwell, they’re like unwell on that kind of like. Prolonged manic period, way instead of the Yeah.

[00:52:00] Prolonged depressive period way.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think it’s because you know, if you’re, if you’re in this community is like the, the new deontological community did not grow up alongside this community. They are very different than this community. I mean, I think that that’s where we see these culture clashes and stuff like that.

Right. When Matt Walsh crashes out about anime, Matt Walsh was never in this wider community that became the seeded of the online. Right? Right. Like he cannot fathom. How, how anime could be so popular in communities. Right? Yeah. And it’s, it’s actually the same as you even see it was like, obviously one of the most famous people who’s, who’s countered this community is Nick Fuentes.

Right. And while he’s young, like, like this community often is, he never really engaged in those parts of the community, right? Like he was never an anti-feminist culture warrior. He was never an anti woke culture warrior. It’s clear he never really [00:53:00] consumed that content. If you listen to his story about how he became right wing, he started out as a generic, GOP Inc.

Old school conservative, and then. Just became anti Jew because he kept being attacked by Ben Shapiro. Right. He, he never no, no. This is actually really important, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, it is actually. He never

Malcolm Collins: consumed this content. He was never part of this culture. So when he speaks to people, he’s speaking to a completely separate cultural subset.

You see this with other, like, we might be around the same age as Ben Shapiro, but Ben Shapiro popped off.

Simone Collins: No, I think he’s a good seven years older than us at

Malcolm Collins: least. Oh, but he’s talking to a completely separate community, right? Like he never consumed this content. He’s never really part of the foot on the ground culture wars, because he was already part of GOP Inc at the very beginning, right.

I, I believe that like he was the type of person who, when Trump started winning in the primary, [00:54:00] a lot of us were still Democrats, but we were like, isn’t this funny? Right? Like, let’s try to make Trump win. That’d be hilarious. Yeah. Right. Like, and that’s where he got his early boost in the primary.

That’s where he got his relevance was in Fortune. Right? Like that’s when I say magnet created fortune, Trump wouldn’t have had the votes for people to say, let’s take this guy seriously, if not for the four chan boost.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They tried to boost him in all the polls and all the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But this also explains why you know, some in, in many ways, in, in, in sort of the, the old school and deontological Christians and Jews that, that, that Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro can find themselves on the same side against. This, well already, like largely here, I wouldn’t say it’s a growing movement.

It’s a movement that has been snowballing through so many different domains of the internet. And then land and plop right in the center of, of MAGA somehow. And it’s, it’s culturally [00:55:00] fascinating how this happened And, a lot of people are, are obviously wailing and squealing that they, they don’t get it.

They don’t understand what, why this movement thinks the way they do, what their values are and how do they control the White House all of a sudden.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: right. Like, how, how do they control so many online influencers all of a sudden, and why, how are v tubers Okay. As conservative icons, why are anime girls, why is Rev says desu a guy?

Who uses an anime girl, this V YouTuber icon, a leading conservative influencer. What is going on? Like I’m so confused, their brain because they weren’t here on the journey. And maybe this can even just serve if you weren’t here on the journey, a conserv as a video that can help you understand why this group seems so culturally weird and where it came from and how it grew.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it might be worth doing a whole other video on where leftist culture came from. Like the story from Tumblr to the left. [00:56:00]

Simone Collins: Or if you want to start with Quakers, some people have asked for us to start from the very

Malcolm Collins: beginning. Oh yeah, that’d be an interesting one. Yeah. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Love you to death, love too society.

And I hope dinner. We already talked about that. So have a good one.

Simone Collins: Bye.

Malcolm Collins: What? What’s wrong with me saying it’s the tassel look,

Simone Collins: it’s not tassel. T-A-U-S-S-L-E-D, I think. Not T-A-S-S-E-L, but sure. It’s the tassel look. God bless

Malcolm Collins: people. See my malicious compliance and traditionalism, they’re always confused. Why do I think Canvas? It’s, well, I’ve gotta be the most trad man in the world.

And so all these other guys, they dress like they’re out of the 1950s. Try, try dressing. Like you’re out of the 13 hundreds.

Simone Collins: Well, I guess you have what’s that one? The sad British men? They have a, some sort of Greek statue presumably. What is that? [00:57:00]

Malcolm Collins: It said lo the Lotus Eaters.

Simone Collins: Lotus Eaters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. That’s even older. That’s like, that’s like

Simone Collins: they’re trad. Maxing or

Malcolm Collins: something. Or you know, I think it could be, I don’t know. Yeah, trad. Maxing right there. Yeah. Gotta go.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: I could be like a, a Greek statue just gotta come on every show shirtless, like flexing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Recently you know, you gotta take the sigil to your skin or what do they call it?

The not sigil. The scrapy thing, you gotta rub the olive oil on and you gotta use the

Malcolm Collins: oh yeah, yeah. Come totally greased up.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. That’s

Malcolm Collins: how you know that this is a straight issue.

Simone Collins: Greased up and, and exfoliated, they had, the men had skincare routines back then. I’ll tell you what, you know, they, the baths, they, the cold plunge they had the, the hot saunas.

The god they are. That is, is that what, because you know, there’s a sauna craze now again, and in addition to the cold plunges, they’re just going full on Roman.

Malcolm Collins: No. Really? No. But yeah, the reason I chose gamba and style is because I like the way that it I think anything that like goes up behind your neck [00:58:00] and sort of flares out like that is really good.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: For projecting sort of a, like a, a strength look. Cool, cool. Look, you know, it’s a

Simone Collins: no. I mean, certainly like if you’re trying to demonstrate masculinity, higher neck lines or high collars and, and exaggerated shoulders are like. That’s why shoulder pads,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, I’m not, I’m not exaggerating my shoulders though.

This is talking about the, the neck area.

Simone Collins: No, it’s just, it’s structured though. And, and like for example, even a muscular man when he chooses to wear a sweatshirt instead of structured shoulders. Looks more slouchy, looks less masculine. Anyway, looks more like a human potato

Malcolm Collins: for dinner tonight. What do, oh yeah, we’re doing Bullock again.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That was fantastic last night. But mix in a bit of the

Simone Collins: Bullock and we have the green onions for topping as well. Yeah. Bullock with, with mozzarella and cheddar of course. And then sesame seeds and green onion.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the, the, the bit of cheddar really adds to it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s got penal.

Speaker 12: [00:59:00] Do you want me to?

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