G'day guys, welcome to the Life of Sev, the Sevo show, many names for it, still haven't really nutted down on one yet. That's the start of every episode, isn't it? On this very special episode, something I haven't done in over five months, probably half a year now, which is record a YouTube episode or video. And with this one here, I'm still relatively testing it out and stuff and make sure that it's working and all that. But I'm recording this on the video, and every time you see me look up at the screen there, I'm looking at myself going, damn, that's nasty. But it's a Monday, it's raining, it's 8.55 in the morning, November 9th, and I'm using my brand new road mic that I got from a friend who never used it.  I gotta get it up now. But yeah, on Facebook, someone was like selling my mic and I'm like sold, I'm doing it. I'll have it. So I've got a good little rig there, you can see it and see if I can find it. But, but anyway, nonetheless, I've got my mic, everything's happening. Josh, his name's Josh. Shout out to Josh Penagrath. Glad to have my phone there ready and willing to go. Anyway, so to keep this interesting today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to practice my live story pretty much like a summary of where I'm at and where I've come from. So, and this is to help me with my speech that I have coming up on the 24th of November. I have been invited to keynote speak, which is something I actually wanted for a very long time. Actually, not a very long time, very short time. I don't know why I said long time, but recently, this year, sometime earlier this year, I was like, you know what, it'd be cool to be a keynote speaker of some day, whether it's providing value, selling something or just, just, you know, telling my story or all of the above in no particular order. Probably just storytelling. I love it. And then, yeah, it came about and I said to put my hand up and I was like, you know what, let's do it.  So here we are, alive, grateful, thankful. It's been an absolutely amazing year for me anyway, even though 2020 is shat on a lot of people, a lot of the world for majority of them. So here we go.  I was born in the former Soviet Union in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, in a little town called Tokmak, where I grew up with my grandpa, uncle, grandma, my mom was a teacher. She left me to hang out with my grandparents while she worked as a teacher all around the country, in particular places like Krosnoyarsk. And I think she did a little bit of a stint in Moscow. In 1997, I migrated with her to Australia at the tender age of six. And I, yeah, couldn't understand anything anyone was saying. Couldn't speak English at all. So it was year one, first grade.  Anyway, long story short, for my younger life, I grew into it, learnt the English language, started falling in love with things like, you know, footy and video games and things like that. And that was me. That was me pretty much through primary school, riding my bike and starting to learn how to use a computer. Because, you know, like, even though the computer was around by the time I was born, it started to really evolve and I evolved with it, which is really cool.  I remember my first time I figured out how to use a printer accidentally. I was like, what's this button doing?   What's happening here? And yeah, he was like, oh, that's the printer. Don't waste my ink. And I was like, oh, sorry for being exploratory. Yeah, done one. Anyway, 2002, I moved to Calguli, which is a country town five, 600 kilometers east of Perth City, Perth City being one of the most secluded cities in the world. Yeah, so I was secluded even more in a country town with pretty much starting again in grade eight, first year of high school here in Australia. And yeah, just started to make new friends, get into the countryside of football and get through school there, got into a little bit more gaming, started taking a little bit more seriously, but towards the end of my high school career, where I graduated, no special things or anything involved with it, no honors or anything, just graduated, just graduated. And it was really into my gaming. My first person shooters, I love the guitar hero and all of that stuff. But then what happened was I, my mom said to me, you got to go to uni or you got to get a job. So I said, okay, I'll get a job. Got a job as a lifeguard, loved it, hated the boss, hated the bosses, hated the politics.  I wanted to get into the AFL, really, really wanted to make the AFL. And after eight years of the waffle, it never happened. I didn't end up getting in there. But during that time, I learned a lot about myself, and particularly through my younger years of adulthood in my 20s. I grew as a person, matured a little bit more, in particular, the whole emotional maturity, which really helped. I got a degree in Bachelor of Teaching. And I also grew the passion of photography, which was really cool. And within the first, so 2017, I graduated. At the same time, I lost my passion for footy, gained a real, real big interest in the passion with photography. And then I started to work as a teacher. So 2018 was my first year out of uni. And the first three terms, or the first two terms, so the first semester, I was just a relief teacher. And then I managed to get my first contract by term three. And then by term four, I had been made permanent. So I was like, sick. That's me. That's me. That's me for at least the next five, 10 years. I was stoked. 2019 came along. And I was ready for a big year. My first full year as a full time school teacher with designated allocated classes and students and parents to report to. And it was exciting. First term was good. Second term was great. And then the photography world really started to bug me a little bit in a good way. I started to do tours around the city. I started to network with a lot of people, a lot of creators started getting in a little bit into video. And then around, or I'd say July, August last year. So yeah, I decided to go, you know what, what would I be most disappointed in leaving? Because I found myself stuck. I couldn't do more than one thing to the best of my ability. It was either the option of being a jack of all trades master of none, or really, really doubling down on one specific thing for at least 12 months of seeing how I go. Now teaching is kind of what I did for those first 12 months, but I had that distraction of photography. I had no more footy.  And that's pretty much it. But school being invested full time as a school teacher and being invested as a full-time photographer is difficult. And I struggle with that hard because I couldn't juggle the two of them. So this year, I decided to go, hey, I'm going to take 12 months off of teaching and go for it and give it a go with my photography stuff. Fell in love with weddings, fell in love with the art of capturing two lovers' magical day where their two families meet. And yeah, March, early March, 2020. Fucking, what's it called? Coronavirus. How are ya?  It's not really pandemic proof because if no one's allowed to come out of their house to get married, I'm kind of fucked. So I hit up the school and said, hey, do you have any relief for me? And they said, yeah, we do. Do you mind taking a couple of classes full-time for the rest of the year, though, like a part-time role? And I was like, okay, I'll do one. Then a week later, we went into lockdown. So I had saved myself unintentionally in terms of cash flow. And that's a keyword, too. Cash flow is cash flow. You make money, you pay the bills. However, it wasn't something that was really calling out to me. I didn't want to get up in the morning and leave the house at 8am. See, right now I'm talking and it's currently 9.04. I should be at school by now, but I don't teach on Mondays and Fridays because my class, the only class I teach is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Anyway, so I went in and dedicated to one class, my year aides, my love year aides. I still teach them right now. And as the pandemic started to lift in WA, God bless you, Mark McGowan. Thank you so much for what you've done so far. The restrictions eased up and the bookings and the demand for my skills in photography increased, which was originally the plan for this year. So I still managed to get a majority of my 2020 where I wanted it to be, which is in photography, but I also dabbed a little bit back into the teaching field just to make sure that I was covered. Anyway, meanwhile, starting from last year, I discovered a little app called TikTok because the students in the class were using it and I was like, the hell's that?  Yeah, you should get on it. And I was like, really? Okay, I'll give it a go. I uploaded a couple of videos, thought nothing of it. It's pretty tricky to get around. And yeah. And I was like, yeah, I'll leave it at that for now and then come back to it whenever. Then a few days passed, a few weeks passed after I just started TikTok. This is back in 2019 now, like April. Yeah, April last year. And the kids started talking. I could hear them talking about my videos. I can hear them.  That was quick. Then they started telling me, sir, I love your TikToks. I was like, what? How do you know about my TikToks? It wasn't on private because I'm not a private person. I don't have any skeletons to hide. And yeah. Then I was like, oh, well, if they're watching me and they're talking to me, I've built rapport moment. So then what happened was I started to double down a little bit. I started to create some humorous, relatable teaching sort of videos. And the kids loved it. And when viral started talking about my height being a giant, you know, it's quite noticeable.  I'm tall. Here is a funny story of mine where I'm tall when viral account blew up 10,000 followers, 20,000 followers. By the end of 2019, I had to master over 50,000 followers and counting. By July 2020, I had 100,000 followers. Then 150,000 followers followed by verification, which is a pretty big goal in the scheme of things, especially for influencers and stuff. But I was still just fully investing in myself, investing in my ways of just making the videos for me and making a couple of my students laugh. That was really it. It's still, still to this day, the intentions.  Kids and older people started recognizing me on the street in Perth. And I'm just like, what? And they're asking me for a photo and I'm like, what? Okay, whatever. I like it. It's fun. And then I was invited into the creators group of TikTok and they introduced me to a whole bunch of creators all around Australia and New Zealand and the world. And I thought, damn, okay, we'll get to know these people and collaborate with them, share some ideas. I met some amazing, amazing creators and I still talk to them every day, made some good friends from it as well. So at the end of the day, if TikTok was deleted tomorrow or banned or whatever, I'd be super stoked with the people that I've met. That's it. That's really it. However, we're still going. We're still going. So what happens next? Because I've got my TikTok, it's blowing up, reached 200,000 followers and I would get brand deals. I started getting emails from all these different brands and I'm skeptical. I'm like, okay, what is this? Is this a scam? Is this a phishing attempt? What is this? Are they trying to get my password or something? And they said, hey, do you reckon you can play this song in the background of one of your videos? Yeah, okay. They're like, well, we'll give you 100 euros. And I was like, 100 euros? Okay, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, no worries. Did it. The video didn't do that well. But yeah, that was stoked. They were like, thank you for this so much.  They didn't hit me up soon because I don't think the video did that well. But I was like, damn, was it that easy? Was it that easy? When I started doing live streams, people could donate and I'm just like, what? They can donate money in the form of gifts, you know? And then I cashed out on that and I was just like, okay, cool. As a kid started to ask me about my TikTok and if I was starting to make money from it, I actually said, yes, yes I am. And they got interested. The kids at school got interested. They were invested. They wanted to hear more of my story and I'm just like, well, here's what's happening. Here's an email I got the other day. I'm fully transparent in my journey and they love it. And then it hit me. It was just like, there's nothing more gangster than a teacher doing something that most of the kids want to do as well, but doing that in front of them day by day, every day and updating, it's gold. It's a gift and I'm embracing it. So anyway, back to my wedding photography story and this is where they start colliding. So we're in 2020 now. I am looking forward to a new innovation, not innovation, but you can really make it up as you go. But Instagram decided to go, I'm going to release something called Reels. And I said, okay, that's good. That's nice. I'm going to really cling on to that too. And because of my wedding photography page, I'm going to say, okay, what's a 15 second video that I can make for Reels that can be relatable to the wedding industry, attract clients and also have a bit of me involved in it, which is the humorous side. So I made a few videos and I also put them on TikTok. Why not? Both of them spread the net as wide as you can. And yeah, it worked. It worked. Even though I thought my audience was a majority kids from school that weren't probably going to get married anytime soon for the next at least 10 years, I thought stuff it. You know what? The worst case is they'll identify me as a photographer, as a wedding photographer, and they may have cousins, older cousins, or even parents who want to get married. Why not? And they'll recommend me. It only takes one. And then that one video that took me barely five minutes to make through the one year experience I had prior learning the app to, yeah, pull it out there and see how I go. Nothing to lose. Worst case is I get a few views, a few new followers, and a funny video that I can look back in 10 years time going, that was funny. So I've released the video. And the video was of me with a camera from my point of view. And I said, okay, this is what the camera, this is what the photographer sees. And it's the bride getting ready in the bathroom. And then I flipped the camera around on to me. And I said, this is what the bride sees. And it's the photographer. And because I'm tall, this is where my height comes in as well, which is helpful. There's me standing in the bathtub awkwardly with my head kind of like tilted because I'm about to touch the roof. And when viral, 300,000 views on TikTok. And I think about, I think over 20,000 views on Reels as well. There was another video as well. There was another one where the bride was sitting there waiting patiently waiting for her to go out to the ceremony. And I was sitting on the chair across from her.  She was sitting down. The angle was better. So I got the phone out again. And I said, hey, do you mind we can make a funny little video? She said, oh my God, yes. And the best thing is she knows me from TikTok. And this is where the story goes. So the first video that I did, the one in the bathroom, I got two clients from that, two people that hit me up on email saying, hey, I saw your video on TikTok. And I think you're hilarious. I'm from Perth. And I'm also getting married soon. What are your rates? I'd love to hire you. Bang, got it. Second one came in. Bang, got it. Easy. And I never intentionally even meant to make my TikTok a business page. It was just, it was just Sev's pics. And you can already tell, okay, this photographer, but it's just humorous stuff. And when I go around the, around the shops or the city or whatever, kids come up to me and say, hey, are you Sev's pics from TikTok? Can we have a photo? You know? And the parents see me and they see how much the kid likes me.  That's sus. And then they see my content and then they like it. And then they tell their friends about it.  I'm getting married soon. I might kid him up.  True story. So then what happens? That second video I'm sitting there. I'm, I've got the phone out and I filmed the lady, the bride. Her name's Michelle. Shout outs to Michelle. And Michelle's just sitting there patiently waiting. She's, you know, being all nice. And I'm like, Hey, Michelle, do you reckon you can record me? Just do my thing. And yeah, she recorded me and I was a bit extra flamboyant with my little camera, you know, maneuvering. And yeah, put that on Reels, put that on TikTok, viral, viral, another booking. That's it. Creating content for the business and adding a little bit of humor, relatability, maybe a little bit of a shock horror, not too much, you know, don't want to jeopardize the business, but something relatable. And I was like, damn, is it that easy? It's, it's, it's, it's so simple. And you see how the business is doing, you see them talk about it. You're like, Oh, I don't know. You know, like in, in, uh, in America, I found a, I discovered a sunglass company called Rubo. And they were just starting out in, uh, in Wisconsin, Wisconsin or Minnesota, uh, one of the two. Anyway, they started out and I was like, Hey, I like your stuff. I really like your stuff.  And I really hope that you guys make it. And they sent me out a pair of sunglass. And then they went like, not because of me, but they started going viral. They started doing relatable content, even nothing, even to do with sunglasses. They were doing quirky things like little science projects or things that kind of reel you in and make you like, Oh, I want to watch more of this. I'm going to, I'm going to subscribe to them or follow them. And when they followed them, then every now and then they would start talking about their business saying, Hey, we've got sunglasses. People naturally want to want to purchase them. And not because they feel like they have to, because they feel like they need to, because they're watching this content. I'm like, Oh man, I really like those guys that make those really fun videos with the sunglasses.  That's what people do. So I thought, okay, I want to do that too.  Even 10 years down the track, I'd love to see where I'm at with those kids getting older. I see a lot of comments these days where the kids are like, I can't wait to get married now. I'm only 12, but when I get married, I'm hiring you as my photographer. I get that comment at least three or four times every video I make related to photography and especially wedding photography. So there's my kind of little success story. So now brands started noticing this and they're hitting me up and saying, Hey, would you like to review a product? Would you like to do this for me? Or in exchange for this product, can you make a video? Now I'm not really about contract because I really don't have as much time, but I thought it was a good opportunity to give it a go and practice and see how it goes. And my one main mission wasn't to get paid or to explode with more business deals, but to really make one, at least one business, go viral and grow exponentially in a short amount of time. That was my aim. Then came along social dot, social dot. Let's see if we can focus in on this. Come on, here we go. All right. So if you're watching the YouTube video, you can see the social dot logo sticker. It's on the back of my mobile. It's a little chip reader. Anyway, they gave me the little chip for free, sent it over from Queensland and I started making a couple of videos. But I didn't just create them a video and then posted it for them, tagged them in it, and then let them repost it as well. I looked at their TikTok and I looked at their Instagram and I said, Hey, this is what I would change. This is what I did and what worked for me. And this is how I would implement that same similar strategy into your work. And they said, we had a full on discussion about it. They were even on my podcast and we were talking about it. And then less than two to three weeks later, they hit the jackpot. They went viral. They started implementing the practice. And yeah, I mean, there's a testimonial that they wrote for me and it says it all. They said, after a couple of weeks, after talking with you, we've blown up through the roof and now we're even considering international sales again, which we kind of threw out the window prior. And I'm like, that's awesome. My goal was successful. I get fulfillment that a business was helped because of my expertise in quotations, but I wanted more. How do I do that more? I want more of this. So here I am talking about the story and it's the beginning process. It's still all fresh because we just came out of COVID and we're still pretty much into it as well, especially for around the world. But as Brand started noticing me doing this, I found myself naturally teaching them how I would do better in their scenario. They implemented it, it worked and they gained traction in the sales. So more businesses are coming forward to have me help with their content, but I naturally started helping them with what they're at in their TikTok and social media integrations, integration surrounding their business.  So here I am talking about with you and how I came to making relatable content for myself, to trialing a couple of TikToks with the pure intention of brand or business awareness. It worked and other brands asked me to help them with this or within the space of one year, just because I wanted to try it out because the kids were into it. Attention is where it's at. TikTok has helped me recognise the potential I already had as a teacher, but more so in the business world to capitalise on new opportunities within the social media world. So how do these brands contact me exactly? Well, TikTok has a creator marketplace and different brands from all over the world can choose a creator they like to potentially work and collaborate with in exchange for monetary or contra payment. I was approached multiple times and instead of just offering them a video in exchange for a free packet of face wash, I decided to dissect their channel to then throw some potential value their way on how I would improve it. You know, it's not hard. Just give a bit of value without expectations and you never know what can happen. They listen. It worked. I loved that more than just creating a 60 second video. I was hooked. I tried a few of my favourite businesses like restaurants, products and even my own merch. I even had merch and it worked. I tried it with a few other places like my favourite line or comment would be, I bought this from your TikTok you made or because of your TikTok. I'm here from your TikTok. I went to this restaurant and checked out this dish because you put it on TikTok and I thought I needed to have a go. So yeah, and that's pretty much it.  But going back to my own business and how I see my clients coming into hire me as their photographer, it's simply underpriced attention like never before. TikTok is Instagram back in 2012 slash 30. And TikTok is like Facebook back in 0708. It's something that you need to jump on. But yeah, at first even I was hesitant and as they were the clients but the insight I figured they would benefit from also worked and it's what I wanted to do. So if it's here to stay you might as well grow with it, learn it and help others implement it and benefit their brands, businesses, companies or personal identities such as influencers. I'm already excited for the next platform because I've had the practice and experience building from the ground up with TikTok. So my biggest advice to you though is document your journey. If you can do it in a comical or other interesting way, that is my number one most successful insight to any video or brand ever. Just document. Once the audience is watching you, product placement comes in and even though you're not forcing sales down once, they'll notice and will forward you onto someone that will. So yeah, I mean, that's it. That's pretty much the half hour spiel right there. And I think for timing wise, apart from a little bit at the start for my extra long life story, I hope you enjoyed it. That's pretty much where I'm at right now. And the journey that I've had going from getting my bachelor degree in teaching, not even knowing the English language 20 years prior, I mean 20 years, you can learn a lot of languages in that time. But yeah, going to actually considering quitting the profession in that specific department of the education system, but using those skills to teach others how to build their social media platform for their brand, business or personal influence. I love doing that because I have a feeling that it's going to be a lot more personal, a lot more double down on it in the next 10 to 20 years before the next big thing comes in. But I'm excited because it's fun. And I love networking. And once the people that realise that networking is what it's all about to not even drive sales to, but just to build a network of people that then can naturally push your brand onto them indirectly as well. That's what happened to me. And it's the best because you could talk to 100 people and it just takes one of them. You could talk to a thousand people. It just takes one of them. You could talk to 10,000 people. It just takes one of them to get you to the next level and then just go again. But as long as you love the journey, you're already winning.  But yeah, that's it guys. Thanks for listening. Tap out there. If you guys have any questions, feel free to comment below. Send me a message on Instagram at Sev's Picks. You know the drill. If you listen to this episode, let me know about it and say, hey, Sev, I listened to your podcast. I like the episode. I want to know more about this. But until then, as always, good thanks. Have a great rest of your day and amazing time. Hope you're well. And yeah, I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.


So this is Nick Gillespie. This is the Reason Livestream. I'm joined today by my Reason colleague, Natalie Dozicki. Hi, Natalie. Hey, happy to be here. Is it Dozicki or Dowzicki? Dowzicki. You're close. Okay, yeah, close enough for anti-government work. And we're joined by Eli Lake, who is calling in from an undisclosed location. Hello, Eli, thanks for joining us. Hi, Nick. Thanks for having me. Okay, I want to point out at the beginning that Natalie and you are both from the Philadelphia area.  Okay. Where are you from? I'm from Germantown. I'm from outside King of Prussia. Oh! Oh my God, then you're not, I mean, that's like Harrisburg, right? I thought you were actually from Philadelphia. Close enough. Yes, no. Okay, so we are this today. We are doing a live stream conversation for about the next hour. And it's gonna revolve around Kanye West, who is, you know, one of the greatest musical artists, arguably a major player in fashion, particularly in street wear, but definitely a major, major recording artist who has a bizarre history of both challenging the conventional wisdom, particularly when it comes to racial and political matters, but also has a history of mental illness, which he's talked about openly. He's bipolar and he actually absented himself from social media for the better part of two years, I think, right, or 18 months, not too long ago because of that. He's also, he was married to Kim Kardashian in which, you know, I hate to put anything in terms of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, but like it was as big a deal as that, you know, was in its day. But we're gonna talk about that. I guess first off, Eli, can you are, you are the host of the Re-Education podcast, which is mostly about politics, but also you talk about popular culture, including music. You are known to freestyle rap. We're going to put a moratorium on that for the next hour.  Well, I think you have to, he's in the category in my view. He turned himself into a serious rapper, but that's not really where his genius is. He's more of a kind of musical visionary. And in that respect, he's more than a producer when you consider the breakthrough of the precedent that he set on albums like My Dark Twist and The Beautiful Fantasy, which is kind of like, you can say hip-hop's, you know, Sergeant Pepper or Abbey Road. Except that it's something we would actually want to listen to from time to time. You're stout slander, Abbey Road. I'm here for part of this. Yeah, okay, me and Mr. Mustard, yeah. The whole thing. But then, you know, there's an album that didn't do as well, but it's called 808 and Heartbreaks. That was a record that kind of invented Drake's a half of Drake's sound, the kind of emo, heavily modified, synthesized singing that he does on a lot of his work. And that was kind of, that was Kanye West coming up with that for anybody else. And the fact that he has not limited himself just to hip-hop, he put out, I think, some excellent gospel records recently.  As again, not just as a producer, but I like to think of sort of as a musical visionary. He is, and he's also somebody who's found talent. You know, some of the first guest appearances of Big Sean, Nicki Minaj was, you know, with Young Money, but, you know, her breakout was on a Kanye West single. You know, so in that respect, he is a huge and enormous figure. And I'm trying to think of there to be an equivalent, you know, in other things. But, you know, in that respect. Maybe like a David Bowie type on some level. I mean, if they're all distinct, but, you know, where Bowie not only changed the musical landscape for what he did, but then broke a lot of talent or, you know, produced people and brought them to a larger audiences and really kind of just shifted the musical conversation. Absolutely. And the restlessness of Kanye to constantly change styles. So when he came out with a record called Yeezus, it was almost like industrial, you know, it was very gritty. It wasn't really like a popular hip hop record. It was certainly not like anything else that was coming out before it from him or in the sense of the restlessness, the fact that he's always trying out new styles, that was very, oh yes, in that respect. So Natalie, do you have strong feelings about Kanye or as I guess he's Yee or Yee? He's Yee now, right? I don't know how to pronounce it. Who knows, that's hard. But do you have strong sensibility about him? I mean, as an artist and well, as a musician and as an artist and as like a cultural icon, like we've already hinted at, I think it's hard because the Kanye, like I know and love or the Yee that I know and love is like from the stronger album.  And that's kind of what I, he's like always stuck in my brain as that musician, which is like, it's great to see musicians evolve like this when we've already talked about, but like, I kind of miss that version of him, but maybe that's just like for my musical preference, but more so than anything else. And if I'm gonna flip the cards, you're 26, right? I am.    Eli is a good bit, he's somewhere in the middle of us, but it's kind of fascinating to think about this conversation just about popular music.  For me, my kids do, but it's a little bit distant, but I recognize the cultural force that somebody like- Well, I grew up with it. I mean, I was like in elementary school when the first rap records really started coming out in Philadelphia, so I, from a very young age, I used to listen to Lady B's program on Power 99 when hip hop wasn't played on any other radio stations except for this one time slot on Sundays. So I- Please tell me that you hung out with Jazzy Jeff in West Philadelphia. But I remember- It was Philadelphia born and raised. Absolutely, yeah. And I will say this, when I was an intern at Philadelphia Magazine many years ago, I did one of the first interviews with Questlove when he was with what they were then calling themselves the square roots before they were the roots. And they had a local pressed album called Organics, which is terrific if you can find it. The first, it was before their first major label released, do you want more? But I mean, the roots were fantastic in this, you know, so Philadelphia has a rich tradition. But yeah, in terms of Kanye, there's not really much like him. He's had several careers because he was a really important producer for Jazzy and his later works, you know, like he's all over the album, the black album and the blueprint. Those are really important hip hop records. And if he was just the producer who did that and other things and worked with like diplomats and camera on and things like that, you know, he was like, I know. But then he decided he had to be a rapper. He wanted to be a star and he kind of willed himself into this position. And then, you know, as I said, he becomes kind of musical visionary and is gone beyond hip hop. It's, it's, he's bigger than just a hip hop artist at this point in my view. He's bigger than the Beatles were when they were bigger than Jesus. I don't know about that. The Beatles were bigger. Okay. I just want to say it's- I don't know about that. Jesus was really big, you know.  No, not in his 30s. Jesus is like Nick Drake or something. You know, he's much bigger after he died. So let's, we have a couple of clips, but the reason we're talking about Kanye West is, you know, I mean, he's famous because of his music, somewhat because of his dabbling in fashion and whatnot and for marrying Kim Kardashian, who is kind of a fascinating cultural force in our own. And I like to think of these people as all kind of broadly libertarian in the sense that they are highly individualistic in a culture that oftentimes is antagonistic to that.  But without, you know, trying to layer too much ideology onto any of this, Kanye recently gave an interview to Tucker Carlson on Fox News where he talked about a lot of things. And we're going to get to the comments where he both on his social media accounts as well as in unerred versions of the Tucker Carlson interview that came to light through vice where he ranges into anti-Semitism of a particularly kind of classic version within the black community. We're going to talk about that, but let's play a clip first, Natalie. Would you lay, start the Trump clip drove me crazy to not be able to say that I like Trump. It drove, cause think about it's me. Imagine me not being able to say what I wanted. What was the point of being famous? What was the point of having, you know, millions of people love your music? What was the point of having a voice if you can't even use your own voice and connected to your own opinions? Yes. That's where the disconnect happened.  I used to be on his old MSNBCC show a while. He is an incredible performer, whatever you think about him. He, and staging this, and it's interesting when you look at what he left out and what he left in because it's a long like two hour, you know, two part interview with Kanye West and he left out the good parts, right? In many ways, like the most incendiary stuff but let's focus first on this snippet. And it recalls a while ago, you know, when Trump emerged as a political figure, Kanye West was kind of friendly to him. He actually showed up, he wore a MAGA hat and whatnot. And then he kind of went silent. How do you, how do you respond to him talking about a kind of orthodoxy in the entertainment industry in Hollywood as it were that kept him silent, Eli? Well, in some ways, Kanye's attitude towards Trump after he wins the election in 2016 is the same as a lot of Hollywood's reaction to Trump 10 years before that. Trump, I mean, there's a song by Morris Day in the Time called the Donald Trump Black Version which is a pion to Trump when he was the real estate mogul guy. And this was a song from like the very end of the 80s. You can watch Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump and you'll find all of these celebrities who, you know, they're needling him but he's part of the club. And that, you know, when Donald Trump was kind of not seen as a political threat and just a celebrity he gave money to like lots of Democrats who ended up hating him. He was somebody who was sort of accepted as fine. He was in the club, he was a rich guy, kind of a celebrity and everything else. Then, you know, when he takes on these kind of very angry populist tone and becomes the kind of, you know, wrecking ball of the political establishment is when Trump in this period and some of it is earned he becomes toxic. Now, I think Kanye in some ways is looking around. He's saying, there are all these things that now that I'm like in this sort of elite club and that I think there's something about him as an artist that he wants to kind of touch whatever the third rail is because he realizes that whatever people are telling you whatever the shibboleth is that you can never, you know, expose or never say that's probably where the art is going to be. So I sort of see him that way. We talked about this on when you were a guest with me on punk rock but Kanye in a lot of ways is embodying the spirit of punk from the mid from 1975, 1976 and that he's whatever it is that is this sacred cow in our culture that you're not allowed to talk about and you're not allowed to like, he's coming out there and like, you know, making sure that you know that he's on the other side of it and that to me it's, and so that's where I think that's coming from. So yeah, he doesn't want to be told what to think and who he supports. That's all well and good but part of that is very deliberate because that's how Kanye kind of sees himself. He's going to figure out like when he started just to kind of pull those circle ones. One of the things he's fashion wise, he did when he came out with College Drop on his first record, that he deliberately dressed in like Carlton of the Fresh Prince, like very preppy, you know, sweater vests, Argyle, and the reason he did that is because everybody else in hip hop was wearing baggy jeans and hoodies and everything else like that.  And it's, I mean, it's interesting to think about when he first, you know, he, this was a few years ago, but it was wrapped up in the Trump stuff where he was saying that, you know, he intimated that slavery was a choice in a kind of strange interview that was very electrifying. And he basically was arguing and echoing something Trump had said, which was that African-American voters were being taken for granted by the Democratic Party or by liberals who had not served them very well. And this was a Trump talking point on the campaign trail. A Kanye protégé, Chance the Rapper got into big trouble when he said, you know what, like, you know, when you look at the way the police and the schools are run in Chicago, his home city, you know, we shouldn't be voting for Democrats. And he ended up walking that back. So there's that kind of antinomism of pushing back. I guess, Natalie, is that it? I was gonna say to you, like, this is someone who has always been known for like not wanting to follow the script, right? So like, I don't think this like is necessary surprising. Like him being a liking Trump isn't like a surprising like turn of events as I think like people seem to be very surprised in 2018. Like this is someone who's like very much tries to fight the narrative. He's been in the spotlight his whole life and even more so in the last decade because of his very public family and very public, well, I guess now technically divorced, maybe not a marriage. But I think part of it too is like, I think it was back in 2005, or he said something about like George W. Bush not caring about black people because of like the police. Yeah, I mean, it's, remember this is the same guy who like shouldered Taylor Swift off this page at an award ceremony kind of like the way that Black Lives Activists shouldered Bernie Sanders off the stage at a campaign event in 2016. Continue now. Yeah, and he's just always been someone that's like been provocative, right? And I think if that's like his, that's his MO and that's always been his MO. So from the Trump, from his perspective on Trump that's not all that surprising. But I do think like after learning about like the mental health struggles he could be having or has been having for quite some time, it makes him a little bit more even more controversial, I would say, because there are now two camps that wanted to dismiss what he says entirely because of his mental illness. He came out, I believe it was in 2018 and told everyone that he was bipolar. So everyone kind of just uses that now to discount a lot of the quote unquote crazy or crazy stuff you said since then. So can I add or can I ask you what's interesting? And in these moments, he reminds me even more than of David Bowie, Bob Dylan of like, Dylan at various points turns on his audience or it's widely interpreted as turning on his audience. First folk rockers, he goes electric. I think the most amazing one was at the end of the 70s, the me decade, a decade of swinging and sex parties, he becomes a born again Christian in no uncertain terms. Kanye West is kind of doing that. So there's that. But then the question Natalie and Eli is, why didn't he speak up sooner?  That's the mystery. In the interview, he seemed to be suggesting that he was getting like threats of violence, especially like from close like friends of his. Like from Chris Kardashian? I mean, what does that even mean? I mean, apparently she has a lot of power. I don't keep up with them. But I think he was more intimidated, which is also confusing because he didn't really seem as someone that could be easily intimidated. But I think too, like there's a large aspect too with his kids getting involved in like his drama. And I think from the Carlson interview, like you said, I ran two hours plus because we got unedited versions as well. And I think he seemed to be worried about like his kids, because those came up multiple times. Like he was worried about coming out in support of Trump in fear of like the retaliation against him and his career being over, quote unquote, but also like what would happen, like retaliation against his children. Do you think that explains the silence Eli like? I don't know. I think it's a reflection of, I think the world was very different in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina when he said George W. Bush doesn't like black people in that. It was, Hollywood was liberal and George W. Bush wasn't popular with a lot of people in the music industry. But it didn't feel like it was really- Who was once he popular with anyone? I mean, maybe like Dave Mustain of Megadeth or something. But I mean, I- I don't think he was popular with Kid Rock. Oh, okay, that's true. Thank you. He was, Kid Rock was a Republican. But the point is, is that it was not seen that there were, you couldn't be a conservative. We were in a very different place. It's Kanye's kind of, if you want to call it his red pill. It happens in a moment in our country when there's enormous social pressure on anyone who expresses opinions that are in any way deviating from what are seen as like almost moral imperatives in a way where it wasn't before. Where it's like, it was okay. Like the cool people in the culture, cultural elites were not Republicans or conservatives in 2005. But nobody cared if you were making a movie and there was an actor who you knew to be a conservative was on, you know what I'm saying? There wasn't pressure that was brought to bear. Kevin Sorbo had not yet been fully blacklisted by Holland. Yeah, or like, you know, remember, Mark Stein was a staff writer for the Atlantic and nobody cared because it was understood that you could have, yeah, not everyone's gonna agree. And so he says that about Hurricane Katrina, he doesn't really become this gadfly until we have this change in the culture where certain people think that words are violence and that we have to de-platform people who have, you know, political views that are harming people and things like that. That's when I think something clicks with Kanye and also it's quite possible that his bipolar issues worsened and maybe they're sometimes manageable and he's not taking medicine and they're worse. So that might be an explanation too. I wanna just add one more thing. Wouldn't it be perfect from a kind of cultural karma for George W. Bush at an award show to say Kanye West doesn't like Jewish people? Wouldn't that be like the perfect symmetry to this point? I don't know, you know, it's a great plan but what awards program is going to invite George Shepard of Bush?  The Saudi Arabian Democracy Anti-Disinformation Awards. With the good folks of all fairs. Let's run. Yeah, it is true that Bush who left office, I think with the lowest approval ratings, he had lower approval ratings than when Nixon left. Is that true? Yeah, and, you know, started climbing in the public imagination or in the public memory as Trump, you know, was soldiering on as president. So all of this- There's a little bit of a precedent here too where it's about the craziness of our particular moment because, you know, Bowie in the late 70s got in trouble for fascist iconography. Oh, and also for literally saying something, and this is a paraphrase, but it's pretty close, that fascism is the only proven effective form of government. I mean, he was, yeah. So he was saying that and it's not like people said, I'm not going to buy scary monsters.  And, you know, there was rock against racism where people, you know, wanted to, but it wasn't like Eric Clapton was ostracized and said, you know, we're never going to like play your music again because that's not, because we had an appreciation in the 70s and the 80s and that there were going to be, that artists could have extreme points of view, but it didn't affect the quality of their art. And, you know, we weren't going to go that far. It's only now that these are live issues again, which is crazy. It's like we're back to the Anthony Comstock era. But that's- Let's go deep on this a little bit, you know, because, you know, this is the question then, right? You know, should you separate the artist from the art or at what level do you, or at what point do you? Because I think we all do, you know? We have to. Right? So what is your sense? How close does, you know, how close are we to having that happen now? And I think you're right to say, we're, you know, the cultural moment has changed since, you know, whatever we are in 2022, it's different than it was in 2002. And it's kind of refreshing to remember that, you know, that and it's different than 82 or 62 or whatever.  That seems nuts. The anti-Semitic stuff and some of the other things he's talked about are a little bit worrying and also indications of a kind of delusional mode that he's in, you know, he's also talked about becoming president and it's not clear that he is either joking or speaking figuratively. And I'm uncomfortable, you know, kind of consuming work by people who seem to be obviously insane. But I mean, Natalie, has he, you know, when, what would he have to do to cross the line for you? You know, I don't want to give him any ideas.  Like I don't have to agree with your politics to listen or dance to your music. But I do think it gets to a line where it's too hard to separate, like you were just saying, it's too hard to separate the performer and their work from their personal antics. And I think it's very clear and Nick and I were suggesting this beforehand, but it's very clear to me and especially with the unerred clips that Vice pulled out as well, that Tucker Carlson was trying to show a Kanye that looked like he should be a conservative icon. But then in the extra bits from the interview that we saw, he, you know, he's very erratic in some of his answers. He said even some, even like very offensive, anti-Semitic phrases. And I just think it's, I almost felt, I felt almost like scummy going back and re-watching the interview in the sense that like, I now have like the context I didn't originally have that the Tucker Carlson show chose to cut out.  Do I think that he should like, I guess it was reported yesterday. Do I think that he should no longer be able to hold his money at JP Morgan because of this? And those types of like extra like the woke mob clearly coming for him. I think that's a different question, but I do think him supporting Trump isn't crossing the line of like, oh, we should no longer listen to his music or we should shun him. But I do think he's towing a line, but I think you can't forget about the other like personal mental illness problems that are going on in his life. Eli, what about you? Is there, you know, what's the Rubicon? What's the river of the river that is foaming with blood that he did to Kron? If you go historically, Ezra Pound was an open supporter of the Nazis during World War II and- Actually, he preferred Mussolini, his propaganda. Fair enough. You're right. That's where specifically- But he was an open fascist in the great battle against the fascist. Yeah. He had radio programs, which were horrible. And does that take away from the brilliance of his poetry? Of course not. But does it make you more or less likely? I mean, have you, when's the last time you cracked open the cantos?  But that said, my point here is only that you can just, if you start playing this game, you're gonna find that great contributors to human culture are going to be off limits. So you should be aware of that. And as I say, it's very important to separate the art from the artist. I do think that there is a potential with Kanye because I don't know that these are strongly held beliefs. It's hard to get inside of his head. But I think there's a possibility where if you take an example of somebody like Abe Foxman, famously kind of privately approached Jesse Jackson in 1984 after Jesse Jackson had made really anti-Semitic remarks, famously called New York Hymetown. He defended Louis Farrakhan, things like that. And it took a while, but eventually Foxman was able to sort of help to change Jesse Jackson's heart through appealing to him and talking to him. I don't see why you couldn't have a Barry Weiss or somebody like that today on these Jewish issues and saying, this is why it's really offensive to Jewish people or me, I don't know, someone, to kind of meet with him and say, I know you said this stuff and I'm not trying to cancel you. I'm not trying to go after you. I'm trying to say, do you really think this because I really love your music and there is a way that maybe you can, I don't see this as somebody who has deeply held beliefs. Now I wanna address one of the things that went this, which is let's steal Manit from the other side. In this day and age of celebrity culture, someone like Kanye West has, you know, what, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people who listen to his music and really look up to him. And the argument would be that when he says it's okay, when he gives a certain legitimacy to classic anti-Semitic tropes or conspiracy theories, and that is dangerous because he's got so many people who adore him for his music. My response to that is you have a very low opinion of Kanye West fans, which is to say that you don't think that Kanye West fans, or at least most of them, can distinguish between goofy stuff that he says, whether it's offensive or just crazy, and his music. Do you think that music fans are automatons and they're waiting for the secret instructions and then you're gonna have 50 million people who are anti-Semitic, that's nuts. I don't think that's how life works, I don't think how celebrity culture really works. And while it might be that there's some people who feel that this is a permission structure, I think it's probably a slim minority of it. I sort of raised this earlier this morning when I had a haircut in my barber shop and I said, well, what do people think of all this stuff? Because it's not just the anti-Semitic stuff, be it the white lives matter, all this other thing. And I was like, the general consensus in my barber shop was he's lunching, but it doesn't change the fact that his music is really great.  And I would imagine that most people probably think that way. But it is important to sort of understand that when you have somebody with that much cultural pull, that it can mainstream ideas that should be fringe and quarantined, I suppose. One thing to think about with that, too, Eli, is that people will say that about music stars in a way that they don't about, say, novelists or poets. The argument against those were Pound, who obviously was never popular in the way that Kanye West is popular. But we can talk about somebody like Alice Walker, who's color purple, is probably a book that as many Americans are as alive have read the color purple, as have read any other novel. It's a major, major work. She has trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes herself, as well as as a believer of David Ike, the former soccer player announcer turned theorist of a grand conspiracy of lizard people, including the royal family of England, as well as Dana Perino at Fox News and other assorted gems are really running the planet while hiding the true lizard quality. But very few people would say you shouldn't read the color purple or even other things that Alice Walker said. We attribute a lot more intelligence to non-music fans. It's a really great point, yeah. And to a certain degree, maybe movie stars, but even them, not as much. And that's a kind of fascinating thing, which I hadn't really thought about until you were talking about this, because we don't go after high-class people. Somebody like Ertug Stein had many, many kind things to say about the Patan regime, the Vichy collaborationist regime of which she was a guest during World War II. And that's only recently come to light in literary studies where people are grappling with the fact that Stein in certain ways supported a regime, or a political movement that also saw her as one of the great enemies of Western civilization. It gets confusing. Michelle Foucault celebrated the Islamic Revolution in Iran? To his credit, he denounced it shortly after that. And I mean, yes, you can, it's an open question as to whether or not somebody who falls for that in the first place is kind of, is he worth thinking through? But certainly he's no Martin High digger, to give another example who was an open Nazi, never hit it, and people still debate the effect of that. So I mean, that's an interesting question. And I am, what seems to be a little bit different now, and this might be a positive thing because in the 90s, and I started at reason in 93, and that was a decade where liberals and conservatives, but especially people like Hillary Clinton were attacking and Janet Reno, the Clinton administration more broadly, were attacking cable TV and music for its pernicious effects in video games, which were emerging as a kind of art form in a very popular entertainment form. They attacked them from the specific grounds that you were saying, Eli, that people watch them and they do what they see. That audiences are essentially trained monkeys who, they see something on the TV and they go out and do it. I think it might be a positive sign that we're not talking about this in, quite in these terms. I don't think people are saying Kanye West is legitimizing anti-Semitic violence. It's just, I don't want to listen to that guy because he's an anti-Semite. And that's, by the way, if an individual, if a Jewish person or somebody who is offended by any of you, that's what you decide, that's fine. I mean, I don't think that that's like, I'm not going to necessarily be critical. Do you think that, you know, that there's, we've covered why that's a problem if you're not consistent in that view? I do think too, like a lot of the time, like this, I think it was back in 2019, Nick Cannon was also like received like the same kind of pushback that Kanye's getting now for some anti-Semitic quotes. And then of course, this happened to Jay Chappelle too. He said, or I think it was part of his Netflix special that, you know, was controversial for other reasons as well. And I think they all addressed it in other ways of like, oh, I need, I need to learn more. I need, like, I will be better next time. I just, I'm not convinced- I don't think Dave Chappelle did that. No, no, no, that's what Nick Cannon did. Not Dave Chappelle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm not convinced that Kanye is going to do that. I think part of it too, is that like this all stemmed from like his interview on Tucker was after the, he wore the white lives matter shirt at Paris fashion week, last week with Candace Owens, which he 100% knew was going to be provocative and going to be controversial. Let's run the clip, him talking about white lives matter and then we'll pick up the conversation. All right. Wearing the hat.  And that means that they're going to beat them up if they wear it. And I'm like, you know, okay, green light meeting. Subscribe to the Fox News YouTube. So he just, he was receiving obviously a ton of backlash for wearing that at Paris fashion week. And of course, Candace Owens came to his defense on Twitter, but there was like so many events that just like cascaded off of that. So as the white lives matter t-shirt, then it, I believe it was he posted tweets, or no, posted text messages from Diddy.  They go way back. And then Kanye just like kind of spiraled from there, then got invited on to Tucker. And I think given all the context, like I don't necessarily think this is someone that's like, oh, like we can change his mind or like he'll learn in the long run. Not that I don't say that's for everyone, I'm just not convinced that like from Eli's, like what Eli was saying earlier that he's going to like, we can like alter his mind by like making him learn more. Well, I mean, just like oftentimes, if you want to change someone's mind, you don't do it in a public way where you try to get clout for criticizing them.  And that's far more effective in dealing with an individual celebrity who says terrible things versus what we do now, which is that there's a whole bunch of people who are rushing to kind of cancel somebody and make sure that we no longer celebrate them. And the whole idea we're going to de-platform them in the internet era. I mean, that makes no sense, but okay, fine. Why don't we, let's run the anti-Semitism clip that we have Natalie and then come back to the conversation. And this is Kanye talking to Tucker again where he gets into a kind of classic anti-Semitic trope. Yeah, and also this was one of the clips that was not aired on, it was got cut out of the Tucker interview. So Vice had picked it up. Planned Parenthood was made by Margaret Sanger, a known eugenics with the KKK to control the Jew population. When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the race, the people known as the race black really are. This is who our people are, the blood of Christ. This as a Christian is my belief. And I believe that if we saw ourselves as more... Do you want to burrow into that a little bit, Eli? What is the, what's he getting at?  Like it's always like, that's how conspiracy theories work. Because it is true that Margaret Sanger really was concerned about minority populations. And like that's a real thing. There were a whole bunch of progressives at the beginning of the 20th century that embraced eugenics from a kind of, we're doing it for their own good kind of perspective. And that was really awful. And we denounced it today and it was part of... I will rush to point out that Margaret Sanger though, herself was very anti-abortion. She believed in contraception, but not abortion. And it's kind of fascinating to me, that Planned Parenthood claims her in one way, even though she was anti-abortion and conservatives hate her even though she was anti-abortion. That's a very good question.  But I'm saying like, this is like, this was also, this is the same tree that gave us like kind of scientific racism. Right. Social Darwinism and all these ideas that are now been discredited, but it was a thing that was, it's part of our history. And then of course he layers on top of that fiction and fantasy and it is an anti-Semitic trope. It's not one as a Jew that I have to tell you that I am, it's not on the top of my list of concerns because it is so nutty.  The Lincoln Memorial causing a crisis. Right, exactly. So it's, you know, and you have to- And the nation of Islam, certainly Louis Farrakhan is trafficked in that quite a bit. And I can remember, as I'm sure you do, Eli, a particular moment in the mid 90s when I think it was Khalid Sheikh, not Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Khalid Muhammad who was affiliated with the nation of Islam gave a speech where he talked about, you know, bagel eating, hook nose, so-called Jews at Cain College. And he would refer to Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York as Adolf Giuliani and whatnot. And got cashiered, got cashiered out of the nation of Islam because of that. Yeah, so listen, these are kind of deplorable ideas. But again, I do think that sometimes we have a problem in our society of what I call the weak fascist problem, but just to say when there are minority groups that don't have real cultural economic or political power but have deplorable and terrible ideas, we have to make a distinction between that and then like, you know, Jim Crow South of when you have powerful local government institutions that are driven by a certain kind of racist ideology.  Well, can I ask then, I mean, that's really provocative. And by the way, that kind of informs my critique of Tequila Mockingbird, which is a novel which is always celebrated, but it strikes me, you know, what Tequila Mockingbird does is it ends up putting the onus of segregation in the South on the backs of poor whites, you know, who are incestuous, et cetera. They didn't have power, it was the power elite, it was the Atticus Finches of the world and everybody he piled around with who were the problem in the South, you know, ultimately, because they held power. So I like the way that you're talking about weak fascists. We build up people who don't have the kind of power because they're easy pickings and we can kind of slay them. It's related to this, but I mean, one of the reasons why I am not on the like the emergency of democracy and like once I think January 6th was terrible, but January 6th was largely a problem. You had one guy, the president who did try to steal an election, which is horrible, but then all of the people who are being punished to show up at the Capitol who think they're actually gonna overturn the election are the disenfranchised, they have no real power and that's an example of kind of like the weak fascism and like to treat them like al-Qaeda after 9-11 I think is a category error which we're doing right now. Let me ask though, thank you. I think that's a great insight. What kind of power does Kanye West have? And he doesn't have the power of Bull Connor or something. He's not gonna be setting dogs loose on Jews or white people or Taylor Swift fans or anything like that. But doesn't he have some kind of cultural power or how do we measure the influence that he has or artists like him? Because we want to admit, I mean, we don't wanna confuse them with people with guns and badges necessarily, but aren't they unacknowledged legislators of the world as Shelly talked about poets?  And Natalie, do you wanna say something? Yeah, I think Kanye has a significant amount of social capital, right? And obviously his power comes through social capital and even like briefly, I think it was yesterday I was looking this up, but he's obviously not getting celebrated for these comments on Twitter, but apparently 4chan and some of those other sites are blowing up about how he is a conservative icon because of these comments, not because of his support for Trump, but because of these comments. So there are bigoted people that see this as validation for their beliefs and that's where he's pulling a lot of that social capital. Now, do I think he is dangerous? Like vote to the level that Eli was saying with some of his other examples, no, but I think at the same time, this man very much believes he will be president in his lifetime. He said that in the Tucker Carlson interview and we said he's clearly going through a tough battle of mental illness and whether there's debates or whether or not he's like, that has highs and lows and whether he's in a high right now, but I think like someone who that, is that sure they're going to be president in their lifetime? Well, one, someone who wants to be president period is always questionable, but I think that, I think he has a lot more social capital than people are giving him credit for because they're they're writing him off as crazy. Yeah. Does that, can we separate out? Yeah, can we separate out the idea that like he's crazy because he likes Trump, which seems to be part of what's going on or he's crazy because he is struggling with bipolar disorder and has in the past acknowledged such. I mean, one of the things that I find and I don't know that there's any meaningful way to disentangle this, but like it bothers me that we at times, increasingly it seems we're willing to pathologize people's political beliefs and not simply say you're wrong, but like you're nuts. I mean, I think among especially among younger people in general, mental health is like, is a really important thing that a lot of politicians probably aren't taking as seriously as they should, especially as my generation and the generation below me gets a little bit older.  So I think it's, I certainly, I do not think he's crazy because he's support. He likes Donald Trump, but I do think there needs to be some, like, I don't know if it's like an asterisk or a caveat or what that hit just because he believes some things that people on the left or even on the right think is crazy. It can't all be attributed to his mental illness. And I think mental health is like a big problem. And clearly in the unedited clips, we saw there are some things that like even Tucker Carlson didn't think were, let's say kosher enough to show. That's a loaded term when you're talking about Kanye West. I know. Let's, I want to go in just a second to the question about journalism, like are there questions about how journalism is practiced, particularly by Tucker Carlson, you know, in light of this interview and particularly the stuff he left out.  Why is that?    I think a big part of it, Nick, is that it's just it's much more de-stigmatized than it used to be. So like the idea of like, you know, going to therapy or the idea of like actually talking with someone you love and respect over, like stuff you're struggling over is much less stigmatized than it used to be. And I do think like there is more of an emphasis in schools to kind of like, especially after the COVID years and isolation to kind of make sure you're prioritizing, you know, yourself and your mental health. And I think when it was such on display with Kanye, I think it was like, not that it was triggering, but I think it was like, oh, you know, maybe there should be someone that like, I don't know if it steps in or like, I don't necessarily think like, I think Tucker was almost using like, it was very clearly to me that he was like using Kanye and what seemed like a vulnerable moment. And then kind of like used it to his advantage, especially, I mean, like Nick said earlier, what they cut out almost says more than what the actual interview did. So I think it's just like, I think it's a much bigger, I wouldn't say it's more rampant, like mental illness or like people struggling with their mental health. I would just say it's talked a lot about more or talked about more in public than it used to be. Eli, you recently became a parent for the first time. Do you look forward to a world in which, you know, mental health continues to deteriorate? No, and I'm worried that we created these amazing devices which are important, you know, like smartphones and social media platforms and so forth. But I think they also sort of make us more miserable. And so it is like this double-edged sword. You know, on the one hand, Natalie, your generation should be delighted if you take the long view. You know, I mean, we just had a plague and in less than a year, we came up with a vaccine. You know, I'm sure, you know, people who suffered from the bubonic variety a thousand years ago would love to trade places with us. On the other hand, I do think that we're kind of, it's like the obesity problem in this country. You know, we're a species that's designed to crave fat and sugar because when we were living in, you know, the wild, you know, trying to hunt and gather for our meals, when we've came across such things, it was important because we may not know what our next meal is. And now that we've figured out how to make ourselves happy and eat what we like, we've created a new set of problems. Do you think that there's some of that as well? You know, the other thing that I would add to this is I do think that we are pathologizing everyday life in a way that is distinct. And this is fundamentally a byproduct of wealth. You know, you have more mental, you have more mental problems when you have more choices and more options, including not to work. And I'm not minimizing the struggles that people have, but I think one of the most important books of the past 50 years is Christopher Lash's The Minimal Self, which was a kind of sequel to his book, The Culture of Narcissism. And he talks about, you know, psychic struggles in an age of diminishing expectations. And he was talking primarily about the late 70s and a kind of long slide in the post-war era into stagflation and into malaise and whatnot. And I think it's actually even more appropriate now but I am struck by the number, I have a lot of friends who are therapists and counselors and even they start to talk about like basic kind of adolescent rights of passage, not as something that everybody goes through, but rather as traumas that need to be taken care of in a way that is very distinct from how I grew up. And I would not wish my childhood, which I think was very typical, very modal for a very late baby boomer. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It was a moment that was filled with a lack of empathy and a lack of interest in people's interior lives and all of that, very intolerant of difference and individualism in profound ways. But I think we may have gone too far in a different direction where it's like, you know, every disappointment that is part of growing up has become a trauma that needs to be treated. And Natalie, to your point, I think not only have we destigmatized mental health issues, which is good, we've also probably created a lot more because there's so much more money flowing into kind of therapy and help. And Lash talks about how even people like Victor Frankel who wrote Man's Life for Meaning or Man's Search for Meaning after surviving a concentration camp that he, that somewhere in the postwar era the concentration camp experience actually became kind of a paradigm from which to view everyday life. And he has this brilliant kind of passage in the minimal self where he talks about how everybody started talking about themselves as survivors, which was a term that was originally, you know, signified only people who had survived death camps. And then suddenly it was, you know, if you escaped from Mormonism, you were a survivor. If you did this, you were a survivor, et cetera. And we still hear that rhetoric. And I think we need to, you know, kind of have a recalibration of what is actually traumatic and what is simply life as we know it. You know, just if I could, I think it's useful if you're a generation Z person and you're feeling a lot of anxiety, you know, instead of, you know, kind of, you know, thinking about the therapist or taking time off, take some time and get a book out about the Siege of Stalingrad or watch a documentary like Showa and then appreciate the sort of extremes of the human condition. And that might have an effect of sort of making you feel like, you know what, maybe I don't have it so bad. Yeah, I think a big thing too that we didn't really touch on in this aspect is that like our lives are as, you know, as private or as public as we want to make them. And that's how like all celebrities live their lives as well. So I think that's a big change too is that, you know, we're seeing, we're the Kanye West of 2005, we didn't have, I mean, we had tabloids, but we didn't have like instant access to him on Twitter and like his stream of consciousness at 2 a.m. that he was tweeting. And I think that's a big difference too. And like, I think another thing that, you know, makes it a little different. Like I do think there is some credence to what Nick was saying in the sense that like, have we gone too far about addressing like younger children's mental health or like do we need to take a step back? Cause that's like, that's a big thesis in the coddling of the American mind, right? And how the younger generations aren't like, we're still kind of seeing the effects of them, you know, being coddled. And I think, you know, I had, I grew up the youngest of four, like I had a great, I have a great family and I have, I was lucky to have very supportive parents. And I think that goes a lot further and goes a lot further than trying to like address these issues, you know, broadly or like through social media than anything else. I think you raise a lot of points. And you know, one of the reasons we might not have heard from Kanye for a while, particularly even if he was seething about not being able to talk about his support for Donald Trump, ironically was Kim Kardashian, his, you know, his wife who has since said, you know, like, you know, it's hard living with a guy who's struggling with this, with bipolar, but she's one of the change agents as well, who really has taken a personal life and you know, aired everything. And it's obviously, it's curated. She's in charge of most of the messages she's sending, but that's a radically different world. Yeah, well, she'd think she is.  This, it's a different world than we were in, you know, certainly 20 years ago or even 20 years ago, much less 40 or 50 years ago. Let's, and I would also recommend people, you know, the coddling in the American mind is a really fascinating and important book. One criticism I would have of is that it seemed to start blaming students and like it starts with that moment really at Yale in what was it, 2014, when a bunch of, you know, and Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt say, you know, what changed was for a long time the administrators of colleges and universities were pushing stuff on kids that were pushing speech codes and restrictions. And then suddenly what flipped was that the students were demanding it. It had turned into a kind of like red guard moment where young revolutionaries were silencing the adults. I don't doubt that, I mean, I think that's accurate but it also kind of mitigates the role that adults played in creating this. And I would recommend people read Carla Vermeulen's Generation Disaster which talks about people born between 1990 and 2001 and the messages that they have been getting since in utero of, you know, that the environment is destroyed, the planet is dead and over, you're going to be shot at a school shooting, you're going to be kidnapped, you're going to be killed by Islamic terrorists, the financial system has collapsed, the housing market has collapsed, there are no jobs anymore, Donald Trump is evil and then COVID. And it's a really interesting look at the overall cultural messages that are not coming from younger people, they're being pushed, that's the, you know, the media, that's the water people are swimming in. And it fills, it's a very good compliment to the coddling of the American mind. Let's, in the last bit that we have together here, let's talk about the question of journalism that is raised by the Tucker Carlson interview. And I guess, Natalie, let's go to you first on this. You know, when you look at what was aired and you know, when I first looked at the interview, I thought, you know, Kanye for the most part, he seemed very low, you know, he was very low-quacious and interesting and engaged and kind of smart and winning in many ways. Then when you look at the outtakes, you're like, wow, this is like really heavily and clearly edited in order to lose the crazy. Does that present a journalistic ethics question or is this just more of like, you know, caveat, lector, let the reader beware. You know, we always know we're being played, but you know, what's your takeaway on that? I mean, I do think there is a valid conversation going on about like whether or not that interview should have been aired at all if they cut out some of the, after seeing some of the parts that were cut out. But I mean, I personally think Tucker knew and the Tucker's team knew that they were gonna get a provocative interview and like that's what they wanted. And they, I think, I don't think this is right, but they just kind of like didn't necessarily care about Kanye's state of being. And to them, I mean, the more, or I guess not the more crazy, but the more like provocative and thought provoking that he was, the better it was for them. I do think that is a little bit, I think that's vicious. I do think Kanye was used in that regard. I also think, I think it was totally okay. Some people were saying that, you know, the vice over, mother board over at vice shouldn't have published the unedited clips. I completely disagree. I think they should publish them because it gave us context. And I think it's a very important context and it was more honest than the Carlson show was being. And I do see the argument that either like, oh, well by vice publishing that it's just like perpetuating the problem and that kind of thing. But that was context that I think everyone needed to know like the grounds on when that interview went down because the way Tucker painted it was like, oh, we only asked for a 30 minute interview and we got two hours of great footage. Like he touted like that in the very beginning of the show. And that's not at all how it appeared to went down. I mean, even in some of the unedited clips, Kanye said like controversial things and then like was clearly like rambling and like flustered and then was like, actually can you edit that out? Like he was clearly frustrated trying to find his words. And I think that gave incredible context. And I think it was totally okay for vice to publish that stuff because I mean, Carlson was never going to admit to that being the situation. Eli, as a journalist, you look upon this and do you despair like Ozymandias or? No, TV, this goes on in TV interviews all the time especially when you're talking about celebrities as opposed to politicians but it happens with politicians too. There'll be two hours or three hours of raw material. You have to cut it down because we're not talking about the internet now. We're talking about an actual show that only has an hour time slot. I guess I'm not that surprised. I'm totally with you Natalie that it's okay to, the more the better. It's probably good that the world sees the nuttier parts that were left on the cutting room floor because I think it does give a fuller picture of this is where Kanye is out right now in his life and I do think of that actually in a weird way mitigates the anti-Semitic stuff that he said. So it's important everybody should denounce that wow, that's a really crazy theory that the people who call themselves Jews or not Jews that's really wrong as anti-Semitic don't do it. Okay, fine, but it's again like I just think that most people who like Kanye West's music can distinguish between his music and then like what he is saying even if he has delusions of grandeur that he will be president one day, I just think most people kind of can see it for themselves. Maybe on whistling past the graveyard maybe I'm being pangalous here and I should be more upset as a Jewish person about anti-Semitism but I just can't I'm not gonna, I think what he said is terrible but it's also we have all the context now and we understand that he's going through it right now. He's going through a tough time I think. He believes things that are not real. He's maybe having a little bit of a break from reality. I mean, it's also important I think it's important to note too that like there have been all these articles that I've come out since this interview trying to like assess his mental state. Yeah, that's how you should do it. All of these doctors in to be like well, this could be what he's experiencing or this is what living with bipolarity is like and I mean, it ultimately comes down to like everyone's like psychiatric state is their own and they're all different everyone experiences. It manifests differently. Manic breaks manifest differently. And I think like, okay, if you're going to try and help people understand why Kanye might be saying some of this stuff and he might be like acting erratic and all those types of things. And I do think those articles certainly help but I think when it ultimately when it comes down to it at the end of the day he's the only one that hopefully understands the mental state that he's in and hopefully working on himself just like all of us are but I think like we didn't touch on this yet but there was like a comment he made about him believing that fake children were put into his house to like or like I guess fake friends of his children were put into his house to like influence his children and there was like just some other like really disturbing things that you just like, you're like, wow, like it illuminated how how much these are hallmarks of a kind of paranoia and delusion that often goes along with something like bipolar or mania in an older formula. I think that's right. And I think that's correct. I would, I just would recommend for people watching this Freddie DeBoer has written about specifically Kanye but also read Freddie's own personal accounts of his bipolar disorder and what he had to go through. I mean, I think Freddie is a great writer even when I disagree with him, he's a socialist but I think he's a terrific writer and he writes really well about his own bipolarity and his own mental health issues. And you know, it's fair to say that when you're in the grips of something like that you're not yourself. I think that's fair, I think that's a fair point and it's possible that we're seeing Kanye right now but it's not him, it's not the real Kanye and that hopefully there are people in his life who love him and will understand that and accept that this is not who he is. It's not his true self. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting because we, you know, and this is a move that goes back to the beginning of time but I know in American literature at least from the early 1800s where we always insist that at this moment we are the wisest that we will ever be and that we look at the near past or the distant past and say, oh, they were just benighted because they aren't as smart as us. And Natalie to your point, like we are much more sophisticated when it comes to mental health issues but the fact of the matter is, is that like most people don't know anything about what it means to be in the grip of like a serious mental illness. And as a result, like a lot of the interpretation of it I think, you know, veers into, you know just a kind of cheap castigation or dismissal of somebody when in fact they are, you know, they are not themselves. I mean, that's a kind of profound thing to kind of toss off Eli, that, you know when you are at your most manic and when you might be most prone to saying, no, this is the real me. Finally, the scales have fallen from my eyes, you know and I know the truth, that is actually not you. And most of the time when you say that that's a sign that you really need to check yourself in somewhere, but, you know we will continue to have these kinds of conversations about madness and civilization and whatnot. By the way, it's not uncommon.  And, you know, the difference is that we didn't have social media in those days but I'm sure if you caught Bird or some of these other great artists who have similar kinds of conditions at their height of their manicness they would probably be saying a lot of things too and the issue really is that it's not, oh my God you know, the guy who made college dropout hates the Jews, ugh, you know I don't think that's what it is, you know what I mean, because it's like it's so tossed off and nutty as opposed to like there are people who spend a lot of time constructing anti-semitic conspiracies and tropes and that's much more sinister in my view than what Kanye went and maybe I'm influenced because I love his music and I love his art but I really do think that there is a difference there. I think there's also a difference in this to an earlier point in the conversation to think about how do we comp, you know rather than, and obviously everybody is free to either listen to or read or watch or whatever they want or not, right you know, there's no moral imperative here but to complicate history and the failings or the proclivities of creators and authors so you know, somebody like Arthur Kessler who is widely regarded for, you know writing a classic anti-communist book Darkness at Noon was a serial rapist almost certainly and murdered his wife before committing suicide and when you see that I mean one, you know, a legitimate response I think is to be like, you know what I can get what's good in Kessler from somewhere else so I'm not gonna bother reading him but it complicates things. There's an Italian novelist who wrote the great anti-fascist novel Ignacio Salone who wrote a book called Bread and Wine and it turned out he was a communist in Italy during Mussolini during fascism and it turned out that he was both an agent of the common turn of the Soviet international he was also informing on his communist partisans to the fascist government and reporting to the US so he was a triple agent and he wrote this great novel which is about people who get sold out by, you know, by double agents and it, you know, it makes the work more interesting in my mind rather than less interesting if you reduce it to a kind of morality tale. And I- Henry Miller stabbed his wife. Yeah. Well, that, you know, that is interesting. Like there's not, I don't know that that complicates, you know- No, if you read it right. Right, yeah. He actually talks about what is interesting about that is, you know, he stabbed her right when he was announcing that he was running for mayor of New York and in Lewis Minnan's recent book, The Free World which is a cultural history of post-war America he talks about how the New York intellectual sign even people like Diana Trilling all sided with Norman Mailer. James Baldwin said, you know what? Like the woman kind of deserved it and that complicates things where it's like- Yes it does.  It is, you know, it's a garbage pail and you rummage through a lot of it and piece together a narrative that kind of makes sense or doesn't depending on what you need. Just to, I don't think we're gonna get to questions but just to sum up Natalie, what is, you know, what do you do tomorrow after this conversation and after Kanye West talking to Tucker Carlson and all that? What, you know, what's your, what's the thing that you take that will help you live a better life tomorrow?  I love some of his original albums.  You think about like there's a whole part of them and a whole life you don't see that they have. And I think it's important to be, you know, thoughtful about the type of the cultural icons that you love and the ones that you follow. And I think this is just another like, you know, litmus test of who you look up to. No, that's kind of what I'm talking about. Eli? I hope Kanye kind of records a remix of Petica that would be, that would be like the perfect.  Were you gonna rap with him? I'm gonna rap with him. Why do you have to do this, Nick, anyway? No, I don't know. I mean, I'm not gonna, I, again, like I think we should get to this point in our culture where we're not looking at our, at our musical heroes or our artistic heroes or our political guidance or something or like, you know, what we think of other things we can, we should be able to distinguish that. And I think that's the grown up position. It's like, you wrote this great piece, Nick and it stayed with me, that like, why do we want our presidents to also be our preachers? Like, why do we want them to be our like moral exemplars? Right? We, you know, we're hiring them for a job, so to speak. And like, let's stay in your lane. Like, they don't have to be all these other things. And I kind of feel the same way about, you know, great artists or, you know, kind of people who are our celebrities. Like we should be, we should, it's part of being, you know, in a free society is to have to be kind of a participant and you have to be a grown up and not assume that everybody else is children. I think that's, those are two good insights. I'll throw it in mine, which is that this whole episode reminds me, we live in a golden age of kind of forced transparency. And so the, you know, the Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson is one thing. And I'm kind of glad that, you know, that it's out there. I don't know that you can really take advantage of a superstar like Kanye West. But the fact that vice aired other things, you know, basically what has been, you know, over the past 20 or 50 years, it's harder and harder to hide stuff. But what remains after that is that people who are generally acting in good faith and are kind of honest and admit their mistakes and move on or grow, you know, generally do pretty well in the world. And, you know, one of the other things is that just as consumers, and we're all consumers in, you know, in a media age like we're in now, you need to be really thoughtful and, you know, everybody needs to have media literacy cranked up to 11 because what you're seeing is never really the truth. And you always have to create your own context and meaning for it. And I think this episode kind of helps, you know. For sure. Underscore that. I want to thank Natalie Dozicki of Reason for joining me on this live stream as well as Eli Lake. Eli, your podcast is the re-education. Listen to the re-education. Where's the best place to listen to it? Apple, Steve, we're on all the platforms. But listen to it, we've got this week, we've got a great episode with Jamie Kirchik on the Lincoln Project and the one tomorrow will be all about the sort of nuclear brinkmanship right now over Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, it'll be a fun one. All right. Well, thank you all for watching and listening and participating. So, so long. Thank you. See you.


When I heard that I was chosen as university medalist, I got a phone call from the chair of the medal selection committee and I was incredulous. I immediately told my parents and they were thrilled. One of the best ways to succeed at Cal is to find what drives your passion and what makes you stay up at night and makes you wake up in the morning. And I'm very lucky that I found water issues very early on. Making meaningful change in water won't happen in a lab. Water is social and I'm really lucky that a lot of my best friends are people who I also work really well with both here on campus and in the field. I love UC Berkeley because I've had the opportunity to combine research, advocacy, activism and public service in a way that would not be possible anywhere else. I don't think that there's any one particular thing I'll miss most about Berkeley. I think it's really the entire experience and all the opportunities I've been available to me as a student here that I'll miss most. Go Bears!