EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 28,734 words- 0:00 – 4:31
Intro
- CWChris Williamson
Conventional attractiveness has zero predictive power for long-term relationship success. What the (censored) ?
- ZTZack Telander
It doesn't matter how loudly or how many times you say that, I'm pretty sure it's been said many times before and it's only getting more and more important.
- CWChris Williamson
How are you feeling after your weekend gig playing, uh, Champagne Supernova to a massive crowd of, uh, 18 adults and five children, uh, on Saturday?
- ZTZack Telander
You know, I- I- I feel like a celebrity. You know? Just walking into a party, picking up an instrument and singing an absolute classic. That's... By the way, like, I- I said that that night, like, that has gotta be a staple if you're trying to just have a singalong song. Really, any Oasis song, we've determined.
- CWChris Williamson
The thing is-
- ZTZack Telander
Champagne Supernova.
- CWChris Williamson
... in the UK, if you were to ask it in the UK, it would be a bit cheesy, because everybody already thinks that. Like, to- to put Wonder Wall or Don't Look Back in Anger or Champagne Supernova, it's so obvious. But I said it in America and everyone was like, "Yes, amazing idea." I'm thinking, "Hmm, it was the first thing that came to mind."
- ZTZack Telander
Well, okay. Wonder Wall, Wonder Wall is... It's like that here. Okay, so that is a corny one to choose. If you've gotta pick up a guitar and you start playing Wonder Wall, you're gonna get shit for it, 100%, because it's just like, you know... You know the meme where it's like the conversation ends and you go, "Anyway, here's Wonder Wall."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
You know?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- ZTZack Telander
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- ZTZack Telander
So that... It is, it is a widely known thing, just like don't play Wonder Wall. But Champagne Supernova, that's not off limits.
- CWChris Williamson
You crushed it, man. It was good. Yeah, we had a... I had a great Saturday. I went to LIFT: ATX, this new indoor/outdoor gym. That was fantastic. It's a bit hot. Well, it's very hot. Austin generally, man... I went away to Guatemala, right? So I'm in Guatemala, uh, getting the visa thing and then I come back and something's happened. Someone's flicked a switch in Austin and this place is disgusting now. And it's appare- uh, everyone's like, "Oh, just wait until summer arrives." I don't want to wait until summer arrives. This is already far too much for me.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. It's... At a certain point, it's either like you go from AC unit to AC unit or AC unit to pool, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
To shower.
- ZTZack Telander
Like-
- CWChris Williamson
To AC unit.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, to shower. You don't wanna... You're not just like doing outdoor activities and not having, like, air conditioning near you.
- CWChris Williamson
Well-
- ZTZack Telander
For sure.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, everyone in England knows... Most people in cold places understand that you want to dress appropriately and spend as little time in the cold as possible moving from, you know, a heated car, to a heated house, to a heated office, to a gym or whatever. But the reverse just is so bizarre. It's like, oh, you don't wanna go outside, it's too hot. Like, there, there's never been a problem. I've always wanted it to be more hot. But yeah, so, uh, did LIFT: ATX, that was cool. Went to see Everything Everywhere All at Once with Sky-
- ZTZack Telander
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because it's- it's to do with Asian stuff, so Sky was in love with it. And, uh, for the people that haven't seen it, it's pretty cool. I don't think it's the best film ever made, which tons of people are- are sort of giving it that accolade, but it's pretty good.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. The- the one assessment you said was like it wasn't, um, like, uh, like deeply sci-fi enough, right? Like it didn't-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I just thought it was gonna be more like Tenet or Interstellar-
- ZTZack Telander
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... or something that was gonna blow my face off. And it was funny and- and quirky and it had charisma and stuff, but that, for me, that detracted away from the serious, whatever, philosophical undertone of it. And then I asked a bunch of the guys, everyone had a different idea about what it meant and no one agreed with anyone else about what the under... like the subtext of the, of the plot was. Uh, and then we went to our boy Chase's birthday, you played Wonder Wall, and then I went to a new nightclub. So this weekend was pretty, pretty fun, man. I- I got a lot in.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. Yeah, that's just gonna be the typical weekend for someone who's now a visa holder in the States. It's not-
- 4:31 – 9:49
Training For The Difficult
- CWChris Williamson
I was watching that Kyriakos Grizzly video that you did where he talks about training for the difficult.
- ZTZack Telander
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
What- what is that?
- ZTZack Telander
Well, I, I think, first off, Kyriakos Grizzly is... He is... He's an enigma. He is very, very strong, but he does these unusual movements that are not very functional, I guess would be the definition. He- he- he does like Zercher shrugs. So he'll, like, literally stand with weights in his elbows, like a barbell in his elbow with an obscene amount of weight, and he'll just like shrug it up and down two inches. Okay? And then he'll put it down and start screaming. He's also a very, very large individual. Like, part of his training is just like getting on the scale and it says like, "195 kilos body weight." And it's like, you know, it's like a- a- a thing that he's passionate about, is how heavy he is. He's... And- and what- what's interesting is... What happens with a lot of the fitness industry around YouTube, and I can- I can list off examples, but these guys, they're kind of, you know, enigmatic, like I said, but then they kind of get memed. And maybe someone thinks they're stupid or foolish at first, but then they just keep going long enough to where it- it's... Yes, it is this under-said joke, right? It's like Kyriakos Grizzly, like we all know what's going on. But at the same time, the joke has been going on so long that, like, you're an asshole if you don't go along with the joke.... and I absolutely love it. Like, I c- I can't get enough of, of this guy. So, what he says is two things. He says, "You have to live it." And you, and then the other one is training f- Someone says, "Why do you train so hard?" He goes, "For the difficult."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
Okay? Which is ... Okay? It's amazing. It's amazing. If you're gonna a- if you're gonna think of like a Greek accent, someone going like, "For the difficult."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
You know? It's, it's, it's not like grammatically correct, but yes, it's, it's for the difficult.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
And I perceive it as, you know, just giving yourself advers- adversity so you can create a better version of yourself. Uh, but what I did was I kind of deconstructed that and, and tried to make a video that I could help people with. And, um, there was this really good example that I used of Jack White, who's like one of ... If I look up to anyone in music, it's, it's Jack White. And one of the things he said in this documentary, it's a great documentary, it's called Under these Great Northern Lights, and it's him and Meg White and The White Stripes, and they're going, uh, through Canada, and they just go through like really random places and play live gigs. But one of the things he says is like, um, "Convenience is the enemy of creativity." And being ... If, if you are given all of these opportunities, it's h- less likely, or if things are made easier for you, it's less likely that you're gonna make something that you're gonna see as worthwhile. And one of the things that he says is like, you know, for instance, you know, book four days in the studio and make yourself make an entire LP, which is a full-length album. And, uh, a couple of, you know ... One of the things he says is like, "If I go up on stage and I just kinda play what we usually play, and I don't show that effort, people know. Whether they, whether they say that they know it, there's something inherent where they can tell that you're just kind of, just going through the motions. So, what I try to do is make things difficult." You know? A la for the difficult. And so he's like, "I played these 15-year-old piece of shit guitars that go out of tune, their strings snap. I play them because it's an added challenge. I put my picks on the amp behind me rather than on the microphone stand. So if I drop a pick, I have to, during the song, find a point where I could sprint back and get a pick. I make the piano, uh, a distance away from me so when I switch from the guitar to the piano, I have to sprint over there. I have to time it up just right and if I don't, I'll miss it." And he's like, "I add all of these challenges in so that I can create something beautiful for people to watch." And, uh, and I l- I liken that to for the difficult. I try to, you know, I try to take something that's meme-worthy and see what we can learn from it. I usually do that sorta s- sort of thing with my videos. Um, another example of this is actually, I th- I think it was David Goggins on, uh, Rogan, and he, I, I believe he said, he's like, "I'm gonna go back to work, Joe. Like, my hands are getting too soft." And he, and he said he wanted to do, like, smoke jumping, which is, um, like forest fire, uh, fighter or something like that. I, I can't remember the exact ... And if he actually ended up doing it. He's like, "You know, my life has gotten too easy for myself." He's like, "I gotta make it hard." And so, like, I always think about those things. It's like, am I making life too easy for myself? Are you, out there, making life too easy for yourself? What can you do to make it so it's more difficult, but still able to move forward?
- CWChris Williamson
Goggins hasn't done any media in three years. I found this out last week. He hasn't done any new media, like, in three years.
- 9:49 – 20:01
David Goggins
- CWChris Williamson
He's done little bits for his own channel, but he hasn't ... You know, he, he ... Someone like him breaks onto the scene and you would expect to see him on Rogan once a year, and he would be doing rounds sort of constantly, and he hasn't done anything for three years, which is pretty wild. So, maybe he has been training for the difficult. Maybe he has been doing whatever it is.
- ZTZack Telander
Oh, 100%. Knowing that guy, he has to be. He has to be.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you read his book? I've only d- I, I never read it when it first came out, but I'm-
- ZTZack Telander
No.
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm listening to it now. Dude, it's so good. And, uh, this guy had such a fucked up childhood. It was ruthless. His dad was a pimp that ran a roller skate rink and they, he used to make the kids sleep in the office 'cause they would be cashing up and, oh, dude, it was, it was terrible. Like, absolutely awful. And then his mum was about to marry this guy and this guy dies and he was finally gonna have a family and then he doesn't, and then ... Just a, an endless number of catastrophes that happen, and then there's all of that stuff about him cleaning out cockroaches. It's a super inspiring story. I, I get that he's not everyone's cup of tea because of the way that he communicates but-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... he's, he's fantastic, man. Like, I, I, I'm really looking forward ... I think he's gonna be doing more stuff this year. I think he's gonna be back on it this year, um, and i- if that's the case, it's like, there aren't many other people that do what he does. Even Jocko, who's, you know, kinda close to him-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in terms of his rhetoric, they're just not the same. Like, Jocko does the Jocko thing and Goggins does the Goggins thing, so I'm, I'm glad that he's, he's maybe coming back. Uh-
- ZTZack Telander
What are your ... Hold on. What are, what are your thoughts on poking your head out every once in a while when you're, when you're at that level? Maybe David Goggins isn't quite at that level, but what are your thoughts on the less is more approach to maybe social media, to whatever that may be?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, Robert Greene talks about the fact that a little bit of aloofness creates a sense of mystique and sort of attraction around who you are, because if people always know that they can get ahold of you as much as they want, I don't know, it d- it doesn't seem as special anymore. Um, it seems to me that it's probably just like any other normal distribution, right? That if you're gonna post very, very consistently online and put out tons and tons of content, you have to be an outlier in terms of the quality. So, James Smith's a good example of this, right? He has ... I wouldn't like to guess the last time that he went 24 hours without his story being up, and it's always tons and tons of stories, and they're always face to camera, and they're always ...... th- there's always something happening, right? But he's an outlier because he's interesting. Like, he's a f- he's a funny guy that has great delivery online, so he can get away with that. Now, I think it would probably be a bit of a waste if you had James' skill and decided to only do it, uh, every three years, do a little batch of, uh, of runs. Uh, there's definitely something exciting about only getting, like, uh, uh, a limited run of access-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to someone's ideas. Um, and something tells me that (exhales) maybe with Goggins, he's, he's probably the sort of guy that's going to have enough stories and enough amazing insights to maybe do that, to do like a condensed run every three years, and then go away and then prove himself for The Difficult, and to then come back and be like, "Look, here's what I learned having done The Difficult. Here are some more things for you to learn about." But if it was just consistent, I don't know whether that would work quite so well. You know what I mean?
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There was that period w- when Jordan Peterson came back after he'd had, you know, basically two years off from his recovery and all of that stuff. People were excited because they hadn't seen him for ages and-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... th- yeah. Absence can sort of make the heart grow fonder, maybe like that. What do you think?
- ZTZack Telander
Well, I, I like to think about Tool, one of my favorite bands. Um, d- Maynard Keenan being the lead singer, like e- even when, even when they perform, he's in the back. So he's like the only lead singer I've ever seen that goes to the back of the stage. Did you know this?
- CWChris Williamson
Behind the drummer?
- ZTZack Telander
No, it's like kind of to the left or right of the drummer.
- CWChris Williamson
But in line with him?
- ZTZack Telander
Uh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- ZTZack Telander
And, uh, sometimes actually behind the drummer. So, like, Danny Carey, I, I believe... I, I can't quite remember 'cause I, I saw them live. It was probably one of my top three favorite shows I've ever been to. And Danny Carey's more center stage and he has two boxes that he goes to that are to the left and to the right of Danny Carey, and maybe even slightly behind him. So, you can already get that mystique from him, you know? And he was also saying, like, "F- as far as sound goes, it's easier for me, uh, to, to sing and it makes more sense. Just because I'm the singer, it doesn't mean that I should have my back to my band." Um, but, you know, he's the type of guy... Like, that band to me, is so massive, but yet they have, like, almost zero pop culture, uh, what- what's the word I'm, like-
- CWChris Williamson
Exposure.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. The- their relevance, right? They're just not relevant in, in pop culture, and yet they can sell out arena after arena after arena after taking a massive break from album to album. And he goes and he takes this money from this tour and he fucks off to Arizona to his winery, and he just... All he focuses on is, is making good wine. And now he's gotten into, like, this, uh, industry of trying to sell his wines to other restaurants in Arizona. He's trying to build, like, this hub. That's what he's passionate about. And I think... I just find it so interesting when your art is that good, that no matter what you do, if you start a tour, people will go crazy for you. And I almost revere that 'cause I'm in the position of the opposite, and I believe you're probably the same, right? Where it's like, if we don't p- if we don't show, poke our heads in-
- CWChris Williamson
Feed the beast.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. If we don't feed the beast, we are disappearing. And so, it's almost like the, yeah, the grass is always greener but, um, I, I do respect it. I think it's very, very interesting to talk about.
- CWChris Williamson
I also think, especially with Maynard Keenan and Tool, and who's his other one? Per- Perfect Circle, right? That's his other one. Um-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, and Puscifer and... But yeah, Perfect Circle, yeah.
- 20:01 – 25:10
Monkeypox Patient Zero
- CWChris Williamson
... is real. So monkeypox outbreak is primarily spreading through sex, world health officials say. Uh, European nations have confirmed dozens of cases in what's been the largest outbreak of monkeypox ever on the continent, according to the German military. I don't know why they're involved in this. The US has confirmed at least two cases and Canada has confirmed at least five. So has the Belgium. Belgium has introduced a mandatory 21-day quarantine for monkeypox. If you get monkeypox and COVID, you're fucked. Um, the most recent surge in cases appears to have been spread among men who have had sex with other men. So the first place that this came out of was a sauna in Madrid. So it's obviously, I don't know, a bunch of guys maybe having a bit of fun in the sauna and then one of them is ... I mean I, I want to know. This is always the question. Like who was the person that ate the pangolin or whatever, or the one that escaped from the lab or some shit that got-
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, uh, what is it? Zero? Something s-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Patient Zero.
- ZTZack Telander
Patient Zero, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I wanna know who ... I wanna know how monkeypox come ... 'Cause it's not interesting once it's-
- ZTZack Telander
Are you sure? Are you sure you wanna know? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. I kind of-
- ZTZack Telander
Are you sure?
- CWChris Williamson
I kind of do. I don't wanna see it graphically. Definitely not.
- ZTZack Telander
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But I do ki- ... I'm pretty, pretty intrigued. But yeah, so vaccines are available. Um, but it's, it's just fascinating that you're talking about how many cases there are in Europe and then there's this. Uh, it's, it's a sexually transmitted, a new sexually transmitted infection. While the virus itself is not a sexually transmitted infection, uh, which are generally spread through semen and vaginal fluids, the most recent surge in cases appears to have been spread amongst men who have had sex with other men. Uh, emphasizing that anyone can contract monkeypox. Many diseases can be spread through sexual contact. You can get a cough or a cold through sexual contact. (laughs) But it doesn't mean it's a sexually transmitted disease. Okay, so that's interesting. So it's not actually an STI, but it's just, it's just one of the ways that you can, that you can contract it. But yet now this is the new, this is the new current thing that everybody needs to be concerned about.
- ZTZack Telander
Okay. Well, clarify that for me because d- uh, maybe I'm just an idiot and didn't understand that. Can you get it fr- if you are not sexually active with other men or sexually active at all? Can you get monkeypox?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ZTZack Telander
Okay. All right. So it's a chicken pox. It's a, it's a, it's now a virus. Are ... Is there a potential for a cure or are we looking at another epidemic or-
- CWChris Williamson
They've already got a vaccine. They've already got a vaccine. There's a vaccine that already exists for it.
- ZTZack Telander
Oh, okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, monkeypox is a disease caused by a virus in the same family as smallpox, but not as severe. Monkeypox can kill as many as one in 10. The vaccine used to prevent smallpox appears to have an 85% effectivity rate guarding against monkeypox in observational data and research in Africa, world health officials say. The vaccines aren't widely available, so it's important to reserve them for populations that are most at risk. What does that mean? What does most at risk mean? Like the people that are just like the m- the biggest players? Like the ones that are able to slay?
- ZTZack Telander
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, "Hey, hey, who's the-"
- ZTZack Telander
"Hey, look."
- CWChris Williamson
"... who's the Chad in this city? Come over here. We gotta inoculate you."
- ZTZack Telander
Like you ... (laughs) Yeah. I gotta head to a CVS man, get, get myself a vaccine real quick because, uh, I've been getting a lot of action.
- CWChris Williamson
Your boy fucks, that's why.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause your boy fucks. Uh, I don't think that it's going to be an uncontrolled spread in the same way that we've tolerated-
- ZTZack Telander
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the COVID-19 epidemic. Uh, but there is a possibility that this has gotten into the community if in fact it's more pervasive than we're measuring right now. That becomes hard to snuff out. And they were concerned that this summer, because of all of the different festivals and stuff that were going on, uh, that people were just gonna be spraying the monkeypox everywhere.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. They're just gonna be going everywhere.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
Spreading that, spreading that pox. (laughs) Did you get chickenpox?
- 25:10 – 37:37
Insights into Hollywood from Johnny Depp’s Trial
- ZTZack Telander
clip to maybe a three-minute clip on, uh, Instagram or, uh, TikTok. Maybe I am just one of the, the herd, if you will.
- CWChris Williamson
You do know that that's how, that's-
- ZTZack Telander
Pun, pun intended right there.
- CWChris Williamson
That is how most people get their news. Now in fact-
- ZTZack Telander
Right. But I, I-
- CWChris Williamson
... it probably makes you better informed than most people.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, okay. Well, you know, I, I like to consider myself, you know, above.
- CWChris Williamson
A connoisseur.
- ZTZack Telander
A cut above.
- CWChris Williamson
A connoisseur, yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. So, so, oh, w- yeah. What I've seen is ... Actually, I somewhat loosely followed the Heard/Depp controversy for a while. Um, I know I heard, like, some horror stories earlier on. And then, as far as the trial goes, I've, again, just seen clips, like the clip of Amber Heard supposedly snorting cocaine during-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
Um, which is, you know, maybe she was doing that, maybe not. The, uh, fact that she, uh, took a shit in her own bed but it was on Johnny's side, um-
- CWChris Williamson
That'll teach him.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That'll teach him.
- ZTZack Telander
Chris D'Elia had a-
- CWChris Williamson
She was defecating, defecating in my bed.
- ZTZack Telander
... had a, had a great bit on that. Chris D'Elia's like, "Hey, don't shit in your bed."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
"Your own bed." The funny thing, like, I just wanna know, like, what position she was in. Like, was she, was she squatting over the bed, like her feet were on the floor? Or was she on the bed squatting?
- CWChris Williamson
You've gotta be-
- ZTZack Telander
Maybe she was holding onto the backboard?
- CWChris Williamson
You've gotta be on the, you've gotta be on the bed in full squat. That's the only way to do it.
- ZTZack Telander
Okay. So, so what? So she's an experienced third world squatter? 'Cause that's not an easy task. If you've never shit-
- CWChris Williamson
She's got good mobility.
- ZTZack Telander
... in a, in a third-
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe she should consider transitioning to the sport of Olympic weightlifting if she can get herself all the way down to the bottom of a squat.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. Honestly, her mobility is good enough now to, to work with her. I'll, I will DM her-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 37:37 – 46:19
From #MeToo to #MenToo
- CWChris Williamson
Too is a response to the Me Too being over, like, potentially overblown in some people's eyes and that the Amber Heard, Johnny Depp trial is, look, men can be the victims of DV as well, they can be the people that are being socially manipulated, psychologically manipulated, they can be hurt. He nearly had his finger chopped off when she threw a vodka bottle at him. But, it doesn't add in ... What people haven't realized is, look, that particular style of thinking, believe all women, was maybe a little bit too low resolution, right? As has been shown in this case in front of us. Doing the opposite doesn't suggest that it's any better.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah. It-
- CWChris Williamson
Like, that's just as low resolution thinking.
- ZTZack Telander
But see that, is this not just how everything in the world works? You can't just go, "Absolutely, this is the team. Absolutely, this is the team," and just let the pendulum swing back and forth. I- I love to call, like-
- CWChris Williamson
Those are the only two options.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, like- like, uh, foam finger holding, that's what I call it. You know, the people that go to the game and they just go, "Woo, that's my team! The- the liberals, the democrats," or, you know, "the republicans, conservatives." Like, "That's my team, I root for them no matter what." Um, yeah, and the, and the pendulum swinging is just nauseating. You know, um, I saw this movie, Men, yesterday.
- CWChris Williamson
Was it any good?
- ZTZack Telander
Uh, (sighs) I- I- I don't know. Uh, it was by, uh, it was by Alex Garland who made Ex Machina and, um, uh, Annihilation, two of, like, movies that I really like. It was pretty good, it was, you know, uh, thrilling, but the story behind it or- or what it was mentioning was, you know, all, the faults of men that aren't being taken by men. You know, so it's- it's more along the lines of the Me Too movement. It's like, um, there are characters in it that treat the main character like every, uh, you know, patriarchal trope.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- ZTZack Telander
Like, the nice guy, you know the nice guy trope? There's like, the gaslighter, there's like, the sexual worshiper, and it's very obvious in that way. And the funniest thing is I'm watching this and from my perspective, I could see seven different characters of females, because I've been in situations where the opposite has happened to me. Right? So, it does not, it's not, "Oh, believe all men, believe all women." It's like, believe some men, believe some women, but you know, like, or don't believe any of them until they prove themselves, or how about this? Things are not a storyline. Things will always remain gray. The best stories, I, are actually, the best movies are the ones that are like, this must be the good character, right? This must be the good guy. This must be the bad guy. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait, the bad guy, I kind of understand why he did that. Oh, the good guy, like, why is he doing that shitty thing? You know? It's like, those are the best, the ones where you question the characters and in doing so, you question yourself, and I- I've always found that sort of thing fascinating but it's infuriating, like you said, to just see the pendulum go from one side to the other. I see it on every social media platform.
- CWChris Williamson
But it's easier, right? It's easier to have low resolution thinking. All that you need to do is go, "Well, here is a one-size-fits-all answer." You see this in the red pill community as well. They've got their answers for what- what it is that women are after. You go, "Well, I don't know, man. Like, that doesn't fit with my experience of women in the real world." And maybe I just happen to have managed to live 34 years and have a really unrepresentative experience or maybe there's something about me that's selecting for a different type of- o- o- of people that I speak with, but I've met a million people stood in the front door of night clubs. That's a pretty big sample size.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Met a lot of women, right? Working in night life.
- ZTZack Telander
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And they- they would be the ones that would be thrown under the bus as, "Oh, well, they're the most club bratty, hoe-y, uh, low moral girls that you're gonna find." I'm like, "Well, didn't seem that way to me." So ...
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What- what do you th- ... But, no, no, no, no, it's significantly easier to just have a one-size-fits-all answer because you never ever have to question your assumptions again.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, and um, I, the- the boys verse girls, girls- girls verse boys on TikTok, Instagram, you know, anything, is just incessant. It is non-stop. It is, you know, it's- it's a always a- a one-size-fits-all thing, and what- what's problematic is if you do it, if you disguise these things, these- these binary understandings of- of, you know, left, right, whatever. If- if you disguise it with memes and with clever, funny, and timing, it's all about timing, doing it first and being funny or it's all about being contrarian. If you disguise all of those things and someone calls you out and says, "Hey, man, what about this gray area?" You go, "Oh, it was just a joke, dude. Take it easy." You know, are you really gonna say that all men aren't bad at a time like this? It's like, well, why can't I? You know? Or- or vice versa. Not all women are bad at a time, you know, when- when something comes up. So, I- I always think that that- that happens and it's just so prevalent in social media. It's like, you really gotta cut through all of that.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you gotta think, um, certainty and black and white thinking and a pithy, well-rounded, snappy tagline sounds a lot like...... wisdom and insight and understanding. Like that's a good proxy for those things. It's not those things, but it sounds like what someone that actually knew what they were talking about would say. And I think that that's one of the reasons that it catches fire online, because a platform like Twitter or TikTok specifically isn't built to have longer form discussions. It's built to optimize for pithiness, right?
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's built to be optimized for shortness. So what you end up with is not necessarily the argument which is the most right, it's the one that is the most believable or sounds the most right. And that gets, uh, filtered through all sorts of things. People use fluency as a proxy for truthfulness, so that's why the people that have great delivery, presidents that have amazing... "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Like Bill Clinton got away with all sorts because he had fucking great delivery. So okay, how do you sort of pull these things apart? And yet you have an entire internet of people that are able, they have way too much spare time, but people still get seduced by the same things.
- ZTZack Telander
Do you feel like the internet has evolved into this thing where it's all about relatable, it's all about, "Oh, ha ha," like, "My face when..." You know, like, "My face when this happens." Or like, I feel like almost all of TikTok is, is relating a life experience to other people. And maybe that's how things have always been, but it's meme and meta culture has literally taken almost every single aspect of the internet at this point.
- CWChris Williamson
You're the expert on TikTok, man. Uh, that is one of the things I'm so glad-
- ZTZack Telander
I'm not-
- CWChris Williamson
... that I didn't, I haven't developed that compulsion. You know, of all of the other addictions-
- ZTZack Telander
Well, look, I-
- CWChris Williamson
... online that I've got, I'm so glad that TikTok wasn't one of them.
- ZTZack Telander
I'm slowing down for sure. I'm definitely slowing down. Um, it was definitely really intriguing at first. But I always observe it through a critical lens. Like I'm always criticizing whatever the idea is. But the girls versus boys, boys versus girls thing, there's problems on either side of that debate and what I'm able to do when I look at TikTok is observe the comments, see where I disagree, decide what I, you know, rather than a lot of people, it's just confirmation bias, right? It's just, "Oh, I believe that thing. They did a really funny video, uh, that was quirky and, and it timed up really nicely with my life. Let me just repost it to my Instagram story really quickly." Okay, that, I believe that things like that, uh, can eventually do more harm than good. And that's not why I use TikTok. I just use it to just observe and, and see what's going on in the internet. There are some really funny just stupid comedy viral videos still, so I'm always down to watch stuff like that. But it is a good platform for observation. Twitter, on the other hand, is something that I don't think I could ever get into.
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting. I, I-
- ZTZack Telander
I don't even know if I really tried.
- 46:19 – 53:13
Why Men Are Having Less Sex
- CWChris Williamson
and young men reporting low sexual activity? So there's a graph here that says the, uh, young men, uh, share of men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 reporting no sex in the past year, and that has gone up from 10% to 30% for men since around about 2010 to 2020, to now, right? So over the last decade, the number of men reporting no sex in the last year has tripled. And the, uh, line on the graph has got where Tinder is introduced and it is exactly when men, uh, where that, that inflection for men beginning to go from the 10% to the twe- 28%. Women also actually, um, stay flat for a little while, but have increased, which is also very interesting. Um, wealth in Tinder is not distributed equally. Attractive guys have more wealth in the Tinder economy. They get more likes than unattractive guys. That's the bottom 80% of men, bottom 20% of women, top 80% of women, top 20% of men thing, which a lot of people are familiar with. Um, there's a thing called a Gini coefficient or a Gini coefficient, um, which works out how much inefficiency there is within a system. So it's used to look at, uh, economies within countries, uh, and the lower that the number is, the, um, more, uh, equality there is, uh, within wealth distribution. So if modern dating apps were a country, it would be one of the most unequal in the world. The Tinder economy has a higher Gini coefficient than 95.1% of the countries in the world. It's just below South Africa. It's above Venice-
- ZTZack Telander
In disparity-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
... of wealth?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
Uh...
- CWChris Williamson
It's above Venezuela and just below South Africa. That's where it sits. Uh, according to open source data, a man of average attractiveness can only be expected to be liked by slightly less than 1% of females, 0.87% on Tinder. This equates to one like for every 115 females, and men in the bottom 10% see just one match per week at most. Ultimately, most women only swipe on a handful of men per day, while men are more freewheeling with their swipes. So yeah, men, females pass on 95% and like on five, and men are basically 50/50 left and right. Um, it's just, it-
- ZTZack Telander
So we, we, we had talked about Tinder before, and one thing that I think is actually really interesting was before Tinder, it, there were websites like eHarmony, you remember that?
- CWChris Williamson
Match.com.
- ZTZack Telander
And, um, match.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Plenty of Fish.
- ZTZack Telander
And the way that, the way that we looked at it, you know, the, the guys in my friend group, the people my age, we looked at it as like, "Oh, what a weird fucking idea." Online dating, super weird, you're a weir-... Like it's, it was just kind of like, "What the hell?" And then here's Tinder, this fun little swipy thing. It's kind of about hookups. It's everyone... It's a meme.Right? It's, it's a, it's a, it's like a meta-commentary. It's just like, "This is hilarious." We're, we're swiping, it's hilarious, we match. "Oh, what's up?" Like... And then almost immediately after that, online dating becomes something serious. It becomes something like, "Well, I haven't gotten any dates, let me go online." There was really, there's really not much resisting to whether it's cool or not. You can resist whether you wanna do it or, or whether it's legit or not, or, or if the masses are doing it. But if someone says, "Hey, I'm on Hinge," or, "I'm on Tinder," they're not gonna get made fun of because it's just the masses are doing that. Whereas eHarmony and match.com, like, if you had done that at the time where they were very prevalent for, I think, older generations, um, it was definitely seen as a weird thing. That's the thing with-
- CWChris Williamson
That's the same as anything though, right? There's adoption, adoption curves happen slowly.
- ZTZack Telander
But it was still... But it, it wasn't like eHarm- it wasn't like we all jumped on eHarmony. We all jumped on the hookup app that required zero effort.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, there was something about Tinder that made this...
- ZTZack Telander
The location services was, I think the thing. You are in the same location as that person. Here's a picture of them. Do what you want with it. Rather than this kind of weird, um, almost like Myspacey type of AOL vibe to it, which you would get from eHarmony and match.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
Maybe on the Tinder thing, you get this more, you get this handheld, y- you know, location services, this app on your device that-
- CWChris Williamson
Good user experience.
- ZTZack Telander
... just separates it. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Less boomery. Well, why do you think it would be that the introduction of Tinder would increase the number of men reporting no sex? Do you think it's just women... Do you think that it, what this guy's implying in the thread is because of this high inequality that women are sort of wistfully chasing after the eight out of tens and above for guys, and they're not giving any attention to the dudes at the bottom? Because you would have presumed maybe if you hadn't been able to work out what was actually gonna go on, everyone's talking to everyone more. That should facilitate more casual sex for everybody overall. But what it seems has happened is, the gains have been sort of accrued to the very few m- um, super Chads at the top. And then there's this big sexless underclass of men that is now 30% of men reporting no sex within the last year.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah, I mean, more matches for the female would mean, uh, you know, why would you take the male that you're less attracted to, right? Like, why would you take the opportunity if you know you can match with more and more and more and more people? You're going to leave out a very large chunk of other people where men apparently do not have that option. So yeah, I mean, it's, they're just chasing after the potential match that they know is more likely going to happen. Maybe if those two people meet... Like, this is also another thing. Women are, a- and men, are now looking at their potential mate through the lens of looks. Whereas before, you might not think someone is attractive until there's some sort of action that makes them attractive. Um, whether that's someone in your class or, uh, you know, someone you go to the gym with or whatever, that interaction is what makes them attractive. And y- then you're looking at someone who, if you saw their Tinder profile or if you saw their Hinge profile, you would not have swiped. So maybe that's occurring less, you know? Potential mates, like, lo- you just had on a, a guest who said that the worst quality to look for for a long term relationship is looks.
- CWChris Williamson
Conventional attractiveness. Yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
And that is, and that is exactly what people are looking at when they get these apps.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I think that this probably explains a big chunk of why relationships are now increasingly short, and this is something that people don't necessarily see. So it's easy to say,
- 53:13 – 1:03:22
De-incentivising Long Term Happiness
- CWChris Williamson
um, there is now a global sexual marketplace. Um, anybody with an Instagram account or a Tinder account can basically be in the entire world's sexual marketplace, right? They can be dating somebody in Guatemala or Bali or Germany or wherever they want. And therefore, that means that people are mate switching more easily because the friction of doing that, uh, is lower and because the number of competitors for whoever your mate is, is significantly higher now, and that women will lily pad from one guy to one guy, from one Chad to one Chad to the next one. Now, the thing that Seth Stephens-Davidowitz said that was really interesting is that the algorithms can predict what you're going to click on unbelievably well. They will be able to predict with, like, insane accuracy whether you'll swipe left or right on someone, and the algorithms can do basically nothing to work out whether or not you'll have long term happiness and whether the relationship will last long term. So, for the people that didn't see the episode, um, the things that are most often used as cues for whether or not someone will swipe right or left are things like height, conventional attractiveness, wealth level, and job, right? Those are some of the, the most common things that are used. These have zero, basically zero correlation with whether or not a relationship is happy long term. Those things were psychological stability, conscientiousness, um, a growth mindset, a bunch of other things, none of which can be displayed on a Tinder profile. I can't tell whether you've got a growth mindset or whether you're, uh, somebody that's psychologically stable.
- ZTZack Telander
Mentally stable. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, precisely. In fact, you might be able to try and signal precisely that through your looks and then have the complete opposite. You can put window dressing up as much as you want. So my point being that what people are doing now is optimizing for the wrong parameters. People are optimizing for things which are completely arbitrary when it comes to long term relationship happiness. For girls, things like height, I think it's something like 80% of women on Hinge have their height limit set to six foot or above for men. That's...Less than 10%, I want to say, less than 10 or 15% of men in the United States are above six foot, and yet that, and height has zero predictive ability when it comes to looking at long-term relationship happiness. Imagine you saying to me, "Dude, I only date girls who are a size four and a half shoe." I'd be like, "Why? Why?"
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I know that this has no bearing on whether or not you're gonna be happy in this relationship, but you just pick this arbitrary thing because it's become captured by the culture that girls that are size four and a half feet.
- ZTZack Telander
Do you know what? I, I have a great ... I almost have a, a, a reasoning for that. Having, and this is anecdotal, but I, I feel as though girls hold more of animus towards these dating apps. So that they say, "Look, if I'm gonna get on Hinge, I'm gonna get the best of the best. And if it doesn't work, no problems for me. I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit if I get one match, if I get 10 matches, I don't care. I'm on this thing to not get fucked over, but I, if I'm gonna get someone, they better be tall, they better be good-looking, they better be this, this, and this." Where maybe it's not the, the same approach for men. Right? I, I, I can honestly say that I've heard many, many women just say like, it's almost like the dating app owes them for being on-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, 'cause they resent the fact that they maybe have to be on there.
- ZTZack Telander
They resent the idea that they're there, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting.
- ZTZack Telander
That's absolute- ... That has to be it, right? I mean, and then men are on there because it's like, "Well, fuck, I haven't gotten laid."
- CWChris Williamson
I'm not sure that it has to be. I think that would be a r- a really interesting-
- ZTZack Telander
Or, or I'm lonely and I wanna mate, or something like that, and, and I really hope this works. You know? I don't think a ... I think it's less likely that a male is going to be on there and be resentful for it.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know, man.
- ZTZack Telander
You know?
- CWChris Williamson
A lot of guys seem to be very resentful of online dating as well now.
- ZTZack Telander
(laughs) Well, they don't, they don't like it, but I think their approach to it is less of a, "Well, if I don't get the best-looking girl, I don't give a shit."
- CWChris Williamson
Oh yeah, well I'll be-
- ZTZack Telander
You know, the, the-
- CWChris Williamson
That's inevitable because of the fact that guys are the, um, they're the protagonists and girls are the gatekeepers, right? That's always the way that it, that it, that it's going to be. It's ... You know what I mean?
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Hinge, Hinge is designed-
- ZTZack Telander
As far as romantic relationships.
- CWChris Williamson
Hinge is designed, the whole, um, novelty around Hinge is that it flips that imbalance on its head, because typically it's the guy that messages first, and on Hinge, it has to be the other way around, I think.
- ZTZack Telander
No, that's Bum- that's Bumble.
- CWChris Williamson
Sorry, yeah.
- ZTZack Telander
Bumble is ... Bumble, yes, Bumble is the one-
- CWChris Williamson
But you know what I mean. That's the one I meant.
- ZTZack Telander
Right, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Where you go, well, the power dynamic's being shifted because, for precisely this reason, because to avoid girls from having too many incoming messages from guys that they, whatever, like erroneously, accidentally swiped right on, or some shit. But yeah, man, it's um, it's really interesting. I, I, I just don't feel very positive, I think, about the world of online dating at the moment. I just don't see it getting any better.
- ZTZack Telander
No.
- 1:03:22 – 1:13:00
The Gender War
- ZTZack Telander
any part in that? Um, but yeah, I mean, look, this is really funny 'cause I just saw this today, it's Tim Dillon, um, basically he, he's saying it doesn't matter the organization, they don't... When they grow to have enough power and enough, um, eyes on them, they can never care about you as an individual. And, you know, those people that are putting out, um, you know, the this is beautiful and, and all these virtue signaling things, it's like, if you are truly about that cause, give all your money to charity. If you are truly, or, or show, you know, you, they just utilize it purely as something that would drive clicks, that will... You know, Jordan Peterson did more for that Sports Illustrated (laughs) magazine-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
... than anyone else could've.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
They... Dude, the CEO or, or the editor in chief for Sports Illustrated should go and thank Jordan Peterson. They probably haven't had that many clicks in ages. For fuck's sake, I clicked on it. I was like, "Whoa. Oh shit, the, the, the s- the swimsuit edition is out? Let's see what go- what's going on here." I wanna see who the woman is that he thinks is, is not attractive. Of course I'm gonna do that, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
It is, it-
- ZTZack Telander
So-
- CWChris Williamson
It is. You, you're so right, man. Like, they must be split testing what gets the most clicks for this. The fashion companies that are using plus size models, you'll notice that they never use skinny fat guys. So they'll have normal dudes... Oh my God, did you see this the other day? So it was so funny, one of my guys, one of my guy mates tweeted this from the UK about how it was, um, different types of underwear. One was for men and one was for women, and the women was women of all sizes, and (laughs) the dudes were shredded out of existence. And it was just like a comparison of the women's underwear and the guy's underwear and all of the guys were absolutely ripped.
- ZTZack Telander
Bro, that, that kind of sucks, dude. That kind of sucks. Like, look, I, I guess maybe it's not masculine of me but to, to have that be the standard for men and to not be like, "Hey, it's accepting. It's acceptable for a man to do that." Because, hey, look, like, um, someone, you know, said this the other day and, and it was a woman, she said like, "You know, I, I sometimes misinterpret this... We can give as much shit as we want to men because they're men." You know, it's like we misinterpret it, it's like they should be able to handle that. M- you know, we have looked at a society where, you know, we look at through, through the lens of the "patriarchy" and so we-
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I've just put it in the chat.
- ZTZack Telander
Oh, you just sent-
- CWChris Williamson
Have a, have a, have a look at this thing.
- ZTZack Telander
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So have a look at the difference between... It's Maya and the women's (laughs) , the women's lingerie and the guy's lingerie.
- ZTZack Telander
Holy shit, wait, this is the exact same... Is this the same page or did they cut it?
- CWChris Williamson
No, this is the same page.
- ZTZack Telander
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
You know what? What does that fucking say, man? What does it say to, to men? It's like, "Oh yeah, like, you guys don't need to be babied at all ever. You don't need compliments. You, you know... Oh, your feelings are hurt? Well, you're a man, we've dealt with-"
- CWChris Williamson
Can you... For the people that are just listening, can you describe the, uh, the image?
- ZTZack Telander
All right, so look. So look, we have the women of all sizes on top, uh, we have women of all ages for sure on top. You know, we have an older lady on the right, couple older ladies in the middle. You know some of them-
- CWChris Williamson
And ethnicities as well.
- ZTZack Telander
... are definitely... All ethnicities. Men. Shredded, shredded, shredded chicken.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ZTZack Telander
Absolutely dick skin peeled. Uh, okay, well it looks like we have, uh, a couple different races here. Uh, and then shredded.
- CWChris Williamson
Well no-
- ZTZack Telander
Like these-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not a couple of different races. There's only one, like, slightly caramel guy but that's the same dude twice.
- ZTZack Telander
Oh, that's the same dude.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 1:13:00 – 1:13:45
Where to Find Zack
- ZTZack Telander
A little bit of a, you know, a, a focus on Olympic style weightlifting, but I try to focus on general fitness. My Instagram, coach_zt if you want programming. Uh, I have general programming, I have squat programming. For what you wanna do in the gym, go to patreon.com/zachtraelinger, and I think that's it. That's all.
- CWChris Williamson
That's it, man. Peace.
- ZTZack Telander
Flex for the cameras.
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:13:46
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