What Is Happening With Patreon, Gillette and Brexit? | Sargon Of Akkad

Chris Williamson 0:00 (wind blowing) Mr. Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, also known as Patreon's number one enemy at the moment. (laughs) How are you today, sir?

Carl Benjamin 0:16 I'm good. I didn't really consider myself Patreon's number one enemy. I don't know why they're doing this, but, um, apparently SubscribeStar has started working for people now. So it's kind of, uh, an issue that's passed us all by, I suppose. Now-

Chris Williamson 0:30 Yeah. It's-

Carl Benjamin 0:31 ... so-

Chris Williamson 0:31 It's kind of in and out, in and out pretty fast, right?

Carl Benjamin 0:33 Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's been strange.

Chris Williamson 0:36 For the, uh, for the listeners who don't know what's occurred over the last few months, could you give us the- the rundown, the zeitgeist?

Carl Benjamin 0:43 Yeah, um, basically Patreon found me insulting a bunch of Nazis on a live stream, on quite an obscure channel. And they took umbrage to the way that I was insulting them, and they decided to delete my Patreon account without warning, um, which is strange 'cause I mean, the terms of service obviously don't say that they track down things that you do elsewhere on the Internet and use that to judge you. But, uh, apparently, they do. So be warned if you have a Patreon account.

Chris Williamson 1:12 So Patreon was your way of assisting your channel, Sargon of Akkad, on YouTube, crowdfunding. It allows fans to get like exclusive content and- and early access to- to certain things and stuff like that. And by being shut down from that, I'm gonna guess that that was a- a- a primary source of income that you were deriving your, from your channel, right?

Carl Benjamin 1:34 Uh, it- it was certainly one of the major ways I was monetizing my channel, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:37 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 1:37 Um, the... YouTube has a join fe- feature that you can turn on, but I'm really hesitant to do it 'cause it's something like 30% of the money that people donate through it are taken by YouTube themselves. Whereas with- with Patreon, it's only 5%.

Chris Williamson 1:51 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 1:52 Um, and with SubscribeStar, it's only 5% as well.

Chris Williamson 1:54 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 1:55 Um, just thir- 30%'s a huge amount in my opinion.

Chris Williamson 1:58 It is a big amount, yeah. But it's obviously YouTube is starting to see a- a gap in the fact that if you've got (throat clears) companies that have agendas and who are potentially gonna disenfranchise the, uh, the-

Carl Benjamin 2:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:09 ... content creators. So w-

Carl Benjamin 2:11 Well, that- that was, that was the point of Patreon in the first place, that YouTube- YouTube were the ones saying, "We have advertisers, therefore, you can't say certain things or be, you know, quite edgy and push boundaries." You know, there- there are a lot of advertisers who, you know, corporate, you know, sponsors for, you know, and advertisers who don't want you to be too edgy, not that they really care, I think, in my opinion, but they would... And demonetizing certain videos and things like that. And Patreon offered itself as, "Hey, look, you can keep your content going without advertisers, without having to get these corporations involved. We'll facilitate you doing that." And now, they're like, "Oh, actually, but if you say something we don't like and you don't apologize, then, you know, we're..." (laughs) I mean, not that they gave them the opportunity to apologize, but, you know. But the, "If you say something we don't like, we're gonna kick you off." It's just like... Okay.

Chris Williamson 2:57 So what happens? What happens when you wake up on the morning of whatever day it is and, uh, you find out your Patreon account's gone?

Carl Benjamin 3:06 (puffs) It's- it's not a very nice feeling. I'm gonna be honest. You know, 'cause, I mean, I was, I was relying on that money quite significantly. Um, I s- I mean, it is, it is kind of terrifying knowing that you're living under a Sword of Damocles. You know, like I, every day, I wake up and I check that my YouTube channel is still there.

Chris Williamson 3:27 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 3:27 I'm not joking. I'm, uh, I'm... It sounds terrible, doesn't it? You know, it's like f- every morning, you phone up your boss just to check you have a job to go into.

Chris Williamson 3:35 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 3:35 You know, it's like... That's how I feel about it sometimes, and it's- it's- it's my choice obviously. I'm the one who started doing a YouTube channel, but-

Chris Williamson 3:42 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 3:42 ... you know, it wasn't like this when I started, you know. It w- it wasn't... I mean, like, Mumki Jones was a- a young comedian who mocks, uh, he mocked Elliot, Elliot Rodger, and he actually ended up doing some real- really good work with it because he went through and read his crazy manifesto and things like this. And he would explain why Elliot Rodger was such a, you know, a lunatic. And he got his entire YouTube presence deleted, um, for being apparently controversial. And it's like, well, you know, come on, the controversial stuff is the stuff that's interesting, isn't it? You know, no one's just watching daytime television on YouTube, are they? They're gonna go somewhere else where the controversial content goes-

Chris Williamson 4:22 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 4:22 ... because that'll make that new platform, cough, cough, Bitchute, cough, um, uh, a- a better alternative. I think b- I think Bitchute's got a better model because it- it- it's stored like torrents, so it's across thousands of different computers, um, decentralizing it. And I think... Uh, so they don't have like a, you know, they don't have a giant warehouse full of hard drives, um, to keep everything on. So it's, I think that's the future. It's just YouTube's currently the dominant market share. But any- anyway, sorry.

Chris Williamson 4:50 Yeah. No. Totally. So you've woken up and you found out that... How many, how many, um, subscribers or, uh, patrons did you have at the time?

Carl Benjamin 4:57 About three and a half thousand.

Chris Williamson 4:59 That is a very significant number, isn't it?

Carl Benjamin 5:02 Yeah, it's quite a lot, yeah. And so, and I mean, and honestly, it's just, I mean, I just laughed 'cause to- to be honest with you, I'd kind of been expecting something for a while, um, and I think a lot-

Chris Williamson 5:12 You feel the impending fisting, but you just didn't know whether it was from YouTube or-

Carl Benjamin 5:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:17 ... Twitter or Instagram or...

Carl Benjamin 5:20 Yeah, basically. Uh, I think a- a bunch of, a bunch of prominent f- uh, free- freedom activist YouTubers have been in the crosshairs for quite some time now. Um, and I mean, obviously, really, it started with the alt-right, um, and I objected to it then. And then it came on Alex Jones, and it was... It's been a, it's been a very slippery slope since then. And the, and it really is the tightening of the sort of noose of censorship.

Chris Williamson 5:46 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 5:46 'Cause I mean, you know, like the, you can say, "Okay, we're not gonna ha- platform Nazis." Okay, well, you know, I, that I can't... It's hard to argue that, you know. I mean, I can sit there and make the same argument from their freedom. But if every, you know, if there's this giant consensus to do it, (grunts) you- you- you're yelling into a gale, you know.

Chris Williamson 6:04 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 6:04 ... and then it comes to someone like Alex Jones. And Alex Jones, no matter what you think of him, he wasn't a Nazi. You know, he was a radical libertarian conspiracy theorist.

Chris Williamson 6:12 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 6:12 And he, he was the one going, "Oh, they're gonna s- they're gonna shut us down," and all this sort of stuff, and then on one day they shut him down-

Chris Williamson 6:17 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 6:18 ... completely. And it was s- okay, well that's ... And that, that was enough to get a lot of people paying attention.

Chris Williamson 6:23 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 6:23 And then on Patreon, they got rid of me, James Allsup, and Milo Yiannopoulos. Um, James Allsup's a white identitarian, but he's not a Nazi, you know, he's not like calling for violence or anything. Milo is just, like, a conservative, and I- I'm a classical liberal. So it's, you know, the- the fact that they've come ... They've, they've jumped, uh, like, uh, several new steps closer and tighter to the center.

Chris Williamson 6:47 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 6:47 And, uh, I mean, there's- there's no particular reason that Milo should've been kicked off in the first place. And I did actually object to it on the day it happened, but everyone else just ignored it. And then two days later, that was it, my Patreon was gone as well. And that was like, "Jesus."

Chris Williamson 6:58 Shit. 'Cause Milo's had a really bad run recently, be it being deplatformed. Like, what's terrifying, and you- you alluded to it earlier on, is the fact that your connection to your audience and people who genuinely care about your content, and essentially your f- your friends, for- for want of a better term, if you were to try and like create it in the real world-

Carl Benjamin 7:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:21 ... they are at the behest of a man with a button, and the man- the man can press the button. And when the button gets pressed, your friendship with ... Uh, y- what are you up to now, nearly a million subs on YouTube? You're- you're- you're-

Carl Benjamin 7:33 Yeah, yeah. Coming- coming on 900,000, something like that.

Chris Williamson 7:35 So your friendship with or connection with a million people is gone.

Carl Benjamin 7:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:41 One button.

Carl Benjamin 7:41 And it- it's not just, it's not just the- the voice that I have that they're silencing. It's the ability for anyone who wanted to hear what I had to say, they've been deafened in the process.

Chris Williamson 7:51 Yes.

Carl Benjamin 7:51 Um, and the- the whole- the whole thing's really quite terrifying because almost all of the internet is run from Silicon Valley. And so I- I did a video on Starship Troopers a while ago, and I had to read a lot about fascism because the accusation on the book and the movie is that it's a fascist book and movie.

Chris Williamson 8:08 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 8:08 It's not. Um, but I- I did end up having to read a lot about fascism to be able to make the distinction because, I mean, y- you know, if you don't know much about either subject, it's easy to just say, "Guns, therefore fascism." But that's not how it works.

Chris Williamson 8:21 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 8:21 Um, but one of the things that, um, fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile said about the fascist state that I found really interesting is the idea of it being an ethical state. Um, as in, it has a plan, you know? It- it has a goal. And so everything the state's doing in a liberal society like we- we live in, e- everything the state should be t- working towards is the protection of the rights and freedoms of the citizen. The state doesn't tell you how to be a citizen, it's there to safeguard your independence as an individual in the world. Um, but the fascist state and the sort of socialist state is not really like that. They- they have a goal, a moral teleology, and they- they know how ... Th- they've, you know, they've got manifestos. They have a series of steps on how they're gonna implement these. 'Cause I was just thinking, what the f- what on earth would a liberal manifesto even look like?

Chris Williamson 9:13 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 9:13 You know? I don't have a grand-

Chris Williamson 9:14 We want everything all the time from everyone. (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 9:16 ... You need a grand plan for the world to have a manifesto. And so one- one of the- one of the ways that Giovanni Gentile described this, I thought it was really fascinating. It was like the- the fascist state is wide awake and has a will of its own. And you can definitely say that about Silicon Valley, it's wide awake and has a will of its own. Because you can listen to Tim Cook saying that it's a sin not to censor, and then you can listen to all the other CEO- CEOs ... And, I mean, Jack Conte just openly said, "We all talk to each other, we're very open and we share." And it's like, okay, and there's- there's a definitive kind of culture that's come out of the sort of Bay Area in which Silicon Valley's set, and it's got designs on remodeling the world. And I don't agree with those designs. Uh, I think they're quite authoritarian. And I- I mean, it's honestly, they're trying to create the Demolition Man future, which is a video I'm gonna do fairly soon actually, because it's so scary how unbelievably similar-

Chris Williamson 10:13 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 10:13 ... that they want it. But, um, yeah, sorry, that's ... So yeah, Silicon Valley, it scares me because it kind of a- acts like a fascist organization.

Chris Williamson 10:21 Yeah. I- I think, uh, it is- it is very worrying that you have such a high amount of power concentrated in such a small place. Like, it's the equivalent of a market monopoly.

Carl Benjamin 10:32 Oh, absolutely. It's cut to-

Chris Williamson 10:32 If it was anti-competitive, if there was-

Carl Benjamin 10:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:34 ... anti-competitiveness, uh, legislation with regards to having to distribute the power more evenly geographically-

Carl Benjamin 10:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:42 Because you're totally right, like you- you end up with an echo chamber. Like we all, uh, everyone that's listening I'm sure will have heard about how echo chambers exist online. But if you lump this many businesses together and this many CEOs in the same Telegram and WhatsApp group chats, like what- what do you think happens then?

Carl Benjamin 10:59 Yeah. And- and, uh, uh, they ... It's normal for that to happen. You know, you form a community with the people in the local area around you, you know, and people of similar status to you. It's natural that that happens. It's not like it's an evil conspiracy. But, I mean, when Tim Cook was standing at- at the recent Apple thing where he w- the- the viral clip from going around, he looks like a preacher. He- he very much looked-

Chris Williamson 11:22 What was he- what was he saying? For the- for the listeners ...

Carl Benjamin 11:58 ... not to censor. And it's like, well, Jesus Christ, man. You know, if we're gonna get into the realm of what's sinful and not, then (laughs) I guess you're gonna have to debate with the Pope or something, aren't you? Because-

Chris Williamson 12:08 It goes... It sounds so far away from the vision that most people think of when they think about Silicon Valley startup, fuck the system-

Carl Benjamin 12:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:16 ... guys with long hair and dreads just doing what they want, and it's free love, man. And you know, like is this-

Carl Benjamin 12:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:22 ... the, is this the vision for Silicon Valley that was started, like, you know, 40 years ago? Is that really where it, where it was supposed to go?

Carl Benjamin 12:29 It's, it's changed a lot, hasn't it? 'Cause I mean, if you, you look at like PayPalers, Peter Thiel, Thiel, however you pronounce it. You know-

Chris Williamson 12:35 The PayPal mafia man, yeah.

Carl Benjamin 12:37 Yeah, exactly. Elon Musk and a bunch of others. And they're not, they're not like far-left lunatics at all, you know? I, I mean, they're quite libertarian in many ways. It seems that the far left have just moved in slowly but surely and, you know, crept. You know, it's like a, I don't wanna say a plague, but. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:54 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 12:55 Um, uh-

Chris Williamson 12:56 Something.

Carl Benjamin 12:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:58 Something akin, something akin to a plague.

Carl Benjamin 13:00 Yeah, something aki- (laughs) Yeah, yeah. (laughs) I was gonna be more generous, I suppose.

Chris Williamson 13:03 Yeah, fine. I think-

Carl Benjamin 13:04 But you know what I mean. They... It's, it's... Over time, the, the nature of it has changed.

Chris Williamson 13:08 I get that. So you, you ended up getting... I don't know whether the term is deplatformed from Patreon or not, but removed from Patreon. Um, and you'd mentioned about i- it happened with Milo and it happened with some other of your contemporaries. But based on what I saw, the immediate backlash from some other pretty prominent, um, figures online gave, lent a lot of publicity and credence to your side of the story, it certainly seemed. There were quite a few people who came out in support of you, right?

Carl Benjamin 13:37 Yeah, I mean, the, the, the problem is that Patreon didn't even try to really justify it. Um, they, they can't appeal to their own terms of service when doing this. That's the thing. That's why people talk about it as if it's a political maneuver, because it does appear to be a political maneuver. I mean, I've been on Patreon for four years, and they knew what I was like when I joined. I haven't really changed, you know. My, my political opinions are not the same, but still in the same vein, you know. So it's, it's... I've not particularly changed there. And I've always been opposed to political correctness, and they, they're effective m- effectively saying, "Because somewhere else you were politically incorrect, on our platform, we're going to get rid of you, even though our terms of service only said it's things that happen on our platform." And Jack Conte literally said, you know, "We don't care about what you do on Twitter. We care about what you do on Patreon." It's like, okay, well, th- that seems fairly cut and dried to me. And so when they're just literally reversing this, then, I mean, how was I to know? I, I possibly wouldn't have been so un-politically correct had I known that Patreon were watching everything I did every single day.

Chris Williamson 14:41 Every move you make, yeah. I mean, you, you need to be careful what you say when you go to the toilet now, what you s-

Carl Benjamin 14:46 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:46 ... like, what you say when you're out walking the dog.

Carl Benjamin 14:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:50 I mean, where, where does the, where does the state finish?

Carl Benjamin 14:52 It is, it is getting quite Orwellian, I, I really do think.

Chris Williamson 14:55 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 14:56 And... No, it's, it's... I mean, like, I never really thought we'd end up living in some kind of like omnipotent panopticon where you, you can...

Chris Williamson 15:04 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 15:04 No, no, 'cause like anything you've said at any point in time or space can now be found by internet sleuths if it's on the internet, if it's in social media, if it's, you know-

Chris Williamson 15:14 Totally correct.

Carl Benjamin 15:15 I mean, like, look at Cenk Uygur's old, um, like when he was in college or whatever, his old blog from the '90s that he had up. I mean, it was really rude, you know. It was, it was like young men's rude talk, you know.

Chris Williamson 15:27 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 15:28 And, you know, and, uh, obviously he's not saying this to women's faces. So it's not like he's going out and, and saying, "Hey lady, you've got a nice rack. Uh, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Uh, he did kinda sound like Elliot Rodger while he was doing it.

Chris Williamson 15:40 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 15:40 Uh, but that was all dug up, like 20 years later after he'd disavowed it like 10 years previously-

Chris Williamson 15:47 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 15:47 ... and said, "Look, this is something I did, and I'm not proud of it," and... But now it doesn't matter. I mean, that guy kicked off of the board of the Justice Democrats, a political organization in the US. Uh, and him and Karl Kolinski. And so it's just like... it's merciless.

Chris Williamson 15:58 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 15:59 Absolutely merciless. And this ex- it's currently happening to Tulsi Gabbard right now. Like, she was raised in a, a right-wing Christian anti-gay household, like actively. Her dad was an activist against gay rights. Um, and she grew up naturally with a bunch of those opinions.

Chris Williamson 16:15 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 16:15 As you would expect.

Chris Williamson 16:16 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 16:17 And sh- you know, like, she, what, she go into Congress six years ago, but before then, she had already changed her mind on the idea of gay rights, which is why she joined the Democrats. And now she's being just grilled for it. Like, I'm seeing that... She's such a mild person, and I'm just seeing the worst kind of backlash from the very far-left activists who are now like, "Well, if you were once ever against gay rights, then y- you know, you are forever, and we're just gonna treat you like you still hold these opinions."

Chris Williamson 16:44 Yeah, it's, it's such a, um-

Carl Benjamin 16:46 Awful.

Chris Williamson 16:47 Yeah, and it's the... The problem is because everybody wants to have this absolutist approach to people are either bad or good and the gray area is too gray and any seceding of ground is you c- allowing them to, uh, proliferate these really terrible ideas. But Sam Harris has a great concept where he talks about, um, a, the son of a terrorist over in Iraq, and he says this son's two years old, so let's imagine the free will that he's got. He's two years old, and he's maybe, um, stamping on insects or something like that. And you think, "Well, uh, i- is it his fault?" And you go, "Well, no, no, like, look at, look at the people he's around. He's got this aggression. It's a really aggressive culture and blah, blah, blah." Okay, roll it forward. He's seven years old, and he's at school, and he's bullying people. You go, "Well, is it his fault now?" And you go, "Well, no, no, it's, it's still probably not his fault. He's got this crazy honor culture, and he's very, very highly held within society." Okay, now continue to roll the tape forward. Now he's 15. Yeah. Now he's 20. Now he's a warlord at 30. Like, wh- where-

Carl Benjamin 17:46 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:46 ... where do we stop? Or where do we draw the line about understanding people's backgrounds?

Carl Benjamin 17:53 Yeah, no, that, that's a really, really good point and a really good way of laying it out too. Um, at what point do we hold people accountable for the things they believe, and can we allow them to change if they want to? And it seems like the far left at this point-

Chris Williamson 18:06 I mean, surely, surely not before they can vote.... like-

Carl Benjamin 18:08 Oh, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:08 ... you know what I mean? If you're not allowed to vote, you basically-

Carl Benjamin 18:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:11 What, what we're saying to you, what the government is saying to you, is your views are not sufficiently well-formed for you to be able to contribute to the national discourse.

Carl Benjamin 18:21 Yeah. They are. Um-

Chris Williamson 18:22 So how, how can anything from circa that period be used as a canary in a coal mine for what you're like as a, a real person? A perfect example, we've got a-

Carl Benjamin 18:32 I don't think it can.

Chris Williamson 18:33 ... we've got a guy who works for us, a Canadian dude called Ify. And I was talking to him the other day, and I said, "I've just seen that you've changed, you've changed your Twitter handle. Why have you done that?" And he says, "Man, like, I've had Twitter since I was, like, 11. And some of the shit that's on there..." 'Cause he's doing lore at the moment, and he's like, "I just don't want, in 10 years time, someone to go back and find the shit I was tweeting when I was 12 years old."

Carl Benjamin 18:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:53 And, you know, and he- he's not got dreams of going into fucking Congress, but this is how pervasive the situation is, that people are terrified of having something dredged up.

Carl Benjamin 19:04 It's unbelievable. Th- this is why I call it a panopticon, because it really is someone having the ability to see everything about your life if they just care to look, you know? Um, I mean, I've... (laughs) I tell you what, I am so goddamn glad that social media didn't exist-

Chris Williamson 19:20 Same.

Carl Benjamin 19:20 ... when I was a child.

Chris Williamson 19:20 Same.

Carl Benjamin 19:21 I am just... And I, I'm gonna keep my son off of it for as long as I can.

Chris Williamson 19:25 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 19:25 Because, I mean, it's awful. It's awfully an idea that, like... 'Cause it, I think that this is something that's rarely thought about, but, like, I think that people's pasts are generally considered to be, in, in regular society, sort of a part of their private lives, you know?

Chris Williamson 19:42 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 19:43 If something bad happened to you in the past or you did something silly-

Chris Williamson 19:46 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 19:46 ... if you've paid the penance for it, say you went to jail or something, uh, and, you know, like three years later you're going for a job, uh, you know, it's appropriate to leave that in the past. Because otherwise the person can never improve, and they're never given any incentive to improve. And so are currently effectively stuck being a criminal forever. Um, and but now, the way the internet works is that, no, any link can be sent to you and is as fresh as the day it was first printed-

Chris Williamson 20:13 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 20:13 ... you know, first uploaded or whatever. And so it's, it's, it's all there, and it's gonna be there forever. And so we're gonna have to be really, really careful about what we say in public, I guess.

Chris Williamson 20:24 It's a very nasty trail of breadcrumbs back to a person that you never... or that you, that you no longer are, I suppose.

Carl Benjamin 20:29 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 20:30 So am I, am I right in thinking that Sam Harris has closed his Patreon account now?

Carl Benjamin 20:34 He has, yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:34 And-

Carl Benjamin 20:35 So has George Peterson and Dave Rubin.

Chris Williamson 20:36 George Peterson.

Carl Benjamin 20:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:37 So how many, how many patrons do you think are combined between them?

Carl Benjamin 20:41 Oh, I wouldn't even know. It must be a fair number, though.

Chris Williamson 20:45 50,000, probably, maybe? Something like that?

Carl Benjamin 20:47 I, I honestly don't know. You see, it's gotta be a lot, though.

Chris Williamson 20:50 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 20:50 It's gotta be a lot.

Chris Williamson 20:51 And, and they are now moving across to...

Carl Benjamin 20:55 Uh, they- they're actually setting up their own platform.

Chris Williamson 20:58 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 20:59 Um, but I don't know what it's called yet.

Chris Williamson 21:00 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 21:01 Um, but I'm, I'm obviously gonna be looking forward to using it. But I'm, I'm also using SubscribeStar, which is another platform that was existing before any of this happened, uh, you know, sort of... I think it opened in May last year.

Chris Williamson 21:12 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 21:12 And, um, and speaking to the cartel nature of Silicon Valley, in fact, um, the, the woman who was overseeing the deplatforming of my Patreon account had worked at PayPal for eight years. And, uh, and then she was put in charge of Patreon's trust and safety team. And then, the day or the, the day after, um, I and a bunch of other YouTube content creators went to SubscribeStar, which is a- there were already content creators on there-

Chris Williamson 21:38 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 21:38 ... obviously, um, and they'd been operating quite happily for about six months. Um, but we went over there, and suddenly PayPal and all of the other sort of, um, Silicon Valley processing, uh, firms decided to pull their services from PayP- uh, from, from SubscribeStar-

Chris Williamson 21:54 Oh.

Carl Benjamin 21:54 ... as if SubscribeStar had done something wrong, or as if we were being censored by Silicon Valley itself, or something like that. It... This is why I, I really am certain that it's a cartel.

Chris Williamson 22:05 It's so juvenile, isn't it?

Carl Benjamin 22:07 It's terrible, yeah. I mean, if Patreon don't want me on, okay, but what's that got to do with SubscribeStar? I mean, like, I still have a PayPal account, (laughs) you know?

Chris Williamson 22:15 (laughs) Yeah, still buying shit on eBay and-

Carl Benjamin 22:18 Yeah. I haven't been deplatformed from PayPal, so why, when I or, or a bunch of us go to another platform, did PayPal pull out of that platform? It's like, "Bitch, you still give me money." (laughs) You know? Like, "You do that, so why are you..." So I can only see it as being them protecting the Patreon from the competition. 'Cause obviously SubscribeStar is not based in Silicon Valley.

Chris Williamson 22:38 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 22:39 So.

Chris Williamson 22:40 So has that been reversed now?

Carl Benjamin 22:43 What do you mean? Sorry.

Chris Williamson 22:43 The, uh, PayPal not accepting payments through SubscribeStar?

Carl Benjamin 22:47 No, I, I believe SubscribeStar have figured out a way to get around it by using some other processor-

Chris Williamson 22:51 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 22:51 ... probably outside of the US, to be honest.

Chris Williamson 22:53 Isn't that, isn't that bizarre that bringing across some of the biggest, uh, Patreon or the biggest sort of crowdfunded, uh, content creators on the internet was actually one of the worst things probably operationally for about 24 hours that could've happened (laughs) to SubscribeStar?

Carl Benjamin 23:07 Well, yeah, I mean, I- the thing is, I don't think anyone really expected PayPal to say, "Right, we're not gonna do business with you anymore."

Chris Williamson 23:13 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 23:13 Because none of the people who Patreon had done business with had been a problem, you know?

Chris Williamson 23:19 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 23:19 I mean, we'd all, you know... we'd all been on Patreon for years, and Patreon had no problem. And suddenly, they're like, "Oh, that's not politically correct enough, we get it. We've got an excuse to get rid of you, and we're not gonna let you go to another platform, because we're gonna get PayPal to..." Uh, it's very, very strange.

Chris Williamson 23:33 Crazy, crazy juvenile. So I want, I wanna move on to the most current topic in the world at hand, which is the (laughs) this new Gillette advert, which I'm gonna guess that you will have seen.

Carl Benjamin 23:43 Yes. Yes, I have.

Chris Williamson 23:44 Have you seen the British version of it?

Carl Benjamin 23:47 No, I haven't.

Chris Williamson 23:48 Aw, man. I will make sure, for those who are-

Carl Benjamin 23:50 Yeah, send that across to me.

Chris Williamson 23:51 ... for those, for those who are watching, and I will send it across to you. But it's the same, but the- the... This is the funniest thing about the whole, uh, everything to do with this advert, that the British version is narrated by a Scottish guy.

Carl Benjamin 24:01 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:01 And you're like, the Scottish, the Scottish are the most alpha males. Like-

Carl Benjamin 24:05 I don't know, man. Scotland seems cucked to me.

Chris Williamson 24:08 Does it?

Carl Benjamin 24:09 Oh, unbelievably so. Scotland is unbelievably progressive. It's really bad.

Chris Williamson 24:13 It's their time to shine.

Carl Benjamin 24:14 Like, I... And I, I, I, I like the idea of the Scots being a bunch of rowdy, rowdy northern lads, you know? I like the-

Chris Williamson 24:21 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 24:21 ... idea of them-... you know, being, being Scottish, that's how, that's the, how I kind of constructed Scot- like, exactly the same as you did. But like, man, they, they, they... For example, the Scottish government was putting out a bunch of, uh, on b- bus stop adverts just saying, "Dear transphobes, we are afraid of your transphobia. Dear racists, we hate your racism."

Chris Williamson 24:40 Oh, my God.

Carl Benjamin 24:40 Stuff like this. And it's like, yeah. So the... I mean, and this is, this goes back to what I mean about the ethical state, you know? The state has a goal above just being the protector of your rights and freedoms. Now they're like, "Look, you're not anti-racist enough. You're transphobic. You need to change." And I don't think it should be up to the government to try and decide your opinions for you. I just don't. I think that's just a moral wrong. And you're giving the state an ethical dimension that effectively puts you in the same camp as Mussolini. So, you should probably stop that, Scottish government, 'cause it's kinda scary, you know?

Chris Williamson 25:12 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 25:12 It's not for you to decide what's right and wrong, you fucking lunatics.

Chris Williamson 25:15 Yep. Good point. So, for the viewers who haven't seen this Gillette advert, wh- can you give me the Sargon of Akkad CliffsNotes on what you think it is? Or how, how would you, how would you describe it to someone that hasn't seen it?

Carl Benjamin 25:28 It's just feminist propaganda. It's, it's just 101. I mean, it's so, it's so basic. I mean, it starts off with the Me Too movement and toxic masculinity, so you know you're dealing with a feminist. I mean the, the author, the, the director, sorry, was, um-

Chris Williamson 25:43 Kim Gehrig.

Carl Benjamin 25:44 Kim, Kim Gehrig, yeah. She's a, a famous feminist director. She's, who's directed many controversial, um, sort of short clips like this, uh, that have caused a stir because she seems to take a one-sided feminist narrative on the idea that women are being oppressed by men and men have to change.

Chris Williamson 26:01 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 26:01 And, I mean, the way she was c- uh, like the whole thing conflates like boys roughhousing as children with Harvey Weinstein's predatory behavior in Hollywood. And then they have like, uh, Terry Crews, who again, was assaulted by a Hollywood executive, you know, some powerful Hollywood exec. And it's all tied back as if it was because Harvey Weinstein play fought with his brother when he was a kid. And it's like, that's not the reason.

Chris Williamson 26:26 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 26:26 You know, the reason is because he's a disgusting, ugly, repulsive pervert with absolutely no moral standards, who doesn't represent anyone but Harvey Weinstein and the goons around him that he protects. You know, that's not reflective of most men. And it's definitely inappropriate to say that it is.

Chris Williamson 26:42 Yeah. It's catastrophic thinking at its absolute worst, isn't it?

Carl Benjamin 26:45 (laughs) It's, well, it's bigoted thinking at its absolute worst. I mean, you know, we, we don't just sit there and go, "Black people, look at these crime rates. You're all responsible."

Chris Williamson 26:53 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 26:53 You know, that would be ridiculously racist. So when they go, "Men, look at what Harvey Weinstein's done. You're responsible," it's the same logic. So, yeah, I don't know, they-

Chris Williamson 27:02 I don't know. So, th- during the advert, you, the bit that really, really got me was this... I think they're at a barbecue. So there's a bunch of guys at a barbecue doing man things, drinking beer and flipping beef and stuff like that. And there's a couple of kids play fighting, two boys play fighting, and the scene is allowed to continue then it cuts away and then it comes back. And the suggestion is that men should step in to stop other men, or stop other males, i.e. boys-

Carl Benjamin 27:29 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:29 ... from play fighting. And you're right, the, the implication is that by allowing boys to play fight you are fostering this tyrannical-

Carl Benjamin 27:39 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:39 ... misogynist-in-waiting ... which is... (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 27:42 Yeah. But it sounds ridiculous when you say it, doesn't it? Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:45 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 27:45 But to anyone who either was a young boy or who, who knows young boys, you know, who has children or something like that, it just sounds absurd.

Chris Williamson 27:52 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 27:52 You know, 'cause young, young boys play fighting is... Essentially, I, I looked up a bunch, uh, I, I went and researched this to, to do the, uh, the video I did on it. Um, basically young boys play fighting is completely normal according to like leading psychologists.

Chris Williamson 28:05 Oh, yeah?

Carl Benjamin 28:05 You know? And, and I mean, you know, every, every man knows this, 'cause when they were a kid they p- had play fights with their friends too, you know? It's, it's just like the way men socialize among themselves and establish hierarchies, you know? And like the, one of the, one of the studies that I was re- uh, looking at, um, was, uh, 85% of, of boys, teenage boys could tell when a play fight was going on, you know, like 85% of the time. Um, they could tell that the fight was go- th- there was a play fight because, you know, they're having fun. But... And then this was mostly like 70% adults as well, like men-

Chris Williamson 28:42 Yep. Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 28:42 ... and women who had grown up with a brother. But women who had grown up without a brother always thought that the fights were serious. And so it's like, right, okay, there really is a distinction-

Chris Williamson 28:50 Ah, yes.

Carl Benjamin 28:51 ... here about male and female thinking, you know, and w- women who are not used to what young men are like don't recognize the behavior for what it is.

Chris Williamson 28:59 Mm.

Carl Benjamin 28:59 But the thing is, it's the same with like animals. You know, you see, you know, puppies fighting and stuff like this, you know, it's just-

Chris Williamson 29:04 Oh, shit, shit, shit. Yeah. (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 29:05 Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's just natural, you know? And so they, and they, they panic about this excessively. And so, they kind of, it, it kind of is a g- a small group of mostly women who don't really understand men and are kind of afraid of them. That's how I view mod- modern feminism these days. That's honestly how I view it because it's just like-

Chris Williamson 29:25 The backlash, the backlash on this Gillette advert's been insane. The, um-

Carl Benjamin 29:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:29 ... the, the YouTube, uh, up-rate and down-rate was ten to one on dislike. And then-

Carl Benjamin 29:34 Really?

Chris Williamson 29:34 Yeah, it was ten to one. And then there was... The views didn't increase by a tremendous amount. Uh, I was watching this on a, uh, on YouTube yesterday. Views didn't increase by a tremendous amount, and the dislike to like has been brought back down to around about five to one.

Carl Benjamin 29:51 Oh, really? It was two, it was two to one when I saw it the other day.

Chris Williamson 29:54 Well, and, and it may have even gone further. But it-

Carl Benjamin 29:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:57 ... when it very, very first went out, and that may be due to just the first adopters are the people who have taken the most offense.

Carl Benjamin 30:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:02 So the, you know, that it could be, that it could be realistic. But there's a lot of accusations of a bit of unfair play going around.

Carl Benjamin 30:10 I- I've heard, I've seen many people saying, "My dislike has been removed," and things like this. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:15 Comments are... A lot of comments are being deleted and, and pinned-

Carl Benjamin 30:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:18 ... pinned ones are, are, are changing. Have you also seen... Now, I don't know, I don't know how much truth's behind this, but it's on a, there's a lot of websites that are reporting it. Have you seen that Kim Gehrig has actually been accused of sexual abuse by two men and five women?

Carl Benjamin 30:32 No, I did not know that. (laughs) The irony. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:36 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 30:37 I mean, I've, I guess we've gotta listen and believe, haven't we?

Chris Williamson 30:39 Yeah. Well, I mean-

Carl Benjamin 30:40 You know, believe the victims.

Chris Williamson 30:41 Yeah. Well, yeah, definitely. So I, uh, uh, I, I'm struggling to find it on anyone who is super reputable yet. I think-

Carl Benjamin 30:49 Right.

Chris Williamson 30:49 ... it's probably dangerous to, um... Where are we?

Carl Benjamin 30:54 I, I will wait for confirmation of that.

Chris Williamson 30:55 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 30:57 Yes.

Chris Williamson 30:57 Gillette misandrist ... Where is it? Just Gillette misandrist ad was directed by an accused pedophile, (gasps) Ms. Kim Gherig.

Carl Benjamin 31:03 (laughs) Jesus.

Chris Williamson 31:04 One of her victims committed suicide. Oh, my days.

Carl Benjamin 31:08 Jesus.

Chris Williamson 31:08 Well, I mean, we'll wait, we'll wait and find out a little bit more about that, but that, I mean-

Carl Benjamin 31:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:12 Uh, w- uh, no matter what, whether that's the truth or not, and even if it's not the truth, it s- probably speaks to just how bipartisan it makes everything. Do you know what I mean? Like, it, it's like, okay, well, even if someone's made that up, they're like, "Right, well, w- this is how far the feminist narrative has tried to push masculinity."

Carl Benjamin 31:28 Oh, oh, how far it goes, yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:28 "We need to come up, we need to, we need to come back with something that's even more outlandish and ridiculous and-"

Carl Benjamin 31:36 Yeah, it, i-

Chris Williamson 31:36 ... you end up with this extremist sort of ...

Carl Benjamin 31:39 It, it's, it is, it is just an entirely one-sided argument that they're having, and the thing is, the only people on the ... Like th- like, no, no one, no one in reality thinks that boy, boys play fighting is a particularly harmful behavior-

Chris Williamson 31:55 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 31:55 ... 'cause it's always by consent, you know? I mean, that, you know, we're not talking about bullying, obviously.

Chris Williamson 32:00 Yep. Yep.

Carl Benjamin 32:00 Um, bullying is something different. But, like, the, the pathologizing of just male behaviors, and then, uh, I mean, in the advert, you know when the dad goes up and says, "We don't treat each other that way"? And it's like, well, they both consent, you know? I mean, you could see in the, in the clip they're showing you, the, the two boys have big grins on their face.

Chris Williamson 32:18 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 32:18 You know, they couldn't have portrayed it more as boys play fighting.

Chris Williamson 32:21 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 32:21 Would be better if they'd tried.

Chris Williamson 32:22 It's amicable, right? It's non-aggressive.

Carl Benjamin 32:23 Exactly. You know? And so it's not wrong for them to treat tha- each other that way, because they both consent to being treated that way. You know, they both consent to the sort of competition of the rough and tumble.

Chris Williamson 32:33 Mm-hmm.

Carl Benjamin 32:34 Which is fine. I mean, uh, you know, it was fun when I was a kid to, uh, play fight with my friends, you know?

Chris Williamson 32:38 But you're tot-

Carl Benjamin 32:38 I used to like it.

Chris Williamson 32:39 You're totally right as well. It, it helps, I'm sure, if we had Jordan Peterson at hand, I'm sure he'd be able to tell us exactly why, but-

Carl Benjamin 32:44 Oh, yeah, exactly, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:45 ... yeah, it'd help. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm waiting for ... The commentary from him, I imagine, will be a, uh, thesis on just how wrong Gillette is in terms of-

Carl Benjamin 32:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:53 ... up- upbringing of young men. Um ...

Carl Benjamin 32:54 Yeah, he'll give us all the psychological literature as well, thank you.

Chris Williamson 32:57 Well, uh, and, and the thing is, uh, although I can't cite it and it's not my field, I've heard him across the content I've consumed of him talking about just how important this is and how it helps young boys to be able to learn the limits of their own strength and-

Carl Benjamin 33:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:12 ... you, the proprioception in terms of how your body moves and how other people's bodies move. And it's-

Carl Benjamin 33:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:18 ... the games iterated across time analogy he uses talking about rats. And he says if one rat play fights with another rat and then it loses, it rolls over, and then the rat allows it to come back and play again.

Carl Benjamin 33:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:28 So-

Carl Benjamin 33:29 Yeah, and, and you've gotta let them win 30% of the time roughly-

Chris Williamson 33:32 Exactly.

Carl Benjamin 33:32 ... to keep them en- engaged in the game. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I, uh, I watch a lot of Jordan Peterson too. Um ...

Chris Williamson 33:36 Well, there we go.

Carl Benjamin 33:37 Yeah, yeah. No, but I, I think that, I think that there's some definite s- definitely some truth to it, and I, I think it's very much about socializing boys. 'Cause I, I think that young men are very powerful. This is what, this is what I think, uh, I don't say women, but a certain kind of excessively concerned sort of moral busybody woman is usually like. And I can, I can think of many examples of this kind of woman. They're not badly intention- intentioned or anything, um, but I just don't think they understand. And I think that young men are, men, men are strong. They're, they're a powerful force in the world when they want to be. And this is usually why societies had quite strict rules for young men, you know? I mean, like, if you go back to the Middle Ages, you know, young men would have been taught how to use a spear and a shield and a bow and things like this, and they would have had to, you know, join, you know, become part of the local sort of militia or something like that, or-

Chris Williamson 34:27 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 34:28 ... gone off to fight for the king or whatever.

Chris Williamson 34:29 Conscription of some sort, yeah.

Carl Benjamin 34:30 Uh, there may well have been some kind of c- conscription. Exactly. And, and it, it's because it's understood that young men have fighting instincts, you know? Not all of them all the time, but there is definitely a part to young men that is naturally designed to fight. And, I mean, I, I watched a documentary, I think it was, was it Michael Posluso a few years ago, where he effectively went and, like ... Some, uh, some kind of underground gang in London, it was like boxing gang, you know, bare knuckle boxing gang.

Chris Williamson 34:56 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 34:56 And it, it was about the pleasure of fighting, 'cause these, these men who did this, they, they didn't take drugs or drink. Their drug was fighting itself, the adrenaline kick of it. And y- y- I think that, like, that's what Call of Duty is tapping into, you know, that kind of video game. It's that kind of adrenaline high from conflict and combat. The-

Chris Williamson 35:16 Catharsis, almost.

Carl Benjamin 35:17 No, no, not, no, no, no, not quite that. Like, not that they've ... Like ... (sighs) Like, the g- the, the fact that physical competition is also a game, you know? It might become like a deadly, you know, game in, in ... But it, there, there are set rules, uh, and they, the effect- I mean, in a war, they're the rules of who can kill who first, you know? They, they don't have to be rules that are conceptual. They might just be physical rules. But there are set rules, and there's an objective, and both of you are going for it. And it's understood that you're on the same terms. Like, the, for the reason it's not murder for, to kill a soldier in a battle, you know, it's understood that you're both there to fight. And I think, I think there's a part of the male psyche that is ... enjoys that, you know? And, uh, uh, for some men. I mean, obviously you get the sort of weaker men who don't like these kind of physical competitions. And I think it's that kind of un- and it, I guess you'd call it primal if you want, um, but that kind of urge that the, you know, the, the shooter genre is tapping into with kids these days, you know. And I th- I think it's wrong to try and deny that aspect of, of human nature. But obviously the feminists who've got absolutely no empathy for men whatsoever and don't even try couldn't possibly understand it. And so all they see is, "Oh, there is a defective woman," as Christine Hoff Sommers puts it, and I think she's right on that. I think they do.

Chris Williamson 36:31 Yeah. I, I think what's interesting is the fact that the scalable and much more effective strategy-... for controlling men or i.e. making man's behavior more holistic and more beneficial to society as a whole, would be to remodel it and have, uh, have it almost brought on by desire, as opposed to, uh, entrenched and locked in by rules.

Carl Benjamin 36:57 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:57 So if you were, if you were able to have it be desirable for all men to call out every man that was a rapist immediately, or if you had it as a- a rule that play fights were something that was taken pride in but was done with- with honor and with a- a sense of decorum, et cetera, et cetera. That's much more scalable, and it's much more difficult-

Carl Benjamin 37:20 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:20 ... because it's enforced by the group.

Carl Benjamin 37:21 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:22 As opposed to choosing a top-down approach. That's a bottom-up approach, right? Which is manifested-

Carl Benjamin 37:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:28 ... naturally by the culture. As opposed to a top-down approach, which is this, uh, it's almost like trying to litigate men's-

Carl Benjamin 37:35 Well, it's authoritarian, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 37:36 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 37:36 You know? You- we- it's- it's here are the rules, uh, a group of people who don't really understand you are gonna dictate rules for you, and now you're gonna feel these rules are chafing, you know? And, like, (sighs) so th- there was a- a- a New Zealand TV series called, um, Seven Periods with Mr. Gormsby, and it was about this old Victorian, like- yeah, like- like an old British Empire Army officer had- had moved to New Zealand to teach a group of kids who were often, like, you know, uh, Maori and, but not just Maori, you know, just a group of- but it was a group of boys.

Chris Williamson 38:10 Mm-hmm.

Carl Benjamin 38:11 And I don't know why this thing resonated with me, but there was something about it I found unbelievably charming, and it was because of the old-fashioned way that Gormsby, the teacher, treated the boys, you know? He- he didn't treat them in the way that boys are treated now. As if they're not- he didn't scold them for acting like boys, you know? And it's fictional, so it's, you know, it's- it's all a representation, but it- I think there's some- there's some truth to all- what- the- like, the idea of this. 'Cause, like, for, and I- I- uh, the way he was- the way he would tell them off is something that really resonated with me. It wasn't, "You should not do that." It was, "That's enough." You know? And so it's, you know, so when the boys are fighting or playing around being rambunctious, whatever, it wasn't, you know, pathologizing and saying, "Well, you're wrong." You- you- you're not, you're doing this because you don't even realize why and you shouldn't do it because it's bad under every circumstance. It was just know the limit, you know? And so, you know, don't... it's not innately wrong to be what you are, but it is wrong to go too far-

Chris Williamson 39:07 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 39:07 ... in what you're doing. And that's, I think, the best way to try and, um, talk to young men about how to behave, frankly.

Chris Williamson 39:14 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 39:14 If- if feminists want to do that, and they do want to do that, and it's like, okay, well then, as someone who was a young man, has, you know, a son, and, a young man, has a son, and might have a bit more "lived experience" than your average feminist in this regard, don't- don't tell men they can't do something. Just make sure that they are doing it to within a restric- an- a acceptable parameter.

Chris Williamson 39:35 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 39:35 You know? 'Cause then it's not bad for them to be innately what they are.

Chris Williamson 39:38 Yeah. Th- speaking of chafing, there is a scene in the video where a man is shaving his legs as well, I think, isn't there?

Carl Benjamin 39:43 Oh, gosh.

Chris Williamson 39:43 Have you seen that?

Carl Benjamin 39:44 I- I- is- I can't remember. Where?

Chris Williamson 39:46 There is. There's a- there's, yeah, he's got up on the couch, I think, and he's shaving his legs, which is tot- totally fine.

Carl Benjamin 39:50 Missed that bit.

Chris Williamson 39:50 I've got- I've got some- I've got some friends that are swimmers. That might, do you know what it is?

Carl Benjamin 39:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:53 That might actually only be in the UK version. And if it is, that's hilarious. Um...

Carl Benjamin 39:58 Yeah, I don't recall that being in the US version.

Chris Williamson 39:59 It definitely, definitely exists. Um, so-

Carl Benjamin 40:01 Oh, God, I'm gonna have to watch that.

Chris Williamson 40:02 Imagine- imagine for a second that I have made you the director of the exact opposite advert. So it's women-

Carl Benjamin 40:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:14 ... it's women telling women what women should do from an- uh, from a completely opposing narrative. Can you- can you try and run us through the storyboard of what you think would happen?

Carl Benjamin 40:23 Well, surely, or wha- wha- what I would want to happen or what I think we'd end up with?

Chris Williamson 40:27 W- no, what you would, what the equivalent would be if they were to take the exact polar opposite of what we've got.

Carl Benjamin 40:33 Well, it'd have to be something about false rape allegations, wouldn't it? It's like, "Women, false rape allegations begin in the school." You know? Where, so we'd- we'd- we'd have Kavanaugh's trial where he's being f- uh, accused falsely by three people who, like, recanted their statements and one person who just had absolutely no evidence or no corroborating witnesses or even the time or dates when this is, uh, when the a- the accusations are supposed to have happened. It- it seems that there was nothing against Kavanaugh, and he had unbelievably reputable, um, female character witnesses on his side to back him up. Um, so it would start with something like that. The- the- the- the stress of having to go through this as Kavanaugh, and then we'd- we'd talk that back. So, you know, it's- it's my young girl, I don't know, d- uh, I would, I'd be pathologizing some kind of young woman's behavior where she's getting two boys to-

Chris Williamson 41:22 Playing with dolls and, and-

Carl Benjamin 41:23 Yeah, yeah, playing with dolls or getting to, you know, like, you know, smiling at two different boys or something and getting a fight.

Chris Williamson 41:29 Yep, yep.

Carl Benjamin 41:29 I don't know.

Chris Williamson 41:30 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 41:30 You know? So it'd be some- something about a natural female behavior that, you know, that, um, that I would be trying to- I would be trying to make something that they need to stop.

Chris Williamson 41:41 You shouldn't be putting any makeup on during the morning. You should be letting your leg hair grow.

Carl Benjamin 41:45 Well, well, you know, whate- whatever it is, but the thing is I don't think that the reverse should be made, obviously.

Chris Williamson 41:50 No.

Carl Benjamin 41:50 You know? I obviously don't-

Chris Williamson 41:51 It's- it's to illustrate just how-

Carl Benjamin 41:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:54 ... insane it is. And I- I, you know, if you were to tell young girls that they should be less feminine ...

Carl Benjamin 42:00 That would be awful. Why?

Chris Williamson 42:04 I don't know. (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 42:04 (laughs) Yeah, why would anyone do that? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 42:06 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 42:06 You know, what a horrible thing to do. (laughs) Like-

Chris Williamson 42:09 Stop playing with dolls.

Carl Benjamin 42:10 ... you should be less like what you are.

Chris Williamson 42:11 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 42:12 So-

Chris Williamson 42:12 No, you're not allowed, you're not allowed to have your own choice. I don't know, I- it's- it's, uh, it- it really is an interesting one. So, the, uh, the, I guess, the, this speaks volumes to just how pop culturally we are at the moment, but the fact that Brexit sits below the Gillette advert on my list of things that I wanted to talk about today. (laughs) But, um, can you give us the, uh, uh, Carl Benjamin rundown of- of what's happened over the last week?

Carl Benjamin 42:41 Um, okay. Well, the, the, uh, Theresa May is a massively unpopular prime minister, but the Conservatives are terribly afraid about losing their control over the government, and so they have to back her. But what she's, what Theresa May is proposing is so, uh, outside of the bounds of reason to the hardline Eurosceptics of the Tory party that her position is tremendously weak. Um, but she does keep managing to survive votes of no confidence, apparently.

Chris Williamson 43:08 Unbelievably so.

Carl Benjamin 43:09 Yeah. I, but it's, it's only because the Tories know that if she goes, they all go, 'cause they've pinned their colors to her mast.

Chris Williamson 43:15 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 43:15 It's like, "Well that was a mistake, wasn't it?" You know? It's, it's really bad. And they're convinced that they have to have a deal, and I mean, you can... You know, the head of the World Trade Organization said, "Well, yeah, okay. If you, if you leave on World Trade Organization terms, there will be a, a small period of dir- disruption, but it won't be the end of the world, and then we'll be able to carry on as an independent country." I would rather take the small period of disruption even if it means I have to pay more for this or, you know, a flight of mine is delayed or something like that. You know, I'll, I will accept it for the sovereignty of my country, and we'll figure it out. You know, that's the thing. I have faith in the British people to figure these things out, and our political class just has absolutely no faith in this regard. They're, they're c- they're concerned about like, "Yeah, but what about GDP?" And it's like, "Man, I don't really care." You know? I, I care that we get out of the European Union. I don't want them controlling us. I don't wanna be under the jurisdiction of their courts. I don't want their foreign policy to be our foreign policy. I just want us to have left, you know? No more laws, no more interference, just nothing. And I'm prepared f- (laughs) I'm prepared to watch GDP shrink a bit for that. I'm sorry. It's, I, uh, this is a point of principle in my po- position and in my opinion now, and the Conservatives don't think that that can be done. They think that, they think that they can push through a deal that the European Union will agree to, but the deal is awful as... I mean, you, you know, you can watch any of the Eurosceptics just excoriate it all the time as being effectively a, a s- a, a submission to Brussels, because it is. I mean, it puts all of the power in their hands, and we have absolutely none. And it would... If, it would be better to remain than take that deal, but we have voted to leave, so we must leave. So, we have to go on no deal because the European Union have said they're not gonna renegotiate at all because they're being utterly intransigent about this in order to try and punish the Conservatives, presumably, and the rest of the country. Um-

Chris Williamson 45:06 Rightly so, rightly so on their side. Like if you've, if, if-

Carl Benjamin 45:08 Well, understandably. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:09 ... you've made your fucking bed, like it's-

Carl Benjamin 45:11 Yeah, under- understandable. But the thing is, I think this is gonna come back and bite them in the ass because I think that what they expected is they could beat Theresa down into, into proposing almost anything, and they did, and she has, but she can't get that through Parliament. So, they're not gonna get the deal they want, and there are gonna be consequences to Britain leaving on a WTO Brexit, and these consequences will be bad. There, there will be some negative consequences for us, but there are definitely gonna be negative consequences for them. For example, um, was it the German Finance Minister the other day was raising the aw- alarm about the fact that if we didn't pay our 39 billion, that's French, German, Italian, and Dutch taxes that go up. Uh, how do you think the French are gonna take that? (laughs) Probably, probably not brilliantly considering they're still rioting. I'm sure the Germans aren't gonna be thrilled. I doubt the, I doubt Salvini will even open the, open the email.

Chris Williamson 46:02 Yeah. Okay.

Carl Benjamin 46:02 You know, "Salvini, you've gotta raise the taxes." "Yeah, bollocks do I."

Chris Williamson 46:05 Whatever.

Carl Benjamin 46:05 You know?

Chris Williamson 46:05 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 46:06 And then the Nexit, the, the Netherlands exit movement will grow incrementally stronger. So-

Chris Williamson 46:12 Do you think that's coming as well?

Carl Benjamin 46:13 No, not, not in the, not in the short term, but, um, I think it'll fester. Like, the same with Brexit, in fact. I think it'll fester for a number of years until people demand a referendum, you know? Um, assuming the EU even lasts that long. And then, then you've got the problem with Ireland, right? So the, uh, the Irish economy is deeply tied to the British economy, especially the food economy, and we're talking like hundreds of millions of tons of beef and cheese every year. And if we don't carry on trading with the EU in the way that we did before, if the EU says, "We're not gonna, we're not gonna, you know, we're gonna put tariffs on you," et cetera, et cetera, then they're worried that we're gonna start getting beef and cheese from South America which will actually make our beef and cheese cheaper than it was, and it'll destroy Ireland's economy because the money that they would've taken from us is actually now gonna go to Argentina and Brazil and places like that. And it's like, "Well, there we go." You know?

Chris Williamson 47:05 It is an interconnected house of cards, isn't it?

Carl Benjamin 47:08 Yeah. I mean, one, one of the, one of the things about this, the, Ireland is, i- it's already something that it's gonna have to start requesting more money from the European Union in the event of any Brexit, which is gonna turn Ireland from a net contributor into a net beneficiary of the European Union. So the, the EU, again, loses its, its lose, you know, it's immediately losing two of its net contributors, Britain being the, the second-biggest one and Ireland being a net contributor, but obviously not a very big one. Um, but that's, that's all bad news for the French and German taxpayer, really. So, yeah, good luck.

Chris Williamson 47:42 Can you think, can you th- (laughs) can you think about what it's like to wake up as Theresa May every morning for the last week?

Carl Benjamin 47:50 (laughs) I'd rather not. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:52 Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. Well, yeah. No, given.

Carl Benjamin 47:54 But she's done this to herself though. It's like this is the most annoying thing about Theresa May I find, is that it's completely within her power to go, "You know what? Everyone's wrong. I'm gonna make a decision, and it's, it's just gonna be this way." Like, "We... I, we're gonna go with no deal." She can y- you know, just say, "No deal, we're gonna start, um, and we can unilaterally do all of the things that we would offer the European Union." So we can say, "Look, we're not gonna do anything bad to, you know, obviously we're gonna give European citizens like, you know, rights of, uh, uh, rights to stay, rights to work, et cetera. We'll give them citizenship. Hell with that, I don't care." You know? Um, "We won't impose a, uh, border along the Irish, um, along Northern Ireland-Irish border. We're not gonna put any tariffs on your trade. We're gonna carry on as normal, and then the ball's in your court, you know? What are you gonna do?" And then she's the one who's calling the shots.

Chris Williamson 48:41 Yeah. Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 48:42 So she doesn't do it because she's weak, you know?

Chris Williamson 48:44 Yeah. I mean, the fact that, uh, the fact that you have a-... a, a parliament, uh, a party behind her which doesn't support her-

Carl Benjamin 48:53 No. They've told Parliament-

Chris Williamson 48:53 ... but which also doesn't have, also doesn't have the balls to be able to get rid of her-

Carl Benjamin 48:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:58 ... is such a ... it's the most British situation. Do you not think?

Carl Benjamin 49:04 Yeah, I do. (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's-

Chris Williamson 49:05 It's so quintessentially British.

Carl Benjamin 49:08 It really is. Uh, you know, like, like, okay, one, one of the things that I've, I've always got to remember about the Remain campaigners is they're not cowards, they're just wrong, you know? They'll, they'll go out there and they will march. You know, they'll, they'll go out there in large numbers for their cause. And they'll stand there and they'll ... you know, I w- I interviewed a few the other day outside of Parliament, standing there in the cold and the rain and, and, you know, they're standing there waving their ... They, they truly believe in what they're saying, you know? It's not that they're ... It's, it's not that, (laughs) you know, that they're, they're weak people individually or necessarily. It's that they are just confused, in my opinion. But the Parliament, it, it really is kind of like a, you know, a parliament of lambs leading a country of lions, you know?

Chris Williamson 49:51 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 49:51 Because at this point, like, I think a lot of people, even if they voted Remain, they're just like, "Look, just get on with it," you know?

Chris Williamson 49:56 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 49:56 You know, we're, we're, you know, stiff upper lip, we can take it. We'll just, we'll just go with them. We'll j-

Chris Williamson 50:00 Whatever it is, let's just have it happen.

Carl Benjamin 50:02 Exactly, you know. But the, the, the Parliament is a very (laughs) Remain parliament, and it's very weak. And they're k- they're always kind of r- you know, like rubbing their hands and, like, looking at one another all, you know, passing the responsibility on. It's like, God, just, just tsh, get on with it.

Chris Williamson 50:16 Yeah, totally. I, I don't know whether you saw when the actual announcement happened. I don't watch a lot of the discourse that occurs in Parliament. But I mean, like, to just see how archaic and like-

Carl Benjamin 50:29 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:29 ... old and worldy it is, it's just this is why everyone thinks that British people drink shitloads of tea and constantly wear things that have got wood on them and-

Carl Benjamin 50:41 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:41 ... like, they've all got bad teeth.

Carl Benjamin 50:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:43 Like, this is, this is why. And the guys, they're, they're bowing and then they walk forward and then they bow again.

Carl Benjamin 50:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:50 And then this lady reads about "The nose to the left and the eyes to the right." And then they give it to the Speaker and he starts shouting about the nose and the eyes. And you're like, "This is going out on the fucking world stage, guys."

Carl Benjamin 51:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:02 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 51:04 I, I, I kinda like that, though, you know? I-

Chris Williamson 51:06 Well, I like it, but it's ... I like it because it's-

Carl Benjamin 51:08 It is embarrassing though, I gotta say. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:10 Yeah. I, I, I like it because it's got this sense of heritage which I appreciate-

Carl Benjamin 51:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:15 ... in a more nuanced way because I'm British and because it reminds me of, you know, 1945 and, and, and Yorkshire Tea and shit like that. But like, fuck me, imagine like the-

Carl Benjamin 51:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:27 (laughs) Just anyone, any. Imagine the Italians. Imagine the Italians watching this. Like, or-

Carl Benjamin 51:34 Well-

Chris Williamson 51:34 ... or the Americans watching this, and they're like-

Carl Benjamin 51:36 You know what? I, I think, I think that a large number of them view it as, um, distinguished.

Chris Williamson 51:40 Really?

Carl Benjamin 51:41 And-

Chris Williamson 51:41 Are they that ... Are they r- (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 51:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:43 Okay.

Carl Benjamin 51:43 And, and the thing is, it is, in many ways. Like, I, I, I have problems with John Bercow and the things that he does, but I have absolutely no problem with the way he rules Parliament. I think it's hilarious.

Chris Williamson 51:55 It is hilarious.

Carl Benjamin 51:55 I love, I love his put-downs. He's like, "We all get along without you if you can't control yourself!"

Chris Williamson 52:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carl Benjamin 52:02 "Order!" (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:03 Yeah, yeah.

Carl Benjamin 52:03 It's, it's (laughs) it's amazing. It's ... You know, it's such a unique and culturally British thing that I, I would loathe to see it go away.

Chris Williamson 52:10 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 52:10 I think it's, I think it's adorable. Um-

Chris Williamson 52:12 You are right.

Carl Benjamin 52:13 And it, and it is, it is embarrassing if you're British.

Chris Williamson 52:15 Mm-hmm.

Carl Benjamin 52:15 Don't get me wrong, like, because you're looking and thinking, "Well, that doesn't really represent me." (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 52:21 (laughs)

Carl Benjamin 52:21 But the thing is, like, you know, if it, if it went away, that would be something that, uh ... Looking from the outside, I think, it's, it's like, like, when I'm looking at, like, you know, the, the Chinese festivals where they're, you know, carting a dragon down the street.

Chris Williamson 52:34 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 52:34 You know, to me it's just this wild, wacky thing that I'm watching. But it's entertaining, and I think that, I imagine for foreigners it's much the same.

Chris Williamson 52:41 Yeah. You're probably, you're probably right. It's the distillation of everything that everyone accuses-

Carl Benjamin 52:45 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:45 ... Britain of being. I remember, I got a, wh- when I got my master's degree from Newcastle, there was a mace bearer and everyone had to doff their caps.

Carl Benjamin 52:54 Yes. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:54 And this guy's walking in. And I'm like looking-

Carl Benjamin 52:56 He's-

Chris Williamson 52:56 I'm looking at the, the timetable on the thing, and I'm sat next to my mum and dad. And I'm like, "There's a, fucking, there's a guy with a mace here."

Carl Benjamin 53:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:04 "Like, I don't know what he's gonna do." And sure enough, next thing I know, some guy walks in with a medieval weapon and, uh, uh, robes that look like something out of Harry Potter, and then he doffs his cap and the, the announcer doffs his cap. And he just like ... I ... There's a, a real old and worldy cuteness about it.

Carl Benjamin 53:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:21 But I just ... It really does concern me about how that plays out on the international stage.

Carl Benjamin 53:26 You know, I, I say, um, fuck it. That I say that, you know, let's-

Chris Williamson 53:31 Should we double down on it?

Carl Benjamin 53:32 Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I, I ... No, no, that's exactly what I, that's exactly what I was thinking is just Chad doubling down on it.

Chris Williamson 53:37 Yep.

Carl Benjamin 53:37 Just being like, "Yeah, no, this is, this is exactly what we ... " And, and that's the thing is like your countries might be like 10 minutes old, but ours is over 1,000 years old. So, you know-

Chris Williamson 53:45 Yeah. We've got a lot of fucking baggage to get over here, mate.

Carl Benjamin 53:47 Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:47 Okay?

Carl Benjamin 53:47 We've got to start leaving baggage. It's these are, these traditions that we spent a long time (laughs) building up, you know? So-

Chris Williamson 53:53 This, this ridiculous outfit and procession.

Carl Benjamin 53:55 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:56 It, um, didn't just happen overnight. Give us-

Carl Benjamin 53:58 Exactly. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:58 ... some credit.

Carl Benjamin 53:59 Yeah. You try and make that happen in your country. See how long it takes you.

Chris Williamson 54:03 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 54:03 1,000 years, you know? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:04 I'll give you 1,000 years and you can come back with a, a man with a mace.

Carl Benjamin 54:07 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:07 And everyone drinking tea and everyone can have bad teeth, and-

Carl Benjamin 54:10 The cap. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:11 Yeah, man. Well-

Carl Benjamin 54:12 It's, it's amazing, isn't it? Uh, but, uh, like, it's so ... It's ... I, I do find it increasingly more adorable as, as time goes on. Like, you know, I u- ... When I was younger, I used to find it terrible. I thought, "Oh, God, that's so awful." And, like, you know, embarrassing, you know. But then, I mean, you go to ... I, like, I went to Rome recently and like see, um, the Vatican City, and you see the guards in their ridiculous outfits.

Chris Williamson 54:35 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 54:35 And then you think, "Wow, the Beefeaters look cool by comparison with these guys."

Chris Williamson 54:38 Yeah, they do. Yeah, they're-

Carl Benjamin 54:39 You know, the, these guys look like, like jesters or something, you know? But, um, and so yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm down with keeping the traditions, even if they look gay.

Chris Williamson 54:48 Yeah.

Carl Benjamin 54:48 I'm down with it. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:49 (laughs) They look so ... They do look incredibly odd. But, man-

Carl Benjamin 54:53 I think-

Chris Williamson 54:53 ... Carl, uh, I've absolutely loved today. Thank you very much for your time. I will make sure that the link to your YouTube channel and everything else that we've spoken about are in the show notes below. And I am about to send you the advert of a man, a Scottish man, talking about shaving your legs.

Carl Benjamin 55:08 Can't wait. Thanks very much.

Chris Williamson 55:09 (laughs) Thanks, buddy. Bye-bye. All hands. Up away. Yeah. All hands.