Oobah Butler: The Digital Mirage

Trevor Noah 0:00 [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:04 Where did you grow up?

Speaker 0:05 I, I grew up in a little village called Fakenham in, uh-

Trevor Noah 0:08 [laughs]

Speaker 0:08 ... in England. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:09 Sorry.

Speaker 0:10 Sounds ridiculous, but-

Trevor Noah 0:10 Yeah, I'm sorry.

Eugene 0:11 Fakenham is like-

Trevor Noah 0:12 Why do you look at me?

Eugene 0:13 No, come on. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. Fakenham.

Trevor Noah 0:16 Me?

Eugene 0:16 You seem like you're from Fakenham.

Trevor Noah 0:17 [laughs]

Eugene 0:18 In fact, from now on I'm gonna say that about you. Ha ha.

Speaker 0:20 Well, look-

Eugene 0:21 My friend Eugene from Fakenham. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:24 [laughs]

Eugene 0:24 You've been Fakenhaming my whole life.

Speaker 0:26 [laughs]

Eugene 0:26 You're a Fakenham if, if I saw one.

Speaker 0:28 I just... As you say this, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad.

Eugene 0:31 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:32 [laughs]

Speaker 0:32 Trevor Noah saying Fakenham. It's just... That's just, I'm already, I'm cooked here. I'm done. I'm, I'm happy. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:44 This is What Now? With Trevor Noah.

Eugene 0:57 Solitary

Eugene 0:58 athletes, it's sort of like they are paying for their wife to be able to be their companion in the world so that it's-

Trevor Noah 1:06 Oh, yes

Eugene 1:06 ... not a solitary anymore.

Trevor Noah 1:08 Yeah.

Eugene 1:08 So now when you're riding a bike in the mountains preparing for the, you know, during the off season-

Trevor Noah 1:12 Yes

Eugene 1:12 ... you're not alone.

Trevor Noah 1:13 Yes.

Eugene 1:14 And then when you, you have to fly to the Alps to go and ski every day to prepare-

Trevor Noah 1:18 It's a big deal, yeah

Eugene 1:18 ... for the thing, you're not alone.

Speaker 1:20 Mm.

Eugene 1:20 And the... You know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 1:21 Yeah.

Eugene 1:21 'Cause the, the, the fundamental truth is-

Speaker 1:23 Yeah, you're gonna be-

Eugene 1:23 ... if she has to work-

Trevor Noah 1:24 She won't be there

Eugene 1:25 ... she just won't be there.

Trevor Noah 1:26 Yeah.

Eugene 1:26 And then you will, you... Like, you know what it was like-

Trevor Noah 1:28 Yeah

Eugene 1:28 ... comedy on the road?

Trevor Noah 1:29 Yeah.

Eugene 1:30 That was not-

Speaker 1:32 Lonely.

Trevor Noah 1:32 Yeah. It's, it's-

Eugene 1:33 Very. It's fucked. Make comedy is fucked

Trevor Noah 1:33 ... the amount of comedians who committed suicide in, like, a random hotel room somewhere-

Eugene 1:38 Jesus

Trevor Noah 1:39 ... it's actually, like, a, like, a really high number-

Eugene 1:40 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:41 ... if you look at the industry.

Speaker 1:42 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:43 It would always be, like, random comedian dead by themselves.

Eugene 1:46 Overdose. Yeah.

Speaker 1:47 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:47 It's always them alone.

Eugene 1:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:48 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:49 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:50 So I can, I can see that where it's like it's more them going, "Uh, yeah, I'm, like, sort of paying for her to be able to do this. Let's go."

Speaker 2:00 Mm. I suppose it changes when they have, when they have kids as well, 'cause then they're, then they'll... What, do they, like, bring the kids with them as well?

Trevor Noah 2:05 Yeah, they do.

Speaker 2:06 Or what? Do they? They do.

Trevor Noah 2:06 Yeah, they do. They do.

Eugene 2:07 Oh, shit.

Trevor Noah 2:07 Yeah.

Speaker 2:07 Okay.

Eugene 2:07 The kids live on the road with them.

Trevor Noah 2:08 Yeah, yeah. It's crazy.

Eugene 2:09 Also remember most, most of them started being on the road when they were, um, 13, 13, 14.

Trevor Noah 2:15 Yeah.

Eugene 2:15 They had to get out of school.

Speaker 2:17 Yeah, that's all they know.

Trevor Noah 2:18 Yeah.

Eugene 2:18 That's all they know.

Speaker 2:18 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 2:18 They, they always, all of them say one thing: "I missed out on my matric dance. I missed out on university."

Trevor Noah 2:25 Yeah.

Eugene 2:25 "I don't know what it's like." So they always say they look at their old friends as a distant memory. Like, they-

Speaker 2:32 Oh, that's interesting

Eugene 2:33 ... like, they think when they were 13, their, their life stopped when they were 13 having school lunches, and all of a sudden all of them have a q- a common story. Uh, their parent came to school, spoke to the principal, then the principal was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you can..." Uh, then they never saw their friends again, and all of a sudden they were in a camp.

Speaker 2:48 That's sad.

Eugene 2:49 They were wearing sponsored clothes. They were going downhill. They were surfing. They were doing all of this, and they've never returned again. So through their wives, they get to live vicariously, you know?

Speaker 2:57 Yeah.

Eugene 2:57 They get to hear about, "How is it when you are at..." And, and, and, and, and... But most of them don't, also don't know how to be parents.

Speaker 3:03 Right.

Eugene 3:03 Because they're strangers to their kids.

Speaker 3:04 Yeah. Well, they-

Eugene 3:04 Their biggest fear of retirement is, "What am I gonna do when I..."

Speaker 3:07 Mm.

Eugene 3:08 Off-season is a, is a torture when their kids get older, 'cause they think, "What am I gonna say to this person?"

Speaker 3:12 Mm.

Eugene 3:12 "We don't know the routine. She or he or she doesn't know. I'm a stranger. I show up and they go-"

Speaker 3:17 It's fascinating, yeah

Eugene 3:18 ... "What are you doing?" Yeah.

Speaker 3:20 At least if you've got that, like, Red Bull sponsorship, you've got money, whereas with, like, the Olympic athletes that it seems like they-

Trevor Noah 3:25 Yeah, they're just-

Speaker 3:26 ... they got, they got no money either.

Trevor Noah 3:28 That, that, that might be-

Eugene 3:29 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 3:29 ... for me, the, the, the most depressing trajectory.

Eugene 3:32 Yeah.

Speaker 3:32 Olympic athletes.

Trevor Noah 3:33 Olympic athletes.

Eugene 3:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:34 Because most of them don't get anything in that way.

Speaker 3:37 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 3:38 Yes.

Trevor Noah 3:38 They don't get the endorsement deals.

Eugene 3:40 No.

Speaker 3:40 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:41 They don't get the ad campaigns. They don't get the-

Eugene 3:44 No

Trevor Noah 3:44 ... reward money. They don't get anything.

Eugene 3:46 Yes.

Trevor Noah 3:48 You... Or it's almost worse for the ones that, like, win the gold or something.

Eugene 3:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:54 But, like, an, you know those, like, golds that mean-

Eugene 3:56 Skeet shooting. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:58 [laughs]

Eugene 3:58 Let's never hear you say that again.

Trevor Noah 3:59 You see, you see-

Eugene 4:00 Like the way you said skeet shooting. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:02 [laughs]

Eugene 4:03 Get in there. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:07 [laughs]

Speaker 4:08 I, I've said get in there twice today.

Eugene 4:09 [laughs]

Speaker 4:10 At Kotico number one, at Kotico 60th minute, get in there.

Trevor Noah 4:15 [laughs]

Eugene 4:15 Or when he had the assist from Salah.

Speaker 4:17 Yeah. It was a good goal. It's a nice goal.

Trevor Noah 4:20 You, my man.

Eugene 4:20 You have something to say to me, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 4:21 You, you know who you are.

Eugene 4:22 Who am I?

Trevor Noah 4:23 You're the Great-

Eugene 4:24 Who am I?

Trevor Noah 4:24 You're the Great Gatsby of-

Eugene 4:27 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:27 The Great Gatsby of football.

Speaker 4:28 Of skeet shooting. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:29 No, of football.

Eugene 4:30 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:31 Because Eugene, Eugene knows nothing about football.

Eugene 4:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:35 And his greatest joy is acting like he's fully invested in it.

Eugene 4:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:40 And then, like, he'll, he'll absorb everything we say.

Eugene 4:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:43 And then first he'll, like, throw it back at us.

Speaker 4:45 Par- parrot a little thing back.

Trevor Noah 4:46 Oh.

Eugene 4:47 Yeah, parrot it. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:47 But, but, like, im- impeccably. Impeccably. And he'll just... I remember the first times he did it-

Eugene 4:53 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:53 ... I didn't pick it up. So you'd, he'd say something, and then someone would go, like, they'd be like, "Ah, man, today's game," they'd be like, "Ah, Szoboszlai." And then he'd be like, "Dude, Szoboszlai."

Eugene 5:02 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:02 And then they would just go off. They'd be like-

Eugene 5:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 5:04 ... "Man, I just don't give a..." And then, like, the last thing, be like, like, "W- why is he on the right?" Then Eugene's like, "Well, why is he on the right?" [laughs]

Eugene 5:12 [laughs] Those are all valid questions.

Trevor Noah 5:14 And you'd watch-

Speaker 5:15 Yeah, you do. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm just saying it. You're talking sense. Yeah. Why is he on the right? We need him in the middle. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:21 You'd watch people-

Eugene 5:22 Always. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:23 You'd watch people have a conversation by themselves just prodded on by Eugene.

Eugene 5:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:29 Just prodding him on.

Eugene 5:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:30 Just prodding him on.

Eugene 5:31 It's just happened.

Speaker 5:32 Ah, man.

Eugene 5:32 You just got me.

Speaker 5:33 Yeah.

Eugene 5:33 Well.

Trevor Noah 5:34 He's fantastic at it.

Speaker 5:35 I, I just started, uh-

Eugene 5:37 [laughs]

Speaker 5:37 I, I, I, 'cause I've, I've been living here, what, nearly two years now, um, and I just, I, I like, love sports, so I watch e- I'll watch anything, but I, I-

Trevor Noah 5:45 Oh, you're one of those people.

Speaker 5:47 No, I'm... Well, kind of. But I, I love football.

Trevor Noah 5:50 Yes, yes.

Speaker 5:50 I love cricket, which is why I asked-

Trevor Noah 5:51 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 5:51 ... 'cause I was like, "It's interesting." I don't watch much of it, but I watch, like, the England national team.

Trevor Noah 5:57 Right.

Eugene 5:57 Yeah.

Speaker 5:57 I don't watch m- much else. Like, I'm not watching, like, Indian Premier League and, like, if it's on, great. But, uh, I started watching the Knicks this year because of the-

Eugene 6:06 Basketball team

Speaker 6:06 ... because of the playoffs.

Trevor Noah 6:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6:08 It was amazing. That was like, that felt like, okay, I get it. And, and watching, I, watching basketball without ever properly, uh-

Trevor Noah 6:15 Having people around me who know what's going on. You don't understand where the jeopardy is.

6:18 But I feel like that's all sports.

6:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

6:20 Yeah, I feel like that's all sports.

6:21 And the story. You need a story.

6:23 Yeah, yeah.

6:23 You need to, like, the, you need that.

6:25 That's good.

6:25 Yeah, and it was like, that was cool. I went la- I went last week. This week. When was it? Monday.

6:30 Oh, a game?

6:30 Last Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to Knicks and, uh, this some terrible team who all looks about 14 years old.

6:37 [laughs]

6:37 Uh, they beat, um, North Carolina?

6:40 No, I guess. I don't know.

6:41 South Carolina?

6:42 I don't keep up at all.

6:43 It was, it was sick. It was great. But I, but it's-

6:46 I don't keep up at all

6:47 ... it was an accident. I was like, "Oh, I'll probably like ba- baseball. D- it hasn't happened. Like, oh, maybe I'll like hockey." It's not, I, I, like-

6:53 No, but if you like cricket, if you like cricket, I think you will like baseball.

6:57 Really?

6:57 Yeah. So when I was... I've always... I, I don't even think I haven't liked bay, baseball. I've just been like, "What is the point of this?"

7:08 Yeah.

7:08 "What are we doing here?" When I went to a baseball game recently, I had a friend who came and sat with me for... He, he just happened to be at the game coincidentally.

7:18 Right, right, right.

7:18 And then he came and he said, he's... I was like, "Oh, what are you doing here?" He's, "Oh, oh." And then he's like, "So do you, do you know what's hap- " Score was 0-0.

7:24 Mm-hmm.

7:25 We're in like the, I don't know, seventh inning or something.

7:27 [laughs]

7:28 Nothing was moving. I was just like, "What are we doing here, guys?"

7:31 Yeah.

7:31 And then he sat down. He's like, "Man, what a great game, right?"

7:34 Hmm?

7:34 And I was like, "Ah, man, sorry. I don't..."

7:36 [laughs]

7:36 I was like, "I'm-"

7:36 At 0-0

7:37 ... it's not happening. [laughs] But more than 0-0, 'cause like, you know, like 0-0 in, in soccer or in football for me has a lot of like, "Oh, oh."

7:45 Yeah, yeah.

7:45 It's a lot of tension.

7:46 Yeah, yeah.

7:47 Oh.

7:47 'Cause you're invested and you get, and you get how it-

7:49 And also depending on where the time is-

7:50 Yes, exactly

7:51 ... where the jeopardy is.

7:51 Exactly.

7:52 Yeah, the jeopardy. [laughs]

7:53 So now-

7:53 I like that

7:54 ... he came and introduced that all to me. So he's like, "Okay, so you see this pitcher right now? He's getting close to his 100th pitch."

8:02 Mm-hmm.

8:02 "And so now they're trying to wear him out-

8:04 Oh

8:04 ... and get him to 100 pitches, because once, once he gets to 100 pitches, then they have to bring in the new pitcher."

8:09 Oh, I didn't know that.

8:10 And you see, exactly. That's what I mean.

8:11 That's interesting.

8:11 I didn't know any of this stuff.

8:13 Thank you very much.

8:13 So then I realized baseball is all a game of like-

8:17 Do you want us to leave? Oh, no, I'm good.

8:18 You sure?

8:18 Thank you.

8:18 Baseball is almost like, um... Have you ever played those, those, those games, they're normally mobile games, but you, uh, I used to play them back in the day on computer as well, where you were like chipping away at something, chipping away at something, chipping away at something. Then the wall bursts, and then it's like now the war starts.

8:35 Yeah.

8:35 Or, or those where the-

8:36 Right, right, yeah, yeah

8:36 ... where you hit the ball-

8:37 Actually-

8:37 ... and then the balls get increased, increased, increased.

8:38 Actually, yeah. Or think of it this way.

8:40 Yeah, yeah.

8:40 Like think of a TV show, right?

8:41 Uh-huh.

8:42 Sometimes you'll watch a great show, whether it's like a Game of Thrones or one of those.

8:45 Mm-hmm.

8:47 And if you don't know the show, like six episodes can be about what's gonna happen in the war.

8:56 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

8:56 Do you know what I mean?

8:57 Hmm.

8:57 Every episode is just people looking at maps.

9:00 [laughs]

9:00 "My Lord. My Lord."

9:01 Yes. [laughs]

9:01 "If we assail their forces from this direction, my Lord-

9:04 [laughs]

9:04 ... then it should be easier. Oh, we're never gonna get through there, there."

9:08 [laughs]

9:08 "What do you mean?" And like you don't know that show.

9:10 Yeah. [laughs]

9:11 The show sucks. You're like, "This is terrible. What is, what is happening?"

9:13 Yeah.

9:13 Nothing's happening.

9:14 Yeah, yeah. Yes.

9:15 Nothing's happening.

9:16 All makes so much sense, yeah.

9:17 But to your point, because you know the jeopardy, you're like, "Oh man, what are they gonna do?"

9:21 Yeah.

9:21 "Are they gonna go here? Are they gonna..."

9:22 Yeah, yeah.

9:22 That's baseball.

9:23 Yeah.

9:23 So baseball-

9:24 Interesting

9:24 ... is one of the sports where-

9:25 Ah

9:25 ... if you don't understand the jeopardy-

9:27 Yeah

9:28 ... you-

9:28 You're wasting your time

9:28 ... I don't think you can understand the sp- you, I don't think you can appreciate the sport.

9:31 Hmm.

9:31 Because unlike basketball, unlike other sports where it's like, "Oh, ball goes there, in. Ah, ball goes there, in. Ah, ball goes there, in."

9:38 Yeah, yeah.

9:38 No, baseball is like, "Oh, what are they gonna do? Are they now going to put him in?"

9:44 [laughs]

9:44 And you know, a right-hander throwing to a left batsman.

9:48 Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:48 Oh, this is... You know, it's gonna be like this stressful, what are we... Oh, oh, oh.

9:52 [laughs]

9:52 And there's this whole tipping point.

9:53 It's jeopardy.

9:54 I, I didn't know this before. There's a whole tipping point where when the pitcher gets you, 100 pitches is basically it.

9:59 I had no idea about that. I had no idea.

10:01 So you put your best-

10:01 That makes sense

10:02 ... you put your best pitcher in.

10:03 Yeah.

10:04 You try and get as many outs as possible-

10:06 Yeah

10:07 ... in as few pitches as possible.

10:08 You wear them down.

10:09 But if you get to 100 pitches, you like sort of have to take them out.

10:12 Wow. That's interesting.

10:13 Or they have to leave at 100 they have to go.

10:14 Yeah, because they have to go rest their arm.

10:16 It's like a Uber driver.

10:16 Hmm.

10:17 So after 12 hours.

10:18 [laughs] Oh, is that right?

10:19 Yes. They have to-

10:20 Can't go longer than 12 hours

10:21 ... No, you can't. After 12 hours, like, "Look-

10:23 [laughs]

10:24 ... you've done your best, okay? Dropped off a few grannies, two drunk people. This is it for you." And then you- [laughs]

10:31 Yeah. So you gotta, you gotta take them and you gotta-

10:33 The app kicks you out after. [laughs]

10:34 Yeah. You gotta, you've gotta, you've gotta take the person and then rest, and then, and then you get the really shit Uber driver in.

10:40 Yeah. [laughs]

10:40 But that's basically, yeah.

10:41 And that's-

10:42 No, but that's basically what happened. Then the, apparently the drop off-

10:44 That's it

10:45 ... So the, 'cause I was confused by that, but the drop off to the second pitcher is apparently quite high because all the best pitchers are on a team.

10:52 They want the, yeah, they want, they wanna all be-

10:54 Yeah, they-

10:54 ... the main guy

10:54 ... they're the best pitcher.

10:56 Like a goal keeper almost.

10:56 So the drop off to the second one is like they're way more hittable. They w- like this is where the home runs are gonna come now.

11:02 Ah, I see.

11:02 This is where the ball-

11:03 Makes sense

11:03 ... that's where the scoring is supposed to sort of happen. So it becomes this, this tactical game of like when do you switch your pitchers?

11:09 Hmm.

11:09 When do you not switch your pitchers? W- how you, you know, and then just because that guy came in-

11:14 Yeah

11:14 ... and introduced it to me, I was like, oh.

11:16 Oh, to understand the tension.

11:17 Okay. Okay, now I understand the tension.

11:18 Yeah.

11:19 Now, now I get it.

11:21 That makes sense.

11:21 Now I get why everyone in the stadium is like breathing these collective like, oh.

11:26 Oh, yeah.

11:27 Oh.

11:27 So the only time baseball became fun is when it turned into the Kardashians. For you-

11:32 That's one way to put it

11:33 ... it became dramatic.

11:34 [laughs]

11:34 There was a lot of tension.

11:36 I, or rather when some-

11:37 People were being worn out

11:37 ... or rather when someone showed me that it was the Kardashians.

11:40 Ah.

11:41 It didn't turn into.

11:42 You know, there's one thing I want... Have, have you been to the Super Bowl?

11:44 No.

11:45 I wanna do that.

11:45 You wanna go to the Super Bowl?

11:46 Yeah, yeah.

11:47 Why?

11:47 But not for the football, for the pomp and ceremony.

11:50 It's a thing.

11:51 How's that?

11:51 It's a thing.

Trevor Noah 11:53 Yeah, yeah. I liked it.

11:54 Yeah, I mean, it didn't even-

11:54 Pomp and ceremony

11:55 ... it didn't flag up for me at all.

11:56 You didn't, you didn't flinch once, Nick?

11:57 No, I didn't flinch. [laughs]

11:59 [laughs]

12:02 Uh, but Uba, welcome, man.

12:03 Yeah.

12:03 Welcome.

12:04 Thank you.

12:04 Uh, welcome to the, to the podcast.

12:05 I should take this off the table.

12:07 No, no, no.

12:07 No, please.

12:07 What do you mean? Why?

12:08 Is it okay?

12:09 You gonna drink from the floor?

12:10 [laughs]

12:10 [laughs]

12:11 Well, yeah, I was... Couple of sips.

12:12 We're just gonna like-

12:13 [laughs]

12:13 He's like... [laughs] He's like through your sleeve. [laughs]

12:21 [laughs]

12:21 Oh, no, man. Can, can I tell you, you, you're one of those, um, you know when you, you know when you form a, an idea of somebody in your mind before-

12:29 Yeah

12:29 ... you meet them?

12:29 Yeah. [laughs]

12:30 You're one of those people where the first time I heard about you-

12:34 I was just like, "Wait, who is this person?" Right? 'Cause the, the first time I heard about you, it's when

Trevor Noah 12:39 you created the world's most popular restaurant-

Speaker 12:42 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:43 ... that no one could get into.

Speaker 12:44 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:45 No one could visit. Everyone wanted to go. Like, it, it was number one on TripAdvisor. Everyone in the world was like, "You've gotta go to this restaurant."

Speaker 12:52 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:52 "It's the greatest restaurant." It had, like, how many thousand reviews at one point?

Speaker 12:55 It wasn't actually that many, but it was, it was more the algorithmic hack. But yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:58 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:59 Like, it had put it at the top of the thing.

Speaker 13:01 E- exactly, yeah. It was enough, and they were done at the right time, and that was an accident. I wasn't being clever. But yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:06 Accident?

Speaker 13:07 Well, no, it wasn't, but it, it was, it was lucky, tremendously lucky that it worked, I think, is what I'm saying. Like, I don't-

Trevor Noah 13:15 Yeah

Speaker 13:15 ... the fact that it actually... I mean, you're, I'm interrupting you.

Trevor Noah 13:18 No, no, no, you're not.

Eugene 13:19 No, no, no.

Trevor Noah 13:19 This is, you can't interrupt me.

Speaker 13:20 No.

Trevor Noah 13:20 It's your story.

Speaker 13:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:21 I was just-

Eugene 13:21 Trust me.

Speaker 13:22 [laughs]

Eugene 13:23 You can't.

Speaker 13:24 You can't inter- can't interrupt, okay.

Trevor Noah 13:25 [laughs]

Eugene 13:26 [laughs]

Speaker 13:26 I need to see, I, I need to understand where the jeopardy is, so I need to know-

Trevor Noah 13:29 [laughs]

Eugene 13:30 Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun

Speaker 13:32 ... I'm getting to. [laughs]

Eugene 13:33 Da, da, da, da, da, dun.

Speaker 13:35 Yeah, no, I mean, the, yeah, I mean, you said that that, that was the first time I think anybody heard of me, I think at all.

Trevor Noah 13:41 Yeah.

Speaker 13:41 It was, uh, yeah, tremendously lucky. Like, it was kinda one of those things where it was, like, this, like, idea that was, like, I, I was doing on the side of other ideas.

Trevor Noah 13:50 Yeah.

Speaker 13:50 And it was like, okay, I'm gonna slowly build this up, and the m- and the longer it went on, the more silly it, it got, and the momentum it-

Trevor Noah 13:55 That's life. [laughs]

Speaker 13:56 Yeah, the more people bought into it, and I was like, well, the, at some point, someone's gonna knock on my door and be like, "What are you doing, you child?" You know? And, and, and I was gonna get in trouble, and, and it would be taken down, or what- I, I just didn't think-

Trevor Noah 14:09 Mm.

Speaker 14:09 I thought at some point it would go wrong. Um, we're presuming now that the viewer understands what the hell I'm talking about, so I feel-

Trevor Noah 14:16 Oh, yeah, we'll give them a little context.

Speaker 14:17 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:17 That'll be fine. But for those, for those who don't know, it was basically a, you, you created a fake restaurant-

Speaker 14:22 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:23 ... in London, and it was a place that everyone was dying to go to.

Speaker 14:26 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 14:26 And then at some point, publications started picking it up, and they were like, "Oh, the best restaurant in London that you can't get into it."

Speaker 14:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:32 And then they wanted to cover it, and then publicists wanted to be a part of it.

Speaker 14:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:34 And it was a whole thing, and it becomes this whole world. And then I think at some point you did... 'Cause it, it didn't exist, right? If I understand.

Speaker 14:43 Yeah, it was completely, it was completely made up, so.

Trevor Noah 14:44 Yeah, you, you, you created this fake world.

Eugene 14:47 [laughs] I'm so into this right now.

Trevor Noah 14:48 Yeah, this is why I, this is why-

Eugene 14:49 Like high for me. Now I'm in. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:51 Can, so I'll tell you, you know, you, people always go, like, "Why do you have somebody on?"

Speaker 14:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:55 Through and through, for me-

Speaker 14:56 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:57 ... you made me realize, so you live my dream.

Speaker 15:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:01 That's why you're here.

Speaker 15:02 Wow.

Trevor Noah 15:02 You li-... No, genuinely. You live my dream. And I'll tell you what, because my dream has always been to be, like, like a, like a massive, like, fraudster.

Speaker 15:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:11 But then I go, "You go to jail."

Speaker 15:13 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:13 And then you do it, and I was like, oh, you, there's a way to do it and not go to jail.

Speaker 15:17 [laughs] It's called being white.

Eugene 15:18 [laughs] Interesting.

Trevor Noah 15:21 [laughs] 'Cause I was like, this to me is fraud. This seems like massive fraud.

Speaker 15:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 15:25 But if you film it, and if you-

Eugene 15:27 Yeah

Trevor Noah 15:27 ... if you have a camera where you're like, "So I'm gonna do this fraud"-

Eugene 15:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 15:29 ... then it's, now it's a prank.

Eugene 15:31 Yes.

Speaker 15:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, pranks.

Eugene 15:32 It's in, like, between fraud and a pr- that's a-

Trevor Noah 15:34 Hey, my friend, loophole

Eugene 15:34 ... that's a good one.

Trevor Noah 15:35 Yes.

Eugene 15:36 That's a-

Speaker 15:36 It's a loophole.

Trevor Noah 15:37 Yeah, the loophole is you gotta say ahead of time to a camera-

Eugene 15:39 Oh, it's like-

Trevor Noah 15:40 ... "Hey, guys, this is-"

Eugene 15:41 ... "Can you see?"

Trevor Noah 15:41 So day one of planning this prank, then it's not fraud. [laughs]

Eugene 15:45 So when it's like, oh, yeah.

Trevor Noah 15:46 Exactly.

Eugene 15:46 So let me get this right.

Trevor Noah 15:47 Yeah.

Eugene 15:47 So if you are-

Trevor Noah 15:47 Move your thing there so Hannah doesn't shame-

Eugene 15:49 If, if, if, if there's a camera and then you're just talking to it-

Trevor Noah 15:52 Yeah

Eugene 15:53 ... then it's a, it's a diary confession session.

Trevor Noah 15:56 Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 15:57 Yeah.

Eugene 15:57 But if there's a car behind it-

Trevor Noah 15:58 It performs, uh, yeah, I know

Eugene 15:58 ... it's a deposition.

Trevor Noah 16:00 That's the difference.

Eugene 16:00 [laughs] Okay.

Trevor Noah 16:01 Basically, it's who brings the camera.

Eugene 16:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 16:03 If you bring the camera-

Eugene 16:05 It's a porn. [laughs] So I'm...

Trevor Noah 16:11 You, you're not wrong. If you bring a camera, it's a porn. If someone else brings the camera, it's a sex tape.

Speaker 16:16 Yeah, and that's against the law.

Trevor Noah 16:17 Yes, you see. So-

Eugene 16:18 Which one?

Trevor Noah 16:19 [laughs]

Speaker 16:19 [laughs]

Eugene 16:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 16:22 But, like, so, so let, let's talk through this, and then I wanna get into, like, how you h-

Speaker 16:27 Yeah

Trevor Noah 16:27 ... how you even get into this world.

Eugene 16:29 Mm.

Speaker 16:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:31 You have the, the number one re... T- talk me through how you start the scam. Like, where did you even begin the idea of, "I'm gonna create the world's most popular restaurant that doesn't actually exist, but gets all these reviews, and then gets written about, and then people wanna pay exorbitant amounts of money to come to-"

Speaker 16:48 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 16:48 ... but they've never been to it. Like, 'cause you, uh, there's a few things that you do here. You, you encapsulate in one story hype.

Speaker 16:57 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 16:57 You encapsulate myth.

Eugene 16:58 Confidence.

Trevor Noah 16:58 You encapsulate, like, just how we in the world all want things that aren't even real.

Eugene 17:04 Yeah.

Speaker 17:04 Right.

Trevor Noah 17:05 'Cause people were dying to go to this restaurant.

Eugene 17:06 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 17:07 People were like, "Oh, when I go to London, like, you know where I wish I could go but I can't get in? Oh."

Speaker 17:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:12 "And the food is amazing."

Speaker 17:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:14 But it's not real.

Eugene 17:15 Hmm.

Speaker 17:17 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 17:17 I was like, this, this man has tapped into every single thing-

Eugene 17:20 Hmm

Trevor Noah 17:21 ... that's sort of, like, wrong with the world, and not today, just, like, it's sort of like the human brain.

Speaker 17:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 17:26 So, so walk, walk us through how you created the greatest restaurant scam. How does it start?

Speaker 17:30 [laughs] Uh, so yeah, I mean, I suppose that I'd been, when I was younger, I used to work in sort of bars and restaurants and stuff like that.

Trevor Noah 17:39 Okay.

Speaker 17:39 So I'd been in those contexts. I'd been, uh-

Trevor Noah 17:42 Where, where was this, by the way? Where, where did you grow up?

Speaker 17:43 I, I grew up in a little village called Fakenham in, uh, in England.

Trevor Noah 17:46 [laughs]

Speaker 17:47 I know.

Trevor Noah 17:48 Sorry.

Speaker 17:48 Sounds ridiculous, but-

Trevor Noah 17:49 Yeah, I'm sorry. Fakenham is like-

Eugene 17:50 Why'd you look at me?

Trevor Noah 17:51 No, come on. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. Fakenham.

Eugene 17:54 Me?

Trevor Noah 17:54 You seem like you're from Fakenham.

Eugene 17:55 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:56 In fact, from now on, I'm gonna say that about you.

Eugene 17:58 What now?

Trevor Noah 17:59 Ah, my friend Eugene from Fakenham. [laughs]

Eugene 18:02 [laughs]

Speaker 18:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:02 You've been Fakenham my whole life. You're a Fakenham if ever I saw one.

Speaker 18:06 I just, as you say this, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad.

Trevor Noah 18:10 [laughs]

Eugene 18:10 [laughs]

Speaker 18:10 Trevor Noah saying Fakenham. It's just, that's just, I'm already, I'm cooked here. I'm done. I'm, I'm happy.

Trevor Noah 18:16 [laughs]

Speaker 18:17 Uh, no, I mean, I, so I grew up in the middle of nowhere, basically.

Trevor Noah 18:20 Yeah.

Speaker 18:21 My mom's, my mom's family have been there for hundreds of years, got webbed toes to prove it and all that.

Trevor Noah 18:26 [laughs]

Eugene 18:26 [laughs]

Speaker 18:27 Uh, you know. No, not really, but, uh, may as well do. Um, and then my dad's family are from Birmingham and Ireland, and, like, so, um, we, I grew up there- Uh, I, I'm the youngest of six, so sort of desperate for attention, that kind, that kind of type. Um, we were the sort of token working class family in a kind of village of, like, lots of very, "Hello, how's it going there?"

Trevor Noah 18:47 Oh, so like a posh vibe.

Speaker 18:48 And then-

Trevor Noah 18:49 Wow

Speaker 18:49 ... farmers. Posh, farmers.

Trevor Noah 18:51 You're right in the middle.

Speaker 18:52 Kind of like ... And then a lot of the pe- yeah, and a lot of the people who you would've worked in the mills and stuff had, have moved a long time ago.

Trevor Noah 18:57 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 18:57 But my mom's fam- our family's still there, so it's, like, a fun environment to grow up in. Um, and yeah, I suppose I just did lo- like, I, I didn't go to college. I stayed in Fakenham way too long. Uh, and I s- would take jobs that I could get.

Trevor Noah 19:12 Yeah.

Speaker 19:12 And one of the first sort of set of jobs I would get was working in bars, working in restaurants. And, um, in those contexts, I remember just hearing about TripAdvisor constantly, and how if someone left a one-star review-

Trevor Noah 19:25 Hm

Speaker 19:25 ... it would be a problem, you know, for everyone. What, what, what, what happened last night, you know? It would be like, it was a very serious platform, TripAdvisor.

Trevor Noah 19:31 It holds that much power?

Speaker 19:32 Yeah. Definitely.

Trevor Noah 19:33 I've, I've sort of heard about this from the outside, but really-

Speaker 19:35 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:35 ... so if you work in a food or beverage-

Speaker 19:38 Definitely

Trevor Noah 19:38 ... establishment, if someone leaves a one-star review, it shakes the place up.

Speaker 19:41 It's sti- it's still the same way. It's just the pl- I think it's, uh, migrated slightly. I think Google Reviews is probably the number one now-

Trevor Noah 19:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 19:47 ... I would say. But, like, it's mi- like, when I was doing that, when I did that, TripAdvisor was the biggest tourist website on the planet.

Trevor Noah 19:53 Yeah.

Speaker 19:53 I would say it's probably still-

Trevor Noah 19:54 It's still big

Speaker 19:55 ... probably one of the top three.

Trevor Noah 19:56 Yeah, yeah, it is.

Speaker 19:56 Or something.

Trevor Noah 19:56 No, it is, definitely.

Speaker 19:57 But, but yeah, I mean, w- it, it still happens now. If someone leaves a one-star review, it's on you.

Trevor Noah 20:02 Yeah.

Speaker 20:02 So it's interesting. Yeah. So-

Trevor Noah 20:04 Wait, wait, wait. So when they leave the one star, do they say, "It was him that I'm leaving the one star for," or because of?

Speaker 20:09 Well, that does happen, yeah. It does happen, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:12 It's like a daily petty version of the Michelin star.

Speaker 20:14 Yeah, [laughs] yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:15 It's, it's terrible.

Speaker 20:16 It really is, innit?

Trevor Noah 20:17 Have you, have you never read ... I love reading Google reviews.

Speaker 20:18 No, I don't.

Trevor Noah 20:19 Yeah.

Speaker 20:19 I don't read Google reviews.

Trevor Noah 20:19 No, literally, and then they'll, they'll-

Speaker 20:21 How about Ryan?

Trevor Noah 20:21 [laughs] They'll literally go ... [laughs]

Speaker 20:23 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:23 We do have Ryan.

Speaker 20:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:24 They'll literally go, they'll just be like, um, "One star." And then I read, I like reading the one stars.

Speaker 20:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:30 Because I go, to leave one star for a place, 'cause remember, that's the lowest you can leave, basically.

Speaker 20:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:36 Right?

Speaker 20:36 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:36 So you left one star.

Speaker 20:37 Yeah. The worst experience you could possibly have.

Trevor Noah 20:39 Yes. This is the ... So I wanna know what the worst experience in your life could be.

Speaker 20:42 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:43 So you go in there-

Speaker 20:43 So I go read one-star reviews.

Trevor Noah 20:45 Yeah.

Speaker 20:45 I always wanna read the one-star reviews.

Trevor Noah 20:47 Yeah.

Speaker 20:47 And then it's like, especially in a, in a place that has, like, let's say a place has an average of 4.6 or 4.7.

Trevor Noah 20:52 Then is that one, one star?

Speaker 20:54 Thousands of people have said, "This is 4.7 worthy."

Trevor Noah 20:56 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 20:56 And then someone has a one star. I'm like, "Okay, I wanna know what happened in your life."

Trevor Noah 20:59 Yeah, yeah, [laughs] what's happening?

Speaker 20:59 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:00 The shop across the road.

Speaker 21:01 And then you go in-

Trevor Noah 21:01 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 21:02 And then you-

Trevor Noah 21:02 Competition.

Speaker 21:03 Yo, you go in.

Trevor Noah 21:06 [laughs]

Speaker 21:07 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:07 That is, that definitely happens. Definitely, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 21:10 Yes, 'cause the-

Trevor Noah 21:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 21:11 ... the, the number one whistleblowers in any situation are people who didn't get the contract.

Trevor Noah 21:16 The investors. Oh.

Speaker 21:16 Or the competition.

Trevor Noah 21:17 I like that.

Speaker 21:18 Anyway.

Trevor Noah 21:18 Interesting.

Speaker 21:18 Continue. One star.

Trevor Noah 21:19 Yeah. So then you'll go in, and then it'll, it'll be, it'll sometimes be like, um, "Great food, great ambiance, great atmosphere."

Speaker 21:29 So compliments first.

Trevor Noah 21:30 Yeah, all these things. Then it's like-

Speaker 21:31 I'm reasonable. They're establishing that they're reasonable.

Trevor Noah 21:33 Yes.

Speaker 21:33 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:34 [laughs] I like this, actually. I like this.

Speaker 21:37 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:37 Then the, then they'll, then they'll go, then they'll go like, "Appetizers were a little expensive, but still great."

Speaker 21:43 Ah.

Trevor Noah 21:43 And then they'll be like, "Eugene-

Speaker 21:46 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:47 ... our server, totally unprofessional. Didn't like how he treated us. Should be fired."

Speaker 21:55 Yeah. Just like that.

Trevor Noah 21:57 That's it.

Speaker 21:57 One star.

Trevor Noah 21:57 One star.

Speaker 21:58 Yeah. So I'm the problem.

Trevor Noah 22:00 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 22:02 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, so, so I ended up-

Trevor Noah 22:04 What?

Speaker 22:04 I actually, before I did the restaurant thing ... So what happened was, ye- I, so I had that little experience. Years, five, six years pass, then I start, uh, working as a writer, trying to work as a writer, move to London.

Trevor Noah 22:15 Yeah.

Speaker 22:15 Try and start to hustle in. Try and, like, what can I get paid for? What gigs can I get paid for?

Trevor Noah 22:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this life.

Speaker 22:21 And, uh, and the, I, there was a, like, a freelance website, and, uh, it was called, uh, People Per Hour, and, uh, they would, like, people would advertise, like, "Writer, we need a writer to do X, Y or Z." One of the gigs on there was writing fake five-star reviews for restaurants-

Trevor Noah 22:35 No way

Speaker 22:36 ... to, to, to juice their re- to juice their ratings.

Trevor Noah 22:38 God loves you.

Speaker 22:39 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 22:40 [laughs]

Speaker 22:40 So, so I started doing that. And, and I would just go, like, go on their website, go, "All right, okay. I, I went there. I had the whatever."

Trevor Noah 22:48 No way, way, way, Oobah-

Speaker 22:49 Read some other reviews

Trevor Noah 22:49 ... Oobah, you can't just skim over this.

Speaker 22:51 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 22:51 Because I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Because right now what you're doing, I think, for me, and I, I think other people, is you are exposing the very underpinnings of how, like, we think society works.

Speaker 23:03 Great. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:04 Right. No, 'cause a lot of people, they, like, people trust reviews.

Speaker 23:07 Yes. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 23:08 Do you know what I mean? And more than that-

Speaker 23:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 23:09 ... people trust well-written reviews.

Speaker 23:11 Yeah, definitely.

Trevor Noah 23:12 You know what I mean?

Speaker 23:13 Yes.

Trevor Noah 23:13 So if you go on, like, Amazon-

Speaker 23:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 23:15 ... or if you go on TripAdvisor, you go on Google-

Speaker 23:17 Yep

Trevor Noah 23:17 ... you go on any of these, the better written the review, the more you trust it.

Speaker 23:21 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:22 So-

Speaker 23:24 Ooh

Trevor Noah 23:24 ... I'm not a regular user of drinking glasses, and so when I began this journey, I thought to myself, where would I find the right drinking glass? And you're like, "Oh, I'm in, I'm in."

Speaker 23:34 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 23:34 And now you're telling me that this is a freelance job that people get hired to do.

Speaker 23:38 I mean, I would say now it's way more advanced than that. This is, this is eight years ago, seven or eight years ago.

Trevor Noah 23:44 Yeah.

Speaker 23:44 So I think that that now is a w- the manipulation of it is far more sophisticated.

Trevor Noah 23:49 Yeah.

Speaker 23:49 I mean, we all know this, that our, our lives are curated by, um, I don't know, manipulated realities, aren't they? And then, you know, people's decisions with my thing, which we're getting onto-

Trevor Noah 24:00 Yeah

Speaker 24:01 ... was based on a f- on a false reality w- that had been constructed and sold to us as legitimate. And I think what my, the reason why this ended up becoming this huge viral story, and that you saw it and everything, was, like, that it tapped into this whole thing about this, like, oh my God, this, it's like taking, what is it? The blue pill or the red pill? I don't know. I've lost track.

Trevor Noah 24:20 The red pill.

Speaker 24:21 The red pill.

Trevor Noah 24:21 Yeah, the red pill.

Speaker 24:21 You take it.

Trevor Noah 24:22 You take the red pill.

Speaker 24:22 You take this, you have it, and then you see how things work.

Trevor Noah 24:24 Yeah.

Speaker 24:24 And, like, I don't know now, it was, it's fascinating how many bots there are, how many things like that, how much of our online experience is falsified.

Trevor Noah 24:33 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 24:33 I think back then, yeah, it was, I was getting paid.

Trevor Noah 24:36 You were the bot.

Speaker 24:38 I was the bot. [laughs] I was the bot. I mean, look, I didn't know-

Trevor Noah 24:39 I didn't even, I never knew there were human bots You're writing these fake reviews-

Speaker 24:43 Yeah

Trevor Noah 24:43 ... right? You're, you're in this world. What made you a good fake reviewer?

Speaker 24:48 Uh, willingness and-

Trevor Noah 24:50 [laughs]

Speaker 24:51 [laughs] openness to mistruths.

Trevor Noah 24:55 [laughs]

Speaker 24:56 No, well, look, I-

Trevor Noah 24:57 Oh, man

Speaker 24:58 ... I don't know. I, yeah, I suppose, I, I mean, literally what I just said is true. Like, I, I think I'm a bullshitter at, at heart. My dad is a bullshitter. I actually, my, the, my great-uncle, no, no, no, great-grandad moved to the US, right? Temporarily, he came back, went back to Birmingham, England. He came here, like, and this is a real story, came here and sold, uh, rabbit droppings, so rabbit shit, rolled in flour, and sold as a medicine.

Eugene 25:28 My man.

Speaker 25:28 That's real. That, I didn't know about this-

Eugene 25:31 My man

Speaker 25:31 ... I did not know about this until this year, 'cause I was looking-

Trevor Noah 25:33 It's in your DNA.

Speaker 25:34 It's in my [laughs]

Eugene 25:35 [laughs]

Speaker 25:35 There was rabbit shit in my DNA.

Trevor Noah 25:37 [laughs]

Eugene 25:38 [laughs]

Speaker 25:38 Um, you know, I'm like, but the, in all honesty, like, there was always, like, a... It felt bec- I c- I suppose it felt faceless, and it felt, I didn't do loads of it. You know, I'm not like I'm d- I'm earning bank by-

Trevor Noah 25:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 25:52 ... writing these things. I di-

Trevor Noah 25:53 How much did you earn per review?

Speaker 25:54 10 pounds.

Eugene 25:55 Oh, okay.

Speaker 25:55 So, what, $13.50.

Trevor Noah 25:57 Yeah, no, I mean, that's, uh-

Speaker 25:59 Something like that

Trevor Noah 25:59 ... 10 pounds-

Eugene 25:59 Eight years ago

Speaker 26:00 Yeah

Eugene 26:00 ... that's a lot of money.

Trevor Noah 26:00 Yeah, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 26:01 Yeah, I think it was-

Trevor Noah 26:02 10 pounds per review?

Speaker 26:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 26:03 I would be pumping those. Did you have, like, a limit?

Speaker 26:06 I, I would guess that I probably only wrote about 20 of them.

Trevor Noah 26:09 And then what happened?

Speaker 26:10 Well, I mean, I just found other gigs.

Trevor Noah 26:13 Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 26:13 I was doing other things. So, so, it, but it was that, it was a, not, like, the main job that I had.

Trevor Noah 26:19 Got it, got it, got it.

Speaker 26:19 It was, I was in London, I'd just moved there, and I had n- I had no re- I hadn't been to college. I had no reason to think I could be a writer. But I was trying to do stuff just get, to get paid for it to legitimize it.

Trevor Noah 26:29 Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Speaker 26:29 And trying to do something.

Eugene 26:29 Trevor, you have to love white confidence.

Trevor Noah 26:31 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 26:31 You truly do. I was going to, but in the middle of writing, I realized I'm not qualified. But anyway, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 26:38 It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Trevor Noah 26:39 [laughs]

Eugene 26:40 [laughs]

Speaker 26:40 That doesn't matter.

Eugene 26:41 I'll let you.

Speaker 26:42 No, no, no. It's, it's, it's his medicine.

Trevor Noah 26:44 [laughs]

Speaker 26:44 Have a bit of that. Uh, take the red pill.

Eugene 26:47 The brown one. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:49 [laughs]

Speaker 26:49 Take the brown pill. Uh-

Eugene 26:51 With rabbit droppings.

Speaker 26:52 [laughs]

Eugene 26:52 Okay, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 26:54 No, no, it's true. No, you're, you're, you know what? You're absolutely right. Like, I mean, we grew up, we grew up in a kind of, like, a weird kind of, like, a, we, as I said, we were kind of the weird kind of scumbag family in the village that everyone would throw their kids at. So all the rich kids would hang out at our house, and it was all loads of fun, but I was raised by my elder brothers, basically.

Trevor Noah 27:13 Wow.

Speaker 27:13 Mom and Dad were out. Mom was a nurse, Dad was, sold records.

Eugene 27:16 See?

Speaker 27:16 Oh, really? Yeah.

Eugene 27:17 Mom was a nurse, yeah.

Speaker 27:17 Yeah, yeah. So, um, Dad sold vinyl records on the markets and always had loads of office jobs. Mom was a nurse. We was loads of us, and it was sort of just like, it felt fun and naughty, and life, when it feels fun and naughty is kind of always, the, the, I don't know. It, uh, there was... I suppose I didn't engage with, like, the gravitas of what I was doing.

Trevor Noah 27:39 Yeah.

Speaker 27:39 I was lying in order to manipulate people's experiences, but I was being paid to do that.

Trevor Noah 27:43 Yeah.

Speaker 27:43 But it, like, it didn't seem that unusual. But having worked in restaurants as well, I was like, "This is crazy." And I was like, because wait there, I used to get told off if someone left a one-star review, so, like, I'm now in the, the, the, the, the-

Trevor Noah 27:57 Wow

Speaker 27:57 ... the environment-

Trevor Noah 27:58 Yeah

Speaker 27:59 ... is, is, is not trustworthy. It's, uh, so I suppose that stuck in my head, and what made me think, think about this was when you guys were talking about one-star reviewers, I actually... So what happened was I started writing for, I'd, I'd do an internship to, like, websites, music websites

Speaker 28:14 generally. Started doing more gonzo journalism style stuff, kind of weird music reviews, weird stuff like that, and then eventually it led me to working with Vice. And that was-

Eugene 28:23 Mm.

Speaker 28:23 That, that, you remember Vice?

Trevor Noah 28:24 Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 28:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:25 I still love Vice.

Speaker 28:26 Yeah, yeah. Um, but, like, that, that then changed my life, and then I started making a living doing it. So then it's like I'd write three or four things a, a month, different weird things. And, like, one of the things I did on the journey to get into the fake restaurant was I, I wrote a piece about, um, TripAdvisor's harshest reviewers.

Trevor Noah 28:45 Okay.

Speaker 28:45 So I, I took them out for, for lunch. I contacted them and said, "I'd love to go to lunch," 'cause I wanted to understand the psychology of, like, why would you go to a restaurant and just leave a one-star review? Like, uh, you know, it's such a funny thing to do with your, with your ti- unless, like, you've been, you know, uppercutted by the waiter or whatever.

Trevor Noah 29:01 [laughs]

Eugene 29:03 [laughs]

Speaker 29:03 But, like, it's such a weird thing to do with your time.

Trevor Noah 29:06 Well, that's your fault. Don't come into-

Speaker 29:07 Eugene again. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 29:07 Don't come to Uppercuts-

Eugene 29:09 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 29:09 ... if you don't want to get an uppercut.

Speaker 29:11 [laughs]

Eugene 29:12 [laughs]

Speaker 29:12 Pay extra for the uppercut there.

Trevor Noah 29:15 [laughs]

Eugene 29:16 [laughs]

Speaker 29:16 Special interest. Uh, but, like, so yeah, I took out these, these, it was actually three different guys. I took them all out, and I, and I reviewed them. So I reviewed them like, like a restaurant.

Trevor Noah 29:25 That's hilarious.

Speaker 29:26 And I did the, and all of them were kind of very strange and quite evasive and complicated. One of them was one of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life, and he made me take him to the, the poshest restaurant in London, or one of them at the time, La Gavroche. And he went through the whole meal, and he was complaining the whole time. It was like being with Larry David. He was just the whole time being like, "Uh, excuse me, uh, is that actually a ma- a, a, oh," sniffing the wine, doubting the sommelier and, uh-

Trevor Noah 29:49 [laughs]

Eugene 29:49 [laughs]

Speaker 29:49 I have a high bar for, for sha- for, like, shame, public shame. But this guy was insane. Um, let me just get this right, but I've talked to her as well. But, like, he was like, he said to me, he was like, uh, the whole time he complained, and I was like, "This guy is fascinating." And he was like, "You know, the reason I do this is I, I, I'm, I'm like a..." He saw himself as some, like, vanguard. "I'm doing it for people."

Eugene 30:11 Oh, for the people.

Speaker 30:11 "Self-sacrifice. I'm doing it."

Eugene 30:13 I'm holding the door.

Speaker 30:14 And, and, uh, and he, see, exactly. At the end of the evening, I remember saying to him, "So what, what do you think about La Gavroche?" And he's like, "Oh, it's, it's one of the best restaurants in the world." And I was like, after spending two hours with him moaning.

Trevor Noah 30:24 Of him complaining through the whole meal.

Speaker 30:26 It was insane. And I was like, "How many stars?" He went, "Three." [laughs] And that was it.

Eugene 30:32 One of the best restaurants.

Speaker 30:33 Yeah, exactly. So, so, so I'd been in those, like, that psychology of reviewers and reviewing-

Trevor Noah 30:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 30:38 ... was interesting to me. And then, but then that, while I was doing that, I started thinking, that was when the idea for the restaurant kind of came.

Eugene 30:44 Mm.

Speaker 30:44 It all kind of fell together, and I knew I had to write three to four pieces for Vice a month, and The Guardian I was writing for a little bit. Um, and it, and- Yeah, I kinda found a style luckily, which was this kind of like, uh, um, gonzo style, social experimenty style thing.

Speaker 31:04 Did another thing where I tr- I went door to door. I pretended I was journey- uh, joining the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Trevor Noah 31:09 Oh, nice.

Speaker 31:10 And I went door, door to door and, and learnt how they sell door to door.

Trevor Noah 31:14 How do ... How does that work? 'Cause I, I don't, I'm, I don't know any of anybody who's opened the door-

Speaker 31:19 Yeah

Trevor Noah 31:20 ... or, like, wh- how does that work?

Speaker 31:21 Well, well, the-

Trevor Noah 31:22 [laughs] I like that

Speaker 31:23 ... uh, the numbers-

Trevor Noah 31:23 As if I opened the door. [laughs]

Speaker 31:24 The, well, it-

Trevor Noah 31:25 No, I don't.

Speaker 31:25 No, no, you don't

Trevor Noah 31:25 I genuinely don't.

Speaker 31:26 You know, it's, it's the right question because I was thinking the same thing.

Trevor Noah 31:29 Yeah.

Speaker 31:29 That's why I got interested in it.

Trevor Noah 31:30 Yeah.

Speaker 31:31 'Cause I'd been in a band and we'd failed, and I was like, "It must ... It's so hard to sell a CD." It's, like, 2015, '16 this was, and I was like, "You can't ... No one will buy a CD. What do people wanna buy less than a CD?" A Jehovah's Witness at the door. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 31:44 Yeah.

Speaker 31:44 Like, and I was like, if I could compete with them ... This is all over the place, I'm sorry.

Trevor Noah 31:48 No, this is great.

Eugene 31:49 Please, go ahead. [laughs]

Speaker 31:49 But, uh, but it's, uh ... But basically what happened was I, I, I then started going around with them from door to door and building data on how many people out of 100 doors would let me in.

Eugene 31:58 Wait, where did you find Jehovah's Witnesses that were looking for-

Trevor Noah 32:01 No, they found him, Eugene. Come on.

Speaker 32:02 [laughs] Yeah, they found me.

Trevor Noah 32:03 They found-

Speaker 32:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 32:06 [laughs]

Speaker 32:06 They saw, they saw a lapsed Catholic and they thought-

Trevor Noah 32:10 [laughs]

Eugene 32:10 [laughs]

Speaker 32:10 ... "Opportunity. What's that medicine in his pocket?"

Trevor Noah 32:13 [laughs]

Eugene 32:14 [laughs] Smells like ... [laughs]

Speaker 32:19 Um, but yeah, it was just like this ... It, it was, it was in, it was in South London, so there was loads of, like-

Eugene 32:24 Mm-hmm

Speaker 32:24 ... you know, new churches and stuff like that around there. Um, it's very active religiously, South London. And, um, yeah, so it was like I, I started going from door to door. I went to these seminars they had where they would go, they would be like, "Okay," and they would do, like, a, a role play. Like, you're in a-

Trevor Noah 32:38 Oh, so they teach you how to do that?

Speaker 32:39 Yeah.

Eugene 32:40 Oh.

Speaker 32:40 And then they'd be like, they'd, they'd go like-

Trevor Noah 32:42 Okay, there it is

Speaker 32:43 ... "So role-play now. Pretend you're answering the door." Uh, so-

Eugene 32:46 Go, Eugene

Speaker 32:47 ... da, da, da, da, da. So I'm your ... It's your house.

Eugene 32:49 Yeah. Hello.

Speaker 32:50 Oh, hello there.

Trevor Noah 32:51 Wait, you don't open your door?

Speaker 32:53 [laughs] Um-

Trevor Noah 32:53 Are you talking through the door?

Speaker 32:54 Yes, I'm not ringing doorbell.

Trevor Noah 32:55 Okay. I just wanna make sure.

Speaker 32:56 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 32:56 Okay, sorry, go ahead.

Eugene 32:57 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 32:57 Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 32:57 This was before ring doorbells.

Trevor Noah 32:58 I apologize.

Eugene 32:58 Oh, before ring doorbells.

Speaker 32:59 This was before ring ... This is before ring doorbells.

Eugene 33:00 When your face was the camera.

Speaker 33:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:01 Yeah, he said there's CDs.

Speaker 33:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 33:03 He said there's CDs.

Eugene 33:05 Hello.

Speaker 33:05 Hi there. Would you like to learn about God?

Eugene 33:08 What about him?

Speaker 33:09 No, listen, you need to learn about God.

Trevor Noah 33:12 Stop. What went wrong there?

Eugene 33:14 Um.

Speaker 33:15 And it w- was-

Eugene 33:16 I'm, I'm still holding the door handle. No, I'm joking. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 33:18 No, you, you, you, you were aggressive. You were-

Speaker 33:21 Yes.

Trevor Noah 33:21 Yes, you were too aggressive.

Eugene 33:22 No.

Speaker 33:22 Yes.

Trevor Noah 33:22 Yeah, you were too aggressive.

Speaker 33:23 Yes.

Trevor Noah 33:23 Okay, great.

Speaker 33:24 Yes.

Trevor Noah 33:24 So how, what could I have done differently?

Speaker 33:26 I think what you could have done differently there is you could have asked him i- maybe if he has troubles in his life or would he like to learn about the love of Jesus or would he like to learn about something good or-

Trevor Noah 33:36 Okay

Speaker 33:36 ... you've gotta offer him something, I think.

Trevor Noah 33:37 Fantastic. So do, do you wanna try a second attempt?

Eugene 33:39 So don't start with God.

Trevor Noah 33:40 Do you wanna try the second attempt?

Eugene 33:41 Start with his son.

Speaker 33:42 No, I-

Trevor Noah 33:42 Do you think you could do better?

Speaker 33:43 Oh, I was just watching.

Eugene 33:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 33:43 No, I can't, I don't, I don't think I can do better.

Eugene 33:45 I, I think-

Speaker 33:45 I was just watching this as perception

Eugene 33:46 ... I can tell you now.

Speaker 33:47 No, no, no.

Eugene 33:47 He thinks he can do better.

Speaker 33:48 No, I don't.

Eugene 33:48 If he doesn't do this now, I'll be tortured with it the whole day. Trevor-

Speaker 33:52 No

Eugene 33:52 ... you are a Jehovah's Witness.

Speaker 33:52 First I wanna see a better version.

Trevor Noah 33:54 Okay, let's do that.

Speaker 33:55 'Cause you just gave me the feedback.

Trevor Noah 33:56 This is how, this is how it went, but I got excited about the idea of you doing it. [laughs]

Eugene 33:58 Yeah, nice. [laughs]

Speaker 33:59 [laughs]

Eugene 34:00 You do, you do it once again. [laughs]

Speaker 34:02 That's how it should be. This is how it ... All right, all right.

Eugene 34:03 Okay, okay. Take two, take two.

Speaker 34:04 Okay.

Eugene 34:05 Knock.

Speaker 34:06 Oh.

Eugene 34:09 Hello.

Speaker 34:10 Oh, hello there. What a lovely day. How are you? Would you like to hear about-

Eugene 34:14 It is, but-

Speaker 34:15 [laughs] Would you like to hear about the love of Jesus Christ? How are you feeling today?

Eugene 34:20 Oof. Yeah. He loves me, too?

Speaker 34:24 He definitely loves you.

Eugene 34:25 Although I'm not wearing pants right now as I open the-

Speaker 34:28 [laughs]

Eugene 34:28 He love that?

Speaker 34:29 He's got a lot of space in his heart. [laughs]

Eugene 34:33 [laughs] Come in.

Speaker 34:34 [laughs] Come in.

Eugene 34:35 [laughs]

Speaker 34:35 All right, so there's ... Stop. That's fantastic. So that's basically what it was like. The seminars were kinda, [laughs] kinda like that, uh, with more nudity.

Trevor Noah 34:44 [laughs]

Eugene 34:45 [laughs]

Speaker 34:45 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 34:46 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. You know what I love about spring? Everything just feels fresh again. The weather shifts, people start going outside more, and suddenly you feel like you should be eating something that didn't come out of a packet. That's why I like going to Whole Foods Market this time of year. Whole Foods Market is your go-to destination to celebrate the fresh flavors of spring, with seasonal produce at its juiciest, plus limited time flavors throughout the store. This is the time to get together and share vibrant finds with your loved ones, and you feel it as soon as you walk in. You've got organic bagged salad kits, fresh produce, potatoes, parsnips, radishes, spring onions, artichokes, all the things that make you feel like you've got your life together. And then, of course, you go in for that, and you leave with things you didn't plan for, like a peach apricot rose Italian soda, or those 365 by Whole Foods Market strawberry pretzels that somehow disappear before you even get home. And if you're hosting, or even just showing up somewhere trying to impress people, the bakery has you covered. The mango yuzu Chantilly cake, the strawberry shortcake. These are the kind of desserts where people don't ask questions. They just assume that you know what you're doing. And the nice thing is there are deals throughout the store, especially on 365 brand items, so you can feel responsible while still treating yourself a little, because that's really what spring is about, starting fresh and then rewarding yourself immediately. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring and save at Whole Foods Market. All right, Eugene.

Eugene 36:31 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 36:32 Let's play a little game. You know, make something fun. Two truths and a lie.

Eugene 36:36 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 36:36 Here we go. One, I've had to tell a world leader that their fly was undone. Two, when getting dressed, I don't do sock, sock, shoe, shoe. I do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. Three, I've been a Verizon customer for 11 years. What do you think?

Eugene 36:53 Hmm. Very confused. First of all, why would a world leader own a fly?

Speaker 36:58 'Cause those things just come uninvited. Secondly, lying to a friend is not cool. It's never been a game.

Trevor Noah 37:04 No, Eugene, f- a fly is for, like the zip is what... And then it's, it's g- it's not a lie, it's a game where I'm try- it's like I give you inform- okay, I lied. All three are true, Eugene. And in case you were thinking, you know, Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill, they'll give you a better deal. And the reason I've been with them for this long is just because I travel so much. I need a network that's reliable. That's right, a better deal on the best network, with the most ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals. Take your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to your local Verizon store today, get your better deal, and start saving for real. Based on RootMetrics' best overall mobile network performance, US second half 2025. All rights reserved. You must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. So do you understand how two truths and a... Do, do you understand it now?

Speaker 38:05 I understand that you didn't have to lie first before telling me that Verizon is the best.

Trevor Noah 38:09 No, I wasn't lying f-... Eugene, it's not a lie. I wouldn't lie to you. It, it's a game. Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 38:15 I lied.

Trevor Noah 38:17 Ah.

Speaker 38:19 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:29 This is great because-

Speaker 38:30 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:31 ... you're showing me how, you know, to pull off one of the greatest scams that's ever been pulled off, you needed to have all the tools.

Speaker 38:39 Yeah. Right.

Trevor Noah 38:40 Like your origin story.

Speaker 38:41 Right. Nice.

Trevor Noah 38:41 So you had it in your DNA.

Speaker 38:42 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:43 Right? You got the grandfather who's, like, literally the snake oil salesman.

Speaker 38:46 Yeah, genuinely. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:47 Okay? You've got, like, your dad's who, who's a bullshitter, but just, like, in life. He's like, he's, 'cause he's got it in, in him.

Speaker 38:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:52 Okay?

Speaker 38:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:53 You're the, you're the runt of the litter-

Speaker 38:54 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:54 ... so you're like, "How do I get attention? How do I make my way?"

Speaker 38:56 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:57 All right, so you got this vibe. Then you go to Jehovah's Witness training.

Speaker 39:00 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:00 The ultimate sales camp. So now you're learning-

Speaker 39:04 Yeah

Trevor Noah 39:04 ... how to like-

Speaker 39:05 The field deposition

Trevor Noah 39:05 ... how to sell people on a thing that they can't see.

Speaker 39:08 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:08 And, like, you just have to get them to believe in it and-

Speaker 39:10 Yes

Trevor Noah 39:10 ... do you know what I mean?

Speaker 39:10 Yes.

Trevor Noah 39:11 And, and notoriously are not liked, and you meet the reviewers who teach you-

Speaker 39:15 Mm

Trevor Noah 39:15 ... about reviewing and what reviewing is.

Speaker 39:16 Mm.

Trevor Noah 39:16 So you got all of these pieces.

Speaker 39:17 Mm.

Trevor Noah 39:18 And then you go, "Oh, okay, this is it."

Speaker 39:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:21 I'm gonna s- I'm gonna launch my, my fake restaurant.

Speaker 39:23 Yes. Yeah, so I, I, I basically just kinda had an idea, a, a thought about the platform, that I knew that the reviews were, a lot of them could've been falsified. It was very easy to falsify them.

Trevor Noah 39:34 Mm. Wait, I have one question before you get into that, though.

Speaker 39:36 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:37 I don't understand how you put the restaurant on TripAdvisor. Does nobody confirm these places exist or don't e- how does that work?

Speaker 39:43 So yeah, no, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. But basically, like, I looked into it. So the reviews were very easy to leave. The accounts, you can create them very easily.

Trevor Noah 39:50 Okay.

Speaker 39:51 And then the restaurants themselves felt out... It felt like something that would be impossible to falsify.

Trevor Noah 39:55 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 39:56 So I kinda just, like, just started trying it out. I was like, okay. So okay, so went on it, create a restaurant on TripAdvisor.

Trevor Noah 40:04 Cool.

Speaker 40:04 What do I want as the name? So I was living-

Trevor Noah 40:06 What'd you call it?

Speaker 40:07 I was living in a garden shed at the time, out the back of someone's house. So I'd just moved to London, and it was, like, the only place I could afford. It was, uh, 800 pounds a month, which is still not that cheap. But anyway, whatever. 800 pounds a month.

Trevor Noah 40:18 Per person?

Speaker 40:19 Uh, just, just all, all of it.

Trevor Noah 40:20 Okay, sorry. No, no, I'm sorry.

Speaker 40:20 It's, it's literally a, a sh-

Trevor Noah 40:21 It was, it was at JetBlue.

Speaker 40:23 Oh, so you [laughs]

Trevor Noah 40:25 I, I just...

Speaker 40:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:26 Sorry, so, I'm so-

Speaker 40:28 No, it's good.

Trevor Noah 40:28 [laughs]

Speaker 40:29 It's good.

Trevor Noah 40:29 Say it.

Speaker 40:30 It's good.

Trevor Noah 40:30 Per person.

Speaker 40:31 It was a-

Trevor Noah 40:32 Say, say per person.

Speaker 40:32 Per

Speaker 40:33 person. Oh, you're talking about the, you're talking about the, uh-

Trevor Noah 40:36 [laughs]

Speaker 40:36 "Nothing beats a JetBlue holiday."

Trevor Noah 40:38 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 40:38 Yeah, that is absolutely hilarious, isn't it? [laughs] And, uh, yeah, so I called it The Shed at Dulwich. I was living in a garden shed in, in, in London at the time.

Trevor Noah 40:46 Cool.

Speaker 40:46 Yeah, d- genuinely. Um, you had, you had to put, like, an address, so I just put the name of the road.

Trevor Noah 40:52 Okay.

Speaker 40:52 Like, and it didn't, didn't make you specify. And I was like, "Well, no one's gonna know," 'cause I'm at the back as well. So it was, it was like a load of-

Trevor Noah 40:57 Yeah, you got cover. Yeah

Speaker 40:58 ... it was a load of people who, six people who lived in the house, the main house.

Trevor Noah 41:01 Yeah.

Speaker 41:01 And then at the very back w- I was living in a garden shed. Uh, and then what else? You needed, like, a mobile, so I bought, like, a kinda drug dealer phone from, from the shop.

Trevor Noah 41:10 I love it. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 41:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 41:11 You're living. [laughs]

Speaker 41:11 Yeah. You need a, a website and you need a, a email. That was easy to do. And I made this website with the help of my mate. So it was, like, all these photos on there that looked like gourmet food, and it looked like Michelin star quality food, but the images were actually, like, cropped versions of bigger images that, like, six months later when this all went viral and came out, I revealed was, like, one of the meals that looked like a delicious meal was, like, an egg on my foot. And, like, another thing [laughs] and another thing [laughs] and another thing was, like-

Trevor Noah 41:44 Where have you been all our lives? [laughs]

Speaker 41:46 [laughs] It was like, you know these urinal cakes you get? And that was like m-

Trevor Noah 41:49 Ew, no. Come on.

Speaker 41:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:51 [laughs]

Speaker 41:51 Made, made that look like a pan-fried scallop, and, like, had it with, uh, food, like a s-

Trevor Noah 41:57 That looked like a scallop. [laughs]

Speaker 41:57 Yeah, it does. It does. Put some honey on there. Uh, some stones from a fish tank.

Trevor Noah 42:02 Man.

Speaker 42:02 And, like, that was genuinely, it was, like, me and my mate Chris, and shaving foam. Or was it, uh, sea foam, like shaving foam?

Trevor Noah 42:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 42:09 It was me and my mate Chris, who I'd been working with for Vice. We used to have loads of fun doing these weird pieces. And I was like, "Come over and do this thing. It's not gonna be paid." 'Cause I was doing this on my own at the time.

Trevor Noah 42:17 Right, yeah.

Speaker 42:17 Vice weren't even aware that I was doing this, and for a while, actually. Um, and yeah, that kind of, we s- I sent all this stuff off to TripAdvisor. The, the kinda concept behind the restaurant was, like, uh, it was an appointment-only restaurant. Like, you can only get a table if you w- or you have to apply and we'll, like, vet you and-

Trevor Noah 42:34 Damn

Speaker 42:34 ... we'll see what happens. Uh, yeah, it was like, uh, yeah, that was kinda the concept. The, the meal, the, the, uh, menu was like you order moods at The Shed, not meals. Like, you have comfort or whatever.

Trevor Noah 42:47 Hmm.

Speaker 42:47 And it's all, like, mood based.

Trevor Noah 42:48 Hmm.

Speaker 42:49 Uh, which was just, I was just trying to think of wanky things that would, like, sound like a-

Trevor Noah 42:53 I mean, it is brilliant, though, because-

Speaker 42:57 Genius

Trevor Noah 42:57 ... you know, this is the weird thing about a scam, is oftentimes a scam is more well thought out than a real thing

43:03 'Cause I'm listening to this and I'm like, "I wanna go to this restaurant."

Eugene 43:06 [laughs] Yes.

Trevor Noah 43:06 Even though I know it's a scam.

Eugene 43:08 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:08 What would... 'Cause think about how many times you go to a restaurant and you're like, "Actually, it's the mood that I'm looking for."

Eugene 43:13 Yeah.

Speaker 43:14 Yeah.

Eugene 43:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:14 Not the food.

Speaker 43:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:15 Like, can, can I specify?

Speaker 43:16 Warm.

Trevor Noah 43:16 Yeah. I would like that, actually.

Speaker 43:18 Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, I mean, I-

Trevor Noah 43:21 That's a genius idea.

Speaker 43:22 I, to be honest, another one of the things I was, weirdly I haven't even thought about this in a while, but, like, I was also doing little reviews for, uh, for, uh, a, like, a, a newsletter. You know, like a what's new in London newsletter.

Trevor Noah 43:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 43:32 They would send me to restaurants, so I was already getting a bit of a, seeing what it was like out there.

Trevor Noah 43:36 Right, right, right.

Speaker 43:37 I remember going to this meal in, um, in London at this restaurant, and it was like, it was a, it was small pl- it was like a taster menu.

Trevor Noah 43:44 Yeah.

Speaker 43:44 But it was like-

Trevor Noah 43:44 Yeah

Speaker 43:44 ... but it was like a 3D projection of, like, uh, Marco Polo. Like, and it was so crap, and it was just, like, so all about the song and the dance and ceremony.

Trevor Noah 43:56 [laughs]

Speaker 43:56 But, like, the food, you're getting, like, this much, like, a, a pea every half an hour, and then you're back to watching Marco Polo dance around your plate.

Trevor Noah 44:03 [laughs]

Eugene 44:03 Justin Blumenthal must never hear of you.

Speaker 44:05 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 44:07 [laughs]

Speaker 44:07 I think we've made money.

Trevor Noah 44:08 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 44:09 And, uh, and maybe a deposition.

Trevor Noah 44:11 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 44:12 Uh, but, like, yeah, it was just so, so I'd, I'd already had that kind of, like, uh, uh, it was one of the many things I was trying to do to make a living-

Trevor Noah 44:19 Hmm

Speaker 44:19 ... and writing these food reviews, and it was sort of, like, exposed me to the bullshit.

Trevor Noah 44:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 44:23 And I was like-

Trevor Noah 44:24 'Cause-

Speaker 44:24 So you just compounded all the bullshit on this thing. You're like, "Okay, one thing on top of this, on top of this, on top of this."

Trevor Noah 44:28 Well, that's right. I think any good satire, and you'll know this from doing The Daily Show and everything, is, like, it, any good sat- it has to be monkey see, monkey do. It has to be, like-

Speaker 44:35 Ah.

Eugene 44:35 Yeah, that's true

Speaker 44:35 ... it has to be what's going on in, out there in the world.

Trevor Noah 44:38 Yeah.

Speaker 44:38 Like, how, and how do we, how do we take that to its sort of illogical conclusion? Like, what-

Trevor Noah 44:42 Hmm.

Speaker 44:43 Okay, there's, there's this Marco Polo restaurant. Uh, you know, it would be even more interesting if the, the, the restaurant didn't exist at all.

Trevor Noah 44:50 Yeah.

Eugene 44:50 Hmm.

Speaker 44:50 But this is all, like, I have the privilege now of thinking about this project like this. At the time, I was just sort of putting it together and seeing what would work and expecting it to not work. So, like, I sent all that off, like, all the, all the idea of it, the concept, all that, sent it off to TripAdvisor, and expected it to not, not work, you know, to not go live. But it, it went live.

Eugene 45:10 Hmm.

Speaker 45:10 No vetting, no verification. It was completely easy to do. I was live on the website, and that was when I was like, "Okay, I suppose I'll try and get some reviews for this now."

Trevor Noah 45:20 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Speaker 45:20 So then I started contacting friends and family. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:24 I hope you didn't call that other guy.

Speaker 45:26 Which one? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:26 From, Mr, Mr. Bad Review Guy.

Speaker 45:29 Yeah. [laughs] Oh, him.

Eugene 45:29 That guy.

Speaker 45:29 Oh. No, he needs to be kept away from it.

Trevor Noah 45:32 [laughs]

Eugene 45:33 [laughs]

Speaker 45:33 He needs to be kept away. I think he's spiritually the opposite to this idea.

Trevor Noah 45:36 [laughs]

Eugene 45:36 [laughs]

Speaker 45:36 So he, he sees it as his, like, great, uh, cause in life. Oh, he was a sweetheart, but, uh, you know, horrendous to be around. Uh, but he, uh, yeah, so I just started having people write these reviews, and I was getting family and friends, roping them into it.

Eugene 45:51 Hmm, hmm.

Speaker 45:52 Implicating more people.

Eugene 45:53 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 45:53 Nice. Nicely done.

Speaker 45:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:54 Nicely done.

Speaker 45:54 That's another part of the scam.

Trevor Noah 45:55 Got to get the co-conspirators. That's right.

Speaker 45:57 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 45:57 Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Speaker 45:57 But I was filming little bits, you know-

Trevor Noah 45:59 Yeah

Speaker 45:59 ... 'cause I was mainly writing at the time. I wasn't doing documentaries yet.

Trevor Noah 46:01 Right.

Speaker 46:02 I only went on to do those. So I was, I just liked writing, because it was really nice to write something. It's just you, you, it's your voice. You have an editor. You collaborate.

Trevor Noah 46:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 46:10 And that's it.

Trevor Noah 46:11 Right.

Speaker 46:11 Whereas when you're making TV, which I do now, there's 30, 40 of you, and that's great, but it's different.

Trevor Noah 46:17 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 46:17 Yeah.

Speaker 46:17 You know? So it's different. Um-

Trevor Noah 46:19 So everyone's jumping in.

Speaker 46:20 Everyone's leaving these five star reviews.

Trevor Noah 46:22 This thing's growing. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 46:22 We're going up the rankings. Feels really-

Trevor Noah 46:25 Oh, wait, wait, wait. So you start Trip- you start going up on the-

Speaker 46:28 Yeah

Trevor Noah 46:28 ... TripAdvisor rankings.

Speaker 46:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:29 Is this that moment where you go like, "Oh, shit, we're onto something"?

Speaker 46:32 Yes. Yeah, exactly. It was, it, it, it was, we were number 18,000 out of 18,000 in London, and then slowly it was like, you know, within about six weeks we were up to number 1,400 or something like that.

Trevor Noah 46:44 No way.

Speaker 46:44 And I was higher than my local restaurants-

Trevor Noah 46:46 Mm, mm

Speaker 46:46 ... in, in Dulwich, where I was living, and I was like, "That's bizarre." And, uh, but it felt like nothing. And then one day, the phone that I'd bought for the, uh-

Trevor Noah 46:54 The drug dealer phone

Speaker 46:55 ... the drug dealer phone calls, and it's, like, an actual human on the other end of the phone being like, "Oh, hello there. I know, uh, I love the sound of your mood-based meal. Please can I have an appointment this Friday or whatever?"

Speaker 47:07 And it was the first time that a real person started, was-

Trevor Noah 47:11 Yeah

Speaker 47:11 ... parroting the mythology to me. And, um-

Eugene 47:15 Hmm

Speaker 47:15 ... you know, I just said to him, "I'm sorry, we're fully booked for the next six weeks," put the phone down. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:19 That always gets them.

Speaker 47:20 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it, it genuinely does. It gets me. Like, this is it. It's like-

Trevor Noah 47:25 [laughs]

Speaker 47:25 I could have easily been on the other end of that phone.

Trevor Noah 47:27 Easy.

Speaker 47:27 I'm not saying I'm better than that. You know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 47:29 No, we all are. That's what I mean.

Speaker 47:30 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 47:30 It's, like, it's so funny how that, like, it always, doesn't matter who you are.

Speaker 47:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:34 Fully booked for the... When you find out the thing you want-

Eugene 47:37 Is unattainable

Trevor Noah 47:37 ... has been overly wanted and it's gone-

Speaker 47:39 Yeah

Trevor Noah 47:40 ... you can't, now you can't stop pining.

Speaker 47:41 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 47:41 You can't stop thinking about it.

Speaker 47:43 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 47:43 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 47:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:44 Fully booked for the next six weeks.

Speaker 47:46 And that was, like, my mantra from then on. Just kept on saying that.

Trevor Noah 47:48 Just fully booked for the next six weeks.

Eugene 47:50 Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks.

Speaker 47:50 Yeah, yeah. Kept on-

Trevor Noah 47:50 Fully booked for the next six weeks. Fully booked.

Speaker 47:51 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 47:51 Yeah.

Speaker 47:51 And it was like, you know, started out cute, few calls a day. I was getting emails. Then it just starts, it just keeps on going up and up and up. And the people that you tell no to are the ones who 100% will call back 10 times, you know? And it's, it was just the momentum just started gathering, and that would be, so that, that's, like, four months in. Do you know what I mean? That's, like, been going on for four months, slow drip of reviews, 'cause I'm doing it while I'm having to make m-

Trevor Noah 48:14 Yeah

Speaker 48:14 ... a living doing other things. Like, uh, it's not like my mom and dad are paying for my rent and I can just sit down.

Trevor Noah 48:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 48:20 I'm working, and then I'm like, "Oh-

Trevor Noah 48:22 And scamming

Speaker 48:22 ... I need to do..." [laughs] And scamming. Scamming and scamming.

Eugene 48:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 48:26 [laughs]

Eugene 48:27 I like that.

Speaker 48:29 But, like, you know, it was like, it, it, it, it, it just got more exciting the, the m- the more it went on. Got more real.

Trevor Noah 48:35 Hmm.

Speaker 48:35 People like the local council being like, "We wanna relocate you to an entra- uh, an area we're gentrifying-

Trevor Noah 48:41 No way

Speaker 48:41 ... at reduced rates," and all this stuff.

Trevor Noah 48:43 No way. Come on.

Speaker 48:44 It was... Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 48:44 What are you talking about?

Speaker 48:45 People applying for jobs, things like that. Like, it was, it was very, it, the plot, it showed how-

Trevor Noah 48:51 The government is reaching out to you-

Speaker 48:52 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 48:53 ... and offering you tax incentives.

Speaker 48:56 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 48:57 But you don't exist.

Speaker 48:58 [laughs] Yeah, I don't exist.

Trevor Noah 48:59 You, J- can I tell you something?

Eugene 49:01 You've exposed a lot about politics.

Trevor Noah 49:02 This is my thing.

Eugene 49:03 And politicians.

Trevor Noah 49:03 This is, th- this is what I mean about you, Ube, is, like, you

49:08 I don't e- I don't think you understand what an impact you've had on my life from afar.

Speaker 49:12 Mm.

Trevor Noah 49:12 Because-

Speaker 49:12 That's very kind

Trevor Noah 49:13 ... you, you're the reason, like, Ryan, who's, like, sitting here, like, Ryan, w- we'll always, like, try find food, try find... And Ryan's, like, a super foodie guy. But one day randomly Ryan was like, "I've started doing something crazy," and I think it was, like, after this.

Speaker 49:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:26 It was like, we just go to a place.

Speaker 49:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 49:30 We don't look at the reviews. We don't even look a place... We just go, find a place near you-

Speaker 49:34 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:35 ... walk in and eat the food.

Speaker 49:36 Yep.

Trevor Noah 49:37 And then afterwards look at the reviews.

Speaker 49:40 Interesting.

Trevor Noah 49:40 You'll be shocked at how many times the review doesn't match up-

Speaker 49:43 Yeah, definitely

Trevor Noah 49:43 ... with how you felt about the experience.

Speaker 49:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eugene 49:46 The experience, yeah. Your personal experience.

Trevor Noah 49:47 Just your personal experience.

Speaker 49:48 Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Trevor Noah 49:49 But a lot of that came from you because we were like, "Wait, wait, wait."

Speaker 49:52 I was tested.

Trevor Noah 49:52 If you can create a whole fake world of the best food, then maybe there's also a fake world of the worst food.

Speaker 49:58 Mm.

Eugene 49:59 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:59 Like, maybe this place is getting-

Eugene 50:00 Right

Trevor Noah 50:00 ... shit reviews because people just don't like its vibe. They haven't got the mood right.

Speaker 50:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:04 They're just, just walk in and eat the food. And then the second thing you did, like, and I didn't even know about the government side of it, is you just made me realize how much we all, all of it, like you said, no one's sort of better, how we all are so easily duped into accepting a version of reality-

Speaker 50:23 Mm.

Eugene 50:24 Mm

Trevor Noah 50:24 ... that we, like, willingly-

Speaker 50:26 Yeah

Trevor Noah 50:26 ... you know what I mean? Like, every, the fact that the government contacted you and wanted to give you tax incentives-

Speaker 50:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:32 ... but had never been to the restaurant.

Speaker 50:34 Yeah.

Eugene 50:34 Never seen it.

Trevor Noah 50:35 Had never seen it, had never seen a tax return, had never s- nothing. Not... Then I'm like, "How, who else did they move there?"

Speaker 50:42 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:43 That's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 50:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:45 'Cause you know sometimes you're in a neighborhood, and then all of a sudden there's random restaurants that pop up-

Speaker 50:48 Mm

Trevor Noah 50:48 ... and you're like, "Who, how did these restaurants get here?"

Speaker 50:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:51 You know the first restaurants to move into a neighborhood.

Speaker 50:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eugene 50:53 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:54 And now it's just a bunch of Ubers, no offense.

Speaker 50:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 50:57 Taking tons of...

Trevor Noah 50:58 [laughs] Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 51:00 All the other, all the other Jehovah's Witnesses.

Trevor Noah 51:03 [laughs]

Eugene 51:04 [laughs]

Speaker 51:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 51:05 It's just like-

Eugene 51:07 Right up.

Speaker 51:08 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 51:08 So okay, so this thing... So okay, now you're at, like, the peak.

Speaker 51:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 51:11 'Cause I mean, once government's calling you, it's, it's, it's on now.

Speaker 51:14 People are... Yeah, I mean, I was getting called constantly.

Trevor Noah 51:16 Yeah.

Speaker 51:16 And the, and what, the, the clientele starts changing from, like, locals to then, like, tourists-

Trevor Noah 51:21 Oh

Speaker 51:21 ... to then, like, uh, influencers, uh, different people from, like, kind of who were high up professionals, like, having their teams reach out.

Trevor Noah 51:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 51:29 People from, like-

Trevor Noah 51:30 "I'm calling on behalf of."

Speaker 51:31 Yeah. I mean, I think I can say it now because, uh, I don't think they exist anymore. But, like, Universal Studios wanted to bring their teams, their team over.

Trevor Noah 51:38 Hey.

Speaker 51:38 Yeah, yeah. It was kind of inter-

Trevor Noah 51:39 F-

Speaker 51:39 I've never, I've actually never said that before, so there you go. Uh, and, and it was like, it, yeah, I- it was fascinating having, like, it... And, and we weren't even number one by that. We were getting into the top 50. You know, it was like... And, and I think the thing is, is, like, you said earlier about we had loads and loads of reviews. We actually didn't. We had, we just, all of our reviews were five stars, and it, that was the way the algorithm was functioning, was, like, about almost like it-

Trevor Noah 52:03 Mm

Speaker 52:03 ... maybe it functioned like momentum.

Eugene 52:05 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 52:05 Because I was doing it part-time until it started getting crazy.

Trevor Noah 52:08 Yeah.

Speaker 52:08 And I was like, "Okay, this is the best project so ever. I need to land the plane on this thing. Who knows where it's going?" But-

Trevor Noah 52:13 And you were like, "I need to get into this restaurant." [laughs]

Speaker 52:15 [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 52:16 Six weeks.

Speaker 52:17 Yeah, yeah, exactly. [laughs] Yeah. Um, yeah. And then it was just, like, one of those things where, uh, I was in a meeting actually with Vice's, uh, we were talking about another project they wanted me to do, and my phone kept ringing, and I'm like, "What the fuck is going on?" And I was like-

Eugene 52:32 You dropped the other phone.

Speaker 52:32 Yeah. [laughs] And I was like, "Well, actually, I've been working on this other thing on the side." And they were like, "Oh, wow, this sounds like a epic-

Trevor Noah 52:39 Yeah, this sounds amazing

Speaker 52:41 ... film." And I was like, "Well, I've been filming all my, me taking all the calls. I've been filming myself, so yeah, okay, sounds good." And I wanted to write about it anyway, but that, that was the first time where I was like, okay, maybe, maybe I could do on-camera stuff as well.

Trevor Noah 52:53 Yeah.

Speaker 52:53 With this, 'cause this feels like it could be that. So then they started, I started thinking about how I wanted to, what, what next? And I thought, if I can get a- as many people as possible to leave reviews in the next two weeks, maybe we'll make number one.

Eugene 53:05 Mm.

Speaker 53:05 Maybe we'll, maybe we'll do that. It was like a final push. Then I started noticing things like people were leaving reviews who had never been there, who, uh, who I didn't know. No, never been there. Of course they'd never been there. People, um, I'm, I'm, I'm drinking my own Kool-

Eugene 53:19 The scam was so good

Speaker 53:20 ... I'm drinking Scott Adkins Kool-Aid.

Trevor Noah 53:21 This is, this is how big it is, guys.

Speaker 53:22 Yeah, I know. It's, it's, it's, yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:24 Do you have a table for two?

Speaker 53:25 I've, I've had the blue pill now. [laughs]

Eugene 53:26 In the next six weeks. [laughs]

Speaker 53:28 [laughs] But, like, yeah, uh, there were people who were leaving reviews who I didn't make leave the reviews, so it was almost like they still have the kudos of having been there.

Trevor Noah 53:36 Mm.

Speaker 53:37 And, and so, you know, I reviewed that on the cam-

Trevor Noah 53:38 But they were leaving five stars.

Speaker 53:39 Yes. Yes, exactly. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:42 That's crazy, man.

Speaker 53:43 We have, we have, now we have reached peak.

Trevor Noah 53:45 Yeah.

Speaker 53:45 Yeah. And it was, uh, yeah, that was sort of, I think it was N- uh, November 2017. That was then. And when we became, yeah, the number one rated restaurant in London.

Trevor Noah 53:58 Congratulations, man.

Speaker 53:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:59 You did a run.

Speaker 54:00 It was, it was crazy.

Trevor Noah 54:01 Yeah.

Speaker 54:01 I was, I was, uh, I remember checking the thing, 'cause we'd gone up. We were, like, top three, and then we went down to number eight, and I was like, "Wow, what a story. Top 10 restaurant."

Trevor Noah 54:08 Were you upset about the number eight?

Speaker 54:10 No, I was just like, "This is insane."

Trevor Noah 54:12 'Cause you-

Speaker 54:12 And then it was number one, and I was like, "This is absolutely-"

Trevor Noah 54:14 Then you were happy. Then you popped.

Eugene 54:16 It was just like the local councilman. [laughs]

Speaker 54:20 [laughs] It's just, like, one of those moments where you know that your life's changed, and it's not, 'cause it's such a insane thing that would happen. For it to happen was so crazy and so unlikely-

Trevor Noah 54:29 Mm

Speaker 54:30 ... that I was like, "Oh, okay, this is, this is probably the craziest

Speaker 54:34 thing that's ever gonna happen to me."

Trevor Noah 54:34 Do you think you, you had maybe a little bit of an imposter syndrome, like you felt like you didn't deserve to be there at number one?

Speaker 54:40 No, I, I thought I did. I thought I did. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:42 You know what?

Eugene 54:42 You know those vibes where you're like, "This is weird."

Trevor Noah 54:44 You know what, Trevor? Who are you?

Speaker 54:46 Yeah. I, you know, I did think, "No, I've worked hard to get here."

Trevor Noah 54:49 [laughs]

Eugene 54:51 The investment, the website, the burner phone.

Speaker 54:54 Oh, man. [laughs]

Eugene 54:55 The double life.

Trevor Noah 54:56 I mean, you, I mean, you did all the work.

Speaker 54:57 Well, the funny thing is, is, like... No, go on, sorry.

Trevor Noah 55:00 No, no. So, so now tips in. So now, now th- this, this is what I love because I remember seeing-

Speaker 55:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:05 ... the footage of the people, the, the night.

Speaker 55:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:08 The night itself. This was just like where I was like peak. So, so what-

Eugene 55:12 This is supposed to be opening night?

Trevor Noah 55:14 Yeah. Well-

Eugene 55:15 Yeah

Trevor Noah 55:15 ... so this is, this is where you've changed another thing.

Eugene 55:17 Okay.

Trevor Noah 55:17 I'll tell you what I've changed in my life.

Eugene 55:19 Okay.

Trevor Noah 55:19 This literally happened because of you.

Eugene 55:20 Really?

Trevor Noah 55:21 Literally because of you.

Eugene 55:22 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:23 And then you'll tell the story of the night. So-

Eugene 55:25 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:26 ... when I order food now, especially like in New York, but when I order food, I'll go to a restaurant, like I'll see any place, whatever it is, r- restaurant is strong, so it could take out, whatever the food is. But now I cross-reference it with like an actual map. So I'll go-

Eugene 55:41 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:41 ... you know, it'll be like Eugene's Rabbit Cakes.

Eugene 55:44 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 55:45 And I'll be like, "Oh, this place looks good." But then I go to Google Maps or whatever-

Eugene 55:51 Look

Trevor Noah 55:51 ... and I look for Eugene's Rabbit Cakes.

Eugene 55:52 The address, right.

Speaker 55:54 Yeah, right.

Eugene 55:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:55 And then if I, you know, on the little street thing?

Eugene 55:57 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:57 I'll zoom in.

Speaker 55:59 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:59 And I wanna see this place exist.

Speaker 56:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 56:01 So you do a 360 and then-

Trevor Noah 56:02 Yo, yo, yo, let me tell you something. Try it. You're gonna see how many times the place doesn't exist.

Speaker 56:06 Yeah, it's, it's, that's true.

Trevor Noah 56:08 You're gonna see-

Eugene 56:09 But the food does

Trevor Noah 56:09 ... yo, you're gonna see how many times-

Eugene 56:11 Was it urine cakes all over again?

Trevor Noah 56:13 My friend, the place doesn't exist.

Speaker 56:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 56:16 Now, apparently they, they came up with a term, they call it ghost kitchens.

Speaker 56:19 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eugene 56:20 I remember you told me something about this.

Trevor Noah 56:21 The place doesn't exist.

Eugene 56:22 Yeah, yeah. But the food does.

Trevor Noah 56:23 So in New York, London.

Speaker 56:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:23 Even in, even in South Africa-

Eugene 56:24 Yeah

Trevor Noah 56:24 ... in Johannesburg now. They, it's started as well.

Speaker 56:26 Yeah.

Eugene 56:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:26 I'll be like, "Oh, this place looks good. The food looks good as well."

Eugene 56:29 Yes.

Trevor Noah 56:29 That's the main thing.

Speaker 56:29 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:29 It's got good reviews.

Eugene 56:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:30 And then I go, "But where is this?" I'm like, I don't-

Eugene 56:32 I've never seen this

Trevor Noah 56:33 ... I've never seen.

Speaker 56:33 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:33 Wait. And then I look, nowhere.

Speaker 56:35 And they'll also, they do this thing as well, they have three different names for the same menu.

Trevor Noah 56:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 56:40 Be like, oh, they, you know, they'll try something. They will get the, like, Zoomer, whatever-

Trevor Noah 56:45 Yep

Speaker 56:45 ... girls, and then some of them get Millennial guys, whatever.

Trevor Noah 56:47 Yep.

Speaker 56:47 They'll have different marketing schemes-

Trevor Noah 56:49 Uh-huh

Speaker 56:49 ... and the exact same-

Trevor Noah 56:50 For the same thing

Speaker 56:50 ... same-

Trevor Noah 56:50 Same place

Speaker 56:51 ... same menu, yeah. I even, I've, yeah, yeah. That's, that's crazy.

Trevor Noah 56:53 Same place. And all of this changed because of what you did, so tell us about the night.

Speaker 56:57 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 56:57 'Cause, 'cause now you, you took it, like, I mean, you went fully into this thing. Because-

Speaker 57:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 57:03 ... the reviews is like, all right, whatever.

Speaker 57:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:05 But then you, you're like, "I'm gonna make a real night, and people are gonna

Trevor Noah 57:09 come to it."

Speaker 57:09 Yeah. It was, I mean, I lived in it. It was like a pretty much a shit hole. And, uh-

Trevor Noah 57:14 [laughs]

Speaker 57:14 ... it was, you know, it was a-

Eugene 57:15 Which was number one [laughs]

Speaker 57:16 It was, number one. It was number one. And it was, you know, it didn't look like the best restaurant in London. It looked like just a shack. Um, and uh, I kinda thought, you know, I'd done so much, and I'd proven this big point about online reviewing, and like this platform was able to be manipulated. Wow, the crazy, all these people want this thing. But there's almost like the, the, the most crazy thing would be to now try and get away with opening it for one night only and serving sort of real customers-

Trevor Noah 57:46 Oh, man

Speaker 57:46 ... real food.

Trevor Noah 57:47 Yes.

Speaker 57:47 So we, you know, had a plan. It was all just based around, um, trying to control the environment, but also, so basically I had, I had eight real customers come in. We had a table of two who were two locals who'd been trying to get a table for three or four months. Had a table of four who were from a big fashion agency, who w- who I actually still can't mention because they weren't happy. And then, uh [laughs]

Eugene 58:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 58:12 And then-

Eugene 58:12 Try having shaving foam on urine cake.

Speaker 58:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 58:15 [laughs]

Eugene 58:15 See if you'll be happy.

Speaker 58:17 Oh, it sounds like a Balenciaga piece, you know.

Trevor Noah 58:19 [laughs]

Speaker 58:19 Uh, it's not them. Uh, but uh, and then we added, we had, uh, uh, two, um, American newlyweds from, from California.

Trevor Noah 58:29 Aw.

Speaker 58:29 I know, I know, I know, I know. But they were, they were like, oh, you know, they've been in, they've been in Paris-

Trevor Noah 58:35 Oh

Speaker 58:35 ... eating on the banks of the Seine the night before.

Trevor Noah 58:37 Oh, man.

Speaker 58:37 And then, yeah, there was, there were the, the final table of two that were gonna be eating at The Shed. So it's quite hard to like, I wanna like con- just try and capture this in, like, the best way possible. It was November. It was basically, yeah, it was basically sev- it was eight years ago. This is so fucking crazy. Um, and it was cold. It was kinda wet. So I borrowed all of these heaters from my neighbors. I went around asking, "Do you mind if I borrow these for the night?" Got them a bottle of wine. Uh, I borrowed, uh, my friend ran a cafe around the corner, so I borrowed a load of the tables and the chairs. Uh, and then I had half of the people who were eating there were, um, my friends who were pretending to, uh, that everything I, I served them was delicious, and that they'd been loads of times, completely normal. Uh, one of my friends actually, she's, who now, people might know her, but, uh, Lolly Adefope, she's in, like, Shrill, she's in Ghosts, she's in, um, she was in the new Armando Iannucci. She's so funny. But, like, at the time, she wasn't that famous, and she was one of the, like, local-

Trevor Noah 59:35 Patrons

Speaker 59:35 ... celebrities who I had.

Trevor Noah 59:36 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 59:36 Like, she was, she was, uh, yeah, she was one of the patrons. And, uh, it was, uh, yeah, the plan for them was to try and create the same psychological space as TripAdvisor. You know, you have people around you saying something's great. Will that deny you your own senses?

Trevor Noah 59:51 Yeah, man.

Speaker 59:51 Will that deny you your own, you know. And, um, it, I, I hired this, uh, animal handler as well, so we had all these chickens running around.

Trevor Noah 59:58 [laughs]

Speaker 59:58 And, uh, the idea was that, that, that, I mean, we never actually did this, but the idea was that we said to all the customers, "You know, this is like lobsters at a fancy restaurant. Like, you can, you can pick a chicken-

Trevor Noah 1:00:10 Oh, wow

Speaker 1:00:10 ... and have it-

Trevor Noah 1:00:10 You pick a chicken and then we kill it live and-

Speaker 1:00:12 [laughs] Exactly. The whole point, and I had a table of two, of two of my mates eating on the roof on a table, which looked like biza- it looked something from a cartoon. But it was, the whole thing was like, I was trying to short-circuit their brain as much as possible to try and make them not engage with the reality they were in.

Trevor Noah 1:00:27 The reality, yeah.

Speaker 1:00:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:00:28 And I was like, what, what, what's g-

Trevor Noah 1:00:29 You were separating them from reality.

Speaker 1:00:30 I was trying, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:31 Yeah.

Speaker 1:00:31 So we, the way that I did it as well, is I met them on the street and blindfolded them and walked them two or three minutes down, and then down this garden path, because I genuinely thought if they'd have seen the front of the house-

Trevor Noah 1:00:41 [laughs]

Speaker 1:00:42 ... and they'd seen it, they, and, and we had a, it's all coming back to me now I'm talking about it.

Trevor Noah 1:00:46 [laughs]

Speaker 1:00:46 We had a, we had a DJ playing the sound of a real restaurant as well.

Trevor Noah 1:00:51 Nice.

Speaker 1:00:51 And he had, he had a, and he had a little, uh, sample pad that when he pressed it, it was the ding of a microwave. And the reason was because the food we were serving on the night was actually just microwaveable TV dinners, but ma- like, ready meals-

Trevor Noah 1:01:04 Mm-hmm

Speaker 1:01:05 ... but made to look like Michelin quality food.

Trevor Noah 1:01:07 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:01:07 So we put, like, edible flowers, micro herbs on it. Um, and yeah, I mean, it was like [laughs] it-

Trevor Noah 1:01:15 Basically, we're, uh, we, we open for about three hours. Trying to think of, like, a way of encapsulating the vibe. It was, it was cr- it was weird. Um, and I'll, I'll focus on the newlyweds, the, the ones who are on their honeymoon, uh, because we ... I remember they did, they looked kind of, like, uh ... They're kind of con- slightly confused. But, uh, I, like, came, I brought them out their, like, their, their meal, which was comfort, and it was, like, mac and cheese, basically, but made to look like fancy mac and cheese.

Speaker 1:01:45 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:01:45 And I, like, uh ... My friend, Phoebe, who now, weirdly, again, she writes on, uh, Ted Lasso. Uh, she-

Speaker 1:01:52 Not anymore. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:01:53 I like, I like that, I like that it's, like, a super c-

Speaker 1:01:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:01:55 I really do like that you created a-

Speaker 1:01:57 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:01:57 ... from this moment is, like, a, you know?

Speaker 1:01:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:01:59 A spinoff. Yeah, it's like an Ocean's 11-

Speaker 1:02:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:02:01 ... that then everyone went off to do their own thing now in the world.

Speaker 1:02:03 Genuinely.

Trevor Noah 1:02:03 Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:04 Yeah, yeah. Because at the time it was like, yeah, I don't even know. We were all just like ... Uh, we were like, "This isn't gonna work." Um, yeah, and she, she was like, put it down. She was like, "Namaste," and then she, like, stepped [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:02:16 [laughs]

Speaker 1:02:16 She disappeared to a part of the restaurant.

Trevor Noah 1:02:19 Phoebe was a mad-

Speaker 1:02:20 And we were watching on. We're watching them on, and the, and the la- I remember looking at the lady. So she's, like, this, she's the new, the, the bride.

Trevor Noah 1:02:26 New, yeah.

Speaker 1:02:26 And, uh, she looks at the food, and she was saying before she's a foodie. She loves restaurants. She loves eating and all this stuff. She looks at the mac and cheese through, uh, uh, her phone, and, like, pauses for a second. We're all just watching her, and then she just puts it away without taking a photo [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:02:40 That's funny.

Speaker 1:02:41 And it was like, I, we, I was thinking that, you know, this isn't-

Trevor Noah 1:02:46 The jig is up

Speaker 1:02:47 ... people aren't buying this.

Trevor Noah 1:02:47 Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:47 The jig is up.

Trevor Noah 1:02:48 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:02:48 Um, and it was actually one of the table of four. I was seeing them out at the end of the night. We can ... You can ask more questions, it's just this is how this-

Trevor Noah 1:02:54 Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:02:54 This is all, this is all coming to me. Um, yeah, and the guy, like, uh, he would look ... He would, like, didn't look happy, and he pulled me to one side and he was like, "So the, about tonight, um, now that we've been once, is it gonna be easier for us to book again next time?" [laughs] Which is like ... Yeah, it was, that was like-

Trevor Noah 1:03:16 That was the-

Speaker 1:03:17 Yeah, the big moment. It made me think, you know-

Trevor Noah 1:03:19 It made you deserve

Trevor Noah 1:03:20 number one.

Speaker 1:03:21 No, it just made me think that we trust, like, online hype more than what we put in our mouths.

Trevor Noah 1:03:25 Well, I thought you were gonna-

Speaker 1:03:25 Trust all hype.

Trevor Noah 1:03:26 Yeah.

Speaker 1:03:26 Oof.

Trevor Noah 1:03:27 Like, we trust ... I mean, yeah, tha- that whole ... You know what, here's what I, what I loved about the scam, is you didn't make me feel like any of those people were idiots.

Speaker 1:03:39 Mm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:03:40 Do you know what I mean? So even when you watch the footage-

Speaker 1:03:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:03:42 ... when you see what's happening, I genuinely didn't think to myself, "Ha, what a bunch of idiots."

Speaker 1:03:46 No.

Trevor Noah 1:03:46 No, it made me go, we take for granted how easily we all are manipulated.

Speaker 1:03:53 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:53 We also take for granted how we think of what is and what isn't in society.

Speaker 1:03:57 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:03:58 A- a- and we're all just

Trevor Noah 1:04:00 ... Y- you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:04:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:04:01 We ... But, but, but I, you can take it to, you can extrapolate it to everything.

Speaker 1:04:05 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:04:05 So politics is, is a simple example.

Speaker 1:04:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:04:08 You know, so people will go, "Oh, yeah, this ... Yeah, this politician's really good, really smart," whatever. And then if somebody says it around you, then do you think that now, or do you not think that the comments that you see on your social media-

Speaker 1:04:20 Mm, like 100%

Trevor Noah 1:04:20 ... what are they making you think or not make you think?

Speaker 1:04:23 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:04:23 So when you go down, like, like, you know how sometimes ... I, I don't know if you've ever done this. I'll watch a video-

Speaker 1:04:29 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:04:29 ... or I'll see a post or, you know, whatever it is. And I started saying to myself, I don't know where this came from. I started going, "What do you think about this?" Before I went to the comments.

Speaker 1:04:40 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:04:42 Because I, I realized at some point I was clicking on videos or posts, and then I would read the comments.

Speaker 1:04:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:04:48 And I realized the comments were slowly shaping what I was thinking about it.

Speaker 1:04:51 100%, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Trevor Noah 1:04:53 So I would watch a video that I would think-

Speaker 1:04:54 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:04:54 ... is funny.

Speaker 1:04:55 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:04:55 And then I'd go into the comments, and people are like, "Disgusting, I can't believe that this is not..."

Speaker 1:04:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:04:59 Then I'd be like, "Yeah, man, that, that wasn't nice." Or I'd watch another video, and people-

Speaker 1:05:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:05:03 ... you know, I'd be like-

Speaker 1:05:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:05:04 ... "Oh, man, that's..." I'd be like, "That's cool." And people would be like, "This is so lame. This is..."

Speaker 1:05:08 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:05:08 And I'd be like, "Yeah, that is lame."

Speaker 1:05:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah [laughs] .

Trevor Noah 1:05:11 But you, you don't realize how you, how it's actually happening to you.

Speaker 1:05:14 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:05:14 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:05:14 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:05:14 I think, I think there are very few people, there's obviously people on the fringes, but I'm sure, like, most people don't realize that this is happening to them. Like you're saying, the, the yum around you.

Speaker 1:05:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:05:25 You sit at a restaurant.

Speaker 1:05:26 Yep.

Trevor Noah 1:05:26 The person next to you is like, "Mm."

Speaker 1:05:28 Yeah [laughs] .

Trevor Noah 1:05:29 "Oh my g- oh my God." And you're like, "What are, what are they... Oh, that looks good. What are they having?"

Speaker 1:05:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:35 You lean in and you, "Hey, hey, hey, excuse me, what did-"

Speaker 1:05:38 I'm that guy, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:05:39 The, the-

Speaker 1:05:39 At a restaurant-

Trevor Noah 1:05:40 Yeah

Speaker 1:05:40 ... if I'm undecided, I look at what looks good-

Trevor Noah 1:05:42 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 1:05:42 ... from other people's, um, table. And I'll be like, "What, what are they having?" But I also have realized that if you watch on YouTube, if something's happening live and the comments are live as well-

Trevor Noah 1:05:51 Mm

Speaker 1:05:52 ... reading the comments while you're watching the content makes you realize we're not watching the same thing.

Trevor Noah 1:05:57 That's interesting.

Speaker 1:05:57 Because also their comments are influenced by where they find themselves.

Trevor Noah 1:06:00 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1:06:00 Some people are watching from work.

Trevor Noah 1:06:01 Yeah.

Speaker 1:06:02 Some people are just-

Trevor Noah 1:06:03 That's interesting

Speaker 1:06:03 ... catching the tail end of it. Some people have been watching, they're fatigued.

Trevor Noah 1:06:06 Mm.

Speaker 1:06:06 And then you're watching it, going, that comment that you just made is totally unrelated to what's happening now.

Trevor Noah 1:06:12 Mm.

Speaker 1:06:12 But everyone else who comments after it is like, "Yeah, you must be right."

Trevor Noah 1:06:15 Right.

Speaker 1:06:15 The, the, although we're using fake names when we're making comments, our opinions are real.

Trevor Noah 1:06:21 Then it-

Speaker 1:06:21 But they're not factual

Trevor Noah 1:06:22 ... then it gets interesting around how many ... I mean, I mentioned it slightly earlier, and it's 100% true, how many bots are now used on social media.

Speaker 1:06:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:06:30 How many-

Speaker 1:06:30 Isn't it, isn't it, like, 40% now?

Trevor Noah 1:06:32 It's-

Speaker 1:06:32 Is it 40 or-

Trevor Noah 1:06:33 I don't know the number, but it's-

Speaker 1:06:34 Yeah, I, I, I think I read-

Trevor Noah 1:06:35 It's a shocking number.

Speaker 1:06:36 Yeah. I remember reading the other day that about 40% of all internet, like, comments and-

Trevor Noah 1:06:44 Users, content

Speaker 1:06:44 ... activity-

Trevor Noah 1:06:45 Mm

Speaker 1:06:46 ... is bots.

Trevor Noah 1:06:47 And that, how can that not shape your reality?

Speaker 1:06:50 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:06:50 If, like, my one review [laughs] for the Greek restaurant in whatever, Peckham, can influence people's minds, and my mind, then, like, how can that not? 40% of everything we're reading is ... It's un- Did you see that the other day where they changed the, they very briefly changed the Twitter or X, I'm not calling it X, Twitter policy so that w- the, where you could see where the account was based?

Speaker 1:07:13 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:07:13 Did you see this?

Speaker 1:07:14 I did not see this.

Trevor Noah 1:07:15 Oh, it was interesting. And loads of quite prominent, noisy accounts were all just based in, uh, India, and they were saying, "You know, I'm based in the US," or, "I'm in-"

Speaker 1:07:24 No, no, no.

Trevor Noah 1:07:25 And it was like-

Speaker 1:07:25 And then they changed it back.

Trevor Noah 1:07:26 Oh, they put it back immediately. And it was, it was, it was really interesting.

Speaker 1:07:31 Uh, and I think basically India, the significance of that is a load of the-

Trevor Noah 1:07:34 Yeah, the farms

Speaker 1:07:34 ... a load of the bot farms are in India. Um, so it's cheap. You know, loads of online labor is based out in India, isn't it? Um, fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So I was, I mean, I just thought, "Well, there's bigger and better scams to come." [laughs] No, I didn't think that.

Trevor Noah 1:07:49 [laughs]

Speaker 1:07:50 No, no, I, I, no, I didn't actually think that.

Trevor Noah 1:07:51 You know what? I believed you.

Speaker 1:07:52 [laughs] No,

Speaker 1:07:54 no, no, I-

Trevor Noah 1:07:54 Yeah, but, but, but you are right about that. And I, you know what, this is what I, what I think about is, like, in society we struggle with certain paradigms because, you know, they, they're not, they're not physical, they're not easy to touch. They're not... Like a... Let's say we found out, and I, I mean, we still don't really do much about this, but if we found out that certain people, companies, actors, whatever, were poisoning 40% of our water-

Speaker 1:08:22 Yeah.

Eugene 1:08:22 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:23 We would act a certain way, and we would think-

Speaker 1:08:25 Immediately

Trevor Noah 1:08:25 ... a certain way, right?

Speaker 1:08:26 You're right.

Eugene 1:08:26 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:26 For the most part.

Speaker 1:08:27 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:27 People start putting regulations into effect. They go, "Oh, you're not allowed to do this."

Speaker 1:08:31 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:31 "You're not allowed to do..." If we found out that people, companies, actors, what, were poisoning 40% of our air-

Speaker 1:08:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:08:39 ... we would start acting.

Speaker 1:08:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:40 We'd start... You know what I mean? And I know there's outliers and people are like, "Oh, but there's companies that pollute," and yeah, that's part of the problem. But we don't think about that when it comes to our minds.

Speaker 1:08:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:48 We don't think of it, about it when it comes to this thing that we can never see.

Eugene 1:08:52 Mm.

Speaker 1:08:52 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:52 And yet is almost more important than everything else in the world.

Speaker 1:08:56 Yeah.

Eugene 1:08:56 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:57 Your children are online.

Eugene 1:08:58 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:59 40% of the stuff that they're consuming is poisoned.

Speaker 1:09:02 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 1:09:03 It's-

Trevor Noah 1:09:03 And I'm not saying the stuff that comes from other people, I'm just saying, like, fake, completely poisoned stuff is going into their heads. So your little daughter's on the phone.

Eugene 1:09:10 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:11 40% of the shit that's coming through her is poisoned.

Eugene 1:09:13 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:13 Your little son is on the... 40%. Your grandmother is on the-

Speaker 1:09:17 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:09:17 ... your grandfather, your uncle, your aunt, you. Like, 40% of the things you're consuming are poisoned.

Eugene 1:09:23 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:23 And yet we don't think, like, that for instance-

Speaker 1:09:26 Yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:09:26 ... should just be, like, a rule in a way. You can be anonymous, but the way you, where you're posting from should have to be-

Speaker 1:09:33 Abs- absolutely.

Eugene 1:09:33 Yeah.

Speaker 1:09:34 But I always think it's gonna be the human weakness for the longest time. Any dilution to any poison is just adding the human element.

Trevor Noah 1:09:41 What do you mean?

Eugene 1:09:41 Oh.

Speaker 1:09:42 If you're selling something dangerous, as long as you put someone in there. That's why they had to put regulation for advertising with cigarettes.

Eugene 1:09:47 Right.

Speaker 1:09:47 People were having such a good time smoking.

Trevor Noah 1:09:49 Yeah.

Speaker 1:09:50 Gin, it was the same, mainstay. It was just like, "Lookin' at me now, for the rest of your life."

Eugene 1:09:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:09:56 [laughs]

Speaker 1:09:56 Yeah. Then people were just having a good time. The Marlboro Man.

Trevor Noah 1:09:59 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:09:59 All of this stuff. It was once you put the human element, the danger, the poison gets diluted-

Eugene 1:10:04 Mm

Speaker 1:10:04 ... because you think, "This person is doing it. I could be doing it. I could be having a good time as well."

Eugene 1:10:09 Yeah, true, yeah.

Speaker 1:10:09 And I think the scourge or the opposite of what we're feeling with bots-

Eugene 1:10:13 Mm

Speaker 1:10:13 ... is influencers. So the bots can do exactly what the influencers can do, but once you put a human in it, is it really that bad?

Trevor Noah 1:10:21 That's true.

Speaker 1:10:21 Because also I've seen the trend now, the content that influencers are taking is not taken by the influencers anymore. It's more stylized now. It's more cinematic. They're actually featuring in the ad-

Trevor Noah 1:10:30 Mm

Speaker 1:10:30 ... where they were supposed to be doing it from the point of view.

Trevor Noah 1:10:32 Right.

Speaker 1:10:32 So now you see all of them, whereas before you used to see their hands or their feet and them interacting with the product.

Trevor Noah 1:10:37 Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 1:10:38 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:10:38 But now I'm like, who's the other person operating the gimbal?

Trevor Noah 1:10:39 Now they're part of the product.

Speaker 1:10:40 The editing has-

Trevor Noah 1:10:41 Right

Speaker 1:10:41 ... become so great, and then these apps that apparently-

Trevor Noah 1:10:44 [laughs] I saw one. It's funny you say this. Sorry to interrupt you.

Speaker 1:10:45 No, no. Go ahead.

Trevor Noah 1:10:46 I saw, I saw a video the other day, um, about this. It, it was just so good, man. There was a, a video, and it, it starts so sad.

Speaker 1:10:56 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:10:56 It's this, it's this TikTok, and it's this woman, and she's by her bed, and you know, the, the caption reads the... You know the thing, and, and you know that voice comes on and it's like, "When, why you choose that person in your life?"

Speaker 1:11:08 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 1:11:08 You know that voice?

Trevor Noah 1:11:09 You know the voice.

Speaker 1:11:10 Do you know it personally, do you?

Eugene 1:11:12 No, but it's, uh...

Trevor Noah 1:11:13 [laughs] But you know that voice.

Eugene 1:11:14 I trust it very much. [laughs]

Speaker 1:11:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:17 But you know that voice.

Eugene 1:11:17 No comment.

Trevor Noah 1:11:17 'Cause there's only, like, the two voi- there's the two voices, right?

Eugene 1:11:19 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:20 There's the one that's like, "When I found out I was going to..."

Speaker 1:11:22 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:22 It's that voice.

Eugene 1:11:23 The, the AI one, you mean?

Trevor Noah 1:11:24 Yeah.

Speaker 1:11:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:24 Whatever that voice is. And then there's the other one that's like, "These men were fighting their way out of hell."

Speaker 1:11:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eugene 1:11:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:30 Yeah. But this one was like-

Speaker 1:11:31 [laughs]

Eugene 1:11:31 You are that voice. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:33 I love that voice.

Speaker 1:11:33 You are both of them.

Eugene 1:11:34 Yeah.

Speaker 1:11:34 Who'd have thought they were bots? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:37 [laughs] It would be so funny if they were real people somewhere. You know, there's just somebody, like, at a restaurant-

Speaker 1:11:42 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:11:42 ... and they're like, "I called for a table for two."

Speaker 1:11:44 I don't know. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:45 [laughs] "Could you tell me what time my reservation will be ready?"

Speaker 1:11:49 [laughs] Exactly.

Eugene 1:11:51 [laughs] Exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:11:51 So, like, and in the video, there's this woman and she's by her bed, and the caption reads, um, like, "Be careful who you choose as your partner because they will need to be with you in the toughest times," blah, blah. And she's like, "This is the day I found out my dad died," or, "The moment I found out," something like that.

Speaker 1:12:06 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:06 And, like, you, you see her, like, she's, like, crying by the bed, and then her husband comes in and, like, looks at her, and then she, like, sort of tells him, "Um, I just found out my dad died." And he, you can see he's like, "No," and then the video, and he embraces her.

Eugene 1:12:18 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:12:18 And it's, it's sad and it's beautiful. And then it jump cuts to some guy who's like, "Okay, okay, hold on, hold on." He's like, "Who put the camera there?"

Speaker 1:12:26 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:12:28 He's like, "Who-

Speaker 1:12:29 Mm.

Eugene 1:12:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:12:30 ... who was filming this?"

Speaker 1:12:31 Yeah.

Eugene 1:12:31 Tripod.

Trevor Noah 1:12:31 "Did you put a tripod? Did he start filming?"

Speaker 1:12:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:35 "What... 'Cause you found out your dad died-

Speaker 1:12:36 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:12:37 ... in this moment. This m-

Speaker 1:12:38 Go on

Trevor Noah 1:12:39 ... you're saying that you found it out in this moment."

Speaker 1:12:41 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:12:41 "So when did he, how did this..." And he was just punk- like, he was just puncturing this world.

Eugene 1:12:48 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1:12:48 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:48 This, this thing you're talking about.

Speaker 1:12:49 Yes.

Eugene 1:12:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:50 Where, like, influencers now, y- to your point, the way influencers sort of started of, started off was from a very authentic place.

Speaker 1:12:57 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 1:12:57 Yep.

Trevor Noah 1:12:58 "Hey, guys. So I went to this place today. Oh, look at this here a bit."

Speaker 1:13:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:13:01 Like you said, point of view and vibe, and then they became, like, a part of it.

Eugene 1:13:04 Yep.

Trevor Noah 1:13:05 And then they started synthesizing things.

Eugene 1:13:07 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:13:07 And then you run out of content-

Speaker 1:13:08 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:13:08 ... so you gotta, like, make the content. Now you have to suffer tragedies.

Eugene 1:13:12 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:13:12 You have to discover things. You have to fight. You have... You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:13:16 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:13:16 And, and so, sorry, go. You get what I'm saying?

Speaker 1:13:18 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Trevor Noah 1:13:18 It's exactly the one we're talking about.

Speaker 1:13:19 No, absolutely. I think, um- And the whole point was that it was democratized, right? That was the whole thing.

Eugene 1:13:24 Exactly.

Speaker 1:13:24 It was like, okay, anyone-

Eugene 1:13:25 Name your price

Speaker 1:13:26 ... you know, oh, I can just do whatever.

Trevor Noah 1:13:27 Yeah.

Speaker 1:13:27 And now it's like-

Eugene 1:13:28 Yeah

Speaker 1:13:28 ... now it's almost like every single member of the public views themself as an influencer.

Trevor Noah 1:13:32 Oh, that's fully what it is.

Eugene 1:13:33 Absolutely.

Speaker 1:13:33 And then, and then there's a c- there's these people above who get- You know, who get paid money to do-

Trevor Noah 1:13:39 And also-

Speaker 1:13:39 Who actually get, still get money from brands and stuff

Trevor Noah 1:13:41 ... and also it sold us almost autonomy of some sort.

Speaker 1:13:44 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:13:44 Because you can name your price.

Speaker 1:13:45 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:13:45 You can do it your way, but we'll obviously have the last say of how it's done, and then you can just put it out there and you have no control of it from then onwards.

Speaker 1:13:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:13:53 'Cause that's what happens with influencers. But when I realized what Ring doorbell was, because it's not popular in South Africa-

Speaker 1:13:59 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:13:59 ... but it's popular here.

Speaker 1:14:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:14:00 I was thinking to myself, there are only two ways that they can sell this thing. It's either by fear, break-ins-

Speaker 1:14:05 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:14:05 ... how it can prevent a break-in, and people... And they started with the ads like that-

Speaker 1:14:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:14:08 ... when people were shouting, "We're home, we're home," da, da.

Speaker 1:14:10 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:14:11 And pe- but then I realized their other strategy was, um, Amazon packages being stolen from the door.

Speaker 1:14:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:14:18 Right.

Speaker 1:14:19 And then all of a sudden-

Trevor Noah 1:14:19 Oh my God, I, I didn't think about that

Speaker 1:14:20 ... two steps, running away, bwah, explode.

Trevor Noah 1:14:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:14:22 And people started finding that funny and they thought, "Well, if I have a package that gets delivered and I want to make sure that..." Then I think to myself, this, these people are actors, 'cause the packages always explode before they get to where they're going.

Trevor Noah 1:14:36 When they-

Speaker 1:14:36 No one ever gets out of shot.

Trevor Noah 1:14:38 You mean the, when they fill it with, like, confetti?

Speaker 1:14:40 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:14:40 That's what-

Speaker 1:14:40 No, no, with paint.

Trevor Noah 1:14:42 Fa- paint. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:14:42 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:14:42 Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:14:43 But no one has ever gotten inside the car and the thing ex- because that would've been funny and genuine at the same time.

Trevor Noah 1:14:48 Right.

Speaker 1:14:48 But everyone is... And I'm like, "Oh, there's one way to sell this thing."

Trevor Noah 1:14:53 Yes. So much going on here.

Speaker 1:14:54 And the packages are unmarked. Who gets an unmarked package delivered to their door? But even just the pumping of viral content from d- from d- Ring doorbells that is packages being stolen is an amazing advert for a Ring doorbell. You're so right. I've never even thought about that. That sucks [laughs] God. Yeah. This is all-

Trevor Noah 1:15:13 Have I punctured your reality?

Speaker 1:15:15 I mean, you constantly, you are a puncture in my reality.

Trevor Noah 1:15:18 [laughs]

Speaker 1:15:19 That's, I mean, come on.

Trevor Noah 1:15:20 I'll drink to that.

Speaker 1:15:21 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:15:22 No, it's just, it's like-

Speaker 1:15:23 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:15:24 ... I, yeah, I, because I, because I understand that, you know, living life is the paradox of-

Speaker 1:15:32 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:15:32 ... what is and what isn't all the time.

Speaker 1:15:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:15:35 So I, I don't ever wanna be one of those people who goes, "Nothing's real. Everything's fake."

Speaker 1:15:40 Mm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:15:41 Because most things are sort of fake-

Speaker 1:15:43 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:15:43 ... and that's a good thing.

Speaker 1:15:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:15:44 You know? Like, like our names are all fake.

Speaker 1:15:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:15:47 We respond to them, but that's not a thing really.

Speaker 1:15:49 Right, right, right, right.

Trevor Noah 1:15:49 You know what I mean? So there's certain constructs that society has to agree on for things to... Like a traffic light-

Speaker 1:15:56 Things to function

Trevor Noah 1:15:56 ... I'm always fascinated by traffic lights.

Speaker 1:15:57 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:15:58 'Cause I go, like, it's just a color. I really-

Speaker 1:16:00 Acceptable absurdity

Trevor Noah 1:16:00 ... I don't know. I swear on my life, I don't know why I get, I, like, get-

Speaker 1:16:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:16:03 ... giggly-

Speaker 1:16:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:16:04 ... when I'm at a traffic light and then I go, "Guys, this is not real."

Speaker 1:16:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:08 It, it's like it really makes me happy-

Speaker 1:16:10 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:16:10 ... when I see people stop or go.

Speaker 1:16:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:12 'Cause I'm just like, [laughs] I'm like, yo, it's, I w-

Speaker 1:16:14 It feels juvenile.

Trevor Noah 1:16:15 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:16:15 But it's funny.

Trevor Noah 1:16:16 People really stop. Ah.

Speaker 1:16:17 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:17 Like when I see a car screech to a halt.

Speaker 1:16:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:20 'Cause they are, the light.

Speaker 1:16:21 You just ruined that for me.

Trevor Noah 1:16:22 Yeah, but I'm like, but-

Speaker 1:16:23 I'll never see the same again.

Trevor Noah 1:16:24 [laughs] No. So, so, but society needs these things.

Speaker 1:16:28 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:28 Soci-

Speaker 1:16:28 Acceptable absurdity.

Trevor Noah 1:16:29 Yes.

Speaker 1:16:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:29 Society functionally needs artificial constructs for us to function.

Speaker 1:16:36 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:36 Language, religion, culture, all of these things.

Speaker 1:16:38 I think, where is it? Uh, uh, there's that book, Harold Garfinkel book, in the '60s, right, uh, some, the Studies of Ethnomethodology or something like that, where he, uh, he had all of his-

Trevor Noah 1:16:48 I wasn't reading books in the '60s.

Speaker 1:16:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:16:49 You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to go with y-

Speaker 1:16:51 Y- y-

Trevor Noah 1:16:51 ... with your-

Speaker 1:16:51 No, no, no. It's exactly what you're talking about.

Trevor Noah 1:16:53 Yeah.

Speaker 1:16:53 It's basically, it is a... I, I, I find academic writing often really bad and really hard to get into because it's just so dense.

Trevor Noah 1:17:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:17:01 And a lot of academics can't write, and they kind of hide, hide behind language to cover it up. But that's fine.

Trevor Noah 1:17:05 What we saying this-

Speaker 1:17:06 Shots fired.

Trevor Noah 1:17:07 What we saying this yesterday?

Speaker 1:17:08 No, no, no. And that's not their job.

Trevor Noah 1:17:09 No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:17:09 Their job is to be an academic.

Trevor Noah 1:17:10 Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:17:11 But you know what I mean? It's like-

Trevor Noah 1:17:11 Yeah

Speaker 1:17:12 ... when y- well, I've got, like, you know, you have writers who then read all that and then make it like something I wanna read. But anyway, there's this book that he wrote, this Harold Garfinkel guy. I think this is him. It's actually, um, and he just had a load of his students doing loads of really absurd things that subvert, I think it was in New York maybe, uh, subvert the, um, just, like, things like the rules of waiting in line or-

Trevor Noah 1:17:32 Uh-huh

Speaker 1:17:32 ... going into a restaurant.

Trevor Noah 1:17:33 Uh-huh.

Speaker 1:17:33 And I ca- there's so many. They w- they're very funny. They're very funny. But now I think, uh, ethically slightly dubious, like, to, I think as an academic to do them. But like, yeah, I think that there was, think you would m- you might like it.

Trevor Noah 1:17:46 I'll check it out.

Speaker 1:17:46 Because it's just-

Trevor Noah 1:17:47 Mm

Speaker 1:17:47 ... like, it's, it's, they're, they're just, they're just very funny. It's funny. It's like, oh, he had-

Trevor Noah 1:17:52 Well, it just breaks how you-

Speaker 1:17:53 Exactly

Trevor Noah 1:17:53 ... how you think reality is supposed to work

Speaker 1:17:55 ... a perfect one would be, all right, loads of students. He's gonna get all of his students to wait at the same set of traffic lights, and the whole day they're gonna cross on the red, on when it is don't cross. That, that would be like an experiment he might do.

Trevor Noah 1:18:04 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:18:04 That's like an exam-

Trevor Noah 1:18:05 And then you see what happens to the people around them.

Speaker 1:18:07 Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:18:08 Yeah.

Speaker 1:18:08 That's it. It's the impact on the people around you.

Trevor Noah 1:18:09 So you, you, you see where the tipping point is. If one person crosses a, at a red light-

Speaker 1:18:12 Are they gonna follow or not?

Trevor Noah 1:18:13 ... no one will.

Speaker 1:18:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:18:14 Two people, no one. Three, and then you get to a tipping point where, like, the group does it.

Speaker 1:18:20 Yeah. Oh.

Trevor Noah 1:18:20 And you see a person go, "Oh, I guess that's what we do."

Speaker 1:18:22 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:18:22 And they just, like, they just waddle across with you.

Speaker 1:18:24 Yeah, yeah. Oh.

Trevor Noah 1:18:25 And if you all turn and were like, "What are you doing?" They'd be like, "Ah." [laughs]

Speaker 1:18:29 [laughs] But it, but it... I don't do that in the middle of traffic. No.

Trevor Noah 1:18:31 But I, I don't know, man. I just, I just think, like, yeah, I think, like, the reality that we accept or the reality that causes us to fight, the reality that causes us to hate other people, the reality that causes us to think the way we think is so fragile.

Speaker 1:18:45 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:18:45 Yeah.

Speaker 1:18:46 Yeah. Definitely.

Trevor Noah 1:18:47 [upbeat music] Don't press anything. We've got more What Now? after this. [upbeat music]

Speaker 1:18:59 I did another, I did another, so I made a film a couple of years ago with Channel 4, which is, like, part of the BBC. It's like a, it was all about Amazon-

Trevor Noah 1:19:06 Yeah

Speaker 1:19:06 ... 'cause you mentioned Amazon Ring doorbells.

Trevor Noah 1:19:07 Oh, the urine?

Speaker 1:19:08 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:19:09 Oh, I love this one, man.

Speaker 1:19:10 Tell me about it.

Trevor Noah 1:19:11 This, the urine.

Speaker 1:19:12 Ooh, I'll give you the backstory-

Trevor Noah 1:19:13 Yeah

Speaker 1:19:13 ... and then you, you gotta tell the-

Trevor Noah 1:19:14 Yes.

Speaker 1:19:15 So remember a story came out, um, about Amazon workers being so pressed in their environments-

Trevor Noah 1:19:21 Yeah

Speaker 1:19:21 ... in the warehouses, everything in their environment was timed.

Trevor Noah 1:19:25 Mm.

Speaker 1:19:26 Their p- their performance was measured. They were tracked across the floor. Some of the worst, like, working conditions-

Trevor Noah 1:19:32 Mm

Speaker 1:19:32 ... in that way, right? And because they weren't unionized, no one could do anything about this. It was a whole thing.

Trevor Noah 1:19:36 Modern-day sweatshop.

Speaker 1:19:37 Yeah, basically.

Trevor Noah 1:19:38 Yeah.

Speaker 1:19:38 And, like, one of the worst things about the story was the drivers and the workers in the warehouse would talk about how their time was so-

Trevor Noah 1:19:47 You know, like, w- it was like, like in a draconian way measured to the, to the finest-

Eugene 1:19:51 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:19:51 ... degree.

Speaker 1:19:52 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:19:53 That they couldn't even risk going to the, to the toilets. They couldn't go to the bathroom. So what they would do-

Eugene 1:19:58 That bad?

Trevor Noah 1:19:58 Yeah. What they would do-

Speaker 1:19:59 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:19:59 ... is in the truck, in the way out, they would just pee into a bottle-

Speaker 1:20:02 Exactly, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:20:03 ... and then just carry on working. They, no one would leave. No one... So yes, modern-day sweatshop. And then the story, like, blew up-

Eugene 1:20:08 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:20:08 ... and it was like the Amazon workers are peeing into the bottles. And then Amazon was like, "Nah, come on."

Speaker 1:20:12 Did you cover it on the show?

Trevor Noah 1:20:13 Yeah, we did.

Speaker 1:20:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:20:14 We did. Yeah, we did. And it was... We were just like, "What the, what the hell?"

Eugene 1:20:17 What did Amazon say?

Trevor Noah 1:20:18 Like, the cost of con- ... What does Amazon ever say? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:20:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:20:21 Come on, what is... These people, they've never come out and been like, "Yeah, we make them pee." [laughs]

Speaker 1:20:25 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:20:25 "I mean, you know how it is, bro."

Eugene 1:20:27 Hey, ho-hum.

Speaker 1:20:27 Get in the business.

Trevor Noah 1:20:28 No, but like, really.

Speaker 1:20:30 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:20:30 I wish one day a company would do that.

Speaker 1:20:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:20:31 Be like, "Yeah, and then what? We made them pee in bottles. Then what?"

Eugene 1:20:34 You get your package?

Trevor Noah 1:20:35 Yeah, you get your package?

Speaker 1:20:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:20:36 Man, shut the... You know? No, but they don't.

Eugene 1:20:38 [laughs]

Speaker 1:20:38 Don't dust it for fingerprints.

Trevor Noah 1:20:40 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 1:20:41 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:20:42 Um, but they, but they didn't. They, they basically-

Speaker 1:20:44 They lost on this

Trevor Noah 1:20:44 ... then they were like, "Oh, we're looking into this, but it's not what you... This is, no, this is fabricated," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:20:49 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:49 But anyway, so that was the story.

Speaker 1:20:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:20:51 I now hand over to my, my s- my favorite scam artist-

Speaker 1:20:55 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:20:55 ... in the world.

Speaker 1:20:56 So I did the... So basically I, yeah, I did this film, a hour-long special about Amazon a few years ago, or two years ago. And, uh, it, um, one of the things I did is I went and worked in one of the warehouses, which is near where I grew up in B- uh, Fakenham. There's one, one in C-

Trevor Noah 1:21:10 So you got the job?

Speaker 1:21:11 I got a job. Uh, I worked there undercover, and I had a camera on.

Trevor Noah 1:21:14 H- but how, Oobah? You see, you, I need you to explain these things.

Eugene 1:21:18 He's white.

Trevor Noah 1:21:19 This is-

Eugene 1:21:20 [laughs]

Speaker 1:21:20 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:21 Can you stop with the how already?

Trevor Noah 1:21:23 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:24 He remember had blue eyes and blonde hair.

Speaker 1:21:26 Yeah, true. That's true. That's true.

Trevor Noah 1:21:29 [laughs]

Speaker 1:21:29 Yeah. It's true. It's true.

Eugene 1:21:31 There's a world that you and I-

Trevor Noah 1:21:34 [laughs]

Speaker 1:21:34 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:34 ... will never understand.

Trevor Noah 1:21:36 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:21:36 'Cause can I tell you what's funny about Oobah's stories is-

Speaker 1:21:38 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:21:39 ... in Oobah's stories, he gets a job as part of a scam.

Eugene 1:21:43 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:21:43 He's like, then there's someone else who's like, "I just want the job."

Speaker 1:21:46 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:21:47 [laughs] Oob-

Eugene 1:21:47 Just-

Trevor Noah 1:21:47 How did you get the job, Oobah?

Speaker 1:21:49 Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 1:21:49 Oobah's the reason why-

Speaker 1:21:50 Stop that

Eugene 1:21:50 ... Oobah's the reason why Idris Elba will never be James Bond.

Trevor Noah 1:21:54 [laughs]

Speaker 1:21:54 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:54 He can never just work anywhere.

Trevor Noah 1:21:57 [laughs]

Speaker 1:21:57 [laughs]

Eugene 1:21:57 You have to be white.

Trevor Noah 1:21:58 Oh, God.

Eugene 1:21:59 The CV has to go-

Trevor Noah 1:22:00 Oh, man

Eugene 1:22:00 ... "Are you white?" "Yes."

Trevor Noah 1:22:01 Oh, God.

Speaker 1:22:02 Yeah.

Eugene 1:22:02 "Okay, then."

Trevor Noah 1:22:03 But you see, you, you know what I like, Oobah? You're using your privilege, my friend.

Speaker 1:22:06 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:22:06 Because these, because these experiments, we can't be-

Eugene 1:22:08 Oh, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:22:08 ... Eugene and I can't be messing around now.

Eugene 1:22:10 No.

Trevor Noah 1:22:10 Going... We'd, we would go to an Amazon factory, we'd be like, "I'm undercover." And then 15 years later, we'd still be there packing.

Speaker 1:22:17 [laughs]

Eugene 1:22:17 [laughs]

Speaker 1:22:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, you got, you got-

Trevor Noah 1:22:18 You'd be like, "What happened, Eugene? What happened, Trevor?"

Speaker 1:22:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:22:20 "I work here, man."

Speaker 1:22:21 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:22:22 We'd be like, "You can leave. You came on a, it was a scam."

Eugene 1:22:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:22:24 "No, man, Jeff's not gonna be happy-

Speaker 1:22:26 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:22:26 ... if we don't get these packages. Hold on."

Speaker 1:22:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:22:31 [laughs]

Eugene 1:22:32 [laughs]

Speaker 1:22:34 It's true. It's true. It's true. No, you're absolutely right. Like, you're absolutely right. Remember when I first started doing stuff for Vice? And 'cause I grew up somewhere that was 100% white, basically.

Trevor Noah 1:22:43 Mm.

Speaker 1:22:43 And Fakenham was 100% white.

Trevor Noah 1:22:45 Yeah, no, Fakenham, come on.

Speaker 1:22:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:22:46 Come on. Come on now.

Speaker 1:22:47 In the, like, you know, about half an hour away in, in, in Redditch, is is the gloc- well, that's not even half an hour, 20 minutes away in Redditch, n- really close to where we grew up. We di- I didn't have a car growing up, so we just, I just, in the village is, like, you know, there's a big South Asian diaspora.

Trevor Noah 1:23:00 Yeah.

Speaker 1:23:01 Like, and traditionally there was a, there was a Caribbean diaspora as well-

Trevor Noah 1:23:04 Mm

Speaker 1:23:04 ... but it sort of lessened over the years, more in Birmingham. Um, and uh, it was interesting having that experience of having, um, of having my white privilege called out for the first times-

Trevor Noah 1:23:16 Mm

Speaker 1:23:16 ... in the comments and stuff. And a- having grown up with, as white, but without money, I was like, "My privilege? But-"

Trevor Noah 1:23:23 That, can I tell you-

Speaker 1:23:24 "But I grew up working c- "

Trevor Noah 1:23:25 Yeah.

Speaker 1:23:25 "But I, but I was working." And now I, and, and particularly since I've moved here, I'm like-

Trevor Noah 1:23:28 Mm

Speaker 1:23:28 ... "Oh, no," like, I've had to obviously completely h- be educated in that-

Trevor Noah 1:23:33 Yeah

Speaker 1:23:34 ... by, by friends, you know?

Trevor Noah 1:23:35 Mm.

Speaker 1:23:35 And, and I'm just trying to get my head around that. Um, but yeah, it's massive, and I was an idiot for... I wished I was taught about that in school.

Trevor Noah 1:23:42 Yeah, but here's the, here's the thing that's complicated about it.

Speaker 1:23:45 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:23:45 I'm not an academic, but I fight with academics about this all the time. I think some of these concepts, while true, are not explained correctly to people.

Speaker 1:23:55 Yeah.

Eugene 1:23:55 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:23:56 You know what I mean? So I remember when people would talk like... You know, 'cause some of these things become on, you know, in vogue-

Eugene 1:24:01 Fashionable

Trevor Noah 1:24:02 ... in, in moments, you know?

Speaker 1:24:03 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:03 Like, so white privilege, there was, it really had its moment.

Speaker 1:24:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:24:05 Check your privilege. Check it at the door.

Speaker 1:24:07 Post your black square.

Trevor Noah 1:24:09 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:24:09 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:09 Bro, you post that black square.

Speaker 1:24:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:11 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:24:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:13 So-

Eugene 1:24:14 And leave a review.

Trevor Noah 1:24:14 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 1:24:15 [laughs]

Eugene 1:24:16 Yeah, square.

Trevor Noah 1:24:17 Yeah, five stars.

Speaker 1:24:18 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:18 Jerk chicken, fantastic.

Eugene 1:24:22 [laughs]

Speaker 1:24:22 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:23 [laughs]

Eugene 1:24:23 I tip.

Trevor Noah 1:24:23 Yeah, exactly. They go-

Eugene 1:24:24 So-

Trevor Noah 1:24:25 Curry goat.

Speaker 1:24:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:26 Yeah.

Eugene 1:24:26 And I got curry goat.

Trevor Noah 1:24:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah. They go-

Eugene 1:24:29 Sorry, sorry

Trevor Noah 1:24:29 ... they go on the fish and chips, one star.

Speaker 1:24:31 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:32 Yeah. The, um, yeah, the food was terrible, but I understand why.

Speaker 1:24:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:24:36 Five stars. No. So here's, here's, so here's what... This is just my opinion.

Speaker 1:24:41 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:41 But I mean, a lot of these things are, even the academic ones, even-

Speaker 1:24:44 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:24:44 ... and that's maybe my first issue, by the way.

Speaker 1:24:46 Mm. Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:47 Is that a lot of the time academics will make it seem like it isn't their opinion.

Speaker 1:24:51 Yeah.

Eugene 1:24:51 Mm, they distance themselves.

Trevor Noah 1:24:53 You see what I'm saying?

Eugene 1:24:54 Yes.

Speaker 1:24:54 From, from-

Trevor Noah 1:24:55 So they, they'll, they'll put forth an idea.

Eugene 1:24:57 Yes.

Speaker 1:24:58 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:24:58 And they work in a space where they study and they w-

Eugene 1:24:59 Research-

Trevor Noah 1:25:00 Yeah

Eugene 1:25:00 ... is their favorite word

Trevor Noah 1:25:01 ... but-

Eugene 1:25:01 Yes

Trevor Noah 1:25:02 ... yes, but it is an opinion.

Speaker 1:25:03 Right.

Eugene 1:25:03 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:25:04 Right? It is an opinion. It may be an opinion that holds true for the most part-

Eugene 1:25:08 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:25:08 ... but it is still an opinion.

Speaker 1:25:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:25:10 So the argument I would have with people is this: You may be right, you may be wrong, but you also have to acknowledge the way you're explaining this to somebody is, isn't correct, right?

Speaker 1:25:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:25:21 Because you make it seem like it's a hard and fast rule that is constant in every single environment in the exact same way all the time.

Speaker 1:25:27 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 1:25:27 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:25:27 Okay? So when people are like, "White privilege. Check your privilege," right? When I would talk to white people and who'd go, the, the thing that I saw people struggling with is there were people who were like, "I'm poor. I'm homeless. I'm str- w-"

Eugene 1:25:39 Where's the privilege? Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:25:40 "Where's the privilege?"

Eugene 1:25:41 Yeah.

Speaker 1:25:41 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:25:41 "Please can you help me figure out where... 'Cause I would like to access it."

Speaker 1:25:45 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:25:45 "I would love to access this privilege."

Eugene 1:25:48 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:25:48 And the best analogy I came up with was golf.

Speaker 1:25:52 Hmm. Golf is one of my favorite f- like ideas for a sport-

Trevor Noah 1:26:00 Mm-hmm

Speaker 1:26:01 ... because even though golf is the most, you know what I mean, like-

Trevor Noah 1:26:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 1:26:06 ... it's, uh, y- uh, not in Scotland-

Trevor Noah 1:26:06 Moving steps. So it's, it-

Speaker 1:26:07 It's the most, like, remo- it's like this is, like, elite

Trevor Noah 1:26:09 You have just described Third-

Speaker 1:26:10 Not in Scotland

Trevor Noah 1:26:11 ... Third.

Speaker 1:26:11 Yeah, I would, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:26:11 Kids don't grow up-

Speaker 1:26:12 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:26:12 ... on a council estate playing golf.

Speaker 1:26:13 Yeah, because it's crazy.

Trevor Noah 1:26:14 Yeah, but because it's like cricket in India.

Speaker 1:26:15 That's where it's, yeah, that's where it's fr- Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:26:16 Yeah, the home.

Speaker 1:26:16 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:26:16 Because of the home of it.

Speaker 1:26:17 Exactly. Whereas cricket in England's posh, Dan.

Trevor Noah 1:26:20 Yes.

Speaker 1:26:20 Properly posh.

Trevor Noah 1:26:21 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:26:21 And, like, and I don't know about South Africa, I'm assuming.

Trevor Noah 1:26:23 No.

Speaker 1:26:23 Yeah, it's like a-

Trevor Noah 1:26:24 Yeah, yeah, cricket schools are the, one of the best schools

Speaker 1:26:26 Yeah, but cricket itself though-

Trevor Noah 1:26:27 Cricket, yeah

Speaker 1:26:27 ... in the township they play it as well. Do you know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 1:26:29 Yeah.

Speaker 1:26:29 And we have a sh-

Trevor Noah 1:26:30 Not, not as much anymore, but-

Speaker 1:26:31 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:26:31 ... yeah

Speaker 1:26:31 We have a huge South Asian diaspora in England. No South, well, very few South Asi- Asian players play for England. It's kind of insane. It's all posh private school kids.

Trevor Noah 1:26:40 Oh, yeah, that ma-

Speaker 1:26:41 And it's just-

Trevor Noah 1:26:41 I mean, but that's who you know, where you know.

Speaker 1:26:43 No, but it's just weird, isn't it? 'Cause football has become democratic, 'cause y-

Trevor Noah 1:26:46 Yeah

Speaker 1:26:46 ... like, you know.

Trevor Noah 1:26:47 Yeah, it has.

Speaker 1:26:47 It's, it's, it's-

Trevor Noah 1:26:48 Yeah

Speaker 1:26:48 ... I think it kind of always has been, to be honest. But football is democratic, whereas it's interesting that, like, these old school sports like cricket, we're on a different thing now.

Trevor Noah 1:26:56 Go ahead.

Speaker 1:26:57 No, no, no. Just, like, it's interesting the way I always look when I'm watching cricket as a, as a fan, and I'm like, "New, new players come through. Great."

Trevor Noah 1:27:04 Yeah.

Speaker 1:27:04 And I go, and I, I do this every time. Wikipedia what school. For fuck's sake.

Trevor Noah 1:27:08 It's always, like, the top-

Speaker 1:27:08 I just want him to not be going to a posh school.

Trevor Noah 1:27:12 Oh.

Speaker 1:27:12 I just want him to go have gone to a normal school.

Trevor Noah 1:27:14 Government school who made it.

Speaker 1:27:15 'Cause then it'd be, just a normal state school.

Trevor Noah 1:27:17 Oh, man.

Speaker 1:27:18 Go normal state school. That's all I want.

Trevor Noah 1:27:20 So wait, all the English cricket players are, like-

Speaker 1:27:22 Most of them

Trevor Noah 1:27:23 ... elite.

Speaker 1:27:23 It's about, but then the, the really great ones are always not posh kids, but this is my-

Trevor Noah 1:27:29 The famous

Speaker 1:27:29 ... this is now coming in my-

Trevor Noah 1:27:30 Yeah

Speaker 1:27:30 ... coming in my, like, uh-

Trevor Noah 1:27:31 Yeah

Speaker 1:27:32 ... my, this is, th- that's the thing we're, I mean, this is a classic, isn't it? But obs- we're obsessed with class in England. It's dif- it's different.

Trevor Noah 1:27:38 But you see now that comes back to what we're saying about privilege.

Speaker 1:27:40 That, yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:27:40 The loop of privilege is this.

Speaker 1:27:42 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:27:43 W- when you go white privilege, if you're not careful, you make people think that that privilege attached to your whiteness-

Speaker 1:27:51 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:27:51 ... is a constant thing.

Speaker 1:27:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:27:53 Right?

Speaker 1:27:53 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:27:53 Whereas you see, like, in golf they got your handicap.

Speaker 1:27:56 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:27:56 It's a s- very simple principle.

Speaker 1:27:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:27:58 It means at your current position in the game-

Speaker 1:28:00 Mm-hmm. This is where you're at

Trevor Noah 1:28:01 ... this is how much we need to adjust the game so that you have-

Speaker 1:28:04 Make it fair

Trevor Noah 1:28:04 ... a fair chance.

Speaker 1:28:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:05 But that handicap can change.

Speaker 1:28:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:07 It can go down and it can go up.

Speaker 1:28:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:08 Right? So if you get good enough, we're not gonna give you any advantage, but if you get bad enough, we're gonna give you as mu- a- as much advantage as you need. But they acknowledge that the handicap can change.

Speaker 1:28:17 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:17 And I think that's interesting.

Speaker 1:28:18 The variable. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:19 So it's not, because I don't like that we make these things seem permanent-

Speaker 1:28:22 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:28:23 ... and constant regardless of the situation you're in.

Speaker 1:28:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:25 Because class, and there was a, there's a, a writer I, I wish I could remember her name, was one of the most brilliant writers. We'll just put her on the screen while I'm saying this. Her, her name is-

Speaker 1:28:35 Uh, Reni Eddo-Lodge

Trevor Noah 1:28:36 ... maybe. Maybe. But she-

Speaker 1:28:37 But she ma-

Trevor Noah 1:28:37 ... she said something about, she said w- the phrase, and I'll paraphrase it, what she said about the US and many places. She said, "I can't wait for America to finish the conversations about race so that they can understand that they're just at the bottom of discussing class."

Speaker 1:28:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:55 Because race is a proxy for class-

Speaker 1:28:56 Yes

Trevor Noah 1:28:56 ... for most people.

Speaker 1:28:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:58 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:28:58 The shorthand for class.

Trevor Noah 1:28:59 It is shorthand. So it's like, yes, Black attached to being poor.

Speaker 1:29:03 Poverty.

Trevor Noah 1:29:04 Yes, but it, it does not mean that Black itself will always be the thing that suffers. It means that poor will always be the thing that suffers.

Speaker 1:29:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:11 Yeah.

Speaker 1:29:12 Yeah, I would say that just having an accent, I have a subtle accent, but y- and I've lost it the more time I've spent in London and the more time, I've spent nine years in London. I've been here for two years. Um, but, like, uh, it's interesting, um, just how obviously here it's, like, you know, I'm just an English guy.

Trevor Noah 1:29:29 Yeah.

Speaker 1:29:29 And a white English guy, but I'm an English guy.

Trevor Noah 1:29:31 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:29:32 But it's, like, in England, you know, you, you, you're always where, what class you grew up with. You know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 1:29:37 Oh.

Speaker 1:29:37 It doesn't matter how much money you have really.

Trevor Noah 1:29:39 I can assume-

Speaker 1:29:39 It's a-

Trevor Noah 1:29:39 ... even, like, the way you say class, I'm sure people are like-

Speaker 1:29:41 Right

Trevor Noah 1:29:41 ... "Hmm."

Speaker 1:29:42 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:43 "Hmm. Are you sure you can afford this?"

Speaker 1:29:44 Yeah. Right. Like, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:45 No, I'm, it's true though.

Speaker 1:29:47 Yeah. No, but you're, you're either pa-

Trevor Noah 1:29:48 Well-

Speaker 1:29:48 ... you're either part of the, I mean, like, you know, you're either part of the, so 4% of the population in the UK go to private school, and they r- uh, they represent most of the executive positions in all the companies.

Trevor Noah 1:30:00 Yeah.

Speaker 1:30:00 They m- and now they're getting into entertainment, which is fantastic as well.

Trevor Noah 1:30:03 [laughs]

Speaker 1:30:03 Just love it. Let's keep, let's have that. That's fantastic. Uh, but, like, you know, you're either one... So basically it's like, and then they have, you have hereditary positions of, in the government, the House of Lords.

Trevor Noah 1:30:13 Mm.

Speaker 1:30:13 You have lordships that you can inherit, all that stuff. So we still have, like, a proper, proper-

Trevor Noah 1:30:18 Class system

Speaker 1:30:18 ... ruling class.

Trevor Noah 1:30:19 Yes

Speaker 1:30:19 ... a proper ruling class.

Trevor Noah 1:30:20 Full on.

Speaker 1:30:21 And that's, like, um, uh, probably English people watching this now would be like, "Fuck you. You don't, whatever. It's changed," or whatever. But I don't think it has. And I think that, like-

Trevor Noah 1:30:29 It'll never change

Speaker 1:30:30 ... and being here is crazy how diff- it's a different system. It is, as you said, race plays a, is a much, much, much bigger part of it. You said ra-

Trevor Noah 1:30:39 But-

Speaker 1:30:39 ... race is a proxy for class.

Trevor Noah 1:30:40 Yeah, but I, yeah, but I would argue in the US what happens is money becomes the class. Like, so-

Speaker 1:30:47 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:30:47 ... so what happens is, yes, race is a big one, b- but then one of the tools that can help you is money.

Speaker 1:30:55 So convince-

Trevor Noah 1:30:56 And not nece-

Speaker 1:30:56 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:30:56 ... and not necessarily the position of it, but the access that it gives you to things.

Speaker 1:31:00 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:00 So if you-

Speaker 1:31:01 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:31:01 ... if you are in the business class lounge-

Speaker 1:31:04 Right

Trevor Noah 1:31:05 ... there's gonna be an element, but still, your race might be the difference where, like, let's say-

Speaker 1:31:08 Right, right

Trevor Noah 1:31:08 ... you walk ahead of me into the business class lounge.

Speaker 1:31:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:11 You'll just, you might just walk in, and then when I walk in-

Speaker 1:31:13 Are you asked?

Trevor Noah 1:31:14 ... someone will go, "Excuse me, uh, are you l- business class?" You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:31:18 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:18 Now, but now because of maybe fame, someone will be like, "Oh, of course, Mr. Noah, come in."

Speaker 1:31:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:22 Like recently when, when we were in Australia, this was so funny, 'cause here, here's my thing. I-

Speaker 1:31:26 I wasn't in Australia.

Trevor Noah 1:31:27 Yeah. He, he wasn't.

Speaker 1:31:28 He means we as in-

Trevor Noah 1:31:29 No, we. So me and the crew in Australia.

Speaker 1:31:30 The royal we.

Trevor Noah 1:31:31 Yeah.

Speaker 1:31:31 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:31:31 The royal we.

Speaker 1:31:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:31:32 And I was by, I was there by myself.

Speaker 1:31:34 I was very classy. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:31:35 [laughs] No, so w- w- we're in, uh, we're in Australia, and I was on tour there, and th- there's moments where I, I think you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:31:44 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:45 There's certain racisms or w- or whatever you wanna call it, prejudice where, where you just have to laugh at it-

Speaker 1:31:50 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:31:50 ... and poke it.

Speaker 1:31:51 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:52 So we're standing in, and it's very distinct We're flying Qantas Airlines. That's really how you get around Australia in that way.

Speaker 1:32:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:32:01 And I think we're flying out of Perth. And it's myself and my two friends from South Africa. So it's me, Ryan, Slebogos. So it's here we are, and we, we're standing together in this line. And then the promoter, Sebastian, he's with us. So Sebastian's the only white guy, right? So we're all there together, but we're together in the line.

Eugene 1:32:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:32:24 Airport's basically empty. We're in the business class line, right? Co- confidently in that line. It's clearly marked, and we're in it.

Eugene 1:32:33 So you have the business class line cockiness of headphones. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:32:37 No, not even. I'm just... We're just there.

Eugene 1:32:39 Okay.

Speaker 1:32:39 Away suitcase.

Eugene 1:32:40 Yeah, away. [laughs] The cockiness of business class.

Trevor Noah 1:32:44 One of, one of the employees comes over. She walks up to us, walks past Sebastian. That was the key thing. Walks past Sebastian, who's, like, in front of us. Says nothing to him. Comes straight to me and then goes, she's like, "Oh, excuse me. Oh, this is a business class line."

Speaker 1:33:04 Oh, God. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:33:06 And then I said, "Yes. Yes, it is." And then she just stared at me, 'cause now she was hoping that I would now do the whole like, "Oh, sorry. I'm not a..." But I was, I was just enjoying it so much.

Eugene 1:33:19 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:33:19 I was like, I was like, "Yeah." And the way I said it, I was, I was like, "Yes, this is the business class line."

Speaker 1:33:23 [laughs]

Eugene 1:33:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:33:24 And then she went-

Speaker 1:33:26 Picked the wrong guy

Trevor Noah 1:33:27 ... "Oh, are you, are you in business class?" And then I was like, "Why else would I be standing in this line?"

Speaker 1:33:34 Yeah. [laughs] Who's asking?

Trevor Noah 1:33:35 Then she's like, "Oh, all right. I just want, I wanna show if you're in business class." Then I was like, "I don't know if this guy's in business class. You should ask him."

Eugene 1:33:43 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:33:43 And I pointed... But she didn't know that I knew Sebastian.

Speaker 1:33:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:33:46 So I'm just pointing at this random white guy now.

Speaker 1:33:48 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:33:48 Then I was like, "I don't know if he's in business class. Yo, are you in business class? This is a business class line."

Speaker 1:33:53 [laughs]

Eugene 1:33:53 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:33:53 And then she was like, "Oh, yeah, I'm sure he's in business class."

Speaker 1:33:56 [laughs]

Eugene 1:33:56 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:33:56 And I was like, "Why am I not in business class?" And then you could see she just, like, she had this moment where she was like, "Ah, ugh."

Speaker 1:34:02 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:34:02 So those are moments where I go-

Speaker 1:34:03 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Of course

Trevor Noah 1:34:04 ... yes, you know, your money maybe your fa-

Eugene 1:34:07 It happens in your building all the time.

Trevor Noah 1:34:09 My man, all these things.

Eugene 1:34:10 All the time.

Speaker 1:34:11 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:34:11 All these things.

Eugene 1:34:11 Now in your building, they're like, "Are you, uh..."

Trevor Noah 1:34:13 But yes, but what are they?

Eugene 1:34:14 "Oh, uh, what are you?"

Trevor Noah 1:34:15 No, no, for sure.

Speaker 1:34:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:34:16 For sure, for sure.

Speaker 1:34:16 Right.

Eugene 1:34:16 And you hear the dial-up fax.

Trevor Noah 1:34:18 [laughs]

Speaker 1:34:18 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:34:18 That's, that's, but that's what I mean. It's like we... I feel like what we don't do enough of is-

Speaker 1:34:23 The handicapper analogy is really, is really good

Trevor Noah 1:34:26 ... yeah, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't discuss these things dynamically.

Eugene 1:34:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:34:29 And then-

Speaker 1:34:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:34:29 ... and then we live in a world where, and maybe the bots don't help, right? Is that we don't get into a position where we can then discuss it as people and say, "Okay, so when does this happen and when doesn't it happen?"

Speaker 1:34:40 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:34:40 "And how does it happen?" Because otherwise you're just going like, "Hey, man, white guy, you're a superhero. Nothing can go wrong in your life."

Eugene 1:34:46 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:34:46 And then white guy goes, "Well, a lot of shit. I, I don't have a job."

Speaker 1:34:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:34:50 "I'm living in my mom's basement."

Speaker 1:34:51 I'm selling rabbit shit.

Trevor Noah 1:34:52 I... Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1:34:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:34:54 Times are tough.

Speaker 1:34:55 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:34:55 Times are tough.

Eugene 1:34:56 You can never live that one down.

Trevor Noah 1:34:57 [laughs]

Speaker 1:34:57 [laughs]

Eugene 1:34:57 Your grandfather's like, "Calm."

Trevor Noah 1:34:59 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 1:35:01 Only that one time.

Eugene 1:35:03 It was just once.

Trevor Noah 1:35:04 [laughs]

Eugene 1:35:04 And he deserved all of it.

Trevor Noah 1:35:06 [laughs]

Eugene 1:35:06 All the shit he got, he deserved it.

Speaker 1:35:09 That's good. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:35:10 That's really good. Then so now we, we, we're like... You know what I mean? And, and so-

Speaker 1:35:14 Yeah, totally

Trevor Noah 1:35:15 ... so what I, what I... This is part of what I like about your work, is sometimes I think as people, the, the academic discussion of ideas limits us.

Speaker 1:35:26 Mm.

Eugene 1:35:27 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:35:27 Because it, it, it's like how do we see the world? How do we think we see the world? How do we want to be seen to be seeing the world?

Speaker 1:35:33 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:35:33 How do people see us seeing the world? How do they respond to how we see the world? How do we see them seeing? It's too much.

Eugene 1:35:38 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:35:38 It's too much. But then when you conduct it as like a, just an experiment-

Speaker 1:35:41 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:35:41 ... as a thing that people do-

Eugene 1:35:43 Mm-hmm

Speaker 1:35:43 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:35:43 ... you just do it.

Speaker 1:35:44 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:35:46 It, it, it... First of all, I feel like it removes the lens. So we're watching people leave fake reviews-

Speaker 1:35:53 Right

Trevor Noah 1:35:54 ... or write fake-

Speaker 1:35:54 Right, right, right

Trevor Noah 1:35:54 ... or come to a fake restaurant.

Eugene 1:35:55 Mm.

Speaker 1:35:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:35:55 We're watching, we're watching people... You, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:35:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:35:58 So, like, your, your Amazon thing, which I want you to talk about because it, it's, it sort of goes into this world.

Speaker 1:36:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:36:05 It's one thing to write an article about, "Hey, guys, Amazon doesn't really do a good job of protecting you as a consumer, as a customer. They, they're really unscrupulous. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're great."

Speaker 1:36:17 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:36:17 Uh, but, you know, at the same time we have to ask ourselves i- if these people... You can go into that foreverness, or you can just sell urine on Amazon.

Speaker 1:36:27 Mm.

Eugene 1:36:27 But, but I think what-

Trevor Noah 1:36:27 You can sell Amazon workers' urine on Amazon.

Speaker 1:36:31 [laughs] Yeah. And prove that it exists.

Trevor Noah 1:36:32 Yeah, but and, and it, it makes such a-

Speaker 1:36:35 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:36:35 ... sometimes I feel like the, you know?

Speaker 1:36:37 It's, it's trying to... The, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:36:39 Mm.

Speaker 1:36:39 It's... What I was trying to do is it's sort of, uh, trying to figure out, like, what is a... It's essentially, like, that same thing of, like, what is a symbol or a... Often in, like, in, in the world, like, the stuff that catches on and the stuff that actually starts changing people's minds or something is, like, just a really simple symbol.

Trevor Noah 1:36:56 Yes.

Eugene 1:36:56 Yeah.

Speaker 1:36:57 Like, something-

Trevor Noah 1:36:57 Yeah

Speaker 1:36:57 ... I, I remember when, this is a, an example you guys won't, won't know probably.

Eugene 1:37:03 Why? Because we're Black.

Speaker 1:37:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37:05 [laughs]

Eugene 1:37:05 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:37:06 No, because-

Eugene 1:37:06 I'm sorry. I, I, I just had-

Speaker 1:37:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:37:08 Yeah

Eugene 1:37:08 ... sorry. I just-

Speaker 1:37:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:37:09 ... and you were waiting.

Eugene 1:37:10 I was waiting.

Speaker 1:37:11 Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:37:11 You had that in the chamber. You were like, "Oh, yeah."

Eugene 1:37:14 [laughs]

Speaker 1:37:14 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37:14 You're like, "Oh, yeah."

Speaker 1:37:15 Here we go.

Trevor Noah 1:37:16 "I got you, little Uber boy. I got you."

Speaker 1:37:19 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37:20 Any move.

Speaker 1:37:20 Just, yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37:21 You know, you were waiting-

Eugene 1:37:22 Next thing he says

Trevor Noah 1:37:22 ... next thing he says.

Eugene 1:37:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:37:24 Just because I'm Black.

Eugene 1:37:25 You could've said anything.

Trevor Noah 1:37:26 You could've, anything.

Eugene 1:37:27 Anything.

Trevor Noah 1:37:27 Anything, anything, anything. You could've said that.

Eugene 1:37:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37:29 And Eugene was ready with it.

Speaker 1:37:31 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:37:31 Ready with-

Speaker 1:37:32 On the table. Very happy.

Trevor Noah 1:37:33 Yeah, Eugene was ready for you.